Hearing the vendor’s litany of accusations against Yun Xi, A’Jiu arched an eyebrow. “Oh? And here I thought you didn’t have a word to say, standing there silent as a mute outside—but the moment you see His Honor, suddenly you can talk up a storm? It was me who trampled your lanterns. So what, are the lanterns under the emperor’s own feet somehow extra precious? Won’t even take payment for them? Want me to file a formal complaint, write up a statement, press my bloody thumbprint on it too? Would locking us up make you happy? Would that make your New Year complete?”
The vendor pointed at her. “My lord, see how brazen she still is!”
The two of them argued so fiercely that they woke Sun Haiping and Zhang Dahu, who had been dozing off to the side.
Zhang Dahu’s eyes lit up the moment he saw Yun Xi. “Commandant Yun, what brings you here?”
Having caught a few muddled words in his half-asleep state, he glanced over at the vendor and immediately rolled up his sleeves. “Did this fellow give you trouble? Looks like he hasn’t had a beating from Tiger Zhang in a while—”
The vendor’s eyes went wide.
Sun Haiping grabbed hold of Zhang Dahu, quite seriously. “Have you gone blind? Can’t you see the Young Prince is hearing a case right now? Listen to what this fellow has to say first.”
The two of them had once served under the Young Prince, and whenever something like this happened, they had only ever been on the receiving end of judgment—either paying up or kneeling in punishment. Now that Cheng Chang had been promoted to Attendant Censor, this was his first time playing judge, and though it wasn’t a particularly formal proceeding, it gave Zhang Dahu and Sun Haiping a chance to flip the tables and bask in a little reflected glory.
Prompted by Sun Haiping’s reminder, Zhang Dahu caught on at once. The two of them straightened up and retreated to stand on either side of Cheng Chang.
Cheng Chang thought this was a minor matter and asked, “How many lanterns did they damage of yours? How much is that worth in silver?”
The vendor said, “Reporting to Your Honor, seven or eight lanterns, roughly two taels of silver.”
He quickly added, “But this isn’t just about the two taels!”
Cheng Chang paused for a moment.
The city patrol censor beside him explained, “Reporting to my lord, when this vendor came to report the incident, I asked him the price, and offered payment on the spot at the time—but he absolutely refused, insisting that Commandant Yun had ruined his livelihood and demanding an explanation from her. I wasn’t in a position to make a final decision, so I had no choice but to bring them here to you, my lord.”
“If it were just seven or eight lanterns, I wouldn’t even bother arguing with them. But they ruined my entire business—my losses are far more than a mere two taels. They ought to buy up my whole stall of lanterns,” the vendor said.
He thought for a moment, then shouted further, “And that’s not all—they should buy up every lantern I’ve made all year!”
At this, everyone in the duty chamber froze.
A’Jiu pointed at the vendor and asked Yun Xi, “Do all you Jinling folk do business like this?”
Sun Haiping couldn’t hold back and burst out cursing, “Hah! You’ve got some nerve, trying to shake down money from the Young Prince himself! Are you blind, not recognizing who’s who? Don’t you know who the real ancestor of extortion is? If the Young Prince hadn’t washed his hands of that business, back when he ruled Jinling, you wouldn’t even have had hair on your chin yet!”
Cheng Chang: “……”
Zhang Dahu started rolling up his sleeves again. “Commandant Yun, this fellow’s just itching for a beating. Let me give him a proper thrashing—after that, he’ll behave himself for the rest of his life, guaranteed.”
“Come back here,” Cheng Chang said.
His head was starting to ache from the commotion these people were causing. He rubbed his temples and asked the vendor, “Why do you say they ruined your business?”
“Reporting to my lord, because they knocked over this humble one’s stall and broke the wheel of my cart, and because they dragged me here with them tonight, I’ve lost the good spot I’d claimed for the evening, and now I can’t do any business at all!” the vendor said.
The city patrol censor beside him added, “Reporting to my lord, what the vendor says is true. On the night of the Lantern Festival, the stalls in Tongzi Lane are claimed on a first-come basis—once he left, someone else would naturally take his spot. And while Commandant Yun and Miss A’Jiu were chasing after each other, it was prime time for selling lanterns, so their commotion cost him that window as well.”
