Hearing Luoyun’s question, Princess Yuyang sat motionless for a moment.

Then, as she met Luoyun’s steady gaze, she drifted into memory: “Zhao Dong was a man of true martial spirit — nothing like those weak, fawning men who do nothing but flatter and ingratiate themselves. I couldn’t help it; I fell for him before I even knew what was happening. But only after I had fallen did I learn that he was already married with a daughter. Is it a fault that I could not rein in my own heart? I told myself at the time it was no real obstacle. The woman he had married was someone from the countryside. If she would not agree to a separation, I was willing to be his equal wife.”

Luoyun said nothing. It had clearly been a case of wishful thinking on the Princess’s part — one could well imagine what kind of trouble that imperial daughter’s sudden fancy had brought down on General Zhao at the time.

Princess Yuyang was now a woman of middle years, and her understanding of people and the world was considerably more clear-eyed than it had been in her girlhood.

She seemed embarrassed by the willfulness of her younger self. She sighed and continued: “Later, I came to know Hui’niang. I had assumed she was nothing more than a rough and ignorant country woman. At the time, both my father the Emperor and my mother the Empress were pressing Zhao Dong to divorce her. Zhao Dong had said something that angered the Emperor and been thrown into prison. Hui’niang disguised herself as Zhao Dong’s elder brother and went to visit him in jail. What she brought him was a batch of pan-fried buns she had just made herself. Freshly made buns are scalding hot — yet she was afraid they would go cold and lose their flavor, so she pressed them against her own stomach to keep them warm. By the time she took them out, her skin had blistered with burns. I had also come to visit that day and walked in at just that moment. Hui’niang was completely unruffled, and simply smiled and invited me to eat with them.”

Princess Yuyang lowered her head and was silent for a moment, then continued: “When we left the prison, I asked her — what would it take to get her to step aside? She only smiled and told me openly and without pretense: gold, silver, and jewels could be given or taken away, honor and titles could be bestowed or stripped, but the one thing that could not be traded or bargained away was love. Though the Emperor himself was pressuring them, she believed her husband was a man of honor who stood on his own two feet. If the Emperor were to condemn him to death, she would face it calmly at his side.”

At this, Princess Yuyang laughed at herself. “That was the first time in my life I understood what shame truly felt like. She was a plain-faced country woman from the village, with lines at the corners of her eyes and a complexion so dark that no powder could cover it — yet I could not lift my head in front of her. I felt I was not worth one ten-thousandth of her. I went back and told my father and mother: if they continued to pressure that couple, I would shave my head and enter a convent. After the matter was dropped, I stopped thinking of waiting for him. It was simply that after him, I had no desire to marry anyone else. I told myself I would live out my life alone. Who could have imagined that afterward, Hui’niang would meet with an accident…”

Luoyun listened in silence, then said quietly: “Indeed, General Zhao is nothing like the noble young men of the capital. But if he were merely a rough soldier with no finer qualities, and had been married before besides — why did the Princess spend so many years in such devoted attachment? The General’s constancy and faithfulness to those he loves — is that not also one of his strengths? Then why does the Princess suddenly take it to heart and feel resentment toward him?”

Princess Yuyang sat where she was, her face hovering between tears and composure: “I don’t resent him. It’s only that I thought — I believed that after so many years, I would have secured at least some small place in his heart. Just now when he was drunk, the name on his lips was still his dead wife. He mistook me for Hui’niang too. All of that I could bear. But then — he said he regretted marrying me.”

With those words, the tears she had been holding back all this time finally broke through. The Princess could no longer contain her grief, and wept with shaking, choked sobs.

Hearing this, Su Luoyun caught the fragrance still clinging to the Princess’s garments and understood at once why she had come apart so completely. The drunk General must have smelled the scent and mistaken her for someone else.

No wonder the Princess had come in such furious disarray. The fragrance had been the catalyst — but the true wound was the General’s careless words in drink, which had struck her heart to its core.

To be mistaken for another woman by the man you love, and then to hear him express regret at having married you — no one could be expected to bear that.

