The wind across the land seemed to pause for a single moment. But then the drifting clouds shifted once more, the moon and stars looking down upon this ancient earth, and the steps of night continued to flow onward, indifferent amid the ebb and flow of change.

The stars turned, the moon changed, and the light of dawn gradually took hold over everything upon this land. Across the southwest, countless millions of living souls once again began their day’s labor. In one corner of this land, near the village called Little Ye, the fire and light that had briefly flared up would not interrupt people’s lives. After the explosion that had occurred at the No. 223 Institute that night, the ripples it stirred up gradually settled down again by the following day.

Aside from providing a bit of fresh gossip for people’s daily conversations, the changes that followed were few. Perhaps the most notable was that, at Wenpu Town, a dozen or so li from here, the Huaxia Army member who had once stooped daily to collect night soil from the night-soil women there did not return for a long stretch of time afterward. More than ten days later, a new member arrived to take over the work, and even hung up a sign beside it for a proper literacy school. A formal teacher came to take over instruction for the children of the night-soil women and their relatives.

The new teacher no longer read newspapers bought from outside, but instead methodically distributed the standardized basic education textbooks. This kind of instruction continued quietly on in the time that followed. After about half a year, only a very small number of the night-soil women would, in the course of the occasional conversation, still mention that former “Master Tang.” And even many years later, when some of those who had grown up and made something of themselves returned to this place, speaking of that sweeping, momentous era that had risen from nothing, and mentioning that night-soil worker who had once been the very first to teach the night-soil women’s children their letters, people would find they had, by and large, little memory left of who he’d been or what his name was—as though, like everything else, he had simply dissolved into the flowing gold of those bygone years…

The progress of the land reform in Erqing Village suffered a bit of a delay, though few people knew the reason why. Before long, everything gradually returned to its proper course.

Only in the most hidden of places did the threads of cause and consequence continue quietly extending toward something larger, something further off…

On the night of the fourteenth of the third month, close to midnight, Hu Tai, the second-in-command of the Wenpu County police system, arrived at the top of the mountain behind Little Ye Village, and confronted Fang Lu, who by then had already drawn his bow on Tang Minjie. Hu Tai was a veteran retired from the battlefield, now serving under the security apparatus led by Marquis Wu. Given his old wounds, he certainly couldn’t have matched Fang Lu and the others in a straight fight, but by this point, matters had already moved beyond anything violence alone could settle.

“…I already know what you people have done. I’ve been entrusted with investigating this matter. There’s no point in silencing him now by killing him… If the matter isn’t confirmed, and he lives, you’ll be fine. If he dies, there will only be further investigation. If the matter is confirmed, killing him only compounds your crime…”

“…My brother is dead! I am Major Fang Lu, staff officer of the Third Division, Fifth Army—my brother is dead! What right do you have to stand in my way—”

“…It doesn’t matter who you are. If you kill him to silence him right in front of me, you won’t escape the consequences—”

“…My brother is dead, and no one is going to stop me from killing him—”

The two sides’ confrontation in the darkness grew increasingly frantic. The blood-soaked young soldier even shouted and lunged toward Tang Minjie—his hands still bound, otherwise he likely would have taken up a blade to kill—and the ensuing struggle was, in truth, meant to buy Fang Lu one last opening. Hu Tai held a firearm, Fang Lu drew his powerful bow, and the two sides faced off in fierce tension…

Until Chen Cirang arrived, bringing more people to encircle the scene…

The next day, someone came to Wenpu County’s government offices to smooth things over and plead for leniency, but in truth, the whole matter could no longer be stopped. On the night of the fourteenth, Hu Tai had already dispatched a letter to a far larger system above. At the same time, since the methane explosion at the No. 223 Institute could not possibly be covered up, on the afternoon of the fifteenth, Chen Cirang’s preliminary report, laying out what could initially be disclosed of the whole affair, was likewise sent up to the central authorities.

The matter fermented for several days, but the response that followed proved far more serious and forceful than Hu Tai had ever imagined. On the morning of the seventeenth, having gone to the No. 223 Institute to examine Tang Minjie’s wounds and relay to him the preliminary developments of the affair, Hu Tai stepped outside and saw a column of soldiers and vehicles approaching without a sound. Shortly after, he found himself face to face with someone he could never, no matter how he’d tried to imagine it, have expected to see here: Ning Yi.

