53: Han Yifeng Arrives
Crown Prince Han Yifeng of the kingdom of Eastern Yan arrived at the Su clan's compound at the second hour past noon on the eighteenth day of the second month of the spring.
He came with a small unhurried entourage — four senior guards in the dark-red livery of the Eastern Yan royal house, a senior chamberlain in the embroidered robes of the prince's personal staff, and two younger attendants. He came in a pale-lacquered traveling carriage drawn by two matched gray horses. He stepped down at the patriarch's outer gate at the small precise hour the formal courtesy required.
He was — by Linglong's quiet read from the side garden of the eastern wing — *exactly* what Cousin Su Lin's preceding files had described.
He was nineteen. He was Foundation Establishment Late by the kingdom's standing reading. His thread along the spine was the cold pale-red of a cultivator who had been raised, since the age of six, on the *Ten-Thousand-Thorn-Heart* technique of his clan — a technique whose careful private bookkeeping had, by the records Cousin Su Lin had quietly purchased through a small private channel two months ago, *included* the deliberate slow patient work of *not feeling* certain ordinary small careful unhurried human warmths that the technique's senior masters had decided would interfere with the technique's effectiveness.
The technique was — by the careful unhurried entry in one of the substrate-calibration manuscripts the Frost Lotus Sect had quietly sent — *legitimate cultivation*. It was not, by the kingdom of Beicang's standard moral classification, *demonic*. It was simply *cold*.
Han Yifeng was, by Linglong's small precise read, the cleanest *cold cultivator* in the kingdom's standing record of foreign honored guests.
The patriarch received him in the outer hall.
Su Yan attended, in his ordinary plain dark-blue clansman's outer robe, in the second rank.
The audience was — by every standing diplomatic etiquette the kingdoms of Beicang and Eastern Yan had been keeping for two centuries — *correct*. Han Yifeng inclined his head at the precise angle a Crown Prince of one kingdom inclined to a Patriarch of a senior clan of another. He accepted the patriarch's offered cup of *winter rose-bud* tea. He drank it. He produced, by the small careful unhurried courtesy of his preceding preparation, a small lacquered case of *eight high-quality jade-spirit pills* as a gift to the household, which the patriarch accepted with the matching diplomatic courtesy.
He spent the audience's first quarter-hour in the small precise unhurried courtesy-conversation of two senior representatives of two kingdoms.
At the end of the first quarter-hour, he turned — small, formal — toward the second rank where Su Yan stood, and inclined his head.
"Young Master Su." His voice was even. "I have, by my own preceding preference, requested this courtesy visit at your patriarch's compound before the Tournament. I have done so because I would, by my own preference, like to extend a small careful unhurried personal greeting to you outside the Tournament's frame, on terms that are not — by either of our preceding bookkeepings — competitive. I would, with your patriarch's permission, like to take a small careful unhurried walk with you in the household's gardens for perhaps a quarter of an hour."
The patriarch inclined his head — small, formal.
"At the young master's discretion."
Su Yan inclined his head — small, formal — to the patriarch and to Han Yifeng.
"The walk would be, by my own preference, an honor."
---
They walked the small east garden of the eastern wing.
Han Yifeng's senior chamberlain followed at the polite three paces. Aluan, by Cousin Su Lin's preceding paperwork, was — by the small careful unhurried courtesy of an ordinary household-attached observer — at a small unhurried six paces, with a fresh tray of tea-leaves she had no business carrying through the garden at this hour and which any cultivator above Foundation Mid would, by ordinary read, find unremarkable.
Han Yifeng walked at his unhurried pace.
He did not, in the first hundred paces, speak.
Su Yan walked at his.
At the wisteria along the western wall — which had, by the small careful unhurried calibration of three months of Linglong's quiet residency, been blooming out of season since the snow's first morning — Han Yifeng paused.
"Unusual."
"Yes, Crown Prince."
"By the careful read of my own substrate calibration, the wisteria has been blooming for at least eight weeks." His voice did not change. "By the kingdom of Eastern Yan's standard botanical bookkeeping, that is — *unusual*. I would not, by my own preference, ask you for the careful unhurried explanation. I would only note that I have, by my preceding observation of the half-hour I have been in this compound, registered that the eastern wing of your branch family is — *unusual*. I assume the careful unhurried explanation is one of the small careful unhurried preceding details I have been, by my own bookkeeping, attempting to assemble for the past nine months."
Su Yan inclined his head.
"Crown Prince."
"Young Master Su." Han Yifeng's eyes — pale red, the same color as his thread, the eyes of a careful unhurried Ten-Thousand-Thorn-Heart cultivator — turned, slowly, to meet his. "I will, by my own preference, be plain. I have, since the noon of the Royal Trial nine months ago, been keeping a small private file on you. The file has — by my own preceding bookkeeping — grown to perhaps a hundred and twenty pages. I have, in it, recorded every observation I have been able to make from a foreign Crown Prince's diplomatic distance about your cultivation, your foundation, your household, your allies, and your operating style. I have, by my preceding read, calibrated you for the Tournament. I expect, by the careful read of the file, to *meet you in the final*. I expect, by the careful read of the file, that the meeting will be the most difficult duel of my Tournament. I expect — by my own preceding preference — to lose."
