It was morning. Passing through the corridor into the side hall, Yinping caught sight of a young woman dressed in goose-yellow, directing several of the Princess Imperial’s household servants as they moved a number of large chests, repeatedly warning them not to be careless and chip anything. That was Zhao Xiaosong.

The moment their eyes met, the young woman broke into a smile. “Sister Yue, you’ve come.”

“Mm, what’s…”

“Oh, there were a few large vases at home the Princess found unsightly, so she’s having them exchanged. By the way, Sister Yue, Her Highness has been waiting for you. Let me take you in.”

Zhao Xiaosong was the granddaughter of the famous minister Zhao Ding. When the Jurchens breached Lin’an, she’d boarded the dragon boat with the princess, and later, aboard that same boat, had helped the Princess Imperial kill Qin Hui, earning her the princess’s undying gratitude. She had since become the princess’s personal attendant, tending to her daily needs while also managing a great many of the household’s affairs. Yinping was already fairly familiar with her, and the two chatted casually as they made their way deeper inside.

Passing through the next set of doors, they came to the training grounds within the Princess Imperial’s inner residence, where two ranks of armored soldiers were drilling beneath the sun — one made up of men, the other entirely of women. These were the female servants of the princess’s household, most of them widows who had lost their families during the Jurchen “combing the mountains and searching the sea” campaigns. Outside their regular duties, the household required them to undergo some combat training as well. At the moment, they were all wielding blades and staves, shouting and sweating profusely, under the instruction of a gray-robed Daoist priestess with a longsword slung across her back.

Sensing the passing figures, the priestess turned her head and gave a slight bow of greeting, her voice, mellow and even slightly hoarse yet undeniably charming, carrying over. “Miss Yue.”

Yinping returned the bow. “Immortal Master Qingyi.”

The two of them were old acquaintances as well.

This Immortal Master Qingyi, Luo Shouwei, had originally been a Daoist of the Zhengyi sect. When the Jurchens came sweeping down, she had fled south with her father and elder brother, and later, when the Jurchens broke through the Yangtze defense line, her father Luo Si and elder brother Luo Shoujing had both died defending the city, leaving Luo Shouwei to remain with the army. Later, Li Pin, moved by her story, had sought her out, helped her preserve the texts of the Zhengyi sect, and introduced her to Zhou Junwu.

By the time the new sovereign arrived in Fuzhou and joined forces with the Princess Imperial, Zhou Pei had taken in a great many women left destitute by the disasters. When it came time to select female officials, she’d conscripted both Luo Shouwei, whose swordsmanship was unmatched, and Yue Yinping, skilled in the Five Steps Thirteen Spears technique, tasking them with devising a set of combat formations and training methods suited for women fighting in battle. The Daoist tradition had long specialized in the study of formations, and Yinping was a direct disciple of Zhou Tong — the two of them had developed quite the working rapport during that period.

After exchanging greetings, Yinping was soon shown into the study at the back, where she found the Princess Imperial already hard at work at her desk. Dressed in plain household attire, Zhou Pei sat behind her writing desk, brush in one hand, abacus in the other, clicking away rapidly without pause.

“Sit wherever, have something to eat, I’ll be done in just a moment.”

The two of them being well past the stage of first acquaintance, Zhou Pei’s words were enough, and Zhao Xiaosong soon had Yinping seated in the room with a plate of pastries brought over. Yinping sat there, watching the Princess Imperial’s fingers moving with almost illusory speed, filled with envy. Within the princess’s household, Zhou Pei’s skill with numbers was astonishing — she could mentally calculate the sums and differences of even the largest figures in a single glance, and no account book, however complicated, could escape her scrutiny, while Zhao Xiaosong, coming from a family of scholars, possessed a photographic memory for texts and stories of every kind. Yinping’s own mind wasn’t dull by any means, but next to these two, she couldn’t help but feel a bit inadequate.

If only she had such abilities herself, she could go back and help her father manage the Beiwei Army’s accounts. According to her father, the most important thing in waging war, when it came down to it, was still money.