Before, the Princess had been to Luoyun nothing more than a high-ranking patron. Whatever the Princess commissioned, Luoyun had done her best to provide.

But now they had formed a genuine bond of private friendship, and Luoyun felt the weight of her inner grief far more keenly. It was for this reason she had stopped blending the Sichuan pepper fragrance for the Princess.

Yet it turned out the Princess had still had a supply of it in reserve, and today it had stirred up all of this.

Su Luoyun lifted her head and looked at the Princess in her grief, then after a moment said quietly: “This was my fault. I ask the Princess to punish me as she sees fit.”

Princess Yuyang composed herself slightly and gave Luoyun a sideways look, then laughed with bitter self-mockery: “You are right. You are nothing but a seller of fragrances. Your concern is only whether people like your scents — why would you trouble yourself with the history behind them? I was the one who asked you to blend a fragrance my husband would not dislike. You achieved exactly that. What wrong have you done? If I were to punish you, it would only show that I cannot distinguish right from wrong. Everything that has happened today is the result of choices I made myself. Who is there to blame but me?”

It was because she had loved without reservation — defying both her father’s and her mother’s objections, willing to drink an herbal compound that would end her ability to bear children rather than give him up, insisting on marrying the widower Zhao Dong — that she had become the laughingstock of the entire capital.

So even now, whenever there was friction between her and Zhao Dong, she had no one to speak of it to. And whenever Zhao Dong showed her even a small kindness, she would show it off everywhere as though she had received some precious treasure.

She had originally believed that her life with Zhao Dong would grow better and better with time. Yet who could have imagined that today, with Zhao Dong’s careless words in drink, all that carefully maintained happiness would collapse so suddenly and without warning.

At this moment, Luoyun said slowly: “The Princess need not be too harsh on the General. From the sound of those drunken words, he is simply overwhelmed by the situation — trapped between his identity as a prince consort and his inability to move freely within it. What he resents is being the Great Wei’s imperial son-in-law, being the Supreme Commander of such lofty rank and power — not necessarily that he regrets marrying a Princess of Yuyang.”

Princess Yuyang understood what Luoyun meant. Zhao Dong was now trapped in the north, unable to defy his orders or strike decisively against the Iron Foe because of who he was — and so today he had drunk himself insensible and let those wounding words spill out.

But what could she do about it?

Here she was, the Emperor’s own daughter, a woman who had scarcely known sorrow from childhood to now — and yet she had stumbled into this grief with no solution.

This grief had no cure — only wine could drown a thousand sorrows.

In the end, the Princess waved for someone to bring wine, and asked Luoyun to sit and drink with her.

Perhaps feeling that Su Luoyun now knew the unhappy truth of her marriage and there was no point in pretending, Princess Yuyang simply threw caution aside and used the Beginning of Summer dishes she had brought for her husband as accompaniment to the wine, and with the courage the alcohol lent her, gave full vent to her grievances to Luoyun.

“Everything that belonged to his late wife has been sealed in a room — no one is allowed to touch anything. Early in our marriage, meaning well, I arranged for the servants to dust the room before the New Year, with absolutely nothing disturbed. But when he came back, he glowered at me and scolded me, saying I had disturbed the atmosphere of Hui’niang’s things! What atmosphere? The atmosphere of cockroach droppings? Every New Year festival I have reverently offered incense at Hui’niang’s memorial tablet — I have never been that dutiful even toward my own mother. What more does he want from me? And I love lively gatherings above all else — yet because he dislikes noise, I can only hold the occasional small banquet in secret. I cannot even celebrate my own birthday openly! Where is the justice in that? I am a princess of the realm. He agreed to the marriage of his own accord. Is this any way to treat a person?”

Luoyun felt she really could not interject in other people’s marital affairs, and so simply kept adding food to the Princess’s bowl.

“Let me ask you — if you were me, what would you do?” Hearing the Princess ask this, Luoyun could only smile helplessly. “I suppose I would try to look after myself and make my own life a little more comfortable…”

Princess Yuyang slammed her wine cup down on the table: “Exactly! That is precisely what I am going to do! What have I gotten from devoting myself so completely to him? I might as well live for my own happiness.”

