Early the next morning, Xie Changgeng and Mu Fulan set out from the capital for Hexi.

Because the northernmost border city of Xiutu had shown signs of unrest, he needed to get there without delay. Although the two departed together, their journeys were not the same.

He traveled light and fast with only a few attendants. Mu Fulan rode in a carriage outfitted for a long journey, escorted by a company of retainers, following the main road northwest — traveling by day and stopping each night at roadside post stations — making her way toward Guzang, the seat of the Hexi Military Governorship.

Before they left, Mu Fulan asked Xie Changgeng what arrangements he intended to make for her once they arrived.

His answer was straightforward. He said that he had brought her away from the Empress Dowager’s hands by invoking the name of husband and wife — half by pressure, half by pleading. She would have to go to Guzang first. Once there, when enough time had passed, she could find some suitable pretext and return.

His position put Mu Fulan’s mind at rest — but what followed was a stretch of difficult waiting.

In her dreams, she could only see the look in Xi’er’s eyes that day — repeatedly turning back to gaze at her, full of reluctance to part.

Only a few days had passed since they separated, yet she had already been thinking of him without cease.

How she wished she could go back to him at once — to be together with the Xi’er she had lost and then, against all odds, found again.

Her pace could never match Xie Changgeng’s no matter how fast she traveled, but in hopes of arriving sooner and returning to Changsha Kingdom sooner, she pushed forward without pause all the same.

Her traveling companions knew nothing of the circumstances. Seeing her press on without any sign of exhaustion, they assumed she was eager to arrive and be reunited with the Military Governor, and none of them dared slack off. The entire party exerted themselves as one — traveling each day and resting each night — until at last they arrived in Guzang.

Guzang was known as the guardian of the northwest and the vital thoroughfare of the realm. It was the military and administrative heart of the court’s northwestern territories, situated at the frontier — a place where the local customs were fierce and fearless, renowned for producing fine horses and crack cavalry, famous across the land.

On the day Mu Fulan arrived, a heavy snowfall that had lasted several days and nights had just ceased. The snow and ice encrusting the broad, thick city gate gleamed and glittered in the sunlight. Inside the city, vendors and merchants crowded the streets, people flowing back and forth, lively and bustling.

The Military Governor’s residence was in the northern part of the city. Xie Changgeng had arrived ten days earlier and was currently away — not yet returned from Xiutu.

The steward welcomed the party inside. After everyone was settled, the following day the wives of the local officials, having heard the news, came in a stream to pay their respects. Mu Fulan spent several days managing the social calls. Then one evening, Xie Changgeng also returned to the city. Back at the Military Governor’s residence, he seemed somewhat surprised to find that Mu Fulan had arrived so many days ahead. He gave her a glance.

As before, the two of them shared the same room. When it came time to sleep, he found Mu Fulan already standing before the room’s single bed, her eyes still and quiet as she watched him — as though waiting for him to get in first. Expressionless, he turned aside, retrieved a separate set of bedding from the cupboard as he had done before, spread it on the couch, and lay down.

Mu Fulan had no deliberate intention of forcing him to sleep apart from her.

Though the very thought of sharing a bed with him filled her with an unbearable heaviness — even revulsion — setting everything else aside, she already owed him an enormous debt of gratitude for helping her escape this time.

A debt of gratitude is like a debt of money — sooner or later, it must be repaid.

She had no real means at present to repay such a debt. Only herself.

If he wanted, she would not refuse.

Of course, if — as now — he still felt contempt for her, a body no longer chaste, then that was the best outcome she could hope for.

Though Mu Fulan desperately wanted to open her mouth right away and discuss with him the matter of when she might return, she knew it was not the right moment to raise such a thing. He had no doubt gone to some lengths to bring her along, and with her arrival so recent, it was truly not the time to talk of leaving again.

She would have to be patient and wait a little longer.

In the days that followed, Xie Changgeng was rarely to be seen. With nothing particular to occupy her, she would sometimes change her clothes and go out for a walk. One day she came to the market, strolling idly past a stall, and caught sight of a small child’s hat made of local yak leather — remarkably charming. She took a liking to it at once and bought it.

A maidservant asked with a smile: “My lady, who is this hat for?”

