A wedding took place in Liangzhou — hasty yet grand.

Hasty, because all six traditional rites had been compressed and completed within three days. Grand, because every person in attendance was someone who had established themselves firmly in the Hexi region and carried real weight when they spoke.

Li Gu, formerly one of the Twelve Tigers — known as Shiyi Lang — had bathed the land in blood before taking Li Ming’s sole surviving kin, Li Zhenzhen, as his wife, along with Deng Wanniang, the fifth daughter of the Deng family, and Cui Yingniang, the seventeenth daughter of the Cui family. With this, the curtain fell on the chaos of the Hexi rebellion.

These figures appeared together at the wedding — generals standing with generals, clans clustering with clans, great families pressing sleeve to sleeve — and raised Li Gu up as the overlord of Hexi.

At that moment, these men still divided themselves along lines of military faction, clan affiliation, and aristocratic house, each with their own allegiances and competing interests.

Yet as Li Gu’s iron cavalry would one day ride out of Hexi and level the world beneath its hooves, all who stood present that day would be seen, in the eyes of everyone else, as a single body — bound by one common name: the Hexi Faction.

Though Li Gu had taken three wives at once, Li Zhenzhen’s singular status made her into something of a symbol of the Hexi Faction in the years that followed. In Li Gu’s heart, and within his household, she held a place unlike any other woman.

But all of that lay in the future.

For now, on the very night of his wedding, Li Gu led his troops out on campaign — for the turmoil within Hexi had set the surrounding neighbors stirring with restless ambition.

By the time he returned, two months had passed.

The former residence of the Hexi Military Governor was now his home.

As he stepped through the gates, Li Zhenzhen came to welcome him, holding little Nuan’nuan by the hand, with Deng Wanniang and Cui Yingniang behind her, and a long train of servants and maids in their wake.

Li Gu’s firm, purposeful stride faltered for just a moment.

“Congratulations on your triumphant return, Shiyi Lang.” Li Zhenzhen called out clearly, holding Nuan’nuan’s hand.

Deng Wanniang and Cui Yingniang did not yet dare address Li Gu as Shiyi Lang, so they followed Li Zhenzhen’s lead: “Congratulations on your triumphant return, my husband.”

Nuan’nuan wrenched free of Li Zhenzhen’s hand and came running: “Fifth Uncle! Seventh Uncle! Eleventh Uncle!”

Li Weifeng swept her up and lifted her high: “Did Nuan’nuan miss Seventh Uncle?”

Nuan’nuan dissolved into giggles.

Li Wu Lang, too, reached over to pinch her little chubby hand with a grin, giving it a playful shake.

The rigid tension in Li Gu’s face eased slightly. He took Nuan’nuan from Li Weifeng’s arms and held her close, then said to the women, “Thank you for your hard work. You may return — we still have matters to discuss.”

It wasn’t only him — Li Qi Lang and other commanders were with him, along with officials such as Chen Zhiliang. There was indeed still a great deal of pressing business to attend to.

Li Zhenzhen stepped forward to take Nuan’nuan back, saying with mild reproach, “Don’t cause trouble for your uncles.”

Nuan’nuan was unhappy.

Li Gu spoke gently to coax her: “Once your uncles finish their work, they’ll come play with Nuan’nuan.”

At that, Nuan’nuan smiled again.

Li Zhenzhen held her daughter, understanding in her heart that with the way Li Gu had held and comforted Nuan’nuan today, from this point on, no one in the new Li household would ever dare look down on Nuan’nuan for once having carried the Huo surname.

Her heart settled completely.

She said to Li Gu and the others, “Make sure you eat at proper hours — don’t ruin your stomachs.”

She said it with complete ease, as it was a habit formed naturally from years of helping her father look after these sworn brothers of his.

Li Gu and the rest responded just as naturally.

Deng Wanniang and Cui Yingniang smiled quietly, watching without a word.

The men walked past the women and continued on their way.

The women remained standing where they were, watching them go.

Li Weifeng lingered at the back, and discreetly nudged Chen Zhiliang with his elbow, sighing with feeling: “Though they’re all equal wives, you could still say this is what they mean by ‘a wife and concubines filling the halls,’ couldn’t you?”

But Chen Zhiliang was watching Li Gu’s retreating back, his mind occupied by a single thought: when would be the right time to tell him that news?

Another half month passed, and still within the Li household.

Li Weifeng came around a corner and ran straight into Li Zhenzhen — and immediately spun on his heel and bolted.

“Stop right there!” Li Zhenzhen snapped. “Old Seven, do you hear me?!”

