The sixth month had grown hot and parched, though fortunately the night before had brought a torrential downpour, knocking countless freshly bloomed flowers from their branches and scattering petals across the ground. The air after the rain was clean and fragrant, and early that morning everything felt refreshing and pleasant to the heart.
Qinsang raised both arms and worked to roll the bamboo blinds as high as she could, then turned back with a warm smile. “While the sun hasn’t yet climbed too high, let’s get some air into the room, so it won’t just stay stuffy and sweltering all day.”
A small maidservant stood by holding a little wet bamboo basket. On the table sat various small fruit dishes—white porcelain, painted-enamel, crystal, octagonal, and chrysanthemum-petal shaped—a dazzling and beautiful array.
Xiaotao, pulling her sleeves up, arranged the fresh, still-dew-dappled fruits one by one on the dishes, then looked up with a grin. “That rain last night was really frightening—raging and lashing, like a whip cracking against the ground. When I heard the water striking the earth, my heart gave a start with every single blow.”
Ruomei’s lovely face was blank of expression; hearing this, she lightly furrowed her brows. “However frightening the rain was, it was nothing compared to the Master. I… I have never seen the Master lose his temper so terribly before. It was absolutely terrifying.”
“Serves them right!” Luzhi stepped in from outside, set down the tea tray in her hand, walked in two quick strides to the table, and took a drink of water.
Qinsang glanced at her sidelong, laughing. “Has the Madam finished her meal? Oh, don’t rush—drink slowly. Who’s going to steal it from you?”
Luzhi set down her water cup, still not entirely satisfied, and filled the bowl again to finish it. “That dish of pepper-salt crispy fried quail eggs at the Madam’s breakfast table this morning was really delicious. The Madam gave me some to eat, and I couldn’t keep myself from having a few too many. So salty—tsk, tsk. I had to hold out until Cuiwei older-sister and Danju came back before I dared go out.”
“Serves you right, too,” Xiaotao glared at her. “Eating all by yourself without saving any for us.”
Luzhi put down her tea bowl, planted one hand on her hip, and glared right back. “This morning the Madam kept the eldest young lady for breakfast. I watched her eat quite a lot—even if I hadn’t taken any myself, there wouldn’t have been anything left for you.”
“All right, all right—arguing over a few quail eggs,” Ruomei said, waving a hand. “It’s not as if the Madam has ever shorted you on food and drink, has she? Has she?” Then she lowered her voice to ask: “You two—tell me, last night you went on the Madam’s orders to take the Master his dinner. What on earth was going on over there? When I went, all I saw was that the maid called Wu was being dragged away, blood all over her—it gave me quite a fright.”
Luzhi wiped her lips with a cloth, glanced out at the window and doorway, walked further inside and sat down, and said with practiced indifference: “Nothing out of the ordinary. Last night, that one from the Kouxiang Courtyard saw that the Master hadn’t even come here first and had gone straight into the study, and that he still hadn’t come out by nightfall. So she stirred up trouble and had someone carry a food box over to the study to ‘show concern’ for the Master. Xiao Shun was blocking the way and wouldn’t let Wu in. So she deliberately put on a soft, coy voice and spoke loudly enough for the Master inside to hear her—but as it turned out…”
She covered her mouth in a smile. “As it turned out, she only succeeded in enraging the Master, who immediately ordered her dragged away and given ten strokes with the board. Ha! Serves her right!”
“So that’s how it was. She brought it upon herself.” Ruomei’s face took on a trace of contempt, and she said disdainfully, “Those two maids of Yiniang Gong are always decking themselves out in red and green and finding excuses to come around here, drifting in and out and craning their necks, practically hoping the Master will lay eyes on them. No self-respect whatsoever.”
Qinsang and Luzhi exchanged a glance and shared a private smile: this girl, though given to some self-importance and a certain undertone of sourness that others found tiresome, was at least of a decent character at heart. Whenever Gu Tingye was present, she either hid herself in the inner rooms or happened to be elsewhere and hadn’t returned yet, making every effort to stay out of the Master’s sight.
“The Master’s temper is naturally not easy, and it’s only here with the Madam that he reins it in somewhat. Last night the Master hurled a cup of hot tea—it splattered hot water and ceramic shards everywhere—and Xiao Shun and the outer-courtyard guards didn’t dare move a muscle.” So Xiaotao said, casually.
