By that same afternoon, Li Wu had embroidered all the sachets Shen Zhuxi wanted, including the pomegranate-pattern one she intended to keep for herself.

Shen Zhuxi was tidying the sachets on the daybed table and working out when to take the gifts over to Zhou Sao’s, when Li Wu suddenly reached out and lifted one of them — the one embroidered with a scroll-and-floral motif — and dropped it naturally into the front of his robe.

“I’m taking this one,” Li Wu said.

Shen Zhuxi had no objection. The scroll-and-floral pattern had never been meant for her to begin with; it was Li Wu who had told her to draw something plain, and then embroidered it himself from her design.

“Aren’t you going to put thoroughwort inside?” she asked.

Li Wu pulled the sachet back out and handed it to her.

Shen Zhuxi gathered all the sachets from the daybed table and brought them to the front courtyard.

She crouched by the bamboo trays and carefully sorted through the dried thoroughwort, placing the chosen pieces into each sachet one by one. When the thoroughwort was done, she took out a small packet of dried jasmine buds she had obtained from the Suxin Hall and added two flowers to each sachet.

Once she had tied the sachets closed, Shen Zhuxi held them up and smelled them, satisfied. She tilted the bamboo tray back and forth, considering whether the remaining thoroughwort might be enough to fill a thoroughwort pillow.

Before Shen Zhuxi could ask Li Wu to help her embroider a pillowcase, he spoke first:

“I’m heading out. I’ve left next month’s household money in the kitchen crock — manage it yourself.”

He hung the sachet Shen Zhuxi had embroidered carefully from his waist and tucked the scroll-and-floral sachet back into the front of his robe.

Shen Zhuxi watched his movements with suspicion. “You’re carrying two sachets?”

“Something wrong with that?” Li Wu raised an eyebrow.

Shen Zhuxi thought to herself: Of course not — he could wear them from head to toe for all it mattered to her.

Li Wu reached out and pressed a hand to her head. Shen Zhuxi tilted aside to dodge, but that large hand was faster and had already settled on her head before she could move.

He pressed. Then patted.

“Stop patting my head all the time!” Shen Zhuxi raised her voice in irritation.

“Only small children dislike having their heads touched.” Li Wu drew back his hand as she dodged, and said, “I’m going. Wait for me.”

“I will not!”

Li Wu paid no attention whatsoever and walked straight toward the wicker gate. The right hand that had just been on her head gave a casual wave overhead:

“I’m off!”

This impossible man — he simply could not hear sense.

Shen Zhuxi marched into the kitchen in a huff and checked her reflection in the water barrel, straightening the hair she had painstakingly arranged into a bun.

Li Wu and his insufferable ways — did he think long hair was easy to pin up? She had no palace maids to do it for her now!

After making quite sure the bun had not come loose, she turned and walked to the corner, lifting the lid off the earthenware crock where Li Wu kept the silver.

The silver packed all the way up to the rim flashed at her eyes.

She counted it roughly. However she looked at it, there was no less than five hundred taels in this crock.

Shen Zhuxi had been to the market a number of times by now and was no longer entirely ignorant of everyday prices. A catty of mutton at the market cost fifteen copper coins. A whole duck was only thirty coins. A unit of rice came to no more than two taels of silver. An ordinary family of three could live comfortably on twenty or thirty taels for an entire year.

Li Wu was bringing back five hundred taels in a single month. What on earth was his business?

A vivid scene took shape in Shen Zhuxi’s mind:

Inside a small, airless dark room, a merchant with a bruised and swollen face was bound to a post. Li Kun sat eating a great mouthful of meat. Li Wu sat drinking a great mouthful of wine. Li Que came sprinting in, arms wrapped around a chest of gleaming white silver.

“Big Brother! The money’s been collected!”

Li Wu opened one eye, and with a lazy flick of his hand said:

“Finish him.”

“Big Brother!” Li Que exclaimed in horror.

Li Wu rose, walked to Li Que, and picked up a silver ingot from the chest. His gaze carried one part cunning, two parts wildness, three parts coldness, and four parts something that was simply not quite human.

“No survivors,” he said.

Shen Zhuxi gave a start and jolted herself back from her own imagination.

Surely not?!

She slammed the crock lid back down, hiding the silver — which now rather resembled the smooth, bald head of the merchant in question.

A cool draft seemed to move through the cramped kitchen. Shen Zhuxi walked out into the wide front courtyard, her heart in her mouth, pacing in circles.

Li Wu…surely he wouldn’t be in the business of murder for hire?

But if not murder for hire, where did the silver come from? He had said he was doing business — but what kind of business earned this much, where three days of drought were followed by three years of plenty?

The more she thought, the less certain she felt. Gritting her teeth, she made up her mind and hurried after him while he was still not too far gone.

She could not sit comfortably and spend money that might be stained with blood. If Li Wu truly was doing something criminal and underhanded, she would rather eat plain bran and bitter herbs than fail to talk him into going straight.

When Shen Zhuxi burst through the wicker gate, Li Wu had already vanished on his long legs. She looked left and right at the two paths, then chose the right-hand one toward the market and ran after him.

