“I seek to discover truth in the minutest details. I seek to see light in the darkness. When I plunge into the ocean, I become a drop of water. When I enter the desert, I become a grain of sand.”
“I am everywhere, so the world holds no secrets from me. I am omnipotent, so I hear the voice of the wind, witness the desert’s tyranny, understand the grass’s murmuring, and moreover, in the deepest hell, I touch the brightest rope—dedicated to Qu Zhuo.”
Qu Zhuo’s drunkenness quickly dissipated. Wiping away his tears, his face, roughened somewhat by the desert’s wind and sand, rapidly regained its composure. The Great Tang’s rule over the Western Regions was incomplete and very weak.
Wherever the Great Tang’s iron cavalry went, ten thousand people would kneel in worship. But after the cavalry left, the Western Regions remained the domain of the barbarians. Countless conspiracies were brewing here. They wanted independence, they wanted to proclaim themselves kings, they even dreamed of breaking through Chang’an, and they tirelessly advanced toward this goal.
They looked down on the weak, believing that leaving was the most thorough betrayal of their ancestors. The Western Regions had been ruled by countless Central Plains dynasties, but those dynasties were merely great floods. After the floodwaters receded, what remained exposed on the ground were still stones. They regarded themselves as stones, lying dormant and patiently waiting for this incomparably fierce flood called the Great Tang to slowly seep into the sand and gravel. The Western Regions were their paradise—these people had always thought so.
Jian Niang tucked in the children’s blankets and, holding an oil lamp, followed Qu Zhuo to the warehouse. Two washed and skinned fat sheep hung in the warehouse—tomorrow’s ingredients. Pushing aside a cumbersome cabinet, Qu Zhuo took the oil lamp from Jian Niang’s hands and led the way into the black hole behind the cabinet.
The cave was very dry and very clean. Three camphor wood chests were arranged neatly here. Taking out a key and opening the first chest, Qu Zhuo carefully checked the condition of the papers inside. These were all records he had made with his own hands. Some were the most mysterious legends, some were songs heard from shepherds, and others were analyses of certain events. The main evidence Di Renjie relied on to determine that the Loulan people were nearby was Qu Zhuo’s description of the Loulan people.
“This is a cowardly and selfish people. They only know how to hide like marmots. They have no determination to fight to the death, nor any surging passion that could drive them to make a decision to campaign far from home. They build high walls to surround themselves, hoping to slowly resolve their crises through time.”
With this passage, Di Renjie began to systematically force the Loulan people to reveal themselves. Sure enough, after finding no results in Loulan City, while excavating the Sun Tombs, the simple-minded Loulan people finally appeared.
The bandits in the desert had horses, so they were also called horse bandits or sand thieves. They were the true masters of this land. Whenever a city-state began to prosper, they would come to plunder, but they would not destroy the city, nor would they kill too many of the residents. They clearly knew that without these sheep-like people, they too would starve to death.
This was the relationship between wolves and sheep, and also the most simple truth between heaven and earth. It was perfectly followed here, and whether sheep or wolves, both fully affirmed this relationship.
The cities of the Western Regions were fragile. Whenever a city developed to its extreme, all that remained was destruction. Trees were cut down completely, the land was cultivated until it could no longer grow grain, and the city’s lifespan came to an end.
The famous Tongwan City, under the ambitions of Helian Bobo, prospered for only thirty-two years before rapidly declining. Therefore, in the Western Regions, one rooster dies and another crows—this was commonplace.
The docile people of the Western Regions sent their wives to the horse bandits for a year, then took them back to continue their lives. This was considered a terrible humiliation in Han lands, but not here. They remained calm as if nothing had happened. Not only individuals did this—the nobles of cities who gave their cities to the horse bandits to collect taxes for a year also didn’t consider it a big deal.
Chaos, chaos, extreme chaos. No one gave them an orderly environment, and no one came forward to maintain order here. Only the war blade was the sole means of deciding all justice.
Qu Zhuo finished checking the three chests, carefully closed them again, locked them, and emerged from the cave holding the oil lamp. Together with Jian Niang, they pushed the cabinet back to its original place. Jian Niang very carefully swept away the traces produced by moving the cabinet. Only then did the couple return to the bedroom. The two children were still sleeping sweetly, unaware of what was actually happening in their home.
“Brother, when can we return to Chang’an? Mother’s grave should be repaired too. Nan’er has reached the age to learn reading. You always say your learning isn’t good, but in this broken city, is there anyone more learned than you?” Jian Niang helped Qu Zhuo remove his outer garment and asked with deep concern.
Qu Zhuo washed his hands and said with a smile while carefully looking at the two sleeping children: “Very soon. Marquis Yun’s army has already reached Beiting. When he arrives in Shanshan, that will be the day we leave with the army.”
