“Thud.”

Shen Qingwu fell into the surging current, swept rapidly downward.

Before her eyes, the dense darkness of night churned together with the roar of rushing water. And then—

Zhang Xingjian had leapt into the water, chasing after her.

Dragged by the current, her injuries flaring, her heart and lungs seized with sharp pain, the hilt of the blade slipped from her grasp. The water roared in her ears like pouring rain, and as she was swept toward some unknown point downstream, Shen Qingwu clearly saw the moment Zhang Xingjian broke the surface and plunged in after her.

His robes billowed loose, his black hair streaming like river weeds; he’d thrown himself in without a second thought, letting the current carry him as he searched desperately for her in the darkness.

Tiny bubbles clung to his dark lashes, like a single teardrop.

For a long, silent moment, Shen Qingwu watched Zhang Xingjian, still a step behind her, coming from above.

In that instant, she saw the fierce determination in his eyes, saw the raw, battered state he was in.

Lightning flashed across the water’s surface, striking pale white light behind him again and again. Each flash illuminated the veins straining visibly at his temples.

He was in tremendous pain.

She couldn’t say whose pain was worse—his or her own.

Zhang Xingjian spotted Shen Qingwu caught in the current and swam toward her, reaching out his hand.

Lightning and darkness intertwined; rain and rushing water blurred together. Shen Qingwu stared at that pale, outstretched hand.

Time seemed to loop back on itself.

In his eyes, she saw her former self—

Back in the twenty-fourth year of Tianlong, that Shen Qingwu who had leapt off a cliff after Zhang Xingjian, plunging into the river below.

That Shen Qingwu hadn’t understood feeling, hadn’t understood love—she’d only fought desperately to claim the one person who could make her happy.

She had once refused, absolutely, to let Zhang Xingjian slip beyond her control.

And now, here he was, leaping into the river, swimming toward her—how uncannily like the Shen Qingwu of that time.

Across the rushing water, the two of them looked at each other.

She had once done everything in her power to claim him.

Just as he was now doing everything in his power to catch up to her.

The water surged, lightning flashed, and the battle on the shore grew distant behind them. Shen Qingwu, caught in the pull of the current, saw the fierce red in Zhang Xingjian’s eyes, saw his unwavering resolve.

Slowly, trembling, Shen Qingwu reached out her hand.

The current dragged them along, as if everything in heaven and earth were repeating, again and again—if you two are together, neither heaven nor earth will tolerate it.

How would the Zhang family react? How would Shen Qingwu’s temperament fit into that world? How would the Princess respond? What would become of Great Zhou’s division? What if war broke out again?

And yet, a love that heaven and earth refused to tolerate could be so moving all the same.

People were like duckweed, cast into a raging current.

But people were not duckweed.

Shen Qingwu watched calmly as Zhang Xingjian, caught in the swirling water, drifted near and far by turns. She watched quietly, and pain and exhaustion finally closed her eyes.

In her mind rose the image of a raging torrent, heaven and earth falling silent. Shen Qingwu, in the rushing waters below the cliff, gripped Zhang Xingjian’s hand.

Here and now, eyes closed, Shen Qingwu reached her hand outward—

Zhang Yuelu…

Catch up to me—

The rain fell in a soft rustle, like the murmur of a mountain stream.

She’d heard that sound many times before, camped out with the army in mountain forests at night.

But this time, the soft patter of rain felt quiet and gentle, without the urgency of war, without the pressing threat of an enemy. When Shen Qingwu woke, she even felt a certain comfortable, languid ease settling over her.

Shen Qingwu opened her eyes.

The moment she opened them, she knew at once that she was, indeed, somewhere in the mountains.

She now found herself in an unfamiliar wooden cabin, somewhere in an unfamiliar mountain range. Judging by the crude furnishings, it was likely a temporary shelter used by hunters ahead of the rainy season. Now that the rains had come, the hunters likely hadn’t been up the mountain in some time.

Slowly, bracing herself against the wall, Shen Qingwu sat up.

