Anger churned within his chest…

A droning hum rang in his ears…

His body trembled, and even the color of the sunlight falling across the courtyard seemed to turn gray…

Around him, whispers stirred, all manner of murmured discussion…

His mother stood not far off beneath the eaves, crying herself into a mess of tears. Several of his younger brothers and sisters fretted nearby as well. Ning Ke came over from the room carrying water, only to be scolded, and walked back off in tears…

Ning Ji knelt in the courtyard, his face bruised and swollen. Beside him knelt three other young men, similarly battered — one of them was Qin Shaoqian’s second son, Qin Weiwen… Ning Ji had by now stopped caring about any of them.

Anger churned within his chest…

In the second year of Huaxia, at the end of April, Ning Ji went through the most humiliating days of his more than ten years of life…

The afternoon sun beat down on the hillside, more than a dozen figures moving along the rugged mountain trail, a dog’s barking occasionally drifting through the air.

“This way.”

Ning Xi and Min Chuyi were both part of this group. They pressed forward, entering a deep forest, tracking a possible lead.

Even Ning Xi, ordinarily so mild-mannered, wore an unusually grim and serious expression in this moment. Min Chuyi’s face was likewise cold, keeping close watch on every suspicious sign around them as they moved.

As the sun gradually sank toward the west, someone up ahead spotted signs of something. Ning Xi, Chuyi, and the others hurried over — it was the edge of a cliff, where they found various scattered items: a small bundle, half-eaten dried rations, a woman’s handkerchief, and a small notebook with traces of blood on it…

“Where’s the person?”

Ning Xi picked up the notebook, looked it over for a moment, and asked.

“It seems… she fell over the edge.”

There were signs at the cliff’s edge of someone having lost their footing and slipped. With the sun sinking lower, the ravine below looked bottomless.

“Get a rope ready. I’ll go down,” Min Chuyi said to those around her.

Ning Xi grabbed her hand, pulling her back from the edge. “What are you going down there for — I’ll go!”

The search team’s captain looked rather torn, and in the end, they tied off a long rope and sent down the most skilled climber in the group, a lean, wiry man.

The setting sun burned red on the horizon. The group lit a fire on the cliff’s edge, and as the sky gradually darkened, the lean man finally made his way back up the rope.

“It’s too deep down there — impossible to search it all at once. I combed the cliff face carefully several times but found no body for the time being.”

“Could be she fell and was carried off by some wild animal. Did you see any blood?” Ning Xi asked.

“…None that I found. We may need to search again a few more times.”

“Rest for tonight. At dawn tomorrow, I’ll go down with you,” Min Chuyi said.

The bonfire blazed on the clifftop, lighting up everyone in the camp. After a while, Min Chuyi brought over dinner. Ning Xi was still looking at the bundle and scattered belongings on the ground. “Do you think she lost her footing and fell — or jumped on purpose?”

Min Chuyi frowned. “We need to see her alive, or find the body if she’s dead. We’ll say more once we know for certain… If that woman really is down there, Second Brother will never be able to clear his name for the rest of his life.”

That night, rain began to fall over Zhang Village.

Ning Ji, Qin Weiwen, and the others were still kneeling in the courtyard. Wenwen, Ning Ke, Ning He, and the other children stood beside them holding umbrellas, sheltering them from some of the rain.

Ning Yi had already left the house. In his nearby office, he received Hou Wu, who had rushed over and was temporarily in charge of handling the matter. “…We’ve found something. This woman named Yu Xiao’er — there may be some issue with her. Based on what several people have said, her reputation in the area isn’t good.”

“Let’s not go relying on hearsay and gossip. She’s a young unmarried woman working as a teacher — of course old-fashioned people would have unkind opinions about that. Tell me something useful.”

“Yu Xiao’er’s father made a mistake in the past — in the northwest, he’s said to have surrendered on the battlefield. At the time, she and her mother had already come to the southwest, and there were several witnesses who confirmed her father’s surrender. Not two years later, her mother died in despair, leaving Yu Xiao’er on her own. Officially, no one’s supposed to hold this against her, but privately, we suspect she’s had a rough time of it. Two years ago, she was sent from Heden to work as a teacher — partly because of the wartime shortage of staff in the rear, but also, from what the records show, there’s something a bit off about how that came about…”

Ning Yi’s brow furrowed. “Go on.”

