In the warm days of the third lunar month, orioles took flight and the grass grew tall — Jiangning was steeped in the full bloom of spring.
Qingming had passed, and the Grain Rain had not yet come; the chill of winter had by now dissipated entirely. In this season of a hundred flowers in bloom, even the waters of the Qinhuai River had grown warm, and outside the city walls it was the perfect season for spring outings. Around White Egret Isle, crowds gathered daily for outdoor gatherings and spring excursions, and the get-togethers of exiled officials, poets, and men of letters came thick and fast — this being the most fitting stretch of time for gatherings and outings after the Spring Festival and the Lantern Festival had passed. Even when the weather failed to cooperate and the spring rains fell in an unbroken drizzle, people could always find some beautifully kept garden in which to recite poetry and make new friends, watching the clear rain fall among the green leaves and fading blossoms, setting the mood for romance, putting on their best showing before the woman who’d caught their eye — and, without fail, one charming tale of romance after another would spread from it.
This stretch of the year was also the liveliest season for the many pleasure quarters of Jiangning. The whole character of the Qinhuai district, its ten miles of gilded splendor, came alive most fully once the depths of winter had passed and all things stirred back to life — this was the season best suited to building reputation. Centered on the bustling area around the Temple of Confucius and Wuyi Lane, the brothels and pleasure houses became, at this time, the very heart of all manner of activity in Jiangning — gatherings of scholars, banquets hosted by merchants, receptions for officials coming and going — none of it could do without this dusty, worldly glamour, and it was this, too, that made the whole character of Jiangning at this time of year so alluring.
After Tong Guan retook Hangzhou in the south, the economy of the Jiangnan region, which had suffered from the disruption caused by Fang La’s rebellion, began to recover once more. Jiangning itself had only ever felt the more indirect effects of the unrest; now that Hangzhou had been retaken, though there had been little change among the upper echelons controlling the economic networks of Hangzhou and the wider Jiangnan region, a number of established clans and great merchants had, in the course of the chaos, suffered heavy blows. Amid the general work of rebuilding, more opportunities had opened up for others to rise, and this turnover of old for new had, if anything, injected fresh vitality into the existing economic order — at least around Jiangning, the flow of merchants and travelers moving north and south had grown noticeably heavier as a result.
Ning Yi himself had not gotten involved in any of this again.
Since the family’s return from Jiangning, the most important matter at hand had really been nothing more than seeing Su Tan’er safely through the final stretch of her pregnancy. The various troubles that had broken out at home after the crisis in Hangzhou now looked, in hindsight, like little more than the antics of a few upstart clowns. By the time Ning Yi and Su Tan’er returned, the senior branch of the family was already in the process of reclaiming lost ground; of course, among the second and third branches there were still those who clung to the notion that “we’re all one family, what can you really do to me” — but anyone holding onto that attitude who fell into Su Yu’s hands was unlikely to come away unscathed.
In the first few days after returning home, it was Su Boyong who first began to stir into action, and soon after, the elder patriarch Su Yu called together a group of the family’s senior members for a talk. The whole situation within the Su family shifted from an undercurrent of quiet tension into open commotion, laying the groundwork for what might, in later ages, have been called the makings of a household-politics drama. Su Tan’er, however, took no part in any of it — she was nine months pregnant by now, and for this final month of her pregnancy, however much she might have wanted to involve herself or think things through, Ning Yi simply wouldn’t allow it.
As for Ning Yi, he naturally had no interest in getting involved in such minor matters at this point. Many people who wished to come pay their respects to Su Tan’er found themselves turned away and sent off by him directly. Between the many things he had accomplished over the past year in Hangzhou — embellished further by Su Wending and Su Wenfang’s retelling — and the web of connections he’d brought back with him upon returning home, in the eyes of most people he had already become a man whose true weight was impossible to properly measure.
Most people had already known, more than a year earlier, of his reputation for calculating ten steps ahead. The Wu family had been half-ruined at his hands, and to outside eyes it looked as though the Wu family had provoked Su Tan’er and forced his intervention, after which he had, almost incidentally, broken both of that family’s legs. Now word had it that he had confronted Fang La himself in Hangzhou, and that even men like Fang Qifo and Shi Bao had suffered heavy losses at his hands — of these many accounts, few people had actually witnessed them firsthand, but by now hardly anyone dared to doubt them either.
Though he was still only twenty-two, in the eyes of others he now carried an air of quiet menace that needed no display of anger to be felt. His staying out of affairs, combined with all that reputation, fit rather well with the old saying that the truly skilled attacker strikes from beyond the ninth heaven, while the truly skilled defender hides beneath the ninth earth. Perhaps not even Su Boyong or Su Yu themselves carried quite that same sense about them; within the Su family at present, no one was foolish enough to go probing at his true strength for the fun of it — everyone understood well enough that the consequences of doing so were more than anyone could bear.
