In the small hours, clear moonlight poured down from the night sky.
Kuang Wenbai had already been woken twice by commotion drifting in from outside the compound, and with the pain in his face growing worse, he found himself thoroughly unable to sleep.
As far as he was concerned, Jiangning had proven to be a thoroughly unlucky place — twice now he’d been dragged into some inexplicable clash between master-level fighters, without ever getting a clear look at where the enemy had even come from, only to have his nose smashed to ruin both times.
Having one’s nose smashed was a miserable business.
Especially once the medicinal ointment went on afterward — the sting of the medicine and the ache in his face mixed together until he could barely draw breath properly, and on top of that, all sorts of strange “smells” kept surfacing out of nowhere, impossible to tell whether they were real or imagined, simply unbearable. Over these past several days, he’d woken himself choking on his own saliva more than once in his sleep, and upon waking with a start had sucked the medicine on his nose straight into his lungs, coming close to choking to death outright on more than one occasion — the whole business was more than words could properly capture.
Every person in this world, he thought, ought to have their nose broken once, if only to understand what he was going through right now.
And it wasn’t only these two injuries that had gone badly for him. The second injury had happened on Gold Street — when the trouble broke out, he’d been knocked out cold by a single punch, and afterward — perhaps someone trying to make an escape amid the chaos — he’d been dragged into a nearby alley and stripped of every stitch of clothing. When he woke, the situation had been more than a little awkward. He had, of course, protested that he was a member of the Deathless Guard, but the men under Gao Huiyun who’d come to clear the scene refused to believe him, and the matter had blown up into quite the scandal. Though nearby comrades had eventually vouched for him, word of the whole affair had already spread.
Kuang Wenbai had spent half his life living by the blade. Though limitations of talent and opportunity had kept him from ever becoming a grandmaster whose name shook whole regions, he was now in his forties, had traveled far and wide across the realm, and had built up more feuds and friendships than he could count — by any measure, a seasoned old hand of the jianghu. Had he not found himself in Jiangning, where heroes converged from all eight directions, but instead in some rural town, he would have been more than capable of holding down the whole scene himself.
In the storms of years past, he had, of course, thought about the sorts of things that might eventually befall him — a man of the jianghu losing a hand or a foot, ending his days in some bleak and desolate state, none of that was unimaginable, and there had even been a certain heroic grandeur in picturing it. But fate loved to play its tricks, and never in his wildest imagination could he have pictured losing his nose entirely, right here in Jiangning, and being stripped naked on top of it. As a deputy squad leader within “the Wheel-Turning King’s” elite “Deathless Guard,” these past few days whenever he went out, he couldn’t shake the feeling that people were pointing and whispering about him behind his back. His whole path through the jianghu, it seemed, had gone thoroughly off course, and he found himself at something of a loss.
Of course, once his nose was ruined, the first order of business, in the end, was simply to recover. And not long after the incident at the Gold Tower, the King of Fairness had entered the city, bringing Jiangning a stretch of peace; with the Deathless Guard’s duties fairly light, he’d even been granted some time off.
Over these first ten days of the ninth month, the internal conference had convened every day, and the martial arts tournament in the city continued in full swing, heroes converging from every direction, with fresh tales of victory and defeat emerging daily — truly the most ideal atmosphere the jianghu could hope for. And yet, in the two days since the Double Ninth Festival, things had once again begun growing complicated.
Every ward across the city had begun tightening its defenses, and chaotic sounds had once more begun rising in the night. The Fair Party’s internal conference was, in theory, still ongoing, but the overall mood already carried a faint sense of the calm before the storm.
Unable to sleep no matter what, Kuang Wenbai gritted his teeth against the tangled sensations plaguing his nose and carefully applied his ointment, then dressed himself and stepped outside — the core of his getup, naturally, centered on his mouth and nose. With his nose gone and the ointment freshly applied, if he simply went out wrapped in bandages he’d look far too much like some thief out of an old opera, so after applying the medicine, he had no choice but to add another layer, a cloth wrapped fully around the lower half of his face. This gave him a mysterious, sinister air, though it did make eating rather inconvenient.
