…T-this certainly gave her a clear view — but who could possibly concentrate on dumplings!

Shen Zhuxi’s face went crimson. She tried to slip out of Li Wu’s arms; Li Wu shifted one arm, and she was back where she started.

“If you don’t watch carefully, you’ll have no idea how to fold them.” Li Wu said, and with his right hand he pinched the wrapper resting in his left palm, pressing the first pleat into place.

“You — you’re taking advantage of me!”

Shen Zhuxi’s face was as red as a boiled shrimp — whether from anger or mortification, she couldn’t quite tell.

She attempted another escape, and was again caught by Li Wu’s long arm and reeled back in.

“Who’s taking advantage of whom — you’d better not take advantage of me.” Li Wu clicked his tongue, released the wrapper, and flour-dusted fingers closed around Shen Zhuxi’s chin, forcing her head to face forward. “Pay attention. This is the last time I’m going to show you. If you still can’t get it after this, even Li Diao’er would look down on you.”

With no choice but to comply, Shen Zhuxi opened her eyes wide and watched with full concentration as Li Wu slowly pressed the second pleat into place.

This time, he worked each pleat deliberately slowly. His lean fingers sealed the pleats one by one; the sleeve had been pushed up to the elbow, revealing on his forearm the blue-green ink of a soaring phoenix.

With every pleat that formed, there came the soft rustle of fabric.

His taut arm repeatedly grazed her shoulder and her own arm — like a block of heated stone pressing against her, each contact insisting upon its own existence.

His warm breath fell again and again on the sensitive crown of her head, and that unfamiliar sensation stirred an unfamiliar, tingling numbness. Shen Zhuxi stood rigid, afraid to move, her gaze fixed stiffly on the dumpling taking shape in his palm.

“Can you see it clearly yet?” Shen Zhuxi was still in the middle of her inner turmoil when Li Wu lowered his head and spoke directly beside her ear. “Would you like an even closer look?”

“No need, no need!” Shen Zhuxi hunched her shoulders, unable to imagine what an even closer distance would entail. “I can see clearly!”

“Really?” Li Wu said.

“Really!”

“Then go ahead.” Li Wu stepped aside from the cutting board. “If you still can’t manage it, I’ll teach you up close one more time.”

With that “threat” hanging over her, how could Shen Zhuxi dare to be careless? Channeling the focused attention she once reserved for embroidery examinations set by her needlework instructors, she carefully, painstakingly folded a willow-leaf dumpling that could, by any fair assessment, be deemed acceptable.

Shen Zhuxi was rather astonished at herself.

She held up the first dumpling born from her own hands and presented it to Li Wu like a treasure: “Look!”

Li Wu’s gaze dropped — but it landed on the brightness sparkling in her eyes, and stayed there for a moment before he finally said:

“…What a pity.”

Shen Zhuxi paid no attention to his nonsense. Full of excitement, she marked the first dumpling she had made with a small distinguishing sign.

Once she had a start, everything that followed came more easily. The two of them swiftly used up the entire basin of filling, and arranged on the large bamboo tray, laid side by side in orderly rows, were plump white willow-leaf dumplings — interspersed here and there with a few of Shen Zhuxi’s independently invented new styles.

Building from the willow-leaf as her foundation, she had stumbled her way into developing crescent dumplings and sunflower dumplings. Even after all the wrappers were used up, she still felt she hadn’t had her fill of folding, and made Li Wu promise they would make another batch in a few days.

The dumplings were ready. Now came the final step: cooking them.

Li Wu used chopsticks to slide the dumplings from the bamboo tray into the boiling water, each one landing with a plop. The moment they hit the water, the bubbling in the pot went still. He stirred the dumplings with his chopsticks to keep them from sticking together at the bottom.

The round, plump sunflower dumpling that Shen Zhuxi had made drifted up with the movement and floated to the center of the iron pot.

Once the water came back to a boil, Li Wu poured in a measure of cold water.

Shen Zhuxi looked puzzled. “Why add cold water?”

“It firms up the skin — makes it springier, less likely to break.” Li Wu said concisely.

Shen Zhuxi didn’t fully understand what “firming up” meant in this context, but if Li Wu did it this way, he must have his reasons.

In a moment she would find out for herself just what a firmed-up dumpling tasted like.

