A Treasured Saber Enters the Tower
"General Zhu of the capital—presenting a treasured saber—"
When the announcement ended, the front hall fell, instead, into a brief and curious silence.
On Baoque Tower's guest-selection night, no gift was too costly, and no offering too strange. Red coral, curtains strung with eastern pearls, agate from overseas, old zither scores, sutras copied in tiny regular script—any one of them was enough to set people whispering for half the night. Yet however precious, however elegant, such things still belonged in Baoque Tower.
Jewels could flatter lamplight.
A music score could be sent into the pavilion.
A poem might win Miss Yan Ji a smile.
A saber did not belong here.
Still less did it belong here as a gift, offered up to Yan Pavilion amid a house full of red lanterns, powdered fragrance, and the sound of silk strings and bamboo pipes.
Fang Yingjie sat in the outer room beyond Yan Pavilion, the brush in his hand still hovering above the paper.
Ink gathered at the tip, hanging there without falling. At last it thickened into a single drop and landed at the edge of the blank sheet, where it slowly spread.
He seemed not to see it.
The sounds from below rose through floorboards, curtains, and a half-closed door. Softer than before, yet somehow clearer. Someone set down a wine cup. Someone else gave a low laugh, then, seeming to realize it was ill-timed, swallowed it back. Another voice asked under his breath,
"A treasured saber?"
At once, someone beside him hissed,
"Quiet."
There was never any shortage of sound in Baoque Tower's front hall.
The clink of wine cups. Sleeves brushing against the railings. The girls' soft laughter. Guests exchanging pleasantries, testing one another, praising a gift, mocking a gift. But at that moment, all of those sounds seemed to have been cut short by the words treasured saber. Their dying echoes hung beneath the red lanterns, refusing to fall.
Fang Yingjie slowly set the brush back onto the rest.
The new gift slip still lay open beneath the lamp.
The capital.
General Zhu.
One treasured saber.
Not many words.
Yet each one weighed more than the coral, the pearls, the music scores, the sutras that had come before.
He looked at the words treasured saber, and the fingers hidden in his sleeve tightened, little by little.
These past days, he had copied many gift slips.
He had seen many fine things sent into Yan Pavilion.
When the small red-coral screen had been entered into the register, he had only thought its glow too harsh. When the fringe of eastern pearls had been recorded, he had only felt that whole casket of moonlight lay very far from him. When Young Master Shen's old zither score had been entered, he had known at once that the gift was perfectly chosen, and that Yan Ji would certainly give it a second glance.
But no matter how fine they were, those things had never belonged to him.
Nor had they ever truly struck home in his bones.
Only these two words were different.
A treasured saber.
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes, and it was as though he saw again that old curtain rod propped against the wall.
When it came into his hand, the grain of the wood had been rough, the shaft too light. In Crossing the River and Severing the Current, it always lacked a little weight. In Breaking the Wave at the Gate, it lacked a little edge as well. He had never blamed it. When there was no saber, there was only this. A man might choose not to mind. His bones knew better.
A saber art, in the end, required a saber.
Without one, no matter how well the forms were practiced, something always remained between.
Like looking at the moon through water.
Like hearing someone from the old days speak from behind a door.
Fang Yingjie drew a quiet breath. He pressed the gift slip beneath the corner of the desk, took up a fresh sheet, and meant to copy the entry into the gift register according to custom.
Only when he raised the brush did he realize that his hand felt heavier than before.
Not unsteady.
Heavy.
As if those two words had already settled into his palm.
At last, Mama Qi's voice sounded again from the front hall below.
She laughed once.
The laugh was still polished, still full of the smooth tact that let every guest in the house hear how well he was being received. And yet, compared with the way she had welcomed Sixth Master Huang, Second Master Lu, and Young Master Shen earlier, it had come just half a beat too slow.
"General Zhu has come from afar. Baoque Tower has failed to welcome you properly."
The man below seemed to smile as well.
His voice was not loud, but it was bright. Even through a floor of timber, one could hear how young he was.
"You are too courteous, Mama Qi."
Fang Yingjie's brush tip paused.
Many in the front hall seemed to hear it clearly at the same instant.
Too young.
Sixth Master Huang's laughter was broad. Second Master Lu's voice was steady. Young Master Shen spoke with warmth and reserve. Master He carried the easy geniality of a merchant grown rich. But this General Zhu from the capital was different. There was none of the ingratiation so often heard when guests entered such a place, nor the studied composure the wealthy liked to affect.
He sounded as though he genuinely found it amusing.
The house full of lights amused him.
The way everyone was looking at him amused him.
Even the business of offering a saber amused him.
At last, someone below could not restrain himself and laughed.
"Miss Yan Ji plays the zither, yet General Zhu brings a saber. Have you perhaps mistaken the place?"
The remark was not loud, but it carried just far enough for several nearby tables to hear.
Someone else promptly added,
"This is Baoque Tower, not a drill ground."
"At this rate, next month someone will be bringing armor."
When the scattered laughter followed, the stiff air in the hall finally seemed to loosen a little. Some laughed along. Some fanned themselves. Some lifted their cups, as though if they treated the whole thing as a ridiculous little diversion, it might still be tucked neatly back inside the rules of Baoque Tower.
But not everyone laughed.
In a private seat by the railing on the second floor, the Prefect of Raozhou had been speaking with an aide beside him. At the words General Zhu of the capital, the wine cup in his hand stopped midway. The wine trembled lightly at the surface, but he did not drink.
On the other side, an official from the Jiangxi Provincial Administration slowly raised his eyes, then lowered them again at once, fingertips rubbing the rim of his celadon cup as though he had suddenly discovered in it a matter of immense interest.
A few junior officers had been sitting by the corridor, quietly comparing the gifts sent tonight by the various households. Now one of them cast a glance toward the front hall, his expression shifting slightly, and shut his mouth at once.
The constables and patrol men had been waiting by the side door. On ordinary nights, even they could borrow a little face from Baoque Tower's wine-fumes and lantern glow. But now they seemed to have been pushed backward by some soundless force. One lowered his head to straighten his clothes. Another turned to look outside, as though some pressing matter had suddenly arisen beyond the door.
The whole house was still lit.
The whole house was still full.
And yet many of the eyes that had seemed so full of consequence a moment ago had already begun, quietly, to avoid the front hall.
Mama Qi saw it all, of course.
After all her years receiving people in Baoque Tower, what she had learned best to read was not gifts, but men.
Some were truly drunk.
Some only smiled as if they were.
Some came wanting face.
Some, the moment they heard a certain name, tucked that face away before the matter could touch them.
The smile on her face did not change, but something in her heart sank a little.
She did not know the General Zhu downstairs.
But she knew how to read the men standing behind him.
Foremost among them stood a dark-faced soldier, broad across the shoulders and back. Though dressed in plain clothes, he seemed to wear armor all the same. He said nothing. He merely swept his gaze across the hall, and several guests who had been preparing to laugh a little louder let the sound die away.
Beside him stood a tall man in blue, smiling at the eyes as though he were idly at ease, though underfoot he moved so lightly he made almost no sound. Behind them were two men in Muslim dress, cloth wrapped about their waists, beneath which the shapes of curved sabers showed faintly. Their hands did not rest on the hilts, but they never strayed more than three inches away.
There was also a pale, beardless middle-aged attendant standing there with lowered brows and folded hands, no more than a servant to the eye, though the corners of his eyes were cold. Farther back stood a thin man who looked like an actor, yet his gaze never went to the girls in the hall, only to the zither table on the stage and the placement of the lamps. Beyond him were a young clerk carrying cases and registers, and three guards whose robes hung just a shade too stiffly.
That entire retinue stood in Baoque Tower's front hall, and not one of them looked like ordinary household servants.
Not like hired guards.
Not like men of the martial world, either.
They were too disciplined.