She placed the last fruit dish, then took from nearby some fresh green leaves still moist from being washed in clean water, broke off a few small sprigs, and slowly arranged them atop the dewy, tender fruits as decoration. As she worked, she went on: “Otherwise, how do you suppose the Lingding Courtyard behaves itself so well? I’ve heard that when she first came, she brought four maids with her. One was beaten to death on the spot over some matter or other—I don’t know exactly what. Another was half-killed by the beating and didn’t last more than a few days before she died. The lady Fengxian was so frightened that she took ill on the spot and didn’t get out of bed for months. Alright—Chunya, throw all this away for me, and bring in the covered baskets that are airing out.”
She clapped her hands, straightened up, gathered the scraps of fruit and leaves and passed them to the little maidservant. The little girl, no more than ten years old, with a round, gentle face, acknowledged the task and went out obediently.
The one who had been speaking felt nothing of it herself, but the one who heard it felt her heart give a lurch. All the maidservants in the room fell quiet in a collective chill. After a long pause, Luzhi let out a startled cry: “Why didn’t you say so earlier! Last night, while the Master was taking so long to return, that wretched one, Caihuan, kept muttering on and on about wanting to ‘go check on the Master on the Madam’s behalf.'”
Xiaotao blinked blankly: “…You didn’t ask me, did you?” She liked to keep her ear to the ground, but she never gossiped indiscriminately; the Madam was her one and only audience.
To be a qualified collector of information, one needs not only a simple and honest outward appearance, but also a constant habit of careful, guarded speech—so that whoever let something slip to her could be completely confident that it would never be passed along.
Just as they were talking, Chunya came back in with a purple bamboo, finely woven, black-gauze covered basket hanging from each small arm. Xiaotao lifted the layered covers of the baskets and began to settle the arranged fruit dishes inside them.
“…If I’d known, I would have let her go—and saved myself all that effort blocking her. How exhausting.” Luzhi was still fuming.
Qinsang could not help herself: “Stop meddling so much. Always scheming like this—when trouble comes of it, just you watch, Cuiwei older-sister will have your palms beaten flat!”
Luzhi thought back to past instances, stuck out her tongue, and held her tongue as well.
Ruomei gave a long sigh. “Better not scheme at all. The Master comes from a military background—not at all like those bookish scholars with their tender care for delicate things and their gentle temperaments. Fortunately the Madam is in the Master’s good graces. Otherwise…” Her expression grew pensive; she propped herself on one elbow, sorrowful as Xi Shi rinsing silk gauze.
Luzhi and Qinsang exchanged another glance, both pressing their lips together in a wry expression.
Little Chunya listened to this, looked up with wide, innocent eyes, and said: “The Master’s temper is already much better, though. I’ve heard that before the Madam came through the door, there was one occasion when a maidservant from the inner courtyard accidentally wandered into the outer study. The Master didn’t say a single extra word—he just had her taken away on the spot.”
Everyone listened, riveted, and hurried to ask: “And then? What happened after that?”
“After that… after that, there was nothing more.” Chunya closed the lids on the covered baskets and sat there blankly, making no more sense of it.
Everyone erupted: “How can there be nothing more? What became of that person?”
No one spreads gossip like this, leaving behind a loose end with no resolution. Luzhi’s finger nearly poked her on the forehead. Chunya recoiled with a cry: “I don’t know! After that, that older-sister never appeared again.”
All the young girls looked at each other in horror, feeling that this sentence was full of unknown and terrible things—far more frightening than being beaten or sold off. The room fell silent, and after a long while, Luzhi suddenly remembered something and glared at Chunya. “How do you know about this?”
Chunya wore an expression of complete simplicity and said quite naturally: “I heard it from Xiao Shun older-brother, who heard it from Young Master Gongsun, who heard it from Guard Xie, who heard it from Second Master Tu.”
Luzhi nearly fainted. Ruomei opened her mouth wide. Qinsang, caught between laughing and crying, pointed at Xiaotao and Chunya and said: “Truly, one who dwells near ink becomes stained black. You spend your days following her around and you’ve taken on her very habits. Come away from that creature quickly—come follow me instead.”
Little Chunya immediately clutched Xiaotao’s arm and said sweetly: “Thank you, Qinsang older-sister, but I can’t bear to leave Xiaotao older-sister. She treats me so well—she saves up all the good food and good clothes she gets and sends them to my mother and my little sister.”
Xiaotao smiled broadly and drew little Chunya in close. “You child—how can you be so blunt? Even if I do treat you well, you can’t go announcing it like that. A person must maintain some modesty.”
