Historical-era Extra 2: Youthful Years

【04 · Zufengliu (Gambling Den)】

“Bets are closed!”

“Big! Big! Big!”

Zhou Tan pushed his way through the noisy crowd, covering his face, and finally found Zhou Yang at the gambling table, his face flushed with excitement. He waited patiently off to the side until Zhou Yang finished the round in a state of elation, then circled around behind him, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him out.

Zhou Yang stammered in fright at the sight of him. “B-brother…”

Zhou Tan dragged him out of the gambling den and tossed him into the carriage waiting outside, where two burly servants immediately took hold of him.

“Tie him up and take him home. Tell my father to give him twenty strokes with the rod, to start.”

Zhou Yang let out a wail. “Brother, I did all this for your sake—”

Zhou Tan remained unmoved. “Hand over the money.”

Zhou Yang obediently surrendered every note he’d just won. Zhou Tan counted through it with a frown, then raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you’re of some use after all.”

Zhou Yang immediately tried to ingratiate himself. “Then let me come with you, I…”

Zhou Tan cut him off at once. “You’re fourteen this year, and your studies show no progress at all—instead you spend every day dabbling in these disreputable pursuits. If you can match me and place first in every monthly examination at the academy like I do, I’ll stop managing your affairs entirely and personally escort you to the gambling den’s door myself every day. How does that sound?”

Zhou Yang had nothing to say to that and was obediently sent home.

The first time Ye Liuchun ever saw Zhou Tan was in the last days of winter, in Lin’an.

Back then she had no name; everyone simply called her “Little Ye.”

Little Ye had grown up in Lin’an’s Zuihong Tower, relying only on her mother. Her mother never spoke a word about her father, and for a long time, Little Ye knew nothing of her own origins.

Her mother was skilled at the moon lute, and Little Ye, gifted by nature, picked it up even faster than her mother had. But her mother forbade her from performing in front of others, and combined with the fact that she deliberately made herself look plain, she managed to grow up in relative safety, until she turned sixteen.

That was the year her mother died.

Drunk one night, she’d stumbled and fallen into the back pond of Zuihong Tower. The pond wasn’t deep, only reaching to about waist height, but her mother had been too drunk to stand back up.

The madam in charge, frowning, had a few servants fetch a straw mat, intending to wrap her up carelessly and dump her in a paupers’ grave.

Little Ye clung to her mother’s body and refused to let go.

She begged and pleaded with the madam for money to give her mother a proper burial, but the madam had many girls under her charge and couldn’t be bothered with the burial of every one of them.

Her pleas went unanswered. Little Ye ran to the pond, washed her face, and, using her mother’s moon lute—nearly ruined from being submerged in water—played and sang “Spring River, Flower, Moon Night” in front of Zuihong Tower’s entrance.

The whole street was stunned.

Even hawkers and laborers who understood nothing of refined music couldn’t help but stop in their tracks at that melody.

At the time, Zhou Tan happened to be drinking with friends in the tavern across from Zuihong Tower.

He leaned against the rolled-up curtain, listening to the song from start to finish. A thin dusting of late-winter, early-spring snow settled on the young man’s nose and melted almost instantly.

Little Ye, still clutching the moon lute, was just about to begin the song again when banknotes came fluttering down through the falling snow.

Looking up, she saw, beneath the rolled bead curtain, a young man who had only just turned fifteen, his hair gathered high in a topknot, wearing a fitted robe with narrow sleeves. In the prime of his youthful vigor, he wore sky-blue, which lent him an added air of scholarly refinement.

A voice drifted down, its tone rising, casual yet gracious. “I’ll buy this song. Please, name your price to Zuihong Tower.”

Up on the balcony, his friend beside him clicked his tongue. “Tanlang, throwing around money like that—if your father finds out, won’t he break your legs?”

But Zhou Tan only said, “Look at her. There’s an injury on her face. If she weren’t at the end of her rope, how could she play ‘Spring River, Flower, Moon Night’ with such raw, heartbreaking sorrow?”

Another friend shook his head with a sigh. “This song is stunning enough that the madam is sure to think she’s found a rare treasure. Your money might not be enough.”

Zhou Tan said, “No matter. If it’s not enough, we’ll let A’Yang go gamble at the den, and once he’s won enough, we’ll bail him back out.”

