The big black umbrella was like a black lotus, slowly flowing in the rain in the city of Chang’an.
Sangsang did not know when she had let go of his sleeve. Raising her face and furrowing her brows, she asked, “Young master, what did you say to Xiaoman before in the Princess’s Mansion? Those palace nannies and imperial maids looked blue in the face.”
Ning Que looked at the little girl, who pretended to be calm, and could not help thinking of the recurring moments during those years on Min Mountain. He had carried her from one peak to another, and from one cottage to another, while he was very busy exploring the way and telling fairy tales to lull the little girl in the basket on his back. Now, he could not help rubbing her head with a smile, and said, “Telling fairy tales… You know that’s what I’m good at.”
“Which one, Cinderella or The Three Little Pigs ?” asked Sangsang with curiosity.
“The Little Prince.”
Sangsang asked seriously with a frown, ” The Little Prince? Could he understand it?”
Ning Que felt stunned, considering that it actually was a question.
The master and servant were chatting all the way as they headed north in the drizzle of late spring. They crossed the Tongxiao Fang, then back to Eastern City. They bypassed the entrance of the street and walked deeper into Eastern City rather than go to Lin 47th Street. The Old Brush Pen Shop was closed today. No one knew when Sangsang had quietly brought out a podao wrapped tightly in cloth. Traces of rain could be slightly seen on her shoulders.
The rain gradually became heavy. Pedestrians in the street of Eastern City were forced to return to their homes or workshops. Ning Que and Sangsang stopped in front of a remote slum. They stood under the eaves of the desolate and worn-out Haotian God Temple with the big black umbrella, looking into the lane and listening silently to the sounds coming out from the smithy in the rain.
Sangsang said in a low voice, “In a little while, the smithy will be closed and the young masters will be busy arranging today’s orders, and Chen Zixian will go rest in the backyard. I heard that he rarely strokes the hammer in recent years. And then, he’ll be the only person left in the courtyard. So, it’s relatively convenient for us due to the rain today.”
Ning Que looked up at the leaden clouds and the dim light in the sky, silently calculating the time. After guessing that it was just about time, he passed the big black umbrella to Sangsang and asked her to wait there. He then took out a bamboo hat from his back to wear and then walked toward the west side of the lane. He passed through two streets in the increasingly heavy rain, getting close to the backyard of the smithy.
No one would notice the scraping sounds made by tough boots stepping on the wet, uneven stone road. Ning Que watched the rough wooden door that was not far away and slowly stepped forward. He held the podao tighter and tighter in his left hand, recalling in his heart all the information of the second name.
The names on the oilpaper were of the important figures in the slaying massacres of Xuanwei General’s Mansion and the village of the Yan territory. This information was found by Zhuo Er and was exchanged for his sweat and his life during the time that he was a spy in the Military Ministry under the command of Xia Hou.
Chen Zixian, 47 years old and the vice-general under the commander of the former Xuanwei General, had been praised by the imperial court when he first accused Lin Guangyuan, the Xuanwei General, of treason. Yet, he was stripped of his accomplishments and was forced out of the military due to his disputes in the 4th year of the Tianqi era. After that, his family fell on hard times. His wife left him and brought his two little sons back to her hometown. Yet, he stayed in the city of Chang’an to become a destitute master in a smithy in a slum of Eastern City.
Most of the names on that oilpaper list were not doing well after those two incidents except for two or three senior officials, who still enjoyed prominent positions and high salaries. The censor who had died by his hand had been down in the dumps everyday, while some of them lived in mortal fear. Chen Zixian, who was behind the door of the courtyard, lived a dog’s life.
Ning Que did not know why. In accordance with logical reasoning and the common plots of stories, the guys that had persecuted the faithful and honest or betrayed their masters in a conspiracy had to be extremely aggressive and jolly before revenge was taken so the people that were seeking revenge could feel a sense of pleasure and justice. However, things did not always go like that. The people that were determined to get revenge did not seem to live any better than those guys did.
He had vaguely guessed that it was the work of His Majesty, but he could not confirm that and was unwilling to think deeper about it. The heavy rain today and the call to go to the Princess’s Mansion provided a good opportunity for revenge. No matter how the official would investigate this, no one would, or would even dare to, suspect him. And that was more important than anything else.
He looked down at the rain dripping from the edge of his hat, slowly moving his feet, stepping closer to that door.
The surface of the wrecked wooden door was slightly wet and cold when he pressed his fingers against it. He listened carefully to the sounds coming from the smithy in front of the courtyard. When he heard the sounds of those heavy hammers tapping iron getting louder and more intense, his left hand, in which the podao was held, rose slowly as his right hand gently pushed the wooden door open.
The spindle of the old door was moistened by the rain and made a light cry that sounded like a sob. Ning Que, wearing a bamboo hat, walked down the broken stone steps with a knife. He looked at the old man squatting in the courtyard, and asked, “Chen Zixian?”
The old man wearing a thin old jacket outside the woodshed looked miserable. Some traces could be seen on his shoulder cuffs of years of burning the furnace fire, and several pieces of black cotton stretched out of the opening of crispy cloth. His gray and white hair was tied together at random, and he was chopping firewood with an axe and a wooden piece in his thick, long, iron-like hands.
