Chapter 73

Qi Qian'er came out of the little back-courtyard shrine, all pious and demure, and ran into Dame Li from the old lady's courtyard.

This Dame Li had first been sent over by the She household to do the needlework. But day after day at the needlework, she ended up on the old lady's kang.

The old lady liked to sew for her adopted son and her grandsons with her own hands. She was lonely on her own and wanted somebody to chatter with while she worked. After enough of that chatting, she decided on her own to make Dame Li the manager of her courtyard.

Dame Li now drew a string of cash a month from Qi Qian'er.

Dame Li saw the young madam finally out from copying her sutras. She came up smiling and made her bow: "Madam, the old lady's asked after you several times over there."

Qi Qian'er was a bit surprised. She looked at her: "Why's she back early? Wasn't she to stay a few days at the Qingque Nunnery with Granny Jiang? Has something happened to put the old lady out?"

Dame Li came up to support her by the arm, but Qi Qian'er declined: "I'll walk and talk, I'm not so old as that."

At that Dame Li stepped back and walked out alongside the young madam.

Qi Qian'er stepped out the gate. A moment ago she'd felt nothing much. But the instant her foot came down on the bluestone flags of Guard Lane, her mind went briefly adrift. She thought: I've just cursed a dirty old wretch to death, kept the peace across five hundred li of hill country front and back, and given the court a good deal of silver besides. And now here I am, home again, sorting out these piddling odds and ends of a life?

"Madam?" Dame Li had said a good deal, and seeing Qi Qian'er wasn't attending, she raised her voice a notch.

Qi Qian'er's eyes cleared bit by bit. She led her on toward the old house: "It's nothing, I've just copied sutras till I've gone hazy."

Dame Li flattered her with a smile: "Madam's so devout. A whole day at it in one go, not eating, not drinking. Whenever the old lady speaks of it her heart aches for you..."

Dame Li told Qi Qian'er that old Madam Tao had laid a complaint before the family's old lady at the Qingque Nunnery that morning: her son's wife had gone to the fourth master's courtyard to gossip and, without meaning to, had glimpsed marks on little Miss Xique. A good many of them, too...

Qi Qian'er knew already where Madam Qiao had gone, and knew of course what sort of beast Wen-shi was. But she'd never dreamed Madam Qiao's reckoning would come so fast.

Wen-shi was cruel by nature, and the brats she raised were every one the same stamp. The one in her belly most of all was a little beast that had no business existing in this world.

But what if the old lady set her to manage the fourth branch's affairs? Manage it, or not? Qi Qian'er turned it over in her mind as she went into the old lady's room. The old lady's room now was nothing like before. Her adopted son had fitted it out top to bottom, and the room of an old grandmother in a second- or third-grade house in the capital would look no better.

The old lady these days could eat off a different set of porcelain ten days running. Her kang-screen was patterned with natural marble, and her table, chairs and stools were all brand-new top-grade redwood. She still lived up on the kang, but the furnishings, even the window-frames, had all been changed out. Even the little vase she stuck flowers in on her windowsill was an antique.

Only the old lady herself didn't know it.

Inside, First-Moon and Second-Moon stood with heads bowed, waiting on her. The old lady's face was dark, and she was working her prayer-beads round and round.

Qi Qian'er came in, and the old lady opened up with a grumble: "You're no easy woman to find! A whole day copying away, aiyo, what's got into every one of you? You're all a debt I carry! Lifetimes over I'll never pay you off. Are you hungry? You little simpleton, come up here, quick!"

She called Qi Qian'er onto the kang. Once Qi Qian'er had worked off her shoes and sat down beside her, the old lady reeled off a string of orders: someone to the kitchen for something hot, and someone to fetch the sweet bean-jelly her adopted son had sent over the day before.

Orders given, she had someone bring a soft pillow for Qi Qian'er to lean on.

The old lady gave her orders with real method now. Every gesture was no different from a great house's mistress: easy, with dignity to it and kindness too, and a good eighteen hundred extra wiles besides. That had a lot to do with keeping company with a whole crowd of grand old matriarchs nearby. The old lady's powers grew by the day, though she didn't know it herself.

Among her old sisters, apart from old Madam Jiang, who was the grandest and richest of them all, she wanted for nothing.

