Coming out of two hundred years of prosperity and splendor under the Wu Dynasty, roughly four years had now passed—a stretch of time both brief and yet endless, during which people had gradually grown accustomed to the flames of war, to displacement, to death, to the reality of a fall from the heights of glory. In the early spring of the third year of Jianshuo, the region of Jiangnan lay steeped in a bleak, ashen gray. The Jurchens’ campaign of “combing the mountains and searching the seas” continued still.

In Jiangning, blanketed snow still lay heavy over the city, but a great upheaval was already brewing beneath the surface.

Countless members of the gentry and wealthy households were fleeing the city one after another. The properties of the Princess Chengguo’s estate were already being relocated; the Puyang family, once celebrated as Jiangning’s foremost wealthy merchants, were loading vast quantities of gold and silver onto cart after cart, the womenfolk of every household already prepared to depart. The family patriarch, Puyang Yi, refused to be the first to flee—he ran back and forth between the local authorities and the military, offering to donate substantial sums of gold and property toward resistance efforts and the raising of troops. But most others were already well on their way out of the city.

If we still remember, this was the very city Ning Yi had first encountered upon arriving in this era. Steeped in centuries of history, it had long since taken on an air of tranquil, dignified grandeur, its city walls towering and solemn, its courtyards weathered and ancient. The former residence of the Su family still stood, though it had since been sealed off by the authorities; the courtyards that once bustled with life were now overgrown with brush and weeds, the valuable furnishings long since carried away, the window lattices grown shabby, the old lacquer peeling from walls and pillars in mottled patches.

In the courtyard where Ning Yi and Tan’er had once lived, cobwebs now hung within the rooms, and stray cats and dogs had made this place their home, foraging quietly for food, padding silently across the snow-covered courtyard walls. Perhaps we still remember—nearly ten years ago now—how Ning Yi and a woman named Su Tan’er had once talked and lived together within these very rooms, growing gradually closer through spring rains and autumn frosts, until at last they became a simple married couple. There had once been two small buildings here; one was later burned down by Tan’er, and they had moved in together under one roof.

Back then, the elders and children of the family had still lived here too, the idle young scions of the household spending their days on cockfights and dog racing, while the adults of each branch schemed quietly against one another over petty gains. There had once been such a stormy night as this too, when brutal intruders had forced their way into this very courtyard, when someone had fallen in a pool of blood, when someone else had risen in desperate, frenzied resistance—events that, not long after, led to the downfall of that bandit stronghold known as Liangshan Marsh.

Beyond the courtyard, the city’s roads stretched straight ahead, and the Qinhuai River, famed for its romance and revelry, wound its way through this city. Across two hundred years, one pleasure house after another had opened along its banks, and one courtesan or gifted woman after another had gradually risen to fame here, only to fade away again with the passing wind and rain. The once-renowned Jinfeng House, ranked among the finest in Jiangning a decade or so earlier, had already collapsed years ago; its proprietress, a woman named Yang Xiuhong, had shared no small resemblance in temperament to Li Yun, the “Mama” of Fanlou House in Bianliang.

Unlike Li Yun, however, when the Jurchen soldiers broke through Bianliang and the court, under enormous pressure, was forced to search the city for beautiful women to hand over for the Jurchens’ pleasure, Mama Li Yun and several of Fanlou’s leading courtesans had taken poison and ended their own lives to preserve their chastity. Yang Xiuhong, by contrast, had years earlier exhausted her entire fortune under the extortion and coercion of various officials, and her life afterward had grown, oddly, more peaceful. Now, this woman—her youthful glory long since faded—had set out on the road away from the city as well. On this cold, snowy day, she would sometimes find herself thinking back to the old Jinfeng House, to that girl who had once thrown herself into the Qinhuai River on a rainy night, to the once-chaste Nie Yunzhu, who had ultimately bought her own freedom and left.

Following the Qinhuai River upstream, in a secluded spot along the bank, the once-notorious treacherous chancellor Qin Siyuan had once set up a chess stall beneath a tree by the roadside, where all manner of visitors would occasionally come to sit with him and play a game. Now, the road stretched on unchanged, the tree still standing, but the man was gone.

