The carriage rolled smoothly onward and came to a stop before the gates of Princess Pingyang’s residence. After the rumble of wheels and hoofbeats ceased, the intermittent sound of coughing from within the cabin became painfully distinct.

Li Shu leaned against the carriage wall, feeling only a deep chill spreading through her entire body and a burning heat in her head. By the end, she had begun to shake uncontrollably all over. Her spine would no longer hold itself upright, and she slowly crumpled downward, sinking until she lay curled in the carriage cabin.

She had been gravely ill, and her body had already reached its very limits. These few days of recovering from her sickness had allowed her to slowly gather back a little vital energy — and every last bit of it had been consumed in today’s confrontation with Cui Jinzhi.

She felt only cold. For some reason, she had suddenly begun to hear a ringing in her ears.

The carriage had barely stopped when Hong Luo, who had been keeping watch at the residence gate, rushed over. She had a hand warmer and a fur-lined cloak in her arms. She lifted the curtain and climbed inside — and found Li Shu lying there, lips tinged blue, body trembling.

Hong Luo thought Li Shu was simply half-frozen from the cold. She hurriedly draped the cloak over her and pressed the hand warmer into her grip, then supported her up.

“Your Highness, Your Highness — what has happened to you?”

Hong Luo called out in rapid succession, but the ringing in Li Shu’s ears was so overwhelming that she could not hear a word of it. She could only see Hong Luo’s face drawn tight with anxiety, her mouth moving ceaselessly.

Li Shu made a great effort to hold herself upright, waving her hand slightly. “I am all right” — though she could not even hear what she herself had said.

The ringing sound droned and droned. The sound seemed like a sentence, carrying some kind of meaning — yet no matter how she tried, she could not make it out.

Li Shu stepped out of the carriage. Attendants reached out from outside to help her down — but just as Li Shu extended her hand, she felt as though every last drop of strength had left her body at once. She pitched straight down from the carriage and fell to her knees in the snow.

“Your Highness!”

The attendants cried out in unison and immediately crouched down to help her up — only to see Li Shu vomit a mouthful of blood straight onto the snow. It spread out across the white, vivid crimson and jarring to the eyes.

“Your Highness!”

The attendants’ cries grew louder and more frantic. The gatekeeper went scrambling in a panic to fetch the physician. All around her, chaos and noise surely reigned — yet Li Shu could hear none of it.

She knelt in the snow, looking at that crimson blood. The sound in her ears finally resolved itself into one clear and unmistakable sentence: “It was you who killed him,” Cui Jinzhi had said.

A great commotion spread before the gates of Princess Pingyang’s residence. Li Qin and his traveling party were returning from the palace; their route home took them past Li Shu’s residence. Seeing the uproar, Li Qin immediately dismounted and rushed over.

“What has happened?”

When he caught sight of the blood in the snow, he was seized by shock. He rushed forward and knelt down beside Li Shu. “Imperial Elder Sister, Imperial Elder Sister!”

He turned a glare on Hong Luo. “What is going on? How have you been tending to her?!”

Hong Luo was so distraught she was close to tears. “This servant does not know.”

How could the Princess have ended up like this? She had gone out this morning with a calculated look in her eyes, as though she had some scheme laid out in mind. How had she come back in this condition? What on earth had she encountered?

Was it because of Official Shen?

Yet clearly, even on the day the news came of Official Shen’s death, the Princess had fallen gravely ill — her body had weakened — but her spirit had been strong and whole!

So how had even her spirit collapsed entirely now? What could have shattered it so?

Li Qin was strong, and he hauled the kneeling Li Shu upright by sheer force, gathering her into his arms. He felt her body curl inward against him; she was trembling without ceasing. Beneath the thick cloak, the thinness of her — a frame of nothing but bones — jutted against him sharply enough to ache.

Hong Luo had a handkerchief ready to wipe the blood from the corners of Li Shu’s mouth. Li Qin noticed then that she was murmuring something over and over under her breath. He bent his head close to her and listened — and finally made out what she was saying.

“I killed him.”

Li Shu said it, gripping Li Qin’s hand with fierce desperation. Her nails dug in. Her eyes were wide open, the focus in them gone entirely. “It was I who killed him.”

