It’s downright the most chaotic battlefield Duan Ling has ever seen, with flaming bulls charging chaotically in every direction. With a turn of his arm, Wu Du flips a soldier running at them onto the ground, and Duan Ling reaches out, grabbing a bow and quiver set for himself. The two of them smash into something, and several times they’re almost jostled onto the ground. In the end, it is by relying on Benxiao’s sheer instinct that they manage to escape into the dark.
There is danger lurking all around them in the plains, and Duan Ling is breathing hard. “Wu Du…”
Wu Du leans exhausted over Duan Ling’s back; when he attempts to prop himself up again he can’t quite get a full breath in. All of his weight is pressing down over Duan Ling’s back. They jolt along carried by Benxiao, galloping aimlessly.
“Are you alright?” Wu Du asks.
The night is pitch black. Wu Du pushes himself up, and Duan Ling turns back to press a kiss on his heated lips.
Lightning flashes above, shining off of a cloud-filled, darkened sky. Wu Du makes no sound as he holds onto Duan Ling, charging forward without a destination in sight.
“Have you been shot?” Duan Ling asks.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“One arrow. Shoulder. Didn’t hit anything vital.”
“We have to stop somewhere and take it out.”
“We’re surrounded ten miles by hidden Mongol sentries,” Wu Du replies quietly, “Let’s just get out of here first.”
Duan Ling reaches out to feel for it. Wu Du is dressed in armour, but Duan Ling can still feel the blood seeping through at his waist. Benxiao gallops into the plains, and Duan Ling’s breathing grows urgent. “Let’s dismount.”
“It’s too dangerous!” Wu Du insists.
It’s almost an hour later before Benxiao charges into a thick forest and Wu Du hops off the horse. By then, he’s already weakened and nearly fall onto the ground. Duan Ling removes Wu Du’s armour immediately, finding an arrow buried in his shoulder.
Mongolian arrows have barbed tips and a groove cut into the shaft for bloodletting. Duan Ling unties the dagger from the saddle, lights a fire, and sterilises the dagger over the flame.
“I’m going to pull out the arrow now,” Duan Ling says before he chops off the arrow shaft and pushes the tip of the dagger into Wu Du’s shoulder.
Bending over Duan Ling, Wu Du wraps one arm tightly around Duan Ling’s waist. As Duan Ling gouges out the arrowhead, Wu Du’s arm also tightens around him. Duan Ling grits his teeth, picks out the metal, and the arrowhead lands on the ground. Blood gushes out of the wound. Wu Du is holding him with so much strength that it feels like it’s enough to pull Duan Ling into his body.
Duan Ling holds onto Wu Du, and with what little light they have he applies medication on his shoulder and pushes a cloth against the wound to stop the bleeding. The topical medicated powder Wu Du has prepared is extremely effective, and soon enough the bleeding has stopped.
“Does it hurt?” Duan Ling asks.
“Don’t talk.” Wu Du stares into Duan Ling’s eyes. “Aren’t you going to repay your lord a little bit?”
Their breathing intertwines and Duan Ling touches his lips to Wu Du’s, leading them into a kiss, tangling with his tongue as he kisses Wu Du madly, greedily. Meanwhile, Wu Du is like a wild beast, and as though he has a bottomless reservoir of strength, he sucks on Duan Ling’s lips and his tongue. They sit on the ground with their arms wrapped around each other, kissing each other violently, leaving almost no room at all to breathe.
A stroke of lightning flashes across the sky, along with a crash of thunder. It has begun to rain.
“We can’t stay here.” Wu Du says, “It’s still too dangerous here. We’ll have to leave as soon as possible.”
Duan Ling knows that Wu Du must have been anxious to the extreme during this entire day that he’s been missing, but that once he’s found him all of his strength has faded with his worries. He turns to his side, pressing his ear on the ground, and he thinks he can feel pursuers in the distance.
“I’ll take you,” Duan Ling says. “You sit on the horse and sleep for a bit.”
“Yeah,” Wu Du replies.
Rain comes down in drips and drops, then with a whoosh it starts to pour, creating a curtain of rain that drapes over the world around them. Duan Ling mounts the horse while Wu Du leans over Duan Ling’s shoulder, his arms weakly wrapped around his waist, his face pale.
