No one ever brought up the matter of that camp in Shandong again after that winter. Qin Sizhi may well have known of it, but he never sought Ning Yi out to discuss it. As for Wang Shanyue and Su Wenyu, they too kept the inner workings and implications of the affair buried in their hearts for a long time — it wasn’t brought up again until many years later.

That winter, Ning Yi lived out his simple days in steady routine, training each morning with the young men of the household, spending his days either at home or occasionally going out with Tan’er, sometimes visiting Yun Zhu and Jin’er.

Amid the heavy snows of winter, matters at the large manor outside the city continued along their steady course. Ning Yi provided ideas as best he could, while several of the Su family relations supervised the work, developing their practical execution abilities. Though everything seemed to unfold in an unhurried, almost careless fashion, in truth, for Ning Yi, this wasn’t a matter of great weight at all — all the various threads were gradually forming into order precisely through this seemingly casual progression.

Once a few small results began to appear, and a few rounds of rewards had been carried out, the craftsmen at the manor gradually came to understand what the master wanted, and began showing a degree of initiative on their own. Though this particular group of people might not possess especially outstanding research abilities, what truly sustained the operation of a large system had never really depended on one or two geniuses — as long as order could be established, capable talent would eventually emerge in due course.

What truly troubled Ning Yi, in the end, remained a matter of the heart. With regard to Yun Zhu and Jin’er, he hoped to find some flawless arrangement, but in truth, no flawless arrangement existed. Toward people he didn’t care about, he could manipulate human nature freely, doing all manner of terrible things without hesitation. But with women who had drawn this close to him, matters of the heart were fragile things, almost entirely without defense — every step had to be taken with the utmost care. He had considered marrying both Yun Zhu and Jin’er into the household, but in truth, harm would still be done among the four women around him regardless, and marrying them in wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem either.

And because of what had happened with Yun Zhu, he also carried a measure of guilt toward Tan’er and Xiao Chan. Even with his composure and self-cultivation, able to rein in both joy and anger at will, the guilt nonetheless remained.

Having come this far, he’d turned into something of an indecisive man himself. Sometimes, gazing at the snow-covered scenery at home, he couldn’t help but laugh ruefully at himself, holding Ning Xi and saying, “When you grow up and go chasing after lots of girls, don’t you dare turn out like this…”

As the New Year approached, the capital bustled with festive energy — poetry gatherings, trade guild celebrations, endless activity in the pleasure houses, and the ongoing selection of the reigning courtesan queens. Talented young scholars gathered from across the country to meet the city’s celebrated beauties, giving rise to a steady stream of gossip and scandal. Ning Yi took little part in any of it, though Su Wending and the others naturally never missed a chance to join in the fun, and the city’s various romantic entanglements often provided fodder for conversation around the Ning household, morning and night.

Ning Yi had once dressed Tan’er and Xiao Chan up as men and taken them out to a couple of poetry gatherings in secret, just to watch the gossip unfold among the talented scholars and beauties. Though they didn’t take part in composing poetry themselves, the whole family found a certain mischievous joy in it — after all, they were still only in their early twenties. Ning Yi rather enjoyed the flustered, girlish flush that would come over Tan’er’s face whenever he teased her and she couldn’t quite retort.

Li Shishi, meanwhile, had been rather busy of late.

As one of the capital’s most celebrated courtesan queens, the New Year season meant an endless string of social obligations she couldn’t decline. She had to set aside time to plan out a number of performances suitable for the various gatherings during New Year’s Eve, the Lantern Festival, and other celebrations. Though all of this had long since become second nature to her, in her occasional moments of fatigue, she sometimes found herself imagining what an ordinary family’s New Year celebration might look like — sitting by the fire with parents and family. Of course, once she came back to herself, the scene before her would once again be one of soaring flute music, jade lamps turning in the light, and a whole night of dragon-and-fish lantern dances.

For her, this had been a year at the very peak of her career. It had all started with that gathering before the Dragon Boat Festival, when Yao Zunian had handed her that booklet of poems, whose power had proven immense — once poems like “Often I Recall the Riverside Pavilion at Dusk” and the “Ballad of the Chivalrous” had been released, they’d carried her reputation to unprecedented heights within a short span of time.

Though inevitably some outside doubted whether such stylistically varied poems could really have come from a single hand, Ning Yi had already left the capital by that time, and with Yao Zunian personally vouching for their authenticity, such talk had, if anything, only further burnished Li Shishi’s reputation, cementing her position, beyond dispute, as the foremost courtesan queen of the capital.

Only as the New Year drew near did a fresh difficulty present itself before her — at least, that was how others saw it. Having reached such a peak, it had become difficult for her to surpass the brilliance of the year’s midpoint, short of somehow persuading Zhou Bangyan, currently out of the capital, or Ning Yi himself, to write her more masterworks for posterity. Fortunately, her madam, Li Yun, wasn’t particularly insistent on this front.

“Your reputation is already grand enough as it is,” she said, after asking Shishi whether she might pay Ning Yi another visit. “Still, around the New Year, it’s customary for you to seek him out and offer your thanks in person. The rest is up to you.”

Since Ning Yi’s earlier visit had been rather hurried, Shishi actually had no idea where he was currently living, and thinking it over, she felt it would be somewhat improper to simply show up unannounced. She had her own small hesitations about it too — she’d rather hoped that if she happened to cross paths with Ning Yi again at some social gathering, quite by chance, things would feel more natural between them. If she went to seek him out deliberately, it might seem too calculated, and she worried it might sour the friendship between them.

The trouble was, even though Ning Yi had returned to Bianliang and accomplished something as momentous as crushing Liangshan, he was nowhere to be found in the social circles of the pleasure houses — never once making an appearance — which left her feeling rather wistful about it. She sometimes found herself wondering, amid this whole bustling city awash in pleasure and revelry, what this strange old friend from her childhood might be up to these days.

