A bolt of lightning split the sky.

In the sudden, blinding flash, Zhang Wenbi braced a hand against the wall, her breath caught tight in her chest.

In the rain-soaked night, she watched the standoff between the guards, watched the young woman bent low, threatening Madam Shen, watched the old nurse weeping and Shen Zhuo frozen in shock—but what held her attention most was her own brother.

Zhang Xingjian stood quietly beneath his umbrella, as though sealed off from the chaos around him, entirely unconnected to the fierce conflict playing out in the alley.

But the eyes with which he watched Shen Qingwu—in this moment, they burned bright as a sea of stars, deep and unfathomable as a sunken abyss.

Zhang Xingjian, who wore nothing but a mild, pleasant smile at all times—when had he ever shown such an intensely focused, luminous gaze before?

Rain beat against the umbrella’s surface as Zhang Xingjian watched Shen Qingwu in silence. She looked bedraggled, and yet not quite as bedraggled as she should have. Pale-faced as she was, she still had it in her to threaten Madam Shen; her combat skill left her unbound by ordinary constraints.

Faced with this kind of betrayal and oppression, Shen Qingwu’s response was genuinely extraordinary. She remembered to hold her dagger, remembered to demand her due, remembered to bare her claws.

Zhang Xingjian found himself walking forward, unable to help it.

Rain fell onto his dry robes; Chang Lin, holding the umbrella, took a moment to react before hurrying to catch up.

Zhang Xingjian wove his way around the crowd, step by step, lightning flashing across his face, layer after layer of figures blocking his view. He simply kept circling, step by step, drawing closer and closer to Shen Qingwu at the center of it all.

Shen Qingwu’s eyes were downcast, bright and fierce from the fight, fixed unblinkingly on Madam Shen.

Offended, furious and humiliated all at once, Madam Shen said, “Do you even remember I’m your mother? How dare you speak to me this way?”

Shen Qingwu said, perfectly calm: “You’re the mistress of this house. Not my mother. And even if you were my mother, I’d say the same thing.”

She sensed movement nearby and glanced up warily. Beyond the crowd, she saw Zhang Xingjian, eyes lowered, watching her.

Shen Qingwu went still for a moment.

Then she looked away, without sparing him a second glance.

Slowly, she withdrew the dagger, straightened, and released Madam Shen. “I’ve said what I came to say. I’m leaving now.”

Madam Shen said, “And where exactly do you think you’re going?! The whole world, and—”

Shen Qingwu said, “The whole world, and I’ll just walk wherever I please.”

The world was vast, mountains and rivers stretched endlessly, rain and mist rolled on and on—and yet she seemed to have nowhere to go. But her mind was already made up: she would go, and keep walking. No one could live in this world without some place to call their own; she would simply have to find hers.

Zhang Xingjian watched, unblinking, as Shen Qingwu turned her back on them all. As the guards, one by one, gave way in wary deference, she walked out of the circle, toward the mouth of the alley.

The night rain fell, bleak and desolate.

Slight as her frame was, her face pale and cold, she still stood tall, walked with clean, decisive steps.

Shen Zhuo murmured, “Qingwu, where are you going? Aren’t you coming home?”

Shen Qingwu, her back to them all, said nothing.

Zhang Xingjian watched her, keenly aware of the deep, lasting stir in his own chest in this single moment. He recognized, with startling clarity, his blood running hot, his emotions rising—all because of this glimpse of the young woman’s defiant, dazzling side.

He knew he was moved by it. Knew that some spark of interest had caught alight in him, for this difficult, hard-to-manage Shen Qingwu.

He turned this unprecedented swell of feeling over in his mind.

But after that brief moment of confusion and delight, he cooled himself down quickly.

Zhang Yuelu was not a man who should let his emotions rule him—certainly not develop any unnecessary feelings for someone so unsuitable. Emotion would only cloud his judgment, and could ruin his family’s entire enterprise. The Zhang family had already suffered enough for that mistake once.

Zhang Xingjian would never allow himself to become like that elder brother he’d never even met, dead before his time. He would never allow himself to bring any stain upon the family’s name.

The very moment feeling began to stir was exactly the best moment to cut it off.

