Shen Zhuxi and Li Kun’s first dinner in Pengcheng County was Xuzhou stir-fried rice noodles.

Although they hadn’t managed to eat the mutton spine hotpot, the stir-fried rice noodles were equally good.

Shortly after calling out to the proprietor, he brought two steaming bowls of noodles to the table. Shen Zhuxi lifted a pair of chopsticks worth of rice noodles coated in red chili oil, and before the noodles even reached her mouth, she was already hit by the fragrant spice of the red oil and the savory aroma of the toppings.

The rich, spicy stir-fried rice noodles were impossible to stop eating. Shen Zhuxi finished one bowl, Li Kun finished seven, and both of them went home with their lips stained red.

When they returned to the courtyard where they were staying, Li Wu and Li Que had not yet come back.

Li Kun kept Shen Zhuxi company in the front courtyard to pass the time. Just as she had done with Li Wu, she snapped off a tree branch and began teaching him to recognize characters. Li Kun, however, was not as quick a learner as Li Wu — before long, his eyelids were drooping with drowsiness.

She had just roused him for the fifth time when, accompanied by a burst of boisterous laughter, the silhouettes of Li Wu and Li Que appeared through the side gate leading to the rear courtyard.

Shen Zhuxi set down the branch, and Li Kun’s drowsiness vanished at once.

“Li Wu!”

“Big brother, third brother, you’re back…”

Li Que’s face was flushed red — clearly quite drunk — and even Li Wu, who drank liquor like water, showed the rare trace of intoxication.

After Li Wu steadied the swaying Li Que and helped him back to his room, he beckoned Li Kun over and said, “Your third brother is drunk. Go and prepare a jug of clean water to leave in his room, and keep quiet tonight — don’t disturb him.”

Li Kun gave a sensible nod. “Diao’er will be quiet… drunk, third brother…”

“You should turn in early as well,” said Li Wu.

Having given Li Kun his instructions, he turned and made his way toward the side room across the courtyard.

Although Li Wu’s words and behavior were no different from usual — aside from the flush across his face — Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but feel a flicker of concern, and reached out to steady his arm.

“What did you eat for dinner?” Li Wu asked.

“Stir-fried rice noodles.”

“Mm.” He gave a vague sound of acknowledgment and said, “Eat on time.”

A heavy wave of alcohol drifted off him. Shen Zhuxi could scarcely imagine how much he had drunk in the rear courtyard.

Four hundred men packed into that courtyard — even if only half of them had toasted him, that was still two hundred cups. Even if it had been water, two hundred cups would be enough to do a person in, let alone liquor.

After helping Li Wu — who seemed to have been soaking in a wine vat for three days and three nights — into the side room, Shen Zhuxi sat him down on the bed. The moment she turned away, a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind.

Shen Zhuxi was so startled she nearly leapt off the ground!

“What are you doing?!” Her face erupted in heat. She frantically tried to peel away the hands clamped to her body — clinging like an octopus — but the moment her fingers made contact with the back of Li Wu’s hand, it was like touching a pot of boiling water.

The shock made her forget everything else for a moment.

“Why are you burning up like this?”

She turned urgently to press a hand to Li Wu’s forehead, but Li Wu simply pressed his cheek against her back and mumbled, “Drinking makes you hot, you silly fool…”

“But you’re this warm… How much did you drink?” Shen Zhuxi said anxiously. “Should we call for a physician?”

“No need… It’s just some liquor, what do we need a physician for. Sleep it off… sleep it off and it’ll be fine…” Li Wu’s words grew slower and slower. Shen Zhuxi turned to look — his eyelids were nearly closed.

From someone acting drunk and foolish, one really couldn’t expect him to remember anything about propriety between men and women. Besides — Li Wu had already seen the inside of her thigh. With only the two of them present, clinging to such propriety would be excessively squeamish.

Shen Zhuxi steadied herself, pried his arms apart, and carefully laid him down on the bed.

