The Crown Prince threw several rounds of pitch-pot on Princess Anle’s behalf, and the Crown Prince’s consort deliberately coaxed Anle with gentle words. Anle had always been a child in temperament — her anger came swiftly and departed just as swiftly — and before long she was laughing and bright-faced again, throwing herself into the games with the other noblewomen at the palace banquet with wholehearted delight.

By the time the birthday celebration for the Crown Prince’s consort had drawn to a close, the sun had already tilted toward the west. Anle was visibly tired, and her husband, Prince Consort Yang Fang, took her by the hand and withdrew from the banquet first.

The guests departed one after another. Li Shu lingered for a while at the water pavilion, intending to wait so that she and Cui Jinzhi might leave together — but Cui Jinzhi had gone into the study with the Crown Prince early on, and she had no idea what the two of them were scheming about.

Li Shu could not be bothered to wait for him, and decided to leave the palace and return to the mansion on her own. She had never been fond of these social obligations and false smiles — after attending banquets, she invariably felt drained in both body and spirit.

Hong Luo supported Li Shu as they exited the Eastern Palace and made their way toward Hanguang Gate. They passed through the artificial rockery of the imperial gardens when suddenly the sound of a commotion drifted to them from up ahead. Li Shu halted her steps, unwilling to get entangled in whatever it was, and was just about to take a different path when the voices reached her ears again:

“Am I not doing this for your own good? On your very first time attending a banquet — how could you go and offend both Princess Pingyang and Princess Anle?”

The voice was sharp and reproachful. The person being scolded replied in a small, timid voice, “Mother… let us just go back, please, you mustn’t…”

“Mustn’t what? If I don’t manage you, you’ll grow old and die inside this palace! You are of age now — attend a few good banquets, find yourself a worthy husband, that is the most important thing! Learn from Princess Pingyang — look at the man she married, look at the position she holds now!”

They were speaking of Li Shu behind her back. Hong Luo naturally could not let it pass; her voice went cold and she called out sharply, “Who is out there gossiping?”

The commotion came to an abrupt halt. Two figures emerged from behind the rockery — one was Princess Jincheng, and the other a woman of over thirty years, whose clothing and hair ornaments identified her as an imperial court selection lady. She was most likely Princess Jincheng’s birth mother.

Princess Jincheng trembled as she curtsied. “I… I pay my respects to Princess Pingyang.”

She did not even dare to call her “Elder Sister.”

Her mother had apparently spent so long in the depths of the palace, rarely seen by the Emperor, that she passed her days in the company of palace maids and had even lost her sense of proper decorum. It was only after Princess Jincheng pulled at her sleeve that she hastily offered her bow to Li Shu.

Li Shu gave an indifferent hum. “Princess Jincheng.”

She had, at least, addressed her as a younger sister.

But her gaze did not so much as fall upon Princess Jincheng’s mother.

Li Shu’s voice was cool. “I happened to overhear just now. What is this — were you speaking of me just now?”

Princess Jincheng shook her head frantically. “No… it wasn’t… it wasn’t…”

But her mother, unaware of how high the sky was and how deep the earth ran, cut Princess Jincheng off with an easy familiarity, saying, “Your Highness has such sharp ears! I was just speaking of you to Jincheng! Jincheng said that seeing you today at the banquet, she was utterly awestruck. She got flustered for a moment and said something wrong, which upset you — please don’t…”

Princess Jincheng urgently tugged at her mother’s sleeve, trying to stop her from continuing.

Li Shu smiled faintly. “Said something wrong? What wrong thing did Princess Jincheng say at the banquet today?”

Both Princess Jincheng and her mother went blank. The mother answered quickly, “It was just… about you and Princess Anle both giving the Crown Prince’s consort jewelry as gifts…”

Li Shu continued to wear her cool, detached smile. “I did indeed give the Crown Prince’s consort jewelry, and so did Anle. Where is the wrong in that?”

The selection lady blinked, as though she found Li Shu somewhat slow-witted, and said, “It is just that you and Princess Anle… are not entirely on good terms with each other…”

At this, even Hong Luo’s expression changed. It was lamentable that Princess Jincheng could only shrink back in timidity while her mother looked positively pleased with her own remark.

Li Shu’s brow drew down at once, and her voice turned sharp and cold. “Who said that Anle and I are not on good terms?! Deliberately stirring up trouble, fanning the flames — what are your intentions?!”

Princess Jincheng immediately flinched in fright. Her mother also startled, though she still wore a bewildered expression, still oblivious as to what she had done wrong.

A woman this foolish — even if she attended ten thousand banquets, she would only keep making more enemies, not fewer. Li Shu had always disdained dealing with foolish people, yet today, looking at the timid and shrinking Princess Jincheng and her neglected mother, her heart softened against her will.

She herself had once been like this.

Li Shu let the frost melt from her face. “Princess Jincheng,” she said, “not a single word you spoke today was wrong. You need not go out of your way to apologize to anyone.”

If she were to apologize, it would drag into the open what lived beneath the surface: that Princess Pingyang and Princess Anle were at odds — which was true, yet something no one could ever say aloud. To say it outright would be to stir up discord.

“Some things can only be kept in your heart. Never bring them out into the open.”

This applied equally in the court and in the inner palace.

Princess Jincheng stared blankly at Li Shu, not yet grasping the meaning behind her words.

