What had begun as a matter of state, of politics, suddenly turned into a family affair because of one sentence: “I like him.” That such a thing should happen to Liu Xigua left everyone who knew her with decidedly mixed feelings.
To Fang La, the Sabre Guard commanded by the Liu family had always been the most loyal force under his banner. Liu Xigua herself, being a girl, might be a little strange, willful, and prone to flights of fancy, but at bottom she had always stood as the most steadfast pillar at his side. On that basis, she had always been like a daughter to him.
When Xigua had first refused to marry, Fang La had let the matter go — but a daughter grows up, and such things could not be avoided forever. When Fang Baihua, Shao Xianying, and the others grew enthusiastic about the matter, Fang La had voiced his support. Among the second generation of the uprising there was no shortage of talented young men, and among them Lou Jingzhi was considered the best match for her — a gifted man and a beautiful woman, and he got along with Chen Fan like squabbling friends. Unfortunately, of Fang La’s own sons, those who were of age were already married, and those who were not were too young; he had nothing to offer her as a principal wife. If Xigua were to marry in as a mere concubine, the other veterans of the army would never stand for it, and Fang Jie and the others had no interest in the match either, so Fang La had never pressed the matter.
Who could have known that when the truth finally came out, it would catch everyone off guard.
“…Even when Chen Fan clashed with the old Daoist, she never used this excuse to plead for anyone!”
Night had fallen, and candles flickered in the side hall of the palace. It was Fang La speaking, in this exact tone of gloom. After that afternoon’s council had taken an unexpected turn, everyone had gone home to mull over how things might develop and to reconsider where they stood. Those who came back that evening were among the innermost of Fang La’s old followers from the very start of the uprising — kin like Fang Qifo, comrades-in-arms like Deng Yuanjue, Lou Minzhong, and Zu Shiyuan — men who had known the old Sabre commander Liu Dabiao and who had standing to speak on the matter of Xigua’s marriage.
“That’s because… this time it happens to be a reason that can actually help someone.”
“Is there such a thing as using a reason like that to plead for someone! For a man! A girl like her…” Fang La was already waving his hands and shouting. “It was one thing when she didn’t want to marry before, but this is getting more and more outrageous. If she won’t think of her elders, someone has to think for her — there had to come a day! A girl ruining her reputation… damn it, and that Ning Liheng of all people, a man who surrendered to us, no less… a pretty-faced weakling — how could Qianqian possibly be fond of him, nonsense!”
After Fang La finished venting, someone in the room glanced his way. “Wasn’t it said… that Jingzhi and Qianqian have been…”
Lou Minzhong quickly waved his hands. “Nothing’s come of it — don’t even bring that up. Jingzhi’s been carrying a torch that’s entirely one-sided.”
“I think Qianqian may be careless about small things, but… when it comes to important matters she still has good judgment.”
“I’m afraid she doesn’t consider this an important matter at all.”
“She simply doesn’t think of it as important at all,” Fang La agreed through gritted teeth. “Dabiao passed away too early, and her mother even earlier. Say what you will, Dabiao and I went through life and death together, but I always told him he was raising that girl all wrong, letting her play with knives all day and telling her that a hairy-chested hero was the greatest thing in the world. And look what name he gave her — Xigua, watermelon of all things — the poor girl’s wanted to change it her whole life… Though come to think of it, wasn’t the name I gave her, Qianqian, good enough? Why does no one ever use it?”
“Amitabha.” Deng Yuanjue glanced sideways at Fang La. “Back when people called her Xigua, she’d draw her blade and cut them down for it. Now that people call her Qianqian instead — to anyone paying attention, isn’t it the exact same thing?”
“That’s not… that has an extra ‘grass’ radical on top, that’s different…” Fang La waved his hand to emphasize the point, but at last his mouth twitched and he let the matter drop. “Anyway, it’s all because she had no mother to raise her right. I was careless too — after Dabiao died I asked Xianying to keep an eye on her, but Xianying could never control her, and by then she was already grown, so how do you even teach virtue and propriety to a girl like that? I should have handed her to Baihua from the start… though the reason I didn’t was that Baihua herself was always waving weapons around, and I was afraid she’d lead Dabiao’s girl further astray… Anyway, none of that matters now. The biggest problem is whether she really likes this Ning Liheng, and then… whether this Ning Liheng can be trusted at all.”
At this, everyone exchanged glances. Lou Minzhong pinched his mouth shut and looked elsewhere, and after some whispering back and forth, it was finally Fang Qifo who spoke. “Sovereign, she’s never used this excuse for anyone else, only for this one man. I think Qianqian understands perfectly well what a thing like this means for a girl’s whole life.”
