Li Shu’s mind turned round and round for quite some time without producing any usable conclusion — should she remain still or rouse herself?

Fortunately, at just that moment Hong Luo came back in carrying the fresh wine, and the hand on her head promptly withdrew.

Li Shu felt a wave of relief wash through her.

Hong Luo came over to pour for Li Shu, and seeing her leaning against the window with her eyes closed, assumed the wine had gone to her head and hurried over to support her. “My lady?”

Only then did Li Shu slowly open her eyes, putting on the appearance of someone just roused from a light doze, and let Hong Luo lead her by the arm as she swayed a few steps over to the low couch nearby and settled into it.

She had not even a trace of actual tipsiness, yet she acted out nine parts’ worth. It had not been easy.

Hong Luo knew Li Shu’s wine tolerance. A single pot of Shidong Spring would never be enough to bring her down — otherwise, she would never have gone out to fetch more. What had come over her mistress today?

Hong Luo was still wondering whether to bring over a sobering tea when Li Shu, seated on the couch, pointed at the wine cup. Hong Luo met her mistress’s eyes and saw that they were clear and lucid. She at once filled the cup obediently.

Li Shu knocked back a mouthful.

Others sought wine to drown their sorrows. She was seeking it to drown her awkwardness.

Just as she was about to bring the next cup to her lips, a hand reached out from the side and took the wine cup away from her.

“Wine is dispersing in nature — it is harmful to wound recovery and conflicts with most medicines. It would be best for the princess to drink no more.”

Shen Xiao was holding the wine cup, standing beside the low couch.

Li Shu looked up at Shen Xiao.

His face still wore that immovable, solemn expression — he lectured her with complete sincerity, as though he had not been the same person who had just stroked her head as though it were a cat’s.

To think she had not noticed before — Sir Shen was a man of appearances, who wore virtue on his face while harboring quite different thoughts within.

How shameless.

Li Shu grumbled inwardly.

Not that she particularly minded being patted on the head once. She supposed he had seen that she had just gone through a separation and was feeling low, and wished to comfort her in some way.

In truth, the heaviness in her had already passed. She was the sort of person who, when it was time to cut, cut cleanly.

Li Shu said, “Sir Shen, please sit.”

They settled on either side of the low table on the couch.

Li Shu had resumed her habitual cool and detached expression — her standard look when conducting serious business.

Seeing this, Shen Xiao, without thinking, rubbed the center of his palm — as though the sensation of her hair still lingered there. Very soft.

Shen Xiao smiled to himself.

Li Shu had just composed her most business-like face when she noticed Shen Xiao across the table smiling in a peculiarly meaningful way — and specifically smiling at her.

She frowned. “What are you smiling about?”

She looked down at her own clothing, then felt her face. “Is something wrong?”

Shen Xiao shook his head and hastily reined in the overly obvious smile, leaving only the dark irises of his eyes carrying the warmth — and on that cool face of his, it produced a rare and unexpectedly gentle look.

He thought Li Shu was truly very interesting — the way her expressions shifted so quickly.

Li Shu had already turned to the matter at hand. “Sir Shen has done me the honor of sitting through my rambling for an entire afternoon, and has no doubt let quite a few things slip. You are the Emperor’s most favored man at court — I must have caused you some inconvenience.”

Shen Xiao replied, “Stealing half a day of leisure from a busy life — it amounts to no inconvenience.”

Li Shu smiled. “You have helped me many times over; I ought to offer something in return. Sir Shen, I have a word of warning for you. There is danger ahead — danger that threatens your life.”

She fixed Shen Xiao with a steady gaze, lips curling faintly in a manner that bespoke the calm confidence of one who already holds the advantage.

Yet Shen Xiao showed not the slightest surprise at this. His dark eyes met hers and he simply remained quiet, waiting for her to continue.

Li Shu frowned. “You do not wish to know what manner of danger?”

Shen Xiao was perfectly composed. “If the princess intends to say, she will say so in due course. If the princess does not intend to say, no amount of asking on my part would be of any use.”

Shen Xiao had already guessed what Li Shu was going to say, but he could not appear too eager — whoever spoke first was the one at a disadvantage.

Political matters were not like affairs of feeling. Politics entangled the fortunes and prospects of decades to come, and even one’s life and the lives of one’s household. Where politics was concerned, he was invariably cold-headed.

Li Shu leaned back against the cushions and studied Shen Xiao. There he sat, not pressing forward, not retreating — his expression cool and even as he met her gaze.

Shen Xiao was truly a man born for officialdom. He had been at court for barely three months, yet his reserves of composure already ran as deep as a man who had been immersed in these waters for decades.

Coming to court, he had ambitions that went beyond a mere fifth-rank post. He had bigger ambitions than that.

Good — ambitions meant the possibility of cooperation.

