Ning Chen stayed at Old General Chen's residence better than two hours.

He came out with a weight on him.

Old General Chen thought little enough of dying. Ning Chen could not bear to have the elders who had loved him go out of the world.

He rode back to the Ning residence.

Pan Yucheng had gone to be with his wife and children.

So had Chen Chong.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng, the two bachelors, had gone off somewhere nobody knew. The courtesans' quarter, most likely.

Ning Chen went to the Ninth Princess's room. Yudie was there too.

The Ninth Princess was all delight. "They say you've brought the Peach Grove Sword Immortal back... Does that mean Father Emperor will be well soon?"

Ning Chen inclined his head.

Three men at the summit of the martial way taking turns nourishing the Xuan Emperor, with Zisu's medicines besides — he ought to mend.

But Old General Chen's life had come to its end and no medicine would touch it, and it sat badly in Ning Chen.

Ning Chen looked at Yudie. "From today you sleep in here... I'll take your room. We're sleeping apart from now on."

The two of them looked at him without understanding.

Ning Chen shrugged. "I trained that breath out and it hasn't grown at all since... I asked Liu Baiyi. He says abstinence. A year of it at least."

Tantai Qingyue had told him to abstain before, and he had always suspected her of lying to him about it.

On the road back to the capital he had asked Liu Baiyi.

Liu Baiyi said exactly what she had said. Try a year of abstinence.

So the Ninth Princess and Yudie would have to put up with a year of it — hollow all day and empty all night.

Ning Chen looked at Yudie, whose figure put every other woman in the shade, and then at the Ninth Princess, small and pretty and sweet, and couldn't keep back a groan.

Three beauties of the first rank in the world, and he could look and not touch...…