“What does a big, strapping man like you think you’re doing, blubbering in front of my woman?” Li Wu’s expression was sour.

Before Niuwang could even open his mouth, Shen Zhuxi — who had formed a budding friendship with him through their shared grievances against Zhang Sheng — immediately spoke up in his defense: “Though Mister Niu appears rough on the outside, he truly has the heart of an innocent child.”

Niuwang gave a sheepish grin. “Forgive me, forgive me. I just have this habit of tearing up easily — Brother Li, don’t hold it against me. Oh, but you’re Centurion Li now. Is it still alright if I call you Brother Li?”

“Call me whatever you used to call me,” said Li Wu.

“Brother Li really is a straightforward fellow — I can’t stand all that roundabout nonsense. And Lady Li, please don’t call me Mister either. I’m just a rough man, it makes me uncomfortable — I’m quite a bit older than you, why don’t you just call me Big Brother Niu—”

“You want my woman calling you Big Brother Niu?” Li Wu’s expression darkened further. “Just plain ‘Brother Niu’ is out of the question too!”

“It’s just a name — Brother Li, you’re being awfully petty.” Niuwang sighed.

“Big Brother Niu, are you all still living in that same courtyard?”

Shen Zhuxi ignored the scowling face beside her and asked with genuine concern the question she had been mulling over for some time.

“We are.” Niuwang nodded. “Living anywhere else would cost too much — we just can’t afford it.”

“What are your plans going forward?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“Take it one step at a time. Right now, we’re taking on escort missions for merchant caravans — brings in some income. It’s not much, but it’s enough to fill our stomachs.” Niuwang still looked shaken by the memory. “Thank goodness the food shortage has passed. If we’re careful with spending, life is manageable. Otherwise, I honestly wouldn’t know how to feed so many brothers…”

Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but ask, “If that’s the case, why don’t you all return home?”

“Return home… easier said than done.” Niuwang sighed. “Those brothers of mine were all press-ganged into service — if they could go back, why wouldn’t they? Those who had homes to return to left long ago. The four hundred or so brothers who remain — some had nowhere to go to begin with, others went back only to find not a single family member left. With nowhere to go, they came back to Xuzhou.”

When the realm falls into chaos and dynasties crumble, it is always the common people who suffer most innocently.

They had never enjoyed the privileges of the imperial family, yet they bore the same consequences — and far more bitter ones at that.

Shen Zhuxi felt a strong urge to lend a hand, yet she could think of no way to settle over four hundred grown men.

Niuwang glanced around and said, “Brother Li, where’s that incredibly strong second brother of yours? Before you moved out, I lost to him in an arm-wrestling match. After you left, I’ve been training my arm strength ever since. Today, I’m going to redeem myself—”

“He’s at the garrison drilling,” said Li Wu. “Even if you run into him, you’ll still lose.”

“That’s not necessarily true!” Niuwang retorted at once. “I’m no pushover either — without actually trying, how would anyone know who wins and who loses?”

Li Wu laughed coolly. “I’d know.”

“You — you’re neither me nor Second Brother Li. How would you know?” Niuwang said, unconvinced.

“Want to match yourself against him? Simple.” Li Wu leaned back in the rattan chair, feigning nonchalance. “Join my garrison. You can challenge him whenever you like.”

“You want me to join the Xuzhou army?” Niuwang was taken aback. “But what about my four hundred brothers?”

“I’m a Centurion, not a Commander of a Thousand. I can’t feed four hundred men.” Li Wu said. “At most, I can take in twenty of you.”

“No.” Niuwang shook his head immediately. “Those four hundred brothers of mine — we’ve been through life and death together. On the battlefield, they called me General Niu; in private, they call me Big Brother Niu. They trust me so completely — how could I bring myself to abandon them?”

“I won’t hide it from you,” Niuwang continued. “There have been several people before who wanted to absorb our unit, but they weren’t willing to take all of us — so I turned them all down. I made a promise to my brothers: whether we’re eating chaff and weeds or feasting and drinking well, we stay together. It makes no sense that the enemy’s blades couldn’t split us apart on the battlefield, yet now that things are looking up, we’d scatter to the winds.”