Li Weifeng: I hear nothing, I hear nothing, blah blah blah.

“Block him,” Li Zhenzhen commanded.

This was, after all, the house where Li Zhenzhen had been born and raised — the servants she employed were all old retainers of the Li household. Using their intimate knowledge of the layout, they herded Li Weifeng into the water pavilion, leaving him no way out.

Cornered and desperate, Li Weifeng flung one leg up onto the white jade balustrade — then hesitated. He couldn’t swim. And the weather had turned rather cold. The water… hiss… there were even chunks of ice floating in it!

Li Zhenzhen strolled up behind him at her leisure, mocking: “Go on then, jump. Let’s see you do it.” She had once directed servants to fish him out of the pond after he’d fallen in while roughhousing with Wu Lang.

Li Weifeng was utterly miserable. He lowered his leg. “Big Sister, what’s the point of cornering me? Go corner Eleven!”

Li Zhenzhen said with fury: “If I could corner him, do you think I’d be here cornering you?”

For half a month now, Li Gu was either absent entirely, or shut inside his study — that fortified inner sanctum, surrounded by layer upon layer of soldiers who barred all women from approaching. Even if Li Zhenzhen had wanted to waylay him, she’d had no way to do it. So she’d resorted to shooting the horse first: she’d come to waylay Li Weifeng instead.

“I’ve already told Fifth Lady and Seventeenth Lady that Shiyi Lang will consummate the marriage with them very soon. He’s impressive, all right — won’t even show his face in the inner quarters.” Li Zhenzhen said with cold contempt. “He said all fine words about entrusting the inner household to me. But if he’s going to defy me like this, I won’t bother managing it anymore — he can manage it himself!”

Li Weifeng said, “The matter of the wedding night — I can hardly do that in his place. Here’s what I’ll do, Big Sister: let me go to the study right now and see what he’s so busy with, I’ll just go take a look—”

He made to slip away as he spoke.

But he couldn’t move — Li Zhenzhen had grabbed hold of his belt.

Li Weifeng: “…”

“Big Sister, please let me go.” He was a picture of misery.

Li Zhenzhen waved for the servants to withdraw, then stepped closer and lowered her voice: “Old Seven. Tell me honestly. Who is it that has Eleven’s heart?”

Li Weifeng answered without conviction: “What ‘someone in his heart’ — I don’t know, there isn’t one…”

Li Zhenzhen gave a cold laugh. “Fifth Lady is dazzling, Seventeenth Lady is gentle — both are legitimate daughters of Hexi’s finest aristocratic houses. Women he wouldn’t have dared dream of marrying before. And yet he ignores the warm comforts waiting for him in his inner quarters and sleeps in his study every night. You tell me there’s no one in his heart — and you don’t feel the least bit guilty?”

Li Weifeng shamelessly replied: “Not in the least!”

As Chen Zhiliang had said, Eleven’s private affairs were not to be spoken of. Eleven could have no “private life” with him — but with someone else, he was bound to eventually. And now circumstances had changed; Li Gu’s position was no longer what it used to be.

Li Weifeng knew where to draw the line.

Li Zhenzhen had looked after all of them in their earlier years, and her person still carried the lingering grace of Li Ming’s profound faith in them. Though they were husband and wife in name, Li Gu still regarded her as an elder sister; so did Wu Lang, Li Weifeng, and Ba Lang alike.

Li Zhenzhen’s and Nuan’nuan’s lives going forward were something the several of them would stand behind — not one of them would shirk that responsibility.

But… not everything could be shared with Li Zhenzhen.

Li Zhenzhen and Li Weifeng glared at each other, and in her frustration she reached up and smacked the back of his head.

But in her heart, she also knew: even Li Weifeng, who seemed so breezy and unreliable, was perfectly approachable about ordinary things — but when it came to matters that counted, you couldn’t pry a single extra word out of him with a crowbar.

Her father’s sworn sons were every one of them remarkable. How else would they have risen above so many young men to earn the right to take the Li surname?

“Go to the study for me right now and ask Eleven — he married someone’s daughter, and now he’s leaving her to live as a widow with a living husband. Is that something a man does?” Li Zhenzhen released Li Weifeng and crossed her arms, her face cold. “Go. Right now. Tell him — if he keeps being this difficult, I’ll wash my hands of the whole thing. If he doesn’t give me a straight answer today, tomorrow I’m packing up and taking Nuan’nuan to the estate on Qiuluo Mountain!”

Li Weifeng went to the study after all.

The moment he arrived, he spotted Chen Zhiliang.

