Xia Xiruo and Yun Gu entered Prince Yu’s mansion together. The performers assembled for the Princess’s birthday celebration had all been settled in the rear courtyard to await the Princess’s arrival.
In principle, the performers had already been fully recruited and the programme order arranged — but the forged Yuwen family token had allowed Xia Xiruo to be slotted into a favorable position on the bill.
These people too were denizens of the jianghu. The jianghu was a broad thing — literally “rivers and lakes,” which in its literal reading suggested far and wide, and in its implicit reading suggested all manner of people. Common folk tended to think jianghu meant people who practiced martial arts. But the jianghu was far smaller than that in reality; the larger part of it was made up of people who knew no martial arts at all.
Conjurers, singers, storytelling drummers, street performers — these were all jianghu folk.
This particular trade especially. Most of their income came from performance, and the largest share of that came from great households. So their ability to read a room was sharper than anyone’s.
The original programme had not included this pipa-playing young woman. She had appeared without warning and been slotted into a position near the front. That said only one thing: this young woman was not someone to trifle with.
The sort of scene one might imagine — where people brawl over position, where someone confronts a newcomer and demands to know who gave her the right to go before them — was mostly fantasy. In this era, in this setting, in this situation, everyone understood perfectly: if the mansion’s steward had put this person in the prime slot, it was because she carried more weight.
People who survived by reading the room — would they be foolish enough to point a finger in the young woman’s face and demand she explain herself?
Maybe a fool like that existed somewhere. But no fool like that would ever have been invited into a prince’s mansion to perform in the first place — and even if they had been let in, the mansion’s own people would have dealt with them before any scene could unfold.
Did anyone think the mansion was empty? That they were performing for ghosts?
Hundreds of household guards, hundreds of protective escorts — the performers were surrounded on all sides by the mansion’s people. They were, in fact, kept under close watch, because of the fear that some might have light fingers.
This was the lot of the lowly.
So when Xia Xiruo was given the prime performance slot, all anyone could do was express their dissatisfaction with their eyes — and even then, only in glances, not ones they’d let the steward catch.
What was the prime slot? Not the first few acts, and certainly not the last few.
The opening acts were warm-up entertainment, meant to entertain the guests while the Princess had yet to arrive. The best slot was the one the Princess herself would first witness.
If the Princess was pleased, she’d call for a reward — and everyone below her would follow suit. That sum was not trivial.
“Yun Gu, you may go now.”
Xia Xiruo lowered her voice.
“Young mistress—”
“Yun Gu. Please go.”
Xia Xiruo’s eyes held faint traces of red. She looked at Yun Gu and shook her head. “You promised me. Today, you have to go see my mother in my stead. Today is important.”
Yun Gu gritted her teeth, then nodded. “All right.”
She slipped toward the back under cover of the crowd and bustle, made an excuse about needing the privy, and left.
The young woman watched the commotion outside, then looked back at the crowd behind her, thinking: so this is the mortal world. The last of the mortal world I’ll ever see.
She had come with no expectation of leaving alive. This was Prince Yu’s mansion — guards everywhere, security formidable.
“Young woman.”
The elderly woman in front of her turned and smiled. “Don’t be tense. Don’t be afraid. Those grand personages won’t spare us more than a glance. They have important business to conduct amongst themselves down below — alliances to forge, people to charm. That matters more to them than watching us perform. If you’re truly nervous, breathe deeply. Do it a few times.”
Xia Xiruo looked at her gratefully. “Thank you.”
The old woman said, “No need for such formality. We all make our living by our skills — we’re all one family, in a way. The world’s already making it hard enough for people like us.”
She seemed to prefer not to dwell on such gloomy thoughts, and asked instead: “Young woman, where are you from?”
Xia Xiruo shook her head. The old woman held no grudge, and kept smiling.
“I can see you’re not like the rest of us. You don’t look as though you grew up in hardship. Perhaps your family fell on difficult times and you found yourself having to earn your own way.”
The old woman sighed, looking at Xia Xiruo with a gentle, faintly sorrowful shake of the head. “If there were any other way, what mother and father could bear to let a daughter like you go out and show her face in public.”
Xia Xiruo didn’t know what to say.
The old woman, seeing she had no desire to speak, turned back to face the front. In her hands was an erhu; before her stood a young man who looked to be in his early twenties, glancing back at Xia Xiruo every so often. His complexion was a little dark, but his manner was bright and open.
There are many amusing things in this world — one being that people who rarely see sunlight tend to be pale, while those who live under it tend to be dark.
“My ma is right. You don’t need to be afraid.”
The young man smiled, showing very fine teeth.
“You’re after us,” he said. “That’s good.”
The old woman patted his shoulder. He grinned and looked at Xia Xiruo again.
He probably thought that even though she wore a veil over the lower half of her face, she must be beautiful — very beautiful. Young men of that age tend to have their imaginings about beautiful things.
But his gaze was clear. Not a trace of anything murky in it.
“It’s good,” he said again.
“The Prince arrives! The Princess arrives!”
At the announcement, every guest in the courtyard rose to receive them. Prince Yu entered arm in arm with the Princess, and they made a strikingly well-matched pair as they came forward together.
The male host was of such exalted rank, and besides that possessed a refined, elegantly handsome look with a natural nobility of bearing.
The female host came from a distinguished family. Though no longer young, she remained striking in her beauty, and walking beside the Prince, her bearing was perfectly in harmony with his.
The two entered hand in hand, and a wave of admiring sounds, genuine or otherwise, rose from the assembled guests. The admiration, real or performed, left both Prince Yu and the Princess gratified.
