The cloaked assassins who burst from the dark forest were formidable indeed.

The moment Shen Qingwu crossed blades with them, she felt a private jolt of alarm—these were the most dangerous enemies she’d encountered on the entire journey escorting Shen Qingye back from the south.

Ordinary opponents were nothing more than street thugs and the like. How could they compare to these people?

These men… could they be the legendary assassins spoken of in rumor?

Blows rained down on her from every direction, forcing Shen Qingwu back until she stumbled against a tree trunk. Standing far off by the carriage, watching, Shen Qingye went pale with fright, trembling all over, terrified her cousin might lose.

But then Shen Qingwu flipped through the air and dropped into a kneeling crouch amid the fallen leaves. Leaves scattered, red and yellow staining the whole dark night, and when she lifted her head, her eyes blazed with fierce fire—the bloodlust that had been stirred awake in her.

Shen Qingwu had trained in the martial arts since childhood, but she had always fought alone, had never met a truly formidable opponent. Weren’t tonight’s enemies exactly the test she’d been waiting for?

Off to the side, Shen Qingye could barely follow the blur of motion, her heart pounding wildly. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in fear, gripping the carriage shaft, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible.

“Sister!”

She didn’t know how much time had passed before Shen Qingye, her blood roaring in her ears fit to scorch her insides, heard a voice calling from somewhere far off. She forced her eyes open and saw a long, strong hand reach out and cover her eyes.

She caught the smell of blood on her cousin.

She heard Shen Qingwu’s voice: “Don’t look. Get in the carriage.”

Shen Qingye asked, trembling, “Cousin, what happened to those men?”

Without blinking, Shen Qingwu glanced once at the blood-soaked ground. “They’ve all gone under the earth.”

Shen Qingye bit her lip, thinking her cousin surely meant “gone to the other side.”

Heavy with worry, she climbed into the carriage. A while later, Shen Qingwu carried up the pale young man who had been buried beneath the fallen leaves.

Sitting to the side, Shen Qingye watched her cousin work—watched her kneel on the ground mat and check the young man’s pulse. “He’s breathing,” Shen Qingwu said.

Shen Qingye was glad to hear it too. “I have plenty of medicine for treating wounds. We can use it on him.”

But Shen Qingwu, having just carried the young man into the carriage, turned back at these words, puzzled. “We’re going to save him?”

Shen Qingye blinked, startled—wasn’t that what her cousin wanted to do?

She heard her cousin’s flat tone, speaking of the young man as though he were already a corpse: “He’s being hunted down. He’s trouble. If we save him, with how weak your body is, if the enemy spots us, it’ll be dangerous.”

Shen Qingye let out a breath and said softly, “Cousin, saving a life is worth more than building seven pagodas. You came a thousand li to bring me home to Bianjing—can’t you bring one more person along too?”

Hearing this, Shen Qingwu lowered her head and offered no more objection, taking a cloth and wiping the dust from the young man’s face.

The side of Shen Qingwu’s downcast face looked serene, almost cold.

Shen Qingwu said, “If you want me to save him, then I’ll save him.”

Shen Qingye blinked, thinking this wasn’t really how it had gone—it wasn’t her decision. But remembering her cousin’s unusually cold and withdrawn temperament, she said nothing more, quietly accepting this version of events, that it had been her own wish to save him.

She only hoped her choice wouldn’t bring danger down on them both.

Shen Qingye soon came to regret that decision.

The two of them tended to the young man for a day, only to be pursued by wave after wave of assassins. The last time the killers caught up with them, Shen Qingye was nearly struck badly by a sword and fainted.

When she woke, Shen Qingwu told her, quite seriously, that they would need to part ways: “It’s less than five li to Bianjing now. I’ll leave you the carriage—I’ve hired a driver who looks trustworthy to take you the rest of the way.

“I’ll leave you this dagger too. If you run into trouble, use it to kill whoever it is.”

