The night road from Yanfu Street to the Marquis Mansion, Xiao Nanhui had walked many times.

In the past, she had liked to call on Bolao to sneak with her to the back courtyard of the Wangchen Tower to drink with Yao Yi.

One drink at a time, Bolao had gone from a small, plump little round-faced figure like a New Year’s painting doll and grown into a ball; Yao Yi had gone from an odd-job errand boy to the manager he was today; and she had gone from that half-grown girl who got bullied to tears by Xu Shu, to the armored general on horseback she was now.

But as long as she walked this road home, whether by day or by night, that sense of familiarity could always make her feel at ease. As though nothing had ever changed.

She was not a greedy person — as long as she could maintain what she had, she was already content.

When she looked up and saw the front gate of the Marquis Mansion, it was just past midnight.

Uncle Chen was getting on in years and had perhaps already gone to sleep. Xiao Nanhui, knowing the way by heart, felt out the few recessed wall bricks on the outer wall and nimbly flipped herself over the top, landing precisely in the central courtyard.

“Nan Hui is back?”

The moment her foot touched the ground, a familiar voice sounded in the darkness.

Xiao Nanhui turned in a daze, and saw Xiao Zhun sitting at the stone table in the center of the courtyard, without even a lamp at his side.

He had been waiting for her — for a long time?

“Father.”

She was somewhat flustered and called out to him softly. The weariness on Xiao Zhun’s face gradually retreated, and his gaze as he looked at her showed a few threads of a smile.

“Where did you go? Coming home so late.”

She quietly cursed Bolao for not having told him clearly where she had gone and worried him. At the same time she hastily explained: “I went to find Yao Yi and helped settle a friend of mine who came from the western ridge. Then I sat with him for a bit, and that’s how it got this late.”

She knew Xiao Zhun did not like Yao Yi. But she had no intention of concealing what she had done today — only, instinctively, she hadn’t mentioned looking into the Pu Hu Na matter.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Zhun, uncharacteristically, made no additional comment on the name “Yao Yi.” He only raised his hand, signaling her to come closer.

Xiao Nanhui stepped forward, and before she had even reached him she saw the firecrackers on the ground.

“This year’s New Year’s Eve was all used up on the road, and I never properly accompanied you. I know that every year you always love to set off these crackling things with Du Juan for the excitement. So I had Uncle Li go and buy some — only firecrackers were available; the fireworks were impossible to find. From now on, there is no need to avoid me. A pleasure that comes but once a year — I could hardly be a wet blanket.”

She stood there almost in a daze, until Bolao, Du Juan, and Uncle Chen came out of the inner courtyard with smiles. Only then did she realize that Xiao Zhun had, without her noticing, already moved to stand before her.

He placed the flint for the fuse in her hand. The roughness of his fingertip brushed lightly across her palm, then patted her gently on the head.

“Nan Hui — happy new year. May we do well in the coming year too.”

Her tears rolled down before she could stop them, and she hurriedly blinked them away, only nodding repeatedly and vigorously.

Amid the crackling of the firecrackers, Bolao seemed to be making some untimely remark or two nearby, earning her a round of scolding from Du Juan who grabbed her by the ear, while Uncle Chen stood to the side watching with his arms folded, laughing and dodging those two women who had twisted into a tangled heap.

Xiao Zhun’s voice reached her through the noise in broken fragments.

“About Ping Xian — I am very sorry. That day there were reasons for what happened, and I acted in haste—”

He spoke in a low voice, explaining to her. But she heard only the first sentence; everything after that she could not make out.

She had been waiting for these words for a long time, and had assumed she would feel utterly aggrieved when they finally came. But now that she truly heard them, her inner heart was actually calmer than she had imagined.

Not that it didn’t hurt — only that the worst of the hurt had already passed.

She raised her head and gave Xiao Zhun a wide smile: “Father need not blame himself. Ping Xian was given to me by Father to begin with. If Father wishes to take it back, that is only right and proper.”

Xiao Zhun gazed slowly at those eyes that had once been incapable of concealing any emotion.

Now, those eyes plainly held something that was difficult to read — as though it were the half-lowered eyelashes, or the arc of the corner of the eye — everything, all of it, had undergone some subtle and indiscernible change.

Xiao Nanhui did not know what Xiao Zhun was thinking. Bolao was still carrying on not far away. She was about to shift her gaze and go deal out a few blows to that wretched girl, when her gaze swept across Xiao Zhun’s collar — and immediately halted.

“Oh? There’s something on Father’s clothes.”

