Zhao Xitai’s coughing continued without stop, his face flushed crimson.

The attendant accompanying him saw this and rushed forward in a panic, taking out a small medicine bottle he carried with him, pulling out the stopper, and bringing it to his face.

Zhao Xitai breathed in from the bottle several times and finally stopped coughing and caught his breath.

A flicker of shame entered his eyes, and he said quietly: “I am truly useless — the very first moment of seeing you, and I have already made a fool of myself in front of you…”

“It is not like this all the time! Just now I simply did not expect to encounter you here — thinking of things from when we were children, I became a little excited for a moment and accidentally took in a breath wrong.”

He went on to explain himself urgently.

Mu Fulan smiled.

“Is the young heir on his way to see the Princess Consort?”

“I have just come from the Princess Consort’s quarters. Go quickly!”

She deliberately raised her voice as she said this, then gave Zhao Xitai a nod, called her maidservant to her side, and stepped forward to continue on her way.

Zhao Xitai’s gaze fell upon her. Slowly he turned his face away, watching her retreating figure — then suddenly he went after her and called out to her again.

“Imperial Princess!”

Mu Fulan turned her head.

He gazed at that face — a face that seemed to overlap with something in his childhood memories, and yet had changed so much that it had nearly taken his breath away to recognize her. Upon his features, another flush appeared, as faint as the one that had lingered from his coughing just moments before.

“This morning when I saw you, there was something I had been wanting to explain to you. When you left the capital back then, I was not intentionally absent from your departure. I knew you were leaving. I wanted to see you off, only…”

Only at that time, his mother had not permitted him to go and see off this childhood companion from the palace days — that little girl whose eyes curved like crescent moons when she smiled.

Because of his poor health, his mother kept a very close watch over him. This was not to be done, that was not to be touched. He had never had companions growing up. Everyone treated him with the utmost deference, yet nobody played with him. When they saw him coming, they would keep a little distance, for fear that if he happened to take a turn for the worse, they would somehow be implicated.

Only she had not kept her distance from him, and played with him.

He had liked being with her, no matter what she was doing. Whether she sat quietly practicing her calligraphy, or played on the swings in the imperial garden, he could hide nearby and watch for a long while without ever growing tired of it.

Zhao Xitai paused.

“…At the time, I happened to fall ill again. By the time I recovered, you had already gone.”

“You will not hold it against me, will you?” he asked carefully.

It was such a distant matter from so long ago — so trivial as to barely be worth mentioning. Had he not brought it up, she would have had no memory of it at all.

She could choose not to hold a grudge against this son of Prince Qi, who — just like her — had been swept up into the brutal power struggles and lost his life to them. She could even, if he were to ask for it now, bring him before Medicine Elder to seek treatment. But she had no genuine wish to linger over these years-old trivialities that held no meaning whatsoever.

“It was a small thing from many years ago — I had long forgotten it. The young heir need not trouble himself over it either,” she said lightly.

Zhao Xitai fixed his eyes on her.

“Imperial Princess, how have these years been for you? A few years ago, I heard that your royal father had betrothed you to that bandit of the Xie name…”

From nearby suddenly came a gentle clearing of a throat.

“Is that not the young heir? I encountered Grand Commissioner Xie just over there, and hearing a commotion here, I came to have a look — not wanting it to disturb the Empress Dowager. So it is the young heir after all. I heard you only arrived in the capital a few days ago — what a coincidence, to meet here today!”

“Cao Jin pays his respects to the young heir!”

That Eunuch Cao Jin, smiling, walked over and offered a bow to Zhao Xitai, then turned toward Mu Fulan and addressed her respectfully as “Imperial Princess.”

Mu Fulan affected an expression as though she had only just noticed him, and glanced past the eunuch’s shoulder.

Xie Changgeng had not come over; he was still standing where he had been.

Zhao Xitai, upon suddenly hearing that Xie Changgeng was also present, started visibly, raised his eyes to look in that direction, and a faintly awkward expression crossed his face.

But very quickly his expression shifted to one of contempt. His eyes went cold and fixed upon Xie Changgeng without moving away.

Xie Changgeng stepped forward and came toward them, stopping outside the circular gateway rather than entering.

