Autumn gave way to winter, the weather turning cold. Across the plains, merchant caravans came in waves, then departed in waves.

In the southwest, in the territory administered by what was called the Huaxia People’s Government, the workshops around several major cities were expanding at a visibly rapid pace. Simple and elaborate waystations alike grew more prosperous with the flow of merchants, and the surrounding villages, anchored to the roads, began forming into ever more distinct population centers.

The unrest and grand gatherings that had taken place in Chengdu back in the seventh and eighth months had since brought the southwest a huge wave of commercial orders. Ordinary merchants, having witnessed the bustle of Chengdu, mostly opted for simple cash transactions, while representatives sent by the various warlords and great clans to attend the ceremonies negotiated far larger-scale trade deals with the Huaxia Army — beyond the first batch of quality military supplies, these included extensive technology transfer agreements to be carried out gradually over the following year or two.

For these warlords and great clans, the two types of deals each had their own advantages and drawbacks. Buying the Huaxia Army’s cannons, guns, and finely-forged blades meant getting immediate use out of whatever they purchased, piece by piece. Technology transfer, on the other hand, required the Huaxia Army to send skilled workers as instructors, training an entire workforce from the ground up — from workshop construction to production-line management. This came at a higher price and took longer, but the benefit was that afterward they’d have their own capability, no longer dependent on staying on good terms with the Huaxia Army.

At this point the outside world found itself in the aftermath of the Wu Dynasty’s collapse, still largely intact in name only, dissolved not long ago; every emerging warlord and faction was still in a sensitive period of adjustment. Some, realizing the Wu court no longer held any real authority over them, had begun taking their fate into their own hands by force of arms; some prominent clans had begun stepping out from behind the scenes; ambitious sons of noble houses were preparing to take up responsibility for the realm; and people who had endured untold suffering through the chaos had begun crying out, “Are kings and generals and ministers born to their stations?” Meanwhile, some local officials still waited for the return of the Wu emperor — but who was merely shouting slogans and who genuinely meant it would take time to reveal itself.

In such chaotic, complicated transitional times, any ruler unable to guarantee his people’s next meal might well pick up arms and start raiding his neighbors for food. Buying up a batch of weapons and cannons from the southwest was, therefore, the most reliable way to survive this age of chaos — or so, at least, ran the standard pitch from the Huaxia Army’s trade officials.

Since the southwest had only just come out of war, materials and production lines remained tight, and weapon orders were filled strictly on a first-come, first-served basis — though those able to supply large quantities of materials, trading metal for cannons, received some priority.

Among these, the well-connected and ambitious Liu Guangshi became the Huaxia Army’s very first major client, placing the largest order of military supplies using vast quantities of iron, copper, grain, and ore. Once this order was finalized and reported up the chain, even Ning Yi — who had seen plenty in his time and had just taken up the chairmanship at the August congress — couldn’t help but marvel: “Now that’s generous, that’s bold — if Liu Guangshi wants to prosper, he deserves to be the one on top…”

He said it half-jokingly, as if ready to hand over his own top position just to bring in a few more orders like that.

Of course, the orders on hand were already more than enough. Counting from Liu Guangshi on down, orders and letters of intent focused mainly on military production would keep the Huaxia Army’s current manufacturing plans booked solid for the next two years.

Beyond material goods, the methods of technology transfer varied widely. Some sent their own people to be trained by Huaxia Army technicians on-site, though this approach suffered from a lack of supporting infrastructure, requiring personnel to be trained from scratch, which took longer. Others gathered reliable people locally, or sent family members directly to Chengdu, placing them in factories under contract for training — this took some travel time but produced skilled workers faster. Still others wanted to recruit and train people locally in Chengdu and then take them away afterward, though the Huaxia Army made no guarantee those trainees would actually follow through once trained…

Naturally, the more personalized and complex the training arrangement, the higher the cost. This, too, was only reasonable.

