Once you provoke someone like that, could you possibly expect peaceful days? She had barely escaped the troubles of the palace and was waiting quietly to go home, when another trouble appeared outside the walls and a worse one, at that. How could she not worry?
As if to prove her fears right, the sixth day of the ninth month arrived—the Buddhist Ullambana Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival. On this day, people released floating lanterns on the river, not to pray for blessings, but to console wandering souls.
A small canal ran through the Imperial Park, leading from the main waterway outside. For several days now, Caiwei and Fusang had been making delicate lanterns to release that night, each for their family members.
Meng Guqing’s own family was far away, in another world. But there was one more soul she wished to send off, to rest in peace and be reborn into a better life.
After dinner, she bathed and changed. Dusk settled, the sky dim and hazy. She was just about to go out with her maids to set the lanterns afloat when she turned, and froze.
The man standing behind her nearly scared her out of her wits. Her face went pale. She didn’t even know when he’d come in. And she had just stripped down to her thin undergarments and a single pair of silk trousers, things a woman of this era could never show.
This man was getting more and more audacious. Meng Guqing forced down her anger. “When did Shizi arrive?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Didn’t we agree, no sneaking up to scare people?”
“I just got here. I was about to call out to you, but you turned around first.” Xiao Shuo wore black today, a fitted robe cinched with a leather belt that accentuated his sharp, clean-cut air. The belt matched his short black boots, which framed his long, straight legs. The silver chains at the sides of the boots echoed the silver embroidery on his collar. His dark hair was tied high; broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs— even without seeing his face, that figure alone was strikingly handsome, completely unlike his usual appearance.
“And the reason for the shizi’s visit today is…?” Meng Guqing invited him to sit on the couch in the outer room, separated from the bedroom by a curtain. She herself stood by the curtain, keeping a careful two or three steps between them.
Just as she was beginning to feel a bit of safety, the man, taking advantage of his long legs, crossed the distance in one stride. “Can’t I come if I have nothing to do?” he said, his tone unpleasant.
Meng Guqing could only feel helpless. He had probably grown up away from home, estranged from family, and had no elders who could rein him in. Every time he entered her boudoir, he behaved as though it were his own space. She had long wanted to lecture him about the proper decorum between men and women but it was too late for that now. They had already met so many times, and he had helped her repeatedly. To suddenly tell him to leave now would seem ungrateful, wouldn’t it?
Besides, after that last time when he’d said they were “good now,” bringing up such rules again would sound like outright rejection. And though that was her true intent, she knew hesitation would only bring trouble. Summoning her courage, Meng Guqing said, “I’ve already troubled the shizi many times before. Now I’m safe, and soon enough, people will forget about me, that’s all the better. You’re highly regarded by the court these days, surely very busy. How could I continue to take up your time?”
Her reasoning was proper, courteous, and hard to refute but Xiao Shuo, sensitive as he was, caught her meaning immediately. “You’re trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” Seeing that familiar shadowed smile creep over his lips, Meng Guqing’s resolve faltered. She racked her brain for a way to express herself politely yet firmly, something that wouldn’t offend him but would still make her point clear. But Xiao Shuo didn’t give her the chance. He took another step forward. “If not, then since you’re already dressed, let’s go. I came to take you out.”
“Take me out?” Meng Guqing blinked, bewildered.
“Of course.” He reached out and twined a strand of her hair around his long fingers. “Last time you came back from White Horse Temple, didn’t you complain you hadn’t had enough fun outside? Today’s the Lantern Festival. There’ll be floating river lanterns, burning offerings, and the feeding of hungry ghosts, it’s lively everywhere. Don’t you want to see it?”
That was something she’d said casually that night when she’d asked his help to sneak the little princess out. She hadn’t expected him to remember, let alone come dressed so neatly to fulfill it.