Walking through the rain, heading toward an unknown road, Shen Qingwu heard a voice call out behind her: “Second Miss Shen.”

She stopped in her tracks, turned, and saw everyone else turning too, equally startled, staring at Zhang Xingjian, who had spoken so abruptly.

For one moment, looking at him, a vague, indistinct hope rose in Shen Qingwu’s heart.

Perhaps hoping he would be different from everyone else. Perhaps hoping he would say she didn’t have to do this—that he wanted to be with her, wanted to acknowledge her as his rescuer, wanted to take her away from the Shen family.

Everyone saw the bright, burning look in Shen Qingwu’s eyes.

Including Zhang Xingjian.

The veins on the back of Chang Lin’s hand, gripping the umbrella, stood out as he tightened his hold. He lowered his head, almost unable to bear watching. He couldn’t bear to see the light in Miss Shen’s eyes go out. He hoped desperately that his young master had called out to stop her because he’d changed his mind.

Zhang Xingjian’s smiling eyes settled on Shen Qingwu, the misty rain lending them a deceptive, dreamlike depth of feeling. His voice was clear and pleasant:

“Second Miss Shen, that oath you swore—in the end, it was only a few careless words. Spoken oaths mean nothing. I don’t believe a word of it.”

The light in Shen Qingwu’s eyes dimmed.

After a long moment, she said quietly, “I wasn’t just talking. I swore from the heart. I was completely serious.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Heaven doesn’t actually strike anyone down with lightning.”

This time, even Zhang Wenbi, watching from the mouth of the alley, kept her gaze fixed on her brother for a long moment, a look of confusion in her eyes.

Shen Qingwu asked, “Do you want me to put it in writing? Sign it in blood?”

Shen Zhuo shouted furiously from behind, “That’s enough, Zhang Yuelu! My sister has feelings for you—that’s no excuse for you to humiliate her like this! Who do you think you are, that she couldn’t possibly do without you?”

Zhang Xingjian ignored Shen Zhuo entirely, speaking only to Shen Qingwu. “As I see it, oaths can be broken, signatures can be denied—only a matter of life and death, a deep and bitter enmity, could ever truly guarantee two people never come together.”

He spoke with perfect courtesy: “Second Miss Shen, it is I who am unworthy of you. Since we’ve already come this far, why not take one more step, to put my mind fully at ease?”

Shen Qingwu said, “I don’t understand.”

Zhang Xingjian smiled. “Stab me.”

—To draw a blade against him publicly would sever, once and for all, any possibility of reconciliation between them.

Shen Qingwu’s brows shot up abruptly, her eyes, cold and sharp as ice and snow, lit brighter still by the flash of lightning overhead.

The Shen family, watching from their side of the alley, froze in shock.

Zhang Wenbi’s voice rang out sharply from the mouth of the alley: “Zhang Yuelu!”

But no one reacted faster than Shen Qingwu.

Zhang Xingjian took a step forward.

A sharp dagger grazed across his chest.

Since he had shown such disregard for himself, she drew her blade.

In that brief instant as they passed each other, he saw Shen Qingwu’s snow-pale cheek, rain dripping steadily from her lashes. Blood dripped from her hand; her eyes were dark as night mist, seeing nothing at all, and yet carrying some trace of panic.

The crowd cried out in alarm: “Third Young Master!”

Shen Qingwu’s dagger plunged straight into Zhang Xingjian’s chest, avoiding anything vital, but not sparing him the blood. A great spray of red bloomed outward as the Zhang family’s refined, elegant young master collapsed, the crowd rushing forward at once to save him.

Madam Shen trembled. “He told you to stab him and you actually did it? Shen Qingwu, you really have lost your mind!”

Her lips quivered—she wanted to call Zhang Xingjian mad too, but catching sight of Zhang Wenbi swaying, on the verge of collapse at the mouth of the alley, she didn’t dare say it aloud.

Shen Qingwu stood perfectly straight for a moment, then turned and walked away. The guards, unsure whether they ought to stop her, were too busy rushing to save the Zhang family’s third son to give chase.

When Zhang Xingjian briefly regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was Zhang Wenbi’s face, white as paper, her eyes red, inside the carriage.

