Li Shu had not imagined that anyone would actually dare to kill her.

In the court, it was impossible not to have political enemies — but the battles had always been waged with sharp words and hidden schemes. When had open killing ever become an option?

She had, after all, grown up entirely within the Cold Palace. She had never lived through the poisonings and hidden murders of the inner court’s rivalries, and she was not like a man, who might have the capacity to take the field of battle. No matter how clever she was, she remained a woman at heart — she had never seen blood, had never seen a dead person.

She had not imagined that anyone would truly want to see her dead.

Li Shu plunged from the cliff, the landscape rushing upward past her at terrifying speed — too fast to make out — and Qianfu Temple, built into the mountainside, was already at a great elevation. Falling from here would mean certain death.

In the frantic terror of that near-death moment, Li Shu’s mind suddenly went calm. One single thought filled her entire being — she could not die.

She had fought her whole life to get this far. How could she accept dying like this?

Before her eyes flashed layers upon layers of ancient trees and vines growing from the cliffside. Li Shu thrust her hand out sharply and seized a thick, dangling vine.

But the downward momentum was far too violent. Even with every ounce of strength she had, even gripping the vine with all she possessed, her whole body continued to plummet downward uncontrollably. Her palms felt as though they were being sliced by a blade and seared by fire — the pain nearly enough to make her black out — yet still she clenched her teeth and held on with what remained of her will, refused to let go.

The fall seemed to last a long time, and also seemed to last no time at all. Those hands had long ceased to feel like her own. At last, Li Shu spent every last remnant of her strength, could no longer hold the vine, released her grip, and dropped the rest of the way.

She only had the sensation of tumbling head over heels down a long, sloping incline — and then she lost consciousness.

…

When she opened her eyes again, she could not tell whether it was because the night was so dark or because she had gone blind — she could not make out a thing. She only felt the hard, battering rain falling on her face and all over her body.

The Guanzhong region, parched for nearly half a year, at last received its first rain on this night.

A torrential downpour.

She could see nothing. Li Shu didn’t know how long she had been unconscious. But she guessed it probably hadn’t been long enough to stretch past nightfall — otherwise her servants, noticing her absence, would have turned the mountain inside out searching for her.

Li Shu lay on the ground, enduring the rain pouring over her. She did not want to move a single inch.

The sensation was, naturally, not pleasant — like taking a thorough beating at the hands of heaven itself. But she was grateful she could still feel it. She had survived the fall from the cliff. She was alive.

Li Shu lay there for some time. When she had at last recovered somewhat, she tried to struggle into a sitting position. But the moment both palms pressed against the ground, a searing, bone-deep pain shot through them.

She cried out in shock and immediately fell back to the ground. Only then, belatedly, did she remember — she had clutched and slid all the way down the vine. These hands of hers were probably ruined.

Not just her hands — her whole body was burning with pain.

But she could not lie here and wait passively for whatever came next. Someone wanted her dead. She had to hide herself — stay hidden until her people found her.

Li Shu gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet. Mercifully, there were no signs of broken bones. She could still walk.

All thanks to that vine.

Had the Buddha arranged that vine for her? When she got back, she would absolutely make another donation of a thousand taels of gold and have the gilded body of the Buddha in Qianfu Temple recast from scratch.

And send someone to see that every plant on Donggangshan was properly tended and cared for.

Her mind filled with all manner of absurd, senseless thoughts — she crammed her head full of them on purpose, keeping herself going with the ridiculous, just to keep her body from giving out and collapsing in despair.

Li Shu gritted her teeth and picked her way forward step by uncertain step, but she could see absolutely nothing. She had no choice but to count as she went, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. In this halting, fearful manner she had walked more than two hundred paces when a thick fallen branch lying across the ground caught her foot.

She went sprawling face-first onto the ground, her whole face submerged in the muddy water.

Water and mud poured into her nose and mouth. Li Shu choked and coughed several times. She was just bracing herself to push up and struggle back to her feet when she suddenly heard a sound from behind.

