Silent Practice by Night
At the deepest hour of night, the red lanterns of Baoque Tower had not yet all gone out.
Most of the late feast in the front hall had already broken up, yet a few tables of guests still refused to call it a night, drinking with low laughter as they kept Qiutang, Yuniang, and the others beside them. The reek of wine had gone cool, the perfume had thinned, and the exhaustion the house never showed by day was beginning, little by little, to emerge from behind the lantern glow. The courtesans still wore their smiles. The male attendants still bent their backs to usher guests in and out. Only the outer-yard servants had already begun clearing away the wreckage left across the floor.
Fang Yingjie crossed behind the main hall with a stack of empty plates in his arms.
Wine stains still clung to them, along with fish bones and half a piece of cold pastry skin, greasy against his fingers. Each time the rim of a plate brushed the raw place on his palm—the patch the hemp rope and coffin wood had rubbed open that day—the pain throbbed anew. He did not stop. He kept his eyes lowered and followed A-Dong to the wooden basins in the rear courtyard.
A-Dong was not very old, but he knew the work better than Fang Yingjie. After setting down his own load, he squatted by the basin, wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve, and muttered under his breath, "These lords pour wine like water and eat like they're storming a battlefield. All elegance in front, and nothing but a mess behind."
An older servant beside him laughed. "If elegance could clean up after itself, what would they need us for?"
A-Dong laughed too. Then he glanced at Fang Yingjie.
"Mu Qi. Tired?"
Fang Yingjie placed the last plate into the basin.
"No."
A-Dong clicked his tongue. "You don't say much, do you? First day in the tower, worked the whole night through, and you still say you're not tired?"
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes to his hands.
A scrap of dying lamplight trembled in the basin's cold water, broken apart in the dirty surface until its original color could no longer be seen.
"I'm still holding up," he said.
A-Dong had been about to tease him again when Old Zhao's voice came pressing in from outside.
"You done talking? If you are, roll up the carpets in the front hall. If the place isn't cleared before dawn, none of you are resting tomorrow."
Everyone got to their feet at once.
Fang Yingjie rose with them.
That night, Baoque Tower never truly fell silent.
After the last drinking party in the front hall broke up, there were cups to gather, plates to stack, tables to wipe, carpets to clean. The gift registry still had presents to seal away and name cards to check against them. In the kitchen, the fires were stoked again so that hot food could be made for the women and servants left behind after the guests were gone. One man yawned while carrying in fresh wine jars. Another crouched by the well, scrubbing cups. Someone else dragged a wet carpet through the side corridor toward the rear courtyard, dark watermarks on the cloth made murkier still beneath the red lantern light.
Fang Yingjie did everything steadily.
If they told him to carry, he carried.
If they told him to wipe, he wiped.
If they told him to slip the guest name slips back beneath the gift boxes, he merely answered softly, "Yes," without looking too closely and without asking a single question.
Old Zhao watched him several times from the side.
The new boy was too quiet.
Most people who entered Baoque Tower for the first time fell into one of two kinds. One kind was frightened—afraid of taking the wrong turn, afraid of breaking something, afraid of being cursed out by the guests, and even more afraid of being cursed out by Old Zhao. The other kind was sly. Their eyes never stayed still. Let them spot a box of pearls or a case of aloeswood, and their gaze would linger half an inch too long.
Mu Qi was neither.
His brows stayed lowered, his hands were steady, and he spoke little. When guests scolded him, he did not answer back. When the stewards ordered him around, he did not complain. He saw a hall full of jewels and fine things, yet no greed showed on his face.
If one said he looked like a boy without a past, he still did not resemble the usual beggar dragged in off the street.
If one said he did have a past, then he had still come here with one tael of silver as security and pawned himself into this house of red lanterns as an outer-yard servant.
Old Zhao did not ask.
Anyone who had spent long enough at Baoque Tower knew that the most important skill was not learning how to ask until things were clear. It was learning what never needed to be asked at all.
Only when dawn was close did the tower finally begin to sink into quiet.
The last guest lantern in the front hall went dark. The green stone steps outside the main entrance were still wet. The wooden basins in the rear courtyard were piled high with washed cups and bowls. The courtesans went back to their rooms. The male attendants curled up in the gatehouse for a nap. Even the outer-yard servants were finally allowed a little sleep on the communal platform.
Fang Yingjie followed A-Dong into the outer yard.
The sleeping room was set close against the back wall, with a low ceiling and narrow windows. Seven or eight men were already sprawled inside. Sweat, wine, wet shoes, and the mold of old bedding had all mixed together, and the moment he stepped through the door it hit him like a layer of stale, muddy air.
A-Dong threw himself onto his place and was almost instantly asleep.
Someone nearby turned over and cursed in his dreams, then fell quiet again.
Fang Yingjie sat down on the narrow space at the far edge.
There was only a thin old quilt there and a hard pillow gone black with age. Compared with the straw mat in the dungeon of the Crimson Flame Palace, this was naturally a place fit for sleep. And yet, for some reason, when he sat down, he felt emptier instead.
There had been no red lanterns in the dungeon.
No music.
No hall glittering with pearls and jade, no patrons vying through the night for the favor of Yan Pavilion.
But his father had been there.
Now his father lay beneath the wasteland outside town.
And he himself sat on the communal sleeping platform in the outer yard of Baoque Tower.
Between them stretched only one town street, one reach of night wind, and one new grave no one knew by name.
Fang Yingjie lay down slowly.
Around him, the snores began to rise one after another.
He closed his eyes, but sleep did not come at once.
What surfaced before him first was the damp earth behind the ruined Water God temple. The soil was still fresh. If the wind had blown hard last night, perhaps it had already disturbed the grass at the grave's edge. If the dew had fallen heavily, a cold wet film should already have gathered over the uninscribed stone.
Then came Fang Tieshan's voice.
"Thirty days."
"I will pass Dragoncloud Palm on to you."
"The Fang family fist. The Fang family saber art. Those too."
"But the fist and the saber—you can only memorize them for now."
When those words had fallen in the dungeon, they had done so amid damp stone walls, a dying lamp, iron chains, and his father's breathing—so faint it had almost seemed ready to break. Now the same words fell over the communal sleeping room at Baoque Tower, while outside there still lingered the faint sounds of basins being washed, water thrown out, doors being shut.
The two places were so far apart, yet both seemed pressed against the same chest.
Fang Yingjie opened his eyes and stared up at the rafters in the dark.
He knew he could not remain here long.
Baoque Tower was not where he belonged.
