She suddenly realized that during these days of hardship and flight, she hadn’t thought of him even once. It was as if he had become like that breeze that just brushed past her ears—forever lost in the distance, never to return to her side again.

She was surprised at herself, wondering why, in the deepest part of her consciousness, she had never truly felt him to be her support.

Perhaps from the moment he handed over her love letter as evidence to Regional Commander Fan Yingxi during her most desperate time, everything between them had already become part of the past.

At this point, what frightened her was only Li Shubai’s injuries. That night, when she held Li Shubai through the heavy, hopeless darkness if he hadn’t awakened, she might have completely broken down, lost herself in these mountains, never to find her way out again.

She gazed at Yu Xuan as he slowly walked toward her, watching his features become clearer in the sunlight—that celestial countenance, that bearing of a noble son in black robes. But at this moment, she suddenly understood that he wasn’t just Yu Xuan.

He was her forever-vanished girlhood, those dreamlike, enchanting, brilliant, and beautiful memories of the past. Whenever she felt dazed because of him, what she saw perhaps wasn’t this person she had once deeply cherished, but rather her past—that Huang Zixia who lived forever at sixteen, laughing freely, admired by all.

And he was the witness, participant, and even one of the creators of her most beautiful times.

So she smiled at him as if smiling at her past self, wanting to ask: How have you been, sixteen-year-old Huang Zixia’s dreams?

But no matter how beautiful dreams are, one must eventually wake from them.

Yu Xuan was momentarily stunned—he had imagined various reactions from her on his way here, but never expected that upon first seeing him, she would show such a smile.

Huang Zixia wore her eunuch’s robe with a large piece torn from the hem, covered in dirt and dust, hair disheveled, holding a small yam just pulled from the ground. But she didn’t care anymore, because for her, the person before her was no longer important. So she casually gathered the gourds and yams from the ground, asking, “How did you end up here?”

Seeing her composed demeanor, Yu Xuan was momentarily speechless. After a pause, he went to help her pick two large gourds.

“Don’t take the big ones, they’re too old and won’t cook tender,” Huang Zixia said.

He paused, then picked two small, fresh green gourds to hand to her before saying, “I heard the Prince of Kui had met with trouble, and all his eunuchs and guards were scattered. I remembered this area where we once got lost, thought you might have found your way here by chance, so I came to check.”

She took the gourds into her arms, saying, “Thank you for your concern. I’m fine.”

“I… remember you said you would return to clear your name, so I hope you’ll return to Chengdu Prefecture soon. When that time comes, I want to witness you overturn the verdict with my own eyes.”

“I will,” she said, glancing at his dew-dampened hem, and added, “Thank you for searching through the night.”

“The Regional Commander of Western Sichuan has ordered the mountains sealed for searching. I could only come in during the night,” his gaze fixed on her, unwavering. “I knew you would be alright… though a bit worse for wear.”

Huang Zixia carried the gourds and yam toward the small temple, turning back to give him a slight smile: “Yes, I said I would return to clear my family’s wrongs—I can’t die early.”

He looked at the curve of her lips and the casual expression on her face, his steps faltering, feeling something strange in his heart.

That unconscious haziness and dreaminess she used to have in front of him was gone.

His reflection that had always been in her eyes had disappeared.

His eyes dimmed slightly, but he quickly caught up with her, walking with her into the temple.

Li Shubai could move around today and was examining a still-struggling pheasant. Seeing Huang Zixia enter, he asked, “Do you know how to kill a chicken?”

“Does the all-capable Prince of Kui not know how to kill a chicken?” she asked.

“Too lazy to move,” he said, tossing the chicken to her. Catching sight of Yu Xuan behind her, he paused before adding, “Besides, I have you anyway.”

“Mm, that’s right,” she responded casually, grabbing the chicken’s wings as she headed to the back.

Li Shubai sat in the shade of the corridor while Yu Xuan stood among the reeds in the courtyard, bowing: “Greetings, Prince of Kui.”

Li Shubai raised his hand, gesturing that it wasn’t necessary.

The two had nothing to say to each other—one sitting, one standing in silence—when suddenly a piercing cry came from the back, followed by a colorful blur flying out, spraying blood everywhere.

Yu Xuan moved quickly, chasing after it and firmly pinning it down. Huang Zixia ran out behind with her Fish Intestine sword, looking somewhat flustered: “First time killing one, no experience…”

Li Shubai leaned against the corridor wall, saying, “You seemed quite confident just now.”

“I only watched the kitchen maid do it twice…” she said, sticking out her tongue before taking the chicken from Yu Xuan’s hands. The incredibly resilient pheasant was already dying; she twisted its head and added another cut, crouching by the corridor to drain the blood.

Looking at the blood stains in both the front and back halls, Li Shubai suddenly said, “If Ziqin were to come to see this now, he might deduce a case of temple-wide monk massacre.”

Huang Zixia, imagining Zhou Ziqin searching the temple for bloodstains, couldn’t help but smile as she picked up the chicken and turned: “I’ll go boil water to pluck the feathers.”

Yu Xuan hesitated, then stood to follow her to the back: “I’ll help you.”

Huang Zixia didn’t refuse, letting him tend the stove fire while she cooked.

The firelight flickered, illuminating Yu Xuan’s face, the red, orange, and golden colors slowly flowing across his features, dazzling.

Huang Zixia looked up while preparing the food and saw his face brilliantly lit by the firelight, feeling a slight warmth rise in her heart.