Luoyun said softly: “In truth, the General has been carrying great grief of late. The Iron Foe keeps burning, killing, and plundering — the General watches it all helplessly and is eaten up with urgency…”

Princess Yuyang was silent for a moment, then fresh tears spilled down her face: “Do you know what he said? He said that because he married me, he is living neither like a man nor a ghost — trapped and suffocated to death…”

When all was said and done, the General had been missing his late wife for far more than a day or two — the Princess had long since come to terms with that. But hearing Zhao Dong say he regretted marrying her had broken through the last defense she had kept around her heart.

More than ten years of marriage — did all of that amount to nothing whatsoever in Zhao Dong’s reckoning?

Such marital matters were not Luoyun’s place to counsel. She could only try to keep the Princess from drinking too much. After some time of weeping and pouring out her heart, the Princess drank herself into complete insensibility and was laid down to sleep.

As it happened, Han Linfeng also returned home that day. Luoyun had just seen the Princess back to her room, and when she returned to her own chamber, she found that man sitting there with his robe half loosened, applying medicinal ointment to his arm.

There, visible on his arm, was a wound about an inch long — startling to look at. Though Han Linfeng quickly pulled his sleeve down the moment Luoyun entered, she had already seen it clearly.

She walked over and immediately pulled the sleeve back up, glaring at him: “What are you hiding? Just because my eyes are better, do you think my nose stopped working? The room reeks of medicine — do you think you could hide that from me? Look at this — you haven’t even spread the ointment evenly, and no bandaging either. Aren’t you afraid the wound will get infected?”

She then had him remove his robe and applied the medicine herself before bandaging the wound properly.

The wound was fresh, and had already been sutured and treated by a physician — yet it was not hard to imagine what kind of desperate, life-or-death fighting had left such a scar.

Thinking of the stories circulating outside about the iron-masked army’s various exploits, Luoyun understood that every one of those battles had been won by this man fighting his way through with his own hands, blade by blade, inch by inch.

She ached for him, yet could not take his place on the field, nor could she urge him to go back to being the idle, purposeless man he had once been. For a moment her eyes stung with tears she was determined not to shed.

Han Linfeng smiled and tried to reassure her: “It’s not as alarming as you’re imagining. During the encirclement of some Iron Foe fighters, one of them was lying on the ground playing dead, and caught me off guard with a surprise attack — just a scratch. The physician already said it’s a flesh wound. Once it’s sutured and as long as there’s no infection, it’ll heal quickly… What happened to your face?”

He had been speaking when he finally noticed the red mark on Luoyun’s cheek, and his expression changed at once.

Luoyun quickly covered her face with her hand — her skin was always like this; even the slightest knock would leave a mark that lingered for a long time. She had not expected him to spot it so readily.

Han Linfeng’s mind turned over quickly. He immediately recalled what a maidservant had mentioned a short while ago — that Princess Yuyang had come looking for Luoyun in a fury today, and had afterward drunk herself into a stupor.

“Did Princess Yuyang take out her temper on you? Where else did she hit you?”

Su Luoyun only wanted to minimize the matter and said: “It’s nothing — I bumped into something accidentally…”

She then explained, in a low voice, the whole story of the Sichuan pepper fragrance — the old secret that had finally come to light, and come to Princess Yuyang’s attention.

Han Linfeng continued to gently rub her cheek with his thumb. “How is any of this your fault? Wasn’t it my idea in the first place? I’ll go and apologize to the imperial grand-aunt myself — I’ll tell her it was entirely my scheme and you knew nothing of it. If she wants to redirect her anger, she can redirect it at me. You’ve only just gotten your sight back — how could you take a blow like that? In future, when you see a situation turning bad, you turn around and leave. Why would you stand there and take it?”

Luoyun smiled wryly. “Leave it — this has nothing to do with you. I was the one so eager to close the transaction in the first place, without stopping to think how the Princess might feel if she ever found out. The Princess speaks her mind straight — now that she’s hit me and said her piece to my face, the page will turn. But if she were to hold a grudge and retaliate in some other way — wouldn’t that drag you into it?”

