HNYWEF -Chapter 161 The Princess’s Will

Inside the Princess of Changle’s residence.

Li Lizhi sat by the window with a book in her hands. She had been staring at it for a long time without turning a single page.

She didn’t know what she was thinking.

Her heart felt strangely empty, yet at the same time it was as though something was rising inside her. She couldn’t describe it.

She set the book down.

Then stood and walked to the window.

Outside was a small courtyard. Several plum trees grew there, their blossoms already withered. Only a few drooping flowers still clung to the branches.

She looked at those plum blossoms for a long while.

Then suddenly, she lifted her head.

And looked west.

That was the direction of the Jiuyuan County Marquis’s residence.

She didn’t know why she looked that way.

She had simply felt the sudden urge to.

Her gaze passed through the courtyard, through the walls, through invisible streets and alleys, landing somewhere she could not see.

Standing there at the window, looking in that direction, something inside her suddenly stirred.

Not a thought.

Not an idea.

Something else.

Something indescribable, surging upward from deep inside her.

She needed to do something.

She didn’t know what.

But she needed to act.

Li Lizhi stood there for a while.

Then she turned around.

“Someone.”

A maid pushed open the door and entered.

“Princess.”

Li Lizhi said, “Prepare the carriage. I’m going out.”

The maid froze for a moment.

“Princess, at this hour? It’s almost dark—”

Li Lizhi didn’t let her finish.

“Prepare the carriage.”

Just two words.

The maid looked at her. Her face showed no expression at all, but there was something in her eyes.

The maid asked no further questions.

“Yes.”

She withdrew.

Her footsteps faded into the distance.

Li Lizhi remained standing in the room, waiting.

Outside came the sounds of horses and wheels.

She pushed open the door and walked out.

Then boarded the carriage.

The curtain fell.

The carriage began to move.

Rumbling softly as it headed toward the residence gates.

The driver’s voice came from outside.

“Princess, where to?”

Li Lizhi answered, “The Jiuyuan County Marquis’s residence.”

The driver acknowledged her order.

The sound of hoofbeats quickened slightly.

The inside of the carriage was dim.

Li Lizhi sat there with her hands resting on her knees, utterly motionless.

She didn’t think.

She simply sat there.

Waiting.

Outside the carriage window, the lantern lights along the streets drifted backward one by one.

She didn’t look at them.

She simply sat there.

Heading toward that place.

Toward that marquis’s residence where she herself didn’t know what she was waiting for.

By the time the carriage arrived, dusk had already deepened.

The lanterns at the entrance of the marquis’s residence had just been lit. Their dim yellow glow spread thinly across the bluestone pavement.

When the carriage stopped at the gate, Old Chen was in the middle of closing the doors.

Hearing the sound of horses, he turned around. The moment he saw the dark carriage, his heart skipped a beat.

The curtain lifted, and Li Lizhi stepped down from the carriage.

Old Chen froze for a moment. Just as he was about to go inside and announce her arrival, she had already walked past him.

“Princess—”

Li Lizhi neither turned back nor stopped. She passed the screen wall, rounded the corridor, and entered the rear courtyard.

The courtyard was quiet.

So quiet that the sound of wind brushing through the treetops could be heard clearly.

The lanterns beneath the corridor were lit, their glow spreading dimly across the ground.

Zhou Xiong sat beside the stone table in the middle of the courtyard.

He simply sat there, staring ahead, not knowing what he was looking at.

Several fallen leaves lay scattered across the stone table, blown there by the wind. He had not brushed them away.

Li Lizhi walked over and stopped in front of him.

Zhou Xiong did not move. He did not even raise his head. He simply sat there like a clay statue.

Li Lizhi spoke.

“Father.”

Just one word.

Softly spoken from her lips, natural as though she had called him that for many years already.

Zhou Xiong’s fingers twitched slightly.

The fingers resting on the stone table curled faintly, as if something had brushed against them.

Slowly, he lifted his head and looked at the girl standing before him.

He looked at her for a very long time.

