Shen Zhuxi helped the feverish Li Wu up into the carriage and hurriedly climbed in after him. When it came time for Tiniang to enter the compartment, Li Wu leaned against Shen Zhuxi and lifted his eyelids to glance at her. Tiniang immediately pivoted on her toes and sat down outside the carriage door beside the driver.

The moment the carriage door shut, Li Wu wrapped his arm around Shen Zhuxi’s waist.

Shen Zhuxi was too busy worrying about his flushed and burning cheeks to notice the large hand that had settled on her waist.

“Are you running a fever, or what?” Shen Zhuxi asked with concern. “Dr. Tang’s clinic is on the other side of town — let’s find a clinic nearby.”

“Not going to any clinic…” Li Wu rasped. “Back home.”

Li Wu’s tone brooked no argument, and Shen Zhuxi had no choice but to instruct the driver outside to take them straight home.

The carriage fell quiet, the clear clip of hoofbeats outside the only sound echoing through the compartment.

Night had fallen. The streets were growing sparse, and occasionally a dog’s bark drifted out from the depths of a narrow alley.

Shen Zhuxi wore a look of deep worry, dabbing at the beads of sweat on Li Wu’s forehead with her sleeve from time to time. Li Wu, drawn by the coolness of her hands, pressed his burning cheek into her palm like a large dog begging for affection, nuzzling against her.

Shen Zhuxi placed both palms against his cheeks. Li Wu exhaled a contented breath, his eyes — wetter and brighter than usual — gazing at her without blinking.

As if speaking without words, silently stirring her heartbeat.

The way he looked at her with such undivided attention made it easy to imagine that she was the only person left in the world, the only one in his eyes.

Shen Zhuxi tried her best to stop her face from growing warm with wayward thoughts, and shyly, nervously, she looked away.

“Why were you outside the music hall?” Li Wu stared at her intently, his voice low and husky.

“I… I was just passing by…” Shen Zhuxi said hastily.

“You’re lying.”

Li Wu murmured the words, and the hand clasped around her waist suddenly tightened. Shen Zhuxi involuntarily fell against Li Wu’s burning body.

“You were jealous,” he said against her ear.

The scorching breath that swept into her ear ignited every inch of her temperature.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart hammered wildly. She struggled to sit upright, but Li Wu’s large hand remained firmly locked around her waist, holding her in place, forcing her against his chest.

Beneath his chest, a fierce drumming was hidden.

It drove her own heartbeat forward, like an untamed horse bolting across open ground.

“I’ve been to music halls before, but only to collect debts. Someone like me couldn’t even get into the main hall, let alone a private room. This was the first time I ever sat in a private room listening to music and watching dancers. That place — it was actually quite something,” Li Wu said.

The gloom in Shen Zhuxi’s heart smothered her shyness, and she let out a listless “oh.”

Beyond that, she didn’t know what to say.

Was there any notable person in the world who hadn’t visited a music hall? If she got angry, she would only seem unreasonable.

“You’re not going to ask me what was interesting?” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart ached, yet she forced a smile all the same. “…What was interesting?”

“I saw someone in the corner kissing a maidservant,” Li Wu said, then paused, lowering his voice, leaning closer to her ear as if sharing a secret that couldn’t be spoken aloud. “The way they were kissing — it was different from the way we kiss.”

Shen Zhuxi’s face blazed red in an instant.

“Why were you watching other people kiss!”

“I was curious,” Li Wu said, entirely unapologetic.

Shen Zhuxi was silent for a moment, but in the end her own curiosity won out. “…How were they kissing?”

“Couldn’t quite make it out,” Li Wu said. “Let’s try it ourselves.”

Before Shen Zhuxi could respond, Li Wu had already swallowed her words.

He was more intense than ever before.

In the past, he had been like a duck pressing kisses all over her face — a peck here, a peck there.

But now he was like a wolf ravenous with hunger, concerned only with sating a gnawing, desperate need. He cupped his chin against her face and pried open the locked door of sweetness, advancing without restraint, conquering every inch, as if entering unchallenged territory.

A racing heartbeat numbed the mind.

