It was raining again in the sky.

Fortunately, there was no more thunder and lightning.

By the third day of rain, the air had turned damp and heavy, and the whole world felt as though it were soaking in the depths of the sea.

Over this past year, whenever it rained, Shen Qingwu’s old wounds would flare up, keeping her sleepless day and night, forcing her to endure real suffering. This time was much the same — but this time was also, unmistakably, quite different.

Shen Qingwu was woken by the sound of rain, staring in a daze at the faint light beyond the tent flap.

Every morning she woke somewhere other than the army camp, she needed a moment of confusion before she could return to reality.

Once fully awake and aware of where she was, she pulled the curtain aside and saw, on the small wooden stool by the bed, a man’s inner robe folded neatly.

Her eyes flickered.

For two days of rain now, Zhang Xingjian had been staying the night here with her. She was thick-skinned enough not to care, but the Jiang household’s servants wore expressions difficult to describe.

Where was he today?

Shen Qingwu climbed out of bed, ran a careless hand through her tousled, sleep-mussed hair, and tied it back into a perfunctory ponytail. Catching the familiar scent of the medicinal decoction she drank every day, she threw on an outer robe and followed the smell out the door.

A small stove had been moved to the steps in front of the room, tucked under the eaves, simmering the medicine over a low flame.

Zhang Xingjian sat on the steps, chin propped on his hand, lost in thought as he watched the intermittent curtain of rain.

His bearing was so elegant that even reduced to such humble lodgings, he carried the air of a man wandering through mountains and rivers.

Shen Qingwu thought that with two days of rain, his information network spanning north and south had probably been cut off. A man who spent all day scheming and plotting must surely, at a time like this, be turning over some matter of state in his mind.

Zhang Xingjian heard footsteps and turned.

Before he even saw her, the moment he turned his face, a faint smile had already risen in his eyes.

Zhang Xingjian greeted her. “You’re awake.”

There was a touch of smug pride in his voice. “You didn’t even notice when I got up.”

Such a formidable general as Shen Qingwu was normally sharply attuned to every movement around her. Whenever Zhang Xingjian was beside her and so much as shifted, even in her sleep, Shen Qingwu would instantly sense it — instinctively her hand would go for his throat, or press against his chest… in short, General Shen kept guard against everyone around her, always.

But this time, Zhang Xingjian had risen carefully, on tiptoe, and she’d merely rolled over and gone right back to sleep.

Zhang Xingjian smiled broadly. “Wutong, your body’s starting to accept my presence.”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

Though she understood this perfectly well in her heart, seeing him look so pleased with himself stirred up a stubborn refusal to admit defeat.

Shen Qingwu said coldly, “You weren’t nearly this happy the time an assassin stabbed me with a knife in my sleep.”

Zhang Xingjian: “…”

He gave her a reproachful look, his expression cooling. He looked her up and down and scolded lightly, “What a sight you make!”

Hair unbrushed, face unwashed, wearing a loosely draped outer robe as she wandered out the door — surely there was no other woman in the world quite so disheveled as her.

Shen Qingwu ignored him.

She shuffled slowly over.

Catching the scent of the medicine, even she couldn’t help but frown. Anyone forced to drink this every day would find it hard to bear.

Zhang Xingjian said, “The medicine’s almost ready…”

Shen Qingwu immediately changed the subject. “What are you doing sitting out here? Scheming up some way to manipulate someone, planning something underhanded?”

Zhang Xingjian gave her a look, half-smiling.

He didn’t correct her.

He watched her come sit down, settling beside him on the steps.

Second Young Lady Shen, trying to dodge her medicine — even that was rather endearing.

He could let her stall a little while longer.

Zhang Xingjian smiled and played along with her guess. “Who said I was scheming anything?”

Shen Qingwu said, quite seriously, “Whenever you’re not talking, your mind is definitely brewing up some plan or other.”

Zhang Xingjian said, “I wasn’t.”

Shen Qingwu raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue the point.

He had, in fact, been thinking about something a moment ago, and felt a flicker of guilt over it — the reason he was sitting alone out here under the eaves was that he’d just had a private word with Jiang Runiang, discussing things with her once more. When he’d come back, afraid Shen Qingwu might notice and grow jealous, he’d sat alone on the steps to clear his head in the breeze.

