In the thirteenth year of the Tiancheng Lingwei reign, at the height of summer — the tail end of June and the beginning of July — three strange occurrences took place in succession within the borders of Huozhou.

The first was a mountain fire that broke out in Heimu Commandery. It was said to have burned for three days and three nights, the smoke blotting out the sky and sun, as though the world itself were ending.

No such thing had ever happened before. It was well known that the seventh and eighth months brought the most abundant rains, when the wood was moist, the mountains slick, the springs rushing, and the pools deep. Rockslides were common enough, but a mountain fire had never occurred.

Some invented a story that the fire was divine fire fallen from the sky. A heavenly portent of once-in-a-century rarity, they said, meant that great calamity was coming to the world below. But as for what calamity, where it would fall, and when it would arrive — those questions spawned only endless conflicting opinions and no conclusions.

Yet the “divine fire calamity” theory had barely had time to generate any heat when “the river bandit human disaster theory” began to spread everywhere, this one concerning the Shen Family’s vessels on the Hunhe River, which had allegedly been throwing their weight around, harassing fishing boats and ferry boats alike. No one knew what cargo they sought or what person they were hunting.

For close to a hundred years, the Shen Family had been the dragon that ruled the territories of Huozhou — but in the past they had known the art of folding their scales and keeping to their corner, biding their time. Though behind the scenes they had quietly tightened their grip on every waterway, and their commercial establishments occupied a large share of the shops throughout the cities, they had never overtly done anything beyond their station, and had never given the court a thing to hold against them. Yet in these past few days, without any apparent reason, they had suddenly gone completely reckless.

On the third day that the Great Shen Ferry crossing had shut down, the people of Mu Er He City, who had been watching the spectacle from the opposite bank, never expected the spectacle to find its way into their own city. Ever since some six months earlier, when the entire Zou household — over a hundred people — had vanished overnight without a trace, the old Zou mansion that had stood for decades had become a coveted piece of property. Everyone knew it was a rare historic residence. Any one of its rockery garden features could keep craftsmen from Min Province occupied in study for a month — to say nothing of the priceless curiosities and treasures that might still be hidden beneath those carved eaves and painted beams.

Real estate brokers of all stripes in the city had pooled their efforts: first arranging wave after wave of monks and Taoist priests to perform ceremonies at the residence, purging it of whatever suspicions surrounded the Zou Family’s unexplained departure; then bribing storytellers at teahouses and wine shops all over the city to paint the Zou mansion in mythical and glorious terms — fit only for the heavens above, nowhere to be found in the mortal world — until even the swallows nesting under its eaves might as well have been laying golden eggs.

At the peak of the bidding frenzy, simply slipping in through the side gate for a look around cost tens of taels in “property inspection fees.” But who could have foreseen that the inspections, going on long enough, would run into trouble? Too many people wanted to see the property to squeeze them all in during daylight hours, so viewings stretched into the night — and a night tour turned up a ghost.

It was first seen by the nephew of Old Yuan at Hengfu Provisions: the ghost, he said, was lurking near the kitchen in the rear courtyard of the Zou mansion — enormous in stature, swift as a shadow, and capable of swallowing five or six sweet potatoes in a single breath when it opened its cavernous maw. Those who heard this story were skeptical. After all, weren’t ghosts supposed to be in the business of claiming souls? How did this one manage to have such an undignified appetite for produce? But then Knife-Scar Wang from the South City gambling house also claimed to have seen the ghost — and moreover, he declared that after his cries for help went unanswered, he had been knocked to the ground by a mysterious force and had woken to find himself outside the Zou estate walls.

A small pond breeds troublesome fish; a shallow pool harbors its share of creatures.

It had been far too long since little frontier Mu Er He City had anything interesting to talk about. What began as merely a strange haunting had somehow, in the telling and retelling, and in connection with the recent “natural disaster and human calamity,” transformed into a vengeful spirit appearing to reveal the workings of heaven.

“Otherworldly sages” emerged in abundance, none willing to yield to another, and what exactly the spirit had revealed, or how that revelation connected to the mountain fire and the Shen Family, was something absolutely no one could clearly explain. The original account of the “evil ghost devouring gourds” had long since been forgotten entirely.

The south of the city was glad to debate this happily as a way to cool off in the summer heat. In the old quarter north of the stone bridge, however, few people spoke of it. For those caught in the daily grind of survival, a life of rising before dawn and returning after dark wore away any excess of curiosity or argumentativeness. More pressing to them than whatever had happened inside the Zou mansion was tomorrow’s price of rice.

