Shen Zhuxi had not received any prior word that the Bai Family would be coming to visit.

She had even less idea that the two Bai elders would be bringing more than a dozen handsome, young, and tall clansmen along with them.

The small reception hall of the villa could not fit them all, so Madam Shen had specifically arranged two extra tables out in the courtyard, just to accommodate the Bai Family’s dozen-odd men of strikingly varied appearances.

Bai Anji and Li Wu sat across from each other. With an expression of placid serenity, Bai Anji said to Li Wu, “These are the brightest and most promising young talents of my Bai Family. They have long admired you by reputation, my lord. I brought them here today to ask the young and capable Military Commissioner of Zhenchuan to offer them some words of guidance, to point them toward a direction for their lives ahead.”

Li Wu’s smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his teeth ground together with an audible grate. Admire me? More like they want to poach what’s mine.

That relentless Bai Family — finding no opening through him, they had turned their sights toward his woman instead.

Bai Anji paid no heed to his glare of condemnation, and calmly raised his teacup for a sip.

Inside the room, the two Bai elders and Shen Zhuxi sat together on the luohan daybed in the inner chamber.

Separated by the low table and three steaming cups of tea, Shen Zhuxi asked with puzzlement, “I’ve heard that the Bai Family has passed down through a single heir for generations. So those clansmen are…”

“All adopted.” Bai Yougen stroked his white beard and smiled gently. “If we relied solely on a single heir of the Bai bloodline, how many generations could this wealth last? If we happened upon a wastrel son — no matter how much money I made, wouldn’t he squander it all? After your uncle was born, I began thinking about this. The charitable estates across Jiangnan are almost all run by our Bai Family — for the very purpose of discovering and cultivating talent. And it proved to be no idle worry. Your uncle turned out well enough, but your cousin…”

Bai Yougen let out a sigh.

“Your cousin has no serious faults, but minor ones, many. He has an irritating mouth but a kind heart. If I didn’t leave him a few capable helpers, I fear that the moment your uncle passes on, he’ll be picked clean by others. These men may not be true Bai blood, but they are of clean birth, raised alongside the true Bai heirs from childhood — no different from the real thing. I brought them here today so that you might spend time with them and come to know them.”

“The tallest one has the gentlest and most reserved temperament. He enjoys playing the qin and painting in his spare time — the two of you should have plenty to talk about.” Bai Yougen glanced out the window at the two tables of handsome men drinking tea and chatting, and began introducing them to Shen Zhuxi one by one. “The one beside him in blue has more craftiness to him, but he’s not a bad person — back then, to pay for his gravely ill younger brother’s treatment, he nearly sold himself. And that one drinking tea, do you see him? Looks like a dashing young playboy, right? In truth, he’s never even held a woman’s hand — go say a few words to him and he’ll start stammering for sure. And then there’s that one—”

“Maternal grandfather!” Shen Zhuxi couldn’t help interrupting Bai Yougen.

The ostensible purpose was one thing, but Shen Zhuxi had understood his true intent. She had also understood the reason for the presence of those men of so many different types.

“I already tried to dissuade your grandfather,” said the Bai matriarch, her voice gentle and composed. “But this man — he was stubborn when he was young, and he’s only grown more stubborn with age. Whatever anyone says goes in one ear and out the other.”

“Some matters cannot be left entirely to the child!” Bai Yougen straightened his face and said indignantly. “If it were anything else, I’d hold my tongue. But this is the lifelong affair of my only granddaughter — how could I stand by and watch her be deceived?”

“I haven’t been deceived…” Shen Zhuxi said.

“You haven’t been deceived?” Bai Yougen widened his eyes. “Can you swear that when you first married that man surnamed Li, you weren’t under his spell?”

Shen Zhuxi was momentarily at a loss for words.

“Do you think I don’t know how many schemes that man surnamed Li has in him? I can tell what he’s up to just by watching him twitch — looking at him is like looking in a mirror.” Bai Yougen bristled with indignation. “You’re a princess who grew up sheltered in the deep palace. By some miracle you survived those brutal rebel forces. Someone shows you a little kindness and you think they’re a good person — didn’t that man surnamed Li tell you that the outside world was in chaos, that a young woman traveling alone wasn’t safe, so you should enter a nominal marriage to conceal your identity while he helped you search for your family?”

Shen Zhuxi: “…”

“And then this search for family dragged on without result, and he ended up making himself your family instead?”

Shen Zhuxi was speechless.

“You’ve been boiled like a frog in warm water, you foolish child!” Bai Yougen said, his heart aching with anguish.

Shen Zhuxi weakly tried to counter: “Even if it began as a matter of expedience, I am genuinely willing to stay by his side now, and he is genuine with me as well…”

“He was a muddy-footed commoner who came from nothing. To be able to marry someone as noble as you, of course he would be genuine with you. If he weren’t grateful and devoted, treating you well and holding you in the highest regard, then he’d be a cold-hearted, thankless wretch.” Bai Yougen’s beard quivered with agitation.

