Su Pingchuan had only found an opportunity to slip out of the mansion at dusk.

He had been confined to his family estate for several days now. Besides the servants who delivered his water and meals, he hadn’t been able to see a single other person. A’Qiu, who had gone out of the city with him that day, had been turned away at the gates of the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion. The mansion had announced publicly that he had “caught a slight chill and was closed to guests,” when in reality his maternal grandfather was simply being kept from coming to help him. And besides the colleagues from the Guangyao Camp who were always around and unavoidable, he had not a single friend willing to come to his door.

In his despondency, he thought again of those brief days in the west of Ling when he had been a prisoner, thought again of the words that person had once said to him, and rallied himself enough to resolve to prove his strength just once.

And yet he always forgot his own background and upbringing — forgot that, although he had a full set of martial skills, he had never in his life done anything as disreputable as climbing over walls or crawling through dog holes.

He had knocked out the servant bringing his meal, taken the key, drawn his treasured sword, and in one great leap landed on the courtyard wall — only to have three roof tiles crumble under him. And then his father — who appeared refined and cultured, but was in reality narrow-minded and petty — appeared at the base of the wall, looked up at him, and quietly told him to get down.

And so he was locked up again.

This time, even the servant bringing his water and meals was nowhere to be seen.

Each meal was pushed through the dog hole, and taken back out through the dog hole. No matter how loudly he protested, no one answered him.

It went on like this for two more days, and at last he learned to endure in silence.

He wrote a note on the empty food tray going back out, saying he wanted roast chicken. That noon, a roast chicken was sent in.

He ate the whole chicken in one sitting, and at last found a bone of just the right thickness and length. He found a chunk of inkstone to use as a base and carefully ground the bone down, until at last he was able to pick open the lock and chain hanging from his body.

This time, he didn’t dare go for the sword. He also removed his heavy boots, and with painstaking care climbed over the courtyard wall. He lay flat atop the wall and observed for the better part of half an hour, then slipped through the gaps between the guards and successfully escaped the estate.

He was afraid it wouldn’t be long before his father noticed he was no longer in the compound, so he was very conscious of the little time he had, and ran at almost full speed all the way toward Yanfu Street.

This was the first time in his life he had ever sprinted down a main road wearing only his socks.

The people brushing past him all looked hurried and preoccupied — no one noticed anything unusual about him. Only he himself knew the rebellion and madness of this one moment.

Perhaps heaven still held some goodwill toward him, and had not let his courage go to waste.

He ran all the way to Wangchen Tower like this, gathered some information there — and then, nearly recognized by an acquaintance, ducked into the nearest room in a panic. The person he had been looking for was right in front of him.

Su Pingchuan looked at the person across from him, wearing a large-flowered cloth and holding a flower handkerchief — a flash of excitement ran through him, followed by a surge of sorrow.

A few days apart, and had she already been reduced to such a state?

He wanted to ask whether His Majesty had sentenced her, whether she was being treated well in here, whether she had been subjected to any indignity. But he felt those were stupid questions he couldn’t bring himself to voice — because she was obviously not doing well at all.

Before he could get a single word of what was lodged in his throat to come out, the woman at the dressing table had already opened her mouth in a flat, dry way.

“You — why are you here?”

Xiao Nanhui asked this carefully. What she actually wanted to ask was: why would someone who prided himself on being noble and above it all, like you, be in a place like this?

Wangchen Tower, as it happened, was distinguished by having more handsome young men than beautiful women. It couldn’t be that Su Pingchuan had been so rattled by recent events that he had suddenly developed a new set of tastes and found himself interested in an entirely different sort?

Xiao Nanhui felt an inner tremor, and her expression grew complicated. Seeing that the other person had not answered for some time, she became even more convinced of her guess.

She squeezed the handkerchief in her palm, and opened her mouth with care.

“Pingchuan, my younger brother — I know, too, that the word ‘affection’ is something that cannot be mastered by will alone. But one must not take the path less traveled for this, or dig oneself into an impossible corner. Even though, it must be said—” she paused, afraid she was making her meaning too obvious and would end up damaging the friendship, and chose her words carefully — “even though this spirited, vigorous quality can sometimes attract and delight another of the same, at the end of the day, it is not your nature to be thus. Do not let some other circumstance lead you to misjudge yourself.”

