◎Origins◎

It was deep into the night by the time Qu You finally saw Nanny Yun out of her room.

She had only ever heard, in passing, that Zhou Tan’s parents had died unexpectedly in Lin’an. Now, having listened to Nanny Yun’s account in full detail, she found herself overwhelmed with mixed feelings.

In the years of the Great Yin, though the great clan hierarchies of old had already begun to decline, families with generations of accumulated merit still endured — and the Bai family was the foremost great clan of Jinling.

Zhou Tan’s mother, Bai Qiu, was the eldest daughter of the Bai family’s main line, doted upon since childhood, said to be accomplished in both letters and martial arts, clever and lively. By the time she reached marrying age, suitors had practically worn down the threshold of her home.

The Bai family’s ancestors were honored in the imperial ancestral temple; some served as officials at court, others ran vast business enterprises. Over the years, they’d supported no small number of branch families of other surnames — a truly wealthy and illustrious clan of officialdom. Bai Qiu’s father served as prefect of Jinling and was deeply beloved by the people there.

Growing up in such a family, Bai Qiu had naturally developed rather high standards.

Nanny Yun had followed Bai Qiu since she was fifteen, and often heard her say she wanted to marry a hero of the age.

Just after Emperor Xuan took the throne, his elder brother, who had contested the succession with him, rose in rebellion, marched troops to Jinling, and laid siege to the city for seven days.

Within those seven days, blood ran through the streets of Jinling; many great clans were wiped out entirely, vanishing overnight. Nanny Yun still remembered — the rebel army had reached the very gates of the Bai family estate.

But the entire Bai family had been saved by a young general.

Times were too chaotic for Nanny Yun to know the general’s name — only that he was the savior of the entire Bai family. Bai Qiu had secretly fallen for him, and the moment things settled, she’d chased after him and left Jinling.

She didn’t return for three years.

By then, Nanny Yun hadn’t seen Bai Qiu in a long while, and rushed forward joyfully to help her — only to find her looking haggard, her face pale. Bai Qiu raised her head and said, slowly: “Yun, he doesn’t want me anymore.”

Bai Qiu’s father had flown into a rage in the ancestral hall, even wanting to rush out and demand justice. Bai Qiu had knelt in the hall and said nothing at all. The next morning, at first light, she’d packed her things and left home.

The Bai family’s clan rules were strict — they struck her name from the family register, and she never returned again.

Nanny Yun had heard that it was a concubine-born young lady of the seventh branch who had helped Bai Qiu escape, as she seemed to be searching for someone, traveling the long road to Lin’an.

A few more years passed, and then her master suddenly sent her and a few longtime maids to Lin’an as well.

Nanny Yun finally saw her mistress again. She seemed to be doing well in Lin’an — though compared to before there was now a faint, lingering melancholy about her, the husband she had married, a man surnamed Zhou, treated her wonderfully. The two of them often sparred with swords together in the courtyard at dawn, and eventually had two children.

Hearing this, Qu You propped her chin on her hand, suddenly understanding. “Ah, no wonder my husband knows some martial arts.”

“The eldest young master’s swordsmanship was taught by the young lady herself; the second young master’s was taught by the master,” Nanny Yun sighed. “The young lady loved riding and archery from childhood — back when she chased after that general to the border, she must have picked up a great deal more. The eldest young master was clever, and in his youth his skill was no less than the second young master’s. It’s only a shame… at fourteen or fifteen, the eldest young master fell gravely ill, and from then on he could never practice martial arts again.”

Qu You lowered her eyes and sighed. “From what you’ve told me, my mother- and father-in-law seem to have treated each other with mutual respect. So what happened, after that…”

“After that… honestly, I never knew exactly what happened,” Nanny Yun sighed repeatedly. “I only remember that the night before, the young lady seemed to have quarreled with the master about something. When I took the eldest and second young masters to the small kitchen, I vaguely heard some noise — and then, shortly after, the two of them rode out of the residence on horseback and didn’t return all night. The next morning, the prefecture office sent word for us to come collect the bodies, saying… the two of them had run into bandits on the outskirts of the city and had died protecting the common people.”

