Li Shubai finally couldn’t help himself, his smiling gaze falling gently on her as he changed the subject: “I wonder if someone has found him yet. With such severe injuries, he probably won’t last long in the mountains.”

Huang Zixia knew he was talking about the captive. She asked in return, “Does Your Highness know him well?”

Li Shubai glanced at her again but didn’t speak, only giving a faint “mm” in response.

Huang Zixia thought to herself, for someone with a perfect memory, there probably wasn’t anyone in the Ten Departments of the capital he didn’t know, and even if that person tried to disguise his voice, he should have been able to recognize it.

Since he knew that person’s identity and background, he must have also figured out the mastermind and the reasons behind it all. But though Huang Zixia waited for a long while, Li Shubai said nothing more, so she could only let it go for now.

“How are you feeling?” She hesitated, then felt his forehead—it was burning hot, the fever severe. The wet cloth alone wasn’t having much effect.

But in such a remote mountain area, besides relying on his recovery, there wasn’t anything else they could do. Her only use was perhaps going outside to find food.

The mountains were wild, with a few untended fruit trees listlessly bearing some unripe fruit. She picked the fruit and gathered a large bunch of purslane from the mountainside. When she returned to the small courtyard, she found Li Shubai already sitting in the shade waiting for her, and he had even caught a plump wild rabbit for her.

“Ah… no way, others wait by a tree stump for rabbits, but you can get one just sitting in the courtyard?” She had already washed two pears outside and handed one to him first.

Li Shubai took it and said, “I was just sitting here with nothing to do, a rabbit showed up, and since we had the bow and arrows from the captive, I took one shot.”

She happily picked up the rabbit, saying, “That’s wonderful, Your Highness does better sitting still than I do running around.”

Having gone through life and death together, out here in the wilderness they had forgotten the distinction between master and servant, and their conversation had become much more casual.

Li Shubai looked at her beaming expression and said, “Indeed, in the future I could hunt while you cook, sometimes having sashimi, sometimes roasting rabbit and stewing taro—that wouldn’t be bad.”

“That would be wonderful, but I’m afraid Your Highness couldn’t put aside affairs of state,” she said, examining the rabbit. “Good aim, though the force seems insufficient—didn’t even pierce the neck. Your Highness still needs to recover properly.”

“I wasn’t aiming for the neck,” Li Shubai said quietly. “I was aiming for the eye, but my hand is already unsteady.”

“The eye…” She felt a twinge of pain in her heart. Those hands that once could kill Pang Jun from a hundred paces away now not only lacked strength but had also lost their precision.

Li Shubai looked up at the sky, speaking in an incredibly calm yet low voice, “Perhaps… that character is going to come true.”

This calm tone made Huang Zixia’s eyelashes tremble violently, her heart feeling as if pierced by a needle, momentarily stopping its beat. She quickly held up the arrow, saying, “That’s not it! Your Highness, look—this arrow shaft’s smoothness and straightness are terrible. With such poorly made bow and arrows, how could it not affect the shot? Even Houyi couldn’t do better with such a bow!”

Li Shubai lowered his eyelashes without speaking, looking at the pear in his hand for a long while before unconsciously raising it to take a bite.

Then, an extraordinarily intense sourness made the Prince of Kui Li Shubai—who wouldn’t change color even if Mount Tai collapsed before him—furrow his brows and inhale sharply, almost bringing tears to his eyes. Huang Zixia stared at him in disbelief, clutching her pear, completely dumbfounded.

Li Shubai tossed away the pear and staggered to the small spring behind the house, scooping up water to drink quickly. Huang Zixia stood behind him with a complex expression.

He stood up, looking at the sky, and asked, “What’s that expression for?”

She sighed meaningfully, “To accidentally discover the Prince of Kui’s weakness—this servant is momentarily overwhelmed with complex emotions.”

He gave her expression a depressed look and turned his face away: “This prince is hungry.”

Huang Zixia quickly ran outside to prepare the rabbit.

The items confiscated from the captive proved very useful, including a complete set of flint and moxa wrapped in oiled paper that lit easily.

Iron implements being precious, the pot in the house had naturally been taken away long ago, but fortunately, she found an earthen jar. After washing it and the rabbit clean, she put half the rabbit in to make soup and roasted the other half on the stove.

When the aroma wafted out, not just Huang Zixia but even Li Shubai couldn’t resist, moving from the side room to the doorway.

The two who had been hungry for so long, their eyes almost turning green, first roughly rubbed some salt on the rabbit meat and tore into it. Li Shubai, being fastidious, first scraped off the smoke-blackened outer layer, while Huang Zixia nearly licked her oil-covered fingers clean. By the time the soup was ready, they weren’t quite so desperate anymore. They first cleaned the purslane and threw it into the boiling soup, then quickly scooped it into two wooden bowls found by the stove.

Summer cicadas chirped, distant mountains were verdant, and the towering trees overhead blocked most of the sunlight. They sat in the dilapidated house sharing the steaming meat soup with purslane, looking up to see each other’s bedraggled appearance, then thinking of their own state, they couldn’t help but laugh together.