In theory, with the land reform in full swing, Ning Yi should, under any circumstances, have remained at the central command in Chengdu, unwilling to leave lightly. And on the other hand, no matter how complicated Tang Minjie’s background might be, it hardly seemed to warrant a personal trip all the way out to this remote corner of Wenpu—he could easily have simply summoned Tang Minjie to Chengdu instead. Ning Yi’s presence here could only mean one thing: he must already have arrived somewhere near Wenpu for some other reason beforehand.

Of course, these were not matters Hu Tai dared dwell on too deeply. Once granted an audience, Hu Tai laid out, in full detail, his prior relationship with Tang Minjie, what he knew of him, and everything he understood about the current affair. He explained that his attention toward Tang Minjie had originated from a request Peng Yueyun had made of him one day the previous year, though he had no knowledge of Tang Minjie’s actual identity. In the long stretch of time since, he had only ever received one request from the man—asking, through Hu Tai’s connections, to arrange a regular subscription for newspapers from Chengdu. Since this raised no particular concerns, Hu Tai had helped arrange it, later learning that Tang Minjie had been using these papers to teach basic literacy to a group of children belonging to the night-soil women.

Then, on the morning of the fourteenth of the third month, Tang Minjie had come to him, asking for his help arranging secret medical treatment for a landowner from Erqing Village. Under Hu Tai’s questioning, Tang Minjie, apparently feeling it necessary, had also passed along and put on record certain doubts he held regarding the broader situation in Erqing Village: he currently harbored suspicions about the whole matter, and did not wish for the work team personnel there to be harmed carelessly. He therefore asked Hu Tai to conduct a simple investigation, emphasizing that this was a personal request, and hoping that it would, for the time being, stay off the official record, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble for anyone involved.

By the afternoon of the fourteenth, Hu Tai had looked into Fang Lu’s background and identity, along with something of his conduct and reputation. Not long after, hearing that the man had gathered a group and left Wenpu county town, Hu Tai, drawing on his sharp instincts, weighed the matter carefully and ultimately took up his firearm, riding through the night after them toward Little Ye Village…

When Ning Yi questioned him, Hu Tai laid out every single detail of the affair, without embellishment, and was then asked about all manner of further particulars—including the full story of how Tang Minjie had come to set up his school for the night-soil women and their children, as well as the exact circumstances of the standoff that night.

On the afternoon of the seventeenth of the third month, at around one in the afternoon, Tang Minjie finally came face to face with Ning Yi, who had arrived here… …

Spring was in full bloom.

Even in a place like Little Ye Village, so close to the barren Liangshan mountain region, wildflowers bloomed everywhere across this world.

The villagers had already worked through the busiest stretch of the spring planting season, though a fair number of figures were still out laboring in the fields. Near the composting area at the No. 223 Institute, the traces of the explosion had not yet been fully cleared away. Tang Minjie, bandages still wrapped around parts of his body, followed Ning Yi around the site and up toward the mountainside beyond.

He didn’t understand why Ning Yi had come here at all.

But Ning Yi soon told him how things had ended for Fang Lu.

“…Just last night, after taking full responsibility for everything in his written confession, Fang Lu killed himself by driving a chopstick through his own throat.”

Tang Minjie’s body swayed slightly; he found himself unable to speak. After a moment, Ning Yi drew several sheets of paper from his pocket. “This is the confession of that young man you took hostage—Yu Jue. I’ve read it over. It’s largely consistent with your own account, and it recounts most of what the two of you talked about that night…”

Ning Yi handed him the papers. “Take a look. Is there anything you’d like to add?”

Tang Minjie unfolded the confession and read through it, blinking, thinking for a moment. “This… young soldier. Decisive in action, quick to adapt, unafraid of death. He was even… willing to give up his own life for his comrades. If… if not for this whole affair, he would have made a fine soldier…”

Ning Yi nodded, letting out a sigh as well. “…What he said was fairly striking too, wasn’t it?”

