The mountain had turned to snow, master and servant walking to the mountain pass.

Chang Lin was stunned by Zhang Xingjian’s confession, not knowing how to react.

Zhang Xingjian said, “At sixteen, Shen Qingwu had probably truly lost faith in people’s hearts.”

But apart from Shen Qingwu herself, no one else could have known this. And as for Shen Qingwu herself… how could she even understand her own heart?

Zhang Xingjian gave a faint smile.

He gazed at the swirling snow and said slowly, “I once helped build the shackles upon her heart, brick by brick. So one day, it should also be me who unlocks those shackles, and gives her true freedom.”

Freedom…

Chang Lin asked, “Does that mean you still intend to let Shen Qingwu go free?”

He watched Zhang Xingjian smile without answering.

Chang Lin felt something was off. “No, that’s not right. You’re not that kind of person… Young Master, I don’t understand. You say you love Shen Qingwu, and then you say you want to give her complete freedom. What is it you actually want?”

Snow clung to Zhang Xingjian’s lowered, thick lashes. “I want Shen Qingwu to marry me.”

The words landed like a thunderclap out of nowhere.

They struck Chang Lin so hard he could not recover for a moment.

Chang Lin: “Huh?”

Zhang Xingjian laughed. “Huh what? Did you think that when I said I loved her, I wouldn’t consider the consequences? I don’t make deals with no chance of success.”

Chang Lin thought Zhang Xingjian had lost his mind. “Third Young Master, what are you thinking? Given the state of the Zhang Family—who in the entire household, from top to bottom, would be satisfied with Shen Qingwu as the lady of the house? The Zhang Family would never agree to this marriage. Need I even mention how stubborn the Second Young Lady Zhang is? And what happened with Bo Shuai back then… it left the Zhang Family terrified to this day!

“Your family already believes Shen Qingwu isn’t suited to be the lady of the house. If they also come to believe you’re letting your feelings ruin the family, letting what happened with Bo Shuai happen all over again… I think the Second Young Lady would go mad.

“Your family’s elders would rather kill themselves in front of you than allow this to happen.”

Zhang Xingjian smiled faintly.

He said quietly, “This is exactly why I couldn’t choose Shen Qingwu back then.”

The Zhang Family was too afraid that the young master they had so carefully groomed would ruin everything for a woman. They were too afraid that Shen Qingwu would become a second Li Linge, and bring the family unbearable grief.

Zhang Rong was a demon the family could never escape. From top to bottom, all the Zhang Family wanted was a young master rational and composed enough to be trusted.

The world wanted the moon to hang cold and distant in the sky.

No one wanted to see the moon descend to earth, chasing after someone.

A moon that belonged to no one was the best kind of moon.

Zhang Xingjian understood this perfectly well.

Wind and snow fell on his shoulders. Zhang Xingjian walked on slowly, pressing his fingers to his brow, his tone calm and mild. “So this matter must be approached slowly, step by step.”

By now Chang Lin wasn’t sure whether Zhang Xingjian still had his wits about him.

Chang Lin pressed, “Slowly, step by step—how exactly?”

Zhang Xingjian said, “You seem to have forgotten—aside from my family’s elders never agreeing to let me marry Shen Qingwu, Shen Qingwu herself has no wish to marry me either. She said she wanted nothing to do with me, not even the smallest connection, and that she would never marry me. If she broke that oath, may she be struck by lightning and denied rebirth.”

Chang Lin: “Ah.”

Chang Lin said, “Isn’t that just an oath?”

Zhang Xingjian said, “But Second Young Lady Shen means what she says.”

Having been held captive by her for so many days, he understood her temperament better and better. And the better he understood her, the more he realized just how fierce that oath of hers had truly been.

In other words, Shen Qingwu only wanted to play.

She sought nothing lasting, and refused any future.

She always used such extreme methods against him, precisely because she had never once considered being with him. She acted purely according to her own will—his feelings for her had never been part of her calculations.

This truly was a difficult matter.

Zhang Xingjian smiled faintly.

Chang Lin scolded him. “And you can still smile.”

Zhang Xingjian spread his hands. “Well, I can hardly cry about it.”