All the young girls swayed and crumpled in collective speechlessness.
The little maidservants, in their ignorance, laughed and teased without a care in the world. Minglan was not so fortunate: at this moment, her head was splitting.
After returning from the Marquis’s mansion the day before, Gu Tingye had shut himself without a word in the outer study. He had not come back to the room even for the evening meal, having spent an extended interval in the middle of the evening in consultation with Gongsun Baishi.
Apart from sending in food and tea to show concern, Minglan had never gone over to him.
As a resolute and mature man, Gu Tingye at this moment should have been thinking through a problem—not indulging in sorrow or sentiment. What he needed was calm deliberation, not the comforting of a nursemaid.
His choice to go to the outer study rather than the inner study was itself a subtle, quiet signal of that intention.
Minglan had sat quietly in her room and waited, keeping watch over the lamplight until midnight, and had only laid down to sleep when she truly could not hold out any longer.
Unexpectedly she woke in the small hours drenched in cold sweat. The moment she opened her eyes, in the pitch-black room, she saw a large, dark silhouette seated by the window, a pair of glittering eyes watching her face without blinking—the gaze deep and impenetrable.
Minglan was frightened half awake.
The man did nothing—only stared at her face that way. Outside, the rain had grown sudden and fierce, lashing the ground in wild, ferocious bursts, each strike seeming to fall upon one’s heart. Minglan felt even more ill at ease and instinctively curled in on herself.
He knew he had woken her. He pulled her close—person, hands, and feet all bundled—into his arms. At a loss for how to comfort her, he rocked her like a wet nurse soothing a baby to sleep. His technique was not expert, but the effect was very good. Minglan murmured two confused questions; he gave no answer, only rocked more energetically. She was drowsy and fell back to sleep.
Through that night she slept in shallow, broken intervals, drifting in a state of persistent unease. Waking with a headache the next morning was entirely natural. By the time she finally came fully awake, the pillow beside her was already empty. On the low couch beside the bed lay the clothes from the day before—a double-weave thin silk robe, with dark patterns of steadfast pines and firm stones worked in Suzhou embroidery, the shining embroidery threads seeming to gleam faintly in the light—tossed there in a casual heap.
Not a single son in the Sheng household would have been allowed such carelessness. Sheng Hong had long since resolved to establish their family’s reputation through poetry and learning, and had always required his sons to cultivate themselves and keep proper order. However tired they might be, one simply did not throw things about carelessly; and with Elder Brother Changbai as a living example of the ideal standard, the effect was all the more pronounced.
But this man had been born with a young master’s temperament—pampered and willful in his boyhood amid silk and jade, then free from all oversight when he had drifted through the world, and later still, once he had entered military life, waited upon from head to toe by attendants.
Minglan privately made a resolution: she would absolutely not raise their children to be set in their ways in old age in such a manner—and then caught herself on that thought and could not help but laugh quietly.
While getting dressed at the mirror, Minglan had Cuiwei take a Buddhist sutra over to Gong Hongxiao, with the instruction that she need not come to pay her respects for the next few days, but should remain quietly in her room and make a full copy of the sutra as a lesson in keeping better discipline over those in her charge.
“Is the Master’s outer study a place that may be visited at will?” Cuiwei’s face wore a frost of stern authority as she delivered the reprimand on her mistress’s behalf. “Think of all the critical documents and items in there—beating that maid to death on the spot would not have been excessive! The Yiniang ought to exercise better management over her own people.”
From the curriculum for a principal wife training course: How to Maintain Stern Authority Before Concubines and Servants, as taught by Sheng Lao: Never let them see your emotions, whether pleasure or displeasure. When giving praise, be brief and direct. When administering rebuke, avoid as much as possible appearing in person—have a senior and respectable female attendant deliver the words instead. You need only sit composed in your place above and dole out reward and punishment with impartiality.
Minglan had distilled this into a crisp note and stored it well.
When Qiuniang came with Rong Jie’er to pay her morning respects, Minglan noticed she seemed a little nervous. She gave her two strings of newly acquired red musk fragrant beads, along with a high-quality palace fan that had been newly granted from the palace—a product of the royal workshops; even the most ordinary items from there were exceptionally fine and precious. Qiuniang immediately broke into a smile and bent repeatedly in thanks.
