The bowl of plain broth noodles was finished. Li Wu picked up the bowl and got down from the bed. Shen Zhuxi followed him out toward the main hall.

“Where are you going?” Li Wu asked.

“My brush, ink, paper, and ink slab are still at the wonton stall, and the table and stool haven’t been brought back either…” Shen Zhuxi said quietly.

“I already had Diao’er fetch them back long ago — if you’d waited until you remembered, everything would’ve been gone for ages.”

Shen Zhuxi flushed and murmured a thank-you.

“All right, do whatever you need to do. As for those writing things — I’ll go return them shortly. You can’t make a living with a letter-writing business here in Yutou Town,” Li Wu said. “If you want to earn your own money, I’ll set you up with a job.”

“What kind of job?” Shen Zhuxi asked quickly.

“Teach me to read.” He paused and looked back at her. “I’ll cover your room and board and pay you a tuition fee on top of it.”

That sounded more reasonable than anything — at least more reasonable than continuing to struggle with the letter-writing business.

Shen Zhuxi thought about it briefly and agreed.

“All right, I’ll teach you to read!” she said. “In that case, we don’t need to return the writing things either — after all…”

Before she could finish, Li Wu said, “We’re still returning them.”

“What will you use to write, then?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“Sticks and sand — the yard is full of both. Why must one have paper and brush to write?”

Shen Zhuxi had no answer to that. Before she had even managed a response, Li Wu had already walked out of the main hall.

Well, if that was what he wanted, she had no objection — after all, learning to write really did use a great deal of paper and ink in the early stages.

She followed him out and said, walking alongside him, “So how much will you pay me in tuition each month?”

Li Wu glanced at her. “How much do you want?”

Shen Zhuxi had no sense of prices and did not dare name a figure outright. She hesitated. “What do you think is reasonable?”

“The teachers in the county charge one tael of silver per student per year,” Li Wu said. “I’ll give you thirty taels a year.”

Shen Zhuxi felt a little uncomfortable. “You don’t need to give that much… Just pay me the same as the teachers do.”

“It’s being offered, so take it,” Li Wu said. “I do have my own requirements.”

Li Wu walked into the kitchen. Shen Zhuxi followed him in.

“What requirements?”

“Help out with the household chores,” he said. “Washing clothes, that sort of thing.”

Shen Zhuxi froze. “I’ve never washed clothes…”

“Cooking?”

“I don’t know how…”

“Surely you can boil water?”

Shen Zhuxi dared not answer. Li Wu set down the bowl and chopsticks and turned to look at her. “What on earth did you do to serve people in the palace?”

“The Princess… the Princess only had me accompany her in reading, writing, painting, and playing the zither…”

Li Wu frowned. “Playing the — what? What’s that?” Without waiting for Shen Zhuxi to explain, he went on, “Never mind. Do whatever you like. Just don’t cry.”

He muttered to himself, “…Whenever you cry, I get a headache.”

Shen Zhuxi felt deeply flustered and twisted the hem of her robe.

It wasn’t as though she wanted to cry!

She stood in the kitchen for a while, watching Li Wu rinse the bowl and chopsticks in a small ceramic basin of clean water, and then said suddenly: “Is the water vat filled?”

“What are you going to do?” Li Wu shot her a glance.

Shen Zhuxi wriggled awkwardly and said, “A bath tonight…”

“You want to bathe again?” Li Wu raised his voice. “Didn’t you use up an entire vat last night?”

Shen Zhuxi was indignant too. “I bathed last night, so naturally I’d bathe tonight as well!”

“Do you know how far the river is from here?” Li Wu said irritably. “Do you roll around in mud pits every day or something, that you need to bathe every single day?”

“I bathed every day in the palace!”

“And is this the palace?” Li Wu shot back.

Shen Zhuxi could not out-argue him. Furious, she snapped, “Then tell me where to fetch the water from — I’ll go fetch it myself!”

Li Wu did not try to stop her, told her where to go, and as she left, he sent her off with a look that said plainly: if you actually manage to carry the water back, I’ll forfeit my surname. It infuriated Shen Zhuxi so much that she refused to even glance at him as she grabbed the wooden bucket from the back yard and charged out of the courtyard.

