Liu Lanzhi found him behind the hedge again.
Not on the bench. Not waiting with his hands folded and his feet dangling. He was crouched in the shadow of the crumbling wall, his knees drawn to his chest, his face buried in his arms. His shoulders were shaking.
She stopped at the edge of the courtyard. The morning light was pale, the dew still wet on the stones. She had come earlier than usual, thinking she might sit alone for a while.
He had been here for some time. She could see it in the way his robes were damp at the knees, in the way he did not look up when she came through the hedge.
She sat on the bench. Not close. Not far. Just there.
He did not move. She listened to his breathing—the wet catch of it, the way he tried to make it even and failed. She watched the tremble in his shoulders, the dirt on his sleeves that had not been there yesterday.
She waited.
When he finally looked up, she saw the bruise first. A dark smear across his cheekbone, already purpling, the skin split at the edge. He had tried to hide it with his sleeve. That was why his face had been buried.
He saw her looking. His hand went to his cheek, quick, guilty.
"I fell," he said.
The lie was automatic, rehearsed. She had heard it before.
She did not call him a liar. "Let me see."
He hesitated. His hand stayed pressed to his cheek, his eyes fixed on her face. Whatever he was looking for—anger, disgust, impatience—he did not find it.
He lowered his hand.
The bruise spread from his cheekbone to his jaw, the skin swollen, the edge disappearing into his hairline. There was a cut beneath his eye, small but deep. The kind that came from something sharp. A ring. A buckle.
Liu Lanzhi's hands tightened in her lap.
"Who?"
His eyes widened. He looked at her, then at the ground, then at his hands, which had started shaking again.
"The tutor," he said. "I could not remember the lesson. He said I was stupid. He said—"
His voice broke. He bit down on his lip, and she saw that the lip was split too, the blood dried to a dark crust.
"He said princes who cannot learn do not deserve to be princes."
She remembered this tutor. In her previous life, she had not met him until Zichen was older, until the bruises had become routine, until the boy had learned to lie about falling down before anyone could ask.
She was not too late now.
"His name."
"Tutor Wei. He comes in the mornings. After the first bell."
Liu Lanzhi rose from the bench. "Come. Let us get you cleaned."
He stared at her. "You are not angry?"
She looked at him. Four years old. Bruised. Asking if she was angry because he had been struck by a man twice his size.
—
"I am not angry with you."
She held out her hand. He looked at it for a long moment. Then, slowly, he put his small hand in hers.
She cleaned his face in the courtyard fountain.
The water was cold, the stones slick with moss. She dipped the edge of her sleeve into the basin and pressed it to his cheek, gentle, patient. He flinched at first, then held still, his eyes fixed on her face.
"The tutor said I was stupid," he said.
"You are not stupid."
He looked down at his hands. "I could not remember the lesson. The other princes remember. They are older."
"The other princes have tutors who teach them. Tutor Wei does not teach. He strikes."
He was quiet for a moment. She dipped her sleeve again, wiped the blood from his lip.
"Why does he do it?" Zichen asked.
She thought of the answer she might have given in another life. Some people are cruel because they can be. Some because they were taught to be. He was four years old. He did not need to understand cruelty. He needed to know it was not his fault.
"Because he is a small man," she said, "who has found someone smaller."
Zichen looked at her. Something moved in his face—not understanding, not yet, but close.
"You are not small," he said.
She almost smiled. "No. I am not."
He nodded, as if this settled something. Then he looked at her sleeve, wet and spotted with his blood.
"Your sleeve is ruined."
She looked at it. The silk was stained, the embroidery dark with water. It had been a gift from someone whose name she no longer remembered.
"It can be cleaned."
He looked at her sleeve, then at her face, then at his own clean hands.
"Jiejie. Will you come back tomorrow?"
She folded her wet sleeve against her palm. "I will come back."
He nodded. "Then it is all right."
She sat beside him on the edge of the fountain and let the morning light warm her shoulders.
—
The palace administration was housed in a low building near the eastern gate, where the business of running a thousand rooms was conducted in ink and silence.
The clerk at the desk was a thin man with thin patience. He looked at her the way one might look at furniture that had wandered in from another room.
