Li Shu developed a fever that very night.

The physician said the infection in her hands combined with the chill she had taken from the rain — two ailments pressing in at once — had made the fever come on with fierce force.

Cui Jinzhi did not even need to confine her; she had already lost the ability to move on her own.

Thanks to the high-quality medicinal herbs the physician had brought, and his exceptional skill — he administered several doses of decoctions and applied needles through the night — by the second half of the night, Li Shu’s fever had broken.

She was left utterly drained of energy, as if the confrontation with Cui Jinzhi that afternoon had consumed every last reserve of her spirit. She lay pale-faced and still on the bed, sunken in deep sleep.

Cui Jinzhi waited until Li Shu was fully asleep before he dared enter the room. She would not want to see him — if he appeared while she was still conscious, she would only become angry again.

He sat for a while beside her bed, reaching out wanting to test her forehead, but felt he had no right whatsoever.

He sat like that for a time, until he heard a guard give a light knock on the outer door and say quietly, “My lord — the person has been brought.”

Cui Jinzhi tucked Li Shu’s hand back under the thin blanket. His gaze went cold in an instant. He rose and stepped out.

Qing Luo was flung to the ground. Her head struck the green bricks hard, and she felt her vision go dark for a long, ringing moment.

Then footsteps approached. Someone walked in; a pair of black boots with dark fortune-pattern embroidery on them came to a halt directly in front of her face.

The pattern had been embroidered in a thread the same dark color as the boots, so it was invisible unless one looked closely. The fabric of the boots was thick and substantial; a needle could barely pierce it. When she had embroidered this ten-thousand-fortune pattern, it had raised many blisters on her hands.

The maids had all said: no one will even see it there, so why go to such trouble?

But she had been willing to go to any trouble for him — even if he never noticed at all.

Qing Luo stared dazedly at those official boots.

When Princess Pingyang fell from the cliff the night before, the Ministry of War had been mobilized almost in full to search the mountain — the news had spread through the entire city. Even someone as slow to pick up on things as Qing Luo understood by now why she had been brought here.

But she had never had any wish to kill Princess Pingyang.

She had only thought that by telling the Crown Prince what she knew, the Princess and Cui Jinzhi would be driven apart completely.

She had not known that political struggle was, in fact, something as brutal as life and death.

Half guilt, half terror — Qing Luo lay face-down on the floor and suddenly began to cry with muffled sobs.

She knew she had done wrong. If she were given the chance to choose again, she would certainly never do it.

Cui Jinzhi stood before Qing Luo, looking down at her with cold eyes. She had been slung across a horse by the guards all the way here; her clothes and hair were in complete disarray from the jostling. The lamplight shone on her slender shadow. She looked rather pitiable.

Cui Jinzhi looked at her, and his gaze held nothing but cold cruelty. He stepped forward lightly — one official boot came down precisely on the back of Qing Luo’s white hand.

Cui Jinzhi applied steady, hidden force, and the boot shifted — only a light, almost gentle grind — but Qing Luo felt a sharp, stabbing pain shoot from her hand straight into her chest, as if a blade had been driven through her palm.

Her two hands clawed at the floor in an instant; her long nails dug into the gaps between the bricks. She could not bear the pain; a cry broke from her.

“Third Young Master… I…”

“…Shh.” Cui Jinzhi suddenly spoke — his voice very soft, carrying a tone of extreme cruelty. “Don’t make a sound. She is asleep. Don’t wake her.”

As he spoke, the pressure underfoot grew heavier.

A greater surge of pain crashed over her. Qing Luo was pushed to the absolute limit of what she could endure; she had bitten her lower lip bloody, yet she forced back every sound. Not a single noise escaped.

She had always been the most obedient of people. From the very beginning, she had never… never caused Third Young Master any trouble.

Her eyes brimming with tears, she looked up at Cui Jinzhi, her gaze full of guilt. “I didn’t mean to… Third Young Master… I truly didn’t mean to…”

Cui Jinzhi heard her voice, and the force underfoot intensified. The toe of his boot shifted forward and came down, lightly, on Qing Luo’s wrist. He pressed — and a dull crack rang out.

The wrist bone had fractured.

Even Qing Luo’s will to bear it gave out. She cried out involuntarily in a long, agonized scream. She was in so much pain she nearly fainted. Before her, Cui Jinzhi slowly crouched down, reached out to lift her chin. Those phoenix eyes that had always been so full of warmth were now filled completely with contempt and revulsion.

“These hands — I will ruin them.”

