By the time Lu Changfeng returned to the Princess's Residence, the sky had gone completely dark.
Chenghui Hall blazed with lamplight. Li Lingyue sat at the head of the room, a small mountain of documents piled before her.
She held a brush in one hand and pinned a memorial down with the other, her brows faintly knitted as she annotated it in vermilion.
She had already received Zhao Lanjun's report and knew Lu Changfeng was unharmed, so she had sent no one to meet him. She had only told the kitchen to keep his meal warm until he returned.
"You're back?"
Li Lingyue looked up with a smile, set down her brush, and held out her hand to him.
Lu Changfeng walked over. Before he could speak, she caught his hand and pulled him down beside her. She looked him up and down, then frowned slightly at the dust covering his robes and the dark red flecks of blood on his cuffs. She reached out to brush him off.
"Were you hurt?"
"It's not mine." Lu Changfeng shook his head. "Someone else's."
Only then did Li Lingyue relax. She looped her arm through his and leaned against him, asking a needless question: "How did it go?"
Lu Changfeng recounted everything that had happened that day. He spoke quickly but clearly, elaborating where necessary and passing lightly over the rest.
Li Lingyue listened intently without a word, occasionally frowning or letting her gaze darken.
When he finished, she fell silent for a moment before asking, "You said the estates upstream along that river belong to Guo Yuanzhen, Zhang Yue, Wei Zhigu, and the others?"
"Yes."
"And downstream, it flows into the Wei River?"
"Yes."
Li Lingyue released his arm, rose, and walked over to the map of Chang'an hanging on the