She arrived in Jinyang just as noon approached.

It was now late in the second month. The sunlight had gradually taken on warmth, falling pleasantly on the skin. Yet on such a fine day and at such an hour, the streets of Jinyang were scarcely populated.

“They say Jinyang is a little capital — it certainly does not look the part right now.” The carriage curtain was drawn aside as Shaoyao chewed on strips of dried beef and muttered to herself, her eyes wandering left and right. She no longer needed to wear a veil cap these days; the scar on her face had faded considerably, and at a passing glance it was not particularly noticeable.

“It was probably like one before. It just is not anymore. If Jinyang takes a wrong turn…” she paused, “it will be ruined.”

Shaoyao’s expression remained calm as she gazed outside. “To be broken before being rebuilt — that is not necessarily a bad thing.”

But how would it be broken? It surely could not mean everyone losing everything down to their last coin. Once a person’s gambling instincts are aroused, even money meant for survival will be wagered first; wives and children will be sold before a bet is relinquished. Even after a family has been destroyed and homes reduced to nothing, they cannot restrain themselves.

Do they feel no regret? In their clear-headed moments, how could they not? But when the craving rises, they forget even who they are — how then would they remember those moments of remorse?

Poverty is not frightening; hardship can be endured. It is the destruction of the spirit that truly ruins a person.

“Is that right.” Shaoyao wore an expression of genuine shock. “Yan Xi has to manage even this? What use then are the Six Ministries? What use is such a large prefectural yamen in Jinyang?”

“It is far easier to abandon than to build. Those who ought to manage things may not manage them at all — just like the Seven Lodges Division as things stand now. If one were to be strictly accurate, a great many matters are not their domain, yet in the end, they all become their responsibility.”

Hua Zhi rested her chin in her hand and looked at the people passing outside, their spirits listless and yawns barely suppressed. Had she not been certain that no happiness-inducing drug had appeared in the Great Qing, she might have suspected that someone had manufactured such a substance. “And yet Jinyang has so many people. They are nothing more than pawns of those with ill intent. How innocent they are.”

Shaoyao leaned against Hua Zhi. “So it is better to be carefree and unbothered. Only, Yan Xi will probably find it very difficult to change — he decided when he was seventeen that he would help the Emperor guard the realm and share his burdens. Would you say he is foolish?”

“He simply lacked love for too long. When someone treated him well, he gave everything he had in return.”

“Lacked love?” Shaoyao laughed until she nearly doubled over. “Yes, yes — lacked love. Flower, you have described it perfectly.”

Was it not exactly that? Hua Zhi ruffled Shaoyao’s hair. If he had never possessed it to begin with, it would have been one thing — at least he would not have known what it felt like. But he had once possessed so much, only to lose it all in a single night. The Emperor’s small measure of care became a beam of light in his darkened life; he had to cling to that light with everything he had in order to crawl out from that abyss. That was why he was so deeply grateful, why he had forged himself into iron sinew and bone, why he shouldered responsibilities that had never been meant for one person alone.

Yet people invariably change. Even what begins as genuine feeling can shift under the weight of external forces.

The carriage turned into a lane. It did not look like the deep alleys of grand manors — it had more of the feel of the southern part of the capital city.

After rounding two more lanes, the carriage came to a brief stop, and shortly afterward a side gate swung open. The carriage rolled directly inside and halted once more. Before Hua Zhi could even stir, the curtain was yanked open.

Hua Zhi tilted her head to one side, her face full of the self-satisfied delight of someone who had just startled a person after doing something mischievous.

Gu Yanxi closed his eyes for a moment. His hands clenched into fists, then slowly relaxed. Without a word, he simply reached up and lifted her out of the carriage, sparing not so much as a glance for Shaoyao.

Shaoyao had been waiting with bated breath for the moment her elder brother saw her face — only to look at him now and find she could not muster a single mischievous impulse. She touched her own cheek ruefully. Shaoyao made a silent decision to forgive her brother for his blind eyes — no, for his eyes that had entirely forsaken his sister in favor of another woman.

