Chapter 45 - Low Lamps in Yan Pavilion

A New Post in the Outer Room

After daybreak, Mu Qi was still Mu Qi.

Outside, someone was drawing water. The wooden buckets knocked dully against the stone lip of the well, one thud after another. In the communal sleeping room, the men woke by degrees. One turned over and cursed the cold. One groped for his shoes and sat up. Another still kept half his face buried in an old quilt, unwilling to open his eyes. The room still smelled of sweat, wine, and mildew all mixed together, as though nothing at all had happened the night before.

A-Dong sat up with a yawn, his hair in such disarray it looked as though a chicken had raked through it with its claws.

When he saw that Fang Yingjie was already dressed and was standing there with his head lowered, fastening his cuffs, he rubbed his eyes and said, "Mu Qi, did you even sleep last night?"

Fang Yingjie's fingers paused.

"I slept."

A-Dong gave him a dubious look. "You call that sleep? Your eyes are black enough to scrape soot off a pot."

Fang Yingjie did not answer. He only finished tying his cuffs.

His outer robe had been dampened by the night dew. After wringing it out, he had hung it over the corner of the sleeping platform, but it had not dried completely. When he put it on now, there was still a trace of cold in the cloth. The chill touched his skin, and at once he thought of the reeds behind the ruined temple, the damp dew he had wiped from the nameless stone, and the words Wang Yan had left him with before she went—

In daylight, you are still Mu Qi.

Mu Qi.

In Baoque Tower, that name was a light thing.

As light as two casual characters carved onto a wooden tag in the outer yard. As light as the bark of an order from Old Zhao. As light as the name of some menial servant called over to wipe up spilled wine from the floor.

But after last night, those two characters had become heavy.

Because someone knew Mu Qi was not Mu Qi.

Someone knew he was Fang Yingjie.

And someone had let him know that the storm over the lake ten years ago had not swallowed every last soul from his old life.

Seeing that he remained silent, A-Dong stretched out a leg and nudged the wooden basin beneath the sleeping platform.

"Come on. Any later and Steward Zhao will start cursing again."

Fang Yingjie nodded, picked up the basin, and followed the others out.

By day, Baoque Tower was nothing like it was at night.

The red lanterns had been extinguished one by one, and beneath the eaves there lingered only the smell of lamp oil. The fumes of last night's wine had not yet fully dispersed. Crushed flower petals lay scattered across the floor of the front hall. A half-burned stick of incense lay damp and crooked. Someone had even left behind a jade button. Most of the girls had already gone to sleep. Upstairs, the curtains hung low, and the fragrance of rouge and powder had settled into the cracks of closed doors, as though the whole night's clamor had finally been shut away inside wood.

The outer yard, however, was already in motion.

There came the unbroken sound of firewood being chopped in the kitchen. Buckets were lined up by the well. Someone was hauling jars beside the wine cellar. Two serving boys were carrying away the bronze basins cleared from the night before. Old Zhao stood at the mouth of the corridor with a short length of split bamboo in one hand. Whoever was slow by even a step would hear it strike the doorframe. The sound was not loud, but it was enough to make a man's back tighten.

"Move!"

"The ones who were drinking last night were the guests, not you lot. Who are you dragging those soft legs around for?"

A-Dong lowered his voice. "Hear that? Steward Zhao's in a foul temper today."

Fang Yingjie lowered his head and lifted an empty wine jar.

Old Zhao's gaze swept over him and stopped for a moment.

"Mu Qi."

Fang Yingjie set down the jar and went over. "Steward Zhao."

Old Zhao looked him up and down. "Didn't sleep well?"

"I slept."

Old Zhao grunted. "Every last one of you says that. If you'd really slept, your eyes wouldn't look like you owed the King of Hell three strings of cash."

A few of the servants beside them laughed under their breath.

Fang Yingjie did not argue.

Old Zhao did not go on scolding either. He only rapped the bamboo strip once against the corridor pillar.

"Leave the wine jars. Go wait in the side corridor off the front hall."

Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes. "The front hall?"

"Are you deaf?"

Old Zhao glared at him. "Mama Qi wants you."

The moment A-Dong heard that, he craned his neck over, keeping his voice low though his eyes lit up at once.

"Mama Qi? Mu Qi, what did you do?"

Old Zhao cracked him on the head with the bamboo strip.

A-Dong yelped and shrank back.

"Ask less."

After cursing him, Old Zhao turned back to Fang Yingjie. His voice was a little lower now than before.

"When you get to the front hall, remember the same few rules. Keep your eyes down. Keep your ears deaf. Keep your hands quick. Whatever Mama Qi asks, answer that and nothing more. Don't look around, and don't think too much."

Fang Yingjie lowered his gaze. "Yes."

He followed a serving boy from the front hall through the side corridor.

Without the lamps and glitter of night, the front hall by day felt emptier, broader. The tables and chairs had already been set back in order. Water had been sprinkled over the floor. Several little maids were wiping down the railings with cloths. The faint remains of wine, powder, and lamp oil still clung to the air, and after the wash of clean water, the chill left by spent revelry showed all the more clearly. The qin table on the raised platform had long since been removed. Curtains were half drawn back, and sunlight fell through the lattice windows across the floor like strips of cold white paper.

Mama Qi sat to one side of the hall with a ledger before her.

She was not wearing the crimson she usually favored for greeting guests. Today she was dressed in pale lotus-gray, and her hair was arranged simply as well. Without the bright bustle she wore beneath the lamps at night, Mama Qi in daylight showed the sharper edges of her nature—cool-headed, shrewd, and very much awake.

Iron Mask stood near one of the corridor pillars leading upstairs, not far from her.

He still wore that old iron mask and stood as straight as ever. By day, the mask looked colder than it did at night—its iron surface dark and heavy, covering most of his face. At first his gaze was fixed on the stairway. Only when he heard footsteps did it turn, slow and belated, in their direction.

The serving boy walked up to Mama Qi and said softly, "Mama, Mu Qi is here."

As Fang Yingjie approached, Iron Mask looked at him once.

That glance was still slow, but it was no longer as empty as before.

As though through a layer of murky water, something at last had begun to take shape within it.

Fang Yingjie did not raise his head. He only bowed as the rules required.

"Mama Qi."

Mama Qi turned a page in the ledger and studied him at leisure.

"Mu Qi."

"Yes."

"I hear you can read."

"A little."

"And write?"

"Yes."

"Is your hand steady?"

Fang Yingjie paused. "I can do the work."

Mama Qi laughed once. "I asked whether your hand was steady, and you answered that you can do the work. You know how to sidestep a question."

She glanced down at the thin sheet of paper pinned beside the ledger and continued, "Steward Zhao says you don't talk much, but your hands are indeed steady. The last time Young Master Shen's qin was carried into Yan Pavilion, it was you who brought it in. Not a single bump along the way. Even the corners of the case stayed straight."

Fang Yingjie kept his eyes lowered. "I only followed instructions."

Mama Qi nodded. "Yan Pavilion is short one attendant in the outer room."

At those words, Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened slightly inside his sleeves.

As though she had not seen it, Mama Qi went on.

"The last boy assigned there was too clumsy. Two days ago he knocked over a whole box of incense pellets. Miss Yan Ji does not care for coarse hands and clumsy feet. Since Steward Zhao says your hands are steady, and since you know a few characters, I had you brought here to ask."

She closed the ledger.

"The work in the outer room is not much lighter than the work in the back yard. It is only a different place. Qin scores, gift registers, tea sets, incense boxes, lamps and candles, the things guests send in—someone must sort them all, count them all, put them all in order. Anything in Yan Pavilion that gets damaged must be paid for. If you do not do well, you can go back to hauling wine jars in the outer yard."

Fang Yingjie lowered his head. "Yes."

Mama Qi looked at him. "There are rules."

"Please instruct me, Mama."

"First: if it is a door you should not enter, you do not enter it."

"Yes."

"Second: if it is words you should not hear, you do not hear them."

"Yes."

"Third: if it is something you should not see, you do not see it."

"Yes."

"Fourth: whatever Miss Yan Ji tells you to do, you do. If she gives no order, then you wait in the outer room. If guests are present, you are not to raise your head and look around. If anyone asks you, you say only that you are a new attendant assigned to Yan Pavilion. Have you remembered all that?"

"I have."

Mama Qi studied him for another moment.

"The silver you owe the Tower will still be deducted from your monthly pay as before. Being moved to Yan Pavilion does not release you from your contract, and it does not raise your standing."

"I understand."

"Good."

Mama Qi pushed the ledger toward the little maid standing beside her and said coolly, "From today on, you serve in Yan Pavilion by day, but at night you still return to the outer yard dormitory. Steward Zhao still keeps you on his register. If Yan Pavilion has no use for you, you go back to work in the outer yard as before."

She paused, then added, "Do not think that just because you have gone to Yan Pavilion, you have flown up onto the branch. You are still Mu Qi."

Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes. "Yes."

"Go, then," said Mama Qi. "Start in the outer room of Yan Pavilion. Make a clean copy of the gift registers that have piled up these past few days. If your handwriting is too ugly, you will copy them again."

Fang Yingjie followed the little maid upstairs.

As he passed Iron Mask, the man suddenly moved.

It was only a small movement, a slight tightening of the fingers, as though he wanted to lift a hand but no longer remembered whether he should.

Fang Yingjie did not slow, nor did he look up.

When they brushed past one another, he said in a voice so low it was nearly drowned beneath the sound of sweeping below, "Brother Shun."

Iron Mask did not answer.

But his eyes shifted behind the mask.

As though a drop of water had fallen into a very deep, very dark well.

The little maid had heard nothing. She kept walking ahead.

Yan Pavilion was even quieter by day than by night.

Before, when Fang Yingjie had seen it through layers of lantern light, he had thought it elegant and clean, nothing like the garishness of the front hall. Only now, at close range, did he see clearly that the outer room of Yan Pavilion lay to one side behind the main chamber, connected on one side to the reception room and by a small door on the other to the inner corridor, so that it did not obstruct the comings and goings of its mistress. The furnishings there were not many. By the window stood a qin table with a qin stand beside it. On the other side was a smaller writing desk, piled with several qin scores, a few rolls of paper, an inkstone, and half a stick of incense burned down. In the corner was a low cabinet, its upper surface neatly arranged with incense boxes, teacups, a jade flute, and several brocade cases sealed shut.

The waterside window stood half open.

A breeze came in off the lake with the faintest trace of dampness in it. The smell was so slight that another man might not have noticed it, but it made Fang Yingjie think at once of the reeds behind the ruined temple.

The little maid pointed to the writing desk. "Mama Qi says the gift registers are here. The far end of the inner corridor leads to Miss Yan Ji's private rooms. Unless you are summoned, you are not to go there. When you finish copying, leave everything on the desk and wait for me to collect it."

Fang Yingjie nodded.

After she left, he was alone in the outer room.

He stood there for a moment without sitting down at once.

This was the outer room of Yan Pavilion.

What Wang Yan had said to him the night before rose slowly again in his ears.

A place to practice does not have to be in front of a grave.

Fang Yingjie lowered his head and looked at his hands.

The new scar across his palm, rubbed raw by hemp rope and coffin wood, had already crusted over. When he touched it, it felt hard.

Now he stood in the outer room of Yan Pavilion.

Outside the window there was no nameless grave of his father.

But behind him stood the road to survival that Wang Yan had fought for him inch by inch.

He went to the writing desk and sat down, taking up the gift register.

One by one, the items sent into Yan Pavilion over the last several days, still not yet fully entered and arranged, were listed across the page—incense, jade, silk, qin scores, poem scrolls, medicinal tea, pearl strings, painted scrolls. Behind each entry was written the surname of the giver and the quantity sent. In the eyes of the guests, these things were tokens of elegance, signs of devotion, little glimmers of hope that might open a path into Yan Pavilion. But on this sheet of paper, they were only words, numbers, things to be entered into an account. Fang Yingjie ground ink and spread out a fresh sheet.

He did not write quickly.

Each stroke was deliberate, pressed down with perfect steadiness.

When he reached the line, One qin from Young Master Shen, the tip of his brush paused for a moment.

That had been the night he carried the instrument in. And it was there, in the shifting lantern light of Yan Pavilion, that Yan Ji had asked him which mu and which qi.

Had she recognized him even then?

Perhaps she had.

Perhaps she had not yet dared to be certain.

Just as he himself had never dared imagine that Yan Ji would turn out to be Wang Yan.

Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes and went on writing.

He did not know how much time had passed when the small door leading to the inner corridor gave a soft sound.

The brush in his hand did not stop.

The door did not open fully. It opened only a crack, facing directly toward the small writing desk in the outer room.

"Mu Qi."

It was Yan Ji's voice.

Miss Yan Ji's voice in daylight was steadier than Wang Yan's at the graveside the night before, and cooler too.

Fang Yingjie set down the brush, rose, and lowered his head.

"Miss Yan Ji."

There was a brief silence beyond the door.

Then that voice gave a light laugh.

The laughter was faint, but it was not the sort she used for the guests who filled the Tower.

"Your handwriting is good."

"You flatter me, Miss."

"When you finish the gift register, leave it on the desk."

"Yes."

"This afternoon, sort through the qin scores on the third shelf of the cabinet to the left. Set aside any torn pages and make note of any missing ones."

"Yes."

"You needn't touch the incense boxes."

"Yes."

The person behind the door seemed to pause.

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.

"Eat."

Fang Yingjie's fingers gave the slightest twitch.

"Yes."

"And put medicine on that hand."

"Yes."

When she spoke a third time, her voice fell so low that it seemed to rest only in the narrow space between the two sides of the door.

"Do not climb the wall and slip out of town again tonight."

Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.

The silence beyond the door deepened.

Within that silence, Miss Yan Ji vanished.

It was Wang Yan who was looking at him from inside.

In a low voice, Fang Yingjie said, "I know."

The person behind the door seemed to let out a faint sigh.

"Good."

After a moment, another sentence came.

"Mu Qi."

"Yes."

"In daylight, do not call me by the wrong name."

Fang Yingjie kept his gaze lowered. "I know."

"Good, then."

The small door closed softly, and the inner corridor beyond sank quiet again.

Fang Yingjie stood where he was for a long while without moving.

The breeze from the lake stirred the freshly copied gift register at the corner of the desk. The edge of the paper trembled lightly. The ink had not yet dried.

Below, he could vaguely hear Old Zhao cursing at someone again. In the front hall, people were moving tables and chairs. In the kitchen, someone was shouting that there was not enough firewood. Baoque Tower went on through the day as it always did. No one knew that Yan Pavilion had gained a new servant in its outer room, much less that the bowed and silent Mu Qi, bent over a gift register, had only the night before reclaimed his old name before two lonely graves.

Slowly, Fang Yingjie sat back down at the desk.

He took up the brush and went on copying.

Every stroke was steady.

Like holding a stance.

Like practicing the saber.

By afternoon, the little maid brought him a bowl of rice and a cup of hot soup.

The meal was nothing special. Compared with the outer yard, it had only one extra small dish of greens, though the soup held two slices of ginger. The little maid set it down and said, "Miss does not like the people working in the outer room to copy on an empty stomach. Eat first, then go on."

Fang Yingjie looked at the soup.

The scent of ginger was faint.

But it was warm.

After a moment of silence, he lifted it and drank a mouthful.

The warmth went down his throat. The patch of cold he had carried back from the night dew in his chest finally began, little by little, to dissolve.

Toward evening, Iron Mask came to the doorway of the outer room.

He held an empty teacup in his hand, as though he had brought it out from the inner corridor. But after setting it down, he did not leave.

Fang Yingjie looked up.

Iron Mask was looking at him too.

The two of them stood separated by half a room, neither speaking.

After a while, Iron Mask slowly raised a hand and pointed at himself, then at Fang Yingjie, as though he were trying to recall something and could not remember how to say it.

Fang Yingjie set down the brush and said softly, "By day, I am Mu Qi."

Iron Mask looked at him.

Fang Yingjie added, "At night, when no one is around, I am Little Mu."

Iron Mask seemed to understand a little, and at the same time not fully.

Slowly, he lowered his hand again.

The gaze behind the mask rested on Fang Yingjie, heavy and delayed. After a very long pause, a faint sound finally scraped out of his throat.

"Mu..."

Fang Yingjie's chest tightened.

"Yes."

In a low voice, he said, "Mu Qi or Little Mu—it is all me."

Iron Mask stood there without moving.

Outside, the sky was darkening. In the front hall, lanterns were being lit again. When the first red lantern flared to life, its glow slanted in through the corridor and fell over the old iron face of the mask, and over the qin score Fang Yingjie had not yet finished sorting.

Night was coming again to Baoque Tower.

Fang Yingjie lowered his head and pulled out the last torn page from the stack, setting it aside.

He knew he had not gone to his father's grave today.

But he had not forgotten either.

He went to close the door leading out to the outer corridor.

One lamp remained lit.

It could not be too bright—if it was too bright, it would draw notice. Yet it could not be fully extinguished either, for if someone passed by and found the room dark, that too would look strange. He lowered the lampshade until only a muted ring of yellow light remained, resting on the writing desk, the qin stand, and the floorboards.

The outer room fell quiet.

Fang Yingjie took down an old curtain rod from beside the wall, gripped it in his hand, and slowly stepped to the center of the room.

In his heart, he spoke softly to the nameless grave.

Father.

Your son is here tonight.

Your son is still practicing.

He could not make a sound while he practiced. He could not shake the floorboards. He could not let the wooden rod sweep against the qin table, the incense boxes, or the low cabinet.

