A bark rang out, startling several birds resting in the osmanthus tree into flight.

“Shen Zhuxi, what exactly do you want from me?!”

“I won’t drink! I won’t drink!” Shen Zhuxi kicked her legs furiously under the table, threw her head back, and wept bitterly, tears streaming down in great drops.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to drink?!” Li Wu’s face crumpled with exasperation.

“I never wanted to drink — it was you — you forced me to drink!”

The more Shen Zhuxi spoke, the more aggrieved she became. Drawing breath from her core, she let out another wail.

“What utter nonsense —”

Li Wu glared at the person before him, who had turned everything upside down and inside out.

“You’re even cursing at me! You’re cursing at me! Not only did you force me to drink, now you’re cursing at me!” Shen Zhuxi was utterly heartbroken. She collapsed onto the table. “Waaah —”

Li Wu’s knees went weak. He was one step away from falling to his knees before this howling, sobbing, never-ending madwoman.

“Stop crying — if you keep going, the neighbors will come over thinking I’m slaughtering a pig!”

Li Kun had stopped eating the pig’s trotter entirely. He looked between the two of them, helpless and at a loss. After a long hesitation, he held out his half-eaten trotter to Shen Zhuxi, who was sprawled across the table sobbing:

“Piggy don’t cry… eat piggy…”

Li Que gave a quiet cough and pulled Li Kun’s hand back, then stood up, bringing him along.

“Elder Brother, Sister-in-law — I just remembered something I need to do. We’ll be heading off now… Take your time eating, take your time drinking…”

Shen Zhuxi’s back gave a shudder. With full-bodied strength, she wailed: “I won’t drink anymore —”

“Your mother’s sake, you won’t! Get out of here!”

Li Wu shot him a ferocious glare, one foot nearly flying out. Li Que grabbed Li Kun and bolted from the scene of disaster.

“Piggy is still crying,” Li Kun kept looking back.

“Elder Brother will make her stop,” Li Que said. “If we stay any longer, Elder Brother will make us cry too.”

Li Kun shuddered, gripped the remaining trotter in his hand, and hurried after Li Que, away from the carnage.

Leaving only the helpless Li Wu to face the endlessly wailing Shen Zhuxi.

“Shen Zhuxi — Princess Shen — Revered Ancestor Shen —” Li Wu crouched at her side, frantic and flustered. “Just give me a straight answer, will you? What exactly will make you stop crying?”

“I won’t drink anymore!” Shen Zhuxi buried her head on the table, stamping her feet indignantly beneath it.

“Fine, fine, fine — no more drinking, never again…” Li Wu said.

“Swear it. Swear you’ll never force me to drink again!”

Li Wu couldn’t catch his breath. “When in blazes did I ever force —”

“Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!!!!”

“I was wrong, it was my fault, I was absurdly, inexcusably wrong, I will never force you to drink again…” Li Wu heard his own temples throbbing. He swallowed his rage and said through gritted teeth: “If I ever force you to drink again, I’m not even human!”

“You were never human to begin with! You’re Li the Duck! You’re Li the Fart-Man! You forced me to drink — no one has ever dared force me to drink —” Shen Zhuxi wept her heart out, kicking her legs back and forth, the cherry-pink hem of her skirt fluttering over her moon-white embroidered shoes.

“I don’t dare anymore, I don’t dare, I will never dare again!” Li Wu said, fist clenched. “Next time, even if someone holds a blade to my throat, I still won’t let you drink!”

With these repeated assurances secured, Shen Zhuxi’s tears finally showed signs of subsiding.

At last she lifted her head from the table, wearing the most pitiful expression of someone who had suffered the greatest injustice. She choked out: “I feel so terrible.”

Li Wu’s fist clenched tighter. He said: “I feel terrible too.”

“What do you have to feel terrible about?” Shen Zhuxi hiccupped. “You still have Li Kun and Li Que. I don’t have a single family member left…”

“Don’t you have an elder brother named Shen Huan?” Li Wu replied instantly.

“Shen Huan? Shen Huan?” Shen Zhuxi murmured the name twice, her expression dazed.

“You’ve really drunk yourself senseless.”

