Seeking an Escort at Dawn
At first light the next morning, the mist had still not fully lifted from Taihu Lake.
Juyi Isle had just weathered the full birthday feast, yet the liveliness upon the water had not entirely ebbed. By the distant landing, a few birthday boats that had lingered overnight were still slowly casting off, the dip of their oars drifting across the surface together with the shouted calls of early-rising porters. It was as though last night's wine still floated in the lake wind. But those who had truly passed the night without sleep all understood the same thing:
Wine could dissipate.
The game had not.
In Mount Hua's guest courtyard, the white silk lanterns had already gone dark, leaving only a thin wash of morning light upon the paper windows.
Zheng Chong was up very early.
He had scarcely slept at all. The moment the eastern sky began to pale, he had already changed into the plainest sort of worn gray long robe, with an old blue short jacket thrown over it to further mute the air of a sect disciple. He looked now less like a man of Mount Hua than a bookkeeper who had spent half his life on the road. Even his longsword was not openly worn. Instead, it had been wrapped in cloth and slung diagonally across his back.
The bamboo shadows in the courtyard still carried the dampness of dawn. The white silk lanterns had not yet been taken down. On the square table where they had talked late into the night, the tea stains had not dried, and only a shallow pool of lamp oil remained.
Xuanyuan Xi was already standing beneath the corridor.
He still wore blue. The hem of his robe stirred lightly in the morning breeze. His expression remained calm and settled, as though the secret discussion of the previous night had left scarcely a ripple in his heart.
Zheng Chong came to stand beside him and said quietly, "I am going to find an escort."
Xuanyuan Xi nodded.
Now that the decision had been made, there was no sense delaying further.
If they still hesitated today, the road that awaited them afterward would only grow more dangerous.
Zheng Chong looked at him once, then added, "Stay in the courtyard. Keep those two settled first."
Xuanyuan Xi was silent a moment before replying, "I know."
Zheng Chong said no more. He turned and quietly left the courtyard, avoiding the main hall and the long corridors most crowded with guests the day before. He took only the quieter paths, until he reached the small eastern landing, hired an inconspicuous fast boat, and set off along the water toward Changmen.
The boat did not move quickly. Zheng Chong stood at the bow, watching Suzhou's outline slowly emerge through the mist. Yet a weight remained pressed upon his thoughts the whole while.
The decision reached the night before—to send Xi Qian and Fang Yingjie away first—had never really been optional. There were too many eyes on Juyi Isle. Once a person showed himself, someone would always try to recognize him, remember him, test him. What had happened in the side corridor the day before had already gone beyond the light touch of a probing hand at the banquet. That had been a genuine attempt to draw them away from Mount Hua's sight.
If the two younger ones remained with them any longer, then the moment they followed the line of Fang Tieshan's old case any deeper, Mount Hua would no longer be able to manage both the investigation and the protection of the children at once.
Yet sending them away was one matter.
How to send them was the true difficulty.
The great agencies—Longwei, Zhenyuan, and the like—naturally had greater reputation, greater manpower, and greater outward force. But precisely because of that, every one of their movements drew attention. If he entrusted the matter to such an agency, others would know at a glance that what was being escorted was no ordinary passenger.
The more heavily one guarded them, the more clearly one told others: these two are the ones who matter.
That was why Zheng Chong had said the night before that he must find a familiar escort line.
He did not need the most famous escort agency.
He needed the most reliable man.
That man's surname was Cheng. His name was Dingshan.
Years earlier, when Zheng Chong had traveled south with his elders on sect business, he had once run into a thorny affair on the roads outside Jiangning. On the surface there had been no drawn blades. Beneath the surface, however, the matter concerned letters that absolutely must not fall into the wrong hands, an old local grudge, and a road watched in three directions at once—post stations, boats, and officials—each seeming to have someone waiting in the dark for Mount Hua to show even the smallest gap.
The people they had happened to encounter then were from Tongshun Escort Agency, carrying a familiar old route.
Cheng Dingshan had asked nothing unnecessary about Zheng Chong's identity. Nor had he later gone about trading on the favor. He had only stepped in at exactly the right moment, blocked a hand where blocking was needed, and saw both man and letters safely past the hidden eyes waiting outside Jiangning.
That was why Zheng Chong had remembered him: an escort chief with no grand front to his name, yet a remarkably steady man. More importantly still, he knew Cheng Dingshan was not the kind who trumpeted favors or waved them about before the world.
For that very reason, their connection was almost unknown in the martial world.
As for Tongshun Escort Agency in Suzhou, this would actually be Zheng Chong's first visit there.
He had passed through Suzhou several times in earlier years with his elders, and he still broadly remembered the great approaches—Changmen, Shantang, the Grand Canal. But the twisting smaller lanes outside Changmen were another matter. Years had passed. Shopfronts had changed. Alley mouths had come and gone. And after last night's birthday crowds and wine, the whole district had been disturbed once over again. To find the place at once from memory alone would not be easy.
More than half an hour later, he came ashore.
