Going Too Far Leaves Only Trouble Behind
Beneath the yellowed lantern hanging from the eaves, the gaunt, slender figure of Bai Jingyan rose slowly to her feet. The light spilling from the lantern flickered and swayed, illuminating the intricately embroidered partitions of the ancestral hall and the bluestone floor below. The light reflected off the ground only made her fair, unblemished skin and finely sculpted features appear all the softer and more delicate.
Bai Jingyan carried herself with a cool, steadfast elegance—an aura at once composed and weighty. Her aloof bearing alone was enough to steal the breath from anyone who looked at her.
As she rose, the crowd lowered their voices and fixed their eyes on her alone.
"Far from fulfilling the duties of clan head, you have defied our ancestral teachings and family precepts, and treated the treasures bestowed upon you by His Majesty as your own possessions. Instead of guiding the members of our clan toward righteousness, you shielded descendants guilty of every manner of tyranny and even murder, and sought to bury their crimes. You, Clan Head, are the very one who corrupted the conduct of the Bai clan! You indulged the twisted, degraded natures of the clan's young scions.
It went so far that they harassed the common people until they took their very lives. For such an outcome, the blame lies with you—the clan head whose character was never upright and whose conduct was never proper. Yours is the greatest responsibility of all, for you did nothing but gorge yourself on greed!"
Bai Jingyan glanced sideways at the clan head, whose face had gone deathly pale.
"Step down from your position, and within ten days return every item bestowed by the Emperor and every ounce of silver you received."
She continued.
"If you fail to surrender it all within the appointed time, Lord Zhu will dispose of you according to the law."
"That's right! Return everything! Not a single coin may go missing!"
The clan members shouted in fury.
"People of Suyang, you have long suffered because the Bai clan of the capital wielded the prestige of the Bai family name to act high-handedly. Bandits are now appearing frequently in the outskirts of Suyang, and the court has no spare capacity to suppress them. Therefore, I intend to use the silver embezzled by the former clan head of the Bai clan to fight off these bandits. By driving them away, I hope to offer the people of Suyang some measure of redress."
"Excellent!"
Someone outside the gate answered, and the commoners burst into applause and cheers.
The bandits had not yet entered the city proper, but they were running rampant around Suyang's outskirts—and the local authorities still stood idle, so the people had begun to grow anxious. Defeating the bandits would lift a great weight from their shoulders.
Bai Jingyan bowed her head to the ground toward the people outside the gates, then called for Bai Jingping.
Startled, Bai Jingping hurried forward and paid his respects.
"Commandery Princess..."
"I hear you reported the crimes of your cousins to Lord Zhu, and kept Anang safe. Very well done. You did not help your kinsmen escape the reach of the law simply because they were family—you sought instead to correct their wrongdoing. Truly worthy of being a descendant of our Bai family."
Bai Jingyan regarded him with earnest eyes.
Bai Jingping's chest swelled, and the tip of his nose stung. Yet he could not entirely shake off his sense of guilt and shame, and he bowed his head even lower.
"Though you are still young, the father who raised such a fine son clearly did not betray the hopes of the Bai ancestors."
Bai Qihua flinched and lifted his head. He stared blankly at Bai Jingyan, who carried herself with the very same air as the late King of Zhenguo. Then he bowed his head slightly and offered her a formal fist-and-palm salute.
Bai Jingyan radiated a fierce presence forged in the mountains of corpses and seas of blood of the battlefield—an aura that sat somewhat uneasily with her age.
They said the battlefield was an asura's hell. It was a place no one could return from alive without carrying a ruthless heart.
The commoners standing outside the gate and the Bai family inside the ancestral hall were drenched through, hair and clothes alike, by the drizzling rain. Only the patches of bluestone where people stood remained dry; everywhere else was soaked through, the lamplight reflecting faintly off the water.
"Today, many were expelled from the clan register, and the clan head has been stripped of his post. The Bai clan has suffered a grievous blow to its vitality. But we must understand this: only by clearing away the old can the new take root. Only by boldly cutting out the rotten can we move toward something better.
