Such a tremendous event had turned the Geng family into a laughingstock throughout the capital. On his way home, Li Chenjian had happened upon the spectacle of the live-in concubine’s leap from the corner tower. He had Bi Xie stop the carriage at the side of the road, and watched from a distance for a while.

“Did the Duke witness her fall?” Yun Pan said, with a wistful air, murmuring quietly: “Women of humble birth have their pitiable side as well — staking her very life for the sake of a proper name, and ending up like this.”

The Dowager Lady corrected her: “Wanting a proper name is not wrong in itself — the fault lies in her ambitions running too high. She was carrying a child in her womb. Was the Geng family really going to leave the mother of a son without any legitimate standing? They would have given her a proper position one way or another. But the way she went about it suggests she was aiming not merely to be a concubine, but to become the official wife.”

Hui Cun, hearing this, quietly stuck her tongue out at Yun Pan. “Did I encourage her too much, and end up causing her harm?”

Yun Pan shook her head. One could not say the encouragement had been too much — it was, as the Dowager Lady said, that Xu Xiangning herself had not weighed things carefully, her ambitions too high.

The Princess Consort said: “We had only just returned from paying our respects at the temple when we heard that the live-in concubine had been sold off. She had just miscarried, and they couldn’t even let her body recover first — that is nothing short of wishing her dead. This Lady Geng is a ruthless woman, to be able to bring herself to do that.”

Hui Cun still carried three parts of guilt in her heart. She hesitated: “Perhaps we could look into where she is now, and spend some money to buy her out? It would at least save her life.”

Yun Pan glanced at the Dowager Lady, then at the Princess Consort, uncertain what the two of them thought.

Naturally, the Princess Consort objected: “You are a young woman of an unmarried household — what business is this of yours? She was carrying your betrothed’s child, and she stirred up enough of a commotion over the matter of a name to make herself known across the entire capital. You should be rejoicing that you did not marry into the Geng family, because if you had encountered a concubine like this, your entire life would have been in perpetual turmoil. And now you want to go and save her? I think the cold has frozen your brain.”

Hui Cun took the scolding without daring to talk back. She cast an imploring look at her grandmother.

The Dowager Lady placed a piece of braised pork in her bowl and pretended not to notice. “Eat, eat — dip it in the chive flower paste, that’s the best way.”

Hui Cun had no choice but to hold her tongue. In any case, the Princess Consort’s meaning was to mind her own affairs. Besides, Xu Xiangning was not exactly a blameless sort — if her heart had not been so greedy, she would not have come to this end.

After the meal, the family sat together over warm sweet drinks. Her elder brother and sister-in-law rose and took their leave with a bow, returning to their own quarters. Hui Cun quickly got up to take her leave as well, and followed along the covered walkway, catching up with Yun Pan and calling out to her.

Yun Pan turned back. Seeing Hui Cun hurrying toward her, she asked: “What is it? Do you need something from me?”

Hui Cun hesitated, then cast a sideways glance at her older brother.

Li Chenjian, knowing they had things to say, clasped his hands behind his back and strolled slowly on ahead. He heard Hui Cun call out “sister-in-law,” and then: “That Xu Xiangning—” followed by a hushed, indistinct murmuring close to Yun Pan’s ear, too low to make out.

Yun Pan listened carefully until she had heard all of it, and smiled: “I understand your kind intentions, and I too feel she is to be pitied. Even if you had said nothing, I was already thinking of helping her. However, a person of this character is not someone we can afford to have entanglements with — no one knows what she might be scheming. My thought is to send someone to buy her out, then rent her a separate dwelling where she can recover. Once she has regained her strength, she can go and make her own way in the world. For us to help someone to this extent is about as far as we ought to go.”

Hui Cun was overjoyed to hear it. She clasped Yun Pan’s hands and said: “Thank you, sister-in-law. You are the kindest and most generous sister-in-law in the world.”

