Chapter 19
The moment Yun-yao stepped through the imposing gateway of the Shen residence, Yun-hai came barreling toward them, wooden practice sword clutched in his small hands. “Eldest Sister! Eldest Brother-in-law!” His voice cracked with excitement. “Did you bring your real sword? Can I see it?”
Zhen-ting crouched to the boy’s level, his cloak still dusted with the evening’s chill. “Next time, little brother. Mid-Autumn Night is for family.” He ruffled Yun-hai’s hair, and the boy beamed as if granted a royal decree.
Yun-yao watched them, lips curved in a smile that didn't fade even when her mother’s sharp eyes found her. Lady Shen’s gaze lingered—assessing, perhaps approving. For the first time in years, Yun-yao didn't feel the need to straighten her spine or smooth her expression.
Inside, the main hall was alive with servants arranging platters of mooncakes—lotus and salted yolk, osmanthus, chrysanthemum—each one pressed with the delicate pattern of a flower.
Yun-si sat at the zither, her fingers dancing over the strings in a melody that wove through the chatter.
She glanced up, met Yun-yao’s eyes, and missed a note.
Yun-jia was less subtle. She sidled up the moment Zhen-ting turned to greet her father, her fan fluttering like an agitated butterfly. “Eldest Sister,” she whispered, “you’re glowing. Are you in love with him? “
“Yun-jia!” Yun-yao hissed, but her cheeks betrayed her.
Across the room, Yun-shan stood with their father, discussing some dull matter of the court.
His gaze shifted to Yun-yao and lingered on her for a moment, then, as if reassured, he gave a slight smile.
It flickered by so quickly that Yun-yao might have missed it, had she not spent years learning to read her brother’s calm and inscrutable face.
Lady Shen approached, her silk sleeves whispering against the lacquered table. “The General treats you well, I see.” Not a question. A statement, delivered with the weight of a verdict.
Yun-yao inclined her head. “He does.”
A pause. Then, the faintest nod. “Good.”
Dinner unfolded in a haze of laughter and clinking cups.
Yun-hai regaled them with exaggerated tales of his skills in the training yard, while Zhen-ting listened with the gravity of a commander receiving a battlefield report.
When the boy proudly declared he'll be a wandering swordsman one day, Zhen-ting didn’t dismiss him.
Instead, he leaned in and said, low and serious, “Then remember, the road doesn’t just test your sword, it tests your heart. ”
Later, as the family stepped into the courtyard to admire the moon, Yun-si gently looped her arm through Yun-yao’s. “Yun-jia is right,” she murmured. “You are in love with him.”
Yun-yao didn’t deny it. The admission sat warm in her chest, as bright and round as the moon above.
Near the pond, her father stood apart, hands clasped behind his back.
His gaze found Yun-yao, then slid to Zhen-ting—who was, at that moment, demonstrating a sword stance for Yun-hai with patient precision.
The Chancellor exhaled, slow and measured.
For the first time in years, his shoulders relaxed.
The Mid-Autumn moon hung heavy and gold above, and the air was sweet with osmanthus and the quiet certainty of family. The night is perfect, Yun-yao thought. Please, Goddess of the Moon, let it last.
THE NIGHT SKY ABOVE Shangjing bloomed with a thousand stars, but it was the earthbound lights that transformed the imperial city into a wonderland. Paper and silk lanterns hung from every eave and branch, strung across streets and floating upon water, each one glowing like a captured star.
Yun-yao walked beside Zhen-ting, her fingers lightly entwined with his as they joined the river of celebrants flowing toward the central square.
Unlike other festivals that ended at a respectable hour, the Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival stretched deep into the night, turning the capital into a place where time seemed suspended in amber light.
“Look,” she said, tugging him toward a cluster of stalls where an old scholar with a wispy beard sat before scrolls of paper. “Riddles! Let’s try a few.”
The old man grinned, revealing more gums than teeth. “Come test your wits, General, against these humble puzzles.”
Zhen-ting squared his shoulders like he was facing an enemy battalion. “Very well.”
The first riddle left him frowning. The second had him scratching his head. By the third, Yun-yao was trying desperately not to laugh.
“I face Shashi warriors with less confusion,” he muttered.
Yun-yao stepped forward. “May I?”
The old man nodded, eyes twinkling as he presented her with a particularly difficult riddle.
“It hides during day, appears at night, yet is neither moon nor star.”
Without hesitation, she replied, “A lantern.”
She solved three more in quick succession while Zhen-ting watched with growing admiration.
“For the clever lady,” the riddle-master said, handing her a paper lantern shaped like a rabbit, its ears perked attentively, painted eyes almost lifelike in the flickering light.
Yun-yao turned and presented it to her husband with a slight bow. “For the great general who conquered everything except word puzzles.”
Zhen-ting took the rabbit lantern, his expression caught between chagrin and delight. “I need something to redeem my pride.”
His eyes scanned the festival stalls until he spotted what he sought—a bow shooting game where children and young men clustered, trying to hit swinging paper targets.
“This is more my terrain,” he said, striding toward it.
The game master’s eyes widened upon recognizing the famous general. “General! Surely this simple game is beneath—”
“Three arrows,” Zhen-ting interrupted, placing coins on the counter.
