Class had let out, but it wasn’t quite noon yet. Sunlight spilled down past the eaves; as the wind blew through the academy grounds, the leaves rustled softly, and two birds flapped their wings, weaving through the dense branches of a large tree in the courtyard. Ning Yi gathered his things and walked beneath the eaves of black tile and grey brick.
Along the corridor, the retreating figures of teachers Guo Peiying and Qu Weiqing hurried past — he’d noticed them walking past outside the classroom while he was teaching, looking somewhat anxious. Still, it wasn’t a matter he needed to concern himself with. Back in the teachers’ lounge, the scholars were each occupied with their own business, chatting and exchanging words. He put his book away in the drawer, then picked up his cloth sack and pulled out the book he meant to take home to read that day. Liu Xiyang and the others invited him to stay and talk again, and he politely declined once more.
Days had gone by in much the same fashion. The academy remained peaceful throughout, and even the sound of children’s voices, mixed in with the drone of insects, was enough to drown out the noise of the outside world. Ning Yi collected his allotted portion of rice from the back and started for home. Headmaster Feng Yongli, sipping a cup of tea, greeted him along the way; there was a certain wariness in his eyes, but mostly a kindly sort of warmth. Past the broken gap at the back of the academy, the girl who went each day to help out at the clinic on the other side was coming from that direction too, dressed in patched, ragged clothes, a grimy silk cloth wrapped around her head. Cradling a small jar, she spotted Ning Yi and broke into a smile, jogging over lightly.
The wind blew through the courtyard, the tree shadows swaying with it, and leaves drifted down through the sunlight. Only three or five days had passed, but there were moments when it felt as though this kind of peaceful, uneventful life might simply go on forever.
“Grandpa Liu made a pot of medicinal porridge today — said it’s good for the body. It’s almost gone, but I saved some to bring back. Try it later, master — there’s licorice root in it, cool and sweet…”
The girl walked ahead of him; Ning Yi laughed and pulled off her head-covering, letting a cascade of dark hair spill down. She shook her head, her figure dancing in the light, occasionally glancing back with a warm, fresh smile, as though cradling some small private happiness. Ning Yi found himself shaking his head and laughing along with her.
The world was small, the courtyard small, the house small, even the eaves were small. The early autumn heat hadn’t yet cooled off; the breeze carried little chill and tended to leave one feeling languid — but this small setting, belonging just to the two of them, had somehow, over the course of a few days, come to feel filled with meaning.
Xiao Chan went next door to help out at the clinic, dressing herself down almost to the point of looking like a boy. There wasn’t much for her to do around midday, so whenever she sensed Ning Yi would be coming home, she’d slip away to run back. She busied herself pouring water for him, tending to him as he washed his face, drank water, and ate porridge.
The place was small to begin with — a small room, a small kitchen. As she eagerly set the earthenware jar down in the room, Ning Yi had already gone off to the kitchen himself to fetch water and wash his face. Xiao Chan came over grumbling that he shouldn’t be doing her job, and snatched the towel from him. Ning Yi laughingly flicked water at her face — it was hot out, after all, and Xiao Chan, running back and forth, had worked up a light sweat. He wiped his own face, then draped the towel over hers; the water jar, kept in the corner, held a faint coolness in it.
Washing up, sipping water, eating porridge from a bowl, chatting now and then — even with Xiao Chan bustling in and out, and the two of them occasionally teasing and play-fighting a little, there was an ease to how they moved around each other, a rhythm of small yielding and understanding between them, so that even in that cramped little kitchen, nothing ever felt crowded or awkward. In front of Ning Yi, Xiao Chan would fix her hair and chatter about what she’d seen at the clinic that day, occasionally asking him questions. The scene looked, on the surface, like a married couple gathering for a midday meal — and, at least from Xiao Chan’s point of view, perhaps something closer to a newly wed pair.
“…Today, there was this person… his bone was broken… looked so bloody… he was screaming so hard, it was scary…”
“I heard it even from the academy…”
“Mm-hm, that was him. But you know, I still reached out and touched it… just like this — see, master, look — and then you can set the bone back into place…”
…
“…The academy’s the same as the past few days… but I heard Liu Xiyang and Qu Weiqing had another argument…”
“Oh, those are the two men you mentioned before, master…”
“Mm… teaching such dull stuff every day…”
…
“This morning I heard someone named Hou lecturing about how men and women shouldn’t touch hands when passing things — nearly went straight from the Women’s Precepts into the Admonitions for Women. The whole class was full of boys — why lecture them on that? I stood there listening for a bit before I left. Reminded me of a joke, actually…”
“Master, master, Xiao Chan’s read both of those books already…”
“Oh, is that so? Then let me ask you — there was a man and a woman, and they shook hands, and then the woman got pregnant. Why?”
“The Women’s Precepts… um, why would a man and a woman shake hands at all? Oh, I know — if two people shake hands, that proves they’re very close, they must be husband and wife. Right, master?”
“…Wrong.”
“Then how could they just go shaking hands like that…”
“Well, I shook yours…”
“Master… Xiao Chan is different…”
…
“…Still wrong.”
“Then why, then? Xiao Chan can’t guess…”
“Because… well, the man didn’t like washing his hands, and neither did the woman…”
“…A-and then?”
