Lingbo’s anger surged, and she moved to hit him again. He slipped aside with practiced ease, and the two of them chased each other around the plum tree a couple of times before Pei Zhao stopped — seeing that Lingbo couldn’t catch him and was breathless besides — and stood still, waiting for her, watching her with a smile.

“Miss Ye likes getting ahead so much — why is she not out watching the lanterns herself?” he asked, eyes curved with amusement.

There’s always a reason behind a question asked from false ignorance — one is always hoping for a particular answer. Just as Lingbo had asked hers a moment ago. Regrettably, Miss Ye was still catching her breath, and was not in any state to notice this.

“You think I don’t want to? If I had your looks, or Biwei’s, I’d have gone long since,” she said, feeling this was an honest enough answer. But Pei Zhao pulled that wretched fox-face of his down into a frown, looking not altogether satisfied.

She had been far too lenient with him.

Inwardly cursing him, she nonetheless continued with what she felt was rather a lack of spine: “Actually, last year there was one occasion — I worked hard to arrange something, and in the end he still chose Lu Wenyin. I’d already prepared myself for the best things to pass me by, but even the middling ones turned out to prefer a pretty face at the very first glance. After that I stopped caring so much. The Flower Season Banquet isn’t my arena — my real merits are only in ability and management. Perhaps I’ll eventually marry some useless man and manage his family estate for him, or perhaps I’ll become someone’s stepmother.”

In truth, she had tried again just a few days earlier — though for some reason she hadn’t dared tell Pei Zhao.

She only kept talking to herself: “People will always value beauty — I figured that out long ago. The Flower Season Banquet, the Lantern Festival — none of it has anything to do with me. No one will like me because I know how to run a household.”

The words were deeply dispirited. And yet she said them with her chin tilted upward, like a proud crane.

“Who says so,” Pei Zhao said, still looking down at her. “Someone will like you.”

Lingbo laughed at herself. “Like who, for example?”

“Like me, for example.”

To say she felt no surprise would be a lie. For one instant, Lingbo felt as though her heart had stopped — but she was a sharp-minded person, and recovered quickly. She would not be so easily taken in, and so of course she gave him nothing to catch hold of.

She even managed to look up and meet Pei Zhao’s gaze.

“Don’t joke like that.” She said: “Save your jokes for other girls. Using them on me is a waste — I’m not your type.”

She knew her tone had been a little sharp, which explained why Pei Zhao had gone quiet.

He was becoming harder to manage all the time — taking offense at the smallest things. But beautiful people did tend to get spoiled more easily.

Lingbo sighed inwardly. Seeing him silent, only watching her steadily, she felt an unexpected pang of guilt. She herself didn’t even know where all this guilt toward him had come from recently — as though her heart had gone soft as dough. He hadn’t even said anything, and she was already filling the silence with a stream of words to ease the tension.

Fortunately, the round collar of Pei Zhao’s robe had interconnecting jade buttons, which were prone to slipping — a common problem — and gave her an excuse to change the subject.

“How do you manage not to fasten even a button properly,” she said, seeing Pei Zhao stand perfectly still. “Come here.”

Fastening a button for him was as good as an olive branch. She did the same with Shen Biwei when Biwei was upset — it was the most primal form of making peace, no different from pouring tea.

Sure enough, Pei Zhao took the bait, stepping toward her, moving as he did from the shade of the tree into a patch of moonlight. He lowered his head and let her fuss with him, giving the odd impression of tending to a temple idol. But he was not an idol. He was a living person. Lingbo reached up to fasten the button — but the jade ones were slippery, and try as she might, she could find only one; the other eluded her entirely. The embroidered flowers on the brocade were stiff against her fingertips, and her palms had begun to sweat. She was working in close quarters, enveloped in his shadow, intent on the button — when he suddenly lowered his head and brought his face close to hers.

He had smelled her hair. But Lingbo startled so violently that she recoiled on instinct, and her hand came back in a sharp reflex, connecting squarely with his face.

It looked as though she had just slapped Pei Zhao across the face.

She herself knew there was no explaining this. She had always been the composed one — the one who held everything in, who maintained control. How had she suddenly lost all sense and hit someone?

The moonlight was clear and still, her face burned with heat, yet all at once her heart became just as still and clear — an awakening as sudden as a flash of light.

She was afraid of Pei Zhao.

The inexplicable guilt of these past few days, the softness of heart, and yet always finding herself going to seek him out. The way she had started to be thrown into a panic by his jokes. The startled, guarded reaction she had just had, the reflex that had even made her hit someone.

Because she was afraid of Pei Zhao.

Pei Zhao was still Pei Zhao. But she was no longer herself.

She couldn’t bear his jokes — not because she was afraid he liked her, but because she liked him. That was why she went soft on him. That was why she shrank from his nearness — afraid he would see through her — and so when caught in the act, she turned it to anger. Just as Shen Biwei had warned her: the longer you stand by the water’s edge, the sooner your feet get wet.