Duan Ling puts one hand over his cheek, feeling terrible to see him hurt like this. He leans in, kissing him, and taking off his White Tiger armour, he puts it on Wu Du.
The roaring of the rain has covered up all the other sounds in the world. Duan Ling suddenly senses the inexorable approach of impending danger, and he unties his bow at once, staring out at the darkness beyond the forest. He nocks, draws, and when he hears a rustling sound, he lets that arrow go.
A falcon cry cuts mournfully through the night — it’s a Mongolian scouting falcon!
“Gup!” Duan Ling shakes the reins and charges out of the forest amidst the sound of thunder and roaring rain. As soon as he’s out, there are loud shouts in Mongolian. Up to a hundred people are chasing Benxiao, turning around rapidly in front of the forest, and a scatter of arrows fly their way.
They never left! They’ve been tight on their tail all along! The falcon must have led them here!
The rain is coming down harder and harder. These woods have gone through too much clear-cutting, and everywhere they look, the forest is bare, so it’s easy for a landslide to happen whenever there’s a rainstorm. Benxiao does not complain at all, just like Wu Du; it takes them away from Mount Song as quickly as it can at a wild gallop.
A little farther east and they’ll reach the border with Liao. Duan Ling spurs the horse on aimlessly, dashing along the valley at a mad run. Behind them are a hundred Mongolians hot on their tail.
An arrow flies in their direction and brushes both of them by.
“Benxiao!” Duan Ling yells at the top of his lungs, “We’re depending on you!”
With all of its strength, Benxiao gallops on. Amidst this vast pale deluge the forest is already filled with puddles, and Benxiao splashes through them, bringing up wave after wave as though running on water, like an eagle aloft in flight leaving white waves in its wake, it charges towards the end of the ocean!
The space behind them is filled with arrows flying in every direction, and there’s another Mongolian army charging towards them from afar; these two hundred people look like they’re about to catch them in a pincer attack.
“Damn it!” Duan Ling cries out, “Wu Du! We’re surrounded!”
Wu Du is unconscious with blood loss, bent over Duan Ling. His every breath sounds long, slow, and distant.
“Wu Du!” Duan Ling cries out in a panic, “Wake up already —!”
Benxiao changes direction to charge through the gap where the two armies are set to meet. The Mongolian armies press towards the centre with long spears in hand. Duan Ling cries out loudly, “Wu Du —!”
In that very instant, another stroke of lightning flashes across the sky, and the darkened forest is lit as brightly as day!
Wu Du wakes up at once and shouts, “Hold on tight!”
Wu Du snaps awake from unconsciousness, his pupils contracting in the lightning flash, and with a shake of the reins, they take a sharp turn to charge towards the cliff at the end of the mountain path.
“Gup—!” Wu Du shouts.
Wu Du steers Benxiao right off the cliff!
“Wu Du!” Duan Ling cries out.
He had thought the two of them were about to leap into the air only to fall into a fathomless abyss, but Benxiao has stepped onto solid ground!
Through the lightning strike earlier, Wu Du had managed to get a clear view of their dangerous surroundings — he had caught sight of a derelict suspension bridge, while a mile-deep abyss stretches far beneath their feet!
Benxiao gallops on the suspension bridge without stopping, its horseshoes clopping loudly across its planks, and in that very moment they get to the other side, Wu Du cuts the ropes to either side with the Lieguangjian in his left hand and the dagger in his right.
The suspension bridge collapses with a loud rumble, taking their pursuers into the abyss.
Duan Ling can’t stop gasping for breath. Wu Du pulls Benxiao to a stop, and they look back together. The remaining Mongolian soldiers stop before the cliff and get ready to shoot at them. Wu Du decisively retreats.
Once they’re off the mountain, they ride for forty miles, but it’s still raining. The wasteland is covered in puddles, and while the morning is already here, the sky remains gloomy. Beneath the dark clouds in the distance, a dark city looms at the horizon.
“We’re here,” Wu Du says. “That’s Ye, right over there.”
Having spent the entire night in fright, Duan Ling can’t even get a word out anymore.
