In the end, Lingcai still couldn’t find the pendant she’d lost, as if a stone had slipped into deep water without a ripple.

She couldn’t wave it off as carelessness, not when it was the Great Sage’s apprentice gift, a seal pressed in gold like dawn’s first light on a shrine.

If word got out, a hot iron of disgrace would brand her as a faithless disciple, smoke smudging her lineage like soot on silk.

Set that aside for now, like a letter tucked under a paperweight while the wind rattles the eaves.

About the cannons: with Scarlet Leaf’s intel, Kelor dug up new proof, like a spade biting soil, and pinned the faulty arsenal on the map like a red pin.

Next came sending a special envoy with a squad, to slip in before the other side braced its gates, and draw the net tight on the mole like a sweep at low tide.

But none of that touched Lingcai anymore, those clouds drifting past her balcony like slow herons.

Only at moments like these did she feel the quiet joy of being a commoner in peacetime, sun pooling on a field after rain.

On the other hand, Princess Sia and Kelor had finished their handover, and Princess Sia had taken the regent’s seat, a crown set like frost on a pine.

It sounded minor, yet to the court ministers it was like the constellations had been rearranged overnight, stars shuffled by an unseen hand.

Rumors leaped without legs, wildfire in the alleys, whispering that Princess Sia clawed upward by any means, smoke coiling under every lintel.

“But that’s none of my damn business,” she said, a flat pebble skimming a pond.

While public opinion crashed like surf and gossip fluttered like sparrows, Lingcai sat at the eye of the storm, watching traffic ebb and flow like a slow river.

Say what you will, Princess Sia was generous, as open-handed as a river spilling light, and that alone kept Lingcai’s tongue sheathed like a blade in lacquer.

Thinking that, she weighed the two gold ingots in her pocket, heavy as warm stones dredged from a sunlit stream.

After taking Princess Sia’s money, Lingcai slipped away with Scarlet Leaf, like two swallows leaving the imperial eaves.

Back to the inn, pack the bundles, and go home, like rolling up a map at dusk.

Traveling light felt great, like a kite cut free to ride a clean wind.

After she slung the daily necessities on her shoulder, Scarlet Leaf tugged Lingcai’s sleeve and held out her other hand like a cat asking for fish.

“Let me hold it for a while,” she said, eyes bright as lanterns.

“What?” Lingcai blinked, puzzled, like a deer in morning fog.

“The gold, what else? I’ve never seen gold this big,” Scarlet Leaf breathed, pupils shining like polished onyx.

Before she even finished, Scarlet Leaf darted in and grabbed, quick as a magpie snatching, and the two ingots were wrested from Lingcai’s pocket like sweets from a child.

Watching that money-drunk look, Lingcai stood, patted dust from her skirt like ash off silk, and sighed, a little bell in the wind.

“You’re basically a bandit,” she muttered, voice ringing like a wind chime. “I never said I wouldn’t share; why the ambush?”

Scarlet Leaf pouted, a small cloud shading the sun, and planted her claim like a flag.

“Bandit, my foot. I’m your wife; what’s yours is mine, and mine is mine, so why can’t I take it?”

She stared at the glossy ingots, two new moons in her palms, and couldn’t bear to bite them like usual; she only turned them like treasures in a lacquer box.

Lingcai slid closer and leaned on her shoulder like a cat against a warm stove, but Scarlet Leaf’s gaze stuck to the gold like lacquer, and she ignored her.

“Come on, it’s not like you’ve never seen gold in the smithy,” Lingcai groused, her tone flicking like a fan. “Do you have to fuss like this?”

Scarlet Leaf leaned her weight back into Lingcai like a fitted lid, tapped the two ingots together, listened to their chime like winter bells, and spoke.

“That’s different. Those weapon-gilding clients are tight as clenched fists, hovering like flies to guard each grain of gold dust, accusing me of cheating with every breath.”

“Two whole ingots like these? Back home, money couldn’t buy them, like sun loaves hidden from the market.”

“If you ask me, don’t exchange them. Save them for a set of jewelry, like a dowry kept in cedar.”

Lingcai understood, the net tightening like twine: after all those circles, Scarlet Leaf wanted to keep them for herself.

She leaned in and poked Scarlet Leaf’s ribs, a sparrow pecking bark, words tossed like pebbles.

