Three days after the Dragon Boat Festival, Yutou Town was as quiet as it always was.

In the town’s only gambling house, the ground-floor hall was a din of noise and a press of bodies. Merchants’ sons in fine brocade and farmers in coarse cloth crowded around the same gambling tables, screaming themselves hoarse over their bets, every pair of eyes bloodshot with feverish excitement.

From a table in the corner came the sound of a man half-sobbing, half-laughing — someone had been reduced to nothing in a single night. The gamblers at the surrounding tables heard but paid no mind, red-eyed and consumed entirely by whatever the dice had rolled at their own table.

A one-tael gaming chip rolled down from the upper floor, and two men in rough short jackets lunged for it simultaneously, coming to blows without hesitation.

Two young men in fine clothes stood at the top of the stairs on the second floor, watching with the amusement of spectators at a sideshow. One of them was handsome, a folding fan tucked at his waist.

Behind them, the open space of the second floor held only eight small tables. Chips were piled on each surface, and those seated around them were all dressed as people of means — some composed and unhurried, others with furrowed brows — attended by beautiful maidservants or clean-cut young manservants. The contrast with the chaos below could not have been sharper.

The handsome young man, still entertaining himself at the expense of the crowd below, pulled out another chip and was about to toss it into the most densely packed part of the floor beneath, when a tremendous force struck him from the side.

He let out a yelp and crashed into the other young man, the two of them going down in a heap.

“Who dares to —” He spun around furiously, and fell silent.

The second floor went still in a matter of moments.

Li Kun pulled back his right foot, hunched his nine-foot frame, and carved a path forward. He grabbed one of the men sitting at the innermost table by the back of his collar and tossed him aside as easily as a scrap of paper.

Li Wu stepped out from behind him and dropped himself into the vacated seat.

Li Que followed, steering a man whose hands were bound behind his back with hemp rope, smiling pleasantly as he went. A wad of coarse cloth was stuffed into the bound man’s mouth, and he was making muffled, whimpering sounds, gazing at the man seated across from Li Wu with an expression of desperate pleading.

Li Que drove a knee into the back of the bound man’s legs, and he dropped to his knees beside Li Wu.

The sound of the man’s knees hitting the floor rang out sharp and clear in the silent second floor. The other gamblers seated at the same table read the atmosphere and quietly rose to leave.

Across from Li Wu sat a square-faced man in copper-coin-patterned silk robes. His complexion was iron-dark and grim, a scar running down his face all the more menacing for it. He glanced at the kneeling man on the floor, then shifted his gaze back to Li Wu and said in a measured voice:

“What is the meaning of this?”

Li Wu picked up a chip from the table and turned it idly between his fingers.

“Hu the Boss — tell me, who truly holds the power of life and death over Yutou Town?”

Hu Yishou’s expression changed.

“…So they’ve finally come to a head.”

Up at the railing on the second floor, the two young men who had just untangled themselves from each other were watching in secret, whispering to each other.

One of them said, puzzled, “Hu Yishou has such a hot temper — so why is he being so patient with Li Wu?”

“Are you dim?” the handsome one replied. “Li Wu is one of the county magistrate’s trusted men. You don’t kick the dog without looking at the master first. Hu Yishou has no interest in making an enemy of the magistrate.”

“Well, unlike you, I didn’t almost become Li Wu’s brother-in-law — how would I know Li Wu had the magistrate’s backing?”

Li Hong erupted in fury. “What nonsense are you spouting?! You can slander me all you like, but don’t you touch my sister’s name — she’s a respectable unmarried young woman, what are you saying?!”

“All right, all right… let’s not talk about that. Li Wu and Hu Yishou have always kept to their own sides. What brought this on today? Who’s that man kneeling beside Li Wu?”

The other man apologized and bowed until Li Hong’s temper cooled. He shook out his folding fan from his waist and held it lazily beside his cheek, watching through the narrow gap over the fan’s edge for a long, careful moment, before saying, “Isn’t that Chen Er, from Hu Yishou’s side?”

“What does he do?”

“Whatever dirty business needs doing —” Li Hong said. “Word is he has quite a few lives on his hands. How did he end up in Li Wu’s hands?”

“Is Li Wu here to settle a score? If Hu Yishou backs down, how will his own men look at him after this?”

Li Hong tucked his hands into his sleeves, his face alight with gleeful anticipation.

“This just got interesting. I, for one, want to see who the real master of Yutou Town turns out to be…”

One stick of incense later, whatever Li Wu and Hu Yishou had said between them, Hu Yishou’s expression had grown progressively darker. He said something to the men beside him, and then the gambling house began clearing everyone out.

“Closing early! Everyone out — no more gambling tonight!”

On the upper floor, broad-shouldered strongmen herded the guests toward the exits. On the second floor, long-robed floor managers spoke softly and apologetically to the important patrons, making promises of future discounts and bowing in repeated apology.

Li Hong was among those being driven out. Unlike the guests who had been seated and playing, he had come only to watch the action and was no high-value customer — the floor manager was not especially courteous to him. Li Hong seethed inwardly, but he had no choice except to leave with ill grace.

If he refused to go, those strongmen with arms thicker than his thighs would be along to “help” him on his way.

Once the gambling house had gone completely quiet, Hu Yishou spoke, his expression dark.

“Since you’ve already caught the man, why didn’t you go directly to the county magistrate?”

“You and I both know how dead debts get settled.” Li Wu dropped the chip he was holding onto the table and slouched back lazily in the chair. “I don’t want to make things difficult for you. Since I’m here anyway, I may as well not leave empty-handed. What do you say — shall we make a deal?”

Li Hong waited outside the firmly shut gambling house doors for a long while, until at last they swung open again.

Li Wu came out first, followed by the mountain-like Li Kun, and Li Que — chest visibly bulging, grinning as though it were a holiday.

