Futile Devices Scans

Wang Xu remained atop the city wall directing the defenses. Prefect Zhang, meanwhile, had already summoned dozens of medical soldiers and laborers to wait below the wall. The wounded prisoners and injured soldiers brought back by the cavalry were helped down from their horses and hurried to the nearest military camp for treatment.

Chief Commander Wang was the last to enter the city. As soon as he dismounted, Prefect Zhang hurried over to support him.

“Good, good! You’re back safely! Excellent!” Prefect Zhang repeated, drawing several long breaths.

The civil official had always been physically frail. He had spent the entire previous night in anxiety without resting, and then had stood atop the city wall watching the battle, sick with worry. Now that he could finally relax, after repeating “good” several times, his eyes suddenly closed and he toppled straight to the ground.

Everyone present was thrown into confusion. Since they were already carrying wounded men, they simply added their unconscious superior to the wounded being carried away on stretchers and took him to the military camp as well.

——

Zhang San and Li Si had been the first to return to the city, bringing with them the most badly wounded of their comrades, who was now receiving treatment in the camp.

The man had already been wounded during the previous night’s battle, and later had one arm severed. He had lost too much blood and was barely clinging to life. The physician worked over him for some time, but in the end could only let out a long sigh and shake his head at Zhang San and Li Si before hurrying away to treat the other casualties.

The two remained silently at the man’s side, accompanying him through the last moments of his life.

His tongue had been cut out, and repeated coughing had left his face filthy with blood, so Zhang San only now recognized him. Back in the abandoned village, one of General Sun’s personal guards had brought the two of them a sack of beans to feed their horses. This was that very man.

Zhang San could not bear to tell Li Si. He quietly straightened, intending to block Li Si’s view, but Li Si caught his arm and gently pulled him aside.

Seeing tears already pooled in Li Si’s dark eyes, Zhang San knew he had recognized the man too.

Without waiting for Zhang San to wipe them away, Li Si raised an arm and fiercely rubbed at his own eyes, forcing the tears back. Then he went outside, fetched a basin of water and a cloth, and gently began cleaning the personal guard’s face.

Li Si’s earliest memory, from when he was five, was his mother’s haggard face as she coughed blood. When she died, blood had covered her face in much the same way, and Grandma had cleaned her just like this.

Grandma had said at the time: a person comes into the world clean, and should leave it clean as well.

——

As Li Si was wiping the personal guard’s face, several medical soldiers hurried into the tent carrying a stretcher, accompanied by a crowd of subordinates and servants. The noisy group surged inside, bringing in the unconscious Prefect Zhang.

There were so many people moving around that one attendant nearly crashed into the cot where the personal guard lay. Zhang San reacted instantly and shoved him far away. The man almost fell and opened his mouth to curse, but Zhang San’s tiger-like eyes flashed, and he shut his mouth again before retreating resentfully to one side.

Li Si kept his eyes lowered and paid no attention to the commotion around him. His movements remained gentle and careful.

Suddenly, he stopped. His fingers trembled as he reached toward the personal guard’s nose, only to feel coldness beneath his hand.

Li Si remained motionless for a long time before slowly setting down the cloth.

His hand gradually clenched into a fist, and he lifted his head to look toward Prefect Zhang lying not far away.

——

Prefect Zhang had merely fainted from weakness and palpitations and was in no real danger. A physician took a mouthful of water and sprayed it all over his face—the water had even been scooped directly from Li Si’s basin—and Prefect Zhang slowly came around.

The moment he woke, the world spun around him. All he could see was a dark mass of people crowding close, so he waved weakly for everyone to move farther away.

His subordinates helped him sit up. Everyone was asking how he felt, but Prefect Zhang suddenly sensed a piercing gaze from somewhere in the crowd.

He shook his head slightly and focused. On a neighboring cot lay a blood-covered corpse. Kneeling beside it was the young Imperial City Directorate Envoy whose extraordinary archery he had witnessed earlier, and Li Si’s bright black eyes were like two blades aimed straight at him.

