On the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the tenth year of the Jinghan era in Wuchao, out on the grasslands at the edge of Jiangning, a great kite soared off into the distance, a cage holding a small cat suspended beneath it. Young Junwu watched the kite go, and in that moment, made his vow.

There was something genuinely gratifying about a young man setting his sights so high so early in life; anyone with a gift for foresight might have looked on and predicted that this boy was destined for great things. As for Ning Yi, if the boy succeeded, all the better—but even if he didn’t, at the very least he would have found something worth devoting himself to, and in truth, the odds of failure were probably still higher. Much like Xigua’s dream of “Great Harmony,” Junwu’s dream of “natural science” was the same kind of thing—Ning Yi had planted the seed, but he had no intention of clinging too tightly to it before the time was right.

Junwu, only just beginning to grow, was still fairly short in stature, chattering away excitedly with Ning Yi about matters of natural science. Zhou Pei, who had come along with him, had always been the type to lecture her younger brother, but today she was unusually quiet—perhaps she’d come to realize that if Junwu wanted to see his ambitions through, he first needed to be a proper young prince. The young woman carried herself now with a dignified, composed air, already taking on the graceful bearing of someone nearly grown.

She didn’t say much. It was said that the Prince Kang’s household had firmly resolved to begin searching for a suitable consort for her, with several talented young men of Jiangning currently vying for the position. There were even rumors that a few noble young scholars had staged some kind of contest of literary and martial skill in one of the pavilions, all for this young princess’s favor—the story had become quite the talk of Jiangning over the past few days. Ning Yi, preoccupied with matters at home, had only caught fragments of it, not fully understanding the details, but it sounded as though it must have been quite the spectacle.

Before long, the string holding the cat’s cage aloft on the kite snapped; the little cat plummeted and presumably died from the fall. Out on the grassy field at the city’s edge, several of Prince Kang’s household attendants followed along after the shouting, excited Junwu to go search for it. The young woman then bowed slightly toward Ning Yi. “Teacher, my family keeps pressuring me to accept a suitor for the position of consort. What… what do you think about it?”

“It’s a matter for your parents and matchmakers to decide—what can I possibly say about it? You’re clever enough—surely you already have thoughts of your own, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

Zhou Pei lowered her head. “I thought Teacher might have a different perspective on this… it seems there’s no avoiding it this time.”

Ning Yi looked at her with some sympathy. “I got married the same way myself, and things turned out fine in the end. This is something everyone goes through, one way or another—it’s not just hard to avoid, avoiding it would only cause more trouble. At your age, you get to choose whoever you like as your consort; wait until you’re older, and it’ll be others choosing you instead, with people whispering behind your back besides. From what I hear, the young men vying for the position, while perhaps not the very best families around, are all fairly solid prospects, and you probably know most of them already at least somewhat. You get to choose from among them—what more do you want?”

“I… I still can’t quite accept it, in my heart,” Zhou Pei said softly. “When I was little, I believed a woman could accomplish just as much as anyone else. Later I realized that wasn’t really possible, so I hoped my younger brother could make something of himself instead—at the very least, become a useful prince someday. Even if he can’t govern the realm directly, at least this study of his, this natural science, will be useful someday too. But… but even so, deep down, I still can’t accept it. Why should men get to do things that I can’t. As for these candidates for consort—I do know them, all of them… every one of them is only half-competent, none of them have any real substance to speak of.”

In truth, whether one became a consort to a princess or a prince consort to a duke’s daughter, marrying into the imperial family meant giving up any real path in officialdom for the rest of one’s life; ambitious young men with genuine aspirations, at this time, generally avoided this path entirely. If it were some sheltered princess raised entirely within the palace walls, never once seen in public, some men might even actively avoid the match. But in Zhou Pei’s case, plenty of talented young men in Jiangning were practically clamoring for the chance, largely because she’d often had occasion to appear in public. The young princess had been lovely since childhood, and now, at fifteen, had grown into an even more refined and beautiful young woman—and beyond her looks, having been educated by Kang Xian, she’d developed real accomplishment in the classics, poetry, and painting as well, making her one of the most celebrated talented young women of her generation in Jiangning.

In his lessons, Ning Yi often offered views that made people think, benefiting from the advantage of a modern mind—but by traditional standards, his own scholarly accomplishments in this area probably fell well short of this young princess’s. Precisely because of this, though Ning Yi rarely involved himself in the circles of talented scholars and beautiful ladies, he was well aware that ever since news of the princess’s search for a match had spread, no small number of young literary talents were willing to stake their futures on winning Zhou Pei’s favor. As long as one wasn’t the eldest son expected to inherit the family business, becoming a comfortable, idle nobleman married to this accomplished, talented princess seemed, to many, nothing short of an enviable fate.

