The night sky stretched vast and wide, scattered with only a few sparse stars.

A man and a woman faced each other in a long standoff beneath the mud wall. The night wind stirred the wild grass growing from the cracks in the wall, sending trailing shadows swaying across the ground, yet the shadows of the two living people remained as steadfast as mountain peaks.

Li Que’s fingers rested on the crossbow, ready to release the bowstring at any moment.

He kept his eyes fixed on Xiao Hu where she crouched against the wall. “Who were you trying to send a message to?”

“……What are you talking about?” Xiao Hu rose slowly to her feet, her expression perfectly natural. “Isn’t that a firework?”

Li Que curled the corner of his mouth in a mocking smile. “In the dead of night — you came out to set off fireworks?”

“In the dead of night, you followed me out here, didn’t you?” Xiao Hu countered.

“Are you this sharp-tongued even when your life’s on the line?”

“Even in death I wouldn’t be as sharp-tongued as you, since after all you are a spar——”

Before Xiao Hu could finish, Li Que’s face darkened and he cut off her words by raising the crossbow.

“……That is not a name you are permitted to call me.”

Xiao Hu looked at the arrowhead pointed directly at her. “Brother Zhen Que,” she said, “aren’t you a little too suspicious? Yesterday we were fighting side by side, and today you’re pointing a crossbow at me. Are you this ruthless with everyone?”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Li Que remained unmoved. The cold gleam of the arrowhead held perfectly steady, aimed at Xiao Hu’s chest. “Who were you trying to send a message to?”

“I told you — I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to set off fireworks.” Xiao Hu said, perfectly unhurried. Her eyes glimmered with a faint, elusive light in the darkness, like the quick, bright gaze of a deer in the forest. “Have you ever set off fireworks? If you haven’t, we could do it together——”

Xiao Hu launched herself sideways again, narrowly dodging a crossbow bolt that grazed her cheek as it flew past.

The arrow buried itself deep into the mud wall.

The careless ease faded from Xiao Hu’s face at last.

“Movements like yours, and you’re only a herbalist?” Li Que taunted.

“Herbalists climb mountains and trees every day and descend sheer cliffsides — what’s so strange about being a little nimble?”

“Then what about the gunpowder in the collapsed section of the mountainside?”

“……What gunpowder?”

“The rocks that fell down the mountain carried traces of ash from an explosion.” Li Que kept his gaze fixed on her eyes and said slowly, “That was no natural rockslide. Someone had buried gunpowder there in advance to manufacture the appearance of one.”

He didn’t look away. Xiao Hu met his stare without flinching.

“For what purpose?”

“Yes — for what purpose?” Li Que gripped the gunpowder and advanced toward her gradually. “Can you tell me what someone went to all that trouble to accomplish?”

“Knowing my identity is unknown, you still came alone? Aren’t you afraid I have an ambush waiting?”

Li Que saw straight through her bluff and gave a cold laugh. “If you had an ambush, would you still need to send a signal to reach someone?”

“So you no longer need to use others to do the killing?” Xiao Hu’s face showed open contempt. “I thought you only knew how to stab people in the back.”

“When you leave your own back wide open, you can’t blame your enemy for seizing the opening. What’s more — it wasn’t I who stabbed you. What does it have to do with me?”

“Whether you stepped aside on purpose — you know the answer to that yourself.”

Xiao Hu’s words came slower now, as though she was pressing each one out deliberately. The ferocity Li Que had provoked was slowly overtaking the seemingly quick and guileless eyes.

“Where’s that monstrously strong brother of yours?”

“Why use a cleaver to kill a chicken?”

“Chicken?” Xiao Hu let out a small laugh. “I’m nobody’s chicken.”

The fleeting carelessness on her face, together with the self-referential term she had used, made Li Que blink involuntarily.

Xiao Hu seized on that split second of distraction and lunged straight at him.

Li Que’s fingers released on instinct, and the crossbow bolt shot directly at Xiao Hu. She seemed to have anticipated his reaction exactly — the moment the bolt left the bow, she had already thrown herself down toward his feet.

The bolt flew over her through the air.

Xiao Hu grabbed Li Que’s ankle. A dagger still warm from her body heat plunged into the muscle of his lower calf. His legs buckled, and he was caught off guard and flung backward onto the ground.

Faster than the pain came the fury. Li Que glared up at Xiao Hu towering above him with pure rage: one of these days his life was going to end because of the slack he allowed himself below the waist!

Xiao Hu drove her knee into Li Que’s abdomen, then thrust the dagger in her hand straight at his face!

The dagger was caught.

Blood welled up and poured out freely.

Drop by drop, it fell into the reddened hollow, then streamed down along his cheekbone.

Xiao Hu stared in disbelief at the man who should have been recoiling in pain.

Li Que stared at her without blinking, his long, narrow eyes carrying a razor-edged coldness.

“The wound on your face — did you inflict that on yourself as well?” he asked. “……Why?”