Further upstream, the small building by the river that Ning Yi had once jogged past each morning had, over the past two years, fallen into disrepair and finally collapsed under the weight of snow and neglect. The girl once named Nie Yunzhu used to wait there each morning, greeting him with a smile; after Yuan Jin’er moved in, she’d caused her own share of boisterous mischief there too. Sometimes, the group of them had sat together on the riverside terrace, chatting and singing, watching the sun set, the autumn leaves drift down, the winter snow fall endlessly. Now, snow lay piled deep amid the ruined, rotting foundations of that building, choked with withered weeds.

Wu Qilong, who had inherited leadership of the Wu family—once foremost among Jiangning’s three great cloth-merchant clans—had once been badly outmaneuvered by Ning Yi and the Su family in the contest over the imperial merchant title. Since then, Wu Qilong had taken the lesson to heart, growing steadier and more mature over the following years, cultivating an increasingly close relationship with the local authorities, until he had finally restored the Wu family’s business to its former scale—and then some. In the early years, he had harbored thoughts of rising back up and settling scores with the Su family, but before long, that opportunity had slipped away from him entirely.

Over these years, Xue Jin, once the pampered young scion of the Xue family, had reached his thirties without any great accomplishment to his name, spending his days chasing after women, now surrounded by a full household of wife and children. He might still, at times, recall that brick he had once thrown in his reckless youth—thrown at the very man who, having married into another family as a live-in son-in-law, had gone on to kill an emperor, and who was, even now, engaged in the earth-shaking business of open rebellion somewhere far away. He sometimes wanted to bring this up as a bit of gossip to share with others, but in truth, this fact had remained pressed down inside him, never once spoken aloud.

The Jurchens were coming.

In the midst of their campaign of pillage and slaughter, sweeping through mountains and seas alike, the Jurchen vanguard was now drawing near Jiangning. The Wulie Battalion, garrisoned here, had arrayed itself for resistance, but few held out much hope for the outcome. Throughout these months of burning and killing, apart from a few minor setbacks in their sea-borne pursuit, the Jurchens’ advance across the land had been almost entirely unstoppable, sweeping through cities and territory with overwhelming force. People had already come to understand the harsh truth that their own court’s armies possessed no real fighting strength at all, and with the failure of the Jurchens’ attempt to capture Zhou Yong by sea, their offensive on land had grown only more ferocious as a result.

A few months earlier, Crown Prince Zhou Junwu had returned briefly to Jiangning to organize resistance; later, to spare the city from further ruin on his account, Junwu had fled southwest with a portion of the troops and craftsmen. But one branch of the Jurchen forces was now advancing along that very same route, in pursuit.

Amid this chaos, the carriage of Princess Chengguo’s household also left the city. The aging Princess Chengguo, Zhou Xuan, was unwilling to leave, and her husband, Consort Kang Xian, was equally reluctant to go—how could there be any justice, he argued, in letting a woman die for the sake of the nation while he fled? In the end, the couple compromised for each other’s sake, but that very night, after leaving the city, Princess Chengguo Zhou Xuan fell gravely ill at a private villa just outside Jiangning.

They stayed at the villa for two days as Zhou Xuan’s condition steadily worsened, and Kang Xian resolved not to travel any further. That night, someone arrived from afar, road-worn and weary—it was Crown Prince Junwu, who had rushed back day and night accompanied by Lu Agui. He went in to see the now critically ill Zhou Xuan, and when he asked Kang Xian about her condition out in the courtyard, Kang Xian only shook his head.

The old man’s hair had turned entirely white by now; days of anxious vigil had left his eyes bloodshot, though there was, within his expression, a certain quiet clarity that had settled in. He said: “She spent her whole life here in Jiangning. When we discussed, a few days ago, whether we ought to leave, I already had my doubts—perhaps we shouldn’t have. But… when the moment truly arrives, one can never quite shake that last flicker of foolish hope.”

Then he added: “You shouldn’t have come back. Once it’s light out, you’d best leave quickly.”

Tears welled in Junwu’s eyes. “I thought, if I left, the Jurchens might at least spare Jiangning…”

“This is where your father spent half his life. Do you truly think the Jurchens would spare it on that account? And there’s no need for such gloomy talk—the Wulie Battalion still has tens of thousands of men; it’s not impossible that they might yet hold out.”

When he finished speaking, Junwu looked at him and shook his head, the words in his mouth left unspoken. Kang Xian only smiled faintly. “Fine. I suppose I’m only fooling myself. The Wulie Battalion… likely won’t be able to hold them back. So, you see, you have no choice but to go.”