"How may this office assist Your Highness?"
Liu Lanzhi stood before his desk with her hands folded. She did not sit. She did not smile.
"I wish to report an incident. One of the imperial tutors has been striking his student."
The clerk's pen paused. His eyes moved over her face, her robes, her hands. Weighing.
"I am afraid," he said, "that matters of imperial education fall outside the jurisdiction of—"
"Tutor Wei has been observed striking the Eleventh Prince on multiple occasions. Today, he left visible injuries on the child's face. These injuries were witnessed by this princess."
She did not raise her voice. The silence that followed was louder than any scream.
The clerk's face had gone pale. He set his pen down carefully, as if it might break.
"Your Highness, I am certain that if such an incident occurred, it was a misunderstanding. Tutor Wei has served the imperial family for—"
"Tutor Wei struck a child in the face. He drew blood. If this office does not wish to investigate, I will bring the matter to the Crown Prince directly."
The clerk's hands were shaking now. He reached for his pen and set it down again without writing anything.
"There is no need for that. The matter will be looked into. Discreetly."
Liu Lanzhi inclined her head. "I am sure it will."
She turned and walked out without waiting to be dismissed.
—
The tutor was gone by the next morning.
Liu Lanzhi learned of it from a servant who came to change the water, her voice lowered, her eyes bright with gossip. Removed, Your Highness. Sent away. No one knows why.
She went to the garden at her usual hour. Zichen was on the bench, his hands folded, his feet dangling. The bruise on his cheek was darker now, but his face was clear. He had not been crying.
She sat beside him.
"Tutor Wei is gone," he said.
"Yes."
He looked at her. She saw the question, the suspicion, the dawning understanding that she had moved in a world he did not understand and changed it.
"Was it you?"
She did not answer. She did not need to.
"Will there be a new tutor?"
"Yes."
He nodded slowly. He looked at his hands, then at the garden, then at her.
"Will the new one be like him?"
She thought about the answer she might have given in another life. I will make sure of it. But she did not know if she could make sure of anything. She was not strong enough yet.
But she could try.
"No. The new one will not be like him."
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"Jiejie. Why did you help me?"
She looked at the garden, the crumbling wall, the bench where they sat together every morning. She thought of the lake. Of cold water. Of a child she had failed to save.
She thought of his face, bruised and bleeding, and the way he had asked if she was angry with him. She thought of all the things she would tell him, in the years to come, if she was given the years.
She turned to look at him.
"Because no one else will."
He was quiet for a long time. She watched him think about it—the weight of her words, the shape of them. He was four years old. He should not have to think about such things.
But he did. And she could not change that.
When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet.
"Will you always help me?"
She looked at him. Small. Bruised. Sitting on a bench in a garden no one else visited, asking if there was someone in this world who would not leave.
She thought of the wooden bird she would carve for him. Of the word he would learn to write, the word he would show her one day. Of all the mornings she had left to give him.
"Yes. I will always help you."
He did not smile. But something in his face relaxed. Something in his shoulders eased. He leaned against her, just slightly, the weight of his head against her arm.
She did not move away.
—
In the Crown Prince's residence, a report arrived with the morning tea.
Tutor Wei has been removed. The Eleventh Prince's education will be reassigned. The Northern princess was observed at the palace administration office yesterday. She filed the complaint.
Yun Qingyu read it twice.
He had not thought about the Eleventh Prince in months. The boy was young, unimportant, born to a consort no one remembered. He had no faction, no allies, no future anyone had bothered to imagine.
And yet, she had noticed him. She had found him, wherever he was hiding, and she had sat with him, and when someone hurt him, she had moved.
He called for his steward.
"Assign a new tutor to the Eleventh Prince. Someone competent. Someone who will not strike him."
The steward bowed. "Yes, Your Highness. Do you have a preference?"
Yun Qingyu looked at the window, at the morning light, at the garden where he had never walked.
"Find someone who will teach him. Not just the lessons. Teach him."
The steward hesitated, then withdrew.
Yun Qingyu sat alone, the report still in his hand. He did not know why he had done it. He did not know why he was watching her, following her movements, assigning tutors to a boy he had forgotten existed.
He set the report aside.
For now, he watched.