I spent the rest of the day holed up in a study, reading through documents and forms. Until that moment I had not understood the full extent of the Bai family's wealth— or, perhaps, I should say that I had not understood the full extent of any wealthy family's wealth. Land enough to create a county of its own if it were not spread so widely across the Great Plains! Factories, farms, and even armies! Gold piled high enough to reach the heavens! All of this, within the relatively small region that was the Great Plains—

And yet the Bai family was just that. A family of the Great Plains. Compared to the families that held influence across all Wei, the families that sent generations of advisors to the Imperial Court, the regional powers that had once called themselves warlords— compared to them, the surname of Bai, or even the surname of Long, hardly compared.

And yet it was enough. It was enough to serve as a stepping stone to my dream, and that, now, was all that mattered.

—The sunlight struck a sandy shimmer upon my desk. The day was coming to a close, though only a few hours had passed since noon. It was, after all, winter. Though the solstice had already passed and the day was lengthening, it was yet night that dominated most of the twenty-four hours.

I had not yet eaten anything today, but my stomach, trained by a decade of malnutrition, did not growl in search of food. If it were not for the waning sun, I would not even think to eat.

I let out a long sigh and leaned back in my chair. Now that I listened well, the manor seemed to be far more noisy than it had been earlier in the day. I could clearly hear footsteps, multiple pairs, shuffling here and there, opening and closing doors, and one approaching the corner of the manor where I was—

The door to the study opened.

"Xue'er."

Natsuki stepped halfway into the room.

"Dinner has been prepared. You should eat."

The phrasing of her statement seemed a bit odd to me—

"Who... prepared dinner?"

"I have brought the servants back. Since this manor is destined to continue standing, they will do as they have done in standing it up. Their wages must be paid, and those wages must be exchanged for goods and services. That is how human society functions."

I nodded and stood. Natsuki stepped out of the room, and I followed her, through corridors lit only by the dull streams of sandy light floating in through the closed paper windows, which cast checkerboards of light and darkness upon the floor. I saw that Natsuki's feet only landed in the shadows, the shadows cast by the patterns in the wooden windowpanes, so of course I mimicked her, though it was far more difficult for me to keep myself balanced.

We passed an incredible number of servants, all of whom looked upon Natsuki with only fearful reverence— though none of them cast a second glance at me. I do not think they recognized me. After all, it had been ten years since I had last been to this manor. That was fine. I would not be here, here in this manor, here in Kangtian, for much longer.

There were three plates set before one seat at the great table in the dining room. So I sat, and I picked up a pair of chopsticks in my hands, and I turned to Natsuki, who was sitting across from me, no food laid out before her.

"Xia-jie, aren't you going to eat?"

She shook her head. "I have eaten too much of your human food. Any more and I will be sick of it."

My brow furrowed. That was a... strange thing to say. It is one thing to become sick of a certain type of food, but to become sick of food in general? The notion does not even make sense. But I suppose I could not impugn her for it, since she was not human.

And thus, I began eating alone.

"Xue'er. Will you be meeting with Long Bailian before leaving for the Capital?"

I swallowed a mouthful of food, then replied, "Yeah. Actually, she wanted to meet you."

Natsuki nodded. "Fair. Besides her and the Magistrate, is there anyone else you need to see before leaving?"

"If Professor Jibeidi can visit again, that would be nice. Otherwise... nobody else."

I did not hold any good feelings for anyone in the sect, and I did not know anyone else in the city. How pitiful!

"—I... don't think I made a follow-up appointment with the Magistrate, though."

Natsuki put her hand over a scroll that was already on the table, then rolled it over to me. Upon it was the seal of the civilian administration of Kangtian.

"We already received a message from the Magistrate. She asked you to meet her at City Hall tomorrow morning. Do you know what answer you will give her?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"Good. Then you should meet with Long Bailian the day after, and plan to leave the city as soon as possible afterwards. It is late winter, so since the daytime temperatures are now quite warm, there should no issue with leaving on short notice."

