(2) Innocent Childhood Sweethearts

Guo Huilian remained at the Four Seas Inn for three full days. During that time, Cao Jibin sent people to fetch her, but Tian Xu flatly refused—his intention was to bring Guo Huilian back to Yueyue Manor with him. Though Cao Jibin held the esteemed rank of Magistrate of Wannian, he had, after all, been unable to guarantee Guo Huilian's personal safety. This wasn't truly Cao Jibin's fault, and yet Tian Xu still laid the blame squarely at his door. He was in a foul temper, and had no wish whatsoever to let her go back to the Cao household. Aside from the moment when he'd first brought Guo Huilian back to the Four Seas Inn and flown into a rage at the hidden guards, Guo Huilian had never before seen Tian Xu lose his temper so thoroughly. At first she didn't dare say anything at all. Only gradually, speaking gently and patiently, did she manage to persuade Tian Xu to let her return to the Cao household first—otherwise it would be far too great a slight against her cousin's dignity, and would put her uncle in an impossible position. If she was to return to Yueyue Manor, a proper date needed to be formally set, with a reasonable explanation given—she needed time to pack her belongings, and her cousin, as Magistrate of Wannian, needed some way to save face as well.

Hearing that Guo Huilian was willing to return with him to Yueyue Manor, Tian Xu's heart filled with joy—didn't this mean, after all, that she was willing to marry him? And so the greater part of his anger dissolved at once, and he agreed to let Guo Huilian return to the Cao household first, on the condition that two hidden guards would accompany her there and keep watch over her in secret. Early on the fourth day, Tian Xu sent someone to inform the Cao household that he would first take Guo Huilian out to the markets to look around and pick up whatever she might need, and would return her to the Cao household by the afternoon.

Tian Xu first took Guo Huilian to the Jinxiu Fabric Shop to select some patterns—having stayed at the Cao household this entire time and now planning to leave, it was only proper to present a parting gift of thanks. The Jinxiu Fabric Shop carried the newest and most fashionable fabrics and colors in all of Chang'an, and Tian Xu let Guo Huilian pick out a few bolts in styles her sister-in-law would like, to give as a gift. From there, they went to the Zhenbao Pavilion, where Tian Xu personally selected a matched pair of jade pendants—handing one to Guo Huilian, and fastening the other at his own waist—the meaning of which, of course, needed no further explanation. The shopkeeper's eye for such things was sharp indeed; seeing this whole performance play out before him, he understood at once, and offered his hearty congratulations to Tian Xu on the spot.

"Congratulations to the young master—it seems a happy occasion is drawing near."

Tian Xu said nothing, but his eyes were brimming with amusement, while Guo Huilian, for her part, felt her embarrassment deepen. She glanced sideways at Tian Xu, and seeing that the second-floor private room held only the four of them—herself, Tian Xu, Yueying, and the shopkeeper—she finally spoke up, her face flushing red, in a tone of mock reproach: "I never knew before that you had such thick skin. I haven't even said yes yet!" And with that, she pressed the jade pendant Tian Xu had handed her back into his hand.

Tian Xu only laughed and said, "Didn't you just agree to come back to the manor? I'll simply take that as your answer."

"So this is how a mountain bandit forces some poor commoner girl to be his bride, is it? Nothing but the ways of a common brigand..."

"Go fetch a few taels of the newest Wuyi tea. Magistrate Cao has served as an official in the south for many years now, so he ought to be fond of Wuyi tea. Up here in the north, Wuyi tea is prized all the more for its rarity—there could be no more fitting gift of thanks." Tian Xu shot the shopkeeper a look; the man was sharp enough to know at once that he shouldn't linger where he wasn't wanted, in front of the young master and Fourth Sister Guo, and fetching the tea gave him the perfect excuse to slip away. He understood well enough the wisdom of a quick exit and an unhurried return, and, taking the hint, withdrew at once. At that moment, Yueying, unhurried and composed, added, "I'll go along with the shopkeeper to fetch it," and followed the man out at a brisk pace.

"Snatched or not, if I'd been too slow about it, I might have let the one I truly cared for slip away—wouldn't that have been the greater loss?" Once Yueying and the shopkeeper had left, Tian Xu looked at Guo Huilian and pressed the jade pendant back into her hand once more.

