Zhao Yan did not wake until well into the afternoon. He twisted himself into a more comfortable position, meaning to go back to sleep, yet could not shake the feeling that he had overlooked something.
Last night, had he caught a faint, sweet-tinged smell of blood on the air?
He sprang up, threw on whatever came to hand, and rushed out in a hurry.
As he crossed the courtyard he saw Jiang Chen at his sword practice, and even in his haste he found time to toss a remark over his shoulder: "Third Brother, you really ought to change your bedding. It's scratchy as anything."
And before Jiang Chen could answer, he was already gone.
"Hey!"
Jiang Chen called out but could not stop the man. He was quite baffled. "I only changed to fresh bedding at the start of the month."
He sheathed his sword, went to the bedchamber, and rummaged through the bed for a good long while without finding anything amiss. Only when he lifted up the whole quilt and felt the mattress did he spy, pressed against the bed board, a tiny sliver of wood.
"..."
"Through two layers of stuffing, and he could feel this splinter?"
"Perhaps that is simply what it means to come from a rich household..."
...
The Cloud Crane of the Lingxiao Pavilion did not fly back and forth through the air the way a carrier pigeon did. In truth it dwelt always within the clouds, blending in with the sea of mist. Dao art power carried the message as it wove through the white clouds, and only once it neared its target was a clump of cloud "tugged out" on the spot to become a crane soaring down.
Before that point, even one who captured the flow of power would find it near impossible to crack what lay within—for they would only seize a burst of dissipating energy.
Thus did the Cloud Crane make for a means of correspondence remarkably secure.
Ye Qingyu's letters usually arrived in the evening, just after it had gone dark but before night had fully fallen. This one had come later in the day than usual, though what had delayed it was anyone's guess.
The Cloud Crane flew in through the window, and Jiang Chen reached out to take it—but the crane only veered aside and circled to land before Jiang An'an instead.
"The letter's for me!" Jiang An'an laughed with a tinkling giggle. She set down the copybook she was tracing and caught up in her small hands the Cloud Letter into which the crane was fading, along with a Memory Stone.
"Yes, yes, it's for you." Jiang Chen smiled indulgently and leaned over to read it with her.
But Jiang An'an suddenly snatched the letter up and turned to dash from the room. "You can't see it!"
"..."
Jiang An'an hid herself away in the bedchamber for a good while before at last returning to the study.
"Where's the Cloud Crane?"
"I've written a reply, and sent it flying back!"
Jiang Chen, who had been reading a treatise on the Dao, turned his head. "Big Brother hasn't written his yet."
Jiang An'an gave him a most triumphant glare. "This letter was written to me. It's got nothing to do with you!"
Back when this had all begun, she had only wheedled a line of greeting onto one of her brother's letters. Before he knew it, she had been plotting cranes and hijacking correspondence, until she had successfully usurped Jiang Chen's place as the pen pal.
Jiang An'an then pulled out another adorable little Cloud Crane and showed it off proudly. "Sister Qingyu also gave me a little Cloud Crane of my own. From now on, whenever I miss her, I can write to her directly!"
A Cloud Crane was no mere cloud beast. It could seek out the recipient and safeguard whatever letter it carried. It was a fine wonder of a thing, through and through.
And had anyone ever seen the strapping Du Hu, Du the Great, boasting and puffing himself up? For all his bragging, all he could command was one dull-witted little messenger running back and forth to carry his words by mouth. A treasure like the Cloud Crane, he had never even laid eyes on, let alone owned one.
Of course, neither had Jiang Chen...
"Very well." Jiang Chen said sourly. "If there's a word in there you don't recognize, or a character you can't write in your reply, you'd better not come crying to me."
"Hmph." Jiang An'an pointed proudly at the copybooks on her little desk. "Every single character on these sheets, I've already memorized!"
"Remarkable, remarkable." Jiang Chen humored her weakly and turned back to his treatise on the Dao.
"Tomorrow I'll buy you new ones. Twenty whole books!" he cried out silently in his heart.
An'an picked up her little brush as well and set about tracing characters in the proper manner.
Jiang Chen turned a page, then, recalling the message Du Hu had sent during the day, asked with studied casualness: "An'an, do you ever find yourself thinking of someone? Someone about the same age as your brother, who went away a while back?"
