The sound reached them first, then the child appeared: no more than eight years old, a little girl stepping into the crowd as if she owned the room.
She wore a dress the color of lotus petals; her hair was parted into two thick braids tied with red thread, falling exactly to her waist. By all rights she should have looked charming and innocent. Instead, there was an unsettling sharpness in her eyes—an old, ruthless intelligence that did not belong to a child.
“Who is this child?” someone murmured.
Zhao Shuning produced a relic bone from her pouch, flipping it idly in her hand. It turned with a regular, almost hypnotic rhythm.
Nan Tianyuan felt his heart hitch as if the bone were tugging at it. He scanned the crowd and noticed the terrifying man from before was nowhere to be seen. Still, he kept his composure and bowed slightly.
“Miss Zhao, when did you arrive in Qingning? I failed to receive you properly—please forgive my poor manners.”
Zhao tossed the bone toward him; Nan snatched it up reflexively.
“Perhaps you think I couldn’t even leave that Miao Mountain, that I was trapped there,” she said lightly.
The audacity of an eight-year-old openly taunting the most powerful family in Qingning left many of the merchants speechless. Even more baffling was the expression on Nan Tianyuan’s face: a strange mix of wariness and restraint. That alone told them this child’s background might be far from ordinary.
A merchant representing the Li family pushed forward and bowed. “I am from the Li family of Qingning—traders of garments and adornments. May I ask who this young miss is?”
Zhao clapped once—clean, decisive—and announced, “I am Miss Zhao, second daughter of the Zhao family in Qinghui Town—Zhao Shuning.”
“Qinghui Town? The Zhao family?” Heads turned; no one in the hall had heard of a Zhao family of note, nor of a Second Miss Zhao with any standing in the eastern wilderness. Why then did Nan Tianyuan’s expression shift when she was named? Whose child was this?
Zhao walked straight across the room and took the main seat as if she’d been born to it. Nan Tianyuan’s face darkened. The position she occupied was the highest in the hall—the guest of honor seat. Even Sitü Yun, who had been given the seat immediately beside the main chair as a sign of courtesy, had not dared to claim it. Yet this little girl treated the place—and its people—with utter disregard.
A slim figure stepped up to stand at her left; the boy, pale and unreadable, remained silent. Zhao pulled over a small stool and set it beside him, smiling briefly. “Mo Bai, sit.”
Mo Bai obeyed.
Her smile vanished. She turned to the room, voice clear and cold. “What are you all doing? Not sitting? Shall I come and carry your stools for you?”
The merchants hurried to find seats. They didn’t know who Zhao Shuning truly was, but they weren’t about to offend someone the Nan family treated with such caution. If even Lord Nan kept his distance, what hope did they have?
But there were two empty places now—one for Zhao, one for Mo Bai. Nan Tianyuan and another merchant were left standing awkwardly. Zhao beckoned to the servants behind her.
“Go fetch Lord Nan a stool. You work for the Nan family—have you lost all sense of duty?”
Nan Tianyuan’s voice was low and controlled. “Miss Zhao—”
She looked back at him with no hint of amusement. “Yes?”
“Have I offended you in some way I do not recall?”
“You haven’t offended me,” she said. “But how many have you offended, Lord Nan? Surely you know that yourself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s a daughter of the Ling family—her name is Ling Sese.”
“So?”
“She met with an accident yesterday, at the hands of Huang Sandong.”
“Miss Zhao, that is not my doing. You have no reason to blame me.”
Zhao’s mouth curled into a cold smile. All eyes turned to her as she spoke slowly. “Not my doing? Who am I supposed to go to then—Huang Sandong, who is dead?”
“Dead?” Nan’s voice choked. Huang Sandong had been an old friend; he’d been allowed to ply his trade in Qingning under the Nan family’s loose protection. His fall would fracture the Nan family’s profits.
“He’s dead. I killed him. Mo Bai cut their throats—every one of them.”
A heavy, stunned silence fell. The notion that an eight-year-old and her pale companion had murdered a band and left them all with slit throats seemed impossible. Yet the accusation hung in the air like a blade.
“Why would you do that?” Nan demanded. He remembered Zhao—on the last occasion she’d been nothing more than a third-rank herbalist; how could she have mustered the means to kill Huang Sandong and his men? And who was Mo Bai to execute them with such finality?
Zhao’s voice sharpened, still carrying the slight lilt of childhood. “Maybe Lord Nan’s hearing is poor. I said Ling Sese is my friend. She was harmed because of Huang Sandong. You dare to ask me why I killed a bandit? Is the Nan family protecting the people of Qingning—or only your own profits?”
The words landed hard. “You may turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people,” she continued, “but you should never rub salt in their wounds when they’re already bleeding.”
Nan Tianyuan tried to steer the conversation back, but his composure was fraying. “Miss Zhao, I don’t understand—”
“Not understand?” She let out a sound half laugh, half scorn. “Miss Zhao,” he began again, voice tightening, “I wish to speak with you—don’t take advantage of—”
Before he finished, Zhao slammed her palm down on the table. The wood snapped with a crack that made everyone start. Even Sitü Yun and the other dignitaries flinched and looked at her.
She smiled, but there was nothing gentle about it. “It’s nothing. Continue, Lord Nan.” Her tone was amused. “But let me warn you: choose your words. Consider what you say—and what you do not say. The mistakes of one man should not ruin an entire family. That would be...a poor trade, wouldn’t it?”
Only then did Nan grasp how close he had come to exposing the wrong name. He had almost dragged some mysterious ally into a scandal that could cost lives—perhaps even his own. He swallowed that thought down and bowed his head.
“Lord Nan, continue,” Zhao invited.
“Miss Zhao, I was wrong,” Nan said, his voice now carefully placid.
“Wrong? In what way?”
“My earlier speech was careless. I nearly offended someone I should not have.”
Zhao toyed with a teacup in her hand, rolling it between her fingers. “So who did Lord Nan intend to offend?” she asked softly. “Was it me?”