“That’s it. Since neither the man nor the woman liked washing their hands, not long after they shook hands, the woman got pregnant…”
“…”
“…The moral of the story is the importance of washing your hands.”
“…I—I don’t get it.”
“…Never mind, it’s just a bad joke.”
Their conversations always ran to such trivial, scattered things. Even though the two of them had already crossed that final line, there wasn’t much room for real intimacy during the daytime. On rainy nights, prying eyes could hardly reach them, but during the day there was likely always someone watching — and, if there truly was, they were probably puzzling over the connection between not washing one’s hands and getting pregnant right about now.
In the afternoons, Xiao Chan still went back to help at the clinic, and these past few days, Ning Yi had occasionally gone along too, watching the old physician treat patients, learning to identify various herbs. Partly it was to keep an eye on Xiao Chan, and partly, since he had nothing else to do anyway, learning a few new things could hardly hurt. Whenever a case involving some kind of external wound came up, Ning Yi would sometimes ramble to Xiao Chan about matters of hygiene and infection out of sheer boredom — though he was hardly an expert himself, he felt he had at least some standing to speak on the subject. The rest of the time, he mostly kept quiet.
The elderly physician, surnamed Liu, was highly skilled and rather kind toward Xiao Chan, though he seemed to regard Ning Yi, his patient, with a certain measure of disdain. Once he’d remarked: “Foreign pathogens invading the body, the wound already festering — and still some amateur dared to stitch it shut. Don’t go spouting your quack nonsense around here.” Ning Yi could only respond with a wry, helpless look — when a wound has become infected, even after the rotted flesh has been scraped away, it shouldn’t be sewn shut. Apparently his injury would have been easy enough to overcome given his robust constitution, but his own reckless meddling had made it several times worse and very nearly killed him. Still, this old physician Liu had also once praised his physical constitution — which, in Ning Yi’s own estimation, was likely thanks to the internal cultivation techniques Lu Hongti had once taught him.
Since that rainy night, Ning Yi had occasionally spent his time tidying up various things around the courtyard, clearing away the collapsed rubble, stacking stones and bricks piece by piece against the wall. Now and then he’d fish out something useful — scraps of iron, even a broken blade. He knew the men keeping watch on him nearby would notice this, but they didn’t seem to mind.
The two blade-bearing men often appeared within his line of sight, and occasionally they even exchanged a few brief words. Their names were rather odd — one was called A’Chang, the other A’Ming; put together, the names sounded like “paying with one’s life,” which suggested their mistress, the one called Liu Xigua, must carry some deep grudge of her own. Yesterday, Ning Yi had dug up that broken blade from the rubble and sharpened it to cut branches in the courtyard; A’Chang had actually appeared on the other side of the yard, drawn the blade from his own back, and tossed it over to him, saying, “This one’s sharper — use it.” He seemed entirely unconcerned about the danger of Ning Yi holding a weapon.
The hole in the roof from that rainy night still hadn’t been properly repaired; over these past days, Ning Yi had only gone up to patch the other, smaller leaks. He’d hammered together two pieces of scrap metal and strung them beneath the eaves as a simple wind chime. This afternoon, he finally bundled the branches he’d cut into a kind of thatched covering, hauled it up onto the roof, and sealed the hole properly.
White clouds drifted past overhead like tufts of cotton; a breeze blew across the rooftop, carrying a hint of coolness, and the wind chime began to ring. From up here, he could take in the surrounding academy, the clinic, the roads, the courtyards, and the passersby coming and going — Hangzhou seemed, for the moment, to have regained a certain calm. Over at the clinic, Xiao Chan was walking beneath the eaves carrying medicinal herbs; when she glanced this way, her eyes went wide, her mouth fell open, and she began jumping up and down, waving at him excitedly — probably calling for him to come down. Ning Yi laughed and waved back, then settled down to sit on the rooftop.
Now that the roof was patched, the nights would be a little cooler. It was almost enough to make him think he might settle down permanently in this little courtyard below. If he really were to live out his days here with Xiao Chan, that wouldn’t be such a hard thing to accept — but of course, he understood perfectly well that things weren’t likely to turn out that way.
From the moment those children had asked him those questions this morning, Ning Yi had understood that something was, in all likelihood, about to happen.
At the latest, tomorrow. If things moved quickly, it might even be this very afternoon.
He sat there on the rooftop, watching the street outside, the passersby, the occasional cart or horse, a few suspicious-looking glances here and there. Now and then he spotted A’Chang and A’Ming out on the street with their blades on their backs, though no fighting broke out. But around the hour of shen, at a street corner some tens of meters away, a man with a bow suddenly crashed through a set of second-floor railings and fell into the street below. He scrambled up from the ground and raised his bow at once, drawing the string — and at the broken gap in the second-floor railing, A’Chang appeared, blade on his back, looking down.
The arrow never flew. Down in the street, some people, startled by the scene, hurried to flee, while others converged from various directions — the whole scene taking on the faint air of a standoff.
Ning Yi rested his chin on his hand, watching this delicate unfolding scene. Then, from behind him on the rooftop, came the sound of footsteps — someone approaching from that direction. Ning Yi turned to look: a young man, perhaps around twenty years old, sat down on the roof beside him, watching the same scene unfold.
“That’s Zhang Daoyuan’s man. He wants to kill you.” The young man pointed toward the street, smiling as he spoke…