Most of Hedeng County’s residences housed high-ranking Black Banner officials, and because of the return of a certain figure, both the upper and lower slopes of the mountain seemed livelier than usual. Turning along the mountainside path, one could see figures hurrying to and fro, and the swaying lights of the night seemed suddenly more numerous.

Past the turn in the mountainside path, the sounds of people gradually faded away; behind the hill lay the burial grounds. In the distance, a massive black stone monument stood beneath the night sky, with firelight nearby where someone kept watch over the graves. Behind the great monument stretched row upon row of smaller gravestones.

“…The Great Battle of Xiaocang River, including the northwest forces, the Zhong clan… over forty-three thousand sets of ashes and cenotaphs—this one monument was raised for all of them. Those who died afterward, one after another, are buried further down. In the early years, we fought back and forth with the people around here—carving individual gravestones alone took no small amount of manpower. Later, someone said, all the people of Huaxia are one family, when there’s not even enough food to eat—so we might as well just bury everyone under one stone, leaving only the names behind. I didn’t agree to that. Now the small headstones are all identical in style—the stonemasons who carve them have gotten quite skilled at it, though by now, most of them have been reassigned to making landmines instead…”

The two figures walked side by side, Su Tan’er speaking softly, describing what was around them. Ning Yi had come to the three counties of Hedeng once, four years before; since then, he had only ever glimpsed them from afar a few times. Now, everything before his eyes was new territory, new things. As he drew close to the monument, he leaned in to look, resting a hand on the stone—it was covered all over with rough-hewn lines and images.

“General Zhong… he was the one I’d originally wanted to keep with us…” Ning Yi sighed. “What a pity—Zhong Shizhong, Zhong Shidao, Zhong Lie…”

“How is the Zhe family doing?” Tan’er asked quietly.

“…Holding firm in the northwest,” Ning Yi said with a faint smile. “Though there aren’t many people left alive there to speak of.”

During the three-year Great Battle of Xiaocang River, the Zhong family’s army had fought alongside the Huaxia Army against the Jurchens; by the fifth year of Jianshuo, as Cibushi and Shuliesu pushed south, Zhong Lie had held Yanzhou to the last while efforts were made to evacuate the northwest population. Yanzhou eventually fell, and Zhong Lie died in its defense; later still, Xiaocang River itself was broken by the great army. Cibushi occupied the northwest, trying to starve out the Black Banner, only to have the Black Banner strike through hidden passages into Yanzhou—in a single great battle, they annihilated the Jurchen elite forces in overwhelming numbers, capturing Cibushi himself, who was then executed atop the walls of Yanzhou.

In the Great Battle of Xiaocang River, though the Central Plains people had, even in death by the millions, never registered much in Jurchen eyes, the battles fought directly against the Black Banner—first the death of the war god Wanyan Loushi, then the fall of the great general Cibushi, along with the tens of thousands of elite troops who perished alongside them—were what made the Jurchens feel the deepest pain of all. In the wake of the battle, the Jurchens carried out massacres across the northwest, wiping out entire towns and villages, whether they had previously sided with the Huaxia Army or simply stood by and done nothing during the war, reducing them to bare, empty land. Afterward, they widely propagated the claim that “all this was brought about by the Black Banner army—had you not resisted, this would never have happened to you.”

After the great massacre at the end of the sixth year of Jianshuo, in the seventh year, plague and famine spread through the northwest, and before long, the land stretched for a thousand li nearly devoid of human life. Aside from the western army finally absorbed by the Black Banner and the more than twenty thousand northwestern residents who had relocated south, the only bloodline left in that whole region was probably confined to the handful of cities still ruled by the Zhe clan.

The Black Banner had originally gone to the northwest for two reasons: first, to link up with Lu Liang; second, in hopes of finding a relatively enclosed battleground surrounded on all sides, where, without too much outside interference yet under sustained pressure, they could properly forge the more than ten thousand soldiers of the Wurui Camp into a hardened force. What followed was tragic and brutal beyond words—right and wrong, credit and blame, had by now become nearly impossible to sort through, and what had accumulated in its wake was a debt of blood too vast to fully recount.