Yun Pan smiled quietly. Since becoming the Duchess, she had grown increasingly careful and guarded in all things — gradually, without quite meaning to, she had lost something of her original self, and had become someone that neither fire nor water could touch. She had not wanted this transformation, but there had been no helping it — the situation she found herself in allowed no other way. Only in small gestures like this — spending a little money, on something that harmed no one, to save a life — did she feel she was not damaging her own standing. So when Hui Cun embraced her in a cheerful outburst of affection, she laughed along honestly, quite pleased with herself.

The two women chatted together a little longer before each returning to her own courtyard.

Li Chenjian heard her quick steps catching up to him and turned. “Is she pressing you to save the live-in concubine again?”

Yun Pan made a sound of assent. “Hui Cun thinks she is truly pitiful — she had just lost the child, and now she has been sold away. She fears she won’t survive.”

Li Chenjian’s expression took on a look of bemused helplessness. “I truly cannot fathom what you women spend your days thinking about. One moment you want to expose someone’s infidelity and would gladly see them torn to pieces; the next you are feeling sorry for them and want to rescue them from their misery.”

Yun Pan smiled. “You do not understand, Duke. Women have our own code of honor. Lending someone a hand within reason costs us very little — but to that other person, it may be the difference between life and death.”

Hearing this, Li Chenjian realized that women’s lives could have their own kind of passionate conviction. He had never truly understood women before — assuming that most of them were absorbed in the beauties of spring flowers and autumn moons, guided by nothing more than an instinct to seek safety and avoid harm. He was beginning to see that this was not entirely so. Take his wife, for instance — she was an unending scroll he could never read to its end, a landscape stretching a thousand miles, with a new scene at every turn. Her clear-eyed judgment of circumstances, her perceptive and sensitive mind, her thoughtful understanding of others, her decisiveness and her fearlessness — every one of these qualities filled him with a glad surprise.

The only thing that gave him cause for regret was… her feelings for him were always tempered and restrained. It was as though she had simply found a suitable person and settled into a life of mutual respect with him. That person could be him — or, with little difficulty, it could be someone else. Sometimes he sat in silence, but the thought nagged at him — a trivial torment, perhaps, yet it surfaced in his heart all the same: other men pined and fretted before marriage; he found himself anxious and uncertain after.

He supposed it was because he cared for her very much. He had never hidden from himself how much he liked her — not a love that struck him down at first sight, but a rarer kind, the kind that deepened with time and never grew tiresome. Between husband and wife, that much was enough. Though of course, if feelings could run a little deeper still, that would be all the more to celebrate.

“Tomorrow is my day of rest. Let me invite you out for a walk, or perhaps we could call on your father, and then visit your aunt and uncle at Duke Shuguo’s residence.”

Yun Pan looked up at him, surprised. He was ordinarily far too occupied with duties. Since their wedding, they had only gone out to the market district together during the wedding banquets. As a rule, he handled matters outside the home while she managed within, each keeping to their domain without disorder. Hearing him say today that he was willing to accompany her out felt like an unexpected reward. She looked up at him with shining eyes and asked: “Truly? You must keep your word!”

He said naturally: “Tomorrow I will set aside all my official affairs and accompany you for the whole day.”

Her face lit up with delight. She took his arm and said: “Then I should like to go to Gui Garden to burn an incense stick for A’Niang. I went to my aunt’s not long ago — it is Father and Aunt Jin I have not seen in a while. Let us go and visit them.”

He agreed at once. Seeing her smile bloom like a flower, joy rose naturally in his heart.

When they returned to their chambers, she immediately had the maids lay out the clothing and accessories for the next day, going through each item herself with care. She selected for him a round-collared robe in eagle-back brown, and for herself a silver-brown upper garment over a quartz-pale layered skirt. She held the two outfits together to show him, asking again and again whether they looked well.

She had such fine taste in beauty — what was there to find fault with? He played along with good grace and held it up against himself. “Excellent,” he said.

