When the first light of morning squeezed through the window cracks, Lu Xingchen was already awake. He turned his head toward the bed on the other side of the room where Shen Ye slept—empty. The bedding was folded neatly, without a single wrinkle, as if no one had ever lain there at all. Lu Xingchen frowned, threw on his clothes, and pushed open the door. The corridor, the tea room, the dry well in the back courtyard... Shen Ye was nowhere to be found. "This early?" he murmured, though unease...