Ning Yi, his emotions complex, walked on past the monument, hand still resting on it, then offered a salute to the soldier standing watch over the graves nearby, who returned the military salute in kind.

“…Most of the people in the northwest are dead now, and the Central Plains, in trying to protect itself, has also cut off contact with that region—so few people even care about the great catastrophe in the Western Xia now… Those Mongols slaughtered their way through Yinchuan, city after city… There’ve been two clashes with the Jurchens in the north as well; their light cavalry comes and goes like the wind over a thousand li, and the Jurchens have gained little advantage from it. From what I can see, the Western Xia is nearly finished being consumed…”

“That sounds formidable, but I still don’t understand—why do you attach such importance to them?” Tan’er thought for a moment. “One mountain cannot hold two tigers—if they’re locked in a great war up north, that’s hardly a bad thing, is it?”

“War can crush people, and it can also temper them. It will crush people like those of the Wu Dynasty, but it will temper people like those of the Jin state.” The rows of gravestones stretched on ahead; Ning Yi, holding Tan’er’s hand, walked on through the lantern light. “Since seizing Liao and occupying the Central Plains, a great many of the Jin’s veteran generation have died off. With Aguda, Zongwang, Loushi, and others gone, the younger generation has come to power, and already there’s a taste for indulgence creeping in. Those old generals suffered their whole lives, and cared little for the extravagance and arrogance of the young. It’s always this way when the poor suddenly grow rich—but so long as an external enemy remains, it will keep them from growing too complacent. The Black Banner, the Mongols—both serve as such an enemy.”

Tan’er laughed. “By that logic, it’s just as well that we’re weaker, then.”

Ning Yi laughed too. “For their sake to grow soft, we too must remain weak—otherwise the ultimate victor will never be us… The Mongols and the Jurchens are quite different. The Jurchens are poor, willing to fight desperately, but to put it plainly, it’s all in pursuit of a better life. The Mongols revere martial strength; they believe that everything under heaven is the hunting ground of the Eternal Sky, and ever since Temujin united them under one banner, this belief has only grown more intense. They fight… not for the sake of a better life at all…”

“Then why?”

“Fighting is the better life,” Ning Yi said, his tone calm and unhurried. “A man in this world must pursue fiercer prey, defeat stronger enemies, plunder the finest treasures, watch the weak weep, and possess the most beautiful women. Only the one who can range freely across this hunting ground is the truly strongest man. They see combat as the very essence of life itself—and so, they will not easily stop.”

Tan’er fell silent.

“After Yinchuan fell, the whole nation of Western Xia lost its nerve entirely. The Mongols slaughtered the city, then drove the captives on to break other cities—wherever there was even the slightest resistance, the entire population would be put to the sword. They revel in this process. Their clashes with the Jurchens have all been hit-and-run cavalry skirmishes—strike and retreat immediately if outmatched, and the Jurchens can never catch them. Once Western Xia is fully absorbed, these people will either push west, or turn to enter the Central Plains… I hope it isn’t the latter.”

The two of them walked on talking, and when they came to a certain gravestone, Tan’er tugged at Ning Yi’s hand; he stopped, looked at the characters carved on the stone, and set down the lantern he was carrying.

This was Su Yu’s grave.

The old man had passed away more than two years before.

As Tan’er’s grandfather, the pillar of the Su family for many years, this old man had not, in truth, possessed much learning. In his youth, the Su family had been a small clan running a cloth business; the family’s foundation had been laid by his father’s generation, but it had truly risen and flourished under Su Yu’s own hand. The old man had had five children, two of whom died young; of the remaining three, all were of only ordinary talent, and so, by the time Su Yu grew old, he had had no choice but to select the young and clever Su Tan’er as his intended successor, and raise her accordingly.