Someone was calling her name.

“Ping…”

“Pingyang…”

The voice was tangled in the sound of rain, unable to travel far. Li Shu had been occupied with making her way forward and had not noticed it before.

Was the approaching person friend or enemy?

It might be one of her guards. It might be a monk from Qianfu Temple. But it could just as well be… the person sent to kill her.

Li Shu lay flat on the ground, motionless, her face pressed into the muddy water as though she were already dead — even her breathing all but ceased.

As a precaution, she slowly reached out and picked up the thick fallen branch that had tripped her, and silently gripped it in her palm, ignoring the wounds on her hands.

The person’s calling voice drew nearer and nearer. Li Shu could now even hear his footsteps, stumbling and uncertain, as he ran through the darkness of the deep mountain. He nearly lost his footing several times on the way.

“Princess Pingyang!”

His voice was close now — he had clearly been calling for a long time, for his throat had been worn hoarse. Li Shu could not immediately identify the voice from the sound of it, only thought it vaguely familiar.

He ran toward her. Closer and closer. And then, without warning, he tripped directly over Li Shu’s legs.

Shen Xiao fell to the ground. He was just pulling himself upright when something lunged on top of him, and then he felt something rough and hard pressed against his throat.

He heard the person above him, speaking through clenched teeth: “Who are you!”

She was half crouched over him, pinning him down. Her eyes held fury, and resolve, and deep within them a trace of despair. The night was pitch black — no hand visible in front of the face — yet Shen Xiao somehow saw her eyes.

Brighter than any stars he had ever seen.

The anxiety he had carried through the whole night settled and dissolved all at once.

She was alright.

“Princess, it’s me — Shen Xiao.”

The figure above him clearly froze. The hard pressure at his throat eased for a moment, then returned. “How do you know I fell from the cliff? Why did you come looking for me? Are you alone?”

A string of questions — one after another — revealing all the suspicion coiled inside her.

Shen Xiao frowned slightly.

The monks of Qianfu Temple and Li Shu’s own servants had said only that the Princess had suddenly disappeared. At the cliff’s edge near the pagoda platform, they had found her footprints, and surmised she must have accidentally fallen over. But hearing her fire off question after question now, Shen Xiao thought she sounded nothing like someone who had simply lost her footing.

This felt far more like… someone who had been ambushed.

Li Shu heard no reply from Shen Xiao. Both hands tightened their grip on the branch.

She did not trust Shen Xiao.

Aside from her own people, she trusted no one right now. Anyone might be her would-be killer.

“Answer me!”

Li Shu’s whole body had nearly collapsed over Shen Xiao’s, leaning half across him, her voice cracked and raw. Shen Xiao could feel the breath of her words directly on his face.

Shen Xiao could have dislodged her with a single shift of his body. More to the point, what she had pressed against his throat… felt like a branch? It had no power to harm him whatsoever.

But Shen Xiao stayed still. He only turned his head slightly to one side and answered patiently, “I happened to be lodging at Qianfu Temple tonight. I heard that the Princess had fallen from the cliff, and so I came to look for you. I’m not alone — your guards have returned to the city to fetch reinforcements. The others who remained at the temple have also come down the mountain to search. The mountain is large and the searchers few, so I’ve been separated from the rest.”

By sheer luck, he had found her.

He was glad it was he who had found her first.

Shen Xiao had just finished speaking when he felt something fall onto his face, tracing a warm path along his cheek and down to the corner of his mouth.

A salty taste.

For an instant he nearly thought the person above him had begun to cry. But beneath the salt was another taste — blood.

Shen Xiao immediately raised his hand and knocked the branch away from his throat. He pushed himself to a seated position and pressed urgently, “You’re injured?!”

Li Shu had been crouching over him. Shen Xiao’s sudden upward surge nearly sent her toppling backward, but he reacted quickly, shooting out a hand to catch her by the wrist.

But the moment he closed his fingers around her wrist, Li Shu let out a sharp, agonized cry.

