Parting the Clouds to See the Sun
Bai Jingyan turned her head to gaze at the vermilion main gate of the Bai clan's ancestral estate in Shanyang.
All six doors stood wide open, the pillars freshly painted red. A pair of stone lions, taller than a grown man, flanked the entrance, and even the roof tiles and eaves had been given a handsome coat of color. Generation by generation, the Bai family had expanded the venerable old ancestral residence into something ever grander and more magnificent. It could hardly rival the palaces of the royal and noble households in the capital, but in Shanyang it was a mansion seen nowhere else.
"Elder Lady, I take it you've come on account of the clan matters?"
Though the old woman was well advanced in years, her eyes were clear and her mind sharper still. Bai Jingyan was meant to arrive on the first of the fifth month, yet here she was early — clearly she had come to settle the affairs of the clan.
"I intend to open the ancestral shrine and replace the clan head," Bai Jingyan said.
The old woman stopped in her tracks and promptly nodded. The current clan head had always rendered one flawed judgment after another. His conduct, his temperament — they mirrored, down to the letter, those of his mother, that woman who had already departed the world.
The old woman had grown up alongside Bai Weiting himself and knew the clan head's mother well. Born a concubine's daughter of a great house, she had steeped herself in every manner of mean and spiteful behavior. Had she not been betrothed in childhood, she never would have married at all — and even the previous clan head had only been entered into the registers of his rightful mother belatedly. That was how such a woman had come to be the clan head's wife. Under no other circumstance would the Bai family ever have admitted someone like her into the position.
"Elder Lady, do you intend to make this a sweeping affair?"
Leaning on her staff, the old woman fell slowly into step beside Bai Jingyan and asked for particulars.
"The Bai family has ancestral precepts, house rules, and clan statutes besides. We live only by the regulations our ancestors laid down. It seems a good number of people will be leaving the clan today — the clan head's immediate household among them."
Bai Jingyan halted in the middle of the courtyard and continued.
"And if the clansmen refuse to consent, then I shall bring the matter of the Bai family before our ancestors, report the transgressions, and withdraw from the clan entirely — for then I'll have no choice but to cut off the rotting tail at once."
"To the clansmen, the Bai family of Dadu is the only pillar they have left. Before, they leaned on the King of Zhenguo; now they lean on you, Elder Lady — the Zhenguo Commandery Princess."
The old woman chuckled low in her throat. No one alive understood the clansmen's thinking better than she did.
"Not one of them would ever trade away the Commandery Princess for the sake of sparing a single clan head. And word has it that when you returned this time, Elder Lady, the Crown Prince personally attached men to you and lent you his backing. All the more reason they would never let slip so towering a tree."
The old woman offered Bai Jingyan a respectful bow.
"This old servant has labored in the Bai household her whole life, and spent that whole life keeping the ledgers. Every account sent from Dadu to Shanyang year after year, I have preserved with the greatest care. If there is anything you need, Elder Lady, you need only say the word."
Her meaning was plain: if the ledgers ever needed to be checked, the old woman stood ready at a moment's call.
The clan head had quietly pocketed silver meant to be sent from Dadu to Shanyang not once, not twice, but many times. Yet the Bai family had known, and had turned a blind eye — on the reasoning that tending to the clansmen placed its own strains upon him.
The old woman had long considered this the clan head's greatest vulnerability. By the generation of the King of Zhenguo's grandsons, the descendants had flourished, and she believed the position of clan head ought to pass to the legitimate line. For that, a justification to strip the current clan head of his post was needed.
But against all expectation, the King of Zhenguo's descendants had all perished, and she had assumed the ledgers would be useless now. If, however, the Elder Lady meant to depose the clan head, then those ledgers could prove a formidable weapon.
"Then I leave it in your hands," Bai Jingyan said with a smile.
Gazing at Bai Jingyan — so dependable, and so kind — the old woman felt her eyes grow hot. Every man of the Bai family had perished, and everyone had assumed the family would crumble.
Yet the Elder Lady had shouldered the Bai family's crushing burden of her own accord. Before the entire assembly she had proclaimed the Bai family's loyalty and righteousness; on New Year's Eve she had borrowed coffins for the common people. At the cost of her own life she had recovered the rightful posthumous honors for the King of Zhenguo and the Bai family. Before Wude Gate she had beaten the Dengwen Drum, forcing the Emperor's hand against the King of Xin.
How many in this world possessed such mettle?
None — only the Bai Elder Lady of Dadu.
When the Elder Lady had gone to the Southern Border, the old woman had tossed and turned sleepless night after night, praying over and over to the King of Zhenguo in heaven, to the Duke and the generals of the Bai family: please, keep Bai Jingyan safe and see her home.
And home she had come, safe and sound — bearing the posthumous honors in her arms. She had crushed Xiliang and Nanyan, and fulfilled the wishes the Bai men could never realize in the Southern Border.
The old woman had witnessed that glory with her own eyes.
If anyone ever again dared claim a woman was less than a man, she intended to be the first to refute it.
"'In my hands,' you say! To lend even a little strength to the Bai family and the Elder Lady — that alone is joy enough for this old woman."
The old woman looked at Bai Jingyan through glistening eyes.
"If the King of Zhenguo were still alive — if he could see how fine and upright the Elder Lady has grown — he would surely... surely have rejoiced!"
Unable to hold back her tears, she twisted away and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, then tried to smooth the awkwardness with a small, watery laugh.
