In truth, Lingbo had left the banquet early, otherwise she would have known why Cui Jingyu had organized this enfeoffment banquet.

The Grand Princess’s banquet was lively, with men and women seated separately. In the inner courtyard, opera was performed, and in the outer courtyard as well — they were performing the story of Zhou Yafu and the Willow Camp. Halfway through the performance, an imperial edict arrived. The one receiving the edict was none other than Cui Jingyu. The eunuch delivering it had a sharp, thin voice as he announced the title the Emperor had bestowed upon Cui Jingyu: Marshal Wei had been titled “Pingyuan,” and he was titled “Dingyuan” — the master-disciple relationship between them was plain for all to see at a glance. Cui Jingyu knelt to receive the edict, his deputy general distributed the reward money, and immediately the entire banquet of colleagues and officials surged forward to offer congratulations. Like stars surrounding the moon, even Lord Jing — who had been supporting the Fire Battalion to counter him and Marshal Wei — the very official Shen himself could not help but come over smiling to offer his congratulations. Cui Jingyu replied with cool indifference: “Lord Shen is too kind.”

The news quickly reached the inner courtyard. The Grand Princess immediately gave word, ordering a new table to be set to celebrate the Marquis Dingyuan, and invited the eunuch who had delivered the edict to come into the inner courtyard for tea.

Everyone in officialdom was shrewd — who could not see the Emperor’s intention? The edict had not been delivered earlier or later, but precisely when the Grand Princess’s banquet was being held, as if to lend her support. It was a favor done along the way for the Grand Princess, and considering that the Grand Princess had known Marshal Wei’s title before anyone else, the Emperor’s intention to elevate her was plain for all to see.

The wise officials had long understood how much the Emperor valued the Grand Princess. Having her preside over the Flower Festival banquets and lead all the noble ladies of the capital was not enough — he also needed every official at court to understand how much he relied on this younger sister toward whom he felt a debt of guilt.

After returning home tonight, the officials would likely all need to analyze this point with their wives: at the twenty-four Flower Festival banquets, they must absolutely follow the Grand Princess’s lead.

Cui Jingyu, having come from the military, was somewhat better off and not as obvious about it as the civil officials. Since the Grand Princess had invited him to her table, he naturally had to go in and express his gratitude, so he followed the edict-delivering eunuch inside. In there, opera was also being performed — tales from the Sui and Tang dynasties, currently at the story of Dou Xian’niang and Luo Cheng’s battlefield betrothal. The Princess Consort of Pingjun saw Cui Jingyu enter and immediately smiled, teasing: “They’re performing Luo Cheng, and the dashing Luo Cheng himself has arrived.”

In truth, by age and temperament, it was Wei Yushan, the young marquis, who more resembled Luo Cheng — but he was too much like him, equally cold of heart and cold of word. When he had declared before the ladies that he would not take a wife for five years, the entire banquet had gone cold for a full quarter of an hour. The ladies were all noble ladies themselves, none of them easily fooled, and they immediately readjusted their assessments, shifting their gazes toward this “Marquis Cui” whom they had previously thought too proud and aloof.

Once the ladies’ thoughts shifted, they began to scrutinize Cui Jingyu more carefully. What had been three parts approval became seven parts. If Wei Yushan was a young sapling of green bamboo shoots, then Cui Jingyu was already a towering pine and cypress grown to full height — his frame taller and more upright, his features more handsome and exceptional. Though his temperament was indeed a little cold, and he favored wearing dark colors, giving his whole person a somewhat forbidding air, the glory of having been enfeoffed as a marquis in his youth was undeniable. Young and reliable — one advantage he had over Wei Yushan was that although the Wei family had Marshal Wei standing as their pillar, their achievements were so great they risked overshadowing the Emperor, and the enfeoffment of marquis was their ceiling. Furthermore, Wei Madam had embarrassed herself greatly just two days prior. Cui Jingyu was different — with no parents to be a burden, a highborn lady who married into his household would not need to observe the formalities of waiting on elders. She would immediately become the mistress of a marquis’s manor, free to simply enjoy the good life of a married couple.

The ladies sat in the flower hall listening to the opera, facing the stage, with warm braziers beside them, tall candles burning brightly, brocade curtains hanging down — an scene of flowery splendor and wealthy refinement. But when Cui Jingyu ascended the steps to express his gratitude to the Grand Princess, lifting the hem of his dark brocade robe, those few strides he took were more than merely graceful. As he bowed forward, it was just as they say of great generals in opera — like toppling a mountain of gold and a pillar of jade. As he bent down, it perfectly matched the old books’ descriptions: the back of an ape, the waist of a bee. Broad-shouldered, wearing the imperially bestowed python robe, the dark gold coils of the python pattern rose and sank amid ink-black waves across the back of that young man’s back — broad as a tiger, broad as a wolf — his bearing awe-inspiring. Below that, the ornate belt cinched his narrow waist. Even just his back view made the opera performer on stage, playing a great general, look like a counterfeit gleaming in the bright light.

