"I no longer have a hometown. You are my hometown.
That was what I had planned.
But I never expected this day to come so soon. I had hoped to take Prince Duan with me for you. Tomorrow I will do my best, and if I succeed, your burden will be lighter. If I fail, do what the last page says and you should be able to escape with your life.
After that, you will have to walk the road alone. It is a long road, and the world is a dangerous place. Be careful.
I told you many lies, but this one is true: you are the strongest and bravest person I have met in either of my lives. You will surely be the one who laughs last, and you will fight your way through to a land at peace, its mountains and rivers clear.
When that day comes, if you have forgiven me, eat a little hotpot on the holidays. Think of it as me keeping you company.
Zhang San
……"
Besides this, the envelope held a page covered in writing, and one small object.
Yu Wanyin read the last word just as the sunset faded from the sky. The hidden guards pulled vines across the mouth of the cave and quietly urged her to rest.
She tucked the letter inside her clothes, against her chest, and lay down fully dressed for the night. The mountain air was cold. The chill began in the soles of her feet and crept upward until she felt frozen into a block of stiff stone. Afraid she might not wake if she slept, she kept her eyes open and counted numbers to herself. She could hear the guards quietly changing watch, and somewhere far off, the mournful cry of a fox.
The next morning they set out again. They found a stream and washed the blood off themselves.
Yu Wanyin was already dressed in a commoner's men's clothes, which Xiahou Dan must have changed her into to make her escape easier. The bundle also held the tools she usually used for disguise, spare clothes, a flint, a dagger, and other necessities.
She did her makeup in the stream's reflection and stuck on a beard. Then she stood on the bank and set the letter alight. She watched it curl up in the flames and break into flecks of ash that dropped into the water and drifted away downstream.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed several guards watching her, wanting to speak but holding back. Only then did she realize she had not said a single word since finishing the letter the night before.
She cleared her dry throat. "How are your injuries?"
"Minor," the guards said. "They've already healed."
"Good. We need to reach somewhere with people before we can learn what's happening in the capital."
Seeing that she looked normal and was no longer insisting on going back to the capital, the guards relaxed. "We were ordered to protect you, Empress," one said quickly. "The situation is hard to predict, but as long as Prince Duan isn't dead, the three border armies he arranged will still close in on this place to put down the Imperial Guard and help him take the throne. They're coming from the north, east and south. We think that before they link up, we can find a gap..."
"We go south." Yu Wanyin picked up her bundle and started walking.
The guard froze, then hurried after her and took the bundle from her hands. "Empress, the south is the direction the Right Army is coming from."
She kept her eyes straight ahead. "South, to Peiyang. That is His Majesty's wish."
Peiyang was an ordinary little city with nothing remarkable about its terrain. The guards could not work out why she wanted to go there. Had Xiahou Dan stationed reinforcements there? But if he had, they would have been used yesterday, not held back until now.
Yu Wanyin gave nothing away and did not slow down. "Thank you all for escorting me. Is there any food?"
She took some dry rations and ate as she walked, forcing herself to chew and swallow.
Behind her, the guards exchanged worried glances. They did not know what the letter said, so they could not tell whether letting her read it early had been a mistake.
After half a day of silent travel, scattered villages appeared ahead. There were few people on the road apart from their own group, and everyone hurried along, jumpy as startled birds.
The guards tried to talk to some villagers, but the villagers, seeing strangers, asked them for news instead. Both sides were equally in the dark. After a long exchange, all they had established was that the capital had fallen into chaos the day before, with blood running in the streets, and that today the city was sealed and utterly silent. The villagers had no idea who was winning. They did not even know who was fighting whom.
By evening, chills kept sweeping over Yu Wanyin and her head began to spin until she could barely walk. She reached up, belatedly, and touched her forehead. It was burning.
The guards panicked, but her face showed nothing. "It's fine. A night's sleep will fix it. We can't go to an inn, it would give away our trail. Find somewhere to ask for shelter."
After another half a li, the sky darkened, and ahead of them, behind the gate of one farmhouse, firelight flickered faintly.
A guard went forward and knocked. An old woman with red, swollen eyes came to the door. "Who is it?"
The guard put on a placating smile. "Auntie, we were on our way to the capital to visit relatives, but thieves took our luggage on the road, and now we hear something has happened in the capital and we can't go any further. One of our companions has fallen sick as well. We have nothing left but this bit of money. We were hoping for a meal."
He handed a handful of copper coins through the gap.
The old woman sighed. "Come in. We're all people with hard lives. Lately so many families in the village have been robbed. There must be some skilled thief around..."
She muttered as she turned and went inside. The guards supported Yu Wanyin and followed, and only then saw that the firelight came from a clay basin in the yard. The old woman led them into the house, then went back to sit by the basin and fed more paper money into it.
"Auntie, what is this...?" the guard asked.
The old woman shook her head without turning around and began to sob. An old man came out of the inner room and said quietly, "Her younger brother lived at the foot of Beishan. Yesterday, when Prince Duan rebelled, the whole place was in chaos, and somehow he's gone."
Yu Wanyin's heart jumped. She asked hoarsely, "Did Prince Duan's rebellion succeed?"
The old man shook his head repeatedly. "The man who brought word of the death only said a lot of people died, mostly Imperial Guards. He couldn't say anything more."
Her vision went black and she swayed on her feet.
Mostly Imperial Guards...
Either the Imperial Guard had turned on itself, or Prince Duan had been hiding troops. Whichever it was, things looked very bad for Xiahou Dan.
The guard beside her quickly caught her arm. "Sir, it's wrong of us to impose at a time like this, but our brother here is very sick. Could you boil a bowl of noodles for him?"
A little while later they were wolfing down bowls of noodles, the dim oil lamp reflected in the broth.
The household was fairly well off. Yu Wanyin's bowl even had an egg in it. She drank a few mouthfuls of hot soup, and her hands stopped shaking so badly. Her sluggish mind began, barely, to work again.
If Prince Duan had won, Xiahou Dan might already be dead. He might also be locked up in the palace and left to die, so that Prince Duan could take the throne smoothly. All they could do was pray for the second.
