Yang Qilang was wrapped in a thick cotton coat and had just reached the gate of his family’s courtyard when a hand suddenly shot out from the darkness and clamped onto his shoulder.
Qilang nearly cried out in fright. It was only under the faint moonlight that he recognized the man.
“Brother Wu? Why are you skulking by my wall in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?”
Yang Xiaowu’s voice came in broken fragments, snatched away by the wind. “Aren’t you meeting the Fang family’s Sixth Brother and the others at the Jufu Tavern before noon tomorrow?”
Qilang nodded, breathing out a plume of white mist. “We arranged it three days ago. What’s this—do you want to come along?”
Yang Xiaowu did not answer. After glancing around, he seized Qilang and dragged him behind the courtyard gate.
“You’re not going tomorrow morning.” Yang Xiaowu stared into Qilang’s eyes, each word heavy with emphasis. “Yang Quan has gone from branch to branch delivering the message! Tomorrow, at the hour of the Dragon, the clan’s great bell will be rung. Every male member of every branch must gather at the ancestral shrine.”
“The bell?” Qilang was stunned. “Apart from the New Year and other festivals, that bell hasn’t rung in five years. What on earth has happened?”
Yang Xiaowu’s grip was astonishingly strong, squeezing until Qilang’s bones ached. “You must not be absent, and you must not let a single word slip outside.”
“Let go of me!” Qilang struggled twice but could not break free. A spark of anger flared in his heart. “You have to tell me what’s going on! I promised Xiaoqi and the others we’d have this drinking party. If I don’t show up at the last minute, I need an excuse!”
“I told you, I don’t know!” Yang Xiaowu hissed.
“But last night, I was on duty. I passed Seventh Uncle’s study and saw light shining through the paper window, so I took a peek inside.”
“Seventh Uncle was drawing maps beneath the lamplight. The whole table was covered with copies of the land deeds for the three families’ holdings south of the city. He took a cinnabar brush and circled the Fang and Chen families’ ancestral graves and sacrificial fields one by one—as if marking them for death.”
Qilang drew in a sharp breath, a chill spreading through him.
The two men stared at each other. In each other’s pupils, they saw the same terrifying premonition.
The next morning, just after the hour of the Snake.
In a private room on the second floor of the Jufu Tavern south of the city, the brazier burned merrily.
“Come on, come on! Fill them up!”
Sixth Brother Fang had one foot planted on a long bench as he shouted at the top of his lungs. He was lean and wiry, with a quick tongue, and ordinarily managed one of the Fang family’s cloth shops in the eastern part of the city.
Across the table, seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Fang Xiaoqi had flushed cheeks and all the vigor of youth as he lifted his bowl of wine. Beside him sat Fang Dazhuang, built like an ox, tearing at a tendon-filled piece of sauced bone with his teeth.
Two young women were at the table as well.
Fang Dazhuang’s cousin, Fang Xiuniang, was sixteen, with a pleasant, wholesome face. She wore a short, fitted peach-pink jacket and a pomegranate-red sash embroidered by her own hand. Her nimble fingers were busy shelling peanuts.
Beside Xiuniang sat Fang Qiao’er.
She was a little over twenty, her hair arranged in a married woman’s coiffure. Though betrothed, she had not yet married. Mild-tempered and reserved, she took no part in the men’s uproar, merely wiping the two extra sets of bowls and chopsticks with a clean handkerchief.
“I’m telling you, this time the three families have not only pierced the heavens—they’ve held them up!”
Sixth Brother Fang grabbed a handful of peanuts and slapped them onto the table, unable to conceal his smugness. “The Three Ministries’ commissioner’s official vessel passed the Yangzhou courier station last night! At the latest, he’ll dock at Jiangning Harbor the day after tomorrow. That old scoundrel Xu Youde is finished!”
Fang Xiaoqi’s eyes widened with excitement. “Sixth Brother, is the news reliable?”
“My father came back from the clan head’s residence last night with his face glowing. He was practically walking on air!”
Sixth Brother Fang lowered his voice and leaned toward the others.
“Reading between the lines, there were only four words: the outcome is settled!”
Fang Dazhuang broke into a wide grin and slapped the table with delight.
Fang Qiao’er shot him an exasperated look. “Careful. Walls have ears. Don’t let the people in the next room hear you and start making trouble.”
As she spoke, she poured the bowl of tea in front of Fang Xiaoqi—which had long since gone cold—into the spittoon. Then she lifted the copper kettle from the little red-clay brazier and refilled his cup with hot tea.
Xiuniang had been propping up her chin and listening to them chatter. At last, she crisply cut in, “Sixth Brother, if what you’re saying is true, does that mean no one will dare touch the graves of our three families from now on?”
