Having been away from Jiangning for nearly a year, it was only natural that Ning Yi would find certain things in the city unfamiliar to him. Had he known how Bamboo Record had expanded over the past year, and the names of the new restaurants and teahouses that had sprung up around the city, the confusion in his mind surely would have vanished at once.

Over this past year, Bamboo Record had opened three new establishments. The first, Mingyue Tower, had by now become one of Jiangning’s largest restaurants and entertainment venues, offering meals, performances, and all sorts of activities, and doing a lively trade. The second was a teahouse called Qingyuan, made up of individually styled courtyards and private rooms, mostly a gathering place for scholars and literati, staffed by women who sold their artistry but not their bodies — an elegant place indeed. The third was Yilan House, a style somewhere between the two — not as bustling or lively, but accompanied by the sound of strings and flutes, occasional storytelling, something like a Western-style restaurant of later ages, with a touch of bohemian refinement — a perfectly ordinary place to dine.

All three establishments had, in truth, evolved from Ning Yi’s earlier ideas, each with its own distinct style, though behind them all still lay Kang Xian’s support. The Princess Chengguo’s household never openly involved itself in Jiangning’s social scene, but it was in truth a sleeping giant with deep, tangled roots. When Kang Xian issued an order, even the great figures of the business world who came to lend Bamboo Record their support likely had no idea the order had come from the prince consort himself.

Some of this groundwork had already been underway even before Ning Yi left — arranging for entertainers who sold artistry but not their bodies to take up residence at Bamboo Record, and buying young boys and girls to be trained in storytelling, acrobatics, and performance, with the older ones able to help out around the shops. For all this, Ning Yi had once drawn a sum of money from Kang Xian, calling it royalties from that earlier famine-relief pamphlet — and he’d taken it without the slightest hesitation.

Yun Zhu, however, considered it a loan, and over the past several months had been steadily paying it back to Kang Xian bit by bit. Kang Xian refused to accept it, but her stubborn nature insisted — she felt that with Kang Xian constantly inquiring after news of Ning Yi, it wouldn’t do to keep owing him money on top of that. In the end, Kang Xian had no choice but to accept the repayments, while quietly working behind the scenes to build up the reputation of Bamboo Record’s Mingyue Tower and Qingyuan — steering large and small banquets toward Mingyue Tower, and literary gatherings and poetry meets toward Qingyuan. This past Lantern Festival, he’d arranged for the Lichuan Academy’s poetry gathering to be held at Qingyuan, which had immediately given it a name for itself. By the New Year, Yilan House no longer even needed his promotional help.

Arriving at the prince consort’s residence and finding Kang Xian watching an opera performance with his family, the first thing the prince consort brought up was Bamboo Record’s recent development. Since returning from Hangzhou, Ning Yi had already been kept fully informed of everything that had happened during his absence, and with no further trouble or loose ends to speak of, there was no need to dwell on it as mere small talk.

“…There’s one thing, actually, that’s rather amusing. In Qingyuan’s front hall, they’ve mounted a great many poems on plaques — several of your ci-poems hang at the very front. During the Lichuan Academy’s Lantern Festival poetry gathering, your ci-poem to the tune of ‘Green Jade Cup’ was placed right there, and hardly anyone dared put forward their own verses for fear of embarrassment. It’s been the talk of the town ever since.”

After greeting Zhou Xuan, Ning Yi followed Kang Xian toward the garden at the back. Hearing this, Ning Yi laughed and shook his head. “Isn’t that a bit much?”

“Mm, not at all…” Kang Xian waved a hand. “Your Yun Zhu certainly did some promoting on your behalf, but I was there myself, and for whatever reason, everyone kept talking about your ‘Green Jade Cup’ that night, and far fewer people came forward to write Lantern Festival verses than usual. Some said you’d already exhausted the beauty and craft of the ci form, that there was hardly any verse left worth writing in this world, ha… And then there were those pieces of yours from Hangzhou. They went in the complete opposite direction from your earlier grandeur — utterly delicate and restrained. If people knew about those, they’d really start calling you the Poet-Sage of Verse…”

Ning Yi frowned. “Pieces from Hangzhou?”