Mu Qi was not his name.
The one tael of silver he had put down as security only held his feet here for the moment. It could not hold down his life.
Once the debt was repaid, he would leave.
First, he would return to Shandong.
His mother was dead. Of that there was no longer any doubt. He had seen enough in the dungeon with his own eyes. That hairpin. That half-bloodied face. That cry of "Mother!" torn from his own throat had already severed the last thread of hope.
But knowing was one thing. Going back was another.
Fang Stronghold was his father's root, and it was the place his mother had once guarded too. He had to go back and see it once. He had to see whether the gatehouse still stood, how many of the old people within the stronghold remained, whether his mother had left behind even the faintest trace. And one day, when he had finally learned to stand firm, he would bring his father home from that unmarked grave outside Lujin Town and return him to Shandong.
After that, he would go to Mount Hua.
It was not only the mountain seat his father had once led. For Fang Yingjie himself, Mount Hua was also the place where he had grown up.
He had been frail since childhood, and in his later boyhood he had been sent up Mount Hua to recover his health and begin his learning. He had stayed there for years. He remembered the scent of medicine on the mountain, the wind through the pines, the stone steps, the morning bell, the sandalwood in Supreme Clarity Palace, the spring breeze beyond the Chess Pavilion. He remembered Senior Martial Brother Zheng Chong's steady kindness, Senior Martial Brother Ji Sheng's open-hearted cheer, Brother Xi's calm ease whenever he set a stone upon the board, and the way Senior Martial Sister Xi Qian would never spare him with her tongue yet always seemed willing to take him along when she played.
Ten years had passed. Perhaps those people were still searching for him. Perhaps they had long since believed him dead.
Fang Stronghold was his root.
But Mount Hua was also the place where he had truly lived in his youth, fallen ill, laughed, and been missed by others.
He could not not return.
Only for now, he could not go back looking like Mu Qi.
He had to stay alive first. He had to repay the debt first. He had to leave his father in that nameless grave outside Lujin Town for the time being, and then, little by little, work into his own body everything his father had passed to him before death.
What his father had given him was not merely one or two martial arts.
The Fang family fist, the Fang family saber, Dragoncloud Palm, the family precepts, the footwork, the mnemonic verses, the secrets of issuing force, and that last sliver of bone and pride Fang Stronghold could not afford to lose—all of it had been pressed into his heart, sentence by sentence, over those thirty days.
Dragoncloud Palm had to be practiced.
The Fang family fist had to be practiced.
The Fang family saber had to be practiced too.
But his father had given him too much. In those thirty days, many of the verses, forms, stepping patterns, and subtleties of force were still things he could only go over again and again in memory, taking them apart and rebuilding them in his mind.
Dragoncloud Palm was about concealing momentum, supporting it, sinking it. Before the palm moved, the qi had to lie hidden inside the body first. Once the palm did move, it had to emerge like cloud seeping out from between stone clefts—not straining to go first, yet never allowed to break.
The Fang family fist was straighter, firmer, more grounded. The feet had to take root, the waist and back had to unite. It sought no flourish, only a centerline that did not break and short force that did not float—like a stone set deep in the earth before it crashed forward.
The Fang family saber was hardest of all. A palm could conceal momentum. A fist could establish the body. But a saber revealed a man's heart most plainly. His father had said that the Fang family saber did not prize speed, nor cleverness. It prized only steadiness. The back of the blade bore the weight of the force; the edge cut open the path. Before a strike, one first questioned one's own heart. Once the strike was out, there was no turning back. A saber could be slow, but it could not drift. Let the hand drift, and the saber would float. Let the heart drift, and the saber would go wild. The true difficulty of the Fang family saber was not how fiercely one could chop. It was knowing when the saber must not be drawn at all, and when, once drawn, it must not soften. It was never for show.
Fang Yingjie slowly closed his eyes.
He did not sleep for long.
Before full daylight had even come into the outer-yard sleeping room, he was awake again. Then the work of day began all over. As expected, Old Zhao did not move him to the kitchens, nor did he send him to the docks to haul heavy cargo. He kept Fang Yingjie on errands between the outer corridor of the front hall and the gift registry.
"If you know your letters, don't waste yourself carrying wine and nothing more."
That was all Old Zhao said.
Fang Yingjie did not ask why.
As usual, he only answered, "Yes."
The next few days passed much the same.
By day, he was Mu Qi.
Mu Qi kept his brows lowered as he served tea, carried wine, cleared away plates, delivered gift boxes from the registry into storage, and ran messages through the outer corridor of the front hall. Some guests disliked how new he was. Some of the women noticed that the injury to his hand had not fully healed and told him not to carry such heavy things. Now and then A-Dong would sneak him half a cold cake and laugh, saying, "Don't go dying out here in the outer yard. Bad luck." Old Zhao cursed at everyone, Fang Yingjie included, yet when assigning work he always seemed to place him where he could read the name slips but would not draw too much notice.
Fang Yingjie accepted all of it.
At night, once the snores in the communal room had settled layer upon layer into stillness, he would rise in secret.
The first time he went out, he waited a very long while.
He waited until A-Dong had turned over for the third time. Until the gatehouse attendants had let out a second full snore. Until the last stove lamp in the rear courtyard had been blown out by one of the old servant women. Only then did he sit up from the edge of the platform.
The bolt on the outer-yard door was not hard to lift.
The hard part was lifting it without a sound.
Ten years in the dungeon had taught him how to listen for footsteps. It had also taught him how to make none of his own. Later, when his father taught him palm arts, Fang Tieshan had cursed at him over and over—"Shoulders too high." "Your waist isn't joined." "Your feet are empty." Those same rebukes now turned out to be useful when climbing over walls and slipping out of courtyards.
He never used the main gate.
He always went over the back wall near the pile of firewood.
Beyond the wall lay a narrow alley with little traffic at night. At the alley's end he could turn out, circle past the back streets behind Baoque Tower, avoid the main road where the night watch usually passed, and leave town by the western path.
At night, Lujin Town had the sound of water.
By day, voices, wheels, boats, and the shouts from winehouses smothered it so thoroughly that it could hardly be heard. But deep into the night, when all those noises withdrew, one light slap of lake water against the shore sounded like a hand reaching out of the dark to touch the stones at the edge of town.
Fang Yingjie moved quickly along the path.
Quickly, but not hurriedly.
His right leg had long since healed and no longer slowed him. Yet after so many years of hiding every trace of movement, even in haste he moved by instinct without letting too many pebbles crack beneath his feet.