Chang Lin said, “Neither side agrees to the marriage—only you are burning with one-sided passion, and yet you want both the Zhang Family and Shen Qingwu to nod along. What are you thinking? You’re working hard for nothing.”

Zhang Xingjian smiled bitterly.

He only said, “…I still have to try. I haven’t completely lost to anyone yet. Perhaps this matter, too, I can still make succeed. And if not, then at least I’ll learn something from it. Either way is fine.”

Though he spoke so philosophically, Chang Lin knew that once Zhang Xingjian decided to do something, he would throw himself into it completely.

Chang Lin couldn’t talk him out of it.

He only said, “The Second Young Lady is going to be heartbroken over this.”

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes curved into a faint smile. “Why would she be? I’m still the younger brother she trusts most.”

Chang Lin said, “But isn’t Shen Qingwu supposed to return to Yizhou by next March? It’s already the twelfth month now—there’s less than four months left… Would Shen Qingwu really agree to marry you?”

Zhang Xingjian answered honestly, “Probably not.”

Chang Lin: “…”

He watched Zhang Xingjian, his face pale, resting his chin on his hand as he thought, smiling faintly. “Let’s start with a simple goal—getting General Shen to return to the Eastern Capital with me.

“The Jinwu Guard in the Eastern Capital has long been lacking a capable Commander of the Palace Command.”

The Palace Command was one of the Three Bureaus of the Great Zhou dynasty, an office overseeing the imperial guards. The Commander of the Palace Command was its highest-ranking officer—effectively the supreme commander of the Jinwu Guard as well.

For Shen Qingwu, this would amount to a promotion.

But whether Shen Qingwu would be willing to leave Yizhou, to leave Bo Rong, to go to the Eastern Capital just to see more of Zhang Xingjian—that was an entirely different matter.

Besides, Zhang Xingjian was no emperor. He couldn’t simply declare who would command the imperial guards.

Chang Lin said, “Young Master, good luck with that.”

Zhang Xingjian blinked.

Whether it was Chang Lin’s imagination or not, the further they walked through the snow, the paler Zhang Xingjian’s face seemed to grow.

At first Chang Lin assumed it was the old injury from falling into the icy water and being struck by falling ice, flaring up again. But in the dim light, Zhang Xingjian’s face had turned an alarming white, his lips growing bluer by the moment.

This sort of symptom…

While Chang Lin was still lost in thought, Zhang Xingjian turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood.

The elegant, refined young master swayed and began to collapse. Chang Lin reached out to catch him, and the two of them knelt together in the snow. He felt for Zhang Xingjian’s pulse—it was wildly erratic.

Chang Lin: “What’s going on?”

Even with his face this ashen, Zhang Xingjian slowly drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped the blood from his lips, his expression composed. His calm kept Chang Lin from panicking further.

Zhang Xingjian murmured thoughtfully, “So that’s how it is.”

Chang Lin: “What?”

Zhang Xingjian thought aloud, “This must be the effect of the ‘Heartbound Gu.'”

Chang Lin had no idea what he meant.

Zhang Xingjian then asked Chang Lin if he remembered the pill Shen Qingwu had fed him atop the carriage canopy at the cliff.

At the time, Zhang Xingjian had been forced to swallow it—but Shen Qingwu had taken one as well.

Zhang Xingjian had been turning that pill over in his mind ever since. It had seemed familiar to him, and eventually he remembered: there had once been a day when Shen Qingwu had gazed longingly at the “Heartbound Gu” in the hands of a young woman from the Miao borderlands.

Zhang Xingjian had seen that wooden box that day, had seen those two pills.

When he saw the same box and the same two pills in Shen Qingwu’s hands again, he quickly connected them to the “Heartbound Gu” he had once refused.

So it was true—whatever Shen Qingwu wanted, she would get, even behind his back.

Listening to Zhang Xingjian explain all this so calmly left Chang Lin utterly confused. “So what do we do? You’ve been cursed with a gu? Are you feeling unwell anywhere? Could it be that everything you just said, about loving Shen Qingwu…”

Was all of it caused by the “Heartbound Gu”?

