(2) Fourth Sister Longs for Family

Some seven or eight days had passed. One evening after dinner, Yue Heng made his way, as he always did, to the Snow-Watching Pavilion along the path between Chunxi Court and Songlan Court to drink. Every day, the matron in charge of the kitchen would stoke the charcoal brazier there to a good blaze ahead of time, with a small pot set on top, the water inside kept hot, ready to warm wine at any moment. Two jugs of wine sat on the stone table, and on the ground stood a jar of water with a wooden ladle, so that more could be added to the pot whenever it ran low.

Ever since Chu Mingxi's passing, whenever Yue Heng was at Yueyue Manor, he could, without fail, be found here drinking not long after finishing dinner each evening. Years ago, Chu Mingxi had once shared a bottle of fine Western wine with him here, and, unable to hold her liquor, had mistakenly thrown her arms around him, calling him "Ah Yuan." Though it had all been a misunderstanding, that embrace had been entirely real, and he had never been able to forget it, not to this day.

Memory had a particular talent for tormenting the heart—the very things one most wished to forget were so often the ones that stayed freshest. As long as a person still lived, there was at least something to hope for; once they were gone, even the chance to hope was gone too. Whatever wonder or shock a moment once held ended, in the end, only in regret and hollow emptiness.

Drinking here every day was, perhaps, a way of reliving an old dream. It carried within it his deep longing and sorrow, impossible to dissolve no matter what he did. He had once drunk to excess, until Tian Xu's gentle remonstrance persuaded him to limit himself to two jugs a day—but whether he drank much or little, the sorrow he wished to dissolve never dissolved, not even by a thread.

Yue Heng walked slowly toward the Snow-Watching Pavilion. Even from a distance, he sensed something out of place from the tree nearby—a presence that belonged to none of the Eight Guards. His first instinct was to pick up a stone and hurl it to snap a branch and force whoever it was to reveal themselves, but then it occurred to him that if an outsider had truly infiltrated the grounds, neither the hidden guards ringing the manor's perimeter nor the Eight Guards within it would possibly have failed to notice—there would have been some sign, however small. And so he set the stone back down, and instead channeled his internal energy to send his voice straight up into the tree.

"Who's there?"

Yue Heng's voice reached Guo Huilian's ears with every word crisp and clear, and only then did she realize with a start that he had arrived beneath the tree. She recalled at once what Auntie Gui had said, that Uncle Heng walked without making a sound—and as the saying went, hearing it a hundred times was nothing next to seeing it once. Tonight had truly opened her eyes.

Hearing this, Guo Huilian hurried to answer. "Is Uncle Heng calling for me?" She waved to Yue Heng down below. Ordinarily he might not have been able to make her out at all in the dark of night, but tonight the moonlight was bright and clear, and with Guo Huilian dressed all in white, Yue Heng could just make out her silhouette through the gaps in the leaves and branches. And with his keen hearing, even though her voice was soft, drifting faintly down from the tree, he could hear her perfectly clearly.

"What is Fourth Sister doing up in a tree?" Yue Heng asked, puzzled, looking up at her.

"Climbing high lets you see far—I wanted to see if I could spot Chang'an!" Guo Huilian said wistfully, swinging her feet.

"Chang'an is a thousand li from here. You won't be able to see it." Yue Heng paused, then added, "And besides, you're looking the wrong way—Chang'an would be behind you, in the opposite direction."

"It doesn't matter. Heaven's round and earth's vast, and it's dark besides—looking in any direction is much the same."

Hearing Guo Huilian say this, Yue Heng found himself somewhat charmed by the way this little girl's mind worked, so different from most. And then, right away, he heard her continue. "And just now I thought I saw a dark shadow flit past—maybe Father was missing me, and came specially to see me..." As the little girl spoke, her voice grew faintly thick, tinged with something nasal.

Rough as he was, Yue Heng could tell well enough that Guo Huilian was longing for her family. As for what that dark shadow actually was, Yue Heng's eyes cut sideways toward another tree, where Cangwei was hiding. Cangwei should have been posted in this very tree, but seeing Guo Huilian climb up, he had scrambled hastily over to another one, and the resulting flicker of shadow in the night had become, in Guo Huilian's mind, a sign that her father was thinking of her. She wasn't afraid of ghosts now—if people really could become ghosts after death, then she rather hoped her father's ghost, her mother's ghost, her eldest brother's ghost, might come and see her. She wasn't afraid; she only wanted to tell them how very much she missed them.