Something flickered in those clouded eyes, like a stone suddenly dropped into stagnant water.

Li Lizhi spoke again.

“Where is Brother Zhou Yi?”

Zhou Xiong did not answer.

He simply kept looking at her—at that small face, at those calm eyes.

His hand still rested on the stone table. The fingers that had curled slowly relaxed again.

Footsteps came from behind them.

Coming from the corridor, neither hurried nor slow, stepping one by one across the green bricks.

Zhou Yi walked over, carrying a lantern in his hand.

The lantern light fell across his face, illuminating the faint crease in his brow and the features that had already lost much of their youthful immaturity.

He stopped beside Li Lizhi.

“It’s so late. Why did you come?”

His voice was quiet, tinged with reproach.

Not true reproach. Just… something he himself could not quite explain.

Li Lizhi turned to look at him.

The lantern light flickered across her face, bright one moment and dim the next.

“For our father.”

Her voice was soft, but every word was perfectly clear.

Zhou Yi froze.

The lantern in his hand swayed slightly, the light sweeping once across the ground before steadying again.

He looked at Li Lizhi, at the earnest expression on her small face.

“Our father is sick,” she paused, “I just wanted to do something for him. Consider it fulfilling my duty as a daughter.”

Our father.

Those two words landed in his heart like stones dropped into water, ripples spreading outward in circles.

He knew what they meant.

Not courtesy. Not etiquette. Not empty formalities.

It meant she already considered herself part of the Zhou family.

It meant she intended to shoulder this burden with him.

Zhou Yi looked at her.

The wind stirred the edge of her robe. She neither shrank back nor avoided his gaze.

He remembered the words he had spoken at the family banquet that day.

“How much of what you owed him have you carried?”
Those words had been spoken on his father’s behalf.

But now, this young girl stood before him. Without saying anything more, she used just two words to tell him—

She would carry it too.

Zhou Yi stood there for a long time.

Long enough for the candle flame inside the lantern to flicker and spit out a spark.

Finally, he spoke.

“You should head back first.”

His voice was softer than usual.

He set the lantern down on the stone table and looked at Li Lizhi.

“If there’s truly something that needs you, I’ll tell you.”

Li Lizhi looked at him for a moment.

There was no disappointment in her eyes, no unwillingness. She simply looked at him, as though confirming something.

Then she nodded.

She turned and walked to Zhou Xiong. He still sat there, watching her.

“Father, I’m leaving now.”

Zhou Xiong looked at her.

She turned and walked past Zhou Yi. When she reached the courtyard gate, she suddenly stopped.

The lantern light shone from behind her, stretching her shadow long across the ground and the green bricks of the corridor.

Then she spoke.

Two words.

“Husband.”

After saying that, she lifted her foot and stepped out through the courtyard gate.

Her footsteps echoed a few times through the corridor before gradually fading away.

The sound of the carriage soon followed, rumbling farther and farther into the distance until it disappeared completely.

The courtyard fell silent.

Zhou Yi stood there motionless.

That single word—“Husband”—still echoed in his ears.

Not a princess addressing her imperial consort.

But Li Lizhi calling Zhou Yi that.

Zhou Yi remained standing in the courtyard, staring at the now-empty gate.

The lantern light swayed gently, stretching and shrinking his shadow. He stood there for a very long time.

Zhou Xiong still sat beside the stone table.

He looked toward the now-empty direction, toward the gate, toward the darkened night beyond.

Something churned within those clouded eyes, like an undercurrent crashing beneath ice—surging for fourteen years, finally reaching the underside of the frozen surface.

Zhou Yi turned and looked at his father.

Zhou Xiong had already lowered his head again. He picked up the now-cold tea and took a sip.

Zhou Yi said nothing.

He walked back to the stone table and sat beside his father.

Father and son sat there together in silence.

The lantern light shone upon them, casting their shadows side by side across the ground.

The wind blew in from the mouth of the alley, making the lantern sway softly, and the shifting light trembled with it.