A long procession wound its way across the desolate plain. A black coffin was conspicuous among the fully armed light cavalry surrounding it.
Before the coffin, a plain, understated carriage bearing no decoration at all moved slowly forward through its escort.
“Who goes there!”
Several cavalrymen spotted a horse and rider coming straight toward them at no great distance, and drew their weapons, pointing them at the uninvited guest.
“I am Li Que, a thousandman officer of the Xiangyang garrison. I request an audience with the Deputy Chief Administrator!” Li Que slowed his horse and approached gradually toward the carriage that was surrounded on all sides.
A man clad in light armor emerged from behind the cavalrymen.
Yanhuai looked Li Que over, and recognized him by the distinctive scar on his cheek.
“It’s you?” He was surprised. “Did the Military Commissioner of Zhenchuan send you?”
“This has nothing to do with the Military Commissioner of Zhenchuan. I came of my own accord.”
“What have you come for?” Yanhuai frowned.
“A fine bird chooses its tree; a worthy official chooses his master. This lowly one has long admired the first gentleman under heaven and wishes to serve under him.”
“Nonsense—” Yanhuai’s expression showed displeasure. “You hold the post of Xiangyang thousandman officer. Who your superior is has long been established — it is not yours to change on a whim.”
“This lowly one has already submitted his resignation to the Military Commissioner of Zhenchuan. I am now but a commoner.” Li Que said without any sign of submission or bluster.
Yanhuai was just about to speak when Fu Xuanmiao’s calm voice came from inside the carriage:
“Let him in.”
Yanhuai was taken aback and hurried to respond: “Yes!”
The procession gradually came to a halt.
Li Que dismounted. He had only just reached the front of the carriage when two barrel-chested infantrymen surrounded him, and after thoroughly patting him down and searching him, took every weapon from his person.
Once stripped of every weapon he carried, Li Que was finally permitted to board the carriage.
Fu Xuanmiao was seated on a padded couch, dressed in a deep robe of silver-fish white with wide sleeves that lent a pale and ashen cast to his complexion. On the low table beside the couch lay the Thousand Character Classic and the gold-and-pearl earring excavated the previous day. A cup of tea that had long since gone cold stood on the table, its surface trembling with small ripples from the resumed motion of the carriage.
“This commoner greets the honored official.” Li Que knelt properly and bowed his head to the ground.
Fu Xuanmiao’s weary gaze settled on the hollow of Li Que’s missing cheek, and he said slowly:
“I remember you.”
“The official has an excellent memory.” Li Que knelt on the vibrating floorboards of the carriage and said with deference: “This lowly one is the one who yesterday fortunately found the keepsake of Princess of Yue and was to be rewarded ten thousand taels of sil—”
“At the Gold Belt Lodge a year ago, you and your elder brother came in search of someone called Shen Huan.”
Li Que said with composure: “So the esteemed guest residing at the Gold Belt Lodge that day was the official himself?”
Fu Xuanmiao evaded the question and said: “Before and after His Majesty’s enthronement, there was no one at his side called Shen Huan.”
“Country women of the villages are prone to exaggeration.” Li Que said. “They say they served the emperor, when in truth the connection may have passed through eighteen different hands. Fortunately, Lady Li no longer mentions searching for her brother now — she has likely concluded that he is no longer among the living.”
“How did you and your elder brother come to know each other?” Fu Xuanmiao asked.
“This lowly one and Lord Li came to know each other in the midst of hardship. It was Lord Li who scraped together enough money, bit by bit, to save this lowly one when I was in serious trouble. From that time on, this lowly one stayed at Lord Li’s side and served him at every turn.”
“Given that he saved your life, why change allegiances now?”
“This body of mine carries thirteen knife wounds, all of them taken on Lord Li’s behalf. Even the greatest of debts ought to have been repaid by now. The road ahead — I wish to walk for myself.” Li Que said with calm. “Li the Commissioner is full of brotherly loyalty but lacks cunning and strategy. He can be a brother, but he is not a worthy master. Under him, this lowly one will never realize his own ambitions.”
“And what ambitions do you have?” Fu Xuanmiao asked.
“A true man should enjoy a life of full vigor — and rightfully ought to be ennobled as a general, return home in glory with honors and rank.”
