Chapter 38

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“You wish to go to the Xipeng Grasslands to serve. Is it because you cannot bear my affection, or is there someone else you love?”

Lu Congruan’s expression was ashen as he stared at Li Zhi.

“…May the Young Master grant me his permission,” Li Zhi said as she bowed low to the ground.

“Good, good… Truly excellent!” Lu Congruan let out a laugh, but it was filled with bitterness. “I offer to marry you with an eight-carriage bridal procession, yet you refuse. Instead, you wish to follow a fallen royal with no name or status? You ask for my blessing, but what if I refuse to give it?”

“…If the Young Master will not permit me, then I shall have no choice but to seek the Commander’s permission,” Li Zhi replied calmly.

Li Zhi knew full well that if she appealed to Lu Han, the Commander would certainly let her go. Lu Congruan also understood this clearly.

His gaze, filled with disappointment and anguish, fell upon Li Zhi.

“Do you even know what kind of place the Xipeng Grasslands are? The sun and wind will scorch you, and it’s far removed from human habitation. If you go there, all you will know is suffering.”

“This servant does not fear hardship,” Li Zhi answered without hesitation.

“You would rather suffer there than stay and live a good life here?”

Even after Lu Congruan’s voice faded into the quiet air, there was no answer.

But her silence was an answer in itself.

“…Then prove your resolve to me,” Lu Congruan finally said. “Ten lashes—endure them, and I will let you go.”

Li Zhi looked up at him.

The muscles in Lu Congruan’s face were tightly clenched. His lips pressed into a pale line, and it seemed as though he was using all his strength just to keep his teeth from breaking. His expression bore the same fury and frustration as if she had personally wronged him.

“It’s settled then,” Li Zhi said.

Mounted on the wall of the study was Lu Congruan’s riding whip, always at hand due to his love for horse riding. He retrieved it, and turning back toward her, veins bulged on his forehead.

“…Please proceed,” Li Zhi said, lowering her head.

She saw the black leather boots stop a few steps in front of her. They didn’t move, nor did the whip. It seemed Lu Congruan was waging an internal battle with himself.

After a long while, the struggle ended.

“Crack!”

The first lash fell on her back, neither light nor heavy.

She almost forgot what this kind of pain felt like.

The whippings she had endured during the exile journey at the hands of Zheng Gong were far worse. Compared to that, this was only a fraction of the pain.

“…Do you still insist on leaving?” Lu Congruan asked.

Though he tried to sound composed, his voice trembled. It seemed as though it was not her but himself who was being whipped.

Li Zhi bowed deeply once more.

“May the Young Master grant his permission.”

Veins bulged on Lu Congruan’s forehead as his trembling hand swung down the whip for a second strike, then a third—

But the fourth lash never came.

Her back burned with searing pain, and beads of sweat—or perhaps blood—soaked through her clothes, clinging to her skin. She gritted her teeth, remaining silent.

The whip fell limply to his side.

“Go then,” Lu Congruan said, his face deathly pale, his voice hollow. “…Leave now, before I change my mind. Take your family with you and leave at once.”

Ignoring the pain coursing through her back, Li Zhi maintained her composure. She stood up steadily, bowed deeply to Lu Congruan, and without looking back, walked out of the door.

The whip slipped from his hand and landed on the ground with a soft thud, shattering the cold facade Lu Congruan had so desperately tried to maintain.

He had always been the center of attention in Mingyue Tower. Even the influential Moqi family showed him respect. But ever since Xie Lanxu arrived, his father’s attention had been entirely stolen away.

The first woman to move his heart hadn’t even spared him a glance.

In their eyes, there was only Xie Lanxu.

Always, only Xie Lanxu.

Overcome with grief and rage, Lu Congruan let out a furious roar, swinging the whip with all his strength to shatter a purple clay tea caddy on the table.

—

Li Zhi owned very little. She packed two or three changes of clothes, then took Jia Sui and the siblings Li Xiangsheng and Li Cien with her as they boarded an ox cart leaving the city.

She hadn’t originally planned to take them along. Life serving in the Duhu Mansion was far easier and more comfortable than the hard labor of caring for horses on the grasslands. But when the three of them heard she was leaving, they insisted on following her without a second thought.

