◎ Blocking the Road ◎

Qu You had thought that since the journey was long and there was no need to rush, they might get to enjoy some sightseeing along the way. She hadn’t expected that after a full month on the road, the carriage rides she’d once found comfortable would leave her utterly wrung out—every jolt made her want to throw up.

Zhou Tan, with no better option, avoided traveling during the harshest hours of midday sun and instead rode slowly on horseback with her.

Fortunately, the group had by now nearly reached Ruozhou city.

As they drew closer to the Western Frontier, the days grew longer and longer. Sometimes Qu You could even watch, from atop the horse alongside Zhou Tan, the striking sight of the long river swallowing the setting sun. He held her in his arms, gripping the reins, letting the sunlight dye their eyes gold.

Scenery so magnificent and moving eased much of her discomfort.

She began eagerly planning that once they entered the city, she would properly build up her strength. In the past, writing her thesis had often kept her up late into the night, and during her time in the capital she’d lived in constant fear, never at ease. Now, finally, she had the chance.

“I wonder when we’ll be able to go to Lin’an together,” she said, sitting in front of Zhou Tan as she imagined it. “Lin’an is my hometown, and it’s yours too… ah, no, that’s not right—you only grew up in Lin’an. If we’re being precise, isn’t the Western Frontier your real hometown? Then let’s come here first, and go to my hometown after…”

Zhou Tan made a soft sound of agreement. A gust of windblown sand swept up and struck her face; he raised a hand to shield her from it.

Qu You went on, “Will we get to see Singing Sand Bay and Crescent Moon Spring along the way? I always wanted to visit those…”

Zhou Tan answered with a faint, amused hum, and she found herself talking more and more, only to feel, the more she spoke, a hollow sense of dread creeping in.

Back in the capital, one crisis after another had left her no time to empty her mind. But now, riding this deserted road through the sand with no one ahead or behind, a thought suddenly surfaced.

Ever since returning to court to become Chief Councilor, Zhou Tan had rarely written poetry. The third-to-last poem in his Spring Tan Collection—that vague, cryptic elegy for the dead—seemed to have been written the year after he returned to the capital from Ruozhou.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t been a scholar who specialized in studying Zhou Tan; she couldn’t recall every important date in his life. She could only make rough estimates based on major historical events, his poetry collection, and the changes in the people around him.

According to the historical timeline, in the second year of the reforms, not long after the Flower-Cutting Decree was promulgated, Zhou Tan’s wife had already passed away.

So would she… die?

Back when the marriage was first arranged, she supposed she’d wondered about this—but back then it had felt like something that wouldn’t happen “any time soon,” as though she were watching it happen to someone else.

Now she knew: this was her future.

Even knowing what came after, she still couldn’t see clearly what was ahead.

Ever since that day she and Zhou Tan had climbed Fan Tower together, she had begun thinking more and more about questions she used to deliberately avoid.

Coming here had changed a great many things, and yet, over this past month-plus of jolting travel, when she carefully looked back over it all, she found that, strangely, nothing seemed to have changed at all.

History was vast, full of gaps; its official record always skimmed past the surface of things in a single stroke. The building of Lantern Tower, Fu Qingnian and the Ninth Prince being forced out together in the factional struggles, Zhou Tan being demoted and exiled to the Western Frontier—not one of these major historical events had shifted in the slightest. Even the case recorded in the unofficial histories, of the Gu Shi woman who fell from a tower, was truly, exactly as described: a tragedy of the powerful trampling the weak, forcing a good woman into degradation.

Qu You gave a bitter laugh. It seemed that even a historian who traveled through time gained no so-called “cheat codes.” She had no way of glimpsing the cause and effect behind every event—she could only work backward from results already known, and in the process of guessing, she also had to worry whether her own actions might be altering the course of history, creating a butterfly effect that would turn the known into unknown chaos.

So even though, according to history, Zhou Tan would not die—when she learned he’d been thrown into the Zanjin prison, when she learned he meant to confess everything and confront Song Chang—she still couldn’t help but worry.

Now she no longer felt like an outsider to history. But had someone like her actually existed, a thousand years ago?

What a truly Schrödinger’s question that was.

Would everything really play out exactly as history recorded?

