By the window, the faint light of early morning glowed, and the breeze seemed to carry, ever so faintly, the scattered stirrings of a waking city. Cheng Zhouhai set down his brush and looked toward Ning Ji, a look of genuine appreciation on his face now.

“Since you’ve stepped back and won’t be taking part in operations anymore, there’s some information I can tell you. You’ll have to promise to keep it secret.”

Hearing this, Ning Ji instinctively straightened his chest.

“I was a special-forces soldier in the Southwest too, through real battles. I know what matters and what doesn’t.”

“Mm.”

Cheng Zhouhai nodded, then came out from behind the desk, his gaze drifting to the window. He seemed to weigh his words for a moment before speaking. “As for exactly who it was that warned you — I’m not entirely certain myself. Over the past two years we’ve sent a number of agents out into the field; various people may have their own under them. On Pu Xinguī’s side there’s more than one, even. They really did receive orders to save your life at any cost, though thankfully it never came to that… Your battle yesterday nearly threw everyone’s plans into chaos — a whole group of people were scared witless and fled, and Pu Xinguī nearly gave up on the rebellion altogether. But fortunately, there were other gains as well…”

“…What’s had the Ministry of Justice and the secret agents pulling their hair out these past while is that we’ve barely been able to get a lead on Chen Shuangran’s side. But your rampage yesterday, by a strange twist of fate, gave one of our planted people the chance — yesterday afternoon, he finally won their trust and got a look at some of their cards… So there’ll be plenty happening both inside and outside the city today…”

Cheng Zhouhai picked up the teacup on the desk and took a sip.

“…Inside Fuzhou, there’ll be some small, scattered disturbances — might look somewhat lively, but that’s the last thing they’re still capable of doing… The real killing blow is outside the city. A garrison granary to the west and an Ever-Normal Granary to the north are both going to be hit — the officials at one of them have already been infiltrated and turned. That’s their main target. Once the grain’s burned, the local merchants in the city will start stirring things up along with it, and that could cause a grain panic and a run on supplies here — and outsiders would seize the chance to rise up in revolt…”

“Why won’t you tell me which one it is?”

“So you don’t go out and cause trouble.”

“Heh… I wasn’t planning to go out today anyway…”

Ning Ji grumbled, then frowned. “So in the end, after all this fuss, it all comes down to burning some granary?”

“At least that’s what Pu Xinguī thinks.” Cheng Zhouhai smiled. “And he’s not wrong, either. With a rebellion, unless you can actually assassinate the emperor and topple the dynasty in one stroke, it’s bound to drag on. The Emperor’s putting on a show in Fuzhou, saying he’s taking a new consort, rallying all the various factions together; Chen Shuangran and Pu Xinguī say, we’re going to cause trouble — and by the time this play runs its course, they’ll have made their stance known, and the tens of thousands of people out there will see whatever it is they want to see. Hardly anyone will ever know that Fan Zhong was killed at Yinan Manor, or that Pu Xinguī and Chen Shuangran got humiliated in front of a mere child like you. If one day their rebellion succeeds, the histories might well record that Fan Zhong lived and died a hero, carelessly wounded, in passing, by some child…”

“But Chen Shuangran doesn’t see it that way?”

“As for what Chen Shuangran is planning, I have a few guesses.” Cheng Zhouhai’s expression turned serious. “The answer’s about to come out. I hope I’m wrong.”

“Guesses about what?”

“Can’t tell you yet.”

“Hmph…” Ning Ji thought to himself, I’ll go ask Xiao Qu when I get back.

“Go ask Xiao Qu when you get back, exactly,” said Cheng Zhouhai. “She might just be able to work out something.”

“…”

Ning Ji narrowed his eyes into a fox-like squint.

Cheng Zhouhai, looking at his expression, seemed a little puzzled, then said, “Anything else you want to ask?”

“…The intelligence you got is this clear-cut — if it’s a trap Chen Shuangran set, meant to lead you astray, what then?”

“We’ve naturally taken precautions for that as well.”

“Mm, I heard of cases like that back home too — thinking yourself flawless in your scheming, only to fall right into someone else’s trap.”

“A fair reminder.”

The morning breeze stirred, the leaves rustling. Cheng Zhouhai lifted his teacup and stood there; Ning Ji stood there too. The two of them waited in the quiet room for a moment, until at last Cheng Zhouhai spoke. “Anything else?”

Ning Ji turned slightly, hesitated, then turned back again. This time, it seemed he had made up his mind, and his words came quickly.

“There is actually one thing — I need your help.”

“Speak freely.” Cheng Zhouhai smiled. “Even setting aside who you are — though you never listen to orders and always act on your own — for what you accomplished at Yinan Manor yesterday, I owe you some gratitude. Go ahead.”

“That…”

“Mm.”

“Er…” Ning Ji gritted his teeth. “Even though… you said the news from Yinan Manor won’t reach too many people…”

“That’s one way to put it…”

“But… so many people got away… something like this… it’s bound to spread through the jianghu, among the bandits and outlaws. After all, I killed Fan Zhong and drove off more than seventy men…”

“Among the jianghu… of course it will spread…”

“So… you’re in charge of the Bureau of Secret Investigation,” Ning Ji said. “Back when my father ran things like that, they were best at storytelling and spreading rumors…”

“…” Cheng Zhouhai’s brow creased.

