Outside the window the autumn rain fell on and on, but inside the room, the warmth was like spring.
A basin of burning coals glowed quietly in the corner, steadily offering its warmth. The lingering heat of ginger soup still rose and fell in her belly. Shen Zhuxi sat quietly before the dressing mirror, with Li Wu standing behind her, a sandalwood comb in hand, drawing it through her half-dried hair from top to bottom in one smooth motion.
“When the time comes, we’ll have another wedding ceremony,” Li Wu said. “I want to give you the grandest wedding.”
“…What we have now is already enough.” Shen Zhuxi didn’t dare meet his eyes directly. She twisted her own fingers together and spoke softly.
“It’s not enough,” Li Wu said. “My woman deserves nothing but the best of everything — and that includes the wedding.”
This was Li Wu’s first time combing a woman’s hair, and his technique was far from skilled or gentle. Several times throughout the process he accidentally tugged on Shen Zhuxi’s scalp, causing her pain — but to keep from ruining his enthusiasm, she endured it without saying a word.
After combing Shen Zhuxi’s black hair smooth, Li Wu dug through her dressing case with great interest and selected a pale yellow ribbon. With clumsy, fumbling hands, he tied it into her hair.
“Like a little duck,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Not bad.”
Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help but laugh.
“You should get a duck tattooed on you too — then we’d be a matching pair,” Li Wu said, struck by the whim.
Having her hair pulled was something she could tolerate. Being asked to tattoo a duck was something she could not. Shen Zhuxi looked horrified and refused at once:
“Absolutely not!”
Li Wu looked genuinely disappointed.
Washing up and changing clothes were both done — now it was time to sleep.
The thought of lying down on the same bed as Li Wu — a thing that had already become habit — somehow made Shen Zhuxi feel as though her heart was about to leap straight out of her throat.
Not only were her hands and feet stiff with nerves, but she nearly stumbled and fell when she climbed into bed.
Li Wu extinguished the candle on the table and was the last to get into bed.
The mattress sank beneath the added weight. Shen Zhuxi’s entire body went rigid as a stone — and then — what was supposed to come next?
That illustrated book the Nanny had given her, the one she had flung into some forgotten corner — what had it contained?
In the darkness, fear broke free from the restraint of reason, and her body began to tremble of its own accord.
“Are you cold?” Li Wu said.
Shen Zhuxi tried to speak and found her throat had seized up as well. She wrung out every last bit of strength in her body and managed, with great effort, to shake her head.
Li Wu tucked the corner of the blanket snugly around her, then reached an arm across the bedding and pulled her against him.
The distinctly masculine presence overwhelmed her senses, and she nearly forgot that the one holding her was Li Wu — her mind held only one single awareness: there is a man holding me.
Just as fear was about to climb to its peak, Li Wu’s familiar and reassuring voice sounded above her head:
“Go to sleep… I won’t do anything until after we have a proper wedding ceremony.”
The tension that had frozen Shen Zhuxi’s entire body gave way all at once.
In the darkness, Li Wu rustled about for a moment, then lifted something from around his own neck and placed it around Shen Zhuxi’s.
She reached up to feel it and found it was the piece of jade Li Wu always carried on his person.
“I’ve worn this since I was small. Keep it safe for me. One day, we’ll pass it down to our child.”
The word “child” made Shen Zhuxi’s cheeks flush.
She was deeply grateful that the candle had already been extinguished, so Li Wu couldn’t see the heat burning in her face.
“…Alright.”
She tucked the piece of jade — still warm from Li Wu’s body — into her collar, and decided she would never take it off, even when bathing.
He had already told her to sleep, yet Li Wu was still wide awake. After only a brief silence, he spoke again:
“Say ‘husband’ for me.”
“…Would you please go to sleep!” Shen Zhuxi was so embarrassed she could hardly bear it.
“Not until you say ‘husband’ — then I’ll sleep.” Li Wu turned onto his side and looked at her with bright, intent eyes.
Unable to stand those dark and gleaming eyes watching her in the night, Shen Zhuxi closed her own eyes and, with the resolve of someone steeling themselves for something drastic, said in a swift rush: “Husband!”
“What a good wife.”
Li Wu gave a satisfied laugh, lifted her chin, and planted a loud kiss right on her lips.
Shen Zhuxi’s face flushed a deep, burning red — visible even in the darkness.
Those innocent and dewy almond-shaped eyes set a fire burning somewhere in Li Wu’s chest. He didn’t dare go on looking at her like that. He reached out and covered those eyes that had been haunting his dreams, and said softly:
“…Go to sleep, you little fool.”
Drowsiness gradually swept over her mind. The warmth of Li Wu’s palm radiated against her eyelids, and without quite knowing when, she drifted down into sweet, gentle dreams.