“Keep them for a jewelry set, and they’re all yours. You don’t plan to leave me any, huh?”

“So what if it’s a set?” Scarlet Leaf said, laying the offer like a red ribbon. “It’s not only me who can wear it; you can wear it too.”

She gathered Lingcai into her arms, that doll-small body curling on her knees like a kitten, and kept pouting like a cherry lip.

“Besides, I’m the one who earned the credit, beating the drum on this job; why shouldn’t I decide?”

“Fine, fine, take all the logic,” Lingcai sighed, hands up like surrendering banners. “Do as you please.”

She sank into Scarlet Leaf’s embrace, a leaf sliding into a warm pool, breath settling like dusk.

Scarlet Leaf still wasn’t satisfied; her arms tightened like vines curling into a trellis.

“Then you’re mine too,” she murmured, the seal stamping wax. “You have to let me handle you.”

Syrupy, the sweetness clung like molasses.

Lingcai’s face flushed, steam in a kettle, and she hid behind her golden hair like wheat veiling a secret.

“I mean… okay,” she whispered, drawing a line like chalk. “But don’t go too far.”

“For example?” The question skipped like a pebble across water.

“For example what?” The echo rippled like a ring in a pond.

“What kind of move counts as too far, in your book?” Her words prowled like a cat at the threshold.

Mischief rose on Scarlet Leaf’s face, sly as a fox peeking through bamboo.

Lingcai felt her cheeks burn like a steam boiler, heat humming like gears, and she stammered, tongue a tied ribbon.

“Th-the kind you can’t describe,” she said, the red line stamped like a censor’s seal.

“What can’t you describe? I don’t get it,” Scarlet Leaf pressed, smiling-eyed, a cat cornering a mouse before the first drop of rain.

“I-I mean the kind that gets a warning if written in a novel, a red notice slapped up like a poster, then taken down in three days if you don’t edit.”

“…Huh? What’s that?” Her head tilted like a curious sparrow.

She didn’t get the rest, but she decided the teasing could end here, and she loosened the net like an undone knot.

“Then let’s stay in the capital a few days,” she said, laying plans like a clean map. “Visit the cathedral, listen to bells like doves.”

“When Bishop White Cloud arrives in two days, we’ll marry on the spot, then head home like a cart rolling downhill.”

Lingcai had no objection, the decision sealing like warm wax on a letter.

“Alright. Since that’s decided, let’s look around the capital,” she said, a stroll drifting like wind through willows.

Besides Princess Sia’s two gold ingots, Lingcai had four hundred silver notes that Kelor had Xueyu send, coins shining like fish in a pond.

With Scarlet Leaf’s cash too, it was enough to throw a wedding in the capital, lanterns blooming like stars.

“The problem is the outfits,” Lingcai said, the thought pricking like a thorn. “With my current body, I can’t wear a proper wedding dress.”

Scarlet Leaf realized it too, chin in hand like a thinker’s statue. “Hmm… gowns must come in smaller sizes, snow-white like first frost.”

“You just need a matching white dress,” she added, threading beads of thought like a rosary.

Stop. What nonsense, the brakes squealed like iron on rail.

Lingcai snapped her train of thought shut like a fan clicked closed. “Excuse me? You mean I’m the one in the gown? Does that sound right?”

“Why not?” Scarlet Leaf mussed her golden hair, silk sliding through fingers, and tickled her neck like a feather.

“Look how cute. Pretty face, slim figure, a little prickly-soft,” she teased, eyes bright as stars. “Who wouldn’t want to marry you? Blind as midnight if they don’t.”

The drift felt off, and Lingcai cut in again, steering from a reef like a wary helmsman.

“Hold it. How did it become me marrying you? Obviously I’m the one who—”

“Which of us marries or gets married, it’s the same,” Scarlet Leaf said, unbothered as a lake in shade, and hugged her, arms closing like a circle.

“You already said you’re mine to handle; this request is hardly too much, a snare laid fair and square.”

When Scarlet Leaf pouted, Lingcai’s defenses fell like gates opening to a smile.

In a lover’s eyes, even a tantrum looks like spring flowers, petals drifting sweet as tea.

So Lingcai played along, a willow bending to the breeze, and yielded with a soft laugh.

“Alright, alright… have it your way,” she murmured, words falling like petals on a quiet path.