"I really am to be pitied—offering up a token of my sincerest affection with my whole heart, only to be called a bandit for my trouble. I daresay I'm the only man in the whole world to have suffered such a fate. Just keep it, then! If you truly change your mind later, there'll be time enough to return it to me." Tian Xu spoke with an air of feigned grievance, watching as Guo Huilian's cheeks flushed pink, her expression one of someone reluctantly, grudgingly accepting the gift—and inwardly, he was delighted beyond measure.

"The caravan brought back luminous cups from Suzhou yesterday, along with grapes and grape wine from Xizhou—since you happen to love grapes as well, we could send the luminous cups along with the wine and grapes over to the Cao household, as a token of my gratitude for how well they've looked after you during your stay."

"You're always spending so extravagantly on my behalf—it really does trouble my conscience..." Listening to Tian Xu lay out his plans, Guo Huilian couldn't shake the feeling that she owed him more than she could ever repay. From the moment, years ago, when he had specially purchased a burial plot on the outskirts of Chang'an to lay the entire Guo family to rest, to taking her in and caring for her right up to this very day—it felt as though all the good fortune that ought to have belonged to the Guo family had somehow come to rest entirely upon her alone. It was precisely because Tian Xu, in his position as Manor Lord, set the tone for how things unfolded, that his goodwill, his kindness, and his generous nature had come to shape how the entirety of Yueyue Manor treated her with such wholehearted care. In her three years at Yueyue Manor, she had never once felt the discomfort of living under another's roof as a dependent—more than that, neither Father nor Tenth Brother had ever placed any constraints upon her, allowing her to simply be herself, freely and without restraint—she was Guo Huilian, not some orphaned girl living at the mercy of others.

Sister Han Qian had once told her that ever since Aunt Xi had founded Yueyue Manor, benevolence and righteousness had been the family's guiding creed, and that Tenth Brother's kindness toward others sprang from the depths of his heart, never for the sake of cultivating a reputation. Aunt Xi had taught her son with her own hands, leading by example at every turn—Aunt Xi's approach to commerce was never about squeezing out every last coin of profit, but about the shared prosperity of all under heaven. Countless people throughout the realm had been aided by Yueyue Manor's generosity; she was hardly the only one, and so she needn't feel the slightest hesitation about settling wholeheartedly into life at the manor. She had always carried a deep sense of gratitude in her heart—if not for Tenth Brother's clear resolve, for his personally traveling to Chang'an to bring her back to live at Yueyue Manor, how could the entire manor have come to cherish and care for her so completely? How could she ever have had the chance to form a father-daughter bond with Father? Heaven had cruelly taken her own father from her, and yet, because of Tenth Brother, it had given her another father in his place—her heart overflowed with gratitude toward him. Now, knowing that he, too, was a man whose own fate had dealt him such hardship, and yet who never forgot to care for others, all while shouldering the operation of an entire vast enterprise, handling everything personally—her admiration for him ran deeper still, an admiration too immense to put into words. A man so fine as this—of course she was willing to bind her fortune to his, through weal and woe, through life and death alike.

Only, that day, Tenth Brother had only gotten halfway through his account before she'd fled in a panic. Why was his identity so unusual? Who was he, truly? And who had his father been, that Aunt Xi had felt the need to conceal his true self so thoroughly, switching one identity for another right under heaven's nose? Though none of this changed her willingness to join her life with Tenth Brother's, this was, after all, the single most important matter of her entire life—surely she ought to know just who, exactly, it was she was marrying? But that day there hadn't been time to finish the conversation, and to bring it up again now would feel oddly abrupt.

As Guo Huilian's thoughts churned within her, Tian Xu reached out and gently stroked her head. "There's no need to feel you owe me anything, once you're the Manor Lord's wife—everything will simply be as it should be..."