The old woman finished burning the paper and came back inside wiping her tears. "That thousand-times-damned dog of a Prince Duan. Even Heaven can't stand him. It's sending an earthquake to take him."
"Keep your voice down," the old man said. "And is that emperor any better? The old folks always say the earth only shakes when a ruler lacks virtue! That tyrant even killed the Empress Dowager..."
Yu Wanyin's chopsticks stopped.
"Are you sure he killed the Empress Dowager?" the old woman said. "How would we know what goes on in the imperial family?"
The old man waved a hand. "Woman, long hair and short sense. I'm not arguing with you."
"I have no sense, and my brother had none either?" the old woman said angrily. "He said the emperor had people do that equal-something... equalize the land, cut taxes! And he killed a lot of corrupt officials!"
"Corrupt officials?" Yu Wanyin said.
The guard gave her a surprised look, as if hoping she would stay quiet.
The old woman noticed nothing. She counted names off on her fingers, one after another. "My brother said these were all big corrupt officials who bled the common people dry. In these years the emperor has rid the people of a great many evils."
The old man slapped her. "You don't even know if the names are right. Stop embarrassing yourself."
She had indeed got several of the names wrong, and she had lumped high and low officials together. The information seemed to come from half-true rumors passed around the streets of the capital. People who lived at the emperor's feet all loved that kind of talk.
In all her time here, Yu Wanyin had known that some of these officials belonged to the Empress Dowager's faction and some to Prince Duan's. But she had never bothered to investigate their backgrounds, and she could not remember whether their names had appeared in the original novel.
When it came down to it, she had never cared whom the "original tyrant" had killed. She had treated it as a list the book had already fixed. A tyrant, after all, would of course confuse right and wrong and execute loyal men by mistake.
Perhaps even Xiahou Dan himself did not know how many of the people he'd killed before she arrived had deserved it, and how many had not.
Perhaps he did not want to face the exact number.
She suddenly remembered something from long ago. When he was running lines with her, Xiahou Dan had said, with great theatrical exaggeration: "I am nothing but a mad king with his eyes covered and his ears stopped. Loyal or treacherous, isn't that decided by a single memorial?"
At the time she had thought he was just acting well, which was why he could put so much self-mockery and desolation into the line.
The old man was still arguing with his wife. "Do you remember Grand Secretary Xu..."
Yes. Grand Secretary Xu.
She remembered that after Xu Yao died, Xiahou Dan had asked her, "What was Xu Yao's ending in the original?"
"I think he stayed with Prince Duan and ended up a civil official."
Xiahou Dan had been silent for a moment, then smiled. "So we're the ones who got him killed."
After that he never asked about the characters' original endings again. He pushed the plan forward without hesitation, deciding who lived and who died, his face empty of expression. He told her, "If you ever have to get rid of someone, tell me. Let me handle it."
He also said, "I'll pay back what I owe them after I go to hell."
He flatly denied that paper people had souls, yet he believed a paper world had a hell.
Right now, she would almost rather he didn't.
"...Anyway, if the emperor gets replaced, our family won't be able to live like this. Believe it or not? Hey, what's wrong with this young man?"
The guard shifted to block Yu Wanyin and answered as best he could. "He's probably worried about relatives in the capital."
The old woman muttered a Buddhist invocation, got up, and ladled her another bowl of soup.
When they had finished eating, the guards helped clear the bowls. Yu Wanyin did not want anyone to see that she was someone special, so she stood up to help too, but her legs gave way and she caught the edge of the table to keep her balance.
The old woman put a hand to her forehead. "Goodness, such a high fever. You should see a doctor."
Yu Wanyin stopped her quickly, saying she had only collapsed from the journey and wanted to stay one night.
The old woman hesitated, and the old man was not happy about it. "It's not that we're unkind. But there are so many of you strapping young men, and we have only one bed, and not nearly enough bedding."
The guard took out a few more copper coins. "Sir, we only need one quilt for our sick friend to sleep on the floor. The rest of us can sit up in meditation."
The old man pulled his wife aside. "Who knows where they came from? Have you forgotten how many families in the village have been robbed lately?"
He had not kept his voice very low, and everyone heard.
The guard's face changed, and he glanced at Yu Wanyin.
She gave a pale smile. "In that case, we won't trouble you any longer. Thank you both for the noodles."
She forced herself upright and walked toward the door.
Just then a faint noise came from the direction of the kitchen, so slight it was almost inaudible, as if a window shutter had rattled in the wind.
The old couple noticed nothing, but the guards' expressions sharpened. One made a silent hand signal. Without a word between them they all turned midstep and rushed toward the kitchen.
"Hey, what are you doing..." the old man said.
Yu Wanyin turned in surprise, her hand closing on the gun hidden in her sleeve.
There was a scuffle in the kitchen, mixed with a few cries of pain in an unfamiliar voice. The guards came out again, together gripping a small figure that kept struggling.
"This person climbed in through the window and got into the kitchen," a guard said. "We caught him in the act."
The prisoner was tiny as a monkey, hair matted and face filthy, and his eyes bulged from thinness as he glared at them viciously. When his gaze swept past her, Yu Wanyin felt as if she had been pricked by a needle, and an inexplicable unease crept over her.
He still clutched a bundle in his hands. A guard wrenched it away and opened it, spilling a jumble of things across the table: money pouches, a jade pendant, cured meat.
"Ah, that's our New Year's meat!" the old woman cried. She leaned closer. "And this jade pendant looks like the Wang family's!"
The thief suddenly began to howl and thrash like a child throwing a tantrum, his voice hoarse and shrill, but the guard held him pinned to the floor and he could not move.
The old man: "..."
A moment ago he had called the guests thieves. Now the guests had caught a thief. His old face flushed red and he mumbled apologies to them, and Yu Wanyin gently told him not to worry about it.
The old couple were simple, decent people. To show their thanks, they immediately readied hot water and bedding for Yu Wanyin to stay the night. They also asked the guards to tie up the thief and put him in the woodshed out back, to be handed over to the authorities in the morning.
