By the time the sky at the horizon was turning pale, the victory banquet that had run all night drew to a close amid an uncanny atmosphere.

At the height of drunken revelry, the Yuanlong Emperor and the Yangzhou Prefect had acted in concert to propose establishing the capital at Yangzhou — only to be deflected by Fu Xuanmiao with effortless ease — and the displeased expression on his face was plain to see.

Immediately following this, while requests for merit and awards had not even been formally submitted, the Yuanlong Emperor began dispensing lavish rewards far beyond the customary scale. Even Li Wu, who had been left behind at the rear and had already been removed from the list of those to be commended, received silver and imperially bestowed gifts as his reward.

This move to win hearts and minds was executed brilliantly. The sentiment in the tent immediately shifted, and the Yuanlong Emperor became the object of admiration among the lower and middle ranks of civil and military officials. Fu Xuanmiao yielded the seat of honor and moved to a lower position; the wine in his cup remained more than half full when the banquet finally ended.

As the feast dispersed, everyone returned to their own tents, each with thoughts of their own.

The Yuanlong Emperor slept in the hastily erected main tent until the sun was already sinking in the west.

A beautiful palace maid brought a golden basin of clean water to attend to his washing. She then used a dried peony branch to clean his teeth; and by the time she had draped the imperial yellow outer robe over his shoulders, Shen Suzhang’s drowsiness had fully departed.

He paused before the pearl curtain, his gaze passing through each round and lustrous southern pearl, settling on the sea-green figure on the other side of the curtain.

Fu Xuanmiao maintained exactly the same posture as he had six hours before — motionless, kneeling in the outer chamber of the tent.

A cold sneer flickered across Shen Suzhang’s face; then, as he lifted the pearl curtain aside, the cold sneer instantly transformed into surprise.

“When did you arrive, beloved subject? Why did no one report to Us?”

Shen Suzhang’s head eunuch bowed low and fawningly. “Counselor Fu returned with Your Majesty after the feast dispersed. Your Majesty had been reading memorials until very late the night before, and fell asleep inadvertently after changing clothes.”

“How did you handle this?” Shen Suzhang feigned anger. “If We inadvertently fell asleep, couldn’t you have woken Us? How could you let Chanyu kneel like this for an entire day?”

The head eunuch lightly slapped his own cheek, bent his back even lower, and put on an expression of abject dread and contrition. “This servant deserves death —”

“This matter has nothing to do with the head eunuch — it was this minister who told him not to disturb Your Majesty’s rest.” Once the master and servant had finished their performance, Fu Xuanmiao lowered his gaze and spoke softly. “Being able to grant Your Majesty a full night’s peaceful sleep is this minister’s blessing.”

“Chanyu is always so thoughtful and considerate —” Only now did Shen Suzhang appear as though he had just noticed. “Look at me — so overcome with surprise I forgot to ask you to rise. It works out perfectly today — Chanyu, why not stay and dine with Us?”

“Your Majesty’s great kindness — Chanyu dare not decline.”

Fu Xuanmiao gathered his robe to rise. His legs, having knelt for an entire day, were numb and stiff from the blood not circulating properly. He stumbled where he stood; the pain he was suppressing broke through his composed expression in a ripple. The head eunuch, standing only two paces away, stared into empty space, seeing nothing of Fu Xuanmiao’s unsteady figure.

Shen Suzhang sat with idle ease on the rosewood couch carved with dragon patterns and upholstered with a rattan seat, his imperial yellow robe hanging loosely open to reveal the silk inner garment. No one reminded him that his bearing was unseemly — everyone in the tent had long grown accustomed to His Majesty’s unconstrained informality.

He slowly savored the hot tea a palace maid had presented him, seeming likewise not to have noticed Fu Xuanmiao’s moment of distress.

Fu Xuanmiao inched forward one step at a time, enduring the pain of walking on what felt like knife edges, and by the time he reached the side of the couch, fine beads of cold sweat had already risen on his forehead.

“Sit, there are no others here — Chanyu need not stand on ceremony with Us.” Shen Suzhang set down his teacup.

“…Thank you, Your Majesty.” Fu Xuanmiao saluted with clasped hands and sat down across from the low table beside the couch.

“Having just woken from sleep, the mind is not yet entirely clear. For what matter has Chanyu come?”

“Chanyu has come to beg Your Majesty’s punishment,” Fu Xuanmiao lowered his head and saluted with clasped hands, speaking slowly. “For being unable to assist Your Majesty in fulfilling the wish to move the capital to Yangzhou — Chanyu deserves ten thousand deaths.”

