The sky was gradually darkening; snowflakes fell outside the door, and pedestrians passed along the roadside.

After months of siege, supplies within the capital had grown extremely scarce. Wenhui Tower, with its considerable backing, wasn’t at risk of closing its doors, but by this point business had grown thin. Because of the heavy snow, most of the windows and doors throughout the establishment had been shut; in weather like this, whoever came to dine—whether from the underworld or from respectable society—was invariably a person of wealth or standing. Shishi, of course, was acquainted with the proprietor of Wenhui Tower; going upstairs, she requested a small private room, ordered a few simple dishes, and settled in to wait quietly.

The two armies were still locked in a standoff outside the city; as a senior figure within the Xia Village army, Ning Yi had already quietly returned to the capital, and Shishi could largely guess at his purpose. For the moment, though, she wasn’t particularly concerned with the specifics—broadly speaking, she assumed Ning Yi was striking back against the maneuvers of others. He wasn’t a public face of the Xia Village army, and his private networking didn’t require excessive secrecy—those who understood the stakes would understand regardless, and those who didn’t were, in any case, not truly part of the inner circle.

Nor did she particularly wish to become one of those “in the know.” Matters at this level, between men, were not something a woman could meddle in.

The wind and snow fell quietly outside the room; though deep winter, the wind itself wasn’t strong, and the city seemed to moan softly somewhere far in the distance. The anxiety of these past many days had, for the moment, settled into a kind of calm. She ate a little, and before long heard whispered voices, conversation, and footsteps descending the stairs outside; she didn’t go out to look. After a while longer, footsteps came back up the stairs, and Shishi went to open the door.

“Liheng.” She smiled.

“What are you doing here? You gave me a start.”

The man at the door was, of course, Ning Yi. It had been months since their last meeting; and looking back further, their past encounters had, for the most part, been relaxed and easygoing. But this time, Ning Yi had returned to the city travel-worn, meeting people in secret, discussing serious matters—there was a certain complex weight now in his eyes and bearing. This might simply have been the face he wore when dealing with strangers—something Shishi had only ever glimpsed before in men of great importance; one might even say it carried a hint of killing intent. But in this moment, she found nothing amiss in it—if anything, it left her feeling reassured.

She told a small white lie: “I gave myself a start too—what a coincidence. Liheng, are you here dealing with… all that troublesome business?”

“There are some people I need to see, some matters to discuss.” Ning Yi nodded.

“Liheng… have you eaten?” She shifted slightly to one side.

“There will be more people coming soon.”

“If there’s anything that calls for entertainment, Shishi could play the zither to help set the mood…”

“That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Mm.”

As they spoke, an attendant came over and whispered something into Ning Yi’s ear; Ning Yi nodded.

“It’s getting late, and today will likely be a busy one. I’ll come by the Fan Tower to visit within the next couple of days. Shishi, if you want to head back early… I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you off.”

“I’m not going back—I’ll wait for you here.”

“It might well run into the deep of night.”

“These past days, out on the battlefield, I’ve seen so many people die, and afterward I saw many other things as well… There are some things I’d like to say to you.”

Seeing the woman before him gazing at him with clear, unclouded eyes, Ning Yi pursed his lips and smiled slightly, taken aback for a moment, then nodded. “Then I’ll take my leave for now.”

…

This wait stretched to nearly two hours. Within Wenhui Tower, people came and went from time to time; Shishi never went out to look.

She had entered the Music Bureau while still young, and as she gradually grew up, her fame had spread throughout the capital; she had witnessed no small number of great events. The power struggles within the court, the fall of ministers—in the fourth year of the Jinghan era, Chancellor He Chaoguang and Cai Jing had clashed head-on, and for a time rumors even spread that the Emperor meant to have Cai Jing put to death. In the fifth year, the Two Zhejiang salt case had seen the capital’s wealthiest man, Wang Ren, along with numerous other rich merchants, executed together with their entire households. In the seventh year, the war and peace factions at court had struggled fiercely against one another, and many officials had fallen from power as a result. Living in the capital, close to the circles of power, she had seen more than her share of that particular atmosphere—the sense of a coming storm gathering on the horizon.

That same atmosphere now was much like the footsteps moving about outside the room—even without knowing who it was, she could tell the person’s status must be significant indeed. In the past, she had felt a certain curiosity about such hidden machinations, but this time, what came to mind instead were the nights, many years ago, when her father had been arrested. She and her mother had studied music, chess, calligraphy, and painting in the inner hall, while her father and his advisors sat in the outer hall; by lamplight, the shifting shadows of figures coming and going had carried an undercurrent of anxiety.