A tiger-skin blanket, damp with moisture, lay draped over her. She glanced down beneath it and found her clothes dry.

Her wound throbbed dully, though not too painfully, and there was a cool sensation at her chest. Shen Qingwu pulled open her collar and saw the jade pendant, tied with red thread, hanging over her heart—her entire wound had been freshly rebandaged.

The coolness she felt was probably medicinal salve.

The cabin was remarkably quiet, with only the sound of rain dripping steadily against the eaves.

Shen Qingwu pulled the blanket close around herself and sat leaning against the wall, looking at the other person in the room—

Zhang Xingjian, his long hair half-tied back, dressed in plain white robes. The cabin had only a single small window, and he sat beneath it, writing.

His profile, bent over his writing, looked like fine jade wrapped in snow.

Her waking up seemed to have no effect on him at all; he kept writing without pause, and yet Shen Qingwu somehow knew he was well aware she’d woken.

Shen Qingwu said nothing, watching his profile in silence.

Newly awake, her whole body ached with exhaustion, her mind sluggish, unwilling to think about anything.

Perhaps some things had become clearer to her; perhaps she’d let go of something. All she felt now was a quiet sense of peace.

As Shen Qingwu drifted in her thoughts, she heard Zhang Xingjian’s voice, still facing away from her:

“Yang Su has fallen into my hands again.”

Shen Qingwu’s lashes flickered, her hazy gaze sharpening into focus.

She listened as Zhang Xingjian’s voice came out warm, yet distinctly cool:

“But you needn’t worry. My own loyal men found him before the soldiers or the army did. They’re watching over him, keeping him from wandering off—they’re my personal retainers. As long as Yang Su doesn’t do anything I can’t tolerate, I’ll keep him well-fed and comfortable, hold him until the situation has stabilized, and then let him go. Given his intelligence, there’s almost no chance he’d do anything I couldn’t forgive.

“You can rest easy about that.”

Shen Qingwu wrapped the blanket tighter around herself—it was a little cold in the mountains.

Zhang Xingjian continued:

“I’m writing this letter to have Yang Su tell me your signal system, so I can communicate with the Princess. I told you I need leverage to deal with her, and that wasn’t a lie. I can tell you plainly—since finding you again, I haven’t deceived you once.

“Everything I’ve told you is true… it wasn’t my plan for you to abduct me out of the capital. Coming into the city to find you a physician was genuine concern for your health, not some scheme to use you. When I said I wanted to look around before deciding how to negotiate with the Princess, that was true too. When I said I’d cut off every channel for information, that neither I could reach my people nor you could reach yours—all of that was true.

“Shen Qingwu, it was you who sent me to the pawnshop, you who let me begin reconnecting with my own men. It’s you and Yang Su who’ve kept things from me, guarded against me, this whole time—the moment I got even slightly close, the two of you assumed I had ulterior motives. I never pried into your plans, never commented on your endless whispered conversations… because I knew you didn’t want me to hear them.

“But I’m no fool. I can piece together your intentions from every move you make. I was the one who sought out physicians. But it was you and Yang Su who kept tracking the physicians’ movements every single day. I was the one who cared about your health. You were the ones who assumed I harbored ill intent.

“I kept waiting for the day you’d finally think to discuss things with me. I couldn’t be the one to bring it up first—couldn’t say outright that I knew what you were planning—because I don’t trust the Princess. I don’t know whether the two of you have been given some new task by her. I’m the chancellor of Great Zhou; I can’t simply abandon every duty, every responsibility, and tell you everything just because I care for you.

“I believe you and Yang Su mean no real harm. But I don’t trust Li Linggē. It was her decision to have the young emperor assassinated. If he dies, she’ll undoubtedly go to war, seizing the throne while Great Zhou is at its weakest. But I don’t know what kind of impact a Li Linggē like that would have on the realm. I have to stop her recklessness… at least, for now, I need to.

“When you took me out of the capital, what I was thinking was exactly what I’m telling you and Yang Su now. I’ll help the two of you cross the river, so you can carry my words to the Princess and tell her we need to negotiate. If I truly had any ulterior motive at the time, it was only this—that I wanted to shamelessly cling to you and never let go.”