Suddenly, everything blurred before his eyes.

No one present had anticipated what happened next. Li Si sprang to his feet and crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, smashing one fist directly into the face of the highest-ranking official present.

The subordinates: “…”

Zhang San, who had no time to stop him: “…”

Grabbing Prefect Zhang just as he had once grabbed the bullies in the capital, Li Si unleashed a storm of punches. In the blink of an eye, he had beaten Prefect Zhang from the cot all the way onto the floor.

The entire tent instantly descended into chaos.

“Stop him!” “Someone!” “Assassin! Assassin!”

No one could pull the frenzied Li Si away. In the end, Zhang San charged forward and wrapped both arms around him, ignoring the fact that the wound in his shoulder split open again as he forcibly dragged Li Si off the Prefect.

Even after Zhang San hauled him several paces away, Li Si continued struggling desperately and screamed himself hoarse at Prefect Zhang, “You killed him! You killed them! It’s all because of you!”

Prefect Zhang’s face had already swollen black and blue from the beating. Frail to begin with, he now looked half-dead. Through swollen eyes, he glanced toward Li Si and opened his mouth as though he wanted to speak, but nothing came out before he fainted again.

The tent erupted into another frenzy. “Save the Prefect!” “Inform Chief Commander Wang!” “Drag the assassin away! Drag him away!”

——

Outside the main command tent of the western military camp.

After rescuing the prisoners, Chief Commander Wang had immediately summoned the commanders of all four city gates to the western camp, both to bolster morale and to prepare in case the Xiao army launched another retaliatory assault.

Before addressing the officers, however, he first dealt with the assault on the Prefect. The attacker was temporarily confined in the prefectural prison, while Prefect Zhang, who had fainted a second time and could no longer be revived even with water, was carried back to the prefectural yamen to recover.

Those permitted inside the command tent included the military advisers and subordinate generals. Officials from the prefectural administration, such as the Assistant Prefect, were also invited because supplies and logistics needed to be discussed.

Zhang San, however, was merely a Unit Commander. Furthermore, his current position was awkward, since every official there had seen that he knew the attacker personally. As a result, he could only wait outside.

Chief Commander Wang was decisive and efficient. The meeting did not last long before everyone dispersed to carry out their respective orders.

Wang Xu emerged last. Lifting the tent flap, he glanced at Zhang San waiting outside and tilted his head, signaling for him to enter.

Zhang San stepped into the tent, went straight to Chief Commander Wang, and knelt. Holding up the sword the old commander had lent him earlier, he bowed deeply and said, “Chief Commander, please spare his life.”

Chief Commander Wang stood before a map of Hedong. Hearing those words, he turned, glanced at Zhang San, and accepted the sword. “Get up.”

Zhang San kept his forehead lowered and refused to rise. Chief Commander Wang sighed. “This is the second time you’ve knelt since returning. Once to beg for your own death, and now to beg for someone else’s life. Just who is this young Envoy? Why is he so skilled, yet so reckless?”

Zhang San replied, “He was originally a Dragon Guard soldier accompanying the Commander of the Imperial City Directorate on his mission. Only because of unexpected circumstances did he become the Envoy himself. He’s still young and innocent by nature. He acted in a moment of anger and never truly intended to harm the Prefect.”

Chief Commander Wang thought of the Prefect’s swollen, pig-like face and badly injured head. Claiming there had been no intent to harm was one thing, but even if he himself believed it, would any of the officials who had witnessed the beating believe it?

Chief Commander Wang remained silent, his expression stern. Zhang San bowed again. “I know you’ve been placed in a difficult position. Even transferring him to the military prison would be enough. It’s still better than the prefectural prison. He’s young and won’t endure harsh punishment well. If his hands or feet are ruined, all that skill will be gone too.”