Alarmed, Shen Qingye coughed even as she pleaded, “Come back to Bianjing with me. It was my fault—I shouldn’t have asked you to save him. Are you going to go on the run with him? Cousin, those assassins… they’re too strong. We’ve already done more than enough. Just leave him.”

Shen Qingwu said, “We already saved him.”

Her cousin cried for a long while, but it did nothing to soften Shen Qingwu’s cold resolve.

Only then did Shen Qingye realize just how stubborn her cousin truly was.

Shen Qingye had no choice but to settle for a compromise: “Then find him somewhere safe to stay, and don’t travel with him yourself. I’ll wait for you in Bianjing. If you don’t come back, I won’t take my medicine.”

A lost, bewildered light flickered in Shen Qingwu’s eyes again: what did it matter to her whether her cousin took her medicine or not?

She pressed her lips together. “Your safety matters to the Shen family.”

Shen Qingye countered, “But to me, Cousin, you matter too.”

Never having been valued like this before, Shen Qingwu stared blankly at her beautiful cousin for a long moment. Under her cousin’s insistent gaze, she slowly nodded, promising she wouldn’t throw everything away on a single reckless gamble.

After that, Shen Qingwu efficiently saw her cousin off, then set out with the still-unconscious young man.

She found a village hidden behind a stretch of forest at the foot of the mountains.

The assassins were closing in from behind. The young man, burning with fever and unconscious, needed treatment; she needed to draw the enemy away to give him a chance at survival. The killers pursuing her would assume she was fleeing with the young man in tow, and would likely overlook this village entirely.

Shen Qingwu leapt down from her horse and laid the young man beside a dry well at the village entrance.

Dawn was near. When the kindhearted villagers came down to draw water, they would find him. Surely, among ordinary folk in this world, someone would be willing to help him find a doctor.

Shen Qingwu knelt on the ground, leaning close to his cheeks flushed red with fever, and blew away a speck of dust caught on his lashes. His lashes were so long that the puff of breath made them curl slightly.

He seemed to sense it—his lashes trembled faintly, his closed eyes forming a dark, curved arc, the eyes beneath struggling fiercely.

Shen Qingwu waited quietly for a moment, but he still did not wake.

For no reason at all, a thread of disappointment rose in her chest.

In the pale dawn light, she studied him for a long while.

Then she moved.

She patted herself down, searching for some token to leave behind. But she traveled light and had never cared for carrying unnecessary things. After a while, she finally pulled a handkerchief from her waist and stuffed it, somewhat carelessly, into the collar of the young man’s robe.

Embroidered on the handkerchief, stroke by careful stroke, was the character “Shen.”

It was the handkerchief her family’s governess had ordered her to finish embroidering within half a year, saying this was the proper work of a young lady. The governess said that if she finished it well, the mistress of the Shen household might come to like her a little more.

Shen Qingwu never believed a handkerchief could change the matriarch’s attitude toward her, but it was what the governess expected of her, so she went along with it, for now.

Shen Qingwu reached out a finger and poked the young man’s cheek, somewhat bored. “…Qingye told me to leave. If you’re still being hunted, take this handkerchief and go to the Shen family for help.

“But don’t say it was me who saved you. If they know it was me, no one will help you.”

She knew he couldn’t hear her—it was only some faint stirring of pity that made her talk to herself like this.

Mist crept through the forest behind her. Shen Qingwu rose, leapt onto her horse, and rode off to deal with the assassins.

The horse kicked up dust. The young man she’d left behind trembled, struggling with great difficulty to crack open his eyes.

Badly wounded and delirious with fever, his vision swam with scattered silver light; dimly, he made out a figure riding away on horseback, wrapped in a haze of falling yellow leaves.

After that brief moment of clarity, he sank back into unconsciousness.

Several days later, having shaken off the assassins, Shen Qingwu returned to the village at the foot of the mountain. The villagers claimed they had never seen any wounded young man.