Han Linfeng raised an eyebrow, unconcerned: “Given my current situation, I’ve already thoroughly offended the Sixth Prince — would adding one imperial grand-aunt really make much difference? Besides, her household is full of objects kept in memory of the late Madam, and I haven’t seen her be so unable to tolerate even that.”

Luoyun knew that men tended not to take the small emotional intricacies of women particularly seriously. But the Princess had been genuinely wounded to her core this time. So she told Han Linfeng about what Zhao Dong had said in his drunken state.

Han Linfeng, as a man himself, understood Zhao Dong’s predicament perfectly: “The Emperor has issued another edict, ordering Zhao Dong to eradicate the iron-masked army. General Zhao most likely cannot bring himself to carry it out — hence the drinking.”

Luoyun drew in a quiet breath and said softly: “Then… how will the iron-masked army respond?”

Han Linfeng seemed wholly unbothered by the edict. He said evenly: “Right now the capital’s noble families monopolize power, corruption runs rampant, and official positions are bought and sold outright. How could anyone look to such short-sighted men to reclaim the lost territories? If I give up now, there is no longer any hope of driving back the Iron Foe. I fear that no matter how high the annual tribute is eventually raised, it will never satisfy them. The call to eradicate the rebel army has been sounded more than once or twice already. But so long as the will of the Great Wei’s people has not died, how could there be no men of hot blood left? Don’t worry — I know what I’m doing.”

What Luoyun did not know was that the iron-masked forces, scattered in all directions, were at this very moment being reorganized and consolidated — like grains of sand accumulating grain by grain into a tower, gradually coalescing into an army of real scale.

Though the nominal commanders of the iron-masked army were still Cao Sheng and Yuan Xi and the others, the true authority over the army rested with him.

With military power in hand, one had the foundation to act on anything. Even if it truly came to deploying forces against Zhao Dong in open battle, Han Linfeng felt he had sufficient grounding.

He simply had no desire to see that day come. He would do everything in his power to avoid direct confrontation.

Zhao Dong, having received the imperial edict, was certain to make some move. What Han Linfeng needed to do was to continue building strength, cutting off the Iron Foe’s routes of advance into Great Wei territory, and accumulating the leverage he would need to negotiate with those at the capital.

The shape of the future would inevitably grow more complex — he could not predict it. He could only lay each stone carefully, planning moves from within the tent.

When his wings were fully grown and his forces strong, whichever prince eventually ascended the throne would need genuine ability to strip a regional lord of his power.

His intention was precisely this: to make the Beizhen Prince’s Household into a bone of regional power too hard to chew — one that could bring Liangzhou and the imperial house to a delicate balance, each holding the other in enough wariness that they could coexist in mutual peace.

As for Princess Yuyang — though she had said she would not hold Luoyun accountable, the hurt had in fact lodged itself in her heart. What troubled her most was the feeling that Luoyun had seen through her too completely, had come to know the unhappy truth of her marriage, and she found she could not quite bring herself to face that with ease.

The following day, when the Princess sobered up from her wine, she gave instructions for a house to be found for her in Huicheng. She intended to move out of the Beizhen Prince’s Household at once.

The Senior Consort Wang did not fully understand the situation, but had heard Nanny Sheng mention that Princess Yuyang had returned that day in a fury and apparently had some kind of quarrel with the Young Lord’s Consort, and had afterward drunk herself senseless.

But when she pressed Su Luoyun for the reason, this daughter-in-law who now held the household authority simply would not say — which irritated the Senior Consort Wang so much that she could not resist a pointed remark: “You — so clever at handling everyone, and yet even you are capable of offending a person of such standing.”

Zhao Guibei, acting on his mother’s instruction, had come to help her move. The Young General could not understand why his mother, who had been living perfectly well at the Beizhen Prince’s Household, suddenly wanted to move to Huicheng.

