Every morning just after dawn, Lin Chong taught a fight class for women.
The class was always well attended, and Lin Chong welcomed any from the lowest beggar to the highest socialite. Women choosing to apply themselves so seriously to the arts of war and weaponry might have been seen as unusual, even in the highly modern Empire of Song, but Lin Chong was so well established in the prefecture, and so well respected, that men rationalized the participation of their wives and daughters. It will help her excise any womanly hysteria, they would think, or She will be able to improve her grace and refinement. Besides, they trusted Lin Chong not to be too rough, or to act inappropriately. She was, after all, a master arms instructor for the Imperial Guard, and besides which was also a woman herself.
If the men had ever come to watch their wives and daughters at work, they may have revised their concerns about the roughness.
Today, after a meditation and warmup, Lin Chong had divided her attendees into pairs to practice a new combination of techniques. A block and throw—very useful, especially for a weaker opponent against a stronger attacker. Lin Chong paced between the pairs, watching, adjusting, correcting. Occasionally she even added a short word of praise, which inevitably made its recipient glow.
In the front of the group, Lu Junyi swept her opponent to the ground and gave Lin Chong a devilish grin. Tall, slender, and with a face an artist would invent, Lu Junyi had the same self-possession here, shining with sweat, as she would overseeing one of her intellectual salons. She kept Lin Chong’s eye and made a motion across the courtyard, as if to ask about the woman she had brought with her today.
Lin Chong only nodded her back to work. They might be old friends, training under Zhou Tong together back when they were both barely nineteen, but that was no excuse for inattention during class.
Lu Junyi gave a good-natured sigh and reached out a hand to help her opponent up.
Lin Chong did need to see how the new participant was faring, however. She’d heard some grunting and swearing from that corner that did not presage well. She turned and circled in that direction.
When Lu Junyi had introduced Lu Da before the class began, Lin Chong had not exactly been surprised—despite her social status, Lu Junyi somehow managed to meet a wide diversity of people. And Lu Da was an eclectic patchwork of the human condition all by herself. The sides of her head were shaved in the tradition of a monk of the Fa, but the ink characters of a criminal tattoo marched down her cheek, and her mannerisms were as far from a monk as could be imagined. When Lu Junyi had introduced her, Lu Da had spit on the flagstone ground and then nearly shouted her salute, smacking her hands together so hard the respectful gesture might as well have been crushing a melon. She was likely strong enough to crush melons, too—she towered over the other students, and her girth was easily twice Lin Chong and Lu Junyi put together. But she’d seemed an eager enough student, bounding over to leave her heavy two-handed sword and even heavier metal staff at the side of the practice yard at Lin Chong’s direction.
When Lin Chong stepped back over to her, however, it was to find that Lu Da and her opponent had somehow devolved into a wrestling match.
Lu Da had her partner in a bear hug and was squeezing her so hard her feet had come off the ground. But the other woman had been training with Lin Chong for many months, and she managed to twist and break the hold. She dropped back to her feet and spun lightning fast.
“Why, you donkey!” Lu Da bellowed, and swung a massive fist, which her partner dodged.
Lu Da let out a roar that seemed to call earth and wind to her command. She thrust out a palm, striking the empty space between them, and from a full pace away blasted her opponent back. The woman flew into the air only to land on her back and roll until she hit one of the neighboring buildings.
“Stop,” Lin Chong said.
She didn’t speak loudly, but she never had to. The entire class halted and turned to attention from where they were. Several of them had already been distracted into watching Lu Da, their faces dazed and fascinated.
“Attention,” Lin Chong said.
The class drew their feet together and stood straight, hands behind their backs. Lu Da looked around and then clumsily imitated them.
“You are uninjured?” Lin Chong asked the woman who had hit the ground.
She scrambled back to her feet. “Yes, Master Instructor.”
Lin Chong turned to address Lu Da. “You have a god’s tooth.”