Liu Guangshi had also purchased several of the most expensive and critical military technologies — at least on paper, he would end up replicating the Huaxia Army’s entire military-industrial complex, save for rockets. Though such an order would nearly empty his coffers, it also meant that surrounding warlords would, within a few years, have no choice but to defer to him. Even Ning Yi, meeting with the delegation that included Yan Daolun and Yu Hezhong, greeted them all with unusually warm smiles.

Such commerce flowed in both directions. From the ninth month on, the road and river trade route between Chengdu and Jiange saw a constant stream of carts and boats, and the rugged mountain paths and plank roads near Jiange had been carefully widened and reinforced twofold by the Huaxia Army’s engineering corps. The waterway out of Sichuan grew even busier — large and small vessels crowded the Jialing River, and shipyards up and down the river rushed to speed up production.

Nearby forces of every size were now busy shipping goods into the southwest — the sooner goods arrived, the sooner cannons could be shipped out, and once cannons were shipped out, whether for suppressing bandits or defending against them, one gained an edge. This line of reasoning from the Huaxia Army’s trade officials was sound enough — no one found it absurd. No one believed themselves mad, but who knew whether the neighbor next door might suddenly lose their mind? With the emperor no longer governing anything, all anyone could truly rely on was the weapon in their own hand.

Alongside this booming open trade, black-market dealings and smuggling gradually took root as well. Even outside official trade caravans, if someone could smuggle new-style guns and cannons out of the southwest, people like Dai Mengwei, who couldn’t trade directly with the Huaxia Army, were more than happy to buy them up — and shipping them to Lin’an to sell to Wu Qimei might fetch an even better price. The reason it remained merely a “might” was that not enough time had yet passed for a round trip to Lin’an, so no one yet knew how reliable Wu Qimei’s word actually was.

This tremendous boom brought with it tremendous disruption and disorder, so much so that from the eighth month onward, Ning Yi had remained stationed in Chengdu, personally overseeing the gradual stabilization of the whole situation, while the Huaxia Army carried out several rounds of harsh internal purges among its officials.

After the great victory came the distribution of rewards, and with the region suddenly thrust into the spotlight of the entire realm, subject to all manner of temptation and flattery, a first wave of opportunists had begun reaching for what wasn’t theirs. Just as he’d said at the earlier meetings, Ning Yi made examples of them — punishments ranging from execution to imprisonment, and every offender stripped of position down to the last rank.

By this process, it was only by mid-twelfth month that Ning Yi finally felt able to temporarily hand off Chengdu — now largely on track and capable of running itself under the officials he’d installed. He returned to Zhang Village on the twentieth of the twelfth month, intending to spend the Little New Year with his family.

The carriage rolled along the roads across the plains. Winter in the southwest rarely brought snow, though the temperature had dropped noticeably nonetheless. Sitting in the carriage, with a rare moment to himself, Ning Yi felt the weight of exhaustion.

Lately he’d found himself thinking more and more, “why bother with all this,” because the rhythm of his work had grown ever closer to that of his previous life — meetings, inspections, negotiations, the constant weighing of people’s hearts — every day running nonstop. With Chengdu’s situation still unsettled, none of his family besides Xigua could easily come over, and as his own position grew ever more powerful, combined with his naturally domineering working style — meticulous during the founding period, perhaps, but once things were running smoothly, falling into a “you don’t need to understand me, just look up to me” sort of attitude — he couldn’t help but reflect, on occasion, that these days he wasn’t so different from his past life after all.

He arrived home that afternoon. Zhang Village’s school hadn’t yet begun its winter break, so several of the children — Yun Zhu, Jin’er, and others — were still at school. As he stepped down from the carriage at the courtyard gate, he saw a figure waving from the hillside not far off — Hongti, who’d spent these recent days guarding Zhang Village’s safety. She wore a camouflage-patterned uniform, and even from a distance, the smile on her face was unmistakable. Ning Yi waved back with exaggerated enthusiasm, then gestured for her to come over quickly.

Hongti pointed toward the courtyard: go on in first.

The outer courtyard was empty, but stepping into the inner courtyard, he found two figures seated at a small table, sorting vegetables. Su Tan’er wore a red-patterned dress over white, a red cape draped over her back, her hair pulled into a long ponytail — a girlish style that struck him, on reflection, as oddly familiar. He thought about it and realized: this was exactly how she’d been dressed, many years ago, the first time he woke from unconsciousness and met his runaway wife for the first time.

