A black carriage drove at great speed down Zhuque Avenue toward the city gate, pressing a trail through the snow as it went, and passed through the gate tunnel.

Beyond the city gate, an official road stretched away into the distance, buried under a vast expanse of snow — sky and earth indistinguishable from each other.

This season was truly not suited for travel.

The carriage had barely cleared the gate when the sound of horsemen riding at full gallop came from behind. Naturally, a horse’s speed surpassed a carriage’s — in a blink of an eye, the rider had blocked the carriage’s path ahead.

The driver hastily hauled on the reins. The carriage jolted to an abrupt stop. Li Shu was nearly flung out of the cabin by the momentum; she slammed hard against the carriage wall, the impact leaving a sharp ache in her shoulder.

A voice devoid of all emotion came from outside the carriage: “Where are you going, Que’nuo?”

A straight sword lifted the thick carriage curtain aside. The snowfield reflected the sunlight, and Cui Jinzhi peered inside at the figure within — and immediately started in surprise.

He had not seen Li Shu for a long while. He had not thought she could have grown so gaunt and thin. She seemed to have nothing left on her body but bones, held upright only by a spine that would not bend.

The merciless white light of the snowfield fell across her face, making her pallor look all the more stark.

Cui Jinzhi dismounted in a single sweep and came striding toward the carriage with great steps. Li Shu’s guards moved to block him, but Cui Jinzhi’s position now was incomparable to what it had been — the power he wielded was overwhelming, and the men he had brought with him far outnumbered hers.

His own people, seeing Li Shu’s guards stir, reached at once for the hilts of the blades at their waists.

In the silent standoff between the two sides, Cui Jinzhi walked right up to Li Shu’s carriage. Seeing her holding her right shoulder, his tone carried a note of concern: “What happened? Did you get hurt?”

As he spoke, he reached out toward her shoulder. Li Shu dodged aside and pulled away.

Her eye sockets were deeply sunken. Her gaze, when it fell on him, held no trace of feeling — cold as coarse sand. Her voice, still hoarse from illness, rasped like grinding gravel.

“I thought the moment I left my residence you would follow. I did not expect you to only catch up with me once I was already outside the city. It seems the people you sent to watch me are not quite fast enough.”

Cui Jinzhi had not caught her — the hand he had extended came up empty. He rubbed his palm, and also affected an indifferent expression.

He let a faint smile settle on his face. “I am not watching you. You have been ill for several days — with no one attending to the residence, I simply had someone keep a watch over you.”

In matters of political scheming, he was as cold as Li Shu.

Cui Jinzhi had indeed been watching her. In the wake of the Luo Prefecture disaster victim rebellion, he feared she would not accept the outcome and would reach out to investigate.

Of course, Li Shu had been gravely ill for the past several days — half of her life already spent in bed — and Cui Jinzhi’s concern for her health was also genuine.

Li Shu let out a scoffing laugh. The movement pulled at the skin of her face, making it look thinner still. The more ill she had grown, the paler she became; her skin was almost the sort of translucent that merged with the snowfield, and the ridge of her cheekbones looked sharp as blades — as though they might at any moment cut through flesh and blood from beneath.

“You need not send people to watch me. If you want to know what I intend to do, ask me directly.”

Li Shu actually smiled in Cui Jinzhi’s direction — a faint, thin thing. “I am going to retrieve his body.”

Cui Jinzhi’s composure faltered for an instant, then he replied coldly and sharply: “He fell into the Yellow River. There is simply no body to find.”

Li Shu replied evenly: “Then I will go to the riverbank to offer my respects.”

Cui Jinzhi denied it: “The roads are icy and slick in the cold. Travel over distance is unsuitable.”

Li Shu quickly answered back: “In two more days it will be the seven-day death anniversary. I must go.”

The faster Li Shu responded, and the more composed her expression, the angrier Cui Jinzhi found himself growing, for reasons he could not name.

Retrieve the body? Pay respects? In what capacity would she do these things for another man?

Cui Jinzhi thrust out his hand toward Li Shu. What he touched was the icy skin of her neck.

He gritted his teeth. “Look at how you are dressed — and you want to set out on a journey?”

Li Shu wore only a middle undergarment — not even an outer robe. Never mind traveling far from home; it was not fit for meeting anyone at all. What she had on her feet was a pair of thin, delicate embroidered shoes — clearly, one moment she had still been inside, and the next she had thrown all else aside and boarded the carriage.