Friend: “…”

That night, the two brothers were both punished together in the front courtyard.

Zhou Shu had always been lenient with Zhou Tan, playing the strict father act mainly for Zhou Yang’s benefit, but today he must have truly been furious, since he had them both laid out on the bench together for family discipline.

Zhou Tan bit his lip, listening to Zhou Yang wailing in pain beside him, and for some reason felt an urge to laugh.

“Laughing? You’re laughing?” Zhou Shu tossed aside the whip in his hand and turned to shout, “Why didn’t you keep him in line?”

Bai Qiu, who had been sitting under the eaves cracking melon seeds, was so startled by his shout that a whole handful of seeds fell from her hand. “Aren’t you the one ‘keeping him in line’ right now? What more do you want from me?”

“One’s a gambling addict, the other’s chasing after courtesans—what a disgrace to this family, what a disgrace!” Zhou Shu paced back and forth across the courtyard, his expression heavy. “How am I supposed to answer to… his spirit in heaven?”

Hearing this, Bai Qiu’s expression turned serious. She clapped her hands, rose from beneath the eaves, and walked over to stand before Zhou Tan. “Tan’er, tell me—why did you pay to free that girl today?”

Zhou Tan struggled to lift his head, but the sharp pain in his back made him collapse back down. “I heard… she had no money to bury her mother, and I felt sorry for her… After buying her freedom, I put her up at an inn for the time being… She said she has family in Jinling… I was planning to send her to the docks tomorrow…”

Zhou Shu froze, and Zhou Yang quickly jumped in. “That’s exactly right! Brother didn’t have enough money, so that’s why he let me go to the gambling den! If I hadn’t won enough today, Brother wouldn’t have had the money to free that girl at all… ow, ow, Father, stop hitting me, it hurts!”

Bai Qiu turned around angrily. “See, see, I told you to ask more questions first, but you wouldn’t listen, insisting on beating them first and letting me handle the talking. Well, I’ve done the talking now—are you satisfied?”

With that, she stopped paying attention to either of them and turned to walk away. “I’ve made two bowls of yogurt in the front courtyard, and cut up some rare fruit I bought at the docks this morning. Come have some, both of you.”

Zhou Yang sprang up off the bench in one bounce and limped after her. “Mother, wait for me…”

Zhou Tan glared after him, tried to sit up, but the pain made him wince and grimace, unable to move at all. “Hey, you…”

How had he managed to get up so fast?

Zhou Yang turned back and made a face at him. “Brother doesn’t get beaten often, so of course you don’t know the advantage of having thick skin like mine.”

In the end, it was Zhou Shu, looking rather apologetic, who helped him up.

Father and son sat together in the front courtyard, watching the moon.

The daytime snow had stopped, leaving a thin layer on the ground. Snow was rare in the south, and a bright forsythia bush bloomed by the wall, keeping company with the snow—an elegant sight in its own right.

Neither spoke first for a while. After some time, Zhou Shu suddenly began to hum, low and quiet, a song Zhou Tan had never heard before.

It seemed to be a military tune. Zhou Shu’s voice was hoarse and the melody uneven, but listening closely, Zhou Tan felt he could hear, within it, the clash and thunder of soldiers on campaign.

When he finished, Zhou Tan asked, “Father, is that a song from your days in the military?”

Zhou Shu nodded, his gaze drifting somewhat. “Yes… a song the General used to have us sing, back then. He sang it well; I’m only imitating it, poorly. Your mother knows this song too—I’ll have her sing it for you sometime.”

He hesitated for a long moment before finally speaking, with some difficulty. “Xiaobai…”

Zhou Tan answered, “Yes.”

“Do you know why you were given a courtesy name before you’d even come of age?”

Zhou Tan said nothing. Zhou Shu continued on his own. “Actually, I’m not…”

“Father, there’s no need to say more,” Zhou Tan suddenly cut him off, smiling faintly. “I… already knew.”

Zhou Shu was quite startled, turning to look at his eldest son. Zhou Tan turned to face him too, his pale amber eyes glinting like polished glass in the moonlight.

