The first day of the flower-greeting banquet had, paradoxically, ended latest for Ye Qinglan. After seeing Han Yueqi safely home, she was summoned for a long conversation with Master Ye. By the time she returned to her own courtyard, Lingbo had already settled A’Cuo and Yanyan in comfortably, and they were all gathered around the warming brazier. The kitchen had sent up a late-night supper — a congee of slow-braised bird’s nest, rich with medicinal herbs to warm the body and nourish the spirit. Everyone ate their supper together, though Lingbo made an individual affair of it. She ate her congee while two attendants stood beside her: Xiao Liu’er reciting aloud from the account ledgers, and Luo Niangzi waiting nearby to answer any questions at a moment’s notice. Yanyan, noticing A’Cuo’s curious look, explained: “Don’t mind her — on the first, third, and fifth of every month she’s always like this. Reviewing accounts before bed. Those two are her Left and Right Guardians. On the first and fifteenth of the month she goes even further — she summons the Four Heavenly Kings.”

Lingbo appeared to have her eyes lowered in concentration over her congee, yet she missed nothing. Hearing Yanyan’s commentary, she shot her a sharp look at once. Yanyan, thick-skinned as ever, laughed and ran off.

In truth, Lingbo’s pre-sleep review covered not only the accounts but also the day’s intelligence. She listened as Xiao Liu’er leaned close and murmured a few words, then first turned to Ye Qinglan: “What did they call you to that courtyard for?”

“Concubine Pan wants to host one of the flower-greeting banquets but has no connections to secure a spot. Father asked me to assist her,” Ye Qinglan said.

“She must have been dreaming. Never mind that you won’t help — even if you lost your senses and agreed, she’s a maidservant-born concubine who was elevated to official status by displacing the rightful wife. She could drive herself half out of her mind trying, and she still wouldn’t squeeze her way into the circle of proper madams. And she wants to host a flower-greeting banquet? Pure fantasy.” Lingbo pressed immediately: “You didn’t agree, I hope?”

“I said I was too unskilled to be of help, and they should look elsewhere,” Ye Qinglan replied.

She appeared gentle and impartial but was in fact steel wrapped in silk — not a person who was kind to everyone indiscriminately without regard for right and wrong. Certainly not toward this pair of “devoted lovers” whose conduct had hastened her mother’s early death.

But Lingbo still felt unsatisfied.

“He had the nerve to ask. It was gracious of you not to give him a sharp word or two. If it were me, I’d have said it to his face. How is it that when our mother was alive, the Crabapple Banquet was beautifully managed every year, without Master Ye needing to lift a finger? And now that there’s a new ‘Madam Ye,’ they can’t even secure a single banquet invitation? Where have all the ruthless tricks she used to claw her way up gone?” Lingbo’s mind moved swiftly, and suddenly she narrowed her eyes and smiled.

“If you ask me — if she actually managed to get a banquet, the disgrace would come then, not before. She can’t even manage her own household properly. That courtyard is riddled with petty corruption from top to bottom. They couldn’t even produce a decent mooncake at Mid-Autumn. And they want to host a flower-greeting banquet? Perhaps they do need to humiliate themselves thoroughly, just once, before they learn any better.” Lingbo was beginning to look dangerously eager.

Ye Qinglan laughed helplessly.

“Stop always thinking in such crooked directions. We should just mind our own lives and stop meddling in theirs.” She gave Lingbo a serious talking-to.

Though Lingbo appeared to brook no challenge from anyone, she did genuinely respect this elder sister of hers. Otherwise, she wouldn’t wait for Ye Qinglan to return before handling the household’s major affairs.

Even now, her questioning followed the same pattern. Seeing that Ye Qinglan had vetoed her “crooked scheme,” she let it go without dwelling on it, and moved on to ask about A’Cuo.

“A’Cuo, come here.” She beckoned A’Cuo over, waited for her to approach, and drew her down to sit on her lap. Then she asked directly: “I heard from the chair-bearers that there was some kind of confrontation with that wretch Wei Yushan tonight — is that true?”