A hush fell over the onlookers. The game master nervously handed over a bow that seemed comically small in Zhen-ting’s hands.
Yun-yao watched, curious how her husband would adjust his powerful stance for this child’s toy. Without a moment’s hesitation, Zhen-ting nocked the first arrow, took a fraction of a breath, and released.
The tiny arrow struck the center of a swinging target. The crowd gasped. The second arrow followed the first, splitting it down the middle. For the third, Zhen-ting didn't even seem to aim—he simply let the arrow fly while looking at Yun-yao, and it struck true.
The game master stammered, “The—the prize, General?”
Zhen-ting’s eyes scanned the prizes hanging above the stall, passing over elaborate toys and ornate masks, until they settled on a delicate lotus lantern. Crafted from thin paper in layers of pink and white, it held a small candle in its center.
“That one,” he said, pointing to the lotus.
The game master hesitated. “Just one, General? For such skill...” He quickly reached up and retrieved two lotus lanterns, offering them with a bow.
“For you and your lady to make wishes,” the man added, his voice reverent.
Zhen-ting accepted them with a nod of thanks and presented one to Yun-yao with an exaggerated bow. “For my wife.”
“Thank you, husband.” She took it with a smile and curtsy, unconcerned that Shangjing might be abuzz with new gossips of the General and his wife come tomorrow.
“Look,” she said, pointing toward the glimmering lake that stretched beyond the festival grounds. Several tables had been arranged along its shore, each equipped with brushes, ink stones, and small squares of rice paper. “Let’s go there and make our wishes.”
They moved through the crowd and found a quiet corner away from the bustle. Yun-yao dipped a brush in ink and paused, the tip hovering above her paper. What should she wish for? She glanced at Zhen-ting, who was already writing, his strokes confident and unhesitating.
Slowly, she turned back to her own paper and wrote May we grow old together hand in hand, then folded it carefully.
“Don't peek at my wish,” she warned, as she tucked it inside her lantern.
“I wouldn't dare,” he replied, his eyes fixed on her face rather than her brush.
“Ready?” Zhen-ting asked, his wish already sealed within his lotus.
Together they knelt at the water’s edge. The lake’s surface was already dotted with dozens of floating lights—wishes drifting toward heaven on tiny boats of paper and flame.
“They say if the lantern stays lit until it reaches the center of the lake, the wish will come true,” Yun-yao said softly.
They lit the small candles from a communal flame, then gently placed their lanterns on the water’s surface. The lotuses bobbed momentarily before finding their balance, glowing like fallen stars as the current slowly carried them away.
Their hands found each other in the darkness as they watched their wishes join the constellation of lights spreading across the black water, carrying dreams and hopes toward the infinite sky above.
“We should do both,” she told Zhen-ting impulsively. “Sky and water.”
“Both?” He smiled. “Greedy.”
“Thorough,” she corrected, leading him toward the stalls where the sky lanterns were being sold.
They purchased a sky lantern, each sky lantern was made of mulberry paper stretched over a bamboo frame, as tall as her shoulder. The lantern merchant handed them brushes and ink.
They carried their unlit lantern to the clearing where dozens of others prepared to send their wishes skyward. The night air buzzed with excitement and hushed conversations as families and couples positioned themselves with their paper vessels.
In the soft glow of the surrounding festival lights, they stood at opposite sides of their lantern, the paper between them like a translucent wall. Zhen-ting held it steady while Yun-yao dipped her brush in ink.
Unlike the water lanterns, everybody could see what you wrote on a sky lantern, it was like a prayer to heaven, witnessed by all. She hesitated, then began to write in big calligraphy characters.
Ping An, a prayer for calm days and well-being.
“Your turn,” she said, taking the lantern from him.
Zhen-ting took the brush. His handwriting was not as elegant as hers, bearing the straightforward clarity of military dispatches, but she found it beautiful in its honesty. He wrote quickly, decisively, Guo Tai Min An, a prayer for the land’s prosperity and the people’s peace.
A festival official moved through the crowd with a torch, lighting lanterns one by one. When he reached them, the flame caught the oil-soaked fuel pad at the lantern’s base. Heat began to build inside their paper vessel, the warm air expanding, straining against its containment.
“Ready?” Zhen-ting asked, his hands supporting the bottom of their lantern.
Yun-yao nodded, her fingers lightly touching the sides. They could feel the lantern pulling upward, eager to be released.
“Now,” she whispered.
Together they let go.
Their lantern hesitated for just a moment, as if gathering courage, then lifted into the night—slowly at first, then with increasing confidence. Around them, hundreds of other lanterns were being released, creating rivers of light carrying prayers up to the heavens.
Yun-yao stepped back until she stood beside Zhen-ting, her shoulder touching his arm. He wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her closer.
In that moment, Yun-yao knew with absolute certainty that some wishes didn't need divine intervention to come true. Some were already answered in the simple act of making them.
The way home seemed both endless and too brief. They walked home laughing, with the rabbit lantern swinging ridiculously small in Zhen-ting’s big hands. The streets gradually emptied as they left the festival center, the sounds of celebration fading behind them like a receding tide.
When the General’s Residence came into view, its entrance marked by guards in crimson and black, Yun-yao felt a curious mixture of anticipation and nervousness flutter in her stomach.
Tonight, tonight, tonight.