He suddenly found himself stammering slightly. “I… I had meant… to wait until you were a bit older…”

“I snuck into the hidden room in Mother’s study when I was very young,” Zhou Tan said, stretching lazily and looking up at the moon. “When I got a bit older, Mother told me everything. We’d originally agreed to keep it from you.”

It was a while before Zhou Shu found his voice again. “Your father’s belongings…”

“I’ve seen them all,” Zhou Tan answered calmly, as though discussing some new move he’d learned at the training grounds that day. “I’ll be able to sit the imperial examinations next year. When I go up to the capital and pass with honors, I’ll be sure to ask His Majesty a question on my mother’s behalf…”

Scholars sitting the imperial examinations were as countless as the sea, and yet the way he spoke of “passing with honors” sounded effortlessly light, as though he need only wish it to make it so.

Before Zhou Shu could object, Zhou Tan continued with a smile. “Father, there’s no need to worry. I’m not a fool—I know how to keep proper measure. How to ask, when to ask, whether the answer given is sincere—I have ways of telling. I’ll be able to judge for myself.”

After a long silence, Zhou Shu finally gave a bittersweet smile. “You… take after your father a great deal. He spent his whole life amid the clash of arms, proud as the wind, and I suspect he died without regret. The only wish he left behind was for your mother to go on living without hatred in her heart.”

“Yes,” Zhou Tan said, somewhat lost in thought. “He spent half his life on campaign and gave his body for what he believed in. The border has known peace ever since, and countless people have benefited from it. What a great man he was… If I could become someone like him…”

He didn’t finish. Zhou Shu sighed and patted his shoulder.

“You can, Tan’er. You’ll become someone even greater than your father.”

The pat made Zhou Tan’s expression change—he hissed in pain—but he still said quietly, “Could you… tell me more about him sometime?”

Just as Zhou Shu was about to answer, Bai Qiu’s voice came from the front veranda. “Tan’er, come quickly!”

Zhou Shu laughed heartily. “All right. Next time—next time I’ll tell you more, I promise.”

Zhou Tan’s memory of that night remained hazy afterward.

He only remembered walking down the corridor lined with blooming forsythia, following Nanny Yun to the small kitchen, and eating a novel dish his mother had prepared—milk poured over ambroxide fruit—together with Zhou Yang.

Returning to his room late that night, he’d heard his mother arguing with his father about something.

“I have no wish for him to return to Bianducheng… the court’s politics… what’s the point?”

“But…”

The words had been too indistinct to make out clearly. Drowsy, he’d listened for a while, then turned over and forgotten it entirely.

The next morning, Zhou Yang accompanied Zhou Tan to the docks to see Little Ye off on her boat.

The day before, Zhou Tan and a friend had found a respectable burial plot for Little Ye’s mother and laid her to rest, then asked about her plans going forward.

Little Ye had thought it over and said, “My mother once mentioned that I have an old family acquaintance in Jinling. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find them, but at least it’s somewhere to go.” A trace of bitterness crept into her voice as she continued. “I was born into the lowly registry—even a general amnesty wouldn’t free me from it. It’s all the same, wherever I go… but Lin’an is a place of sorrow for me. Jinling, or Bianducheng, might be better.”

At the burial the day before, Zhou Tan had discovered that Little Ye, too, came from an official family—only, while her mother was pregnant with her, disaster had struck their household without warning: the men were beheaded, and the women sent into the entertainer registry, with no means of buying their way out.

The day before, he’d rushed around the city and, with great effort, managed to secure her travel papers from Lin’an to Jinling.

Zhou Tan sighed and nodded. “I have a good friend in Jinling I’ve never met in person. I’ve already written him a letter—once you arrive, take it and find him. Ask him to look after you.”

The Bai family was a prominent clan in Jinling, sure to be able to help Little Ye find her way. Bai Shating, upon learning he had a distant cousin, had shown considerable interest and had sent letters a few years back.

Zhou Tan had replied to several of them as well, finding him, despite his flippant manner of speech, to possess a certain literary flair—someone worth befriending.

Little Ye accepted the letter, and just before boarding, suddenly knelt formally and bowed deeply to the two of them.

“Thank you, young master… for saving me. If there’s ever anything I can do for you in return, I will go through fire and water without hesitation.”

