Xie Si'an jumped onto the carriage with his homework in hand, grinning. “There was an uncle in the ancestral hall just now who looked exactly like the man in Mother’s portrait.”
Dugu Luan Yue corrected him gently, “Not ‘a man in a portrait’—that’s your father.”
The carriage rolled slowly away from the Xie clan shrine. Su Rou had quickly reserved the entire top floor of Wanhua Inn—the finest lodging in Danyang—for their party, and they settled in for the night.
The next day the market in Danyang swelled like a living tide. The city sat astride the north–south trade route, and every kind of curious thing anyone could dream of was laid out under the summer sun. They had come with an excuse—shopping for a birthday gift for the imperial matriarch—but really to enjoy the spectacle.
High summer light struck every surface. The market thrummed with voices and colors. The Fengling Guards kept the Southern Chu empress, the princes, and princesses tucked inside the crowd; Aunt Mei Jiang led the little princess by the hand, Su Rou shepherded the elder prince, and Dugu Luan Yue walked between them.
Xie Si’an’s eyes darted everywhere for snacks; his belly was already pleasantly round from sampling the fair. Dugu Jing Shu, a gentle girl, was fascinated by the fluttering rows of bright fabric butterflies.
Then, up ahead, a giant clam lay opened on a stall. People clustered around, whispering.
“Word is a boatman pulled up a thousand-year shell from the deep,” someone murmured. “No one knows what might be inside.”
“The old salt at the stall’s been saying the thing inside’s formed—won’t be merely a handful of pearls,” another added.
“Not pearls—then what could it be?”
Curiosity pulled Dugu Luan Yue forward. “Children, come on—let’s see what it is.”
They squeezed into the crowd. The boatman was a middle-aged man, weathered and dark-skinned, standing beside the monstrous shell. The thing was as long as half a grown man—she could imagine Xie Si’an curled up inside it. Its iridescence flashed like a living thing under the sun.
“Boatman,” she asked, enchanted and amused, “when will you open it?”
The man looked up. “This shell wasn’t easy to come by. We’ll auction it—highest bidder opens it.”
A roar went through the crowd. Everyone wanted to know what secret the deep had kept.
“Starting bid: two hundred taels.” His voice rang clear.
“Two hundred twenty!”
“Two hundred sixty!”
“Three hundred!”
Bids climbed, breathless and eager, until only the boldest reached a thousand. Dugu Luan Yue stood at the front, then spoke softly, “One thousand five hundred taels.”
Silence fell harder than before. Her voice, calm and certain, drew a few sideways glances.
Huo Wei had come into Danyang to pay respects at the ancestral hall two days earlier. Shen Guilan had assumed he meant to return to the palace, but Huo Wei had lingered. Early that morning Shen Guilan had dragged him to the market, enthusing about a great treasure to be sold—perfect as a birthday present for the Southern Chu dowager.
“Look,” Shen Guilan nudged Huo Wei, “that red-robed woman—doesn’t she look like the old Dugu Empress?”
Huo Wei glanced over. He was startled, then stilled. It wasn’t merely a likeness; the figure in red could have stepped from the very portrait.
If it were truly Dugu Luan Yue, she had no business in this city. Danyang fell within North Yan’s borders; for the Southern Chu emperor to appear there without notice would be a political scandal. If she had come alone and secretly—without the courts’ permission—that might be read as mischief, or something worse.
“If she is,” Huo Wei said flatly, “I’ll have her seized on the spot.”
Shen Guilan paid him little heed and kept bidding: “Two thousand taels.”
Dugu Luan Yue raised her voice again. “Two thousand five hundred.”
Huo Wei’s eyes fixed on the red silhouette. The timbre of that voice—he knew it as surely as his own. Distracted, he brushed past the throng and stepped forward to touch her shoulder, turning her gently.
For a breath, his pupils constricted. Five years. She stood there, unchanged enough to be unforgettable, tempered enough for the passage of years to have left its mark. Everything in the market seemed to hush to the beat of his heart.
Dugu Luan Yue’s first reaction was shock too; no words came. Huo Wei had come to Danyang—after five years—and he was still the same man who commanded with quiet, inevitable force. How to speak first? Every feeling crowded at the back of her throat.
The boatman tried to keep the show going. “Two thousand five hundred, once—twice—two thousand five hundred—”
Dugu Luan Yue snapped back to the sale. “Three thousand!”
Huo Wei’s jaw tightened. “Ten thousand,” he said.
Shen Guilan slapped his own forehead in exasperation. “Only he could skyrocket the price like this. As if the North Yan treasury grew on trees.”
Su Rou and Aunt Mei Jiang exchanged a look and hurriedly handed the children to the Fengling Guards, then led the rest back toward the inn. These dragon-and-phoenix twins were clever and charming; the North Yan emperor had yet to take a consort and had no heirs five years into his reign—if he knew of their existence, there would be no end of trouble.
Dugu Luan Yue frowned. “Ten thousand seems excessive.”
Huo Wei’s expression hardened into coldness. “If you can’t play at that price, don’t play at all.”
She breathed in, steadying herself. “Eleven thousand.”
“Twenty thousand.” His voice left no room for argument.
Shen Guilan grabbed his sleeve. “My lord, that’s—do you know what twenty thousand can do? It could support a regiment.”
Dugu Luan Yue pressed her lips together and let the bidding go. “Fine. I’ll just watch and see what’s inside.”
Shen Guilan went forward to pay, muttering under his breath that Huo Wei turned from man to dog in a single moment where Dugu was concerned. Twenty thousand taels burned even into his fingers.
The boatman took the silver bill with a broad smile and handed the oyster-prying tool to Huo Wei. “Young lord—please, open it yourself.”
Huo Wei took the tool. Between the pressing crowd and dozens of focused eyes, he pried the shell. It split with an almost ceremonious sound.
Inside lay a pearl-white, chubby little thing curled as if asleep, its skin luminous like the heart of a pearl. It was barely smaller than a newborn, all round limbs and creamy light. Huo Wei lifted it out and, for a moment, the market held its breath.
“Heavens!” the boatman cried. “A clam spirit! You’ve struck rare fortune—these are said to be centuries old. A clam spirit brings prosperity and luck.”
The crowd erupted—clam spirits were supposed to be at least three thousand years old, luminous and spiritually potent. No wonder they’d fought for it.
Huo Wei, expression unreadable, handed the strange pearl-creature to Shen Guilan for him to hold, then reached for Dugu Luan Yue’s hand and pulled her out of the throng.
“Who gave you permission to come to North Yan?” he asked, his voice low but cutting.
Her wrist tingled where he gripped it. She stared at him, the years of silence between them distilled into that single, hot moment. “Five years apart,” she said, voice steady though shaken, “and when we meet again, you still wear such a temper?”