A season passed. Another followed. A year went by, and yet the sun still rose, yet did the moon still wax and wane upon the skies.

  Within the walls of Yuchi Court, the days were still governed by the shadows of the sundials. Diminished though they stood, the young disciples still practiced their martial arts, the old teachers still held their lectures, and the younger Yin brother, advised by his elders and well-wishers alike, governed the intricate structures of his cn.

  Disputes were there to resolve, accounts to keep, appeals of salvation from resentful spirits to answer. All this and more did the young master need to perform with excellence. In spirit as in conduct did he have to be impeccable and firm, yet wise and malleable, yet quick and decisive, sharp and judicious, courteous beyond reproach. For where there were hearts, there would be desires, and the zongzhu of Cn Ming had to bance them all.

  It therefore stood to reason that this young man, encumbered with such burdens upon his narrow shoulders, would seek counsel and discuss secur and spiritual concerns with his peers. For statecraft is considered the third High Art of the realm, and a zongzhu’s strength was built on his alliances.

  Thus, on a bright, cold afternoon of early spring, it came to be that young Riguang of Cn Mao, who had known Ming-zongzhu since boyhood, had been invited to partake in such a counsel. Or it might be said that young Riguang of Mao extended this formal invitation to himself, but when the shoe fit the foot, the end was the same; the two masters retired into the seclusion of a private office, wherein they enjoyed the fragrant brews of the finest quality; the elixirs of erudition to enlighten wise minds. For much is there to discuss, debate and agree upon, should the Five Hands face a bright future together.

  “So then Mei Shin Yán, her affairs exposed,” began the emissary of Mao, “paid that deputy a casket of silver to lid the whole affair. And the Meng family was blessed with a son. I heard she is the old turtle’s niece removed, but he won’t even— ” the Mao emissary tapped his chin with the wine jar and narrowed one eye at the other wine jug he clung to. He raised both. “Yin Yue, why do I have two of these? Jars, Yin Yue! I speak of jars.”

  The head of Cn Ming turned to look upon his old friend, his face gibbous in the light of their shared ntern, his smile a breath on the surface of a pond. In his hand, he held a third, sealed jar, the ceramics a deep aquiline. The boy’s eyes glinted with mischievous joy, his cheeks red with the wine’s seduction. He settled down with a flutter of his robes.

  “For comparison, brother Riguang,” came the answer, soft as duskfall. “As the future of our cns, we must cultivate refined tastes. What say you, is Master Ya Ruanshi’s or old Ku Zhiyu’s wine better?”

  Mao Riguang raised a finger in the way of the Empress Dowager. He allowed his eyelids to droop, perked up his chin, and struck a close resembnce to the Emperor’s very own mother. Then did he swig a mouthful of one bottle and another after turn, and his verdict was thus, “A fool shall favor chickens over cows. A rube shall prefer cows to his chickens. The old sage will enter the barn and take his delights in both.” And with that, the young master tapped his friend’s nose with his folded fan. “Remember that, Xiao Yue.”

  The pale moon of Ming smiled wider, eyes crescent. He took a jar and paid unwitting respect to the dead in his hiccup. “Well,” attempted he again, “well, says I, you’ve had your fill of chickens and you’ve had your cows, old sage, old ancestor.” Another mouthful of wine went down the zongzhu’s throat. “What say you to taste the phoenix of the wine? Mm? Can your tongue endure it?” The boy closed his one eye and wagged his finger with utmost severity. “Or shall your heart succumb and leave you a vengeful ghost, my ancestor?”

  The older ancestor leaned forwards. “My tongue?” croaked he, “my tongue is of tempered iron. What is it you got there, A-Yue? Let this ancestor have a look.” Mao Riguang reached for the mysterious jar, both hands encumbered. He rammed one jug into the other and soaked his sleeve in wine. The zongzhu of Ming sheltered the phoenix wine against his breast and raised a foot to his friend’s chest to halt him. He drew his brows into a frown, the dance of fireflies in his voice.