After the ferry pulled away, Zhou Yang draped an arm over Zhou Tan’s shoulders and walked back with him, clicking his tongue admiringly. “Miss Ye may not have been a legendary beauty, but she was truly pitiable and lovely all the same. Brother, you…”

Zhou Tan said, darkly, “You’re far too young to be thinking about such things.”

Zhou Yang protested his innocence. “I didn’t say anything—why are you so worked up about it yourself?”

The two brothers bantered their way from the docks back toward the market street. Passing a small stall, Zhou Yang bought a few meat buns. “It’s this early—Mother’s surely still asleep. If we bring these back, Nanny Yun won’t need to cook breakfast.”

Zhou Tan said, hesitant, “Last night… I thought I heard the sound of hoofbeats. Did Father and Mother go out?”

Zhou Yang answered, “Huh? I didn’t hear anything… Come to think of it, the household did feel unusually quiet this morning—I didn’t hear Father practicing his swordwork.”

The two brothers were still chattering idly when the friend Zhou Tan had drunk with the day before suddenly appeared behind them, clapping him on the shoulder, gasping for breath as though he’d been searching for him for a long while.

“Tanlang, Tanlang! You… you need to get to the county office, right now—something’s happened!”

Though Zhou Tan had been something of a reckless youth in his younger years, he’d always had a steady temperament, as had his close friends. Seeing his friend in such a state of panic—so unlike him—was rare enough that a chill of foreboding gripped his heart, sinking heavily downward.

【05 · The Departed Soul】

The unmelted snow lay beneath the blooming forsythia; Zhou Tan remembered that day had been clear and bright.

Zhou Yang knelt beside him, howling something with heartbreaking anguish, but he couldn’t make out a single word.

Crying, murmuring voices, wailing—all of it a chaotic blur. Kneeling at the center of the storm, he felt only a hollow, empty numbness.

A familiar voice seemed to echo still in his ears.

“Tan’er, today is your first day at school. Your mother is giving you a piece of calligraphy—may it remind you, always, to hold yourself with integrity and uphold what is right, no matter the circumstances you find yourself in.”

“Mother…”

“These words come from the Analects—’firm in one’s convictions and devoted to learning.’ It means you must…”

“I will always remember Mother’s teaching.”

“The second half is—’holding to the right path even unto death.'”

……

“When the world follows the Way, one may give one’s life for the Way. When the world does not follow the Way, one must give one’s body in service of the Way.”

“—There is no fleeing from it.”

“Mother!”

“Young Master, Young Master!”

Someone from the local office shook his shoulder. Zhou Tan slowly raised his head and, like a walking corpse, followed him into the inner hall.

Zhou Shu had been known in Lin’an for his generosity and good works; the local office, knowing him as a surviving officer of the Lingxiao Army, treated him with considerable respect.

“Young Master, please accept my condolences… It seems cruel to say more at a time like this, but given how much is at stake, I must speak. Your father died from a fatal wound to the neck, with signs of a struggle all over his body. Your mother… it appears she leaped from the cliff herself. We found a letter written in her own blood on her person.”

At this, Zhou Tan finally reacted, grabbing the hand of the Lin’an magistrate before him. “The blood letter… where is it?”

The magistrate sighed and had it brought forward, continuing to speak on and on. “Lin’an has known a hundred years of peace, with bandits rarely seen here. Young Master, perhaps you should consider yourself whether your father and mother had any enemies?”

The blood letter had been written on a torn strip from Bai Qiu’s own skirt, the characters crooked and disorderly. Zhou Tan held the bloodstained cloth, his hands trembling violently, taking a long while before he could bring himself to read it.

“My son, though we may not meet again… today, struck by sudden shock… I cannot tell all. I only wish that you never venture into the mountains, and never dwell on the past.”

“The world is in turmoil… hold to your true heart… Qiu, with her final words.”

“What does this mean? What does this mean?” Zhou Yang held the bloodstained cloth, his eyes red-rimmed. “Is Mother telling us… not to seek revenge? This case is clearly suspicious—why won’t the local government search the mountains thoroughly and find the culprit?”

He staggered to his feet, snatching the sword from a nearby officer’s belt. “I refuse to accept this! I refuse!”

“A’Yang, enough!” Zhou Tan, still kneeling, called out sharply. He gripped his own knees and forced himself to stand, with difficulty. “First, let’s… give Father and Mother a proper burial.”

