The evening breeze carried the warmth of a summer night; the lamps burned bright, and the stars blinked overhead. Hedeng County in the southwest was settling into a warm night. Looking down from the mountainside, scattered lights spread along the foothills; in the plaza below, a crowd was gathering, and in the theater at one side of the plaza, a new play called Autumn Wind Rolls On was being performed. Huaxia Army members from Bulai County came in crowds, and merchants, workers, and farmers from Jishan brought their families along, gathering here to wait for the doors to open. Above the theater, a complex windmill mechanism turned a great revolving lantern slowly round and round.
Although the Bamboo Registry had originally used storytelling, singing, and acrobatics to spread its intelligence network, and the Huaxia Army’s internal cultural life was fairly rich compared with the outside world, this theater in Hedeng was still the most formal of all its entertainments. The theater was open to everyone within the Huaxia Army, and tickets were cheap — the real issue was the quota, since each person could only expect to get a ticket once or twice a year. People whose lives had once been impoverished treated this as a great occasion, traveling long distances to come, filling the plaza with life and noise every night. Even the recent tensions in the outside world hadn’t interrupted it; the plaza rang with laughter, soldiers chatting with their companions while keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.
An attempted arson two days earlier now seemed as though it had never happened at all.
Perhaps people who had lived through the fires of war had already found the trick to living under such conditions.
Up on the hill, in the residential quarter for the families, things were much quieter. Scattered lamplight glowed softly, and occasional footsteps passed along the street. In a newly built two-story house, a second-floor window stood open, lit from within; from here one could easily see the plaza and theater in the distance. Though the new play had proven popular, the woman who had trained the performers and overseen the production hadn’t gone backstage this time to check the audience’s reaction. In the flickering lamplight, a woman with a still-wan complexion sat on the bed, bent over, mending a small garment, her hand pricked twice already by the needle.
Soft footsteps sounded, and someone pushed the door open. The woman looked up; the one who entered wore a gentle smile, dressed in light black clothing, her hair tied back behind her head, giving her the look of a man’s dress, yet with a certain heroic flair of her own. “Sister Hongti.” It was Lu Hongti — though highly skilled in martial arts within her family, she had the mildest temperament, the sort one could tease a little without consequence, and Jin’er felt at ease around her.
“How are you feeling? I was passing by, so I thought I’d look in on you.”
“I’ve been fine for a while now.”
“Good.” Hongti sat down sideways on the edge of the bed, knees together, looking at the cloth in Jin’er’s hands. “Making clothes?”
“My needlework’s ugly.” Jin’er’s face reddened slightly, and she tucked the garment against herself. Hongti smiled along with her, guessing roughly what the little garment meant, and didn’t press the matter with any joking. After a moment Jin’er brought the garment back out again. “That child just slipped away without a sound. I thought about it — I never even made him anything…”
“Mm.” Hongti was silent for a moment. “Anyway… it had only just been conceived, it didn’t know anything yet. Just have Liheng give you another one.”
“I want a boy.”
“Er…”
Hongti pursed her lips slightly, seeming about to say that wasn’t something one could simply choose, when Jin’er burst out laughing. “All right, Sister Hongti, I’m not sad about it anymore.”
Hongti gave a helpless look at having been teased, and Jin’er lunged forward a little and hugged her arm. “Sister Hongti, you look so dashing dressed like this today — why don’t you go conceive one with me instead?” Her hand reached toward the front of Hongti’s clothes, the other dropping to her waistband, reaching around toward her back. Hongti laughed and drew her legs back to dodge, though since Jin’er hadn’t much energy these days, this bit of bedroom teasing between the two women didn’t go any further.
“This is a night-operation outfit — seeing you still have this much spirit puts my mind at ease.” Hongti straightened her clothes and stood. “I’ve still got some matters to attend to, I need to head out.”
“Sister Hongti, do be careful,” Jin’er said, waving her hand. “If you come back late, I’ll go seduce your man.”
