The clink and clatter of dishes—early in the morning, Chan’er and Juan’er set bowls and chopsticks on the table, ladling out porridge, then, at Tan’er’s instruction, sat down alongside her as well. In the morning light, the scene showed a household of five gathered at the table for breakfast.
Su Tan’er, along with Juan’er and Xing’er, had also returned rather late the night before. After her crying, Chan’er had sat with Ning Yi in the pavilion for a while, talking through her worries, wiping her eyes and chattering on. The little maid had been through quite a lot that night, poor thing—first worrying Ning Yi had run off to meet some seductress, then hearing the gongs clanging outside and fearing he might have run into some accident, and then worrying that if he really had gone to meet some seductress, he hadn’t taken her along, and had no money on him…
“If the young master went to see someone like that without any money, those people would look down on him. Honestly, those women who act all sweet and wonderful, it’s all just an act—they’re the most calculating of all…”
The girl had sat in the pavilion, wiping her tears while solemnly fretting over him losing face for lack of money. Ning Yi felt a warmth in his chest and offered a few words of comfort; the two of them chatted idly beneath the starlight for a while, and Xiao Chan finally set aside most of her worries.
Su Tan’er had come back late the night before and hadn’t slept much, and though this sort of thing wasn’t unusual for her, she still looked rather drowsy at breakfast, having only splashed some water on her face and pushed through on sheer will. Juan’er and Xing’er looked much the same.
“We were stopped on the way back into the city last night—the checks at the gates were quite strict. They said a court official had been assassinated. Today’s flower-queen contest probably can’t be held at Egret Island after all, though we still don’t know what arrangements they’ll make instead… and the morning’s dragon boat races…”
Sipping her porridge, Su Tan’er ran through the news as usual. Ning Yi shook his head. “Go get some sleep this morning.”
“Huh?” Su Tan’er looked up at him.
“You, and Juan’er and Xing’er too. Sleep in this morning. Leave the household matters to Chan’er. We’ll figure out the rest at noon.”
“Mm!” Xiao Chan immediately puffed out her chest and nodded firmly. “Leave it to Xiao Chan, Miss. You should rest a bit more.”
“As my husband says, then.” Su Tan’er smiled and nodded; Juan’er and Xing’er both looked pleased as well. “Thank you, young master.”
“Only, my husband will have to go watch the dragon boat races alone this morning…”
“I’m not going to watch the races. I’ll head over to the academy for a while.”
“Isn’t there no class today?” Su Tan’er asked, puzzled.
“Nothing much to do either way. I had a few ideas yesterday, so I’ll go run some experiments this morning. I’ll be back by noon.”
They chatted on about various small matters after that; Su Tan’er asked about yesterday’s contest, and about what had happened in the city before she’d gotten back. In truth, aside from the tiredness of insufficient sleep, Su Tan’er, Juan’er, and Xing’er’s spirits also seemed a little low—likely another technical breakthrough had failed on that front. But that sort of setback was simply the norm; nine failures out of ten was expected, and waiting for that final success was enough, so there was no real reason to be too discouraged.
After breakfast, Su Tan’er and the two maids went back to their rooms to sleep. Ning Yi said goodbye to Xiao Chan and headed out, driving the Consort’s residence’s carriage toward the marketplace. Today was the Dragon Boat Festival, and the streets were lively and festive, crowds gathering along the Qinhuai River to watch the dragon boat races, the scent of zongzi leaves drifting along both sides of the street. There were quite a lot of soldiers on patrol as well—the Jiangning prefecture office was presumably having quite a headache dealing with all this, since it was difficult to disrupt too much public activity during a festival like this; all they could really do was tighten vigilance and inspections, controlling entry and exit from the city to keep the assassin trapped inside for now.
Turning onto the road toward the academy, the crowds thinned considerably, though the sound of firecrackers and gongs could still be heard in the distance. He exchanged greetings with a familiar local resident along the way. When the carriage arrived at the gate of the courtyard he’d rented, Ning Yi took a bundle down from the carriage. Walking through the courtyard and into the room, pushing open the door to the inner chamber, he found it empty. He stepped in to look around, noting a few small clues, and realized that the window he’d closed the night before was now open. He closed the door and stepped back out.
Roughly three or four meters up, on the roof beam, the woman sat wrapped in the long robe, watching quietly below as Ning Yi closed the door, then turned and leapt down. The masculine robe billowed in the wind, revealing beneath it her bandage-wrapped body, long legs stretching briefly through the air before she landed on the ground, quickly pulling the robe’s edges closed around herself once more. Her fair calves and bare feet remained visible below. She rapped her sword against a nearby shelf.
Hearing the sound, Ning Yi waited a few seconds before pushing the door open again, only to have the sword hilt slam against it from inside, blocking his way. He passed the bundle through the opening; as he was about to close the door again, he caught a glimpse of the woman’s pale wrist as she took the bundle, and the faint, frost-like profile of her face.
“Clothes to wear, food to eat—I’ve prepared enough for both lunch and dinner already, though I’m afraid it won’t be very nutritious this way. I’ll try to find some better food. Since you’re injured, if there’s any particular medicine you need, just let me know. Don’t worry, I’ll buy things separately so as not to arouse suspicion. Also, if you could give me the bloodied clothes and anything else that might cause trouble, I’ll take care of disposing of them properly.”
A brief silence from inside. “You can handle that?”
“I know a bit.”
As he spoke, he went to fetch a chisel and hammer, tapping a few times at the brick where the sword had pierced through the wall the night before. A reaction came immediately from inside—she was presumably changing clothes.
“What are you doing!”
“That hole’s too obvious—anyone could tell right away it was made by a blade. Just cleaning it up a little.”
