The morning after the wedding night, Shen Zhuxi found she did not feel much pain — only a faint pulling sensation if she walked too quickly. But compared to the pain she had endured before, this was nothing at all.

She had heard many accounts of brides who could not leave their beds the morning after the wedding night, incapacitated by tearing agony — yet last night, she had truly not suffered very much. Having now a point of comparison, Shen Zhuxi felt all the more certain she had chosen the right person.

By convention, the morning after a wedding, the bride and groom should rise early to offer tea to the groom’s parents. A princess was not bound by convention, and since Li Wu had neither father nor mother, the morning salutation on the first day of their marriage was simply the two newlyweds paying their respects to the Bai Family’s two elders.

“Your grandson-in-law offers his greetings to both elders.”

Li Wu, uncharacteristically solemn, presented fresh tea to the two elders with grave propriety.

Bai Yougeng looked at his new grandson-in-law, and on that face — which was usually pulled tight in a perpetual frown, as though he were always displeased about something — a rare flicker of a smile appeared.

In the past, he had felt that Li Wu’s humble origins made him unworthy of his granddaughter, who was exceptional in every respect. But looking at him now, those very qualities — his orphan background, his lack of book learning — had become virtues. An orphan would give his whole heart to the Bai Family, treating it as his own. A man unburdened by scholarly refinement would have no patience for elaborate ritual or the restraints of propriety. If it had been anyone else — a man who held military power in his hands — would he still bow his head and offer tea like a son-in-law who had married into his wife’s family?

He could only dream!

Bai Yougeng accepted the tea Li Wu offered and deliberately kept his expression stern. “Well, I don’t have much to say. I’m a man who protects his own. As long as you treat Her Highness well, everything else can be discussed. Her Highness is of noble standing. Since she has condescended to marry you, you must from this day forward keep yourself in check and not go entangling yourself with other women…”

“Grandfather, have no worries!” Li Wu declared with iron certainty and righteous conviction. “I, Li Wu, will want only Shen Zhuxi as my woman for the rest of my life — whoever sends me a woman, I’ll send a woman to his father in return; whoever tries to coerce me by threatening to marry someone off to me, I’ll keep the dowry and turn the bride away; whoever tries to force my hand, I’ll break the bow before I let her have her way!”

Li Wu’s vow — entirely unprecedented, and delivered with absolute resolve — left even the worldly Bai Yougeng momentarily speechless. He sputtered for a moment, at a loss for any reply, and finally just raised his teacup and took a long, gulping sip.

On the other side, the elder Madam Bai had already drunk the tea Shen Zhuxi had offered her.

Her eyes were slightly reddened, and she took Shen Zhuxi’s hands in her own with an expression of warm contentment. She slid a richly green, lustrous jade bracelet from her wrist and slipped it onto Shen Zhuxi’s.

“Your Highness has seen all the treasures of the world — I have nothing truly worthy to present. Only this bracelet, passed down through my family, which I hope might still be fitting of Your Highness’s grace. Please do not think it unworthy.”

“To receive something from Grandmother is more than I can thank you for — how could I ever think it unworthy?” Shen Zhuxi clasped the elder Madam Bai’s aged hands tightly in both of hers.

Bai Yougeng was altogether more straightforward.

He removed a jade thumb ring from his hand.

“Since you are now the son-in-law of the Bai Family, I will naturally not treat you poorly. From this day forward, we share in each other’s glory and each other’s ruin. This is my personal token — every senior manager at every Bai Family silver house knows it. In addition to the annual military funding and arms support the Bai Family provides voluntarily, this ring may be used at any Bai Family silver house at any prefectural capital to draw up to three hundred thousand taels of silver without waiting for verification from headquarters.”

Li Wu’s eyes lit up with a brilliant gleam, and he accepted the jade thumb ring without a moment’s hesitation.

“All right. You were both up early this morning, and you must be tired by now. Go and rest. Today is the first day after the wedding — if there is nothing urgent, you should stay home and keep your wife company.” The elder Madam Bai looked at Li Wu with gentle warmth and spoke in a tone of easy suggestion.

“Of course — unless the sky itself falls, today I will absolutely stay home and keep my…” Li Wu swallowed the casual phrasing he had almost used, and corrected himself. “I will absolutely stay at home to keep my wife company.”