So disciplined that they seemed wholly out of place in Baoque Tower.
The red lantern light fell across them and found no elegance there, only the hard chill of the capital.
From where he sat in the outer room, Fang Yingjie could not see the whole of the hall below.
But he could hear.
He could hear when the laughter rose, and when it died. He could hear that Mama Qi had indeed been half a beat slower than usual. He could hear that some people were shrinking back, some were watching closely, and some, though still sitting where they were, already wanted no part in what was happening.
Silence returned to the outer room.
Then another layer of sound rose from the front hall below.
This time it was no laughter.
It was General Zhu speaking.
"You gentlemen offer music, paintings, and poems, every one of them elegant. If I brought the same, where would the fun be in that?"
No one in the hall answered at once.
He did not sound as though he needed them to.
The smile was still there in his voice.
"I only arrived here recently. I heard that Miss Yan Ji chooses one guest a month, and that all the gentlemen of the house knock at her door with refined gifts. I grew curious, so I came to join the excitement."
Someone said,
"And joining the excitement means bringing a saber?"
General Zhu laughed softly.
"I came in haste. I had only a blade at hand."
He said it lightly, as though it truly were nothing more than some trifle one might casually hand away.
"So I thought I would offer it—and see what came of it."
The front hall went quiet again.
Then, slowly, he said,
"If the lady will not accept it, then the offense is mine."
A pause.
"If she accepts it, then my trip tonight will not have been wasted."
When those words fell, Fang Yingjie finally wrote four characters into the gift register.
One treasured saber.
When he finished, he did not set the brush down at once.
Voices still murmured below. Some called it absurd. Some called it amusing. Some laughed that General Zhu knew nothing of elegance. But by the time those words reached the outer room beyond Yan Pavilion, they seemed muffled by a layer of distance.
Fang Yingjie only looked at those four characters.
The lamplight quivered faintly. The ink had not yet fully dried.
The words lay dark upon the page, like a weapon not yet shown in its true form. Across a house full of red lanterns, they pressed heavily into his sight.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie lowered the brush.
He did not know what sort of saber it was.
He did not know what sort of man General Zhu was.
But he knew this:
from the moment the words one treasured saber rose to the outer room, tonight's guest-selection night had already become something wholly different from all the pearls and poems that had come before.
Below, the red lanterns burned at their height.
The whole house was waiting to see how Yan Ji would deal with this gift that fit none of Baoque Tower's rules.
Fang Yingjie sat in the outer room with lowered eyes and pressed one hand against the gift slip at the corner of the desk.
His hand was steady.
Only deep in his chest, something had finally been tapped, lightly, by a saber he had not yet seen.
When the Case Opened, the Moon Appeared
After the laughter faded in the front hall, everyone waited for Mama Qi to answer.
Ordinarily, this was the moment she handled best.
If a guest's gift was too modest, she could smile and say that thoughtfulness mattered more than weight. If it was too extravagant, she could still say that Baoque Tower dared not treat such sincerity lightly. If it came at the wrong moment, she could smooth it over in two or three easy sentences, sparing the guest embarrassment without breaking the rules of Yan Pavilion.
But the saber tonight was neither light nor heavy, neither refined nor vulgar.
It was not the sort of thing that could be laughed aside with a few pretty words.
Mama Qi looked at General Zhu standing in the hall, then at the men behind him.
The smile on her face never faltered, but the heaviness in her heart deepened.
Not one of those men looked like the sort who had come merely to drink, flirt, and seek pleasure.
She did not immediately refuse the gift, nor did she immediately accept it. She only smiled and said, "General Zhu's offering is truly something Baoque Tower has never seen before."
"Then all the better," General Zhu said.
As he spoke, his gaze lifted toward the upper floor.
There was no impatience of lust in that glance, nor the eager hunger of an ordinary patron waiting for a favored beauty to notice him. He looked as though he merely found the entire tower—its lights, its noise, its people—amusing.
"If everything were familiar," he said, "where would the fun be in that?"
Laughter rose again in the front hall.
Lighter than before this time.
The first round of jokes—Baoque Tower is not a drill ground, send armor next month instead—had already been made. Now that people laughed again, it was no longer pure mockery.
Some laughed at his boldness.
Some laughed at how strange he was.
And some, after laughing, fell abruptly silent.
Because at last they understood that this General Zhu did not care in the least whether others found him bold or strange.
Sixth Master Huang sat in the place of honor, a wine cup in his hand, the red lanterns reflected in the liquor. He had intended to make a few remarks of his own, but when his gaze passed over the black-faced soldier standing behind General Zhu, the smile on his lips slowly thinned away.
Second Master Lu leaned back in his chair and tapped the armrest twice with his fingertips, but said nothing.
Young Master Shen sat farther off.
He looked at the saber case still unopened in the middle of the hall, then at the curtain-shadow drooping beside the raised platform. Something shifted faintly in his eyes, yet he remained seated in the same mild, composed way, as though all the excitement tonight belonged to other people.
As for the scholars and young men of letters who had been the loudest a moment ago, they now proved more tactful than anyone.
On an ordinary night, the tower was full of men who cared very much about face.
Yet at this moment, not one man in the whole tower dared to have any.
Mama Qi understood enough already.
Tonight's gift could not be turned away by ordinary rules.
So she looked toward the raised platform and said with a smile, "Miss Yan Ji, General Zhu has come from afar, and even his gift is unlike anyone else's. Would you care to take a look?"
At once, the attention of the entire hall shifted from Mama Qi to Yan Ji.
Yan Ji sat beside the curtain-shadows behind the side of the raised platform.
Tonight she wore a long dress of the deepest blue-black. Under the lantern light, the hem showed the faintest wash of green, like a line of moonlight hidden beneath storm clouds. Her hair was piled high and fastened firmly with a jade pin, and the tiny green-jade drop at her ear swayed once as she lifted her eyes.
She did not speak at once.
She only looked at General Zhu.
He, too, was looking at her.
Standing beneath the red lanterns of the hall, he was younger than many had expected. There was laughter in his brows and eyes. It was nothing like Sixth Master Huang's easy sociability, nothing like Second Master Lu's steadiness, nothing like Young Master Shen's gentle elegance. His smile was bright—bright to the point of recklessness—as though the surprise, suspicion, and ridicule of the entire room were no more than a play put on for his entertainment.
No ripple moved in Yan Ji's gaze.
She only gave the slightest nod.
Only then did Mama Qi smile and say, "Since General Zhu has brought it from afar, we ought to let the whole tower feast their eyes on it."
General Zhu seemed to have been waiting for those words.
He lifted one hand.
At once, the young clerk behind him stepped forward, and together with two guards carried the long case into the center of the hall.
It was an unusually long case.
A layer of dark brocade covered the outside, its surface pressed with shadowy patterns. Under the lantern light, the designs were not the usual flowers, birds, clouds, or running water. They looked more like coiling beasts from the grasslands, or vines twisted by wind and sand. The corners of the case were set with black-gold metal, yet the clasp itself was made of jade—a tiny piece, cold enough in the light to seem almost blue.
The case alone was enough to show that this was no ordinary weapon of the martial world.
Still less was it something picked up in haste from a roadside armory.
The laughter in the front hall ebbed again.
General Zhu stepped before the case and laid his own hand on the jade clasp.
Mama Qi's gaze shifted slightly.
By the usual rules, something like this should have been presented by the giver and then examined by Baoque Tower's people. But General Zhu clearly had no intention of observing such rules. Either he thought others would be too slow, or he simply believed this saber ought to be opened by his own hand for everyone to see.
A small click sounded.
The clasp came open.
It was not a loud sound.
Yet in the outer room of Yan Pavilion, Fang Yingjie's hand, resting on the gift slip, stilled for a beat.
Seated at the desk, he could not see the whole hall below. He only heard the sudden hush from downstairs. It was the kind of hush that felt as though every breath beneath those red lanterns had been lightly pressed under someone's palm.