Fang La stared at him for a long while, then sighed. He knew there was something self-deceiving in that reasoning, but faced with his daughter-figure suddenly falling for such an odd choice, he found it hard to accept. “In any case… Xianying and Baihua are both asking around about it now. As for this Ning Liheng — you’ve all looked into him, haven’t you? He surrendered to us, and not long ago he was caught up in the internal strife between the Sabre Guard and the old Daoist, and now he’s suddenly killed the old Daoist too. Could there be something behind it?”
“We’ll keep investigating,” Fang Qifo answered. “But… the whole affair really did happen very abruptly. The old Daoist’s visit to me was on a whim, and asking about Ning Liheng’s background just happened to be a coincidence too. The steward in my household who knew Ning Liheng’s background was someone I’d sent to investigate a few days earlier — too many coincidences piled together for it to have been deliberately arranged. In fact, once the Sabre Guard and the old Daoist finally broke apart completely, I noticed Qianqian was doing her best to conceal Ning Liheng’s part in the affair against him — which shows she values this man, and is afraid he’ll be caught up in the aftermath.”
“But knowing Qianqian’s temperament, I can’t imagine her falling for a scholar who needs protecting. Might that be an issue?” someone in the room spoke up.
Zu Shiyuan shook his head. “This Ning Liheng is no small thing. He’s not exactly a top-tier master, but they say the martial world calls him the Bloody-Handed Butcher…”
Fang Qifo laughed and waved a hand. “The ‘Bloody-Handed Butcher’ business is a joke, but when it comes to a real fight, this Ning Liheng doesn’t hold back. Everyone’s heard something of the battle at Peace Alley — both Shi Bao and Qianqian were beaten by his hand that day, and Gou Zheng was killed by him personally.”
“You mean to say Qianqian actually lost to him?”
Fang Qifo nodded. “That’s right. Knowing Qianqian’s temper, I suspect that’s exactly why she came to like him. He’s not like an ordinary scholar — he’ll risk everything over small things and can also handle great matters. In those battles at Huzhou, we underestimated him and paid for it at his hands. But he’d fallen ill at the time, and Qianqian caught up to him and took him prisoner. Since then he’s managed a great many affairs of the Sabre Guard in fine order. I think in his heart he must have great ambitions, but before, he was hemmed in on every side — only with us does he have any chance to truly put them to use. The court would never give a matrilocal son-in-law such an opportunity.”
“That’s it.” Fang La slapped his thigh. “Now it all makes sense. Though his talent in both letters and arms matches Qianqian well enough, he’s already married — and worse, he’s a matrilocal son-in-law. This just won’t do at all.”
“Sovereign…” Fang Qifo looked at the emperor with some exasperation.
“Marshal Fo.” Fang La grinned back at him, then gestured toward everyone else. “Speak up, everyone, speak up.”
“It really won’t do — how could a princess of our Yongle court marry a matrilocal husband…”
“If Qianqian is a princess, then it’s he who should marry into her family, not the other way around…”
“Have him divorce his wife?”
“I hear his wife is right here in the city.”
“Just kill her.”
“His wife’s already pregnant — wouldn’t killing her at this point just make an enemy of him…”
“Why does this have to be so complicated… what about an ‘accident’?”
“Even a pig could see through an accident happening right at this moment.”
“Seeing through it or not, what does it matter — as long as our Yongle princess is willing to marry down…”
“Let’s push a little from both sides — have his wife leave, spare her life, and let him start a new household here. Didn’t the old story of Xue Rengui go something like that…”
“Xue Rengui didn’t start out as a matrilocal husband either. Having a matrilocal son-in-law divorce his own wife and then marry into our Yongle court as another matrilocal husband — that seems a bit improper to me…”
“What about two equal households, then?”
“But this Ning Liheng is already a matrilocal husband…”
“Hmm, a matrilocal husband marrying into two families at once — has that ever happened before…”
The hall buzzed with everyone talking over one another, debating the matter with great enthusiasm. Fang La frowned; he had meant for everyone to voice their opposition, and somehow it had turned into a discussion of how best to arrange the wedding…
—
“You can’t kill her… when I went back this afternoon, I already had the Sabre Guard placed under martial law, precisely to protect them. It would be harder to kill them now than to kill me.”
While the side hall buzzed with debate, in a smaller palace a little further along, Liu Xigua was saying much the same thing to Fang Baihua, Shao Xianying, and a handful of other women. At first, when they had received Fang La’s order, they had naturally hoped Xigua would admit the words had been spoken rashly. Lou Jingzhi and Chen Fan aside — an outsider’s background made him unreliable in any case — but after some discussion, the heart of the matter had shifted to how the wedding itself ought to be handled.
