It was not until the end of the wei hour that the ladies finally began taking their leave, one after another. Minglan climbed onto the day bed, rubbing her aching, smile-stiffened cheeks, and the moment she closed her eyes, she lost all consciousness of the world.

She had no idea how long she slept. In that hazy, drowsy state, a familiar pressure settled upon her abdomen and chest.

Minglan opened her eyes with complete composure. Looking out, she saw the sun already slanting far to the west. The man’s heavy frame was half-draped against her side — one thigh thrown across Minglan’s stomach, one arm crossing her chest, and his head nestled against her neck, breathing hot and moist gusts of air against her.

Minglan exhaled with difficulty. She first twisted her waist, then laboriously worked both arms free from beneath the thin blanket — as though hoisting a barbell — and levered the man’s arm up by two inches, then wriggled and squirmed and rolled herself off the day bed entirely. This whole sequence of maneuvers proceeded with practiced fluency.

She sniffed at her clothing and quickly retreated to the dressing room. Danju helped her let down her hair and loosen her garments; Xiaotao was busy heating water and wringing out towels. The two maids, seeing that Minglan’s expression was clearly aggrieved, exchanged a glance. Danju couldn’t help but say: “Xia Zhu and Xia He prepared the master’s bed just as you instructed — only who could have guessed…” Xiaotao, being more frank by nature, continued: “But who could have guessed the master would walk in and ask ‘Where is the Madam?’, then stagger over to the east chamber in a drunken haze.” Her tone was itself rather put-out.

Minglan gave a small sigh: “No need to say more — do I not already know?”

After washing up and changing, Minglan put on a clean inner garment, with a thin padded outer jacket of pale yellow embroidered with plum blossoms. She sat before the mirror to tidy herself up, then said to Xiaotao: “Go and call Xiao Quan and Xiao Shun — have them come and tell me what went on in the outer courtyard today.”

Xiaotao went to fetch them, and in a little while, the two boys arrived.

Gu Quan was quick and articulate; Gu Shun was steady and thorough. The younger one was roughly the equivalent of a fifth-grader; the older had barely started what would be middle school. Minglan gave them each a handful of fruits and asked her questions in a gentle manner. Gu Quan, grinning to reveal two cheerful little tiger teeth, went through everything one by one. Young as he was, he had a good memory, and he could tell her clearly: which officials had drunk too much and had to be carried home; which officials lost all decorum the moment they touched a drop of wine. Naturally, there were also those who held their liquor extremely well.

The Duan brothers proved to be virtually bottomless — fully half the guests who had to be carried out were ones the two of them had gotten drunk. Among those: one General Gan, who had declared himself still vigorous in his old age and refused to retire, and who had reportedly been kept in conversation by Gu Tingye while being liberally plied with wine, until he ended up face-down in the wine crock.

General Bo, stroking his beard, had smiled and observed that at his age, one ought to be mindful of drinking in moderation.

“How old is General Gan exactly?” Minglan asked, curious — there were no standardized retirement ages in ancient times.

“He looked to be around fifty or sixty,” Gu Quan said vaguely. Gu Shun quietly filled in beside him: “This one heard that General Gan celebrated his sixtieth birthday in full just two years ago.”

Minglan nodded with satisfaction: Madam Gan was no older than forty or so. Unless she was a schoolmate of Gong Xuhua, she was almost certainly a second wife.

The banquet had been, in the main, a success. The wine and food were plentiful, and all the accessories — arrow-pot sets, sign tubes, drinking forfeits, and tokens — had been fully provided; even sobering tea and sobering pills had been prepared. What surprised Minglan was her own father and brother. She had expected the gathering to consist mostly of military men of active service or idle scions of noble houses, and had thought Sheng Hong and Changbai would have a rather dull time of it — yet the reality was precisely the opposite.

Not long into the banquet, the grave-faced Changbai had run into the even more grave-faced Fu Qinran, Right Court Deputy of the Court of State Ceremonial, and then the two of them had pulled in Qiu Shu — still languishing through his days at the Imperial Academy — and the three of them sat together and talked in solemn dignity. To any bystander, it would have looked very much like a memorial service.