“A little over two months ago, Qin Weiwen went to Sangping, and privately, he did indeed start a romantic relationship with her — but neither of them told anyone. The exact details will be hard to investigate now, but the first group we sent today searched Yu Xiao’er’s home and found a small packet of something — an aphrodisiac, meant for use between a man and a woman. She’s an eighteen-year-old girl, quite pretty besides — no telling why she’d have something like that at home… From the packaging, it looks like it was used recently, so it’s probably not something left behind by her parents…”

As Hou Wu spoke, he took a small packet out from inside his robe. Ning Yi waved a hand. “That’s not solid evidence — it’s all speculation.”

“That’s all we have for now.”

“Are people still searching for her?”

“We’ve got our full manpower on it, but she’s been missing for several days now — whether we’ll find her is hard to say.”

“Keep looking for now,” Ning Yi said.

Hou Wu nodded and took his leave.

At dawn, in the courtyard at Zhang Village, the four still knelt there. Wenwen, Ning Ke, and the other children, eyes still red from lack of sleep, kept holding umbrellas over them. Up in the sky, the rain was gradually letting up.

As the morning glow broke, Ning Xi, Chuyi, and the others, still tens of li away in the mountains, tied off their ropes again, taking turns descending into the ravine to search.

Around midday, a group of riders came galloping toward Zhang Village at full speed, led by the one-eyed general Qin Shaoqian. He strode straight into the courtyard, snatching up a wooden staff along the way, and with a crack, knocked Qin Weiwen flat to the ground.

In the nearby rooms, Wenwen, Ning Ke, and the other children, who had been up all night, were still resting — they were jolted awake at once.

“Damn it! A bunch of brainless fools, fighting your own brothers over some woman — I’ll beat the both of you to death right now—”

His staff didn’t stop at Qin Weiwen — with another swing, he knocked Ning Ji down too. Once both had each taken a blow, the courtyard filled with people — Su Tan’er, Xiao Chan, Yun Zhu, Jin’er and the others came rushing over. Hongti stepped in front to block him, while Xigua reached out and wrenched the staff from his hand. “Old Qin! Don’t you dare act rashly! Who gave you leave to hit the children!”

“The matter’s not even settled yet!”

“Old Qin, calm down…”

“Damn it!” Qin Shaoqian gave Qin Weiwen, still on the ground, another kick, then finally stepped back, looking around to find himself surrounded entirely by women. “Where’s Ning Yi?” He turned and went off to find him.

Ning Ji, having fallen to the ground, climbed back up and resumed kneeling there, expressionless — his mind still churning with boundless anger… and confusion…

Ever since returning to Zhang Village in the second half of last year, Ning Ji had, on the whole, kept himself out of trouble.

He practiced martial arts and studied medicine daily, occasionally taking part in the special forces’ high-intensity training and simulated combat exercises. His results weren’t especially outstanding, but the family didn’t push him too hard about it either.

Having trained in martial arts to a solid foundation by age fourteen, he was right at that age of restless vigor. Every so often, for no clear reason, thoughts of the little mongrel dog Qu Longjun back in Chengdu would surface in his mind — why exactly, he wasn’t sure, and didn’t particularly want to think too hard about it either.

Qu Longjun had already left Chengdu — a weak, helpless woman like that would probably die quietly somewhere out there in the wider world, unnoticed. Ning Ji sometimes found himself thinking this way, feeling a pang of pity — but never more than a pang.

In the schoolhouse, among boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen, physical changes were becoming increasingly noticeable — it was that most awkward, most ambiguous stage of adolescence. Talk of romance between boys and girls would make faces flush red, and in public, not a single boy would ever openly admit to having feelings for a girl. Compared to the other children around him, Ning Ji had seen more of the world — he’d once even glimpsed the little mongrel dog bathing back in Chengdu — and so, thinking back on such things now and then, he always carried a certain sense of superiority about it.