With so many years passed, that impression was, in truth, no longer entirely accurate; thinking it over carefully, it was probably something she had reconstructed over the years, filling in a memory that had gradually grown thin, using experience accumulated since. After all this time, the person now standing in that kind of position happened to be someone she genuinely knew.

In the world of pleasure and romance, the courtesies exchanged rarely amounted to true feeling; there had always been talented, clever men of refined wit—like Zhou Bangyan—whom she had never regarded as private friends. She always knew clearly what such men wanted, and what she herself had to offer. Even with men like Yu Hezhong or Chen Sifeng, whom she privately considered friends, she understood this just as clearly.

As for Ning Yi, since their reunion, they could hardly be called close, nor entirely distant—this had much to do with the careful sense of propriety he’d always maintained. Shishi knew that after his marriage, he’d been struck and had lost his past memories—this, in fact, had made it easier for her to settle into a proper attitude toward him. Losing his memory wasn’t his fault, and yet she couldn’t help but regard him as a friend regardless.

So many things from before—including her parents—had already sunk into the dust of memory; the only people who still connected her to who she had once been were this handful of individuals. Even though, by the time she’d met them, she had already entered the Music Bureau, the still-young self she’d been at the time had, at least then, still retained something of her former essence, and some possibility of what might follow…

If Li Shishi was to truly become Li Shishi—she had always felt—the self she had once been could not simply be discarded. She herself could not hold onto these things; only through these few people could she trace her way back to who she had been before.

And now, Ning Yi too had entered the eye of this storm.

As for what she herself could do, there was, she supposed, nothing much. Ning Yi was different from men like Yu and Chen, after all—since their reunion, everything he had done had been on a scale nearly unimaginable: destroying the bandits of Liangshan, contending with figures of the martial underworld, and now, going out to scorch the earth, meeting the Resentment Army head-on at Xia Village, and now this present tangle of complications. Because of this, she found herself thinking again of those nights, long ago, when her father had still been alive.

Partway through, the window was opened, letting the wind and snow blow in, guttering the lamp flame nearly out, a chilling cold sweeping through the room. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed—she had nearly drifted off to sleep in the room—when at last, a knock came at the door outside. Shishi went and opened it; outside stood Ning Yi, his brow furrowed slightly, evidently having just finished dealing with whatever matter had occupied him.

“Still haven’t left?”

“I wanted to wait and talk with you, Liheng.” Shishi smoothed her hair, then smiled, stepping aside to invite him in. Ning Yi nodded and entered the room; Shishi went and opened the window, letting the cold wind blow in. She stood by the window, arms wrapped around herself, letting the wind and snow buffet her for a while, then, gritting her teeth against the cold, closed it again, and went to bring Ning Yi a stool and pour him a cup of hot tea.

“Such a long siege—it can’t have been easy. Though I was outside the city, these past few days I’ve heard people talking about you—good thing nothing happened to you.” Ning Yi took a sip of tea, smiling faintly. Not knowing quite what she wanted to say by staying, he spoke first.

“I think… things must have been even harder for you, Liheng,” Shishi said, sitting down across from him. “Fighting out there, and then coming back to all this business—even after winning, there’s still no rest for you…”

“The Jurchen haven’t left yet—it’s too soon to call it a victory,” Ning Yi said, shaking his head.

“From what I’ve heard within the city, the negotiations are already all but certain to succeed?”

“There’s the kind of certainty where someone else wants something and we simply give it to them, and there’s the kind where we want something and we’re certain to get it. Which do you think it is, Shishi?”

Ning Yi looked at her, smiling as he spoke. Hearing this, Shishi, teacup in hand, felt her gaze dim slightly. She had, after all, been within the city this whole time, and there were things she simply had no way of learning. But coming from Ning Yi’s mouth, the words carried a different weight entirely. Though she’d braced herself for this beforehand, hearing it stated so plainly still left her unable to feel any real relief.

Ning Yi offered a few words of comfort: “We’re doing what we can as well, but… it’s a complicated matter. What can be preserved from this negotiation, what benefits can be secured, whether immediate or long-term—all of it is genuinely hard to say.”

“I don’t really understand these things…” Shishi replied, then smiled brightly. “Sometimes at the Fan Tower I put on airs of understanding, when really I don’t—these are men’s affairs, after all. Oh, right—do you have other matters to attend to tonight, Liheng?”

“There are things to do, but the next hour or so should be fairly free. Since you waited on purpose, is there something on your mind?”

