The cheek where the ornament had struck her was faintly sore, then itchy—an unpleasant sensation. His way of speaking was unpleasant too. But Pu Zhu was even more frightened by that strange expression of his—she could not tell whether he was angry or laughing. Her two hands hung at her sides; she did not dare touch her face, and dared not resist.

Li Xuandu said his piece, then—remarkably—tucked the gold step-sway ornament back into her hair, put it in properly, and even considerately smoothed out the twisted strands of pearls for her. He regarded his work for a moment, then finally got up, turned away, and left.

The study was left to her alone. Pu Zhu finally came back to herself, lying on the cloud-bed with one arm raised, pressing her palm to her stricken cheek, smoothing away that strange aching-itching sensation.

He seemed to have gone back to the bedchamber. For a moment she was too frightened to follow, and lay there turning over in her mind the meaning of what he had just done. Try as she might, she could not make sense of his intentions. In the end she climbed up, sat on the edge of the cloud-bed for a while in a daze, paced around the study for some time, told herself that even if it meant walking into trouble she couldn’t avoid it, and finally decided to go to bed.

Sure enough, as she had guessed, he had already gone to sleep.

Pu Zhu was not sure whether he believed her earlier explanation or not. Fortunately, whatever his belief, he appeared at the moment not to be pressing the matter further. He lay quietly on his side, facing outward, eyes closed, as if already asleep.

Pu Zhu held her breath and carefully climbed in from the foot of the bed. She had barely lain down gently when she heard his voice drifting through the curtain: “If you roll around recklessly again in your sleep, don’t blame me for putting you out of the bed.”

Pu Zhu was taken aback. Connecting this to the sight of herself pressed into the corner of the wall in a twisted position when she had woken that morning, she suddenly understood.

So it wasn’t that she had rolled there herself in her sleep—he had moved her. No wonder she had woken up in such a strange posture, her back and waist aching.

As for the reason—it was obvious. She must have accidentally touched him in her sleep, just as she had that night before, and he had shoved her away.

Now it had gone even further: he had actually spoken a direct warning.

In that instant, Pu Zhu snuffed out the last tiny flicker of hope that had still been smoldering at the bottom of her heart, and abandoned any expectation that he might help her find A’mu.

She said nothing, and silently scooted further inward, trying to keep as much distance as possible between them.

This was the most tense night of sleep she had experienced since their marriage. She did not dare relax completely, afraid that if she grew too deeply unconscious, she might accidentally touch him again.

It wasn’t that she was worried he would actually “put her out of the bed.” Rather, since he had made it so plainly clear that he did not want her to touch him in bed, she had better—given how things currently stood between them—do as he wished.

Getting along with him, having a child—these things could not be rushed. And she still had plenty of time to prepare.

If she could not even endure this much coldness and indignity, how could she hope to accomplish anything greater in the future? Who would quarrel with a tool for being inconvenient? What one should do was reshape the tool or reshape oneself—learn to adapt to the tool.

Pu Zhu reasoned her way through it step by step, talking herself out of being upset with him. The gloom and despondency that had weighed on her chest lifted considerably—but her mood had still been affected.

That night she was tense and slept poorly. The next day she was out of sorts. Fortunately, once the night had passed, he never raised the matter again. And over the following seven or eight days, as he was busied by preparations for next month’s autumn hunt—leaving early and returning late—the two of them coexisted peacefully without incident. Then one day, Pu Zhu’s luck finally turned, and she received the most welcome piece of good news she had heard since returning to the capital.

The matter she had commissioned Baibi with at great expense—just when she had begun to feel that hope was fading—had at last yielded a new development.

A message came through: they had finally tracked down a wandering fortune-teller who had cast a divination for that family some months earlier. According to the man, the young fellow who had come to him at the time had appeared to be a mixture of joy and worry. Beyond asking about blessings and misfortunes, he had also made inquiries about the customs and conditions of Heci Commandery—then seemed to grow afraid and had hurried away in a rush. Because the young man had acted so strangely, the fortune-teller had remembered him clearly and recalled it all when asked.

Pu Zhu finally remembered too.

Shen Gao was from exactly that place.

Ever since Emperor Xiaochang had come to the throne, the Shen family had built up tremendous influence in the region over the years, to the point that even the commandery governor had to defer to the Shen family on some matters. The likelihood that Shen Gao had had that family brought to his home territory and was keeping them under watch—or under a kind of house arrest—was very high.

