(3) A Remarkably Good Drunk

Sure enough, after a dozen-odd mouthfuls of the stuff, Guo Huilian's awareness grew hazier and hazier. She had never drunk before, and had gone at it far too fast, one gulp after another—before she quite knew what was happening, the world before her eyes had begun to sway. Yue Heng kept talking to her, but she understood less and less of what he said, until at last she simply couldn't hold on any longer and slumped face-down onto the stone table, dead to the world.

"Fourth Sister..." Seeing Guo Huilian slump over, Yue Heng called out to her first, and when no answer came, he realized the little girl had passed out drunk. He found himself, privately, rather impressed. "No tolerance for wine at all, and yet remarkably well-behaved when drunk—no fuss, no noise, no going around throwing her arms about people—straight to sleep instead." And then it occurred to him: "Can't very well let her sleep out here all night in this bitter cold, can I?" And so he untied the black fox-fur cloak from around his own shoulders and draped it over Guo Huilian, then gathered her up in his arms, meaning to carry her back to her room to sleep—except he had no idea which room was hers, and had to ask Cangwei.

"Reporting to Lord Yue, it's the room next to Steward Han's, at Caixia Court—originally Young Master Han's room," Cangwei answered with the utmost deference.

With a clear answer in hand, and since Caixia Court lay to the west of Songlan Court, Yue Heng set off walking west. As he walked, Guo Huilian, evidently overheated from the wine and the warmth of the fox-fur cloak, instinctively pulled it open with her hand, and the cloak slipped off and fell to the ground. Yue Heng's expression shifted slightly—with both arms occupied carrying Guo Huilian, he had no free hand to retrieve the fallen cloak, and his eyes cut sharply toward a tree to the southwest.

"Are you blind? Not going to come down and lend a hand?" His gaze had already gone cold, but his voice was colder still.

At this, Tangwei startled and leapt down from the tree at once, quickly and efficiently scooping up the fox-fur cloak, and, head bowed, draped it back over Guo Huilian once more. Privately, Tangwei was more than a little put out—his eyes weren't blind at all. True, the moonlight was bright that night, but Lord Yue's fox-fur cloak, a gift from the Manor Lord himself, specially commissioned and tailored from rare, top-grade fur without a single stray hair of another color, was practically invisible in the dark of night. He simply didn't dare say so.

Once Tangwei had draped the cloak back over Guo Huilian, Yue Heng shot him another displeased glance. This time, Yue Heng channeled his internal energy through both hands to firmly pin down Guo Huilian's own hands, making absolutely certain the little girl would have no further chance to pull the cloak off again, and continued on his way. Seeing this, Tangwei couldn't help muttering to himself once more—Lord Yue really was going to extraordinary lengths over this; she was just a frail, delicate slip of a girl, and here he was bringing out a sledgehammer to swat a fly...

Along the way, the little girl tried several more times to tug the cloak off, but her strength was, in the end, no match for the sheer depth of Yue Heng's internal energy, and every attempt ended in complete failure—exactly the outcome Yue Heng had intended. And so Yue Heng carried Guo Huilian smoothly all the way to Caixia Court, the fox-fur cloak never once slipping loose again along the way.

Now, Yue Heng gracing Caixia Court with his presence was, in fact, no small event at all. From the founding of Yueyue Manor down to the present day, one could count on the fingers of both hands the number of times Yue Heng had ever set foot inside Caixia Court. Ever since Chu Mingxi's passing, he had confined himself entirely to Songlan Court, never once setting foot in Caixia Court at all. And so Han Qian, Yueming, and Han Jin all grew tense at once, dashing frantically out of their respective rooms to line up and greet Yue Heng, some calling out "Uncle Heng," others "Master," as was proper. Yue Heng merely answered with a single "Mm" and walked straight toward Guo Huilian's room. Seeing Yue Heng carrying the drunken Guo Huilian, all three of them wore expressions of astonishment and confusion, but none dared ask too many questions, and simply followed Yue Heng into the room.

Yue Heng laid Guo Huilian down on the bed, tucked the quilt in around her, and retrieved his own fox-fur cloak. Straightening up, he turned and instructed Han Qian, "Fourth Sister has had too much to drink—you and Yueming keep a close eye on her. Have Yueming go to the medicine house in a while and ask Physician Hu to prepare some hangover-relief soup, to have on hand."

"Yes."