Wind rose in the night, gusting in through the gaps in the doors and windows, making the lamplight inside the room leap and flicker. Cui Jinzhi’s face shifted between light and shadow, looking profoundly sinister.

“I warned you never to speak of it…”

Qing Luo shook her head frantically. There was nothing she could say in defense; through her voice, muffled with tears, she only managed: “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

She had never wanted to bring about Princess Pingyang’s death.

She did not even feel jealousy — the Princess was so far above her that she could only look up. The Princess was the clouds in the sky; she was the mud on the ground.

But even in her filth, even in her unworthiness, she had the right to love someone. She had the hope of spending a lifetime at someone’s side.

“I’m sorry, Third Young Master… I only… I only love you.”

“What right do you have to say sorry! What sort of thing are you! You dare to love me!”

Cui Jinzhi erupted into fury. He grabbed Qing Luo and yanked her up, eyes burning red with rage. “If it weren’t for you… if it weren’t for you!”

How had he ever ended up facing a choice this impossible? How had things between him and Little Sparrow come to this?

Cui Jinzhi’s whole body began to shake. He flung Qing Luo into the corner of the room. Her body crashed into a chair and knocked it over. She lay on the ground, coughing and coughing.

Specks of blood dotted the green bricks. Qing Luo felt the pain in her lungs.

Her ribs had probably broken.

Qing Luo tilted her head and watched Cui Jinzhi walk slowly toward her. He looked like a bloodthirsty demon — his eyes too cold, as if he had no intention of leaving her alive.

Looking at his cruel, pitiless expression, she suddenly laughed — a sound of profound desolation. “I’m not a person. I’m not even worth calling a thing.”

She knew.

His family had fallen from power; the glory of earlier generations was gone. He did not like the struggles of the court, yet had no choice but to engage in them. He needed somewhere to escape — somewhere he could draw breath beneath the weight of official life.

The Princess could not give him that. The Princess thought only of the court.

That was why he came to find her so often.

He didn’t love her.

He rarely even shared her bed; more often than not he would simply come in with a set face, drop into a chair, and say nothing at all. She would be quiet too, staying silent and attending him carefully.

Until he had processed everything inside himself, and then he would leave immediately, without any lingering.

The Princess had always felt unsettled because of her presence. Why did the Princess feel unsettled? She was nothing more than something to pass the time. Yet who was it who had never sent her away during those three years?

Qing Luo watched Cui Jinzhi’s cold expression and felt only a heart gone utterly cold. “I know I deserve this. Even if you killed me, I would have not a word of complaint. But…”

“But who was it who took me in at the start? In these three years, while the Princess was in pain every single day because of me, tormented and suffering — who was it who never disposed of me sooner?”

Every word Qing Luo spoke made her feel her lungs contracting in pain. She gasped for air in great gulps, her eyes swimming. Yet she forced them wide open to look at Cui Jinzhi.

“I am not worthy of loving you — but are you worthy of loving the Princess?”

Qing Luo stared at Cui Jinzhi. In those eyes that always held such gentle sorrow, there appeared for the first time a sharpness that cut straight to the heart.

Even Cui Jinzhi himself had not been aware of his love for the Princess — but Qing Luo had known it for several years.

He loved the Princess. He merely refused to admit it. He had used her as a means to hate the Princess, and in the end it had come to ruin on both sides.

“I was the one who lit the fuse. Kill me if you like — I have no grievance. But…”

Qing Luo laughed again, and the gaze she turned on Cui Jinzhi was filled with pity — the exact same pity Li Shu had worn.

“…is the Princess as she is today truly my doing? Is it the Crown Prince’s? It is neither. It is because of you.”

To love him to the very end was to find a kind of bitter satisfaction in watching his suffering.

Cui Jinzhi’s body went rigid in an instant. He clenched his fist — and then dropped to his knees in front of Qing Luo, reaching out to seize her by the throat. Those handsome, refined features twisted with blue veins standing out, turning into something ferocious and hideous. “Shut your mouth!”

Qing Luo’s vision went black as he squeezed her throat, and the next moment she seemed on the verge of losing consciousness. Her throat could produce only weak, rasping sounds. She reached out with her hands — as if to struggle and push him away, but in truth only wanting to touch Cui Jinzhi one last time.

She loved him.

She was not worthy of loving him. She had no right to love him. And yet she loved him still.

Even though from the very beginning to the very end, he had never once loved her.

Two clear tears slipped from Qing Luo’s eyes, burning hot, falling onto Cui Jinzhi’s two hands.

Cui Jinzhi flinched as if those two drops had scalded him, and abruptly released his grip.

Qing Luo fell to the floor and lost consciousness entirely.

