Luoyun was now living under the Shizi’s roof, dependent on his household for her livelihood. She needed to read the situation clearly and conduct herself accordingly.

If Han Linfeng felt he needed some small advantage to feel comfortable, she could hardly pin him with a hairpin every time.

She could only hope that her own stubborn refusal the other day had soured his appetite somewhat and dampened his interest. And on her part, she needed to give the Shizi a way to save face — to go and smooth things over with the man of the house of her own accord.

Once she coaxed him out of his displeasure, if he was reasonable, the two of them could return to their former way of living — civil and respectful. She would also spend a fair sum of money buying a few comely and lively young women to enter the household as his attendants and concubines, giving him something else to occupy his attention.

But if he proved unreasonable and insisted on getting a taste of her spare bones — well, Su Luoyun knew she had no means of escape. She would simply have to do as her father had once advised her in his thoroughly useless way: close her eyes and think of it as a dog bite.

Once he had gnawed at her meager bones and satisfied himself, his interest would likely fade on its own.

At that point, Han Linfeng should, as agreed, let her go free.

Though Luoyun felt things were unlikely to come to that most wretched extreme, she had long been in the habit of preparing for the worst: she had married once already, and keeping herself inviolate would not earn her a place in any record of virtuous women.

Xiangcao had mentioned that Han Linfeng was not unpleasant to look at, and the few times Luoyun had been pressed close to him, she had been aware that his build was solid and firm. It would not, she supposed, inevitably call to mind the image of a fat pig forcing itself on a patch of cabbages.

Thinking this through, Luoyun felt rather like someone venturing to a pleasure house for the first time — forever anxious that the girl might not be pretty enough and that the money and trouble would be wasted.

Having turned over both the better and worse possibilities and arrived at some measure of self-composure, she took a deep breath, braced herself for a cold reception, and set off through the morning breeze along the newly laid cobblestone path toward the Shizi’s study.

When she arrived at the study door, the Shizi had just returned from his morning training and had evidently put in considerable effort — there was a great deal of perspiration on him.

Mercifully, he was not afflicted with excessive perspiration the way the Prince Consort Zhao Dong was, and he was a fastidious person by nature, so the effect was not at all unpleasant.

Luoyun walked over and greeted him first.

She had been the one who had forgotten her place the other day and gone cold on him — she could hardly expect him to be the one to extend an olive branch. Their acquaintance had not yet reached that level of familiarity.

Contrary to her expectations, Han Linfeng did not leave her standing in awkward silence. He acted as though nothing had happened at all, simply took her hand, and drew her quite naturally into a seat in the study. “There has been a great deal of official correspondence these past few days — I have been reviewing documents until late into the night. Not wanting to wake you when I came in, I muddled through a few nights here in the study. And you — how have you been sleeping on your own?”

This was, of course, a thoroughly spectacular lie. Though he had indeed taken up a post at the Ministry of Works, the duties he had been assigned were of the oversight variety — inspecting the riverside waterways and rural county sites on the outskirts of the capital. It was an undemanding position that required him to visit the waterworks under construction once at the beginning and once in the middle of each month, eating and drinking in the company of attending officials. The Ministry’s officials understood his nature well enough — they had handed all substantive matters directly to the civil officer assigned to work with him, and had not so much as shown him a single engineering diagram. What official correspondence could he possibly have had to review until midnight?

Had Han Linfeng turned cold and sullen in retaliation, Su Luoyun had already prepared what she intended to say. But he was being so remarkably understanding — not breathing a word about the quarrel in front of the attending maids, as though it had simply never occurred — that she found herself momentarily at a loss for how to respond.

She was too embarrassed to simply go along with his story. Instead she sidestepped it entirely: “I have been blending a new fragrance — added to the washing water, it leaves a lasting scent on the skin after rinsing. Would Shizi like to try it?”