Zhou Tan didn’t choose a burial plot in the outskirts of Lin’an; instead, he had the two of them cremated. Neither Zhou Shu nor Bai Qiu had been natives of Lin’an, and letting their souls return to their true homeland, their ashes carried along with them, seemed a more fitting resting place.

The day of the cremation, the wind was strong. Zhou Yang, fingering the coarse mourning cloth he wore, looked up at his brother across from him.

His brother seemed to have become an adult overnight, without shedding a single tear, his eyes rimmed red, his expression indifferent. Only after Zhou Yang tugged at his sleeve and called to him several times did he seem to wake from a dream, even offering him a faint smile. “A’Yang, what’s wrong?”

“Brother,” he said quietly, his mind full of bewilderment. “Where should we go, from here?”

“From here?” Zhou Tan, cradling their parents’ ashes, drifted into thought for a moment, then lowered his eyes and answered with perfect calm. “Whatever things were like before, they’ll be the same going forward. Study hard. If you want to pursue the martial examinations… that’s not out of the question either. In a while, once I go to sit for the imperial exams in Bianducheng…”

He fell into deep thought, not continuing.

Zhou Yang sensed his brother still had something else on his mind but didn’t press him. Instead, Zhou Tan glanced at him again. “Why haven’t you asked me why I stopped the local office from searching the mountains?”

Zhou Yang answered without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m young, I don’t understand these things… but whatever Brother decides to do, it must be right.”

Zhou Tan paused, then silently reached out and touched the top of his head.

But things weren’t as simple as he’d made them sound.

Ordinarily, after finishing his lessons at the academy, Zhou Yang would go to the training grounds on the city’s outskirts to practice. He’d made friends there among the military men, and thanks to Zhou Shu’s reputation, the training commander would occasionally offer him pointers in his spare time.

Zhou Yang had been personally trained by Zhou Shu, and was well versed in swordplay and other martial arts.

But lately, Zhou Tan had noticed his brother rarely went to the training grounds anymore.

Asking him directly likely wouldn’t get an honest answer, so after some thought, Zhou Tan hosted a banquet for a couple of his old friends, hoping to learn from them what was really going on.

At the banquet, his friend hesitated before speaking, finally hinting vaguely. “Tanlang, you’re still too young. Your family’s vast estate—how could just the two of you, you and your brother, possibly hold it all up on your own? Not to mention, the Wang and Li families were already on bad terms with your father. Now that the two of you are like fish laid out on a chopping block, how could they not be tempted to move in?”

Zhou Tan understood the implication and gripped his wine cup tightly.

As misfortune tends to compound itself, as the group left the tavern, they happened to run into the third young master of the Li family—Li Mingzhi—someone Zhou Tan had never gotten along with.

The Li family were the wealthiest merchants in Lin’an, having risen from cloth trading. In recent years, they’d somehow gained the favor of some official in Bianducheng, and now held considerable sway in Lin’an—even the magistrate had to show them some deference.

The elder generation of the Li family were reasonably decent, but the younger ones had been raised without any sense of their own limits. Li Mingzhi, in particular, believed himself a heaven-sent genius, always making outrageous claims at the academy and humiliating his fellow students. No one dared offend him, choosing instead to swallow their grievances whenever possible.

Zhou Tan, however, was not the type to tolerate such things.

On his very first day transferring from private tutoring to the academy, Zhou Tan had faced Li Mingzhi’s provocations and had responded by inscribing a poem titled “The Squawking Crow” on the corridor wall outside the academy gate—nowhere in the entire piece did it use a single vulgar word, and yet everyone knew exactly who it was about.

Li Mingzhi had been utterly humiliated, with no way to strike back, and his family, wary of Zhou Shu’s standing, hadn’t dared provoke him directly either—but he’d nursed a secret grudge ever since, waiting for the chance to avenge that old humiliation.

This was the first time he’d seen Zhou Tan since the family’s misfortune had struck.

The composed, arrogant ease that had once always shown on Zhou Tan’s face was gone now. Li Mingzhi, cup in hand, looked him over with great satisfaction.

Though he still carried that dismissive, aloof gaze, the confidence that had once sustained it had thinned, and to others’ eyes now looked like a spent force, easily broken.

