“Achoo!”

Shen Zhuxi let out an enormous sneeze.

Li Que’er’s voice reached her immediately from outside the carriage door: “Sister-in-law, have you caught a chill?”

“It’s already early summer — catching a chill would be nearly impossible. It must be your eldest brother cursing at me again.” Shen Zhuxi rubbed her nose and grumbled.

“Eldest brother must be missing you, sister-in-law,” Li Que’er said with a smile.

Shen Zhuxi pushed open the carriage door, grabbed a soft pillow, and sat herself down at the entrance.

“It’s too dull inside. Let me sit here and keep you company for a bit.” She peered over the top of Li Kun’s round head at the landscape on either side of the road, which looked no different from yesterday. “Are we still in Xuzhou territory?”

“We left Xuzhou last night. We are now in Yingzhou,” Li Que’er said. “Wang Wenzhong’s men have stopped following us. Once we reach the next town, we’ll swap out the carriage at a depot, and I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to endure another day’s discomfort, sister-in-law.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” Shen Zhuxi said quickly. “You two are out here driving the carriage — that’s far more tiring. How much hardship can there be for someone riding inside?”

She suddenly thought of something and brightened. “You haven’t had any water since this morning, have you? Let me pour some for you—”

“There’s no need to trouble yourself, sister-in-law. We’ll get it ourselves.”

Li Que’er quickly turned around to say so, but Shen Zhuxi had already taken out two clay cups and was filling them with water.

“Third brother doesn’t want any, second brother wants…” Li Kun held the reins and licked his dry lips. “I want eldest brother to make noodles for me…”

Shen Zhuxi came back carrying two cups of clear water. As she held them out, she said by way of comfort: “Once your eldest brother comes back, I’ll have him make noodles for you.”

“Alright! Wait for eldest brother! Eat eldest brother’s noodles!” Li Kun broke into a wide grin at the news and perked right up again.

“You keep saying things like that — be careful eldest brother gives you a beating,” Li Que’er said.

“Eldest brother’s not here, not here! Telling on me won’t do you any good!” Li Kun smugly thrust out his chin.

“I’ll tell him when he comes back.”

“You — you tattletale!”

Shen Zhuxi pressed a hand to Li Kun’s arm and soothed him: “Third brother is just teasing you.”

“I don’t want him teasing me! Don’t like it!” Li Kun fumed.

“Because I like to,” Li Que’er said.

“I’ll give you a beating—”

“You dare lay a hand on me and I’ll tell eldest brother.”

“You—”

Li Kun’s big eyes seemed to shimmer with the beginning of tears.

Shen Zhuxi had no choice but to continue playing peacemaker, patting Li Kun’s shoulder and saying: “Third brother only teases you because he likes you — has he ever teased anyone else like this?”

“I don’t want him to like me!” Li Kun said, indignant.

Li Que’er kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead and smiled without a word.

The carriage rolled steadily onward amid the playful bickering.

Everything was fine — except for the absence of one certain Li Duck.

Thinking of Li Wu, Shen Zhuxi felt a pang of melancholy. She wondered what Li Wu was doing. How did he plan to leave Xuzhou? Would Miss Wang force herself on him? What if he was swayed by the Wang family’s lavish offers and decided to revert to his old ways?

The more she thought, the more worried she became: that Li Scoundrel was truly impossible to stop worrying about!

“Whoa—”

Li Que’er suddenly pulled in the reins. The toothless old horse listlessly drew to a halt.

Some ten zhang ahead, three large rocks of varying sizes were blocking the middle of the road, surrounded by scattered smaller stones and clumps of earth. The boulders appeared to have rolled down from the slope on the right side, and one could still see the fresh soil exposed where the outer layer had broken away.

Li Que’er frowned. “A landslide. The road is blocked.”

“Should we turn back and take a different route?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

Li Que’er looked toward Li Kun, who was mid-yawn. “Second brother, can you move those?”

“No, no,” Li Kun said, shooting him a white-eyed glare. “I’m upset with you.”

Li Que’er said without the least trace of urgency: “Then just sit here with sister-in-law and wait. When eldest brother gets back, he can drag you into the woods and thrash you.”

