Word had spread that people were being sold at the street corner. Old Stinky, who rarely left his den to sleep, went to watch every day, so An’er had to go find him daily — fortunately he was tolerant about it, never once losing his temper.

Worried that the neighborhood children might bully Old Stinky once he’d left, An’er always waited until Old Stinky had finished eating before heading home.

The slave broker called out his wares enthusiastically, but who would buy convicted criminals sold into servitude?

So it went for two days, three days… As time passed, the onlookers thinned out, and even the young Prince’s followers grew weary of it. At first a whole crowd had trailed him out there, but as time wore on, An’er grew irritated and told them to hang back at a distance.

At the gate of this household — the country still at peace, prosperous and calm — who could have guessed something would happen?

On the ninth day, just as the young Prince She Wanlin had watched Old Stinky finish half a ladle of food, he was seized at the street corner.

The broker was pressing several convict-slaves onto an open cart, while he himself climbed into the covered cart in front, its blue cloth curtain shielding against the wind. As that cart passed behind the school’s back wall, in the instant it drew level with them, two arms shot out from behind the curtain and dragged She Wanlin bodily aboard.

Old Stinky stood there, eyes blank, watching the two carts recede into the distance.

He was, in fact, a covert agent — and this outcome was not one he had foreseen.

What he could least have anticipated was that the young Prince had real skill, hidden so deep no one could tell — but he himself had seen the boy hunting. A four-or-five-hundred-catty bear he could leap up and kill with a single punch, then carry home for dozens of li through the deep mountains, light-footed as though bearing a rabbit, and still find time that same night to arrange with the Ugly Girl next door and a gang of mischievous boys to build a fire on the mountain and roast meat.

This boy was the worst of them all — he’d stolen his father’s long blade to go up the mountain and butcher the bear; a head that enormous, and he’d taken it off with a single stroke, no effort at all. It hadn’t disgraced the blade’s reputation one bit.

Children grow terrifyingly fast, and they’re the best at disguise — just when you think they’re innocent and adorable, a few of these foolish boys have already banded together and gotten up to plenty of mischief.

Such as sneaking off in disguise to the red-light houses of Qingfeng. Such as sneaking in disguise to join a group, following a gang of Qingfeng boys to arrange a brawl with a gang from Yandu over at Qingque Nunnery — a fistfight that broke nose after nose, a disaster of considerable size.

And of course all the mischievous young lords of Qingfeng had had their backsides thoroughly beaten by their fathers over it, though no one ever figured out who exactly had thrown the first punch.

Privately, the young Prince She Wanlin was exactly this sort of quietly, deviously mischievous — and in fact, in that particular brawl, the group he’d truly schemed against wasn’t the young lords from Yandu at all, but the local young lord right at his own doorstep, who rode about on horseback, loud and swaggering, throwing his weight around.

All bluster and no real skill, yet strutting about because he was from Quanhou Street — the aunties and grandmothers of the neighborhood doted on him too much to discipline him openly, so the only option left was underhanded tricks.

Sure enough, once that incident broke, the mischievous boys were all divided up and reined in by their respective families.

In truth, had something that serious not happened, every household on the street would still have believed they were raising perfectly sensible children.

And it was precisely this young Prince — dragged bodily onto a cart — who put up no resistance at all. Why hadn’t he resisted?

Old Stinky’s mind was in complete disarray. He had watched these children grow up, and out of gratitude for a debt of a single bowl of rice, he had never reported the young Prince’s hidden skill.

After all, his assignment was to monitor the entire bureaucratic network of Quanhou Street — the young Prince wasn’t part of that network at all. In this world, aside from Gennu’er, who else had ever treated him this kindly?

Those villains outside — surely they’d mistaken him for some pampered, spoiled young lord, which was why they’d dared to snatch him so brazenly.

If… if he had long ago reported that this grandson She Qingling cherished as though he might melt in his mouth actually possessed such extraordinary skill — would His Majesty have made use of this child?

Old Stinky sat there, motionless as a true fool.