“Obviously for something more important than my face.”

Xiao Hu exerted force in secret, but the dagger could not be driven down.

The two of them were evenly matched, neither able to overpower the other and turn the situation around.

“You took advantage of me.” Xiao Hu bared her teeth in a grin. “If I weren’t injured, you wouldn’t last a single round against me.”

“Laughable.” Li Que raised the corner of his mouth. “Say that again when you no longer need to hide concealed weapons in your skirts.”

“Where I keep my concealed weapons is none of your business.” Xiao Hu matched him with an equally cold smile.

“As a woman, don’t you feel any shame?”

“Whether I am a man or woman, whether I feel shame — what does any of that have to do with you?” Xiao Hu raised her knee and drove it sharply downward.

In desperation, Li Que clamped her knee between both legs.

The warmth registering against her knee made Xiao Hu’s expression change color in an instant.

“The same underhanded move doesn’t work a second time.” Li Que said.

“Underhanded? Do you have any right to call others underhanded?”

Xiao Hu freed her left hand from where it had been pressing down on Li Que’s shoulder, brought her fingers together into a blade, and struck at his throat.

Li Que raised his other hand to block her.

The two exchanged more than a dozen moves, trading the advantage back and forth repeatedly, and blood spilled across the ground.

Both of Li Que’s hands were soaked in blood. The back of Xiao Hu’s garment was drenched in it as well.

Both of them were gasping for breath.

Seizing the moment when Xiao Hu’s breathing was unsteady, Li Que kicked her off with one leg and called out toward the inn courtyard in a raised voice. “Second——”

“Whoosh——”

The sharp, piercing sound of a signal flare launching skyward made him instinctively jerk his head up toward the sky — but the night sky was perfectly still. No rising light bloomed anywhere in it.

A trick!

Li Que spun back around — and a straight punch cracked squarely into his cheek.

Hard knuckles sent stars bursting across his vision. His body crumpled with a loss of control he couldn’t stop.

The taste of rust spread across his tongue.

Xiao Hu was about to raise her dagger and press the advantage when the rear door was slammed open and someone came running out.

“Stop!”

Shen Zhuxi jogged over to Li Que’s side, with the towering Li Kun close behind her. She helped Li Que up — covered in blood as he was — and looked in alarm at Xiao Hu, who was equally drenched in blood a short distance away.

Before acting alone, Li Que had already stationed Li Kun in the rear to wait for his signal. Shen Zhuxi, worried about their safety, had followed Li Kun’s movements as well.

The half-finished call Li Que had made moments ago was enough for Shen Zhuxi and Li Kun, who had been lying in wait, to come rushing out.

Though both of them were covered in blood, Xiao Hu appeared to have come off worse. Shen Zhuxi had seen the wound on her back firsthand. The way she looked now, the wound had clearly torn completely open — blood had soaked through her garments at the back and was dripping down her sleeves to the ground, one drop at a time.

Li Que’s palm bore a deep gash as well.

The ground between them was painted with both their blood.

Both were in such a frightening state that Shen Zhuxi didn’t know which of them to address first.

“You! You bullied my little brother!” Li Kun was so furious the muscles along his arms had swollen to their full capacity. He balled his fists and started toward Xiao Hu. “I’ll bully you back — I will!”

“Second Brother, don’t——” Li Que swallowed the blood in his mouth.

Li Kun halted at this, and looked back at Li Que, confused.

“Your third brother’s right — if you don’t want to die, don’t come any closer.” Xiao Hu said.

She pressed her right hand to a spot just below her waistband and began retreating slowly toward the darkness of the alley on unsteady feet.

“……Thank you for the hairpin. It’s the first time anyone has ever arranged my hair for me.” She looked at Shen Zhuxi in the midst of the group. “Dinghai Stronghold will keep coming after you. If you don’t want to die, take the narrow gorge path out of Yingzhou.”

As the last word left her lips, she was gone, swallowed by the darkness of the alley.

Li Que steadied himself against Shen Zhuxi and stood up. He took the lantern from her hand and walked toward the mouth of the alley with a pronounced limp, leaving a trail of blood behind him from the wound on his lower leg.

He raised the lantern high. Its light pushed back the darkness of the alley — and a pair of beady rodent eyes disappeared around the corner to the sound of frantic squeaking. The alley, open at both ends, was empty of any person.

“……She’s gone.” Li Que said coldly.

“Qu’er, how bad is your injury? Diao’er, go bring the carriage — we’re heading to the physician’s hall at once——”

“Don’t bring a horse — bring the carriage.” Li Que said. “We leave right now.”

“But your wounds haven’t been treated yet!” Shen Zhuxi said in alarm.

Li Que limped back toward them. The wound on his lower calf was still bleeding.

“I won’t die from it.” He said. “She drew us to Jiao County — she must have had something in mind. We need to leave here immediately.”

Shen Zhuxi could not argue him out of it. She could only borrow strong liquor and bandaging strips from the inn and give him emergency treatment inside the carriage.