By then the day had fully broken, and the streets outside Suzhou were waking by the inch. Breakfast stalls were steaming. Vegetable hawkers were hurrying by under their loads. The streets that had been packed with birthday guests the night before were somewhat emptier now, though the flagstones still bore wheel ruts, hoofprints, scattered straw, and scraps of red paper, as though last night's bustle still lay pressed upon the ground and had not yet completely withdrawn.
Men sold flatbread. Women sold fresh fish in bamboo baskets. An old woman sat at her door stripping water chestnuts. Each had already returned to the business of the day.
Zheng Chong stood at the landing for a moment, looking toward the maze of streets and lanes outside Changmen, before setting out.
He did not immediately turn into the smaller alleys. Instead he first walked a little farther along the river street, pausing outside a coppersmith's stall to check the reflection in a freshly polished basin and see whether anyone was behind him. Then he stopped at a flatbread stand, bought two hot cakes like any ordinary traveler, and used the oily iron plate by the brazier to steal another look at the street behind him.
Only after confirming that no one had dogged his steps did he turn back and begin asking directions.
The first person he asked was an old man carrying tofu on a shoulder pole.
"Old sir, could you tell me whether there is an escort agency called Tongshun outside Changmen?"
The old man did not stop walking. He thought for a moment, then pointed southeast with his carrying stick.
"Tongshun? Yes, yes. An old escort house. Not a big one. Go along this street. When you reach the flatbread stall, keep straight. Pass the tea shed, and there'll be a narrow alley on the left. The second frontage inside is the one. There are two old stone blocks in front—easy enough to spot."
Zheng Chong thanked him and went on.
A short distance farther along, he stopped again at the tea shed, ordered half a bowl of hot tea, and while drinking it slowly, checked the route one more time with the woman running the place. She was in her forties. Hearing the name Tongshun Escort Agency, she glanced up at him and smiled.
"Oh, that old place. Small frontage, but steady enough. Keep going ahead and stay out of the crowded lanes. Choose the quieter alley, and you will find it."
That gave Zheng Chong even more confidence.
Only then did he turn into the narrow alley.
It was a tight one, with old gray walls and dark tiles on either side. The morning light had not yet fully reached the bottom of it, and the ground still held a trace of dampness. Several lengths of washed blue cloth hung drying near the entrance and stirred softly in the breeze. Against one wall leaned two empty flatbed carts just unloaded, their wheel tracks pressed deep into the mud.
At the far end, just as he had been told, he saw the second frontage on the left—and before it stood two weathered stone blocks rubbed pale with age.
Zheng Chong slowed and let his eyes move first over the signboard above the gate.
The frontage was small. Gray tiles. Old walls. No great banners. No escort hands bawling out road cries. Only one old plaque hung above the beam, its surface slightly mottled with age. Upon it were written four plain characters:
Tongshun Escort Agency
The name itself was utterly ordinary. The frontage bore none of the grandeur of the great agencies like Longwei or Zhenyuan. Yet the instant Zheng Chong looked at it, something in him settled by three parts.
Because though the place was old, it was not disorderly.
The horse trough out front had been scrubbed clean. The unloading rack and iron hitching posts all stood exactly where they should. Several old wooden crates were stacked in one corner, their edges worn pale but aligned neatly. Beneath the eaves hung two old escort banners whose colors had long been washed thin by wind and rain, yet whose corners had been repaired stitch by stitch.
This was not the kind of place that relied on bright new flags to frighten others.
It was the kind that had done steady business with old clients for generations—perhaps not illustrious, but still able to stand on the old roads.
Only then did Zheng Chong step inside.
The front yard of the escort house was not large. Two men in the middle were harnessing a cart. A younger escort hand crouched by a sharpening stone wiping down a saber. All three looked up at once when a stranger entered. Then the curtain to the duty room was lifted, and a middle-aged man came out.
He was just past forty, solidly built, with dark weathered skin. He wore a short brown jacket, faded almost white from washing yet still perfectly neat, and at his waist hung a broad-backed saber. There was nothing sharp or ostentatious in his face. What he carried instead was the quiet steadiness of a man who had run the roads for years.
The instant he saw Zheng Chong, something jolted in his eyes. But he did not ask anything aloud. He strode forward at once, ushered him inward, and lowered his voice.
"Daoist Zheng? Inside."
Zheng Chong saluted. "Escort Chief Cheng. Forgive the intrusion."
This man was none other than Tongshun Escort Agency's current head escort master—Cheng Dingshan.
Cheng Dingshan led him into a side room, personally closed the door, poured him a bowl of coarse tea, and only then asked in a low voice, "You have come for an escort?"
Zheng Chong looked at him and slowly nodded.
"Yes."
Three parts of the easy hospitality on Cheng Dingshan's face vanished at once.
The moment he saw Zheng Chong arrive at such an hour, dressed in such a way, Cheng Dingshan had already felt his heart sink by three parts. And now, with the roads outside Changmen still thick with men who had come to celebrate Qin Gang's birthday, the fact that someone from Mount Hua had avoided the obvious roads and come winding into a small place like Tongshun Escort Agency was itself enough to show that this was not a matter fit for daylight.
Zheng Chong did not explain everything. He told only what could be told.
