Han Yao, hearing her younger brother raise the subject, was full of eager delight: “Oh, how wonderful! Sister-in-law, don’t go back to Fengwei Village either — it’s too chaotic there. Your calligraphy is excellent, so you can join in and take part…”

But Han Xiao, upon hearing his sister’s words, shot her a look and said without the least courtesy: “If I were to establish a society, it would certainly not be the sort of hollow pretense meant to while away the hours for idle women. If the membership were of uneven quality, those with genuine talent would hold themselves back out of deference; those with no learning to speak of would exhaust themselves scraping the bottom of their minds, terrified of making fools of themselves. What would be the point? My teacher has always taught me: those who soar with phoenixes are all birds of fine plumage — how could one consort with the ranks of sparrows and swallows?”

Well. Luoyun had caught his meaning perfectly: if this household sparrow of hers were so oblivious as to go and join in, she would drag down the standard of her brother-in-law’s poetry and painting society and leave the great talents of Liangzhou with no room to shine.

Han Linfeng, for reasons Luoyun could not quite identify, seemed to be in a poor mood today — he had been keeping a half-dark expression throughout the meal, and he was in no humor to hear his wife spoken of so dismissively.

He had just drawn breath to cut back with a cold, contemptuous retort when Luoyun kicked him under the table. Then she laughed and said: “I won’t bother joining the festivities. Your elder brother’s back and legs have been paining him lately, so I must give him moxa treatments every day. You younger ones should enjoy yourselves as you please.”

Young Lord Han Xiao shook his head again in disapproval, taking issue with his common sister-in-law’s choice of words: “When kindred spirits gather, how can one use the word ‘enjoy’? What we pursue is the refinement of our craft — it is a form of cultivation in its own right.”

Faced with her brother-in-law’s correction, Luoyun gave a very solemn nod and added: “Quite right. May you all cultivate diligently and ascend to become phoenixes at the earliest opportunity.”

After the dinner at the Prince’s residence broke up, Luoyun asked her husband — who had been silent and unresponsive the entire journey home — from inside the carriage: “Which academy does your younger brother attend?”

When Han Linfeng told her, he asked: “Why do you ask?”

Luoyun smiled and did not answer. What else could it be? She was naturally committing the name of that academy firmly to memory, so she could steer her own future children well clear of that particular pit.

Such a bright young lord, yet raised into something resembling a peacock fanning its tail — if that were her son, she would have grabbed him by the ear on the spot for a thorough dressing-down.

Though she had spared Shizi’s face and said nothing outright, Han Linfeng was hardly dim — he understood perfectly well what she had left unspoken, and could only say mildly: “In the matter of guiding a younger brother, I cannot compare with you.”

The younger brother Luoyun had cultivated — Su Guiyan — was a young scholar of the Hanlin Academy, exemplary in both character and learning.

A world above Han Linfeng’s own younger brother, who lived atop a tall tower with no way down.

Hearing Shizi say this, Luoyun laughed and said: “Come now, what is the point of comparing? So long as they stay out of trouble, all younger brothers are fine. But Qiu Zhen’s influence is growing by the day — when General Zhao Dong arrives, will he be able to turn the tide?”

Han Linfeng was quiet for a moment, then finally said: “Qiu Zhen stops at nothing. If he is allowed to grow unchecked, it is only a matter of time before he shakes the foundations of the realm. But he is not the only wolf prowling at this frontier looking for its share of meat. The weather will warm soon, and once spring arrives and the cattle and sheep have rich pasture and water, the Tiefu people will begin to stir as well. Elder Brother Cao labored for years and had only just begun to see results — only to have that bandit Qiu steal the fruits of his efforts. If Great Wei descends into civil war, the Tiefu will surely seize the chance to take their own share.”

Luoyun nodded: “Which means General Zhao can only afford to win — he cannot lose. Otherwise there will be no road back at all.”

Han Linfeng said nothing more, and instead closed his eyes and sank into thought. In recent days, his provisions camp had taken in a considerable number of young soldiers.

