Outside, the earth was locked in bitter cold, but the moment they stepped inside, warmth enveloped them — and with the sudden shift from cold to warm, Shen Xiao began to cough.

The hand that had held hers the whole way home finally released its hold. His right hand curled into a fist and pressed against his lips as he coughed several times. He had barely recovered from the fit when he found that, without quite knowing when it had happened, he was back in bed — Li Shu had already pressed him down onto it.

She sat at the bedside, moving with anxious haste, as though terrified Shen Xiao might catch a chill. She tugged an armful of heavy brocade blanket over and stuffed it roughly into his arms. Just then Hong Luo came in carrying a bowl of ginseng broth; Li Shu reached out to take it, but her movements were too hasty, and when she grabbed the bowl it sloshed straight onto her own hand. A scalded hiss escaped her lips.

How careless and flustered she is, Shen Xiao thought.

His right hand took hold of the bowl, and his left hand covered hers naturally, blotting away the wetness.

He looked at her with something between amusement and resignation. “Does it hurt? Did it scald you?”

Li Shu said nothing; she only looked up at him and gave a small shake of her head.

She had been very quiet the whole way back, and he could not tell what she was thinking.

Shen Xiao tried to work out what was going through Li Shu’s mind while tilting his head back and draining the bowl of ginseng broth in one long swallow. He had no sooner put the bowl down and was about to settle in and have a proper conversation with Li Shu when she lunged forward and slammed straight into him, pressing him flat onto the bed.

Her reckless, headlong charge left his chest aching. Li Shu showed not the slightest awareness that one ought to take care with a sick person. She buried her face against his chest and lay there on top of him, not moving a single inch for a long while.

Hong Luo saw this, quietly beckoned the other maids, and slipped out of the room along with every attendant — leaving just the two of them on the bed.

The room was not heavily lit. Inside the bed canopy, the dimness deepened still further. Shen Xiao lay there looking up at the south-facing window, where a faint glow from the lanterns hanging along the eaves had found its way inside — indistinct and hazy, as though even the snowflakes drifting through the lamplight could just barely be seen.

It made him feel very warm.

Li Shu lay pressed against his chest for a long time, neither speaking nor stirring. Just when Shen Xiao was beginning to think she intended to keep playing dead like this indefinitely, Li Shu suddenly pushed herself upright and looked down at him for a moment. He had grown even thinner than before; his cheeks had hollowed, which made his expression look even more stern and cold. His pupils were very dark, and he looked back up at Li Shu.

Not a single word need be spoken.

There was no need to speak of the longing and the worry that the long separation had brought, no need to speak of the illness she had fallen into, no need to speak of the tears she had shed in the depths of the night.

Shen Xiao was also silent.

He did not speak of how difficult the journey had been, nor of how, in his darkest and most desperate moments, the thought of seeing her one more time had been the only thing he had forced himself to endure for.

Not a single word need be said.

All words were superfluous.

Li Shu looked at him.

He had come back to the capital in a refugee’s disguise. When they had received him, his entire person had been filthy; while Shen Xiao slept, Li Shu had ordered people to bathe him, and now he was clean and fresh.

Li Shu opened her mouth and bit him.

Without any trace of tenderness — it was as though she hated him down to the marrow of her bones. She opened her mouth and bit into the side of his neck. The pulse of a blood vessel thrummed faintly beneath her lips, and she bit down ferociously, as though she wished to bite clean through him.

The bite was excruciatingly painful. Shen Xiao drew in a sharp breath — but he did not resist. His body went taut; after a long moment, he raised an arm and let it fall gently onto Li Shu’s back, patting her quietly in wordless comfort.

I have come back, he said without words. I am sorry I made you worry.

Li Shu lifted her head from his neck and saw the deep imprint of her teeth — it had broken the skin. She wanted to ask if it hurt, and then decided there was no need.

Of course it hurt.

All the anxiety, the longing, the terror, and the deep, aching regret could not possibly be put into words; the only way they could be expressed was through biting and tearing.

Li Shu opened her mouth and bit into his shoulder.

The path she traced was like the taking of one fortress after another, like the reckless claiming of territory, like a sudden storm — she bit down wherever she opened her mouth, without mercy, without a trace of gentleness.

Shen Xiao absorbed every bite in silence. His hands rested on her back, and through the fabric of her clothes he patted her gently.