The trouble was, these suitors only knew of the young princess’s talents, without necessarily understanding her temperament. Just now, in her quiet murmuring, not a single one of her suitors had managed to earn her favor. Ning Yi shook his head, thinking the girl was perhaps setting her sights a bit too high. “Who doesn’t start out only half-competent? They’re around your age, just teenagers—as long as their character is decent, they’ll grow into something more substantial with time. You’ve learned so much from Consort Kang that you’re measuring people by his standard, and that’s hardly fair. Kang Xian himself, when he was young, was probably no better than these boys are now.”

On matters like this, Ning Yi found himself with little more advice to offer. If he’d had a daughter of his own, he certainly wouldn’t have been choosing her a husband at the age of fifteen. But there was no changing the reality of the young princess’s situation—if her standards were already this high now, and she waited until she was twenty, wouldn’t that only make things worse? Seeing her still pouting and looking down, he realized there was little point in saying more, and let the matter drop.

That day, after saying goodbye to Zhou Pei and her brother, he paid one more visit to Kang Xian, then returned home and entered the courtyard, where he heard Tan’er talking with someone inside.

“…At a time like this, with so much going on in this family, why would you all want to go stirring up more trouble!”

“It’s exactly at a time like this that we want to make ourselves useful. Second Sister, this is our family’s business—if we all just hide in the back the whole time, what does that even make us…”

“What do you mean, ‘our family’s business’? If this family takes the surname Ning from now on, are you all planning to stage a rebellion?”

“I… that’s not what we mean. Second Brother-in-law—we respect him completely, but this is about revenge… we just want to make ourselves more useful. Even the things we don’t know how to do, we can at least learn…”

“Your Second Brother-in-law goes out there risking his life every single time—people drop dead left and right around him without a second thought. And you want to go learn that? Fine—I’ll hand each of you a knife right now. If you can tell me, right now, that you’re prepared to kill yourselves the instant you’re in danger rather than become a burden to your Second Brother-in-law, then I’ll let you go.”

The ones inside talking with Su Tan’er were none other than a group of the Su family’s younger generation, led by Wending and Wenfang. Since the family division, they’d sided with the First Branch, and having learned what this trip to the capital actually meant for Ning Yi, they were now asking to go along with him. Su Tan’er, sweet and gentle as she always seemed in front of Ning Yi, turned sharp and severe the moment the subject came up, and within moments the young men had nothing left to say. They might have had a burst of youthful passion driving them, but believing that passion alone would keep them from becoming a liability was, frankly, nothing more than wishful thinking on their part.

Ning Yi stood outside the window, listening with some amusement for a while, thinking to himself that his wife’s scolding really did seem to be getting more colorful by the day. Xiao Chan came up from behind and, seeing him standing there, moved to greet him, but Ning Yi held up a finger to shush her, then pulled her close and wrapped an arm around her. Xiao Chan’s face flushed slightly, though she also understood what he was doing, and stood there with him outside the window, eavesdropping on Tan’er scolding the others together.

“Husband, I don’t want to be separated from young lady…” After listening for a while, Xiao Chan murmured softly.

“I don’t want that either.” Ning Yi held her, laughing as he swayed her gently. “But some things are better done a month sooner than a month later. Either way, we’re just going ahead to pave the way for now—once I head over to the Liangshan area, you’ll still need to wait in the capital for Tan’er to arrive. It won’t be long before we’re all together again.”

“Mm.” Xiao Chan nodded. Ning Yi said softly, “You know what this trip is actually for, right?”

This time Xiao Chan nodded firmly. “Pave the way, then revenge!”

“Not quite. Actually, the whole reason we’re going is to make babies.”

The two of them had long since become intimate, so a remark like that hardly counted as improper between them. With Ning Yi holding her from behind and her hands resting over his, Xiao Chan let out a bashful little “hehe” laugh, looking every bit like a shy young beauty straight out of a storybook.

“Well, that’s quite the scolding going on in there—I’d better go in and help smooth things over.” After a while, sensing the conversation inside had more or less run its course, Ning Yi finally let Xiao Chan go with a smile. As he stepped through the door, everyone in the room fell silent at once; the young men all addressed him as “Second Brother-in-law.” Ning Yi waved a hand. “Go on outside for now, don’t get your Second Sister any more worked up.” As the group hurried to make their escape, he clapped Wending on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll definitely have something to do this time—it’s just a question of whether you’re up to the task. The Su family’s future rests on you all, after all, so study hard.”