She Wanlin, dragged into the cart, was met immediately with a puff of stupefying smoke. Having been raised on Eight Treasure Soup since infancy, he wasn’t afraid of it at all — but he played along and let himself go limp, his heart secretly leaping with joy and excitement.

He felt that this time, he was free — finally free… What a wonderful thing this was.

Gaoxing and his brothers had started being taken to the military camps and the scouting bureau by their father from the age of four or five; only he was never allowed to go far.

He’d known since he was small that he was different from his siblings — being She Wanlin’s grandson meant he couldn’t be free.

He studied the finest scholarship in the world with his grandfather, and privately learned the finest martial arts in the world from his father and mother — yet none of it was of any use.

At most, he could pitifully wander round and round, hemmed in within Qinwei Alley, Quanhou Street, and Yandu.

Cherished and protected by countless noble figures as he grew up, given everything of the very best — and yet that was also the very worst of it.

In the past, his mother had doted on him alone; pitying him for having to “suffer” at the Prince’s Mansion, she’d always tried to give him room to breathe, letting him grow up loose and free on Quanhou Street.

These past few years had been fine — after Gaoxing, then the third son Lingguan and the fourth son Xiaogou were born, and the year before last came the universally adored Chen Yixiao, and the whole family rejoiced.

Now, thinking it over, his mother, weary of having so many sons, was delighted to finally get a daughter, naming her Yixiao (“A Laugh”) — the next daughter would be Erxiao (“Two Laughs”), a third would be Sanxiao (“Three Laughs”).

This left She Wanlin pitifully stripped of freedom — the wild mountain temperament he’d worked so hard to cultivate now had to be hidden away, and the moment he set foot in the capital he was pampered like a young lady of the inner quarters. Step out the door, and eight maids trailed him, twelve houseboys carried his birdcage, even relieving himself required a screen for modesty and a chamber pot to catch it — and afterward the household physician had to check the color. Terribly awkward, all of it.

Besides — after this captive-presentation ceremony, His Majesty seemed to be planning to hand him some real responsibilities. He was still so young, and hadn’t had his fill of fun yet — he didn’t want responsibilities.

So he simply went along with it and let himself be seized onto the bandits’ cart, thinking to himself: it’s not as though I ran off on purpose, so nobody can blame me for this.

With that thought in mind, the boy calmly feigned unconsciousness, and over the course of it he was transferred through four or five different carts in succession. Only when he was finally placed inside a coffin did he feel a flicker of unease — this was, after all, meant for the dead.

Rare indeed, for a child raised in such comfort to go to such lengths for freedom — if you called him sensible, he really was more sensible than any other family’s child; but if he wanted to cause trouble, he could tear a hole straight through the sky without a shred of fear, never once stopping to think of consequences.

At last a thin board was set over his head, and a corpse was placed atop it. He never saw the body, but he’d smelled death before — it wasn’t a scent he was unfamiliar with. His grandfather was harsh enough to have taken him, quite young, on a stroll through the Ministry of Justice’s death-row cells, and that place had carried exactly this smell — the stale reek of death not yet given time to rot.

She Wanlin held his breath slightly, and soon caught the strong scent of preservatives used on the corpse — licorice root, borneol — seeping down toward him. For the sake of freedom, the young Prince endured it all the same.

Then, a ceramic basin shattered on the ground, suona horns sounded, wailing rose to the heavens, and the coffin was lifted for the funeral procession.

Tsk — these villains really had gone all out; they’d thought of everything.

Take the coffin he lay in — a large coffin with a hidden compartment; the deceased laid above must weigh no more than sixty catties or so, and needed a large bone frame to fill the space convincingly.

Which meant that before dying, this corpse must have been starved slowly, unhurriedly, down to skin and bones, timed to die at just the right moment — tsk, whoever designed this scheme really had thought it through with meticulous care.

She Wanlin’s mind raced, his ears pricked and alert the whole time.

He was just as on edge as the bandits who’d taken him — absolutely unwilling to be caught.

And the journey proved perilous indeed — it seemed word had already spread from Qinwei Alley, for amid the wailing, fast horses could be heard galloping past from every direction. The funeral procession was stopped again and again along the way; the coffin was opened seven or eight times in all.