This was an old man Ning Yi deeply respected. Though he had not possessed the extraordinary brilliance of men like Qin Siyuan or Kang Xian, he had, through sheer dignity and steadfast generosity, truly held together an entire great clan. Looking back over a decade or more, when he had first woken up in this body, though he himself had never minded the status of a matrilocal son-in-law, if the Su family had truly given him endless trouble over it, he too might well have had a hard time of it—but in that earliest period, although the old man had “known” this grandson-in-law to be nothing more than a poor scholar of shallow learning, he had, in fact, treated him with a great deal of care.

The old man himself had read little as a child, but he cared deeply about the education of his children and grandchildren; he had put great effort and expense into establishing a private academy, even allowing the girls of the third and fourth generations of the family to enroll and receive early education. Though the academy, from top to bottom, had never amounted to much, such effort was, indeed, the correct path by which a family accumulates its future.

Later, once Ning Yi and Su Tan’er had taken up the burden of holding the Su family together, the old man ceased to involve himself in most matters; after the massacre at Liangshan, Su Yu’s spirits sank, and he handed everything over entirely. Ning Yi and Su Tan’er both understood that although the old man no longer managed affairs, he still held out hope for the family’s revival and rise—and what followed may well have unfolded as he’d hoped, right up until… the regicide and rebellion.

It was hard to know how the old man truly regarded all that followed. A merchant clan that had made its fortune in cloth—however far the old man’s own vision might have extended beyond the borders of Jiangning, it could hardly have reached to encompass the whole realm. Few knew how he truly felt about his son-in-law’s regicide and rebellion; by that time, the old man’s health had already begun to fail. When Tan’er thought it over afterward, she had once wept before Ning Yi: “Grandfather is going to die on the road.” But the old man had stubbornly held on all the way to Lu Liang Mountain.

In the years that followed, the old man watched all of this unfold in silence, and gradually, from that silence, came to a kind of acceptance. At the time, Ning Yi’s work had kept him extremely busy, and he had had little time to visit Su Yu—but whenever the two of them did meet, they always found something to talk about. As for the calamity brought by the Jurchens and the resistance at Xiaocang River, the old man gradually came to feel a certain pride in it; on many of the things Ning Yi had done, he would often raise his own questions, then listen quietly to the answers—though it was plain to see he could not fully grasp it all. He had, after all, never read a great many books.

Five years before, as the great war was about to begin, the old man had journeyed south along with everyone else, traveling well over a thousand li—yet throughout the whole ordeal, he had never once complained. If any of the accompanying members of the Su family behaved badly along the way, he would call them over and beat them with his cane. He had once believed that Su Tan’er alone, among all the Su family’s descendants, was worth anything—but by now, he took pride in seeing Su Wending, Su Wenfang, Su Wenyu, and Su Yanping all growing into capable people under Ning Yi’s guidance.

But the old man was, in the end, simply too advanced in years. After reaching Hedeng, he lost the ability to move about, and his mind, too, grew alternately clouded and lucid. In the fifth year of Jianshuo, when Ning Yi arrived at Hedeng, the old man had been in a state of confusion, and the two of them never spoke again after that—that had been the last time they saw each other. By early spring of the sixth year of Jianshuo, the old man’s condition finally began to worsen. One morning, he came to lucidity and asked everyone about the state of the fighting at Xiaocang River, whether Ning Yi and the others had returned victorious. At the time, the battle in the northwest was at its most brutal point, and no one knew quite what to say—but Tan’er and Wenfang, arriving soon after, told the old man everything, from beginning to end.

The old man passed away that very day. In his last moments of lucidity, he had spoken a few words of encouragement to the capable young people around him, the children of the Su family—and finally, when he tried to send a message to Ning Yi through Tan’er, his thoughts had already grown hazy. Su Tan’er had later written all this down in a letter and sent it on to Ning Yi.

