Fireworks burst overhead, the boom rolling through the sky.

Most of the crowd turned to admire the fireworks, and Zhang Xingjian’s own eyes were briefly caught by the sudden burst of brilliant color.

When the dazzling light faded, he looked back toward the old cypress trees along the corridor, and found himself faintly stunned.

Leaves shook loose and fell; Yang Su and the others were still there, but Shen Qingwu, who had been standing beneath the corridor, was gone. With her formidable skill, she had vanished cleanly, completely, as though she had never been there at all.

“The Princess certainly spares no expense — these fireworks can’t have come cheap,” came a steady stream of admiring chatter around him.

Zhang Xingjian stared at the empty space before the corridor, and for one moment felt an inexplicable hollowness, a wistful ache with no clear cause.

But he quickly recognized how strange this sudden feeling was, and forced his gaze away.

The dancing girls and singers gathered around him again, and he resumed his usual gentle expression, joining the others in admiring the fireworks. This peaceful moment did not last long before he began to feel something wrong with his body.

At first it was a faint restlessness; then a deafening, violent tremor slowly kindled through his limbs.

In the span of a single blink, he caught the scent of rouge from the women around him. That ordinary fragrance, invading his senses, set his heart pounding like a drum, and his inner robes were soon half soaked through.

Zhang Xingjian took half a step back.

His expression remained composed, but one of the dancing girls beside him had already reached out to steady him, asking with concern, “Young Master, are you unwell?”

Zhang Xingjian fixed his eyes on this dancing girl.

His gaze was as mild as a low flame, his expression calm — if she hadn’t felt the wild, racing pulse at his wrist, she might have thought she had used the wrong dose, or that the drug had simply had no effect on this young lord at all.

He stared at this dancing girl for a long moment; as her lips moved, forming words, the sweat soaking his inner robes only grew worse, an uncontrollable longing pulling him toward any woman nearby.

And so.

Zhang Xingjian understood exactly what was happening.

He smiled faintly.

The dancing girl went momentarily blank, feeling as though her very soul might be pulled from her body by that warm, gentle smile of his. This young lord showed none of the signs of being under a drug’s control — if anything, it was she, the one who had administered it, whose face flushed red, her own heart skipping a beat.

Zhang Xingjian said, “I have some business — I must go change my robes.”

He turned and walked off. Though his departure was brisk, his retreating figure remained composed and steady as ever, showing not the slightest trace of panic.

The dancing girl stood dazed for a moment; a companion beside her gave her a nudge, and several maidservants hurried after him to find him. “Young Master Zhang, you don’t know your way around the grounds — allow us to show you to a place to change.”

Zhang Xingjian walked briskly through the unfamiliar, deep, dark gardens, layer upon layer of tree-shadow dancing across his face.

Shen Qingwu stood atop the eaves of a pavilion roof, the wind stirring her robes as she watched from above.

She saw the young lord, sweat beading on his forehead, his steps still remarkably steady.

On one side, people watched the distant fireworks; on the other, guards and maidservants had begun closing in to block his way. If the Princess meant to have someone, she would naturally make her preparations.

A quiet drama was unfolding in the gardens below. Zhang Xingjian called out softly, “Chang Lin,” and his formidable guard appeared at once, catching his stumbling frame.

From where Shen Qingwu stood, she saw Zhang Xingjian exchange a few whispered words with Chang Lin; Chang Lin’s face showed a flash of surprise, but he decisively abandoned his young lord and threw himself at the guards closing in through the darkness.

The Princess would not allow this covert struggle to come out into the open.

Which meant Chang Lin could hold the others back, within certain limits.

Meanwhile, the dancing girl came chasing after him, breathless. “Third Young Master, Third Young Master…”

Zhang Xingjian abruptly turned and walked straight toward the very dancing girl who had first drugged him. She stopped short, staring at him, dazed. Zhang Xingjian reached out and took her hand; as her face flushed red to the ears, he used that same warm, gentle smile to steal her senses away entirely. “Forgive me.”