Lu Da had the grace to flush red across her broad face. “I do, Master Instructor.”
“Show me.”
Lu Da pawed at her loose collar. Beneath her tunic, a magnificent garden of tattooed ink peered out, far more wild and fantastical than the impersonal criminal brand on her face. She grabbed at a long leather cord around her neck and drew it forth to reveal a shining shard of stone or porcelain.
The piece hung from the leather, smooth with age and deceptively inert, and drawing every eye in the class.
Lin Chong raised her voice to the class again. “Who here considers themselves a philosopher?”
About a third of the class lifted a hand.
Lin Chong shook her head slightly. “I don’t mean you tell your children to follow the tenets of Benevolence, or you make sacrifices to the gods for favors of luck or wealth. Who here dedicates themselves to the practice of one or more religions?”
Most of the hands went down.
Lin Chong nodded to a young woman in the front, a newer student she didn’t know well yet. “Yes. Which do you practice?”
“I follow both Benevolence and the Fa, Master Instructor.”
Perfect. “And what do your religions teach you about the gods?”
She looked confused. “They don’t, Master Instructor.”
“Quite correct.” Lin Chong raised her voice, making sure the whole courtyard could hear. “The gods are irrelevant to the teachings of the Benevolent Order. The Fa teaches that gods differ from us only in an advancement of immortality and its power, and that all were once human—we could become the same by studying enough to attain enlightenment, and in fact, the early stages of enlightenment are what the Fa believe grant the abilities we know as ‘scholar’s skills.’ The Followers of the Fa aspire to move past mere scholar’s skills and attain that godhood, but otherwise do not look to the gods for help.”
She’d been pacing the front of the yard as she talked, and slowly came back around to face Lu Da.
“Student Lu. You are a monk of the Fa.”
“I was,” Lu Da corrected genially. “They kicked me out.”
Lin Chong could feel her eyebrows rise. “You were expelled from the monastery? Why?”
“I missed curfew,” Lu Da answered.
“I see.”
“A hundred and seventy-three times.”
“That would—” started Lin Chong delicately.
“Because I was drunk!”
Lin Chong waited a moment to make sure nothing more was forthcoming. Then she said, “You still know the teachings, however.”
“Sure, whichever stuck in my head. They do leak out my ear-holes.”
“Then tell us, Student Lu. What is a god’s tooth?”
Lu Da flushed a bit redder. “It’s like you said. You know. They told me not to use it, because, well, it’s the power the gods left behind, in artifacts and the like. Sort of cracks in the world, right? Wherever the gods went long ago, and the demons too, god’s teeth are what let that bust through a bit. But the monks said it doesn’t help me reach enlightenment, so I should put it away and never touch it. ‘God’s teeth never make a god,’ as the saying is.” She shrugged her massive shoulders sheepishly. “But they also always wanted me to be a better fighter, and my tooth makes me a better fighter!”
“The martial arts were to be your path to enlightenment?”
Again the sheepish shrug. “I’m good at them. Master Instructor.”
“Ah, but it is not raw power at your art that brings enlightenment, according to the Fa. You attain that only through the journey.”
“Right,” Lu Da said, sounding uncertain.
“Let me put it another way,” Lin Chong said. “After deep study, monastery training is known to grant scholar’s skills in your art, yes? If you studied hard enough, and long enough, you would learn to bend a fight to your will in ways even someone such as I—who has made a study of decades, of all five forms and across all the eighteen weapons—even someone such as I could never hope to best you. Do you think your god’s tooth does the same?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what god’s teeth are, right? Sort of a shortcut.”
It was what most people thought.
Monastery training was a route of great dedication and sacrifice that not many pursued, despite any potential reward. Many dreamed of leaping a building, of living for two hundred years, of having dream encounters with queenly demons—or any other number of storied scholar’s skills some monks and priests were said to develop depending on their study. If they stayed the path. If they excelled to the rights of legend. But the necessary years of strictness, of internal and external training, of mental and physical discipline …
A god’s tooth bestowed that power without strings. Without sacrifice.
