Li Shu’s silhouette visibly froze for a moment. Then she shook her head, and all the dark hair cascading down her back swayed gently with the motion.

Shen Xiao found himself thinking of the spring rivers back in Jiangnan — they too rippled with just such soft, shallow waves.

Perhaps because she was facing the wall, Li Shu felt the illusion that there was no one else in the world, that she could finally take the past out and air it clean.

She paused, then said, “It was my mother’s keepsake.”

Shen Xiao had not expected it to be something left behind by her mother. He felt at once that he had poked at a wound, and could only say, “I heard that the Princess’s mother passed away when you were very young.”

She had grown up in the Cold Palace — he had heard as much. To have risen to her current standing was truly no small feat.

And so the words that left his lips carried a fullness of gentleness.

Li Shu heard this and simply laughed. “Don’t speak in that tone — as if my keeping a gold hairpin means I’m pining for someone in grief. I’m not that sentimental.”

Her voice was ordinary, even light, carrying a smile as she gazed at the rough earthen wall beside her.

“When I was small, my health wasn’t good — I fell ill often. But we lived in the Cold Palace, and when I was sick, no imperial physicians came. Each time I grew seriously ill, my mother had no recourse but to take out her jewelry to bribe the gate eunuchs, asking them to run an errand to the Empress’s palace, to put in a good word and beg her to send a physician over.”

“And so, year after year, I grew to the age of nine. In that time I fell gravely ill twenty-three times. I remember it clearly — because my mother’s jewelry box held exactly twenty-three pieces. By the year I turned nine, the box was already empty.”

“I was always terribly afraid of falling ill. Not out of fear of medicine or needles. I was afraid… of her. Every time I got sick, she would complain. The last fever cost her a jade hair-scratcher. The time before that, a bout of chills cost her a pair of jadeite earrings.”

When Li Shu finished speaking, she suddenly let out a soft laugh, a touch of self-deprecation in it. “Fortunately, when Sir Shen treated me, he didn’t send me a bill for it.”

Her tone was breezy; Shen Xiao did not even need to see her face to imagine the expression she wore — that smile of hers, that careless smile.

Shen Xiao’s voice rose slowly. “I came to help you tonight, and I require nothing in return.”

Li Shu heard this and laughed again.

How could anyone help another person with no scheme at all, no benefit whatsoever?

Not even one’s closest kin would behave that way.

Her mother, every single day, had complained in front of her — lamenting why she fell sick so often, lamenting why she had spent all her money on her.

At times Li Shu believed she was loved, because her mother had spent every last coin she had on treatment for her. Yet at other times she felt that love came with a price — that her mother seemed only to want to tally up the debts, account by account, waiting for her to grow up and pay it all back.

If not for you, why would I be living such a bitter life?

Look at how much I’ve spent on you — why do you still answer back?

I’m the one who raised you. Can’t you just be obedient?

Her mother had been her sole refuge in childhood, the source of all the unconditional love she had ever known — yet all Li Shu had ever felt from that love was that she owed a debt.

Between the closest of kin, it turned out, there was no pure love either — everything came entangled with interest and money.

She only felt that she owed her mother a great deal of money, so much that she would never be able to repay it in a single lifetime.

And so Li Shu loved money. Loved it very much.

Her mansion was decorated in opulent splendor, gold leaf gleaming; she had accumulated countless pearl and jade hairpins, bolt upon bolt of brocade and silk, amassed wealth beyond counting.

She only wanted to pay off all those debts.

Once they were paid… perhaps her mother would give her something truly pure. Love.

Shen Xiao watched her fall suddenly silent, and understood — so this was why she rewarded him with money.

She was afraid to receive kindness from others, always feeling the prick of indebtedness, as though a debt had been incurred.

The debt of gratitude weighed too heavily; she chose to repay it with gold. As if by doing so she could draw a clean line between herself and others, leave no obligations hanging, fall clean.

After a long silence, Li Shu continued, “After I came into power, I tried to track down those pieces of jewelry. But most had been scattered beyond finding. The only one I managed to recover was this gold hairpin.”

She wore the gold hairpin in her hair every day — not out of longing for anyone, not even certain she felt any real feeling for her mother at all.

Her blood ran cold.

