The company of over a hundred people halted roughly two li from Mengyuan Fort, waiting for Xiao Qi and the others to return.
Mengyuan Fort enjoyed considerable renown within a radius of a thousand li — first because of the Dachu garrison soldiers of years past, and second because the people here were united and fierce. In all the years that had come and gone, no bandit or mountain outlaw who had ever come through here managed to gain any advantage. The people of Mengyuan Fort were also generous-spirited; in this place, everyone carried themselves like a man of honor.
That was why Qiao Mo had told Xiao Qi: do not lie, do not put on airs.
But Xiao Qi and the others had already been inside the main stronghold for nearly an hour and still hadn’t come out. No one knew what had happened, so Qiao Mo couldn’t help feeling a measure of worry.
Inside the carriage, the two children woke up at almost the same moment. The little girl opened her beautiful wide eyes and, upon seeing her mother’s face, broke into a smile. The boy, after waking, sat quietly beside his mother — and beside him stood his father’s memorial tablet.
He glanced at his little sister in their mother’s arms, those equally lovely wide eyes of his carrying a flicker of envy, and perhaps anticipation. Yet he neither cried nor made a fuss, neither demanded nor competed. He seemed to understand, even at the age of four or five, how difficult things were for his mother — and so he had learned what it meant not to be a burden.
The little boy was called Rui’er; the little girl was called Min’er.
Though they were inside the carriage, the bitter cold of the ice-and-snow world had still found its way to the two children who had just woken from sleep. The little boy shivered slightly, and looked again toward his sister in their mother’s arms. Lin Huiyun assumed he was thinking that he too wanted to be held — but instead, the boy rose and draped his own blanket over his sister.
That gesture left Lin Huiyun momentarily stunned.
“Come here. You hold your sister, and Mother will hold you.”
Lin Huiyun said this gently.
The little boy was immediately overjoyed, his eyes filling with light and happiness. He climbed into his mother’s lap, carefully took his sister into his arms — cradling her as if he were a grown-up — while their mother wrapped her arms around both children, using the warmth of her own body to keep the two little ones warm. She tucked the blanket around them as best she could, but the little boy’s hand reached out again…
And so she watched as her son’s small hand lifted his father’s memorial tablet and held it close to his chest, pressing his cheek against it.
She had told her son that his father had become a deity — one who could hide inside that tablet and watch over them.
“Mistress.”
Outside the carriage, General Qiao Mo spoke: “Xiao Qi and the others still haven’t returned. I’ll go see what’s happening. Mistress, please don’t get out of the carriage for now.”
Lin Huiyun acknowledged him: “Understood. Be careful, General.”
Qiao Mo took several of his men and spurred his horse forward, heading toward the main stronghold.
The villagers of Mengyuan Fort were extraordinarily united — no one had ever come to Mengyuan Fort to bully its people and walked away unscathed. In order to weather the chaos of these troubled times and resist bandits and mountain outlaws, the several thousand people of Mengyuan Fort had spent more than three years encircling the town with a great stockade. The wooden walls stood over two zhang high and were roughly one zhang wide — wide enough for men to sprint along the top and rush to reinforce any point under threat. Beyond the walls, tall watchtowers had been raised, and at intervals between them stood small arrow towers.
There were no brilliant military strategists in this town, no reclusive grand masters in hiding. The reason the fortifications had turned out so impressively was because the villagers had pooled together everything they had gleaned from storytellers’ tales and worked it out among themselves.
With this great stockade in place, the people of Mengyuan Fort felt considerably more secure.
The town’s village chief was addressed with respect as Elder An. Though already in his fifties, he remained powerfully built. In his youth, Elder An had gone into the mountains and hunted the wolf king with his bare hands — slaying more than a dozen wolves alone — and had once fought a black bear to a standstill and emerged without a scratch. Even now at his age, Elder An could wrestle a galloping horse into submission. The village kept as a prized possession an iron-sinew bow with a draw weight of three shi that very few people could fully draw — and Elder An was one of them.
Elder An was bold and unrestrained, frank and open-hearted, and harbored a fierce hatred of evil.
His authority in the village was such that what he said carried the weight of law and was beyond question.
Elder An’s name was An Buzheng — “not contending.” Yet Elder An had said that a person had to contend from the moment of birth. Drawing breath was contending with heaven and earth for one more gasp of air; making a life for oneself was wresting sustenance from the mountains and rivers.
