“…Afterward, Master Gong explained for the longest time before Master Ji finally believed we weren’t father and son. Brother, don’t you think that’s funny?”
Being mistaken for someone’s father was an experience Guan Si’er had never had before, and for three days straight, at every meal, he brought it up again, beaming with excitement.
Though he rambled on, the old guards never found their little brother tiresome—every time, they listened with smiles.
Every time, someone would say, “Is that so? That is quite funny. Honestly, it does seem like you and Master Gong share some kind of fated bond.”
Hearing his brother say this, Guan Si’er nodded eagerly, delighted. “Master Gong met me the very first day he arrived in Yandu—doesn’t that count as fate?”
Having said this, he wolfed down the rest of his meal, wiped his mouth, and stood to leave.
Chen Dasheng called after him with a smile, “Off to the Imperial Academy again?”
Guan Si’er’s voice grew fainter as he went. “Yes, Big Brother, tonight I’m staying over at Master Gong’s place. He’s going to tell me about things from his mountain sect today, it’s really interesting…”
Yu Qingguan set down the cloth in his hand, took the tea offered by an attendant, rinsed his mouth, spat out the water, and said, “Now that he’s got a father, even his brothers don’t matter anymore, is that it?”
Tong Jintai also set down his chopsticks to tease him. “Second Brother, that tone of yours—so sour! What’s wrong with Little Seven having a father who dotes on him? Look at your own Shoutian—even though he’s joined the Inner Guard, whenever he’s off duty, doesn’t he run straight back to our Chief Guard estate looking for his father? Last I heard, your boy was bragging outside that with one strike he could cut through fifty layers of cowhide!”
Hearing that his son idolized him, Yu Qingguan was naturally pleased, though he still felt he ought to show some modesty. He cleared his throat a few times and said, “At most twenty layers. Cough, that little brat—I only said it once in front of him, and he remembered it forever.”
The brothers teased Yu Qingguan from all sides, but Chen Dasheng looked troubled. “I’m only worried that when the second group of scouts returns, things might not turn out the way we’re hoping.”
The old guards fell silent at once. After a long pause, Ma Ergu forced a smile. “Ah, so what if they don’t. He doesn’t need to know anyway.”
Tong Jintai laughed with equal reluctance. “Right, right. He doesn’t need to know anyway.”
Ever since Little Seven had grown so infatuated with the Imperial Academy, he’d shown a happiness he’d never had before, and no one wanted to be the one to disappoint him, so together they had all agreed to keep the matter hidden.
Someone—no one could say who—finally said, “Worst comes to worst, he can just take Master Gong as a godfather.”
“That… could work.”
One autumn rain, one layer of added chill. Madam Zhong and Tan Shiyuan were laid to rest—not returned to Shaoshang, but buried in Yandu, borrowing on Tan Shize’s standing.
On the morning of the funeral procession, Chen Dasheng rose early and changed into black robes. From a hidden compartment in his study, he took out a box, and from it drew a scroll—a roster made of sheepskin.
He drew a blade and cut his finger, then carefully drew a line through Tan Shiyuan’s name. Afterward he sat quietly in his chair, gazing at the roster, full from end to end with names.
“Chief, it’s time.”
Chen Dasheng answered and rose, rolling up the sheepskin scroll as he sighed softly, “At last… the first one is settled.”
Along Yandu’s ancient main street, the hastily gathered Tan clan descendants walked in mourning white. The women, rushed in from various branches of the family, sat in the funeral carriages with grim faces—they had no wish to weep and could summon no tears, so they simply pressed handkerchiefs to their faces, moving in short, hurried steps like people harboring a guilty conscience.
Two unadorned coffins were slowly lifted. A Daoist priest scattered a handful of paper money into the air, and the hired mourners, supporting the coffins, wailed, “Oh, such bitterness! We cannot bear to part… beloved kin…”
Wu Xiu looked down at his nephew and smiled. “Little brat, are you getting in the carriage or not?”
But little Tan Xingye lifted his face and looked at his uncle with stubborn defiance. “I want my father!”
Wu Xiu grabbed him by the collar. “Your father doesn’t think much of you.”
He stuffed his nephew into his sister’s carriage.
Wu Ling took her son in, comfortingly stroking his head, then lifted her face to look toward the far end of the procession, where a stretch of white and withered grass spread out in mournful color. But the grandson carrying the spirit tablet for his grandfather was not the legitimate heir—it was the eldest grandson, Tan Xingyuan.
The boy, only seven or eight, not yet fully understanding, knew only that his father had taken his older brother instead and had grown used to this kind of disappointment; his face showed nothing but dejection.
