That night, Ning Yi still slept in the tent outside the cabin.

The next day, before dawn, he was already up — by then there were already voices stirring in the valley. For fighters like these, sleep never took up as much time as it did for ordinary people; rising at dawn to train was the habit they always kept. Ning Yi quietly signaled to Zhu Biao, then quietly led a horse over to the cabin, collected Hongti — already up herself — and the two of them slipped away from one side of the valley.

Abandoning the main group to sneak off with Hongti did admittedly look rather childish. But since they were nearly at their destination, Ning Yi was happy enough to steal a bit of free time for something foolish. After all, on this trip up to Lüliang, there wasn’t a single woman among his followers — and with Green Wood Stronghold’s own Uncle Zhao Four traveling with them too, if they’d all gone together, things between Ning Yi and Hongti would have felt rather constrained.

Of course, even having slipped away from the main group on their own, there wasn’t much out of the ordinary the two of them could get up to for the time being. As for romance, the sort of explicit sweet-talk wouldn’t really have suited the times, and Hongti’s temperament, in any case, leaned toward the placid — after all she’d been through, she was more like a plum blossom that had weathered frost and snow: a woman of few words, who preferred watching Ning Yi go about his business, or listening to him talk. Sometimes, when he took her hand, there was a kind of warmth to it, along with a helpless, doting fondness. And now and then, she would dig up some story or other to tell him — usually nothing very twisting or dramatic, since she wasn’t much of a storyteller.

Ning Yi didn’t mind this at all — in truth, in this era, women generally weren’t expected to have much wit or charm to speak of; even ordinary women, talking with their own husbands at home, tended to be rather reserved, which was, in fact, part of why the pleasure houses thrived as they did. Those who actually went to such houses purely for physical satisfaction were considered the lower sort of indulgence — most went, in truth, to enjoy the feeling of love. Women like Li Shishi, or Yun Zhu and Jin’er, after their training, could converse with wit and handle themselves with grace; the true value of a top courtesan lay in her ability to offer the feeling of love. But Ning Yi, naturally, was not one to be taken in by such an illusion — by comparison, he preferred that simple, sincere warmth, one that needed little conversation at all.

On the night they’d first reunited, there had, of course, been no shortage of jokes made at Hongti’s expense to tease her a little; and now, the next morning, pulling her along to slip away quietly from the rear, seeing the helpless smile on her face, Ning Yi could only laugh and hold up a finger in mock warning. Before long, the two of them emerged from the forest and set off down the mountain road ahead — the eastern sky was just beginning to pale, the cool, crisp early-summer morning wind blowing in from ahead, as Lüliang Mountain, with its endless folds of ridges and ravines, began revealing its contours before them — looking, in that light, both magnificent and fresh.

As one of the western flanking barriers of Yanmen Pass, this stretch of Lüliang Mountain was, in truth, no friendly place for people. The terrain twisted and turned, with the occasional harrowing deep ravine coming into view; woodland and barren mountain slopes stretched out in patches, and wolf packs were a common sight — Ning Yi and Hongti, crossing one of the hills, spotted just such a pack, the sun only just beginning to rise in the east, the sky not yet fully bright. The pack numbered perhaps a dozen or so, likely a small family unit, crossing the grassy slope ahead before turning to look this way.

Ning Yi and Hongti did not change course, leading their horses straight on. As they passed, Ning Yi eyed a gray wolf baring its teeth and cursed at it: “The hell you looking at!” In the quiet of early morning, his voice rang out rather loudly across the valley; the wolf snarled and looked about to lunge, but when Hongti glanced its way, several of the wolves let out a whimpering growl and backed off, and soon the whole pack of a dozen or more went running back down toward the foot of the mountain.

“How come I never sense any killing intent from you?” Ning Yi asked, looking her over.

“If they’d actually charged, I would have really killed them. Some run, some don’t — depends how hungry they are,” Hongti said with a smile.

“So by that logic, even if I actually charged at you, you wouldn’t kill me. I know that, which is why there’s no killing intent.”

“That’s not so certain.”

“Ha, let’s find out.”

On the hillside, Ning Yi let go of his horse’s reins, rolled his neck, and made as if to lunge forward. Across from him, Hongti’s gaze sharpened, and her hand suddenly rose in front of her chest, lifting slightly. Ning Yi’s heart lurched, and he found himself involuntarily stepping back, then looked, puzzled, at his own right shoulder.