Tang Minjie, however, shook his head. “His arguments aren’t worth refuting. But if… if there are already many voices like his within our ranks…”

“There will always be voices like that within any organization, at any time—especially extreme ones. And once someone looking to line their own pockets finds themselves a righteous-sounding justification, they’ll do it all the more shamelessly.” Ning Yi waved a hand, then continued, “According to… this Yu Jue’s confession, and some of what Hu Tai relayed to me, you didn’t much want to go on living. Once you’d confirmed something was wrong after the composting area incident, you could easily have run to the institute or somewhere in the village with people around and shouted for help—that would have settled the matter right there. But you didn’t do that. You turned and ran up into the mountains instead… What was going through your mind?”

The two of them were standing by the stream where Tang Minjie and Yu Jue had grappled with each other on the night of the fourteenth. Ning Yi looked at him. Tang Minjie thought for a moment. “I was afraid, with so many of them, they might do something reckless and harm everyone at the institute.”

“Mm…” Ning Yi nodded. “If it weren’t for the fact that, according to their account, you eventually let that Yu Jue go, and stood there pointing at Fang Lu, waiting for him to put an arrow through you—I might have believed that reason of yours.”

Tang Minjie fell silent.

“But you were also quite ruthless about it. Once you’d confirmed the problem and decided you wanted to die, even then, you still lied to Yu Jue, telling him Qiu Zishu had died right after coming out of the waste bucket. In truth, he was under Hu Tai’s care, and didn’t finally die until the night of the sixteenth. Ruthless, indeed… even if Fang Lu had gone through with killing you, feeling some sense of relief afterward, they still wouldn’t have known that Qiu Zishu was actually still alive—and with Hu Tai as a second safeguard on top of that. So even as you spoke well of them, thought Yu Jue seemed like a decent sort, and were staring death in the face yourself, you still didn’t give them the slightest bit of slack—using their own blade to end your life, without cutting them a single inch of mercy. A man like you… how am I supposed to see you, Tang Minjie?”

On the hillside, Ning Yi looked at him, his calm gaze harboring something complicated, even something touched with sorrow. But Tang Minjie failed to notice any of it.

“I wasn’t thinking that much about it,” he said.

Ning Yi let the matter drop. The two of them gazed down toward the village at the base of the hill. After a while, Ning Yi finally spoke again.

“After we defeated the Jurchen, the Huaxia Army enjoyed quite a bit of prestige. On the surface, the Seventh Army controlled the trade routes leaving Sichuan and profited from that position for a while, before undergoing a major purge. Meanwhile, in Chengdu, a great many merchants and men of standing coming in from outside have been quite eager to cultivate connections with members of the Huaxia Army. We conduct efforts to curb and investigate this every year, but there are certainly plenty who still slip through the net. Take someone like Fang Lu, for instance—Yu Jue’s confession states that Fang Lu took money and used it to support over a dozen orphaned children of fallen comrades, and that part is true. But on the other hand, he was also an outgoing, widely connected man, loyal to his friends, with rather expensive tastes for himself as well. Some of the money went to the families of his dead comrades; some of it he spent lavishly, entertaining living comrades with wild nights out… A man like that never had any spare money of his own—whatever he got his hands on, he was sure to spend it alongside his comrades and friends, and if anyone ever borrowed money from him, he’d help without a second thought. Tang Minjie, wouldn’t you want a friend like that? Honestly, I’d want one myself.”

“That kind of timely-rain, big-brother-of-the-underworld figure has always been the most well-liked sort out there, and there are plenty of men who’d be genuinely willing to fight and die for someone like that. But where did his money actually come from? Over these past two years, he’s been serving as a go-between for various outside adventurers, and these visiting heroes, being quick-witted, understood well enough that as long as you have power, there’s always a way to cash it in. Two years of cultivating these connections, and starting about half a year ago, once word of the land reform got out, they’d already begun making all sorts of calculations and preparations…”

“When the land reform officially began, with the initial hundred-village pilot program, I was overseeing it personally, so problems didn’t have much room to emerge. But once it began expanding beyond those hundred villages to a much wider scope, there was no way I could keep a personal grip on it anymore—and it was precisely at that point that they set their own plans into motion. They even managed to dress up their scheme in ideological language and slogans, exploiting genuine differences of opinion within our ranks… So tell me, Tang Minjie, do you still feel any sympathy for them?”