Chen Zhiliang had once only managed Li Gu’s personal purse. Now he managed the purse of all of Hexi — one could say he had risen to the sky in a single step. Only these days he was run so ragged his heels practically slapped the back of his head.

When Xie Yuzhang had met him before, she had found him vaguely familiar but had been unable to place him — she had not realized he was the man who would later hold the purse strings of the entire Da Mu dynasty. Back then he’d worn a trim three-strand beard, well-nourished and unhurried-looking — one’s bearing transformed with one’s circumstances. Xie Yuzhang had only glimpsed him from a distance and would never have recognized him.

When Li Weifeng saw him, his face lit up: “Old Chen! Old Chen!”

Chen Zhiliang was carrying an enormous stack of ledgers. He looked up and saw Li Weifeng with gleaming eyes launching himself at him.

Chen Zhiliang: “…”

He put force into his right foot and shifted his body half a foot to the left, narrowly dodging Li Weifeng’s lunge.

“I am drowning in work!” he called out, quickening his steps. “Don’t come near me!”

To his dismay, Li Weifeng had learned directly from Li Zhenzhen — he seized Chen Zhiliang by the belt.

“Don’t go! I’m coming to you for my life!” he bellowed.

“You look perfectly alive to me!” Chen Zhiliang had his arms full and couldn’t get his hands free, so he could only shout back, “Let go of me this instant!”

The two of them made such a commotion outside the study that the door opened, and Mantou poked half his head out to look — saw who it was, and withdrew again.

Li Weifeng and Chen Zhiliang: “…”

Sure enough, Mantou soon poked his head out again, grinning from ear to ear, and waved them both inside: “You’re being called in.”

Chen Zhiliang stamped hard on Li Weifeng’s foot, then went back into the study.

Li Weifeng hopped twice clutching his foot, then followed him in.

Li Gu was kneading the back of his neck — leading troops on a forced march never fazed him, but being ground down by paperwork was genuinely more than he could bear.

“What was all that about?” he asked. “Didn’t you leave a while ago? Why are you back?”

Li Gu was addressing Li Weifeng; when he had left the study, Chen Zhiliang hadn’t even arrived yet.

Li Weifeng swept a glance around the room — just Li Gu, Mantou, and no one else.

Mantou went without saying, being Li Gu’s closest personal attendant. And Chen Zhiliang… it was entirely possible he knew more of Li Gu’s “private affairs” than Li Weifeng himself did.

Li Weifeng steeled his heart and said: “Big Sister ambushed me on the way. She told me to ask you — is it the act of a man to marry someone’s daughter and then leave her to live as a widow with a living husband? She says if you don’t go back to the inner quarters, she’ll throw everything down and walk away. She’ll take Nuan’nuan to the country estate at Qiuluo Mountain tomorrow. She says she must have a straight answer today.”

Everyone in the study froze.

Mantou and Chen Zhiliang both cursed inwardly at the exact same moment — both wanting desperately to beat Li Weifeng senseless. Such matters of the inner quarters — why on earth couldn’t he wait until they’d left and then tell Li Gu privately? That conniving wretch Li Weifeng was trying to drag them down with him!

Mantou looked left and right, then used the cover of his status as a personal guard to murmur, “I’ll stand watch at the door.”

Without waiting for Li Gu’s agreement, he slipped through a crack in the door and vanished.

Both Li Weifeng and Chen Zhiliang cursed him in their hearts simultaneously: sly devil!

Mantou could run, but Chen Zhiliang could not. And if one was being honest, this matter could no longer truly be called Li Gu’s private affair alone. His position today was not what it had been.

He sighed and asked: “Shiyi Lang, have you still not shared the bed with any of your wives?”

Li Gu answered bluntly: “You of all people know how busy I’ve been.”

Chen Zhiliang said, “If you don’t care for the two of them, simply tell the Cui and Deng families to send different daughters.”

Li Gu replied, “I’m not familiar with them — there’s nothing as specific as ‘caring’ or ‘not caring.’ And they aren’t merchandise. They are people.”

Chen Zhiliang said, “Since you know they are people. Women are not like us — their bloom is short, their youth passes quickly. You leave them alone to keep an empty bed, squandering the best years of their lives. Do you feel you’re in the right?”

Li Gu was silent.

Li Weifeng chimed in loudly: “Well said! Is this any way to behave?!”

Chen Zhiliang pressed his foot down on Li Weifeng’s and smiled pleasantly: “We’ve talked through most of today’s business. Perhaps we should have a drink. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you — it’s been put off by official matters for days and I’ve kept forgetting.”

Li Gu looked up. “What news?”

Chen Zhiliang said: “From Mobei.”