Three days later, Li Yunxiu, Qianqian, and Zhao Yingjie stood staring — faces gone entirely blank — at ten bottles of orchid perfume, ten bottles of peony, and ten of peach blossom.
"This is... perfume?" Qianqian asked, very quietly.
"Orchid scent this strong — how?" Li Yunxiu opened a bottle, breathed it in gently, and could not make herself believe it.
Zhao Yingjie blinked his small eyes. "Brother Yu. You are terrifying."
"That compliment sounds wrong coming from you!"
Wang Yu shoved the round face away and preened. "It wasn't easy, either — everything from zero. First I had the Manor's craftsmen build distillation equipment; then I extracted the flowers' essential oils; re-distilled the fired liquor to purify it while I was at it — and out came these few trial bottles."
"Distillation equipment" was a new phrase, but the characters more or less explained themselves. However...
"There's oil inside flowers?" Li Yunxiu asked.
"Very little. But yes." Wang Yu pointed at Zhao Yingjie. "Ask him how many flowers went into these thirty bottles."
"A full cartload of every kind," Zhao Yingjie testified at once. "A hundred catties each, minimum."
"That's counting stems. Petals alone — it varies by flower, but as a rule a hundred catties of petals yields about one catty of essential oil. One catty of oil to three of spirits gives the richest scent, and it holds close to six hours," Wang Yu said.
Qianqian's arithmetic was excellent, and she knew the market rates. "Then each bottle costs less than one tael to make."
"Hauled ten thousand li from the west," Li Yunxiu said, "a mere tenfold markup was practically charity."
The two women's eyes met — and the same thought lit both faces. If the Westguard Manor could manufacture perfume... the Wang family had just swept a hundred bottles at a stroke: a thousand taels of silver in a single transaction.
Zhao Yingjie's heart ran blacker still. "And if we posed as a Western Regions caravan..."
"No." Li Yunxiu shook her head. "It sells higher that way — and caps how much you can sell before the mask slips."
"So we do it under our own name." Wang Yu nodded. "It's yours now, all of you. Build a perfume workshop. Keep exactly one secret — the oil-extraction equipment at the core — and no one else will manage a scent that lasts."
Li Yunxiu's eyes had begun to shine. "Sell it across the Central Plains — and sell it back INTO the Western Regions. This one venture alone puts another hundred thousand taels a year into the Manor's books, at the least!"
Wang Yu kept lecturing. "The oil-to-spirits ratio controls both strength and duration. Blend different concentrations. The bottom tier can even take some water. Then split the price ladder: cheap at the bottom, dear at the top, and make the packaging carry the difference. And the very top of the line? A hundred bottles a year, no more — sold at one annual auction, highest bidder takes it. This particular commodity is a status symbol. Sell the status."
Three heads turned to look at Wang Yu as one — expressions somewhere between awe and alarm, as if examining a master profiteer in his natural habitat.
Wang Yu gazed back blandly. "Are we doing it or not?"
"We're doing it!" said Li Yunxiu.
Wang Yu waved and turned to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"To rest? Was there something else?"
Li Yunxiu and Qianqian had nothing; Zhao Yingjie actually did. "Two days from now is the wedding of the Thousand Willows Manor heir. The Dings of Thousand Willows are old Longshan gentry — their Willow Leaf Saber Art is nothing to sneeze at, either.
Master Ding sent the invitation a month ago. It was only ever addressed to me — but Brother Yu's just come home. Care to tag along for the fun?"
The three prefectures held far more of the martial world than the Westguard Manor alone: small sects, small schools, small brotherhoods, small clans, scattered everywhere — Thousand Willows Manor among them.
None of them compared to the Westguard Manor, of course. But they sent gifts up every year, their lands and shops did business with the Manor's, and so they could carry a conversation with it. The heir's wedding was a great day and the invitations went wide — but inviting the Westguard Prince himself was beyond their station. Landing a Manor steward already counted as face.
Zhao Yingjie was the grand steward's son and a Manor steward in his own right; the courtesy circuit was his job, he knew the Dings — so the invitation had landed in his hands.
"A wedding feast? Sure!" Wang Yu agreed.
These past days had been martial practice and perfume-making and nothing else. Busy was fine — but the moment his hands went idle, the boredom closed in. No phone. No internet. The entertainment industry of this world was a desert.
Small wonder the wine-houses and tea-houses stood packed, and the theaters and gambling dens roared. What else was there to do?
Qianqian's brow arched. She caught Wang Yu's hand — and her eyes made one quick, entirely visible pass across Li Yunxiu. "I'll go with Brother Yu!"
Li Yunxiu smiled a long, slow smile. "The day after tomorrow is the tenth-day rest. It happens I'm free. I will accompany my husband as well — a change of air will do me good."
Qianqian smiled, gentle as ever. Li Yunxiu's mouth curved, serene as ever. Wang Yu noticed nothing worth noticing — and Zhao Yingjie shivered head to foot, suddenly examining the possibility that his invitation had been a grave tactical error.
***
The eighteenth of the second month. An auspicious day for marriage.
The late sun poured out its last gold, and the sky filled with amber haze.
The spring wind had picked up an evening coolness, and it set every willow in the manor streaming.
