Suizhou lay in the land of Shu. Setting out from Guangdu and following the East Yu Road southwestward, the journey took roughly a month. Now that Hua Yitang had been promoted and was accompanied by a Senior Adjudicator of the Court of Justice, the relay stations provided prime horses, cutting the travel time by thirty percent. Pushing on urgently, they finally reached the borders of Suizhou in early ninth month.

In the ninth month, Shu was so damp that clothes felt as though they could be wrung out. Drawing a breath filled half a lung with moisture. Lin Sui’an had lived in the north before transmigrating and was accustomed to dryness; now, with the sun barely visible, she felt as though her face had been left to soak in the air until it wrinkled, her eyelids growing moldy with the effort of staying open. As soon as they reached the relay station, she went straight to her room.

The blankets at the relay station were damp too, like lying inside a piece of cling film wrapped around a salted fish. Lin Sui’an tossed and turned and could not sleep, so she threw open the window and climbed up onto the roof. The relay station had a double-pitched roof; the front slope and the ridge curved into the back slope in a smooth arc. Lying on it, the roof tiles cushioned her back, and it was actually rather comfortable — the perfect place to sprawl and dry out like a salted fish.

The wind was damp too, but at least it had cooled somewhat from the daytime. Lin Sui’an felt marginally more at ease and let out a long breath. “Phew—”

“Phew—”

From the back slope of the roof came an equally faint exhale — one that sounded strangely familiar.

Lin Sui’an propped herself up and peered over the ridge. Ling Zhiyan was lying there exactly as she was, limbs stretched out ramrod straight, like laundry pegged to a drying rack.

Two lonely souls cast upon the same shore, Lin Sui’an thought. Ling Zhiyan had spent all his days in the Eastern Capital — it seemed Shu’s dampness had worn him down considerably as well. By the sound of his breathing, he must have fallen asleep.

Lin Sui’an didn’t have the heart to disturb him and settled comfortably back down. Just as drowsiness was beginning to creep in, the roof tiles beneath her feet clattered and rustled. She opened her eyes to see Hua Yitang hauling himself up on a ladder, trembling slightly as he picked his way across the tiles and crept to her side, sliding down beside her.

Lin Sui’an: “What are you doing?”

Hua Yitang’s gaze slid toward the back slope where Ling Zhiyan lay, and said with entirely unconvincing nonchalance: “I can’t sleep either — just getting some fresh air.”

Fine. Whatever makes you happy.

Lin Sui’an closed her eyes again.

But before half a cup of tea’s time had passed, the tiles rattled again, and up came Jin Ruo, Ita, and then Bingsi, Bing the Fourteenth, Bing the Twenty-Fourth, and Bing the Thirty-Fourth — the whole party lined up in a row, laid out flat on the rooftop, like a proper salted-fish drying operation.

Lin Sui’an could bear it no longer. “And what are all of you doing up here?”

Jin Ruo: “That Hua fellow can’t sleep, so I can’t sleep either.”

Ita: “Pig-person can’t sleep, Fourth Young Master can’t sleep, Brother Jin can’t sleep — I can’t sleep either.”

The Bingsi four: “Can’t sleep.”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Honestly! What if you all cave in the relay station roof? Who’s going to answer for that?

Apparently Lin Sui’an’s aggrieved expression was too obvious. Hua Yitang sat up, coughed in mild embarrassment, and cast about for a topic. “Yi Prefecture is prosperous — an ancient capital of three dynasties, tangled with competing factions. So it is my belief that—”

Mid-sentence, Hua Yitang suddenly stopped. He seemed to have heard something. Lin Sui’an noticed that Ling Zhiyan’s breathing had gone quiet — he had almost certainly been woken up.

Jin Ruo: “You believe what?”

Hua Yitang smiled. “I believe I need to establish a fearsome jianghu alias!”

Everyone: What?

The tiles on the back slope rattled and scraped noisily. A moment later, Ling Zhiyan climbed over the ridge looking thoroughly exasperated, one hand massaging his shoulder — seemingly having strained a neck muscle at someone’s completely impractical declaration.

“Fourth Young Master’s words surely carry a deeper meaning — Adjudicator Ling would be glad to hear them.”

Once the Senior Adjudicator had settled properly in their midst, lying down was no longer an option for anyone. Everyone sat up, and the entire rooftop instantly became an impromptu late-night meeting.