“Your man’s busy handling matters — that’ll take some time yet.” Hongti smiled, and gave one last piece of advice before leaving: “Drink plenty of water.” She went out of the room. Jin’er watched from the window; where Hongti’s silhouette gradually disappeared, a small group emerged from the shadows and followed after her, the formidable Zheng Qiming among them. Jin’er gave a small wave at the window, watching their figures vanish into the distance.
Occasionally there were times like this, when everyone had matters of their own to see to. Warm-hearted little Ningke, after tending to her mother for a few days, had been taken off by Ning Yi to fetch tea in the office. Yunzhu was in the archive sorting through books that had started to grow damp with the season, Tan’er was still handling part of the Huaxia Army’s internal affairs, and even Xiao Chan had been rather busy of late — the main reason, of course, being that Jin’er herself needed rest and recuperation during this time, so today no one had come by much to disturb her.
The night passed quietly. By the time the little garment was nearly finished, a small squabble sounded from outside, and the door was pushed open by Ning Shuang and Ning Ning, the pair of little imps. This pair of four-year-old sisters, close in age, were always playing together, and this time some petty spat had broken out between them, and they’d come to Jin’er to settle it — ordinarily Jin’er’s lively, playful temperament made her something like an elder sister to the younger children, always well loved by the little girls. Jin’er duly mediated between the two once again, and once the mood had settled back into harmony, she had the soldier assigned to watch over them take the two children off to rest.
As night deepened, in the plaza below, the day’s play had already ended, and people were streaming out of the theater one after another. Jin’er picked up the finished little garment, wrapped it in a small bundle, and went out the door. The middle-aged woman keeping guard outside stood up, and Jin’er gave her a smile. “I want to go up to the back hill — Sister Qing, come along with me.”
“Yes.” The soldier, named Li Qing, nodded and picked up her Miao saber and matchlock. She was a Miao woman from the Miao frontier, who had originally followed the Overturning Blade Camp in its uprising, and had once received guidance from Liu Dabiao himself; were any assassin to come, ordinary skilled fighters would find it hard indeed to get the better of her, and even a master like Hongti would need real effort to bring her down.
They walked together through the streets of the residential quarter; those who’d gone to watch the play had not yet returned, and few people were about. Occasionally a young man or two passed by in the street, each carrying a weapon, and they greeted Jin’er as they passed; Jin’er smiled and waved back at them.
“Auntie Jin’er, be careful not to go too far — there’ve been bad people about lately.”
“I know.”
“Don’t worry, even if bad people come, we won’t let them cause any trouble!”
“Well then, I’m counting on you all.”
“Ha, with Auntie Li Qing along, Auntie Jin’er doesn’t even need the likes of you…”
Amid such banter they made their way along, and before long had passed through the residential quarter to the back of the hill. The back hill at Hedeng wasn’t large; it bordered the martyrs’ cemetery, and though the patrols on its outer edge were in fact quite strict — with a restricted military zone further beyond — there was no great cause for worry about enemy infiltration. But compared to the front of the hill, it was certainly much quieter. Jin’er passed through a small stand of trees and came to a pond in the woods, where she set down the bundle. Moonlight fell softly over the scene.
Li Qing had already vanished from sight. Jin’er sat on the grass in the woods, her back against a tree; in truth she hadn’t quite worked out for herself what she had come here to do. She sat like that for a while, then rose and dug a small hole, took the little garment out of the bundle, gently laid it into the hole, and covered it over.
Then she sat a good while longer. “You… once you get there, live a good life, all right.”
Tears, catching the soft light of the moon, fell down her fair cheeks.
This child had never even had a name.
After that, Jin’er sat thinking about the child, about this and that, not knowing how much time had passed. Footsteps came through the trees; Jin’er turned her head to look, and Ning Yi’s figure crossed the grove, came to stand beside her a moment, then sat down as well.
“Amitabha.” He pressed his palms together toward the little grave and bowed his head twice.
Jin’er wiped the corners of her eyes and smiled. “What are you doing here?”
“Stealing a little idleness in the midst of busyness — one has to steal a little for oneself now and then.” Ning Yi reached out and stroked her hair. “The child’s gone, and that’s that. Not even a month along — smaller than one of your fingernails. He wouldn’t remember anything, and he wouldn’t have felt any pain.”
