Lian City was situated at the junction of the Kingdom of Changsha and the Sanmiao territories. It was a small square city with a total population of no more than a thousand or so households. In the past it had always been the gateway for trade and exchange between the Sanmiao and Changsha, and had once thrived, but after the rise of the Jiang-Rong and the growing unrest along Changsha’s southern border, it had fallen into decline. Small as it was, however, it had all that was needed. Upon learning that the princess had come to treat the people of the three clans for the pestilential miasma and would need a place to stay, the Lian City Magistrate had made early preparations for every aspect of her reception and had arranged the finest house in the city for her use. After Mu Fulan arrived and settled Xi’er in, leaving him in the city with Nanny Mu and the handmaids as company, she immediately set out with the physician’s assistants and doctors, leaving the city to begin work in the territories of the three clans.

Despite all her preparations, she found on arrival that the situation was far more grave than she had initially imagined.

Pestilential miasma was not uncommon in the local area — the turn of spring into summer was in fact a season especially prone to outbreaks. But this time, severe food shortages had caused even many previously healthy people to grow weak in body and fall ill. The old, the frail, and children were the first to bear the brunt.

In one stronghold she visited, out of a total of several hundred households, fully half had contracted the pestilential miasma. Though most were the old, the frail, women, and children, it was still a sight that struck one to the heart.

When the local people, tormented by hunger and sickness, learned that the King of Changsha had not only agreed to lend them grain to help them through the current lean season, but that the princess herself had personally brought people here to practice medicine and treat the sick, there was not one among them who was not stirred to the core.

For many years, in the eyes of the ordinary people of the Sanmiao, the neighboring Kingdom of Changsha had always been an honored state, and the Mu kings had always been generous and benevolent. Now the King of Changsha had, putting past grievances aside, once more stretched out his hand to save them — how could they not be overwhelmed with gratitude?

Everywhere Mu Fulan went, when she departed, the people would prostrate themselves in reverence, showing her the utmost respect.

She was kept extremely busy. But whenever she was able to return to the city for the night, she did so. Only when she was truly too occupied until too late, or had traveled to a place too far to make the journey back in the same day, did she spend the night there.

In this way, busy through and through, a little more than a month passed.

Xi’er had kept in mind the condition he had promised her before. Knowing she had things to attend to and could not return to the city every night to sleep beside him, he never made a fuss at bedtime — he simply got into bed obediently.

That evening, Nanny Mu helped him finish bathing, dressed him in his sleeping clothes, and carried him to bed. Smiling, she said, “Young master, the princess will not be back tonight. Don’t wait up — go to sleep on your own.”

Xi’er nodded and agreed.

Nanny Mu laid him down, covered his small belly with a light quilt, and sat on the edge of the bed fanning him gently with a palm-leaf fan to help him drift off to sleep.

Xi’er gave a yawn and closed his eyes.

Nanny Mu studied the child lying on the pillow.

Delicate brows. Long lashes. That little face, so strangely and immediately familiar-seeming at first glance — the more she looked, the more endearing she found it.

She remembered that the princess had left Hexi and returned to Changsha in the second month. It was now the seventh month — nearly half a year.

This child had been with them just as long. Spending every day together, Nanny Mu had long since grown deeply fond of this well-behaved and sensible little child from the bottom of her heart.

But honestly, even now, there was still something Nanny Mu could not quite understand: the depth of feeling the princess had for this orphan child — one she had picked up on the road, a child she had had no prior connection with whatsoever and could never have met before. The princess was only seventeen this year, yet in Nanny Mu’s perception, she still seemed like that very young girl who had just been betrothed, so long ago. And yet whenever the princess looked at this child, Nanny Mu could sense it at every moment — in her eyes was a love and tenderness emanating from the deepest depths of a mother’s heart, the kind only a mother could have for her own child.

Nanny Mu’s gaze lingered on Xi’er’s small face, and all she could do was sigh inwardly once more.

Perhaps, she thought, this was what was meant by fate from a previous life. The princess and this child were bound by fate.

Xi’er fell asleep.

Nanny Mu rose quietly, checked the window screens, blew out the lamp, and tiptoed out of the room.