She had spent her best years with such a person—it wasn’t entirely wasted, but unfortunately…

He looked up at her, their gazes meeting for an instant. He paused before asking softly, “Where do you plan to start?”

Huang Zixia knew he was asking about how she would reopen the investigation into her family’s bloody case. She answered without hesitation: “Everyone in the Prefecture Lord’s mansion.”

“You suspect an inside job?”

“It’s always easier for insiders than outsiders to commit crimes—we have to investigate that first.” She looked up at him again, saying slowly, “When the time comes, everyone will need to be screened again, including you.”

He nodded, gazing into the stove fire, quietly asking, “What about yourself?”

Huang Zixia silently stirred the soup, saying, “You still don’t believe me.”

He shook his head: “I cannot make myself forget what I saw that day.”

Huang Zixia’s heart trembled slightly, knowing he was referring to what he had told her before—that before her parent’s deaths, he had seen her take out that package of arsenic, looking at it with a strange expression.

She cut the yam into pieces, threw them into the earthen pot, and covered it, then said, “In that case, let’s go through everything we said and did that day, carefully, one by one.”

Yu Xuan nodded, adding two thick pine branches to the stove, dusting off his clothes as he stood.

Huang Zixia raised her hand to touch her head. She was surprised to find that even through all this upheaval, the hairpin Li Shubai had made for her hadn’t been lost. She pressed the scroll pattern and pulled out the jade pin inside.

“On the twenty-fifth of the first month, I concluded the case of the daughter who poisoned her entire family, returning from Longzhou. It was already late, so we didn’t meet that night, correct?”

Yu Xuan nodded in confirmation.

“On the twenty-sixth, I slept until the end of the Mao hour, when I heard you gently knocking on my window.”

This had been their habit for years. Each time, after Yu Xuan knocked gently on her window, she would open it a small crack, letting him pass through the flowers he had prepared for her.

That day, Yu Xuan had brought her a green calyx plum blossom.

Yu Xuan looked at her drawing of the end of the Mao hour in the ash, then pointed to the space above, saying, “At the beginning of the Mao hour on the twenty-sixth, I passed through Qing Garden, and Gardener Feng cut that green-calyx plum blossom for me.”

Huang Zixia drew a shallow mark in front, representing the beginning of the Mao hour.

“At the end of the Mao hour, I knocked, but you didn’t respond. I waited a while and knocked again several times, but still no response. I thought perhaps you had already gotten up and gone out. At this point, I noticed the window wasn’t closed, so I asked, ‘Xia, are you in there? I’m opening the window,’ then lifted the window a crack to look inside—” Yu Xuan spoke, his eyes still showing fear, “I discovered… you were already up, standing motionless before your dressing table, holding something in your hand. And that package’s wrapping, I recognized it—it was the arsenic we had bought together.”

Huang Zixia drew an X under the end of the Mao hour, letting out a long breath, saying, “Since the last time we met, I’ve also turned that day over in my mind thousands of times. My memory doesn’t match yours.”

Yu Xuan nodded, asking, “How do you remember that day?”

“At the end of the Mao hour, I heard you gently tapping on the window frame, so I put on some clothes and got up, telling you to wait a moment. After I dressed, you happened to knock for the second time. So I opened the window and took the green calyx plum blossom from your hand.”

Yu Xuan frowned slightly, asking, “How many flowers were on that plum branch?”

Huang Zixia was suddenly at a loss, thinking for a moment before saying, “About four, or maybe five… because the branch was too long, I cut off the lowest bloom to wear in my hair.”

“Four flowers, two buds. I remember clearly,” he said.

His certainty made an involuntary trace of fear appear on Huang Zixia’s face.

The castle in the air she had constructed for so long suddenly collapsed in an instant. Her own memory, which she had believed absolutely reliable, suddenly became untrustworthy even to herself. Everything in the world seemed to become illusory and distorted, indistinguishable.

She forced herself to remain calm, using her hairpin to draw a circle next to that X, saying, “Then, I finished washing and dressing. That day, I wore my usual tortoiseshell hairpin, the green-calyx plum blossom you gave me, and on my wrist, the twin-fish jade bracelet we designed together last year and had someone carve. I wore a set of pine-fragrance colored Shu brocade jacket embroidered with linked osmanthus flowers and a honey-colored skirt.”

After a moment’s recollection, he nodded, saying, “Yes, tied with purple love knots.”

Huang Zixia confirmed, “Rose purple.”

“Then Mimu brought breakfast, but you said since the timing was already awkward, we might as well take more food and have lunch together.”

“We finished eating at the second quarter of the Chen hour. We went to the garden to pick plum blossoms. By the end of the Wu hour, my grandmother and uncle came.”

“Yes, as an outsider, I naturally withdrew. Then passing through Qing Garden, I happened to meet several friends who pulled me aside to discuss philosophy. In the evening, we all went to Apricot Blossom Manor for dinner. I returned home after the second watch, well after curfew. I’d drunk too much and ran into patrol soldiers, but fortunately, they all knew me and even escorted me to my door.”

Huang Zixia traced each event of that day in the ash on the ground. Yu Xuan sat by the stove, silently watching her, just like so many times before when he had sat before her, watching her carefully analyze cases. Her long eyelashes covered her bright eyes, yet couldn’t hide that sharp, brilliant gaze.

That gaze suddenly turned to his face. Only then did Yu Xuan startle to the awareness that this wasn’t the past, wasn’t those years ago. After that upheaval that forever changed the course of their lives, they sat here in the back of this temple, seeming as if it were still yesterday, yet clearly, they could never go back.