She was like a child who had been kept indoors too long. That night she tossed and turned. He turned toward her and asked: “What is it? Cannot sleep?”

In the dimness she smiled shyly. “I was thinking about going out with you tomorrow, and somehow I cannot seem to fall asleep.”

He replied with perfectly composed solemnity: “It seems you are not tired enough.” He shifted closer, settling snugly against her side. “Shall I help you get a little more tired, so you can fall asleep sooner?”

Yun Pan immediately understood what he was suggesting. But the two of them shared a bed every night — she worried that indulging so freely would be too much of a strain on his health. She quickly closed her eyes and said she didn’t need to, adding: “I’m already sleepy. I’ll fall asleep in a moment.”

He leaned in close to her ear, and smiled softly. “My Lady grows more considerate of me with every passing day.”

That low, intimate tone sent her heart into a flutter. Yun Pan pulled her neck in and said it wasn’t true. “I really am sleepy.”

“Is that so?” He nibbled lightly at her earlobe. “Then let me hold you as we sleep. Will you allow it?”

Who could refuse the warm invitation of the Duke of Weiguo? She had intended to decline, but in the end she said yes.

The cold was biting, and two separate quilts had been laid on the bed so each of them could sleep more comfortably — but the moment he heard her relent, he slipped at once into her quilt and drew her into his arms with deep contentment, saying with genuine feeling: “It is truly wonderful to have someone beside you. My Lady is so sweet and soft…”

Since sustaining an arrow wound in the field, he had been particularly sensitive to cold in wintertime. That arrow had pierced his lung; that he had survived at all was something of a miracle. But the boldness that had once sent him plunging into rivers in the dead of winter was gone forever — his constitution now, compared to what it had been, was in no way the same.

Fortunately, she was here. Her warmth shed light on him. Just like this — holding her now and then — his arms were still warm. They could sleep entwined. He had been very lonely before. In the world’s eyes he was easy company with everyone, but truly close to no one. Since she had come, that loneliness had been slowly shrinking, becoming first a small apple, then an olive pit…

They were husband and wife — and they were friends. Perhaps she had many close companions, but for him, his only confidant seemed to be her alone.

Yun Pan ran her hand softly along his spine, as though her slender arm could somehow bring him warmth. She did not know when she fell asleep; only that she slept soundly through the night and woke the next morning feeling very well.

Once washed and dressed, she moved to the outer room. While eating her morning curd, she summoned Nanny Yao in to speak with her: “The princess has a kind heart and cannot bear to see someone suffer. Nanny, please send someone on an errand today — find that broker and buy out Xu Xiangning. Her health is frail right now, so find a place to settle her and have someone care for her for a period of time. Once she has recovered, she can go and manage on her own.”

Nanny Yao listened, and murmured a quiet prayer of thanks. “Both of you truly have the hearts of bodhisattvas. Anyone else would not have given her a second thought!”

“It is still a human life, after all.” Yun Pan paused, and added another instruction: “Leave some silver with her as well. Whatever she needs to eat or drink, she will at least be able to send someone.”

Nanny Yao assented. “But falling from such a height, and then losing the child — even though her life was saved, she will likely carry illness in her body for the rest of her days, beyond all remedy. Still, it is a credit to the Lady and the Princess’s virtue and goodness. I will go at once — better not to wait too long, in case someone else gets there first.”

Yun Pan nodded, watching Nanny Yao leave the main hall. She sat in the armchair and reflected — a pitiable person most often has something that warrants reproach as well. Xu Xiangning’s original placement as a live-in concubine had not been of her own choosing, but the pregnancy and the leap from the tower were decisions she herself had made. One wrong step had led to the next, until it had come to this. One could only sigh.

Li Chenjian emerged from the inner chamber, dressed. Seeing her sitting there lost in thought, he went over and touched her shoulder. “Something on your mind?”

Yun Pan came back to herself. “Nothing — I had only just sent Nanny out on an errand. Duke, please have something to eat first. I have already sent word to the Hou residence. Aunt Jin will have known and begun preparing the moment she received it.”