From this day forward, whoever they may be, every member of the Bai clan must hold our ancestral teachings close to heart. I hope each of you will become a person of true integrity—one who cherishes the people and walks only the straight and well-lit path."
The clan elders nodded again and again. Whether it was Bai Jingyan's commanding presence that pressed their heads down, or whether the assent truly welled up from their hearts, no one could say.
"The Bai clan will now turn over a new leaf and begin anew. At such a moment, the clan cannot be without a head. Bai Qihua will assume the position of acting clan head."
Bai Jingyan turned her gaze on Bai Qihua.
"Seek the counsel of the clan elders often. Once the Bai family of the capital returns to Suyang, a new clan head will be chosen. I intend to go on living in Suyang myself. So if word ever reaches my ears that a member of the Bai clan has troubled the common people, I will never let it pass! The Bai clan must never aid anyone expelled from the register for oppressing the people. Should anyone violate this, Clan Head, punish them severely."
Her task was done and her words were spoken, so Bai Jingyan bowed to the clan elders and the common folk, left the rest of the affairs in Bai Qihua's hands, and departed.
In the falling rain, Bai Qihua stood dazed for a long while. Never once had he imagined that one day the position of clan head would come crashing down, thud, right at his feet. Only when Bai Jingping called for his father did Bai Qihua snap out of his trance.
Inside the carriage, Bai Jinchi grumbled the moment she sat down, as though something about it all refused to sit right with her.
"Sister, why didn't you drive the clan head's entire household out completely? Expelling his whole family wouldn't even be enough—yet you seat his son in the clan head's position? And other households have people who broke our ancestral law too! Purge them all, and only then will the Bai clan be clean!"
Bai Jingyan's handling of the clan had been ruthless and swift. Yet for all its apparent mercilessness, she had left a little room after all—one scion in every household had been spared, and no root had been pulled out entirely. It was over this that Bai Jinchi grumbled.
At the edge of the carriage, its walls carved with care from fine elm, a lamp burned bright. Its light swayed with the carriage's motion, flooding the interior with warmth. The flickering flame lit up Bai Jingyan's eyes—deep and still as a lake—then dimmed them, over and over.
"Drive anyone into a corner, and they are bound to strike back."
Bai Jingyan explained patiently to Bai Jinchi.
"Once you've gained what you wanted, you must know where to stop. There is no need to push people to the brink of death. Someone cornered will obviously fight with the desperation of a cornered beast, and then the situation turns against us."
The reason Bai Jingyan had made such a spectacle of the affair was to win the people's hearts and to raise soldiers.
That purpose was achieved. And this was her chance to make the useful members of the clan her own people—why on earth would she bother driving matters to their bitter end?
They said a man with no shoes fears not the man with shoes. Once the road ahead was utterly blocked, fear itself vanished. But Bai Jingyan had held back not out of fear of such a thing. She simply had no wish for other variables to arise. She had no interest in wasting her attention on trifles.
Bai Jinchi frowned. Her mind understood, but her heart remained unconvinced.
"Sister, aren't you overestimating those people? What do they even have to fight us with? Leaving people like that in the clan... it just doesn't sit right with me! They'd be better off cast out of the family entirely!"
"I thought you'd grown up, and yet you're still so young?"
Unperturbed, Bai Jingyan spoke with a smile hidden in her voice.
"When we return to Suyang, we need to turn the clan's people into our people. Cast them out, and it works against us instead. Winning the people's hearts is the very foundation of raising an army. Besides, the silver will not even have to come out of our own Bai coffers—how convenient is that?"
Bai Jinchi fell into thought, brow furrowed. Her sister's words did make sense.
"Just now, I stated it plainly—never aid those expelled from the register. But could their own family truly sit idle while their sons and fathers suffer? If they help their kin despite our warning, it becomes a weakness we hold over them. When the time comes that they must be dealt with, all it will take is a single word."
A light flashed in Bai Jinchi's eyes. Then she broke into a wide grin.
"Sister, you're right as always!"
Bai Jingyan nodded and offered her a word of caution.
"Whatever the matter, do it in proper measure. Go too far, and all you leave behind is trouble. Granting a small way out while planning your next move—that is one of the ways to truly command men."
"I'll keep that in mind!"