After a while, the Princess Imperial finished verifying the figures in the ledger, called Zhao Xiaosong over, marked a few numbers in the account book, gave her some quiet instructions, and Zhao Xiaosong nodded, gathered up the ledger, and left. Only then did Zhou Pei rise and come over to where Yinping sat.

“Any progress on Zhong Ergui’s case from Hou Guan County over the past half month?”

Dressed in loose, generous white linen household clothes, she came closer, looking rather approachable. Yinping shook her head.

“Still just what we knew before — that female pirate Chen Shuangran orchestrated it, but she hasn’t been caught yet, and the evidence is hard to come by.”

“I heard you two siblings have been going undefeated all over Fuzhou lately, quite the impressive reputation.”

“Actually it’s mostly that little monkey Yue Yun doing the fighting.”

“Mm, you really shouldn’t get involved yourself — how will you ever find a husband later on?”

“Your Highness, really…”

Zhou Pei steered the conversation toward marriage a bit more, and Yinping gave a helpless, pleading smile in response. For most people, the Princess Imperial’s dignified presence would have been intimidating enough to make them hold back, but between the Yue family’s distinct standing and the extensive time the two of them had already spent together since settling in Fuzhou — Zhou Pei, Luo Shouwei, Zhao Xiaosong, and Yinping had shared many nights during typhoon storms chatting about poetry, even recommending romance novels to one another — Zhou Pei, dignified in public, was actually quite easygoing in private.

“Don’t brush it off so lightly, Yinping. If word gets out, people are going to say that anyone associated with my household ends up either a widow or an old maid. Look at yourself — technically a female official of my own household — and then look at Zhao Xiaosong, who just recently declared she’s absolutely refusing to marry, determined to carry on Zhao Ding’s legacy and reclaim the Central Plains… it drives me mad. And then there’s Luo Shouwei too — sooner or later people are going to say I, the Princess Imperial, am some kind of freak who goes around breaking up other people’s marriages.”

“Heh heh.” Yinping gave a wry smile, avoiding the topic. “I just haven’t met the right person…”

Among the group, Yinping did know something of Zhao Xiaosong’s real thinking. Gifted from childhood with a photographic memory, she’d been sent aboard the boat by Zhao Ding to serve the Princess Imperial, originally as a means of escaping danger and surviving — but after saving Zhou Pei’s life, she’d found she could handle all manner of affairs with remarkable competence, and gradually she’d come to find that ability genuinely fascinating.

In private conversation, Zhao Xiaosong had once said: “…All those sagely texts I used to memorize actually turned out useful. Those obscure grand principles finally make more sense to me now, and I’ve come to think — I want to spend my whole life doing great things, just like a man would!”

Of the group, Zhao Xiaosong was the youngest, but in Yinping’s eyes, her ambitions were the grandest of them all. Truly an extraordinary person.

As for Immortal Master Qingyi, Luo Shouwei, everyone knew she had once spent a fair amount of time in the company of Li Pin. Li Pin was one of the great Confucian scholars of his generation, already with a wife and concubines of his own — but ever since the Jurchens’ first southward invasion, he’d endured several bouts of displacement and hardship: first, a thousand-li flight while gravely wounded after the fall of Taiyuan; then the calamity of Jingping; and later, following the fall of Lin’an, a series of continuous flights alongside Jun Wu.

Through these three episodes of displacement, members of his family had died or scattered, and by the time he reached Fuzhou, his elderly wife could no longer even get out of bed, and he had a young daughter, lamed during the chaos of war, kept mostly out of sight in the back courtyard. Given his standing and status, he could easily have taken any woman he wished as a wife, but he was consumed by his scholarship and had no interest in such matters. It was during the period he helped Luo Shouwei organize the Zhengyi sect’s texts that she’d taken over managing all manner of household affairs for him, even getting along quite well with his elderly wife and daughter in the back courtyard.

