The very next morning, just as the sky was beginning to pale, Shen Zhuxi was roused by a faint rustling beside her.

Half-awake, she blinked her eyes open to find Li Wu pulling his long arms through the sleeves of his shirt.

“Are we leaving already?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“We’ll go once the sun’s up.” Li Wu said. “I’m going to find something to eat.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“What for — you can’t climb trees and you can’t catch birds.” Li Wu said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You wait in the cave for me, and don’t go anywhere.”

Shen Zhuxi was still about to push back when Li Wu had already picked up the water bladder leaning against the wall and walked out without a backward glance.

With Li Wu gone, Shen Zhuxi found she couldn’t go back to sleep at ease. She put on her outer robe, crouched beside the campfire, and picked up a twig to poke at the embers.

Apparently, this made the fire burn stronger. She didn’t fully understand why, but poking at it did seem to work.

…As long as she didn’t poke too much. The time she had burned down the kitchen, it was a stray spark from this same kind of poking that had set the dry grass in the corner alight.

While Li Wu was out, Shen Zhuxi used the time to fold up the bedroll they had slept on the night before, bundling it into a tight square and packing it back into the travel pack. The cleaned pot and bowl were placed into the separate pack designated for essential supplies. When she was done, she surveyed the tidied-up cave with satisfaction.

She was learning how to live by watching the person beside her.

What she did now was something she couldn’t have even conceived of a year ago.

Shen Zhuxi sat down on the flat rock where Li Wu had sat the day before and absently hummed a little tune that had been popular in the palace, her gaze fixed steady on the mouth of the cave, waiting for a familiar silhouette to appear.

When the rising sun broke through the heavy morning mist and cast its first golden ray across the world, Li Wu emerged from the forest. Dangling from his hand was something long and slender.

Shen Zhuxi looked closely — and every hair on her body stood on end. She was so startled she leapt off the rock, her voice pitching up an octave:

“A snake——”

“What are you scared of, it’s dead.” Li Wu held the snake by its tail and gave it a casual swing, setting it spinning in wide circles like a pinwheel.

“Why — why did you catch a snake!”

Shen Zhuxi still didn’t dare get too close. Every time Li Wu took a step forward, she took one back, eyes fixed on the dead green snake — until her back met the cave wall and there was nowhere left to retreat.

“It’s a fine thing to eat.” Li Wu sat down on the flat rock and, without ceremony, grabbed a fragment of rock and brought it down on the snake’s head, crushing it flat. Then he used the sharp edge of the rock to slit open the skin, revealing the bright red flesh beneath.

Blood slowly seeped out.

Li Wu lifted the dead snake directly and pressed his lips to the place where the droplets of blood were pooling—

Shen Zhuxi nearly heaved. She turned away and refused to watch, until Li Wu’s voice sounded behind her again: “Let’s go.”

She turned back. The dead snake was still there. Li Wu had hung it upside down on the side of the yellow horse and was looking back at her as she stood frozen in place. “What are you standing there for?”

“…I thought you were going to eat it raw.” Shen Zhuxi walked over to Li Wu, still shaken.

“Eating it raw would be such a waste.” Li Wu frowned. “If we let it dry out and make jerky, it’ll last us several more days. And throwing away the blood that came out would be a pity, so I offered it to you —”

Shen Zhuxi shook her head frantically.

“Then I suppose it’s all mine.” He continued: “Snake blood is extremely restorative anyway.”

“Restorative for what?” Shen Zhuxi asked without thinking.

“Restorative for yang energy.” He gave her a meaningful wink. “Care to try some?”

Shen Zhuxi’s face instantly went scarlet. This insufferable man was already spouting nonsense first thing in the morning — the only thing that snake blood was restoring in him was his ability to talk rubbish!

After Li Wu had helped her up into the saddle, he reached into his chest and produced two fruits, half-yellow and half-green, and tossed them to her.

“Eat these before we set off.”

“What about you?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“You really are a little fool. I obviously ate mine while I was picking them.” Li Wu said with perfectly natural ease, not missing a beat. “I filled myself up and then brought back the two reddest ones for you.”

Shen Zhuxi took him at his word: “Did you wash them?”

“I did,” said Li Wu. “They won’t kill you!”

Shen Zhuxi shot him a look and took a small, careful bite. The fruit tasted better than it appeared — tart, but within the range of acceptable; full of juice, with a dense fruity fragrance that spread across her tongue.

Li Wu stepped into the stirrup and mounted the horse. He gathered the reins in front of her with both hands, pressed his knees in, and the yellow horse began to walk forward at an easy pace.

Shen Zhuxi took another crunching bite.