Zhang Xingjian laughed. “Chang Lin, how could there possibly exist a gu in this world that completely controls another person, that makes someone fall in love with you? If a gu could change someone’s very nature—turning not-love into love, turning someone who despises you into someone infatuated with you—then would the person under its influence still have the capacity for independent thought? Would they even still be a person?”

Chang Lin said, “In that case, they’d be nothing more than a walking corpse, a puppet.”

He felt reassured—looking at his young master, there was nothing about him that resembled a controlled puppet.

Chang Lin asked, “So then what does this Heartbound Gu actually do?”

Zhang Xingjian said, “I’ve been guessing at its function. I thought—if a drug can’t control someone’s heart, perhaps it can control their body instead. For instance, when the child gu draws near the mother gu, perhaps the heartbeat becomes uncontrollable, pulled together like magnets, producing desire, and the person becomes controlled by that desire, infatuated with whoever holds the mother gu.

“I spent so long with Shen Qingwu in that cave. I didn’t notice any sudden, uncontrollable longing rising in me. I didn’t turn into some raving animal, nor did I suddenly find everything about her pleasing beyond reason. So that guess must be wrong.

“Then I thought—assuming the girl from the Miao borderlands hadn’t lied to Shen Qingwu, the mother and child gu must be connected somehow. If the connection isn’t magnetic in nature, then it must be related to distance, or to time. So I tried taking you on a walk through the mountains, to see how far or how long I could stay away from Shen Qingwu.”

Only then did Chang Lin understand—this entire trek through the snowy mountains had been his young master’s calculated plan from the very start.

Chang Lin turned to look at the mountain path behind them, buried and unrecognizable beneath the snow.

The snow mist stretched endlessly, the mountain road treacherous—and without either of them quite realizing it, they were nearly out of the mountains.

Was the range of this “Heartbound Gu” really only enough to last this short a distance, out of the mountains?

Chang Lin said, “No wonder you want Shen Qingwu to go to the Eastern Capital—it’s because you can’t bear to be far from her now.”

Zhang Xingjian fell silent.

Even Chang Lin took that silence as confirmation.

Zhang Xingjian explained, “That’s not quite it… Chang Lin, this pain is like being gnawed by ants—the farther the distance, the more intense it becomes. In truth, I started feeling it some time ago… but did you notice anything?”

Chang Lin studied his young master’s pale, elegant face.

Chang Lin muttered, “If you hadn’t coughed up blood, I still wouldn’t have noticed.”

Zhang Xingjian nodded. “So you see—as long as I’m willing to endure it, this pain isn’t enough to stop me from walking on. I want Shen Qingwu to come back to the Eastern Capital with me because I love her, not because I can’t bear to be apart from her.

“If I truly wanted to distance myself from her, this bit of physical pain wouldn’t matter to me at all.”

He wiped the blood from his lips and, leaning on Chang Lin’s support, stood up. Chang Lin examined him for any further signs of distress, while Zhang Xingjian silently calculated in his mind the range of the Heartbound Gu’s effect.

Chang Lin said, “If the distance is too great, it really could be fatal. Young Master, you truly need to stay close to Shen Qingwu from now on—you can’t leave with the rest of us again.”

Zhang Xingjian nodded.

Chang Lin added, “Then the gu needs to be undone too.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Correct. So you go after that girl from the Miao borderlands. We’ll meet in Mianzhou.”

Chang Lin had nothing to say.

His young master had already thought everything through, planned it all out in advance. What could he do?—

Five days later, a pair of ailing souls sat together in a carriage bound for Mianzhou.

Shen Qingwu sat with her arms crossed, her back rigid against the carriage wall.

Her face was flushed red as sunset from fever, her lips cracked and peeling. Dressed in men’s clothing, her long hair carelessly tied back in a ponytail, she looked, at that moment, undeniably frail.

Yet Zhang Xingjian had no doubt whatsoever that, if necessary, Shen Qingwu would still find the strength to slit his throat before taking her own life.

Ever since she had woken, Shen Qingwu had refused to let Zhang Xingjian come near her. When he tried to comb her hair, she pressed a finger to his throat. When he tried to change her bandages, she glared at him with a cold, threatening look.

