If there were no such thing as eternity in this world, how wonderful it would be if time could stop forever at this very moment.

Shen Zhuxi leaned against the chest of the person she had lost and found again, gazing raptly at Li Wu’s resolute face. Li Wu rested his back against a tree trunk, his arm around her slender shoulders, his eyes never leaving her face, his gaze slowly tracing the lines of her features.

After a long separation, both of them were quietly taking in the changes in the other.

Li Wu had grown thinner, his skin darker, his jaw rough with stubble, his clothes in tatters, his body marked all over with wounds large and small — and yet his expression was more steeled than before. The one thing unchanged was the fearless light in his eyes, still brimming with vitality. Even if he wore a completely different body, Shen Zhuxi could have recognized him by that singular, blazing-as-morning-sun gaze alone.

To Shen Zhuxi, Li Wu was still the Li Wu she loved. But she was afraid the changes in herself might displease him, and under his prolonged scrutiny she grew uneasy and tried to look away.

“I… have I become ugly?” She covered her cheeks with her hands, self-conscious.

This past month had put her through unrelenting torment of the spirit — she had had no appetite, and her clothes had grown considerably loose. Add to that the tumble off the cliff and the days and nights of wandering outdoors since, and she must look thoroughly wretched and haggard.

If only she had been given the choice, she would not have wanted Li Wu’s first sight of her to be like this.

“…You really are a little fool.” Li Wu said.

He reached out and turned her face back toward him, forcing her to meet his gaze directly.

Li Wu looked steadily into her eyes — bright and lovely as ever — and said quietly:

“I have never in my life seen such a good-looking little fool.”

Shen Zhuxi’s face flushed with heat. She stared at him, momentarily stunned.

Li Wu took her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers, then slowly tightened his grip. His warmth traveled through the joined pads of their fingers into her body and rose all the way into the hot, shimmering tears in her eyes.

“…Who made my woman lose so much weight?” He stroked her cheek gently with his other hand, his voice low and soft. “Let me think… it was me. Then let me be punished — from now on, shall I never leave your side? When I’m home, you’re home; when I march to war, you come along; when I use the privy, you stand guard at the door…”

“Who said anything about standing guard at your door!” Shen Zhuxi laughed through her tears and gave the hand he was holding a gentle rap with her fist.

Li Wu took the blow and only grinned all the wider.

All was still around them. The night breeze played softly through their hair. The makeshift longbow, fashioned roughly from branches, hung in the tree nearby.

The dark green canopy swelled and rolled beneath the night sky. The earth lay prostrate beneath their dangling feet. The stars seemed close enough to touch.

Everything was perfect, like something out of a dream.

Shen Zhuxi rested against him and quietly recounted, one thing after another, all that had happened since they were separated. Li Wu listened in silence, asking an occasional question. The warmth of his palm gave her the courage to speak of that nightmare of an experience.

Among everything she told him was naturally the matter of the jade pendant.

“…It was Fang Shi who told me the keepsake for departure was on my body.”

Shen Zhuxi removed the jade arc from around her neck and placed it in Li Wu’s hand. Li Wu looked at the half-circle of jade resting in his palm without a word, and no visible change came over his expression.

After a long moment, he looped it back around her neck.

“What does it have to do with me?” he said, unconcerned.

Shen Zhuxi was taken aback. “But…”

“I may go by many names, travel under any number of aliases, change my face a thousand times over — but through all that, I have only one true name.” He lifted his gaze and looked at her with complete seriousness. “I am Li Wu — raised beneath a plum tree, grown up among a flock of ducks — born free, with neither father nor mother.”

He seemed to have seen straight through what was turning in her mind, because he followed it immediately with an answer to the question that had been hovering there unresolved:

“I kept this piece of jade because I wanted to know where I came from. Whatever the answer turns out to be — I am still myself. I am, and can only ever be, Li Wu.”

This time, Shen Zhuxi truly could not take her eyes off him.

She could not understand how two people born of the same womb could have turned out so utterly different. Li Wu had grown up in the wilds, often without enough to eat, even competing with ducks for food; every harsh winter had been a severe trial for his life. He could not read a single character, he acted as he pleased — yet he had never once broken faith or betrayed anyone. Fu Xuanmiao had been born to privilege, draped in silk, crowned with every distinction, raised in the gaze of ten thousand admiring eyes. He had read more classic texts of moral instruction than could be counted, yet his hands were stained with countless evils.

What had caused this vast and absolute difference between them?

Was it the relentless demands that Fu Ruzhi and those around him had placed on Fu Xuanmiao?

Was it Fu Ruzhi and his wife — their relationship that looked resplendent on the outside but was in truth cold and distant?

Or was it book after book of moral classics, measuring everything against a ruler of virtue — those books that had wound tightly around Fu Xuanmiao like a cord, stopping his mouth, blinding his eyes, so that his once-free spirit, imprisoned within a constrained body, had slowly twisted and rotted away?

If the two of them had been switched at birth — Fu Xuanmiao raised in some rural village, Li Wu raised in the household of a Grand Counselor — would the scene before her today look any different?

That question startled Shen Zhuxi out of her drifting thoughts.

She looked up into Li Wu’s eyes. In those resolute, fierce eyes there had never been any trace of hesitation or shadow — they burned like fire, they shone like the sun. Those familiar eyes allowed the anxiety hovering in her heart to settle back into place —

Wherever Li Wu had grown up, she believed he would not have changed. Even if he had lived Fu Xuanmiao’s life, he would never have become the kind of person Fu Xuanmiao was.

“After you fell off the cliff, have you been here all this time?” Shen Zhuxi asked.