Li Shu looked at Shen Xiao. “Sir Shen is a clever man, and you and I have, in a manner of speaking, been through adversity together. I will not beat around the bush with you.”

“The danger to your life lies within yourself.”

Her eyes held the power to see through a person’s heart. “A lone official of unbending integrity — how far can such a man go in the court?”

He had made enemies of the entirety of the court’s officials. The only foundation he had to stand on was the Emperor’s favor. And if one day the Emperor grew weary of him? The moment he fell from favor, he would be trampled into the mud at once.

But Shen Xiao seemed entirely unconcerned. He smiled. “His Majesty prefers officials who stand alone.”

The Crown Prince and the Second Imperial Prince were locked in a struggle for power, and the entire court was choosing sides. But let no one forget — while the Emperor still lived and reigned, any side chosen carried the risk of ruin. Better to stand on the Emperor’s side. With imperial favor, what need was there to fear for one’s future?

Princess Pingyang had broken entirely with the Crown Prince. The princess was now isolated. She was looking for someone with whom to cooperate. Strictly speaking, she was the one seeking to persuade him.

Shen Xiao smiled to himself. He liked this state of affairs, for it gave him a sense that he and Princess Pingyang stood as equals — not as he had been when groveling to seek a post while attending on her, nor as he had been when forced into an inescapable situation during the grain requisition and used by her. Now they were equal, matched against each other like two well-paired chess players.

Princess Pingyang was a politician, and there were only two kinds of people who could truly reach a politician’s heart: those who were her equals in skill and ability, and those who had given her warmth in the years when she was young and still vulnerable.

Cui Jinzhi was the latter. Shen Xiao intended to be the former.

Hearing Shen Xiao say “His Majesty prefers officials who stand alone,” Li Shu understood that Shen Xiao was not, at present, particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of cooperating with her. He was, after all, at the height of his influence at this moment.

She would need to add more weight to the scales.

Li Shu suddenly sighed and said, as though without any particular connection, “Imperial Grandfather departed this world at the age of Heaven’s mandate.”

The unspoken words were: His Majesty is already in his forties.

By the most generous reckoning, Shen Xiao had perhaps ten years to serve as an unaffiliated official. Ten years — how high a position could he climb? The higher one went, the more difficult each step became. How many men had served until the age of asking to retire and received no more than a fifth-rank post — and counted themselves among the honored of their families?

When a new Emperor ascended the throne, his own loyal attendants from the prince’s days would naturally be waiting for their rewards. One dynasty, one court — could Shen Xiao expect to hold today’s prospects under a new reign? Indeed, having made enemies of the entire court, he might well face retribution in those days.

And that was why Li Shu had said Shen Xiao’s life was in danger.

Shen Xiao heard this and his grip on the wine cup tightened all at once. He had already climbed up from the depths — he could not allow himself to be cast back down.

His jaw tensed. After a long silence, he suddenly raised his hand and poured the wine down his throat in a single swallow.

He would not betray the Emperor, nor play at any low scheme of seizing power by treachery. Princess Pingyang’s proposal for cooperation would not be anything so crude. The right path, traveled without deviation — together, the two of them would lift a prince of genuine ability to the throne.

Li Shu watched Shen Xiao drink. Her brow arched slightly, and she parted her lips as though about to say something — but Shen Xiao spoke first.

“There is one thing I do not understand.”

“What is it?”

“You are a princess. A princess who stands apart and unbowed is not a disadvantage — it may even be an advantage. No matter who comes to sit on the throne hereafter, the new emperor will not begrudge the princess what is hers. Why should you take such pains?”

In truth, she had never needed to choose sides at all. She had never needed to attach herself to the Crown Prince — she could simply have lived out her days as an ordinary princess. She would certainly not have had the authority she now wielded, but compared to a common person of the realm, she would still have lived in wealth beyond reckoning. As long as she avoided fatal missteps, a lifetime of comfort and ease would have been hers.

Why wade into these turbulent waters and emerge so battered and bruised?

Li Shu fell silent for a moment, thinking of Princess Jincheng in the inner palace. If she chose not to contend for anything, the best she could hope for was to become someone like Jincheng.

She said, “There are many ways to live in this world… but I want the best of them.”

Any way could sustain life. Anle lived well; Jincheng lived well; one could even live well in the cold palace. Yet she was unwilling to accept less — whatever had been lacking in her childhood, she would go after it in her adulthood.

This was her obsession, and it was her inner demon. She wanted to stand at the summit of power, whatever the cost.

Yet… at the deepest part of her heart, a voice of quiet doubt began to stir. If in order to stand at the summit of power she cast everything else aside, what difference was there between herself and Cui Jinzhi?

Li Shu had never reflected on this before.

She was caught off guard by her own thought, and coming back to herself, she looked at Shen Xiao and turned the question on him. “And you, Sir Shen? What is your reason?”

