Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I had survived?

I could hardly believe I had escaped an ordeal from which survival had seemed impossible. Yet I felt no joy at having cheated death. Once my taut nerves loosened, nothing remained but bewilderment and despair.

He Sulong’s surrender meant the last land belonging to Southern Xu was gone. No matter how I deceived myself, Southern Xu’s allotted time had run out.

The purpose that had sustained me this far had crumbled to dust. What could I do now? Scrape by? Drift through life in a daze? Then why had I endured since the day my country fell – merely to die later in some even crueler fashion?

And a terrifying danger already loomed before me.

I did not know how to make porcelain.

When I was young, Zhiqiu had wanted me to understand how difficult porcelain was to create, so she took me to the kilns again and again to watch the entire process. I had consequently learned a great deal about the craft. But that did not mean I possessed the skill to rebuild Southern Xu’s porcelain industry from nothing. Sooner or later, Chen Dong would discover I had lied to him.

What would I do then?

As my thoughts ran in circles, the tent flap lifted. The adjutant entered and tossed me a somewhat heavier robe. “Here. Serve the general well.”

I hurriedly stopped him. “My lord, wait. There are a few things I would like to ask.”

He was a man in his forties with the eyes of a hawk. Before such eyes, any disguise seemed useless. I chose my words carefully. “My lord, I know I should ask nothing. But my brother and I have depended on each other to make it this far. Please take pity on me and tell me what Old Ge does. Will my brother… be allowed to live?”

“You needn’t worry about that. Old Ge is our camp’s gelu.” Seeing my confusion, he thought for a moment. “He deals with the wounded. Understand?”

At the time, I did not know what gelu meant and took it to mean a physician. I sighed in relief.

The adjutant suddenly asked, “How old are you?”

“I just turned sixteen.”

He sighed, his voice subdued. “My youngest daughter must be about that age. I wonder whether anyone is bullying her back home.”

When he raised his head again, his gaze was sharp once more, though he offered me a few extra words of warning. “The general’s moods are unpredictable. Old wounds from his early campaigns left him unable to sleep at night. The less he sleeps, the more violent he becomes. Once, he killed more than a dozen men in the middle of the night for no reason. If you see him tossing and turning, keep your distance.”

I nodded. He tried to reassure me. “It may amount to nothing. The general likes people from Southern Xu. Serve him well and you may find yourself very fortunate.”

“He likes people from Southern Xu?”

“That’s my guess. Why else would he allow you to attend him personally? By his age, the king already had several children. But the general? He won’t so much as look at the women of our tribes.” He gave me a meaningful look. “He doesn’t say it, but I think he likes southern women.”

I lowered my head in feigned shyness while my thoughts raced. Something began to stir within me.

The adjutant rose. “I’ve already said too much. I should go. We’ll join the king’s army in a few days, and there will be no end of work.”

“What?”

My eyes widened. He stared at me, puzzled, and repeated, “In a few days, we will present ourselves before the king.”

Danchi, King of Northern Qian.

Images I had forced myself to forget flooded back: a beast’s brown eyes, a man convulsed with laughter, Zhiqiu’s trembling fingers, blood running down her legs.

I still did not know how Xia Wan had miraculously answered every question correctly. But in that moment, I understood why we had survived one impossible danger after another.

Danchi was still alive and well. How could I die?

After the adjutant left, I prepared an airtight story and waited anxiously for Chen Dong’s return. Midnight came before a clamor finally rose outside.

Chen Dong entered. Behind him, two adjutants dragged a Northern Qian soldier bound from head to foot. The man struggled and cursed.

“When I followed the king, I killed whoever I wanted! Slept with as many women as I – ”

Before he could finish, an adjutant kicked him in the face. He fell and writhed on the ground.

The tent stood open. Every soldier outside could see and hear what followed.

Chen Dong toyed with a dagger and looked down at the prisoner. “I promised He Sulong that if Linnan surrendered, Northern Qian’s soldiers would not harm a single hair on its people’s heads. Did you take my military orders for a joke?”

“First Prince, I was wrong! I didn’t mean – I lost my head for a moment! Please…”

Expressionless, Chen Dong lifted the man’s chin. “You have served me for three months and still don’t know what to call me?”