She now managed even the old house's courtyard herself. She had a dutiful adopted son, grandsons who quietly slipped her extra, and on top of that the rents from three elder male cousins' and a cousin-sister's houses, all held in the old lady's hand. And that's not counting the land she'd bought, the two manors she'd set up, and the pension-fields the court had granted, which this year had all begun to show a real return.

Qi Qian'er cared nothing for any of that, and wouldn't take so much as a single cash of advantage. She even kept the old lady clear accounts, all set down plain.

She and Chen Dasheng had only this one granny. But this granny had to hold in her heart Dajie, Dawang, Dashun, Dingxiang, even Chen Siniu, even Xique...

Before, the old lady was forever telling Qi Qian'er, "Everything of mine goes to you." But as what she held grew and grew, she no longer dared.

True, with only a few hundred taels she'd have dared give it all away. But with assets in the ten thousands in her hand, she dared not favor any one person.

It wasn't that she truly didn't dote on Qi Qian'er and Scabby. But how an old body divides what's in her hand has its own old sense and old rules. If you can't treat everyone alike, you must at least be fairly even. That was the new sense the old lady had learned from that crowd of old ladies.

Her name stood very high. In the Emperor's own eyes she was the finest old lady under heaven, and along the seven main lanes of Quanhou Street, which house didn't know it? The old matriarch on this side got gifts from the Emperor every few days, sometimes a bowl of some dish, sometimes a few bolts of cloth. And each change of season the palace sent a court physician to take her pulse...

And besides, being unfair wouldn't stand up either. In the old days Chen Siniu had plucked more than one man's feathers. Not just Chen Dasheng's. He'd spared none of his nephews. And for this granny's sake, the several elder cousins had all borne it.

The old lady wanted to talk in private with Qi Qian'er, so she had everyone go and wait outside. When she saw no one was left, she dropped her prayer-beads, ground her teeth, and pointed next door: "Didn't I say old Madam Tao's looks at me this while back were off? All of a mind to say something and not daring!"

Qi Qian'er made a show of weariness and pounded at her own legs.

The old lady saw she was tired and reached for a little cushion to tuck her legs warm: "Write a bit less. None of your elders will take you to task, and everyone knows how dutiful you are, and still you write every day."

Qi Qian'er lifted her face and smiled: "It's less bother to do it all in one go. I'll leave off for a while now."

The old lady nodded and went on: "Coming out of the main hall today I saw her look really wasn't right, so I called her somewhere private and asked, aiya! It made me furious..."

Inwardly Qi Qian'er sighed. I've just saved five hundred li of people, and Madam Qiao's courting her own ruin. I don't even want to get into it.

But the old lady paid no mind to what she thought, and ran on to herself: "...so I said to old Madam Tao, if you've something to say, say it out plain. You've been eyeing me all day like there's a ghost living in your eye. What do you mean by it? Only then did she quietly tell me. That low slave-girl's been at the Board of Rites lane all day long with Xique, up to who-knows-what, and a couple of days back old Madam Tao's daughter-in-law..."

First-Moon carried in a bowl of hot soup and some sweets. Qi Qian'er sat up, took the hot soup and drank it slowly, and only once First-Moon had gone out did she ask: "Which daughter-in-law of hers?"

The old lady said: "The second branch's, Madam Zhang. A real gabble-mouth. Old Tao doesn't care for her either, though this time she's come in some use. She said..." The old lady seized her prayer-beads, worked them hard a few times, then said: "She said Xique's covered in marks. I just now had someone bring Xique over. You've no idea, it made me furious enough to die!"

The old lady scrubbed at her face left and right, drew a breath, and jabbed her finger hard toward the courtyard next door.

Qi Qian'er's heart clenched. She too drew a deep breath and soothed her: "The child's still small. Give her time and she'll likely mend."

The old lady jabbed at several spots on her own body and finally, in a fury: "Marks all over her, and that! That's supposed to be a mother? I sent someone to fetch the child and she wouldn't even hand her over, spouting a great heap of nonsense with no edge to it. What d'you mean, children get up to mischief, she didn't watch her close enough, it's nothing? Damn her eight generations of bones. Not a scrap of heartache in her, that one."

Qi Qian'er slowly set down her bowl, wiped her mouth with a kerchief and asked: "So what do you mean to do?"

The old lady sighed: "How would I know? You know your granny's no woman of the world, so I went and asked your Granny Jiang and the others."