The Emperor harbored wariness toward Liangzhou, so although the Beizhen Prince’s household held their fief and its revenues, they were not permitted to maintain a standing army.

Should the fires of war spread to Liangzhou, if his father the Prince could not lead the household to safety in time, the only option remaining would be to stand atop the city wall and leap from it — dying for his country.

After all, the late Emperor Shengde’s capture had already been a national humiliation. If his descendants were to re-enact that scene, there would be no face left to show the ancestors in the world below.

By virtue of his public office, Han Linfeng could maintain a reasonable number of men under arms with full legitimacy. Should the war take an unpredictable turn, he had to be capable, at minimum, of protecting the women and family of his entire household.

With that thought, he took Luoyun’s soft hand in his and asked quietly: “If the front lines grow dire, I may well lead men into battle myself. When that time comes, left behind on your own — will you be frightened?”

His mother’s suggestion was not entirely without merit, truth be told. It was simply that Luoyun had seemed to read his father’s intentions and had taken his father’s side.

Yet Luoyun had always been a careful, cautious person. If she did not wish to stand beneath a crumbling tower, he could quite easily send her ahead to stay with her younger brother, Su Guiyan.

Luoyun lifted her head, looking at the blurred figure before her whose features she could not yet make out, and said in a voice soft yet certain: “Wherever you are, I will be. With you beside me, there is nothing I fear.”

In ordinary times, hearing words like these, Han Linfeng would long since have broken into a warm smile and drawn her close, pressing kiss after kiss to her face.

But today, Han Linfeng looked at her in silence, his expression complicated beyond measure, and suddenly reached out and pulled her into his arms.

The force of it was somewhat too great — as though a tangle of nameless emotions had been folded into his embrace — and he held her so tightly that Luoyun very nearly could not draw breath.

But thinking of the situation pressing upon them, Luoyun found that she understood Han Linfeng’s strange behavior.

These past few days, he had not been sleeping well. Several times when Luoyun rose in the night, she found that he was not lying in bed. She later learned from the maids that on several of these nights, Han Linfeng had apparently gone out to the grove beyond the courtyard to practice his forms in the small hours, and sometimes did not return until nearly dawn.

He was a man of vigorous temperament, not someone of cold or abstinent nature. The intimacy between them had always been far from infrequent — as long as they were not apart, there was almost never a night that passed without it.

Yet now, though he returned to her nearly every day, she had lost count of how many days had passed without such closeness between them.

What she did not know was that Han Linfeng was at that very moment staring fixedly at her face, words rising and dying in his throat before they could be spoken.

What she did not know was that he had discovered the secret beneath her pillow long ago.

In recent days, with the situation at the front shifting and turning, Han Linfeng had not been sleeping soundly — on some nights, sleep had not come at all until the sky had grown pale. It was during one such night, reaching over to tuck the blankets around Luoyun, that he had happened to see the medicinal sachet she had quietly placed over her abdomen.

At first he did not understand its purpose, but after privately consulting an experienced physician, he understood completely.

Once he had confirmed that the sachet posed no significant harm to a woman’s constitution, he had pressed it tightly in his fist — and then quietly set it back beneath her pillow.

Yet when Han Linfeng returned to the military camp afterward, he drank himself into a stupor alone, and his guard Qingyang was truly alarmed — for he had never in all his years witnessed Shizi in such a state of discomposure.

After sleeping it off, Han Linfeng found that his mind had cleared.

It was not resentment toward her — it was that he felt himself utterly incapable. He was not man enough to make the woman he had married feel at ease bringing his children into the world.

He was well practiced at reading people’s hearts, and so he understood Luoyun’s hesitation with perfect clarity.

Even the birds in the mountain forest first secured their nests before laying their eggs in peace.

Yet he was worse than those free birds with their simple nests.

Even if there were no wars at the frontier, any son they had would have no choice but to walk the same path of enforced mediocrity and powerlessness that he himself had walked.

Luoyun, who had cultivated such an outstanding younger brother — could she bear to watch her own flesh and blood spend his days in purposeless idleness, raised into uselessness?