Li Kun was holding a hemp rope. The other end was tied to Chen Er. He was still the same man, though he had been reduced to a streaming, wretched state, the coarse cloth that had gagged him now soaked through with a wide stain of vivid red.

When Li Hong saw them come out, he snapped open his fan and held it over his face, then darted over to a small stall selling sundry goods nearby and picked up a wooden hairpin, pretending to examine it.

“Take a look, young master — this hairpin is only twenty copper coins.” The stall vendor said eagerly.

Li Hong waited a deliberate moment, estimating that Li Wu and his companions had moved well out of sight, before setting the hairpin down and saying with bad temper:

“Do I look like someone who buys this sort of cheap junk? No!”

“You—”

Li Hong turned on his heel and set off at a run in the direction Li Wu had gone.

He followed at a distance, and watched as all three of them — plus a fourth, limp and barely conscious, eyes rolled back — walked together through the gates of the county magistrate’s compound.

What on earth was he up to? Li Hong turned it over in his mind without arriving at any answer.

The answer came to him the following day.

Yutou Town’s county magistrate was a man of greedy and lecherous habits yet an essentially cowardly disposition — and it was precisely thanks to that cowardice that he had never done anything truly monstrous. Since the man sitting on the dragon throne in the imperial palace had changed hands, the world had been in chaos for just as long as the Yutou Town magistrate’s court had stayed closed.

After more than two months of silence, the county magistrate held a court session — a rare enough occurrence that many residents with nothing better to do crowded around the entrance of the magistrate’s compound to watch.

Li Hong was naturally among those watching.

When the session adjourned, Li Hong rushed straight home and delivered a vivid, breathless account of everything he had witnessed to his only audience.

He mimicked the self-important magistrate with lively, theatrical gestures and uncanny accuracy. Unfortunately, his only audience did not spare him a single glance.

“This Li Wu — I’ve never met anyone as cunning as him!” Li Hong said, slapping his knee. “The move he made was brilliant — he handed the magistrate a success to claim as his own while doing Hu Yishou a favor at the same time!”

Li Qingman sat beneath the bright eaves, embroidering a round fan, completely unmoved by anything Li Hong was saying. Red silk thread wove nimbly across the fine silk surface, and a vivid crimson plum blossom was already nearing completion.

“That Chen Er is the one who suffered. He did everything for Hu Yishou’s sake, but when it all came to light, Hu Yishou cut out his tongue to protect himself. And heaven knows what Hu Yishou threatened him with — but at the hearing, he admitted to the charges in a broken, halting way, signed the confession, and didn’t breathe a single word about Hu Yishou.” Li Hong finished, then squeezed himself onto the bench beside Li Qingman. “Sister, are you listening to any of what I’m saying?”

“I heard you.” Li Qingman rose with the fan in hand and walked into the sunlight, studying the plum blossom taking shape. The light poured down from above, and she shone within it — beautiful as fine jade, her features soft and gentle, like a branch of pear blossom touched by spring rain.

The bench tipped, and Li Hong lost his balance, landing hard on the ground before he could catch himself.

He let out a yelp and jumped to his feet, rubbing his backside.

“I’ve fallen on my backside twice today already! Some sister you are!” Li Hong shouted.

Li Qingman said, “If I weren’t your sister, you’d have been beaten to death several times over by now.”

“I was talking to you just now, and you didn’t respond.” Li Hong said. “Were you still thinking about Li Wu?”

“He is married now. Naturally, I no longer think of him,” Li Qingman said. She paused, and regarded the fan thoughtfully. “It’s only that finding another man of comparable promise will be rather difficult.”

“There are so many men in the world — I refuse to believe he’s the only one who’ll amount to something.” Li Hong said with impatience. “Of course it’s hard to find a suitable man in a place as small as Yutou Town. Why don’t we go to the capital? I’ve heard the capital has a new emperor. With your cleverness and beauty, you might manage to secure a title as a—”

Li Hong’s words cut off as Li Qingman turned a cold look on him.

“Go to the capital? With that unguarded mouth of yours, you wouldn’t last until the end of the year.”

“What is there to fear? My sister would back me up,” Li Hong said. “And if you don’t want to enter the palace, we can go somewhere else entirely. It’s just the two of us left in the family anyway — we can go together, and wherever we land will be home.”

“The time isn’t right.” Li Qingman lowered her head and returned to her embroidery. “When things start to truly come apart out there, we’ll have no choice but to leave whether we want to or not.”

Li Hong stopped arguing. His sister had always known her own mind from a young age, and once she had made a decision, not eight oxen could budge her.

“So you really plan to marry the county magistrate’s son?” he asked.

Li Qingman did not answer immediately.

She made her final stitch, picked up her embroidery scissors, carefully snipped the thread from the fan, and held it up once more to examine it in the sun.

After a moment, the corner of her lips curved upward.

“I hear the son of the Jinzhou prefect is close friends with him,” she said softly. “How else does one get to know a friend’s friend, without first making a friend?”

“I knew you’d never really set your sights on that decorative pillow of a man!”

“And yet…” Li Qingman set down the fan, a look of puzzlement crossing her face.

“What?”

“Li Wu is careful beneath that rough exterior. He never acts without purpose. For all these years, he and Hu Yishou have kept out of each other’s way. So why, this time, would he risk offending Hu Yishou by standing up for a powerless dead man?”

Li Hong was equally at a loss. “Yes — why?”

They could not know Li Wu’s reasons, and they could not know that at that very moment, beneath that very same sunlight, Li Wu was staring at a sachet embroidered with a little figure and cursing furiously:

“I asked you to embroider me a sachet with your own hands — and you stabbed a little doll figure into it to put a curse on me? Do you want me dead so you can be a widow?!”