Shen Xiao had been sitting in the side hall for quite some time before a junior eunuch came to report, “Sir Shen, His Majesty has a moment now.”

Shen Xiao said simply, “Thank you for the trouble,” and followed the junior eunuch out of the side hall, walking along the corridor toward the Hanyuan Hall.

Li Shu had only recently left the Hanyuan Hall. She stood beneath the covered walkway outside the main hall, gazing in silence at the leaden sky beyond the eaves, her figure utterly desolate.

Shen Xiao caught sight of her. His footsteps faltered. He said softly to the junior eunuch beside him, “Wait a moment,” and had him hold the memorials while he walked toward Li Shu.

“This subordinate pays his respects to the Princess.”

Li Shu turned her head and looked at Shen Xiao with a faint smile. “Sir Shen, it has been a long time.”

In truth, only two days had passed — yet so much had occurred in between that it truly felt like a lifetime ago.

Of all the days recently, only the time spent in that mountain cave had she been genuinely happy. Once she stepped out of the cave, everything once again ceased to be within her control.

Shen Xiao could see that her complexion was deeply ashen, and that her eyes were faintly rimmed with red. He furrowed his brow slightly, sensing that whatever she had hoped to accomplish in the Hanyuan Hall had not come to pass.

He lowered his voice. “The matter of your fall from the cliff… and that jade piece —”

Li Shu cut him off. “— It is all gone. Sir Shen, whatever you may have seen that night, I would advise you to forget it and say nothing of it to anyone.”

To speak of it would be to slander the Crown Prince.

Shen Xiao was startled. How could the jade ornament simply be gone?

Then he thought of Cui Jinzhi.

Cui Jinzhi was a cornerstone of the Crown Prince’s faction.

That Cui Jinzhi had made such a choice was something Shen Xiao could, in truth, understand. Yet for the princess, it was all too devastating.

Shen Xiao let out a quiet sigh. “You…”

He was on the verge of offering a few words of comfort, but his habitual reserve left him without an opening. Besides, empty words of consolation, even if spoken, would be of no real help to her.

Shen Xiao fell silent for a moment. Then from his sleeve he drew out something and, opening his palm, extended it toward Li Shu. “I came across this by chance.”

It was Li Shu’s golden hairpin.

Li Shu’s eyes brightened at the sight. Heedless of the wound on her hand, she snatched it up and clutched it tightly in her palm.

She was deeply moved; her expression hovered between laughter and tears. “You… how did you ever find it!”

Shen Xiao watched her this way and let a faint smile rise to his lips.

Her appearance just now had been so utterly forlorn that it was painful to witness — enough to make one want to pile every fine thing in the world before her, satisfied if only she would smile once.

He said lightly, “That morning when I came down from the mountain, the weather had just cleared and the view was good. I caught sight of it at a glance — it wasn’t much trouble.”

But Li Shu was no three-year-old child to be so easily deceived. If the hairpin had been that easy to find, the guards who had swept the mountain that day were not blind — they would have seen it long since.

Such an immense mountain — who knew how he had gone over it inch by inch to find it.

Li Shu felt an unexpected dampness come to her eyes. She quickly turned away to suppress the feeling, though her voice came out faintly hoarse. “You… it wasn’t necessary, truly. I said before, it is only an old keepsake.”

Shen Xiao replied, “And I said — old keepsakes matter more.”

Li Shu heard this and was quiet for a moment, then suddenly let out a long sigh. “Yes. Old keepsakes do matter more.”

She looked toward the far end of the Dragonhead Path, where a figure was slowly drawing closer.

“But old companions no longer matter at all.”

Shen Xiao followed her gaze and saw the third-rank purple robe — he recognized it as Cui Jinzhi.

He could not keep the Emperor waiting. Shen Xiao had exchanged only a few words with Li Shu before the junior eunuch began to urge him on. He quickly reclaimed the memorials and entered the Hanyuan Hall.

Emperor Zhengyuan sat behind his desk. A memorial lay spread open before him, but he was not reading it. His gaze was heavy and distant, carrying a certain brooding weight.

Shen Xiao stepped forward and placed the memorials he had reviewed today at the Ministry of Supervision on the Emperor’s desk, and began his report.