Last year, Auntie Gu had once asked him whether he liked the little mongrel dog. Ning Ji had denied it flatly, without a moment’s hesitation. Even setting aside the question of whether he truly liked her, how could a girl like Qu Longjun possibly compare to the girls of the southwestern Chinese Army? And yet, at the same time, if asked whether there was any particular girl around him more appealing than Qu Longjun, he found, in that moment, that he couldn’t think of any single one worth singling out that way — he could only say that any of them, really, was far better than Qu Longjun.

In April, the school had organized an activity outside of regular classes, sending all the children to help out in one of the poorer areas up in the nearby hills — this school had chosen Sangping, a place of scenic beauty. Sangping also had its own small school, with a remarkably beautiful and gentle teacher there named Yu Xiao’er, who, it was said, had once lived in Heden. The two groups spent nearly half a month together, during which Ning Ji, being skilled in martial arts, cheerful by nature, and something of a natural leader among his classmates, had helped her out with a great many things.

On the twenty-third of April, everyone helped gather firewood throughout the settlement, and in the end Ning Ji helped carry a load of firewood back for Yu Xiao’er, who lived in an out-of-the-way spot partway up the hillside.

Halfway there, rain began to fall from the sky. By the time they reached Yu Xiao’er’s home, she suggested Ning Ji bathe there and dry his clothes by the fire, and stay for dinner before heading back. Being open and easygoing by nature, Ning Ji agreed.

He bathed first, then sat in the room in a single layer of clothing, sipping tea, while Teacher Yu ironed his damp garments dry by the fire. Since there was still hot water, she went to wash up as well — and when she came back out, the towel wrapped around her slipped and fell…

Ning Ji’s mouth went dry. The teacher, too, had seemed a little flustered at first — but then, making no attempt to cover herself, slowly drew closer to him…

As far as Ning Ji was concerned, what followed was, of course, love. Though he still had no clear idea what exactly to do about it going forward, Yu Xiao’er felt, to him, simply perfect — mature, gentle, nothing like the tedious little girls around him. There was something about her that carried the same allure he’d once glimpsed in Qu Longjun, and yet she was one of his own people from the southwest — how could he ever possibly fall for some woman from beyond the southwest?

He spent the night of the twenty-fourth at Yu Xiao’er’s home as well, and Ning Ji found himself talking on and on. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, the group was due to set off back to Zhang Village. Though his heart was full of happiness, he naturally didn’t have the nerve not to go back, and followed the main group home, already turning over in his mind how he might find some way to return to Sangping. Who could have known that, come the twenty-ninth, Qin Weiwen would arrive from Sangping with two of his followers.

According to Qin Weiwen’s account, he and Yu Xiao’er were in a genuine romantic relationship, having been together privately for over two months. On the twenty-fifth, returning from being away, he’d seen injuries on Yu Xiao’er’s body and tried to ask about it, but she’d chased him out. Qin Weiwen had gone around asking what had happened, and on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, when he went back to Yu Xiao’er’s home, he’d found a letter she’d written in her own blood, saying her chastity had been violated and she no longer wished to live. The man who had forced himself on her, she wrote, was Ning Yi’s second son, Ning Ji — only fourteen or fifteen, but formidable in martial arts. On the night of the twenty-fourth, he had turned savage; she’d had no way to resist, had been beaten, and had her chastity stolen from her. Now, she said, there was nothing left for her but to die.

Qin Weiwen had immediately panicked. His first instinct, naturally, was to find Yu Xiao’er and get the truth from her — he’d gathered several friends and searched the area at once, but couldn’t find her anywhere. He’d then learned, from people living near her home, that on the morning of the twenty-fifth, they had indeed seen Ning Ji leaving her house. Unable to hold back any longer, Qin Weiwen had rushed straight to Zhang Village.

