Not long after, a figure appeared in the doorway and walked in. Slender, well-made, moving with the unconscious ease of someone who had never needed to try. He still wore purple today—the sleeves embroidered with silver waves so fine they barely showed, lifting faintly with each step. He walked through the light falling across the floor and stopped.
Madam glanced at him. "Deputy Minister Song. Do you understand what you're doing?"
He stood in the hall and looked through the room—a single instant where his gaze found me—then pulled it back. He looked straight ahead. He smiled, quietly. "I understand perfectly."
The tears were there before I felt them coming. Through the blur, I watched the man who had told me just yesterday that there was no one else—drop to his knees before Madam Qin and bow, low, with the formality of a formal declaration.
He said: I know exactly what I am doing.
He said: Miss Qin of the Qin family is gentle, virtuous, and worthy to be my wife.
He said: I am Song Yinmo, and I come to ask for the hand of Miss Qin Wan Yan, in proper ceremony and good faith, in the hope that our two families may be joined. I ask for your blessing.
The tears cleared as fast as they had come, then gathered again and spilled. I pressed them back, swallowed them back, and looked at the purple-robed figure without expression.
Madam's mouth tightened—she was drawing breath—when another shape appeared in the doorway. White, tall, unhurried. The robe shone pale and immaculate. The face was something people painted in pictures and fell short of. And every line of it was rigid with cold.
Song Yinmo heard him coming, felt it somehow, and rose and turned.
The Prince gave him one sharp, cold smile. Then he stepped forward, caught Song Yinmo by the collar, and hit him. Once, and again, and again—each blow carrying the weight of something long compressed, something that had waited too many years for an opening, and would wait no longer.
Miss Wan Yan cried out and moved to intervene. Madam caught her arm. Madam's face was calm. She looked away, toward the wall. "Let him," she said quietly. "Your brother has been holding that back for a long time."
Song Yinmo didn't raise his hands. He stood there and took it. A red line ran from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. He had never looked more wretched. He didn't move to defend himself once.
When the Prince stopped, he shook out his hand and drew a silk cloth from his robes. He wiped his hands carefully, deliberately, and then let the cloth fall to the floor as though he no longer wanted it near him.
He let out a short, cold laugh. "Song Yinmo." His voice had ice in it—the kind of cold that drops into the bones and stays. "Do you think this is the first time you have failed her?"
Song Yinmo's body stiffened—barely, just a tremor—then went still. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he pressed his sleeve to the blood at his mouth. His face held nothing.
The Prince's gaze concealed nothing—the killing intent sat there openly. "You knew who she was," he said. "You knew she cared for you. Once wasn't enough? You needed to do it again?"
I moved. I crossed the room before I'd consciously decided to, reached down, and took Song Yinmo's arm and helped him to his feet. When my hand touched his, his entire body went rigid for a second. Once he was standing, I let go. I turned to face him and bowed, steadying my face with everything I had. Then I quoted the old verse at him, low and even: "Today, we drink to farewell. Tomorrow, our roads divide like east-flowing and west-flowing water—never to meet again. I wish you, Deputy Minister, a swift and fortunate rise. May you find what you seek."
I bowed to the Prince as well, and turned to leave. His hand closed around my sleeve before I had taken a step.
Light was coming in from the far end of the hall, but it was not as bright as he was. He was looking at me—eyes like clear still water, edged with autumn cold. Beautiful in a way that only existed in paintings.
I tried to speak. He let go of my sleeve first. He looked down, shuttered whatever was moving behind his eyes, and said, quietly: "I have lied to you twice. Once, when you asked if you had ever heard me play the qin. I told you no. That was not true. The second—I'll tell you when you come back."
He was afraid I wouldn't come back. I heard it underneath the words. I smiled at him and said I would.
The line in his shoulders eased, just a little. "Go," he said.
I turned and walked. The moment my back was to the room, the tears came.
I had barely made it a few steps when he called after me. I stopped—I couldn't face him; my face was a ruin—and from somewhere behind me his voice came, low and steady: I will wait for you.
The tears blurred everything. I blinked them away, more came. I made myself nod, jabbing them away with my sleeve, and walked out. Fast. Not quite running. My hands were shaking.
A thought began to take shape in my mind, still indistinct but insistent, almost louder than the grief. It kept pressing forward, demanding proof, and I found I was desperate to know whether it was true.