Qi Qian'er was startled: "You told them about it?"

The old lady nodded, and said, with no little force, a thing that struck Qi Qian'er as fairly staggering: "The court's only so many people, and Quanhou Street's only these few houses. Who doesn't know whose business? It's only that our house is thin-rooted, and I've just started keeping company with the old sisters.

"You think the secrets are known to you alone? Why, the neighbors to left and right likely knew them long ago. They just don't care to play the villain. What I don't understand myself, I go and ask those who understand better than me. I'll learn it slowly, and by and by I'll know how to do things. I can't go dragging you into it every time. You're young yet, and that lot over there are elders of a sort, another branch or no. So this playing-the-villain can only fall to me."

Qi Qian'er was more than pleased. She scooted over to the old lady's side, caught her hand and patted it: "Aiyo, our old lady's coming along!"

The old lady, who'd been in a thoroughly foul mood, pursed her lips at that, reached out and patted Qi Qian'er lightly on the back and scolded: "You little thunder-struck thing! What are you talking rot for? However old I am, I'm still coming along, am I? Ai! Bearing a creature like that one, your granny's only afraid she can't hold you all up many more years. I'll shoulder it a while yet and see to the next generation. If the next generation makes good, you'll all be free of it. If not, I'll talk it over with your father, and if it truly won't do, send them far off, out of sight and out of mind. A sin, this is."

That little pat shaved clean away the ten thousand mu of weeds in Qi Qian'er's breast, all at once, and her sky turned bright and clear in an instant.

The old lady only grew clearer-headed the longer she lived.

The old lady finished her scolding, laughed at herself, and went on chattering about her business: "When I'd finished, my old sisters were furious. Your Granny Jing said, that Yang household is just this..."

Holding up her little finger, the old lady gave another scornful curl of the lip.

But Qi Qian'er was curious: "Granny Jing?"

A new friend, this?

The old lady nodded: "Eh? Oh, from the Board of Punishments lane next over. You've not met her. When she comes to the house one of these days, you come and pay her your respects. A right hearty soul she is. Her old lord is of the same generation as the old Commander, an old Shaoshang minister of ours! Their eldest, your Elder Brother Jing, is serving in the Board of Punishments now. Never mind it's only the Gate Bureau he runs, that's a place with real power too! Though when our house makes friends we look only at character, not the size of a man's office. We're no vulgar climbers, right?

"Where was I? Oh! Your Granny Jing says the father of the third branch's Wen-shi was a famous cruel official back in Shaoshang. That streak in her house is handed down. Well, hand it down as you please, but hand it down as far as my Chen house, and this old lady's not having it. Hah! And to think I once reckoned Madam Qiao so very capable. She can't even keep her own child safe, two eyes and both of them blind sockets."

Qi Qian'er didn't cut in. She took up a bowl of sweet bean-jelly and ate, spoon by spoon, listening to the old lady chatter.

At the old lady's age, she doesn't necessarily care about the money in your hand. What she cares about is whether her words are heard, whether there's someone to understand and pity how hard it's been for her.

Praise her, pity her, be angry alongside her, and you're the finest child in her heart.

"...then Madam Tie from the Board of Revenue lane said, divorce Madam Qiao. And your Madam Xu said, a mere concubine, is she worth divorcing? And Madam Tie said, send her to a temple. Oh, give over! Do temples come free? Is our money blown in on the wind? And then what, the fourth fool goes mad for her again? I'll not raise the fourth's children for him. And if anything should happen to them, once they're grown their own dad and mam are a family again, and I've spent my money and my strength and got only blame for it... your granny's not such a fool, right?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "You're in the right."

The old lady heaved a heavy sigh: "It's your Granny Jiang who's the most worldly-wise of all. She said, a good many old palace women who kept the rules in the palace have come out. Spend a little silver, find one to keep the woman in check, and that's that. No more of a concubine gadding from this house to that. So there, I've had Jixiang go to the capital to find your father, and word will come back by and by."

Qi Qian'er was startled on the spot, her eyes going round as round as she looked at the old lady. You, you, what kind of crowd have you fallen in with?

The old lady was still angry: "My family's children, am I to let any two-bit nobody play with them for a toy? Serving them up daily at the door for another's dish, and mind you don't cut the meals short, deliver them right on the dinner-hour?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "You're in the right."