Fearing her son’s disappointment, Wu Ling turned pleadingly to her brother. “A’Xiu.”
Wu Xiu had no wish to get involved in this, but he loved his sister too much to refuse. He turned back, reluctantly, and held out both hands to his nephew. “Come, I’ll take you on the horse.”
But his little nephew, like everyone else, looked down on his uncle, and said stubbornly, “I won’t sit with you. Your horse isn’t even as tall as my father’s. My father’s horse is so tall it could fly to heaven…”
Wu Xiu sneered coldly at the boy, and finally pulled down the carriage curtain, muttering under his breath, “Fine bloodline—a whole family of ungrateful wolves…”
With that, he mounted the prized steed he’d bought at great expense from the Six Steeds Horse Farm, and as he swung himself up, more sobbing rose from within the carriage.
A great clan’s funeral procession should have had considerable pomp, but Wu Ling had none of that—only her brother, slowly guarding the lone carriage as it moved forward…
Occasionally Wu Xiu glanced toward the carriage window, and that little brat Tan Xingyuan would duck back inside at once, only to poke his head out again moments later to look at his uncle—over and over, again and again.
Madam Zhong and Tan Shiyuan had died in such a shocking, gruesome manner that the entire procession moved in unusual silence. Not even families on the best terms with the Founding Marquis’s household dared set up mourning tents along the roadside.
And so this funeral procession became the most desolate ever held for a noble house since the founding of Daliang.
As the procession passed the Six Markets crossing, Zheng Aman stood on the second floor of a teahouse, pushing the window open a crack, and sighed, “A hero of his generation, in the end—who would have thought it would come to this. Do you remember the first time we saw this man before the throne?”
Chang Lianfang, hearing this, twitched the corner of his mouth, set down his wine jug, and sighed, “Let it pass. Why bring him up?”
Li Jingui nodded in agreement, picked up his chopsticks, and heaped Chang Lianfang’s bowl full of food. “Exactly—no need to mention the Tan family on a fine day like this. What upsets me most is that our little Hua fought on the frontier for nearly three years, and just when he finally returned victorious, this had to happen. Even death doesn’t pick its timing… let’s not speak of it. Eat up, you must have suffered these years out there.”
“Little Hua?” Chang Lianfang scoffed, shaking his head helplessly. “It’s been so long since I heard that name, I’d nearly forgotten it myself.”
At the south city gate tower, His Majesty stood with his hands behind his back, gazing into the distance, She Qingling at his side dressed in plain white. Only once the procession had vanished from sight did She Qingling sigh. “Listen to that grief among the living—fighting and scheming, striving and struggling, and in the end, a lifetime of sin so heavy it may not be washed away even through reincarnation. And for what?”
His Majesty’s expression was grave. In building this empire, the Tan family had truly rendered service, and however unworthy Tan Shiyuan may have become, His Majesty still held quite a few fond memories of him in his mind. But however good those memories, they could not compare to the true brotherhood he’d once shared with Tan Shize.
At this, His Majesty suddenly laughed and turned to She Qingling. “Today, A’Ze would be glad.”
She Qingling nodded, smiling as well. “Then let me drink with you today. And call Little Six over too—it’s no fun without him.”
Deep within the palace, music began to play. As they descended the tower and walked slowly across the palace square, they spotted a hurried figure in the distance, white-haired, approaching.
Chang Mianshen dropped heavily to his knees, tears streaming down his face, and choked out, half-laughing, half-crying, “Your Majesty, I—I’ve returned.”
His Majesty was startled, and after a moment scolded him with a touch of anger. “Didn’t I tell you to rest your troops and choose an auspicious day to return?”
But Chang Mianshen, looking as aggrieved as a child, protested, “I know, Your Majesty, but… I missed you. It’s been three years since I last saw you.”
She Qingling watched their warm exchange between ruler and subject with a smile, as a line of autumn geese flew overhead—the head of the flock over the palace, the tail still trailing over the procession of mourning white leaving the city.
Chen Dasheng led the men of the Chief Guard camp on a swift ride to the highest stone platform of Baiquan Mountain. There stood a small temple, and beside it, a joint burial mound, its peak rising high, its gravestone enormous and utterly blank.
There, buried, were a few strands of hair—never to return home, never to return home, and who could say anymore whose dream-lover belonged to whom.
Melons, fruits, pears, peaches, fattened chickens and ducks, glistening pork hocks, a steamed sheep’s head—all stared, unclosing, at the man kneeling before them.