Back then, wanting to give her strange new husband a proper show of strength while also hoping to make peace, she’d clearly put considerable thought into her outfit. Perhaps that was exactly why she still remembered it so well today.

Xiao Chan, sitting at the stone table, had already spotted him and waved. Tan’er turned to look, a smile spreading across her face. “How did it go?” Her face was still the same oval shape after all these years, though managing the household for so long had added a certain restrained wisdom and maturity to her brow. Sitting there in profile now, her long braid hanging down, she looked girlish again in a way. Ning Yi smiled, taking in the whole outfit.

“Looks like it’s nearly faded, and you’re still keeping it.”

“You remember this outfit, husband?”

“Couldn’t forget it.”

“I’d almost forgotten myself. When I fled from Jiangning, I made a point of bringing this along, and it’s been sitting in the wardrobe ever since — I aired it out again recently. I used to love this red cape so much. It’s gotten a bit fuzzy now.”

Ning Yi laughed. “I hear you’ve been striking terror into people lately in that red cape — the ones coming to attack thought you were the Blood Bodhisattva.”

He was referring to the various disturbances that had occurred around Zhang Village in the seventh and eighth months, when a group had come rushing over eager to target Ning Yi’s family and children. Most had been caught in the act, and when it came to dealing with them, one could always count on seeing Tan’er’s cold expression. Punishment here had always been carried out to the fullest extent of the law — anyone who caused serious injury was executed without exception, and anyone who caused property damage was sent off to work the mines alongside the Jurchen laborers, with no possibility of buying their way out with money. Most of these people would need to serve at least ten years of hard labor in the mines before they might be released, and many more would likely die from various accidents along the way.

And this was already the outcome after Ning Yi had talked her down. Tan’er was clever, more open-minded than most women on many matters — but when it came to anything touching her family, she was no better than the simplest landlord’s wife. A group of people causing trouble for her husband in Chengdu hadn’t been enough — they’d come all the way here trying to kill or kidnap the children at home. Left to her own instincts, anyone with such intentions deserved the slow death by a thousand cuts.

For this reason, during that period, she’d personally seen to every single incident that occurred. Ning Yi had insisted on following the letter of the law; she’d insisted the law be applied to its absolute maximum severity.

In late seventh month, while countless martial-world figures were still celebrating over the Chengdu affair, keeping themselves busy with it, those who rushed one after another toward Zhang Village had mostly done so with great enthusiasm. By the time the parade in the eighth month had wrapped up and the congress concluded, word of what happened at Zhang Village finally began to circulate — and every single person who had actually gone through with an attack had come to a bad end.

As for that woman who appeared at every scene like the King of Hell himself, rumor had rendered her exploits in vivid, dramatic detail. Everyone said this was the one known in bandit circles as “Blood Bodhisattva,” Ning Yi’s own wife — the same woman who had killed without mercy back at Lüliang Mountain, whose hand had even brought down Lin Zongwu himself, though after marriage she’d rarely taken action. Anyone going to Zhang Village this time had crossed this great master and paid the price.

In the martial world, only a handful had known of Hongti’s past exploits, since Zhu Ji’s publications had always steered clear of her. It was only after this Zhang Village affair blew up that people started digging the story out from the depths of memory, giving Hongti a proper dose of attention all over again.

Speaking of this, a flash of killing intent crossed Tan’er’s brow before she smiled. “I discussed it with Sister Ti — from now on, the nickname ‘Blood Bodhisattva’ belongs to me. She’s using a different one.”

“What’s she using?”

“Blood Grape,” Xiao Chan blurted out.

“…”

Tan’er burst out laughing, and Ning Yi stood stunned for a good long moment before pulling Xiao Chan close and planting a firm kiss on her cheek. “…Still… pretty cute, actually. That settles it then. Our household has one Blood Bodhisattva and one Blood Grape. ‘Grape’ sounds like a sidekick, but she’s actually the strongest fighter of the bunch — that works too.”

