Su Wenji’s voice rang out amid the wind and snow — words he had clearly prepared to say for some time now. Among the several managers of the Su family’s main branch, Xi Junyu was sharp and capable, always the most outstanding among them. Although he couldn’t yet match some of the older men in seniority, few doubted that he would one day be able to shoulder half the weight of the Su enterprise. Many even said that Xi Junyu had the makings of a top examination candidate, and that the Wu family had once offered him a fortune to come work for them, which he had turned down — the reason he stayed with the Su family, they said, was simply for the sake of the second young lady, Su Tan’er.

For this reason, ever since Su Tan’er’s marriage, Su Yunfang and Su Wenji had continually tried to draw closer to him, extending goodwill. Su Wenji knew well enough that his own abilities were limited, but he prided himself on being open-minded and generous toward talented people, treating capable men with great favor, believing firmly in the principle that “even if I lack ability myself, so long as I hand matters over to those who have it, things will work out.” This attitude had earned him no small amount of praise from others in the past.

But now, having heard him out, Xi Junyu simply looked at him for a moment before bringing his palm down heavily on Su Wenji’s shoulder, and amid the young man’s confusion, shook his head with a cold laugh once more. “Seventh Young Master, don’t be so naive…”

“This is your best opportunity… you know what I’m saying is true.”

Unable to read the other man’s intentions, Su Wenji was thoroughly confused by his attitude, and since Xi Junyu’s hand still pressed down firmly on his shoulder, he could only repeat himself. After a moment, Xi Junyu let out a sigh.

“Ha, Seventh Young Master, treating the talented with courtesy and using people wisely — these are good things. I know your father taught you this. Without the ability to manage things yourself, staying out of others’ way is itself a clever shortcut. But you don’t understand — someone who truly knows how to use people must also be able to command their respect. If your subordinates ever disagree with one another and you lack the decisiveness and authority to settle it, how could you possibly manage them?”

Looking at the young man before him, Xi Junyu couldn’t help but find it faintly amusing. Su Wenji thought for a long moment. “At the very least… wouldn’t this actually work in your favor?”

Xi Junyu shook his head. “I, Xi Junyu, will not stand beside someone destined to fail.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Watching the figure stride off, Su Wenji hesitated for a good while before something finally dawned on him. “You’re angry! You’re angry!”

“That’s actually somewhat of an improvement.” Xi Junyu said this evenly, then, without turning back, waved his hand — snowflakes seemed to burst apart in the air around the gesture. “Wake up, Seventh Young Master. None of you can outmatch Su Tan’er. From the very start, she never even considered you a threat!”

Amid the swirling wind and snow, Su Wenji stared in shock as the ink-robed figure strode away. After a moment, he clenched his jaw, suppressing his anger — even as he thought that, despite all their past encounters, this seemed to be the first time he’d managed to rattle Xi Junyu’s composure, which might mark some kind of turning point, the sting of those parting words still refused to settle. Without thinking, he threw a punch at the tree trunk beside him.

He wasn’t a particularly strong man, and normally a punch like that would only hurt his hand. Braced for the pain, he clenched his teeth and shook his fist through the air — when suddenly his whole neck went ice-cold, and his shoulders were suddenly covered in snow. He looked up angrily, and his expression immediately shifted to alarm, his mouth falling open in a look of dawning horror…

From a distance, the figure beneath the tree had struck it with a single punch; the tree swayed gently a few times, and then — crack — whoosh —

A cascade of white and green swallowed the figure whole, two hands and one foot thrashing weakly atop the resulting snowdrift.

A moment later, a maidservant’s cry rang out from that direction: “Help! Someone help! The Seventh Young Master’s been buried in snow!”

…

[Nie Yunzhu sings the second verse of the same ballad, her voice soft and searching as she blends traditional vocal techniques with the unconventional turns Ning Yi has just taught her — the lyrics continuing the earlier themes of fading history, devotion across lifetimes, and following the singer into the wandering dust of the world, the melody slow, rich, and mellow like fine wine.]

The man, meanwhile, carefully peeled the shells from the duck eggs to the sound of her singing, an amber color gradually emerging beneath the cracked shell. In this era so similar to the Song dynasty, preserved eggs — what later ages would call “century eggs” — appeared before human eyes for the first time to the accompaniment of music, then were set down in the porcelain bowl before them, delicate patterns visible within the amber-colored egg white. Ning Yi listened to Nie Yunzhu singing this rendition of “Rain Over the Monastery,” noticeably different from the original, and felt a faint touch of something ancient and evocative in it.

Even living in this era, what he saw and experienced day to day remained, for the most part, simple and plain — simple to the point of dullness. Walking along the banks of the Qinhuai River, the pleasure boats and buildings never looked as fine as they did on television, and the streets were dirty and disorderly in all sorts of ways. That sense of ancient charm was a particular state of mind — much like the lantern-lit courtyards of the Su household each evening, or the night he’d taught Xiao Chan to sing about the moon, or the ease of being inside a small building while rain poured down outside. These were the things that could make him think back across the many years to come, and it was only then, in such moments, that any real sense of antiquity would rise up from within him. He was, after all, a man of the modern age, and it was that particular state of mind that carried the deepest weight of accumulated time — like poetry, like fine wine.

Having listened quietly to the end of the song, Nie Yunzhu seemed to want to say something, then hesitated. She had never heard anything like this folk tune before, yet even among the refined pieces suited for polite company, she had never encountered such a strange style of singing either. Across a thousand years, musical composition had always followed the path of single-melody music; even a thousand years later, every regional opera pursued its effect through tone and atmosphere alone. In terms of sheer variation, none of it could compare to the complexity found in blending different styles the way modern music did. Having just finished the song, with her level of skill Nie Yunzhu could clearly sense the intricate shifts the piece was reaching for. In a sense, this simple, almost shallow-seeming style — while simultaneously pursuing technical complexity to an extreme degree — bordered on heretical by traditional standards. But to her, it was nonetheless deeply striking and inspiring in many ways.