She would die sometime after Zhou Tan returned to court, and Zhou Tan—having with such difficulty helped Emperor Ming ascend the throne—would still fail to hold onto everything he’d fought so hard to build. He would become mortal political enemies with Su Chaoci, end up estranged from his family, cursed by the common people, suspected by the emperor, and finally suffer utter defeat, dying alone and sick.

How could all of this happen? Why would it happen?

Even now, she still couldn’t see it clearly.

She knew that Zhou Tan had been raised from childhood on the teachings of the sages, and later had been carefully guided and taught by Gu Zhiyan. He carried the nation and its people in his heart; his lifelong wish was for peace and clarity across the realm. She respected his ideals—she could never simply persuade Zhou Tan to abandon everything and retreat with her into seclusion in the Western Frontier.

But the workings of heaven followed their own constant course—could she really fight against history and fate?

Zhou Tan suddenly asked, “Why have you stopped talking? What are you thinking about?”

Qu You came back to herself, turned her head, and smiled, her eyes curving. “I was thinking… that I want to live to be a hundred, and so do you.”

Zhou Tan was amused into laughter. “All right. We’ll both live to be a hundred.”

Despite everything he’d been through, his eyes remained clear and bright. The self-loathing she’d once seen in him had nearly vanished entirely. In this moment, when he spoke of “living to be a hundred,” it was plain that he was full of hope for the future.

She didn’t dare think too much further—if her presence had pulled Zhou Tan out of the numb despair that followed the Lantern Tower case and back into this person he now was, rekindling in him the hope to resist and to fight—then someday, if something really were to happen to her, what would become of him? Would there be anyone left to light a lamp for him amid the cold wind and rain?

She mustn’t dwell on it. Qu You turned her face away, looking toward the distant sunset, and said nothing more.

As dusk settled in, she began to feel drowsy, so Zhou Tan dismounted and returned with her to the carriage, instructing the others to pick up the pace toward the relay station ahead.

At their current speed, they would likely reach the gates of Ruozhou by the next day.

Back in the carriage, to distract herself, Qu You began a flying-flower verse game with Zhou Tan, idly choosing the character “travel” (行). The two of them went back and forth all the way to the ninety-eighth line.

Qu You, eyes closed, was reciting: “…off to join the army we travel, ten thousand li to the Dragon Court we travel, the Chanyu now bows at Wei Bridge, where does the general go to seek his fame?”

Suddenly, a commotion erupted outside the carriage. The driver yanked hard on the reins, and the whole carriage lurched violently, nearly throwing her from her seat. Zhou Tan steadied her with one hand while lifting the curtain with the other. “What’s happened?”

The man in black had been sitting just outside the carriage; at the question, he answered hoarsely, “My lord, someone’s blocking the road.”

Qu You peered out through the gap and saw a group of masked bandits on horseback.

The Western Frontier was never entirely safe—bandits often lurked among the sands to block the road. In the years just after Xishao had first made peace with Da Yin, merchant caravans had frequently traveled back and forth transporting silk and tea, and this same group of bandits had robbed them more than once.

But in the past couple of years, the border trade between Xishao and Da Yin had been shut down, and tariffs on imports and exports had grown harsher still. She’d assumed this band of bandits would long since have been wiped out by the authorities—how unlucky, then, that they should run into them now.

The man in black studied the group ahead and said in a low voice, “Counting the leader, there are seven of them. Among your escort there are skilled fighters, my lord, and with me as well, there should be no danger. Shall we move now?”

“Wait,” Zhou Tan said, pressing a hand to his shoulder, and jumped down from the carriage. He turned back to Qu You. “Stay inside. Don’t come out.”

He walked forward alone a few steps and lifted his eyes to study the leader of the bandit group.

Judging by his build, the leader appeared to be a young man, hooded and masked with only his eyes showing, the rest of him wrapped tightly. The men behind him were dressed much the same; a few even had long, curly hair, and didn’t look much like they belonged to the Hua people.

Seeing that Zhou Tan appeared slight and frail, and had come forward alone, the young leader gave his horsewhip a snap, letting out a string of garbled sounds, apparently mocking him to his companions. Then, provocatively, he swung the long whip in his hand—it cracked right in front of Zhou Tan.