Yu Wanyin drank a bowl of ginger soup. For the first time in two days she lay down in a bed, and she fell into a heavy sleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
She had not slept long when she felt someone patting her.
The lamps in the house had been put out. The old couple had gone to bed in their own room, and several guards sat in meditation along the wall beside her floor bedding.
The one patting her was a guard. "Forgive me, Empress. When I tied the thief up and took him to the woodshed, he struggled so hard that he drew some of the villagers. The old man also returned the stolen things to his neighbors. By now five or six households know we are here."
Strangers of remarkable skill had shown up and caught the thief on the spot. That news would spread through the whole village as soon as it was light.
They had avoided inns precisely to hide their trail. With this incident, the chance of being exposed had multiplied.
The guard lowered his voice even further. "Empress, shall we kill them?"
Yu Wanyin's mind was fogged with fever, and her thoughts lagged half a beat. She stared at him blankly.
"We could kill these families in the dark," the guard said. "There's still time to pin it on the thief and wipe out any trace that we were here."
"No," she said instinctively.
A few seconds later she had sorted out her thoughts. "We leave right now. We go to Peiyang as fast as we can."
She tried to push herself up, but all her joints felt rusted, sore and weak.
The guard pressed her down. "Rest a while longer, Empress."
She knew herself that in this state, forcing the pace would only slow everyone down. "Two hours. Wake me in two hours."
But she did not get to sleep the full two hours.
In the deep of the night, hoofbeats entered her dreams, and in her sleep she was pulled into an endless slaughter. It seemed she was back at the foot of Beishan, watching helplessly as rebel soldiers swallowed Xiahou Dan. Thousands of blades and swords fell on him and hacked him down to white bone in an instant, yet he seemed to feel no pain. His gaze passed over the crowd and found her, quiet and gentle.
From far away he shaped a word with his lips: "Run."
Yu Wanyin started awake and forced her mind back to reality.
The hoofbeats were coming up through the ground. A few breaths later, every dog in the village began barking, high and low.
The guard beside her helped her up, grabbed the bundle, and pointed at the door in the dim light.
A man's voice rang out from the direction of the village entrance, evidently projected with internal strength so it carried far in the still night: "Any household that has taken in a suspicious lodger, report at once. Reward of ten taels of silver!"
After a few seconds, he shouted it again.
Yu Wanyin swore silently.
By the third time the man shouted, she had already pushed the courtyard gate open a crack, when she heard the gates of several nearby houses creak open one after another. Many light footsteps hurried toward the village entrance. Clearly everyone was determined to win the ten taels.
She swore silently a second time and turned. "Out the back!"
There was no time to hesitate. They rushed to the back courtyard. As they rounded the house, they saw light already showing at the window of the old couple's bedroom.
Without slowing, the lead guard vaulted over the back fence and turned to receive Yu Wanyin.
Footsteps of over a hundred men were closing in, and a blaze of torchlight had already reached the front gate.
A guard hoisted Yu Wanyin onto his back and ran.
The old couple's house stood at the edge of the village, and a stretch of woods lay not far behind it, but in the dark she could not tell how big it was or where it led.
The wind cut into her face. Yu Wanyin narrowed her eyes and was about to tell the guard to hide in the woods when a black shape flashed past at the edge of her vision.
She looked more closely. The figure had just climbed out of the back courtyard too and was fleeing in another direction. The back was small as a monkey's and looked very familiar.
The thief had escaped from the woodshed.
He was pulling at the ropes on his body as he ran. When he ran into them he stiffened, then vanished with a whoosh. In the dark they could only see him disappear down a narrow lane behind a neighbor's house.
Her mind raced: to steal in this village for so long, this thief had never been caught before...
An uproar rose from the old couple's house, and someone bellowed, "Split up and search!"
At the same moment, Yu Wanyin made her decision. "Follow that thief!"
The guards plunged into the narrow lane and caught sight of the thief's back just as it disappeared ahead again. They sped up and turned sharply at the same corner.
The thief: "?"
The thief ran for his life.
The guards pursued relentlessly.
The thief's route was truly tricky. He clearly knew every inch of the village, climbing walls, crawling through dog holes, his body slippery as a loach. Even with the guards' exceptional eyesight, they almost lost him several times.
Partway through, the thief stopped short, turned around, and glared at them in a fury. He grabbed his clothes and shook them out, apparently to show that he had no loot on him left and could not understand why they were chasing him so hard.
"We're not after you," Yu Wanyin said. "Don't just stand there, lead the way!"
The thief: "???"
Shouting and clamor rose behind them again, closing in. The thief turned by reflex, ran a little further, and suddenly realized that the pursuers behind them were not after him at all.
So he really was just the guide.
He was nearly driven mad with rage. With his back to them, his eyes rolled, and he abruptly changed direction.
The pursuit had woken the entire village. Lamps were lit in every house, and from time to time someone pushed open a door or window to look out.
The guard carrying Yu Wanyin suddenly barked, "Where are you running?"
It turned out the thief had been leading them around in circles and was now heading straight for the pursuers.
Seeing he had been found out, the thief ducked low and tried to slip away.
A guard leaped and grabbed for him.
Firelight flickered behind them, and someone shouted, "I saw a shadow, over here!"
"Split up," a guard said.
The four guards separated without hesitation. Two stayed to protect Yu Wanyin, while the other two took different routes, deliberately running toward the most visible directions.
A guard caught the thief and crushed his wrist with a crack, then muffled the cry of pain. "Try any tricks and you'll be the first to die. Understand?"
The thief trembled all over and nodded in humiliation.
The two who had run off drew the pursuers away, and the voices behind them gradually thinned.
The thief led them further and further from the center of the village, and at last climbed into a courtyard. Yu Wanyin hesitated, then signaled them to follow.
The house had no lights on. The back courtyard was overgrown and choked with wild weeds, and it did not look lived in. The thief quickly bent low and crawled into the waist-high grass, and vanished.
The guard put Yu Wanyin down and went after him to look. He turned and whispered, "A pit."
