“…Anyway, so I left the southwest…”
“Why did you leave the southwest? Oh…”
“That’s classified. Think I’d tell you? Even your father couldn’t get it out of me…”
“Tch, bragging. My dad and Master Ning are buddies… Anyway, your hands are pretty gentle, like a woman’s.”
“Amitabha… a doctor’s heart is like a parent’s.”
“…Reminds me of the dog next door, Xiaocui.”
“…”
“…You asked, I’m telling you… haha, Xiaocui’s a dog…”
“…Then why’d you think of a dog? Because you like it?”
A massive banyan tree, its canopy wide enough to shade the whole view, stretched leisurely into the sky. In the courtyard beneath it, yellow lanterns glowed, the night breeze drifting gently through the warm lamplight, while the two young pups bickered and yapped at each other beside the stone bench as one tended the other’s wounds, their bantering as easy as long-lost kin.
Young men who’d come up through battlefields held life and death in awe, but cared nothing at all for mere words.
Ning Ji held needle and thread, stitching up Yue Yun’s wound. His medical skill was excellent, and so was his bedside manner, which held him back somewhat from doing anything too outrageous. As for Yue Yun, having steeled himself for the ordeal of being cut into, he put on a show of fearing neither death nor pain, glaring and running his mouth the whole while—only to discover, much to his pleasant surprise, that this little pup turned out to be soft-hearted when it came to actual doctoring. Emboldened, he let his tongue run wild while his wound got stitched now into the shape of a butterfly, now into a centipede.
Yue Yinping’s eye had twitched eight times already, and she’d held back the urge to smack some sense into the two idiots seven times over.
She sat with Cheng Zhouhai, Zuo Wenxuan, and Qu Longjun at the tea table in the center of the courtyard, watching Qu Longjun preside over the tea ceremony with poise and elegance.
That afternoon, on Cheng Zhouhai’s orders, she’d been the first to enter the little courtyard in Huaiyun Ward to make the arrest. She’d gone in braced for hostility, but the moment their eyes met, the other woman had reacted at once, saying directly, “I’m with the Huaxia Army of the southwest. I don’t know martial arts. Sister Yue, please don’t attack.” After confirming the other was indeed a woman, Yin Ping had actually warmed to her somewhat.
Of course, with Cheng Zhouhai in charge, the arrest still had to follow procedure. The woman had remained composed throughout, clearly having anticipated something like this, only growing a little agitated when she saw them preparing to trap “Sun Wukong.” And now, watching her sit and prepare tea with such calm dignity—nothing like the delicate fragility of so many well-bred Fuzhou ladies—Yin Ping found herself rather envious.
If only she had the chance to learn a thing or two herself.
—In her imagination, Yin Ping liked to think she brewed tea just as gracefully.
The two pups had only just gotten acquainted, their chatter rambling without any particular direction, and none of the four at the table hurried them along. Zuo Wenxuan, worn out from a day of emotional ups and downs, had simply handed the matter over to Cheng Zhouhai and let it run its course. Yin Ping was irritated but held her tongue for now. Qu Longjun, meanwhile, brewed tea while listening to Ning Ji and Yue Yun trade barbs, thinking privately that Little Long was lively and endearing, sharper-tongued and far more graceful than this great ape—a small, satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Cheng Zhouhai, for his part, studied the young woman before him closely. He’d already tested her that morning and knew she didn’t fully understand Ning Ji’s identity; at the time, the priority had been dealing with Ning Ji, so Qu Longjun’s importance had seemed secondary. But now that Ning Ji was thoroughly in hand, seeing how much he valued this girl, and noting her bearing and manner of speech, Cheng Zhouhai found himself growing curious about who she really was and where she came from. Intriguing.
As for the reasons and events behind Ning Ji’s departure, Zuo Wenxuan had already given him the broad strokes; the finer details would come out eventually, so he was in no hurry.
By the time the first round of tea had been poured, the two young men’s bickering had finally quieted down. Ning Ji began recounting what he’d seen since leaving the southwest: the group he’d first traveled with, “Full of Promise” Lu Wenke, “Reverent of the Gods” Fan Heng, “Cold-Faced Cur” Chen Junsheng, and the father-daughter pair Wang Jiang and Wang Xiuniang—people he still felt some fondness for. Before long, he moved on to what he’d witnessed in Tongshan, and the troubles that had unfolded there. When he described Wang Xiuniang’s humiliation and the subsequent threats from the Li family of Tongshan, Yue Yun’s palm came down hard on the stone bench, unable to contain himself.