She spoke and reached out, giving a light flick. That thin, delicate object caught in the fold of his collar fluttered down and settled in her palm.

It was half a water-red plum blossom, the pistil crowned with vivid green. Though already somewhat wilted, the layer upon layer of petals was still discernible, and clearly no ordinary plum blossom that any common household could have cultivated.

In that very moment, Bolao’s firecracker burned to its end. The air, which had been vibrating with noise, fell suddenly silent.

Xiao Nanhui stared at the plum blossom in her palm. Her thoughts swelled, beyond her control — growing larger, and larger still.

There was not a single plum tree throughout the Marquis Mansion. Nor would there be plum blossoms in the Su-Bei Grand Camp outside the city.

Moreover, this did not seem to be an ordinary plum blossom.

Where had Xiao Zhun gone?

Not far away, Du Juan came charging out from behind Uncle Chen in a fury, grabbing Bolao by the pudgy cheeks. Some great martial arts master screamed like a slaughtered pig.

Xiao Nanhui’s train of thought broke off. She swiftly closed the plum blossom in her palm and said to Xiao Zhun with perfect composure: “Nan Hui is very happy today. The night is already late, and Father still has military affairs tomorrow — best to rest early.”

Having said this, she dared not look at the man’s expression any longer. She turned and hurried toward her own small courtyard, and even as Bolao wailed and hollered behind her, she still did not turn back.

One night of tossing and turning, half-asleep and half-awake, she endured until daybreak.

Xiao Nanhui stared at the interlocking branch pattern on the canopy above her head and felt that the design seemed to be withering and fading in place.

She lay there with her eyes open for a while. Just as she was about to get up, she suddenly heard footsteps, and hastily shrank back under the covers.

The person who came wore shoes with triple-layered soles, their steps very light — but a familiar sense of urgency was difficult to conceal.

Sure enough, the next second Du Juan’s voice came through the covers.

“Playing dead? Is it suffocating in there?”

Xiao Nanhui stayed still, deciding to continue feigning sleep.

“What was wrong with you last night? The Marquis rarely had time to keep you company, and everyone was having a perfectly good time — yet you went and threw a tantrum.”

Xiao Nanhui buried her face in the covers, hands tucked under the pillow — a bit uncomfortable there.

She still had Ping Xian hidden under the pillow, fearing seeing it every day yet fearing not seeing it as well.

After a moment, she finally opened her mouth.

“I wasn’t throwing a tantrum.”

“Still saying you weren’t?!” Du Juan unceremoniously yanked the covers down, and was about to continue her scolding when she suddenly caught sight of the scars faintly visible beneath the child’s inner garment — old and new wounds alike running from her back all the way down to her calves. The scar on her ankle in particular was the most alarming of all.

Du Juan’s hand, which had been clutching the corner of the covers, tightened and then loosened. She delivered a slap to the back of Xiao Nanhui’s head. Xiao Nanhui immediately flipped like a fat carp.

“What a nerve! Gone so long — didn’t even think to send a letter home. And since coming back, every other day you’re running off somewhere. In the future, you can just stop eating my cooking — go live with your friend on Yanfu Street and spend every day drinking flower wine—”

Xiao Nanhui was intimately familiar with this pattern of “morning lectures” and so turned to look at Du Juan, putting on a solemn expression.

“Du Juan sister — have you truly never studied martial arts, learned any palm techniques? Or have you already established your own school and simply kept it secret?”

Du Juan finally couldn’t hold it and laughed. Then she seemed to remember something and produced a letter from her person.

“You cheeky thing. This is a letter for you. It came delivered by a messenger from General Yan’s household, addressed specifically to you.”

Yan Guang?

Xiao Nanhui was a little puzzled. She took the letter and examined it carefully.

The paper was of superior quality, yet the characters on it were thick and blunt — painful to look at.

The very first line was “Seeing this letter is as seeing you in person,” followed by a statement that seemed to come out of nowhere.

“On the twenty-third day of the tenth month, Xiao Nanhui promised in a small camp tent to teach this person three sets of boxing techniques, which to this day remain undelivered. This is hereby served as a reminder.”

The signature — three characters written with something like actual fluency, as though the writer practiced only these three characters every day — was unmistakably: Mo Chunhua.

She raised an eyebrow, her meaning becoming somewhat clear: “Has General Yan recently taken a lady into his household?”

