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As she stepped out of the room, Nanny Dong caught sight of a stranger in the courtyard. Yin Shuang sat beneath the eaves, munching on pine nut candies, and Nanny Dong's brow furrowed at the sight of her. The girl looked utterly unmannered. Turning her head, Nanny Dong asked Chun Tao,
"Did the Eldest Young Miss take in someone new?"
Chun Tao's eyes were brimming with pity as she looked at Yin Shuang.
"I meant to tell you, Nanny… Yin Shuang is someone the Eldest Young Miss brought into Qinghui Courtyard. Her mind is a bit slow, but she has tremendous strength. Before this, she used to run errands for Fifth Madam. The Eldest Young Miss says that as long as the girl commits no grave fault, there's no need to bind her by the household rules."
Nanny Dong nodded, though inwardly she was not pleased. Without rules, nothing could be managed properly. Even if the Eldest Young Miss meant to extend special favor, there was no excuse for sitting out in the courtyard eating food with such a lack of decorum. Anyone who saw it would think Qinghui Courtyard had no regulations at all.
Nanny Dong let nothing show on her face, but she resolved to speak to the Eldest Young Miss about it later. Only after receiving her approval would she teach the girl proper conduct. It didn't matter that the child wasn't clever—the rules could be learned slowly, and if she failed once, she could simply be taught again and again. But to let the girl run wild out of pity would only end up harming her.
"Go and look after the Eldest Young Miss," Nanny Dong said to Chun Tao.
Chun Tao nodded and went inside, where Bai Jingyan was taking out her traveling clothes. She hurried to help her mistress dress.
"Eldest Young Miss, where are you going?"
"To see Grandmother."
* * *
By the time she reached Changshou Courtyard, the Grand Princess was standing beneath a lantern hanging from the eaves with Nanny Zhang beside her. Bai Jingyan handed her hand warmer to Chun Tao and quickened her pace toward her grandmother.
"Grandmother, why are you standing outside?"
Her eyes were rimmed with red—she had evidently been crying just moments before. At the sight of Bai Jingyan, the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile, and she drew her granddaughter into her arms. Then, pointing at the pine tree in the courtyard, she laughed.
"Your grandfather planted that pine with his own hands. The year your grandfather and I first entered this courtyard…"
The Grand Princess paused and lowered her head to gaze at the granddaughter in her embrace. Tears glistened on her smiling face.
"Back then, it was called Youngshou Courtyard—the Courtyard of Glory and Longevity. But your grandfather said he cared nothing for glory and long life; what he wished for was that the two of us might endure together like that pine tree. So on the spot, he changed its name to Changshou—the Courtyard of Long Life."
Nanny Zhang, standing nearby, could no longer hold herself together. She turned her head away, covered her mouth, and wept.
The Grand Princess's nostrils trembled, as though she had bitten into a bitter plum. A wave of melancholy filled her chest to overflowing.
"Grandmother, let's go inside… the wind is cold."
Bai Jingyan bowed her head, her eyes damp, and helped the Grand Princess into the room. She handed her a towel warmed with hot water and bade her wipe her face, and only then did the Grand Princess manage to steady her emotions a little.
"What brings you out on such a late night, with the wind so bitter?"
The Grand Princess passed the warm towel to Nanny Zhang, pulled Bai Jingyan by the hand to sit beside her, and instructed Nanny Zhang to bring hot ginger tea.
"It's about Second Uncle's illegitimate son. Right now the whole estate is whispering that Bai Jingxian is to inherit the title of Duke of Zhenguo. Grandfather, Father, my uncles, and my brothers return in three days' time, so I came to ask what you intend to do about that wretch, Grandmother."
The Grand Princess's mind was a tangle. The daughters-in-law had gathered here today and debated at length, but in the end they had reached no conclusion. She looked back at Bai Jingyan.
"What is your own thinking, A'yan?"
Bai Jingyan took her grandmother's hand and spoke slowly.