Chief Commander Wang replied, “I have already instructed the Assistant Prefect that he is an imperial Envoy and therefore a special case. Until the Prefect regains consciousness, no one is to act rashly. As for transferring him to the military camp, forget it. He assaulted the Prefect himself. That is beyond my ability to arrange. Now stand up.”

Zhang San understood the difficulty of the situation. The fact that Li Si had been spared immediate torture was already fortunate, so knowing he had pushed as far as he could, he finally rose.

Seeing that he had finally obeyed, Chief Commander Wang continued, “Once the Prefect wakes up, I’ll put in a word for him. Don’t worry. He is an imperial Envoy, and the Prefect is a cautious man. He won’t move against him lightly. At most, he’ll let the boy complete His Majesty’s business and then drive him out of the city.”

Zhang San did not trust Prefect Zhang. He lowered his head and remained silent.

Chief Commander Wang knew his stubborn nature and said sternly, “You are not allowed to do anything reckless either. For the next few days, stay with Wang Xu. You are not to leave on your own.”

Chief Commander Wang then asked Zhang San about what he had seen on his journey north. Upon learning that Zhang San had passed through Ant County, he asked about the county as well and fell into thoughtful silence after hearing the answer.

“You may go. I have an important task in mind for you later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zhang San walked toward the exit, his thoughts unsettled. Before he could leave, Chief Commander Wang called another warning from behind him. “A’Xiao, no foolishness!”

Zhang San drooped his head and answered listlessly, “Yes, I know.”

——

Near midnight, in the underground prison of the prefectural yamen.

The cells were packed with prisoners, most of them local hooligans and thugs who had taken advantage of the chaos surrounding the siege to rob and loot inside the city. The ringleaders had already been dragged out and publicly executed. The remaining offenders did not deserve death, but releasing them risked causing further trouble, so all of them remained locked away.

Great Xuan possessed a well-developed granary system, and before the war the nation had been prosperous, so its grain reserves were still sufficient. Kuiyuan’s inner city contained the Great Preparedness Granary, and food and military supplies had been stockpiled in advance, meaning there was no immediate shortage. However, Prefect Zhang was an extremely cautious man. Fearing that one day relief might never come and provisions would eventually run out, he had enforced strict frugality, even reducing the prisoners’ rations to a single meal a day.

The result was that the thugs were all sallow and emaciated, weak from hunger and poor health. They lay scattered throughout the cells, barely alive, lacking even the strength to shout or cause trouble.

Footsteps sounded at the prison entrance. The newcomer identified himself to the jailer, exchanged a few words, and then descended into the dungeon with another person. They walked for a long time, all the way to the deepest corner of the underground prison.

One cell there had been specially cleared out.

Only Li Si was confined inside.

He sat curled alone among a pile of messy straw in the corner. Northern nights were cold, and the dungeon was damp besides. Sitting on the icy ground with a cangue around his neck and restraints on his wrists, his face had grown pale from the cold.

Zhang San had pestered Wang Xu for an entire day, buzzing around him until Wang Xu’s head nearly split. In the end, Wang Xu reluctantly agreed to bring him down at midnight for one look. The moment Zhang San entered and saw Li Si curled into such a small ball in the corner, his heart tightened. He rushed to the bars and called softly, “Sisi!”

Li Si lifted his head and immediately tried to stand. But with both his wrists and neck restrained, and his body stiff from sitting so long, he only managed to rise halfway before stumbling back to the ground.

Zhang San immediately turned to Wang Xu. “Tell the jailer to take those things off him! What’s he wearing them for?”

Wang Xu glared and lowered his voice. “He beat up the Prefect! Those staff officials are all calling him an assassin now. Could they not at least shackle him for appearances? The fact that nobody has tortured him is already a blessing. Do you see a single injury on him?”

By then, Li Si had staggered over. Zhang San sat down beside the bars and pulled Li Si down with him, half-kneeling outside while Li Si sat inside.