Working from this look, he’d already made plans to have an iron half-mask made to cover the lower half of his face, so that once his nose had fully healed, he could continue making his way in the jianghu. Of course, Jiangning itself was no longer a good place to operate in — here, as deputy squad leader of the Deathless Guard, plenty of people knew him inside and out, and if he dressed strangely now, it would only invite more gossip about why he was wearing a mask. But once he left Jiangning, the world was vast enough that he’d surely find some way to make a living wherever he went.
Once outside his room, the moon hung bright and the stars sparse. This was one of the smaller wards the Deathless Guard occupied, ringed by a wooden palisade, with soldiers patrolling the rooftops. On nights like this, many would simply sit up top and doze, but because of the earlier commotion, several figures now stood at the high points, gazing off into the distance. Kuang Wenbai climbed a nearby stairway and saw, far off in the dim city, that something was still stirring.
“What’s happening?” He walked up to a soldier and asked.
“Oh, Deputy Kuang.” The man glanced at him, then pointed toward a distant street. “Just now a whole crowd went chasing through there. Three fleeing, more than twenty in pursuit, some on horseback too — look, they’ve gone off toward Bingzi Street. That street’s full of poor wretches — even though they fly the King of Equality’s banner, it’s a mixed bag over there with no proper barricades at all. I’d say this is about to get bad.”
“The Reading Society business again?”
“Looks like it. The ones giving chase are flying the Baofeng Trading House’s flag.”
The two of them stood on the wall watching the disturbance in the distance. Sure enough, what had started out as a fairly modest commotion showed no sign of dying down — if anything, once it spread to Bingzi Street, it grew even fiercer. In the months since Jiangning had fallen into chaos, situations like this weren’t uncommon. The various factions with real backing had already claimed the more intact streets and alleys of the city for themselves, but there was always a great mass of displaced people with nowhere to go, gathering temporarily in whatever burned-out or half-ruined corners remained. These people sometimes coalesced into small factions of their own, but far more often, they were simply killed or scattered in one round of chaos after another.
When feuds among jianghu factions erupted within the city, those being hunted down with nowhere else to run would often flee toward exactly this kind of area, hoping to stir up even greater chaos and buy themselves a sliver of a chance at survival. And though the displaced and the beggars in such places had a certain rough fighting ability, born of having nothing left to lose, in the eyes of the Fair Party’s five elite forces, they posed no threat whatsoever.
More than twenty men chasing three all the way down the street — there was no telling how many bystanders they’d trampled along the way. Sure enough, as the chaos around Bingzi Street began to swell into something more serious, someone amid the confusion sent up a warning flare — the summoning signal bearing the Baofeng Trading House’s character-flag. And on a street not far from Bingzi Street, another group could be seen approaching in the dim light. The two men on the wall looked closer.
“That’s ‘Dragon Sage’ Fu Pingbo’s men.”
“They really do have it rough.” Kuang Wenbai let out a faintly gloating laugh. Among the King of Fairness He Wen’s “Seven Sages,” “Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo commanded the internal security forces, one of He Wen’s most capable right hands — and as the strongest guard force under “the Wheel-Turning King,” the “Deathless Guard” was often naturally compared against “the Dragon Sage’s” men. Of course, these past few months in Jiangning, Fu Pingbo had led his men putting out fires everywhere, an exhausting and thankless job, while the Deathless Guard’s work — killing and capturing — didn’t involve that kind of housekeeping duty at all. Watching Fu Pingbo run himself ragged gave the men of the Deathless Guard no small sense of superiority.
“Deputy Kuang, you’ve seen so much of the world.” The soldier beside him, watching the commotion in the darkness, tilted his head. “What do you think — can this whole thing… actually be resolved?”
“Resolved how, exactly?” Kuang Wenbai rather enjoyed being asked to explain things, and at the question, a faint, knowing smile crossed his face.
