After that night at Four Seasons Studio, Lou Shuwan made no further move to seek Ning Yi out on her own. What her elder brother, Lou Shuwang, had told her about Ning Yi’s background left her feeling as though she were lost in a dream. What had once seemed to her simply an exceptional man she happened to know — she had even felt, at times, a private pride that she alone truly recognized his worth while others didn’t — had suddenly revealed itself to be something she had vastly underestimated. This man named Ning Yi moved in circles she herself had no way of reaching at all. It was the first time she had ever experienced a feeling quite like this.
A man capable of standing his ground alone against Shi Bao and his men at Taiping Alley, and of turning the tide of a desperate flight using several thousand routed soldiers — Lou Shuwan found it hard to even place a man like that on any scale she knew. Rationally speaking, if she managed to stay calm and objective about it, she did, in truth, agree with her brother’s assessment — even a hero’s strength has its limits, and even heroes are, in the end, carried along by the tides of the times. Exactly how much truth lay behind the rumors surrounding Ning Yi was hard to say. Regardless, in a situation where he had no outside leverage to draw on, the deadlock at Four Seasons Studio truly had seemed unbreakable.
A problem that she — or even her elder brother — saw as unsolvable might, in his eyes, be something he could turn around with barely a lift of his hand. This thought, for someone like Lou Shuwan who still retained a shred of composure, might well rise up in her mind, but she pressed it back down into a corner of her heart each time.
Of all the various events, large and small, that had unfolded across the city that night, even back at home, unable to sleep, Lou Shuwan could still catch snatches of news carried in by the comings and goings of her maids and servants. Given the chaos and upheaval sweeping through the city, the recently reconciled Lou family would naturally be among the most sensitive to it all — but news specifically about Four Seasons Studio wasn’t among what reached her that night. It was only the next morning, amid the fog blanketing the city, that she began to catch fragments of it from the whispered conversations of Wei Lingxue and the others.
After she’d been taken away by her brother, Ning Yi and his companion had, apparently, refused to back down in the face of Li Tianyou’s mounting aggression — and in the end, the scholar named Ning Yi had killed his opponent outright in single combat. When she learned of this from Wei Lingxue, Qin Gulai, and the others — who seemed eager to smooth things over with her — her mind was thrown into an almost unbearable state of confusion.
If that was the case, then just what kind of man was this matrilocal husband of Su Tan’er’s, really?
The figure she had thought she’d already seen clearly had, by this point, grown blurred once more. In truth, Wei Lingxue and Qin Gulai hadn’t gone out of their way to gather news about Ning Yi themselves — the information had actually come down through her elder brother’s people, which meant her brother himself was keeping close watch on how things developed. She made her way through the fog to her brother’s courtyard, and found Lou Shuwang already up and attending to business. Several stewards had just left his study after receiving instructions, and two maids attending her sister-in-law passed by beneath the eaves carrying a wooden basin of hot water. Lou Shuwang was in the middle of dealing with reports his subordinates had brought him — he’d apparently just washed his face — and glanced up at her as she entered.
“…Since he’s connected to the Qi family, we’ll have to let him go for now — settle the accounts properly… follow procedure. Have the accounting office pay him twenty taels…” As he spoke, Lou Shuwang bent his head to write out a short note. Once a servant had taken it and left, he finally stepped away from his desk, gently pressing his right hand into the palm of his left, and said, “You’re up? Li Tianrun’s coming back this morning — things are going to stay tense here for a while. Prepare yourself for that. And with everything happening around the Qi family too, it’s best to stop associating with certain people for a while.”
Lou Shuwan looked at him. Though the news of Li Tianrun’s imminent return had already put her on alert as well, all she said aloud was, “I didn’t sleep last night.”
Lou Shuwang wasn’t surprised by this; he nodded and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Mm. Neither did I. Father’s probably been up all night too. Your second brother didn’t come home last night — Xing Fangzhong kept him overnight on the other side. Nothing serious.”
This last bit was, perhaps, said just to fill the silence, though Lou Shuwan hadn’t really come with anything particular in mind to say either. She sat down in a nearby chair and, watching her brother in silence for a moment, finally said, “He’s still alive.”
