Xu Shu tossed the by-now nearly-fainting Young Master Huang aside and strode forward, grabbing Xiao Nanhui by the arm and pulling her toward the pine trees behind the slope.

Yaoyi raised an eyelid to watch the two figures disappear, then rose and went to smooth things over at the mess just left behind.

“Oh my, Young Master Huang, easy there. That hothead was clearly in his cups and got carried away — why trouble yourself to stoop to his level? That such a thing should happen today, I am truly mortified. Next time you visit Wangchen Tower, your drink tab will be on the house — consider it my apology as proprietor—”

Meanwhile beneath the pine and cypress trees, Xiao Nanhui shook free of Xu Shu’s grip, her expression thoroughly bewildered: “What on earth are you—”

Before she could finish, Xu Shu clapped a hand over her mouth and growled a threat: “I’ll be brief. If you breathe a single word about what happened today, I’ll find a way to make you regret it!”

Xiao Nanhui had been threatened entirely without cause, and a flash of nameless anger rose in her. She shoved the annoying nuisance away: “Have you lost your mind?! I have never had any interest in your private affairs. But if someone asks me, am I supposed to clean up your mess for you?”

Xu Shu said nothing — he only glared at Xiao Nanhui through clenched teeth, the veins at his temples bulging, as if in a fury he himself could not quite account for.

Xiao Nanhui’s bewilderment deepened. She found herself thinking back to the young woman who had walked along the shore of Moon-Perch Lake just now, when Young Master Huang was struck.

“Could you possibly be—” Xiao Nanhui looked Xu Shu up and down and gave voice to the suspicion forming in her mind: “Could you possibly be in love with Cui Xingyao?”

At these words, Xu Shu’s expression lost all composure. Xiao Nanhui, who had long grown accustomed to his swaggering and imperious air, found herself genuinely astonished: “So you do have a woman you care for. I always thought you came into this world with no patience for women at all. What a pity, though — Cui Xingyao has very likely been selected. You’ll need to rein yourself in. After all, she is the Emperor’s woman, and even your own father might not be in a position to win her back for you.”

Xu Shu drew a deep breath, adjusted his expression deliberately, and assumed his usual nonchalant, devil-may-care air: “Xiao Nanhui, since when do you get to laugh at me?” He leaned close to her ear and said quietly: “My little sister is at a fine age, you know. If one day I go home and put in a few good words with Father — do you think he might take it into his head to arrange for Xu Youyou to be given to Xiao Zhun as a wife?”

Xiao Nanhui’s face went pale. She fixed a hard look on Xu Shu. He gave her a wicked smile in return, then cast one glance in the direction of Yaoyi not far off, wheeled his horse, and galloped away in a cloud of dust, leaving Xiao Nanhui standing there alone, dazed.

Xu Shu’s words were like a heavy iron weight, pressing down on her heart with a suffocating ache.

Xiao Nanhui’s feelings for Xiao Zhun were a secret — and secrets are things one does not want others to know.

What is more, between herself and Xiao Zhun there had been an uncrossable gulf from the very beginning. Even if she was only an adopted daughter, feelings for one’s adoptive father were surely not something that could be easily spoken aloud.

There were times she wondered whether it had been fortune or misfortune that Xiao Zhun had taken her in.

If she had never entered the Qinghuai Marquis Mansion, she would naturally have never come to know Xiao Zhun — yet it was precisely because she had entered the Qinghuai Marquis Mansion that from that moment forward, she could only ever be his family, with no other possibility.

Never mind. She had anticipated all of this long ago. She could endure it.

Only — from what point had caring for a person become such a source of unbearable shame?

Xiao Nanhui’s eyes stung.

“What are you doing, crouching on the ground?”

Xiao Nanhui looked up to see that Yaoyi had come over without her noticing when.

She had been sunk in that downcast mood and realized only now that she had been crouching under the tree, lost in thought, for quite some time.

Yaoyi wore a cold expression and pulled Xiao Nanhui to her feet from where she crouched: “Whether a person cares for someone older or younger, man or woman, cat or dog — that has never been anything to be ashamed of. What do you have to be gloomy about?”

Xiao Nanhui rubbed her eyes and glanced sideways at Yaoyi.

“The same way you care for Chu Nian?”

Chu Nian had once been the most celebrated male entertainer at Wangchen Tower in Quecheng — true to his name, he was someone so beautiful that a single first glance made people think of him ceaselessly ever after.

Xiao Nanhui had always felt that Yaoyi secretly pined for him. When Chu Nian decided to leave the establishment, Yaoyi — whose dedication to work was as reliable as the sun and rain — had taken three days of sick leave.

Of course, Yaoyi had never acknowledged caring for Chu Nian. He only acknowledged caring for money.

Even so, at the sound of Chu Nian’s name, Yaoyi’s thick-skinned face reddened in a rare display. Xiao Nanhui took that to be outrage born of wounded pride.

“I offer you well-intentioned counsel and you turn it around and mock me?! The brutes in that army camp really have dragged you down into the gutter — good intentions thrown back in my face like this—”

The next moment, what greeted him was a rough, soldier-like embrace.

“I understand. I understand all of it.”

I understand — so thank you. Thank you for being here with me.

“Xiao Nanhui.”

“Mm.”

“You’ve gotten snot on me.”

Half a shichen later, Yaoyi had resumed his merchant’s sharp-dealing disposition, bossing Xiao Nanhui around left and right.