It was a summer night in the seventh month. The sky above was a deep violet, the moon bright with few stars — an altogether ordinary night. This small, remote city in Changsha’s southern territory had long since sealed its gates shut.

At the third watch of the night, the Lian City Magistrate was jolted awake by knocking at his door.

What jolted the magistrate from sleep was an uninvited caller who had arrived in the dead of night.

The servant relaying the message said that someone calling himself Xie Changgeng had come to the city gate with only a few attendants, and had produced an official waist tablet issued by the court, marked with his rank and identity. But the gate officer had never seen a waist tablet of such high rank before and could not be certain of its authenticity. Moreover, with the princess and her party currently lodging in the city, the magistrate had previously given orders to tighten the guard at the gates, and it was the middle of the night — the officer had not dared simply open the gates and let the visitors in. He had been stalling while dispatching someone to inform the magistrate, asking him to come quickly.

The name Xie Changgeng thundered in the Lian City Magistrate’s ears. What was more, he and Xie Changgeng had actually met once in person. Years ago, when Xie had traveled to Yue City to seek the marriage, the magistrate had still been a minor official in the royal palace and had seen him with his own eyes. Upon hearing that Xie had actually come here, how could he afford any negligence? He brought his men and hurried over, commanding them to open the city gates.

By the light of the torches, he saw a man standing facing the gate, tall and upright. Who else could it be but Xie Changgeng?

The magistrate hurried forward, presented back the waist tablet that Xie had passed over, and apologized repeatedly.

“The princess and her party have been staying in the city recently, and with the added consideration that we had received no word of your coming in advance, your lordship — I was negligent in my welcome. I beg you not to hold it against me.”

Xie Changgeng’s face showed no anger, but his eyes had turned faintly cold. He had no further words for the man and, brief and to the point, simply said, “Where is the princess staying?”

He finished speaking and stepped forward into the city.

The magistrate hurried to keep pace. “Commissioner, there is something you should know. Since her arrival, the princess has gone every day into the Sanmiao strongholds to treat the sick. When circumstances make it inconvenient, she stays there overnight. These past two days she has gone to Liyang — it is some distance from here — and has not returned tonight. She has most likely stayed there.”

Xie Changgeng’s footsteps came to a halt.

“Commissioner, rest assured — from what I have heard, the people everywhere hold the princess in the deepest gratitude, prostrating themselves in reverence wherever she goes. And with General Yuan accompanying her as a personal guard, there is no danger to speak of.”

Xie Changgeng stood still for a moment, then slowly turned his head.

“And her adopted son?”

When those two words — “adopted son” — left his mouth, there was something peculiar in his tone.

The magistrate smiled. “The young master did not go along. Since arriving, he has been staying in the city the whole time, in the south of the city, not far from here.”

“Take me there.”

Xie Changgeng was silent for a moment, then said.

The magistrate answered readily, leading the way with great attentiveness and talking as he went. “Speaking of the young master — what a bright and well-mannered child he truly is. No wonder the princess dotes on him so. My wife went to call on the princess the other day and came home telling me that the two of them are not like foster mother and son at all — they are clearly even closer than a real mother and son. When the young master sees that you have come too, Commissioner, I imagine he will be all the more delighted.”

Lian City was small and remote, and in the years since its decline, news had grown sparse — it had become as closed off as a dead city. The magistrate had not been to Yue City in a long while and had no way of knowing about the stir Xie Changgeng had caused there last year, nor did he know of the estrangement between husband and wife. He simply talked on with good intentions, one pleasant remark after another, all the way to a residence where he stopped and said, “The princess is lodging here.”

A retainer had already gone ahead to knock at the gate. The guard inside heard it, learned who had come, and opened at once.

Nanny Mu had already gone to sleep when she was roused and told that Commissioner Xie had arrived. Deeply startled — she was not yet certain she believed it — she got up and came out. Seeing a tall, slender figure standing in the courtyard, she recognized the man, hurried forward to greet him, and said that the princess would not be back tonight.