“Young Master—”

Li Mingzhi and his servants blocked Zhou Tan’s path. He didn’t turn hostile outright, instead smiling pleasantly. “Young Master, it’s been a while. I’ve heard your family’s been through some troubles lately. Not much I can do to help, but allow me to offer you a toast, brother.”

Zhou Tan’s gaze flicked past the cup in his hand, a flicker of disgust rising in his eyes.

“Thank you for your kindness, Young Master Li,” he said, bowing with proper courtesy. “I haven’t been well lately and can’t drink. I’ll have to decline.”

He turned to leave, but Li Mingzhi wouldn’t let it go. “Young Master refuses my wine—does that mean you look down on me?”

Seeing Zhou Tan’s expression remain unchanged only egged him on further. “Surely Lin’an has no rule against drinking during mourning, does it?”

At the mention of his parents, a vein bulged at Zhou Tan’s temple. Forcing himself to stay calm, he tried to step around the offered cup, but Li Mingzhi blocked his way, and in the ensuing scuffle, the cup fell and shattered with a sharp crack.

Zhou Tan shot him a cold look, and without further ceremony, turned and left the tavern.

The servants moved to chase after him, but Li Mingzhi stopped them, staring at the shattered cup on the ground with a faint, malicious glint in his eye. “No rush.”

That night, sure enough, Zhou Tan discovered some unusual bruises on Zhou Yang’s body.

Injuries from sparring matches were common enough, but his were on his chest and lower back—clearly not the kind of injury one got from ordinary practice.

Hands trembling, Zhou Tan tended to the fourteen-year-old’s wounds, and after a long silence finally asked, “Why… didn’t you tell me?”

Zhou Yang lay face-down on the bed, not daring to turn around, muttering, “…It’s because I was too weak myself. What’s the point of telling you? Once I’ve trained hard enough, I’ll be able to beat those spineless cowards until they’re crawling on the ground.”

Too unsettled to keep up a calm front in front of his brother any longer, Zhou Tan handed the medicine over to Nanny Yun and Uncle De and went out alone, intending to find one of the officers among Lin’an’s garrison who had been on good terms with his father, hoping to secure some protection.

…After all, he was only fourteen. No matter how tough he talked, it was nothing more than bravado.

And then, in an alley not far from home, he was ambushed by Li Mingzhi and his men.

Amid the bleak autumn wind, under a pale, hazy moon, Li Mingzhi looked at him with a raised eyebrow, grinning broadly. “I really didn’t expect the Young Master would still dare to go out walking alone these days.”

His servants closed in from the side. Zhou Tan traded a few blows with them, but hopelessly outnumbered, was soon dragged before Li Mingzhi, arms pinned.

He held his head high, his face flushed with humiliation. “Li Mingzhi, this is outrageous!”

“Ooh, look at that. Even now, the Young Master can still say something like that—quite something,” Li Mingzhi said, taking a wine flask from a servant and gripping Zhou Tan’s chin. “Weren’t you refusing my wine just now? Let’s see if you’ll refuse it this time!”

The moment he finished speaking, he tipped the entire flask into Zhou Tan’s mouth.

“Cough…”

Zhou Tan choked, his face twisting in pain—this wasn’t the fine wine from the tavern that Li Mingzhi was forcing down his throat, but some inferior brew bought from who knows where, its fumes sharp and acrid.

The liquid burned down his throat, leaving behind a cold, nauseating tremor.

From that day forward, he came to loathe drinking, and would grow drunk far too easily whenever he did.

Having finished emptying the flask into him, Li Mingzhi tossed it aside with a laugh. Zhou Tan, kneeling on the ground, felt the world spinning around him.

He groped for the brick wall beside him and, trembling badly, finally managed to pull himself to his feet.

His high topknot had already come loose in the struggle, hair sticking to his face in a wretched tangle, but he didn’t even have the strength left to brush it away.

Li Mingzhi had been ready to let the matter rest there, but seeing him still able to stand despite everything, he remembered how this man had always looked down his nose at him back at the academy, treating him as beneath notice, and a surge of fury seized him. He pointed at Zhou Tan and roared, “Who told him he could stand up? Beat him, all of you—beat him until he can’t get up again!”