"That boy is savage by nature—not a shred of benevolence in him, though you searched with washed eyes. He is unfit to bear the two words 'Zhenguo,' that much goes without saying. Worse, if he were seated in that position, the Bai family's hundred years of renown would collapse in a single morning. He could even bring catastrophe upon our entire house."
The Grand Princess nodded. But was it truly right to abandon the title of Duke of Zhenguo, which generations had defended through shattered bodies and broken bones?
"That day, someone bribed the families of fallen soldiers to cause a disturbance before the estate gates—which in turn reveals something to us. Someone unseen is watching our Bai family. It is a scheme to defame us and drag the Bai name down! If you ask for my personal opinion, I believe the honor of the Bai family lives in the hearts of the people. Voluntarily relinquishing the title of Duke of Zhenguo to secure the family's safety—that is what must be done, and quickly."
"Relinquishing the title of our own accord…"
It was not that the Grand Princess had never considered this herself.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
"Whoever occupies a seat must prove worthy of it. Bai Jingxian could never. Rather than hollow out the title of Duke of Zhenguo into an empty shell, it would be better to seize the momentum and return boldly to our ancestral home in Suyang. If we show His Majesty that the Bai family bows its head and steps back willingly, he will spare our lives—and the Bai family's century of good name will be preserved as well.
As for that wretch Bai Jingxian… if you have the strength to hold him up, Grandmother, keep him close and teach him. If he someday develops real ability, achieves some great ambition, and wins his own way forward through merit, then the fine reputation the Bai family earns by stepping back now will become a great asset on his path to office! And if Bai Jingxian proves beyond saving, there is still the child Fifth Aunt carries. If she bears a son, we may yet look forward to the day the Bai family rises again!"
At Bai Jingyan's words, the Grand Princess felt as though a fog had lifted from her mind. Of course—why had she forgotten? The child in Fifth Daughter-in-law's belly!
If the Bai family stepped back, another path of survival opened before them. And even if they refused to retreat and staked their lives on holding the family intact, so long as that illegitimate son inherited the title, the honor of the Bais could not be carried forward.
The Grand Princess nodded. Gazing at Bai Jingyan as she spoke in her quiet, steady voice, she raised a hand and stroked her granddaughter's black hair.
Only lamentation welled up inside her. In learning, in the arts, in every discipline, there was nothing her granddaughter lagged behind in. With exceptional means and a steely spirit besides, she was a girl of extraordinary gifts. If only the eldest grandchild had been born a son, what worry would there ever have been about the Bai family's succession?
* * *
Leaving the Grand Princess's courtyard, Bai Jingyan went to see Lady Dong. When she arrived at her mother's courtyard, she did not send word ahead but simply lifted the partition screen and slipped inside. Her mother's muffled, heavy weeping drifted out to meet her.
Beyond the twelve-panel nanmu folding screen, Bai Jingyan saw her mother seated before the bronze mirror. In one hand she held the hairpin her father had made with his own hands as a birthday gift for her; pressed to her chest was the new garment she had sewn for Bai Jingyou, her younger son. She wept in silence, strangling every sound.
Her mother's weeping tore at Bai Jingyan's heart. Her mother had always seemed made of iron—yet to lose husband and son in a single morning, how deep that wound must run.
Bai Jingyan did not disturb her. She stood behind the screen for the better part of a quarter hour, then quietly withdrew.
"Eldest Young Miss…"
Nanny Zhen came out to meet her. When she saw the girl with reddened eyes begging her to take good care of her mother, Nanny Zhen could not hold back her tears.
"Eldest Young Miss, please don't worry. The Crown Prince's Consort is strong. Just this morning she told the servants that as the mistress of the Zhenguo Duke Estate and the Eldest Young Miss's mother, she would endure it no matter what—that if she cannot protect the Bai family, she cannot protect her children."
At those words, Bai Jingyan clenched her fists. Her chest felt heavy and hollow.