The ringing in her ears had finally found its meaning. Ten thousand bells and chimes tolled in unison; countless voices rang out together beside her ear.

Cui Jinzhi said: “It was you who killed him.”

Li Shu opened her mouth, like a dying fish — even breathing was a luxury.

Cui Jinzhi was right.

If only she had sent her shadow guards to his side sooner.

If only she had not let the matter of Princess Jincheng fracture things between them, leaving him to go to Luo Prefecture alone.

If only she had not sought him out in the first place to partner with her in opposing the Eastern Palace.

If only she had not used him to seize grain during the Guanzhong drought.

If only three years ago she had never summoned him to attend upon her.

If only…

Every cause traced backward, every thread unraveled, every layer stripped away — all of it led back to the same single root:

If only she had never burned with such hunger for power. If only she had simply remained in the cold palace — an unnamed princess, known to no one…

If only it were not for her existence, Shen Xiao would not have died.

This truth struck her like ten thousand arrows piercing her heart at once. Every ounce of feeling she had concealed before Cui Jinzhi broke through all at once, and the pain poured in from every direction.

The snow fell thickly all around her. She could not feel a trace of cold — only the hollow emptiness her body had become.

Li Shu’s gaze drifted without focus, falling on Li Qin, who had appeared before her at some unknown moment. “Seventh Brother — it was I who killed him.”

She stared blankly ahead. “When he left, he must have been blaming me, wasn’t he?”

So cold, he must have thought that — how could I have gone and lost my heart to a woman so cold-hearted? How could I have been so blind?

Li Qin had never seen Li Shu like this.

Her complexion was deathly pale. Not so much as a flush rose in her eye rims — and yet beneath that vacant expression, an absolute and bottomless despair shone through. The Princess Pingyang renowned for her composure and cool detachment — how could she ever look like this.

So it turned out Imperial Elder Sister was not a cold-hearted person after all.

Feeling the body in his arms go limp — collapsing back toward the snow — Li Qin dropped hastily to one knee. “Do not think like that. This has nothing to do with you. Not a single thing.”

What “I killed him” — whose absurd logic was this?!

Yet Li Shu could not take in a single word. It was as though all her senses had sealed themselves shut; her entire being had closed itself off.

“Imperial Elder Sister — he never blamed you. Not even once.”

These past two months, Shen Xiao had indeed never brought up anything related to Li Shu. But this deliberate avoidance of the subject was, plainly, its own kind of declaration.

Li Qin still meant to say more, but by this time the household servants had already brought out the sedan chair. The physician raised the corner of his medicine case and took Li Shu’s pulse — then said urgently: “This is a case of acute emotional shock, a sudden oppression of the heart-mind. She must be moved inside at once and kept away from the wind.”

The attendants rushed to lift the already half-unconscious Li Shu onto the sedan chair. Hong Luo followed close behind, about to enter the residence — but was stopped by Li Qin.

Li Qin took a long rectangular box from his sleeve and handed it to Hong Luo: “This is a thousand-year ginseng root. At a critical moment, it can save the Princess’s life.”

Li Qin’s meaning was deliberate.

Hong Luo had no time to think further. She took the box, gave a quick word of thanks, and hurried inside.

With this illness, Li Shu drifted in and out of consciousness for more than ten days.

The Eastern Palace had its eyes tightly fixed on Li Shu. The Crown Prince, in a show of “brotherly concern,” specifically gave orders that “Princess Pingyang is ill and requires quiet recuperation — no idle visitors are to disturb her.”

By this means, she was cut off entirely from the outside world — not permitted any possibility of interfering or stirring up trouble in political affairs.

The physicians prescribed nothing but life-sustaining medicine. The residence’s supply of ginseng was brewed into soup without pause, bowl after bowl poured into her — yet still Li Shu lay bedridden, showing no sign of improvement.

The physicians could only sigh: “Medicine can cure illness, but it cannot cure fate.”

All the fine ginseng had been used up; the residence had run out. Only then did Hong Luo remember the box the Seventh Imperial Prince had given her that day.

