Outside Ping An Town, by the river.
A temporary canopy had been set up by the water’s edge.
Young women aged fifteen to twenty-five stood in a hundred-person square formation, ten rows across and ten rows deep, waiting in front of the canopy to be called upon.
The riverbank was filled with the sound of weeping.
If tears could gather into a sea, this riverbank would have long been submerged, sweeping away any number of canopies.
Amidst hundreds of tearful eyes, Mr. Ming, dressed in scholarly attire, walked out of the canopy, waving a large palm-leaf fan as he called out loudly, “Ladies, do not panic. Marquis Xiao is merely searching for someone. Whoever is found will be richly rewarded!”
“Those who gather mulberry leaves and raise silkworms at home, step forward and stand to the left!”
“Those who make a living by harvesting lotus roots and lotus seedpods, step forward and stand to the right!”
“Those who both gather mulberry leaves and raise silkworms, and harvest lotus roots and lotus seedpods, step forward and stand ahead!”
The sound of sobbing by the river suddenly grew louder.
None of the hundred young women in the square formation moved.
Someone, choking back tears, asked, “What happens if we step forward? What kind of… taste does Marquis Xiao want? Please give us a clear answer…”
Mr. Ming’s lips twitched slightly, but he maintained a gentle expression as he gestured for the young women to look to the side.
On the long table beneath the canopy lay an open chest filled with jewels and precious stones.
They glittered brilliantly under the sunlight.
“Do not spread rumors or believe in them, dear townsfolk! Look, Marquis Xiao’s generous reward is right before you. Today, we have invited you here solely to find a young lady who once had a chance encounter with Marquis Xiao. This young lady entered the Mulberry Grove in March to gather mulberry leaves…”
All eyes were fixed on the dazzling jewels and precious stones in the chest. Three or four young women hesitantly stepped forward and stood to the left.
They were immediately ushered deep into the canopy.
Moments later, they emerged one by one, looking dazed.
The remaining women rushed forward to surround them. “What happened?” “What was it like inside?”
The first young woman to enter the canopy said in a daze, “Huaiyang Marquis was sitting inside.”
“It was pitch dark deep in the canopy. You could only see a silhouette, not his face. First, he asked us which days in March we entered the Mulberry Grove to gather mulberry leaves. We replied, ‘We went every day.’ Then he ordered us to approach, and he touched each of our sleeves one by one. Finally, he placed his hand on the table and commanded us to grasp it.”
The crowd gasped. “And then? Did Huaiyang Marquis take advantage of you?”
“Who would dare grasp a nobleman’s hand? We all said we didn’t dare. Then we were all sent out.”
“…”
Deep in the darkness of the canopy.
Xiao Chengyan sat behind a large desk, pressing his throbbing temples with his fingers. His long legs were spread apart as he leaned back irritably.
Ming Wenhuan walked into the canopy, waving his large palm-leaf fan. “Marquis Xiao, today we have summoned two hundred-person square formations. Most of the young women aged fifteen to twenty-five in Ping An Town are gathered here.”
“It’s none of them,” Xiao Chengyan said. “She’s hiding and hasn’t come.”
Ming Wenhuan thought for a moment. “Either she’s hiding and hasn’t come, or she’s here but hiding in the formation and not revealing herself. Or perhaps the search range is too narrow. After Your Lordship’s fall, your vision was blurred. The person who saved you by the water might be outside the search range…”
“There’s no mistake. She spoke.”
Xiao Chengyan interrupted Mr. Ming’s speculation and closed his eyes in the darkness for a moment.
When he fell and sank into the water, the faint voice he heard seemed distant at times and close at others, his vision blurred. But he was certain: the young woman who rowed the boat toward him was not very old.
“She was a young woman rowing alone to pick lotus seedpods, neither too bold nor too timid.”
“Dressed in coarse hemp cloth, her family was poor.”
“Though poor, she didn’t take any valuables from me.”
“Her temperament is unusual.”
Both times, unexpected circumstances prevented him from seeing her clearly, yet the impressions she left were strikingly similar. His intuition rarely failed him.
Xiao Chengyan recalled the slap he received in the water…
The one who splashed water in his face by the Mulberry Grove in March was likely her as well.
There couldn’t be a second person.
“Double the reward and post notices throughout the town. Intensify the search.”
The carriage raced northward.
