“…I heard that in February of that year, at the Liao Dynasty’s ‘Spring Nabo’ festival, all the tribal chieftains gathered for the ‘First Fish Banquet’ hosted by Yelu Yanxi. It was there that Wanyan Aguda stepped forward and demanded Yelu Yanxi return the territory of Ashu, but Yelu Yanxi ignored him entirely. Later, at the height of the feast, Yelu Yanxi ordered each of the chieftains to perform songs and dances for entertainment. Wanyan Aguda alone remained motionless, saying simply that he could not perform. Yelu Yanxi flew into a rage and very nearly drew his blade to kill Wanyan Aguda on the spot. Now, Wanyan Aguda is in the prime of his life, brimming with ambition—when war finally breaks out between the Jin and Liao, it will surely be a fight to the death for both sides. Our great Wu Dynasty stands to profit by remaining in the middle, weighing both sides carefully. In my view, once war does erupt, our forces should first present themselves as weak, then seize Yingzhou…”

It was likewise midday on the Dragon Boat Festival, on the upper floor of a riverside restaurant, where Gu Yanzhen sat chatting with several companions. Below, the festive scenes continued unabated, the restaurant bustling with people coming and going. The group had arranged their bowls, chopsticks, and dishes into something of a tactical formation on the table, discussing matters at length.

“Who would have thought Yanzhen had such a grasp of military strategy too—truly impressive, truly impressive.” Among his companions was a minor military official, who now cupped his hands with a smile, prompting another in the group to clap his hands together. “Military strategy is only part of it—Yanzhen isn’t just sharp-witted, he’s both brave and clever besides. I hear that on his journey up to the capital, he actually ran into bandits, and cleverly talked his way out of it, then brought back reinforcements and had the whole gang captured. Honestly, hearing about it fills me with admiration.”

“Is that really true?” someone said, eyes widening.

“Ha ha, merely a fortunate coincidence, being in the right place at the right time.” Gu Yanzhen smiled. “Still, I’ve always felt that the civil and the martial ought to balance each other, one tension against the other—and given the state of the realm today, one ought to cultivate both. This time, heading to Leping, if I can achieve something within a few years, I might even consider setting aside the pen for the sword, following in the footsteps of Ban Chao’s ambitions…”

He was due to take up his post in Leping in the seventh month, meaning he’d likely leave Jiangning around June. The group chatted and laughed, showering him with more flattery. By the time the small gathering broke up and everyone had left, he sat by the window, gazing out at the scene below, lost in thought. Before long, his attendant, a young man named Xiao Si, came up the stairs.

“Have you found out?”

“Reporting to young master, we’ve gathered a great deal of information on this Ning Liheng over the past day or two. But actually, the main reason I’ve come up is that there’s news from the workshop.”

“Oh?”

“The preserved egg matter is ready.”

“That…” Gu Yanzhen frowned. “It hardly seems worth the trouble now… but very well, let’s go take a look. Tell me about this Ning Yi on the way.”

“Yes, sir. It seems this Ning Yi has always kept a low profile, skilled at concealing his true talents. Yesterday, when this humble one looked into his background, everyone around his former residence said…”

Chattering back and forth, the two of them made their way through the marketplace, turned down an alley, and entered a small, filthy workshop. A moment later, Gu Yanzhen emerged pinching his nose, brow furrowed. “Very well. Since it’s ready, we’ll start putting it on the market tomorrow. She sells hers at twenty coins—we’ll sell ours at ten. I won’t be coming back here again; leave it to Boss Hu to keep an eye on things from here.”

“Yes, sir. Though… young master, you’ll be leaving for Leping next month. Boss Hu is worried that even with this, a single month might not be enough to crush her business.”

“Who said anything about crushing her business? What good would that even do? There’s no need to fuss over this. Just do your job properly.”

Frowning, Gu Yanzhen walked on ahead. His family were wealthy landowners; putting together this preserved-egg scheme cost him hardly any silver at all. He’d originally undertaken it hoping to identify the powerful figure behind Nie Yunzhu, having had no leads at all, and had sent people to look into it. If there truly were some influential old patron behind her, the whole affair might have carried some real significance—but by now, it had all become rather pointless. Still, no matter—the time invested would be more than enough to teach her just how flimsy her unrealistic dreams of independence truly were.