Qu You’s brows knit deeply together.

Nanny Yun knew too little and had told the story only in broad strokes, leaving many gaps unaccounted for — who exactly that general had been back then, for instance; how a place as peaceful and prosperous as Lin’an had had for a century could suddenly produce bandits out of nowhere; whether Zhou Tan and Zhou Yang had ever looked into the mysterious circumstances of their parents’ deaths at the time.

But no matter how she turned it over, Nanny Yun could only offer these same few details, and Qu You could get nothing further out of her. The hour had grown late, and she went to rest, drifting into a dreamless sleep, until the next morning, as she went out, she found Uncle De hurrying to find her, saying a man surnamed Ai had come to the back gate.

Qu You quickly closed the residence gates and invited the man into Xinji Hall. Ai Disheng had brought an attendant with him. She’d meant to send the attendant off, but when he raised his face, she was startled to see it was none other than Bai Shating!

Bai Shating knew Ai Disheng? How had the two of them come here together?

Before Qu You could voice any of her many questions, Ai Disheng glanced outward, seized the teapot on the table, and gulped it down in one go, catching his breath before speaking. “Sister-in-law, don’t panic. Listen to me — today, Young Master Ren was released from Zanjin Hall. I got word that Xiaobai was tortured while inside.”

“What?” Qu You shot to her feet, took a few steps in front of Ai Disheng, forcing herself to remain calm. “His health is poor — he could hardly bear serious torture. Why was he fine for these past several days, and suddenly, today—”

“This was all part of Xiaobai’s plan, sister-in-law, no need to panic,” Ai Disheng said. “I’ve come today to work out our next steps together with you.”

“Please wait a moment, Master Ai.”

Qu You glanced at Bai Shating, and only relaxed once she caught the look in Ai Disheng’s eyes. She hurried out of Xinji Hall, heading toward Pine Wind Pavilion.

The two men waited in the hall for a while. Xinji Hall’s windows and doors were rarely closed, but out of caution this time, Nanny Yun brought the maids to lower all twelve of the flower-lattice windows around the hall one by one, and shut the front and back doors as well. The sunlight was not yet strong at this hour, the daylight dim, nearly dusk.

When Qu You returned, she carried in her arms the sandalwood box Zhou Tan had told her to retrieve.

The box had sat on the very bottom shelf of the curio cabinet, unlocked, quite heavy. She set it down on the small table before the three of them. “Master Ai, my husband asked me to give this to you.”

“Actually, this thing isn’t meant for me.” Ai Disheng brushed a hand across the box, then looked up at her. “It’s meant for you.”

“Just tell her already, quit playing games,” Bai Shating said from behind him, reaching around to put a hand on the box. Ai Disheng caught his wrist before he could open it outright. “Fine, fine, fine, take your time.”

All the usual playfulness and teasing had vanished from Ai Disheng’s expression, replaced instead by an unfamiliar gravity. “Sister-in-law, do you know — ever since the late emperor put down the Jinling disaster, the court and the realm have known peace, with no unrest at all besides the war with Xishao. The current emperor took the throne, and while he isn’t as diligent as the late emperor was, there was, in the early years, a heroic figure who held the western border together for His Majesty, forcing Xishao to pay tribute year after year, all the way until it ended five years ago.”

“Of course I know that.” Qu You steadied herself, casting her mind back over what she remembered from the histories. “Relations between our dynasty and Xishao have never been stable — there’s always been probing back and forth. In the early years there was General Xiao Yue, and now there’s Senior General Chu Lin — both renowned generals under heaven.”

The dynastic histories of Yin kept a dedicated military record, and the four or five famous generals recorded at its head were all concentrated in the reigns of Xuan, De, and later Emperor Ming. Xishao and the Great Yin had clashed many times, most severely when the current crown prince’s usurpation had nearly brought enemy troops to the very gates of Biandu. But Emperor Ming had kept a firm hand on the borderlands — from the Chongjing era onward, Xishao had gradually faded from view, and eventually, unable to sustain itself, had been destroyed by other tribes.

