Chapter 6

Cuizhi nearly dropped where she stood. Since when had her lady become entangled with the Prince of Cang?
“You… like him?”
Even Liu Jiyue seemed stunned, momentarily blank, mind gone white.
Either way, she would have to pursue Li Daoxuan eventually. Shen Qing shut her eyes and committed. Through gritted teeth, she said, “Yes. I like him.”
She clamped both hands around the hilt of his blade. “So, Senior Brother, please listen to me. He didn’t hurt me on purpose.”
Liu Jiyue stared at her, gaze boring in as if he wanted to see straight through her, to find out what exactly was going on in that head of hers.
Before he could speak, Shen Qing rushed on, “I heard today that Li Daoxuan was at Youjian Restaurant, so I used wanting to eat there as an excuse to go. I, I was just going to send Cuizhi away and sneak a look at him. I didn’t expect a demon to snatch the hairpin from my head.”
“The demon led me straight to the room where His Highness was. He happened to be exorcising it at the time. In the chaos, he mistook me for a monster and injured me by accident. Once he realized I wasn’t a demon, he pulled his sword back right away.”
When she finished, Shen Qing added quickly, “My hair and clothes really did get messed up, but that was from getting caught in the middle of His Highness and the demon fighting.”
She always felt a strange guilt when lying in front of Liu Jiyue. Now, after saying all this, her gaze drifted, and her cheeks grew hot.
To an outsider, she probably looked like a maiden blushing because her secret crush had been exposed.
After a long silence, Liu Jiyue’s voice came, laced with restrained anger. “Nonsense.”
The single word fell like a bucket of cold water over her head. Though it was a mild May night, Shen Qing felt as if she’d been plunged into an ice cellar, her teeth faintly chattering.
Memories from her past life surged like a tide.
A royal decree had come from the palace, tying Xuanji Pavilion’s Deputy Liu Jiyue and the Shen clan’s orphan girl Shen Ling together in marriage.
One was an “ill-omened” posthumous child. The other was an orphan bereft of parents. However you looked at it, they matched. But in Shen Qing’s eyes, Shen Ling could never be worthy of her senior brother.
In a fury, she had smashed everything in Shen Ling’s room and thrown all her clothes and belongings out the door.
Liu Jiyue had rushed over to stop her, but Shen Qing couldn’t endure it any longer. She was determined to drive this nuisance out of Xuanji Pavilion.
Yet by then, her own clan had been annihilated. She was no longer the respected and beloved daughter of Duke Han, but the pavilion’s universally disliked jealous girl, always pining for her senior brother and unable to tolerate any other girl’s presence.
Perhaps Liu Jiyue had already begun to lose hope in her.
The sky had been bright and clear that day, but Shen Qing was at the edge of collapse. Her mind was a blur; beyond her senior brother, she could hold onto nothing else.
Like a madwoman, she’d wanted to drive Shen Ling away. All around her, fellow disciples scolded and condemned:
“Shen Qing, you’ve gone too far! She’s still your kinswoman, if you can’t support each other, fine, but now you won’t even leave her a path to live!”
They all defended Shen Ling. Only Senior Brother was still supporting her. Perhaps he realized how unstable she’d become, how unsteady her steps were. So he did his duty as an elder disciple and stayed by her side.
Shen Qing had grabbed onto him like the last stalk of wheat before drowning, clinging desperately. “Senior Brother, I like you. You can’t marry her! Go to His Majesty and reject the engagement! You can’t marry her!”
When he heard that, Liu Jiyue had raised his voice for once. “Nonsense!”
“I am not!” Shen Qing had sobbed. “I like you! You can’t be with her!”
He’d pried her hands off and pinched the bridge of his nose, headache written plain across his face. “Shen Qing, calm down. We’ll talk when I get back.”
A flood dragon had appeared in Yongzhou, flooding the region and plunging the people into misery. It was hardly the time to be arguing about such things.
But Shen Qing didn’t care. She wanted an answer now. She had shouted, “Liu Jiyue! Are you going to reject the engagement or not?!”
For once, he’d lost his temper too. “I have never liked you,” he said firmly. “Marriage is not a game. Nor is an imperial decree something you can ‘just cancel’ because you say so.”