“Then what about you two…”

“Everything belonging to Princess Chengguo’s household has already been passed on to you and your sister. What is there left for us to hold onto? The nation’s decline is the fruit of two hundred years of accumulated weakness—you young people must carry things forward, though it will only come slowly. Junwu, there’s no need for you to throw your life away here in some noble gesture. You need to go into hiding, to endure, and not concern yourself with anyone else. Anyone throwing their life away here means nothing—only if you survive might there be, someday, a chance to win.”

The old man had already come to terms with things in his heart, and spoke of it all with an air of calm detachment; Junwu’s own heart ached with a grief too great to voice.

Late that night, Zhou Xuan’s mind cleared briefly. Kang Xian went into the room to speak with his wife, while Junwu waited outside the door. He expected the old man would eventually call him in, but after waiting a long, long while, no further sound came from within. Dawn was approaching; in the deepest dark before daybreak, the candlelight in the room had naturally guttered out. Junwu carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside, lighting a lamp. Beside the bed, Kang Xian sat quietly holding his wife’s hand, unmoving. His tears had already dried on his face, but his gaze remained clear. Junwu walked over; Zhou Xuan, her eyes closed, had wrapped one hand around Kang Xian’s and had already, peacefully and forever, fallen asleep.

Junwu could not help but fall to his knees, weeping. It was only once he had finished crying that Kang Xian spoke softly: “In her final moments, she spoke of you two—there wasn’t much she wanted to say. You are the last of the imperial line; she hoped you would preserve the Zhou family’s bloodline. As long as you both live, the Zhou family lives on.” He gently stroked his dead wife’s hand, then turned to look once more at that familiar face. “So, hurry now. Flee.”

At that moment, Zhou Pei was drifting at sea alongside her father, who had fled far away. Junwu, kneeling there, bowed his head to the ground on his sister’s behalf as well. After a long while, he wiped away his tears, his voice choked: “Grandfather Kang, come with me…”

Kang Xian only looked at his wife and shook his head. “I won’t be leaving. She and I spent our whole lives in Jiangning—we’ll die in Jiangning too. This is our home. Now that others mean to force their way into our home, we were never meant to leave in the first place. As long as she lived, I clung to my own life for her sake. Now that she’s gone, it’s time for me to do what I ought to do.”

“But you can’t just be gone from now on, Grandfather Kang…”

“Of course I can. When the old pass on, the young are left to witness the world’s cruelty, and only then do they grow strong enough to stand on their own. Sometimes it happens a little too soon, perhaps, but that’s simply how the world works—nothing worth quibbling over. Junwu, the road ahead is yours to walk now…”

In all his life, among his own kin, this elderly couple had shown him the most genuine kindness. Now that Zhou Xuan had passed, and the man before him showed such unshakable resolve to stay behind, Junwu felt grief welling up uncontrollably within him, his voice catching for a long moment before Kang Xian spoke again.

“Ah, in my youth, I too once walked a road of my own. Myself, your Grandfather Qin, Zuo Duanyou, Wang Qisong—all of us, one by one, hoping to carve out some good path forward for this world. Junwu, we failed, in the end. What experience we gained is, at most, the experience of failures—what needed to be taught to you, we’ve already taught. Don’t put too much stock in it; the views of old men, the views of the defeated, are worth only so much as a reference, nothing more to rely on.” He fell silent for a moment, then added, “The only one among us who refused to accept defeat killed an emperor…”

He spoke of Ning Yi, yet in his words, he treated the man as though he were an equal, a peer of his own generation.

In that room, Kang Xian said nothing further. He held his wife’s hand, as though trying to feel the last trace of warmth fading from it, but her body had already grown irreversibly cold. Long after dawn had broken, he finally let go of her hand, rose calmly, and went out to call for someone to come handle what remained to be done.

By midday, Kang Xian urged Junwu to set out on the road. Junwu made one final attempt to persuade him to come along, but Kang Xian merely turned to look back at the courtyard and house, now strewn with white mourning flowers, and shook his head slowly but firmly, then smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, but your Grandfather Kang is old now. If I went with you, I’d surely die somewhere along the road… Could you really bear to watch your grandmother remain here alone in Jiangning forever, while I died far from home, never to be reunited with her? Go now, quickly, all of you.”