Mu Fulan smiled but said nothing. She put away the leather hat, wandered a bit longer at leisure, and was just thinking of leaving when she passed by a medical clinic open at the roadside. She saw several men of the local tribal people carrying a child of seven or eight years old and rushing inside in great haste. Sounds of uproar quickly followed from within, and she stopped.

The tribal men were speaking to the doctor inside in a tongue she could not understand. Their expressions were desperate. The doctor shook his hands again and again: “Nothing to do with me! I prescribe what the illness calls for — if I cannot cure it, you can kill me if you like, there is nothing I can do!”

Mu Fulan asked her escort guard — who could speak the local language — what those people had said. He went over and asked for a moment, then came back and reported: “These men are from a nearby tribal village. For some days now, many people in the village have been suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever — this child has been the same. A few days ago they brought him here for the doctor to treat, but not only did he fail to improve — he got worse. Now the child is nearly dying, and the adults have come back today to demand the doctor do something!”

“My lady,” the guard added, “the tribal people usually treat illness with their own folk remedies. They only come into the city when things are truly desperate. There are no proper physicians here — the medical men here are roughly on the level of army doctors, able to handle cuts and bruises and common colds. When they meet anything serious, it is up to heaven.”

Inside, the shouting grew louder. A middle-aged man, seeing the doctor continuing to evade responsibility, flushed with anger and drew the saber at his waist. With a resounding thud, he drove it into the door plank — splitting a large hole clean through.

The doctor, knowing full well how fierce these tribal people could be and that they had no regard for authority, was terrified. He cried out loudly for help.

Mu Fulan pushed through the onlookers crowding the doorway and went in.

The child lay flat on a table, eyes closed, burning with fever, his lips and tongue cracked and dry. He was fading — an appearance of great weakness.

In the years before her marriage at sixteen, she had spent time with the elderly physician and had helped look after no small number of people who came seeking treatment. Her understanding of many conditions went far beyond what she had read in medical texts.

She took the child’s pulse, examined his tongue coating, and had the steward relay questions to the adults about the specific symptoms. From this, she determined that the child had contracted a severe case of dysentery.

Everyone present — seeing a beautiful young woman come in and begin examining the child as though she were a physician — fell silent from their quarreling and turned to look.

The escort guard, not having expected that the Military Governor’s wife could practice medicine, was momentarily stunned. On hearing from a maidservant that their mistress had formerly studied medicine, he came to his senses and quickly declared: “She is the Military Governor’s wife, and she knows medicine — everyone step aside!”

On hearing that she knew medicine, the tribal men pushed the doctor out of the way and surged forward immediately.

The doctor, still shaken from his fright, heard that this woman was the Military Governor’s wife and also came over. Bowing as he drew near, he began to pour out his grievances: “My lady — this child has dysentery. When they brought him to me a few days ago, he was already suffering vomiting, diarrhea, retching, and refusing food, with signs of deterioration. For treating this illness one uses descending and purging remedies — betel nut, bitter orange, magnolia bark, rhubarb root and the like. If I cannot cure it, there is nothing I can do. These people are truly brutal — not only do they blame me, they drew a blade and nearly killed me! My lady, you understand medicine — please, stand up for me—”

The elderly physician had once told her that in treating this illness, if one did not first identify the underlying cause before prescribing, the results were often only half successful. From the tribal men’s description that many people in the village had fallen ill in the same manner, combined with the season, she could deduce that this was not caused by external factors — but by a purulent infection brought on by contaminated food. In those with weakened constitutions, if the treatment was not managed properly, the condition could be serious enough to prove fatal.

She examined the child carefully once more, then wrote out the prescription the elderly physician had once taught her. She instructed the doctor to prepare and decoct the medicine at once, and also asked someone to bring a bowl of warm salted water to give the child to drink.

When the medicine was ready, she slowly fed it to the child little by little. There was no possibility of seeing results so quickly. She inquired about the location of the village — she was told it was some distance from here, taking more than an hour to travel on foot once outside the city. With the child truly too weak to be moved back and forth, she instructed that they not carry him again. They should find a place nearby to settle him down, administer the medicine at regular intervals, and keep giving him salted water to drink slowly, and observe the results. If anything came up, they were to go to the Military Governor’s residence and find her.

Those people were filled with gratitude and dropped to their knees before her.