He turned his face slightly, giving the woman leaning against the wall a faint smile.

The smile was very thin, very cool.

Zhang Xingjian said quietly, “I wanted to go with you. I wanted to see, with my own eyes, how the provinces under Li Linggē’s rule compared to those under the young emperor’s chaotic, reckless governance. I wanted to see whether her ambitions were just for show, or whether she truly had what it takes to back them up.

“I wanted to hear what the common people really thought. Sitting in the imperial court, I’m cut off, blind and deaf to the true concerns of ordinary people. I wanted to use this time to see for myself. I wanted to see it together with you—if you two hadn’t had other intentions back then, if you’d simply taken me across the river to Yizhou, I would have negotiated terms with Li Linggē directly.

“I meant to keep you by my side for a few months, to have you accompany me, or watch over me—whichever it was. A few months would have been enough time for me to observe a great deal, and enough time for me to either finally win you over, or lose you for good.

“So I had to seal off all news of the young emperor’s fate. As long as the outside world doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead, Li Linggē can’t get information from either of you, and she won’t dare move troops against Great Zhou too hastily. And, by the way—even while I was staying with you and Yang Su, once I managed to reconnect with my pawnshop contacts, I already began having my men round up everyone involved in this assassination attempt, everyone who’d entered the capital as part of it.

“For now, let them be held. If the Princess ultimately wins, they’ll all come to no harm. But if she turns out to be another Li Mingshu, I won’t let a woman like that ascend the throne—I’d rather bear the blame myself and choose some untested puppet from the imperial family instead.

“A powerful minister controlling the court is never a good thing. Whether to seek eternal renown or bear the infamy of throwing the court into chaos—if Li Linggē has to choose the better path, so do I. But if there’s no other way… becoming a treacherous minister myself is no great matter.

“Shen Qingwu, I don’t stand with Li Mingshu, and I don’t stand with Li Linggē either. I want to think of the common people. I want to minimize the losses to the realm as much as I can, even as those at the top pursue their ambitions in blood.

“By now, most people already know the young emperor is foolish and incompetent, and that the Princess doesn’t seem as bad as the rumors once made her out to be. But they don’t know her true ambitions—if they did, they’d rise up against her too, and that would mean another war.

“I want to avoid all of that. What I want to negotiate with the Princess isn’t only whether she has the capability, whether she understands the realm’s needs—if she turns out to be capable, I’m willing to help her through this most difficult transition period… this should really be a matter between me and the Princess alone. You and Yang Su are soldiers, only following orders—why would you need to know all of this?”

Zhang Xingjian went on, “The reason there was an ambush waiting at the stone bridge is also because I realized I couldn’t stop you and Yang Su, realized neither of you had any intention of being honest with me. I needed something to answer to the court for letting the two of you leave the capital, needed a reason, a justification. And for negotiations to come, with the ministers and with the Princess alike, I needed leverage in hand.

“Words alone don’t solve anything.”

Zhang Xingjian turned his face aside.

Because of the rain, the light outside was dim and faint.

That faint light fell across his brow, giving him the look of clear, distant mountains and water—cool, remote, tinged with a quiet melancholy.

Zhang Xingjian looked at her. “Shen Qingwu, have I made myself clear?”

Shen Qingwu lowered her eyes.

Shen Qingwu said, “When you choose to speak, what you say has always been easy enough to understand.”

Zhang Xingjian asked, “Then do you believe me?”

Shen Qingwu nodded.

Zhang Xingjian smiled faintly.

His smile was very thin.

Shen Qingwu felt that he didn’t quite believe her.

But he clearly no longer cared—

Zhang Xingjian said, “I’ve told you my side of things. Now I’d like to ask about yours. Answer what you can, and if you can’t, you’re free to stay silent. All right?”

Shen Qingwu nodded.

Zhang Xingjian asked, “Why did you choose to work for the Princess? Do you truly admire her, believe she’s an outstanding leader, enough to make you forget your old grievances with her? Do you revere her?”