Fu Xuanmiao gave a quiet laugh.
“I have heard rumors of you — courageous and resourceful, sharp-witted and adaptable. I simply did not expect that Li the Commissioner, who has no knowledge of the classics, would have an adopted brother so well-versed in learning.”
“This lowly one was born in a brothel, of lowly station, and had no opportunity to study in the usual course of things.” Li Que lowered his head. “By good fortune, someone gave me guidance, and I managed to read a few books and learn a few characters.”
“To be born in such a place and still attain literacy — truly no small fortune,” Fu Xuanmiao said.
He looked at the kneeling Li Que before him, his gaze coming to rest on the hollow of his missing cheek, and said slowly:
“I have two questions I wish to ask you. Are you willing to answer honestly?”
“The official may ask without hesitation. This lowly one will say all he knows without concealment.”
“Where were you the day before yesterday?”
After Fu Xuanmiao’s words fell, a moment of silence passed through the carriage.
“…The day before yesterday, this lowly one was at the Li residence for a meal.” Li Que answered.
“And yet I have heard,” Fu Xuanmiao said with an air of idleness, “that the day before yesterday, several of Xiangyang’s garrisons were placed under temporary lockdown?”
Li Que raised his head to meet Fu Xuanmiao’s gaze, and answered without flinching:
“The day before yesterday, in the morning, this lowly one and thousandman officer Li Kun were invited to a meal at the Li residence. Later, someone came with word of a reward, and Lord Li heard that the Deputy Chief Administrator had come to Xiangyang to burn incense, and fearing he might miss the opportunity, he took a horse and rode urgently up the mountain to welcome you. When he left, he instructed this lowly one and Li Kun to return to the garrison and strengthen patrols, to be ready at any moment to escort the official on his travels.”
“So that is the explanation.” Fu Xuanmiao said. “Li the Commissioner’s reputation for deeply loving his wife is widely known — is it truly so in private?”
“…Lord Li and Lady Li do indeed share a deep affection. It is simply that three wives and four concubines are ordinary convention for a man, and it is only out of consideration for Lady Li that Lord Li has refrained from taking concubines into his household.” Li Que raised his eyes. “Why does the official ask this?”
“One is always curious about things that do not match their reputation.” Fu Xuanmiao said, his expression giving nothing away, tone dispassionate. “I asked on a whim.”
Li Que kept his head deferentially bowed, waiting for the man’s words and directions.
“You came to pledge your service — what did Li the Commissioner say?”
“…Lord Li flew into a great fury. It was not until this lowly one threatened to take my own life that he agreed to let me go.”
“Brothers of so many years—” Fu Xuanmiao said. “And you can bring yourself to do this?”
“In a man’s one lifetime, naturally there are things to be given up and things to be gained.”
“Words are without proof — how will you demonstrate that you truly mean what you say about ‘giving up and gaining’?”
Li Que looked at Fu Xuanmiao’s cool, detached face. Those eyes, still as a deep well, seemed to see through the flesh and examine every corner of his inner being, one inch at a time.
A wordless pressure bore down on him from all sides.
Li Que said: “I know Li the Commissioner’s true identity.”
……
“What good does all your pacing back and forth do? Sit down and rest for a while!” Shen Zhuxi said.
Li Wu, hands clasped behind his back, had been restlessly turning circles in the bedroom like someone with fire beneath him. At Shen Zhuxi’s urging, he finally sat down. But the bench had barely warmed beneath him when he opened that mouth of his — which hadn’t stopped since Li Que left — and snarled:
“What the hell!”
Li Wu slammed his fist down on the table with a bang, rattling all the tea things beside it.
“I raised him through hardship, through every kind of difficulty! And now look — he’s grown wings! Without a word, he’s gone! Off to make his way in the world with the number one dog under heaven!”
Li Wu smashed the table in fury.
Shen Zhuxi ached for him and seized his hand: “You still have a wound on that hand!”
“If he’d gone to serve anyone else, I could have felt a little better — but it had to be that man surnamed Fu! That number one dog even has it in him to blow up a dam — what act of madness is beyond him? If Que’er goes and joins that man surnamed Fu, isn’t he afraid of one day being handed some job like blowing up the Dujiang Dam or the Min River Dam?”
