On the seventh day of the seventh month, Shangjing falls. The Mongol army massacres nearly ten thousand families in the city.
On the seventh day of the seventh month, Chen and Liao reinforcements fight a desperate battle in the city against the Yuan, and after waves of attacks from Ögedei’s army the Han troops loses its commander-in-chief and is left with little option but to retreat. Yet the Khitan army has already made up its mind to burn the bridge behind them and fight to the death, filling the city with their flesh and blood.
One day later, the Han army seizes the body of their commander back from the enemy. Forty-thousand men once more charge into the city in a fit of incomparable grief.
Shangjing is a scene of devastation, nearly flattened by this great battle. Twenty-thousand families either die from friendly fire or beneath the weapons of Mongolian soldiers.
Another day goes by, and the Khitan reinforcements who have come along the Zhongjing road finally join the rest of their comrades. Routed, the Mongol army scatters into the northern wilderness. In a killing frenzy the Khitan army chases after them up to eighty-miles away, but then Ögedei regroups his forces and launches a counterattack. Two sides meet in a decisive battle in the fields of white deer; the wilderness becomes littered with corpses. A more bitter sight has never been seen.
This drawn-out fight lasts nearly a fortnight. Along the perimeter from the capital all the way to the western ranges of the Xianbei Mountains, most of those living in the north have fled their homes. In the chaos of war, most houses are burnt to a cinder.
On the night of the Double Seventh Festival, the very night that the entire city fall to the enemy, those from the Viburnum escape through a secret passage inside the city. Duan Ling gasps for breath as he walks at the front of the group, carrying a girl on his back.
“Your Highness, you’re wounded, you cannot …”
“Why bother with formalities like ‘Your Highness’ at a time like this?” Duan Ling says.
He’s covered in blood, and he has no idea if the blood is from his own wounds or if it’s from the girl on his back. Nearing dawn, at the end of the passageway, they can hear noises coming through the planks above them.
One party passes by, then another; each set of footsteps is accompanied by the sound of arrows being fired and wretched screaming.
They crane their necks anxiously, watching the wooden planks above their heads. Daylight shines through the gaps between the planks, and a lot of blood drips down.
Xunchun points a finger above them. Duan Ling waves a hand at her and shapes the words — Mongolian soldiers.
Duan Ling waits until it’s quiet before pushing the plank away to go outside.
Everywhere they look are bodies of Han soldiers. Dawn faintly edges the sky, and they can see flames in every direction. Duan Ling sets the girl he’s been carrying down onto the ground, and checks her breathing.
She already died at some point.
“She’s dead,” Xunchun says.
“What was her name?” Duan Ling asks.
“Qiu Jin. Let’s go.”
Duan Ling lets go of her fair hand. A Mongolian soldier had chopped Qiu Jin on one of her shoulder blades, leaving a wound two inches deep. Before she died, she closed her eyes tightly, and her face was pale. It looks like relief; it’s also a kind of release.
Duan Ling looks over at Xunchun. There are less than twenty people left in their party. Xunchun says, “If we walk along the back of the city guard headquarters, we’ll find a small path that goes out of city. Let’s go.
The wound on Duan Ling’s back has been bandaged, but it’s still bleeding. He hesitated many times, knowing that his father has already made it into the city, but with all the chaos going on they have no idea where the Chen army is. Xunchun strongly advised him to prioritise his safety and not rashly go back.
They have just gone into a small path next to the city guard headquarters when suddenly Mongolian soldiers are firing arrows at them. Xunchun cries out, “Move back!”
A unit of the Mongol army has clearly been waiting here for a while, hoping to ambush Khitan soldiers, but they never imagined they’ll meet with commoners fleeing the city instead. Duan Ling’s party attempts to find cover while fending off arrows at the same time, and in a blink another two of them are dead. Duan Ling shields the others as he shoots arrows at the soldiers, and with an enraged roar Xunchun rushes ahead, leaping onto higher ground with two steps and stabbing the archer while Duan Ling continues to fire off arrows beneath her. Yet there are more surprised shouts behind them — more Mongolian soldiers have barged in!