“So, I was hoping you could help me spread a bit of false news… no, wait, it’s not really false either, it’s just… um, it’s just…”

Ning Ji rambled on, and Cheng Zhouhai watched him with an earnest, serious gaze the whole while. After a good long stretch of this, Ning Ji finally gritted his teeth.

“Anyway… I was wondering if you could… change the ‘Sun Wukong of Yinan Manor’ to ‘Long Aotian’?”

He got the whole sentence out in one breath, then stared at Cheng Zhouhai anxiously, ready to catch every last flicker of expression on his face. But Cheng Zhouhai, one hand holding the saucer, the other the cup, kept his serious face utterly free of any extra expression. The two of them stared at each other like that for a good while, until at last the cup in Cheng Zhouhai’s hand gave the faintest tremor.

Ning Ji gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw, and heard, from the other side, the steady, unhurried voice say: “…That makes sense.”

“…Huh?”

“You are Ning Yi’s child, after all — the name ‘Lecher’ shouldn’t be allowed to spread further. But this record of yours, unmatched under heaven, is indeed worth promoting under the name Long Aotian.”

“Right?”

“What’s more, last year in Jiangning, Chen Fan, Qian Luoning, and the others passed through that area — you made your name there as Long Aotian, and they may well know of it. Now that you’ve come southeast, if word spreads that the Five-Foot Lecher, Long Aotian, was blown up and killed, while the Four-Foot Lecher, Sun Wukong, remains unmatched under heaven, it will only muddy their understanding of the situation. Your idea does show a certain cleverness.”

“Er… cleverness…” Hearing this, Ning Ji couldn’t tell whether the man genuinely thought it made sense or was simply talking nonsense, and scratched his head in some confusion.

“But public office isn’t to be used for private ends like this — I don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Hm?” Ning Ji narrowed his eyes.

“Go find His Majesty,” Cheng Zhouhai said, turning away. “He styles himself your elder martial brother — in all of Fujian, he’s the only one with both the authority and the mood to fool around with you like this. He’ll even hand you a gun face to face — why come to me over something like this?”

“Er…”

That did make sense! Ning Ji scratched his head, his expression falling.

Ever since Yue Yun had reminded him of this the day before, he’d been fretting over it, and this morning, first thing after waking, he’d instinctively come looking for Cheng Zhouhai, feeling that this man had the wit to solve any great trouble. Who would have thought that after a few exchanges, he’d only just now remembered he could go cling to that not-especially-reliable-seeming elder martial brother of his instead. If he’d thought of it sooner, why would he have come all this way to embarrass himself for so long, making a fool of himself for nothing?

At the thought, a flash of irritation rose in him, and with a “tch” and a wave of his hand he turned to leave. Behind him, Cheng Zhouhai said, “Don’t go today — there’s a great event at the palace, and His Majesty won’t be able to get away either. I’ll mention your matter to him; tomorrow he should come find you, and things should be settled.”

“Got it! I won’t go running off!”

Ning Ji could hear the wariness in the man’s words, and being in a good mood just then, didn’t mind offering him a bit of reassurance. As he walked out the door, he heard the man shaking his head behind him.

“See — you young people these days are all like this. All smiles when you need someone, and cold shoulders once you don’t.”

There was teasing in his tone, and it was clear enough his mood was good — probably feeling he had a handle on today’s affairs.

…

Crunch, crunch. He sat with Qu Longjun and finished breakfast.

Yinping and Yue Yun came by to say goodbye before heading out to their duties.

Ning Ji didn’t get into it with Yue Yun. He stood in the courtyard and ran quietly through a set of forms. Yue Yun and Yinping watched from the side, and Yinping chatted with Qu Longjun, who sat beneath the eaves.

They soon left.

Zhou Fuyang, the little turnip-head staying at the Princess Imperial’s residence, also came by for a turn around the place. Farther off, Zhou Pei, about to head to the palace, came to check on things here and quietly asked the imperial physician about them as well.

Ning Ji could feel her gaze watching from a distance.

Then the carriages, too, left the residence.

The temperature gradually rose.

In the shade of the great banyan tree, Ning Ji sat cross-legged, relaxing, feeling the flow of blood within his body. Qu Longjun sat nearby on a stone stool, reading. In the tree’s shade, the wind stirred her skirts, revealing the delicate tips of her shoes.

Qu Longjun went to the kitchen behind the Princess Imperial’s residence and brought back two bowls of chilled fish jelly; the two of them held their bowls and slurped it down.

“…Little Qu, what did Cheng Zhouhai mean about the little dark-skinned girl’s scheme?”

“…No idea.”

“…So then what he meant was…”

“…What Mr. Cheng is watching, I think, is the person behind her…”

“…Of course I know she has someone behind her too…”

“…But this time, the person behind her might not be from Fujian…”

“…Huh?”

“…I can’t guess who it is either. But actually, that’s the whole crux of the matter.”

