Finding The Way

by Ng, Wayne;

  I was led towards a small shed with a heavy wooden door into which I was pushed. The door slammed shut, muffling the sounds of the outside world. The darkened shed reeked of fresh urine and feces. A single candle in a alcove gave off a dim light. As my eyes acclimatized, I saw that there was only the one room and no windows. In the shadows sat a soldier and two others behind him. Judging by the markings on the seated soldier’s tunic, he was a Captain under General Wu. He untangled some rope as he quietly hummed a tune about harvesting fish and drying them in the warmth of the sun. He did not acknowledge his fellow soldiers or me. Instead he continued to uncoil the thick bundle of hemp rope. He stood on the stool, and then looked back at me, as if he were taking my measure. He threw one end of the rope over a ceiling beam, caught it as it came down and used the end to create a noose. Stepping off the stool he secured the other end of the rope to a corner post.

  “Where is she?” he whispered.

  I studied his face and his expression as best as I could in the dim light. It was weary, detached, almost pessimistic.

  “To whom are you referring?”

  “If you want respect in your last moments, you will need to give some in return. Do you understand?”

  My ‘last moments.’ The Captain said it with such indifference that it removed any fear I might have felt. “Yes, indeed I do,” I replied.

  “Good, then where is she?”

  “She is innocent, let her be.” I said.

  “I thought we had an understanding?” He nodded to the Guardsman holding me. He punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, and I collapsed onto the dirt floor. When my breathing returned, the questioning continued, as did the kicks and blows.

  “You rushed out of the Palace this afternoon. You somehow managed to elude the eyes and ears of those within and outside the Palace. Major Huang has also disappeared, but not before he attacked those who oversaw the questioning of the King’s consort. All very suspicious. Explain.”

  I struggled to speak at first. “What is there to explain? Why are the innocent most likely to suffer? Why do the most cunning seemingly profit the most?”

  “These words are pointless, scholar. There is no escape, there is no hiding and there will be no games. The only choice you have is how much you will suffer before you die.”

  If that was the case, I wanted to know my executioner. “You handle rope with the deftness of one who has fished. And your words are accented with a lilt I encountered among the Donyue in the Kingdom of Yue who live by the Eastern Sea. They are very honest people, hard working, gentle in fact. They lived their lives in harmony. And then the Wu invaded their homelands and enslaved or conscripted many innocents. Many others fled with nothing left but their dignity.”

  The Captain paused, as did those around him. He slackened his grip on the rope. A soldier rushed into the shed and muttered something to the Captain. The Captain quietly cursed, then ordered my hands bound behind me. I was forced to stand and balance myself on the short stool previously occupied by the Captain. The rope was coiled around my neck, jolting my head upwards. I was left with just enough slack to remain standing. The Captain stood straight, his eyes looked up to mine.

  “Be still. If you move suddenly, or slip, you will hang yourself. Beware.”

  His words were almost whispered, almost as though he was pleading. Then he promptly left. The remaining guards spoke with one another, wondering how long it would take for the General to arrive, if he came at all this evening.

  My mind raced at an unprecedented speed. Their questioning of me suggested that Mei had survived. Why else would they have kept me alive? But who had betrayed me yet again? Did the King and Prince Chao learn of my role in the false accusations? Was the King even aware of what was happening? Perhaps one of my staff really was a spy and I had been tricked. Had Prince Meng learned of my presence in the bamboo grove and ordered my arrest? Or was he protecting me? My head saw conspirators behind every door and my body as a mat beneath every foot.

  I told myself that if exhaustion overcame me, the guards would not let me die. I was there for a purpose. Nevertheless I did not wish to test their resolve. I fought the fatigue, even though my muscles were stretched and aflame, ready to snap. I took long slow deep breaths, expanding and then contracting my muscles where I could. A glint of light shone through cracks in the door, falling on the wall in front of me. I stared at it, imagining the path of the moon, and awaited the light of dawn. For an old fool, I prided myself on possessing vestiges of resilience.