But she had no idea why Ai Disheng was bringing up such seemingly unrelated matters now.

“Then does sister-in-law know — when the beauty fades and the hero grows old, what fate awaits them after?”

Fate?

Qu You paused. Later generations, reading history in broad strokes, always paid far more attention to a person’s achievements than to their eventual fate. Aside from a handful famous for particularly tragic ends, few people cared much about the rest.

Take, for instance, how many people knew only of Wei Zifu’s glory days, and nothing of her wretched end in the witchcraft scandal; how many knew Bai Qi and Deng Ai as famous generals, but never knew that both had died far from any battlefield, in the intrigues of court, a fate that left one sighing with regret.

She thought it over carefully and answered with care. “Then, naturally… no one remembers them. They say General Xiao Yue died at the Battle of Pengcheng, when reinforcements failed to arrive in time — he never took a wife or had children his whole life. As for old General Chu…”

Qu You didn’t continue. Poor Chu Lin, loyal to his sovereign and devoted to his country his whole life, defeating Xishao time and again, had in the end died in the palace coup during Emperor Shang’s usurpation, his remains never recovered.

At that thought, Qu You suddenly shivered.

Because she saw Ai Disheng dip a finger in tea and write a single character on the tabletop: “Xiao.”

Between what Nanny Yun had told her and what Ai Disheng was now confessing, a suspicion was forming in her mind — one she barely dared to believe herself. Qu You swallowed and reached out to open the sandalwood box.

In the dim light of the room, she saw a piece of dark, engraved black iron, gilded with gold.

“Sister-in-law, I’ll ask you once more — when the beauty fades and the hero grows old, what fate awaits them after? Do you know?”

Had Wei Zifu’s own son died alongside her? Had Bai Qi and Deng Ai left any descendants?

A person’s life was so terribly long, and the vast sweep of a thousand years even longer still — all her lifetime of studying history had been for nothing, in the end. The truth had been swept away with the shifting winds of the times, leaving behind only the ink of the victors — words that could be dressed up however anyone pleased.

She reached out and turned the black iron over, and saw a single character carved on its back: “Xiao.”

“This general, having pacified thirty li of Xishao’s western frontier, is granted hereditary succession to the title of Duke Protector of the State, with a fief of five hundred households in Ruozhou, and stipend to match, to pass down through his descendants… his own crimes forgiven nine times over, his descendants’ crimes three times over — even in violation of ordinary law, no official shall dare hold him to account.”

She had read of such things countless times before, but never once imagined she would see one with her own eyes.

“An iron tally of merit…”

Qu You held the black iron in her hands, feeling them tremble violently. She looked further down and found beneath it a piece of deep green jade, carved with the character “Bai.”

Last of all was a lock of hair, bound tightly with red thread — clearly quite old, yet preserved perfectly, not a single strand out of place.

“That general, all those years ago… it was Xiao Yue.” Qu You closed her eyes. Looking at this iron tally of merit, she had very nearly pieced together the incomplete story Nanny Yun had told her — and at the same time, she suddenly understood what card Zhou Tan had been holding all along.

Zhou Tan was Xiao Yue’s son.

The official histories could never possibly record the secret affair beneath Zhenru Palace, nor would they ever dig deep into Zhou Tan’s true origins. If she were still living in her old world, merely raising such an outlandish hypothesis would probably get her buried under an avalanche of shock from historians on every side.

Then her eyes flew open. “Master Ai, do you know… how General Xiao died?”

He’d been circling around the subject this whole time — there had to be an implication behind it all.

Ai Disheng answered briefly. “General Xiao grew up alongside the current emperor. He pacified the Jinling rebellion, subdued Xishao — but after His Majesty ascended the throne… the two of them grew distant. General Xiao was beloved on the border, and after his battles, there were the occasional instances of him defying military orders…”

He didn’t need to go further; Qu You could already guess the rest of this story of the hunting dog boiled once the hare was caught.

But Ai Disheng’s tone shifted. “At the time, Chancellor Fu was still in the Ministry of Personnel, and he submitted a secret memorial.”