“How’s the lawsuit going, any results?”

Out in the courtyard, threads of rain fell; in the study, the fire crackled in the charcoal stove, and the water in the kettle had already come to a boil.

Dressed in a single layer of clothing, Li Pin came out of the inner room and sat down at the tea table. He waved a hand to signal the two of them to sit, then took out a cake of tea and broke it apart, dropping the pieces into the tea mill to be ground.

He asked his question, and the two siblings simply sat there. Yue Yun glanced at his sister, and for a moment neither answered. Li Pin ground the tea for a while, and once he had poured the crushed tea into the cup, he finally looked up and raised an eyebrow. “What, gone mute? Not talking?”

Yue Yun, who ran wild and answered to no one out in the world, stood up rather awkwardly. “Sister said… you’re eloquent, sir, that you’d try to talk us out of it, and we wouldn’t be able to hold our ground, so we might end up… end up getting talked into something, so… we didn’t know how to answer. And besides… aren’t you asking a question you already know the answer to, sir…”

Yue Yun’s little speech dropped in volume as it went, ending in barely more than a mutter. Yinping, seeing him sell her out so directly, had no choice but to stand up too. Li Pin, for his part, listened with a deep frown, and tossed the tea whisk he’d been using to whisk the froth right down onto the table with a clatter.

“What, what, what… what talking you out of it, what eloquent, who told you two I was going to try to talk you out of anything.”

He gave the pair of them a hard look, exasperated. “The two of you, barely out of the cradle, and already so quick to push everyone else away — how are you supposed to accomplish anything great like that?”

He glared at them both, and Yinping muttered back at his side, “But you called us here right now, sir, obviously it’s about the lawsuit over Hou Guan County. You just said as much yourself…”

“Of course it’s about the lawsuit — so isn’t that exactly why I’m asking how it’s going?”

“But isn’t that still asking a question you already know the answer to…”

“Well, one has to start a conversation with something, doesn’t one! We’re not strangers here — am I supposed to ask if you two have eaten yet?” Li Pin rapped the tea whisk against the bowl a few more times. “Sit down, do it yourselves, I’m not in the mood to wait on you — I’m annoyed now!”

The tea ceremony of this era involved several steps — grinding, whisking the paste, pouring the tea, and so on — considerably more troublesome than in later ages. The siblings exchanged a glance and sat back down. Li Pin fumed for a while longer, then let out a breath. “And you still say I’m trying to talk you out of it — as if that would even matter. Zhong Ergui’s case was a miscarriage of justice from the start, even His Majesty himself knows it clear as day. You going to file a complaint about it is entirely proper. Didn’t you write to General Yue about it first, and didn’t he already respond? Did he try to stop you?”

Yue Yun said, “Father said: you may.”

“Exactly.” Li Pin said. “When you’re governing a country, there are countless things happening every single day. What’s the harm in two people crying out over an injustice? Never mind that this is a perfectly legitimate matter right now — even if the two of you genuinely had some hidden agenda and were trying to stir up trouble, the higher-ups wouldn’t need to resort to underhanded tricks over it. And you two understand perfectly well yourselves that Zhong Ergui was wrongfully accused — but exactly how he was framed, and by whom, there’s no evidence yet, it hasn’t been sorted out. The higher-ups can’t give you much of an answer just yet — but so what? Are you two planning to start a rebellion? Should I have your father come drag you back and beat you both half to death?”

“Teacher, we don’t matter…” Yue Yun said. “But Zhong Ergui — he really was a good man. He really was… treated so unjustly.”

He wasn’t moved by anything Li Pin had said; his focus remained entirely on Zhong Ergui. Hearing this, Li Pin fell silent for a moment, then sighed. “I know.”

Li Pin paused, then continued after a while: “This matter — I know about it, and it’s not just me. His Majesty knows too. Didn’t Yinping go into the palace and give him an earful about it? His Majesty feels just as choked up about this kind of thing, but what can be done, when we’ve already fallen for their trick? We haven’t found the culprit — what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to be like you two, just take our anger out on our own people? Best to get yourselves killed while we’re at it, would that make you feel better?”

“Ever since last year, there have been serious problems at the Military Preparatory Academy,” Yinping said, her face stern. “Some of these young scholars learn a few slogans to shout for a few days, then go strutting into the army acting all high and mighty, and the men underneath aren’t happy about it at all. If they actually had the ability, fine, but they don’t even have that. This time in Hou Guan County — if the magistrate and the officer in charge of military discipline hadn’t kept talking about the bigger picture, about how the public anger was boiling over, and gotten so terrified, Zhong Ergui wouldn’t have been driven to his death. I was there. I know exactly how it happened.”