His breathing quickened sharply. He turned his head, wanting to reach Li Shu’s lips — but Li Shu tilted her head away and denied him, refusing to let him approach for a kiss.

She seemed to want to punish him with this — punish him for having the audacity to make her worry so much.

She buried her face again in the crook of his neck.

Shen Xiao turned his face aside, seeing only her dark, coiled hair and the one pale strip of her cheek, her complexion so translucent it was almost possible to see the veins and bone beneath.

She was also much thinner than before.

His attempt at a kiss had come to nothing. He could only reach up to stroke her hair, and with his cheek against her ear, he said quietly, “I am sorry.”

I am sorry for making you worry.

Those three words struck Li Shu’s heart like a sudden blow. She looked up abruptly and stared.

How could it be him saying sorry?

She was the one who should be saying sorry — from the very first meeting until now, she had always been the one in the wrong. Sorry for having humiliated him, sorry for having mocked him, sorry for having abandoned him when it came to the choice between power and feeling, sorry for not going to see him off before he left.

He was the most innocent person in all of this — and yet here he was, turning his face toward her, his dark eyes holding nothing but intent, saying: “I am sorry.”

Li Shu was almost on the verge of tears, yet she still glared at him fiercely. Her gaze dropped, landing on his lips — the sharpest place on his face, and yet also the most tender.

She slowly leaned in, and softly kissed him.

This kiss was utterly simple. It was nothing more than lips against lips — no need to part them, no need for teeth or tongue to play any part. She was careful and tentative, placing only the lightest touch of a kiss upon his lips, offering every last scrap of tenderness she possessed.

How strange this gesture felt.

Li Shu thought this to herself as she kissed him. The two of them had been through the most intimate of things together, and yet their lips still felt so unfamiliar with each other.

Beneath her, Shen Xiao was silent, accepting her inexperienced, clumsy kiss. Her lips were very soft, but also very cool.

Shen Xiao slowly closed his eyes. What passed between them could not even rightly be called a kiss — it was barely a brush of lips — yet he felt a satisfaction in it deeper than anything he had received from her body. For the body was desire, but the lips were feeling.

The kiss that had been refused the last time they made love, the sincerity that had not been given during their last joining — at this moment, he finally received them all.

His long-held wish was at last fulfilled.

At first Li Shu’s kiss was still gentle, but after two or three presses of her lips, it turned suddenly to biting again — fierce and merciless, enough to draw blood from Shen Xiao’s lips.

Her body trembled faintly with it. Though she was the one inflicting the pain, she herself seemed frightened and deeply anxious.

I was once broken against Cui Jinzhi — broken so thoroughly that I stopped trusting anyone, stopped trusting any feeling. You were the one who made me set down every pretence, open every armour.

The truest heart hidden beneath the hardest armour, the truest self concealed beneath layer upon layer of masks — all of it is offered to you.

Without a single thorn. Without a single guard.

If you wish to wound me, I will have no way to fight back.

My lifeline is in your hands; life and death are yours to dispose of as you will.

Love makes one fearful. Love makes one afraid. Love makes one want to retreat.

If Shen Xiao were one day to humiliate her, or hurt her, or abandon her, then she would… she would…

She bit him fiercely and thought in despair: then she would have absolutely no recourse at all.

She had no means left to protect herself. She could not even bring herself to bite him as hard as she truly wanted.

How had she arrived at such a state of total defeat — a defeat more thorough than she could have imagined, without a shred of ground left to stand on.

Beneath her, Shen Xiao was silent, absorbing everything Li Shu gave him — every bite, every tear. He did not flee, did not resist; he even leaned into the pain she brought him.

He appeared to be the one being hurt, the one being bitten and torn — yet in his heart, he knew that in this moment, the one biting him so ferociously was in fact the most vulnerable one of all.

Shen Xiao gently stroked Li Shu’s spine, and through the fabric of her clothes he could feel her trembling very faintly.

How could I ever hurt you, he thought. Before you ever offered yourself to me, I had already given myself over to you entirely.

Each held the other’s lifeline in their hands. From this moment on, whether life or death, joy or sorrow — none of it was any longer within their own control.

From nothing more than a kiss, Shen Xiao’s breathing had already grown heavy and rough. He wanted to reverse their positions — to turn things around.