Gurgle —

The fruit was still in her mouth; Shen Zhuxi hadn’t swallowed yet. She turned her head and eyed Li Wu behind her with suspicion.

“What was that sound?”

“Your stomach growled.” Li Wu said.

“My stomach did not growl.”

“Then it must have been Ah Huang’s stomach.” Li Wu said this without so much as a flicker of guilt across his face.

Ah Huang was the yellow horse beneath them. Ever since Li Wu had happened to overhear her calling the horse that name while feeding it grass, he had started using it himself.

Ah Huang had put her through a fair amount of misery on this journey, so Shen Zhuxi had declined to give the horse a name following family tradition, as punishment for repeatedly rubbing her inner thighs raw.

“…Really?”

“Really.” Li Wu’s expression was entirely earnest.

Shen Zhuxi swallowed the fruit in her mouth, still full of suspicion.

The yellow horse left the forest and emerged once more onto the desolate plain. They encountered another wave of refugees — everyone gaunt and sallow-faced, driven by the single hope that “when Huguang prospers, all under heaven is fed,” abandoning their homes and setting out with resolute determination toward a place wholly unknown to them.

They did not even know where Huguang was on a map. Armed with nothing but word of mouth, two legs, and a thin sliver of hope, they had crossed mountains and rivers to make it this far.

Their column gained new faces every day, and every day familiar ones vanished without a word. Parting from the living and stepping over the dead had become so commonplace that even children of seven or eight in the group could walk past a body that had stopped breathing without a flicker of expression.

Watching them, Shen Zhuxi felt that any hardship she had suffered was no hardship at all.

In fact, comparing it even to her life in the palace, Shen Zhuxi felt that what she was going through now was not truly suffering. In the palace, her mood had always been suppressed and stifling — she had been perpetually afraid of doing something that would displease others and invite cold, cutting remarks. Now, every single day felt open and free. She did not have to tread carefully or live in dread, watching everyone’s faces before she dared move.

Set against the slow, pervasive, and inescapable ache of the spirit, the brief and surface-level pain of the body became barely worth mentioning.

In these past days, she had seen too many different faces among the refugee columns — it was as though overnight, disaster-struck refugees from across the entire country had all begun streaming toward Huguang.

Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but worry: could Huguang really take in so many displaced people?

Having lived through the famine herself, she understood more clearly than ever that if the authorities had responded actively from the beginning, things would never have come to this.

As someone from the highest tier of the aristocracy that sat above even the officials, Shen Zhuxi now found herself feeling a rage directed at the entire Da Yan regime — officials and all.

Sui Rui’s fury and contempt toward Da Yan — she was beginning to understand it.

Water can carry a boat, and water can capsize it.

Eight simple characters she had learned since childhood, and only now, at this very moment, did they clarify themselves in her heart.

When the sun dipped to the horizon, the yellow horse galloped past a stone stele with an inscription. Li Wu’s expression eased, and he said: “We’ve crossed out of Luzhou. After this comes the territory of Xuanzhou. Once we’re past Xuanzhou, we’ll be in Huzhou.”

Hearing that Huzhou was close, Shen Zhuxi felt her spirits lighten as well.

Between herself and Li Wu on the one hand, and Li Kun and Li Que on the other — who would reach Huzhou first?

That night, they passed a ruined temple. The crumbling structure, never large to begin with, was packed inside and out with refugees seeking shelter for the night. Shen Zhuxi had barely dismounted when unfriendly eyes began to fall on her and the yellow horse beneath her.

Li Wu did not draw any closer. He pulled the reins and kept moving forward.

Given the choice between sleeping in a place like this — crowded with strangers — and spending the night in a cold, empty cave somewhere in the mountains, Shen Zhuxi would have chosen the cave.

In the end, they found a suitable cave for the night several dozen li beyond the ruined temple.

Li Wu gathered dry firewood outside the cave while Shen Zhuxi arranged their sleeping place inside. They had worked out their respective roles through familiarity now — neither needed to tell the other what to do; each simply went ahead and did their part.

By the time Li Wu had the fire going, the sun had set completely, and only a short while remained before the moon would climb into the branches.

Li Wu stepped into the cave just as he was about to speak, but Shen Zhuxi already knew what he was about to go and do.

She reached into her purse — where she kept the fruit tucked against her phoenix plaque, close to her body — and held it out.

“Take this for the road.”

Li Wu looked at the unripe green fruit in her hand, then raised his eyes to her face. “…You didn’t eat it?”

“I ate mine. I saved you the bigger one.” Shen Zhuxi said. “You’ve been riding all day without eating a thing — have a fruit, at least, so you have the strength to keep going.”

Li Wu was silent for a moment.

