Investigating exactly how Shen Qingwu had saved Zhang Xingjian turned out to be no complicated matter.

A round trip of about ten li, a few questions asked, a handful of markers, a few key eyewitnesses.

The only novelty in this particular task was that Zhang Xingjian was handling it personally. Ordinarily, tedious little errands like this were left to his subordinates.

Chang Lin followed him, clearly wanting to say something but holding back.

By now dawn had broken. Standing before the small well at the entrance of the run-down village at the mountain’s foot, Zhang Xingjian gently wiped away the dust and fallen leaves gathered at the well’s rim.

Thin, golden sunlight fell across his lowered lashes.

His expression was calm and at ease, the corner of his mouth curved faintly, as though he were recalling the brief, dreamlike, beautiful scene he’d glimpsed during that fleeting moment of consciousness at dawn.

Now that it was confirmed Shen Qingwu truly had saved him—Chang Lin stepped forward. “Third Young Master…”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Let’s look further into what kind of person Shen Qingwu is.”

Chang Lin, surprised and puzzled, asked, “Is that really necessary?”

Zhang Xingjian turned his face slightly, smiling. “Do you think saving my life was such an easy thing to do?”

Chang Lin fell silent at that—true enough, a man as calculating and coldly detached as his young master wouldn’t easily give anyone the chance to save him. Becoming his rescuer, by pure coincidence, was no small feat.

And so Chang Lin followed Zhang Xingjian back to Bianjing, wandering with him through the streets and alleys, trying to understand what sort of person this Second Miss Shen really was.

The neighborhood folk had plenty to say, and clearly enjoyed saying it:

“That Shen Qingwu, the Shen family’s Second Miss—she’s a proper troublemaker, always has been. Wherever there’s a fight in Bianjing, she’s right there in the middle of it. How does a girl end up so scrappy?”

“Hmph, don’t talk to us about her! She nearly drowned my brother. If the Shen family hadn’t come and apologized, we’d have taken her straight to the Court of Judicial Review for attempted murder!”

“That girl, so young, so bold and fierce… but she never seems to know what she should and shouldn’t do. Always stirring up trouble.”

“Now don’t be so harsh on her… honestly, she’s a pitiful child too.”

From all this, Zhang Xingjian pieced together the shape of Shen Qingwu’s upbringing:

She had been born of a concubine, a birth that had shattered the once-devoted love between the master of the house and his wife. After the concubine died, the master grew timid and withdrawn, while the mistress despised the girl, treating her as though she didn’t exist.

At three years old, Shen Qingwu had once gotten lost in the streets of Bianjing; only her older brother had come looking for her.

Later, she’d taken up martial arts, but entirely on her own, with no one in the Shen household ever properly teaching her. The better her natural talent grew, the more trouble she seemed to cause with it, and the more everyone kept their distance from her.

Stubborn, tight-lipped, odd in temperament—the older she grew, the less anyone liked her. She’d once tried to build closer ties with her Shen cousins and siblings, but after being mocked and teased one too many times, she withdrew entirely, keeping to herself and ignoring everyone.

By now, Shen Qingwu had caused no shortage of trouble, big and small, across Bianjing. Some thought her reckless and hot-tempered; others pitied her, a child raised by no one, disciplined by no one.

Chang Lin let out a soft sigh.

Zhang Xingjian turned his head. “What’s that sigh for?”

Chang Lin said, “At first I thought she’d made a fool of you at the banquet, put you in an impossible spot—very ill-mannered. But now, hearing all this, she doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe she didn’t mean to embarrass you on purpose. Doesn’t my lord feel some sympathy for her?”

Zhang Xingjian raised an eyebrow.

He said, smiling faintly, “If anything, I envy her. She’s always had rather good luck.”

Chang Lin said, “…Good luck, how?”

Zhang Xingjian said, “People feel sympathy for her.”

