Zhang Zhixu’s injuries were in truth not serious — and yet he went to the most prominent physician’s clinic on the street and had the physician prepare the most costly medicines available.
Quite a number of people had gathered nearby to watch and whisper.
“All those medicines — what sort of state must he be in?”
“I heard the Zhang Family showed no mercy. Not only did they beat him and throw him out, they reclaimed the house and the shops and everything else.”
“Serves him right, for being an unfilial son — daring to talk back to his own parents.”
“He’s always been someone who lived off his family’s name. Without the Zhang Family, he’ll have no easy days ahead.”
Jiuquan was beginning to feel indignant on his behalf, but Zhang Zhixu was leaning against the window, finding it all not nearly harsh enough. He murmured a few quiet instructions, sending the idle members of his retinue to go down and join in the chatter.
“Master, the inn has been arranged,” Jiuquan said hesitantly. “But is that place not a bit beneath your dignity? Should we not go find Commissioner Chen?”
Zhang Zhixu gave a low laugh. “Find her? She’s the last person I can go to right now.”
Even though he had used the break with his father to obscure the fact that he had refused the marriage arrangement, anyone with any sense could figure it out — no one would make such a scene over anything less than defying an imperial command.
What Chen Baoxiang needed to do right now was almost certainly to make a clean break from him. She would never bring fire down upon herself.
Clever as she was, she might even stage a deliberate falling-out between them at some opportune moment — the better to protect herself.
Zhang Zhixu was thinking all of this calmly, and had even begun considering how he might cooperate with her if it came to that.
But in the very next moment, the door was pushed open, and someone swept inside like a gust of wind, rushing straight up to him.
“Fengqing!” She looked at him with bright, shining eyes. “Let me tell you something wonderful — the Princess Imperial has given me a courtyard! It has twenty rooms!”
Zhang Zhixu was stunned.
Before him, Chen Baoxiang shone like the high summer sun — a thin sheen of perspiration at her brow, her clear eyes reflecting his own dumbfounded expression with pure, unguarded clarity.
He reached out to intercept her before she could seize hold of him, and quickly closed the window and the door.
“You’re this out of touch with what’s happening?” He turned back with a frown. “You don’t know what occurred at the Zhang Mansion?”
She blinked.
Zhang Zhixu pushed her toward the door with undisguised exasperation. “Go, quickly — if anyone sees you here, it’ll be trouble.”
Her feet moved two steps under the pressure, then Chen Baoxiang spun around like a slippery fish and slid right back to stand facing him. “Go where? That courtyard is very large — I’m frightened to live there alone. I wanted to ask whether you’d like to stay there for a while.”
Zhang Zhixu pressed his hand to his forehead. “I won’t go.”
“Come on, come on — look at the state of my wounds. Every time Bikong changes the bandages she rips the scabs clean off, it’s agony. You’re the only one who does it properly. If we lived nearby it would be so much more convenient.”
“I have money now — you won’t go hungry.”
“I promise the bedding will all be brand new.”
She kept chattering on, plainly carried away with the euphoria of moving into a new home.
Zhang Zhixu looked at her with a mixture of exasperation and amusement, and suddenly felt a mischievous impulse. He leaned forward until he was level with her gaze. “Fine then. I’ll come back with you.”
“Really?” Her face lit up.
He nodded. “You promise you won’t drive me away?”
“Of course not — you and I, who do we have but each other? Even if the sky fell in, I wouldn’t drive you away.” She thumped her chest with a guaranteeing hand.
A sly curl tugged at the corner of his mouth. He said, word by word: “Even now that I’ve refused the imperial marriage — you still won’t drive me away?”
At those words, the room went silent for a moment.
Zhang Zhixu had anticipated this entirely. He waited with a smile in his eyes, fully expecting her expression to change dramatically, and then for her clever tongue to nimbly find some way to reverse course and tell him not to come after all.
He had already prepared himself to laugh at her.
Yet the person before him lifted her eyes to meet his. Her face bore not a trace of surprise.
“Yes.” She nodded, and reached out to gently take hold of his arm — bruised purple where he had been struck. “I won’t drive you away.”
The trailing willow branches caught the wind and flared upward, their shadows scattered in a wild tangle across the window paper.
Zhang Zhixu stood motionless, staring into her eyes with a look of disbelief.
Her bright eyes were curved with a smile. There was no calculation, no concealment, no weighing of costs and benefits — only a simple emotion, plain as anything for him to see.
It looked like… concern.
His fingertips curled inward. Zhang Zhixu turned his head away, faintly flustered. “You said yourself that if I refused the imperial marriage, it would be a serious matter.”
“Yes — but you haven’t refused it yet, have you? You’re already working on a solution. You left the Zhang Family precisely because you weren’t certain enough yet, to avoid implicating them.” Chen Baoxiang blew gently on his swollen arm. “You’ve already done very well, Fengqing.”
Something in his chest twisted tightly, and then, as though warm water had welled up and softened it, it dissolved.
Zhang Zhixu’s lashes trembled. After quite a long moment he took a deep breath. “Still — it wouldn’t be right for me to stay at your place. I’ll keep to the inn.”
“The inn can hold your name. You come along with me quietly.” She released his sleeve. “Shangjing is in chaos right now, and it’s not safe for you to be out on your own. My medicines are better than what you’d find outside, too. I’ll put more on when we get back.”
And with that, she took hold of his hand without further discussion and pulled him toward the door.
Zhang Zhixu stumbled a step as she tugged him along. He looked down at the two strands of hair sticking up from her topknot, and made no further resistance.
He had the feeling he had just glimpsed, through some crack in the heavens, a thread of light breaking through.
The rational Chen Baoxiang — the Chen Baoxiang who always sought advantage and avoided harm — how was it that she too could make a decision that was entirely against her own interests?