Wenren Lin was forever so steady and calm, as if nothing in this world could cause him to waver. Zhao Yen leaned in his embrace, and the sorrow in her heart gradually quieted.

Cai Tian drove the carriage toward the western gate outside the city.

It was unknown how many streets they had turned through when the sound of human voices gradually receded, and the carriage stopped at a secluded place.

Zhao Yen returned to her senses, braced herself over Wenren Lin’s body, lifted the carriage curtain and looked out, only to see that the carriage had stopped before the gates of a Buddhist temple. Ancient trees loomed dense, and upon the moss-covered mountain gate were written three characters: Lingyun Temple.

The light of the setting sun poured in through the lifted curtain, coating Zhao Yen’s eyelashes and the loose strands at her temples in a beautiful orange-gold.

She narrowed her eyes like a raccoon cat and asked, “Why stop here?”

Wenren Lin, feeling the soft body loosely leaning in his arms, after a moment raised his hand to stroke her waist at the side, and languidly said, “Your Highness may rest here in the carriage by yourself, this prince will go to see an old acquaintance.”

Old acquaintance?

Since that bitter battle seven years ago, Zhao Yen truly did not know Wenren Lin still had any old acquaintances at his side.

“May I go in with you?” she spoke unconsciously.

Perhaps realizing this small request carried a trace of “overstepping,” after all Wenren Lin was one who hid his thoughts and his territory so very tightly, Zhao Yen softly added another line: “It is nothing else, I only wish to go in and take a look. If inconvenient then let it be.”

Wenren Lin lowered his unfathomable eyes to look at her, then took up a veiled hat and set it upon her, and only then took her hand and bowed to step down from the carriage.

Today was the Zhongyuan Festival, and before the mountain gate had been set the Ullambana basin.

Because the Emperor of Great Xuan favored the Shen Guang Sect, now throughout the capital Daoist temples filled the streets, everyone called themselves disciples of Shen Guang, while Buddhist temples’ incense fires grew all the more sparse and thin. Thus in this Lingyun Temple there were no outside visitors, very tranquil indeed.

Zhao Yen followed at Wenren Lin’s side, entering through the mountain gate, and saw an old monk with a lame leg leading a little novice forward. He pressed palms together and bowed to Wenren Lin, saying: “Unknowing that Prince was arriving at our humble temple, I failed to welcome from afar.”

The old monk’s figure was gaunt, one leg crippled, across his eye a scar from an old blade stretched, causing his eyelid to droop weakly and unable to open or close normally. Though his words were kind and gentle, his appearance after all carried something eerie.

Wenren Lin slightly inclined his head and instructed: “Your Highness stroll on your own, do not go far.”

Zhao Yen returned to herself, nodded and said, “Alright.”

Wenren Lin signaled for Cai Tian to leave guards behind, then followed the old monk past the Release Pond and the eastern cloister, arriving at the rear courtyard before a Hall of Heroic Spirits into which no outsiders stepped.

Raising his palm to push the door, a cool wind poured in; on the wooden racks spirit tablets rose like mountains, lamp shadows like seas, the long-burning lamps of the whole hall swayed and flickered with it.

Once the hall doors closed, the old monk’s eyes reddened slightly, with difficulty kneeling on one knee, and gave a military salute toward Wenren Lin: “This humble general Yu Sui greets the Young Master!”

“Rise, Uncle Yu.”

Wenren Lin only lifted his hand lightly and supported the old monk to stand firm. “I am no longer the so-called Young Master of the General’s Manor.”

“So long as you live, the military soul of the Wenren family does not fall, you will forever be this humble general’s Young Master.”

The old monk raised his sleeve to wipe at the corners of his eyes, then said, “Today, the Rong family came again, and from afar under the bodhi offered a stick of incense…”

Seeing Wenren Lin make no reply, the old monk tactfully said no more, but took incense sticks and reverently presented them.

Wenren Lin received the incense sticks, slowly arranged them neatly, then set them to the oil lamp to ignite. Amid the curling pale smoke, his expression appeared dark and indistinct.

Lifting his eyes to look, foremost among the spirit tablets “Spirit Tablet of the Late Father, Wenren Gong, Posthumous Title Junping” was clearly visible.