“Your Majesty, the various counties of the Guanzhong region have submitted memorials, all reporting that since the Ministry of Revenue dispatched the grain, disaster relief efforts in each locality have been quite effective. The counties are now busy gathering displaced people to return home in preparation for the autumn planting. However, as the autumn sowing will not yield a summer harvest until next year, the region will not be self-sufficient for some time, and the relief provisions cannot yet be cut off. Fortunately, the Ministry of Works has submitted a memorial stating that the Yongtong Canal has been repaired, and grain from the south is now being transported. The Taihu region had a good harvest this year, which should be sufficient to make up for the grain shortfall in Guanzhong.”

Emperor Zhengyuan gave an affirmative sound. “That is well.”

After a pause, Shen Xiao continued, “Your Majesty, I have a concern. The weather this year has been unusual — drought followed immediately by heavy rains. I have heard that the Henan Circuit has also been experiencing considerable rainfall in recent days. Although no counties have yet reported flooding, I believe it would be wise to prepare in advance.”

He was quite worried in his heart.

Even a cursory reading of history revealed that whenever there was more rainfall than usual, the Yellow River was prone to disaster. This year had seen first drought and then flooding; every region was consumed with relief efforts, grain stores were nearly exhausted, and the vitality of officials was likely at its limit.

If the Yellow River were to cause problems on top of all this…

Emperor Zhengyuan sighed upon hearing it.

Had he not thought of this very thing himself?

“I understand. It is commendable that your vision extends beyond the Ministry of Supervision. I will ask the Crown Prince about the Ministry of Works’ efforts to reinforce the river embankments.”

The Crown Prince had managed the Ministry of Works for several years now. Though he had produced no remarkable achievements, neither had he made any serious errors.

The thought of the Crown Prince brought a heaviness to Emperor Zhengyuan’s heart, and he suddenly asked, “Shen Xiao, I hear that when Princess Pingyang fell from the cliff, you were also at Qianfu Temple?”

Shen Xiao felt his heart give a sharp lurch. As expected — nothing escaped His Majesty’s eyes.

He answered truthfully: “Yes. I had misjudged the time to return to the city that day and found the city gates already closed. I went to Qianfu Temple to seek lodging for the night. I had no idea that I would arrive just as the princess had met with disaster, and I immediately sent people to search for her.”

Emperor Zhengyuan regarded him steadily, his voice carrying a measured gravity. “Cui Jinzhi was not there that day?”

Shen Xiao perceived keenly that Emperor Zhengyuan’s tone carried… a trace of dissatisfaction.

Thinking of Li Shu’s words — “old companions no longer matter” — and then considering that the Emperor had summoned Cui Jinzhi but had spent the entire time in the hall making idle conversation with himself, as though deliberately making the Deputy Minister Cui wait — Shen Xiao’s thoughts turned swiftly.

He replied, “Correct. Deputy Minister Cui was not at Qianfu Temple that day. The monks at the temple mentioned that the princess comes frequently to offer prayers, while Deputy Minister Cui does not accompany her — so his absence that day was not unusual.”

Upon hearing this, Emperor Zhengyuan’s dissatisfaction deepened further within him.

Whenever Princess Anle goes out, Lord Yang Fang is always there to accompany her!

Shen Xiao observed Emperor Zhengyuan’s expression for a moment, thinking of the forlorn look on Li Shu’s face when she had spoken of the jade ornament, and of the injuries all over her body. From beginning to end, the entire affair had been deeply unjust to her.

He said suddenly, “I had not expected the princess to encounter such a thing. With so many attendants about her, how could she have slipped and fallen from the cliff? I cannot help feeling that something is not right about all of this.”

Any clear-eyed observer could see the strangeness lurking behind the affair.

Emperor Zhengyuan had no need to conceal it from Shen Xiao. He said plainly, “It was not a slip. Pingyang says someone pushed her. Shen Xiao — in your view, who might have wished to harm her?”

Shen Xiao’s heart gave another sharp jolt.

Though they had not been acquainted for long, Emperor Zhengyuan regarded him with considerable esteem, in large part because he was an unaffiliated official, a man of forthright integrity. He had, through the grain requisition affair, made enemies of the great families throughout the entire court, and no one sought to align themselves with him. He had no choice but to stand alone; and Emperor Zhengyuan preferred those who stood alone. The great families’ bonds of marriage and alliance were dense and tangled — tug one thread and the whole web moved. Only someone like Shen Xiao, entirely unencumbered by such ties, could earn the Emperor’s true attention.