Each time it was opened for inspection, the kidnappers’ hearts pounded — and so did the young Prince’s.

He had no idea how long it had gone on before he heard flowing water, heard a wooden boat knock against a dock. The coffin was opened once more, and this time the inspection was even more thorough — he even heard someone offer an apology to the deceased’s family, and heard a woman touch the corpse to confirm its identity before the coffin was sealed shut again.

The young Prince slowly let out a breath, and a wave of corpse stench hit his nose at once; he forced back a cough, secretly full of admiration for his own self-control.

Outside, the wailing sounded utterly grief-stricken — it seemed some filial son or grandson had tried to dash himself to death, only to be whipped by someone and forced, subdued, aboard the boat…

The moment the gangplank was pulled away, the heart She Wanlin had been holding in his throat finally settled back into place. As old as he’d grown, this was the first time this child truly understood what it meant to be exhausted in heart and mind alike.

He thought: this must be Laixian Dock. And where would these people take him next? He’d find a chance to escape tomorrow, and get word home that he was safe — and while he was at it, wander around outside for a few months before going back, or else he’d have slept in a coffin for nothing.

Perhaps, in this whole lifetime, this would be his only chance at freedom — he ought to make the most of it.

The moment he relaxed, he genuinely grew sleepy — bold as this boy was, he actually began to snore away.

At one point someone opened the coffin and carried him out; seeing him sleeping so soundly, they remarked: “Well would you look at that — thousands of people scrambling about on this brat’s account, and here he is sleeping like a baby. Heh! Some people are just born lucky… Hey, you think, if I tell him tomorrow he spent the whole trip cuddled up with a corpse, how will he react?”

Someone else immediately snapped in reproach: “Quit that nonsense right now. If anything happens to him, the whole sorry lot of you wouldn’t be fit to serve as his footstool even ground into ash. Best make sure you’re nowhere near him tomorrow — don’t you dare offend his eyes.”

At that, everyone around fell silent at once.

She Wanlin was passed hand to hand again, too lazy even to wake.

Having grown used to being waited on, the young Prince felt not the slightest embarrassment even when someone changed his clothes while he slept — that was simply how his days had always gone.

The only thing that irked him was that someone dumped several dozen copper coins out of the small pouch at his waist and exclaimed in astonishment: “Huh, I always heard these noble folk hand out gold or silver without a second thought — how’s this brat got less on him than I do?”

She Wanlin scoffed inwardly — shabby? His father held an official rank of the third grade, upper class, and still couldn’t spend even a single string of cash in a month, simply for lack of anywhere to spend it. Since when did dripping in gold and silver make one dignified?

Those fools in Yandu who tossed out gold and silver ingots the moment they opened their hands — were they sick in the head? As the old saying went, having money to buy meat to fill your own belly was the proper way to live; why go about flaunting wealth?

Once changed into fresh clothes, warm bedding was laid over him; he sniffed lightly and, finding no unpleasant smell — new bedding — felt himself relax once more and drifted comfortably back to sleep.

The next morning, the boat rounded a sharp bend and rocked; She Wanlin slowly opened his eyes and heard, from the banks of the Grand Canal, the calls of trackers hauling against the current — hai~ hai-yo hai~ hai…

He stared blankly at the not-too-high blue cloth curtain overhead, his body swaying beneath him, every one of his senses catching something new, something he’d never experienced before.

The narrowest bed he’d ever slept in in his life; the wooden boards overhead were black, with patches of green mold in the cracks. The particular dampness of river water mingled with the musty smell of old ship timber — all of it unfamiliar, and it was only now that it truly struck him he had left home.

The foolish boy, calmer now, finally thought to wonder how things were back home. His great-grandmother must be worried sick. Was his mother angry? Was his father angry? Most worrying of all was his grandfather… he’d surely be in for a beating with the discipline ruler once he got back.

Oh right, and Ugly Girl too. Ugly Girl…

If only Ugly Girl were here — they could have been taken together, wandering the world side by side, just like the characters in those legendary storybooks, free and unfettered.

Here today, there tomorrow, meeting different people each time, encountering interesting things.

