Expression

For some reason, after meeting Wei Yushan, A-Cuo felt somewhat less than happy. Even successfully seeing out the old year until midnight brought no particular joy. When it was time to remove her makeup and retire for the night, Yanghua came forward to help her take down her hair ornaments and suddenly remarked, "Actually, Young General Wei is quite a fine person."

Throughout the capital, he was universally called the Young Marquis, as though his greatest value lay in being Marshal Wei's son and the future heir to the marquisate. Yet Yanghua called him the Young General Wei. A-Cuo, sharp-witted and clever in every way, could not possibly fail to understand her meaning.

Yanghua was advising her: stop thinking about tying any tangled red threads of fate, and abandon the idea of using Wei Yushan to your own ends. After all, even Wei Yushan considered strictly as a young military commander was a rare and desirable match at the Flower Letter Banquet. Meeting in one's youth and falling in love at first sight—how many people could only gaze upon such a fortune with envy? If she could let go of those calculations and trade true heart for true heart, why wouldn't it be wonderful?

Yet A-Cuo remained silent for a long time, merely looking at her own reflection in the mirror.

That ugly little foundation-stone beast squatted on the dressing table, its carved stone eyes bulging as though silently reproaching her. With a sudden hardening of her heart, A-Cuo opened the drawer and tossed the object into a heap of miscellaneous items.

"Tell Elder Sister Qinglan that Wei Yushan will come to offer New Year's greetings tomorrow." She paused for a moment, then added, "Remember to mention it while Second Elder Sister is present."

Yanghua sighed silently in her heart.

"Yes, miss."

-

The next day, Wei Yushan arrived precisely as promised to offer New Year's greetings.

Lingbo had made preparations long in advance, directly guiding him and leading him straight into the main courtyard of the the Ye household. Lord Ye had been full of eager anticipation to socialize with the "young Marquis of Pingyuan," but Lingbo simply dropped the remark, "The servants are ignorant and led you to the wrong place," and intercepted Wei Yushan on the spot.

Poor Lord Ye—he had intended to show off in front of his guests, deliberately bringing several colleagues and disciples along to welcome Wei Yushan, dressed in brand-new ceremonial robes and looking exceedingly respectful. Who could have expected Lingbo to pull such a stunt right in front of everyone, causing him to lose face completely?

Lord Ye still attempted to strike up a conversation with Wei Yushan, saying, "Young Marquis, please come to the main courtyard for tea; coincidentally, some colleagues from the Ministry of War are also there..."

Four years ago, Wei Yushan had witnessed Ye Qinglan and Cui Jingyu's secret betrothal; what was there about the Ye family that he did not know? If it had been Lady Wei, things might have been better, but he despised evil with a passion, spoke his mind directly without reservation, and would not spare even Marshal Wei's face. Having seen such a wretch of a Lord Ye who doted on concubines while neglecting his wife and handing his own children over to a concubine to be abused, how could he possibly show a pleasant expression? He did not even bother to offer greetings, merely letting out a cold laugh. "No need. I have come to offer New Year's greetings to Elder Sister Ye, and I will not be going to the main courtyard."

Seeing how cooperative he was, Lingbo's anger abated somewhat as she led him toward Wutong Courtyard, sneering on the way, "I suppose you're of some use after all."

"Not as useful as you. Making a scene and rolling around at Cui Ge's place—now that the two families have broken off relations, I suppose you're happy." Wei Yushan had always been at odds with her. Back then, it was the same; Lingbo had a notoriously sharp tongue, and resenting how he used to interrupt Cui Jingyu and Qinglan's time together, she had frequently squeezed and taunted him.

"Weren't you also hoping that Cui Jingyu and Qinglan would fall out? What are you pretending for now? This isn't the snowstorm when you blocked our carriage," Lingbo retorted instantly. "Or did you not fall hard enough last time? Do you want to be thrown by Cui Jingyu again?"

"In your dreams," Wei Yushan said. "Cui Ge has long since let it go. As long as he finds a young lady he fancies to betroth himself to at this Flower Letter Banquet, from then on we'll each walk our own path and cross our own bridges, and I won't be bothered to care about you lot anymore."

The two bickered all the way back to Wutong Courtyard. While Wei Yushan matched Lingbo tit for tat, he still felt a slight twinge of guilt upon meeting Qinglan. Moreover, Qinglan possessed a natural poise, always composed and dignified, making it impossible for anyone not to set aside their prejudices and treat her with rudeness.

When Wei Yushan offered his New Year's greetings, he naturally did so under the name of Lady Wei. No matter how much Lingbo wanted to scold him, she had to quietly accompany Qinglan in returning the courtesy. With all ritual proprieties duly observed, they took their seats and drank tea. Qinglan found an excuse and said, "Lingbo, the hour is getting late. You should go to the Shen family to offer New Year's greetings, otherwise Biwei won't find it convenient to come over."

Ye Lingbo went off on her own to find Shen Biwei, asking, "Where is A-Cuo? I'll take her and Yanyan along so we can collect New Year's money from Madam Shen." Qinglan smiled and said, "A-Cuo slept late last night; don't take her along. Madam Shen is thoughtful in any case, and her red envelope won't be missing."