At these words, their faces lit up at once, while Su Tan’er, still fuming, narrowed her eyes and glanced over at him. Once the young men had left the room, she asked, aggrieved, “Husband, are you really planning to take them along?”

Ning Yi sat down on the edge of the bed. “What do you think?”

“How could you possibly bring them along for something like this. The Secret Investigation Bureau surely has plenty of seasoned people who know exactly what they’re doing—if you bring along people like Wending and Wenfang, not only might things go wrong, but in the end, you might have to go rescue them yourself instead! What then?” She looked genuinely put out, glaring at Ning Yi.

Ning Yi smiled.

“I’ve thought about this too—thought about it for quite a while, actually. But you already know what the Secret Investigation Bureau really does, Tan’er—I’ve told you, and I think you understand well enough by now.”

“Mm.” Tan’er nodded.

“To plan anything properly, what you rely on most is intelligence. That’s why I agreed to join them—it makes going after the men of Liangshan much simpler too. But people who deal in intelligence for a living aren’t necessarily trustworthy. People who know too much are like a chamber pot—desperately needed when you’re using it, but everyone wants to keep their distance the rest of the time…”

As he said this, his expression turned serious. Su Tan’er listened intently, then frowned. “Husband, are you worried about… Chancellor Qin and Consort Kang?”

Ning Yi shook his head. “I know them well enough by now, at least. What I’m worried about is… someone higher up than them.” He gave her a meaningful look, and Tan’er fell silent, then gazed at him with growing concern. “Can’t you just… walk away once the matter with Liangshan is settled?”

“There are some other things I want to do.” Ning Yi smiled. In truth, he’d already settled on a goal for himself—to help Qin Siyuan and the others prevent the “Jingkang” catastrophe. If things continued down their current path, with Wuchao’s army performing this poorly, the Jurchen forces sweeping south eventually was all but guaranteed. He’d already made peace with this when he and Xigua had parted ways—as long as no disaster on that scale ever came to pass, and Wuchao managed to hold onto a century of peace, he wouldn’t ask for anything more. No one could guarantee what happened after their own death; talk of bringing peace to ten thousand generations was, in the end, just a pretty phrase. But one thing was certain: everyone had to fight for their own survival, and as for those who pinned all their hopes on being saved or helped by someone else—if they died, they died. He, at least, felt not the slightest shred of pity for that kind of thinking.

He naturally couldn’t explain something like “Jingkang” to Tan’er, so after a brief pause, he said instead, “Now that the family’s been divided, if we’re going to keep growing the business, we might as well go a bit bigger about it this time around. I’ll bring some things up with Chancellor Qin—if he agrees, the Secret Investigation Bureau won’t stay the way it is now. But in case something goes wrong, I want to have some things firmly in my own hands too. I’ll bring two people from the household with me; Wending, Wenfang, and the others can stay here. And I was hoping… you could help me with something, Tan’er. You’re really the only one who could.”

Tan’er smiled, taking his hand in hers. “Your life is my life. If it’s really that important, and you don’t factor me into it… I’ll divorce you.”

Ning Yi couldn’t help laughing at that, then took her hand in both of his. “I don’t know how things will end up, and no one will ever know it was you behind it—but if something really does go wrong someday, maybe you’ll be the one who can free me… free all of us, our whole family.”

Throughout history, those who pushed for reform had never come to a good end. It was simply the nature of things—force always works both ways, and any attempt to bring about major change was bound to meet fierce resistance in return, just as any attempt to hold back the tide of the times inevitably was. Ning Yi understood this well, and that was precisely why he needed to start preparing now.

That evening, after talking things over with Wending, Wenfang, and the others, he naturally didn’t share too much of what was truly on his mind, choosing instead just two of them to accompany him north. Both were cousins closely related by blood to the First Branch—one named Su Wenyu, the other Su Yanping—while Wending, Wenfang, and the rest would stay behind to assist Tan’er. In truth, the gap between people generally wasn’t all that large; the Su family’s younger generation simply hadn’t been tempered by much hardship yet, which was why they came across as unremarkable.

In an age dominated by Confucian learning, where the prevailing ideal was that a single person’s efforts could change the world—”the gentleman never ceases to strive, as heaven’s movement is ever vigorous,” the gentleman likened to a dragon, and so on—young men of families like the Su clan, when their abilities fell short of their ambitions, tended toward reaching for grand ships and grand schemes they weren’t yet equipped to handle, ending up scattered and overextended. But if everyone could honestly recognize their own place relative to the wider world, and focus first on mastering what fell within their own responsibility before reaching for anything grander, there was no reason they couldn’t still grow into something remarkable in time.

