The next day. The Feng household.

Feng Boyu sat by the window, his face ashen, and instructed Bi Nu — the little maidservant he had recently purchased for Feng Chuyue — “Go pack your young mistress’s luggage immediately. I am sending her back to Yuanzhou today. The carriage driver is already waiting outside. Don’t delay our departure from the city.”

Madam Feng stood helplessly looking at her son, wanting to persuade him but not daring to, and could only gaze at Feng Chuyue with exasperated disappointment. After a moment, the ache in her heart proved too much; she could not help wiping tears from her eyes and sighing repeatedly.

Feng Chuyue clung tightly to a bundle of clothing and accessories, crying until she could barely breathe. No matter how Bi Nu tried to coax her, she refused to let go, and wept and pleaded at Feng Boyu: “Brother, I know I was wrong. I’ll never dare do it again — please, please don’t send me back to Yuanzhou.”

Feng Boyu seemed to have made up his mind. Seeing Bi Nu hesitating and not daring to truly force Feng Chuyue, he strode over to his sister in irritation, snatched the bundle from her arms, and said: “They say brothers and sisters should not be too close once past the age of seven, so it would not be proper for me to go through your personal belongings myself — but the elder brother stands as a father, and I cannot stand by watching you corrupt your character and stir up disaster. You need not perform for me today. I am sending you back to Yuanzhou regardless.”

Feng Chuyue clung to the bundle with all her strength; Feng Boyu seized it and dragged her along several steps, and still she would not let go — sobbing and shaking her head desperately: “Brother! If you send me back to Yuanzhou, I’ll kill myself! We don’t even have a house there anymore — are you going to ship me off to Uncle’s family?”

Feng Boyu heard his sister say something about taking her own life, and automatically ignored the rest of what she said. He gave a cold, disbelieving laugh: “Die? Fine — you’ve never given this family any peace while alive anyway. Better you were dead. I’ll go find some rope for you.”

He turned and made to walk out, as though to fetch the rope.

Madam Feng immediately seized his sleeve: “Boyu! Chuyue is still young — she made a mistake. We teach her from here, that’s all. Why corner her like this? Do you need to drive her to her death?”

Feng Boyu, seeing his mother still muddled and doing nothing but indulging Feng Chuyue, was so angry his voice changed: “Fine, fine! It’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have cornered her, and I certainly shouldn’t have tried to discipline her! All these years I’ve been busy with the examinations — I truly did neglect her upbringing. And now that I want to intervene, it’s too late. Very well: since you won’t discipline her yourself, and won’t let me do it either, let’s simply send her back to Yuanzhou and let others take over.”

“Brother!” Feng Chuyue stamped her foot, weeping in outrage: “Now that you’ve made something of yourself, you’re happy to erase everything your sister did for you all these years. But don’t forget — among the money that paid for your studies, there was a share from me as well!”

Feng Boyu stopped short at this.

Feng Chuyue wept on, tears falling like broken pearls, making her small face look all the more pitiful and lovely.

“Since the year Father died, the three of us have depended on one another and scraped by, fighting tooth and nail. All the contempt we endured along the way, all the hardship we swallowed — Brother, have you forgotten all of it?”

As she spoke, she wiped her tears with her sleeve — then caught herself mid-motion, remembering her clothes were newly made and she should not ruin them, and switched to pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve.

This touched a nerve in Madam Feng. Her expression fell; she moved to the side and sat down, quietly wiping her eyes.

Feng Boyu stared at Feng Chuyue for a long time. Finally, with a slow exhale, he walked to the window and sat down. His face was haggard as he waved a hand at Bi Nu, who was standing in panic not knowing what to do: “You may go.”

Bi Nu fled as though reprieved, and with thoughtful consideration, helped the Feng family pull the side room door closed behind her as she went.

“After Father died, do you remember how our uncle’s family treated us? Father had barely been buried when Uncle seized the chance to bully a widow and her children, scheming to seize our house. If Teacher Yu hadn’t seen the injustice and stepped forward, we would have had nowhere to shelter from the wind and rain.”