“I know.” Jin’er nodded, and was silent a moment. “I was thinking of my sister, my brother, my father and mother.”
“Mm…” Ning Yi knew of Jin’er’s past — her family had been poor, and at five years old her parents had sold her into a brothel; by the time she went back, her parents and brother had already died, and her sister had married off as a concubine to some wealthy old man. Jin’er had left behind a single silver ingot and never gone back since. Apart from mentioning it to Ning Yi once or twice, she had never spoken of it again after that.
“My father and mother, my brother — they died so long ago that I hated them, and never wanted to think of them again. But just now…” She wiped her eyes. “Just now… I thought of the baby who died, and suddenly I thought of them too. Husband, don’t you think — they were so pitiful, living the kind of life where they had to sell their own daughter with their own hands, and no one ever pitied them either. My little brother, so young, and he just fell sick and died like that — why couldn’t he have waited for me to come back with that ingot and save him? I hate my parents for selling me, and I don’t want to think of them, but my little brother was so sensible, he never cried or made a fuss even as a small child… And my sister too — what’s become of her now, do you think, in all this chaos of war? She was never clever — is she dead by now too? They’re… they’re so pitiful…”
She threw her arms around Ning Yi’s neck and began to wail like a child, “waaah, waaah.” Ning Yi had thought she was grieving over the miscarriage, but hadn’t expected the loss of the child to bring back memories of her family instead. Hearing his wife’s words now, his own eyes grew faintly damp; he held her for a while, then said quietly, “I’ll have someone help find your sister. I’ll have someone help find your sister…” As for her parents and brother, they were, after all, long since dead — perhaps, like the miscarried child, they had simply gone on to live in another world.
Under the bright moon and scattered stars, Jin’er held on to her husband there by the small pond and wept for a long, long while.
Under that same night sky, a shadowy figure moved like a ghost through the darkness among the mountain ridges, pausing and advancing by turns. Below, at the foot of a cliff, a small band of travelers lay likewise hidden in the dark. This group carried all manner of blades, their faces fierce and hostile — some with gold rings in their ears, hair bound and loose about their heads, some with tattooed, patterned faces, wielding strange weapons; among them too were eerie figures who kept trained sea eagles or ordinary wolfhounds. They had lit no campfire that night, clearly to conceal their presence.
At some point, the wolfhounds burst into savage barking!
A flash of blade light rose to one side, blood spraying along with a severed arm; this band of strange figures surged up out of the darkness, and behind them, Lu Hongti’s figure burst into their midst, death’s tidings suddenly clearing a path before her. The wolfhounds charged forward like young lions, weapons and shadows crashing together in chaos.
…
Bianliang.
Covered in blood, Xue Guangcheng was hauled out of the cell into the room beside it. He sat down on the chair in the center, and spat a mouthful of blood froth onto the ground.
His gaze lifted to what lay ahead — the Jurchen leader he had finally come to meet face to face.
“General Ali Gua, you’re getting more and more like a woman. Have you ever seen a man who’d walk into certain death and still not fear it?”
The Jurchen general Ali Gua was in his sixties, renowned for his martial prowess.
“You Han envoys, thinking yourselves clever with your tongues — plenty of you beg for mercy once the torture starts.”
“And have you ever seen a man like that among the Huaxia Army?”
Ali Gua looked at him, his gaze like a blade of steel. Xue Guangcheng spat another mouthful of blood, braced his hands on his knees, and sat up straight. “Since I came here, I’ve already set aside thoughts of life and death. But one thing you can be sure of — if I don’t go back, Wanyan Qingjue dies with me. That’s a promise Mr. Ning made me once.”
“Trading one Wanyan Qingjue for the lives of the whole city of Bianliang, plus you thrown in. Do you people think rather too highly of yourselves?”
“Because the people of Bianliang don’t matter to you. Between you and us, anything goes — that’s simply how war is fought, fair and square. You seized Liu Yu — you lost to us there.” Xue Guangcheng pointed a finger at him. “Killing the people of Bianliang is just you losers venting your spite. The Huaxia Army saving them is a matter of principle — and it also gives you an excuse to back down gracefully. General Ali Gua, you have an old friendship with Prince of Wu Wanyan Ahema — saving his son will do you some good.”