She had developed feelings. And so she was vulnerable at every turn.

Once she understood all of this, she became calm again. She saw Pei Zhao still standing with his head bowed, not saying a word, looking like a sulking child — and let out an exasperated sigh.

They were all like that — doing the mischief themselves, then wearing the most aggrieved expression of anyone around.

But Lingbo could only coax him.

“All right, I’m sorry — whose fault is it but yours for suddenly leaning in like that? Like a little dog.” She tried to keep her voice light and teasing: “I thought you were trying to take advantage of me, so it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I was on purpose,” Pei Zhao said.

“What?” Lingbo thought she had misheard.

Pei Zhao said nothing. He simply held out his hand.

Far away, Baixi Street roared like a boiling sea; the Lantern Festival lights had stained the night sky of the capital a pale, luminous grey. But none of that concerned them now. In this quiet alley, in the dim light of the moon, in the palm of Pei Zhao’s hand, lay the button Lingbo had been searching for all along.

Pei Zhao stood in the moonlight — like a beautiful white peacock, but transformed into human shape, bearing the gallant air of a young general, like a dream that every young woman is destined to fall into.

He said: “I like you. So I wanted you to fasten my button — to have you rise on your toes and come close to me of your own accord.”

He said: “I was doing it on purpose.”

Lingbo fled.

There is no such story in any opera. It is always beautiful women and lingering love, always the scholar who meets a young lady of peerless beauty on his way to the capital, always the orphan girl rescued by the general who is somehow lovely as a flower. Even the maidservant who teases the main characters is supposed to be pert and charming.

She had spent her life playing the supporting role who ties the red thread. Of course she had her long arias, her clever schemes, and in the end — when the couple was finally sent into the bridal chamber — she too would have her moment, cheering from the crowd.

And yet somehow, today it had come to her.

She felt like she’d been thrust onstage with no preparation, and could only take to her heels. Out in the street, she ran straight into Xiao Liu’er, who had been anxiously searching for her — Xiao Liu’er and Yang Niangzi together, who came hurrying over at the sight of her, vexed: “It’s all General Pei’s fault, leading the young miss off somewhere and losing her. We’ve been looking everywhere.”

“I shouldn’t have come out with him tonight — trouble finds you wherever you go,” Lingbo said, distracted.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” even Yang Niangzi was smiling. “On a night like the Lantern Festival, plenty of people come out to look each other over. Walking together is nothing out of the ordinary — so long as you have attendants along.”

“The young miss sounds just like the eldest young miss now,” Xiao Liu’er immediately noticed.

Lingbo knew she had again misjudged the situation. Yang Niangzi and Xiao Liu’er didn’t know the real circumstances, and naturally assumed the two of them had simply been out and about above any reproach.

She was the one feeling guilty about nothing.

Or perhaps he had seen her flustered state and was deliberately playing along — making the whole thing into a joke, perhaps even waiting in that alley for her to come back and demand an accounting.

But when she had run, he had only stood there quietly — as though the outcome were no surprise to him at all.

Then how would he get home tonight? That courtyard of his — no servants, no friends — all alone, on a night like this, of all nights…

Lingbo caught herself, and gave herself a silent, sharp rebuke.

Just a moment ago she had been telling herself to hold firm, and here she was already feeling sorry for him again. He was tall and broad and strong, with a face that just happened to be exceptionally fine — she had noticed when he took her hand, that his hand was a full size larger than hers, pushing through the crowd like a boat through water. He was also a young general who could probably shoot a tiger through the eye with a single arrow, and here she was making herself miserable on his behalf like a fool.

And on top of that, he had been scheming after her!

With that thought, Lingbo steeled herself, gave up on the lanterns entirely, and went home early with all her attendants. And then Xiao Liu’er, proving herself equally incapable of being sensible, asked: “Miss, the deep-fried yellow croaker turned out quite well tonight — should I send some over to General Pei? Last time we sent food, he wouldn’t eat anything except a bit of the shad.”

“Don’t,” Lingbo said with disdain. “If he doesn’t eat, let him starve. Who’s been indulging him?”

Xiao Liu’er had been with Lingbo since childhood and knew her mistress through and through — but she could not, for the life of her, understand what had come over her today. Had they quarreled with General Pei again? Surely not.

Xiao Liu’er knew her mistress well. Lingbo was excellent in every regard, with only one small weakness: she had always been partial to beautiful things — and beautiful people. When Miss Yu from the Yu family had visited, Xiao Liu’er had known at once that her mistress would get along well with her. The same went for Miss Shen — for all their years of friction, Lingbo had never truly lost her temper with her, and aside from knowing that Biwei’s heart was in the right place, it was also simply because she was so genuinely good-looking.