"Yeah. I guess I need to tie up my affairs with the Long family. Day after tomorrow should be good. I'm... not sure how to write a formal invitation, though."

Natsuki raised her arm over her head and twirled her finger in a circle. An unassuming door slid open, and a servant scuttled over to Natsuki's side.

"Send an invitation to Long Bailian, for the day after tomorrow," she instructed.

The servant raised his eyebrows.

"Long Bailian?"

"Yes."

Nodding slowly, the servant disappeared back behind the door.

"You really... know your way around this stuff..." I muttered, half amazed.

Natsuki tilted her head to the side.

"Of course not. All I know is that you must send an invitation to people if you wish for them to visit you. I do not know the specifics, so I have left them to someone else. This... cannot be categorized as wisdom."

"What...? It can't?"

"I am aware that there are many unspoken rules that govern invitations, rules that vary greatly by region. For example, in some places it is required that one begin a formal letter with a topic suiting the season. Now in late winter, one may start a letter by... inviting the counterparty to go whale-watching, as an example*. In the understanding of such rules there is wisdom. But the delegation of such tasks is no more than an act of mediocrity."

I rubbed my hand over my forehead, trying to massage my understanding of her words into a form that made sense. In my position as an unwanted child I have never really been taught much of noble etiquette, and I had never read a book on the procedure of formal letter-writing, so it was difficult to wrap my head around the concept.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"The coast is so far from here, though. How can you invite people to go whale-watching? It'd be halfway through spring by the time you reach the ocean."

Natsuki nodded.

"You cannot actually go whale-watching, and yet it is still appropriate to extend the meaningless invitation. That is why it is wisdom. That it is why it forms its own truth. Worship truth, create truth, perform truth. That is the way one must live." Natsuki sighed. "But here, in the lands east of Altyn-Tagh, your rulers are instead enamored with the art of inaction, because it is the only way they can justify their own mediocrity. Wu wei, I believe it is called. This is not wisdom. It is merely laziness."

"I... think I understand," I said hesitantly as I drew some food up to my mouth. "But I'm not sure wu wei is an actual principle of government so much as a stated ideal. Like how Ji Han always says that they govern according to Confucianism, even though... they kind of don't. You know, ru biao fa li. Confucian in appearance, Legalist in substance."

Natsuki's eyebrows jumped.

"I see. So this, too, is propagandized. Ah, this world is filled with so many false truths."

"I... suppose? I guess we'll be able to see more when we—" I paused, realizing that I was about to say something potentially incorrect. I turned my gaze down and ran through my memories, but could not find the answer I was looking for.

"—Xia-jie, are you... going to come to the Capital with me?"

"Of course. As your sister I will watch over you, and in accordance with my own goals I will seek out the truths I can find there. It was, in fact, originally on my way east to the Imperial Capital of Western Jin— no, it is currently Cao Wei— that I found you. Now I only have yet another reason to go there."

I smiled, and nodded.

----------------------------------------

The next morning I went off to City Hall, and this time it was a coachman of the Bai family that took me there. When I arrived, none of the officials working in the front office even looked up at me. So I climbed the stairs up to the third floor, then made my way to the Magistrate's office with my memory alone guiding me, since the signs that had been there the last time I visited had been taken down.

I was about to knock on the door to the Magistrate's office, when—

"Bai Chunxue. Please, come in."

I entered, and saw Sima Rui sitting at her desk, reading through what seemed to be a stack of appeals.

"Good morning, Magistrate."

"Good morning." She set her papers down and turned her gaze up to me. "Have you made a decision on what we discussed the other day?"

"Yes." I stepped forward and set several scrolls on her desk. "I'll set the Bai family properties in trust with the imperial government, except for the properties around the Imperial Capital. I'd like to learn to manage those. Though I suppose I'll need to hire some people."