And so, even after discovering the contraceptive sachet, Han Linfeng had wrestled with the turmoil inside himself — and then chosen to say nothing.

Because at this moment, he had no right to have a child.

He had not even raised the matter with Luoyun. Han Linfeng was a man with his own pride and dignity. Since he could not give Luoyun peace of mind enough to bear him an heir, what right did he have to ask?

Luoyun, for her part, had naturally noticed Han Linfeng’s unusual silence these past days. But she assumed it stemmed from his anxiety over the deteriorating situation at the frontier — and that this was the source of his unsettled spirits.

Should Liangzhou fall, knowing Han Linfeng’s character, he would never stand apart from it and simply lead his household to safe distance.

When he was young, he had concealed his name and identity and gone north with his guards to fight the enemy with courage. The fearsome reputation of the Iron Mask Army endured to this day.

Beneath the surface of a dissolute young lord, what ran in his veins was the proud blood of the Han imperial line — the stubbornness that would rather die in battle than yield a single step.

That night, Han Linfeng seemed still weighed down by a thousand unspoken things. After helping her change into her night clothes, he tucked her beneath her blankets.

For the past three nights, they had been sleeping under separate blankets — much as they had in the cautious, restrained early days of their new marriage.

When Luoyun asked about it, Han Linfeng said: “I have been restless these past few days and keep kicking off the blankets at night. You should sleep separately so you don’t catch cold.”

It was a perfectly worded explanation, without fault. Yet having grown accustomed to sleeping entwined together like mandarin ducks, to be suddenly separated by separate blankets was an indescribable awkwardness.

Luoyun endured it again and again, until at last she sensed that something was truly off about him. Though she did not know what had put him out of sorts, she could no longer help herself — she suddenly threw back her blankets and glared at Han Linfeng, full of smothered indignation: “You don’t sleep at night at all — how would you ever kick off the blankets? If you’re tired of me, I’ll go sleep in another room.”

With that, she grabbed her blankets and began feeling her way toward the edge of the bed to get up.

Her long hair fell loose around her, the collar of her sleeping garment had come undone, and her cheeks were flushed crimson from the suppressed anger. Her slender waist twisted this way and that as she struggled with the blankets she could not quite pull free.

To a man who had been suppressing himself like a monk for several days, this was undeniably and devastatingly alluring.

Han Linfeng suddenly felt that the brooding mood he had been carrying these past few days was quite without purpose. This little temptress had not only decided not to give him an heir — now she wasn’t even going to let him hold her while he slept.

How was this any different from being driven out of his own bed?

With that thought, he reached out from behind and scooped up the woman still tugging at the blankets, and in one swift motion brought her down into the bedding.

And naturally, this little temptress, having gained the advantage, made a show of innocence — dodging his kisses with flailing arms and crying out: “Don’t get too close — be careful your inner fire is burning too hot and you singe me.”

Han Linfeng was so exasperated he nearly laughed: “Then you had better brace yourself — I’ve been stockpiling far too much fire, and I mean to vent it thoroughly.”

And so, what had been a smoldering resentment transformed into open flame, and for a time it burned the bed bare of even a blade of grass.

Late that night, when the battle between them had finally run its course, Han Linfeng at last felt the long-absent pull of sleep wash over him. He drew the woman — still damp with cooling perspiration — into his arms and fell deeply, heavily asleep.

Listening to the sound of her bedfellow’s breathing, now settled into the rhythm of deep sleep, Luoyun waited until her own breath had calmed, then — as had become her habit — reached her hand beneath her pillow.

But as her fingers closed around the sachet, Luoyun suddenly recalled the embrace in the carriage that afternoon — silent, powerful, and full of something that had not been said.

If he truly went to the front lines, and had not even a child of his own to leave behind — and if he did not return, what would it matter that she had regained her sight? She would spend the rest of her life never seeing this man’s face.

The thought very nearly wrung a sob from her throat.

Such a desolate thing — she could not even allow herself to think it. The moment she did, a grief vast as a crashing tide surged up and threatened to swallow her whole.

Her hand rested beneath the pillow for a long moment. At last, slowly, she withdrew it empty — and pressed both bare hands against her own stomach.

