The snow melted and the ice thawed; by February, the cold river waters gradually gathered into a mighty, surging river, fish leaping above the surface, birds soaring across the sky. After the riotous colors and warbling birds of spring had passed, time moved into a summer that was, by turns, violent and oppressive. There were days when torrential rain fell upon the earth, rain lashing at banana leaves, flooding places that flooded every year without fail; and there were days of vibrant, lively mornings, sweltering afternoons, and nights where coolness was nowhere to be found, fans stirring the air inside mosquito netting, and mosquito coils sending up thin wisps of smoke like fine gauze.
The thirteenth year of Jinghan, summer.
When the wind and snow came sweeping in, it was no longer cold. She stood there, wanting to make out her father and mother beyond the wind and snow, wanting to make out her elder sister and younger brother within it, and as she walked toward them, the outlines of the figures gradually grew clearer.
At the deepest hour of the night, something seemed to well up from the very depths of her heart; she didn’t know what emotion it was. When she opened her eyes, the mosquito net was swaying gently in the pleasant midnight breeze, the blanket had been kicked away by her, and the man was not beside her.
Yuan Jin’er lay in bed for a while, bright moonlight streaming in through the window. Lying there, she wore only a pink undergarment, her smooth back and arms exposed, her long legs and slender feet seeming to be draped in a layer of crystalline moonlight, glowing faintly like ivory, a thin red cord wound around the ankle of her right foot.
Her emotions were still caught up in the lingering pull of the dream, and so, though her eyes were open, she remained lying on her side without moving, until after a moment, her fingers gently gripped the blanket beside her, and she thought back to her time with him the night before. She thought of those uninhibited, shameless moments, and the clinging attachment she’d felt—whatever had happened at the time, now that it had all settled, it left her only with a feeling of warmth.
She had a family now.
And so, even seeing that long-unseen wind and snow again, she no longer felt any cold—instead, she wanted to see how they looked now.
After all, the girl within that wind and snow must have grown up too, by now.
She rose from the bed, put on her silk trousers and dress, then stepped down and slipped on her embroidered shoes, and walked out the door. In the courtyard, on the recliner, Ning Yi sat there, lost in thought about something. She watched him for a while before walking over. Under the moonlight, the woman, in her thin silk garments, looked as light and graceful as an immortal maiden; drawing near, she took hold of the man’s hand and sat down at the edge of the recliner, looking at his face.
“Sorry—some news just came in, I didn’t want to wake you.”
The man had been sitting with his eyes closed, mulling something over; he opened his eyes and smiled at her. Jin’er shook her head, though what came to her mind was the memory of years ago, when she’d first learned the name Ning Yi. In the blink of an eye, four or five years had passed—thinking back, it had been four or five years since she’d been sold off and begun her life in the pleasure quarters, four or five years as the reigning courtesan, and then another four or five years after that. Now, it was already the thirteenth year of Jinghan. Thinking this over, after a moment, she slipped off her embroidered shoes and climbed onto the recliner, lying down beside him. Though the chair was fairly spacious, it was still a bit narrow for two people; Ning Yi wrapped his arms around her, letting her rest against his chest, their bodies pressed close together.
“Did something happen?” Jin’er asked softly.
“Nothing much.” Ning Yi shook his head, his voice also soft. “A report just came in from the north, that’s all. Ever since Aguda of the Wanyan clan died last year, thanks to the effect of the pacification edict, public order up north has improved a great deal.”
Ning Yi’s words sounded as though he were speaking to Jin’er, but in truth, he was mostly just organizing his own thoughts in his head. A pleasant, cool breeze blew through the night.
“Actually, it’s not a bad thing. Now that order has improved, a great many merchants have gone up that way, and the prosperity north of Bian Liang has increased by at least thirty percent compared to before. In the past six months, everyone’s been saying that Councilor Tan’s pacification edict is a blessing to ten thousand households… mm, and there’s a bit of Bamboo Records’ hand in the north too, you know.”
“Is Liheng still worrying about the possibility of war?” Jin’er asked.