Only then did Junwu and the others go to prepare the horses. As they were about to part, Kang Xian gazed off toward the city of Jiangning and spoke his final words: “Of all that’s happened these past years, it was your teacher’s battle in the northwest that stirred me most—I truly wish we could have fought a battle like that ourselves too… I likely won’t see him again. If you ever do, in the future, tell him this for me…” He seemed to have much more he wished to say, but after a long pause of silence and consideration, he finally said only: “…He fought well. It wasn’t easy at all. But he’s grown too caught up in worldly matters—when it comes to chess, I doubt he’d still be any match for me.”

Last winter, when the Jurchens swept south with unstoppable force, no one had been able to stand against them for even a single exchange. It was only when word arrived from the northwest of the Black Banner Army’s head-on victory over the Jurchen western army, and the death in battle of the Jurchen war god Wanyan Loushi, that among those few high-ranking officials who learned of it, this news brought true shock—and the only real spark of encouragement to be found anywhere. Yet in this moment when the entire realm was collapsing into chaos, precious few people ever came to learn of this news at all, and Ning Yi, having killed Zhou Zhe, could never be held up as some rallying symbol to be openly promoted across the Central Plains or Jiangnan. For Kang Xian, the only person he could truly speak these few words to, in the end, was this very young man before him—someone who, like himself, still held a flicker of genuine goodwill toward Ning Yi.

This was both his pride and his regret. Zhou Zhe and the Wu Dynasty had been rotten to the core, and a hero like Ning Yi could, in the end, never have been put to proper use by the House of Zhou. Now, all that remained was to watch the realm collapse, while that army stationed in the northwest, having killed Loushi, was surely destined to fall into total isolation, cut off from all support…

After this, Junwu and the others made their way southwest, glancing back every few steps, while that same evening, Kang Xian returned to Jiangning alongside the coffin bearing Princess Chengguo. He had grown old now—old enough that his heart held no more attachments—and so he no longer feared the enemy soon to invade his home.

Not long after, the Jurchen army pressed in on Jiangning. Yin Tu, the commander of the Wulie Battalion, led his men in surrender, opening the city gates to welcome the Jurchens in. Because the defenders had performed “reasonably well,” the Jurchens refrained from any large-scale massacre within Jiangning, though they still plundered a great number of wealthy households and gathered up vast quantities of gold, silver, and treasures—and, of course, various small-scale incidents of rape and killing occurred throughout this period as well.

Kang Xian had already sent his household staff away, keeping only some twenty-odd family members and loyal servants behind to make a final stand. Before the Jurchens arrived, a traveling storyteller came calling, seeking an audience, and Kang Xian, with something like pleasant surprise, received him warmly. He questioned the storyteller in careful detail about the situation in the northwest, face to face, before finally seeing him off. This marked the first and last indirect exchange between Ning Yi and Kang Xian in all the years since the regicide—Ning Yi had urged him to leave, and Kang Xian had refused.

Far off in the southwest, Junwu had no way of knowing about this small, quiet episode. His next meeting with Ning Yi would not come until years later, in circumstances of utter desperation. Not long after, the old man named Kang Xian departed this world forever, in Jiangning.

…

In the north, the bitter cold weather continued unabated. Amid it all, both the splendor and the tragedy of human life unfolded side by side, without pause.

Emperor Jingping, Zhou Ji—a man who, throughout his life, had loved consulting fortune-tellers and mystics, who not long after his enthronement had appointed the Celestial Master Guo Jing to resist the Jurchens, and who had since been carried off captive to the north—was now living out days of unspeakable misery. Ever since being taken north, he had been “granted” the title Duke of Hundered Virtue by Wuqimai; now, he served as a special plaything for the amusement of the Jurchen nobility. Confined to a small courtyard near the imperial city, fed barely edible scraps each day, he was dragged out and subjected to humiliation at every Jurchen gathering, put on display as proof of the Great Jin’s martial glory.

At first, Zhou Ji—accustomed all his life to comfort and privilege—naturally couldn’t adjust to such conditions. But the matter proved simple enough: after going hungry for a few days, even food resembling pig slop became perfectly swallowable. The Jurchens had granted him the title of “Duke,” but in truth regarded him as nothing more than a pig or a dog; the guards assigned to watch him could strike and curse him freely, and each time his meal was delivered, he was required to prostrate himself fully before these lowly soldiers and offer thanks on his knees.

None of this was even the hardest part to bear. Among the royal women taken captive to the north were some who were his own sisters-in-law and nieces—the wife and daughters of the late Emperor Jinghan, Zhou Zhe—and others who were his own daughters, even his own wives and concubines. These women were dragged before him and subjected to violation and abuse right in his presence; and what use was there in refusing to bear it? Unless one dared to die, there was nothing left but to endure.

