“There’s a bit of a problem.” Ning Yi pulled a blade of grass from the ground and lay back down. “We do need to make some preparations on Wang Shitong’s side.”
“Picking the fruit once it’s ripe?”
Xigua asked, and Ning Yi laughed and shook his head.
“I’m not that hungry for it. If he manages to walk a steady path, I’ll leave him be. If he can’t, I’d like to salvage a few good people out of it. A few hundred thousand people, in the end, are bound to leave something behind—it’s still too early to say, we’ll have to see how things develop.”
Xigua lay beside him, watching him. Ning Yi met her eyes a few times, then smiled again. “Wang Shitong is a very clever man. Coming south from the north, rallying several hundred thousand people on pure fighting spirit alone and leading them all the way to the banks of the Yellow River—that alone was no small feat. But, I don’t know… perhaps at some point, he still broke down inside. Having seen so many people die along this road, having nearly died himself, perhaps, on some level, he’s already come to understand that this is a dead-end road.”
Ning Yi looked up at the sky, and a complicated smile crossed his face again. “Everyone goes through something like this at some point—full of passion, and clever besides, able to get past most hurdles… only to eventually discover, as you keep walking, that some things simply cannot be achieved through cleverness or sheer willingness to throw your life away. That morning, I wanted to tell him the truth—that many people would have to die, and that the best possible outcome would be to save a few tens of thousands out of it. As their leader, if he could analyze things with a clear head and shoulder a burden of guilt that others couldn’t bear—after several hundred thousand, even a million, deaths—perhaps a few tens of thousands of capable fighters could be salvaged in the end, and together, we might finally be able to defeat the Jurchens.”
Ning Yi paused, looking at Xigua. “But he’s too clever. The moment I opened my mouth, he saw straight through to the heart of it. The lives of several hundred thousand people—that’s simply too heavy a weight to bear.”
Xigua listened to him talk about this, a hint of amusement in her eyes, and then pursed her lips into a pout. “Bear… the guilt?”
“I don’t see myself that way—no need to worry about me.” Ning Yi patted her head. “Several hundred thousand people trying to survive—people are bound to die at any moment, regardless. If you really break it down and analyze who lives and who dies, does anyone genuinely have a clear count in their heart? Most people simply can’t bear it; some would rather not think about it at all. But in truth, if you refuse to think about it, even more people end up dying—and then that leader really has failed at his job.”
“Maybe he’s worried you’ll have them serve as the vanguard, and then abandon them afterward.”
“What choice does he even have? Take whatever help is offered and be glad of it… Honestly, if he could truly grasp the relationship between this kind of cruelty and the greater good, he’d make the best possible ally the Black Banner could have—I’d help him with everything I’ve got. But since he can’t grasp it, never mind, then. Better if he leans a little extreme, honestly—the thing a clever man fears most is thinking he still has a way out.”
Ning Yi pillowed his hands behind his head, gazing up at the river of stars wheeling overhead. “Actually, you know, it’s just that I haven’t seen Ningxi and the others in years now, and this time, going back, I’ll finally get to see them—I can’t quite sleep because of it.”
“Four years.” Xigua said. “Little Xi still misses you terribly. He’s done a fine job looking after his younger brothers and sisters too, no need to worry.”
Ning Yi looked up at the sky, pursing his lips. After a moment, he sat up. “Tell me—after all these years thinking his father was dead, and I suddenly show up out of nowhere—what do you think he’ll feel?”
“That’s on you, for taking things so far.”
“I’m scared, honestly. Kids can’t help letting things slip sometimes.”
He tilted his head back and sighed, brow furrowing slightly. “I remember, more than ten years ago, before I set off for the capital, I told Tan’er—this trip to the capital doesn’t feel right to me, once I start doing what needs to be done, I might not be able to control myself anymore, going forward… And afterward… well, the Jurchens, the Mongols—those turned out to be small matters, by comparison. Four years without seeing my own children—now that’s just absurd…”
Watching him frown like that, faintly touched with a trace of fierceness, Xigua, who had spent so long by his side, recognized this as simply Ning Yi’s usual way of venting long-pent-up feelings; if an enemy happened to be standing in front of him right now, they’d likely be in for a very bad time. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “If none of this had happened, would you still be with me? I’m the one who was going to start a rebellion, after all.”
