Shen Qingwu made her way toward the street leading out, carried along by the crowd.

Zhang Xingjian still followed behind her.

In the quiet between them, he calmly turned over how to strike a bargain with her, to get her to reveal where the jade pendant had come from. Shen Qingwu, meanwhile, once again caught that lovely melody, fading in and out in the distance.

Amid the noise of the crowd, she could hear the tune, but her limited education still kept her from making out the words.

She thought to ask whoever was nearby, but glancing around, found only Zhang Xingjian.

He kept his smile in place. “Hm? Something on your mind? Do you want to talk to me now?”

Shen Qingwu turned her head at once, her gaze lifting upward.

It wasn’t defiance — it was her sharp hearing. Beyond the noise of the crowd, she’d caught a dull, cracking sound —

On the street where they stood rose a glazed lantern-mountain, five zhang tall. At night it blazed with brilliant light, the figures on it moved by hidden mechanisms concealed within an enormous decorated tower. The tower was carved and painted like some grand hall, glittering with dragons and phoenixes coiling in auspicious display, colored parasols casting light in every direction — every kind of splendor gathered in one place.

Amid the sound of bells and wind, the cracking sound Shen Qingwu had caught came from one of the wooden poles supporting the decorated tower, working loose.

The night wind stirred the banners, and the tower trembled faintly in the cold gusts. As one pole loosened, unnoticed by anyone, it began, little by little, to strain against the others, tilting the entire lantern-mountain below it off balance.

Shen Qingwu watched, silent: what could she alone do to stop a tower about to collapse — how could she possibly save an entire street full of people?

Following her gaze, Zhang Xingjian looked up as well. His eyesight wasn’t nearly as sharp as hers, and it took him a good while before he spotted the pole holding up the tower, slowly splitting apart.

Zhang Xingjian’s expression shifted. Setting aside everything else — if the lantern platform came down right where the two of them stood, a death toll in the dozens would be a mercy. And with the crowd packed this tightly, a stampede in the panic to flee, combined with the fact that there were more women and children out tonight than on an ordinary market night…

He didn’t dare imagine how many might die.

Zhang Xingjian said, “Shen Qingwu!”

His voice carried a coldness rare for him, enough to make her turn and look at him. In the eyes of this young lord, always so distant and courteous, she now saw something like pleading.

Zhang Xingjian made an instant decision. “Shen Qingwu, let’s set our grievances aside for now and work together. I’ll take care of the crowd below — can you hold that pole steady for a moment…”

Before he’d even finished speaking, Shen Qingwu had already launched herself forward, climbing up toward the pole.

It wasn’t that she meant to work with him — she’d already seen that the swaying pole was tilting toward the one behind it. The crowd below hadn’t noticed yet, and with no other option, she had no choice but to leap up there alone, on her own strength.

She had no way of holding the pole steady indefinitely; she had no plan for what came after — she’d simply have to figure it out as she went.

The pole was coated in gold lacquer, and amid the blaze of golden lantern-light, its swaying went unnoticed. As the cracked, splitting pole tilted backward, about to strike the pole beside it, Shen Qingwu threw herself against it, bracing it with her shoulder from behind.

One hand gripped a nearby tree trunk for leverage, while her other elbow pushed back, her shoulder and back together bearing the weight of the pole behind her.

A heavy, dull weight pressed down on her back; her face showed not a flicker of expression, only the faintest tightening around her lowered eyes as she bore the weight in silence. She’d endured worse on the battlefield — this was a burden she could handle.

Time passed, moment by moment.

The wind blew cold against her cheeks.

In that strange space where the noise and the silence seemed both separate and merged into one, she caught, amid the confused clamor, Zhang Xingjian’s clear voice: “Up ahead, turn right, there’s a traveling troupe from Lin’an performing — they once performed magic tricks before His Majesty himself. Everyone, please head that way.”

He went on, “There’s a ball-toss game there as well.”

He scattered coins as he spoke, hastily giving the crowd another direction to move toward. “Someone’s dropped their money!”

In the depths of winter, the cold biting at the height where she stood, her back aching with the strain, a bead of sweat slid down along her lashes and fell, blurring her vision for a moment. The layered lantern-light formed a strange, shifting world before her eyes; she felt as though she were watching a fire from across a river, catching only fragments of sound rising from below.

