After the Lantern Festival, the flurry of visits and social obligations began to ease off, and life around them gradually settled back from the New Year’s festive intensity into its ordinary, everyday rhythm.
There was no measuring how quickly the “Green Jade Cup” spread—within just a few days, people in teahouses and taverns were already discussing it again. Discussion around Ning Yi now increasingly centered on affirming his talent and speculating over why he’d married into a merchant family as a live-in son-in-law; by this point, almost no one still accused him of plagiarism. A number of people had even started attaching the title “Foremost Talent of Jiangning” to his name—though of course, plenty of others still called him eccentric, arrogant, and one who squandered genuine talent on nothing worthwhile, boiling down to the label of the so-called “wild scholar.”
Taking an unconventional path could solve a problem, but it always came with side effects—side effects Ning Yi had actually been counting on from the start. Afterward, the general probing and testing from others largely settled down, and he could return to teaching in peace, tinkering with a bit of chemistry in his spare time. He’d recently ordered a batch of porcelain bottles to use as makeshift test tubes, so he could revisit some simple chemical reactions.
Rather amusingly, on the morning of the sixteenth, out for his usual run, he found Nie Yunzhu waiting for him at the door of her small building. Spotting him, she gave an elegant, formal bow. “Greetings, Great Talent Ning.”
It had quite the air of a scholar-and-beauty romance about it. Ning Yi nodded. “Hey there, kid.”
Nie Yunzhu’s face instantly flushed red; she stepped back half a pace, her cheeks looking ready to catch fire, her large eyes darting about, glancing at Ning Yi then quickly away, unable to settle anywhere.
“Ma—Master Ning, how could you say such a thing…”
“Huh? You’re the one who just said ‘Greetings, Great Talent Ning’… shouldn’t I respond in kind?”
“That’s not how it’s done at all! Master Ning ought to have said… ought to have said… said…” She stood there flustered, thinking hard for a long moment, before finally bursting out laughing. “In any case, that was far too forward of you…”
After this little exchange, Nie Yunzhu didn’t bring up his status as a great talent again, and the two of them settled back into their usual easy conversation. Naturally, she was still curious about the previous night’s gathering, asking about the various guests and their reactions, and upon learning Qilan had been present, asked with a smile how she’d reacted. “I hear Miss Qilan is quite the connoisseur of poetry—was she won over by your poetic talent, Master Ning?”
“Should be, right? With talent as towering as mine, how could she not be won over?” Ning Yi had been entirely preoccupied with tracking the woman assassin at the time and had no idea how Qilan had actually reacted; he thought for a moment and simply answered off the cuff. Nie Yunzhu laughed. “Quite right, sir.”
“I quite agree with myself too…” Ning Yi said with a smile, standing up. “I’m off—still got more of my route to run.”
“Until tomorrow, then.”
“See you tomorrow.”
The winter sun rose late; the whole sky was still a dull gray at this hour, the small building behind them dotted with faint bean-sized flickers of lamplight. Nie Yunzhu stood before the building watching him go, a deep warmth of amusement still lingering in her eyes. The air remained cold; once Ning Yi’s figure had vanished entirely into the gray-blue morning, she looked up at the sky, smiled, breathed out a puff of white mist, rubbed her hands together, and turned to head back up the steps.
Today, she suspected, would be a good day.
A few days later, he ran into Old Kang on the street—the old man was riding in a sedan chair headed somewhere, an eight-man palanquin with four attendants in tow, quite the grand procession. Spotting Ning Yi, he had the chair stopped ahead in the road to intercept him, gave a few instructions, and had the chair wait behind while he stepped down. “You degenerate scholar!”
“Happy New Year, Old Kang… What terrible deed have I committed this time?”
“‘Searching for her, through the crowd, a thousand times over, suddenly turning back, there she is, where the lantern light is dim.’ Fine verse—wrong occasion. A man ought to leave himself some room in everything he does. As for this reputation of yours as a wild recluse, at your age, even if you do harbor a hermit’s heart, you oughtn’t display it to quite this degree.”
The two of them walked together along the street, patches of unmelted snow still lining the road. Old Kang’s grievances hadn’t really changed from before, though there was noticeably less severity in his tone this time as he brought it up. Ning Yi smiled. “Is that all?”
“Of course not! Today’s already the nineteenth of the first month—nineteen days into the New Year, and you still haven’t come to pay your respects at my residence. This has made me quite displeased. The consequences will be severe… Oh, and speaking of which, I passed by that area before the New Year and noticed your fair friend’s little food stall used to sit right at the corner up ahead—has she moved it elsewhere, or hasn’t she set it up again yet?”
Old Kang pointed toward the intersection ahead. Ning Yi shook his head. “An old man ought to choose his words more carefully—don’t make it sound so suggestive… She hadn’t many customers before the New Year, of course, so she packed up the stall. As for setting it up again, that’ll probably be a few more days yet, once the new batch of preserved eggs is ready to sell alongside it. Why do you ask, Old Kang?”
“It’s about those preserved eggs of yours—the flavor’s odd, but passable enough, and most importantly, they look quite appealing. These past few days, whenever I’ve been hosting guests, I’ve thought that even just a bowl of them set out on the table for display would be pleasing to the eye. Once that Miss Nie sets her stall back up in a few days, have her send some over to my place.”
Ning Yi nodded. “Depending on personal taste, you can pair them with a bit of vinegar or sauce to bring out the flavor—have your kitchen staff experiment a few times. But don’t eat too many at once, or you’ll end up with an upset stomach.”
