Chapter 108: If I Wanted to Do It, I Simply Did It

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The moon was bright and the stars sparse. Beneath the darkened night sky, the bell had already tolled past midnight. Jiangning City still glittered with countless lights, like the outline and skeleton of a vast metropolis. Carriages sped past, while pedestrians carrying lanterns hurried or sauntered along the roads, flowing to and fro like blood through veins. On the Qinhuai River, ripples of light drifted across the water. As painted pleasure boats came and went, their lanterns formed little corridors of radiance, each like a glowing box.

Those who had been enjoying the city’s nightlife had begun making their way home. From the grand residences and modest houses lining the streets came the occasional knock at a door, followed by a warm reply.

Past midnight, the city lights gradually began to fade, like duckweed drifting upon the water, thinning from the outskirts toward the heart of the city. The brothels and teahouses still shone brightly, but a desolate air had already settled over them. The pleasure boats and painted barges slowly drew in to shore. One by one, their lights went out, leaving only a sparse scattering of illuminated rooms.

As the night wore on, a mist began to stir in the darkened places. Hour after hour passed. When the city had reached its most tranquil moment, a warm yellow glow spilled from the windows of a stilted house beside an inconspicuous bend of the river.

It was a somewhat disorderly women’s bedroom. The original furnishings had perhaps been simple and elegant, but many things had clearly been brought in only recently: strange pots of flowers and plants, several oddly shaped little cabinets, and a number of amusing knotted ornaments. Several hung from the bed, while other unidentified objects lay bundled in cloth packages. Some had nowhere else to go and had been left on the chairs. Rouge and face powder filled the dressing table.

As the lamp was lit, a woman’s voice drifted out.

“Mm… Sister Yunzhu, sleep a little longer…”

Half of the mosquito net had been lifted. From within the wooden bed came the soft, sleepy murmur of Nie Yunzhu, who wore only a thin embroidered bodice and silk trousers. She reached for a light jacket, while the woman beside her rolled over and burrowed closer.

“All right. You go on sleeping…”

Yunzhu smiled, fastened her clothes, and climbed out of bed. She slipped on cloth shoes embroidered with tiny flowers, then carried the oil lamp and fire starter to the round table, which stood in the slightly more spacious part of the room.

There was only one guest room in the little house. In the end, it had simply been given to Kou’er, while Yuan Jiner, invoking the deep bond between sisters, had stayed in the same room as Nie Yunzhu without the slightest hesitation.

They truly were close sisters, so sharing a bed was nothing remarkable. Over the past few days, no one knew where Yuan Jiner had found so many odd things. One by one, she had used them to fill Nie Yunzhu’s once-simple and refined bedroom until it had become rather cluttered. Fortunately, Yunzhu was not the sort of truly aloof and solitary person who could not bear others intruding upon her life. Since Jiner was enjoying herself, Yunzhu let her do as she pleased.

“That Ning Yi… There’s no way he’ll dare come today,” the woman on the bed mumbled, rolling lazily from side to side. “Isn’t he afraid I’ll scold him…?”

Hearing the tone of her voice, Nie Yunzhu smiled faintly.

When she went outside, Walnut and Kou’er had already awakened and were heating water in the kitchen. She went over to lend them a hand. After washing her face, she returned to the dressing table and began putting on a little makeup and arranging her hair. During that time, Yuan Jiner muttered a few more things from the bed, though none of them were intelligible.

After a while, the woman had finished dressing. She changed into a proper outdoor outfit, still dressed in her usual plain and unassuming style. To anyone else, she appeared ordinary, though in truth she spent quite a bit of time preparing herself each morning.

She then went outside and swept the steps. Once she had finished, she carried out a tray bearing a teapot and teacups and sat down upon the steps.

The sky was still dark. The moon hung in the night, while far to the east, layer upon layer of mountain mist revealed only faint, shifting outlines. The wind swept in, moaning over the Qinhuai River.

With the light behind her, she brewed herself a cup of tea and waited in silence.

After a while, Yuan Jiner emerged, rubbing her eyes. Her figure was slender and graceful, with the supple beauty of a dancer, and she was not short. At that moment, however, she looked several years younger.