Upon seeing that blood letter, Ning Ji himself had been struck utterly dumbstruck, as if the whole sky had suddenly changed color — he had no idea what any of this meant. His first instinct, too, had been to rush to Sangping to find Yu Xiao’er, but Qin Weiwen had thrown a punch at him outright. Ning Ji, feeling himself entirely innocent, was hardly one to back down — and so, one against three, all four of them ended up equally bruised and battered, and word of the whole affair had spread.

The Ning family’s second son had raped a woman…

And apparently a teacher, no less…

And she’d killed herself, too…

In a daze, Ning Ji could hear this kind of talk swirling endlessly around him. At his age, though he’d already been to the battlefield and killed enemies with his own hands, how could he possibly know how to face something like this… Yu Xiao’er’s face would occasionally flash through his mind, and he still had no idea what had actually happened.

Ning Ji, Qin Weiwen, and the other two knelt through the twenty-ninth, the thirtieth — and by the time Qin Shaoqian arrived, it was already the first of May. That evening, Ning Xi, Min Chuyi, Hou Wu, and the others arrived one after another, reporting the preliminary results.

At a spot in the hills dozens of li from Sangping, the scene of the woman’s supposed suicide had been staged with quite convincing detail — but no body could be found anywhere below in the ravine, which raised suspicions. It seemed very likely to be a deliberate diversion. On Hou Wu’s end, they’d traced how the woman had obtained a travel permit and identity documents through some special channel — this documentation had turned up near Chengdu on the twenty-seventh, and she was likely now leaving the region by riverboat, already very difficult to track down.

“We can’t confirm anything else for the time being,” Hou Wu said. “But as for Yu Xiao’er obtaining that identity documentation — that happened two months ago. We’ve caught the person who handled it for her, though for now we can only speculate about her original intentions… At the time, she’d just started her relationship with Young Master Qin Weiwen. It’s possible that, over the years, harboring resentment over what happened with her parents, she wanted to do something about it. Two months later, in April, Ning Ji went to Sangping — she’d lived in Heden before, and would have recognized him right away, so…”

In the small courtyard’s room, Ning Yi, Qin Shaoqian, Tan’er, Ning Xi, Chuyi, and the others listened to all this, their expressions growing grimmer by the moment.

“…Capturing Qin Weiwen, even killing him outright, would do nothing but grieve General Qin. But if this fake death were actually believed, if it created a rift between Master Ning and General Qin over their children’s affair, that would be handing outsiders a real advantage,” Hou Wu said.

Tan’er looked up. “In four days’ time, can we still catch her?”

“Our people are still in pursuit,” Hou Wu said. “But Yu Xiao’er has had militia training in the past, and judging by how meticulously she staged her own death this time, she’s very careful in her planning. If we confirm she didn’t actually kill herself, there’s a good chance she’ll have other contingencies in place along the way, transferring again partway through. Once she’s out of Sichuan, we won’t have much confidence in tracking her further.”

Ning Yi was silent for a moment. “…Back when they were in Heden, how much harm did the people around them actually do to her and her mother — what exactly happened. I want you to look into it carefully next. Don’t make a big fuss about it — once you’ve got the full picture, tell me.”

“Yes, sir.” Hou Wu nodded.

Qin Shaoqian, his face dark, pushed back his chair and walked out of the room, silver starlight scattering across the courtyard. He walked straight to the middle of the courtyard, kicked Qin Weiwen flat with one foot, and then, with another kick, knocked Ning Ji down as well.

“A pair of miserable fools, both of you played this badly by some woman.”

Qin Weiwen scrambled back up, glaring, unable to understand why his father was saying this. After a while, Hou Wu, Ning Xi, Chuyi, and the others came over and told them the results.

Ning Ji lifted his head, his eyes gone bloodshot.

Chuyi and the others pulled him up. He stood there without moving, his lips parting once, then again, for a good long while.

“She said she liked me… that’s why I…”

Ever since seeing that blood letter, Ning Ji had fought with Qin Weiwen without ever offering a single word of defense over the matter. Only now did he finally manage to say this much. A moment after speaking, his eyes fell shut, and he collapsed to the ground.

