Chapter 140: Celebration of Life

Lin Laifu’s estate woke to an entirely different atmosphere the next morning, one so far removed from the gloom that had blanketed it two days earlier that it felt almost like stepping into a different household altogether.

Lanterns that had sat dark and unlit for days now hung freshly polished along the entrance path, servants moved with brisk, purposeful energy rather than the hushed, careful steps of the days before, and somewhere in the kitchens, the smell of roasting meat and fresh bread drifted out across the courtyard in a way that promised a proper celebration rather than another quiet vigil.

Word had apparently spread fast. By midmorning, a steady trickle of guests had already begun arriving at the gate, merchants and minor officials and longtime business associates, all eager to see for themselves that the rumors of Lin Laifu’s recovery were true rather than wishful gossip making its rounds through the merchant quarter.

Lin Laifu himself received them from a cushioned chair set up in the main receiving hall, still visibly thinner than he’d been before his illness, a faint pallor lingering beneath his usual ruddy complexion, but sitting upright, alert, and very much alive, which alone seemed enough to satisfy most of his visitors before a single word had even been exchanged.

"You look like a man who’s been to the edge of the grave and decided against staying," said one of the first arrivals, a portly cloth merchant named Old Deng who’d done business with Lin Laifu for the better part of a decade. He clasped Lin Laifu’s hand warmly, genuine relief written across his weathered face. "We heard it was grim. Truly grim."

"It was," Lin Laifu admitted, though he softened the words with an easy smile. "Grim enough that I wasn’t entirely certain I’d be sitting here to greet you today."

"And yet here you are." Old Deng shook his head, marveling. "What in the heavens did you do to pull through something like that? My cousin’s boy caught a bad fever last winter and it nearly took him, and that was without whatever poison you were dealing with."

Lin Laifu’s expression shifted only slightly, a practiced ease settling over his features that few in the room would have thought to question. "My body fought against it and won, in the end. Stubbornness, mostly, and perhaps a bit of luck alongside it."

It was, technically, not untrue. But it left out entirely the small pill Lu Feng had pressed between his lips, the silver light that had bled up through his skin, the way his body had been repaired from the inside out rather than simply outlasting whatever poison had been working against it.

That part of the story, Lin Laifu had already decided the night before, staring at the ceiling in the quiet hours after everyone else had finally gone to sleep, was not one he intended to share with anyone outside his own household. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, depending on how things developed.

Old Deng seemed satisfied enough with the answer, clapping Lin Laifu firmly on the shoulder before moving off to make room for the next well wisher crowding in behind him, and the pattern repeated itself throughout the morning with only minor variation.

A pair of jewelry merchants arrived together, bearing an elaborate gift of polished coral beads as a token of their relief, and asked much the same question with much the same wide eyed curiosity. Lin Laifu gave them the same answer, his body’s own stubborn will, a measure of good fortune, and left it there.

A city clerk arrived not long after, ostensibly to deliver routine paperwork related to the merchant guild’s quarterly registrations, though it was plain enough from his lingering questions that curiosity about Lin Laifu’s miraculous recovery had drawn him here at least as much as any official business. He too received the same modest, unremarkable explanation, and left seemingly content with it, scribbling something brief into his own ledger before departing.

Not long after the clerk’s departure, a younger merchant Lin Laifu recognized only vaguely, a newer face among the city’s trading circles, arrived with considerably less warmth behind his congratulations than the others had shown. He offered the expected pleasantries, asked the expected question, but his eyes lingered a touch too long on Lin Laifu’s still gaunt frame, his questions probing a fraction further than simple relief usually required.

"They say no healer in the city could identify what ailed you," the young merchant said, swirling his cup of wine idly. "Strange, for something to defeat every pill master in Crimson Vale and then simply vanish on its own."

"Stranger things have happened, little brother." Lin Laifu said, keeping his tone light despite the small prickle of unease the question stirred in him. "I’ve learned not to question good fortune too closely, when it finally arrives."

The young merchant studied him a moment longer, something calculating behind his polite smile, before inclining his head and moving off to mingle elsewhere in the hall. Lin Laifu watched him go, filing the exchange away carefully. He’d need to ask around later, quietly, exactly who that young man did business with, and why his questions had cut so much closer to the truth than anyone else’s that morning.

By midday, the receiving hall had filled to a comfortable, bustling capacity, guests mingling freely with cups of wine and tea, servants weaving between them refilling plates piled high with roasted meats, steamed buns, and an assortment of pickled vegetables that Lin Laifu’s cook had clearly outdone herself preparing on short notice.

The mood throughout carried the particular warmth of genuine relief rather than mere social obligation, the kind of gathering that happened when people who actually cared about someone got the chance to see with their own eyes that a real tragedy had been narrowly avoided.

Lin Laifu’s lady moved through the crowd with quiet grace, accepting well wishes on her husband’s behalf, her own relief still evident in the slightly too tight set of her smile, the way her eyes kept drifting back toward him every few minutes as though checking, again and again, that he was still there, still breathing, still real.