The three of them did not dare waste time. They all climbed down and pulled the weeds across the entrance behind them.
The pit was tiny. Its original purpose was unknown, and it might have been dug by the thief himself as a hiding place. With three more full-grown people in it, they were packed so tight that it was hard even to turn around.
A guard had put a dagger to the thief's neck from the start and pinned him in the farthest corner, and the thief did not dare breathe loudly.
After a short while, voices approached.
A small group of pursuers reached this spot and began rummaging through the back courtyard. Yu Wanyin gripped the gun in her hand and held her breath.
Above their heads, someone said, "They shouldn't be around here. They all went chasing into the woods."
"Didn't that village woman say it was several men? I think we're arresting the wrong people again. How many villages is this now?"
"Maybe they're in disguise."
"Tch, that damn woman really knows how to run. The higher-up said dead or alive is fine. If she falls into our hands, we might as well let the brothers have a taste of that Empr..." The rest was left unsaid, followed by a burst of snickering.
Scattered footsteps fell within a few inches of them, then gradually faded away.
After another long while, once they were sure everyone had gone, Yu Wanyin's tense body loosened bit by bit and began to shake in fine tremors.
She still had a high fever, and this ordeal had left stars swimming in front of her eyes. She slid slowly down along the wall of the pit.
She had still been clinging to a last shred of hope that it would not be Prince Duan's people. But after that conversation, the situation was completely clear.
Prince Duan held power in the capital now.
And Xiahou Dan? Could he still be alive?
A guard took off his outer robe and draped it over her.
"Thank you," Yu Wanyin said. She pulled the robe tight with trembling hands. "The two brothers who split off just now..."
"They'll use the trees for cover and wear down a batch of pursuers," the guard said, his voice calm. "They will kill themselves before they can be captured. They won't leave anyone a clue."
Of the twenty who had escorted her when they set out, only two were left.
Yu Wanyin was silent for a moment. "It was my fault."
She had spared those five village households and it had cost two guards their lives.
The guard was startled and tried to think of something comforting to say, but Yu Wanyin asked suddenly, "What are your names?"
Since the day she arrived in this world she had been avoiding this question. In the original novel, these young men were all fated to die. She had not wanted to know their names, as if by keeping them faceless she could carry one less debt.
"I am Twelve, and he is Forty-Seven. The ones who left were Sixty-Five and..."
"Your real names."
"We don't have real names. His Maj..." The guard, mindful of the thief beside them, changed course. "The master said that on the day we received our numbers, he had already carved our real names on gravestones. From then on the past is gone, and we are not to speak of it."
Yu Wanyin sat hugging her knees and buried her face between them.
In all this vast world, there was one person who could see all her pain.
Now that she walked alone, she found that every step fell into his footprints. He had gone so far ahead along that long road, black beyond the reach of a hand, that she could no longer even find his back.
The pit was silent except for the heavy breathing of the thief with the broken wrist.
Her throat tightened, and she insisted again. "Your real name."
The guard paused, and seemed to smile a little. "I am Twelve."
Beside them, Forty-Seven was quietly pressing the thief for the route out of the village, but could get no word out of him. He flicked his dagger, and the thief, cut, cried out "ah, ah" with tears in his voice.
"So he's mute," Forty-Seven said.
"Search him," Yu Wanyin said. "He got out of the woodshed just now, so he must still have tools on him."
There was a rustling. Forty-Seven found a razor blade, and also a new piece of information: "...It's a woman. A mute woman."
Lin Xuanying led his army straight toward the capital. On the first day they met some resistance, but they crushed it like breaking dead wood.
From the second day on, the resistance was so slight it could be ignored. Some prefectures surrendered without a fight and threw open their gates to let the army pass, hoping only to send these fiends on their way as quickly as possible.
They soon learned why. The capital was in chaos, the emperor had "suddenly fallen seriously ill," and Prince Duan was now regent.
Prince Duan had also declared that the demoness empress, Yu Wanyin, had attempted regicide, and was posting notices everywhere to arrest her.
At the same time, a new secret letter reached Lin Xuanying's hands.
He skimmed it and tore it up. "Prince Duan is pressing us again. He also wants us to keep watch along the way and help him catch someone."
A subordinate frowned. "Strange. If Prince Duan had really won, why would he be in such a hurry?"
Could he have run into some unforeseen trouble?
Lin Xuanying urged his horse forward, narrowing his eyes. "Do you hope he wins, or loses?"
The young subordinate froze, then said quickly, "I serve only the Deputy General. Whoever you want dead, we kill."
Lin Xuanying shook his head with a laugh, and asked again, "Have they all been trained up?"
The subordinate swallowed. "They have."
Lin Xuanying pressed his heels to his horse. "Then let's move."
By the time the sky turned pale at the edge, there was no more sound of pursuers in the village.
Twelve climbed out to scout, and came back to report. "They've all gone. But some villagers haven't given up and are still wandering around. They probably want to catch us for the reward."
Yu Wanyin cleared her throat. "Hey, you... miss."
In the faint dawn light she could see the mute woman thief open her eyes and look at her.
"Peiyang isn't far from here. Have you been there?"
She had seen that this person had no fixed home and probably survived by wandering and stealing, and an idea had formed in her mind.
The mute woman did not react for a long time. Only when Forty-Seven raised his dagger again did she nod warily.
Yu Wanyin made her voice as kind as she could. "We need to get there, and we have to take back roads to avoid being seen. If you can guide us, you'll be paid well, and you'll never have to steal again. How about it?"
The mute woman still did not respond.
"Or would you rather die here?" Forty-Seven said.
Yu Wanyin hurried to play the good cop. "Put down the dagger and talk properly."
One of them threatened and the other tempted, and they had been at it for some time when a loud rumble sounded. Someone's stomach had growled.
The mute woman: "..."
She slowly held out a hand and made the gesture of begging for food.
Yu Wanyin smiled kindly. "Do we still have rations? Give her some."
A little later, the mute woman led them silently out of the village and south.
