According to the agreement made before their departure, Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu would each send the other one letter every day to confirm they were safe.

Before this, the exchange of letters between the two had never been interrupted.

On the twenty-fifth of October, however, Shen Zhuxi’s letter was long delayed in reaching Li Wu’s hands.

“Any letters?” Within a single day, Li Wu posed this question to his personal soldier for the eighth time.

“Reporting to the General — none yet…” the soldier said with difficulty. “Should I go below and ask around?”

“…Forget it.” Li Wu clicked his tongue.

That evening, the Qingfeng Army halted to make camp. Even if the light cavalry courier had been held up by something along the way, they should have caught up with the main force by now. Li Wu stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the entrance to the temporary camp, like a venerable old patriarch, furrowing his brow as he gazed into the distance at the mountain road’s end, where no one was in sight.

“Take a squad and scout the surroundings — see if anything’s happened.” Li Wu instructed the personal soldier captain he trusted most.

The captain led his men to patrol the entire vicinity, but still returned without any news of the messenger.

By the time the moon rose above the treetops, the letter that should have long since arrived was still nowhere to be found.

Li Wu leaned against his desk beneath the lamp, frowning as he reread Shen Zhuxi’s previous letter.

In her last letter, she had just written that she was in Jinhua County, working hard to lobby for the support of Ji Hai Military Governor Jiang Xingchuan.

Jiang Xingchuan had never been particularly remarkable among the sixteen military governors — he was neither tyrannical and domineering like Chunyu An, nor driven by a burning sense of justice like Kong Ye, nor did he come from the deeply entrenched old aristocratic clans like Li Qia. Had Shen Zhuxi not brought him up, Li Wu would have barely even remembered such a person existed.

Kong Ye trusted Jiang Xingchuan; Shen Zhuxi trusted Kong Ye; Li Wu trusted Shen Zhuxi — and if he stretched it to the furthest extent, he supposed he ought to trust Jiang Xingchuan as well.

That said, if Shen Zhuxi had lost contact in Jinhua County, Jiang Xingchuan could not escape involvement.

Li Wu spent an uneasy night and rose at the crack of dawn the next morning to ask whether any letter from Shen Zhuxi had come.

“Reporting to the General — still none…” The soldier answering had begun to feel ashamed himself, every response being a denial.

Niuwang emerged from the tent with a yawn. At a single glance he spotted Li Wu standing outside the tent, talking with the soldier. He swept a look at the discomfort written on the soldier’s face and immediately understood what they were discussing.

“Master, don’t worry yourself too much. You know how clever the Mistress is, don’t you? The roads we traveled yesterday were absolutely terrible — shook my damn balls loose… The way I see it, the courier’s horse must have been slowed down by the same. Wait a little longer — it might even arrive by noon!”

The moment Niuwang finished speaking, a voice rang out from the direction of the camp gate.

“A letter! A letter’s arrived!”

A flustered young soldier came running over with a letter raised in hand.

Li Wu strode forward and took the letter from him, tearing it open and reading through it in moments.

Niuwang wanted to look but felt it improper to do so, and could only stand to one side, watching eagerly and waiting for Li Wu to finish before telling him anything.

After reading it at a glance, Li Wu read it through several more times, very carefully.

Niuwang watched his brow, still not relaxing, and asked cautiously: “What did the Mistress say in her letter?”

“She spoke of matters in Jinhua County,” Li Wu said. “Jiang Xingchuan has agreed to join the alliance against Fu.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Niuwang was overjoyed and immediately pressed further: “Did the Mistress say when she’ll be returning to Yangzhou?”

“Jiang Xingchuan has invited her to stay for two days. Aside from securing her goodwill, he also needs to settle certain details regarding the alliance.”

“Two days isn’t long at all,” Niuwang said. “The road from Jinhua back to Yangzhou is faster than ours — she might even get back to Yangzhou before we do.”

The soldier captain trotted over at that moment and asked: “General, shall we break camp now?”

Li Wu’s gaze remained fixed on the letter in his hand.

There was no question that the handwriting was Shen Zhuxi’s, and the content connected naturally with their previous correspondence — yet the fact that it had arrived nearly a full day late still left Li Wu feeling that something was odd.

“Did the courier say why it was delayed?” Li Wu asked.

“Yes —” the young soldier had clearly asked in advance and answered immediately, “He said he encountered a heavy fog in the mountain valley on the way, which slowed the horse, and that was why it was a little late.”

Li Wu said nothing, his eyes still on the letter.

The soldier captain waited for a moment, then looked toward Niuwang with a plea for help.

Niuwang cleared his throat and said: “Master, in a little while the autumn heat will come out again — just yesterday someone collapsed from heatstroke. What do you think…”

Li Wu tucked the letter into his breast, finally making up his mind.

“Let’s move out.”

……

“…Jiang Xingchuan is indeed just as Kong Ye described — well-loved within the Ji Hai territory. I observe that he is upright and benevolent, and I judged that he could not bear to see the people of this land suffer under tyranny. I accordingly addressed his concerns precisely and made every effort to lobby him, time and again. Today, Jiang Xingchuan finally relented and agreed to join the anti-Fu alliance.”

The tip of the brush paused there.

Shen Zhuxi very slightly raised her eyes, cast a quick glance toward the reclining couch not far away, then swiftly added a sentence to the letter. She then, as she always did, wrote her customary words of reminder and signed her name.