"Madam Shen still gives you New Year's money every year," Ye Lingbo laughed. "She says as long as one is unmarried, one ought to receive it. I can't refuse, so I can only accept it."

She accordingly set out with Yanyan, and just before crossing the threshold, she did not forget to glare at Wei Yushan, who was sipping tea, and pulled a red envelope from her sleeve, tossing it right in front of him.

"I don't want it," Wei Yushan said loftily. "You're only a year older than me; what right do you have to give me a red envelope?"

"By right of being the young mistress who manages the household—you're still living off your parents," Lingbo said with disdain. "Stop putting on an act. Did you receive any less four years ago? Little ungrateful wolf, how many good things did you eat from this elder sister back then? Now that we've broken off, you act like Cui Jingyu's little lapdog, baring your teeth at us every day. My things were completely wasted on you."

With just a few remarks, she scolded Wei Yushan to the point where he nearly jumped up in rage, while she herself drifted off lightheartedly. She certainly had a way of standing truth on its head; if one really spoke of the events of four years ago, the fault lay with the Ye family—there was no logic by which they could continue to interact with the Ye family as if nothing had happened after Ye Qinglan called off the marriage. Furthermore, it had coincided precisely with the Northern Rong expedition, when victory and defeat were unknown and life and death hung in the balance. No matter how upright Qinglan's conduct was, it was impossible to prevent people from suspecting that she was afraid Cui Jingyu might not return and therefore cast aside her fiancé.

Yet Qinglan now sat here quietly, her brows lowered, still the Guanyin-like dignified elder sister she had been four years ago. The courtyard was the courtyard of four years ago, and the tea was the tea of four years ago, leaving Wei Yushan feeling somewhat dazed.

Seeing Wei Yushan gaze at her, Qinglan smiled first. Once Lingbo left, the reception hall was filled entirely with Qinglan's people, and her maids were just like her—exceedingly steady and composed.

"What禹山 (Yushan) did was truly quite improper," she said simply and softly.

For her, this amounted to a condemnation. Wei Yushan's face grew warm all at once, and he knew he was in the wrong. After all, A-Cuo was a young lady of a good family, and this was not Yanglin City; his actions had been presumptuous.

"I know." For once, he was obedient—a side of him that neither Marshal Wei nor Lady Wei had ever seen. At eighteen, a youth was precisely at the age of stubbornness like an ox, when previously he had only been able to listen slightly to Cui Jingyu and Qinglan, and later on, only to Cui Jingyu. But Cui Jingyu was, after all, an elder brother, lacking Qinglan's subtlety, and thus could not perceive these nuances.

How wonderful it would have been if the marriage had never been broken off.

"Very well. Call A-Cuo out," she said to Yanghua, before instructing Wei Yushan: "Since our families are old acquaintances and it is the festive season, exchanging greetings is entirely proper, and you may speak if you have anything to say. Meeting privately, however, would be unseemly."

Wei Yushan merely nodded.

Sure enough, A-Cuo emerged. Last night the light had been dim, and he had not seen her clearly; as it turned out, she was wearing a wide-sleeved upper garment patterned with intertwined flower clusters and a necklace of interlocking beads and gems. Having turned sixteen by customary reckoning with the new year, she was now of an age to pin up her hair into a bun. With the heavy festive rouge applied, her chin was pointed like a peach blossom petal, her eyes lowered, and her eyelashes exquisitely curved.

Wei Yushan bowed to her with utmost propriety, only then realizing that private trysts were not the only things of interest; conducting oneself in such an upright and proper manner was also very fine.

"Very well. The Welcoming Spring Banquet belongs to the Shen family, and everyone there will be our own people. You can talk then if you have anything to say," Qinglan reminded them with a smile.

The two then parted ways. Madam Yang poured another cup of tea, and Wei Yushan remembered Qinglan teaching him that this was the manner in which capital aristocratic families signified the departure of a guest, so he stood up to take his leave. He saw Qinglan nod slightly toward him with an approving smile.

So she remembered that as well.

Outside, the great snow glistened brilliantly. Qinglan personally escorted the guest down to the courtyard, and Madam Yang presented a red envelope on a tray, which also contained a peace talisman.

Clearly, the day he blocked the carriage, the person he intercepted was her, yet she had not followed Ye Lingbo's example and thrown the red envelope at him.

"Yushan is a general now as well," Qinglan exhorted, much like an elder sister from an ordinary household. "War is a perilous business; although it is to protect our country and our people, you must take good care of yourself. This is the Nirvana Talisman from Baode Temple, the most efficacious of all. Duke Yongguo wears one constantly year-round to ensure peace and longevity. Yushan, you should wear one yourself and take another to present to the Marquis—there is no need to mention it came from me; just say it was sent by the Shen family."

Wei Yushan knew she must have asked Shen Biwei to obtain it, as Baode Temple was a royal temple, and only Shen Biwei had the freedom to come and go at will.

