At the first quarter of the Hour of the Snake, Zhang Yuanchu, holding a jade comb, performed the capping ceremony for Zhang Zhixu.

Zhang Zhixu went through the proceedings with a blank face. He listened to Zhang Yuanchu’s admonitions with a blank face. It was the first time he had found such rites and formalities so interminable and dull.

Today was not his birthday. He had long since crossed into his early twenties in a place where they paid no attention, left to himself. Today was all performance — a step offered to them, and a repayment to his elder brother.

He just had to get through it with gritted teeth.

Still, his mother had come.

Zhang Zhixu looked sideways at this woman who had never once appeared at his birthday celebrations, and a pang of something wistful stirred in him.

He had never told anyone that he had in fact desperately wanted his mother to be there for his birthdays. That longing was too childish and weak, too poorly-behaved — even the start of such a thought would have been enough to earn him a beating.

But Chen Baoxiang, for some inexplicable reason, had known what he wanted. She had sent invitations directly to the Gong household.

With the authority she now wielded, personally delivering an invitation was not something Gong Lan could have brushed off as the younger siblings making a fuss.

And so, though today was not his actual birthday, Zhang Zhixu still heard those words he had imagined countless times: “Fengqing, happy birthday.”

A gentle and kind mother, smiling at him until the corners of her eyes rippled.

He gave a composed nod in acknowledgment and turned away, betraying no trace of emotion.

But when noon arrived, Chen Baoxiang came.

She ran inside panting, and in her haste rounded a corner and crashed directly into him in the covered corridor.

“Ow.” She looked up, and instinctively hugged his waist, tilting her head to examine him from side to side: “Now who is this handsome young gentleman?”

Zhang Zhixu let out a long, long sigh, and there was a faint catch in the trailing note of it.

Chen Baoxiang was startled. She hurriedly patted his lower back: “Sorry, sorry — that merchant really was insufferably long-winded. I pushed and pushed and it still took until now to settle things. Don’t feel sad — I brought you longevity noodles.”

He put his arms around her and held her, resting his chin on the top of her head, and said quietly: “I’m not sad.”

He simply could not hide his feelings in front of her — even the tiniest flicker of unhappiness, no bigger than a fingertip, was liable to be magnified.

“Too many guests, too annoying, isn’t it?” She asked softly.

That wasn’t it.

He only felt moved. Something he had longed for desperately as a small child had suddenly arrived, yet he found that he had grown up now, and no longer needed it so badly.

Why couldn’t they have given it to him sooner?

His emotions churned with complexity inside him, and he held her like this for a long moment, saying nothing.

Chen Baoxiang seemed to sense it too. She freed a hand and quietly patted his back: “It’s all right. If you don’t want to deal with anyone, I’ll go and hold the fort for you.”

He closed his eyes and laughed despite himself: “You’ll hold the fort? In what capacity?”

“As Pingqing Marquis, freshly bestowed by His Majesty.”

Come to think of it, that title was quite something. Song Juqing had just been promoted to Supreme Military Commander of Nanzhou, and His Majesty had said that her performance at the North Gate in battle was truly outstanding, and that the two characters ping and qing suited her best.

Pingqing — Settling Qing. The “settling” was aimed squarely at Song Juqing.

Chen Baoxiang still couldn’t quite read what attitude His Majesty truly held toward Cheng Huaili and the military officers under his command.

Zhang Zhixu was clearly not satisfied with her answer, and gave a quiet harrumph.

Chen Baoxiang came back to herself and laughed, pulling him toward the banquet tables: “Come on, my noodles are going to go mushy.”

“They can still be eaten even mushy.” He muttered, but followed her and quickened his pace all the same.

In the past, when Chen Baoxiang had appeared in settings like this, it was either to play a swindle or to hover in someone else’s shadow.

But now, the moment she stepped into the courtyard, nearly every single guest rose to their feet.

“Pingqing Marquis.”

“Commissioner Chen.”

“Commander Chen.”

Chen Baoxiang returned their greetings one by one, settled herself into the seat of honor with perfect ease, and let her gaze sweep slowly around the room.

And then she saw Cheng Huaili.

What was that old scoundrel doing here?

Even without command of the Forbidden Guard any longer, Cheng Huaili still maintained a private army, and she had exposed him for it repeatedly — yet His Majesty turned a blind eye every time.

He really did have a life harder to snuff out than a tortoise’s.

The mere sight of him made her palms itch, and she kept turning over in her mind when she would finally get the chance to take off his other leg as well.