The wind blew across the ridge. Tang Minjie said nothing. Ning Yi continued, “The new land policy has been going reasonably well. Over in Chengdu, discussions about the four classes and similar ideas are gradually starting to take real shape—people talk about it now in a way that no longer sounds like idle theorizing from a bunch of young upstarts, the way it used to. But do you know where the greatest danger to carrying this reform through will come from?”

“From within,” Tang Minjie said.

“Yes. From within.” Ning Yi nodded. “The fundamental principle behind the workings and eventual collapse of every social model, when you strip it down, is simply this: an unfair system of distributing benefits will, given enough time, inevitably accumulate toward a point of collapse. In our slogans, we can pursue an idealized notion of fairness, but in actual practice, what we’re really doing is searching for a workable model—one just a little better than what came before—so as to push that eventual collapse as far off as possible. Put plainly, that’s really the whole process of civilizational progress… In the past, local gentry held the power of distribution at the grassroots level, operating under their own particular ratio of allocation. Now that we intend to replace that power of distribution, we have to ensure that the ratio we actually deliver on the ground turns out better than theirs.”

“If the land reform is properly carried through, our control over and mobilization of grassroots forces will increase tenfold compared to before, and society’s level of civilization will advance by a considerable leap. But human beings all carry within them a tendency toward self-destruction… Fang Lu, Yu Jue—think of these men as that self-destructive tendency simply making itself visible. Tang Minjie, if the new land policy can sustain a positive trajectory for ten or twenty years, then everyone in future generations will come to see this kind of equality and these human rights as simply self-evident, a given. Only then might discussions of the four classes finally become common knowledge. So no matter what, we have to keep this reform on a healthy path for at least twenty years—we must do everything possible to suppress those self-destructive tendencies within our own ranks that dress themselves up as mere ‘human nature’…”

“I hadn’t originally come here looking for you,” Ning Yi said. “After settling matters in Chengdu, I slipped away quietly, planning to visit as many frontline villages of the land reform as I could, gathering firsthand information about whatever problems might be emerging… I simply happened to run into this affair of yours along the way.”

“…Teacher, do you really have so little confidence in it?” Tang Minjie asked, after a long silence.

Ning Yi turned to look at him and smiled. “The local gentry system has its own advanced qualities and its own historical inevitability. To replace it purely through a system of bureaucratic officials, you’d either need disciplinary oversight strict enough to match, or you’d need those officials themselves to be sufficiently noble in character. If all you have are people who forgive themselves too easily, shouting about ‘ordinary human nature,’ then this revolution simply can’t be carried out. You can’t build an advanced society out of backward materials.”

Tang Minjie raised his head. “But we’re pursuing both approaches at once.”

“So we’re able to rely on our current level of organizational discipline to make this first round of the land reform genuinely take root,” Ning Yi said. “As for what comes next, we can push it forward too, more or less—but every single step is already stretched taut. A hundred pilot villages, a thousand work teams, ten thousand people—that’s already the elite administrative core we’ve spent years accumulating. But do you know how many people it takes to properly oversee them? Once they expand to a thousand villages, ten thousand villages, continuously absorbing new members along the way in this ongoing process of land reform—what level of oversight can guarantee there’s always pressure bearing down on them, without crippling their efficiency in the process? Tang Minjie, if you’re asking about confidence… no, I don’t have full confidence. Not eighty percent, not even seventy…”

“Even that’s already quite high. We’re already among… the most highly organized people in this world, in this era, aren’t we? Whatever happens, I think…” Tang Minjie paused slightly. “We’ll… succeed…”

Seeing the way he spoke of this, Ning Yi smiled, though he didn’t argue the point either. After a moment, he drew a breath.

“In any case, that’s the situation as it stands… On the way here, I found myself thinking about how to go about recruiting more people, and just then, I happened to hear that you weren’t much interested in going on living. So it occurred to me—might as well put you to good use. Come and do some work for me.”

“I…”

Tang Minjie instinctively began to refuse, but Ning Yi waved a hand, his expression turning serious.