The ruined Water God temple stood outside town.
Behind it, the reeds whispered in waves beneath the night wind. His father's new grave lay beyond them, the soil still fresh, with a single uninscribed stone set before it. Fang Yingjie had carried the stone there himself and thrust it shallowly into the earth. It was not stable, and it was not dignified, but it was all he could do.
Each time he came this far, his steps slowed of their own accord.
On the first night, he stood a long while before the grave.
He said nothing.
Later, he knelt and kowtowed three times.
Only after that did he rise, step back several paces, and take his stance in the open ground before the mound.
There was not much space.
And he could not make too much noise.
So he began by regulating his breathing.
He sank his qi to the energy center.
The force settled within him, heavy and contained, like a coal beneath ash that had not fully gone out. It did not shine, but it could endure the night.
Then he practiced the palm.
Dragoncloud Palm could not be released in full. So within that narrow patch of ground, he practiced only concealing the force, sinking it, turning it. Before the palm emerged, the qi had to lie hidden first. Before the palm moved, the root beneath his feet had to be fixed. The night wind slipped through the reeds, but the shape of his palm did not drift with it. Instead it was like a cloud compressed in the crack of stone—slowly forming, slowly gathering, until the proper moment came and it supported itself forward by half an inch.
Then he practiced the fist.
The Fang family fist was straighter and more solid than Dragoncloud Palm. There was no flourish in it, no airy grace. Heel pressed into earth, waist and back joined, shoulders sunk, elbows dropped—each punch shot out a short distance from beneath the ribs and was drawn back at once. No blow sought reach. Each sought only that the centerline of the body remain intact and the force not float away. Seen in the night, it did not look like a youth practicing boxing. It looked more like a stone long battered by wind and rain, slowly driving its roots back into the earth.
Last of all, he practiced the saber.
From beside the grave, he broke off a length of branch. It was not long, and only just thick enough to sit properly in his hand. In his grip it felt almost weightless. Precisely because it was so light, it could not be allowed to drift. Fang Yingjie treated it as a saber, repeating the motions over and over—pressing down his shoulders, sinking his elbows, turning through the waist, drawing in the wrist. In the darkness, the branch-shadow cut across the air. There was no blade-light, no cold gleam, and yet there was still something in it—awkward perhaps, but solid and true. The Fang family saber prized neither speed nor ornament. It asked only that what should be cut not be cut wrongly, and what should be withdrawn not be withdrawn in disorder.
Sometimes the branch brushed the reeds around the grave, and a few blades of grass would bend, then spring upright at once.
Whenever that happened, Fang Yingjie stopped and settled his wrist again.
His father had said that a saber could be slow, but it could not drift.
The branch in his hand was not a saber, but his heart could not start drifting simply because there was no true blade there yet.
At times, by the end of practice, night dew had already soaked the cuffs of his sleeves. The new scar in his palm, still fresh from the hemp rope and coffin wood, would sting faintly when sweat ran into it. Even so, he did not stop. He only made the movements smaller and drew his breathing deeper inward.
He knew he was still far from enough.
He had only just found the threshold of Dragoncloud Palm.
The Fang family fist was still only beginning to take shape.
The Fang family saber was no more than the effort to force his father's three words—it must not drift—into his wrist and into his heart with nothing but a length of branch.
But far from enough or not, he still had to practice.
Because if he did not, then the last spark of the Fang family would truly go out in him.
He trained for two hours every night.
Some nights a little more. Some a little less.
When he finished, he would sit a while before the grave.
Wind passed through the reeds. Dew gathered on the uninscribed stone. He would lift a hand and wipe the moisture away.
"Father."
On some nights, that was the only word he spoke.
Everything else he swallowed back down.
It was not that he had nothing he wanted to say. It was that saying it aloud would do no good.
A blood feud would not lessen by even a fraction because he gave it words.
Fang Stronghold would not come an inch nearer because he spoke of it aloud.
Mount Hua would not learn he was still alive simply because he said so in the dark.
So he could only practice.
And after practicing, he returned to Baoque Tower.
When he went back, the sky was usually still black. In the communal room, everyone slept like the dead, and no one knew he had ever gone out. Sometimes A-Dong would turn over, crack his eyes open in a haze, see Fang Yingjie apparently still lying where he had been, and go back to sleep at once.
Fang Yingjie would shake the dew from his outer robe and lie down again.
At most he got another two hours of sleep. Some nights he got less than that before voices outside were already shouting people awake.
"Up! The water jars in the front yard are empty!"
"Mu Qi! Don't sleep yourself dead!"
And Fang Yingjie would rise.
He would splash his face with cold water, drink half a bowl of thin porridge, and go on being Mu Qi.
Once A-Dong noticed the faint shadows under his eyes and said in surprise, "You're not sleeping well at night?"
Fang Yingjie kept wiping down a wooden tray, head lowered.
"New bed."
A-Dong laughed. "Makes sense. First days in Baoque Tower, who sleeps soundly? Give it another two days and you'll see. You'll be so tired your head touches the pillow and not even ghosts dragging you away could wake you."
Fang Yingjie did not argue.
He only kept wiping the tray.
Two days passed. Then two more.
He still went out every night.
He still came back every night.
He still worked by day.
The look in Old Zhao's eyes deepened a little, yet he never asked.
Baoque Tower had many such people.
Some of the women cried at night and smiled as usual by day.
Some of the male attendants owed gambling debts, yet could still bow and greet guests with perfect courtesy.
Some of the patrons put on their elegant airs inside the tower one evening and were cornered by creditors in a back alley the next day.
Everyone had things they could not speak of.
That Mu Qi had such things too was hardly strange.
Only this night was not the same as the nights before.
Well past midnight, the snores in the communal room were once again settled and deep.
A-Dong lay sprawled in all directions, one foot nearly kicking the edge of Fang Yingjie's bedding. Outside, in the gatehouse, one of the attendants let out a long yawn and then fell quiet. In the rear courtyard, only one wind lamp remained. Its wick had been turned so low that the woodpile against the wall looked like a crouching black shadow.
Fang Yingjie sat up as usual.
He drew on his robe, tightened his belt, and gently pushed open the back window.
Just as he was about to slip out, he stopped.
From the far side of the rear courtyard came the faintest sound of a door hinge turning.
Not the wind.
Not the dragging, careless step of some outer-yard servant getting up in the night to piss.
It was a very soft sound—so soft that if Fang Yingjie had not spent ten years training ears that could hear the dark, he might never have noticed it at all.
He crouched by the window and held his breath.
