Ning Yi had never brought this matter up before; only now, with things somewhat more familiar between them, did he ask. Lu Hongti’s eyes narrowed slightly. Outside the window the sky had turned overcast, and on the charcoal stove in the room the roasting chicken sizzled, dripping oil. Ning Liheng stood there blinking innocently. After what seemed a moment of consideration, Lu Hongti’s gaze softened and turned aside.
With a rush, rain began falling outside, and in the blink of an eye it swallowed the whole of Jiangning.
“My family used to live west of Yanmen Pass, over by the Lüliang Mountains.” After a long while, Lu Hongti finally spoke this line.
“Ever since the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun were lost, the barbarians came raiding every year, killing and plundering, never a day of peace. Nine out of ten households were emptied. People who tried to farm there kept moving from gully to gully every year, like wandering ghosts, but the old folks said it’s hard to leave one’s homeland… you probably can’t understand what it feels like to be born there…”
Ning Yi fell quiet for a moment. “Joy along the Fen River’s banks, mixed sorrows through southern Jinzhong, weeping and wailing in the Lüliang Mountains, and even in death, never past Yanmen Pass…”
“Heh.” She nodded and gave a small smile. “In earlier years, everyone had already been living in the mountains — always moving south, though never getting very far. The young ones who went up into the hills became the bandits of Lüliang, unbroken for hundreds of years. We were all Han people. The Wu court’s armies never came, and the barbarians came south every year, never treating us as human either. Every year we fought their troops — when we met a small band, we’d swarm them; when we met a large force, we’d flee. We robbed barbarian merchants too — anyone passing through, we robbed. Han travelers we’d usually spare, but the barbarians we killed outright…”
“The Wu court never treated us as their own people either. Sometimes an official would come, saying he wanted to offer amnesty — offered it several times, but in the end it was still fighting the barbarians, wanting us to risk our lives while giving us nothing. And sometimes they’d turn around and call us bandits, and come to suppress us instead…”
Lightning flashed outside the window, and the rain grew heavier. Ning Yi turned the roasting chicken, sprinkling something over it.
“When I was six, my father was killed by the barbarians. I went with my master to learn martial arts, wandering the martial world. At thirteen I returned to Lüliang — my mother had already died by then. I went up into the mountains and followed my master into battle every year… Did I ever think of being a hero for the sake of country and people? I never did. We just lived like… not quite human…”
She paused briefly. “Later… a few years ago, Song Xian led troops into the Lüliang Mountains. At first he said he wanted to offer amnesty, spoke very convincingly. He gathered the people of several nearby villages together, surrounded them, and killed every single one. The Liao state said the Lüliang bandits were a matter for the Wu court to handle within its own borders, so Song Xian took those heads as a military achievement and presented them to his superiors — currying favor with Liao! Not sparing a single old person or child, and then claiming they were all bloodthirsty bandits who killed without blinking… He got promoted for it. Some people in the mountains had relatives who died there; people I knew from the villages all died too. Some who went out seeking revenge against him were killed as well — their blood spilled for nothing. Others still wanted to go. I wouldn’t allow it, so it was left to me alone…”
“So I must kill him. At the Lantern Festival, I struck and missed — I’d thought I had a real chance that time. A few days ago I tried again to trap him, and instead he turned the trap on me. At the time I thought, if this keeps up, I might never manage to kill him… one person, in the end, has only so much strength…”
“You want to learn martial arts. I studied under my master for all those years, then fought in battle formations year after year, killing I don’t know how many people. A few times I crawled out from piles of corpses, not even sure whether I was alive or dead myself. And now, trying to kill Song Xian, I still end up wounded like this. Scholars who have real ability, who can stand against ten thousand men with words — that’s better than anything. Why bother being this kind of butcher with bloody hands…” As she spoke, she pressed her lips together and began to smile.
Ning Yi thought it over for a moment, then just shook his head and smiled. “I’ll stick with my curiosity, I think… we can talk about this later — the chicken’s ready.”
He said this while lifting the chicken down, cutting it open with a knife. At once a richer, more intense aroma filled the whole room, and he handed it over along with some sauce.
“How is it?”
“It tastes very good…”
“It’s a new dish I’m planning to introduce. My technique’s still amateur, but the seasoning’s well matched.”
“Isn’t your family in the cloth business?”
“A friend’s recipe… If one day you can eat chicken roasted just like this in the Lüliang Mountains, I’ll give you something…”
“Heh, what?”
“Oh, tricks and sleight of hand — calling wind and summoning rain, scattering beans to make soldiers, that sort of thing…”
“Then it’s a deal?”
“Mm.”
The casual conversation in the room was drowned out by the rumbling thunderstorm. At a restaurant on the other side of Jiangning city, Li Pin was likewise gazing out at the curtain of rain, talking with Shen Miao beside him.
“…Yanzhen has already been getting things in order these past few days. Within about half a month, he’ll be leaving Jiangning for Raozhou.”
“Didn’t you say he wasn’t leaving until the seventh month?”
“There’s quite a distance to travel, so it’s probably better to set out early rather than risk delays along the way… Also, once he reaches Leping, he’ll likely need to make arrangements ahead of time so he can take over the post smoothly.”
“That’s for the best.” Li Pin smiled and nodded.
Shen Miao took a deep breath. “I heard that some time back you and Yanzhen had a falling-out, so I came to ask about it. After all, we’ve all been friends for so long — nothing serious, I hope, but I didn’t want the two of you carrying it in your hearts.”