She wore this gold hairpin only to remind herself each day: keep moving upward. She had no love, so she would compensate with other things.

Li Shu herself didn’t know why she could say so much to Shen Xiao. She rarely spoke of the past to anyone.

In truth, everyone who lived a lifetime encountered hardship in some measure. These few fragments of her past were nothing more than a few small pangs of bitterness in the small hours of the night — things that would be forgotten by morning once she collected herself and moved on.

Only in a setting like tonight’s — the flame trembling, rain pouring in torrents, spending the night on a desolate mountain — only in such solitary moments, made for turning over one’s heart and examining what lay within, could such things emerge.

Li Shu reached out and idly scraped at the stone wall; a few crumbles of earth fell away. She said, “Sir Shen — though you are a few years my senior, I have spent considerably more years at court than you. What I say may count as the counsel of someone who has been through it all —”

“— the only things you can hold in your fist and never lose are power and money. If for the sake of anything else — dignity, moral integrity, emotion — you sacrifice these two, that is truly the most foolish thing under heaven.”

Behind her, Shen Xiao was quiet for a moment before replying, “So that is why, several months ago, the Princess bowed her head before Grand Princess Kangning.”

What Shen Xiao was referring to was the incident in which Kangning had nearly coerced him into becoming a kept consort.

At the time, Li Shu had watched with cold detachment and offered no helping hand.

Li Shu responded with a soft hum. “I imagine Sir Shen must have thought me cold-hearted, and still harbors some resentment.”

Thinking back on it now, Li Shu suddenly realized that she had, in fact, treated Shen Xiao rather badly on multiple occasions.

She would never have imagined that when she herself fell into danger, it would be he who stepped forward to rescue her.

Sir Shen truly was the gentleman who repays grievance with virtue.

Yet Shen Xiao only let out a quiet laugh. “The Princess misjudges me. I am not so narrow-minded. I harbor no resentment toward that matter. The two sides of a scale weigh differently in different people’s hearts — that was your choice. I have nothing to reproach.”

She had merely chosen not to offend the Grand Princess for the sake of power.

That was beyond reproach.

But as Shen Xiao gazed at the dark hair spread across her back, he could not help but think again of that plain, unadorned gold hairpin.

Had she been given more choices, she might not have turned out this cold and unfeeling.

The two fell quiet.

Li Shu did not need to turn around to sense that Shen Xiao was watching her. Perhaps out of pride, she kept feeling that his gaze, after she finished her story, was full of pity.

She did not need anyone’s pity.

Li Shu suddenly spoke. “Sir Shen, could you help me with a small thing?”

Shen Xiao replied at once, “Of course.”

Li Shu turned around in an instant — both eyes bright with mischief — and said with a smile, “My hand is injured and I can’t do up the buttons. Would you come over and help me fasten the buttons on my official robe…”

Shen Xiao had not been prepared for Li Shu to spin around so suddenly. Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, he lost his balance in his crouch and tumbled to the ground. “You — !”

“You said you wouldn’t turn around!”

There was an unmistakable note of aggrieved indignation in his voice.

Li Shu took one look at Shen Xiao and burst out laughing, nearly doubling over. “I go back on my word — it’s not as though this is the first day you’ve known me.”

The firelight played across her face; her eyes narrowed into slender crescents, giving her the look of a fox.

And just like that, the heavy atmosphere that had gathered in the wake of old memories was deflected away by her, replaced by something rather comical.

Shen Xiao watched her, said nothing, and simply pressed his lips together. He couldn’t recall ever having seen her laugh so… genuinely.

Li Shu thought Shen Xiao was annoyed, and restrained her laughter to explain, “It was only a joke.”

It wasn’t as though she had really asked him to do up the buttons.

If he’d actually reached out his hand, never mind blaming her for cutting it off!

Shen Xiao smoothed his brow, reached over, and took his inner robe down from the wooden frame. In two or three movements he pulled it on. The inner robe was thin and had dried through completely.

He said nothing. He poked at the fire.

He could naturally see that Li Shu was joking — and that her deflection of the conversation was her way of keeping herself from appearing too soft.

The night had grown deep. The two of them sat in silence across from each other for a while. Drowsiness crept slowly over Li Shu; she was sitting sideways, her head resting against the wall, and at some point she drifted off to sleep.