Even now, with Jin Shengyu having long since crossed the threshold and become the official mistress of the Hou household, Yun Pan found she could not change the way she addressed her — still called her aunt. In her heart, a mother was irreplaceable. She had apologized to Jin Shengyu over this, and Jin Shengyu had understood. After all, Yun Pan’s birth mother had been a County Princess — by birth alone, no one else could rightfully claim that title from her.

Since Li Chenjian had no court obligations that day, the morning hours could be arranged at an easy pace.

After breakfast, they had the gifts for the Hou residence packed and loaded onto a carriage, and went first to Gui Garden to burn incense for A’Niang. Once she had knelt and paid her respects, Yun Pan exchanged a few private words with her mother’s spirit — telling her that Father had been quite settled and peaceful of late. The new wife who now ran the household was a capable manager, keeping everything tightly in order. The Hou household, which had been half in decline before, now had the feel of a real home again.

Husband and wife crouched together before the brazier, burning paper offerings. The firelight filled their arms.

Li Chenjian waited, expecting her to say a word or two about her own circumstances — but she seemed to have forgotten herself entirely.

“Your mother would surely wish to know whether you are well,” he gently reminded her.

“Me?” Yun Pan gave a small smile. “A’Niang sees me here, and knows I am well. I often think — A’Niang left behind all the happiness she never got to live, and gave it to me. I carry guilt in my heart over that, feeling as though the life I live now was bought with A’Niang’s years.”

He was struck by the way she thought. “You truly need not think of it that way. Each person who comes into this world walks their own road — no one is anyone else’s surrogate. If one suffers in this life, heaven will make up for it in the next, and it has nothing to do with one’s children. You are you. If you feel your life is good now, it is because you yourself are also good.”

He said it with complete sincerity, as though afraid she would think too little of herself. Yun Pan laughed, nodding repeatedly. “I understand now — because I was always a good person, I deserve these good days.” She looked toward her mother’s memorial tablet and said, with quiet earnestness: “A’Niang, I truly am doing very well. Truly.”

These words were not only heard by her mother’s spirit — he heard them too. It seemed that no amount of elaborate words could equal this, her wholehearted and sincere declaration that life after marriage was good.

But she had a wish to share as well, and said softly: “Only our Duke is always far too busy and too tired. I hope he can have more days like this — free and at ease. I hope all those schemes and intrigues would keep their distance from him, and let him properly rest and breathe.”

This was the most simple and heartfelt wish a wife could have for her husband. Through the flames, he looked at her long and intently. She kept her eyes lowered, and over her face lay a shadow of quiet sorrow.

She had been carrying the weight of the shifting political landscape each day in her heart.

When they left Gui Garden and boarded the carriage, they sat in silence for a moment together. He reached over and took her hand, holding it in his palm. His eyes faced forward, but his words warmed her from within. “Jiji,” he said, “I do not know when this storm will finally settle. But I promise you — once everything is calm again, I will stay close by you, and we will live our days well together.”

In times like these, a man who could promise to stay by your side was giving the finest promise there was. Yun Pan said she believed him: “I am waiting for the day the sky clears.”

Neither of them knew how long that waiting might last. But at least there was something to look forward to. They exchanged a quiet smile, and it felt as though the good days were just ahead.

Gui Garden was some distance from the Hou residence, and the carriage made its way there slowly — about half an hour’s journey. The weather was poor today, the sky a heavy gray, as though snow might fall again at any moment. Along the edge of the market, a street vendor’s stall was steaming sweet cakes, white wisps of vapor wrapping around the pedestrians passing through. Though it was market time, somehow it seemed less lively than usual.

Following the bank of the Bian River, they made their way forward along what was prime territory among the capital’s nobility. The Chuguo Duke’s residence lay just ahead. Li Chenjian glanced outside almost without thinking, and caught sight of a figure entering the mansion gates — looking more carefully, it seemed to be one of Geng Yu’s deputy commanders.

