A Narrow Escape From Death
"Are Jin Lang's sisters behaving themselves?"
Bai Jingyan asked.
Bai Jinxiu shook her head. "It's all petty nonsense. They keep harping on filial duty, trying to pressure me into bringing Lady Zhang back into the household. They whined that once Lady Zhang returned, marriage talks could finally begin, and I refused them flatly, again and again. Yesterday Jin Lang made things perfectly clear to them as well. He told them that if they missed their mother so much, he would personally send them wherever she was living. So they'll likely keep quiet for a while now. Don't worry, Eldest Sister."
The two daughters of the Jin family by the second branch had come of age, and the time for discussing their marriages had arrived. With Lady Zhang unable to be brought home, the two girls had pinned all their hopes on Bai Jinxiu, who possessed the finest dowry prospects of a first-rate noble house.
But what respectable family would take as daughters-in-law girls whose mother was a woman like Lady Zhang? And the girls' tastes, of all things, were impossibly exacting. They could not reach for the highest, yet turned their noses up at anything beneath it.
One of them nursed grand ambitions of marrying Ye Yuanjing of Chancellor Yu's household, while the other insisted she would wed Dong Zhangyuan, a man she had never once laid eyes on, and could not open her mouth without chattering on about her dear Zhangyuan, her honored Lord Zhangyuan. They were, if one traced the family connections, cousins of Dong Zhangyuan's — a double match into the Dong family, they declared.
Only a woman of Bai Jinxiu's composure could look upon such girls without a sneer.
Though this year's examinations had gone unannounced thanks to the bribery scandal, word of those who had placed in the top three tiers was already spreading on the wind. The grandson of Grand Preceptor Zhen, Zhen Cuilu. Chancellor Yu's grandson, Ye Yuanjing. And Dong Zhangyuan, son of the Dengzhou Inspector Dong Qing'e. These were the most sought-after young men among every great family with a daughter ready for marriage.
Jin Lang's two younger sisters knew full well that Chancellor Yu's threshold was beyond their reach, and so they set their sights on Dong Zhangyuan. Zhen Cuilu and Ye Yuanjing were hopeless, they conceded, but Dong Zhangyuan was their own cousin — why on earth could a marriage not be proposed? They nagged and pestered Bai Jinxiu relentlessly, grumbling that all she had to do was open her mouth and say the word.
Bai Jinxiu tried to reason with them gently, warning that setting one's sights too high when discussing a marriage would only ruin their reputation.
At that, the two of them wept and wailed, accusing Bai Jinxiu of nursing a deep grudge, of blocking their mother from intervening so that she could toy with their marriages as she pleased.
Bai Jinxiu did not report the matter to Jin Lang. Instead, while he napped briefly in his study, she summoned the two girls to the side hall. Only afterward did Jin Lang learn from Bai Jinxiu's maid Feicui that his sisters had thrown tantrums before Bai Jinxiu more times than he could count — for Bai Jinxiu had been quietly turning the maids away all this time, so that nothing would disturb his preparations for the imperial examination.
Feicui told him that just moments before, the two girls had carried on outside the door threatening to die on the spot, and Bai Jinxiu had summoned them to the side hall for fear the noise might wake him from his rest.
When Jin Lang heard this, rage boiled up inside him.
Dong Zhangyuan was the legitimate second son of the Dengzhou Inspector. If even the Grand Preceptor and the Chancellor wished to marry their granddaughters to him, what room was there for the Jin family girls to intrude? Did they behave this way because they did not know what had become of their own mother? Had they so quickly forgotten how their father died? The Jin family no longer even held a title, and still they clung to the Bai name while coveting the Bai family's own kin!
Yet for all his fury, Jin Lang swallowed his anger and reasoned with his two sisters first. He admonished them not to carry on like that in front of their new sister-in-law, who was with child.
Whether his words had taken root or not, the sisters stayed quiet for several days — and then one day they resumed pestering Bai Jinxiu with renewed vigor. The Dong family had sent Bai Jinxiu an invitation, and they fumed that she would not take them along to the Dong estate.
Then, just yesterday, Jin Lang's sisters had camped outside his study, whimpering about how much they missed their mother. So exasperated by their wailing was he that he thundered at them: if they missed her badly enough to disrupt him like this, he would send them to her at once so they could see her that very day. The two girls fled in terror, and from then on they never mentioned her again.