Of course, however people saw Ning Yi now, there was no possibility that Su Boyong would ever have him step forward personally to clean up this mess, so long as there was any other way, any other resource left to draw on. He was, after all, a matrilocal husband who had married into the Su family, and though his position within the family had grown subtle and complicated, since he himself hadn’t spoken up about it, it was best, for now, that his status as a matrilocal husband simply remain as it was. In truth, in an age ruled by family and clan, however formidable everyone now considered him, within his own household there was simply no way anyone could truly be afraid of him, not to any great degree.
Throughout history, no matter how ruthless a high official might be toward his political enemies, how coldly calculating, he was often left utterly helpless against the shameless antics of his own relatives. Take, for instance, a man who rises to office — relatives come to depend on him, and he has no choice but to support them, feed them, give them some way forward in life. If family members come asking for money, he has to give it, and giving too little won’t do either — word will get back, and once it spreads, he’ll be reviled by all and his career will be finished.
There were also plenty who tried to remain incorruptible officials, keeping their own hands clean, but who couldn’t attend to the needs of the folks back home — and those very folks would only see him as stingy, miserly, and a man who had forgotten his roots; attacked from without by his political rivals and betrayed from within by his own family, he’d end up living in poverty regardless. Over a thousand years of Confucian tradition and clan-based rule had shaped things this way — a tangle of relationships and obligations on every side. No man who reached high office could ever truly be free of it. However formidable Ning Yi was, naturally no one really believed he’d dare turn a blade on his own family; at most, people simply knew better than to push him too far. A matrilocal husband, in the end, was still just a matrilocal husband.
On another front, Ning Yi and his wife’s return had given a real shot of confidence to the many merchant households that depended on the Su family. The maneuvering from the Xue and Wu families had finally come to a stop as well — having already gained what advantage they could, they were now rather more interested in probing the true strength of Ning Yi and the others. Whether it was Xue Jin or Wu Qilong, anyone with even the slightest connection to draw on had already sent invitations over to the Su household, inviting Ning Yi to banquets, poetry gatherings, and all manner of other occasions. Puyang Yi and others had likewise extended repeated invitations under the pretext of Qilan’s name, and Ning Yi turned down every one of them.
His attitude of showing no particular favor to anyone left Su Boyong feeling it was rather a pity, and he suggested to Su Tan’er that perhaps the invitations from men like Puyang Yi were ones they ought to accept after all — in his view, the Xue and Wu families could be safely ignored, but the Puyang family’s standing still warranted some courtesy. Su Tan’er, however, had no wish to concern herself with any of it, and simply said, “Father, your daughter is resting to prepare for the birth. If you bring this up in front of my husband, he’ll be upset.”
“But…” Here was a daughter who had always been the strong-willed sort, who had taken in a matrilocal husband, and yet now seemed to have grown somewhat wary of him — a state of affairs that left even Su Boyong feeling rather at a loss.
On the second day after their return, Ning Yi and Su Tan’er had announced that Xiao Chan had formally entered the household — a formal declaration of her standing within the Su family. That a matrilocal husband should take a concubine was, admittedly, somewhat unusual, but essentially no one raised any objection to it. Within the senior branch’s courtyard, Xiao Chan kept a fairly low profile, remaining on good terms with her two fellow maids, her daily duties not changing much — after all, the three of them had always served as maids managing the household’s affairs; at most, her monthly allowance had increased, and she could now throw her weight around a little more outside, borrowing on Ning Yi’s standing. If anything, though, Xiao Chan avoided taking on more outside responsibilities than before — she had no wish to cause Ning Yi any trouble.
For his part, Ning Yi made something of a deliberate effort not to let the whole structure and distinctions of wife and concubine show too plainly within their own household. Of course, Su Tan’er and Xiao Chan both understood the proper etiquette in their hearts, and he had no intention of overturning that entirely — but at least for the time being, in how he treated Xiao Chan, he often behaved more like an older brother to a younger sister than a man toward his concubine. The whole situation carried a certain delicacy to it; Su Tan’er found it curious and quietly turned her husband’s intentions over in her mind, while Xiao Chan too sensed the complexity of it all — this was, in effect, a period of adjustment among the three of them, and how it would ultimately settle was, naturally, still hard to say.
For the most part, Ning Yi spent his time at home keeping Su Tan’er company — chatting, walking together, sometimes peeling fruit for her, or playing a round or two of Gomoku. With her time drawing near, she couldn’t afford to tax her mind or body too much, and Ning Yi would sometimes tell her stories, or lie on the bed and read aloud to her from storybooks, and occasionally even hum a tune or two softly.