Fearing he might tip over backward then and there, Shen Zhuxi hastened to soothe him: “Grandfather, please don’t be upset. Li Wu truly treats me very well…”

“What good is it that he treats you well now?” Bai Yougen said. “Your father, back in the day, also treated your mother well. He would give her the stars themselves, and never the moon. And in the end, what came of it?”

The old man’s snow-white hair and beard trembled, and his clouded eyes welled with moisture. He blinked hard, forcing the tears back, and said in a firm tone:

“I lost your mother. I cannot lose you too. The promises a man makes when he loves you are empty — they cannot be trusted.”

Before Shen Zhuxi could speak, Bai Yougen continued:

“If you truly want to be with Li Wu, it isn’t entirely out of the question — have him resign from office and come home to be a son-in-law under our Bai roof. We won’t treat him poorly. Silks and satins for him to wipe his feet on, gold and silver vessels changed out daily, whatever he wants he shall have — so long as he stays firmly in our Bai Family’s hands.”

“Maternal grandfather! I trust Li Wu!” Shen Zhuxi said urgently.

“You trust him — I do not!” Bai Yougen said furiously. “Has he never once broken a promise to you?”

A sudden scrape rang out from the outer room, the grating sound of a chair dragged across the floorboards.

Li Wu lifted the door curtain and walked in. Without waiting for Bai Yougen to ask, he dropped to his knees with a thud in front of the luohan daybed.

“Li—”

Bai Anji, who had followed him into the inner chamber, swallowed the rest of his words at the sight, and stopped himself just beyond the doorway curtain.

“I have broken a promise,” Li Wu said.

Those words made Shen Zhuxi — who had jumped up in a fluster to help him to his feet — pause.

“When I married Shen Zhuxi, I had nothing. I promised her that I would not touch her until after a proper wedding ceremony.” Li Wu said. “I broke that promise.”

“You—” Bai Yougen’s blood surged with fury. He reached instinctively for the teacup on the table and made to hurl it at him.

Shen Zhuxi quickly pressed down on his hand, pleading: “Maternal grandfather!”

The Bai matriarch, knowing her husband’s temper, hastily held him back as he tried to rise from the daybed and called out loudly, “Have you forgotten what you promised me before we left home?”

“No anger! No temper!” Bai Yougen sat on the luohan daybed, veins bulging at his temples in fury, yet his eyes bored into Li Wu like he wanted to devour him whole while his mouth ground out through clenched teeth: “I am not angry! I am not — not even remotely — angry — and I certainly haven’t lost my temper!”

“I know you don’t trust me—” Li Wu knelt upright on the floor, his gaze unflinching as he met Bai Yougen’s furious glare. Then, still not looking away, he said in a low and steady voice:

“…For Shen Zhuxi’s sake, I would walk through mountains of swords and seas of fire.”

“Very well!”

Bai Yougen reached into his lapels and drew out a dagger that gleamed with a jewel-like brilliance, throwing it to the ground with a resounding clatter.

“As the old saying goes, desire spells destruction. Let me make it clear right now — the greatest fear in giving a precious jewel to someone is having her ruined in the end. If you castrate yourself here and now, I will believe that you will not betray my precious pearl in this lifetime!”

These words not only made Shen Zhuxi’s face drain of color — even the Bai matriarch, who knew him well, turned pale with alarm and cried out: “Absolutely not! Don’t you dare listen to his nonsense—”

Li Wu paid no heed, picked up the dagger from the ground, and without a moment’s hesitation plunged it between his legs.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart nearly leaped from her throat. She was so frightened that her body went numb and she stood frozen in place, unable to move.

The silver flash of the blade disappeared completely between Li Wu’s legs. Shen Zhuxi’s strength abandoned her and she collapsed onto the luohan daybed, staring blankly — yet no blood ever came.

Li Wu slowly raised the dagger. The tip emerged once more.

It was a retractable mechanism blade.

The Bai matriarch went limp with relief and sank onto the luohan daybed just as Shen Zhuxi had.

“Can you trust me now?” He looked at Bai Yougen.

Bai Yougen came to his senses. “…You had already seen through the fact that this blade couldn’t injure anyone!”

“What makes you say I had seen through it?” Li Wu’s expression darkened. “Are you going back on your word?”

Bai Yougen truly had no proof that Li Wu had known from the start that it was a trick blade.

This blade had been with him for more than a decade. Not once had anyone been able to detect its hidden mechanism before using it.

In the taut silence of the standoff, an aged figure trembled and leaned half its body around the door frame from outside, and said tentatively:

“…Pardon this humble physician’s forwardness, but may I ask — is it time to take the pulse now? This humble one has other patients waiting. If it is time, perhaps we might begin sooner rather than later…”

“Take the pulse?” Bai Yougen furrowed his brow. “Who is ill?”

Li Wu’s gaze moved to Shen Zhuxi on the luohan daybed.

“You’re ill?” Bai Yougen’s voice rose immediately.

“I’m not ill…” Shen Zhuxi said softly.

“Then what is it?” the Bai matriarch pressed.

Caught between the two elders, Shen Zhuxi murmured in a voice barely louder than a mosquito’s hum: “I… it seems… I am with child…”

“You—” Bai Yougen’s eyes went wide as saucers. He stared at Shen Zhuxi for a moment, then abruptly turned his head to Li Wu. “You—”

Li Wu, utterly unperturbed, met his stare head-on.