As he sat there, his thoughts had drifted back to matters in the Eastern Capital, to the princess…

Shen Qingwu had actually guessed correctly.

But he didn’t want her to think he was only ever up to no good.

So Zhang Xingjian said, “This place is so hazy and empty, just like mountains and rivers breathing mist — how could I possibly sit here with you amid the rain and only talk of state affairs?”

Shen Qingwu looked at him silently.

Zhang Xingjian smiled and explained for her benefit. “I’m admiring the rain.”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

Zhang Xingjian studied her. “What’s that reaction? What, you don’t believe me?”

He began, unhurriedly, to sing his own praises — recounting how, back when he’d been a young man of elegance and leisure, he and a whole circle of spirited young nobles in the Eastern Capital had once admired lotus blossoms together, once drunk a thousand cups in friendly competition, once composed a hundred poems in a single sitting.

Zhang Xingjian sighed. “…A pity that afterward, buried in state affairs, all of that fell by the wayside.”

Shen Qingwu said nothing.

She could easily picture Zhang Xingjian in his days of carefree elegance. But by the time she’d known him, he hadn’t even reached the age of twenty, and was already run ragged by court matters.

And besides… the refined, cultivated Zhang Yuelu seemed, somehow, even further removed from her.

Zhang Xingjian thought for a moment, then nudged her. “Go grab a few cups from inside.”

Shen Qingwu didn’t move.

Zhang Xingjian nudged her again, smiling. “Go on, go on.”

Shen Qingwu turned to look at him, feigning anger. “You dare order me around?”

Zhang Xingjian said, smiling, “Can’t General Shen be put to use? I’m about to show you a little game, and you won’t lift a single finger?”

With all his endless little schemes, Shen Qingwu let herself be talked into it. She got up, went inside to fetch what he’d asked for, and on her way out, caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Shen Qingwu set down the cups and carefully tied her long hair back properly. There was a certain fine, spirited look to her reflection now. Only then did she pick the cups back up and head out again.

The rain fell on and off, trickling down in threads like a stream.

Shen Qingwu sat beside Zhang Xingjian. Wind stirred the rain, tousling the hair at his temples, his loose robe billowing. He bowed his head, arranging the cups Shen Qingwu had brought in a line before the steps, left to right.

He held each cup between his fingers and reached them out past the eaves, catching the falling rain. The pale, elegant line of his fingers against the cups caught Shen Qingwu’s eye, made her gaze waver, stirred up memories of certain private moments…

Zhang Xingjian said softly, “Why are you blushing?”

Shen Qingwu snapped back from her wandering thoughts and found him watching her with a thoughtful little smile.

Naturally, she said nothing.

The amusement in Zhang Xingjian’s eyes deepened.

He’d long since noticed that particular tendency of hers to drift off into her own world unexpectedly. After that heart-to-heart the other day, she’d once again grown quiet — but the anxious, uncertain feeling that used to plague him over it had eased considerably now.

Shen Qingwu watched as the cups, arranged left to right, filled with varying amounts of water, were brought back beneath the eaves.

He pulled a jade hairpin from his hair and struck the rim of each cup in turn. The cups, holding different amounts of rainwater, rang out in clear, distinct notes.

Shen Qingwu couldn’t really make out the different tones.

But she was so startled she sat bolt upright, staring blankly at this young man whose every movement carried such effortless grace.

In this moment, he wasn’t the Zhang Xingjian who tangled with her in bed, careless of everything else — he was that Zhang Yuelu whom everyone looked up to, admired from afar, forever out of reach.

That very Zhang Yuelu turned half his face toward her and asked with a smile, “What tune would you like to hear?”

Shen Qingwu said, “…Can you actually play anything?”

Zhang Xingjian arched an eyebrow. “I can.”

Shen Qingwu straightened up, sitting properly.

She began sifting through her memory for any well-known tune whose name she could recall. But her mind came up utterly blank — she’d never had the leisure to learn such things, nor the refined temperament to sustain an interest in them.

