Yongning Tongyuan Carriage and Horse House.

Li Chi watched Gao Xining sitting on the top of the wall in a daze. She was like that more often than not — behaving like a boy, fond of climbing walls and trees, fond of throwing her arm around other girls’ shoulders, fond of making people call her big brother. Poor Yuan Jiabei had been bullied into calling her “boss” for ages.

The way she sat there swinging her two legs — beautiful enough that Li Chi found himself having trouble breathing, because his heart was beating faster and faster.

Not long before, he and Xiahou Zuo had brought Xiahou Yili out of Prince Yu’s residence. They had talked it over and agreed that a family reuniting after all this time would have a great deal to say to each other; it would be better for them to give the three of them some space for a while.

So he and Gao Xining and Yu Jiuling had returned to the carriage house together. Gao Xining seemed no different from usual since coming back, but here she was sitting alone in a daze, and Li Chi knew: she was thinking about her family.

She had been raised by her grandfather — her grandfather was her whole world. But her grandfather was still at Prince Yu’s residence and hadn’t come out yet. She had never been apart from him this long, so the weight she was carrying inside could only be imagined.

Li Chi understood the feeling completely. Not long after he arrived in Jizhou, he had been separated from his master, and every single day had been hard.

Gao Xining also never wanted to burden other people, never wanted anyone to see her pain, so she always wore a little cheerful face. But that pain — Li Chi knew it well.

When he was still at the academy, he had put on the same unconcerned front. But when no one was around, his mind would fill with memories of being at his master’s side.

He looked at her. She looked into the distance.

She was thinking of her grandfather. He was thinking of her.

Li Chi turned and walked away on his own, heading to the small practice yard where he rummaged through the timber pile stacked to one side. After a while he found a few pieces of suitable wood, gathered them up, and carried them to the outside of Gao Xining’s door.

He set to work himself — and before long he had assembled a swing. In terms of practical skill, few could match Li Chi.

When Gao Xining returned and found the foolish young man — hair damp with sweat, face somewhat smudged, leaning against the swing frame and striking what he clearly believed to be a very dashing pose — she looked at him and could not help but start to laugh.

Her eyes were bright and shining: there was the room he had painted specially for her, there were the little flowers he had set on the windowsill outside, there was the swing, and there was him.

Li Chi saw Gao Xining come back. He smiled, tossed his hair back, and said, “No need to fall to your knees in gratitude — just give this young master a smile for free.”

Gao Xining lowered her head and looked around the ground nearby. Li Chi knew immediately she was looking for clods of earth — she threw them with quite a reliable aim, as he had witnessed firsthand the first time he’d seen her pelt Mister Yan square in the head with one.

A head full of dirt.

“Hold on, hold on — consider that I owe you a smile.”

Li Chi pointed to the swing. “Want to try it?”

Gao Xining came over with her hands clasped behind her back. As she walked, her ponytail swished back and forth. She put on an air of distaste and circled the swing once — then burst out laughing, a laugh full of gratitude and delight, of complete contentment.

Because she had noticed that Li Chi had even padded the seat of the swing with a cotton cushion — and from the look of it, he had cut it from his own padded trousers.

She plunked herself down on the swing, settling to one side rather than the middle, and patted the empty space next to her with her pretty little hand. “Come on — big brother will take you flying.”

Li Chi let out a sheepish laugh and scratched his hair. “Wouldn’t that be a bit improper? After all, we are of different genders.”

Gao Xining glanced at him sideways. “You built the swing this big on purpose — obviously it wasn’t meant for one person. Dare you say you had no ulterior motives? I think you’re just lusting after your big brother’s matchmaker good looks.”

Li Chi said, “Big brother, how can you say that about me? The reason I made the swing this big is because you have a big backside.”

Gao Xining said, “Everything you say carries just a hint of testing whether I’m about to cut all ties with you. If my heart weren’t bigger than my backside, I’d have had nothing to do with you long ago.”

Li Chi burst out laughing.

He scooted over toward her and asked, tentatively, “So I’m really sitting down now, all right?”

Gao Xining said, “I’m not charging you, are I? You’re being so stingy about it.”

Li Chi settled in next to Gao Xining on the swing — and promptly noticed something: their heights had reversed. He was now slightly taller than she was. Back when Gao Xining used to be taller than him, it had seemed natural enough that her legs looked longer than his. But now that he was clearly the taller one, why did her legs still somehow look ever so slightly longer than his?

“What are you staring at!”

Gao Xining shot him a look.

Li Chi said, “No — you’ve got the wrong idea. If I were to say that just now I was looking at your legs and had not a single improper thought in my head, would you believe me? I was just purely curious—”

He didn’t finish before Gao Xining was already glaring at him.

“Looking at my legs, without a single improper thought…”

Li Chi sensed keenly that the air around him seemed to have dropped several degrees. It was nearly early summer, yet a chill was seeping out of nowhere like the dead of winter.

He felt he had backed himself into a corner. Saying he had been looking at her legs without a single improper thought seemed to be implying she had not the slightest appeal — but saying his mind had been full of improper thoughts while looking at her legs was, honestly, far too shameless for words.

“I was just purely curious — I’m taller than you now, so why do your legs still look longer than mine?”

Li Chi hastened to explain.

Gao Xining threw her head back and laughed.

Li Chi was thoroughly baffled. *Are girls all impossible to understand?*

A moment ago, when he said he had no improper thoughts about her legs, she had looked displeased. Now that he said her legs were long, she was glowing with satisfaction, as if she had just been told she was the new supreme leader of the martial world.

What was there to feel smug about? Just because her legs were long?

Soon enough, though, Gao Xining’s smugness began to fade.

