Clouds drifted overhead in soft clusters, lending the city of Hangzhou below a faint touch of shade, while outside, the sound of firecrackers and gongs drifted in and out, now near, now far. Xiao Chan came running into the shade of the trees, a wooden basin in her arms, and hung the freshly washed clothes on the line strung across the courtyard. The girl was at her freshest, most lively age; even in a patched grey skirt, the hem stirring lightly in the breeze still showed off her slender, graceful figure. As she hung the laundry, she chatted, laughing here and there, with the young man sitting beneath the eaves reading.
That was her young master—though by now, of course, he was also her man.
“So lively out there… young master, do you think they’ve already picked out that martial arts master today?”
What she meant, of course, was the “Green Forest Gathering” that had been stirring up the whole city these past few days—apparently a great many strange and skilled individuals had come to display their talents at the event. Several of the city’s most powerful generals, along with the Sage Duke Fang La himself, had all attended to watch. These days, it seemed all anyone in the streets could talk about, recounting the amazing feats displayed by this person or that, with even more relish than they’d once shown discussing the poetry contests among the city’s talented scholars.
Of course, poetry gatherings and literary societies hadn’t been entirely absent from the city these past few days either—quite a few literary circles had been active, producing a handful of decent verses and even some essays criticizing the ills of the age. A number of scholars who hadn’t previously been chosen for anything naturally hoped to use these gatherings to secure some official post before the new dynasty’s court was fully settled.
Teachers from the Wenlie Academy had attended some of these poetry and literary gatherings too, and held no small standing there, but Ning Yi naturally didn’t go—the Overlord Blade Camp placed no restrictions on this either way. But partly because Ning Yi had never had much of a reputation in Hangzhou’s literary circles to begin with, and partly because his position at the academy was now rather complicated—no one dared cross him, yet he held no formal standing there either—even when people did discuss him, it stayed within the academy itself, and his name never really spread beyond it. And besides, even if someone had invited him, there was no way he’d get himself tangled up in this sort of pointless business right now—his poetic talent was fake to begin with, better to avoid it whenever possible.
Hearing Xiao Chan bring up the gathering now, Ning Yi raised an eyebrow slightly. “It’s a deputy leader of the martial world, not a ‘martial arts master’… though even your young master here, known as the Bloody-Handed Butcher, wasn’t invited—what kind of martial gathering is that? Just a bunch of farmers entertaining themselves, that’s all…”
Ning Yi’s tone in ordinary conversation always carried half boredom, half teasing, and Xiao Chan laughed at this, peeking out from behind the clothes hanging on the line. “Well then, young master, you should just go! Didn’t Brother A’Chang say you could?”
Ning Yi smiled over his book. “But he also called it a bunch of farmhands having a get-together. If even the likes of A’Chang and A’Ming can’t be bothered to show up—minor martial artists that they are—wouldn’t it be beneath me to go? It’s not as if they’ve asked me to be leader.”
“Oh, but I heard over at the clinic that there’s someone who breathes fire…” Xiao Chan said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “And someone who can do a hundred somersaults in a row…”
Ning Yi made no comment on her habit of mistaking circus performers for martial arts masters—though of course, the girl wasn’t actually foolish; she was just chattering along to keep the conversation going. Once she’d finished with the laundry, she carried the wooden basin back inside, then came to sit beside Ning Yi, fanning herself with a cattail-leaf fan. Ning Yi read his book, and she followed along too, occasionally exchanging a word or two with him. After a while, she lowered her voice. “Young master, I heard people saying… you talked about old Master Qian at the academy?”
Ever since going to see Qian Xiwen, the circumstances around Ning Yi had, in fact, loosened up considerably—though perhaps it wasn’t the visit itself that had started it, so much as the conversation he’d had with that young man on the rooftop that day. After that, the Overlord Blade Camp’s people had started sending over more clothing and daily necessities, and so the two of them now found their life together running rather more smoothly. But what Ning Yi had said in class about Qian Xiwen had, in the end, caused a real stir at the academy, and most people now seemed to think Ning Yi had some kind of death wish. Xiao Chan naturally knew about this too, which was why she was asking now. She knew, of course, that her young master’s mood had, in fact, been affected somewhat that day.
Ning Yi glanced at her, nodded, and said quietly as he turned a page, “It’s fine. You know the work we did at Huzhou wasn’t small—if people want to protect your young master, it’s either because they’ve lost their minds, or because they think he’s useful. Very useful, in fact. That Liu Dabiao… she’s a wild card, a bit of a madwoman—being too cautious just won’t cut it with her, and looking handsome alone won’t do the trick either… doing something a little out of the ordinary now and then is exactly what makes someone like her take notice of me. And besides, I really did want to do something for old Master Qian—I didn’t want him and his family’s remains left rotting in some mass grave forever, impossible to ever recover.”
Xiao Chan nodded. In truth, though she’d seemed cheerful enough lately, she’d actually been carrying a fair amount of quiet anxiety inside, constantly worrying about one thing or another. So whenever there was something he could share, Ning Yi never held back, always making a point of talking it over with her. Speaking of the old man now, the girl fanned herself in silence for a moment, then looked at Ning Yi and finally asked, “So when you told the children all that, young master… were you really trying to teach them something good?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ning Yi smiled at her.
“But… they’re, after all, they’re…”
“Xiao Chan, do you think… I stand with the court’s side?”