Li Kun climbed reluctantly off the carriage, muttering and grumbling to himself, and trudged over toward the fallen boulders.

Li Que’er turned to Shen Zhuxi and said: “Sister-in-law, please wait a moment. There are too many fallen rocks — it will take some time to clear them. If you’re tired, why don’t you go back inside the carriage and sleep for a while?”

“I slept the whole day — I’m not tired.” Shen Zhuxi shook her head.

The words had barely left her lips when Li Kun cried out in alarm: “A person! A person! There’s a person growing out of the rocks!”

“Someone’s there?”

Shen Zhuxi gave a start. With Li Que’er’s help, she jumped down from the carriage.

She hurried forward and finally caught sight of the person Li Kun was pointing to: a young girl of about fifteen or sixteen in a plain cloth skirt was half-buried under the pile of boulders. Her upper body, the only part visible above the debris, was covered in bloodstains — particularly her left arm, which was soaked nearly through with blood.

Li Que’er looked up at the place where the slope had given way, his expression thoughtful.

Shen Zhuxi’s first instinct was to check for breath. Upon finding that the girl was still breathing, she immediately set to work pulling rocks aside.

The stones were heavy, and the effort made itself felt the instant she put her hands to them.

“Li Kun, can you help me?” Shen Zhuxi looked to him for assistance.

Li Kun did as she asked without the slightest hesitation, crouching down. With him lending his strength, the rocks pinning the girl down were cleared away in no time.

“Li Kun, help me carry her into the carriage—”

The words had scarcely left Shen Zhuxi’s mouth before Li Que’er spoke up: “That won’t be necessary.”

“Why not?” Shen Zhuxi asked, puzzled.

Li Que’er did not answer her directly.

He crouched in front of the girl and pinched her philtrum firmly.

Li Que’er used no small amount of force. Shen Zhuxi watched the girl’s philtrum redden before her very eyes, and she felt a sympathetic twinge of pain in her own philtrum.

“You…” She had barely opened her mouth in protest when the girl suddenly snapped her eyes open and jerked her head away from Li Que’er’s fingers.

A vivid red pinch mark remained clearly imprinted on her philtrum.

Shen Zhuxi stared in stunned disbelief.

“Still quite capable of enduring pain,” Li Que’er said coolly, studying the girl with eyes that held a faint trace of coldness. “Now tell me — who sent you?”

“What do you mean, who sent me? What a strange person you are!”

The girl struggled to kick the rocks away from her feet. She must have pulled at her injury in the process, because she hissed through clenched teeth in pain.

“Can’t you see these rocks? I was out gathering medicinal herbs when the landslide hit — I fell down the mountain by accident!”

The girl’s explanation was plausible enough. Shen Zhuxi had even wondered if she might be a herb-gatherer, particularly because Li Kun had pulled out a flattened basket from under the rocks with a number of medicinal herbs inside — plants Shen Zhuxi couldn’t identify by name.

“A herb-gatherer?” Li Que’er said with cold skepticism. “Then what were you pretending to be unconscious for?”

“What else is a helpless, lone herb-gathering girl supposed to do when she might run into someone dangerous, like you?” the girl said. Though she was struggling to stand on her own, the moment she so much as shifted her foot, her face crumpled with pain.

She sucked in a sharp breath, wincing, and said: “I… I didn’t know whether you were good people or bad people. Wasn’t I right to be on guard against you robbing or assaulting me?!”

“You were unconscious — wouldn’t that have made it easier for us to rob or assault you?”

“If I was unconscious, you might not have even noticed me and just taken a different route and left!” the girl shot back immediately. “That’s better than calling attention to myself, isn’t it?!”

The girl’s agitation caused her to sway, and Shen Zhuxi quickly steadied her. The girl glanced at her and, without standing on ceremony, leaned on her shoulder and at last managed to get herself up from the ground.

“What injuries did you sustain? Are they serious?” Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help asking.

“Twisted my ankle, and my arm hurts badly — probably hit something on the way down.” The girl said in an offhand tone. “I won’t die from it.”