“No… General…”

Chen Dong flicked his hand, dislocating the man’s jaw. He could only gape and moan in terror. The blade flashed. At his bloodcurdling scream, his tongue dropped to the ground, leaving his mouth a red ruin.
An adjutant took the knife. His second cut removed the man’s ear. Then came the third cut, and the fourth…

Before my eyes, that tall, powerfully built man became a bloody skeleton.

“I don’t care whether you once served my uncle or the king.” Chen Dong idly turned the knife in his hand. “In my camp, those who disobey me die.”

The prisoner could no longer speak. Trembling, he nodded desperately.

Silence swallowed the tent. Chen Dong casually tossed the knife to the ground with a clang. “Hang him outside the entrance. Some of the veterans appear forgetful. I want to rest.”

“Yes, General!”

The two adjutants dragged the mangled man away. At last, the tent flap closed. Chen Dong turned, blinked as he noticed me, and said, “Oh. You.”

I answered softly, went to help remove his armor, then wrung out a hot cloth for his face. As he wiped himself, he frowned at me. “What’s your name?”

“Zhou Xiaoxi.”

“You’re not afraid of me?”

The tent was thick with the stench of blood, enough to make me retch. Firelight caught in his eyes, making him look more beast than ever. I forced down my shudder and smiled with lowered eyes. “I am very afraid of the general. But you took in my brother and me. You are a good man.”

“Mm.”

He tossed the knife onto the bed, pulled me onto his lap, and slid a hand beneath my robe. His palm was cold and callused as it kneaded my breast. I had known this would come sooner or later, yet I could not stop myself from trembling.

“Southern women are so damn…” he muttered beside my ear, squeezing harder.

Tears filled my eyes despite myself – not from humiliation, but pain. He was so strong I thought he might crush my chest.

He suddenly stopped. “You don’t want this?”

“I want to serve the general. It simply… hurts too much.”

He withdrew his hand and lay down on the other side of the bed.

“You’re too young.” After thinking, he added, “Young in age.”

For a moment, I had no idea what to say.

“Boring. Go to sleep.”

The campaign bed was narrow, forcing us to press close. The scent of blood and iron on him frightened me, but the night was bitterly cold and his body was warm.

I could not sleep and dared not move. He was awake as well. Remembering his sleepless rages, I grew even more afraid.

Then he spoke without warning. “In Southern Xu, how many books would someone like you have to read?”

Books? Southern Xu revered learning. Men and women alike learned to read from childhood. Grandfather had indulged me too much for me ever to study properly with a tutor, but the palace possessed a vast library, and Zhiqiu often took me there to pass the time.

“My family owns books. If I wish to read, I can,” I answered cautiously.

He pulled a book from beside his pillow and handed it to me.

“Have you read this?”

I leafed through it and found an incomplete volume.

“Not all of it. This is called the Anecdotal History of Donglin. There are fifty-six volumes in the complete work. This should be… the third, about famous generals of the previous dynasty.”

“Read it to me in our language,” he said.

I sat halfway up and began reading softly by the glow of the coals. In the palace library, this work had been nothing remarkable, yet he listened with great attention. Now and then, he asked a question.

“What is the Way of the Sage?”

“What does it mean to preserve one’s integrity?”

As a child, I had always grown sleepy the moment I opened a book. Zhiqiu had often flicked my forehead for it. I was no different now. After reading for a while, I yawned several times, leaned against him, and fell asleep.

When I woke, Chen Dong had long since gone. The brazier still burned brightly, and an animal pelt had been laid over my blankets. It was so warm and comfortable that I had to force myself to leave the bed.

I lifted the tent flap and immediately saw the corpse hanging high outside. One night had been enough for all its blood to drain away. Frost veiled its face as several soldiers took it down.

The warmth had been an illusion.

This was the truth.

I asked the guards where the gelu could be found, but they pretended not to hear and refused to answer. At last, I claimed I needed water to wash and slowly made my way toward the river, searching for Xia Wan as I went.

Just as I lowered the bucket into the current, the wind carried a broken thread of song to me.

“Though the body dies… the spirit lives divine. The steadfast soul… remains a hero among ghosts.”

The bucket fell into the river with a splash and drifted away.

It was Qu Yuan’s “Hymn to the Fallen.”

No one from Northern Qian would sing such a song in an army camp.

I sprang upright and searched wildly for the voice, fine sweat beading across my back. But the song had vanished without a trace, like a ghost dissolving beneath the sun.