With the household matters settled, that night Ning Yi and Tan’er lay together in bed, their child rocking gently in the cradle beside them as moonlight spilled in through the window. Neither of them was asleep, but they lay quietly together all the same. Deep in the night, the baby wet himself and cried; Ning Yi got up to change his diaper, then held him and rocked him gently, sitting in the chair by the bed and singing softly. The song went something like this:

“The wild buffalo herds vanish from the grasslands without a trace, for they know that mankind is coming; the earth waits for people to come and cultivate it, to arrive in this most beautiful new world…”

Tan’er lay in bed, watching him quietly, listening alongside the stars outside the window, the moonlight, the small courtyard, the bamboo grove, to that melody that didn’t belong to this era at all. Three years ago, a soul had arrived in this world, viewing everything of this age as though on a leisurely holiday. And now, having seen and felt so much, he had finally decided to do something meaningful within this world of his. When dawn broke, he would wake from this dream and step into a new world truly his own.

That same night, in a storeroom in a side wing of Prince Kang’s estate, a figure moved about among rows of great crates, carrying a lamp. By morning, these crates would be loaded onto cargo ships and transported all the way to the capital, delivered to the palace as tribute and birthday gifts for the imperial household. Everything had long since been prepared and numbered. The figure calculated the position each crate would occupy based on its number, then opened one, removed the gold, silver, and jewels inside, climbed in herself to test the fit, and painstakingly carved a small hole in the crate’s side with a knife.

Everything was ready.

Having finished carving the hole, the slender figure, lamp still in hand, let out a long breath in front of the crate and nodded to herself.

Life’s affairs were like a game of chess—once a move was made, there was no taking it back, and a true man of resolve didn’t look behind him. She might not be a “man” in the strict sense, but she was confident that a woman could match any man’s resolve too. She was going somewhere new, to see a wider world for herself.

…

That night, neither husband nor wife slept for very long.

Waking the next morning, Tan’er helped him dress, and after breakfast, the whole family made their way together to Jiangning’s docks, where several grand official ships were already waiting, colorful banners fluttering in the wind. Among those who’d come to see them off were Kang Xian and none other than Princess Chengguo, Zhou Xuan, herself. Many officials from the Jiangning prefecture had come as well, since these ships were carrying goods bound for the capital to celebrate the reigning Empress Dowager’s fiftieth birthday.

For reasons of his own, Kang Xian only waved to Ning Yi from a distance, without coming over to speak with him at length; Wenren Buer had come too, boarding the ship ahead of time, likewise not intruding on the Su family’s farewells.

“Remember to think of home, and come back safe.”

She’d already said more than enough on ordinary days; now, Tan’er simply said this one quiet line to Ning Yi, before turning to instruct Su Wenyu and the others not to cause trouble or become a burden to their brother-in-law, and reminding Xiao Chan once more to take good care of her husband.

“Best if you come back carrying my husband’s child.” She leaned in close to Xiao Chan’s ear, murmuring the words softly, playfully; Xiao Chan blushed too deeply to even nod.

Off in the distance, Yun Zhu and Jin’er, escorted by attendants from the Consort’s household, boarded a large ship further back. Looking over from there, Jin’er stuck her tongue out at Su Tan’er’s back, pulling an exaggerated face, before bounding up the gangplank after Yun Zhu.

Su Tan’er smiled, glancing over toward that ship with seemingly casual intent, the wind blowing through and tousling her hair. Attendants from Prince Kang’s household and the princess’s estate carried crate after crate up onto the ships; inside one of them, a young woman peered out through a tiny gap, watching the bustle and commotion of the docks, the tearful farewells of the crowd, all passing before her eyes. At one point, she and Ning Yi, Su Tan’er, and the others nearly crossed paths entirely by chance. The girl blinked inside her crate, watching Ning Yi’s figure flicker past in her narrow field of view.

Crate after crate was carried into the ship’s hold. With a thud, the girl felt her own crate being set down. She lay inside, waiting for a while, when suddenly there came another heavy thud—another crate had been set down right on top of hers. She froze for a moment, then carefully tried pushing upward, but the lid above proved impossibly heavy, refusing to budge an inch no matter how hard she pushed.

Flustered, she peered out through the small hole, unable to decide whether to call out or not. She had no idea how much time had passed when there came another heavy thud—another crate landing directly in her line of sight, blocking her view entirely…