Chen Dasheng broke open a jar of aged wine and turned it over, pouring out the fine liquor with lavish abandon.
He laughed, utterly delighted, and finally shook the jar, catching the last few drops on his tongue rather than waste them, before saying to the lonely grave, “Brothers, the seven of us didn’t live for nothing. Today is a good day—did you see? Whoever it was, whoever committed the sin, whoever owed us a debt, sooner or later retribution comes. You mustn’t leave yet—wait at the Bridge of Forgetting, and watch as we send them to you, one by one.”
Yu Qingguan broke open a wine urn, poured one out, opened a new one for himself, and after several gulps wiped his mouth in satisfaction. “Brothers, you’re in luck today—this is twenty-year-old wine from Sanjia Ditch, the taste is superb!” Turning, he called for his sons. “You mutts, come here and kowtow properly to your uncles.”
Yu Shoutian and Yu Youtian came over, looking bewildered, and were pressed down by their father to kowtow loudly. In their ears, they heard their father say, “Remember this well, you mutts—once I’m dead, even if my grave is leveled to the ground, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been an official, I’ve enjoyed good fortune, that’s enough! And I got to see you grow up too, all because your uncles put their own flesh and blood between your father and death—that’s why you have the good life you have now. From now on, tell your children and your children’s children: whoever dares harm your father’s line had better not dare touch this place either. Remember that… you mutts.”
Yu Shoutian kowtowed earnestly. “I’ll remember, Father. From now on, our descendants will honor our uncles for generations.”
Tong Jintai carefully drew a small wine gourd from inside his robe and poured it all out on the ground without leaving a single drop, tears falling even as he smiled, and asked toward the grave, “Chief, good stuff, right? Bet you’ve never had this before. This is the good stuff, my wife stole it from her father. Brother, your little brother’s done well for himself—got a fat baby girl, so fair-skinned, not like me, more like your sister-in-law. First child too—Granny says a girl first means good fortune follows.
But sometimes I dream of you all, and I wake up and can’t bring myself to enjoy any of it. Sometimes I can’t even eat, can’t even drink—every extra drop of oil my little brother gets, I feel like I owe it to you all. See that, brother? Our enemy’s funeral is happening today, so… aren’t you happy? Anyway, I sure am.”
Ma Ergu tilted his head back and drained an entire jar of wine in one go, gasping when he finished, laughing and crying at once before sitting cross-legged, patting his thigh. “Good! So good… what a relief. Brother, wait just a few more days—we’ll send them over to you one by one, and once that immoral bunch is judged and sentenced by King Yama, then, brothers, you’ll get to watch them cut to a thousand pieces, and that’ll really satisfy.”
Hu Yougui was a handsome man, but underneath, quite practical. Instead of pouring wine, he brought over a large brazier and burned half a cartload of gold and silver paper ingots he’d brought, chatting with the older brothers as he burned. “Today… I won’t let you outdo me. In the past, little brother could never out-drink you all, so I had to scheme against you instead. Heh, thanks to you brothers being so generous and never holding it against me—I tricked you out of your shoes, out of your food and drink, and today I’m paying it all back double. No holding back, there’s plenty—this year there’s plenty, next year there’ll be plenty, every day there’ll be plenty.”
Near the end of the burning, he pulled out a carefully wrapped bundle and burned it with great care, saying, “Brother, did you see your nephew Yangdan? This is for him—his godmother folded these clothes, shoes, and some pocket money for him. Please, look after him a little extra, won’t you? He’s still so young.”
While the brothers paid their respects, Cui Erdian and Guan Si’er took tools and filled in the earth and pulled weeds around the graves. Finally, they borrowed water from the temple and, kneeling with white cloth, carefully and thoroughly tidied up every grave until it was spotless.
Erdian was a man of few words, but today he rambled on as he worked. “Yesterday I made plans with Quanzi Ge, but he said since he didn’t die alongside you all, he didn’t dare come pay his respects before you. What nonsense is that—you brothers are generous, surely you wouldn’t blame him. Quanzi Ge married a wealthy widow, they had a fat baby girl, he’s doing well for himself now, just doesn’t dare think of you, doesn’t dare mention you. I told him, what’s there to worry about…”
Guan Si’er scrubbed vigorously and nodded. “Right, right. Quanzi Ge always overthinks things… me, I don’t think about anything at all.”
At the Tan family burial ground in Sanjia Ditch, Tan Shize’s tomb was built to a lavish standard befitting a superior official of the highest rank, its funerary goods only one grade below that of a commandery prince.
