“Dang, dang… dang dang dang dang di~di da— dong…”

The night breeze murmured low and faintly warm. In the corner of the courtyard, a peach tree bloomed in a wash of rosy red, flowers and grasses scattered all around, lanterns beneath the eaves glowing with a soft crimson warmth. From a nearby courtyard, the faint sound of strings and flutes drifted over, along with low, murmured singing, and occasionally the laughter of conversation. On the lawn of this courtyard, a young woman kept her own time under her breath, dancing lightly, flitting about like sparks or a fairy sprite.

She wore a dress made specially for dancing, brilliant crimson pieced together with warm apricot yellow. The long skirt, cinched at the waist, fell in a single sweep, setting off a slender, tall figure; the hem was trimmed with down, and beneath it, her nimble bare feet flickered in and out of sight with each leap. Her dance was mostly light and joyful in style, but shifted at times to quick, at times to slow, occasionally carrying a touch of martial vigor, sometimes bursting swift as a blooming flower, then suddenly pausing, as if holding back words left unsaid. The dance was unrehearsed, something no one had ever seen before, danced entirely on impulse — but anyone watching could surely sense the dancer’s remarkable skill.

This was a small courtyard tucked in a corner of Qingyuan, and at the moment, the privileged onlookers watching Yuan Jin’er dance were five or six little girls of eleven or twelve, sitting by the railing along the veranda, mouths slightly agape, watching in open-mouthed astonishment. This was the effect after Jin’er completed several extremely difficult moves — moments before, her figure had moved so lightly across the lawn it seemed she might take flight, and then, just as suddenly, shifted into a gentler, more languid mood entirely. Before long, Jin’er raised both hands lightly above her head, finished one movement, took another step, and then, seeming to run out of inspiration, paused briefly before letting her body relax and coming to a complete stop.

“Did you understand any of it? How much did you remember? Can any of you do it?”

She held a small disciplinary ruler, questioning the little girls sternly before her.

Everyone hesitantly shook their heads.

“Er… surely you remembered something!”

Some nodded, some shook their heads and then caught themselves and nodded instead. Yuan Jin’er put her hands on her hips, thinking it over like a mother hen fretting over what to say next, and finally settled the matter with force.

“Hold out your hands, everyone gets three strikes each. Go back and practice what you remember — I’ll come check on you later.”

After the smacking of palms was finished, the little ones rubbed their stinging hands, looking up at Jin’er for a moment in awkward silence, until Jin’er said, “Off you go.” The purchased little girls scampered off obediently.

To be fair, for all her dancing talent, Yuan Jin’er wasn’t exactly a wise or patient teacher. Having chased off a group of girls she considered rather slow-witted, she thought for a moment, then gathered up her skirts and headed toward the room nearby — the long dancing dress, which had felt a bit cumbersome during the performance, was something she’d long since grown used to. As she half-ran, the skirt billowed like waves behind her, the little pom-poms bouncing lightly in her wake.

In the room, Yun Zhu, dressed in men’s clothing, sat at the table sorting through some accounts, one hand holding a brush, the other working an abacus. At a glance, in the lamplight and shadow, she looked every bit the picture of an elegant, worldly young gentleman lost in thought, brow furrowed in concentration. But in truth she had no particular talent for this sort of work — though the monthly accounts weren’t extensive, they still took her a good while to sort through, and all she really had going for her was patience and quiet composure. Occasionally, deep in thought, she would bring the brush handle to her lips and nibble it gently. Jin’er peeked in through the doorway at her sister’s figure, thinking to herself how truly beautiful she looked.

Yun Zhu set down her brush and turned her head. “Finished teaching?”

“Mm.” Jin’er bounced in through the door. “They’re all so slow.”

Yun Zhu’s eyes glinted with amusement. “Or is it you who has no patience?”

“Er, well, I’m not… but they really are slow…”

“Then let’s just sell them all back to the matchmaker.” Yun Zhu said, looking over the accounts, brow furrowing slightly. “Actually… we really have been spending too much on this lately. Auntie Gui and the others have already come to say something about it…”

Yun Zhu trailed off, and Jin’er’s expression changed slightly. “Really? N-no, let’s not do that… they’re all so pitiable…” Only when she saw the smile on Yun Zhu’s face did she realize. “Sister Yun Zhu, you’re teasing me again.” Yun Zhu smiled and lowered her head, focusing back on the accounts.