The three of them laughed as they teased the family’s most formidable yet mild-mannered fighter, and then Ning Yi began asking about the children at home.

By now, counting from Ning Ji on down, Yun Zhu’s eldest daughter Wenwen was twelve — quiet, bookish, and looking more and more like her mother’s spitting image when she smiled. Ning He’s temperament wasn’t especially competitive; at nine years old, he came across as an ordinary, somewhat dopey little boy. Without any outside pressure pushing him, he hadn’t shown even a hint of his mother Hongti’s martial gift, and his grades were only average — though perhaps in a life of peace, Hongti herself might never have become the world’s greatest fighter either, and Ning Yi had no intention of pushing his potential too hard.

Ning Ke, born the same year as Ning He, kept up her usual lively, helpful nature — she had the most friends and the best relationships in school, always concerned about this matter or that, and had taken on the roles of entertainment monitor and life monitor in her class. Only her enthusiasm for others’ affairs kept dragging down her own schoolwork, which greatly worried Jin’er. Jin’er, who always described herself as selfish, couldn’t understand why her own daughter turned out so foolishly generous.

Privately, though, Ning Yi thought he understood well enough. If young Jin’er hadn’t been sold off due to family poverty, hadn’t endured all those hardships, then today’s Ning Ke might well have simply been another version of her mother.

Seven-year-old Ning Shuang and Ning Ning had started first grade this year — the two of them, inseparable since infancy like conjoined twins, had always gotten along splendidly. Xigua’s daughter Ning Ning showed considerable talent for martial arts, though as a girl she preferred the sword over the saber, which had long troubled Xigua somewhat — though thinking back on how he himself had been brainwashed as a child into believing “a hairy chest makes a true hero” thanks to his own unreliable father, he’d come to terms with it. Beyond her martial gift, Ning Ning’s schoolwork was also excellent, reciting ancient poetry one after another, which delighted Xigua greatly — his daughter wasn’t foolish, and neither was he; he’d simply been led astray by an unreliable old man…

The one flaw in the otherwise accomplished Ning Ning was that she didn’t talk much — true to her name, she preferred quiet. Yun Zhu’s second daughter Ning Shuang, by contrast, often served as spokesperson for the two of them; whatever needed saying, Ning Shuang would usually say it, so she talked a bit more than her sister, though still less than most others. Perhaps having found the right friend so early in life meant she simply never needed much conversation at all.

The only mishap was that Ning Ning had recently taken a fall on the way home and chipped a front tooth. She hadn’t said anything about it, but she clearly minded a great deal.

“When you see her later, don’t tease her about the tooth. She’ll cry.” Tan’er gave this warning, evidently thinking Ning Yi was entirely capable of doing exactly that.

“Don’t worry, I’ll treat it like official business. Absolutely no laughing.” Ning Yi said this with a laugh, thinking that this whole situation felt exactly like a repeat of Xigua’s own childhood. Solemnly chipping her own front tooth…

Besides these younger children, Ning Ji’s recent state had also been a source of some worry. Perhaps because he’d gone off to war so young and witnessed death firsthand, his moods had never been entirely stable. Though skilled in the martial arts and good-looking, well liked among his younger siblings, these days his temperament had been steadily shifting from outgoing to withdrawn — especially since the tenth month, he’d sometimes sit on the rooftop lost in thought for long stretches, occasionally sighing, though no one knew what exactly weighed on him. He’d even started reading books lately.

Xiao Chan found this deeply unsettling — Little Ji reading books, of all things? She couldn’t help wondering if he was coming down with something, or whether one day he might just up and become a monk.

Of course, aside from these odd signs, his martial training hadn’t slackened in the slightest — he could even keep pace easily with some of the special-forces training in the army and the intelligence tradecraft drills at Zhu Ji. Both Hongti and Xigua agreed his future prospects were limitless.

“This is just the onset of adolescence — everyone goes through it, all a bit moody and full of strange ideas. Wenwen, Ning He, Ning Ke, they’ll all go through the same thing when they hit this age. It’ll settle down by the time they’re seventeen or eighteen.” Ning Yi offered this reassurance to Xiao Chan with the air of a self-styled education expert who understood children better than anyone alive.