Of course, “few people” was not the same as “nobody.”

“I heard government men went over early this morning, and the gates have already been sealed with official notices. A pity about all the calligraphy, paintings, and curios in that compound — who knows if someone had already made off with the lot, or if that old rascal Zou burned everything before he left.”

The old scholar shook his head. His white beard swept across the grimy tabletop, and he carefully lifted it and tucked it into his faded collar.

At the same table, another patron in a blue robe leaned forward to get closer.

“Even so, the artificial rock gardens, the pavilions, the waterside terraces — those couldn’t all have been destroyed. The way I see it, the fact that no one dares to go and ask the price right now may not be such a bad thing.”

At that, the several down-at-heel scholars who had been craning their necks to listen all nodded and chimed in their agreement.

“That’s right, that’s right — look at what the Zou Family did, demolishing how many pavilions and towers just to build four gaudy gardens to house his concubines — they even cut down several of those century-old crabapple trees just because they bloomed white flowers and he said they were an ill omen.”

A chorus of sighs and laments followed, and everyone reached for their cups to top off their tea.

The teapot belly was quickly emptied. The old white-bearded scholar was about to rise and fetch the copper pot warming in the corner when a hand shot out from the side and slammed the pot back down onto the coals with a sharp clang.

“Going on two hours now — are you all refilling or not? If not, there’s a pavilion to the left of the front door, and you’re welcome to lounge there as long as you like.”

The speaker was a middle-aged man with a thick beard that connected to his sideburns. His belt was a rough hemp rope, his hair pinned with half a broken tea strainer, and when he opened his mouth, a gust of alcohol breath hit everyone in the face, sending the patrons stepping back one after another.

The blue-robed patron pressed a cloth to his nose and furrowed his brow.

“The tea isn’t finished yet — refill what?”

“One pot costs three wen — how many pots have you drunk?”

Scholars resented nothing more than being mocked for the poverty in their purses, and in any other place they might have let it go, but today it happened to be on their own home turf, and the insult stung especially.

The several shabbily dressed scholars at the adjacent table flushed alternately red and white, and one by one they rolled up their sleeves, baring scrawny arms, and put their hands on their hips to argue the point.

“We agreed: three wen a pot, one pot of tea — the tea isn’t even finished, so why are you trying to chase us out?”

“Exactly! Besides, we’ve been regulars here for — let’s say three to five years at the very least — and when have we ever met a proprietor as unreasonable as you, throwing his customers out with such foul language?”

The tipsy man gave three cold laughs, and after the third came a belch.

“Regulars? You’re only a customer if you spend money. You lot are sitting on my shop’s chairs and drinking water boiled in my shop’s stove — have any of you ever handed over so much as half a copper?”

The bearded man lifted his serving cloth aside to reveal a bamboo cylinder hanging at his waist. It had aged to a deep yellowed patina, with an old turtle carved with bean-sized eyes at the rim and a red cord tied at the base — the cord had gone somewhat black with age.

“When the shop owner was away and no one was keeping an eye on things, I suppose that was just the way of it. But now that I’m back, never mind that you’ve brought your own tea leaves — the charcoal you’re burning to heat the water has to be paid for, hasn’t it?”

The scholars had stood up with the spirit of warriors ready for three hundred rounds of debate, but knowing very well they were in the wrong, their fighting spirit deflated somewhat, and they sat back down at the adjoining table.

The atmosphere grew awkward for a moment. Then a voice cut through.

“It’s just the cost of some charcoal — will this be enough?”

With a sharp click, a bead rolled out onto the damp, battered wooden table.

It was not an ordinary bead by any measure. Perfectly round, without a single flaw to be found, its luster flickering in and out, its pattern dreamlike and shifting. This was surely not the kind of bead that could come out of any common river or lake — it was quite possibly a treasure from the South Sea, though of course no one in the room had actually seen a South Sea pearl. Either way, you could scour every jewelry shop in all of Huozhou and not find a second bead like it.

Truly beautiful things have the power to unify all aesthetic sensibilities in a single instant. Every person standing around that table — including the bearded man himself — had their eyes glued to that bead and could not look away.

The hand that had placed the bead pressed down on the table, and the bead rolled gurgling toward one end. Every set of eyes in the room rolled along with it toward the other side.

The bearded man followed the bead all the way to its resting place, where a hand with a calloused thumb and forefinger flipped and caught it. The hand’s owner turned out to be a young woman with her long hair bound high.

Xiao Nanhui raised an eyebrow and looked at the man before her.

Heavy drinkers were not uncommon, but how did this one manage to reek of alcohol so thoroughly inside a tea house?