Amid these scattered thoughts, the creak of a wooden door sounded; from the footsteps he could tell three people were entering — two women and one man.

The tightly drawn blue cloth bed-curtain was pulled back; Old Fang glanced down and broke into a grin.

The little noble was lying there, wide awake, staring off into space.

He bent down and said with a laugh: “Young master’s awake — why didn’t you call for us?”

She Wanlin turned lazily to look sideways at the three people by his bed.

The one speaking to him was somewhere in his thirties or forties, not tall, thin but sturdy, dark-skinned and rough-featured — the kind of ordinary face that would vanish instantly in a crowd.

He wore a neat boatman’s outfit; despite the cold early-spring river wind, his two sinewy, muscular arms were bare — clearly a man who made his living by physical strength.

Seeing the young noble too lazy to speak, Old Fang, worried he might start acting up, bent down patiently to coax him: “Will the young master be getting up now?”

Deigning to trouble himself, the young noble finally sat up — though he didn’t look at the man at all, instead staring fixedly at the coarse home-dyed narrow-cut sleeping robe he’d been dressed in.

Old Fang kept up his ingratiating smile: “Our boat’s conditions aren’t much, young master — please bear with it a while longer. Once we reach shore tomorrow, we certainly won’t let you suffer any further. Are you thirsty? Xiaoqiu, Xiaodeng, come attend to the young master quickly.”

At his words, the two young maids who’d been waiting nearby came forward together — one offering tea, the other bending to set a pair of cloth shoes down by the bed.

These days, this was always the time She Wanlin was at his most dazed — very passive, too lazy to speak, letting himself be handled like someone in a trance.

Xiaodeng bent and offered the tea with both hands; She Wanlin looked at the teacup, then reached out, opened the lid, and drank a mouthful, swishing it around in his mouth to rinse.

Once done, he puffed out his cheeks, lowered his head to spit — but there was no little spittoon as there always was at home, so the rinse-water stayed trapped in his mouth.

He stared blankly, cheeks puffed out, at Old Fang. Old Fang thought uneasily to himself: was the young master about to make a scene after all?

Was he about to spit a mouthful right in his face?

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, until someone at the door laughed softly: “Don’t fret, young master — this is just how it is on our boat, we don’t have everything on hand. There’s a window over there — you can spit into the river.”

She Wanlin immediately stood and went barefoot to the window to spit out the water.

The maid called Xiaodeng hurried over with the shoes, and without quite knowing how, slipped them onto the young noble’s feet from the heel; he froze for a moment, looking uneasily toward the cabin door.

Having spat out the water, She Wanlin looked out and saw, on the windless riverbank, more than a dozen bare-bodied men, their entire bodies leaning at a steep slant, pulling the great boat forward with a cloth rope slung across their shoulders.

He had never seen people like this before, had no knowledge in his head of such things, and simply stared, transfixed.

Not until someone behind him spoke did he stir: “Those are trackers — has the young master never seen them?”

She Wanlin shook his head, then turned to look at the speaker — a refined scholar in a long robe, somewhere past thirty, fine and elegant of feature, smiling at him with warmth and tolerance.

He quickly checked the man’s aura and understood at once: those two little maids carried some skill in them; that thin, dark-skinned man could probably fight Youtian-brother to a draw; as for this scholar — one slap from the man and he’d send him flying straight into the river… tsk!

Never mind. He still needed to ride on their boat.

A long call rang out from the riverbank, and the trackers responded together in unison — it sounded remarkably beautiful, carrying a kind of vast, melancholy grandeur, weighty and full of force. She Wanlin immediately turned to look that way, unwilling to blink even once.

He even felt he could compose a few lines of poetry from the sight.

No one in the cabin disturbed him — some folded bedding, some tidied up — until at last the young lord deigned to open his noble mouth and ask: “Why… why don’t they wear clothes?”

In his whole life, nothing he’d seen or heard had ever told him that in this world, there were people who had to work stripped bare, exposing everything beneath, just to earn their keep.

The scholar had been waiting quietly all along; now that She Wanlin finally spoke, he smiled and said: “However fine the clothing, on their backs the ropes chafe and the water soaks it through — in three or five days it would be worn to rags. They can’t afford it.”