Privately, he understood well enough — Ning Ji had his sights set on a bigger world, a bigger arena. If he couldn’t be kept at home, once he’d trained until seventeen or eighteen, they’d probably have to let him go out and see the world for himself. Of course, if by the time adolescence passed he no longer wanted to leave, that would be even better. For now, the most important thing was to play for time, having Hongti and Xigua give him plenty of challenges to keep him occupied, tell him it would still be a long while before he could go anywhere.

“But Ning Xi never went through anything like this…” Xiao Chan frowned.

“Ning Xi’s just simpleminded.”

Ning Yi said this thoughtlessly, and immediately caught a swat on the hand from Tan’er. “Don’t say that about him.”

Once they’d finished discussing the children, Hongti came in as well, and Ning Yi told them a bit about Chengdu — the various deals he’d made with different households, how he’d come out ahead in the negotiations — and about Zuo Wenhuai and the others, who’d left Chengdu at the end of the eighth month; going by travel time, they should have reached Fuzhou by now, though there was no telling what things looked like over there.

As they talked, Yun Zhu, Jin’er, and the children began trickling back one by one, everyone exchanging greetings and horseplay. Ning Ning, made to cry by her unreliable father, tried to run off to a corner where no one could see her, but Ning Yi scooped her up and wouldn’t let her go, so she buried her face — and her tears — against his chest instead.

At mealtime, Su Wenfang and Su Wenyu, the two brothers, also came by. Ning Yi asked about how the younger members of the Su family were faring after the family’s division of assets — there had been some protest from within the clan, of course, but a proper scolding from Su Tan’er, Su Wenfang, and Su Wending had put a stop to it.

In the past, old patriarch Su Yu had always worried the family’s children wouldn’t amount to much. Now the Su family’s foundation included not only Ning Yi and Tan’er, but also Su Wenfang, Su Wending, Su Wenyu, and Su Yanping, all of whom could hold their own independently — and the fourth generation already had promising members being groomed as well. There was simply no need to give a voice in family matters to those without the ability or the vision for it.

After the meal, Wenfang and Wenyu took their leave, and that evening the family gathered with the children to play for a while. Once everyone, children included, had gone to sleep, Ning Yi made his rounds upstairs and down, visiting from room to room, “corrupting good women” as he liked to joke. Not yet forty, well-trained in the martial arts, his body remained in excellent condition; he stayed up carousing well into the night. Once everyone, wives and children alike, had finally drifted off to sleep, he made one more round of the courtyard’s rooms, glancing in at the sleeping profiles of his wives and children, before settling onto the bench in the outer courtyard, sitting quietly with his thoughts.

Some time later, Tan’er came out from inside and brought him a jacket. “What are you thinking about?”

“Thinking about corrupting good women.”

“Don’t overdo it anymore — you’re not getting any younger. At this rate the good women will start corrupting you instead.”

Ning Yi laughed and pulled her into his arms.

“You know I’m different when I’m working than when I’m home, right?”

“Mm. Back then… by your own account, you were rather dashing.”

“Lately I’ve dealt with a few batches of people — some of them you knew too. Honestly, not much has changed from before. All these years, it’s either war that kills people, or the rectification campaigns that kill people, over and over again. The Huaxia Army keeps growing stronger, and when I talk to people about things, I find myself losing my temper more and more. Sometimes I really do wonder — when does it end?”

