In uncertain country, Cai Zhao never let herself sleep deeply. But after the long, tangled night with Mu Qingyan, she went under hard and didn't surface until the hour was half-gone. By then the inn's ground floor was loud with strangers.
She rolled upright in yesterday's clothes. Mu Qingyan was already dressed, seated clean and still at the window that looked out over the corridor. He glanced back at her, then left the room without a word, giving her the space to wash. When he returned, he carried a steaming plate of morning food in both hands.
He set it in front of her and watched her eat. When she went at it too fast, he rested a palm on her back and rubbed slow, easy circles.
"Eat. The sun barely cracked the horizon. We won't leave until afternoon, when the wind drops."
Cai Zhao looked up. Then she remembered: up here the days were short, the nights long. She swallowed her mouthful. "Why is it so loud down there?"
"It's been loud since last night. Four or five separate groups have come in."
She lowered her chopsticks. "It's not medicine season."
Mu Qingyan poured her more porridge. His eyes went flat. "It isn't summer for climbing the mountain or autumn for the harvest. The snow is wrong. The cold is wrong. And five groups arrive in the same night."
Their room was the corner unit at the far end of the second-floor corridor. Quiet, wide, facing the right way. Mu Qingyan had seen it the moment they arrived and pressed the innkeeper to clear it out by nightfall. From here, with the window cracked an inch, they could see most of the hall below.
They sat shoulder to shoulder and looked down.
The northwest corner held the largest group. Seventeen, maybe eighteen men, broad-shouldered, well-fed, loud. They had shoved four tables together. At the center of the noise sat a man of about fifty, medium height, softly fat, with a trimmed beard that caught the light. His clothes announced wealth. His posture announced someone who wanted you to notice.
Cai Zhao studied him. "Big front. Hollow inside."
"How do you know?"
"His chin's in the air, but he won't sit in the open. He picked the corner and kept his guards arm's reach away. A real powerful man doesn't hide in a corner."
Mu Qingyan made a quiet sound of approval.
Two tables off from that group, a lean, short man ate alone. He was still, and he carried himself without any hurry. Every so often he glanced sideways at the loud table, his expression edging on contempt.
Cai Zhao shook her head. "Can't read him."
"I can." Mu Qingyan's eyes traced the man's hands, his feet. "Palms thin as fan ribs. Short fingers but strong knuckles. Weight forward on the forefoot." He paused. "He's a rooftop thief. A serious one. Walks eaves for a living."
Cai Zhao frowned. "What does a thief want in a blizzard?"
"Something worth the blizzard."
Their eyes moved to the southwest corner. Three people. One man, two attendants. The master looked to be in his mid-thirties, decent-looking, but his whole body carried the weight of someone being hunted by a debt he couldn't name. Cai Zhao was still working out what felt wrong about him when she noticed Mu Qingyan had gone quiet, fixed on the man's hands where they rested on the table.
She looked too. The skin was pale, slightly more so than ordinary. Nothing else to see. But Mu Qingyan's brow had pulled tight and stayed there.
She moved on to the last table before she could ask him about it.
And then she sucked in a breath.
Mu Qingyan turned. "What?"
Cai Zhao stared. The table had two or three plain dishes and five or six emptied wine jugs. Two middle-aged men sat across from each other, not speaking, drinking steadily. The man on the right had clean features and still eyes, but something behind them was grieving. The man on the left had three long whiskers beneath his jaw, an upright bearing, and the look of someone who had already said his piece about the wine and given up.
Mu Qingyan noticed them too, watching the man on the right.
"Stretch any further and they'll see you up here." His voice was flat, a warning without heat.
Cai Zhao pulled back from the window. She turned to Mu Qingyan and dropped her voice. "That's Zhou Zhiqin. Uncle Zhou. My mother's cousin."
Mu Qingyan looked again. Longer this time. "Now I understand why he looked familiar. He has the same face as Zhou Zhizhen, three or four parts."
He settled back, and something satisfied moved across his expression. "Well. You were just saying you didn't need Qian Xueshen to change your appearance before we reached Peijun Hill. But you've been trained in Luoying Valley your whole life. Your uncle won't recognize your face. He'll recognize your martial arts."
Cai Zhao went still.
"Even four or five people from Luoying Valley adds up fast. He doesn't need to see you clearly. He only needs to see the way you move."
"So what do I do?" She heard the tightness in her own voice.
Mu Qingyan looked almost pleased with himself. "I have something in mind."
"If it's another one of your ideas—"
"It will work."
She let it go. Her gaze dropped back to the hall. "Uncle Zhou has lost weight. A lot. Since the funeral, three years ago."
Mu Qingyan watched her for a moment without speaking. Then: "Who's the man with him?"
"Dongfang Xiao. He's based in Zhongzhou. He and Uncle Zhou have been close since they were boys, traveled together most of their lives. After Qingfeng Temple collapsed, my aunt pulled both him and Taoist Master Yunzhuan out of the rubble."
"His connection to the temple?"
"He was a registered disciple there. In terms of generation, Yunzhuan was his senior brother. After the temple was rebuilt, Yunzhuan went into seclusion, and Dongfang Xiao went home to look after his parents."
Mu Qingyan nodded slowly. "So. Two men of principle, in the middle of nowhere, in a snowstorm. What are they doing here?"
Cai Zhao spread her hands. "I don't know."
"I have a guess." He glanced around the room, then looked back at the window. "Shall we test the other tables while we wait?"
"Start with the loud ones. That performance needs verifying."
Mu Qingyan nodded once. He reached over and tapped the table. The empty bowls in front of Cai Zhao jumped and skidded half a foot. Before she could react, he flicked his sleeve in a clean, unhurried arc. The bowls lifted off the surface, arced out through the window gap, and dropped in a falling line toward the northwest corner.
Several sharp cracks. Porcelain fragments scattered across the floor.
Cai Zhao sat rigid, staring at him.
Downstairs, the fat man and his group erupted. Shouts, scraping chairs, men stumbling backward from the table.
She watched them. He watched them.
After a moment, both of them came to the same quiet conclusion.
"Siqimen school," Mu Qingyan said.
"Siqimen," Cai Zhao agreed.