“Let’s go!” Xunchun cries out.
There are more and more of the soldiers. Duan Ling takes his group deeper into the city guard headquarters, and a door suddenly bursts open with a loud bang as someone crashes through it, aiming his bow and arrow at Duan Ling. With a start Duan Ling recognises the archer as Cai Yan.
Immediately, Cai Yan lets the arrow loose towards him. Duan Ling subconsciously stands his ground , and the arrow brushes past his shoulder into a mounted Mongolian soldier who had been charging towards him.
“Come with me!” Cai Yan yells.
Before Duan Ling has a chance to talk to Cai Yan about their time apart, Cai Yan is already forcefully dragging him away. Xunchun has the Zhanshanhai in her left hand and a long sword she seized from a soldier in her right, and dual-wielding she turns and blocks the dozens of Mongolian soldiers pursuing them, shouting, “I’ll bring up the rear. Hurry and get out of the city!”
Duan Ling’s about to speak, but Cai Yan has already dragged him onto the small path behind the city guard building.
Every one of them is short of breath. Cai Yan has been shot in the leg. They turn the corner through a mountain path behind the building, and dropping down on a rope, they finally escape the city.
“What were you doing there?” Duan Ling asks.
“The city has been breached. I couldn’t stay at home any longer, so I thought I’d come keep watch over the city guard building and kill as many Mongolians as I could.” Cai Yan says, breathing heavily, “Why are you … they say that the Han army is already here, they may even win, you …”
Duan Ling stares at Cai Yan, and they remain silent for a long time. Neither of them say anything more, and ultimately Cai Yan doesn’t lay the truth bare.
A loud boom in the distance startles the two of them. It’s the sound of the northern gate collapsing.
Xunchun’s red dress is fluttering on the roof of the city guard building, while the Mongol army pours into the city through the streets of the northern district like a swarm of locusts.
“Let’s go,” Duan Ling says.
Cai Yan and Duan Ling do a headcount. By now, aside from the two of them, there are only nine left of their party.
But where will they go? The Xianbei Mountains? There is peril to every path; to their south more than a hundred thousand troops are fighting on the battlefield, so before they manage to get through it they’ll be shot to death by stray arrows. The roads to the east and west are filled with deserters.
“Let’s head north for now,” Duan Ling says, “we’ll hide in the mountains for a time.”
There are more and more of the Mongolian soldiers, combing through the northern district, shooting dead anyone still alive.
They run through the wilderness on foot, vanishing into the wheat fields beneath the open sky. Before, Li Jianhong taught him that whenever you’re escaping from a battlefield, there are any number of potential dangers — you mustn’t relax for a single moment, because you can’t predict when some deserter may discover you.
Compared to ordinary soldiers, deserters are even more dangerous. They’re afraid that you’ll inform on them to the army, and since deserting is punishable by death, they have no fear at all.
For most of the day they walk along the wheat fields. The sun is hanging high above them, and Duan Ling grows dizzy beneath it. The wound behind his shoulder hurts, worrying at him with sharp pains, and the lack of poultices is causing him to run a high fever. He keeps walking through the vertigo, finally collapsing onto the ground. Cai Yan calls out, “Duan Ling!”
Hard pressed and exhausted, several of the women get lost in the wheat fields. Cai Yan carries Duan Ling on his back to look for some place to rest, and some of them go back to look for their lost companions.
“The Mongolians are here —!” A scream seems to rip the sky open. “Run —!”
The girls from the Viburnum all know some martial arts and can hold them back for a time, yet the Mongolians are all mounted on galloping horses, in top shape, well-rested, and ready to chase down their fatigued enemy. Throughout their bouts of escape the women are clearly spent, and it’s too hard for them to deal with rounds of arrows, sabres, and lassos. When they hear that the soldiers are here, the women are actually choosing to part with Duan Ling and Cai Yan, calling out to them, “Leave us, we’ll catch up!”