By the third run-through, the small door in the inner corridor suddenly made a soft sound.

The curtain rod stopped in Fang Yingjie's hand, suspended in midair.

The door opened a crack.

Wang Yan stood behind it.

She was not dressed in the clothes she wore to receive guests. She had only a plain light robe draped over her shoulders, and most of the ornaments had already been removed from her hair. In the lampglow, there was less of Miss Yan Ji's cool distance in her face, and less too of that unreadable smile she wore beneath the lanterns in the front hall.

She looked at the old curtain rod in his hand, then at the lamp turned low in the outer room, and asked softly, "Did I disturb you?"

Fang Yingjie withdrew the move and lowered the rod.

"No."

Wang Yan did not come in at once.

She first glanced back over her shoulder.

In the dim inner corridor beyond, Iron Mask stood half in shadow. He did not enter. He stood with his back to the small door and his face turned toward the mouth of the corridor, like a silent iron bolt barring the road to Yan Ji's private rooms.

Only then did Wang Yan step out and gently close the door behind her.

She carried a book in one hand and a small lacquered box in the other. When she set the box on the writing desk, it made hardly any sound at all, as though she feared waking the night.

"Go on with your practice," she said. "I won't speak."

Fang Yingjie looked at her.

Wang Yan sat down by the window, opened the book, then added, "And I won't watch you either."

Though she said that, her eyes still lingered on him for one instant more.

Fang Yingjie lowered his gaze. He had meant to answer, but the words reached his lips and stopped there.

Wang Yan looked at him. "What is it?"

Fang Yingjie gripped the old curtain rod, his knuckles tightening a fraction.

"Tonight..."

He spoke slowly.

"Miss... doesn't have to receive guests?"

Wang Yan went still for a moment, then smiled.

The smile was faint, nothing like the one she used for the men in the front hall. It was more like the Wang Yan from ten years ago by the ferry crossing, the one who liked to tease him on purpose, slipping back out through her eyes for an instant.

"Are you afraid I have a guest," she asked softly, "or hoping I don't?"

The tips of Fang Yingjie's ears warmed. He lowered his head. "That was not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

She had cornered him with too simple a question. For a moment he could not answer at all.

Seeing the look on his face, Wang Yan's smile softened.

"Don't worry," she said quietly. "I do not keep a guest every night."

Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes slightly.

Wang Yan laid the book across her knees and spoke very softly.

"Yan Pavilion has its own rules. Only once each month, on guest-selection night, do I decide whether I need to keep anyone. On ordinary nights, whether I see anyone at all depends on my mood. And even if I do, at most I speak a few words through a curtain, listen to a tune, accept a gift."

She paused, then looked at the old curtain rod in his hand.

"So tonight, there is no guest."

Fang Yingjie said nothing.

Wang Yan laughed softly. "Can you practice now?"

Lowering his eyes again, Fang Yingjie answered, "Mm."

Wang Yan reopened her book.

"Then practice."

Only then did Fang Yingjie slowly retreat to the center of the outer room and take his stance again.

So the outer room grew quiet.

On one side, he used the rod in place of a saber, each rise and fall of the form controlled to the last inch. On the other, there was only the faint, faint sound of pages turning in her hands. The lamp burned low. Iron Mask stood guard outside the inner door. The fragrance of incense and wine in the depths of the red tower had been shut far away, and for that little stretch of time, this narrow outer room seemed like a place stolen in secret from Baoque Tower itself.

By the time Fang Yingjie stopped, the web between thumb and forefinger was hot, and the bones of his wrist were beginning to ache dully.

Wang Yan seemed to have been reading all along, but only then did she raise her eyes.

"Do your hands hurt?"

"No."

Wang Yan looked at him. "When you lied in the past, your eyes looked just like that too."

Fang Yingjie froze.

The words were too old.

Old as the wind by the shore of Tai Lake ten years ago. Old as the hot rice Aunt Qian used to hand him from beside the stove. Old as the oil lamp on Wang A-Fu's boat before it had gone out. Old as the night before the rain over the lake finally began to fall.

He lowered his head and looked at his palm. He did not argue again.

Wang Yan opened the little lacquered box and took out a piece of sugar pastry, setting it by the desk.

"Rest a while."

"I haven't finished."

"You never will."

Her voice was very soft.

"Martial skill cannot be finished. Vengeance cannot be finished either. If you wear yourself down first, then you will have nothing left at all."

Fang Yingjie was silent for a moment. At last he set down the old curtain rod and sat by the desk.

The sugar pastry had already gone a little cool.

He picked it up and bit into it.

The sweetness was faint, but slowly it melted over his tongue. It was such a light sweetness that it scarcely seemed like something from Baoque Tower at all. Instead it felt like the half-piece of pastry Aunt Qian used to slip him from beside the stove so many years ago.

Watching him eat, Wang Yan suddenly smiled.

"You really do not look like a sickly weakling anymore."

"I never was."

"You used to be out of breath after walking a few steps, and you still say you weren't?"

"That was before."

"And now?"

Fang Yingjie looked at the old curtain rod by the table and said in a low voice, "Now it still isn't enough."

Wang Yan did not smile again.

She poured herself half a cup of wine, then poured him half a cup as well. The wine was very light, not fierce on the tongue, more like a little warmth dissolved into the night.

Neither of them said much after that.

One sat there with his head lowered, eating cool sugar pastry. The other sat by the window, turning pages at an unhurried pace. Iron Mask kept watch outside. Below, the red lanterns gradually dimmed. The night wind crept in through the window crack, and the lamp flame trembled once, only to steady again beneath the quiet pressure of Fang Yingjie's controlled breath.

More than an hour passed before Wang Yan closed her book.

"Go back and sleep."

Fang Yingjie looked up.

Wang Yan had already put away the lacquered box and risen to her feet.

"Tomorrow, in daylight, you still have to be Mu Qi."

In a low voice, Fang Yingjie said, "And you still have to be Yan Ji."

Wang Yan looked at him and smiled lightly. "That is why we both need sleep."

She turned and walked to the small door leading to the inner corridor. Her fingers rested on the latch, then she looked back at him once.

"If nothing comes up tomorrow night, I'll come again."

Fang Yingjie did not say yes, and he did not say no.

He only rose and answered in a low voice, "Mm."

The small door closed softly.

Iron Mask was still standing outside. Only after Wang Yan had returned to her room, after Fang Yingjie had put away the curtain rod and extinguished the lamp, did he slowly turn and follow the corridor inward.

Later still, Fang Yingjie returned to the communal sleeping room in the outer yard.

A-Dong was already sprawled asleep. Hearing the noise, he turned over groggily.

"Mu Qi..."

Fang Yingjie paused.

With his eyes still closed, A-Dong mumbled a curse.

"You people in Yan Pavilion... how is it even busier than hauling wine jars..."

Fang Yingjie did not answer.

Carefully, he lay down.

The old quilt was still damp. The room still smelled of sweat, wine, and mildew. But when he closed his eyes, it seemed to him that a trace of sweetness still lingered on his tongue from the sugar pastry.

Very faint.

And not yet gone.

Lamplight Growing Warm

On the second night, the outer room was still lit by only a single lamp. Its shade hung low, and the pale yellow light fell across the writing desk and the old curtain rod leaning against the wall. Downstairs, red lanterns were flaring to life one by one. Laughter from the front hall, voices urging one another to drink, the distant strains of a lute—after passing through layer upon layer of curtains, the noise had already faded by the time it reached the outer room of Yan Pavilion, leaving behind only the faintest murmur of revelry.

Fang Yingjie pressed the gift list he had copied out that day beneath the corner of the desk, then put several worn music books back in order.

Supper had come before nightfall.

A bowl of rice, a dish of greens, and a small bowl of hot soup. It was not elaborate food, but it was hot, and far more punctual than anything served over in the common quarters of the outer yard. When the little maid set it down, she said only, "Miss said you'll still be on duty tonight, so eat first."

Fang Yingjie asked no questions.

He lowered his head and finished the meal, then set the bowls by the door to be collected. Only when the hot soup settled in his stomach did he feel some of the hollowness that had pressed on his chest all day begin to lift.

He knew this need not have been a rule of Yan Pavilion.

It was Wang Yan who had remembered that he needed to eat.

When the dishes were gone and the outer room fell quiet again, he rose and moved to stand in the middle of the floor.

Before he settled into his stance, he glanced once at the small door that opened onto the inner corridor.

The door made no sound.

He drew his gaze back, lowered his eyes, and slowly curled his fingers shut.

That night, he practiced Fang Family Fist.

Fang Tieshan had once said that Fang Family Fist did not chase the strange. Before anything else, it demanded that one stand straight and true.

Fang Yingjie threw each punch very slowly, so slowly it hardly looked like practice at all. It was more like he was standing in the dark, setting his own bones straight one by one.

He was halfway through the second set when the little door to the inner corridor gave a soft sound.

His fist paused in mid-motion.