He had passed out…

In the darkness, something seemed to gurgle, like water boiling, or perhaps blood.

When he woke, his mother was slumped asleep by the bedside, her eyelids swollen like two little lanterns.

It might have been early morning. Outside, his father and Aunt Su Tan’er were talking in low voices.

“…I’ve said it before — being born into a family like this, the bad things you run into are bound to be many times worse than for ordinary people…”

“…It’s all that woman’s fault, so calculating.”

“…An ordinary person wouldn’t run into this kind of calculation either… So no matter how much I prepare, it never feels like enough. That Ning Xi’s made it this far safely — I really do give thanks for that, every day…”

“…Thinking of Xiao Ji, at his age, going through something like this — it breaks my heart. He’s just a child…”

“…Try to let it go. He didn’t actually suffer any real loss, at least — I hear that Yu woman was quite good-looking too… All right, what’s the use of hitting me over it? What else am I supposed to think?”

Amid this hushed murmuring, Ning Ji drifted back into a heavy sleep.

When he woke again, a crowd of his brothers and sisters had already gathered in the room, and little Ning Ke was holding out a bowl of plain congee, feeding it to him. Ning Ji wasn’t badly hurt physically; after a few sips, he gulped down the rest, changed his clothes, and got out of bed to move about.

He walked out of the room, out of the courtyard, and onto the street. People greeted him with smiles along the way, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone was quietly talking about the events of the past few days in their hearts. He made his way to the riverbank at Zhang Village, found a log to sit on. In the west, the great setting sun was going down, soft and warm, as if trying to console him.

Yu Xiao’er’s face flickered through his mind, then shifted to Qu Longjun’s — their faces alternating in his head, leaving him weary of it all.

I’m never going to like any girl again for the rest of my life.

He told himself so, silently.

That day was the second of May.

On the third of May, he stayed home all day. Though he didn’t go to school, no one said anything to him about it either. He helped his mother with household chores, chatted with the other concubine-mothers, and made a point of paying his respects to Ning Yi, using the pretext of asking about the case to spend a good long while talking with his father. Afterward he spent a long while playing and roughhousing with his brothers and sisters, and even brought out several of his most treasured little toys to give away to Wenwen, Ning He, and the others.

In the early hours of the fourth, he put on a disguise, left a letter he’d already written on the bed, took a small bundle, and slipped quietly out over the side wall of the courtyard. His lightness skills were excellent, and before dawn, dressed in night-travel clothes, he’d already slipped quickly out of Zhang Village. At the village entrance, he knelt by the roadside and quietly kowtowed a few times toward his parents, then dashed off swiftly. Tears streamed down his face.

He knew they’d come after him along the main road, so he chose the side paths instead, running hard through fields and villages. By that afternoon, he felt he’d gotten quite far from Zhang Village, and only then chose a road nearby with few travelers on it.

Around four in the afternoon, he heard warhorses galloping up from behind. Ning Ji didn’t turn to look — already in disguise, he simply kept walking naturally along the roadside. The horses passed him by, and Ning Ji’s brow furrowed slightly, because the rider on that horse turned out to be Qin Weiwen. The man and horse sped off quite a distance further, then Qin Weiwen reined in and turned back to look at him. A moment later, he dismounted.

“Just won’t leave me be…” Ning Ji muttered under his breath, walking toward him. Qin Weiwen came over as well; the blade he’d had strapped to his side, he now unbuckled and left leaning against the roadside.

“If you try to stop me again this time, I’ll beat you to death!”

Ning Ji said this as he walked. Though not yet fifteen, and Qin Weiwen three years his senior at eighteen, if it truly came down to a fight to the death, Ning Ji could easily have killed all of them back on the twenty-ninth.

The bruising on Qin Weiwen’s face hadn’t yet faded, but he didn’t back down in the slightest now either. Without a word, he closed the distance and threw a punch straight at Ning Ji’s face.

“Damn it, all because of that bitch, are you done with this or not—”

Ning Ji cursed, deflecting the blow with a sweep of his hand, then landed a punch square in the other man’s stomach. Qin Weiwen staggered back two steps, then charged forward again.