He paused.
"I am telling you this," he said, "because I would, by my own preference, prefer that you *not* hold back at the meeting. I have, by my own preceding preference, calibrated my entire Tournament around the careful unhurried courtesy of *meeting you at full strength*. I will, in the meeting, give you my full strength. I would, by my preference, like to ask that you — by your own preference — give me yours."
Su Yan inclined his head.
He did not, in his face, allow any movement.
He was — by the careful read of his substrate-sight running at its lowest setting — reading Han Yifeng's thread carefully. The thread did not, in the count of the request, *flicker*. It was steady. It was *honest*. The Crown Prince of Eastern Yan was — by every careful unhurried small calibration of Su Yan's reading — *not* attempting to manipulate him.
He was simply, by his own preceding preference, *asking*.
It was — by Linglong's careful unhurried earlier teaching at the meal at her writing room ten weeks ago — the small precise unhurried request of a young man who had been raised in a careful unhurried cold technique and was, by his own preceding bookkeeping, *lonely* enough to value the small careful unhurried courtesy of *one honest meeting* in his life with a peer he had, by his own preceding read, *recognized*.
Su Yan inhaled, slowly.
"Crown Prince Han Yifeng." His voice was steady. "I will not, by my own preference, give you my full strength at the Tournament's final."
He paused, and at Han Yifeng's small careful unhurried *settling* of his thread — the small precise unhurried preceding shift of a young man who had received an answer he had not expected and was, by his careful preceding discipline, refusing to register surprise — Su Yan continued.
"I will, however, by my own preference, give you the careful unhurried small precise *honest* strength I have decided to display in this kingdom this season. The display, by my own preceding bookkeeping, is calibrated for — *Foundation Establishment Mid*, with the small careful unhurried foundation depth of a substrate-cultivator whose preceding work has been, by the careful read of any senior cultivator paying attention, *unusual*. I will, by my own preference, *meet you* at that level. The meeting will be honest. The meeting will not, by my preceding preference, be the careful unhurried full reading of my underlying cultivation, which is — by my own bookkeeping — *not yet a reading the kingdom of Beicang or the kingdom of Eastern Yan can afford for either of our reasons to be reading at this small careful unhurried hour*. I would, by my preceding preference, ask you to accept the calibration."
Han Yifeng held very still.
He had — by Su Yan's careful read of his thread — registered the offer. He had, in the count of one breath, *understood* the offer in a way that the small careful unhurried hundred-and-twenty-page file he had been keeping had not, by its own preceding work, prepared him for.
The offer was: *I will meet you at the level the kingdom expects. The level the kingdom expects is, by my preceding preference, the level I am willing to display. The level beneath that — the careful unhurried real level, which would, by either of our preceding bookkeepings, make the duel pointless — I will, by my own preference, not display.*
It was — by Han Yifeng's careful preceding bookkeeping — *honest*.
It was, by the careful read of a Crown Prince of Eastern Yan whose preceding cold-cultivation had taught him to register honesty as a *rare* and *valuable* substrate-state in others, *the most honest* answer he had received from a peer in nine years of preceding bookkeeping.
He inclined his head — small, formal.
"Young Master Su. I accept the calibration."
He paused.
"I would, by my own preceding preference, ask you for one further small courtesy."
"Yes."
"After the Tournament," Han Yifeng said carefully, "I will — by the standing arrangement of my kingdom's diplomatic exchange — return to Eastern Yan for at least three years, at which point the kingdom of Eastern Yan and the kingdom of Beicang will, by their standing arrangement, conduct a careful unhurried mutual reassessment of relations. During the three years, I would — by my own preference — like to *correspond* with you. By small careful unhurried private letter, on the substrate of substrate-calibration scholarship, by the unmarked courier line that the careful unhurried preceding work of senior librarians of various sects have, by their careful unhurried courtesy, been quietly building. I have, by my preceding preference, kept a small private notebook of substrate observations for four years. The notebook has, by my own bookkeeping, accumulated perhaps three hundred pages of observations that the kingdom of Eastern Yan's standing scholarship has not, by my read, yet calibrated. I would, by my own preference, *exchange* observations with you across the three years."
He paused.
"I would do this," he said, "not as a Crown Prince of Eastern Yan addressing a young clansman of Beicang. I would do it as one substrate-cultivator at the small careful unhurried beginning of his work addressing another. The exchange would be — by my preceding preference — *outside the diplomatic frame*. It would be, by my own preceding bookkeeping, *between us*. Will you, by your preceding preference, accept."