Sima Rui nodded.

"I see. I can provide you some names for that. Well, go ahead and take a seat. I prepared another chair, for the person who came with you."

"What?" I turned around, but saw nothing but the door. "Who came with me?"

But then—

—"Could you see me?"

The air by me rippled like the surface of a lake, and Natsuki emerged from it, glimmering like a baiji dolphin.

Sima Rui took a glance at Natsuki, set her fan down, and only said:

"No, I couldn't."

She opened up the scrolls and began reading through their contents, and Natsuki, sighing, took a seat at the side of the room.

I did not quite understand the interaction, but I suppose this is what Natsuki meant when she said she would always be by my side. I, too, took a seat.

A few silent minutes passed, and then Sima Rui spoke.

"These documents seem to all be in order. However, keep in mind that this will not cover anything related to the positions of leadership formerly held by Bai family members in the army. You will likely be summoned to the Imperial Court over that one day or another, though I will do what I can to help you then."

"I see. In that case—"

"Wait."

Sima Rui clapped together the scrolls in a pile, then picked up her fan and flicked it open.

"Bai Chunxue, how long do you think it will take for these documents to be processed by the Imperial Court, assuming that nobody deliberately tries to get in the way of the drudgery?"

I frowned. "A month, I guess?"

"Exactly." Sima Rui shook her head. "At the least, it will take one year, though three years is a more reasonable estimate. I can discharge these documents immediately, but it would then most likely take about one year to pass through the bureaucracy of this Dong Commandery, and two to pass through the central imperial bureaucracy. However, there are many people in Dong Commandery who have karma with the Bai family, people whose official stations far outstrip mine. If you leave like this... these documents will likely never reach the Imperial Court, and the Bai domains will collapse in short order for want of management."

I could feel a grimace spreading across my face, and, at the same time, confusion racking my mind.

"Why... are you telling me this now?"

"To make a deal with you, of course." Sima Rui took the scrolls in hand and thrust them into a drawer, then closed her fan as well, so now the space between us was utterly clear. "Bai Chunxue, though I might be a mere magistrate, I know the Administrator of Dong Commandery very well, and I also have no small number of contacts in the Imperial Court. It is possible for me to stick my neck out and have these documents expedited, though— let me be clear about this— this is not part of my duty as a magistrate, and by the letter of the law it is something that I am not supposed to do."

And therefore, it required compensation.

I sighed, and said nothing.

"—Bai Chunxue, do you have any plans of returning to Kangtian in the future, here to this city where you have so many— memories?"

"No, I think I'd rather not," I replied carefully, my frown deepening with worry of what she might say next.

Sima Rui flicked open her fan.

"I think it would be good for you to forget this city. And just as well, I think it would be good for this city to forget you, though it hardly even knows you."

Understanding the intent behind her words, I flinched. I had no idea how I ought to respond to what she asked of me. So she continued,

"Due to your actions my trip to the west will likely be delayed by a few years, and in that time there is a great amount of civilian labor reform I would like to experiment with while I am still here."

I winced.

"You're... asking for a lot."

Sima Rui laughed, silently, for several oddly quiet seconds.

"Bai Chunxue, if only you knew how much I have done to keep you alive for this past decade, you would not dare say that."

Suddenly I remember a few words that Canyue had spoken not so long ago—

Even the Magistrate cannot protect you anymore.

It had only been after ten years in this city that someone had first attempted to kill me. It made sense to assume that... the fact that I had stayed alive for that long was due to someone's intervention.

But why? Why would Sima Rui have protected me for ten years? Had she predicted that my survival would lead to the collapse of the Bai family? Had she foreseen this finale from the beginning?

I put a hand to my forehead, but the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. I could not make sense of the Magistrate's intentions.

—"Sorry, but..." Natsuki raised her hand. "I don't understand this conversation. Is this some sort of... subliminal messaging?"