“My lord, you have not rested peacefully for many days. Tonight, you should turn in earlier.”

Inside a guest room at an inn in Huaitong City, a lone lamp glowed dimly, thinning the heavy darkness of night by a few degrees. A Lingxiao Guard dressed in ordinary attire stood cautiously before the desk, offering his advice.

“Yu Zheng should already be in Yongxing by now.” He Xingjin supported himself with one hand on the desk, fatigue filling his sharp and handsome brows and eyes.

“According to Baihu Yu’s pace, he indeed ought to have reached Yongxing by now,” the young man lowered his head, exceedingly respectful. “My lord, once the Commander has interrogated that Xue Nongyu, we will know the princess’s whereabouts.”

The lamp flame swayed unsteadily. He Xingjin remained silent for a long while. The sheets of paper before him were covered in dense ink marks. From Nanzhou to Huaitong, along this entire journey, he had been searching almost without direction.

“Among the captured remnants of the rebel army, not a single one can confirm that those who assassinated His Majesty on the official road in Nanzhou were only them—there was another group besides,” He Xingjin lowered his gaze and shook his head. “This means that the assassins hired by Xue Nongyu most likely did not make a move that day.”

“He went to such lengths to lay out such a deadly trap, how could he not act at the crucial moment?” The young man could not understand the reason for this.

“If he meant to kill, why did he not kill at the time? To abduct and then kill, would that not be more troublesome?” He Xingjin leaned back against the chair, rubbing his somewhat weary eyes. “Yet now there are only these two possibilities—either the assassins he hired took advantage of the chaos to abduct the princess, or…”

He Xingjin suddenly fell silent.

The young man did not understand. After waiting blankly for a moment, he saw him raise a hand and say, “Leave.”

“Yes.”

The young man could only respond and withdraw.

Silence fell in the room at once. He Xingjin’s palm rested against the scalding wall of the teacup, and he remained still for a long time in the faint light.

He had repeatedly inspected the princess’s overturned carriage on the official road in Nanzhou. Aside from arrowheads embedded in it or traces scorched by flames, there were no signs of struggle at all.

He had already interrogated many of those who had accompanied the procession that day. When the rebels assassinated Emperor Chunsheng, although everyone was busy protecting the emperor, it was not as though no one had been guarding beside the princess’s carriage.

At that time, however, the two maidservants who should have been attending the princess were not inside the carriage. According to their testimony, when the princess first heard disturbances outside, she had ordered the two of them to go out and investigate.

Immediately afterward came the rain of arrows and flames. The horses pulling the princess’s carriage were startled and bolted madly. Then the carriage overturned, and by the time the Imperial Guards arrived, the princess was already nowhere to be seen inside.

If the people hired by Xue Nongyu had not made a move, and the rebels had never approached the princess’s carriage at all, then… there was only one possibility.

The princess—she had run away on her own.

He Xingjin had already glimpsed this answer through repeated deduction and calculation. Back in Nanzhou, he had already formed this suspicion.

Bound by the doubt in his heart, he had been unwilling to accept this guess as truth. Yet first came the identical testimonies of the rebel remnants, and then a secret letter pointing to Xue Nongyu.

No matter where that secret letter had come from, Xue Nongyu’s handwriting upon it could not be faked. But whether it was the guards who had followed the imperial procession that day or the rebel remnants who had come to assassinate Emperor Chunsheng, none of them had seen another group of people.

Now, all the evidence pointed to the fact that Princess Mingyue had not been abducted.

The long night stretched on. The teacup in his hand had lost much of its warmth. He Xingjin slowly took a sip by lamplight, then looked again at the secret letters spread across the desk.

In the family letter he had sent to Yongxing for his father, he had ultimately not written this matter clearly.

He thought of the pair of youths who had deliberately concealed their appearances—the boy and girl mentioned by the old physician at the medical hall in Yuling Town of Nanzhou.