“I mean… can our Fair Party’s conference actually keep going?” The soldier lowered his voice. “Word out there is that the King of Fairness has gone mad — that he means to openly acknowledge this whole Reading Society business, that it’s basically him throwing down the gauntlet against the other four kings. And then… look at the King of Equality — things could’ve been talked through, but by sheer bad luck, the day before yesterday he nearly lost a son. We’re supposed to be meeting here to merge our forces, and with things going the way they are, it doesn’t look good.”
“What’s one dead son to great men like that.” Kuang Wenbai laughed. “Besides, he didn’t even die, did he — look how worked up you all are about it.”
“So Deputy Kuang thinks the conference will be fine?”
“…I wouldn’t say fine, exactly.” Kuang Wenbai fell silent a moment. “We’ll have our troubles. But the Fair Party as a whole? Most likely it’ll be fine.”
“How do you mean?”
“In this world, power is the kind of thing that doesn’t treat people as people.” Watching the distant disturbance, Kuang Wenbai, too, lowered his voice. “Our Fair Party’s five great kings have all gathered here for the sake of merging, not for the sake of fighting. Merging benefits everyone, so the overall direction won’t change. But even two families getting married have their friction — how much more so when five families are trying to become one? Before a merger like this, there are always bumps and bruises, clashes both in private and out in the open — there’s no getting around it.”
“The King of Fairness, He Wen, is using this Reading Society business to make trouble because he means to gain an advantage. Gaining the advantage is his real aim — the Reading Society is just a bargaining chip. Without the Reading Society, he’d find some other pretext to gain the upper hand. And the King of Equality, Shi Baofeng, when he first made trouble, was likewise after some advantage of his own — having been outmaneuvered by the King of Fairness, he needed to win back some face. And then, conveniently, his son gets hurt, and he flies into a drunken rage — do you really think he’s actually gone mad? He hasn’t. Look — the people stirring things up tonight aren’t mad either. They’re simply after some advantage, that’s all.”
Kuang Wenbai went on, gazing off into the distance, holding forth at length. By now the “Dragon Sage’s” column had clearly begun facing off against the Baofeng Trading House’s men, and in the darkness, the tempers on both sides showed no sign of cooling — more Baofeng men were arriving out of the night, and it looked as though another all-out brawl was about to break out.
“Before a merger, there’s always fighting.” Kuang Wenbai said, hands clasped behind his back. “The lives of us little people down below aren’t worth all that much. The ones at the top start negotiating, and the ones down below start fighting — and once everyone’s fought their way to some sense of proportion, the deal gets made. Take those three men the Baofeng men are chasing right now — they’re calling it the Reading Society, but do you really believe that? If you ask me, it’s far more likely some head or other within the Baofeng Trading House using the chaos as cover to clear out his rivals.”
His years in the jianghu had given him plenty of worldly experience, and this little speech of his came out sounding rather profound — the ache in his nose almost seemed to fade a little as he spoke. The soldier beside him furrowed his brow, finding the reasoning more sensible the more he thought about it. “So, Brother… Brother Kuang, what about our side…”
“Our side won’t stay peaceful for long either. Once the fighting starts, it means the negotiations have reached something critical. Stay alert.” Kuang Wenbai’s gaze remained calm as he looked out at the scene, and after a moment he reached over and patted the soldier’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We know each other well enough — you’re practically a brother to me. If anything comes up, I’ll warn you. Just keep your head down these days, mind what you say. Great storms — we’ve weathered plenty in our time. Back when I was up north, the enemies I faced were the Jurchens themselves…”
In the darkness, the standoff in the distance continued, both sides gathering more men. Kuang Wenbai went on like this for a while, drifting into reminiscences of his days up north, chatting with the soldier at length. The young man, thoroughly impressed, spared no effort flattering and praising Kuang Wenbai in return.
After roughly an hour, once figures of real standing had arrived on both sides, the distant chaos gradually began to die down. Kuang Wenbai said, “You see? Fighting is fighting, and trouble is trouble, but life still has to go on. Today’s the eleventh — odd-numbered days mean the general assembly meets, and you can bet none of our five great houses will fail to show. There’ll be plenty of arguing to come.”