Shen Xiao was quiet for a moment, then suddenly let out a soft laugh. “To say it aloud, I fear the princess will think it laughable.”

“Because the world is not fair.”

The highborn step into lofty offices; the brilliant sink to lowly posts. The world was not fair. There were those who had sealed off the paths by which those below could climb — who wished to keep the noble forever noble and the lowly forever low. That was not fair.

Shen Xiao had possessed an extraordinary gift for learning from his earliest years, yet no one had ever recognized him for it — while those who sat enthroned in office were, every one of them, rigid, obstinate, and dull-witted.

Li Shu raised her brow. “A rather lofty reason.”

Shen Xiao shook his head. “Not lofty. I have my own private motives as well — it is simply that private and public happen to align.”

He had ambitions of his own, too — and who in this world had no desire for power? But he would not let himself be guided by pure desire alone.

Shen Xiao had chosen to be an unaffiliated official of integrity for two reasons: half because he had no choice — the great families would not have him; the other half because he believed Emperor Zhengyuan was a wise ruler, one he was willing to follow. The Emperor wished to weaken the great families, to elevate the scholars of humble birth — whatever his ultimate motives, the outcome was a world made somewhat more fair. And so Shen Xiao was willing to serve him in loyalty, to be the blade that cut through the entrenched power of the great families.

Li Shu gave a slight shrug. “Compared to you, I seem rather small-minded.”

She was purely in it for herself; Shen Xiao had the world in his heart. This was determined by the circumstances of their births.

No matter how little Li Shu had been doted upon, no matter that she had grown up in the cold palace — she was still ten thousand times better off than any common-born person in the realm. The difference in station shaped the difference in perspective.

Regardless of whether some future disagreement might arise between them over this very point, at present the two of them were capable of cooperation. That was enough.

And if cooperation was possible, then it was time to discuss the next step.

The merit of supporting the right prince — but which prince was to be that dragon?

Shen Xiao looked at Li Shu. “Does the princess have a candidate in mind?”

But Li Shu did not answer directly. Instead she met his gaze in return. “Sir Shen has asked me first — which means a candidate has already taken shape in his mind.”

“Let me guess.”

Li Shu tilted the wine pot slightly, dipped her finger in the small amount of wine that spilled out, and traced two horizontal strokes on the tabletop.

The Second Imperial Prince, Li Yan.

Shen Xiao shook his head. “He appears bold, but is in truth a coward. He relies on the lesser great families for support and cannot amount to much.”

That was true. The Crown Prince had drawn over the majority of the great families to his side, and the Second Prince, in order to oppose him, could only take in the lesser families the Crown Prince disdained. But lesser families could scarcely stir up any real waves.

Li Shu did not even bother to ask “are you biased by personal grievance” — she knew perfectly well what her second brother’s character was like. He could serve as a military commander, but not as a ruler.

Li Shu frowned and continued to think.

Imperial Father had no small number of children, but only one legitimate son — the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince had been the sole son for seven or eight years after his birth before the Second Prince arrived; the degree of the Crown Prince’s favor from childhood was incomparable to any of the others.

Among the sons born of secondary consorts, there were quite a few, though those with genuine ability were not many — and a good number had already aligned themselves beneath the Crown Prince’s banner.

Among those who had not attached themselves to the Crown Prince — aside from her second brother — there was the Fifth Imperial Prince, the Seventh Imperial Prince, and of course several who were still infants, their swaddling barely removed. But such small children were naturally not within the range of consideration.

And so Li Shu dipped her finger in the wine and wrote the character for “five.”

Shen Xiao said, “Hawks and hounds, sunk in indulgence.”

The Fifth Prince, like the Second Brother, had a martial bent — but the Fifth Prince was devoted to keeping lynxes and leopards, forever galloping wildly on horseback. Every time he thundered out through the city gates to hunt, the common people of the streets would live in fear for a while, terrified of being run down.

Li Shu said, “Sir Shen has gathered considerable intelligence in his three months at court.”

Shen Xiao smiled. “One does not hold office for nothing.”

He served concurrently in both the Censorate and the Central Secretariat. Those two offices handled more memorials of impeachment than any others — ordinary officials were routinely impeached for the most trivial of things, whether their court robes were not perfectly straight, or whether they had eaten breakfast while riding on horseback on their way to work. Such petty matters could be submitted as formal memorials of impeachment, let alone anything concerning the imperial princes, whose every flaw was magnified countless times over.

Shen Xiao said, “The princess has guessed two candidates and has not yet arrived at the right one.”

He dipped his finger in the wine and wrote the character for “seven,” then swiftly erased it.

The Seventh Imperial Prince was an excellent candidate.

Neutral to the point of being nearly invisible — so low in profile that one barely remembered he existed. No wonder Li Shu had not thought of him straight away.

