by Jeanne Lin
* * *
Li Feng left the city by the late afternoon and hiked into the surrounding hills to the vantage point that Liu Yuan had pointed out to her. He was waiting for her there and acknowledged her arrival with neither surprise nor anger. She took his side and followed his gaze down to the former site of his camp. She could see movement below, through the canopy of the trees. Here and there, she caught the glint of metal. There were men sweeping through the area with swords and cudgels drawn.
‘The thief-catcher.’
It was the first time they had spoken since she’d escaped with Han. There was no reproach in his tone, but she could sense it in the stiffness of his posture as he stared down the ledge.
‘I know who he is,’ he told her. ‘He’s the Thief-catcher Han they tell stories about. What is he to you?’
It was the same question she had been asking herself all morning. What was more important, her duty to her family or her own heart? The answer was easy. What she wanted didn’t matter. She had lived for no one but herself for too long.
Liu Yuan was a head taller than her, but he wasn’t nearly as strong or imposing as Han. She hoped the two of them would never meet.
‘He means nothing to me.’ It pained her to say it. She tried to close off her heart and make it true. She had left with only a single farewell, hadn’t she? And without a single tear.
Maybe she was cold. She discarded places and people and memories as if they were nothing more than leaves floating by. Maybe she was a shell of a woman, unable to trust or to love. But she loved her brother, even though they had just been reunited. She knew it without knowing why and she couldn’t bear to lose him now.
‘Liu Yuan…brother.’ It was the first time she had called him such. ‘We should just leave. The past is done and gone.’
She had asked the same thing of him yesterday. Had it been only a day? The chase, the leap across the ravine and the long night in Han’s embrace had seemed an entire lifetime. A cycle of death and rebirth.
He didn’t answer. All she could see of him was the hard cut of his profile. His eyes were fixed on the valley below where Han was hunting for him, but his gaze was distant.
‘Leave the prefect to his own fate,’ she pleaded. ‘We can honour our parents through their memories.’
‘Have you seen the prefect’s mansion?’ Every muscle in his jaw tensed as he spoke. ‘He has three wives. Meat with every meal. Fate rewards men like Guan He.’
‘Revenge won’t bring back Father and Mother.’ It sounded empty even to her own ears, but she couldn’t let him sacrifice himself.
‘I can’t, Little Sister,’ he said.
A knot formed in the back of her throat. She blinked furiously, holding back tears. ‘I don’t want to lose a brother too.’
The wind over the ravine made a howling sound. Even the air seemed heavy around them.
His tone softened. ‘When you were little, you were always very stubborn. Mother would say you were that way from the moment you were born,’ he continued. ‘You had your own mind about things and once you had decided, nothing could sway you.’
She recalled a foolish, childish tantrum in the rain. She had been so angry about something and refused to come out of the cold, out of spite. Despite that, it was a warm memory now. Every time Liu Yuan spoke of the past, she was able to recover a little more of herself. How much of memory was exactly this? Turned vivid and real only by being shared with others. With her brother, she had a connection to everything she had lost. Maybe if she just gave him some time, he would reconsider.
She smiled a little, for him. ‘You seem very stubborn yourself.’
‘I think you always knew you would come to this one day. That there would be a time for retribution.’
‘I never—’
‘You studied the sword,’ he pointed out.
‘I learned many things from shifu,’ she protested.
‘But you chose to learn how to fight.’
She couldn’t deny it. Shifu had taught her to become strong and fast to defend herself, while teaching her about harmony and peace. But she’d accepted the physical lessons so much more readily than the spiritual ones.
Liu Yuan wasn’t finished. ‘Do you know that in ancient times, when a criminal was executed, they would also put his entire family to death? At least his sons would have to die. Because if any son was allowed to live, he would have no choice but to seek revenge. A son who does not avenge his father is not a son.’ He turned away from the ledge to look at her. His eyes were vacant as if his spirit were trapped elsewhere. ‘I have to do this, Little Sister. There is a reason that I could never leave Minzhou. And there is a reason why you found your way back.’
