In the only inn in Yutou Town, a lean and tall man with a cold, severe countenance finished his midday meal and called the server over to settle the bill.
“Sir, this table of food and wine comes to three taels of silver in total,” the server said with a smile.
The lean, tall man said nothing and simply reached into his breast pocket, producing a silver ingot worth at least ten taels, which he set down beside the leftover wine cup.
The server stared with wide eyes. “This…”
“Let me ask you something — has there been any girl from out of town here recently?” the man said coldly. “Sixteen or seventeen years old, with a fine appearance.”
The server’s face blossomed into a grin, and his already-stooped back curved even further into a shrimp-like bow.
“You’ve come to the right person, sir! People pass through this town constantly — no one can escape my eyes!”
“Is there or isn’t there?” the man asked.
“There is, there is, there is!” the server said. “Sir, you must know that something big happened in the capital not long ago. Our Yutou Town isn’t far from the capital, so there’s quite a number of outsiders who have come here to take refuge. As for sixteen or seventeen-year-old girls with fine appearances — I know of five. I just don’t know which one is the girl you’re looking for. Sir, do you have a portrait of this girl?”
“Just tell me. I’ll verify it myself,” the man said, frowning.
“Then I’ll speak. These five girls are…”
The server spoke at length, and the man quietly committed each of the five women’s residences to memory.
“…Do not breathe a single word of what I’ve asked you.”
Expressionless, the man tossed out the silver. The server snatched it up, bowing and nodding. “Rest easy, sir. I’ve got the memory of a pig — said it and forgot it already!”
Dark Guard Fourteen picked up his longsword from the table, rose, and left the inn. He took stock of his direction and headed toward the nearest of the five women’s locations.
His mission this time was to find the Princess of Yue. If he succeeded, he would become the new Dark Guard Six. It was an opportunity not easily come by, yet after all his travels, he had already been disappointed too many times.
Yutou Town was an unremarkable little town by every measure, and he held little hope of finding the Princess of Yue here. If the princess truly was in Jinzhou, it was far more likely she’d be found in the county seat of Xicheng.
It was just a shame that his skills had fallen short — the chance to investigate Xicheng County had been snatched away by Dark Guard Eleven.
Fortunately, the five women who might be the Princess of Yue were not far from one another. Unfortunately, the man visited all five locations and came away disappointed at every one.
For the princess’s safety, he could not go about openly searching for her with her portrait — he could only make discreet inquiries, lest word reach the rebel forces that the Princess of Yue had not in fact perished, and stir up further trouble.
This approach, however, naturally made for poor efficiency.
Having walked in circles all day for nothing, the man found a roadside teahouse and sat down at random. A pot of murky tea priced at three copper coins sat on the table before him; he paid it no mind, his sharp gaze scanning every passerby who crossed his line of sight.
He wondered how Dark Guard Eleven, who had gone to Xicheng County, was faring — whether any trace of the Princess of Yue had yet been found.
His thoughts drifted for a moment: if someone else found her first, it would almost be better if no one found her at all.
A commotion drew his hand reflexively to the sword at his waist. He narrowed his eyes and watched as a lean young man was hurled sideways out of a gambling den by two burly men.
One of the burly men dusted off his hands and sneered down at the young man sprawled on the ground:
“Zhou Zhuang, remember Master Hu’s final deadline. If you don’t clear your debt in three days, you can bring an arm to pay it off!”
The young man, thoroughly disheveled, pressed his hands to the ground, first raised one knee, then the other — moving stiffly, as though hampered by some disability — and slowly hauled himself to his feet. Yet the moment both burly men turned their backs and walked back into the gambling den, his movements became suddenly agile.
He sprang up and unleashed a torrent of furious curses at the gambling den’s entrance:
“When did I ever say I wasn’t paying? I’m just paying a little late — a little late isn’t the same as not paying at all! Master Hu hasn’t even said anything yet, so who do you two think you are, puffing up at me like that? Looking down your noses — just you wait until your grandfather makes it big, you’ll have plenty coming to you!”