Wu Du has already recovered quite a lot of his strength, and his armour clangs where it hangs next to the saddle as they run. All he’s wearing is a pair of long single-layer pants and the White Tiger Shining Armour that’s looped over his upper body. He’s so tall and wide that the armour barely fits anymore, and his face is covered in dirt. Together, they approach the city of Ye.
“It’s Benxiao!”
“Wanlibenxiao!”
“Oh my goodness, the commandant’s managed to come back —!” Someone is yelling this from the top of the city gate tower.
Before Duan Ling can announce his presence, the city has already opened its gates.
“They know Benxiao?” Duan Ling asks.
“You’ll find out once you’re inside.” Wu Du still sounds exhausted, but an easy air permeates his words as he pats Duan Ling on the head.
Every soldier in Ye has come out to stand at either side of the city gate, watching Wu Du take Duan Ling through Ye’s main street into the governor’s estate.
Ye has been gradually disintegrating without repairs for years; the few roads through the city are filled with muddy puddles, and the city walls are crumbling and dilapidated. Commoners’ houses on either side of the street are largely covered in baked mud tiles, and some of the houses have thatched roofs. More and more of the Ye soldiers are coming around to see them.
“Wu Du!” Someone is shouting.
Wu Du gestures with a hand and dismounts outside the governor’s estate, he shouts, “Go outside and strengthen our defences! Tighten the patrols! The Mongols may be coming any minute!”
“Lord Governor!” As soon as he goes inside, Lin Yunqi comes over to him. Duan Ling is soaked through and miserable from the rain. He waves Lin Yunqi off and collapses onto the daybed in the middle of the main hall.
“Lord Governor? This is our new governor? He’s so young? Aiyoh, but he’s rather pretty.”
“Governor, the people are asking us for the bulls back. What do we do?”
“Is this our governor? Will they finally be paying the soldiers now? Everyone’s waiting on the salary to live on!”
“Hejian sent over an urgent message regarding this season’s wheat …”
“Last night we discovered that the Mongolian army is camping in Mount Song …”
“Bandits are devastating the far reaches upriver in Mount Heng …”
“We have no idea if the old Governor is dead or alive! They’ve already sent someone to take his job? What on earth does the Imperial Court mean by this?!”
Many people have poured into the main hall, talking over each other, but Duan Ling doesn’t know any of them so all he can do is to nod in confusion. He waves them away, unable to even speak. All he manages to hear is the one thing Lin Yunqi is saying, “The Lord Governor needs his rest. Everything can wait until tomorrow. What’s due to you will be given to you. Our Governor is a Tertius Scholar, and he has connections at court. He’s not about to let you starve or freeze, everyone please —”
“Anyone who makes any more noise will be court-martialed!” Wu Du suddenly snarls.
The main hall falls silent.
Lin Yunqi shows everyone outside, and the hubbub gradually turns quieter until it fades into the distance. Duan Ling thinks to himself, milord … my gods, then, ignoring all the soldiers standing in front of him, he leans onto Wu Du and falls asleep.
By the time he wakes again, Duan Ling is already starving. He opens his eyes to Wu Du stripped to the waist with bandages over his shoulder, dressed in nothing but a pair of underpants sitting cross-legged by a table near the daybed, making congee. The delicious smell of congee assaults his nose.
Duan Ling’s stomach has started to growl, and so Wu Du glances up at the daybed.
“You awake?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling had been carried inside the room at some point. It’s dark outside, the rain coming down with an endless pattering. He has no idea what time it is.
“I just woke up too,” Wu Du knows that’s what Duan Ling wanted to ask. “It’s going to be dawn soon. You were asleep for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“Is your wound better?” Duan Ling asks.
Wu Du turns to show Duan Ling the bandages coiled around his shoulder. Duan Ling says, “Sit over here.”
Duan Ling wraps his arms around Wu Du’s waist from behind and kisses his shoulder, then he leans in close by his ear and kisses his earlobe. Wu Du turns his head and they kiss; he blushes.
“The congee … is going to burn,” Wu Du says.
Duan Ling lets go of him with a smile, and Wu Du ladles out a bowl for him. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“How did you manage to find me?” Duan Ling asks, climbing off the bed.
“The Ye City Guard has been keeping an eye on Mount Song for a while. Their scout was just investigating the Mongols’ encampment in the nearby area. But since it’s so close to Liao, they couldn’t risk making a move. When you were captured they even lost them for a while, so I immediately rushed over to Ye to get help from their army.”