Han Qian and Yueming answered at once, and even Han Jin, who hadn't been addressed directly, was too nervous not to chime in along with the other two. Yue Heng glanced at Han Jin and frowned slightly, and Han Jin's heart very nearly leapt straight up into his throat—but, unexpectedly, Yue Heng said nothing further and simply strode off. Watching Yue Heng's retreating figure, all three of them let out a long, simultaneous breath of relief, having nearly frightened themselves witless.

"Fourth Sister, drunk? Where would she even have gotten wine? Don't tell me she drank Uncle Heng's own wine?" Han Qian fired off three questions in a row, so utterly unbelievable did the whole thing seem. Never mind actually drinking Uncle Heng's wine—even setting foot inside the Snow-Watching Pavilion took a kind of do-or-die courage. Guo Fourth Sister truly had nerves of steel, without the faintest idea what fear even was.

"Who knows? But judging from Master carrying her back himself, your guess is probably close to the mark. Given how cold and detached Master is by nature, if she hadn't drunk his wine and passed out from it, why on earth would he ever go out of his way to carry someone all the way back to our own Caixia Court?" Yueming thoroughly agreed with Han Qian's theory, and went on. "In a bit I'll go see Auntie Wan, and while I'm at it, ask Cangwei what exactly happened tonight."

Now, whatever happenings at Yueyue Manor passed through the mouths of the Eight Guards always came out especially colorful and entertaining. Cangwei relayed the whole affair to Yueming from start to finish, embellished with his own speculations besides, and so the rumor that "Guo Fourth Sister drank half a jug of Lord Yue's wine" spread far and wide before long. Guo Huilian herself, once she sobered up, couldn't actually remember how much she'd drunk at all, and simply, muddleheadedly, accepted "half a jug" as the exact figure relayed to her by Yueming and Han Qian. She felt thoroughly guilty about it—Uncle Heng had only had two bottles to begin with, and she'd gone and drunk half of one, and on top of that, put him to the trouble of carrying her all the way home. It really wasn't right of her at all. After drinking the hangover-relief soup, her headache eased considerably, and she immediately scurried off to the kitchen, refusing to let Han Qian or Yueming come along—what exactly she had up her sleeve, no one could say.

That whole day, aside from mealtimes when Guo Huilian could be seen at the table, she spent the rest of her time in the kitchen doing who knew what. Han Jin suggested going to the kitchen to find out, but Han Qian stopped him, saying that it was perfectly fine for the young lady to have her own business to attend to, and that they shouldn't go bothering her without good reason.

As it turned out, Guo Huilian had heard that whenever Yue Heng was at the manor, he went to the Snow-Watching Pavilion to drink every single day. Feeling deeply guilty about having drunk half of Uncle Heng's wine, she had decided to go to the kitchen herself and personally prepare a small dish to go with his wine, as a way of making amends. Whenever her father drank at home, her mother would always prepare little side dishes or snacks to go along with it; her father was only home on his days off, and both her mother and she herself were always especially delighted then, the two of them busying themselves together in the kitchen. Sometimes, when her mother and eldest brother had time to spare, they'd join her father for a drink too—it had been the happiest time of her whole life back then, and now all that remained of it were memories she cherished all the more dearly.

Recalling those days gone by, Guo Huilian wept quietly as she worked on her little dish, and when the matron cooking in the kitchen noticed, she simply claimed her eyes were watering from the smoke. She had always only ever helped her mother before, never having made anything entirely on her own, and so she spent the whole day in the kitchen relying purely on memory, barely managing to finish after dinner. She hurriedly packed the dish and a pair of chopsticks into a carrying box and rushed it, still warm, over to the Snow-Watching Pavilion.

Inside the pavilion, Yue Heng heard Guo Huilian's footsteps from quite a distance away and felt a flicker of surprise—could it be that this little girl had actually developed a taste for drinking, and had come tonight to beg for more wine? Just that morning, after breakfast, Hu Yiwan had earnestly cautioned him that Fourth Sister was much too young to be drinking wine at all, and that letting her get drunk was even more inappropriate. In truth, it wasn't that he was afraid of Hu Yiwan—it was simply that Physician Hu, once she got going with a lecture, could go on and on until his head ached, and it wasn't really proper for him to speak to her harshly either. She was, after all, the very "living bodhisattva" that Xi'er and Zhou Mengda had personally traveled all the way to Yaowang Valley to bring back years ago—even setting aside his respect for her personally, he owed her that much consideration for their sake. And besides, back when his own tendons had been reconnected years before, Hu Yiwan had, in one way or another, played some part in it too. So, partly out of the deference he genuinely owed her, and partly to spare himself a continued headache, he had reluctantly, grudgingly agreed to her request. And now, having only been cautioned that very morning, here the little girl was again, right on cue.

