Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The opera performance ended early that evening, but since the Dowager Empress and my mother-in-law rarely had the chance to meet, the rest of the party tactfully dispersed.

I returned to my room and flipped through a book for a while before deciding to retire for the night. I was just removing the silk flowers from my hair at the dressing table when I heard Chunxiang’s voice outside. “General, the Madam has already retired.”

“General, please wait a moment,” I called out. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I picked up some rouge, scraped off a small piece with my nail, dissolved it in water, and applied it to my cheeks. I tilted my head, checking repeatedly to ensure nothing looked amiss. Standing up, I grabbed a wine goblet from the table, dabbed a bit of liquor onto my clothes, took a sip, swished it around my mouth, and spat it into the washbasin.

I pulled open the door. Rong Zhan stood there dressed in black, looking like a figure straight out of the *Classic of Poetry*: “I have seen my lord, who comes on his four black-maned bays. His four black-maned bays are there, their six reins all glossy.”

I had known he was handsome from the very first day.

I leaned against the doorframe. “General.” He looked startled, his eyes fixed intently on me, which actually caused my face to flush with heat.

Snow-white robes, cheeks like the sunset glow, and hair as black as ebony. For no apparent reason, Rong Zhan recalled a line: “A man takes a new bride; when she arrives, she should be poised and dignified, yet her gaze should be misty and her movements alluring.” He finally understood that his youthful studies of the *Lüshi Chunqiu* had served only to provide him with the words to describe a woman’s charm on a day like today.

He took my hand. “Your body is weak right now; drinking will harm your health.” Closing the door, he pulled my collar tight. “The night is chilly.”

I feigned unsteadiness. “My literary inspiration has run dry and words fail my pen, so I could only drink to ‘give voice to new sorrows where none exist.’ I’ve made a fool of myself before you.”

Rong Zhan led me to the daybed. I suddenly leaned close to him; he closed his eyes, thinking I wanted to be intimate, and his arm naturally circled my waist. After a long moment, seeing that I made no further move, he opened his eyes and stroked my chin with one hand. “What is it?”

I smiled. “The General is very handsome.” It was forty percent playful affectation and sixty percent sincere truth.

He raised an eyebrow. “You truly are drunk.” The candle-wax ran down like tears, and the single lamp flickered like a bean. He stood up to snuff it out, plunging the entire room into darkness. Beneath the layers of brocade quilts, red waves tossed; a single red candle cast a trailing glimmer. His sweat dripped onto my shoulders and neck, shattering upon impact, as scorching as molten gold. I felt like a bamboo raft in a torrential rain, rising and falling with him.

When it was over, his voice was husky. “I am not as fickle as Emperor Wu of Han. I have been thoughtless in many matters, and I have truly made things difficult for you.”

I didn’t respond, only stroking his back. The contours of his spine were well-defined, and there was an old scar on his shoulder that felt like a crawling centipede.

“Zhuo Hua, I will treat you well,” he said. “Ruzhuo and I…”

I didn’t particularly want to hear the story of him and Liu Ruzhuo, but he seemed to have found the inclination and insisted on telling me-though to me, this story was far less interesting than the pulp novels about romantic scholars and courtesans.

“The first time I saw her, she had just turned sixteen. She saved my life.”

There was no snow during the midwinter in the borderlands, only a bleak and piercing rain.

It was the most wretched and desolate moment of Rong Zhan’s life; he had been without food or water for two days. He had pursued the rebel army alone, and though he had decapitated the enemy general, an arrow had pierced his shoulder. Old blood had scabbed over, gluing his robes to his flesh, while fresh blood continued to seep out. Unable to hold on, he fell from his horse and rolled into the mountain woods, gashing his head. His vision was veiled by a shimmering red haze. His consciousness grew increasingly heavy until the pain in his body began to fade.

“Soldier-” a girl’s crisp voice called out. She seemed to be trying to help him up, but he was powerless and burning with fever. During the struggle, the girl accidentally snapped the cord of the jade pendant he wore close to his body.

In his final moment of consciousness, Rong Zhan saw the cord lying in the mud, broken in two. He thought that his life would likely end here as well, and then he fell into total chaos.

When Rong Zhan woke again, everything before his eyes was a blur.

He heard a girl’s voice. “Soldier, you’ve been asleep for two days. You’re finally awake.” Her movements were as agile as a young deer’s as she pressed a hand down on Rong Zhan, who was trying to force himself up. “Don’t push yourself, little wounded soldier. Just lie still and rest.”

She called out happily toward the door, “Grandmother, he’s awake!”

“Who are you? Where is this?” Rong Zhan stared into the void before him.

Ignoring his questions, the girl asked urgently, “Soldier, don’t be afraid. My name is Liu Ruzhuo. I happened upon you the day before yesterday when you were heavily injured and unconscious, so I brought you home to treat you. The doctor said your injuries are severe, and because you hit your head, your eyes won’t be able to see clearly for a while. My maternal grandmother is in the courtyard brewing medicine for you.”

Liu Ruzhuo?

*An elegant lord, as if cut and filed, as if carved and polished.*

A good name.

She sat by the bedside without any sense of reservation. Suddenly, Rong Zhan caught the scent of green grass and medicinal herbs clinging to her. Through the misty haze before his eyes, he glimpsed the bright sun pouring through the window onto her hempen clothes, coating her in a layer of radiance.

He had hovered on the edge of life and death many times, yet at this moment, his heart stirred for her holiness and vibrancy.