“I know. I’ve already heard.” Lou Shuwang’s tone carried no surprise at all — to him, this wasn’t a matter of much consequence. The Lou family now maintained close ties with Fang La’s court, keeping Hangzhou running smoothly, and could rightly be said to have put down deep roots and spread wide branches. He handled countless matters, large and small, every day; whatever concerned Ning Liheng amounted, to him, to little more than a bit of romantic rivalry between his younger siblings, involving a man who happened to seem rather impressive. He viewed the matter from the vantage point of someone with real authority looking down at it, and even if he’d misjudged a few of the finer details, there was no need to make a fuss over it.
“Circumstances forced Li Tianyou’s hand — he had to agree to a one-on-one duel with him, and in the end sent one of his own top fighters out to face him instead… For Ning Yi to have cut his way out alive in a situation like that, he’s clearly no ordinary man. I also heard someone from the Overlord Blade Camp stepped in to help. But… once your second brother comes home, you’ll likely learn where things stand with him.”
“…Even you’re calling him no ordinary man, and yet you still want Second Brother to go up against him?”
“I’m not getting involved — that’s your second brother’s business. There are plenty of no-ordinary men around these days; walk down any street in Hangzhou with a blade at your hip and eight out of every ten you meet are probably no ordinary men either. Even those two attendants of yours have taken on multiple opponents at once before… it all depends on where you place them, what circumstances you put them in… I already told you last night — let it go, Shuwan. Don’t dwell on it any further. There’s no benefit in continuing to think about it, and it isn’t just your second brother you’ll need to worry about going forward — once Li Tianrun’s back, no one will be able to touch either of those brothers.”
What her elder brother said was, of course, entirely reasonable. For a while, Lou Shuwan found it hard to sort out her own feelings toward Ning Yi — sometimes he felt closer, sometimes further away, and even the notion she’d entertained not long ago, that the two of them might perhaps end up together, no longer felt the same. Her thoughts drifted, now full, now hollow. But for the time being, she found she simply couldn’t bring herself to seek him out. Once Li Tianrun returned to the city, Hangzhou’s atmosphere grew grim and severe once more; a wide-scale purge and manhunt began against those suspected of leaning toward the amnesty faction, alongside a hunt for spies the imperial court had planted within the rebel ranks. The pressure of Tong Guan’s forces to the north was already close at hand, and all of this was preparation for the coming siege.
Though none of this was likely to touch the Lou family directly, as a woman, Lou Shuwan largely stopped going out in the days that followed, staying home to handle whatever matters fell to her. In truth, with the shadow of war and the pressure of the ongoing manhunts settling over the city, the flow of goods and supplies had grown noticeably more rigid; everything simply carried on by rote, requiring far less active management than before. The more public, visible work fell increasingly to the men of the household, leaving her with growing amounts of idle time. In these quiet days, she would sometimes sit watching the withered leaves fall in the courtyard, wondering idly how Ning Yi might be spending his days now.
Ning Yi, in fact, had quite a bit of free time on his hands.
After the events at Four Seasons Studio, there hadn’t been much immediate follow-up. Wounded as he was, classes at Wenlie Academy were suspended during his recovery, giving him a few days of genuine leisure. He’d already braced himself mentally for Li Tianrun’s return, so it didn’t hit the Overlord Blade Camp especially hard — if anything affected them, it was mostly the rising prices sweeping the city under the pall of severity that now hung over it.
The autumn harvest had just been brought in, and despite the turmoil of war this year, it was still the most food-abundant season of the year. But that grain had already been divided up among the various factions, and with the shadow of war looming, less and less of it was making its way into open circulation. Within the Overlord Blade Camp, at least, there were still various grain stores to fall back on, so daily life there wasn’t badly disrupted in the short term. Outside those circles, though, life was growing considerably harder.
