The late summer sunlight was scorching, approaching noon, as hot winds swept across the swaying green grass. Li Shubai had closed the doors and windows and was already lying down.
She knocked gently on the door and went in to say, “Get up and eat something.”
Li Shubai, still feverish and weary, propped himself up halfway against the headboard, squinting at her, and asked, “What time is it?”
“A quarter past noon. I’m slow with my hands, only finished now. Please don’t blame me, Your Highness.” She smiled as she handed him the bowl, adding, “It’s a bit hot, please blow on it carefully.”
He took the reed chopsticks and looked at them, and Huang Zixia quickly said, “I cleaned them thoroughly earlier.”
He made a sound of acknowledgment and slowly sipped some soup, then used the reed chopsticks to pick up a piece of medicinal yam and ate it, saying, “It’s nothing, am I in any position to be picky in this place? I just find these unique.”
“Really? I was worried they might be too slippery and hard to grip. But using tree branches would have been too rough, so please bear with these.” She sat by the bed, helping him hold the bowl as she spoke.
In his illness-induced haze, he drank the entire bowl of chicken soup from her hands, unusually docile.
As Huang Zixia was cleaning up and preparing to leave, he asked again, “Is Yu Xuan still here?”
Huang Zixia nodded, saying, “He is.”
He studied her expression, trying to find something in it, but there was nothing. Her eyes were clear and pure, as calm as a forest spring.
Li Shubai turned his eyes away, his typically icy voice becoming gentle: “Does he still think you’re the murderer?”
“Yes, we just went over the events of that day, but unfortunately made no progress.” She sighed, saying softly, “But I already knew this matter wouldn’t be simple, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”
“Take it slowly, the truth will eventually come to light.” As he spoke, he leaned against the headboard watching her, neither asking her to leave nor to stay.
Huang Zixia hesitated while holding the bowl, then asked, “Your Highness, what does that talisman indicate now?”
Li Shubai took out the talisman, looking at the still brilliantly red circle on it and the character for “waste” that it encircled, then handed it to her saying, “Perhaps I’m already considered a waste now.”
Huang Zixia took it and looked, saying, “Your Highness moves freely, and your skills are recovering. How can this character for ‘waste’ apply? It seems the prophecy on this is wrong.”
“Don’t you know that in this world, besides being alive, there’s another kind of life?” Li Shubai gazed at the talisman, sighing almost inaudibly, “And my kind of life might have already been cut off.”
Hearing his words and thinking of the glimpsed power behind this talisman, Huang Zixia felt chilled to the bone. But looking up to see his expression calm and cold, his right hand pressing on the talisman as if frozen, motionless, yet still not putting it away.
She silently watched him for a long while before saying softly, “Don’t worry, whether human or ghost, we’ll eventually root out those forces hiding in the background.”
When she returned to the kitchen, she found Yu Xuan had disappeared.
Only on the ground where she had wiped away the ashes, his handwriting was faintly visible: “I’ll wait for you in Chengdu Prefecture.”
She ladled herself a bowl of chicken soup and drank it, leaning against the stove and looking at those words, then muttered to herself, “Why didn’t he go back to get some medicine or something? Who knows when the Kui Wang’s illness will be cured…”
Saying this, she felt she was asking for too much. Yu Xuan had no connection to the Kui Wang, what right did she have to ask for his help?
Moreover now, even between her and him, they were enemies—or perhaps, strangers.
After Li Shubai’s fever broke, though the wounds on his back hadn’t healed completely, they had at least scabbed over.
After several days of recovery, scattered groups of soldiers searching the mountain had come to investigate the abandoned temple.
Li Shubai and she were examining a freshly picked green pomelo, discussing how to accurately determine if it was ripe, whether to judge by the color of the outer skin or the degree of the withering of the stem.
Finally not concluded, Huang Zixia looked at the sky and simply split the pomelo into eight pieces: “My Prince, I think the best way to test is to open it up and see!”
Late summer pomelos were naturally very sour. Li Shubai, who particularly feared sourness, gave them all to Huang Zixia. As she sat in the corridor slowly eating, she suddenly heard a slight rustling from the grass outside the door.
She jumped up, waving a hand at Li Shubai. Though he was just recovering from a serious illness, his reactions were faster than hers; he had already grabbed her sleeve, and they both retreated behind the building.
Two men in Western Sichuan military uniforms, one old and one young, came and searched through each room. Li Shubai and Huang Zixia were both extremely alert people, and several times when the soldiers came close, they managed to hide behind wall corners and in the grass.
Fortunately, they had let Diwu graze in the nearby forest, otherwise seeing him would have caused trouble.
The two men sat in the front hall to eat their dried rations. Huang Zixia and Li Shubai leaned against the back wall corner, seeing the soldiers had no awareness of them, and couldn’t help smiling at each other.
Only then did she realize that she and Li Shubai were pressed tightly together. On this quiet summer day, the heat from his arm faintly penetrated through her sleeve to her skin. This warmth then crept into her blood vessels, rushing up to her chest and heart, finally making her face suddenly flush red.
She shifted her shoulders slightly away, turning her face to the other side.
All around was quiet, the late summer cicadas chirping in bursts then stopping, the leaves overhead rustling in the wind, sunlight gathering and scattering on their bodies, scattering then dancing chaotically.