Zhengyi Daoist priests were permitted to marry, and Yinping and the others had, at one point, assumed Luo Shouwei might well become their own “teacher’s wife” someday. But reality hadn’t been so smooth — by the previous year, the two of them had had a falling out, and Luo Shouwei had stormed off in anger to become a household military officer and personal guard for Zhou Pei at the Princess Imperial’s residence. When Yinping and the others had gone to ask Li Pin about it, he’d answered rather frankly and simply: “One word led to another, I said something a bit too harsh, and that was that.”

The female officials around her were, one after another, either widows or old maids, and even those with some prospect of marriage had seen it fall apart — unflattering rumors about all this had long been circulating outside, and though these were petty gossip matters, Zhou Pei, whenever she brought it up, wore an expression of helpless resignation all the same. Still, dwelling on such things served little purpose, so she sat with Yinping and moved on to talking about her own admiration for the way she and Yue Yun roamed freely through the underworld:

“Even though I’ve learned a few signature moves from you and Immortal Master Qingyi, when it actually comes to fighting someone, I can’t manage a thing. If it weren’t for that, I really would like to take up a three-foot blade and go see what the martial world of the marketplace looks like, alongside you two.”

As she spoke of this, a look of longing crossed her eyes. Yinping wrinkled her nose and shook her head fiercely.

“Those novels are all lies, Your Highness,” she said. “Let me tell you, don’t be fooled by how carefree the marketplace world sounds in those martial arts novels — in reality, the marketplace is full of nothing but unreasonable troublemakers. Look at Zhong Ergui, wasn’t he driven to his death by exactly that kind of person? Even Chancellor Qin, back in the day, got covered in filth thrown by a mob, didn’t he! And there’s more — just the other day, we ran into something…”

Zhou Pei laughed. “Go on, tell me, tell me.”

“It happened the night before last, at the night market in Silver Bridge Ward. My little brother ran into two vicious, thoroughly wicked villains, and a fight broke out. In the end neither side won, and the two villains got away…”

“Oh? Even Brother Yun couldn’t catch them? What were the two villains called?”

“Well, one was called Zhou Xing, ‘Mixed Primordial Axe,’ and the other, from what I heard later, was probably ‘Tiger Shark’ Zhan Yunhai.” Yinping waved a hand. “That’s not the point, though. The point is, they fought quite fiercely, and all around, out in the night market, various tables and chairs and stools inevitably got knocked about and damaged in the process. My little brother felt bad about it — even while still nursing his injuries afterward, he went around door to door paying for the damages, and there was one shop, apparently a steamed rice cake vendor…”

Yue Yinping continued, “This rice cake vendor is a fat, bloated auntie, and she egged on her nephew to come make trouble over it. Your Highness, you wouldn’t believe the price gouging — a broken stool, she claimed was worth two taels of silver; a table she claimed was made of rosewood, demanding ten taels — pure nonsense! And more — she claimed her broken rice cake bowl was some kind of family heirloom antique, demanding a hundred taels in compensation for it! And apparently that nephew grabbed my little brother by the collar and wouldn’t let him leave. Your Highness, if you ran into someone like that, what would you even do?”

Zhou Pei laughed. “How amusing, really… Knowing Brother Yun’s temper, did he end up beating the man?”

“No.” Yinping shook her head. “My little brother was nearly driven mad with frustration — I heard he even raised his fist to strike him, but the moment he did, that fellow flopped straight down onto the ground, playing dead, saying, go ahead and hit me, hitting me just means you’ll owe even more. My little brother’s face was practically steaming when he told me about it.”

“How could anyone be so shamelessly obstinate.” Zhou Pei laughed. “So what happened after that? How was it resolved?”

“There’s always someone to counter someone else, of course.” Yinping laughed too. “In the end, my little brother went straight and found some local government officers to come deal with it, which scared that fellow into scurrying off with his tail between his legs — after that, he had the officers and the other market vendors set a fair price for the damages. Say what you will, but he did end up giving that rice cake vendor the lowest possible payment. Ha ha ha ha.”

“Making that much of a fuss, and still ending up paying — Brother Yun really is decent at heart.”

“Mm, if he hadn’t paid, it wouldn’t have been such a small matter — father would have dragged him home and beaten him for it.”