Cai Yan lets out a pained cry, and he’s about to draw his sabre to fight them when Ding Zhi grabs him by the collar and drags him back.
“If your brother is still alive,” Ding Zhi stares into Cai Yan’s eyes, saying coldly, “he’d never have wanted you to die here.”
Cai Yan breathes hard a couple of times. Ding Zhi says, “Let’s go!”
Cai Yan puts Duan Ling on his back again, and flees deeper into the wheat fields with Ding Zhi.
From afar, there is screaming as someone else is shot. Ding Zhi keeps looking behind her, repeatedly suppressing her urge to go back to rescue them.
Duan Ling is in a stupor as he jolts along on Cai Yan’s back. Ding Zhi shields them all the way to the shore of a lake at the very end of the fields. There is a small boat there along with a little shed.
“Follow the edge of this lake all the way to the southeast.” Ding Zhi says, “You two will be safe once in the mountains.”
Ding Zhi unties the rope from the dock. In the distance, Mongolian soldiers are crying out for blood. Riding whip and spur, they’re already catching up to them.
Cai Yan puts Duan Ling on the boat, but Ding Zhi pulls the boat back and hides it among the underbrush.
“Don’t come out.” Ding Zhi says, so quietly he can barely hear her, “Don’t come out, no matter what …”
Cai Yan stares at her in silence.
Ding Zhi and Cai Yan lock eyes, and after a beat her expression warms with a gentle smile. She reaches out, stroking her fingers down Cai Yan’s cheek.
“No …” Cai Yan’s eyes are filled with tears, but Ding Zhi covers his mouth with her hand and makes him lie down next to Duan Ling. She turns around then, and hiding a dagger in her hand she runs in front of the house. Soon, shrieks rise from the Mongolian soldiers, one miserable cry after another, and then it all suddenly goes quiet.
Ding Zhi’s scream cuts through the quiet.
Duan Ling’s eyes open violently, his pupils full of fear. He wants to get up, but Cai Yan holds him down firmly. A long time passes, until they don’t hear Ding Zhi anymore. The Mongolian soldiers search around backwards and forwards along the shore on their horses, but all they find is a cut-off straw rope. Shouting and cursing loudly, they continue their search along the edge of the lake.
The reed marshes stretch all around them, their cottony flowers drifting through the air. As the sun sets, the surface of the pond reflects the bright blood red of twilight, glittering and crystalline.
The sky is so blue it seems laundered; the air is suffused with the scent of dried grass. White clouds float by, and the firmament above stretches on forever. In the water, fresh blood seeps out of Ding Zhi’s body, curling like smoke, her hair undone, her body stripped bare, her eyes open, her pupils reflecting the kind of endless sky that one only sees beyond the Great Wall on an autumn day.
One day later.
“Have some water,” Cai Yan says softly.
Duan Ling wakes up shivering, with a ceaseless cough, and realises that he’s inside a room. Cai Yan feeds him herbal medicine, then he unwraps Duan Ling’s bandages to redress his wounds.
“What is this place?”
“A village.” Cai Yan replies briefly, “An apothecary village. Three days.”
It’s a village along the southeastern vein of the Xianbei Mountains. There are more than ten families living here, and for generations they have been digging up herbal medicine to make a living.
Duan Ling drinks the decoction and feels a bit better. He sees the look in Cai Yan’s eyes and asks, “Where are they?”
“Got lost along the way,” Cai Yan replies.
After noon, autumn wind comes to them on the backs of countless leaves, breaking up the sunlight as they rustle on the window panes. Beneath the blazing sun the air is cool and dry like an unrealistic dream. Duan Ling lets out a breath heavily, and lies back down on the bed.