The first thing Zhang San did was touch Li Si’s freezing hand. He immediately stripped off his own outer coat, pushed it between the bars, and wrapped it around Li Si’s shoulders. Then he reached up and touched Li Si’s cold face. Li Si no longer avoided such closeness; quietly, he rubbed his cheek against the warmth of Zhang San’s palm.

Standing nearby, Wang Xu’s eyelid twitched. He silently turned away as Zhang San said behind him, “Brother Xu, let me talk to him for a while. Don’t you still have patrol duties? Go do your work.”

Wang Xu shook his head repeatedly and remained exactly where he was. “I’m not leaving. I’m afraid you’ll help him escape.”

“The key’s with the jailer! How would I do that?”

Wang Xu lifted his chin toward the bars between them. “You could bend them open.”

Zhang San snapped, “They’re iron!”

“You could bend them open.”

That almost made Zhang San laugh from exasperation. “Even if I did let him out, so what? Just tell everyone I was the one who released him.”

“And what happens to you?” Wang Xu shot back. “Run away with him? The moment you leave Kuiyuan, you’re a deserter again.”

“So be it.”

Wang Xu stared at him. “You said you came back to rejoin the army. You said you wanted to protect Kuiyuan. I thought you weren’t the same kind of man as Grand Preceptor Tong. Was all that a lie too?”

Zhang San’s expression froze. He shut his mouth.

All the while, he was still holding Li Si’s cold hand. After hearing Wang Xu’s words, Li Si tried to withdraw it, wanting to signal Zhang San to leave, but Zhang San immediately caught it again.

Wang Xu sighed. “Father already told you during the day. Don’t rush. Don’t do anything reckless. Just wait patiently until the Prefect wakes up.”

Zhang San continued holding Li Si’s hand until warmth finally returned to it. Only then did he pull two steamed buns from inside his clothes—food he had secretly hidden earlier that day. Because Li Si’s hands were shackled, Zhang San tore the buns into small pieces and fed them to him bite by bite. Afraid he might choke, he even held water up for him to drink.

Watching from the side, Wang Xu felt his eyelids twitch again. His usually rough and straightforward younger brother looked as though he had fallen under some sort of fox-spirit enchantment. Yet the young man sitting there had eyes as clear as spring water and hardly resembled some seductive demon.

Besides, what kind of fox spirit could draw a two-shi bow and kill a man from three hundred meters away? What kind of fox spirit would throw punches at a Prefect in broad daylight before a crowd of witnesses?

——

After feeding him, Zhang San tidied Li Si’s loose hair and wiped his face clean. Only after Wang Xu repeatedly urged him to leave did he finally rise and depart.

Eager to begin his patrol, Wang Xu dragged him through the empty nighttime streets. As they walked, he removed his own cloak and draped it over Zhang San, who no longer had an outer coat, while muttering irritably, “And you still claim there’s nothing going on. You practically rubbed his face red.”

“There was dirt on his face,” Zhang San replied. “I was only helping him clean it off. We’ve only known each other a few days. What could there possibly be?”

“I’ve never seen you treat anyone else like this.”

Zhang San suddenly stopped. After a long moment, he sighed. “He’s different from everyone else. I’ve never met anyone quite like him… like…”

He had never received much education and lacked the words. He could not compose poetry or elegant prose. He could not find any beautiful phrase to describe the Li Si he saw.

To put it plainly, when they first met, Zhang San had thought Li Si was merely a childish little boy who had never seen the world.

Later, he seemed more like a muddleheaded little animal—a little colt that kicked when it got angry.

But the longer Zhang San knew him, the more Li Si seemed like a piece of pure white jade.

Zhang San had never seen fine jade in his life. He had wandered across half of Great Xuan with the army, seen northern deserts and endless yellow sands, great rivers beneath the setting sun across the Central Plains, misty waters and clouds in the south. Yet he had never seen treasures of gold, pearls, or precious jade.