Occasionally, at various gatherings, she caught scattered fragments of information about him. Sometimes people discussing poetry, or discussing Liangshan, would mention this Ning Liheng, a guest-advisor at the Right Chancellor’s residence. It was only just before the New Year that Shishi finally heard something more concrete about him.

That news came from an elderly musician named Nong Guyin.

This Nong Guyin had, some twenty years earlier, herself been a celebrated courtesan queen, renowned for her skill on the zither and in music. Never having married, and now advanced in years, she had bought her own freedom and now lived in quiet seclusion within Bianliang, spending her idle hours repairing instruments and tuning them for a handful of women from the pleasure houses. As the New Year approached, Shishi sent her own instrument over to be tuned — though her schedule was packed, an instrument needed to suit its player’s touch, and it was unavoidable that she’d have to linger a while at the woman’s home.

Though Nong Guyin was well advanced in years, Shishi had always rather envied her secluded, almost hermit-like existence, feeling that when she herself grew old, living this way wouldn’t be so bad. Nong Guyin, for her part, would always urge her to find a man to settle down with sooner rather than later, or else she’d end up as miserable as she herself was now.

“I told you long ago to give yourself to that Zhou Bangyan — even as a concubine, it would’ve been fine. I really don’t understand what you’re thinking, girl. Your reputation’s grown even greater now — who exactly would you marry? Marrying into a family with rank as a proper wife would be reaching too high for you; as a concubine, it would be a waste of your talents; and marrying down into a family without rank or background is even more out of the question.”

The middle-aged woman shook her head, fussing over the ancient zither in her hands as she scolded Li Shishi on the other side of the room. “But speaking of which, you and this Ning Yi fellow seem to get along rather well. I think he’s not bad at all, actually — even though he already has a wife and concubines, if the opportunity arises, you might as well give yourself to him…”

Li Shishi laughed, cup of tea in hand. “Sister Nong, you don’t even know him.”

“Who says I don’t know him? I saw him just the other day. See that stove over there heating the water — he’s the one who made it, very convenient.” Nong Guyin laughed. “And don’t keep calling me ‘sister’ — I’m already an old woman past my prime, living alone, with a temperament to match…”

Shishi frowned and glanced sideways, blinking. “He… what did he come to see you about?”

“His concubine at home fell ill, and he was taking her around to help her spirits. You know how I don’t take many visitors — I don’t usually receive ordinary people. He came by several times asking, saying he’d heard my skill on the zither was quite good and wanted me to play a piece for his concubine to hear. I haven’t performed for strangers in a long time, and only agreed after he made things rather difficult for me a few times… He really went to a great deal of trouble over it…”

Nong Guyin shook her head as she spoke. Shishi understood well enough that, however lightly the woman described it now, moving her to agree must have taken considerable effort on his part.

“So in the end I played a piece for them. That young man doesn’t understand music at all, sat there half-listening, and afterward I even heard him say to his concubine, ‘not bad, I suppose’ — nearly made me lose my temper. But his concubine’s own skill on the zither was really quite remarkable, her name’s Nie Yunzhu, and afterward the two of us paid each other a few visits…”

At this point, Nong Guyin’s maidservant came to call Shishi away, and the conversation had to break off there. It wasn’t until the following day, when Shishi returned, that she managed to piece together the full story — Nie Yunzhu’s illness, the various things Ning Yi had done to help, even coming to ask Nong Guyin about the secrets of instrument-making.

“…Absolute nonsense, really — making a good zither properly takes three to five years at the very least, and here he was trying to knock one together himself in a single month, all crooked and lopsided, enough to make one’s hair stand on end… But then again, after all these years in the pleasure houses, I’ve certainly met men with clever, considerate hearts who spend all their time thinking of women — but such men usually carry a certain effeminate air about them. Yet this Ning Yi strikes me as someone meant for great things, and yet he can still do something like this, without it seeming the least bit domineering — that’s genuinely rare…”

“…Afterward, I met this Nie Yunzhu alone two or three more times. I heard that it’s not only her he treats this way — he’s genuinely devoted, heart and soul, to the other wives and concubines in his household as well. This Miss Nie told me she worries — this Ning Yi carries far too much on his shoulders, and always insists on shouldering it all himself when it comes to those around him. She’d wanted to share the burden with him, but instead, because of her own health, she ended up becoming a burden to him herself, and feels quite terrible about it… In all my years in the pleasure houses, this kind of thing is truly rare to see. Most men grow tired of the old and chase after the new soon enough, treating women as mere playthings — doting on them freely when they’re in favor, and casting them aside without a second thought once they’ve lost interest. If this man feels that taking someone into his life is itself a responsibility to be borne, Shishi, you might as well marry into his household yourself…”

Having said all this, Shishi laughed. “Sister Nong, you’ve really got the wrong idea.” But turning it over in her mind, she found herself thinking about Ning Yi’s various relationships with the women around him. She knew he had a proper wife already, and this Nie Yunzhu was most likely kept in a separate residence outside the household. On the other hand, she also knew that Ning Yi was a man destined for great things — he had, after all, single-handedly brought down the entirety of Liangshan not long ago. If the whole situation really was as Sister Nong described it, then what exactly did the state of things around Ning Yi look like now?

However she turned it over in her mind, it left her with something of a headache.

It wasn’t until sometime later that she saw Ning Yi again — by then it was already the spring of the eleventh year of Jinghan. By that point, many things had happened within Ning Yi’s seemingly placid domestic life, none of which he could have anticipated when he’d first decided, upon returning to the capital, to settle into this quiet life of his own choosing…