Princess Yuyang could not show her son this particular pettiness of hers, so she pretended unconcern and said airily: “What is there worth staying for in this dreary place? I’m bored to death. At least Huicheng is livelier and more comfortable…”

Zhao Guibei did not find Huicheng particularly appealing. If his mother moved to Huicheng, wouldn’t that mean the next time he came to visit her, he would no longer be able to see… no longer be able to see…

Zhao Guibei was silent in thought for a moment, and then suddenly realized — to his own surprise — that what he was actually worried about was no longer being able to see young commandery princess Han Yao with any regularity.

He found himself wondering how he might manage to see her often going forward. As he thought on it, the face that had been tanned to a deep bronze began, almost imperceptibly, to grow warm.

“Mother — I heard the Senior Consort Wang has been making marriage inquiries for Princess Han Yao. I wonder if anything has come of it?”

At these words, Princess Yuyang gave her son a rather startled sidelong look. Guibei had never been one of those idle capital scions who spent their days entangled in domestic intrigues. He was exactly like his father — not the sort to concern himself with weddings, betrothals, and the like.

Why was Guibei suddenly asking out of nowhere about Han Yao’s marriage prospects?

Hearing him raise it, Princess Yuyang suddenly recalled several occasions when she had seen her son and Han Yao talking and laughing together in the garden. And every time her son came, he seemed to bring something for her — food boxes and pastries for the others, but for Han Yao alone, ornamental hairpins and jewelry.

Under ordinary circumstances, if her son liked someone, the Princess would have been happy to encourage it.

The Beizhen Prince’s Household was somewhat diminished in circumstance, but if the girl herself was good, it was worth considering.

But now, Princess Yuyang found herself at odds with everything connected to the Beizhen Prince’s Household, wanting nothing more than to put distance between herself and it. How could she possibly be willing to let her son form ties there?

So before her son could say anything more, Princess Yuyang lowered her eyes and said coolly: “That young commandery princess has very high standards, I hear. The Consort Wang says she is set on finding a learned and cultivated gentleman of scholarly distinction — and one whose appearance must not be too rough. He must be of a gentle, bookish sort.”

Hearing his mother say this, Zhao Guibei was dazed for a long moment: so that was the sort of person she liked…

Princess Yuyang watched her son’s face settle into a look of quiet dejection, his spirits visibly deflating, and felt a pang of discomfort herself.

From the time he was small, she had always done her best to give him what his heart desired.

This time she clearly knew what he was thinking — yet she was going against her own conscience in refusing to indulge it, and the truth was that did not sit entirely well with her either.

But a young person’s feelings were fleeting — a few days and it would pass. She had not seen anything particularly remarkable about that Han Yao anyway. There were far better girls than her throughout the capital.

Reassured by these thoughts, Princess Yuyang composed herself, gathered her servants and her belongings, and swept away in a flurry — fast as a gust of wind.

Luoyun received Princess Yuyang’s cooling toward her with equanimity.

After all, when there is hurt lodged in the heart, it is genuinely difficult to maintain ease in each other’s company. It was better for both of them to maintain a respectful distance.

Luoyun understood that the obstacle between her and the Princess was not merely the small matter of a fragrance. General Zhao Dong likely had no idea that the leader of the iron-masked army he was so urgently ordered to eradicate was none other than the young man he himself admired and esteemed — Han Linfeng.

Now that she and Princess Yuyang had in effect severed ties, that was perhaps not a bad thing. At least they would not have to face each other daily, maintaining a hollow pretense while weaving one deception after another.

So whenever the Senior Consort Wang hinted that she had offended Princess Yuyang and ought to go to Huicheng promptly to make amends, Luoyun unhurriedly steered the conversation elsewhere each time.

The affairs the men were conducting outside were beyond her reach. But the affairs inside the household still needed to be managed well.

What worried her most now was her young sister-in-law’s marriage.

There was talk at court of arranging a marital alliance with the Iron Foe, and of selecting eligible women from among the imperial kinswomen for this purpose. Han Yao had just had her betrothal dissolved, and was of precisely the right age — it was impossible not to be on guard.

When Luoyun raised this with the Senior Consort Wang, the Consort felt she was worrying over nothing. The capital was full of imperial kinswomen — why would the Emperor think to look all the way out to Liangzhou? And besides, where would they find a suitable match on such short notice?