“I’m perfectly clearheaded, I remember everything.” Shen Zhuxi shook her dizzy head and argued back indignantly: “I am a princess who has fallen among commoners. One day I will be reunited with my elder brother, the Crown Prince…”

Li Wu looked at her with profound sympathy. “I used to fantasize about whether I might be a lost imperial prince, too — that one day my imperial father would come riding in on a seven-colored dragon carriage to take me home. That was when I was five or six years old. Is your head alright? Give it a shake —”

Shen Zhuxi did as he said. She looked at Li Wu in a daze. “I shook it. Now what?”

“No water sloshed out — you can still be saved.” Li Wu stood up and moved to help her out of the chair. “You should sleep for a bit. Come talk to me once your head has cleared.”

“I’m not sleeping! I’m not tired! I’m wide awake!” Shen Zhuxi abruptly pulled free of his hand. “I want to go out for a walk!”

“What’s gotten into you?” Li Wu steadied her as she immediately stumbled the moment she left the chair. “You’re this drunk, and you want to go for a walk?!”

“I need to go out and earn money. I need to work and support you. I can’t keep being such a wastrel —”

This madwoman suddenly seized her own collar with both hands, and tears gushed out like a flood.

“You’ve had it so hard — so terribly hard!”

Li Wu was utterly baffled, half-irritated and half-amused. “What hard time have I had?”

“I understand everything… I understand… you don’t have to say it…” Shen Zhuxi wept as she spoke. “Before, I was the one in the wrong — not realizing how hard things were for you… From now on I’ll treat you better. Whatever you want to eat, just tell me, and I’ll do my best to learn how to make it… Once I’ve earned enough to live on, you can be my gi —”

Shen Zhuxi stopped.

“I can be your gi-what?” Li Wu frowned.

“Goose… goose…” Shen Zhuxi suddenly hunched forward.

Li Wu’s expression changed drastically. He scooped her up by the waist and sprinted — practically flew — out of the main room.

The next instant, Shen Zhuxi’s back heaved violently:

“Bleurgh —”

The osmanthus tree bore the brunt of it. Li Wu let out a sigh of relief, along with a small measure of smug satisfaction — he would not fall into the same trap twice.

After Shen Zhuxi finished retching, she felt considerably better. She picked up the nearest cloth and wiped her mouth:

“I need to rinse my mouth. Li Fart-Man, I need to rinse my mouth… I need to rinse my mouth! Waaah! Water! Rinse!”

Li Wu stared at the stains on his sleeve, his face ashen.

Suppressing the urge to press this madwoman face-first into the mud, he turned and went to the kitchen to fetch her a cup of water. Though she was too drunk to be coherent, this madwoman still remembered to ask for tooth-cleansing powder.

While she bent over to rinse, he went back to the inner room and changed out of his soiled clothes.

Once he had composed himself and came back out, Shen Zhuxi was clutching the osmanthus tree, whimpering and murmuring through her tears.

“It’s all my fault…”

“What are you carrying on about?” Li Wu frowned, pulled her away from the trunk, and led her back to the inner room.

The moment she sat down on the bed, she immediately threw her arms around the bedpost.

“I shouldn’t have bought so many things and spent all your money… I shouldn’t have bought the side table, I shouldn’t have bought the new bed, I shouldn’t have insisted on keeping toilet paper — I deserve to have a dry wood chip scraping my backside raw!” Shen Zhuxi’s face was full of remorse, tears falling freely. “It’s all my fault, it’s me who’s ruined you…”

Her words sounded strange, but he grasped the general meaning. This madwoman had apparently been blaming herself all along for that time she spent all his savings.

Li Wu’s heart softened. He said by way of consolation: “That was ages ago. Why are you still carrying it around?”

Shen Zhuxi wept with deep sorrow. She wasn’t wailing anymore, but her soft, stifled sobbing left Li Wu no less able to remain unmoved.

He gently raised his finger to brush away the tears at the corner of her eye and said: “Once the money’s gone, you earn more. Look — the jar in the kitchen is full again, isn’t it?”

At Li Wu’s words, Shen Zhuxi only cried harder.

“I’d rather it stayed empty. You’ve suffered so much…”

Though these were freshly changed clothes, Li Wu didn’t even think before raising his sleeve to wipe her tears.

“What suffering? Knowing that you care about me — I don’t feel the least bit of hardship anymore…”

Shen Zhuxi looked at the corners of his mouth, which were just barely lifting upward, and felt deeply moved: Li Wu had not only been willing to be kept as a companion-for-hire to fulfill his vow of supporting the family, but even now, at this very moment, he was forcing a smile to comfort her!

