Just as Shen Xiao was looking at Li Shu, Li Shu turned her head and looked back at him. Shen Xiao was caught in the act and quickly averted his eyes. But Li Shu turned her head to follow and fixed her gaze on the fire for a long moment.

She blinked. Then turned to look at Shen Xiao again.

And only then said, “So I haven’t gone blind after all.”

Shen Xiao stared at her, utterly at a loss.

Seeing his confusion, Li Shu explained in a matter-of-fact tone, “When I fell and lost consciousness, I woke to find I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know whether the night was simply too dark, or whether my eyes had gone.”

She turned to look at the fire again and let out a quiet breath of wonder. “So I haven’t gone blind.”

Only now did the relief of having survived show plainly on her face.

Shen Xiao rarely saw her look so… dazed. He couldn’t help letting a faint smile escape, and moved closer to the fire. “You’ve been reading too many story books.”

His tone carried a light note of teasing.

Falling off a cliff and coming away either amnesiac or blind — that sort of thing.

He added, “Don’t keep staring at the fire — it’ll strain your eyes.”

Li Shu drew her gaze away from the fire and looked around the cave.

The cave was narrow and long, and not very tall — Shen Xiao had to hunch down whenever he stood up. Inside, there was only a large stone slab, barely wide enough to serve as a seat. Li Shu sat on it. Shen Xiao had to crouch.

He knelt on one knee, half-crouching across from Li Shu, and poked at the fire. The flames flared higher.

Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets, which made the cave feel even quieter by contrast — only the occasional spit and crackle of the fire, lending the space a still, enclosed atmosphere.

Li Shu looked at Shen Xiao’s shadow cast on the cave wall, swaying in the firelight — and unexpectedly felt something close to peace.

“Your hands… what happened?”

Shen Xiao asked suddenly.

Li Shu looked down.

She had always been the kind of person who couldn’t bear to look at blood. One glance and she quickly turned away, repulsed by her own wounds — she couldn’t bring herself to look at the swollen white flesh and the exposed depths of her palms.

She said, “I grabbed onto a vine as I was falling, and this is what happened.”

Her voice carried a faint tremor, but she quickly suppressed it. “Thanks to these hands — otherwise what you would have found at the bottom of the cliff would have been a corpse.”

“Then… how did you come to fall from the cliff?” Shen Xiao asked.

She turned her hands palm-down so she couldn’t see the damage, then raised her eyes to look at Shen Xiao and countered, “How did you find me?”

Of all the vast mountain, it was he who had found her.

Shen Xiao reached into his robe and produced a jade ornament, held it out to Li Shu, and said, “I found this at the base of the cliff. It doesn’t look like something an ordinary person could afford to wear. I guessed it might be yours, and so I searched the surrounding area for you.”

But when Li Shu saw the jade ornament, her eyes lit up immediately. She stretched across the fire to reach for it.

Shen Xiao closed it in his palm. “You haven’t answered my question yet. How did you fall from the cliff?”

Li Shu looked at Shen Xiao. “Master Shen is quite the one for trading information.”

She said coolly, “That jade ornament isn’t mine. The person it belongs to is the one who pushed me off the cliff.”

Shen Xiao was startled. He opened his palm to examine the ornament. On it was a complex and intricate symbol — some kind of mark, he supposed. He didn’t recognize it.

“Who?”

Li Shu looked steadily at Shen Xiao, opened her palm, and said, “I barely had a moment to look. I have no idea. Give it to me.”

Shen Xiao stood up from across the fire and moved to Li Shu’s side, knelt on one knee beside her, and held the jade ornament out in front of her.

In the firelight, his fingers looked especially long and slender. His middle and index fingers had a layer of callus along one side. Li Shu glanced at the jade in his palm and immediately let out a cold laugh.

The Eastern Palace.

So it seemed her scheming around the grain seizure had already reached the Crown Prince’s ears.

Shen Xiao saw her expression and knew she had already understood. He pressed, “Who is it?”

But Li Shu gave him a cold look and warned, “Master Shen — some things are not your business to ask about. The more you know, the less safe you are.”

Shen Xiao was stung by her aloof manner. But he quickly reasoned it through on his own. “A great figure?”

Who else would dare to kill Princess Pingyang, if not a great figure?

The great figures of the court… Shen Xiao lowered his eyes and ran through them. There were only so many. And who had lately been in conflict with Princess Pingyang — who had come off the worse for their encounter with her.

Shen Xiao reached his conclusion quickly.

His gaze also turned cold. The one sitting on the chair in the Eastern Palace… was not a man of virtue and benevolence.

Though — her husband Cui Jinzhi was a core figure of the Eastern Palace faction. So how had she ended up in this situation?

Li Shu did not answer Shen Xiao’s words.

A great figure? The one seated in the Eastern Palace was certainly a great figure.

Pity he was also a stupid one.

Did the Crown Prince think giving her a death ruled as “accidentally lost her footing and fell” could wash away his guilt for murdering a half-sister? What a joke.

Li Shu reached out and snatched the jade ornament straight from Shen Xiao’s palm, her expression utterly cold.

Once she returned, she would set the ornament on the Emperor’s desk, then weep out her account, and see how the Crown Prince would manage to explain himself.

The Eastern Palace seat was probably going to sit empty for some time.

Good — she had fallen from a cliff, and in exchange she’d brought down the Crown Prince. Truly the best bargain in all the world.

As Li Shu was scheming this through, she clenched the jade ornament in her palm — but the moment her hand moved, a wave of searing pain hit her. Her fingers slackened and the ornament dropped to the ground.