For as long as she could remember, she had dreamt about going back to that moment when those soldiers had taken her mother away. In her dreams, she wasn’t small or slow or weak. She didn’t stumble and she didn’t need to be lifted and carried. She was strong, strong enough to protect her mother.
‘This can’t be what they would have wanted for us,’ she said in desperation.
He raised his hand to stop her. He frowned, the lines of anger cutting deep into his face. ‘You have been on your own all these years, Li Feng. You’ve experienced too much for me to treat you like a child or a helpless woman. That is why I won’t ask you to stand aside, Little Sister. Give your brother the same respect.’
She stood there, stunned and shamed by his words.
This wasn’t his burden alone. They had both been children, both helpless to stop what was happening to them. But they’d both come back stronger.
Prefect Guan was in hiding behind a horde of guards and Han was searching for her brother. And even if Liu Yuan managed to kill the prefect and survive, what then? Could he ever start a new life? The mark of a thief had been inked upon his skin, but deeper than that, his heart had grown black with anger. Her brother wasn’t thinking of survival or a future. So she had to think of those things for him. She owed him that much. She owed it to her mother and father, who she now knew had gone to be with their ancestors a long time ago.
‘We do this together then,’ she said, linking her hand with his for the first time. ‘Brother and sister.’
Liu Yuan stiffened at her touch, but held on to her with a tenuous grip, as if she were made of fine porcelain. If they were still alive when this was over, they would be fugitives, but they would be fugitives together.
Chapter Sixteen
Han returned to the room below the restaurant late in the evening after the tenth hour gong. The oil lamp cast long and lonely shadows over the room.
All of the empty dishes and bowls had been taken away. Only the cups had been left behind, a reminder that Li Feng had been there with him. He drew his finger through the last dregs of rice wine.
Li Feng was gone. She’d returned to her brother. Han had spent the entire day searching for Liu Yuan, directing the constable’s men through the woods. They had found several caverns stocked with a few meagre supplies, but there was no sign of any of the bandits.
Exhausted, he removed his boots and unbuckled his sword belt. Han arranged his few belongings near the pallet and left his dao close at hand. With the lamp still burning, he laid back fully clothed and imagined Li Feng’s clever hands working his sash free and tugging away his outer robe. She whispered something softly into his ear, but he couldn’t hear the words.
Han blew out the candle and let sleep drag him downwards. His muscles were sore from hiking through the hillside and there had been little rest the night before while Li Feng had had her legs wrapped around him. Even in his bone-weary state, the sense memory was close and visceral enough to send blood pumping through his veins until he was restless with desire. Wanting her. Missing her.
Li Feng had gotten beneath his skin and into his blood. She had become his mirror—the only way he could truly see himself was in her eyes.
He turned on to his side. When that didn’t work, he sprawled on his stomach, agitated wi
th himself, with Li Feng, possibly with the entire world. His hand strayed to the edge of the pallet and brushed against something solid tucked underneath.
Han pulled the object free. A silk tassel tickled against his wrist and the rectangular shape fit neatly in his palm. He ran his fingers over smooth stone, tracing the curved wings of the Vermilion Bird in flight.
Li Feng had left her jade pendant. It couldn’t have been an accident. The jade was precious to her.
Could it mean she meant to return to him? The thought made his pulse race. Han was filled with foolish hope until he realised it would never happen. Li Feng hadn’t been able to say the words aloud, but this was her farewell to him. Her search for the past, the part of her life that he had been allowed into, was over.
* * *
The constable’s volunteers assembled before him just as they had for the last two days. Han divided them into squads of four, assigning them to sweep from the woods into the mountains. The instructions were the same each day.
‘Stay close together. Seek signs of shelter or cooking fires. Raise the alarm to gather the others as soon as you see anything,’ he reminded them before dismissing the men to their tasks.