A moment later, two figures emerged through the small side door at the back of Baoque Tower.
The one in front wore a dark cloak. Beneath it, a faint touch of red showed for an instant. The night wind stirred, and the red vanished again beneath shadow, like fire not yet extinguished under a bank of ash.
The figure behind moved more heavily.
There was no extra sound in his steps. He moved like a piece of old iron sliding through the dark.
Iron Mask.
Fang Yingjie's gaze sharpened.
The two figures did not head toward the waterside landing, nor did they circle toward the front entrance for the guests. Instead, they took the alley behind Baoque Tower and went toward the far side of town.
That direction was the opposite of the ruined Water God temple.
Fang Yingjie ought to have looked away.
Everyone in Baoque Tower had secrets.
Yan Ji had hers.
Iron Mask had his.
He, Mu Qi, had his as well.
And yet his hand remained pressed to the window frame, and he did not let go at once.
In the night, that faint red silhouette had already turned the corner of the alley.
Iron Mask followed half a step behind her.
Not too close. Not too far.
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes to his own palm. The wound the hemp rope and coffin wood had rubbed open had now closed into a thin new scar. Its color was still pale. Under his fingers, though, it had already begun to harden.
A moment later, he slipped soundlessly out through the back window and dropped into the shadow outside the wall.
He had meant only to go practice before his father's grave.
But tonight, the road beneath his feet had suddenly split and opened a second path.
Fang Yingjie stood still for the space of one breath.
Then he followed them from a distance.
The Red Shadow Leaves Town
Fang Yingjie kept well back.
So far back that all he could see ahead was that small stroke of red, dimmed beneath the weight of the night, and the silent black figure moving behind it.
Luzin Town was far colder at night than Baoque Tower.
Inside the tower there had still been dregs of wine, fading perfume, red lanterns, and the murmur of voices. But the moment one stepped out of the back alley, all that remained was the damp wind. The shops had long since closed. In front of a few snack stalls facing the street, bamboo stools still sat where they had not been fully cleared away, the ground beneath them stained dark by the water splashed there in daylight. Once in a while, a dog barked somewhere deep in the lanes, only for the sound to be smothered halfway through by the night.
Yan Ji was not walking quickly.
She wore a cloak, and her steps were steady. Beneath it, that trace of red appeared and vanished by turns. It was nothing like the dazzling splendor the lights of Baoque Tower had drawn from her on the high platform. Here, it was more like the last thread of a lampwick in the dark, trembling on the edge of going out.
Iron Mask followed half a step behind her.
Not too close. Not too far.
It was a strange distance.
If he was a guard, he was too silent. If he was a servant, there was not the slightest trace of deference in him. He did not look like a man following Yan Ji. He looked like a shadow fastened behind her—never walking ahead to clear her path, never urging her to turn back, only continuing forward so long as she remained in sight.
Fang Yingjie did not draw nearer.
He kept to the shadows of the alley walls, his footsteps feather-light.
Old Zhao's words flashed through his mind.
Keep your eyes lowered.
Keep your ears deaf.
Keep your hands quick.
He ought to have done exactly that.
Everyone in Baoque Tower had secrets. The girls had theirs. The house men had theirs. The managers had theirs. He, Mu Qi, had one of his own as well. Since he himself could slip out at night in secret, Yan Ji and Iron Mask naturally could too.
And yet this time, he could not simply pretend not to hear.
They were not heading toward the wharf.
Nor toward the inn on the main street.
And certainly not toward the ruined Water God Temple.
After following them for half a lane, Fang Yingjie felt the slightest loosening in his chest.
This road did not lead to his father's nameless grave.
But precisely because of that, he understood even less.
Where exactly was Yan Ji going, leaving the tower at such an hour?
A narrow road ran west of town toward the ruined Water God Temple, with reeds crowding the roadside and the lake wind growing sharp at night. But Yan Ji and Iron Mask were going north instead. There were fewer houses there. Beyond the last few low cottages stretched a desolate road. At its sides stood abandoned salt sheds and a few old earthen mounds left from years past. Farther still lay wild grass, stunted woods, and a burial ground someone had once opened and long since neglected.
When Fang Yingjie had first come to Luzin Town, his mind had been fixed on one thing only—buying a coffin, finding work, burying his father. He had never really looked at these places. Only now, deep in the night, trailing the two from afar, did he realize that the town was small, yet far from empty of hidden corners.
The wind came off the lake and passed through the broken windows of an abandoned salt storehouse, letting out a low, hollow moan.
Yan Ji slowed.
Iron Mask stopped too.
Fang Yingjie immediately flattened himself behind a stretch of crumbling wall.
The wall was damp, green with moss at its base. The moment his back touched it, the chill soaked through his clothes.
Ahead of him, Iron Mask slowly turned his head.
The night was too deep to make out the eyes behind the mask. All Fang Yingjie could see was the old iron faceplate catching a dull gleam beneath the moon.
He held his breath.
He did not dare move.
He could not move.
Iron Mask watched for a moment.
Then Yan Ji said softly, "What is it?"
Her voice was low.
Gone was the composed softness she wore atop the stage at Baoque Tower. Gone too was the light indifference with which, from behind the bead curtain outside Yan Pavilion, she had once asked him, Which Mu? Which Qi? In the night wind, those three quiet words were even lower, as though she feared startling something.
Iron Mask did not answer.
He only cast one more glance toward the broken wall.
Fang Yingjie curled his fingers soundlessly into a crack in the stone.
The new scar in his palm pressed against the rough edge, and pain spread slowly from it. He did not loosen his grip.
A moment later, Iron Mask turned back.
Yan Ji asked no further questions and continued on.
Iron Mask followed.
Only after the distance between them widened again did Fang Yingjie slowly let out the breath he had been holding.
He should have turned back then.
Iron Mask was already suspicious.
To keep following would no longer be safe.
Yet as he looked at that small red figure ahead, his feet did not retreat.
Yan Ji had left the tower in secret at night. Iron Mask was with her. And they had chosen this desolate road. If it were only a rendezvous, she would not have brought Iron Mask. If it were some errand, she would not have come without anyone else. A woman like her was watched in Baoque Tower with every step she took. Yet tonight she had slipped past everyone and left town by the back gate.
Fang Yingjie thought of the outer room of Yan Pavilion.
That night, she had asked his name.
Asked about the injury to his hand.
Asked whether he could still work.
The words had all been ordinary.
Yet ordinary in a way that did not quite feel ordinary at all.
He did not know whether it had been kindness.