Newlywed and happy, Shen Zhuxi naturally hoped Li Wu would keep her company today.

She felt her cheeks warm slightly, and lowered her head with a shy smile.

After bidding farewell to the two elders, the two of them left the main hall. Li Wu glanced down to observe Shen Zhuxi’s gait and asked with concern, “How are you feeling? Does it hurt?”

Shen Zhuxi shook her head and looked up at him, a small, helpless smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Li Wu’s mouth curved upward in response. He turned his gaze back toward the path ahead, and the hand hanging at his side reached out to take hold of Shen Zhuxi’s, wrapping around it tightly.

To return to the East Garden where the two of them were staying, they needed to pass through a long covered walkway at the rear of the compound. Along the way, they happened upon Li Kun and Dong Miji, who had rolled up their trouser legs and were preparing to wade into the ornamental pond to catch fish.

The golden carp kept in the Bai Family’s pond were of the finest quality — among a collection of pink, purple, twin-tailed, and triple-tailed varieties, the Bai Family had even spent a hundred taels of gold purchasing from a household in Suzhou, one that specialized in breeding rare golden carp, a single purple specimen with nine tails.

That extraordinarily rare nine-tailed golden carp was now wriggling desperately in Li Kun’s dripping wet hands.

“Kun’er, quickly put the fish back — if Grandfather sees, he’ll have your hide,” Shen Zhuxi called from the walkway.

Li Kun heard her and, with clear reluctance, released the golden carp — worth a fortune — back into the water. Dong Miji stood beside him, staring as their hard-won nine-tailed carp flicked its tail and vanished into the green water and moss.

“Today — learn characters?” Dong Miji looked over at Shen Zhuxi, turning away from the departing fish.

“Perhaps—”

Before Shen Zhuxi could finish, Li Wu addressed Dong Miji without ceremony: “She’s busy. Go find something else to do.”

Dong Miji looked entirely confused, and before he could say anything, Li Wu had already wrapped his arm around Shen Zhuxi’s shoulders and steered her away from the walkway without another word.

“What are you picking on Dong Miji for?” Shen Zhuxi said.

“When did I pick on him?” Li Wu shot back. “He’s a grown man, not some child or a eunuch — why is he always trailing after someone else’s woman?”

“He only wants to learn to read and write our language as soon as possible…”

“I don’t care.” Li Wu dipped his head and rubbed his face firmly against her cheek. “Today, you are mine and mine alone.”

Shen Zhuxi gave him a sidelong glance, but her heart was sweetly warm.

When they returned to the bedchamber in the East Garden and Shen Zhuxi had barely settled into the chair, Li Wu fixed his gaze on her and asked again, “Does it still hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Shen Zhuxi’s hand, reaching for the teapot, stilled in midair. She looked at him strangely. “You already asked.”

“Since it doesn’t hurt—” Li Wu moved in from behind, wrapping his arms around her, and murmured near her ear, “shall we move to the bed?”

Shen Zhuxi startled, and her tongue couldn’t quite find its place:

“What would we go to bed for?”

“Didn’t you just say — it doesn’t hurt?” Li Wu’s tone was full of meaningful implication.

“Those are two completely different things!”

“How are they two different things?”

Just as the two of them were about to embark on a spirited debate about whether they were in fact two different things, Li Kun’s booming voice rang out from just outside the room.

“Big brother, big brother — Niuwang’s here to see you!”

Li Wu paused. He and Shen Zhuxi exchanged a glance, and both of them sensed immediately that something was wrong.

If there were no urgent matter, Niuwang would not come calling on the very first day after the wedding to disturb them.

Li Wu rose and walked to the door, opening it to let the waiting Niuwang inside. Back when they had been working to take Yangzhou, Niuwang had once again shaved his head completely bald to pose as a monk. His hair still had not grown back, and under the warm Yangzhou sunlight, his shining bare skull looked uncannily like a braised egg. Li Kun had recently developed a particular hobby: breaking through Niuwang’s layers of defense to rub his smooth, braised-egg head whenever the opportunity arose.

After stepping inside, Niuwang offered an apology first.

“I shouldn’t have come to disturb Master and Mistress so early, but this concerns something important — I thought it was best to come and let you know.” As he spoke, he batted away Li Kun’s hand, which had found its way to his head in a moment of inattention.