“Didn’t Sister Li Zhi always say, as long as we stay together, good days will be ahead?” Li Cien said, choking back tears. “I don’t want to be separated from Sister Li Zhi!”

Li Cien’s words softened Li Zhi’s resolve. In the end, she couldn’t bear to leave them behind and brought all three with her.

As for all the rewards Lu Congruan had given her over the past days, she left every single one behind in the Fufeng Courtyard. She didn’t take anything with her.

Inside the swaying ox cart, Jia Sui held tightly onto her hand, tears brimming in her eyes as she stared at her.

The Li siblings were also full of worry.

Li Zhi gently patted Jia Sui’s hand and mustered a reassuring smile, trying to calm the three of them down despite the pain in her back.

Once they left the city, the presence of people gradually disappeared.

The Li siblings had never been to the Xipeng Grasslands. When they entered its vast expanse, they couldn’t hide their amazement, turning their heads to marvel at the endless sea of green.

Li Zhi felt her body grow feverish.

Sweat—or perhaps blood—clung to her clothes, sticking tightly to her burning back.

From Mingyue Tower to the Xipeng Grasslands, the journey took an hour by ox cart.

After disembarking, Li Zhi paid the cart driver. Jia Sui helped her walk, while the Li siblings followed closely behind. Together, the four of them approached the only building visible on the vast grasslands.

After walking about a dozen steps, a man wearing coarse cloth emerged from the stables, carrying a wooden bucket. When he spotted the four of them, he stopped in his tracks and shouted from afar to ask who they were.

Jia Sui handed Li Zhi over to Li Cien and quickly approached the man to explain their purpose, frequently glancing back at Li Zhi and the others.

By the time Li Zhi reached the man, Jia Sui had already finished explaining.

The man glanced at the group and set the bucket down.

“I’m the steward of the stables. My surname is Li. Come with me,” he said.

Steward Li led them to their lodgings—a simple courtyard with a bamboo fence dividing it into two sections.

“The men will stay on the left side, and the women on the right. There are still a few empty rooms—”

Before he could finish speaking, a familiar voice interrupted from behind them.

“They’ll stay with me.”

Li Zhi turned and met Xie Lanxu’s calm, steady gaze.

He was dressed in plain blue cloth, his long hair tied up with a simple strip of fabric. Apart from the relatively new material of his clothing, Xie Lanxu’s appearance was no different from that of the other laborers in the Duhu Mansion.

No different—and yet completely different.

He was like the singular moon in a night sky. Though surrounded by a sea of brilliant stars, he remained entirely apart, unlike anything else.

When Steward Li saw Xie Lanxu speak, he took the opportunity to avoid any further trouble. He led Li Zhi and her group to another adjacent courtyard. This courtyard was significantly better than the one meant for the laborers. There were patches of vegetables tended by two women dressed in plain cloth, and not far away, there was a well.

When the two women looked up, Li Zhi recognized them—they were Taozi and Xigua, the maids who used to serve in the Bamboo Courtyard.

Taozi and Xigua’s faces lit up in surprise upon seeing Li Zhi.

“These three rooms are yours to allocate as you see fit,” Xie Lanxu said. “Taozi, prepare them.”

Taozi immediately set down the water jug she was holding, picked up a rag, and entered one of the three rooms that Xie Lanxu had indicated.

Jia Sui, who still considered herself Li Zhi’s maid at heart, refused to let someone else clean a room for Li Zhi. She rushed in after Taozi to help with the cleaning.

Li Cien glanced at Xie Lanxu and then at Li Zhi, before pulling her still-dumbfounded brother along and hurriedly heading toward one of the vacant rooms.

As they reached the door, Li Cien stopped, turned back, and shouted toward Xie Lanxu, “Your Highness! Sister Li Zhi was whipped by Young Master Lu just to come here!”

Before Li Zhi could say anything, Li Cien tugged Li Xiangsheng along and darted into the room like a gust of wind.

This left only Li Zhi and Xie Lanxu, facing each other.

“Come,” Xie Lanxu said, turning and stepping into one of the rooms in the second courtyard.

Li Zhi followed behind him.

This time, there were no servants arranging his room, no elegant Bamboo Courtyard ambiance. The space was stark and desolate, void of decoration. The only furnishings—a table, a cabinet, and a bed—were freshly cleaned, still damp with water, and a moist rag lay draped over a chair. It was clear the cleaning had just been completed.