Feng Boyu sat unmoving by the window, expression blank, silent for a long time.

The early summer outside suffused the window with dappled green shadows; morning light filtered through the window gauze onto his dark hair and handsome profile. From a distance, he was like a figure from a painting.

“That year, you were grinding away at your studies at the academy, preparing for the provincial examinations, day and night. Mother fell so ill she could not get out of bed, and she refused to let me send you word, afraid it would interrupt your preparation. It was the depths of winter, and the firewood was nearly gone. I was afraid Mother’s illness would get worse, so I went to Uncle’s family to beg them for some wood — and what did they do?”

Feng Chuyue’s voice lost its sob and turned fierce: “They gave it to me, alright — but it was all damp, rotting wood. I lit it for half a day and my hands went numb from the cold, and I still couldn’t get a fire going. By the time all that failed, it was dark — and we had no carriage, and I didn’t dare go out to find firewood alone. I cried in desperation over that heap of useless wet wood. If Teacher Yu and his companions hadn’t happened to pass by and come inside to look — how would we have survived that night? Mother might have frozen to death!”

“Chuyue…” Madam Feng said, her throat tight. “All that hardship is behind us now. Let’s not speak of it anymore, alright?”

“No! I’m going to speak of it!” Feng Chuyue wiped her tears and straightened her back. “That time — you had followed a spice trader in the city, planning to learn trade and earn some money to help the family. But you were young, and someone tricked you, and you lost every coin you’d invested. For that stretch, our family was so strapped we didn’t even have millet to put in the pot. If Mother and I hadn’t sewn and mended through every night until our eyes nearly gave out, could the three of us have made it through? We would have starved to death a dozen times over!”

She thrust out both her hands, holding them directly before Feng Boyu’s eyes: “These hands of mine — they look alright from a distance, I suppose. But look closely, and you can see the calluses and the old frostbite scars. Never mind the pampered daughters in Chang’an — does even one of our cousins from Uncle’s family have hands as rough as mine?”

Feng Boyu’s gaze fell to his sister’s palms. He could indeed see a row of thick, rounded calluses across her palm, and several old frostbite scars at the base of her thumb — left, no doubt, from washing other people’s clothes or doing needlework in those earlier years. Looking at them, he could not help but find them pitiable. His hard-set anger began to falter.

“And then finally, after enduring until two years ago — our family’s circumstances eased a little at last. The debts were all repaid; we even managed some property. And this year, joy after joy: Brother passed the examinations, secured a post at the Court of Judicial Review, and brought me and Mother to Chang’an to live properly. I thought to myself — at last, our family has come through the bitterness into sweetness. But then — Brother makes his name, his temper grows bigger, and when your sister makes a mistake, you won’t spare her a shred of face, you just want to send her straight back to Yuanzhou. Brother — now I finally understand the saying from the books: only able to share hardship, unable to share ease. Isn’t that precisely our family?”

Feng Boyu cut in coldly: “We have indeed suffered a great deal — but none of that justifies throwing away all feminine decency. You had no cause to go and secretly meet a strange man in the middle of the night, and nearly get yourself killed for it. If it hadn’t been for the Daoists from Qingyun Temple bringing you back, your mother and I would never have known you were capable of such recklessness!”

As he said this, the resolution that had been softening inside him hardened again: “There’s nothing more to say. I can see that your character has already been corrupted, and a few words of reprimand will not do any good. Mother coddles you on all sides, and I’m too busy with official duties to keep an eye on you. I’ve decided — I’m sending you to Yuanzhou. Let Teacher Yu and Madam Yu take care of you properly, and prevent you from doing anything else that would ruin your reputation and leave you with nothing but regret.”