Han Linfeng went along with this without the slightest hesitation, standing beside Su Luoyun as she measured and mixed the fragrance into the water.

When he had finished washing his face, the Shizi sat down at the small table and began eating his congee.

Luoyun had already had her bird’s nest congee in her own room and had no appetite, so she drifted over toward the Shizi’s table with the vague thought of refreshing the incense in the burner.

But the moment her fingertips touched the surface of the table, she stopped.

There was no official correspondence on the table. Instead, it was covered entirely in bamboo slips. They bore a resemblance to the slips used at her shop for recording accounts.

When Su Luoyun ran her fingers gently across them, she discovered that the slips were not inscribed with numbers — they were carved with deep, dense rows of characters. What could they possibly be for?

“Xiangcao mentioned that you loved reading poetry before you lost your sight. I had some time on my hands, and so I carved out several volumes of poems onto bamboo slips. When you have a quiet moment, you can take your time feeling your way through them — because some poetry simply cannot be fully understood by ear alone. To truly appreciate the mood and meaning, you need to read every character slowly for yourself.”

So this was what the Shizi had been doing during those nights alone in the study — genuinely busy, it turned out. In just a few evenings he had produced a great many slips. The characters were carved deeply, each one requiring considerable effort.

This kind of thoughtfulness was so unexpectedly weighty that she did not quite know how to receive it.

Luoyun fell silent for a moment, and then reached out to trace her fingertips across the poems carved into the slips: “How many times have I sat beneath the flowers playing my flute, while the silver river and red walls recede into the distance. These stars and this sky are not the same as last night’s — for whom do I stand in the wind and dew in the middle of the night…”

The poem was from a poet long gone, yet its theme — longing for someone just on the other side of a wall — bore an uncanny resemblance to how she and the Shizi had come to know each other.

She did not dare flatter herself into thinking that a man like Han Linfeng had spent his nights on the other side of a wall, his heart restless with longing for her.

And yet the sincerity of those nights spent carving away at the bamboo was undeniable and utterly real.

Holding that careful stack of slips, Su Luoyun found herself quietly reproaching herself for the darker assumptions she had made about Han Linfeng.

However much he might enjoy the company of women, he was not without genuine warmth of heart.

She set down the slips, came to the small table, felt for the chopsticks, and placed a piece of deep-fried river fish in the Shizi’s bowl. Then she said, as casually as she could manage: “The nights have been cold lately. Once you are less busy with official matters, Shizi, do come back to the room to rest.”

Han Linfeng moved his bowl toward her chopsticks, receiving the fish as he said: “Very well — I will come back tonight. The room has also felt somewhat bare. When you have a free moment, ask the steward to have a wider daybed placed in the inner chamber — it will be convenient for sitting by the window and enjoying the garden view.”

Two sensible people, after several nights of quiet, had each chosen to step back a little rather than risk a confrontation neither could undo.

The attending maids — Ji Qiu among them — watching their master and mistress reconcile, collectively let out a very quiet breath of relief.

After breakfast, Han Linfeng first saw the two women of the household into their respective carriages, then rode off to the Ministry of Works.

That day brought an invitation to a banquet at Princess Yuyang’s residence, and both Su Luoyun and Han Yao had been asked to attend.

As had happened the previous two times, the moment Han Yao stepped out of their lane, she began her careful avoidance — once clear of Blue Fish Lane, her carriage did not wait a moment for the one behind, and sped off into the distance.

Since Luoyun had already understood her young sister-in-law’s feelings on the matter, she made no effort to hurry, and arrived at the Princess’s manor somewhat after Han Yao.

She was fairly certain that Nanny Xi was behind Han Yao’s behavior. That Nanny — trading on whatever old debt her late husband had incurred by saving the Prince’s life — conducted herself with an extraordinary degree of self-importance, apparently having forgotten that her own origins were not so very different from those she disdained.