"At my age, a mere breath of wind is enough to bring on tears. Pay it no mind, Elder Lady."
Bai Jingyan looked at her. Hearing her speak of her grandfather, sorrow welled up inside her.
"Let's go somewhere out of the wind. Walk the ancestral estate with me — and tell me which courtyards you mean to prepare for my mother and my aunts."
The old woman nodded, and leaning on her staff, walked a step behind Bai Jingyan. She smoothed her garments and composed her expression, then, as Bai Jingyan surveyed every corner of the estate, recounted all that had been done since her return and what needed to be finished by the end of the fourth month.
"You've worked hard putting the ancestral estate in order."
"The human traffickers of Shanyang City will be bringing the servants along shortly. Would the Elder Lady care to inspect them herself?"
The old woman asked.
"I must open the ancestral shrine at midday, so time is short. Leave that business to the underlings. We'll be relying chiefly on the people we brought from the capital anyway, so have the newly purchased servants lodge in the outer compound for now. It's nothing worth fussing over."
Bai Jingyan replied.
"Of course. This servant thinks the same. The newly bought servants can do rough labor in the outer compound first, and be properly trained later..."
The relocation of the Bai family of Dadu to Shanyang was no simple undertaking. Beyond the goods their masters would use, even the servants' families were making the move, their belongings carried along with them. That was why everything had to be ferried to Shanyang over multiple trips.
"There is one more matter I'd like to raise. The Madam instructed this servant to guide you to Jinfeng Courtyard for your stay — but in my humble opinion, Jinfeng Courtyard is large indeed, yet sits in rather a secluded corner. Would it not suit you better to lodge in Baozhu Courtyard, directly beside the Madam's own courtyard?"
The old woman asked after Bai Jingyan's wishes.
"I'll stay in Jinfeng Courtyard. I must train in the martial arts every day, and I'd disturb my mother's rest — and worry her besides. A secluded spot is quiet, and quiet suits me."
Before the generals and soldiers of the Bai Family Army, Bai Jingyan had made a vow: in three years' time, she would have her vengeance — for her grandfather, her father, her uncles, her brothers who had gone on ahead to the netherworld, and her younger siblings.
Having sworn it, she could not permit herself the slightest slack.
But she had no wish to show her mother the sight of her training in the martial arts. It would only frighten her.
Emerging from her mother's Qinghe Courtyard, Bai Jingyan spoke to the old woman.
"What say we change Jinfeng Courtyard's name? Bayun Courtyard."
Bayun-do-il — part the clouds to behold the sun. In the end, they would see the clear blue sky.
"An excellent name! Just as the Elder Lady says."
The old woman nodded.
The old gatekeeper servant hurried through the moon gate and came running up to Bai Jingyan and the old woman, offering a bow.
"Elder Lady, a Master Xiao outside wishes to see you. He says he has brought Anang with him."
Master Xiao?
Xiao Rongyan?
"Show him in."
"Yes, at once!"
The old servant scurried off again at a quick pace.
When Bai Jingyan reached the front hall, Xiao Rongyan was seated in the main chamber. He had taken the refreshments a Bai household servant had set out and was offering them to Anang.
Anang, still dressed in her mourning clothes, shook her head. Catching sight of Bai Jingyan from the corner of her eye, she gave Xiao Rongyan's arm a light tug and motioned for him to look outside.
When Xiao Rongyan turned his head, Bai Jingyan — having already told the old woman there was no need to accompany her further — was climbing the steps of the hall. He set the refreshments down and rose to greet her.
"Elder Lady."
"Master Xiao."
Bai Jingyan returned the greeting. Seeing Anang standing safely at Xiao Rongyan's side, she let out a breath of relief.
"Master Xiao, what brings you to Shanyang?"
"As it happened, I had business near Shanyang. And recalling that the Commandery Princess would be coming to settle matters of the clan, I stayed an extra day. There is a rather urgent transaction besides — I wished to hear your thoughts on it as well."
Xiao Rongyan finished slowly, then glanced once at Anang before continuing.
"Ah — someone attempted to harm Anang. Yue Shi happened upon it and saved her. So I placed Anang in my newly opened shop and had Zhang Kui take her in as an adopted daughter. Then word reached me that the Commandery Princess was searching for the girl, and so I brought her here. Once you have concluded the affairs of the Bai clan, Elder Lady, I thought we might sit down and discuss some business together."
What manner of extraordinary trade could it be, that he had not breathed a word of it in the capital and had gone so far as to wait for her here in Shanyang? With Anang standing right there, Bai Jingyan asked nothing further and only nodded.
Anang looked at Bai Jingyan as tears fell freely down her face. She had believed that, with her mother gone, no one in this world would ever come looking for her again. Yet a beautiful elder sister and a gallant elder brother, whom she had seen but once, had been fated to cross her path — had saved her, and then come searching for her.
That Xiao Rongyan had even seen to her lodging came as a small surprise. Bai Jingyan looked at the girl. The true culprits who had cost this child her mother were the young men of the Bai clan, drunk on the family's power and prestige. Bai Jingyan believed she owed Anang a debt of the heart.
"Later today, the Bai ancestral shrine will be opened. I will see your mother's rightful honors restored — I swear it."
Bai Jingyan told her.
Anang nodded. Then she gestured to Bai Jingyan that she wished to be there as well. She wanted to watch what wretched end awaited those who had cast her into the river and torn her mother from her.
Bai Jingyan held her silence for a long moment, then nodded.
"Then it shall be so."