“Surely a pot of tea is no reason to sour the mood like this. Besides, whoever heard of the Cold Studio having an owner? Wouldn’t you all agree?”

The scholars’ instincts told them they had found someone to back them up, and the fighting spirit that had sagged only a moment before came surging back. The voices of agreement rose one over another.

“She’s right! That’s right! How dare you bully us scholars—”

“We’ve been here for years and years — who knows where you’ve appeared from like a weed?”

“Probably the same sort as those scoundrels from the West Market a few days ago — thinking a big voice makes you the boss—”

A loud bang cut off the scholars’ indignant chorus.

The bearded man had unhooked the object at his waist and set it upright on the table, and gave a contemptuous snort.

“What’s this?”

Everyone stared at one another, then back at the dingy bamboo cylinder.

Xiao Nanhui was quietly examining it herself.

One of the older scholars cleared his throat and worked up his nerve to speak.

“Isn’t — isn’t that a bamboo tube for cooking rice? Are you mocking us for not even recognizing that?”

“You only know this place as a tea house, and you have no idea what this cylinder is for — let alone why this place came to be called the Cold Studio.”

The bearded man made no effort to hide the contempt in his eyes. As he spoke, some of the drunken haze left him, replaced by a careless, unbothered arrogance.

“The Cold Studio has a shop at the front and living quarters at the back. The reason it became the most well-known tea house in Huozhou back in the day was because of a cold spring in the rear quarters. The spring is peculiar — it emerges from the rock and the water’s eye is no wider than the mouth of a bowl, yet the depth of it has never been measured. So the first proprietor had this cylinder made as a tool for drawing the spring water, and it has been passed down from proprietor to proprietor ever since. If anyone doubts me, feel free to go to the rear courtyard and see for yourself.”

At that, the entire tea house fell silent.

Nobody rose. Nobody went to the rear courtyard. As though refusing to move spared them from having to confront the truth of their own culpability.

After a while, Xiao Nanhui lifted a finger and the bead went rolling to the center of the table again.

The man reached out without ceremony to take it, only to be stopped by the young woman.

“It’s just a bead — let them have it.” Xiao Nanhui lowered her voice. “The proprietor is a man of wit and ability. Why lower yourself to their level? I happen to have a few more rare beads and fine gems — would you like to take a look?”

The man was taken aback. The two patches of his cheekbones, flushed from the drink, showed something difficult to suppress — an eager excitement that wrestled with itself before he reluctantly spoke.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

Xiao Nanhui put on her most sincere expression.

“Naturally, I’ve taken a liking to the fine prospects of this location and wished to discuss a matter of business. But if the proprietor has no such interest—”

He could hold out no longer and dropped all pretense.

“Of course I do! Lead the way, lead the way.”

Xiao Nanhui said nothing more and turned toward the door.

Behind her, the scholars had at last found a way to save face. With a mutual, unspoken agreement, no one mentioned the indignity of a moment before, and they turned their attention to examining the bead.

“Jade green shot through with gold, bright as a star, hard as iron — just what sort of treasure is this?”

The blue-robed patron pressed his face close to peer at it, his two eyes nearly crossing in the middle.

“The way I’m looking at it, this bead looks rather like the iron clapper from a roof eave bell.”

A roof eave bell was a kind of wind chime hung at the corners of eaves. The wind chimes were common enough, but the clappers inside them — those hardly anyone had seen. The clappers inside wind chimes that had hung through decades of wind and rain were something even fewer people had laid eyes on.

These were things fastened to the eaves, after all. Who would have the leisure to climb up onto a rooftop to pry off a clapper?

The scholars shook their heads one after another.

“How could it be, how could it be — your eyes must be going with age, you must have it wrong—”

“Yes, yes — my money’s on a South Sea pearl—”

Even if it was an eave bell clapper, she had still spent nine parts of her energy and broken who knew how many roof tiles to get it down.

The blame lay entirely with the Shen Family’s thoroughness — they had seen fit to leave nothing behind but raw vegetables and winter melons, and the knife-scarred man from that gambling house had turned out to be such a henpecked soul that he hadn’t a single half-tael on him.

On her side of the wall, Xiao Nanhui cleaned out her ear and pretended she had not heard a word, leading the man across the street to the alley and to the carriage waiting there.

It was unmistakably the carriage of a wealthy household — refined and imposing.

The bearded man rubbed his hands together eagerly, and at her signal, reached out and lifted the carriage curtain without waiting.