“Since you won’t die from it, then walk on your own. We still have a road to travel — we have no time to spare.” Li Que’er said.

Li Que’er turned and walked away. After two steps he looked back — Li Kun and Shen Zhuxi had not moved an inch.

“Que’er…” Shen Zhuxi said beseechingly. “What girl would willingly slash up her own face?”

Li Que’er paused, and his gaze moved to the girl’s face.

Perhaps because of long days spent outdoors from dawn to dusk, the girl had a healthy, tawny complexion. Although she could not match Shen Zhuxi’s refined and delicate features, her thick brows and bright eyes held a clear, lively brilliance — a wild, quicksilver spirit, like a deer from the mountains. But whatever charm that face might once have had was now marred by four or five livid, alarming cuts, making it a sight that invited avoidance.

The foot he had already lifted did not step forward. The coldness on his scarred face softened for a brief moment.

Shen Zhuxi pressed the advantage: “This girl says she gathers herbs in this area, so she probably lives nearby. We can drop her off at her home and then continue on our way — it won’t take long at all.”

Li Que’er shifted his gaze away from the girl and back to Shen Zhuxi — and where the look had been frost, it softened into spring.

“Whatever sister-in-law says.”

……

With Li Kun’s help, Shen Zhuxi got the girl settled inside the carriage.

Li Kun sat outside to drive, while Li Que’er climbed into the cab as well. The moment Shen Zhuxi sat down, she began rummaging for her bruise-and-injury ointment.

Li Wu had packed thoroughly — the basic medicaments were all stored in the carriage. She found a wound salve for stopping bleeding and dispersing bruising, then turned to Li Que’er and said: “I’m going to apply the medicine for her now.”

Li Que’er looked at Shen Zhuxi, then at the girl. He drew a dagger from his person and handed it to Shen Zhuxi in full view of the girl.

“Keep it somewhere within easy reach. If anything happens, call for me.”

Shen Zhuxi understood the gesture. She took the dagger, and Li Que’er stepped out of the carriage cab.

“Don’t mind him — he’s only so guarded because he worries about me being harmed by a stranger.” Shen Zhuxi gave the girl an apologetic smile.

“Is he your man?” the girl asked.

The bluntness of the question startled Shen Zhuxi. She shook her head hurriedly. “He’s not! He’s my brother-in-law!”

“Ah… I see.” The girl nodded. “Where are you headed?”

Normally, shouldn’t the first question at a time like this be about the absent husband?

But the girl had skipped right over “Where’s your husband?” and gone straight to their destination.

Shen Zhuxi’s wariness sharpened. She answered vaguely: “We’re heading southwest. And you? Where is your home? How should we return you there?”

“My home is in Changge County.”

“Changge County?” Shen Zhuxi was taken aback.

Changge County was not at all close to here. How had a herb-gatherer wandered this far out?

“My home is in Changge County, but day-to-day I live on my own up in the mountains.” The girl said without a care. “You don’t need to take me back there. Once I’m healed up, I’ll get there on my own.”

“And where will you go when you leave?”

“Somewhere that isn’t home, at any rate. The sky is my blanket and the earth my bed — that’s me in a nutshell.” The girl said. “The mountains have nothing dangerous in them except wild animals. And even wild animals are easier to deal with than people.”

To a certain extent, Shen Zhuxi found she could deeply relate to those words.

If the girl had long been living apart from settled community life, her feral, unconstrained quality made a great deal more sense.

She bore some resemblance to Li Wu in spirit — it brought to mind hardy grass, growing wild and strong, tenacious and unyielding.

“My name is Xiao Hu. The character for ‘hu’ as in ‘monkey.'” the girl said. “And you?”

Shen Zhuxi did not quite dare let her guard down entirely. She said:

“My name is Zhu Zhu. My husband’s surname is Zhen — his name is Zhen Pi. The tall one outside is his younger brother Zhen Diao, and the other one is Zhen Que.”

Xiao Hu stared at her. “…Your family’s names are really strange.”

Shen Zhuxi kept a smile on her face.

“Your name is also quite distinctive.”

But inwardly, she thought:

How does she have the nerve to say that?