His gaze settled upon Zhao Xitai’s face across the way.

“What brings the young heir here? I know Princess Consort Qi petitioned before the Empress Dowager to allow the young heir to enter the temple today. But if my memory serves, his movements were restricted to the Buddha hall only. The young heir is no child — surely he knows that this rear meditation courtyard is not a place where he ought to linger. If there is no pressing matter, he would do well to leave promptly.”

His expression was composed and his tone even, yet beneath them ran an undercurrent of authority — the commanding manner of one who held the power of life and death.

A flash of displeasure crossed Zhao Xitai’s face, and he said: “I have come to see my mother — are you going to block that as well?”

Xie Changgeng smiled.

“I would not dare. Since the young heir is going to see the Princess Consort, I will have someone escort him. The Empress Dowager is resting not far from here. Should the young heir accidentally wander into the wrong area and give the Empress Dowager a fright, that would be a dereliction of my duty.”

He turned to Cao Jin.

“Eunuch Cao, I trouble you to guide the young heir to Princess Consort Qi.”

Cao Jin assented, and stepped forward with a smile.

“Young heir, this way, please.”

A flush of shame and fury quickly suffused Zhao Xitai’s pale features.

He held himself still for a moment, then gritted his teeth, turned toward Mu Fulan and said gently: “Imperial Princess, I will go to my mother’s quarters first.” When he had said this, he turned and fixed a hate-filled glare upon Xie Changgeng, then strode off.

His two attendants hurried to follow. Cao Jin went as well.

In an instant everyone had gone, leaving only Mu Fulan and Xie Changgeng — one standing inside the circular gateway, the other outside it.

The atmosphere suddenly became somewhat strange.

Xie Changgeng’s expression was rather dark. He spoke to the maidservant standing to one side looking slightly at a loss: “See the Imperial Princess to her resting quarters.”

He finished speaking and turned to leave — but his footsteps paused again. Just before he went, he looked back, sweeping a cold glance over Mu Fulan. “This is not your own home. Do not wander about without reason.”

Mu Fulan watched the retreating figure of him and his attendants departing, and judged that he likely had not noticed her earlier act of spying on him and Cao Jin. She let out a slow, quiet breath.

…

After the midday rest was over, the Empress Dowager completed the second half of the sutra. Near the hour of Shen, today’s worship was finally concluded. After resting for another short while, preparations were made to set out and return to the city.

The evening bell of Huguo Temple rang out. The ceremonial parasols, processional escorts, and Imperial Guards all took their positions. From the mountain gate all the way to the foot of the hill, they formed two lines flanking the stone steps. The monks, led by the resident abbot, respectfully saw the Empress Dowager off down the mountain.

After a day of exertion, everyone was weary. The titled noble ladies in the procession all longed to descend the mountain sooner and board their carriages back to the city. Not a voice was raised. Along the stone steps, all that could be heard was the faint, soft rustling of fine fabrics against one another with each movement.

From the foot of the hill to the mountain gate, the steps numbered one hundred and eight, in keeping with the one hundred and eight gateways of the mortal world. To mount one step was to cross one gateway, and to be freed from one form of karmic hindrance.

Mu Fulan followed with the others, making her way down the stone steps of the mountain gate one by one toward the foot of the hill. When she had descended the final step and set foot on level ground, the steward came to meet her. She was making her way to her carriage, and was just about to board it, when all at once, from deep within her, that same mysterious feeling that had come over her upon first arriving this morning rose up again.

As if by some unseen force in the darkness, something was drawing her to turn back.

She turned her head and looked back at the mountain gate now left behind her.

The sun was setting in the west, and the trees blazed with autumn color. In the distance, the mountain gate at the top of those one hundred and eight steps was gilded in a layer of red-gold light.

A flock of mountain birds, startled by the evening bell as they were returning to their roosts at dusk, were circling back and forth above the main ridge of the mountain gate, wings beating in flight.

In the very instant of turning back, Mu Fulan’s gaze came to a halt.

In the sunlight of the setting sun, she saw that behind those wide-open mountain gates, there had appeared a small, tiny figure.

It was a young boy, two or three years of age, as if drawn out by the commotion beyond the mountain gate, standing quietly in a corner just inside the threshold.