Supposedly.
Lin Chong had already caught half her class casting glances of grudging envy at Lu Da. The Empire and the aristocracy had done everything they could for generations to push a social attitude of scoffing at god’s teeth, labeling them trinkets and fragments of a bygone age, ones outclassed by modern technology. But Lin Chong strongly suspected those most vocal in their dismissal were the ones who secretly coveted what they did not possess.
Certainly everyone here in her class was shaded in jealousy.
God’s teeth were power. They made things easy.
They were also rare enough that she might never see one in her class again. Lin Chong decided a demonstration was in order.
She faced the class.
“I am not religious.” She might remind herself of the tenets of Benevolence in daily life, as did most people, but she was no philosopher. More importantly, she was no monk. “I am not religious, and as I have said, I would never claim to be able to best the scholar’s skills of a monastery-trained monk. Student Lu. That is your staff, correct?”
She gestured to the heavy metal bar Lu Da had set aside before class. Easily taller than Lu Da, it looked to weigh at least sixty jin.
“Yes, Master Instructor!” Lu Da said proudly.
“It is your weapon of choice?”
“It is!”
“Then take it up, and face me with your god’s tooth.”
Lu Da stared in confusion. The rest of the class shuffled in their places, a few murmurs going up even among the well-disciplined students.
“But I’ll kill you,” Lu Da blurted.
“I admire your confidence,” Lin Chong said dryly.
“I wouldn’t try to kill you, I just mean I could hurt you bad…” Lu Da glanced around at the rest of the students, clearly trying to check whether she was speaking as honorably as she thought she was. After all, it wasn’t right to smash in the head of your teacher, was it?
“Take up your staff,” Lin Chong instructed. “Unless you are too afraid to face me.”
“I’m not afraid!” Lu Da shot back. She tucked her god’s tooth back under her tunic with her forest of inked flowers, then shuffled over to pick up the staff. She lifted it as if it weighed no more than a toothpick and whirled it above her head, in one hand and then the other.
“Clear an area,” Lin Chong said, and the other students hurried to gather up their reed mats and line the sides of the courtyard, whispering in anticipation.
Lin Chong took a moment to unwrap her heavy coat and lay it carefully to the side, along with the sword she’d untied and set apart before class. The robes underneath she tucked up in her belt, out of the way. Then she stepped to the middle of the courtyard, hands clasped behind her back, the hemp of her shoes quiet and sure against the flagstones.
“But Master Instructor! You won’t use any weapon?” Lu Da cried.
“I have weapons in my hands and feet,” Lin Chong answered. “I have weapons in my years, and in my training.”
Lu Da ambled in to face her, doubts scrawled transparently across her face. “This doesn’t seem all right. I don’t want to injure you.”
“You presume a lot, Student Lu,” Lin Chong answered. “I instruct you to wield the full power of your god’s tooth, and I shall wield my training, and we shall see if the monks of the Fa lied to you or not.”
Lu Da spun her massive staff between her massive hands. “As you wish, Master Instructor. I guess.”
“Begin.”
Lu Da’s face drew together in focus. She sidestepped, her staff at a slow spin, matching the same careful distance from Lin Chong.
Lin Chong stepped to pace her, evenly, calmly. Her hands stayed clasped behind her back. She breathed deep, inhaling the movement, the connections, the intricately fitted puzzle pieces of the universe.
The meditative state was as familiar as the moves of her muscles through forms, or the feel of a sword hilt or axe or halberd settling its weight against her hand. Familiar as worn cloth, calming as a childhood home. Like reposing to drink with old friends.
Lu Da reared back, and the movement rippled all through Lin Chong’s senses. Leaning to the side was an easy dance move, as if Lu Da had asked a question and Lin Chong answered without thought.
