When it was brought out, even Niangzi Yang gave a cry of admiration. The so-called moonlight robe was based on a capital custom of the Lantern Festival — wearing a white silk jacket, which by moonlight fulfilled the verse: “A white silk robe gleaming in the moonlight, walk across the bridge and be free of all ailments. Touch the nails on the front gate when you pass. One journey earns you a whole year’s joy.” But white was not flattering on everyone, and the range of variations was limited, so the fashion had gradually faded.
But this moonlight robe of Lingbo’s had taken tremendous effort. Rather than white silk, she had used a length of heavy brocade — moonlight white, woven throughout with silver lotus motifs in a shadowed pattern, unbroken from edge to edge in an endless knot design. Laid out on the couch, it caught the snowy light like flowing water, shimmering brilliantly. It was not hard to imagine how beautiful it would look illuminated by the lanterns of the Lantern Festival.
The cut was beautiful too, the tailoring exquisite — a round collar with wide flowing sleeves, the sleeve hems like clouds, like water, all buttons made of the finest white jade. Below, a skirt in embroidered gold — water-ripple patterns blooming with lotus flowers, thickly embroidered, lush and ornate — yet as worn, only a short hem of skirt peeked out below the robe. Though elaborate, it was restrained and refined, and all the more distinguished for it.
Qinglan frowned at once: “Such a beautiful garment — why don’t you keep it for yourself?”
“Spare me — I’ve barely been getting enough sleep lately, and if I put it on, it’ll only make my complexion look sallow. I was planning to wear dark green.” She pressed Qinglan: “Just wear it. I truly cannot pull it off, and keeping it would be wasteful. The only time one would ever wear something like this is at the Lantern Festival — any other time, the other courtyard would probably start saying I was trying to jinx Master Ye.”
Qinglan laughed. With Niangzi Yang continuing to encourage her as well, she had no choice but to agree.
In truth, Lingbo had also prepared a set of exquisite pearl jewelry — a necklace, earrings, and a headdress. But she feared bringing it all out at once would look too obviously premeditated, so she planned to produce it in the evening: once Qinglan was already dressed, she could be pushed into wearing it without having a chance to refuse.
While Lingbo schemed for Qinglan, she dressed simply herself — years of habit, knowing that no amount of effort on her part would make a great difference. Looking too adorned would only draw attention to the effort, which was more awkward than plain looks themselves. So she made no great fuss over her appearance, which at least gave her a certain ease.
That day she wore a large-sleeved robe in dark green embroidered gold brocade — irritatingly, it was actually leftover fabric from making that fellow Pei Zhao’s clothes. Lingbo might be adept at earning money, but she was rather frugal with herself. Fine things she would not use, yet she had lavished them on that ingrate who had now turned around and picked a quarrel with her. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to give him a smack.
By evening, Qinglan had fallen for the plan as intended. Lingbo kept fussing over her appearance but kept turning up accessories that simply would not do. The hairdresser watching all of this assumed — as a hairdresser at many other households had learned to assume — that this was a jealous younger sister deliberately withholding her best things and stalling for time. But then at the hour of shen, Shen Biwei walked in carrying a lantern and called out: “It’s almost the hour of you already — are you ready yet?” The moment Lingbo saw her, she said: “Oh, that’s right — I think we have a pearl headdress somewhere in the house.”
There is an opera aria called A Measure of Pearls. This measure of pearls that Lingbo produced now left even the hairdresser wide-eyed. The earrings alone — those pearls larger than the thumb — were extraordinary enough; but the most remarkable piece was the necklace, round and large, each pearl perfectly matched, glowing with a deep inner luminescence. Laid out on the dressing table, they lit up the table itself.
Even Qinglan, slow as she could be at times, understood what was happening: “Why are you putting such expensive pearls out for me?”
“Who said these are for you? I prepared them to wear with the moonlight robe. Now that I can’t wear the robe, these pearls might as well go to you.” Lingbo was entirely unapologetic. “Come on, quickly, hurry up, I haven’t done my own hair yet.”
Qinglan read all the classics and had no shortage of grand principles, but her reflexes were slow. Even when she sensed something was off, she could not quite work out what. Under the pressure of everyone urging her along, she let the hairdresser put the ornaments on — and when the hairdresser finished, she turned to Lingbo and said: “Second Miss, there’s some room left.”
The hairdressers had also noticed that, though Qinglan was the elder daughter of the household, it was Lingbo who managed all the valuables now.
“Didn’t I say I made it for my own head? I measured it by my own hair, and mine is finer and softer — I can’t do a high topknot. You, on the other hand, have so much of it pinned up in such a great mass that the ornaments look small by comparison.” Lingbo even complained about it.
Qinglan took this at face value, looked in the mirror, and said: “Well, it doesn’t matter. A little room won’t hurt — it’s only the Lantern Festival, after all. Too much ostentation isn’t proper.”
“That won’t do,” Lingbo thought for a moment, and pointed at Shen Biwei: “Oh — didn’t you send me that Zhaojun cap? Quickly, put it on Qinglan. It’s all fluffy and soft — just right for the top of her head, and it won’t be bare anymore.”
Shen Biwei watched as Lingbo spun Qinglan in circles with complete ease, and was quietly amazed.
