The sun was sinking westward. Less than an hour remained before the south and north city gates of Quecheng would close for the night.
On a narrow road about ten miles outside the city walls, a carriage kept pace alongside a dappled grey horse, both moving swiftly.
Xiao Nanhui was sitting inside the carriage, taking stock of her belongings.
Once they reached the city, they would part ways — and the moment was almost upon them. Yet the man across from her showed no sign of raising the matter of the imperial seal, either playing dumb or probing her.
Her hands stayed busy while her eyes darted over occasionally. She decided she could not let this drag on any further — one way or another, the matter had to be settled.
“Ah.”
Xiao Nanhui let out a deliberately theatrical sigh.
“What troubles you, Brother Yao?”
The man finally looked at her, offering a mild, unhurried response.
Xiao Nanhui picked up her limp coin pouch and shook out its meager contents — a single broken piece of silver and a few copper coins. “I was thinking of my thousand taels of gold, lost before they were ever earned.”
Zhongli Jing’s brow lifted slightly. “Gold?”
Xiao Nanhui cast him a listless glance, her tone growing increasingly mournful. “I kicked three men off the top of Pingxiao Tower — the very three wanted criminals Tiancheng had put a thousand-tael bounty on. But we were in Shen Family territory at the time, and I was afraid of stirring up trouble before securing the item I came for, so I never went to report it to the local authorities to claim the reward. Looking back on it now, it really does gnaw at me.”
She glanced at him again and continued in the same pitiful vein: “You don’t look like a man who lacks money, so perhaps you don’t know — the military pay for those of us who came up through the ranks is truly meager. Even a single tael of silver has to be split into pieces to stretch it out.”
“What is it that Young Master Yao is trying to say?”
The cool voice cut her lament short. She pressed her lips together and dug at the hole in the coin with her fingertip, not quite daring to meet his eyes: “What I mean to say is — you’re already this wealthy, so going through so much hardship just to get hold of an imperial seal can’t have been for money, can it? Let’s talk it over. What did the Chancellor promise you for this errand? Tell me, and perhaps I can—”
“How does Young Master Yao intend to handle the seal?”
Xiao Nanhui had not expected him to skip past any discussion of ownership entirely and cut straight to this question. She considered for a moment, then answered honestly: “In the end, I would naturally hand it over to the Emperor.”
“In the end?” Zhongli Jing’s ear for nuance was frightening in its precision. “It seems, then, that before handing it over, you still have something to do.”
She nodded, and instinctively was about to say that she intended to reopen the old case of the Xiao Family — but caught herself just in time, with a cold sweat. She had nearly blurted it out.
It must be that after these few days in close quarters, her insufferable habit of lowering her guard around people had gotten the better of her. She had actually started thinking of him as someone she need not be cautious with.
She had to remind herself: back in Huozhou, this man might still have been counted something like an ally. But once they returned to Quecheng, he could just as easily be a mortal enemy of the Marquis Mansion.
She composed herself and turned the question back on him: “And you? Do you mean to fight me for it?”
“Fight you for it?” Zhongli Jing gave a small laugh — but it lasted barely an instant before it was gone. “Call it a treasure if you like. People have broken their skulls and destroyed their families to get their hands on it. And yet no one has ever known what the treasure actually is — what makes it precious at all. Isn’t that simply foolish? Young Master Yao would do well not to make the same mistake.”
There was a sharpness to those words that she could not miss — the warning within them was clear. But she had no intention of backing down.
“I seek neither wealth nor to do harm. I want only to uncover the truth. My conscience is clear, and I have no intention of keeping something that does not belong to me. If anything, it is Zhongli who has been guarding this item so carefully — what makes that any different from Zou Sifang?”
It was hardly a polite thing to say, and yet the man showed not the faintest flicker of anger. He looked at her calmly. “Young Master Yao need not be so quick to draw conclusions. I have never said I intend to keep it for myself.”
She stared. “Surely you don’t mean to simply hand it over to me?”
Zhongli Jing had just emptied a cup of tea. He set the warm teacup down gently on the small table beside him.
“Has Young Master Yao noticed, over these past few days sharing a carriage with me, that I spend a great deal of time handling my tea set?”
Xiao Nanhui nodded, not yet understanding where this was going.
Over their days of travel, he had done little else but exchange a few quiet words with Ding Weixiang now and then, and occupy himself with his tea things. Xiao Nanhui knew little about tea, but the fragrance alone told her that whatever was in those carefully sealed canisters was surely of fine quality — and yet not a single drop of that richly aromatic tea had ever passed his lips. Every cup was poured away.
“I brew tea constantly, yet never drink it. Most of the time I simply want to take in the fragrance. The matter of the imperial seal is much the same.”
What? You’re saying you traveled all the way to Huozhou just to have a look?
Xiao Nanhui’s inner voice was roaring.
And yet the man’s every movement and word carried such perfect, effortless calm — as though even the faintest doubt cast in his direction were a kind of slander.
“The item is right there. You may take it yourself when we arrive.” As though sensing she did not believe him, Zhongli Jing added mildly: “I mean it.”
In truth, throughout the journey, the box had sat right there. Beyond checking it once a day, Xiao Nanhui had never shifted it from its place. She had steeled herself to do whatever it took to get it back — and yet here, at the end, it turned out to be this simple.
She could not quite keep her expression in check. Swallowing quietly, she began inching her hand toward the box.
The man caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and a glimmer of amusement crossed his lips.
“My lord, there is a small company ahead, about a hundred paces out — by the look of them, they would be Tiancheng soldiers.”
Ding Weixiang’s voice drifted in from outside.
The moment Xiao Nanhui heard the words “Tiancheng soldiers,” her whole body stiffened. The hand she had half-extended shot back in, and she shrank down a full three inches, asking in a hurried undertone: “Soldiers? Who is leading them?”
Ding Weixiang’s voice paused, then came again: “They fly a black banner with crossed dragons — they would be men from the Guangyao Battalion.”
The Guangyao Battalion — that battalion had always been under Duke Xuanyuan’s command. It had little to do with Xiao Zhun.
Xiao Nanhui’s spine straightened immediately, and her expression eased considerably.
Beside her, Zhongli Jing — who had been resting with his eyes closed — suddenly opened them. “Is Duke Xuanyuan himself coming?”
Ding Weixiang took a moment to reply: “The rider at the head wears silver armor and a white horse — that would not be Duke Xuanyuan.” A brief pause, then: “This appears to be a routine perimeter patrol. Duke Xuanyuan would not come in person.”
“Understood.” Zhongli Jing let the three words fall quietly and closed his eyes again.
But Xiao Nanhui had seized on a detail that felt slightly off. She slanted her gaze toward the man beside her. “Interesting — it sounds as though you and Duke Xuanyuan have some kind of history.”
“Nothing so dramatic as history. I am a guest of the Chancellor’s residence. Naturally, I avoid those I ought to avoid.”