She felt she had barely slept when she heard someone beside her calling again and again: “Princess… Princess!”

Li Shu opened her eyes, blinking. Then she realized that outside the cave, it had already grown light, and the sound of rain had gradually diminished to a soft, intermittent drizzle.

Shen Xiao had been calling Li Shu for quite some time. He had truly never encountered anyone so difficult to rouse.

But it was no wonder — she had survived a night between life and death. An ordinary person would have been utterly exhausted long ago. It was remarkable enough that she had held on through most of the night and still had the leisure to tease him.

Shen Xiao said, “Princess, your people have come looking for you.”

Only when Shen Xiao said this did Li Shu hear the cries rippling across the mountainside from far away — voices calling “Princess!” rising and falling in waves. There must have been several hundred of them.

Li Shu heard it and let out a breath of relief. She had managed to endure through this night, after all.

Thanks to Shen Xiao.

But Shen Xiao then said, “Now that the Princess’s people have arrived and you are safe, this subordinate will take his leave first.”

Li Shu startled.

This subordinate?

In the urgency of the night before, she had not once heard him use that form of address. Now that he said it, Li Shu found it strangely unfamiliar.

It was as if the night’s conversation in the cave had been nothing but a yellow millet dream — and once the dream ended, she was still the untouchable Princess, and he was still only a minor official of low station. A vast gulf lay between them.

Li Shu quickly asked, “Why are you leaving?”

Shen Xiao was half-kneeling at her side, eyes lowered. “After all, we spent the night alone together in a cave. Even if it was an emergency, if others were to see and word spread, it would harm the Princess’s reputation.”

Li Shu was momentarily taken aback.

She had not thought in that direction at all.

She was indifferent about it. “What of it? I don’t care.”

What was reputation worth?

If she had cared, she never would have considered taking a kept consort in the first place.

But Shen Xiao suddenly lifted his eyes and fixed her with an extremely earnest gaze. “But I do.”

If rumors about her spread because of him, he would feel uneasy.

Li Shu was startled by Shen Xiao’s serious expression. She then replied, “Sir Shen, last night you saved me. You should know — rescuing a Princess of the court is a great merit. His Majesty will certainly reward you handsomely.”

She was no stray cat or dog; saving her would earn rewards without end. Even a large sum of silver would be considered a light reward — more importantly, it would leave a favorable impression with His Majesty, which would be an enormous advantage for Shen Xiao’s future in the court.

But Shen Xiao only shook his head. “I said — I rescued you, and I require no reward of any kind.”

He wanted more power, yes — but not at the cost of a woman’s reputation.

Li Shu was dumbfounded. Shen Xiao picked up the hem of his official robe and slid it off from her. He tossed it on casually, and as he walked toward the exit, he began tying his sash.

There were people all over the mountain; he could simply wait anywhere for a while. If anyone spotted him, he would say he had also come down with the search party to look for the Princess, but had not managed to find her. That would be explanation enough.

Shen Xiao’s silhouette was framed against the cave entrance, the morning light casting a dim, indistinct shadow around him. He turned his head and said lightly, “I’ll be going first.”

And with that, his long strides carried him out of sight.

Before long, a guard reached this stretch of ground during the search. Li Shu stood at the cave entrance wrapped in her ragged outer garment. The guard caught sight of her and let out an urgent shout: “Princess!”

He cried out in excitement: “I’ve found the Princess!”

And he came running toward Li Shu at full speed.

This particular guard, for being the first to find Li Shu, received no small reward afterward. But that is a matter for later.

Cui Jinzhi did not learn of Li Shu’s fall from the cliff until the second half of the night.

He had spent the first half of the night at Wanning County, busily helping Li Shu tie up loose ends. It was not until past midnight that he rode hard for Qianfu Temple, intending to confront her about the grain seizure matter.

But he had not expected to arrive and hear the news that she had fallen from a cliff.

Cui Jinzhi considered himself a man born into a household of military distinction, who had witnessed more than his share of life and death at the Ministry of War. Yet the two words “fallen from a cliff” struck like a dull cudgel, knocking him senseless on the spot, leaving him dazed for a long while.

How could Li Shu… how could she possibly have fallen from a cliff?

