Chapter 111 — The Restaurant (Bonus Update for 1,050 Pink Votes)

He Yu straightened the moon-white Hangzhou silk robe patterned with bamboo leaves that he wore, and only then climbed down from the carriage.

Looking up, he saw the three characters "Zui Xian Lou" in gilt on a black lacquer plaque, with a small seal in the right corner bearing four characters in ancient clerical script—"Qingxi Sanren"—the sobriquet of Lin Guanlan, former Chancellor of the Hanlin Academy.

His bodyguard came over and murmured, "Young master, shall I come along with you…"

"No need." Before the guard could finish, He Yu cut him off. "Ji Jianming is not that sort of man. If he meant me harm, he would have a hundred ways to do it; he would not need to pick a restaurant bustling with people like this."

"Yes, sir." The guard withdrew and, together with the others, helped park the carriage in the square beside the restaurant.

He Yu entered the Zui Xian Lou with his personal attendant close behind.

Ji Yong's retainer Zixi was waiting for He Yu in the main hall. Seeing him enter, Zixi stepped forward with a smile, made his bow, and invited him up to the third floor. "Our young master awaits you in the Canghai Pavilion, Master He."

The Canghai Pavilion was the finest private room in the Zui Xian Lou, occupying an entire floor of the establishment. A meal there could not even be broached for less than two or three hundred taels, and a reservation was required besides.

He Yu gave a faint smile.

This Ji Jianming—putting on such a grand show. What exactly did he intend?

Someone came over to greet He Yu.

He was a regular here as well.

He Yu responded absently, his mind on the look in Ji Yong's eyes that day when they were writing spring couplets—the way he had looked at Dou Zhiwei.

Bright and burning, as if a fire blazed within them.

A strange feeling flickered through his heart. But he quickly cast aside this emotion that made him uneasy.

A woman taken as wife is a wife; one who elopes is but a concubine.

Matters of marriage, after all, must follow the command of parents and the word of matchmakers.

Slightly reassured, He Yu smiled and set foot on the stairs.

Ji Yong stood with his hands clasped behind his back before a wide-open window. The cloisonné enamel glass set into the casement cast its colors against his lotus-blue fine-cloth robe, making his tall, upright figure seem all the more striking.

When you came down to it, this Ji Jianming was quite a figure.

He Yu muttered to himself.

Ji Yong had already turned around. There was not a trace of a smile on his handsome face; he greeted He Yu coldly: "You've come."

He Yu nodded faintly, then strolled to the window with an air of leisurely ease. With a flick he snapped open his folding fan, waved it twice in an idle motion, then smiled and pointed to a crowded shop across from the Zui Xian Lou. "Brother Ji, how many times have you been to the Zui Xian Lou? That Yao's Roasted Goods across the street does excellent sugar-roasted peanuts. No matter how the Zui Xian Lou tries, it can never match theirs; several times we've wanted to buy their recipe, and never succeeded. Everyone in the capital says it's the Zui Xian Lou that made Yao's Roasted Goods what it is…" His tone carried the peculiar superiority of a local, as though he meant to overwhelm Ji Yong's presence.

At this, Ji Yong's mouth twisted into a smile that was not quite a smile, and he instructed Zishang: "Go, buy Master He a packet of Yao's sugar-roasted peanuts."

Zishang answered and went off.

Ji Yong turned and drove his fist straight into He Yu's face.

He Yu could not dodge in time. With a cry of "Aiyo!" he clutched his face and staggered back, crashing into an armchair beside him. The armchair did not stir an inch, but the teacups and teapot on the side table went clattering to the floor. With another "Aiyo!" He Yu reached to steady his back, which the armrest had nearly broken in two, forgetting all about his face. Only then did everyone see that it was covered in blood, so much that where he was hurt could not even be made out.

Even as Ji Yong threw his punch, the two attendants who had followed He Yu upstairs had already rushed at Ji Yong, crying "Young master!" But seven or eight burly men suddenly sprang out from the sides; not only did they seize He Yu's attendants in an instant, but they had come prepared with two strips of white cloth and stuffed them into the attendants' mouths.

"This is a private quarrel—none of you are to interfere!" Ji Yong shouted most unfairly at the two attendants, then lunged at He Yu again with his fists.

From long years of hawking and riding, He Yu had grown rather nimble. With a roll he ducked behind the armchair and shouted loudly for his guards—though he did not scream himself hoarse crying "Help!" or the like.

Ji Yong sneered inwardly.

This was the one good thing about the sons of great houses: even at the brink of life and death, they still had to mind their face.

He chased after him, seized He Yu by the collar, and drove a fist into his belly.

By now He Yu had recovered his wits. That first punch to the face had left his nose in agony, his eyes stinging, his vision blurred. When Ji Yong grabbed his collar, he instinctively bent his knee and drove it up into Ji Yong's groin.

Both of them grunted at once, tumbled and sprawled to the floor, then scrambled up as one and flung themselves at each other again… locked in a brawl.

Ji Yong and He Yu were of an age—one a believer in "the gentleman uses his tongue, not his fists," the other pampered and precious, raised on silks and delicacies—yet when it came to a fight they proved well matched, neither giving ground.

Fortunately, the patrons of the Zui Xian Lou were all persons of rank and standing; though the third floor rang with crashes and clatter, no one came out to gawk, and at most a few attendants who had been given their orders poked their heads out at the stairwell.

By the time He Yu's guards came pouring in, both men were at the end of their strength.

He Yu's guards meant to save their master, while Ji Yong's men had long since received their orders that no one was to interfere, so of course they blocked the way—and the two sides fell to fighting with a great clatter.

The head manager, arriving on the heels of He Yu's guards, looked and could not tell whom he ought to pull apart—both were sons of great houses. Young Master Ji was a provincial graduate, a scholar, a man of refinement; surely he would not have struck first. Young Master He looked a spoiled idler, yet was in truth generous and openhearted, not the sort to be unreasonable. And then he saw that the guards on both sides were locked in furious combat, and the restaurant's own men could not squeeze in to interfere even if they wished. Fine, then—he simply instructed the second manager: "Shut the doors. When they call for us, then we go in."

The second manager understood, and with his own hands shut the great doors of the Canghai Pavilion.

Seeing his own people arrive, He Yu felt the tension in his heart ease. He shoved Ji Yong away and plopped down on the floor, and only then did he speak: "Damn you, Ji Yong—when you hit a man, you don't hit his face! You bastard, you actually hit me in the face!"

Ji Yong, too, was tired from the fight and had achieved his aim. He stopped pursuing He Yu and sat down on the floor just as He Yu had, panting: "You can hit other men's faces—and I can't hit yours?"

"Whose face did I ever hit?" He Yu wiped at the blood on his face haphazardly and said indignantly, "Don't you go slinging mud with a mouth full of blood!"

"Slinging mud?" Ji Yong, whose temper had just settled after landing two punches on He Yu, flared up again at once. "The Fourth Miss Dou and the Wei family already had a betrothal, and you thrust yourself in between! Now the Fourth Miss Dou is disgraced on every side, pointed at and whispered about wherever she goes—she nearly cut her own throat!"

The Fourth Miss Dou cut her own throat?

Impossible!