“Is there any news about my dad?” Duan Ling gets off the bed with a lot of effort.
“Don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
Duan Ling meets Cai Yan’s eyes. Cai Yan tells him, “Get better first, then figure out some way to go back to the south. You’ll go back to Xichuan, I’ll go back to Zhongjing.”
Duan Ling recuperates for a little while longer. He can already get off the bed and walk around. He touches his chest, and realises that the jade arc is gone.
Cai Yan is sitting outside the door, unmoving.
Damn it. Duan Ling curses to himself. Where did it go? He’ll need his token of identity if they happen to run across Chen reinforcements. He pats himself down all over but in the end he doesn’t find the jade arc.
“Is this what you were looking for?” Cai Yan produces the jade arc and says to Duan Ling.
“Thank you.” Duan Ling feels like a great weight is off his chest. He puts the jade arc back on.
“I have your sword too, but unfortunately the scabbard is gone.”
“That’s not important.” On the other hand Duan Ling isn’t really all that attached to the sword. He watches Cai Yan for a while, and suddenly kneels down in front of him.
Cai Yan immediately reaches out to help him up. “Don’t do that! You’re the crown prince!”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“The reason your dad taught me martial arts was so that I can protect you. We can all throw our lives away, not because of some sentimental reason but because of your …”
Duan Ling remains quiet for a long time, and Cai Yan is momentarily at a loss for words. At last, he says, “Identity.”
Duan Ling nods at him, and lets out a sigh.
In a little while, someone has returned to the village and Cai Yan goes outside to ask about the war situation. The person tells them that Liao reinforcements have arrived, and though Shangjing is scarred and battered, it is finally back under Liao control. As for where the Mongol army has gone — he has no idea.
“Where’s the Chen empire’s army?” Cai Yan asks.
“They already went home.” That old visitor replies, “They’ve gone home — first it’s Great Yu, then it’s Great Xia, Great Chen again, then it’s Great Liao … the world keeps changing, as soon as someone finishes singing another takes the stage you know —”
They’ve gone home? Duan Ling thinks to himself, because his father hasn’t found him, he must have left. That’s good. Otherwise it would be too dangerous. Did he really just leave though? His father may still be looking for him.
That night, Duan Ling sits before the door with his arms wrapped around his knees. He looks up at the autumn night sky full of stars and can’t help but think about his father again.
He must be worried sick right now, but what else can Duan Ling do? Try to go out there? He can’t do that. He’ll only end up in more danger if he happens to run into the main Mongol army. Ögedei has been defeated, so he must kill and loot all the way back.
The world may have its ups and downs, and the clouds may change their forms countless times, but all the upheavals in the mortal world seem impossibly far away when they’re deep in the mountains in a village so removed from the rest of the world. Duan Ling once heard his father mention that when he was on the run he hid deep in the Xianbei Mountains, in Lang Junxia’s home. He must have felt the same way Duan Ling does now.
“Get some sleep. It’s cold outside.” Cai Yan says, “The fighting is so bad out there, who knows how many hundreds of thousands have died, but everyone in this village is acting like it has nothing to do with them.”
Duan Ling says, “Ordinary people are all like that.”
Duan Ling is about to go back in when suddenly he hears a scream coming from a great distance.
The scream has alarmed the entire village. Soon, there comes the dense clip-clop of galloping horses; he’s so used to that sound it cannot be more familiar, and Duan Ling immediately drops flat onto the ground, turning his ear to the earth. Wave after wave of hoofbeats reverberate in the distance — it sounds like there must be near a thousand men.
“The Mongol army is here —!”
Meanwhile, Lang Junxia steers Wanlibenxiao to a halt by the edge of a lake. Water splashes in the shroud of night; he fishes Ding Zhi’s body out of the lake and sets her to the side. He looks around, whistles, and hops back onto the horse to continue his pursuit towards the Xianbei Mountains.
