Chapter 142

Chapter 142

Book 4, Chapter 31 (Part 3)

Beneath the Great Wall, the wind sets the grasslands to rippling waves.

Out of a hamlet in the distance, thick smoke rises, rolling downwind as an entire village is set to the torch. Once this division of Mongolian soldiers has finished burning the place and killed off everyone, they drag the Han out of their houses and toss their bodies into the ditch at the edge of the fields.

The people living here were all Han. Ever since the Liao Emperor drew the territory south of the Great Wall into Liao’s borders, he’d declared the Khitans as first-class citizens, Semu and Mongols as second-class, the Tangut as third-class, with the Han coming in dead last.3 The powers of Great Chen’s Son of Heaven retreated south and the rule of the Liao Emperor had begun, but that hadn’t really affected those living here much; just that someone else was His Majesty now. As for what His Majesty looked like, it’s not like they could have seen him anyway. If one must put into words what had changed, their tax collector was now a Khitan.

By the later years, even the tax collector couldn’t be bothered to come by anymore and the taxes were collected by the village chief in his stead.

Until today, when the Mongols came.

From this moment on the village’s name is wiped clean from history, leaving behind nothing but its ruins.

The Mongolian soldiers kill off every last able-bodied man, rape the village women next to the paths leading to their fields, and once they’re satisfied, stab the women to death.

Several centurions stand at the edge of the fields, firing arrows into the wheat fields at the commoners who’s fled into them. A pack of hunting dogs dashes out only to come back with bloodied flesh torn from arms and thighs between their jaws.

Batu walks by on the path with a sabre in his hand. He checks its weight, then slashes it at a silver poplar. The blade gets stuck in the trunk and he pulls it out again so he can cut it into the trunk again. He slashes at it several more times and notches the character for “mountain” into the bark.

“Ling,” the voice of little Duan Ling said.

Duan Ling held a rock and used it to teach Batu how to write his name on a tree behind the Illustrious Hall.

“The characters for mountain and command together make ‘Ling’, and its meaning is ‘the collar of a big mountain’.

“Our Han names are made up of combined ideograms.” Duan Ling’s voice seems to ring out still, just by his ear as it explains to Batu, adding, “What does ‘Badu’ mean?”4

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Back then, Batu had looked annoyed and said, “Only your Han names sound nice. Both my surname and given name sound like it’s meant for some domestic animal.”

Duan Ling had tugged at Batu and pointed for him to write it down. And so Batu had written down several distorted characters in Mongolian. They’d looked like earthworms.

Duan Ling had tilted his head to look at them. “Are those the characters?”

“You can’t read it?” Batu had said, rather pleased at his ignorance.

Duan Ling had sent Batu a glance and said, “Bateer.”

“You actually know that?” This time it was Batu’s turn to be surprised. Duan Ling had smiled a little, walking ahead of him. “Who told you that?”

“I read it in a book. Bateer is the god who moved the mountains in the legends. He possess great strength and courage.”

Batu chased down Duan Ling from behind and picked him up, making him yell, but Batu just laughed, turning Duan Ling this way and that above his shoulder. At last, the two of them fell into the bushes; Duan Ling struggled to his feet, and as soon as he got up he was off like a shot, but Batu grabbed him and he fell again.

Batu was always dirty back then, his sheepskin coat gone unwashed for half a year at a time. Meanwhile, Duan Ling’s clothes were always laundered clean at home, and he had delicate, pretty features with pale skin, always so clean that he was like a cloud floating at the horizon.

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Batu stared at Duan Ling, reaching out to pinch him and pat at his face. They were still very young back then; Duan Ling was entirely ignorant and had no inkling of the beastly desires that Batu was filled with. There was already a most primitive desire charging all through Batu’s body by then, an untamed craving running through his veins.

“Let me go!” Duan Ling said immediately, “Otherwise I’m not going to be your friend anymore!”

Batu held down Duan Ling and crawled over his body, leaning down to chew on his neck, but when he put his head down, Duan Ling had bitten him on the ear. Batu was at once yelling, howling at him furiously. Duan Ling struggled out of his grip and ran away.

Batu chased him through the gallery, and after looking for him for ages he found him studying in front of the headmaster so he could only drop the idea of catching him. Everyone hated how dirty he was, and the headmaster was no exception. As soon as he saw Batu, he told him to stand outside as a punishment. Batu stood outside the door then and watched Duan Ling as he read and wrote, just as if he was a bodyguard.

At times he had willingly stood for this punishment — Batu sits by the well, using the wet cloth inside the bucket to wipe down his neck. He notes his grown-up reflection in the water and stares at his own indigo-blue eyes.

He cannot help but recall the past, scattered like shards in his mind. They separate and reform again, and in the end, Batu can no longer tell which of those images actually happened, and which are merely imagined.

He only remembers the way Duan Ling had sat upright behind the desk on his knees, reading and writing beneath the hazy light of a setting sun. Back then, Batu had stood outside the main hall, watching him just like that, without making a sound.