The servants obeyed, closing in with their sticks. The first blow landed squarely across Zhou Tan’s back.

…He’d always carried himself upright, his back forever ramrod straight; Li Mingzhi despised that lofty composure and was determined to grind him down into the dust.

Zhou Tan let out a low, pained groan, but his fingers dug fiercely into the wall, refusing to fall so easily. His chest and back took several more blows in succession.

In the dim moonlight, one servant, noticing blood at the corner of his lips, hesitated before finally speaking up. “Young Master, maybe… let’s just leave it here. If this gets out of hand, it won’t be good for you.”

Li Mingzhi hesitated a moment, but in the end his nerve failed him. He waved for his servants to leave, kicking Zhou Tan once behind the knee before departing.

Zhou Tan, propped against the wall, sank to his knees, feeling as though he might lose consciousness. He wasn’t sure how long had passed before he finally, gradually, came back to himself.

The alley was silent; autumn in Lin’an was already drawing to a close.

He rested for a long while, trying to pull himself up, but the pain made him fail, and he collapsed heavily to the ground instead.

He struggled forward a few paces, unconsciously reaching up to wipe at the corner of his mouth, only to find his hand covered in blood.

He stared at the blood in the moonlight, dazed, and after a long while felt warm droplets sliding down from the corners of his eyes.

“Father, Mother…”

He hadn’t even turned sixteen yet.

Since his parents’ deaths, maintaining the family’s outward dignity while also supporting his young brother inwardly had already left him utterly exhausted, to the point where he’d nearly forgotten he was still only a child himself.

“…What—what should I do? What am I supposed to do?”

He tried to wipe away his tears, but they only kept coming, mixing with the blood into a filthy mess.

The deep chill of autumn pressed in around him. He tilted his head back to look at the pale, hazy moon overhead, and countless thoughts flashed through his mind, only to be forgotten again the moment a shiver ran through him.

Just as he’d lost track of how long he’d been lying there, a butterfly suddenly fluttered over and landed on his blood-stained finger.

Zhou Tan stared blankly at the butterfly, and blurted out, “Have you… come to save me?”

The butterfly couldn’t answer, only gently fanning its beautiful wings.

It seemed to understand what he’d said, circling around him several times with what looked like great sorrow, and only fluttered away once he’d finally gathered enough strength to rise and stumble, staggering, to his own front door.

It took four or five days for his wounds to heal enough that he dared to act as though nothing had happened and go see Zhou Yang. The first thing he said upon seeing him was, “A’Yang, pack your things. We’re… going to Bianducheng.”

Zhou Yang, who always trusted his brother’s judgment above all else, agreed without hesitation.

The day before they left, Zhou Tan waited patiently outside Zuihong Tower for two or three hours, until he finally spotted a drunken Li Mingzhi.

He arranged to lure Li Mingzhi’s servants away and tricked the man into his own carriage.

Only after the carriage had traveled several li did Li Mingzhi start to sense something was wrong, growling irritably, “Why’s it taking so long today? Are you—”

Before he could finish, he saw Zhou Tan lift the carriage curtain and step inside, a finely carved, gilt-engraved dagger in hand.

In an instant, Li Mingzhi’s drunkenness vanished entirely. “Y-Young Master…”

Zhou Tan wore the same sky-blue robe embroidered with bamboo leaves as before, but had let his hair down from its usual topknot, pinning it instead with a white jade ornament, in the manner of an adult.

He lifted his gaze and looked at Li Mingzhi with cold indifference, then, without another word of preamble, drove the dagger straight through the back of Li Mingzhi’s hand, pinning it to the small table in the carriage.

Li Mingzhi had never imagined he could be so bold, and in his shock forgot even to cry out in pain, cold sweat instantly soaking through his back. “Zhou, Zhou Tan, how dare you! I, I—”

Zhou Tan twisted the dagger in his hand and, astonishingly, smiled at him. “Whether I dare or not—hasn’t it already been done?”

Only then did Li Mingzhi register the pain, letting out a heart-rending shriek while, trembling with fear, studying the man before him—he seemed so utterly unfamiliar now, unfamiliar enough that Li Mingzhi wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he’d been killed on the spot the very next moment.

Mouth agape, he was about to beg for mercy when he heard Zhou Tan say coldly, “Li Mingzhi, listen carefully.”