Mount Hua had two younger members who must be sent quietly north. The matter could not be made public, could not alarm any of the great gangs, and could not be entrusted openly to the host's protection. They were not treasure or precious goods, yet they were more important than treasure. The road itself was not impossibly long, but the trouble likely to arise would not be of the straightforward, blades-in-the-open sort.
After listening, Cheng Dingshan fell silent for a while before asking quietly, "Are you guarding against an open grab—or a quiet lift?"
"A quiet lift," Zheng Chong said.
Cheng Dingshan nodded, and his face darkened further.
He was an old hand of the escort road. What he feared most was not mounted bandits bursting out in formation. It was precisely this sort of thing—uncertain in origin, yet with eyes likely fixed on the road from beginning to end. Open bandits at least showed their banners and measured strength. A hand like this watched first, remembered first, and only when you had begun to think the journey safe did it quietly lift a man away in some unremarkable place.
Zheng Chong said, "I came to you because you are small. If I went to Longwei or Zhenyuan, every move would draw eyes. That would make the road less steady, not more."
Cheng Dingshan gave a bitter little smile. "I cannot tell whether that is praise—or whether you are making light of me."
"It is trust," Zheng Chong said.
That was no light sentence.
Cheng Dingshan looked at him for a long while before finally letting out a slow breath.
"If it is your matter, I will take it. But Tongshun Escort Agency is no grand establishment, and I do not dare put on a grand front. I can only move them as a small merchant caravan. No formal escort, no banners, nothing that shows what it truly is."
"That suits me exactly," Zheng Chong said.
Cheng Dingshan nodded, but did not continue at once. Instead he first set down his teacup and began asking in meticulous detail:
"Do they go all the way to Mount Hua, or will someone take them over along the road?"
"If they are to go all the way to Mount Hua, who receives them at the mountain?"
"If they are to be handed over midway, who takes charge? At what stretch of road? And by what token do I know I am handing them to the right man?"
Each question landed exactly where it mattered most.
Zheng Chong felt more at ease with every one of them.
This was the Cheng Dingshan he remembered—not a man who flaunted himself, but a man who, once he had truly taken on a job, asked every question where a life might hinge.
Zheng Chong drew a sealed letter and a small wooden tally from his sleeve and set them on the table.
"They do not go all the way to Mount Hua," he said.
"At Wuxi Ferry, on the north road outside Guangde Prefecture, someone will take them over.
"The man is Fang Zhongyi, chief instructor of Fang Stronghold. He has come south on Madam Fang's orders and is already waiting somewhere around Guangde Prefecture for word. This letter is for him. This half of the wooden tally is my token. When the time comes, he must show not only a Fang family token, but also the matching half of this wooden tally. If the two halves do not fit, you do not hand them over."
Cheng Dingshan received both items in both hands, examined them carefully, and then asked, "Do I rely only on Fang Stronghold's token?"
Zheng Chong shook his head. "That is not enough. Along with the Fang token, the tally must match, and his answers must be right. When you meet him, do not rush to hand them over. Ask everything that ought to be asked. Will the transfer happen roadside, or are they being taken directly onto the cart? Does he come with men, or alone? What weapon does he use? Does he carry any old scars or identifying marks? Look one layer deeper than seems necessary."
Cheng Dingshan raised his eyes. "You fear someone may come in another man's name?"
Zheng Chong was silent a moment before saying only, "It never hurts to be careful."
Cheng Dingshan heard the weight inside the words and nodded gravely.
"I will remember."
Zheng Chong added, "Instructor Fang has a birthmark on the left side of his brow. He habitually uses a saber, and his foundation lies in Fang family saber arts. He can also use Dragoncloud Palm. If a man's words and tokens are all correct, yet his martial road carries not the slightest trace of the Fang family, then you do not hand them over."
Cheng Dingshan memorized that as well before saying, "Good."
"I will lead the convoy myself," he continued, "and choose five more men. We cannot go with too many. That would draw attention. But we cannot go with too few either. Too few would not hold the road down if anything went wrong."
As he spoke, he began naming the men one by one.
"Han Boyan—old escort master, the most experienced of the lot. Iron ruler in hand, and sharp eyes besides."
"Shi Aliu—quick on his feet, quick at reading the road. Best at spotting hoofprints and split tracks."
"Sun Mao—good with carts and animals, and can use a simple saber."
"Luo Xiaobiao—young, in his twenties, quick with his hands and full of energy."
"Wu Laoshun—usually only drives carts and boils water, looks the least remarkable of all, but is the best at seeming like an ordinary man."
"With me, that makes six."
Zheng Chong nodded as he committed them to memory. "Excellent."
Cheng Dingshan added, "Old Escort Master Han Boyan once saw Great Hero Fang in person from afar. He never met Instructor Fang himself, but he will still know a few traces of Fang family martial methods when he sees them."
That eased Zheng Chong's mind further. This truly was a road prepared by someone who understood how people stayed alive.
Cheng Dingshan went on, "We move under the cover of a small merchant run carrying northern medicines and miscellaneous goods. Two light carts. One holds the passengers. The other is loaded with old wooden crates, medicine bundles, and odds and ends. To outside eyes it will look like nothing more than an old escort house guarding a familiar merchant's small caravan for one stretch of road. No one will think 'important passengers' at a glance."