The room fell quiet, and Jin’er came over and leaned on the edge of the table, watching. In truth, she felt rather guilty about it — when it came to numbers, she was just as untalented as Yun Zhu, but Yun Zhu could sit still for it, while she couldn’t. At first she’d always meant to share the burden with Yun Zhu, but after a few tries, she always found herself making excuses to slip off and do something else whenever it came time for this. She knew Yun Zhu must be aware of her laziness, but her sister never said a word about it, which only deepened her guilt. Thinking about all this, she remembered that it all traced back to that Ning Liheng, and so she took a moment to resent him a little as well.

Her gaze wandered restlessly. Yun Zhu glanced over and said gently, with a smile, “Go change your clothes.” Jin’er stood, looked down at the dress she was wearing, and tugged at it a bit. “I haven’t worn this in so long… Sister Yun Zhu, don’t you think it’s pretty?”

“Pretty.” Yun Zhu shot her a look. “Now go change, I’m almost done with the accounts.”

“Oh.” Jin’er wandered off toward the back. “Sister Yun Zhu said Jin’er is pretty…” The words rang out in the room, spoken as if savoring each syllable with contentment, making Yun Zhu press her lips together in a helpless smile.

At the back of the room stood a screen set at an angle. Behind it, Jin’er hummed some soft, barely audible tune, untying her sash and slipping off her top. With just the two of them in the room, she wasn’t particularly guarded, and before long, glimpses of Jin’er’s figure could be seen moving behind the screen in time with the melody — long, fair, slender legs without a trace of extra flesh, delicate bare feet, twisting about with a hint of playful defiance. After a moment, seemingly struck by some thought, the humming stopped, and Jin’er’s movements behind the screen stilled as well.

One leg stepped out from behind the screen. Jin’er peeked her head around the side, biting her lower lip lightly, holding her already-untied undergarment against her chest, and cautiously edged out. The weather was still a bit chilly, and her body trembled faintly, but after hesitating a moment, she finally let the garment fall open. “Sister Yun Zhu?”

“Mm?” Yun Zhu turned her head…

“Do I look good…”

The air fell silent for a few breaths. Yun Zhu’s shoulders sagged, and she balled up a scrap of paper and threw it at her. “Get dressed already, what if you catch cold…”

“Oh… but…”

“No buts. Hurry up.” Yun Zhu, still dressed in her men’s clothes, looked both exasperated and amused, but her firmness finally had its effect — Jin’er retreated behind the screen with a pout, half a bare bottom still peeking out. She rustled about for a while, occasionally poking her head out, only to see Yun Zhu at the desk, brush between her teeth, lost in thought. This sight made Jin’er hesitate to speak several times, until finally, nearly finished dressing in her men’s clothes, she stepped out from behind the screen and said softly, “Sister Yun Zhu…”

At the desk, Yun Zhu suddenly turned around, slapping the brush down on the table behind her. “Jin’er, I’m doing the accounts here, can you please… can you please…” By nature she had never had much talent for anger or scolding, especially toward those closest to her — she started the sentence, but her own gaze grew complicated, guilty, and she pressed her lips tight, brow furrowed. Jin’er, still with her top not fully buttoned and no shoes on her bare feet, in a half-finished set of men’s clothes, looked especially small and delicate in that moment. Knowing she really had been rather bothersome, she lowered her head and stayed quiet for a while before looking up again to check on Yun Zhu. “But you… you weren’t doing the accounts…”

“Er, I… where wasn’t I…” Yun Zhu had no idea why she’d say such a thing.

“You were biting your brush, and your eyes weren’t even on the ledger. You keep doing this. You’re not doing the accounts at all — you’re thinking about him again…”

“…” Yun Zhu wanted to say something, but in the end couldn’t manage it.

“…I know.”

“I… I was just thinking, what would he do if he were here. Jin’er, you know how we both are with these things, a little hopeless…”

Yun Zhu offered a few words in her defense, then turned back around. She looked at the ledger for a while, then raised her head and said softly, “Actually… I’ve also been thinking about when he’ll come back, whether he’s alright. According to what the prince consort said, there should be word by now. I think I’ll go pay a visit to his residence tomorrow. Jin’er… I’m sorry.”