Du Juan knitted her brow in thought: “Something like that, I think. I saw that the cloth shops and jewelry stores on Dingyou Road sent over quite a lot of satin and hair ornaments the day before yesterday — it seemed like there was a new mistress moving in.”

Well then, Mo Chunhua, you’ve gone from a slave to singing your own praises.

She was rather curious as to exactly why Yan Guang had suddenly come around and started paying attention to that unwanted concubine-born daughter. She absolutely had to go ask Mo Chunhua when the opportunity arose.

Du Juan regarded the expression on the woman before her, looking rather thoughtful.

“Since your return from Suyan this time, it seems you’ve made quite a few friends.”

“Have I?” She scratched her head, clearly not having paid much attention to this. “They’re all people I met along the road. One of these days I’ll introduce them to Father.”

“Best wait on that for now.” Du Juan waved her hand with a somewhat worried air. “The Marquis has been looking frighteningly haggard these past few days. When he came back from the separate residence, he was even more so—”

Suddenly realizing she had brought up something she ought not to have, Du Juan abruptly closed her mouth and quickly shot a glance at Xiao Nanhui’s expression.

That glance carried a faint air of “giving herself away without being asked.” It would have been better not to have looked — looking made it plain to Xiao Nanhui that whatever business Xiao Zhun had at some “separate residence” was almost certainly related to the Bai family’s affairs.

No matter how many times she had reasoned herself into acceptance, hearing even a fragment of that woman’s name — she would still lose control of herself from within.

The two characters Bai Yun were now like a curse, capable of shattering her original life with ease at any moment.

“Nan Hui, actually—”

Du Juan seemed to want to patch things up with a word or two. The next second, Chen Cai’s voice drifted in from the courtyard, breaking off what Du Juan had been about to say.

“Has the Young Lady risen?”

Du Juan, by way of concealment, brought the copper basin of hot water over, soaked a cloth and threw it onto Xiao Nanhui’s face, and called back to the outside: “Just getting up now.”

Chen Cai paused, then added: “Someone from the Yan-Yi Camp has come saying there’s something to convey to the Young Lady in person. The Young Lady may go now, or wait a moment — which would you prefer?”

First the Yan family, now the Yan-Yi Camp — Xiao Nanhui found herself thinking: the traffic through her door had never been this busy.

Right now she was in something of a vexed mood and had no desire to see anyone. But on reflection, having someone to interrupt and distract her attention might actually be a good thing.

“Please tell Uncle Chen — I’ll be right there.”

She used the wet cloth to wipe her face haphazardly, then grabbed the clothes she had taken off the day before and pulled them on. Du Juan beside her looked at the sight with yet another round of wide eyes and furrowed brows.

She pretended not to notice, snagged a steamed cake from the tea tray Du Juan had brought, held it between her teeth, and headed for the front hall.

The steamed cake was down in two or three bites, and her feet had just arrived at the right place. Xiao Nanhui looked up.

Goodness — standing in the front hall was unmistakably Ding Weixiang.

She had thought this person would never be willing to say a word to her again for the rest of his life. She hadn’t expected to see him at her own doorstep.

She lingered behind a pillar for a moment. Ding Weixiang’s ears, keen as a wild hound’s, detected her in an instant. His gaze cut through the pillar and he performed a bow: “My respects to the Grand General.”

She stepped out somewhat awkwardly from behind the pillar, then pretended to wave magnanimously: “Ah — if you want to make peace, there’s really no need to come pay a formal visit. We’re all contemporaries — no need for all that ‘Grand General’ business—”

As she spoke, she realized that Ding Weixiang had given her a look she couldn’t quite name, and that his bow was directed not precisely toward her.

Xiao Nanhui’s whole body went stiff. She turned her head, only to discover that Xiao Zhun had followed along at some unknown point.

Xiao Zhun glanced at her and said calmly to Ding Weixiang: “My ward seems to be somewhat loose-tongued today — I hope Lieutenant Ding will not hold it against her.”

Ding Weixiang feigned a glance at her and produced an infuriating grin: “Think nothing of it.”

Xiao Nanhui’s teeth itched with annoyance, but with Xiao Zhun there she couldn’t make a scene. She could only grit her teeth and ask: “What brings Lieutenant Ding here today?”

“This subordinate has come on behalf of Master Zhong Li to relay a message to you, miss: regarding the matter of Ping Xian, you may inquire at the Mei Family in the east of the city.”

She froze, then immediately felt a surge of excitement she could not contain: “You mean — it can be repaired?”

“This subordinate does not know. I am only passing on the message. The message has been delivered, and this subordinate will take his leave.”