His tirade cut off abruptly when a burly silhouette appeared in the gambling den’s doorway. Like a mouse that had spotted a cat, he tucked his tail between his legs and slunk across the street toward the teahouse.
Everyone inside the teahouse averted their gaze from the young man — except for him.
And so, without a moment’s hesitation, the young man called Zhou Zhuang came and sat down across from him.
“Never seen you before. You from out of town?” Zhou Zhuang helped himself without asking and downed the tea sitting in front of the man in one gulp.
“Yes,” the man replied, brief and to the point.
“What brings you here?” Zhou Zhuang raised his narrow, slanted eyelids and studied him over the rim of the cup.
“Looking for someone.”
“Who?” Zhou Zhuang picked up the teapot from the table and refilled the empty cup.
“A girl from out of town. Sixteen or seventeen years old.”
“That’s quite a broad range,” Zhou Zhuang said. “Found her yet?”
“Not yet,” the man said. “The woman I’m looking for has the beauty to overturn cities and kingdoms, and she is accomplished in the four arts — music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Set aside this Yutou County — even across all of Great Yan, that description is not a broad one.”
“A beautiful girl from out of town? Sixteen or seventeen?” Zhou Zhuang’s eyes darted around craftily. “You sure you’ve looked everywhere?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are plenty of households living outside Yutou Town too, you know,” Zhou Zhuang said. “As it happens, I do know of a woman with beauty enough to overturn cities and kingdoms.”
The man gave a cold laugh. “That’s what the people I spoke to before told me as well.”
“Don’t lump me together with those illiterates,” Zhou Zhuang said, displeased. “Do they even know what ‘beauty to overturn cities and kingdoms’ means?”
“And you do?”
“Naturally. I spent several years at a private school. If I hadn’t found officialdom too tiresome, I might even be a minor official by now.” Zhou Zhuang looked rather smug.
The man’s eyes flashed with contempt, though Zhou Zhuang failed to notice.
Zhou Zhuang leaned forward and lowered his voice. “If I find this woman for you, what’s in it for me?”
“A hundred taels. Will that do?” the man said with a cold smile.
“Five hundred taels.” Zhou Zhuang held up five fingers. “Payable upon finding her. If I don’t find her, I take nothing.”
“Deal.”
Dark Guard Fourteen’s thumb gently stroked the longsword at his waist. If the Princess of Yue were found, those who knew about it naturally could not be allowed to live.
Five hundred taels? Only if you’re alive to spend it.
“Where is this person you speak of?” the man asked.
“I’ll take you there.” Zhou Zhuang rose to his feet.
The two set off together toward the outskirts of town. Along the way, Zhou Zhuang tried to draw him into conversation, but the man paid him no attention. He had nothing but contempt for someone able-bodied yet idle and gluttonous — were it not for needing him now, he would not have deigned to exchange even a single word.
After the time it takes to burn one incense stick, Zhou Zhuang pointed to a small courtyard in the distance. “That’s the place. The person I’m taking you to see is Li Shi — the wife that the local ringleader of ruffians just married…”
“She’s married?”
“Married not long ago. No officiating witness either. Apparently she drifted here because of the fighting in the capital too.”
The man asked, “Do you know her name?”
“Ha — an unmarried woman’s given name, how would an unrelated man like me know that? If I run into her, I just call her Sister-in-law Li and that’s that.” Zhou Zhuang chuckled. “I genuinely don’t know her name. I’ve only happened to see her once. My mother keeps a tight watch on me and won’t tell me anything, and I never went out of my way to find out either. I’m not particularly interested in women — I prefer the rattling sound of dice. But I guarantee you, this woman is absolutely the ‘beauty to overturn cities and kingdoms’ you described…”
“Is that the courtyard you’re referring to?” the man said, his expression unexpectedly grave.
“Yes, just that — ” Zhou Zhuang swallowed the rest of his words. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if two sleepless nights were making him hallucinate. “Why is there so much smoke coming from the roof?”
Dark guards were trained to physical levels far beyond ordinary people, and the man spotted the trouble in an instant.
His expression changed, and he said in a low, serious voice: “The house is on fire.”
“What?!” Zhou Zhuang was startled and broke into a run. “Damn it, it had better not spread to my house!”