Shen Qingwu shook her head.

She said it wasn’t that.

Slowly, she examined her own reasoning. “She’s genuinely treated me well—though always with an undercurrent of courtship and calculation woven through it. Back then, once she learned I’d saved you, she had Madame Shen make trouble for me, humiliating me in front of my fellow soldiers. But once she realized I didn’t care, or perhaps once you applied pressure at court and threw her into a scramble, her attitude toward me shifted again.

“She started courting my favor once more.

“I’ve never liked her, but I couldn’t say I hate her either. She’s formidable—every emotion yields to her reasoning, nothing can stand in the way of her ambitions. For the sake of her goals, she can endure any humiliation, can show favor to an enemy, can just as easily drive a blade into the heart of someone who once helped her.

“Thinking back on it now, when she drugged you all those years ago… that was probably another form of courtship too. Perhaps there was some transference of feeling involved as well? I’m not certain.

“But regardless… the result is that south of Yizhou, under her governance, nothing has gone wrong.”

Shen Qingwu lowered her head. “She’s treated me well. Because we’re both women, I understand how hard things have been for her. I know she admires me… because, in some ways, she and I are alike—companions of a sort.

“I have no doubt that if I ever threatened her interests, and courting me no longer worked, she’d turn around and eliminate me without hesitation. But because we’re both women, I still feel something toward that shared ‘difference from everyone else.’

“I became a general with Bo Rong’s backing, with your influence pushing things along at court, with the Princess’s support—and even so, plenty of voices still said I didn’t deserve it, called me a ‘little yellow-haired girl.’ You know Shen Zhuo, don’t you? The older brother figure who’s always been kind to me… even he thought there was no way I should be a general, thought it was irresponsible to the soldiers under me to put me in that position.

“I’ve had to endure so many voices like that. Most of the time, I can’t even tell where they’re coming from. But I know that particular voice is among them.

“So, back when the Princess didn’t disgust me, when she and I were still allies, when she was still willing to court my favor—why wouldn’t I follow her?”

Zhang Xingjian looked at her.

He asked, “Was there also another reason—that at the time, following her was your only option, with nowhere else to turn?”

Shen Qingwu fell silent.

She leaned her head against the wall, straining to pull these overly subtle thoughts out from the chaos of her mind.

These were thoughts she’d never once examined before, but today she was determined to work them out.

Slowly, she nodded, looking lost. “Perhaps so… I hated you so much back then, there was no way I could have gone back to the capital with you, to serve you. Bo Rong told me to follow Li Linggē, and it just so happened that Li Linggē treated me well… and besides, I wanted to become a general, wanted to fight in battle.

“Under Li Linggē’s command, she supported me without my needing to say much—she never once told me I shouldn’t be a general. But if I’d followed you and the others… I don’t think it would have been so easy.

“If I hadn’t followed Li Linggē, and left on my own instead—the world is vast, and I would have had nowhere to belong.

“Zhang Yuelu, I wanted to find a place to belong. I wanted to gain something—though I honestly don’t know exactly what it was I wanted to gain.”

Zhang Xingjian gazed at her intently.

His expression remained cool, and yet a faint mist rose in his eyes, a flicker of tenderness and pity. His lips moved slightly, his emotions hard to fully suppress, though he forced himself to hold back.

This was the first real shift of emotion Shen Qingwu had seen from him all day.

She watched him without looking away.

He quickly turned his head aside, concealing that flicker of feeling.

Zhang Xingjian murmured, “I know. You’ve had to bleed and fight tooth and nail for things other people are simply handed from the start… I know that, I understand it, but I can’t take your place, and I can’t stop you either.

“Compared to me, you think Li Linggē understands how you feel better, don’t you?”

Shen Qingwu didn’t answer.

Zhang Xingjian asked, “Is there anything else?”

Shen Qingwu didn’t understand, and looked up at the young man sitting beneath the dim morning light by the window.

Zhang Xingjian set down his pen and turned to face her fully.