“I just wanted to talk with you a little.” Shishi sat there smiling. “When you left the capital, Liheng, the things you said to me—I didn’t quite understand them at the time, not until the Jurchen came south, began besieging and attacking the city. I wanted to do something, so I went to Suanzao Gate, and saw… so many things…”

She spoke on, and began recounting her experiences at Suanzao Gate. Though a woman, she had always maintained a clear-headed, resilient spirit—a clarity and resilience distinct in nature from that of men; some monks had even said she possessed a certain Buddha-nature, that she had seen through a great many things. But regardless of what others said, she was, in the end, still a young woman in her teens or barely into her twenties, still very much growing. Everything she had seen and experienced these past days, everything weighing on her mind, had found no outlet in words with anyone else; in the private world of her own thoughts, she had come to see Ning Yi as a kind of mirror onto which she could project it all. And now that the fighting had paused, even more complicated matters had begun swirling around her, leaving her exhausted in both body and spirit—now that Ning Yi had returned, and she had finally found him, she poured it all out, one thing after another.

Ning Yi hadn’t expected her to recount these past days’ experiences either, but he listened on regardless. The woman before him, somewhat thinner now but still lovely, spoke of what she had seen on the battlefield—the severed limbs, the horribly slain soldiers, the repeated clashes at Suanzao Gate. Her voice never rose, and she showed no excessive grief or agitation—occasionally she even smiled faintly as she spoke, going on for a long while, telling of soldiers she had tended who had later died anyway, of being chased and then protected, of the humble, meager last wishes of the dying, and eventually speaking too of Xue Changgong, He Lei’er, and others…

Time slipped by amid their conversation; at some point she also mentioned the joy she’d felt upon receiving news of Xia Village while still in the city, and outside, the gongs marking the night watch had already begun to sound.

“…These past few days at the Fan Tower, whatever news I hear is all about grasping for power and profit. I’ve seen plenty of that before, grown used to it—but after taking part in the city’s defense, hearing those young gentlemen speak so flippantly about the negotiations, about victory and defeat outside the city, I found I couldn’t respond at all. The Jurchen haven’t even left yet, and already their elders are scheming and backstabbing over these filthy affairs. You must have already seen it too, Liheng, these past days outside the city—I hear they’re even secretly trying to break up the Wuriu Battalion. Hearing that made me anxious—how can people be like this? But in the end… there’s nothing to be done about it…”

As Shishi spoke, Ning Yi began to laugh. “A few groups have come by, and there’ve been a few scuffles…”

Shishi laughed too. “But now that you’re back today, you naturally have some way of dealing with them—that puts my mind at ease. I won’t ask what exactly you’ve done, but I imagine before long I’ll hear about those people ending up thoroughly embarrassed. After that, I might finally get a few good nights’ sleep…”

“Er…” Ning Yi paused slightly, realizing she’d gotten the wrong idea. “Coming back tonight wasn’t actually about that…”

“Ah…” Shishi hesitated. “I know you have more important matters to deal with, Liheng, but… surely you have some way of handling all this trouble in the capital?”

Ning Yi fell silent for a moment. “It’s troublesome, certainly—but as for a way to handle it… I haven’t figured out what I can actually do yet…”

“…” Shishi looked at him.

“Their move against the Wuriu Battalion is only a minor matter.” Ning Yi stood up. “The room’s stuffy—if you’re still up for it, Shishi, let’s go for a walk outside. There’s a place I’ve been watching all afternoon that I’d like to go take a look at.”

Shishi nodded. By now it was deep into the night, and the streets outside were already empty of pedestrians. The two of them came down from the upper floor, guards quietly following at a distance. Wind and snow filled the air; Shishi could tell that there was little joy left in Ning Yi’s eyes beside her.

Yet even walking through this storm, Ning Yi still managed a smile: “This afternoon, from up in the tower, I noticed something happening over this way, and had someone look into it. Oh… this is the place.” They hadn’t walked far before stopping in front of a small courtyard by the roadside. It was barely a dozen yards or so from Wenhui Tower, just across a single street—a small, run-down household, its gate already shut. Shishi recalled that when she’d arrived at Wenhui Tower that evening, Ning Yi had been sitting by the window, and had seemed to be looking in this very direction. But what exactly had happened here, she couldn’t recall at all.

“Everyone in this household is dead.”

Ning Yi waved his hand, and a guard came forward, striking the door bar apart with a blade. Ning Yi pushed the gate open and went in, Shishi following behind; inside was a small, dilapidated courtyard with three rooms. The darkness within seemed to carry a deathly stillness—just as Ning Yi had said, everyone here was dead.