Lin Sui’an suffered in silence. She was fairly convinced that Ling Zhiyan was taking this far too seriously — this Hua Yitang fellow had no real deeper meaning; nine times out of ten he was just trying to act in a different way to stir up trouble.

“One who truly knows me — that would be Sixth Young Master!” Hua Yitang said with a laugh. “The Su Clan of Suizhou may have declined over the past few years, but they have been rooted in Yi Prefecture for over a century and have considerable foundations. The Hua Family has a branch presence in Yi Prefecture, but our influence there is far less than in Yangdu. Beyond the Su and Hua families, Yi Prefecture has more than ten rising clans, none of them pushovers. The current state of Yi Prefecture sounds flattering when described as a ‘hundred schools contending, each vying for splendor’ — less flatteringly, it is clan warlordism and utter chaos.”

Lin Sui’an: “In other words, the Hua Family does not hold any great advantage in Yi Prefecture?”

Hua Yitang nodded. “Previously the various factions were locked in a tug-of-war that maintained a delicate balance. But now that His Majesty has appointed me as Judicial Administrator of Yi Prefecture, that places the Hua Family squarely in the eye of the storm.”

Lin Sui’an looked toward Ling Zhiyan. “Can it be that His Majesty has some deeper intention?”

Ling Zhiyan coughed once. “Adjudicator Ling would not dare to presume to fathom His Majesty’s will.”

Hua Yitang raised an eyebrow. “I can make a few guesses.”

Jin Ruo: “Such as?”

“Heaven’s secrets must not be divulged.”

Jin Ruo rolled his eyes so hard they nearly disappeared.

Hua Yitang’s expression turned serious. “And so my assessment is: once we enter Yi Prefecture, every battle will be a hard one!”

Everyone nodded.

Ita raised a hand: “Then why — need a jianghu alias?”

“Does that even need asking?” Hua Yitang snapped his fan back and forth. “Fighting is all about momentum. When two armies face each other and exchange battle cries and insults, if you don’t have a name that commands the field, wouldn’t that be terribly embarrassing?!”

Everyone: “…”

What is this nonsense?

Lin Sui’an thought: She had assumed “hard battle” was a metaphor. It turned out to be a verb.

Jin Ruo: “These are all respectable aristocratic clans — surely it won’t come to that?”

Hua Yitang chuckled. “Little Jin Ruo, you don’t understand. Don’t be fooled by how those noble clans carry themselves in public — all dignified bearing, propriety on their lips and morality on their tongues, rules of conduct at every turn, practically sleeping with the family code. Once they get into a real fight, the more prestigious the clan, the more shameless and base they become. In the end it always turns into a brawl.”

Everyone: “…”

Much as they wanted to argue — thinking back on the major cases in Yangdu, the Eastern Capital, and Cheng County, the outcome in every single one had ultimately been decided by exactly that kind of brawl…

“Not only do I need an alias — Bingsi, Bing the Fourteenth, Bing the Twenty-Fourth, and Bing the Thirty-Fourth also need new names,” Hua Yitang said, hands on hips. “The four of you have names that are both a mouthful and completely lacking in presence. Wholly unsuitable for actual combat.”

The four of them tilted their heads. “Presence?”

It had to be said — Hua Yitang had a genuine point this time.

When the four of them were rescued from the secret vault beneath the Dragon God Shrine, they had already lost their senses. After waking, they couldn’t even speak clearly, and nobody knew their original names. For convenience, everyone had called them by the serial numbers on their name tags. In retrospect, if they truly did end up in some confrontation and someone needed to bellow “Bingsi, Bing the Fourteenth, Bing the Twenty-Fourth, Bing the Thirty-Fourth — charge!“

It not only sounded ominous — it simply did not sound like names at all.

Ita nodded vigorously. “Fourth Young Master is right. Pig-person — give names.”

Lin Sui’an: “Me?”

The four looked over at once. “Master of Qian Jing — give names.”

Lin Sui’an felt the pressure bearing down on her. She was a complete disaster when it came to naming things. She racked her brain, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck. Without thinking, she blurted out: “Wang Zhao, Ma Han, Zhang Long, Zhao Hu — how about that?”

Dead silence.

Ita quietly looked away. Hua Yitang scratched his head with his fan and after a long pause managed to squeeze out: “Quite… rhyming.”

Jin Ruo, ever the straightforward one, said: “Master — those four names are just too common.”

Lin Sui’an argued her case: “What’s common about them? Say them aloud and see how much presence they have!”