The vendor, who considered himself not entirely unreasonable, said, “How about this—if they’re willing to pay for the lanterns they damaged, I’ll sell the rest to them at a discount.” He added, “My lord, my lanterns and cart are right outside—you can go take a look and see for yourself.”
Cheng Chang stood and tidied away the documents on his desk. “Let’s go.”
The Censorate’s western station was near the western city gate, and being an official government post, few people lived nearby.
A’Jiu hadn’t paid much attention when she’d knocked over the stall earlier, but now, looking closely at the lanterns on the vendor’s cart, she exclaimed in surprise, “A’Ting, his lanterns are really beautiful!” There were blooming lotuses, soaring hawks, fish swimming in a lake—all manner of designs, each one exquisite and lifelike. A’Jiu picked up a tiger-head lantern and said, “A’Ting, I like this one!”
Seeing how taken she was with it, the vendor preened with satisfaction. “That one’s a hand-carried lantern. Over there, the water lilies and spring peach blossoms are river lanterns, meant for releasing on the water. And these are just the small stuff—I’ve got sky lanterns for releasing prayers to heaven back at my house too!”
As he spoke, he suddenly remembered that it was this very woman who had ruined his business, and launched into cursing again. “If you hadn’t knocked over my stall and cost me my spot, I’d have sold all this by midnight, and my father would’ve brought the sky lanterns out to Tongzi Lane in the second half of the night—I’d have made a fortune! By rights, you owe me for the money I’d have made selling those sky lanterns too! Don’t you dally—hurry up and pay me back!”
“Sky lanterns too?” A’Jiu said, startled.
She turned to Yun Xi. “A’Ting, didn’t you always love watching people release sky lanterns back when we celebrated festivals in the northern frontier? Such a shame there weren’t many people skilled at making lanterns up there, and their craftsmanship was nowhere near as good as here in Jinling.”
Cheng Chang asked the vendor, “Are all your sky lanterns at your home?”
“Reporting to my lord, yes,” the vendor said. By now he’d realized that this painting-like official standing before him clearly knew Yun Xi and the others, so hearing the question, he quickly added, “My home is just on the western outskirts of the city, a short walk out through the western gate. Would you like to come take a look, my lord?”
Cheng Chang glanced at Yun Xi and saw that, like A’Jiu, she was studying the lanterns on the vendor’s cart with great interest. He gave a soft “Mm” and said, “Let’s go take a look.”
There was no curfew on the night of the Lantern Festival, and the city gates stayed open through the night. Walking along the Qinhuai for about the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, they arrived at the vendor’s home.
The courtyard was filled with sky lanterns—at a glance, there must have been nearly a hundred of them, each painted with patterns, red at the top and pale blue below, the texture clearly visible, like flower buds not yet in bloom.
The Great Sui favored lanterns, and the vendor’s family had made lanterns for generations. Several brothers in the family relied on this trade for their livelihood, and when business was good, it not only supported the whole extended family but left them with a comfortable surplus by year’s end.
The vendor said, “Though people do buy lanterns for the Flower Festival and the Autumn Festival too, the night of the Lantern Festival is by far the best time to sell them. Just for my own family—most of the lanterns we make all year are meant to be sold today.”
As the saying goes: no business for half the year, but that one sale keeps you fed for the rest of it.
Cheng Chang nodded and said to Zhang Dahu, “Go borrow a few handcarts.”
Then he turned back to the vendor. “Work it out—this whole courtyard of sky lanterns, plus the hand lanterns and river lanterns from your stall tonight, how much in total?”
“This…” The vendor looked around, making a rough estimate. “All together, it’d come to about fifty taels.”
Cheng Chang asked Sun Haiping, “Do you have the silver on you?”
“I do, I do.”
Cheng Chang nodded and gestured at the sky lanterns filling the courtyard. “Buy them all.”
Hearing this, Yun Xi was startled for a moment, then said hurriedly, “Third Young Master, there’s no need—I’ll pay him back myself—”
As she spoke, she quickly reached for the pouch at her waist.
Cheng Chang stopped her with a smile. “Let me.”
In the time it took for this exchange, Sun Haiping had already finished paying, and Zhang Dahu had borrowed handcarts from nearby officers. Together, they loaded the entire courtyard of lanterns onto the carts and pushed them all the way to the banks of the Qinhuai.
