At the Mountain God Temple near Yunxia Estate, a stooped old man with a rustic air was busy in the kitchen. He had tied on an apron, and the chopping board rang out sharply, like the sound of pounding laundry.
Because Mountain God Her Majesty, who never received visitors, had unprecedentedly brought this old fellow back to the mountain with her. She even leaned sideways against the doorway, gazing tenderly at the old man inside.
This left the old and young female ghost maidservants in the shrine standing far away, looking at one another in bewilderment. Had their Mountain God Her Majesty found... her father?
Zhu Lian did not turn around. He merely deftly placed piles of seasonings into delicate little bowls, all fired by the Imperial Manufactory of his fallen homeland, and said with a smile, "Miss Xie, I actually have no sorrow of leaving home, no pain of a fallen nation, no grief of thornbushes, no feeling of millet and desolation. None of that. I had no regrets while alive, so why should I concern myself with what comes after death? Therefore, if you worry for me, I would only think you were forcing sorrow just to compose new verses. There is no need, truly. Stop frowning so deeply. It does not look good when others see it."
Xie Tao merely stared blankly at him. She spoke not a word, yet every word was there.
Thinking back, Xie Tao had been born into one of the foremost great clans of the previous dynasty. Even the women of her lineage could refuse to "marry beneath themselves" into the emperor's descendants. In her maiden years, she had first seen Zhu Lian of a neighboring kingdom, whom she considered someone "skilled at fishing for fame and reputation, nurturing his prestige to