Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I did not sleep all night.

Only when a wash of rouge-pink brushed across the pale blue horizon did the sky brighten.

Just like that, dawn had come.

I lingered in the alley for a short while.

Out loud, I said I was worried my carelessness had made me leave something behind.

But in my heart, I was waiting for something else.

I stared at the end of the alley for a long time, but still, no one came looking for me.

By the time I stepped across the bluestone slabs and reached the wharf, the river was still blanketed in mist.

Not until the boat set off did the morning fog suddenly disperse.

Perhaps it was not only the morning, and not only the fog.

Standing at the bow, I heard the boatman say it would take several days by water to reach Lin’an.

I paid half the silver I had on me before I managed to get a ticket.

Not long after the boat pushed off, I heard children in the cabin singing:

“Everyone says Jiangnan is fair,

A traveler ought to grow old there.

Spring waters blue as the sky,

Painted boats where rain lulls one to sleep…

…”

I had heard this poem when I was little.

The last two lines were, “Do not return home before you are old; to return home is to break your heart.”

But that line was wrong.

It should clearly be, “When your heart breaks, you must return home.”

Still, why argue over the reason for going home?

In the end, it was only because I could no longer remain where I was.

A wind swept over the river, and the sails on the boat snapped and billowed.

“The waves are rather high. Miss, you look like someone from the capital, yet you don’t seem seasick at all?”

Seeing me standing motionless at the bow, the boatman grew somewhat curious.

I tucked back the strands of hair the wind had blown loose at my temples, my thoughts drifting far away.

“The waves I’ve faced were far greater than these.”

Back when Fu Yanli was still the unremarkable Fifth Prince, no one cared who followed at his side.

No one cared whether that person could read, or whether she knew martial arts.

Not until the pirates of the South Sea ran rampant and the court had no one capable to send.

Fu Yanli, who had just turned eighteen, petitioned His Majesty to let him go.

I had roamed mountains, forests, marketplaces, and back alleys since childhood. Though I could not read a single character, I understood many things.

A single falling leaf heralds autumn throughout the world.

The shifting light of the sun and moon, the rise and fall of the tides, the gathering and unfurling of clouds…

I boarded the ship with him.

I vomited until my mouth was bitter, yet I still spent whole nights sprawled at the bow, helping him read the wind and rain.

Fu Yanli trusted me.

He could only trust me.

Because every court official had a prince they supported, and none were willing to help him.

And Fu Yanli had only me.

“Miss, could you be from Lin’an?”

The boatman gave the rope a firm tug, and only after making sure it was tightly secured did he relax enough to chat with me.

I pressed my lips together and nodded, then shook my head. “Yes and no.”

After all, I had never been to Lin’an.

It was only that Grandfather used to speak every day of how wonderful Jiangnan was, saying that sooner or later, I would have to return to Lin’an.

The boatman folded his sleeves closer around himself. He paid no mind to my ambiguous answer and said with a smile, “Jiangnan nourishes people. Miss, if you stay in Lin’an for several months, those brows of yours won’t be able to stay furrowed anymore.”

Though he had only glanced at me briefly, he could tell I was unhappy.

But who would have known that I had once been the girl with the purest laughter in the outskirts of the capital?