“I shall not be coy then; I truly intend to come over and beg for a drink of your finest,” Madam Xing teased, her voice sparking a wave of lighthearted laughter that rippled through the room. Inside the nuange [a heated ‘warm room’ designed for winter comfort], the air was thick with the scent of tea and the peaceful hum of a family at rest.
General Shang Ji, however, seemed possessed by a restless urge to return to the heart of his home. After delivering his final instructions to his subordinates, he led Luo Yuan and his elite guard back through the drifting white veil of the storm.
It was the thirteenth day of the Layue [the twelfth lunar month], and the breath of the New Year was already beginning to stir. The General’s Mansion was a hive of industry, draped in festive lanterns and vibrant silks in anticipation of their distant kin. Inside, Du Jingyi sat beneath a bright window, her silhouette quiet and focused as she cross-referenced the banquet invitations.
When Shang Ji arrived, he paused at the threshold. He watched her through the window —a scene of domestic serenity that seemed to halt the very wind. Behind him, the young Lieutenant Luo Yuan lost his footing in the snow, stumbling forward. He looked at his General, utterly bewildered.
“General, are you not going in?” Luo Yuan whispered, rubbing his numb hands. They had ridden like the wind just to reach this door; why stop now?
Perhaps it was the subtle pull of a telepathic bond, but Du Jingyi looked up, a flicker of intuition crossing her face. “Yingtao,” she said to her maid, “go see if Aunt and the others have forgotten something and returned.”
Yingtao lifted the heavy felt curtain, only to gasp in delight. Standing there, his hair and brows frosted with crystalline white, was the master of the house. “Young Madam! The General has returned!”
Du Jingyi dropped her brush, the ink forgotten as she hurried to the door. The transition from the greenhouse’s humid warmth to the doorway was sharp, a clash of heaven and earth. As Shang Ji strode inside, he brought the mountain chill with him.
Du Jingyi, dressed lightly for the indoor heat, couldn’t suppress a shiver. Seeing her tremble, Shang Ji stopped instantly. “I shall go change first,” he said, his voice low and protective. “I will return to you shortly.”
“I will be waiting,” she replied, her eyes shimmering with a joy she didn’t try to hide.
While Shang Ji retreated to the bathing chamber—a luxury built by Steward He with a pool and cabinets of scented yisao [hand-crafted floral soaps]—he let the steam wash away the exhaustion of the road. He submerged himself, the heat soaking into his bones, and felt the weight of the frontier finally vanish.
When he returned to the warm room, he was clad in everyday robes of soft silk, still radiating the heat of the bath. He noticed the invitation list immediately. “Is the date finalized?”
“The nineteenth,” Du Jingyi answered softly. She stepped behind him, taking a silk handkerchief to dry his damp hair.
“The list is extensive,” she noted, reading the names of the capital’s elite. Shang Ji listened, his expression hardening slightly. “Send the invitation to the Crown Prince first,” he commanded.
Du Jingyi paused. “The Crown Prince? General… should we not avoid the appearance of currying favor with the Palace?”
“Invite them all,” Shang Ji said, his voice taking on the steel of a blade. “The Fourth Prince, the Seventh, the Princes of Fu, Bin, Min, and De. Even Princess Yuehua. I want every noble in Sui’an to see that the peace they enjoy was paid for by the blood of the Gu family. Let no one think they can climb the social ladder by stepping upon my family’s name.”
On the day of the arrival, the heavens finally cleared. The winter sun offered a pale, chilly radiance as Shang Ji led his family ten miles outside the city gates to wait. He sat tall upon his black steed, draped in a magnificent dark fox-fur pifeng [a formal winter cloak].
Behind him, Du Jingyi sat within a luxurious carriage with Madam Xing and the others. Despite her outward calm, her heart raced. She wore a cloak of pure white fox fur over a sky-blue ruqun [a traditional wrap-around skirt] embroidered with twin silver lilies.
“They are here!” Xue Niang cried out, pointing toward the horizon.
A procession emerged from the white expanse. Xing Zhao led the way, with young Shang Zhiping riding beside him. Behind them trailed heavy carriages and more than a dozen carts laden with the Gu family’s legacy.
As the carriages drew near, a melodious, girlish voice drifted from behind a curtain. “Cousin Zhao, is Cousin Shaoyu here?”
Gu Xiaolang, the Ninth Miss and sole heiress of the Gu line, lifted the curtain. Her eyes immediately found Shang Ji. At seventeen, she had grown into a refined beauty, though her status as the “pearl of the family” gave her an air of delicate entitlement.
Inside the lead carriage, the Matriarch, Old Madam Gu, finally opened her eyes. The sigh that escaped her was heavy with a decade of exile. “Ten years,” she whispered, the walls of Sui’an City finally coming into view. “It has been more than ten years since we last saw the capital.”The sentiment in the Old Madam’s words moved Nanny Qin deeply, the memories of a decade of exile etching themselves into the deep lines of her weathered face. As the heavy carriage came to a halt before the welcoming party, Shang Ji lowered the hand he had used to shield Du Jingyi from the wind. With a grace that spoke of both military discipline and filial piety, he performed a deep zuoyi [a formal bow with hands clasped].