Pu Zhu finally saw hope again. If only she were not confined to the capital and unable to leave, she would have longed to go herself. She sent a reply asking them to dispatch more people to Heci Commandery to continue the secret investigation. No matter the cost—if there was any new development, they were to report to her promptly.

After sending the reply, Pu Zhu’s spirits lifted, and the gloom of recent days evaporated at once.

Because of Shen Gao, she thought of the invitation from Xiao Shi—Shen Yang’s wife, the Marquise of Tenguo.

Xiao Shi’s birthday flower banquet was coming up soon. Two days ago she had sent someone again with a follow-up invitation, urging her attendance once more.

Among the upper class in the capital, whenever a wealthy family held a banquet, they would send invitations at least ten days to half a month in advance. Three days before the banquet date, a follow-up invitation would be sent again to the most honored guests, to demonstrate the host’s esteem and sincere welcome.

In recent days, with no progress in searching for A’mu, Li Xuandu refusing to help, and even threatening to push her out of bed—setback after setback—Pu Zhu had been somewhat low-spirited and had not had the heart to think much about it. But now, with her energy fully restored, her attention finally returned.

Every time she thought back to what Guo Lang’s wife had whispered in her ear that day, Pu Zhu felt astonished.

She was still too young—even having lived two lifetimes, she had not known that Xiao Shi and Li Xuandu had once had such a connection.

Guo Lang’s wife had told her: when Li Xuandu was sixteen, Emperor Mingzong had arranged a marriage for him. The intended bride was the Xiao family daughter of high and noble birth—Xiao Zhaoyun. The marriage had been all arranged, just waiting for Li Xuandu to return from presenting birthday greetings to his maternal grandfather, the Que King. Then that disaster had struck, and it all came to nothing. The Xiao family had been quick to read the situation and had immediately drawn a clear line between themselves and Li Xuandu. Xiao Zhaoyun later married Shen Yang.

At the time she had been only eight years old—a small girl who understood nothing, still weeping for the loss of her parents day and night. That she had known nothing of what was unfolding in the adult world outside was only natural.

Now that she thought about it: Li Xuandu’s elder sister Li Lihua had been intimate with Shen Yang; Shen Yang had married Xiao Shi; and Xiao Shi had once nearly become Li Xuandu’s own Princess Consort.

Truly a mess—what a tangle of sordid and indecent connections.

Now Pu Zhu was genuinely curious about Xiao Shi. Truly curious.

That evening she waited until Li Xuandu had returned to the bedchamber and gotten into bed, then climbed up after him, lay down, maintained a safe distance between them, stared up at the canopy of the bed, and said: “I have received an invitation from Xiao Shi, Shen Yang’s wife. Tomorrow is her birthday, and she is holding a flower banquet and has invited me to attend.”

She finished and turned to look at him.

Li Xuandu lay on his back, eyes closed, motionless—as if already asleep. He had been completely expressionless, but after she had stared at him for quite some time, he opened his eyes, turned his face toward her, and his brow gave an almost imperceptible slight furrow.

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot decide for myself whether to go, so I wanted to hear my lord’s thoughts. If you tell me to go, I will go. If you feel it is not appropriate, I will make an excuse, decline, and simply send a gift—that would be fine as well.”

Pu Zhu’s face broke into a sweet smile: “My lord, should I go tomorrow or not?”

Li Xuandu narrowed his eyes and said coldly: “Go or don’t go as you please—what does it have to do with me?” He turned over, pulling the covers around himself, and lay with his back to her.

Pu Zhu stared at his back and immediately made up her mind.

Since Xiao Shi had sincerely invited her once and then again, it would not do to simply stay away.

Whatever Li Xuandu’s true nature might be—whether he was actually a great salted fish, waiting to be laid on a chopping block and cut into the Emperor’s pot—he at least, on the surface, appeared to be somewhat regaining his former glory.

Aside from a few sharp old foxes like Guo Lang, not a few people at court had likely taken the Emperor’s display of brotherly affection at face value.

One could see this in the ever-more-busy movements of the Prince’s Mansion’s steward, Li Jin. On the busiest days, as many as seven or eight invitation cards had arrived in a single day, inviting Prince Qin to banquets and outings.