The heavy metal staff whistled through the air. A tentative strike, without Lu Da’s full weight behind it. Lin Chong could see the other woman’s balance, the way the weight was in her arms instead of backed by the vigor of her body.
“You hold back,” Lin Chong said.
Lu Da grunted and swung again. And again.
Lin Chong dodged once, twice, a third time. Always the smallest movement, always that fluid answer to Lu Da’s question. Before long Lu Da had forgotten her trepidation and was bringing the staff down with all her might, blows that would have surely crushed Lin Chong’s skull, had they landed.
“Your strength cannot bring you victory,” Lin Chong said calmly, slipping to avoid a downward swing, then twisting to let a thrust by.
Lu Da overbalanced, her face going red with exertion all the way up the sides of her shaved head to her bobbing topknot.
Lin Chong saw the moment Lu Da’s decision firmed, the instant her mind reached for the god’s tooth. Her posture rolled in on itself, her muscles tensing, her eyes squinting at the corners. She shouted her intention to Lin Chong as surely as if she’d proclaimed it from her lips.
Lin Chong felt the god’s tooth open.
Even the most minor god’s tooth tapped into something primal. Untamed. The deep caverns of a secret essence, the bright joy of an unbridled desire. A lack of inhibition that was difficult for even a studied practitioner to harness and guide.
Lu Da’s grasp on the power was tenuous at best. A whip streaking out that might snap against the intended target, or might smack a bystander—or might come rushing back to bloody the cheek of the one who wielded it.
She flung that power at Lin Chong.
It had been some time since Lin Chong had handled the power of the gods in a fight. But she remembered. She leapt, catching the edge of the wave and using it to climb an invisible staircase, foot to foot middair above Lu Da’s attempt. Then she landed lightly back on the flagstones, on the soles of her hempen shoes.
All with her hands still behind her back.
Lu Da stared in disbelief. Then she let loose.
The depth of the god’s tooth sucked free, thrashing against reality. Lin Chong lightly jumped one tendril of it, then let another wrap her leg just enough to snap it back with a kick of her foot. Lu Da roared, trying to wrest the power and aim it, but unsuccessfully. One curl of it slashed high on the next building, splintering a wooden screen over some of the windows. Another hit lower on the wall, causing some of the watching students to duck and cry out.
Lu Da was struggling to imbue the strength into her staff and ride it into a quick and crushing blow, but she was battling it as much as she was controlling it. As if she were attempting to raise a tiger by the nape of its neck and hurl its snarling and lashing claws in Lin Chong’s direction.
Lin Chong decided the demonstration had gone far enough. She leapt again, this time inward, toward Lu Da. One foot dancing against the groping power of the god’s tooth before it vanished in retreat or snatched her down; then the other diving closer. Lin Chong twisted like a snake to avoid the flailing of Lu Da’s heavy staff, her spine curving and arching around it. Just when she reached Lu Da’s side—a little way past—she dropped.
The sole of her foot arrowed down in the flesh behind Lu Da’s knee.
Lu Da squawked in surprise. Her knee came down hard on the stone, and she fell forward all at once, like a mountain that had been axed at its base. Her metal staff clanged against the flagstones.
Lin Chong landed lightly on her other foot. Around her, the power of the god’s tooth petered out. Like the last flickers of a dying flame, its effects fluttered out of the world, sucked back to the artifact that had granted them entrance.
Lin Chong’s students straightened cautiously, stunned and silent.
“Student Lu,” Lin Chong said.
Lu Da groaned a bit and rolled over. “You have beaten me, Master Instructor!” she roared dramatically from the ground. “I, the fearsome Flower Monk! I am yours to destroy!”
She flung her arms out to either side.
Lin Chong tried not to show reactions in front of her students, but it was so very difficult sometimes.
“Rise, Student Lu,” she said. “You are uninjured?”
She was almost certain so. She’d been very gentle.