“If you’d charged, I’d have struck your shoulder,” Hongti said.

Ning Yi scratched his head. “That dramatic, huh… you’d really hit me…”

Hongti didn’t answer, and it was only after a moment, as the two of them continued walking on, that she said softly, “Actually, I wouldn’t have…” Looking back, in the morning light, her eyes were clear, and she wore an easy, unhurried smile.

This small exchange was one of those quiet, warm little jokes between the two of them. By the time the morning sun climbed higher, they built a fire by a nearby stream and cooked salted-meat porridge for breakfast. It was daylight now, and Hongti had put away the cloak she’d worn the night before; underneath, she wore practical martial attire suited for movement — a long tunic and trousers, both gray-black — and her figure showed through clearly. Hongti was tall for a woman, not slight, yet not the sort anyone would call heavy or bulky either; perhaps from years of inner cultivation, there was a natural, effortless bearing to her every movement, a sense of strength that brooked no disrespect. Before Ning Yi, she remained that warm, beautiful heroine who put him at ease; before an enemy, that same bearing could flare instantly into an edge sharp enough to inspire real fear.

Only, her clothes had clearly been worn for a long time — at the back of the shoulder and the cuffs were two inconspicuous patches, carefully stitched on with matching cloth so that, without close inspection, they were nearly impossible to notice.

After breakfast, the two of them mounted their horses and rode on in the direction Hongti pointed out. This stretch of land was, of course, territory Hongti knew better than anywhere else; Ning Yi simply listened as she pointed things out along the way — where she’d once fought, where she’d once killed someone, where some notorious bandit had once operated, what had happened there.

Along winding roads through forest and ravine, Hongti could point out the occasional village or stronghold — some still inhabited, some already reduced to dead ruins and crumbling walls. There were still people living nearby in some places, though most of them scraped by under extremely hard conditions, unless they had someone’s protection — those who did a little better tended, more often than not, to end up plundered before long.

The bandit groups of Lüliang capable of any real scale generally expanded their raids toward the towns beyond the mountains rather than preying much within Lüliang itself.

In telling him about all this, Hongti kept things fairly simple throughout, treating it all as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. And in truth, of course, it was ordinary here — killing, starvation, plunder, even cannibalism; Ning Yi wasn’t entirely without some notion of such things, and could fill in the broad outlines himself from a single mention. Hongti had once said that people here “didn’t live like human beings,” and Ning Yi understood that well enough too; on many matters, she didn’t go into detail, since there was little point in doing so, and he understood that just the same. That day, following Hongti about, he hadn’t expected that, come the afternoon, such a thing would, quite by chance, appear directly before him…

It was the village Hongti had once lived in — before everyone had moved deeper into the harsher mountains to form Green Wood Stronghold, Hongti had lived in a mountain village. Past noon, Ning Yi suggested going to see it. Once he’d brought it up, Hongti hesitated for a moment before agreeing.

Following the direction they were headed, some twenty-odd li northwest into Lüliang, with Hongti leading the way, they found the small village nestled in a poplar grove. The afternoon sun was warm and bright; the village amid the little grove had long since fallen into disrepair. As they walked, they talked about Ning Yi’s Bamboo Trading House.

Back when they’d first met in Jiangning, in that little courtyard where Xiao Chan used to say “see you tomorrow, Bell,” Ning Yi had once mentioned wanting to bring the Bamboo Trading House to Lüliang someday, mainly to sell roast chicken. As it turned out now, actually bringing it here wouldn’t be easy — fortunately, Ning Yi had thought to pack some chicken and seasoning along in his bag. Once they entered the village, the two of them went looking for the house where Hongti had lived as a child.

The whole village was a stretch of crumbling ruins; the mud or wooden houses, left untended, couldn’t withstand many more seasons of wind and rain — but somewhere in the village, the house said to have been Hongti’s childhood home still had, remarkably, a frame standing. The two of them spent a while idly tidying up, setting up a three-legged table, and clearing out the kitchen stove; Ning Yi prepared to build a fire and roast a beggar’s chicken. Hongti helped out a little on the side, but once everything was ready and Ning Yi was about to show off his skills, she mentioned she had something to attend to outside.