But the Qinglan that emerged from all of Lingbo’s careful scheming and dressing was truly one that drew admiration from everyone. Even the hairdresser praised: “I’ve done hair for so many years, and I’ve never seen a young lady this flawlessly beautiful. She’s like she stepped right out of a painting — even the beauties in the opera couldn’t match this. Come the nineteenth of the second month on the Guanyin Birthday, Miss truly ought to go portray the Guanyin.”
Afraid the praise would go on too long and Qinglan would see through things, Lingbo quickly cut in: “All right, that’s enough, no more compliments — you just want your reward money, isn’t that right? Niangzi Yang, quickly, give them something and let’s be off.”
The hairdresser found this household quite peculiar. The two sisters supposedly had a deep bond, yet the second daughter would not even allow the first to be praised — and yet those pearl ornaments, worth as much as several shops combined, she was willing to hand over without a second thought.
Qinglan truly was rather naive in that way — just as Lingbo had always said, beautiful people saw themselves in the mirror every day and grew accustomed to themselves; they did not notice. When she was dressed and ready, everyone else in the household knew at a glance what they were looking at. A’Cuo had never seen Qinglan in such full adornment before, and simply stared. Lingbo kept shooting her meaningful looks, silently telling her not to say anything — she was afraid Qinglan would grow suspicious.
At the gate, they ran directly into Concubine Pan also leading Ye Yinzhang out the door, clearly dressed with great care. Concubine Pan had been quite proud of herself, and was in the middle of talking to Master Ye: “With our Yinzhang’s looks, her husband really ought to be making more careful plans for her…”
But then Ye Qinglan appeared at just that moment with her sisters, stepping out first as the elder always did — holding up a rabbit lantern to light the way for the others, attended on all sides by servants, like a bright moon descended upon the Ye Family’s gate. Concubine Pan was so startled she did not know what to do.
Even Master Ye, who had seen much of the world, felt his own heart grow complicated at the sight of this eldest daughter.
Ye Qinglan’s learning, character, and beauty — he knew them all. Even the most heartless of fathers, facing the fact that she had been kept waiting until twenty-four, could feel a moment of guilt…
But Ye Lingbo gave him no opportunity to speak.
“All right, everyone stand aside.” At a single glance from her, Lin Niangzi and the others immediately stepped forward and formed a barrier between the young ladies and Master Ye and Concubine Pan — then swept them away, merging them into the flow of people going out to walk away their ailments on the streets of the Lantern Festival.
The Lantern Festival walk was one of the great events of the capital, and the South City had the highest concentration of official and noble family residences — at this hour, the streets were filled to the brim. Matrons led their daughters, servants surrounded their mistresses, and the lanterns blazed so brightly the entire street was lit like broad daylight. Yet even in all this crowd, a small space formed naturally around the Ye sisters wherever they walked.
Those who had been walking behind them dared not keep pace. Those ahead turned, caught sight of Ye Qinglan, and stepped aside of their own accord. Their expressions held everything — astonishment, wariness, a fresh appraisal, and also regret, bewilderment, and in more than a few of the matrons, a look of something like fond remembrance.
Ye Lingbo felt cold contempt rising in her chest.
The undisputed queen of four years’ worth of Flower-Banquets — did they think it was some kind of joke?
The world was vulgar and mercenary, quick to flatter the high and tread on the low. Twenty-four years old — the very flower of womanhood, the prime of a young lady’s beauty — yet they had spread rumors until they had made Ye Qinglan out to be an unwanted woman past her prime. The men who had approached her were mostly those of a rank that would not have been able to get anywhere near her in her heyday — those who had ground through multiple wives, or those of utterly wretched character. The more such stories circulated, the more hopeless her prospects seemed.
Yet Qinglan had always been the same Qinglan. When had she ever changed?
Thinking on this, Ye Lingbo felt a cold fury stir deep within her.
From the day Cui Jingyu had returned to the capital, she had been scheming. But rather than rekindling an old romance, what drove her was this: she wanted Cui Jingyu to return to Qinglan everything the world owed her.
Qinglan deserved the finest match, the finest ending. People said it was Cui Jingyu who had been devastated by the broken engagement — but what about Qinglan? Had she not refused every other possibility in the world for his sake? If she had remarried quickly after the broken engagement four years ago, would she not have had her pick of any number of young scions?
Four years later, Qinglan was still unmarried — even become, in the eyes of the world, a spinster past her time. That alone said everything.
And yet that fool Cui Jingyu, absurdly enough, was just as dense as Qinglan. The two of them together were so stubbornly, impenetrably thick-headed — four years gone by, man still unwed, woman still unmarried. Could anything be more obvious? And still they would not relent, still they were digging in their heels. Such golden youth, a young lady like a vision, a dashing and accomplished general — it should have been a magnificent love story, blazing and splendid. Yet here they both were, wasting away at it relentlessly!
But she, Ye Lingbo, was not someone to be trifled with.
This red thread — she would tie it even if it strained to the breaking point. She would not give up. She swore to keep watch over these two stubborn fools until they had spoken their unspoken words, unraveled the knot around their hearts, found their way to each other, and married in joy. Ideally they would have a child just as stubborn as the both of them — some little creature who would chase her down the street calling her Auntie. That would be true happiness and completion.