The long tables all around were draped with brocade table skirts, the carpet was dark red with phoenix patterns embroidered all over it. Cui Jingyu knelt amid all that lush opulence, yet was as forbidding as a black blade. Like a fierce tiger entering a garden of flowers, the ladies seemed to realize for the first time that this was a living, breathing man of flesh and blood.

“Rise,” the Grand Princess said only with cool indifference.

Cui Jingyu then stood. He was very tall. The palace lanterns were dazzling, casting their light upon him, throwing deep shadows — and even those shadows were unmistakably the shadows of a man. The ladies seemed to have been transported twenty years back in an instant, becoming the bashful and self-conscious young ladies they once were in their boudoirs, unable to tease and joke with him the way they had with Wei Yushan, the way elders tease younger generations.

Perhaps it was because he was a military man — merely standing there gave one a sense of being encroached upon, let alone being fixed with a glance from those indifferent eyes of his.

He seemed to constantly remind others that he was a grown man, because he also constantly made others aware that they themselves were women. The ladies felt a strange, inexplicable sense of tender self-pity, as though they were delicate flowers and soft jade.

Though they could not smell anything on him, they imagined it must be the scent of wind and snow from the frontier — perhaps carrying the fragrance of trees, not the refined and processed incense of the capital, but the scent of living, robust trees, freshly hewn, bleeding the smell of branches and leaves. Or perhaps more like a raging fire, with entire tree stumps burning fiercely in the flames, that scent leaping at one’s face like sparks.

Young, unripe ladies — how could they understand this feeling? They probably only knew to fear him. The ladies felt a vague pang of regret in their hearts, and could not help worrying on his behalf: what if he were to marry a young wife of seventeen or eighteen, who would fear him and keep her distance, treating him as nothing more than an intimidating military man? Would that not be a waste of a fine youth?

The Grand Princess clearly understood this. In her day, the eldest son of the Duke of England, Huo Xuan, had also been a famous young general — which of the ladies had not witnessed that splendid bearing? Riding through the capital on horseback, how dashing and free-spirited he had been, leaving a deep mark on the hearts of these ladies in their girlhood.

So the Grand Princess naturally knew how to interact with him, unbothered by formalities. She exchanged a few pleasantries, inquired about the enfeoffment, then asked: “I wonder how the Marquis plans to arrange his enfeoffment banquet?”

Cui Jingyu was genuinely cold — when he replied to the Grand Princess, he used even fewer words than she had: “There is no one in my household, so I fear it must be postponed.”

The ladies finally saw their opening, but for some reason, all felt a little flustered. Even the usually sharp-tongued Princess Consort of Pingjun did not speak up; instead it was the elderly Nanny Song who smiled and said: “Marquis, what you say — the twenty-four Flower Festival banquets exist precisely to help you solve this problem. If the Marquis were to meet a suitable young lady from a noble family at one of the banquets, wouldn’t your household soon have a mistress? Then someone would also help you arrange the enfeoffment banquet. Ladies, isn’t that right?”

The ladies naturally all agreed, but except for a few of the older ones, all felt an inexplicable unease — not as composed as when they had teased Wei Yushan.

It was still those too-cold eyes of his, and the strong air of danger about him. His pupils were deep black, and the moment a lady started to speak, his eyes would quietly turn to look over — like a great wolf fixing a steady gaze through a curtain of snow. Who could fail to feel their heart stall for a moment?

Twenty-four years old — clearly still the age of a nephew in one’s household…

The ladies all held back, but the Princess Consort of Pingjun was the leading figure, and though she was also young — just past thirty — she was a niece of the current Empress’s family, who twelve years ago had been wed by imperial decree to the eldest son of the Prince of Pingjun. Unexpectedly, the old Princess Dowager of Pingjun’s health had declined in recent years, so at just past thirty she had become the mistress of the princely household, at the height of her blooming prosperity. Though she did not preside over the Flower Festival banquets, she was still very enthusiastic about them.

So she simply smiled and said: “Indeed, Nanny is quite right. The Marquis’s marriage is something we ladies cannot but help with. Only — we don’t know what kind of young woman the Marquis prefers?”

The ladies chimed in one after another, some saying “Indeed, the marquis’s household can’t go on without a mistress,” others saying “The Marquis is twenty-four this year, is he not? How is it that nothing has been settled yet?” Still others: “Though serving the nation is important, one’s personal affairs cannot be neglected either. Having been enfeoffed as a marquis is the perfect time to become engaged — a double joy would be wonderful…”

He had arrived suddenly, so the young ladies had not withdrawn behind the curtains — they were all seated behind their mothers, gathered around small round tables beside the warming braziers. A new round of refreshments had just been served: pea cakes and walnut shortbreads, rose cakes piled in little mountains, and small cups of bird’s nest porridge. One by one they were dressed like little silk figurines — eyes fixed downward, noses fixed on the air before them, as solemn as sacred statues. As for the tumultuous waves within their hearts, no one knew.

Cui Jingyu only cast them the lightest glance. His gaze was like a winter satin curtain caught by the wind, letting in a sliver of cold air — not even the most perceptive of ladies noticed it.

He neither said he agreed nor that he did not, only replying: “How could I trouble the ladies.”