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On the seventh day of the seventh month, Shangjing falls. The Mongol army massacres nearly ten thousand families in the city.
On the seventh day of the seventh month, Chen and Liao reinforcements fight a desperate battle in the city against the Yuan, and after waves of attacks from Ögedei’s army the Han troops loses its commander-in-chief and is left with little option but to retreat. Yet the Khitan army has already made up its mind to burn the bridge behind them and fight to the death, filling the city with their flesh and blood.
One day later, the Han army seizes the body of their commander back from the enemy. Forty-thousand men once more charge into the city in a fit of incomparable grief.
Shangjing is a scene of devastation, nearly flattened by this great battle. Twenty-thousand families either die from friendly fire or beneath the weapons of Mongolian soldiers.
Another day goes by, and the Khitan reinforcements who have come along the Zhongjing road finally join the rest of their comrades. Routed, the Mongol army scatters into the northern wilderness. In a killing frenzy the Khitan army chases after them up to eighty-miles away, but then Ögedei regroups his forces and launches a counterattack. Two sides meet in a decisive battle in the fields of white deer; the wilderness becomes littered with corpses. A more bitter sight has never been seen.
This drawn-out fight lasts nearly a fortnight. Along the perimeter from the capital all the way to the western ranges of the Xianbei Mountains, most of those living in the north have fled their homes. In the chaos of war, most houses are burnt to a cinder.
On the night of the Double Seventh Festival, the very night that the entire city fall to the enemy, those from the Viburnum escape through a secret passage inside the city. Duan Ling gasps for breath as he walks at the front of the group, carrying a girl on his back.
“Your Highness, you’re wounded, you cannot …”
“Why bother with formalities like ‘Your Highness’ at a time like this?” Duan Ling says.
He’s covered in blood, and he has no idea if the blood is from his own wounds or if it’s from the girl on his back. Nearing dawn, at the end of the passageway, they can hear noises coming through the planks above them.
One party passes by, then another; each set of footsteps is accompanied by the sound of arrows being fired and wretched screaming.
They crane their necks anxiously, watching the wooden planks above their heads. Daylight shines through the gaps between the planks, and a lot of blood drips down.
Xunchun points a finger above them. Duan Ling waves a hand at her and shapes the words — Mongolian soldiers.
Duan Ling waits until it’s quiet before pushing the plank away to go outside.
Everywhere they look are bodies of Han soldiers. Dawn faintly edges the sky, and they can see flames in every direction. Duan Ling sets the girl he’s been carrying down onto the ground, and checks her breathing.
She already died at some point.
“She’s dead,” Xunchun says.
“What was her name?” Duan Ling asks.
“Qiu Jin. Let’s go.”
Duan Ling lets go of her fair hand. A Mongolian soldier had chopped Qiu Jin on one of her shoulder blades, leaving a wound two inches deep. Before she died, she closed her eyes tightly, and her face was pale. It looks like relief; it’s also a kind of release.
Duan Ling looks over at Xunchun. There are less than twenty people left in their party. Xunchun says, “If we walk along the back of the city guard headquarters, we’ll find a small path that goes out of city. Let’s go.
The wound on Duan Ling’s back has been bandaged, but it’s still bleeding. He hesitated many times, knowing that his father has already made it into the city, but with all the chaos going on they have no idea where the Chen army is. Xunchun strongly advised him to prioritise his safety and not rashly go back.
They have just gone into a small path next to the city guard headquarters when suddenly Mongolian soldiers are firing arrows at them. Xunchun cries out, “Move back!”
A unit of the Mongol army has clearly been waiting here for a while, hoping to ambush Khitan soldiers, but they never imagined they’ll meet with commoners fleeing the city instead. Duan Ling’s party attempts to find cover while fending off arrows at the same time, and in a blink another two of them are dead. Duan Ling shields the others as he shoots arrows at the soldiers, and with an enraged roar Xunchun rushes ahead, leaping onto higher ground with two steps and stabbing the archer while Duan Ling continues to fire off arrows beneath her. Yet there are more surprised shouts behind them — more Mongolian soldiers have barged in!