Guo, the head constable of Minzhou, stood by as the men departed. He had the arms of a blacksmith and carried a sword with a good amount of wear in his belt. His stout form, though a little worn with age, was still strong. He stroked his beard thoughtfully as he regarded Han.
‘You were in a regional army, weren’t you?’ he asked.
‘For a short time,’ Han replied.
‘I can tell!’
‘I don’t mean to undermine your authority, sir.’
Guo chuckled. ‘Not at all. You young and spirited fellows can do all the hard work. I can take all the glory.’
‘How many years have you worked under Magistrate Tan?’ Han asked.
‘Ten years or so. I worked for him even before he came to Minzhou. He offered me the choice of another turn in the salt wells or honest work as a constable.’
Han frowned at that, which amused Guo even further.
‘Magistrate Tan said I had been arrested so many times and knew so many constables, I might do a reasonable job of acting like one.’ He rolled back his sleeves to show a web of scars along his arms. ‘That was in my undisciplined youth. You know how it goes. The more civil magistrates restrict punishment to arms and legs only, but some constables get carried away.’
‘The magistrate took you off the streets?’
Guo nodded. ‘Fortunately, I was a better constable than I was a thief. Now look at me. A wife, two sons to take care of me when I get old. Tan Li Kuo is a good man.’
The magistrate certainly knew how to instil loyalty. Han couldn’t escape the feeling that Tan was trying to buy him as well. The magistrate’s offer to help Chen-Yi wasn’t exactly along the lines of promising wealth or trading influence for bribes, yet Han couldn’t deny it would be a great benefit to his family. Perhaps Magistrate Tan was clever enough to figure out exactly what would tempt him—or maybe Han was becoming like Li Feng, seeing corruption in every public official.
He turned his attention back to the problem of the bandits.
‘Perhaps they’ve fled,’ the constable suggested.
Han shook his head. ‘Those scoundrels know every cave and hole in the mountains. The surrounding terrain is too rugged for us to do a thorough search with our numbers. All the bandits need to do is hide out and wait for us to tire.’
The volunteers were indeed getting restless. After the initial sweep, there had been no further sign of the bandits in the mountains and a meagre day’s wage was not enough to keep them on hand, even with the promise of a reward for every successful arrest.
Han hadn’t found any sign of Li Feng or her brother. He sincerely hoped that she had convinced Liu Yuan to forget vengeance and leave Minzhou. If she was arrested among outlaws, there was nothing Han could do to save her. Though he hadn’t seen her since they’d parted that morning, something told him she was still close. It was emotion, not logic.
‘Constable Guo, what was the name of the tea house where Cai Yun was murdered?’
‘It was in the street out front. The place was called the Seven Bowl Tea House.’
Han thanked him and left the yamen. He had been directing the volunteer patrol to search the surrounding hills and mountains, but what if the bandits weren’t hiding outside the city?
The report had indicated the suspect had mysteriously disappeared. There was no chase. Han had also noted how the murder was executed with precision. It had been well planned by someone who knew the streets.
What if the bandits had a hideout within Minzhou? They would be commonplace to the locals and often seen around the tea house before the crime was ever committed. Perhaps they were even regular customers and had spied on Cai Yun from within, marking his routine and habits. Liu Yuan had slipped in to kill the steward while his cronies stood guard. Then they had blended into the local crowd.
Han needed a full accounting of who had been in the tea house as well as in the street. Not just anyone who seemed out of place. In fact, he would place emphasis on repeat customers or people who had business being in front of the tea house and were expected to be there that morning. The interrogations ate up the first half of the day.
It was afternoon by the time he left the tea house with a new list of suspects. As Han stepped back onto the street, his heart stopped. The crowd around him faded away and his focus narrowed in on a woman walking along the shops at the opposite side of the road. She was wearing a pale-blue tunic with a wooden comb in her hair. Her slender figure disappeared maddeningly behind the line of the crowd like a carp beneath a pond’s surface.
