Zhou Zhiruo’s embarrassment was acute. ‘What on earth is he thinking at a time like this?’ But when she looked up and saw Song Qingshu’s expression was entirely serious, she realised she had misread him, and however puzzled she was, she did as she was told and got into bed.
Outside, the knocking was growing more urgent — they could force the door at any moment. Song Qingshu still needed time to finish taking the impression of the young lord’s face. He glanced at Zhou Zhiruo lying on the bed, her cheeks pink with mortification, and made a quick decision. “Call out,” he said. “Now.”
“Call out how?” Zhou Zhiruo asked blankly.
“How do you think?” Song Qingshu didn’t know whether to laugh or despair. “M0an.”
“What?” Zhou Zhiruo’s face went the colour of rouge. She shot him a look that could have meant fury or shame or both.
“Just keep them out there — I need time.” He saw her expression and realised she’d taken it the wrong way. He added hastily: “That’s all.”
“But I can’t possibly —” Zhou Zhiruo was by nature reserved, with a finely cultivated dignity. With this many people just outside the door, she would sooner have died than made such a sound.
Song Qingshu saw there was no use pressing her. He grabbed the young lord’s body, heaved it onto the bed, shoved it against the inner wall, pulled a quilt over it, and slipped under Zhou Zhiruo’s covers himself.
The moment he was beneath the quilt, a scent reached him — elusive, neither orchid nor musk, drifting through thin silk, faint and perfect. Something stirred in him.
“You —” Though they were husband and wife, their marriage had for a long time been a name without substance, and even after it had finally become real, they had been apart far more than together. Zhou Zhiruo still faced her own husband with the shyness of a girl.
Looking at her parted lips, soft and inviting, Song Qingshu’s better judgment deserted him. Before she could register what was happening, he ki$$ed her — deeply.
‘This scoundrel…’ Zhou Zhiruo was overwhelmed with shame — there were people right outside — but he was relentless, his touch practiced and unhurried, and within moments her composure was entirely undone, her hair loose, her breath coming in soft, involuntary gasps.
The people outside could contain themselves no longer and broke through the door. They were on the verge of demanding answers when from the bed came a sound — honeyed and barely suppressed — that left every last one of those hardened martial artists standing there with red ears and dry throats.
Before any of them could speak, Song Qingshu cut in ahead of them, pitching his voice to match the young lord’s manner: “Who told you to come in?! Get OUT!”
“We — we saw a dark figure dart out through the door, and feared an assassin had moved against the Young Lord.” The men who’d rushed in all knew the young lord’s particular nature; seeing the scene before them, not one of them harboured a trace of suspicion.
“Yes, yes, someone did come at me — fortunately this Elder Sister here came to my rescue. I am currently in the process of thanking her properly, and you lot have completely ruined the mood. Get out, all of you.” As he spoke, he reached over and gave Zhou Zhiruo’s chest a sudden pinch.
With no time to prepare herself, Zhou Zhiruo let out an involuntary cry. The men outside swallowed, mouths parched. “Since the Young Lord is unharmed, we will leave you undisturbed. Please rest assured — we will post additional men outside. No one will be allowed to interrupt the Young Lord again.”
With that, they filed out, and thoughtfully pulled the door and windows closed behind them.
The moment the last footstep faded, Zhou Zhiruo shoved Song Qingshu off her with both hands, tugging her dishevelled clothes back into order, her teeth pressed into her lower lip. “Alright. They’re gone.”
“So?” Song Qingshu had worked himself into a considerable state over the course of that performance and pressed forward again, fingers already reaching for the sash at her waist.
“Don’t you dare~” Zhou Zhiruo let out a startled cry and seized his hand before it could do any mischief. Her nature was cool and composed at the best of times, and in this strange and unsettling place she had absolutely no desire to go any further. She scrambled for a distraction: “Why were you hiding in the room?”
Mention of actual business brought the clarity back to Song Qingshu’s eyes, gradually. “That’s a long story. You first — how did you end up on the Isle of Heroes?”
Zhou Zhiruo nodded. There was nothing worth hiding between husband and wife, and she gave him the full account.
It turned out that the Isle of Heroes had been growing steadily in influence over the years, drawing smaller sects into its orbit both openly and in the shadows, and in doing so had begun to encroach on the White Lotus Sect’s territory. The White Lotus Sect, as the foremost power in Jiangnan, had been quick to read the ambition behind the Reward and Punishment Envoys’ activities — you cannot suffer another man to sleep soundly beside your own bed. The Sect’s leadership had resolved to sever the isle’s reach — but the Isle of Heroes was too secretive, too elusive to engage directly.
The White Lotus Sect, however, had centuries of its own history to draw upon. Through particular channels, they had learned that a series of merchant vessels in Jiangnan’s waterways had been raided in recent months, with beautiful women disappearing from each — incidents that pointed strongly toward the Isle of Heroes. The Sect’s leadership saw their opening, and decided to send someone in.
Of the three most beautiful women in the entire White Lotus Sect, Sacred Mother Li Qingluo was obviously not to be sent personally. That left the two Holy Maidens — Fu Minyi and Zhou Zhiruo.
Zhou Zhiruo was the newer arrival, and her roots in the Sect ran far shallower than Fu Minyi’s. After a round of internal manoeuvrings, the decision fell to Zhou Zhiruo — on the grounds that her appearance was the more striking of the two — and she was sent to complete this dangerous task.
She had been in the White Lotus Sect long enough to know their ways. Refusing would be treated as defection, and everything she had invested would be lost. She weighed it carefully, and accepted.
After all, by her own reckoning, her martial arts were sufficient to protect herself even if she walked into a den of wolves.
And so, just as the White Lotus Sect had arranged, Zhou Zhiruo posed as a lady of means travelling home to visit family, and was duly captured by the Isle of Heroes’ people. It was only then that she silently cursed her situation — because she quickly discovered that the martial level on this island was staggeringly high. Against one or two Reward and Punishment Envoys she might hold her own, but there were dozens of them on the isle.
She had been treading carefully ever since, not daring to reveal herself — until today, when the Isle’s people informed her she was to be presented to this distinguished Young Lord. At that point she had made her peace with fighting her way out whatever the cost, resigned to the possibility that she might never see Song Qingshu again. And then, in the moment of her deepest despair, he had appeared before her as though stepping from a cloud — so dreamlike she could barely trust it.
Women are creatures of feeling, after all. No matter how cold, how calculating Zhou Zhiruo might be in ordinary life, in that moment there were only four words in her mind.
Destined by fate.