“A bit, I suppose.” Ning Yi smiled, his left arm around Jin’er while his right hand slipped inside her clothes, feeling the softness of her skin and the fullness of her chest. But for the two of them, married as they’d been for so long, this level of physical intimacy was about as unremarkable as two kittens nuzzling each other’s necks—nothing particularly strange about it.
“I don’t understand these things, but I always feel like war is something very far away. The world is at peace now, times are so good, I keep thinking… how could there possibly be a war? But husband, you still think there’ll be one, don’t you?”
Amid Jin’er’s murmuring, Ning Yi laughed and shook his head. “Not exactly. Sometimes I think maybe war really is far off, that maybe I’m the one who’s got it wrong—especially when there’s a lot of trivial things going on, I find myself thinking that way even more.”
“If there’s no war, will Liheng take us all south?”
“Mm. Back to Jiangning, or somewhere small, and we’ll grow old there together.”
“If I grow old, will husband stop wanting me?”
“Huh?”
“Because right now I’m only pretty for the time being—in a few years, once I’ve faded, won’t Liheng shut me away in some dark room somewhere?”
“…”
Their soft words drifted through the night, fragmented and quiet. After a while, the man rose from the recliner, carrying his wife back toward the bedroom, and just as he stepped over the threshold, the night’s stillness was shattered by a sudden, violent commotion.
“Who’s there—”
“Night raid!”
“Which sect are you from…”
“Jingnan’s Seven-Kill Spear, and… some friends from the wilderness… here to slay the demons in your heart…”
“You lot are tired of living—”
“Set the fire…”
The sounds of fighting swelled in from outside. Ning Yi stood there listening, and Jin’er, in his arms, grabbed at his clothes. By the time he’d carried her into the room, lifted the mosquito netting, and set her down on the bed, Jin’er still clutched at his clothes, unwilling to let go.
“Just some small fry, nothing that’ll cause real trouble. It’s safe here. I’ll go take a look—you sleep, I’ll be back.”
“You just said they’re small fry, so don’t go…”
Jin’er lay there gazing up at him, her eyes like those of a wounded infant.
“Once we’ve caught them, we still need to figure out what to do with them. These people never stop causing trouble—can’t let them off easy.”
Ning Yi leaned down, wrapping his arms around Jin’er on the bed, and Jin’er clutched tightly at his neck with both hands, holding on for a good while before finally letting go.
“Be careful, come back soon… every time you go out, I worry… the whole family worries…”
“I know…” Ning Yi kissed her on the forehead, then rose and took a breath. Jin’er watched the man mutter something like “I’ll kill them” under his breath as he made his way out, and she found herself smiling at that.
After Ning Yi left, the chaotic sounds of fighting continued to drift in, followed by fire breaking out and people trying to put it out. Jin’er lay in bed for a while, unable to fall asleep, and sat up to get out of bed, only to discover her shoes had been left out in the courtyard. She stepped onto the floor barefoot, walked to the doorway, and stood there watching the chaos outside, listening to the sounds carrying in, then sat down by the threshold.
After a while, the woman, arms wrapped around herself, legs curled up, dozed off in a daze there on the floor by the door.
In the darkest hour before dawn, when the sounds outside had quieted, Ning Yi finally returned. He picked up the woman sleeping by the door and carried her back to bed, and the two of them lay together, holding each other, drifting back to sleep for a while longer.
…
In the morning, Jin’er came out into the courtyard and went up to the tavern facing the street to have breakfast prepared. This was a Bamboo Records branch in a town south of Bian Liang, and although the disturbance the night before had been considerable, even sparking a small fire, by this hour the street was still bustling with passersby, looking lively enough.
Quite a few merchants and scholars had stopped in at the Bamboo Records tavern to eat some of the local delicacies known as capital specialties. Jin’er and her accompanying guards sat down at a table screened off in the inner part of the tavern, and it was then that she noticed someone outside glancing furtively in her direction a few times.