The four of them — with their habitually rigid faces — produced the most animate human expressions they had yet shown: deep disdain.

“Ahem — well—” The well-meaning Ling Zhiyan stepped in to smooth things over. “Qian Jing was forged from Heaven-Radiance stone, imbued with the power of the stars. Since these four were brought back by Investigator Lin, names drawn from the stars seem most fitting. The heavens have twenty-eight lunar mansions, divided among the four cardinal palaces of East, South, West, and North. Why not rename them—” glancing in turn at Bingsi, Bing the Fourteenth, Bing the Twenty-Fourth, and Bing the Thirty-Fourth — “Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise?”

Those four names were hopelessly overused. Even more common.

Lin Sui’an was thoroughly displeased. She looked at the four of them. “Choose for yourselves.”

The four looked at Lin Sui’an, then at Ling Zhiyan, then clasped their hands in salute one by one.

Bingsi: “Azure Dragon.”

Bing the Fourteenth: “Vermilion Bird.”

Bing the Twenty-Fourth: “White Tiger.”

Bing the Thirty-Fourth: “Black Tortoise.”

All four together: “We thank you — for the names.”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Everyone turned away to stifle their laughter. Ling Zhiyan’s expression was mortified; he quickly offered a modest “not at all.”

Lin Sui’an wept inwardly: The gulf between the ages! This era has absolutely no way of understanding the profound and timeless greatness of those four names. Truly tragic!

The closer they drew to Yi Prefecture, the more stifling the heat and humidity became. Even sitting perfectly still left everyone drenched in sweat. Lin Sui’an found that all the impurities in her pores seemed to be getting flushed out — her skin was actually improving.

Hua Yitang had always been pale; now he was pale to the point of nearly reflecting light, his eyes all the more dark and bright by contrast. His clothing grew thinner and thinner — quite a good amount of Pure Water Gauze had been left over from when he impersonated the Flower God, and now it found excellent use. Mu Xia tailored it to the standard of the “Drifting Frost Full-Length Robe” and called this upgraded version “Cloud-Dispersed Snow-Scattered.”

Pure Water Gauze felt cool against the skin. Seven layers of the robe, each layer thin as a cicada’s wing — layered together, the color approximated frost. It moved without wind, never clung to the body in motion, and wearing it was like carrying three layers of snow. Paired with the “East Wind Tears Over Begonia Blossoms” incense, it was even more refreshing.

Ever since Hua Yitang changed into this new outfit, Lin Sui’an had taken to drifting over to his side whenever she had a moment to spare, just to enjoy the coolness. Hua Yitang was insufferably smug about it.

Ling Zhiyan was the complete opposite. Day or night, on the road or at rest, whenever the Senior Adjudicator appeared before the others, his clothing was always perfectly neat and impeccably tidy. Even with perspiration soaking through to his back, the collar never allowed a single breath of air to escape — and he absolutely refused to change into the lighter long robes that Mu Xia offered. After five or six days of this, he finally collapsed from heatstroke. Fangke force-fed him three large rounds of pitch-black heat-relief pills before he barely recovered.

Ling Zhiyan’s principles regarding his clothing ultimately surrendered to Dr. Fang’s bitter medicine pills. He changed into a lighter robe and sat by the window. When the breeze blew through, his sleeves and collar shifted gently, revealing smooth, pale skin — a certain restrained, austere elegance to it. Unfortunately, before Lin Sui’an had managed more than a fleeting glance, Hua Yitang had already hauled Ling Zhiyan out of the carriage and fitted him with a large veiled hat for riding.

And so all the way to Yi Prefecture, Lin Sui’an never had the good fortune to appreciate even a fraction of Senior Adjudicator Ling’s elegance beneath that collar — a source of profound regret.

Following the official road past the “Suizhou Yi Prefecture” boundary marker, another thirty li of mountain road, and then suddenly the landscape opened up before them. Two great rivers gleaming with light wound out from between the mountains. Where the two rivers embraced the land between them stood Yi Prefecture — the “second of the empire” as the saying went: “Yangdu first, Yi second — and Guangdu protests.”

Yi Prefecture lay at the heart of Shu. Four mountains enclosed it like a basin, with Yi Prefecture resting at the center, shaped like a tortoise, climate mild, perpetually wreathed in mist. A thousand li of fertile plains made it Tang’s greatest granary. The city was divided into fifteen districts and fifty-six wards — three wards in the inner city, fifty-three in the outer — with a permanent population of five hundred thousand. Rich in products, its Shu brocade and Shu paper were known throughout the land, and the city held the reputation: “The beauty of rivers and mountains, the splendor of brocade and silk.”