“No—” Feng Chuyue’s voice pitched high. She sobbed and shook her head: “I finally made it to Chang’an. If I go slinking back like this before I’ve even settled in, won’t I just be handing our cousin’s family a chance to laugh at us? Don’t forget, Brother — our eldest cousin passed the examinations years ago and is already a Sima in Xiangzhou. A few years back our eldest female cousin married the Ningyan General; word is that last year the Ningyan General earned military merit and went from a fifth-rank to a fourth-rank official — he’s the Loyal-Martial General now. Their family’s estate is right there in Changsheng Lane. Mother and I passed by it the other day and had a look — quite an imposing place. And now our eldest female cousin is a general’s wife; she’s probably looking down on people more than ever.”

Feng Boyu’s expression darkened: “So in order to outdo your cousin, you tried every possible means to climb to someone higher, and threw away all propriety in the process?”

Feng Chuyue turned her face away stubbornly: “You’ve read books; you know far more grand principles than I do. But even I know — a mother’s worth rises with her son’s; a wife’s worth rises with her husband’s! Eldest Cousin made a name for himself as an official, and Eldest Female Cousin married well too — their lives are more distinguished than ours. And not just our generation — the next generation will be outshone by their children too!”

Feng Boyu was so angry he choked, yet for a moment could find no words to rebut her.

“I had thought, Brother, that since you placed second in the imperial examination, you must be streets ahead of Eldest Cousin as he was back then — but once in Chang’an, I understood. In Chang’an, a registrar at the Court of Judicial Review is as small as it gets, without a shred of real authority. By the time you’ve worked your way up the ranks, who knows how many years you’ll have consumed — I can’t wait that long.” She spoke, then without a trace of shame, smoothed her own hair and glanced at the faceted mirror by the bed — as though checking on her youth and appearance.

“That time we met Madam Qu and A’Yao at Piaoying Pavilion, do you remember, Brother? A’Yao was able to attend Yunyuan Academy — I wasn’t even eligible to apply. You’ve read so many books; surely you can see the logic even I can work out. Chang’an is a place where family background determines everything! People like us, who clawed our way up from the dust — if we want to live here and amount to something, is being honest and steadfast enough?”

Having said her piece, she rose and seated herself on the edge of the bed, looking at Feng Boyu with unusual resolve: “Now that I’m here, I am never going back. If you insist on sending me to Yuanzhou, you might as well take a rope and strangle me now and send me back horizontally!”

Feng Boyu stared at Feng Chuyue — so certain, so definitive — and all the fury that had filled him gradually dissolved into helplessness. For the first time in his life, he felt a measure of genuine, unresolved uncertainty.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city.

Qin Yao had been recuperating at home for some time, and her internal energy gradually recovered. Knowing that the academy would be opening its term before long, and that once she entered, it would no longer be easy to return to Qingyun Temple, she discussed it with Qu Chen Shi and arranged to go up to the temple to visit her master and senior disciple brother.

She set out from the estate and made her way to Qingyun Temple in good time — only to find her master and senior disciple brother absent. The little Daoist acolyte Fu Yuan informed her that Qing Xuzi had been invited to an estate on the outskirts of the city the day before to perform an exorcism and would not be back for a while.

Qin Yao could not conceal her disappointment. She left Qingyun Temple again and headed back toward the Qu estate, spirits deflated, instructing Lu Da to turn the carriage around.

Passing Deronggzhai, a fragrance of fresh cherries with cream drifted out from the window. Qin Yao’s appetite was instantly roused; she had Lu Da stop the carriage at once, donned her veiled hat, and jumped down.

A small crowd had already gathered at the shop entrance. Qin Yao had just joined the end of the queue when someone called out from behind her: “A’Yao.”

Qin Yao turned toward the sound, looking around — but saw no familiar face.

Then the voice, carrying a smile, said: “We’re on the second floor — look up.” Qin Yao raised her eyes and found it was none other than the Feng siblings: Feng Boyu was looking at her with a warm smile, and beside him, Feng Chuyue was leaning out of a second-floor window, waving at her enthusiastically.

Qin Yao had no choice but to abandon the cream-soaked fresh cherries and ask Lu Da to wait while she went up to the second floor.

