The date finally settled on for the journey to the capital was the sixteenth of the fourth month—traveling aboard the Consort’s household fleet, sailing east down the Yangtze, then north along the Grand Canal, through the Bian River, and on to the Eastern Capital. At this time, this was also one of Wuchao’s relatively busy shipping routes, with plenty of vessels traveling together, unlikely to run into trouble from mountain bandits or the like along the way.
The child born into their household had not yet reached its first full month, and setting out on a journey so soon was, for any family, no small hardship. But with over a hundred family members having just been buried, a child’s first-month celebration hardly seemed to matter much by comparison. The one thing that had stirred some discussion at home in recent days was the matter of the child’s surname. Ning Yi was willing to let the child take the Su family name, but after everything that had happened, Su Tan’er insisted the child should take the surname Ning instead.
“My first child with my husband absolutely must carry the Ning name. He’s going to inherit his father’s legacy someday. If it comes to that, our second child can take the Su name instead… Isn’t that right, little one? We’re taking the Ning name…”
As she said this, Su Tan’er, still confined to her bed, leaned over to coo at the baby in the basket beside her—wide-eyed and commanding at first, every bit the formidable woman, then softening into a tender mother by the end. Ning Yi, watching all this from nearby, could only give in and agree in the end, listing out several names for Su Tan’er to choose from. Tan’er finally settled on one with a simple but grand meaning—Ning Xi, meaning “dawn’s first light,” fitting for the family’s firstborn child, like the radiant break of morning. From then on they called the baby “little Xi’er.” Ning Yi teased her that the child would grow up resenting her for choosing a character with so many strokes, but Tan’er confidently declared that little Xi’er would grow into a great man of letters and wouldn’t mind the extra strokes at all—good practice, if anything. Ning Yi, for his part, wasn’t nearly so confident about that.
The choice of name did stir up some quiet grumbling among a few of the Su family elders—the family hadn’t even finished dividing its assets, and already they were changing the child’s surname to match his father-in-law’s family, going too far by half—but Su Yu quickly put a stop to that talk.
By now, Tong Guan’s army had already broken camp and marched north, having already crossed the Yangtze. Ning Yi needed to head to the capital soon to meet Qin Siyuan, in part to formally join the Secret Investigation Bureau as soon as possible. He sought revenge, certainly, but what Qin Siyuan and Kang Xian wanted from him went beyond just that. Though he’d contributed a great deal at Hangzhou and earned the two elder statesmen’s admiration, it would be presumptuous to assume they’d throw their full support behind him simply because he wanted revenge against Liangshan. So it was best, before heading to Shandong, to have a proper conversation with Qin Siyuan first and reach some mutual understanding.
Su Tan’er, for the time being, couldn’t set out with him—partly because she was still in her postpartum recovery period, which she truly needed to see through properly, and partly because there were still many matters left to sort out amid the Su family’s ongoing division of assets. Though her business dealings would eventually need to expand northward, for now she still needed to remain at home for another month or two. This worked out well enough, in a sense—Ning Yi heading north first meant he could pave the way for her; as long as he secured Qin Siyuan’s backing, the Su family’s future business expansion into the north would go smoothly for years to come.
Ning Yi would head to the capital while Su Tan’er remained in Jiangning; by the time she made it to the capital herself, Ning Yi might already have gone on to Shandong. Aware of this, and of the dangers he might face, Su Tan’er grew unusually clingy toward him in the days that remained, murmuring every night about how he needed to be careful, or pointing out some new adorable thing about little Xi’er, or sharing whatever new thoughts she’d had about the Su family’s affairs. Ordinarily, though she was attached to Ning Yi, she was also independently minded, and rarely voiced her worries until matters had settled one way or another—but now, she said everything on her mind. Ning Yi, in turn, would share his own thoughts with her from time to time—how he planned to deal with Liangshan, the various underhanded tricks he had in mind—and the two of them would talk it all through together. Ning Yi promised that if he ran into real danger, he’d turn and run without hesitation.
In truth, all these little details Tan’er kept bringing up were also her way of deepening the ties that bound this family together in Ning Yi’s heart, and he understood that perfectly well. On the other hand, having been together this long, Tan’er also understood Ning Yi through and through—every single time, hadn’t he always fought his way to victory on the very edge of life and death? Schemes and clever plans were never truly reliable on their own; without enough resolve in the person carrying them out, even the cleverest plan was worthless, unable to see itself through to the end. Still, her constant fretting was bound to have some effect on him regardless.
Spending time with his wife, playing with the child now formally named Ning Xi, watching the household bustle about in preparation for his departure—the days slipped by one after another. Tan’er, still confined to her postpartum recovery, drank her bitter chicken broth every day; the weather had already begun turning warm, and lying in bed, she wore nothing over her undergarment but a single thin robe, revealing the graceful curve of her figure. Even though he’d grown thoroughly familiar with her body by now, Ning Yi still found himself occasionally drawn to it. A young wife in her early twenties, now also a new mother, carried both youthfulness and a newfound maturity at once—there was an allure to her cradling the child, an allure to her chattering away about household trivialities, and yet another kind of allure entirely when she turned playful and let slip what was truly on her mind.