Only for half a breath.

The door opened a crack.

Wang Yan stood there with a book in one hand and the little lacquered box still cradled in the other. Today she wore a plain old robe of pale green rather than anything meant for receiving guests, and in her hair there was only a simple silver pin set at an angle. The lamplight touched the side of her face, taking away some of Miss Yan Ji's cool reserve, and with it some of that unfathomable allure Baoque Tower draped over her like silk.

She said nothing. She only looked at the fist he had halted in the air.

Fang Yingjie lowered his stance and said quietly, "You came."

The words startled him the moment they left his mouth.

His voice had been too soft—and yet too natural.

As though the words had been waiting inside him for a very long time, and the moment the door sounded and she appeared beyond it, they had simply fallen from his lips of their own accord.

Wang Yan heard it too.

She looked at him, and there seemed to be the faintest trace of a smile in her eyes, though she did not expose him. She only gave a soft, "Mm."

Outside, Iron Mask still stood in the half-light of the inner corridor.

He never came in, and he never went far. Each night, whenever Wang Yan came to the outer room, he would stand outside that small door with his back to it, facing the deeper dark of the corridor. No matter how many footsteps passed through Baoque Tower, no matter how much laughter rose and fell, none of it could cross the silence of that weathered iron figure.

Wang Yan set the little lacquered box on the desk and took a seat by the window.

"Go on," she said, opening her book. "You practice. I'll read."

Fang Yingjie nodded.

This time, he did not ask whether she would be receiving guests that night.

Wang Yan did not explain.

Quiet soon settled over the outer room.

On one side was the light, slow whisper of his fists. On the other was the soft dry sound of pages turning in her hands. Now and then someone downstairs burst into laughter, or a wine cup struck a tabletop with a sharp clink, the sound reaching them like pebbles broken open in distant water, all edges worn away by the time it rose this high.

Wang Yan read.

Fang Yingjie practiced.

Iron Mask kept watch.

As though this little outer room could truly hide another kind of night altogether in the depths of Baoque Tower.

And later, many nights passed in just this way.

By day, Fang Yingjie was still Mu Qi.

He kept his eyes lowered and spent his hours in Yan Pavilion sorting music books, copying gift lists, and counting the tea, incense, silk, and jade sent by guests. If anyone passed the outer room and asked what the new attendant was called, he answered Mu Qi. From time to time, Mama Qi would come up for a glance and ask only whether anything had been damaged or whether the accounts were wrong. Downstairs, when Old Zhao saw him, he still barked at him to move faster and not imagine that getting assigned to Yan Pavilion meant he could slack off.

No one knew that once the lamp was turned low at night, Mu Qi would stand up again.

Sometimes he practiced fist techniques.

Sometimes palm techniques.

Sometimes saber forms.

The fist was the Fang family's—heavy in the feet, upright to the bone. The palm was Dragoncloud Palm: lifting, yielding, turning, settling, the force never seeking display, only flowing inch by inch within the smallest span. As for the saber, he had no saber. He could only use the old curtain rod, a bamboo ruler, a broom handle. Sometimes, even in the middle of copying a gift list by day, his brush would turn over a blank space on the paper and his mind would already be traveling the path of another cut.

Breaking the Waves at the Gate.

Severing the River Midstream.

One Saber Splits the Peaks.

A brush could not cut a man.

But a brush could remember the path.

The old curtain rod could not leave a scabbard.

But the old curtain rod could build the force behind the strike.

Day by day, it all grew more familiar in his hands.

What Fang Tieshan had passed on to him beneath the earth had once been like sparks buried in bone. Now, at last, they were beginning to burn their way free. Fang Family Fist was no longer merely a set of verses. Dragoncloud Palm was no longer only the weight his father had pressed into his hand before death. And as for the Fang family's saber art, though no true saber lay in his grasp, its force had already begun to take root in the bones of his wrist.

Yet familiar was not the same as tested.

There was no one to exchange moves with him.

No one to force him to change in the middle of a form.

No one to show him how much tempering still separated his fists, palms, and saber from the famous masters of the martial world.

At times, Iron Mask watched.

Standing outside the door, he would now and then lift a hand with awkward slowness, as if he wanted to follow along, or else had merely been stirred by the old shadows of movement. But he had never been one of the martial world's great masters to begin with. After all he had suffered, his strength ran brokenly and much of his mind had gone with it. Guarding a doorway, protecting a person, frightening off ordinary drunken patrons—that was already enough. If Fang Yingjie wanted someone to exchange moves with him, Iron Mask was far from sufficient.

Fang Yingjie never asked him to practice.

Iron Mask never came in.

He simply stood there.

Like the Wang family's last broken gate.

Whenever Wang Yan came, she came without noise.

Sometimes she brought a book.

Sometimes a painting.

Sometimes a small embroidery hoop and sat by the window, head lowered, drawing thread through cloth. Everything she did was quiet. She read without sound, painted without sound, embroidered without sound. It was as if she feared disturbing Fang Yingjie's practice—or feared disturbing the hard-won stillness they had managed to steal inside that little room.

At first, every time Fang Yingjie heard the door move, he would stop.

Later, Wang Yan said to him, "I'm not here to make you stop."

He answered softly, "I'm afraid the rod might sweep into you."

Wang Yan seated herself by the window and slowly unfolded her book.

"If you can't keep even that much measure," she said, "then you shouldn't be practicing at all."

Fang Yingjie said no more.

He settled into his stance again.

Only from that night onward, every movement he made was steadier than before.

Steady enough that the old curtain rod could sweep past three feet in front of Wang Yan without so much as lifting the corner of the page resting on her knee.

Wang Yan noticed.

She did not praise him.

Only on the following night, she moved where she sat half a foot closer.

Fang Yingjie noticed that too.

He said nothing.

But that night the curtain rod in his hand moved more slowly than usual, and more steadily as well.

Once, Wang Yan came later than usual.

Fang Yingjie had already finished his fist practice and was seated at the desk copying out an old score. The lamplight was dim, the ink ground pale. When he reached a blank space, the tip of his brush suddenly moved sideways across the paper and drew a slow line.

It was a very light stroke.

It did not look like writing.

When Wang Yan pushed the door open, she saw it at once.

She stood there a moment before speaking.

Fang Yingjie sensed her presence as well. His brush paused, and he looked up.

Wang Yan walked in and set the embroidery hoop and thread in her hand onto the desk. Her gaze fell to the brush between his fingers.

"You can practice with a brush too?"

Fang Yingjie looked down at it. "It isn't brushwork."

"Then what is it?"

"Saber technique."

Something flickered at Wang Yan's lashes.

She did not press him, and she did not laugh.

She only looked once at the empty place at his waist, then at the old curtain rod by the wall.

"You can practice saber technique like that?"

"When there's no saber, this is all I can do."

Once the words were out, Fang Yingjie fell silent himself.

No saber.

The words were light.

Light enough to sound like nothing worth remarking on.

But Wang Yan heard them.

Lowering her head, she picked up the embroidery hoop and slowly threaded a fine strand through the eye of the needle.

"Mm."

That was all she said.

After that, she asked no more.

Fang Yingjie assumed she had not taken it to heart, and so he said nothing further either.

That night Wang Yan sat by the window embroidering.

The needle passed through the cloth and came back from the other side. The light was too dim to make out what she was stitching. He could only see her fingertips pause from time to time, as if she were thinking about something.

When Fang Yingjie practiced his saber forms, the old curtain rod swept across the air before him.

And Wang Yan's needle passed through the cloth in her hands.

One practiced the saber of a man with no saber.

One stitched at thoughts she never spoke aloud.

Neither disturbed the other.

And so the days went by, one after another.

At times, when the night grew deep, the three of them would circle out of Baoque Tower.

Not every night.

If they went every night, people would begin to notice the pattern.

But every few days, once the liveliest part of the evening in the tower had passed—once the guests in the front hall were either drunk or gone, and there were fewer people moving through the back court—Wang Yan would change into some plain, forgettable old clothes, Iron Mask would carry a small bundle, and Fang Yingjie would climb down from the narrow ledge outside the back window of the outer room. The three of them would meet in the dark of the rear alley.

They carried no lantern.

Only a few sheets of spirit money, a small flask of wine, two cakes, and sometimes a little packet of candied pastries.

First they went to the grave of Wang A'Fu and his wife.

When Wang Yan knelt, she still called softly, "Father. Mother."

Iron Mask knelt beside her, his iron mask bowed low. At first he had always been half a beat slow when he knocked his head to the ground, but in time he remembered. The moment Wang Yan knelt, he knelt too. When Wang Yan burned paper, he watched the fire. When Wang Yan poured wine before the grave, he would reach out and nudge the two cakes a little closer to the mound of earth.

Fang Yingjie also knelt and bowed.

Every time, he said, "Uncle A'Fu, Aunt Qian, Xiao Mutou is here."

Not many words.

But he said them every time.