“Calm yourself,” he’d added in the end, flinging his sleeve as he left.
Perhaps afraid she would hurt Shen Ling, he’d even taken the girl with him when he went.
He hadn’t known it was the last time they would ever see each other.
Later, Shen Qing had still managed to find Shen Ling. Ignoring her tears and protests, she’d seized the Glass Heart, and died with Li Daoxuan’s sword through her chest.
Now Liu Jiyue’s voice overlapped with those old echoes, blurring past and present. “From what I know,” he said, “you and the Prince of Cang have only crossed paths a few times as children. After that, you had no contact at all. How can you claim to ‘like’ him?”
Hearing “Prince of Cang,” Shen Qing snapped back to herself. She muttered, “Senior Brother, you can’t be at my side every moment. How would you know every word I’ve spoken, every person I’ve met… or who I’ve come to like?”
“This is no trivial matter,” he replied. “It concerns your future happiness. The Prince of Cang does whatever he pleases, moody and unpredictable. He is not a suitable match for you.”
Shen Qing’s voice shook. “You’ve controlled everything about me since I was small. Now you even want to interfere in who I like and who I want to marry?”
“I do like Li Daoxuan! I insist on marrying him! Are you going to control that too?” Her grievance swelled in her chest. In her past life, she’d been scolded for confessing to him. Now, liking someone else, she was being admonished again.
In the end, Liu Jiyue asked quietly, “Yuan, do you truly understand what ‘liking’ means?”
“Are you certain you genuinely like him, and are not merely bewitched by his appearance?”
For all his terrible character, the Prince of Cang wore a devastatingly beautiful face. If his junior sister had been led astray by that face, it wouldn’t be surprising.
His eyes were light in color, yet deep as a well, as though they could pull her into some whirlpool and peel back the skin to see every thought beneath.
Shen Qing lowered her gaze, her heart quailing, but still answered stubbornly, “Yes.”
He sighed. “I won’t tell General Shen and Madam Shen, for now. I hope you’ll think carefully. If you truly like him, I won’t stand in your way.”
“Yuan, Senior Brother only wishes for your happiness. So do your parents.”
Her nose burned; her vision blurred.
“Miss, Deputy Liu has left,” Cuizhi’s voice came from outside.
Shen Qing knew he’d gone to investigate the demon attack. She scrubbed at her face haphazardly, lifted her chin, and slipped back into her usual haughty poise. “Go,” she said. “Bring me cinnabar and yellow talismans.”
“And for now, don’t mention what happened tonight to my parents.”
“Yes, Miss.”
With the formation broken, the house and courtyard, once warped by the demon’s interference, returned to their proper state.
Shen Qing sat before her dressing table, a stack of blank talismans in hand.
Tonight, she would lay a formation over the entire Shen estate, not just to ward off monsters, but to keep out one particular person.
Until she found the Glass Heart, she couldn’t allow Li Daoxuan any chance to get close.
Once he realized his jade pendant was missing, he would certainly come looking for it, and soon.
That would be the perfect time for him to discover that she was the true owner of the Glass Heart.
In her previous life, Shen Ling had been the one to pick up Li Daoxuan’s Twin Fish jade pendant. Enraged, he’d almost killed her on the spot. But at the last moment, he’d noticed the Glass Heart “accidentally” revealed beneath her collar… and left.
The next time they met, he’d already integrated himself into the main group. Whenever Shen Ling and Liu Jiyue went out to hunt demons, he had followed.
Shen Qing’s gaze drifted from the cinnabar to her index finger.
She’d only just applied medicine; the wound was freshly scabbed.
The cinnabar and wolf-hair brush were already set out before her.
She hesitated, should she draw with blood again, or use cinnabar?
“Blood talismans damage your health. Don’t do that again.”
“Yuan, Senior Brother hopes you’ll be happy.”
“So do your parents.”
Her mother’s worried face flashed before her eyes.
In the end, Shen Qing picked up the wolf-hair brush, dipped it into cinnabar, and began to draw.
