Ning Yi’s busyness these past few days had not escaped the notice of those around him. Still, after hearing about the day’s events that afternoon, Jin’er couldn’t help feeling a bit restless with curiosity. Back in Jiangning, if something like this had happened, Ning Yi would most likely have come to tell her and Sister Yun Zhu about it himself — but now, caught up in his work, he clearly hadn’t given it much thought at all. Of course, even if he had come to tell her, Jin’er wasn’t quite sure how she’d have known what to say back to him.
And so, after dinner, Jin’er and Yun Zhu played with an embroidered ball in the courtyard, tossing it back and forth. At one point, just as Jin’er straightened up to catch the ball against her chest, she spotted Ning Yi standing at the courtyard gate and hurriedly clutched the ball to herself. Yun Zhu looked over too. Ning Yi waved from the gate with a smile. “Been busy these past couple days with no time free — tomorrow’s the Dragon Boat Festival, let’s all go out, take a look around, watch the dragon boat races.”
“Sounds good.” Yun Zhu nodded.
“Get some sleep early tonight… and you too, of course, little silver ingot.”
“Hmph!”
Jin’er turned away. Ning Yi smiled and turned to leave. Watching him go, Jin’er felt a flash of irritation. “What do you mean ‘of course you too’ — like I’m going to throw some childish tantrum or something!”
She complained to Yun Zhu, who laughed. “Oh? So you won’t?”
“Of course I won’t…” Jin’er muttered, turning her head away.
But… that man still hadn’t stayed to tell them about what had happened during the day.
Feeling a bit let down, Jin’er went to find a screened table in the second-floor hall at the front for tea, hoping to catch more of the day’s news, but Bianliang was such a vast city that even if the story really had become “known to all” as those scholars claimed, it wasn’t the sort of thing she could easily pick up on amid the noisy evening teahouse crowd. After drinking her fill of tea, she headed back; the night breeze brushed gently past as she walked slowly by Ning Yi’s courtyard, lanterns casting their warm golden glow one after another. The Chinese roses in the courtyard had bloomed, looking in the lamplight like some ailing beauty. She wandered along, feeling a bit listless, and as she passed by the doorway, she glanced sideways into the room — Ning Yi was still there at his desk, writing, occasionally flipping back to check something he’d already finished, brow furrowed.
Maybe this is just what a man looks like when he’s focused on something important…
She thought to herself, the earlier urge to pick a fight now gone, and she even found herself smiling faintly, without quite realizing it. Of course, not long after passing the doorway, her mood sank again, because with everything going on, she found it a little hard to face Sister Yun Zhu, even a little awkward to face Xiao Chan — she’d originally planned to teach Xiao Chan how to do leg stretches, turning the little maid into enough of a temptress to cause chaos in his household.
Not long after this, as she passed by the courtyard gate, she happened to see Ning Yi come out of his room, apparently having changed into a fresh set of clothes, speaking with Xiao Chan, evidently about to go out.
“There’s something I need to attend to tonight — going to Fan Tower again.”
“Oh… is Master going to see that Miss Shishi? Will you be back tonight?”
“Of course I’ll be back.”
Ning Yi smiled and headed out the gate.
And here I thought he was up to something important! Hmph!
He’d spent the whole day writing all those lovely poems for that little vixen, and now he’s off to see her again this late at night — nothing good’s going to come of that! Even if he doesn’t want anything to happen, that Li Shishi certainly won’t let him off the hook!
Jin’er stewed over this back and forth, feeling rather put out. By the time she was getting ready for bed that night, Ning Yi still hadn’t returned. After bathing, she blew out the lamp and lay down in bed with Yun Zhu, turning to hug her from behind, resting a hand on Yun Zhu’s chest. Yun Zhu assumed she’d simply put her arm in the wrong place while cuddling, and gently moved her hand down — but Jin’er moved it right back, cupping Yun Zhu’s right breast through her undergarment, giving it a light squeeze, and refusing to let go. Not knowing what she was thinking this time, Yun Zhu just smiled, laid her own hand over Jin’er’s, and drifted off to sleep like that.