With that, he clasped his hands behind his back and climbed down from the wall. By now dawn was nearly upon them; having had the chance to hold forth before an audience had eased the pain in his nose somewhat. Once the sun rose and he’d finished breakfast, he went out to gather a little more news, and sure enough — that day’s Fair Party internal conference went ahead as scheduled, with many of those entitled to attend already making their way toward the meeting hall. One could well imagine that today’s session would be a fierce one.
By midday, word of what had happened at the morning session had already begun to circulate. It was said that “the King of Equality” Shi Baofeng had demanded, at the conference, that all five houses of the Fair Party jointly pass a resolution to purge the “Reading Society.” His will on the matter had been fierce, cutting off discussion of every other issue outright, and several of the senior figures at the conference had very nearly come to blows.
And regardless of how the conference itself turned out, from the previous day through this one, “the King of Equality” had already begun issuing large-scale bounties and arrest warrants across the city, hunting down anyone found harboring pamphlets said to have come from the southwest — with the notice specifying that, so long as the evidence was credible, a severed head could be brought in for the reward. This kind of bounty had already begun stirring chaos throughout the city. “The Dragon Sage’s” forces, meanwhile, had mobilized in force to try to contain the disorder wherever it appeared — and it was said that anyone caught killing openly in the street was, in turn, cut down by “the Dragon Sage’s” own men.
Though “the King of Equality” was, ostensibly, seizing on the near-murder of his son to vent his fury, over the course of this standoff from the previous day to today, the men under “the King of Fairness” had likewise grown heated. Not a few of them had taken to shouting openly in the streets: “We’ll show you all — in the end, it’s still our King of Fairness who calls the shots in Jiangning today!”
Kuang Wenbai and the others, hearing these rumors, felt a certain excitement mixed with unease — as long as neither the King of Fairness nor the King of Equality was willing to yield in this affair, the situation in the city going forward was bound to grow anything but simple.
At the hour of Wei, matters escalated further.
The afternoon session of the conference had likely only just begun when Kuang Wenbai, sitting out on the street enjoying the cool air, saw a mounted messenger come galloping straight into this ward’s Deathless Guard compound. Not long after, the clanging gongs of assembly rang out. Passersby on the street were still watching the excitement unfold, and Kuang Wenbai, on medical leave, wasn’t quite sure whether he ought to report in himself — but before long, a number of soldiers who had received their orders sealed off both ends of the ward.
The Deathless Guard forces stationed there, along with a number of ordinary soldiers, were called out, and shortly afterward, an order to hunt down “Reading Society” members was announced within the ward.
The order issued from “the Wheel-Turning King” Xu Zhaonan’s side, demanding the arrest of Reading Society members, was extremely harshly worded, and the measures that followed were correspondingly severe. First, both Deathless Guard members and regular soldiers were to be dispatched to search each other’s own quarters and residences; after that, every single house within the ward was to be thoroughly searched. Anyone found harboring pamphlets “falsely claiming southwestern origin” or “spreading heretical rumors to deceive the masses” could be killed on sight, no questions asked.
Something bad was about to happen…
Kuang Wenbai’s heart sank.
A moment later, he saw warning fireworks rise into the sky somewhere across the city. Somewhere, fighting had already broken out.
A little while after that, within the Deathless Guard’s own compound, something suspicious was apparently discovered in the room of one squad leader and several of his men. A clash erupted at once; someone shouted, “This is a frame-up!” and forced his way out.
“The Wheel-Turning King,” Xu Zhaonan, had entered the game.
At the third quarter of the hour of Wei, Qu Longjun — the “little scholar,” out buying newspapers — witnessed the sudden upheaval sweeping the city.
Something had happened within “the Wheel-Turning King’s” territory — no one knew exactly what, but within a short span of time, two warning fireworks went up one after another, and faintly, the sounds of slaughter and chaos could be heard.
Clutching the handful of newspapers she’d bought tight to her chest, she ran toward the small courtyard where “the White Rakshasa” lived.
Out on the street, many other people were running too.
Qu Longjun had never had much stamina or strength to defend herself, and the range of her usual wanderings wasn’t especially large. Rounding two streets, she caught sight of the gate of that dilapidated courtyard and made her way toward it — but partway there, a figure came rushing at her, seizing her by the shoulders and pulling her hard in the opposite direction.