As it happened, years earlier, up in the locust tree at the General's residence, Guo Huilian had once seen a dark shadow too—terrified she'd run into a ghost, she and her maid Xiaocui had fled in a panic back to their own courtyard. She had, of course, no idea that what she'd seen back then hadn't been any ghost at all, but rather one of the Four Seas Inn's hidden guards, slipping into the General's residence to report news to Tian Xu—unaware of it then, and still unaware of it now, a purely accidental, oddly touching coincidence.

Yue Heng, of course, knew nothing at all about what had happened at the General's residence years ago, but he understood perfectly well what that so-called "dark shadow" just now had actually been. He decided not to give the game away, however, and instead simply put the little girl off with something vague.

"Perhaps he did. If your father came to see you, and you're living well, that would set his mind at ease." Never one for eloquent words, let alone lying, Yue Heng today thoroughly upended his own usual self, telling a lie that left even him feeling rather guilty—and so he shot another vicious glare toward Cangwei. All Eight Guards knew Lord Yue's temperament well enough; even though Cangwei couldn't clearly make out, in the darkness, the two glares Yue Heng had just leveled at him, he nevertheless felt a distinct chill creep up his spine.

Over these past several days, Guo Huilian had grown increasingly familiar with Yueyue Manor, and could now wander about on her own. Walking off her dinner that evening, she had spotted the firelight here and been drawn toward it, and in that faint glow her eye had fallen on the tree beside the pavilion. Not having climbed a tree in a long while, she felt both the old itch to do it again and, more than that, a longing for her family; she wanted to hide alone up in a tree and think of home and the people she loved, without worrying what anyone else might think, and so she decided to climb up. She examined the tree carefully, running her hand along the trunk—it wasn't especially tall, nor especially difficult, and she felt confident she could manage it. This whole performance left Cangwei, hidden up in the tree, thoroughly bewildered; he had no idea what Guo Huilian was up to, and it was only once she actually began climbing that he grew alarmed, left with no option but to use his lightness skill to slip smoothly over to another tree.

"Are you planning to stay up in that tree a while longer?" Yue Heng asked.

"Is Uncle Heng going to drink in the pavilion?" Guo Huilian remembered the two jugs of wine on the stone table and made the natural connection.

"Mm."

"Then I'll come down." Guo Huilian answered readily.

This was, in fact, the first time in over two years that Yue Heng had had company while drinking in the Snow-Watching Pavilion. Strictly speaking, aside from that one time drinking with Chu Mingxi under the moon, the only other occasions Yue Heng drank at Yueyue Manor were on holidays, when Zhou Mengda and Han Jian returned to the manor for dinner and shared a few cups with the five Yue-disciples and the others—but such occasions were few and far between, and most of the time he drank entirely alone. He found himself somewhat at a loss to understand why this little girl, Guo Huilian, seemed to have no aversion at all to spending time with him in the Snow-Watching Pavilion. It was one thing that she sat beside him at the dinner table—but that, after all, hadn't really been a choice; everyone had to eat their meals somewhere. Choosing to spend time with him here in the Snow-Watching Pavilion, though, was entirely Guo Huilian's own decision.

Guo Huilian scrambled down the tree using both hands and feet, then walked into the pavilion and sat down on the stone stool beside Yue Heng, watching with real interest as he picked up the wine jug to warm it. Yue Heng found the little girl rather interesting. Aside from Tian Xu, there wasn't a single member of the younger generation at the manor, male or female, who wasn't afraid of him—who else would have the nerve to walk so boldly into the Snow-Watching Pavilion while he was there? Most would circle far around it just to avoid him, which was precisely why Yuelan never brought Guo Huilian this way on their evening walks to help her digestion. As for Tian Xu, he didn't drink, and besides, as Manor Lord he had far too much on his plate—he sometimes came by to pay his respects, but rarely had much time to actually sit and keep Yue Heng company here. Seeing the eager, expectant look on Guo Huilian's face, Yue Heng couldn't help but ask, "Does Fourth Sister want to drink too?"

"Eldest Brother's wedding date had already been set, and Father said I was still too young, so I wasn't allowed to drink on ordinary days—only on the day of Eldest Brother's wedding would I be allowed a single cup of his wedding wine. I waited and waited, and Eldest Brother's wedding day was drawing near, but before I ever got the chance to drink it..." At this point, Guo Huilian's eyes reddened, and her voice choked with emotion, unable to continue.

Yue Heng understood well enough what Guo Huilian meant—her deep regret was that she'd never gotten to drink her eldest brother's wedding wine after all. Yue Heng glanced at the jug he'd already warmed, and said flatly, "But there's only the jug, no cup." Having said this, he pushed the jug toward Guo Huilian and added, "Just drink a few mouthfuls straight from it. Consider it a cup of wedding wine."