Li Wu added cold water three times in total. After the water came to a boil the fourth time, he finally picked up the strainer ladle and began scooping out the plump white dumplings.

The air had already filled with the faint, warm fragrance of boiled dough. Shen Zhuxi’s stomach betrayed her with an involuntary swallow.

Once the dumplings were on the table, Li Wu set out the dipping sauce — studded with sesame seeds floating on the surface.

Shen Zhuxi waited for him to sit down before snatching up her chopsticks with barely contained impatience.

“Try them.”

The moment Li Wu spoke, she extended her chopsticks toward the sunflower dumpling she had been eyeing for some time.

Made from two wrappers pressed together and pleated into bloom, the sunflower dumpling resembled a flower in full flourish. Shen Zhuxi picked it up with care and gave it a gentle dip in the sauce. Then, with something close to reverence, she placed into her mouth the first bite of real food she had tasted after all she had endured.

“How is it?” Li Wu watched her.

Shen Zhuxi nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

The past month of cold and hunger felt like a dream, and now at last the nightmare was over, and she had found her way back to the world of the living.

“…Silly thing.” Li Wu pressed his finger pad gently to the corner of her eye and wiped away the tear. “Eat more. Put back everything you lost.”

Shen Zhuxi nodded emphatically.

With food like this in front of her, the best respect she could show was to eat!

She picked up the half-eaten sunflower dumpling and put it back in her mouth for another bite.

If the first bite had been a hasty, overwhelmed swallow, the second was slow and deliberate. Shen Zhuxi tasted the pork-and-cabbage dumpling carefully, and every element — skin and filling alike — was beyond reproach.

The dumpling skin, thinned and strengthened by Li Wu’s patient technique, was delicate yet springy — one gentle bite, and the savory pork-and-cabbage filling burst through the skin; the mince, made from pork lard first rendered for its fat and then finely ground, was rich without being greasy, full of juices, and now and then as she chewed she encountered a hidden surprise tucked inside the pork-and-cabbage — pieces of water chestnut that Li Wu had minced, and that Shen Zhuxi had stirred into the filling with her own hands.

The water chestnut was crisp and refreshing, tucked inside the pork filling and adding a light, clean note. Pick up a dumpling made without a single compromise in skin or filling, dip it once in the sauce freshly tempered with hot oil, and let the sweet, frost-kissed cabbage meld with the flavors of the pork and water chestnut all at once in your mouth. Nothing could be more gently nourishing — more perfectly suited to rewarding two stomachs that had been through a long journey — than pork-and-cabbage dumplings.

Shen Zhuxi ate nine dumplings in one sitting, breaking her personal lifetime record.

Li Wu was something else entirely: by her rough count, he put away at least fifty with no visible effort, sweeping the bamboo tray completely clean.

After the meal, Shen Zhuxi helped Li Wu tidy up. Li Wu said nothing, but at some point while washing the bowls he fell silent. Shen Zhuxi knew he must be thinking of Li Que.

Where were Li Kun and Li Que right now? It would be wonderful if they could be reunited soon.

Li Wu missed them; so did Shen Zhuxi.

Since leaving the palace, she had spent nearly every step of the journey alongside these three — and now with two of them suddenly gone, the dining table and the house itself felt hollow and too quiet.

If even she felt that keenly, how much more so must Li Wu, who had lived all his years with his two younger brothers?

Thinking of this, she deliberately put on a bright, cheerful tone: “Let’s eat our fill and then go for a walk.”

“Buy toilet paper?” Li Wu glanced over at her.

Even though that really was part of the reason…

Shen Zhuxi went red: there was no hiding anything from Li Wu!

“Let’s go.”

Li Wu set down the clean bowl he had just finished washing. He was about to wipe his dripping hands on his clothes when Shen Zhuxi — who had seen this coming — moved first, quick as a flash, picking up the cloth from beside him and catching his hands in hers, wiping away the water.

Li Wu watched her in silence.

“There!” Shen Zhuxi dried his hands and felt a quiet satisfaction bloom in her chest. She smiled. “Let’s go!”

The two locked up the courtyard and walked out into the unfamiliar town with no particular destination.

Compared to Xuanzhou, which lay just on the other side of the same mountain range, Huzhou was a world unto itself — untouched by any hint of the famine outside.