Su Yan looked at him for a count.
The careful unhurried small private read of the offer was, by the careful unhurried calibration of nine months of Cousin Su Lin's notebook entries on Crown Prince Han Yifeng of Eastern Yan, *unprecedented*.
The kingdom of Eastern Yan's Crown Princes did *not* exchange substrate-scholarship correspondence with foreign young clansmen. The kingdom of Eastern Yan's Crown Princes were, by every standing diplomatic etiquette, *prohibited* from doing so by their kingdom's preceding standing arrangement.
Han Yifeng was — by the careful unhurried preceding offer of three minutes — *requesting that the small private exchange be conducted in violation of his kingdom's standing arrangement, on the careful unhurried mutual courtesy of two scholars who had, by their preceding mutual reading, recognized each other*.
It was, by Su Yan's careful read, the small precise unhurried preceding offer of a young Crown Prince who had, by his own bookkeeping for nine years, *quietly disagreed* with several of the careful preceding arrangements of his own kingdom and was, in the careful unhurried small private air of one walking conversation in a wisteria-blooming garden in the eighth district of Cloud Sky City, *taking the careful unhurried first small private step toward the careful disagreement's eventual articulation*.
Su Yan inclined his head.
"Crown Prince. I accept."
He paused.
"By my own preference," he said, "I would also — given the careful unhurried small private nature of the exchange — propose that we *not* address each other in the letters by our public titles. I would propose that we address each other, by the small careful unhurried preceding mutual courtesy, by *given names alone*."
Han Yifeng's thread — by Su Yan's careful read — *flickered*, very small, in the small precise unhurried preceding way of a young Crown Prince who had not, in nineteen years of his life, been *addressed by his given name alone* by anyone other than his late mother and the careful unhurried preceding senior nurse of his early childhood.
He inclined his head.
"Yifeng."
"Su Yan."
The two of them inclined their heads — small, formal — and continued walking, at their unhurried pace, through the small east garden of the eastern wing of the eighth district of Cloud Sky City of the kingdom of Beicang of the Azure Cloud Continent.
They walked for the careful unhurried remaining quarter-hour Han Yifeng's diplomatic schedule permitted.
They did not, in the remaining quarter-hour, speak about the Tournament.
They spoke, by the careful unhurried preceding mutual courtesy, about *substrate calibration*.
By the time Han Yifeng's senior chamberlain came forward, at the careful unhurried preceding calibration of the courtesy-visit's scheduled departure, Su Yan and Han Yifeng had — by the small careful unhurried preceding bookkeeping of the wisteria's morning — *agreed the careful unhurried first letter would be sent by Su Yan within the month, at the small private agreement that the exchange would, by both their preceding preferences, *outlast* whichever of them won the Tournament's final by, by their preceding mutual estimate, at least three decades*.
Han Yifeng departed at the third hour past noon.
His carriage, drawn by two matched gray horses, left the eighth district of Cloud Sky City at the unhurried pace of a Crown Prince's traveling carriage on a routine diplomatic courtesy visit.
In his chest — Su Yan registered, by the substrate-sight running quietly at its lowest — the small precise unhurried *cold pale-red* thread along Han Yifeng's spine had, in the count of the past two hours, *warmed* by approximately *one degree*.
It was — by Linglong's careful unhurried earlier teaching — *the small precise unhurried preceding sign* of a young Crown Prince who had, in the small careful unhurried preceding conversation of one walking visit, *received* the careful unhurried small private courtesy he had been, by his own preceding bookkeeping for nine years, *missing*.
Su Yan filed the warming.
The small private file he was, by his own preceding preference, building on Crown Prince Han Yifeng of the kingdom of Eastern Yan — *Yifeng, by the careful unhurried preceding mutual private courtesy* — gained, by the third hour past noon of the eighteenth day of the second month of the spring, a new careful unhurried entry at the top of the page:
*Yifeng. Future ally. Substrate-scholarship correspondence. Unmarked courier line. Three years. By his own preceding preference, also the careful unhurried small private disagreement with Eastern Yan's standing arrangements. By my preceding preference: trust him. He will, by my read, not betray. By Linglong's read also: not betray. The Tournament's final will be, by our preceding mutual courtesy, the small careful unhurried beginning of one of the most important careful unhurried friendships of my next twenty years.*
He let the brushstrokes dry.
He hid the chart.
The afternoon of the eighteenth day of the second month of the spring, by the careful unhurried preceding work of one Crown Prince's courtesy visit, had — *gained the kingdom of Eastern Yan's Crown Prince as a small careful unhurried future ally, against the standing arrangement of his kingdom's preceding diplomatic record*.
The careful unhurried bookkeeping of the next twenty-three months and twenty days had, by the small precise unhurried hour of one walking conversation in a wisteria-blooming garden, *gained another column*.