“This afternoon, the local warden had some men come carry out the bodies—I watched from the tower and had someone ask around. There were three people living here—they’d been getting by well enough before.” Ning Yi walked toward the inner room as he spoke. “A grandmother, a father, and a four-year-old daughter. When the Jurchen were attacking the city, there wasn’t much food left in the house, and not much money either. The man went to help defend the wall, entrusting the two left behind to the local warden’s care—then the man died up on the wall, and the warden simply couldn’t keep up with everything. As for the old woman, she caught a chill, and fearing the chaos in the city, worried someone might break in to steal what little they had, she bolted the door shut. Then… the old woman, sick, cold, and hungry all at once, slowly died. And the four-year-old girl, in here, starved to death as well, all alone…”

The room reeked of decaying flesh; Ning Yi stood at the doorway, holding a torch inward, illuminating the cold, disordered remains of an ordinary household. Shishi, though she’d grown somewhat accustomed to the stench of the battlefield, still covered her nose, unable to understand what point Ning Yi was making by telling her all this. Things like this were happening every single day throughout the city these days. And those who died atop the wall—their numbers, and their suffering, were far greater still.

“When I heard about this from up in the tower, I found myself thinking: many years from now, when people speak of this Jurchen invasion, of what happened in Bian Liang, they’ll say tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands died, that the Jurchen were so very brutal. They’ll curse the Jurchen for it—but in their hearts, they’ll have no real sense of it at all. When they curse, more often than not, it’s simply because doing so feels satisfying; they’ll feel they’ve discharged some duty owed as a Han Chinese, even though, in truth, they’ve done nothing at all. When they speak of hundreds of thousands of dead, the full weight of it will never come close to even one ten-thousandth of what happened in this single house—an old woman, sick, cold, and starving, dying bit by bit; and that little girl… with no one to care for her, growing hungrier and hungrier, first crying, then unable even to cry anymore, slowly stuffing whatever she could find into her mouth, until finally, she too starved to death…”

Ning Yi spoke of all this calmly, the torch lowered in his hand; he fell silent for a moment.

“Coming into the city wasn’t meant to be about wrangling with those people. If they want to break things apart, we fight them—doesn’t matter… Chancellor Qin is out running himself ragged over the negotiations, absent from his own household all day; I’ve come to see certain people, arrange a few odds and ends. Some months ago, I set out north, hoping to do some good, to help stop the Jurchen’s southern advance. Now, that much, more or less, has been accomplished—but even more troublesome matters have arisen in its place. Unlike last time, I still haven’t decided what exactly I ought to do this time. There’s plenty I could do, but no matter which way I go, once the bow is drawn there’s no calling back the arrow—it’s all going to be difficult, whichever path I take. If there were a way, I’d rather withdraw once the work is done and simply walk away…”

Shishi felt a touch of confusion; standing there beside him, she gently, carefully tugged at his sleeve. Ning Yi’s brow furrowed, a flash of fierce intensity crossing his face, but then he turned his head slightly and smiled faintly.

“You, atop the wall, and I, outside the city—we’ve both seen people die like this, cut open by blades, hands and feet severed. Just like these people here, slowly starving to death—their deaths carry weight. That weight can’t simply be set down, and once set down, it’s hard to pick back up again. How to carry it, in the end, is itself a great problem.”

As he said this, his eyes still carried a fierce intensity he couldn’t quite hide; then he turned and waved toward the door, walking out. Shishi asked, somewhat hesitantly, “Liheng, could it be… that you’ve grown disheartened too, that you want to walk away?”

“It’s not quite the same as that. I’m still thinking it over.” Ning Yi shook his head. “I’m no bloodthirsty madman either—with so many people dying before my eyes, in truth, what’s on my mind isn’t so different from what’s on yours. It’s just that there are more complicated things beneath it, things that aren’t easy to put into words. It’s getting late—I still need to head over to the Chancellor’s residence shortly. I’ll have someone see you home. Whatever happens next, I imagine you’ll come to know of it eventually. As for the people making trouble for the Wuriu Battalion—you needn’t worry about them. Small-time clowns, even with over a hundred thousand men behind them, cowards remain cowards.”

Shishi nodded. Reunited after months apart, she still couldn’t quite read Ning Yi tonight—and this, too, was a different kind of not-understanding than before.

The courtyard gate closed shut behind them.

The wind and snow kept falling; lanterns glowed atop the carriages, heading off in different directions through the city. Along street after street, night watchmen carried their lanterns, and patrolling soldiers passed through the falling snow. As Shishi’s carriage entered the Fan Tower, several of Ning Yi’s carriages had already entered the Right Chancellor’s residence; he passed through courtyard after courtyard, making his way toward the study of the Qin household, where the lamps still burned.

The night lay deep and profound, its scattered points of lamplight still moving…