IN A BLINK, three days passed inside the Mirror.
Mo Xi sat in the side room of a small lodge in the city outskirts, watching the water clock by the window in silence. In accordance with the emperor's demands, today he should have been on the road to the northern frontier. But he hadn't left. He raised a hand to look at his palm; it had a translucent sheen. And it wasn't only his palms, but everything in this world —even the blades of grass were beginning to lose color.
The Time Mirror was weakening.
Murong Chuyi and the others were in the real world, where time flowed quickly. Perhaps Murong Chuyi or Jiang Yexue was merely performing one spell or reciting an incantation on the outside, while several days had passed in the mirror. If his current state was anything to go by, Mo Xi estimated that he and Gu Mang would leave this world in another two or three days. Thus, he didn't care if the emperor discovered he hadn't left for the north—he just wanted to learn a few more secrets before the dream shattered.
Another drop of water fell.
The time on the water clock neared the hour of wu—nearly noon. Mo Xi rose and walked up to the bronze mirror. He altered his features with a simple illusion spell, then pushed open the door to leave.
"Let's go, let's go! Hurry over to the eastern market to watch the beheading!"
"Deputy General Lu's about to get his head chopped off. Who would've thought—ah, times really do change…"
"His rash action killed so many people; if you ask me, not even death is enough to clear his sins!"
The street bustled with raucous activity as people hurried toward the eastern market. Some of their faces showed anticipation, others elation; some were sobbing, others terrified. Whatever emotions they experienced, the eastern market seemed to draw them all like piping hot blood-buns 9 fresh from the steamer, luring vultures that craned their necks toward the execution platform.
Mo Xi silently joined the flow of people and arrived before long at the gate of the eastern market. At its center were the officials carrying out the execution, as well as a crowd of spectators like soft dumpling skins, wrapped around and around the platform.
Lu Zhanxing, in a spotless white prison uniform, sat barefoot and cross-legged on the platform. His expression was serene, without any of the panic of one about to die. The execution official brought him wine and meat; Lu Zhanxing grinned and thanked him with a laugh. He pulled a chicken leg from the plate and bared his pointy canines as he tore into his meal. Swiftly he finished all the meat and started on the wine, gulping down the gallows brew with bravura. At last, he wiped his mouth on a sleeve. "Sir, your little wine pot is so dainty, so girlish—can't you just bring me a jug?"
The official looked at him strangely. "How are you still eating so happily? You're about to die."
"Exactly." Lu Zhanxing bared his teeth, laughing as though his true form were a hungry wolf. "It's the last meal of my life. Did you want me to cry as I eat it?"
The official glared at him, perhaps wondering how shameless a person must be to snicker like this after making the kind of trouble he had. "There's no jug of wine for you," he said stiffly. "That's the whole last meal. No refills."
Lu Zhanxing sighed. "A shame. I could've set off drunk."
The official scoffed. "So you're not actually that calm. You're just looking for some liquid courage so you won't feel it when your head comes off."
"Not quite." Lu Zhanxing clapped and smiled. "My head coming off will only make a wound the size of a bowl. This officer just wants to set off for the Yellow Springs drunk and borrow some courage from the wine to admire the beautiful scenery on the banks of the Wangchuan River.
Perhaps I'll even compose some poems that'll make me famous in the underworld."
The executioner was rendered wholly speechless. At this moment, a clear voice called out from the bustle below the platform. "What poem do you want to write now? Is it 'two orioles sing in the green willow, one's uglier than the other though,' or 'I was born like this to have some means, nights of pleasure aren't just dreams'?"
The crowd turned to see that Gu Mang had appeared in their midst. He was wearing a pin-straight set of Chonghua's formal military robes. Though stripped of the tassels of rank, they still accentuated the length of his legs, the slimness of his waist, and the solemnity of his features. From two slender fingers hung a loop of twine attached to a wine jug sealed with clay. Under the merciless noontime sun, he walked toward the execution platform.
"Aiya, it's General Gu… Pah, pah, pah, I misspoke. It's not General Gu. It's Gu Mang, Gu Mang."