Baffled, Shen Qingwu circled the area near the village several times but found nothing. She had no choice but to leave, returning to Bianjing to make sure Shen Qingye was safe.

The rest of the journey passed without incident.

When Shen Qingwu arrived back at the Shen residence in Bianjing, she learned her cousin had already returned and had been asking after her the whole time. But worn out from the journey and already frail, Shen Qingye had fallen ill the moment she arrived.

The household servants were all busy tending to the newly arrived young lady; no one paid Shen Qingwu any mind upon her return. Only because Shen Qingye kept asking about her did the servants bother to greet Shen Qingwu at all, and even then with the barest, most perfunctory courtesy: “The family has good news coming soon. Second Miss, don’t go causing trouble.”

The Shen family’s garden estate wound with pavilions and terraces, jagged rockeries, jade-green lake water, strings of pearls clinking softly, and canna lilies blooming in vivid color. Boundless wealth and luxury belonged to the Shen family; the household was hung with festive lanterns and colored silk, every face bright with joy.

Shen Qingwu guessed something good must have happened at home—

Had the war been won? Had the Shen family been honored by the court? Had someone been promoted?

No one paid her any attention. Shen Qingwu supposed she ought to go pay her respects to the head of the household and check on her cousin.

After a maid announced her, Shen Qingwu had barely stepped over the threshold when the matriarch, mid-conversation inside, turned and scolded her—

“What are you here for? Your cousin came home and fell ill—is this the result of your so-called care? Why didn’t you come back together with her? Where did you go running off to this time? You have no sense of propriety at all.”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

Seeing her like this only irritated the matriarch further: such cold silence, unable to get a single word out of her in ten tries—just like that mother of hers who’d died so young!

Shen Qingwu’s father coughed pointedly from the side, and only then did Madam Shen grudgingly soften her tone: “The Shen family is arranging a marriage alliance with the Zhang family. The Zhang family’s third son is coming to our house to consider a bride. Someone as ill-mannered as you had better stay quietly in your quarters and not go running around.”

Shen Qingwu asked, “Is that the Zhang Xingjian who succeeded in the negotiations?”

Madam Shen snapped sharply, “What business is that of yours?! Don’t ask so many questions.”

Her father spoke up gently, “Now, that’s not quite fair to say. The Zhang family hasn’t said which young lady they’ll be considering. Qingwu is also an unmarried daughter of this household…”

Madam Shen gave a cold laugh. “Her? Who would ever want her?”

Shen Qingwu pressed her lips together and lowered her head once more.

Zhang Xingjian, in truth, had not yet returned to Bianjing.

He woke in a post station near the capital, where his guards, led by Chang Lin, were already there to pay their respects and congratulate him on regaining consciousness.

Chang Lin said, “Rest easy, Third Young Master. By putting yourself at risk and drawing those assassins out, we were able to follow the trail and find the evidence… The evidence is solid. Chancellor Kong will have to answer for this.”

Zhang Xingjian nodded, smiling faintly.

The young master, fair and elegant, sat wrapped in his robes at the edge of the bed with an air of detached calm that left the guards following him utterly convinced of his worth.

Chang Lin glanced up for a moment, a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

He said, “There’s something strange, though. We followed the markers, but we didn’t find you in the original grove. We thought something had happened to you—things didn’t add up… but in the end, we found you unconscious at the entrance to a village at the foot of the mountain, outside that forest.

“Does Third Young Master remember what happened?”

Something shifted in Zhang Xingjian’s eyes.

He suddenly reached out and pulled a grimy handkerchief from within his robe.

Someone had gotten there before the men he’d arranged, and had saved him.

Zhang Xingjian’s dark, glass-clear eyes flickered faintly as he thought back to the hazy fragments of memory from his time unconscious. Parasol leaves drifting like yellow butterflies, a young figure leaping onto a horse and riding away—

That night, the Milky Way had fallen, and looking up, he had seen the parasol trees.