On the wooden racks, every single spirit tablet, every single eternal lamp, was a heroic spirit who had fallen on the battlefield.

A hundred thousand soldiers—yet the remains returned to the capital in the end were only these three hundred sixty-one men.

When Zhao Yen had in the past followed by the Empress Dowager’s side, she had endured many hardships of eating vegetarian meals and reciting Buddhist sutras. At that time it only felt dull; now that she once more entered an ancient Buddhist temple, she unexpectedly felt somewhat of nostalgia.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was in the courtyard, Zhao Yen lifted the gauze veil of her hat and looked about. Behind the Medicine Buddha Hall there faintly rose a towering shade of a great tree, upon whose branches red silk fluttered.

Zhao Yen’s heart was stirred with curiosity. Passing through the covered corridor and a small gate, she beheld in the stone terrace of the courtyard a centuries-old bodhi tree standing tall, its branches lush and flourishing.

Zhao Yen had never seen a tree of such size, and marveled in secret. Its branches and trunk were gnarled, its body vigorous and strong. It would take six or seven adults hand-in-hand to encircle it. Its luxuriant crown covered most of the courtyard, blotting out the sky and sun, with no sight of the summit even when one gazed upward.

The branches were hung full of red silk ribbons, seemingly used by devotees for prayers.

Zhao Yen, curious about what was written upon the red ribbons, was just about to approach when she suddenly discovered a graceful figure standing beneath the bodhi tree.

That figure was rather familiar.

Zhao Yen quickly halted her steps, hid behind a lacquered pillar, and quietly craned her neck for a glance. She could not help but be astonished: “Aunt?”

Rong Fuyue, in a plain dress like the radiance of the moon, with an unadorned face, still could not hide her surpassing beauty. She raised the incense to the level of her brows, closed her eyes in devotion, and then reverently placed it into the beast-footed incense cauldron.

Was Aunt here to offer sacrifice to her parents? But why choose this secluded little temple?

Before Zhao Yen could think further, Rong Fuyue pushed aside the maidservant’s hand and departed through the side gate.

Before long, from outside came the rumbling sound of a carriage leaving.

Only then did Zhao Yen step out from behind the corridor pillar and walk beneath that vast green canopy like clouds.

A breeze passed, and the bodhi tree’s branches and leaves swayed, red silk surging, like resplendent clouds hanging down—majestic to the extreme.

“Does Your Highness wish to write down what is in your heart and hang it upon the branches?” asked Cai Tian from behind.

“May I write?”

“If it were another, naturally not. If it is Your Highness, you may write as many as you wish.”

Saying so, Cai Tian ordered a little novice to bring red ribbons and brush and ink, laying them out upon the stone table.

A thousand words surged into her heart, yet upon the brush fell only eight brief characters: The loyal souls do not perish, the starlight burns long.

Some had died guarding a lone city, holding the flag, gripping the sword, falling upon the cold sandy battlefield. Some had taken blood as ink, bones as brush, and collapsed before dawn… The souls of soldiers, the bones of scholars, together propped up the tottering foundation of Great Xuan.

May only the loyal souls not perish, may the starlight burn long. O soul, return.

Zhao Yen pressed the ribbon together in her palms, closed her eyes, and stilled her spirit.

Wenren Lin came out from the Hall of Heroic Spirits, turned through the covered corridor, and what he saw was precisely this scene.

Beneath the bodhi tree that blotted out heaven and sun, the setting sun pierced through the leaves and cast down shafts of light. That slender figure in an ivory robe with sleeves bound at the wrist stood within the rays, palms joined, eyes closed in devotion, head lowered, with the red silk between her fingers fluttering in the wind.

So bright and dazzling it was as though an immortal had descended to the mortal world, enough to dispel all gloom.

Zhao Yen opened her eyes. The slanting sun gathered back its last trace of glow, the temple bell boomed deep and vast, startling the weary birds to return westward.

She raised her head to gaze at the flourishing branches above, intending to find a vacant place to hang the ribbon. Yet circling the stone terrace about the bodhi tree, she found that the branches within reach were all bound full with ribbons, upon them written one unfamiliar name after another, while those branches with some empty space were too high, beyond her fingertips.