A few more days slipped by like sand through fingers.

Since letting Qiange slip away and rolling out new policies, the assassination’s shock thinned like dawn fog; the people’s resistance ebbed to a faint ripple.

Inside the palace, in a tucked-away alchemy room quiet as a hidden pond.

Lingcai hummed while she stirred the cauldron with a wooden spoon, steam curling like pale serpents.

“You want a world too perfect, ♪ and the self you imagine owes no one a thing. ♪”

Her biggest gain these days was getting her Alchemist license back; her mood felt like clear spring sky. She either wandered bright markets for materials or holed up to try fresh experiments.

“Answer today’s rights and wrongs, ♪ and brace for tomorrow’s winds and rains. ♪”

As she sang and stirred, her heart light as willow leaves, a shadow came to sour it.

It was Xueyu, Princess Korol’s personal guard.

Today Xueyu wore a simple short robe instead of her usual composite leather with a heart-guard; beneath, black fitted pants to the knee hugged hips and thighs like taut bowstrings.

She skipped pleasantries, lifted an envelope, and cut straight to the point like a blade to fruit.

“There’s a letter for you. Your folks back home replied.”

“Eh? A reply? I didn’t send a letter…”

Xueyu thought, there goes Lingcai being forgetful as a lord again; she kept patient and explained.

“Princess Korol sent a letter for you earlier—said you’re working in the palace—and enclosed money. This is the reply. Take a look.”

“Oh… oh.”

A hazy memory lifted like mist; she set the spoon down and took the envelope.

The wax seal was unmistakably Scarlet Leaf’s family crest. Knowing her stride, once she heard Lingcai was in the palace, she’d race to the capital like hooves drumming.

Please let that not happen, she prayed to a cold moon.

In this state, she felt like a wilted flower; she couldn’t face her fiancée.

As Lingcai cracked the wax and angled the envelope open, Xueyu drifted in behind her, silent as a cat.

“…What are you doing?” A prickle rose; she folded the letter tight in her palm.

“Everything brought into the palace, I’m obliged to check.”

Xueyu folded her arms, planted herself beside her, and watched the envelope like a hawk.

Exasperation washed over Lingcai. “It’s a family letter… what could you possibly need to inspect?”

“Without rules, nothing holds its shape. It’s procedure. Not pre-opening it is already me being kind.”

She was set in iron to watch Lingcai open it.

“Do I have to thank you for that?” Lingcai threw her a glare but had no choice; she peeled the letter open under those eyes, skin crawling like ants.

Please don’t let Scarlet Leaf write anything syrupy, she begged; or Xueyu would laugh her to death, bees drowning in honey.

Lingcai still tried to shield the sheet; Xueyu reached out and smoothed the folds flat, laying the contents bare like a pond under wind.

The letter said:

“To A-Cai:”

“Oh my, that palace post of yours isn’t the sort you should be doing.”

—Scarlet Leaf, Senluo Year Three, Seventh Month, Day Thirty

“…That’s it?”

Lingcai stared, dumbstruck; a thick envelope, yet only two lines—an empty shell.

Xueyu glanced, then snatched the sheet, scanning the edges like a smith checking a blade, finding nothing odd.

“Your fiancée sent all that just to mock you with one sentence?”

The corner of her mouth twitched; she was stifling a laugh. No question.

Honestly, even Lingcai felt lost.

“I… I don’t know. Is she mad at me?”

Since the alchemy accident, she hadn’t gone home for years; dust piled on days. After so long, the first letter wasn’t even in her own hand. Scarlet Leaf had every right to be angry.

Suddenly Xueyu tapped her head like spotting frost. “Don’t move. Did your hair color change?”

Panic fluttered; Lingcai smoothed her wavy gold hair, coiled strands in her palm, turned them over. No change.

“No color change. Where is it different?”

As she asked, face clouded, Xueyu finally showed the expression she’d been saving, fox tail flicking.

“Me? I see your head’s a little green.”

Lingcai’s face flipped; she sprang, jaws bared to bite her.

“Your head is green! You’re the one wearing the green hat! Scarlet Leaf isn’t that kind of person!”

What a vicious tongue.

Xueyu slid aside, then lifted Lingcai by the collar like a kitten, letting her flail midair.

When she stopped thrashing, Xueyu drew her close, face to face.

“Think about how long you haven’t contacted her. In that time, forget changing her heart—she could’ve remarried, with a kid old enough to run errands. You can’t vanish without a word and make her live like a widow.”

Truth stung like winter air; Lingcai drooped, head lowered, a soft sob like drizzle.

Seeing that, Xueyu felt she’d gone too far and softened to comfort.

“Alright, alright, just a joke. Don’t stew. In two days, once the regency handover’s done, I’ve got to escort Princess Korol to exile. You, if you want to go home, hurry.”

Even as she spoke, resentment smoldered like embers under ash. To her, Princess Korol had given Ariex the most, yet ended up exiled.

The Elven King not only made no move to keep her, he didn’t even give a peep.

The Princess Manor’s officials gathered and scattered like flocks.

Once the person leaves, the tea goes cold; bleak or not, that’s the way.

With a weight in her chest and footsteps like falling leaves, Xueyu walked out of the alchemy room.

After she left, Lingcai’s eyes spun like quick minnows; she scooped the letter up.

Oddness hides a ghost; eight times out of ten, a trick sits in paper.

Among alchemical tools there’s a red reagent. In glass it’s crimson; on paper it dries clear, and reveals only under flame.

Scarlet Leaf is the fiancée of a well-known Alchemist; of course she’d use such cunning.

Lingcai held the sheet over the fire, passing it through the heat with feather-light care.

On the back, red script bloomed, vivid as dripping blood, coaxed alive by the blaze.

“On the fifteenth of the eighth month, I’ll come see you. Alive, I meet you; dead, I see the body.”

—Scarlet Leaf, steadfast to the grave