The two of them chatted along these lines for a while, both laughing together. A commotion sounded outside the door, and in walked Immortal Master Qingyi, Luo Shouwei. After greeting Zhou Pei, the princess had her sit down beside them.

“The reason I called Yinping here today is actually because I’ve picked up on something through private channels.” Zhou Pei sat in the seat of honor and turned to the matter at hand. “Lately, all sorts of things have been happening inside and outside the palace. Ever since last month’s miscarriage of justice in Hou Guan County, things outside have been unsettled, and we suspect there’s a group working secretly to do something bad — you two already know about that.”

“…Based on the intelligence gathered over the past few days, there are several places in the city currently at risk. First is my own residence, the Princess Imperial’s household, which may be a target for someone with designs against it. Second is Master Li’s residence — given his position and influence, he too may already have been marked by these criminals. As for the third, it’s the Zuo family people who’ve returned from the southwest — something might happen there as well, though that one isn’t as much cause for concern.”

“Given this news, I’ve been giving it some extra thought, wanting to arrange for some trustworthy and highly skilled people to keep watch over Master Li’s residence. My first thought was you two, Yinping and Brother Yun, but Brother Yun’s temperament is a bit unpredictable, and he’s been running all over chasing down villains lately over the Zhong Ergui affair, so the person I trust most for this is you, Yinping. However, Yinping, you’re still unmarried — while you and Master Li have a teacher-student relationship, there are still boundaries between men and women to consider, so I’ve been thinking it over…”

Zhou Pei paused here, glancing around the room at the two of them. Yinping’s expression remained composed, waiting for her instructions, while Luo Shouwei beside her looked equally calm, the very picture of serene composure.

“So here’s what I’ve been thinking — what if we did it this way: Yinping, you come here to serve as my personal bodyguard. You already understand household security and protection, so taking that on shouldn’t be difficult. As for Immortal Master Luo, you’ve had dealings with Master Li in the past, so you taking a contingent of household soldiers over there — I think that might suit you better than Yinping. What do the two of you think?”

Before she’d even finished speaking, Yinping had already grasped her meaning, her eyes lighting up as she stood. “Yinping obeys Your Highness’s command.” Her gaze flicked briefly toward Luo Shouwei at her side.

Luo Shouwei had likewise already risen to her feet, and after a moment, bowed slowly. “Shouwei respectfully obeys Your Highness’s command.”

The moment these words were said, both Zhou Pei and Yinping in the room breathed a sigh of relief. After a few more instructions were exchanged, Luo Shouwei took her leave first, with Yinping following behind her. Just as she was about to leave, Yinping turned back and gave Zhou Pei a playful, beaming bow, and Zhou Pei pressed her lips together in a smile, giving her a knowing wink with one eye…

Once the two of them had left the room, Zhou Pei went to pour herself a cup of cold water, then sat down by the open window, fanning herself for a while with a round fan. Gazing at the rockery in the back courtyard, she turned over various distant matters in her mind.

Progress was too slow…

Far off across the realm, the Jin territory, currently ruled by a female chancellor, had finished a period of recuperation and had now formally set its sights on seizing the northwest; Zou Xu had allied with Dai Mengwei, and the two had held a martial world conference in Bian Liang; within the territory of the Fair Party, the borders among the four kings were gradually solidifying — He Wen, after aggressively pushing through reforms, had begun to show real military strength, while the remaining kings, having failed in their attempts to attack He Wen, had turned instead to scheming against Lin’an, likely to breach the city any day now. Although Zuo Xiuquan had already set out, attempting to persuade Prince Gao to loot a portion of the gold and silver within the city once it fell, in order to subsidize the southeast, the actual outcome might not go so smoothly — after all, the promised rewards hadn’t been delivered on at all yet, and asking for tribute under those circumstances risked making Prince Gao look down on the southeast instead… everything now hinged on Zuo Xiuquan’s mediation.