The old lady, who'd trained herself to a good temper, went to her bead-string to vent, turned it a few rounds, and said: "Even leaving aside my heartache for Xique, when outsiders speak of it, it's still 'the Chen family's child was beaten.' Can't have you bearing children only to be looked down on for it..."

Just as she was speaking, First-Moon came in to announce that the second young madam's mother, Madam Dong, had come.

The old lady quickly had her shown in. Before long Madam Dong came in, all smiles.

Qi Qian'er rose to greet her, and herself carried over a chair and asked her to sit.

Perhaps because she'd brought off some great matter, Madam Dong, seeing no one about, said low at the old lady's side: "Word's been passed along for you, any day now, just wait for the good news!"

Qi Qian'er's hand, offering tea, checked, and she asked: "What good news?"

At that the two old ladies together waved her off: "Off you go and play, it's none of your business!"

Aiyo, so they were making sport of her. Hauled her over on purpose, and now shoo her away?

There was nothing for it. Qi Qian'er turned and left the courtyard and went over to Zhang Wanru's.

She'd got to the gate when she heard the old lady call out again: "Qian'er! Take some of the sweet bean-jelly your father sent over to your sister-in-law!"

The old lady laughed too: "Cloying stuff. I don't care for it, let them sweeten their mouths..."

So Qi Qian'er carried the sweet bean-jelly into the Tong family courtyard, and coming in the gate saw four little wretches sitting under the Tong family's flower-trellis, ranged in a row tracing their red copy-characters.

Ding Yuniang was poorly, so the four little ones of the Yu family did their first lessons here at Zhang Wanru's. Sometimes Qi Qian'er took them for arithmetic. Their grounding was poor, they'd have to sit a year at home before they could enter a school.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come, the children stood up properly and made their bows. She went over, took up each one's tracing-sheet and looked it round, and at the last shot a glare at the biggest, Yu Shoutian: "You're the eldest, and your mind's scattered every day, all taken up with going into the city to play with that lot. Look at these few strokes of yours. This is tracing, this is, and where's your mind flown off to? Ten more pages tonight. You'll not sleep till they're done well."

That said, she charged Dani: "Keep an eye on him! Cry himself to death or no, he sits there till it's done. And if he dawdles, take the awl you sole shoes with and jab him!"

This was pure joking. Only Shoutian was at the wild-hearted age. Come to Guard Lane, he'd made friends nearby, and a country child who's seen nothing finds everything new and marvelous now.

Yu Dani nodded eagerly, over and over. Yu Shoutian pulled a long, woebegone face. Boy though he was, at home he counted for next to nothing. Except that his granny spoiled him a little, everyone else treated all alike. His younger brother Youtian could still climb up and sit on their dad's shoulders, but he was too big now, and got no such seat.

The truth was, neither Qi Qian'er nor Zhang Wanru looked for him to pass any licentiate's or juren's exam. They only feared that when he entered a school next year he'd fall behind the others and be shamed.

Knock the spirit out of a boy and you spoil half a lifetime's temper. You needn't be the best. Do middling and the whole family's satisfied.

Lessons checked and the sweet bean-jelly shared out among them, Qi Qian'er went on to the flower-house in the Tong family's back courtyard. The moment Zhang Wanru saw her, her whole face was astonishment: "Do you know? Those old ladies of ours have brought off a great thing!"

It turned out the old lady had set Madam Dong to send word to the new in-laws, the Pan family, that Pan family at the Censorate. The word was that the Yang family, up and down the Six-Board lanes, brag that they're blood-kin to the imperial house. And impersonating imperial kin is a grave crime, and a censor's whole office is to impeach the hundred bureaus and be the Son of Heaven's eyes and ears.

Song-shi's side wanted all the more to draw close to this family, so of course, when the in-laws had a matter on, they'd help with all their strength. And besides, what did it cost the Pan family to send a few unconnected people to lodge one impeachment against the Yang family?

There was no hard proof. Yet all Quanhou Street knew the Yang family claimed kinship with the Emperor's house, so where had that come from? If you didn't say it, how would everyone know? It hadn't been a day or two, either. The rumor had gone about since the Shaoshang days.

Hearing it, Qi Qian'er looked at Zhang Wanru in disbelief: "You mean to say, this was our old lady?"

Wasn't she supposed to bring along that old crowd, Madam Gao, Madam Wan and the rest, plant herself cross-legged at the Yang family's gate, and there call up wind and thunder and summon Heaven's own lightning to strike the whole household dead?