With that, he bowed once more to Xiao Zhun, then — without so much as another glance at Xiao Nanhui — departed at speed.

Xiao Nanhui’s heart was still not entirely settled. She had long since given up hope, yet if it was that person saying it — perhaps all was not yet beyond possibility.

Then suddenly she came back to herself and realized that Ding Weixiang had just said “Master Zhong Li.” Although he hadn’t directly said it was the Emperor, Xiao Zhun presumably did not know of Zhongli Jing.

She was somewhat apprehensive — simultaneously afraid that Xiao Zhun might ask her who Master Zhong Li was, while also strangely and inexplicably half-hoping he would pursue the question.

But in the end, Xiao Zhun only gave a light nod: “If you are anxious, go ahead. Remember your manners.”

She was a little relieved, but even more of what she felt was disappointment. In the end she could only reluctantly rally her spirits, smiled and agreed, made a few simple preparations, and led Ji Xiang out the door in a hurry.

Behind Xiao Zhun, Chen Cai gazed at Xiao Nanhui’s departing figure with something of a sigh.

“If the young lady goes to the Mei Family, I’m afraid she will learn of that heartbreaking matter.”

“She is no longer a child. Perhaps it was always time she knew.” Xiao Zhun’s voice was heavy and low. “I only hadn’t expected that, in the end, it would be someone else who showed her the way.”

Ji Xiang’s hooves were light and quick, trotting along briskly down the gravel-paved path.

That morning she had received a whole package of dried mushrooms. Though not as satisfying as fresh ones to eat, her treatment compared to what she had endured in Jizhou was so much better that it was no comparison at all.

On horseback, Xiao Nanhui’s heart bounced up and down along with the jolting of the horse’s rear end.

The Mei family was a well-known military family, and its connections with swordsmiths and weapon-forgers surely ran deep. But Ping Xian was far from an ordinary weapon — it was already no small feat to have forged it at all, let alone restoring it to its original state.

Yet on reflection, she thought again: this path was the one that person had pointed her toward, so it could hardly be wrong.

She also didn’t quite know from what point it had started, but she found she always had a trust in his words that was difficult to resist.

Perhaps this was what people called the authority of one in a position above — the prestige of a ruler?

Ji Xiang snorted. Xiao Nanhui only then noticed the road had come to an end.

Had she not seen it with her own eyes, she would never have imagined that here, at the foot of the imperial city, where space in Quecheng was worth its weight in gold, there could still exist the desolate scene before her.

The gravel path at its terminus gave way to a stretch of broken stones, the gray-white ground interspersed with the yellowed, withered wild grass of winter — utterly out of keeping with the large mansion before her, its vermilion gates and prominent facade, save for a few old vines on the green roof tiles that shared something of a kindred air.

Vines belong to yin. No great or prominent household would ever permit vines to wind their way up the front door, deeming it an impediment and a curse upon the household.

She had known only that the Mei family had retreated from the former dynasty for over a decade. She had not known their homestead had fallen into such dilapidation. Or perhaps it was that the owner of the house had long since lost the heart to manage the courtyard, and had let the surroundings gradually revert to the way they had been, before anyone had settled here, hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Even so, Xiao Nanhui dismounted as courtesy required, led Ji Xiang to the horse-tethering stone in front, and secured her.

The capital of the tethering stone was carved with a tiger and a leopard, dimly betraying the character of the household’s former days.

She climbed the steps, and without even reaching out to strike the door ring, the great gate suddenly swung open from within. A capable-looking middle-aged man appeared from inside. She promptly stated her identity.

“I am Xiao Nanhui, Right General of the Guang-Yao Camp. I come here uninvited on this occasion—”

The man glanced at her, then looked toward Ji Xiang in the distance wagging her tail, and stepped aside to clear the entrance.

“So it is Official Xiao. My master is waiting in the inner courtyard — please follow me.”

He was already expecting her?

Xiao Nanhui did not know the man’s identity and could only cup her hands: “I must trouble this gentleman.”

The middle-aged man seemed to smile without quite smiling, and glanced at her. In the corners of his eyes — already lined with wrinkles — there was a kind of worldly sharpness out of keeping with this secluded ancient mansion: “I am only a servant who tends the master’s flowers and plants on ordinary days. My Lady need not stand on ceremony.”

A servant without any lowly form of address. Xiao Nanhui found the person before her as peculiar as this mansion.