Since he had no conflicting interests, the words he spoke carried a weight born of impartiality, and they were taken seriously.

Shen Xiao quickly composed the words in his mind and said, “I could not say who it might be that wished to harm the princess.”

He first withdrew a step, declining to commit to any position.

“The phrase ‘interests and harms’ implies that wherever there are conflicts of interest, there will be both alliances and acts of betrayal. I therefore surmise that of late the princess must have offended someone, and that a conflict of interest has arisen between them.”

He also placed emphasis on the words “of late.”

And what had occurred “of late”? Nothing other than the grain requisition affair.

In truth, Emperor Zhengyuan harbored his own suspicions. Li Shu had always been cautious and deliberate — she was not the sort of person who carelessly fell from a cliff. Accordingly, when she said someone had sought to harm her, Emperor Zhengyuan believed her. Now that the word “recently” had been raised independently by both Li Shu and Shen Xiao, two people with no connection to each other, a certain answer seemed to draw very near.

That tangled, murky, vast, and interlocking web of power — and at its forefront stood Cui Jinzhi.

Emperor Zhengyuan felt his resolve suddenly soften. He thought of the way Li Shu had walked out of the palace, her back resolute yet so very slight.

He was pushing his own daughter into a pit of fire.

The moment this thought crossed his mind, Emperor Zhengyuan looked at Shen Xiao and asked again, “I understand your mother was awarded a memorial arch for chastity in Wuxing?”

Shen Xiao frowned slightly. Why was the Emperor suddenly asking about his family affairs?

He only nodded and said, “Yes. Your servant was a posthumous son and never knew his father from birth. My widowed mother raised me alone. She never remarried, and the village awarded her this memorial arch.”

Emperor Zhengyuan asked further, “Is it not the case that remarriage is quite fashionable in Jiangnan? It is all the more remarkable that your mother remained steadfast.”

Jiangnan was prosperous, and silk embroidery was well-developed there, so marriage customs were also fairly liberal. Women who remarried, or chose not to remarry, could maintain their livelihood. This was unlike the Central Plains, where a woman alone struggled to survive.

Shen Xiao gave a mild smile. “I thank Your Majesty for the praise. To speak plainly, I actually encouraged my mother to remarry. It was simply that her feelings for my late father were very deep, and there was no room in her heart for anyone else. She passed away early, in large part because of the many years of toil and hardship.”

“Whether one remarries or not concerns only the feelings between a husband and wife. As for a chastity memorial arch — that is an external thing, and it matters not at all.”

Shen Xiao said this quietly.

Emperor Zhengyuan heard these words and felt something stir within him.

Even a village woman of the common people understood the word “feeling.” To continue forcing Que’nu to live alongside a man she did not love — what manner of torment would that be for her?

He had, in truth, always felt quite guilty toward Li Shu.

Years ago, when the Cui Family’s power was at its height, he had long harbored thoughts of suppressing them, and had been working quietly behind the scenes. But fearing that too sudden a move would alert them, he had arranged for Cui Jinzhi to marry a princess, so as to lull them into complacency.

Li Shu’s marriage had been a political sacrifice from the very beginning.

She was, when all was said and done, his own daughter, and over these years she had helped him untangle no small number of political difficulties. To sacrifice her once more — would he still have the face to hear her call him “Imperial Father”?

Whether the struggle between imperial authority and the great families succeeded or failed was not something she alone could determine.

They say the imperial family knows no feeling — is it not precisely because power stands in the way to obstruct it? Yet even for the sake of power, one could not sacrifice family affection.

She was, after all, his daughter. Let her be freed.

Having made up his mind, Emperor Zhengyuan at once felt a great lightness in his heart. The image of Li Shu walking out of the palace in solitary desolation had pressed upon him heavily all this while.

Emperor Zhengyuan dismissed Shen Xiao. As Shen Xiao walked to the door, he heard Emperor Zhengyuan instruct Liu Cou, “Go and send a junior eunuch to convey a message to the princess. Tell her… what she asked of me just now, I have agreed to. Tell her not to worry about this matter, and to tend well to her injuries.”

Then his voice turned cold. “Bring Cui Jinzhi in!”

—