Shen Xiao had been gone a long time.

Her outer robe was damp and clinging — a wretched feeling to wear. Li Shu took it off and sat by the fire in only her inner robe.

Her hair was soaked through as well, strand after strand of it plastered against her cheeks and the back of her neck. Her hands were hurt and it was awkward to manage, but she slowly worked it loose.

Fortunately, she had come to Qianfu Temple today for Buddhist worship and had dressed simply — a straightforward high knot, with few hairpins and ornaments. She had pinned only a single one in place —

Li Shu, in the middle of letting her hair down, froze.

…

She didn’t know how long Shen Xiao had been gone — long enough that Li Shu’s hair, from the inside out, had been dried completely by the warmth of the fire. She sat beside it, beginning to nod off, yet not daring to fall fully asleep. Then at last she heard footsteps outside, blending with the sound of the rain.

Li Shu snapped awake, and heard Shen Xiao’s footsteps stop outside the mouth of the cave. She couldn’t see him from inside — only heard him call out, “Princess?”

Li Shu frowned slightly. Why wasn’t he coming in?

“Yes.”

She heard Shen Xiao still not move. Li Shu could nearly make out the sound of raindrops striking his body. Then he called again, “I found the medicinal herbs.”

Li Shu: “…Good.”

Found them, then — come in. What of it?

Shen Xiao stood outside hesitating a moment longer. “…May I come in, then?”

Li Shu: “…Yes.”

Go in if you want to go in. This broken cave didn’t have an owner.

And so Shen Xiao finally stepped inside.

He had in fact been afraid Li Shu was still in the middle of changing or letting down her hair — that if he walked in without announcing himself, he might see something he shouldn’t. And so he had deliberately lingered to give her time to make herself presentable.

But the moment he entered the cave and caught sight of Li Shu, Shen Xiao nearly dropped the armful of medicinal herbs he was carrying.

Li Shu had long since removed her shredded outer robe and hung it casually over the wooden frame. She had draped his dry official robe over her shoulders, but with her hands injured she hadn’t fastened the buttons, leaving it open at the front — so one could see plainly the inner robe she wore beneath, which fell to her feet.

And so an outer robe that ought to have been worn with perfect propriety had somehow, on her, become something rakishly unrestrained.

Hearing him enter, Li Shu turned her head to look at him. The firelight caught half her face and left the other half in shadow. Her brows were long, her eyes upward-curved — stripped now of that sharp, cutting edge that usually inhabited them, leaving in its place a kind of fluid, rippling depth.

Shen Xiao hurriedly looked away, not knowing whether to retreat or advance. But Li Shu didn’t seem to think herself underdressed in the least. She looked directly at Shen Xiao and asked, “Master Shen, did you happen to come across a gold hairpin anywhere along the way?”

Her expression was markedly anxious.

Li Shu had thought that if Shen Xiao could find something as small as the jade ornament, perhaps he might have spotted the hairpin too.

Shen Xiao frowned, shook his head slowly. “No.”

He had found the jade ornament purely by chance — a tree branch had caught it and held it dangling right in front of his eyes.

Li Shu’s eyes went dim.

Shen Xiao looked at her, and noticed — every time he had seen her, however her clothes or jewelry or makeup might have changed, there had always been a gold hairpin slanted through her hair.

Plain and understated — nothing that seemed fitting for a woman of her station.

Shen Xiao asked, “Is it very important?”

Li Shu considered for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s not important. It’s only… an old keepsake.”

But Shen Xiao said, “Old keepsakes are important.”

Li Shu heard this and smiled, not wishing to say more about the hairpin. Lost was lost. She was lucky enough to be alive — that was what mattered.

She shifted the subject, looking at the armful in Shen Xiao’s arms. “What is that you’re carrying?”

Shen Xiao answered, “Fresh golden thread herb. It stops bleeding and reduces swelling.”

Reminded by her question, Shen Xiao recalled that the most pressing matter was the wounds on her hands. He set the herbs down by the fire and crouched to sort through them in the firelight.

He had, after all, been groping for herbs in the dark, knowing only that golden thread herb grew in the damp soil beneath the undergrowth — so he had gone ahead and pulled up a great armful of everything in reach. Now, by the firelight, he sorted carefully, discarding the useless weeds and tossing them outside the cave.

Then he gathered the leaves, stripped them from the stems, pressed them into his palm and wrung them hard. A green juice immediately seeped from between his fingers.

Shen Xiao said quickly, “Hands.”

Li Shu immediately stretched both hands out toward him. She truly couldn’t bear to look at her own wounds. Averting her eyes to stare at the fire, she felt a cool moisture spread across her palms. It stung faintly — but within what she could manage.