Only then did she see the other side of his face, a wound scraped raw by stone, a bloody gash across it…

Shen Qingwu’s voice caught. “Your face…”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Don’t worry about it, it’s only a surface wound. Anything else? Aside from all this, is there any other reason you felt you had to work for Li Linggē?”

Shen Qingwu felt lost.

She sensed, vaguely, that today called for total honesty—she had to speak every thought she had, plainly.

Racking her brain, she said, “Because… she’s not as detestable as the young emperor? The people of Yizhou, soldiers and civilians alike, all support her. Last New Year, everyone was genuinely happy—happier, at least, than they’d been under the young emperor’s governance of Yizhou.

“I also hope this conspiracy ends quickly, and that there’s no war.”

Zhang Xingjian smiled faintly. “Worrying about which side a war favors—that’s the business of ambitious people like us. It doesn’t seem like something Shen Qingwu would truly care about most.”

He saw her looking at him in confusion, not understanding what he was really asking.

Zhang Xingjian rose to his feet, his flowing sleeves falling gracefully as he walked slowly toward her, his robes swaying with an elegant, unhurried poise.

He stood before the small bed, leaning down, meeting Shen Qingwu’s dark eyes directly.

Calmly, he asked, “You say she courts your favor—but what exactly does she offer that could win you over so completely? If it were really that simple, why couldn’t I earn your trust? Why couldn’t I win you over? What terms did she actually offer you?

“Money, power, a vow to share the realm, or your pick of every handsome man under heaven? I don’t think you care about any of that. Whatever you want, you’d simply go take it for yourself—so what exactly did she give you, that you’d devote yourself to her so completely, willing to do things this dangerous, willing to court disasters this terrible?”

His eyes shimmered with a faint mist, and he laughed softly. “Whatever reason drives you to throw yourself into danger like this, whatever reason keeps you and Yang Su distant from me all this time… there has to be a reason, doesn’t there?”

Shen Qingwu realized, all at once, exactly what he was trying to find out.

And in that same instant, she realized the answer was one he wouldn’t like.

He didn’t like that answer—perhaps he’d already guessed it—but Zhang Xingjian’s stubbornness, at times, was no less than her own.

Smiling, he asked again, “What is it, exactly?”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

His voice sharpened, hoarse from being raised. “Tell me!”

For an instant, Shen Qingwu’s heart clenched, the pain stopping her breath.

She thought she’d caught a glimpse of his emotion.

She stared, dazed, into his glassy eyes, threaded through with red—he hadn’t slept in a long time. His beautiful eyes were webbed with red, and the stubbornness in them struck something painful in her chest; and behind that stubbornness lay a faint trace of pleading—

Give me an answer.

Or tell me a lie. Deceive me, just this once.

As long as you lie to me, I’ll believe it—

Shen Qingwu’s lashes flickered.

She remembered what he’d said before: “…Then I’ll take you at your word.”

She thought: he actually knows everything.

He had always lived in a state of perfect clarity.

She envied that clarity of his.

But right now, Shen Qingwu suddenly thought—

Too much clarity, sometimes, could be its own kind of torment—

He knew perfectly well that the person he loved was avoiding him.

He knew perfectly well that no matter what he did, that person only ever confided her troubles in Yang Su.

He knew perfectly well the distance between them.

He didn’t want to say it aloud.

Refusing to expose the pretense had been his ingrained upbringing for years, and also a comforting illusion he was willing to sink into.

As long as she said the words, he would convince himself to believe them.

But if she kept lying to him, over and over… would he truly feel nothing?—

When Zhang Xingjian had drunk that cup of wine, when he’d realized Shen Qingwu’s true purpose, what had he been thinking?—

Now, Shen Qingwu looked up at Zhang Xingjian, leaning over her.

Her thoughts churned, and the silence stretched on.

For a long while she said nothing, and he waited patiently.

At last, Shen Qingwu came back to herself. She looked up at him and, rather than deflecting, rather than lying, she told him the truth.