But in a place like Baoque Tower, for someone to ask one extra question—Your hand is hurt?—was already enough to be remembered.
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes, then quickly followed once more.
He did not go as near as before.
Since Iron Mask had already grown wary once, he could not be allowed to grow wary a second time.
The two ahead left the lanes of town and turned onto an earthen path choked with even thicker grass. The path was narrow, with mugwort rising waist-high on both sides. Night dew clung to every blade; even the slightest brush would soak one's clothes. Yan Ji's skirts were hidden beneath her cloak, impossible to tell whether they had been dampened. Iron Mask walked heavily, yet with astonishing steadiness, as though neither mud nor grass beneath his feet could force even an inch of disorder into his stride.
Fang Yingjie kept farther to the side.
The wild grass covered half his body.
Now and then moonlight spilled through breaks in the clouds, briefly catching the dark red edge of Yan Ji's cloak before swallowing it again.
After roughly the time it took to burn half a stick of incense, the wet scent of the lake had faded from the wind.
The smell of grass and trees deepened.
They were some distance from the shore now, and no household lamps could be seen anywhere around them. Only somewhere far off, a dog barked twice before falling silent again.
At last, Yan Ji stopped.
Fang Yingjie stopped as well.
Ahead lay a patch of low woods.
The trees were sparse and crooked, their branches thin. Beyond them, he could make out several low grave mounds, some old, some new. The outermost had long been abandoned. Grass on them had grown taller than the stones themselves, and some of the headstones leaned sideways, their inscriptions worn by wind and rain into little more than shallow grooves.
Farther in, however, two graves had been kept somewhat tidier.
The weeds before them had been pulled. The earth had been pressed flat. Two low stone markers stood side by side—not tall, not conspicuous, their inscriptions impossible to read in the dark.
Yan Ji stood before the woods and was silent for a while.
Iron Mask came to her side.
He did not urge her.
He simply stood there.
Yan Ji lifted a hand and gently pushed back the hood of her cloak.
In the night, the face that had blazed so brilliantly inside Baoque Tower suddenly seemed much fainter. The red cosmetics were still there. The force of her features had not diminished. Yet without the tower's lights, without the eyes of the guests, without the zither table and bead curtains, standing before those lonely graves, she seemed to grow lighter all at once.
Not weaker.
Only as though that radiance she used to command a hall full of men had slowly been withdrawn by her own hand.
She took a fire striker from her sleeve.
Iron Mask immediately stepped half a pace forward, shielding her from the wind.
A single spark leapt into life.
Very small.
Yet in the night among those lonely graves, it stood out with startling clarity.
Hidden behind a crooked tree outside the woods, Fang Yingjie fixed his gaze on that little flame.
It lit Yan Ji's other hand.
That hand was white, its fingers long and fine, as though it had been made only for plucking strings, lifting cups, drawing curtains, and tending incense. Yet what it held now was neither zither string nor wine cup nor any of the treasures endlessly presented to her in Baoque Tower.
It was a stack of spirit paper.
Iron Mask took a small bundle from inside his robe.
It was not large, wrapped in faded blue cloth. The cloth looked old, its corners bleached pale with washing, yet it had been folded with great care. Iron Mask's movements were slow, and his fingers none too nimble. When he tried to undo the knot, one loop refused to come loose for a long while.
Yan Ji glanced at him and said softly, "Let me."
Iron Mask's hands stopped.
He did not seem willing.
Yan Ji did not urge him. She merely reached out and laid her hand lightly over the back of his.
"Brother."
Iron Mask stiffened.
Then, very slowly, he let go.
Behind the tree, Fang Yingjie felt as though something had given a soft knock against his chest.
Brother.
The word was light in the night.
But it was not the way a mistress spoke to a servant.
Not the way a courtesan addressed a guard.
Nor did it sound like some casual jest of intimacy.
He had not heard it clearly—yet he had heard it all too clearly.
Yan Ji lowered her head and untied the bundle.
Inside were no jewels, no incense.
There was a small flask of wine.
Two cakes wrapped in oil paper.
A packet of sugar crisps.
And at the very bottom, another smaller oil-paper packet, folded tight.
Yan Ji set the things out one by one.
First the wine.
She placed the flask to the left.
Softly, she said, "Father, I brought the wine."
Then the cakes.
They were not delicate cakes. One was even a little burnt at the edge. Baoque Tower had every confection imaginable, yet she had brought these, plain to the point of being unremarkable.
She set them to the right.
"Mother, the cakes were still warm. The wind cooled them a little on the way. Don't mind it."
Her voice was still very soft.
So soft that if the night had not been this still, Fang Yingjie might never have heard her.
Then she opened the packet of sugar crisps.
The moment the oil paper came apart, a faint sweetness drifted into the wind before quickly thinning away.
Yan Ji's fingers paused.
Head lowered, she said nothing for a long while.
Iron Mask stood beside her, motionless as old metal. Yet when the sugar crisps were unwrapped, his shoulder twitched ever so slightly.
Yan Ji placed them between the wine and the cakes.
"Father, I bought sugar crisps from Ping Wharf many times afterward."
The wind passed over the graves, stirring the grass with a dry rustle.
"But the packet you promised to bring me back…"
Her voice faltered.
"I never got to wait for it again."
Something rang inside Fang Yingjie's head.
Ping Wharf.
Sugar crisps.
That night, under the swaying boat lamp, Wang Yan had stood by the rail, forcing back tears, and said only to Wang Afu that when he returned, he must remember to bring sugar crisps from Ping Wharf.
Wang Afu had answered with a single word.
I will.
Fang Yingjie remembered.
How could he not remember?
At the time, he had thought it nothing more than a small thread of affection between father and daughter. Who could have imagined that later, that one simple promise would become something never brought back at all?
Yan Ji opened the last oil-paper packet.
Several small fried fish lay quietly inside, already cold, the oil congealed pale along their sides.
In a low voice, she said, "And these as well."
"You used to say that if the shop ever opened, the people coming through Ping Wharf, tired from the road, could come in for a drink, have fish soup, buy a couple of cakes."
She seemed to smile.
But in the night, there was no joy in it.
"I said we should sell fried little fish too."
"At the time, I thought they smelled so good that once customers caught the scent, they'd surely stay a little longer."
Her voice broke off there.
A long while passed before she spoke again, just as softly.
"Later, I saw so many shops."
"Restaurants, tea houses, silk shops, incense shops, rouge shops, gambling dens, brothels."
"But our family's little shop…"
She lowered her eyes.
"It was never built."