Shen Qingwu distracted herself with idle thoughts: Zhang Xingjian’s voice really was pleasant to listen to — even in a crisis like this, he never rushed, never faltered.

Below, the sound of footsteps shifted, chaotic yet somehow orderly. The sweat on Shen Qingwu’s lashes trembled. The pole pressing against her grew heavier by the moment, pushing her down, and the hand gripping the tree for support grew slick with sweat.

Reluctant as she was, her hand began to slip, little by little, scraped raw against the bark, streaks of blood forming.

Her body sank lower and lower, and the pole grew ever harder to hold.

The distant tune still played on, its words still beyond her understanding.

Shen Qingwu clenched her jaw, gritting her teeth until she tasted the metallic tang of blood. The pain in her back, the slick, faintly stinging grip of her hand — all of it warned her she couldn’t hold on much longer.

But her heart remained calm.

She would hold on until the moment she failed.

Her mind had already begun to fog, when she heard someone speaking to Zhang Xingjian: “Young Master, the palace guard has quietly arrived. They’ll follow your orders to help disperse the crowd.”

Then came the sound of Yang Su, drawing a sharp breath. “General… I’m coming to help you!”

A gust of wind passed, and Shen Qingwu felt someone arrive at her side, the weight pressing on her shoulder seeming to lighten. But her mind was already growing hazy; whatever that person said in her ear, she couldn’t quite grasp it — she only knew she could not let the pole fall.

Amid the haze, Shen Qingwu heard Zhang Xingjian’s voice: “General Shen.”

She had no idea how many times he’d repeated it; by now he’d changed the words: “Second Young Lady Shen.”

“Shen Qingwu.”

His voice flowed like water, still and deep.

He called her name, “Shen Qingwu,” over and over, and the sweat clinging to her lashes finally fell, her vision clearing for a brief moment. She followed that gentle, steady voice downward, and saw Zhang Xingjian standing in the now-emptied street below, looking up at her.

The wind stirred his sleeves; the emotion in his eyes, he was working hard to hold in check.

His voice was gentle, softened as though he were afraid of startling her: “Shen Qingwu, you can come down now.”

His voice carried a persuasive weight that seemed capable of overcoming anything, and his face, too, was one Shen Qingwu found beautiful to look at. Something taut in her mind finally eased, and belatedly, she registered that she’d held on all the way until he’d resolved the danger below.

Yang Su and Chang Lin’s voices reached her as well, from nearby. “General Shen, you can come down now. The crowd’s been moved — even if the tower falls, it won’t hit anyone.”

Shen Qingwu shifted at once, releasing her grip and leaping down.

She jumped without hesitation, without fear, her long hair sweeping past her eyes, scattering in the dark, flickering firelight.

In the cold wind, her every feature, every expression, fell into Zhang Xingjian’s eyes. His heart stopped for an instant, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on her indifferent eyes, her cold, composed face.

Shen Qingwu landed, a burning pain flaring in her shoulder and palm, drawing a faint, sharp breath from her, her elbow trembling.

Yang Su called out, “Everyone stay back… this tower’s about to come down!”

From the corner of her eye, Shen Qingwu saw Zhang Xingjian and Chang Lin, along with others she recognized and didn’t, helping to clear the shops below, persuading reluctant vendors to move away from the area.

She rolled her stiff shoulder and pushed herself up off the ground, finding herself unable to move properly for a moment.

Yang Su drew a sharp breath. “It’s coming down—”

A tremendous crash sounded from behind Shen Qingwu, the sea of lanterns and fire collapsing all at once as the tilting poles gave way, the whole structure folding in on itself in layers. A massive dragon, half a man’s height, holding a pearl in its jaws; seven immortal maidens scattering flowers… petals, silk ribbons, branches, wooden beams, ten thousand lanterns, all of it came crashing down.

The crowd looked up, stunned into stillness by the magnificent collapse of the great lantern tower.

The onlookers who’d come to see the lanterns, still arguing with the guards trying to hold them back, heard the crash and, struck with awe, watched together as the sparks burst outward, blazing violently, a riot of five-colored light.