Li Chi and Gao Xining sat on the swing together, both of them pushing off the ground with their feet. When the swing rose to a certain height, Gao Xining’s two little feet dangled and stretched and strained — and couldn’t quite reach the ground. Li Chi’s toes, on the other hand, were still planted flat on the dirt.

Gao Xining turned to look at Li Chi. Li Chi threw his head back and roared with laughter.

He finally understood what there was to feel smug about — and he laughed like an absolute idiot, hahaha-ing with the most dopey, vacant expression imaginable.

“Ha, ha, ha — you can’t reach.”

Li Chi said, in the most insufferable tone possible.

Gao Xining raised her hand and knocked him on the head. One knock didn’t feel like enough, so she knocked him again.

Li Chi lifted his toes from the ground, and the swing suddenly arced outward. Gao Xining was caught completely off-guard and grabbed quickly for the ropes on both sides — she caught the left one, but on the right side, the thing she caught was Li Chi.

In truth this was something Li Chi had thought of only a moment before: if the swing suddenly lurched forward, Gao Xining would be caught off-guard and might just grab onto him, wouldn’t she?

Gao Xining was indeed caught off-guard — left hand seizing the rope, right hand seizing Li Chi’s hair.

Li Chi: “…”

Gao Xining let out a breath. The right-hand support, she reflected, seemed rather more solid and dependable than the left.

After quite some time, Yu Jiuling came running over from the front courtyard and stopped at the sight of them, staring blankly. Gao Xining gave a start — someone had appeared without warning and her heart lurched, she wanted to stop the swing, but her toes couldn’t reach the ground…

Yu Jiuling laughed. “Swinging a swing while gripping someone’s hair — you two really do play in the most bizarre ways. And this one here — you can stop trying to dig yourself into the ground.”

He added, “I came to tell you some good news. Headmaster Gao just returned to the academy.”

Gao Xining’s expression lit up, her eyes suddenly bright.

Yu Jiuling said, “Li Chi had people watching both outside the academy and outside the Prince’s residence all along. The moment Headmaster Gao came out, they were to report back immediately. He has already returned safely to the academy, and after the Prince’s people moved away, our men slipped in to see the Headmaster and passed on word on your behalf that you were safe.”

Gao Xining smiled until her eyes were even brighter than before. She cupped her hands in the jianghu salute and said, “Thank you!”

Yu Jiuling laughed. “What are you thanking me for? It was that fellow right next to you who arranged everything.”

Gao Xining glanced at Li Chi. Li Chi said with perfect seriousness, “We’re all brothers. Don’t look at me with such a womanly gaze.”

Gao Xining said, “Then I’ll go pack my things and head back to the academy with Ruoling in a bit.”

Yu Jiuling shook his head. “Not yet. Our men brought back a message from your grandfather — he says you can’t go back to stay there yet, that the Prince’s people are still looking for you. He also said: settle in here in peace, he trusts both Li Chi and Mister Yan.”

Gao Xining was taken aback.

Li Chi said, “It’s fine. Whenever you want to see him, I’ll sneak you back to the academy at night.”

Yu Jiuling said, “Too much trouble. It’d be less effort to just sneak the old man over here.”

Gao Xining burst out laughing and nodded. “That works too. And… did Grandfather say anything else?”

Yu Jiuling said, “Nothing else. Just that you should settle in without worry and stop fretting over him — he’s perfectly fine and will stay at the academy and not go anywhere.”

When he finished, Yu Jiuling asked Li Chi, “Headmaster Gao has entrusted his granddaughter to you. Don’t you have anything to say? Nothing to declare?”

Li Chi was silent a moment, then asked, “Did… did Headmaster Gao bring up the matter of a stipend?”

Yu Jiuling: “Die a bachelor, you hear me!”

He turned and walked off.

Li Chi roared with laughter, then saw Gao Xining scanning the ground for clods of earth again. He bolted, and hadn’t gotten far when a clod flew with precision and smacked him square on the backside — so that Li Chi appeared to be running along trailing a little puff of dust.

Tang Pidi happened to be walking past and caught this sight. He paused, then looked at Zhuang Wudi walking beside him. Zhuang Wudi had the faint smile of an elder on his face.

Tang Pidi said, “Why is it that when everyone looks at Li Chi, they all have that expression — like they’re watching their own hopeless son?”

Zhuang Wudi thought about it seriously, then, in a rare departure from his usual brevity, said several extra words.

“Give it time — and you’ll feel like you’re his father too.”

Tang Pidi fell into contemplation.

The two of them were still musing on this when Xiahou Zuo arrived, bringing his younger sister Xiahou Yili with him. Before leaving home, Xiahou Zuo had told her she ought to come and express her thanks to Li Chi. First, because Li Chi had just helped Xiahou Zuo rescue her from the Prince’s residence; and second, because for over a year it had been Li Chi who had been looking after their mother.

Xiahou Yili thought — well, if we’re going, we go. That fellow… wasn’t so terrible, she supposed.

The moment Xiahou Zuo entered the back courtyard he found Tang Pidi and Zhuang Wudi in a daze. These two men, both of whose names contained the word for “enemy,” looked as if they had been dealt a considerable blow.

Xiahou Zuo asked, “What are you two thinking about? Standing here staring into nothing.”

Tang Pidi came back to himself with a vague look, then pointed at the Flowing Cloud Formation beside them. “Thinking about that. It’s terribly hard.”

Xiahou Zuo looked at the Flowing Cloud Formation and laughed. “What’s so hard about a pile of wooden boards?”

Zhuang Wudi made a gesture: *Please.*

Not long afterward, Xiahou Zuo came stumbling out of the Flowing Cloud Formation with his legs in a sorry state, muttering as he went: “Such an absolutely shameless contraption — who came up with this!”

—