He was, after all, a man who carried modern sensibilities, and none of this struck him as anything out of the ordinary — but in the Wu Dynasty, how many men would ever accompany their pregnant wives in such a way? To sing for one’s own wife, for instance, was the sort of thing only a man of thoroughly unrestrained, dissolute habits, one with a fondness for theater himself, would ever do. And even setting that aside, there was a fundamental difference between a man who genuinely believed in the superiority of men over women deep down while simply not showing it, and a man who held no such notion at all to begin with. Once, when Ning Yi stepped out to fetch something and came back in, he caught sight of the ever-resilient Su Tan’er wiping away tears, only to smile at him the next moment. Ning Yi pursed his lips.
“What’s all this about…”
“I was just thinking… how many men out there would ever do this much for their wife…”
“I’m too lazy to go out, and you don’t feel like socializing either — these are small things… you shouldn’t let your moods swing so wildly, not in your condition…” He took a towel and wiped her face; Su Tan’er took his hand and pressed it against her chest. “Warm, and steady — it’s always been like this, no wild swings at all.”
His one fairly fixed outing was every morning at dawn, a quick trip over to the little tower by the Qinhuai River to chat briefly with Yun Zhu and Jin’er. It had been a long while since he’d had days this unhurried, and the feeling of it seemed almost like something long missed. The two women already knew of Su Tan’er’s pregnancy by now, but Yun Zhu never said anything about it, while Jin’er only occasionally took a jab at him over it, never quite turning it into ammunition for their usual banter — which was, in itself, rather odd.
His training regimen, of course, remained unchanged. Before leaving, Lu Hongti had given him plenty of advice and reference material for improving his martial skills, and Ning Yi had thrown himself into practicing earnestly. Naturally, after only a few days there was no visible effect yet, but with enough persistence, it wasn’t impossible he might become something of a minor martial hero in time. Ning Yi still had confidence in what Lu Hongti had taught him — he’d even copied out a set of the material for Yuan Jin’er, who was forever going on about wanting to become a woman warrior herself.
In her idle moments, Su Tan’er had already begun thinking about names for the child to come. One idea she was rather fond of was fairly direct — if the child turned out to be a boy, she thought he might be named Su Ning. Ning Yi solemnly rejected the idea. “Not that name, absolutely not that name. If the son gets that name, wouldn’t a daughter have to be named after the pot-and-pan brand…”
He didn’t want the two of their surnames stuck together like that, which left Su Tan’er rather hurt, and she couldn’t help but let her mind wander down troubling paths. “Does my husband perhaps not want… to put the character ‘Ning’ … um…”
She’d taken it to mean that Ning Yi was unwilling to have “Ning” placed after “Su,” suspecting he felt the name Su Ning would only cement his status as a matrilocal husband — even underscore it. Ning Yi had to explain himself at length, insisting it had nothing to do with that, that he had his own reasons. He then offered that he could think of better-sounding names — he’d already picked some out, in fact: Su Shi, Su Zhe, Su Xun, Su Song, Su Xiaoxiao, Su Dongpo, any of these sounded better than Su Ning…
As for the name itself, Ning Yi genuinely felt it made little difference either way; the only reason he’d objected to Su Ning was that the name, to his ear, simply sounded far too much like a joke, and he couldn’t help wanting to laugh at it. He had, admittedly, been giving some real thought lately to better names, but since there was still plenty of time before the child would need a formal name, there was no need to rush the matter.
While he mused idly over names, Su Tan’er, for her part, seemed to be considering the matter rather more seriously. On the sixth day of the third month, at midday, Xiao Chan accompanied Su Tan’er out for a walk, and Ning Yi, having read for a while, went out looking for them. Circling halfway around the Su estate, as he neared the courtyard where Su Boyong resided, he caught, faintly, the sound of his wife’s voice, followed by Su Boyong’s voice saying, “This is outrageous, how could such a thing be allowed!”
By this point Ning Yi had developed a foundation of internal energy, which extended his hearing somewhat further than normal; it was only because Su Boyong had raised his voice that it carried this far. Ning Yi knew well enough that the relationship between his wife and her father was never a particularly warm one, and guessed that some disagreement must have arisen over something.
Yet ever since Su Tan’er had proven her own capabilities, her say in the family’s business affairs had, in most respects, already come to outweigh her father’s. It seemed strange, then, that Su Boyong should suddenly have taken issue with his daughter over something. Curious, Ning Yi reached out and scaled the wall, moving in from the side, and soon enough made out Su Tan’er’s words clearly.
“…What difference does it make if the first son takes the surname Ning? Father, he’ll be the one to carry on my husband’s legacy, but he’ll also grow up in the Su household, and he’ll never forget where he comes from in anything he does… my husband himself doesn’t mind about this at all — he’s already told me as much. Even if the child took the Su surname, he’d still teach him everything a father ought to teach a son. Father, you all know perfectly well how well my husband treats me. I’ve been thinking this over for several days now, which is why I had Mother speak to you about it two days ago…”
In the midst of carefully weighing the matter of a name from the Su side, she had, in fact, been hoping the firstborn might take the surname Ning instead. Ning Yi, listening a while longer, stood outside the window and smiled, feeling rather moved…