“The good stuff never comes true, but the bad sure does…”
Not long after the chaotic sounds reached them, it became clear something had gone wrong at the East Gate. Everyone on the street turned to look in that direction; among them were some refugees, who, not understanding what was happening, began to panic and speculate wildly about the commotion.
Lu A’Gui glanced around.
“Young Lady, Young Lord, get in the carriage, we’re heading back—the city gates might be closing… I need to go take a look over there. Liheng, the carriage will pass by the Su residence, why don’t you head back too—once something like this happens, there’s bound to be some panic.”
Ning Yi nodded. Lu A’Gui hurried off toward the city gate, while he climbed into the carriage with Zhou Pei and Zhou Junwu, and they drove back the way they’d come. Ning Yi sat beside the driver’s seat, while Zhou Pei and Zhou Junwu lifted the curtain to look out at the situation outside. Tensions in the city had been running high these past few days, and now the refugees had grown somewhat unruly; the road filled with arguing, cursing, and children crying, while soldiers and constables worked to maintain order—it looked chaotic, but no real disaster had broken out yet.
They made it home without incident. The Su residence, too, had already gone on alert, the gates now shut tight, with some people climbing ladders propped against the walls to peer out at the commotion. Everyone seemed a bit rattled. Juan’er was waiting near the main gate for him, and only then did he learn that Chan’er and the others were waiting by the side gate—Su Tan’er and the three maids had already made it home, and when the disturbance broke out outside, she’d called them over to wait; had Ning Yi not returned shortly after, they’d likely have organized the household staff to go out searching for him.
Before long, voices began rising from the street outside: “The gates are closing—!” The cry passed from person to person, gradually swelling into a wave of panic and confusion, the sunlight in the sky seeming to grow strangely pale…
That noon of the thirteenth day of the seventh month, amid wave after wave of unrest, Jiangning shut all four of its gates.
The root cause traced back to the approaching Ghost Festival—though the fifteenth was the actual observance, the Gates of the Underworld were said to open as early as the first of the month, giving ample reason for various rites of mourning throughout. The streets of Jiangning were already filled with paper offerings and mourning candles, while outside the walls were refugees who had, in many cases, lost family members. It was little wonder Su Tan’er and Lu A’Gui had both predicted the gates would surely close before the fifteenth.
Among the refugees outside the walls, however, were those sharp enough to see this coming as well. Those refugees who could make it into Jiangning in time would naturally fare better, but without proper documentation or identification, entry was simply not permitted—and once the gates closed, things would only grow harder for those left outside. So on the thirteenth, someone at the East Gate stirred up the refugees, urging them to rush the gate; as the chaos threatened to spiral further, the officials stationed there moved quickly to close it—a decision that had, in truth, already been settled on beforehand regardless.
Once the East Gate closed, the other three followed in short order.
The city’s blind panic didn’t last long; order was maintained well enough, though that evening Jiangning felt unusually subdued, people quietly burning paper money in their courtyards and along the streets. The occasional carriage or pedestrian passing by only added to the cold, desolate mood; households near the city walls could hear various sounds drifting in from beyond the gates.
By the next morning, aside from the fact that no one could pass through the gates anymore, everything seemed to return to something like normal. The Su household carried on in peaceful routine—waking, washing up, meals, reading, calligraphy practice, idle chatter as usual. That morning, while tidying Ning Yi’s bedding and cleaning his room, Xiao Chan brought up the matter of that Miss Nie again; Ning Yi answered with a few offhand remarks but didn’t dwell on it much—by now, the whole affair had lost most of its urgency anyway.
With more people staying inside the Su residence and fewer going out, the atmosphere grew livelier still. Children ran about everywhere, familiar and unfamiliar faces alike coming and going, chatting and visiting. The third and fourth days passed the same way, though people gradually grew used to the reality of the closed gates. Once the Ghost Festival had passed, business at the brothels and pleasure houses picked up even more, nightlife flourishing as ever, people going out in groups of three or five, spending freely, enjoying life with even more gusto than usual.
