In the small hours of the morning, along the banks of the Qinhuai River, before the sky had even lightened, Nie Yunzhu rose from bed, washed up, brewed a pot of tea, and stepped out through the front door of her small building.
A gloomy night sky hung over the distant city walls and mountains, making it impossible to make out what lay out there. She sat on the steps in front of the building, lost in thought — these past days, her mind had mostly circled around one thing: those once-familiar footsteps hadn’t sounded here in twenty days now.
Looking back, mornings like this had gone on for nearly a year now — from first meeting him over that chicken, to later watching him jog past every single morning, exchanging words, chatting a while. Every morning had, for her, become a uniquely special stretch of time. Aside from heavy rain, that figure had passed by here every single day, without exception even on snowy days, and she’d almost come to believe it would simply go on like that forever.
It was only these twenty days that told her the truth — that the connection between the two of them had, in fact, only ever been this simple daily meeting. He hadn’t come, and so she had no way to go looking for him either; that man was, after all, the husband of that young lady of the Su family.
The thought left her faintly troubled.
For the first few days, she’d simply assumed he had some urgent matter, or had traveled somewhere far, or had missed his morning exercise time. But as the days passed, anxiety inevitably crept in, and she began to worry that something had happened to him, some accident. A few times over those days she’d found herself walking near the Su residence, more or less on purpose, circling the perimeter wall to see if there was anything to notice, though she found nothing telling. Her anxiety mounting, she also felt she was being sneaky about it, and honestly wasn’t even sure herself what she thought she was doing.
That worry reached its worst point a few days earlier, when several constables came looking for her. She’d been in the back courtyard of Zhuji’s main shop at the time, lost in thought, distracted, and when the shop boy came in to tell her constables were asking for her, she simply blanked out for a moment, running out in a daze and nearly tripping over the threshold. Then, hearing the constable’s question, she stood stunned for a long moment before it registered.
Gu Yanzhen, Gu Yanzhen, always Gu Yanzhen…
To hell with him.
—The two constables had, in fact, come to ask about her past relationship with Gu Yanzhen.
She’d nearly let that resentment slip out loud, but distractedly gave a brief account of their former connection anyway. In the end, the two constables told her that Gu Yanzhen had been killed after leaving the city, leaving her stunned for a good while as well.
At an ordinary time, she might have felt some sadness over it, but with her mind already elsewhere, the shock soon faded and her thoughts drifted back to her original worry. The world wasn’t exactly peaceful these days — surely Liheng hadn’t run into trouble too…
It was only a little while later, when she went near the Su residence and saw Liheng’s wife, Su Tan’er, coming out with her maids to board a carriage — her expression a bit hurried, but apparently just on her way to handle some business — that she gradually settled down. But the next day, she found herself thinking again: if Liheng hadn’t run into trouble, and he hadn’t mentioned any plans to travel far when they’d last chatted, then this long absence might mean… he simply wasn’t coming anymore?
And then she thought how foolish that idea was.
These recent days had mostly been filled with gloomy, low, tangled thoughts, but every morning she still brewed that pot of tea and sat on the steps waiting, waiting until dawn broke. That was when she’d manage to lighten her mood a little.
Hmph, if you never come, then I’ll just sit here waiting every single day!
She tried to think this way, playfully, as best she could, sitting there taking a sip of tea. Then the morning breeze stirred gently, and carried with it — those footsteps…
…
After twenty days, Ning Yi had once again taken up his daily morning jog, though after getting up that day, while Xiao Chan changed his bandages in his room, she’d tearfully scolded and fussed at him the whole time — the day before, upon first unwrapping the bandages and seeing the burned left hand, she’d cried outright. Still, the necessity of keeping up his exercise remained.
The injury on his left hand had, in truth, mostly healed. This “healed” meant he could perform basic movements without pain, and daily life posed no great difficulty — only that once the bandages came off, the sight of it was rather unsightly, the whole hand still red. Having boasted to Lu Hongti not long ago about being some “Bloody-Handed Butcher of Men,” it was rather funny, in a resigned way, that both in substance and in appearance, the description now fit rather too well.
A full recovery would take about half a year in total — thanks, in fact, to how good Lu Hongti’s medicine truly was. He had originally braced himself for the possibility of losing the use of his left hand entirely; in the situation at the time, there had been no other real choice, and though it was something of a pity, having survived at all left no room for further complaint. As things stood now, he’d already come out ahead.