Thousand Willows Manor earned its name: willows planted through and around it past counting. In high spring the green branches flew on every gust — no catkins yet to blind the eyes — and the sunset dipped all of it in light. The manor's most beautiful hour.
Tonight it wore red silk for three li, flowers on every path; carriages and horses jammed the roads, music floated over everything, and guests streamed in under a racket of drums and gongs.
"What?! The Westguard Prince — HERE?"
Master Ding Jianshen, mid-greeting among his guests, nearly jumped out of his robes. He excused himself in haste and hurried to the rear hall. "What is happening?"
His house steward reported: "Steward Zhao of the Westguard Manor has just arrived — traveling light, one man and two ladies with him. The man is the new Westguard Prince. The ladies are both his unwed consorts."
Ding Jianshen nodded rapidly. "I'll greet the prince. You rearrange the seating — three more places at the head table. And remind Xian'er to pour for them personally."
Orders given, he made for the front court, where Zhao Yingjie was escorting three young people on a leisurely wander through the grounds.
One young man with an air that filled the courtyard; two ladies, one all poise and elegance, one all charm and softness — no mistaking any of them for ordinary. Ding Jianshen hurried up, made his bows, produced the requisite quantity of we-are-honored, and ushered the party respectfully into the main hall and the head table.
A wedding at Thousand Willows Manor drew a hundred guests at the least, but the main hall held only three tables — one head, two flanking. Everyone else banqueted in the courtyard.
"Who are they? Four youngsters at the HEAD table? Some great sect's rising stars, surely?"
"That one in the middle sits like he owns the province. If he had a sword on him, I'd say the Little Sword Immortal had come."
"Watch your mouth. See the chubby one? That's the son of Zhao Rong — grand steward of the Westguard Manor — and a Manor steward himself now; they say his Fire Cloud Saber Art is the real inheritance. Thousand Willows eats its rice in Longshan; of course it runs with the Westguard Manor."
"But look how he fawns on the young one in the middle. You don't suppose..."
"Hsss—"
The courtyard worked it out in one collective intake of breath. The martial guests inside the hall were no slower — and plenty of them knew Zhao Yingjie by sight. Salutes came thick and fast.
Wang Yu, a smiling woman on either hand, returned every courtesy without dropping a stitch — and collected, in passing, introductions to the local worthies: the respected elders, the modestly powerful.
Before long the ceremony began in earnest.
To festival music, groom and bride came walking in from the gate — he with sword-line brows and starry eyes, she under the red veil, pacing slowly on a maid's supporting arm.
The courtyard roared and clapped them down the path.
"A hundred years of harmony!"
"A son within the year!"
The couple entered the main hall, where Master Ding Jianshen and Madam Ding sat beaming in the family seats.
Candles lit; incense kindled.
The master of ceremonies sang out beside them: "Incense curls to heaven, lamps blaze like day — the new couple ascends the flowered hall! First bow — to Heaven and Earth!"
And precisely as bride and groom turned to make that first bow, a woman's voice cut through the hall.
"Ding Xian. Do you remember me?"
Gossip!
Every head swung toward the voice. In the courtyard stood a young woman in a green dress, a veil across her face — young, by the sound of her. And what history did she have with the groom?
Because the groom, Ding Xian, had gone white at the first syllable. He stared as if at a ghost, and the words escaped before he could stop them:
"Yuan Feifei — you're still ALIVE?"
Ding Xian was not the only one staring. Wang Yu's party had stiffened too — because the girl in green was the girl from the perfume tent. Master Gutong's girl.
Li Yunxiu caught the change in their faces. "You know her?"
Wang Yu nodded. "She's the one you didn't recognize."
Li Yunxiu understood instantly, and her eyes began to sweep the shadows of the courtyard. "So Longshan was never the destination. The Ding family was. And if the girl is here — Master Gutong and Madam Ziyu are within call."
"Of course I'm still alive!" There was laughter in Yuan Feifei's voice, and pain torn raw beneath it. "Your honeyed words destroyed my family — and when the killing was done, they drove me off a cliff. Heaven declined to let me die, Ding Xian. It wanted you repaid!"
She tore the veil away as she spoke — baring three or four scars that crossed her face, not deep, but stark as brands.
"You— you're raving!" Ding Xian floundered — knowing, perhaps, exactly which mistake had walked through the gate; there was no denying he knew her now. He fell back on bluster. "The Yuan family was destroyed by the Thirty-Six Forts of Mount Taiheng! Whatever cliff you jumped off, I know nothing about it — I only ever heard the Yuans were gone and you were missing—"
Ding Xian was unraveling. Ding Jianshen was not; he was old jianghu to the marrow, and he wasted no breath debating the accusation. He simply signaled his men. "Take her."
Two manor guards closed in — one leading with callus-plated hands, the other with fingers hooked into tiger claws; trained men, both.
Neither got within arm's reach. Two screams, and both went down in heaps.
By the courtyard's lantern light the crowd could see the men's hands shaking, slick with blood. What had wounded them, not one person present had seen.
Ding Jianshen's heart slammed. The girl had a master behind her — and going by darts no eye could follow, a master far beyond him.
So he slapped the table and rose. "What skulking coward strikes from the dark?! Show yourself! His Highness the Westguard Prince, Lord Zhao, sits in this hall — you DARE run wild here?!"
Wang Yu: ???