Ning Yi’s killing of Tang Kou at Four Seasons Studio briefly became a topic of conversation within the small circle around Fine Willow Street, but what people found far more fascinating was the story of Liu Dabiao’s single-handed stand against a crowd of formidable opponents that same night. Those unfamiliar with the real details heard only that the Overlord Blade’s Liu Dabiao had soundly defeated Qi Yuankang, the “Soul-Reaping Spear,” and then, following the customs of the martial world, single-handedly and triumphantly fended off the three Qi brothers who had come seeking revenge. Rumor had it this Liu Dabiao was a heroic figure with a chest full of bristling hair, standing eight feet tall with a waist just as broad…
But for those who actually knew the truth, that Liu Xigua had accomplished all this as a woman was, without question, all the more astonishing. The uprising against Qi Yuankang could well have waited until after Li Tianrun’s return, but the normally low-profile Overlord Blade Camp, together with its allies, had moved early — largely to demonstrate their own strength before Li Tianrun’s arrival. Yet in the days that followed this show of force, another unexpected consequence began to quietly emerge.
That Liu Xigua really ought to get married, shouldn’t she…
No one said this outright, but rumors along the lines of “Lou Jingzhi is going to propose to Liu Xigua” or “there’s something between Lou Jingzhi and Liu Xigua” began circulating once more among the upper ranks of Fang La’s forces. Though the talk stayed confined to a very high level, passed only by word of mouth, before long there was a marked increase in the number of promising young men being sent to liaise with and handle affairs at the Overlord Blade Camp. Most were nephews or younger relatives of the court’s senior officials, and while they remained uncertain whether the rumors about Liu Xigua and Lou Jingzhi held any truth, that Liu Xigua really ought to be getting married did seem to have become something of a general consensus. So they all came hoping to try their luck, and for a time, amid the grim atmosphere of manhunts sweeping the world outside, the Overlord Blade Camp found itself caught up in an entirely different kind of tension — the delicate, ambiguous air of matchmaking.
Liu Xigua, recovering from her injuries in the inner residence, saw no one at all; under Steward Liu Tiannan’s careful concealment, she had no idea just how absurd things had gotten outside. Had she known, she would surely have gone to hack Lou Jingzhi to pieces, internal injuries or not. In truth, Lou Jingzhi was rather innocent in all this — being a proud man by nature, he had no way of explaining his relationship with Liu Xigua to outsiders; even when his father asked him directly, the most he’d say was, “Don’t concern yourself with it.” This time, though, Lou Minzhong had already jumped to his own conclusions and clearly believed there was real promise here — he was, quite possibly, already considering how to go about proposing the match.
Whatever transformation might be brewing in the girl’s heart, whatever resolve she might already have settled on, for now she took no action at all. The matter was simply too significant; it called for more careful consideration, more weighing of consequences, to make sure this momentary rush of feeling wasn’t worth nothing in the end.
Ning Yi visited her twice; neither of them brought the matter up. His own injuries weren’t severe, and healed far faster than Liu Xigua’s — within two or three days, they no longer hindered him at all. By this point, the sweeping manhunt that had begun with Li Tianrun’s return to the city was already causing an uproar, and Ning Yi had begun making his own preparations, bracing for the large-scale retaliation he expected from the Li family. But before that could arrive, another matter erupted unexpectedly first.
Before dawn one morning, an urgent knock sounded at his courtyard gate. Ning Yi got up and opened the door to find one of the academy’s students standing outside. The boy’s name was Zhuo Xiaofeng — not one of the students Ning Yi taught directly, but a member of the faction that had originally been hostile toward him. The boy’s father served as an advisor within Fang La’s ranks; he was fourteen years old this year, sharp-witted, and regarded among the children as something of a strategist.
He had always approached Ning Yi before with a tense, confrontational manner, but now, standing at the door, he was out of breath and clearly anxious. Ning Yi’s first thought was that the Zhuo family had been swept up in the current purge and had their household raided. Seeing no pursuers outside the door, he quickly pulled the boy inside — but after questioning him, he learned that during the days he’d been away from the academy, the two rival factions of children had continued their quiet contest, competing over who could do more good deeds and catch more wrongdoers. This was, on the whole, a good thing — but this time, they had finally run up against something they truly couldn’t afford to provoke…