Well — that was certainly an education.

She Wanlin sighed and turned to thank the scholar: “My thanks.”

Having thanked him, he turned back to watch the shore again.

The scholar, hearing the thanks, was momentarily startled, then laughed and praised him: “The young master has fine composure — not the least bit afraid?”

Without turning back, She Wanlin asked: “What’s your name?”

It was an extremely rude question, but he’d always spoken this way since childhood — usually no one even needed to be asked; anyone approaching him would announce their own name first, careful not to trouble him.

This, in fact, already counted as rather gracious of him — that he bothered to ask at all.

But this scholar, in his whole life, had never once been addressed this way by anyone — even ten years ago, when his skills had been entirely ruined and his grip over those beneath him had steadily weakened, no one had ever dared speak to him like this.

Yet thinking it over carefully, it was only natural, and he gave a magnanimous laugh, saying with warmth, under Old Fang’s faintly furious glare: “This old man is called Ding Yumen.”

She Wanlin’s shoulder twitched; he turned and looked at Ding Yumen curiously: “You’re not even that old — and you dare call yourself ‘this old man’?”

The maids in the room went wide-eyed, mouths slightly agape, while Old Fang trembled with fury.

Ding Yumen was startled again, then laughed, and once done laughing asked: “And how old does the little noble think this old man is?”

The extremely wealthy young Prince had received every kind of education imaginable, but guessing people’s ages was not among them — nor had he ever needed to learn it.

So, going purely on instinct, he said: “Thirties, something like that?”

This answer was thoroughly charming; Ding Yumen burst out laughing, leaving She Wanlin rather baffled — though too lazy to ask why, he simply clutched his stomach and said, plain and unbothered: “I’m hungry.”

Indeed — ever since this little noble had been seized yesterday, he hadn’t had a drop of water or a grain of rice. They’d finally poured him a fine cup of tea, and he’d used it as rinse-water and spat it out.

Ding Yumen offered a word of apology and promptly ordered the maids to bring breakfast.

The maids moved swiftly, and before long the table held two plates of river delicacies, two plates of greens, a bowl of clam soup, and a bowl of half-dry brown rice.

She Wanlin truly was hungry; at the sight of food he immediately turned back and sat obediently, hand on his stomach, staring at the dishes without moving.

He was waiting for someone to serve him, of course.

Naturally, the young lord wasn’t foolish — after waiting a moment, he remembered this wasn’t a guest visit and no one was there to wait on him anymore, so he simply let it go.

Being left to fend for himself felt rather nice, actually.

He laughed, delighted, and reached for his chopsticks — and immediately, right in the center of each dish, poked a little hole, exactly as he’d always wanted to do.

He even felt that, in a moment like this, playing the part of an innocent child was surely the right move.

Ding Yumen, puzzled, didn’t interfere, simply sat quietly to one side, watching this little noble eat without the slightest fussiness, and with remarkably fine table manners besides.

What excellent upbringing, truly.

Watching this little noble face such circumstances without a single extra word, without asking a single question, calmly eating and drinking as he pleased, utterly at ease — Ding Yumen couldn’t help but praise him: “The little noble, young as he is, has such a clear and settled heart — no wonder, being raised personally by Master Qingling himself.”

She Wanlin blinked, lifted his now-empty bowl and ladled himself some clam soup; with no spoon at hand, he simply drank straight from the bowl, and after swallowing the last dregs, said with a smile: “You know my grandfather?”

Ding Yumen’s face took on an admiring look as he nodded: “Who in this world doesn’t know of Master Qingling? Only, someone as lowborn as myself could merely hear of him and admire him from afar — how would I ever have the good fortune to actually know him?”

Hearing his grandfather praised pleased She Wanlin, but he didn’t press further.

His father had taught him this lesson: men like this, putting on such airs, usually had the most to say once you got them talking — best not to engage directly, and they’d tell you everything on their own.

Once he’d finished eating and rinsed his mouth, She Wanlin went back to leaning at the window, watching the trackers.

