The garden was silent, lush with green grass and trees blooming like a small forest.

  The Qin Wang's mansion had few servants, so the garden wasn’t as meticulously maintained as the Yan Wang's mansion —it was covered in fallen leaves.

  Ze Ning picked up a snail from the ground, pced it in his palm, and held it out for Hai Ling to see.

  The air was damp, and the snail, still covered in soil, stretched its tiny head out, curiously exploring the palm of Ze Ning's hand—a small, delicate snail.

  Ze Ning's hand was pale, his fingers long and slender. As he opened his palm, the contrast between his fair skin and the brown snail created an oddly mesmerizing sight.

  Hai Ling stared at the snail, puzzled. She lifted her gaze to Ze Ning. "A snail—is it for me?" She looked up and saw the same sharp glint in his eyes, yet at this moment, he didn't seem like a powerful figure responsible for the capital's security. Instead, he looked like a peaceful child.

  Ze Ning nodded and gestured to himself with the snail.

  Hai Ling looked at him in confusion. In this quiet, lush garden, facing the enigmatic Ze Ning, she momentarily forgot that she was just a lowly servant. She only wanted to understand what Ze Ning was trying to convey.

  "A snail... a snail... you..." She murmured to herself, then suddenly realized. "Are you trying to say the word ‘I’?"

  Ze Ning nodded and smiled.

  Having solved the riddle, Hai Ling felt an even greater joy than when she received praise for doing well at the Rong residence. Seeing Ze Ning smile, she couldn't help but smile too.

  "You're saying ‘I.’ I understand now! What else?" She excitedly twirled around him twice, ughing. "Tell me, what do you want to say?"

  She completely forgot that Ze Ning was a "young master." Now that she understood why he had brought her to the garden, she was simply eager to know his thoughts—to hear what he wanted to say. Realizing that Ze Ning was saying "I" filled her with excitement beyond words.

  Ze Ning saw her excitement and simply sat down under a flowering tree. He picked up a branch and drew a character on the ground, then crossed it out.

  Hai Ling sat down beside him, tilting her head. “Is this a character?”

  Ze Ning nodded, his gaze calm. Seeing Hai Ling so excited seemed to bring him a faint sense of joy as well.

  “You crossed it out—are you saying ‘illiterate’?” Hai Ling continued, her bright eyes fixed on Ze Ning. “You… couldn't read? Are you saying that when you couldn't read, this is how you communicated with others?”

  Ze Ning gave a small smile and nodded.

  Hai Ling burst into ughter. “Haha! Understanding you isn't easy! Who did you talk to? Were they also illiterate? When you were little? With your friends?” She started guessing wildly. “A pretty little girl? Young Master Rong and the young dy grew up pying together, but they're siblings. Do you have a younger sister?”

  As she spoke, she suddenly realized she had said “you” so many times. A wave of unease washed over her. “Young Master Ze Ning, I—”

  Ze Ning shook his head, plucking a leaf from the weeds beside him and toying with it in his fingers. After a long pause, he made the gesture of cradling a baby in his arms.

  The motion was gentle, warm, full of maternal tenderness and longing. In that moment, he seemed to glow, as if bathed in soft light.

  Hai Ling gradually fell silent. In a hushed voice, she asked, “You… and your mother?” She saw the tenderness in Ze Ning's eyes—a tenderness that felt distant, as if it belonged to a faraway cloud, drifting endlessly. It was gentle yet ced with loneliness.

  “How is your mother—Madam—is she well?” Hai Ling asked softly. She didn't want to break his silence, yet she couldn't bear to see his loneliness either.

  He was already too quiet a person—if he stayed silent for too long, she feared he would be sealed away by the stillness, locked in ice, never to emerge again.

  Ze Ning lowered his head and looked at the weeds on the ground. After a long while, he suddenly stood up and walked toward the other side of the garden.

  "Young Master Ze Ning—" Hai Ling didn't know why he had stood up. She was momentarily stunned before she hurried after him.

  She saw Ze Ning sitting beside a small mound of earth in a corner of the garden.

  Slowly, he inserted the leaf of a weed he had just pulled out into the mound. He did it with great focus, and his expression was calm and peaceful.

  Was that—a grave? A grave?

  Hai Ling gasped. "You're saying that the one inside— is your—mother?"

  She had forgotten once again that she should address him as "Young Master." She took a step back. Suddenly, she understood. When he had said he was talking to someone earlier, could it be that he had meant he was speaking to this grave?

  When he was still illiterate, that must have been when he was a child. Had he sat here as a child, talking to this "person" who could not respond?

  This—this—

  Before she could clear her chaotic thoughts, Ze Ning nodded. His mother was inside.

  "You're lying to me!"

  Hai Ling didn't want to imagine how a child, too young to read, must have felt sitting here and "talking" to a grave. She wanted even less to think about how this child had felt when he was too young to even speak—when he would never hear a response.

  It was too cruel. Too unbelievable. It made her want to cry, and she didn't want to cry.

  "You're lying to me! You're the future, Wangye! Your mother was a noble dy of the highest rank! How could she be buried here? How could Qin Wang allow her to be buried in the garden? You're lying!"

  He must be lying. It was impossible. He was a prince, noble beyond words.

  If even he could suffer such sorrow, then wouldn't all the common people in the world be doomed to endless grief?

  Ze Ning shook his head. Gently, he made a motion as if washing clothes. Then, just as gently, he mimicked the act of hanging oneself and slitting the throat.

  His eyes remained as clear and bright as ever, infinitely quiet as he performed these two gestures—gestures that told of a fate bound in despair. His movements were steady and precise, devoid of any trace of emotional turmoil.

  His mother had been a undry maid in Qin Wang's mansion. Qin Wang had taken her, and she had given birth to Ze Ning. But for some reason—perhaps because Ze Ning could not speak, or perhaps for some other unknown reason—she had ended her own life early, leaving behind a child who would never utter a word.

  The beginning and end of the story could no longer be traced, but what Hai Ling did know was that the cruelest part of this ending had been left for Ze Ning to bear.

  Ze Ning sat beside the small mound of earth, gazing at the freshly pced bde of grass on the grave. A faint smile—one that carried an almost imperceptible trace of happiness—emerged, spreading from the corner of his brow to the edge of his lips.

  Hai Ling did not sit down. She stood there in a daze, staring at Ze Ning, her mind completely lost in chaos, unable to return to crity. From this moment on, she knew that whenever she saw Ze Ning, she would think of him pcing that bde of grass on the lonely grave. She would think of him handing her a snail. She would think of the fleeting smile on his face when he heard her realize that it meant "I." She would think of this faint yet almost happy smile of his.

  He was not trying to express sorrow deliberately. He simply wanted to prove that she and he could still communicate—that an illiterate person and a mute person could understand each other, just as he and his mother had. That was all.

  Suddenly, she understood why he never imposed rules and formalities on the servants. It was because his mother had also been a humble woman.

  Was this truly the Ze Ning of Qin Wang's mansion, the one whose name shook the imperial court?

  Slowly, she bent down. With a feeling she had never experienced before, she gently said, "Young Master, we... should go back. Sitting on the ground for too long will make you catch a chill."

  She could feel it—an extra tenderness in her heart when she spoke to Ze Ning, a tenderness she had never felt while serving anyone else.