Niuwang was already quite tall and broad-shouldered, but in front of Li Kun — who stood nine feet tall — his head remained an effortlessly accessible target for patting, and this was the thing that aggravated Niuwang most.

“Speak. What is it?” Li Wu asked.

Niuwang knocked away Li Kun’s hand again as it descended toward the top of his head, and said, “Word has come from Jianzhou. The Yan Emperor learned that Her Highness had called upon various factions to purge the treacherous ministers from the court. He flew into a great rage — not only did he immediately issue a denunciatory proclamation, but he also disregarded the protests of all his officials and left the palace in his imperial carriage, heading for Yangzhou.”

“What?”

Shen Zhuxi’s first reaction was shock — and then, almost immediately, understanding came over her.

“That’s impossible!” Fury rose in her face. “His Majesty doesn’t even have his own freedom of movement — he relies on others for that. How could he possibly have the ability to leave the palace in defiance of all his officials?”

“The informant in Jianzhou described it exactly as I’ve said,” Niuwang replied, clamping both hands over his smooth, bald head to cut off Li Kun’s attempts from the source. He kept up his defense against Li Kun’s creative offensive maneuvers while answering Shen Zhuxi’s question seriously. “The Emperor’s imperial carriage has indeed left Jianzhou. Roughly twenty thousand soldiers are traveling with it.”

What could twenty thousand soldiers accomplish?

Yangzhou alone had more than twenty thousand troops. If Fu Xuanmiao intended to reclaim Yangzhou with those twenty thousand soldiers, then he was far too —

No. That was wrong. A sudden flash of clarity struck Shen Zhuxi, and a chill crept up her spine.

The weapon he intended to use to reclaim Yangzhou was not those twenty thousand soldiers at all. His Majesty was the real bargaining chip Fu Xuanmiao meant to use against the Azure Phoenix Army!

Li Wu arrived at the same realization at the same moment.

If Fu Xuanmiao had not sanctioned it, how could Shen Suzhang — a man who could not even step past a palace gate on his own — have mobilized twenty thousand soldiers to leave the city? And headed straight for Yangzhou at that?

“Where has His Majesty’s imperial carriage reached?” Li Wu asked.

“According to the informant in Jianzhou, His Majesty set out four days ago.”

“Four days — there’s still time.” Li Wu considered briefly, then said, “Prepare five thousand elite troops for me — they must be men we can fully trust. The fact that I am leading soldiers out of the city must be kept in complete secrecy. Think of some cover story to give the public, and do not let word leak that I am no longer in the city.”

Shen Zhuxi had a rough idea of what Li Wu meant to do. This mission would be extraordinarily dangerous — yet to ask her to speak out against it, to stand by indifferently while her half-brother’s life hung in the balance, was something she could not bring herself to do.

Shen Suzhang had shown her neither kindness nor righteousness. But if she could similarly cast aside all ties of blood and all duty of loyalty between sovereign and subject, what difference would there be between her and Shen Suzhang?

Setting aside personal feelings entirely, Shen Suzhang was still the Emperor of Great Yan. If things were allowed to unfold as Fu Xuanmiao intended, the outcome would certainly be to Li Wu’s detriment as well.

Shen Zhuxi hesitated for a moment, then said, “…Promise me that you will have Kun’er stay close by your side to guard you at all times. Otherwise, I will insist on going myself.”

“Don’t worry — even if I need to use the outhouse, I’ll bring Kun’er with me.”

No sooner had Li Wu finished speaking than Li Kun, who had been making yet another attempt to pat the braised egg through Niuwang’s defenses, pulled a sulky face and said, “Stinks! I’m not going!”

“I’ll give you food afterward,” Li Wu said, raising an eyebrow. “Going or not?”

“Going!” Li Kun immediately changed his mind.

“Take me along too, Master!” Niuwang said.

“You stay and hold Yangzhou. If anything happens, knowing you’re here puts my mind at ease.”

Yangzhou had not seen warfare in a hundred years, and the military capability of its soldiers and officers was far below that of the seasoned fighters from inland regions. Leaving Yangzhou in the hands of warriors accustomed to the easy life of the south was not something Li Wu was willing to risk.

Li Wu’s mind was made up, and Niuwang had no choice but to accept the assignment of holding the city.