“…Enough — this matter is that We were too impatient.” Shen Suzhang looked at his lowered and acquiescent manner and allowed a cold sneer, yet spoke with: “Before taking the false emperor’s head and offering it in tribute before the late emperor’s spirit in Heaven, We should indeed not be thinking of how to settle comfortably. The Chancellor and beloved subject have thought things through thoroughly — you are truly the pillars of Our Great Yan.”

“This minister dares not accept such praise.” Fu Xuanmiao said.

“Such a loyal minister — how should We reward you? Ah, right — where is that box of Carefree Pills We received the other day? Bring it to Us quickly!”

A glance from the head eunuch, and an attendant promptly stepped forward bearing a rosewood tray.

On the tray sat only a palm-sized jade box. Six glossy black-tinged-red medicinal pills lay quietly inside.

Shen Suzhang rested his chin in his hand, feigning a troubled expression. “This wondrous elixir strengthens the body and fortifies the masculine energy. We have not yet tried it — one wonders whether beloved subject —”

He raised his smiling eyes to meet Fu Xuanmiao’s silence and said: “Would be willing to test the medicine for Us?”

The red sun had set; a multitude of stars surged out.

The soldiers who had won the battle were starting a second round of celebratory drinking. Sounds of wine and revelry drifted continuously from every tent.

At the entrance of one large tent in the center of the encampment, however, stood several attendants with expressions of nervous tension.

Yan Hui paced anxiously before the tent, stopping from time to time to look at the hanging curtain behind him.

When a serving maid led Yangliu — wearing a veiled hat — over, he could not help but step quickly forward to meet her.

“You’ve finally come!”

“What did the physician say?” Yangliu’s brow was deeply furrowed, unable to conceal the worried concern in her eyes.

“Though there is elixir toxicity, it is not a lethal poison. There are some potent tonifying stimulants in it — as long as it is not taken over a long period, resting with medicinal treatment for a few days will do. Only…” Yan Hui paused and said vaguely, “I could see the young master was truly suffering dreadfully…”

“I understand.” Yangliu cut off his words. “All of you may withdraw — I will attend to the young master.”

Yan Hui nodded, exchanging a glance with the attendants nearby.

Everyone read the mood and scattered like birds startled from a tree. Yan Hui remained alone; he stepped forward a few paces and stood with arms folded around his sword, keeping watch before the tent entrance.

Yangliu lifted the tent flap and entered.

The interior was dim with no light. The spacious outer chamber held only a single couch and a small table. A jade box made of Hetian jade sat open on the table — inside, only five pills remained.

She removed her veiled hat and stood for a moment before the bamboo curtain to the inner chamber, pressing down her swirling and conflicted thoughts, composing the expression on her face, then lifted the bamboo curtain and entered the inner chamber.

The inner chamber was even darker.

A thread of starlight shot in through the half-open window. Like a sharp, cold sword, it pierced through this dead-still world.

Within that cold shaft of light, Fu Xuanmiao was soaking in a bathing tub with his back turned to her. The surface of the water was shadowed by the faint floating outlines of ice. His gaunt shoulder blades protruded with the effort he was exerting; two hands — white to the point of turning blue — gripped the sides of the tub tightly. His long hair, no longer held up by his hair crown, fell down behind him and spread in the ice water like a black lotus in bloom.

“Young master!”

A pain shot through Yangliu’s heart, her voice already trembling.

She had barely stepped forward when Fu Xuanmiao in the tub let out a low, hoarse voice: “…Get out.”

Yangliu had no choice but to stop her approaching steps.

She gazed in grief at the unmoving silhouette in the ice-water tub and said through tears:

“The elixir was given by His Majesty’s own hand — could its effects be ordinary? If the young master feels that Yangliu is unworthy to attend, one word from the young master and there will immediately be a woman of unblemished standing willing to enter the tent to relieve the young master’s distress in this moment… Why must the young master torment himself like this?”

Dust motes drifted in the mid-air shaft of starlight. The tent was utterly silent.

Tears fell from Yangliu’s eyes. She forced up the corners of her lips while her eyes wept, a pitiful smile appearing on her pale and desperate face.

“For a woman who cast the young master aside and threw herself into another’s arms… young master… why must you?”

Yan Hui’s words sounded again in her ears:

“Li Zhuzong is indeed irrelevant — no hurry to deal with that. The young master has not had a proper night’s sleep for a long while since news of the Princess of Yue marrying someone else. He drank a fair amount tonight, so perhaps he’ll manage a decent sleep this evening… I still can’t figure out what tricks that ruffian called Li Wu used to deceive the princess into marrying down to him… Once this person falls into the young master’s hands, I fear even dying would be difficult for him…”

The Princess of Yue had actually, after wandering among the common people, married down to a low-life who made his living by fraud and deception.