Now, faced with the need to perform, her mind was simply empty.

Shen Qingwu forced herself to bluff through it.

Zhang Xingjian said, “Hm? Can’t think of a single one?”

Shen Qingwu, feigning composure, said, “There’s one I can think of. I doubt you’d know it, though.”

Zhang Xingjian smiled. “How could I possibly not know it?”

He boasted to her, “I won’t claim to have gone through every single score and songbook that can be found in the old texts, but I’ve read through at least nine in ten of them. Ever since I entered court service, the music used at the annual moon-worship ceremony has been chosen by me every year. If I weren’t skilled at this, wouldn’t that bring shame on the whole of Great Zhou?

“So you needn’t fear I won’t know it.”

Shen Qingwu said, “Something a bit coarser — you surely wouldn’t know that.”

Zhang Xingjian paused, considering.

He said, “Not necessarily. Once I was grown, I spent plenty of time among the common people, and I’ve picked up quite a few folk tunes along the way — they’re rather fun. Though it’s true, folk songs far outnumber the refined classics, so there may well be some I’ve missed.

“Which one did you have in mind? I might just know it.”

He didn’t sound entirely confident.

But beneath that lack of confidence, there was still a note of confidence all the same.

Shen Qingwu said flatly, “The one about the eighteen touches.”

Zhang Xingjian: “…”

She added, “Ever heard of it?”

Zhang Xingjian looked out at the rain, then down at his cups. Such a lovely, poetic moment, and here they were discussing something so crude.

Shen Qingwu said, “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”

Zhang Xingjian could only admit, “That one… I truly haven’t heard.”

He gave a wry smile. “My second sister never let me linger around the pleasure quarters. Even now that I’m grown, that’s still off-limits to me… I’ll admit I’m curious, but I genuinely never learned it. Don’t tell me Wutong has heard it?”

Shen Qingwu nodded.

It was the only tune she could actually remember at all.

The army camp was hardly delicate about such things, and she’d heard it plenty of times.

Zhang Xingjian thought it over for a moment, then suggested, “Why don’t you sing it for me, then, and I’ll try to work out how to play it?”

Shen Qingwu: “…”

Zhang Xingjian raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? Can’t you sing it?”

Shen Qingwu’s expression turned strange.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t sing it.

It was that—

Here was this elegant, cultivated young man, hoping to learn something so crude and coarse from her — and he was clearly interested, clearly eager to give it a try.

But that wasn’t the noble, distant moon that everyone else looked up to, hanging in the sky above them all—

He’d never truly been that noble to begin with.

He’d never truly cared for being that way.

It was only that the vast gulf between them had held Shen Qingwu at bay for so long that seeing it suddenly, casually broken felt strange, unsettling, hard to fully accept — and also, somehow… thrilling.

She really did love watching him let himself go a little—

And so, when Jiang Runiang arrived at the courtyard under an umbrella, accompanied by her maids, she heard, from within, the sound of chopsticks tapping against cups, and a light, melodic voice singing.

The voice belonged to a young man.

Elegant, gentle, lilting — and carrying more than a little roguish charm.

Amid the clustered green willows, Jiang Runiang, her heart heavy, stepped through the moon-gate and looked up to see the young man and woman sitting beneath the eaves, admiring the rain.

Shen Qingwu leaned against a wooden post, her loose robe draped over her shoulders, dark hair falling across half her face. Her eyes were lowered, carrying a hint of coldness, and a hint of tenderness too. That faint softness in her gaze was directed at the man beside her.

That handsome, elegant young master who so consumed Jiang Runiang’s every thought!

His sleeves fluttered, his face like fine white jade, his eyes like a river of stars, chopsticks tapping in his hand as he sang lightly.

He was singing something soft under his breath — a bawdy little folk verse, the kind sung in taverns and army camps, full of playful double meanings about a girl’s charms, utterly unlike anything one would expect from the refined young Chancellor.

The scene left an unforgettable impression.

Just as Shen Qingwu laughed softly, head bowed, she caught the presence of another person nearby. She slowly looked up and saw Jiang Runiang standing dazed and pale by the courtyard gate.

Shen Qingwu said, “Zhang Yuelu, you have a guest.”

