Zhang Zhixu’s injuries were in truth not serious — and yet he went to the most prominent physician’s clinic on the street and had the physician prepare the most costly medicines available.

Quite a number of people had gathered nearby to watch and whisper.

“All those medicines — what sort of state must he be in?”

“I heard the Zhang Family showed no mercy. Not only did they beat him and throw him out, they reclaimed the house and the shops and everything else.”

“Serves him right, for being an unfilial son — daring to talk back to his own parents.”

“He’s always been someone who lived off his family’s name. Without the Zhang Family, he’ll have no easy days ahead.”

Jiuquan was beginning to feel indignant on his behalf, but Zhang Zhixu was leaning against the window, finding it all not nearly harsh enough. He murmured a few quiet instructions, sending the idle members of his retinue to go down and join in the chatter.

“Master, the inn has been arranged,” Jiuquan said hesitantly. “But is that place not a bit beneath your dignity? Should we not go find Commissioner Chen?”

Zhang Zhixu gave a low laugh. “Find her? She’s the last person I can go to right now.”

Even though he had used the break with his father to obscure the fact that he had refused the marriage arrangement, anyone with any sense could figure it out — no one would make such a scene over anything less than defying an imperial command.

What Chen Baoxiang needed to do right now was almost certainly to make a clean break from him. She would never bring fire down upon herself.

Clever as she was, she might even stage a deliberate falling-out between them at some opportune moment — the better to protect herself.

Zhang Zhixu was thinking all of this calmly, and had even begun considering how he might cooperate with her if it came to that.

But in the very next moment, the door was pushed open, and someone swept inside like a gust of wind, rushing straight up to him.

“Fengqing!” She looked at him with bright, shining eyes. “Let me tell you something wonderful — the Princess Imperial has given me a courtyard! It has twenty rooms!”

Zhang Zhixu was stunned.

Before him, Chen Baoxiang shone like the high summer sun — a thin sheen of perspiration at her brow, her clear eyes reflecting his own dumbfounded expression with pure, unguarded clarity.

He reached out to intercept her before she could seize hold of him, and quickly closed the window and the door.

“You’re this out of touch with what’s happening?” He turned back with a frown. “You don’t know what occurred at the Zhang Mansion?”

She blinked.

Zhang Zhixu pushed her toward the door with undisguised exasperation. “Go, quickly — if anyone sees you here, it’ll be trouble.”

Her feet moved two steps under the pressure, then Chen Baoxiang spun around like a slippery fish and slid right back to stand facing him. “Go where? That courtyard is very large — I’m frightened to live there alone. I wanted to ask whether you’d like to stay there for a while.”

Zhang Zhixu pressed his hand to his forehead. “I won’t go.”

“Come on, come on — look at the state of my wounds. Every time Bikong changes the bandages she rips the scabs clean off, it’s agony. You’re the only one who does it properly. If we lived nearby it would be so much more convenient.”

“I have money now — you won’t go hungry.”

“I promise the bedding will all be brand new.”

She kept chattering on, plainly carried away with the euphoria of moving into a new home.

Zhang Zhixu looked at her with a mixture of exasperation and amusement, and suddenly felt a mischievous impulse. He leaned forward until he was level with her gaze. “Fine then. I’ll come back with you.”

“Really?” Her face lit up.

He nodded. “You promise you won’t drive me away?”

“Of course not — you and I, who do we have but each other? Even if the sky fell in, I wouldn’t drive you away.” She thumped her chest with a guaranteeing hand.

A sly curl tugged at the corner of his mouth. He said, word by word: “Even now that I’ve refused the imperial marriage — you still won’t drive me away?”

At those words, the room went silent for a moment.

Zhang Zhixu had anticipated this entirely. He waited with a smile in his eyes, fully expecting her expression to change dramatically, and then for her clever tongue to nimbly find some way to reverse course and tell him not to come after all.

He had already prepared himself to laugh at her.

Yet the person before him lifted her eyes to meet his. Her face bore not a trace of surprise.

“Yes.” She nodded, and reached out to gently take hold of his arm — bruised purple where he had been struck. “I won’t drive you away.”

The trailing willow branches caught the wind and flared upward, their shadows scattered in a wild tangle across the window paper.

Zhang Zhixu stood motionless, staring into her eyes with a look of disbelief.

Her bright eyes were curved with a smile. There was no calculation, no concealment, no weighing of costs and benefits — only a simple emotion, plain as anything for him to see.

It looked like… concern.

His fingertips curled inward. Zhang Zhixu turned his head away, faintly flustered. “You said yourself that if I refused the imperial marriage, it would be a serious matter.”

“Yes — but you haven’t refused it yet, have you? You’re already working on a solution. You left the Zhang Family precisely because you weren’t certain enough yet, to avoid implicating them.” Chen Baoxiang blew gently on his swollen arm. “You’ve already done very well, Fengqing.”

Something in his chest twisted tightly, and then, as though warm water had welled up and softened it, it dissolved.

Zhang Zhixu’s lashes trembled. After quite a long moment he took a deep breath. “Still — it wouldn’t be right for me to stay at your place. I’ll keep to the inn.”

“The inn can hold your name. You come along with me quietly.” She released his sleeve. “Shangjing is in chaos right now, and it’s not safe for you to be out on your own. My medicines are better than what you’d find outside, too. I’ll put more on when we get back.”

And with that, she took hold of his hand without further discussion and pulled him toward the door.

Zhang Zhixu stumbled a step as she tugged him along. He looked down at the two strands of hair sticking up from her topknot, and made no further resistance.

He had the feeling he had just glimpsed, through some crack in the heavens, a thread of light breaking through.

