On the day Qiao Shen, who bore the “Fire Vein,” arrived in the capital, the Xiao army suddenly abandoned the standoff and negotiations that had lasted an entire month and sent back a letter stating that they would withdraw their army. His Majesty was overjoyed and immediately appointed True Master Shen Xiao as “State Preceptor”; he also conferred on Qiao Shen the title “Duke Protector of the State” and kept him overnight in the palace.
His Majesty did not forget the soldiers who had escorted the Duke Protector of the State either, and also ordered that they be promoted three ranks and rewarded three thousand strings of cash; the dead would have their families compensated, and their families would also receive reward silver. Even the Strongman was granted a post in the Directorate of Astronomy.
In his joy, when His Majesty heard Qiao Shen say that Li Si possessed exceptional martial arts and had commanded properly, he wanted to transfer Li Si into the Imperial City Directorate to take over the late Commander’s office. Li Si, however, was the only one who spoke up to refuse.
Remembering Brother Xiao’s instructions, he lowered his head to the floor and said, “This lowly one is young and ignorant. Serving as a captain would already be enough.” He paused, then added, “Deputy captain would also be enough. Or returning to be an instructor would be good as well. This lowly one is good at being an instructor.”
His speech was straightforward and blunt, and everyone in the room began to laugh softly.
His Majesty also smiled and said, “You are young and capable. How could I bury your talents by making you an instructor? Very well. You have only just entered the Imperial City Directorate and lack experience, so it would be inconvenient for you to convince others. Then begin as deputy commander. Administrator Li?”
The old superior officer kneeling outside rose and entered, saluting as he said, “This subject is here.”
His Majesty sighed and said, “Commander Li was always loyal and brave, yet in order to protect the State-Protecting Fire Vein, he suddenly met with misfortune. Fortunately, this Deputy Commander Li can inherit his will and has not failed the trust placed in him. This Deputy Commander Li will remain under your instruction and be assigned by you.”
The old superior officer kept his head lowered and repeatedly assented.
Author’s Notes: “Administrator,” like the previously mentioned “Supervisor,” is an office of the Imperial City Directorate, and was mostly held by eunuchs. In this period of Great Xuan, the “Supervisor” was the highest-ranking official of the Imperial City Directorate, with “Administrator” beneath “Supervisor”; “Commander” was beneath “Administrator” and led five hundred soldiers.
–
His Majesty kept Qiao Shen and Daoist Shen Xiao behind, while everyone else withdrew from the room. Li Si also followed the old eunuch whom His Majesty had called “Administrator Li” and left.
The Imperial City Directorate was His Majesty’s personal army, responsible for guarding the palace city. It was mostly staffed by the sons of noble families, and its salary and treatment were far better than those of the Imperial Guard. For a small instructor like Li Si, who had no background whatsoever, to receive His Majesty’s appreciation, have his registration transferred into the Imperial City Directorate, and even leap up to become deputy commander was truly great fortune.
Yet Li Si felt no joy over transferring armies or rising in office. He merely lowered his eyes and walked silently.
A few tiny deaths had been exchanged for the “State-Protecting Fire Vein,” and seemed also to have been exchanged for the Xiao army’s withdrawal and the capital’s peace. Beneath all this celebration, those dead people seemed even more insignificant. The Commander had at least received the assessment that he had “suddenly met with misfortune,” but what had Second Uncle and the other soldiers received?
–
The two had not walked far out before they reached an empty corner. The old eunuch stopped and asked in a low voice, “Young Master, my son… Commander Li was my adopted son. I raised and taught him from childhood. Before he died, were you by his side?”
Li Si nodded and said, “Yes.”
A watery sheen soaked through the old eunuch’s yellowed, cloudy eyes, and his voice trembled faintly as he asked, “Did he say anything? Did he leave any instructions?”
Li Si carefully thought back. The Commander’s injuries had been too severe, and he had died in haste. Before his death, he had only had time to explain His Majesty’s secret decree and to tell Li Si to kill Daoist Ma in order to eliminate future trouble. He had not mentioned anything else. So Li Si repeated every word the Commander had spoken before his death to the old eunuch.