"Who?"
"Mm, no one."
Sister An'an surely thinks of you every day, doesn't she? Hmm? Old-man-Tiger Du?
...
Inside the Sanxiang Tower.
In Miao Qing's chamber, Fang Zesheng, the man who held power in the Fang family, sat upright in a chair, breathing in the fragrance of fine tea through his nose.
"And what does Honored Fang think?" Miao Qing asked in a soft voice.
Fang Zesheng sampled the aroma for a while, then set the teacup down.
"Nothing special." He seemed to be offering a verdict on the tea itself.
"You may name any condition you please." Miao Qing was not in the least offended, and her smile remained radiant.
"No condition whatsoever." Fang Zesheng rose and brushed off his long robe. "Whatever is beyond my reach, I will not touch."
Word among outsiders was that he was besotted with beauty and had fallen prostrate at Miao Qing's very skirt. Who would have guessed that, in the fragrant privacy of her chamber, he should prove so cold and unyielding?
"Honored Fang, have you forgotten how the trade route to Yun State came into being?"
Fang Zesheng halted in the very act of leaving, and gave a light laugh. "For the matter of that trade route, I am deeply grateful for the help of your Sanxiang Tower. But in business, one does business. The payment owed I have paid to the last coin. Our account is settled, goods for money, with no debts between us. Surely the grand Sanxiang Tower would not presume to hold this over my head?"
"Of course not. If Honored Fang is set in his refusal, then we shall not press the matter."
"Thank you for your understanding, Lady Miao Qing." Fang Zesheng spoke the words, then heaved a sigh. "It truly is not that I am unwilling to help you, miss. But the situation in Yun State has grown so tense that no one dares to escort anyone across the border. Whoever the person in question might be, the risk is simply too great."
Miao Qing smiled, alluring and sweet. "Honored Fang need not explain. Miao Qing understands it all."
"Lady Miao Qing is a woman of great understanding and uncommon bearing. This Fang takes his leave for now, and will trouble you again another day."
Fang Zesheng cupped his hands, bowed, and departed.
Watching the door close behind him, Miao Qing smiled.
"If it truly had been the Sanxiang Tower doing business with you, then of course you would settle your account cleanly, goods for money, owing nothing."
"But the one who helped you was the Bone Path. How can you ever wash yourself clean of that?"
...
Somewhere in the Wangyue Tower, in a hidden chamber.
Fang Lin stood with his hands clasped behind his back and asked, "Is everything arranged?"
The steward standing below him bowed his head. "Arranged, it is arranged. But young master, at this time..."
Fang Lin cut him off with a wave of the hand. "Just do as I say. This matter, I am the one who decides!"
The steward had served in the Fang household for over a decade and knew very well the weight Fang Lin carried in Fang Zesheng's esteem.
But the stakes were high, and he could not keep the unease from his face. "We struggled hard to open this trade route. This person's origins are unknown, and no one can say what crime he has committed. If the Yun State side catches wind of it, our business is finished."
Ever since Fang Heng died, the Fang family's prospects had been rated lower than those of the other two houses. Add to that the Heart-Devourer Man-Demon of before, who had broken the ancestral shrine's great formation and slain the clan's pillar of strength, the very anchor of their spirits, and the entire house was now tottering on the brink. One could even say that the better part of its survival rested entirely on this trade route, for it alone was the Fang family's line of communication with Yun State.
So the Fang household could ill afford any risk, truth be told.
But the man in power now was Fang Zesheng, and the title of patriarch was only waiting for the old, bedridden clan head to breathe his last. As Fang Zesheng's legitimate son, Fang Lin was the certain future patriarch in the making, and he cultivated within the inner hall of the City Dao Academy besides. His words, his orders—this steward simply could not resist them.
And because of the urgency with which the young master pressed him, he had not even had a chance to report the matter to Fang Zesheng.
"What is unknown origins to you, is plain as day to me. Rest easy. Whatever comes of it, I will bear the burden."
With a word or two, Fang Lin dispatched the steward, then left the hidden chamber.
He soon stepped into a private room where the clinking of cups and plates rang out.
All day today he had been playing host to his fellow disciples here, and he knew nothing whatsoever.
Should anything truly come to pass, none of it could ever be pinned upon him.