By the time Xiao Nanhui had stuffed all those cushion mats and small tables into the carriage in one go, the young men who had come to admire the beauties had long since vanished without a trace. The winding mountain path was dappled with tree shadows swaying in the breeze, and summer insects chirped all around — at this moment there was no one left but Xiao Nanhui, Yaoyi, and their party.

The path down the mountain was somewhat bumpy. Xiao Nanhui slowed her pace, letting Jixiang amble along beside Yaoyi’s carriage, and she and Yaoyi talked idly back and forth, separated by the carriage curtain.

“You came all this way to find me today — and it was just to watch the spectacle?”

After Xu Shu’s episode just now, remembering the actual reason she had come only deepened Xiao Nanhui’s gloom: “The Emperor summoned me to the palace today.”

“Oh?” There was interest in Yaoyi’s voice. “The Emperor was idle enough to summon you, a minor fifth-rank official? He can’t have had good intentions.”

Yaoyi’s manner of speaking was unpleasant, but it was invariably accurate.

“A good piece of news and a bad piece of news. The good news is, the Emperor has finally made up his mind to pull out that thorn called Bijiang.”

“And the bad news?”

Xiao Nanhui let the corners of her mouth droop and heaved a long sigh: “The bad news is, the Emperor wants me to conceal my identity and go ahead to the west of the Ling Ridge in Jizhou to reconnoiter the situation. I won’t be able to go with the main army.”

Having spent all these years together, how could Yaoyi not understand what Xiao Nanhui left unsaid? In the end, he still could not bear to see her looking so spineless, and with a twitch of the corner of his mouth he berated her: “Xiao Nanhui, you’ve been blinded by your feelings. Do you absolutely have to stay glued to Xiao Zhun’s side? What is wrong with operating independently? You won’t have to fight those ox-brained louts for military merit, and for all you know you’ll come back to a promotion. You’re an adopted daughter — you and he are neither blood relatives nor true kin. The Qinghuai Marquis Mansion is not some eternal mountain you can lean on your whole life. For someone in your position, rising in rank and prospering is the right path.”

“All right.” Xiao Nanhui was still listless.

Yaoyi said all the right things — but what did he really understand? For nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of a thousand, he was an abacus that recognized nothing but money. Could you expect an abacus to grasp that the word “feeling” weighs heavier than the word “money”? Dream on.

Her name carried the lifelong aspiration of Xiao Zhun: to return to the Southern Lands, to reclaim Bijiang.

And now, with that wish finally on the verge of being fulfilled, she could not be at his side. The Emperor’s timing in promoting her was truly the worst.

“Tell me — why did the Emperor not find someone else, but specifically come to me?”

Yaoyi was counting the silver in his jar and did not even look up: “Your face is unfamiliar — convenient for getting things done.”

Xiao Nanhui was taken aback, then felt this reasoning had a certain logic to it.

Every one of Tiancheng’s leading generals — who did not know their faces? The Bai clan must have put no small effort into gathering intelligence, and if the person sent were too conspicuous, word might reach the enemy’s ears before they ever set foot inside Jizhou’s borders.

She was different.

Before her promotion, she had been a mere squad captain — apart from her identity as the Qinghuai Marquis’s adopted daughter, no one would have thought twice about someone like her.

Moreover, she was a woman. The world was full of prejudice against women, but that very prejudice could at times be a remarkably effective disguise.

The Emperor truly had a way with people.

Someone so shrewd and perceptive — one wondered what manner of scene it would make when they faced that other person, unpredictable as spirits and ghosts.

Xiao Nanhui thought for a moment and finally asked: “Have you ever heard of a family name Zhong Li?”

Yaoyi paused, clearly recalling something, yet in the end only said vaguely: “It’s a rare compound surname. What made you think to ask?”

Xiao Nanhui was turning something over in her mind and did not notice Yaoyi’s expression: “I ran into someone by that name on this last trip to Huozhou. He said he was a household guest of the Chancellor’s Mansion.”

Yaoyi’s voice carried a trace of urgency he himself had not perceived: “He said it and you believed it? How many days have you even known him?”

Xiao Nanhui gave him a strange look: “I never took it as gospel — why are you agitated?”

The words were right there on the tip of Yaoyi’s tongue. They turned over several times and were swallowed back. In the end he said curtly: “When you’re out and about, who doesn’t carry a few alias names? Do you think everyone is as naive as you.”

Xiao Nanhui quietly exhaled through her nose in disdain.

I am not naive. I used your name, after all.

But naturally, that could not be said to Yaoyi. Telling him would mean suffering through the rest of this journey.

Xiao Nanhui was silently rather amused by this when suddenly, at the end of the dirt road, a figure appeared on horseback riding hard toward them.

Xiao Nanhui saw the official robes and her heart sank. As he drew near, she recognized him — it was Su Pingchuan, that nemesis she saw every single day.

Xiao Nanhui reined her horse to a halt and rapped on the carriage panel.

“Hey — has someone set their sights on that penny-pinching business of yours? There’s an official coming, looks like he means to shut you down.”

Yaoyi slid open the small window and poked his head out from inside the carriage, his little eyes wide with disbelief: “Impossible! I’ve already greased the right palms — all of them. Except for that newly appointed Left General, but at this hour he would normally be guarding the western approaches. How would he come all the way here?”

Xiao Nanhui frowned. She did not know either.

Yaoyi was exceedingly crafty, and always cautious in such matters — there should be no way anyone had managed to track him down.

Unless someone had leaked information and reported him.

And what’s more, that person had very likely just attended the “viewing” themselves, which is why they had been able to time it so precisely. With a moment’s thought, a name surfaced in Xiao Nanhui’s mind.

Who else could it be but that wretch Xu Shu?