“Don’t make a fuss.” He gazed down the mountainside ahead, hands clasped behind his back, falling silent for a moment. “Internal oversight is, right now, the single hardest thing to manage properly. In the past, the Huaxia Army was as tightly bonded as a solid iron plate—but that closeness also meant a great many of its members became genuine friends with one another. Where to draw the line on oversight, how to cut through those private bonds of loyalty—I won’t claim we’re doing a particularly good job of it. If we truly were doing well, this business with Fang Lu wouldn’t have happened today. Going deeper still, your good friend—my new son-in-law—Peng Yueyun is handling exactly this kind of work right now. He has my backing, and the backing of the Western Army, so he isn’t afraid of making enemies. But does he really want to make enemies every single day? When will he soften, when will he let something slide—who can say? I can’t guarantee his conduct either.”

Tang Minjie’s expression grew solemn, and he didn’t dare speak.

“And on the other hand, this is also, right now, the single most dangerous kind of work there is. In the past, when we fought the Jurchen, we called the Jurchen dangerous—but what’s even more dangerous than the Jurchen? Put plainly, it’s your own comrades. If some of them grow corrupt and regress, sliding into the same ‘ordinary human nature’ that men like Fang Lu did, then once they’re under investigation, should they choose to act recklessly, what has to be considered is whether the people investigating them can survive the encounter.”

“So, Tang Minjie—one way or another, you’re not afraid of death, and you don’t much want to keep living. It occurred to me, suddenly, that this might just be the work best suited to you.”

On the hillside that afternoon, sunlight fell down around them as Ning Yi spoke these words, laying out his decision with calm composure. Tang Minjie fell into a long silence. The cold within him and the fire in the sunlight seemed to pull at him from opposite directions at once. He had all but accepted death—but at this moment, the world itself seemed to be pulling at him once more, demanding he contribute one last measure of worth. Deep within him, that exhausted part of himself seemed to say there was no longer any need. But some final trace of reason seemed to answer: this makes sense.

Letting himself do this—it made sense.

“There’s something else… would you like to know what happened with Chen Wenjun and Xiyin?”

He then heard Ning Yi bring up this subject. Tang Minjie raised his head, the sunlight on the hillside stinging his eyes. …

“…In the latter half of last year, after we made the decision to go north and rescue Madam Chen, in order to avoid any complications, we sent a small team up into the Jin state as quickly as possible. Not long ago—at the beginning of this month, in fact—the first group from that team returned to Chengdu and reported on what had happened up north…”

“…According to what they told us, ever since the matter of Xiyin was exposed at the Jin court, developments up in Yunzhong over this past year or so have been quite something. Wanyan Zonghan, naturally, wanted to do everything in his power to protect his old comrade-in-arms and preserve his second-in-command of the western army, but it proved impossible. The matter went back and forth several times at court, and Xiyin was ultimately found guilty—though for the better part of a full year, he remained in Yunzhong all the same, with Wanyan Zongbi and others pressing the matter at court. Meanwhile, Chen Wenjun and Xiyin, this married couple, spent that year with one of them still working to help Han slaves in the north escape, and the other hunting down and killing every one of the escaped Han wives’ subordinates fleeing from Yunzhong…”

“…The two of them lived together—essentially under house arrest. On one hand, they carried on like husband and wife in their daily life; on the other, each was, for the sake of their own nation and people, out there killing the other’s followers… The whole thing was romantic, and also foolish, and it went on like that for a long stretch of time. Our people made contact and met with Chen Wenjun. I have to be honest with you—her situation was, of course, not a good one. Her two sons refuse to forgive her; sometimes people beat and cursed at her, and some even wanted to kill her outright. But she refused to come back. Perhaps this can be understood as her way of accounting for herself to her own family, but I need to stress this to you clearly: Tang Minjie, you and the others weren’t the last Han people she managed to save…” …

“…In December of last year, Zonghan ultimately failed to protect Wanyan Xiyin after all. Poisoned wine sent down from Shangjing arrived at Xiyin’s residence, and Wanyan Xiyin, apparently unwilling to drag things out any further, drank it himself… Chen Wenjun is still alive. She refuses to come back, and whatever days lie ahead for her won’t be easy ones. But I think—if things move quickly enough, perhaps one day, once we’ve broken through into Yunzhong… she’ll still be alive.”