Li Wu nodded, his left hand tucking a strand of hair blown across her face back behind her ear.

“I’ve been trying to find a way out all this time, but…” he paused, and a shadow of gravity crossed his face, “did you see the markers I left along the way?”

“I did,” Shen Zhuxi said. “Many of them. Very confusing.”

“I suspect someone has been following me in secret, trying to keep me from getting out. Whatever marker I leave, they follow right behind and copy it.” Li Wu said.

“There’s someone else down here?!” Shen Zhuxi was stunned. “I saw monkeys when I was coming through — could it have been a monkey…”

“Absolutely a person.” Li Wu said with complete certainty. “Monkeys do not use crossbows.”

Shen Zhuxi stared at him.

“Shortly after I came down, I was ambushed at night. The one lying in wait had an extremely accurate aim, and I barely escaped being shot through the throat.” Li Wu said. “This person has clearly been living at the bottom of the cliff for a long time and knows the dense forest inside and out. Several times I nearly cornered him, but he kept slipping away by twisting and dodging.”

“Did you manage to see his face?” Shen Zhuxi pressed.

“Never got a look at him straight on. All I know is that he wore a wolf skin around his waist, and his hair was a wild mess.”

Li Wu tightened his fist, and his knuckles cracked.

“…When he falls into my hands, I’m going to skin and cook him like a dog.”

“Let’s not create more trouble for ourselves — let’s think of a way out first. Right now, Li Que’s whereabouts are unknown, Li Kun and Niuwang and the others have gone into hiding as outlaws, Xiangzhou is gone as well — once you get out there will be a whole mountain of things to deal with. What does one wild man at the bottom of a cliff matter?” Shen Zhuxi advised.

Li Wu was silent for a moment, then squeezed her hand. “You’re right — one stray dog amounts to nothing. The most pressing matter right now is still to find a way out of here.”

There was one more thing he did not say aloud — outside, there was also one number-one dog in the world waiting for him to deal with.

Compared to the number-one dog in the world, the stray dog at the bottom of this cliff truly was not worth mentioning.

“Sleep now…” Li Wu gave Shen Zhuxi’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Rest and recover your strength. Tomorrow we’ll look for a way out together.”

Shen Zhuxi lay comfortably settled against him, knowing she would sleep especially well tonight. She nodded obediently, and Li Wu lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her lips.

“…Do you remember the first time we kissed?” Shen Zhuxi asked, her eyes bright and shining as she looked up at him.

“How could I forget?” Li Wu answered with complete assurance.

Just as he opened his mouth to continue, Shen Zhuxi spoke at the same moment:

“It was raining that day…”

“It was sunny that day…”

Both of them stopped.

Shen Zhuxi stared at Li Wu as though she had received a tremendous shock, and instinctively pulled herself away from his arms.

“You don’t remember our first kiss?” she said.

“Of course I remember — it was sunny that day —”

“It was clearly raining!” Shen Zhuxi said indignantly. “You’ve simply forgotten!”

“Let me finish!” Li Wu said. “We were still in Yutou Town. You’d had too much to drink, and you were hugging my leg and howling your eyes out…”

“You’re talking nonsense!” Shen Zhuxi shot back, flushed with embarrassment, without even thinking.

Li Wu spoke on as though he had heard nothing: “You said you had no home anymore. You said no one had ever been so good to you. You asked whether, if you were always well-behaved, I would stay with you forever…”

Something in a corner of her memory seemed to shift, gently dislodged. Something was on the tip of coming back. Shen Zhuxi did not know why, but she found herself drawn in and listening, her rigid posture softening again, her eyes fixed unblinking on the man who was speaking.

“…What did you say?” Shen Zhuxi asked, in a daze.

“I said,” Li Wu met her gaze, enunciating each word deliberately, “even if you are not well-behaved, I will stay with you always.”

The sealed memory suddenly came flooding back.

Li Wu’s promise, the swaying osmanthus tree, the little sparrow that had been peeking at them, the warmth of lips meeting lips — one image after another rose again before Shen Zhuxi’s eyes.

“I knew right then that you were a complete little fool.” Li Wu looked at her and said softly. “Who in the world would think that just by being well-behaved, they could make someone stay by their side forever?”

He tightened his hold on her hand and said:

“I am here… not because you are well-behaved, but because every time I think of you, this — ” he pressed her hand to his own chest — “starts to boil.”

Through the worn and tattered fabric of his shirt, Shen Zhuxi felt his strong, steady heartbeat beneath her palm.

Just as he never bothered to conceal his feelings, so his fierce and open heartbeat was giving voice to his devotion through his very body.

“So am I…”

Shen Zhuxi spoke before she could stop herself.

In this moment, or not in this moment — here, or not here — only Li Wu’s silhouette could long linger in her eyes; only Li Wu’s voice could long drift through her mind. Love clearly followed no logic, yet she could name every reason she was willing to love this man before her with her life.

It was he who had led her out of the gilded cage. It was he who had taught her to spread her wings. It was his existence that allowed her to fly toward the blazing sun.

If love for someone cannot let a person soar into the sky, but only makes them curl inward in some dark and shuttered room — is that truly love?

And a person who is willing to let another curl in that dark, shuttered room — is what they call love truly love?

Shen Zhuxi had once been lost, once been uncertain. After meeting Li Wu, every such doubt had melted away like smoke.

Having seen the light, she would never again be deceived by darkness.

“I stand beside you regardless of who you are. Whether you are a traveling peddler or a prince at the height of power — you are simply you…”

Shen Zhuxi cupped his face in her hands, pressed her forehead against his, and said in a voice thick with feeling:

“A thousand times over, ten thousand times over, I would fall in love with no one but the man named Li Wu.”