Huang Zixia unconsciously turned to look at Li Shubai again, watching those scattered halos of light flickering and jumping on his body. Just recovered from serious illness, he was pale and somewhat weak, making her feel his breathing was lighter than usual, only his side profile’s curved outline remained as beautiful as an ink painting’s elegant strokes.
Li Shubai was also turning his head to look at her, saying softly, “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment.”
She nodded, turning her head to look at the distant mountains, not speaking.
His voice sounded again by her ear: “It seems those two are indeed Western Sichuan soldiers.”
“Yes, who would send such old and weak people as assassins? Should we go down the mountain with them?”
Li Shubai leaned against the back wall, looking up at the sky, saying lightly, “I don’t want to owe Fan Yingxi this favor.”
Huang Zixia knew this wasn’t just a favor, it could be called an enormous debt of gratitude. How could Li Shubai, who had always kept himself aloof from others, be willing to accept it?
Watching the two soldiers leave, he straightened up, no longer leaning against the wall: “Let’s go, we’ll go down the mountain ourselves.”
Huang Zixia nodded, gathering some fruits they had picked yesterday and hanging them on Diwu’s back.
Li Shubai mounted first, extending his hand to her.
Having shared rides with him several times during these dangerous days, she naturally took his hand and mounted behind him.
Her arms encircled him, feeling his body seemed thinner than before, the lines from his shoulders to his waist taut and lean.
These days and nights of rushing about, and him just recovering from serious injury, he could have taken the chance to be weak for once, yet he still refused to owe others even a bit of kindness—
Then, his accompanying her thousands of miles to Shu Prefecture, perhaps was also because she had helped him before…
Thinking this way, looking at the endless mountains before her eyes, she suddenly felt the path ahead become uncertain.
Li Shubai felt her arms around his waist stiffen, and turned his head to look at her. They were so close, the wind blowing their temple hair almost tangled together, inseparable.
Seeing her distracted expression, he said, “Be careful.”
She nodded, then looked at the field ridges and paths gradually appearing in the distance, thinking, what of it, regardless of why he accompanied her here, her only purpose was to seek justice and revenge for her parents and family. After everything came to light, one was a lonely orphaned girl, one was noble royalty, what connection could there be?
When they walked beyond the layered green mountains, seeing sheep grazing on the mountainside, seeing the neat mountain fields and scattered dwellings, seeing the road following the water, both finally relaxed.
Following the road continuously, small mountain villages finally appeared ahead. It was just evening, wisps of cooking smoke rising from each house’s roof, appearing especially peaceful. Li Shubai, being a prince, naturally carried no money, and Huang Zixia was completely broke, so naturally had no money either. Fortunately, they still had a few strings of cash taken from the captives, which they used to exchange for some food in the village and buy a few pieces of old clothing to wear.
This village was already very close to Chengdu Prefecture, and after another half day’s journey, they finally reached Chengdu Prefecture.
When the two entered through the city gate, they found many teams of constables gathering at the gate, each looking extremely disheveled, with leaves and grass all over their heads and bodies, clearly just having come down from the mountains.
People nearby watched these teams returning from the mountains, discussing intensely. A well-informed man quickly told those around him: “I heard Prince Kui disappeared on the road from Hanzhou to Chengdu Prefecture! Yesterday morning, several of the prince’s guards escaped back, saying they were ambushed on the road, and now Prince Kui’s whereabouts are unknown!”
The listeners immediately erupted: “What? Who would dare to assassinate Prince Kui?”
Seeing people eagerly questioning, the man became extremely pleased: “The day before yesterday I was delivering firewood to the governor’s mansion and heard people in the kitchen discussing, saying the attackers had Xuzhou accents! Do you know who else has a Xuzhou accent? Of course, it’s Pang Jun!”
“Pang Jun died long ago, and the few remaining followers were almost completely wiped out, how could they amount to anything?”
“Hehe, haven’t you heard about what happened in the capital a few months ago? Pang Jun’s vengeful spirit reappeared and targeted the young lady of the Langya Wang family? They say that lady mysteriously disappeared from Daming Palace, then mysteriously turned up dead inside Daming Palace, extremely strange!” Another idler nearby, spittle flying, combined bits of news he’d heard and began imagining freely, “Do you know who that lady killed by Pang Jun’s ghost was? She was to be Prince Kui’s princess!”
Many expressed disbelief: “Wasn’t that case already solved? I heard it was solved by a eunuch Yang from Prince Kui’s mansion, it was the lady-in-waiting of that future princess who committed the crime, what does it have to do with Pang Jun’s ghost?”
Hearing his words questioned, the man’s neck immediately thickened: “How could they publicly announce that Daming Palace was haunted, and by the ghost of the rebel Pang Jun? Those two maids must have been scapegoats!”
Huang Zixia and Li Shubai exchanged glances, both seeing the complex expressions in each other’s eyes, unsure whether to praise his insight into the truth.
Someone else asked: “So you’re saying this time Prince Kui’s assassination attempt was also the work of Pang Jun’s ghost?”
“Obviously! Prince Kui is brilliant and divine, unmatched under heaven, how could ordinary assassins harm him in the slightest?” Seeing his theory had supporters, the man’s animated expression made him seem as if he had been there himself, “Of course it was Pang Jun’s evil spirit causing trouble, Prince Kui was momentarily caught off guard, that’s why Pang Jun’s remaining followers succeeded!”