Matters this trivial were hardly worth recounting. Bai Jinxiu did not dwell on them, nor did she wish to burden Bai Jingyan with every last detail of the household.
Seeing Bai Jinxiu's smiling face, Bai Jingyan seemed reassured. She clasped her sister's hand tightly.
"As long as Jin Lang treats you well, that's all that matters."
At those words, Bai Jinxiu looked at her and asked, "Eldest Sister… do you have feelings for Lord Xiao?"
Bai Jingyan lowered her head as she answered. "The Bai family's road ahead is uncertain. How could I dare entangle myself in personal sentiment?"
How could she dare?
Bai Jinxiu clenched her fist around her handkerchief. So that was it… Eldest Sister did hold Lord Xiao in her heart.
While a brief silence stretched between them, Bai Jinxiu turned the man over in her mind. Xiao Rongyan.
"Eldest Sister, just between us — if you truly do love Lord Xiao, taking him into the Bai family as a live-in son-in-law could work too!"
A live-in son-in-law?
Bai Jingyan, who had been gazing at Bai Jinxiu, burst out laughing. Take the Regent of Great Yan into the Bai family as a kept husband?
"Jinxiu, the Bai family still has a long road ahead. The era of peace under heaven that the Bai clan has prayed for across generations has not yet arrived. So I will not think about feelings between a man and a woman."
Bai Jingyan smiled and added, "So don't fret over it either."
Bai Jinxiu started to say more, then stopped. Eldest Sister's dream had never been to marry and bear children. Nor was she a woman who would spend her life tethered to a household. Bai Jinxiu knew that well enough.
The carriage came to a gentle stop before the gates of the Imperial Nunnery, and Bai Jingyan helped Bai Jinxiu down. There, beneath the osmanthus tree by the nunnery wall, stood the tall figure of Xiao Rongyan, as though the very fragrance of osmanthus blossoms drifted from his body. His clean, striking features were composed, his dark, unfathomable eyes brimming with a smile, and he watched her with a gaze full of warmth — the very same gaze she had seen that night at Huxin Pavilion in Suyang.
When he had wrapped five fingers over the back of her hand and laced them tight, his palm had burned like fire. Even now she could feel that same heat, and the memory made her palm prickle.
She stilled her heart, approached him, and offered a greeting. "Lord Xiao, thank you for seeing us here."
Xiao Rongyan returned the courtesy. "The honor is mine, Eldest Miss Bai."
Bai Jingyan smiled and inclined her head to him, then entered the gates of the nunnery alongside Nanny Zhang, Bai Jinxiu, Bai Jinchi, and Bai Jinse.
Yue Shi approached Xiao Rongyan, who stood watching Bai Jingyan's retreating figure, and murmured, "My lord, we should be going as well."
"There is no hurry."
A trace of a smile lingered at the corners of Xiao Rongyan's mouth. He had just seen, quite clearly, Bai Jingyan's ears turning red.
Her skin was so fair that no matter how skillfully she masked her feelings, she could never hide ears gone crimson.
By the seventh month, the Grand Princess's garden had grown lush and green.
Thin gauze canopies had been strung across the garden, so there was no need to worry about gnats and midges.
The Grand Princess and Lu Ninghua were playing Go in a shaded corner of the garden. When the Grand Princess kept glancing out toward the garden gate, Lu Ninghua said with a smile, "It seems Your Highness cannot concentrate, knowing that the Eldest Miss and the Fourth Miss are coming."
"Hardly."
The Grand Princess poured the stones from her hand back into the bowl. "Marching off to war is a matter of surviving by a hair's breadth. She is certain to have taken wounds somewhere. And A'yan… A'yan is the sort who will grit her teeth and bear it all alone, even when she's hurt. That is precisely why I worry for her!"
"Then let me put your mind at ease. When the Eldest Miss arrives, I will take her pulse. If she truly is injured, she will not be able to hide it from me."
Lu Ninghua said this as she lifted the teapot. "I'll brew a fresh pot. Shall I bring out the sparrow-tongue tea that the Eldest Miss favors?"
"Do that."
The Grand Princess nodded.
From far off came the sound of Nanny Zhang and Bai Jingyan talking. The Grand Princess rose hastily, bracing one hand against the stone table, and turned toward the entrance.
At the sight of Bai Jingyan and Bai Jinchi, still clad in armor they had not even had time to remove, the Grand Princess's eyes reddened.