Ever since the Junguo Ducal House’s scheme had forced the dissolution of her daughter’s engagement, the Senior Consort Wang had been simmering with indignation and had sworn to find her daughter a truly good match — one that would show the Junguo Ducal House that her daughter was not without prospects.

So though Luoyun raised the warning, the Consort let not a word of it settle in her heart.

Now that she was scolding Luoyun for offending the Princess, and then heard Luoyun pivot to raising Han Yao’s marriage affairs, the Consort felt this was simply a deliberate attempt to change the subject. So she said coldly: “You have quite taken over this household now. Not a single word from me, your mother-in-law, do you take to heart. That Princess Yuyang is the Emperor’s most beloved daughter — you have deeply offended her. Have you given any thought to what comes next? Don’t let the day come when you drag our entire family down to take the fall alongside you.”

Luoyun simply smiled lightly and said in a placating tone: “Mother is right. In a few days, I will go to call on the Princess and offer her my apologies…”

Seeing that her daughter-in-law was being at least somewhat compliant, the Senior Consort Wang finally stopped grumbling.

But Luoyun’s words were, in truth, pure deflection. She had no intention of going to Huicheng to smooth things over. Princess Yuyang had made up her mind to break with her — going would accomplish nothing.

Just at this point, the front lines stirred once more. Zhao Dong’s forces finally moved out — and began the encirclement and suppression of the iron-masked army, which had by now grown to considerable strength.

Though the iron-masked army had dispersed and retreated immediately upon each of the first several encounters, avoiding direct confrontation, in the more recent ones there had been no escape — and the two sides had come to blows.

On the whole, Zhao Dong’s forces had the slight upper hand, seizing two prefectures and counties in succession. The iron-masked army continued to do everything possible to avoid the edge of the Great Wei forces’ blades, fleeing whenever retreat was possible.

But the voices of public condemnation were beginning to rise.

After all — when the Iron Foe had been invading, there had been no sign of the Great Wei army. Now that the iron-masked army had driven the Iron Foe back, the Great Wei army came shamelessly to seize the reclaimed territory. Even ordinary commoners could see clearly what was happening, and the curses came thick and fast: the Great Wei soldiers only knew how to bully their own.

Even the teahouse storytellers stopped recounting the tale of the heroic Miss Cao luring and beheading the rebel traitor, and shifted instead to the legend of Huo Qubing annihilating one hundred thousand Xiongnu — “the Xiongnu driven far away, with no royal court remaining south of the desert.”

The storyteller offered commentary alongside: the reason General Huo had been able to accomplish such extraordinary deeds, sweeping across the Xiongnu royal court without distraction, was entirely because behind him stood a supremely wise and martial Emperor of Han.

Alas — ambitions unfulfilled, cut down in their prime. Those hot-blooded heroes were the great men of a former dynasty; in the present age, their like were vanishingly rare.

And one might observe in passing: even if Huo Qubing were alive today, without the support of an enlightened sovereign he would be stuck in a gatehouse, doing nothing but sitting behind closed city walls. Otherwise he would be branded a rebel and have his name posted on a wanted list.

Those with eyes to see understood plainly: this was satire of the present through the lens of the past, mocking the court for producing no one of Huo Qubing’s caliber today. And now that a force like the iron-masked army had finally appeared, it bore the name of criminal and was denied even the light of day.

Outside Zhao Dong’s front-line camp gate, children could be found throwing stones and handfuls of cattle and sheep dung.

For a time, popular resentment through the northern territories swelled and surged, beacon fires burning without respite.

Just at this moment, an imperial edict from the court was dispatched by a special envoy on fast horses, making its way toward Liangzhou.

But the content of the edict had reached Han Linfeng’s ears many days before the edict itself arrived.

It turned out that the gentleman Li Guitian in the capital had known of the matter even before the edict was formally issued, and had been deeply anxious on behalf of the Beizhen Prince’s Household.

And so, before the edict came down, he had dispatched a trusted confidant to carry word to the grain supply camp at Qianxi in Liangzhou.