Here was a general of few words — but few words had their own merits. Unlike one’s own husband at home, who rambled on endlessly, able to talk about the smallest court matter for half an hour. Not like him — even just standing there beside someone was pleasant. Like the glazed pagoda of an imperial temple: even having no relationship with it at all, catching sight of it in the distance still made one feel bright and expansive.

The ladies gradually recovered their composure and were willing to exchange a few light and inconsequential pleasantries — some asking which month he was born in, some asking what qualities he valued in a woman. Cui Jingyu gave only brief answers and said nothing more, which made him appear all the more composed. The ladies then pressed him all the more eagerly, and just as the atmosphere was growing lively, a group of young girls came running in.

Though girls of fourteen or fifteen being betrothed was common, noble families in the capital all doted on their daughters, often keeping them home until they were seventeen or eighteen before presenting them at the Flower Festival banquets to arrange matches. This was also for the daughters’ sake — if betrothed too early, and the intended husband met with some misfortune, there would be no room to maneuver, which would not be good for the daughter.

So the young daughters of noble families in the capital were, paradoxically, more innocent and childlike than girls from ordinary households — carefree and oblivious. Among them, for some reason, it was Yanyan, the youngest daughter of the Ye family, who led the group. Yanyan was pretty, lovable, and had an air of honest simplicity yet an appearance of great good fortune. The elder ladies all adored her. They only hesitated because the eldest Ye daughter had not yet married, so several of the ladies who might otherwise have wanted to arrange a match for Yanyan held back.

This group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls were naturally Yanyan’s little companions. The current Flower Festival banquets were lively, and the young ladies of seventeen and eighteen were all engaged in undercurrents of rivalry, but they were happy to enjoy themselves like children, carefree — after all, this year’s battleground was for the older ladies, and it was not yet their turn.

At the Grand Princess’s banquet, while the ladies and young women listened to opera and drank tea and ate refreshments, these girls had run out into the courtyard to play in the snow — returning one by one with red-frozen faces and beaming smiles, chattering like a flock of little birds. Among them were Guo Yuenu and Ni Shuangshuang, who were close friends with Yanyan, and Tao Li’er was the boldest of all: her grandfather had been the crown prince’s grand tutor in the current Emperor’s time as prince, and now held a position of pure prestige — she had attended palace banquets since childhood and was afraid of nothing. As the girls came running in laughing and shaking the snow from their cloaks, they ran straight into Cui Jingyu standing in the hall giving his reply. Tao Li’er led the charge, utterly unafraid, glanced at him once, then immediately went back to the cluster of girls and whispered a few words to Wei Leshui, urging: “Go and talk to him.”

Only then did everyone notice that Wei Leshui was also among the younger girls. Urged on by Tao Li’er, she came forward with a red face and said to Cui Jingyu: “Brother Jingyu, can you teach us how to roll a snowball? Ours always come out uneven.”

At these words, all the ladies burst out laughing, and Cui Jingyu also smiled, saying: “Alright, I’ll take you out and roll a round one.”

When he smiled, it was as if ice melted and snow thawed — his tall frame surrounded by a cluster of girls, enough to melt anyone’s heart. But the ladies could not help but feel a flicker of suspicion — surely Wei Madam wasn’t planning to marry Wei Leshui to Cui Jingyu? Though there was nothing to fear: at a time when the Northern Frontier Army was being actively dismantled, a marquis’s household allying with another marquis’s household through marriage was something the Emperor would not permit.

But Cui Jingyu did treat Wei Leshui quite well, genuinely taking the girls out into the courtyard and teaching them how to roll snowballs — not just pushing, but rolling from both sides too, otherwise they would come out shaped like cylinders. The snow in the courtyard was thin, and as they rolled it ran out. Just as the girls were all clamoring with suggestions, Cui Jingyu gave a kick to one of the nearby Chinese juniper trees, and immediately a great scatter of snow came tumbling down.

“Wonderful — I’m going to tell Her Highness, saying the Marquis behaved outrageously and kicked one of the household’s trees,” Lu Wenyin said with a laugh.

She had appeared at some point with Lu Wanyang beside her. The juniper’s needles were fine, and the accumulated snow was still falling, drifting like flurries in the air. Lu Wanyang’s hands were tucked inside a white fox-fur muff, and she was dressed in a great red satin robe trimmed with white fox fur, which made her face look all the more like beautiful jade. Her eyes were cast downward, with a light touch of rouge at the corners; her hair was like clouds, a Zhaojun fur headband accentuating her complexion — elegant and refined, like a fairy in the snow.

Yet Cui Jingyu only crossed his arms and replied coolly: “Madam Chen is joking.”

“I have heard that the far north is bitterly cold, with great snows sealing the mountains for three months at a stretch…” Lu Wanyang also began softly — she was very slender, and standing beside Cui Jingyu’s tall figure in his dark brocade robe, it was perfectly like a first meeting in an opera.

But unfortunately, one of the girls in the group was play-fighting with a friend, running backward, and came crashing straight toward Cui Jingyu, interrupting all of it.