Gray skies hung low over Chengdu, and no one could say whether it would rain again before long. Peng Yueyun left the guesthouse where he’d been staying and arrived at the Ministry of Commerce just as the hour had passed midway through the afternoon. He went inside and found his wife. The two had been married less than half a year, and with far more time spent apart than together, their sudden reunion filled them both with joy — though they soon settled down to business.

“Father hasn’t been in Chengdu these past few days, but before he left, he mentioned to me that you’d be coming back soon, so I already knew,” said Lin Jingmei.

“What exactly has been going on…”

“It’s simple enough, actually.” Lin Jingmei gathered a few documents from the desk and stuffed them into a small bag. “But there’s something I need to ask you first — this time you came back, which squad under your command did you bring with you?”

“Er… I was in Zizhou, so I just called up the Fourth Squad, since they were nearby…” Peng Yueyun frowned slightly, then added, “Oh, right — Senior Brother came back with me. You know, he’s leading the Fourth Squad now. I mentioned to him that after tomorrow’s debriefing, I’d like to invite him home for dinner…”

“Fatty Tang.” Lin Jingmei kept packing. “He saved your life — it’s only right to invite him. Should we call Wanwan over too? Let them meet?”

“Probably no need for that. Just a few days ago, the higher-ups assigned a girl to the Fourth Squad — she came back from the north, and they had Senior Brother personally see to her settling in. I don’t think their relationship is a simple one…”

“Came back from the north…” Lin Jingmei shook her head, then said, “Wait for me, I’ll go request leave. Let’s head home for a bit.”

“Oh… all right.”

He watched his wife leave the office. After a while she came back, leave granted, bag in hand, and they went out together. Their staff housing wasn’t very far from here. Just as they stepped out of the Ministry’s gate, a fine drizzle began to fall, and they opened an umbrella and crossed the street beneath it.

“Concubine Zhanmei passed away,” Lin Jingmei said softly as they walked through the light rain.

“Ah…”

“It happened on the sixteenth of last month. You know how it was — ever since she came back from the north, her health was never good. These past few years she’s been recuperating in Zhang Village. Just recently her body finally gave out. Weijun was called back and got to see her one last time before she went.”

“…”

Peng Yueyun blinked and nodded.

Over the years, he’d naturally had a fair number of dealings with the younger generation of the Qin family, but as for Concubine Zhanmei herself, he’d only ever seen her from a distance a few times. Once, at Zhang Village, he’d seen her sunning herself at the sanatorium, with Lin Jingmei pointing her out from afar and explaining who she was. Another time, Qin Weijun — whose childhood nickname was Shitou, “Stone” — had been walking his mother by the riverside when Peng Yueyun and Lin Jingmei, out on a secret rendezvous, happened to run into them. They’d exchanged introductions and greetings; she had been warm in manner, but looked extremely aged.

So in truth, the two of them had never been more than passing acquaintances. And yet, this concubine of the Qin family’s eldest son, Qin Shaohe, held an extraordinarily special and exalted place within the Huaxia Army. On one hand, she had been witness to Qin Shaohe’s defense of Taiyuan; on the other, she had endured twelve years of humiliation on Jurchen-held land with nothing but her own frail body to protect her, preserving a single thread of a hero’s bloodline. Whenever people spoke of her, they always felt a mixture of indignation and sorrow — she was both a testament to heroism and a symbol of defiance amid disgrace, a life the Huaxia Army had gone to every length to preserve.

“So… afterward, how did it turn into… all this trouble?”

“Commander Qin was so overcome with grief that the old injury to his eye flared up, and it brought on a fit that knocked him unconscious — gave everyone quite a scare.”

“Is it serious?”

“Fairly serious. You know how it is — a man who’s fought half his life always carries this ailment or that, especially since Uncle Qin already lost an eye back then… But these past few days have been better. I hear he’s slowly been coming around, so Father went over to see him again.”

“So you’re saying the mutiny on the twenty-first happened right when Uncle Qin was hurt, and things got out of hand…”

“It’s not just that — the situation is probably a good deal more complicated than that…”

“Then…”

Peng Yueyun glanced at his wife, unsure whether to keep asking. Lin Jingmei smiled and shook her head.

“It’s not really that great a secret. I’ve guessed at some of it myself, though I might not have it quite right. Father actually gave a great many orders before he left a few days ago, and by now a lot of people have come back. Word from outside is being gathered here in Chengdu as we speak. I’d guess you’ll be briefed on all of it after tomorrow’s debriefing.” Lin Jingmei paused for a moment, then lowered her voice. “That ‘Eldest Senior Brother’ of ours — he’s made his move.”