There was no need to ask; Cui Jinzhi could picture it perfectly.

The moment her body could move at all — without even stopping to change her clothes — she had fought with everything she had to get out the door. Every trace of her usual rationality and sharpness had been cast to the back of her mind. She did not care whether she was being watched, did not care whether the weather was fit for travel.

There was someone in the distance calling to her, and she had been seized by something like madness, possessed by the need to go find him.

The two stood close to each other. The sharp, cold scent that clung to Cui Jinzhi in the snow was entirely different from the scent that had belonged to Shen Xiao.

His voice went icy. He released Li Shu’s collar and gave the order: “Drive the carriage back into the city.”

“No one is to drive this carriage back!”

Li Shu suddenly raised her voice and called out.

Cui Jinzhi gave her a glance — one word, no more — then looked away, seeing the driver motionless and trembling. His temper flared. In one sharp movement, he hauled the driver to the ground, then barked at his own men: “Get up here — drive this carriage!”

“Whoever touches my carriage will answer to this Princess!”

Li Shu’s cold rebuke rang out in return.

“Cang lang” — the sound of steel being drawn — both sides’ guards drew their blades at the same moment. The sword light reflected the sun’s glare, sharp enough to sting the eyes.

The men Cui Jinzhi had brought clearly outnumbered hers. Without a fight, the outcome was already plain.

Cui Jinzhi’s gaze settled on her, cold and steady. “Que’nuo — do you really intend to come to blows with me?”

The sword-glare pierced into Li Shu’s eyes, sharp as a needle. For a long silence, she did not speak. Cui Jinzhi thought she had tacitly given in and abandoned her struggle — then he heard Li Shu say softly, “Cui Jinzhi, come a little closer.”

Cui Jinzhi frowned slightly, but stepped forward one or two paces all the same and stood beside Li Shu.

He was about to ask “what is it” — when he saw Li Shu raise her hand, and with a sharp crack, a full-force slap landed across his face.

She put every ounce of her strength into it. Cui Jinzhi’s head whipped to one side from the impact.

Every guard present drew in a sharp, simultaneous breath!

What a formidable princess — she slapped a court official full across the face right in front of all these people? Was this an open insult to the Eastern Palace?

The onlookers were shaken to their cores; the two at the eye of the storm were entirely calm. Li Shu’s expression was cold and sharp. Cui Jinzhi did not rage, did not show humiliation — he only pressed a hand to the corner of his mouth, then turned his gaze back to rest on Li Shu. A cold smile curved his lips.

“Que’nuo, that is the third time you have slapped me. The first time was over the jade pendant — that was my fault, and I accepted your slap willingly.”

“So tell me — who is this slap for?”

Li Shu did not answer him. “Let me go. I am going to retrieve his body.”

Cui Jinzhi suddenly raised his voice and shouted: “Someone — drive this carriage!”

Even his expression had become somewhat savage. “Escort the Princess back to her residence.”

Cui Jinzhi lifted the hem of his robe and stepped up into the carriage. The curtain fell; inside the cabin, the light dimmed into an obscure dimness, which might have felt like a stolen intimacy between two people — or might have felt more like a prisoner being escorted home under guard.

The imprint of her hand was slowly rising on his face — evidence that Li Shu had struck him with genuine force. Cui Jinzhi seized Li Shu’s wrist and looked at the reddened mark on her palm — her hand, too, was flushed from the impact.

It was almost as though it were some secret thread connecting them — a sign that they were still linked, not yet entirely strangers.

A smile actually crossed Cui Jinzhi’s face. He leaned in close, his breath falling against Li Shu’s cheek.

“Que’nuo, have you forgotten? I warned you before.”

“Do not oppose the Crown Prince any further. If we become political enemies, I cannot say what I might do to leave you in agony that pierces the very heart.”

He reached out to trace along the thin ridge of Li Shu’s jaw. “Now you know — opposing the Eastern Palace… what price is there to pay? Hmm?”

Li Shu heard this and went utterly still for an instant. Then, slowly, she began to tremble — yet still she bit down and forced herself to speak: “You killed him?”

“It was you who killed him!”

The statement had already shifted into a declaration. Li Shu lunged forward, her face contorted with something close to the desire to tear Cui Jinzhi apart.

Cui Jinzhi did not openly admit it. He remained calm. “Que’nuo, I told you to stand down, and you would not. So he died. You tell me — who, in the end, killed him? Was it I? Or was it you?”