He stood until the sun had set, until it grew dark, until each of the lamps was lit, until a sky full of stars had risen.

What was the day he looked forward to the most when he was in school? Naturally, it was the first and the fifteenth of each month, when they had days off. Every time they had days off, Batu would always hope that Lang Junxia doesn’t show up. As long as he didn’t show up, Duan Ling would have no choice but to stay in the library and keep him company.

When they used to spend the night together they would leave their clothes to heat by the fire, and Duan Ling would burrow his way under Batu’s blankets.

As children, their skin was clear and dry, and when they rubbed against each other it made Batu’s blood run hot, but he didn’t dare try anything against Duan Ling lest Duan Ling would get mad at him, and go months without speaking to him. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he had even hoped that Duan Ling would bite him, as though this action expressed some sort of emotion.

By the time they saw each other again, he has finally grown up, and he’s no longer like a little kid. He did not grow the way Batu imagined he would at all though, and seems to have grown in another direction. And yet this unexpected divergence has evoked another kind of fanaticism inside of him, making him feel exponentially frantic.

People of the grasslands say that the best time of a man’s life is when he’s just turned sixteen, the age to mount a horse and gallop to his heart’s content. That thriving vitality is like a meadow at the tail of spring and the cusp of summer, so brightly green it makes you squint, when even one’s speech is filled with the power of life. If he only knew, he wouldn’t have hesitated on that day.

His blood turns heated and fiery in his veins as his thoughts roam; lust swells in him so great it almost splits him open, with no avenue of release. When he hears a young man’s pained cry ringing out from a house in the courtyard, he can finally hold back no longer and kicks the door open.

A Mongolian soldier is using a young man to satisfy his needs; Batu grabs the soldier by the hair, drags him outside, and without a word starts taking off his clothes.

Inside the dimly lit room, a young man is lying on a bed on the verge of collapse, and he’s so surprised by Batu he’s dazed, gasping for breath, not daring to look at him.

Batu pulls his coat open with a couple of tugs to reveal a solid, muscular chest. His shoulder and his back seem full of power, his youthful muscles as well defined as if moulded in clay; that thick majestic cock between his legs is erect and standing bolt upright.

The contours of his back and his trim, tight waist is like a wild wolf’s, and the young man is so stunned that when Batu clambers over him, he even forget to beg for mercy or to cry out, but when he’s back to his senses again he’s yelling like a madman once more.

Batu stares into the young man’s eyes. Not a moment after, he finds it all quite dull and doesn’t actually try to enter him. He drags the young man off the bed and kicks him into the corner.

Trembling with fear, the young Han man picks up his ripped-up clothes and puts them on, shaking all the while. He kneels down at Batu’s side. Batu asks in Han, “Got any alcohol?”

The young man runs off to get wine. In the back courtyard, he finds his older brother’s corpse and lets out a cry of despair.

Shortly after, he charges into the room with a sickle hoping to kill Batu and die trying. Batu frowns, breathes a sigh, grabs the young man’s wrist, and without much effort at all he flips him onto the floor. In that instant, the young man’s resistance seems to allow him to find a certain, familiar feeling; Batu starts to rip his clothes off again, but this time the young man doesn’t go along with him. Instead, he continues to struggle. The more he struggles, the more excited Batu becomes, but it isn’t long before the young man’s head drops forward and he stops moving.

It turns out that he’s been struggling to get his chest closer to the sickle all this time until he got the end of the blade into his heart.

Batu looks on helplessly as fresh blood runs all over the floor. At last, he can only put the corpse down. He sighs and wraps his coat around himself to sit on the bed for a while.

The light outside the window gradually fades away. He leaves to bring back some wine, and leaning against the wall, he sits on the bed and drinks. He drinks until all the light is gone, leaving the room in darkness. Batu leans by the wall, half drunk, half awake; in his dreams are those dazzling memory shards of himself and Duan Ling grappling with each other, and the crisp, clear melody of Duan Ling’s voice calling his name. Like a kaleidoscope they shine into the life he had that was meant to be dismal and boring, making his world also vibrant.

Life is like a dream; how much joy can we hope to gain? In his mortal days if he never has to wake up again, and he can remain in this great long dream, perhaps it would also be a kind of happiness.

Sometime after he falls asleep, there are suddenly voices outside.

“He’s here,” a familiar voice is saying.

Batu’s head hurts. He picks up the wine jar and stumbles out of the house with his coat undone, its belt hanging at his sides. Someone grabs his arm.

“Chaghan is looking for you. He has news from Guanshan.”5

Batu does up his belt. “What are you doing here?

The newcomer turns out to be Amga. “Since you couldn’t take Ye, Töregene is trying everything to frame you up in front of Ögedei, so Tolui asked me to come to check on you.”6

They come out of the courtyard, speaking to each other in Han so that the other Mongolian soldiers can’t overhear. Batu’s head feels like it’s been cracked open. “Where’s my army?”

“You’ll have to figure something out yourself. Chagatai doesn’t want to give your army back to you. Also, they want to hold you accountable. You lost two battles in Hebei, so if the next one who shows up isn’t Chagatai, it’d be Tolui.”