Meanwhile, the price of rice and grain in the city had risen to an outrageous degree. The authorities sold grain daily in limited quantities, while the great households, having hoarded their own stores, sold through black-market channels. Jiangning had no shortage of wealthy merchants, and so long as no major disorder broke out, the authorities couldn’t really crack down too forcefully—they simply applied enough pressure through appropriate means to make these great households give up a bit of their surplus, help maintain order in the city, and so on.
With the gates closed, the initial shockwaves inevitably rippled through the days that followed, and Su Tan’er seemed to grow even busier, what with the Ghost Festival ancestral rites adding to her workload with all manner of small tasks. She continued going to bed late most nights. One evening she dozed off partway through, and when Ning Yi came over to blow out the lamp, she stirred awake again, looked at him, sniffed, then smiled. “Going to sleep now…” This time it didn’t take long; a moment later, the lamp truly went out, and they settled in to rest.
On the evening of the seventeenth of the month, the two of them chatted in the second-floor corridor, Su Tan’er nibbling on some pastries Ning Yi had brought her. “Mm, the next couple of days should be fairly quiet—we’re planning to go out and distribute porridge and grain, help the refugees. Will you come along, Liheng?”
“You mean setting up food and having the refugees line up for it?”
“Mm, we prepare porridge and steamed buns, they line up and come through, each gets a small bowl of porridge and a bun—enough for one meal. Children get a share too. We closed the gates a few years back as well, and I went out to distribute then—putting things directly into their hands, hearing them say thank you, it felt good. There were a lot of people that time, but right now it’s still only been a few days, so there shouldn’t be too many—though fewer is a good thing too.” Su Tan’er nibbled at her pastry in small bites.
“Huh, you’re not patriotic, but you’re actually pretty soft-hearted…”
“I’m a woman, aren’t I—kindness toward the person right in front of me is something I can manage. A whole country’s worth of people, who’s to say who any of them even are?” Su Tan’er tilted her head back with a laugh, answering lightly. “So is husband coming tomorrow or not?”
“Yeah, I’ll come.”
“Good.”
The gates had only been closed four days; nothing had fully settled yet, plenty of things hadn’t become routine, plenty of others hadn’t even begun. Ning Yi had gone to check on Nie Yunzhu once; things seemed fine on that end for now, though these past few days hadn’t been the right time to go with her to Old Master Qin’s to decline the adoptive-daughter arrangement. Prince Kang’s household was surely busy too, and having only left the house that one time, Ning Yi naturally hadn’t crossed paths with them again—though Lu A’Gui had mentioned the old prince wanting to debate him on something, nothing had come of it for now, unsurprisingly.
That was about the extent of what was on his schedule for now—things might settle down over the next few days, and once those children had had their fill of fun, Ning Yi would probably have them over to the courtyard for a lesson or two. Going out tomorrow to do a bit of charity work was, to both him and Su Tan’er, a simple enough matter. At this point, hardly anyone could have known that the very next day, something would happen—unforeseen, and yet somehow as if it had been lying in wait all along, about to suddenly emerge…
…
Four days into the closed gates, tension in the city hadn’t risen all that much; those truly out of food entirely weren’t yet a large number. Still, word had gotten around that the Su family was holding a charity relief effort that day, and no shortage of refugees and beggars gathered at the small square near the Su residence.
The relief effort here looked much like what Ning Yi had once seen on television—people lining up in several queues, each getting a large ladle of porridge and a modest-sized steamed bun. Though the real hardship had only just begun, plenty of the refugees already looked gaunt and pale, wearing expressions of despair; some stood silent, others offered profuse thanks, and some murmured among themselves, pointing out that this one was the Su family’s second daughter, that one the young master who’d married in—for a merchant family, an act of charity like this naturally brought some reputation along with it, which was only to be expected.