He lay within four layers of coffin, wrapped in a burial suit of silver thread and jade, a scroll bearing the imperial decree conferring his dukedom resting upon his chest. Around his body lay four seals of jade, gold, silver, and bronze, and beside his sleeping pillow, a lock of pitch-black hair. Five hundred thousand strings of copper coin filled his treasury… Ritual bronzes and precious vessels crowded the burial chamber, yet at the very center of the tomb passage, before the coffin, lay only a worn suit of armor and a single long blade.
A mile above ground, a hastily built burial mound stood shabby and forlorn—Madam Zhong, having died in disgrace, had no proper tomb and was not permitted a headstone, but simply lay beside her beloved son.
Tan Weixin tried to enter the tomb passage, but his second brother grabbed him roughly, glaring sideways. “This is my father, my grandmother, your father’s grave…”
In full view of everyone, a great slap landed. Tan Weitong looked coldly at his second brother, then turned and walked to his third brother, crouching slowly before him. “Brother, you’re injured. I’ll carry you.”
Tan Weizheng slowly climbed onto his brother’s back, and as the tomb passage grew darker and colder, he finally choked out, “Brother~!”
“Mm?”
“I did my best.”
“I know.”
“But why did Father still have to die?”
“Because we weren’t capable enough.”
“I want to be capable.”
“You will be. You have me.”
The three children, now fatherless, slowly knelt before the coffins, taking one last look at the father who had loved them most, and at their grandmother.
Tan Weitong lit incense, and after leading his brothers in kowtowing, spoke to the coffins: “Son knows, Father, you spent your whole life struggling—struggling against Second Uncle, struggling against His Majesty, struggling against everyone in this world. They all said you weren’t good enough, that you couldn’t compare to Second Uncle. But son never thought that mattered so much. You were the best father in the world, the best grandmother. Son is unworthy—in the end, I couldn’t protect you…”
He reached out and pulled his two younger brothers close, saying to the humble single-layer coffin, “Grandson swears before you today—this family fortune you fought to build for us, this dignity, son will fight with everything he has to protect it! Father, Grandmother! Rest easy. From now on, they’ll have me, and it won’t go badly for them.”
Tan Weizheng’s face was swollen and red as he kowtowed numbly.
Tan Weixin, thin as a rail, coughed and slowly kowtowed as well, his expression full of bitter hatred. He gritted his teeth and said, “Father, Grandmother, endure a few more years. One day, son will dig out the one buried between you, and put you both in that place instead…”
Tan Weitong looked at his younger brother and said, “Good, show some promise. If you make something of yourself, earn our father another burial plot.”
Tan Shize’s tomb, with a jade belt at its waist and mountains at its back on three sides, was a superior auspicious site.
Above ground, Tan Shouyi’s clan cousin Tan Shoulin looked left and right, gauged the time, and nodded to the officiant.
The officiant raised a long banner, waving it in all directions, calling out the names of Madam Zhong and Tan Shiyuan: “Come home… come home… come home…”
Tan Shoulin stepped back and sneered to his cousin, “Come home, my foot. This isn’t even home. Now we’re stuck here for the mourning period, can’t even get a decent meal.”
His cousin patted his shoulder. “Quiet. Haven’t you eaten enough already?”
A mile away, before Tan Shize’s grave, a figure in a black cloak led a black horse, slowly approaching the tomb.
Qing Buyi slowly removed her hood and sat before the headstone, stroking it back and forth with great tenderness, pressing her face against it for a while before speaking. “Fool, I’ve avenged you. Neither of them will ever dare bully you again… Fool, are you happy? I told you, wouldn’t it have been better to come with me…”
Qing Buyi’s vigil lasted from daylight until the Big Dipper rose. She burned half a street’s worth of gathered offerings, and finally mounted her horse, glancing back once at the headstone before riding around Yandu, heading toward Yuegong Mountain.
Qin She had been locked in battle with Yuegong Mountain for a long time; she could not let her aging father hold the line alone. But as she rode her horse to a memorial pavilion along the official road, she saw, from a distance, dozens of torches lighting up a long stretch of the road.
Someone was blocking her path. Qing Buyi cracked her whip and spurred her horse forward, charging toward the obstruction. Just as she was about to break through, a wave of murderous intent suddenly surged from directly ahead—she who had roamed the martial world with few equals, who had fought countless battles, had never before felt such a razor-sharp edge.
Qing Buyi was forced to leap from her horse, and in her ears she heard a sound like an overripe autumn melon splitting naturally apart.
Crack…
By the time she landed, in the bright glow of dozens of torches, she saw with shock that her horse had been split cleanly in two, blood spraying as it collapsed more than twenty paces away.