Li Wu’s face was darkened with fury. He grabbed the tea cup from in front of Shen Zhuxi and tipped his head back to gulp it down, but the moment his lips met the freshly brewed tea, the blister it raised at the corner of his mouth had him howling like a wounded animal.
He set down the tea cup in embarrassment, grimacing and rubbing the blister at the corner of his mouth, and growled through gritted teeth:
“Just wait until he comes crawling back — watch me not break his legs!”
Despite these words, both Li Wu and Shen Zhuxi knew that the chance of Li Que, who had still not returned, having a change of heart in any short span of time was vanishingly slim.
Li Wu had spent the whole day cursing. By now, he had raised a blister, dried out his throat, and used up nearly all his energy.
His face, haggard from two straight nights without sleep, looked drawn and sallow, his brow deeply furrowed, his gaze fixed unmoving on the tea swirling in the cup before him.
After a long while, with a mixture of regret and resentment, he said:
“What the hell — is there anything that can’t be said, that you have to carry it all by yourself… does he have any regard for me as his elder brother or not?!”
Shen Zhuxi could only tighten her grip on his other hand, and look at him with an encouraging gaze: “Que’er must have his own plans. He has always been one who knows his own mind. Since he has decided to do this thing on his own, we might as well trust him and wait quietly for the outcome.”
“What I’m afraid of is that he goes so far down this road — he can’t find his way back—”
“If it ever comes to that,” Shen Zhuxi said, “are we not still here?”
Li Wu stiffened, and looked up at her.
“If that day truly comes, you will not stand by and do nothing,” she said with a steady, certain expression. “And neither will I.”
Li Wu sat in frowning silence.
“Trust those you use; do not use those you distrust. I believe Que’er has his own difficulties. If it were not for concern for our safety, he would not have left in such a way.” Shen Zhuxi tightened her hold on his hand. “I will wait with you for him to come back.”
What else could be done?
His younger brother had gone and broken his heart, the ungrateful duck.
Li Wu let out a long sigh, and said: “…All right.”
……
Yanhuai closed the carriage door and said respectfully:
“As per your instructions, someone has already been assigned to watch him. If there is any unusual movement, we will know immediately. This man carries a blade in his sleeve — it is unclear what he is plotting. Does the official truly intend to keep him?”
“Let him be tested for a time — see how long he can last. If he is truly here to serve in earnest, we can make further arrangements then.” Fu Xuanmiao said with detachment. “An ungrateful and disloyal man also has his uses for someone ungrateful and disloyal. He does indeed possess some measure of ability.”
Yanhuai paused, then said: “What does the official intend to do about Li the Commissioner?”
Earlier, Li Que had already confessed that “Li the Commissioner” was an assumed name, and had given a full account of how the three of them had offended the Military Commissioner of Wuying, Chunyu An, and his right-hand men, Han Fengnian.
This “Li the Commissioner” — no father, no mother, an orphan’s origins, numerous aliases, no true name. Likely owing to his background as a beggar, he was not one to think far ahead, and was easily drawn by profit, having successively offended the Xiangzhou Prefect Fan Wei, as well as Chunyu An, Han Fengnian, and the Xuzhou Prefect Wang Wenzhong. If Fan Wei and Wang Wenzhong had not met their end at the hands of rebel troops, those hunting Li the Commissioner with orders to capture and kill him would not have been the Wuying Army alone.
“Once Chunyu An learns that Li the Commissioner is the man who robbed his Wuying Army…” Yanhuai hesitated to continue.
“What of it, if at the right moment he learns?” Fu Xuanmiao said quietly. “Would I keep Li the Commissioner simply to enjoy his noise?”
Yanhuai suddenly grasped it all: his master had been playing this game from the very beginning with Li the Commissioner in mind!
Support Li the Commissioner’s rise, then arrange for him to come into conflict with Chunyu An. When the two wore each other down to mutual destruction — that would be when his master would reap all the gains as the fisherman!
“The official’s scheme is brilliant — Yanhuai will follow entirely as directed.”
“There is one more thing—” Fu Xuanmiao said.
“This subordinate awaits the official’s orders.”
“I want you to personally keep watch on someone.”
“Watch whom?”
“Far away at the horizon, yet near at hand before our eyes.”