  “Respect, my ancestor! Kowtow thrice. This is the best and most precious wine Cn Ming has to offer. It is… it is fit for Xingyan-zhenren, the zongzhu of Sheng alone! No, wait, the Seer does not drink. Fit, I say, for the Emperor’s birth — no, his wedding — no, his ascension, my friend!”

  Mao Riguang snorted a wet ugh and liberated a hand from the prize of a lesser jug, straining against the foot on his chest.

  With delight, the younger boy revealed the sigil on the jar then; the symbol of the moon’s own silver, the symbol of the Yin family. A triumphant look crossed his face, his spirit elevated by both wine and some other, frantic etion. “See?” croaked he, “only the best for you, Mao Riguang, my friend, my brother— ”

  Mao Riguang rose to one knee and tore the prized jar out of his friend’s hand. “Esteemed zongzhu, this one has only your best interests in mind, so give that here,” he scolded. “By the red of your face to judge, if you take one more drop of that, you’ll fall backwards and ascend right away.”

  “Wait,” cried Ming-zongzhu. Lost was the moon’s radiance upon his face as he threw himself after the jar, cwed at his friend’s shoulders and tore at his robes in an attempt to retrieve his treasure. But Mao Riguang drew back with a cackle and poured the stolen wine down his throat. An excellent wine was this, and in his satisfaction, he decred, “Ah, A-Yue, A-Yue. They say that to visit here is to invite misfortune upon one’s own head, but that is the talk of fools,” his voice faded to a smile. To come here is to be free.

  Ming-zongzhu stared at the precious jar, his face in shadows, hair tousled. So much of that treasure, the sun’s own brew, had been drained before his eyes. Lost forever. Betedly did he raise his head, the soft light restored in his eyes. “What? Here? Misfortune? What do you mean, who says that? What old snder have you heard now?”

  Mao Riguang clicked his tongue. A novel thought entered the steppes of his wine-steeped mind. And ever curious, he leaned forwards and rested his chin on a raised knee.

  “While we speak of old evils,’ began he, “I saw that old Lu Yuxin down at Hangzhou vilge. What blew him all the way there?” The Mao emissary’s thin smile widened in harmony with a raised brow. Was it unspeakable affairs? A little secret? A stain on his silver-edged reputation?

  His voice fell to a whisper. “Has he at st — hic — found the Way of the Flute?”

  Yin Yue stared at his friend for a while, mute as a clouded night. Then did a look of relief wash over him, and his ughter echoed in the hollows of their emptied jars. “Who knows, my friend?” He eased a hand towards the stolen wine jar. “Who knows? Some say he needs to find his flute first.”

  A hoarse cry of distress met his ughter. Too te did Mao Riguang see the thief’s hand, and he nded quick, feeble blows upon it with his folded fan. “Better, hic, he finds it and relieves his - hic - yang. The way he looks at me, A-Yue, you’d think he was a tiger and I a — hic - graceful… graceful…”

  The young man fluttered his sleeve. “Goat?” offered Ming-zongzhu.

  The emissary of Mao coughed. “Swallow,” corrected he. “A graceful swallow. When shall you discipline him for his impudence, zongzhu?”

  Yin Yue inhaled some of his precious wine when the question reached his ears. He coughed into his sleeve, eyes wet with unshed tears.

  “Discip-… ?”

  Discipline the Red Tiger of Ming? wondered he. The swordmaster who had sworn himself to serve the cn in honor of the man who raised him from the vagrant’s dust and grime? The man who, when in his prime, could have been the Emperor’s own guardian? The master whom he has had the honor to address as shifu since his fifteenth year?

  At his hesitance, the young master of Mao threw his arm over his friend’s shoulders and leaned his way.