When Mu Fulan returned, she did not mention any of this to Xie Changgeng that evening. The next morning, still thinking of it, she went again. The tribal men were delighted to see her return and thanked her repeatedly.

The child’s condition had stabilized overnight — the diarrhea and vomiting had gradually subsided by the previous evening, and by today his spirits were much improved.

The medicine was proving effective, and Mu Fulan was glad. She examined the child once more, and that day — at the tribal people’s urgent, kneeling entreaties — she went to their village herself to treat the sick there. She asked about the drinking water source and learned that the whole village drew from a single well. Suspecting the water source had been contaminated, she told them not to use it, sealed off the old well, and had them find a new source of water.

That evening, having finished everything, she made her way back into the city. It was already fully dark.

It had been a busy day and the road had been rough and jolting — Mu Fulan felt somewhat tired. She ate a few mouthfuls of food, bathed, and went to bed without waiting for Xie Changgeng to return.

Xie Changgeng came back around the hour of xu. The steward came to receive him, and said cheerfully: “My lord — who would have thought that my lady knows medicine? These past two days she has been going out to treat the tribal people. This evening the tribal people themselves escorted her back. In ordinary times, they look at us as though we are their enemies, and would not let us step so much as a foot inside their village — this is the first time in all my years here that I have ever seen anything like it.”

A century earlier, the court had come into conflict with the tribal people during the opening up of this territory, and many had been killed. Now, though the area had long been established as a city, with those tribal descendants brought under official administration, they remained deeply hostile toward the garrison troops — so the steward’s surprise was understandable.

That the daughter of the Prince of Changsha was the elderly physician’s half-student was something Xie Changgeng knew — and that she had once treated A’Mao’s illness while living in his household. Hearing this news, he was not particularly surprised. He thought to ask about the situation among the sick in the tribal village, and so returned to the room and pushed open the door.

At this hour it was not yet particularly late. The last few nights she had still been awake at this time, yet the room was empty now, with the bed curtains hanging low.

Xie Changgeng went over and called out: “Consort Mu,” and lifted the curtain.

Mu Fulan had already fallen asleep.

She slept deeply — so deeply that even when he pushed open the door and called her name, she did not stir.

Beneath the room’s floor tiles, an underground heating flue had been built — the room was kept quite warm by it. She had apparently grown hot in her sleep. Not only had a length of snow-white legs and feet kicked free of the covering, but the bedding was pulled down somewhat low. Her collar was slightly rumpled, and beneath the folds, a faint trace of white showed — visible, yet barely so. She lay on her side, one arm pillowed beneath her cheek. Her face was like a lotus blossom; her arm, like white jade. Between neck and chest, a faint sheen of perspiration seemed to have gathered.

Xie Changgeng held the bed curtain in his fingers, his gaze fixed on her in silence for a while. Then he saw her stir slightly — as though she sensed something — the bare foot nearest to him at the edge of the bed curled inward, and her eyelashes fluttered, as though she were on the verge of waking. He let the curtain drop, held his breath, and quietly stepped back several paces.

From behind the curtain came the soft sound of her turning over, and then silence settled once more.

Xie Changgeng slowly let out a breath. Without once more looking behind him, he turned and left.

In the days that followed, Mu Fulan spared no effort — going out and coming back into the city each morning and evening, continuing to treat the elderly, the weak, and the seriously ill in the village who could not easily move about. She was busy without cease, and some evenings came back even later than Xie Changgeng.

Xie Changgeng said nothing at all, as though he took no notice of any of it — not a word of inquiry, and no interference whatsoever.

Half a month later, that evening, he came back from several days out patrolling the border, dusty and road-worn, and returned to the Military Governor’s residence to find her gone again. He asked the steward, who told him that the sick in the tribal village had long since been cured, but their mistress was still very busy. These past days, people had been coming to seek her help frequently. That afternoon, the army doctor had come too — saying there were a few soldiers whose illness he was not confident in treating, and had sent someone to invite her over.

“She went shortly after midday — she should have been back by now, by rights. Shall I send someone to look, my lord?” the steward asked.

Xie Changgeng said there was no need. He returned to the room on his own, bathed and changed, came out — and Mu Fulan had still not returned.

A maidservant came to invite him for the evening meal.

He glanced at the darkening sky outside, and went out the door.