“The water’s ready…”
In the night, lights flickered throughout the city. In the quiet, somewhat neglected little courtyard, Ning Yi set the basin of water down on the table in the inner room.
The black-robed woman held a small medicine packet in her hand; she’d been leaning against the bed, tending to her wounds, but at Ning Yi’s entrance, she pulled her clothing closed again and paused. Her face remained veiled, though bloodstains still covered her body. Ning Yi thought for a moment, then rummaged through a nearby cabinet and pulled out a long robe.
“There aren’t any spare clothes here, just this one. It’s clean, at least. Your clothes are torn, so you can change into this tonight—I’ll bring proper new clothes tomorrow.”
The woman gave him a cold, sharp look. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Ning Yi hesitated, then raised his hands with a smile. “Fair enough. Once you trust me, you can tend to your wounds first—I’ll sit outside, and heat up more water.”
“If you try to leave, no matter how fast you run, I promise you won’t make it out of this courtyard gate.”
“Understood. I won’t leave.”
Ning Yi smiled, then turned back to take down a jar from a shelf, opened it, releasing a strong smell of alcohol.
“Wine—though it’s far too strong to drink. If you need to clean your wounds, you can use this instead.”
In truth, it was pure alcohol. Ning Yi stepped out and closed the door behind him. The woman listened to his retreating footsteps with a slight frown, then, in the lamplight, pulled open her collar; blood-soaked strips of cloth wrapped layer upon layer around her chest, several of them already torn through. From her shoulder down to her lower abdomen, her skin was covered entirely in blood—some already clotted into dark red scabs, the wounds beneath them harrowing to look at. The injuries on her front were relatively minor; the wound on her back and arm, though, had likely damaged bone or tendon. As she pulled the clothing away, the clotted scabs tore open again; she pressed her lips tight, bearing through it, though most of the wounds on her body had by now stopped bleeding on their own.
The woman wrung out the cloth in the basin and, brow furrowed, began wiping the blood from her body. The bean-sized flame of the lamp, the crude ancient sword, the simple room, the woman cleaning her wounds within it… After a moment, on the other side of the wall, Ning Yi settled onto a stool, gaze fixed on the lamplight within the room. The woman could likely hear his movements; she paused briefly, then continued cleaning her wounds, dusting the medicine powder over them.
“This used to be an abandoned garden—hardly anyone comes by. In the past, a search party might have come through here, but since I’ve rented it now, that shouldn’t be much of a concern. Next door is Yushan Academy, and past that there’s a small stretch of bamboo forest, with a narrow stream running through, not very wide. Across the stream, there are first two restaurants, then a triangular residential district beyond, with alleys running every which way—if someone tried to chase you through there, it wouldn’t be easy. Nearby are Changxing Street and Changye Street, and further on, the road leads to the south gate… On the other side of the courtyard is…”
Leaning against the wall, Ning Yi spoke on unhurriedly, describing everything around them. The woman quietly applied her medicine on the other side, listening. After a moment, she asked, “Are you a disciple of the Daoist arts?”
“Hm?”
“All those alchemy tools out there.”
“Ah, no, that’s not alchemy. I’m supposedly a Confucian scholar—those are for the investigation of things.”
“Supposedly?”
“Supposedly.”
“…How did you know I was under the carriage?”
“A feeling… or a guess, perhaps…”
“Do you have some grudge against Song Xian?”
“No. I’d simply heard some of his reputation.”
“…That’s not entirely honest.”
“I’ve seen you before, miss.”
A brief silence from the other side. “When?”
“This year, at the Lantern Festival. I was watching from a few dozen meters away when you fought on Vermilion Bird Avenue. Later, at the restaurant, you were dressed as a maid, pouring wine.”
