The sun has just risen. Duan Ling didnât get a good look the night before with nothing more than a brief glance, so heâs only now seeing the state that Runan is in â white bones lie beneath the bridge where he used to while his time away, the streets are covered in rubbish, and pieces of paper flutter in the autumn breeze. Crows gather in the back courtyards, cawing wildly without restraint.
Subconsciously, Duan Ling wants to turn to look, but Wu Du covers his eyes with one hand and pushes him forward.
Itâs not as though Duan Ling hasnât ever killed anyone before, but this is his home; in the tea shops, next to the noodle stand, in the shop where they sell oil, near the passing carriages, even around the governmental buildings of the Khitans â from the middle of the marketplace to the shaded rest spots beneath the trees, these all used to be places where he left his tracks.
âCome this way,â Chang Pin turns back and says to the two of them.
âWhat happened to Runan?â Duan Ling asks.
âTwo years ago, the Mongols attacked. Aside from Runan they also attacked quite a few other places, destroying cities and villages all along the way. Here, the city fell and was plundered by the Mongols. The commoners either died or ran away,â Chang Pin replies. âAnd thatâs how it became like this.â
Duan Ling recalls that heâd travel south all the way from the Xianbei Mountains as he escaped into Xichuan that year. There were so many people with their different accents, that perhaps among them there were also commoners from Runan.
Wu Du gives Duan Ling a look, reminding him not to ask too many questions lest Chang Pin should find it odd. Even though Duan Ling very much wants to ask him more about what happened in Runan, he knows this is as far as he should go; otherwise, once Chang Pin starts getting ideas, itâll bring them nothing but trouble.
Chang Pin takes them into a huge residence. Standing in the courtyard, he says, âChancellor Mu sent me here to Xunbei on a mission to look somone. I did find him in Anxi, but the old man really is getting on in years, and it was so hot in the summer that I didnât dare simply take him on a journey back to Jiangzhou.â
Duan Ling and Wu Du donât say anything and merely listen to Chang Pin as he speaks.
âIn the Sixth Month, I wrote a letter and tasked my personal attendant Jinâer to take it back to Jiangzhou. Unfortunately, Jinâer went missing halfway through the trip, and the letter was never delivered. And then, I had no idea why at first, but on the eighteenth of the Seventh Month, the Mongols came from the south and passed by Anxi, raping and pillaging all along the way, killing and taking whatever they saw. The Mongols burned most of the villages behind the Liao border to ashes.â
Duan Ling is staggered momentarily before he replies, âWe drove Borjigin Batu across the Xunshui. They must have gone north along the Liao-Yuan border.â
âPrecisely,â Chang Pin replies. âThe Mongol horde in the south heading north met up with the Mongol horde heading south from the north, and they burned up Anxi until there was nothing left. Right now, theyâre attacking Luoyang.â
Duan Ling is quite taken aback.
âThe man Iâm looking for just so happened to have been in Anxi. That night during the chaos I hired some people to bring him to Luoyang, and we were attacked halfway there, but fortunately, I managed to survive by hiding underneath the carriage. By the time I got back out again, however, I could no longer find him anywhere. Iâm still holding out some hope that heâs still alive, so I followed the other refugees to Luoyang. For several days, I looked for him outside the city, but I didnât manage to find a body. I wanted to see if I could find out what was going on inside Luoyang, but the Mongolian army had surrounded the place, so I didnât want to head inside without a plan. It would be most unwise for me to die over nothing.â
The longer the story goes on, the more puzzled Duan Ling becomes. Mu Kuangda had tasked Chang Pin to find a particular old man. Why did he do that? And since Chang Pin couldnât find him, why didnât he just go back to Jiangzhou? And now, what is he doing in Runan?
âThen youâd better head back,â Wu Du says. âRight now, the two of us are officials of the court. Showing up here is already against the rules, and we were planning to go back within a month. Lots of things are still up in the air.â
âThe Lord Chancellor is aware of what youâre doing in Ye. Wang Shan, Wu Du, since I have been following Chancellor Mu for several more years than you have, then Iâm afraid I must shamelessly use this seniority to ask for a favour. This man is crucial to our cause, and other people are also looking for him âŚâ Chang Pin falls silent then, hiding the latter half of that sentence.
A deep furrow appears between Duan Lingâs brows. He knows that when Chang Pin tells him that this is âcrucialâ, that means itâs probably extremely important.