Yue Heng watched, puzzled, as Guo Huilian carried her food box into the Snow-Watching Pavilion—her manner clearly didn't suggest someone come to beg for wine; it looked far more like she'd come to deliver food instead. Though, of course, that hardly ruled out the possibility that she meant to deliver food and then ask for wine afterward—as the saying went, "a hand that has taken cannot easily refuse, a mouth that has eaten cannot easily object," which, if anything, would make it even harder to turn her down.

While Yue Heng was still privately weighing how best to respond, Guo Huilian, with no beating around the bush at all, came straight out and stated her purpose. "Last night I drank most of a jug of Uncle Heng's wine, and Huilian felt it was truly inexcusable, so today I made a little dish with my own hands to make it up to you. I used to help my mother make little dishes to go with my father's wine, but this is the first time I've made one entirely on my own—I don't know if it turned out well, or whether it suits Uncle Heng's taste."

Yue Heng looked at the food box, then at Guo Huilian, then shot a glare up into the tree: that damned Cangwei—this business about "most of a jug" must have come straight from his own mouth. He himself didn't even know how much wine Guo Huilian had actually drunk, and yet Cangwei could recount it as though he'd seen it with his own eyes. On days when the caravans weren't traveling, the Eight Guards really did have far too much idle time on their hands and far too much gossip to fill it with—it hadn't even been that long since their last beating, and already they'd forgotten the lesson entirely.

As it happened, when Guo Huilian opened the food box, the first tier held delicate, translucent-skinned cherry biluo pastries; opening the second tier revealed crisp, delicious juxingnu—both of these being fashionable snacks popular throughout Chang'an, the sight of them enough to make even Cangwei, up in his tree, swallow hard. Guo Huilian busied herself setting out the dishes and taking out the chopsticks, not noticing at first that something seemed off about Yue Heng's expression, and only once everything was properly arranged did she look up to find Yue Heng sitting there, utterly transfixed, lost in thought.

"What's wrong, Uncle Heng?" Guo Huilian asked, puzzled—could it be that her little dishes simply didn't look appetizing at all? Or perhaps Uncle Heng just didn't care for snacks in general, and that was why he only ever drank?

Yue Heng's hand, reaching for the chopsticks, moved with an odd hesitance, utterly unlike the swift, sure gestures he usually showed at mealtimes, though he still forced himself to insist nothing was wrong. Only once he'd picked up a piece of the cherry biluo and put it in his mouth did Guo Huilian, by the faint glow of the charcoal fire, notice that Uncle Heng's eyes had actually gone red.

"Uncle Heng..." Watching this unfold before her, twelve-year-old Guo Huilian didn't know what to do with herself for a moment. She assumed her cooking must simply be that bad—so bad it had actually reduced Uncle Heng to tears. But she'd tasted it herself already, and honestly, it hadn't tasted all that different from what her mother used to make—how could it possibly have upset Uncle Heng to the point of crying?

Being some distance away, Cangwei hadn't noticed anything odd about Yue Heng right away; it was only Guo Huilian's evident alarm that made him tense up and turn his full attention to Yue Heng. His own Lord Yue, sitting there eating a perfectly ordinary little dish with tears welling up in his eyes—could it be that Guo Fourth Sister had slipped some kind of overpoweringly spicy seasoning into the food? But judging by Guo Fourth Sister's own reaction, that theory was clearly wrong—if there really had been some fiery seasoning mixed in, Lord Yue's reddened eyes would have made perfect sense on their own, and the little girl wouldn't be reacting with such visible distress.

"The wind's strong—got some grit in my eye. Nothing to do with Fourth Sister... it's good... what Fourth Sister made..." Yue Heng forced himself to steady his composure and comfort Guo Huilian.

Guo Huilian knew perfectly well Uncle Heng was lying to her, in the exact same way she'd once lied to the matron in the kitchen and claimed her own eyes were just watering from the smoke—Uncle Heng must surely be crying too. She was, after all, right there with him in the Snow-Watching Pavilion—where on earth was there any wind to speak of? He must simply have found the food not to his taste but felt too embarrassed to say so outright, and that was why he'd said what he did instead.

"Uncle Heng's already full from dinner, and can't manage to eat any more just now—I'll take these back to Songlan Court along with the wine, and eat them a little later." Guo Huilian's heart was still pounding with uncertainty when she saw Yue Heng place both plates of food and both jugs of wine into the carrying box and hurry off, leaving behind a Guo Huilian who still had no idea what to make of it all, and a Cangwei up in the tree with an equally bewildered expression on his face.