In the thirteenth year of Tiancheng’s Lingwei reign, on the twenty-fourth day of the third month — at the close of late spring, before early summer had yet begun — the Emperor set out with his ministers and officials, numbering more than a thousand, toward Yu’an. This was the occasion of the spring hunt.

The spring hunt encompassed both the chase and the ceremonial inspection of troops. It was at once the Emperor’s pleasure of encircling game on horseback and the review of chariots and horses, the preparation of soldiers.

In years past, the spring hunt was at its heart the Emperor’s way of rewarding civil and military officials for a year of hard work — and it was customary to bring family members along. But ever since that incident with the Xiao family in that year, the occasion had inspired wariness in many. These days, few were willing to bring their entire household to the spring hunt.

Those who remained were the ones who had no choice but to go.

Besides Xiao Nanhui, the roster for the spring hunt naturally also included Xiao Zhun.

How would he feel, she wondered, about returning to the site of that nightmare? Had he ever thought of tearing back that bloodstained layer of truth? Or had years of enduring that pain worn him down until he could see through everything — leaving him wishing only to lick his wounds in solitude and live out the rest of his days?

All of that — every bit of it — Xiao Nanhui would never know.

She had not seen Xiao Zhun come home for the evening meal in a very long time now. He often stayed in the Beizhi Great Camp, or was out on night patrol. But the battles had begun to quiet down, and night patrols had never been a great general’s proper duty.

The Xiao Mansion of old had been sparsely peopled — yet it had held its own warmth. The Xiao Mansion of today was one that had genuinely begun to feel its desolation. Something had been drawn out of it, so that even that last flicker of light and warmth was about to dissipate in the wind.

She thought she could already guess what that something was.

Bai Yun was still being held in the deepest part of Jingbo Tower. And imprisoned alongside her in that darkness, perhaps, was Xiao Zhun’s heart as well.

That heart she had never been close to, never seen through.

In the past, she could at least use her Beizhi camp pass to go and look in on him. But even then, most of the time she had simply stood at a distance where she could see him, thinking hard for a long while in place, agonizing over some plausible pretext to go up and say a word to him.

And now, she was long since no longer part of the Beizhi camp. She had no more upstanding excuses or justifications.

Would there come a day in the future, she wondered, when even the standing to light a lantern for him at night would slip away from her?

Xiao Nanhui felt that the answer to that was yes.

Such was time’s cruelty — and its inescapability.

Mountains may be leveled, rivers may turn to dust.

The warmth of human feeling, small as it is, passes in the blink of an eye. Like the water of a hundred rivers rushing away, it cannot in the end be stayed.

She had never been in the habit of thinking about such things before. She had always felt that many questions had no answers. But in the months just past, answers to questions she had never chased had come tumbling out one after another.

Faced with the people and things she had once cared about, she had finally begun to find a measure of release and acceptance.

Since she had no choice but to go on the spring hunt, and Yu’an was the place where the incident of years past had occurred, the journey might give her a legitimate reason to investigate — and might offer some assistance to the matter she was currently looking into. Why not go with a willing heart?

Having thought it through, Xiao Nanhui went at once to find Dujuan: there were plenty of spare spots in the carriages for the spring hunt entourage, and she asked whether Dujuan might like to come along and take a stroll outside, get some air.

Dujuan had been born in Quecheng, grown up in Quecheng. The farthest threshold she’d ever crossed was the Xiao Mansion’s west side gate and the teahouses and fabric shops on Xinglong Street. The farthest she’d traveled was to the Great Cheng Temple outside the west city gate — and even that had been years ago.

That said, Dujuan had never given up on the thought of seeing what lay beyond. She was naturally a lively soul who enjoyed a crowd. Xiao Nanhui had often spoken of it in the past: someday she would take Dujuan to Jizhou to see the sand, to see where she was born. At those times, Dujuan would always laugh and scold her for having no ambition — why take her to see sand and not mountains and clear waters? — yet while grumbling, she would ask: was the sand really as plentiful as all that? And were there truly many camels among the sand?

Xiao Nanhui felt that Dujuan did want to see the world outside.

Even if Yu’an wasn’t terribly far from Quecheng, it did have vast forests and open grasslands that the city did not.

Dujuan’s heart was moved. She had never traveled far from home and didn’t know what to bring, so she pulled out all her stored-away jackets and padded coats from the bottom of her chest, measuring them against herself with a delighted expression for three days and three nights — before suddenly changing her mind on the third day and saying she wouldn’t go after all.

Xiao Nanhui was puzzled, but after noticing that Dujuan’s comings and goings to Dai’s courtyard had become much more frequent than usual, she gradually understood.

In past years when the weather warmed, Dai could sit alone in the courtyard to soak up the sun and swing on the rope swing. But this year, for some reason, even after Grain Rain had passed she still hadn’t been able to get out of bed. Two rounds of the shallow-water red-throat pearls had been taken, and still they’d lost their effect.

In this, Dujuan still maintained her brisk and capable manner — scolding Yaoyi the scoundrel merchant one moment for probably selling fake medicine, and the next having everything tidied up in perfect order.

But sometimes a shadow of worry showed in Dujuan’s eyes. Dai’s health was going downhill day by day. Perhaps she might hold on through this spring and summer — but whether there would be another autumn and winter was uncertain.

If Dai’s condition worsened further, someone would need to be at her side constantly. Old Steward Chen was a man, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to manage everything. Bringing in an outsider to help would mean trusting a stranger.

Dujuan could not bring herself to leave Dai, and in the end decided to stay home.

On the day of departure, Dujuan stuffed an enormous bundle into Xiao Nanhui’s hands — packed with everything from clothing to food and daily necessities, and even enough medicinal and tonifying supplies to last half a year. Xiao Nanhui suspected the bundle held enough for two people.