People who had finished their evening meal were drifting out of their homes for an evening stroll; the entertainment quarters were hung with lanterns and festooned with color, and the sound of music and strings drifted through the air, finding its way into every corner. The wonton stall had already seen one crowd through and the fragrance of hot wontons still lingered where they had passed. A small child with two tufts of hair standing straight up on her head, clutching a sugar-coated hawthorn skewer, ran laughing into a house with its door thrown open. A vendor of herbal cooling tea carried his pole through the lanes, shouting his pitch at the top of his lungs — his voice rising and falling as it was occasionally swallowed by bursts of laughter from a nearby tavern.

Shen Zhuxi walked through the streets of Wucheng County with a strange, quiet joy filling her heart.

At least, in the midst of chaos, there was still this.

If every place were Wucheng County, would there still be war in this land? Would farmers still rise up in revolt?

“Good sir, madam — care to buy some rose cooling tea? It’s my family’s secret recipe, passed down through generations. I guarantee one sip and you’ll feel clear-headed and refreshed from head to toe!” The roving tea vendor came to a stop in front of them, pole on his shoulder.

“Would you like some?” Li Wu looked at Shen Zhuxi.

Shen Zhuxi was curious. She nodded.

Li Wu counted out four copper coins and bought a bamboo-tube serving, which he passed to her. Shen Zhuxi took a small, careful sip as Li Wu watched. “How is it?”

True to the vendor’s claim, the cooling tea was refreshing and pleasant. The tea leaves were of poor quality, but the faint, drifting fragrance of rose petals happened to mask the staleness just enough, making the drink easy to enjoy. Add to that its modest price, and Shen Zhuxi nodded in the end, offering a lenient verdict:

“Drinkable.”

After the tea, the two continued walking, and without noticing quite how far they had wandered, they drifted off the main street and came to the bank of the city moat. Li Wu found a teahouse and sat down, ordered a small plate of watermelon seeds to crack, and Shen Zhuxi watched him diligently tuck the husks into a little dish, her heart suffused with the quiet warmth of someone witnessing something unexpectedly well-behaved.

The teahouse was packed. The three young men seated beside Shen Zhuxi looked like scholars, dressed in long gowns. Even though they kept their voices lowered, Shen Zhuxi caught fragments of their conversation.

They were talking about the capital region — a world she had long grown distant from.

“…The people already have nothing to eat, and the so-called true dragon Emperor is still fighting back and forth around the capital region. Even if there were grain to be had, it couldn’t survive this kind of destruction…”

“People who escaped from the capital say they’ve started to eat each other there… It’s truly dreadful.”

“When rites and music collapse and the will of heaven shifts… how are any of us supposed to live?”

A sigh, and then the three at the neighboring table fell into a heavy, brooding silence — while from the main street in the distance, the sound of music and singing from the entertainment quarters still drifted faintly over.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart grew somber. Her gaze drifted to the slowly flowing water of the moat.

The world she saw now was no longer the world of a Da Yan princess. It was the world as felt through the body of an utterly ordinary person.

It was nothing like what she had seen from inside the palace — beautiful and whole. Instead it was riddled with wounds, and in places, weeping with foul-smelling rot.

Something had fallen ill.

Not the farmers who had taken up arms in revolt, but the vast organization that lived upon the backs of the people — that was what had fallen ill. The former held the latter’s lifeline in their grip; the latter could equally close its hand around the former’s throat.

A year since leaving the palace, and Shen Zhuxi no longer harbored the same uncomplicated hatred she once had for the rebel army that had bathed the imperial city in blood. Even those, as maddened as they had become, had once been ordinary people who rose with the sun and rested when it set. It was the corrupt and indifferent government that had turned them into what they were.

The pretender Emperor today was beyond doubt guilty of the gravest crimes — but if one were to truly trace back and name the root cause of all that had led to this…

Shen Zhuxi dared not follow that thought any further. Any further, and it would not be mere unorthodox thinking — it would be enough to bring the lightning down on her head.

She was a princess of Da Yan. How could she think this way?

Shen Zhuxi shook her head in vexation, trying to drive the treasonous thoughts from her mind — but they had taken root inside her like a deep-seated affliction that had worked its way into the bone, and would not be dislodged.

As long as you’re still breathing, everything has hope.

She recited Li Wu’s words silently to herself.

Could the Crown Prince, her elder brother — could he be the one who would bring the dawn to the people of this world?