Jin’er, though, couldn’t fall asleep. Around midnight, she heard Ning Yi return to the courtyard next door, and thought to herself that he and Li Shishi had probably done something scandalous. Of course, she didn’t entirely believe this herself, and eventually drifted off to sleep, tossing and turning through strange dreams all night. The next morning — Dragon Boat Festival day — she woke with dark circles under her eyes, looking rather worn out.
The festival began that morning with drums and gongs echoing everywhere, a lively bustle throughout the city. Ning Yi carved out most of the day to take everyone out — strolling the streets, watching the dragon boat races, joining in all sorts of festivities. By late morning, Princess Zhou Pei had joined them too, and the group visited a teahouse to eat, chat, and play guessing games. In the afternoon, they paid a visit to Chancellor Qin’s residence, where Ning Yi more or less recounted the whole story of what had happened the day before at the Cuiwei estate. By this point, in fact, fragments of talk about Ning Yi could already be overheard from others.
The festivities were as lively as ever — officials organized celebrations, the imperial family took part, and various reigning courtesans gave performances. That evening, back at Wenhui Tower, everyone gathered to eat rice dumplings together.
Once the Dragon Boat Festival had passed, time settled back into its calm routine. But this calm was only something felt at the surface, in the passage of time and daylight — since Ning Yi, the group’s anchor, was now buried in his work, it perhaps felt somewhat dull to everyone else. The habit he’d once had of inviting people to various teahouses and brothels had come to a stop these past few days.
His time had grown tight; he wrote and wrote at his drafts, sometimes sitting in the courtyard lost in thought for half a day. When Yun Zhu, Jin’er, and the others came by, he would still smile and chat with them a little, but they could all sense how busy and immersed he’d become — even in the midst of this busyness and focus, he clearly tried to carve out whatever time he could to talk with them, which was, in its own way, a kind of care. Even Xiao Chan had lately been holding herself back from chatting with him too much. Sometimes, waking in the middle of the night, Yun Zhu or Jin’er would see lamplight still glowing in his room; other times, at dawn, he’d come out to practice his forms, and it was hard to tell whether he’d just woken up or hadn’t slept at all.
Fortunately, having trained in martial arts, his energy still seemed to hold up well.
Yun Zhu would ask him sometimes if he was very busy, and he’d only smile and say he was almost done.
He kept the outside world firmly at the door. After word of the poetry gathering spread, the owner of Wenhui Tower had personally come to call, and Ning Yi had met with him briefly; afterward, apparently, several elders from the poetry gathering had come to offer their apologies, and Ning Yi had met with them too, though only briefly. Everyone after that, he simply turned away.
Yet within Bianliang, his fame nonetheless continued to spread. With Ning Yi unable to attend to everything himself, the household went about their own respective tasks. Xiao Chan, along with Su Wenyu and Su Yanping, had to get the newly purchased courtyard properly furnished. Yun Zhu and Jin’er, for their part, had to arrange the small house near the chancellery where they’d soon be living, and when they went out, they often overheard talk of the poetry gathering held before the festival.
Even though the various courtesans had performed no shortage of fine poems during the Dragon Boat Festival celebrations themselves, this year’s festival poetry had, in the end, still been somewhat overshadowed by the splendor of that earlier gathering — a dozen or so poems of varying styles, along with the whole twisting saga of that gathering, circulated through the brothels and teahouses, told and retold with relish by everyone who heard them. Looking back at what had happened in Jiangning — one poem, “When Will the Bright Moon Appear,” and another, “Green Jade Table,” after the holiday scenes there — it felt, in a strange way, like history repeating itself; even here in Bianliang, Ning Yi had brought with him that same overwhelming ability to outshine an entire city with a single work.
Amid all this noise and excitement, the very author of these poems had remained shut away in the inn’s courtyard the whole time, entirely out of step with the outside world — a rather complicated and amusing thing to consider. And because of his seclusion, Jin’er, too, found herself caught up in a similar mood.