She decided that from this day forward, she would leave everything to Heaven.

My child — if you are able to come, please forgive your mother’s selfishness. Only because this is not a good season in which to bring a child into the world. But you will certainly be a child both your father and mother long for with all their hearts. I will do everything in my power to let you live in safety and peace.

Luoyun felt that she ought not make this decision on her own — the man sleeping beside her had chosen not to take a concubine, and this meant there would be no other children to carry on his line.

She decided to leave it all to Heaven, and let things take their natural course.

The following morning, while Han Linfeng had gone back to camp, Su Luoyun placed the sachet away in her dressing case. Then she called out to Nanny Tian: “Nanny Tian, please prepare a slow-simmered lotus seed and pork stomach soup for me.”

Since she had decided not to prevent a pregnancy, she would naturally need to tend to her constitution and take warming tonics to dispel the cold from her body.

In truth, the moment she had made this decision the night before, Luoyun had felt the weight lift from her heart entirely.

Would the child she carried one day take more after his father?

Now, to speak of Zhao Dong — he arrived sooner than anyone had anticipated.

The fall of Jiayong Prefecture sent tremors through the entire court.

The Ninth Imperial Prince seized upon it as a pretext and leaped to impeach the Wang family of Changxi. Before long, the faction supporting the Ninth Prince had gathered a considerable body of evidence documenting Wang Yun’s negligence in preparing for war — and even charges emerged that Wang Yun had secretly diverted a portion of the military grain to another location, with the intent to sell it for private profit.

The Emperor, though he had little affection for the Empress, could not afford to dispense with the great aristocratic families entirely. The Wang family and the Fang family alike required a balance of reward and pressure.

But this was too good an opportunity to strip away a portion of the Wang family’s military authority.

The only man suited to shoulder that burden was Zhao Dong.

His military record was distinguished — he possessed genuine ability. Though he was the imperial family’s son-in-law, he had risen from humble origins and was no son of the great clans. Appointing him would also serve to demonstrate that the Emperor treated all families with equal measure.

But when Princess Yuyang learned that His Majesty had dispatched her husband to clean up the disaster in Jiayong Prefecture, the fierce, reckless spirit that had once made her notorious surged back to life.

She charged into the imperial palace and confronted the Emperor at his meal, loudly demanding to know what he meant by sending both her son and her husband to the front lines one after another.

If he wanted her to be a widow, she would simply take three ready-made coffins and go to the frontier along with her husband. At least all three of them could die together at the border — a tidy family of three — and gild the name of the Han imperial house with a suitably blood-edged legend.

Had it been anyone else, the Emperor would have overturned the table and called for someone’s head then and there. But this was his own daughter, who feared neither Heaven nor earth, and no matter how wide his imperial eyes might glare, it was entirely useless against her.

Driven to the peak of his fury, the Emperor had half a mind to reach for his dragon-slaying blade — yet he could hardly create the scandal of killing his own daughter, nor would it do to execute the newly appointed general’s wife on the very eve of his commission.

After the Emperor had hurled three dishes at Princess Yuyang in succession, she threw caution to the wind entirely — wailing that her royal father no longer loved her, and then pulling out her hair pin and loosening her hair, threatening to fling herself headlong into one of the hall’s pillars.

Mercifully, the eunuchs and palace maids around her moved with extraordinary speed and caught her in time.

The Emperor, his imperial beard trembling with rage, summoned the Empress to come and deal properly with her unhinged daughter.

In the past, whenever this daughter had her episodes, it had always been Emperor and Empress together — father gentle, mother stern, wielding affection and authority in equal measure to subdue Princess Yuyang.

Yet this time, Empress Wang simply did not appear. She sent word through the messenger that she had not been feeling well lately, plagued by a severe illness, and rose from bed each morning only to be overcome by dizziness.

She acknowledged that she had failed to raise her daughter properly and felt deeply ashamed, and she humbly asked His Majesty to decide the matter himself and punish the disobedient and unfilial daughter as he saw fit.