The old eunuch trembled and said, “That was all?”
Li Si took out an exquisitely embroidered money pouch. “This is the relic found on his body.” Then he took the sleeve knife from his cuff and also offered it to the old eunuch. “His personal weapon.”
With trembling hands, the old eunuch accepted the money pouch and opened it to look. Inside were several strings of cash and a folded one-hundred-tael silver note, stuffed full and bulging, looking as though not a single coin had been touched.
He stroked the embroidery on the money pouch and sighed. “This was embroidered by his late wife while she was alive. He carried it with him every day. Over these years, I advised him many times to take another wife, but he always delayed it again and again…”
Tears finally streamed from the old eunuch’s cloudy eyes, and he choked up, unable to speak further. Li Si then went to support him again, patting his shoulder and back.
Only after a long while did the old eunuch open his eyes again. He poured all the silver and cash out of the money pouch and put the pouch away, but pushed the silver, cash, and sleeve knife back into Li Si’s hands. “Young Master, thank you for bringing back my son’s relics. These will be useful to you, so keep them.”
Li Si accepted the sleeve knife, but refused the silver and cash. The old eunuch gripped his hand and forced the money into it. “Young Master, listen to me. You were born from an Imperial Guard military household. Do you have family?”
Li Si nodded.
“The capital has been under siege for a month. Every household is suffering bitterly, lacking grain and charcoal. Take it. It will be useful when you return home.”
Li Si said, “I have three thousand strings of reward money…” If Second Uncle’s share was counted, there would even be six thousand strings. With such an enormous sum, he could even buy a decent residence in the capital and hire a maidservant to take care of Grandma.
The old eunuch covered his hand and would not let him release it, shaking his head with a sigh. “You do not understand. The Second Prince of Xiao demanded a sky-high indemnity, and also demanded that the three military towns be ceded, before he was willing to leave the capital. In these days, in order to scrape together money for the Xiao bandits, His Majesty has already emptied the capital from top to bottom, even demanding away the people’s stored silver. There is absolutely no money left to reward you. Those three thousand strings are nothing but empty words promised to you.”
Li Si’s eyes widened in surprise before he could even understand it. The old eunuch forced the silver and cash into his hand. “Take it as something my son lent to you. Keep it.”
–
Li Si still wanted to ask questions, but saw an official in military attire hurrying over. The old eunuch’s expression turned solemn, and he quickly saluted respectfully. “Defense Commander Li.”
When Li Si heard this address, he supposed this must be that strangely titled “Defense Commander of the Capital’s Four Western Walls,” so he also saluted and curiously lifted his eyes to look.
Although this Defense Commander Li wore armor and a helmet, his figure was short and thin, completely at odds with the heavy armor on his body, like a scholar who had been forcibly stuffed into a military general’s shell. His entire body was covered in dust and mud, his face bore countless scrape wounds from broken stones, and the hems of his trousers and the surfaces of his boots were covered in sludge. Judging by his features, he was only in his forties, yet his temples and beard were entirely grizzled white. His face was weather-beaten, and only his spine still stood straight, holding up his small, thin body and that heavy armor.
Defense Commander Li came quickly. When he reached the two of them, he paused briefly and also saluted in haste, asking, “Administrator Li, I heard a letter of state came from the Xiao camp?”
The old eunuch respectfully said, “Yes. The Second Prince of Xiao has promised to withdraw the army.”
Joy immediately appeared on Defense Commander Li’s face, but he quickly asked again, “And I also heard that today, an envoy party returned from the north?”
The old eunuch lowered his head and said, “This concerns His Majesty’s secret decree. This lowly official cannot say too much.” He paused, then said in a low voice, “His Majesty is overjoyed. Today, he has just created a ‘Duke Protector of the State,’ and has also appointed True Master Shen Xiao as ‘State Preceptor.’”
Shock and suspicion appeared on Defense Commander Li’s face. After bidding farewell to the old eunuch, he hurried away to seek an audience with His Majesty.