Her words were not yet finished when she heard two young men outside being surrounded by three or five young nobles, laughing and joking as they drifted up the stairs.

Well, that was perfectly timed.

She felt some immediate regret, but it was already too late. The young lord across from her had long since deciphered her meaning. His face went red in an instant — whether from embarrassment or anger, it was hard to say.

“I came here — I came for you, of course!”

Now it was her turn to be irritated — and she also found herself rather at a loss.

For her? Since when had she been spending three whole days in a place like this? Had he watched her come in?

Wangchen Tower was not cheap. If Yaoyi hadn’t given her something of a discount, she couldn’t have afforded to stay even one night, let alone three days.

But the more aggravating part came next.

Su Pingchuan, seeing she hadn’t replied, clearly couldn’t tell where her thoughts had wandered off to. His expression turned awkward and guarded, and he actually fumbled about on his person and produced a silver note — and slapped it on the table with a resounding thwack.

“I have silver. You don’t need to worry.”

Xiao Nanhui reached the end of her patience. She swept to her feet and strode across to Su Pingchuan, grabbed him by the back of his collar in one hand, and dragged him toward the door, muttering all the while under her breath:

“A perfectly good place like Taozhi Mountain wasted — no swordsman to show for it, but a free-spending regular customer—”

That poor young general who had just fought his way through every manner of obstacle to escape his estate found himself seized by the scruff of the neck by a female ruffian, about to be tossed out the door.

He finally sensed something was off, and struggled to defend himself while still in her grip.

“I — I only heard you were being kept here, so I found a way to sneak in and come for you!”

The woman wearing the large flowered cloth on her head turned slowly back.

“Who told you that?”

After hearing about it from his lovely concubine mother, and then spending ten silver to get the information confirmed by one of the girls in the establishment.

Su Pingchuan hemmed and hawed, and decided to leave the second half out.

“Lady Su said so.”

Lady Su had something of a strained history with her, and might well have said something unpleasant on purpose.

Xiao Nanhui thought it over, and at last let go.

She turned back to the small table, opened a jar of wine, removed the seal, and handed it to Su Pingchuan — no cups, just the jar.

“Sit down and drink with me for a bit, and tell me exactly what’s been going on.”

Su Pingchuan took the wine jar and made a show of steadying himself before taking a big gulp.

“The story of the spring hunt has been all over the city for days now. The entire Qinghuai Marquis household has vanished without a trace. You were the only one brought back in full view of everyone, so naturally everyone who wants to know more has been trying to see you and get some information—”

Xiao Nanhui listened, and found her mind a little slow to follow.

“I was brought back in full view of everyone?”

“Yes.” Su Pingchuan’s tone was certain, as though he had seen it with his own eyes. “They say you entered the city together with a descendant of the Qu family, and went straight to Wangchen Tower without stopping — and once inside, you never came out again.”

The image of Hao Bai’s powdered face floated before her, followed by the scheming expression of that merchant Yaoyi. When had those two gotten in league with each other? Xiao Nanhui felt something didn’t quite add up.

“What would I go to Wangchen Tower for?”

“They say you and the proprietor of Wangchen Tower are old friends, so you’re recuperating here. But regardless of who came to ask after you, no one has actually managed to see you in person. So both at court and in the streets, people have been saying you’re actually in prison — that His Majesty put this out as a cover to keep the military officers calm. Openly and covertly, quite a few people have been searching for where you really are—”

Su Pingchuan spoke word by word, and she drank sip by sip.

A scheme within a scheme, a curtain within a curtain — she knew these methods far too well. Earlier, her heart had been lost entirely in grief and pain, and she had never stopped to think about how the world outside was turning upside down. Now, hearing Su Pingchuan describe it, she began to understand many things.