The night wind brushed across the deskful of letters, pages rustling.

As the most noble princess of Great Yan, why would she flee?

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

The golden sun sank in the west. The stone path through the bamboo grove, washed by yesterday’s spring rain, was damp and filled with the fragrance of soil and vegetation. As Shang Rong walked along, quite a few mud stains clung to her embroidered shoes.

Mengshi, carrying a large pile of things, had no time to watch where he stepped. He simply trampled forward at random, not minding even when he stepped into muddy puddles, thinking only of quickly putting down all the miscellaneous food and trinkets Zhezhu had bought.

“Uncle Mengshi, let me carry some.”

Seeing that he was covered in mud spots, Shang Rong spoke.

When they got off the carriage at the village entrance earlier, she had already wanted to help, but Mengshi had stopped her.

“We’re almost there. Susu, watch your step—the path is slippery. I’ll go ahead and put the things down first.” Mengshi had no way to turn back, so he only said this to her. Perhaps the wound on his leg had already scabbed over and no longer hurt from rubbing against his clothes, for his steps grew even faster.

“I told you already, don’t buy so much.”

Seeing Mengshi nearly stumble before entering the courtyard, Shang Rong could not help but turn her head and whisper to the black-clad youth beside her.

The mist in the bamboo grove was thick. The youth’s hands were also full, carrying box after box—square ones of varying sizes. Hearing her words, he turned his face to look at her. “I asked if you liked them, and you told me you did. That’s why I bought them.”

Shang Rong avoided his gaze, somewhat embarrassed. “I was afraid you’d be unhappy.”

No one likes hearing the person they care about constantly say “I don’t like it,” “no good,” “don’t want it”—words that are always rejecting.

That was something Xue Danshuang had once told Shang Rong.

Before meeting Zhezhu, she had been even more like a hedgehog than a hedgehog. But Xue Danshuang told her that if she was always like that, she would hurt the people who truly cared about her.

She drifted into a brief daze, not knowing that when the youth heard what she said, his ink-dark eyes seemed to brighten a little. In the damp mist, his voice was calm.

“Why would you fear I’d be unhappy over things bought for you? Could it be that you don’t actually like them?”

“I like them.” She said.

Even the dresses he bought for her, each one was prettier than the last.

The youth said nothing more, yet he kept walking beside her, shielding her along the inner side of the mountain path. His gaze lowered, falling upon the damp stone steps.

Madam Yu had suffered a great calamity and had grown much thinner. Unlike Mengshi, who had been carefully looked after in prison by Hu Linsong and Tan Jiezhi, she and her husband had truly endured several rounds of severe torture. Even now, there remained a whip mark on the side of her face that had yet to heal.

When she saw Mengshi enter the courtyard, she hurried forward to help him set everything down. Before long, she saw Shang Rong and Zhezhu enter as well. She immediately performed a respectful bow, lowering her head as she said, “Young master, if not for you this time, my husband and I would surely have died unjustly in prison…”

Seeing tears gather in her eyes, Shang Rong handed her a handkerchief from her sleeve. She softly gave thanks, then led the two of them to the dining table and said, “I have nothing much with which to repay you. Aside from this table of food and wine, this courtyard I also give to the three of you—please do not dislike it.”

“This table of food and wine is good enough. As for the courtyard, there’s no need,” Mengshi came out from the room after changing his clothes. “Madam Yu, this is, after all, your livelihood.”

Madam Yu shook her head. “This livelihood—I no longer wish to continue it. If the three of you will not take the courtyard, then my husband and I will leave it abandoned anyway. From now on, I will go back to gathering medicinal herbs, and my husband will return to carpentry. We will never touch this again.”

After those days in prison, the husband and wife had been thoroughly frightened out of their wits and no longer wished to do such things.

The afterglow of the setting sun faded, and darkness slowly thickened. Madam Yu finished heating several buckets of hot water in the kitchen before leaving. Her husband had injured his leg in prison and was now bedridden—she was eager to return and care for him.