For these ten-odd days, she had been wholly consumed with tending to Li Shu. Hong Luo had casually told a servant to put the box away in the storeroom — and now that the physician said there was no more ginseng, Hong Luo hastened to have it fetched.

But the box was brought to her and opened — and Hong Luo stood rooted to the spot in astonishment.

*

Li Shu slowly opened her eyes.

The sky outside was a dull, heavy grey. Even through the window paper, little light could filter in; inside the room it was dimmer still, and she could not tell what hour it was.

Hong Luo, who had been keeping watch by the bed, saw Li Shu wake and leaned close to ask: “Your Highness is awake — how do you feel?”

Li Shu did not answer. These ten-odd days had all been the same: no matter who spoke, she appeared to hear nothing, her gaze perpetually unfocused. The whole person had become wooden and dazed, as though she had utterly lost her soul.

Li Shu stared vacantly at the thin light seeping through the window paper. She understood she ought to pull herself together. The person she had sent to Luo Prefecture had not yet returned with news — she did not know whether anything had been discovered, or whether she should find a way to send someone else to help; she did not know how the Seventh Prince was faring these days; she did not know how their Father Emperor’s health stood, or when he might recover — for as long as the Crown Prince remained regent, the power of the Eastern Palace would only grow.

There was a long string of questions that needed her attention. Yet she only stared blankly, unable to think about any of them.

The ringing in her ears would not leave. Cui Jinzhi’s voice said: “You killed him.”

His voice was a blade that could not be pulled free, revolving without end in the wound he had made of her heart.

You killed him — you have no right to love another person, and even less right to be loved. You deserve only to live forever in cold solitude: a long life, stretching on and on, with no one at your side.

Ten years of familiarity — Cui Jinzhi knew precisely how to drive the knife into her heart. She had already lost on every front politically, yet still he sought to torment her by slow degrees in the realm of feeling, cutting her into pieces with exquisite cruelty.

He wanted to drag her down into an endless darkness where she would never see any light again.

Li Shu stared at the window paper until her eyes ached, yet still she could not bring herself to look away.

After some unknowable length of time had passed, the last light filtering through the window paper finally faded entirely. Another day had ended, and boundless black seeped into the room.

Hong Luo lit the lamps throughout, filling the room with firelight. Li Shu’s gaze finally pulled away from the window paper. She blinked — and then, suddenly, as though she had glimpsed something in the bronze mirror on the dressing table, her eyes contracted sharply.

Li Shu shot upright, threw off the bedcovers, and swung her feet to the floor — but her body had no strength left, and her feet had barely touched the ground before she nearly collapsed. Hong Luo reached out to support her, but Li Shu shoved her aside.

Li Shu half-stumbled, half-crawled to the dressing table. She stretched out a trembling hand — then stopped, hovering with uncertainty in the air.

On the table lay a blood-red jade hairpin. Its color ran deep and vivid throughout, of exceptional quality. But it had been broken into two pieces. Someone had wrapped the fracture in thread — fine, close-stitched red thread — so that the two fragments were just barely held into one serviceable pin.

Hong Luo’s voice came from behind her, explaining: “This was sent to you by the Seventh Imperial Prince.”

Something that could save a life at a critical moment.

Hong Luo had wondered — how could a single hairpin save anyone’s life?

Just as she was turning the question over, Li Shu’s voice came out sharp and cold: “Everyone, leave.”

“I wish to be alone for a while.”

Everyone in the room withdrew. Only Li Shu remained.

She braced herself against the edge of the dressing table and slowly lowered herself onto the round stool. The bronze mirror reflected back a face of extreme pallor and gauntness.

Her hair hung loose and tangled. Li Shu used her fingers as a comb and worked her hair into the simplest bun she could manage. Then she picked up the blood-red jade hairpin and set it into the coil of hair.

The bronze mirror reflected back the image: a red jade pin, black brows and eyes, white skin.

It was as though it were a morning like any other after waking — and there should have been someone standing behind her, smiling, watching her arrange her hair before the mirror.

“Shen Xiao — does it look beautiful?”

Li Shu asked.

A single tear fell from the corner of her eye.