Just then, Li Shu heard a dripping sound and realized, belatedly — Shen Xiao was soaked through entirely.

Li Shu felt something shift inside her. She turned her head back and looked at him.

Shen Xiao was kneeling half before her, head bent, pressing the herbal juice carefully into the wounds of her palms.

Looking down at him from above, she could see: his lashes, long and dark. His nose, straight and prominent. Only his lips were on the thin side, and he kept them pressed together constantly — that was where his cold, imposing manner came from.

He had only his white inner robe on, soaked completely through, the outline of the muscles beneath just barely visible through the cloth.

By the standards of men, he was on the lean side. But broad-shouldered and long-legged, he never looked slight — instead he had a quality of unbending, solitary pride.

Water was running down from his topknot, dripping steadily along his cheekbones and jaw. He had a fresh handful of golden thread herb in his other hand, was too occupied to free it, and only used the back of his wrist to scrub roughly at his face, flicking the droplets to the ground.

Li Shu looked at him, and a thought surfaced: Grand Princess Kangning had chosen Shen Xiao as her personal companion — that had been one of the rare moments she had ever shown any real taste.

Li Shu was entirely unconscious of how uninhibited her gaze had become. But Shen Xiao, as the one being observed, was acutely aware — he felt her eyes move over him from head to foot, and his whole body went rigid, every hair standing on end.

He deeply wanted to tell her to stop looking. But he felt that saying it would be too deliberate — as though her gaze had any particular effect on him.

Then he heard Li Shu say, “I owe you a great deal for rescuing me this time, Master Shen. Had it not been for you, I don’t know what my situation would be right now.”

The words were entirely sincere.

Shen Xiao smiled faintly, and found that he wasn’t quite accustomed to this particular version of Li Shu — the one who thanked people in earnest. She looked cold on the surface but was soft inside.

He thought so.

Li Shu went on, “A debt like this — no number of spoken thanks can repay it properly. Once I am rescued, I will certainly give you a great sum of gold and silver.”

The most useful thing in the world, after all, was either money or power.

He was a fifth-rank official now — she couldn’t easily promote him further. So that left only money.

She thought she was being generous. He came from a humble background, and even with a post now, official salaries were modest — he was likely living quite straitened in Chang’an.

She had thought her thanks a fair and fitting return. But at the words, Shen Xiao’s hands stopped moving. He lifted his eyes to look at her — and the faint smile was gone.

“Gold and silver?”

He had scoured the whole mountain for her. And in the end, what he had done it for was gold and silver?

Shen Xiao tightened his grip on the herbs in his palm. His throat went taut, the words coming out with a full, unyielding chill. “Like three years ago — when after serving at the Princess’s side, you rewarded with gold and silver?”

The cave was still firelight and shadow. Nothing had changed. And yet the atmosphere between them was clearly different now.

Li Shu hadn’t understood why Shen Xiao had suddenly gone cold. She frowned. “What do you mean?”

What was wrong with giving money?

Shen Xiao’s lips pressed into a tight line. He took a step back and rose to his feet. Head lowered, he looked down at her — a different figure entirely from the one who had knelt quietly before her, administering medicine.

“I have no particular meaning, Princess. Only — some things cannot be paid for with gold and silver.”

Gold and silver couldn’t repay the dignity that had been trampled into the ground three years ago. Nor could they repay the worry he had scattered across every inch of this mountainside tonight.

To measure these things in money was the greatest insult of all.

Li Shu tilted her head back, looking up to find Shen Xiao’s expression ice-cold — entirely unlike the person who had knelt before her a moment ago and carefully applied medicine.

One looking down, one looking up — both silent, as though locked in some wordless standoff.

In the end it was Shen Xiao, seeing the wounds on her hands, who gave in first. He said nothing more and silently dropped back to one knee before her.

He picked up the last handful of golden thread herb from the floor, wrung out the juice, and let it fall onto Li Shu’s hands.

Only his expression, compared to moments before, had gone noticeably colder.

Li Shu looked at the green herbal juice on her palms and suddenly spoke, picking up where Shen Xiao had left off. “Master Shen, you had that part wrong. In this world, aside from power — everything else can be exchanged for gold and silver.”

He was, after all, newly entered into official life and still showed a certain idealistic naivety.

Li Shu raised her eyes to Shen Xiao. “Gold and silver, together with power, are the finest things in the world. Everything can be traded for them, and they can be traded for everything.”