Zhang Wanru too had a queer look, like she was holding something in, and at last she said through her teeth: "Tsk, and my old lady, and the old lady from the Board of Punishments lane, and Granny Jiang up the hill... in short, of the old ladies along these few lanes, a good third at least are quietly busying themselves over this little matter of ours. You didn't see Xique. A dozen weals on her face, all pus and blood, and her body too, tsk! The old folk can't abide the sight of it."

Before Qi Qian'er's eyes the dust flew up, and a whole troop of incense-burning old ladies came thundering past. Her heart caught, oddly, and she asked: "Will, will our old lady come to any harm, doing this?"

Zhang Wanru set down her flower-shears and took up a wooden ladle: "Harm, what harm? Is our old lady to have Jintai and the others look after some other old lords a bit, see them out of the cold wind when they dismount outside the palace gate of a winter's morning, help them into the guard-post to warm up out of the wind, is that to bring harm? Common human kindness, no more."

Qi Qian'er thought: "They're all elders. It's only right to look after them a little."

Zhang Wanru set down the watering-ladle: "That's just it. It's only the old ladies chatting, is all, 'the Emperor's kinsfolk' this and that, and if the censors happened to overhear and mean to lodge an impeachment, what's that to do with our old ladies?"

Qi Qian'er licked her somewhat dry lips: "If that's how it is, the Yang family's finished?"

Zhang Wanru, hand on Hongmei's arm, walked out as she spoke: "How could they be! The Yang family has some standing in Shaoshang. Their merit's not great, but merit they have, and our Emperor's always generous to men of merit. What's rotted this time is only the Yang family's roots."

"Roots?"

"That's right. They can refuse to own the false claim of imperial blood, but the moment a superior looks at the business, he's bound to feel this whole household is nothing but climbers who fawn on the powerful. Our Great Liang cart's just got onto the right road. It's the very time for putting down roots by merit, and their family's ruined its name at the outset.

"Don't you go making light of Quanhou Street, sister. Our offices are small, but which house here hasn't a few marriage-kin and backers? A rotted inner-court name you can't pick back up. On our side a good third of the old ladies are speaking ill of that family at home. Hmph! Let them build bridges and pave roads three lifetimes over, a name lost in a pack of old matriarchs' mouths won't come back."

Zhang Wanru gravely held up three fingers: "A house with three generations loses three generations of name. If they've the bad luck to run up against a matriarch with four or five generations under one roof, the elders needn't do more than say a word, just drop a line to the juniors: the Yang family are none of them decent folk, don't take up with them. And then who'd dare take up with them? And that's not one old lady speaking. Heh, no wedding or funeral invitation would ever go to their house, for fear of the name rubbing off rotten! And that's the end of them! You think a house like ours turns out only one generation of officials? I don't know about the rest, but the Jing family in the Board of Punishments runs three generations too."

Qi Qian'er breathed out a wronged ghost from between her lips and, her mind wandering off beyond the sky, thought: has the world turned that different? Before I'd so much as lifted a hand, the old lady, leaning on a pack of incense-burning old ladies, had stirred the Yang family's whole future away to nothing?

But what she didn't know, old Dowager Jiang and a good many others did know. And even those who didn't were nobody's fools. Anyone who could get into that circle of old ladies was no ordinary sort to begin with.

What could Qi Qian'er say? She could only stammer: "I'll keep out of it, only I never thought Granny could pull off so big a thing now."

At that Zhang Wanru smiled, and called to the little wretches in the outer court: "School's out, school's out. Dani, take your brothers and sister home, and mind your big younger brother. If he dares go racing horses with those rascals from the Board of War lane again, he'd best watch out, I'll break his legs."

Dani answered with a smile, helped her brothers and sister pack up their writing-things and had Dadun and the others carry them, then came over to go on telling tales: "Auntie, yesterday my granny had money sent to Shoutian..."

Before she'd finished, Yu Shoutian burst out in a fury: "Sis! Telling on me again!"

For an old body to love a grandson is natural enough. The Yu granny hadn't the Chen old lady's money, but she had her son's remittances, and of her private hoard none but her grandson would ever see a coin.

Hearing it, Zhang Wanru held back a laugh, called Yu Shoutian over and asked him: "Come, tell your auntie, what do you want money for?"