Nan Yang lay down fully dressed and slept.
When she awoke, the scenery on both sides of the road had become unfamiliar. The Yang family coachman said they were still far from the capital and needed to hurry, lest the Huaiyang Marquis change his mind and send pursuers after them.
Grandma had cried, her eyes red-rimmed, and quietly asked Nan Yang for details about being pulled into the Huaiyang Marquis’s carriage.
Details?
Nan Yang touched her skirt and sleeves.
On the night they left Ping An Town, she had heeded Grandma’s advice and worn her best outfit: a dark brown six-panel embroidered butterfly skirt and a moon-white silk jacket with a front opening.
The dark brown satin was somewhat old-fashioned—neither of her two sisters wanted it, so it ended up with her. Grandma had spent half a month embroidering by lamplight, meticulously crafting the butterfly-patterned skirt.
That was in the spring when she was fourteen. Over two years had passed, and this skirt remained her finest piece. Repeatedly altered and mended, it had gone from being too long to now slightly too short, but it was still wearable.
As for the moon-white silk jacket with the front opening, it had originally been lake blue when she first wore it.
Washed again and again, it faded from its initial lake blue to its current moon-white…
Nan Yang replied slowly, “It was too dark in the carriage to see his face clearly. He didn’t do anything to me, but the Huaiyang Marquis seemed to dislike the fabric of my clothes. Grandma, is it because my clothes are too old? Can you tell the age of silk just by touching it?”
Grandma: “…”
Grandma was at a loss for words and could only mutter, “Who knows what a madman thinks!”
The harrowing night and day had finally passed safely.
After sunset, the horses were exhausted and began foaming at the mouth, forcing the coachman to drive the carriage into a nearby village to seek lodging.
Grandma’s heart was in her throat. Clutching a pair of scissors for protection, she stayed awake all night, fearing that the Huaiyang Marquis’s pursuers might come under cover of darkness to silence them.
Nan Yang kept Grandma company through the night, but gradually, her eyelids grew heavy…
When she awoke, it was broad daylight.
Thankfully, there were no pursuers sent to silence them overnight—they were still alive.
With a smile in her eyes, Nan Yang plucked a cluster of purple trumpet flowers from the fence of the small farmyard and twisted them into a multicolored thin rope.
With nimble fingers, she wove a purple-flowered multicolored bracelet and placed it on Grandma’s wrist, who kept sighing.
The second day also passed peacefully. The Yang family coachman again drove the carriage to a nearby village for lodging.
With two consecutive days of no incidents, Nan Yang’s anxious heart settled back into place.
“Grandma, perhaps we’re overthinking things.”
That night before bed, lying on the wooden plank bed in the farmhouse, she said to Grandma, who shared the room, “The Huaiyang Marquis is a titled nobleman, and nobles are busy with important matters. Why would he bother with us? Perhaps after letting us leave the town, he forgot about us right away.”
Grandma wasn’t as optimistic as her. She felt the Second Miss thought too highly of people.
“The Huaiyang Marquis is an out-and-out madman. Look at what he’s done—chasing down mountain bandits to exterminate them all, sealing off the town and disturbing the people, kidnapping Magistrate Yang, gathering all the young women in town, who knows if he’s selecting concubines or planning to eat them! Are these the actions befitting a nobleman with a marquis title? Our Wei Family head also holds a noble title—has he ever done a single thing like this?”
Grandma cursed angrily, “Madman! Mad dog!”
Nan Yang turned over in the darkness. “But everyone says he eats people, yet we haven’t seen any living person being eaten. The Huaiyang Marquis has a General Di under his command. One evening, he was pelted with rotten vegetables and looked furious, but he didn’t kill anyone.”
Grandma was tired and mumbled, “It’s always good to be cautious—there are many bad people out there. There’s a saying: ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’ If the Huaiyang Marquis were an upright nobleman, why would such evil deeds be spread everywhere? It’s better to think the worst than to trust too easily and harm yourself.”
Nan Yang turned over again.
[Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.]
“Grandma, many people at home whisper that Mother was perfectly fine but suddenly went mad at twenty-seven. This kind of madness doesn’t show in childhood—it suddenly erupts when you reach a certain age. I’m Mother’s daughter, so sooner or later, I’ll go mad too…”
“Who said that?!”
