Yet A’Cuo was nowhere near playing with Yanyan.

The moment she left Lingbo’s side, she walked straight through the courtyard, making her way out along the Wei Family’s ramshackle compound. Yang Hua was puzzled: “Miss, are you going to find the Third Young Lady?”

“I want to clear my head,” A’Cuo replied simply.

How does one go about clearing one’s head while paying a visit? Yang Hua found this baffling. But she was a steady, composed person — quite unlike the quick-tempered Xiao Liu’er — so she simply followed along. The two of them walked on ahead. From some distance behind, they spotted Madam Wei’s attendant, Madam Fang, going to deliver a message. She entered a side courtyard, and voices drifted out from within.

A’Cuo said nothing. She led Yang Hua in a circuit around the courtyard, and once they saw Madam Fang depart from a distance, the sound of argument floated through the air.

“Young Master, please listen to this old servant — just show some deference to the Marshal today, and it will all pass…” The voice belonged to an elderly servant, pleading earnestly.

“And if I refuse — so what! The worst they can do is give me another flogging!” The speaker’s voice sounded oddly familiar. Yang Hua had not yet placed it when the speaker burst out of the courtyard, colliding directly with A’Cuo and Yang Hua.

Yang Hua immediately stepped in front of A’Cuo. But it had all happened too fast — the two parties had already come face to face. The speaker stopped dead. It was none other than the young master of the Wei Family, the little marquis who had caused trouble for the Ye sisters at every turn — Wei Yushan.

He clearly had just been beaten — his clothes were thrown on carelessly, the inner garment beneath was white, evidently freshly changed, and bandaged, but blood was already seeping through. It was plain that this beating from Marquis Wei had been severe. There were marks on his face as well — two spots broken open, the cheekbone bearing a whip scar. On a young man, being beaten still managed to look rather striking. The robe thrown over his shoulders was extraordinary — gold thread embroidered throughout with feather patterns, in crimson brocade, exquisitely fine, and it looked like something from the palace.

A’Cuo seemed startled as well. She glanced at his face, and something like an unwilling sympathy crossed her expression. She dropped her gaze and bit her lip.

Yang Hua was a little surprised. Their young miss, though an orphan, was impeccably careful about proper conduct and keeping her distance — yet today, confronted with a man she didn’t know, she had not stepped back in time.

Still, whatever A’Cuo did, Yang Hua remained conscientious in her own duties.

“Young Marquis,” she said, stepping promptly in front of A’Cuo, keeping her manner polite while her tone carried a gentle but unmistakable firmness: “The Marquis’s wife was kind enough to invite our young lady here as a guest. It was this servant’s own carelessness that led our young lady down the wrong path and caused us to walk into the Young Marquis — we hope the Young Marquis will not hold it against us.”

“Not at all,” the elderly servant responded tactfully at once. “The Young Marquis was also in too much of a rush — he was the one who startled the young lady.”

Both sides’ servants had taken the blame. Fortunately, the two young people at the center of it were still of an ambiguous age — old enough to be considered young adults, young enough to still be called children — and not yet quite at the age when such meetings would set tongues truly wagging. An exchange of apologies, and each party could go their separate ways. That would have been that.

But Wei Yushan had to say something.

“So you really are one of the Ye Family’s people.” He said this not with pure hatred, but more as if he were arguing with some invisible person.

A’Cuo kept her eyes lowered. Her lashes were thick and dense, beautiful as the wings of a butterfly. The moment Wei Yushan spoke those words, they trembled once.

Such a small movement — yet it seemed to reach straight into the chest.

But Wei Yushan had not expected her to look up.

A pair of beautiful eyes — misty as the haze over southern waters — looked at him quietly for a moment.

“It troubles A’Cuo greatly to think that the Young Marquis was punished because of us.” Her voice was pleasant to the ear. “I had intended to apologize — but an apology from a member of the Ye Family is, I imagine, something the Young Marquis would rather not hear…”

She did not continue. She lowered her gaze again, glanced at Yang Hua. Yang Hua had already felt the conversation had gone past the limits of proper conduct — seeing this look, she quickly took A’Cuo’s hand, said “Farewell,” and led her away.