He also said that the character for “person” — the word *rén* itself — explained everything.
What was heaven? Two people make heaven. And what did “two people” mean? It meant husband and wife, brothers, sisters, friends — it meant two hearts beating as one.
And so the already-united Mengyuan Fort, because of Elder An, became even more so.
In the surrounding towns and villages, even the most domineering men dared not come to Mengyuan Fort to cause trouble. There had been those who tried in the past — men who fancied that being ruthless enough meant they could cow anyone. They came to Mengyuan Fort once; when they left, they had not so much as a pair of undershorts to their name, and the lash marks on their backs were laid out in the precise grid of a Go board — nineteen lines across, nineteen lines down.
—
At this very moment, Xiao Qi and his companions had been forced to their knees before Elder An by a crowd of men.
Elder An, though advancing in years, had maintained his physique magnificently — that broad-backed, narrow-waisted frame radiated raw power just to look at.
The most striking thing was that a man in his fifties looked not the least bit his age. He appeared closer to thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Which was why certain young women in the village still harbored thoughts of marrying him.
But Elder An had long since set aside such thoughts. His wife had died young, leaving no children behind. Yet Elder An said that a true man could stand tall and unyielding on his own — but that his heart was small enough to hold only one woman.
“Elder An, we are people of the White Mountain Army.”
Xiao Qi spoke plainly: “Our Mistress was hunted by traitors and has been fleeing for her life. By the time we reached this place, eight out of every ten of our eight hundred brothers had already fallen in battle. Only a little over a hundred remain.” He raised his head to look at Elder An. “Our Mistress travels with two young children — the elder is barely four or five years old, the younger only a little over one. The cold outside is fierce, and we fear the children will freeze. That is why we hoped to shelter in the stronghold for one night.”
Elder An narrowed his eyes. “White Mountain Army? You people have the nerve to come here looking for trouble?”
The moment those words left his mouth, the ring of men surrounding them pressed forward, their cold and fierce bearing like ten thousand frozen peaks across a vast snowfield.
In the days when the White Mountain Army ran rampant without restraint, they had brought tremendous slaughter to Yanzhou. How many towns had been massacred clean by the White Mountain Army — men, women, old and young, not one left alive?
In those days, the White Mountain Army had even attacked Mengyuan Fort. In the fighting, the villagers of Mengyuan Fort had suffered hundreds dead and wounded — yet they had held the line with fierce determination, yielding not a single inch.
After the White Mountain Army withdrew, Elder An began laying the groundwork for building the stockade, because he knew: this time they had managed to hold off the White Mountain Army, but the next time another rebel force came, they might not be so fortunate.
And now, the people of the White Mountain Army had actually come to Mengyuan Fort seeking refuge. Perhaps this too was the turning of heaven’s wheel, cause meeting its effect.
“Elder An!”
Xiao Qi remained kneeling and pressed his forehead to the ground with a solid thud. “The White Mountain Army of those days has nothing to do with us. But I acknowledge the crimes they committed. I do not ask Elder An to take in all of our people — I only ask that you allow my Mistress and her two children to come inside and warm themselves.”
Elder An let out a cold laugh. “The wolf king’s wife is a she-wolf. A she-wolf whelps wolf cubs. The wolf pack once killed our kinsmen here in Mengyuan Fort. This place has no room for a single wolf — not even wolf cubs.”
The men surrounding them gave a shout: “Get out!”
Elder An said: “I haven’t yet ordered these men to beat the lot of you to death with their bare hands — that alone should tell you something. Don’t say another word. Get out.”
Xiao Qi rose helplessly and turned to leave.
At that moment, a half-grown boy of about thirteen or fourteen picked up a fist-sized stone and hurled it — it struck Xiao Qi squarely on the back of his head, sending him stumbling. He reached up and touched the spot. Blood.
Xiao Qi’s companions erupted with fury. Xiao Qi raised his hand and stopped them, shaking his head.
“People who’ve been with a bandit outfit earn people’s hate. Can’t blame anyone for that.”
After saying this, he pulled his companions and started walking out.
“Wait.”
Elder An called out. A crowd of men immediately surged forward and blocked Xiao Qi and the others again, the whole group eyeing them like wolves.