In the dream, she and Li Wu had transformed into a pair of plump, fully-feathered yellow ducks. When the sun rose, they went to splash in the lake; when the sun set, they nestled together beneath the lotus leaves and went to sleep.
Li Wu had made her a warm little duck’s nest from his own shed feathers, and inside it she hatched a whole brood of fuzzy little ducklings, every one of them quacking noisily just like their father…
“Little ducklings…” Shen Zhuxi murmured.
“Does my lady want duck meat?”
Diniang’s voice drew her gradually back to reality. Shen Zhuxi opened her eyes to find Diniang sitting on the couch, cheek resting in her hand, watching her with bright curiosity.
“Would my lady prefer braised duck, roasted duck, or Peking duck?” Diniang asked. “I’ll go tell the servants to start right away!”
“No — don’t serve any duck at the residence for a while…” Shen Zhuxi rubbed her eyes and sat up. “Where is Li Wu?”
“The master has gone to morning roll call!” Diniang said quickly.
She and Shen Zhuxi were equally poor at lying to people they knew well. Her gaze wandered, her hands fidgeted, and it was plain at a glance that she wasn’t telling the truth.
Shen Zhuxi’s expression turned serious. “Diniang, are you still not going to tell me the truth? Where on earth has Li Wu gone?”
Shen Zhuxi had been a princess for over a decade, and she had picked up at least some measure of a regal authority that could not be trifled with. The moment she put on that composed, stern face, Diniang surrendered immediately.
“The master… the master has gone outside the city. Early this morning someone came to report that the Zhenchuan Military Commissioner had sent someone over… ” Diniang said haltingly, stealing glances at Shen Zhuxi’s expression as she spoke. “It seems — the Zhenchuan Military Commissioner rescued a woman on his way back to Shangzhou, and she claimed to be Li Wu’s wife, so the commissioner… so he sent her to the master…”
“Li Wu’s wife…”
Shen Zhuxi’s heart gave a sudden jolt. She had already guessed who this woman was — the one the Zhenchuan Military Commissioner had rescued.
…
Outside the city walls of Xiangzhou, the temporary military encampment was filled with an unusual tension.
The woman finished her bow and straightened up. Li Qia set down his teacup and looked at Li Wu, who was seated to one side, and said:
“Administrator Li, take a look — is this person your wife?”
Wang Shiyong’s eyes brimmed with tears as she gazed at Li Wu with a delicate, pitiful expression.
What answered her was a loud, forceful retch.
Li Wu clutched his stomach, fighting off the acid rising in his throat, and said with undisguised revulsion, “What kind of mangy stray dog do you think you are, that you dare call yourself my woman?”
“Li Wu! I am the wife you took through the front doors with eight ceremonial sedan bearers — how can you be this heartless…” Wang Shiyong let two streams of tears roll down her face. Combined with that frail and thin figure, it was the very picture of a beauty weeping in the rain — enough to move anyone who saw her.
“What utter garbage!” Li Wu said without a shred of courtesy. “Whoever carried that sedan can be the one to marry you — it certainly wasn’t me who carried it. If I’d known that saving you once would bring this much trouble down on me, I should have left you in the mountains to be a bandit’s wife. At least then I wouldn’t be in this situation — like stepping in a pile of dung, you get stuck on my shoe and I can’t scrape you off!”
“You promised my father you would take good care of me…” Wang Shiyong wept.
“I never said any such thing.” Li Wu’s face was perfectly untroubled. “Let your father come out and testify!”
Wang Shiyong’s breath caught. Then she covered her face and sobbed.
“My father… my father is already gone…”
“All right, stop crying —”
Wang Shiyong’s eyes lit up, and hope sprang to life in her heart —
“Your father was always going to die eventually,” Li Wu said.
Wang Shiyong stood frozen, staring at him blankly.
“Even if your father hadn’t died, I’d have made sure he died once anyway.” Li Wu said. “I was willing to drop the matter of how he tried to force me to divorce my wife and take you instead, out of consideration for the fact that he’s already a dead man. But if you keep turning up in front of me or my wife, I won’t have any problem making the debts of the father fall on the child.”
Seeing that his resolve was unshakeable, Wang Shiyong turned her tearful gaze to Li Qia. “Sir Li…”
When it came to a choice between a homeless woman and the loyalty of his subordinate commanders, Li Qia still knew how to weigh his priorities.
“Since Administrator Li has made his position clear, you should let go of this.” Li Qia said. “A fruit plucked before it is ripe will never be sweet. Isn’t the fact that your benefactor became your enemy precisely the result of your father forcing something that couldn’t be forced?”
Wang Shiyong had nothing to say in return. She lowered her head and wept.
“I heard that on the day you left, you took a great many things with you from Xuzhou…” Li Qia, striking a balance between the carrot and the stick, said delicately, “Miss Wang is now without family or home. Perhaps you could…”
“Fine — her father gave my wife travel money back then, so I’ll give her some travel money too.” Li Wu said without hesitation.