But Li Shu sensed his movement. She pressed her hand down on his shoulder and shot him a sidelong look, silencing his intention with that single glare.

Tonight was plainly meant to be her battlefield.

Shen Xiao let out a sigh of resignation and lay back. There would be time enough for this later, he thought. Let her have the upper hand for once.

Li Shu hovered over him, head lowered, gazing down at him steadily. Her hands were braced on either side of him; the lamplight gathered her form into a shadow that fell across Shen Xiao’s body.

This posture ought to have been utterly domineering and imposing — if he had been the one in it, Shen Xiao thought. But when she adopted it, it only produced a kind of recklessly daring, maddeningly provoking effect.

Shen Xiao could not help but laugh — and was immediately glared at by Li Shu for it.

Shen Xiao lay flat on the bed. His smile was full of warmth. When he wore his hair unbound, he had the look of a reclusive scholar wandering the lakes and rivers, free and unrestrained. His loose hair and his dark great cloak were the same colour; both were spread beneath him, and the effect made his eyebrows and eyes appear even colder and more severe — while at the same time, somehow even more tender.

Li Shu looked at him and thought to herself: this man belongs to me.

Her desire had long since grown into something vast and towering. Tonight would be a sleepless night.

Shen Xiao’s hand pressed down with force and pulled Li Shu against him, and he began to kiss her.

Li Shu came back to her senses.

The nerve of him!

Everything was meant to be under her control.

Li Shu, furious, broke free from Shen Xiao’s hold and sat up straight, glaring at the man who was still looking entirely too innocent.

“This princess commands you not to move!”

After the long separation and their reunion at the edge of life and death — this was the first thing she said to him.

Whether tonight she wished him to live or to die, he was not to move.

The bed canopy hung dim around them. Shen Xiao lay on his back looking up at Li Shu.

She was high above him, reigning over his world — and he was entirely willing, entirely content to bow his head and submit.

“Very well,” he said.

He let out a quiet breath of laughter, and looked up at Li Shu, repeating himself once more.

“This official obeys Your Highness’s command.”

Tonight, whether you wish me to live or to die, it is yours to decide, my Princess.

Breathing rough and uneven, the atmosphere thick and intimate.

“Que Nü…”

Shen Xiao said her name — his breath was disordered, and yet he could not turn and press his own princess down beneath him. He could only say, “Que Nü… I have missed you so much…”

Li Shu heard this and stilled her biting. She leaned in close and looked at Shen Xiao.

She was far calmer than he was. In these matters, men were always more easily overwhelmed; besides, Shen Xiao had had no relief since leaving the capital.

She lowered her head just slightly, nose touching nose, and her clear eyes looked into his dark ones.

Li Shu heard him and smiled, one eyebrow arching as she brought her lips close to his ear and asked softly, “Missed me how?”

There was the faintest edge of impropriety in it.

Shen Xiao looked down at her and turned the question back on her: “You should be asking: which part of you did I miss.”

Neither of them felt any shame. There was no need for shame. When feeling reaches its deepest point, this is the most natural thing in the world.

This time did not last long. For one thing, Shen Xiao had gone without for a long while; for another, his body was no longer what it had once been. He exhaled in rough, uneven breaths, a sheen of sweat forming on his brow.

I love you — in the most tender, most stirring moment, those were her words.

Shen Xiao pulled the brocade blanket over and covered them both. He lay on his side and held Li Shu against him, one hand beneath her head as a pillow, the other draped across her waist.

His chin rested in her hair, but apparently her hair bun was pressing uncomfortably against him — he absently reached up and loosened it, and Li Shu gave a disgruntled hum at the gesture.

Their loose hair fell and mingled together. Shen Xiao rested his chin atop her head and said, “Sleep. My princess.”

He had been exhausted enough today. Within just a few blinks of his eyes, Shen Xiao had already fallen into a deep, still slumber.

Above her head came the steady sound of his breathing, broken now and then by a soft cough. He was very still when he slept, not stirring at all.

Li Shu, however, could not fall asleep. She turned over, and by the dim candlelight, saw the shadow his long lashes cast beneath his eyes.

She looked at him for a moment, and then, for reasons she could not quite account for, felt a sudden urge to smile.

She tilted her head up slightly and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips.

“I love you, my Senior Official Shen.”