Pei Yan clinked his cup against Ning Yan’s. “So you want to become Empress. Should I introduce you to the Crown Prince?”
Ning Yan rolled her eyes at him.
“However…” Pei Yan smiled with a deliberately irritating grin and lowered his voice as he stared at her face. “The Crown Prince’s residence already contains the Crown Prince, two secondary consorts, and besides, he’s already thirty-four years old.”
The corner of Ning Yan’s mouth twitched.
“And you’re sure that’s what you want?”
“Of course.” Ning Yan nodded solemnly. “General, please make the introduction. When I eventually rise to become Empress, I’ll be able to watch you bow and scrape before me, kneeling and paying your respects.”
Pei Yan’s lips twitched. “You’ve got a screw loose.”
Ning Yan tapped the table. “Whether I’m crazy is my business. Commander, shouldn’t you go do something useful with your own life?”
After finishing the wine in his cup, Pei Yan raised an eyebrow. “If it makes me happy, then it’s something worthwhile.”
Seeing the atmosphere turning awkward, Liu Zhan cautiously refilled Pei Yan’s cup.
Pei Yan drank it dry.
Liu Zhan filled it again.
Ning Yan snatched the wine jug away. “Pay up.” She had no intention of supporting idlers.
“I’m your attendant. I can’t even drink a cup of your wine without being charged?” Pei Yan snorted. “Fine. Deduct it from my wages at the end of the month.”
Ning Yan stared at him. Then, very slowly, she smiled.
“Sure.”
“If you’re taking wages, then you should follow the rules and do your job properly.”
“Tonight, you’re washing these dishes.”
“And you’re not allowed to sleep inside the room. You’ll be keeping watch outside my door.”
Pei Yan narrowed his eyes and set his wine cup down on the table with a smack. “Guarding the door is fine, but washing dishes is out of the question. I’m an attendant, not a cook.” With that, he picked up the wine jug and stood by the doorway.
Liu Ye gave Ning Yan a thumbs-up. Making the Commander stand guard at the door? Probably no one else in the world could pull that off.
That night, Pei Yan really didn’t sleep in a bedroom. He carried a chair over and sat outside Ning Yan’s door.
Ning Yan didn’t care much when she saw his silhouette outside, but Liu Ye was so nervous that she couldn’t sleep.
“Maybe we should let the Commander sleep in Father and Mother’s room for now.”
“If I make him put up with this for a few days, he won’t come anymore,” Ning Yan said.
She was convinced Pei Yan wouldn’t last long. After all, he was the Commander of Qiantan. Could he really spend every day being someone else’s attendant?
Liu Ye tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. Ning Yan, on the other hand, slept perfectly well.
In the middle of the night, as the third watch drum sounded, Ning Yan suddenly heard someone shouting in the distance: “Fire! Fire! Help put it out!”
The voice wasn’t far away.
Ning Yan sat up immediately and rushed outside.
Hearing the door open, Pei Yan pointed toward the northeast. “The shouting came from that direction.” As he spoke, he glanced at Ning Yan, his ears turning slightly red before he quickly looked away.
Ning Yan lowered her head and looked at her clothes. Only then did she remember that she was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and knee-length shorts. She didn’t think anything of it. To her, short sleeves and shorts were perfectly ordinary. What surprised her was that someone like Pei Yan could actually get embarrassed. The sun must have risen in the west.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked. After getting herself presentable, she had walked several steps before realizing Pei Yan hadn’t followed.
Pei Yan yawned. “No.”
“Fire’s too hot.”
Ning Yan laughed. “The master is going to put out a fire. As the attendant, aren’t you coming?”
Pei Yan smiled in a rather dangerous way. “As you command, Master. After you.”
As soon as they stepped out of the courtyard, they saw flames soaring into the sky from the northeast.
By the time they arrived, many neighbors had already gathered in the alley. Everyone was shouting over one another, carrying buckets and splashing water onto the blaze.
The fire was fierce. No one could get inside, and nobody knew whether anyone inside had escaped.
“Form a line! Pass the water from the two wells one bucket at a time. It’ll be faster that way.”