She was always the most careful of people. How could she fall from a cliff?

Cui Jinzhi felt as though the blood throughout his entire body had gone cold. He grabbed Hong Luo by the collar with one hand, nearly squeezing her neck shut. “You are her servant — how did you fail to look after her?”

Hong Luo had already been sobbing so hard she was nearly faint from grief at Li Shu’s fall. Now with Cui Jinzhi bearing down on her, she drew a sharp breath and immediately fell unconscious on the spot.

Cui Jinzhi flung Hong Luo to the ground without so much as a glance at her, and said coldly, “Someone watch her. If anything happens to Li Shu… I will have her answer for it with her life.”

With that, Cui Jinzhi strode out of the main hall.

The lanterns hanging from the eaves were being battered about in all directions by the howling wind and rain, making even the Buddha statues look terrifying in the dim, lurching light.

Cui Jinzhi stood beneath the eaves, his body drawn rigid, as if it might snap in two at any moment. His expression was more fearsome than the wrathful guardians.

He removed the fish tally from his waist and tossed it to his attendant. “Go to the Ministry of War and mobilize the troops. Call in every last man who can breathe. Anyone who is a single step late, I will personally strip of his rank.”

The guards he had brought stood silently in the pouring rain, not a word among them. Sir Cui was an elegant man of good looks, and he seldom lost his temper in his official duties — none of them had ever seen him look so ruthless.

Cui Jinzhi stepped down from the terrace, and was immediately soaked through by the rain. He raised his hand in a sweeping gesture. “Search the mountain with me! Whoever finds Princess Pingyang first will receive ten thousand taels of silver.”

Cui Jinzhi plunged down the mountain as if he did not care whether he lived or died. But the night was too dark and the rain too heavy; even torches could not be lit. Everyone crashed about like headless flies. Several guards lost their footing on uncertain paths, and quite a few people were injured in the course of the search.

The icy rain drenched everything, yet only made the anguish more acute. Cui Jinzhi stumbled — moving downhill, he slipped and the whole of him went rolling.

Fortunately, the guards who had kept close beside him just barely managed to catch him at the cliff’s edge.

Cui Jinzhi lay draped at the cliff’s edge, and felt a sharp cold wind cutting straight up from the gorge below, carving directly into his chest.

Was this how she had gone over?

In this pelting rain, even a healthy person could not withstand being out in it — let alone her…

Cui Jinzhi did not dare consider worse possibilities.

They searched half the night and found nothing. Only as the rain gradually weakened and the horizon began to lighten could the guards finally spread out in full force.

One report after another came in — nothing found on the eastern ravine, nothing found in the western river. The mountain was so vast, and she had simply vanished into thin air.

If he could exchange everything to have Li Shu safe, he would trade it all without hesitation.

Cui Jinzhi was on the verge of despair, pressing on through the mountain on sheer willpower alone — when a guard came running up and said, “My lord, the Princess has been found!”

Cui Jinzhi’s body swayed when he heard those words, as though the news weighed a thousand pounds and he could not quite bear it all at once. The nearby guard quickly moved to support him — but he shoved the guard away and lurched forward at a near-stumble, running.

Shen Xiao had by then blended into the crowd. No one found his presence unusual — after all, everyone capable of movement at Qianfu Temple had come down the mountain. Before long, Shen Xiao heard a wave of jubilant cries break out across the mountainside, and knew that someone had found Li Shu.

He smiled.

He had been climbing for a while and was already standing fairly high up. From a distance, he could see a cluster of guards crowded at the cave entrance. Li Shu stood at the mouth of the cave, draped in that tattered, magnificent robe, slender and fine against the morning light and mountain mist.

He could not make out her expression from here, but Shen Xiao felt he could picture it well enough — in front of others, she always wore that look of cool detachment, arms folded, eyes cold, keeping everyone at a thousand li’s distance.

But he knew — beneath that hard shell, she kept something soft within.

He smiled again.

Shen Xiao gazed at Li Shu from afar for a moment, just turning to look away — when he saw someone shouldering through the crowd of guards and running toward the cave.

The figure came to a halt in front of Li Shu, stunned for an instant, and then rushed forward to pull her into his arms.

A third-rank purple robe. That was Cui Jinzhi.