“Au-Auntie…”
The woman she called “Auntie” was Huo Qinghua, the leader of the dilapidated courtyard where she now lived — “the White Rakshasa,” her face marked by a knife scar, a woman who rarely smiled, but who had taken it upon herself to look after Qu Longjun, taking her in and having her read the newspapers there each day.
In this moment, this Auntie Huo pressed several things into Qu Longjun’s arms. Looking down, Qu Longjun saw a handful of loose silver, and two knives, one long and one short.
“Something’s about to happen. Don’t go back.”
“Wh-what’s happened…”
“Orders are coming down any minute — they’re going after… those Reading Society people…”
“The Reading Society… but I’m not one of them…”
Having spent these past months in Jiangning reading the newspapers, Qu Longjun knew perfectly well what this so-called “Reading Society” actually was. More than once, some of her “White Rakshasa” sisters had gotten hold of a few of the pamphlets and brought them back for her to read. Having spent time in the southwest herself, and having read books like Women Hold Up Half the Sky, she’d thought the language in those pamphlets seemed rather strange — it didn’t sound quite like the way people spoke in the southwest. Of course, her own understanding of southwestern politics wasn’t especially deep, and she couldn’t say for certain either way.
“The old man’s given the order. Whether they can actually find the guilty parties or not, every district, every hundred men, has to hand over at least one person to answer for it. Better to kill the wrong one than let one slip through.” Auntie Huo held her close as they walked, laying out the situation plainly. “In our whole courtyard, you’re the only one who can even read…”
“But…” Qu Longjun could hardly believe it. “…How can they do that.”
“Anyone who can read is going to be killed. The Fair Party has no future left.” Auntie Huo bent down and hugged her briefly. “Go, quickly. Find a way out of the city. Get as far away as you can…”
She let go and pushed her forward.
Qu Longjun looked back and saw this normally cold, scar-faced woman wave to her once, then turn and walk back toward the courtyard.
The afternoon light hung bleak and desolate as Qu Longjun turned and ran. Everything had happened so suddenly that when Auntie Huo had first told her to go, she’d nearly wept — but by now the tears had stopped. Looking at the chaos all around her, she understood she needed to find somewhere to hide, and quickly.
She ran into a narrow alley nearby, and beyond it found a filthy, mud-choked drainage canal. Qu Longjun landed with a thud in the mud along the bank; when she scrambled up, her whole body was smeared with foul-smelling muck — no one would spare her a second glance now.
Clutching the silver tight and tucking the smaller knife close against her body, she carried the longer blade and made her way, head down, toward whatever hiding place she could remember nearby.
Messengers ran through the streets, bursting into the dilapidated courtyards nearby.
“King Yama” Zhou Shang, too, had entered the game.
The conference dragged on through a chaotic afternoon.
Sounds of disorder from the city drifted, again and again, into the meeting hall, and messengers of every stripe kept arriving without pause, bringing all manner of different news to different figures, and carrying orders back out in turn. But on the matter of the “Reading Society,” He Wen and the King of Fairness’s faction gave no ground whatsoever, from beginning to end.
As evening approached, though nothing had been resolved, the various factions at the conference had by now more or less gathered that both Xu Zhaonan and Zhou Shang had, that afternoon, made their positions plain.
The setting sun turned a deep red. The assembly broke for the day, and people gathered and chatted in the nearby pavilions and courtyards. Some wondered aloud what exactly “the King of Fairness” was playing at. Others said, “The next session isn’t for two more days — who knows what will happen in the meantime.”
Far off across the city, black columns of smoke were rising.
“The Dragon Sage” Fu Pingbo continued leading his men to suppress the disorder across the city, but a number of mid-sized clashes had already begun breaking out, one after another.
And all sorts of unexpected incidents kept surfacing besides.
Holding a piece of recently arrived news, Meng Zhutao — head of the “Assembly of Grudges” — stood silently for a moment by the second-floor window of the wooden building where the conference was held. When someone greeted him, he answered offhandedly. After a while, “Cold Crow” Chen Juefang came hurrying over.