“When the Ministry of Personnel evaluates merit, I should at least jump three ranks this time. Not yet thirty years old and already an official of the sixth rank lower grade—rarely seen in our dynasty! At that time, I’ll request to become a local official, at minimum an assistant administrator. Even if I can’t go to a locality, in the ministry I should at least be a sixth-rank bureau director. His Majesty never shortchanges meritorious officials. Then we’ll send Nan’er to Yushan Academy. After studying there for a few years, he’ll directly enter the college. The Qu family will no longer be slaves, and no one will speak of the Qu family’s shameful past. It’s just a pity Mother had a hard fate and won’t see it.”
As the couple were talking, suddenly the sound of urgent hoofbeats arose from the road outside the window. Qu Zhuo was startled with alarm. He blew out the candle in one breath and cocked his ear to listen to what was actually happening outside.
The hoofbeats grew increasingly dense. In a moment, shouts and cries of battle came from the direction of the city lord’s mansion. Peering out through the window lattice, he saw the city lord’s mansion burst into great flames. The battle was proceeding very intensely.
A stray arrow whistled through the wind and thudded into the window lattice. Qu Zhuo carefully pulled the arrow down and, by the firelight outside, examined the arrow in his hand. An eagle was carved on the arrow shaft. Seeing this eagle, Qu Zhuo hurriedly brought Jian Niang and the two children to the secret chamber. Once again pushing aside the cabinet, he had the mother and three children enter, then pushed the cabinet back himself and carefully eliminated the traces before returning to the main hall to wait for the Flying Eagle Tribe people to knock on his door.
As the firelight from the city lord’s mansion gradually died down, wailing cries arose from the households in Shanshan City. The Flying Eagle Tribe never passed up any opportunity for plunder. Men were weeping, women were trembling, and from some households came screams.
Qu Zhuo sighed, used the fire tube to blow the stove fire to life, took a sheep, placed it on the cutting board and rapidly dismembered it. When the water boiled, he dumped all the mutton into the large pot and began cooking the mutton soup over high heat.
He had just put in the seasonings and the wooden stick when his door began shaking with thunderous knocking. A gang of fierce barbarians used torches to light the lamps on the wall and sat down at the table, loudly shouting for Qu Zhuo to bring out the mutton soup.
“Young men of the Yuchi family, why so impatient? The mutton has already gone into the pot. No matter how anxious you are, you must wait for the meat to cook. When I was in Chang’an, I heard about a young man from the Yuchi family—very remarkable. He paints beautifully and has already become a beloved person the Great Tang Emperor cannot do without. Why don’t you all go to Chang’an to join him, instead of killing off the city lord of Shanshan City?”
These Flying Eagle Tribe people were actually all from Khotan. Yuchi was their national surname, and Qu Zhuo knew the great name of Yuchi Yiseng. The painting skills of the Greater and Lesser Yuchi had long been renowned in Chang’an.
When Yuchi Yiseng was mentioned, these people all fell silent for a moment. The most robust barbarian slapped the table and said: “He is him, and we are us. We are the eagles under the Tianshan Mountains. We won’t descend into the Tang people’s cities. Where’s your woman?”
Qu Zhuo lifted the lid of the large pot and stirred the mutton inside, saying: “I was going to ask you all that. She went to the city lord’s mansion in the evening. If you saw her, return her to me, and I’ll cook you an extra pot of mutton.”
Those barbarians immediately burst into loud laughter, pointing at the city lord’s mansion with its dying embers and saying to him: “The chieftain said the city lord of Shanshan City was a useless yak who only knew how to eat meat and sleep with women, so we set the city lord’s mansion on fire. Your woman was probably burned to ashes too, right? Hahaha! Cook the meat well. Three months from now, I’ll find you a pregnant one from that pile of women. You’ll get two at once! Hahaha!”
Qu Zhuo fished out a large piece of meat from the pot, placed it on a wooden platter and brought it over. Besides a handful of finely ground green salt, he added nothing else. These barbarians pulled out the hand forks from their waists and began dividing these meat chunks that still had traces of blood, dipping them in green salt and eating with great gusto, laughing all the while.
“I still have some wine here. Do you want it? But you’ll need to pay. If you come again in three months, can you bring me back some green salt? I don’t have much left.”
A bearded man eating with oil dripping from his mouth set down his piece of meat and said: “Hard to say. I heard the Great Tang’s army has come again. This time it’s a ruthless character. The Tuyuhun elders say this person is a demon, and moreover, the most vicious and most powerful demon. They want us to quickly plunder some grain and cattle and sheep, then rush to Almaty. Before this demon arrives, we must take the long road, so forget about the green salt.”
“I heard yesterday that the Tibetan men are planning to give that demon some trouble. They have many people—maybe they can kill that demon. You don’t need to leave. If you all leave, I won’t be able to do business.”
As soon as Qu Zhuo finished speaking, those bearded men all set down their meat chunks and burst into laughter. An older bearded man pointed at Qu Zhuo and laughed loudly: “The Tibetan people are all stupid oxen. The great elder only told them about the humiliation the Tibetan prime minister suffered in the Tang country, and they started howling about going to kill the demon. The great elder said not one of these Tibetan people will survive. That demon is the demon king. I heard he killed an entire country in the east until not a single person was left. I heard that country had more people than stars in the sky.”