“…Your father and I… arranged your betrothal in a grove… you were still small, still learning to walk, you fell once… so many people came, from the Su family… the Ning family… Suyun was still alive then, though she’d been sick a long while, she dressed up specially to come out… in that grove, under the grape trellis, so many people…” The old man’s memory, it seemed, had settled permanently on that grove of more than thirty years before—it had been a grove belonging to the Su family, back when Jiangning was still at peace, and when Tan’er’s grandmother, Kang Suyun, had still been alive; everyone had been young then. The old man reminisced for a long while, the light in his eyes gradually fading, and at the very end, he only gave Tan’er’s hand a squeeze; as she leaned in close, she heard him murmur softly: “…the backbone of the realm…”

He had likely meant that Ning Yi should be the backbone of the realm.

Tan’er had written this into her letter to him as well.

“When Grandfather passed, he must have been at peace. What weighed on his heart before had always been that the family might fail to produce anyone of worth—but now Wending and Wenfang have families of their own and have proven themselves, the children study hard and are well-behaved, and in these last years, Grandfather was truly happy. During these two years at Hedeng, though his health was poor, he always told me not to tell you—that a man devoted to a great cause shouldn’t have to worry about his family. Several times he told Wenfang and the others that, having traveled from south to north and back from north to south, he felt he had finally seen the whole realm—that before, carrying his goods back and forth, none of that had been real. So there’s no need to grieve for Grandfather.”

They set out a few symbolic offerings before the grave; the night wind blew gently past them, and the two of them sat down before the grave, looking out over the gravestones spreading out below. Over more than ten years, the old generation had, one by one, passed on—Su Yu was far from the only one. Qin Siyuan, Qian Xiwen, Kang Xian… one by one, they had grown old and departed; and those who should not have gone so soon—the young—had also fallen in great numbers. Ning Yi, holding Tan’er’s hand, raised it slightly, then let it fall again.

“Five or six years ago, before the fighting had started, I went to Qingmu Stronghold to talk with Grandfather. He said he never really knew how to teach people—he thought if he simply built an academy, people would naturally turn out well. He spent money hiring tutors, and for the children, he both beat them and scolded them, but they remained unruly all the same. He thought all the children would turn out like Su Wenji, and later came to believe that of all the Su family, only you, Tan’er, were capable of shouldering great responsibility…”

“But later he realized it wasn’t that at all—it was simply that he didn’t know how to teach. As the saying goes, a fine blade is forged through grinding—it turned out that once properly tempered, Wending and Wenfang and the others could bring just as much honor to the Su family. It’s only a shame about Wenji… I think, when the old man thought back on what happened with Wenji, he must, in the end, have felt sorrow over it.”

What they spoke of now was the affair from more than ten years before, the massacre at Liangshan—when Su Wenji, terrified out of his wits, had shouted to give up Tan’er, who was hiding among the crowd, and the old man had stepped forward and, before everyone’s eyes, stabbed his own grandson to death with a single blow. No one lacking in feeling could have done such a thing without pain; in that bloody massacre, nearly half the Su family had been slaughtered—but afterward, thinking back on it, the act of having killed his own grandson with his own hands was something the old man could, in the end, never fully let go of…

“Back then, I was teaching classes at Xiaocang River, training up a group of people who could get things done, and I told the old man: the sky’s fallen in, but a mere handful of people can’t hold it up alone—in the end, it has to be shouldered by everyone together. Me, Wending, Wenfang, all of us—what we do is simply our own duty… the people of the realm are the backbone of the realm. I think, at the very end, that’s probably what Grandfather was remembering…”

“Mm,” Tan’er answered softly. Time had slipped away, and now the old man lived on only in memory; there was, in truth, no great meaning in dwelling too closely on the details. People’s meetings and partings were, after all, a matter of fate, and fate always, eventually, comes to its end—and it was because of such regrets that hands, once joined, could be held all the tighter.

