Li Que and Li Kun had left without a word of farewell.

Besides those crooked characters scratched in the ground, they had left nothing behind — and taken nothing with them.

The wind, carrying flurries of snow, howled without mercy. It hit the face like the edge of a blade. Li Que and Li Kun were lightly dressed, had taken no food, and yet they had gone — where did they mean to go? Where could such snow even carry them?

The snow had covered a whole night’s worth of traces, leaving their footprints without a shadow — even if you tried to track them, there was no direction to go in.

Shen Zhuxi was anxious about Li Wu’s reaction, but to her surprise, he remained calm throughout — or at the very least, appeared calm. It was almost as though Li Kun and Li Que had never existed at all; he said not a single word about their departure.

He took the last bun from the pack, broke it in half, and held one half out to Shen Zhuxi.

She took it, and watched him with quiet unease.

“Go ahead and eat. When you’re done, we move.” Li Wu settled himself beside the fire.

Shen Zhuxi hesitated, glanced once more at the message on the ground, and silently bit into the bun — dry, crumbly, and so stale it scraped her throat.

Li Wu finished before her. He rose, picked up the luggage from the ground, and walked out.

“Where are you going?” Shen Zhuxi asked quickly.

“There’s too much to carry — we can’t take it all.” Li Wu stopped and looked back at her. “I’ll go find somewhere to bury it. You wait here — don’t go anywhere. If there’s danger, shout, and I’ll be back immediately.”

After she had nodded, Li Wu took the two armfuls of things and walked out.

She waited in the cave, anxiety turning over quietly inside her, silently counting the time. Imperceptibly, the fine snow had stopped. The sky was a blinding white; dull daylight filtered through the grey-white cloud cover, not as bright as the nearly spent campfire.

Before the firewood burned out entirely, Li Wu came back empty-handed.

He gathered up a handful of snow and threw it onto the burning fire: “Let’s go.”

Shen Zhuxi nodded.

Li Wu steadied her as she put her foot into the stirrup, then swung himself up behind her. One “Ride,” and the large yellow horse moved gently forward.

It was the same journey as always, and yet Shen Zhuxi’s heart felt considerably heavier than the day before — as Li Wu’s surely did too. The whole of that day, aside from the occasional exchange of necessary words, he was almost entirely wrapped in his own silence.

That evening, they passed through a village. Li Wu found a household willing to take them in, and after a great deal of back-and-forth, managed to exchange a large silver ingot for two handfuls of wild greens.

When evening came, Shen Zhuxi ate a bowl of wild-green congee. The so-called congee was nothing more than torn-up wild greens in a small measure of water, boiled into a thin, watery gruel.

Li Wu held a cracked earthenware bowl and slurped it down in a few quick mouthfuls.

He had just set down the bowl when a small, rough, dry chunk of bun was held out before him.

“……Where did this come from?” Li Wu asked.

Shen Zhuxi gave him an open, radiant smile, the jewel-bright light shining in her crescent-curved almond eyes.

“I conjured it.” she said, pleased with herself.

“……Blockhead.” Li Wu tugged at her cheek.

She, in a rare display, did not get angry at all — instead she laughed cheerfully, pressed the chunk of bun into his hand, picked up her own bowl of bitter, astringent wild-green congee, and began to drink.

Li Wu held the bun and didn’t move. He watched her take the first sip, then paused for a moment, brow creasing into a tight knot — before summoning her resolve, squeezing her eyes firmly shut, and draining the bowl in one go.

She finished the congee, and the tight furrow in her brow smoothed immediately at the sight of his expression.

“Eat it quickly!” Shen Zhuxi said.

“Was the congee good?” Li Wu asked.

“……It wasn’t bad, at least.”

Her deliberately easy expression made something in Li Wu’s chest go increasingly soft.

He picked up the bun and placed it into his mouth bit by bit, letting each grain of flour soak through with saliva and expand into the faintest trace of sweetness, then chewed until it was flavorless, and sent it down to his protesting stomach.

Pale moonlight fell through the paper-covered window.

The mud-brick room was dark and cramped. A few stalks of last year’s dry rice straw were scattered across the floor. The two of them sat on a cold earthen platform, each holding a cracked earthenware bowl, wrapped in every layer of clothing they possessed. The shadows cast on the mud wall were shoulder to shoulder, sharing each other’s warmth.

The moonlight was soft and still. Inside and out, all was utterly silent. The world felt like one enormous tomb.

“With such beautiful moonlight — don’t you feel the urge to compose a poem?” Shen Zhuxi suddenly spoke, a breath of mist rising from her lips in the bitter cold.

Intending to liven the mood, she said in a deliberately bright voice:

“The great poet Li Bai wrote the poem that has been passed down through the ages — ‘Quiet Night Thought’ — in circumstances just like this, far from home!”

Li Wu tugged the corner of his mouth in a self-deprecating smile: “……That was Li Bai.”

“But you are Li Wu!” Shen Zhuxi said at once. “If you wanted to, you could write a poem that is every bit as great as ‘Quiet Night Thought’!”

Li Wu looked at her, and after a moment, wore an expression caught between laughing and crying.

“Are you trying to comfort me?”

“I…… I’m only speaking the truth — you do genuinely have a talent for poetry……” Shen Zhuxi’s conscience betrayed her and her gaze began to dart away involuntarily.

“Don’t attempt to polish shoes when you have no skill for it. Leave that sort of flattery to Que’er.” Li Wu said.

The mention of Li Que, who had already gone, made the air — already cold and still — grow even more subdued.

“There’s always more to learn! When we reach Huzhou, I must absolutely ask Li Que to give me a thorough lesson in the art of flattery.” Shen Zhuxi pretended not to notice the weight that had settled over them and said brightly.

