Stepping out of the room, Ning Yi let out a sigh.

Li Pin remained behind in the study, likely still turning those ideas over, perhaps even jotting some of them down. That hardly mattered to Ning Yi either way — once he’d spoken his thoughts aloud, what Li Pin made of them, how he chose to refine them going forward, was Li Pin’s own path to walk from there. Some ideas he’d voiced, others he’d kept to himself, and as he’d said himself: “Just idle talk.” That wasn’t merely a face-saving turn of phrase to avoid responsibility — as far as he was concerned, all of it genuinely was just idle talk, irresponsible musing.

Trying to patch up the flaws and gaps in the political system as it currently stood was, to his mind, next to a pipe dream. Of course, purely in terms of identifying the problems at hand, he’d certainly given it thought — commerce, for instance, wasn’t a pressing weakness for the Wu dynasty at all; if anything it was already a considerable strength, and arguably its strongest one by far. From the standpoint of balanced development, many of the dynasty’s other institutions simply hadn’t kept pace with commerce’s growth — pushing commerce further still, even if it yielded further gains, would only deepen an already lopsided imbalance, and for a nation, such distortion was genuinely dangerous.

As for Confucianism, it had already reached a point of saturation and overflow; if there were truly room to take a proactive step forward, refining the division of labor seemed like a promising direction — on one hand, rationally redirecting the surplus of educated talent, and on the other, preparing the ground for whatever industrial revolution might eventually follow. Of course, however appealing this looked on the surface, the trouble was that it remained, in the end, mere idle talk.

And the root of it all, in truth, lay with Confucianism itself.

When Ning Yi said he admired Confucianism, this wasn’t flattery, nor was it meant ironically — it was a genuine, heartfelt awe. Having spent his previous life immersed in management, he could clearly see the strengths and weaknesses of various management disciplines. A company of several thousand or tens of thousands of employees — he could refine its systems, manage its people well, establish routines for everyone to follow, and things would run smoothly enough. But life wasn’t nearly so simple, and a nation was certainly no shallower an undertaking than that.

Confucianism wasn’t some fusty, useless doctrine of old Confucius the pedant, as some dismissed it — the Analects themselves merely taught principles of personal cultivation, certain patterns of how to live. It was the rulers who came after who found within these patterns the key mechanisms — how to establish rules, how to make use of and guide these very patterns — refining and expanding upon them generation after generation, adjusting and fine-tuning whenever problems arose, seeking compromises where needed. For thousands of years, the finest minds of every dynasty had poured themselves into perfecting this system of governance, like waves sifting through sand, refining it ever further…

Strip away that gentle, seemingly quaint outer shell, and what remained was a governing system of the most thoroughgoing practicality imaginable. In modern management philosophy, cultivating something like corporate culture within a company, giving employees a sense of belonging, already demands enormous effort — practically the ultimate goal in itself. If modern management theory were an eight-bit computer program, Confucianism would be an entire genomic tree diagram — governing the hearts and minds of tens of millions of people, and doing so in a way that left them entirely unaware of it, so that everything simply felt natural and self-evident.

Thousands of years of development and evolution, natural selection and survival of the fittest — if one took the Han people as a single organism, this was, in effect, one of the genetic threads it had evolved. Even a thousand years hence, whoever ruled this land would inevitably end up employing some variation of Confucianism — not because anyone genuinely admired Han culture for its own sake, but because failing to adopt this model meant being weeded out. In terms of sheer sophistication and complexity, none of them — not European constitutional monarchy, parliamentary systems, or ecclesiastical rule, not Japan’s bushido, not India’s caste system — could truly compare to Confucianism.

Like some vast spider’s web — touch one strand, and everyone connected to it pulls back at you, one link tugging at the next in endless layers. To reform it from within, no one could say where exactly to apply force, or how much force would even be needed to achieve results — like striking your fist against the surface of water, however high the splash rises, it inevitably falls back and pushes against you in the end. Anyone seeking to reform it single-handedly faces a colossal web woven from tens of millions of people, the accumulated wisdom of the finest minds from every dynasty across thousands of years — an unfathomably vast tai chi diagram — and one person’s strength attempting to untangle such a knot is like trying to undo a cat’s cradle by force alone.