Chang Lin, who had just been feeling exactly that sympathy, choked slightly at the remark. After his young master’s teasing jab, Zhang Xingjian slipped right back into his usual air of easy indifference.

Zhang Xingjian strolled unhurriedly down the long street, his robes swaying, carrying himself with elegant composure. Chang Lin caught up and heard him ask, “Shen Qingwu’s probably fairly well-known around Bianjing, isn’t she?”

Chang Lin said, “None of it good, though.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “She gets to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. What’s bad about that?”

Then, almost to himself, he murmured, “No wonder I’d never heard of her before.”

—So it had all just been bad reputation, then.

During all those years he’d spent confined to the old Zhang estate, never allowed to stray a single step, all those years he’d sat reading and studying as if peering at the sky from the bottom of a well—Shen Qingwu had perhaps been perched on some low wall in the marketplace, legs swinging, eating sweets and playing with a knife, watching it all with eyes both innocent and worldly-wise, thoroughly at ease.

That was a wide, open sky Zhang Xingjian, standing beneath the walls of the old estate, his neck aching from craning upward, had never once been able to see for himself.

He and she had grown up in entirely different worlds.

Shen Qingye slept poorly.

Two days had passed with no word of her cousin. Worried sick, and getting no answers no matter how she asked, she grew more and more anxious.

On her way to pay respects to Madam Shen at the main residence, Shen Qingye made an excuse to send her attending maid and nurse off to fetch medicine and a cloak. Once she was free of her escorts, she lifted her skirts, her heart pounding wildly, and went to find out where Shen Qingwu was being held.

Frail as she was, she was clever and quick-witted, and it wasn’t long before she overheard what she’d been dreading to hear.

Outside a stand of bamboo, she caught words that made her blood run cold:

“Damn, Second Miss Shen can really fight. We’d starved her for two days already, and even then, when we rushed her, we still couldn’t pin her down. If someone hadn’t had the sense to crack her over the head with a brick from behind, we’d never have caught her.”

“Madam sure knows how to handle Shen Qingwu, I’ll give her that. It’s just—she’s so stubborn. Won’t budge even facing death, won’t give up on Zhang Sanlang. That Zhang pretty-boy, if you ask me, isn’t even all that special. Why’s she so hung up on him?”

“Who cares, that’s just how she always is. Just keep hitting her till she breaks.”

Several servants were discussing the punishment they’d just carried out on Shen Qingwu, their tone a mix of excitement and unease.

Finally, one of them hesitated. “Judging by how things have gone before, Shen Qingwu’s never going to give in. In the past, it was always Madam who eventually gave up, with the Master smoothing things over and Eldest Young Master pleading her case, before Second Miss was ever let off… But this time, it’s about the Zhang family’s honor. There’s no way Madam backs down this time, is there?”

The others grew uneasy too.

They swallowed hard. “Are they really going to beat her to death?”

They finished talking and left, leaving Shen Qingye standing alone outside the bamboo grove, hand clamped over her mouth in disbelief, fighting back tears.

She’d thought the Shen family simply disliked her cousin, in the ordinary way. She hadn’t realized her aunt and uncle cared so little for her that her life meant nothing next to the family’s reputation and interests. She and her cousin were both nothing but ants in this household—but did no one, truly no one, care whether her cousin lived or died?

That the servants dared to gossip so freely about their masters behind their backs could only mean one thing: how low her cousin’s standing in this house truly was.

That fierce, formidable cousin of hers—who had traveled a thousand li to bring her safely to Bianjing, who had protected her the entire way—was she really being beaten and cursed and abused within her own family’s walls?

Shen Qingye stood in the bleak autumn wind, her face pale, feeling the season’s decay settling in, the coming bite of winter already in the air.

Tears clung to her lashes, gathering there like a thin layer of frost.

The young woman closed her eyes and silently begged: Mother, Father, if your spirits are watching over me, please, tell me what to do—how to protect my cousin, how to protect myself.