After that, they would go to Fang Tieshan's grave.

That grave still bore no name.

Night dew whitened the stone like a skin of frost. Whenever Fang Yingjie knelt there, he always pulled the grass away from the front of the grave first, then bowed three times.

"Father."

Sometimes he told him he had practiced fist techniques that day.

Sometimes that he had practiced palm techniques.

Sometimes that he still had no saber and could only make do with the old curtain rod.

Wang Yan would kneel beside him and feed spirit money into the fire.

The light flickered over her face, bright and dim by turns.

She never interrupted.

Only once, when Fang Yingjie said quietly, "Your son still has no saber," the stack of paper in her hand paused.

Only for a moment.

Then the fire swallowed the edges all the same.

On the way back, as always, they did not speak much.

For fear of waking the dead.

And for fear of waking the old pain of the living.

But little by little, Fang Yingjie began to feel that these night roads were strangely like the nights by Taihu ten years ago.

Back then Wang A'Fu would be at the bow of the boat pulling in the nets, while Aunt Qian tidied bowls and chopsticks in the cabin. Wang Yan would walk ahead of him, always turning back because she thought his legs too slow, always calling, "Xiao Mutou, hurry up." And Wang Shun still laughed in those days—laughed loudly at the sickly boy who could scarcely keep up.

Now Wang A'Fu and Aunt Qian were both beneath the earth.

Wang Shun had become Iron Mask.

Wang Yan had become Yan Ji.

And he himself had become Mu Qi.

Yet when the night wind came off the lake, there were instants when Fang Yingjie felt those old days had not died completely.

At least a little remained.

Some of it remained in the candied pastries Wang Yan passed to him.

Some of it remained in Iron Mask's silent watch outside the door.

And some of it remained in the way his breathing would slow, without his meaning it to, before that small door gave its soft sound each night.

Later, he finally understood that he truly was waiting for her.

By day, he copied gift lists, sorted music books, and listened as the guests downstairs speculated over whether Miss Yan Ji would receive anyone that night. Those voices should have had nothing to do with him. All he needed to do was keep his head down and be Mu Qi. Yet somehow, from a certain day onward, whenever he heard the name Yan Ji, the brush in his hand would slow a little.

At night, when he practiced fist techniques, palm techniques, and saber forms, he always looked once toward the small door after his first set.

If the door made no sound, he kept practicing.

If it did open, the movement in his hand would soften by half an inch.

If Wang Yan came early, his heart felt quietly at ease.

If Wang Yan came late, he would repeat Severing the River Midstream again and again, until the bones in his wrist grew hot, and still he could not stop listening for footsteps in the inner corridor.

He never asked why she was late.

Wang Yan never explained.

But she could see it.

She saw the way his face loosened a little at the sound of the door.

She saw that when he set the candied pastries by the desk, he would wait until she had sat down before eating them.

She saw that he called her "Miss Yan Ji" less and less, and "you" more and more naturally.

And she saw that on the few nights when some drunken guest downstairs called out loudly for "Yan Ji," the weight in his strokes with the rod would suddenly deepen.

Wang Yan saw all of it.

She said nothing.

Once certain words were spoken aloud, they would no longer be a little warmth stolen from the night. They would become a weakness that must be hidden away in daylight.

She was Wang Yan.

But she was also Yan Ji.

Fang Yingjie was Fang Yingjie.

But he was still Mu Qi.

They both understood.

So neither of them spoke first.

They only sat a little closer with each passing night.

Stayed silent a little longer.

Sometimes, after Fang Yingjie finished practicing, he would sit by the desk and drink half a cup of weak wine. Wang Yan would sit by the window and read. Iron Mask would keep watch outside the door. The two of them remained separated by a low-burning lamp, an old curtain rod, and several music books, and neither of them spoke.

But Fang Yingjie thought this was good.

Good enough to frighten him.

Because once a man begins to think a certain night is good, he will want the next night to be the same.

And the one after that.

And the one after that too.

Yet Baoque Tower had never been a place where anyone was allowed to keep a good dream for long.

Toward the latter part of that month, the tower gradually grew busy.

First, several red lanterns in the front hall were changed out for brighter ones. Then the kitchen bought more fish and meat, and several good jars of wine were moved into the cellar. The little maids began washing curtains and wiping railings. Even the musician's table on the raised platform was polished three times over. Mama Qi came upstairs twice a day to count the gift lists being sent to each pavilion, then had someone replace the pots outside Yan Pavilion with fresh flowers in bloom.

The laborers in the outer yard barely had time to touch the ground.

A-Dong hauled wine jars all morning, then stood there rubbing his lower back and cursing. "Here it comes again. Here it comes again. Once a month, like the Emperor choosing consorts."

Someone beside him gave a low laugh.

"The Emperor choosing consorts might not be as hard to please as our Miss Yan Ji. Last month so many masters came, and not one of them even got through the door."

"This month's different."

Another servant lowered his voice.

"I heard Sixth Master Huang has prepared something again. Second Master Lu has sent word too, and as for Young Master Shen—well, that goes without saying. Last time he sent a guqin. This time it'll probably be something even more expensive."

"What's the use of expensive? If Miss Yan Ji doesn't fancy it, it all goes into the water."

They laughed as they spoke.

Fang Yingjie walked past them with an empty wine jar in his arms.

He did not stop.

But every word still fell into his ears.

Guest-selection night.

It was not the first time he had heard the term.

On that first night in the outer room of Yan Pavilion, Wang Yan had already told him that only once a month, on guest-selection night, would she decide whether there was any need to keep a guest.

The first time he heard it, something inside his chest had sunk.

Now, hearing it again, it felt as if something were pressing down there, slowly and steadily.

Not pain.

Not anger.

Only heaviness.

A heaviness that left him quiet for the entire day.

That night, when Wang Yan came, he was practicing Dragoncloud Palm.

Dragoncloud Palm ought to conceal itself rather than show itself, ought to bear without stiffening. Yet that night, several times when he drew his palm back in, there was a little more weight in it than usual. He kept the wind of it pressed low, and still the lamp flame trembled faintly.

Wang Yan was embroidering by the window.

The needle paused once.

She looked up at him.

Fang Yingjie did not look back. He only said in a low voice, "I lost control for a moment."

"Your heart is unsettled tonight," Wang Yan said.

He fell silent for a while.

"Mm."

Wang Yan set down her embroidery hoop.

"What did they say downstairs?"

"Nothing."

"When you lied before, your eyes used to look just like that."

Fang Yingjie raised his head.

She had said those words once before.

But hearing them again now still felt like a fine thread being drawn taut from ten years ago straight into the present.

Wang Yan looked at him.

In the end, Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.

"They said guest-selection night is almost here."

Wang Yan did not answer at once.

The outer room fell quiet.

Iron Mask was still standing guard outside, but downstairs the tower was alive with noise. Someone was testing a qin, someone else rehearsing a song, someone carried in wine jars, someone laughed in the corridor about which master had prepared rich gifts this month. Those sounds drifted up through the floorboards, airy and indistinct, yet in Fang Yingjie's ears they landed one by one like fine needles.

At last Wang Yan said slowly, "Baoque Tower has a guest-selection night every month."

"I know."

"And every month, I am still Yan Ji."

"I know."

"Then why are you unhappy tonight?"

Fang Yingjie held his stance and did not answer.

He did not know how to answer.

To say that he did not want her to receive guests?

He could not say it.

To say that he did not want her smiling at anyone else?

He could not say that either.

To say that in these nights—with her reading by the window while he practiced, with her passing him candied pastries, with Iron Mask guarding the door—he had almost, for one reckless instant, forgotten that she was still Yan Ji?

That least of all could he say.

Fang Yingjie lowered his head and looked at his own hand.

That hand was steadier now than it had once been.

It could copy gift lists. It could practice fist techniques. It could hold the force of Dragoncloud Palm. It could grip the old curtain rod and walk again and again through the saber forms of a man with no saber.

But at this moment, that hand could hold nothing.

Wang Yan looked at him, and the expression in her eyes softened by the slightest degree.

She did not press him.

She did not laugh at him either.

She only picked up the embroidery hoop again and said softly, "Practice."

Fang Yingjie looked up.

Wang Yan lowered her head and threaded the needle.

"When the heart is not still, that's when you need to practice more."

Fang Yingjie watched her for a moment. In the end, he slowly drew back his gaze and settled into his stance again.

This time he practiced very slowly.

So slowly that every palm he sent out seemed to be pressing down the murky, inexpressible heaviness gathered in his chest.

Wang Yan said no more.

But she knew.

And he knew that she knew.

Still neither of them said it aloud.

The lamp in the outer room burned low.

Downstairs, Baoque Tower grew busier and busier. Red lanterns were wiped bright one by one, jars of wine carried into the front hall one after another, and the posts and gift lists sent by guests flowed into the pavilions like water.

And in the outer room of Yan Pavilion, Fang Yingjie practiced one palm after another deep into the night.