He untied the money pouch at his waist, dug out the silver notes and silver ingots inside, set all the copper coins aside, and put the silver notes and ingots back in.
Everyone present assumed he was going to hand the pouch to Wang Shiyong.
No one could have anticipated that Li Wu would push the pile of copper coins forward instead.
In the face of everyone’s astonished stares, Li Wu said with complete self-assurance:
“Is being an orphaned girl something to be so proud of? I’m an orphan too!”
Li Qia was silent for a moment, then said to Wang Shiyong, “The gift is modest, but Administrator Li’s goodwill is sincere. Accept it. I’ll have someone make up the difference for you shortly. Pack up your things, and I’ll arrange for someone to escort you to a relative.”
“Shiyong no longer has any relatives she can go to…” Wang Shiyong said tearfully.
“Is that so?” Li Wu said. “Your father was boasting to me about how the Wang family has marriage connections spread all across the land — so it was all empty bragging?”
Wang Shiyong burst into another round of sobbing.
“All right, all right…” Li Qia said, his head beginning to ache. “You could say a little less — she is a young lady, after all.”
“And what does being a young lady have to do with it — is she the only one who knows how to cry?” Li Wu looked at the weeping Wang Shiyong with distaste. “My wife cries better than you!”
Li Qia had a pounding headache. He waved a hand to have Wang Shiyong escorted away.
“As for the matter of Miss Wang, we’ll deal with it later…” Li Qia said. “The main reason I came to find you today is the matter of the allied forces.”
Now that they were down to serious business, Li Wu understood he could no longer maintain a joking manner. He composed his expression and said earnestly, “Has the Great General sent by the Imperial Court arrived?”
“Not yet, but it shouldn’t be long now.” Li Qia said. “The rally point for the allied forces is still Junzhou for now. But to facilitate coordination, this morning’s military council agreed to relocate the rally point to the Bailing Plains just outside Xiangzhou. By then, the troops from each military commissioner will converge at Bailling Plains, so you need to see to the defenses of Xiangzhou.”
The change of rally point — from Junzhou, which lay closer to the Capital Region, to the Bailling Plains just outside Xiangzhou — was unclear whether it came from the allied forces’ fear of danger, or from Li Qia’s desire to keep the allied forces firmly under his grasp by bringing them to a prefecture under Zhenchuan’s jurisdiction. But whatever the reason, it was certainly not because the Bailling Plains were better suited as a base camp for the allied forces.
Having hundreds of thousands of troops converge outside Xiangzhou would inevitably create a series of security problems, which was why Li Qia had made a special trip in person to explain this directly.
By the time the two men stepped out of the tent, the sun had already climbed three poles high.
Li Qia exchanged a few polite words and left with his entourage. Wang Shiyong must have said something to him along the way, for when Li Qia departed, he took Wang Shiyong with him.
Li Wu had no interest in where Wang Shiyong went — as long as she wasn’t sticking to the soles of his shoes, she could go wherever she liked.
By the time he returned to the residence, Shen Zhuxi was sitting on the railing of the rear courtyard with a face full of worry. The moment she caught sight of him, she jumped to her feet.
One look at her hesitant, unspoken expression and Li Wu already knew what was on her mind.
“Nothing happened. That heap of dung has been taken away by Li Qia!”
Morning breakfast was already laid out. Once Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu were seated, Li Wu gave her a brief and straightforward account of what had happened that morning.
“Will she just give up like that?” Shen Zhuxi said, her expression troubled.
“What else can she do if she won’t give up?” Li Wu raised an eyebrow. “I already told her — even if her father were still alive, I could make him die again.”
Now that Li Wu was the Prefect of a full prefecture, even if Wang Wenzhong were to return from the dead, he would have no power over him.
Only then did Shen Zhuxi feel reassured.
After moving the conversation away from Wang Shiyong, she suddenly remembered something and brought it up:
“Since the rally point has been moved to Xiangzhou, you, as the host, ought to begin preparations in advance.”
“Prepare what?” Li Wu frowned. “Do I have to go sweep the Bailling Plains?”
Shen Zhuxi said, exasperated: “You are the host — of course you need to prepare a banquet to welcome the commanders who have come from afar! When you went to Junzhou, didn’t the Junzhou Prefect and the commissioner above him host a welcoming banquet for your group? “
Li Wu thought back: “…Now that you mention it, I think they did.”
“This is an expected courtesy. If you make no preparations at all, people will talk behind your back.”
“…I don’t understand these troublesome things.” Li Wu paused, then looked at Shen Zhuxi. “Leave it to you?”
Shen Zhuxi thought for a moment about the challenge of pulling together a proper welcoming banquet while remaining out of sight, then straightened up with confidence and said:
“Leave it to me!”