Shen Qingwu leaned her head against the wall, eyes closed, numb, enduring the ache in her body. She had just been through another beating from the Shen family’s servants, her head struck with a brick, leaving her thoughts a little muddled. She was somewhat hungry, somewhat thirsty, and at the moment found herself wondering: why hadn’t that brick knocked her out cold?

If she’d been knocked out, at least she wouldn’t feel hungry or thirsty.

Knock, knock, knock.

Three taps against the wall.

Shen Qingwu assumed she was imagining it—the servants had only just left, they couldn’t possibly be back so soon. Her brother had come by that morning too; it couldn’t be him at this hour either.

A thin, frightened, urgent voice came from outside: “Sister—Qingwu, sister, are you in there?”

Shen Qingwu blinked and opened her eyes. Nothing but darkness. She could see nothing at all.

She tried to place the voice…

Shen Qingye’s soft voice came again from outside: “Sister, are you badly hurt? Is it true you won’t take back what you said, won’t retract it?”

Shen Qingwu remembered now: this was Shen Qingye.

She pressed her lips together, thinking: had Qingye come to try to talk her into recanting too? Everyone said Shen Qingye was so kind and gentle—surely, having ruined her cousin’s engagement, Shen Qingye must despise her by now.

But privately, Shen Qingwu thought: I didn’t steal anything from her. I saved a man’s life. I did nothing wrong.

Let Shen Qingye think and say whatever she wanted. If she turned out to be just as cutting and sarcastic as the servants, Shen Qingwu decided she’d simply pretend not to hear, and ignore her.

Creeeak—

The stone wall slowly began to turn, inch by inch sliding open.

Startled, Shen Qingwu looked up. Harsh sunlight poured in from outside; she raised a hand to cover one eye. With the other, she saw Shen Qingye standing there, one hand pressed against a brick in the wall, eyes brimming with tears, gazing at her with joy.

Shen Qingye’s joy faltered for a moment when she caught sight of the blood on her cousin, and she hesitated, not immediately coming closer.

Shen Qingye said softly, “I thought there might be some mechanism here. I tried it, and it actually opened.”

Shen Qingwu looked at her, expression blank.

After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the light, and she lowered the hand shielding them. She wiped the blood from the back of her hand and announced, somewhat absently, “I only want to marry Zhang Xingjian. I won’t take it back.”

She paused.

Thinking of what others called the “gulf between clouds and mud”—the unbridgeable difference in their standing.

Shen Qingwu added, “If Zhang Xingjian doesn’t think I’m good enough for him, that’s his business. If he refuses to marry me, that’s his business too. If the rest of you feel humiliated by it, that’s your business. None of it has anything to do with me.”

She simply sat there, leaning against the wall, hands resting on her knees, blood still on her face, both cold and numb all at once—and somehow that very numbness lent her a strange, striking beauty. “I won’t take it back.”

Shen Qingye stood frozen for a long moment, tears spilling from her eyes—and then, unexpectedly, she began to smile.

Gently, tenderly, Shen Qingye leaned in, carefully avoiding her cousin’s wounds, and pulled her into a brief embrace. “Then don’t take it back.”

Shen Qingwu lifted her face, puzzled.

Close to her ear, she heard Shen Qingye’s soft voice: “Sister, why don’t you leave, for now?”

Shen Qingwu said, “Leave?”

Shen Qingye said, “Yes. I don’t want you beaten to death.”

Shen Qingwu said, “I don’t know where to go. I have nowhere to go.”

Shen Qingye lifted her face, tears rolling down her cheeks, looking pitiably lovely even in her sorrow. “Sister, please. I’m begging you.”

That evening, a violent rainstorm broke over the city, pounding down in sheets, like a mountain torrent unleashed.

Fog blanketed everything.

Zhang Xingjian arrived to pay a visit to the Shen household, folding his umbrella as he stepped inside, revealing a face refined and gentle. He asked, smiling, “Has something happened here?”