The rational Chen Baoxiang — the Chen Baoxiang who always sought advantage and avoided harm — how was it that she too could make a decision that was entirely against her own interests?

·

The new courtyard had not yet been put in order, with trunks and cases stacked haphazardly all around.

Zhang Zhixu sat amid the jumbled boxes and cases, watching the person beside him rummage through everything in search of medicinal ointment. She picked up a vial, held it up to her ear and shook it, then wrinkled her nose. “I’ve used so much of the bruise ointment already — come on, hold out your hand.”

“Didn’t it run out?” He held out his arm, puzzled.

“No matter.” Chen Baoxiang tipped a little water into the vial, swirled it, and poured what remained onto him. “There’s still a little left.”

Zhang Zhixu: “…” Diluting medicinal ointment with water — could that even work?

He tried to stop her. “The ointment doesn’t actually have to be applied.”

“What are you saying? You’re someone who hates pain — without medicine you won’t sleep tonight.” She finished applying it to his arm, set it aside, then made a move to pull open his collar.

Zhang Zhixu swiftly caught her hand, an eyebrow rising slightly. “Wasn’t it you who hates pain? Between the two of us, whenever we’ve been together, your pain has always been far more apparent than mine.”

Chen Baoxiang let out a scoffing sound. “Have you ever seen anyone who gets injured regularly and still fears pain? You’re talking about your own sensitivity — I’m not the sort to faint from the pain of having wounds sutured.”

Zhang Zhixu: “…”

So the one who was sensitive to pain was him.

“I’m sorry you have to stay here,” Chen Baoxiang said, moving two cases aside and surveying the room. “No golden-threaded embroidered canopy, and the bed wobbles a little. Tomorrow, after I’m done entertaining Lord Xu and the others, I’ll go to the eastern market and buy you a proper new bed frame.”

Xu Buran and that crowd had long been saying they wanted to host a celebration for her new appointment, and now there was also the housewarming — she would receive them all together in one go.

Zhang Zhixu listened to this with a slight narrowing of his eyes. “Since when did you have dealings with Xu Buran again?”

“He’s been at the military officials’ bureau — we’ve never really lost touch.” Chen Baoxiang said matter-of-factly. “Back at Tianning Mountain, he was the one who persuaded Assistant Commissioner Su and Assistant Commissioner Zhao to come along with me.”

“And actually, he’s quite capable in commanding troops. With just over a hundred men, he managed to send more than two hundred bandits scattering in every direction — and they ran straight into my encirclement. That’s why we won so decisively. I haven’t properly thanked him yet.”

“There were some of Lu Shouhuai’s former loyalists in the Patrol Division — difficult to bring to heel. He found a way to have them transferred to the Eastern Camp. I haven’t had a chance to thank him for that either.”

“Oh, and Fengqing — are you coming to the housewarming banquet tomorrow?”

The person across from her said nothing. His entire body had turned away, his back somewhat stiff.

“Not coming?” She didn’t notice, continuing to talk to herself. “That might actually be better — saves me from having to explain things. Then I’ll come back to you once I’m done tomorrow. Get some rest early.”

The door opened and then closed. That person left with a light-footed, bouncing step — in a cheerful mood.

Zhang Zhixu sat with an expressionless face staring at the table in front of him, and after quite a while let out a faintly vexed breath.

Chen Baoxiang did genuinely care about him.

But she seemed just as good to everyone else.

He did not like this feeling. And yet, never having experienced it before, he had absolutely no idea what to do.

What could he even do about her?

·

The following midday, the new residence welcomed quite a number of guests — mostly soldiers and military officers she was close to. They filled several tables and drank and played drinking games with great clamor, the scene tremendously lively.

Assistant Commissioner Su had drunk himself into a fine mood, and even climbed up onto a bench to declare to Chen Baoxiang: “From now on you’re our chief! Whatever you say goes — we’ll never say otherwise!”

“Assistant Commissioner Su — just who exactly does ‘we’ refer to?” a colleague teased.

“Who else? The ones who were on the mountain that day — me, Commissioner Zhao, and… oh right — Commissioner Xu!” Assistant Commissioner Su’s eyes gleamed. “When the chief got injured, Commissioner Xu was beside himself with worry.”

Commissioner Zhao joined in the ribbing: “Wasn’t he? The way he came rushing toward the chief — if the chief had truly been in mortal danger, he might have gone and followed her in death.”

Xu Buran, caught in the middle of all this, flushed red to his ears and didn’t dare look at the person beside him. He only said: “Commissioner Chen is the heart of the troops. It’s only natural that I should be concerned.”

“What do you mean by that — we’re all calling her ‘chief’ now, why aren’t you?” Assistant Commissioner Su laughed even louder. “You’re harboring some other feeling, aren’t you.”

Xu Buran coughed several times and said vaguely: “He is unmarried, she is unmarried — what business is it of any of yours?”

“He may be unmarried — but doesn’t Commissioner Chen have someone?” someone abruptly said.

The table fell briefly silent. Then everyone quickly moved to paper over it: “What someone? There’s no one. Everything before was just rumors. Our chief got her promotion purely because the senior official had good judgment — all those street corner gossip stories, don’t be bringing that nonsense up in front of the chief.”

“Exactly. That gentleman hasn’t been seen in ages. But our Commissioner Xu has been by the chief’s side all along — steadfast and loyal through thick and thin. Now that’s a reliable man. Come, I’ll drink to Commissioner Xu.”

Commissioner Zhao raised his cup, only to find it empty.

He grumbled under his breath and stretched out his hand, reaching for the wine vessel beside him.

A hand with well-defined knuckles reached out, faster than his, and picked up the wine vessel first.