“Where’d you find the bulls?”
“Hejian and Ye. I brought with me all the bulls that were big, thick-skinned, and big enough to smash into people. I took a thousand men. They didn’t dare empty the city defences lest the Mongols were trying to use you as a diversion.”
“What happened to the people and the bulls that remained?”
“Two hundred and twenty-two left, and a hundred or more came back. Basically, nothing happened to the people, and they’ve all come back. Bunch of fuckin’ veteran thugs.”
Duan Ling thinks to himself that they must have noted that their governor has just shown up, and didn’t bring a single soldier with him. Not wishing to throw their lives away for a newly appointed official, they all hid behind the frontline and put on a mere show of fighting. Anyway, only Wu Du would have risked his life to save him.
“It was my fault.” Duan Ling, “I don’t blame them. I was too stupid.”
“So the one who captured you was the Mongolian prince?” Wu Du asks.
“Yeah.”
“Was he bitten by the Golden Crow?”
“No. He’s always been … We’ve even fought before, back at the Illustrious Hall.”
Duan Ling has mentioned his life in Shangjing before, and he’s also brought up Batu in front of Wu Du — he was the very young man Duan Ling had a fistfight with the very first day he went to school.
If I knew I’d have beaten him to death, Wu Du conveys this thought with his expression, and says, “He’s not like that other Tangut and wants to do something to you, is he? Is he with the Tangut? Where’s the Tangut? Was he in the Mongolian military camp?”
Why would Helian ever be in Batu’s military camp? Sometimes, Duan Ling can’t figure out what goes through Wu Du’s head at all; he seems to hold a particular grudge against “that Tangut”, but on the contrary, he doesn’t seem to hold any particular view against Batu. After all, Wu Du’s fought him now and knows Batu isn’t a match against him, so he finds no need to think much of him at all. But Helian isn’t a match for Wu Du either … Is it because they hadn’t yet realised their feelings for each other back when they were in Tongguan that Helian left an especially deep impression on Wu Du?
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It’s downright the most chaotic battlefield Duan Ling has ever seen, with flaming bulls charging chaotically in every direction. With a turn of his arm, Wu Du flips a soldier running at them onto the ground, and Duan Ling reaches out, grabbing a bow and quiver set for himself. The two of them smash into something, and several times they’re almost jostled onto the ground. In the end, it is by relying on Benxiao’s sheer instinct that they manage to escape into the dark.
There is danger lurking all around them in the plains, and Duan Ling is breathing hard. “Wu Du…”
Wu Du leans exhausted over Duan Ling’s back; when he attempts to prop himself up again he can’t quite get a full breath in. All of his weight is pressing down over Duan Ling’s back. They jolt along carried by Benxiao, galloping aimlessly.
“Are you alright?” Wu Du asks.
The night is pitch black. Wu Du pushes himself up, and Duan Ling turns back to press a kiss on his heated lips.
Lightning flashes above, shining off of a cloud-filled, darkened sky. Wu Du makes no sound as he holds onto Duan Ling, charging forward without a destination in sight.
“Have you been shot?” Duan Ling asks.
“Yeah.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“One arrow. Shoulder. Didn’t hit anything vital.”
“We have to stop somewhere and take it out.”
“We’re surrounded ten miles by hidden Mongol sentries,” Wu Du replies quietly, “Let’s just get out of here first.”
Duan Ling reaches out to feel for it. Wu Du is dressed in armour, but Duan Ling can still feel the blood seeping through at his waist. Benxiao gallops into the plains, and Duan Ling’s breathing grows urgent. “Let’s dismount.”
“It’s too dangerous!” Wu Du insists.
It’s almost an hour later before Benxiao charges into a thick forest and Wu Du hops off the horse. By then, he’s already weakened and nearly fall onto the ground. Duan Ling removes Wu Du’s armour immediately, finding an arrow buried in his shoulder.
Mongolian arrows have barbed tips and a groove cut into the shaft for bloodletting. Duan Ling unties the dagger from the saddle, lights a fire, and sterilises the dagger over the flame.
“I’m going to pull out the arrow now,” Duan Ling says before he chops off the arrow shaft and pushes the tip of the dagger into Wu Du’s shoulder.