Lin Laifu himself grew visibly more tired as the morning wore into early afternoon, the weight of so much socializing clearly taking more out of him than he wanted to openly admit, though he refused every gentle suggestion from his lady that he retire and let the celebration continue without him.

"I nearly missed the chance to see any of these faces again," he told her quietly, during a brief lull between guests. "I’ll take the exhaustion gladly, if it means getting to sit here and actually see them."

She didn’t argue further after that, though she did quietly instruct the household staff to keep his cup filled with a fortifying broth rather than wine for the remainder of the afternoon, a small concession he accepted without complaint.

It was during one such lull, guests momentarily thinned as several stepped out into the courtyard to admire the freshly cut flowers his lady had insisted on arranging that morning, that Lin Laifu allowed himself a brief moment to actually think rather than simply perform gratitude for the crowd.

He thought of Lu Feng, notably absent from this particular gathering, deliberately so, at Lu Feng’s own request the night before. Better, they’d agreed, for suspicion not to fall too directly on the young merchant whose auction had preceded the poisoning by mere hours, better for Lin Laifu’s recovery to appear, to the wider world, exactly as ordinary and unremarkable as he’d been telling every guest all morning.

He thought, too, of the man who’d served him that fateful cup of wine, still unidentified, still unaccounted for, somewhere out there in the city carrying whatever knowledge or orders had sent him into Lin Laifu’s own home in the first place.

Whoever was truly behind that poisoning was, in all likelihood, watching this very celebration unfold from some careful distance, gauging exactly how thoroughly their attempt had failed, and Lin Laifu found himself wondering, not for the first time since waking whole and restored the morning after, what that failure might provoke them into trying next.

The young merchant’s pointed questions from earlier in the afternoon lingered uncomfortably in his mind alongside those thoughts. He hadn’t imagined the calculation behind that man’s polite smile, the way his gaze had measured rather than simply looked. It could mean nothing at all, ordinary curiosity dressed up in slightly too much interest.

Or it could mean someone had sent a set of eyes to this very celebration specifically to gauge how completely their poison had failed. Lin Laifu resolved to have Bai Bao, or whoever among Lu Feng’s people handled such quiet inquiries, look into the young man’s dealings before the week was out.

He kept those thoughts carefully tucked behind his easy, hospitable smile as the courtyard guests filtered back inside and the celebration resumed its steady rhythm around him, greeting each new arrival with the same warm, unremarkable story he’d settled on the night before.

By the time the last of the guests finally departed, the sun already dipping low toward the rooftops of Silver Jade City’s distant cousin city, the merchant quarter’s evening lanterns beginning to flicker to life along the streets outside, Lin Laifu sank back into his cushioned chair with a long, exhausted breath, the performance of the day finally allowed to slip from his shoulders.

"You did well today," his lady said softly, settling onto the cushion beside him, resting a gentle hand over his.

"I’m tired in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been tired before," he admitted, closing his eyes briefly. "But it was worth every bit of it. Seeing everyone’s faces, knowing they actually feared they might never see mine again." He exhaled slowly. "It reminds a man what actually matters, going through something like that."

"And what does actually matter?" she asked, though there was warmth rather than challenge in the question.

Lin Laifu opened his eyes again, glancing toward her with a tired, genuine smile. "You. This household. And the young man who made certain I lived long enough to sit here answering that question at all." His expression sobered slightly. "Whatever’s coming for us next, whoever’s behind all this, I intend to make certain I’m standing beside him when it arrives, not simply hiding behind a story about stubborn survival while he does all the fighting."

His lady studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly, understanding settling into her expression alongside the lingering worry that hadn’t fully left her since the night of the celebration that had started all of this. Although she had been interested in the ’young man’ her husband spoke off earlier, she didn’t dare voice it out.

"There was a young merchant this afternoon," she said quietly, after a moment’s hesitation. "Near the back of the hall. He asked you rather pointed questions, didn’t he? I saw your face shift, just slightly, when he spoke."

Lin Laifu managed a tired, wry smile. "You notice everything, don’t you."

"I notice you," she said simply. "It’s difficult not to, after nearly losing the chance to."

He reached over and squeezed her hand gently. "I’ll have it looked into. Quietly. No need to worry over it tonight, on top of everything else."

"Rest first," she said gently. "Whatever comes next will still be there once you’ve actually recovered properly."

Lin Laifu huffed a tired laugh, allowing himself, finally, to relax fully into the cushions beneath him. "Fair enough. Like you suggested, I will rest first."

But then his smile widened and he moved closer to his lady and pulled her even closer. "Only if you agree to rest with me. I can’t do it alone."

There was a teasing in his tone as he kissed her neck making her gasp slightly.

She grinned and asked. "And why can’t you do it alone?"

Lin Laifu’s response was the cherry on top of the cake. "After what happened recently, I’m too scared to be alone. I need my lady with me. She’s the strongest woman I know."

She blushed at his flattery. Placing a finger on his lips, she reached for his left ear and whispered directly into it. "I’ll only stay if you promise to be a good boy."