  Some time before dawn, one of the guards stepped outside. I could hear him urinating. He was quickly admonished but told to remain outside. I recognized the voice of the Captain, and I sensed the presence of several others. Then I heard another voice.

  “My, how the foolish dreamer has fallen!”

  I recognized General Wu’s acerbic tone as he entered the shed along with someone else.

  “It is by the grace and benevolence of Prince Meng, our future Son of Heaven, that you still live,” he said to me. “If it were up to me, you would have died quickly but painfully hours ago.”

  To emphasize his point he dug his finger into my abdomen, pushing me just enough to almost tip me off the stool.

  “It is futile, scholar. All is lost. The bamboo field was searched. One of the interrogators tried to hide. We captured him immediately. He played innocent. So we strung him up. He offered little resistance after that. That he crumbled so easily by his own handiwork is what I believe you intellectuals might call poetic justice. Nevertheless he revealed what we needed to hear, that the woman was defiled by Prince Chao. Then he spoke of friends of Major Huang, millet farmers across the river. He assured us that we would find the woman there, as well as the Major. For his cooperation, a swift death was promised once he had repeated his confession to the court. However, it turns out he is a cousin of the Major. So after his confession he will indeed die slowly and with much pain. The woman has likely bled to death already. The Major’s death will be no less painful. My guards should be upon the farm at this moment. Her head and that of the Major’s will be forthcoming.”

  General Wu ordered the guards to untie the noose so I could stand and speak. I inhaled deeply and limped to one side, supported from falling by one of the guards.

  “Life is a precarious balance, is it not?” spoke another voice that I recognized as Prince Meng’s. “You taught me that.”

  Strange as it may have seemed, I was relieved he was there. He was not accountable to me, but I hoped he came to provide me with some answers. More importantly, I wanted to see if I could still inspire in him some humanity.

  Prince Meng stepped forward, removing the hood that covered his head and much of his face. He was grinning but his expression also revealed a hardness I had never before seen in him. He dismissed the guards and General Wu, who tried to protest, but a glare from the Prince sent the General off.

  “You chose a treasonous, perilous route, all under the guise of moral righteousness,” he said. “That you acted against me surprises me. That you threw your hand in with Prince Chao disappoints me. It must be a bitter pill you are swallowing. The meritorious scholar gambles for once in his life. He loses, and is completely abandoned. It is my men who will now ease your final struggle.”

  I tried to speak and gagged for a moment. “Life is not so much precarious, as it is the guise by which certain brands of morality are imposed.”

  “It is rather late to be philosophizing, Master Scholar,” Prince Meng said. “Sit.”

  I landed heavily on the stool. He reached for a cup, scooped water from a nearby barrel and held it to my eager, parched mouth. As I gulped the water, he spoke.

  “You did teach me well, Master Scholar. But it was I who worked out that an erudite’s value is multiplied many times over when strategy and opportunity are maximized.”

  Evidently he had absorbed Sun Wu�
�s artful treatise on war and deception rather well.

  “Is that all I was to your Highness? Erudite value?”

  He shrugged.

  “But why, your Highness? I cannot believe what I saw in you was a complete illusion.”

  “That was your vision, Master Scholar. At first it resonated for me as well. It gave me respites of acceptance and peace when the court was nothing more than a crushing burden. The Way lit my world, it gave me clarity. I tried, Lao Tzu, I really did. And for a while, seeing the world in this manner might have been enough, throne or not. But in time the Way began to weigh me down like sacks of worthless currency. It gave cause for others to mock me, to ignore me. Then after my brother’s recovery, I was increasingly overlooked. I could see my throne and my standing slipping away. You cannot possibly imagine the humiliation. In a world decided by metal and might, there is little respect for thoughts and actions, or shall I say, inactions. Eventually the Way merely reinforced this for me.

