The following morning, the Zou Mansion erupted. Even the walls three zhang high could not contain the sharp voice of Zhao Ximei, the mistress of the household.

“A pack of useless fools! So many of you, and you couldn’t even catch two powder-faced thieves!”

The head guard had a stolid face and delivered his words with considerable backbone: “Madam, that is not entirely fair. Last night, my men and I sealed off this garden as tight as an iron barrel — not even an insect could have flown out — and yet those two simply vanished into thin air.”

In other words: the failure had nothing to do with him.

“Exactly right.” The other guards nodded vigorously, affirming that their senior was telling the truth.

Zhao Shi heard this and, rather than growing more agitated, settled back onto the garden stool, tea in hand, and asked with deceptive calm: “You speak very convincingly. Then let me ask you — what color were these two thieves wearing last night?”

“Black.”

“White.”

“Patterned.”

Zhao Shi gave a cold smile. The guards began muttering recriminations at each other in low voices.

“Black? Nonsense — I clearly saw a figure run out from the main building, bright white from head to toe.”

“White? That’s wrong! I distinctly saw someone come from the rockery side — one with a red handkerchief covering their face, one with a green one.”

“Rubbish! I saw a figure all in white and another one with a red handkerchief—”

“Enough!” Zhao Shi hurled her teacup to the ground. The steaming tea splattered across the floor, much like her present mood. “You all look perfectly normal, noses and eyes in the right places — so how is it that the moment you open your mouths, you sound like a pack of blind men?!”

The guards exchanged helpless glances; seeing that their leader had also chosen silence, they held their tongues, reluctant to be the ones to forfeit their pay.

The Zou estate was so vast that not everyone in the household had necessarily known about last night’s intrusion — but with a commotion like this, even the three concubines and every one of the household staff would now be aware of it.

The attendant nanny who stood behind Zhao Shi, Li Guizhen, saw an opening and moved to defuse the situation: “I hear the thieves left a handkerchief behind, and that it has embroidery on it. Tracing it ought to tell us where it came from.”

The head guard seemed to have been waiting for precisely this cue. He presented the jade-green handkerchief to Zhao Shi.

The handkerchief was made of ordinary green silk satin, with a white tuberose embroidered at the corner.

“We sent someone to make inquiries first thing this morning. The handkerchief belongs to A’Yun, one of the women at Wangchen Tower.”

The moment the words “Wangchen Tower” were spoken, Zhao Shi’s face twisted. Yet what the guard said next was enough to send a chill through the heart.

“But that A’Yun died of illness two years ago. This handkerchief had been given to an admirer of hers; after she passed, that person quietly returned it, not wishing to invite trouble.”

Zhao Shi’s brow relaxed — but her face went pale. She dropped the handkerchief as though she had touched something burning.

The entire courtyard fell silent.

After a long moment, Zhao Shi said with distaste: “Burn it.”

Someone came forward, about to strike a light — when Zhao Shi suddenly changed her mind.

“Wait.”

Within half a day, word had spread through every corner of the household: just how many romantic entanglements had the master accumulated? There were murmurs that even the late A’Yun had some connection to him, and that last night ghosts and spirits had come calling at the door — perhaps the deer from the swamp had transformed into demons and come to claim the master’s soul.

When Hao Bai arrived at the western annex to conduct his examination, Zhao Shi’s complexion could only be described as “the color of gold paper.”

“You’ve come, Doctor? Could you first prescribe me a pair of calming tonics today?”

Hao Bai did not rush to write any prescription. Instead, he turned back with a somewhat secretive manner and closed the door behind him.

For a moment the room held only the half-dead master and the two of them.

Zhao Shi raised her head, a faint furrow between her brows. “What is the doctor doing?”

Hao Bai said quietly: “Madam, the medicinal catalyst may have been found.”

Zhao Shi first blinked in surprise, then felt a surge of wild joy. All the considerable silver she had spent seeking a physician had not been in vain; the wretched days she had endured seemed finally to be nearing their end.

“But—” Hao Bai’s brow was deeply furrowed; he wore an expression of someone with much to say and no good place to begin. Zhao Shi saw it and grew anxious immediately.

“Has the doctor truly found that Buddha bone relic? What is this hesitation — is there some further difficulty?”

Hao Bai sighed and donned a look of resigned solemnity with masterful precision. “Madam, do you believe in the doctrine of cause and effect?”