Bending over Duan Ling, Wu Du wraps one arm tightly around Duan Ling’s waist. As Duan Ling gouges out the arrowhead, Wu Du’s arm also tightens around him. Duan Ling grits his teeth, picks out the metal, and the arrowhead lands on the ground. Blood gushes out of the wound. Wu Du is holding him with so much strength that it feels like it’s enough to pull Duan Ling into his body.
Duan Ling holds onto Wu Du, and with what little light they have he applies medication on his shoulder and pushes a cloth against the wound to stop the bleeding. The topical medicated powder Wu Du has prepared is extremely effective, and soon enough the bleeding has stopped.
“Does it hurt?” Duan Ling asks.
“Don’t talk.” Wu Du stares into Duan Ling’s eyes. “Aren’t you going to repay your lord a little bit?”
Their breathing intertwines and Duan Ling touches his lips to Wu Du’s, leading them into a kiss, tangling with his tongue as he kisses Wu Du madly, greedily. Meanwhile, Wu Du is like a wild beast, and as though he has a bottomless reservoir of strength, he sucks on Duan Ling’s lips and his tongue. They sit on the ground with their arms wrapped around each other, kissing each other violently, leaving almost no room at all to breathe.
A stroke of lightning flashes across the sky, along with a crash of thunder. It has begun to rain.
“We can’t stay here.” Wu Du says, “It’s still too dangerous here. We’ll have to leave as soon as possible.”
Duan Ling knows that Wu Du must have been anxious to the extreme during this entire day that he’s been missing, but that once he’s found him all of his strength has faded with his worries. He turns to his side, pressing his ear on the ground, and he thinks he can feel pursuers in the distance.
“I’ll take you,” Duan Ling says. “You sit on the horse and sleep for a bit.”
“Yeah,” Wu Du replies.
Rain comes down in drips and drops, then with a whoosh it starts to pour, creating a curtain of rain that drapes over the world around them. Duan Ling mounts the horse while Wu Du leans over Duan Ling’s shoulder, his arms weakly wrapped around his waist, his face pale.
Duan Ling puts one hand over his cheek, feeling terrible to see him hurt like this. He leans in, kissing him, and taking off his White Tiger armour, he puts it on Wu Du.
The roaring of the rain has covered up all the other sounds in the world. Duan Ling suddenly senses the inexorable approach of impending danger, and he unties his bow at once, staring out at the darkness beyond the forest. He nocks, draws, and when he hears a rustling sound, he lets that arrow go.
A falcon cry cuts mournfully through the night — it’s a Mongolian scouting falcon!
“Gup!” Duan Ling shakes the reins and charges out of the forest amidst the sound of thunder and roaring rain. As soon as he’s out, there are loud shouts in Mongolian. Up to a hundred people are chasing Benxiao, turning around rapidly in front of the forest, and a scatter of arrows fly their way.
They never left! They’ve been tight on their tail all along! The falcon must have led them here!
The rain is coming down harder and harder. These woods have gone through too much clear-cutting, and everywhere they look, the forest is bare, so it’s easy for a landslide to happen whenever there’s a rainstorm. Benxiao does not complain at all, just like Wu Du; it takes them away from Mount Song as quickly as it can at a wild gallop.
A little farther east and they’ll reach the border with Liao. Duan Ling spurs the horse on aimlessly, dashing along the valley at a mad run. Behind them are a hundred Mongolians hot on their tail.
An arrow flies in their direction and brushes both of them by.
“Benxiao!” Duan Ling yells at the top of his lungs, “We’re depending on you!”
With all of its strength, Benxiao gallops on. Amidst this vast pale deluge the forest is already filled with puddles, and Benxiao splashes through them, bringing up wave after wave as though running on water, like an eagle aloft in flight leaving white waves in its wake, it charges towards the end of the ocean!
The space behind them is filled with arrows flying in every direction, and there’s another Mongolian army charging towards them from afar; these two hundred people look like they’re about to catch them in a pincer attack.
“Damn it!” Duan Ling cries out, “Wu Du! We’re surrounded!”
Wu Du is unconscious with blood loss, bent over Duan Ling. His every breath sounds long, slow, and distant.