The audience gathered for the execution slowly parted to make way for him. Countless pairs of eyes stared in open curiosity. Everyone knew of Lu Zhanxing and Gu Mang's lifelong friendship. Everyone also knew Lu Zhanxing's mistake precipitated Gu Mang's fall from the pinnacle of society to its very gutter, becoming a wastrel who spent his days lazing around a brothel. Now that these two were finally meeting again, how would they treat each other? Would Lu Zhanxing look ashamed before Gu Mang? Would Gu Mang spit on his former friend and curse him in rage?
Few things were more exciting than the drama of jealous competition, antagonism between a wealthy man's wives, or brothers turning on each other. Absent the first two, the crowd at least hoped to see these brothers at each other's throats. The noisy execution platform gradually fell silent.
It was too quiet. Hidden in the crowd, Mo Xi could almost hear the rhythm of his own pounding heartbeat. He sought Gu Mang's silhouette, that tall and elegant figure clad in the old robes of Chonghua. Today Gu Mang didn't appear listless at all. He was like refined bamboo standing in a cool breeze, as if the past half-year's dissipation hadn't eroded his strength a bit.
In this silence, Gu Mang walked onto the platform alone. Once, he'd had multitudes at his beck and call and was never without an escort. But of those hundred thousand comrades, only he remained. All the rest had been sacrificed or detained. There was nothing else he could bring—just one man, one jug of wine, one set of military robes stripped of all honors. Their past glory like a fleeting dream, leaving behind a pitiable ruin.
Lu Zhanxing tilted his head back to watch him approach. After a moment, he bared his teeth in a grin. "Mang-er, you still remember the poems I wrote?"
Gu Mang glanced down, his thick lashes casting shadows under his eyes. He sat down with the jug of wine in his arms. "You slapped those lines on so poorly, I couldn't forget them even if I tried."
Lu Zhanxing chuckled, scratching his foot as he laughed. "I knew you'd come send me off today."
Gu Mang snorted and removed the clay seal on the wine. He took a sip and pushed it at Lu Zhanxing. "Have some."
"Ah, the Soaring Swan's fifteen-year pear-blossom white?"
"What else?"
These two didn't come to blows, nor did they argue. The spectators below weren't the only ones surprised—even the execution official standing nearby was stunned speechless.
Although Lu Zhanxing had been sentenced to death, Gu Mang hadn't yet defected. He'd been stripped of his rank, but his past merits remained. The official didn't want to openly make things difficult, nor did he dare to. He hesitated. "Gen—ahem, you see, the rules around the execution meal…"
"We were brothers, you know. I'm here to send him off." Gu Mang looked up. "Sir, allow me this small mercy."
Regardless of all else, Gu Mang was still Chonghua's Beast of the Altar, the ever-victorious god of war. Even at the peak of his influence, he had never been a bully or held grudges. Before those eyes, dark as black jade, the official quailed. He stepped aside with a sigh.
As the sun climbed in the sky, the shadow cast by the sundial grew denser, darker than ink. Lu Zhanxing drank and laughed as he chatted with Gu Mang. Perhaps because talk of hatred was futile on the brink of death, neither brought up the defeat at Phoenix Cry Mountain.
The hour of the execution drew closer and closer. The blazing sun burned with white heat, and the air was filled with the scent of death approaching. The spectators swallowed as they stared at the sundial, slowly growing anxious. Yet the ones most at ease were the man about to die and the friend here to see him off.
At last they finished the wine. "Do you have any last wishes?" Gu Mang asked.
Lu Zhanxing smiled. "Too many."
"Which of them can I help you with?"
"Taste more pear-blossom white for me," said Lu Zhanxing.
"I will."
"Look at more beautiful people and beautiful scenes for me."
"Okay."
Lu Zhanxing thought for a moment. Finally, he reached up to touch Gu Mang's military uniform. "Mang-er…don't wear these anymore, all right?"
The charcoal in the firepit crackled. Gu Mang lowered his lashes, his expression dark and thoughtful. No one at the scene would understand what this expression meant, other than Mo Xi, who knew Gu Mang had already decided to defect. Lu Zhanxing's final wish was for Gu Mang to lay down his armor and return to a life of peace, away from the butchery of the battlefield. How could he know that Gu Mang would indeed never wear the military robes of Chonghua again—instead, he'd replace them with the black battle armor of the Liao Kingdom and step onto a blood-soaked path of no return.
Gu Mang paused, head low. His lashes seemed to quiver as he smiled faintly. "Okay. Never again."