Yan Ji lit the spirit paper.
At first the flame was only a fine line, then it began to lick its way along the edges. The paper curled, blackened, and turned to ash. The ash lifted half an inch in the night wind, then fell back before the graves.
Fang Yingjie stood behind the tree without moving.
The fire had first lit only that small patch of ground before the graves. As the paper burned, the glow slowly brightened and began to sway with the smoke and wind, touching at last the two low stone markers.
They were not tall, nor new.
The characters had been carved very shallowly, as though whoever carved them had feared that if they cut too deep, too many others might see.
The flames jumped.
At last Fang Yingjie could make out the words on the left-hand stone.
Grave of the late Wang Afu.
His heart jolted hard.
The firelight flickered again, washing over the stone to the right.
There were the words:
Grave of the late Madam Qian.
Fang Yingjie's fingertips tightened soundlessly. Even his breathing seemed pinned beneath those two lines.
Wang Afu.
Madam Qian.
That little flask of wine.
Those two cakes.
That packet of sugar crisps.
Those few fried little fish.
Every one of them seemed as though it had been taken straight out of that small courtyard ten years ago.
And every one of them had gone cold before these lonely graves.
Iron Mask suddenly dropped to his knees.
The motion was stiff.
He did not kneel like an ordinary man paying respect, but like a length of iron forced violently into a bend. When his knees struck the ground, they landed with a dull thud.
Yan Ji turned to look at him.
"Brother, kowtow to Father and Mother."
Iron Mask kept his head lowered.
It was as if he understood—and as if he only understood those two words.
Father. Mother.
He placed both hands on the earth and slowly bent down.
His forehead struck the ground.
Once.
Heavily.
The dirt sank a little under the blow.
There seemed to be moisture in Yan Ji's eyes, yet she did not cry aloud.
She only reached out and straightened the remaining stack of spirit paper beside the fire.
Iron Mask lifted his head and saw that the paper had tipped. He reached out to fix it.
His hands were far larger than Yan Ji's, but clumsy. At his touch, several sheets scattered instead.
He froze.
As though he had done something wrong.
Yan Ji said softly, "It's all right."
She gathered the loose sheets one by one.
Iron Mask watched her hands.
Then, copying her, he slowly picked up a single sheet of paper money and set it back beside the fire.
Fang Yingjie felt his throat tighten shut.
How had Wang Shun—that silent, dependable Wang Shun who gathered fish baskets and tended the stove—become like this?
In Fang Yingjie's memory, Wang Shun had never spoken much, but he had not been dull. He knew how to read the weather. He helped his father carry things. When Madam Qian was too busy, he would quietly add wood to the fire. When Wang Yan's quick tongue made people laugh, he would frown at her, yet never truly scold.
That boy had once been like a post planted soundlessly in the Wang family courtyard—steady, unshakable.
But the man before him now, wearing the iron mask, looked as though he had been broken apart by force, then barely pieced back together.
The bones had been joined.
What had once been there had not.
Fang Yingjie felt the pressure in his chest mounting, bit by bit.
He wanted to step back.
He wanted to go forward.
Yet his feet seemed fastened to the earth.
The fire burned brighter.
Yan Ji pressed a few more sheets of spirit paper into the flames, then drew a slender stick of incense from her sleeve and lit it in the fire.
Smoke rose slowly.
She knelt and bowed three times before the graves.
When she lowered her head the first time, she was Yan Ji of Baoque Tower.
When she lowered it the second time, the splendor beneath the red paint had already begun to fade.
When she raised herself after the third, that final trace of dazzling brilliance had wholly receded from her eyes.
Before the lonely graves, only the Wang family's daughter remained.
In a low voice, she said, "Father. Mother."
"I brought Brother to see you."
Iron Mask was still kneeling.
At the word Brother, he slowly turned his masked face to look at her.
Yan Ji reached out and brushed a blade of grass from his shoulder.
"He does not recognize people very well now."
"Sometimes he does not even recognize me."
"But he recognizes the two of you."
She paused.
"If anyone touches your bones, he will fight them to the death."
Iron Mask seemed not to understand. He only kept looking at her.
Yan Ji smiled faintly.
"Still the same."
"Slow with words."
"Stubborn at heart."
"Father, you used to say he was too quiet and ought to speak more. If you were still here now, you'd probably be so angry you'd rap him with your pipe."
She said it like a joke.
But by the last word, her voice had suddenly dropped.
Wind moved through the grove.
Ashes from the fire scattered.
One scrap drifted over and landed by Fang Yingjie's feet.
Instinctively, he took half a step back.
A dry twig cracked beneath him with the faintest sound.
Snap.
It was very small.
Small enough that in an ordinary night, it might have been no more than some insect stirring in the grass.
But this was not an ordinary night.
Iron Mask's head snapped up.
The old iron mask turned in the firelight and fixed directly on the place where Fang Yingjie was hiding.
Yan Ji's hand stilled as well.
Pressed against the tree, Fang Yingjie felt his heart sink.
All at once, the wind seemed to stop.
The spirit paper was still burning.
The flames leapt and swayed, lighting the little wine flask before the graves, the sugar crisps, and the fried little fish gone cold.
The two low headstones brightened and dimmed in turns.
And in that flickering light, Iron Mask slowly rose to his feet.
The next instant, he took a step forward.
The dead grass underfoot flattened beneath the force of it.
Yan Ji said in a low voice, "Who is there?"
Iron Mask did not answer.
He was already walking toward the place where Fang Yingjie lay hidden.
The Shock of an Old Name
Iron Mask was not walking quickly.
Yet every step he took seemed to press the wild grass flat beneath some heavy weight. Once bent, the blades stayed down, as though they no longer dared rise again.
Hidden behind the crooked tree, Fang Yingjie knew he could not remain concealed.
If he retreated, Iron Mask would come after him.
If he did not, then he had no choice but to step out.
His fingers slowly loosened from the bark.
The new scar in his palm burned where the rough trunk had scraped across it.
He did not hide any longer.
He stepped out from behind the tree.
Iron Mask stopped at once.
Yan Ji stood before the grave, firelight striking one side of her face. She did not speak right away. She only watched the man who had emerged from behind the tree.
Under the night sky, Fang Yingjie was still wearing the old clothes of Baoque Tower's outer court. Dew darkened the hem, and the wind had left his cuffs cold. With his head lowered, he looked like Mu Qi. But now, standing before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian, with that tremor in his eyes he could not quite suppress, he no longer resembled a menial servant who knew only how to bow his head and work.