Winter in the northern lands was bitterly cold, and when it came, the Jurchens did not even provide him enough charcoal or clothing to keep warm. Zhou Ji could only huddle together with the empress who remained by his side for whatever warmth they could share; occasionally, if a guard happened to be in a good mood, the empress might offer her body, or he himself might kowtow, in exchange for a little charcoal or clothing. At Jurchen banquets, Zhou Ji would be called out, forced to kneel on the ground each time and offer up praises to the Great Jin state, even composing poems in celebration of Jin’s cultural and military accomplishments, acknowledging his own guilt as the cause of his downfall—if his captors were pleased, he might be rewarded with a proper meal; if his display of submission fell short, he could expect a beating instead, or days of enforced hunger.

We cannot judge whether this emperor, only recently come to the throne, deserved to bear such immense humiliation on behalf of the entire Wu Dynasty, nor can we judge whether it would have been more just, in the end, had Ning Yi spared Zhou Zhe’s life and left him to endure all this instead. Between nations, the defeated have only ever been made to suffer—there has never been any justice to speak of in such matters. And in this northern land, this emperor was far from the only one suffering the most wretched fate; among the noble and imperial women consigned to the laundry workshops, nearly half froze or starved to death that winter alone, while the vast majority of captured slaves lived lives worse than death—more than half had already perished miserably within just the first year.

The Jurchens cared nothing for the deaths of their slaves, since more would always continue arriving, one wave after another, from the south.

This second winter proved even harsher for Zhou Ji than the first. The Jurchens’ campaign of combing mountains and seas in the south had failed to capture the new Wu emperor, and with news arriving of the defeat in the northwest, the Jurchens’ treatment of Zhou Ji grew only more vicious as a result. That New Year, they summoned him to a banquet, had him compose several poems and pieces praising the glory of the Jurchens, and afterward forced him to draft several proclamations.

One of these proclamations had him, in his capacity as former Wu emperor, urge the people of the southern court to submit to Jin’s rightful rule, denouncing the resisting armies as beasts unworthy of the name “human,” heaping curses upon them, while earnestly counseling Zhou Yong to stop hiding and come north instead, to bask together in the benevolent grace of the Jin emperor.

The second proclamation had him once again denounce the treasonous regicide committed by the former Wusheng Battalion, calling on the people of Wu to unite in condemning the fugitive who had murdered his emperor and now stood as a public enemy of the realm.

The third had him formally pass the throne to Liu Yu, the “virtuous” prefect who had opened the gates of Jinan and surrendered, ordering him to establish the “Great Qi” regime south of Yanmen Pass, to serve as a vassal state to Jin, guarding its southern frontier, pacifying the people, and suppressing rebellion on Jin’s behalf.

Afterward, the Jin state had Zhou Ji’s poems of praise, his verses, and his proclamations compiled into a single volume and, just as they had done the year before, distributed freely throughout the south…

…

In the northwest, the brief spell of peace still held.

After the arrival of spring, Ning Yi traveled to Yan Prefecture to visit Zhong Lie. At this time, the people of this region carried themselves with unmistakable morale and pride; nearby, forces like the She family, and any others who had shown sympathy toward the Jurchens, had for the most part drawn back into themselves, their days now considerably harder.

Many had chosen to join either the Huaxia Army or the Zhong family army—the two forces now stood formally allied.

“The people’s spirits run high,” Ning Yi remarked, standing atop the city wall alongside Zhong Lie, watching the scene below as men lined up to enlist.

This was the last of the excitement to be had.

The fall of the Central Plains had become an established fact; the northwest now stood as an isolated, desperate outpost, cut off from the rest of the world.

“There’s no road back now.” Zhong Lie pressed both hands against the parapet, his tall frame carrying that unmistakable, bold spirit unique to men of the northwest. “So let’s cut a path forward instead!”

Ever since that battle against the Jurchen western army, his entire being seemed to burn with an unquenchable fire. Ning Yi stood beside him, watching, and said nothing.

On January 29th, Jiangning fell.

He thought of that city.

So much had already shattered and drifted away, and now that darkness—crushing and grinding down everything in its path—was pressing steadily toward this place too. This was a darkness harder to withstand than any that had come before, though it remained, for now, hard to say exactly in what form it would ultimately arrive.

The third year of Wu Jianshuo. The eve of the northwest’s descent into an isolated, desperate ground.