But Dujuan didn’t know: since the day of the events at the Prince’s Mansion, Bolao had neither appeared in the household nor come into contact with Xiao Nanhui. Xiao Nanhui thought she must be hiding from Zong Hao.

In any case, the spring hunt was only a half-month’s affair. Whether or not Bolao came along didn’t seem to matter much.

Before setting out, she made a detour to Yanfu Street — partly to drop off the things Dujuan had given her at Wangchen Tower, and partly to look in on Yaoyi and Wu Xiaoliu.

This was a habit she had formed over many years: before any campaign or long journey, she would always call on a few close friends — whether there was something to discuss or not — have a few words, and then share a solemn cup of wine as a farewell, against the possibility that this trip might be her last, so she would leave with no regrets.

In the beginning, everyone had felt it genuinely and deeply — and at the height of feeling, there were often tears flowing freely, as though it truly were a parting of life and death. Over time, they had gone through the motions so many times that everyone had long since grown perfunctory. Both sides put in the least possible effort.

As luck would have it, it was late in the third month, the depths of spring, and people were restless with the stirrings of the season. Wangchen Tower’s business was blazing like a fire, thriving like the noon sun. Yaoyi was buried in abacus and account books and had absolutely no interest in dealing with Xiao Nanhui — he simply called out Wu Xiaoliu to exchange a few words, and at the end had someone bring out a small hemp cloth bag, stuffed to bursting.

Xiao Nanhui took it with a grin and hung it from one side of the saddle. Jixiang let out a lively snort and set off toward the Ding Gate on the east side of the city. It knew that little hemp bag — it was full of dried mushrooms from Beizhi.

The horses accompanying the army ate well enough, but it was nothing more than dried wheat grass — nothing like the provisions Jixiang had enjoyed back at the Xiao Mansion. Though Xiao Nanhui was no longer Right General on this trip, she hadn’t been slighted for it.

The Emperor had not reclaimed her Black Feather garrison token, and had given her — without any clear explanation — the position of Canjun chariot escort on the right. Chariot escort on the right, as the name implied, was the warrior who guarded the right side of the Emperor’s chariot in ancient times, as opposed to the escort on the left. By the convention that the left is the place of greater honor, her current position could only be the right-hand escort.

Truly — no matter how things turned, she could never escape the word “right.”

Thinking it over, Xiao Nanhui decided this wasn’t such a bad arrangement after all. As a Canjun escort, she would travel alongside the Emperor, which meant better food and treatment — and being close to his carriage, she would often be able to glimpse that person.

She wondered whether this was also part of the reason he had arranged things this way.

The events at the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion had perhaps been too tumultuous. She had been having muddled, tangled dreams for two nights running. In her dreams she was by turns seated in splendor on a high throne, golden light blazing around her, and then stumbling along in poverty, draped in gloom — yet through it all that man’s face wove its way in and out, sometimes holding a flower and smiling a gentle, Buddha-like smile, sometimes eyes frosted with ice, walking a demon’s path.

She had fallen into his spell — and even in her dreams she was weaving stories of herself and him.

Yet he was walking toward her, through the vastness of the crowd, into the real world.

When the Emperor traveled outside of military campaigns, he would always use the Ding Gate on the east side of the city. The Ding Gate’s central passage was broad and straight, and common people could watch from one street over, while civil and military officials were required to line up beneath the gate to send off the Imperial procession.

When the hour came, the Emperor would step down from the ornate canopied palanquin — screened by ceremonial fans and feathered canopies — and cross one zhang of brocade carpet before entering the Imperial carriage.

From palanquin to carriage was only ten short steps — and as the Canjun escort on the right, she was positioned closest to him.

The first time she had known he was Zhong Li Jing, she hadn’t had the heart to study his appearance properly. Once she knew he was the Emperor, she hadn’t dared stare so boldly at his face.

This time, lost among countless upturned gazes, she finally had legitimate cause to look well and long at that face.

He wore the twelve-tiered ceremonial crown as usual — twelve strands of jade beads in five colors cascading before and behind his face, concealing its master’s features. Yet when the beads swayed and struck each other in a chiming instant, a glimpse of his true face broke through.

It was a face with flowing, gentle contours — like a Buddha statue enshrined in a great hall — smooth and without a trace of tension or excess. His brows were black and elegantly shaped, carrying a slight curve that invited curiosity. His lips were always very pale, yet they always gave one the inexplicable sense of a radiance held quietly within.

Most remarkable of all were those narrow, elongated eyes. Most of the time they were half-lidded — carrying a faint air of languor and intoxication — and in the moment they opened fully and turned toward you, you could see the soundless abyss opening in those pitch-dark pupils.

In this light, in this setting, in this breath of inhaling and exhaling — the quality about him of a lofty mountain seen from a distance, of a cold pool still as a mirror, was magnified without limit, making it impossible to look directly at him, yet impossible not to be drawn toward him.

He truly was beautiful.

Xiao Nanhui thought to herself, dazedly, and recalled the circumstances of the very first time she had seen him.

At Yueyuan Town beside the Dashen Crossing — on a stormy night — he had followed behind Ding Weixiang and stepped unhurriedly into that dilapidated inn. The wind had carried in a fine drizzle behind him, and it had dampened half of his smoke-grey long robe. At the time she had only thought that this person looked far too different from the men she knew, and had even felt something close to aversion toward his complexion — paler than most women by several shades.

Looking back now, perhaps it was that she had always carried a bias, and had never taken a proper look at that face.

The long passages of memory tend to blur and fade. Only a handful of moments can be carried in the mind for a lifetime.

Just like this instant — though it was only the briefest lift of his eyes — she had already imprinted it deeply in her heart. Many, many years from now, she would not forget it.