The man in the middle of the road had already sheathed his blade. He wore red robes embroidered with a golden bull-fighting guard pattern, not yet thirty, his eyes bright, his cheeks faintly flushed from drink. Qing Buyi couldn’t even see where his blade had gone—but the manner of this attack felt strangely familiar.
Furious, she glared at Chen Dasheng and demanded, “Do you know who I am?”
Chen Dasheng smiled lightly. “Qing Buyi.”
Qing Buyi lifted her chin. “You ungrateful cur—how dare you use the very technique he taught you to attack me?”
Chen Dasheng smiled on. “The Reverend has broken the law of the land.”
Qing Buyi sneered. “So what?”
Chen Dasheng said, “Turn back before it’s too late.”
Qing Buyi grew angry. “Don’t you know that going back means certain death for me? Today it’s a fight to the death—bring whatever moves you have, I, Qin She, have never feared a fight!”
Chen Dasheng only shook his head with a sigh. “The Reverend clearly hasn’t read many law books. Not reading always costs you in the end.”
Qing Buyi was so infuriated she nearly toppled backward, her bald head gleaming under the moonlight. She drew her sword and cursed, “You mock me!”
Chen Dasheng nodded in agreement. “That’s right.”
Qing Buyi’s expression turned cold and grave, and just as she was about to strike, Chen Dasheng cupped his hands respectfully and bowed to her. “Reverend, our great Daliang has only just been founded, and its people have only just found peace. You have committed crimes in Yandu many times over. If you would spare Qin She’s three thousand disciples from being implicated, no longer able to walk freely under the open sky, it would be best to return with me and confess your crimes.”
Qing Buyi drew a breath to control her anger. “Go back, only to be delivered to the execution ground, beheaded in front of a jeering crowd? Humiliated like that?”
Chen Dasheng sighed again. “Which is exactly why one must read…” Seeing that Qing Buyi was about to fly into a rage, and having had a bit to drink himself, he wished to bring this to a swift end, and said:
“Reverend, you’re being rather muddleheaded. Your crimes in Yandu amount to no more than violating curfew and severely injuring several people outside of sanctioned combat. Tan Shiyuan had already left the family to become a monk and been expelled from the clan—he held no title, was no court official, merely an ordinary commoner. As for his death, it wasn’t even by your hand. Why would the Reverend insist on shouldering an arrest warrant that isn’t truly hers to bear, further implicating Qin She, already weakened by the conflict at Yuegong Mountain?”
Qing Buyi looked stunned for a moment, thinking it over—it did seem to make sense.
Confused, she said, “I… this poor nun… I believe I once attempted to assassinate Yang Zao…”
Chen Dasheng sighed, sounding weary. “At that time, the Qing Buyi in question had been manipulated by others and was not in her right mind. My lord is generous—had he wished to hold it against you, he would have done so long ago. Which is exactly why I say, one must read. I recall that when the Reverend once supported her beloved, Qin She also contributed greatly, and even received a title in reward. As for the crimes the Reverend has committed now, at most they could be offset against that title—surely your Qin She isn’t so short on a bit of silver as that?”
Qing Buyi, having come from the martial world, had no idea the law could be interpreted this way.
She licked her lips, thinking of her white-haired old father, and of her yet-unmarried junior disciples, and finally said, “…Don’t tell me the kill order Yang Zao issued against me was false?”
Chen Dasheng laughed lightly. “The Reverend really shouldn’t address my lord by his given name so casually—that’s something you’ll need to correct going forward. My lord’s word is golden; if he said to kill you, then kill you he shall—that part wasn’t false. It’s only that those fools at Jiu Si Tang failed to find you, and what business is that of mine? Times have changed. Tan Shiyuan is dead—what point would there be in killing the Reverend now? At present, my lord wants dignity preserved, Daliang’s laws want dignity preserved, and the court wants dignity preserved even more. If the Reverend returns with me and follows my arrangements, I can’t promise everything, but I can guarantee your safety.”
At most, exile three thousand li away.
The sword slowly lowered. Qing Buyi thought back and forth, and finally asked Chen Dasheng, “We’ve never met before…” Her tone suddenly turned uncertain, and she stepped closer, studying his face carefully before continuing, “Yet somehow it feels like… I’ve seen you somewhere?”
Chen Dasheng denied it without hesitation. “The Reverend must be mistaken. We’ve never met!”
Qing Buyi made a small sound of doubt. “Hm. Still, I don’t quite trust you.”
Chen Dasheng, having expected this, smiled lightly. “Does the Reverend recall the palace guard prison?”