“If I’d been there, I’d have skinned every last one of them alive!”
“Wouldn’t you just.” Ning Ji glanced at him, a trace of smugness on his cold face.
He went on to describe what he’d done next: first exercising restraint for the greater good, seeing his companions safely off before doubling back alone, and then killing, killing, killing—first crippling a handful of thugs who’d come looking for trouble under cover of night, then going to the Li family’s fortified manor to finish off Steward Wu, who’d dared kick a stool in his direction, and afterward, almost as an afterthought, killing Shi Shuifang too… This last was clearly his proudest achievement, and he acted it out as he spoke. By now Yue Yun’s wounds had all been dressed, and swept up in righteous indignation, he joined in with a few gestures of his own, blood stirring with excitement. Then Ning Ji slapped the bench and leapt up, pointing straight at Yue Yun’s face.
“That’s where I met that little tramp Yan Yunzhi—”
“—Huh?” Yue Yun’s face fell, sensing trouble.
“Her and that slingshot-sword crowd are in league with those Li family scum! And she’s Turd Baby’s mistress, besides!”
Still smarting from the whole affair, Ning Ji gestured wildly as he launched into an account of the Yan family’s ties to the Li family and the Fair Play Sect’s gang of villains, then recounted, in embarrassing detail, a sparring match against their pack of low-skilled scoundrels. As he recalled Yan Yunzhi’s martial skill, Yue Yun and Yin Ping found themselves, somewhat to their own surprise, finding his account rather convincing.
Ning Ji had then held his ground in Tongshan county, going on to kill the Xu couple who’d committed the original offense, along with several of their thugs. When he learned that “Full of Promise” Lu Wenke had actually turned around to cry foul, he’d hit on a scheme—capturing Yan Yunzhi to force an exchange, a genuinely clever move—and had gone on to double back and kill the county magistrate. His string of actions in Tongshan county could honestly be called bold, chivalrous, ruthlessly efficient, and thoroughly satisfying. The only puzzling part was the one thing he’d said while releasing Yan Yunzhi.
Back when Yue Yun had crossed paths with Yan Yunzhi in Jiangning, he’d taken a liking to her for her mediocre skill but unyielding spirit. But hearing Ning Ji’s account now, putting himself in Ning Ji’s shoes, he found that in many places he might well have done the same. He hesitated a long moment, then could only jump up and say, “E-even so… you shouldn’t go around saying things that aren’t true!”
“What do you mean, not true!” Ning Ji jumped right back. “They’re villains! They’re in league with villains! Why should I care about her reputation! I’m telling you, that’s just how we in the Huaxia Army operate—”
“And in the end you just dropped a rock on your own foot!”
“Feh, those slanderous liars, I’ll settle the score with every last one of them sooner or later—”
“Let me be fair here, I think you were just too impulsive… you’re still young…”
“…Huh? What kind of dog talk is that… if you can’t talk sense, don’t talk at all—”
Ning Ji ranted on, Yue Yun sniped back with a few snide remarks, and the two nearly came to blows again.
Ning Ji had mentioned the Tongshan affair to Qu Longjun once before, but at the time he’d focused mainly on “clearing his name,” glossing over the actual events rather vaguely. Sensing how much it weighed on him, Qu Longjun hadn’t pressed for details—only now did she piece together the whole story. She’d always admired the young man’s chivalrous streak, and hearing it now, her heart warmed; she felt certain she’d entrusted herself to the right person.
As for Cheng Zhouhai and Zuo Wenxuan, knowing that lecturing would do no good, they didn’t bother to interject. The bickering went on for a while longer, until Cheng Zhouhai finally said, “And then?”—at which point the two gradually quieted down.
Ning Ji then went on: leaving Tongshan, heading toward Jiangning, he’d run into a rather skilled bald young monk, after which the two of them had both been slandered as “lechers.” He’d gone to the old Su family estate, where he’d met that fellow Xue Jin—rumored to have once struck Ning Yi with a brick—singing a hoarse rendition of “Prelude to Water Melody.” From there things had twisted and turned, and he’d witnessed the deaths of Xue Jin and a woman named Yueniang…
As Ning Ji told it, Yin Ping and Yue Yun found they could fill in quite a few details themselves. They too had been in Jiangning at the time, witnessing the Fair Play Sect’s internal strife from another angle entirely. Comparing notes, they realized that on Gold Street, the two parties had actually been separated by only a short distance—both sides had even fought Li Yanfeng and Jin Yongsheng in turn. And during that final great battle, while Ning Ji and the little bald monk were downstairs retrieving the black flag from Xiao Qi, Yin Ping and Yue Yun had been upstairs keeping Zuo Xiuquan company.