Zhang Xingjian looked up.

Jiang Runiang thought to herself: so it’s true.

Her father had said that Third Brother Zhang and General Shen were clearly a couple. Third Young Master didn’t even care what others thought — he’d moved to this most remote courtyard just to live alongside General Shen. What was there left for her not to understand?

To the two of them, she was nothing but an unwelcome intruder—

Jiang Runiang had come to apologize to Shen Qingwu.

She was the sort of woman raised in a scholarly household, clever and quick to read a room, and after several conversations with Zhang Xingjian, she’d come to understand that if she kept acting so willfully, it would be her own doing that severed the bond between the Zhang family and her father.

However great and established a scholarly family might be, it was never wise to let a matter of the heart ruin the ties between two households.

The Zhang family needed the Jiang family — but did the Jiang family not depend just as much on the powerful Zhang family in the Eastern Capital?

And so Jiang Runiang had to come apologize.

Utterly disheartened, she offered her apology woodenly. There was no room for her usual cleverness — Zhang Xingjian was watching nearby.

Now, whenever she met this young man’s eyes, she no longer felt any stirring of admiration — only the sense of being seen through, and it left her trembling.

She wanted these two ill-omened figures gone from her life.

Inside, Jiang Runiang poured tea for Shen Qingwu and said a great deal. “…So it was my own willfulness that put General Shen in such an awkward position. I hope the general, out of regard for my father, won’t speak of it further, and will forgive me.”

Shen Qingwu looked at Jiang Runiang, silent and faintly astonished.

She hadn’t expected Jiang Runiang to genuinely apologize.

Aside from Zhang Xingjian, she had never once accepted an apology from anyone who’d wronged her. She’d always believed only force could protect her, could solve every problem… and now, for the first time, she was tasting the benefit of Zhang Xingjian’s gentler methods.

Shen Qingwu looked at Zhang Xingjian.

Zhang Xingjian gave her a wink.

Jiang Runiang looked up, uneasy.

Shen Qingwu felt a swell of emotion inside her, but held it in check.

She needed to deal with Jiang Runiang’s matter first.

Shen Qingwu said coldly, “I don’t forgive you.”

Jiang Runiang went pale, giving a bitter little laugh. Her lips moved, as if to plead further.

Shen Qingwu changed course. “You’re far cleverer than I am, far better off than I am. You used tactics you’re skilled at against someone who isn’t — and only after losing, you come to admit fault… why should I forgive you? I’m petty. Of course I won’t forgive you.

“But… I’m not like you.”

She thought it through slowly.

She slowly reined in the swell of feeling inside her, working hard to put her thoughts into words. “I won’t use my strength against you. I got something better than that… I’m already satisfied, so I won’t act smug about coming out ahead.

“You can go. You, your father, all the servants in your household who’ve looked down their noses at me — you’re all safe now.”

Jiang Runiang looked up, dazed.

She didn’t understand the meaning of Shen Qingwu’s last words, but she sensed, vaguely, some signal that danger had passed.

Why? Had Shen Qingwu originally planned to use force against her entire family? How? Beat them, or kill them? All over her own willfulness?

A cold sweat broke out on Jiang Runiang’s back, and she cast a grateful glance toward Zhang Xingjian.

Jiang Runiang tried to salvage a little dignity. “My thanks to you both for your generosity. I won’t intrude any longer. Young Master Zhang, that little tune you were just singing was lovely, easy on the ear. I’ve never heard it — did you compose it yourself, perhaps? Forgive my presumption, given your remarkable talent.”

Zhang Xingjian’s expression turned faintly awkward.

Shen Qingwu’s expression turned equally awkward.

Seeing that her compliment had fallen flat, utterly baffled, Jiang Runiang had no choice but to take her leave—

The moment Jiang Runiang left, Shen Qingwu threw herself at Zhang Xingjian.

She was delighted that the folk tune had gone right over the woman’s head, and thrilled, too, that she had a man like this all to herself.

Shen Qingwu said, “She really apologized!”

Zhang Xingjian said, “Yes, just as I told you she would.”