“My pride, Master Instructor,” Lu Da said grievously, trying to scramble up. “The pride of the Flower Monk. Crushed under your feet.”
Lin Chong took her hands from behind her back and raised them in front of her. “I did not even use every weapon in my arsenal. You are many times stronger than I, and you wield a god’s tooth. Why did you fail to best me? What have you learned?”
“That you are very fearsome, Master Instructor!”
Lin Chong permitted herself a small smile. “Other than that.”
Lu Da’s forehead knitted up. “You … you train without the support of a god’s tooth, as the monks told me to. And that’s your weapon. One that can whale the piss out of me.”
“Eloquently put,” Lin Chong said. “If I had consistently leaned on a god’s tooth, I would have limited my skill either with or without it. God’s teeth may be power, but they are an artificial power—one you must still put in the years of work and training to control. They are no true shortcut. They are not the same as scholar’s skills grown from self-discipline and rigor. And just as your god’s tooth would have stymied you in your path to enlightenment with the Fa, Student Lu, it will stymie your training in the martial arts outside the monastery. You must have the finest control over yourself before you wield a power beyond yourself.”
Lu Da did not look entirely happy about that, her mouth turned down in an extravagant sulk. “And how long did it take you, Master Instructor?” she asked after a moment.
“More than four decades,” Lin Chong answered. “I have practiced my training for many watches of every day since I was a small child.”
“I’d rather drink wine,” Lu Da said. She scooped up her staff and shook herself out. “Four decades, aiya! I haven’t even lived three…”
Lin Chong turned slightly to face her class. “If you take one lesson from today,” she said, “let it be this. If you continue to train, with hard work and no shortcuts—no matter what beginnings you enter from—the control you have over yourself will equip you, unmatched, in any situation you encounter. Dismissed.”
Calls of “Yes, Master Instructor” and “Thank you, Master Instructor” floated up as the students bowed in her direction and began a disorganized exodus back toward the gates to the outer city. The murmurs swelled as they clustered together to gather their things, untucking gowns and robes and untying headwraps. Furtive, awed glances found Lin Chong where she still stood in the center of the courtyard.
“You kicked me into the ground today, Master Instructor,” Lu Da said jovially. “I did not enjoy it! But I’ll think about what you said. I still think I might like the shortcut.”
She saluted with a bow and ambled away across the flagstones, rubbing her various bruises.
“A fascinating person, isn’t she?” Lu Junyi had come up next to Lin Chong.
“Fascinating. Where did you meet her? Not at one of your salons, I would wager.”
“She was shouting on the street. Challenging some ruffians who would have abused a beggar girl. I helped defuse the situation and then bought Lu Da a bowl of wine—several bowls, strictly speaking. I told her about your fight class, and she insisted on coming to meet you. I think she is quite taken with you.”
“I don’t have high hopes she will have the discipline of continued study,” Lin Chong said, with a small sigh, “but if she does, she is welcome here.”
“She may surprise you. It would be good for her … She got that brand on her face for killing a man. Though for a reason you might be able to find approval for.”
“A civilian?” Lin Chong asked. As far as she was concerned, war was the only defensible context for killing another. “You may overestimate me. I could never excuse that.”
“Even a butcher who extorted and forced one of his concubines, only to throw her out on the street and insist she owed a debt to him? I hear tell he was a butcher in more ways than one. Nobody would miss a man like that.”
“Then the law should address it.”
Lu Junyi huffed out a breath. “I always forget how much more conservative you are than I. We women will have to take our power someday.” She reached up to unwrap her hair, untucking her robes and shaking them out. A brief drumbeat reverberated across the courtyard, from Bianliang’s towers where men struck out the watches of the day. “Aiya! Class ran long; I’m late. I have a meeting with Marshal Gao Qiu this morning, about my printing press. May I use your barracks to straighten myself?”