The old man looked up with a flash in his turbid eyes. As Ning Que had pushed open the door, he watched him and his shadow below the bamboo hat. The old man wanted to see his face clearly, and then said after a moment of silence, “Yes, I am.”
Ning Que stopped and looked around the simple courtyard to confirm that all the apprentices were really in the front part of the lane and that no one remained in the courtyard. He turned around to close the door and to unfasten the lacing of the hat around his neck with his right hand. And then, he held the front handle of the podao firmly and slowly walked toward the old retired officer.
The bamboo hat fell onto the ground in the rain.
Chen Zixian slowly blinked his eyes, and let go of the firewood in his left hand. His nails were full of black mud. After rubbing his left hand on the front of his clothes, he reached for the knife behind his back and raised the axe in his right hand simultaneously. He then said, looking at the pale lad who had come in from the wind and rain, “You’re finally here.”
Ning Que’s podao was coming.
The sharp blade, sharpened by the rice water in the Old Brush Pen Shop of Lin 47th Street for a few days, was pulled lightning-fast out of the sheath. It easily cut through the old cloth that was tightly wrapped over the sheath, the wind, the rain, and the past, and eventually, Chen Zixian’s neck.
Chen Zixian lifted his knife and a crisp buzzing was heard from the collision of the two knives while the rain was deflected from the blades.
At this point, a rush of forging sounds could be heard in the front part of the lane, covering up all of the sounds of the knives in the courtyard.
“Zeng, Zeng, Zeng!” Ning Que held his knife with two hands in the heavy rain and walked forward again with an expressionless face to split the neck, cut off the head, and open the stomach of the other man. The podao moved through the wind and the rain to ruthlessly grind and clash with the knife and axe in the old man’s hands.
“Dang, Dang, Dang!” The apprentices numbly sandwiched the red iron and swung their heavy hammers to strike the iron again and again next to the red stove. They did not hear anything but the raging storm outside of the lane.
The muffled sounds included the noises of hissing, the cutting of robes, the falling of the axe, and the chopping of a wrist. The firewood outside the room scattered everywhere. Just now, Ning Que struck the 17th blade as Chen Zixian had blocked the first 16 of them.
And then the sounds of the knives disappeared—only the noises of the wind, the rain, and chopping board were heard.
…
…
Chen Zixian fell off to the side of the firewood, with his body full of sludge stains. A few drops of blood appeared on his darkish old face and the countless cuts in the thin jacket over his stomach while the gray cotton scattered around. The middle cut, the deepest one that reached his bones and organs, kept bleeding and body fluids of different colors flowed out.
The rain was dripping down from the roof to the firewood, to his gray hair, and to the distressed wrinkles on his forehead and then flowed onto his dark cheeks, quickly washing away the drops of blood.
Ning Que lowered his head and slowly put the knife away. He could not help but frown looking at the sharp rising and falling of his chest, and the dangerous axe mark on it. He never thought that an ordinary deputy general of the Tang Empire from long ago still had such tough combat ability after so many years of torment and hardship in the bottom of the market.
Chen Zixian powerlessly looked at the lad in front of him with cloudy eyes. He seemed to have a lot of sputum in his throat. He gurgled painfully, and two mouthfuls of bloody sputum were coughed out. He said weakly, “I thought that I had long been forgotten by this world.”
“You are indeed one of the strongest amongst those who have been forgotten. No one in the imperial court dared to hire you probably because you betrayed your master for the sake of glory. I don’t know if you have ever regretted that in all these years.”
Ning Que wiped the cold rain away from his face, looking at the dying old man. “It won’t cause too much trouble if I want to kill you since you’ve been forgotten by the world. Besides, I’ve been admitted into the Academy, so killing you is regarded as an indispensable part of the celebration, just like flowers and pigeons.”
Chen Zixian’s old weak eyes were filled with bewilderment, and he whispered, “Please give me a quick finish.”
“It’s still early, and your poor apprentices need more time to finish the orders today.”
Ning Que took a glance at the sky where the clouds hung over the curtains of rain and where the sun was missing. However, he knew he still had a lot of time. He said in a low voice, “It’s for my enjoyment. You’ve made me miserable during these years, so you shouldn’t expect to die soon.”
“I have a poem to read to you,” he said calmly, looking expressionless at the old man among the firewood. “I come from the mountains and rivers. I come from the Yan territory of the grassland. I come from the General’s Mansion. I come to take your life.”
Upon hearing the words General’s Mansion, Chen Zixian’s turbid eyes suddenly became bright and his face gradually became relieved as his trembling hands subconsciously gesticulated in the wet firewood. He said with a trembling voice, staring at Ning Que’s childish face, “So, that’s how matters stand. So… the general’s son is still alive. You… you said… you’ve been admitted to the Academy. That’s really good… really good. I’ve lived such a tired life these years… To know before my death that the son of the general is still alive… and lives a good life… I can really rest in peace.”
“Who is not tired of living?” Ning Que looked down on the hollows, which were made by the impact of the rain upon the ground, and whispered, “I had to learn calligraphy, Mathematical Olympiad, piano, and drawing. And I had to run around on the backseat of mother’s bike every weekend and finally get more familiar with the children’s palace than my own home. Am I not tired?”
Chen Zixian did not understand this dialogue. He clutched his bleeding cut, shaking his head painfully.
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