(6) A Snowy Night's Fierce Protection

For several days running, the whole of Yueyue Manor had been abuzz with activity. The season was drawing close to the eleventh lunar month, exactly when head accountants from every branch across the land brought their ledgers, cash, and bolts of silk back to Yueyue Manor to reconcile the accounts, and the entire manor stayed busy from sunrise to sunset. Every empty room at Chunxi Court and Lingshuang Court was piled high with trunks and account books, none of it returned to the storehouse until the reconciliation was fully complete. Every head accountant except Han Jian stayed temporarily at Yanqi Tower upon arrival, not permitted to leave Yueyue Manor until every account had been verified without error.

The dates on which the various head accountants returned to Yueyue Manor differed from person to person, arriving one after another in succession. Those coming from farther away arrived first, so that once their accounts were settled, they'd still have time to make it home for the New Year. Daming Prefecture, being closest of all, ought by rights to have gone last—but since Han Jian would be staying at Yueyue Manor through the Lantern Festival before returning to Chang'an, his slot was arranged to come right after Daming Prefecture's instead, and Zhou Mengda would be returning to Yueyue Manor together with Han Jian to spend the New Year there as well. Learning that Uncle Da would be staying at Yueyue Manor for the New Year filled Guo Huilian's heart with particular joy.

Seeing the manor so busy—Tian Xu, Han Jin, and Yueying even sleeping in the study every night, taking only an hour or two of rest before returning to reconcile accounts again—Guo Huilian, watching everyone at the manor look after her with such care, wanted to do her part to help too. Her mother had once taught her how to keep accounts and read ledgers, though she hadn't been the most diligent student, and besides, the sums flowing in and out of Yueyue Manor were on a scale she had never heard of or seen before, leaving her hesitant, counting rods in hand, not daring to place them rashly. Seeing this, Han Qian made a point of encouraging her. "Fourth Sister, you can do this! You're already far better than Yueming—she's been at this with me for years and still hasn't quite gotten the hang of the counting rods! Whether the sum is big or small, it's all the same principle—horizontal for one, vertical for four, vertical for one, horizontal for four, just keep working leftward the same way each time. No need to be afraid."

Hearing this, Wang Qiugui turned her gaze toward Guo Huilian too, and nodded with a smile. "Auntie Gui had trouble picking it up when I was young too—your Uncle Jian spent days teaching me and I still couldn't quite grasp it, and it wasn't until Madam taught me herself that it finally clicked. Fourth Sister must have studied this back at home already, just never seen numbers quite this large before, so a little hesitation is only natural. It's exactly as Qian'er said—it's all the same principle, just keep working leftward, no need to hesitate. Looks like we've gained a fine helper this year!"

Hearing Han Qian and Wang Qiugui's encouragement, Guo Huilian felt as though she'd been given a reassuring pill to settle her nerves—as long as she took care and stayed careful, surely she could manage well enough. In that moment, her heart filled with real gratitude that her mother had once taught her the counting rods so strictly, since it was thanks to that training that she was now able to lend even the smallest hand to Yueyue Manor.

The busy days seemed to pass with particular speed, and with Guo Huilian's help added to the mix this year, the overall pace picked up considerably as well. In years past, whenever Han Jian and Zhou Mengda returned to Yueyue Manor, if any accounts still remained unfinished, the two of them would pitch in to help as well. This year, though, things went so smoothly that once Daming Prefecture's head accountants had come down from the mountain, there was still a full day left before Han Jian and Zhou Mengda were due to arrive—an unexpected little gap had opened up, and so everyone stole the chance to head to bed early that night and catch up on sleep—everyone, that is, except Guo Huilian and Yue Heng.

After dinner that evening, Guo Huilian made her way once more to the Snow-Watching Pavilion. Having been busy for the better part of half a month, she was especially glad, now that a rare bit of free time had opened up, to have a chance to talk with her father and mother, and so, by the pavilion's faint firelight, she climbed up into the tree beside it once again. She had been sitting on the branch for a good while before she finally spotted, in the distance, the figure of Yue Heng walking toward the Snow-Watching Pavilion, holding an umbrella. Yue Heng, dressed entirely in black and moving without a sound as always, wasn't easy to spot in the dark of night ordinarily—but with heavy snow now falling in great flakes, the contrast between black and white made him, if anything, easier to see.

It was only then that Guo Huilian realized it had begun to snow at all...

Shielded as she was by a tangle of crisscrossing leaves and branches, she hadn't noticed exactly when the snow had started to fall. Perhaps it was also because she'd been so absorbed in telling her father and mother all about the various goings-on she'd experienced at the manor these past days that she'd simply been slow to notice.

"It's snowing—what are you doing up in that tree? Come down." Yue Heng had already sensed Guo Huilian's presence, and, gathering his internal energy, sent his words ringing crisp and clear straight up to her ears.