In the past, whenever Nie Yunzhu sat there waiting for Ning Yi, Jiner would either be asleep or leave after saying a few words. Today, however, she dropped down beside Yunzhu and leaned against her, continuing to doze as though she had no intention of leaving.

Yunzhu put an arm around her shoulders. The morning breeze was enough to clear one’s head, and before long Yuan Jiner let out a long breath, rested her face on Yunzhu’s thigh, then reached over to the other side and poured herself some tea.

“Mm. When he comes, I’m definitely going to scold him. It was so humiliating!”

Yunzhu laughed beside her. “You’re still angry? What is there to be angry about? He gave you five hundred taels in the end. You did very well.”

“But how could he do that? He had to scrape it together! Scrape it together, do you understand? Once everyone finds out, where am I supposed to put my face? How am I supposed to go on living?”

“He reacted quickly. Not many people could have known.”

“That’s nonsense. So many people saw it. It was unbearably embarrassing…”

Whenever she thought of the previous night, Yuan Jiner felt she could hardly endure it.

She had gone up onstage to give Ning Yi enough face and ask for a reward, only to receive four taels. She could have accepted it if he simply had no silver on hand. If he had written her a poem, that would have been fine too. But in the end, Ning Yi had turned around and told the young women behind him, “Five hundred taels.”

He had not had the money with him. A moment later, he had gathered it from the Su family and sent it to the Emerald Tower. But at the very least, the Xue family’s people certainly knew what had happened, and surely many others had seen through it as well.

This was the first time she had been so thoroughly humiliated. No, the second time. The first had been when she had run out to frighten Ning Yi, only to be frightened herself by Liu Qingdi. And this time, she had shamefully produced four taels of silver to send herself away. Having to scrape together five hundred taels was even more embarrassing.

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From the moment she and Yunzhu had left the Emerald Tower the previous night, Yuan Jiner had been complaining about it, muttering about revenge and everything else. Now she sat there grumbling and drank several cups of tea in succession.

At last, the pale light of dawn appeared along the horizon. Soon afterward, the morning wind gradually thinned the mountain mist, and the figure with his left hand wrapped in bandages finally appeared in the distance.

He ran at the same steady pace as usual. Only when he drew near did he stop, exchanging a look with Yuan Jiner.

“You still dare come here…”

“You still dare say that?” Ning Yi raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it chaotic enough already?”

“What do I have to be afraid of? One tael of broken silver! Four taels of broken silver!”

“I only had four taels of silver left. What else could I have done? Did you consult me beforehand? You brought it upon yourself!”

“I was covering for Sister Yunzhu. You failed to handle things properly. That was your problem!”

“Covering for me? Is that how you cover for someone? By tonight, all of Jiangning will be buzzing about it. Do you realize that?”

“If the whole city is buzzing, it’ll be about me!”

“It wouldn’t have become such a spectacle without you. Yunzhu going onstage would have caused only a limited stir. At most, people would have been curious for a while. But after you made such a fuss, it won’t end. Everyone will just keep stirring things up…”

“I was helping you save face for Sister Yunzhu’s sake, and you call that stirring things up? How many people would beg me to stir things up for them?”

“Thank you, thank you. You helped me save face? Did you see the expression on that fellow Liu Qingdi’s face when you went up? He looked ready to swallow me alive. After you and Yunzhu left, he kept probing me with indirect questions.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I didn’t know. Who is Yuan Jiner? I’ve never heard of her. Why would she go up there with me? If he wanted answers, he should ask you.”

“So you mean I was the one pressing my hot face against your cold backside?”

“In any case, he has his eye on me now. It was your doing.”

“I’m not even that familiar with him…”

In truth, they had no serious disagreement. But an argument was a matter of losing neither face nor ground. They traded barbs for a while, until Ning Yi sat down beside the tea tray and poured himself a cup.

Yuan Jiner continued arguing for a time, then sought Nie Yunzhu’s judgment. Yunzhu merely smiled and adopted an expression that clearly took neither side. Yuan Jiner could only stomp off in resentment.