The route she chose kept away from people as much as possible, but a small town still lay in the way. Yu Wanyin, worried about meeting the pursuers from last night, quickly disguised herself and the two guards again, and this time she made herself up as an old woman.
The scene in the town was more astonishing than she had imagined.
Wanted notices were plastered along the streets, her portrait fluttering in the wind, and above it were the words "reincarnated fox demon" and "bringer of ruin to the nation" in big characters.
Several patrols of soldiers took turns walking the streets, the leader shouting, "If you see any suspicious man or woman, report them. There will be a generous reward!"
The mute woman led them through winding alleys around the patrols. When she had heard the shout several times from a distance, she suddenly looked back and glanced thoughtfully at Yu Wanyin.
Twelve, following behind, said in a low voice, "Be careful of her, Empress."
"Yes. She may sell us out for the reward."
Yu Wanyin had been walking for three days straight, and her feet were covered in blisters. Her body was hit by waves of chills. She knew she was at the end of her strength and gritted her teeth without saying anything, but her steps still grew slower and slower.
She looked ahead. "Keep a close watch on her. If it comes to it, kill her."
Perhaps the mute woman sensed the killing intent behind her and decided she couldn't escape, because she became extremely obedient and led the way with her head down.
As they were about to leave the town, she suddenly disappeared from right under their eyes. The guards were alarmed and were about to search for her when she came back, sitting on a donkey cart.
"...You stole it? For me to ride in?" Yu Wanyin asked.
The mute woman rolled her eyes and gestured for them to hurry up and get on so they could get out of there.
With the guards keeping an eye on the mute woman, Yu Wanyin finally lay down in the cart and was able to catch her breath.
Her body was exhausted to the extreme, but her nerves were still wound tight and her mind was working frantically.
On reflection, Prince Duan's display of arresting people was actually suspicious.
By any logic, she was just a woman with no troops and no real imperial child in her womb, and there was no way she could turn the tables in the short term. Prince Duan had only just taken the throne. He ought to be pouring all his energy into stabilizing the capital. Why send out so many men instead, to hunt down someone as insignificant as her?
Unless...
That faint, nearly extinguished hope began to rise again.
What if he was not searching only for her?
The pursuers in town had shouted "suspicious men or women." Why insist on mentioning men? Were they afraid she'd disguise herself, or was the original target a mix of men and women?
Had Xiahou Dan escaped?
This was less an inference than a prayer.
If she could stand before him again... what would her first words be?
As she thought about that question, a bitter calm fell over her slowly, like snow at night, and covered her. On this flight for her life, she miraculously slept for a little while.
When they reached open ground where the donkey cart could no longer pass, the group got out and went on foot again.
Yu Wanyin thanked the mute woman sincerely and had a guard treat her wrist. As a show of good faith, she also took out a handful of silver fragments and gave them to her in advance as a deposit.
The mute woman held the money and smiled for the first time since they had met.
She repaid the kindness that night by sneaking to a farmhouse along the road and stealing an ox cart.
Yu Wanyin: "..."
After changing vehicles like this several times, they finally reached the outskirts of Peiyang the next evening, shaken but unharmed.
As expected, soldiers at the city gate were holding wanted notices and inspecting everyone entering the city closely. This group of garrison troops looked severe, too. Each stood ramrod straight with a cold, murderous face, like Yama himself come to earth.
Twelve's eyelid twitched. "They're wearing border army armor."
Peiyang had not merely fallen. It had clearly been fully taken over by the border army!
But if the border army held the city, why keep the gates open to let the people go in and out? Did they hope to catch the empress on the notices this way?
While he was still thinking, he saw Yu Wanyin join the line to enter the city.
Twelve: "..."
He reminded her in a low voice, "Empress, if we go in and get trapped like turtles in a jar, we really will have nowhere to run."
"Don't worry," Yu Wanyin said.
She took an object from her sleeve.
It was the small item from Xiahou Dan's envelope, which she had hidden the whole way. Only now did she slide it into her hair.
"What is that?" Twelve asked.
"A token."
Yu Wanyin walked forward. "Don't make a move later," she instructed.
The soldier at the gate looked Yu Wanyin over from head to toe, then waved her through.
Yu Wanyin, hunched over and supported by Twelve, had only gone a few steps when the soldier behind them said, "Stop."
Twelve and Forty-Seven were about to strike by reflex, but Yu Wanyin said in a low voice, "Nobody move."
She turned slowly and met the man's gaze. He looked at her searchingly, and she did not flinch.
The soldier paused. "Please come with me."
The others were left standing where they were. The soldier took Yu Wanyin away alone and led her all the way to the county magistrate's residence.
The original magistrate had gone who knew where, and the magnificent residence had been taken over like a cuckoo in another bird's nest, guarded by the border army layer upon layer.
The study was brightly lit.
Lin Xuanying sat sprawled sideways in a grand armchair, reading a military report. He heard an announcement at the door: "Deputy General, we've found the person."
He glanced at Yu Wanyin and said offhandedly, "Bring her in. The rest of you withdraw."
The door closed.
Lin Xuanying tossed aside the report, stood, walked up to Yu Wanyin, and stared at her disguised face.
Yu Wanyin smiled, reached up, took the swaying object from her hair, and held it out for him to see.
It was a silver hairpin carved in the shape of a bird in flight, but hanging from the end were not tassels but two long lark feathers.
Lin Xuanying's eyes went red at once.
"...A-Bai," Yu Wanyin said. "I hope you've been well?"
The person in front of her differed subtly from the "A-Bai" in her memory. The face was still the same face, but it was as if he had suddenly shed the disguise of youth and shown a young man's appearance.
His eyes were the same as before. The darker the place, the more startlingly bright they were, like glass tempered in fire. But paired with the clothes he wore now, those clear eyes took on a certain sharpness for no reason.
For a moment Yu Wanyin did not know what tone to use with him.
In his letter, Xiahou Dan had told her there were reinforcements in Peiyang, but perhaps out of fear the letter would be intercepted, he had not directly stated A-Bai's identity. When she got the hairpin she had guessed that A-Bai must be mixed into the army somewhere. She had never expected the fellow to transform overnight into its commander.