Shen Qingwu wrapped her arms around his neck, overwhelmed, shaking her head, unable to put her feelings into words.

How was someone who’d never received anything supposed to express this?

She simply felt full to bursting, simply held him tighter and tighter, less and less willing to let go, to step away.

This was something she’d never felt before.

She knew perfectly well that Zhang Xingjian was weaving a net to catch her in.

But she was willing.

Whatever he wanted, she would give him.

She wanted to make him the happiest man alive—

—

Rain fell without end over the Eastern Capital.

While the Young Emperor was kept alive on nothing but ginseng broth, and every official in the court grew anxious and on edge, a not-quite-small incident took place.

One night, the lane where the Zhang family lived was struck by thieves and fire. A great household also lived on that same lane, their whole extended family under one roof; as the petty thieves fled, the fire they’d set spread on the wind, catching the neighboring Zhang residence as well.

The entire Zhang household scrambled to fight the flames.

Chang Lin, having just finished the tasks his young master had assigned him along with several others, was being entertained by the Second Young Lady over wine and fine food.

Chang Lin was shaken awake mid-sleep.

Reeking of wine, his mind foggy, everyone doubled in his blurred vision, it took him a long moment to recognize the man who’d woken him — one of the loyal retainers on night watch.

The retainer was frantic. “The house is on fire! Hurry!”

They scrambled out through the smoke and flame, stunned by the sight of the raging blaze.

The Zhang family’s century-old estate, with ancient trees in its courtyards that had stood for decades — all of it about to be consumed by fire… Chang Lin, watching people fight the flames, suddenly remembered something, and a chill ran through his entire body.

His drunkenness vanished in an instant.

Chang Lin barked, “Come with me!”

Leading a dozen or so retainers, he pushed through the sea of fire, rushing toward the courtyard where Bo Rong was being held.

By the time he arrived, the retainer who’d been watching outside the study was nowhere to be found. Chang Lin kicked the door open, and found the retainer lying unconscious inside, perfectly silent — but Bo Rong, who should have been in that study reading and writing, was gone.

Chang Lin ground his teeth. “After him!”—

Wind howled, horses raced on through the night.

In the far southwestern lane, the farthest point from the Zhang estate, the galloping horses finally came to a stop.

Zhang Wenbi leapt down from her horse first, then turned to watch Bo Rong dismount.

Bo Rong wore a black cloak that covered most of his face, his entire figure cloaked in black, only the hand gripping the reins showing any color. He swung down from the horse with slow, steady movements, his footing rock solid.

This young man standing in the lane, dressed entirely in black, bore so little resemblance to the Zhang Rong of Zhang Wenbi’s memory that he might as well have been an entirely different person.

Zhang Wenbi watched him quietly.

Bo Rong let the reins fall and turned to look at Zhang Wenbi.

He inclined his head. “This is where we part. Little sister, there’s no need to see me off.”

The moment he called her “little sister,” tears began to fall from Zhang Wenbi’s eyes.

She knew all too well how formidable that brother she’d raised with her own hands, Zhang Xingjian, had become.

To save Bo Rong, she’d spent an entire year lulling everyone’s suspicions. She’d wanted to see her elder brother, wanted to save him… and only after Zhang Xingjian left the Eastern Capital did she wait another two months, watching carefully, before she finally dared act.

She bore the Zhang name.

But the Zhang family as it stood now no longer listened to her at all.

Zhang Wenbi didn’t even know whether helping Bo Rong escape, cooperating with him this way, had been the right thing to do.

But he was her elder brother.

The figure she’d looked up to her whole life, the driving force behind nearly thirty long years.

How could she possibly stand by and watch her elder brother locked away in that small, dark room, never to see daylight again?

Here and now, facing Bo Rong directly, Zhang Wenbi found that his cloak hung so long and heavy that she still couldn’t make out his face clearly.

Zhang Wenbi said, “Eldest Brother, go. Go as far away as you can. Don’t make an enemy of Third Brother anymore… I don’t want to see either of you get hurt.”

Bo Rong smiled faintly but didn’t answer her.

Bo Rong said, “Forget me.”

Bo Rong said, “The letter I gave you — remember to show it to that person, when the time comes.”