In the distance, flames rose into the air, and the faint sounds of fighting could be heard. The daytime manhunt had only been the beginning—now that Ning Yi and the others had truly arrived, any survivors who slipped through would inevitably try to get word out, and so a second wave of mopping-up operations, led by Hongti, Xigua, and the others, was already underway.

“Let’s head back.” Hand in hand, the two of them made their way around the mountain path, walking toward the brightly lit courtyard in the distance, where many people were already waiting for them.

In the deep autumn of the eighth year of Jianshuo of the Wu Dynasty, Ning Yi returned to Hedeng. By now, the Black Banner army, having passed through its earliest, most difficult years, had finally begun to swell into a truly formidable force. During this period, as the realm held its breath in tense silence, Ning Yi’s family, at last, spent a rare and peaceful stretch of time together here.

…

Lin’an, the Heavenly Prison.

As dawn was just breaking, the Princess’s household servants and guards walked through the long corridor of the great prison; the steward directed the jailers to sweep the path within the prison, and the men in front walked into the cell inside, bringing with them hot water, towels, a razor, and clothing, to wash and dress a certain prisoner in the prison.

The prisoner was named Qu Zonghui. Frightened trembling by this treatment, he resisted for a moment, then asked, “What are you doing… are you going to kill me… going to kill me… I’m the prince consort, I’m of the Qu family, you can’t do this… you can’t do this…”

His shouting was soon silenced under the stern gaze of the steward, and he submitted, trembling faintly, as the servants washed him, shaved him, and combed out his long hair. When they finished, he had once again become a handsome, elegant young gentleman—this had, after all, always been his natural good looks. Not long after, the servants withdrew, and after a while longer, the Princess arrived.

Her appearance was dignified, her clothing loose and magnificent, looking, in fact, rather like it had on their wedding day—in every respect, extremely formal. But Qu Zonghui was still frightened by that calm gaze; he stood there, forcing himself to stay composed, uncertain in his heart whether he ought to kneel. All these years, he had swaggered about outside, seeming fearless—but in truth, deep down, he had long been afraid of this Princess Imperial; he understood only that she simply did not care enough about him to bother.

But this time, he knew, things were different.

Zhou Pei sat down in the cell; the servants outside had all withdrawn, leaving only a silent guard standing in the shadows nearby. The flame in the oil lamp flickered, and the surroundings were quiet, almost eerie. After a long while, he heard Zhou Pei say, “Prince Consort, sit.” Her tone was gentle.

Qu Zonghui slowly sat down across from her. Zhou Pei faced him like this, her gaze calm, looking at him for a very, very long time—in all these years, apart from that one long conversation after their wedding, this was perhaps the longest she had ever looked at him.

“I bear responsibility toward you.” At some point, Zhou Pei finally spoke, quietly. Qu Zonghui’s lips trembled. “I…” In the end, he could not manage to say anything.

Zhou Pei paid no attention to his attempt to speak, only looked at him a while longer, then continued, as though speaking from memory.

“When I was still a young girl, I had a master—a man of matchless brilliance, unequaled by anyone…”

The prison was quiet as the grave, and as Qu Zonghui listened to that faint, distant voice, his body began to tremble slightly. He knew perfectly well who the Princess’s master was; that in itself did not frighten him. But in all these years of marriage, this was the first time she had ever said so much to him in his presence—and clever as he was, he understood at once that this matter was about to become very serious indeed… he could no longer even guess what fate awaited him.