Only a few days ago, she had been the Xiao family’s nameless, unimportant foster daughter. Now she was the only target left bearing the Xiao name. The Xiao family, though fallen, had once been a renowned and powerful name — with both old friends and old enemies at court. Xiao Zhun’s defection meant she, as a member of the Xiao household, could not escape the fallout. To imprison her outright, a charge would need to be laid. A grave one would mean dozens of memorials; a light one would mean dozens still, and then another great war of words in the Yuanming Hall — drowning everything in spit and indignation. But to simply leave her unattended would be to set her up on a chopping block for anyone to take a cut at — and the people who would try to stir up trouble using her as a pretext would be far more numerous.

Do seven parts, leave three parts unfinished. The Emperor had set up a target in Wangchen Tower — seven parts true, three parts false. The more absurd and unlikely the story seemed, the more those who would rack their brains trying to puzzle out the truth were convinced that their own clever conclusions were correct.

She reached for another jar of wine. She raised it to offer her companion a refill — waited a moment and got no response. She turned to look — and found the young lord, who had never drunk this much in his life, already unconscious with drink.

Footsteps in some commotion filtered in from outside the door. She stood and pressed her ear to the gap to listen — it seemed the people from the Xuanyuan Prince’s Mansion had tracked their way here.

Apparently she wouldn’t be hearing any more about the Marquis Mansion tonight.

If she couldn’t hear, she would simply have to go see for herself.

She picked up the last remaining jar of wine from the table. Before she left, she went back and helped the once-again drunk-and-insensible young general tidy up his surroundings, and pulled up his socks, which had slid halfway off — hoping to make his morning-after a little easier.

She was grateful to him. He had made her realize something: she was not alone with no friends left. In the days she had been away, there was still someone willing to run barefoot through a surging crowd in search of her.

She glanced back at Su Pingchuan’s peaceful sleeping face. Xiao Nanhui turned and slipped out through the back window.

In the darkness, a hem of deep, somewhat-oversized robes trailed step by step down the narrow stone staircase of Jingbo Tower.

The young Emperor’s slender form moved slowly forward through the dark.

He had long since grown perfectly proficient at shaking off his attendants and evading his father’s watchful eyes — leaving and returning without stirring a single soul, if he chose.

Gradually, the darkness came to an end.

The warm yellow light of a lantern met him, and with it, the warm summer wind that only comes with that season.

“Mother.”

He called out softly. The figure standing at the railing did not stir — if not for the hem of her garment stirring in the breeze, he might almost have believed she was a stone statue carved to resemble his mother.

He hesitated a moment, then walked step by step toward her.

The light of the setting sun fell through a small opening beneath the eave bracket and straight onto his face. He felt that everything around him — including his mother’s silhouette — was bathed in a wash of orange-red light and shadow.

The figure turned back. He found that the reunion he had waited eight years for had brought him nothing but a face full of confusion and bewilderment.

He bowed with proper respect.

“Mother — it is me, your Wei’er.”

“Wei’er?” The mist in her eyes seemed to clear slightly, and she murmured softly, “I see. I see — so this is the day I have been waiting for, at last.”

“Is there someone Mother has been waiting for?”

A smile spread across the woman’s face, and for a fleeting moment there was a trace of how she must once have looked.

“I have been waiting for Wei’er. Waiting to see Wei’er one last time.”

He felt something strange stir in the depths of his chest — something like a dull ache, and something like unease.

Yet his expression remained composed and measured. His voice was still unhurried.

“Mother need not worry. After today, I will find a way to make Father change. We will never be separated again.”

A veil of sorrow, like mist or smoke, settled across the woman’s face — or perhaps her features had simply always been this way.

“No one can stay beside another person forever. You must learn to live on alone.”

“Mother does not need to be with me at every moment — only to be somewhere I can see her often.”

“Is Wei’er afraid of being alone?”

Afraid of being alone? In all those days and nights inside that ancient pagoda, he had kept constant company with solitude.

It was because he had made his peace with solitude that he had been able to walk out of that tower.

“Your son is not afraid.”