As for the most important matter — the southwest — the new land policies there had already begun proceeding in an orderly fashion. Zhou Pei had reviewed the various local land policy steps and subsequent reactions coming out of the southwest, every single detail thrilling and unnerving in equal measure, and especially after Zuo Wenhuai’s explanations, she and Jun Wu had come to more deeply understand the stakes involved. Jun Wu, filled with admiration, marveled endlessly at the sheer power the southwest possessed, and privately, this had perhaps deepened his own resolve to someday pursue “constitutional monarchy” — though for now, such a thing was impossible.

The large-scale groundwork for enlightening the populace hadn’t been prepared yet; the first team of capable people hadn’t even been trained. Even if they wanted to talk about enlightening the common people, it would remain nothing more than empty, grandiose talk. And on top of that, the southeast happened to occupy one of the most difficult regions imaginable for such enlightenment — rugged mountains, scarce resources, causing the local clans to cling together in unbreakable unity.

Zhou Pei sometimes thought that if she had a team of people as capable as the southwest’s, today’s troubles surely wouldn’t be so difficult. Other times she wondered — if Ning Yi himself were dropped into this position instead, wouldn’t he too find himself stretched thin and struggling at every turn?

But dwelling on the difficulty served no purpose. Ever since their father had chosen to flee aboard the dragon boat, the realm had fallen into fragmented chaos, with countless warlords rising on every side, and by now, through a process of sifting sand for gold, the various opportunistic pretenders among each faction had gradually been weeded out, and the surviving powers had each found their own path forward. But had her own side found theirs?

Her younger brother, following ideas passed along from the southwest, had pinned his hopes on maritime trade, even privately preparing himself for the treasonous notion of “constitutional monarchy” — but at this moment, the first fleet of ships hadn’t even returned yet, and the treasury’s books were nearly bottomed out. The various great and small families who had originally supported the imperial house were now growing suspicious and keeping their distance, and the dignity and confidence of the Wu dynasty were nearly exhausted.

How many families, how many officials, were truly standing firmly on their side without reservation… She found herself once again, out of habit, counting them off on her fingers under her breath.

Her temples began to ache again.

Zhao Xiaosong walked in from outside, grinning. “Your Highness, I saw Immortal Master Luo and Sister Yue just now, handing over their duties.”

“Mm, Luo Shouwei agreed.” Zhou Pei smiled too. “Finally managed to marry off one of them. I’ve earned myself some merit today.”

“So, Your Highness, should we arrange something for Miss Yue as well? I heard from a friend in the Beiwei Army that General Yue is quite worried — every time Miss Yue goes home, he keeps nagging at her about not letting time slip by, or she’ll end up a lonely old spinster, weeping in vain.”

Zhou Pei burst out laughing. “Don’t just talk about her — what about yourself? You’d better hurry up and marry yourself off too, for heaven’s sake.”

“That won’t do, I still need to accomplish great deeds alongside Your Highness,” Zhao Xiaosong said. “You’re like Li Xiuning of the Tang dynasty, and when you form your own women’s army in the future, you’ll definitely need me as your right-hand woman… and besides, Your Highness, let me tell you, there isn’t a single man in this whole world I actually fancy!”

“Oh, so you don’t fancy His Majesty either, then.”

“Er, His Majesty’s the one who doesn’t fancy me. And besides, Your Highness, with my temperament, I really shouldn’t go into the palace — who knows when I’d end up charged with some serious crime like ‘gossiping and disturbing the harmony of the inner palace’…”

“Such a smart mouth…” Zhou Pei found herself out of energy from exasperation, then after a moment, sighed softly at her: “Don’t let time slip by, or you’ll end up a lonely old spinster, weeping in vain.”

“Mm-hm, won’t let it slip by.” Zhao Xiaosong nodded, then let her smile fade. “Your Highness, it’s about time — the officials you summoned earlier should have been waiting outside for a while now. Shall we?”

Zhou Pei nodded as well.

The brief respite had passed. Another round of work had arrived.

…

“Damn it, miscalculated!” Zuo Xingzhou, still wrapped in a few bandages, cursed bitterly.

Shortly after noon, in a small shop outside Huaiyun Ward, he sat across from Ning Ji, grumbling while shoveling down the meal already set before him, while Ning Ji, claiming to have already eaten, watched him from across the table, unhurriedly eating a bowl of ice jelly.