Perhaps luck was on her side, or perhaps heaven took pity on her — after chasing along the narrow path through the rice paddies for a good while, just as Shen Zhuxi was beginning to think she had taken the wrong road, Li Wu’s tall and lean silhouette appeared at the far end of the path.

She had not yet decided whether to call out to him when Li Wu turned and stepped through the gate of a small courtyard where smoke rose from the chimney.

What was he going there for?

She had walked this path with Li Wu many times before, yet he had never once mentioned who lived in that courtyard.

Shen Zhuxi stopped just outside the gate he had entered. Her thoughts were in a tangle, and she could not decide what to do next.

Should she go inside? What if she found a bruised and beaten merchant trussed up inside — what would she even say?

Should she go back? Then what was the point of chasing him all this way?

In the end, she decided the only person to blame was Li Wu himself. What was he thinking, leaving that much silver in a crock at home — of course it would make her imagine the worst!

Her curiosity finally overwhelmed her apprehension. She glanced left and right to make sure no one was watching, then crept up to the wicker fence and peered over the top.

Li Wu had not gone inside the house. He was standing in the courtyard. Facing him was not Li Que, not Li Kun, and certainly not a bruised merchant. It was a full-figured, robust woman.

Was that not Fan Sanniang — the woman who had come to help prepare the feast on the day of the wedding banquet?

Fan Sanniang was a widow of many years. What was Li Wu doing alone at her home?

Shen Zhuxi’s confusion deepened when she saw Li Wu draw the sachet from the front of his robe. Her shock and bewilderment very nearly exploded in her head — for was that not the scroll-and-floral sachet Li Wu had embroidered himself?

The one packed with thoroughwort and jasmine that she had filled with her own hands!

After producing the sachet, Li Wu said something — from her hiding spot, Shen Zhuxi could not quite make it out. But Fan Sanniang, who took the sachet, let out a loud, booming laugh and then — then — slapped Li Wu on the backside!

Shen Zhuxi clapped a hand over her mouth, barely swallowing her cry.

Li Wu suddenly turned to look in the direction of the wicker gate. The sharp look in his eyes sent Shen Zhuxi toppling off-balance straight back onto the ground.

Fortunately, Li Wu had not seen her spying.

The fence blocked her view now, and she could only hear Fan Sanniang’s bold voice carrying on.

“…It’s not as though it’s the first time I’ve given you a smack. What’s the matter with it?”

Shocking!

Scandalous!

Shen Zhuxi’s inner state at that moment was not unlike discovering her late Father Emperor and Mother Consort climbing up from underground.

She dared not eavesdrop any further, dared not stay another moment. If Li Wu found out she was here, he would certainly silence her before she could say a word.

Shen Zhuxi fled the scene in a panic, nearly tripping over her own skirt in her haste. As she ran from Fan Sanniang’s courtyard, there was only one thought in her mind:

Li Wu is a kept man!

To be more precise — Li Wu was keeping himself as a kept man to support her! Fan Sanniang had to be pushing fifty — if Li Wu was not after her money, was he after her wide waist, thick arms, and plentiful wrinkles?

Oh, Goddess Nuwa! Oh, the Jade Emperor! Oh, the Buddha! Would someone please show her the way forward?

Li Wu was not in the business of murder for hire. But he — he — this was worse than murder for hire!

Shen Zhuxi rushed home with a head full of noise, unable to sit still, unable to stand still, and so she simply circled under the osmanthus tree like a headless housefly.

“Big Brother!” Li Que’s bright voice rang out from outside the wicker gate. “Sister-in-law! Li Kun and I brought roasted chicken to see you both!”

In ordinary times, Li Que’s voice was like a gift from heaven. In this moment, however, it fell on Shen Zhuxi like a mountain, heavy and crushing.

She had not sorted through her feelings, and Li Que was already calling a second time from outside. Shen Zhuxi went to the gate in a bewildered daze and pulled it open. Li Que walked in with the roasted chicken, Li Kun close behind him, his eyes tracking the swaying lotus-leaf parcel in Li Que’s hand.

“Why is it sister-in-law answering the door today? Where’s Big Brother?” Li Que asked with a grin.

“Your big brother — he —” Shen Zhuxi stumbled over the words.

“What’s wrong with Big Brother?” Li Que’s expression grew serious.

“He went out…”

“Where did he go?” Li Que looked puzzled. “Big Brother didn’t mention going anywhere today.”

“I…I don’t know…” Shen Zhuxi turned and hurried toward the main room, terrified of Li Que’s sharp eyes reading something in her face.

That insufferable man — he goes off without a word to keep himself as a kept man, and leaves her here to fumble through the covering up alone!

Li Que followed her into the main room and spotted the pile of sachets on the square table. His eyes lit up. “The sachets are finished?” He picked up one of the hibiscus sachets from the edge of the pile and looked it over. “Big Brother’s craft is just as it always was.”

Shen Zhuxi’s mind was still a mess, but Li Que’s remark snagged her curiosity despite everything, and she found herself asking, “Did you know Li Wu could do embroidery?”

