Stars were sparse in the night sky. Mandu Dalu rode on horseback through the streets of Yunzhong in the small hours of the morning. Partway there, he crossed paths with soldiers patrolling the city; his two comrades behind him produced a token for inspection.
After riding hard for some time, he reached the long street on the western side of the city where his cousin and cousin’s wife lived. He pounded on the door, and his cousin rushed out to open it.
“Wait too long and I don’t know if he’ll still have eyes—”
That captive’s near-mad laughter echoed in his mind. He’d assumed the child at home had been kidnapped by the Black Banner — but that wasn’t it. His cousin dragged him, running toward the clinic at the other end of the street, recounting between breaths, in a stricken voice, what had happened that afternoon.
The afternoon before, a carriage from who-knows-where had come tearing down this long street at high speed. His eleven-year-old son’s legs had been crushed on the spot. The driver, seemingly gone mad, hadn’t stopped for anything, and an iron hook hanging from the back of the carriage had snagged the boy’s right hand, dragging him half the length of the street before the rope on the hook was cut and the driver fled.
The boy had been dragged into a bloody mess by the carriage, rushed hastily to the clinic — he was still alive, but no one knew if he’d survive.
The boy was, indeed, Mandu Dalu’s own.
Years earlier, returning to Yunzhong to become a constable with no backing and few paths to advancement, he’d had no choice but to work himself to the bone. The folk of the north were fierce by nature, and the outlaws active on the roads there were no strangers to skilled men out of the army, even remnants of the fallen Liao. Wanting to make something of himself, he’d quietly given the child to his cousin and cousin’s wife to raise. Since then, he hadn’t visited very often.
His standing had risen these past few years, and the risk of his position bringing harm down on his family had seemed to fade. But who could have predicted such a madman among the Black Banner?
By the time he reached the clinic, his cousin’s wife, who’d been keeping watch there, had already cried her eyes swollen and red. They’d raised the boy for years and had come to feel real affection for him. Seeing Mandu Dalu arrive, she clung to him, pouring out how vicious the culprit was, begging him to catch the man and make him suffer a thousand deaths. Mandu Dalu couldn’t find any words. Following the doctor into the clinic, he hesitated slightly as he neared the wooden door, seeming to falter for a moment before finally stepping inside.
The doctor explained the situation in his ear.
Mandu Dalu looked at the child on the bed, reeking of medicine, and for a moment found the doctor’s words grating. He reached out to push him aside, but missed. The others nearby looked at him, puzzled. Then, he drew his blade.
The eleven-year-old boy on the bed had lost both legs and one hand; his face, dragged half the length of the street along the ground, was already a mangled mess. The doctor couldn’t promise he’d survive the night, but even if he did, for the rest of his long life he would have only one hand and half a face — the kind of existence that made anyone who thought about it feel suffocated.
Mandu Dalu’s blade pointed toward the boy, but his feet, of their own accord, took a step back. His cousin’s wife shrieked and threw herself forward, wrenching the blade from his hand. Wailing filled the night air.
His expression shifted between ferocity and a dazed blankness, and in the end he couldn’t bring himself to bring the blade down. His cousin’s wife cried out, “Go and kill the murderer! Aren’t you the chief constable? Go catch that heaven-cursed murderer— that monster—”
Mandu Dalu was pushed, staggering, out of the room, the people around him still urging him through gritted teeth to catch the culprit. In his mind flashed that mad face — a face with such calm eyes.
“You’re the one who killed Lu Mingfang, aren’t you?”
“…As for what happened to Lu Mingfang, we’re even now.”
Last year, when they’d caught that Chinese Army member named Lu Mingfang, the man had refused to surrender to the death, and at the time they hadn’t realized who he was. In the fighting, and afterward out of anger, they’d nearly hacked him to pieces. Only later did they learn he had been the Chinese Army’s man in charge of the northern territories.
Now, that body hacked to pieces and the still-living child in that room seemed to overlap in his mind, faintly merging into one.
“Ahh—”
He roared into the night, swinging his blade down in a single strike, then sheathed it and stumbled out, reeling.
He mounted his horse and rode hard to the small prison near the north gate. He drew his blade, trying to force his way in, meaning to make that monster inside suffer the worst agony before dying. But the constables guarding the outside stopped him. Mandu Dalu’s eyes were bloodshot, his look terrifying; one or two men couldn’t hold him back, and more constables came pouring out from inside. Soon after, Gao Puhu arrived as well, and seeing the state Mandu Dalu was in, guessed roughly what had happened.
