Behind the rear courtyard of Wangchen Tower, a young manservant stood outside a door, holding two jars of wine.
The next second, an elegantly carved door was wrenched open with a bang, and a round face wearing an expression of considerable grievance appeared from within, looking utterly gloomy.
The manservant, seeing this, hastily held out the wine in his hands.
“Manager Yao, the Yunye Fresh has arrived.”
Yaoyi kicked a stack of empty jars out the door and asked in a hoarse voice: “Which number is this now?”
The manservant counted on his fingers: “Um — the tenth and eleventh jars.”
Yaoyi squeezed his eyes shut.
That wretched woman — she could still drink this much after twenty strokes of the military rod.
He drew a deep breath: “The next time you’re asked to bring wine, dilute it with water first. One jar of wine to ten jars of water.”
With that, without sparing a glance for the manservant’s stupefied face, he took the wine jars and went back inside, setting them down on the table with a heavy thud.
The “drunkard” on the other side of the table paid no attention to that gesture of displeasure. Her eyes fixed solely on the wine jars, she pried the clay seal open with practiced ease and filled two large bowls — pushing one toward Yaoyi and lifting the other for herself.
“Come, come — don’t make me drink alone.”
Yaoyi took the bowl with distaste, and suddenly regretted ever putting two bowls in this room. If he had set out two tiny little cups, the woman in front of him might at least have wasted a little less wine.
Xiao Nanhui looked the sort of delicate, slight figure one would never expect to hold her drink — yet in truth, she was a wine barrel that not even a large tub could intoxicate. Yaoyi naturally could not keep pace with her madness. After they clinked cups, he coolly and shamelessly tipped his wine into the nearby flower pot at the first opportunity, inwardly aching for the ten taels of silver that each jar of Yunye Fresh cost.
“Yaoyi, do you know why he named me Nanhui?”
Yaoyi let out a cold snort.
Of course he knew — she told him every time she drank, and by now he could recite it backwards.
But whether he knew was beside the point. What mattered was that Xiao Nanhui would certainly tell it to him again.
“He named me Nanhui because in those days he lost a battle at Suyan and swore an oath to return south to that place — to reclaim the lost land. I was picked up by him there, and my name is the greatest wish of his life. And yet now that he’s leading a campaign to Bijiang, he won’t let me go! He would rather send me to the Guangyao Camp to guard the capital than take me with him! If I stay in Quecheng, what will I do if I run into Xu Shu again…”
Xiao Nanhui was not drunk. She was simply a mess of tangled thoughts and rambling words.
Yaoyi cleaned his ear with a finger, clearly accustomed to this scene, utterly unruffled — his attention not on Xiao Zhun at all.
“Guangyao Camp is a fine posting. They say Duke Xuanyuan is demanding — most of the soldiers under him come from noble families, and must be a hundred times superior to the rough lot in the Subei Camp. Take this opportunity to rise to the rank of company commander — your monthly salary would increase by a few more coins as well…”
“That little scoundrel Xu Shu — goodness knows what stories he’ll spread about me. I would rather die in battle wrapped in a horse’s hide than be done in by that underhanded schemer’s poisonous tongue. What on earth have I done wrong? I only wish he would spell it out clearly for me…”
Yaoyi closed his eyes, feeling they were talking completely past each other — the person before him was wallowing, hopelessly adrift in the sorrow of being rejected by Xiao Zhun.
He reached out and snatched the bowl from her hand, tossing it aside.
“Xiao Nanhui.”
Only then did the young woman reluctantly look up.
“Xiao Nanhui, have you ever considered—”
“Considered what?”
Yaoyi paused, deciding it was finally necessary — with wine on the table — to say the words he had long been carrying in his belly: “Have you ever considered that perhaps Xiao Zhun… simply sees you as a substitute for those family members he lost?”
The moment these words landed, the entire room went silent.
The distinctive sweet aftertaste of the Yunye Fresh was slowly turning bitter in her mouth. Xiao Nanhui felt as though someone had dealt a blow to her chest, leaving a stifling ache — and yet she could not blame Yaoyi for saying it.
She knew that these were words only he would ever say to her face.
The crushing weight settled over Xiao Nanhui’s brow for only a moment before she replaced it with a grinning smile.
“So what? That only means my standing in his heart is still quite high.”
Yaoyi rolled his eyes so hard they nearly left his head. He felt all the labored, earnest words he had brewed up were completely wasted. When it came to this matter, her ability to play dumb and feign ignorance only grew with each passing year.
Forget it. He couldn’t wake someone who wasn’t truly asleep. Sooner or later, someone else would knock her awake with a proper blow.
“Hmph — I’ll say what I have to say plainly: when you smash your head against a wall one day, don’t come crying to me, and don’t you dare touch my wine.”
Xiao Nanhui gave a light snort: “So it’s still the wine you care about. Fine, fine — I won’t come find you next time.”
Yaoyi’s voice was cool: “Do you know that you’ve just drunk three months’ worth of your salary?”
She blinked, let out a wine-scented hiccup, and obediently shifted the tall stack of empty wine jars to one side — doing her best to put some distance between herself and this pile of evidence of her indulgence.
Just then, a clear little tap sounded against the window — as though some small insect had bumped into the lattice.
Yaoyi got up and propped the window open. A small figure slipped swiftly inside.
Yaoyi’s tone toward the figure was thoroughly disdainful: “Why are you only now coming? You’re practically dead slow.”
Bolao turned around, dark circles ringing both eyes — her already prominent brows and bright eyes now looked as though she’d been painted for a theatrical performance, startling even Yaoyi.
“What happened to you?”
Bolao cast a resentful glance at Xiao Nanhui, who was sitting on the floor reeking of wine: “Last night Dujuan caught me and lectured me non-stop until dawn — not a wink of sleep. I waited all day today for her to come back and bail me out, only to find she had gone straight to the camp without stopping here. I was stuck with Dujuan the whole time and only managed to slip away just now.”
Yaoyi thought of Dujuan’s tongue and gave a shudder of visceral discomfort: “Never mind, at least you’re here. If you hadn’t come, she would have drunk me into a pauper. Did you bring what I asked?”
Bolao’s eyes flickered briefly. She swiftly unslung a bamboo tube from her back and passed it over, while her other hand grabbed Xiao Nanhui and hauled her up from the floor with near-forceful directness.
Xiao Nanhui was clearly reluctant: “It’s barely past the hour of Hai, and I won’t get drunk anyway — couldn’t you at least let me stay and drink some plain water…”