An unfamiliar pleasure rendered thought impossible.

Her eyes fell shut by reflex, and she was like someone swept up in a tide that surged over her head, drifting helplessly with the current. The waves began violently, then slowly gentled. Her delicate, slender lashes trembled, and within her heart they traced the shape of the man who was so intimately close to her.

His wheat-toned skin. His bright, spirited eyes. His tall, straight nose with its small bony ridge in the middle — like a clever, stubborn little hill, quietly peeking out from lines that were tall yet ordinary.

She knew him so well that he had replaced the whole world in her heart.

Open her eyes, and it was him. Close them, and still him.

“Madam, sir, we’ve arri — oh!” Tiniang’s face turned scarlet as she snapped her head back.

The carriage door swung shut again.

Tiniang was flustered and mortified. She turned to place all the blame on the driver. “It’s all your fault! You drove so fast, with the hoofbeats so loud, how was I supposed to hear if it was inconvenient!”

The driver: “?”

The carriage door banged open, and Shen Zhuxi helped Li Wu step down from the carriage. She buried her face, red as dripping blood, against Li Wu’s chest, wishing she could find a crack in the ground to disappear into for a year and a half.

Tiniang and the driver simultaneously looked away, each silently counting the clouds above their heads.

After everything that had happened in the carriage, Shen Zhuxi’s own legs had gone soft. It was less a matter of supporting him and more a matter of leaning on each other.

The two of them swayed and stumbled their way into the main courtyard’s inner chamber, and Shen Zhuxi immediately called for cold water and clean towels to be brought.

She wiped Li Wu’s burning cheeks over and over, but it was no use at all. He lay on the bed perfectly still, yet his temperature kept rising. Beads of fine sweat seeped through his wheat-toned skin, and the brocade robe on his body had grown damp with perspiration.

Even without firsthand experience, Shen Zhuxi had read enough. In the story books she had gone through, there were such things as arousal-inducing drugs, and in the imperial harem, such forbidden substances were far from uncommon.

Li Wu had gone to attend Tian Shu-jiong’s invitation — so why had he fallen victim to such a sinister trick? Could it be that Tian Shu-jiong truly was not a good person? But Li Wu hadn’t even met Fu Xuanmiao yet — why would Tian Shu-jiong move against Li Wu first?

Questions piled one upon the next, but with Li Wu in such a wretched state before her, none of them mattered in the slightest.

Watching him suffer in silence, Shen Zhuxi hesitated for a long while before haltingly saying, “I’ve heard that… men can take care of this themselves… why don’t I step outside…”

The moment she shifted to move away, Li Wu reached up from the bed and seized her wrist in a tight grip.

“Don’t go… silly, don’t go.”

His feeble voice stopped her in her tracks.

“But you…”

Shen Zhuxi looked helplessly at his flushed, sweating face, carefully avoiding his eyes.

Those wet, too-bright eyes — she didn’t dare meet them directly.

“Help me…”

That sensation of being starved of air seemed to return.

Li Wu’s low, husky voice numbed her reason. Still dazed and not quite understanding what was happening, she found herself lying beside Li Wu, pulled into the embrace of a burning arm.

Li Wu’s tender, fervent kisses came one after another, each one like a step forward, gradually leading her into an enchanted world. There were dense rainforests here — warm and moist, enveloping her. There were surging ocean waves — breathtakingly fierce, chasing after her.

Her soul drifted up into a boundless universe, where night stars scattered and flickered across her mind without end.

She was surely not the only one gazing at the stars.

Li Wu’s lips moved across her trembling lashes, his warm, moist mouth gliding over her little nose and her full cheeks.

“Help me…” He reached out, groping in the dark, and closed his hand around hers.

She had no power to refuse his plea.

She was sinking into the world called Li Wu, bewitched body and soul, her spirit unmoored in the limitless night sky.

She touched a star that burned hotter than her own palm. It was so scalding, so fierce — she feared she might harm it, feared that its heat might sear her in return. In her panic she sought to flee, but Li Wu came rushing up behind her and caught her.

As he had done every time before, he guided her, patiently and tirelessly, to feel this expanse of sky.