For his part, Ning Yi could sit and contemplate, even admire, such a system — could even feel a certain thrill at its sheer intricate brilliance, treating it as a kind of art object to behold. But when it came to actually reforming it from within, he held no such confidence in himself. In certain dynasties, truly extraordinary talents had managed to identify the crucial pressure points within the system — though whether those points were truly the right ones, few could ever be fully certain. Wang Anshi’s reforms in the Northern Song saw one such genius, backed by the emperor himself, persevere for years, only to be crushed in the end by the immense pressure that came pushing back. Shang Yang’s reforms in the Qin dynasty had found the right pressure point and succeeded — but as an individual, he’d offended far too many people along the way, and was ultimately torn apart by five chariots.

Chinese philosophy speaks of the interplay of yin and yang in the tai chi — the harder you push, the harder the counterforce pushes back. Those who attempt sweeping reform within the Confucian system rarely meet a good end. Of course, someone with genuine ideas and standing could still push things forward within the system through their own efforts — Li Pin had that standing, and could pursue it if he wished, which was exactly why Ning Yi had offered up those thoughts to him so casually.

But in his own heart, Ning Yi believed internal reform was a thankless, uphill struggle — even with all his skill at scheming and maneuvering, backed by modern theory, he might be able to spin an entire court around like a tai chi practitioner redirecting force, but when that force inevitably came pushing back, he had no confidence he could withstand it either.

And really, why bother trying to withstand it at all? If he genuinely wanted to accomplish something, Ning Yi would only consider becoming another Liao or Jin — toppling the entire Wu dynasty from the outside. Any system of governance had to depend on the people running it; once the nation itself collapsed, the Confucian system would fall into paralysis, and in that moment, someone could seize the opportunity to insert whatever new elements they wanted into the framework, while sweeping away, in the same stroke, all the accumulated cruft the governing system had built up over so many years of operation. Like reformatting a computer system, and then… watching to see what it gradually became as it slowly booted back up and digested the change…

This was, in Ning Yi’s genuine estimation, the simplest path to reform — though of course, even in idle conversation, this wasn’t something he could ever say to Li Pin. What Li Pin wanted was some means of internal reform, so Ning Yi had offered his thoughts on internal reform accordingly. Li Pin wasn’t the type to follow blindly without thinking things through; even if Ning Yi had spoken in deliberately alarming terms, once the initial shock passed, he would naturally digest it and shape it into his own understanding over time. If the man someday truly achieved something of note, Ning Yi supposed he’d simply watch it all unfold from the sidelines, finding it rather interesting in its own right.

It had all been idle chat, nothing more — the afternoon still young, and he was, after all, just an idle, unoccupied merchant’s live-in son-in-law. Once the empty talk was done, he put it out of his mind, and made his way out of the academy. Reaching the gate of Yushan Academy, he spotted two carriages parked outside along the roadside wall, a few attendants and guards apparently waiting for someone. Carriages from the household of the Prince of Yong — Ning Yi felt a flicker of puzzlement and glanced back toward the academy.

Could that brother and sister have come to challenge him again, only to have missed him?

Missing them suited him just fine. Ning Yi shook his head with a mischievous little smile and walked straight on, having not yet had lunch — he planned to grab something at a tavern near the academy. Rounding a corner, he spotted Xiao Chan coming from the other direction; passing through the shade of a large scholar tree by the roadside, she caught sight of him and waved with a smile. “Young Master.” Sunlight filtered down through the branches above.

Following behind Xiao Chan was a household servant carrying a few boxes. With so many refugees having suddenly poured into the city of late, though public order remained largely intact, the Su household had nonetheless instructed that the women and maids always be accompanied when going out, just in case. This servant had apparently been sent along by Xiao Chan as an escort and bodyguard for the trip; having now spotted Ning Yi, Xiao Chan turned back, said a few words, then gave a slight nod and bow of thanks, sending the man on his way. The servant looked rather flattered by the courtesy — when in a good mood, Xiao Chan was always the most gracious sort, warm and polite to everyone.