He pried away the hands clamped at his throat, and smiled with an extreme gentleness: “You say — who exactly killed him? Was it me? Or was it you?”

The carriage set off, turning back toward the city gate. Cui Jinzhi’s subordinate was driving — whip raised, about to lash the horse forward. Then a shriek tore through the carriage cabin — the voice of Princess Pingyang, yet somehow… somehow it carried such despair, such desolation.

The servant had no time to wonder about it. He drove the carriage onward. The wheels rolled over the snow-covered road and passed through the gate tunnel. Every guard followed in the wake of the carriage. In an unnoticed hollow among the hills, before long a solitary rider broke away and galloped at full speed in the direction of Luo Prefecture.

After that wretched, devastating cry, Li Shu seemed to have lost her soul entirely. She curled her legs beneath her and collapsed into the corner of the carriage cabin.

It was you who killed him.

Cui Jinzhi had driven a blade into her heart — and, not content that she had not suffered enough, gripped the knife and twisted it several savage times more.

It was you who killed him.

She had lost. Utterly and completely.

The carriage traveled on, and the silence within it remained dead as a tomb.

Li Shu did not speak, did not weep, did not move — she only sat there as she was, her gaze hollow and empty.

Cui Jinzhi looked around the carriage cabin. Li Shu had truly left in such haste that there was not even a hand warmer inside to provide heat. By now her lips had turned blue with cold, and the backs of her hands were mottled in blue and red.

Cui Jinzhi reached out, intending to cover her hands. “Are you cold?”

Li Shu recoiled as though she had touched flame and flung his hand away. Her eyes flew open wide — large, vacant. She began to tremble all over, as though convulsing.

Cui Jinzhi had never seen her like this. A sudden unease rose in him. He feared that Li Shu was holding a breath locked inside her — and that when she could hold it no longer, she would cough up the very blood of her heart.

He quickly pried open the hand she had clenched into a fist. Fresh gashes streaked the palm, dripping.

“Li Shu — you are twenty years old, not twelve. You should have understood long ago: the road to power is paved in blood.”

Emperor Zhengyuan had pursued supreme authority, paving his way with the blood of two brothers.

He was pursuing power now — what reason was there not to pave his way with the blood of others?

Li Shu listened without reaction. Her expression held only exhaustion. “I want to be alone.”

“Que’nuo——”

“I said I want to be alone!” Li Shu said. “You may leave.”

Cui Jinzhi held her gaze. After a moment’s hesitation, he looked at her — utterly bereft, as though her heart had given up all hope — and judged that she could not work up any trouble for the time being.

“Very well. I will not disturb you. Go back to your residence and tend to your health.”

He spoke, then moved to lift the curtain. He paused at the opening of the carriage, still uncertain. He turned his head back to look at Li Shu one more time. “Going forward, I will protect you under the Crown Prince’s authority — you know what the condition is.”

Do not oppose the Eastern Palace any further.

Li Shu smiled faintly, an expression of someone who had relinquished all resistance. “I understand. He is already dead. What would be the point of my fighting for any of this?”

Her eye rims suddenly reddened — yet the depths of her eyes remained dry. Not a single tear fell.

Cui Jinzhi stepped down from the carriage. Shortly, the sound of galloping hooves faded. What he left behind were only a few guards set to watch over her. Li Shu’s own driver finally climbed back onto the carriage and urged the horses forward.

The driver lifted the curtain and gave Li Shu a nod and a smile. “Your Highness, back to the residence.”

Li Shu, who had been sitting huddled with her knees drawn up, saw the driver and suddenly straightened. The red rims around her eyes receded in an instant; the look of despair that had haunted her face dissolved entirely.

She met the driver’s gaze and smiled back with a nod. “Back to the residence.”

The person she had dispatched to Luo Prefecture to make inquiries had already been sent — why else would she return? Cui Jinzhi had her under a suffocating watch, not permitting her to interfere in Luo Prefecture by even the smallest degree. With no alternative, she had been forced to misdirect him with a feint — drawing his gaze one way while she moved in another.

She touched the dry corners of her eyes, thinking to herself: Cui Jinzhi was truly naive — did he really believe that after all of this, she would simply give up?

No. She and the Eastern Palace had forged a blood feud. Even if not for the sake of power — she would have her revenge for Shen Xiao.