Some of the ingredients in the medicine were quite costly, but the Su family had money, so that wasn’t much of an issue. Last night he’d given his father-in-law and old Grandfather Su a roughly glossed-over account of “helping a friend with something and getting his arm burned.” This morning, the reason Xiao Chan hadn’t wanted him to go out was mainly her fear that exercise would make his arm sweat — after all, for a burn, the main damage was to the skin and its glands. But now that Ning Yi had the internal cultivation method Lu Hongti had taught him, there was naturally no need to stop entirely — he’d just have to hold back on the intensity.
Today’s jog would end, as planned, at the front of Nie Yunzhu’s little building.
“…I left the city for a few days to help out a friend with something, and there was a bit of an accident — my hand got burned. Luckily I found a skilled physician, and the medicine’s quite miraculous — should heal up in about half a year.” Ning Yi took a sip of tea, raising his bandage-wrapped left hand in the air to show it off. “So, what do you think? Doesn’t this look pretty good on me?” He personally thought the look was quite dashing.
Nie Yunzhu gave a faint smile, lowering her eyes. “Did it hurt?”
“Uh, no feeling now, but it definitely hurt at the time.” Ning Yi smiled. “How have things been with you lately?”
“Mm, fine. Something rather amusing happened the other day — someone came into the shop carrying a wooden token they’d carved themselves…”
By the river bend in the early hours, things seemed to have returned to their usual rhythm — small talk, everyday trifles. Seeing Ning Yi again, Nie Yunzhu felt as though a weight had lifted, though looking back on these recent days, there was still some hollow, empty feeling somewhere inside her. As dawn’s first light appeared, Ning Yi rose to take his leave. Nie Yunzhu hesitated. “You…”
“Hm?”
“Your hand’s hurt, and you need to change the medicine every day — it’s not good to sweat. For your health’s sake… maybe don’t go jogging and sweating for a while.”
She’d managed to say this only with some difficulty. Ning Yi nodded. “Mm, I understand. But it’s fine, really — light exercise shouldn’t be a problem, I won’t sweat. I picked up some internal cultivation technique or other recently — I can practice it anytime, and at this level of exertion I won’t sweat. Ha, maybe I’ll turn into some great martial hero before long.”
Ning Yi had, in the past, often told her tales of the martial world, and speaking of it now, he was in good spirits. Nie Yunzhu stood there watching his retreating figure, and suddenly a cool tear slid down her cheek, dropping onto the back of her hand in front of her. She froze for a moment, then wiped it away in a fluster, and suddenly dashed forward — but after only two steps, her embroidered shoes stopped again, as Ning Yi had already turned back around ahead of her.
“Oh, right — the liquor thing should be nearly ready. When it is, I’ll bring over the designs for the various parts — best to find a few blacksmiths who can keep things confidential and split the work among them. Mm, I’ll do my best to make sure the specifications are consistent — the workshop after this will need to stay under wraps… Have you managed to get in touch with a distiller?”
Nie Yunzhu clutched her handkerchief to her chest, standing blankly for a moment before nodding firmly. “Mm, already arranged.”
“Oh, good then.” Ning Yi smiled and waved a hand. “I’m off — classes don’t start again for a few days, so I can slack off a bit these two days. I might drop by Zhuji around noon — ha, I’ve been missing that century-egg-and-lean-pork congee.”
Nie Yunzhu smiled and nodded. “I’ll wait for you to come by.”
That small thread of disappointment in her heart slowly faded away.
He’ll come by at noon…
Her mood lifting, she was able to push everything else aside. On this morning full of energy and hope, she prepared to head over to the main shop to wait for him — and it was only then that she remembered the news the two constables had brought of Gu Yanzhen’s death. Why had those two constables come looking for her, she wondered. She didn’t harbor much ill will toward Gu Yanzhen — the man had genuine talent, after all — and his death left her with a certain sense of pity and sorrow. And yet, at the same time, even in death, somehow being dragged into his affairs left her faintly disgusted, given that she’d truly had no relation to him at all. The two feelings weren’t contradictory; they mixed together, and after a while, she simply sighed, and the feeling gradually faded.
A few days later, as more refugees gathered outside the city, Nie Yunzhu mentioned to Ning Yi one morning that an acquaintance of hers had died in some incident outside the city these past few days — a man who’d been about to take up a post as a county magistrate, quite talented, with a bright future ahead, and so she warned Ning Yi to be careful given how unsettled the times were. Ning Yi’s expression grew complicated at that.
“An acquaintance?”
“Not close.”
“Ah.” Ning Yi shrugged. “Heaven is jealous of talent. What a shame.”
That’s a matter for later; no more of it for now.