Before A’Cuo had even worked out how to reply, Yanyan had already admitted to it with great loyalty: “Yes! I threw snowballs at him!”

A’Cuo, fearing she would take all the blame, quickly added: “It was my idea — I told her to.”

Lingbo, looking at the two of them covering for each other, couldn’t help laughing.

“Fair enough — throwing snowballs at him was perfectly reasonable. But you shouldn’t have let it get so heated. Why was he lifting sedan chair curtains? That little wretch does have no sense of propriety — but I’m only afraid it’s going to damage your reputations.”

A’Cuo listened obediently and simply nodded. Only Yanyan still looked unsatisfied: “Just wait. I’ll tell Brother Jingyu about this and he’ll give Wei Yushan another thrashing.”

At the mention of Cui Jingyu, A’Cuo naturally glanced over to gauge Ye Qinglan’s reaction. So did Lingbo — but they saw their eldest sister’s expression remain placid, as undisturbed as still water. Lingbo simply said: “Don’t go counting on any ‘Brother Jingyu.’ The way he’s been keeping his distance, anyone would think he doesn’t know our family at all. It’s enough to make one furious. Let him go his own way — and when the Lu sisters run circles around him, he’ll find out what’s what.”

With Lingbo having said this, A’Cuo could hardly press for more. Everyone warmed themselves by the brazier for a while, heated their bodies through, and then went off to wash and retire for the night.

The flower-greeting banquet came every five days, which in practice left only three actual days of rest. So pacing oneself was especially important. The day after the plum blossom banquet, everyone slept well into mid-morning — except Ye Qinglan, who woke without fail every single day at the hour of mao, as she always did. Lingbo lay in bed laughing at her: “What a pity there’s no official post for you to hold. If there were, you’d report to duty on time every morning without exception.”

Ye Qinglan didn’t rouse the others. She simply took the household managers and set them to sweeping and tidying the courtyard. Heavy snow had fallen; the birds had nowhere to forage. Ye Qinglan hung small bamboo baskets from the eaves, filled with all kinds of grain, for the birds to come and eat. A’Cuo and Yanyan both slept late, lying on the heated bed platform and watching through the glass window as the birds pecked at their food. Yanyan narrated everything for A’Cuo: this was a sparrow, that was a common cuckoo, the black-and-white bird was a magpie, these birds ate grain, those ate insects, swallows flew south before the New Year and only returned with the spring. She spoke with such confident authority that it was actually rather enjoyable to listen to.

Lingbo came in with loose hair and a fox-fur wrap, caught Yanyan in the middle of this lecture, and gave her a swat on the seat of her pants with a laugh: “You little rascal — if only you put half this much effort into the flower-greeting banquets instead of filling your head with birds, we wouldn’t need to worry about you at all.”

Seeing that Lingbo had brought a dish of osmanthus candy — she must have heard Yanyan mention wanting some the night before and had someone fetch it — Yanyan broke into a grin and went to eat her candy. Left alone in the room with Lingbo, A’Cuo watched as Lingbo fed her a piece of pickled young ginger, then settled herself on the bed and turned to look at the birds outside.

A’Cuo gazed up at her for a moment.

Perhaps because she admired Lingbo so much, she didn’t think Lingbo was plain-looking in the least — like eating pastries, where the ornate lotus-paste confection might be beautiful, but the simple white rice cake had its own quiet elegance.

And so she asked Lingbo her question in all earnestness: “Second Sister, how does one make a man listen to you?”

Lingbo was mid-sip of her tea and nearly choked on it. But she was far too proud to let that show, so she cleared her throat with dignity and answered carefully: “Is A’Cuo asking about finding a suitable nobleman at the flower-greeting banquet?”