“Do you really believe we’ll still see them in Huzhou?” Li Wu said.

“I believe it.”

Shen Zhuxi did not hesitate for a single moment.

Li Wu’s gaze, which had been resting on the drifting dust motes, moved to her face in surprise.

“I believe it.”

She met his eyes directly and smiled with total, unguarded trust. Like a beam of light passing through a jewel — brilliant and resplendent — it flared to life in an instant, illuminating the dim and stifling room.

“……Why?” Li Wu asked, his voice low and rough.

“Because they are Li Kun and Li Que.” Shen Zhuxi said. “One who is unmatched in strength, one who is full of clever thought and strategy — what obstacle could the two of them together not overcome?”

“What if,” Li Wu said, “……one of them abandoned the other?”

“That won’t happen.” Shen Zhuxi denied it again without a second’s pause.

He said quietly: “Que’er has already abandoned someone once before.”

“He won’t do it a second time.” Shen Zhuxi’s expression was steady and sure.

“……Why?” Li Wu looked into her eyes.

“Because I believe in him.” Shen Zhuxi held his gaze unflinchingly and said all at once: “I believe in him, because he chose to accept the extra bun you gave him without refusing, and because he took the greater portion of Li Kun’s chestnut meat right in front of you. Both of those things can be explained by the fact that he was making preparations, conserving food — taking on the task of looking after Li Kun.”

“I believe in him, and even more so because we have been through so much together, and he showed us through his actions that they have become true brothers. If they do part ways after this…… I also believe it could only be because he had no other choice.”

“……If Que’er ever heard how you speak of him, for the rest of his life, wherever you told him to go, he would never go the other way.” Li Wu smiled.

Shen Zhuxi looked at him steadily for a moment, then, as though setting down some heavy burden, smiled along with him.

“You finally smiled.” she said.

“Haven’t I been smiling all along?” Li Wu said, deflecting.

“Those were fake smiles — worse than no smile at all.” Shen Zhuxi complained. “When we first got on the horse, your expression was so terrible I didn’t dare say a word to you.”

“Why didn’t you dare?” Li Wu said quietly.

Before she had finished speaking, his hand came to rest on top of her head.

He stroked her hair gently, and his voice — which was usually so quick and restless — was today unusually low: “As long as it’s you——”

Shen Zhuxi’s heart gave a sudden jump.

Li Wu said: “Even when your old man is using the outhouse, you’re welcome to keep talking.”

“I absolutely will not!” Shen Zhuxi’s expression shifted entirely.

Li Wu laughed: “Blockhead, go to sleep. You were right — Diao and Que’er have nothing to worry about. The sooner we reach Huzhou, the sooner we can see them again.”

Seeing him come back to himself, Shen Zhuxi was glad and nodded eagerly.

With Li Wu restored to his usual self, even the air felt lighter. The two of them settled close together to sleep, covered by every piece of clothing they had. Shen Zhuxi slept on the side nearest the wall, and Li Wu, seeming to feel she was sleeping too far away, pulled back the blanket and drew her closer.

The hand that had settled on her shoulder stayed there naturally. Shen Zhuxi assumed he was simply taking warmth from her and paid it no mind.

She urged herself toward sleep so as not to slow their travel the next day, not knowing that behind her, Li Wu was looking long at her back.

Just ten months ago, she had cried through an entire night because the sole of her shoe had stepped in cow dung.

Now she slept peacefully on a cold earthen platform, covered in a heavy pile of garments that gave little warmth, curled up in a bedraggled and bare-bones huddle, trying to conserve body heat.

She had once been a princess.

She had never been meant to suffer like this.

Even if she hadn’t been a princess, she shouldn’t have suffered like this. He had made a promise: he had married her — not to make her suffer.

“Shen Zhuxi.” he said quietly.

“……Yes?” came her drowsy, half-awake voice from the side facing the wall.

“Do you regret marrying me?”

“No regrets……” she murmured.

The speed of her answer made him suspicious — had she even heard what he was asking?

In the end, he didn’t pursue it.

She had once been a princess, born into gold and jade. Now she was not eating enough, not staying warm enough, the insides of her thighs worn open over and over again, day after day on the road covered in dust — and yet not a single tear had she shed. Instead she had turned around to comfort him, to bolster his spirits.

If he made her regret this, he would be less than an animal.

The anxiety that had weighed on Li Wu’s heart was successfully pressed down by Shen Zhuxi.

He was not as meticulous an observer of the people around him as she was. Li Que had accepted the extra portion of bun without deflection, and had even reached over and taken the greater part of Li Kun’s chestnut meat right in front of him — those things could all be explained by the fact that he had been planning ahead. And Li Kun had no concept of planning. Whatever food was allocated to him never lasted to the next day.

The task of apportioning Li Kun’s food had always fallen to him. Now Li Que was taking Li Kun’s food away from him — stepping over him, taking over the management of what Li Kun ate.

He had made up his mind then. He was going to take Li Kun and leave.

What he could still do now was the same as Shen Zhuxi — simply believe.

The next day, before dawn had broken, the two of them set out again on the large yellow horse from the small mountain village. The further east they rode, the thinner the snow on the ground, and the faster the large yellow horse’s pace became.

Two days of this pattern — setting out at sunrise, stopping to rest at sunset — and the snow on the ground was gone. The last little morsel Shen Zhuxi had saved from her own rations was gone too.

After rounding a valley, they passed from a narrow, rugged mountain track out onto a wide and open plain.

“Is that……” Shen Zhuxi sat upright on the horse’s back without thinking.

A few hundred yards away, a winding procession of more than a hundred men, women, and elderly — all in ragged, threadbare clothing — was making its slow way across the plain.