When Wang Yan left that night, she turned back to look at him as she always did.

"Sleep early."

Fang Yingjie answered softly, "Mm."

Her hand had already come to rest on the latch, but then she paused.

"On guest-selection night, stay in the outer room as usual."

Fang Yingjie looked up.

Wang Yan did not explain.

The light in her eyes was pale and still.

"Don't let your thoughts run wild," she said. "And don't go wandering."

Fang Yingjie looked at her. After a long while, he answered quietly, "All right."

The small door closed with a soft sound.

Iron Mask followed her into the depths of the inner corridor.

The outer room was Fang Yingjie's alone again.

He stood where he was for a long time without moving.

Downstairs, someone had begun singing a new song. The tune wound through curtains and railings, gentle and lingering as it drifted upward.

Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes to the old curtain rod by the wall.

These past days, he had almost forgotten one thing.

The one who sat beneath the window at night reading was Wang Yan.

The one who gave him candied pastries, kept hot soup back for him, and went with him to burn paper at the graves was Wang Yan.

But when guest-selection night came, the one the entire tower would be waiting for was still Yan Ji.

He reached down and took up the old curtain rod.

It felt far heavier in his hand than usual.

That night, he did not practice fist techniques.

He did not practice palm techniques either.

He only moved slowly through a single round of saber forms beneath the lamp.

The saber forms of a man with no saber.

Slow.

And heavy.

The Night of Selection

Over the next few days, Baoque Tower grew busier by the day.

At first, only a few red lanterns in the front hall were changed, and fresh silk was spread again over the high terrace by the water. The railings, window latticework, curtain hooks, and lamp shades were all wiped down inch by inch by the little maids. By the third day, the kitchen had begun receiving ingredients rarely seen on ordinary evenings. Fat fish lay chilled in ice basins, live shrimp were packed down in bamboo baskets, and rough servant-women carried wild geese, pheasants, and scrubbed-clean venison haunches into the back courtyard. Even Old Zhao, after one glance, could not help cursing.

"What is this? Opening the house? This looks more like a banquet for princes and marquises."

The wine cellar had changed as well.

Baoque Tower was never short of fine wine, of course, but the new jars brought in over those few days were different. Their mouths were sealed with red silk, and old labels from distant wine merchants still clung to the clay. The wine steward handled them more carefully than if he had been carrying silver. A-Dong crept close and took a sniff, only to nearly get his head cracked by one of Old Zhao's bamboo slats.

"What are you smelling for? Could you afford even a mouthful of it?"

The women were busier still.

Some were being measured for new dresses. Some were trying on hairpins and ornaments. Some stood beneath the corridor eaves practicing new songs. From the second and third floors came the rise and fall of pipa, xiao, huqin, and silk-and-bamboo instruments, all at first in disorder, then gradually drawing into harmony day by day. Baoque Tower always held its share of beauty, but in those few days that beauty seemed to have been polished anew, layer by layer, until it shone. Even several women who seldom showed themselves came out in fresh cosmetics to test the light in the corridors, seeing which colors looked best beneath the red of night.

Yan Pavilion, by contrast, was quieter than anywhere else.

Mama Qi came up in person twice, measuring the positions of the lamps, inspecting the qin table, then ordering several pots of fresh-blooming flowers to be brought in. The robes, shawls, jade hairpins, and fragrant powders sent up were all received and entered one by one by Fang Yingjie. Miss Yan Ji tested the qin once, and the flute once. Beyond that, there was very little sound from within. Yet the quieter Yan Pavilion remained, the more everyone in the tower knew that on this night, the one lamp the guests were truly waiting for was still the lamp in Yan Pavilion.

The people in the outer court were so busy their feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground.

Wine had to be carried, cups washed, lamps changed, tables moved, incense tested, invitations delivered, replies brought back. Some ran from morning until night, eating only two hurried mouthfuls while standing beneath the corridor. Old Zhao's bamboo slat almost never left his hand. If anyone moved a fraction too slowly, the doorframe beside him would crack with a sharp rap.

That kind of bustle lasted six or seven days straight.

And by the day of guest selection, before the sky had even darkened, Baoque Tower already felt like a bow drawn fully taut.

Well before late afternoon, the floors in the front hall had already been sprinkled again with water. The railings shone from polishing. Fresh silk had been laid over the qin table on the terrace by the water. Even the shades of the lamps beside the stage had been taken down by the little maids and cleaned bit by bit with fresh cloths. In the kitchens, fish and meat were already in the pots. Several new jars of good wine had been opened in the cellar. The doormen at the entrance paced back and forth, dissatisfied with the lanterns hanging beneath the eaves, and had ladders brought over so they could be rehung straighter.

Outside Baoque Tower, the excitement had already surged up ahead of the evening itself.

The long street along the water before the main gate was packed with sedan chairs a full hour earlier than usual. One soft sedan after another stopped beneath the eaves while the bearers retreated to the wall to catch their breath. Horses were led off into the side alleys, still snorting now and then. Down by the wharf, the moorings were full as well—painted pleasure boats, travelers' boats, black-canopied skiffs pressed close together. Their lanterns were not yet all lit, and still the guests on board were already laughing and pointing across the water toward Baoque Tower.

The doormen at the entrance were worked off their feet, their smiles almost never leaving their faces.

"This way, please. Your private room upstairs has already been reserved."

"You gentlemen are early. Come inside first and have some tea."

"Those bearing gifts, go to the gift registry. Don't block the entrance."

"There are many guests tonight. A little later, and even a seat along the corridor may be hard to find."

It was not only the main hall. The railings on the second floor, the side chambers, the small waterside pavilions—all had long since been claimed. Passages that were usually broad enough now narrowed again and again under the crush of servants, maids, gift-bearers, and regular patrons who had come to watch the spectacle. Some argued in lowered voices over places closer to the stage. Some added silver at the last minute to change their seats. Some knew full well they would likely never enter Yan Pavilion tonight, and still brought gifts, if only to show their faces before the full house.

Baoque Tower had not yet formally begun, and it was already full.

Full of people.

And full of intentions.

The outer court was even worse.

A-Dong rushed past under the corridor with a stack of newly washed wine cups in his arms, nearly colliding with a boy carrying an incense burner. The boy cursed under his breath. A-Dong had no time to curse back. He only tightened his hold on the cups against his chest and hurried on toward the front hall.

Old Zhao stood at the mouth of the side corridor, still holding that short bamboo slat.

"What are you dawdling for?"

"Anyone who breaks so much as one cup tonight can go kneel in the accounts room and pay for it himself."

"Fill the lamp oil first. Don't wait until the guests are seated before it occurs to you."

"Send two more men to the gift registry. Last month there was already that business with the empty pavilion. Tonight, those masters' eyes will likely shine brighter than the lamps."

When he said empty pavilion, several of the boys in the corridor could not help looking at one another.

Last month, after one song from Miss Yan Ji, the whole tower had offered gifts—yet in the end she had chosen no one. Baoque Tower had opened its doors as usual afterward, but in private the story had spread for a long time. Some said Yan Ji's standards were too high. Some said Young Master Shen's old qin had in fact already caught her eye, only for her to change her mind at the last moment. Others said Sixth Master Huang had lost face, that Second Master Lu had not taken it well, and that after returning home, Scholar Gu and Young Master Xie had each shut themselves indoors and written essays for three straight days.

The talk passed from mouth to mouth until, in the end, it was reduced to a single line.

This month's night of selection would only be livelier than the last.

Fang Yingjie stood in the outer room of Yan Pavilion, sorting the newly delivered candles, incense boxes, and letter slips one by one into the side of the table.

Today he no longer needed to go down to the outer court to haul wine jars, nor carry trays with lowered eyes behind the guests' seats. Ever since he had been transferred into the outer room of Yan Pavilion, his name still remained on the outer court roster, but his duties now belonged to Yan Pavilion. When Old Zhao saw him downstairs, he still occasionally barked, "Move faster with those hands." But when it came to Yan Pavilion's affairs, even Old Zhao merely had things sent up now and no longer ordered him about directly.

It should have made life easier.

Yet today, his heart felt heavier instead.

From noon onward, things sent into the outer room of Yan Pavilion had not ceased for a moment.

First, Mama Qi personally had someone bring over the register of initial gifts for the night. It was only a thin booklet, but the paper was fine, its edges pressed trim and square. When Fang Yingjie opened it, he found line after line of names, places, and offerings. Every stroke was neat. Every character looked as though it had been weighed and reconsidered before being written down.

Sixth Master Huang of Huxi.

Second Master Lu of Linjiang.

Second Master Chen of Hukou.

Scholar Gu of Linchuan.

Young Master Xie of Yuzhang.

Gentleman He of Hukou.

Young Master Shen of Jiangzhou.