Cui Jinzhi knelt on the floor. His shadow was drawn out long behind him in the night, looking very solitary. He knelt there for a while, and then suddenly let out a laugh.

All of this, from beginning to end — the one truly at fault was himself. By what right did he reproach Qing Luo?

He felt only that his entire life was one long jest.

Li Shu’s fever broke the next day. When she woke, she heard the news.

Cui Jinzhi had sent a messenger to relay the message: Qing Luo had been destroyed by him.

“From now on, the prince consort will have no one left at his side.”

The messenger was Cui Lin, kneeling on the ground in a display of deep humility.

Li Shu leaned against the pillow headrest and felt no trace of happiness. A maid fed her a spoonful of medicine; she let out a small, languid laugh. “What a pity. One cannot go without someone to attend to them. Send someone to the pleasure quarter, buy several courtesans, and have them fill the gap Qing Luo left behind.”

Cui Lin heard this, and the color drained from his face.

After Cui Lin departed, Li Shu lay idly against the headboard.

Everything from yesterday was behind her now. She may have had some feelings in the moment — but by now they had completely dissolved.

Only, she had not expected Cui Jinzhi to deal with Qing Luo as harshly as that. She had assumed he cared for Qing Luo — perhaps even deeply loved her.

It was only today that Li Shu saw Cui Jinzhi clearly: whatever place he may have held for someone in his heart, what he truly kept in view was power and power alone.

Li Shu smiled.

Shen Xiao had said that power and money might be important in this world, but they were not the most important things. Yet he had been wrong — for Cui Jinzhi, they were precisely the most important things.

For power, he could abandon everything.

Then he could not blame her for what was to come — wresting power and advantage from his hands, one piece at a time. Strike the snake at the seven-inch point: Cui Jinzhi’s seven-inch point was the Crown Prince. The people backing the Eastern Palace had gone unchanged for far too long — the old guard was growing stale. It was time to cultivate a new imperial prince to replace him.

The cold light in Li Shu’s eyes sharpened.

Li Shu rested at Qianfu Temple for another day. In that time, Cui Jinzhi might as well not have existed — only the layers of guards outside reminded her that he was still lurking nearby.

Early the next morning, Li Shu ordered the servants to pack everything up. She was going back to the city.

Cui Jinzhi finally showed himself. Li Shu was standing inside the room watching the servants pack their things when Cui Jinzhi stood outside under the eaves and called, “Little Sp — Pingyang.”

Li Shu turned around and saw that Cui Jinzhi looked haggard and worn through. He was exhausted — as if he had not slept in a very long time, eyes threaded through with red.

Li Shu looked at him once, then withdrew her gaze and turned away.

Hong Luo stepped up beside her and spoke in a precise, proper tone: “Good day, Prince Consort. The law states that without being summoned, the prince consort may not seek audience with the Princess. Without permission, the prince consort may not call the Princess by her given name. Those who wed into the imperial family must observe the proprieties.”

Hong Luo was measured and exact. “If the prince consort wishes to see the Princess, please step back, submit a formal calling card, and wait for the Princess to give her consent before coming forward.”

Cui Jinzhi heard this, and the color left his face.

The Princess did have this authority. It was simply that most men who married into the imperial family were sons of distinguished households or officials of standing — men of consequence — so the protocol had never been seriously observed, nor had any Princess ever enforced it in earnest.

But Li Shu was going to give Cui Jinzhi the full humiliation of it today.

This was already considerable disgrace — yet Cui Jinzhi mounted no resistance at all, and seemed almost to accept it with a strange submissiveness.

He only pressed down his voice and said, “Your body isn’t well yet. The road back is rough — I fear you won’t be able to bear it.”

Li Shu paid no attention. Hong Luo continued: “When speaking to the Princess, one must precede the words with ‘I respectfully report to Your Highness.’ One must address the Princess as ‘Your Highness,’ refer to oneself as ‘this minister,’ keep one’s eyes lowered, and not look directly at the Princess — to do so is to show contempt for the imperial family’s dignity.”

Li Shu heard this and let out a small laugh. “It seems I ought to inform Father that Prince Consort Cui has no manners. It is time to exchange him for a prince consort with proper conduct.”

She said no more to Cui Jinzhi, and the servants quickly finished packing. The visit to Qianfu Temple had been only a few short days — yet the changes wrought were so vast that it felt as if years had passed.

Hong Luo helped Li Shu board the carriage. At the last moment Li Shu turned and cast a glance back at the dark, brooding mountain ridge.

A stranger had saved her. A close companion had harmed her. Fate, it turned out, was capable of this sort of mockery.