He chipped away at the gap until its shape was thoroughly obscured, then blackened it with kerosene, sanded it down, blackened it again, repeating the process several times. He knocked on the door afterward, then went inside and did the same to the corresponding hole on the other side. The room was empty by then; the bloodstained cloth strips torn off the night before, along with other items, had been laid out on the table inside the bundle.
Up on the roof beam, the woman sat dressed now in pale green clothing, watching as the man finished his work, apparently checking through the bloodied items left on the table. Among them, aside from the outer garments, were also a few more personal, intimate items; a brief flash of irritation crossed her face—but then she heard him say from below, “Sorry, I forgot to buy you shoes. I’ll bring some tomorrow.” He then picked up the bundle and turned to head out.
Her irritation faded somewhat. On the beam, the woman drew her legs in slightly; her trouser cuffs reached only to her ankles, leaving her slender bare feet exposed below. She instinctively reached to cover the top of her foot, then let her hand fall again, curling up on the beam.
The outer room held all sorts of experimental equipment, including a stove Ning Yi had built specifically for its considerable heat output, fueled with coal. Ning Yi tossed the bloodied cloth strips and other small scraps into it; before long, everything had burned away completely. As he burned them, he casually mentioned a few things about the soldiers checking the city, then fell silent again.
He quietly went about his own experiments in the outer room, mixing solutions, occasionally scrawling odd symbols across the blackboard with a clatter. A porcelain bottle exploded once during the process, and he hurried to clean it up. Sunlight streamed in from outside, not too hot; wild flowers and grasses swayed in the breeze around the courtyard, and the distant sounds of the Dragon Boat Festival drifted over continuously—yet within this small courtyard, the quiet atmosphere grew ever more pronounced. Lu Hongti sat on the bed hugging her sword, eating a meat bun Ning Yi had brought, occasionally peeking with faint curiosity through the slightly-enlarged gap in the wall at the strange experiments taking place, watching the man’s focused expression as he occasionally picked up a brush to jot something down in a notebook.
After a while, someone else pushed open the courtyard gate—light, quick footsteps, clearly not an adult. She gathered her things and leapt back up onto the beam, holding her breath to listen. A young girl’s voice carried in from outside: “Young master, I’m here!”
It was a little maid, sounding cheerful.
“Watch your step over there, there might be broken porcelain. Best not to touch the water on the table either.”
“Mm-hm, got it…”
“You’re here so soon?”
“Xing’er just woke up, so she sent me out to find you, young master. Oh, oh, I bought two little bells on the way here—look, can I hang them up outside?”
“Go ahead and hang them.”
“Mm.”
A clear, cheerful jingling sound rang out now and then. The little girl seemed to have carried out a chair, hanging the bells beneath the eaves outside the door.
“Young master, on my way here I saw so many soldiers on the street, everyone’s talking about yesterday’s assassin. They say she was incredibly skilled—have you heard about it?”
“I’ve heard.”
“Oh? What did you hear, young master? They say it was a woman assassin—isn’t that the same as that woman bandit from the Lantern Festival?”
“I did hear it was a woman assassin. On the way over I even heard someone claiming they’d witnessed it with their own eyes last night, telling it all very vividly…” the man said idly. “They said the woman assassin was extraordinarily skilled, eight feet tall with an eight-foot waist, wielding a great golden-ringed blade, cutting her way from Vermilion Bird Street clear to Changye Street, heaven and earth trembling, sun and moon dimmed. And Commander Song Xian, they say, practiced a Buddhist martial art called the Tathagata Divine Palm, having nearly perfected it—but the woman’s heaven-shattering blade proved even mightier still, and the two of them clashed through a hundred and twenty exchanges without a clear victor…”
The little girl laughed. “That’s not right at all, young master, you’re making things up again! Eight feet tall and an eight-foot waist—wouldn’t that make her a cube?”
“The waist measurement goes around in a circle, so really she’d be more like a cylinder. A cylinder-shaped woman assassin wielding a great golden-ringed blade—how formidable is that.”
“What does a golden-ringed blade even look like?”
“Er, probably something like what Guard Tang at home carries—the kind with a few rings on it that jingle when you move it…”
“…Tell me a story, young master.”
“I can’t have a story ready every single day.”
“Aww…”
“Alright then… Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a scholar named Ning Caichen. As the story goes, he failed his examinations and returned home, where he took up a job collecting debts on behalf of others…”
Strands of light filtered down through the tiled roof. The woman sat on the beam, holding her sword, watching the light, listening to the sounds drifting in from outside—the little maid busying herself among the flowers and grass in the courtyard, picking a few wildflowers here and there, while the man conducted his strange experiments and told his even stranger story. The whole morning passed in unusual stillness.
By around noon, the two of them were finally getting ready to leave—something about watching the dragon boat races, going to the flower-queen contest with the family. The fire outside was put out, things packed away and put in order, the door opened, then closed again.
“The bells are really lovely.”
“I bought them myself.”
“Alright, alright…” Their voices faded into the distance, then the man’s casual voice carried back. “See you tomorrow, little bells.”
The little maid called back over her shoulder as well: “Bells, see you tomorrow!”
The courtyard gate finally closed, the carriage rolling away. The woman stepped out quietly, looking at the pair of wind chimes hanging beneath the eaves. As the distant sounds of the Dragon Boat Festival drifted over, she thought of that strange, otherworldly tale called A Chinese Ghost Story. Compared to the performances of the usual storytellers, this tale had been far more captivating to listen to.
The ending hadn’t even been finished yet…
At noon on the fifth day of the fifth month, Lu Hongti stood beneath those eaves, eating a cold meat bun, listening to the wind chimes ring, a faint thought drifting quietly through her mind…