“Let’s go!” Xunchun cries out.
There are more and more of the soldiers. Duan Ling takes his group deeper into the city guard headquarters, and a door suddenly bursts open with a loud bang as someone crashes through it, aiming his bow and arrow at Duan Ling. With a start Duan Ling recognises the archer as Cai Yan.
Immediately, Cai Yan lets the arrow loose towards him. Duan Ling subconsciously stands his ground , and the arrow brushes past his shoulder into a mounted Mongolian soldier who had been charging towards him.
“Come with me!” Cai Yan yells.
Before Duan Ling has a chance to talk to Cai Yan about their time apart, Cai Yan is already forcefully dragging him away. Xunchun has the Zhanshanhai in her left hand and a long sword she seized from a soldier in her right, and dual-wielding she turns and blocks the dozens of Mongolian soldiers pursuing them, shouting, “I’ll bring up the rear. Hurry and get out of the city!”
Duan Ling’s about to speak, but Cai Yan has already dragged him onto the small path behind the city guard building.
Every one of them is short of breath. Cai Yan has been shot in the leg. They turn the corner through a mountain path behind the building, and dropping down on a rope, they finally escape the city.
“What were you doing there?” Duan Ling asks.
“The city has been breached. I couldn’t stay at home any longer, so I thought I’d come keep watch over the city guard building and kill as many Mongolians as I could.” Cai Yan says, breathing heavily, “Why are you … they say that the Han army is already here, they may even win, you …”
Duan Ling stares at Cai Yan, and they remain silent for a long time. Neither of them say anything more, and ultimately Cai Yan doesn’t lay the truth bare.
A loud boom in the distance startles the two of them. It’s the sound of the northern gate collapsing.
Xunchun’s red dress is fluttering on the roof of the city guard building, while the Mongol army pours into the city through the streets of the northern district like a swarm of locusts.
“Let’s go,” Duan Ling says.
Cai Yan and Duan Ling do a headcount. By now, aside from the two of them, there are only nine left of their party.
But where will they go? The Xianbei Mountains? There is peril to every path; to their south more than a hundred thousand troops are fighting on the battlefield, so before they manage to get through it they’ll be shot to death by stray arrows. The roads to the east and west are filled with deserters.
“Let’s head north for now,” Duan Ling says, “we’ll hide in the mountains for a time.”
There are more and more of the Mongolian soldiers, combing through the northern district, shooting dead anyone still alive.
They run through the wilderness on foot, vanishing into the wheat fields beneath the open sky. Before, Li Jianhong taught him that whenever you’re escaping from a battlefield, there are any number of potential dangers — you mustn’t relax for a single moment, because you can’t predict when some deserter may discover you.
Compared to ordinary soldiers, deserters are even more dangerous. They’re afraid that you’ll inform on them to the army, and since deserting is punishable by death, they have no fear at all.
For most of the day they walk along the wheat fields. The sun is hanging high above them, and Duan Ling grows dizzy beneath it. The wound behind his shoulder hurts, worrying at him with sharp pains, and the lack of poultices is causing him to run a high fever. He keeps walking through the vertigo, finally collapsing onto the ground. Cai Yan calls out, “Duan Ling!”
Hard pressed and exhausted, several of the women get lost in the wheat fields. Cai Yan carries Duan Ling on his back to look for some place to rest, and some of them go back to look for their lost companions.
“The Mongolians are here —!” A scream seems to rip the sky open. “Run —!”
The girls from the Viburnum all know some martial arts and can hold them back for a time, yet the Mongolians are all mounted on galloping horses, in top shape, well-rested, and ready to chase down their fatigued enemy. Throughout their bouts of escape the women are clearly spent, and it’s too hard for them to deal with rounds of arrows, sabres, and lassos. When they hear that the soldiers are here, the women are actually choosing to part with Duan Ling and Cai Yan, calling out to them, “Leave us, we’ll catch up!”