“…As for you—in that final meeting, all she said was that whatever needed to be said to you had already been said. I imagine that must be that business about coming back and putting your cunning schemes to use for the benefit of the Han people, or something along those lines—I don’t remember the exact wording. You can piece it together yourself, in your own time.” …

“…In any case, since we’re desperately short of people, and I’d rather not drag this out with you any further—once your wounds have healed, report to Wenpu. Actually, no need to even wait that long. I’ll give you two days to settle your affairs and arrangements here, and the day after tomorrow, go to Wenpu to receive your orders. A man your age shouldn’t be resting for too long, one way or another. Go join Peng Yueyun’s group, lend him a hand. Before you get yourself accidentally killed… go work hard for me.” …

“…I hope, this time… I’ve assigned you to the right place…” …

On the hillside, the warm spring sunlight fell down upon them as they spoke these words to one another—the most thorough conversation these two, teacher and student, had shared in many years. Ning Yi looked at Tang Minjie’s slightly stooped yet determinedly straightened posture, and reaching out with a complicated expression, gave him a pat on the shoulder. Tang Minjie forced himself to stand up a little straighter still, raised his hand, and offered a salute.

They made their way back down the mountain together. As they were finally about to part ways, Ning Yi seemed to remember something, opened his mouth as if to speak—but in the end simply waved a hand instead. “It’s nothing important… you’ll find out, in time…” …

On the nineteenth of the third month, Tang Minjie went to Wenpu to take up his new post. He understood the theory behind the new land policy, as well as the necessity of internal oversight, quite thoroughly by now, and his long experience leading teams in the north allowed him to pick up this line of work quickly. Before long, he had thrown himself fully into the job, joining the great wave of renewal sweeping across this land.

Only Ning Yi’s final, unfinished words, left hanging at their parting, lingered in his mind with a certain nagging doubt—a doubt that would not truly be resolved until much later.

But the first hint of what lay behind it came in the fifth month of that same year.

It was the twenty-seventh of the fifth month—the season had already turned to summer. He was leading his team through the work of verifying cases related to the new land policy when, that evening, his superiors suddenly asked him to go meet someone, saying it was a new member joining his group. Buried in his paperwork and somewhat muddled with fatigue, Tang Minjie was momentarily confused and tried to decline, but was told that the order had come from above and that he personally was required to handle the arrangement.

Wondering to himself just whose connections this new arrival might be, Tang Minjie made his way out to the street corner. It was early evening, right around dinnertime. Zizhou was a large city, and the newly established public omnibus was just pulling up along one side of the street, figures climbing on and off. In the light of the setting sun, Tang Minjie scanned the passengers stepping down from the vehicle, and before long, he spotted a figure carrying a bundle, glancing around uncertainly in both directions.

Tang Minjie froze where he stood.

Sweeping her gaze across the crowd, she spotted him too. Her expression shifted first to surprise, then her eyes widened, breaking into a smile, and she waved vigorously, running toward him.

In the light of the setting sun…

…it was Cheng Min.

Her features were dignified as ever, a familiar small mole at the corner of her mouth—only now, her smile had lost nearly all pretense of composure, her white teeth showing fully, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. He heard her say: “How is it you—how is it you’re here… I never imagined it—someone I already knew…”

She doubled over laughing.

Tang Minjie blinked in a daze, and at some point, without quite realizing it, found blurry droplets suddenly welling up behind the glasses he’d put on for reading ledgers. He began to smile too—not intensely, just faintly, like an expression that didn’t quite belong to him.

“You… how did you come to be here…”

“I only just got back not long ago. They sent me over to help you all out…”

Cheng Min said this cheerfully, her bright voice seeming to melt into the sunlight around them.

Tang Minjie never asked her for the specific details of what had happened.

There were certain things he would only come to understand fully, years later.

That year, upon returning from the north, he had recounted the circumstances of how he’d betrayed Chen Wenjun, and had, in the process, laid out more or less his entire state of mind at the time—mentioning, in passing, the humiliation he’d felt upon encountering Cheng Min in Shangjing. Not long after, the small team assigned to attempt the rescue of Chen Wenjun in the north set out, and Ning Yi issued them an order: once they arrived in the north, they were to require Comrade Cheng Min, who was then carrying out intelligence work in Shangjing, to immediately abandon her post and return to the southwest to report.

During that same March, in the aftermath of his encounter with Fang Lu and his subsequent reassignment, since Cheng Min had not yet arrived back in Chengdu, Ning Yi had simply never mentioned any of this to him…

It was, after all, only a small matter.