Before dawn had broken, Shang Rong was startled awake by a nightmare.

She threw on a robe and got up, barefoot as she stepped down from the bed and hurried to the table to pour herself a bowl of cold tea, which she gulped down in haste. Her rapid breathing sounded especially clear in the dim room.

Her smooth forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat. She braced her elbows on the table and rested for a moment before slowly lifting her eyes.

The room was silent. She saw that the couch on the other side of the screen was empty.

Had he gone out early, or had he not returned all night?

Shang Rong sat down, wiping the fine sweat from her forehead. She rested her head on her arms atop the table. The sky was still heavy with darkness yet not even mao hour (5-7 AM) had arrived and she had no trace of sleepiness left.

The scenes from the dream churned her thoughts into turmoil. Even after closing her eyes, she could not find calm, and her lips moved as she silently recited Daoist scriptures.

Whenever she came upon a passage she could not fully understand, she pressed her lips together in thought for a moment, then dipped her fingertips into the tea in the bowl and wrote upon the table. She did not often memorize by recitation, but she frequently copied out Daoist texts and petitions to present before the altar; thus, whenever her tongue faltered, writing it out once would make it flow smoothly again.

Gradually, Shang Rong forgot the vexing dream. She also failed to notice that the light beyond the window lattice had shifted from darkness to brightness, illuminating the room clearly. With a loud bang, the door was kicked open with force. Startled, her sleeve swept across the tea bowl—at once the bowl fell, water splashing everywhere in a mess across the floor.

A gust of wind surged in from outside, making the pale gauze curtains sway. The boy in black walked in with light steps. Reaching the table, he dumped a heap of oil-paper bags from his arms onto it all at once.

Perhaps noticing the water marks on the table, his long fingers moved one of the oil-paper bags aside. But the damp stain beneath had already blurred the original traces of writing. With a candied plum in his mouth, he asked her, “What were you writing?”

“Taiqing Collection.”

Shang Rong answered truthfully.

Zhezhu raised his brows slightly but did not continue the topic. He simply reached into one of the oil-paper bags before him, took out a steaming hot qianshi cake, and bit into it. Seeing that she was still sitting properly, unmoving, he said, “Not eating?”

He lifted his chin lightly. “These are all yours.”

In truth, Shang Rong had long been hungry. From the time she woke until now, she had only drunk two bowls of cold tea. Following the wisps of rising steam and the fragrance of the qianshi cake, her throat unconsciously swallowed. She reached out and took one, not forgetting to say to him, “Thank you.”

He had always been good at buying food and things for amusement. Even this qianshi cake was sweet and glutinous, soft yet springy to the bite.

Inside the oil-paper bags on the table, besides the qianshi cakes, there were preserved fruits that were not overly sweet, tanghulu with a balanced sweet-and-sour taste, plump dried fruits, and brown sugar ciba coated in soybean flour.

The wind stove that had gone out in the night had been replenished with charcoal and now burned a glowing crimson. Steam rose from the tea bowl in Zhezhu’s hand. He stared at the little girl across from him, nibbling delicately at her pastries. Suddenly, he dipped his finger into the cold water at the side and wrote two characters on the table.

Mu Ni.

Shang Rong stared at those two characters and did not take another bite of the cake in her hand for quite some time.

Zhezhu curled a knuckle and lightly tapped the table, lifting his brows slightly. “Looks like you know.”

“When I was in Yujing, I once heard the palace—”

Shang Rong stopped midway through her sentence. She paused, lifting her head to meet his gaze, and then continued, “I once heard others in the temple mention that some powerful and noble families often keep ‘Mu Ni’ within their residences.”

“Mu Ni are generally women. Some nobles who deeply believe in mysterious practices want purity in cultivation yet cannot abandon the myriad tastes of the mortal world. So they buy young girls and raise them at home as substitutes for themselves, to block disasters and misfortune on their behalf.”

This was already considered a secret among Yujing’s high gates. If not for a case that caused an uproar in court last year, spreading through the palace for a time, Shang Rong would never have known that such things as Mu Ni existed in the world.

“To bear calamity in another’s place, bodies like rotting wood and dusted mud,” Zhezhu scoffed with little interest. “They are quite skilled at choosing names.”