“…I was young then, and though I was captivated by his brilliance, I would never admit it aloud. Much of what he did, I could not understand; much of what he said, I did not comprehend at all—yet without my realizing it, I came to care for him deeply… A young girl’s admiration is not love, of course it cannot be called that… Prince Consort, by the time I married you, he no longer had a place in my heart—yet I envied the bond he shared with my mistress-teacher. He too had come into their marriage as a matrilocal son-in-law, just as you did with me; at the time of their wedding, there had been no affection between them either, only that afterward, the two of them, through contact and understanding, gradually became a family bound together in true harmony. I envied that kind of bond so deeply—I hoped… that you and I might have something like it too…”

“This was my great mistake…”

“I carried this naive hope with me when I married you, when I spoke at length with you—I told you, I wanted to come to know you slowly, to gradually be able to stand by you, to grow old together with you… A girl of ten-some years, truly so naive… Prince Consort, hearing this, you probably took it for nothing more than idle, meaningless words on my part. Whether you did or not, in the end, I was simply wrong to think as I did. I never imagined that, out in the world, you had never once experienced this kind of companionship, this kind of affection, this kind of true harmony—that the scholars you associated with were all men of great ambition, standing tall and proud between heaven and earth—I wronged you, you agreed to my words on the surface, but in the end… within a month, you had already gone off to the pleasure quarters.”

“My naivety ruined a good man, ruined the rest of your life…”

The calm voice went on, drifting through the cell. Qu Zonghui’s gaze shifted between fear and anger. “You… you…” His heart was full of resentment, wanting to lash out, yet in the end he did not dare. Across from him, Zhou Pei only gazed at him quietly, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

“…In the ten years since, the Wu Dynasty has suffered great calamity—we fled here and there, in constant upheaval. I had duties resting on my shoulders, and you, in the end… let yourself drift. You went to the pleasure quarters, stayed the night there, drank and caused trouble with your friends—when you ran out of money, you came back and demanded it from the steward, sum after sum, once even smashing the steward’s head open. I never intervened. Three hundred taels, five hundred taels—take it, I said, even as you complained to others outside that I mistreated you, even then, I…”

She paused, lowering her head. “I thought it was because of my own broad-mindedness. Now, thinking back, it was because I felt guilty.”

“You, you, you… so you finally understand! You finally said it! Do you know… you’re my wife, you’ve wronged me—” From across the cell, Qu Zonghui finally cried out.

Zhou Pei’s gaze drifted to one side; she waited quietly for him to finish, then, after a while, spoke again. “Yes, I’ve wronged you. And I’ve wronged… that family you killed as well… Looking back, for ten years, I always hoped in my heart that my husband would, one day, become a mature man, that he would let go of past grievances with me and mend our relationship… These years, the court has lost half the realm, retreated south, refugees from the north kept coming—I am the Princess Imperial, and at times, I too grew weary. Sometimes I would see you causing a scene at home with someone, and I might have gone over and spoken to you—but I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth. I’m twenty-seven now; the mistake I made ten years ago, I called it naivety then—but ten years later, all that’s left is to bear the consequences. And you… you’re twenty-nine now, aren’t you…”

“These ten years, you’ve whored around outside, spent money, bullied others—I closed my eyes to it. Ten years, and I grew ever more weary, and you grew ever more reckless. Whoring was, at least, something both parties consented to, so I let it be. Keeping mistresses outside—I didn’t mind that either. I didn’t share your bed, you needed a woman by your side, spend what you must, that was fine… But you shouldn’t have killed someone. A living, breathing person…”

Her hands were clasped together in front of her, fingers twisting together, her gaze now turned cold as she looked at him. Qu Zonghui shook his head. “I… I was wrong… Princess, I’ll change, we… we’ll be good to each other from now on, I, I won’t do those things anymore…”

As he spoke, he even reached out a hand, taking a few steps forward, as though wanting to embrace Zhou Pei—but sensing her gaze, he did not, in the end, dare to touch her. Zhou Pei looked at him and said coldly, “Step back!”

Qu Zonghui stepped back.

Zhou Pei’s gaze grew calm again. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally spoke.