“Probably never ends…” Tan’er reached a hand out from his embrace and smoothed his brow, then settled quietly against his chest. “Back when they wanted to split up the Su clan, I wasn’t too pleased either, and the family made even more of a fuss. But afterward I got to thinking — what have we really been working toward, all this time? When I was a girl, all I wanted was to help Grandfather manage the household, and once someone capable came along, to hand the family over to them… and once I had, I hoped everyone could live well, that the family would have hope, something to look forward to…”

“…And now, what the Su family controls is ten times, a hundred times more than before. We’ve got hope, we’ve got prospects — but does it need to go to a thousand times, ten thousand times more from here? Will life really get that much better than it already is? Thinking about it, I’ve decided — this is enough. I watched them take the Su family’s benefits and keep wanting more, endlessly, and if it kept going they’d all turn into extravagant, dissolute heirs… so I put my foot down again, cut their monthly allowances significantly, and for anyone acting out of line at the factories, I won’t even let them draw pay! If Grandfather were still alive, he’d support what I’m doing… but you, husband, your situation is different from mine…”

“It’s a good thing, seeing things clearly like that.” Ning Yi held her close, letting out a sigh. “As for me… honestly… by now I really can’t let it go anymore. So many people who shouldn’t have died have died — fighting the Jurchen, reclaiming the Central Plains, who knows how much further we have to go, and in the end I might let all of them down. And in the middle of all this, I keep wondering if I’m slowly turning into a bad person myself…”

Tan’er’s head shifted against his chest. “Since ancient times, no history book has ever bothered labeling those who carry the whole world on their shoulders as ‘good’ or ‘bad.'”

“That’s not really what I meant, either…” Ning Yi paused, fell silent for a long moment, and finally just laughed. “Still, it’s good you’re all here. If not…”

Just then, someone seemed to peek in from outside, then quickly retreat. Ning Yi frowned and waved toward the doorway. “What is it? Bring it here.”

It was someone from the secretarial office, who came in holding a document. “It’s an urgent dispatch from Chengdu — though it’s not extremely pressing.”

“Give it here.”

The secretary handed the report to Ning Yi and turned to leave.

Tan’er said from beside him, “Should I go to bed, then?”

Ning Yi glanced at the report and shook his head. “Stay and sit with me a while. It’s nothing classified.”

“What’s it about, then…”

“The Jin state has a new emperor… Zonghan and Xiyin… remarkable, really.”

The news of Emperor Wanyan Dan’s ascension had reached them at the fastest possible speed — two months had already passed. The first reports were sparse, essentially just the Jin court’s own official announcement, but much of what lay beneath it could be inferred easily enough. Because this young emperor had taken the throne, the Jin state had, for now, avoided internal strife — which meant that when the Huaxia Army eventually moved against Jin, it might now take an extra year or two longer, or cost tens of thousands more lives.

The couple sat close together for a while, and Ning Yi gave Tan’er a rough summary of the General Staff’s analysis of the situation.

“By rights, the balance between the Jin state’s Eastern and Western Bureaus should have already been fragile enough to break. Didn’t Zhu Ji have any operations in the north?” Tan’er asked quietly.

“After the southwestern campaign ended, given the likely rise in hostility toward — even massacres of — Han people within Jin territory, I already ordered the intelligence network in the north to suspend all activity and go dormant to protect themselves. But before that order took effect, word reached us — too late — that Lu Mingfang gave his life sometime around the middle of this year…”

“Lu Mingfang… that whole Lu family…” A flash of sorrow crossed Tan’er’s face. She’d known Lu Yannian, back in the day.

“There’s no one left of the Lu family…”

“He went back before, didn’t he — why didn’t he leave any children behind?”

“Spending every season of the year in a place like that — who would want to bear his children? Honestly, he never wanted to either…”

The courtyard held a faint yellow lamplight, flickering. Compared to the heroes still fighting on in various far-flung places, whatever troubles he faced back here in the rear hardly amounted to much. The quiet atmosphere held for a while longer before Ning Yi let out a sigh.

“Do you still remember… Tang Minjie?”

“Of course I do, from back at Little Cangriver, when he studied under you, and came to help out at our house — the one who carried things, a bit on the heavier side, always smiling. Though when his eyes narrowed he had a real edge to him — the kind of man built for great things… He got into trouble later at Liangshan, and you sent him out…” Tan’er looked at him, hesitating a moment. “…Is he still out there… now?”

Ning Yi didn’t answer. He folded the report in his hand, leaned forward, and pressed his palm against his temple. “I just hope he can… stay level-headed…”

There was so much in this world that brought people nothing but pain.