The arrangement pleased Zheng Chong greatly.
Its strength lay precisely in how little it announced itself. In dangerous times, the worst thing was to look too much like one had something to hide. A half-worn merchant caravan like this was the sort most likely to pass before men's eyes without catching them.
After thinking a moment, Zheng Chong added, "I will send separate word to Instructor Fang."
Cheng Dingshan visibly let out half a breath. "That is best. What I fear most is a handover on the road when the two sides are not working from the same message."
"That is exactly why I dared not delay," Zheng Chong said.
Cheng Dingshan considered again and asked, "When do we leave?"
"As soon as possible," Zheng Chong replied, "but not so fast that it shows. The birthday feast has only just broken up. Too many eyes are still on Juyi Isle. If they move at once, that itself will stand out. Best to leave Changmen in the late afternoon, and clear the city by the first dark of evening. The two children will come down from Juyi Isle separately after midday and board your carts only outside the city. To anyone watching, it will look like nothing more than late guests leaving after the feast and scattering along their own roads."
Cheng Dingshan calculated the timing briefly, then nodded. "Good. Then we set it for late afternoon."
After saying so, he rose and saluted with both fists. "Daoist Zheng, I will take this escort. But there is one unpleasant thing I must say first."
Zheng Chong raised his eyes. "Say it."
Cheng Dingshan answered in a low, steady voice:
"I do not fear open steel, and I do not necessarily fear a quiet lift either. But if someone has already thoroughly learned the roads, the post stations, the boats, and the handover point, then Cheng Dingshan does not dare speak too confidently. If anything truly goes wrong, Tongshun Escort Agency will still risk our lives to pursue it—but I cannot promise I will bring them back exactly as they were taken."
The words were blunt.
Not pretty.
But they were the kind only a real escort man would say.
And hearing them, Zheng Chong trusted him more, not less. He returned the salute.
"The fact that Escort Chief Cheng puts those words on the table first only makes me easier in my heart."
Cheng Dingshan gave a crooked smile. "Men who live by the road would rather say the ugly thing first than wait until disaster comes and then patch it over with pretty words."
Zheng Chong nodded.
He understood it too. Cheng Dingshan, Fang Zhongyi, all of them could only do their utmost to steady this one stretch of road. None of them could beat his chest and swear perfect certainty.
Because what was truly hard to guard against was never the blade that came out openly.
It was the hand still hidden in the dark, the one they still could not fully see.
The two men then went over the departure time, the method of matching the tallies, the handover route, and the details of the road one point at a time. Only when every joint of the matter had been fixed did Zheng Chong rise to leave.
As he reached the door, Cheng Dingshan followed him out two steps and spoke again in a low voice.
"Daoist Zheng."
Zheng Chong turned back.
Cheng Dingshan asked, "Those two juniors… are they truly that important?"
Zheng Chong was silent for a moment before answering slowly, "One is the daughter of Mount Hua's Sect Leader.
"The other is the son of the Dragoncloud Divine Hand."
A visible change came into Cheng Dingshan's eyes at once.
He had run escorts for many years. He knew the weight of both lines. Especially the latter.
There were not necessarily many in the martial world who spoke Fang Tieshan's epithet every day. But among men who had run the old roads long enough, very few had forgotten it.
After a long silence, Cheng Dingshan nodded heavily.
"I understand."
Zheng Chong said nothing more. He only saluted once and left Tongshun Escort Agency.
By now the streets outside Suzhou had fully awakened.
Breakfast steam rose everywhere. Riverside hawkers had raised their voices. Men carrying loads, driving carts, buying vegetables, and delivering goods crossed and recrossed beneath the morning light. Last night's lanterns, birthday boats, banners, and martial heroes all seemed to have withdrawn behind the day, leaving only the living city of Suzhou spread beneath his feet.
Yet Zheng Chong did not return to Juyi Isle at once. Instead he walked a little farther along the river street, found a quiet travelers' lodging, borrowed brush and ink, and wrote a very short letter.
It said only this:
Tongshun Escort Agency will depart in the late afternoon today, escorting the two northward. If the road runs clear, they should reach Wuxi Ferry on the north road outside Guangde Prefecture by around midday the day after tomorrow. You must arrive first, but not approach too soon. Let the escort chief examine you first. Only when the wooden tally matches may you take them over.
When it was done, Zheng Chong rolled the paper tight, sealed it in a little bamboo tube, and went out into the lodging's rear yard.
This inn was an old place Mount Hua had used on earlier southern journeys to rest and pass messages. In the back they still kept pigeon lofts for several great sects. Zheng Chong knew the place well. He took down the fastest gray messenger bird himself, tied the bamboo tube to its leg, and then held it for a brief instant upon his palm.
The gray wings beat once, and the pigeon slanted out through the morning mist toward the west-southwest.
Zheng Chong watched it vanish into the sky, yet not one part of his heart felt lighter.
The escort had been found.
Fang Zhongyi had been informed.