Both sides, it turned out, had accomplished quite a bit.
But of course, since they’d been under military orders at the time, what the Yue siblings had done paled next to Ning Ji’s exploits, and recounting it now left them with a faint pang of regret.
“As the saying goes, a general in the field need not always obey orders from the rear,” Ning Ji said, hands on his hips, lecturing them. “Which means I’m the general, and you two are just a couple of foot soldiers. Understand?”
Both Yin Ping and Yue Yun pulled a face.
When the conversation turned to that final great battle, Yue Yun said, “You think, if the three of us had joined forces, could we have gone a round against that Lin Zongwu?”
When that battle had broken out, with Lin Zongwu wreaking havoc on the spot, Yue Yun and Yin Ping had both itched to jump in—but seeing Chen Fan appear, declaring he’d come to settle an old debt with the Overlord Blade, they’d thought better of rushing in recklessly. Still, as two of the standout young talents of the martial world, Yue Yun had no doubt turned over the idea of challenging Lin Zongwu in his mind countless times.
Unlike Yin Ping, who was far more interested in challenging Master Ning of the southwest.
Ning Ji thought it over, then snorted. “What’s there to fight? My brother wouldn’t let me fight… You saw how I let the fat man off in the end…”
“You were lucky to escape with your life, clinging on for dear life. If it were me, I’d have died on the spot rather than run.”
The two of them started sniping at each other again.
As time slipped by, tinged with a certain wistfulness, the talk of what had happened in Jiangning left everyone with more complicated feelings. Cheng Zhouhai and Zuo Wenxuan were more preoccupied with Xue Jin’s fate, exchanging a few words on it before raising their cups in his memory. Yue Yun brought up what had become of Yan Yunzhi, though Ning Ji couldn’t care less.
After that, Ning Ji spoke of meeting Qu Longjun and their relatively uneventful journey to Fuzhou, touching briefly on his reunion with Zuo Xingzhou and what had followed. Ning Ji needled Yue Yun for being a useless fool who’d accomplished nothing, and Yue Yun fell somewhat silent, worried as he was about Zuo Xingzhou’s whereabouts—he’d also been caught off guard by Chen Shuangran before, resulting in an innocent girl coming to harm, and being scolded now, he felt he rather deserved it.
Ning Ji then brought up the connections he’d already made outside, glancing at Cheng Zhouhai. Cheng Zhouhai only smiled. “Whatever you want to do, I’m not stopping you—quite the opposite, in fact. Today’s little drama at Huaiyun Ward conveniently spares you any worries on that front. You’re free to link up openly with both those factions under the banner of avenging your brother. And with Miss Long staying here at the Princess Imperial’s residence, you can at least rest easy about her safety. It’s just that your little stall in Yinqiao Ward won’t be viable anymore—the authorities will be putting out a warrant for you soon.”
Ning Ji was still somewhat put out, but on reflection, Qu Longjun really would be safer staying here than back in Huaiyun Ward, so he had nothing more to say on that front. Qu Longjun, however, chimed in. “Still, Master Cheng, you owe us for all the things that got broken today—the money we earned running our stall in Yinqiao Ward.”
Cheng Zhouhai laughed heartily. “That’s no trouble at all.”
Qu Longjun named a figure.
Cheng Zhouhai’s face changed. “…Bah! You’d only had the stall up a month or two, how could you possibly have earned that much! No wonder the treasury’s always short—you two are nothing but profiteering merchants bleeding the country dry!”
“Ha!” Ning Ji slapped the table and stood. “Let me tell you something, Uncle Cheng—you scheming against me is one thing, but you’ll pay back every last coin of that money! Otherwise… I’ll go home and tell my parents, and they’re not exactly shy when it comes to money—”
The two sides argued back and forth for a while, though it ended up bringing them closer together all the same.
