The sound of water rippled beside her ears. Warm steam enveloped her, yet she could vaguely feel cool night air brushing across her back again and again.
When Zhao Shu opened her eyes, she found herself in an exquisitely decorated chamber with carved beams and painted rafters. She was slumped beneath a wide-open window, and an iron chain was fastened around one of her ankles.
She bolted upright. Lowering her head to inspect herself, she finally let out a shaky breath of relief.
“What are you so afraid of? I’m hardly that impatient.” A man stepped leisurely out from behind a folding screen, still wreathed in steam from his bath. Clad only in a thin sleeping robe, he tilted his head as he dried the ends of his hair, his peach-blossom eyes misted with moisture as they roamed over her without restraint.
The young man possessed an undeniably handsome, flirtatious charm. Though Zhao Shu disliked the way he looked at her, she recognized his voice.
“Your name is Mi Rong…” She frowned, once again searching her memory. “Thank you for saving me just now.”
Her reaction amused the youth. Leaning closer to study her carefully, he thought that aside from her less-than-perfect complexion, her face was of the highest quality. Add to that her innocent, untainted disposition, and she truly became a rarity beyond compare.
Especially considering who she had once been. In all likelihood, he would never again have another opportunity to toy with someone of such exalted birth.
Toward such a rare prize, Mi Rong found himself unusually patient.
“You’re the first Crown Prince Zhao who’s thanked me after being brought here.” He idly kicked the chain, making it rattle. Seeing her lower her head uneasily, the romantic fantasies in his mind only deepened. Even so, he still made no move against her. “I’ve heard that Crown Prince Shu came of age at fifteen, spent his days enjoying himself, and has seen all the elegance of both Zhou and Zhao. Here, go change into something else first, then have a few drinks with me and tell me about it.”
The youth’s appearance was refined and lively. He looked no more than sixteen or seventeen, resembling some of Zhao Shu’s childhood companions, and that resemblance helped her remain relatively composed.
But the instant her fingers brushed against the pale pink ruqun dress beside her, she felt as though she had been struck by lightning. She simply stared at him in mute horror.
“I just thought it would be amusing, seeing how delicate your features are. No matter how unconventional Crown Prince Zhao may be, you’ll probably never have another chance in this life to wear women’s attire. Allow me to make that wish come true.”
When Zhao Shu continued staring silently at the dress, Mi Rong assumed she was refusing out of humiliation. His tone turned threatening. “If you insist you can’t do it yourself, then I suppose I’ll have to help you personally.”
Hearing the drunken implication beneath his words, Zhao Shu clenched her teeth. She gestured for him to unlock the chain, then followed a maid into the inner room to change.
How many years had it been since she had last worn women’s clothing?
Though the dress Mi Rong had prepared was only a simple spring outfit, Zhao Shu still managed to tangle the ribbons into a hopeless mess. In the end, she could only pull it on as best she could before calling the maid back in to fasten everything properly.
The maid seemed to have been prepared for exactly this task. Standing Zhao Shu before the bronze mirror, she swiftly arranged her hair into twin hanging buns, the hairstyle worn by girls who had not yet reached adulthood.
Dressed in a ruqun with that youthful hairstyle, even Zhao Shu barely recognized the reflection staring back at her. She had always possessed a delicate, youthful face. With the disguise paste concealing certain features, this attire left her looking beautifully androgynous, almost impossibly graceful and adorable.
She reached up to touch the rounded hair buns on either side of her head, and once more felt the absurdity and strangeness that had defined her entire life.
It reminded her of the very first time she had dressed as a boy and returned to Luoyi.
Her grandfather had held her in his arms and sighed, “Poor Shu’er. A perfectly good little girl, yet condemned to become Zhao Jian’s heir and inherit his throne.”
She had been only four years old then. The Princess’s residence had not yet been destroyed, and she hadn’t understood her grandfather’s words. Instead, she had delighted in the novelty of dressing as a boy, eagerly looking forward to learning how to ride great horses as soon as possible.
Yet in the end, her grandfather’s words had proved painfully true. All the honor and privilege her royal father had bestowed upon her had crumbled into dust overnight.
Turning her wrist, she checked her own pulse and smiled bitterly. Another two months. Perhaps… if the medicine from Handan never arrived, then she herself would disappear into dust as well.
The girl in the mirror gazed back with lifeless eyes, as though her soul had already departed.
She was only seventeen. Like her sisters, the other royal princesses, had she simply remained an ordinary princess of Zhao, she would now be attending banquets in the royal palace at Handan, listening to music, or perhaps waiting for envoys from the various states to come seeking marriage alliances.