And the claim of tending flowers and plants struck her as even more absurd. If a courtyard like this could be said to be well-tended, then surely Qinghuai Marquis Mansion might qualify as having something of a pleasant garden too?

But the next second — a single turn around the corner — the scene before her eyes instantly overturned every thought she’d just had.

The four-cornered courtyard was planted all over with plum trees of every conceivable variety — truly without leaving a single corner bare.

Blossoms in full bloom hung heavy from every branch: clusters of vivid red mist and powdery rain, golden canopies and veils of green — crowded and bursting with vitality, as though every bit of life within a radius of several li had gathered here.

“These plum trees you have planted, sir, are truly magnificent.”

Even Xiao Nanhui, a martial officer who understood nothing of such things, could not help but stand and gape in admiration.

The middle-aged man seemed indifferent to the sight, yet looking at the plum trees, something different stirred in his expression: “Our plum blossoms open early. By now they are already past their prime. Had My Lady come a few days earlier, the flowers would have been at their finest.”

A gust of wind, and the petals on the branches did indeed scatter down like fine rain.

She suddenly thought of something and rummaged about in her sleeve before drawing out that flattened plum blossom, handing it to the middle-aged man to examine.

“Might you help me look at this — what variety of plum blossom is this?”

The middle-aged man took the flower and examined it carefully, then gave it a gentle sniff and said: “My Lady, this flower’s color is like the reflected glow of a sunset on water, its many petals layered like the overlapping angles of eaves, and its stamens are a rare green. Though already wilted, it still carries a lingering fragrance — it should be the Yingshui Chonglou.”

Xiao Nanhui was somewhat surprised by this answer and pressed further: “Do you know, sir, where in Quecheng this variety of plum blossom is to be found?”

“As far as I know, beyond the one tree at the Little Plum Villa, the Yingshui Chonglou is cultivated only at the Duke of Xuanyuan’s Mansion.”

She hadn’t expected these two places. But on reflection, if the blossom came from the Little Plum Villa or the Xuanyuan Duke’s Mansion, it seemed to have no connection to Bai Yun. Suddenly her heart lightened somewhat, and even her mood for a little conversation was restored.

“With so many plum trees here, why haven’t you planted this Yingshui Chonglou?”

The middle-aged man paused in a rare show of hesitation, then turned to gaze at that sea of blooming plum blossoms: “Once there was. Now there isn’t anymore.”

Xiao Nanhui sensed some story in those words and had not yet had time to ask further, when a vigorous, forceful voice suddenly rang out from within the plum grove.

“Is it the Xiao youngster who has come?”

Xiao Nanhui turned at the sound. Faintly, through the trees, she could make out a figure seated in a small pavilion within the plum grove — white hair and white beard, a military cap and dark robe, bearing remarkably upright. This must be the master of this household, General Mei Qiao, the great general of countless military achievements.

The middle-aged man instantly resumed his respectful manner and bowed: “Reporting to the master, it is Official Xiao Nanhui. Official Xiao—”

“This is a woman’s body — I have come to see General Mei. Today I call uninvited, and I hope the old general will not reproach me. What I have come today about is—”

Another gust of wind rose. The white-haired old general’s voice rang out once more, now right at her side.

“This old man lost his sight long ago and cannot see whether you are round or flat, male or female.”

Xiao Nanhui looked up in shock — the old man had somehow reached her without her knowing, both eyes already clouded and murky, without a trace of light.

The former fierce tiger and battle-hardened general now had white hair and clouded eyes. She could not quite say what she felt as her heart churned — and then, in a sudden flash, she seemed to see Xiao Zhun many years from now, or perhaps herself.

For a moment she did not know how to speak. But Mei Qiao clearly had no patience to wait: “This blindness is not something of one or two days. Leave out the useless words. I have hidden myself from visitors for many years, but upon hearing that someone of the Xiao family had come, I allowed A’Qiu to bring you in. If you have business, best speak directly.”

Xiao Nanhui came back to herself and hurriedly shook open the bundle containing Ping Xian and offered it up: “I have come today regarding this weapon. I wonder whether the skilled craftsmen the old general once relied on for forging weapons are still in the household?”

Mei Qiao accepted the thing. His great hands passed over the broken shaft, and his voice was unchanged: “There has always been only this old man and A’Qiu here, no one else.”

Xiao Nanhui felt her heart go cold by half.

If the craftsmen of former times were gone, and a blind man could not possibly repair Ping Xian — what was there to be done?

But the next second, Mei Qiao’s voice came again.

“Ping Xian was forged by this old man. What has it to do with anyone else?”