So much for the wandering swordsman. That reckless, lawless air he'd had when they first met could not really have been an act, could it?
Did Xiahou Dan know his background completely? Could she trust him fully? And even if he was friend, not foe, what about this entire city full of soldiers?
She had just reached this point in her thoughts when Lin Xuanying seized her shoulder. "You're alive, that's enough, that's enough..."
Yu Wanyin had never been in such a state since she came to this world. She had been steeping in sweat until she smelled. Lin Xuanying acted as if he had not noticed at all, and that familiar tone was exactly the same as A-Bai's.
She stared at him blankly. For a moment she remembered the fireflies and watermelon in the back courtyard of the Cold Palace. Countless questions surged into her throat at once, and for a while she was choked.
But Lin Xuanying gave her no chance. He felt her pulse and frowned. "You're ill?"
"It's nothing."
"No, you'll be left with lasting damage." He turned without another word and called for people.
There were no maids in the army. A few soldiers came, and Lin Xuanying sent them off to heat water and brew medicine. A short while later they led Yu Wanyin to a guest room that had a bathtub prepared. They bowed slightly and left with their heads lowered, and did not so much as glance at her.
This was clearly a strictly disciplined force.
Then again, whoever they were, if they had wanted her life, there was no need to go to this much trouble.
Yu Wanyin put aside her other worries, turned and locked the door, and quietly soaked in a medicinal bath to wash away the mud and blood.
A set of clean men's clothes lay beside the tub. She put it on and was about to look around the room when there was a knock at the door.
Lin Xuanying stood outside alone, holding a bowl of medicine. "Get into bed and sit properly."
He sat down on the edge of the bed himself, scooped up a spoonful of medicine, and blew on it. "Will you drink it yourself, or should I feed you?"
Yu Wanyin thought about it, took the bowl, and tipped it back in one gulp. "Thank you, General Lin."
Lin Xuanying paused, then gave a wry smile. "I figured you wouldn't sleep until you understood what's going on. Go on. You ask, I'll answer."
Yu Wanyin: "..."
Since he had put it so plainly, she went straight to the point. "Are you General Lin, or A-Bai?"
While she was in the bath, a new possibility had occurred to her: that the real Lin Xuanying had already been disposed of and A-Bai was impersonating him. That would explain his abrupt change of identity.
But he said, "I'm Lin Xuanying."
Seeing her baffled expression, he grinned, showing a row of white teeth. "Xuanying means ink-black. A-Bai is a nickname my master gave me. Look at my complexion. Who do you think was more wicked, my parents or my master?"
Yu Wanyin was even more confused. "So you really do come from the jianghu? But you'd only just finished your apprenticeship. How did you become a deputy general?"
Lin Xuanying coughed, and his eyes shifted. "Well, that..."
In those two seconds, Yu Wanyin worked it out for herself. "Oh. Because you hadn't just finished."
At that moment she remembered many things.
A-Bai had first appeared before her at the time General You came back to court to report.
A-Bai knew all about the states of Yan and Qiang.
A-Bai had said to her then, "I know a lot of things, you know. I've even killed..." before Xiahou Dan cut him off.
A-Bai had once proposed slipping Wang Zhao into the Right Army and escorting him on his mission to Yan himself. Xiahou Dan had refused and only told him to stay at his post. Even so, Wang Zhao had ended up leaving by way of the southwest.
A-Bai had performed a whole show with them, then hurriedly disappeared at the same time General You left the capital, saying only that His Majesty had assigned him another task. She had wondered then why Xiahou Dan trusted him so much.
The realization dawned on her. "Our first meeting wasn't actually your first meeting with His Majesty, was it? How long have you known each other?"
Lin Xuanying scratched his head. "That touches on some secrets I can't tell you."
"If you mean His Majesty's past, he left a letter and told me everything."
Lin Xuanying's eyes widened in surprise. "He actually told you? He's been hiding it from you by every means, afraid it would scare you off."
At the mention of Xiahou Dan, both of them grew somber.
Lin Xuanying narrowed his eyes, thinking back. "Five years ago. Well, six years ago now. My master, the Nameless Traveler, cast a heavenly divination and found that a child from another world was coming, one who would change the fate of the nation. He wanted to come down from seclusion and assist in person, but that divination had pried into heaven's secrets and badly drained him, so he had to withdraw to recover. So he sent me out from my apprenticeship to find His Majesty.
"His Majesty said then that he had already trained a group of hidden guards loyal to himself inside the palace, so there wasn't much point in having me at his side. But he urgently needed control of an army. Without a trump card in hand, no amount of maneuvering would bring down the enemies at court."
Lin Xuanying thus infiltrated the Right Army.
He had chosen the Right Army out of the three for two reasons: it was the army furthest from Prince Duan, and its commander, General You, was the most incompetent, quite unable to keep his troops under control. That way their small moves would not easily alert Prince Duan.
To truly command tens of thousands of soldiers, a tiger tally alone was not enough. Martial prowess and prestige were both indispensable.
This could not be rushed. It could only be done gradually over several years.
Fortunately, Lin Xuanying had excellent skills to begin with. Through one battle after another, large and small, he gradually made a name for himself and won the men's hearts by ability. He and Xiahou Dan, one in the open and one in the dark, used every means to hollow out General You's authority under the noses of every faction, until he became the true leader of the Right Army.
"By last year we were mostly ready. We planned to purge the whole Right Army and then go to war. We still weren't certain of winning, but by striking when they least expected it, even if we died, we could at least take the Empress Dowager and Prince Duan with us in one blow. Those were His Majesty's exact words. But right then," Lin Xuanying smiled, "you showed up."
Lin Xuanying had first heard of Yu Wanyin before he finished his apprenticeship. When the Nameless Traveler divined Xiahou Dan's arrival, he had also divined that another person from another world would come, though not when or where. There were many entangled threads of fate between the two, but whether it was a fortunate bond or an ill-fated one was like looking at flowers through mist, impossible to see clearly.