He had heard those names before in the side corridors downstairs. He had seen them on the last month's gift list as well. At that time he had still been the newly arrived Mu Qi, fresh from burying his father, not even knowing who Yan Ji truly was, only lowering his head to carry wine and clear cups for others. Now, sitting in the outer room of Yan Pavilion and copying the list of gifts for Yan Ji, he suddenly understood that these names had never been merely names.

They were silver.

They were standing.

They were hands, knocking again and again at the door of Yan Pavilion.

This month, Sixth Master Huang had not sent red coral again.

Instead, he sent a small coral screen. It was not tall, but a whole branch of crimson coral had been set into a sandalwood base, its limbs spreading so that from a distance it looked like a red tree beneath lamplight. When the servant bearing the brocade box carried it into the outer room, even his steps were slower than everyone else's, as though he feared the coral might snap in the wind.

Second Master Lu sent a casket of eastern pearls.

Not the twelve loose pearls from last month, but strings of them threaded on fine gold wire into hanging tassels, almost like a beaded curtain fringe. When one of the little maids opened the box for Mama Qi to inspect, the pearls rolled with a soft luster in the low light of the outer room, as if a small spill of moonlight had fallen into the casket.

Second Master Chen had changed his gift to a pair of overseas agate cups.

Gentleman He sent two boxes of aloeswood incense, heavier than the month before.

Scholar Gu offered fresh verses again, a lyric titled Moon over Linjiang.

This time Young Master Xie offered no seven-character poem. Instead, he sent a scroll of Buddhist scripture in small regular script, saying it had been copied by lamplight three times, and that he wished to offer Miss Yan Ji one smile in exchange for a little purity of heart and stillness of mind.

As for Young Master Shen of Jiangzhou, what he sent was not another qin.

It was an old qin score.

The cover had yellowed with age. The corners were only lightly worn. It came in a blue-cloth case and was carried up carefully by two servants. Mama Qi opened it and looked once. The easy smile she habitually wore faded, just a little, before she ordered the score sent first into the outer room of Yan Pavilion.

When Fang Yingjie took the blue cloth case into his hands, his palms sank slightly.

The qin score was not heavy.

What was heavy was how precisely it had been chosen.

Last month, Young Master Shen had sent an old qin, and Yan Ji had not chosen him. This month he sent no qin, only a score. While others piled up pearls and jade, he sent old music. While others feared Yan Ji might forget them, he seemed concerned only that she might think him too hasty.

That was harder to deal with than Sixth Master Huang's coral screen.

Fang Yingjie placed the score beside the desk and wrote another line into the register.

Young Master Shen of Jiangzhou, one old qin score.

His brushstroke was steady when it fell.

But the ink had barely dried when the small door in the inner corridor gave a light sound.

Fang Yingjie looked up.

Yan Ji stood behind the doorway.

She had not yet changed into the clothes she would wear to receive guests. She wore only a pale inner robe with a thin gray-green shawl over it. Her hair had not been fully pinned up, and a few long strands hung beside her shoulders. In that state she looked colder than she did by day, and sharper too, with less of the softened glow she wore beneath the red lights at night.

Iron Mask still stood in the half-dark outside the door.

Yan Ji's gaze fell first on the gift register on the desk, then on the blue cloth case.

"Young Master Shen's?"

Fang Yingjie lowered his head. "One old qin score."

Yan Ji stepped closer, opened the blue cloth case with one hand, glanced once inside, then closed it again.

"Just record it."

"Yes."

She said nothing more, as if the pearls, the jade, the poems, the incense, the qin score were all merely part of the same performance Baoque Tower had long since learned to stage. Yet looking at her lowered eyes, Fang Yingjie knew perfectly well that it was not because she did not understand the weight of such gifts.

She understood too well.

And because she understood, she showed nothing.

After looking over the register, Yan Ji suddenly asked, "Does your hand still hurt?"

Fang Yingjie paused.

"Much less now."

Yan Ji looked at him once. "Don't train too late tonight."

He did not answer at once.

She went on, "You'll stay here in the outer room tonight. After the gifts are announced in the front hall, someone will bring up any additions to the register. Record what should be recorded. Take in what should be taken in. Without my word, you are not to go downstairs."

Fang Yingjie answered softly, "I understand."

Yan Ji looked at him.

"And do not let your thoughts run wild."

His fingers tightened quietly inside his sleeve.

He wanted to say he was not thinking wildly at all.

But when the words reached his lips, they never came out.

That was the look she wore when she accused him of lying.

He did not want her to see through him again.

Yan Ji did not seem to be waiting for a defense. She only smiled a little.

It was a shallow smile, not reaching her eyes, yet it was not the smile she gave her guests.

"Mu Qi."

"Yes."

"Once I go downstairs tonight, the rules we keep by day return."

Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes.

Yan Ji said, "I am Yan Ji."

Fang Yingjie looked at her. After a moment, he answered in a low voice, "I am Mu Qi."

Yan Ji nodded.

"Good. Remember it."

She turned and went back into the inner corridor.

After the small door closed, the outer room fell quiet again. But downstairs grew louder and louder. In the front hall, they had already begun testing strings; the pipa sounded twice, the flute ran half a phrase, then both were quickly hushed. Little maids carrying freshly scented curtains ran past beneath the corridor. Outside, the noise of carts and horses thickened by the moment.

Fang Yingjie sat back down at the writing desk and continued copying the gift register.

One stroke.

Then another.

When he wrote small coral screen, he thought of the thin coffin that had cost him a single ounce of silver.

When he wrote fringe of eastern pearls, he thought of the night dew gathered on the unmarked stone.

When he wrote one old qin score, he thought of that old curtain rod by the wall.

These people offered pearls, jade, poems, music, and aloeswood.

Every gift said that Yan Ji was worth such things.

And every gift said that they had the right to knock on the door of Yan Pavilion.

He did not.

He had only a pair of hands not yet fully healed, a body that had only just begun to build some real foundation in fist and palm, a saber art with no saber in hand, and a name that could not be written onto a single sheet of paper anywhere in the tower.

Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.

The ink spread slightly over the paper.

He paused, then quietly changed the sheet.

Not long after sundown, all the red lanterns before Baoque Tower's main entrance were lit.

The glow rose from below, turning even the paper windows of Yan Pavilion's outer room a warm red. Voices in the front hall began swelling in waves, like lake water pushed ashore by the night wind, only to be pressed down again by the incense and wine of the tower. Sitting in the outer room, Fang Yingjie could not see the full breadth of the hall below, but he could hear it.

Sixth Master Huang had arrived.

From his footsteps and his laughter alone, it was clear he had brought more men than last month. Mama Qi personally greeted him at the hall entrance, her laughter pitched just high enough to reach even the railings on the second floor.

Second Master Lu arrived soon after.

He did not laugh the way Sixth Master Huang did. He exchanged only a few words with Mama Qi upon entering. His voice was not loud, but it carried an ease that made people step aside of their own accord.

After him came Second Master Chen, Gentleman He, Scholar Gu, and Young Master Xie.

Young Master Shen of Jiangzhou came last.

When he arrived, the front hall actually quieted for a moment. Someone deliberately laughed and asked what refined object Young Master Shen had brought this month. Young Master Shen only answered mildly, "Nothing so refined," and said no more.

Fang Yingjie listened from the outer room.

These voices, which once had been nothing more than the voices of guests to him, now felt like hands reaching upward through the floorboards.

He did not go downstairs.

Nor did he go to look.

He simply sorted the register on the desk again and set several fresh blank slips within easy reach of his hand.

When the sky outside had gone fully dark, movement finally came from the inner corridor.

A little maid emerged first with an incense box in her hands. Then another servant girl carried in a copper basin. After a while, Iron Mask came out from deeper within the inner corridor, still wearing that same old iron mask. He did not enter the outer room. He only stopped beside the small door and stood there in silence, keeping watch as always.

Then the small door opened.

Yan Ji stepped out.

She had changed into the clothes she would wear to receive guests.

Not the plain robe she had worn on those earlier nights. Not the old clothes from before the graves. What she wore now was a long dress of the deepest blue-black. As the hem moved, a trace of green shimmered faintly through it, like a thread of moonlight hidden beneath storm cloud. Her hair was dressed high and held fast with jade hairpins. There was little in the way of jeweled ornament at her ears, only a single tiny green jade drop that swayed once with her step.

Under that light, Wang Yan disappeared.

The woman standing before Fang Yingjie was Yan Ji—the Yan Ji the guests of the whole tower had waited an entire month to see.

Fang Yingjie rose and lowered his head.

"Miss Yan Ji."

Yan Ji looked at him once.

It was a very quiet look.

Quiet enough that it seemed the person who had sat by the window reading the night before was still there—and quiet enough that it also seemed she had already been sealed away somewhere deep inside this set of clothes.

"The register."

Fang Yingjie handed it over from the desk.

Yan Ji took it and turned through it.

She read quickly, but missed nothing. When her eyes reached the line for Young Master Shen, her fingertip paused for half a breath. A moment later her gaze passed over the blank slips, as though she were waiting to see whether anything new might yet be added tonight.