When the long case opened, the glow of the red lanterns fell into it first.
Everyone had expected the first thing they would see to be cold metal gleaming in the light.
But there was no silver flash inside.
The first thing reflected back was only a deep, heavy black.
The saber lay quietly in the case.
Its scabbard was black-gold, with chips of green jade set into the throat and chape, along with several small gemstones of an unfamiliar kind. Those stones did not dazzle beneath the lantern light. Now and then, they gave off only the faintest muted gleam of green, like a hidden light buried at the bottom of a lake.
The hilt was magnificent too.
The grip was not wrapped in ordinary leather but in some dark, fine-grained hide, blue-black and nearly black. The guard was shaped like a crescent moon, its edge thin and cold, as though sharpened by night itself.
Someone could not help exclaiming, "What a scabbard."
Another said softly, "That hardly looks like a saber meant for the battlefield. It looks more like some rare treasure kept for display on a nobleman's desk."
General Zhu heard that and smiled.
"For display?"
He wrapped one hand around the hilt.
For some reason, the hall fell still again.
He did not draw the saber at once. He only lifted it out of the case.
Even with the scabbard on, it was heavy in the hand.
One of the guards had been about to step forward to support it, but General Zhu flicked a hand and stopped him, then held the saber horizontally before himself with one arm alone.
He looked young, but he held the weapon with perfect steadiness.
It was not the steadiness of some rich young master who had practiced a few ornamental routines.
Nor was it the swagger of the usual wastrels who liked to boast of martial skill over a wine table.
He was someone accustomed to weapons.
Yan Ji looked at his hand.
Then her gaze dropped to the saber.
"If it were fit only for display," General Zhu said, "I would not have brought it here."
When he finished, he set his thumb against the guard and pushed lightly.
The blade came out half an inch.
The lantern light in the hall seemed to dim at once.
Not because the lamps had truly darkened.
But because that half-inch of steel was too black—so black it seemed to swallow all the light that fell upon it.
And then, in the next instant, a line of green emerged from within that black.
Thin.
Cold.
Like a slash of moonlight revealed behind torn storm clouds.
Yan Ji's fingertips paused on the edge of the zither table.
Only for an instant.
Then they loosened again.
General Zhu drew the saber slowly free.
At last the blade was fully unsheathed.
It was slightly longer than an ordinary saber, though its curve was not exaggerated. It was not like the goose-quill sabers of the Central Plains, whose edge showed at a glance; nor was it like the foreign sabers that curved almost into crescents. The blade was black from end to end, unpatterned across its whole length. Only near the edge, when the lantern light moved across it, there would sometimes surface the faintest trace of green radiance.
The glow was not vivid.
It was not bright.
And yet no one could look away.
Beneath the red lanterns of the whole tower, the saber carried not the slightest trace of powder-scented softness.
Nor was there any gaudy showiness in it.
It only lay there, black and heavy, and by existing seemed to have been brought all at once from some far battlefield, some deep-hidden treasury, some bygone age—into a tower filled with wine, painted lights, and laughter.
Yan Ji looked at the saber.
She did not understand saber arts.
At least, that was what everyone in the tower believed.
But she had seen Fang Yingjie practice with an old curtain rod deep into the night. She had seen him go through those silent saber forms again and again with a bamboo ruler, the shaft of a writing brush, the handle of a broom.
She remembered him saying:
"When there is no saber, this is all I can do."
He had said it lightly.
So lightly it had seemed no more than an offhand remark.
But now, all at once, she heard it again.
General Zhu held the saber out beneath the lanterns so that everyone in the hall could see it clearly.
"This saber is called Darkcloud Jade Moon," he said.
"Look at it, gentlemen. Does it not seem as though a line of moonlight were hidden inside dark clouds?"
No one answered at once.
Because it did.
Its blackness was deep.
Its coldness ran deep.
And in its darkest place, a line of jade-green moonlight floated into view.
Even the smile on Mama Qi's face had faded somewhat.
She had seen many precious things.
She had also seen many counterfeit antiques.
But the moment this saber left its sheath, she knew it was no common object.
The pale, clean-shaven middle-aged attendant cast a glance toward the side of the hall.
A moment later, someone brought over an iron ring.
It was an old curtain ring from Baoque Tower, replaced only because the edges had worn down. When the serving boy carried it over, there was still dust on his fingers. He had no idea what it was wanted for. He only kept his head lowered and did not dare ask.
General Zhu took the ring. Without even looking at it, he tossed it into the air.
Before anyone's eyes, the black blade flashed once.
The movement made almost no sound.
It did not even seem to use much force.
But when the iron ring fell to the floor, it had already split into two pieces.
The cut was so smooth it might have been made through paper.
At once, a murmur swept through the front hall.
"What an edge!"
"He really cut through it?"
"That was no sheet of scrap iron—it was a solid curtain ring."
Some people rose from their seats, unable to resist trying to see more clearly. Others changed expression and looked, almost involuntarily, toward the wrapped weapons at the waists of the two Muslim curved-saber men.
General Zhu seemed inclined to test the blade again.
But the pale, beardless middle-aged attendant at his side gave a low cough.
General Zhu flicked him a glance and smiled. In the end, he did not lift the saber again. He merely brought it back beneath the lantern light.
That alone was enough.
Even the men of letters who had been affecting refinement a moment before had fallen silent.
Baoque Tower was not a drill ground.
Yet a saber like this, even if it was only displayed for a moment in a pleasure house, was enough to make every sort of cultivated elegance step back by half a pace.
In the outer room of Yan Pavilion, Fang Yingjie heard that low murmur as well.
He could not see the full scene below.
He could only hear the sounds rising up from one floor after another—people praising the saber's edge, people lowering their voices to say that it could cut iron as though it were mud, and beneath it all, General Zhu's careless laughter.
Not long after, the young servant in charge of presenting gifts hurried upstairs.
His steps were faster than before, and when he reached the doorway of the outer room, even his voice had dropped.
"Mu Qi."
Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes.
The servant handed in an additional slip, unable to stop himself from glancing toward the gift register on the desk.
"Mama Qi says to make the record more precise. General Zhu says the saber is called Darkcloud Jade Moon, and even the case is no ordinary piece. It all has to be written down clearly in the register."
Fang Yingjie accepted the slip.
Four new characters had been added to the page.
Darkcloud Jade Moon.
His gaze fell on them.
Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber.
He repeated the name slowly in his heart.
Darkcloud.
Jade Moon.
It was not the sort of auspicious name wealthy men usually gave their weapons, nor was it one of those wild, overblown names favored by wandering fighters of the martial world. It was cold, heavy, and dark—and yet in its darkest place, it hid a little light.
The servant still lingered at the door, unable to help whispering, "That slash just now really cut the iron ring clean through. Everyone in the whole tower was staring."
"Did the young lady see it too?" Fang Yingjie asked.
"Of course she did."
The servant lowered his voice further, as though afraid those below might hear.
"That was a gift for Miss Yan Ji. If she did not look at it, who would dare accept it?"
Having said that, he hurried back downstairs.
The outer room fell quiet again.
Fang Yingjie lowered his head and wrote the five characters Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber into the register.
He wrote them slowly.
As the brush tip moved, each stroke seemed to press down like the weight of an edge not yet unsheathed.
Downstairs, General Zhu still held the saber beneath the lanterns.
Every eye in the tower was fixed on the blade.
Its edge was too sharp.
Sharp enough to make people forget the blade had a spine.
Yan Ji, seated behind the side of the raised platform, was looking at the saber as well.
She looked first at the edge.
Then she looked at the spine.
The back of the blade was thick and steady. From the mouth of the hilt all the way toward the tip, its line narrowed cleanly; it held weight without becoming dead, substance without turning sluggish.
She might not have been able to explain why.
But she had watched Fang Yingjie practice saber work.