Wei Yushan had not expected her to stop so abruptly. He instinctively moved to follow, only to be held back by the elderly servant Old Wu. Old Wu had no idea what was churning in his young master’s mind — he only knew how to urge him along: “Young Master, please stop running about — come inside and let me help you change your clothes. The Marshal will be displeased to see you wearing that. The banquet is about to begin, if you don’t change now you truly won’t have time.”

“The banquet?” Wei Yushan suddenly remembered.

She was one of the Ye Family’s people. She would naturally appear at the banquet.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Young Master, please don’t delay any longer. No matter how much you dislike that Ye Family of yours, just bear with it for now — if the Marshal sees you like this, he’ll lose his temper again.”

Old Wu said his piece, then, caring nothing for anything else, pushed the still-dazed Wei Yushan back into the courtyard. Fortunately, the interruption seemed to have shaken Wei Yushan out of his earlier stubbornness somewhat — he was no longer quite as immovably fixed in his refusal.

Of all those present at the Ye Family’s visit, the one who was happiest was without question Wei Leshui.

She had already steeled herself for a secret friendship with Yanyan, conducted entirely behind her family’s back — but then her mother, unlike her brother, seemed not to dislike the Ye Family at all. The two of them were brought out into the open all at once, and hand in hand they ran out of the rear courtyard. Wei Leshui happily took Yanyan to see her room and shared with her all sorts of things she had brought back from the northern frontier.

It was evident that Madam Wei had moved in hastily — many of Wei Leshui’s trunks had not yet been unpacked. The house itself was somewhat run-down, but Wei Leshui’s furnishings and belongings all matched the rough frontier style of the border regions, and somehow they suited the place.

“Come see my clay horses — they were all dug up from ancient battlefields,” she explained to Yanyan. “Pei Elder Brother told me about them. In a past dynasty, the soldiers were buried in the Yandang Mountains, but when a soldier died and went underground, he had no horse or weapon to fight enemies with. Horses were too precious to bury with the dead, so the general Tuoba had craftsmen shape clay horses and bury them alongside the soldiers. The soldiers, moved by his love for them, followed him to fight their way back to the central plains and restored the dynasty. That is why the previous dynasty endured another hundred years after the Battle of the Yandang Mountains.”

Yanyan was delighted. She took out a small wooden horse to compare and laughed. “Ha! This one has been well and truly outmatched.”

“Your little wooden horse is lovely, too — it hasn’t been outmatched at all.” Wei Leshui immediately reassured her. Her nature was extraordinarily good — not wanting Yanyan to be unhappy, she promptly brought all her clay horses out and said, “Come on — whichever ones you like, I’ll give them to you.”

“I couldn’t — you must have collected these over a long time,” Yanyan said. She was not greedy.

“It’s fine, I have plenty more,” Wei Leshui said. “In Yangling City, lots of children pick up clay horses, but they all end up throwing them away. My family didn’t mind, so I secretly saved up quite a collection. These are my favorites — there are many more at our home in Yangling City. Take some, please.”

Only then did Yanyan choose a yellow one and hold it in her hand. She then asked, “If the soldiers only got horses and no weapons, wouldn’t they still lose to their enemies underground?”

“There were weapons too, but they were all slender things — many are broken. I never found two intact ones,” Wei Leshui said. “But we have a training ground right here at our home, so there are weapons of every kind — I never bothered picking up weapons. Only horses.”

“Weapons of every kind?” Yanyan’s eyes lit up. “Does that include all eighteen types of weapons from the storytellers’ tales?”

Wei Leshui smiled.

“The eighteen types of weapons are from stories. In real battle, there are only a few kinds: long weapons, short weapons, and blunt weapons. Long weapons are spears, short weapons are swords, and blunt weapons are hammers. Those are the most important in our Northern Garrison Army.”

“What about bows and arrows?” Yanyan knew quite a bit.

“The Fire Battalion excels at bows and arrows, but they stopped fully answering to my father quite early on, and after entering the capital they’ve become even more separate,” Wei Leshui said. “Pei Elder Brother is from the Fire Battalion — when our family holds a banquet now, they’re not even invited.”

Yanyan cared nothing about any Pei Elder Brother — she just said, “Right, shall we go watch the archery? Sister Biwei always says the best archers in the whole empire are in the army — I’d love to see for myself.”

Wei Leshui’s expression became troubled.

