Brilliant lanterns, a bustling crowd.

The rain had only just stopped; out on the street, the pavement still ran with rainwater. This stretch of courtyards on the northern side of Hangzhou blazed with light, great red lanterns tracing the outline of the long avenue, waves of carriages, horses, and people converging together — decking out the scene as the liveliest sight Hangzhou had seen since Fang La’s enthronement.

The twenty-second of the eighth month — the Yongle Dynasty’s banquet for the hundred officials.

This district had originally been called Changxing Street, home to Hangzhou’s most prominent and wealthy households. Two streets over stood a grand mansion, once belonging to a prince, now serving as the palace of this fledgling Yongle court. Changxing Street had escaped the worst of the earthquake’s damage, and this area — reportedly one Fang Qifo had had his eye on for some time — had likewise avoided any major destruction during the subsequent fighting. And so this grand banquet for the hundred officials had been arranged here.

Ning Yi had eaten at home before coming out. On A’Chang’s instructions, the young attendant assigned to accompany him stopped at the gate; after presenting his invitation, he was led inside by the guards, exchanging greetings along the way with a scholar he recognized from the academy.

This particular banquet was expected to host somewhere around four or five hundred guests; adding in the soldiers responsible for security and the servants handling logistics, the total scale reached well into the thousands. This whole district had once been a lavish network of courtyards and gardens — grand enough on ordinary days — but walking through it now, amid the shifting lantern light and the constant flow of people, past artificial hills, pavilions, and gravel paths, it took on something closer to the atmosphere of a temple fair.

Further back, though, the scene opened up into something more spacious — a mid-sized plaza surrounded by buildings, the walls facing the plaza now knocked through entirely, rows of round tables lacquered red extending in an unbroken line beneath the eaves like a long dragon, lending the whole scene a certain grandeur. Tall rain canopies had originally been erected across the plaza, though most had since been taken down; the ground beneath was largely dry by now, with only a ring of canopies remaining around the perimeter, beneath which lanterns hung in long rows, lending the whole scene a lively glow.

Though those who had taken Hangzhou were, at their core, mostly farmers with no particular tradition of wealth, the city they’d conquered still held no shortage of luxury goods for decoration. Ning Yi’s circle of contacts in Hangzhou remained fairly small, but he did know a few people all the same — scholars from Wenlie Academy, parents of some of his students, and, most fitting for tonight’s gathering, a number of people connected to the Overlord Blade Camp. After a brief search, he found a seat in a corner of one of the rear rooms.

This particular table consisted mostly of minor officials currently serving within the Overlord Blade Camp — two scholars who’d previously handled affairs for Liu Dabiao, along with a few of Liu Tiannan’s own minor stewards. Now that Fang La’s Yongle court had been formally established, they all counted, more or less, as officials in their own right, and had come along in the spirit of enjoying a free meal and putting in an appearance. As for Liu Tiannan and Liu Dabiao’s chief bodyguards, Du Sha and Luo Bingren, though they too were technically in attendance and on good terms with everyone, they certainly wouldn’t be wandering over to this particular table even so.

Though Ning Yi was an outsider, everyone knew he had genuine ability, and no one gave him any particular trouble in ordinary dealings. Nor was Ning Yi the sort to leave a poor impression on people through careless talk; even with the two scholars at the table, he got along easily enough. These were all men with a certain seniority within the Overlord Blade Camp, veterans of many campaigns who’d seen plenty over the years. Once Ning Yi sat down, one of them — a clerk named Liu Zhizhang — pulled him aside and began pointing out various notable figures in attendance.

“Look there — that one with the long beard, that’s Gao Yu. I know him — accomplished in both letters and martial arts, quite formidable. We’ve shared a meal together before. Not far from him, the somewhat stout fellow — that’s Chancellor Zu Shiyuan. Very good to our lord — we’ve talked before too, practically family…”

“A bit further along — see, the one laughing there? That’s Zhang Daoyuan. Sometimes rather reckless, though some say he’s honey-tongued and treacherous underneath. Best not to concern yourself with him, though…”

“Xu Bai and Yuan Xing — they’re often together… And Li Tianyou… Brother Jiahe, do you see Li Tianyou anywhere?”

Liu Zhizhang went on pointing things out, and it began to seem as though he was deliberately searching out particular figures to show Ning Yi. Ning Yi understood well enough — Zhang Daoyuan, Xu Bai, Yuan Xing, Li Tianyou — these were the men who had once intended to kill him, only backing off when Chen Fan appeared on the scene. Though Liu Zhizhang and his companions were only middling talents when it came to actually handling affairs, their access to gossip and news within the Overlord Blade Camp clearly ran deeper than his own; they had naturally done some inquiring into the events of that day and were now discreetly giving him a heads-up.

Beside him sat Tang Jiahe, a minor steward of the manor currently in charge of odd matters along a few of the surrounding streets. In his thirties, cracking peanuts, carrying a distinctly rough-and-tumble air about him, he glanced around casually and gave Ning Yi’s shoulder an unconcerned pat. “So what if you haven’t seen him? Brother Ning, don’t worry about people like that. Whatever Li Tianyou’s got going on, even if his brother Marshal Li himself showed up, he’d still have to show our lord proper respect.”

Having said this, someone else nearby thought for a moment and asked, “I hear… Brother Ning also managed to offend Marshal Shi?”