Bai Yougen’s “you” trailed on for a moment, his eyes rolled upward, and he toppled backward.

“My lord!” The Bai matriarch cried out and caught Bai Yougen’s falling body.

Bai Anji leaped into the inner chamber in one stride, caught Bai Yougen as he slumped, and pressed hard on the philtrum acupoint beneath his nose. Bai Yougen remained completely unresponsive.

“Physician, come quickly!” Shen Zhuxi called out in a panic.

The physician hurried in with his medicine chest.

The inner chamber dissolved into chaos. No one spared a thought for Li Wu still kneeling on the ground. He had no choice but to stand on his own, dust off his knees, and stand sheepishly to one side.

Fortunately, Bai Yougen was not seriously ill — only overcome by a rush of fury, and had briefly fainted from it.

The physician who had come to examine Shen Zhuxi for signs of pregnancy ended up becoming the physician who administered a calming treatment to Bai Yougen.

Taking advantage of the moment when both father and son were occupied in the inner chamber, the Bai matriarch quietly drew Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu out to the corridor and said in a low voice, “Pack your things and head back to Xiangyang now.”

Shen Zhuxi was startled and said instinctively, “But grandfather…”

“Your grandfather was stubborn in his youth and is even more stubborn now that he is old. Once he has made up his mind, no amount of talking from others will get through to him. Once he wakes up, who knows what else he’ll come up with to torment the two of you.” The Bai matriarch paused, then looked toward Li Wu, took his hand, and said with earnest sincerity, “I can see that your heart toward Xi’er is true. I am entrusting Xi’er to you — you must take good care of her. Once the child is born, bring them both to Yangzhou. By then, even the old man won’t have anything more to say.”

Li Wu looked at Shen Zhuxi, making it clear he was leaving the decision entirely to her.

Shen Zhuxi could think of no better solution.

With Bai Yougen so firmly opposed to her being with Li Wu, staying in Yangzhou with a swollen belly might only cause more trouble for everyone.

“All right…” she hesitated, then gave a nod.

Taking advantage of the chaos in the back courtyard, she quickly gathered her belongings. She left behind a letter full of apologies addressed to Bai Yougen, and then she and Li Wu slipped quietly out through the back gate of the Shen residence.

A while later, Bai Yougen awoke in the master bedroom of the Shen Family’s villa. He looked at his one son and beloved wife gathered at the bedside, and said nothing about where Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu had gone. Instead, he looked at the empty spot where they had been sitting on the daybed and let out a long, heavy sigh.

Bai Anji couldn’t help himself: “Father, Her Highness shouldn’t have gone too far yet — shall we…”

The Bai matriarch shot him a fierce glare to silence him.

“Let it go, let it go…” Bai Yougen murmured, listless as a wandering spirit.

“Then I’ll go have the carriage prepared to take us back.” Bai Anji said.

“Let me go — you stay with your father.” The Bai matriarch rose and said.

After the Bai matriarch slowly walked out of the room, Bai Anji looked at his father lying on the bed. After a brief silence, he could not resist voicing the question that had been lingering in his heart:

“That blade… did he know it was a mechanism blade or not?”

Bai Yougen was silent for a long while before his lips finally parted:

“Whether he knew or not… the performance he put on was thorough enough to count for something genuine. And more to the point — not only have they cooked the raw rice into a finished meal, they’ve even made a crust at the bottom of the pot. What more can I do…”

He rambled on at length, and finally trailed off into one last disgruntled conclusion:

“Let it go… let it go.”

As the sun sank in the west, the Bai Family’s carriage departed the Shen Family’s gates as quietly as it had come.

The Shen Family patriarch, who had bowed and scraped to see the two Bai elders off, patted his belly and turned to walk back through the main gate.

No one noticed that at the mouth of the alley not far from the gate, a plainly built carriage had been parked for quite some time.

No one knew that the Bai Family’s only heir was pressed against the carriage window’s crack, watching with desperate, longing eyes as the Bai Family’s carriage drew further and further away from him.

Father! Grandfather!

Don’t go! Come save him!

The silent screams that nearly tore through his chest never reached the ears of his nearest kin. The Bai Family’s horses broke into a cheerful trot — clip-clop, clip-clop — and disappeared from his sight.

Bai Rongling made up his mind then and there: the very first thing he would do upon returning to the Bai Family estate was to slaughter that bay horse pulling the carriage — how dare it run so fast, how utterly shameless, swinging its hindquarters and prancing off like that. Just who exactly was it trying to please?!

Once the Bai Family’s carriage had disappeared completely at the far end of the road, Yanhuí gave a light knock on the opposite carriage window.

The window was pushed open from within, revealing a face of cool, refined composure.

Yanhuí did not dare look directly at him. He lowered his head and, in a parched voice, delivered the news he had just learned from the Shen Family’s servants.

“The Military Commissioner of Zhenchuan is returning to Xiangyang today, because… because his wife… is with child…”

Every single word fell from his lips as though weighted with dread.