  “A-Yue,” began he, “I have your, hic, best interests in mind here. Firm, yet malleable. Hic. You know what they say of — of your gege’s little friend. It is bad enough that he pys the weasel in the crane’s nest. You do not need two puppeteers behind your seat— ”

  The emissary’s voice mellowed with a varnish of sudden sobriety, his words at once clearer, though his breath remained soaked in said fragrances of erudite elixirs.

  “Look,” he murmured. “I know those two old crones mean well, but tongues talk, you know? You let the gray one run riot here and,— ”And, pondered the emissary of Mao, he might decide to banish me. And then where will I be? “You have to be your own master, A-Yue.”

  The younger boy stiffened under the benevolent arm. “Gege’s little friend” could mean but one man; the ashen stray, the gray servant of Cn Ming. He shoved at his friend and rose to his feet with sudden vigor.

  “No,” cawed he, gaze adrift in the mist of inebriation. The lone light of their mp seemed a blur to his eyes, a golden fog in the shadows. “No, the — puppet strings? Weasel in the nest? No, my friend, do not put the — hic — in the… soup of his abilities. What I mean, if Huijin is a weasel, then I am the — hic. He has not the… wit, the grace, the strength to weasel.”

  Mao Riguang held up his hands in a gesture of resignation and an invitation for the Divine Realm to pass judgment.

  “Don’t fy the courier, Ming-zongzhu,” returned he. “I know that. Of course I know that. I’ve known him since he used to feed us plum cakes down at the river, right? It’s just talk. All talk, my friend, my brother. Can’t stem the tide.”

  The other answered with a brief, empty silence. Then, he gestured at the emissary as he wrought his mouth into a smile again.

  “Let ‘em talk, Riguang,” decreed he. “What care we old souls, old ancestors, who are so — so above such ways? Psh.”

  “Right,” echoed the older ancestor. “Now, I say we — ” He waved and waved his folded fan, and before he could conclude what the two esteemed men should debate next and which jar of wine should partake in that discourse, the ornament flew out of his hand and disappeared behind the stacks of sealed jars.

  “Aiya, Riguang,’ whined Ming-zongzhu. “That’s — ” He bit his tongue. Evidence.

  “ — That is an invaluable - hic — red butterfly silk fan from the Hua province gifted to me by Madam Jie.” The emissary of Mao leaped to his feet. He ambled forwards.

  Behind him, the zongzhu of Ming scoured his mind for a reassurance. Like the miner in the bowels of the earth, he delved deep, but what he believed to be gold proved but pyrite when brought to light. And so he clutched his jar as ughter tore from his throat, quiet and soft at first, then louder, like the discharge of a bog, as he watched his friend dance the drunken dance towards the jars.

  At this ughter, the emissary of Mao halted and looked over his shoulder, a strange, unreadable countenance hidden beneath the fog of his inebriation. For a breath or two, he stood at a loss, his hands sck and brows furrowed.

  “Yin Yue?” he tried at st.

  That look, innocuous as it was, seemed to amuse the young zongzhu. He ughed harder, clenched his jaw in a vain effort to silence himself, hunched his shoulders and folded jealously around his prized wine jar.

  “It is just a fan, Riguang,” he answered between hiccups. “You have so many. Is it really that precious?”

  The emissary of Mao arched both brows. “Wh — are you ears full of silk, A-Yue? This is the red butterfly — “

  Yin Yue ran the back of his hand against his mouth, gaze lowered. His thoughts drifted upon the scattered winds for a while, and he remembered a smile as light as a red butterfly. Ever was there warmth in that smile.

  “Invaluable,” murmured he. What did Mao Riguang know of that which was invaluable? The young man threw back his head and sighed.

  “I will bring it out for you, Riguang, if it is that precious to you.”

  The emissary of Mao leaned more of himself against the nearest stack of jars. And then, the jar which met his elbow tilted.

  And thus was the inevitable concluded at st. The first wine jar fell. The emissary of Cn Mao fell with it.