Then again, even as royal daughters, such marriages had always depended upon their royal father’s wishes. Few were ever allowed to choose according to their own hearts. And now that Zhao had been defeated this year, their value in marriage negotiations had only fallen further. In truth, she had dragged all of her sisters down with her.
The second son climbs over the wall, waiting for me by the city corner.
Among the households of ministers and great nobles, girls of slightly lower rank sometimes still had the chance to choose their own husbands.
“My lady truly looks like an immortal child descended from the Ninth Heaven,” the maid exclaimed, perfectly capturing the ethereal quality of her appearance.
Seeing how delighted the maid seemed, Zhao Shu instinctively smiled shyly and nodded to her through the mirror. After the maid departed with flushed cheeks, Zhao Shu turned her gaze back to her reflection and could only sigh at the predicament before her.
The future was bleak enough, impossible to foresee but her present situation was even worse.
The young man outside clearly harbored ill intentions toward her.
As fear and anxiety churned within her, she silently repeated his name to herself. Then, all at once, she remembered something her grandfather had mentioned when she had returned to Luoyi the previous year, a royal princess who, like her own mother, had died young.
That princess had refused the marriage arranged by her elders and had stubbornly fallen in love with an exiled prince from Chu. She later gave birth to her eldest legitimate son, Rong, before suddenly dying of illness at only twenty years old.
It was said that after the princess’s death, the Chu prince had relied upon the influence of the Royal Zhou house to seize the royal tripod and claim power. Before long, his palace was filled with wives and concubines. His legitimate eldest son fell out of favor and was eventually taken away by an aunt in Qin.
No two members of the royal family shared the same given name. Considering the ages, then this Mi Rong… was actually her legitimate cousin on her mother’s side.
After all the twists and turns of fate, how could such a coincidence possibly exist?
For the first time in what felt like forever, Zhao Shu’s heart, so long buried beneath grief and despair, found something almost laughable. But the moment she heard the youth outside urging the servants to bring out the finest wine, her fingers tightened around the side of her skirt.
What did being cousins matter?
She was now no more significant than an ant or a blade of grass. If he refused to acknowledge the relationship, she was nothing more than a plaything in his eyes.
Trapped in a foreign land with no one to rely upon, the only thing she could do was stall for as long as possible.
Perhaps Steward Li or Cheng Wu would notice her disappearance.
Perhaps they would be kind enough to come looking for her.
Almost absentmindedly, she snapped off one of the sharp bronze leaves decorating the lamp beside the mirror. If her true identity was discovered, then perhaps… she would have to gamble everything on one desperate attempt.
…
An hour later, at the beginning of the Hai hour, silence had settled over the night. Only the inner courtyard of Young Lord Rong’s residence remained ablaze with lantern light. Cheng Wu hurried frantically through the corridors, brushing aside servants who were clearing away the banquet dishes. He ordered one page who was about to announce their arrival to be restrained. Just as he turned to lead the way, his lord had already strode past him and crossed the corridor first, commanding without looking back, “Seal off the courtyard. No one is to enter, not even you, Cheng Wu.”
As Ying Wuji crossed the flower garden at a brisk pace and headed straight for the two-story pavilion where Mi Rong usually sought his amusements, he heard the carefree, cheerful laughter of a young man. The heart that had been tightly wound the entire journey clenched painfully once more.
His lashes lowered slightly. He stood still for a long moment before, his expression darkening, he started toward the bedchamber on the second floor.
He had known Mi Rong since they were both insignificant children. No one understood Mi Rong’s tastes and character better than he did.
The young man… had not always been like this.
Ying Wuji had once had a younger sister born of the same mother, and she and Mi Rong had grown up together as childhood sweethearts. Three years earlier, he and his sister had been framed by one of their father’s concubines. Their mother had chosen to save him, believing that Mi Rong would be able to rescue his sister.
But Mi Rong had arrived too late.
After that incident, the thirteen-year-old Mi Rong changed completely. Lacking the power to take revenge on the concubine herself, he secretly abducted her little brother and slowly tortured the child to death.
From that day onward, he never again sought the company of women. Instead, he became increasingly obsessed with young men.
Ying Wuji ascended the stairs without a sound, his right hand unconsciously settling upon the hilt of his sword. The memories came vividly one after another. After only two more steps, he released the sword.
What was wrong with him?
The other was merely a hostage prince from a foreign state. At present, the man simply could not be allowed to die. Why should he be this tense?
