Chen Baoxiang had laid out an extravagant spread. Twenty goats alone had been slaughtered, to say nothing of pork, beef, and fish — it had the look of a banquet meant to last three days and three nights.

She was in high spirits, moving from table to table raising toasts, chatting with everyone she met whether she knew them or not, sending her guests away cheerful and well entertained.

But with so many people, the hours slipped by quickly, and by the time she made her way up to the attic, the midday hour had already passed.

The immortal sat with his arms folded in sulky displeasure, and didn’t even bother to look up at the sound of her entering.

Chen Baoxiang sensed trouble and, after offering a round of toasts at the table, slipped quietly to his side and murmured: “I missed your mealtime, didn’t I?”

The immortal didn’t look at her — just gave a short, disgruntled hum.

The room was crowded and cramped. She barely managed two words with him before Xu Buran cut in, and then Yinyue was pulling her aside to whisper, and then Xie Lanting was clamoring to find her and lodge some complaint.

She was pushed away from him almost immediately.

Zhang Zhixu’s mood darkened further. He rose and made to leave.

A hand reached out from the crowd and seized him by the arm.

He stopped. He glanced sideways — and saw Chen Baoxiang shouldering her way through the crowd, saying to someone, “Just a moment,” as she grabbed hold of him and headed for the door.

“Commissioner Chen, where are you going?”

“Baoxiang Sister.”

“Miss Baoxiang, I wasn’t finished—”

A whole crowd of voices called after her from behind, but she did not look back. Her hand gripped him firmly, and she pulled him straight out of the room thick with the smell of wine and roasted meat, into a gust of fresh air.

The tightness in Zhang Zhixu’s expression eased a fraction.

He muttered under his breath: “Where are we going.”

“I have something I’d like to consult Commissioner Zhang about.”

Chen Baoxiang replied vaguely, but she had already brought him through to the quieter main room at the back.

“Come, come — I saved a table specially for you.” She pressed him down into a seat at the side. “I also asked Ningsu to draw your attendant away — eat as much as you like, no one is watching!”

Did she think he was sulking because he hadn’t eaten?

Zhang Zhixu exhaled a long breath through his nose, and in frustration set the food box he had been carrying down on the table in front of her.

Chen Baoxiang looked at it, baffled, and opened it to find — a thick clump of gummy noodles.

— Well, properly speaking, it should have been a bowl of noodles in slow-simmered bone broth meat sauce. The base was made from fine silken noodles and the sauce from finely minced top-grade beef. Even having congealed into a lump, there was still a rich fragrance rising from it.

Chen Baoxiang’s eyes lit up. She cradled the bowl and looked at the person across from her. “You made this specially for me?”

“No.” Zhang Zhixu’s tone was thoroughly unpleasant. “I made it specially to sit here and look pretty.”

She let out a low laugh. Her cheeks, flushed from the wine she’d been drinking all afternoon, were the color of ripe peaches. She set down the bowl and threw her arms around him with cheerful abandon. “Great Immortal, you’re so good to me.”

The wine-warmed breath that washed over him should have made him recoil, but somehow, for reasons he could not explain, his hands moved of their own accord and came to rest on her back.

His mouth, though, could not help but complain: “You’re enjoying yourself thoroughly. I, meanwhile, was suffocating up there — people pressing in from every direction, and I didn’t know which of them might be guests you actually cared about, so I couldn’t even ask Ningsu to turn anyone away.”

“And Xilai and Yinyue — what possessed you to put those two together? Yinyue gets tipsy and then she just babbles on, saying one embarrassing thing after another. Xilai was barely holding himself together.”

“And Xu Buran — what standing does he have to go around blocking drinks on your behalf?”

The words came tumbling out in a fast, breathless stream, entirely unlike the composed and measured manner he usually carried himself with.

Chen Baoxiang listened to all of it, eyes hazy, and let out a couple of soft, pleased little laughs.

Zhang Zhixu pulled away from her, just about to let his irritation out — and then he saw this person pick up a pair of chopsticks and begin working at the noodles.

