Shen Xiyin came out of the privy and went into the courtyard to wash her sticky body. She did not bother to boil water at the stove; instead, she lifted a bucket of cold water and poured it straight over herself. Her pale shoulders trembled beneath the icy spray. After rinsing and drying off, she returned indoors to rest.
The night remained oppressively hot. Outside, the cicadas droned without pause, each chorus rising louder than the last.
Leaning against the couch, she drifted in and out of consciousness, her eyelids growing heavy in the ceaseless hum. Sweat seeped through her clothes as her mind blurred. She felt someone loosening her damp inner garment, a coolness brushing her chest. Half-dreaming, she murmured faintly and caught the hand that continued to undo her clothing—yet the hand broke free, insistent, and a voice unlike her husband’s, low and warm, told her: “You must be bare.”
Moonlight surged across her pale skin like a rising tide. Her cheeks flushed with heat, her teeth chattered from tension. Then she saw him reach to undo his own tightly fastened robe, his gaze fixed on her as he said: “I must do the same…”
What she had never dared to glimpse was about to be revealed before her eyes.
Shen Xiyin jolted awake—everything dissolved like mist. She sat upright, clutching the bedframe, gasping for breath. Was it an illusion—or a dream? She could not tell whether it was born of her daytime thoughts, or whether the Enchantment Maze was warning her that the third trial of passion was about to begin. She sat quietly at the bed’s head, hugging her knees.
The night was deep. No candle burned in the room; darkness lay thick, with moonlight filtering through the papered window. On the table nearby, the pair of Dongzhu pearl earrings glimmered faintly. She stepped forward and carefully put them away.
At dawn the next day, Shen Xiyin no longer wore her ornate court dress. Instead, she changed into the old clothes she had washed and dried the day before. The garment was light and simple, much like what she used to wear in the village.
Looking at herself in the bronze mirror, Shen Xiyin felt that this was the appearance she was meant to have all along.
Shen Xiyin finished dressing and washing, slung the bamboo basket over her back, and took up a hoe before heading out in search of food for the day. She had not gone far along the village path when she ran into Pei Su.
She wondered whether this village too was shrouded in illusions, for just as in the deep forest before, they always seemed to cross paths so easily.
Pei Su was not surprised to see her here; he had grown accustomed to such chance encounters. As she lowered her head and passed silently by, his gaze fell—almost without intent—on her ear. The place where earrings had always hung was empty today.
His sword hand tightened imperceptibly. It was the sort of trivial detail he ought not to remark upon, yet for some reason he suddenly explained: “Yesterday, in one of the abandoned houses, I happened to find that item. I thought it should be returned to its rightful owner. Nothing more—no other meaning.”
At his words, Shen Xiyin halted, lowered her eyes, and stood quietly for a moment before replying: “I understand.”
She looked down at her worn, stiffly washed old dress and repeated softly: “I understand it all.”
The cicadas droned ceaselessly in the shade of the trees, their noise pricking at Pei Su’s nerves.
Shen Xiyin turned away from him and walked toward the deserted fields behind the village.
The land had lain untended for many years, overrun with weeds. At the edge of the path stood a broken cart, half-loaded with rice stalks already rotted beyond use. Beside it lay several rusted hoes and axes.
Shen Xiyin stared at the scene in puzzlement. As with the village houses yesterday, she felt that same unsettling sense of wrongness again.
Stalks of dryland rice lay scattered across the field, some already heavy with grain. Purslane grew thick at the edges, and Shen Xiyin even dug up a few wild taro roots. By midday she had filled her bamboo basket to the brim. In her mind, she was already planning lunch: steamed taro, with a cool purslane salad on the side. Back at the hut, she saw that the water stored in the vat was nearly gone, so she carried a bucket to the old well to draw more. Returning with the brimming bucket, she turned a corner on the village path and nearly collided head‑on with Pei Su.
The water sloshed wildly, spilling across the ground and splattering the hems of their robes. Shen Xiyin hurriedly stepped back. Flustered, she blurted, “I’m sorry,” and made to leave.
Pei Su looked at her. Ever since that chaotic rainstorm in the forest, almost every time she saw him, she wore the same frightened, skittish expression.
“What are you afraid of?” he suddenly asked.
Her grip on the bucket tightened, but she gave no reply.