* * *
Weirui Pavilion was empty when I arrived—not a single servant in sight. I pushed Madam's door open without difficulty and stepped inside. My eyes moved across the room, then went straight to the dressing table. I took hold of the cold bronze handles and drew open the lowest cabinet drawer. Five scroll-cases lay quietly inside.
I identified the outermost one: the painting I had placed there myself. I reached past it and took out the roll at the very back. It was tied with a simple knot. It took me far too long to undo it.
The scroll unrolled slowly before me, and as the figure inside came clear, I understood at last. The young man from the dream—the one who had held a plum branch like a sword, all composure and spirit—finally had a face.
My eyelashes trembled. A tear fell, spreading into the white of the painted robe.
He was extraordinary to look at. Eyes like still, clear water; brows like faint strokes of mountain shadow. Where those brows and eyes curved together, all the brightness of the world seemed to gather. He wore white, and there was a sliver of sovereign calm in his expression—the kind that makes the world's glamour, all of it, feel small by comparison.
I pressed my lips together, smiling even as another tear fell. This is the boy from my dreams. If it isn't him, then no one is.
There was one more place I needed to go. I curbed the trembling in my hands, rolled the painting carefully, and returned it to the cabinet. Then I went back to my room, counted out a bundle of banknotes from the box at my pillow, and tucked the Jiézhi token—which I had not found use for since Biqingquan Palace—into my front pocket.
By the time I reached Tianxiang Tower, it was nearly noon. The restaurant hummed. Attendants moved through the floor in careful patterns—guiding guests, carrying dishes, each one knowing their task precisely.
An attendant came over as soon as I stepped in. "Where would you like to sit, miss?"
I raised my eyes to the private room at the far end of the second floor, the one with the closed door. The attendant saw where I was looking and looked uneasy. Before he could speak, I drew the Jiézhi token from my pocket and held it out. "Even with this?"
He blinked. Then he straightened, bowing and gesturing me forward. "Of course! Please, this way!"
I followed him upstairs. When he moved to open the door for me, I stopped him and went forward myself. I stood outside the door for a moment, then pressed my palm flat against the carved surface. The red wood was carved with an interlocking pattern of ten thousand flowers. Identical to the door in the dream.
I exhaled slowly. Pushed it open.
Windows half-open. Light drifted in from outside and hung in pale bands. Beneath the window, a desk of purple elm, its ends curved upward—exactly as I remembered it. The carved sandalwood screen in the corner: not a detail changed.
I went inside, step by step. Each step brought something back—a flash, a fragment. Here, I drank with him across a table. Here, I sat and watched him when I thought he wasn't looking. That's the screen I hid behind. These are the tiles I walked across. This was not a dream. I had been here. I had truly met someone in this place—someone as clear and weightless as a streak of light through water.
He had been impossible to embarrass, absolutely shameless, and then he could turn in an instant and look innocently beautiful. He had stood right here. Those eyes—the kind that caught everything—curving just slightly, bright enough to blur the light behind him.
The attendant settled me and said, "This room may be closed to regular guests, but the proprietor has standing orders to keep it swept. It's spotless, as you see."
I looked up, pulled back from my thoughts. My grip tightened around the token. "Your proprietor—is his surname Qin?"
The attendant nodded. "Since you have the token, you must be someone our proprietor holds in high regard. We'd never dare be less than attentive. What shall I bring you to eat? To drink?"
"Wine," I said. "The strongest you have."
He took one look at my expression and asked nothing. He left and came back with a wine jar and a few small dishes.
As he was laying out the chopsticks, he paused. "Yesterday, you were here with a gentleman in purple," he said, a little hesitant. "Will he be joining you later?"
My hand stilled on the jar. I set it down. Set my face. "Just me," I said, gently, as though it were nothing of consequence. "From now on. He won't be coming."
The attendant darted a quick look at me, realized he had misspoken, and retreated as quietly as he could manage.
Hope you enjoyed today's chapter! ❤️
Can't wait to see how if the Prince will ever return, and what answers she will find now that she's along? You don't have to wait for tomorrow! The FULL, 100% completed translation is already waiting for you in my VIP Library.
📚 Unlock the complete book here:
patreon[.]com/SleeplessTranslations
(Remove the brackets to visit!)