Li Shu’s patience ran out almost immediately. The people she dealt with on a daily basis were seasoned players of the court — men who could hear three layers of meaning in a single sentence. She had not dealt with anyone as guileless as Princess Jincheng in a very long time, and had forgotten just how helplessly dense they could be.

She had already said as much as could be said. If Jincheng still could not understand, Li Shu had no further interest in explaining. She cooled her expression and walked forward.

Watching Li Shu’s face go cold yet again, Princess Jincheng did not know how she had given offense this time. She let out a tentative, frightened call, “Princess Pingyang… Elder Sister…” Her voice carried the faint edge of tears.

Hearing that timid voice, Li Shu stopped suddenly.

“Third Young Master Cui — could you… teach me some more things?”

A weak and frightened young girl chasing after a composed and aristocratic young man, asking him in a voice full of apprehension.

Third Young Master of the Cui family was the most brilliant person she had known in this world — he could read a book once and recite it backwards, and he understood all those intricate human dynamics, even the meaning behind a single glance exchanged at a palace banquet.

He had tried to teach her these things, but she could never quite learn them.

Third Young Master Cui thought her stupid and lost patience, walking away with a flick of his sleeve. She did not know how she had offended him — she only knew that he was her sole pathway toward a brighter world, and she could not afford to lose him. And so she had chased after him trembling and terrified, from the remote and desolate wing of the palace all the way out. Down the long corridor, she had begged him not to abandon her, to give her one more chance to climb upward.

Li Shu stood where she was. She closed her eyes, let out a faint sigh.

She turned back around, and with the greatest patience she possessed, she said to Princess Jincheng, “You are of age now, and there will be many more palace banquets to come. If you ever do not know what to say, remember four words: caution and silence.”

That was how she herself had endured, year after year. Jincheng could endure as well.

*

The following morning. The Censorate.

“Hmph!”

Imperial Censor-in-Chief Xiao Jiang opened the memorial on his desk, gave it a single glance, then slapped it down onto the floor with a sharp crack.

It was the hour of Mao — the morning roll call had just concluded — and the officials of the Censorate were assembled in the hall as usual, awaiting the daily instructions from their superior, Imperial Censor-in-Chief Xiao Jiang. This was the routine of every official bureau each morning.

Xiao Jiang threw down the memorial and declared, “With handwriting like this — submitting it upward will only soil the Emperor’s eyes!”

The memorial had landed open on the floor. The brushwork, while not particularly elegant, was nonetheless clean and upright. Shen Xiao stood below in the hall, staring at the memorial. “Censorate Surveillance Censor, your servant Shen Xiao humbly submits…”

He had been answering the morning roll call at the Censorate for ten days now, yet every memorial he wrote was struck down by Xiao Jiang — and the reason was simple: Xiao Jiang found his handwriting ugly.

Imperial Censor-in-Chief Xiao Jiang was over fifty years old, and hailed from the Lanling Xiao family — a clan of refined elegance stretching back a hundred years, foremost in both calligraphy and literary accomplishment. Xiao Jiang himself was one of the great masters of calligraphy in this era, renowned for his running script.

It had been Xiao Jiang who served as chief examiner during Shen Xiao’s civil examination. The moment he had seen Shen Xiao’s handwriting — without even reading the contents — he had known at once that it was not the hand of an aristocratic household’s son, and had very nearly crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the rubbish heap.

An eyesore.

Shen Xiao stood in the hall, spine straight as a rod, and did not speak a word for a long moment. Beneath his wide sleeves, his hands — all sinew and bone — clenched tight, and then slowly, slowly opened again.

Shen Xiao finally bent down and retrieved the memorial from the floor.

Argument would accomplish nothing. This had never truly been a question of calligraphy.

The graceful and angular styles of the great masters — like rare and precious books — the copybook models of famed calligraphers were equally beyond the means of those born in humble circumstances.

The difference between the great families and the common people had never been merely a matter of money.

Shen Xiao had seen Xiao Jiang’s handwriting. In the memorials he submitted to the Emperor, each character flowed with a sweeping, unfettered elegance — fluid as drifting clouds, free as running water. It was a hand he could never replicate in his lifetime, for what Xiao Jiang carried in his very person was a hundred-some years of the Lanling Xiao family’s accumulated grace and refinement.

Xiao Jiang sat in his great chair, and seeing Shen Xiao standing silent as a pillar, waved at him with barely concealed impatience. “Out, out — practice your calligraphy first, then come back to write memorials!”

“…Yes.”

Shen Xiao replied, then clutched the memorial, his fingertips whitening, and stepped across the threshold.

He stood in the corridor and turned to look at the sun rising above the eastern wall. Though it was the hour of Mao — traditionally the hour of sunrise — the weather was poor today, and the newly-risen sun had a frail and failing look, as though it were already setting.

Ten days had passed since he had impeached Princess Pingyang Li Shu — and in those ten days, aside from Li Shu herself seeking him out, the person he had been hoping to hear from had made no move whatsoever.

Could it be that the news had not yet reached him — that he was unaware of the impeachment against Li Shu?

That was not possible. The man was a prince who could match the Crown Prince as an equal rival.

Shen Xiao closed his eyes, unwilling to entertain the second possibility — that the man he wished to pledge his allegiance to looked down on him, and was unwilling to make use of a common-born official with neither power nor influence.

This was his only way of changing his fate within the court. If it came to nothing, what would become of him?