A group of men swarmed him, restraining him…
Through the long night, the small prison outside never settled back into quiet. Mandu Dalu’s subordinates came and went from the office, at times bickering and clashing, while Gao Puhu also called in more men to guard the safety of the prison.
At this point, a terrible storm was already sweeping through the upper echelons of power in Yunzhong Prefecture, though those below still had no idea. Gao Puhu knew Gushen was very likely finished, and Mandu Dalu was in the same position. In the past, when he’d clashed hard with Mandu Dalu, that had been for the sake of standing his ground in officialdom where no concession could be made — but now that his own side’s goal had been achieved, seeing Mandu Dalu in this maddened state, he had no wish to turn this into an endless private feud. He merely had someone quietly find out exactly what had happened to the man’s son.
The small hours of April sixteenth passed, and the east brightened with dawn, followed by another gentle, sunny day. The streets seemed calm and peaceful as ever, with passersby going about their lives as usual. But by now, strange undercurrents and rumors had begun seeping into the middle ranks.
On the seventeenth of April, whispers about “Han Furen” selling out the Western Route Army’s intelligence began to surface, faint but unmistakable. Within the Yunzhong prefectural office, almost everyone had by now heard of the clash between Mandu Dalu and Gao Puhu that seemed to have gone badly for the former. Quite a few even knew that Mandu Dalu’s own son had been left in a state worse than death — and combined with the rumors about “Han Furen,” something in the air had begun to feel distinctly unusual among these sharp-nosed constables.
That afternoon, Gao Puhu, along with several subordinates and a few other constables who’d come to pry for information, sat eating at a food stall across from the small north-gate prison, and let a few things slip.
“…Damn it, that man’s a lunatic, I only found out the night before last… damn it, I got played. This lunatic, before coming here to die, set up the whole thing — went after Mandu Dalu’s own flesh and blood. The kid’s eleven now, only got one hand that still works — hell, if it were me, I’d have gone mad too…”
He recalled how, at first, everything had seemed perfectly normal — after two rounds of punishment, the man had broken down in tears and confessed, spilling out a mountain of evidence. Even before the six Jurchen princes, he’d carried himself like an ordinary, well-behaved “prisoner.” It was only after Mandu Dalu had burst in that Gao Puhu realized this prisoner, named Tang Minjie, was completely, utterly deranged.
“Damn it… a lunatic… probably someone with real standing in the Chinese Army… sent here to hand the east a knife… doesn’t care if he lives or dies at all…”
He spoke through gritted teeth, drinking as he went.
A fellow constable beside him said, “If that’s the case, a man like that must know plenty of secrets — worth digging more out of him.”
“You think I didn’t try?” Gao Puhu shot him a glare. “That night I dragged him out and worked him over for another hour. His eyes… that’s a madman’s eyes, a damned lunatic — couldn’t pry another useful thing out of him. That earlier confession under torture, that was all an act.”
“Only an hour — maybe that’s not enough…”
“What he spilled already brought down Gushen — now the Eastern Court’s taking over, and I’m getting promoted. Mandu Dalu’s son ended up like that — you want your kid to end up like that too? This man’s still got to go before the tribunal — want to go in and work him over yourself, show everyone your skills?” Gao Puhu took a drink. “Just wait… big things are coming.”
Big things were, indeed, already happening.
That night, tense signal-arrow whistles rang out from the direction of Yunzhong’s city walls, followed by the clanging gongs of a city lockdown. Troops stationed to the east of Yunzhong Prefecture had begun moving this way.
At Zonghan’s mansion, a tense standoff was underway — Wanyan Chang and several other powerful Jurchen princes were present. Zongbi, brandishing the confessions and evidence in hand, roared at the top of his lungs.
“…Come on then, Nianhan! Right here in Yunzhong! Right here! Shut the gates! Kill every one of us, one by one! Do that, and you can protect Xiyin! Otherwise — this is out now! The evidence is ironclad — there’s no way you can talk your way out of this, wherever you go—”
“Such righteous pretense! Chasing a good name at everyone’s expense! In Shangjing, all you people ever talked about was doing right by the Jurchen! I gave you ground there! Here in Yunzhong, I’ll play by your own rules! Now it’s your own backside that’s dirty! Come on! Nianhan, you’ve ruled like a tyrant your whole life, the boss of the Western Court! I’ve come to your Yunzhong, I haven’t brought troops into the city, I’ve walked into your own mansion, I don’t even have a proper coat on today — if you’ve got the nerve to shield Xiyin, then kill me right now—”
Zongbi shouted like this at length in front of Zonghan, the veins on Zonghan’s forehead bulging, until he suddenly lunged forward, seizing the front of Zongbi’s robes with both hands and hoisting him into the air. Wanyan Chang and the others rushed over as well, and for a moment the hall dissolved into chaos.
