Shao Yao stood at the courtyard gate, cradling her mortar and pestle and grinding away at nothing in particular, her neck craned long as she peered toward the moon-gate.

Gu Yanxi walked over and said in a low voice, “She will be away from home for three days. You go with her.”

“Of course I’ll go with her.” Shao Yao swore to herself she truly meant nothing else by it — it had simply slipped out. The moment the words were spoken she knew she was in for it, and instinctively stepped back several paces.

But Gu Yanxi had no time to deal with her. His brow furrowed slightly. He looked toward the Sixth Prince, who had emerged from inside and now stood beneath the covered walkway, and walked up to him. “Third Prince may have caught wind of something. He wants to muddy these waters — I need to make some arrangements. This matter cannot reach the Emperor’s ears for now.”

The Sixth Prince pressed his lips together. If Father Emperor learned of this at this moment, none of the princes would fare well. And if Father Emperor discovered that he had been sheltered here at the Hua family’s home — the Hua family, only just condemned to have their property seized and their men exiled last year — it would only deepen Father Emperor’s displeasure with them. He could not bring harm upon Elder Flower Sister.

“What should I do?”

“Stay hidden. Do not leave your room.”

The Sixth Prince glanced up at the bright sun hanging high in the sky, and a vast sorrow welled up inside him. He was plainly the victim here, yet rather than thinking of how to clear his own name, what he had to think about was how to keep himself concealed. How pitiful.

“Yanxi Brother, I do not wish to go back to that cold place. Can you help me?”

“You like it here?”

“Yes.”

Gu Yanxi’s expression was unreadable. He studied him in silence for a good while. The Sixth Prince did not know what he saw there, but something like a flicker of satisfaction crossed Gu Yanxi’s features. “I will see to it that you get your wish. Until then — stay hidden.”

The Sixth Prince had not expected Yanxi Brother to actually agree. He turned at once and went back inside, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.

He had an early memory and a particularly sharp one. From a very young age, he had heard palace attendants speak more than once of how differently Father Emperor regarded Shizi — a Shizi held a place of trust in a sovereign’s eyes beyond even a son, able to come and go freely through the imperial palace, and the only person permitted free access to the Imperial Study. He had even harbored a secret, treasonous suspicion about Yanxi Brother’s true identity.

But then, in a single night, everything had turned upside down. Shizi had suddenly vanished — he no longer appeared at any of the great sacrificial rites or ancestral observances, and at the time the Sixth Prince had wondered whether Father Emperor no longer favored him, whether he had done something wrong and been sent away from the capital. It was only nearly five years later that he reappeared — resembling what he remembered, yet transformed from a boy into a man — and Father Emperor’s affection for him was unchanged, just as it had always been. The Sixth Prince had felt a pang of envy at the time.

Later, when his Imperial Consort Mother fell gravely ill, she told him on her deathbed that if he ever faced a life-or-death choice that could not be avoided, he was to follow Shizi’s lead. He had not understood what she meant, but he held the words firmly in his heart.

After his Imperial Consort Mother passed, the Empress Dowager took him in for a few days. During that time he could not sleep soundly, yet found himself drowsy at every turn, sometimes drifting off in the middle of conversation. The Empress Dowager took pity on him, and wherever he fell asleep, she let him sleep there, letting him rest as much as he could.

One day, half between sleeping and waking, he heard Father Emperor’s voice and Shizi’s voice. He had been about to rise and pay his respects when, through his drowsy haze, he saw Shizi pull and press something against his face, and a different face emerged in its place — bearing a scar that gave it a fierce cast, which was why he remembered it so clearly. He did not know whether this was some secret, and instinctively sank back into sleep.

So today, he had recognized him at a single glance, and knew at once that he was saved. The Hua family could not protect him — but Yanxi Brother could. And he no longer needed to puzzle over how to leave the Hua family without repaying their kindness with betrayal.

Was it not simply a matter of not leaving his room? He could do that!

Outside, Gu Yanxi remained where he stood. Shao Yao, having let off some steam, sidled back over and asked in her most conspiratorial manner, “Yanxi, what are you planning to do with Little Six?”

“Little Six?”

“Is that wrong? Should I call him A’Jian instead?”