At those words, Zhao Shi’s expression shifted unfavorably. The gossip circulating outside recently — how could she not know of it? She had always assumed it was people who could not bear to see her family thriving, taking the opportunity to slander and fabricate. The household staff’s loose tongues were a matter she had long since resolved to address by replacing them entirely. But now even the physician she had hired was producing this sort of talk to vex her — that was genuinely hard to swallow.

“Are you trying to fob me off with talk of spirits and gods?”

Hao Bai showed not the slightest concern at Zhao Shi’s displeasure; his expression remained one of perfect sincerity. “How can the doctrine of cause and effect be equated with talk of spirits? ‘Every cause produces an effect’ is the simplest truth in this world. The master’s illness at present is an effect — and its cause must be carefully sought.”

Zhao Shi’s face still held dissatisfaction, but her heart began to waver. “Things are shaped by human hands; I do not believe in fate or heavenly decree. The master’s illness must have some human connection.”

Hao Bai, seeing this, did not press further; he relaxed his tone. “Madam has her own judgment on the matter. I am merely a physician, and there are things beyond my capacity to remedy. I say this at the outset only in hopes that Madam will see the matter more clearly — I have no other intention.”

With that, he drew from his sleeve a small wooden box. Opening it, he revealed a long, oval-shaped pearl nestled within — lustrous and translucent, seeming to emit its own sacred glow even in the dim light of the room.

Zhao Shi’s eyes were fixed on that priceless rarity, yet she could not stop her thoughts from drifting to the jade-green handkerchief.

The rain that had fallen for months finally let up, and today the sun had actually appeared; the streets and lanes of Mu Er He were considerably livelier, people hurrying out to stretch their limbs and air out the musty smell that had settled into their bones.

Wangchen Tower’s daily sweeping and washing began, as always, early in the morning. Today there was a great deal of extra work; Zhou Waiye had started calling out to the servants first thing in the morning to bring out the bedsheets and curtains for airing. Between Wangchen Tower’s high and low terraces, colorful cloth and gauze drifted and billowed as though a festival were underway.

In the side room of Wangchen Tower’s rear courtyard, Bolao had claimed the only bed for herself; Xiao Nanhui was sprawled face-up across the daybed, sleeping as though dead to the world.

Truth be told, ever since leaving Quecheng, she had not slept a single undisturbed night.

First there had been the fear that Xiao Zhun would discover her unauthorized departure and send people in pursuit — she had dragged Bolao into traveling through the night. Then, after entering Huozhou’s territory, she had spent every day with her guard up, looking at everyone around her as a potential threat. The day before had been especially taxing, and the night itself had brought its own adventures — scaling walls and being chased. Now, though Wangchen Tower was hardly any sort of peaceful haven, it was at least a place where she could sleep without fear; and so she had fallen unconscious the moment she laid her head down, sleeping until the sun was well past its midpoint.

An urgent knocking at the door jolted Xiao Nanhui up from the murky depths of unconsciousness.

She flexed her fingers — every joint in her body felt rigid and stiff. She turned to glare at the source of all her troubles: Bolao had cracked open one eye and was watching her with a look of complete impunity.

The knocking came again — more urgent than before.

She took a sip of the overnight tea on the table, felt herself about seventy or eighty percent awake, and padded softly to the door.

A shadow was projected through the carved wooden door — short in stature, slight and slender.

Xiao Nanhui opened the door, and there was Jin Dou’er, arm raised to knock again.

Jin Dou’er’s face was lightly sheened with sweat; in her arms she held an enormous wooden basin piled with an assortment of laundry, evidently running about so fast she hadn’t touched the ground all morning. She saw Xiao Nanhui’s disheveled, hair-loose appearance and blinked, seeming momentarily uncertain how to address her; she stumbled a little before managing to speak. “There — there’s a young gentleman outside who says he’d like to see you. He’s waiting in the front hall.”

As she was still speaking, Bolao’s similarly chaotic head of hair poked out from behind Xiao Nanhui’s shoulder, startling Jin Dou’er. “I — I still have things to attend to; I won’t disturb you further.” With that, she lowered her head and hurried away.

Xiao Nanhui blinked and watched that fleeing figure for a moment, then glanced down at herself. After a moment’s thought, something occurred to her.

This Jin Dou’er — she was a boy, wasn’t she?