Seeing the chaos, Ning Yan quickly stepped forward and got everyone organized. There were two wells nearby. Instead of everyone scrambling for buckets, it would be much more efficient to form orderly chains and pass the water along.
“Come with me and fetch water farther away.”
Spotting someone pushing a large water cart, Ning Yan immediately grabbed hold of it and started pushing. Even as she hurried off, she didn’t forget Pei Yan and called to him for help.
At night, everyone was panicking. No one noticed that among the people fighting the fire was the mighty Commander of Qiantan himself.
Before long, yamen officials arrived as well. With more hands to help, the firefighting went much faster.
After an hour of hard work, the flames were finally extinguished.
Although the fire had burned down four rooms in a single courtyard, it hadn’t spread any further. That alone was a blessing.
Exhausted, Ning Yan sat down on the ground and casually asked, “Whose house was it? Were they home?”
“It belonged to Aunt Ma,” an elderly man replied as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “As for whether she was inside, I don’t know. We didn’t hear any cries for help, so she probably wasn’t home.”
“Aunt Ma?” Ning Yan blurted out, “The Aunt Ma who sells steamed buns?”
The old man nodded.
Standing outside the courtyard, Ning Yan examined the scene.
The house had been built with earthen walls and wooden beams. Now all the beams had collapsed in the fire, leaving behind nothing but a blackened heap of ruins.
The sky had not yet begun to lighten. It was impossible to see much.
“Ning Yan.” At some point, Pei Yan had come to stand beside her. He nudged her lightly with his elbow. “Don’t you think this fire is suspicious?”
Ning Yan looked at him, waiting for him to continue. She thought the same thing. Logically, after a fire started, it shouldn’t have grown this large so quickly. And it hadn’t spread in a normal pattern, from one point outward or from the front of the house to the back. When she arrived, flames were already surrounding the entire house. It almost felt as though the house had been set ablaze from all sides at once.
“It burned too fast. A mud-brick house like this wouldn’t go up that quickly unless the fire started inside and spread through the furniture first.”
Ning Yan nodded. His reasoning made sense.
“But think about it. When we got here, the fire was burning all around the house.” Pei Yan leaned closer and spoke near her ear. “Nine times out of ten, someone set it deliberately.”
Ning Yan’s brows knitted together, her voice turning grave. “You have a point.”
The fact that she agreed with him surprised Pei Yan. Even he didn’t notice the sudden sense of satisfaction it gave him.
The night was still too dark. There was no way to investigate anything yet. And they still didn’t know whether anyone had been inside.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, a cry suddenly rang out from the alley: “Father! Mother!”
The noisy crowd fell silent in shock.
Ning Yan saw a woman rush toward the still-smoldering courtyard, only for an older woman nearby to grab hold of her.
“Chunhua, you can’t go in there! The fire isn’t out yet!”
Xu Chunhua dropped to her knees on the steps and began crying out toward the ruins.
“Chunhua…” the older woman asked in a trembling voice, “y-your parents… and your brother and sister-in-law… were they all home?”
Xu Chunhua nodded, unable to speak clearly through her sobs. “They were definitely home. It was my nephew’s birthday today. My mother bought three jin of meat, slaughtered a duck, and stewed a chicken. Our family stayed late eating together before we came home.”
“They wouldn’t have anywhere else to go if they weren’t home.”
The alley filled with sharp intakes of breath and the sound of people weeping.
“Oh, heavens above…” The older woman began crying as well, slapping her thigh as she sat beside Chunhua. “They didn’t shout, and they didn’t run out. We… we thought nobody was home.”
Fires were not unheard of, but they had never seen one that burned an entire family to death. Usually, when a fire broke out, someone would wake up and escape.
“Search for them!” someone shouted. “Everyone go home and get tools. We need to go in and look for people!”
Now that they knew there were people inside, the neighbors could no longer sit still. They hurriedly prepared to enter the burned ruins and search. Even though everyone knew that anyone found inside was likely already dead, they couldn’t simply do nothing. What if someone was still alive?
“Go report it,” Pei Yan said, grabbing a young man by the arm. “Tell the yamen to send constables.”
The young man froze for a moment, then, without thinking much, nodded and ran to the yamen as fast as he could.