Meng Guqing found his shamelessness exasperating, yet she had always taken others’ goodwill seriously. She hesitated but he didn’t give her a chance to refuse. Before she knew it, he had pulled her toward the door. Just as Fusang and Caiwei arrived to fetch her, they opened the door to find their mistress being led out by a tall man. Fusang handled it with surprising calm; Caiwei’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.
No one had time to explain. A few moments later, they reached the wall, and two shadowy figures dropped down, grabbing one maid each. In a blink, both maids and Meng Guqing were lifted over the wall. All the questions they had were swallowed by the dazzling, festive chaos of the street beyond.
Xiao Shuo held Meng Guqing as he leapt down and placed her into a waiting carriage. When they reached the bustling market, he helped her down and immediately took her hand, weaving through the crowd.
They were both too striking: he, tall and sharp-featured; she, graceful and luminous. Wherever they went, people turned to stare. Xiao Shuo’s expression darkened, and he snatched two masks from a nearby stall, pressing one over her face and one over his own. The world instantly quieted.
Meng Guqing glanced around and noticed several men nearby, clearly his subordinates, disguised as ordinary folk, always within arm’s reach. Whatever he took from a stall, someone behind him would quietly pay. Fusang and Caiwei had already run off ahead, laughing at the sights. She wanted to follow, but her right hand was tugged back. “Where are you going?”
“The street performers up ahead look interesting. I want to see.”
Since he’d brought her out especially to play, she decided she might as well enjoy it. She’d never seen such a vibrant night market, rows of food stalls filled with soups, dried fruits, cakes, and fried snacks of every kind. Caiwei even ran back with a few skewers of candied hawthorn, handing one to Meng Guqing before darting off again.
Meng Guqing lifted the mask slightly, revealing a sliver of her pale chin, and bit into the tangy-sweet fruit. It wasn’t bad. She’d just eaten two when the person beside her asked, “Is it good?”
“It’s fine.” She still had three left. It would be improper to give him her leftovers, so she raised her hand to call Caiwei over for another skewer, only to be pulled into a side alley. Before she could react, her lips were caught between his.
A soft, brief sip then deeper, as his tongue parted her lips, tasting the lingering sweetness. She could hear the faint sound of him swallowing. Startled, she drew back slightly, but he pursued her, kissing harder.
When he finally let her go, he led her upstairs to the third floor of a large tavern, clearly a private room he’d booked in advance. The noise outside was shut away; the windows were cracked just enough to let in a cool night breeze.
Once the server left after taking their order, Meng Guqing had barely touched the chair when she was seized again, held tightly in his arms, chin tilted upward.
She found herself staring into those clear, deep eyes, framed by long lashes like small brushes. Even detached from the rest of his face, those eyes would still be beautiful: delicate, flawless, more vivid than a painting. But at this moment, they pinned her with an intensity that made her heart tremble.
And for the first time, she truly doubted his earlier claim that he’d never kissed anyone before. Could a man who’d never touched a woman possibly kiss her like this, so sure, so relentless?
From one corner of the room to another, from behind the door to by the window, he kissed her until her maids’ footsteps were heard on the stairs. Only then did he finally release her, not saying a single word of explanation.
Even as someone who had lived in this world less than ten years, Meng Guqing understood how strict the boundaries between men and women were. Without “a matchmaker’s word and a parents’ command,” a man and woman together like this would be utterly condemned, especially the woman.
He couldn’t not know that. Yet he’d acted without hesitation, not even a single word of commitment.
Or did he think that since she was Emperor Zhao Donglin’s discarded Empress, she’d already done all those things before, so he could skip that step altogether?
Meng Guqing didn’t want to think that of him but that’s exactly what his actions implied.
On the way back, she refused to share the front carriage with him, face cold as she squeezed in beside her two maids at the back.
Caiwei and Fusang, still giddy from the night’s excitement, fell silent as soon as they saw their mistress’s expression and the black look on Xiao Shuo’s face behind her.