  “But there is much to thank you for. Your garden introduced me to the idea of using poison. Your Archives gave me Sun Tzu’s illuminating strategies. It appears he also was one with the Way. He taught me that one must be flexible and adaptable to ever-changing conditions. I proved this when my initial plan to deal with my Heavenly Father was inadvertently thwarted by my mother’s dogs. Admittedly, it was a sloppy plan, crude in fact. I’m new at this, you see. But one must be ready to take advantage of opportunities that suddenly emerge. I have just done so again with my father’s rapid deterioration, which coincided so wonderfully with that woman being with child. All while my brother is out saving the world. Fortunately for me, he and Confucius chose this moment to play the hero-diplomats.”

  I looked at him silently for a moment.

  “Your Highness, you still might have found the contentment you had always lacked,” I said. “Instead, something unnatural befell you and you have chosen a path paved with deceit, treachery and blood. This is not you, my Lord. I cannot believe that what I saw in you was a complete illusion. You had such clarity, such conviction. You alone possessed the nobility and means to choose a different path. You could have been a beacon that led others to pause and reflect. You have now made grievous errors but it is not too late. Your father will no longer be able to stir your conflict with your brother. You can unite with Prince Chao, you can create a destiny and a world that has never before been witnessed, one filled with enlightenment, justness and prosperity for all. You can be remembered for greatness, not treachery.”

  Prince Meng hesitated. His face softened. “You always believed this about me.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You saw in me things no one else imagined. But surely it is too late.”

  I shook my head. “You can choose the path which only you are capable of treading.”

  Prince Meng slowly paced the room. “And what of my brother?”

  “Your Highness, he will come to see you in a different light, I am sure.”

  General Wu re-entered the cell. I overheard him whispering that forces loyal to Prince Chao had begun to marshal against them. Prince Meng’s face hardened once again. He dismissed the General.

  “Never, never will we unite. He will indeed see a different brother now, one that he will fear and recoil from. You did not appreciate, you could not have appreciated, that I also learned to stand with those of like mind such as General Wu, who find nothing but idiocy in Prince Chao’s actions. Isn’t it ironic, Master Scholar, that my dear brother happens to be an even bigger dreamer than I once was?”

  “There is ample room in the court for two dreamers, provided their aspirations speak of a common good, not a vainglorious quest for power,” I said.

  “And miss out on such an opportunity? How could I have remained a student of the Way? Eventually my brother would have banished me to some backwater territory. No, never. The Way is a path that resonates for individuals such as yourself who already have little to lose and can afford impracticalities. Perhaps in another time and place, if enough of you had stood together, the world’s cadence could have been harnessed. But for me, in the grander scheme of the world, there is now no place for such luxuries.”

  “Your Highness, it is still possible to avert further bloodshed. I urge you to choose wisely.”

  “I already have. As for you, I did not mean for this to unfold in such a way, Master Scholar. My instructions to you were clear and simple. Had you remained in your quarters and not conspired with other traitors, you would have remained free.”

  “Traitors?”

  “The Major surprised me. He had always performed his duties with honor, as the Commander of all the Royal Guardsmen should. He had been above and beyond the fray of shifting loyalties, much like you, Master Scholar. I’m curious to know who informed him that Wu’s men took our little whore to the bamboo field instead of this shed, where a proper interrogation might have been carried out undisturbed. At first, I presumed it was Yi Ban. You were seen rushing to him immediately after she was dragged off. But I was wrong. The stench in here is Yi Ban’s, by the way. He fouled himself as he begged for mercy before he was hanged.”

  I gasped. Prince Meng continued.

  “We would have preferred him to have left us a confession. So I am left to wonder how the Major found out about the interrogation in the forest, and why he shunned his duty and turned against me.”

  “You just answered your own question, your Highness. The man is honorable. As was Yi Ban, who did not deserve such a fate. The Major saw through your plotting some time ago.” I also thought of the Black Serpent, but was not prepared to reveal the presence of the one person who might still be standing against Prince Meng. “He likely remained neutral and silent as he was duty-bound. Yet it would appear his duty in the end was to his conscience above all else.”

  “Ah, yet another dreamer. I still consider myself to be one. There is a place for us all. Your place, however, is here, and the Major and the whore and all those who would oppose me will follow. It is men of action, not ideas, who shall rule. It is not possible to reconcile this chasm any other way.”