It was just fetching a bucket of water. She would only fetch enough for her own washing — Li Wu could go dirty for all she cared!

Walking along the country path with the empty wooden bucket swinging at her side, Shen Zhuxi had entirely forgotten the renewed impression Li Wu had made on her. All the way there, she kicked at the pebbles underfoot as though they were Li Wu himself, muttering under her breath the whole time: “Bully! Ruffian! Go rot in your filth!”

The water source was closer than the Lan River she had gone to after entering town, but it was still a considerable distance from Li Wu’s home. At least Li Wu’s directions were straightforward: walk out of the courtyard, turn left, and keep going straight until it came into view.

Shen Zhuxi walked for what felt like a long time, the uneven dirt path pressing painfully into the soles of her feet. She was just considering stopping to rub them when a clear, gently flowing stream appeared at the far end of her field of vision.

She had no time to rest now. She quickened her pace and finally reached the riverside.

The sun had already slipped below the horizon, leaving only moonlight scattered across the water — glimmering like a layer of scattered salt, every ripple catching the light and blazing with it.

She plunged the wooden bucket into the water. The moment the river rushed in, she felt the enormous pull of it, compounded by the force of the current, and Shen Zhuxi strained with everything she had just to keep herself steady.

After a great struggle, the bucket was full. Shen Zhuxi heaved upward — she could not lift it.

She threw every ounce of strength she had into it and still could not lift it. In the end, she reluctantly poured some of the water out, and with great effort managed to haul the half-full bucket up onto the bank.

She had only gone a few steps with the half-bucket when it became unbearable. The arm carrying the bucket ached and burned from being dragged down by the weight. She was forced to stop and set the bucket down to rest. Looking back toward the river, she had gone barely ten steps. At this rate, she might not make it back to Li Wu’s home before sunrise.

As it stood, one more night of going unwashed was no longer the most important thing. What mattered most was that Shen Zhuxi refused to be looked down on by Li Wu.

Fueled by that single stubborn thought, she picked up the bucket again and pressed on toward home.

Every few steps, she switched the bucket to her other hand. Both her palms quickly reddened from the pressure of the handle, and her strength drained away with every sway of the bucket. She refused to admit defeat, forcing herself forward.

So focused was she on watching the water in the bucket that she forgot to watch her feet — and then she suddenly stumbled.

“Watch out!”

Li Wu’s voice appeared from nowhere behind her. She had no time to feel surprise before her body and the bucket pitched forward together and hit the ground.

Ice-cold river water splashed over her. A small amount pooled into the little hollow that had tripped her, and in an instant turned the color of mud.

The tears came to Shen Zhuxi’s eyes immediately.

“How can you not watch where you’re walking!” Li Wu materialized from somewhere, and two strong hands gripped her arms and hauled her effortlessly up from the wet, muddy ground.

“You couldn’t lift it, so why force yourself?!” Li Wu said.

“I could manage it!” Shen Zhuxi cried, tears in her voice. She pushed Li Wu away, refusing his support, and bent to pick up the bucket from the ground.

“Honestly, I give up on you!” Li Wu grabbed the bucket from her and strode ahead toward the river in long, swift steps.

Shen Zhuxi stood where she was, eyes blurred with tears, watching him stride back to the riverside, plunge the bucket into the shimmering water, and in no time at all carry a bucket filled to the brim back toward her.

The distance she had struggled so long to walk, he covered in two or three strides.

“Stop crying, stop crying—” he said impatiently. “If you keep crying, I’ll take your water away.”

Shen Zhuxi immediately suppressed her sobs. Looking at the brimming bucket of water, she no longer felt quite so heartbroken. Then she looked at Li Wu’s exasperated expression, and recalled how dismissive he had looked when she set out — and she could not help it. Her tears broke into laughter.

“What are you laughing at!” Li Wu said irritably.

“Why did you follow me out?” she said.

“If I hadn’t, you foolish girl, who knows when you’d have ever made it home.”