As for Sheng Hong, he had “found a kindred spirit” in the Fifth Master. The two had talked about their years of bitter study in youth, about the tribulations of the imperial examinations, about the difficulties of being an official, and found themselves increasingly in accord as they spoke. The Fifth Master had always revered and admired those with true scholarly attainment; yet the majority of officials who had come through the legitimate examination route tended to look down on those of aristocratic lineage. Sheng Hong, however, was the sort of person who excelled at social navigation — his manner was polished and refined, his bearing dignified — and whatever he truly thought of the person opposite him, he could always project an air of genuine warmth and understanding.

The Fifth Master told him that he was ten-odd years his senior, and yet had repeatedly failed the examinations — a matter of great shame. But Sheng Hong immediately and sincerely pushed back: when it comes to literary arts, there is no definitive first place — how can one measure worth by success or failure alone? Perhaps the examiner simply happened not to favor your prose style, and then he promptly cited any number of historical examples of great literary men who had struggled in the examinations.

The Fifth Master’s eyes grew momentarily warm with emotion. He promptly took Sheng Hong to his heart as a bosom friend.

Minglan, listening to all this, thought privately: Of course — without two real brushes to your name, how could anyone have navigated officialdom as smoothly as Sheng Hong has done for so long? Any number of seasoned veteran officials have been taken in by him.

Then the two of them moved on to the topic of education. In the matter of distinguished ancestors, Sheng Hong naturally could not compare with the Fifth Master. But when it came to children and grandchildren, the Fifth Master couldn’t have caught up with Sheng Hong even in a sapphire blue sports car. As they talked on, the Fifth Master gradually began to feel a growing sense of inferiority; rather like the parent of the lowest-performing student at a school parents’ evening, in the presence of the parent of a top-ranking student — unable to hold their head up.

Minglan laughed as she listened, shoulders shaking as she cradled her teacup.

By the time Gu Tingye woke up, Minglan was still not done laughing, and continued recounting the story with great amusement as she arranged for the evening meal to be set out. By now it was already close to the end of the you hour. Having drunk heavily at midday, both of them felt somewhat unsettled in the stomach. Minglan had the kitchen prepare a mung bean and almond congee, alongside seasoned braised beef with sesame-seed flatbreads, a few light and refreshing vegetable dishes, and the pickled side dishes that Madam Ge was famous for — dressed with sesame oil, and a drop or two of fragrant vinegar — which made for excellent accompaniments to the rice.

In truth, Gu Tingye had not eaten much of substance at midday either. He started out feeling listless, but after a few bites his appetite returned in full force. He slurped down two large bowls of congee and ate five soft, tender beef-filled flatbreads, and felt considerably better. Hearing Minglan’s account, he couldn’t help but laugh as well.

“Those cousins of mine are in for some trouble now!” Gu Tingye’s deep eyes glimmered with barely concealed schadenfreude. Then his expression shifted, and his voice turned cold: “Though there’s no need to worry on their behalf — my Fifth Aunt has no shortage of ways to get herself out of a fix.”

Minglan caught the sarcasm in his words. Over these past days, she had also heard a good deal about the Ningyuan Marquis’s household from the various nannies. The sons of the Fifth Branch were particularly hopeless — the eldest, Gu Tingyang, especially so. Before his marriage, he had already fathered a son and daughter with a serving maid, and had kept mistresses and chased after entertainers on the outside; there was hardly a form of debauchery he hadn’t engaged in. But every time the Fifth Master flew into a rage, the Fifth Mistress would always shield him.

Alas — a child who has a mother is a treasure, Minglan thought privately, and stole a glance at Gu Tingye.

“Ahem…” Minglan changed the subject. “I’m planning to go and pay my respects to the old Mistress first thing tomorrow morning, and bring Rong Jie’er and the others back at the same time. What do you think?”

Gu Tingye’s brow furrowed. He set down his bowl and chopsticks: “That soon?”

“Sooner or later it’s all the same — why give people more occasion to talk?” Minglan had the servants bring a basin of water and fresh tea, and smiled: “Also, starting tomorrow, I intend to go to the Marquis’s household to pay my respects to the old Mistress every five or six days.”

Gu Tingye’s brow furrowed even more severely, creasing in the middle. His expression was one of displeasure: “What’s the point? It only adds to the trouble. Keeping this kind of distance is perfectly fine.”

Minglan could tell it wasn’t quite right, and gently offered her reasoning: “If one makes the same mistake as another person out of spite, it’s like throwing away a jade for the sake of a twig. One would lose all standing to say anything about the other at all.”

“Who said that?” Gu Tingye turned the phrase over twice, looking at her with interest. “Your grandmother, was it?”