  “Reconciliation is only impossible because hard feelings abound. This is what is dangerous, your Highness. A sage accepts less than is due, and does not blame or punish. It appears to be you who cannot accept reconciliation. Alas, I believe that is now of little consequence to you.”

  “Bold words coming from one so near to death. But then again, I expected righteous indignation and demands for me to be just. I also had hoped for some groveling and pleas for mercy. But that just would not have been you.”

  “Justice seeks payment and retribution. Harmony seeks agreement and accordance. The Way is impartial. It serves those who serve all. There is much to be learned still, your Highness.”

  “You would not speak to me in this way had I not spoiled you by granting such proximity to me. You have forgotten your place.”

  “I have always known my place was to serve, and have done my best to do so nobly and honorably. But leaders also fail when they forget whom they serve. There will be few who regret my passing out of this world, and whoever passes judgment on me will do so justly. Can your Highness say the same?”

  “Such impertinence!” Prince Meng threw the remaining water into my face. I licked the few drops dripping from my upper lip.

  “No regrets you say? Have you forgotten those who died at your precious Academy? And your servant Kao Shin, whose loyalty to you cost him his life? Even as he bled to death he tried to protect you. He even confessed that he was the spy.” The Prince chuckled. “And let us not forget Yi Ban who recruited you, and now Mei and the Major. In fact, everyone who has had the folly to pursue your ideals has had a tragic end. That is, until I came to see that where decisiveness and strength are required, one must be practical and shed precious ideals. Where I have spilled blood, it was for a cause, not a foolish dream. Still no regrets, t
ruly, Master Scholar?”

  I had no answer for him and looked away.

  He lowered himself until our faces were only an arm’s length apart.

  “Do not despair Master Scholar, I still have the nobility you spoke of. I can offer you life, but that will be cruel. For you will spend your remaining days wandering the world, and self-recriminating in a manner far more painful and lasting than a quick, merciful death. No, I will grant you death with your precious honor, your noble ideas, and your Way, however tinged with the bitter hue that your failure in every way aided me. Your passing will happen unbeknownst, undocumented and unnoticed. Whereas I, the soon-to-be new Son of Heaven, will live on in history.” He paused to give me an opportunity to refute.

  “What say you, Scholar?”

  Again I could not respond.

  “And now the man of ideas is speechless.”

  Prince Meng turned and left without another word.

  I remained still, almost lifeless. He was correct. I would die with nothing but blood to show for my ideals and a lifetime of work. The guards re-entered, and once again stood me on the stool where my balance was precarious. They re-wrapped the rope around my neck. It would only take a moment before I would hang myself, they said to each other.

  I struggled to breath and remain motionless. Where the blows had landed, sharp pains punctuated my body. The ropes slowly dug into my neck and wrists, leaving scores of burning itches I was unable to soothe. I could feel my cold sweat against the brisk autumn night air. I lost all notion of time. My legs stiffened and cramped. A searing thirst further labored my breathing. What was left to struggle for? What had my enlightenment brought me? I had attempted to nurture and cultivate my fellow man. I had lived the life of my choosing. I had followed the Way. Where I had failed, it was not for lack of endeavor.

  A slight shift in either direction could end it all swiftly. If I could not choose the manner of my departure, I could choose the precise moment. More than anything else I felt profound sorrow. I thought of my father. I had known him less than I would have liked. I’d learned the ways of the world first by his hand, then my own. A scholar’s life was not an existence of toil, but it was unspeakably solitary and lonely at times. Ironically Confucius was perhaps the only other one who understood this. I had neither the comforts nor the demands of family. Perhaps that was why I had taken to mentoring. I knew how very crucial it was for unformed minds. I wondered if Father would have been proud of me, if he would have forgiven me for my simplicity, for my incessant romanticism. But I could not forgive the abject failures of a dreamer such as myself. The Way had given me cause and hope for most of my life, but it could not shield me any further.