This fellow Li Wu — slender and tall as he appeared — was surprisingly heavy. Shen Zhuxi exerted every last bit of her strength to get him properly positioned, then settled his head onto the pillow and arranged everything as it should be. When she was done, she couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief.

There was no way she could change his clothes for him, but washing his face — that much she could manage.

Shen Zhuxi had just begun to straighten up to go fetch water when Li Wu suddenly flung out an arm and knocked her down.

The scene from earlier in the day played out again — only this time, the flailing arm belonged not to Li Kun, but to Li Wu, and the one caught helplessly in his embrace, struggling in vain, was Shen Zhuxi.

“Li Wu!” Shen Zhuxi said urgently. “I’m going to fetch water to wash your face!”

A scorching chin settled into the hollow of her neck.

At her ear, Li Wu murmured softly, “I don’t want my face washed. I only want you.”

A faintly chilly night breeze slipped through the gap in the door, and the candlelight on the table gave a sudden flicker.

Outside the window, a cool night wind stirred; yet the air inside the room seemed to grow only warmer.

Heat mingled with the scent of liquor washed over her from behind. Inside Shen Zhuxi’s chest, it was as though a wild horse had broken free of its reins, charging and crashing from her heart all the way up to her eardrums.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“…Li Wu, are you drunk?” she said, forcing her voice to remain composed.

“I am not drunk,” said Li Wu. “I have never been more clear-headed than I am right now.”

“We are in a false marriage,” Shen Zhuxi said. “Have you forgotten?”

What answered her was a long, sonorous snore.

Shen Zhuxi tried to use the opportunity to slip free — she pulled at the arm around her waist, but found herself only held more tightly than before.

“Li Wu!” Shen Zhuxi could see he was feigning sleep, and said irritably, “Li Wu!”

“…Learned it from you.” Li Wu released his hold on her waist, turned over, and lay facing the ceiling. “No fun.”

Shen Zhuxi rose to leave.

“Where are you going?” Quick as a flash, he caught her by the wrist.

His palm was even hotter than his arm had been. That near-feverish heat made Shen Zhuxi’s heart soften involuntarily, and she gentled her voice. “I’m going to fetch water to wash your face.”

“I don’t want my face washed.” Li Wu’s hand slipped downward.

He clasped her hand, his eyes — brighter than usual — fixed unblinking on hers. His burning fingers slowly threaded through hers, then closed — gently at first, then tightening.

“…I want to look at you,” he said. “Let me look at you, Shen Fool.”

Under his request — softer and quieter than his usual manner — Shen Zhuxi could not find the words to refuse.

Half willing and half reluctant, she let herself be drawn to sit at the edge of the bed. Li Wu lay back against the pillow, fingers interlaced with hers, gaze burning as he watched her. To keep her own thoughts from wandering, Shen Zhuxi took the initiative to speak.

“Did you find out their identities?”

“Of course.” Li Wu said it slowly, then paused before continuing. “That man surnamed Niu is called Niuwang. He was originally just a hunter from Shuzhou. After the capital fell, he traveled a thousand miles from Shu to join the imperial forces. On the road, he was press-ganged into the Liao army — yet he turned around and persuaded over eight hundred soldiers who had been press-ganged just as he had to escape alongside him. The whole way, they were hunted by the Liao army… By the time they reached Xuzhou, of the original eight hundred or more, only half remained.”

“Then why didn’t they leave with His Majesty?”

“You think just anyone has the right to guard His Majesty?” Li Wu gave a cold, mocking smile. “Men like them — with no great family to vouch for them, the lowest of the low — having served even a single day in the Liao army means the mark of the Liao army can never be erased. Even after escaping the Liao army, they are merely known by a different name: Liao army deserters. They came to Xuzhou only because the Liao army’s reach doesn’t extend here. If they went before Emperor Yuanlong and offered to serve him, they might be immediately executed as traitors on public display.”

“But they didn’t join the Liao army willingly!”

“And so what? Who’s to say they aren’t spies sent by the Liao army?” Li Wu laughed coldly. “The cost of taking that risk is too great — and those who have the power to make such decisions all enjoy high offices and generous salaries. Who would bother vouching for people like them?”