“Because Li Linggē promised me that if I helped her win the realm, once it was done, she wouldn’t kill Bo Rong.”

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes turned red in an instant.

His face drained completely of color in that same moment.

A tide of emotion swept through his eyes, an unprecedented despair crashing over him, forcing him back a step or two.

A film of moisture clung to his lashes.

Zhang Xingjian looked at Shen Qingwu, holding himself together, and smiled. “Bo Rong.”

Whether out of grief or self-mockery, he turned his shoulder away. “…So that’s how it is.”

But just as he turned to walk away, the blanket flew back, and the woman’s long, slender wrist shot out abruptly, seizing hold of his own.

Shen Qingwu pulled him back.

Disoriented, utterly drained, his spirits shattered, and already no match for her in strength to begin with, he was easily dragged backward.

The world spun, and his knee struck the edge of the bed.

By the time Zhang Xingjian came back to his senses, he found himself pulled back onto the bed, their positions reversed—he was now pinned against the wall, unable to move, while she knelt on the blanket, mere inches from him.

Zhang Xingjian looked at Shen Qingwu.

The mist still swam in his eyes. A single drop clung to his lashes.

Perhaps he’d reached the very depths of disappointment; perhaps the very depths of despair.

He looked at her and said softly, “You’re bullying me again.”

Shen Qingwu leaned in close.

Shen Qingwu said, “I’m not bullying you.”

Zhang Xingjian said nothing.

He closed his eyes, his lashes trembling faintly.

Held fast by her, unable to move, he assumed she was up to something again, some scheme conjured by that unusual mind of hers.

It didn’t matter anymore.

Let her do whatever she wanted.

She only wanted his body, only enjoyed tormenting him… let her have her way!

She pressed a soft kiss against the bloody gash on his cheek, and the touch made his body go rigid.

Zhang Xingjian’s lashes trembled violently, but he didn’t open his eyes—

He could feel Shen Qingwu’s breath, close against his face.

Shen Qingwu asked, “Are you very disappointed?”

Zhang Xingjian said nothing.

Shen Qingwu murmured to herself, “You think the moonlight in my heart is Bo Rong… it really is Bo Rong, isn’t that what you think?

“Bo Rong tormented you since childhood, and he still torments you now. One of the reasons you can’t accept me helping Li Linggē is Bo Rong… that’s harder for you to accept than if I’d killed you myself.

“You’d rather it were Yang Su, or anyone else at all. When I said ‘Bo Rong,’ I saw your eyes go completely blank… you were nearly in tears.”

Shen Qingwu’s tone stayed cold and detached, as though every shift in Zhang Xingjian’s emotions meant nothing at all to her.

Zhang Xingjian lay there unmoved, eyes closed, no longer willing to face any of it.

For a young man whose heart had turned entirely to ash, even arguing felt like too great a luxury, and speaking felt like an even greater one—he simply had no energy left for any of it.

Shen Qingwu said, “I’d wager Zhang Yuelu has always put on a face of noble, easy grace, while inside he’s been crying and raging over a man named Bo Rong this whole time, feeling terribly wronged. Zhang Yuelu must resent me to death—why does it have to be Bo Rong, why him of all people?

“You think you can’t win against Bo Rong, don’t you?”

Zhang Xingjian still refused to react, said nothing, kept his eyes shut.

He let her breath drift over his cheek, the heat of it slowly turning his face red.

Shen Qingwu suddenly found this rather amusing: Zhang Xingjian, refusing to communicate like this, was so childish, so endearing.

Unhurried, she said, “Let me ask you—the moment I said ‘Bo Rong,’ were you already planning to leave this cabin and leave me here alone?”

He still said nothing.

Venting her frustration, Shen Qingwu bit down on his lip, fierce. “Answer me!”

His lip split and bled, bright and vivid, his lashes trembling continuously.

The fair, delicate young man held himself with a stance of unyielding pride, refusing to cooperate with her—and Shen Qingwu found it genuinely…

She started laughing.

She pressed her lips close to his ear. “Do you know I like this, and that’s exactly why you’re provoking me this way? Trying to get me to force myself on you?”