The Emperor had just publicly humiliated the Wang family of Changxi in court, and had punished Wang Yun severely.

The Empress, feeling her dignity had been stripped away, had promptly “fallen ill” — and left the Emperor to clean up the mess on his own.

Yet the Wei Emperor Hui had always been renowned as a devoted father, especially to his daughters, who had never heard a harsh word from him their entire lives. Now faced with the task of disciplining his daughter alone, the pressure was no less daunting than managing a roomful of sly and seasoned ministers.

In the end, the one who had to sort out the entire disaster was his own son-in-law.

When Zhao Dong learned that Princess Yuyang had charged into the palace and was on the verge of unraveling his new commission, he entered the palace with a dark expression the whole way, fixed his gaze on his disheveled wife, and simply asked: if she was so afraid of widowhood, was she afraid of divorce?

Princess Yuyang stared at him: “You — you dare divorce me?”

Zhao Dong clasped his hands toward the Emperor: “Your Majesty — if she continues to make trouble, I will put her aside. Can Your Majesty bear this in mind and grant me permission to divorce my wife for the sake of the realm?”

The Emperor, looking at this broad-browed, clear-eyed son-in-law of his at this moment, felt deeply gratified — he thought that of his six sons-in-law, this one alone possessed the true vigor and backbone of a man, and was a credit to all of manhood.

And so, in a warm and amiable tone, he said: “But of course I can grant it. This will be quite the tale to pass down through the ages. You may rest assured — I shall not fault Minister Zhao in the slightest. I shall even instruct the imperial historians to record it in the annals of Great Wei for the admiration of posterity.”

That left Princess Yuyang staring blankly. She knew her husband — once his temper was roused, he meant exactly what he said.

In an instant, she stopped her tears, gathered her hair back up, and insisted she only cared so deeply because she worried for her husband, and had simply cried her feelings out before her father to ease her heart — what kind of grounds for divorce was that?

Zhao Dong promptly seized Princess Yuyang by the hand and led her out of the palace.

But Zhao Dong knew his wife’s temperament well, and feared she might cause further complications. In the end he did not even wait for his full forces to assemble — he led his personal escort himself and set out the very next morning, heading early for Huicheng to take over the handover from Wang Yun.

Seeing his father arrive ahead of schedule, Zhao Guibei was greatly pleased, and came from Qianbei Camp to Huicheng to see him.

Han Linfeng, as the transport officer of the Qianxi Provisions Camp, naturally had to call on his new commanding officer as well, so he set out together with Zhao Guibei and rode for Huicheng.

Before departing, Su Luoyun returned from Fengwei Village to the Prince’s residence to stay for several days.

After all, with him away, he was not at ease leaving her alone in the small courtyard, so it made more sense for her to return and stay a few days while waiting for Han Linfeng to come back.

With the war drawing near, unease ran through everyone. The Princess Consort had long since stopped bothering with her daughter-in-law, and the two of them resumed the untroubled arrangement of leaving each other well alone.

It was not that the Princess Consort had developed a more favorable impression of Luoyun — it was rather that after sending people to Fengwei Village to scold her harshly, she had ended up slapping her own face. As it turned out, the new bride had not been extravagantly indulging herself; she had been providing cover for her husband’s grain transport all along. When the truth came to light, the wives of military officers and officials had praised her one after another for having raised such a virtuous daughter-in-law — if the Princess Consort were to make things difficult for Luoyun again, would she not be plainly in the wrong, showing cruelty toward her daughter-in-law for all to see?

That earlier quarrel with her son had also left things somewhat fractured between them. Although no one had since come to settle old accounts, the growing coolness in Han Linfeng’s manner toward her, and the composed, proper smile Luoyun offered whenever their eyes met, both lodged in the Princess Consort’s throat like a fish bone she could neither swallow nor spit out.

And so the truth was she had no wish to look at Su Luoyun at all. Besides, Han Linfeng was not her own flesh and blood — rather than spend her energy making things difficult for Su Luoyun, she might as well put her efforts into finding a suitable match for her own son, Han Xiao.