The visible road had been laid as steadily as possible.
And yet, for some reason, the unease inside him had not eased. If anything, it had grown clearer in the morning wind.
Because he understood:
What was hardest to guard against was not that they did not know how to walk the road.
It was that they might take every correct step and still, at the very moment that should have been safest, be nudged half an inch off course by a hand out of sight.
In the martial world, what makes the difference is often precisely that half inch.
Back to Juyi Isle
By the time Zheng Chong returned to Juyi Isle, the afternoon was already advancing.
The lake mist had long since burned away, and the sunlight on the water had become a field of broken white brightness. Small boats, freight craft, and fast patrol launches still crossed before and behind the landing without pause. The birthday revelry had passed its hottest point, yet the isle was far from quiet. For precisely that reason, Zheng Chong dared not show the least urgency upon his face. He came ashore from the lesser eastern landing and made his way back to the guest courtyard at a measured, ordinary pace.
Only once the courtyard gate had closed behind him did the calm on his face finally deepen into something heavier.
Xuanyuan Xi had already been waiting beneath the corridor. The moment he saw Zheng Chong enter, he knew matters had been arranged.
"Have you found them?" he asked in a low voice.
"I have." Zheng Chong nodded. "Tongshun Escort Agency. Cheng Dingshan will lead the escort himself, with five more men. They will move as a small merchant caravan carrying northern medicines, with no escort banner and no open signs. They leave Changmen in the late afternoon and clear the city by early evening. The visible route goes north toward Guangde Prefecture. The handover point is Wuxi Ferry."
Xuanyuan Xi was silent for a moment. "Are the men reliable?"
"Cheng Dingshan is reliable," Zheng Chong said. "The road may not be clean."
Xuanyuan Xi nodded and asked no further questions.
At this point, more detail would only add weight to the mind. What mattered more now were the two younger ones inside.
Zheng Chong glanced toward the inner room and lowered his voice. "Last night we said nothing because it would only have thrown them into disorder. Now that the time is fixed, we cannot continue withholding it."
Xuanyuan Xi said, "Shall I tell them?"
Zheng Chong considered a moment, then nodded. "They will listen to you more readily."
With that, he lifted the curtain and entered.
The inner window was half open. The afternoon breeze brought in a faint trace of the lake. On the table, a book lay beneath a paperweight, though the pages had still lifted slightly in the wind. Xi Qian was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring off into nothing. Fang Yingjie sat beneath the window, holding a date-paste pastry long since gone cold. He had apparently been nibbling it for some time, yet only one corner had been eaten away.
The moment they saw Zheng Chong and Xuanyuan Xi enter, they both stood.
The room went still for an instant.
Zheng Chong wasted no words.
"You are leaving for Mount Hua tonight."
Fang Yingjie stared, then blurted out at once, "I am not going back."
Xi Qian, too, stepped forward half a pace on instinct. She said nothing at first, but her eyes had already made her meaning plain.
Zheng Chong's brows sank. "This is not a discussion. It has already been decided."
"Why?" Fang Yingjie's face flared red at once, whether from anger or desperation even he might not have known. "I have already followed all the way here! If this truly has anything to do with my father, then I have even less reason to leave!"
"Precisely because it has to do with your father," Xuanyuan Xi answered evenly, "you are the one who most needs to leave."
Fang Yingjie stopped short.
Xuanyuan Xi looked at him and spoke in the same calm tone. "If you remain here, you are not helping. You are only making yourself the first thing others see. At the banquet those people were not looking at you. They were looking at 'Fang Tieshan's son.' The moment you are present, other men's eyes will always fall on you first. You think you are following the line of your father's case. Others are already following your line back in turn."
The words were not heavy, and yet they landed like fine nails driven one by one into the rush of stubborn force Fang Yingjie had been holding upright inside himself.
His lips moved. After a long moment he said in a low voice, "But I… I cannot do nothing."
Hearing that, Zheng Chong's heart softened by half a measure first, though his face remained stern.
"If you truly want to do something, then first learn not to stand in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Right now, going back to the mountain is what spares our hands. If you insist on staying and someone truly lifts you away, then forget searching for Martial Uncle Fang. We will first have to lose several more lines just trying to pull you back."
Only then did Xi Qian finally speak, her voice much quieter than usual.
"And me? Must I go too?"
"You too," Zheng Chong said, looking at her. "If you stay here, your father is the first one who must lose his peace of mind. Besides, if you go with Yingjie, you can still look after one another on the road."
Xi Qian bit her lip. She seemed about to say something more, but in the end did not.
She understood very well. If she insisted on staying, Zheng Chong and Xuanyuan Xi would both have to divide their minds yet again to watch over them. It was only that they had come this far by great effort, had seen so many people and so many things, and yesterday's contest by the waterside pavilion still burned hot in her heart. Now that she was suddenly being sent away, all that unwillingness surged back up at once.
"When do we leave?" she asked in a low voice.
"In the late afternoon," Zheng Chong said. "You go down from the isle then, and you are clear of the city by early evening. On the surface you leave with a small merchant caravan, and you do not show yourselves as Mount Hua people."