An old woman entered. From her blurred silhouette, Rong Zhan could tell she was hunched and stooped, yet still quite hardy. From their conversation, he learned she was Liu Ruzhuo’s maternal grandmother. Her children had died young, and though she lived a solitary, meager life, she had managed to raise both her granddaughters, Liu Ruzhuo and Lin Ruixiang. However, Lin Ruixiang was physically frail, born with a heart condition. Because Ruzhuo had accidentally snapped the tassel of Rong Zhan’s jade pendant that day, she had taken advantage of Ruixiang going to the town’s medical clinic for treatment to ask her to take the tassel along and have a new one fashioned to match.

Rong Zhan had offered the jade pendant as a reward several times, but Liu Ruzhuo had consistently refused. By the time his lieutenant arrived with a company of men, Rong Zhan left in such a hurry that she was left clutching the jade, unable to catch up to his galloping horse.

When he saw Ruzhuo again, it was just after a victory against the rebels. Rong Zhan was in full military regalia, high-spirited and triumphant. Just as he was about to return to his command tent, he heard a commotion from the soldiers at the camp gates and frowned-he was a strict disciplinarian who wouldn’t tolerate a grain of sand in his eye.

From a distance, he heard a voice shout, “This is a restricted military zone! How can a woman enter?”

A petite figure stood there, holding up a small sachet. “I’m here to find Rong Zhan. I have something to return to him.”

A soldier was about to berate her for calling the General by his name when Rong Zhan barked, “Stand down. Let her in.”

Inside that sachet was a tassel.

“Rong Zhan, the new tassel is finished. I’ve come to return it to you.”

Rong Zhan was both exasperated and amused. “Miss Ruzhuo, since I gave the jade pendant to you, what is the point of returning just the tassel?”

The girl’s eyes sparkled. “What you gave me is mine. You only said you were giving me the jade pendant; you never said you were giving me the tassel too.”

Rong Zhan chuckled. Since she had traveled a long distance, he let her stay in his main tent while he moved to another. It was meant to be for only one day, but unexpectedly, wounded soldiers began pouring in the next morning. Liu Ruzhuo requested to stay and care for them. Rong Zhan tried to refuse repeatedly to no avail, and since he was truly short-handed, he eventually gave his tacit consent.

She proved to be incredibly resilient. Initially, she was a bit squeamish around blood, her hands trembling at the sight of gruesome wounds, but within a few days, she adapted and threw herself heart and soul into the medical work. The army physician took her on as a female disciple, the wounded soldiers thanked her for her help, the lieutenant praised her competence, and even the warhorses didn’t reject the fodder she fed them.

Seeing her earnest expression, Rong Zhan felt a stir in his heart. She was nothing like the noble ladies he had seen in the capital, who were like meticulously pruned and maintained potted plants-appearing different at first glance, but all following the same rigid rules.

Liu Ruzhuo was like a Castanopsis tree common in Lingnan, capable of growing in poor soil through bitter cold or scorching heat, providing shade and acting as a windbreak and firebreak for others.

But one truly shouldn’t try to drown one’s sorrows in wine.

On the day the rebels proposed a truce, a victory banquet was prepared early in the camp. He got hopelessly drunk and completely forgot she was staying in his tent, stumbling straight to the bed and collapsing. Startled to find her there, he tried to get up, but in her panic, she lightly tugged at his sleeve.

Rong Zhan was already married; he was not ignorant of the ways of the world.

Liu Ruzhuo loved him; he knew it.

His last shred of reason was diluted by the affection brimming in her eyes. Though she was uneducated and couldn’t speak in flowery prose, she said one thing: “Rong Zhan, I don’t think of you as a general, and I won’t call you one. In my heart, you will always be the Rong Zhan from that day-the one who was very vulnerable.”

In his twenty-odd years of life, it was likely the first time someone recognized that he could be vulnerable, the first time someone didn’t treat him as a scion of a high-ranking family, and the first time a woman stood before him without any affectation.

Outside, the north wind howled; inside, it was a night of spring passion.

Later, the rebels broke the truce and attacked the city only three days after the negotiations. Rong Zhan fought them four more times, with reports of victory streaming in. By the time he led his army back to the capital in total triumph, Liu Ruzhuo was six months pregnant.

Hardly a compelling story.

In the darkness, I stared at the blackness of the bed canopy, pretending to be fast asleep and offering no further response.

The next morning, I called for Chunxiang. She was carrying a pot of lilies into the room, their fragrance filling the air. I picked up a stalk, fiddling with it idly, before suddenly snapping it with my fingernail, severing the bud from the stem.

“First, find a reliable contact to investigate the backgrounds of the maids and servants in Liu Ruzhuo’s quarters. Find out who their family members are and if they have any difficulties. Second, have my second brother immediately send people to the border to handle a matter for me.”

I had calculated this beforehand. It wasn’t appropriate to ask my father for help; if something went wrong, it might backfire. My eldest brother, Zhuo Cheng, was far away in the Western Regions, beyond my reach. However, after the Lingnan Jiedushi Meng Yin staged a failed rebellion, the Emperor had appointed my second brother, Zhuo Ren, as the Administrative Supervisor of Lingnan to ensure the new officials performed their duties faithfully. He was only three or four days’ journey from the border of Lincang Prefecture; he was the perfect person to help me with this.

The snapped lily fell to the ground, a shade of purest white.