Guo Huilian nearly burst out laughing despite herself. Though Tian Xu rarely wore a stern face in front of her, she knew well enough that a man tasked with running such a vast enterprise smoothly must surely have his own serious, austere side. In the past, though he had always been gentle and courteous toward her, he'd rarely joked around—it was usually she who did the teasing, not him. Just as Sister Han Qian had once put it: "My little brother has managed, somehow, to live his fifteen years of life as though he were already fifty—carrying himself with all the gravity of an old man, hardly the picture of a bright-eyed young man in his prime." But ever since he had rescued her this time, he seemed to have become an entirely different person—that old, world-weary, deeply composed fellow had, unexpectedly, discovered within himself the youthful vigor that an eighteen-year-old ought to have, growing as playful and lively as Brother Han Jin himself.

"I never knew before that your skin was as thick as the walls of the city! Just look at the walls of Chang'an—not even the fiercest cavalry charge could ever hope to break through them!" Seeing no one else around, Guo Huilian began teasing Tian Xu in turn—after all, hadn't he been the one to tease her first?

"You'd best not underestimate the walls of Chang'an, sturdy and impregnable as they may seem—thirty years ago, they still fell in a single stroke to An Lushan's rebellion. Emperor Xuanzong abandoned his subjects and fled the capital in a panic, and the Silk Road was cut off as a result. My grandfather moved the Jinxiu Fabric Shop to Yangzhou and Guangzhou, and the caravans began shipping Shu brocade instead from Jinguan City down to Jiazhou to load onto boats, following the Yangtze River down to Yangzhou, and from there onward to Guangzhou. Mother and Grandfather never stopped longing for the overland Silk Road that had been severed, and on one occasion, they decided to head north from Jinguan City to scout out a new route, to see whether some other path to the desert might be found. Unluckily, along the way they ran into mountain bandits, and the guards at the time couldn't hold them off—if Father, who happened to be passing through en route to Mianzhou to set up relief kitchens for refugees, hadn't come to their rescue, Mother would have died right then and there—and where would that have left me?"

This was the first time Guo Huilian had ever heard Tian Xu speak of his parents' past, and her interest was thoroughly piqued; she waited attentively for what came next.

"It's said that at the time, Father merely stood off to one side, watching coldly, and even sneered with bitter, cutting remarks at how Uncle Xiaoba's master went about saving people and rescuing the caravan, saying, 'Careful those women don't repay your kindness with betrayal, stabbing you in the back—not a single woman under heaven can be trusted...'"

"Why would Father say such a thing? Could it be that even a man as unyielding, as iron-willed as Father, once suffered some grievous wrong at the hands of a woman, and that's why he paints all women under heaven with such a broad, biased brush?" It was a rare thing indeed to hear anything of her godfather's past, and Guo Huilian found herself utterly captivated.

"That is a rather unsightly chapter from Father's past—one he has never been willing to speak of himself. Father only ever confided it quietly to Mother, and Mother told me. Now, throughout the whole of Yueyue Manor, no one else knows of it but me. I'm telling you this today, but you must be sure to keep it strictly secret—otherwise, the two of us are both finished." Tian Xu glanced sideways at Guo Huilian, his eyes brimming with the unmistakable amusement of a man who knew that from here on, the two of them were bound together like grasshoppers tied to the same string.

"Just tell me already—and here you are still trying to frighten me on top of it. Do you think I don't already know Father's temperament? That commanding, formidable presence of his that strikes fear across the realm—how could he possibly tolerate such a humiliating blow to his dignity?" Guo Huilian pouted, clearly displeased that Tian Xu would think so little of her—she wasn't foolish, after all.

"In his youth, Father swept through the martial world, laying waste to one great sect after another—there was a blood feud between them that could never be resolved. Father had all but annihilated them, and those who managed, by sheer luck, to escape with their lives banded together and sent a woman who appeared delicate and defenseless to pose as a wanderer, singing for coins in a tavern far from home. The other patrons drinking and dining in that tavern set upon her right in front of Father, humiliating her, and Father, unable to stand by and watch, stepped in and taught that gang of carefully arranged 'ruffians' a lesson. To show her gratitude, the woman invited Father to share a drink with her—little did he know, she secretly slipped a dose of the muscle-weakening powder into the wine. That powder was colorless and tasteless, and because Father, out of propriety, hadn't dared to look directly at the woman, she succeeded in slipping it to him unnoticed."