Li Shu boarded the carriage. Hong Luo passed her a cushion to lean against. Her hands were too badly injured now to even turn the pages of a book; she had nothing to do but lie idle and watch the mountain scenery flicker past outside the window.

Seeing her mistress like this, Hong Luo tried to distract her: “Princess, that vile woman was dealt with by the prince consort — that is, by Sir Cui — last night. I hear she suffered quite a bit. Both her hands have been ruined, and a rib is broken, but she was left just barely alive.”

“She caused us grief for all these years — this is exactly the retribution she deserved! In my opinion, she should’ve been beaten to death with rods and thrown out to feed the dogs!”

Hong Luo was full of anger.

All these years, every quarrel between the Princess and the prince consort had been tangled up with Qing Luo — she was like a walking nightmare. Every misfortune the Princess had suffered traced back to her. If not for Qing Luo, how could the Princess and the prince consort have ended up where they were today?

Li Shu heard this, and only smiled faintly.

She had truly hoped all these years that someday that woman called Qing Luo would vanish from her life entirely — and that when that day came, she and Cui Jinzhi would have no more barriers between them.

But it was only today that she saw clearly: the barriers between her and Cui Jinzhi had never truly been Qing Luo. Even without Qing Luo, even if Cui Jinzhi had no women around him at all, they would still have arrived at this point.

This was a divide of political allegiance. Set against that, sentiment was far too insignificant a thing.

Li Shu even felt some pity for Qing Luo.

Whatever her station in life, that woman shared something at the core with her — they had both fallen for a man they should not have fallen for, and come to such an end.

She had once been the most celebrated performer in the pleasure quarter, a woman without rival. Now her hands were ruined, and she had lost the man she leaned on for support.

The life ahead of her would be little better than hell on earth.

Better to let her live than to let her die. The living would suffer more.

Li Shu let out a faint sigh.

Shen Xiao was carrying a thick stack of memorial documents and walking along the Dragon Tail Path.

The sky today was overcast and heavy, and by evening there would likely be more rain. Since the first downpour over Chang’an had begun a few days ago, the rain had never truly let up — and nearly all of it came down in torrents.

The weather was truly strange. Drought for the first half of the year; the second half would likely bring floods.

Thinking of rain made his thoughts drift to Li Shu. The night she fell from the cliff had been the start of Chang’an’s storms this year.

Her wretched appearance — curled up by the fire against the cave wall to sleep — had looked rather like a cat. Genuinely like a cat: the same sharp, penetrating eyes that could see through to the heart of things, and the claws and teeth to match, but also something soft underneath.

Back home in Wuxing, when he was a boy, there had been a stray old cat in the lanes and alleys nearby, forever prowling and snatching food — so it often caught stones thrown at it, and its coat was patchy and dull, at once fierce and pitiable.

He had studied hard through the cold window, often working into the dead of night. Every night, perhaps because the room was warmer than outside, the cat would come to find warmth. At first it curled up in the covered walkway by the door. Then, growing bolder inch by inch, it worked one paw at a time under the thick door curtain — until finally with a flick of its tail the entire cat was through the door.

Back and forth, and so a person and a cat grew familiar. When Shen Xiao went fishing, he would deliberately leave a few fish for it.

He would stroke it with one hand while bent over his books, listening to its rumbling purr.

He had found it rather interesting.

Other people only ever saw that cat stealing food. Only he knew that it could also be coaxed into something that looked very much like affection — a secret that seemed to belong only to him.

Shen Xiao had just ascended the white marble steps and arrived at the outer terrace of the Hanwu Hall when the young eunuch standing guard there saw him coming and performed a bow: “Please wait a moment, Sir Shen. His Majesty is speaking with Princess Pingyang. This servant will take you to the side hall to rest.”

The young eunuch’s manner was extremely deferential.

At present, across the whole court, no matter how much some officials disliked Shen Xiao in private, when they met him face to face they still had to address him respectfully as “Sir Shen.” His merit in the grain collection matter had helped ease the drought in the Guanzhong region — he was a model of what the civil examination system could produce from men of humble origin, and he was now held in considerable esteem before the Emperor. To call him a favored figure in the imperial presence was no exaggeration.

Shen Xiao gave a nod and followed the young eunuch toward the side hall.

She had returned from Qianfu Temple. He did not know how badly she was injured. The jade ornament — she would certainly deliver it to His Majesty, wouldn’t she? The Crown Prince was about to have a very hard time of it — otherwise, what would it mean for all the suffering she had endured?

Shen Xiao let his thoughts wander idly.