“Wu Du!” Duan Ling cries out in a panic, “Wake up already —!”
Benxiao changes direction to charge through the gap where the two armies are set to meet. The Mongolian armies press towards the centre with long spears in hand. Duan Ling cries out loudly, “Wu Du —!”
In that very instant, another stroke of lightning flashes across the sky, and the darkened forest is lit as brightly as day!
Wu Du wakes up at once and shouts, “Hold on tight!”
Wu Du snaps awake from unconsciousness, his pupils contracting in the lightning flash, and with a shake of the reins, they take a sharp turn to charge towards the cliff at the end of the mountain path.
“Gup—!” Wu Du shouts.
Wu Du steers Benxiao right off the cliff!
“Wu Du!” Duan Ling cries out.
He had thought the two of them were about to leap into the air only to fall into a fathomless abyss, but Benxiao has stepped onto solid ground!
Through the lightning strike earlier, Wu Du had managed to get a clear view of their dangerous surroundings — he had caught sight of a derelict suspension bridge, while a mile-deep abyss stretches far beneath their feet!
Benxiao gallops on the suspension bridge without stopping, its horseshoes clopping loudly across its planks, and in that very moment they get to the other side, Wu Du cuts the ropes to either side with the Lieguangjian in his left hand and the dagger in his right.
The suspension bridge collapses with a loud rumble, taking their pursuers into the abyss.
Duan Ling can’t stop gasping for breath. Wu Du pulls Benxiao to a stop, and they look back together. The remaining Mongolian soldiers stop before the cliff and get ready to shoot at them. Wu Du decisively retreats.
Once they’re off the mountain, they ride for forty miles, but it’s still raining. The wasteland is covered in puddles, and while the morning is already here, the sky remains gloomy. Beneath the dark clouds in the distance, a dark city looms at the horizon.
“We’re here,” Wu Du says. “That’s Ye, right over there.”
Having spent the entire night in fright, Duan Ling can’t even get a word out anymore.
Wu Du has already recovered quite a lot of his strength, and his armour clangs where it hangs next to the saddle as they run. All he’s wearing is a pair of long single-layer pants and the White Tiger Shining Armour that’s looped over his upper body. He’s so tall and wide that the armour barely fits anymore, and his face is covered in dirt. Together, they approach the city of Ye.
“It’s Benxiao!”
“Wanlibenxiao!”
“Oh my goodness, the commandant’s managed to come back —!” Someone is yelling this from the top of the city gate tower.
Before Duan Ling can announce his presence, the city has already opened its gates.
“They know Benxiao?” Duan Ling asks.
“You’ll find out once you’re inside.” Wu Du still sounds exhausted, but an easy air permeates his words as he pats Duan Ling on the head.
Every soldier in Ye has come out to stand at either side of the city gate, watching Wu Du take Duan Ling through Ye’s main street into the governor’s estate.
Ye has been gradually disintegrating without repairs for years; the few roads through the city are filled with muddy puddles, and the city walls are crumbling and dilapidated. Commoners’ houses on either side of the street are largely covered in baked mud tiles, and some of the houses have thatched roofs. More and more of the Ye soldiers are coming around to see them.
“Wu Du!” Someone is shouting.
Wu Du gestures with a hand and dismounts outside the governor’s estate, he shouts, “Go outside and strengthen our defences! Tighten the patrols! The Mongols may be coming any minute!”
“Lord Governor!” As soon as he goes inside, Lin Yunqi comes over to him. Duan Ling is soaked through and miserable from the rain. He waves Lin Yunqi off and collapses onto the daybed in the middle of the main hall.
“Lord Governor? This is our new governor? He’s so young? Aiyoh, but he’s rather pretty.”
“Governor, the people are asking us for the bulls back. What do we do?”
“Is this our governor? Will they finally be paying the soldiers now? Everyone’s waiting on the salary to live on!”
“Hejian sent over an urgent message regarding this season’s wheat …”
“Last night we discovered that the Mongolian army is camping in Mount Song …”
“Bandits are devastating the far reaches upriver in Mount Heng …”
“We have no idea if the old Governor is dead or alive! They’ve already sent someone to take his job? What on earth does the Imperial Court mean by this?!”