"Keep it clear."

"Yes."

"If any gift is added at the last moment, take the slip first. Do not touch the gift itself without leave."

"Yes."

"If anyone in the front hall presses for an answer, tell them Yan Pavilion has its own rules."

"Yes."

Yan Ji closed the register.

She turned to go, then stopped once more.

"Mu Qi."

Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes.

Yan Ji did not look back. She only said, "Leave the lamp burning."

Fang Yingjie answered softly, "Yes."

Only then did she walk out.

Iron Mask followed half a step behind her. The iron-colored mask flashed once beneath the corridor lamps, then quickly sank back into shadow. A little maid lifted the curtain, and the light and noise from the front hall came surging up at once, as though someone had opened a door onto the deep heart of the mortal world.

Yan Ji stepped into that wash of red light.

Fang Yingjie stood just inside the doorway of the outer room and did not follow her out.

He saw only the hem of her skirt vanish beyond the curtain. He saw Iron Mask's large figure pause for one instant at the threshold, then disappear as well into the clamor below.

Only one lamp remained in the outer room.

As she had ordered, it was left burning.

Fang Yingjie slowly sat back down at the writing desk.

Not long afterward, the hall below suddenly fell still for a moment.

He knew what it meant. Yan Ji had stepped onto the stage.

From where he sat, he could not hear the sound of her taking her seat. He could not see how everyone in the tower lifted their heads to look at her. But that moment of stillness was already deeply familiar to him. It was not ordinary silence. It was the instant when many people at once checked their laughter, their wine cups, and the open and hidden rivalry in their eyes.

Then the qin sounded.

This time Fang Yingjie was not standing in the side corridor with a wine jar in his arms, nor moving with lowered head behind the guests' seats. He sat in the outer room of Yan Pavilion, listening to that music spread slowly outward through layers of curtain and a whole floor between them.

The qin was still soft.

Still cold.

Like water coming from somewhere very far away, winding its way past red lanterns, wine fumes, smiling faces, and the pearls and jade heaped up at the gift registry, rising little by little until it drowned everything. The brush in Fang Yingjie's hand stopped above the paper and did not fall for a long while.

He suddenly thought of those other nights.

Wang Yan by the window, reading.

Iron Mask guarding the door.

Himself beneath the low lamp, practicing fist, palm, and a saber art with no saber in hand.

There had been wine fumes then as well. Laughter too. Red lanterns too. But as long as the small door to the inner corridor gave even the faintest sound, he had always felt that the small outer room and all the rest of Baoque Tower belonged to different worlds.

Now the qin rose from downstairs, and he understood better than anyone.

The person seated on the high terrace was Yan Ji.

And also Wang Yan.

When the piece ended, the front hall stayed quiet for several breaths.

Then the applause and cries of praise broke out all at once.

Fang Yingjie closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

He dipped his brush once more in ink.

Because he knew that after the qin came the announcements of gifts.

Sure enough, it was not long before Mama Qi's voice rose from downstairs, smiling and clear, carrying clean through half the tower.

"All of you gentlemen, Miss Yan Ji has seen your thoughtful offerings."

The voices in the hall sank lower.

Mama Qi said, "Sixth Master Huang of Huxi, one coral screen."

Several sounds of admiration immediately rose from the hall.

Sixth Master Huang laughed loudly, though with a touch more restraint than last month.

"Only a vulgar thing from the sea. If it can earn even one glance from Miss Yan Ji, then at least it will have served a purpose."

Mama Qi received the words with a smile, neither flattering him too high nor pressing him down, and promptly read the next card.

"Second Master Lu of Linjiang, one casket of eastern pearl tassels."

This time the admiration in the hall was softer, but it lasted longer. The pearl tassels were not as eye-catching as coral, yet they were dearer in the shadows. Many understood at once: Second Master Lu was not competing for a single moment of spectacle. He only wanted the gift to remain inside Yan Pavilion.

Mama Qi continued.

"Second Master Chen of Hukou, one pair of overseas agate cups."

"Gentleman He of Hukou, two boxes of aloeswood incense."

"Scholar Gu of Linchuan, one lyric, Moon over Linjiang."

"Young Master Xie of Yuzhang, one scroll of Buddhist scripture in small regular script."

With every item announced, one figure or another in the hall shifted slightly. Some cupped a hand in greeting. Some inclined themselves. Some smiled with false modesty. Some affected calm. By the time those sounds reached Yan Pavilion's outer room, a layer of distance lay over them, yet the strain inside them could still be heard clearly.

Fang Yingjie lowered his head and marked each item again in the secondary register.

At last, Mama Qi's voice paused.

The pause was very short.

But Fang Yingjie heard it.

His brush stopped as well.

The silence below deepened.

When Mama Qi spoke again, her voice was still steady.

"Young Master Shen of Jiangzhou, one old qin score."

No one in the hall laughed at once.

It was as though everyone understood that this gift was different from the others.

Only after a moment did Young Master Shen's voice sound out.

"I would not dare call an old score a treasure. Last month, after hearing one piece from Miss Yan Ji, I knew my own skill on the qin was shallow. I did not dare trouble her clear ear with another instrument. I happened upon this score by chance, and only wish that beneath the lamp of Yan Pavilion, one or two old notes might be allowed to remain."

It was perfectly said.

It mentioned last month, yet pressed for nothing.

It offered a gift, yet did not contend for face.

Fang Yingjie looked down at the line he had just written and suddenly felt that heavy pressure in his chest grow worse.

A man like Young Master Shen was harder to dislike than Sixth Master Huang.

And because he was harder to dislike, he weighed more heavily on the heart.

Mama Qi gave a small laugh in the hall.

"Young Master Shen has given this real thought."

The instant those words were spoken, the breathing of many people below seemed to change.

Thought.

In Baoque Tower, sometimes that was harder to come by than money.

Fang Yingjie did not look up.

He merely set the brush down and slowly pressed the page of the secondary register flat.

And just then, an unusual stir suddenly rose from the direction of the main entrance below.

It was not the usual clamor that followed the arrival of an ordinary guest.

Nor was it the polished laughter of the doormen greeting someone at the door.

First came the sound of boots striking the floor—heavy, even, disciplined. Then the voices greeting arrivals near the entrance dropped abruptly, as if those who had been joking there had suddenly seen a guest they did not know how to address. A moment later someone hurried across the outer edge of the front hall, sleeves cutting the air, heading straight for the gift registry.

From the outer room Fang Yingjie could not see any of it, but he could hear the difference.

The laughter in the front hall still remained.

But it had thinned.

Like oil floating atop hot wine, lightly parted by the tip of a blade.

After a while, someone at the gift registry below seemed to ask something in a low voice.

Someone else answered.

The words were too hushed to make out.

A moment later, a servant boy came hurrying up the side stairs and stopped outside the outer room of Yan Pavilion.

"Mu Qi."

Fang Yingjie rose and opened the door.

In the boy's hands was a fresh gift slip. His expression was strange, as if he wanted to laugh but did not dare, and beneath that there was more bewilderment than anything else.

"A newly added gift."

Fang Yingjie took it.

The handwriting on the slip was hard and spare, nothing like the polished grace of Jiangnan scholars, nor the clean orderliness of an accountant or steward. There were only a few words, but they were written in a broad hand, every stroke carrying an edge that refused to draw itself in.

The capital.

General Zhu.

One treasured saber.

Fang Yingjie's eyes fell to the final line.

One treasured saber.

His fingers tightened sharply.

The boy was still speaking softly outside the door.

"Mama Qi said to bring it up first and have it entered. Down below… down below they're about to announce it too."

Fang Yingjie did not speak at once.

He looked at the slip, and it felt as if something very heavy had struck once, softly but solidly, against his chest.

He lowered his eyes and laid the slip on the desk.

Below, Mama Qi seemed to have received the formal card as well.

For the first time, her voice paused longer than before.

The people in the front hall must have sensed the strangeness too. The murmurs that had already been subdued died away little by little. Someone seemed to laugh once, only to cut it off halfway. Someone asked, "A saber?" and was quickly silenced by another.

A few breaths later, the young servant calling the gifts finally raised his voice.

It passed up through the red lanterns of the front hall, through floorboards and curtains, until it reached the one low lamp in Yan Pavilion's outer room.

"General Zhu of the capital—offers one treasured saber—"

Poetic Coda

Under Yan Pavilion's low lamp, the night grows long;

With a blunt old rod he drills until the heart is sore.

One crumb of sugared pastry leaves a remnant warmth;

At third watch Iron Mask guards the coldened corridor.

Red sleeves return and seize the gaze of a thousand guests;

On pale green slips he marks the fragrance filling every floor.

Say not the youth still goes unarmed, his blade not yet in hand—

From the capital comes sudden word: a saber has been offered at the door.

(End of Chapter Forty-One)