“…Him?” Peng Yueyun’s brow furrowed, then he laughed despite himself. “We haven’t even made a move against him yet, and he’s already tired of living…”

“This move of his — it’s a big one…”

By the time they’d finished talking, they’d already reached home. Peng Yueyun took out his key, opened the door, and once they were inside and he’d shut it behind them, he spun around and pounced on his wife like a starving tiger, wrapping her in his arms. Lin Jingmei laughed softly, and only after one button of her blouse had come undone did she manage to twist free. “Little Peng, don’t start now, there’s actual business to attend to—”

“We’re home, this is the business — and you specially requested leave for it, too…”

“I— I still have to go back out. I only came home to get something…”

“Ah… get what… go out to do what?”

“While there’s still time, I need to go see your Senior Brother. If I go now, we might even manage to have dinner together, don’t you think?” Lin Jingmei’s palm went pat-pat-pat, batting away the octopus-like Peng Yueyun clinging to her, and she turned and walked toward the bedroom.

Peng Yueyun followed after her. “Going to see Senior Brother today? Why?”

“A few days ago I went to see Father about something else entirely — I wanted to ask about Uncle Qin’s situation. But just as I was leaving, he suddenly called me back and said that no-good husband of mine would be back in a couple of days, bringing along some fellow surnamed Tang, and that I should help pass this thing along to him, and give him a few words of advice while I was at it… Honestly, isn’t he impossible? Whose fault is it that my husband never comes home, anyway — I nearly argued with him over it.”

Lin Jingmei had been taken in and raised by Ning Yi since she was a child, and by ordinary convention she would have called him Father. But when it was just the two of them, Ning Yi had her call him Dad instead, saying it simply rolled off the tongue better. Over time, Lin Jingmei had gotten into the habit of switching between the two forms of address without much thought.

As she spoke, she pulled a dossier from the cabinet and stuffed it into her bag. Peng Yueyun, naturally unable to think of a good reply, could only blink in bewilderment.

Still, the fact that his wife was so willing to grow close to his senior classmate pleased him a great deal.

The two of them left the house together, bags in hand, and talked a bit more about Tang Minjie along the way. In truth, Lin Jingmei had known Tang Minjie even longer than Peng Yueyun had — they’d been in the very first Second Cohort together back at Xiaocang River. When Tang Minjie first joined the class, he’d been rather plump, and everyone had assumed he was some landlord’s dim-witted son. Given his gloomy, extreme temperament, in most people’s eyes he was, at best, a landlord’s dim-witted son prone to losing control — hardly an endearing sort. Compared to the earlier cohorts’ Zou Xu, sunny and open-hearted, or Zhou Huan, cheerful and easygoing, or Chen Tian, who could work a room with ease, he’d simply never stood out.

During his time training at Xiaocang River, his body had quickly grown lean, but Lin Jingmei still remembered the nickname he’d first been given: “Fatty Tang.” Supplies had been scarce back then, and “Fatty” was hardly meant as flattery.

Of course, plenty of people grow through real combat — just as some, along the way, suddenly fall in sacrifice and vanish, or simply part ways with everyone else.

Qu Zhengyan, who hadn’t done particularly well in the class’s war-game exercises, rose rapidly through the string of great battles at Xiaocang River, taking one gamble after another and somehow always pulling through. Tang Minjie, equally extreme in his methods, made his mark during the later retreat, saving no small number of lives through sheer decisive risk-taking. Though by then his temperament had already turned rather sinister, someone who could deliver results while standing on your side would, in time, come to be accepted by at least some of his peers.

Still, back then, among all his classmates, his performance had really only been middling.

Later, after the incident at Liangshan, he’d been sent out on assignment, and people had gradually stopped thinking of him much at all. Later still, he’d returned from the north, the whole affair carried out in complete silence — aside from Peng Yueyun, and Lin Jingmei, who was forever hearing about him from Peng Yueyun’s mouth, most of their fellow classmates at headquarters had probably long since forgotten such a person existed.

In the more than ten years the Huaxia Army had been growing, this sort of thing was hardly rare.

It was only when Peng Yueyun happened to mention to his wife that Senior Brother had once run a literacy class for the “night fragrance women” near Liangshan that Lin Jingmei gained a fresh understanding of the man. Then, sometime after March, she heard that he had left the Night Fragrance Station and taken up a post as squad leader under her husband. Only then did she start quietly asking her father about Tang Minjie now and then. Ning Yi never explained things in detail, but from the tone of his voice, Lin Jingmei could roughly tell that this senior brother of theirs had become someone of real substance — perhaps he’d already accomplished a great many things.