Meanwhile, at the gate of Yushan Academy that Ning Yi had just left, the brother and sister crept furtively out from where they’d been hiding, and, seeing no sign of him, dropped their pretense and walked out openly. Zhou Junwu looked up and down the street, shoulders slumping. “Sister, that Ning Yi really is something.”

Zhou Pei fell silent for a moment, brow furrowed, and after a good while finally glanced at her brother. “I know he’s something.”

“So are we still going to question him?”

“Of course we’re going to ask him.” Zhou Pei thought it over, heading toward the carriage. “But only once we’re properly prepared.”

“Mm-hm.” Zhou Junwu followed along behind, nodding in agreement. “To think he even got that Li Pin to concede defeat — he really must be something. I wonder just how good he really is… though I didn’t quite follow everything he said either. Sister, sister, did you understand it?”

“Quiet.”

“Oh… but I was thinking…”

The siblings’ voices faded away down the street as their carriage pulled off, in the early-autumn afternoon beneath drifting white clouds. On the other side of the street, Ning Yi and Xiao Chan were making their way toward a nearby tavern.

That evening, Zhou Pei sat lost in thought in the garden of the Prince of Kang’s residence, with no lamps lit around her and no maids coming to disturb her. The young girl, holding the rank of a princess in her own right, had always liked quiet moments like this to think things over. Dressed in a long skirt, her hair still damp from her bath, she’d taken off her shoes and stockings and sat leaning back in the garden pavilion. It was nearly mid-July, the moonlight bright and clear, fireflies drifting among the nearby flowers and grasses.

Zhou Junwu wasn’t home that evening — after dinner he’d run off to play at Uncle Consort’s place, and was now sitting in the garden of the Prince Consort’s residence enjoying the cool evening air as well. Taking advantage of a quiet moment while the other children ran about playing, he quietly recounted to Kang Xian what he’d overheard that day.

“Uncle Consort, that Ning Yi — does what he said make sense?”

Kang Xian’s brow furrowed, his gaze suddenly turning grave as a deep, still pool — he was known for his rigorous scholarship, though in front of children like Zhou Pei and Zhou Junwu he usually kept a different, gentler demeanor, rarely showing this particular look unless discussing genuinely weighty matters with people like old Qin. Such gravity wasn’t something he brought out for mere friendly chat.

“Is that… all he said?”

“Mm. Sister seemed to understand some of it, though there was probably a lot she didn’t follow either… I think he’s really something, since even that Li Pin conceded to him. Uncle Consort, could you ask him to be my tutor…”

At that same moment, over at the Su residence, on the second-floor corridor of the little building, Ning Yi had already forgotten all the rambling nonsense he’d spouted earlier that day, and was now sitting leisurely in the pavilion peeling oranges with Su Tan’er, Chan’er, Juan’er, and Xing’er. Not that it was entirely leisurely, mind you — having finished one orange, Su Tan’er wiped her mouth and stood up. “I’m full — husband, take your time.”

“Hey, no need to rush off so fast.”

Ning Yi said this casually enough, though it was exactly the kind of manner Su Tan’er had grown quite used to. There were still plenty of oranges left in the little bamboo basket on the table. Su Tan’er turned back with an apologetic, helpless little smile. “Still have things to attend to…”

“Need any help?”

“No need — husband, just enjoy your oranges.”

Su Tan’er smiled brightly and turned back toward her room. She really had been quite busy lately, with the flooding bearing down and the city gates soon to close — all sorts of matters needed contingency plans drawn up in advance, and funds needed to be quietly siphoned off and accumulated in preparation for some larger move. Tiring as it was, her spirits seemed good, likely a sign that the matter of the imperial merchant status had genuinely made a breakthrough.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, just like life itself these days…