Day was just breaking, and mist shrouded the snow-covered town. A clamor gradually rose from the streets:
"Mutton soup! Freshly slaughtered, freshly sold..."
"Chirp, chirp, chirp..."
"The usual? Two taels of freshly sliced mutton on your tab?"
"Chirp."
The Binghe Escort Agency remained silent. Its young mistress, who in past years had risen before dawn to practice her horse stance, was unusually absent today. She was still lingering under the covers.
In the East Wing Room of the rear courtyard, the red candle had burned out, leaving a pool of wax tears in its holder.
The plank bed had no curtains. A thick quilt enveloped a man and woman nestled in each other's arms.
Ye Jingtang lay on the outside, both arms around Big Silly. After a night of tenderness, he had begun thinking about the days ahead.
Ning'er, Third Madam, and Shui'er were all, like him, people of the martial world through and through. They cared only for love and placed little weight on worldly rites and conventions. Even if they spent their whole lives on the roads of the martial world, none of them would have regrets.
Silly was different. Though she yearned for the martial world, she had always been a princess of the Imperial Court and had no connection to it. Her most beautiful moment should have been a wedding night with Tushu, once peace reigned beneath heaven.
But the road through the martial world was long. He wanted to finish everything as soon as possible, then obediently return to the Black Bureau as a commander with an idle post-or perhaps as a princess consort-and stay with Silly forever. Yet he had no idea how long that day would take to arrive.
He had said a year, but ahead still lay the Four Sages of