Cai Yan lets out a pained cry, and he’s about to draw his sabre to fight them when Ding Zhi grabs him by the collar and drags him back.
“If your brother is still alive,” Ding Zhi stares into Cai Yan’s eyes, saying coldly, “he’d never have wanted you to die here.”
Cai Yan breathes hard a couple of times. Ding Zhi says, “Let’s go!”
Cai Yan puts Duan Ling on his back again, and flees deeper into the wheat fields with Ding Zhi.
From afar, there is screaming as someone else is shot. Ding Zhi keeps looking behind her, repeatedly suppressing her urge to go back to rescue them.
Duan Ling is in a stupor as he jolts along on Cai Yan’s back. Ding Zhi shields them all the way to the shore of a lake at the very end of the fields. There is a small boat there along with a little shed.
“Follow the edge of this lake all the way to the southeast.” Ding Zhi says, “You two will be safe once in the mountains.”
Ding Zhi unties the rope from the dock. In the distance, Mongolian soldiers are crying out for blood. Riding whip and spur, they’re already catching up to them.
Cai Yan puts Duan Ling on the boat, but Ding Zhi pulls the boat back and hides it among the underbrush.
“Don’t come out.” Ding Zhi says, so quietly he can barely hear her, “Don’t come out, no matter what …”
Cai Yan stares at her in silence.
Ding Zhi and Cai Yan lock eyes, and after a beat her expression warms with a gentle smile. She reaches out, stroking her fingers down Cai Yan’s cheek.
“No …” Cai Yan’s eyes are filled with tears, but Ding Zhi covers his mouth with her hand and makes him lie down next to Duan Ling. She turns around then, and hiding a dagger in her hand she runs in front of the house. Soon, shrieks rise from the Mongolian soldiers, one miserable cry after another, and then it all suddenly goes quiet.
Ding Zhi’s scream cuts through the quiet.
Duan Ling’s eyes open violently, his pupils full of fear. He wants to get up, but Cai Yan holds him down firmly. A long time passes, until they don’t hear Ding Zhi anymore. The Mongolian soldiers search around backwards and forwards along the shore on their horses, but all they find is a cut-off straw rope. Shouting and cursing loudly, they continue their search along the edge of the lake.
The reed marshes stretch all around them, their cottony flowers drifting through the air. As the sun sets, the surface of the pond reflects the bright blood red of twilight, glittering and crystalline.
The sky is so blue it seems laundered; the air is suffused with the scent of dried grass. White clouds float by, and the firmament above stretches on forever. In the water, fresh blood seeps out of Ding Zhi’s body, curling like smoke, her hair undone, her body stripped bare, her eyes open, her pupils reflecting the kind of endless sky that one only sees beyond the Great Wall on an autumn day.
One day later.
“Have some water,” Cai Yan says softly.
Duan Ling wakes up shivering, with a ceaseless cough, and realises that he’s inside a room. Cai Yan feeds him herbal medicine, then he unwraps Duan Ling’s bandages to redress his wounds.
“What is this place?”
“A village.” Cai Yan replies briefly, “An apothecary village. Three days.”
It’s a village along the southeastern vein of the Xianbei Mountains. There are more than ten families living here, and for generations they have been digging up herbal medicine to make a living.
Duan Ling drinks the decoction and feels a bit better. He sees the look in Cai Yan’s eyes and asks, “Where are they?”
“Got lost along the way,” Cai Yan replies.
After noon, autumn wind comes to them on the backs of countless leaves, breaking up the sunlight as they rustle on the window panes. Beneath the blazing sun the air is cool and dry like an unrealistic dream. Duan Ling lets out a breath heavily, and lies back down on the bed.
