“Damn it all — no good deed goes unpunished. This business wasn’t worth it! Not only did I walk away with a measly thousand taels, I got filth all over me!”

Li Wu came cursing out of the teahouse.

The Wang family had something wrong in the head — probably hereditary. Wang Wenzhong had ignored Emperor Yuanlong himself coming to his door to offer goodwill, then turned around and thrown his lot in with the Military Governor of Wuying, Chunyu An, all the way up in the northern capital.

And his daughter was just as touched in the head as he was.

Like a lump of filth.

He didn’t know when it had stuck to the bottom of his shoe — and no matter how he tried to shake it off, it wouldn’t come loose.

“What a losing deal… damn it all, a thousand taels of silver, and I’ve gone and gotten filth all over myself…”

Li Wu cursed as he walked, putting distance between himself and this foul-smelling place as fast as he could.

The streets were nearly deserted. He looked around on all sides, hoping to catch a passing horse or a shared ox-cart, but the road was empty and every shop was shuttered.

Li Wu reckoned that even the four-legged dogs had all gathered at the lively western part of the city by now, leaving only him, still out in the quietest corner of the eastern district, hurrying along as fast as he could toward the west.

“Damn it, filth-bag Wang!”

The more Li Wu thought about it, the more furious he got. If not for the thought of Shen Zhuxi, whom he’d left on her own, he’d have genuinely liked to walk back to that teahouse and smash Wang Shiyong’s useless head in with a single punch.

The full moon still hung in the sky.

Tonight’s moon looked as though it might fall — it hung closer to the ground than usual. Its pale white surface was uneven and pitted, resembling both a cratered sore and a festering abscess, its edges stained by a faint blush of red that called to mind spreading blood.

For the night of the Qixi Festival, this moon was thoroughly unwelcome.

He wondered how things were at the lantern festival.

Li Wu pushed down the unease in his heart and quickened his pace once more.

The annual Qixi lantern festival had drawn the whole of Pengcheng County out into the streets. The night wind moaned through the lanterns hanging on the gateposts of the houses along the road, and the disquieting moonlight pressed down silently overhead. Li Wu half-walked, half-ran back to the restaurant where he and Shen Zhuxi had parted ways.

The lantern festival had already begun. The diners had all left the restaurant, and even the most devoted drunkard had shuffled out the door, face flushed, jug in hand, swaying on unsteady feet.

Li Wu shoved aside a drunk who had nearly stumbled into his shoulder and strode into the main hall, stopping one of the attendants who was busy clearing the tables.

“When did my wife leave?” Li Wu asked.

“Quite a while ago now,” the attendant said, surprised. “Did Sir Centurion not find her?”

“Did she leave any word for me?”

“I think… yes, yes she did! My memory, I’ve been so busy my head’s been spinning —” The attendant suddenly remembered something and clapped himself on the forehead. “Lady Li said before she left, if Sir Centurion came back looking for her, to tell you she would be wandering about at the lantern festival until the second watch, waiting for you.”

“Understood.”

Li Wu didn’t take a moment to catch his breath and immediately turned and headed back out.

It was still the first watch. If the little fool hadn’t gone home early, he could still find her at the lantern festival.

Li Wu set off in long, swift strides toward the lantern festival.

The pale, cheerless moonlight fell on cold stone walls.

Shen Zhuxi looked at Yufeng kneeling before her. Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth — she opened it, but could not form a single sound.

Yufeng’s sudden appearance was like a cold, venomous snake slowly crawling up her body, coiling around her limbs, causing her soul, which had only recently begun to unfurl, to contract once more into a tight, guarded knot.

Without thinking, she adjusted her posture. Dignified and upright, still as a clay figure.

“…This is not your fault. Rise.” A voice that was flat and proper — hardly sounding like her own — emerged from her throat. “Is His Majesty also in Xuzhou?”

“His Majesty has come incognito with the young lord, and is currently just outside Pengcheng County. Please follow this subordinate, Your Highness.” Yufeng rose to his feet, head bowed, manner deferential. “His Majesty and the young lord will surely be overjoyed to learn that Your Highness is alive.”

“May I first make a stop at home?” Shen Zhuxi said.

“Home?”

Catching the faint, fleeting furrow between Yufeng’s brows, Shen Zhuxi chose her words carefully and said:

“The place where I’m living now.”

“Your Highness’s fate has been unknown for a year and a half. His Majesty and the young lord have worried for that same year and a half. The sooner this is done, the better. Please depart at once, Your Highness. If anything has been left behind, someone can be sent for it afterward.”

Yufeng’s words sounded like a request, yet in truth left her no room to say no.

Shen Zhuxi had seen this man named Yufeng at Fu Xuanmiao’s side on several occasions. Each time, he had stood in silence behind Fu Xuanmiao like a shadow. He was one of Fu Xuanmiao’s most capable attendants, and had absorbed something of Fu Xuanmiao’s own authority — his words, in a certain sense, were Fu Xuanmiao’s words.

“Your Highness, please proceed.”

Yufeng stepped aside to clear the way, using posture of courteous deference to say something that brooked no refusal.

Shen Zhuxi could find no words of refusal. Her feet followed after Yufeng on their own.

With every step she took forward, her heart pulled her a step backward.

Every last fiber of her being was resisting, struggling.

Why was this happening?

Had not everything she had done since living among common people been in pursuit of returning to the palace? Then why, now that this moment had truly come, did her heart hold nothing but fear and refusal?

Fu Xuanmiao’s people had not come sooner, nor later — they had come precisely at this moment, precisely at the moment she was wavering. Shen Zhuxi’s heart was still swaying between two worlds, yet she was being pressed into a decision like a duck being herded onto a perch.