Seeing Yue Heng so readily give up his own wine like this, Guo Huilian's eyes lit up. Uncle Heng understood things so well—how could he possibly be as frightening as everyone made him out to be?

"Thank you, Uncle Heng." Guo Huilian broke into a smile and thanked Yue Heng first, then lifted the heavy jug with both hands, murmuring toward the distance, "To Eldest Brother." Then she took a small sip. She hadn't expected that the moment the wine touched her throat, a burning sensation would shoot straight up to the top of her head, and she couldn't help but scrunch up her face.

"So spicy!" she said.

Seeing Guo Huilian's reaction, Yue Heng was fully convinced the girl had truly never drunk wine before in her life—her two eyebrows had nearly knit into one line, her expression comically bewildered.

"Wine doesn't even taste good—why does Uncle Heng like drinking it? My father liked it too?" Guo Huilian muttered, sounding almost like a complaint. Yue Heng had assumed that, given how much the little girl seemed to dislike it, she surely wouldn't take a second sip—but to his complete surprise, before he'd even had a chance to answer, Guo Huilian went right ahead and took another. Yue Heng couldn't understand it: if she disliked it so plainly, why keep drinking? So he remarked, neither warmly nor coldly, "If you don't like it, why keep drinking it?"

"We agreed on a cup of wine—one sip couldn't possibly count as a whole cup!" Guo Huilian scrunched up her face again, eyes narrowed to slits, her originally sweet, delicate features now thoroughly squashed out of shape. Yue Heng found it rather amusing to watch—she was really going all out just to make up what she considered a proper "cup."

"So how many sips are you planning on, then?" Yue Heng wondered privately—cups came in all different sizes; how exactly was this little girl calculating it in her head?

"Just a few more." Guo Huilian laughed, looking at Yue Heng. "Didn't Uncle Heng just say a few sips would count as a cup? How did you forget already?"

Well, now! Whether Guo Huilian had said anything at all seemed to make no difference—more to the point, she'd gone and turned his own words right back around on him, leaving Yue Heng momentarily at a loss for words. He might not have been a man of many words, but was there anyone else alive in this whole wide world who'd dare throw his own words back at him and still live to tell about it? And yet, strangely, he didn't feel the least bit annoyed—didn't even so much as glance her way—and simply turned in silence to warm another bottle. Little did he know that Cangwei, up in the tree, had already broken out in a cold sweat on Guo Huilian's behalf. If any of them had dared to talk back to Lord Yue like that, even if it didn't kill them outright, it would surely take half their life along with it. This Guo Fourth Sister had not a shred of martial training on her, and was frail and thin besides—how could she possibly withstand a beating? But it seemed Cangwei had badly misjudged the situation—Lord Yue wasn't the least bit angry. Truly, the eunuch fretted while the emperor stayed calm.

Even as Yue Heng turned to warm the wine, Guo Huilian had, without anyone quite noticing, already gotten through several more sips, and Cangwei, with nothing better to do, had taken to counting for her. By the time he reached ten, his jaw very nearly dropped clean off—just how large a cup would one need, to require this many sips to fill? And while claiming the whole time it tasted terrible, she still managed to drink this much of it—could it be that all this talk of it being unpleasant was simply some clever ruse, meant purely to lull Lord Yue's guard, so that she could finish off the entire jug without any resistance? Little did he know that Lord Yue couldn't have cared less whether Guo Huilian finished off his wine or not—this whole "cunning tactic" theory was pure nonsense dreamed up by Cangwei's own none-too-sharp mind. This was, perhaps, precisely the sort of thing Chu Mingxi had once meant, when she said it wasn't such a bad thing for Yue Heng to take out his frustrations on the Eight Guards from time to time.

As Yue Heng drank his way through the rest of his own jug, he listened to Guo Huilian talk about how her father, on his days off at home, liked to have a little wine, and how she would curl up right beside him and listen to him tell stories of goings-on within the palace. She especially loved hearing him ramble about everything under the sun—sometimes his own great accomplishments, and every so often, when the mood struck him, he'd even tell her stories. But whatever her father talked about, she found herself happy just the same; it didn't matter if she didn't understand it, since simply being curled up beside her father was enough to make her feel completely at ease. As the little girl talked on, her eyes reddened somewhat, and without quite realizing it, she drank several more sips still. Cangwei, up in the tree, reckoned she must have gotten through at least half the jug by now, and found himself worrying on top of that whether her manners as a drunk would turn out to be any good—since the last person around here with bad drinking manners had ended up placed under a strict no-drinking order afterward. Truly, poor Cangwei; he'd worried himself half to death over Guo Huilian's sake.