Without the slightest hesitation, he struck her hard on the neck and stuffed her unconscious body beneath a shrub.

Having done this, his steps faltered slightly, his shoulders trembling faintly; he turned his face aside and drew a deep breath, turning by chance toward the direction where Shen Qingwu could see him.

More footsteps were closing in from behind.

A drop of sweat slid down from Zhang Xingjian’s damp, sweat-soaked lashes. He roughly judged his direction and pushed open the door of the nearest pavilion. His snow-white robes fluttered briefly at the gap of the door, like moonlight steeped in frost.

Shen Qingwu moved like a phantom.

In the darkness, she stood at the highest point, watching every direction.

She heard not only the clash of weapons as Chang Lin fought off several of the Princess’s guards, but also more footsteps approaching, and the eager, credit-seeking voice of a maidservant calling out: “Your Highness, it should be this way.”

The wind stirred Shen Qingwu’s hair.

Shen Qingwu was thinking.

She seemed to be watching quite the show unfold.

She seemed able to take a certain grim satisfaction in watching Zhang Xingjian meet with misfortune.

She had once saved his life at sixteen, and had never felt she’d gained anything for it. Now, at nineteen, seeing Zhang Xingjian in trouble once again, she felt a certain excitement, a certain pleasure — and very little urge at all to help him.

He was a moon hanging remote in the sky, watched from afar, its light cold to the touch even when it bent low.

She liked seeing the moon brought low.

She liked seeing Zhang Yuelu suffer.

She was no good person; she liked seeing misfortune fall on those who displeased her, liked watching the moon fall, plunging into the abyss.

Whatever was happening right now — why should it be any business of hers to interfere?

Bo Rong had taught her that the eastern capital ran deep and its politics were tangled, and that she wasn’t suited to getting involved in it. She ought to simply extract herself and walk away.

Shen Qingwu crossed her arms, leapt down from the eaves, and strode off into the darkness without a backward glance.

Flying pavilions painted in vermilion, tree shadows pooling like tides. Walking through the dark, Shen Qingwu found Zhang Xingjian’s black eyes rising unbidden in her mind, the single drop of water sliding from his lashes.

That drop of water had trembled, then fallen into his eye — and it seemed to stir something faintly in her heart too, cool and clear.

She couldn’t put a name to the feeling, but she kept thinking of that drop of water on his lashes.

The moon was fated to fall.

Shen Qingwu walked faster and faster, then slower and slower. She stopped before a half-moon gate, and in the quiet, heard the voices of several maidservants discussing Zhang Xingjian:

“Rest assured, Your Highness, the moon is yours.”

The Princess laughed, indifferent. “I don’t care about the moon. It’s only that he… reminds me of someone from my past. It simply feels satisfying, that’s all.”

Standing beneath the moon gate, Shen Qingwu gazed with perfect calm at the crimson lanterns hanging along the quiet corridor beyond, winding away like a long river. Within that river of light, the drop of water on Zhang Xingjian’s lashes surfaced in her mind once more, along with the way his smiling eyes had looked at her beneath the bursting fireworks.

She stood there for a while, her mind strangely empty.

Then, abruptly, Shen Qingwu turned and ran back the way she had come.

The night mist gathered in her dark, fierce, blazing eyes, like drifting smoke stretching without end, ready to scatter at the slightest breath.

Shen Qingwu told herself she would not save the moon.

The moon was fated to fall.

But if everyone around him meant him harm, if he was bound to fall into a web already spun for him… then why shouldn’t she take advantage of his misfortune herself?

Wasn’t her endless preoccupation with Zhang Xingjian simply because she had never had him?

If she had him, she could probably cast him aside like a worn-out shoe.

If she had him, could she finally let go of her fixation, the way Bo Rong hoped she would?

Having driven off several warriors too cautious to make any bold moves, Chang Lin hurried without pause to search for his young master. He gave a few sharp whistles, calling his own hidden men out of the darkness to help hold back the Princess’s forces.