She had seen that, each time the old curtain rod in his hands came down into the heaviest part of a stroke, it lacked by just a fraction the true force of something that could really land.
And so she knew this saber was different from jeweled ornaments and precious music scores.
It was not elegance meant for Yan Ji.
It was something that could truly settle into Fang Yingjie's palm.
At that same moment, Fang Yingjie slowly rose to his feet.
He went to the side door of the outer room, but did not step out. He only looked toward the front hall through the narrow gap of a half-dropped curtain.
From where he stood, he could not see the expressions on the faces below.
He could not see General Zhu clearly either.
Across one curtain-shadow, one corner of the railing, and several red lanterns, all he could see was the saber held level beneath the light.
A black blade.
A cold green gleam.
Its edge was indeed astonishing.
But the thing Fang Yingjie watched was not the edge.
It was the spine.
The back of the blade was thick and steady. It held weight without becoming dead, heaviness without becoming dull. The usual thin, fast sabers relied on sharpness; they could strike quickly enough, but they could not bear the full weight of a broad, driving blow. This saber was different. It could cleave, it could press, it could cut across, and it could recover.
It did not float.
Something in Fang Yingjie's chest jolted violently.
Fang Tieshan's voice seemed to rise from deep underground.
A saber may be slow, but it must never float.
Before you draw it, ask your heart.
His fingers pressed against the edge of the door, the knuckles whitening.
These days he had gone through that wave-breaking opening stroke countless times with an old curtain rod. He had used bamboo rulers, brush shafts, and broom handles to rehearse those cuts again and again until the patterns of them sat in the bones of his wrist. But each time he reached the heaviest part of the motion, it always felt as though there were nowhere for the weight to land.
Now that place had appeared.
Downstairs.
Among the red lanterns.
In the hand of a General Zhu who had come from the capital.
As Fang Yingjie stared at the saber, something slowly lit in the depths of his eyes—then he forced it down again.
He knew he should not look too long.
He also knew that he was only Mu Qi.
A servant in the outer room of Yan Pavilion had no right to entertain such thoughts about a guest's gift.
And yet he could not take his eyes away.
Behind the raised platform, Yan Ji seemed to sense something.
Her gaze moved away from the spine of the saber and drifted, very lightly, toward the direction of the outer room above.
There were lantern-shadows, curtains, and half a railing between them.
No one else could see anything there.
But Yan Ji knew Mu Qi was there.
And she knew that if those eyes saw this saber, they would not be looking at the edge alone.
Everyone in the tower was looking at the edge.
Fang Yingjie was looking at the spine.
Yan Ji was looking at Fang Yingjie.
General Zhu seemed to notice that glance as well.
He lifted his head and looked at Yan Ji through the lantern light in the hall.
"Does the young lady understand sabers too?"
Yan Ji withdrew her gaze.
In the same calm tone, she said, "Yan Ji does not understand sabers."
General Zhu smiled.
"If you do not understand them, why have you looked so long?"
"Good things," Yan Ji said, "deserve a second glance."
Something flashed in General Zhu's eyes.
"That is well said."
He slowly slid the saber back into its sheath.
The black blade and that single line of jade-green light disappeared inch by inch into the black-gold scabbard. As they vanished, the murmur in the hall began to rise once more, as though the breaths held down by that saber had finally dared come free.
General Zhu looked at Yan Ji.
"Then tell me, young lady—was my gift too abrupt?"
The front hall fell silent again.
This time the silence ran deeper than before.
Everyone could hear that he was not asking Mama Qi.
He was asking Yan Ji.
Sixth Master Huang's wine cup stopped midway in his hand.
Second Master Lu's fingers no longer tapped the armrest.
Young Master Shen lowered his eyes and looked at the blue-cloth case holding the old zither score on the table before him. His face remained mild, but he said nothing.
In the outer room of Yan Pavilion, Fang Yingjie still stood behind the half-dropped curtain, fingers braced against the doorframe, not drawing them back for a long time.
No one below urged her.
No one dared answer for her.
Yan Ji sat beneath the lantern light, looking across half a hall of red shadows at the young General Zhu from the capital.
She did not answer at once.
Her fingertips only brushed lightly over the edge of the zither table.
At that moment, everyone in the tower thought she was still weighing whether General Zhu's gift was strange enough, valuable enough, exceptional enough to justify an exception.
Only Yan Ji herself knew that what she was weighing was not General Zhu.
Nor was it the face of everyone in the tower.
What she was weighing was whether this saber was worth making her push open the door of Yan Pavilion tonight.
Yan Ji Chooses Her Guest
The front hall lay silent for a long while.
So silent that the iron ring, severed neatly in two, still lay in the lamplight before the hall, and no one dared step forward to pick it up.
General Zhu did not urge an answer.
He seemed to enjoy this kind of silence. The longer others were kept waiting, the more amused he appeared. He slid the Wuyun Biyue Saber back into its sheath, set it casually beside the long case, and lightly tapped the black-gold scabbard with his fingertips. The sound was soft, yet it carried more clearly than all the laughter that had filled the tower only moments before.
Mama Qi stood to one side, the smile on her face still perfectly steady.
Only now she no longer spoke for Yan Ji.
At a moment like this, the only one who could answer was Yan Ji herself.
So the eyes of everyone in Baoque Tower turned toward the rear side of the raised platform.
Yan Ji sat there, the lamplight pressing over the blue-black folds of her skirt. A flicker of jade flashed and vanished at the hem, strangely akin to the green moon-glow that had shimmered along the saber a moment ago. She did not lift her eyes at once. Nor did she hurry to speak. She merely drew her hand back, slowly, from the edge of the qin table and let her fingertips come to rest upon her knee.
For one brief moment, some thought she would smile and decline the gift.
The Yan Pavilion did not choose its guest by deciding whose gift was the strangest. The saber was astonishing, yes, but it was hardly elegant. If Yan Ji accepted it, she would in effect be admitting that a killing weapon had moved her more than Young Master Shen's old qin score, more than Sixth Master Huang's red coral screen, more than Second Master Lu's tasselled strand of eastern pearls.
Others thought she might accept the gift and still refuse to open the pavilion.
That way, General Zhu's dignity would be preserved, and Baoque Tower's rules would remain intact.
Some stole glances toward Young Master Shen.
The old qin score still lay quietly on the table before him. Its blue cloth case was plain, even somewhat worn beneath the lamps, yet the older it looked, the more clearly it revealed the care behind the gift. Had that saber not appeared, many in the tower would have assumed that, even if Yan Ji chose not to open the pavilion, she would at least cast the score a few extra glances tonight.
Young Master Shen himself, however, merely kept his eyes lowered.
The wine cup before him had long gone untouched. In its surface, the reflection of the lantern flame trembled faintly.
Then Sixth Master Huang let out a sudden laugh.
It was not loud, but it carried the deliberate air of someone trying to loosen the tension that had seized the hall.
"General Zhu's gift is certainly unusual."
He paused there, as though leaving room for himself to retreat.
"But Miss Yan Ji has always loved the qin. A saber, I fear, is—"
He got no further.
Yan Ji had raised her eyes.
She did not look at Sixth Master Huang.
Nor did she look at Young Master Shen.
She was looking at the long case before the hall.
Inside it, the Wuyun Biyue Saber had already been returned to its sheath. The black-gold scabbard rested in the dark silk lining, and the piece of jade set near the mouth of the sheath caught the lamplight with a cold glimmer, like moon-shadow sinking in the deepest part of a lake.
Yan Ji looked at the saber for the space of one breath.
Then she looked at General Zhu for another.
At last, she said, "General Zhu, you have come from afar. You honor me with your thought."
Her voice was not loud.
But it carried clearly enough for the entire tower to hear.
The smile froze on Sixth Master Huang's face.
Second Master Lu's fingers stopped tapping against the armrest.