After they settled into the seats of honor, Prince Yu pressed his hand downward in a brief gesture — the signal that he would say a few words now, whatever they were, to be met inevitably by applause.
Xia Xiruo’s gaze never left the Princess from the moment she arrived.
Seated beside the woman revered by thousands was the man who bore the name of her father — yet she felt not a flicker of filial feeling toward him.
She only looked at the Princess.
The Princess who, from the moment of Xia Xiruo’s birth, had sent people to dash her to the ground. The Princess who, when she was three, had put poison in her rice porridge. The Princess who, when she was seven, had deliberately loosed a runaway horse in her direction. The Princess who, when she was eleven, had dispatched an assassin to drive a dagger into her.
And every single time something like that had happened, there had been someone standing in front of her.
Xia Xiruo knew perfectly well that her brother had faced far, far more assassinations and dangers than she had — but her brother cared nothing about that. Her brother cared only whether she was safe.
If her brother faced ten thousand threats, and she faced a hundred, then her brother faced ten thousand and one hundred.
To prevent anyone from knowing her identity, her master had helped her take the name Xia Xiruo. But the surname she loved most, above all others, would always be Xiahou — not Xia, and certainly not Yang.
—
At the same time, Li Chi’s small courtyard.
His foster mother sat on a small bamboo stool in the courtyard, seeming preoccupied. When Li Chi stepped through the door he saw her sitting there in a daze, her expression subdued, and he smiled and walked over.
“Mother, what are you thinking about?”
His foster mother looked up. The moment she saw Li Chi, she smiled. “You little rascal. Why are you back early today?”
Li Chi said, “Most of the teachers at the academy were invited to Prince Yu’s mansion. Because of that notice, Prince Yu probably thinks the academy’s people are all worth using — and it’s a good chance to keep up his reputation for respecting scholars. So the teachers all went, and I came back early.”
He stopped himself mid-sentence and immediately felt a twinge of regret. He should have phrased that differently. He always had these small lapses.
“Never mind.”
His foster mother gave him a look before saying: “If people in the same household have to weigh every word, are they really family? How exhausting. What’s that you’ve brought?”
She pointed at the bag he was carrying.
Li Chi smiled. “Something good to eat.”
His foster mother said, “Something good to eat? Bring it here, let me have a taste.”
Li Chi grinned. “It’s for the dog and the eagle.”
His foster mother looked around. “Where’s my broom?!”
Li Chi laughed and went to her, standing behind her and kneading her shoulders gently. “Mother, if city life isn’t comfortable — if you’re not used to it — I can have people escort you to Yanshan. The scenery is lovely there. The terrain is open. You’d feel better.”
His foster mother made a dismissive sound. “Easy for you to say.”
Li Chi said, “It’s not hard to arrange. Have you forgotten I’m the third-in-command of Jizhou’s most powerful criminal organization? Even if only in name.”
His foster mother burst out laughing. “You two brothers — one a general for the court, one a chieftain for the rebels. Don’t you find that a little awkward?”
Li Chi said, “I’ll make an effort. Strive to turn over a new leaf and follow the righteous path, so Xiahou can—”
His foster mother laughed until tears nearly sprang from her eyes. She shook her head, still laughing. “Xiahou — he doesn’t want to make me worry, so I pretend not to worry. He doesn’t want me to know, so I pretend I don’t know. But he’s out there on the frontier, not eating well, not dressed warmly—”
Before she could finish, a knock sounded at the door. Nine light raps and one heavy — the pattern only their own people knew.
Li Chi went and opened the door. A dark figure lunged in and seized Li Chi by the collar with one hand, then threw him in a clean over-the-shoulder toss.
Li Chi, as he went over, shoved the figure in the back on his way out, used the push to soften his landing, then clasped both hands together — fingers interlaced, index and middle fingers of each hand extended forward, ring and little fingers folded in — and aimed this vicious strike directly at the figure’s backside.
The figure scrambled forward in alarm and looked back. “Trying to poke me to death?”
Li Chi curled his lip. “Hmph.”
The figure turned and faced the foster mother, then dropped at once to both knees. “Mother. Your son has come back to wish you a happy birthday.”
Xiahou Zuo knelt there and knocked his head to the floor several times, firmly and fully.
Today was the birthday of that Princess. As it happened, it was also his mother’s birthday.
“Mother, I wanted to come last year and didn’t make it back in time. This year I’ll make it up to you — these are last year’s knocks too.”
Xiahou Zuo kept talking as he kowtowed, each one sincere and resounding.
His foster mother’s eyes instantly misted over. She rose and walked toward him, arms opening. Xiahou Zuo rose, arms opening in turn.
His foster mother kicked him in the backside. “You scared me half to death. Coming back and not sending word ahead!”
Xiahou Zuo grinned and looked at Li Chi. The look in his eyes said: this is normal. Totally normal.
Li Chi nodded: I know. I understand completely.
Li Chi picked up the bag he’d set down, looked at Gao Xining standing there slightly stunned, and smiled. “Can I trouble you for a hand? I bought vegetables and meat. Let’s make birthday noodles for Mother.”
How warm and lovely.
His foster mother kicked Li Chi in the backside. “Didn’t you just say it was for the pig?!”
Li Chi: “Ah…”
Xiahou Zuo added a kick of his own. “Exactly! How could you say that!”
Gao Xining looked from one to the other, feeling she couldn’t fall behind, and lifted her foot in Li Chi’s direction in a halfhearted sort of pantomime.
“Exactly!”
Xiahou Zuo noticed Gao Xining was there, and looked momentarily confused.
“What’s going on?”
—