“You could have just helped me fetch the water from the start.”

“And you could have just given up on bathing.”

“I most certainly will not — it’s disgusting.” Shen Zhuxi wrinkled her nose.

Perhaps because the weight of the bucket now rested in his hands, she could keep pace with Li Wu easily. The two of them walked side by side, under the gentle moonlight. On either side of the country path, the ridges between the fields were draped in a soft and hazy veil of silver.

Li Wu suddenly glanced down at the hands hanging at her sides. “Let me see your hands.”

Shen Zhuxi hid them behind her back. “It’s nothing.”

“Show them to me!” Li Wu demanded.

Reluctantly, Shen Zhuxi held out both hands. Two vivid red lines ran across each pale palm where the bucket handle had pressed — strikingly obvious against her fair skin.

Li Wu looked at them for a long time without saying anything. Just when Shen Zhuxi was about to prompt him, he finally spoke.

“…You really are a fool.”

“You’re the fool! The person who calls someone else a fool is the real fool!”

“Are you five years old?”

“You’re the one calling people fools — how old are you?”

They bickered back and forth, one word for another, and the road that had seemed so impossibly long began to shrink. Before Shen Zhuxi even felt tired, Li Wu’s small courtyard had already appeared ahead.

“Wipe yourself down with a towel to save water, and leave the used water in the bucket — I’ll need it tomorrow,” Li Wu said.

Since he had helped carry a full bucket of water back for her, Shen Zhuxi agreed to his request without argument.

She knew well enough what used water could be good for. It could water plants — and that osmanthus tree of his in the courtyard certainly looked like it needed some. Compared to the thick, lush osmanthus trees in the imperial garden, Li Wu’s tree was barely a sapling.

Li Wu carried the water to the back yard, and Shen Zhuxi followed. She had assumed he would set it behind the screen, but instead he took it into the kitchen.

“Why are you bringing it in here?” Shen Zhuxi asked, puzzled.

“With that precious, fragile body of yours — the one that can’t even lift a single bucket — if you bathe in cold water and get sick, it’ll be me who ends up nursing you back to health.” Li Wu crouched by the stove and started the fire, grumbling to himself the whole time like a cantankerous old woman: “I thought I’d brought home a palace maid to help look after things — turns out I brought home a princess who needs to be looked after herself! What a wretched lot in life I have. No peace for me!”

His manner and his expression were so comical that Shen Zhuxi did not feel even a flicker of annoyance — she could only fight the urge to laugh.

“Maid’s circumstances! Princess’s airs! I really am saddled with trouble!”

He finished his tirade and turned to look at Shen Zhuxi, only to find her covering her mouth to hide her laughter. His face darkened even further.

“I’m fuming over here, and you think it’s funny?”

“I’m not laughing,” Shen Zhuxi said immediately, pressing her lips together.

Li Wu tossed a piece of firewood into the blazing furnace. Bright red flames licked at the shadow of the wood, and a steady chorus of crackling filled the air.

“…What sin did I commit in my last life, to have you plaguing me in this one.”

The sound of the burning wood swallowed his muttering. Shen Zhuxi had not caught it clearly, and asked, “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything!” He shot her a glare.

…What a strange man.

The water heated, and Li Wu helped carry it behind the bamboo screen as well. Still uneasy, Shen Zhuxi called after him, “No peeking!”

“Even if you begged me to look, I wouldn’t!” Li Wu walked out of the back yard without turning around.

Shen Zhuxi stepped behind the bamboo screen, slipped out of her clothes, and used a clean towel to wipe herself down with the clear river water. It was far less luxurious than a proper bath back in the palace, but it was clean enough.

When she was done, she left the remaining half-bucket of water behind the screen and returned to the bedroom to rest. Li Wu had already settled carelessly onto the floor pallet in the main hall. When Shen Zhuxi passed by him, he lay absolutely motionless, like a log.

That night, Shen Zhuxi slept especially soundly. She did not dream of the palace again.

The next morning, she woke refreshed and full of energy. The moment she lifted the bamboo curtain and stepped out, an image of considerable impact greeted her eyes.