Yufeng led her to a courtyard with a closed gate, knocked open the door that had been left slightly ajar, and exchanged a pouch of silver for the horse-drawn carriage parked inside.

Yufeng opened the carriage door and turned to look at Shen Zhuxi.

“Your Highness, please —”

Shen Zhuxi stood rooted to the spot, her entire body rigid, the blood in her veins frozen, her heartbeat growing faster and faster.

“…Your Highness?” Yufeng looked at her with a puzzled frown.

“Could you…” Shen Zhuxi summoned every last bit of her courage. Her voice trembled with the sound of desperate pleading. “Could you pretend you never saw me?”

For the first time since they had met, an emotion surfaced on Yufeng’s otherwise still, expressionless face.

He stared at her in astonishment, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.

“Your Highness, do you know what you’re saying?”

“I do…” Shen Zhuxi said, her face pale.

“His Majesty and the young lord both miss you dearly. Why does Your Highness not wish to return?”

Why did she not wish to return?

Because she was afraid —

Afraid of returning to loneliness. Afraid of being treated as some kind of resource, to be exchanged as a bargaining chip with some person or some faction. Afraid of her soul being extinguished once more. Afraid of losing the home she now had.

Afraid that the rest of her life would stretch on, long and endless… and that she would never see Li Wu again.

“Whatever Your Highness wishes to do, at least meet with His Majesty and the young lord first. Perhaps Your Highness may find your mind has changed.” Yufeng said.

She knew.

The moment she set eyes on His Majesty and Fu Xuanmiao, there would be no possibility of leaving.

She would be returned to her gilded cage, draped once more in false appearances, and would, yet again, kill her own soul with her own hands.

She would be utterly alone. The sole purpose of her existence would be to wait for a man’s visit.

She would wear exquisitely beautiful gowns, rest her head on pillows inlaid with gold and pearls, eat sumptuous and extravagant meals — and yet, because no one spoke to her, because she was as invisible and insubstantial as air, she would have no choice but to pour out her heart to the osmanthus trees in the imperial garden, to the little birds that chanced to perch on her windowsill, to a single soft wisp of cloud drifting overhead, sharing her thoughts and the small happenings of her days.

Tears filled her eyes to the brim, and Shen Zhuxi shook her head and stepped back.

She had wanted to return to the palace — partly because she was the Princess of Yue, and partly because that place was her home, the place where she had lived for sixteen years.

Deep palace though it was, cold as it was, it was nonetheless the place where she had lived for sixteen years. She was unwilling, yet could not help but endure the pain of being torn in two as she acknowledged it: that place was her home. She could not bring herself to fully sever ties with a place that had also, once, given her joy and happiness.

Before her imperial father had ceased to pay her any mind, he had once held her on his knee and scratched gently beneath her chin, calling her “his little rabbit.”

She still remembered the tickle of her father’s beard against her cheek.

Her imperial mother had watched from the side with a gentle smile, the warmth in her eyes brighter even than the brilliant sunset glowing in the sky.

She could not forget. She could not let go.

Reason told her to put it all aside, but her heart kept her standing vigil over the remains of that warmth, the ashes of that fire — keeping solitary watch in the cold of night for a return that would never come.

She gazed and waited, lost in longing.

When beauty curdled overnight, the happiness of the past became a wound that would not heal, festering quietly at the bottom of her heart, never closing.

She did not want to be a burden to anyone. She did not want anyone to resent her. She moved through life with the utmost care, with the utmost caution, concealing the festering wound — she carried on as if nothing were wrong, yet was always undone by the smallest of things, her fragile nerves laid bare.

The wound never stopped aching, yet she could not bring herself to cut away the rotted flesh.

To her, it was more than rotted flesh.

It was everything she had — everything she had once possessed.

Shen Zhuxi moved her lips. She said:

“…I’m not going back.”

“Your Highness —” Yufeng frowned.

“I will not forget my duty as the Princess of Yue. Even from elsewhere, I will do everything in my power to help His Majesty reclaim the throne. But I will not return. That place… is not my home.”

With those last words spoken, the suffocating, serpentine grip around her vanished entirely.

From over the wall came the clamor of the Qixi lantern festival. In the alleyway, you could have heard a pin drop.

After a long silence, Yufeng let out a quiet sigh.

“…Has Your Highness truly made up your mind? Once the arrow is loosed, there is no calling it back.”

Shen Zhuxi gave a solemn nod.

“I have made up my mind.”

“Very well…” Yufeng said. “The matter of my having seen Your Highness here — I will not tell anyone.”

Shen Zhuxi’s face lit up with surprised joy: “You’ll help me?!”

“Before I change my mind… go quickly.” Yufeng said.

Shen Zhuxi turned and walked away, her steps growing faster and faster.

She wanted to see Li Wu at once. She wanted to tell him to his face that she had decided to stay!

Shen Zhuxi still did not believe in a love that would never waver — but she believed that Li Wu would not abandon a family member who had weathered hardship alongside him. She wanted to ask him, as a member of the family, to truly become part of this home!

She wanted —

The impact came from the back of her neck. Shen Zhuxi had not even had time to register the pain before her body went limp and crumpled.

Her eyes stayed open. In a blurred and trembling field of vision, the last image she saw before it went dark was a man’s expressionless face.

Yufeng drew back his right hand, held flat and straight as a blade, and fixed his cold gaze on her startled, uncomprehending eyes.

“Princess of Yue, I am sorry… For the sake of my sworn sister’s wish, you will not be going back anywhere.”