She refused to let his family owe her a favor.

When she and Cui Jingyu were betrothed, Wei Yushan was only fourteen. He had not yet killed anyone, and was still the youth beside Cui Jingyu who worshipped him wholeheartedly, crying out that he wanted to go to the battlefield with him to kill the enemy. Once, he had even asked Cui Jingyu what it felt like to kill a man. Cui Jingyu had described to him in detail the warmth of blood splashing onto one's body and how the hilt of a saber would become too slippery to hold once soaked through with blood, which was why hilts had to be wrapped in ox-tendon cord.

For this matter, Qinglan had actually reprimanded Cui Jingyu, blaming him for frightening Wei Yushan. She had specially brewed a calming tea for him to drink, taken him to listen to Buddhist lectures, and comforted him for a long time.

Later, when Wei Yushan killed his person on the battlefield for the first time, he felt almost nothing. When the Northern Rong army pressed hard upon the borders, no one would specifically come to comfort a rookie who had killed for the first time, and Cui Jingyu merely rewarded him with a new saber.

This year, Wei Yushan was nineteen by customary reckoning and had already killed many men. Many of the Northern Rong soldiers were originally herdsmen who pastured horses and grazed sheep in times of peace and came to plunder the borderlands when the season arrived. He was young, but sometimes the men who died were even younger than he was. As the fighting dragged on, the Northern Rong people gradually ceased to equip every man with heavy armor; sometimes they wore only a thin layer of leather hide, which was why Wei Yushan later used a sword more often. When a sword pierced a human body, regardless of the angle, blood would surge back up along the blade until his hands were covered in warm blood. Occasionally, he would recall the fragrance of gardenias at that temple, and remember Ye Qinglan speaking softly and gently under the eaves to comfort him, as if he truly were her younger brother, as if she genuinely cared about his terror, for which she had not hesitated to quarrel with Cui Jingyu.

Thinking of these things gave him a self-destructive sense of exhilaration. A sharp blade piercing human flesh was like tearing away a hypocritical mask; of course Ye Qinglan did not care about him. She had merely played the part of a gentle elder sister briefly at the Flower Letter Banquet to comfort him in passing. Only he had been foolish enough to think she truly intended to become his family, believing she would follow Cui Jingyu to Yanglin City and face all their enemies together.

Even if she didn't go to Yanglin City, even if she had stayed in the capital, he could have found an excuse.

Yet she had gone and called off the marriage.

If he, who regarded her merely as an elder sister, was wounded to this degree, what about Cui Ge?

That day at the temple, he had fallen fast asleep amid the monotonous chanting of the elderly nun, waking up only in the afternoon with cicadas filling the mountains. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he rounded the monks' quarters and saw a tree of gardenias in full bloom within the courtyard, their fragrance filling the air. Beside the blossoming tree, Cui Jingyu sat on a stone stool while Ye Qinglan leaned against his shoulder, sleeping peacefully.

Seeing him approach, Cui Jingyu had made a "shh" gesture and broken into a smile.

In the four years that followed, Wei Yushan, serving as his deputy general, had accompanied him to many places, climbing snow-capped mountains, traversing deserts, and fighting fierce battles against the Northern Rong on the frozen Mingsha River where the water was stained a dark red. They had also led five hundred men in a night raid on a Northern Rong grand chancellor's camp housing tens of thousands, solely to secure the initiative for Marshal Wei. Of all the men who followed them that night, only a dozen or so returned. Wei Yushan himself had been thrown from his horse, and it was Cui Jingyu who rescued him. Wei Yushan's palm had been nearly crushed in that engagement, and to this day several fingers on his left hand could not straighten fully. The Northern Rong dispatched a detachment of light cavalry to pursue them, and Wei Yushan along with Cui Jingyu fled for a hundred li across the Gobi Desert, the Northern Rong clinging to them like maggots on rotting bone because Cui Jingyu's horse still carried the head of their grand chancellor.

They were no longer merely elder brother and younger brother; they were comrades who had entrusted their lives to one another. He was Cui Jingyu's deputy general, understanding the profound meaning behind every action and the intent of every expression.

Yet he never again saw Cui Jingyu display the same expression he had worn that day.

Ye Qinglan's annulment of the marriage seemed to have hollowed out something within him. He remained Cui Jingyu—a once-in-a-century military talent, towering like a mountain, fierce as a tiger or leopard, yet crafty as a snow fox. He was a nightmare to the Northern Rong, and the soldiers of the Northern Army regarded him as the God of War, following him without hesitation even when they knew it meant going to their deaths.

Crossing the Golden Sands that day, an ancient northern kingdom had carved massive grottoes and Buddha statues into the rock walls. Due to the shifting of the mountains, the statues had fractured and collapsed; as they rode past a gigantic Buddha head three times the height of a man, its surface was covered in a network of cracks.

Cui Jingyu always made Wei Yushan think of that Buddha statue.

He remained powerful, unyielding, and even an existence that mortal men could not destroy.

He had simply shattered quietly, from within.