Yang Su and Chang Lin shouted urgently, warning the crowd back. “Stay back! Careful!”

Anxiously, they scanned the direction of the collapsing tower, and, seeing no one caught beneath it — only the blurred shape of Shen Qingwu — let out a breath of relief.

With General Shen’s skill, she could surely handle herself.

Shen Qingwu walked out of the firelight; the tower’s collapse behind her stirred nothing in her, but the pain wracking her body was another matter. Still, after her years in the army, she was well used to such injuries, well used to enduring whatever came unexpectedly.

Her legs felt like lead, each step heavy. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a tree off to one side, pinned under four fallen poles, its trunk splitting, tilting toward her.

Shen Qingwu couldn’t move out of the way in time.

She gathered her inner strength, prepared to simply take the blow head-on — at worst, another injury on top of the others; it wouldn’t kill her.

She waited, calm, for it to happen.

Suddenly, a hand reached out and caught her unsteady body.

Under ordinary circumstances, that grip might not have been enough to hold her — but in this moment, that hand, carrying with it a scent like clear moonlight, pulled her into an embrace, and she found herself pressed against his shoulder.

The man, holding her limp, strengthless body, spun once on the ground before steadying himself, keeping the two of them from being crushed by the falling tree.

Shen Qingwu lifted her eyes, damp with sweat.

She saw a jaw pale as jade, a taut throat, white robes with blue trim flying in the wind. In the next instant, the umbrella shop beside the tree collapsed, and a cascade of open, multicolored umbrellas came tumbling down through the air, raining toward the two of them.

This young lord, still holding her, turned their bodies to shield her, taking the brunt of the falling umbrellas himself.

He tried to push her away; Shen Qingwu, instead, caught his hand in hers, refusing to let him be buried beneath them.

And so Shen Qingwu ended up kneeling on the ground, umbrella after open umbrella falling and piling up before her like rain, blocking her view entirely. She herself remained completely unharmed, untouched by any further falling umbrella.

The hand Shen Qingwu held was pale, slender, its finger bones and wrist bones as finely shaped as carved jade, exquisitely beautiful.

She stayed still for a moment, dazed, then reached out and began pushing aside the umbrellas piled before her.

The umbrellas came away lightly, one by one, and the dazzling, riotous world beyond emerged again, layers of lantern-light flickering on and off. Shen Qingwu pushed aside the last umbrella.

Following the direction of the hand she held, her gaze slowly rose.

The umbrella’s surface bore an elegant painted design, lantern-light catching on it — and there, kneeling behind that last umbrella, was Zhang Xingjian. As she pushed it aside, he slowly lifted his damp, ink-black eyes—

His whole being was clean, unearthly, drifting like moonlight itself.

His brow furrowed faintly, enduring some pain he didn’t voice, and yet his expression remained gentle, composed. Seeing her pale face, a flicker of light passed through his eyes.

The air went still for an instant.

Zhang Xingjian began to draw his hand back.

Just as their fingertips were about to part, Shen Qingwu, pulling herself back from some dazed, distant place, abruptly knelt forward instead, catching his hand once more.

The distant melody drifted, faint and near by turns, lantern-light and umbrella-shadow shifting across their faces.

Their eyes met.

Shen Qingwu spoke: “Zhang Xingjian.”

Her voice was hoarse. “What is that song?”

In the stillness, in the space of a single breath, Zhang Xingjian somehow understood, in that instant, exactly what she was asking.

Under the blazing intensity of her gaze, even his own thoughts scattered for a brief moment.

Amid the flowing lantern-light, as though in a daze, he repeated the words of that distant tune: a hundred years pass in a flash, all of it fleeting as flowers in a mirror, the moon on water — a person no more lasting than smoke, lost and bewildered in the sea of the world — a reflection in a wine cup, a moon at the bottom of the sea — come, let us drink and sing, let us burn through our youth while we still can.

Beneath the winter moon, before the ruined lantern tower, Shen Qingwu stared at Zhang Xingjian without blinking, the blood beneath her heart slowly beginning to boil —

Come, let us drink and sing — let us burn through our youth while we still can!