“That preserved-egg flavor of yours isn’t exactly the finest thing I’ve ever tasted—I wouldn’t eat too many even if I tried.” Old Kang said this jokingly, then patted him on the shoulder. “I know your household situation is rather complicated, but there’s no need to worry too much about it. Next New Year, feel free to bring your wife along for a visit. With your talent, you hardly need my name to open doors for you—but I confess I’m curious to see for myself just what kind of woman could win over someone like you, willing to marry in as he did. Ha ha…”
By late in the first month, the weather had begun gradually warming, and mounds of unmelted snow were dissolving into trickling streams that fed into the Qinhuai River. The fresh air of spring—orioles on the wing, grass sprouting green—drew steadily closer, and soon after, Yushan Academy resumed classes amid this seasonal shift. On his first day back at the academy, Ning Yi ran into someone entirely unexpected.
“Brother Ning, we’ll be colleagues from now on, both teaching at the academy together. Your little brother has much still to learn—I hope you’ll look after me.”
Li Pin—Li Dexin, as people in Jiangning knew him—was often mentioned in the same breath as Cao Guan as one of the city’s finest talents. It was only because Cao Guan carried himself with steady composure, while Li Pin had a more free-spirited temperament, that people generally ranked Cao Guan first between the two. That a man of his standing would come to teach at Yushan Academy was rather baffling. Ning Yi exchanged a greeting with him but otherwise paid it no particular mind. It wasn’t until Su Chonghua came over to speak with him later that he learned Li Pin had already discussed this arrangement with Su Chonghua the previous year.
“No doubt he was won over by Liheng’s talent, and that’s why he wanted to come further his studies at the academy—quite a sincere gesture on his part.” After the Lantern Festival, Su Tan’er had taken Su Chonghua out for a meal and, in the course of it, made it clear that Ning Yi held no real interest in the academy’s affairs—which was why Su Chonghua’s manner toward Ning Yi had grown noticeably warmer of late.
Li Pin was five years older than Ning Yi and reportedly already held the rank of a successful examination candidate, though he had yet to receive an actual official posting. He hadn’t bothered making the rounds in the capital to secure one, choosing instead to linger about Jiangning, cultivating something of a reputation there—an eccentric in his own right, though of course, even for someone genuinely willing to grease the right palms, securing an actual posting without significant backing would still take considerable effort. He was gracious in manner and handsome besides; though he already had a wife at home, he remained quite popular with women outside it as well. The reputation of a talented scholar carried real weight—in fact, before all this, Su Tan’er herself had likely regarded Li Pin’s name with something like admiration. Now, though, she seemed entirely unbothered, remarking with a smile when it came up at home, “No doubt he was won over by my husband’s charm.”
What had truly won Li Pin over probably wasn’t Ning Yi’s literary skill—though the two poems certainly played some part—but rather, as Ning Yi saw it, what genuinely interested Li Pin were the stories he told. Rather than teaching poetry and composition, as it happened, Li Pin took on archery, charioteering, and mathematics at the academy, all scheduled for the afternoons; in the mornings, he’d often wander into Ning Yi’s classroom to sit in and listen, which at first left the younger students rather flustered by his presence.
Occasionally Li Pin would ask questions about certain things Ning Yi mentioned—points that Ning Yi himself considered rather significant: summarized patterns drawn from society, methods of investigating the underlying principles of things, purely mechanical cause-and-effect reasoning. These were things Ning Yi would casually mention to the children from time to time, but never explained too thoroughly, since going too deep would turn them into modern theory, veering into heresy against established doctrine. When Li Pin occasionally asked about them, Ning Yi would offer a bit more than usual—though while Li Pin might grasp it, the children generally didn’t, often looking rather puzzled.
Li Pin, for his part, seemed to sense that Ning Yi wasn’t inclined to discuss these matters at length with him for now, and so he only asked the occasional question in class, exchanging simple greetings whenever they crossed paths otherwise.
By the time February arrived, Nie Yunzhu’s little cart was back out on the street, selling flatbreads and preserved eggs together—though, truthfully, the preserved eggs sold at a rather high price, and business for them wasn’t particularly good so far. Still, she’d sent a batch over to Old Kang’s household, which counted as some income at least. That day, at the Qin residence, Old Kang gave him a good ribbing over it.
“Those preserved eggs of yours—twenty coins apiece! Even a salted egg, however dear, doesn’t run more than ten. And selling them off a flatbread cart, no less. Think about it—that Miss Nie’s flatbreads only cost two coins each; pair that with a twenty-coin preserved egg, and anyone buying a flatbread to eat certainly won’t buy the egg too, while anyone willing to pay twenty coins for a fancy snack surely isn’t there for the flatbread either. This pairing of yours makes no sense at all.”
“Ha, it’s a new product—if you price it too low right out of the gate, you’ll never be able to raise it later. Honestly, if it were up to me, I might even try pushing it to fifty coins. She’s not out to make a huge profit from this business, so she’s just being a bit too casual about it.”
“Ha ha, greed truly knows no bounds—fifty coins apiece, do you think that’s some golden goose laying golden eggs? You can barely sell them at twenty as it is… Well, no need to worry, though—next time I host a gathering, I’ll do what I can to help spread the word for you. At twenty coins, there are still plenty who can afford it. You’ll owe me a favor for that, mind you…”
Old Kang said this rather smugly—though in truth he wasn’t the type to hold favors over anyone’s head for real advantage. Old Qin, sitting nearby, chimed in with some agreement as well. Ning Yi wasn’t particularly bothered about favors and debts either way, and now said, somewhat idly, “I appreciate the help, Old Kang, truly—but even without your help, I could have this thing spread within a month. Twenty coins a piece, guaranteed. Care to see?”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“If a salted egg can sell for ten coins, what’s so hard about selling a preserved egg for twenty? People just don’t know about it yet, that’s all…” Ning Yi shrugged. “I’ve been a bit bored lately anyway…”