“Something’s happened…”
“The one who died was one of my own men. Old Chen, that expression on your face makes it hard to trust you. Don’t go crying crocodile tears at me…”
“You think I don’t understand what’s going on here? We’ve been played by the Reading Society…”
“Who’s to say you weren’t the one playing me?”
“What would I gain from that?” Chen Juefang glared at him. “It was your men who struck first. If they were innocent, why raise their hands at all? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to explain themselves clearly?”
“That one district of mine had thirty men in it — twenty-three of them turned out to have little pamphlets tucked under their bedding. Old Chen, none of us are new to the jianghu. Once you’re really caught in a trap like that, how many people do you think can just clear their own name!?” Meng Zhutao glared back at him.
Chen Juefang looked at him for a moment, then said through gritted teeth, “Old Meng, it was your men who broke the rules. They struck first.”
Meng Zhutao looked back at him, calm. “Yes. They deserved to die.”
Chen Juefang waved a hand. “That’s not the point… Old Meng, don’t take this out on me — it’s plain as day the Reading Society did this on purpose.”
“…You think I haven’t already worked that out?” Meng Zhutao fell silent a moment. “He Wen made his move. Shi Baofeng made his move. Zhou Shang and the rest of us made ours. And the Reading Society made theirs too. Old Chen, let me host tonight, and we’ll talk it over… This isn’t going to stay confined to Jiangning. There’s going to be plenty more of this to come.”
Chen Juefang looked at him, then, after a moment, nodded gravely.
Conversations much like this one were, in this moment, taking place in countless other corners of the city as well.
In a room with a terrace at the back of the main hall where the conference was held, Gao Chang and He Wen were likewise watching the chaos spreading across the city, patch by patch.
“Was all this really necessary?” After watching for a while, Gao Chang spoke up. “Brother He, what exactly are you trying to do here? Is the Reading Society really your people? Or do you genuinely believe in all of that nonsense?”
He Wen glanced at him. “General Gao — is what the Reading Society says really so unreasonable?”
“What’s reason worth?” Gao Chang said. “Brother He, look at everything happening in Jiangning right now — and it’s not just Jiangning anymore. The moment you decided to move against that society, your orders had already traveled five hundred li outward. Do you have any idea what’s coming — chaos across the whole of Jiangnan? If you really are directing the Reading Society behind the scenes to purge the four of us, what they’re doing is preparing the ground for a war across all of Jiangnan. Today, in Jiangning, I’m the only one of the four who hasn’t made a move yet — because I want to understand what’s going on before I do, so I don’t end up striking the wrong target.”
“General Gao, reason is what lets you win battles.” He Wen said. “In this world today, which army is the strongest, the most capable of fighting and winning — you know the answer, Brother Gao. Why shouldn’t we learn from them?”
“Because I have no use for it!” Gao Chang said. “If we trained troops the way the southwest does, there’d be no place left for me, Gao Chang, in today’s Fair Party! I win my battles because the brothers under me trust me, respect me! And the men under them trust and respect them in turn! That’s how I became what people call ‘Heavenly King Gao’ today! I treat my brothers the way brothers ought to be treated — and the reason I haven’t made a move in Jiangning today is precisely because I still consider you a brother! Brother He, tell me — what exactly is going through your head?”
He looked at He Wen, and He Wen looked back at him. “I’m thinking that, sooner or later, we’re going to have to face that strongest army of theirs. When that day comes, how is our brotherly loyalty supposed to stand against them?”
Gao Chang waved a hand. “Those Reading Society scholars say the southwest is too rigid, too brittle — that it won’t last.”
“Even if that’s true, what happens if we end up fighting the Jurchens again? What if we end up fighting that Beiwei Army down in the southeast?”
“The Jurchens are already in decline, nothing like what they once were. As for that Beiwei Army — you and I both know perfectly well, it’s nothing more than troops trained under brutal discipline just to shield that little emperor from the storms beyond his walls. It won’t hold up forever!”
“General Gao, is your method of training troops really just betting that all your enemies will eventually collapse on their own?”