“Is someone here also keeping Mu Ni?” Shang Rong vaguely felt that his sudden mention of Mu Ni was likely related to the mysterious person they had encountered the previous night.

Zhezhu took a slow sip of hot tea and said, “The one that person wants me to save is a Daoist named Mengshi. I heard he comes from a renowned temple in Tingzhou—the Baiyu Zichang Palace.”

The words Baiyu Zichang were not unfamiliar to Shang Rong at all. She froze for a moment, then immediately asked, “If he is a Daoist, what capital crime did he commit? In Great Yan, the gravest punishment for Daoists is only exile—it should never be death.”

“He renounced his vows midway and married someone, but his wife died early. Later, he took a daughter with him and entered the Dao again, becoming an itinerant Daoist who draws talismans and conducts rituals for others. Six months ago, he settled in Rongzhou. His daughter went missing there.”

Hearing this, Shang Rong immediately understood. “His daughter was sold to be made into a Mu Ni?”

Mu Ni had originally only been shameful playthings hidden within the high households of Yujing. Perhaps because of the case that had stirred both court and public, the matter was no longer as secret as before. It had been less than a year from Yujing to this Rongzhou, yet such a custom had spread with astonishing speed among those absurdly extravagant people.

Zhezhu responded faintly and set down his tea bowl. “The one who bought his daughter was the wealthy Sun family of Rongzhou. The Sun family has always been generous toward Daoists. When he came to their door pretending to seek alms, his daughter was already dead. So he entered the Sun residence again under the pretext of presenting an immortal elixir, and that very night he suddenly attacked and killed three people in succession.”

Hearing this, Shang Rong was so shocked that she held her tea bowl without drinking. After a moment, she found her voice again. “Even so, according to the laws of Great Yan, he still should not be sentenced to death.”

The current Emperor Chunsheng’s preferential treatment toward Daoists went far beyond that.

Zhezhu’s expression was indifferent. Sunlight fell upon the pale side of his face, making the faint bluish weariness beneath his eyes even more apparent. “The eldest branch of the Sun family serves as the Transport Commissioner of Jinyuan. Having someone’s name removed from the registers of the Wuji Office is not difficult.”

To prevent too many people from abandoning the secular world and swelling the ranks of cultivators, Emperor Chunsheng had established a special bureau for Daoists of Great Yan—the Wuji Office. The construction of Daoist temples in various regions required the Wuji Office’s approval, and registered Zhengyang¹Zhengyang (正阳) — a Daoist sect or orthodoxy; here referring to a branch of Daoist cultivation that emphasizes righteous alignment and strict adherence to rules and discipline. Daoists with masters were recorded locally and submitted to the Wuji Office. Only then were they considered legitimate.

To curb the proliferation of Daoists, the Wuji Office enforced extremely strict verification rules. Thus, in Great Yan, becoming a Daoist was by no means easy.

For the name Mengshi to be struck from the register meant that not only was he now burdened with charges of murder, he also bore the crime of impersonating a Daoist.

“So that’s why that person wants you to break him out of prison.”

Shang Rong suddenly understood. Because the Sun family was backed by the great power of the Jinyuan Transport Commissioner, Daoist Mengshi’s death sentence had been set in stone—so that person had devised the plan of a prison break.

She lifted her tea bowl, thought for a moment, and said, “I wonder what relationship he has with Daoist Mengshi, that as an official himself, he would still risk punishment to plan a prison break.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Zhezhu’s eyes curved into a smile, casual and unconcerned.

Shang Rong raised her head just as the boy stood up. The thin blade at his waist brushed against the gold clasp of his xiedie belt with a clang. He casually tossed the flexible sword onto the table, reached one hand behind his waist to untie the belt, and his dark

robe loosened considerably. He seemed extremely tired. Closing his eyes briefly, a hint of languor entered his voice. “I’ll sleep for a while.”

Shang Rong watched him walk behind the screen. Soon, the black robe was draped over the screen, and he lay down on the couch, pulling the blanket over himself without moving again.

She stood and walked around the screen, coming to his couch.

“Zhezhu,” she called.

He was too lazy to respond and did not open his eyes.

“Are you really going to involve yourself in this matter?” She crouched down, resting both hands on the edge of his bed. “That’s a prison. I’ve heard there are many guards inside and out.”