“Life is always, well, a mix of gains and losses.” The fierce edge faded from Ning Yi’s face; he stood and took a couple of steps. “Ningxi is thirteen now, Xiaoji ten, Wenwen eight—they should all understand things by now. Xiaohe and Xiaoke are five, Xiaoshuang and Xiaoning three—born without ever having seen me at all. I suppose it’s all my own doing, but there’s bound to be some regret in it all the same. My own children—what if they don’t even recognize me?”
Xigua stood up too, her eyes clear, smiling. “Once you go back and see them, you’ll understand. We’ve raised them well.”
Ning Yi thought about it for a moment and said nothing more. With the experience of his previous life, added to sixteen years in this one, the art of nurturing one’s inner calm had already sunk deep into his bones. And yet, no matter who you were, children remained the one truly special thing in life. When he first arrived in the Wu dynasty, all he’d wanted was a life of leisure—even if the fires of war came, he could simply move his family south and live out his life in peace and safety. Who could have known he would end up walking this particular road instead—where even he himself was left tossing and turning amid dangerous tides, walking a tightrope along the edge of a hurricane.
During the three years of the great battle at Xiaocang River, he had only gone south once, at the start of the second year, to see Tan’er and Yun Zhu, who had by then settled in the south. By that time, Hongti had already given birth to Ning He, and Jin’er had already given birth to a daughter, named Ning Ke. This time, upon returning home, Yun Zhu had been pregnant, and Xigua, who had been secretly traveling with him at the time, was pregnant too; later, the daughter Yun Zhu bore was named Shuang, and Xigua’s daughter was named Ning. By the time the battle at Xiaocang River ended and he went into hiding, he had never once even laid eyes on these two daughters.
When the Huaxia Army first moved south, it absorbed no small number of troops from Great Qi; the original elite core of the army had been reduced by more than half, and internally, things were chaotic and complicated. From intelligence channels in the north run by Lu Mingfang, he knew that Wanyan Xiyin was watching the Huaxia Army extremely closely—on one hand, he worried the children might accidentally let something slip; on the other, he worried Wanyan Xiyin might recklessly attempt some desperate probing move that could endanger his family. Ning Yi had exhausted himself with worry, unable to sleep at night, and only after the first round of training and purging within the army was complete, and after he had rigorously vetted the standing of a number of officers within the ranks, selecting and cultivating a group of promising young men to help run the Huaxia Army, did he finally manage to set his mind somewhat at ease. During that period, there had also been several assassination attempts, all of them thwarted by Hongti, Du Sha, Fang Shuchang, and others.
Throughout this time, Tan’er had served as household manager within the Huaxia Army, while Hongti was responsible for the safety of the adults and children; the two of them had barely been able to find any time to reunite with Ning Yi. Yun Zhu, Jin’er, Xiao Chan, Xigua, and the others would occasionally slip away in secret to visit him at his hidden residence. Even with Ning Yi’s iron resolve, there were times, waking in the middle of the night, when the thought of one child or another falling sick, getting injured, or being frail and crying, would still bring a quiet sigh to his lips.
Two years had passed, and the situation within the Huaxia Army had by now settled. This year, Ning Yi and Xigua had traveled north together, taking a roundabout route through Tibet and Western Xia, then to the northwest, and finally circling back through the Central Plains—which was exactly how they had come to be present for the events involving You Hongzhuo and the Hungry Ghosts of Zezhou. By now, there was less than a month left before he would be home again; even if Wanyan Xiyin truly had something planned, Ning Yi had already made sufficient preparations for it.
With the situation across the Central Plains now shifted, Qin Shaoqian would continue to hold the public face of command over the Huaxia Army, leaving Ning Yi free to reunite with his family, and even to make the occasional appearance without concern. If the Jurchens truly wanted to cross a thousand mountains and rivers just to come fight the Huaxia Army in the southwest, then he would simply meet them in battle again—nothing more needed to be said about it.