Between the hand lanterns, river lanterns, and sky lanterns on the carts, there were several hundred in total—far more than the few of them could release in a single night, even working through till dawn. Fortunately, though this was the outskirts of the city, there were still plenty of people by the Qinhuai making festival wishes.
Cheng Chang said, “Let’s give the lanterns out to people.”
Sun Haiping and Zhang Dahu agreed and pushed the carts over. The children playing by the riverside, seeing someone giving out lanterns, immediately swarmed over, crowding around Sun Haiping and Zhang Dahu to ask for one. Watching them play so happily, A’Jiu went over to join in the fun as well.
Custom on the Lantern Festival dictated that river lanterns be released first, followed by sky lanterns.
Once people young and old had received their lanterns, they set them down one after another along the banks of the Qinhuai, and in an instant the river’s surface bloomed with points of light.
Yun Xi watched for a while, then drew her gaze back. She hesitated, unsure how to bring it up with Cheng Chang. She had meant to mention the matter of the lanterns and return the silver to him, but having already brought it up once before, to press the matter again would only make her seem petty. After thinking it over, she finally asked something unrelated instead. “Tonight is the Lantern Festival—why is the Third Young Master on duty at the western station?”
Cheng Chang said flatly, “I’m not on duty. It was either this, or go to the palace banquet, and I didn’t want to go.”
Attending the palace banquet would mean sitting with the Grand Empress Dowager, and the Grand Empress Dowager would inevitably seat Yu Ling right beside him. Yu Ling, though proper in her conduct and measured in her manner, simply wasn’t someone he cared for—and since he didn’t care for her, better to avoid the whole matter entirely.
So he’d simply come to hide away in the duty chamber for some peace, and besides, having received a hint from Wei Jie last time, this was a good opportunity to go back over the case of Prince Yun’s disaster relief funds.
Once Sun Haiping and the others had finished handing out the river lanterns, Zhang Dahu came back pushing the cart of sky lanterns. Cheng Chang casually took one from the cart and handed it to Yun Xi. “Aren’t you going to make a wish?”
Yun Xi took it.
The sky lantern was nearly half her own height.
Strangely, she’d once held so many wishes—some within easy reach, others impossibly distant. But now, with him standing right beside her, the hardest and most distant one seemed to have already come true. All that remained were just a scattered few.
Yun Xi lowered her eyes to look at the lantern in her hands and said with a small smile, “I don’t have much to wish for. I just hope that everyone I care about, and everyone who cares about me, stays safe and well.” She paused. “And the Third Young Master too—I hope you stay safe and well.”
With that, she took out her fire-striker, reached it into the lantern, and lit the wick.
Firelight bloomed within the lantern, casting the paper walls in a vivid glow.
As if remembering something, she said, “Oh, that reminds me—Mao Jiu’s final clue, how is your investigation going, Third Young Master? It’s been quite a while now.”
Cheng Chang said, “I’ve made some headway.”
He paused briefly, as if catching a hint of something else in Yun Xi’s words, then suddenly said, “His Majesty doesn’t want me getting too close to you, but I’m also unwilling to let him force a match on me. Around the New Year, he was watching me too closely, so I had no choice but to stay away from you all this time.”
Hearing this, Yun Xi’s hands froze mid-motion.
After a moment, she calmed herself, thinking she’d probably misread his meaning—that the Third Young Master saying he wanted to come see her was likely only about investigating the matter of the “Noble One.”
He had mentioned before wanting to investigate it together with her.
The sky lantern in her hands was now fully lit. The night wind swept past, and the flame flickered and roared.
Yun Xi closed her eyes and silently made her wish, then lifted the lantern upward. Carried by the wind, it slowly rose into the sky.
Many others by the riverside had already released their sky lanterns as well. Yun Xi tilted her head back to look—countless lanterns filled the sky, rising densely upward, like a thousand stars scattering across the world, heaven and earth bathed in fire.
“It’s so beautiful,” Yun Xi said. “Back when I was in the northern frontier, I loved nothing more than releasing sky lanterns with my brother. I always thought—if there could be many, many sky lanterns released together like this, it would be truly beautiful.”
Cheng Chang turned his face to look at Yun Xi. Her eyes were bright and radiant, as if any random lantern-light reflected in them could illuminate the whole world.
Across two lifetimes, he had never met anyone so pure and forthright.
“I bought all these lanterns,” he said with a faint smile, “just to release them for you to see.”