“Shaoyu has waited long for Grandmother’s return,” he announced, his voice steady yet thick with emotion. Behind him, the family followed suit, a chorus of “Greetings, Aunt” and “Greetings, Grandmother” filling the crisp winter air.
The carriage door creaked open. Nanny Qin and Gu Xiaolang pulled back the heavy silk curtains to reveal the woman who had held the Gu family’s honor together through the fires of war. Old Madam Gu sat with a spine as straight as a cedar tree. Though her pifeng [formal winter cloak] was thick and heavy, she carried no excess weight; she was a woman carved from endurance.
Du Jingyi watched her closely. She had expected a woman of either soft kindness or sharp severity, but she found instead an aura of absolute authority. How else, Jingyi realized, could a woman preserve a noble house in Jinling after all its men had fallen to the sword?
“Rise,” the Old Madam commanded. Though her voice carried a hint of a reproach, the relief in her eyes was unmistakable. “In this bitter snow, you should have stayed by the hearth. Why bother with such a distance?”
“Grandmother,” Shang Ji stepped forward, a rare, genuine smile breaking his stoic mask. “I was unable to meet you when you first traveled North. To not welcome you now would be a failing I could not bear.”
As the Matriarch relaxed, her gaze lingered on Shang Ji, seeing in him as the ghost of her late husband. Nanny Qin, the woman Shang Ji had specifically requested to serve as Du Jingyi’s mentor in the capital’s etiquette, stepped forward.
“This old servant greets the Young General,” she said with a respectful dip of her head.
“Nanny, you have traveled far. You have worked hard,” Shang Ji replied warmly.
Before the moment could settle, a playful, bell-like voice cut through the air. “Cousin Shaoyu! Do you only have eyes for Grandmother and Nanny Qin? Have you truly not seen me?” Gu Xiaolang stepped into the light, her eyes bright with a proprietary spark.
“Little girl,” Shang Ji chuckled, reaching out to stroke her hair with the easy affection of an elder brother. “You have grown quite tall.”
A blush crept up Xiaolang’s neck, though she tossed her head back with a grin. “I am nearly seventeen, a young lady grown. Did you think I would stay a child forever?”
Shang Ji’s smile turned slightly melancholic. He wished she could have stayed a child, sheltered from the tragedies that had claimed the rest of their kin. “It is cold. Let us get you to the Mansion. I must go back and pay respects to my Third and Fourth Aunts first.”
As Shang Ji turned to go, he suddenly stopped, as if struck by an afterthought. He reached for Du Jingyi’s hand, pulling her toward the center of the Gu family’s attention. “I was so caught up in the joy that I forgot Grandmother has not yet met you.”
The gesture was small, but to the onlookers, it was deafening. Madam Xing and the others, accustomed to the General’s devotion, hid their smiles behind their sleeves. But the Gu family—who remembered Shang Ji as a cold, detached youth—exchanged looks of profound shock.
Gu Xiaolang’s expression shifted. Her gaze toward Du Jingyi became enigmatic—heavy with an intensity that Jingyi felt instantly. Is it possible? Jingyi wondered, her intuition as a woman sharp and unyielding. A cousin’s childhood infatuation turned to something sharper?
Stepping forward with perfect poise, Du Jingyi knelt in a flawless wanfu [a woman’s formal salute]. “Granddaughter-in-law Jingyi greets Grandmother, Cousin Lang, and Nanny Qin.”
Nanny Qin’s eyebrows rose in silent approval. She had expected a merchant’s daughter with rough edges, yet Jingyi moved with the elegance of a woman who had walked the halls of the Phoenix Palace.
“You carry a child,” Old Madam Gu said, her voice softening as she gestured for Jingyi to rise. “There is no need for such rigid ceremony. We shall speak more when we are out of the wind.”
“I thank Grandmother for her grace,” Jingyi replied.
As the word “pregnant” hung in the air, a flash of unmistakable disappointment flickered in Gu Xiaolang’s eyes. Shang Ji, blinded by the joy of the reunion, saw nothing. But Jingyi saw it all. The suspicion in her heart solidified.
The procession began its slow crawl back toward Sui’an. As they entered the gates, the city revealed its new splendor. Once a place of “new money” and unrefined ambition, Sui’an had matured into a true Imperial Capital after decades.
From a distance, the golden-tiled roofs of the Forbidden City resembled a slumbering dragon, watching over the bustling streets. Flags of every color snapped in the wind, and the cries of vendors created a symphony of prosperity. It was a city of abundance, a stark contrast to the quiet, dignified grief the Gu family had left behind in the south.