–
Li Si looked back at his retreating figure. Seeing his curiosity, the old eunuch continued leading him forward while saying, “That is Li Gang, Right Assistant Director of the Secretariat. Before the reinforcements arrived, the Xiao bandits attacked the city several times, and all were repelled under his command.”
The old eunuch carefully looked left and right again before saying in a low voice, “He and the venerable Commissioner Zuo, who came to reinforce the capital, are in charge of the capital’s defenses inside and out. The two of them have always advocated fighting and refused to cede the three military towns. A few days ago, His Majesty once dismissed them from office. But their successors proved incapable of defending the city, and the Imperial Academy students and the common people took to the streets in uproar. Because of this public resentment, His Majesty restored the two of them to office.”
The venerable Commissioner Zuo was General Zuo Shi Dao, the one who had earlier received Li Si and the others outside the city. This seventy-six-year-old veteran general had long served as Strategic Pacification Commissioner in the northwest, and the people of the time respectfully called him “the venerable Commissioner Zuo.”
–
Although Li Si did not quite understand, he still listened seriously, and keenly grasped the key point. He asked, “What does ‘cede the three military towns’ mean?”
The old eunuch’s steps paused.
He had spent many years in the palace and had always been cautious in word and deed. None of these words today were things he ought to have said too much about to Li Si. But he was already over sixty, and the adopted son he had carefully cultivated had died suddenly outside. He was an old, lonely life barely lingering on for only a few more days. What was there left to fear?
“When you were in Kuiyuan, did you not hear of it? When the Xiao bandits first surrounded the capital, they demanded that the court cede the three important military towns of Kuiyuan, Zhongshan, and Hejian. In order to seek a ceasefire, His Majesty immediately agreed. Later, after the reinforcements arrived, Defense Commander Li and the venerable Commissioner Zuo strongly advised protecting the three towns. Although His Majesty did have some intention of regretting the decision, the imperial edict ceding the three towns should have reached Kuiyuan long ago.”
⸻
Li Si froze.
At first, it was as though he had not understood. He stood there blankly. The sound of the wind around him suddenly grew louder, like a cage of wind covering him where he stood, leaving him unable to move. The old eunuch’s voice, wrapped in the piercing sound of the wind, seemed to circle once more by his ear before he dazedly thought: Cede Kuiyuan?
Did that mean giving Kuiyuan to the Xiao bandits?
His Majesty could actually cede his own territory and give it to an enemy state?
Had Brother Xiao not said that Kuiyuan was tied to Hedong’s safety, and that once it fell, Hedong could not be protected, and even Great Xuan would be in mortal danger?
Were the Xiao bandits not savage and cruel, burning, killing, looting, and committing every evil, treating even the people of surrendered cities as cattle and horses, selling them as slaves, driving them as they pleased and slaughtering them as they pleased?
His Majesty could actually “immediately agree”?
The imperial edict had actually reached Kuiyuan long ago?
Then, when he was leaving, that letter Brother Xiao received from Kuiyuan…
–
Cold wind suddenly poured through the gap in his collar and into his spine. Li Si felt as though an icy spear had pierced straight through his back, and he began to tremble uncontrollably.
Brother Xiao had known!
Brother Xiao had known then!
That was why Brother Xiao had cried, and that was why Brother Xiao’s eyes had been full of grief and rage!
That was why Brother Xiao had bitten him while crying and said he would bully him one last time…
Brother Xiao had told him to return to the capital at ease and not go back to Kuiyuan. He had said that when the war was over, he would bring Elder Sister and Brother-in-law to the capital to see him…
Brother Xiao had lied to him again!
–
The bone-piercing wind seeped into Li Si’s body and froze into icicles in his blood.
Seeing his vacant expression and his endless trembling, the old eunuch reached out to support him.
But Li Si suddenly shook off his hand, turned, and ran back the way they had come!
The old eunuch’s face changed drastically. He spread his old legs and ran hard for a few steps, finally managing with great difficulty to catch hold of Li Si. “What are you doing?”
Li Si said in panic, “I’m going to tell His Majesty that he cannot cede the three military towns.”