A’Cuo was entirely unaware that she had touched upon Lingbo’s own sore spot, and explained earnestly: “No, not that — Sister has already taught me about finding the right nobleman. The top three candidates at this year’s flower-greeting banquet are Marquis Cui, Young Marquis Wei, and the third will be a candidate after this spring’s imperial examinations. What I want to know is — once you find a suitable nobleman, how do you make him listen to you? Otherwise, what’s the use of marrying them?”

This was, after all, a fifteen-year-old girl. However rigidly proper she might be in public, at home she could still ask questions that made even Lingbo’s hands shake.

But Lingbo kept her expression entirely composed, and even corrected her: “Does A’Cuo want to know how to conduct herself as a proper madam?”

A’Cuo thought about it and conceded, with some reluctance: “That’s… one way to put it.”

In truth, what she was asking about was how to make people listen to her during the flower-gathering banquet itself — not after she had become someone’s madam.

She wanted to help her two sisters. Right now.

Lingbo managed to steer the conversation back a little, and so proceeded along that course: “Being a proper madam — well, there are two paths. The first is what I spoke of before: the path Ye Qinglan and Sister Han walk, the path my mother and my aunt walked. Become the most impeccably proper young madam there is: manage the household, hold the purse strings, support your husband, raise the children. If you do it well enough, even the elders of the family have to respect you. Just as that other courtyard fears Ye Qinglan now — even Master Ye, who is our father, cannot override the rule of filial daughter and dutiful father. The same logic applies between husband and wife: even if the affection is lacking, as long as the principal wife maintains her dignity and her methods, no concubine, however favored, can ever overturn her.”

A’Cuo knew perfectly well she could not do this.

“And the second path?” she asked earnestly.

“The second path is naturally a marriage of genuine harmony — closing one’s own doors and living one’s own quiet life,” Lingbo said candidly. “In truth, I don’t entirely understand that path myself, but I know it exists. It might sound like the way of a concubine — love fades with beauty — but I believe there is such a thing as genuine love in this world. Sometimes a man will truly love a woman, and for her he would not spare even his own life. Even as the years pass and beauty fades, he would not change. Even emperors and great lords have been known to feel this way.”

It was no wonder she spoke without conviction on this point. Her mother, her aunt — both women of cultivated excellence from distinguished families. And in the end, which of them had received any true and lasting love?

A’Cuo hesitated. “Is Sister Han like that?”

“Not even close,” Lingbo said. “Back then, Ye Qinglan was perhaps something like it… but that’s all in the past now.”

She seemed unwilling to continue along that thread. She cupped A’Cuo’s face in her hands and ruffled it affectionately. “You know how to ask things, little one. Let me tell you this much: feelings and affections are insubstantial things — they can be chanced upon but not pursued. If you find you can’t endure the hardship of Ye Qinglan’s path, you can take a shortcut like I do: keep your dowry and your money firmly in your own hands, build your own circle of support, and if you have Lin Niangzi and Xiao Yu as your left and right hands, that’s more than enough to keep yourself secure in future.”

A’Cuo listened, nodded, recognizing that Lingbo was, again, mapping out plans for her eventual marriage.

But her actual question remained unanswered.

Future remedies couldn’t solve present emergencies. And even if she married well and managed her husband, and in future became a source of support for her sisters — that was only the same as what Sister Han could offer.

What she wanted was something immediate: a power she could use right now, at this very flower-gathering banquet, to help Ye Qinglan and Lingbo today. Though she had no clear plan, she was dimly aware, in some instinctive way, of her own beauty — and dimly sensed the tremendous power latent within it. Otherwise she would not have taken the risk she had inside that sedan chair.

Better not to tell Lingbo, she decided. For some reason she could not name, she felt with certainty that she needed to act on her own. Like a young tiger slipping out alone for its very first hunt — if she brought down prey, all the better; and if she didn’t, at least she had spared her sisters the worry.

The first person she would test herself against was Wei Yushan. He had been the one responsible for targeting Ye Qinglan that night — declared a thoroughgoing wretch by Lingbo herself. However the attempt went, nothing would be wasted.