The veins in the wrist she held pinned throbbed visibly.

Finally unable to bear it any longer, he opened his eyes and said sharply, “No! I wasn’t provoking you! Let me up—stop talking to me, let me go.”

His eyes opening, his willingness to speak—that was enough.

Shen Qingwu said, “You want to leave, is that it? Let me ask you this—do you intend to cut ties with me completely, over this whole business, because I pushed you aside, because I lied to you, because my reason was Bo Rong.

“Do you intend to end things just like that… to stop pursuing me, to let go of my hand for good?”

Zhang Xingjian’s eyes snapped up to meet hers.

He laughed coldly. “You’d love nothing more than to cut ties with me, wouldn’t you?”

The man who was always gentle in tone, always coaxing and persuading her, now had eyes shimmering with feverish intensity, mist still swirling in them, his chest heaving. “You’d love for me to give up, love to cast me aside, wouldn’t you?

“Well, let me tell you—don’t you dare think you can save Yang Su out of my hands! Don’t you dare think you’ll run off with him!

“Bo Rong is someone you can’t have either… he’s already given up on himself, he doesn’t have room for you in his heart at all!

“And that young man from Jiangling—don’t even dream of it! None of them belong to you!”

Shen Qingwu said, calm. “Then who belongs to me?”

He turned his face aside, steadying his breath, ignoring her.

Shen Qingwu said, “Didn’t you say it didn’t matter if I married Yang Su, didn’t matter if I slept with other men, that you’d be content to be my secret lover… wasn’t that what you said? Zhang Yuelu, were you lying to me?”

Zhang Xingjian said nothing.

Shen Qingwu asked, “If I truly wanted to cut all ties with you, never speak to you again until we both grew old and died—what would you do once you walked out of this cabin?”

Zhang Xingjian froze.

Shen Qingwu watched him; he kept his face turned away, his gaze drifting emptily toward some mushroom that had inexplicably sprouted in the corner of the room.

Even that mushroom wasn’t half as lonely and pitiful as he was.

Zhang Xingjian suddenly turned his face back toward her.

He met her eyes steadily.

Slowly, he said, “I never intended to cut ties with you. I was only very angry, and I wanted to sort out my feelings. Once I’d calmed down, I would have come to find you again.”

Shen Qingwu said, “Then why haven’t you said you like me?”

Zhang Xingjian stared at her, dazed.

Shen Qingwu lowered her eyes, a trace of disappointment in her voice. “From yesterday until now, it’s been two whole days, and you haven’t once said you like me. Do you not like me anymore?”

Zhang Xingjian opened his mouth to answer, and her breath lingered at the corner of his lips as she kissed him.

Zhang Xingjian froze.

Shen Qingwu looked up at him. “Keep going.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “I…”

His lips were kissed again, the tip of his tongue lightly caught between hers. She pulled back quickly, looking at him with an innocent, guileless expression.

Shen Qingwu said, calm. “Go on.”

How was he supposed to go on?

He said, bewildered, “…What are you doing?”

Shen Qingwu lowered her eyes and smiled. “I want to know what it feels like to be struck by heaven’s own thunder.”

Zhang Xingjian’s face went rigid. “You’re going to make me feel like I’ve been struck by lightning… mm.”

Confused, not understanding her, thoroughly exasperated, his face went pale with frustration. He tried to push her away, but the moment he opened his mouth to speak, she kissed him again—

The rain fell in a soft, murmuring patter.

She wanted to live in these mountains forever.

She wanted to tease and torment Zhang Xingjian for the rest of her life—

Shen Qingwu had already made up her mind long ago.

If Zhang Xingjian still refused to let go of her hand, even after everything, then she would never let go of his either.

If he chased after her, if he trusted her, then she would answer that trust in kind.

She would break her vow, for him—

Whatever misfortune came, whatever punishment awaited her, she would bear it.

She would break her oath. She would try to accept him. She would try to accept a love of her own!

Whatever the cost, Shen Qingwu was willing to pay it, gladly.