Su Tan’er, of course, understood the reputational benefit of it all, though she also genuinely took pleasure in doing good, likely a facet of her naturally kind nature. For Ning Yi, though, his feelings were more complicated—on the darker side, he’d witnessed the deepest darkness, the most twisted injustices, the most warped corners of human nature; but on the lighter side, he’d also seen far fairer, more equitable public discourse and social atmospheres elsewhere. So the idea of feeling some sense of moral superiority from an act like this held no real meaning for him anymore—he simply treated it as something that needed doing, and did it.
The small square buzzed with noise. Partway through handing out the food, Su Tan’er drew closer to him. “Father’s here too.”
“Hm?” Ning Yi turned to look; a carriage was parting the crowd on one side of the square—it was Su Boyong, who’d gone out that morning and was now making his way back home, the carriage stopping beside the row of tables where the porridge was being served. Su Boyong came over and greeted Ning Yi and Su Tan’er.
Though father and daughter, the dynamic between Su Boyong and Su Tan’er never carried the usual warmth one might expect between them. Su Tan’er never acted the doting daughter around her father the way most women her age might, and Su Boyong himself always seemed a bit uncertain around her, unsure whether to show a fatherly warmth, a stern authority, or simply the manner of a professional businessman.
After the greetings, and a bit of small talk with Ning Yi, Su Boyong looked at Su Tan’er and offered a brief word of caution. “You haven’t looked well these past few days—rest when you can, don’t overwork yourself.” Su Tan’er nodded. “I know.”
Su Boyong then went to a nearby long table and personally began handing out steamed buns. Ning Yi stayed behind with Su Tan’er, one ladling porridge, the other handing out buns, working in tandem. Su Tan’er and her father’s relationship needed no further explanation; the two of them chatted idly here and there. At one point, something caught Ning Yi’s eye—a small commotion at the edge of one line.
It was the small queue just in front of Su Boyong. Someone had pushed forward, apparently trying to cut in line, causing a minor, seemingly ordinary disturbance. The Su family servants keeping order hadn’t reacted in time, and the man had already closed the distance. Su Boyong looked up, a steamed bun in hand; in the less-than-a-second that Ning Yi’s attention was on that spot, the two figures collided.
Blood sprayed out—the man had a knife in his hand and had stabbed Su Boyong once. Su Boyong staggered backward, and as he turned, the man struck again at his back, then turned and fled.
“Ah—!” Screams tore through the crowd, chaos spreading rapidly. Ning Yi flipped the table aside and ran toward them; Su Tan’er moved almost in the same instant, without a scream or cry, her face and eyes nearly expressionless. Ning Yi rushed over, guarding against the surrounding crowd surging in, while Su Tan’er threw herself down beside her father. She glanced once toward the fleeing attacker, then said only, simply and quickly, to the servants nearby: “Catch him.” Then she lowered her head and pressed down on her father’s wound, paying no more attention to anything else. Several servants had, in fact, already moved to chase the man down.
Ning Yi kept watch on their surroundings, and once he was certain no second attacker could possibly close in, he turned back to help Su Tan’er press down on the wound. There were tears glistening in Su Tan’er’s eyes now, her lips pressed tightly together, saying nothing—she was, for the moment, clearly somewhat overwhelmed. Ning Yi called out to those around them: “Get the nearest physician! Bring clean cloth! Quickly, quickly, quickly—do whatever you can…”
Both knife wounds ran fairly deep; not immediately fatal, but the outcome remained uncertain. Su Boyong remained conscious, gripping Su Tan’er’s hand and murmuring something to her. Ning Yi frowned, scanning their surroundings, searching for any clue he might catch.
It might have been premeditated, or it might not have been—but of the Su family’s three branches, the eldest branch was the weakest. Though everyone said Su Tan’er was the most capable of the third generation, the one likely to run the family business one day, that was still, for now, only in a testing phase. The Su family’s eldest branch had always been held together by Su Boyong himself—he was its true anchor.
With these two knife wounds, what the Su family would look like tomorrow was, for now, impossible to say…