Ever since the war with the Jurchens had begun, even stretched across several years, for Ning Yi it had always felt like a race against the clock. While the bloated Wu dynasty was still playing at recovery and rest, Ning Yi, having traveled north, already understood that once the Mongols finished swallowing up Western Xia, they would find the perfect springboard from which to strike straight at the heart of the Central Plains. At present, apart from the Zhe family and others still nominally allied with the Jurchens, scraping by and rebuilding what livelihoods they could, most of the northwest had already become a wasteland; without the old Western Army that had once stood there, the gates to the Central Plains now stood essentially wide open. Once that cavalry force—still unknown to most people of the Central Plains at this point—took that step, the Central Plains of the future would become a true living hell.
Even if the Jurchens ended up fighting against them too, in this coming brutal contest, there would be precious little room for the weak to survive.
“Just thinking about it moves me…” Ning Yi muttered, walking alongside Xigua across the grassy slope. “After sounding out the Mongols’ intentions…”
Just as he was speaking, someone suddenly appeared in the distance. A torch flickered a few times, making a familiar gesture; figures hidden in the darkness slipped back into hiding again. The one approaching from the other side was Fang Shuchang, who was staying that night in a nearby town. Ning Yi frowned—if it weren’t for something requiring an immediate response, he probably wouldn’t have come at all.
“What’s happened?”
“Something’s come up.” Fang Shuchang turned and pointed off into the distance, where, deep in the darkness, faint shifts of light could be dimly made out.
“Fighting’s broken out?” Xigua frowned. “Beiwei Army launching a night raid on Dengzhou?”
“No. A group came out from Dengzhou’s garrison, another group came out from the martial world—every side has people involved now. It’s said that two nights ago, Jin martial artists infiltrated Xiangyang and abducted General Yue’s children, taking them out of the city; the Beiwei Army has also sent out its top fighters in pursuit, and both sides have already clashed several times, slowing the Jin group down. The news has already spread through Dengzhou and Xinye—some have come to rescue them, some to intercept them, and now quite a few people have already begun fighting. It’ll probably spread to this area before long. We’d best move on.”
“General Yue… Yue Fei’s children—that would be Yinping and Yue Yun.” Ning Yi thought it over for a moment. “Hasn’t the army caught up to them yet? If the two sides meet, it’ll be quite a battle.”
“Word is the Jurchen side is made up of top-tier fighters, a hundred strong in total, sent specifically to kill and take heads. The Yue family’s army has been very cautious, unwilling to rush in; the enemy’s masters seem to have consistently failed to pin down their position, only managing to chase them along a roundabout route. These Jurchens have also killed one lone Beiwei Army officer who’d gotten separated from the rest, carrying his head as a show of force—full of themselves. Though things are chaotic around Dengzhou and Xinye right now, some martial artists from the rivers and lakes have still broken out, wanting to rescue General Yue’s two children. You see…”
Xigua glanced at Ning Yi. “This General Yue once served under you—there’s still some measure of old loyalty there. Why not lend a hand?”
“He’s Zhou Tong’s disciple, upright and unbending by nature; given the matter of the regicide, it would be very difficult for the two of us to ever meet face to face. Over these years, his Beiwei Army has become something to reckon with too—if he genuinely set his sights on us, it would be hard going, even for us, to get past Xiangyang…” Ning Yi frowned, finishing this thought, then raised a hand slightly. “Never mind—let’s just do what we reasonably can. If these people really have come to take heads, conflict with your people down the line is more or less unavoidable anyway. Before we run into the Beiwei Army ourselves, let’s take the detour quickly.”
Fang Shuchang nodded. Xigua laughed, her figure sliding out from beside Ning Yi in a flash—in the blink of an eye she was already more than twenty feet away, snatching up the black cloak by the fire and wrapping it around herself as she went, then vaulting onto her horse by a nearby tree and pulling the reins tight. “I’ll lead.”
Up on her horse, the sharp, spirited woman warrior gave a clean, decisive smile. Ning Yi hesitated. “Hey, you…”
“Don’t worry.”
The black horse charged forward. She raised her hand, light scattering from her fingertips, and a moment later, a flare shot up into the sky.
The autumn wind howled, great waves surging up; before long, across the grassland and through the trees, figure after figure came cutting through the darkness like waves breaking against a shore, all converging toward the same direction.
Ning Yi mounted his horse as well, and together with Fang Shuchang, rode after those converging figures. Ahead, a chaotic battlefield was already unfolding amid the night.