“…I remember now.” Her voice dropped slightly. On the other side of the wall, the woman cleaning her wounds paused, then suddenly swept her right arm out, snatching the sword hilt off the small table and thrusting it violently backward. With a sharp crack, dirt and stone burst from the far side of the wall—the blade tore straight through, stopping just beside Ning Yi’s face. He smiled and tilted his head to look at it.
“You’re that scholar who wrote the poem that day… why have you been following me!”
“Today, it was you who followed me.” At these words, the woman on the other side of the wall seemed to pause, startled. “But you must understand by now that I mean you no harm.”
After a moment, the woman drew the blade back and set it down on the table; light filtered faintly through the gap it had left in the wall.
“But why are you following me? What do you want?”
“Aside from Song Xian… I want to learn martial arts.” Ning Yi said this frankly. There was a long silence from the other side, as if she were genuinely taken aback by the answer. After a moment, her voice softened slightly. “Nonsense.”
“It’s the truth. I’ve admired martial arts since I was young—I’ve long wanted to know what these legendary, profound skills are really like…”
“You’re a man of considerable learning?” Her voice cut in, interrupting him.
“Er, that’s not really for me to say myself…”
“That day upstairs, when they asked you to write a poem, you wrote one and left everyone speechless… People like you scholars have always looked down on martial artists. You’re a talented, famous scholar, and now you’re saying you want to learn martial arts—profound martial arts, no less. You don’t fight on battlefields, you don’t brawl with people, it’s all just empty show. What use would it be to you? I don’t believe you.”
The woman spoke plainly, without much emotion in her tone—simply stating the facts as she saw them. Ning Yi thought it over, catching the faint sound of a bell tolling somewhere beyond the city walls, and laughed. “That’s true enough… it’s not much use at all. Besides, I hear that profound martial arts require training from childhood—ten, twenty years, without a single day’s rest, before achieving anything. Isn’t that so?”
“You’ve already passed the age for it.”
“A pity.” Ning Yi smiled. “Actually… I have more of a fondness for the investigation of things.”
“…The investigation of things?”
“Yes—getting to the bottom of how things truly work, then deducing how to make use of that knowledge. Take this alcohol you’re using to clean your wounds, for instance. After several rounds of cooling and distillation, only a small amount can be extracted for now, but if it were used to brew wine…”
The hour was growing late, and Ning Yi kept talking idly, letting time pass. In the inner room, the woman tended to her wounds, occasionally responding absently. Her clothes, thoroughly soaked in blood by now, she finally removed and tossed aside; white bandages now wrapped tightly around her chest, looping over her shoulders, even around her thigh and right foot several times. After a moment’s hesitation, she finally draped the long robe over herself. She removed her veil now, her pale face showing weakness, though still alert.
After a while, Ning Yi said, “It’s getting quite late. If I don’t head back soon, my household will likely come looking for me. I’ll come back in the morning. You’re injured, miss—please rest well.”
Ning Yi waited a moment, but no response came from the other side. He extinguished the lamp and turned to leave, then added, “Oh, and if you need to put out the alcohol lamp, just place a cover over the flame from the side—if you blow on it, it might explode.” With that, he pushed open the door and left, closing it gently behind him.
Inside, the door to the inner room opened quietly. Holding the long robe closed with one hand, the woman stepped out barefoot and silent, frowning as she looked toward the doorway, then walked to the entrance and cracked it open, peering out into the courtyard. Ning Yi had already gone through the gate; before long, the sound of the carriage rolling away could be heard, gradually fading into the distance.