“Is there any news about my dad?” Duan Ling gets off the bed with a lot of effort.
“Don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
Duan Ling meets Cai Yan’s eyes. Cai Yan tells him, “Get better first, then figure out some way to go back to the south. You’ll go back to Xichuan, I’ll go back to Zhongjing.”
Duan Ling recuperates for a little while longer. He can already get off the bed and walk around. He touches his chest, and realises that the jade arc is gone.
Cai Yan is sitting outside the door, unmoving.
Damn it. Duan Ling curses to himself. Where did it go? He’ll need his token of identity if they happen to run across Chen reinforcements. He pats himself down all over but in the end he doesn’t find the jade arc.
“Is this what you were looking for?” Cai Yan produces the jade arc and says to Duan Ling.
“Thank you.” Duan Ling feels like a great weight is off his chest. He puts the jade arc back on.
“I have your sword too, but unfortunately the scabbard is gone.”
“That’s not important.” On the other hand Duan Ling isn’t really all that attached to the sword. He watches Cai Yan for a while, and suddenly kneels down in front of him.
Cai Yan immediately reaches out to help him up. “Don’t do that! You’re the crown prince!”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“The reason your dad taught me martial arts was so that I can protect you. We can all throw our lives away, not because of some sentimental reason but because of your …”
Duan Ling remains quiet for a long time, and Cai Yan is momentarily at a loss for words. At last, he says, “Identity.”
Duan Ling nods at him, and lets out a sigh.
In a little while, someone has returned to the village and Cai Yan goes outside to ask about the war situation. The person tells them that Liao reinforcements have arrived, and though Shangjing is scarred and battered, it is finally back under Liao control. As for where the Mongol army has gone — he has no idea.
“Where’s the Chen empire’s army?” Cai Yan asks.
“They already went home.” That old visitor replies, “They’ve gone home — first it’s Great Yu, then it’s Great Xia, Great Chen again, then it’s Great Liao … the world keeps changing, as soon as someone finishes singing another takes the stage you know —”
They’ve gone home? Duan Ling thinks to himself, because his father hasn’t found him, he must have left. That’s good. Otherwise it would be too dangerous. Did he really just leave though? His father may still be looking for him.
That night, Duan Ling sits before the door with his arms wrapped around his knees. He looks up at the autumn night sky full of stars and can’t help but think about his father again.
He must be worried sick right now, but what else can Duan Ling do? Try to go out there? He can’t do that. He’ll only end up in more danger if he happens to run into the main Mongol army. Ögedei has been defeated, so he must kill and loot all the way back.
The world may have its ups and downs, and the clouds may change their forms countless times, but all the upheavals in the mortal world seem impossibly far away when they’re deep in the mountains in a village so removed from the rest of the world. Duan Ling once heard his father mention that when he was on the run he hid deep in the Xianbei Mountains, in Lang Junxia’s home. He must have felt the same way Duan Ling does now.
“Get some sleep. It’s cold outside.” Cai Yan says, “The fighting is so bad out there, who knows how many hundreds of thousands have died, but everyone in this village is acting like it has nothing to do with them.”
Duan Ling says, “Ordinary people are all like that.”
Duan Ling is about to go back in when suddenly he hears a scream coming from a great distance.
The scream has alarmed the entire village. Soon, there comes the dense clip-clop of galloping horses; he’s so used to that sound it cannot be more familiar, and Duan Ling immediately drops flat onto the ground, turning his ear to the earth. Wave after wave of hoofbeats reverberate in the distance — it sounds like there must be near a thousand men.
“The Mongol army is here —!”
Meanwhile, Lang Junxia steers Wanlibenxiao to a halt by the edge of a lake. Water splashes in the shroud of night; he fishes Ding Zhi’s body out of the lake and sets her to the side. He looks around, whistles, and hops back onto the horse to continue his pursuit towards the Xianbei Mountains.
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