Compared to her current state, Zhang Xingjian, having reunited with his own men, looked immaculate from head to toe.

He had regained his refined, almost otherworldly good looks, which made an odd match with Shen Qingwu’s rough, haggard appearance. Yet when they lodged somewhere for the night, he naturally introduced them as husband and wife.

Shen Qingwu’s throat was sore and hoarse, and she had never been one for talking much to begin with—now she stayed even more silent.

She had agreed to make this trip with Zhang Xingjian because he had said, “You do want to help Bo Rong, don’t you? Once we’ve uncovered the truth, it won’t be too late to kill me.”

Zhang Xingjian said softly, “After all, I can’t leave your side right now, can I?”

Shen Qingwu showed no reaction at all.

Zhang Xingjian understood then that she likely still had no idea what the Heartbound Gu truly did. If it really were the deadliest poison in the world and it ended up killing him, she wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of regret.

She’d probably think he deserved it.

When the two of them arrived back in Mianzhou, Zhang Xingjian had the driver take them straight to the governor’s residence.

Shen Qingwu was startled.

Zhang Xingjian got out of the carriage first, then turned and offered his hand. “Wutong…”

She lifted the carriage curtain and jumped down herself, ignoring his outstretched hand entirely. She turned to look at him instead, her gaze silently asking: what are we doing here?

The guards in front of the governor’s residence, confused by the pair’s attire, politely asked Zhang Xingjian, “Young Master, is this… your guard?”

A female guard was a rare sight indeed.

Rarer still was a female guard who paid the young master no attention whatsoever, staring instead at the plaque above the residence gate.

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes flickered, and he smiled. “This is the world-renowned female general, Shen Qingwu.”

As everyone gasped in surprise, Shen Qingwu whipped her head around to glare at him: what did he mean, revealing her identity like that? What sort of trap was he setting for her now?

Zhang Xingjian explained quietly, “Governor Chen is a fellow disciple of mine and knows my family background well. I can lie to ordinary people and say you’re my wife, but I can’t fool Governor Chen. He’ll go straight to the Zhang Family to check. Besides, it’s not as though you, my Wutong, can’t be seen in public. Officials greeting each other is nothing unusual.”

Shen Qingwu frowned.

Her throat ached, she had a fever, and every part of her body hurt—she couldn’t even tell which injury was worse anymore.

So she chose not to speak, not to get angry, not to wear herself out further over Zhang Xingjian. And yet she couldn’t understand—by what right did he keep calling her “Wutong”?

Was that even her name?

Zhang Xingjian, in truth, rather liked her like this. He reached out to take her hand, meaning to lead the way.

He saw a faint gleam in Shen Qingwu’s eyes.

She refused to let him take her hand, but deigned to speak anyway, her voice hoarse and cracked like a broken gong, enough to make the guards listening think she was on the verge of death.

Shen Qingwu said, “Are you going to start lying to me seriously now?”

Zhang Xingjian: “…”

Fire burned in her eyes as she walked past him. “Bring it on. I can’t wait.”

Zhang Xingjian: “…”

All his tenderness, in her hands, had somehow taken on the effect of a declaration of war. His affection only stoked her fighting spirit. She loved to spar, loved to fight—even sick as she was, she was ready to meet any challenge head-on.

Zhang Xingjian sighed.

No matter. He’d expected as much. He would simply keep trying—

Governor Chen received the Great Zhou’s one and only female general in his bamboo hall.

Everyone knew that the Yizhou army had such a remarkable figure, one who had stirred no end of controversy at court. The Princess Imperial had single-handedly withstood the pressure of the entire court of officials just to keep Shen Qingwu as a female general—how could that not make people curious about who this Shen Qingwu really was?

Now, seeing her in person…

Governor Chen felt somewhat disappointed.

Was this frail, sickly figure really the formidable female general everyone spoke of?

Zhang Xingjian gently prompted from the side, “Governor Chen, shouldn’t you tell us everything that happened that day?”

Governor Chen said, “Oh—oh, yes.”