A few days ago, Madam Feng and Feng Boyu had come to see Qin Yao. With the Qu couple present, the full story had not been laid out; they had only said that Qin Yao had helped drive away an evil spirit on their behalf and had come to express their gratitude, bringing along a basketful of rare tonics.

Qu Chen Shi could not refuse and had accepted.

Feng Boyu also apologized to Qin Yao repeatedly and with great sincerity.

Although Qin Yao disapproved deeply of Feng Chuyue’s behavior, she was unwilling to take it out on Feng Boyu. Seeing how haggard his face was and how full of remorse he seemed, she told him only that it was all past, she had not taken it to heart, and that she simply hoped A’Yue would not make such a foolish mistake again.

After that, Madam Feng and Feng Chuyue came to call on Qin Yao frequently — sometimes bringing exotic delicacies, sometimes Feng Chuyue’s needlework: a scented sachet or a fan sleeve. Feng Chuyue’s handiwork was superb, the designs creative, the stitching dense and even beyond reproach. The color combinations, though, were a touch too bright and bold for Qin Yao’s taste. Qin Yao did not complain, but she had no wish to grow too close to Feng Chuyue over it, and kept politely asking her not to do any more embroidery for her.

She had barely managed to slip away for one day under the pretext of visiting Qingyun Temple, only to run into Feng Chuyue on the street.

Arriving upstairs, Feng Chuyue came smiling to meet her: “Brother happens to have a day off today. Word is there’ll be a troupe of Kunlun performers doing tricks in the street shortly — I’ve never seen one before, and I asked him to bring me for a look.”

Qin Yao let herself be pulled along inside. Entering the room, she saw Feng Boyu in a dark-green round-collared robe, his brow clear and his eyes open and bright, strikingly handsome — glancing toward the door from time to time. Seeing Qin Yao arrive, he smiled and rose at once, inviting her to sit.

Qin Yao noted that the Feng siblings’ clothing was half-new at best, not the sort of obvious, expensive style that drew the eye — and yet both of them had some rare ability to transform the commonplace: even the most ordinary clothes, worn on either of them, looked like the finest and most polished of garments. They were exceedingly pleasing to look at.

In the days since the incident, every time Feng Boyu saw Qin Yao he felt a pang of guilt. Seeing her come in alone, he asked: “How is it you’re out on your own? Were you going to look for your master at the temple?”

Feng Chuyue had been chattering away, but the moment she heard the words “Qingyun Temple,” a rare flash of embarrassment crossed her face, and she fell immediately silent.

Qin Yao nodded and had just opened her mouth to respond when a voice came from outside the door: “Isn’t this Miss Qu?”

At the doorway stood a group of fashionably dressed young men and women. The one who had spoken was Xia Di; beside him stood Xia Yan, Princess Kangping, Chen Yuqi, and two young men Qin Yao did not recognize.

Xia Di, having spoken, walked in uninvited, smiling as he came to Qin Yao: “What a coincidence, running into you here.” He sat himself down next to her with easy familiarity, and since he had met Feng Boyu at the Duke of Wei’s estate previously, he gave Feng Boyu a nod — though he entirely ignored Feng Chuyue.

Feng Boyu, seeing Xia Di sit next to Qin Yao in so casual and unguarded a manner, felt his expression cool.

Before he could say a word, Qin Yao was already on her feet. She gave a bow and said evenly: “I apologize — there is still urgent business at home. I’ll take my leave.”

Xia Yan and the others had just come in and, seeing Qin Yao rising to go, Xia Yan quickly took her arm with a smile: “Miss Qu, we’ve been classmates and haven’t seen each other for such a while — won’t you stay and talk a little before you go?”

Princess Kangping, not entirely sure what was happening, surprised Qin Yao with a rare greeting: “Hey. You’ve recovered?”

She paused, then with visible reluctance said: “About last time — thank you.”