“The one that begins ‘Often I recall, at dusk by the creek pavilion, so drunk I lost my way home’… A short piece to the tune of ‘Like a Dream,’ and yet it conjures the whole scene before your eyes. That you could write something like that too…”

Kang Xian was, after all, a man of letters — even if privately he valued practical use as much as Qin Siyuan did, he was still a Confucian scholar at heart, and no scholar dislikes poetry. Ning Yi smiled. “That one wasn’t mine.”

“You can fool others with that, but there’s no need to say such things in front of this old man. Do you remember the other lines? ‘Three peaks half-fallen beyond the blue sky, two rivers split by White Egret Isle.’ You’d recited that to me and Siyuan before, though only as a fragment back then. This time in Hangzhou, you completed it — ‘On Phoenix Terrace once phoenixes roamed, now the phoenix gone, the terrace empty, the river flows on alone. Flowers and grass of Wu’s palace buried on hidden paths, court robes of Jin become ancient graves. Three peaks half-fallen beyond the blue sky, two rivers split by White Egret Isle. Ever do the drifting clouds obscure the sun, and not seeing Chang’an brings me sorrow…'”

Kang Xian recited it through, and by the end couldn’t help but sigh, shaking his head. “If someone had told me this beforehand, I wouldn’t have believed it. When it comes to the craftsmanship of poetry, there’s simply nothing left to write, with you around. Only that last line gave you away — ‘Ever do the drifting clouds obscure the sun, and not seeing Chang’an brings me sorrow.’ When you wrote this poem, you were imitating the style of the Tang era, and it seems you couldn’t be bothered to change that last bit — much like that ‘Often I recall, at dusk by the creek pavilion’ piece. I don’t even know how much time you spent on these… Honestly, if you told me this all came effortlessly, I wouldn’t believe it. But when it comes to poetry, for you, it’s probably not even about expressing genuine feeling anymore — it’s purely… ah, I don’t even know how to put it. Should I praise you, or scold you just to feel better about myself? In any case, with someone like you around, the rest of us hardly know where to stand. I don’t know whether I want you to write more, or simply tell you to stop altogether…”

In short, once the old man got onto this subject, he started out sighing wistfully, then gradually grew rather despondent. Ning Yi, of course, understood exactly what was going on — Kang Xian had attributed all these poems to him personally. Ordinarily, when someone writes poetry, they inevitably develop their own distinctive style, but the verses Ning Yi had copied out before were all bold and grand, while what he’d tossed off for Liu Xigua had been effortless, and he’d thrown in Li Qingzhao’s work as well. At the time it had all been mere mischief, but seeing these two utterly different styles side by side, Kang Xian had drawn an entirely different conclusion.

To be able to master such wildly different styles with such effortless skill could only mean, in Kang Xian’s mind, that the author had transcended ordinary limits entirely — that Ning Yi must simply be some kind of once-in-an-age genius, capable of bending language to his will however he pleased. Whenever the need arose, he could apparently slip into the manner of the Tang dynasty and produce something like “Ascending Phoenix Terrace at Jinling,” or just as easily conjure something entirely different in the style of “Ballad of the Chivalrous” or “Like a Dream.”

Told as a bare fact, this would of course be hard to believe, but there are, naturally, all kinds of geniuses in this world. Much like certain mathematical prodigies of the modern age, whose brilliance isn’t a matter of logic ordinary people could follow, but because numbers themselves appeared alive to their eyes. Such people exist in every age, and Kang Xian had likely encountered something similar before. Once he’d convinced himself these poems were truly Ning Yi’s own work, having ruled out every other possibility, he could only conclude that Ning Yi was this sort of singular genius — someone who, even without any particular reverence for poetry, could shape and mold verse in his hands as effortlessly as clay. For a scholar who had devoted his entire life tirelessly to the craft, this was, naturally, a rather dispiriting thing to confront.

Having settled on this conclusion, Ning Yi couldn’t help but laugh quietly to himself. After a good while, Kang Xian finally spoke again. “As for those poems — it’s just as well you hung them over that rebel’s head. Whether you’ll ever have the chance to clear your name over it in the future, I suppose you don’t much care either way. But if you’ve decided to go to the capital, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you first… I could have waited a few days to bring it up, but honestly, I’ve been thinking about it too long already.”