In the future, Luoyun thought, she would simply decline such invitations, or attend separately from Han Yao. Even if her marriage to Han Linfeng was a pretense, there was no reason to let the ladies of other households make sport of a visibly strained relationship between sisters-in-law.

When she descended from the carriage, Su Luoyun confirmed what she had expected — Han Yao had not waited for her, and had gone ahead to greet Princess Yuyang already.

After paying her own respects to the Princess upon entering the main hall, Luoyun refrained from drawing attention to herself and found a quiet corner to sit in alone.

She thought back to a month ago, when she had still been eating in the servants’ dining hall in the Prince Consort’s manor, taking in whatever scraps of hospitality came her way. It seemed impossible that in just over a month, she had moved from the side hall where the help ate to the principal room where the guests were received.

Of course, sharing a room with these high-born ladies was not the same as being their equal.

The capital was dense with power and privilege. Princess Yuyang’s circle of acquaintance contained very few people of modest background — they were almost all of noble blood or great family connections. When such ladies gathered, there was an unspoken scale by which everyone was quietly measured.

Those with high rank and powerful households naturally attracted more attention. But those with insufficient pedigree, whose families had no sons making names for themselves — well, they were left to sit in their corners, largely unremarked upon.

Su Luoyun’s origins were modest, and her husband was not particularly impressive in terms of standing. The ladies present had also exhausted their initial curiosity about the new couple’s story, and no one came to strike up a conversation. It was, in short, a cold bench she was warming.

Princess Yuyang was good to her, but at a gathering like this, the Princess was fully occupied with her duties as host and could hardly spare attention for a junior guest who was being ignored.

Luoyun was perfectly unbothered by this. She pulled the fruit tray toward her, cracked open sunflower seeds at her leisure, and listened to the conversations around her.

But as she listened, she noticed that her young sister-in-law Han Yao’s voice was not among them.

Logically, Han Yao was a new face in the capital — surely the ladies should have been seeking her out for a chat. It seemed that because her father and brother had not distinguished themselves, this newly arrived young lady was also being left in the cold.

Xiangcao took advantage of a quiet moment to whisper to Su Luoyun that the poor Commandery Princess had been sitting alone for a while, and was now being steered around by Nanny Xi, who was actively pushing her to go and greet various ladies.

But those ladies, beyond thanking the Princess politely for gifts she had brought them recently, showed no inclination to continue the conversation further.

After several such rounds, it was only when the guests from the Jun Ducal household arrived that Nanny Xi finally had something to work with, and sat the young Commandery Princess down beside her future in-laws for some getting-acquainted conversation.

Luoyun gave a quiet sigh. Even without seeing it, she could picture her sister-in-law’s discomfort perfectly well.

That Nanny Xi had been living too comfortably out in Liangzhou and had grown rather too confident in her own connections. She seemed to think that because she had once accompanied the Wang Fei through a season of socializing in the capital, she could simply resume those old ties and make introductions on Han Yao’s behalf.

She had apparently not considered that years had passed, and that she was not attached to any household of real standing — who in the capital was going to remember one old woman?

Ji Qiu was also watching Nanny Xi’s embarrassment unfold and could not help leaning down to murmur to Luoyun: “The First Lady of the Jun Ducal household looks very cool-tempered — when the Commandery Princess greeted her just now, the Lady’s reception did not seem particularly warm.”

Luoyun understood. That First Lady of the Jun household was naturally slow to warm to people.

But there was another reason for her coolness toward her future daughter-in-law in particular.

The Beizhen Shizi had just recently stirred up a scandal of no small proportion. Now her own son was to marry this scandalous young man’s sister. Which mother-in-law could be expected to take that cheerfully?

After some time, the banquet tables were finally being set out — and at that moment, a few additional guests arrived who had not originally been expected.

One was the Prince of Heng’s consort, Fang Jinrou. The other was the second daughter of the Fang family, freshly betrothed to the ninth prince.