Xie Lanxu shut the door and bolted the latch, then retrieved a jar of ointment from a wooden cabinet in the corner.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“Your Highness, I can—”

“Do you not trust me?” Xie Lanxu asked, his tone calm as his gaze fell steadily upon her.

Li Zhi was struck speechless.

“Take off your clothes,” he repeated.

Even as he issued such an unequivocal command, his expression remained serene. He conveyed the air of someone understanding and gentle, a man who wouldn’t overthink things even if she refused.

But Li Zhi knew better. She knew that if she uttered a single word of rejection, the fragile trust she had painstakingly built with him would collapse instantly.

Turning her back to him, she took a deep breath.

Then, she reached for her collar.

The movement of her arms tugged at the wounds on her back, causing her to inhale sharply in pain. At that moment, a cold hand came to rest on hers.

That hand lingered on the back of her hand for a moment, silently signaling for her to stay still.

Standing behind her, Xie Lanxu raised his other hand. Both of his pale, icy hands gently worked to undo her collar, moving slowly down her shoulders.

Layer by layer, her clothing was peeled away.

As the inner garment separated, Li Zhi felt a sharp, tearing pain in her skin. Her back, previously lashed into a mess of blood and flesh by Zheng Gong and now marked by fresh scars from Lu Congruan’s whip, was laid bare before Xie Lanxu’s eyes.

To achieve her goals, she had sacrificed so much—far more than most could imagine. She had willingly discarded everything. But these sacrifices were known to almost no one. The scars etched onto her back were the only visible testament to what she had endured.

She had borne these hardships willingly, yet she refused to acknowledge her pain. She could not confront her vulnerability. Just as she always avoided looking at these whip marks when bathing, she chose to turn away from her suffering.

The scars hidden beneath her clothing were akin to the weaknesses she buried deep within her heart. When exposed, they stirred a profound sense of shame.

A hand, cool to the touch, rested gently on her burning back.

She clenched her teeth tightly, fighting the tremors running through her body.

This was the first time Xie Lanxu had ever seen the bare back of a woman. But instead of evoking the sensual imagery so often celebrated in poetry, Li Zhi’s back was a canvas that demanded silence.

Three fresh, red whip marks, swollen and oozing, stretched across the remnants of countless older scars. These older scars—mountainous and uneven—wove a narrative of the immense suffering she had endured.

The three new marks were merely surface wounds and perhaps not as painful as they looked. But the older scars, though healed, still carried the memory of pain.

Xie Lanxu’s mind drifted to that afternoon.

He vividly remembered it: the moment she knelt, gritting her teeth, enduring her punishment without uttering a single sound.

The world was full of noise—the murmurs of people, the cracks of the whip, the rustling wind, the shuffling footsteps—but amidst it all, she had made no sound.

Xie Lanxu had never known pain. He didn’t understand what pain was for others.

But he knew that for them, pain meant tears, anguish, trembling.

For Li Zhi, pain meant silence.

“Do you not feel pain?” he asked, his tone full of pure curiosity, free of any teasing or ambiguity.

Li Zhi didn’t answer, but he already knew. He simply found it hard to believe.

Since birth, she was the only person who had ever left him bewildered.

Xie Lanxu opened the ointment jar and scooped out a dollop of cream with his fingers. As he applied it to her wounds, his fingers grazed the open scars, making her involuntarily flinch.

Though he lacked the ability to feel pain himself, he seemed to sense her discomfort. After a moment’s pause, his touch grew noticeably gentler.

“You don’t need to go easy on me, Your Highness,” Li Zhi said, suppressing the pain.

“Go easy on you?”

Li Zhi hesitated, then replied, “I know my back is unsightly. I fear it offends your eyes.”

Xie Lanxu’s hand stopped moving.

His gaze traveled over the scars on her back, inch by inch. Her back was so frail and narrow, her shoulders so delicate—it was almost unimaginable that such a slender figure could bear the weight of so much suffering.

In his own way, he admired her.

He was silent because he felt nothing.

She was silent because she swallowed her pain with a smile.

“What is beauty, and what is ugliness?” Xie Lanxu said at last, his eyes fixed on the crisscrossing scars on her back.

“All I know is this; you and I are the same.”