Mengshi ate hastily at the table for a short while. Unable to endure the itchiness on his body any longer, he set down his chopsticks and went to bathe.

Shang Rong was eating a piece of braised pork, glossy and translucent like amber. The courtyard was quiet. She noticed that the youth beside her had been holding his chopsticks for a long time without moving them, his eyes lowered, as though lost in thought.

After thinking for a moment, she picked up a piece of meat and placed it into his bowl.

The youth seemed absent-minded, not knowing where he had been looking. Because of the sudden addition of a piece of braised pork in his bowl, his eyelashes flickered. The night breeze brushed past his face as he slightly raised his eyelids.

“Zhezhu, it’s very delicious.”

Shang Rong always felt there was something a little strange about him, yet she could not say exactly what it was. Holding her small bowl, she spoke to him.

“Oh.”

He responded absentmindedly, picked up the meat, and took a bite.

Shang Rong simply lowered her head and ladled herself some fish soup to drink, not noticing the youth’s gaze that occasionally lingered secretly on her. She only felt that he seemed burdened with heavy thoughts, so much so that he could not even focus on eating.

“What are you thinking about?”

Shang Rong could not help but ask.

Zhezhu suddenly met her pair of clear, shimmering eyes. His hand, gripping the spoon, paused. A trace of unease appeared between his refined brows.

“You…”

He had only just spoken when he realized he could not easily ask her. He pressed his lips together for a moment and turned his face away. “Nothing.”

Serving him food, ladling him soup—her doing this, did it count as liking him?

He wondered uncertainly.

Not long after, Mengshi finally finished bathing and came out from the room. The light and shadows of the carved wooden lotus lamp revealed his figure. When Shang Rong saw him approach, she noticed that many red rashes of varying sizes had appeared along his neck.

“Uncle Mengshi, here…” Shang Rong pointed to her own neck.

“Susu, you may not know—this is an old problem of mine,” Mengshi scratched his neck twice and sat down at the table, smiling. “As long as the fabric I wear is a bit coarse, I break out in rashes.”

A somewhat embarrassed expression appeared on his face. “But how could I have spare money for clothes made of fine materials? I gritted my teeth and bought one inner garment made of yunjin fabric, and I’ve been wearing just that ever since. Don’t laugh at me—I haven’t washed it for quite some time. It’s not that I don’t want to wash it, but the moment I take it off, the rashes itch terribly.”

But tonight there was no helping it. After wearing the clothes for so long, the itching was bound to come.

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Shang Rong staring at him in astonishment.

“What is it?” Mengshi did not understand.

Before Shang Rong could speak, Zhezhu set down his spoon. With a crisp clink against the bowl, he cast a thoughtful glance at the rashes on Mengshi’s neck, his tone carrying an added layer of meaning:

“For there to be such a coincidence in this world—does Daoist Mengshi know that she, like you, also has this same affliction?”

Was there truly such a coincidence under heaven?

At that moment, Mengshi looked at Shang Rong with a face full of astonishment. “Truly?”

“Yes.”

Shang Rong nodded.

Some indescribable emotion churned within Mengshi’s heart. He looked at the girl opposite him, her face concealed behind a mask, and after a long moment, he smiled. “Then this, perhaps, can be counted as fate between Susu and me.”

Shang Rong lowered her eyes, forcibly suppressing the tangled confusion in her heart. She placed the last two pieces of braised pork and the duck leg into Mengshi’s bowl and said, “You hardly ate just now. Have a bit more.”

Mengshi’s face was full of smiles. He picked up his chopsticks, only to meet the youth’s indifferent gaze.

Pretending not to notice, he lifted his bowl and began to eat.

The youth’s handsome face remained expressionless, yet he seriously observed the girl beside him, who had lowered her head and was drinking soup.

A trace of sullen emotion slipped from his beautiful eyes.

Did she like him or not?