If there truly existed a piece of flawless white jade, he imagined it would be something like Li Si.

A little stone. Slow and innocent. Awkward with words, though admittedly quite nimble with his hands. The moment his heart was hurt, tears would pour down. Usually obedient and well-behaved, willing to do whatever he was asked. Yet once he became stubborn, no one could stop him.

For the sake of a dead personal guard, he had publicly beaten a Prefect. Wasn’t that childish? Wasn’t it impulsive? Wasn’t it foolish?

Others would say he acted without considering the consequences, that he never used his head.

Only Zhang San knew the truth: it was because he was clean.

Because he was a little stone.

Because in that little stone’s eyes, a Prefect’s life and an ordinary personal guard’s life were worth exactly the same.

If someone had caused another person’s death, then that person deserved a beating.

Didn’t Zhang San want to beat Prefect Zhang too? Of course he did. He could kill Xiao soldiers without fear. He could slaughter vicious bandits without mercy. He could openly defy Grand Preceptor Tong and desert the army. He could storm a county yamen at night to kill a demonic priest without fearing the County Magistrate. But Zhang San understood very clearly that he had only dared do those things because Chief Commander Wang and Kuiyuan still stood behind him. He still had somewhere to go and something to strive for.

Once he actually entered Kuiyuan, even Zhang San did not dare let Prefect Zhang see the resentment burning in his eyes.

The little stone had done what Zhang San himself only dared imagine.

And if consequences followed, Zhang San was willing to bear them for him.

He never spoke any of this aloud. For a long time, he said nothing. Looking at him, Wang Xu could only conclude that he had completely lost his senses. With a sigh, he caught Zhang San by the arm. “Forget it. Enough about this. Go back to camp and change into a uniform. You’re joining me on patrol tonight. I can’t leave you alone to run around.”

——

Li Si remained alone in the dungeon, wrapped in Zhang San’s outer coat like a large gray-white rice dumpling as he curled himself back into the corner.

A lonely little mouse scurried down the corridor. Northern mice were much smaller than those of the Central Plains, only about two fingers wide and skinny to the bone. It slipped into the cell and began nibbling at crumbs of steamed bun scattered on the ground.

Li Si made no move to chase it away. He simply sat there curled into a ball and watched.

For more than ten years, he had drifted through life in a dull haze. Only recently had he begun learning how to think, and he still was not very good at it. He knew beating the Prefect would have serious consequences, and his first concern had been whether he had caused trouble for Zhang San. But now he had seen Zhang San walking around freely with Wang Xu and even bringing him steamed buns—which meant Zhang San himself still had food to eat—so Li Si felt relieved.

As for himself, if the Prefect ordered him beheaded, what would happen to Grandma alone in the capital?

When he had insisted on joining Zhang San and General Sun’s breakout attempt, he had been prepared to die. He had thought only about the compensation and the 3,000 guan his death would leave Grandma, and had forgotten to consider whether Grandma would be sad.

Of course she would. The death of a personal guard he barely knew had made Li Si sad. How much more painful would it be for the family member who had raised him all his life?

Grandma was old. What use was money alone? Who would care for her? Who would support her?

But then again, hadn’t Prefect Zhang deserved that beating? His cold refusal had caused so many deaths.

Yet after thinking further, was it really all Prefect Zhang’s fault? The reinforcements had come from far away, yet possessed no way to prove who they were. At the time, what proof could truly have convinced anyone? And if those reinforcements really had been working with the Xiao army, what would have happened to Kuiyuan if the gates had been opened?

Did I do something wrong?

Then what would the right thing have been?

Li Si could not figure it out.

The warmth of Zhang San’s coat surrounded him, easing some of his loneliness and confusion. Tilting his head slightly, he rested it against the thick, soft fabric and drifted off to sleep without realizing it.