The two quickened their pace toward the courtyard, from which great columns of black smoke were already billowing skyward. Country folk had little to occupy themselves with beyond their morning farmwork, and the fire had drawn a crowd of idle onlookers.
By the time the man and Zhou Zhuang reached the courtyard, the area outside the bamboo fence was already ringed three layers deep with spectators. Men and women in all manner of dress had gathered together, murmuring among themselves:
“What’s to be done… Lady Li is still inside and hasn’t come out…”
“Where has Li Wu gone? Has someone gone to tell him?”
“Old Zhang went to fetch him… Here he comes, here he comes!”
A stir ran through the crowd, and Dark Guard Fourteen was suddenly shoved from behind with such force that he was caught off guard and stumbled back several steps.
A broad-shouldered, powerfully built man pushed through the crowd and charged through the bamboo gate without a moment’s hesitation.
“Who is that?” Dark Guard Fourteen frowned.
“That’s Li Wu — the ringleader of ruffians in our town. Nobody dares make a peep in front of him.” Zhou Zhuang, having been on the losing end of Li Wu’s dealings more than a few times, never missed a chance to blacken his reputation.
He hoped the mysterious swordsman before him would rid the people of this menace — but unfortunately, the man remained standing exactly where he was, utterly motionless.
Zhou Zhuang looked again at the burning house, inwardly hoping Li Wu would be roasted alive inside, sparing everyone from his meddling in their affairs in the future.
Li Wu rushed into the inner room, found no one, then charged toward the kitchen, where the fire was at its most severe, and came upon Shen Zhuxi pouring the contents of a copper basin — half-full of water — over the roaring flames at the stove.
The hair she had neatly pinned up that morning had come loose. Her clothes were marked all over with soot from the stove. The young woman’s face was black with ash, her expression fraught with alarm and distress, teardrops welling in her bright, dark eyes — yet she refused to give up her efforts to douse the flames.
Her wretched state stirred Li Wu’s fury even more than the inexplicably blazing fire in the room. He snatched the copper basin from Shen Zhuxi’s hands, flung it to the ground, and pulled her toward the door.
“I can’t leave — the fire will burn the whole house down!” Shen Zhuxi shook free of his hand and scrambled in a panic to pick up the basin from the floor.
“Are you out of your mind?! If you don’t go now, you won’t be able to go at all!” Li Wu reached for her hand again.
“I can’t leave!” Shen Zhuxi stepped back, and the tears she had been holding in for so long flooded out all at once.
How could she leave? What right did she have to leave?
Every valuable thing in this house had been kept because she had asked for it. To buy those things, Li Wu had even sold himself as a kept man to support her.
And she — she had only needed to light a fire, and she’d managed to set the house ablaze.
What right did she have to simply walk away?
She fought desperately to put out the fire, hauling basin after basin of water between the kitchen and the water vat in the back courtyard with every last bit of her strength.
She had fallen, her hair had come undone, her face had scraped against something — yet she hadn’t even had time to cry before she ran back to the vat again to draw more water.
She had truly tried her hardest. She had done everything in her power to undo her mistake, yet none of it was any use. She was too weak, too slow, too clumsy with her hands and feet — the flames only climbed higher and higher before her eyes.
Shen Zhuxi was consumed by both terror and shame.
She had wronged Li Wu. She had no right to flee. If she couldn’t put out the fire, what face would she have left to show Li Wu?
The crackling, burning flames called to mind the fire that had raged through the Forbidden Palace on the day the city fell. On that day too, she had been utterly powerless to do anything about anything. She loathed her own weakness, loathed why she could not be like the warriors in story books who could fight off a hundred men alone and single-handedly turn the tide of a cruel and losing battle.
She wept as she said, “It’s all my fault. You earned the money for all of this through your hard work, and if it all burns away—”
“Then let it burn! What does it matter!”
“But—”
Shen Zhuxi’s sobs suddenly became a sharp scream.
“As long as the most valuable thing is still here, what does it matter if everything else burns?!”
Li Wu scooped her up in his arms and charged out of the smoke-filled kitchen without a backward glance.