Tang Jiahe scratched his head. “Marshal Shi’s a man of some tolerance, not the unreasonable type. Brother Ning’s on our side now, heart and soul — he’ll take that into account. And even if he doesn’t let it go, isn’t there some rapport between Chen Fan and Brother Ning too? Marshal Li, Marshal Shi, our lord, Chen Fan — call it an even match, really…”

“Hard to say, though. Our lord and Chen Fan are both still rather young, after all…”

“Our lord and Marshal Shi have crossed blades before, haven’t they…”

The “Marshal Li” they spoke of was, of course, Li Tianrun, and “Marshal Shi” naturally referred to Shi Bao. Liu Xigua’s standing before Fang La was clearly rather exceptional; whenever conflicts arose with others, those willing to argue the matter out through reason would do so, and those who couldn’t be bothered would simply draw their blades and settle it through single combat. This clearly wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened, and the men chattered on about it with evident relish, one remark after another. Ning Yi listened along with genuine interest.

He himself, at least, had no need to worry about any of this now. Liu Dabiao was, in truth, a woman who understood the stakes involved quite well; if she’d decided to protect him, that meant she’d already weighed the matter carefully. For now, at least, he felt he could trust in that. The group talked on for a while longer, drifting into discussion of who among the rebel forces was the most formidable, who held the most power, and so on and so forth.

In truth, the real heavyweights of the rebel movement were largely absent from tonight’s banquet, as Ning Yi well understood. Fang Qifo, currently second only to Fang La himself in authority, was still engaged at Jiaxing; though he commanded men like Shi Bao and Li Tianrun under him, the fighting there didn’t seem to be going especially smoothly. Fang Baihua had returned briefly for the Mid-Autumn Festival a few days earlier and had originally been expected to attend the banquet, but had left the city again in a hurry just the day before yesterday, called back to oversee the campaign in the northwest. The current Minister of War, Wang Yin, was down in the south, coordinating with Si Xingfang and Deng Yuanjue in the fierce fighting around Yuezhou and Taizhou, and rallying support for Lü Shinang’s uprising in Taizhou — with, by all accounts, considerable success.

The truly major figures — the Four Great Kings, so to speak — were, for the most part, absent tonight. In Hangzhou at present, Lou Minzhong stood as one faction, holding the reins of court administration and effectively wielding the greatest authority. Right Chancellor Zu Shiyuan remained something of a swing figure, maintaining good relations with both Lou Minzhong and Assistant Chancellor Qi Yuankang alike. Grandmaster Bao Daoyi, though he kept a relatively low profile, was in practice the very model of a man with abundant wealth, abundant brothers-in-arms, and abundant resources at his disposal. These were, essentially, the figures everyone was now angling to align themselves with, to attach themselves to as patrons — though there were, of course, smaller factions as well, none carrying quite the same renown as these few. As for someone like Liu Dabiao, her banner flew strictly within her own ranks; outsiders looking to attach themselves to her simply had no real way of doing so, and few people even knew much about her circle to begin with.

Ning Yi had already formed a rough picture of all this in his mind, and hearing these bits of gossip only sharpened it further. Bao Daoyi and Qi Yuankang had yet to arrive; Lou Minzhong and Zu Shiyuan stood surrounded by a crowd of people, and even from a distance, they carried a considerable presence. Having taken this all in for a while, Ning Yi stepped out to use the privy, and on his way back, in the corridor, a figure suddenly blocked his path.

“Ning Liheng.”

The man who addressed him had a dignified, composed bearing, faintly scholarly in manner, somewhere in his thirties. He cupped his hands in greeting after speaking. Ning Yi looked him over for a moment, then found the memory rising to the surface: “Guild Head Long — it’s been a while.”

He’d only met this man perhaps twice before — once when he and Tan’er had first arrived in Hangzhou and paid him a courtesy visit, and once more when they’d happened to cross paths in the street and exchanged a brief greeting. The man’s name was Long Boyuan, formerly the head of the local cloth trade guild in the Hangzhou area. Seeing that Ning Yi still remembered him, Long Boyuan seemed mildly surprised, and waved a hand with a smile. “Ah, don’t call me that — I’m no guild head anymore, not these days.”

He laughed for a moment, then asked, “You never made it out, Nephew Ning — and the Su family niece, is she…”

“It’s a long story, but Tan’er made it back safely. Thank you for your concern, Brother Long.”

“Back home, back home — good, good.” Long Boyuan smiled and nodded, then patted his shoulder. “And what about you, Liheng, these days? Where are you staying? How are things?”

“Ha, couldn’t manage to get away myself. I’ve taken a teaching post over at Wenlie Academy — these days I mostly do some writing, organize records, that sort of thing.” Ning Yi gave a rough account of his current situation. “And what about you, Brother Long?”

“Not good. When the army first entered the city, most of what I’d built up over the years was nearly stripped bare. I’ve got some experience running the cloth trade, but all my old connections have scattered — the marketplace these days is full of strangers from every walk of life, and I hardly know how to navigate the new rules of the game anymore. Just barely getting by, really. Hard times to be doing business in, what with all this chaos.” He laughed again. “Still, the happiest thing these days is running into old friends who’ve come through it all right — though I suppose even that’s not saying much in a place like this. Good that the Su family niece got away safely. But since you’re here, Liheng, let’s keep in touch when you have the time — I’m still living in the same place. My brother Bofen is a scholar too, same as you — I’m sure the two of you would have plenty to talk about.” Though he himself was a merchant, his younger brother, Long Bofen, was very much a proper man of letters.

Ning Yi smiled as well. “Of course, I’d be glad to.”

“Well then, I’ll be on my way.” Long Boyuan patted his shoulder again, then leaned in a little closer. “If you don’t hurry, that young lady over there is going to come find you first. Ha!”

With that, he walked off with a laugh, not looking back. Ning Yi turned, puzzled, and saw that across half the courtyard, beneath the great red lanterns of the far corridor, a woman had tilted her head slightly, gazing his way with a look of mild confusion — Lou Shuwan, whom he hadn’t seen in quite some time.