At the same time, the lyrics themselves felt somewhat too plain, and in places seemed almost cobbled together… She glanced at Ning Yi. Perhaps he had simply spoken carelessly, casually chasing after an interesting way of phrasing things, and this song had emerged as a result, almost by accident. And yet, even so, it was genuinely astonishing — those scattered, plain-sounding lines nonetheless carried a faint, elusive sense of meaning, as though tossed off effortlessly, like some cynical, playful game. Never before had Nie Yunzhu imagined that a single piece of music could leave her so unsettled, her thoughts so disordered.

“Young master, is this style of singing something you put together casually on your own?” Hard to believe as it was, it seemed the only explanation. If this had truly come from someone deeply versed in music, surely even an improvised folk tune would never turn out quite like this.

“Can it actually be listened to?”

“Strange, but interesting.” Nie Yunzhu thought for a moment, choosing her words carefully, then smiled. “Only… it’s probably only fit for casual enjoyment, or for singing among two or three close friends. Um… probably…”

She trailed off, a little unsure how to put it delicately. Ning Yi laughed. “Not fit for polite company, ha ha.” He paused a moment. “But then, I only made it because I liked it — just something to listen to myself, and I found it interesting.”

Ning Yi had always carried himself in an easygoing, unrestrained manner, and Nie Yunzhu was already used to it by now; seeing his attitude, the confusion and disorder in her heart settled somewhat. It was, after all, just an oddly composed song — as long as it could be sung and listened to, it was mostly just a pleasant enough experience. She herself had studied music deeply and had certain standards and principles she felt bound to defend, but at this moment none of it struck her as strange anymore; she simply felt that this was how it ought to be, coming from him.

“Actually, it’s quite good to listen to,” she said, smiling and nodding. “It’s just… I’ve never heard lyrics and melody quite like this before. To do it justice with an entirely new musical arrangement will take a few days of study…”

Ning Yi nodded, smiling. “Of course. I’m not in any hurry. Honestly, just getting to hear it once already made me happy. It sounded lovely just now.”

“You flatter me, young master. There were plenty of places where my technique fell short…” Nie Yunzhu said, then glanced toward the bowl of eggs. “What happened to these salted duck eggs, to turn out like this?”

“These are called preserved eggs — century eggs. You could call them jade eggs, or agate eggs, or treasure eggs, whatever you like. This whole batch should be good — priced a bit higher, it ought to sell well. There should be nothing else quite like it anywhere in the realm, one of a kind…”

Ning Yi introduced the preserved eggs with a laugh. He had originally asked Nie Yunzhu to prepare two jars, fifty eggs in total, but now he only planned to take one jar with him. In truth he’d only wanted to make these for himself to eat; it made no difference to him who ended up selling them, and since Nie Yunzhu understood music and would need to help him compose tunes going forward, he considered this something of an investment.

After a token show of declining, Nie Yunzhu accepted the jar anyway. They chatted a while longer, and then Nie Yunzhu went to the kitchen and found some straw rope to tie up the small jar. Ning Yi lifted the earthenware jar and took his leave, and Nie Yunzhu saw him to the door before returning to the room after a while.

Softly murmuring and humming that melody to herself, Nie Yunzhu walked over to the table, looking at the paper on which she’d written the lyrics. She picked up the preserved egg from the bowl, bit into it with her white teeth, and chewed slowly, still humming the lyrics under her breath, one line at a time.

The unfamiliar, strange melody; the never-before-tasted flavor of the egg — both flooded into her mind at once. Just now, while Ning Yi had still been here, her heart had felt calm, yet now, for some reason, it felt unsettled.

[She continues humming fragments of the song’s verses, evoking old towns, city gates, echoes on stone pavement, a shepherd’s flute in a distant village, fate taking root, and someone who has waited alone — repeating the line about following him into the wandering dust of the world.]

Her gentle voice merely hummed the tune softly, but her mind churned with memories — thinking of the moment just before, when the two of them had pushed the cart home together. She set down the half-eaten preserved egg, walked to the door, and gently opened it; the wind and snow rushed in from outside. She stood there, looking off toward the distant road, where that figure in the blue robe, holding his paper umbrella, was gradually receding into the wind and snow, already reduced to a last, blurred impression in the distance.

“Following him into the wandering dust…”

Her heart thudded, and she felt as though she were standing at the very threshold of that wandering dust itself, her chest rising and falling faintly, her thoughts churning like a tide — at times feeling the meaning of those lyrics was impossible to put into words, at other times feeling something else entirely — her heart pounding, pounding, before she told herself she was simply overthinking things.

“Master Ning is an honorable, upright man. Surely he only wrote those lines on a whim… Nie Yunzhu…”

“Nie Yunzhu, Nie Yunzhu, Nie Yunzhu…”

The distant figure had long since vanished into the snow. She closed the door, pressed her lips together, and walked back to sit at the round table, telling herself once more that she really was overthinking things. She rested her cheek on her hand, looking sideways at the lyrics, humming a few lines softly under her breath, then leaned forward, chin resting on her folded hands, gazing straight ahead at the bitten preserved egg sitting nearby, a thin beam of light slipping in through the doorway and falling upon it, casting a shimmering, jewel-like glow across its amber surface.

She simply lay there like that, staring blankly at that glimmering color for a long while, the dim light of the room making her look, for a moment, almost like a little girl again…