Fang Yingjie lifted his head sharply. "Today?"
Zheng Chong nodded. "Today."
For a moment Fang Yingjie made no sound at all.
He had still imagined that even if they were sent away, surely it would not be for another day or two. He had never expected it to come so fast—so fast that it seemed the glances from yesterday's feast had barely settled on him before they were already pushing him away from Taihu.
The breeze at the window carried a warmth from the sun over the lake. Yet he felt cold all the same.
Just then a soft laugh came from outside the window.
"You people of Mount Hua really are something," said a voice. "When you scold people, you do it in layers. But when it comes time to soothe them, not one of you can speak properly."
The curtain stirred, and Feng Feiyun appeared crouched somehow on the windowsill, a string of candied green plums dangling from one hand as though he had picked them up by chance from somewhere along the way.
Zheng Chong's brows drew together at once. "You are climbing in through windows again."
"The door is too proper," Feng Feiyun said with a grin. "I do not care for proper doors."
Then he flipped the string of plums lightly toward Fang Yingjie.
"Sickly one, stop looking as if you are being marched off to execution. They are sending you back to Mount Hua, not to your next life."
Fang Yingjie caught the plums, but his thoughts were too tangled for him to answer.
Feng Feiyun behaved as though he noticed nothing at all. He only went on smiling.
"And besides, what would you stay here to do? Do you really think you can discover anything in your current state? With the little ability you have right now, staying at Taihu would only make you one more pair of eyes for others to recognize and remember. Go back to Mount Hua. Get stronger. Get steadier. When the day comes that you come down the mountain again, then this trip will not have been wasted."
The words were blunter than Zheng Chong's, and they bit harder.
Yet somehow they sounded more like Feng Feiyun than anything else possibly could.
Fang Yingjie gripped the string of plums and stood there for a long while before finally asking in a low voice, "What about all of you?"
Feng Feiyun rested both hands behind his head. "We naturally stay here and keep starving, being scolded, investigating old cases, and watching to see who is pretending to be ghosts in the dark."
Then he turned his head and looked at Xi Qian with a grin. "And you, little Daoist girl, do not make that face either. If you really cannot bear to leave—"
He had not even finished before Xi Qian's face had already gone half red and she raised her hand to hit him.
Feng Feiyun laughed aloud and had already slipped back toward the window, finishing the sentence only after he had safely moved out of reach:
"—if you really cannot bear to leave the pastries on this lake, I will gladly eat two extra plates for you."
Zheng Chong could only shake his head in exasperation. Yet the heavy air in the room had undeniably loosened a little under Feng Feiyun's nonsense.
Only then did Xuanyuan Xi speak again.
"Begin packing.
"Do not take much. Change into older clothes. Once you are off the isle, do not let anyone see at a glance that you come from Mount Hua. Once you are on the cart, you listen to Escort Chief Cheng. You do not get down without permission, do not alter the route on a whim, and do not trust any messages others bring you along the road. When you reach Wuxi Ferry, someone will be there to receive you."
Xi Qian gave a small start. "Who will receive us?"
"Fang Zhongyi," Zheng Chong said. "Chief instructor of Fang Stronghold."
The name caught Fang Yingjie in mid-thought. His brow drew faintly together, as though he were trying to dig something up from a very old and very distant memory. But in the end, only a vague shadow rose.
"I… do not really remember him," he said softly.
"That does not matter," Zheng Chong replied. "Escort Chief Cheng will verify him. You simply follow the escort's arrangements. Do not make your own decisions."
Feng Feiyun, standing by the window, listened to this. And just for the briefest instant, the smile in his eyes dimmed by half a line.
He knew very well that arrangements were arrangements, and verification was verification. But on the road, what one feared most was often precisely the man who looked right in every visible way.
Yet he said none of that aloud.
There are some forms of unease that, once spoken, only add one more burden to the hearts of the young.
Tongshun Comes for Them
By the time the late afternoon approached, the bustle at the eastern and western landings of Juyi Isle had at last begun to thin.
The most important birthday guests had largely chosen to remain on the isle overnight. Those of lesser rank were leaving in scattered routes by dusk. That made late afternoon the ideal time to send someone quietly away—not too early, not too late; not so fast that it looked rushed, and not so slow that it looked delayed.
Mount Hua did not move as one group.
Zheng Chong first went ahead to pay a few final respects in the front halls, while Xuanyuan Xi, under the pretext of going to look at the lantern boats by the small eastern landing, led Xi Qian and Fang Yingjie out of the guest courtyard separately. Feng Feiyun, as usual, refused to take the proper road at all. He had slipped away even earlier, skimming out over the back eaves and reaching the ordinary ferry boats before anyone else.
The wind over Taihu carried the last gold-red light of the lowering sun.
The first person to arrive from Tongshun was not Cheng Dingshan himself.
It was Wu Laoshun instead.
He wore the most unremarkable old short jacket imaginable, with the coarse hemp cloth common to cart drivers thrown over one shoulder. He led two plain green mules, and behind him came a light cart that looked half-worn and wholly unremarkable, stacked with old wooden crates, medicine bundles, and a rolled straw mat. He looked every inch an aging carter leading some small familiar merchant run.
