Gu Yanxi looked at her, and after a long moment covered his face and laughed without sound. Yes — a blunt blade is not sharp enough, but a blade that is not sharp enough takes all the longer to grind, and grinding is precisely what hurts.

He had been blind to it all these years, seeing only one part of the whole.

“If I had come to know you sooner…”

“There is no such ‘if.’ Had the Hua family remained well, I would have become a daughter-in-law of the Shen family by the fifth month of this year.”

Gu Yanxi looked at her — her expression open and untroubled, as though speaking of something entirely unrelated to herself — and could detect not the faintest trace of sorrow or regret. He could not help asking, “You feel no regret? The old master of the Hua family had sound judgment — Shen Qi is considered exceptional among his generation.”

He even thought that if it had been Shen Qi who married Hua Zhi, he would have been capable of recognizing her worth.

Hua Zhi shook her head. If that man had harbored even a little private feeling for her, he would not have accepted the situation so calmly. In a world where family interest reigned above all else, Shen Qi’s reaction was entirely ordinary.

Given that, how could she feel regret? She was more grateful than anything.

The tension that had coiled in Gu Yanxi’s chest released all at once, bringing with it a faint dizziness — yet even that dizziness pleased him. Did not Hua Zhi’s response prove that Shen Qi had never truly entered her heart?

But what of Shen Qi’s heart? Gu Yanxi lifted the cup she had refilled for him and drank. Even if there was something there — it was too late now.

“Mr. Lu, there has always been something I have wondered.”

Gu Yanxi looked up. “I will answer whatever I know.”

“Your surname is Gu. My grandfather spent many years moving about in the imperial court. When he was at Yinshan Pass, why did he never recognize you?”

Gu Yanxi turned the small clay cup slowly in his fingers. Just as Hua Zhi was beginning to wonder whether there was something here too sensitive to be spoken of and was about to change the subject, the man reached into his front robe and drew out a flat, slim box. He ran his thumb along its edges, then opened it and pushed it to the middle of the low table.

When Hua Zhi made out what lay inside, her eyes widened with surprise. She had not expected that human-skin masks were truly a thing that existed in this world.

Thin human-skin masks lay stacked one upon another — at a glance, there appeared to be four or five.

Gu Yanxi casually picked one up, pressed it onto his face, and smoothed the edges down with his fingertips — the motion entirely practiced. When he lowered his hands, what faced Hua Zhi was a man who appeared to be in his early thirties: an ordinary face, reserved eyes, with nothing at all to distinguish him.

“A seventh-rank minor official seconded to the Ministry of Personnel. Named Chen Nian.”

He peeled that one off and pressed on another. Gu Yanxi’s posture and expression shifted to match. This time it was a military man. “This one your grandfather should recall — Wu Liang, a fourth-rank saber-bearing guard of the Imperial Guard, frequently in close attendance to the Emperor.”

Hua Zhi watched the skin of his face pull up sharply as he worked, his temples reddening from his ungentle handling, yet he seemed entirely unaware of any discomfort. As he was about to press on yet another, she placed her hand over the box. “I understand.”

Gu Yanxi paused and looked up at her.

Hua Zhi looked back at him. In her eyes there was a pity she herself did not know she wore.

Gu Yanxi smiled. This young woman — too perceptive, and yet her weakness was far too plain. Anyone who had read her correctly could manipulate her without difficulty. Yet the moment she sensed any ill intent, she would rise to fight back with everything she had, even at the cost of mutual ruin.

And yet it was precisely this young woman who made him willing to tear open, one more time, the festering wound he had sealed away inside himself.

He gently moved her hand aside and lifted another mask from the box, pressing it onto his face. It was a young man’s face — handsome features, a cold and distant air. “If I were to go in this face, your grandfather would certainly know me. Shizi Gu Yanxi.”

Hua Zhi was speechless. Even the face he used for his true identity was a false one.

Gu Yanxi pulled that mask off again. “My father is the Emperor’s only blood brother, Gu Yueyan, titled the Ling Prince, with his estate in Yangzhou. Until I was fifteen I lived there, and even when I came to the capital it was mostly within the palace. In my fifteenth year, our grandmother fell gravely ill, and the Emperor summoned our entire family back to the capital. When grandmother gradually recovered, we were kept in the capital. Gu Yueyan had neither talent nor ambition, and the Emperor had always been tolerant of him — only, he could not look on as Gu Yueyan hired those useless teachers for me, and took it upon himself to take me under his own guidance. Neither I nor the Emperor suspected at the time that the deliberate aim all along had been to raise me into a waste.”