Since she hadn’t requested a private room, and given how striking Jin’er’s looks and figure were, it wasn’t unusual for people to steal a glance or two at her now and then. By now she was dressed as a married woman, with attendants and guards accompanying her, so there was hardly anyone bold enough to try anything untoward. Still, this time, when Jin’er glanced outside, she froze for a moment.
At a table within view sat a group who seemed to be some out-of-towners who had also stopped at Bamboo Records the previous night—several men accompanied by their wives, concubines, and family members, looking to be a fairly well-off household. But the appearance of one of the women made Jin’er’s eyelid twitch involuntarily.
It was that woman, dressed in reasonably fine clothes, who occasionally turned her head and glanced over toward Jin’er through the gap by the screen. Jin’er looked at her, opened her mouth as if to speak, then calmly turned her gaze back, pressing her hands together on her knees. After a moment, she glanced over again.
Beside that woman sat a similarly well-dressed but elderly country gentleman—one could tell from his clothing that he was engaged in animated conversation with several companions. Jin’er watched them for a few moments, trying to match that figure with some memory in her mind.
The old gentleman and the young woman appeared to be in a husband-and-concubine relationship. Noticing something off about the woman beside him, he too glanced over this way a few times. Jin’er, unwilling to meet his gaze, sat quietly with her hands clasped together, her eyes averted from that direction. After glancing over a few times, the old gentleman even seemed to crane his neck, trying to get a better look, and through the gap in the screen, a man named Qi Xinyong frowned and glanced outward; upon seeing that iron-tower of a man, the old gentleman quickly turned his head back and, patting the concubine beside him, told her to stop looking that way, lest it cause some kind of trouble.
Before long, breakfast was served, and by then, the party at the other table had settled their bill and left. Ning Yi came up from downstairs, and at the sight of him, Jin’er clenched both fists, utterly overcome with excitement. “Husband, husband, I’m amazing, I’m amazing, I’m about to develop supernatural powers!”
“Huh? What’s going on?” Ning Yi laughed, taken aback. “Did you conjure up everything on this table?”
“No, no, that’s not it.” Jin’er lowered her voice, her face full of excitement. “Husband, did I tell you—last night I dreamed about my sister.”
“Um… I don’t think you did.”
“I just dreamed about my sister—father, mother, my brother, my sister too—and then, that group that just went downstairs, did you notice them?” Jin’er grabbed Ning Yi’s hand and ran outside, looking down from the second-floor platform, but the group was already out of sight. She pulled Ning Yi back to the screened area, leaned out the window to look at the street below, and finally spotted the figures among the crowd, several large carts following behind them.
Jin’er hid behind Ning Yi, pointing down furtively yet with obvious delight. “Look, look, that one in the green floral dress, that looks like my sister, and that gentleman, the plump one, that’s her husband, my brother-in-law… I haven’t seen them in so long, but that must be them.”
The woman in the crowd was still glancing up at the building, and Jin’er, clutching Ning Yi’s arm, ducked back a little. Ning Yi glanced down a few times. “Are you sure that’s not your father?”
“No, no, that’s my brother-in-law.” Jin’er hugged Ning Yi’s arm tightly, hiding at his side, grinning with delight, which pressed his arm firmly against her chest. Then she noticed something else. “And look, look, that skinny, sickly-looking one behind the cart, that’s my brother-in-law’s son! It really is them—husband, I told you before, right, that time I went home, it was that old man looking at me with those lecherous eyes, and then that sickly one looked at me the same lecherous way too…”
Though what she was recounting sounded like an unpleasant memory, Jin’er’s mood was clearly bright and cheerful. Ning Yi made a face. “You’ve seen your sister, and it looks like your sister’s spotted you too—do you want to go down and say hello to her? As for the brother-in-law and his son, want me to give them a scare?”
“No, don’t.” Jin’er laughed, leaning out to look and then pulling back again. “Sister might not even recognize me anymore, and I might not fully recognize her either—if I really ran down there to see her, what would I even say? I used to think about my sister and the others and feel really disappointed inside, but now I don’t feel disappointed anymore. Maybe I even miss her a little, but… there’s no need to actually meet and ask how things are going now.”