Elder An walked up to Xiao Qi, looked him up and down, then pointed toward the main gate of the stronghold. “From here — crawl your way out. Not a single step standing. If you can do that, I’ll let your Mistress come inside and stay one night.”
Xiao Qi’s companions exploded with rage, turning to Elder An and shouting: “Don’t push us too far!”
“Pushing you too far?”
Elder An made a dismissive sound and tilted his chin upward.
“When your White Mountain Army came through here and killed hundreds of our kinsmen — do you know where those kinsmen are now?”
He turned and gestured toward the high slope behind the stronghold. “Several hundred of our kinsmen are buried there. They’re watching. When you kneel and crawl your way out, that is kowtowing before their graves and acknowledging your wrongs.”
One of Xiao Qi’s companions raged: “The ones who came here back then — what does that have to do with us? Why should we atone for what they did?”
Elder An’s eyes flashed. “Beat him.”
Four or five men waded in and grabbed the man. He was a battle-hardened veteran and against four or five ordinary men he would normally have had no difficulty at all — but the men of Mengyuan Fort were different. Every one of them had practiced martial arts since childhood, and what they practiced was the battle-array fighting style of the Dachu garrison soldiers.
Xiao Qi’s companion knocked one man down before being taken to the ground himself, pinned beneath a swarm of fists. Xiao Qi threw himself forward and covered his brother with his own body — and took no small number of blows himself.
“Elder An!”
Xiao Qi cried out. Elder An raised his hand, and the men who had been striking them immediately pulled back.
Elder An said: “When I give my word, it has never once been broken.”
“Good!”
Xiao Qi acknowledged this and helped his beaten companion to his feet. “Out there in this weather, we’re barely surviving in the open field — to say nothing of what it would mean for the Mistress and the young masters. Crawling a little is nothing. Kowtowing to make amends is only right.”
Then he turned, knelt in the direction of the high slope, and pressed his forehead to the ground three times in respect. He then turned to face the main gate of the stronghold and began to crawl forward on his knees. His companions, though inwardly furious, followed Xiao Qi’s lead and crawled along with him.
“Wash the shame off them!”
Elder An shouted this out.
A crowd of men bent down, scooped up snow from the ground, packed it into balls, and hurled them at the men crawling on their knees. A tightly packed snowball is barely different from a stone — how much would that hurt landing on a person? Xiao Qi took another blow to the head that sent him lurching to one side. He immediately called out to his companions: “Don’t dodge it. We have nothing on our conscience, so we can stand tall — and kneel without shame. Whether standing or kneeling, our knees don’t go soft. Let them see whether we’re afraid.”
His companions each gave a nod, and together they crawled on their knees toward the gate.
More and more people gathered around them from all sides, bending down to pack snow, hurling ball after ball. By the time they reached the gate, Xiao Qi and the others were bruised and battered about the face and head — yet not one of them made a sound. They crawled on their knees all the way out through the main gate of the stronghold.
Elder An followed alongside the whole way to the gate. After watching them pass through, he called out: “Your Mistress and the two children may come inside. No one else is permitted in — the rest of you spend the night outside.”
Qiao Mo, who had just arrived at the gate, witnessed this scene as he dismounted. He helped Xiao Qi to his feet. Xiao Qi’s face was swollen in several places, and the back of his head was still bleeding. Qiao Mo’s temper flared at once — but when Xiao Qi saw him about to lose control, he grabbed his hand. “General, don’t let us take this beating for nothing. The Mistress and the young masters — that’s what matters.”
Qiao Mo froze, the glimmer of tears flickering in his eyes.
Xiao Qi turned back to Elder An. “Elder An, I ask a small concession. If it’s just the three of them inside and we’re all out here, we won’t be at ease — someone needs to look after them. Would you allow a few more people in?”
Elder An considered this and answered: “One more.”
Xiao Qi and the others weren’t worried that the people of Mengyuan Fort would harm their Mistress and the young masters — because they knew that the people of Mengyuan Fort had never gone back on their word. In Mengyuan Fort, a person who broke their word was looked down upon by everyone and would be driven out of the stockade.
Xiao Qi looked at Qiao Mo. “Let me be the one. I’ll stand guard outside the Mistress’s door through the night.”
Qiao Mo’s eyes had gone a little red. He gave a single nod. “Alright.”
—