“Don’t talk as though the people of Bianliang mean nothing to you at all.” Ali Gua laughed loudly. “If that were really so, you wouldn’t have come today. You Black Banners stirred people up to rebel, and then abandoned them and left — those poor fools you deceived hate you for it!”
“My Huaxia Army rose up in revolt and killed a monarch — if we cared for our reputation, we could have kept some. If we don’t care for it, then this too is the act of a real man. General Ali Gua, that’s right, seizing Liu Yu was my decision, and it’s left me with a poor name for it — I’ve thrown my life on the line to make sure things turned out as well as they could. You Jurchen came south to take the Central Plains, not to destroy it. You could go on today and slaughter the whole city of Bianliang, act like a woman, kill me to vent your petty spite, and let word of Jurchen cruelty spread further still.”
“Or,” Xue Guangcheng stared at Ali Gua, pressing on relentlessly, “— or, one day in the future, I’ll show you on the battlefield what it means to be beaten fair and square! Of course, you’re already an old man, so beating you wouldn’t be much of a victory. But my Huaxia Army will, sooner or later, reclaim the Han lands, march into Jin territory, and beat your children and grandchildren flat on the ground—”
“You’re asking to die—” Ali Gua flung the table before him aside with one hand and strode forward.
“—and show you what it really means to be one against ten thousand and unbeatable—”
The figure closed in, steel flashed, roars and shouted words clashed together without pause. Facing that form that had once cut its way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Xue Guangcheng kept talking even as he rose to meet the blade head-on. There came a heavy clang — the blade struck him on the shoulder. Having already been tortured, his body swayed slightly at the blow, but he still stood firm and unbowed.
The blade meant to strike his neck turned flat at the last instant, striking only with a tremendous crash, the edge stopping just at his throat.
Xue Guangcheng’s body took one more step forward, his eyes locked on Ali Gua’s, as though boiling blood were burning within him. The atmosphere turned deadly still, the two tall figures facing off in the room.
…
By the time Wanyan Qingjue was led into the study by the soldiers, it was already afternoon. Ning Yi stood by the window looking out at the sunlight, hands clasped behind his back.
“Young Prince, no need to stand on ceremony — sit as you like.” Ning Yi didn’t turn around, seemingly lost in thought, and spoke almost offhandedly. Wanyan Qingjue naturally didn’t sit down either. He had been held captive in the southwest for nearly a year now; the Huaxia Army had not mistreated him — apart from occasionally having him join in labor to earn his keep, his life these days was many times better than that of an ordinary prisoner.
Still, after this long stretch of labor, he had naturally lost the sharp edge he’d once carried as a young prince — and even if he hadn’t, after witnessing Ning Yi’s overwhelming presence, he would never have dared show it in front of him.
“To be born in an age like this is a man’s misfortune.” Ning Yi was silent a long while before finally turning his head to speak. “If one were born instead in a time of peace and prosperity — how fine that would be… Of course, Young Prince, you might not agree…”
Wanyan Qingjue watched the man before him, who had let a rare hint of weakness show, with some wariness — in his past experience, a ruler showing this kind of vulnerability usually meant someone was about to die.
“I’m not sure… why Mr. Ning is sighing like this.”
“My wife lost a child.” Ning Yi turned around.
Wanyan Qingjue had already heard of this, and was startled all the same. “A wife is like a change of clothes — surely Mr. Ning doesn’t mean to say he’s sighing over a thing like that?”
“A man without feeling is no true hero; what kind of man would not grieve for his child — you may not understand that.” Ning Yi looked at him and smiled gently, then went on, “I’ve called you here today to tell you — you may have a chance to leave, Young Prince.”
“Or rather… I hope you’ll be able to leave here safely…”
The summer sunlight poured in through the window; that scholarly figure stood in the light, and slowly, slightly, raised his hand — his calm gaze carrying the weight of a mountain…