At these words, the old eunuch’s expression changed even more. His own old life was nothing if lost, but this young master was young, with boundless prospects, and absolutely could not throw them away here. He gripped Li Si with both hands and said urgently, “You cannot go! This is a matter that the entire court of civil and military officials are debating endlessly. Since when is it your turn to speak?”
Li Si’s ears buzzed, and he could barely hear what the old eunuch was saying. He only repeated blankly, “Cannot cede them, cannot cede them…”
The old eunuch said urgently, “Young Master… Li Si!”
He abruptly shook Li Si and said in a deep voice, “You are only a minor deputy commander. What use would there be in going? The civil and military officials will argue over it, the court will make its arrangements, and His Majesty will make his decision! Aside from alarming His Majesty, provoking his anger, losing your office, or even losing your little life, what else can you do?”
Li Si still wanted to struggle free. The old eunuch said urgently, “Do you not still have family?”
Li Si’s movements finally froze.
“For now, go home and take good care of your family. That is the duty you ought to fulfill at this moment!”
–
Before the palace gates were locked, the old eunuch sent the dazed Li Si out of the imperial palace.
When he had entered the city, he had gone through the west gate with Qiao Shen, an imperial clansman. When he left, he ought to exit through the east gate as a subject. He had never been beneath the imperial palace walls before, and after leaving through the east gate, with no one to lead the way, he stood there in a daze, unable even to tell which direction led home.
Fortunately, when the soldiers guarding the gate saw him standing there without moving, they questioned him briefly and pointed out the road to the outer city for him.
–
Night had fallen, the street lamps were scattered and sparse, and the streets were empty and deathly still. The capital had originally been a bustling, noisy city that never slept, but after enemy troops arrived beneath the walls, a curfew and martial law were imposed, and aside from patrolling soldiers, there was not the slightest trace of human life on the streets.
Li Si carried a lantern the old eunuch had given him, walking alone and solitary down the broad, empty street. When he had come, he had still possessed some measure of glory, riding a tall horse with people guiding and opening the way for him, seeing high walls, broad roads, pavilions, and towers all along the route. But now that he was walking alone deep at night, he gradually saw the collapsed houses along the way, the deep mansion compounds ransacked until they were in utter disarray, the wooden beams torn down to make barricade nets, the shattered stones chiseled out to fill the waterways…
Several days had passed without snow, yet on the ground by the street, there was a large patch of muddy frost.
–
In the month since Li Si had left the capital, the Xiao army had first demanded that the three military towns be ceded, then demanded an enormous “indemnity” of gold and silver. His Majesty was weak and fearful, and under the urging of the peace-faction officials, he agreed to all the conditions.
Great Xuan was prosperous to the extreme, but this “indemnity” still far exceeded what the capital could bear. The national treasury was emptied, the gold, silver, and precious treasures within the palace—even the ritual vessels of the ancestral temple—were all counted toward the sum; His Majesty confiscated the property of a batch of “corrupt officials and wicked clerks,” and even the private wealth of palace servants and the singing girls from the entertainment quarters and pleasure houses was seized into public coffers; finally, His Majesty issued an edict requiring the common people to “lend” gold and silver—yet even then, they had only scraped together less than one-tenth of the indemnity.
Li Gang’s defense of the city had originally been quite effective, and Zuo Shi Dao and the other reinforcement armies had also arrived one after another. But because His Majesty was muddleheaded and fearful, the court corrupt and rotten, and the officials endlessly locked in internal struggle, the more the city was defended, the more chaotic it became, and the longer the negotiations continued, the more dangerous they grew.
In the end, under the urging of other officials, His Majesty even dismissed the two men from office in order to curry favor with the Xiao army.
So muddleheaded and cowardly to the extreme that even the common people could see who was right and who was wrong.
Three days earlier, Imperial Academy students, low-ranking scholars, and tens of thousands of common people had gathered before the imperial palace, demanding that the traitorous officials be punished and that Li Gang and Zuo Shi Dao be restored to office. Public anger had surged fiercely, and outside the palace gate, they had beaten a palace official who came to deliver messages to death, frightening His Majesty into hurriedly restoring the two men to their original posts.