Zhezhu opened his eyes and turned his face toward her. “Didn’t I involve myself in your troubles too?”

Shang Rong froze for a moment.

Zhezhu stopped looking at her and closed his eyes again. His voice carried a careless coldness. “In this life, all amusements are things you find for yourself. Death too.”

Shang Rong sat blankly on the wooden footstool beside his couch, unable for a moment to tell whether he was speaking of himself, or of her.

Daoist Mengshi was to be executed in four days. Yet Zhezhu spent three days peacefully amusing himself—listening to storytellers by day, watching operas, boating and drinking wine, eating late-night snacks, admiring the snow, watching puppet shows.

Thus Shang Rong was forced to witness the day-and-night entertainments of ordinary people beyond the high palace walls.

On the night of the fourth day, Shang Rong sat upon the ridge of a high roof. She held a bundle in her arms, feet planted on the tiles, not daring to move. The piercing wind that rushed through alleys and streets made her jet-black hair flutter wildly. Uneasy, she lifted her head to look at the boy beside her. “Zhezhu…”

“If things succeed tonight, we must leave Rongzhou immediately. The inn is not a place to linger, so you can only wait for me here.” Zhezhu pulled the small jade gourd from his waist, took a sip of wine, and casually handed her an oil-paper bag.

Shang Rong took it and found a piece of roasted beef inside. The Hu people’s spices were intensely fragrant. Even though the heat burned through the oil-paper bag and made it hard to hold, she could not bear to let go.

Tonight the moonlight was grand, a silvery glow spilling across the eaves, illuminating clusters of snow that shimmered crystal bright. The boy lowered his lashes halfway, shadows concealing the many emotions in his eyes.

Shang Rong lowered her head, taking small bites of the roasted beef. Suddenly, she saw the boy’s beautifully jointed hand extend a slender blade of emerald-green grass toward her. She paused and lifted her gaze to look at him.

“Want to play?”

He seemed utterly bored.

“Play what?”

Shang Rong was blankly bewildered, not understanding what he meant by handing her this blade of grass.

The curve of Zhezhu’s under-eye crescent deepened as he laughed softly. “It seems the people of Xingluo Temple have no amusements beyond copying Daoist scriptures and refining useless pills.”

Hearing him mention Xingluo Temple, Shang Rong felt somewhat uncomfortable. She gave a vague response and said nothing more.

When the boy pressed the slender blade of grass into her palm, she set the packet of roasted beef aside and heard him say, “This is grass-fighting. Whoever’s grass breaks first loses.”

Shang Rong touched the blade of grass. It was indeed supple. The next moment, the boy’s warm hand grasped hers, guiding her to hold the two ends of the grass blade with both hands.

Her whole body stiffened. She stared at his fingers for a moment, yet what she thought was that today he did not seem to have smeared that strange grass juice on his sword hilt.

“If you win, all the sugar pellets on me are yours.”

Zhezhu pinched the two ends of the grass blade, his tone leisurely.

Shang Rong had been watching the two intertwined blades of grass, but hearing his voice, her gaze lifted to his face. In that instant, she felt his fingers exert force, and she was dragged into pulling hurriedly in response.

The blade snapped at once. Victory and defeat were decided in an instant.

Perhaps because she did not grasp the method and used too much force, her blade broke into two pieces, and her body uncontrollably tilted backward.

The cold wind filled her mouth and nose. Shang Rong instinctively grabbed the boy’s collar, and at the same time, his hand swiftly supported her lower back.

The moon’s clear radiance soaked into the boy’s dark, thick hair. In that cold, desolate light, his eyes were like lacquered ink, shimmering with rippling brilliance.

The boy’s breath carried the fresh scent of bamboo leaves steeped in snow. Still shaken, Shang Rong stared at him with a face full of alarm—yet before she could react, his fingers reached out and stuffed something into her mouth.

A sweet, cool taste bloomed on her tongue.

The wind roared in her ears, yet she still heard his voice, faintly tinged with laughter:

“Since it’s your first time, you lost—but I’ll let you off.”

Footnotes

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  Zhengyang (正阳) — a Daoist sect or orthodoxy; here referring to a branch of Daoist cultivation that emphasizes righteous alignment and strict adherence to rules and discipline.