Yan Ji saw it.
Iron Mask saw it too.
Only Iron Mask did not understand what those eyes meant.
He only knew that someone had been hiding by the grave.
Someone had heard what his sister said.
Someone had seen the tomb of their father and mother.
He suddenly took one step forward.
Fang Yingjie had barely opened his mouth when Iron Mask was already upon him.
A hand shot out, all five fingers spread, going straight for his shoulder.
There was nothing showy about the move, nor was it so fast the eye could not follow it, but it carried crushing weight. It was the kind of grip honed by years of restraining people, blocking them, shoving drunken patrons aside. Before the hand even landed, it had already sealed off Fang Yingjie's retreat to the left.
Fang Yingjie dropped his shoulder on instinct.
The moment the shoulder sank, the rest of him drew tight and whole.
When Iron Mask's fingers clamped down, Fang Yingjie did not meet force with force. He only tucked his shoulder lower, shifted half an inch off line, and sent his right palm up from beside his ribs, brushing lightly against Iron Mask's wrist before turning it aside.
It was not a strike.
It was a lift.
That slight lift kept Iron Mask's grip from settling.
Something in the gaze behind the mask seemed to pause.
Then Iron Mask's other hand slashed sideways, this time going straight for Fang Yingjie's wrist pulse.
That one was fiercer than the first.
Fang Yingjie retreated half a step.
No farther.
Behind him stood only scrub trees and broken graves. One more step and he would be driven straight into the firelight. So he gave only that half-step, and as his right foot came down, his heel sank. His left palm rose from below, slow as a cloud lifting from a crack in stone, drawing the whole force of Iron Mask's attack harmlessly away to the side.
Iron Mask's wrist veered off.
The edge of his strike ripped a slit across Fang Yingjie's sleeve.
Still Fang Yingjie did not strike back.
Iron Mask, however, seemed roused by that very yielding. A low, rough breath burst from behind the mask.
The sound was muffled and blunt, like a beast hurling itself once against an iron cage.
From behind them, Yan Ji said softly,
"Iron Mask."
He did not stop.
He lunged again.
This time he did not go for the shoulder or the wrist. He drove his whole body forward, both hands coming from either side, intent on pinning Fang Yingjie down by sheer force. It was not the bearing of a martial artist concerned with clean technique. It was the movement of a man who did not care whether he himself was hurt, so long as he could force the other person to the ground.
Something tightened sharply in Fang Yingjie's chest.
He could not hurt him.
He could not.
The man in the iron mask had just knelt before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian.
Yan Ji had called him brother.
If he truly was—
The thought had only just surfaced when Fang Yingjie's hands slowed by the barest fraction.
Iron Mask's right hand had already caught his robe.
The old cloth snapped taut.
He was jerked half a step forward, yet his left foot did not lose its balance. Borrowing the pull, he slipped inward instead. His shoulder sank, his palm lifted from below to support Iron Mask's elbow, and his waist turned with the smallest twist.
The force of Iron Mask's forward drive was turned aside with it.
Their bodies crossed.
Iron Mask did not fall.
Fang Yingjie did not retreat.
But in that instant of passing, the edge of Iron Mask's mask grazed Fang Yingjie's shoulder and gave off the faintest metallic sound.
Clang.
The sound dropped into the night like some old chain lightly struck.
Fang Yingjie's heart jolted.
The dungeon.
Iron chains.
Black water.
Rain on the lake.
Wang Yan's voice, breaking as she shouted, Hold it steady—!
Too many things rushed back at once.
He could not hold them down any longer.
In a low voice, he asked, "Who are you?"
The moment the words left his mouth, even he could hear the tremor in them.
It was not the challenge of a man from the martial world.
Nor was it the panic of a servant from the outer court whose hiding place had been discovered.
It sounded more like the voice of someone who had walked ten years in darkness and suddenly glimpsed an old lamp still burning where no lamp should have remained.
Iron Mask was still moving to come at him again.
Then Yan Ji said quietly,
"Stop."
One word.
Not loud.
But Iron Mask stopped at once.
He stopped hard, as though some invisible hand had pressed down on a piece of iron already raised to strike. His hand still hung in the air, fingers half-curled, as if he himself did not understand why he was no longer allowed to go on.
Yan Ji came toward them from the grave.
She walked slowly.
She still wore the dark cloak, though the hood had fallen behind her shoulders. The wind stirred a loose strand of hair by her temple, and the firelight played across her face. Her painted splendor had not yet faded, but the look in her eyes was no longer the look she wore on Baoque Tower's high platform when she faced her admirers.
Fang Yingjie looked at her.
He had looked at her from close by before.
In the outer room of Yan Pavilion, through drifting incense and wavering lamplight, she had asked his name, asked about his injured hand, asked whether he could still work.
Back then, he had only thought her beauty too dazzling—too dazzling, too overwhelming, too impossible to connect with any shadow from the past.
But now, before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian, beside the sweet crisps and fried little fish, after that rough, muffled breath from Iron Mask, he suddenly felt that something on her face was being stripped away little by little by the night wind.
Not powder.
Not glamour.
The gleam of water from ten years ago.
The girl beneath a boat-lantern, quick-tongued and bright.
The daughter of the Wang household, fish basket in her arms, laughing at how clumsy and helpless he was, yet always choosing the lighter tasks for him.
And still he did not dare recognize her.
He did not dare.
Because Li Ying had said it.
She was dealt with long ago.
That one sentence had lain on him in the dungeon for ten years.
For ten years he had remembered her as one of the dead.
How could the dead be standing here?
How could the dead be dressed in the red of Baoque Tower's most sought-after courtesan, accompanied by a bodyguard in an iron mask, kneeling before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian to burn paper offerings?
Fang Yingjie's throat had gone dry.
"Miss Yan Ji…"
He had barely spoken the words when Yan Ji smiled.
It was the lightest smile.
And very brief.
Like a gust passing over the fire, lifting a scrap of ash before letting it fall again.
She looked at him and said softly,
"Little Wood… have you forgotten me?"
Fang Yingjie went rigid where he stood.
Little Wood.
The two words were light.
Yet they struck him like a blade delayed for ten years, suddenly drawn up from black water and driven straight into his chest.
Baoque Tower vanished.
The red lanterns vanished.
Even the desolate graves and the fire seemed to recede.
In front of him, another night rose up.
The Wang family's little house glowed under warm lamplight. Wang Afu was outside gathering in the nets. Madam Qian was busy by the stove. Wang Shun crouched by the fire, feeding in sticks of wood. At the door stood a young girl, hands on her hips, laughing at how sickly he looked, laughing at how wooden and tongue-tied he was.