A flicker of surprise flashed through Mama Qi's eyes, only to be swallowed at once beneath her polished smile.
General Zhu looked at Yan Ji, and one brow slowly arched upward.
"Oh?"
Yan Ji did not avoid his gaze.
She merely inclined her head slightly.
"Tonight, I invite General Zhu into the Yan Pavilion."
The instant those words fell, the front hall seemed to split apart beneath an unseen blade.
Silence.
Utter silence.
Then came the sudden, hushed burst of voices.
"She really chose him?"
"Miss Yan Ji actually chose the saber?"
"Even Young Master Shen's old score could not win entry?"
"Last month the ancient qin failed to enter the Yan Pavilion, this month the old score fails too, and yet a saber is the one that enters?"
More than a few people turned toward Young Master Shen.
His expression remained mild.
Only the fingers resting against the rim of his cup drew in, ever so slightly.
Sixth Master Huang's face did not look particularly good either. The little screen of red coral he had brought tonight had been meant to win him some distinction before the entire tower. But now, no matter how vividly that coral burned, it seemed all its brilliance had been smothered by the dark saber lying before the hall.
Second Master Lu said nothing.
He merely looked at the black-faced soldier standing behind General Zhu, then at the clean-shaven middle-aged attendant with the pale face, and the interest in his eyes slowly dimmed, replaced by a caution so slight it might easily have gone unnoticed.
The scholars and cultivated gentlemen, meanwhile, had begun whispering among themselves.
Some said that in the end, Miss Yan Ji was merely fond of novelty.
Some said that though General Zhu's gift was crude, it was crude in precisely the right way.
Others remarked sourly that all the elegance of the red chambers had, in the end, been broken open by a single saber.
But however sour their words, no one dared say them loudly.
The black-faced soldier before the hall only swept his gaze once around the room, and many voices died at once in their throats.
The Prefect of Raozhou still sat in his private upstairs box.
When Yan Ji had spoken, he too had glanced up. But now, with debate flaring through the hall, he simply lowered his eyes, stirred the last of the wine in his cup, and quietly instructed the servant beside him to bring another pot.
The official from the Jiangxi Provincial Administration Commission was even more impassive. He merely exchanged a few quiet words with his adviser on some unrelated matter, as though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the official world whether Baoque Tower chose a guest tonight, or accepted a saber.
The faces of the few lower-ranking officers present, however, had gone even paler than before.
They did not recognize General Zhu.
But they recognized the black-faced soldier standing behind him.
Even if they were not wholly certain, they still knew that the kind of presence bred in the military camps of the capital, and sharpened by proximity to power, was not something men like them could afford to touch.
Naturally, Mama Qi saw it too.
She sighed inwardly, but the smile on her face only deepened. At once she stepped forward half a pace and said, "General, since the Yan Pavilion is to open, the lamps must first be trimmed, the wine warmed, and the qin set in order. Please wait a moment. I shall personally escort you upstairs."
General Zhu did not answer immediately.
He looked at Yan Ji, then suddenly laughed.
"Interesting."
The two words sounded as though he were praising Yan Ji.
But they might just as easily have been meant for the game unfolding tonight.
Yan Ji did not look at him again. Across half a hall of red lanterns, she merely gave Mama Qi the slightest nod.
Mama Qi understood at once. The smile on her face grew steadier still as she turned and instructed the attendants nearby, "Upstairs. Trim the lamps, warm the wine, and tune the qin."
The little maid answered softly.
Mama Qi turned back to General Zhu with another smile. "Please take your seat for a moment, General. Once the lamps are lit in the Yan Pavilion, we shall invite you upstairs."
General Zhu's brow lifted slightly.
"You do have a great many rules."
Mama Qi smiled. "Without a few rules of its own, the Yan Pavilion would hardly dare trouble a man such as you."
It was a smooth answer.
It flattered General Zhu, while still preserving the last sliver of dignity for the Yan Pavilion.
Across the sea of lamplight, Yan Ji inclined her head lightly toward him.
"You must forgive the discourtesy, General."
Then she rose from behind the platform and went upstairs ahead of everyone else, bringing with her the little maid who attended her closely.
Iron Mask followed half a step behind.
The eyes of the entire tower trailed after her retreating figure. Some whispered among themselves, some watched General Zhu, and some stared at the long case before the hall, still unable to recover from the shock that a saber had won entry into the Yan Pavilion.
General Zhu only smiled.
He did not seem in any hurry.
If anything, he looked as though he found this waiting, too, part of tonight's entertainment.
In the outer room, Fang Yingjie heard the sound of footsteps approaching along the stairs before they arrived.
It was Yan Ji.
He had heard it when she chose General Zhu.
He had heard the uproar that swept the tower afterward.
He had heard Mama Qi say that the Yan Pavilion would prepare its lamps.
Every word, every footstep, seemed to fall through the floorboards and strike him squarely in the chest.
He knew why she had chosen him.
And because he knew, the weight in his chest only deepened.
The Wuyun Biyue Saber.
That saber truly suited the saber techniques of the Fang family.
She had seen it.
And she had seen that he had seen it.
So she had chosen General Zhu.
Not for herself.
For him.
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes to the gift ledger on the table. The ink had already dried, yet the page still seemed pressed beneath the weight of that saber that had not truly come into his hands.
Not long afterward, the curtain-shadow outside stirred softly.
Yan Ji had returned.
A little maid followed behind her, carrying a silver lamp freshly replenished with oil. Iron Mask escorted her as far as the entrance to the Yan Pavilion, then stopped at the mouth of the inner corridor and went no farther. Beneath the low light, his iron mask flashed coldly once, as though he were still standing guard over the threshold no one else was meant to cross.
Fang Yingjie ought to have lowered his head and stepped aside.
He was Mu Qi.
The errand servant of the outer room attached to the Yan Pavilion.
The outer room lay near the main hall of the Yan Pavilion, but it did not block the way into it. Whether guest or courtesan, anyone entering the main hall would simply pass beneath the corridor outside the door to the outer room; there was no need to walk through it. The outer room also had a small side door connecting to the inner corridor, and that was the path Wang Yan had taken, night after night, when she came to see him.
When Yan Ji returned to prepare the pavilion, he should have done only what he had been told. He should not have stopped her. He should not have questioned her. He should not even have lifted his eyes.
But when the curtain stirred in the corridor breeze, and the hem of Yan Ji's skirt swept past the door of the outer room, Fang Yingjie rose abruptly to his feet.
He did not step outside.
He merely stood half a pace inside the doorway and said in a low voice, "Miss."
Yan Ji stopped.
The little maid halted too and looked at him in puzzlement.
Yan Ji said coolly, "Take the lamp inside first."
The maid answered in a low voice and carried the silver lamp onward beneath the corridor, going straight into the main hall of the Yan Pavilion.
Iron Mask remained standing at the mouth of the inner corridor, unmoving.
Thus only Yan Ji and Fang Yingjie were left at the door of the outer room, facing one another through half a doorway and the shadow of a curtain.
Yan Ji looked at him.
It was a very light look.
The kind of look meant for Mu Qi.
Fang Yingjie kept his eyes lowered, but he did not step aside.
"Do not take that saber."
At last, something shifted in Yan Ji's eyes.
"Mu Qi, move."
He did not move.
"Do not take that saber."
This time he spoke even more softly.
Softly enough that only she could hear.
Yan Ji looked at him in silence.
From downstairs came the faint murmur of the front hall. Mama Qi was still speaking with General Zhu, likely trying to delay him a little longer. But there was not much time. At any moment, footsteps might begin climbing the stairs.
Yan Ji said, "Do you know why I chose him?"
"I know."
"You know, and still you say no?"
"Precisely because I know."
Yan Ji's gaze paused, ever so slightly.
Fang Yingjie's hand had clenched tightly inside his sleeve.
He did not lift his head.