“Come back when it’s time to eat.” Ning Yi smiled, wrapping the dead chicken in mud, and waved her off. Going out for something was, of course, understandable — nostalgia and all that. By now the sun had shifted toward the western sky, though its light remained warm. Ning Yi hadn’t done this kind of hands-on work himself in a long while, and after fussing over it for quite some time, he finally caught the faint scent of something fragrant beginning to rise from the fire.

He heard footsteps outside, seemingly entering the room next door. Ning Yi rubbed his hands and walked out that way; at the doorway of that room, someone poked their head out and spoke, voice slow and hoarse: “Hongti’s back? Hongti… you’re back?”

It was a woman, dressed in filthy, ragged clothes, her whole body nearly black with grime, her age impossible to guess. One eye seemed half-blind, narrowed slightly; two of her teeth were missing, and even from a short distance one could smell the stench coming off her — clearly a madwoman. On seeing Ning Yi, her body suddenly shrank back. Hearing her say Hongti’s name, Ning Yi felt a flicker of surprise, then said, “Hongti… she’s back. I’m her husband.”

“Ah?” Hearing this, the woman’s guard visibly relaxed, her eyes even suddenly brightening. “You’re… her husband? Hongti… she got married? When did the two of you marry?”

“This year, not long ago,” Ning Yi said with a smile. “And you are…?”

“This year, just not long ago? Oh, not long ago… Hongti got married. Where are you from, then… oh, I… I’m Fu Duanyun, I’m her Sister Duanyun…” The woman was clearly just a village woman gone mad, living alone here in this state — but on hearing Hongti had married, her face lit up with unmistakable joy, and Ning Yi, infected by it despite himself, smiled and nodded.

“Sister Duanyun, my name is Ning Yi, I’m from Jiangning. Oh, wait a moment.”

Ning Yi walked over to the stove, took a cup and a towel from his pack, drew some water, wet the towel, and brought it out.

“Sister Duanyun, wipe your hands, have some water, sit down.” He pulled over a stool that could still hold weight and set it by the table for her to sit on. The woman before him seemed to hesitate about wiping her hands, but once seated, she wiped them anyway and took the cup.

By now the house had no roof left, and only three incomplete walls remained; amid the broken table and chairs, Fu Duanyun chatted with Ning Yi in fits and starts, like any ordinary woman dropping by for a visit. She asked what Ning Yi did, mentioned that Hongti hadn’t been back in a long while, brought up stories from Hongti’s childhood — how sensible she’d been, how they’d gone hungry as children — but grew visibly more scattered whenever she touched on herself or the village.

“…Everyone’s been out visiting lately. I just went to Runxing’s house, and no one was there either… Me, I’ve been home alone, ah, my husband and my mother-in-law went to Fenyang to… to buy New Year goods, haven’t come back yet… I was thinking I’d water the fields first… our bucket at home’s broken, I wanted to borrow one, and there, your door happened to be open, and Hongti’s back… how wonderful, Hongti’s gotten married… Young Master Ning, you be good to her…”

As she rambled on, Ning Yi responded with careful courtesy. In the midst of this meandering talk, Hongti’s figure appeared from outside — she too seemed to be looking for something, and on seeing Fu Duanyun, her searching gaze settled, calm; then she glanced at Ning Yi with a complicated look before walking over. “Sister Duanyun, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, Hongti, you’re — you’re back. As soon as you got back, you went out visiting, didn’t you. Well, here I am, and I’ve met your husband.”

“Husband…” Hongti glanced at Ning Yi.

Ning Yi smiled and rose. “It’s just about dinnertime — why don’t we have Sister Duanyun stay and eat. Sister Duanyun, stay for dinner.”

“Oh, oh…” Fu Duanyun nodded along, then said to Hongti, “You went out visiting… you went out visiting…”

“I went to your house looking for you just now…” Hongti said softly.

“I, I came out…” Fu Duanyun thought for a moment, then said with a smile, “I wanted to plant something, but the hoe got lent out to someone, I went to get the hoe, when Mother-in-law went out she told me to plant some soybeans… plant the soybeans…”

The bright sunlight poured down from above, filling the room with a warm, lingering glow.

“Mm, plant the soybeans,” Hongti said, nodding along.