Qin Yao looked at Kangping for a moment before realizing she was referring to the incident at Dayin Temple. She bowed to Kangping and gave a faint smile: “I recovered long ago. Thank you for your concern, Princess.”

Kangping nodded and strode inside. Xia Di’s seat happened to be free beside him, so she sat down next to him without a thought for his sour expression — and found herself directly across from the Feng siblings.

Kangping had been behind the others coming in and had not seen clearly inside the door; glancing up now and seeing Feng Boyu, she first went blank, then her face turned red. “Why are you here?”

Strange — this princess, for some unknown reason, seemed to ask him that exact question every time she saw him. Feng Boyu inwardly frowned, then rose and bowed to Kangping with Feng Chuyue: “This official is here with my sister to have some tea.”

Kangping stared at Feng Boyu’s face — rendered even cleaner and more striking by the dark-green brocade robe — her face going even redder. She hurriedly looked away, affecting composure: “Mm. No need to stand on ceremony. Sit down.”

Feng Chuyue glanced at her brother, then at Kangping — whose manner was unmistakably unnatural — and her mind stirred. She quickly smiled and introduced herself: “Feng Chuyue pays her respects to Princess Kangping.”

Kangping’s gaze was still fixed sideways. She turned her eyes to Feng Chuyue, saw that she looked a great deal like Feng Boyu and guessed she was likely his younger sister, and with unprecedented patience gave a nod: “Duly noted. Please sit.”

By this point the proprietor had brought in a number of chairs, inviting Xia Yan and the others to be seated, and the entrance was cleared so that no idlers might wander in.

Xia Yan sat down beside Qin Yao and studied her carefully, smiling as she pressed her lips together: “A’Yao, where did you get that hairpin? It’s lovely.”

Without waiting for Qin Yao to react, she reached up unprompted and drew out a butterfly-and-flower-scroll hairpin from Qin Yao’s hair, holding it in her hands for an appreciative look.

The gesture was rather rude. Even Xia Di could not help a brief start — but everyone was accustomed to Xia Yan’s mild, warm-natured manner, and had never before seen her affront anyone’s face; seeing her smile with such artless sincerity, they assumed she was playfully teasing Qin Yao, and laughed it off without looking deeper.

Qin Yao had walked the path for years and seen any number of sinister tricks concealed behind beautiful faces. Although her nature was straightforward, she remained alert at all times to what was around her and was not easily disarmed.

The alarm bells in her heart sounded at once. Keeping her expression unchanged, she shifted slightly to the side and said: “I bought that hairpin two years ago at Baoyue Pavilion for my birthday. Nothing exceptional — not particularly fine.”

Chen Yuqi, hearing this, gave a look of contempt and said to Xia Yan: “A’Yan, have you developed a taste for simpler things? That kind of hairpin is found everywhere — perfectly ordinary. Just the one pin in your hair is worth hundreds of those.”

Xia Yan gave a small smile. She tilted her head slightly, revealing a jade hairpin pinned below the knot in her hair — and with a half-shy air, said: “Well, someone sent it to me; I wouldn’t have spent my own money on it.”

Qin Yao’s eyes fell involuntarily to Xia Yan’s hair. The hairpin was entirely white jade, clear and bright as frost — and remarkably familiar. It seemed to be that snow-and-plum-blossom hairpin she had once seen at Runyu Zhai.

She could not help a start. So it had been bought by her all along — no wonder she had gone back to Runyu Zhai afterward and wanted to admire the pin again and found she could not, because the shopkeeper said someone had already bought it.

But looking more closely, something seemed off. The pin head on Xia Yan’s hairpin was indeed carved with a flower — but not that plum blossom with its blush-pink stamens. It was an apricot blossom, with yellow stamens at its center. From a distance they appeared identical, but this one lacked the particular mood of snow-and-plum — it was the lesser of the two.

Xia Yan’s gaze rested quietly on Qin Yao, not letting slip a single subtle shift in expression. She opened her mouth gently: “A’Yao — do you think the pin I’m wearing is beautiful?”