Many people have poured into the main hall, talking over each other, but Duan Ling doesn’t know any of them so all he can do is to nod in confusion. He waves them away, unable to even speak. All he manages to hear is the one thing Lin Yunqi is saying, “The Lord Governor needs his rest. Everything can wait until tomorrow. What’s due to you will be given to you. Our Governor is a Tertius Scholar, and he has connections at court. He’s not about to let you starve or freeze, everyone please —”
“Anyone who makes any more noise will be court-martialed!” Wu Du suddenly snarls.
The main hall falls silent.
Lin Yunqi shows everyone outside, and the hubbub gradually turns quieter until it fades into the distance. Duan Ling thinks to himself, milord … my gods, then, ignoring all the soldiers standing in front of him, he leans onto Wu Du and falls asleep.
By the time he wakes again, Duan Ling is already starving. He opens his eyes to Wu Du stripped to the waist with bandages over his shoulder, dressed in nothing but a pair of underpants sitting cross-legged by a table near the daybed, making congee. The delicious smell of congee assaults his nose.
Duan Ling’s stomach has started to growl, and so Wu Du glances up at the daybed.
“You awake?” Wu Du asks.
Duan Ling had been carried inside the room at some point. It’s dark outside, the rain coming down with an endless pattering. He has no idea what time it is.
“I just woke up too,” Wu Du knows that’s what Duan Ling wanted to ask. “It’s going to be dawn soon. You were asleep for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“Is your wound better?” Duan Ling asks.
Wu Du turns to show Duan Ling the bandages coiled around his shoulder. Duan Ling says, “Sit over here.”
Duan Ling wraps his arms around Wu Du’s waist from behind and kisses his shoulder, then he leans in close by his ear and kisses his earlobe. Wu Du turns his head and they kiss; he blushes.
“The congee … is going to burn,” Wu Du says.
Duan Ling lets go of him with a smile, and Wu Du ladles out a bowl for him. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“How did you manage to find me?” Duan Ling asks, climbing off the bed.
“The Ye City Guard has been keeping an eye on Mount Song for a while. Their scout was just investigating the Mongols’ encampment in the nearby area. But since it’s so close to Liao, they couldn’t risk making a move. When you were captured they even lost them for a while, so I immediately rushed over to Ye to get help from their army.”
“Where’d you find the bulls?”
“Hejian and Ye. I brought with me all the bulls that were big, thick-skinned, and big enough to smash into people. I took a thousand men. They didn’t dare empty the city defences lest the Mongols were trying to use you as a diversion.”
“What happened to the people and the bulls that remained?”
“Two hundred and twenty-two left, and a hundred or more came back. Basically, nothing happened to the people, and they’ve all come back. Bunch of fuckin’ veteran thugs.”
Duan Ling thinks to himself that they must have noted that their governor has just shown up, and didn’t bring a single soldier with him. Not wishing to throw their lives away for a newly appointed official, they all hid behind the frontline and put on a mere show of fighting. Anyway, only Wu Du would have risked his life to save him.
“It was my fault.” Duan Ling, “I don’t blame them. I was too stupid.”
“So the one who captured you was the Mongolian prince?” Wu Du asks.
“Yeah.”
“Was he bitten by the Golden Crow?”
“No. He’s always been … We’ve even fought before, back at the Illustrious Hall.”
Duan Ling has mentioned his life in Shangjing before, and he’s also brought up Batu in front of Wu Du — he was the very young man Duan Ling had a fistfight with the very first day he went to school.
If I knew I’d have beaten him to death, Wu Du conveys this thought with his expression, and says, “He’s not like that other Tangut and wants to do something to you, is he? Is he with the Tangut? Where’s the Tangut? Was he in the Mongolian military camp?”
Why would Helian ever be in Batu’s military camp? Sometimes, Duan Ling can’t figure out what goes through Wu Du’s head at all; he seems to hold a particular grudge against “that Tangut”, but on the contrary, he doesn’t seem to hold any particular view against Batu. After all, Wu Du’s fought him now and knows Batu isn’t a match against him, so he finds no need to think much of him at all. But Helian isn’t a match for Wu Du either … Is it because they hadn’t yet realised their feelings for each other back when they were in Tongguan that Helian left an especially deep impression on Wu Du?
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