Xiao Chan was occasionally pulled into all this—she was set to accompany Ning Yi to the capital, and naturally, most of her time these days belonged to her young mistress. Tan’er once pressed her palms together and said to her, “Xiao Chan, let me have my husband for these next few days, all right?” Xiao Chan, flustered, blushed and stammered, “Young lady…” before being pulled onto the bed by Su Tan’er as well; that night, the three of them ended up sleeping together, Ning Yi on the outside, Tan’er in the middle, and Xiao Chan on the inside. The joys of sharing didn’t turn out quite as pleasant as one might imagine—waking the next morning, Tan’er found herself sprawled across his chest while Xiao Chan lay curled against Tan’er’s back, both women dressed in nothing but their undergarments and short underclothes; and given that nothing at all had actually happened the night before, Ning Yi couldn’t help but laugh wryly to himself.
On the night of the fourteenth, Tan’er clung to Ning Yi, whispering a request that they “try for a baby.” She’d given birth less than twenty days earlier and felt her body had already recovered; with Ning Yi about to leave, she wanted to conceive again right away. Ning Yi naturally refused, and after she stripped off her clothes to try tempting him anyway, he pinned her down on the bed and gave her a proper spanking instead. Lying naked on her stomach at the edge of the bed, face flushed red, she said to the baby in the cradle, “Little Xi, Daddy’s bullying me… you’d better hurry up and grow big so you can protect Mommy…”
That was the deliberately lighthearted face she showed Ning Yi. But deep into the night, buried against his neck, tears falling, she said, “Come back soon. Please, don’t push yourself too hard—you know how dangerous these things can be, Liheng… if you get sick of hearing this, go ahead and hit me, but no matter what, keep this in your heart: Father’s already gone, they’re all gone already—don’t you die too. Revenge can wait, take it slow if you have to…” This was something she’d brought up again and again over the past several days; the closer Ning Yi’s departure drew, the more pressing it all became. After saying this much, Tan’er gritted her teeth, doing her best to hold back further tears, and Ning Yi, stroking the skin along her waist and back, could only offer his promise once more.
Sometime during these final days, Tan’er had gone to see Yun Zhu once more—ostensibly to thank her for saving little Xi’er, but it seemed she’d also brought up the subject of marriage. What exactly the two of them discussed behind closed doors was never mentioned again afterward, though apparently Tan’er had put on quite an air of superiority in front of Jin’er, driving her half to tears with frustration, repeatedly saying it was a good thing Yun Zhu hadn’t actually married in after all, or she’d have been bullied to death. When Ning Yi asked Yun Zhu what the two of them had talked about, she uncharacteristically refused to say, only calling it a secret between women.
Tan’er’s softer side only ever showed itself to Ning Yi at moments like these; over these several days, whenever other family members came calling about matters related to the asset division, she remained perfectly composed and dignified throughout. Yun Zhu’s own quiet resilience, too, was probably only ever fully visible to those closest to her. By the fifteenth of the fourth month, everything was finally in order. Zhou Pei and Zhou Junwu came by to pay a visit; Junwu invited Ning Yi out to watch a large kite fly, with a cage holding a small cat suspended beneath it on a long string.
That day, a small cat was carried aloft into the sky.
“I’ve thought it over, Master, and you’re right—there’s only so much one person alone can accomplish. Now that I have this kind of influence, there are things I can actually do. I want to gather together a great many talented people and carry the study of natural sciences forward. I, Zhou Junwu… within my lifetime, I want to fly to the heavens myself!”
He had only just crossed from childhood into adolescence, but speaking of “within his lifetime” already, he carried himself with real conviction. Watching the great kite being pulled off into the distance, the young prince before him also earnestly raised the question weighing on his mind.
“I know Master, you’re a man meant for great things—some of what you’re doing, I may not fully understand. But what I want to do, what I’m capable of doing, is exactly this. Master, you’re about to leave for the capital, and there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you all this time: does Master truly believe there’s meaning in what I’m doing? Like bringing peace to the world for ten thousand generations. This research into natural sciences that I’m doing—will it really turn out to matter someday? If it will, then Master, you can go off and do other great things, and leave the study of natural sciences to me. I… would that make me Master’s true disciple?”
At this time, plenty of young men of twelve or thirteen were already marrying and starting families, and though Junwu was still young, he was hardly incapable of serious thought. Ning Yi’s own approach to studying natural sciences—though he could explain these things clearly enough—carried a certain playful, almost casual air about it, and that was precisely what troubled young Junwu. Was this, in his master’s heart, something genuinely meaningful that he simply lacked the time to pursue himself? If that were the case, the young prince felt he could sustain his own efforts with confidence.
Ning Yi studied him for a long moment, then patted his shoulder and nodded. “It’s meaningful, absolutely. And if you can really see it through, someday you might not just be my disciple—you might end up being my teacher instead.”
“Junwu will always be Master’s disciple.” The still somewhat childish face before him turned solemn, and he bowed to Ning Yi with great respect, before breaking into an eager, hopeful smile. “Master, I’m going to be a proper young prince, and someday a proper prince in full—I’ll make plenty of money, gather together all the skilled craftsmen I can find, give them status, make sure no one looks down on them, and I will carry the study of natural sciences forward, and fly to the heavens!”