Li Que smiled. “I followed Big Brother from the time I was thirteen. Second Brother was eleven. It wasn’t easy for Big Brother to keep three people fed.”

He set the roasted chicken on the table and looked up at Shen Zhuxi. The easygoing laughter had left his eyes entirely.

“In those early years, Big Brother bore a great deal for our sake.” He paused. “I hope he lives well. And I hope sister-in-law can see the good in him. Big Brother doesn’t know how to speak prettily, but the way he treats you — that’s as real as it gets.”

“I know he treats me well…” Shen Zhuxi mumbled.

How could he not? He was even keeping himself as a kept man for her sake.

What other man in this world could go so far?

Li Que’s usual shameless grin slid back into place. “Since sister-in-law sees things clearly, I won’t waste any more words.”

“I’ll go make some tea,” Shen Zhuxi said.

The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She did not know how to boil water — what tea was she going to make?

Fortunately, Li Que said right away, “Big Brother isn’t here — we won’t stay long. Leave the roasted chicken; come back at midday and we’ll eat together. No need to worry, sister-in-law — if Big Brother didn’t tell us he was going anywhere, he can’t have gone far. He’ll be back before long.”

Shen Zhuxi made a vague sound in response.

Li Que smiled and called for Li Kun, and the two of them left the Li household.

Now the house was empty again with just Shen Zhuxi in it. There was no way to keep her thoughts from running wild.

If Li Wu had been living this way before she arrived, perhaps it was one thing. But if he had only started taking on this kind of arrangement after she came — did that not mean that she was the reason Li Wu had gone down this road?

Shen Zhuxi reflected deeply on how freely she had been spending money recently.

Had she not, Li Wu might never have been driven to such an extreme. And Li Wu himself — if money was tight, he could have said so outright. Why would he rather sell himself than swallow his pride and admit it?

Did she seem so utterly unreasonable to him?

Without the gold and silver ornaments, without the fine clothes — so be it. As for paper in the privy…she could cut one sheet into four! Why had Li Wu not talked it over with her instead of going off without a word to be a kept man? Silver, once spent, could be earned again. But once a man’s dignity was gone, there was no getting it back!

“When you’re starving and desperate, you’d even kill a man. What’s the matter with picking up an embroidery needle?”

Li Wu’s words came back to her, echoing.

Shen Zhuxi’s heart clenched: Is this your reason for becoming a kept man, then?

She knew Li Wu was loyal to a fault, but she had never expected him to be quite this loyal. She could never have imagined that a man like him would feel such a deep and genuine obligation toward a wife in name only — enough to humble himself to this degree for her sake.

She sighed heavily, full of worry. After a long, tortured deliberation, Shen Zhuxi went to the kitchen, dug through the vegetable basket, and retrieved one large, round, perfect egg, intending to boil it herself for Li Wu.

If she could one day be reunited with the Crown Prince and reclaim the identity of the Princess of Yue, then even if she had to sacrifice all her dignity, she would insist on securing Li Wu a position of the third rank — that would be barely beginning to repay the depth of what she owed him.

But for now, all she could offer was a single egg boiled by her own hands, so that he might replenish whatever he had given of himself.

Shen Zhuxi crouched before the stove, lifted a burning twist of straw from the clay pot with the long fire tongs, and dropped it into the firebox. She murmured softly:

“Li Wu…Li Wu…this is all I can do for you right now.”

On the other side of town, Li Wu stepped out of Fan Sanniang’s courtyard and paused at her wicker gate to say, “I’m going. Let Li Kun handle the fieldwork — or hire a day laborer. Don’t try to manage everything by yourself.”

“What’s there to do? I have energy to spare, and you know how strong I am,” Fan Sanniang said with a booming laugh. “You’re a changed man now, truly — married, and already knowing how to look after people. I still remember when you were small, barely up to my waist. You were a fierce little thing, though. Half my duck feed — you, the little thief, ate it all. And when I caught you, you turned around and tried to bite me — I’ve still got your mark on my hand!”

“That was ages ago. Do you have to keep bringing it up?” Li Wu’s brow knitted.

“Ho, married now and knows how to be embarrassed — when your backside had frostbite sores, I was the one who put the medicine on them, you know…”

Seeing Fan Sanniang well and truly worked up and showing every sign of going on indefinitely through the catalogue of old times, Li Wu cut her off with impatience:

“All right, enough — I’m going! You keep on talking and I’ll never come back!”

“You dare not come back!” Fan Sanniang planted her hands on her hips and declared. “We made a deal back when I gave you those steamed buns — I’d look after you then, and you’d look after me when I’m old! You stop coming and I’ll go straight to your wife! I’ll tell her all about the frostbite sores you used to have on your —”

“You—”

Li Wu had barely turned to go when a farmhand who lived nearby came running over from the far side of the paddy path at a dead sprint.

“Brother Li — something’s happened!”

He came pounding across, bare feet slapping the earth, and was shouting before he had even drawn close:

“Get home quickly — your house is on fire!”