Minglan laughed: “No — it was my father.” She thought privately: how do you know it isn’t something she came up with herself?

Gu Tingye looked mildly surprised, then gave a light laugh: “My father-in-law has a discerning mind.” Sheng Hong’s way of persuading people was rather straightforward — no lofty talk of propriety or moral virtue, just a clear-headed analysis of consequences.

Xia Zhu and Xiaotao came in carrying tea trays and copper basins of warm water. Minglan told them to set things down and go, then — smiling as she wrung out a towel and handed it over — she said: “When I was little, one time a group of us all went to listen to Master Zhuang tell stories and anecdotes, and Fourth Sister deliberately spilled ink on my new dress. I was furious, so while I was changing, I snuck into the kitchen and stole two pieces of fatty pork — thick chunks of it — and smeared them under the cushion on Fourth Sister’s chair…”

Before she could finish, Gu Tingye buried his face in the hot towel and started sniggering. Seeing Minglan glaring at him with those large, clear black-and-white eyes, he quickly raised a thumb and declared loudly: “Well done!” Then he pulled Minglan into his lap, flicked her on the nose, and laughed: “And then what happened?”

Minglan, flushed and yet rather pleased with herself, said vaguely: “Fourth Sister wasn’t expecting it — the moment she sat down, she went whoosh and slid right off the chair onto the floor, landing flat on her back with all four limbs in the air.”

— The truly crucial part was that Qi Heng had been there. Molan, whose entire appeal rested on her image as refined and elegant, had fallen into the position of a frog flat on its back. Young Lord Qi’s expression of open-mouthed shock at the time was one Molan wanted to bury herself to escape, and for quite a long while afterward, she couldn’t bring herself to appear before Qi Heng.

Gu Tingye chuckled continuously. Seeing Minglan suppressing her own glee, he couldn’t resist biting her small, round earlobe, then said with a grin through his teeth: “You rotten little troublemaker!” He then reached up to rub her ear. “And afterward? Were you punished?”

Minglan nodded honestly: “Fortunately, Fifth Sister testified on my behalf. Fourth Sister and I each had to copy a passage of text ten times as punishment. That was when Father said those words to me.”

She omitted a few things. In truth, would Sheng Hong have believed Rulan’s account alone? Minglan had originally planned to ask Changbai to testify on her behalf — but who would have known that Qi Heng had gone straight to Sheng Hong the moment class let out, and in a roundabout yet perfectly clear way laid out exactly what had happened, making plain that it was Molan who had deliberately targeted her younger sister first. Only then had Sheng Hong given both of them fair and equal punishment. Thinking of this, a small, dull ache stirred in her chest.

She had long perceived that Qi Heng had, since quite early on, seen through exactly what Molan was doing — Pingning Junzhu’s upbringing had been very effective in this regard. It was simply that the manner in which he had been raised led him to conceal all his scorn and distaste behind an elegant, warm smile.

Most ironic of all: Molan had never known, and continued right to the end to put on airs and perform for the benefit of the Qi family.

A kind of inexplicable compassion came into Minglan’s smile. She looped her arms around Gu Tingye’s neck and said softly: “We live so close to the Ningyuan Marquis’s household, and yet we don’t go to pay our respects — that would be a failing on our part. So I have to go.”

Gu Tingye still looked displeased, but gave a reluctant nod. Minglan smiled: “Don’t worry — I’ve done the calculations, actually. Take the Lu family, for instance: ever since old Lord Lu moved into the imperially-granted residence, Lord Lu and his wife have continued living in the old family home to look after it, and go to pay their parents’ respects once every five days. And the Han family — though their parents are still living, they’ve set up separate households for the second and third sons; those daughters-in-law go to pay respects once every half month. I thought it over, and since we have our own residence, yet live so close, and are not of the direct line — I thought we might as well follow the Lu family’s arrangement.”

Gu Tingye watched her with her look of someone busily calculating accounts, and couldn’t help but smile. He lowered his voice: “I hadn’t wanted you to wade into all that murky water to begin with. When we first received the imperial grant for this residence, I didn’t think this far ahead…” His tone carried a trace of quiet apology.

“Oh, come now — I’m not made of fragile porcelain.” Minglan teased, assuming the air of someone displaying great selflessness and righteousness. “As the saying goes — wherever there are people, there is the jianghu. And the jianghu — when has the jianghu ever been free of murky waters?”