He’d been watching for who knew how long before the man called Ding Yumen finally asked from behind him: “Little noble — truly not afraid?”

Without turning back, She Wanlin waved a hand: “Master Ding, no need to ask more, no need to say more either — I don’t feel like talking.”

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Ding Yumen’s eyes: “Oh? And why is that?”

The little noble, kneeling on the chair, leaning lazily at the window, said: “No particular reason. This young lord just can’t be bothered to know. It’s all the same thing anyway — holding me hostage to bargain with the court, with His Majesty, or with my father, or my grandfather…”

Ding Yumen blinked, then let his tone drop several degrees colder, threatening: “Oh? Aren’t you the clever one — but aren’t you afraid that if they refuse to cooperate, it might cost you your life?”

The little noble remained motionless at the window.

Ding Yumen, assuming he’d frightened him, sneered inwardly and was about to continue in a calm, soothing tone — but instead the boy suddenly spoke up lazily: “Then go ahead and try.”

Drowning you in the water would be as easy as blinking.

—

Word of An’er’s disappearance reached the capital of Yandu. Chen Dasheng wasn’t panicked. Qiqian’er wasn’t panicked. The old matriarch didn’t even know yet. But His Majesty flew into a towering rage.

The Second Prince personally mobilized troops, and Yandu and Qingfeng were instantly thrown into chaos.

In an instant, the Qingfeng prefectural offices, the young officers of Jiu Si Tang, the off-duty guard battalions, the Five Wards Cavalry Command — every force that could move was mobilized, searching from broad daylight into the dead of night.

Daliang had been at peace for a full ten years now; once that sense of tranquility was shattered, those with weaker nerves didn’t know what to do with themselves.

And hearing it was the Prince’s Mansion that had lost its young Prince, no less — speculation ran wild, but the most common guess was that it stemmed from ten years ago, when Marquis Chen had killed too ruthlessly and disturbed the harmony of heaven, and now the young Prince was paying the price, targeted for revenge.

If they still hadn’t found him by now — well, chances were what they’d find next was a corpse.

Plenty of people waited to see this turn into a farce. Yet deep into the night, in the whole of the Prince’s Mansion, only She Qingling himself was truly anxious — he slammed the table and railed furiously at this unbothered, unhurried pair of parents: “What kind of time is this for you two to sit here?! What kind of mother and father are you?! Ah? Go find some way to search for him! What are you doing sitting here staring at me?!”

His lungs were fit to burst with fury.

Chen Dasheng, who’d grown a bit of a beard and whose face had never been particularly warm to begin with, glanced over at his wife.

His wife had said, let that little wretch go die for all she cared — and if he didn’t die, she’d beat him to death herself when he got back.

He personally thought they shouldn’t bother searching at all — give the boy a good thrashing either way, so why not just let him have his fun for a few days.

Qiqian’er, head lowered, with the six-year-old Xiaogou hanging off one leg and the three-year-old Yixiao off the other, pouted and said: “We already told you, there’s no need to fret.”

She Qingling, furious, slammed the table again and scolded: “However capable he may be, he’s still just a child! Better safe than sorry…”

Suddenly he seemed to recall something, and his hand froze mid-motion: “This is bad — someone, ready the carriage! I’m going into the palace.”

Seeing his father’s expression change, Chen Dasheng asked: “Father? What’s wrong?”

She Qingling drew a breath and said to Chen Dasheng, word by word: “Last month, an unexplained fire broke out at the Eastern Prison — black smoke rose for half a day. I fear that matter can no longer be kept covered up. The only people in Yandu who could be swapped out for that — it’s not the imperial princes, and not the imperial princesses. It has to be this one last root of our She family line.”

The moment he said this, the room fell utterly silent. Chen Dasheng looked at Qiqian’er, then finally gritted his teeth and said: “Even without An’er, I still have Gaoxing under me, and Lingguan, and Xiaogou.”

Qiqian’er’s face suddenly changed; she raised her hand, fingers curling to claw at Chen Dasheng’s shoulder — though she never landed the blow, stopped cold instead by what She Qingling said next.

“But this old body of mine no longer has the strength left to raise another heir with my own two hands…”