The sky gradually darkened.

Tiniang sat on the stone steps outside, idly counting the stars above.

One, two, three…

By the time the east had begun to lighten and the sun was nearly ready to peek out, a voice — unusually hoarse and ragged — finally came from within the door:

“Send in water for bathing.”

Tiniang quickly ordered the water to be brought. She followed the rough-handed maidservants carrying wooden tubs as they hurried into the room, helping them pour in the hot water, her eyes not daring to stray toward the lowered bed curtains.

The maidservants flowed in like water and slipped away again just as quietly.

After the inner chamber had grown still, Li Wu pushed aside the bed curtains, got up, and walked to the copper washstand nearby. He picked up a clean towel, dipped it in the basin, wrung it out, and carried it back to the bedside.

He crouched down and said gently, “Stop being cross with me. I was wrong. Let me clean you up, won’t that do…”

He took her outstretched hand and carefully wiped away the mess on her palm.

In the heat of the moment, he hadn’t thought much of it. But now, seeing Shen Zhuxi’s soft, fair hand turned bright red, Li Wu felt both remorse and a pang in his heart.

He wiped clean each space between her fingers with great care, then said:

“See? All clean now!”

“My hand aches and hurts — it’s practically broken!”

Shen Zhuxi turned her head and glared at him fiercely. Her usually gentle almond-shaped eyes shimmered with tears, and her puffed cheeks made her look all the more like someone who needed to be cupped in one’s hands and coaxed.

“It won’t break. And if it does, I’ll put it back together,” Li Wu said coaxingly.

Shen Zhuxi had no patience for his glib nonsense. She tried to shake his hand off, tried and tried, and couldn’t. He clung to her like a stubborn adhesive plaster, stuck fast.

“I don’t believe a word you say anymore!” she said angrily. “You promised that before we were married, you wouldn’t… wouldn’t do anything — and now you’ve taken advantage of me!”

“I didn’t take advantage of you — I let you take advantage of me,” Li Wu said soothingly. “Look, you’re perfectly fine, just a little mess on your hand. The one who lost their innocence — that’s me. I don’t even mind, so what are you fussing about?”

Shen Zhuxi stared at him wide-eyed, struck speechless by the sheer novelty of this excuse.

“Besides, it was purely an expedient measure,” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi nearly sat bolt upright in bed — he was actually using idioms correctly now?

Li Wu settled back onto the bed, edging his rear end closer to Shen Zhuxi in a bid for favor.

“Not to brag, but that Liu — Liu Xiahui you mentioned once — if Liu Xiahui had seen me today, he’d have no choice but to bow his head and call me master. My body isn’t something just anyone can touch — other than you, I would sooner break this bow than give anyone else the opportunity to force anything.”

With Li Wu having said things to this point, what else could Shen Zhuxi say?

Feeling wronged, she raised her glistening eyes and quietly voiced the worry that was weighing on her at that moment:

“Will I… could I possibly…”

“Could you possibly what?” Li Wu pricked up his ears and leaned in close.

“Could I possibly… could I possibly…” Shen Zhuxi screwed up her courage, her face burning like a just-boiled kettle. “Get pregnant!”

Li Wu went silent.

He sat up straight and stared at her with a grave expression.

“Shouldn’t be possible?”

Shen Zhuxi’s eyes went wide. “Is it possible or isn’t it?”

“Shouldn’t be… you had all your clothes on.”

“But my hand didn’t have any clothes on!” Shen Zhuxi held up her now-spotless right hand, on the verge of tears. “My mother consort told me that when a man and woman share a bed, the man gives the woman the yang energy from his body, and the woman’s body receives that yang energy, and that’s what causes a pregnancy… I — I might already be pregnant right now!”

At least Shen Zhuxi had a mother consort up above who had given her a few words of guidance. Li Wu’s plum tree of a father had never explained to him how babies were made or how to prevent one.

He only knew that a husband and wife sleeping together could produce children. But exactly how it happened — he had never crouched under anyone’s bed to observe, so how was he supposed to know?

“Don’t panic. Think about this calmly,” said a calm Li Wu. “…I’ll go ask Li Que.”