When he reached the landing, he did not even raise his eyes. He only checked the mule reins and gave a low cough.
A moment later, a small ferry boat came slowly in to the far side of the eastern landing. When the awning was lifted, the first man down was Cheng Dingshan.
Today he had changed as well: old blue robe, gray waistcoat, shabby felt hat. If one did not know him already, one would never have guessed he was an escort chief. Behind him came Han Boyan, Shi Aliu, Sun Mao, and Luo Xiaobiao, each dressed like some ordinary road merchant's men. One carried old crates. One carried medicine bundles. One led the second light cart. In this way, the whole escort party had disguised itself so thoroughly that it truly looked like nothing more than an old familiar merchant caravan running its usual route.
At the sight of them, Zheng Chong's heart eased by two parts.
Cheng Dingshan stepped forward and saluted very lightly. "Daoist Zheng."
Zheng Chong returned the gesture in the same low manner. "You have my thanks."
Neither side said much aloud. They used the loading and shifting of crates as cover and quietly worked Xi Qian and Fang Yingjie into the party.
Xi Qian had changed into an old blue cloth robe, making her look like a merchant's younger female relative. Fang Yingjie wore plain short brown clothes and even had a little bundle slung over one shoulder. At a glance, he now looked exactly like a half-grown boy following elders out on business.
Han Boyan stood not far off and let his old eyes settle on Xi Qian's face first, then on Fang Yingjie's.
After only that one look, his expression tightened slightly.
"Very like," he said under his breath.
Cheng Dingshan did not reply. He only swept his eyes around once, and seeing no one at the landing specifically watching them, he finally lowered his voice and spoke.
"We go as agreed. Two light carts, one before the other. The front cart carries the passengers. The rear cart carries the crates. Once we are clear of Changmen, we move as a small northern medicinal caravan. No escort banner. No shouted road cry. No large inns."
Zheng Chong nodded. "At Wuxi Ferry, you verify the tally first, then the tokens, then the man's answers."
"I remember," Cheng Dingshan said.
Zheng Chong paused, then added, "Instructor Fang has a birthmark on the left side of his brow. He habitually uses a saber. Fang family saber arts are his foundation. Dragoncloud Palm he will not show lightly except in true necessity. If a man's words and tokens are all correct, yet his martial road bears no trace of the Fang family, then you do not hand them over."
Before Cheng Dingshan could answer, Han Boyan had already spoken in a deep voice.
"This old escort once saw Great Hero Fang display his skill from afar. I never met the instructor himself, but I still know enough of the Fang family's road to look one layer deeper when the time comes."
That moved Zheng Chong.
"Then I leave it in your hands, Old Escort Master Han."
Han Boyan waved a hand. His face showed no pleasure at all. "What is being escorted are human lives, not goods. Better to look one time too many than one time too few."
It was a hard, practical line. And hearing it, Zheng Chong felt easier again.
Luo Xiaobiao, the youngest of the escort men, had said nothing until now. He looked at Fang Yingjie, then at Xi Qian, as though wanting to say something reassuring, but seeing the grave expressions of all the older men, he did not dare open his mouth lightly.
Only Wu Laoshun continued looking exactly like a common old carter, scratching behind the mules' ears and muttering to himself, "Light's still good. Best leave while there's day enough and put another stretch behind us before we rest."
To anyone overhearing, it would have sounded no different from the ordinary muttering of an experienced driver.
And that was precisely why it sounded right.
An Unseen Escort for the First Stretch
By the time the caravan left the landing, the day was beginning to slope toward evening.
The two light carts moved out from the western landing at an unhurried pace. They followed the small road by the lake first, then joined the more familiar route leading toward the city. Before and behind them moved other late guests, small traders, and travelers returning home. No one would have spared a second glance to such a worn, unremarkable merchant line.
Zheng Chong did not personally escort them beyond Taihu.
He stood only at the landing and watched the two carts merge into the dusk and road-noise until he could no longer see them. Only then did he slowly lower his gaze.
But he knew very well that he was not the only one seeing them off through the first stage of the road.
Behind a patch of reeds on a rise to the west, Xuanyuan Xi had already gone ahead without a sound.
He no longer wore blue. Instead, he had changed into the plainest gray short jacket, and even the Heaven-Radiance Sword had been wrapped in old cloth and slung tightly across his back. Seen from a distance, he was no more than some ordinary traveler with a steadier step than most. Yet if one looked closely, the step was anything but ordinary. Every footfall fell exactly where it should, unhurried and unforced, yet always keeping the perfect distance from the caravan ahead.
And farther off still, in the shadows of the trees, another blue figure had gone ahead even earlier.
Feng Feiyun crouched on the branch of an old willow extending over the road. His long hair hung half loose. One hand idly spun a blade of grass. The moment he spotted that figure below the reeds, he paused, then the corner of his mouth lifted and he laughed softly under his breath.
"I knew it."
The man below seemed to sense him too. Xuanyuan Xi lifted his eyes and glanced once toward the willow's upper branch.
Feng Feiyun grinned back and pointed ahead toward the carts.