“Er.” She clearly hadn’t thought about this before, and being asked so directly startled her a little. In her heart, she’d always thought of Fang La’s army as nothing more than rebels and bandits. She thought about it for a moment, then stammered, “But… but… old Master Qian, wasn’t he… wasn’t he…”
“I respect Qian Xiwen, because the old man held to his own Way, and he carried it out with real greatness—which side he stood on doesn’t have much to do with that. If I stood with the court, would I have to stand alongside those officials who only know how to line their own pockets, those military men too cowardly to fight? Those bullies, those thugs, the people I think are beyond saving—whichever side they’re on, I only hope they die as thoroughly as possible. Xiao Chan, I don’t stand on either side. A man like old Master Qian makes me feel he deserved to live. As for everyone else—aside from you, your young mistress, and the rest of the household—I honestly wouldn’t care if every last one of them dropped dead.”
Ning Yi smiled. “Now that I’m here as a teacher, I’m simply doing what a teacher ought to do—teaching them good things, because they’re just students. If they learn something worthwhile, I’m happy for it—the world becomes a little more interesting that way. Xiao Chan, it’s like all those officials back when we were fleeing—if I let them take up space in my head at all, that would already be a waste. They’re cockroaches. If you get the chance to step on them, step on them. If not, just pretend you didn’t see them—there are plenty more everywhere anyway.”
He shrugged. “In any case, I don’t hate them, and I don’t like them either.”
Having said all this, he felt he’d sounded rather cold-blooded, but glancing over at Xiao Chan, he found her resting her chin on her hand, nodding along—clearly not just going through the motions. In truth, Xiao Chan’s own thoughts weren’t so different. She was just a lowly maidservant, after all; her world consisted of little more than this small courtyard, the sisters and the young master and mistress within it, and perhaps, someday, whatever children she and the young master might have together. Whatever lay beyond the courtyard walls held little real meaning for her. Of course, she lacked her young master’s easy detachment—toward the corrupt officials who had betrayed him, she still held a good deal of lingering resentment, and secretly felt it would only be right if they all died.
The autumn afternoon passed in this leisurely chatter, the season growing cooler, the wind light, the clouds thin. In days like these, with the festive mood outside, the various battles unfolding around Hangzhou seemed to grow somewhat distant. Though the occasional wounded soldier still arrived, if one simply stayed at the academy, teaching lessons each day, watching a group of scholars sip tea and murmur about matters as mundane as any family gossip, or discuss the latest excitement happening around Hangzhou, it truly felt like a scene of peace and prosperity.
Ning Yi knew he still had one more hurdle to clear—no matter how leisurely his life seemed right now, sooner or later, someone would come to make arrangements concerning him. When a man lives beneath another’s roof, there’s little choice but to accept it. But when this hurdle finally arrived, it came rather abruptly, and turned out to be rather strange in its own right.
It was the third morning after his chat with Xiao Chan. He had just finished his class and was packing up his things, waiting to collect that day’s wages, when the academy’s headmaster, Feng Yongli, came to find him, and told him, with a rather complicated expression, that Liu Dabiao wished to see him.
The area around Wenlie Academy was, by and large, Liu Dabiao’s territory now, under the Overlord Blade Camp—Ning Yi was well aware of this. The Overlord Blade Camp had previously been fighting at Jiaxing, and it seemed they had finally returned. Ning Yi followed Feng Yongli out of the academy, and once out on the road, he saw all manner of banners fluttering about, most of them tattered or bloodstained, with groups of soldiers apparently disbanding nearby, wandering home in twos and threes, shouting and jostling one another.
Liu Dabiao’s residence stood at the corner of the street—perhaps having just arrived that morning, the place still looked rather disorderly inside. Ning Yi entered through the gate, soldiers running back and forth in groups, some arranging various items, others cleaning up. After passing through several doors, Ning Yi was led into a relatively quiet courtyard, where two blade-bearing soldiers opened the front door for him. The room inside carried a faint smell of medicine. Once he stepped in, the door closed behind him, and the surroundings immediately grew dim.
The room before him was actually rather spacious, something like the imperial hall one might see on television—though as an imperial throne room it would have been rather small, more like a modest hall rented on a limited budget. The space some twenty feet in front of Ning Yi looked fairly empty; further ahead, a gauze curtain hung down, and to one side beyond it, a window stood open, letting in light that allowed Ning Yi to make out what lay ahead.
It was a great bed shaped rather like a throne, with a backrest and armrests but no canopy overhead—it was simply too large to be called anything but a bed. Through the gauze curtain, only its outline could be made out. Beside the great bed sat all manner of curious objects—tables, books, various bamboo strips and documents, ritual vessels, an incense burner, the incense within it burning, likely meant to lightly mask the smell of medicine. Against the outline of the great bed leaned a formidable, oversized blade, and a figure sat there, settled with perfect composure—being only a silhouette, paired with that massive blade, it gave an impression of considerable imposing force, though something about the slight, petite build of the figure softened that killing aura somewhat.
By the incense burner at the side of the bed, another figure stood, likely a maidservant, apparently arranging something.
The three of them, in this room, let the atmosphere settle into silence for a moment.
By this point, Ning Yi was already entirely certain: the figure seated across from him was indeed the woman he’d seen that day during the ambush at Taiping Alley, the one called Liu Xigua. After waiting a good while longer, the first words finally came from behind the curtain.
“I am Liu Dabiao.” The voice carried half an affectation of scholarly refinement, half an affectation of bandit roughness, and combined with its rough delivery—still unmistakably a woman’s voice underneath—the effect came off rather strange.
An unpleasant voice… Long afterward, thinking back, this was Ning Yi’s truest and most lasting first impression of this young woman named Liu Xigua.