Lu Zhanxing's eyes brightened, a smile stretching across his face. "You mean it?"
"When have I ever lied to you?"
Lu Zhanxing burst into laughter. "You've made pretty promises ever since you were little." As he chuckled, the smile that had unfolded in his eyes like spring leaves faltered slightly.
"Is there anything else you want to say?" Gu Mang asked.
Lu Zhanxing's gaze shone with tenderness—the first time Mo Xi had ever seen such a gentle look on his sharp and predatory features. "Manger," he said, "you should get married and settle down."
Gu Mang stared.
"You've always been a free spirit, but we've been brothers all these years. I know you've always wanted a place to call home." There was a meaningful note in Lu Zhanxing's voice. "You're not getting any younger. If you're done having fun, you should rein it in, so I can…"
Gu Mang cut him off. "Uncle Lu, how old are you?"
Lu Zhanxing widened his eyes and pursed his lips. "I'm saying this because I care. Why don't you know what's good for you?"
He was about to say more when there came a sharp whistle. The cultivator standing at the corner of the high platform had begun to blow his yak-horn bugle, its clarion call piercing the skies. "The time has come!" the crier shouted.
The time has come.
The blinding sun had reached its zenith; its white light streamed onto the confounded multitudes, onto the one about to leave and the one left behind, onto the darkly massed spectators.
This would be the end for these two brothers from childhood.
Gu Mang gazed calmly at Lu Zhanxing, so calm it was as if they were only a general and his soldier splitting up for a battle strategy and would soon regroup.
"I'm heading out," Gu Mang said.
Lu Zhanxing smiled. "Think about what I said."
Gu Mang cast him a long glance. After a pause, he said, "Okay, I will." With that, he descended the high, narrow stairs of the execution platform, long robes brushing the ground.
The execution official stepped forward, raising a copper mallet wrapped in red cloth to strike the gong. Its metallic tone was clear and carrying as the man cried, "The time has come—prepare!"
It wasn't like in the storybooks, where a mounted soldier would charge in shouting to spare the prisoner, an imperial edict held aloft as he spurred his horse through the crowd. Lu Zhanxing didn't put up a struggle; there was no sudden rescue. Hardly any escaped the jaws of death. Those who received the grace of fate were a scant few indeed.
Lu Zhanxing and Gu Mang looked at each other, one upon the platform and one below. Both struck by the memory of what Lu Zhanxing had said when he enlisted years ago:
"I don't want to die at all. I wanna be an ancient geezer who takes a handful of wives and sires a bunch of kids. That's the good life for me."
Back then, Gu Mang had laughed. "Now that you've stepped onto the battlefield, your life's in danger every minute. How are you going to become an ancient geezer?"
But Lu Zhanxing feared nothing. He stroked his chin, half joking and half serious. "You're right. Then I might as well think about what kind of death would suit me."
"What would?"
"It would be best if I got stuck in a Liao Kingdom dreamscape, one filled with peerless beauties all chasing me for you know what"—at this, he waggled his eyebrows—"and of course, I couldn't be so rude as to refuse, so I'd end up dying from loss of essence." Lu Zhanxing grinned lasciviously, kicking his feet. "Aiya, what a way to go."
Back then they were fearless. In their mouths, matters of life and death were no more than fodder for jokes.
"Or beheaded by an incomparably gorgeous Liao Kingdom demoness," Lu Zhanxing continued. "Hopefully she first takes a fancy to me, and I'd rather die than submit, so she defiles me first, then kills me— wow, how thrilling—"
"Can't you come up with something normal?" Gu Mang heckled.
"Normal is boring." Lu Zhanxing licked his lips and grinned. "Normal would be a horsehide burial, my brothers weeping around me, faces streaked with tears. It's a horrifying thought."
Who would've guessed that the worst death Lu Zhanxing could imagine for himself was far better than his destined end? As a soldier, his final rest was no horsehide burial, but a pointless death as a disgraced criminal on Chonghua's chopping block. No one cried for him; no one wept with their face streaked with tears. Of his imagined "brothers," only Gu Mang remained.
The executioner stepped forward, raising the curve of that snowbright blade high into the air. The wind ruffled Lu Zhanxing's bangs. He looked down at Gu Mang standing below, the corners of his lips lifting in a smile of relief.
"Down!"
Farewell came as that word rang out, life and death forever sundered.