By now they had reached the pavilion at the center of the rear garden, with no one else around. Kang Xian’s expression turned serious, and Ning Yi frowned as well. “What is it?”

“What you did at the Overlord Blade Camp — was that something you’d thought through carefully? What exactly are you trying to do?”

“For now, it’s meant to stir people’s hearts and minds.”

“Truly?” the old man asked, his gaze sharp and probing, but Ning Yi’s expression showed little reaction. After a moment, he simply smiled faintly.

“Go any further and it starts crossing a line — I know that. You’re not the first to ask me about this recently, ha…” Ning Yi said with a smile. “But you know as well as I do — within a hundred or so years, these ideas are entirely useless. At best, they’re good for stirring up those too idealistic for their own good. That you’re concerned about this, sir, shows that you’re something of an idealist yourself.”

The old man’s gaze remained stern, and he swayed slightly, then let out a breath. “I know full well these ideas are useless within a hundred or so years. But what exactly have you been thinking?”

Ning Yi considered this. “Then… let’s set Confucianism aside, and just talk about practical use — in broad strokes?”

“Ha, you’ve never had much use for Confucianism to begin with. I’m not a man who fails to grasp what’s being said. If the reasoning holds together, say what you like.”

“From ancient times to now, with every dynastic change, what a nation becomes is, in truth, already decided from the moment it’s founded.”

Lamplight fell across the water outside the pavilion, casting scattered ripples of light, and somewhere in the distance the faint sound of opera drifted over, all quite peaceful. But Ning Yi knew the old man before him wasn’t simply here to welcome him home — this man represented the sharpest minds of the age, people who couldn’t be fooled by vague words. Whatever had been written and said at the Overlord Blade Camp, once it reached their ears, they could see the danger lurking within it. Perhaps he himself hadn’t fully worked out all its implications yet, and might not take his own handiwork too seriously — but if he treated this too carelessly, the smiling, kindly old man before him had both the ability and the resolve to turn this very garden into a trap.

So he thought for a moment before beginning with this line.

“The reason I say this is that at the founding of every dynasty, the emperor — or rather, the prevailing ideology of the time — determines what…” he raised a hand and gestured, “determines what the ruling class of that dynasty will prioritize. If our only demand were, say, national strength, that would be simple — loosen the restraints, let the localities develop freely, and within three generations, so long as the nation still stood, we could crush the foreign tribes and reclaim Youyan. Who’s to say it couldn’t be done?”

“Every dynasty has fallen from weakness — only the Han fell from strength. If we governed the way the Han did, we’d fall the way the Han did too. After the Han fell, every dynasty since has placed ever greater emphasis on centralization and checks and balances — the art of rulership teaches that subordinates of equal rank should be kept in constant mutual suspicion, to maintain balance. Now we talk about needing to revive military strength and so on — but really, there’s one simple path. Suppose… and this is only a supposition… suppose it could be done — suppose the current emperor loosened his grip on those below him, and governed by the standards of the Han — within sixty years, if the Wu Dynasty still stood, and the Liao or Jin still held so much as an inch of land to the north, I’d cut off my own head and give it to you.”

Kang Xian looked at him. “A supposition?”

“Mm, a supposition.” Ning Yi nodded. “It’s only a supposition because it would be irresponsible to say otherwise — under current conditions, if this were actually done, within twenty years the regional lords would be rising up in rebellion. But my point in saying this is only that in every dynasty, what’s emphasized at the top can, in fact, be controlled — it’s just that there aren’t many directions to choose from. Lean one way, and something else has to be given up. We chose the prosperity we see today in Jiangning, and in exchange, we don’t get to see armies of fierce warriors trampling over Helan Mountain. Both are choices we made ourselves.”

“And so?”