“Hahaha! Little Brother Rong, that’s because you’ve never seen the hawks of Liaodong! Ten years ago I was only as tall as this table, yet those Haidong falcons stood taller than that screen over there. When they spread their wings, they could carry off an entire sheep!”
“Oh? Then how were they raised afterward? Were they kept chained?”
“Chained? Why would anyone chain them? A hawk has wings because it’s meant to soar through the sky. It’s just like people, they have legs so they can travel and explore. If someone forced you to sit in a chair every day studying books and writing essays, wouldn’t that be torture? Later I accompanied a Qi envoy to the Eastern Sea and released that hawk back into the wild.”
“Cousin, every other sentence out of your mouth is about animals. From the way you describe it, Handan seems to have nothing else worth praising.”
“Nonsense! Handan is where the roads of every land converge. How could it compare to this isolated Xianyang…”
Ying Wuji stopped outside the room, listening with remarkable patience as that voice, pleasantly slurred with drink, rambled on about the rare treasures and curiosities of Handan. Without realizing it himself, all the tension that had accompanied him here had quietly melted away.
After another lengthy digression, Mi Rong did not immediately answer. A brief silence followed. Then the youth’s expression suddenly cooled as he leaned close to Zhao Shu. “Your Handan certainly has few punishments. Does it not even have hai execution?”
By now Zhao Shu had been made to drink enough that her thoughts had begun to blur. Looking into those peach-blossom eyes now inches from her own, she thought she glimpsed a trace of greed. Realizing that she could no longer delay matters by talking endlessly, she feigned ignorance instead, meeting his gaze without retreating.
“You truly don’t know what hai execution is?”
She had just begun to shake her head when the youth slipped one arm around her shoulders and leaned close to whisper the explanation into her ear.
The moment Zhao Shu’s eyes widened in horror, those same arms suddenly shoved her backward. In an instant, the two of them toppled together onto the couch.
She immediately sensed danger. The drunkenness vanished from her eyes, replaced by perfect clarity. Just as she struggled to move, a hand pinched her sharply at the waist. His teasing voice sounded beside her ear. “Queen Zhao and my mother have both been dead for years. Even if you truly are my cousin, whatever family ties once existed have long since faded. I saved your life tonight. Elder, why not repay me by giving yourself to me? One night together will be enough.”
His words were gentle. His hands were anything but. Before Zhao Shu could resist, both of her wrists had already been pinned above her head. She had no idea where he had produced the sash from, but he bound her wrists together with merciless force.
With a clear metallic clang, the sharp bronze leaf she had been hiding between her fingers slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor.
Just as her identity was about to be exposed, footsteps sounded upon the spiral staircase.
“Give yourself to me…Which elder brother were you planning to spend the night with?”
The instant that voice rang out, Mi Rong nearly tumbled straight off the couch. Turning around and seeing who had arrived, every trace of his flirtatious confidence disappeared.
Seeing that Ying Wuji showed no sign of rebuking him immediately, Mi Rong scrambled to his feet. Even while casting reluctant glances back toward Zhao Shu, he forced a carefree grin. “It turns out Queen Zhao was my mother’s elder sister. I merely invited Crown Prince Zhao over for a chat. I’ll return him to you safe and sound tomorrow…”
Still smiling, he lifted his head. The moment his eyes met the man’s cold emerald gaze, the words caught in his throat. Mi Rong excelled at reading people’s expressions. He knew instantly that something was wrong.
Without the slightest hesitation, he began backing toward the door, cupping his fists respectfully as he retreated. “My aunt hasn’t been well lately. I really ought to accompany my uncle and attend to him tonight. Elder Brother, no need to see me out.”
When he had descended halfway down the stairs, his ingratiating voice floated back once more. “Elder Brother… please don’t tell Aunt about tonight.”
Ying Wuji dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
Before long, servants below brought fresh chopsticks, bowls, and wine cups. After a moment’s thought, he decided simply to spend the night here instead. Stepping aside, he removed his sword and cloak, hanging them upon the rack against the wall.
Fine wine and exquisite dishes soon filled the table. Plum blossom lanterns glowed beneath shades of multicolored paper. One had to admit that although Mi Rong’s residence belonged only to a guest noble, it was decorated with a refinement and splendor unmatched anywhere else in Xianyang.
Birds of a feather flock together. No wonder the person behind those bed curtains had found such immediate companionship with him. Recalling the lively drinking and laughter he had overheard moments earlier, Ying Wuji let out a cold snort. He strode over, intending to deliver a few cutting remarks. But the instant he lifted the smoky-purple bed curtains, he froze.
Every word he had intended to say vanished from his mind.