The atmosphere in the house was distinctly cold and strained.

The flustered servants insisted nothing was wrong.

Zhang Xingjian simply smiled and let it go, pretending not to notice.

Word of the Zhang family’s third son’s visit arrived just as the Shen matriarch was in the middle of scolding the young and thoughtless Shen Qingye—

Shen Qingye, who had been coddled ever since arriving at the Shen household, now knelt beneath the corridor eaves, listening to the rain drumming steadily outside as she endured Madam Shen’s furious tirade.

All because she had let Shen Qingwu go.

Shen Zhuo, along with a search party, had gone scouring all of Bianjing to find her. They feared what that ill-mannered Shen Qingwu might do, something that could damage the marriage alliance between the two families beyond repair.

Madam Shen, beside herself with rage, had never imagined such a meek, delicate girl would dare defy her like this. One troublemaker like Shen Qingwu in the family was more than enough—now Shen Qingye wouldn’t obey either?

Fortunately, Zhang Xingjian’s arrival forced Madam Shen to swallow her anger. She sent Shen Qingye to entertain the guest instead, hoping to let the young pair grow closer.

Before leaving, Madam Shen warned Shen Qingye, “Watch your tongue. Qingye, don’t disappoint me again.”

Eyes red, Shen Qingye wiped away her tears, had her makeup done, and dragged her sickly body to the old pavilion by the lake in the back garden, standing in for the head of the household to receive their distinguished guest, Zhang Xingjian.

Across the lake, amid the rustling red autumn leaves, she saw the figure of the young man standing with his back to her beneath the pavilion’s candlelight. Beyond him, the misty waters and mountains stretched vast and boundless, clouds veiling a cold, distant moon; in his every gesture there was something otherworldly, as though he were carved from divine bone and immortal flesh.

Hearing footsteps, Zhang Xingjian turned around.

The gentle, refined smile at the corners of his mouth paused faintly the moment he noticed the tear stains at the corners of Shen Qingye’s eyes.

Zhang Xingjian asked gently, “Shen Qingwu still won’t take back her words?”

Shen Qingye startled slightly.

Watching her closely, Zhang Xingjian said, “It seems there’s more to it than that… If she won’t recant, why would that make you cry? Could it be—she’s escaped?”

He said softly, “You let her go, and you were scolded for it?”

What a remarkably sharp, perceptive young man.

Shen Qingye looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing. She struggled with whether to ask this man for help, to tell him of the trouble she and her cousin faced, to beg him to intervene…

Zhang Xingjian lowered his eyes and said, “You’ve made the wrong choice.”

He continued, “There’s a much simpler way to make her take it back. Miss Qingye, if you would be so kind as to announce me and take me to see Madam Shen. Tell her… I have a way to make Shen Qingwu bow her head. I can resolve this matter.”

He smiled. “Tell Madam Shen to rest easy. Shen Qingwu will absolutely never marry me.”

Passing through the long pavilion beside the misty lake, listening to the cold patter of rain, Chang Lin followed his young master in silence, on their way to see the Shen matriarch.

Rounding a corner, Chang Lin asked, “My lord, what exactly are you planning to do?”

Zhang Xingjian answered lightly, indifferently, “Guess.”

Chang Lin turned his head to look at him, and said quietly, “If the Shen family’s Second Miss wants to marry you, why not simply grant it? It’s not as though you lack the means… isn’t she the one who saved your life?

“Didn’t you say yourself that saving you is no easy feat, that becoming your rescuer is a rare and precious thing? You should cherish that.”

Zhang Xingjian looked at him, surprised. “I do cherish it.”

Before Chang Lin could argue further, he lifted his gaze to the mist and rain drifting over the lake beyond the corridor, and asked, smiling, “But is marrying someone like me really a good thing?

“My rescuer shouldn’t have to suffer the punishment of marrying a man like me.”