“Today, I won’t kill you—I’ll only cripple one of your hands. Tomorrow, I’m leaving Lin’an. You won’t find a shred of evidence, and even if you report this to the local authorities, they won’t be able to touch me. Besides… it’s not only your Li family that has connections in the capital.”

He gently lifted his hand and pulled out the dagger. Blood splattered across his face, but he seemed entirely unmoved, not even bothering to wipe it away. “Do you know why I’m not killing you? Let me tell you—in the years to come, you’ll hear my name again and again. First place at the golden hall examinations, entering the court as an official, ascending to the chancellorship—I will remember you, always, every step of the way. And you… you’ll only be able to listen helplessly as rumors of my rise reach higher and higher, utterly powerless to do anything about it. And by the way—you’d best make sure I never hear about whatever wrongdoing you get up to in the meantime, or I might just take it into my head to come find you again.”

He calmly wiped the blood from the blade, his voice as flat and distant as a murmured incantation. “Do me the favor… of living the rest of your life in this fear.”

That was the first time he had ever raised a hand to hurt another person.

The next day, he set off for Bianducheng and fell seriously ill for a long stretch afterward. From that point on, he rarely practiced martial arts again.

Zhou Tan never went back to find Li Mingzhi afterward.

He never heard that name again, and quite naturally forgot about someone so inconsequential to him.

He became the top scholar who dazzled the entire court, hearing from both his teacher and the Emperor the answers he’d sought.

While serving in the provinces, he tracked down, in Pingjiang Prefecture, the death-loyal retainer of the Prince of Jing’s household who had once protected Song Shixuan.

That retainer had long since changed his name and hidden his identity, and would never have been exposed if not for the fact that he cared too deeply about the accusation submitted to the Lin’an prefecture by Zhou Shu and Bai Qiu’s guard.

Zhou Tan sat before the hall, looking down repeatedly at the accusation, murmuring to himself. “So that’s why…”

Though Bai Qiu had heeded Xiao Yue’s dying wish never to pass her hatred on to the next generation, deep down she’d never truly wished to see Song Chang ascend the throne.

So when, just before her death, she’d discovered the identity of the man they’d encountered, she’d dipped her finger in her own blood and warned him, “Do not venture into the mountains.”

If the local authorities carried out a thorough search of the mountains, they were bound to uncover the Prince of Jing’s grandson, hiding there all this time.

With the Prince of Jing’s line entirely extinguished, Song Chang’s line would sit securely on the throne forever.

“The Prince of Jing’s… grandson?”

The descendant of the Prince of Jing, whom his teacher had protected all along.

He suddenly felt the whole thing was absurd, but before he could react any further, the retainer snatched his sword and, without a moment’s hesitation, drew it across his own throat right in front of him.

“Sir… this was entirely brought about by my own recklessness, along with Shijiu’s. If you must blame someone, let my life pay the price. I only ask that you spare the young prince… he’s still so young, he knows nothing of any of this.”

Zhou Tan sat before the body in silence for the entire night.

The next day, he had someone dispose of the body, casting it into an unmarked grave.

“Enough of that…”

Such was the way of Heaven—sometimes, no one had truly done anything wrong; it was only ever he who kept losing.

Amid the turbulence of the age, he drank himself into oblivion beneath the spring light, and woke to find all things at rest.

Just as his mother had once counseled him: never venture into the mountains, never dwell on the past.

Amid the turbulence of the age, hold fast to one’s true heart.

Firm in one’s convictions and devoted to learning; holding to the right path even unto death.

He walked his own path, alone.

Until, several years later, on a dim, gray morning.

Zhou Tan, one hand pressed against the freshly healed wound on his chest, draped in a wedding robe embroidered with gold and crimson, stumbled through the gauze curtain by the bed. A woman stood before his folding screen, and the moment he spoke, she turned toward him with a gaze that felt uncannily, inexplicably familiar.

A butterfly from a dream fluttered past, through that troubled spring night.

Author’s Note: Notes: An’moluo fruit is actually just mango—mango wasn’t actually introduced to China until the late Ming dynasty, so please disregard that detail~ ps: milk poured over an’moluo fruit—I think this is basically the same as mango pomelo sago, haha~

(Source: Longfeng Hulian)