“You’re right about that,” Li Pin nodded. “That magistrate in Hou Guan County will have to be transferred sooner or later, and so will the officer in charge of military discipline. But the case hasn’t been overturned yet, so some of the disciplinary measures haven’t come down yet either — the magistrate is still needed for the ongoing relief and cleanup work, after all.”

“But if that’s all that happens — just dealing with two people — is that enough?” Yinping glared at him.

“Of course it’s not just that. Ever since this happened, there have been a great many meetings at the top, and a great many measures are already underway, with many responses in progress. All of this, you’d know if you asked around — have you actually asked around?”

Li Pin’s gaze swept over the two of them. Yinping faltered for a moment.

Li Pin, meanwhile, focused on finishing brewing his own tea. “This lawsuit you two are so worked up about isn’t nearly as important as you imagine — that it needs someone or other to come out and smooth things over, telling you two to just drop it and stop making trouble. When His Majesty, the Princess Imperial, and I get together privately and talk about this, we actually think it’s rather a good thing. Young people, after all — being unwilling to sacrifice justice and righteous indignation for the sake of the bigger picture, that’s not a bad quality to have. There has to be some of that fire in people, so that in the future they can grow into good people. As for the court — if it’s a court that can’t even withstand the grievances of good people like you two, then what is there to say about governing the realm at all? If even a good person’s complaint can’t be tolerated, how much less a bad person’s.”

Li Pin lifted his cup and inhaled the aroma of the tea.

“So why did you call us here then, teacher…” Yue Yun frowned.

“Well, there happens to be something else too.” Li Pin brought up the subject, clapping his hands together before pushing back his chair and standing up. “You know, come to think of it, what Zuo Wenhuai said gave everyone a great deal to think about. And as Yinping pointed out, those scholars from the Military Preparatory Academy aren’t exactly close with the rank and file, and reasoning with the ordinary soldiers doesn’t work all that well for them. Talking about all this, I feel a bit embarrassed myself — I wanted to write an essay explaining the Hou Guan County case to people, but no matter how I turned it over in my head, it always came out sounding too stilted, not plain and accessible enough…”

He walked over to the desk nearby and brought back an essay. The siblings glanced at it — the title read “On the Hou Guan County Case.” Li Pin currently controlled the newspapers’ public discourse, and he was likely writing this to be published once the case was formally settled. The two of them had only just begun to look it over when brush and paper suddenly landed in front of them as well.

“So I thought — the two of you, you siblings, are so full of passion, and you both came up through the army, so it works out perfectly. Use words you’re familiar with, and write out the whole course of this affair and what can be learned from it. Later on, it can be taken to the Beiwei Army to share with everyone, don’t you think? Here — ink, brush, paper, inkstone. You two, forget the tea, write, write…”

The soft patter of rain still sounded outside the door — at that moment it seemed to grow a little louder, noisy and grating. The two siblings sat at the table with their mouths hanging open, their bodies seeming to shrink in on themselves, blinking with pale, stunned eyes, while Li Pin stood before them, his manner sincere and enthusiastic, and went on afterward to bring up a few concerns, on behalf of certain elders, about Yinping’s marriage prospects…

The gloomy curtain of rain went on for a long while. In the afternoon, when the two siblings finally left through the back door of Tongli Residence, both of them looked as though they’d just been through some brutal ordeal, their gazes hollow and their minds somewhat muddled.

Yue Yun had already gone half-numb. He took a breath of fresh air, then let out a “heh-heh” laugh. “Sis, do you think the teacher’s got it in for you specifically… though I guess what he said makes some sense. You’re this old already, and this fierce besides — the older men, the married ones, you obviously wouldn’t look twice at, and the younger ones aren’t good enough for you. So really, arranging that marriage for you last year, into the palace, was probably the best match around. His Majesty’s not a bad man, either…”

Yinping shook her head, and after a moment said in a low, faraway voice: “…What do you mean, ‘not good enough for me’?”

“Not good enough… oh, I meant the younger ones aren’t a match f—”

There was a crack, and Yue Yun’s body went flying out through the curtain of rain, umbrella still in hand, hitting the ground and splashing up a great sheet of water across the blue stone road, not stopping until he hit the wall. Solidly built as he was, he sat there in the water for a moment in silence, then finally stood up like a drenched chicken, shaking the water off his head. “Look at you… so violent…”

Yinping turned and walked toward the other end of the street, and Yue Yun followed after her a moment later.