Ning Ji didn’t practice with weapons. He sat in the courtyard, laid out several weapons — blade, spear, sword, halberd — set them beside him, propped his chin in his hand and admired them, now and then picking one up or another, swinging it idly.

Under the sunlight, the wind of a blade’s swing rang out suddenly, then, as if by illusion, settled back into stillness.

Beyond the residence, in the city, there seemed to be the faint stir of unrest rising. There always would be — but according to Cheng Zhouhai, it was probably nearing its end.

Inside the residence, by contrast, it felt all the more tranquil.

“Let’s go exploring.”

In all the days since coming to the residence, Ning Ji had been out running around every single day; thinking of it now, the two of them still hadn’t carefully explored the place itself.

Hand in hand, they passed through the residence’s inner gardens, not especially grand, some corners even rather cramped and cluttered with odds and ends.

It was all the more charming for it.

“My martial arts are almost at their full accomplishment.”

Ning Ji said.

“Once I’m strong enough that I’m not afraid of that dark-skinned girl and her sort anymore, let’s go back to the Southwest together.”

“Aren’t you looking for that Yu Xiao’er anymore?”

“Not looking for her — probably can’t find her anyway.”

“You don’t hate her in your heart anymore?”

“Of course I’m still not happy about it — but the grudges and grievances of this world, maybe some of them are just never meant to be resolved. As long as she never crosses my path again in this life, that’s enough. But if I can never find her, I’m not going to keep pointing at her to justify how I live.”

“So are you going to have a child to bring back with you?”

“Er… I was thinking, wouldn’t you rather… meet my father and the others first, and then properly marry me? They’ll definitely like you.”

“It really doesn’t matter to me either way… I went from the Southwest all the way to Jiangning, and I saw all that life and death along the way. It doesn’t matter to me — does that strike you as strange? You want me to bear you children, so I’ll bear you children… it doesn’t matter where.”

“You’re so good to me…”

High-pressure steam seemed to rise from Ning Ji’s flushed red face, letting out little whistling sounds.

The two of them went back to the courtyard for lunch, wolfing down heaps of food, and Qu Longjun wiped the grains of rice from the corner of Ning Ji’s mouth.

Off in the distance, the city seemed to be growing livelier still.

Ning Ji, having eaten too much, walked slowly around the courtyard step by step, turning in circles, guiding the flow of his blood and breath. Qu Longjun followed along and learned to do the same for a while.

After a time, the girl went to fetch water and do housework. She dragged a bamboo mat out from the room, scrubbed it clean with well water, meaning to lie down for a nap on it later in the afternoon, then swept the ground and wiped down the window lattices.

Though Fuzhou was scorching hot, since the two of them had come to know each other, this really was the best house they’d ever lived in. The great banyan tree cast a rare patch of shade over the courtyard, and beneath the eaves ran a long corridor paved with blue brick; only, since they hadn’t been out much, they hadn’t bought many things of their own yet.

Ning Ji stood in the sunlight, stood in the shade, sat cross-legged beneath the banyan tree, sensing the subtle differences his body produced in each place.

In the sixth month, Fuzhou’s fierce heat could still weigh heavily on a person; as he ran through a set of forms in the sunlight, though he didn’t sweat, he could still feel a faint restlessness stirring within.

But then he would catch sight of Qu Longjun moving about in one place or another, and that restlessness would fade away.

The girl, in her gray-and-white dress, swept here and there, dozed off for a while on the mat, sat up to read, then went out again to fetch well water and bring it over for him to drink.

“Isn’t it cold anymore?”

“Still very cold.”

“I’ll go ask them for some real ice. I’m so hot too.”

She trotted off with the water bowl in hand, sticking out her tongue playfully as she ran.

“You little rascal…”

Ning Ji sat contemplating that faint, barely-there restlessness in his heart.

His devotion to the martial path had reached the point of foreknowledge.

The summer afternoon sunlight fell through the gaps in the shade, almost no wind stirring; the June sun of Fujian scorched the earth.

Without a sound, Ning Ji turned his head.

On the other side of the courtyard, high up among the trees, someone sighed.

“A-mi-tuo-fo…”

The sunlight pressed down, heat rippling and roiling all around, and blood seeped from the corner of Ning Ji’s mouth. In that instant his heartbeat rose to three times its normal rate, blood like liquid cinnabar roaring through his body like thunder.

He opened his mouth.

“Aaaaaaaah—”

The vast wave of sound surged from low to high in an instant, booming skyward like thunder — the force of this inner-strength-driven roar spread mightily out across the sky around him, and in only a moment, passersby outside the Princess Imperial’s residence turned instinctively to look this way. From childhood he had been trained and nurtured by several grandmasters within his family, and had gone through round after round of slaughter on the battlefield, brushing death time and again — and now, on this day, the tempering of the vast inner strength within his body had nearly reached full accomplishment, and with his all-out effort, he broke through the threshold.

But even so, amid this soul-shaking, tremendous wave of sound, a single sigh still rang out — and though his own roar was mightier still, in this instant, it could not drown the other voice out.

“You child… you really do make me angry—”

Amid the sea of rising heat, the girl in the gray-white dress crossed through two courtyards, heading off into the distance.