His young master had said the Princess wouldn’t want this to become public — this was their chance.

His young master had no wish to make an enemy of the Princess, but she couldn’t be allowed to go too far either.

But just where, at this very moment, was his young master?

Fireworks burst again and again, the sky lit up with dazzling, multicolored light. Amid the thunderous celebration, Chang Lin searched frantically from building to building through the gardens, his heart burning with urgency —

Something was wrong with his young master’s condition.

But his young master had always been one to endure in silence, and Chang Lin had no idea what exactly had happened to him. What mattered most now was finding him.

Chang Lin hurried through the darkness, and suddenly spotted a familiar figure walking coldly toward him up ahead.

That woman was tall and slender, always walking with her head held high, her strides far longer than those of an ordinary lady. Her face, too, was habitually expressionless, her gaze toward others never particularly warm. But in this moment, Chang Lin caught, in that habitually indifferent gaze of hers, a flash of something cold and grim.

As though she bore some deep, bitter grudge against someone.

Shen Qingwu was walking at tremendous speed; suddenly she flung out her hand, and a dagger flew from it, vanishing into the night. Before Chang Lin could register what she was doing, a tremendous explosion sounded from the direction the dagger had flown.

Flames leapt up, then burst apart.

Amid it all came the panicked cries of the crowd: “Fire! There’s a fire!”

“Quick, put it out!”

Chang Lin stood frozen: “…”

Shen Qingwu looked up and saw him.

Chang Lin felt a sudden pang of guilt.

Shen Qingwu presumably had no idea about all the underhanded schemes his young master had once carried out against her in secret — and yet, facing her now, Chang Lin still felt strangely short of breath, guilty despite himself. He gave an awkward, forced laugh. “Second Young Lady Shen…”

Shen Qingwu walked past him without a word.

She said flatly, “Go put out the fire. Hold them back.”

Chang Lin’s eyes went wide.

He turned, and by the time he looked back, Shen Qingwu was already gone. His mind raced, and it dawned on him at once: Shen Qingwu knew something had happened to his young master.

She was telling him to hold back the Princess and her people, to throw the situation into chaos — while she herself went to find his young master.

Chang Lin was deeply moved.

He lowered his voice toward the darkness. “My thanks, Second Young Lady! Your depth of feeling and sense of duty humble this one — I will surely repay you one day!”

He added, “Even if my young master does not repay you, I will repay you myself, in private!”

Shen Qingwu stopped in her tracks, momentarily confused.

Depth of feeling? Humbled? Repay her?

Had he misunderstood something?

Shen Qingwu quickly dismissed the thought: it didn’t matter.

The night dragged on in fits and starts, each moment stretching like a year. Zhang Xingjian sat cross-legged in a storeroom-like building cluttered with odds and ends.

His eyes were closed, sweat clinging to his forehead, his face flushed.

But to look at his expression alone, one would think nothing at all was wrong — this handsome young lord sat composed amid the dust and clutter like some banished immortal, free of all thought and desire, untouched by the chaos of the mortal world.

His purity looked almost like a disguise.

Who else could be as maddening as he was?

“Creak.”

The door opened.

Zhang Xingjian opened his eyes, and in the next instant, a strip of white cloth dropped over them, blocking his sight.

The door closed. The intruder pinned one of his shoulders with one hand while using the other to wrap the cloth around the back of his head, cutting off any chance of escape. As he jerked his head up in shock, lips pressed against his own.

A sudden stillness, a swift and overwhelming shock. Zhang Xingjian recoiled abruptly.

For an instant, everything seemed to freeze; someone’s heartbeat pounded like thunder, though whose it was, he could not tell.

Zhang Xingjian was already in some distress, the dampness gathering beneath his trembling lashes behind the white cloth like tears.

Their lips still touching, he murmured, testing, “…Your Highness?”

The intruder gave no answer.

He already had his answer.