Before leaving the palace, she hadn’t even handled cold water on her own. And now she was able to pour strong liquor over a wound with flesh peeling back from it, without so much as a flinch——

Li Que bit down hard on his lip and said nothing. But his lean, fine fingers gripped the padded cushion beneath him with white-knuckled force.

Shen Zhuxi worked as swiftly and cleanly as she could, then wound clean strips of bandaging tightly around his injured lower calf and the gash across his palm.

There was no longer any such thing as observing proper boundaries in her mind.

Though they shared no blood, Diao’er and Que’er felt more like true younger brothers to her than her own blood siblings. Without even noticing, Shen Zhuxi had taken on the responsibility of an elder sister — even though Li Kun was actually several years her senior.

When it was all done, both her hands were stained with Li Que’s blood. Conditions in the carriage were already sparse; there was no longer even a teapot, and the tea had to be temporarily held in an earthen clay jar.

As she rinsed her hands with tea from the clay jar, her mind drifted to the pale celadon glazed teapot she had lost two days ago — shattered against someone’s head.

What had she been thinking, picking up a teapot and hurling it at someone in that moment?

Had everything she ever read been a complete waste?

That pale celadon glazed teapot had been so precious — smashed for nothing. Why hadn’t she grabbed the footstool on the floor instead? Now the pale celadon teapot was gone, and where was she going to find another with such fine quality and a beautiful, lustrous glaze to brew her tea in?

She never wanted anything like this to happen again!

She might as well have Li Que commission an iron outer casing for her teapot from a blacksmith’s shop!

Li Kun drove the newly purchased carriage and, after pressing a substantial sum of silver into the hands of the city gate guards, slipped out through a gap opened just barely wide enough for a carriage to pass through.

The sky in the distance was murky and formless. The moonlight had already dimmed and the sun had yet to rise in the east. The dark, towering mountains held up a sky that hovered between darkness and the first hints of dawn; the blurred mass of darkness at the far horizon resembled a vast, gaping maw lurking in the shadows.

The young and vigorous Li Juan the Fifth strode along on the uneven road with brisk, agile steps, clip-clopping at a steady pace.

Li Kun sat alone outside the carriage door with the reins in hand.

“Which road do we take — there are so many roads?” He looked ahead at the three-way fork and asked.

The carriage door hung wide open, both to ward off any suggestion of impropriety and to keep a clear view of events at any moment. Li Que leaned against the soft pillow and narrowed his eyes at the darkness ahead, without a moment’s hesitation. “Left.”

“Is the left road the way to the narrow gorge?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

“No.”

Shen Zhuxi looked at the certainty on Li Que’s face and swallowed the persuasion she had been about to offer.

When it came down to it, he still did not trust Xiao Hu — and Shen Zhuxi herself had no way of being sure that the narrow gorge path Xiao Hu had mentioned was the right one.

If she had no certainty of her own, how could she persuade Li Que to change course and take the narrow gorge?

Though she hadn’t spoken, Li Que still read the hesitation in her expression and addressed it of his own accord. “The narrow gorge is a canyon. There is a long history of carriage accidents there. We are not familiar with the mountain roads — attempting the narrow gorge by night would be too dangerous. The other road is desolate, requiring us to cross mountains and ridges, and is the ideal terrain for anyone with ill intentions to set a trap and encircle us. The left road is the main road. There is a government relay station thirty li past the city gates, and we can rest there tomorrow night.”

Shen Zhuxi still could not let go of what Xiao Hu had said.

On the strength of instinct, she wanted to take the narrow gorge — but instinct was not an argument she could make to anyone. Carefully, she ventured, “I think……Xiao Hu might not have been lying.”

“I don’t trust her.” Li Que’s expression cooled.

As though sensing that his tone had been too harsh, Li Que looked toward her, and the sharpness in his eyes softened considerably.

“If sister-in-law wishes to take the narrow gorge, we can take it.”

“Never mind — let’s take the main road.” After a moment’s hesitation, Shen Zhuxi shook her head all the same. “What you said makes sense too. Perhaps I just trust people too easily……”

“That is sister-in-law’s strength.” Li Que said. “Because you always treat people with genuine sincerity, so many people are drawn to you.”

“Is that true?” Shen Zhuxi brightened at this and smiled, pleased and surprised. “Who? Who is drawn to me?”

“Elder Brother, Second Brother……and I am the same, naturally.” Li Que smiled. “And then the neighbors in Yutou Township and other places — anyone who truly knows you will feel drawn to you from the heart.”

The way one is drawn to sweet malt candy. To the blue sky after rain. To a soft and fluffy little dog. It was that kind of irresistible, involuntary fondness.

People are simply born to love beautiful things.

“Sister-in-law is so fortunate to have met Elder Brother,” he said.

“Why do you say that?” Shen Zhuxi asked, puzzled.

“Because under all the heavens,” he said, “the only one worthy of you is Elder Brother.”