Rong Jie’er was still young and paid no particular attention to such things. But when Danju led two maidservants into the inner room to set out breakfast, a waft of fragrance drifted over; she turned her head and stole a lingering look, and Minglan casually invited her to stay for the meal. To everyone’s surprise, the little girl quietly accepted, and Qiuniang had no choice but to withdraw first.
Not only that, but the little girl went on to eat heartily: two full bowls of mung bean and white wood ear mushroom porridge, half a plate of pepper-salt quail eggs, and a large piece of golden-thread red date paste cake. Minglan sat holding her own rice bowl, watching in mild astonishment.
Well-bred young ladies of good families were not supposed to eat with such enthusiasm, but Minglan could see that the child was nothing but skin and bones, with barely an ounce of flesh on her yet, so she held her peace for now and said nothing. It had taken Sheng Lao who-knew-how-much effort to feed Minglan herself up until she was plump and round and rosy—and thinking back, the old lady, who had always been so restrained and dignified, had most likely been exercising considerable patience whenever she watched Minglan eat back then.
After the breakfast things were cleared away, Minglan felt that Rong Jie’er had after all eaten a little too much, and so quizzed her on a few characters, demonstrated briefly how to hold a brush correctly, and then had Xiaotao take her for a walk in the garden before seeing her back.
Minglan watched the girl’s retreating figure, her expression thoughtful. Should she move Gong Hongxiao out of the Kouxiang Courtyard?
Having slept poorly the night before, and still having to consider problems like this—the headache crept back with a dull, insistent throb.
Minglan reclined on the bamboo mat-covered Xiang concubine couch and read for a while in the light coming through the window, hoping to catch up on a bit of sleep. But just as she began to drift, her gaze swept sideways and caught the needlework basket nearby. She sighed and pulled out an unfinished infant’s belly-band—still not yet hemmed and completed. She knew she had to make at least some gesture of effort, now that she knew Rulan was with child; and Rulan knew her embroidery well enough that finding someone else to do it in her place wasn’t going to be easy.
Having not done needlework in a while, her fingers had grown awkward; tracing out just the outline of a cluster of jointed green bamboo took nearly a full hour. She yawned as she rummaged through the thread basket, pulling out silk threads in jade green, lake green, and ink green.
Just then, a figure passed across the window. Gu Tingye pushed aside the curtain himself and strode in.
Minglan was startled; for a moment she thought she was dreaming. She quickly checked the water clock—it had only just passed the first quarter of the fourth morning hour.
“Back so early today?” Minglan smiled and moved to get up.
Gu Tingye stepped quickly forward and pressed her back down onto the couch. “You didn’t sleep well last night—what are you doing needlework for? Just lie still.” Then he sat down on the edge of the couch and added, “I came back this way to change clothes—I still have to go to the training grounds afterward.”
Minglan was about to call Xia Zhu in to help him change, but again he stopped her. “No hurry. Keep me company for a little while.”
Minglan settled in place on the couch. She turned her head and looked out; the sun had climbed higher, its clear and brilliant light filtering through the freshly pasted pale crimson gauze windows and flowing over his scarlet court robes, then falling softly across his face and the proud, handsome lines of his features—yet those features were veiled with a layer of shadow.
She was still hesitating over how to ask when he spoke first. “After court finished this morning, I went straight into the palace to see the Emperor.”
“…Oh.” Minglan said.
“I petitioned the Emperor for clemency—said that though they had committed offenses, I hoped His Majesty would see fit to be lenient.”
Minglan bowed her head, quietly asking herself why she felt not the slightest surprise.
The room was hushed; the inner rooms and side rooms were equally quiet. Whenever the two of them were together, the maidservants would always slip discreetly away, leaving only a few girls on hand in the outer ear room or the water room in case they were needed.
“…It was not that my heart softened. Nor was I moved by any inch of that silver-tongued speech of his. Those people—they deserve no pity whatsoever! But—but—” Gu Tingye grew agitated and restless, and suddenly stood up. His tall, straight figure paced back and forth through the room like a caged beast, the fierce and ruthless energy radiating from him seeking some outlet.
Minglan rubbed her temples. The headache was getting worse.
“But—but—” By nature direct and decisive, he seemed at this moment brimming with indignation he could not bring himself to voice. He drove a heavy fist into the smooth, mirror-bright surface of the sandalwood table; the pink-budded pale blue porcelain tea bowl on top jumped with the impact.
“I could have wished for them to taste what it was like—adrift and homeless, wronged and without recourse!” The smoldering fury in his eyes was palpable. After a long pause, his chest rose and fell more steadily.