Gu Yanxi carried Hua Zhi directly into a room. Not the main hall. Not a side parlor. His own bedchamber.

All notions of propriety and decorum were forgotten. He only wanted to hold this person — who seemed to have dropped from the sky — properly, to prove to himself that it was not a vision conjured by longing.

He held her so tightly it bordered on painful, yet Hua Zhi seemed not to feel it at all, pressing her arms around him with equal force.

They stayed entwined like that for a long while before Gu Yanxi seemed to finally settle. He pressed a light kiss to Ah Zhi’s forehead and asked softly, “Why did you suddenly come?”

“I wanted to come, so I came.” Hua Zhi blinked at him with wide, guileless eyes. “More surprised or more delighted?”

“Delighted.” Gu Yanxi took her hand and pressed it over his heart. “Feel it — it is so delighted it is about to leap out.”

“Surprise has the same effect.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore, save for anything that threatens your safety.” Thinking of what had transpired in the capital, Gu Yanxi’s brief lapse of composure finally steadied. “I know you always plan thoroughly before you act. Even so, next time — please do not use injury as the price. Even if the result is somewhat less effective, it does not matter.”

“It was only a little.” Hua Zhi pinched her smallest finger to show how little. “I could live another lifetime and never be able to inflict a wound on myself — I simply have not the heart to draw my own blood. Rest assured, only the smallest amount was shed.”

Gu Yanxi wanted to say more, but then remembered that it was the Gu family’s own people who had driven Ah Zhi to such measures, and any words he might say felt utterly superfluous. Better to wait until they returned to the capital and string that person up for a sound thrashing. The blood drawn had better be more than what Ah Zhi lost.

Setting that matter aside, Gu Yanxi then recalled the question of propriety between men and women. He took her hand and led her out of the room.

Shaoyao was crouching just outside in the corridor. She let out a heavy huff at the sight of the two of them emerging, and to further make her point, turned her head sharply to one side. Her feelings were very much in evidence.

Hua Zhi stifled her laughter and cut a glance toward Yan Xi. She had absolutely no intention of helping him coax Shaoyao.

Gu Yanxi looked at this face that so closely matched the one in his memory. He had intended to say that she looked well, but what came out of his mouth instead was, “You look more and more like Mother.”

Yes — his mother, the woman who had once been the Princess Consort of Ling Wang. Though Shaoyao had not been born of her, her appearance resembled that woman more than it did her own birth mother.

Shaoyao turned her head back, stunned. Her eyes blinked once, twice — and tears rolled down her face.

Gu Yanxi walked over and pulled her to her feet. “I say you look like Mother, and you weep? Who else would you look like?”

Shaoyao pushed him away with a twist, moved to Hua Zhi’s side, and buried herself against her, crying silently.

Hua Zhi held her close and looked up. “I am rather hungry.”

Gu Yanxi glanced at Shaoyao and, without another word, turned and left.

Hua Zhi drew Shaoyao into the side parlor and they squeezed together into one wide chair, two people sharing a seat that could barely hold them both. “Why the tears? Is it not something to be glad of?”

“That was my First Auntie.”

Hua Zhi paused. “You remembered?”

“I remember a little. Even though I had been taking the medicine.” Shaoyao nestled her head against Hua Zhi’s shoulder like a child seeking comfort. “When I was small I adored First Auntie so much. She had such a beautiful smile — like a fairy figure from a painting. She was kinder to me than my own birth mother ever was. She would braid my hair into little plaits, teach me to read, and tell the servants that I was a proper young lady of the Wang household, not a lesser-born daughter. She never let me call her Mother — just like in a common family, she let me call her First Auntie. She truly cherished me as if I were her own flesh and blood. I even told her once that I wanted to become a woman general, and when I became one, I would be able to protect her. But I did not become a woman general — and she was gone.”