Sixth Brother Fang gave her a thumbs-up. “Xiuniang’s the one who sees the heart of the matter! Once Xu Youde falls, which official appointed by the new commissioner would dare touch this hot potato? Our ancestors’ centuries-old inheritance will be safe!”
He paused, a smile spreading across his face.
“Heh. We might even expand it a little.”
The door curtain was suddenly flung aside, making the flames in the brazier cower and flicker.
Yang Qilang and Yang Xiaowu stepped over the threshold one after the other.
They were dressed too lightly for the weather, and the expressions on their faces were stiffer and colder than the snow and ice outside. Their pale, impassive faces held not a trace of cheer.
“Well, look who it is! Brother Wu! Qilang! You two finally made it!” Sixth Brother Fang sprang to his feet and pulled out a long bench. “Sit down and warm yourselves!”
He seized the wine jar and personally filled two bowls with hot wine for Qilang and Xiaowu, complaining as he did so, “What took you so long? You should have been here half an hour ago!”
“We—we ran into a few things on the way and got held up.” Qilang’s eyes darted away as he pulled out a bench and sat down, his hands uncertain where to rest.
Yang Xiaowu said nothing. He sat down beside Fang Dazhuang and lowered his head.
Picking up his chopsticks, he grabbed a piece of cold beef and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing stiffly.
The moment Xiaowu entered, Xiuniang’s cheeks inexplicably reddened.
She hurriedly lowered her head and busied herself arranging the white porcelain dishes on the table. When everyone else was talking, she quietly nudged the plate of thick-cut sauced beef toward Xiaowu.
Fang Xiaoqi remained completely unaware of the strange atmosphere. Excitedly leaning across the table, he brought up the subject again with Qilang.
“Brother Qilang! Sixth Brother just said that the Three Ministries’ commissioner will arrive the day after tomorrow! That old dog Xu Youde is finished! The three families are sure to win!”
Xiaoqi gazed eagerly at Qilang, his face bright with anticipation, waiting for Qilang to slap the table and cheer along with him.
Qilang raised the bowl of hot wine woodenly, his wrist trembling faintly.
His lips touched the rim, and the wine sloshed over onto them.
He could not swallow even a drop. Instead, he set the bowl heavily back on the table.
Fang Dazhuang gave Yang Xiaowu a hearty slap on the back. “Brother Wu! Why the long face? You look like someone borrowed eight hundred taels from you and never paid it back! Come on, come on—let’s have a drink!”
The slap was so forceful that Xiaowu’s body lurched.
He tugged stiffly at the corners of his mouth, which passed for a smile. Then, smiling at Fang Dazhuang, he raised his bowl and tipped his head back, gulping down a large mouthful.
The fiery liquor went straight down the wrong pipe. Xiaowu immediately began coughing, so hard that tears sprang to his eyes.
Fang Qiao’er hurriedly handed him a plain handkerchief and complained to Fang Dazhuang, “Why are you in such a hurry? The wine jar isn’t going anywhere.”
After three rounds of drinks, the heat in the private room had grown more intense.
Sixth Brother Fang became more and more animated, rapping his fingers against the tabletop with a sharp bang, bang, bang.
“You have to calculate this carefully! With the three families acting together, our connected farmland and residences south of the city amount to a full six thousand mu! If the imperial court wants to launch that massive construction project, there’s no way around us!”
He raised his wine bowl and held forth as though he were directing the world: “Xu Youde’s downfall is set in stone! Once the new imperial commissioner takes office, if he wants to get anything done, the very first thing he’ll have to do is bring gift boxes and beg our three families for help! When that happens, forget the original price—even if we triple the land prices, they’ll have to swallow their grievances and accept!”
Fang Xiaoqi’s eyes lit up. He waved his arms excitedly as he chimed in, “My father promised me the other day that once this matter is settled, he’ll hand that rice shop in the eastern part of town over to me entirely. I’ll be the shopkeeper!”
“Now that’s more like it!” Sixth Brother Fang reached over and rubbed Xiaoqi’s head, loudly teasing him. “When that day comes, you’ll be the wealthiest little Shopkeeper Fang in eastern Jiangning!”
Fang Dazhuang cracked a bone and joined in the revelry. “Once the storm blows over, I’m tearing down that shabby courtyard of ours! I’ll buy two cartloads of fine blue bricks and rebuild it into a grand two-courtyard residence. Then I’ll formally marry a beautiful wife and bring her home!”
At the words “marry a wife,” Fang Qiao’er couldn’t help tapping Fang Dazhuang lightly on the forehead with the end of her chopsticks.
“Why don’t you wash off all that sweat and stench of liquor first, and rein in that rough-and-ready temper of yours? What respectable girl would marry a boorish fellow who says ‘I’ all the time?”