âAll I need you to do is to find out whatâs going on in Luoyang in my stead and find this person. You can count on me for what you need doing in Ye.â
âWe already have enough grain,â Duan Ling replies. âWe donât actually need your help, Master Chang Pin. Weâre all smart people here, and you were there as well when I became a part of the estate. Since this is an order from Chancellor Mu, of course, Iâm going to do my utmost. But youâll need to tell me what this is really all about. If for nothing else but to make this task of going into the city and fulfilling this mission easier for me.â
Duan Ling pauses and gives Wu Du a glance. Wu Du is silent, and frowning just as he is. Soon enough, he gives Duan Ling a nod to indicate that heâll do as Duan Ling wishes.
This seems to truly give Chang Pin pause, and an idea suddenly occurs to Duan Ling â is it possible that the Duans had gone to Anxi and Mu Kuangda had somehow tracked down the âcrown princeââs family history, and he wants to bring someone from the Duan family to the imperial court so that he can prove that this crown prince is an imposter?
âIâm not going to tell you,â Chang Pin ponders for a long time before he says solemnly. âAnd thatâs for your own good. Wang Shan, your prospects are boundless, and once you finish doing this thing, thatâs that. You have a bright future ahead of you, unlike me. Iâm just a scholar who passed the county level exams. Youâre a Tertius Scholar.â
By telling him this much, he has already verified Duan Lingâs hypothesis. All at once, he feels as though his blood has congealed inside his veins.
Chang Pin motions to Chang Liujun, and Chang Liujun opens a door on one side of the corridor in the courtyard.
Chang Pin says, âAllow me to continue before we proceed. Since I couldnât go into the city, and my mission remains incomplete, I had to at least find out if he was dead or alive; I couldnât simply go back without knowing. So I waited in Runan thinking that Chancellor Mu would definitely send someone to search for me there.â
This once more verifies Duan Lingâs hypothesis â since Mu Kuangda had sent Chang Pin here to Runan to search for someone, if he should lose touch Mu Kuangda would surely send another to look for Chang Pin. Chang Pinâs first stop had been Runan, so whoever sent to find him would definitely go to Runan first.
Predictably, Chang Pin continues with, âI never imagined that Chang Liujun would be the one to show up, but he canât just walk into Luoyang either. First of all, security inside the city is extremely tight with the Khitan and Mongol armies in the middle of a war, and second of all Chang Liujun canât ⌠At any rate, heâs not good at tracking down a person.â
âSecond of all, I canât read.â Chang Liujun says impatiently, âAll I know how to do is kill. I canât read the names on the register, and itâs not like I can go around asking people either. Thirdly, Luoyangâs guard security is really tight. I reckon the Mongols are planning to lay siege to this city all the way âtil spring. Iâm afraid that once it snows a few times, a bunch of people are going to freeze to death. Weâll have to find him as soon as possible. Thereâs no time to ask around.â
Duan Ling stares at him silently.
Wu Du says, âYou want the two of us to infiltrate Luoyang, donât you?â
Chang Pin nods. âChang Liujun and I talked about this and thought maybe we should go to Ye first to see you two and see if we can figure out something from there. Just as we were about to leave the city though, we found a couple of Tangut outside, a father and a son.â
Duan Ling looks at him silently.
He has a feeling he knows whatâs inside that room. The estate is very quiet, and it doesnât seem like anyoneâs being confined here at all. Itâs the exact kind of thing Duan Ling canât stand to see, and fear immediately surfaces in his eyes. Wu Du also realises whatâs going on as soon as he says this, and he frowns.
Duan Ling takes a step back. Chang Pin opens the door all the way, and the stink of blood wafts out of the room. Wu Du takes a sidestep to look through the window, and he sees two corpses sitting next to each other in a darkened room, one big and one small, with dishevelled hair and white underclothes. Theyâve clearly not been dead for long.
Chang Liujun brings something out of the room: two sets of Tangut clothing and a travelling cloth bundle. Chang Pin is holding a letter when he says, âThese two were fur traders, passing through Liao territory towards Yuan, thinking theyâd go through the border at Anxi and go to Luoyang for some trading ⌠But unfortunately, they met with a violent death in the city, leaving their bundle discarded nearby. Theyâre already dead, so I had an idea. Why not disguise myself as a Tangut so as to infiltrate Luoyang? But the passport this man was carrying on him indicated that they were father and son, and see, I had no idea how I was going to find myself a son âŚâ
While Chang Pin is saying this, scene after scene surface before Duan Lingâs eyes â
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â A couple of Tangut, father and son, had come this way from Xiliang. They were passing by Runan and was planning on turning to go north. So before that, they decided to rest for the night, setting up a campfire in this abandoned city to eat some of their dry rations.