“Sir, I know the Confucian ideal of bringing peace to all under heaven for ten thousand generations is about finding the best possible state of affairs. But today let’s set aside the Way, and talk only of practical use. Since the founding of the Wu Dynasty, the direction it’s taken has already been set. The net that we Confucians have woven will only keep tightening, tightening, and tightening further still. From ancient times to now, why have reformers never come to a good end? Because any system will instinctively defend its own state and its own momentum. Why does the northern campaign keep running into trouble? Because that net has already grown so deeply entangled that anyone who tries to make a bold move ends up bloodied from head to toe — whether the outcome is good or bad makes no difference, because no one is ever given the room to truly act boldly. This was decided the moment the nation was founded — it exists precisely to keep you from acting rashly! Even if this northern campaign succeeds, suppose we get lucky, suppose we throw enough force behind it — what happens after that? Can’t you see it? The net will only tighten again.”

Ning Yi tilted his head and smiled. “This time, coming back from Hangzhou, I’ve picked up a great many connections. The Su family has a relative, Song Mao, styled Yufan, who serves as a prefect out in the provinces. Sir, you already know what will happen next — once he comes to pay his respects to me, our interests will become entangled, and grow stronger together. But what if he turns out to be a corrupt official? Then I’ll be dragged down along with him — that’s the risk. The Princess Chengguo’s estate belongs to the imperial family, and appears to manage its own affairs independently — but you yourself know exactly what ties and entanglements lie behind you. These people represent every kind of interest imaginable. When Lord Qin was assassinated, it was merchants who didn’t want war with the Liao who struck the blow. Sir — do you have people like that behind you as well?”

Kang Xian’s brow furrowed.

Ning Yi continued. “No one can be moved — all of this was decided at the founding of the nation, and to this day, even the emperor himself cannot change it. If he tried, even he would come away bloodied. Perhaps there are two generations’ worth of people willing to risk steering the nation in another direction — but who would truly dare?”

“You, sir, are currently studying Neo-Confucianism — soon enough you’ll be speaking of ‘preserving heavenly principle, extinguishing human desire,’ laying out precisely how men should behave, how women should behave, how sages should behave, casting everyone into the same mold. That is the Way. But in terms of practical use, it means rendering people ever more incapable of acting, more and more paralyzed. Suppose the whole world consisted only of our Wu Dynasty, and things simply continued as they are — the dynasty could stand unbroken for a thousand years. That would be peace for ten thousand generations… but a nation has enemies. We’ve chosen this direction, and if everyone around us is bound up in rules and regulations, entangled in competing interests, then in the end we get exactly what we’re seeing now in the northern campaign — I can’t beat the enemy, and I’m becoming less and less able to beat them as time goes on…”

“In truth, there’s naturally some distance between what you’re describing and reality. When things truly go astray, there have always been people in every era bold enough to attempt reform, bold enough to bleed for it.” After a long pause, Kang Xian spoke slowly. “But broadly speaking, what you say isn’t far off. Still — what does any of this have to do with what you did at the Overlord Blade Camp?”

“Talk of peace for ten thousand generations is a bit too grand. In truth, whether it’s governing a nation or engaging in politics, it’s mostly just patching holes as you find them — like holding up a scale that keeps swaying, patching whatever breaks wherever it breaks, while the overall direction keeps drifting one way. Mencius said that every five hundred years, a true king must arise — because a dynasty, too, reaches its limit after about five hundred years, having been wound too tight. Others find it harder and harder to hold any hope, and resentment builds and builds. And then, all at once, the scale’s weight crashes to the ground — and once it does, people end up living worse than pigs and dogs…”

Ning Yi paused. “But perhaps there’s a way to avoid that. Perhaps it wouldn’t lead to the very best outcome, but it might avoid the very worst.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“It comes down to one sentence: the minority yields to the majority.”

Kang Xian laughed. “When it truly comes to that, would those behind you, or those behind me — would this minority ever yield to any majority?”

“That’s a matter of detail. Sir, Confucianism has been passed down for so many generations, and with every succession, whoever rises to the top is called Emperor. Cultural transmission determines the very form in which the rules and system exist. Suppose, centuries or a thousand years from now, there existed a system where power changed hands every three to five years — if someone wanted to rebel, and had enough people behind him, he could simply rise to power that way instead. Would anyone still need to rebel? Those years when people live worse than pigs and dogs simply wouldn’t exist anymore.”