He dared not lift it.
It was as though the instant he looked up, everything hidden in his eyes would spill straight into hers.
"I will not let you trade yourself for it."
Yan Ji said nothing.
The red lanterns along the corridor cast their glow over the jade pendant beside her ear, and it swayed faintly once.
A moment later, she let out the lightest of laughs.
"Xiao Mutou."
The three syllables were so soft they could scarcely have been softer.
As though they had been stolen from the shore of Lake Tai ten years ago, then hidden all this time in the sleeve of Miss Yan Ji.
"So this is jealousy?"
Fang Yingjie's throat tightened.
"No."
Yan Ji looked at him.
"When you used to lie, your eyes looked the same."
At last Fang Yingjie lifted his gaze for a fleeting instant, then lowered it again.
"I do not want you with him."
The words had barely left his mouth before they seemed to burn him.
Too direct.
Far too much.
He was Mu Qi.
She was Yan Ji.
The people downstairs were still waiting for the Yan Pavilion to open.
The whole tower had its eyes fixed on the lamp that would be lit there tonight.
And yet the words were already out.
There was no taking them back.
Yan Ji looked at him. The faint trace of laughter in her eyes slowly faded, replaced by something light and soft.
She did not speak immediately.
Only when the little maid could be heard setting down the lamp in the main hall did she lower her voice and say, "Not everyone who enters the Yan Pavilion may do as he pleases. And entry does not mean a man may have whatever he wants."
Fang Yingjie looked at her.
She continued, "Some come in only to hear a tune."
"Some only to drink a single cup of wine."
"Some sit until dawn, and all they are allowed are a few words across the qin table."
Her voice was light, but steady.
"I am Yan Ji, not an object for others to handle as they wish."
Fang Yingjie's fingers remained tightly clenched.
"Promise me."
Yan Ji said, "Promise you what?"
Fang Yingjie fell silent for the space of one breath.
It was a very long breath.
Long enough that he could hear the pounding in his own chest.
Then he said softly, "Tonight, he is not to lay a hand on you."
Yan Ji looked at him.
Fang Yingjie continued, "There is to be no intimate touch."
His voice dropped even lower.
"And nothing sordid."
When those three sentences were spoken, silence settled between the outer room and the inner corridor.
Even the qin music that had begun again below seemed very far away.
Yan Ji did not laugh at him.
Nor did she say that he understood nothing of the rules here.
She simply looked at the man standing before her with lowered brows beneath the lamplight.
He still wore Mu Qi's clothes.
He was still only an errand servant in the outer room of Baoque Tower.
And yet every word he had just spoken was no word Mu Qi could ever have said.
Those were Xiao Mutou's words.
Fang Yingjie's words.
The words of the man who had lived ten years beneath the earth, who had come out carrying his father's corpse on his back, who had knelt before a coffin worth a mere ounce of silver and bowed his head.
He dared not say that he wanted her.
He dared not say that she must not receive guests.
He dared not speak the words that would drive them both straight toward death.
So all he could say was:
Tonight, he is not to lay a hand on you.
There is to be no intimate touch.
And nothing sordid.
All at once, Yan Ji felt a small ache in her chest.
Very slight.
No more than the prick of a needle.
Softly, she said, "All right."
Fang Yingjie looked up.
Yan Ji met his gaze.
This time, she was not Miss Yan Ji.
Nor was she the red lamp the entire tower was waiting to see lit.
She was only Wang Yan.
"I promise you," she said.
"If you cannot set your mind at ease, then I will set it at ease for you."
Fang Yingjie looked at her as though he still wanted to say something.
But from below came Mama Qi's voice escorting the guest upstairs.
Footsteps had begun to climb from the direction of the stairs.
At once, the softness in Yan Ji's eyes withdrew into the depths again.
She turned back.
When she spoke, it was once more the voice of Miss Yan Ji.
"Mu Qi."
Fang Yingjie lowered his head.
"Yes."
"Guard the outer room."
"Yes."
"Without my permission, you are not to come in."
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened.
A moment later, he answered in a low voice, "Yes."
Yan Ji did not look at him again.
She entered the main hall of the Yan Pavilion.
The door was not fully shut, leaving only a narrow line of lamplight.
Fang Yingjie remained standing in the outer room until that thin strip of light trembled faintly across the floor. Only then did he slowly step back to the desk.
He sat down.
The gift ledger still lay open before him.
The brush was still close at hand.
But he could not write a single word.
Not long afterward, Mama Qi's laughter drifted up from below.
"General, this way please."
General Zhu had taken no more than two steps toward the staircase when the line of people behind him moved at once to follow.
At the sight, the smile on Mama Qi's face tightened almost imperceptibly. She immediately stepped forward half a pace to meet them.
"General Zhu, the Yan Pavilion has its rules. When a guest enters the pavilion, attendants and guards, by custom, may wait only below."
Her words were very gentle.
Very considerate too.
Had this been any ordinary guest, he would most likely have laughed and followed the custom, leaving his attendants behind and entering alone. It was not as though no one had ever wished to break Baoque Tower's rules, but very few had truly possessed the power to do so.
Yet the instant Mama Qi finished speaking, the black-faced soldier behind General Zhu stepped forward half a pace.
Only half a pace.
Yet all the lights below seemed to sink at once.
He had broad shoulders to begin with. Advancing that little distance, he gave the impression of an iron gate pressing straight into one's line of sight. He did not draw his blade. He did not raise his voice. He merely lowered his eyes and looked at Mama Qi once.
The smile on Mama Qi's face nearly failed her.
The hands of the two Huihui bladesmen still hung at their sides, but each remained no more than three inches from a hilt.
The three guards with armor hidden beneath their robes did not retreat either.
Their garments looked ordinary enough, yet whenever the lamplight shifted, the hard lines beneath the fabric could plainly be seen.
The weight in Mama Qi's chest deepened.
She turned and cast a glance toward the officials seated in the tower.
The Prefect of Raozhou was looking down into the dregs of wine in his cup, as though he had suddenly developed an intense interest in the wavering reflection of the lantern-light there.
The official from the Jiangxi Provincial Administration Commission had turned his face aside and was quietly speaking to the adviser beside him, as though he had never even heard the dispute outside the Yan Pavilion.
Several constables had retreated behind the corridor pillars, leaving only the corners of their robes visible.
As for the two lower-ranking officers who had been loudly discoursing with others in the side hall a short while ago, at some point they had drifted over to the railing. Their faces were stiff, their eyes fixed only on the singing platform below.
One glance was enough.
Mama Qi understood.
There were officials in Baoque Tower tonight.
But not one of them could govern this General Zhu.
The tower's rules had force before wealthy patrons, scholars, and merchants.
Before this trace of military power from the capital, however, those rules had suddenly become thin as paper.
General Zhu, on the other hand, seemed not to see any of it.
He turned and glanced at the people behind him, then back at Mama Qi, and suddenly smiled.
"Since the Yan Pavilion has rules, I should like to see how great those rules really are."
The black-faced soldier frowned.
"My lord—"
The smile on General Zhu's face faded slightly.
Only slightly, and the rest of the soldier's words died at once.
The pale, beardless middle-aged attendant also said quietly, "Master Zhu, perhaps they may wait outside the Yan Pavilion itself. It would still be easier to attend to you there."
General Zhu waved a hand.
"They wait outside."
He paused, then smiled again.
"I did not come here to wage war."
He said it lightly.
Yet in the entire tower, not one person truly dared take it as a joke.
In the end, the black-faced soldier lowered his head and stepped back half a pace.
The tall man in blue still wore a smile, as though from beginning to end he had done nothing but enjoy the spectacle.
The two Huihui bladesmen exchanged a glance but said nothing.
The pale, beardless attendant lowered his hands and acknowledged the order.
Only then did Mama Qi's smile return in full.
"General, this way please."
Step by step, the footsteps came up the stairs at last.