The two of them made their way through the rain-soaked streets of Fuzhou, and before long arrived at the Military Preparatory Academy. The siblings had once been fairly close with the Zuo family’s people. After the Hou Guan County incident — really, ever since the academy had started assigning its scholars into the army — there had been some friction between the two sides, though nothing that could really be called hostility. When they arrived, they walked right in with familiar ease.

In the busier part of the campus, they found some students they knew and asked around, and the students told them about various recent goings-on at the academy, including how Zuo Wenhuai, after taking his punishment of the rod, had been lying on his stomach discussing matters with people, and about the recent personnel reassignments related to the Hou Guan County incident.

Yue Yun changed into a fresh set of clothes.

The two of them didn’t stay long. After leaving through the academy gate, Yue Yun asked, “So, sis, are we still filing the complaint?”

“The petition’s already been submitted; there’ll be a result sooner or later. No point making more of a fuss — we’ll drop it.” Yinping thought for a moment. “But there’s still one thing we can do. Let’s go find out what we can about this Chen Shuangran, track her down, and make her confess.”

“Mm.” Yue Yun nodded, then remembered something. “But sis, after that arena challenge we did in Jiangning last year, plenty of people in Fuzhou already recognize us. If we go around catching people ourselves now, won’t that cause some trouble — people will run the moment they see us coming.”

Yinping nodded at that too, and after a moment said, “Let’s find Lord Tie, discuss it with him.”

The anger stirred by their comrade’s wrongful death gradually settled, transforming instead into motivation to handle matters properly, and the two siblings’ figures slowly disappeared into the rain, walking off into the distance. Along the streets of Fuzhou, figures in straw raincoats and others holding umbrellas passed by occasionally, and carriages rolled slowly onward. And at the far end of that very street, on the second floor of a small compound’s pavilion, a girl with a fine, delicate face and a cold, aloof expression sat by the window before a game of go, her gaze fixed on the distant rain.

Past this window, further off in the distance, the faint outlines of upturned eaves and towering pavilions could just be made out — that was a corner of the new sovereign’s temporary palace in Fuzhou.

The girl’s features were cold and striking, her only flaw a complexion slightly too dark. Lost in thought, she gently ran her fingers over the white stones on the go board. At some point, in this stretch of quiet, a voice came from outside the door.

“Miss, Young Master Pu has arrived.”

The girl turned her head toward the door, and after a moment of silence, said softly, “Uncle Yan.”

She paused. “Let him in.”

The servant outside withdrew, and after a moment, a man named Pu Xingui walked in through the door. He spread his arms wide, laughing loudly, and came striding over. “Ha ha, my dear little sister, I’ve missed you to death! Turning the tide with your own two hands, deciding the outcome from a thousand li away — you’ve really opened the eyes of those old-timers back in the countryside, haha ha ha—”

The girl sat by the window, watching him with a cool gaze, showing no reaction at all even as he came up beside her and seemed about to embrace her, her cold gaze steady and quiet, the corner of her plain, unadorned mouth carrying the faintest trace of mockery.

Pu Xingui never actually managed to put his arms around her.

The Pu family had, in the past, largely transitioned from outright piracy into an officially recognized maritime merchant house, whereas the Chen family still leaned toward the bloodier trade of outright piracy. If Pu Xingui hadn’t previously taken the woman especially seriously, after the Hou Guan County affair and the wave of framed accusations and grievances erupting across the region, he no longer dared to trifle with her so casually. He lowered himself slightly.

The girl was still running her fingers over the go stones, her voice soft. “I’ve been thinking about doing something.”

“What is it? Little sister, just say the word.”

“Something… that all of you, in the past, wanted to do but couldn’t manage…”

The girl always spoke this way, as if lost in thought, with a certain air of never quite taking the rest of the world seriously. Pu Xingui had once thought she was simply unhinged, but now he found himself feeling a certain awe toward her instead, and he lowered his posture. “…Mm?”

The girl pointed off into the distance, then turned her gaze back, fixing it on him.

“I want… to borrow some men from you.”

“…” Pu Xingui looked at her, looked off into the distance, then looked back at her again, silent for a moment. “…Oh.”

He had no idea what she meant.

…

These were events of early in the fifth month. At the same time, Ning Ji was hard at work with a great clatter of hammering, renovating their new home with Qu Longjun. By the time the house was finished and he’d started fitting out their peddler’s cart, it was already mid-fifth-month. Not long after, the two of them pushed their cart out and set up their first stall at the Fuzhou night market.

The banners they hung read: “Miracle Cures, All Ailments Treated,” and “Bamboo Records Branch — All Manner of Goods Bought and Sold.”

The whole cart was, in short, extremely brazen.