“How could it ever work that way? People just… talk it out, draw straws? And do you understand what it means that ‘the goody-goody is the thief of virtue’? If you rose to power, would you willingly give up the authority in your hands? Within a few years of taking power, you’d have to smash all of this to pieces yourself! And to guarantee this method continues on — where would that leave the Emperor? This idea of yours is treasonous.” By the end, Kang Xian had unconsciously lowered his voice.

Ning Yi looked at him. “All of that is secondary detail, sir — don’t tell me you can’t see it. It’s the culture people believe in that determines what a dynasty becomes — culture determines the system, I call it the system. If everyone came to believe that majority rule is simply the truth, certain things would gradually work themselves out over time… and that, too, would be a matter for centuries down the road. Everyone already talks about majority rule — I’m merely putting it in different terms. Sir, let’s speak treasonously for a moment — if the Wu Dynasty doesn’t last five hundred years, shouldn’t there be something new in its place?”

“So this is what you’ve been thinking…” It was a long while before Kang Xian sighed. “A new… a new game of make-believe. Since the Tang dynasty, there have been more than a few who dreamed of the Great Unity, who gave away their family fortunes to live in the mountains, treating others’ elders as their own, honoring their own — and every one of them ended in quiet failure. What sets yours apart, I wanted to look closely — and now I see. This is what you’ve been thinking. This idea is far too treasonous. You need to rein it in. Heaven, earth, sovereign, parents, teacher — some things cannot be changed. How can you bargain over them as though it were a matter of majority rule?”

Though the old man spoke of treason, in his heart there was, in truth, no real sense of outrage at all. Philosophy is the terminus of every field of study, and since ancient times, among those who studied Confucianism there had always been unrestrained, unconventional minds, entertaining all manner of ideas — it wasn’t as though no one had ever tried to look at the whole picture and ask why such ideas took the shape they did. If one couldn’t think this way, then the Analects, concerned mostly with how to conduct oneself, could hardly be said to offer half its pages toward governing the realm either.

He had let his guard down not out of any real alarm, but because he sensed just how distant the realization of such an idea truly was. To condemn someone merely for uttering the phrase “the minority yields to the majority” would be excessive indeed. Confucianism itself held to a notion of minority yielding to majority — but only within the same class. What Ning Yi had just proposed extended that concept to everyone, and if he genuinely intended to act on it, he would already be striking at the very core of the hierarchy of heaven, earth, sovereign, parents, and teacher — that truly would be treason. But merely voicing the theory as perhaps worthwhile was, at most, an unusually bold discussion or experiment. Kang Xian, though he disapproved, hadn’t reached the point of drawing a hard line.

In Kang Xian’s eyes, Ning Yi remained, at bottom, a Confucian scholar with dreams of bringing peace to the world for ten thousand generations — one who, admittedly, cared little for the Way and thought too much in terms of practical use, but whose ideas might not be without value, even if they lacked a soul for want of the Way.

In the end, this was simply too talented, too idea-driven a young man. He sighed. “You succeeded in Hangzhou precisely because you’re always stepping outside the rules to get things done — your view of things is always broader than most. But if you keep stepping outside the rules like that, sooner or later something will go wrong. You understand all this already, but if you’re going to the capital next, I still feel I ought to remind you.”

“Mm… well, I’m still thinking over the trip to the capital. Tan’er is about to give birth, and Commissioner Tong has already started marching north. I don’t really understand the workings of officialdom, and the capital probably has no need of me anyway.”

“No, they’ll need you, for certain. Once word of the Hangzhou affair reached Bianjing, he wrote to me himself, saying that once you returned, you absolutely must come. As you yourself said, there are too many rules — what’s truly missing is someone who can step outside those rules and take a look from the outside. But only a look, mind you. Someone who can step outside the rules risks breaking them, and if that happens, even old Qin might not be able to protect you.”

“Duly noted. I’ll be careful. Let’s see how things go — I’ll settle the family matters here first.”

