The moon had just risen.
Biyu stood at the study door with a celadon plate in her hands and knocked twice on the doorframe.
"Your Highness, my lady asked me to bring you a plate of cakes."
Gu Moran looked away from the system panel, rose, and opened the door.
Six white plum blossom petal cakes, each the size of a fingernail, were arranged on the plate. Their shapes were somewhat uneven, with clear traces of handwork around the edges.
"My lady said she was only trying a new recipe and made extra, that's all. Please don't think poorly of them, Your Highness."
Biyu held out the plate, letting her gaze linger on his face a moment longer before properly lowering it.
Gu Moran took the plate, set it on the table, and picked up a cake and put it in his mouth.
Bitter.
The white plum petals' own delicate bitterness overpowered the sweetness of the honey. After he swallowed, a hint of coolness lingered in his mouth. Like Su Yao herself, it made no effort to please, but its flavor lingered.
"Not very sweet."
"My lady doesn't like sweet things."
After saying that, Biyu paused, as though she felt she had spoken out of turn.
Gu Moran took another cake and bit off half of it.
"Thank your lady for me. Tell her these cakes taste better than the ones from the imperial kitchens."
"You're too kind, Your Highness. Then I'll take my leave..."
"Wait."
Biyu stopped in her tracks.
"What is Madam Su doing now?"
"In answer to Your Highness, my lady is reading in the courtyard."
"What book?"
Biyu hesitated, her lips moving twice before she spoke.
"Volume seven of Strategies for Governing the State."
Gu Moran chewed the half cake in his mouth and asked nothing more.
After Biyu left, a line of text popped up on the system panel.
[Su Yao's favorability: -65, unchanged.] [New tag: "proactive behavior," first appearance. Trigger: making and gifting white plum blossom cakes.]
Her favorability hadn't risen.
But the tag had changed.
Gu Moran pushed the four remaining cakes on the plate to the corner of the table and wiped his hands with a damp cloth.
She was reading volume seven of Strategies for Governing the State.
The very book full of annotations that he had deliberately left on the desk.
Su Yao wouldn't read that book for no reason. She was reading it because those annotations had taken root in her mind, and she couldn't pull them out.
He straightened the collar of his outer robe and pushed the door open.
The lights were on in Clear Frost Courtyard.
He didn't meet anyone on his way there.
The steward knew how to take a hint. After nightfall, he arranged no patrols along the passages between the courtyards, giving the masters ample privacy.
The courtyard gate wasn't bolted.
He gave it a push, and it opened with a creak.
Biyu was dozing on a small stool beneath the covered walkway. Startled awake by the sound, she looked up and sprang to her feet.
"Your... Your Highness?"
"Has Madam Su retired?"
"No, no, my lady is still inside reading..."
"I know what she's reading."
Gu Moran stepped over the threshold. Biyu could neither bring herself to stop him nor simply let him pass. Clinging to the doorframe, she glanced at his back, but in the end, she didn't stop him.
The door to the inner room was ajar, a line of lamplight spilling through the gap.
He paused at the door for two breaths.
Then he pushed it open and entered.
Su Yao sat at the desk beneath the window, holding Strategies for Governing the State open to a page somewhere in the middle.
At the sound of the door, her fingers stayed pressed against the page as she looked up.
When she saw it was him, Su Yao straightened her back slightly.
"What brings Your Highness here?"
"I came to thank you for the cakes."
"It was only a plate of cakes. There was no need for Your Highness to come all this way in person."
Gu Moran walked over to the chair opposite her and stood there without sitting.
"You're reading my annotations."
Su Yao's fingers tightened slightly on the page.
"The door to Your Highness's study was open. Biyu saw it when she passed by, and I was curious, so I borrowed it to have a look."
"What did you think?"
"The writing was decent enough. As for your insights..."
She paused.
"That argument about the salt and iron monopoly on page thirty-seven-my father's advisers debated it for three days without reaching a conclusion, and you dismissed it in a single sentence."
"Do you think I was right to dismiss it?"
Su Yao closed the book and set it on the corner of the desk.
"Sit down."
He sat.
They faced each other across the desk, with Strategies for Governing the State and an oil lamp that had almost burned out between them.
"Your Highness, I have a question."
"Ask."
"When did you write these annotations?"
"On and off. Some last year, some last month."
"You spent twenty years as a wastrel in the capital. When did you learn all this?"
Gu Moran reached out and adjusted the wick. The flame flickered twice, and the room grew a little brighter.
"Are you asking about my background, Madam Su?"
"I'm your secondary consort, yet I don't even know your background. Do you think that's reasonable?"
"How much do you want to know?"
Su Yao stared at his face for three breaths.
"What did you say to Shen Ling'er that night?"
The subject changed quickly.
From Strategies for Governing the State to Shen Ling'er, the turn came without warning.
Gu Moran leaned back in his chair and didn't dodge the question.
"She came to me, and I didn't send her away."
"And then?"
"You already know what happened after that."
Su Yao's expression barely changed, but the hand gripping her sleeve tightened.
"Biyu said she went back wearing your outer robe the next morning."
"That's right."
"Aren't you going to explain?"
"Explain what? She came, and I took her in. What's there to explain?"
Su Yao lifted her chin a little.
"Then you came here tonight to take in another one?"
Her words stung, but Gu Moran didn't dodge them.
He pulled his chair forward and leaned in, bracing both hands on the desk and bringing himself within three feet of Su Yao.
"Su Yao, you're different from Shen Ling'er. You know that yourself."
"How am I different?"
"Our relationship is naturally different."
Su Yao pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"Did the purple clay teapot arrive?"
"I saw it."
"My mother gave it to me. There was only one set in the palace."
"So?"
"So do you think I'd give something like that away on a whim?"
Su Yao shifted her gaze from his face to the book on the desk, then back again.
"Gu Moran, what exactly do you want?"
It was the first time since entering the prince's residence that she had asked him what exactly he wanted.
Before, it had always been "What have you done?" or "You're shameless."
An accusation had become a demand for an answer.
The difference was enormous.
"I want to stay here tonight."
Su Yao's eyelashes trembled.
"You only just came from Shen Ling'er's place."
"I know."
"Don't you think it's too soon?"
"Su Yao, you haven't forgotten what happened between us at the chancellor's residence that night, have you?"
As soon as he said it, Su Yao's shoulders tensed even more.
That was the thing she least wanted to mention.
She had been drunk, lost her virginity, and woken to find the capital's foremost wastrel lying beside her.
She hadn't shed a single tear that day, but Biyu later told him that her lady had smashed every piece of porcelain on her dressing table.