Later he had asked Xiahou Dan about it. Xiahou Dan had said, as if suddenly remembering, in an offhand tone, "Come to think of it, there was supposed to be someone like that."
"Something this important, and you act like you almost forgot?" Lin Xuanying had said.
The young monarch had lowered his head and seemed to mutter, "She probably isn't coming."
Over the next few years they never brought it up again.
Just when Lin Xuanying himself was nearly forgetting, a new name suddenly appeared in Xiahou Dan's secret letters.
Although Consort Yu was also a soul from another world, she was completely different from Xiahou Dan. Their original plan could be summed up in one phrase: mutual destruction. She, though, had come in and immediately wanted to set up an enormous game with many twists, all to calculate the fewest possible sacrifices. Every life among peddlers, porters and common folk was precious to her.
Lin Xuanying had resented it deeply.
He had seen plenty of these unworldly, well-meaning people. On the battlefield, one general's glory is built on ten thousand bones, and if you were as fussy as that you'd have died eight hundred times over. Besides, the situation changed by the moment. Dragging things out like this might turn even their last chance of victory into a bubble.
But Xiahou Dan had accepted her naive dream in full. He scrapped the plan they already had and ordered Lin Xuanying to stand down and lie low.
For a few days, Lin Xuanying had seriously considered walking off the job.
Later he made a trip back to the capital and finally saw Yu Wanyin in person.
He understood her, but he also underestimated her.
She was disguised as a commoner then, without the makeup of a demon consort, standing beside Xiahou Dan, who was ever wrapped in black fog. She was so light, so beautiful. She was like a small lark caught in a violent storm.
She clearly did not belong in that deep palace. She should have been drifting in a boat between heaven and earth, a carefree woman of the jianghu with nothing to hold her back.
When Lin Xuanying went to persuade Xiahou Dan to set her free, he had considered that the man might fly into a rage, or refuse.
Xiahou Dan's answer went beyond anything he understood. "She has her own ambitions."
What came after overturned his imagination even more.
Yu Wanyin's dreamlike plan succeeded, step by step.
Inside the capital the immortals fought and everything was overturned several times over. Outside the capital, the four seas were calm and the world was at peace. In the legends of the borderlands, the emperor had suddenly won the favor of Heaven and settled wars and disasters without effort.
Who could have guessed that Heaven's surname was Yu?
Hearing this, Yu Wanyin finally solved a huge mystery that had been sitting in her heart.
"On the eve of the peace talks with Tur, His Majesty said he would lend him troops to get rid of the King of Yan," she said. "I never understood where he got soldiers and horses to lend! He said it was A-Bai, and I foolishly asked how one man alone could possibly manage it."
Lin Xuanying couldn't help laughing. "One man really couldn't. I lent Tur a group of elite troops. To avoid drawing attention, there weren't actually many. Luckily Tur did well. As soon as he got back to Yan he made contact with his own people."
He looked at her with mixed feelings, and there was an undertone of sorrow in his voice that few could have heard. "I misjudged you, but His Majesty didn't. When you first came, he said that of course you were the kind of person you are, because in the place you come from, every life counts as a life."
Yu Wanyin said nothing for a long time.
When she had just finished reading that letter, she had wondered whether Xiahou Dan had mostly given up during those long, sunless years. That was why, when she arrived, she found a world so riddled with holes and a man who was almost indistinguishable from the tyrant.
It turned out not to be so.
If he had not painstakingly built up Lin Xuanying as this powerful trump card, then even with the script in her hands she would have been hemmed in everywhere and barely able to move, and all her first ideas would have been flowers in a mirror.
She could hardly imagine how a middle-schooler who started the game with a deadly poison in his body had held on. He probably didn't want to work out whether the thing that had survived was a human or a ghost. And since she had arrived, every conversation about the past, about identity, about paper people, must have pierced his heart with a thousand arrows.
Even so, almost at first meeting, he had staked everything on her.
When she spoke, she found her voice shaking. "Is there any news of him?"
Lin Xuanying shook his head. "We agreed that if he got out alive, we'd meet in Peiyang. I rushed here and took over the place just to wait for you both, and I only got you. Prince Duan claims the emperor suddenly fell ill and is recuperating in the palace, but whether that's true, no one knows. The capital is airtight now. My scouts are still looking for a way in."
He stood and patted her on the shoulder. "Sleep. I'll go settle the three people you brought. Tomorrow morning, I'll show you something good."
"...What?" Yu Wanyin said.
But Lin Xuanying had already closed the door and left.
Whether he had left the suspense on purpose, Yu Wanyin couldn't tell. It kept her tossing and turning, but it also kept her mood from dropping into the abyss, and when she finally drifted off, she still held a thread of hope about the "something good" he had mentioned.
She woke up on her own before dawn. For a moment she thought she was still on the run, and she jerked upright and stared blankly at the ornate hanging picture in the guest room.
Two guards were standing watch outside the door. After she had changed and washed, they knocked and brought in breakfast.
Yu Wanyin tasted nothing. "Could someone let General Lin know?"
"I'm here." Lin Xuanying plopped down across from her.
"What did you want to show me?" Yu Wanyin said.
Lin Xuanying shook his head, clearly enjoying himself. "No hurry. Finish your porridge first, then we'll go. You can't afford to fall ill now..."
Yu Wanyin picked up the porridge bowl and drained it in one gulp again.
Lin Xuanying: "..."
Lin Xuanying took her to the study of the magistrate's residence, stopped and turned, and invited her to enter first.
The moment she stepped inside, several searching gazes fell on her from above.
Four or five burly officers were already standing inside. Every one of them stood eight chi tall and looked like they could punch through a city wall.
Yu Wanyin: "..."
Lin Xuanying followed her in and shut the door behind him. His expression suddenly turned serious, and he knelt on one knee and saluted. "Your subject is late to protect the throne. Please forgive me, Empress!"
The giants took half a second to react, then hurried to kneel in a row and repeated in unison, "Please forgive us, Empress!"
Yu Wanyin: "."