Chang Liujun hid outside the courtyard house while Chang Pin walked towards the two of them, starting up a conversation in Tangut. He found out that their destination was Luoyang, and so he asked them to help him find someone.
Maybe when the pair heard that Yuan and Liao were at war they didnât want to risk going to Luoyang anymore, thus rejecting Chang Pinâs request and deciding to head south instead to Chen.
Unable to get a favourable answer from his request, in order to keep this âcrucialâ secret, he asked Chang Liujun to kill off the two, since he was around anyway.
âYou can speak Tangut,â Chang Pin says, âI heard that when you were in Tongguan, you knew the Xiliang prince, and youâve become good friends.â
âIâm not going.â Chang Pin points at Wu Du before continuing, âThe two of you can take the passport. Wu Du was your adoptive father ⌠brother to begin with. You two, on the other hand, look the part just right.â
âI canât speak Tangut,â Wu Du replies.
âPretend youâre a mute,â Chang Pin says. âThe Mongols may have laid siege to the city, making it difficult to get in, but if you really want in we can find a way â just wait for my instructions. Once youâre inside the city, youâll have to find some way to hunt down a register of names. Everyone who relocated from Anxi to Luoyang should have been registered in a record. Then, you have to find one person in it. I thought about writing this name on a slip of paper and giving it to Chang Liujun so that once heâs in the city he could try to find a match, but he canât tell the difference between the army register and the civilian entry register. When there are too many names it can also get confusing.â
âI got it,â Duan Ling says, âItâs probably in the hands of a low-ranking official in charge of refugees.â
To track down the man Chang Pin is looking for the way one would look for a needle in a haystack, one by one, would be nigh impossible. There are too many old people; even if he draws a portrait they wonât be able to match it with a face. And Chang Pin doesnât want to reveal who it may be either. Perhaps he is indeed hiding that for the sake of holding onto this crucial secret.
Theyâll need to find the official in charge of Anxi refugees, steal the registry from him, verify that the man is still alive first, before tracking him down.
Duan Ling is extremely curious as to who this man could be. If he used to live in the Duan estate, itâs probably someone he can recognise.
But itâs also possible that heâs simply got the wrong idea, that is, the one Mu Kuangda is looking for has nothing to do with the âcrown princeâ. Even though this possibility is quite slim, Duan Ling decides to test it anyway.
But ⌠there were no elderly people among the Duans. Also, out of the entire Duan estate, Chang Pin canât be telling him that only one person had survived?
Wu Du and Duan Ling take the clothes from Chang Liujun. Duan Ling doesnât want to see the scene inside the room, so he leaves for an abandoned house across the street with Wu Du to change into their Tangut clothing.
Duan Ling is weighed down with his thoughts, but lest the Chang Liujun waiting outside should overhear, he doesnât dare say too much.
âAre you thinking about your dad?â Wu Du asks.
Well, thatâs one thing he doesnât have to worry about getting eavesdropped upon anyway; after all, everyone in the estate knows about âWang Shanââs identity. To outsiders, his family history is that of an apothecaryâs child, and before his father died, Wu Du had been entrusted with his care.
âYeah.â Duan Lingâs eyes have gone a bit red.
In his white underclothes, Wu Du holds up the Tangut robe and stares at it.
âThatâs not how you wear it.â Duan Ling is also in his underclothes. He helps Wu Du into the robe. The Tangut wears their outer clothing with the left lapel on top, and thereâs a leather belt on the inside that crosses the chest before going around the waist from behind. Once the inside belt-loop has been tied, he put on the trousers for men, and the knee-length animal fur coat goes on last.
Wu Du has finished putting on his clothes, so Duan Ling puts a goose feather hat on for him as well. This Tangut man didnât have a high standing in life; the goose feather in his hat is brown.
Duan Ling stares at Wu Du. Wu Du is sitting on the daybed. He wraps his arms around Duan Ling, whoâs still dressed in his snow-white underclothes, and sits him down over his thigh, where Wu Du looks up into his eyes.
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