Recalling what Xiao Si had told him earlier, this Ning Yi apparently enjoyed tinkering with all sorts of odd, unconventional things, rather heretical in serious matters—supposedly fussing over trivial things like chalk and blackboards.

Hmph. No wonder he ran around with people like Li Pin—probably another one of those self-styled unconventional, arrogant types. The preserved eggs were presumably his invention too; now that he thought back on it, that painting on Nie Yunzhu’s cart had struck him as thoroughly crude craftsmanship, unworthy of any real refinement.

And as for spreading word of the preserved eggs, the method used hadn’t been anything particularly novel either—just some cheap trick of hiring people to pose as customers. In the art of strategy, there was the orthodox and the unorthodox; a method like that struck him as utterly beneath consideration. He himself could think of several approaches far more ingenious than simply hiring fake customers… though it hardly mattered anymore at this point. He’d once thought Yunzhu a woman of exceptional, unworldly character, only to find she’d been taken in by such petty tricks after all—how utterly laughable.

Walking through the bustling street, these thoughts turned over in his mind—thinking of the two of them, Yunzhu, Ning Liheng… He’d once believed her noble and pure of heart, believed she’d found someone genuinely worthy, believed there must be some far more remarkable story behind it all than he could have imagined. And now, thinking back on it—

What a disappointment…

A courtesan who thought herself pure and untouched while seeing no further than the bottom of her own well; a merchant’s live-in son-in-law resorting to crude, petty tricks while fancying himself a romantic genius. Thinking it over, it really was more laughable and unworthy than even the crude flirtations among common servants.

To think he’d once let himself get so wrapped up in all this.

Thinking along these lines, that evening, he found himself crossing paths with the two of them once again.

…

Just as Su Tan’er had predicted that morning, following last night’s assassination, both entry to and exit from the city were now under strict inspection, making it impossible to allow large crowds through in either direction. The final night’s performance of the flower-queen contest had been moved instead to a large training ground by the river on the city’s east side. The scenery here was naturally nowhere near as picturesque as outside the city, but with some quick, makeshift arrangements, and a bit more crowding than usual, it could still comfortably hold some three thousand spectators. The nearby waterway could accommodate the pleasure boats as well—after all, this flower-queen contest represented a substantial source of revenue for the Jiangning prefecture, and simply cancelling it outright was never really an option.

For ordinary people, the assassination of a court official meant little—if anything, most discussions over tea or idle chatter tended to lean toward quiet satisfaction. So even with all this happening, it did nothing to dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm for the evening’s performances—if anything, it seemed to heighten the excitement even further.

That afternoon, Ning Yi took a carriage ride through the city with Su Tan’er and the others, stopping to sample some interesting street food along the way, hearing nothing but talk of the woman assassin wherever they went. Chan’er and Juan’er sat in the carriage acting out a mock battle between the “cube” and the “cylinder,” using a pair of boxes to represent the “eight feet tall, eight feet around” assassin.

Su Tan’er had regained her spirits by now, occasionally leaning in with a smile to chat with Ning Yi about various matters. In the past, whenever they had reason to be cautious, she’d played the role of the model, dutiful wife at home, never once mentioning business matters. But now, much of what she brought up did in fact relate to business—remarking, for instance, on how much the closed city gates were disrupting the shops’ operations, sighing lightly over how much revenue they’d likely lose as a result. In truth, this was mostly said in jest; though she sighed over it, she clearly wasn’t letting these small setbacks weigh on her mind.

Ning Yi, for his part, occasionally tossed out some outlandish idea nearby—suggesting, for instance, printing the text of the Four Books and Five Classics onto fabric, then having clothes made from that fabric, so that walking outside, one would be covered head to toe in text, an entirely novel and imposing style. Su Tan’er laughed and said she’d have one made for him next time—embroidered with the text of the classics, though it would take considerably more effort. “You’ll actually have to wear it out in public though, husband.” Ning Yi, entirely unbothered by such things, nodded his agreement readily.

While eating by the riverside, he took out brush and ink and sketched a few portraits of the group—simple, cartoonish little caricatures, really. On the paper, the four women’s expressions were exaggerated but each distinctly captured; after a good laugh, Su Tan’er and her three attendants proceeded to thoroughly tease Ning Yi about it—this era, naturally, still had little patience for this style of drawing. Ning Yi debated the matter with Su Tan’er a while, and amid protests from Chan’er, Juan’er, and Xing’er, ended up making a bet with Su Tan’er that he’d set up a roadside stall to find some like-minded admirer of his art. Su Tan’er had initially said, “Fine then, go ahead and set up your stall.” But when Ning Yi actually pulled out a stool and sat down by the roadside, ready to start drawing, she and Chan’er and the others, laughing, dragged him back before he could get started.