Warmth spread through Gu Tingye’s chest. He cradled Minglan’s face in his hands and said softly: “That line — please tell me it didn’t come from my esteemed father-in-law as well…” He paused. “Do you admire your father greatly?” But from what he had heard, Minglan was not the daughter Sheng Hong had favored most.

Minglan couldn’t quite deny it. She thought for a moment, then said with candor: “Grandmother has always felt that Father favors the others. But I think Father is a good father. When I was small, when the jade pendants that had been given to me were confiscated halfway by my sisters, Father would at least give me a large gold lock in exchange. No matter how busy he was, he made a point of coming to check on me every month…”

After Minglan had moved into the Mu Cang Study in particular, whenever Sheng Hong saw her, he would always ask how she was getting on, whether she lacked any clothing or necessities, whether the servants attended to her properly — all said in Wang Shi’s presence, as a pointed reminder to Wang Shi.

Sheng Hong was of concubine-born origins himself, and understood very well the tricks of bullying servants, of deceiving the master and concealing things from above. He would never simply hear Wang Shi say “all the children are fine” and consider the matter closed. Whenever any of the children reported that a particular maid or nanny had been remiss in her duties, that person would be removed. Even before Yao Yiyi had transmigrated into existence, Wang Shi and Lin Yiniang had already clashed secretly several times, and it was because of this dynamic that Lin Yiniang had managed to clear out Wang Shi’s people from beside Changfeng and Molan, replacing them with her own.

Of course, only Lin Yiniang had the nerve for that. Xiang Yiniang certainly didn’t.

Under Sheng Hong’s constraints, the concubine-born children of the Sheng household all grew up in reasonable safety and with a decent standard of living. Though he was often given to partiality, compared to the great many negligent and selfish men who bothered only to father children but not raise them, he was considerably better. In this era, he was, in truth, not a bad father.

Gu Tingye looked at Minglan’s expression of nostalgic recollection, the corners of her lips curled in a playful, lingering smile. He hesitated a moment, but finally opened his mouth: “My father… he was extremely strict with me. I was unruly as a child and received his discipline more than a few times.”

Minglan was startled. It was the first time she had ever heard him speak of the late old Marquis. She said softly: “Was your late father kind to you?”

“…Kind? That’s difficult to say.” Gu Tingye paused for a long time before saying, in an even tone: “The old master was most fond of reprimanding and punishing me. In the depths of winter, when Elder Brother and my younger brothers could stay inside by the fire, I had to get up early every day and train. Yet… among all the brothers, only I was taught martial arts by him personally — each stance, each move, hand by hand. But the slightest error meant a beating, and no one who intervened could stop him.”

“And what of Elder Brother and your younger brothers?” Minglan asked gently.

“Elder Brother was frail — that goes without saying. The younger brothers were trained by the guards in the outer courtyard.”

Minglan felt she could not in good conscience disagree with what was plainly true, and said quietly: “Your father did it for your own good. Mm… and was the old Mistress kind to you?” In truth, Gu Tingye understood this perfectly well — it was simply a matter of being unable to get past that barrier within himself.

“Kind.” Gu Tingye answered with great speed. The corner of his mouth curved into a sardonic line. “Every time I quarreled with my younger brothers over something, she would always take my side. Any household expenses I asked for, she never refused. The maids in my courtyard were not only the most in number — they were also the most presentable. Whenever I did something wrong, she was always the first to come forward and defend me. The entire Marquis’s household praised her for being gentle, generous, kind, and magnanimous.”

Minglan inwardly gave a cold sniff: the same old tactics — and not even an original variation.

Gu Tingye laughed with a cold edge: “None of that was particularly subtle — most people could have worked it out. After I grew older, I started to feel something was off. But by that time, the old master had already stopped trusting me; any conversation between us would turn into an argument after just a few exchanges. Then later, Nanny Chang came to find me, and told me the truth about my birth mother…” He suddenly drew a sharp breath, a flash of anger crossing his face. “Only then did I truly feel hatred! After all those years — the old master had known all along, and yet said nothing. He allowed those wretched servants to mock my birth mother’s low origins behind my back. He allowed my Fourth Uncle and Fifth Uncle to haul my mother’s family into every scolding they gave me!”

“…Your anger has its reasons,” Minglan said, sighing.