Yun Pan, not knowing what had caught his attention, followed his gaze. “Have we reached Duke Chuguo’s residence?”

He gave a vague sound of agreement, and said nothing more.

“A few days ago, some ladies who are close friends of the Duchess of Chuguo came by the shop, and in the course of conversation they mentioned something — apparently, the Duke of Chuguo has recently taken a new concubine, and Lady Deng is making quite an uproar over it.” Yun Pan tilted her head and continued: “The story of how they met is rather interesting, apparently. On the day of the first snowfall, Duke Chuguo was cruising the Bian River in a pleasure boat, which collided with another boat — and on that other boat was the young woman in question. She must be very beautiful, because the Duke took an immediate liking to her and went to considerable lengths to bring her home. And from what they say, she is not the sort of woman one usually finds in the houses of entertainment — no wonder Lady Deng has been making such a scene.”

Li Chenjian smiled with quiet amusement and let the curtain fall back into place. “Elder Brother has always had such elegant pastimes — it seems many years have done nothing to diminish his enthusiasm.”

Yun Pan now gathered that Duke Chuguo had something of a reputation for such inclinations. But it was not her place to judge another family’s private affairs, and she had never gotten along particularly well with Lady Deng in any case. She heard the gossip and let it pass with a smile, not giving it further thought.

A little further along lay the Hou residence. From a distance, the four large characters “Yong’an Hou Fu” — Yong’an Marquis Residence — were visible, hanging high above the gate. The plaque had been brought down from the old family seat in Youzhou and transported back to the capital. People generally referred to it as the Kaiguo Marquis residence, but Father’s actual title was Yong’an, and his stipend came from the county of Yong’an.

Jin Shengyu had already sent servants to wait at the gate. The moment the maidservant spotted the carriage approaching, she hurried inside to report. By the time the carriage arrived, Jin Shengyu herself had come out to receive them, smiling: “I have been watching for you for quite a while. You are finally here.”

Both Yun Pan and Li Chenjian bowed to her. Though she was a second wife, they treated her as a proper elder.

“Quickly — come inside and warm up, it is so cold out.” Jin Shengyu welcomed them warmly. Before she had even finished speaking, Jiang Heng appeared from within, and so there was another round of greetings and pleasantries before everyone moved into the inner garden’s flower hall.

This was the second time Yun Pan had come to this new residence since it was purchased. The last time had been for the wedding banquet — and since the feast had been held in the front hall, she had never seen the back garden. Today, looking it over carefully, she found it truly spacious and grand, and kept in excellent order. She could not help but offer a few words of praise.

Everyone took their seats in the flower hall. Yun Pan looked her father over and smiled: “Father looks very well lately — you seem to have even filled out a little.”

For as long as Yun Pan could remember, Jiang Heng had always been lean. Who would have thought that now, in middle age, someone had managed to fatten him up.

Jin Shengyu smiled with a meaningful look: “A contented heart leads to a contented body. Our Marquis is very comfortable these days — painting and practicing calligraphy in his leisure hours, cultivating the spirit. Not so burdened with worry as in the old days.”

Jiang Heng was rather intimidated by Jin Shengyu, and at this, he smiled along obediently and nodded: “It is also because you, my Lady, take such good care of me…” He was evidently nervous that she might use the occasion to expose some embarrassing truth in front of his son-in-law, and so before the tea had even been brought out, he was already on his feet, calling out: “Ji Fu, I came across a fine painting from the previous dynasty — come and take a look with me.” And he promptly ushered his son-in-law away with him.

Jin Shengyu made a quiet sound of mild exasperation, then turned to Yun Pan: “Since you have come, there are some new members of the household you have not yet met. Have them come and pay their respects to you.” She called for Nanny Jiao, and said: “Where is Liu Yinniang? She hides away in her little courtyard day after day — barely shows her face anymore. Go and let her know the young mistress is here, and ask her to come and serve tea.”