The problem of Ning Yi already having a family could not simply be set aside.
Shao Xianying, now the empress, might be somewhat gentler in temperament, but she had followed Fang La through the uprising and had made ruthless decisions at critical moments before. Fang Baihua needed no introduction — commanding the army under Fang La, she was famous for her strict discipline; the military judge An Xifu had been trained by her own hand. Her first thought was to have someone killed, but Xigua, anticipating the danger, had already had Su Tan’er and the others placed under protection.
“You — how are you supposed to get married acting like this… he’s already a matrilocal husband as it is…” Shao Xianying frowned.
Xigua kept her head down. “I never meant that I absolutely had to marry him!”
“You silly girl, if you like him, of course you should marry him…”
“I… I just like him, that’s all. He already has a family, and now they even have a child on the way — I never thought about anything more than that…”
Fang Baihua’s face had already gone dark. “You said it in the throne hall, in front of everyone. Once said, it must be carried through. Ning Liheng must marry you too! Otherwise, as our Yongle princess, you’ve openly declared your feelings before the entire court and still can’t marry the man — how would that look for us? You’re a princess; how could you share a husband with another woman? Either he divorces his wife, or I help you kill her…”
“His wife is already five months pregnant, how could he possibly divorce her. And I absolutely will not allow you to kill him either, Aunt Baihua, or we’ll have to become enemies!”
Fang Baihua glanced at Shao Xianying, then stared at the girl a while longer, and finally let out a breath. “Fine, Qianqian, I’ll tell you where I stand too — how the rest is handled is your business, but marry him you must. You said it in front of the whole court, and there’s no walking it back now. If you try to back out, he’s a dead man — he killed the old Daoist, and that alone means he must die. Do you think Li Tianrun and the others will simply let that slide? Otherwise, from now on, are you going to be the one deciding who lives and who dies whenever you please? You understand that much, and then we can talk about how the marriage itself should go.”
Shao Xianying nodded. “Little sister has a point.”
Someone off to the side spoke up. “He’s already a matrilocal husband, that’s the biggest problem. He can’t divorce his own wife, so let’s push his wife to divorce him instead…”
Xigua’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “No. My father used to say — better to tear down ten temples than to break apart one marriage.”
“Then surely two equal households is impossible.”
“It’s improper. Only merchant families in the countryside have that custom of two equal wives — it’s never been something respectable. And even with two equal households, what would this even count as — a matrilocal husband entering two families at once? Would he be a man of the Su family, or of our Liu family?”
“In any case… why don’t we have the Sovereign grant the marriage first and settle the rest later?”
“The marriage will certainly be granted, but we have to work out how it’s to be granted before anything else — let’s still push for his wife to divorce him first…”
“That doesn’t sit quite right somehow…”
Some things had already been decided, and the women went on chattering and discussing among themselves. In truth, Xigua herself had not yet even had time to worry about what came next. The whole mess had been caused by Ning Yi in the first place, and she had only meant to save him — but nothing else that had happened compared to how troublesome this had become, and there was no way to reason it out cleanly. She hadn’t even told Ning Yi about any of this yet. If he thought she had been secretly infatuated with him all along, so much so that she was willing to tear his family apart, what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t something she could just brush off with a stern face. And so the girl sat there, cheeks puffed out, eyes glaring, putting up one last stubborn and utterly futile resistance…
Meanwhile, in front of the Fang Qifo residence — surrounded on every side by various factions — the lanterns burned bright, and when Ning Yi walked out of the gate with Chen Fan at his side, swaggering as ever, he felt a strange sensation in his heart, much like the odd, meaningful looks on the faces of the Sabre Guard members led by Liu Tiannan who had come to receive him.
Some things, however logical they seem when reasoned out beforehand, people still can’t help avoiding the possibility right up until it happens — and when it truly does happen, it makes one question things again and again, feeling that it’s all a bit absurd. Much like the group across the street, hemmed in by Sabre Guard members, indignant men who were probably followers of Bao Daoyi — Ning Yi could roughly guess what they were saying.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” Chen Fan leaned over with an odd expression. “I know — they’re definitely saying, come look, everybody, there’s the fellow living off the Sabre Guard’s charity, hoo hoo hoo hoo…” He shamelessly clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.
Of course that wasn’t it… Ning Yi shot him an irritated glance, but a moment later let out a weary sigh, rolling his eyes up toward the sky instead.
He had merely happened, by accident, to kill Bao Daoyi.
How had it come to this…
Sigh—