The tense confrontation between Xie and Zhang suddenly discovered there was a third person in the corridor.
Song Muchuan, who had just bid farewell to Madam Gantang and was leaving Wangxue Cottage, happened to witness this scene.
He felt somewhat awkward and didn’t know how to handle the situation. He didn’t know what had happened between these two, but he clearly saw it all. It was inappropriate to leave now, but also inappropriate to stay. With a mind toward peace and harmony, Song Muchuan stepped forward and cupped his hands.
“Gentlemen, a gentleman uses words, not fists…”
“What business is it of yours?!” The two men were surprisingly unanimous in their response.
Song Muchuan’s remaining words were rudely cut off. A scholarly gentleman full of learning and politeness, he now felt like a scholar meeting soldiers, suddenly rendered speechless.
Zhang Yuehui angrily flicked his sleeves and left. Xie Queshan also snorted coldly, giving no face at all, too lazy to even greet Song Muchuan, and departed in the opposite direction.
Song Muchuan was completely baffled.
He lingered without leaving because he was somewhat hesitant about whether to go see Xie Queshan.
He actually had a hundred questions he wanted to ask him. After rescuing Princess Lingfu, she told him that when the Yucheng Army was in trouble, it was Xie Queshan who told her to find him at the Shipping Bureau. Why did he do this? This clearly went against the interests of the Qi People.
He very much wanted to ask for clarification, but seeing Xie Queshan’s current domineering appearance, he inexplicably felt angry.
“Xie Chao’en.” He called out to him with slight severity.
Xie Queshan stopped, turning back with suspicion and gloom.
Song Muchuan scolded earnestly: “You’re being too unreasonable.”
Xie Queshan fell silent, his arrogance diminishing. Somewhat embarrassed, his tone became much gentler: “…Why haven’t you left yet?”
In ordinary times, he would think it better for everyone in the world to consider him an unreasonable and brutal person. But ever since he had grasped that thread of light leading upward from the abyss, deep down, he also wanted to make himself more respectable.
The two men stood under the corridor, gazing at each other from a distance. Xie Queshan felt somewhat amused—Song Muchuan was exactly this kind of person who always maintained his principles. He valued propriety very highly.
This familiar feeling made Xie Queshan feel a strange warmth flow through his heart—discipline was a good thing, meaning he still had expectations of him.
His thoughts suddenly returned to long ago. When he first arrived in Bianjing, he was still a newly retired warrior with quite a temper, often mocked by the capital’s young masters as an abandoned bastard son, a brute. He cared about face and had strong self-respect, frequently getting into conflicts with others.
Song Muchuan would nag in his ear like a monk, reciting about a gentleman restraining himself and returning to propriety, that the use of ritual is harmony being precious, that a gentleman doesn’t compete in verbal sparring, doesn’t show off momentary abilities…
His ears grew callused from it. While he found him verbose and annoying, he learned scholarly demeanor from him. However, the reason he could become close friends with Song Muchuan was precisely because he wasn’t a pedantic scholar. Song Muchuan was a proud person who only felt frustrated with those he looked up to for not living up to their potential. As for those he looked down upon, he would politely see them off on their wayward paths without saying an extra word. He understood him, knew his ambitions, but after becoming familiar, he talked too much.
Xie Queshan had once been proud of this—being able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Song Muchuan, expressing different views on literary matters as equals, while also sharing wine and speaking freely from the heart.
How long had he deliberately avoided remembering these things? Tonight he seemed particularly sentimental.
Song Muchuan was silent for a while, struggling internally, but finally gave up on questioning Xie Queshan. If he only occasionally showed kindness, then by asking this question, he would expose the secret that Xu Kouyue was with him. He couldn’t take that risk.
So he found a perfunctory excuse: “I got lost.”
Xie Queshan turned back, raised his hand to guide the way, and said naturally: “I’ll see you out.”
Song Muchuan didn’t refuse and walked forward alongside him.
This familiar understanding made Song Muchuan feel somewhat dazed. He still impulsively wanted to know—were those parts of him that belonged to Xie Chao’en still there?
“Chao’en, the Cold Food Festival is approaching,” he said quietly.
“I won’t go.” Before he could finish, Xie Queshan refused. He knew him too well—he knew what he wanted to say the moment he opened his mouth.
Invite him to pay respects to the deceased? He didn’t have the face for that.
Song Muchuan didn’t insist further, smiling: “Then if I die, will you come pay respects to me at next year’s Cold Food Festival?”
Xie Queshan replied coldly: “If you’re dead, you’re dead. What use are offerings? If you have the ability, stay alive.”
Xie Queshan’s attitude immediately sobered Song Muchuan—what was he expecting? They clearly stood on opposing sides, so what was the use of bringing up these pointless sentiments? He sighed heavily in his heart.
“I’ll see myself out from here.”
They had already rounded the screen wall and reached the main gate. Song Muchuan stepped back, subtly creating distance, and cupped his hands in farewell.
Xie Queshan watched Song Muchuan step away from him. He stood still without moving, feeling somewhat sad.
Suddenly he said: “I buried Zixu in a plum grove on Hugui Mountain. When the heavy snow fell last year, the flowers had just bloomed.”
Song Muchuan once said that a gentleman should be like plum blossoms, having the integrity not to flatter worldly customs, and the backbone to stand proudly in cold snow.
All three of them remembered this.
Song Muchuan looked up in shock, tears welling in his eyes.
——
Outside, a pattering night rain began to fall, and the courtyard was so quiet it seemed only the sound of rain remained.
Nanyi stood in her room, neither standing nor sitting properly, her whole body weak. Wanting to pour some water for her parched throat, her hands shook terribly. Thinking she was cold, she went to close the door tightly, fastened the bolt, pulled down the curtains, and guiltily lit a candle.
The room suddenly became so bright it felt like there was nowhere to hide. She quickly extinguished the flame.
Only then did she notice a box on the table, which seemed to be what Zhang Yuehui had left when he came in earlier.
Opening the box, she found a bracelet inside. The broken parts had been wrapped with gold inlay, forcibly piecing the shattered bracelet back into a perfect circle. It lay quietly in the box, proclaiming a certain determination.
The object felt scalding hot. Nanyi snapped the box shut and put it back in its place.
These two men—had they both gone mad?
Nanyi collapsed onto the bed, burying her head under the covers. After holding her breath for a while, she suddenly began frantically pounding the bed, writhing on it like a worm.