"I've been busy for half a month, and today I finally had a rare chance to steal away—I wanted to talk with Father and Mother! I didn't even notice it had started snowing..." Guo Huilian answered Yue Heng even as she began climbing down—with the snow falling, the branches and trunk had grown slick and wet, and she picked her way down carefully, testing each foothold before trusting her weight to it.

"It rains and snows quite heavily here in winter, and it's both wet and cold—Fourth Sister had best stop climbing trees for now." Even as he spoke, Yue Heng had already walked into the pavilion, closed his umbrella, and settled into his usual seat. Watching Guo Huilian struggle, hands and feet both engaged yet unable to find any purchase on the slippery wood, he couldn't help but frown.

"Why don't you just jump down?"

At this suggestion from Yue Heng, Guo Huilian's face filled with shock: from this height, jump straight down? Was he out of his mind? Uncle Heng really did love his jokes!

But looking at Uncle Heng's stern face, it didn't seem like a joke in the slightest.

"Don't worry. Uncle Heng will catch you." Yue Heng's tone was cool and even.

Watching Guo Huilian's expression of utter disbelief, Cangwei nearby couldn't help muttering to himself once more—it was such a rare thing for Lord Yue to actually offer help of his own accord, and here this young lady was still doubting whether it could even be done? With Lord Yue's abilities, this was nothing more than the simplest of tasks. Even any one of the Eight Guards could have managed it without issue—let alone Lord Yue, whose martial skill had long since reached a level bordering on the divine.

"Really?" Guo Huilian still felt afraid, and asked Yue Heng again, "But Uncle Heng is still sitting there in the pavilion—how could you possibly catch me from there?"

"Just jump. No need to worry..." Cangwei, unable to hold his tongue any longer, finally spoke up—the young lady still doubting Lord Yue was simply beyond reason.

"Who? Who's talking?" Hearing Cangwei's voice, Guo Huilian looked left and right and saw no one at all, her face draining to the color of ash in fright.

"I'm Cangwei, one of Yueyue Manor's Eight Hidden Guards, responsible for watching over this area. It's only natural you wouldn't see me..." Without thinking twice, Cangwei went right on. "If the young lady is afraid, just close your eyes and jump. Who is our Lord Yue, after all? You may not believe anyone else, but you can't afford not to believe in Lord Yue—just jump, and I guarantee you'll come away without so much as a scratch."

Cangwei's sudden outburst left even the normally fearless Guo Huilian utterly stunned—hearing only a voice with no one in sight was especially unnerving in the pitch-black darkness of this snowy night. Guo Huilian, glancing frantically left and right in alarm, failed to watch her footing, stepped onto the snow, slipped, and instantly lost her balance entirely, letting out a terrified scream as she tumbled headfirst down out of the tree.

Seeing this, Yue Heng's expression barely changed at all. He rose swiftly to his feet, untied the fox-fur cloak from his shoulders, and leapt forward to meet her, using his internal energy to snap the cloak open and catch Guo Huilian as she fell—and before she'd even had time to fully register what was happening, she found herself, cloak and all, deposited safely and steadily back inside the Snow-Watching Pavilion by Yue Heng, entirely unharmed.

Still shaken and unsteady, Guo Huilian then saw Yue Heng bend down, scoop up a stone from the ground, and hurl it at the other tree, calling out sharply, "Down!" At which Cangwei promptly tumbled out from the broken branches and fell to the ground below. But just as Cangwei was congratulating himself privately on having landed so calmly and steadily despite the crisis, a sudden sharp pain shot through the backs of both his knees, sending him pitching forward and landing flat on his face.

Those two stones that struck Cangwei squarely behind the knees had, of course, come from Yue Heng's own hand.

"Too much talking!" Yue Heng's face was cold as frost as he scolded Cangwei. He strode into the pavilion and casually retrieved his fox-fur cloak, putting it back on.

Seeing this, Cangwei scrambled hastily to his feet and hurried into the pavilion, dropping to his knees before Yue Heng to beg forgiveness, head bowed low, fists clasped together as he called out repeatedly, "Cangwei was wrong. It won't happen again..."

Yue Heng struggled hard to suppress the anger boiling within him—had he not been afraid of startling the little girl further, he would have given Cangwei a proper thrashing on the spot. It wasn't such a terrible thing, in itself, for the little girl, now living permanently at the manor, to know of the Eight Guards' existence—what angered him was that Cangwei had revealed himself far too soon, potentially snuffing out the little girl's belief that the dark shadow she'd seen was some sign from her departed family, and, on top of that, had startled her so badly that she'd fallen from the tree—an entirely different matter from her having simply jumped down on her own. Cangwei was both careless and clumsy by nature; though he kept calling out that it wouldn't happen again, he likely had no real idea what he'd actually done wrong in the first place—so what use was there in talking about "next time" at all?