With the courtyard in Huaiyun Ward now blown to pieces and impossible to return to, Ning Ji and Qu Longjun were settled into a courtyard behind the Princess Imperial’s residence. Once they were finally alone, Ning Ji told Qu Longjun that, according to word from the southwest, both Wenren Buer and Cheng Zhouhai were, within the fledgling court here, reasonably trustworthy—at the very least, both had once worked alongside Master Ning and understood his ways, and so wouldn’t do anything to create a mortal enmity. This was part of why Ning Ji had been willing to back down: unlike thoroughly unscrupulous men like Chen Shuangran or Pu Xingui, if he truly had to fall into someone’s hands, Cheng Zhouhai’s wouldn’t be the worst place to land.
Qu Longjun considered it for a moment and agreed that seemed to be the case.
They talked a while longer, until Ning Ji fell briefly silent, then gritted his teeth and finally said to Qu Longjun, “There’s something else… something important I need to tell you. So that… next time we run into people like Cheng Zhouhai, you won’t be caught unprepared…”
“Mm.”
Qu Longjun nodded, waiting for him to go on.
…
Elsewhere, Cheng Zhouhai and Zuo Wenxuan made their way toward the side gate of the Princess Imperial’s residence. As they neared the entrance, in the secluded garden pavilion there, Zuo Wenxuan, who had been silent the whole way, finally stopped and gave a deep bow.
“I hope Master Cheng will be honest with me—what exactly do you intend to do with Ning Ji?”
“With something this significant already in my hands, what more could you possibly do?” Cheng Zhouhai looked at him with something between a smile and a smirk. “If I meant Ning Ji any real harm, would you rise up in revolt against me?”
“There’s little I myself could do. But what the whole Zuo family might do, Master Cheng—that’s not mine to decide.”
“Threatening me…” Cheng Zhouhai murmured, then turned and continued walking. Zuo Wenxuan followed. After a few steps, Cheng Zhouhai spoke again. “Don’t worry. You know Ning Ji has arrived, and you can’t shoulder that knowledge alone—it’s too much for you to carry. Now that the matter’s in my hands, I’m the one carrying it, and it’s no small burden for me either. So I figured, better to find someone who can actually bear the weight. That way, if anyone ever comes forward to report it, the blame won’t fall on either of us.”
“Huh?” Zuo Wenxuan was left rather bewildered by what sounded like an ordinary bit of bureaucratic buck-passing, but he saw Cheng Zhouhai gazing out at the hazy night ahead, smiling faintly again.
“Wenxuan, do you know that for all these years, there’s been one great mystery at court that’s never been resolved…”
“…”
“After Ning Yi killed the emperor and departed, Emperor Jingping took the throne. When Emperor Jingping was captured, everyone agreed the court couldn’t go on like that, so they chose the most intriguing branch of the imperial clan to take the throne—the line of the Late Emperor and His present Majesty. The unspoken reasoning at the time was that this particular branch of the clan was on familiar terms with the many disciples left behind by Chancellor Qin, and had also kept close ties with Ning Yi. The people at court may have scorned what Ning Yi had done, but they all admired his ability, without exception…”
“…”
“When the Late Emperor was alive, he brought up the idea several times of making peace with the southwest, even of arranging a marriage alliance, to secure lasting peace under heaven… That was the bigger picture. At the time, everyone agreed it was utterly out of the question. But His Majesty and the Princess Imperial once shared a teacher-student bond with Ning Yi, and after His Majesty took the throne, no one dared bring up his true feelings toward Ning Yi too openly. And yet everyone understood, in their hearts, that if our Wu dynasty ever truly rose to greatness, there would inevitably come a day when it and the southwest would have to settle which of them stood above the other…”
“…”
“Wenxuan, tell me—His Majesty, and the Princess Imperial—what do you suppose their true feelings toward Ning Yi really are? One day… that answer is going to matter a great deal.”
“You…”
“Indeed…”
Cheng Zhouhai nodded.
“…I’d very much like to know myself.”
The night wind blew on. In the sky, a thin crescent moon hung like a painted eyebrow, starlight pouring down from above.
Time changes a great many things; power changes a great many people. But even now, Cheng Zhouhai still remembered that year in Bian Liang, when a fifteen-year-old girl, after seeing her teacher off, had bared her heart to him.
She’d told him she admired her teacher.
And he, back then, had been the one sent to persuade her to return to Jiangning and marry.
Teacher and student had parted ways from that day on, and never met again.
And the feelings the girl had bared that night—he, too, had never spoken of them to another soul since…