Though his body was no longer quite… untouched, his soul was nobler than anyone else’s! Once she was reunited with the Crown Prince, she would definitely get him a high official title! Third rank would not be enough! Even if she had to renounce her status as princess, she would find a way to secure him the rank of a duke!

Shen Zhuxi was so moved by Li Wu that she burst into floods of tears, making him wipe and wipe again until even his cuffs were soaked through with her tears.

Li Wu, seeing that she had finally stopped wailing and whimpering, seized his chance to coax her: “Get some sleep. I’ll make you a bean sprout soup. You can wake up and have a bowl.”

“I’m not sleeping. I’m not tired. I’m perfectly fine…” Shen Zhuxi murmured, her limp body tipping toward Li Wu in front of her. She found a comfortable spot and rubbed her tear-streaked face against it a few times.

The sensation against his chest made Li Wu freeze completely in place. The warmth of another person pressed against him was so unfamiliar — his heart beat wildly, his senses scattered, and every bit of his attention converged entirely on her.

He stood still for a moment, then tentatively laid his right hand on Shen Zhuxi’s shoulder.

“Have you… ever gotten drunk in front of anyone else before?”

Shen Zhuxi said nothing. The head buried against his chest simply swayed left and right.

Li Wu couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from lifting, and cast a furtive glance out through the window.

In the courtyard’s osmanthus tree, a crooked-necked sparrow met his eyes directly.

“What are you looking at?! Get lost!” he snapped.

The sparrow did not move. Instead, it was Shen Zhuxi — her face still buried in his chest — who lifted her mist-veiled eyes: “Are you yelling at me?”

“I’m yelling at the sparrow.” Li Wu pressed her head back down.

Shen Zhuxi nestled obediently in his arms, saying she wasn’t tired, yet her eyelids grew heavier and heavier with each blink. Gradually, they fell closed altogether.

Li Wu gently patted her shoulder and let out a sigh. “If you were always this well-behaved, I’d gladly endure all the hardship in the world.”

“If I’m always well-behaved, will you always stay with me?” Shen Zhuxi said.

Li Wu’s hand paused, then moved to her head. He stroked her soft hair and said:

“Even if you’re not well-behaved, I’ll still stay.”

“Alright, then I’ll stay with you too…”

“Why?”

“I have no home anymore… You treat me well, so I want to treat you well too…” she murmured softly. “No one has ever treated me so well before… When I’ve cried, no one has ever cared…”

“What if someday another person cared too — would you go and stay with him?”

“I don’t know…”

“That won’t do. Everything in this world operates on a first-come, first-served basis.” Li Wu pressed the back of her head and said: “I was here first. Whoever dares compete with me, I’ll crush him.”

“When something happens, you should reason it through… don’t just resort to fighting and killing at every turn…”

“Fine, I’ll reason it through with you.” Li Wu said: “You promise to stay only with me. From now on, I’ll be someone who reasons things through.”

Shen Zhuxi nodded in a daze.

“Just saying so isn’t reliable enough. What if you wake up after sleeping and don’t remember any of this? You need to put something in collateral with me.” Li Wu said.

“Collateral of what?” Shen Zhuxi lifted her head to look at him and held out her right hand. “How about — we pinky-promise?”

“No pinky-promise.” Li Wu took her hand and drew it to his chest, his gaze burning into her. “You leave a kiss with me as collateral. Once you’ve kept your end of the promise, I’ll give it back.”

“A kiss? How does one leave a kiss as collateral?” Shen Zhuxi was completely bewildered.

“Like this.”

Li Wu lowered his head, moving slowly toward her flushed, crimson face.

He was already so close — and yet he took a long, long moment.

The rustling wind had ceased at some point, leaving only a small, dusty sparrow, head tilted to one side, watching the two figures leaning against each other through the window.

Li Wu stopped at the edge of her lips. He could already catch the faint fragrance of rose tooth-cleansing powder. Yet that last inch — he could never quite close it.

Shen Zhuxi looked at him with wide, dewy almond eyes — utterly guileless.

Li Wu suddenly felt unsettled, a thread of shame creeping into his chest. He was about to pull back when the girl before him — flushed cheeks rosy as wine, eyes liquid and bright — suddenly smiled.

“I understand.”

Shen Zhuxi said.

She blinked with a flash of playfulness, and then — leaned forward and tilted her head up, meeting his lips herself.

Heaven and earth fell silent.