As Lingbo herself had put it: the moment Biwei came to make peace with that face of hers and gave a few cheerful, coaxing words, all the irritation vanished.

General Pei naturally fell into the same category — his looks were undeniable, his character was sound, and after that matter in Ping’an Lane, even her own brother Liu Ji had become completely devoted to him. And though Lingbo looked sharp on the outside, she was, at her core, the most tolerant of good people.

Thinking all this through, Xiao Liu’er set her mind at rest.

After all, her mistress and General Pei were never going to fall out beyond repair.

Xiao Liu’er felt reassured. Lingbo, however, felt more than a little adrift.

She was nineteen years old, and moments like this — when she felt truly at a loss — had been rare in her life. Even seven years ago, she had only felt fury and refusal; she hadn’t felt this sense of being lost. Back then, it was like standing alone in an expanse of snow — helpless and unsupported, knowing a long and grueling path lay ahead — but at least she had known which direction to walk.

Right now, she was genuinely turned around.

The feeling was like the aftermath of a serious illness, when nothing one does feels settled. Or like the first signs of being ill — some dim, unnameable wrongness — with no remedy available. Even managing the household, usually her surest ground, offered no comfort; she picked up the account books and sat with them for a long while without absorbing a single line, her mind drifting elsewhere for long stretches.

Lingbo herself found this inexcusable. If anyone noticed, it would only add to her humiliation.

No wonder the operas always showed young ladies pining away — always circling the stage in restless loops, comparing themselves to birds, to flowers, too afraid to let others know and too afraid of anything changing, singing endlessly, never accomplishing a single practical thing.

Fortunately, the outside world soon grew lively again — Qinglan had come home.

Qinglan was surprised to find Lingbo back already. Lingbo finally had a chance to redirect her attention, and immediately asked: “Why did you come back so early? Why didn’t you stay out longer? Where’s Elder Sister Han Yueqi?”

“Shen Yunze was pressuring her to go home — it was terribly done. Biwei scolded him a couple of times, and then Yueqi left,” Qinglan said, unhurriedly changing her clothes. “The outside was getting quite chaotic, so I came back.”

Lingbo still refused to give it up: “And the others? What about Madam Wei? What about A’Cuo?”

“A’Cuo and Yanyan went off to enjoy themselves. I didn’t want them to feel constrained, so I had Lin Niangzi keep a close watch on both of them, gave them each a pouch of money, and sent them on their way.” Qinglan remembered something and gave instructions: “Chun Ming — go out and tell Lin Niangzi not to let them eat too much from the food stalls. The street food isn’t clean. Yanyan’s stomach trouble from a few days ago only just cleared up, and A’Cuo’s constitution is delicate too. Say it’s on my orders.”

Chun Ming answered and went out.

“Yanyan didn’t have a stomach ailment — she just ate too much over the holiday and got stuffed.” Lingbo reached over to take Chun Ming’s place, helping Qinglan out of her robes. But the collar of this moonlight robe was embroidered with cloud patterns too, and the texture under her fingertips was suddenly so familiar that Lingbo’s fingers jerked away as though burned — and she came to herself a moment too late, her face already flushed crimson.

“What’s the matter?” Qinglan always knew her two younger sisters’ moods at a glance. She noticed immediately, and reached up to touch Lingbo’s cheek: “Why are you so flushed? You haven’t caught a chill, have you?”

“I’m fine — I dressed warmly enough.” Warmly enough and more, in fact — with that scoundrel Pei Zhao standing just in front of her blocking the wind, it had been more than sufficient. Only now did Lingbo recall how, on the city wall, he had shifted position to stand a little behind her and to the side — it had been to shield her from the wind all along.

He always attended to these small, quiet details. One could tell he had made a habit of it with someone before. She wondered which young lady he had learned all this from.

Lingbo kept drifting away, which Qinglan fortunately mistook for the symptoms of a chill. Without even finishing changing her own clothes, she immediately turned her attention to setting Lingbo to rights — changed her robes, put her in a warm, soft padded jacket, personally arranged the warming brazier, had Xiao Liu’er bring quilts, set Lingbo to rest on top of them, filled a hand warmer and pressed it into her arms, and sent to the kitchen for ginger soup.

Lingbo was perfectly content to act the part of the younger sister and let herself be tended to.

Qinglan worked through her preparations, then pressed the back of her hand to Lingbo’s forehead. Her hand was warm and slender, like a piece of fine warm jade. She bent down to look at Lingbo — her shadow falling softly over her — and the scene was so exactly like their childhood that Lingbo felt a rush of tenderness, and without thinking, pressed her face into Qinglan’s palm.

“What’s come over Lingbo?” Qinglan, who had always indulged her most, patted her head and said: “Don’t tell me you’re actually ill.”

“Stay with me for a while,” Lingbo said, quietly.