Zhang Wenbi said, her voice hoarse: “Zhang Yuelu, no one is as ruthless with themselves as you.”

Even though she disliked Shen Qingwu, even though she wanted nothing to connect Shen Qingwu to the Zhang family ever again, she couldn’t have gone this far herself.

Weak inside the carriage, Zhang Xingjian kept his faint smile in place, his face deathly pale. The paler he grew, the more it lent him a strange, fading beauty.

He closed his eyes and said, “Where’s Shen Qingwu?”

Zhang Wenbi said, “I don’t know.”

Zhang Xingjian coughed a few times, then said softly, “I want to arrange a position for her in the Imperial Guard. The Shen family has wasted her talent for martial arts. She shouldn’t go back to them. She should do something else with her life.”

In saying this, he was asking for his sister’s approval.

Zhang Wenbi closed her eyes.

She said, voice strained, “You’ve already gone this far to sever any possibility between the two of you—do you really think I’d stand in the way of you offering her this small kindness? Zhang Yuelu, your sister isn’t so heartless.”

But Shen Qingwu, it seemed, wasn’t grateful for the gesture at all.

Recovering at home from his injury, Zhang Xingjian sent word to the Shen household many times, asking that if Shen Qingwu was seen, she be told: he could help her find a different way to live, that with skills like hers, she shouldn’t waste herself.

The Shen family only reported back to the Zhang family that, since that night, no one had seen Shen Qingwu at all.

And so the days passed, until the first snowfall of the year in Bianjing, when Zhang Xingjian and Shen Qingye’s engagement was formally settled.

On the day of the betrothal, Shen Qingye ate nothing, drank nothing, sitting frozen in her room, more frail-looking even than when she’d first arrived in Bianjing.

Outside her curtain, the nurses urged her to have her hair and makeup done: “Miss, the Zhang family’s young master and his sister have come together to deliver the betrothal gifts and tea. Even if you don’t wish to show your face, you must at least return their greeting from behind the curtain. Please, don’t make this difficult for us.”

A faint thud caught Shen Qingye’s attention as she sat frozen in the room.

Always frail, she’d grown more sensitive than most to any unusual sound. She lifted her head, searching for its source, and saw a small arrow embedded in one of the pillars, a note fluttering from it.

Shen Qingye hurried over and unfolded the note. On it were a few simple words:

“I’m going to join the army.”

Clutching the note, Shen Qingye’s tears spilled instantly. Heedless of everything else, she threw open the door and ran headlong into the corridor, stumbling, staggering.

Just as she was about to fall, someone caught her.

She looked up to find Zhang Xingjian’s face, thinner now, much thinner than before.

Zhang Xingjian looked down and saw the note clutched in her hand.

Shen Qingye wept, trembling. “But my cousin is only sixteen. She’s only sixteen years old—”

To be driven to this, of all things!

By the time Zhang Xingjian came back to himself, he was already on horseback, riding hard toward the city gates. He didn’t know why his palms were slick with sweat, his heart pounding like a drum.

He didn’t know what he meant to do.

Zhang Xingjian and Shen Qingye climbed the city tower together. The night lanterns flickered, the Milky Way curved across the sky above, and there, beneath the stars, they saw a solitary rider galloping away into the distance.

Shen Qingye threw herself against the railing, gasping, weeping, crying out: “Sister! Sister—!”

Beyond the city walls, Shen Qingwu, bent low over her horse, caught the faint sound. She turned her head and saw, behind her, the glowing lights of the tall towers, the river of stars flowing overhead.

A vast, brilliant full moon hung in the sky, its clear light bathing ten thousand li of mountains and rivers, majestic and sacred all at once. Shen Qingwu wanted to call out to someone beside her to look up and share the sight—only to remember she had always, always been alone.

Zhang Xingjian stood beneath the moon atop the high tower, his robes fluttering, the moonlight hazy, the night cold as frost.

He was the moon, hanging in the sky.

She was a speck of mud in a rain-soaked puddle.

Moonlight fell on others. For one instant, the moon had seen her—but she had never truly been within its sight.

…She could not accept it.