She knew Lin Xuanying had done this to establish her standing, so she accepted the kneeling with perfect composure, then said unhurriedly, "Please rise, everyone. You came a thousand li to rescue the emperor. What offense is there?"
Only then did Lin Xuanying rise, still perfectly solemn. "Report to the Empress. The reason I delayed for some days before sending out troops is that on His Majesty's orders I secretly had a batch of weapons made."
Yu Wanyin's heart jumped.
Lin Xuanying waved a hand and directed two soldiers to carry in a heavy wooden crate and gestured for her to look.
They were guns.
A whole crate of guns.
Her mind rapidly assessed their lethality. "This batch... what's it called..."
"Nine Heavens Mystic Fire Repeating Sleeve Crossbows," Lin Xuanying reminded her cheerfully.
"Nine Heavens Mystic Fire Repeating Sleeve Crossbows. How many are there in total?"
"Reporting to the Empress," said one of the giants who had carried the crate, "there are one thousand in total, plus dozens of crates of ammunition."
Yu Wanyin was stunned.
Lin Xuanying added, "The blueprints were sent by His Majesty. To keep them from being intercepted on the way, they were broken into countless mechanical parts and delivered in over a dozen shipments before we had everything. Then we sought out the best craftsmen and failed many times before making the first one. These sleeve crossbows came at great cost, but their combat power is unprecedented. Even against the tens of thousands of the other two armies head-on, they would sweep them away like dead wood without a blade being bloodied."
The last explanation was unnecessary for Yu Wanyin. As a modern person, how could she not know the killing power of firearms in this world?
Moreover, the enemy knew nothing about them and had no defense in either equipment or tactics. They were practically tens of thousands of standing targets waiting to be mown down.
Lin Xuanying pointed to the sand table on the desk and spoke with fervent passion. "The army marches today, and can intercept the Left and Center Armies on the high ground five hundred li outside the capital. Empress, on His Majesty's orders your subject has endured for years, sleeping on spears and drinking gall, waiting only for the day when victory is certain. Prince Duan has committed treason and rebellion, and the two armies have become his accomplices. All it needs is one word from you, and we will destroy them for the sake of the realm!"
"We will destroy them for the realm!" the giants echoed.
Yu Wanyin drew a breath and steadied her wildly pounding heart.
Just the day before, she had been running for her life in disarray, and even when she met Lin Xuanying she had thought only that she'd been granted a moment to breathe before a grueling struggle. Who could have imagined that after one night, victory would be a single step away?
But...
"General Lin, may I speak with you a moment?"
She pulled Lin Xuanying behind a bookcase in a corner of the study. "His Majesty's whereabouts are still unknown. If we go to war rashly and he really is in Prince Duan's hands, what do we do then?"
Lin Xuanying was silent for a moment, as if he had expected the question, then drew a scroll from his sleeve and handed it to her. "This is the last secret edict he sent before I set out."
Yu Wanyin read it quickly, then shut her eyes as though stung.
It was less a secret edict than a testament.
It was very short, with two paragraphs in all. The first ordered the Crown Prince to inherit the throne, named Yu Wanyin Empress Dowager, and listed a few trusted ministers to assist with government.
The second was only one sentence: "The traitor Xiahou Bo is to be executed directly without hesitation. Put the realm first and disregard whether I live or die."
Translated, it meant: Just kill him, and don't worry about whether I live or die.
"He knew he didn't have long," Lin Xuanying said. "He didn't want to be a burden to you in the end, and he didn't want to be humiliated in the enemy's camp. But he also knew we could never truly abandon him, so he said from the start that if he was unfortunately caught by Prince Duan, he would look for a chance to die together with him. If he couldn't even manage that, he would... end his own life."
Yu Wanyin stared at him in disbelief. Blood rushed to her head and she bristled like an animal in a panic. "So you just took it as a matter of course and gave up on him?"
"Of course not! I'm still sending people out everywhere to look for him!"
"Then find him first, and move the army after!"
Lin Xuanying was silent for a moment. "You know there isn't time. The rebel armies are marching day and night toward the capital, and from the look of it, Prince Duan means to take the throne directly. He's still searching everywhere for you, and he'll soon find out you're with me. Once we're exposed early, we lose the chance to strike when they're unprepared."
"..."
"His Majesty left this edict to force us to keep the big picture in mind and act quickly," Lin Xuanying said, his tone calm. "In fact, to intercept the rebels outside the capital, our vanguard has just marched out of the city."
Yu Wanyin's chest heaved, and she still stared fixedly at Lin Xuanying.
She had never truly known him. Until yesterday, she hadn't even known his real name. Now he held a large army, weapons of mass destruction, and an imperial edict to back him. If he wanted, every power in the world was within easy reach.
If he wanted.
Lin Xuanying guessed the thought turning behind her eyes, and his face darkened. "Believe it or not, I have no interest in any of this. I'm here because my master told me to assist His Majesty, and His Majesty told me to take orders from you."
He said it word by word. "Don't you understand yet? He wanted to clear every obstacle from your path. He wanted to see you rise to the highest seat and live free of worry for a hundred years. What he couldn't finish himself, he believes you can. As for after everything is settled, whether you kick the Crown Prince aside and rule in your own right, or shake out your sleeves and wander the world for fun, it's all up to you."
...
"Was that last part what he said, or something you added?" Yu Wanyin said.
Lin Xuanying: "..."
Lin Xuanying: "I added it."
The magistrate's residence was deathly quiet.
In the silence, a faint vibration came up through the soles of their feet. The main force in the city was moving out.
While Yu Wanyin and Lin Xuanying stood at a standoff, the officers nearby could wait no longer. One came over and asked in a low voice, "General, should we first distribute these sleeve crossbows to the army and order them to prepare for battle?"
Lin Xuanying stood in the shadow of the bookcase and did not answer, only raised an eyebrow at Yu Wanyin.
So everyone in the room turned to look at Yu Wanyin.
An invisible tide surged toward her and pushed her up to a great height. She opened her mouth. The lives of tens of thousands of people hung between her lips and teeth. This time it was no drill, and there would be no chance to fail.