The two of them traded blows by the roadside for a good while, until Qin Weiwen’s steps had gone unsteady and Ning Ji had taken a fair number of hits himself, before they finally stopped. A large cart came past on the road; Ning Ji pulled the warhorse aside to clear the way, and the two of them sat down together on the grassy slope by the road.

“What did you have to go running off for…” Qin Weiwen said.

“I’m going to find that bitch and cut her down with my own blade,” Ning Ji said.

Qin Weiwen fell silent for a moment. “She actually… didn’t have an easy time of it before, either. Maybe we… did her wrong in some way too…”

“What the hell do I care — either come with me, or go hide back in your little mountain hole!”

“I came to bring you something.” Qin Weiwen stood up, untied a bundle from his horse, and sat back down, setting it beside Ning Ji’s leg. “Your… your father had me bring this to you…”

“Ah…”

“How else do you think I found you! You really think you could’ve gotten away if we’d actually meant to catch you!” Qin Weiwen said with some heat, his bruised face twisting into a grimace as he spoke. Then he pulled out a sealed letter from inside his robe. “Here — this letter has all the contact methods for the Chinese Army’s people out in the wider world. Once you’ve read it, burn it. It’s sealed, unopened — read it now. It needs to be burned right after!”

Ning Ji silently opened the letter. Inside, sure enough, were various contact methods for the Chinese Army’s outside network. He rubbed his eyes, working hard to commit it to memory. At the very end of the letter were two more lines.

In his father’s handwriting: Son, take care of yourself.

In his mother’s handwriting: Come home soon.

Tears welled up around him again.

Ning Ji held back the sound of it, wiping fiercely at his tears, reading the letter’s contents aloud, stumbling through it twice more to memorize it. He snatched the fire-striker from Qin Weiwen’s hand, struck it a few times, and burned the letter to ash.

Qin Weiwen’s own tears were falling now too. He stood up and gave Ning Ji a light kick on the shoulder. “You really have to go get yourself killed out there, huh!”

Ning Ji said, “My martial arts are the finest under heaven — it’s useless weaklings like you who end up dead—”

He paid no mind to Qin Weiwen’s kick, and opened the bundle — inside were dried rations, silver, a weapon, clothing, as if every one of the concubine-mothers had put something into it, and only then had his father had Qin Weiwen deliver it to him. Only in this moment did he realize — his sneaking off that morning might have looked unnoticed, but perhaps his father had already been up in the family’s upper-story window, watching him leave with a silent wave. And not just his father — Aunt Melon, Aunt Hongti, even his elder brother and Chuyi, they surely would have noticed too.

They must not have wanted him to leave the southwest — and yet, in this moment, none of them had truly tried to stop him either.

Ning Ji slung the bundle over his shoulder and started walking ahead. Qin Weiwen didn’t follow further, standing there holding his horse. “Let her live, at least—”

“I’ll bring her head back for you to kick around like a ball—”

“You want the horse or not—”

“To hell with your horse—”

“Screw your whole family—”

Tears kept streaming down Ning Ji’s face, and he could only keep walking while cursing back. After a while, Qin Weiwen’s voice fell silent, and only then did Ning Ji dare turn back to look southwest — as if his parents were still there, waving to him.

Someday, the young swallow must leave its warm nest, to weather real storms, to grow strong…

Father, Mother, elder brother, sister-in-law, younger brothers and sisters…

Once I come back, I’ll be able to protect everyone at home…

…

In that moment, summer sunlight spilled across the vast land.

Zou Xu led a company of men north into Jin, trying to negotiate a favorable deal; Liu Guangshi and Dai Mengwei gathered their strength south of the Yangtze; in Jiangnan, the Fairness Party pressed on, expanding city by city; and in Fujian, the legitimate court’s reforms kept emerging, one after another.

A young monk named Ping’an followed Lin Zongwu, crossing the Yellow River, heading south. And a boy named Ning Ji, toward the harsh world of the east and north—

Walked on, ever forward.