Her father came to mind.
It was during the war against Shu. In that bloody campaign, Bai Jingyan had pursued Great General Fang Pingguo for three days straight and finally severed his head, and the act had utterly shattered Shu's will to fight.
After the victory, Bai Jingyan had been drunk on exhilaration, unable to come down from the high. But her father declared that she had defied military orders by chasing Fang Pingguo on her own accord, and commanded her to take fifty lashes from her own hand.
She had refused outright, chin held stiff and high, arguing with him.
"I cut off the head of Shu's great general and won merit—why would you punish me for it?"
At that, her father's eyes had reddened, and rage surged up in him so fiercely that he flung the horse reins from his hand. Then he kicked the silver bowl from her grip and roared at her.
"Because I am your father! To everyone else, you may be a woman of brilliant cunning and courage—but to me, you are only a daughter I must protect, even if it costs my life!"
That was what a parent's love was. Parents were always prepared to lay down their lives to shield their children.
But now she had no father. Nor a brother.
Her father had died at Fengcheng.
Her brother had lost his life on the Southern Border.
Bai Jingyan nodded and spoke to Nanny Zhen in a low voice.
"Nanny, don't tell my mother that I came by."
Nanny Zhen straightened Bai Jingyan's traveling cloak and nodded, too choked up to say more.
"Eldest Young Miss, get some rest now. Once the Duke and the Crown Prince return, you'll be running about again without a moment's peace."
Bai Jingyan lifted her head, took Chun Tao's hand, and slowly made her way out of the courtyard, enduring the cold that pierced to the bone. Watching the white lantern hung high beneath the eaves thrash wildly in the raging wind, she tightened her grip on Chun Tao's fingers.
With the wind rising and the clouds churning, it looked as though Dadu was finally about to see the day turn.
* * *
On the fifth day of the first month of the sixteenth year of the Shenguan era, heavy snow fell.
In the first quarter of the Yin hour, the gatekeeper on watch at the southern gate of Dadu took up a lantern, emerged from his quarters, and gave the order to open the city gate.
Just as he turned, through the sheets of pouring snow, he caught sight of a bright lantern approaching from the far end of the line of carts. Only when it drew near did the gatekeeper realize there were not merely two or three people—and warily, his hand went to the sword at his hip.
The steward of the Zhenguo Duke Estate came forward first with quick steps. He bowed respectfully to the gatekeeper and explained the reason for their visit.
"Today King Xin returns wearing his mourning garb, and my lord's lady has brought the women of the household out to the gate to receive him."
Only after confirming that the steward was dressed in mourning clothes with a white band wound about his head did the gatekeeper nod and step aside.
Though he had never been to the battlefield himself, he too served in the army, and his heart for the nation and its people was no different from any soldier's. He had heard the tale of how men of vicious heart, blinded by silver, had taken another's coin and raised a riot before the gates of the Duke's estate. The Eldest Young Miss Bai's words had set this man's chest ablaze with burning indignation. Tears glimmering in his eyes, he felt a surge of longing to follow the Duke of Zhenguo to the battlefield that very moment and give his life in loyal service to the realm.
With the Duke and the men of the Bai family returning as the dead, it was perhaps only natural that the family's bereaved should come out beyond the city walls to meet them.
Crown Prince's Consort Lady Dong led the procession with Second Madam Yu, Third Madam Li, Fourth Madam Wang, and Fifth Madam Qi, heavy with child. The Eldest Young Miss Bai Jingyan, Second Young Miss Bai Jinxiu, Third Young Miss Bai Jindong, and Fourth Young Miss Bai Jinchi—who had barely managed to rise after the caning administered under household law—stood with the Bai family's second son-in-law Jin Lang, all under the protection of the Bai family guards. From attendants down to servants, they waited in silence outside the southern gate of Dadu for the heroes of the Bai family to come home.
From somewhere among the servants came the sound of low sobbing. The servants, it seemed, were weaker than their masters.