Bai Jinchi nodded solemnly.
When Bai Jingyan's carriage came to a halt before the Bai manor, Shen Qingzhu spotted a man with an unusually grim air standing with his guards near the Bai ancestral residence.
Chun Tao lifted the carriage curtain, and Shen Qingzhu stepped forward under an umbrella, shielding Bai Jingyan's carriage as she murmured in a low voice.
"Commandery Princess, someone is standing at the gates of the Bai manor."
Zhan Yu halted behind Bai Jingyan's carriage and stepped down. The moment he saw Xiao Rongyan, he flinched in surprise—then, seeming to understand at once, looked toward Bai Jingyan. The customs of Wei, he thought, were indeed more open than those of Jin. So he concluded that Master Xiao, who so admired the Commandery Princess, had chased after her all the way to Suyang.
Xiao Rongyan wore a black official's robe embroidered with white cloud patterns, and around his waist was a belt edged in gold and studded with jade—a belt that stood out all the more against the rainy night.
Yue Shi stood obediently at Xiao Rongyan's side, a leather-shaded lantern in one hand and an umbrella held aloft in the other. The warm lamplight lent a softness to the deep, sharply defined contours of Xiao Rongyan's face.
When Bai Jingyan looked his way, that gentle, attentive, yet strikingly handsome man bowed toward her with impeccable grace.
She remembered what he had said—that he would come to discuss business. Seeing him waiting there in such humble bearing, she could only assume the matter was urgent.
"It's Master Xiao!"
Bai Jinchi broke into a wide smile.
"Master Xiao, what brings you to Suyang?"
Having decided that he had come all this way for her sister's sake, Bai Jinchi's mood brightened at once.
Shen Qingzhu, who had not yet grasped the situation, saw Bai Jinchi's delight and lowered her guard a fraction.
As Bai Jingyan stepped down from the carriage, Xiao Rongyan approached her. She returned his bow, then asked,
"Master Xiao, is this about the tea trade?"
Fine threads of rain soaked silently into the umbrella above her.
Shen Qingzhu, holding the umbrella over Bai Jingyan's head, simply studied Xiao Rongyan without quite understanding why.
"It is."
Xiao Rongyan nodded, regarding her with an unfathomable depth in his eyes, his manner most respectful.
"It is a matter of some importance, and I believe I must speak with the Commandery Princess alone."
His gaze was grave and earnest. There was no trace of jest or levity—every line of him suggested a man intent on plotting great matters with Bai Jingyan.
Zhan Yu came forward under his umbrella and greeted Xiao Rongyan with a smiling face.
"Master Xiao."
"And Master Zhan Yu has come as well."
Xiao Rongyan inclined his head lightly toward him.
"When I heard the Commandery Princess was descending to Suyang, I feared you'd be short of hands, so His Highness the Crown Prince showed special consideration. If nothing else, no one runs errands with quite my astonishing talent, do they? And so, shameless as it is, I've followed the Commandery Princess all the way here."
Zhan Yu glanced once at Bai Jingyan, then turned his gaze back to Xiao Rongyan, who had a smile hovering at the corners of his eyes.
"You told His Highness you would be traveling a long way on matters of trade. I never dreamed that long road led to Suyang! What a remarkable coincidence!"
Reading the jest in Zhan Yu's words, Xiao Rongyan answered with a smiling face.
"There is a matter concerning the tea trade on which I must ask the Commandery Princess's aid. I truly have come to seek her help."
"Jinchi, see Master Zhan Yu to his lodgings. Tell the steward to show the Crown Prince's guard every courtesy. Master Zhan Yu, my thanks for your trouble today."
Bai Jingyan said.
"Commandery Princess, you honor me. This humble servant merely ran a few errands, nothing more."
Zhan Yu answered with becoming modesty.
"Master Zhan Yu, this way, please."
Reluctant to let Zhan Yu eat into her sister's time with Master Xiao, Bai Jinchi smiled and showed him the way.
Zhan Yu was quick-witted to the highest degree. His Highness the Crown Prince was deliberately trying to match Bai Jingyan and Xiao Rongyan—what kind of fool would blunder after them? He bowed hurriedly and withdrew.