But behind the curtain there were no precious beads, no fine gems — only a man asleep, his face like flawless jade, deeply unconscious. At his wrist hung a string of prayer beads. The moment the man caught sight of those prayer beads, the grin that had been climbing toward his temples fell away completely. He dropped the curtain and turned to bolt.

Those feet, unaccustomed to any running, had only managed a few steps before he found his collar seized from behind, leaving him completely unable to move.

“The tea money has been settled and you’ve seen what I came to show you. Surely Master Luo He ought to say something in return?”

The young woman’s voice was cool and quiet, with an understated chill that was difficult to name.

Luo He, knowing there was no escape, still wore an expression of shock and uncertainty. After a long moment, he managed to squeeze out half of two words.

“Is he — is he dead?”

Xiao Nanhui barely managed to keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“If he were dead, why would I be looking for you?”

“Then — is he drunk?”

She could listen to this no longer, and had no wish to waste any more time on this topic. She reached out and began searching through his clothes.

“Do you have an antidote on you?”

“An antidote? What do you need an antidote for?”

Xiao Nanhui was dumbstruck. She had been speaking perfectly good Chizhou vernacular — why did everything she said seem to get lost in translation with this man, every exchange feeling like a duck talking to a chicken?

She took a deep breath and silently reminded herself: she still needed him to guide the way, and you should not slaughter your ox before finishing the plowing.

She kept it brief.

“He was poisoned. Without an antidote, I’m afraid—”

No — what might come after “afraid” could absolutely not be allowed to happen.

Xiao Nanhui did not know whether the man before her was genuinely ignorant or simply playing dumb. But before she could think of a way to deal with him, in the very next instant, Luo He grabbed both of Su Wei’s hands and began flipping and turning them, examining them like a fortune teller reading palms at a street corner. Then, just as unceremoniously, he dropped them.

“He’s already taken the antidote.”

“Already taken it?” Xiao Nanhui refused to believe it. But then she remembered the pill he had swallowed in the hidden passageway, and frowned. “If he’s already taken the antidote, why hasn’t he woken up after all these days?”

After all, Zou Sifang — that old bag of bones — had been up and about in full vigor the day after Hao Bai produced his remedy.

What exactly had he given himself to swallow?

“That I wouldn’t know. But looking at him, he’s only in a deep sleep — there won’t be any immediate danger in the short term.”

Xiao Nanhui caught the implication behind those words and tensed.

“What happens if it goes on too long?”

“Same as with anyone confined to bed for a long illness — the muscles and tendons in the limbs can begin to weaken, and bedsores can develop on the lower back and hips. And at the slightest change in condition—”

“All right, that’s enough.” She was not going to let it drag on that long, no matter what. “How long to reach Tiancheng?”

Luo He narrowed his eyes. The drunken haze rose back over his face. “At least eighty or ninety days — accounting for supplies, provisions, and getting everything in order—”

Xiao Nanhui gave a cold laugh and reached out to give the sturdy hindquarters of the horse pulling the carriage a pat.

“This carriage from the Four Corners gambling house is certainly well-made and solid. A pity it’s a little too conspicuous — it won’t be able to move around freely for long. I don’t know anyone in this city I can trust or rely on. If you don’t find a way to get me out of the city today, we can both just sit here and wait for the government men to find us.”

Luo He’s expression shifted. He ground his teeth.

“You calculated the timing perfectly, just waiting here to ambush me.”

Xiao Nanhui waved a dismissive hand.

“Save the flattery for when we’re outside. The city gates close in less than one hour — stop dawdling. On your way.”

The bearded man, knowing he had no choice but to make this trip, stamped his foot in fury, unhooked the bamboo cylinder from his waist, hid it behind the half-fallen door panel at the front of the Cold Studio, took one last look at the two lines of verse carved on the pillar by the entrance, and then turned and climbed into the carriage.

Xiao Nanhui watched him finish all of this, then finally pressed her fists together in a bow.

“Xiao Nanhui. A pleasure to meet you.”

The man glanced at her. He either did not know the martial world’s customary courtesy, or he was still in a temper — he did not return the greeting, only forcing out one sentence through clenched teeth.

“Luo He is the name every successive floor attendant of this establishment has used. I’ve gone by it for over twenty years now — call me that if you like. But—” He paused here, turning to glance at the sleeping figure in the carriage and then back at Xiao Nanhui, and let the silence hold for a meaningful moment. “But by seniority, you ought to call me maternal grand-uncle.”

Maternal grand-uncle? What sort of uncle was that?

Xiao Nanhui stood rooted to the spot, and in the next instant the realization struck her.

Could this man actually be a relative of the Emperor?