“Mister He, if your own men turn against you and abandon you, I imagine you’d collapse a good deal faster!”
Gao Chang glared at him.
After a moment, he waved a hand. “That’s not the point, though. Mister He, even if I grant that what you’re saying makes sense — how we rose to where we are over these past two years, can you really just throw that away? Can we actually learn to train troops the way the southwest does? Following their model, we’d need honest officials, strict enforcement of every order — how many of my own men would stop respecting me the instant I tried that? How many of yours would stop respecting you!? You’re a man of letters, but I’ve read my share of history too — throughout the ages, which emperor didn’t rise to power exactly the way you’re describing, on brotherly loyalty, only to strip his companions of power once he’d made it, and keep them around after that as idle men of wealth and comfort? If there’s nothing in it for them, who’s going to fight beside you to win the realm? That Ning Yi of the southwest talks all high-minded in his little pamphlets about ‘the people’ — you think his own men don’t take bribes? They take bribes just the same! The only reason he’s won battle after battle, year after year, is because his prestige is enormous and his fists are hard — people fear him, not because his reasoning is so sound! The day he dies, you’ll see exactly what all that reasoning is really worth!”
He Wen smiled. “It seems General Gao has read those little pamphlets after all.”
“Brother He, you and I can’t pull this off. If this were simply you consolidating power, fine — but if you want power, and you want to take down the other three, or take down Zhou Shang, why bother wrapping it in this Reading Society business? Do you really have the strength to take on four at once? There’s no one else here — give me a straight answer. Drop this Reading Society gambit, and I’ll always help you.”
Gao Chang’s gaze was sincere. He Wen sat down beside him, poured himself a cup of tea, seeming to weigh his words. After a while, he sighed. “General Gao, these two years, the Fair Party has moved too fast. I know full well there are things you can’t help — the people around you are counting on wealth and glory to make their fortunes. But as you say — if we truly cannot beat them, then why not simply surrender today? Why walk this road any further, only to bring humiliation on ourselves down the line?”
“I’ve told you already, throughout the ages…”
“Throughout the ages, it’s always gone that way because no one had ever trained an army the way the southwest has! But today, they have! And if it exists today, it will exist tomorrow too! Whatever held true throughout the ages no longer holds tomorrow!” He Wen’s voice turned sharp and decisive. “General Gao, our stopgap measures have run their course. If the Fair Party is ever going to change, this is the only chance we’ll get. Using the Reading Society as the spark, and using the pretext that’s come down from the southwest, we need to enforce strict military discipline, strict internal order, and make sure everyone follows orders to the letter — no more running wild!”
“And what about the ones who can’t keep up?”
“Either I kill them, or they kill me. General Gao — are you with me, or not?”
“No one is going to follow you on this!” Gao Chang slammed his palm down on the table with a crash, his beard and hair bristling, a finger jabbing toward He Wen. “What exactly are you—” He stopped abruptly, hesitating, then thought it over.
“You… you’ve allied yourself with the people from the southwest?”
He Wen looked at him. “…And if I have?”
“…”
“General Gao, your concerns are entirely reasonable.” On the eleventh of the ninth month, as the cool autumn wind blew through the sprawling estate with the evening light, He Wen spoke on, calm and steady.
“…No one, throughout all of history, has ever managed to accomplish this. If I’d said all this before now, with nothing to back it up, perhaps no one would have believed me either. But the world today is not what it was yesterday — the southwest has actually achieved these things, and because of that, some people are willing to believe what they say. If the Fair Party is to be reformed, we can build on people like that as our foundation — with people like that, we might just be able to train an army the way the southwest has… We’ve already spent two years running headlong down this road, and if we keep running, there truly will be no turning back — in the end we’ll be no different from every so-called peasant uprising that came before us. Stopping now is the only chance we have. We might die for it. But if I already know death awaits us either way, I’d rather take the gamble.”
“Brother Gao… are you with me, or not?”
A tremendous crash rang out.
Within the room, Gao Chang overturned the entire table, wood splinters flying through the evening light, his eyes blazing red as he stood facing off against He Wen—