They had gone stiff and clumped together. She labored at them with effort, but still managed to pry out two strands and stuffed them into her mouth.

The bulk of his frustration dissolved at once.

“Don’t eat that — I’ll have the kitchen make you a fresh bowl.”

“The taste is exactly what I imagined.” She seemed not to hear him, continuing to work at the noodles and eat them, strand by strand. “Great Immortal, you don’t know how many years I’ve been waiting for this bowl.”

“I know,” he said, with somewhat forced surliness.

Even without sharing a body. Even across the vast gulf that lay between them. He could still look through the long span of years and see that small, forlorn child, perched on someone else’s wall with longing eyes.

Chen Baoxiang, too, was a girl that someone cared for.

Whatever others had — she should have too.

The bowl of noodles was eaten clean to the last drop. Chen Baoxiang patted her belly with profound satisfaction.

Behind her, several hundred birthday gifts were stacked into a small mountain.

Zhang Zhixu swept them with a glance and suddenly asked: “What did Xu Buran give you?”

“Hmm?” Chen Baoxiang thought it over. “He didn’t hand his gift to the person at the door logging the presents — he said something about giving it to me privately tonight.”

Tonight. In private.

Zhang Zhixu narrowed his eyes slightly. “That already sounds like something unsuitable.”

“How could it be?” Chen Baoxiang was puzzled. “Commissioner Xu comes from a wealthy family. Whatever he sends me can hardly be substandard.”

“I’m referring to him as a person.”

Chen Baoxiang: “…”

She scratched her head in confusion. “Great Immortal, do you not particularly like Commissioner Xu?”

Zhang Zhixu did not answer, only turning the teacup in his hands with languid, restless fingers.

Chen Baoxiang, however, had grown genuinely concerned. She pressed her case earnestly: “Commissioner Xu was Zhang Zhixu’s childhood companion — he’s also on good terms with Commissioner Xie and the rest of them. If you want to properly impersonate Zhang Zhixu, Great Immortal, you can’t afford to be cold toward him. You’ll give yourself away.”

Who said childhood companions are necessarily close? He and Xu Buran had only ever associated because Xie Lanting had connected them in the first place.

He gave a dismissive sound and reached out a finger to tap her on the forehead. “If you have energy to spare worrying about me, you’d be better off calculating how much this banquet of yours is going to cost you.”

“Oh, right!”

The thought launched Chen Baoxiang into immediate action. She scrambled to bring out her abacus.

One calculation was all it took for her to let out a howl of anguish. “It’s so expensive — how can mere food and drink cost this much?”

She hadn’t even ordered extravagant dishes like roasted whole lamb stuffed inside a sheep — the menu was mostly just hearty, solid meat fare — and yet the beads of the abacus were clicking along fast enough to make her breathless.

All the while she was calculating, she was pathetically peeking into her own purse.

Zhang Zhixu was amused in spite of himself. “You knew it would be expensive and still ordered this much. Going by your usual way of thinking, you ought to have only hosted the midday meal and not offered dinner.”

One meal per day — same number of gifts collected, considerably less spent.

“Great Immortal, there are things you don’t know.” Chen Baoxiang murmured the words casually.

Zhang Zhixu took strong exception to that phrase. He was the person who understood her better than anyone else in this world besides herself — what could there possibly be that he didn’t know?

He was just about to say something more when Han Xiao came rushing in: “Mistress, everyone outside is asking for you — please go out, I can’t manage them all on my own.”

“Coming.” Chen Baoxiang hiked up her skirt and ran.

Zhang Zhixu followed along and went out with her.

As they passed through the courtyard on the way back to the front hall, his gaze drifted idly over the surroundings, and his steps slowed to a halt.

The midday hour had passed. Most of the guests had already dispersed, but every table still had people seated at it — people eating rough and scrambling, nearly fighting over the food.

Looking more carefully, they were people dressed in tattered, threadbare clothing. As they ate, their eyes darted warily around them, ready to bolt the moment the host noticed them.

“Chen Baoxiang.” He called ahead to her. “This banquet you spent a fortune on—”