“Mother told my brother not to associate with the Fire Battalion, so I should follow that rule too…”

“Never mind then,” Yanyan said, easy-going as ever. “It doesn’t matter — let’s just play with the clay horses. Come, let me show you the gift I brought you.”

She produced a small wooden sword and said, “Sister Biwei carved this for you — it’s a pair with mine.”

Wei Leshui, receiving the very first gift since coming to the capital, was immediately overcome with guilt. Yanyan didn’t mind at all — she had already knelt at the edge of the couch and arranged the horses on both sides, playing away. Wei Leshui thought for a moment, and her eyes lit up.

“Oh!” she said, eyes bright with excitement. “Even if we can’t go to the Fire Battalion, we do have an archery target on our training ground. And the Mountain Battalion has a cavalry unit that is also superb at archery…”

“Really?” Yanyan’s interest was piqued.

“Truly,” Wei Leshui said earnestly. “It’s an elite unit under Cui Elder Brother’s command — the finest in the whole army. Every charge into battle is led by them; they come and go freely even in the midst of ten thousand men. The credit for this campaign — seizing the enemy banner and slaying their general — belongs entirely to them. My brother says it’s a pity there are only eight hundred of them; if there were eight thousand, the war would have ended long ago.”

Yanyan’s eyes were shining too.

“Wonderful! Let’s go see them then.” Yanyan also rushed to show off in return: “Actually, Sister Biwei is also an excellent archer — I’ll bring you to see her sometime and we can compare who’s better!”

Qinglan had not expected such an unexpected turn of events before the banquet even began.

She had kept Fu Yunrui company in arranging the menu, then graciously stepped aside — deliberately making herself scarce so that no one could say Fu Yunrui had needed help to run her own banquet. She was about to go find Lingbo and A’Cuo when Madam Wei’s attendant, Madam Fang, came walking toward her and greeted her with a bow: “First Young Lady Ye.”

“Madam Fang.” Qinglan knew she must have a purpose. “Is something the matter?”

Madam Fang’s eyes held a smile.

“There is a gentleman who has asked to see the young lady briefly at the outer gate.”

Qinglan was somewhat taken aback. Her first thought was actually Wei Yushan. Given the history between them, the young marquis’s hostility toward her at every turn was something she had long since made her peace with — though when she thought of the boy who had once called her “Elder Sister Ye” with perfect deference, she often felt only the quiet passage of time.

But if it were Wei Yushan, Madam Fang would never have referred to him as “a gentleman.”

She went to the outer gate with a sense of puzzlement. At twenty-four, though unmarried, she had long since earned the standing to handle many matters on her own — in the world’s eyes she was a woman who had “failed to marry,” and so, paradoxically, she was no longer guarded as strictly as an ordinary young lady of a sheltered household.

Chun Ming and Niangzi Yang always accompanied her with easy familiarity. She gestured to Niangzi Yang to push open the gate.

She had not expected it to be Cui Jingyu.

He had not changed into banquet attire — apparently he had no intention of attending the Wei Family’s banquet. And the reason for his presence here was simple enough — Yanyan was hiding behind him. When she saw Qinglan, she immediately produced her most angelic smile. Wei Leshui also wore the expression of someone who had just been caught.

Of course Qinglan was not flustered — she had seen far too much for that. Years ago, when the matter of living in separate wings was raised, Concubine Pan had made such a scene that even the clan’s elders were drawn into it, and she had come through that. This moment was simply an arrow she had shot four years ago, finally landing. They were people who had stood at a crossroads and aimed in opposite directions to decide which way each would go — going their separate ways had always been the expected ending.

So she returned his greeting with composed warmth and asked, “How do you do, Marquis? Has my little sister caused trouble again?”

For one brief moment, Cui Jingyu seemed as though he might not return her greeting at all.

But he ultimately did — the formal acknowledgment between peers of the same generation, as was proper among the sons and daughters of the capital’s great families. He was from a family of military distinction; his conduct was correct.

Two people who were strangers to each other now — this was the extent of what such a greeting conveyed.

“It couldn’t be called causing trouble exactly — she and Leshui wandered into the training ground by mistake. Blades and swords are dangerous things — it is enough that you know, Miss Ye.”

He guided Yanyan forward to stand before Qinglan. Yanyan — who was usually so clever and quick — was, for once, simply pushed back without a word.