Yu Shoutian was furious past bearing, and only after a long while said: "To, to go hear the storytellers at those houses in the Board of War lane."

Not every official's son had money. Only a fool holds great banquets at home day after day to feast others free. And besides, Quanhou Street wasn't up to Yanjing's mark.

The young lads of these lanes had to club together to while away their time at play. You put in five hundred cash, I put in five hundred, till it comes to a dozen strings and more. Then find a friend whose courtyard's roomy, take one share of that dozen strings to lay on a feast, and hire a storyteller to the house for a bit of noise. That was their entertainment.

Hearing Shoutian say it, Qi Qian'er scolded him: "Didn't I tell you not to play with that Board of War lot?"

The children of those few houses were far too wild, several of them right little troublemakers.

The young lad felt it a bitter wrong to hear his auntie say so, and in a flash the boy's eyes reddened round the rims: "Auntie, the Board of Rites lane and the Board of Revenue lane folk won't play with us either, and besides, their talk, I, I can't follow it."

At the child's words Zhang Wanru and Qi Qian'er looked at one another and sighed inwardly.

What you are settles what sort of friends you can make. Children aren't like old ladies. They're young calves, sharp in their likes and hates. Don't like you and that's that, and there's no arguing the point.

There was nothing for it. Qi Qian'er could only crouch down and set the child's clothes to rights: "There now. Play's play, but no more of that business of sneaking one of your uncles' horse out like last time. If you're fond of riding, I'll have them fence you off a paddock at the manor by and by, and when the Six Steeds Horse Farm comes to the capital next year, your auntie will take you to pick your own horse."

Shoutian's eyes lit up and he asked loudly: "Truly?"

Qi Qian'er nodded in earnest: "Truly. But there's a condition. Fail it, and the horse is gone."

Yu Shoutian nodded like a pestle pounding garlic: "Auntie, say it. One condition, ten I could do. A true man's word, once given, four horses can't chase it back, I promise!"

Qi Qian'er patted the child's head: "When you're asked to a feast, you go. But your share-money, don't ask your granny for it anymore. Come and draw it here from your auntie."

Yu Shoutian was wild with joy: "Truly, truly?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "Mm, truly."

Once I know where you're spending your money, I can keep track of where you go.

Zhang Wanru was the stricter. Only when Qi Qian'er had done did she put in: "It's not that you can't go hear the storytellers. We've an empty courtyard, and if you study well and come month's end you've bettered your brothers and sister, then each month I'll reward you a feast, and let your dear friends come play at the house. Only... I've a condition too."

Yu Shoutian feared Zhang Wanru most of all. At that he sighed deeply: "Auntie, say on, your boy's listening."

Zhang Wanru held back a laugh, patted his head and said: "When you go out among company, there are a few books you must keep well clear of, you're not to hear them on any account: the likes of The Lovesick Girl, Peach-Blossom Heaven, and The Tale of Skinny Ding. If I get wind of those three, your legs get broken, and your friends' hides too. I'll help their elders peel them off one by one, believe it or not?!"

Yu Shoutian stood dazed a good while, then nodded, and left with a heavy sigh.

A houseful of grown-ups: the dads just stuffed money and things at them and ran wild along with them. The two who held them in an iron grip were the two aunties, and when these two lost their temper, even hauling out Granny, even the dads, was no use at all. Everyone got punished together. It was really too much.

Ai! Not to be crossed!

Once the children were out of sight, Qi Qian'er cheerfully joined Zhang Wanru in giving the orders: shut the gate, lay out the couch, bring the wine, and lie down together and be idle... The house was under a show of mourning, so any little bit of devilry could only be got away with on the sly.

There were even those who, on the pretext of going to make a match for a younger brother-in-law, went to the Little Immortal Garden to hear opera and drink wine, and snatch a little quiet indulgence behind everyone's back. The times were different now. Even the Emperor didn't dare cut short his whole court's mourning, and everyone just muddled through, making a rough show of it.

Qi Qian'er had been through several great matters today, and couldn't help drinking a few cups more. Before dark she was asleep at the Tong house.

But what she didn't know was that tonight, the Emperor would get no sleep at all.

The Martial Emperor Yang Zao stared dumbstruck at the heap of silver chests outside Chengming Hall, and asked, in utter astonishment, "This, this is for me?"