It seemed the Prince of Heng’s consort had originally declined the invitation. Her husband had been scheduled that day to travel with Minister Li Guitian to Yan County, which had suffered serious flood damage, and she had intended to see him off outside the city, and so had sent her regrets.

But Minister Li Guitian, needing to oversee the childhood examination taking place in a few days and concerned he would not be back in time, had postponed the departure.

The Prince of Heng’s consort found herself unexpectedly free, and had not especially planned to come. But her younger sister Fang Jinshu had turned up at her door, and had spotted the invitation on the table — along with the list of notable guests attending. She had caught the name of the Beizhen Shizi’s household among them, and had promptly persuaded her elder sister to come along.

When the two Fang sisters made their entrance, the seats of honor nearest Princess Yuyang were quietly vacated for them.

These two sisters had each married a prince, and both of their husbands were among the foremost candidates for the throne. Whichever way things fell, the Duke of Lu’s household was certain to produce an Empress one day. Their fortune was staggering. Who in the room could rival it?

Gatherings of this kind had their conventions. In the world of court politics, there were many old adversaries who would prefer not to share the same room — and it was standard practice to inquire in advance and make arrangements accordingly. Princess Yuyang had not, in fact, invited Fang Jinshu to this occasion. The reason was simple: the ninth prince, unlike the politically flexible sixth, was an unwavering advocate of negotiated peace. The Prince Consort Zhao Dong and the ninth prince had clashed in court more times than anyone could count, and so Princess Yuyang had no particular fondness for her younger imperial brother, and had naturally not sent the Fang family’s second daughter an invitation.

But Fang Jinshu was not only the ninth prince’s betrothed — she was also the Prince of Heng’s consort’s own younger sister. Since she had arrived with her elder sister, Princess Yuyang could hardly ask her to leave.

When Fang Jinshu made a pointed remark demanding to know why the Princess had seen fit to treat some guests better than others, the Princess arched a brow and laughed it off smoothly, directing a cheerful reprimand at her steward for negligently omitting the second daughter of the Fang family from the invitations.

The unexpected arrival of the Fang family’s second daughter, however, was an unwelcome development for Su Luoyun, who had been quite contentedly cracking sunflower seeds in her corner.

Han Linfeng might not have made political enemies, but he had scattered his romantic entanglements far and wide.

Had she known Fang Jinshu would be turning up today, Su Luoyun would certainly never have come.

The Prince of Heng’s consort could at least be expected to maintain appearances and would not go out of her way to make trouble. But what about Fang Jinshu? This was a woman who had no hesitation about standing in the middle of a street to berate someone in public.

Su Luoyun’s plan was to make a swift exit — while everyone was gathered around the two future phoenixes exchanging pleasantries, she would plead a sudden attack of abdominal pain and slip away before anyone noticed.

After all, every month brought days of discomfort for a woman. If she had caught a chill and needed to leave early in pain, Princess Yuyang would understand.

But leaving alone seemed somewhat uncharitable.

And so, even though Han Yao had been making a deliberate show of keeping her distance in company, Luoyun conscientiously sent Huai Xia to ask Han Yao to come to her for a moment, as she had something to say.

Unfortunately, Huai Xia returned without her.

She brought back the Commandery Princess’s message: if her sister-in-law had something to discuss, she was welcome to say it at home. Han Yao was presently chatting with the eldest daughter-in-law of the Jun Ducal household and could not come at the moment.

Luoyun had, genuinely, been trying to do Han Yao a kindness. But since Han Yao did not wish to come, she could do no more than she had already done.

Just as she was quietly making her way toward the door, Nanny Xi suddenly appeared in front of her, eyebrows drawn together. “The banquet has not yet begun, Shizi’s consort — and where exactly are you going?”

This old woman and her irrepressible compulsion to manage everyone around her — apparently overseeing a single Commandery Princess was not enough, and she had turned her supervision toward Luoyun’s movements as well.