Fortunately, the two women each had their own matters to attend to, and neither encroached on the other’s affairs. The household remained peaceable enough.

As for the young brother-in-law’s poetry and painting society — it had been duly established, and every few days the garden played host to gatherings of young ladies and gentlemen, lively and festive.

Luoyun, well aware of her own common nature, naturally had no intention of joining in.

But the young brother-in-law’s refined and elegant pursuits did not last many rounds before Prince Beizhen put a stop to it with a sharp rebuke.

In the Prince’s own words: what sort of times were these? All the able-bodied young men from the surrounding prefectures and counties had been conscripted into service.

By Han Xiao’s age, he too ought to have enlisted. As things stood, he had been spared military service only by virtue of his status as an imperial descendant, and he ought naturally to keep a low profile.

Instead he was gathering companions and hosting poetry societies — if word of this got out, would it not stir the indignation of the common people?

And so the poetry and painting society that had set out to welcome phoenixes as its companions was scolded apart by the Prince, and dissolved entirely.

Yet the garden of the Prince’s residence did not stay idle for long. No sooner had things quieted than the arrival of the newly appointed Supreme General Zhao Dong required the Princess Consort to busy herself at once with preparations for a welcoming banquet.

Zhao Dong had once been stationed in Liangzhou in the past, and had not only met a young Han Linfeng back then, but had also been acquainted with Lord and Lady Beizhen. At the time, however, he had not yet become the Imperial Prince Consort, and the Princess Consort had not paid much heed to a mere military commander.

Now that Zhao Dong was not only the reigning Prince Consort but also the Supreme General entrusted with the security of Liangzhou, the Princess Consort once again summoned every last ounce of her twelve-part spirit to welcome her distinguished guests from the capital.

The palm-sized jade Buddha that had never been sent to Wang Yun and his wife was again brought out on the Princess Consort’s orders, to be presented to Zhao Dong as a gift upon their first meeting.

When Han Linfeng received Supreme General Zhao Dong in Huicheng and escorted him to the gates of the Beizhen Prince’s residence in Liangzhou, the Princess Consort was surprised to find that stepping down from the carriage, there was a woman among the arrivals as well.

Though Zhao Dong had left without fanfare, Princess Yuyang had pursued him all the way and arrived in Liangzhou at his side.

In Princess Yuyang’s own words: “Throughout Great Wei, there are plenty of men who have brought their wives to the field of battle — I am hardly the first. Even if I cannot be at the front lines the whole time, being near him puts my heart at ease.”

The sudden arrival of Princess Yuyang had given the Princess Consort very little time to prepare. She roused herself on the spot and instructed the maids and servants to replace the tea service for Princess Yuyang’s use with the seldom-used set of rouge-red patterned plum-blossom landscape tea cups.

Princess Yuyang had not seen familiar faces in a long while. After exchanging the customary pleasantries with the Princess Consort, she took Su Luoyun’s hand and looked her over warmly from head to toe: “It has been so long since I’ve seen you — I have truly missed you. This bitter cold wind of Liangzhou has not roughened your skin in the least — you are even more radiant than before.”

Su Luoyun smiled and answered the Princess with easy grace, and in no time at all, the Princess Consort — the proper mistress of the household — found herself left out of the conversation entirely.

She had heard before from her daughter that Luoyun had been well received in the capital household. At the time, the Princess Consort had not quite believed it. But seeing it now with her own eyes — Princess Yuyang, renowned for her proud, self-possessed manner, clearly had a genuine and warm friendship with Su Luoyun. No matter how the Princess Consort tried to insert herself into the conversation, she could find no opening.

After chatting for a while, Princess Yuyang made a mild observation about Luoyun’s clothing: “Why are the sleeves on your garment cut so narrow? I shall bring you some fabric from the capital next time, and you can have new ones made. And don’t use the local tailors — use the ones I brought with me. No matter how fine the fabric, the wrong hands will make it look provincial.”

The Princess’s offhand remark once again left the Princess Consort with no dignified way to respond — for the garments Luoyun was wearing today had been altered by tailors the Princess Consort herself had engaged.