By the time she finished arranging the formations, it was close to midnight. On top of the fifteen blood talismans she’d made earlier, her strength was badly drained. Drowsy and exhausted, she stumbled back to her bed and fell into a deep sleep.
After a night like this, it would probably take two or three days to recover.
East Ward, Youjian Restaurant.
Li Daoxuan had dragged the peacock demon along the entire route he’d taken earlier, searching inside and out multiple times. From the setting of the sun to the rise of the moon, he still hadn’t found his jade pendant.
In the end, he followed the trail back to Youjian.
“A-Man, maybe we should call it a night and look again tomorrow,” his companion suggested, holding up an oil lamp.
Li Daoxuan had been searching since afternoon. He hadn’t had a drop of water all day, and frustration only made his bad mood worse. His almost excessively beautiful face was now dark as a thundercloud. He said nothing, continuing to scan the ground.
He looked one step away from burning the world down if he didn’t find it.
The others who’d come demon-hunting had long since returned. Only Gu Yun, his closest friend, remained to help.
The youth was still dressed as he had been earlier, though his hair was slightly mussed, a few curly strands falling across his forehead, deepening the darkness of his eyes.
At last, Li Daoxuan stopped moving.
Gu Yun said, “We’ve combed this place three or four times. If you ask me, either it was destroyed in the fight, or someone picked it up.”
The words struck home. A pair of tearful eyes flashed through Li Daoxuan’s mind, soft, wounded, pitiful.
But was that really the truth?
“Shen Qing.” He rolled the name slowly on his tongue, as if tasting it would reveal something hidden.
Gu Yun blinked. “Why bring up the Duke of Han’s daughter all of a sudden?”
Li Daoxuan narrowed his eyes. A dangerous light flickered there, cold as a black snake sighting prey it intended to tear apart and swallow whole.
“Nothing,” he said. “You head back first.”
Gu Yun hesitated. “And you…?”
“I’m tired. I’ll stay here at the inn tonight.”
Remembering their sect’s rule that all disciples return by the hour of Zi, Gu Yun wavered, then nodded. “Fine. I’ll come find you tomorrow.”
He practically dropped the oil lamp and ran.
If he didn’t get back to the temple, his backside would be in tatters by morning.
Once everyone was gone, Li Daoxuan pushed open the window and sprinted along the rooftops in the direction of the Shen estate.
On patrol below, members of the city guard caught sight of a dark figure racing along the eaves. One of them startled. “Someone’s up there, ”
Before he could shout, his companion grabbed his arm. “What someone? You’re seeing things.”
“But I clearly saw, ”
“Look properly at what he’s wearing. And at his sword,” the other murmured.
He squinted. Li Daoxuan was already some distance away, a small black mark beneath the round moon.
His hair wasn’t bound with a coronet, but tied high in a ponytail with a red cord. He wore a round robe embroidered with golden branches and auspicious clouds, silver belt at his waist, silver bracers on his arms, black six-panel boots on his feet, and at his hip hung a dark sword adorned with red stone, his whole figure sharp, striking, moving with perfect ease.
In all of Chang’an, who but His Majesty’s most favored son would dare dress so conspicuously and dash across the rooftops in blatant defiance of curfew?
A chill went down the guard’s spine. Thank heaven he hadn’t tried to stop him. Offend a man like that, and his life wouldn’t be worth much.
Over the Shen estate, or rather, the Duke of Han’s residence, a transparent barrier shimmered faintly in the air. Not even a fly could slip through. Only the main gates allowed people to enter and exit openly; every other approach was blocked by the formation.
Li Daoxuan hovered in midair, staring at the barrier, murderous intent seething in his eyes. He swung his sword, sending a vicious arc of sword qi crashing toward it. The moment the energy struck, it vanished without a ripple, like a stone sinking into the sea.
He slashed several more times. The result was the same. The barrier didn’t so much as flicker.
At last, Li Daoxuan let out a cold, incredulous laugh. Through gritted teeth, he spat,
“Shen. Qing.”
Inside the estate, Shen Qing’s eyes flew open. She lurched to the side of her bed and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
When the fit passed, she wiped her lips with careless fingers, then glanced out through the lattice window at the barrier’s faint gleam. Her eyes curved in quiet satisfaction.