Once the words had been spoken, the rest came more easily. Gu Tingye said with self-mockery: “I was out making trouble in the world outside, and when the old master heard of it and called me in to reprimand me, I just laughed coldly at him and said, ‘Without my mother’s money, your earldom might not have been preserved — this entire household has lived well all these years on my mother’s account, and now you give yourself airs at me.’ The old master was knocked flat by that. The whole family condemned me for unfilial conduct. But I had irritated the old master more than once, that much was true.”

Minglan combed her fingers through his coarse, dense hair, and said nothing.

“I didn’t even see him at the last.” Gu Tingye stated it quietly, his head resting against Minglan’s chest — the warmth and softness of it. “Day and night I didn’t dare close my eyes. I exhausted six fine horses to death, and still didn’t make it back in time.”

His voice was very even, yet Minglan felt a faint, concealed ache.

The emotions of human beings are perhaps the most troublesome things in this world — being without logic, no instrument, however precise, can measure them. The old Marquis may not have loved Bai Shi — but toward this second son of his, he carried guilt. Yet with the weight of his bond to Da Qin Shi before him, and the reputation of the family behind him, he had been unable to make any open gesture of amends.

Minglan was no expert in matters of the heart, and didn’t know what to say. She could only offer gently: “Your father passed away so many years ago, and I never had the chance to present him with a cup of tea. Why don’t you tell me some things about him?”

Gu Tingye’s gaze grew distant for a long moment. After a while, he said: “…A morning of thick, drifting snow — I was about seven or eight, I think. Shivering with cold, longing to crawl back into bed and stay warm. But the old master still wouldn’t let up. I was swinging my white wax spear handle, cursing inwardly the whole time. The snow was heavy, falling thickly, settling on the old master’s head, his eyebrows, his shoulders — until half his body was white. And he still stood there, motionless, watching my every movement with an unwavering gaze. He said: you are different from your brothers — you must rely on yourself.”

In the dim warmth of the candle, his handsome face held a peculiar and wistful quality.

All Minglan could do was sigh. The two of them sat in silence for a while. Minglan was beginning to feel drowsy, and was considering whether to give him some time alone, when Gu Tingye suddenly gave a soft laugh. In the stillness of the room, that laugh carried a rather unsettling edge.

An expression of fierce intensity came over his face, and the soft laugh turned cold: “Hmph. On what grounds?!”

He turned to look at Minglan, his voice sharp and merciless: “On what grounds should I be the one to lick blood from a blade’s edge to carve out a life for myself, while they are born precious enough to sit comfortably atop inherited rank and wait for the blessings of their ancestors? Everyone in the Gu family has lived well and with dignity all these years on Bai Family’s silver — on what grounds should I be the one to tuck my tail and live like a stray dog, drifting without a home?!”

Gu Tingye sprang abruptly to his feet. His thick, disheveled black hair fell loose against the pale blue satin of his robe, casting a stark and vivid contrast. His handsome features were lost in the shadow of the candlelight. He stood there, tall and straight in the center of the room, his entire bearing saturated with a ferocious, gnashing hatred — like a beast prepared to devour.

He laughed coldly without stopping, his voice like clashing iron: “There is a head to every grievance, and a debtor for every debt! If they had their way, I would have spent this entire life disappearing without a sound — and then this account would simply never have been settled. But as it happens, I have risen. That is Heaven telling me to come and collect what is owed!”

Minglan pressed herself further back into the armchair, her whole body hidden beneath the shadow cast by his tall frame, her heart beating with a quiet, wary dread. She very much wanted to say, “Perhaps Heaven had something else in mind — perhaps you’ve misread the message” — but she didn’t dare open her mouth. She knew: what he craved was not really the earldom or the money — it was simply that his nature was proud and unyielding, and he could not swallow this grievance, no matter how he tried. But then again — how many people could face this kind of wrong and remain unmoved?

At that moment, a thought suddenly rose in Minglan’s mind. She raised her head abruptly, and asked, testing the ground: “What is it you intend to do?”

Gu Tingye turned. His eyes were already entirely clear and composed. With an elegant brushing of his robe hem, he leaned sideways and settled onto the day bed — once again the very picture of distinguished ease. He even smiled at her, warmly: “Don’t be afraid — I won’t do anything.”

Minglan sat still, looking at the man, full of puzzlement — and then, understanding settled over her. People were complex. She did not yet know him well — just as he did not yet know her well.