“What is there to settle here? If it’s those clowns in your family, I’m more than happy to help. But your wife is pregnant, so I imagine you’ll wait until the child is born before leaving. Other than that, there’s really just the matter of Yun Zhu. Have you decided what to do?”

“That’s exactly what’s giving me a headache. I came here today hoping to hear your thoughts on it.”

“Oh?” Though it was Kang Xian who’d brought it up, he now looked rather puzzled. “What’s there to have a headache over?”

“A year ago, I thought about leaving the Su family, taking Yun Zhu with me. Now I’m troubled over whether, with Tan’er about to give birth, I should break things off with Yun Zhu. But honestly, what’s between Yun Zhu and me isn’t like some fleeting affair with a courtesan or a woman who simply sells herself… ha, I suppose everyone thinks that of their own situation. But right now, it’s simply that both are dear to me — this is entirely a mess of my own making, and I wanted to hear what you, sir, think of it.”

“Ha… ha ha ha ha ha ha—” The old man suddenly burst out laughing, the laughter growing louder and louder, showing no sign of stopping, until at last, after a long while, it began to subside. “Ha ha… I was just thinking, for all your lazy, careless manner, your ability and talent are beyond most men’s — put you in a chaotic age, and you might well have become a warlord like Cao Cao. And yet… ha ha, here you are, someone who can accomplish all those things so effortlessly, now troubled over something as trivial as this — it’s really rather comical.”

Ning Yi looked at the old man and pursed his lips. “Frankly speaking, I have no intention of giving up either of them — I never really considered actually letting go. Call it fickle, call men unreliable, call it greed beyond reason — I don’t care how others see it. What I truly feel is: they’re both mine. Why shouldn’t they be? The reason I’m asking you, sir, is that I want you to lecture me a bit on how a real man is entitled to three wives and four concubines — help me feel a little more righteously shameless about it.”

Kang Xian spread his hands. “I don’t see why you’d think this isn’t something to feel righteous about…”

“You know… minority yields to majority… which means everyone should be treated equally…”

“Meaning, you, your wife, and Yun Zhu… should all be treated equally.”

Ning Yi laughed. In truth, the trouble wasn’t quite as great as he made it out to be — even in the modern world, in the circles he’d moved in, messy relationships between men and women had been the norm rather than the exception. But if he’d truly been a man of this era, in his heart he would have placed men and women in entirely separate categories without a second thought. Being a modern man at heart, once he truly came to value someone, they stood on equal footing with everyone else — and that, in the end, was what he found genuinely interesting about the whole situation.

Kang Xian studied him for a good while longer, then finally patted him on the shoulder, his expression turning somewhat more serious. “Ning Liheng, oh, Ning Liheng… to be honest, until now, I’ve always thought of you as an interesting, promising, capable young friend. But after tonight’s conversation, I can finally say — learning knows no seniority, only mastery. You and I can speak as equals on these matters without distinction of rank. You really have been thinking seriously about all this… but…” he said, breaking into laughter again, “you’ve gone and tangled yourself up in quite the web of your own making…”

Sensing that Ning Yi had truly carried these ideas through into his own life, the old man’s laughter dissolved whatever remaining unease and sense of “treason” he’d felt earlier — though, of course, that had been something of a misunderstanding to begin with…

“For a man to have three wives and four concubines is an ordinary thing — the point of the saying is simply to keep you from taking matters with women too seriously. What’s unreasonable about that? I’ve nothing more to say on it. Your wife respects you a great deal, and now she’s carrying your child — naturally you shouldn’t abandon her, or you’d be no better than a beast. And Miss Nie is so gentle and virtuous, waiting for your return with her whole heart, not coveting your family’s wealth or status. With her character and disposition, if not for that one blemish in her past, she’d be more than fit to be the primary wife of any great household. She genuinely loves you, and so whatever way you treat her, she accepts gladly. Lose a woman like that, and you’ll never find her equal again in this lifetime. I’ve had a good deal of dealings with the two sisters myself lately — if you ever wrong her, I’ll have A’Gui grab a sack and throw you in the Qinhuai River.”

The corner of Ning Yi’s mouth twitched, and then he let out a hearty laugh.