“…Only this way,” he said, and sank down heavily onto the couch beside Minglan, deflated. “For the future… it will be better.”
Minglan was beginning to understand his anger.
In his heart, he had truly wanted to let them perish without lifting a hand. But after thinking it through in the long hours of the night before, he had weighed the costs and benefits, and in the end had suppressed his impulse. And so he felt deeply, bitterly aggrieved—raging against the unfairness of a world that insisted on selling him what he wanted and what he did not want as a bundle, take it or leave it.
He had come back now not to change his clothes, but because the weight of it had built up so intolerably inside him that he had to find somewhere to put it into words.
In truth, Minglan had been thinking it over herself for quite a few days. Back then, the reason the fourth and fifth branches had targeted Gu Tingye came down to three things: first, they had looked down on him as the son of a salt merchant’s daughter, feeling it tarnished the nobility of their family’s reputation; second, having someone around whom they could rightly mock gave them an uneasy conscience about spending money from the Bai family; and third, their own sons were not particularly distinguished, and they feared losing standing in the old Marquis’s eyes, which created a need for a scapegoat—and who could serve that purpose better than Gu Tingye?
Put those things together, and they had grown only more contemptuous and hostile toward him as the years went by.
Yet for all their despicable behavior, these people had no fundamental, irreconcilable enmity with him. The truly knife-drawing, blood-drawing struggle had all taken place within the main branch itself.
“My fourth sister at home—do you know her?” Minglan had been silent for a long while before suddenly speaking. “The one who married into the Yongchang Marquis household.”
Gu Tingye was mildly surprised. He nodded.
“She and I never got along, from the time we were small.” Minglan reached over and took hold of his large hand; where she touched it, it was ice cold. She said slowly, “She didn’t like me, because I was the one who eclipsed her in Grandmother’s regard, who overshadowed her before our teachers, who drew Father’s attention away from his daughters toward me. And I, in turn, didn’t like her—she was not a good-hearted person.”
Gu Tingye turned his face toward her. He didn’t know why she was telling him this, but he listened quietly.
“Once, I spent half a month embroidering a pair of new shoes to give Father as a birthday gift. On the excuse of admiring the pattern, she deliberately ruined them with a pair of scissors, and I had no choice but to stay up through the nights and remake a pair, working until nearly dawn several nights running.”
Minglan recounted this in an even tone, head bowed, gently and repeatedly kneading Gu Tingye’s large hand. “From when we were small to when we were grown, she schemed against me more times than I could count. Saying bad things about me in front of Father, sowing discord here and there—I always had to exert twice the effort to turn things around afterward…”
For fear of Molan, she had never once dared send food to her father or brothers. Every single time, she had taken the utmost care.
“Why didn’t you fight back hard?”
Gu Tingye’s face was stern. He turned his hand over and took hold of Minglan’s small one; its palm was soft and warm, and something in his heart ached. He thought of how she had lost her mother so young—though she had the protection of her grandmother, she had still lacked anyone to speak on her behalf in her father’s presence. Above her had been an ill-tempered legal mother and elder sister, below her a scheming concubine and half-sister. He wondered how she had made it through all those years.
“At first I didn’t have the ability. I couldn’t think of good ways to retaliate.” Minglan looked up, smiling ruefully at the memory—it was the honest truth. “Later, when I was a little older, I did secretly get back at her a few times to let off steam. Unfortunately I lost more often than I won.”
The hard line of Gu Tingye’s lips softened into a faint smile. He tapped her on the nose and said with light mockery: “Useless girl.” In his view, a dispute between young girls was, after all, nothing more than children squabbling.
“One time she came very close to raking a sharp piece of broken porcelain across my face. I was furious. I made up my mind then that when the day came that things went badly for her, I would kick her while she was down without the slightest hesitation.” Minglan bit her lip, smiling with a small mischievous air.
Gu Tingye’s expression changed abruptly. Before he could speak, Minglan returned to her earlier composure. “But now, I no longer think that way.”
She paused, then said calmly: “As long as I live better than she does, every single time she sees me, she will be consumed with anguish—she will spend whole nights turning over and over, unable to sleep.”
Knowing Molan as she did, watching her lead a glorious and comfortable life, watching Rulan live in happiness and contentment, would be more agonizing to Molan than being killed outright. The venom of envy and regret would gnaw at her heart every night, tormenting her through restless, sleepless hours.
Gu Tingye narrowed his eyes slightly. He was a shrewd man—how could he not grasp Minglan’s meaning?