“You and your four hundred brothers — do you have any conditions?” Li Wu asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t survive on thin air,” said Li Wu. “Military pay, monthly wages, a share of spoils — call it whatever you like. Don’t you have some expectations?”

Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but look at Li Wu. Knowing him as she did, he never spoke without purpose.

Since Li Wu had asked this, he must have already entertained the idea of absorbing Niuwang’s forces.

She found herself looking toward Niuwang with anticipation.

“What expectations could we have? As long as we get what everyone else gets, that’s enough.” Niuwang smiled. “We never thought about getting rich off military pay.”

Li Wu fell silent, deep in thought.

The audience in the theater had completely dispersed, and the stage that had once been so lively now stood empty. A young manservant in a short brown robe efficiently cleared away the fruit platters and teacups from each table, while a little maidservant with her hair tied in two buns swept the ground littered with melon seed shells and peanut husks.

“The show’s over — time for us to head back for dinner.” Niuwang stood up with a cheerful grin. “Brother Li, since you have your wife with you, we won’t invite you to eat with us. There are too many rough men at our place — whether you send your wife home alone or bring her along, neither seems quite right. Some other time, we’ll treat you to a drink.”

Li Wu nodded. Niuwang clasped his fists in farewell and strode out of the theater.

The little maidservant with two buns came over, broom in hand.

“Honored guests, will you be staying for the next performance?”

Li Wu looked toward Shen Zhuxi.

Watching the opera was enjoyable enough — but watching it with Li Wu was utterly dull. She’d have much preferred watching it with Big Brother Niu.

“We’ll be leaving,” said Shen Zhuxi.

She walked toward the theater’s main entrance. Li Wu followed behind her with a lively spring in his step.

“Where shall we go next?”

He had woken up refreshed — but Shen Zhuxi was tired.

“We’ve been out all day. I want to go home.”

“Alright, then we’ll eat at home.” said Li Wu. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Pig offal.”

Li Wu was visibly startled, his stride faltering for a moment.

“I thought you didn’t eat that sort of thing?”

“I’ve eaten boiled wild grass before. Are you saying I can’t manage pig offal?” said Shen Zhuxi.

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Li Wu recalled the one and only time she had eaten pig offal — and ended up vomiting all over him.

“Fine… since you’re not the one cooking, what are you asking me for then.”

Shen Zhuxi gave him a resentful look. The more she looked at him, the more he reminded her of Zhang Sheng.

“Cook, cook, cook — I’ll make you a whole basin when we get back. But first, tell me — why do you suddenly want pig offal?”

Outside the theater, the streets were noisy and bustling, the blazing sunset hanging low in the sky.

Shen Zhuxi was quiet for a good while.

“…I want to try.”

“Try what?” Li Wu looked puzzled.

“I want to try… living differently from before.”

Working up the courage to try pig offal again proved far less difficult than she had imagined.

Once she set aside all irrelevant associations, she tasted the deliciousness of pig offal for the first time — and she finally understood Li Kun’s persistent devotion to it.

Just like the pig offal, how many other things had she missed out on in the past because of her own prejudices?

Shen Zhuxi was filled with regret.

Her former life had been so pale, so impoverished. If only she could have discovered sooner how vast and wondrous the world truly was.

She had spent so much time and energy trying to become what others expected of her. Shen Zhuxi felt deeply ashamed.

After a satisfying meal, she helped Li Wu clear the dinner table, her movements now far more nimble than when she had first started. Shen Zhuxi used explaining the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance to Li Wu as after-dinner entertainment. When the moon had climbed to the tips of the branches, the two washed up and made their way through the night back to the main room, lying down on either side of the two feather dusters placed between them.

After a few scattered bits of idle conversation, the air gradually grew still.

Outside the window, waves of cicada song echoed.