Hua Zhi tipped the dregs from the clay pot and measured out a fresh measure of tea leaves.

Gu Yanxi watched her unhurried, fluid movements, and felt something in his heart also settle into peace. Speaking again of those old memories, he found there was not the rage he had imagined.

“He was the Ling Prince — who would not scramble to flatter him at every turn? So when a woman appeared who gave not the slightest care for his wealth and status, he found her novel. That woman was skilled — after a few encounters back and forth, she had him wrapped around her finger. He wanted to bring her into the estate as a secondary consort. My mother came from a distinguished family of great standing — how could she agree to allow a woman of unknown origin and obscure background into the household? Gu Yueyan did not dare truly break with my mother, and could only grind at her slowly.”

Gu Yanxi lowered his gaze to the rippling light playing across the surface of his tea. “My mother had not married him by parental arrangement or a matchmaker’s word — it was Gu Yueyan who caught a glimpse of her at grandmother’s quarters and then went to every length to engineer more chances to see her. After they had developed genuine feeling for each other, the match was made. It alarmed many people at the time. Yet more than ten years later, the very man who had once pursued her with such relentless ardor now directed all of that burning attention toward a different woman. My mother was heartbroken, then grew cold within, and let him do as he pleased, gave him his wish of returning to the arms of his beloved — and in less than half a year, my mother was gone.”

Hua Zhi was not surprised. In this age, women placed far too much of themselves in the hands of men.

“She was poisoned.” He looked at her startled expression and pulled the corner of his mouth — without quite managing a smile. “I know my mother. Even if every day she drank only bitterness she would never have chosen to throw away her own life. She knew all too well how hard it was for a child in a great household to lose its mother. I was not yet married, and Shao Yao was only ten at the time — for our sakes alone, she would have held on and lived. Yet a minor chill was all it took, and she never rose from her bed again. If you were me — would you not investigate?”

Of course she would. Without any hesitation.

Gu Yanxi nodded as well. “I investigated. Gu Yueyan had no idea what the Emperor had been teaching me during that one year in the capital, nor how much I had taken in. It took me half a day to obtain proof that he had poisoned my mother. Do you know what his reaction was? He wanted me dead. He had the estate soldiers seize me — dead or alive.”

Hua Zhi set down the clay pot without a word and filled his cup. He had a vile father; she had a vile mother. It was simply the lot of children like them. She did not know which of them was worse off.

“My Shizi title had not been requested by him — it was bestowed directly by the Emperor. The estate soldiers did not dare actually strike me down. Had it not been so, I could not have run from the estate, could not have summoned help in time, and could not have pulled Shao Yao out of the fire afterward.”

Hua Zhi looked up sharply. “Shao Yao’s face was ruined there?”

“Yes. Shao Yao is not my full sister. Her mother was my mother’s own handmaiden who came with her into the marriage — she died in childbirth, and my mother took pity on the infant and raised her herself, with no real distinction from a daughter of her own blood. What sort of temper made her decide to shatter everything together with the one who wronged her, I cannot say, but after most of the estate soldiers had been dispatched to search for me, she quietly made her way to that woman’s courtyard and set it ablaze — she had even procured knockout powder from somewhere and used it, holding onto that woman with every intention of dying together with her. If the woman had not known martial arts, Shao Yao’s plan might truly have succeeded.”

“Shao Yao…”

“By the time I returned with men, Gu Yueyan had already pulled that woman out — he took a few injuries himself, but compared to Shao Yao’s, what did they matter? When I carried Shao Yao out, her whole body was a mess of blood and mangled flesh, and her face and body were covered in blade wounds, some deep enough that the flesh had turned out. You can imagine how savagely the blade had been wielded. I moved to kill that woman, but Gu Yueyan shielded her, swearing again and again it had not been her doing. I nearly committed patricide that day.”

Gu Yanxi gave a sudden, sharp laugh. “After that, I thought about it every moment.”