The onlookers outside the courtyard, seeing the two of them escape the inferno safely, broke into wholehearted cheers. Li Que arrived with Li Kun and four or five other young, able-bodied men, all carrying buckets. They rushed into the courtyard and poured water onto the flames one bucket after another, filling the air with the unceasing hiss of fire being extinguished.
Dark Guard Fourteen stood amid the raucous crowd and watched with cold eyes as the young woman was set down on the ground by the man.
In the portrait personally painted by their young lord, the Princess of Yue was refined and well-read, her bearing noble and elegant — and the person before him?
Huddled and trembling. Frantic. Thoroughly disheveled. Tear tracks and stove ash had left streaks of black across her face. She wore clothes of cheap, coarse fabric that even a maidservant in the capital would disdain, in an outdated style. There was not a single hairpin on her head, and her ears were bare. Those two hands of hers — slightly nervously clutching the corner of the man’s garment — were stained with ash, grimy, with traces of dark grime still visible under her fingernails.
How could this possibly be the Princess of Yue, whose reputation had her sleeping on a bed of gold and silver, resting her head on pillows of pearls, in a palace as magnificent as an immortal’s realm? She was plainly nothing more than a crude country village girl.
Every dark guard sent out to investigate the princess’s whereabouts carried a large sum of banknotes — and why? For nothing other than to swiftly meet the Princess of Yue’s high standards of living at a moment’s notice.
The Princess of Yue was known far and wide for her exacting lifestyle and love of luxury. Why else would their young lord have been scouring the world to find her all manner of rare and precious treasures?
Setting everything else aside — the Princess of Yue would never engage in the brazen and improper behavior of clutching a man’s garment in broad daylight and in public view.
Dark Guard Fourteen turned and walked away.
“Hey, where are you going — my five hundred taels—”
Zhou Zhuang had barely taken a step in pursuit when a cold blade swept across his neck.
He dared not move a muscle. Like a quail with its throat seized, he stared wide-eyed and silent at the man before him, whose gaze was ruthless and glacial.
“You wasted my time. That I spare your life is already mercy. Come after me again, and I will not hold back.”
The man sheathed his sword and walked away without looking back.
Zhou Zhuang stood frozen to the spot, the chill of the blade’s edge still lingering on his neck.
The fire, for all its fierce appearance, was swiftly put out by the combined efforts of several able-bodied young men. In the end, much of the credit was owed to the fact that the Li family had recently replaced the furniture — the old, decrepit, and cheaply flammable wood had been swapped for good timber that, though expensive, was far harder to set alight.
Apart from severe damage to the kitchen, the main room had barely been touched by the fire.
After the neighbors who had helped put out the fire dispersed, Li Que took Li Kun and wandered off beyond the bamboo gate, leaving only Shen Zhuxi and Li Wu in the main room.
Shen Zhuxi sat hunched over the table, staring at the smoke-blackened surface, tears dripping steadily down.
“Tell me what happened,” Li Wu said, sitting across from her, his voice carrying an unavoidable note of interrogation. “How did the fire start?”
Shen Zhuxi lifted her head, said nothing, her body trembling with silent sobs.
She bit her lip, and her right hand slowly reached toward her waist. Li Wu watched as she produced something and set it slowly on the table.
She closed her hand into a fist, her eyes glittering with tears as she watched him carefully — like a timid child gauging whether an adult might suddenly fly into a rage.
Li Wu held his anger in check and waited as she gradually opened her palm. He wanted to see what on earth had caused the fire in the house and nearly reduced him to a penniless man with nothing left to his name.
What Shen Zhuxi had been clutching so tightly in her hand was an egg.
What she had been protecting at her waist, all this time, was an egg.
Li Wu looked and looked again, confirming it was simply an ordinary hard-boiled egg, and not some golden egg.
He raised his gaze from the egg to Shen Zhuxi, meeting her tear-filled eyes. It was as though she had been holding back her grievances for a very long time — the moment she opened her mouth, her voice broke.
“I wanted to boil an egg for you, but… but…”
Her weeping tone gave way to heartbroken sobs.
“Li Wu… I’m sorry…”