Batu spits out a cuss. His father Jochi is the eldest son, Chagatai is his younger brother, while Ögedei comes in third. Tolui appreciates Batu’s abilities the most, and he’s the fourth son. Chagatai has never been on good terms with his father Jochi.

“Hebei is mine,” Batu says, “I just haven’t managed to take it yet. I’ll write a letter to my father and ask him to bring me my army.”

“Your father’s not doing all that well,” Amga says.

“That so? You didn’t come here to announce his demise, did you?”

Amga doesn’t say anything. They arrive outside a courtyard, and he gestures for Batu to head inside. Just before going in, Batu says, “I can’t beat that Wu Du. I’ll have to work on my martial arts some more. How’d you do against him?”

“We just barely tied.”

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Batu says, “Teach me some other day.”

He raises the door curtain then, and steps through it into the courtyard. Seated inside the courtyard is Ögedei’s official envoy, a Shiwei named Chaghan,7 the Army Inspector, as well as the four battalion commanders seated to the side of him. They were in the middle of a discussion, but upon Batu’s arrival, they stop speaking.

“Borjigin Batu,” Chaghan says to Batu, “Your dad was shot when he was attacking the Merkit, and he’s at death’s door. Ögedei sent me here to ask you when you’ll be able to take Hebei. If you can’t take it then go back to Guanshan to take responsibility for your losses. Everyone is waiting to hear from you.”8

Batu’s eyebrows slowly draw together.

At dawn, Wu Du finishes practising his martial arts and walks into the main mall to find Duan Ling looking at a map of Hebei. Not a single person is in attendance to watch over him.

“Where’s Zheng Yan?” Wu Du asks, frowning.

There’s actually no one at Duan Ling’s side — what’s he supposed to do if assassins come?

Duan Ling replies, “Someone came to get him earlier, so he’s gone out to play.”

Wu Du is clearly fretting. Duan Ling glances over and says with a smile, “It was a young man, about sixteen or so. The son of a centurion.”

“Tell him not to do that sort of thing,” Wu Du says with a furrow between his brows. “If his dad comes looking for him, it’d be difficult to explain.”

“It’s what the young man wanted. There’s nothing I can say about that.”

Wu Du scratches his head. “He didn’t make breakfast either?”

“Nope,” Duan Ling says smilingly.

Wu Du has no choice but to start making breakfast himself. He beckons at Duan Ling to go with him; he can only feel assured when Duan Ling is within his line of sight.

In the kitchen, Wu Du finishes washing his hands and starts making congee for Duan Ling.

“I’m planning to go on a trip,” Duan Ling says.

“Where?!” Wu Du nearly flips over a pot, and he turns around to say, “Aren’t you worried about dying?! You still dare go out on your own?!”

“We can go together,” Duan Ling says, baffled.

“Oh.” Wu Du realises that they’re actually going together and says, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Wu Du doesn’t ask any more questions. Duan Ling looks at him helplessly, leaning against the doorframe with his forehead in his hand.

“When are we leaving?” Wu Du asks.

“Once the messenger who left for Liao returns, we’ll go, and take four hundred people with us. This time we must make sure everything is done before we come back.”

“Four hundred people? Where are we going?”

“Xunyang. We’ll cross the Xunshui and keep going north all the way to the outskirts of Runan, into the Valley of Heishan.”9

“Yeah,” Wu Du says, “you want to go back and take a look around?”

Duan Ling shakes his head without saying much.

Wu Du says, “If you want to go we can leave today. There’s no need to wait for the messenger.”

“No,” Duan Ling says, “We’d better wait for the messenger to come back first. I should at least have some idea of whether Liao is going to lend us grain.”

This translation is by foxghost, on tumblr and kofi. I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, it was reposted without permission. Do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎

Warning for on-screen rape and violence as the story shifts to Mongolian army / Borjigin Batu perspective for most of this chapter. It does contain some flashbacks to Batu/Duan Ling childhood, but if you skip to the horizontal rule you’re not going to lose too much since the violence is obliquely referred to in another five chapters or so. There will also be more about their childhood in a future extra. ↩︎

This is basically the legal caste system put into place by the Mongolians during the Yuan dynasty (in which China was ruled by the Mongolians), except Khitans are put at the top of this one. ↩︎

Badu is how Batu is pronounced in Han. Through the text, I’ve used original names whenever they exist, but in the original, they’re all spelt out phonetically in Hanzi. Like most loan words, they lose all meaning. ↩︎

Guanshan grasslands, Inner Mongolia. ↩︎

Töregene Khatun would be Ögedei Khan’s wife. The historic Töregene was also known as the Great Khatun, who became regent after her husband’s death. Tolui was Jochi’s brother. If you’re ever confused, check this family tree on Wikipedia. ↩︎

The Shiwei people. ↩︎

The Merkit. ↩︎

There are two things that Feitian gets wrong all the time — one is math, the other is location. He’s either moved Runan or he meant south. ↩︎