“Thank you, Marquis,” she heard her own voice say, steady and calm. “It is my fault for not keeping better watch over her. I hope we haven’t disturbed the Marquis’s training.”

“Not at all.”

It seemed as if words could go no further. The first meeting after four years — calmer than two armies facing each other across a battlefield, yet more estranged than old friends. It was the safest and most distant of distances. Like the progression of their courtesies — from the greeting exchanged between peers of the same generation, to a knowing smile returned in kind, to the warmth that rose at the mere sight of a familiar silhouette from across the room, to the crowded splendor of the Peach Blossom Banquet, and the arm-in-arm wandering of the Tonghua Du gathering. Four years had passed — was the moonlight over Nangui Mountain still as brilliant as it had been? When a bird flew over at dusk, a single night felt as long as ten thousand years.

And yet here they were now, at the end of all of that.

Of course Qinglan was not heartbroken. She only felt like someone standing on a shore, watching the tide roll in, layer after layer, until it covered her entirely.

And yet she had never seen the sea. She had never seen the mountains of the northern frontier either. Everything she knew of this vast land’s scenery came from the nature writings she had read. She was Ye Qinglan of the Ye Family — the most perfectly bred young lady the inner chambers had to offer — born in the capital, raised in the capital, and destined to spend the rest of her life and draw her final breath here in this capital.

And yet she had once imagined traveling all the mountains and rivers of the world with someone. She had imagined seeing the sea, watching with him the blazing sunrise that books described in ten thousand words of glorious light.

At moments like this, more than any other, one had to straighten the spine. Pain was acceptable — she had learned to gather herself up, one small piece at a time, like gripping a tree root at the edge of a cliff and hauling herself upward, inch by inch, until the words came.

“I heard that the decree granting the marquisate will be issued any day now. I forgot to offer my congratulations, Marquis.” She heard her own voice speak.

She could offer congratulations to Madam Wei, so naturally she could offer them to him as well. She was Ye Qinglan — her conduct would always be faultless.

He said nothing.

Ye Qinglan spent a great deal of effort before she could bring herself to look at his face.

He was thinner, of course. Four years ago, that brilliant young man who rode boldly in fine clothes and sharp temper — so supremely gifted he’d been almost recklessly arrogant — the Cui Jingyu she had urged time and again to restrain himself — had finally tempered his edges. The winds and sands of the frontier had ground away the flashy bravado of youth, leaving in its place something with the quality of refined metal.

How had that poem by Li Bai gone, the one recited at the horse-racing banquet? “Young blades of five great districts, east of Gold Market Lane — silver saddles, white horses, riding through the spring wind.” She had been so young herself then, and over that final line — “laughing into the barbarian girl’s tavern” — she had refused to speak to him for days. Those days, she had always felt there was so much time left to waste — if he didn’t come to apologize, not speaking to him for a month would serve him right.

He would never again call himself a young blade of the five great districts. And she naturally no longer had the right to quarrel with him over a tavern girl in a poem.

But that scar — the one he’d gotten from being thrown from his horse while fighting over the gambling prize at the polo banquet for her — was it still in the same place?

Fortunately, Wei Leshui was still young and had known nothing of what had once passed between the two of them. She broke the silence with perfectly oblivious cheer: “Cui Elder Brother, you’ll stay for the banquet, won’t you? I heard there’s roasted lamb!”

“I still have to make my rounds of the camp. I won’t be going.”

His words had barely finished when Yanyan grabbed Qinglan’s hand and called out loudly: “Sister, when you were helping Madam Wei plan the menu earlier, didn’t you say you were going to make pine nut and red date rice cakes? Are they steamed yet? I can’t wait to eat them!” Still not satisfied, she turned to Wei Leshui: “These rice cakes — only my sister makes them in all of the capital. They are incredibly delicious. You wait and taste them later, and you’ll know.”

She pulled Wei Leshui along, heading inside. Wei Leshui hesitated and looked back at Cui Jingyu: “Cui Elder Brother…”

She clearly still wanted him to come to the banquet — her eyes were full of hope, though she lacked Yanyan’s boldness to just shout it out loud. It seemed even Cui Jingyu was moved.

“Very well — after I finish my rounds, I’ll come and sit for a while,” he said. He was still in his habitual cold posture, hand resting on his saber, but the corner of his mouth seemed to curve slightly — or perhaps it was simply someone else’s imagination.