Bolao yawned, dipped a finger into the remaining half-cup of tea on the table and ran it through her sticking-up hair. “Why are you standing there like that? Didn’t someone say you had a visitor?”

Xiao Nanhui said nothing. She already had a feeling she knew who was waiting in the front hall.

Passing through the covered walkway and into the front hall, Xiao Nanhui spotted the two figures standing there at once.

Ding Weixiang was still in all black — she couldn’t say whether it was the same outfit from the previous night — and was clearly visiting this sort of establishment for the first time; he stood bolt upright, eyes focused downward on nothing in particular.

The person beside him was the opposite entirely — he was currently looking about with evident curiosity, and Xiao Nanhui noticed that every person in the establishment was sneaking glances at him.

Small wonder. People in a place like this always paid particular attention to beauty.

Zhongli Jing was wearing a light-weight white long robe today, and amid the fluttering rainbow of airing cloths, he stood out with striking clarity.

Because he was bent forward ever so slightly, the robe described a subtle curve along the line of his back. Apart from the string of prayer beads at his wrist, he wore almost no ornamentation — yet somehow this spare, simple attire, on him, had a way of catching at something in one’s chest.

He seemed to sense Xiao Nanhui’s arrival and turned, breaking into a smile. From the second, third, and fourth floors, a cluster of heads draped over the railings collectively drew a sharp breath.

This was the first time Xiao Nanhui had seen this man smile properly.

Before this, he had produced something resembling a smile — but it had been merely a curve resting at the corners of his mouth, one whose warmth never reached his eyes. Now it was different. Those eyes — which already carried a perpetual hint of a smile in their natural state — came alive, as though a statue that had been without spirit suddenly breathed.

She thought of the Buddha statues in Yongye Temple. Sculptors of Buddha images always possessed a particular gift: the ability to make the image seem, from any angle of veneration, to be looking upon the viewer with a warm and gentle gaze.

And so it was now.

“Young Master Yao, did you sleep well last night?”

The Buddha spoke, and she found herself giving an involuntary shudder.

“How did you find this place? Weren’t we supposed to meet at the tea house?”

“I changed my mind.” Zhongli Jing said this, and smiled again; the various people nearby who were supposed to be working found that they could not work, and the whole tower went suddenly quiet.

This man had to be doing it on purpose.

The overseer, Zhou Waiye, sensed that something was off and came out from behind a doorway. Not a trace of his pleasant evening-hosting expression was to be seen; he walked out waving the feather duster in his hand: “The moment I take my eyes off you, you start slacking. Do you all think I’ve been too lenient lately?”

The assembled men and women throughout the tower came back to their senses and resignedly lowered their heads to their tasks, returning to the dust and the minutiae of their work.

Satisfied, Zhou Waiye put away the feather duster, turned, and saw the two people standing in the central courtyard — and was himself momentarily taken aback.

Xiao Nanhui quickly stepped forward. “Zhou Waiye, these two are friends of mine. I’ll bring them to my room for a chat; we won’t stay long.”

Zhou Waiye cast a look at Zhongli Jing; his expression turned somewhat peculiar, and he pulled her aside, lowering his voice. “Is that young man in white truly your friend?”

She nodded in spite of herself, expecting some sort of objection — but instead the man before her radiated barely suppressed excitement. “Then you must speak to him on my behalf. Ask him whether he’d be willing to work here. I’ll waive every miscellaneous fee for the first year; he’d only need to receive guests ten days a month, and I’d give him seventy percent of the take.”

At those words, Xiao Nanhui felt her facial expression twist beyond her control. It took quite some time before she managed a tactful response: “Zhou Waiye may not be aware — that friend of mine is not someone who is short of money.”

Who goes around booking out an entire inn he doesn’t even live in, and keeps the booking for an entire year? Not merely not short of money — he must have more money than he knows what to do with.

Zhou Waiye was undeterred. “So what if he has money? Has anyone ever complained about having too much? In my experience, a man who looks like that could easily earn a fortune day after day.” He paused and added a meaningful final note: “If you can make this happen, I’ll give you ten percent of the first year’s earnings.”

She looked into Zhou Waiye’s earnest, almost luminous little eyes and swallowed with some difficulty. “I’ll do my best.”

Zhou Waiye gave a satisfied nod, concluding this discreet exchange. Before he walked away he made a point of flashing a wrinkled, blooming smile in Zhongli Jing’s direction.