(4) Chaos at the Dinner Table

After everyone in the main hall finished their medicinal tea, with roughly half an hour still to go before mealtime, Han Qian and Yueming took Guo Huilian off to get acquainted with her "boudoir" first.

Guo Huilian's bedroom had been arranged right next to Han Qian's—originally Han Jin's room, but since Guo Huilian was a young lady, it made the most sense for her to be neighbors with Han Qian instead. The two siblings had actually argued loudly over this for quite a while beforehand; Han Jin felt Caixia Court had plenty of other rooms, so why should he specifically be the one to move? Naturally, he wasn't happy about it. No matter how Han Qian reasoned with him, she couldn't budge him, until at last she lost her patience and pointed out that every member of the Han family, save for their father, kept multiple bolt-holes across the manor: Caixia Court alone wasn't enough for him, since he also had a room to himself at Aunt Xi's Chunxi Court, where the three of them—mother and two children—each had their own room; even at the Four Seas Inn, far off in Chang'an, the Han family each had their own separate quarters. Han Jin was even worse than that—he'd claimed a room for himself at Tian Xu's Lingshuang Court too, and whenever the head accountants from the various branches arrived at Yueyue Manor to submit their ledgers and verify accounts, if Tian Xu got too busy and simply slept in his study, Han Jin would insist on squeezing into the study to sleep right alongside him. All told, Han Jin had more than three or four bolt-holes to his name—where couldn't he sleep? What was there left to quibble over?

"No backbone at all! You need me to step in over a little thing like this?" In the end, Yueming grew impatient and cut in without warning, and Han Jin, left with no choice, drooped like a defeated rooster and set about preparing to move his things.

By now Han Jin had already moved out, and Han Qian had had the room redecorated. She took Guo Huilian's hand and led her off toward Caixia Court, and so everyone in the main hall dispersed, one by one, amid the cheerful chatter of the three young women.

Caixia Court was where the Han family lived. Han Jian and Wang Qiugui had both come from poor households, where large broods of children and cramped living quarters meant boys and girls essentially never had separate courtyards to themselves—generally the boys slept together and the girls slept together, and if that still wasn't enough, parents and children crowded into a single room. Once the children grew a little older, they had to help support the family, and some went out to find work; that was exactly how Han Jian and Wang Qiugui had ended up at the Splendid Silk Shop in Chang'an in the first place. They had never held much of a notion that men and women needed to live in separate quarters, and besides, Chu Mingxi loved a lively household, and with so few people in the family as it was, keeping everyone spread out separately would have felt far too lonely. And so, from a young age, Han Jin had lived right next door to Han Qian. What was more, Chu Mingxi felt it would be far too solitary for only herself and Tian Xu to live at Chunxi Court, so whenever Chu Mingxi was at Yueyue Manor, Wang Qiugui would bring Han Qian and Han Jin along to stay at Chunxi Court and keep her company. Whatever went on inside Yueyue Manor, outsiders had no say in the matter anyway—the etiquette and protocol observed by great noble clans, official households, and scholarly families held no real sway within Yueyue Manor's walls. Inside Yueyue Manor, Chu Mingxi's word was law.

Now, although Han Jin had already moved out, his "old lair" was, after all, still at Caixia Court, and since they would be running into each other constantly, and for fear of frightening Guo Huilian, Han Qian solemnly explained the situation to her in some detail, adding in passing that though Brother Han Jin was a bit mischievous, he was by no means any sort of unsavory character—his character was genuinely upright—and urging Guo Huilian to set her mind completely at ease about living next to him. Yueming, standing nearby, thought this praise sounded rather odd, especially the phrase "by no means any sort of unsavory character," but at this particular juncture she could only nod along furiously in agreement.

Guo Huilian felt that, having come to Yueyue Manor and been treated so kindly by this whole family, she was hardly in a position to be picky. Besides, her temperament had never much followed convention to begin with, and she had plenty of nerve—since it wasn't as though she'd be sharing an actual room with anyone, she didn't mind terribly. And so the three of them quickly reached an agreement. After a quick tidying of the belongings Guo Huilian had brought with her, Han Qian, in her role as "Steward," still had to go arrange the seating for dinner, so she led Yueming and Guo Huilian off toward the dining hall.

The main table in the dining hall had, in fact, troubled Han Qian for quite some time now, thanks to the addition of Guo Huilian. At the main table, Tian Xu held the seat of honor, with Chu Mingxi's place to his left, still set with bowl and chopsticks; beyond that to the left sat Han Jian, whose seat was occupied only on holidays or when the head accountants from the various branches returned to Yueyue Manor, and left empty the rest of the time. Next came Wang Qiugui, Han Qian, and Han Jin, seated one after another; beside Han Jin sat Hu Yiwan. Beyond her was another empty seat, reserved for Zhou Mengda, though he rarely returned to Yueyue Manor these days. Yue Heng sat to Tian Xu's right. The table could seat ten in all, which meant, quite plainly, that only the seat to Yue Heng's right currently stood empty.