Ning Yi laughed heartily. “So I win this one, then?” Su Tan’er, her whole face flushed red with laughter, said, “My husband, always up to mischief—I can’t bear the embarrassment.” Chan’er chimed in quietly beside her, “Chan’er can’t bear it either…” Juan’er nodded vigorously in agreement, and both little troublemakers promptly received a light flick on the head from Ning Yi for their trouble. They all knew Ning Yi’s easygoing nature well enough, and none of them minded these occasional bits of teasing.

Ever since the assassination the night before, the prefecture office had already recognized that the flower-queen contest could no longer be held outside the city walls, and preparations to relocate the venue had been underway since the early morning hours. By evening, when Ning Yi, Su Tan’er, and the others arrived by carriage, the sun was setting, and the streets and buildings around the entire venue were already strung with festive lanterns and colored silk banners fluttering in the wind. Across the road from the training ground, the pleasure boats were lining up one after another; though the lamps hadn’t yet been lit, people were already moving about aboard them, the atmosphere growing lively.

In one of the pleasure-boat cabins belonging to Jinfeng Tower, Yuan Jin’er was preparing for that evening’s performance. Tonight, four leading courtesans would compete for the title of Flower Queen, each performing three rounds. The stretch of time between evening and their actual appearance was usually set aside for quiet rest, with few visitors allowed to disturb them—though the performers did retain some discretion of their own, and if there happened to be someone special to them, that person might occasionally be invited in to spend a brief moment together. In Yuan Jin’er’s cabin at that moment sat another visitor—not her maid, but Nie Yunzhu, dressed as a man. The two of them sat by the window, watching the crowds gathering toward the training ground below, chatting.

“Tonight’s important, isn’t it?” Yuan Jin’er asked Nie Yunzhu.

Nie Yunzhu nodded, seeming even more nervous than Jin’er herself. “Mm. If everything goes well tonight, there’ll be plenty to do starting tomorrow.”

“I’m not nervous at all.” Jin’er secretly snuck a bite of a mung bean cake, only to be glared at by Nie Yunzhu, who then snatched away the remaining half.

Nie Yunzhu popped the cake into her mouth, chewed it forcefully, swallowed, then took an irritated sip of water. “I told you to stop eating so much of this stuff!”

“But I’m not nervous! I don’t even want to win the Flower Queen title—let Feng Xiaojing have it, or Qilan, or Luo Miaomiao, any of them. You’re the strange one, sister Yunzhu—if you were actually competing in this contest yourself, you probably wouldn’t feel a thing, and yet here you are, all worked up over something like this instead…”

“It’s the first time I’ve taken something this far, of course I’m nervous. If nothing goes wrong today, the reputation of the preserved eggs might really take off. As for performances like this, well, you never took them seriously to begin with, Jin’er, so of course you don’t feel nervous about them.”

“Don’t worry, Jin’er will help you out, sister Yunzhu.” Yuan Jin’er smiled, then suddenly remembered something and her expression shifted at once, narrowing her eyes sharply. “Oh, right, sister Yunzhu—I heard a few days ago that fake preserved eggs are being sold now, someone trying to steal your business. What are you going to do about that?”

“What?” Nie Yunzhu looked puzzled for a moment, then frowned. “Already?”

“You mean you didn’t know? Jin’er’s been so worried about it, asking around everywhere, and here you are, the shop’s own proprietress, not even aware of it—so what exactly have I been doing every night these past few days, cursing that scoundrel trying to steal your business? I’ve been worried sick!”

“No need. He already anticipated something like this happening.” Nie Yunzhu said, smiling faintly. “He told me if it happened, he’d handle it, and told me not to worry about it—so I haven’t bothered looking into it these past few days, focusing entirely on tonight instead…”

“He’s that capable?” Jin’er eyed her, looking rather put out. “Hmph, well, I’d like to see just what he can actually do about it…”

With that, she turned to glance out the window, scanning the crowd for a moment, then suddenly perked up, blinking. “Ooh, speak of the devil and he shall appear—sister Yunzhu, look, look, there’s your sweetheart… ah… ow, sister Yunzhu, I’m sorry, I take it back—”