“Then that is all the better. Your mother has always feared being alone the most — and yet you, poor child, were born alone.” Having said this, a light suddenly blazed up in the woman’s eyes, and she turned to face the enormous, red setting sun far away. “The evening light is beautiful. This is exactly when I should leave.”

He startled, and before he could ask where she meant to go, that figure turned gracefully and stepped over the railing — worn bright and smooth from long use — and disappeared into the radiant halo of the sunset.

He stood frozen in place, mouth opening as if to cry out, then immediately going still. He smoothed his expression back into order.

But his legs were still trembling. Those ten-some steps he crossed very slowly.

At last he stood at the railing.

In the instant before he leaned out to look, he suddenly stopped.

Just now — had he heard the sound of water?

He saw the calm, unrippled surface of the water reflecting a blazing red light. Then the artificial rock garden on the shore—

Thud.

A heavy object hitting the ground.

Su Wei opened his eyes. What met him was Bai Zhaoyu’s face — seamed with wrinkles.

The old Prime Minister was pulling at his beard with one hand and with the other was trying to adjust the wick of a lantern that had already grown dim. Because his eyesight was no longer sharp, the wick was left unadjusted, and instead he knocked over the candle stand.

The slender bronze candle stand, patterned with a twisted vine design, rolled a short distance and stopped. Scalding wax poured out and congealed on the floor in a patch of red.

“This minister startled you unintentionally. Please forgive this transgression, Your Majesty.”

In no more than an instant, he had returned to himself. His eyes were completely clear, not a trace of anything to betray him.

“It was We who were remiss. What transgression could there be?”

Bai Zhaoyu stepped forward and picked up the overturned candle stand, took a fire-striker from nearby and relit the wick.

“Does Your Majesty wish to continue listening to the matter of the border army’s redeployment?”

“Please proceed, Prime Minister.”

Bai Zhaoyu spread out the notes he had been reading partway through, going one by one through the memorials that could not be formally submitted that day — pausing at any matters that required a decision.

The Prime Minister would speak a sentence, and the Emperor would answer.

The affairs of the court were intricate and long-winded. He gave his answers swiftly and as always, yet something beat strangely in his chest.

He had just had a nightmare.

That was something quite inconceivable to him.

From more than ten years ago, he had rarely dreamed at all. Joyful dreams, terrible dreams — none came to trouble his nights.

And yet just now, in that brief moment of rest in the evening hours, a dream had come. And out of all his past experiences, why had he dreamed of that particular scene?

Bai Zhaoyu’s finger moved slowly across the notes, finally resting on the last line.

“Regarding the case of the Qinghuai Marquis—”

The old Prime Minister had not yet finished speaking when a dark shadow flickered at the stone chamber entrance, hesitated at the sight of Bai Zhaoyu, and then, receiving a small signal from the other person, spoke up.

“Your Majesty — the shadow guards report that Miss Xiao has slipped out through the back door of Wangchen Tower and has been making her way toward the Marquis Mansion. We have come to ask whether to intercept—”

Before the shadow guard’s words had even fully landed, the person seated in the stone chair rose abruptly, heedless of Bai Zhaoyu’s startled expression, and was nearly out the door in the same motion.

“The last item — We will revisit it tomorrow.”

In the blink of an eye, the young Emperor was already gone. Only a light, fading echo drifted in the stone chamber.

Bai Zhaoyu let out a long sigh and slowly gathered up the notes in his hands.

He had thought he would never in his lifetime see that person move at anything above a measured, deliberate pace.

From a young Emperor in his boyhood to the young ruler not yet at thirty that sat before him now, he had often mistaken the figure seated in that stone chair for someone like himself — half-buried in the earth, an old man in his last years.

On his way out, he cast one glance at the tray of neatly arranged small delicacies on the stone table. Bai Zhaoyu reached out and swept the walnut pieces and honey preserves one and all into the voluminous sleeves of his robe — a privilege of his ten-thousand-bushel rank — and at last feeling somewhat restored, drifted unsteadily out of the tower.

Though it occupied one of the finest locations in Quecheng, the outer walls of the Qinghuai Marquis Mansion were still as quiet as ever.