Lin Chong laughed lightly. Only Lu Junyi would play so fast and loose with her presentation before a grand marshal. “Of course. Come.”
“Good, and we can continue this conversation. I am not letting you out of the cause so easily.”
Lin Chong grunted. She did not share Lu Junyi’s passion for pushing the boundaries of society. Women in the Empire of Song today had more advantage than at any other time in history—Lin Chong herself was proof of that, advancing to a scholar-official position directly under Grand Marshal Gao Qiu. She had the respect of the people—of any gender—and even without the aid and status of a husband she had managed to arrange creditable stations and marriages for both her grown children, which she considered proof of her accomplishments.
Pushing harder would only lead to those opportunities being destroyed. Lin Chong could never countenance it.
Lu Junyi’s idealized visions betrayed her far more elevated place in society. Lin Chong might have an examination title, but Lu Junyi had been born to wealth and clan advantage. Without the gradual allowance for those of the female sex to burst from some measure of their historical strictures, Lu Junyi may not have owned her newly modern printing press, but she would have remained a charming socialite. Likely still high status, holding her salons, wealth and family name insulating her into being forgiven for the eccentricities of progressivism.
She could not understand. Small bites must be taken carefully, lest the whole meal be snatched away.
Lin Chong had much more to lose.
“You are the type of story men nod at as a successful example of the woman’s cause,” Lu Junyi pointed out, as they gathered their things and crossed the courtyard together. “But I do not think we can stop in the place where we still garner praise. I would like to see us have a trifle less approbation from men and a trifle more fear.”
“Violence is not the way.” Lin Chong thought of Lu Da, and her mouth folded into a frown. Violence was never the way. Anyone skilled enough in the fighting arts to be a master arms instructor knew that to her bones.
“Oh, not violence,” Lu Junyi said. “Not in the general sense. I only mean that as yet, our advancement has not come at the expense of men. But it shall. It must. There is not sufficient room for us otherwise. Our true success will mean some of them lose power … and that will not come without anger and fear.”
“Then we should slow its progress. A tidal wave spread over many generations becomes a gentle flow, and either one gets to the end.”
“A flow! You mean a trickle.”
“Even a trickle can wash away a mountain eventually.”
They continued the mostly friendly argument out of the courtyard and onto a stone-paved street toward Lin Chong’s rooms, which were adjoined to the barracks of the Imperial Guard. Bianliang’s inner city towered up around them, multistoried pagodas of brick and wood climbing up among the less-grand houses and offices. The inner city of the capital was the seat of government and Empire, and was several li across and as large as a small city itself—even as it lay nestled within the teeming population of the rest of Bianliang.
This was the inner city’s southern district, where the bureaucrats and soldiers of the central government lived and worked. A few people passed on the street, but not nearly as many as the bustle visible every time they came into view of one of the swooping, crimson-painted gates that led to the outer city. In the outer city streets, people and carts and carriages packed against donkeys and goats and hogs being driven to market, all hurrying and running and shouting in a steady stream.
Lin Chong’s rooms were airy and pleasant, if not expansive, with carved beams climbing the walls and windows whose shutters opened onto a garden. Lu Junyi took up a comb from the side table and settled on a stool, unwinding her hair to shake it out and begin brushing it smooth.
“Do you have any powder?” she asked. “I should not have come at all this morning, but I do hate to miss one of your classes. You should have a much higher position than master arms instructor.”
“I am perfectly satisfied with—”
“Oh, come now, we are alone here! You know what Marshal Gao Qiu is. He is a wet stocking. A trick of braggery and playing football with the Emperor. He toys with the city as if it is his playset—”
“Quiet!” Lin Chong hissed, glancing around. But they were alone in the small rooms. Outside the open windows, trees rustled over an empty garden.
“Ah, you know what I would say anyway,” Lu Junyi said, unperturbed. She began winding her hair up and fastening it with combs and clasps. “Gao Qiu is seeing me today about printing paper banknotes, if you would believe it. He read my circular on the subject. But do I expect him to understand or listen to my recommendations? No, I do not.”