The fourth and fifth branches had lived for years beneath the old Marquis’s protection, long since forgetting how to face the winds and rains of the world on their own. None of the younger generation had shown any particular distinction; Elder Brother Gu Tingwei of the main branch had been studying all this time and was still no more than a licensed scholar.
Compared to Gu Tingye’s present power and standing, the trajectory of what lay ahead was perfectly clear: as one rose, the others would fall.
“Do not be angry. You need not feel stifled either. We will certainly live better than they will.” Minglan looked at Gu Tingye steadily, her voice soft and firm. “As long as they are forced to watch us flourish, that is all the satisfaction needed.”
“Do you truly think I did right?” Gu Tingye murmured. His expression was uncertain, his eyes carrying a flicker of hesitation; he looked at Minglan with urgent intensity, as if waiting for an assurance. “To disregard my late mother’s injustice, only for my own sake—?”
“You did right. And your late mother’s injustice will not simply be forgotten.” Minglan nodded, with absolute conviction. “You can petition for her to be posthumously honored, build a shrine to her, ask respected and eminent clan elders to re-enter her record in the family register, so that all future generations of the Gu family will know of the kindness that the First Madam Bai rendered to the Gu clan. After all—the way the Gu family’s story is told from now on is yours to decide.”
History is written by those who prevail; the stories of the defeated are buried in the sealed dust of the past.
From now on, Gu Tingye could speak of Bai Shi with whatever glory and praise he wished. To put it plainly—those scoundrels would certainly still have occasion to come and beg things of Gu Tingye. When that day arrived, he could straightforwardly have them all line up and go to kowtow and confess before Bai Shi’s spirit tablet.
“Well said.”
The light in Gu Tingye’s eyes brightened. He bowed his head in thought for a moment; the confusion on his face gradually cleared, and the corners of his mouth, once again self-assured, slowly spread into a calm and settled smile. “I should simply do what needs to be done. No need to take detours or change course for the sake of people who are not worth it.”
Minglan knew that he had made his peace with it. She applauded enthusiastically, expressing her fervent admiration for this wise and decisive resolution.
His handsome eyes shone like stars—elegant, far-seeing brows, fine and composed features—as they rested quietly on Minglan. He gently stroked the soft, delicate skin of her cheek.
Minglan’s face flushed red at once; she could not help but look out the window.
He seemed entirely unaware of it. He turned that noble, well-formed profile toward her, smiling as beautifully as a painting. In a quiet voice he said: “You are wonderful.”
Minglan’s face grew redder still.
Then, with a sudden sweep of his wide sleeve, before Minglan had even realized what was happening, she was enclosed completely in his arms. She breathed in the familiar scent of a man, mingled with a light trace of agarwood. The brown-and-gold embroidered cuff wound around her like trailing vines, as if clinging to the gossamer of a cicada’s wing.
A voice as low and resonant as a kettledrum sounded in her ear. “I want you—within this household, beyond your own chambers—to find, in all that is mine to give and all that I am able to do, that every single thing goes as you would have it, in keeping with your heart.”
Minglan was buried under his wide court robe sleeves, unable to see a thing. Inwardly she chanted eighteen times that a man’s sweet words are not to be trusted—yet she could not suppress the wild hammering of her heart.
…
After he had changed clothes and left, Minglan was still lying face-down on the soft couch, her gaze wandering dreamily toward a pot of young, lush, tender-green noble orchid seedlings sitting on the windowsill.
He was so shrewd and perceptive, so rich in experience—what principle could he not reason through? What web of interests and relationships could he not untangle? And yet, however thoroughly reasoned, everything first has to pass through the gate of the heart.
Gu Tingyu had, in the end, possessed a certain capacity.
She had drifted into a reverie when she slowly drew a letter from her sleeve—it had fallen from his clothing that morning.
…It is not the teaching of his father if the child goes wrong… His nature is direct and sincere; the willfulness of today is entirely my own failing… I do not know where he is now. I think of him greatly… I only hope that an elder may offer him some protection, so that he does not suffer hardship and danger… I bow in gratitude and implore you…
The paper had yellowed at the edges and grown brittle with age, as if it had been crumpled and smoothed flat again many times over. Here and there on the ink-written characters were small, round dimples—drops fallen one by one, blurring and spreading into the aged, trembling brushstrokes.
She felt a sudden, dull ache in her chest.
He was, in truth, a very, very good man.