For a long stretch of time after the trouble in Hangzhou broke out, both Yun Zhu and Jin’er had gone to the prince consort’s residence for news, but that residence, after all, belonged to the imperial family. Yun Zhu and Jin’er were well aware of just how great a distance separated ordinary people from royalty. Though they’d visited fairly often, “often” in this case meant, at most, once every ten days or half a month. Their last visit to the residence had been right after the Qingming Festival, right when Ning Yi had just finished dealing with the Overlord Blade Camp affair — though of course, no word of that could have reached them yet. Kang Xian had simply comforted them, as usual, saying word would come before long. But for Yun Zhu, who thought of Ning Yi constantly, even daily news would hardly have felt like enough. Now that the Hangzhou affair should finally be settled, she’d been holding herself back, telling herself she shouldn’t keep bothering people — but in her heart, she never stopped thinking of him.

“It’s not that. It’s just — I don’t want you thinking about him all the time. I just don’t want it, that’s all.” Having finished her apology, Jin’er crept over silently and wrapped her arms around Yun Zhu from behind, resting her cheek against Yun Zhu’s back. “Seeing you like this hurts my heart.”

Yun Zhu didn’t push her away — after all, this wasn’t the first time Jin’er had said she loved her while also grumbling about jealousy, and she understood well enough what really lay behind such words: simple devotion to her. “But I love him, Jin’er.”

“It won’t come to anything good.” Jin’er swayed and mumbled. “Why can’t you just love me instead?”

“If I were a man, I’d certainly love you, Jin’er.”

“It’s fine even if you’re not, I don’t mind… it’s just a pity I’m not a boy, but there’s nothing to be done about that.”

Yun Zhu turned around, smiling as she smoothed Jin’er’s hair. “I really don’t understand why you dislike Liheng so much…”

“He’s going to take you away from me, why would I like him! I never liked him before, and now that we’ve been together so long, I like him even less! I hate him! Sister Yun Zhu… he’s really not a good person at all. We spent so long at the Jinfeng House, we know exactly what men are like at a glance. He’s too clever — you can’t even understand him, and even if you only wanted to be a concubine, you’d still spend your whole life being maneuvered by him, without ever being able to maneuver him back. Mama always said, if you can charm a man, you can marry well whether he’s rich or poor. But if he charms you instead — well, all those women who worshipped some so-called genius and threw themselves at him desperately, none of them ended up well! I’m not trying to say that, exactly…”

Yuan Jin’er waved her arms and rambled on, circling around Yun Zhu like a fretting little hen. “Anyway… anyway, Sister Yun Zhu, you know this, you’ve heard of it too — there’s nothing wrong with women loving women, why does it have to be a man? Sister Yun Zhu, we could just be together, you know, you could love me too, I’m pretty enough. And it’s not like we’re short on money — forget all this, sell off these buildings, Mingyue Tower, Qingyuan, Yilan House, awful names, they make me sick just hearing them…”

Yun Zhu laughed. “But Jin’er, you don’t actually like women — you’re only saying this for my sake…”

“I do not, I like women, I like Sister Yun Zhu, I don’t like any other women. Sister Yun Zhu, why don’t you kiss me then, a real kiss — they say one kiss and you’ll know for sure, just one kiss… one kiss…”

She bounced around beside Yun Zhu, tilting her head up, lips puckered, chattering away — when suddenly, something soft and gentle pressed against her. Yun Zhu’s lips met hers. Jin’er froze, blinking once, then again, and after a moment, Yun Zhu pulled back, smiling. “Well?”

“Er… tingly, kind of numb, I… my face is all red…”

“Nonsense.” Yun Zhu reached out and poked her forehead, laughing.

“It’s true! Really, really, really, really, truly — let’s do it again then, Sister Yun Zhu, really…” She kept insisting, but Yun Zhu simply took it as her usual mischief. After a while, though, Jin’er couldn’t help muttering, “Sister Yun Zhu, you always think about getting married — if you get married, what happens to me…” and then went right on fussing.

Just as the two of them had been talking, noise had already begun drifting over from the front. Before long, a woman came hurrying over and knocked on the door, saying that two groups of talented scholars upstairs had gotten into an argument that showed no sign of stopping. Jin’er, wrapping her clothes around herself, hid behind Yun Zhu and said, “That happens all the time, doesn’t it? No point in us going over.”

Yun Zhu said, “Let’s go take a look anyway.” She waved the woman off first, then had Jin’er finish getting dressed so they could head out. Jin’er had just finished buttoning her clothes when suddenly a loud crash echoed from the front courtyard — and this time, it sounded like a real disturbance had broken out…