Exactly what he had accomplished, and just how capable he’d become, she still couldn’t say.

The couple talked a while longer about old times, and about the girl named Cheng Min who’d come from the north. When the conversation turned to Zou Xu, Peng Yueyun said, “If you ask me, we should just let Brother Tang out of seclusion and let him give Zou Xu a proper working-over.”

Lin Jingmei just laughed and shook her head. “Even with how formidable Fatty Tang has become, he’s probably still a fair distance behind Zou Xu. Remember, back when Division Commander Liu led his troops thousands of li away to strike at Shandong, the staff department and the cadre corps handpicked their very best for it. Afterward, they handed Zou Xu command of fifty thousand hastily absorbed troops — that alone tells you how much they trusted his ability. Honestly, if he hadn’t taken that path and had stayed in the southwest for the great war against the Jurchens instead, he’d probably be commanding his own army by now.”

“Hmph!” Peng Yueyun scoffed. “Well, I still think if Brother Tang went out there, he’d crush Zou Xu without breaking a sweat!”

“Sure, sure.” Lin Jingmei looped her arm through his. “I was wrong. Our Brother Tang going out there — no problem at all, of course.”

“Right!”

“Riiight!”

In the rain, the two of them hollered back and forth like children, laughing all the way.

The drizzle had thickened into a steady rain, mixed now with the occasional roll of thunder. Sharing one umbrella, the couple gradually drew near the guesthouse with its posted guards. Just as they stepped beneath the eaves, a commotion erupted from inside, and two guards came running in.

Peng Yueyun and Lin Jingmei flashed their credentials and passed through the rain-curtained entrance to find the lobby already in an uproar. Peng Yueyun chuckled. “Now what’s all this—” Then his brow furrowed sharply.

In the lobby, two groups were shoving each other in a standoff. One side was his own squad — a woman’s voice rang out shrill above the rest, shouting, “I’ll fight every last one of you sons of bitches!” She was dragging a hoe, ready to charge and swing it at someone — it was Cheng Min, who’d only joined the squad a few days earlier, back from the northern lands. Several of her squadmates were trying to hold her back while others faced off against the opposing side.

On the other side, several tall, broad-shouldered soldiers stood their ground. One of them, seeing the hoe, showed no fear at all and jabbed a finger forward. “What do you think you’re doing! Put that down—” Among them, a young soldier had hold of a stool, ready to hurl himself forward, screaming, “I’ll kill him! I’ll pay with my own life, damn it, you son of a bitch! Coward! If you’ve got the guts, come out here and fight me one on one—”

At first glance, it looked as though Cheng Min and this young soldier were locked in a blood feud to the death.

Soldiers of the Huaxia Army were, by and large, hot-blooded men, and those fresh off the battlefield tended to run short-tempered — the odd verbal spat, even the occasional scuffle, wasn’t unusual. But for things to have escalated to this degree, with the young soldier plainly harboring murderous fury, was something rarely seen.

Looking around, Peng Yueyun scratched his head. He first spotted a familiar face on the other side — Xu Shaoyuan, who had once worked in the secretariat. Xu Shaoyuan was shouting at the young soldier’s side: “What do you think you’re doing! Everyone, stop this at once!” As his gaze swept to the other side, though, Peng Yueyun’s mind exploded with a sudden, deafening roar.

At the back of the lobby, among his own people, Tang Minjie sat in a chair with one hand pressed to his head, still seeming to say to the squad members in front of him, “Hold her back, don’t let this get out of hand—” But blood was seeping out from between his fingers, and a broken, shattered chair lay on the floor beside him.

It was plain to see: the enraged young soldier had first smashed a chair over Tang Minjie’s head, and it was that which had sent Cheng Min charging forward with her hoe.

Lin Jingmei couldn’t yet place most of the faces around her. She glanced around, spotted Xu Shaoyuan, and was about to speak when, beside her, her husband suddenly ripped his uniform jacket open with a violent tear. He tore it off, flung it to the ground, and roared with fury: “I’ll kill your whole damn family—!”

Before anyone could stop him, Peng Yueyun charged forward, pointing back at his own squad. “Women, get to the back! Are all the men here dead?! Kill every last one of them—!”

Outside, the rain kept falling, thunder cracking through the sky, and inside the lobby, a full-blown brawl broke out.