Zhang Wenbi stood there alone.

Zhang Wenbi said, “Why won’t you reconcile with Third Brother? I raised him, taught him, modeled him after you — he’s turned out excellent, he’s done our family proud… Eldest Brother, what exactly happened between the two of you?”

Bo Rong answered, “Why ask? You don’t need me anymore, any of you.”

He looked up at the sky.

As the bright moon rose, its radiance had already eclipsed the fading light of day.

Zhang Wenbi said, “I still don’t know what you’re trying to do, don’t know what happened… I just wanted to try to keep you here — Eldest Brother, is there truly not even the smallest chance, the smallest possibility? Will you really never look back, never look at us again?”

Bo Rong said nothing.

Whatever story lay behind what had happened to him, he would carry it away, bury it for good. Let Zhang Wenbi go on believing their parents had been good people, and that he was the wicked one.

Bo Rong walked forward in silence.

Just as he was about to round the corner of the lane, he couldn’t help but turn back, one last time, to look at the sister behind him.

The lane ran so deep that only the moon above could reach into it. But standing at the base of the wall, even the moonlight couldn’t quite touch either of them.

Wherever there is radiance, there must be shadow.

Some are meant for pure, untainted light; others are meant to walk into hell.

Zhang Wenbi stood silently in place, tears falling, standing firm, bearing everything without a word.

A person could pour everything they had into something and still come away with nothing at all. Was the so-called fate of betrayal that a person fought with everything they had to resist — was it, in the end, entirely without meaning?

The meaning of his life, to him, felt unbearably empty.

This was what Bo Rong had wanted, all along.

And yet, he still couldn’t quite hold it back—

His voice hoarse, Bo Rong asked Zhang Wenbi, “If there is a Heaven above — if there is a single eye that can see every grievance, every wrong — in Heaven’s eyes, am I truly beyond redemption?”

At that moment, Zhang Wenbi knew nothing of any of it.

Tucked against her chest was a letter, burning against her skin, trembling. She would always be Zhang Rong’s most obedient, most devoted little sister; she would deliver that letter exactly as he’d instructed, at the right moment.

She knew nothing.

The only thing she knew was that this would be the last time she ever saw Zhang Rong—

A moment after Bo Rong disappeared, Chang Lin and the others finally caught up to Zhang Wenbi.

She stood leaning against the wall, weeping quietly. She didn’t flee, didn’t resist, didn’t try to explain herself — and this, oddly, left them at a loss for what to do.

Zhang Wenbi closed her eyes. “Go tell my third brother — my eldest brother has escaped.”—

—

The mood in the Shen household back in the Eastern Capital was bleak.

Shen Qingwu had become a wanted assassin, Shen Qingye had run off with a hired killer — if the court hadn’t still been wary of the Shen family’s military influence, the entire household would already have been thrown in prison.

Though they’d avoided prison, the whole family was now confined to their home under house arrest.

The Shen family patriarch, Shen Qingwu’s father, had lost his official post, and spent his days quarreling with her mother. The household was in chaos, everyone on edge, leaving Shen Zhuo utterly exhausted.

That night, Shen Zhuo returned to his room and immediately noticed someone else was inside.

A figure in a black cloak sat in the corner by the window, and Shen Zhuo’s hand went instinctively to his sword.

The figure lowered his hood, and Shen Zhuo’s eyes narrowed. “Marshal Bo!”

Wasn’t Marshal Bo supposed to be held prisoner at the Zhang estate? How was he here? Had he escaped?

Before Shen Zhuo could puzzle over it further, Bo Rong said to him, calmly, “I know of a miracle physician, but I need a way to get him into the Eastern Capital, to keep His Majesty alive.

“The Shen family has a chance here — a chance at a glorious future, a chance to have all past transgressions forgiven. All you need to do is follow me from here. Carry out my plan exactly, and the Shen family has a real shot at rising again.”

Shen Zhuo said, “A chance?”

Bo Rong smiled. “Lose, and it’s utter destruction — body, soul, the whole family put to the sword. Win, and you’ll be holding the emperor himself, commanding the realm in his name. Young master of the Shen family — dare you gamble alongside me?”