Ning Yi looked out the window and patted her head.
“Still, husband, I really am amazing, right? Dreaming about her last night and then seeing her today. And you know, back when I went to visit, my sister kept telling me all about how she had to compete for favor with the others around this brother-in-law of hers, how badly she was living, how people bullied her. But looking at it today, this rich old master still brings her along on his long trips out. My sister… she must be doing all right after all. Thinking about it this way, honestly, it makes me a little happy inside… heh, what a strange twist of fate…”
She nuzzled up against Ning Yi happily, like a kitten.
Before long, the sister and brother-in-law’s family had moved on ahead, disappearing into the crowd.
The world is vast, but life is small. Amid all the trivial partings, there are also trivial reunions, trivial twists of fate… Among all these small, everyday matters, sometimes even Ning Yi found himself wondering whether war really was something happening far, far away, beyond the edge of the world. It was now already the sixth lunar month of the thirteenth year of Jinghan, and north of Bian Liang, Bamboo Records’ reach had already extended quite far. In a town west of Taiyuan, as the sun sank toward the west, great trees cast their shade across the streets, and crowds gathered here, listening with great enthusiasm to a storyteller who had come with a Bamboo Records cart, telling tales of martial heroes. Beside the storyteller’s stand, a stall had also been set up alongside one of the carts, selling all kinds of cheap snacks and practical everyday goods, filling this side of the little town with a lively bustle for the time being.
A group of people with the unmistakable bearing of the wilderness stood watching all this coldly from the side of the street.
Bamboo Records’ name had already made itself known in this area; each storytelling session, along with the acrobatics and magic tricks woven in between, was always substantial in content, keeping the town’s excitement going late into the night—and this night was no exception. As the sun set and the moon rose, nearing its zenith, the Bamboo Records crew was finally preparing to pack up, and the townspeople who had gathered finally began to disperse, heading home to rest.
Just as the street had mostly emptied out, several figures from the wilderness who had been keeping watch by the roadside all night finally approached. At their head was a tall, imposing man carrying a long staff slung across his back, level with his eyebrows; his build was lithe and powerful, his features handsome and refined, and his eyes carried both the weariness of a life spent adrift and a certain steady composure—he looked to carry no small amount of killing intent.
“Let me say something.” The man walked over, brow furrowed. “We’ll let today slide. But from now on, none of you Bamboo Records people are to come here again—or I’ll kill you.”
His tone was as ordinary as if he were mentioning some trivial matter. The Bamboo Records crew, in the middle of packing up, paused and exchanged glances. Not far off, a Bamboo Records guard responsible for security had already walked over; he looked at the man, his own expression rather complicated.
“Chieftain Shi, it’s been a long time.” The Bamboo Records guard cupped his hands in salute. “What you’re asking, I’m afraid, isn’t possible.”
“You know me.” The man surnamed Shi fixed his gaze on him. His arm merely twitched, and in the blink of an eye, the eyebrow-level staff that had been slung across his back was already in his hand—the motion sent a sudden whistling through the air, killing intent spreading thick. For some reason, he was clearly quite averse to having his identity exposed.
“Nine-Dragon Shi Jin, Chieftain Shi.” The guard cupped his hands again. “I too was once a man of Liangshan, so of course I recognize Chieftain Shi.”
At these words, the atmosphere instantly plunged to an icy chill. Shi Jin tilted his head, the corner of his mouth curling into a terrifying arc.
“A traitor who eats from one bowl while serving another!”
Few people saw the exchange that flashed by in that instant, but after the sudden roar, the Bamboo Records guard, who had still been walking forward with his hands cupped in salute, was already spraying blood across the sky, flung backward through the air. The overwhelming pressure of the staff’s shadow swept across the entire scene like a howling gale, then slammed down into the ground with a boom—amid the firelight of the summer night, dust scattered and the ground split with cracks.
More than two years had passed, and on that face lit by the firelight, an immense fury now erupted, bearing down upon the crowd of Bamboo Records people…