This seating arrangement had, in fact, always been full of hidden calculation. Zhou Mengda owed Yue Heng nothing, but Yue Heng owed Zhou Mengda his very life—back when Zhou Mengda had spent the better part of a year at Yaowang Valley, working day and night to reconnect the tendons in his hands and feet, he had grown thoroughly used to Yue Heng's foul temper, treating it as though it simply weren't there at all. So he had no qualms about sitting close to Yue Heng, though even so, an empty seat still separated the two of them. As for Han Jin, he had, in effect, secured himself three seats' worth of breathing room between himself and Yue Heng—he might have been the most thick-skinned of all the younger generation, but even he lacked the nerve to actually sit beside Yue Heng, fearing he'd never manage to swallow a single bite at any meal, and so he kept as much distance as he possibly could. The one the younger generation admired most of all was Hu Yiwan, who, woman though she was, possessed the sheer nerve to remain utterly unmoved even if the heavens themselves came crashing down before her, right in front of Yue Heng. Once, while traveling with the caravan, Chu Mingxi had been ambushed and both she and Yue Heng wounded; in his panic and fury, Yue Heng had roared at Hu Yiwan to see to Chu Mingxi first, and yet Hu Yiwan had stood perfectly composed before his raging fury, calmly weathering that crushing pressure, deftly turning the situation around until Yue Heng reined in his violent temper and cooperated meekly with his own treatment—proof enough that Chu Mingxi's old praise of her as a heroine among women had been no exaggeration at all. Still, a meal was, after all, supposed to be a pleasant thing, and no one particularly wanted to sit through it as tense as though bracing for battle at any moment, so there was no real need for Hu Yiwan to sit too close to Yue Heng at mealtimes either.

In short, everyone at the main table besides Tian Xu shared the same unspoken understanding: keep as much distance from Yue Heng at dinner as humanly possible.

But now, with Guo Huilian added to the mix, the simplest solution would obviously be to seat her in the empty spot to Yue Heng's right—and yet that seemed rather unkind, somehow. A mere twelve-year-old girl, newly arrived, seated right beside Yue Heng? Even Han Qian felt she'd be doing the poor child wrong. If she temporarily placed Guo Huilian in her father's seat or Uncle Da's, the problem would simply resurface the moment either man actually returned. And besides, both were elders; though they feared Yue Heng rather less than most, asking an elder to give up their seat was hardly something a junior like herself could do. She turned the problem over and over in her mind and simply couldn't come up with any good solution, and with mealtime fast approaching, she still had no idea what to do.

Just as Han Qian stood there at a complete loss, she spotted Han Jin bounding into the dining hall from a distance. Though she knew perfectly well Han Jin would never agree, she felt she had to at least try.

"Go sit next to Uncle Heng. Give your old seat to Fourth Sister..." Han Qian's heart sank even as she spoke, her face determined not to show it. She knew full well she had no real ground to stand on, pressuring her own brother like this, but she was truly out of options, and could only steel herself and push the point with him regardless.

"Why me? Why don't you go sit next to Master yourself? Besides, Fourth Sister has had Mother looking after her this whole trip—wouldn't it be much better if you gave up your seat so Fourth Sister could sit next to Mother instead?" Han Jin plopped himself down in his own seat, clearly with no intention of accepting Han Qian's proposal.

"Me?" Han Qian shook her head. "If I had the nerve, would I even need to ask you?"

"Sister, that's hilarious. Master's never hit you, never scolded you, and even you're scared of him! So what are we supposed to do, then? Why don't you go ask Yueming whether she's scared?"

This time Yueming couldn't take Han Qian's side. Giving up a room was one thing—there were plenty of other options for that—but giving up a seat meant sitting right beside their master herself. Aside from the Manor Lord, who among the younger generation and the hidden guards alike wasn't afraid of him? The seven Yue-disciples usually ate together at their own table with Ah Zhan and Ah Ran, a far more relaxed and cheerful affair than the main table. Back when Madam had still been alive, both tables could carry on with laughter and chatter, but ever since her passing, their master had grown even more taciturn, and even their own table no longer dared to joke and carouse—mealtimes had become downright eerily quiet. If even sitting at a whole other table over, one could still feel that invisible pressure bearing down—just how terrifying would it be to sit right beside their master himself?

"Scared... how could I not be scared?" Yueming nodded like a woodpecker pecking at a tree, then went on. "Master is a martial genius the likes of which comes along once in an age. Madam once said his martial arts style was forged by fusing the techniques of every school, breaking them down and rebuilding something entirely new from the pieces—a system specifically devised to counter the fighting styles of every other sect. His moves look clumsy at first glance, with no method to them at all, and yet he can read and counter any strike, adapting fluidly, targeting an opponent's weaknesses and openings with unerring precision. So Master combines the strengths of every school while specifically attacking each one's weaknesses—the moment an opponent commits to an attack, Master finds room to spare, wielding his blade through the gaps as easily as a butcher parting flesh from bone. How could any of us hope to match Master's insight? Master has gone beyond fixed method altogether, reaching a state where there's no method left to speak of—he's transcended it entirely. The rest of us are all painfully average in talent; no matter how hard we study, we can only ever grasp two or three parts in ten of what he knows. Even the Manor Lord and Yueying, probably, can only chase after maybe half of it. Even when Master isn't deliberately punishing us, we still take our fair share of hits just training on the practice grounds! And that's without even mentioning that his sheer presence alone is enough to make your hand shake so badly you can't even hold your sword steady—who in their right mind would have the nerve to sit right beside him at dinner?"

With even Yueming refusing to speak up for her, Han Qian's face had gone pale as jade by now. Was she really going to have to do exactly what Han Jin suggested, and go sit beside Uncle Heng herself? That would be the death of her, surely!