This time, it truly was General Zhu.
A young clerk and two guards followed behind him, carrying the saber case. The long case stretched across their shoulders; the dark brocade thrown over it showed muted patterns beneath the corridor lanterns, the black-gold corners cold against the light, the jade clasp glimmering with a ghostly sheen in the red glow.
As promised, the black-faced soldier and the others went no farther. They merely took up their places along the corridor outside the Yan Pavilion.
The tall man in blue stopped beside a corridor pillar, sleeves hanging loose, his smile unhurried. The two Huihui bladesmen stood where the lamplight was dimmer, their hands still no more than three inches from their hilts. The pale, beardless attendant stood to one side with lowered brows, though his eyes quietly swept over everything inside and outside the pavilion.
And that lean performer actually lifted his head to study the lamp beneath the eaves of the Yan Pavilion, then glanced at the position of the curtain hook in the corridor, as though silently calculating how the lighting ought to be changed if a stage were to be set here for a song performance.
They had not forced their way in.
Yet by the simple fact of standing there, it already felt as though they had.
The young clerk and the two guards carried the saber case only as far as the doorway. Lowering their heads, they set it upon the long side table beside the qin stand, then immediately withdrew.
Beneath the low lamplight, the black-gold scabbard lay there, heavy and still. The cold glint of jade upon it seemed to have brought into the Yan Pavilion the moon hidden in black clouds from before the hall below.
The saber had entered the pavilion.
But the men who carried it in did not remain.
So within the Yan Pavilion, there were only General Zhu, Yan Ji, and the Wuyun Biyue Saber.
In the outer room, Fang Yingjie heard the dull sound of something heavy being set upon the table.
It was soft.
Yet it struck him like a weight falling directly into his chest.
He knew.
The saber had come in.
The General Enters Yan Pavilion
At last, the door to Yan Pavilion swung softly shut.
The sound was not loud.
And yet the moment the door closed, the red lanterns, the wine-fumes, the laughter, and the murmur of talk from the front hall were all sealed outside. Those sounds still flowed through the floorboards below, still came faintly through the cracks between planks, from the turns of corridor pillars and the depths of hanging curtains, but they could no longer pour directly into Yan Pavilion.
Inside, only the low lamps remained.
They were not bright, but they had been placed with exquisite care. One stood beside the zither table, one on the long side table, one by the window, and two more glimmered behind the screen. Their light did not fall straight across a person's face. Instead, it spread slowly along the hem of curtains, the edges of objects, and the grain of the lacquered table, so that the whole of Yan Pavilion seemed cradled in a layer of soft, yielding night.
General Zhu stood just inside the door without sitting down at once.
First he looked at the lamps.
Then the curtains.
Then the zither table, the incense burner, and the neat row of foreign curios by the window.
Yan Ji stood beside the zither table and inclined her head slightly.
"Please be seated, General."
But General Zhu did not sit.
He looked like a man who had stepped into some curious private hunting ground, or else wandered by mistake onto a stage hidden full of little contrivances. Everyone in the tower would naturally assume that once he entered Yan Pavilion, his first attention would go to Yan Ji. And though his first glance had indeed fallen on her, the second had already shifted to the small bronze beast by the window.
The thing was no bigger than a man's palm. It was shaped like neither lion nor hound, with curling grass patterns worked across its back and two dark stones set into its eyes. An ordinary guest entering Yan Pavilion might have taken it for some trinket from the Western Regions and let his gaze pass over it. General Zhu, however, walked over and picked it up.
He handled it carelessly.
Not with the cautious touch of a guest afraid to disturb a courtesan's possessions, and not with the clumsy wariness of a rustic frightened of breaking a rare treasure and having to pay for it. He picked it up as though such things simply belonged to the world, and anything in the world could naturally be taken in hand and examined.
Yan Ji watched his hand without speaking.
General Zhu turned the little bronze beast over and studied the patterning on its underside. Then he smiled.
"This isn't a Central Plains design."
"A gift from a patron," Yan Ji said.
"Which patron?"
"Yan Ji does not remember."
General Zhu raised his eyes to her.
Her expression remained calm. She did not avoid his gaze.
He smiled again.
"Better not to remember."
He set the bronze beast back in its place, then flicked a fingertip against a glazed cup beside it. The cup was as thin as a cicada's wing, and under the lamplight it shone with a pale blue sheen, as though a little piece of lake water had been fired into glass.
"If you remembered every last thing," he said, "wouldn't that be exhausting?"
"You are right, General."
But perhaps he heard in her reply nothing more than polite agreement, for that only seemed to amuse him further. He went to the window and bent over the row of objects there: the glazed cup, an incense box worked in foreign patterns, a small silver-wired bottle, a bronze mirror set with stones, a few old coins whose script could no longer be recognized, and a piece of thin brocade woven with strange birds.
He examined them one by one.
Not to feign elegance.
Not to pretend knowledge.
He genuinely liked such things.
"There is more here," he said, "than what belongs to this place."
"Guests come to the tower from many places," Yan Ji replied. "Naturally, what they send is equally varied."
General Zhu pointed to the thin brocade with its unfamiliar bird motif.
"That too was a gift from a patron?"
"Yes."
"And this incense box?"
"That as well."
"The glazed cup?"
"That too."
General Zhu gave a soft laugh.
"So half of what fills Yan Pavilion is elegance, and half the hearts of men."
Yan Ji lowered her eyes. "You jest, General."
"I never jest for no reason."
He turned back to look at her.
"When a man gives you something, there is always a thought behind it. Some wish to show their wealth. Some wish to show their taste. Some want to prove they are different from everyone else. The lighter the thing they give, the heavier the thought behind it may be. And the heavier the thing, the less certain it is to be truly precious."
His gaze passed beyond Yan Ji and settled on the long table beside the zither.
The Wuyun Biyue Saber lay there across it.
It was still sheathed. Under the low lamps, its dark metal scabbard drank in the light, while the jade at the throat shone with a narrow cold line of green, dimming the teacup, incense burner, and jade flute beside it.
"For instance," General Zhu said, "this saber of mine."
Yan Ji followed his gaze.
"Your gift, General, is indeed a weighty one."
He smiled. "Is the weight in the saber, or in the fact that I dared to present it?"
"In both."
That answer appeared to satisfy him greatly.
At last he came over and sat beside the zither table—but not in the proper, upright posture expected of a guest at Baoque Tower. He sat at an easy angle instead, half his body leaning against the corner of the table, one hand already resting on the scabbard of the Wuyun Biyue Saber.
Yan Ji poured him wine.
When she set the cup before him, he did not drink at once. He only looked at her hand.
Her hand was very steady.
Her fingertips were neither pale nor soft in the way of hands that had never done any real work. She was Yan Ji of the pleasure house, and naturally she was lovely when she played the zither, poured wine, turned the pages of music, or gathered in her sleeves. Yet within that loveliness there was something calm and difficult to name.
After watching for a while, General Zhu said, "You are not afraid of me?"
"Tonight, the General is Yan Pavilion's guest."
"So a guest cannot be frightening?"
"If a guest keeps to the rules, he is not frightening."
At the word rules, General Zhu laughed again.
When he laughed, his eyes shone brightly, like a boy who had just found some new and interesting toy.
"At Baoque Tower, everyone seems fond of speaking to me of rules."
"If the General dislikes hearing of them, Yan Ji will not mention them again."
"It is not that I dislike it."
He lifted the winecup and took a shallow sip. His brows rose at once.
"Good wine."
"If it pleases you, General, I can have another pot warmed."
"No hurry."
He set the cup down. His hand remained on the saber.
"I am only curious how broad these rules of yours really are."
Yan Ji did not answer.
She sat down behind the zither table, her sleeve falling neatly between them and leaving a small distance in place.
It was not a great distance.
But it was a steady one.