Grandma’s voice changed with anger. “Was it that scoundrel Manager Ding? Just wait until I get back and tear his mouth apart!”
“It wasn’t Manager Ding,” Nan Yang quickly clarified. “It’s an old story from years ago—I had almost forgotten it.”
In the farmhouse that had finally fallen silent after a long while, Nan Yang gazed at the faintly flickering fireflies outside the window.
Rumors—they have no form or trace, yet they are everywhere.
She had only lived in Ping An Town for a little over half a year.
The woman next door, having heard rumors from somewhere, forbade her five-year-old son from speaking to her. Whenever Nan Yang passed by occasionally, the neighbor would always warily carry her son back inside.
[That young lady has madness in her family—don’t talk to her too much…]
On the rural dirt road, mingled with the summer heat and the smell of donkey dung, whispered words carried by the wind drifted into her ears. To say it didn’t hurt at all would be a lie.
But then again, others have mouths, and what they say is beyond her control, right?
Nan Yang swatted away the buzzing insects by her ear, brushing aside the unpleasant memories along with them, and lay down peacefully.
She still hoped the Huaiyang Marquis wasn’t as cruel and brutal as the rumors said.
If the Huaiyang Marquis wasn’t that brutal, then Magistrate Yang, who had fallen into his hands, might not die so easily.
She thought again of Prefect Lu, whom she had never met but who had entrusted her with delivering a letter.
The position of a prefect was not low—she wondered if he could protect Magistrate Yang from the Huaiyang Marquis.
With these thoughts, she drifted off to sleep.
In fragmented and chaotic dreams, she returned to the capital’s main family, met her Legal Mother and two sisters, led Grandma back to her quiet little courtyard, closed the door, and resumed her accustomed solitary life.
The dream shifted.
From the dimly lit inner quarters of the capital’s main family back to the scorching sun of Ping An Town.
Life in the town, left to its own devices, was poor but interesting.
Even the gatekeeper woman, who wasn’t very dutiful and often slacked off, seemed amusing in her eyes.
The young lord who had fallen half-dead by the water’s edge had perfectly proportioned features and a straight, elegant nose. She dragged him ashore and casually wiped the blood from his face.
That had happened over ten days ago. Even in her dream, she still felt this young lord looked familiar.
Where had she seen him before?
The dream suddenly shifted once more.
From the scorching heat of midsummer, it returned to the early spring of the third month.
Spring is the season for picking mulberry leaves.
On the fifth day of the third month, a warm and sunny early spring day, she was in the Mulberry Grove.
Wearing a rain hat, she was clumsily imitating the posture of other village girls as she picked mulberry leaves, planning to try raising silkworms at home… when suddenly, she heard the startled cries of the girls around her.
A sleek, well-fed black horse ambled into the Mulberry Grove, its large head dipping into each bamboo basket left on the ground by the mulberry-picking girls, unceremoniously devouring the leaves.
At the edge of the grove lay a young lord, fast asleep.
The man wore embroidered robes and a tall crown, with a golden hook and jade belt. A long knife hung at his waist, and beneath his splendid attire, his body was as robust as a leopard’s. Even the young village girls, inexperienced as they were, could tell he was someone of extraordinary status.
A group of girls gathered around the fallen young noble, curious yet hesitant.
Nan Yang pushed through the crowd, turned him over, and examined him briefly.
The overwhelming smell of alcohol revealed he was simply drunk.
Among the gathered girls, one shyly suggested that lying by the roadside could lead to catching a chill—should they take him home to care for him? But propriety between men and women was an issue, and such a heavy young lord would be impossible to drag. What should they do…
What should they do? Wasn’t he just drunk?
Nan Yang happened to have a leather water pouch with her. She immediately pulled out the wooden stopper, poured half the contents over the man’s face, drenching him thoroughly. Without waiting to see if he woke, she picked up her basket of mulberry leaves and left.
To be honest, the appearance of the drunken guest at the edge of the Mulberry Grove was unforgettable.
To this day, she vividly remembered the glistening droplets of water soaking his thick, dark brows, slowly sliding down his high-bridged nose, and disappearing into the depths of his black cross-collared robe.
His features were perfectly proportioned—three equal parts of the face, five eyes’ width apart—with sharp, heroic contours that seemed vaguely familiar…
As if a bolt of lightning flashed through her mind.
Nan Yang jolted upright from her dream.