Li Pin thought about it. “It’s not really a falling-out as such. Zishan means well, I understand that completely. It’s not that I’m angry at him — it’s more that he himself has some unresolved feelings.”
Shen Miao frowned, thinking it over. “I see… By the way, what do you make of Yanzhen as a person, Dexin?”
“Talking behind his back like this isn’t really proper.”
“Ha, it’s fine. He’s about to set off, and after this we probably won’t see him for many years. If he’s got some knot in his heart with someone else, I wouldn’t worry so much, but I’ve always trusted your judgment of character, Dexin — your eye for people has always been sharp. I’d genuinely like to know. This is just between us, idle talk, and it won’t reach a third ear.”
Li Pin thought it over, then shook his head. “It’s nothing major. Yanzhen — you and I have known him for years. He has learning, ability, and vision; if it comes down to it, neither you nor I quite measure up to him. But in all these years, have you ever once seen him truly come out the loser in anything?”
“Er, well, there have actually been a few times… though Yanzhen is open-minded too, and never took it to heart…”
“What if I told you… he’s never actually lost out?”
“Hm?”
“Brother Zishan, Gu Hong — is a proud man. Of course he has reason and talent enough to back that pride. Over the years he’s held himself to extremely high standards, and often it truly is admirable — the bearing of a gentleman ought to be just like that. But at times, his views run rather too extreme, too fixated on achieving his aims. Though, it’s hard to say whether that’s good or bad.”
Shen Miao smiled and nodded. “Dexin really does read people accurately. Yanzhen does indeed lean that way. Just the other day he was telling me that a person ought to face things according to their true heart — and honestly, I thought there was something to that. He’s also said before that when he eventually becomes a county magistrate, what he’ll need is to solve the problems in front of him — and in such matters, one ought to be coldly impartial, seeking only the goal. As opposed to a virtuous official who’s kind at heart but bound up by countless rules, he’d rather be a capable official who doesn’t concern himself with appearances of good and evil and only cares about getting things done properly. This thinking of his is, honestly, admirable…”
Li Pin looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Just so. In this world today, there are far too many pedantic scholars and too few who actually get things done. If Yanzhen holds to this philosophy, it truly would be a blessing for the common people…”
As for Gu Yanzhen, Li Pin did, in truth, admire him to some degree. There were things he vaguely sensed, but he’d kept his own reservations to himself — to voice baseless accusations would truly be going too far. Shen Miao hadn’t really come today to debate the matter; he’d only meant to play peacemaker. What he didn’t realize was that this time, the rift with Gu Yanzhen was indeed real. Perhaps it wasn’t over Li Pin’s own concealment of something, but over that one line — “I know what kind of person you are.” That day, though Gu Yanzhen had been aggressive in pressing him, Li Pin perhaps really shouldn’t have said that.
Being kingly on the outside while sagely within — which mattered more, the “kingly” or the “sagely”? These two approaches had been debated for years without resolution. Of course, the middle way, by its very nature, avoided extremes; the judgment of all things was, in truth, rather complicated. In recent years, capable officials had indeed proven far more useful than pedantic scholars. If, in the future, Gu Yanzhen proved himself to truly be a capable official, then he himself ought to go and apologize in person for that remark… He hoped it would turn out that way.
After that, naturally, the conversation moved on, following wherever Shen Miao led it. At the very moment the two of them were talking in the restaurant, at the head office of Bamboo Records several streets away, Gu Yanzhen sat with a servant in attendance, quietly sampling various dishes. The tall servant beside him, with a fierce knife-scar across his face, was his trusted attendant, called Old Six — in truth, something of a bodyguard as well. This was the first time in nearly three months that he had voluntarily come near a place connected to Nie Yunzhu — and certainly not this time to bring men to smash up the shop. For now, he simply waited quietly for her to appear.
Since it was raining outside, business in the shop wasn’t particularly good, and in the heavy rain the light wasn’t bright either, so oil lamps had been lit, their little flames flickering within.
Nie Yunzhu was in fact in the shop at that moment, though as a woman, she felt no obligation to be so openly forthright about such matters. In this era, there wasn’t much room for either men or women to be entirely aboveboard about such things anyway — though, admittedly, where Ning Yi was concerned, she’d applied something of a double standard. Thinking back to the time he’d forcibly grabbed her hand, she didn’t want to go out again — his pulling her hand had been wrong, but her slapping him back had also been wrong, and so she simply waited quietly for time to pass. Yet by the time evening drew near, the dishes laid out in front of him had gone completely cold, and Gu Yanzhen still sat there steadily, unmoving. In the end she had no choice but to go out. Standing across the table from him, she bowed. “Young Master Gu.”
Gu Yanzhen looked up at her, breaking into a smile — he had always been gentle and refined, and his smile now truly was disarming, easy and open.
“In a few days, I’ll be leaving — heading to take up my post in Leping, Raozhou. So I thought I’d come to say goodbye.”
Nie Yunzhu considered this. “I have nothing to give you as a parting gift. I only wish you smooth sailing, Young Master, and a prosperous career.”
“Hearing you say that reminds me of three years ago…” He lowered his head, laughing lightly, then stood up, looking at her and taking a deep breath. “If I… if I said it once more, in earnest — that I wish to marry you, Yunzhu, and have you come with me to Leping — would you consider it once more, carefully? Or perhaps just give me a nod?”