Insects chirped in the courtyard’s grass, countless stars twinkling overhead in the night sky. The woman watched the direction the carriage had gone, frowning in thought for a while, then turned to look back into the room she’d just left—the shelves lined with all manner of things, bottles and jars of every kind. When she’d first woken, she’d only glimpsed the room briefly and assumed it to be some Daoist’s alchemy den; only now did she notice how much more there truly was inside. In the more open space, several tables stood in a long row, strange iron frames, odd iron barrels and tubes, instruments entirely beyond her comprehension. A black wooden board hung on the far wall, covered in strange white symbols. Starlight filtered in through the window lattice, falling across the pages of books and open sheets of paper on the tables, a writing brush shifting faintly against its rest with a soft clatter…
The night breeze drifted in through the crack of the wooden door behind her, stirring her already-disheveled hair and the somewhat oversized robe, beneath which the outline of her bandaged body showed faintly. The woman turned and closed the door behind her, walked back into the inner room, and curled up in the corner of the bed, holding her sword and her knees, and fell asleep…
…
She probably won’t just suddenly run off tonight…
On the road back toward the Su household’s side gate, Ning Yi took several deep breaths, thinking this over, then smiled.
Because she has no clothes to wear…
Of course, the main reason was really her injuries. With an official of Song Xian’s rank dead, it wouldn’t be long before soldiers set up checkpoints throughout Jiangning—wounded this badly, she wouldn’t be able to leave the city for the time being anyway.
Judging by the skill with which she’d drawn away Song Xian’s guards, she clearly wasn’t foolish, and had at least some sense of weighing her options—she wasn’t the type to act rashly out of nowhere.
Coming right out and saying he was interested in martial arts had been a delicate matter to judge—the main concern being that if he brought it up later instead, it might give the impression his entire plan had been oriented around that goal from the start. Though this era generally valued scholarship over martial prowess, individual skills and crafts were still something people tended to guard jealously in society, all the more so for something as extraordinary as her level of skill. He’d already passed the ideal age for training, and he had no ambition of becoming some first-rate master—in fact, he’d never even considered wandering the martial world or fighting on any battlefield.
Bringing it up directly first, then diluting the impression with other unrelated elements, actually came across as more forthright. As long as he got past this initial hurdle, bringing it up again later would feel perfectly natural and steady. If he’d saved it for later instead and it caused her displeasure, she might well feel he’d been scheming toward this goal all along, resenting him for it even after supposedly owing him a debt of gratitude.
He needed to leave a good impression tomorrow, to make her want to stay longer…
Since arriving in the Wu Dynasty, this was the first time he’d actively planned something out so deliberately. The feeling was rather similar to negotiating contracts or pitching ideas back in his old life—first make the other party feel you’re being sincere, then gradually work out the terms, what you need, what they need. In truth, from start to finish, his nature remained the same: a straightforward, value-for-value kind of exchange. It was just that, before reaching that point, he’d put in every effort to first secure a position where he could negotiate as an equal.
The whole way home, he cut through the side gate and along the small path; from a distance, he could see no light in the small courtyard where he lived—Tan’er and her attendants likely hadn’t returned yet, and he wasn’t sure whether Xiao Chan had already gone to sleep. As he reached the courtyard gate, he finally noticed the young girl sitting in the pavilion at its center.
Neat bangs, a white dress patterned with small flowers, the girl sat there lost in thought, both fists clenched on her knees, giving the impression of someone gritting her teeth through something. Starlight fell from above, illuminating her focused profile. Ning Yi watched for two seconds before her eyes shifted, then turned toward him; she stood up.
The night breeze stirred the hem of her skirt; the girl stood there, staring blankly toward him. This didn’t look like the usual bouncy Xiao Chan with her hair tied up in a bun—it looked, instead, like a more mature version of her, the Xiao Chan who usually stayed quietly in the background. This impression lasted only two seconds.
“Young ma—”
The first syllable came out already choked with emotion. Tears spilled from the girl’s eyes; she raised a hand to wipe them, and then, suddenly, she was crying in earnest.
“Young master…”
Amid her sobbing, Xiao Chan came running over and threw herself straight into his arms, nearly knocking him back a step. Ning Yi held her against his back, murmuring a soft sigh.
“I’m back…”
“Young master… where on earth did you go…”
In the night, the crying girl seemed to shrink smaller—and just like that, she was the familiar Xiao Chan once again…