In the very instant that small, tiny figure entered her sight, Mu Fulan’s heart — as if struck by something with great force — seemed to shatter and burst open.

She almost felt she was looking at her Xi’er! That Xi’er who, when he was small, had accompanied her through one dawn and dusk after another in that cold and gloomy old house in Xie County!

It must be that her eyes were playing tricks on her!

She strained to open her eyes wide, wanting to see more clearly.

But a monk came out and took the boy’s hand, leading him back inside.

The child was taken inside — yet as if sensing something, he turned back at the last moment, and looked in the direction of Mu Fulan.

Very quickly, the small figure disappeared behind the mountain gates and could be seen no more.

Mu Fulan’s pupils dilated to their fullest extent. Her whole body became unable to move, and even her breath had stopped.

She had a feeling.

There at the foot of the hill, among so many people, that boy who so resembled Xi’er — his final backward glance as he turned to leave — had been searching for her.

He had been searching for her.

In that one instant, she forgot everything around her. She spun sharply back around, under the startled and bewildered gazes of those nearby, broke into a run, and mounted the stone steps — climbing toward the mountain gate.

The Empress Dowager had already boarded her imperial carriage and, escorted by the Imperial Guards and eunuchs, the imperial carriage moved ahead at the front, slowly departing.

Xie Changgeng received the reins from his attendant’s hands, and was just about to mount when he glanced back again — and unexpectedly saw her abandon the others and go back alone, climbing the steps at a swift pace, her figure already more than a dozen steps up in the blink of an eye, her silhouette urgent, as though something pressing were waiting for her above.

He looked toward the mountain gate in the last light of the sun. Apart from some monks still performing their ceremonial duties, he noticed nothing unusual.

He frowned, swung immediately back down from the saddle, strode swiftly after her, took the steps in long strides, and from behind reached out and seized her by the wrist.

“Everyone has left. What are you going back up for?”

He lowered his voice, speaking at a volume only the two of them could hear, and demanded an explanation from her.

Mu Fulan’s breathing was disordered, her breath coming in gasps. She looked back and met the two eyes of the man behind her — filled with sharp and displeased severity — and in that moment came sharply back to herself.

She made a great effort to suppress the surging, pounding heartbeat beneath her chest, closed her eyes, steadied herself, and slowly opened them again.

“…It seems I have lost a hairpin. It must have fallen somewhere in the resting quarters at midday. I grew anxious for a moment and wanted to go back and look…”

Xie Changgeng’s gaze traveled across her dark hair and smooth temples. He slowly loosened the hand that had been gripping her wrist, and said: “I will have someone go back to look for it.”

“Thank you.”

Mu Fulan did not look at him. She murmured those two words in a low voice, lowered her gaze, turned, and descended the steps one by one. She boarded the carriage, let down the warming curtain, and sat down.

That evening when Xie Changgeng returned, he spoke through the bed curtains to Mu Fulan, who was already in bed: “I had someone search every place you went, and they say the hairpin cannot be found.”

“You might want to think again — perhaps it was not lost, but ended up in someone’s hands.”

He said this as well, his tone measured and flat, yet the implication of ill intent in his words was unmistakably present.

“When I got home this evening, I realized I had been mistaken. I did not wear it when I went out this morning — the hairpin is in my jewelry box.” A low voice replied from within the bed curtains.

Xie Changgeng paused.

The bed curtains hung low, and her person was within, yet she did not show her face at all.

He narrowed his eyes, expression cold, and turned to leave.

Mu Fulan did not dare let him see her.

She was afraid that her eyes or expression would betray the disordered turmoil within her at this moment.

In her mind, the small figure she had seen at the mountain gate in the evening appeared again and again, without cease.

She told herself it was a delusion.

She had been missing Xi’er so deeply that she had mistaken another child for her Xi’er, and had stubbornly chosen to believe that the child’s backward glance had been a searching look meant for her.

But deep within her heart, another thought burned like a flame, leaving her too restless to lie still, wishing the night would pass quickly.

She had to go to Huguo Temple once more, and find the child she had glimpsed in that brief moment at the mountain gate in the evening.