“My master—he was a man who stood tall and unyielding between heaven and earth. He killed bandits, killed corrupt officials, killed rebel armies, killed Jurchens… he… his wife, at first, had no feelings for him at all, yet he never grew angry or resentful over it, never once treated his wife in a way that would ruin himself. Prince Consort, at first, you were, in some ways, a little like him—you were clever, kind-hearted, and talented and romantic besides. At first, I thought the two of you were somewhat alike…”

“I spent ten years—sometimes angry, sometimes guilty, sometimes reflecting on whether I had asked too much of you… A woman cannot wait forever. There were times I thought, even after all the wrongs you had done over these years, if you had come before me, truly repentant, telling me you would never do such things again, and then reached out to embrace me—how wonderful that would have been. I… I might even have forgiven you. But not once did that happen…”

“I was naive for ten years, and you were foolish for ten years too… A man of twenty-nine, out there playing with women, causing one’s death, then causing the deaths of her entire family—you are no longer a child. My master, whom I once admired so—in the end, he even killed the emperor with his own hands. However much I may be at odds with him now, he truly was formidable. The man I married, because of one girl’s foolishness, ruined his own life, ruined an entire family—he is truly… worse than a beast.”

Zhou Pei clenched her fists tightly against her thighs, gritting her teeth. “A monster!”

Qu Zonghui wept and fell to his knees, begging for mercy. Tears now streamed down Zhou Pei’s face, and she shook her head.

“I cannot kill you.” she said. “I want to kill you, but I cannot—Father, and the Qu family, will not allow it. But if I don’t punish you, I will have wronged that family who died so unjustly—they, too, were subjects of the Wu Dynasty, and I cannot simply stand by and watch a man like you get away with killing them. I had thought of having you castrated…”

At these words, even Qu Zonghui, still weeping, gave a horrified gasp.

“I had thought of having you castrated.” She shook her head. “So that you could never again bring harm to anyone. But I know that won’t do—by then, harboring such resentment, you would only grow more twisted in spirit and do even greater harm. Now that the Court of Judicial Review has confirmed you innocent of legal wrongdoing, all I can do is bear this sin to the very end…”

“I was wrong, I was wrong…” Qu Zonghui wept, kneeling and kowtowing again and again. “I won’t do these things again, Princess, I respect you, I love you, everything I did was because I love you… let’s start over…”

“We will not start over, and we can never again be severed from one another either.” A desolate smile crossed Zhou Pei’s face as she rose to her feet. “I have had a courtyard prepared for you within the Princess’s residence—you will live there from now on, you will not be permitted to see outsiders, you will not set foot beyond it. I cannot kill you, so then—live. But to the outside world, you will be as good as dead. You will never be able to harm anyone again. For the rest of our lives, we will live as neighbors, side by side.”

She turned to walk out of the cell. Qu Zonghui gave a cry and lunged forward, clutching at her skirts, begging for mercy, professing his love for her. Zhou Pei wrenched herself free with force, tearing a strip from her hem in the process, but she paid it no mind.

“Our fate together has run its course…”

She looked at him a moment longer, then walked on through the dim corridor of the prison, gradually disappearing from Qu Zonghui’s sight.

That day, Qu Zonghui was brought back to the Princess’s residence and confined to that courtyard; Zhou Pei never killed him, and the Qu family no longer made further trouble. He was never again permitted to see outsiders. Within the courtyard, he cried out in repentance, spoke words of apology to Zhou Pei, spoke words of apology to the dead—this went on for about a month, until at last he began, in despair, to curse instead—cursing Zhou Pei, cursing the guards, cursing everyone outside, and eventually even cursing the imperial family itself. This, too, went on, for a very long time…

All things in this world are, in the end, nothing more than a meeting, and then a parting.

In the autumn of the eighth year of Jianshuo of the Wu Dynasty, even amid the falling leaves there seemed to be a surging tide building beneath the surface. The Wu Dynasty, the Black Banner, the Central Plains, the Jin state—all still enjoyed this precious, tense peace for the moment, as though the whole realm were a swaying net, not knowing when all its threads might suddenly snap…