“Listen to you. When have you ever calculated anything right.”

“Who are you looking down on? You think I’ve been here this long and the name ‘Mixed Primordial Axe’ Zhou Xing is just made up out of thin air? Let me tell you, back in the day I carried two axes through Putian, cutting my way from one end to the other and back again — the whole street ran red with blood, I was practically a bloody-handed butcher… oh right, why hasn’t your brother come out?”

“I believe the street running red with blood — after seeing how much blood you sprayed everywhere the other night, the whole street was covered in it. Was that really necessary? And those cheesy lines of yours, honestly, I… he’s busy.”

“What blood, what lines, you, you, you don’t understand a thing. Some of that blood was mine, after all, I had to take a few real hits — but some of it was chicken, duck, and pig blood I’d hidden on myself in advance. And the lines — you know what promotion means? The villains in Fuzhou can’t exactly show up in person to watch me and Yue Yun duel one on one, so of course they’re going to hear about it through word of mouth, and the most important thing for word of mouth is being memorable and catchy. Listen to those lines I designed — simple, direct, and violent — when people repeat them to each other, doesn’t it sound powerful, doesn’t it hit hard? And the blood, spraying everywhere across the sky — once you’ve seen that, wouldn’t you want to tell people about it… right? Look at you sitting there dumbstruck, you get it now, don’t you? Do I have a point or not? What do you even know… you never even listened during lessons back in the mountains, you total slacker… that brother of yours is pretty aloof, though.”

“I’ve noticed you’re spouting nothing but catchphrases lately, you dog… yeah, of course he’s aloof, he trains with throwing knives — either he doesn’t strike at all, or he strikes and kills you outright. By the way, don’t badmouth my brother — what happened with your own brother, anyway?”

“…That’s exactly the part where I miscalculated.” Zuo Xingzhou sighed. “Originally I’d planned it so I’d duel Yue Yun one-on-one — Yue Yun comes from a family with a strong martial tradition and has raw natural talent, so losing to him would be entirely believable, and with the lines I designed, plus all that blood, I could really show off how vicious I am. Sure, I’d come out the weaker fighter, but I’d be fearless in the face of death, ultimately managing to escape from a whole pack of hawks and hounds surrounding me… that way, my reputation would definitely have taken off. But who would have guessed, he was in the area too, and now the one-on-one turned into two-against-one — no matter how fierce I act in a two-against-one, once word gets around, it just sounds like two guys ganged up and beat one guy badly. I don’t even know how the effect’s going to land now, and I’m worried it’s going to backfire — oh, and by the way, what’s the deal with your four-foot demon of lust?”

Inside the restaurant, Zuo Xingzhou rattled all this off like a string of firecrackers, cleverly and casually slipping in that last line as if it were nothing, then, as though he’d said nothing at all, went right back to shoveling down his food. Ning Ji, arms crossed, had a whole pile of retorts prepared, but his cold smile froze in place, his expression stuck somewhere mid-transition, unable to complete itself for a good long while.

Across from him, Zuo Xingzhou avoided his eyes entirely, focusing hard on eating, eating, eating, extremely gently sparing his dignity.

“Oh right, I also promised Zhan Yunhai I’d go help him out at Jiuxian Mountain in a bit…” The corner of the restaurant had gone quiet for a good while when, at some point, Zuo Xingzhou looked up and, as quickly as possible, switched the subject, his words firing off like a string of firecrackers once more — just as a fist came thundering straight at his face.

“Oh sh—” Zuo Xingzhou rolled off his stool and onto the floor, and by then Ning Ji had already climbed up onto the table like a tiger and lunged straight at him.

“Oh sh— you can’t just act like I never brought it up—”

“What never brought it up, ‘Mixed Primordial Axe’ Zhou Xing, you’re this arrogant, I, Deputy Chief of the Martial Alliance, ‘Great Sage Equal to Heaven’ Sun Wukong, will settle this with you right here and now, let’s see who’s truly the number one under heaven — don’t run—”

“You bastard, I’ve got things to do this afternoon—”