Su Luoyun said: “I’ve suddenly come over with stomach pains and need to return home to rest. I have already had Huai Xia apologize to Princess Yuyang on my behalf and take my leave… Nanny, if you and the Commandery Princess have nothing pressing, do head home before too long as well. I have a feeling the weather may be changing — it may rain before the afternoon is out.”

Nanny Xi gave a cold laugh. The sky was blazing with autumn sunshine. She did not need a blind woman to read the weather for her.

Besides, in a gathering of this standing, one endured even stomach pains. Did this blind girl think this was some temple fair she could drift in and out of at will?

Su Luoyun had no desire to stand there listening to a Liangzhou-accented lecture of indefinite length. The moment Nanny Xi drew breath to begin, Luoyun simply gave her a brisk nudge with one shoulder, shifted her out of the way, and moved quickly forward, one hand feeling her path as she went: “Oh no — it’s going to come right now — Nanny, please move aside, oh dear, oh dear, I cannot hold on much longer…”

And with that, supporting herself on Xiangcao’s arm, she made haste for the door.

Nanny Xi was jostled so hard she nearly sat down on the floor.

Watching this woman abandon all pretense of dignity — not even preserving her own decorum — the Nanny’s cheeks quivered with outrage.

What a thoroughly unsalvageable creature. If you are going to tell a lie, at least tell a convincing one. If she genuinely had stomach trouble, why was she running for the door at top speed — did the carriage have a chamber pot installed? And moving that quickly — could it be that she had been faking the blindness all along? What on earth did she think was lurking inside the Princess’s manor — a man-eating tiger?

Su Luoyun was perfectly aware that her excuse had not been especially polished. But she had no energy to polish it — she simply wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and Fang Jinshu, that terrifying force of nature.

In a gathering thick with power and influence, a woman in Fang Jinshu’s current state of barely-contained fury could cause trouble with laughable ease.

Su Luoyun had no wish to provide the assembled ladies with additional dinner conversation, and so a swift retreat was her only sensible option.

As for Han Yao — the young Commandery Princess had not even come to the gathering with Luoyun to begin with, and had made very clear she had no interest in being seen conversing with her disreputable sister-in-law in public. When she chose to come home was entirely her own affair.

Luoyun was confident she had done everything she reasonably could. And so when Han Linfeng, arriving home not long after she did, asked why his sister had not yet returned, she was able to tell him calmly and without any particular guilt.

She also explained her own reasons for leaving early, and left it to him to decide whether to go and fetch his sister.

Su Luoyun had prepared herself for a reproach. After all, she had knowingly left early on her own, which could fairly be said to have let down her brother-in-law’s younger sister.

But Han Linfeng only nodded. “You did the right thing. I was thoughtless in allowing you to attend that gathering to begin with. As for Han Yao — she is young, and has been putting too much faith in the counsel of a muddleheaded old woman. If she does not experience a little pain, how will she know right from wrong? How will she understand what kind of dangerous terrain the capital is? Fang Jinshu may be difficult, but she would not actually strike anyone at the Princess’s manor. There will be some sharp words — but as a descendant of the late Emperor Xianzong, Han Yao should be capable of enduring that. It will do her good to weather a little of the world.”

He paused, then added: “That Nanny Xi has been kept too comfortably in Liangzhou and has grown rather too ignorant of the wider world. If she is not given a proper setback, she will keep leading Han Yao from one embarrassment to the next. One experience like this will do something to bring her down a peg.”

Han Linfeng had not offered a single hard word to Luoyun. That, if anything, made her feel genuinely guilty.

When she quietly apologized to him, Han Linfeng reached up and straightened the swaying gold pin in her hair, then drew her against him with one arm, his voice low: “When the women of a household are humiliated and looked down upon, the fault lies with the man who has failed them. That I have been too useless to spare you and my sister from being slighted and overlooked — that is my failure. What has it to do with you?”