Even so, even so —

The young master was still desperately searching for her whereabouts, even concealing her disgraceful affairs for her — apart from Yan Hui, not a single person knew that the princess had already taken another husband! Had Yan Hui not mistakenly assumed she already knew this, she would not have known how much longer she would have been kept in the dark.

Why was the young master so utterly devoted? For what purpose?

“Yangliu, you have overstepped.”

His voice seemed itself to have been soaking in ice water — even the sole veneer of false warmth had vanished. Beneath that frigid three-foot restraint, a dangerous flame burned.

Yangliu sank to her knees, her forehead pressed against her stacked hands, tears falling in large drops onto the floor.

“…A body like duckweed by the roadside dares not aspire to be the bright moon.”

She spoke word by word, her voice trembling:

“Yangliu is willing to go through fire and water for the young master, to give everything — heart, liver, and all. Yangliu is willing to use her own person to sweep clear a great open road for the young master. Yangliu’s life has been blessed with little fortune; she is willing to offer up the blessings of the next life, and the life after that, and of life after life and generation after generation, in exchange for the young master’s all-encompassing happiness in this lifetime. Yangliu has only one wish in this life, and that is for the young master to be happy.”

She raised her tear-streaked face and stared directly at that cruel, unmoving back turned against her.

“Yangliu cannot understand — with so many highborn women of good families who adore the young master in this world, why does the young master cling to a woman who does not love him?”

She had given everything she had. If he had only given a nod, she would have been willing to tear out her own heart and show it to him.

She had never thought that one day she might possess the moon.

She did not dare hope that the bright moon would ever show her favor — her sole wish in this life was that the bright moon remain forever pristine and cold.

And not… and not fall into the mortal dust, to have its true heart trampled.

She had devoted everything she had in this lifetime to the man before her. What she yearned for was nothing but his happiness. What she implored for was only this — that he not fall in love with a woman who did not love him.

“If what you have to say is only this,” Fu Xuanmiao said, “then get out.”

For she understood better than anyone the suffering of tossing and turning night and day, burning in the flames of loving and being unable to have that love returned — every single moment.

She simply did not want him to experience the same suffering.

The contradictions and hesitations in her heart settled in that moment. She had made her decision.

“Yangliu… Yangliu has something to report.” She wiped away her tears and said through sobs, “I have already investigated the full background of Li Zhuzong. The man changed his name merely to go about swindling people — he moves from place to place committing his frauds, and has no other suspicious activities.”

Before daylight, Li Wu was roused awake by the roosters crowing one after another in the provisions camp.

He had been kept up all night by the raucous drunkards, and had just barely fallen asleep when sounds from outside rose one louder than the last, as though a chicken coop had burst open, with crowing upon crowing.

After failing in his attempt to forcibly lull himself back to sleep, Li Wu — dark circles under his eyes — charged murderously toward the provisions camp.

The provisions camp was the earliest place in the encampment to come alive. When Li Wu burst into it with a knife in hand, it gave the cooks inside quite a fright.

“Which bald chicken was crowing?! I’m going to slaughter it right now!” Li Wu said furiously.

A stunned cook instinctively pointed. Li Wu seized the offending chicken, pressed the blade against the frantically struggling bird’s neck, and said ferociously: “Go on, crow! Crow until your throat breaks — let’s see who comes to save you!”

Half an hour later, Li Wu walked out of the provisions camp with a bowl of fragrant, steaming chicken porridge in one hand and a two-tiered food carrier packed full of chicken dishes in the other, looking thoroughly at ease.

A slight and delicate woman wearing a veiled hat came walking toward him.

Women in the encampment — aside from the camp entertainers, no other consideration applied — but camp entertainers would not walk upright down an open road in broad daylight.

Li Wu, with the porcelain bowl in his teeth, instinctively looked a moment longer.

The fresh morning breeze swept through the space between the tents, and beneath the white gauze appeared a face still marked with the traces of tears. She looked at him; he looked at her.

Though — Shen the Little Dolt still cried prettily.

Li Wu smacked his lips, lifted the porcelain bowl with his hand, and drank his chicken porridge in large gulps as he walked with a light step toward the tent of Li Kun and Li Que.

Yangliu stopped and turned to watch Li Wu’s retreating figure.

The desolate autumn wind swept away the bitter, self-mocking smile at the corner of her lips. Yangliu tightened her grip on her hands folded in her wide sleeves, and something like resolve gradually appeared on her face.

She took one last look at Li Wu’s retreating figure, then turned around and walked slowly away.