As a Princess Consort, it would hardly look right for her to stay cooped up in the mansion day after day, shrinking like a turtle, now would it?

——

The next morning, well before the fifth watch, Li Xuandu woke out of habit. In his ears came the sound of gentle, even breathing—which, now that he listened, sounded rather like… a cat purring softly beside his ear.

Ever since he had spoken a warning to her seven or eight days ago, she no longer needed him to shove her—these past days she had been sleeping quite alert on her own, and for the most part had kept herself curled up on the inner side of the bed.

Laughably, she had even placed a pillow between them, explaining that she was afraid she might offend him unknowingly while asleep, so she had put the pillow there as a barrier, and asked him please not to misunderstand.

His eyelashes gave a faint tremor. He opened his eyes, and slowly turned his head to look at the person sleeping beside him.

Right now she was lying facing him, arms wrapped around that pillow, sound asleep.

She was sleeping so deeply that she probably wouldn’t even notice if someone picked her up and tossed her out.

Li Xuandu was about to get up, when he paused.

The blanket had slipped from her shoulder, bunched up on her stomach. The collar of her sleeping garment had come loose, revealing a strip of her inner garment in a honey-amber color. Because her arms were crossed and wrapped around the pillow, the chest of her still-youthful figure was pressed mercilessly flat by the pillow, and appeared somewhat rounder than it usually did—

Li Xuandu thought of the scene on the hawking platform that night.

That night he had allowed himself some indulgence, and she had cooperated—had in fact taken the initiative to tempt him first, and had even given him the impression that she was somewhat impatient…

If he had simply given himself over to desire at that final moment, she ought by now to already be fully his.

Li Xuandu’s gaze rested on the fine porcelain skin glimpsed above the edge of the inner garment, and his throat moved almost imperceptibly. Then he thought of her secret meeting with an outsider.

Her explanation that night was perhaps the truth. She had not made a private appointment with the Crown Prince; her meeting with that He Xi youth was not for reasons of personal feeling. But he thought of how, in order to become Crown Princess, she had first set aside the He Xi youth and gone after his nephew. Then, once married to him, and having seized on the idea of becoming Empress, she had turned without a moment’s hesitation and cast his nephew aside entirely, throwing herself into his arms with a kind of urgent eagerness—calculating, reckless, willing to approach anyone. The mere thought was nauseating.

Even now she had not given up. Once she had accepted, one day, that he was incapable of lifting her to the position of Empress, she would discard him like a worn-out shoe and go back to his foolish nephew to rekindle old feelings—that, too, was not impossible to imagine.

Li Xuandu reached out and pulled the blanket up over her, covering the exposed skin. He lifted the bed curtain and got off the bed.

Cheng Garden’s birthday flower banquet was set for the afternoon. Pu Zhu slept soundly and woke at her leisure. After eating a little, she bathed and began to dress.

She again spent an hour having the maids style her hair in the jade cicada chignon she had worn that night.

In her previous life she had always loved this hairstyle. Li Chengyu had once praised it, saying he had never seen any woman wear this chignon more beautifully than she did.

That night she had dressed up for Li Xuandu—and had received only his humiliation in return.

It was certainly not a question of her being insufficiently beautiful. The problem was with his eyes.

This was her first appearance as Princess Consort of Prince Qin at the social gatherings of the capital’s noble ladies. Today she would wear this chignon again.

In her previous life she had never liked following the fashion of many noble ladies at the time—piling an array of elaborate hairpins, flower ornaments, and decorations all over their heads. Once her hair was styled, aside from the hidden pins holding the chignon in place, she needed no extra ornaments whatsoever. A single step-sway ornament that swayed gently at her temple as she walked, combined with her appearance, was far better suited to making her stand out from the crowd. In her previous life, after she had become Crown Princess, the noble ladies of the capital had all begun to imitate her style of dress and grooming. Of course this was partly due to her status—but if she had not been beautiful, not outstanding, no one would have envied and imitated her.

Pu Zhu spent the whole morning dressing carefully. When everything was done, she checked the time—it was about right. She fastened the ribbons of the crimson shawl woven all over with patterns of drifting clouds and auspicious grasses, took her attendants and maids, left the mansion, and stepped into the carriage for Cheng Garden.