Skin fair as snow, features luminous, a waist as slender as a willow bough. Every step she took was like ripples spreading gently over still water — each step a blossoming.
Li Gu held his breath.
It was only when Fuchun deliberately raised his voice and called out, “Greetings to the Princess!” that Li Gu and Li Weifeng suddenly came to themselves — and in that instant, both of them were thoroughly embarrassed. Even at banquets when those capital young wastrels made cutting jabs disguised as wit, neither of them had ever lost their composure like this.
Both of them felt the heat rise to the tips of their ears and the backs of their necks, and they bowed: “Greetings to Your Highness.”
The reddened tips of their ears left Xie Yuzhang stunned — she could barely believe that the young man before her was the same sovereign who had later made the whole world tremble at his name.
But he truly was that person — and alive, in flesh and blood, right before her eyes.
Xie Yuzhang’s gaze settled on his face. In truth she had never actually looked at him this closely before. In her previous life, she had not known who he was; and by the time she did, she could only bow her head in his presence.
A sovereign’s countenance — who dared look upon it directly?
“Who is this?” Xie Yuzhang said, coming to a stop and feigning ignorance.
“This servant reports to Your Highness,” Fuchun said, bowing dutifully — being the nearest eunuch, it fell to him to answer — “these two are the adopted sons of Military Governor Li.”
“This subject, Ningyuan General Li Weifeng,” said Li Weifeng.
“This subject, Huaihua Military Commandant Li Gu,” said Li Gu.
“We greet Your Highness the Princess!” both said together.
Having just made a fool of himself, each of them was determined not to be embarrassed again, and they announced themselves with rigid, unsmiling voices, loud and blunt, without a trace of the refined elegance of Yunjing’s young men. Laughter escaped from Xie Yuzhang’s palace maids, who covered their mouths to suppress it.
The faces of the two young men flushed even deeper — not knowing why they were being laughed at, they felt utterly humiliated before Xie Yuzhang.
Little did they know that Xie Yuzhang’s own heart was more ashamed than either of them.
She remembered now. Li Weifeng — the Huaihua Grand General who would hold the northern frontier for Li Gu. Under his watch, Da Yue and Wumeng would both keep to their borders without daring to encroach.
An Emperor and a Grand General — how had her palace maids dared to laugh at such men?
They were no different from herself in this moment — equally ignorant.
Xie Yuzhang lowered her eyes, then raised them again and smiled. “So you are the two General Lis. The two of you have guarded the frontier and served your country — you have worked hard.”
She finished speaking, then bent her knees slightly in a half-bow.
When had the beloved pearl of Yunjing City, Princess Baohua Xie Yuzhang, ever bowed to anyone other than the Emperor and the four consorts? The palace attendants exchanged glances and, wise as they were, suppressed their laughter entirely.
Li Gu and Li Weifeng felt the small knot of embarrassment and resentment in their chests dissolve entirely. They returned the bow at once: “We dare not accept the princess’s praise.”
Xie Yuzhang let her gaze sweep across the two of them and asked: “Are the two generals waiting for Lord Li?”
Li Weifeng, being the elder, answered: “Indeed.”
Xie Yuzhang smiled. “His Majesty is receiving Lord Li in the imperial garden. He may be admiring the view or fishing — who knows how long it will take.”
She turned her head and reproached the eunuch standing nearby: “Why have you not offered the two generals a —”
The soft, unhurried voice came to an abrupt stop when she saw the round, cheerful, flattering smile on Fuchun’s face.
Fuchun — the first chief eunuch superintendent of the Da Mu dynasty? The most trusted and relied-upon eunuch beside the new Emperor?
He… had already attached himself to Li Gu at this point in time?
“— seat?” Xie Yuzhang heard herself complete the sentence.
She was, after all, no longer the true thirteen-year-old Xie Yuzhang.
She was the Xie Yuzhang who had been married off to the Mobei Khanate, who had struggled and clawed for survival over ten brutal years, who had come back at last, and who had then lived in silent endurance under the humiliations and oppression of Yunjing City’s newly powerful.
This person — this person she now was — was she to live through the fate of her previous life all over again?
“Yes, this servant will go at once,” Fuchun said, hunching his back, and disappeared in a trot.
But Li Gu felt a faint sense of puzzlement.
He had noticed: just now, at the very moment this princess — who had entranced both him and his elder brother — finished those words, something in her bearing had shifted, subtly and unmistakably.
He could not tell if it was his imagination, but for one instant, he thought he had glimpsed a flame-like flash of brightness in the girl’s dark eyes. When he looked again, she had already lowered her gaze, concealing everything within.
“The two generals may wait here. This princess must go pay her respects to her father.” The princess smiled.
Li Gu followed Li Weifeng in a cupped-hands bow and heard his elder brother say: “We thank Your Highness for the seats.”
The eldest spoke first when seniority mattered — there was no need for Li Gu to open his mouth.
But the princess, unexpectedly, looked at him once more, gave a small nod, and walked past the two of them.
A long time passed. Beside him, his elder brother suddenly let out a long, slow breath.
That single breath carried longing, admiration, and wistfulness all at once.
Li Weifeng said nothing, but Li Gu felt every shift of emotion in him as though it were his own — for as he watched Princess Baohua’s figure slowly disappear into the distance, he was feeling exactly the same.
The most beautiful woman they had likely ever seen in all their years of living — near as a cloud overhead, yet far as the edge of the sky.
Utterly beyond reach.
Fuchun returned leading attendants carrying drum stools, and the two of them were given seats.
After a long silence, Li Weifeng said, with no particular context: “It would be good if we were the Lord’s own sons…”
Li Gu said nothing.
If they had been the legitimate sons of a military governor who controlled his own territory, perhaps there might have been a chance…
But they were not.
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