Caiwei had already heard from Fusang that Her Ladyship knew the shizi, though today’s sudden outing was unexpected, even improper. But they were both from Gaochang, where customs between men and women were looser during the Bonfire Festival, it wasn’t uncommon for young men and women who fancied each other to sneak into the woods together. A night out like this hardly seemed scandalous to them, and of course, they would keep their mouths shut.
Besides, the shizi had treated their mistress well: bought things for her, took them all to the best tavern (Caiwei had secretly asked; one meal there cost three hundred taels of silver—enough for a poor family to live comfortably for ten years!).
So how had things suddenly gone wrong?
Before Caiwei could speak, a glacial glare from Xiao Shuo silenced her. Fusang nudged her foot, and she stammered, “Ah—Princess, why are you back here?”
Meng Guqing turned her face toward the window, ignoring everyone. Xiao Shuo’s face darkened further, his voice like ice. “Get out.”
The two maids froze, looking from one to the other. The look in his eyes was too terrifying. When they hesitated, Meng Guqing reached out and took one by each hand, without turning her head.
Then, with a sudden flash of movement, Xiao Shuo pulled a small dagger from his wrist guard. The silver blade gleamed sharply in the dim light, so sharp it could slice iron like mud. He spun it once between his fingers and drove it into the carriage door with a thud, the metal humming. “If you don’t move, I’ll use another way to ‘invite’ you.”
Heavens, what had they done to deserve this? Was that really necessary? Even when the emperor had quarreled with their mistress, he’d never threatened her maids!
For the first time, Caiwei and Fusang understood the true meaning of Xiao Shuo’s cold ruthlessness. Terrified, they slipped out front, silent as mice.
Only then did Xiao Shuo climb slowly into the carriage, meeting Meng Guqing’s furious glare. Neither spoke a word for the rest of the way.
When they reached the wall of the Imperial Park, Meng Guqing didn’t resist as he carried her over but once across, he didn’t set her down. Instead, he pressed her back against a tree, gaze fixed on her face, their breaths mingling in the dark.
She had a strong premonition: if she didn’t speak, he’d kiss her again. His eyes already said as much.
“Let me go,” she said softly.
“You’re angry.” His tone held puzzlement. Why?
He couldn’t understand. Aside from her, he had never been close to any woman. He truly had no idea what he’d done wrong. He’d always lived freely, acting on impulse without caring how others might feel.
Today, he’d only wanted to make her happy and he had. He just hadn’t expected that in doing so, he’d somehow made her angry. That part, he simply couldn’t comprehend.
Meng Guqing finally looked up at the tall young man before her. In his eyes was clear, genuine confusion. Could it be he really had never been with another woman, that he truly didn’t understand why she was upset?
But how could she explain it?
The last time she’d spoken frankly about what she wanted, about loyalty of both body and heart, she’d ended up trapping herself instead, turning a simple matter into a complicated one.
Perhaps Xiao Shuo truly had a strong liking for her, a bit thick-skinned, perhaps, with only a faint fondness, and that was why he kept touching her so freely. But if that fragile layer of ambiguity between them was ever pierced, would he then push his advantage further? She couldn’t take that risk. After thinking for a long while, she could only say, “I am the former Empress of Great Wu, a woman who has bowed before heaven, earth, and the ancestral shrine, who once held seal and ribbon. Even though I’ve been deposed, I am still Consort Jing. I’m not some nameless, discarded woman others can humiliate at will.”
“So, you still think of him? Still dream of getting back together?”
Meng Guqing froze. What kind of twisted logic was that? All she meant was that even if she’d fallen out of favor, she still had her title. Xiao Shuo had never made her any promises or expressed any real intention toward her, he’d merely helped her a few times. At first, his approach hadn’t even been well-meaning, and now that he was suddenly interested, he’d begun pestering her with his hands and mouth, as if that were reasonable? How could he always ignore the actual issue at hand?