Shen Zhuxi pressed the fruit into his hand herself, and said with a smile: “I’ll be right here waiting for you — I’m not going anywhere. Don’t worry, go on.”

Li Wu looked at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. Then, after a long pause, he turned and left with the fruit in hand.

Later that evening, Li Wu returned with two chunks of plant tuber, each no bigger than her fist, their surfaces still caked with dark soil.

Li Wu could see her reluctance and explained: “There’s no water nearby, no place to wash them, and the water in the bladder is running low — can you manage?”

Shen Zhuxi clenched her jaw and said: “I can.”

Li Wu smiled at her, as if to say: I knew you could.

He did the same as before — stripped away the coarse, hard outer skin, sliced the tubers, then dropped the pieces into the small pot of boiling water.

What cooked out of it barely filled half a ceramic bowl.

Shen Zhuxi took two sips of broth, left the tuber pieces at the bottom of the bowl untouched, and held it out to Li Wu.

“I ate on the way back.”

Shen Zhuxi was not as easy to fool as she had been the night before. She asked with suspicion: “What did you eat?”

“Mountain hen eggs.” Li Wu said. “If I’d spotted the hen itself, we’d be having roast chicken tonight.”

“…Really?”

“Really.” Li Wu answered without the slightest twinge of conscience.

“Let me see your hands.” Shen Zhuxi said.

“…What for?” Li Wu grew wary.

Without giving him time to protest, Shen Zhuxi took his hand and brought it to her nose.

“You lied!” Shen Zhuxi’s eyes flashed with indignation. “There’s no smell of egg on your hands at all!”

“I washed them.” Li Wu said without missing a beat.

“You just said there was no water source nearby — where exactly did you wash your hands?” Shen Zhuxi smacked his palm in frustration. “You’re lying!”

Li Wu withdrew his hand and said with perfect composure: “I really did wash them. Why would I lie to you?”

Li Wu was utterly immovable — like a dead pig that doesn’t fear boiling water — and Shen Zhuxi could find no way to make him admit he had been lying. In exasperation, she set the ceramic bowl down on the ground with a thump. “Fine, then I’m not eating. Eat it yourself if you want.”

“If you’re not eating, leave it for morning.” Li Wu said.

“Li Wu!” Shen Zhuxi glared at him, puffed up with indignation.

“What?”

This insufferable man watched her, utterly unruffled.

Shen Zhuxi’s eyes slowly began to fill with tears, and the expression on the face before her finally showed a crack of alarm.

“Hey, you — Shen Zhuxi, here we go again! What are you crying for! You haven’t been widowed yet!”

“At the rate you’re not eating, I’m going to become a widow!” Shen Zhuxi said, voice thick with unshed tears.

“Bite your tongue! That’s bad luck — take it back! I’m going to live to a ripe old age!”

“Eat what’s in this bowl.”

“I already told you, I already ate…”

Shen Zhuxi’s eyes shimmered with tears, and her lips began to tremble as she opened her mouth —

“I’ll eat! I’ll eat!” Li Wu snatched up the ceramic bowl.

He drank down all the broth first, then snuck a glance at Shen Zhuxi’s face. Seeing that she was still staring at him through her tears without blinking, he knew there was no escaping this.

Li Wu said: “All right — we split it. One piece each. Otherwise I’m not eating at all.”

Shen Zhuxi thought about it, then nodded. “…Fine.”

In the end, the two of them traded pieces back and forth until they had finished the tuber between them, filling their stomachs with the thin vegetable broth.

As the night deepened, a cold, needle-sharp rain began to fall outside the cave.

Shen Zhuxi was too cold to sleep. She curled uselessly under a pile of heavy clothing, rubbing her freezing hands together, and every now and then breathed warm air into her palms to thaw her numb nose.

Li Wu lay behind her, and from the sound of his breathing, he wasn’t asleep either.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he suddenly called her name: “Shen Zhuxi.”

“Mm?” She answered on instinct.

Li Wu turned her toward him and gathered her into his arms.

Their separate layers of clothing folded together, and two sources of warmth merged into one. Li Wu’s heat poured from him in a steady, unbroken stream, spreading across her legs, her stomach, her chest, and her face.

Li Wu’s back was to the fire, and half his sharp-featured profile was hidden in the shifting light and shadow of the flames.

She met his gaze, and felt — through the single layer of cloth between them — his heart beating with strong, steady force. Her own heartbeat rose to meet it, and together they surged with a fierce, defiant vitality.

“This way you won’t be cold.” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi went rigid, her hands and feet unsure of where to put themselves.

After a moment, she buried her flushed cheek against the shadow of his chest.

“…Mm.”