Su Luoyun was caught completely off guard and found herself pressed against him, entirely at a loss. If one could say the Shizi was taking advantage of her, his words at least were perfectly serious.

And the large hand patting her back with slow, gentle rhythm had something of the quality of comforting a crying child — it could hardly be called improper.

And yet he was holding her closer and closer, until she was pressed firmly against his solid chest. She wanted to push against his back with her fists, but it seemed wrong to interrupt what appeared to be a moment of genuine, private feeling.

Han Linfeng had gone quiet, and she could not tell whether he had been struck by some thought of ambitions yet unfulfilled, and was on the verge of tears. The breath near her neck seemed to be growing heavier, the warmth of it distinctly noticeable — and rather scorching.

In the end, when Luoyun felt she could no longer draw a proper breath, she patted Han Linfeng’s back lightly and said softly: “Shizi, please do not be downcast — I believe you will have your day of great accomplishment yet. And… would you perhaps loosen your grip? I cannot quite breathe.”

At these words, the Shizi seemed to come back to himself, offered an apology of moderate sincerity, drew a long breath, and then abruptly took up his sword and headed to the back garden for training.

His energy was apparently inexhaustible — after an entire day outside, he still had the constitution for sword practice.

Luoyun thought about those arms that had held her so very tightly, and made a quiet mental note that it was genuinely time to look into acquiring some suitable young women for the household.

After their quarrel, Han Linfeng had moved to sleeping on the newly installed daybed.

For a time this worked well enough — the two of them kept to their respective sides without interference.

But one evening Ji Qiu came in to refresh the tea on the table and happened to see the Shizi sleeping on the daybed. The next day she came to Luoyun in some agitation to ask whether the consort and the Shizi had quarreled again.

Once servants had stumbled across the arrangement a few times, Han Linfeng said that the situation was no longer consistent with his long-established reputation, and that keeping it up risked undermining the whole pretense.

And so from the previous night, he had the daybed removed and returned to the main bed.

The single consolation available to Luoyun was that they were each sleeping under their own individual quilts — neighbors separated by bedding, if nothing else.

In order to give the Shizi somewhere more consistent with his reputation to occupy himself at night, Luoyun had already tasked Nanny Tian with discreet inquiries around the household — what sort of women had the Shizi favored in the past? She intended to pay for several suitable ones herself and have them brought into the household to attend to him.

This, at least, she could take some small comfort in.

While the Shizi was out practicing, Luoyun changed her clothes, removed her gold hairpins, and settled in to “read” from the carved bamboo slips for a while. It was then that the young Commandery Princess finally returned home.

She came back in tears.

And as it turned out, everything Su Luoyun had anticipated had come to pass. That day, Fang Jinshu had dragged her sister to the banquet with a belly full of suppressed grievance and absolutely nowhere to put it.

She had long since found out that the Beizhen Shizi’s consort was on close terms with Princess Yuyang and would be attending. She had specifically come to meet the consort and extract some measure of satisfaction.

She had not expected the blind woman to move so quickly. Before Fang Jinshu had even properly settled into her seat, that incense-seller had used a stomach ailment as her excuse and vanished without a trace.

That coiled resentment had to go somewhere. And so Han Linfeng’s young sister, the Commandery Princess, came squarely into Fang Jinshu’s sights.

Fang Jinshu set about deflating Han Yao’s dignity with unhurried precision. She turned to the First Lady of the Jun Ducal household and asked, with great apparent casualness, when the Third Young Master expected to be married — drawing the conversation naturally around to focus on Commandery Princess Han Yao.

After looking the young princess up and down with a slow, careful air, Fang Jinshu smiled with just a trace of condescension. “I have heard that Liangzhou is bitterly cold in the wind. Looking at Commandery Princess Han Yao now, I can well believe it — her cheeks are quite so naturally red, she has no need of rouge at all. It does give her something of a rural look.”