Meng Guqing didn’t know how to reason with this unpredictable, self-willed, brooding young man. She was speechless for a moment, and Xiao Shuo misunderstood her silence. He sneered, his voice in the quiet night sharp and dangerous: “Then I’ll kill him right now. It might be a little troublesome, but it’ll definitely be more reliable than your useless imperial uncle’s people. If that doesn’t work, I’ll handle it myself, just going back to my old trade.”
From the way he spoke, Meng Guqing had already guessed long ago that he’d grown up on the streets, and that he’d secretly learned martial arts. But what she had deduced was only the surface. When Xiao Shuo left the comfort of luxury at the age of five, he was sent to another place, one that looked prosperous but was just as treacherous beneath the surface. Under the pretext of “recuperating,” he lived away from court until twelve, when he accidentally fell into the hands of an assassin organization and was forced into training. For those seven years, he hadn’t had a single easy day, strictly monitored, practicing martial arts seven hours a day without pause.
From being a lowly expendable, he fought his way up, challenge after challenge, until he became a third-class bounty killer.
At that time, he had two identities: publicly, the fifth prince born of the Fulan Empress; secretly, the “Xuan”-rank assassin of the organization. He’d thought that switching between these two lives would one day lead him home but then Fulan was subdued by Great Wu’s regent, and as a hostage prince, he was sent to the Wu capital. No one had the time or care for him then. He fought his way up from the “Xuan” rank to the “Tian” rank, taking over the entire organization as his own. For years afterward, he lived in the shadows, immersed in a life of blood and death.
At fifteen, his “homeland” finally remembered him, secretly sending refined tutors to turn him into a true royal noble. Gradually, he returned to the surface, living as a proper prince, while also infiltrating the Wu palace’s Wenlan Pavilion to pursue his own interests.
Now, he was above the assassin network; it had become his personal shadow web. He rarely accepted assassination missions anymore though occasionally killing someone was “not out of the question.” Even Zhao Donglin, the emperor, could be killed, it would just take longer, and he might have to lie low for a few years afterward. Nothing impossible about that.
Meng Guqing had never seen him kill anyone, but his sharp, sinister aura told her all she needed to know, he was not a good man. Her instincts screamed that his talk of murder was no bluff. Terrified he’d actually act on it, she grabbed him, blocking his way. “No.”
“You can’t bear to let him die?” His eyes darkened further, brimming with malice. He longed to wipe Zhao Donglin from existence, only then would she have no one to “reconcile” with.
“It’s not that I can’t bear it,” Meng Guqing said, now realizing just how terrifyingly possessive he was. Forcing herself to stay calm, she said, “It’s unnecessary. I have nothing to do with him anymore. Even as Consort Jing, he won’t ever come for me again. I owe him nothing, and he owes me nothing. But if you hurt him, if he dies because of you, then I’ll owe him a life. I’d never have peace again. I’d have to stay here forever, widowed in the capital. I don’t want that. Please, don’t go.”
That was the tragedy of being in a weaker position, though she was the one with reason on her side, she still ended up begging. The only small mercy was that between her and Xiao Shuo, there were no political interests involved, just two people facing each other. If she could persuade him, he had no real reason to insist on killing Zhao Donglin. But knowing his temperament, she could already foresee how exhausting and dangerous her future dealings with him would be. Truly unlucky, how had she ended up entangled with such a ruthless man?
Zhao Donglin’s attitude after deposing her had already made her suspect that returning home would be difficult. Now, with this domineering, dangerous Xiao Shuo in the mix, one who was frighteningly skilled, Meng Guqing saw her future as bleak. She no longer had the heart to arrange her courtyard as beautifully as Caiwei and Fusang had.
She didn’t know what Fusang had told Caiwei, but the girl, though curious about Xiao Shuo, never mentioned him in front of Meng Guqing. In fact, Caiwei had realized something the others hadn’t: Xiao Shuo was a hostage prince from Fulan, a vassal state of Great Wu. How could the emperor possibly agree to match the former Empress with him? It was doomed from the start.
