The moment their eyes met beneath the peach tree, it seemed as if time itself paused—perhaps out of politeness, perhaps out of disbelief. The thief, still sprawled in a rather undignified heap atop the young master of the house, blinked once, then twice, as if unsure whether he had collided with a man or some marble angel dislodged from a forgotten shrine.
Gu Yan Chen, for his part, blinked not at all. His gaze was steady, his jaw firm, and his arm already preparing for a second blow—should the first visitor of his garden prove anything less than peaceable.
But then, the thief did something most unexpected.
He grinned.
Not the grin of a common cutpurse, nor the sly smirk of a practiced liar—but the weary, ironic smile of someone who had far too little to lose and far too much to remember. With great effort and not without theatricality, the thief rolled to the side, hands lifted as if to say, "You've bested me, sir. Let us be gentlemen about it."
The guards were already flooding into the courtyard, breathless and puffing like winded bellows. Yet before they could seize their quarry, a voice rang out—cool, crisp, and unmistakably commanding.
"Hold."
And so they held.
Gu Yan Chen sat upright now, the book upon his chest tumbling softly into the grass. He looked at the thief—not with anger, but with the sharp, assessing curiosity of a man who has spent his life watching commanders bluff and spies lie through their teeth. And the thief—he was lying. Not with his words, for he hadn't yet spoken—but with everything else: the mask, the posture, the ease, the smile. Lies were stitched into his very soul.
Gu Yan Chen spoke at last. "Remove your mask."
The thief hesitated. Then, in a gesture that felt oddly solemn, he reached up and pulled it free.
And in that moment, the world tilted.
The thief was a girl—or rather, a young woman, though dressed in the rough trousers and scuffed boots of the street-born. Her features were delicate, not from breeding but from fate's cruel irony—eyes like smoke, skin like sunburnt porcelain, and hair bound messily beneath a cap now askew. There was a defiance in her bearing, though it was worn, like a flag flown too long in stormy weather.
A gasp escaped from one of the servants.
"Miss Mu Lian…"
The name fell like a stone in a silent room.
Mu Lian. The name stirred old gossip like dust from forgotten ledgers. Once the darling of the scholar's district, daughter of the esteemed Minister Mu, educated, articulate, and destined for courtly grace. That was before the scandal—the fire, the debts, the accusation of treason. Her father, once a paragon of Confucian virtue, was disgraced and dragged through the streets. His name scrubbed from the annals. His family left to rot.
Some said she died. Others said she fled the city. But here she was—robber of fruit stalls and disturber of noble gardens.
And Gu Yan Chen? He did not speak. He merely looked at her, long and deep, as though peering into a mirror clouded by fog and finding something unexpectedly familiar in the reflection.
Mu Lian met his gaze with a boldness bordering on arrogance. "So," she said, her voice dry as old parchment, "are you going to have me flogged or fed?"
A murmur of discomfort ran through the guards, who were unaccustomed to prisoners addressing lords with such casual profanity. But Gu Yan Chen only raised a brow.
"That depends," he said, rising to his feet. "Do you steal for sport… or for something nobler?"
She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Do you ask every thief their philosophy, or am I special?"
"You're special," he replied plainly. "Most thieves aren't hiding the eyes of a fallen noble."
A flicker of something—pain, perhaps—crossed her face. But only for a moment.
"I steal," she said, "because your world left me with nothing else to do. I was taught poetry and history, how to speak in court, how to kneel before emperors. But none of that buys bread when your name has been tossed into the river."
There was silence. Even the guards, accustomed to rough hands and simpler minds, were unsure whether to scoff or weep.
Gu Yan Chen looked toward the peach tree, its blossoms fluttering down like soft snow.
Then he said, "You may stay."
The guards blinked. Mu Lian blinked harder.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You'll stay here," he said. "Not as a guest. Certainly not as a prisoner. But as… an apprentice, of sorts."
"To do what? Prune trees?"
"To learn how to fight, and to teach me poetry," he said simply.
She stared at him, half-incredulous, half-horrified. "You want to turn a thief into a soldier?"
"No," he said, walking past her with the quiet authority of one who has decided and will not be swayed. "I want to turn a ghost into a blade."
And with that, Gu Yan Chen disappeared into the hall.
Mu Lian, thief and fallen lady, stood alone beneath the peach tree. For the first time in many years, she did not run.