“If it’s the third trial of passion you fear, you needn’t,” Pei Su said. “Because that trial will not be carried out.”
Shen Xiyin stared blankly. “It will not be carried out?”
Pei Su affirmed with certainty: “Yes.”
Shen Xiyin wanted to ask why, but seeing the look on his face, she sensed the reason was complicated. It didn’t feel right to press further. Since he said it wouldn’t happen, then it truly wouldn’t. Relieved, her expression visibly softened. “As long as it won’t, that’s good.” Leaving those words behind, she hurried off with the half-filled bucket of water.
Pei Su watched her retreating figure for a moment before shifting his gaze. The reason he could assure her that this trial would not be carried out was because the third stage of the maze had set its time limit upon his body. After the chime announcing the third trial, a vivid crimson line appeared across his chest—the line of desire. As its name implied, it was a mark meant to compel one into acts of lust. If that line were to extend all the way to his heart, his body would fall under the array’s control, forcing him into disgraceful deeds. Yet to seize the body, one must first conquer the mind. Those with firm resolve would not be easily swayed.
Pei Su’s expression remained unchanged. From the moment the array began with its trial of nakedness, it had already engaged him in a contest of will. It arrogantly presumed he would falter, which was nothing short of an insult. But it had miscalculated—and would never succeed. For him, there would be no moment when the time limit came due.
Shen Xiyin returned to the small hut with her bucket, only to collapse, trembling, onto the floor as soon as she entered. The trial would not be enforced again, yet her body remained afflicted. In fact, her condition had worsened in recent days—sometimes she had to change her undergarments two or three times in a single day. She wondered when such days would finally come to an end.
That afternoon, after washing and hanging her soiled clothes to dry, Shen Xiyin carried a bamboo basket to the stream, intending to catch fish to steam for supper. Fish soup was delicious, but after what had happened last time in the cleansing room, she dared not drink too much again.
By chance—or perhaps not—she crossed paths with Pei Su again midway.
Instinctively, Shen Xiyin shrank back, wanting to avoid him. But then she recalled the question he had asked her earlier— “What are you afraid of?”
Since the trial of desire would no longer be enforced, why should she still fear meeting him?
She told herself to face him calmly. Yet she did not know how to show that calmness. After a moment of stiffness, she forced a polite, shallow smile, the kind one might offer to an old acquaintance from the village.
Pei Su was standing beneath the eaves, lost in thought, when he suddenly noticed her smile. He was taken aback, puzzled by its meaning. So much so that the matter he had been pondering was replaced by a single question: Why did she smile? Before he realized it, that thought filled his mind entirely. A faint irritation stirred in him, and a sharp prickle of pain pierced his chest. He knew at once—the line of desire was attempting to breach his heart.
Closing his eyes, Pei Su steadied himself, banishing stray thoughts. Such trivial matters held no value for reflection. The line of desire soon fell silent.
When Shen Xiyin returned from the stream with her catch of fish, Pei Su was still there. Perhaps because the day was too hot, even a cultivator not prone to heat now had beads of sweat on his brow.
Pei Su, only just composed, saw her again and instinctively turned his gaze aside. But then he thought it laughable. Why should he avoid her? Doing so would be as if admitting the array’s prediction was correct—a betrayal of the family precepts he had inherited. So he no longer looked away, but fixed his gaze straight upon her.
The figure approaching head-on had just returned from the stream. She had been in the water; the hem of her skirt was dripping, her sleeves and bodice soaked through, even her lashes heavy with droplets. A few damp strands of hair clung to her face, and the water traced down her fair cheek, sliding along the graceful line of her neck before disappearing into the depths of her collar.
He looked at her steadily, his gaze fixed upon the crossing folds of her wet garments.
Shen Xiyin drew closer, puzzled by his unbroken stare. Her lips parted, and she asked softly, almost tentatively: “Respected elder, would you like some fish?”
Pei Su replied: “No.”
It was not fish that he wanted. At that moment, his face was calmer than ever—features stern, lips pressed in a straight line, like an ancient well so deep that nothing cast into it could stir the faintest ripple. Yet beneath that calm, the line of desire stretched, creeping toward his heart.
Pei Su heard it clearly: a command rising from within— “Right now. Pin her down. Tear away every garment. Do whatever you wish.”