Not only did she not support the match, she even wanted to advise her mistress to stay away but she was terrified of the shizi’s unpredictable moods and his habit of appearing out of nowhere around their courtyard. If he overheard her “bad-mouthing” him, wouldn’t her life be forfeit? So, she decided to say nothing. After all, her mistress was much smarter, surely she knew what to do.
It was only after moving into the secluded garden that Caiwei realized her mistress had long been prepared for deposition. She herself, foolish and naive, had always believed that the emperor truly cherished her mistress and would never favor the other women of the harem. What a fool she’d been. The truth was brutal.
Meng Guqing had comforted her, saying, “Gaochang Wang has always been loyal. I, as his niece and a princess of Gaochang, will still live well even if deposed. It’s more freedom than being Empress. Who knows, one day I might even return to Gaochang.”
Caiwei, ever the optimist, clung to that hope and life went on pleasantly enough for her.
Only Meng Guqing herself felt trapped in fire and water. That shameless scoundrel was growing bolder by the day. Ever since they’d gone shopping together, he came to her place almost daily, giving her no peace.
Punctual as clockwork, that day, after washing up, she dried her hair and applied her homemade floral cream, autumn and winter brought dryness, and in this deep courtyard, with fires lit early to ward off cold, some cream was needed. Just as she finished, a soft but insistent knocking came from outside.
“Open the door.”
Meng Guqing waved the two maids away to sew in the west wing and stepped to the window. “I’m going to sleep,” she said evenly. “It’s getting dark earlier these days. You should finish your business early and rest too.”
Ever since their outing, she’d grown used to locking doors and shuttering windows early, all to prevent him from sneaking in again.
According to Caiwei’s inquiries, the court had begun a new campaign against Yan, and to secure Fulan’s support, they were treating its hostage prince very well, allowing Xiao Shuo to study at the Imperial Academy. He was dismissed at the end of the you hour, sometimes handling minor court errands, occasionally attending banquets, clearly being “favored.”
Xiao Shuo himself didn’t care for the honor, but as a hostage prince, he couldn’t refuse all social duties. Meng Guqing calculated his schedule, rushing to her room to hide before he could arrive. She even wanted to tell him, “You’re only eighteen, focus on your studies, stop thinking about early romance.” But since she seemed to be the subject of that “romance,” she couldn’t exactly say it aloud.
So she hid. Yesterday, she hadn’t opened the door; he’d lingered, but eventually, after some coaxing, left. She had seen a glimmer of hope, maybe she could finally get some peace.
But today, when she ignored him again, the man dropped all pretense. His cold voice cut through the night: “If you don’t open the door, I’ll just take down the window. It’ll make things easier next time.”
Meng Guqing didn’t believe him until the sound of metal striking wood made her jump. She rushed to the door and yanked it open. “Don’t—!”
Outside stood two people: Xiao Shuo, hands clasped behind his back, smiling faintly, and another man below the steps, cupping his hands around his mouth, the true source of that chopping sound. So he’d tricked her.
Realizing she’d been fooled, Meng Guqing stormed back inside, furious. Xiao Shuo followed leisurely, only stopping when her maids slipped out of sight. Then he stepped forward, wrapped his arms around her, buried his face against her neck, inhaled deeply, and brushed his lips along her soft skin, unwilling to let go.
Meng Guqing seriously suspected he had some kind of skin-hunger disorder. Every time he caught her, he behaved like someone addicted to a scent: touching, rubbing, unable to stop. His hands began to wander, slipping under her clothes. She caught his wrist through the fabric, furious. Did he take her for some plaything to satisfy his thrill-seeking urges?
“If you want to play,” she snapped, “find someone else.”
Xiao Shuo’s face darkened. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t “playing,” that he didn’t want anyone else but what came out instead was, “I’ll only find you. Didn’t you say I’m a killer without mercy? If you make me angry, I’ll just kill your two maids.”