Stars blanketed every corner of the night sky; their faint glow seeped through the small window and dissolved into motes of dust floating in the air, drifting freely.

Two people lay on the reddish-brown canopy bed — one lying in a proper, composed manner, the other sprawled carelessly.

The carelessly sprawled one was using a hand concealed beneath the covers to stealthily nudge the feather duster across the divide.

The feathers of the duster brushed across the back of Shen Zhuxi’s hand. She jolted awake and instinctively pressed down on the feather duster that was inching away from her.

“What do you think you’re doing!” she snapped, opening her eyes in annoyance.

“It was digging into me,” said Li Wu, completely unabashed.

You’re full of nonsense!

Shen Zhuxi swallowed the crude words that had nearly leapt from her mouth and resolved from this moment on to refuse to stoop to his level.

“If you don’t fidget around, how can it possibly dig into you?”

Li Wu rolled over and looked at her from the side. “Can you sleep?”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

“I can’t sleep.”

Shen Zhuxi: …So what!

“I can’t sleep — do you have the heart to fall asleep on me?”

Did that even need asking? The answer was so obvious.

“…I don’t,” Shen Zhuxi said, going against her conscience.

“Then talk with me.”

The urge to sleep came rolling back in. Shen Zhuxi blinked slowly and murmured, “Talk about what?”

“Why are you completely different from what the rumors said about the Princess of Yue?”

“…How am I different?” After a moment of silence, Shen Zhuxi gave in with resignation. “We both slept on gold and jade — the rumors weren’t entirely unfair to me.”

“You really hold grudges. I said ‘sleeping on gold and jade’ once and you’ve remembered it all this time — why can’t you remember other things?”

“Like what?” Shen Zhuxi looked at him with genuinely puzzled eyes.

“What happened when you were drunk.”

“I remember that,” said Shen Zhuxi, looking bewildered.

Li Wu’s expression shifted — somewhere between pleasant surprise and alarm. “You remember?”

“How could I not?” said Shen Zhuxi. “You wouldn’t let me hand you a towel to wipe your face, then fell asleep in a slovenly mess — and because of you, I didn’t even get to bathe and change clothes that night…”

“…”

Li Wu had known better than to have any expectations of this thick-skinned, oblivious fool.

“How was your seventeenth birthday — did I do well by you?” Li Wu asked.

“Good.”

“Just good?” Li Wu, that wretch, lifted an eyebrow in dissatisfaction.

“Very good. Couldn’t be better,” said Shen Zhuxi.

It was all she could say.

Because when emotions swelled to a certain height, only the simplest, most direct words remained.

“Li Wu…” she said. “Thank you.”

A year’s time had given her far too many revelations.

Besides being too tired to do laundry and not yet good at cooking, she had learned how to be self-sufficient.

As it turned out, beyond embroidering and playing the zither — skills useful only for waiting in the depths of the palace for a man to visit — she was capable of so much more.

Even now, if she were separated from Li Wu, she could survive on her own. And if she couldn’t — that would be the fault of war and wicked people, not hers.

Being born a woman was not her fault. Having a beautiful face was not her fault. Being physically weak was not her fault.

The fault lay with her imperial mother, who had directed her resentment at her; with Fu Xuanmiao, whose heart was too small; with the wicked men who preyed upon the powerless.

“Don’t just thank me with words — how are you going to repay me?” Li Wu shot back.

Knowing this scoundrel’s nature well, Shen Zhuxi offered readily, “I’ll give you all the silver I’ve saved up.”

“Do I look like someone who needs money?” Li Wu said irritably.

Shen Zhuxi inwardly scoffed: Yes, very much so.

“Then what do you want?”

“Haven’t you read any story books?” said Li Wu. “Offering yourself in gratitude — or you could just throw yourself at me, and I’ll pretend to struggle a little before giving in.”

Shen Zhuxi had only one response.

“You’re absolutely shameless.”

And so, another day of steadfastly holding her ground came to a close.