"You're a person... not a ghost?" Though Guo Huilian's heart still fluttered with unease, she quickly put the pieces together—the dark shadow she'd seen that other night had, in fact, been this very man called Cangwei, with no connection whatsoever to her family's spirits. Had she not been so thoroughly frightened, she might well have noticed some familiarity in the way Cangwei had tumbled down from the tree along with the broken branches just now—and had she thought it through carefully, she might have connected it, too, to what she'd just witnessed of Yue Heng's own skill, and realized it was entirely plausible that Tian Xu, having watched and absorbed such things over long years, could just as easily have flung a stone to snap a branch and send her tumbling from her own tree, back at the General's residence. Unfortunately, she was so thoroughly frightened out of her wits that such thoughts never had a chance to form, and she missed, entirely, what might have been a moment of real realization.

"Of course I'm a person, not a ghost..." Cangwei, failing to grasp what Guo Huilian actually meant, tried to argue further, only to be kicked by Yue Heng, who barked, "Shut your mouth!" Yue Heng's fists remained clenched tight, his glare fixed fiercely on Cangwei.

"Get back to your post already." Yue Heng, still simmering with anger, went on, "It's snowing—starting today, every hidden guard at Yueyue Manor is to return to their posts!"

This last command, directed at every hidden guard across the entire manor, carried behind it such tremendous internal force, his voice ringing out like a great bell, that the whole manor could hear it clearly. At once, from every direction, near and far, together with Cangwei standing right there, came the simultaneous reply: "Thank you, Lord Yue." Every hidden guard then made their way, one by one, back to their respective posts, each equipped with charcoal fires, hot tea, fur cloaks, and wool blankets to keep watch through the night.

Having just lived through such a harrowing string of sudden events, Guo Huilian remained dazed, slow to recover her wits, and Yue Heng told her to head back to her room to rest at once. Guo Huilian walked to the edge of the pavilion and looked out at the snow, now falling ever more heavily; it hadn't yet been snowing when she arrived, so she had no umbrella with her, and walking all the way back to Caixia Court like this would likely leave her soaked through entirely. Noticing the troubled look on Guo Huilian's face, Yue Heng, without even finishing his wine, walked over to her side, opened his umbrella, and said, "Come along. Uncle Heng will walk you back."

Guo Huilian looked up at Yue Heng holding the umbrella over her, still feeling somewhat overwhelmed after the string of frights she'd just endured. It was only now that she truly understood why everyone at the manor held Uncle Heng in such awe. And yet this same man, so imposing and authoritative, treated her with such particular gentleness—she couldn't quite make sense of it, though she found herself moved by it all the same. She set off walking out of the Snow-Watching Pavilion, and Yue Heng fell into step right beside her. Her small stature meant small strides, while Uncle Heng, tall as he was, took much longer ones, and so he had to keep slowing his pace so she could keep up. The ground, already dusted with a thin layer of snow, had turned somewhat slick, and her feet, cold and stiff, were still in ordinary shoes rather than snow boots. Struggling to keep pace with Yue Heng, she slipped once, unable to catch herself in time, and scraped the skin off her palm. Seeing this, Yue Heng extended his hand toward her, signaling for her to take it, and Guo Huilian, after looking at him for a long moment, finally placed her hand in his. Yue Heng pulled her back to her feet, then kept hold of her hand as they continued on.

Holding Uncle Heng's warm, thickly callused hand, Guo Huilian felt her palm warm, and her heart along with it. Uncle Heng's hand felt just like her own father's—warm and full of tenderness, and though the calluses were rough against her skin, she found she'd missed this particular feeling so very much that, before she quite realized it, the scene before her eyes had grown blurred.

"If Fourth Sister would like to visit the Snow-Watching Pavilion again in the future, just let Uncle Heng know, and I'll have Auntie Wan prepare a special medicinal tea for you, one to strengthen the appetite and ease digestion—drink it for a while, and see if it doesn't help you eat a bit more and put on some weight. Yueyue Manor doesn't believe in treating people poorly. But remember to dress warmly and bring a hand warmer along—we can't have you catching a chill."

"Mm!" Guo Huilian answered without a second thought. Beyond the umbrella, the whole world had turned a vast, hazy white, and yet Guo Huilian's heart was filled with boundless warmth. She couldn't see the path clearly ahead of her, but she knew that as long as she kept a firm hold of Uncle Heng's hand, she would make it safely all the way back to Caixia Court.

The two of them—one large, one small; one in black, one in white—cut a striking, harmonious contrast against the swirling snow and the vast, boundless world around them. As Tangwei made his way back to his post, he glanced back once more at the two figures—for the first time in over two years, Lord Yue seemed truly, vividly alive again; that same Lord Yue, normally so sparing with his words, had just gone on chattering away to a little girl at surprising length.

And so, before his own eyes too, the scene gradually blurred out of focus...