Outside the city, two great rivers flanked it — the Qingyuan to the north and the Jianjiang to the south. The two rivers converged at the Hejiang Pavilion in the southeastern suburbs, swelling into a powerful current.

Yi Prefecture had seven city gates. The Great Profound Gate in the north and the Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge Gate in the south were the busiest, especially the Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge Gate, which connected directly to the southern gate of the inner city and was the most convenient for travel.

To enter the Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge Gate, one first had to cross Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge. To cross Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge, one first had to pass through the New South Market.

“Yi Prefecture has four large permanent markets within the city — the East Market, South Market, West Market, and North Market. In recent years, as the markets have grown too rapidly, a New South Market has been established in the southern suburbs to handle large-scale bulk transactions from passing merchants, sparing them the trouble of entering the city.” Jin Ruo — the living map of Tang — pointed ahead from his horse, fan bouncing. “There — that’s it right there.”

Lin Sui’an peered out the carriage window. Before her was a crush of tents, makeshift shelters, Hu-people, Fusang-people, Dashi-people, camels, carriages, ox-carts, donkey carts, and hand-pulled carts all jammed together. Tang characters and Persian script fluttered and danced on banners of every color. Daoist priests wandered through the crowd carrying baskets; Buddhist monks shouldered loads of vegetables for sale. The scent of camel dung and horse dung hung fragrantly in the air from all directions. Four or five Kunlun laborers walked by with large red wine jars balanced on their heads. Fangke sneezed four times in a row and waved away a camel that was poking its head nosily through the carriage window. Beside them a Persian merchant caravan knocked over a crock of spices, and the exotic fragrance instantly smothered the smell of horse dung. Lin Sui’an was reminded of Ita’s hellish-flavor tea.

Mu Xia hung the Yangdu Hua Family’s distinctive golden bells from the carriage — ling-ling, ling-ling — they chimed away. Hua Yitang rode a tall, fine horse — not the Hua Family’s prize Pearl Stallion, but still immaculately snow-white. In his white robes and oversized veiled hat, he stood out like an undyed anomaly among the riot of colors. Hu merchants and Tang merchants alike turned to stare, whispering among themselves. It was clear that many recognized the Hua Family crest. Eyes moved back and forth across Hua Yitang — some stopped to observe, some looked on with vivid interest, a few with undisguised contempt. Under the attention of the multitude, a path parted for them as if by magic.

After a full half-hour, they finally emerged from the market. The road ahead opened up, revealing a wide stone bridge — ten zhang long, four zhang wide, broad enough for six double-axle carriages side by side. A stone tablet before the bridge read “Ten-Thousand-Li Bridge.” Beneath it rushed the Jianjiang River. Beyond it lay the flourishing, beautiful Yi Prefecture.

At that very moment, the crowd ahead suddenly scattered open to reveal a mounted procession — some ten horses, all stout, well-fed brown stallions. The riders wore embroidered garments and carried jingling ornaments that rang as they moved, heading directly toward Hua Yitang’s white horse.

The man at the front was a little over thirty years old, with a slight paunch, two neat little mustaches, large eyes, long lashes, and a face as tender as a piece of tofu. He couldn’t seem to sit still in the saddle — swaying to the left for a peek, rocking to the right for a look. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he cupped his hands in salute: “Could the arriving party be the Fourth Young Master of Yangdu’s Hua Family?!”

Hua Yitang reined in his horse. His fan flipped back the veiled hat from his face. “Go eat dog dung. Which spawn of what household are you? Haven’t you heard that a decent dog does not block the road?”

At this, the surroundings went abruptly still. The upright Adjudicator Ling was alarmed and quickly rode up to Hua Yitang’s side, urging under his breath, “We don’t know this person’s identity yet — don’t invite trouble—”

But before the words were even out, the entire procession of men dismounted as one, swept their robes aside, and thud thud thud dropped to their knees, knocking their heads to the ground. “We deserved Fourth Great-Grandfather’s reprimand — it is the grandchildren who were presumptuous. We kowtow to beg Fourth Great-Grandfather’s forgiveness!”

Everyone: “…”

Hua Yitang: Well, well — they know how to act like grandchildren. Good form.

Ling Zhiyan: What in the world is going on?

New story arc begins!