Of course, one thing that continued to needle at Jin’er these days was that Ning Yi still occasionally slipped out, quick trips there and back, always to the same destination — Fan Tower. Clearly, he and Li Shishi were in frequent contact.
Sometimes she went out with Yun Zhu, shopping, arranging the courtyard. In her heart, there were things she hadn’t said to Ning Yi — she wasn’t even entirely sure herself what exactly she wanted to say — but under the current circumstances, there seemed even less chance to say it.
She often had trouble sleeping at night, and this particular morning she woke feeling listless again. Sister Yun Zhu had arranged to go out with Yun Niang from the chancellery that day, so Jin’er decided to stay home and rest. After breakfast, Sister Yun Zhu, Xiao Chan, Su Wenyu, and the others left one by one. She sat beneath the eaves, watching the strengthening sunlight push its bright line closer along the ground, the sky clear and serene, a butterfly fluttering past the distant eaves, cicadas beginning to sing. She wore a white dress in imitation of Sister Yun Zhu’s style, walked around a bit, then sat back down, unsure what to do with herself.
She thought of the poetry gatherings in Jiangning, the one in Bianliang, the legends she’d heard time and again about Ning Yi. Well — she too had first only heard about him; that name, wasn’t it just like something out of a legend? Back then she’d still been at Jinfeng Tower, still sending money to Sister Yun Zhu — she’d never imagined that one day she’d be spending such a peaceful morning as this. Thinking of it, she couldn’t help humming to herself: “When will the bright moon appear… raising my cup, I ask the blue sky… I wonder, in the palace among the clouds, what year it is tonight…”
Her hands moved in small gestures, her body swaying lightly in a bit of a dance, and without quite meaning to, the tune that came out was the very melody Ning Yi had once sung — Sister Yun Zhu had sung it too, performed it even; that song suited Sister Yun Zhu’s temperament and bearing perfectly. Jin’er’s own nature was a bit livelier, not quite suited to such slow, languid pieces — yet, surprisingly, humming and singing it today, imitating Sister Yun Zhu’s dance, she found herself utterly absorbed in it…
The morning slipped by unhurried.
She knew Ning Yi was writing next door in his room. With just the two of them left in these two courtyards, she found herself, almost without thinking, bringing over some tea. The inn’s errand boy could have been called on, but she suspected he’d forget. Arriving there, she found Ning Yi had apparently stepped out for a moment; she pushed open the half-closed door, went over to the desk to change the tea, and sure enough, the pot was empty. She refilled it, then noticed the window was shut, leaving the room rather dim, so she went to open it to check the light — the breeze came pouring in.
The small stack of draft papers Ning Yi had left on the desk went fluttering up all at once.
Jin’er hurriedly shut the window again, watching the papers scatter gracefully across half the room, and rushed to gather them up — she knew how hard Ning Yi had been working on these these past few days, and this was bad news indeed. Having collected the ones inside the room, she found a few more had blown out into the courtyard; she dashed out to retrieve them, and one more was still being carried by the wind toward the corridor on the other side. She hurried after it, climbing up onto the low railing at the edge of the corridor and leaping across to the other side. But for some reason her legs felt weak beneath her; as she leapt lightly to snatch at the paper, her body tumbled down instead, her head striking the wooden railing on the far side with a loud crack.
It hurt a bit, but not too badly, she thought to herself — then she heard Ning Yi’s voice suddenly ring out: “What happened?” He came running over at once.
Jin’er scrambled up off the ground, holding up the sheet of paper in her hand, offering him an awkward smile. “I wanted to change your tea, but I accidentally let the papers blow away — I picked them all back up, please don’t scold me.”
Halfway up, kneeling and trying to push herself to her feet, her strength suddenly gave out; her vision swam, and though she wasn’t sure what was happening, before her body could fully collapse, Ning Yi rushed over and caught her in his arms. “What are you doing—” She heard him sound a bit sharp.
“I already said I’m sorry… don’t scold me…” she thought, wanting to say those very words—