But in the end, Zonghan never actually struck Zongbi.
Behind these closed doors, he could kill anyone he pleased in Yunzhong Prefecture. But from that moment on, Jin itself would be finished…
“…A great river, wide with rolling waves, the wind carries the fragrance of rice blossoms on both banks…”
In the grim cell, starlight seeped through the small window, and now and then, in the night, a strangely lilting song would rise.
Since the joint interrogation before the six Jurchen princes, the situation in Yunzhong Prefecture had continued to brew and ferment for several more days. During this time, the four prisoners went through two more hearings, one of which even saw Nianhan himself in attendance.
The city had gone through one lockdown, only to have it lifted the next day. The madman in the innermost cell would sometimes ask “Little Gao” about happenings outside, and Gao Puhu, having grown used to this kind of presumption, would offhandedly tell him a few things. Of course, what he had access to wasn’t of very high rank — much of what he saw was already the scraps and leftovers filtering down from the wrangling at the top.
Although the news of “Han Furen” leaking intelligence and causing the failure of the southern campaign had already spread among the lower ranks, no formal arrest or imprisonment of Wanyan Xiyin or Chen Wenjun had come in these days. Gao Puhu grew uneasy at times, but the madman reassured him: “Don’t worry, Little Gao, you’re definitely getting promoted. You should be thanking me.”
Gao Puhu would say in return, “Well then, thanks.”
He would hum that tune at night, his eyes always fixed on the starlight through the window, no one quite sure what he was thinking. The other three prisoners in the cell, though dragged in because of him, generally didn’t dare provoke him — no one wants to casually provoke a man with nothing left to lose and no mind left either.
When he hummed that song, there was something almost relaxed about him, his frail body leaning against the wall. Despite all manner of wounds still on him, amid that pain he seemed, somehow, to have set down some mountain-heavy burden, as if waiting for something to arrive. Of course, since he was mad, perhaps that impression was nothing more than an illusion.
None of the four prisoners had been moved, since the most critical formalities had already been completed. Several of the Jurchen princes with real power had already made up their minds — even if every witness were to die now, Xiyin, in practice, could no longer escape the accusation. Of course, among the prisoners, the one nicknamed Mountain Dog remained constantly on edge over this, afraid that some night the prison might simply be set on fire, burning them all alive.
Because of this, he couldn’t sleep at night.
Late that night, the moment those figures walked into the cell block, he startled awake at once — several of them had driven back the jailers. The one leading them was a woman with hair gone half white; she took up the keys and opened the innermost cell door, walking in. The madman in the cell, who had been humming, stopped. He looked up at the person entering, then braced himself against the wall and, with difficulty, stood up.
In all his time in that cell, Mountain Dog had always found the madman irritating and languid — no matter who came by, he’d simply lie or sit there on the straw pile, indifferent to whoever it was unless they came to drag him up. But this time alone, he stood up on his own.
Of course, it wasn’t long before Mountain Dog learned who the visitor was.
The two stood facing each other in the cell for a moment. It was the madman whose lips moved first, and he spoke of his own accord: “Not easy, was it…”
The woman with half-white hair, dressed in finery, listened to those words and then struck him hard across the face. The sound rang through the cell, but no one around them spoke. The madman’s head turned slightly with the blow, then turned back — and the woman struck him again, just as hard.
His head swayed again. The man named Tang Minjie lowered his head slightly, then bent one leg, then the other, and slowly, solemnly, knelt before the woman.
The third slap followed, then the fourth, the fifth… Tang Minjie knelt there, straight-backed, letting her strike him again and again. After a while, the woman spoke, her voice a little hoarse. “Have I ever… done anything to harm you?”
“…No,” Tang Minjie said. “…You’ve shown me great kindness.”
“Have I ever done anything to harm the Han people of this world?”
“…You have shown… great kindness and virtue to the Han people of this world.”
“Have I ever done anything to wrong your Chinese Army!?”
“…No. You are a hero — a hero to the Han people, and a hero to the Chinese Army as well. My… Master Ning once specifically instructed that, in all actions, protecting you was to be the first priority.”
