The clear sun was setting in the west, pink and purple clouds rolling across the sky. The light in the room was a few shades dimmer than during the day. Dusk softened all the vivid colors, turning the scene before them into an ancient, time-worn painting. When Pei Rusong walked in, he happened to find Wen Chan, having just finished her bath, sitting before her dressing table while a maidservant helped dry her long, damp, jet-black hair.

Pei Rusong's steps were light as he walked silently behind her and took the square towel from the maidservant's hands. Wen Chan saw his reflection in the mirror, turned her head, and asked, "Just got back? You're off duty quite early today."

"Not that early," Pei Rusong held her thick, long hair, carefully wringing out the water with the towel as he replied calmly, "a full half-hour later than Your Highness."

Wen Chan snorted with laughter. "Don't give me that. You were the one who chose the Central Secretariat. You have to attend to His Majesty every day and can't leave your post without permission. It's not like I'm the one who won't take you out."

"What kind of person am I in Your Highness's heart?" Pei Rusong couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not a three-year-old child who would complain to Your Highness about not getting a chance to go out and play. I was just wondering why Your Highness came back a little late. Did something happen?"

Wen Chan said thoughtfully, "Rice cake."

Pei Rusong: "Hm? Does Your Highness want to eat rice cakes?"

Wen Chan: "Didn't you just ask me what kind of image I have of you?"

Pei Rusong: "..."

He didn't even need to ask further. It was obvious that the rice cake Wen Chan was talking about was definitely not the soft, springy, common variety, but the kind that could stretch three feet long and stick a person's mouth shut.

"I'll just take it that Your Highness is complimenting me." Pei Rusong sighed softly. "If Your Highness could use a more elegant metaphor next time, the person being praised would be even happier."

But Wen Chan said with a straight face, "That's not how it is, Pei Xuechen. When you achieve success and hold a high position in the future, there will be countless people outside fawning over you, comparing you to plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, chrysanthemums, birds, and beasts. But the chance to be a rice cake is something only I can give you. It's one of a kind in the whole world. Isn't that worth cherishing?"

On one hand, Pei Rusong found this statement utterly absurd; on the other, the description "one of a kind in the whole world" struck him right in the heart. Speechless and unable to retaliate, he could only lower his head, move closer, and stick to her lips.

"..." Wen Chan, "See? What did I tell you."

After drying her hair, Pei Rusong went aside to wash his hands. Xianyun came over to loosely pin up her long hair to prevent her from feeling stuffy. Wen Chan remembered something and said, "Oh, right. The farming household I visited today had some newly ripened wild cherries. I brought some back for you. Xianyun."

Xianyun answered and turned to leave. A hint of a smile appeared in Pei Rusong's eyes, and he said playfully, "Especially for me? Thank you, Your Highness, for thinking of me despite your busy schedule."

He deliberately emphasized the word "especially," as if he had caught proof that her words belied her true feelings. If he had a tail, it would surely be wagging into a blur right now.

Xianyun brought in a white jade plate. Pei Rusong's gaze fell on the bright red, plump little cherries on the plate, and his expression froze slightly.

Wen Chan: "Here, picked especially for you. I plucked their tree bald. Please, enjoy them, Young Master Pei."

Pei Rusong picked up a cherry, his expression a little strange. "Have I... ever mentioned that matter to Your Highness before?"

Wen Chan asked, baffled, "What matter?"

"I thought Your Highness meant the long-stemmed kind of cherries, not these." Pei Rusong stared at the cherry in his hand, a touch of melancholy appearing between his brows. "When I was young, there was a cherry tree on the path from the courtyard to the study. Every year in late spring, it would be laden with cherries just like these."

"I would see that tree every day on my way to the study. Sometimes I would see the children gathered together picking cherries, and I would feel very envious and want to try one too. But everyone around me said that only birds and servants ate those wild cherries, that they were like wild vegetables. As the young master of a great noble family, I shouldn't covet such lowly things, as it would lower my status."

From a young age, Pei Rusong was raised by his elders according to the standards of a gentleman. His conduct was strictly regulated, and there were strict rules of etiquette for his dress, sleep, and meals. Even the fruit he ate was always washed, cut, pitted, and then served to him. A single plate never exceeded ten bites; he was not to indulge in cold foods, nor was he to eat in excess.

A high noble family like the Pei Family could procure any fresh fruit they desired, and they certainly had no shortage of those large, plump red cherries. But Pei Rusong, for some reason, just wanted to know what "wild cherries" tasted like.

"Later, one spring, when I was about twelve years old, on a dusk just like this one, my mother came to the courtyard to see me and secretly handed me a bundle of cherries wrapped in a handkerchief, which she had picked on her way."

"Those cherries were perfectly ripe, some so much so that they burst at the slightest touch, staining her handkerchief red. But every single one was very sweet."

"My mother was from Jiangnan. After moving to the Capital City with my father, she fell ill because she couldn't acclimate to the new environment. Her health worsened after giving birth to me, and she was bedridden and recuperating year-round. My grandfather felt she was incapable of raising me, so he took me to be raised and taught by his side. I saw her about once every two or three months, so I was never actually very close to her."

"It was only then that I learned she would wait on the path to my study ahead of time every day, just to catch a glimpse of me. She had noticed me looking at those cherries, too afraid to pick them, so she secretly picked some herself and brought them to me."

"She said that when she was little, she was also confined within a deep courtyard and raised to be a lady of a prestigious family. Sometimes she especially envied the children who could climb walls and trees, or go into the water to catch fish. So she could understand me, and that it wasn't wrong."