Huang Zixia smelled the fragrant soup and let out a long breath: “Actually, thinking about it, living like this in the mountains might not be so bad. No complicated worldly entanglements, no court politics and scheming…”

Li Shubai nodded silently, looking back at her thoughtfully, seemingly unconsciously repeating her words: “We?”

Huang Zixia only then realized the intimacy in her words, feeling both embarrassed and shy. She quickly raised her bowl to hide her face, changing the subject to cover her fluster: “For the next while, our good life might depend entirely on your hunting.”

Seeing her face turn red, he followed her subject change with a smile: “No, I think it will depend entirely on your cooking.”

“You hunt and I cook, that’s not bad either,” she said.

Li Shubai raised his eyes to look at her, his face showing an even deeper smile.

Before Huang Zixia could recover or had time to taste the even stronger “husband works outside, wife inside” implication in her words, she already heard Li Shubai say, “You’ve been by my side for almost half a year, this must be the first time.”

Huang Zixia was stunned for a moment before realizing he meant this was the first time she had spoken so freely and laughed like this in front of him.

She held her wooden bowl, smiling at him as she said, “Yes, we’ve known each other for half a year… time flies.”

He finally lowered his eyelashes, his thick long lashes covering his bright eyes, but unable to hide the smile at the corners of his lips, a faint, distant trace.

Huang Zixia gazed at his face, thinking that if she were to tell others later that she had seen the Prince of Kui smile, and had seen it several times in such a short period, probably no one would believe her—so that radiance, like sunlight breaking through clouds after a sudden rain, that indescribable feeling, could only be buried in her heart because she couldn’t describe it to others.

“You…” she heard Li Shubai’s voice, weighing his words, hesitating, but finally speaking, “Look very beautiful when you smile.”

She was surprised and embarrassed, looking up at him in astonishment, thinking, wasn’t that what I wanted to say?

“After… your family’s wrongful case is resolved, I think you should be able to live your life happily, and then, I hope you can show such smiles every day, not be quiet and worried all the time,” he said with certainty. “For that day, I will do my best to help you.”

She never expected him to say such things to her. She could only stare at him blankly, thousands of words surging in her heart, but when they reached her lips, she couldn’t say anything. After a long while, she finally stammered softly, “Thank you… Your Highness.”

After this hearty meal, the sky had already darkened. Huang Zixia, who hadn’t properly rested for two days and nights, fell into a deep sleep beside Li Shubai.

She didn’t know how long she had slept when the person beside her seemed to move. She suddenly awoke, and as soon as she opened her eyes, the sunlight was dazzling—it was already bright daylight. Huang Zixia’s first action was to quickly feel Li Shubai’s forehead, but when she touched his skin, she realized something was wrong—

Because Li Shubai had already opened his eyes and was quietly watching her.

Her hand withdrew as if burned, quickly pressing against her chest.

Li Shubai pulled up the corner of his lips, giving her a faint smile: “Seems much better.”

Huang Zixia couldn’t remember at all whether she had felt any fever when she touched his forehead just now, and could only agree with his words: “Yes, seems much better…”

He looked at her, perhaps due to his physical weakness, his gaze seemed much gentler than usual. Seeing her sitting before him so nervously, he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight coming in from outside, saying, “You should rest a while, I’ll get up and move around a bit.”

He sat up in bed, slowly supporting himself against the wall as he went out to wash up. Huang Zixia quickly stood up, helping him to the spring behind to scoop water and clean up.

The clear spring water splashed on his face, wetting his cheeks and eyelashes, sunlight shining on the water droplets, making them extraordinarily bright. He turned his eyes to look at her, and under those wet eyelashes, that pair of eyes was as moving as rippling water.

Huang Zixia seemed to be dazzled by those sparkling lights, her face suddenly turning red under his gaze. She stood up helplessly, stammering a bit as she said, “I… I’ll go look for something for breakfast first.”

She hurriedly crossed the courtyard toward the mountain garden. Passing by Di’e, she heard it snort as if mocking her too.

She felt depressed and embarrassed, giving it a fierce glare.

Though it was early morning, the late summer sunlight was already very hot. Fortunately, the dense green trees provided shade overhead. Huang Zixia walked through the shade to the back garden, looking at where the monk had been buried before—the pit was still there, just overgrown with weeds.

She walked to the edge of the pit and found that several gourd vines that had been planted in the garden at the time had spread across the wasteland, producing gourds of various sizes. After briefly considering whether it was right to eat gourds grown in soil where someone had died, she decisively picked them anyway.

Seeing some yam vines nearby, she pulled them up, only to find a tiny root, which was a bit disappointing. She sighed, talking to herself: “It’s okay if it’s small, yams are nourishing—he’ll recover faster after eating it.”

She stood up holding the yam, then noticed the cicada sounds around seemed to have grown much quieter. Feeling something was off, she turned to look behind her.

In the distance under a green tree stood a person, with a vaguely distinguishable face and an incredibly familiar figure, possessing that transcendent quality that no one else could match.

Huang Zixia, holding the small yam in her hand, slowly stood up.

A long wind came from afar, passing by his ears, then brushing past her ears, racing toward an unknowable elsewhere.