Zhang Xingjian’s men had visited a few days earlier, so Governor Chen already knew the purpose of this visit. He had been deeply unsettled ever since learning of Bo Lao San’s death that day.

Governor Chen invited the two of them to sit and summoned the officials who had met with Shen Qingwu that day.

The men who arrived bowed in greeting and recounted the events of that day: “Miss Shen, do you remember—that day, a rider came to tell us the plan had changed, that the governor was summoning us? We returned to the government office and found the governor had never summoned us, and there had been no change to the plan at all.

“We realized something was wrong with that rider and hurried back to find you, Miss—but we saw the explosion on the mountain and assumed you must have died in the fire.”

A flicker crossed Shen Qingwu’s eyes.

The governor then summoned the craftsman who made gunpowder, and the two of them corroborated each other’s accounts, bringing out the ash and debris collected from the mountain for everyone to examine.

The gunpowder maker said, “The bandits on that mountain had someone buying gunpowder from me, off and on, for years now. The fire from that explosion matches what I make…”

The governor produced a portrait.

Shen Qingwu recognized the man in it—it was the rider from that day.

The craftsman pointed at the portrait and exclaimed, “That’s him! He’s the one who bought gunpowder from me, every few months. What I make is only meant for demolishing houses—I was uneasy at the time, worried they’d use it for something terrible. But nothing ever happened, so I kept doing business with them. Never imagined… ah.”

Shen Qingwu understood the whole picture now.

She listened quietly—

By the time they left the governor’s residence, it was already time for the midday meal.

Zhang Xingjian arranged a restaurant, though Shen Qingwu couldn’t have cared less. She expected only a simple meal—but instead, the moment they entered the private dining room, a group of guards pushed the door open and filed in.

The guards cupped their hands in salute to Shen Qingwu. “General Shen!”

Shen Qingwu shot to her feet.

She saw that the man leading them was Chang Lin.

After greeting her, Chang Lin gave her a wink, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

But Shen Qingwu never could read Chang Lin’s little signals.

Seated at the table, Zhang Xingjian said gently, “General Shen, these men number forty-nine in total—my sworn retainers, who have followed me through life and death for many years.

“I own a pawnshop, which you’ve seen before. That shop is how I communicate with them—every operation has a code word. Without the code, there’s no action.

“Aside from these men, I keep no other sworn retainers.

“Chang Lin, tell General Shen what you all were doing on the fifth day of the twelfth month.”

By now Shen Qingwu understood exactly what Zhang Xingjian was doing—he was proving to her that he hadn’t been behind the attempt to harm her.

He knew she didn’t believe his sweet words, so he was letting the evidence speak instead.

Chang Lin stood there in the room and rattled off an account, producing the records of their movements that day, then explained a few of their code words to Shen Qingwu.

But Shen Qingwu wasn’t really listening closely.

She only needed to know what Zhang Xingjian was up to.

What puzzled her was—why was he doing all this?

Chang Lin and his men hadn’t died—hadn’t they had the chance to flee? Was Zhang Xingjian too frightened by her to try running again? Or was it something else…

A flicker crossed Shen Qingwu’s eyes as she thought of the pill she had fed Zhang Xingjian.

She thought: could the “Heartbound Gu” really be working this fast? Was that what had already changed Zhang Xingjian’s mind?

That pill had been worth every coin she’d—

Zhang Xingjian said earnestly, “That pill wasn’t worth a single coin, for what it’s worth.”

Shen Qingwu snapped back to attention at his words. She looked at him coldly. The retainers had already left the room; only Zhang Xingjian remained at the table, chin propped on his hand, smiling as he watched her.

He seemed to have seen right through what she was thinking, and offered that remark in response.

Shen Qingwu thought: you don’t know a damn thing.

She continued to ignore him.

The current state of things had, in some ways, returned to how it had been years ago—back when Zhang Xingjian would tease her endlessly trying to get her to talk, and she wouldn’t utter a single word.

Shen Qingwu really was a stubborn, hard-headed block of wood—no matter how he teased her, she simply wouldn’t respond.

Zhang Xingjian tapped the table, sighing helplessly. “Second Young Lady Shen, do eat. We still have to get back on the road soon.”