…
Time rewound to the evening of the sixth day of the sixth month — nearly two days after that night’s bloody incident. Several constables were investigating near a burned-out boathouse along a desolate riverbank, the wind howling, the sky turning dark; a thunderstorm looked likely to come down that very night.
“After this heavy rain, there’ll probably be nothing left to investigate at all!” one constable’s voice rang out along the riverbank against the wind. The boathouse on the shallow riverside had, by now, been completely burned through — of course, there were also some collapsed remains, charred, blackened bodies mixed among the wreckage, though there was no telling how long they might have already been swept by the current.
“If the body of that Magistrate Gu really is among this, then what exactly is going on here?”
“Probably that Magistrate Gu made some deal with the Yang brothers here, and ended up getting taken care of by the assassin along with them.”
There were five constables in total — three ordinary ones, and two head constables, senior and deputy, the genuinely official kind belonging to Jiangning Prefecture. The five of them had spent a while searching around the wreckage by the river; that morning they’d already found some clues, enough to more or less confirm that one of the charred remains was Gu Yanzhen. Sensing that rain might be coming, they’d rushed back for a second look. The head constable, a man in his thirties, walked up onto the shore to search the surrounding area for other clues, and before long, the taller, thinner deputy head constable, somewhat older, came over as well.
“Chief Chen, the deaths of the two Gu family servants — everyone says it was the female assassin’s doing. Now that he and this whole Yang Yi and Yang Heng family are dead here, the case is as good as closed.”
The somewhat tall, thin deputy head constable, surnamed Xu, said this. The head constable, surnamed Chen, smiled at that. “That’s certainly what the prefect would like, isn’t it.”
They’d come out today because of a bloody incident that had occurred outside the city the morning before. Two servants of the Gu family had been taken and their corpses thrown back; the one present at the scene had been the same female assassin who had killed Song Xian on the Duanwu festival. The other Gu family servants present had watched, helpless, as she killed them, and afterward, Gu Yanzhen himself — who held the rank of county magistrate — had also gone missing, at which point everyone realized something had happened, and the search widened to reach this area.
The Yang Yi and Yang Heng brothers who lived out here were themselves notorious villains, living in this remote spot, and if they died, the authorities likely wouldn’t concern themselves much — might even quietly applaud. But Gu Yanzhen’s case happened to fall right at the same time, and with a county magistrate dead within Jiangning’s jurisdiction, some investigation simply had to be made, if only to give the higher-ups an explanation.
The Yang Yi and Yang Heng brothers had always been notoriously arrogant and unrestrained, but also extremely vicious themselves — few in Jiangning would casually cross them, and few could even if they wanted to. Now, upon investigation, the entire family lay dead — likely only someone as formidable as that female assassin could have managed it. As for why Gu Yanzhen and his servants happened to be here, the reasoning would probably depend on whether the higher-ups wanted to blacken his name or brighten it — it hardly mattered either way.
Taken on its own, a county magistrate dying within Jiangning’s jurisdiction, whether the case could be solved or not, would put enormous pressure on the prefect. But this female assassin was formidably skilled, had used violence to defy the law, and had already killed and fled the city. Given that there was already the Song Xian case to draw on, pushing this one upward and merging the two cases would, if anything, become a footnote rather than a separate burden. At midday, as everyone analyzed the case, the prefect had already hinted at wanting to combine the two — he didn’t want two disgusting cases sitting on his hands separately, better to merge them into one. And looking at it now, the logic actually held up cleanly enough: Gu Yanzhen had hired someone to do something underhanded, it had backfired onto that female assassin, and he ended up dead here along with the Yang Yi and Yang Heng family, with the fierce-tempered assassin even killing the other two servants out of spite.
“That’s probably how the case will be closed, then.”
Chief Chen said this with a smile, and the two of them walked along the riverbank. The deputy head constable went over to examine the blood by the riverside — likely the initial scene of the killing — but after a moment, when he turned back, he couldn’t find the other man anywhere. He turned back into the bamboo grove nearby, and only then did he spot Chief Chen — for some reason “sitting” there.
He wasn’t actually sitting, since there was no chair behind him. This composed-looking man had planted himself in a horse stance within the bamboo grove, posed as though seated, hands resting on his knees, the very picture of someone sitting steadily and squarely. He sat there, face turned slightly, gazing off at the ruins of that house on the distant shallows, his expression uncertain, alarmed. Deputy Head Constable Xu was about to walk over when Chen suddenly threw out a hand. “Don’t come closer!”
“What’s wrong?”
The wind swept across the riverbank. Chief Chen sat there for a long while before finally muttering, “This… this is someone terribly ruthless…”