If not for the two paper lanterns at the gate that had gone unlit, Xiao Nanhui could not have said what looked different here from before.

As the saying goes, wine makes a coward brave. Without eight or ten jars of wine in her, she might not have had the courage to stand here. Right now her chest and lungs were full of fire and heat, and her heart was beating faster, the sweat on her palms barely wiped away before it came back again.

When she had set out from Jingbo Tower, the first place that came to mind was the Marquis Mansion.

She knew she could never put off going to look at it forever. But she was afraid that in only a matter of days, it had already lost the shape it held in her memory. If that were so, would all the fond memories she summoned up in the future be shadowed by a cloud of grief?

She stood where she was for a while. When the sky had grown fully and completely dark, Xiao Nanhui finally felt her way to a section of the outer wall.

There was a spot on the wall where one brick was slightly sunken in and chipped — she had been stepping on that brick to climb back over the wall since she was too small to reach it any other way.

She dropped into the courtyard on the other side with a familiar ease.

The courtyard was empty. Not a single person was there.

She had not failed to wonder — why that person had insisted on bringing her to Jingbo Tower, why even a decoy had been placed in Wangchen Tower, and why Jixiang had been housed in the Black Feather Camp rather than returned to the mansion.

In truth, she had already roughly guessed what had happened at the Marquis Mansion.

But this time, she did not cry or break down. She only walked, very calmly, into the familiar darkness where she knew every step by heart and would not put a single foot wrong.

She did not know how much time passed. The moon climbed high, and the crickets in the grass began to chirp.

A silhouette moved through the main gate of the mansion, heading straight toward the rear courtyard.

She pushed through the untrimmed wild branches, wound past overgrown rock and artificial hill gardens, and sat down beneath that old wisteria vine in bloom. Her entire figure seemed to melt into the shadows, her outline too blurry to make out clearly.

“Xiao Nanhui.”

She heard the voice, and rose and turned — to find that person striding quickly through the moon gate at the back of the courtyard.

The dappled moonlight filtered through the trees and fell on him, then slipped away just as quickly.

She had never known until now that the distance between that rear gate and the old wisteria vine was so short — short enough that in one single moment, he was already standing before her.

The fragrance of the old wisteria could not mask the clean, cold smell that was entirely his. His quickened breathing was right in front of her, stirring the air at her ear.

And then he held her tightly.

“Why did you come here?”

She tilted her chin up awkwardly inside his embrace and raised her right hand, holding up the unadorned hemp cord in her palm.

“Only came back to get something.”

He finally let go of her slowly — but without speaking, standing silently in the shadows.

She could not make out what he was wearing tonight, but she could see his eyes and knew his gaze was resting on her face.

“What is Your Majesty thinking?”

What was he thinking?

When she had been carried into the carriage in the rain and darkness, he had thought: she is not going to wake up.

When she had stood at the railing of Jingbo Tower, he had thought: she is going to jump.

When she had said she wanted to go out for a walk, he had thought: she is going to leave this city.

He was thinking that she was going to leave him.

The way his mother had once left him.

His heart began to beat strangely again. He thought of the question his mother had asked him long ago, and could no longer give the same steadfast answer he once had.

“Will you leave me?”

His voice was very soft — nearly softer than the sound of insects chirping and wings beating all around.

Will you leave me.

She had thought that this was a question she herself would always want to ask. Every time she made a new friend, every time she received a little warmth, every time she felt some small attachment — she would feel the urge to ask it.

She had been born alone, and she had always believed: a solitary person cannot give warmth and companionship to another solitary person.

And yet at this moment, she was willing to place herself in the role of the one being asked — and willing to give this question a permanent answer.

“I will not leave you.” She raised her hand and patted him gently on the back, as if saying it to him, and as if saying it to herself. “No matter what happens, I will not leave you.”

For much of the life that came before, she had always been searching for something to lean on.

She had only never imagined that one day she herself would become the thing another person leaned on.

He held her again. This time, tighter than before, and for longer — the way a drowning person clings to the last straw that can save them.

“Xiao Nanhui — in this life, in this world, you must never leave me. And I will never leave you.”