Beneath the brilliant sunlight, the girl in silver armor had swept her long hair up neatly to the crown of her head. She was tall, her stride firm and sure, a fierce martial aura radiating from every line of her body.
For one instant, the Grand Princess seemed to see her husband, her son, her grandsons.
Those men had all been every bit as proud and brimming with strength. And in the end, every one of them had been laid to rest in the Southern Border.
Her eyes grew damp. Before her flickered the image of the seventeen men of the Bai family, marching out to war in silver armor, proud and magnificent. She would never again see the seventeen young lords of the Bai clan.
When Bai Jingyan's party came inside, the Grand Princess dabbed her tears with a handkerchief, turned away to master herself, and sat down on the stone bench. Then she took a few Go stones from the bowl, clutched them tight in her hand, and stared blankly at the board.
"Eldest Sister, Jinse told me that Lu Yuanfeng and the other young dandies have marched north to Beijiang to enlist," Bai Jinchi said, her voice light and bright. "They must be part of the new garrison we saw at the border on our way back."
"It's true."
Bai Jinse added in her clear, careful voice. "When Lu Yuanfeng left, the whole capital was in an uproar. All the young noble scions he ran with marched off to the barracks together, heads held high. Duke Shui and Fan, the Commander of the Patrol Camp, even went to Chancellor Yu's residence and begged him on their knees to talk Lu Yuanfeng out of it.
Afterward, the lords went to the barracks themselves to drag their sons home, but Lu Yuanfeng reportedly declared, 'It is the duty of every man to defend this land with righteousness.' And then he pressed them further, saying, 'The Bai family sends even its women onto the battlefield to lay down their lives for the realm, so tell me, my lords — what reason do you have, sitting high on your cushions and feeding off the sweat of the common people, for caging grown men of fighting blood at home? Do you mean to keep them doing needlework until you can marry them off?' He said it all without missing a beat."
Bai Jinchi's eyes went round. "Lu Yuanfeng knew how to say something like that?"
But after a moment's thought, she frowned, sensing something off about the speech. "That sounds suspiciously like 'the Bai family women ought to be dropping stitches and getting married.'"
Bai Jinxiu laughed behind her handkerchief. "Lu Yuanfeng's words made the people of the capital see the noble scions in a new light. Even His Majesty reportedly praised them, saying they were the valiant men of Jin — men whose strengths outweighed their faults.
In the end, the lords who had used their power to strong-arm the barracks into handing their sons back had to scramble all over again to deliver them to the camps. And ever since, Chancellor Yu has been bowing that precious old frame of his, going house to house to apologize!"
Whenever Bai Jinse recalled the scene, she could not hold back her laughter.
Lu Yuanfeng was mischievous and a bit too loose in his manners, but his nature was fundamentally good, and his heart was warm. That was surely why the men of the Bai family had grown so fond of him.
By the time they reached the entrance of the small garden, Wei Zhong had hurried ahead of Bai Jingyan to lift the gauze canopy.
The Grand Princess had combed her frost-white hair back neatly and pinned a single gold-flecked jade hairpin in it. She wore a summer gown made just last year, embroidered with trumpet creeper blossoms — comfortable, yet elegant.
She sat before the stone table in the garden, Go stones in hand, head bowed over the board. Pale sunlight streamed down through the leaves, catching the white porcelain vase holding a few sprigs of osmanthus, so that faint shimmers of light danced across it.
The Grand Princess had grown much thinner than before. Living on vegetables alone, perhaps, her cheeks had hollowed, and the sockets of her eyes had deepened.
Bai Jingyan led her sisters in three respectful bows to the Grand Princess, then rose and spoke. "We have come to pay our respects to Grandmother. We heard you were unwell — are you feeling any better?"
The Grand Princess returned the stones in her hand to the bowl and asked in a voice grown hoarse with feeling. "Was the journey to Beijiang without trouble? And Jinchi — is your hand all right?"
"Grandmother, it was only a small cut on the back of my hand. Nothing at all!"
Bai Jinchi answered exactly as Bai Jingyan had instructed her to. Her smiling eyes were clear and guileless — somehow, she still seemed nothing more than a child.
The Grand Princess looked at Bai Jingyan and longed to reach out her hand, to beckon her to her side — but at the sight of her granddaughter in armor, guilt over her grandsons surged up within her, and in the end she could not bring herself to extend her hand.