Perhaps she had let her gaze linger in that direction too long, because the Ministry of Revenue’s Senior Councilor Xun couldn’t resist chiming in with a teasing remark: “The Marquis hasn’t seen Young Master Pei in quite some time — does she feel he has changed considerably?”

The former Pei Ruheng had favored lake-blue, and had looked gentle and soft-natured. But the ordeal of war had worked some change in him — the slight air of youth in his brow had faded, replaced by two parts more composure and steadiness.

Only then did Chen Baoxiang notice there was another person sitting beside Cheng Huaili.

She glanced over with mild indifference: “Not bad.”

The person seated beside her gave a quiet little click of the tongue.

She turned to look, but Zhang Zhixu wore his usual composed expression, accepting the bowl of noodles Bìkōng was presenting with both hands and lowering his head to eat.

She shrugged and went back to fielding the pleasantries of the other guests.

Cen Xuanyue had rendered service during the war by preparing medicines and saving lives, and had recently been promoted into the Ministry of Personnel. She was seated beside Chen Baoxiang now, and was feeling rather reflective: “The same kind of banquet, the same faces in attendance — and yet it can’t have been more than half a year, and yet it feels like a very long time has passed.”

Chen Baoxiang raised her cup and clinked it lightly against hers: “Time just moves faster than horses run.”

“Aren’t you trying to say that time flies like a white steed passing a crack in the wall?” Pei Ruheng interjected.

Chen Baoxiang glanced at him with a complicated expression.

Strange that she’d never noticed before how much he talked. If she could say something plainly and it could be understood, what was the point of trotting out classical allusions?

Cen Xuanyue paid Pei Ruheng little attention, and leaned in to chat with her quietly: “When you asked me that day whether the civil officials or the military had the upper hand at court, I thought you were asking idly — I never imagined you’d actually become a military marquis. This cup is for you — and thank you, for the help.”

Chen Baoxiang played dumb: “What help?”

“The Cen Family has no merit from supporting the new Emperor’s rise. My healing and tending the wounded were simply what my post required. Without someone with the Emperor’s favor speaking a good word for me, how could I have suddenly caught His Majesty’s eye and been promoted into the Ministry of Personnel?”

Cen Xuanyue looked at her with quiet depth. “At that banquet all those months ago, of all those who saw my disappointment at being kept from an official post, you were the only one who cared.”

Young women at a young people’s banquet were mostly preoccupied with who fancied whom and whose hairpin was prettier than whose.

Cen Xuanyue would never forget the Chen Baoxiang of that evening — clear, bright eyes fixed on her, opening with: “I’d like to ask you something, Miss. In this dynasty of ours, can women still hold official posts?”

The bright voice crossed through time, carrying with it the fragrant warmth of roasted lamb, and settled lightly on the jade marquis coronet she now wore.

Chen Baoxiang laughed softly, stopped concealing it, and clinked cups with her again.

At that banquet, Pei Ruheng had thought she was being territorial, Lu Qingrong had thought she was being fanciful — and only Cen Xuanyue had listened, and quietly wished her a brilliant future.

Later, she had only asked someone to write a single letter on her behalf, without a single word of flattery in it, yet Cen Xuanyue had personally tutored Zhang Yinyue in pharmacology and looked after and promoted her on multiple occasions.

Everyone needs to encounter a benefactor before they can grow and rise.

Cen Xuanyue had been Zhang Yinyue’s benefactor — so naturally, someone had to speak up for her in turn.

·

The banquet stretched on for a very long time. Chen Baoxiang also got a taste of what Zhang Zhixu had felt before — the sheer number of people coming to curry favor with her was truly staggering; it was all she could do to keep up with them.

By the time she finally extracted herself from the crowd, Zhang Zhixu had been waiting in the back courtyard for quite some time.

“Heavens, what an education.” She plonked herself down beside him with feeling, thoroughly indignant: “How does anyone have the nerve to claim distant kinship with me on the strength of sharing a surname? Even bolder than I was in my worst days.”

“And the people from the Ministry of Justice — shameless — wanting to play drinking games with me.”

“And those merchants who somehow managed to get in — the nerve of them, talking business is one thing, but actually trying to play matchmaker with me.”

She grumbled on and on, then rubbed her stomach: “And I barely ate anything. What should I find to fill up with now?”

“How about ‘not bad~’?” The person beside her spoke.

Chen Baoxiang: ?

She looked blankly at Zhang Zhixu: “What is ‘not bad’?”

Zhang Zhixu paused, rolled his eyes, and repeated in her exact tone of voice: “Just — ‘not bad~'”

The realization hit her a beat behind — and then her eyes went wide, and she burst into laughter, slapping her thigh: “Zhang Fengqing, you’re doing it again!”