No — Little Six is perfectly right. That is what you used to call him, even when he had just been born. A deep and sudden grief spread through Gu Yanxi’s heart.

Because of the name Gu, he bore a grudge he could not avenge. Because of the name Gu, Shao Yao had destroyed everything she once was. Because of the name Gu, the one inside had been left battered and broken, forced to shelter under another’s roof merely to survive. Because of the name Gu, every manner of helplessness seemed tangled up with them.

And yet also because of the name Gu — because he was of the imperial clan — his true face had become a stranger in others’ eyes.

All of it, simply because his surname was Gu.

“Yanxi…” Shao Yao grew uneasy. Why did Yanxi look so full of sorrow? “I was wrong, Yanxi, I was wrong — I won’t call him Little Six anymore…”

“He is Little Six. You weren’t wrong.”

Shao Yao tapped herself on the head with her pestle and suddenly bolted for her medicine room. “I’m going to take my medicine.”

Gu Yanxi watched her run inside without making any move to stop her. Whether she wished to recover what was lost or forget it entirely, he would not stand in her way.

“Mr. Lu?”

Gu Yanxi turned. He watched Hua Zhi step over the threshold, move into the sunlight, and walk toward him — step by step, drawing closer — walking into his field of view, walking into his heart.

This person had never been afraid of him. It was as though she could not smell the blood that could never be washed from him, as though she could not sense the violence that saturated his entire being. She only remembered kindness, only remembered goodness, and repaid it several times over.

Hua Zhi narrowed her eyes slightly. “Come inside and have some tea.”

Gu Yanxi found he had no resistance at all. He thought to himself — never mind having tea. He would go even if it were poison.

Once the tea set was brought out, there was no putting it away again. Hua Zhi washed her hands and sat down at the low tea table.

The tea warmed him from within, and in a daze Gu Yanxi felt as though he was no longer cold in a way that had once frozen his very heart. Looking through the curling wisps of steam, Hua Zhi’s face was slightly blurred, but her expression was that same composure she always presented to the world.

“Hua Zhi, have you ever encountered something that made you lose your composure?”

“Of course I have.” Hua Zhi seemed not to notice he had changed how he addressed her, and refilled his cup, sliding it toward him.

“Was it a thing or a person?”

“Both.”

She had not been born with the steadiness to stand unmoved while storms raged all around her. She too had once been so thoroughly wounded by a person that she wept into her covers. She had once lost her hair by the handful under too much pressure and shaved her head clean, wearing a wig in front of others for a full year. She had reviewed proposal after proposal until she was sick with exhaustion, gone to competitive bids dragging along a private physician while on an IV drip for a stomach hemorrhage, and then watched the people she had called family plot to take her life for their own interests.

She had paid with her life itself to become the Hua Zhi she was now. The pain of clawing her way out through a path of thorns — how could the Mr. Lu before her ever know it.

“No matter how difficult something was, once it has passed it is not worth speaking of. All things must pass. No one outlasts time — it is only a matter of sooner or later.”

Gu Yanxi leaned slightly forward. “No matter how harrowing the process?”

“Then what else can one do?” Hua Zhi looked at him, each word wrung from somewhere deep. Yet her voice was without sentiment. “Shao Yao’s face is already as it is. Even if you carved your way through ten thousand men, her face would not heal. There is no justice to be had, no right or wrong to be argued — this is the outcome, and you can only accept it. Shao Yao can only bear it.”

“Even if the one who caused this still lives comfortably?”

“The person you have kept in your thoughts all this time — is he truly living so comfortably?”

Gu Yanxi was struck still. Not being able to personally end Gu Yueyan’s life in vengeance for his mother and Shao Yao was the knot in his heart that had no resolution. He had watched him keep the position of principal consort vacant for that woman, watched the two of them live in apparent contentment and produce children together, watched him exhaust every eminent physician in the realm for the sake of that sickly son, even going so far as to come begging to him to have Shao Yao brought to the estate.

Month after month, year after year, he had watched all of this — and in all that time, he had never once thought to ask whether the man was truly comfortable.

“A blunt blade is not sharp enough. But you cannot deny it is still a blade.” Hua Zhi raised her teacup and tipped it back in one long swallow, as though it were wine.