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The person who had arrived was, of course, Mu Qingyan. Cai Zhao could guess what had kept him busy all day. A shadow of stubble now covered his jaw, and gray hair clung to his shoulders. He carried a bag in one hand, one that looked like it had been torn roughly in half. "Why didn't you go down the mountain?" His dark eyes fixed on Cai Zhao, unhappy. Cai Zhao touched her ear. "You're still up here too." "You promised me before we split up!" "Same difference. Don't worry about it." While they spoke, Duan Jiuxiu finally crawled out from under the collapsed roof, clutching the apricot-colored jade bottle in both hands. He hadn't even brushed the snow off his robes before he yanked the stopper free and looked inside, only to find the bottle empty. He roared, "Cai Zhao, you little wretch, you actually dared to lie to me! An empty bottle! Even your gambling debts have more honesty than this!" "Slow down. Turn it up...

He knocked softly on the door, pushed it open, and a familiar, graceful figure walked in. It was Qinong. Her face was as sweet as ever, her eyes just as beguiling. Cai Zhao felt a jolt of disbelief, as if Qinong had simply strolled down from the second floor of some roadside inn, untouched by any hardship on the way here. Qinong seemed mildly surprised to find Cai Zhao in the room. She walked past her without pause and knelt respectfully before Duan Jiuxiu, holding out a stack of snow white silk ribbons streaked faintly with dried blood. "Reporting to my lord," she said. "Qinong has managed this without disgracing you." Duan Jiuxiu took the silk strips and scanned the lines written across them. His face broke into a smile. "Well done. Qinong, you've worked hard." Hu Tianwei still looked uneasy. "There's a chance some of it is fake." Qinong reached out and pinched his ear, gently enough to be called affectionate. "I like being s...

The cliff was the only stretch of flat snow for a hundred miles. Twenty zhang from its edge stood a thatched hut, buried under a thick white blanket. Behind it, a stand of cedars rose straight and bare, and at the top of one hung an old red ribbon, snapping in the wind. It was the only color in a world scrubbed white. Inside, a stove burned in the middle of the room. Duan Jiuxiu sat in the corner with his knees drawn up, eyes closed as if resting. Hu Tianwei crouched near the fire warming his hands, while Zhou Zhiqin leaned against the far wall, hollow-eyed and silent. Hu Tianwei smiled and waved him over. "Now that Zhou Daxia's come to warm himself, let's not dwell on Dong Xiao's death. It grieves us too, truly, but the living still have to keep living." Zhou Zhiqin murmured, "I never expected it. Never. We were close as brothers, and now he's gone, after everything..." "Not just Dong Xiao. Old Jin and Old Lan too. We've all paid dearly...

Daylight poured through the doors and windows, filling the room. The young woman's vigor and youth were impossible to dim. She spoke as if stating the obvious. "Of course it's a pity. How many Marquis of Wu'an have there been in the hundreds of years of the Great Yin Dynasty?" Fan Changyu counted on her fingers. "He recaptured Jinzhou, the throat of the northern frontier. He also took back the twelve commanderies of Liaodong, ground that cost countless loyal ministers and famous generals decades of fighting. People argue about what happened at the battle of Jinzhou, but when the Northern Jue captured that city years ago, didn't they slaughter the Central Plains people inside its walls?" "General Xie died on his feet to keep his dignity, and the Northern Jue still hung his body from the wall. The court officials call the Marquis of Wu'an cold and brutal, but weren't the soldiers and civilians who died in Jinzhou sixteen years ago just a...