The Seventh Prince oversaw the Ministry of Rites — the least coveted of all the Six Ministries, the one that dealt in old protocols and dusty precedents. And yet Princess Anle’s consort, Lord Yang Fang, was equally buried in the Ministry of Rites, sifting through ancient records.

That the Emperor had seen fit to marry his most beloved daughter Anle to such a quiet and unassuming man from the Yang Family told one something significant: the Emperor favored the low-key and the uncontentious.

Not contending was its own form of contention.

Having traced and then erased the character “seven,” Shen Xiao leaned back at ease against the carved railing, his gaze lifting to rest on Li Shu.

His posture was unhurried; his eyes held a smile. If one looked closely enough, a trace of quiet satisfaction could even be read on that cool, composed face.

“The princess would do well to sharpen her ability to judge people.”

Li Shu’s heart gave a sharp inward twinge at that.

Shen Xiao was mocking her, was he not? She had given years of loyalty to a Crown Prince who had tried to have her killed, and had a husband who had become her political enemy.

If that was not poor judgment of character, what was? Her eyes might as well be blind.

Li Shu was not born a genius — she made different judgments depending on feeling, circumstance, and timing. Shen Xiao was only able to evaluate so clearly now because he had the vantage of standing outside it all. Naturally, things appeared more transparent from outside than within.

That said, it could not be denied that he was indeed sharper than she was in reading people, and that his discernment was keener.

After so many years of being clever, Li Shu found herself, for once, meeting her match — even edged out slightly by her opponent. The frustration within her compelled her to find a way to strike back.

She gritted her teeth, and suddenly leaned forward, crossing the small table, fixing Shen Xiao with a steady gaze at close range, and beckoned him with a finger. “I have something to say to you.”

Shen Xiao frowned. Was she about to whisper something?

He obligingly leaned in, and Li Shu’s eyes were suddenly very close, very clear — and filled with unmistakable mischief.

“That cup of wine you just drank — you used my wine cup.”

Shen Xiao froze.

And then, in plain sight, his face turned scarlet — burning all the way to the tips of his ears and down to the base of his neck.

He recoiled violently, staring at the wine cup on the table as though it had just turned into something monstrous.

Earlier, Li Shu had been drinking, and Shen Xiao, not wishing her to drink more, had snatched the cup from her hand and simply kept holding it. He had been holding it in his hand ever since.

Shen Xiao felt as though that cup of wine was still searing — scalding right down through his stomach and into his intestines. He began to cough immediately, as though the wine were lodged in his throat, neither going up nor going down.

Li Shu collapsed against her cushions and laughed until she was nearly breathless.

And serve you right, for being smug. And then mocking me for having poor judgment of character.

Well then.

Sir Shen had such keen discernment of character — yet he hadn’t managed to discern her fondness for teasing him?

Li Shu threw up her hands.

Shen Xiao coughed until he could barely catch his breath. No wonder she had been staring at the wine cup in his hand all that while — curse him for not catching on! Not that he could begrudge her —

She had used his cup, and she should have stopped him at the time! Why had she said nothing!

Shen Xiao could have walked into the nearest wall.

Seeing that Shen Xiao had been coughing for quite some time with no sign of relief, Li Shu hastily reined in her laughter — surely Sir Shen wasn’t about to choke to death?

Tomorrow’s gazette would read: The new top examinee, in office for three months, having risen swiftly through the ranks, met an unfortunate end — choked to death on a cup of wine. Would that not bring shame upon the Shen Family name?

Li Shu leaned across the low table and reached out to pat Shen Xiao on the back — but the moment she made contact, Shen Xiao shot up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and planted himself three full paces away, staring at Li Shu.

Li Shu raised her hands in complete innocence. “I only meant to pat your back.”

He needn’t look at her as though she were about to do something indecent.

Shen Xiao pinched himself, deciding that he had utterly lost face before Li Shu today. Whatever carefully constructed image of quiet wisdom and deep composure he had built up — all of it had been shattered by a single cup of wine.

He coughed a few more times before finally recovering himself. “It is growing late. I… I should be getting back. We can discuss the specifics another day.”

There was no discussing anything more today. He needed time to recover — to slowly accustom himself to Li Shu’s particular way of doing things.

Shen Xiao fled the room.

Li Shu settled back against her cushions and watched his retreating figure, laughing still.

Hong Luo came over and presented her with a bowl of sobering tea. “The princess is in very good spirits today.”

She had been worried that the princess, having just separated from the Prince Consort, would be sunk in dejection for quite some time. Who could have imagined that after seeing Sir Shen, every trace of the princess’s brooding heaviness had been swept clean away? Hong Luo thought back carefully — it had been several years since she had seen such a carefree and untroubled smile on the princess’s face.

Well then — when Sir Shen came to the manor in future, she would make sure to see to his welcome with great care.

—