Once everything was written, she set down her brush and said coldly: “…Done.”

A gentle breeze passed through. A round-bellied sparrow spread its wings and flew from its branch, carrying away the last golden withered leaf from the bare bough.

The person reclining on the couch with eyes closed opened them.

A loose, large-sleeved outer robe of gossamer gray — clear as drifting clouds — draped over ink-dark wide clothing, spread across the pristine ivory mat. Fu Xuanmiao reclined against the couch table, head propped on one hand, motionless, as though he had slept for quite some time. Yet when he opened his eyes, his gaze held a clarity and composure entirely unrelated to a man just roused from sleep.

The color of the clothing on him only served to make his complexion appear more luminously fair. From Shen Zhuxi’s angle, she could just make out the three cinnabar-like scars on the back of his hand.

“Bring it here.” Fu Xuanmiao’s expression was calm, his tone gentle.

But Shen Zhuxi knew — this was no request.

She swallowed down her breath, reminded of the three thousand lives of the Qingfeng Army he had used to threaten her, and could only pick up the letter, swallow her anger, and walk to the reclining couch, where she slapped it down onto the couch table with a sharp crack.

Fu Xuanmiao paid no attention to her small act of defiance, picked up the letter, and read through it at his leisure.

After a while, he opened his mouth.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart leapt to her throat.

“…This line — ‘We made a promise: wait for me to come back so we can spend the Winter Solstice together, everyone gathered to eat mutton hotpot’ — remove it.” Fu Xuanmiao said.

“Why?!”

“As I said before,” Fu Xuanmiao raised his head and met her barely concealed furious gaze squarely, “the letter must not contain any agreements I’m unaware of. Who is to say whether they are real… or merely a distress signal you’re trying to send?”

“Of course it’s real!” Shen Zhuxi said. “Right now he thinks I’ll be returning to Yangzhou very soon — I was already looking forward to the Winter Solstice before I left. If I say nothing of it at this point, he will only grow suspicious —”

“Then let him grow suspicious.” Fu Xuanmiao cut off her words, unmoved. “Once he asks about it in his next letter, it won’t be too late for you to explain in your reply.”

Shen Zhuxi had nothing left to say.

Fu Xuanmiao then went on to single out several more coded phrases in the letter, and no matter how she argued, he required her to cut them.

Finally, his gaze paused for a moment on the line at the end of the letter urging the recipient to wear more clothing in the cooling weather.

Shen Zhuxi was so tense she forgot to breathe.

Fortunately, after a moment he moved his gaze away and returned the letter to her, saying: “Take it.”

Shen Zhuxi put on the appearance of indignant resignation, took the letter back to the desk, and rewrote it — but inwardly she was tremendously excited: every phrase Fu Xuanmiao had singled out was a decoy she had deliberately planted. The true coded message was actually that last line, which looked like an ordinary reminder.

Even in the depths of winter, Li Wu loved to swim in the Lan River. In all the time she had known him, she had never once seen him so much as sneeze. A concern like urging someone to wear more clothing in cool weather — perfectly common in other households — was something Shen Zhuxi had never once said to Li Wu.

In the previous letter sent under Fu Xuanmiao’s threat, she had also left this same line at the end.

Would Li Wu be able to detect her coded message?

If he couldn’t…

Shen Zhuxi was filled with worry, unable to think of how she could possibly escape from Fu Xuanmiao’s watchful presence.

The jade pendant was still on her person, but having been used once, it would be useless a second time. Fu Xuanmiao was now deeply guarded against her — whether by poison or by surprise attack, both were next to impossible — and on top of that, Yan Hui shadowed her every step as though she wished to grow eyes on Shen Zhuxi herself.

To escape by her own power alone was entirely out of the question.

Before long, one of Fu Xuanmiao’s personal soldiers came to report to him: the army camped outside the city was ready to break camp and he could depart at his convenience.

Shen Zhuxi was taken along back into the Yan Army — no, at this moment, they could no longer be called the Yan Army. The world, too, was no longer the world of Great Yan. Shen Zhuxi endured the strange looks cast at her from all directions, put on her veiled hat, and returned to the carriage.

A’Xue had been left at her side by Fu Xuanmiao, yet just like Shen Zhuxi herself, she was not free — forbidden to leave Shen Zhuxi’s immediate company. And around Shen Zhuxi at all times were no fewer than eight attendant maids keeping constant watch, while the guards monitoring them outside the carriage and the rooms were too many to count.

The army moved in fits and starts, drawing ever closer to Jianzhou. Shen Zhuxi’s heart grew more and more restless with each passing moment.

She tried to find openings she could use, but Fu Xuanmiao never once gave her such a chance.

During this time, she was treated to fine food and drink. The attendants around her were respectful to the extreme, not daring the slightest negligence. Fu Xuanmiao, already seated upon the throne, had never once required her to perform obeisance, and addressed her as consistently as ever as “Your Highness.”

After the army entered Kuozhou, Fu Xuanmiao brought her and a number of trusted retainers into the prefectural seat of Lishui. From Lishui to Jianzhou, the remaining road was no more than three days’ journey.

Perhaps heaven had heard her prayers. On the morning of the second day they spent in Lishui, Shen Zhuxi was shaken awake by a visibly anxious A’Xue.

She pulled Shen Zhuxi’s hand close and wrote on her palm:

“Lishui is surrounded!”