“I know what kind of person you are, Master Shen — proud and solitary, contemptuous of money, valuing that pride of yours above all else. Three years ago I forced you to serve at my side, and then broke my word afterward. I have no doubt you have hated me for it bitterly ever since.”

“And yet…”

Li Shu leaned toward him, closed the distance. Her gaze fixed directly on Shen Xiao, and she lowered her voice. “…of what use is pride?”

A breath away. Shen Xiao’s dark eyes looked back at Li Shu in silence.

Li Shu curved her lips into a cold, faint smile. “Three years ago you lost your pride, yes — but in exchange, you also walked away from me with a great sum of money. Enough to sustain years of study and see you through to the top of the examination rankings.”

“Power moves heaven; money commands demons. Master Shen — in the court, don’t forget those eight words.”

Shen Xiao listened to the whole of it without argument.

The flare of anger he had felt over “gold and silver” subsided quickly. He only sat quietly and looked at Li Shu. Then he asked:

“Power moves heaven, money commands demons. If that is so — then why did the Princess betray the Crown Prince over the grain seizure? Follow the Eastern Palace, and your road to power would only have run smoother — not like now, hiding beneath a cliff face, as wretched as a stray dog that has lost its home.”

Those dark eyes of his came like a sword blade, driving straight through — cleaving apart everything her words had constructed, piercing directly to Li Shu’s core.

Li Shu averted her eyes at once. She didn’t dare meet Shen Xiao’s gaze.

Why betray the Crown Prince? Why surrender a perfectly smooth road to power in exchange for one so much harder?

Why?

Because she didn’t want to be treated as someone’s dog.

Because she, too, wanted her pride.

Shen Xiao saw Li Shu turn her eyes away and refuse to look at him, and understood that he had cut through the facade she’d put up. He smiled lightly. “So you are wrong.”

Power and money were priceless treasures in this world — but they were not the most priceless. He had always pursued them, but he was not enslaved to them.

Li Shu disliked being seen through. She was annoyed, and stiffened her face. Reflexively she started to clench her hand.

But Shen Xiao was fast — he saw her hand start to move and reached over at once, pressing down on it gently. “Don’t move. The medicine just went on.”

His hand was damp and cold, but broad. Laid over hers, it rested there briefly — then Shen Xiao felt the contact had been too abrupt and pulled his hand away.

Li Shu saw Shen Xiao’s palm covered in green herb-juice, droplets of water still falling from him. He had been so busy tending to her that he hadn’t managed to see to himself at all.

Li Shu suddenly said, “Your clothes are soaked through. You should take them off and dry them by the fire.”

Shen Xiao startled, and quickly shook his head. “No need…”

He only had his inner robe left. Another layer off and he’d have nothing.

Because of those words, Shen Xiao’s earlier composure cracked again. Li Shu was fairly certain she caught a flash of red at the tips of his ears.

That heavy conversation about power and money fell away, forgotten. Li Shu, looking at Shen Xiao like this, had a sudden hunch.

She suspected she had taken Shen Xiao’s first experience.

And from the look of him now, she was probably also the only woman he had ever been close to.

Well — she had been a bit reckless herself, looking back.

She had used someone up and then walked away without a second glance. Terrible of her.

Shen Xiao was still dripping through to the skin. Li Shu was afraid that if he didn’t dry his clothes soon, he’d come down with a fever.

She said, “Dry your clothes, then. I’ll turn around.”

Out of consideration for Shen Xiao’s dignity, Li Shu immediately turned herself around, back to the fire, face to the rough stone wall. “I won’t look. I promise.”

Of the two of them, which one was the man and which the woman, exactly?

Seeing Li Shu turn her back to him, Shen Xiao hesitated for a moment, then finally resolved to undo his robe. Li Shu was being so openly magnanimous about it — if he kept on being coy, he wouldn’t seem much like a man at all.

Besides, he really had been raised with his head buried in books and had almost no experience with any woman of appropriate age. He had even less experience with a woman like Li Shu — someone who was entirely unbothered by the matters between men and women.

And the inner robe was genuinely unpleasant to wear, soaked as it was.

And so Shen Xiao took off his upper garment and held it over the fire on a stick to dry, watching from across the cave as Li Shu sat facing the wall.

The fire crackled and popped. The cave fell quiet for a spell.

Shen Xiao looked at the dark hair spread across her back, and his mind drifted back to the matter of the gold hairpin.

Her expression had been so urgent when she was asking about it. The hairpin almost certainly mattered greatly to her.

Shen Xiao suddenly said, “That gold hairpin… was it a gift from Vice Minister Cui?”

He couldn’t think of any reason other than sentiment that could make her care so much about something so simple and plain.