Shen Zhuxi had no rebuttal. She fell silent, her feelings tangled.

“Worrying about others rather than worrying about yourself —”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong with me?”

“Emperor Yuanlong has already left Xuzhou, and his whereabouts are once again unknown. What do you intend to do?”

“What else can be done? I can only continue to wait. His Majesty will eventually establish a new capital, and it won’t be too late to seek him out then…”

“You don’t seem to be in any particular hurry to be reunited with Emperor Yuanlong.” Li Wu’s gaze was sharp and penetrating, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

“…That’s your imagination.” Shen Zhuxi said the words against her own feelings.

She did very much wish to be reunited with His Majesty — but the moment she thought of Fu Xuanmiao, who was bound up with His Majesty’s return, her resolve wavered.

The world said that the Prime Minister’s only son was like jade from Kunshan — pure in hue, cool in brilliance, the dream lover of half the women in the realm. Yet after years of living alongside him, all Shen Zhuxi had accumulated was a bone-deep dread.

The mere thought of possibly resuming that wedding, of returning to the hollow, lifeless existence she had led before, filled Shen Zhuxi’s heart with fear.

“…What are you thinking about?”

Shen Zhuxi looked at Li Wu. His dark, deep eyes had a strange way of smoothing out the unease within her.

It was as though any fear, at this person’s side, was not worth mentioning.

Shen Zhuxi herself did not realize it: as she looked at Li Wu, the corners of her lips curved into a faint smile.

“I was wondering — is there anything in this world that you’re afraid of?”

To her surprise, Li Wu answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”

“You have something you’re afraid of too?” Shen Zhuxi said, astonished.

Li Wu gave her a sidelong look. “No living person is without fear.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

Li Wu closed his eyes, and from his throat came a resounding snore.

This shameless scoundrel! Shen Zhuxi seethed. That was plainly the trick she herself had invented to brush him off — how had he taken to using it more naturally than she ever had?

In the end, Shen Zhuxi never did manage to go fetch water to wash his face. Li Wu kept her hand clasped tightly in his the entire time, as though the moment he loosened his grip even slightly, she would make off with every last one of his possessions and flee.

Shen Zhuxi leaned against the side of the bed and, without realizing it, drifted off to sleep herself. When she stirred in a drowsy half-waking state sometime in the night, she found she was already lying on the bed, covered by the thin quilt she had originally draped over Li Wu.

In her half-dreaming haze she turned her head to look — Li Wu was sleeping peacefully beside her, covered by the other half of the quilt.

Reassured, she let herself sink back into sleep.

The glittering stars withdrew behind the curtain of night; the vast sky breathed out a brilliant dawn. The chirping of birds broke the stillness of the earth.

The powerful smell of the mutton spine hotpot faded away along with the evaporating morning dew, vanishing from the courtyard without a trace.

The rosy light of dawn climbed up the slender jujube tree in the front courtyard — thin as a bamboo pole — and a plump gray sparrow alighted on the branch, chirping merrily, its call weaving together with the urgent knocking at the gate in an alternating chorus.

The side room, shut tight throughout the night, was suddenly flung open from within. Li Wu, his hair disheveled and his face carrying the full force of someone woken too early, strode in large steps toward the gate.

“Who the devil is hammering away first thing in the morning?!” Li Wu kicked the gate open with one foot.

The visitor, just about to knock again, jolted in surprise — hand frozen in midair.

Li Wu squinted, looking the person standing at the gate up and down, his gaze coming to rest on the sea horse insignia embroidered on the man’s official robes.

A sea horse — the emblem of a ninth-rank official. Trifling as such a rank was, it was still not the kind of person who ought to be showing up personally at his door.

“Are you by any chance Li Wu?” The ninth-rank official cupped his hands in a respectful salute and said politely.

“…I am,” said Li Wu. “What business do you have with me?”

“I am the Chief Clerk of Pengcheng County, here by order of the Xuzhou Prefect to invite you, Master Li, for a meeting.”