She said: "Don't be afraid. You must grow up well. When you are strong enough, you will be able to attain freedom."

The many creases and grievances accumulated in Pei Rusong's young heart were all gently smoothed out by that one word: understanding.

His mother was a bird in a golden cage her entire life. She left her maiden home and married into her husband's family. Trapped by her frail health, she never knew freedom. But she gave Pei Rusong the courage to face his own desires.

"And then?"

Pei Rusong let out a laugh, but there was no mirth in his eyes; it was purely a habit formed from years of discipline. "Later, I buried those cherry pits under my window, wanting to grow a cherry tree, but they never sprouted."

"A servant reported to my grandfather about my mother giving me the cherries. He summoned me to the study and had me copy the Hounds of Lu chapter thirty times. By the time I finished copying and came out, the cherry tree had been uprooted."

When Wen Chan was a child, she had studied the Four Books and Five Classics with the Grand Tutor. Although she didn't use this knowledge often, she still remembered the general content—the Hounds of Lu contained a famous idiom: 'losing one's ambition through obsession with trifles'.

"That's such a stretch. What does that have to do with losing ambition over trifles?" Wen Chan couldn't understand. "It was just a few cherries. Your family isn't like mine; you don't have a throne to inherit. Was there really a need to be so restrained?"

"Whether it was losing ambition over trifles or being willful and reckless, the crime itself was the least important part. He was just looking for an excuse to teach me a lesson." Pei Rusong said faintly, "We are a family of poetry and rites, after all, and I am the eldest legitimate grandson. Naturally, he couldn't just greet me with a rod. Besides, it involved my birth mother, so my grandfather couldn't appear too harsh, or it would look like he was snatching the child away, which would have damaged his reputation if word got out."

"And then—"

The smile on his face finally vanished completely. He took a deep breath and turned his face slightly away.

"And then, that winter... my mother passed away from her illness."

Wen Chan recalled her first visit to the Pei Manor after their wedding. She had seen a graceful and dignified woman following beside Pei Luan. Pei Rusong had called her "Madam Xu," and Pei Luan had cleared his throat and explained, somewhat awkwardly, that this was his second wife, of the Xu Clan. Pei Rusong's birth mother had already been dead for many years.

In both her past and present lives, she had never asked Pei Rusong for details about his birth mother. Because her own mother had also died young from an illness, she knew exactly how it felt to face her father's second wife. So there was no need to poke at Pei Rusong's scars out of mere curiosity.

It wasn't until today that Wen Chan finally heard Pei Rusong speak of the past with his own lips.

The taste of the cherry spread across the tip of his tongue. This kind of cherry had thin skin and a large pit, with not much flesh. Like a pomegranate seed, you could only taste a fleeting moment of sweet and sour, but it was exactly the same as the taste in his memory.

If not for this plate of wild cherries, if not for her...

Besides Wen Chan, probably no other princess would be interested in this kind of wild cherry, let alone bring it back from outside the city as a gift to share with him.

"If you like them, you can bury the pits in the flower garden and see if they'll grow." Wen Chan didn't offer any comforting platitudes, just made a suggestion in a casual, conversational tone. "But as the saying goes, 'cherries are delicious, but the tree is hard to grow.' It might take many years before we can eat your cherries."

Pei Rusong asked, "Then will Your Highness wait with me?"

"Of course," Wen Chan shot him a sidelong glance, her words concise. "This is my home."

Pei Rusong: "..."

The melancholy that had stirred in him at the sight of the cherries was inexplicably swept clean away by Wen Chan's single sentence. Seeing how good she was at comforting people, Pei Rusong decided to tell her another secret: "There's one more thing. Back when Your Highness was choosing a husband, my father tried to decline the marriage to a princess before His Majesty, on the grounds that the Pei Clan and the Su Clan already had a marriage agreement."

"He claimed that my mother and the madam of the Su Clan had exchanged keepsakes and arranged our marriage before we were born. But in truth, under the rules of the Pei Family, not even a birth mother could decide the marriage of the eldest legitimate grandson on her own. The marriage agreement was my grandfather's idea; he just didn't want to bear the crime of evading the selection of a Prince Consort, so he used my mother as an excuse."

"The Pei Family is just that kind of place. It seems to have strict rules, but there are always some people who can transcend them. My mother said that when I grew up, I would have freedom. But only after growing up did I discover that so-called freedom was nothing more than moving from a small cage into a slightly more spacious large one."

"Becoming an official at court, marrying into the Su Clan, upholding the Pei Family... Following the path laid out for me by my family, perhaps I would only get the 'freedom' I wanted on the day I became Old Master Pei."

Wen Chan laughed out loud at "Old Master Pei." Pei Rusong looked at her helplessly, but a faint smile flickered in his eyes. "I'm not complaining about the Pei Family. After all, I've been the eldest young master for nearly twenty years, enjoying the comfortable life this title has brought me. It's only right that I devote everything to the Pei Clan. But frankly, when I heard the news that Your Highness had chosen me to be the Prince Consort, I was actually relieved."

This 'seizure by force' that had descended from the heavens had slashed a bold stroke across the blank page of Pei Rusong's life. To some, it may have seemed like a stain, but in his eyes, it was like a crack that had been shattered open.

"Devoting yourself to the Pei Family is fine, but devoting everything is probably impossible."

Wen Chan said as if it were a matter of fact, "After all, no matter who your family betrothed you to, I would have snatched you away in the end."