Yaoyi had just swallowed the last of his tangerine, took a sip of tea, and then crooked a finger.
Xiao Nanhui took the hint and leaned in closer.
Yaoyi lowered his voice and spoke unhurriedly. “Have you heard of the Qu Clan of Wancheng?”
Xiao Nanhui looked blank. “Qu Clan? Which Qu Clan?”
Yaoyi’s tone turned contemptuous. “Spend any more time in that camp of yours and you’ll turn into a complete fool. Surely you know of Buxu Valley?”
That, at least, jogged her memory.
Wancheng was situated in the heart of Jizhou — an ancient city of a thousand years, nestled within a ring of mountains and waters. To its due west lay a secluded valley, accessible only to those who dwelt within it: Buxu Valley.
For a thousand years, Buxu Valley had given rise to remarkable and unusual figures, and legends of the clan still circulated throughout Wancheng to this day. Xiao Nanhui had traveled far and wide with the army, so she naturally knew of it.
She nodded, unwilling to let the label of fool stick to her so easily, and after working her jaw in thought for a moment, said, “You’re saying there’s unrest in the palace now, and it’s connected to this Qu Clan?”
“Who can say?” Yaoyi neither confirmed nor denied it, instead idly flicking one of the white beads on the abacus as he drifted into old tales. “There is only a rumor — that the Qu Clan, who once had the power to raise or ruin a kingdom, came out of Buxu Valley. But since the time of Tiancheng, that surname has not been heard of for many years. For it to appear so suddenly now — that is unlikely to be a good thing.”
Three hundred years ago, a clan called Qu had risen in the lands of Chizhou. At the height of their influence, the Qu Clan numbered no more than a dozen people — yet those few had raised up one dynasty and brought down another.
Legend said that the Qu Clan produced remarkable individuals, and that the members of the family were connected through their bloodline — when one advanced, all the others did too. At the time, the realm still bore the name of the Qiu Dynasty, and the emperor had favored the Qu Clan to manage the imperial family’s secret affairs. Though they held no official title, they wielded power equivalent to a second emperor — a custom that continued until the dynasty’s eventual ruin.
The Qiu Dynasty’s realm had been won by the Qu Clan, and lost by them as well. The histories recorded: The Qu Clan of the southwest, who came from within the valley — in one age they were the gods who saved the world, in another age the demons who destroyed it. Such is the way of all things.
Such an existence had always been both cherished and feared by rulers throughout the ages.
Yaoyi was clearly gifted as a storyteller, yet today he was plainly not inclined to say much more. He leaned close and said quietly, “Half a month ago, someone in Mu Er He of Huozhou put out a generous price seeking descendants of the Qu Clan to authenticate a piece of jade. Half a month has now passed — whether anyone responded, I do not know.”
With that, Yaoyi lowered his head and returned to his accounts. Xiao Nanhui knew he would not say more, so she turned the matter over in her own mind.
Mu Er He of Huozhou. Jade. Descendants of the Qu Clan.
What hidden connection bound these three together — enough to unsettle even the exalted emperor, to the point of summoning his most trusted officials to court in urgent audience? Could it possibly be that…
A vague thought flashed through Xiao Nanhui’s mind, and she herself found it almost too far-fetched to entertain.
Among the affairs the Qu Clan had once managed on behalf of the imperial family, one was the safeguarding of the imperial seal. After the fall of the Niexuan Dynasty, one of three imperial seals had vanished without a trace — and its last known location had been somewhere near Mu Er He in northern Huozhou.
In recent years, rumors about this seal had never ceased, though most amounted to nothing more than speculation. Xiao Nanhui was not by nature one who liked to gather intelligence, but this one matter she had always kept a close eye on — because the seal was bound up with a chapter of Xiao Zhun’s family history.
Across the room, Yaoyi had not even looked up, yet somehow seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “Stop whatever notion is brewing in your head,” he said bluntly. “There are some things not one person alone can investigate and resolve.”
Xiao Nanhui was not ready to let it go, and murmured, “But—”
Xiao Nanhui was a fine person in every regard, except for a certain stubborn single-mindedness. Yaoyi could feel his temper straining at its limits.
“The Xiao Family — seventy-nine lives, every single one lost. Only Xiao Zhun survived. Tell me — why did those who did it spare him?”
Xiao Nanhui had not expected Yaoyi to bring up such a forbidden subject so casually. She went still for a moment, then spoke after a long pause. “Perhaps because he knew nothing.”
“That’s right — because he knew nothing. Now tell me: if he were to know now, would those people let him live?”
Xiao Nanhui fell silent.
Yaoyi let out a quiet sigh and said no more.
For a time, the side room was filled only with the clatter of the abacus, rattling on and on.
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