The whip stopped a hand’s width away from him; the whooshing gust of wind it stirred up was enough to make a strand of his hair tremble.

Watching this group from behind the curtain, Qu You couldn’t make out anything unusual at first. But as she frowned and let her gaze drop lower, she suddenly noticed that the horses beneath these men were all fitted with saddles and bridles.

Most bandits along the border were Xishao people, though there were some from Da Yin too, just fewer. She and Zhou Tan had passed by settlements of border-dwellers along the way, and what had struck her most was that their horses rarely wore any kind of harness—most ran free, and families skilled at horse-training didn’t even keep stables; a single whistle would summon a fine horse galloping in from afar.

So why would this group of men before her have such tack on their horses?

Another man beside the young leader rode his horse in a circle around Zhou Tan. Zhou Tan showed no trace of alarm, standing calm and composed where he was, and asked, “You block my path—what do you want?”

The bandit circling him laughed immediately. “What else? Simply that our pockets are a bit thin, and we’d like to relieve you of some silver, my lord.”

Zhou Tan asked, “Do you know who I am?”

The man let out a whistle. “Don’t care who you are. If you want to pass, leave your toll behind!”

So cringe, Qu You thought, and couldn’t help but laugh out loud from inside the carriage.

Zhou Tan’s lips curved slightly, though he didn’t turn around. “What is my wife laughing at?”

The bandits heard, from within the carriage, a woman’s voice ring out clear as jade: “I’m laughing because you gentlemen’s disguises are rather clumsy, and this arrogant bandit talk of yours doesn’t quite fit either—I couldn’t help myself. My husband, please don’t take offense on their behalf.”

The masked man circling Zhou Tan seemed startled; he reined in his horse at once and obediently trotted back to the group. Zhou Tan, hands clasped behind his back, asked with apparent sincerity, “How did my wife see through it?”

“Border folk rarely harness their horses. If you’re going to pretend to be bandits, you ought to at least train the accents of those around you better—open your mouths and it’s pure Henan dialect, which cuts the intimidation factor in half. And I noticed engraved markings on your saddles—those should be military horse brands, shouldn’t they? Wasn’t it seeing those very marks that gave my husband the confidence to step down from the carriage alone?”

Zhou Tan said, “My wife is very perceptive.”

The young leader finally couldn’t hold it any longer. He swung down from his horse and yanked off the elaborate gauze wrapped around his head, revealing the coiled hairstyle common in military camps. As he landed, the men behind him dismounted as well, tossing their masks and fake hair carelessly onto the ground.

“Greetings, Lord Zhou,” the young leader said, cupping his fists and dropping to one knee before Zhou Tan in a military salute. “The prefect sent men out of the city, saying he wanted to give Lord Zhou a proper welcome to put you in your place. When I heard it was you, I volunteered myself to come at once. Forgive the offense, please.”

Zhou Tan sighed and reached out to pull him up. “No need for such formality.”

Qu You was still wondering by what chance Zhou Tan had come to know a soldier so far out here on the frontier, when she heard the man ask, “My lord, was that my lady speaking just now?”

Zhou Tan said, “It was.”

Then Qu You heard the man walk briskly over to the carriage she sat in, drop to his knees with a thud, and kowtow, his voice trembling: “Greetings, my lady. My gratitude is beyond words—allow me to kowtow to you.”

Qu You, startled, jumped. Zhou Tan lifted the curtain and, taking her hand, helped her down from the carriage, offering a brief explanation: “This is Wuping’s younger brother, Yan Fu, courtesy name Zhuozhou.”

Qu You gave a small “ah” of surprise and said quickly, “Young Lord Yan, there’s no need for such formality—please get up.”

Yan Fu rose from the ground and continued, “My lord, there’s a relay station just ahead. Let’s rest there first, and I’ll fill you in on the situation here in Ruozhou. Once I received your letter, I made all the preparations—I just didn’t expect you to arrive so soon.”

Zhou Tan acknowledged this, then turned to look at Qu You. She sighed and reached up to tuck the loose strands of hair back behind his ear.

“It seems,” she said, “that the situation here in Ruozhou is even more complicated than I imagined.”