General Zhu looked at her, then at the saber lying beside him, and suddenly said, "A moment ago, you said you knew nothing of blades."
"I truly do not."
"And yet you chose me?"
"You came from afar, General, and what you offered was unlike what any other guest had brought. Had Yan Ji not even looked, it would have been discourteous."
He smiled, though not quite like a smile.
"Only discourteous?"
Lowering her eyes, Yan Ji poured herself half a cup of light wine.
"What answer does the General wish to hear?"
"The truth."
"The truth is often not pleasant."
"I have always preferred what is unpleasant to hear."
Yan Ji's fingertips came to rest beside her cup.
Outside in the corridor, someone shifted lightly.
The footfall did not belong to Fang Yingjie.
Nor to Iron Mask.
It was one of the men General Zhu had brought with him, shifting his weight after standing too long. The sound was very faint, but it slipped in through the crack of the door all the same, a reminder that within and beyond the walls of Yan Pavilion, it had never been only she and this young guest before her.
Yan Ji raised her eyes.
"The truth is this," she said. "Yan Ji also wished to see whether a saber brought into Yan Pavilion might prove more interesting than music, poetry, and painting."
General Zhu stared for a heartbeat.
Then he laughed aloud.
The sound was not loud, but it was open and full-hearted, as though her words had struck precisely where his own thoughts lay.
"Good," he said.
"That is far better than all the elegant talk downstairs."
Yan Ji did not smile.
But the smile remained in General Zhu's eyes. Suddenly he seized the Wuyun Biyue Saber, laid it across his knees, and pushed with his thumb. The blade slid an inch from the sheath.
Under the low lamps, the black blade swallowed the firelight, and along its edge a narrow sheen of jade-green surfaced like something half-hidden in dark water.
Yan Ji's gaze fell upon the saber.
"Would you like to know where it came from?" General Zhu asked.
"If the General is willing to speak of it, Yan Ji is willing to listen."
He looked at that inch of blade-light, his thumb stroking slowly along the scabbard.
"It is said," he replied, "that when Prince Wuning of Zhongshan pacified the Yuan capital in the north, it was taken from the inner treasury of the Yuan court."
He said it lightly.
As though those few words contained no founding wars, no ruined palaces, no rare weapon sealed away for years in the old treasury of the fallen Yuan, and no lingering chill that had clung to it through every hand it had passed through since.
Yan Ji's lashes stirred faintly.
"How did such an old treasure come into the General's hands?"
General Zhu turned to look at her.
"Good things always find their own masters."
"So the General is its master?"
He smiled. "Before tonight, more or less."
"And after tonight?"
"That will depend on you."
Yan Ji did not answer immediately.
The words lay beneath the lamp like something that spoke both of the saber and of a person.
General Zhu watched her for a moment, and the smile in his eyes only grew brighter. In the next instant, his thumb pressed against the guard, and the Wuyun Biyue Saber slid soundlessly half a foot from its sheath beneath the low light.
The moment the black blade emerged, the glow within the room seemed to deepen by another shade.
In the outer room, Fang Yingjie sat at the table.
He could not see what was happening inside.
But he heard the faint whisper of steel leaving the sheath.
The sound came through the crack of the door like a fine needle and drove straight into his palm.
His back slowly drew taut.
Something cold seemed to press for an instant against the center of his chest.
He knew the saber had come free of the sheath again.
And he knew that the one holding it now was not him.
In the main chamber of Yan Pavilion, General Zhu did not rise. Still seated, he flicked out half a casual flourish with the blade.
The saber-light was dark and heavy, the green shimmer circling the lamp.
The movement was not like a formal technique used by men of the martial world in combat, nor like any drilled posture from the army. It was more like a spirited youth, idly taking up something dangerously sharp, dangerously precious, and dangerously rare, merely to see what sort of light it might cast beneath a lamp.
And yet even that idle motion sent the wind of the blade skimming past the edge of the zither table.
A delicate porcelain winecup trembled.
Yan Ji's hand did not move.
General Zhu drew the blade back.
"Is it beautiful?"
"Yes."
"Only beautiful?"
"It is dangerous as well."
The smile in his eyes deepened.
"You do know how to speak."
"Yan Ji only says what she sees."
General Zhu slid the saber fully back into its sheath, then asked abruptly, "And what do you see when you look at me?"
Yan Ji raised her eyes.
General Zhu leaned forward slightly, one elbow braced against his knee, his bright eyes fixed on her.
"Am I dangerous too?"
Yan Pavilion fell silent for a single breath.
Outside, the low lamp shone against the paper of the door. The shadows along the corridor did not move. On the other side of the inner passage, Iron Mask still stood not far away, silent and unmoving as a piece of dark iron.
"The General is an honored guest," Yan Ji said.
General Zhu shook his head.
"That is not an answer."
"What the General wishes to hear," Yan Ji replied, "may not be something that ought to be spoken in Yan Pavilion."
He studied her for a moment, then smiled once more.
"You are more interesting than the people downstairs," he said.
"When they see a saber, all they can say is how sharp it is. When they see me, all they can say is that the General has come from afar and brought glory to this humble place. But you are not like that."
"Yan Ji is only a woman of the pleasure house," she said. "I do not deserve such regard from the General."
He seemed not to hear the refusal in her words.
His gaze had dropped to the tiny jade pendant at her ear.
It was very small. When it caught the lamplight, it looked like a single drop of lake-green held motionless in the air.
"That pendant too," he said, "was it a gift from a patron?"
"No."
"Then who gave it to you?"
"It is an old possession."
"An old possession?"
General Zhu rose to his feet.
He stood too suddenly. The hem of his robe brushed the corner of the table, and the wine in the cup gave a small ripple.
Yan Ji did not retreat.
She only lifted her eyes to look at him.
General Zhu stepped closer and lowered his head, studying the little jade pendant at her ear. His tone still carried a trace of laughter.
"Let me have a look."
As he spoke, he reached out to touch it.
Only then did Yan Ji take one step back.
It was not a large step.
But it was precisely enough to leave his hand suspended in midair.
His fingers stopped there.
Lamplight fell across the knuckles—long, clean, even handsome in a youthful way. Yet with that hand hanging there, the very air in the pavilion seemed to change.
"General," Yan Ji said, "please show some restraint."
General Zhu looked at the step she had taken away from him.
The smile remained on his face.
But it had faded slightly.
"Restraint?"
"Yan Pavilion has its rules."
Slowly General Zhu drew his hand back. Lowering his gaze, he looked at his fingertips as though he found the word fresh, or perhaps faintly unbelievable.
"I only wanted to look."
"You may look," Yan Ji said.
She raised her eyes again, her voice as steady as ever.
"But you may not touch."
General Zhu gazed at her.
From outside came, very faintly, the sound of strings and pipes below, as though somewhere a tune had begun again. After passing through the door and curtains, the music had thinned until it sounded like mist.
Then General Zhu smiled.
This time, his smile had none of the brightness it held before.
"A moment ago, you accepted my saber."
"What Yan Pavilion accepts," Yan Ji said, "is a gift, not the giver."
The childish spark of interest in General Zhu's eyes finally began, little by little, to sink away.
He took another step forward.
Yan Ji did not retreat again. She merely rested one hand lightly against the edge of the zither table.
Outside the door, Iron Mask seemed to stir.
In the outer room, Fang Yingjie's breathing halted for an instant as well.
In a low voice, General Zhu said,
"What if I insist?"
Poetic Coda
Before dark clouds gather, the moon has already turned cold;
one treasured saber presses against the painted rail.
All the officials in the hall lower their eyes;
beneath a solitary lamp, Yan Pavilion alone holds the pass.
From a hard-handed guest, courtesy breeds fresh disaster;
for an old friend, old tides rise again within the heart.
Ask not where the clear strings broke—
with one "What if I insist?", the night nears its end.
(End of Chapter Forty-Two)