–
This large patch of frosted mud was the bloodstain left behind from that day, when the palace official had been beaten to death alive.
–
Li Si did not know the source of this bloodstain, nor did he know how many ridiculous, tragic, and lamentable disturbances had taken place within this city of the Son of Heaven in this short month.
He knew nothing of the scheming palace struggles or the complicated and treacherous war situation between the two states. Even if he had known, with his shallow experience and simple way of thinking, perhaps he would not have been able to understand.
He only knew that Brother Xiao had said Kuiyuan could not be lost.
Such a simple and obvious truth was something even ordinary, ignorant Zhang San and Li Si knew. His Majesty, honored as the ruler of a nation; the court, which governed all the people; the officials, full of learning and classical knowledge… yet they all somehow did not know.
Li Si could not understand.
–
In the deep night, with the cold wind soughing around him, he returned in panic to the Longwei Army camp. The soldiers had all been transferred to the various city gates for defense, and the camp was also empty and deathly still.
The little courtyard was pitch-black. He thought Grandma had gone to rest, and the courtyard gate was probably already locked, so he was about to raise his voice and wake her.
Before he could speak, the cold wind suddenly blew open the thin wooden door with a slap, and it struck heavily against the wall behind it.
Li Si’s body trembled.
Inside the courtyard, everything had been blown into utter disorder by the wild wind. The thatched eaves had half-collapsed, the chairs and stools had fallen over, and tools such as the broom and firewood knife were scattered all over the ground. It did not look like anyone was living there.
He hurriedly rushed into the courtyard and anxiously crashed open the door to the room.
–
Inside the room was just as chaotic. Under the dim light of the lantern, he saw that the tables and chairs inside had been overturned, and the bedding, money, clothes, and some common household items had all vanished without a trace.
Grandma was gone too. On the ground by the bed were a few scattered drops of pitch-black marks.
Li Si threw himself to his knees on the ground, rubbed it with his fingers, then smelled it carefully and caught the faint scent of blood.
“Grandma… Grandma!”
Li Si’s hands trembled. The lantern fell to the ground, toppled to the side, and went out. He rushed out the door in the dark, then went in a panic to the side room he shared with Second Uncle. It was just as chaotic, and there was no trace of Grandma there either.
Li Si was so anxious he was about to go mad. Calling for Grandma, he rushed back outside. As if matching his frenzied state of mind, the wild wind suddenly rose with force, blowing both his hair bun and padded jacket into complete disorder.
He stepped on some miscellaneous object in the courtyard and fell to the ground. In an instant, he was plunged into bone-chilling darkness, and the terror of once again losing family enveloped him. In a daze, he saw again the four pitch-black coffin boards closing in around him…
Yet within that familiar heaviness and darkness, he suddenly heard an intense heartbeat and heard his own faintly remembered roar of fury.
No. He was unwilling. Even if he might lose Grandma, even if he might lose Brother Xiao, he was unwilling to return to that cold darkness again…
Even if there was more pain and torment, even if he had to endure losses too unbearable to bear, he would absolutely never again forget those warm emotions, and absolutely never return to being a heartless stone.
–
He rolled once on the ground, struggled to climb back up, and stumbled back into the room. He righted the lantern, lit it again, then vigorously wiped his dirty face and re-coiled his messy hair bun.
Carrying the lantern out of the courtyard, he forced himself to steady his mind. He planned first to search around the vicinity and ask the military households living nearby whether they had seen Grandma. Even if Grandma had been kidnapped out of the camp, the soldiers guarding the camp should have seen something.
He had not walked far when he heard a careful call from a nearby little courtyard. “Is that a young master of the Li family returning? Which Young Master Li is it?”
–
Li Si focused his eyes and saw that it was a neighboring woman surnamed Yao. Her husband had died in battle many years earlier, and her son was a few years younger than Li Si; last year, he had only just been entered into the military register.
“Auntie Yao, it’s me, Li Si.”
Madam Yao had a tattered padded jacket draped over her, and the cold wind blew her until she trembled unsteadily. She opened the courtyard gate and said joyfully, “Little Brother Li, you’re finally back! Come quickly, your grandma is at my house!”
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