At those words…

Shen Qingwu deliberately began eating as slowly as possible.

Even starving, she took one bite, chewed it dozens of times, then took a sip of water, then paused again. Her dark eyes stayed fixed on Zhang Xingjian, radiating open defiance, as if to say, what are you going to do about it?

Zhang Xingjian: “…”

He couldn’t help but laugh.

When it came to provoking him, she truly had a natural talent.

But Shen Qingwu certainly had no idea just how good his temper actually was, far beyond what she imagined.

Between the two of them, who would win in the end—that remained to be seen—

That evening, at dusk, two li outside Mianzhou, Shen Qingwu and Zhang Xingjian stood before the gate of the temple where the girl from the Miao borderlands was lodging.

The girl opened the door to find the two of them standing there, and her face went pale with shock and fear.

She said stubbornly, “What do you want? I’m not giving the gold back! Absolutely not!”

Zhang Xingjian, his wide sleeves fluttering, bowed low. “My wife and I were only playing around, and she accidentally swallowed the child gu. We’ve come to ask you how to undo it—how could I possibly bear to let my wife suffer from the child gu?

“Might I ask—does this child gu carry any harmful effects?”

Shen Qingwu, standing beside him, thought silently: what a liar you are, Zhang Xingjian.

The girl from the Miao borderlands stared at Shen Qingwu in shock. “What? You two are married?”

Realizing she’d gotten distracted from the real issue, the girl quickly said, “You actually took the child gu? How could you be so foolish—didn’t I warn you?”

Shen Qingwu gave her a cold look.

She had no wish to speak. She wanted to see what Zhang Xingjian would do.

The girl kept glancing at Shen Qingwu with pity, and Shen Qingwu’s icy expression only reinforced her belief that this woman must truly have taken the wrong pill.

Otherwise, why would she look so unwell?

As for the young master—his face was practically glowing with spring warmth, no doubt the effect of the mother gu.

As long as they weren’t here to take back the gold, anything else could be worked out… The girl tried to comfort Shen Qingwu. “Don’t worry. If you’ve taken the child gu, as long as you and your husband don’t stay too far apart, there won’t be much harm.”

These words all but confirmed Zhang Xingjian’s guess.

They also left Shen Qingwu’s mind utterly blank.

Fighting through the pain in her throat, Shen Qingwu asked hoarsely, “Can’t be too far apart?”

Her face turned pale with fury—she had spent an entire tael of gold, emptying her savings, just for this?

Did she even need such an effect?

If she’d wanted Zhang Xingjian to stay close to her, she could have solved that with force—why would she ever pay money for it!

Shen Qingwu’s expression only made the girl think she was in shock.

The girl kept smiling. “You’re married, aren’t you? As long as your husband doesn’t travel far, the gu won’t be a problem at all.”

Shen Qingwu clenched her fists and stepped forward, clearly intent on throwing a punch.

She stared unblinking at the girl. “A heart aching like it’s being torn apart?”

The girl paled and stepped back. “If you’re too far from him, wouldn’t your heart ache like that, naturally?”

Shen Qingwu: “Yearning that sinks into your very bones?”

The girl: “If the pain becomes unbearable, and you think of him day and night—isn’t that yearning into your bones?”

Shen Qingwu: “Endless, helpless infatuation?”

The girl: “Well, you’d have to be together every single day, feelings growing over time… isn’t that infatuation?”

The girl said, gathering her courage, “I wasn’t lying!”

Zhang Xingjian hurried forward and wrapped his arms around Shen Qingwu from behind, keeping her from lashing out. He held her tightly, his breath brushing against her ear, his voice still carrying a hint of laughter.

“Wife, calm down. It wasn’t that much money after all…”

Shen Qingwu gritted her teeth. “Who’s your wife? Say that again and see what happens!”

Zhang Xingjian wisely fell silent.

The girl from the Miao borderlands cowered by the doorway, deeply wronged. She had told them from the very start that this pair of lovebirds had no need whatsoever for the “Heartbound Gu.” It was this woman who had insisted on using it—and now she was blaming her for the deception…