He chased after her. It had to be Li Feng. There was no mistaking the way she moved, like wind and water. There was no mistaking the way his body reacted to her, deep down inside.
The woman reappeared in front of him, no more than ten paces ahead. A group of pedestrians grumbled at him as he shouldered past. Just before he reached her, his instinct soured. He touched a hand to her arm anyway, but something in him already knew.
The face that turned to him was unfamiliar. The girl stared at him while an older woman, presumably the girl’s mother, smacked at his hand.
‘No manners!’ she scolded. She took her daughter by the arm and dragged her away.
Han stood in the street and watched the young woman go. The sight of her was a placeholder—a poor, pale substitute for the real woman he longed for. Li Feng and his ever-present awareness of her had been so strong. He could practically taste her in the air, which made his sense of loss all the more palpable.
* * *
Li Feng pressed herself flat against the wall of the alley. Her heart beat frantically in her chest, the rhythm of it flooding her veins with heat. Han was still standing in the middle of the street. She could see him in profile, but he appeared strange to her. His gaze was unfocused and his usual imposing stature had sunken.
She had to struggle to catch her breath there in the shadows. If he turned right then…if he looked to the narrow alley between the shops, would he see her? Her muscles coiled in anticipation while her skin flushed warm and her palms began to sweat.
If Han saw her, she would have to run—but she didn’t know whether it would be towards him or away. Funny how fear and elation and desire all felt the same inside. How could the mind sort things out if the body couldn’t?
Her heart cried out as she edged away, but she ignored it while slipping into the back streets. If Liu Yuan continued with his own plans, he’d end up dead. He didn’t seem to care, but she did. So she had told him she knew of someone who could help them seek revenge.
Bao Yang was still at the same inn where she’d met him before. The salt privateer received her in a sitting room adjacent to his chamber. He had little visible reaction to seeing her beyond a pleasant smile.
‘You knew I would come back,’ she remarked.
‘It
could be said that I was hoping to see you again.’
She glanced about the chamber, refusing to reply to his suggestive remark. These rented rooms were extravagant in comparison to Han’s small cellar below the kitchen. She realised Bao Yang was scrutinising her every action, so she turned back to him.
‘I’m here on someone else’s behalf.’ She debated whether to reveal anything more to him, but it didn’t make sense not to. What she was going to propose meant life or death for all of them. ‘I have been reunited with my brother.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Your brother?’
‘Guan He killed our father and our mother. He owes us a debt of blood.’ Li Feng was surprised at how impassive she sounded saying such a thing aloud. Yet her insides churned until she was sick with the thought of it. ‘You mentioned that Wang Shizhen and Prefect Guan would be together.’
‘By tomorrow evening.’
Could they be ready so soon? They would have to be.
‘I’ve seen the mansion. We can enter late at night,’ she suggested. ‘There are guards surrounding it, but the walls aren’t high.’
Bao Yang leaned back, fingertips set together as he considered it. ‘We would then need to search through all the chambers for our two targets. How do you intend to do that without alerting the entire household? And if Guan He is not alone? Are you willing to execute some unfortunate concubine to keep her silent? Or some servant who happens by?’
Her throat tightened. ‘If it comes to that.’
Bao Yang fixed a hard look on her. For all her brashness, it was gravely apparent that, deep down, she wasn’t like him. The thought of striking like an assassin, unseen in the dark, made her stomach turn. This was a matter of honour, an act that should be done in the open, so Guan He would face his death and know what he had done.
She could never think the way Bao Yang did or be as unfeeling. He was an insurgent and a rebel, but he was also a strategist. That was why she needed him.
‘There may be a better opportunity for us,’ he proposed. ‘One with a greater chance of success. I have learned that Prefect Guan is throwing a banquet for his honoured guest in his residence and bringing in entertainers. Both men will be out in the open. We can rely on a targeted, direct attack.’