Paper money. Lin Chong knew Lu Junyi’s arguments, but the idea did not sit well with her. Strings of coin and taels of gold and silver were heavy in your hand, worth something when weighed. What was paper worth? Burned in a fire, it would become nothing at all.
Lin Chong set her powder case down in front of her friend with a click against the polished table. “I will leave the intellectual arguments to you. I am content to remain in my post until I die. Marshal Gao has been nothing but fair.”
“To you,” Lu Junyi murmured, but she did Lin Chong the favor of not continuing, focused on fixing her face instead. Lin Chong knew what would have followed anyway: an accounting of all the plum positions Gao Qiu had granted to friends, all the political enemies he’d had jailed or sent to work camps, the favors he gobbled from the Emperor or the taxes he spent on lavishness for himself and his cronies.
Lin Chong could be aware of all this, and not condone it, while still seeing the wider context. Gao Qiu was her direct superior and had great political influence—and that would not be changed. His dealings with Lin Chong had been lazy but not malicious; he was worse than many men but also better than some. She could keep working for him, and would, and keep her opinions on his greater conduct to herself.
She kept her mouth tightly closed against the other whispers of Gao Qiu’s conduct, the ones that might anger Lu Junyi to the point of torching the entire inner city.
Lu Junyi finished retying her blouse, smoothed her skirts, and layered her long silk scarf into place across her shoulders. For a woman who had just spent the first watch of the day sweating in a courtyard, she had somehow assumed a refinement to her countenance that other society women lacked even after meticulous plucking and painting.
Lin Chong was old enough now not to envy it, and her position afforded her the ability to stay in her staid and functional robes, with no facepaint and her hair pulled back in a simple queue. It was a perk of her title she would be forever grateful for.
“I think I shall be just on time,” Lu Junyi said. “Now, will you point me toward White Tiger Hall? I am not familiar with that building.”
“White Tiger Hall? Marshal Gao is meeting you at White Tiger Hall?”
“Yes. What’s the matter?”
Lin Chong frowned, foreboding stealing over her. White Tiger Hall …
The inner city—the Imperial City—had three districts. Commoners could enter from the sprawling outer city only into the southern one, where they were now—the district that housed the grinding bureaucracy of the city government as well as the garrisons of the Imperial Guard. Gao Qiu’s yamen, with his rooms and offices, was here as well, and Lin Chong had never been called any other place for a meeting with him. Beyond the southern district, the central district existed for the Emperor to descend and meet with officials of far higher rank than Lin Chong. She’d only entered its gates a handful of times.
The central district was exceeded only by the north, which housed the Imperial Palace itself.
White Tiger Hall was in the central district.
It was where councils of war were decided on. Not the milieu for a simple discussion of economic policy in which the marshal was no doubt humoring his supplicant.
Gao Qiu has been nothing but fair … to you, Lu Junyi had said.
Lin Chong thought again of those other rumors. The ones she had been scrupulous about ignoring, never repeating, burying down in her consciousness with only a thread of wariness to protect herself, a thread that had, in her case, never been needed.
But Lu Junyi was a beautiful woman. A beautiful, unmarried, wealthy woman. Not as young as others, but it could not have been told from her energetic, unlined face. Unlike Lin Chong.
White Tiger Hall. Despite her defense of the marshal, apprehension gripped Lin Chong.
She did not share Lu Junyi’s passion for challenging the Empire or society. But protecting a friend …
That mattered to her very much indeed.
Lu Junyi caught her sleeve. “Sister Lin. What disturbs you?”
Lin Chong did not know how she could answer. All she knew was the way the uneasiness simmered in the pit of her stomach. “Would you mind if I accompanied you to this meeting?” she asked.
Lu Junyi’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. Then she said, “I would be honored. Please, lead the way.”