“She will probably return briefly tomorrow when a new batch of medicine supplies arrives…”

Nanny Mu had no way of asking him why he had come all this way from Hexi so suddenly. Looking at his face — unreadable, neither pleased nor displeased — she explained carefully.

“And her adopted son?”

Xie Changgeng asked, his voice even.

Nanny Mu hesitated, then pointed to the room behind her.

Xie Changgeng stepped forward, walking toward that door.

His sudden appearance was far too abrupt. And the princess happened to be absent tonight of all nights.

Nanny Mu had a feeling — one she could not quite explain — that his coming was not a good sign.

Some indefinable, quiet apprehension made her reluctant for him to see Xi’er. Not like this, not under these circumstances.

Taking the candle from a handmaid, she immediately followed after him, urging, “My lord, you have come from afar and the night is deep. You must be exhausted. Would you not rest first, and if there is something to discuss, tomorrow—”

Xie Changgeng stopped at the door and turned his head, fixing her with a cold, sharp look. “What are you afraid of? Do you think I’ll eat him?”

His gaze was dark and oppressive. Nanny Mu’s heart lurched. She quickly said, “My lord, please do not misunderstand. It is only that the young master has already fallen asleep…”

Xie Changgeng seemed not to hear her. Without expression, he took the candle from her hand and pushed the door open.

“My lord…”

He had already crossed the threshold and entered.

Nanny Mu did not dare obstruct him further. She stood in the doorway, watching that figure moving forward through the candlelight, her heart seized with unease.

Xie Changgeng entered the inner room and, using the candle in his hand, lit the other lamp in the room.

The room filled with brightness, the light falling upon the sleeping child on the bed.

The room was perfectly still — not a sound, save only the shallow, even breathing of the sleeping child.

His long lashes lay quietly lowered, the candlelight casting two fan-shaped shadows on his face. He slept with such perfect peace.

Xie Changgeng did not approach the bed. He stood beside the lamp, his figure motionless.

Then, all at once, a faint sound broke the silence.

The candle spat a small burst of light.

The flame wavered.

The child sleeping in the bed seemed to sense something. His lashes trembled slightly, and he woke.

Dimly, he saw that the room was lit with lamplight, and in the lamplight there seemed to be a figure. Thinking it was his mother come back, he was flooded with joy. He scrambled upright, rubbed his still-bleary eyes with the back of his hand, and murmured drowsily, “Mother…”

His voice stopped abruptly.

He had made out the figure clearly now.

It was not his mother.

Xi’er slowly lowered his hands. He sat up in bed, eyes wide open, and looked at this silent stranger who had appeared before him for the first time, staring back.

Xie Changgeng’s gaze fell upon that child’s face — and could not move away.

In the instant he took in those brows and eyes, the absurd thought that had surfaced in his mind again and again over all this time — dismissed as quickly as it came — suddenly became more real than it had ever been.

So absurd. So preposterous that even he was unwilling to believe it.

But he knew he had not misjudged her.

If this child had truly been encountered and brought back to Changsha only after she was driven away by him this past February — how could it be such a coincidence that before then, back at the very end of last year, on the night she had just arrived in the capital, she had called out that same name in her sleep?

Before he saw that letter from Zhu Liuhu, he could not have begun to imagine that the one who had called that name was the infant before him.

What manner of bond could so haunt a person, in waking and in dreams?

If one were to call this a coincidence, then what of this moment — looking at this child before him, taking in these brows and eyes, and the sensation rising from deep within him of having seen them somewhere before?

It could only have come from her.

In this child, he seemed to glimpse the shadow of the Mu clan.

There were not so many coincidences in this world.

The doubts that had been circling within him before had, tonight, been confirmed.

This child’s origins were without question suspect.

“Who are you?”

After watching him for a long time, the child finally hesitated, then asked the first question that had come to him upon encountering Xie Changgeng.

His two small feet were pressed tightly together, the tops of his feet slightly arched, his toes curled in — an instinctive, unguarded expression of nervous wariness toward the stranger before him. But his voice was clear and steady, and showed very little fear.

Xie Changgeng stared at the child before him, his gaze heavy.

“Your father — who is he?”

He was silent for a long while, then turned the question back.