The meaning was plain enough:
You send them for the first stretch. So do I.
Xuanyuan Xi looked at him once and said nothing. He only turned his gaze back to the carts.
And so the two of them said not a word to each other, and yet each knew perfectly well the other was there.
The evening wind came in off Taihu, pressing the grasses low along the roadside. The cart wheels rolled through the damp earth with a deep, steady rumble. The mules moved at an even pace. Wu Laoshun flicked the whip from time to time, yet never struck the animals, only snapped the lash in the air to keep the rhythm of the road. Shi Aliu walked slightly ahead, the very picture of a caravan hand who knew his turns and crossroads. Han Boyan sat by the second cart with his eyes half-closed, seeming to doze—though not a single movement in the grass by the roadside escaped him.
Cheng Dingshan personally drove the front cart.
The curtain remained down. Inside, there was great stillness.
Xi Qian and Fang Yingjie sat side by side in silence, neither speaking first. The cart held the smell of medicines, straw matting, and old wooden crates. Outside, the light deepened little by little, and even the sound of the wheels seemed to grow heavier.
Only after a long while did Fang Yingjie finally say in a low voice, "Senior Sister Xi."
"Yes?"
"If I go back now… does that mean I once again know nothing?"
Xi Qian's fingers tightened slightly. After thinking a moment, she answered quietly, "Knowing nothing is still better than causing trouble."
The moment the words left her mouth, she herself paused.
Because they were not her words at all. They were Zheng Chong's and Xuanyuan Xi's reasoning, now come out of her own mouth.
Fang Yingjie fell silent.
He understood it, in truth. Yet the hollow, empty feeling inside him still refused to go down.
Outside, the dusk deepened as the caravan kept steadily on.
And farther off, along another road entirely, an even less conspicuous shadow had already begun following as well.
Message at the End of the Alley
Outside Suzhou, dusk fell quickly.
By the time Tongshun Escort Agency's little merchant caravan had truly cleared Changmen and turned onto the northern road, the bustle outside the gate had already changed into the disorder of evening trade folding itself away. The flatbread fires had burned low. Hawkers by the river were gathering up their goods. Some boats still lingered by the landing, but nothing drew the eye the way it had by day.
Near one of the narrow alley mouths not far from Tongshun Escort Agency, the old man selling pear soup was closing his stall too.
He turned the last coarse clay bowl upside down into his bamboo basket and lifted a hand to rub at his lower back as though weary from a day's labor. Once the alley had thinned of passersby, he slowly picked up the shoulder pole, turned out of the lane, wound past a stretch of gray wall, and headed toward a still quieter quarter behind it.
His pace there was far quicker than it had been while selling pear soup.
He crossed two empty alleys. Ahead stood a half-worn wooden door left slightly ajar. The old man set his carrying pole by the wall and, without knocking, tapped the frame twice with the pole itself.
A low voice came from within. "Enter."
The old man pushed the door open and went inside.
No great lamp was lit there. Only a bean-sized flame burned at the edge of the table. In that thin light sat a man, long and spare of build, his features hidden half in darkness. Only one hand showed clearly, and between two fingers he was slowly turning an old copper button.
The moment the pear-soup seller stepped in, his shoulders seemed to sink, and with them his entire bearing changed. Not a trace remained of the slow-moving old hawker.
"I saw clearly," he said in a low voice. "Mount Hua's two young ones left the isle in the late afternoon and cleared the city by early evening. They are taking Tongshun Escort Agency's hidden road—no banner, no formal escort."
The man beneath the lamp stilled his fingers by the slightest degree.
"Tongshun?" he asked.
"Yes," said the other. "Cheng Dingshan is leading it himself, with five more. They are disguised as a merchant caravan carrying medicines and miscellaneous goods. Front cart for passengers, rear cart for cargo. The route looks north, toward the Guangde line."
The room fell quiet for a moment.
Then the seated man slowly set the copper button back down on the table and said in an even voice, "Mount Hua is not as foolish as it might have been."
The old man stood silent.
The seated man asked, "Were there hidden escorts behind them?"
"Yes. Two shadows. One with a very steady step. One with a lively movement style. Neither stayed too close. They look to be seeing them off only for the first stretch. They will not accompany the caravan all the way."
For the first time, something like the faintest smile passed over the seated man's face.
"Good," he said.
And somehow those three quiet syllables chilled the skin more than if he had spoken without smiling at all.
Outside, the daylight had nearly died. The wind from the alley stirred the little bean-flame so that it swayed once. On the wall, two shadows lay long and thin, like snakes not yet fully emerged, but already beginning to change their road.
Over at Taihu, the warmth of the birthday wine had not yet faded.
But here, the true hand had already reached quietly onto the road.
Poetic Coda
No escort banners flew.
The hidden convoy passed half as trade, half as dust.
Mount Hua sought to hide two younger shadows away.
Yet Taihu had already stirred a hundred watching eyes.
The carts rolled steadily into the dusk.
Unseen hands had already begun to shift upon the road.
Most perilous of all was the stretch beyond the city gates,
where no moon shone ahead and danger followed close behind.
(End of Chapter Twelve)