Shen Xiao startled, and felt it then — his palm was full of something warm and sticky. Blood and flesh pressed together.

He released her at once. “Your hands… what happened?” The words came out slightly roughened.

Li Shu gritted her teeth and swallowed the remaining pain. Her mind was still fixed on interrogating Shen Xiao — whether he had truly come to save her or to finish her off.

The pain had nearly folded her in on herself. She slid off Shen Xiao’s body and sat at his side, but still forced her voice into a hard, unyielding tone. “Shen Xiao — why did you come looking for me? Who sent you?”

Her voice came out one word at a time, pried through clenched teeth.

As she spoke, she moved to reach for the branch Shen Xiao had knocked aside.

If he had truly come to kill her, then even at the point of death, she would fight with everything she had before going down.

But her fingers had barely touched the branch when Shen Xiao’s hand shot out and seized her by the wrist. “What are you reaching for? Your hands are hurt!”

He gripped her wrist and immediately, feeling how gently he’d taken hold, eased his grip at once — not knowing the full extent of her injuries, afraid of causing her more pain.

Shen Xiao pressed down his anger. He had never seen anyone so careless with their own life.

“No one sent me. I came on my own to find you!”

Li Shu let out a cold laugh. “Why should I believe you.”

That answer stoked a flash of anger in Shen Xiao — he felt as though he had scattered his worry across an entire mountainside, only to have it all read as sinister intent.

“Believe it or don’t.”

The words came out short and clipped.

But the moment they left his mouth, he felt he had been too harsh. She had, after all, fallen from a cliff, suffered injuries this severe, and had no one around her she could trust — of course she had no choice but to protect herself.

He let out a slow breath. “I genuinely came to save you.”

He made a conscious effort to soften a voice that was, by habit, cold and rigid. He turned his head and said quietly, “Are there other injuries on your body? Can you walk?”

Not wanting Li Shu to remain suspicious, he added, “We can’t stay out here. Let me take you somewhere to get out of the rain.”

Li Shu tried to pull away, her wrist slipping from his grip.

She sat beside him, and seemed, at last, to have accepted the reality that for now she had no choice but to rely on him.

Besides — at this point, Shen Xiao had no real political entanglement with her. He was unlikely to be the one trying to kill her.

Li Shu was quiet for a moment, then answered honestly, “I can walk. Nothing serious — only scrapes. No major injuries.”

Shen Xiao let out a breath of relief.

To have fallen from a cliff and still be alive — that was the best of a very bad situation.

To be alive, and without broken bones or serious injury — that was a luck of one in ten thousand.

She truly was favored by heaven.

But once he had found a dry cave and started a fire and could finally see Li Shu clearly, he realized that what she had called “only scrapes” was already beyond what he could bear to look at for a second time.

Her outer robe had been worn to tatters as she rolled down the slope. Her arms, her back, her calves — every patch of skin no longer hidden beneath the shredded fabric had been torn open in dozens of places by the rocks and undergrowth, scraped and cut into vast spreads of raw, bleeding skin, red enough to make the eyes ache.

And her hands were the worst of all — the skin had peeled back and turned outward, the palms almost to the bone. The rain had soaked them for so long that even the blood was gone now; they had swollen pale and white, the flesh sodden and visible.

And yet all the way here, she had done nothing but trail behind him with one hand gripping his sleeve for guidance in the dark. She had not let him support her, had not leaned on him. She had done it gritting her teeth and pushing through to the end.

Without a single sound of complaint.

She was the kind of person who did not need anyone to rescue her. Even falling from a cliff, even trapped between life and death, she could fight her way out on her own and carve her own path through blood. Even without him coming tonight, she would have found a cave by herself and waited for her guards to find her.

But Shen Xiao, looking at her pale face and the cuts across it, thought to himself: perhaps she did not need rescuing. But that didn’t mean she didn’t need company.

He could at least stay with her through the night — help dispel whatever fear and desolation was gathered inside her.