Chen Wenjun struck him again, heavy, and blood foamed at Tang Minjie’s mouth.
“Then why did you still do this!”
“Only by removing Xiyin could we prevent the eastern and western courts from joining forces from now on…”
Another slap fell.
“So I just deserved this?”
“…So that Jin wouldn’t truly become what they say — treating resistance against the Chinese Army as its foremost priority…”
Another slap.
“How many people have I saved over these years? Don’t I deserve a peaceful end?”
“…Only this way can we prevent the Jurchens, when the Chinese Army eventually marches north, from mounting a truly powerful resistance…”
Another heavy slap.
“The way you Chinese Army people do things — how will you ever answer to the world for this! You bastard—”
“…We can end this war a few years sooner, we can save tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives — I had no other way…”
“I don’t ask for a peaceful end for myself, but my family, my children — they are still my children after all…”
“…What I have done is an unforgivable crime…”
Slap after slap fell, Chen Wenjun speaking through them, and Tang Minjie murmuring words of his own in return. And at the mention of children, Chen Wenjun suddenly reached back, drew the hairpin from her head, and swung its sharp point down toward him. A look of release flashed in Tang Minjie’s eyes, and he leaned into it.
In the moment he’d resolved to see this through, every burden on him had already fallen away — all that remained now was this final, unpayable debt.
“Ahh—”
A grief-stricken cry tore from Chen Wenjun’s throat, but the hairpin stopped short in midair.
Tang Minjie waited a moment, then raised his two hands, fingers a mangled bloody mess, and gently took hold of hers.
“It’s already been laid out before them. Xiyin can’t escape this now. You can kill me.”
He spoke softly, drawing the hairpin toward his own throat.
“…I know full well the crime I’ve committed is unforgivable, and I could never atone for it in this lifetime. We’re here in the north — if there’s anyone whose hand I’d wish to die by, it would only be you, Lady Chen. You are a true hero — you’ve saved countless lives. If there had been any other way, even if it meant dying a thousand times over, I would never have wished to harm you…”
In the cell, Chen Wenjun’s face carried anger, desolation, and tears — she who had, in this northern land of wind and snow, sheltered countless lives over the years, now found that this same cruel storm was, at last, coming to claim her own. Tang Minjie, on the other side, was covered in wounds, his ten fingers a bloody ruin, his hair in disarray, both cheeks swollen from the beating, his mouth full of blood, several front teeth already lost to the torture.
In all their past dealings, Chen Wenjun had seen every manner of exaggerated expression from him, but never once his true tears — yet in this moment, amid his calm and remorseful words, she could see tears welling continuously in his eyes. He made no sound of weeping, but the tears kept falling.
He leaned his neck toward the hairpin.
Chen Wenjun cried out, wrenching herself free of him, then kicked him hard, sending him sprawling to the ground.
The cell fell silent for a moment before Tang Minjie slowly climbed back up.
“Kill me. I know it won’t atone for anything. Please, kill me.”
Then came kneeling, and heavy bows to the ground. Chen Wenjun stared, stunned, at all of this; after a moment, she stepped back. Tang Minjie lifted his head, eyes full of tears, and seeing her retreat, seemed almost afraid, almost disappointed — he steadied himself, then bowed again.
Thud—
His forehead struck the ground. From his throat came something like a choked sob.
Chen Wenjun backed out of the cell. In her long life she had witnessed countless storms, met countless people — but never anything like this. From the cell behind her came another thud. She dropped the key and strode quickly toward the way out.
Thud—
Thud—
Thud—
That was the sound of a forehead striking the ground, again and again. But Chen Wenjun and the others finally left the cell block. A jailer picked up the key, and someone went to fetch a doctor. By the time the doctor arrived, Tang Minjie was curled on the ground, his forehead already a mass of blood…
The bleeding was stopped, the wound bandaged… For a while, the cell block fell silent, the humming gone. Tang Minjie drifted in and out of consciousness, at times seeing visions of the south. He could see his sister, long since dead, from when she’d been very small, softly humming some childish tune — what that tune had been, he’d since forgotten.
Later, he had studied under Master Ning at Xiaocang River, and Master Ning had taught them a song whose melody always reminded him of his sister’s humming.
“…This is our great motherland, the land that raised and nourished me, upon this warm earth…”
Upon that warm earth were his sister, his family — yet he could never return there again.
Or perhaps, they were about to meet again.