The sun rose in the east. Ning Yi sat quietly drinking tea. Nie Yunzhu hugged her knees and remained silent for a long while before lowering her head with a smile.

“About last night… I was being willful. Jiner only made such a scene because she was following my lead. She has always been lively by nature, of course. Still, if you can, please don’t blame her, Liheng…”

“It’s nothing. I thought it was rather amusing.”

Ning Yi smiled and glanced in the direction where Yuan Jiner had disappeared. He was accustomed to handling major affairs. There were times when he meticulously calculated every gain and loss over the smallest matters, but there were also plenty of occasions when he acted with reckless boldness. Whether he cared about this or not was merely a matter of turning his thoughts in one direction or another.

“Though I wonder how much she promised the Emerald Tower when she went onstage.”

“Jiner and Madam Chen have known each other for years. I heard she promised to help train the dances performed by the girls of the Emerald Tower. I’ll help as well, so it shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Only then did Ning Yi nod. “As long as it isn’t anything too outrageous.”

“But what comes next will be rather troublesome, won’t it?”

Nie Yunzhu thought for a moment before speaking softly.

“As for the matter with Elder Qin… would it be better if I went to his residence and apologized, then withdrew from it?”

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That was the matter that truly required discussion.

Ning Yi gazed at her for a long while. “You had already thought about this before going onstage?”

Yunzhu nodded. “I thought about it a little, though not very deeply.”

A trace of apology touched her expression. “In the end, I’ve caused you more trouble, Liheng…”

“It’s nothing serious.” Ning Yi shook his head. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Still, that matter… it really isn’t ideal.”

“It isn’t. I’ll speak to him.”

“I know Elder Qin as well, and he has always treated me kindly. Perhaps I should be the one to go…”

Ning Yi considered it, then smiled.

“How about this? In a few days, I’ll find a suitable time, and we’ll go together to apologize. We’ll decline the arrangement for him to become your adoptive father and you his adopted daughter. It wouldn’t be right to cause him too much trouble. I’ll handle the rest, so don’t worry.”

Yunzhu answered softly and nodded.

This time, she did not apologize again or say that she had implicated him. The thought that they could deal with the matter together left her feeling both happy and at peace.

Before going onstage, she had thought about certain consequences. She had known that Liheng, sitting upstairs at the time, did not care about such trivial matters, while the moment she stepped onto the stage, all sorts of trouble might once again cling to her.

Once, she had been terrified of such things. After finally enduring everything and leaving that world of perfumed courtesans, she had spent the following two years feeling uneasy about going out too much or coming anywhere near such places unless absolutely necessary. She was simply too tired. She no longer wished to involve herself in those entanglements.

But this time was different.

Liheng did not care, yet she did. Only then did she realize how deeply she still cared. In the face of the fears she had once carried, everything now seemed insignificant. Her heart had found something to rely upon.

She had wanted to perform for him. That one thought alone had been perfectly clear.

She had wanted to do it, and so she had.

“The city has been rather tense lately,” Liheng said that morning. “They may close the gates again. You should probably avoid coming out so early. It might not be safe.”

They chatted a little longer. Only when Ning Yi was preparing to leave did Yunzhu bring up the matter.

Ning Yi nodded.

“If the city gates are closed, I won’t come out to run so early in the morning. I may come by during the day from time to time. But you women are the ones who truly need to be careful. The security may not actually deteriorate too badly, but an atmosphere like this can easily lead to trouble.”

“Mm.”

Nie Yunzhu nodded and waved as she watched his figure recede into the distance.

When she turned back, Yuan Jiner, Walnut, and Kou’er were all peering toward her through the gaps in the bedroom window. She sighed, then smiled. She felt a little disappointed, but also fulfilled, because in a few days Liheng would accompany her to offer their apology.

Meanwhile, when Ning Yi returned home, breakfast had already been prepared. Su Tan’er smiled as soon as she saw him. She had already heard about what happened at the Emerald Tower the previous night.

“I hear my husband made quite a splash last night…”

She said it lightly, but the smiles on Su Tan’er’s face and those of the three maids were distinctly teasing. Clearly, they had been discussing the matter just moments before, and now they could not help finding it amusing.

… … … … … …

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