Li Shu immediately bent her head to look for it, but Shen Xiao reached past her and picked it up from the floor.

He let out something that sounded like a resigned sigh. “Your hands — be careful.”

He moved to hand it back over, but looked at Li Shu’s hands, hesitated, and wasn’t sure where to place the ornament.

Li Shu said, “Would you trouble yourself, Master Shen, to hang it around my neck.”

This was invaluable evidence. She absolutely could not afford to lose it. Otherwise tonight’s suffering would have been entirely for nothing.

Shen Xiao was momentarily taken aback. But Li Shu had already turned her back to him, presenting only her back.

Shen Xiao stood, hesitated briefly, then extended the cord around Li Shu’s neck.

The ornament had originally hung from a belt at the waist — the cord wasn’t quite long enough. Shen Xiao tried to avoid touching Li Shu, but her wet hair made it impossible to loop the cord around.

He reached out and gently swept the damp hair at the back of her neck aside. His knuckles brushed the cool skin of her nape, and his hand gave a slight, involuntary tremor. Then he quickly tied the cord into a firm knot.

Shen Xiao immediately pulled his hands back and retreated a large step — but, not thinking to duck, the back of his head cracked straight into the cave ceiling. He let out a muffled grunt.

Li Shu turned around, looked at him in that state, and paused for a moment. Then she laughed.

It was the kind of entirely ordinary laugh one might see on any person’s face. Yet Shen Xiao, looking at her, found it was a kind of laugh one almost never saw on hers.

Moved by some impulse he couldn’t name, Shen Xiao rubbed the back of his head and laughed back at her.

Boom — a clap of thunder rolled in from somewhere beyond the mountain. The rain outside grew heavier.

A gust of cold, damp air swept in from the cave entrance. Li Shu shivered.

Shen Xiao said quickly, “Are you… are you cold? Do you want to put on my robe?”

Li Shu frowned faintly at that, and said nothing, only looked at him.

The look made Shen Xiao’s face heat up. He assumed his suggestion had been too forward — of course. After all, men and women were different.

His voice dropped and grew urgent, taking on a somewhat defensive note. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just — I’m a man, I’m stronger than you, and you’ve been hurt. Your clothes are soaked through too. If you catch cold on top of everything else, that’s only going to make things worse.”

“And with rain like this tonight, the others will probably have trouble reaching us. Since we’ll be outside through the night, you ought to stay as warm as possible…”

His rambling explanation came to an end, and still Li Shu said nothing. She simply looked at him.

Shen Xiao felt as though her clear, penetrating gaze could see through every confused thought in his head. He had nearly fled her eyes entirely and was about to turn away — when Li Shu raised an eyebrow and said, “…Master Shen, your robe is also soaked.”

She had thought about wearing it. But was that even possible, given the state it was in?

Shen Xiao had been stumbling over himself, not managing to say what he actually meant. Not a single word had landed on point.

Li Shu: “Shen Xiao, did the rain get into your head?”

The way he was carrying on — nothing like that Master Shen who had turned the whole of Chang’an upside down with that cold, lone boldness of his.

Shen Xiao hurried to deny it. “…No, I’m not…”

He hesitated, looking at Li Shu’s ruined clothing — the large patches of skin beneath, all seeping blood. Thanks to the rain, the mud had been washed away, and the wounds were at least not dirty. But they were truly severe. Especially her hands — the torn skin was turned outward in a horrifying way. If no medicine was applied tonight, and she had to wait until rescued before dressing the wounds the following day, she would likely suffer lasting damage.

Shen Xiao calmed himself, settling back into his usual grave composure. He only said, “Wait a moment” — and before Li Shu could react, he had already stepped out of the cave. In a moment he came back in holding several thick branches, which he quickly assembled into a rough wooden frame.

He fixed his eyes on Li Shu. “…Please turn around, Princess.”

Li Shu: “What?”

Shen Xiao hesitated, shifted his eyes away from Li Shu’s gaze, and said, “…Turn away from me. I need to take off my outer robe. Once it’s dry, you can change into it.”

Li Shu: “Oh.”

Just for that, he needed her to turn around?

Did he think she was going to stare shamelessly at him?

Even if she had the inclination, was he going undressed down to bare skin under his official robe? He had an inner robe on.

Li Shu looked at Shen Xiao — looked until a flush crept from his lean face all the way to the tips of his ears — and only then understood: so this was Master Shen blushing with embarrassment.

He had flushed red all over, and yet he was still holding rigidly to a severe, solemn expression, affecting composure.

Li Shu turned her body around.

The rustling sounds came from behind her, then the sound of a robe being laid over the wooden frame. When Shen Xiao said “done,” Li Shu turned back around, but didn’t see him anywhere in the cave.

His voice drifted in from outside, mixing with the sound of rain. “I’m going out to look for some medicinal herbs. Your hands are badly hurt.”

He paused, then added, “It may take quite a while…”

So you can let your hair down and get out of your wet things. No need to be reserved on my account.

Li Shu started, and called out quickly, “But it’s raining outside!”

Shen Xiao didn’t answer. He had already gone.

Li Shu sat blankly in the cave.

It was truly raining heavily out there.

It was not until this moment that she confirmed, without any remaining doubt, that Shen Xiao had genuinely come to save her — not sent by anyone, not come to harm her.

He would not hurt her.

She sat on the not-entirely-comfortable stone, aching all over. Looking at his drenched official robe hanging beside the fire, she let out a quiet laugh.

This Master Shen truly was… something rather endearing.