"You little block of wood."
That was what she used to call him.
Not Yan Ji.
Not Baoque Tower's crowned beauty.
Not the woman an entire house of men scrambled to win.
Yanzi.
Wang Yan.
Fang Yingjie's lips moved.
For a moment, no sound came.
The smile in Yan Ji's eyes slowly faded.
She looked at him as though she too were waiting.
Waiting for that name to come out of his mouth.
The wind dipped the firelight low for an instant.
Iron Mask stood beside them, one hand still half-raised. He could not understand the silence between the two of them, but after those words—Little Wood—even he seemed to stir belatedly. The iron mask turned slowly toward Fang Yingjie.
At last Fang Yingjie managed, his voice hoarse, "Yanzi…"
The moment the name left him, his own eyes reddened first.
Yan Ji did not answer.
She only looked at him.
Then Fang Yingjie turned toward Iron Mask.
His gaze settled on the old iron mask, on those stiff hands that did not seem to know how to lower themselves, on the knees still damp with grave-soil from kneeling there moments before.
"Shun-ge'er…"
Iron Mask did not respond.
It was as though he had heard, and yet had not fully understood.
Only the hand that had been raised a moment ago gave the faintest tremor when he heard those three syllables.
So slight that Fang Yingjie might have missed it if he had not been watching so closely.
The wetness in Yan Ji's eyes could no longer be held back.
Still she smiled once.
"So you still remember."
That single line was enough.
After that, she could no longer keep smiling.
Fang Yingjie took one step toward her.
Iron Mask moved at once, as though to block him again.
Yan Ji lifted a hand and gently pressed down on his arm.
"Brother."
Iron Mask froze.
Yan Ji said softly, "It's him."
Iron Mask kept staring at Fang Yingjie.
The iron mask hid his face, hid every expression by which a man might be known. Yet Fang Yingjie suddenly felt that behind that mask, those eyes were trying to see him through very deep water.
Trying—
and failing.
Pain seized Fang Yingjie's chest so hard it almost broke him.
He stepped forward again.
This time, Iron Mask did not stop him.
Fang Yingjie came to a halt before Wang Yan.
Ten years.
He had grown up in a dungeon.
She had grown up in Baoque Tower.
He had lived out of iron chains and black water.
She had lived out of red lanterns and perfumed dust.
Ten years ago, she had been the girl on the boat shouting for him to hold it steady.
Ten years later, she stood before her parents' graves as Yan Ji, the courtesan every man in the house fought to possess, yet none could truly come near.
Fang Yingjie wanted to say a thousand things.
He wanted to ask how she had survived.
He wanted to ask what had happened to Wang Shun.
He wanted to ask how Wang Afu and Madam Qian had died in the end.
He wanted to ask whether these years had hurt, whether they had been bitter, whether she had been afraid.
But when all those words reached his throat, they crushed together into only one:
"I thought you were dead."
Wang Yan's lashes trembled.
She did not answer at once.
Firelight flickered in her eyes.
Only after a long moment did she say softly, "I thought you were dead too."
When those two lines fell between them, the graveyard went so still that only the crackle of burning paper remained.
In truth, everything that needed saying was already inside those two sentences.
Fang Yingjie could bear no more. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.
Wang Yan stiffened slightly.
In Baoque Tower, she had long since grown used to being looked at.
Used to men studying her through lantern glow, pearl curtains, wine fumes, and desire.
Used to smiling when she ought to smile, retreating when she ought to retreat, and holding down a whole room with a single sentence whenever a single sentence was enough.
But this embrace held no wine.
No desire.
No guest's wandering hands.
No rules of Baoque Tower.
It was only an old acquaintance who had survived from ten years ago, holding her like something lost and miraculously found again, something too precious to trust as real.
The wetness in Wang Yan's eyes finally spilled over.
She lifted her hands and slowly wrapped them around Fang Yingjie's back.
At first the movement was uncertain, almost awkward, as though it had been many years since she had embraced another person this way.
Then her fingers tightened bit by bit.
"Little Wood…"
Her voice was so low it was almost soundless.
"You really are alive."
Fang Yingjie closed his eyes.
"Alive," he said.
"I'm alive."
Iron Mask stood beside them, watching.
He did not move.
He did not speak.
Then, after a long while, the hand hanging at his side began slowly to lift.
Very slowly.
Clumsily.
Like someone who had long forgotten how to draw near to another human being, and was now trying, from a very distant place, to remember a single motion.
The hand stopped halfway.
It remained there, suspended, half a foot from Fang Yingjie's shoulder.
It hovered for a very long time.
In the end, it still did not come down.
Fang Yingjie opened his eyes and saw it.
He let Wang Yan go and turned to look at Iron Mask.
"Shun-ge'er."
He called him again.
The raised hand froze in midair.
Fang Yingjie did not force him.
He only stepped half a pace forward, offering his shoulder a little nearer.
At last Iron Mask's hand came down.
It landed on Fang Yingjie's shoulder.
The weight of it was immense.
Too heavy for a pat. It was almost a press.
Fang Yingjie's shoulder bone dipped beneath it, but he did not flinch away.
Iron Mask's hand remained on him, the fingers tightening little by little.
A low, hoarse sound came from his throat.
No word could be made out.
It was only a fragment of breath, forced up through something broken.
Wang Yan stood beside them, tears still on her face, and said softly,
"Brother."
Iron Mask did not turn his head.
He only kept his hand on Fang Yingjie's shoulder.
After a very long while, two blurred sounds came from behind the mask, so faint they were almost impossible to catch.
"Wood…"
Fang Yingjie's eyes burned.
Wang Yan stood stunned.
It was as though Iron Mask had spent the last of his strength on that one sound. The rest broke apart in his throat and would not come.
But that one sound was enough.
Enough to split open a seam through ten years of black water, ten years of red lanterns, ten years of lonely graves.
Fang Yingjie lifted his hand and covered the back of the one resting on his shoulder.
It was rough, stiff, full of old scars.
In a low voice, he said, "It's me."
"I'm Little Wood."
Iron Mask did not move again.
The fire burned beside the three of them.
Behind them stood the gravestone of Wang Afu and Madam Qian in silence. The sweet crisps, the wine, the cakes, and the fried little fish were still laid out before the grave. Ash from the paper offerings curled up in the wind and drifted down again.
The night breeze passed through the scrub.
Far away, red lanterns glowed in the town.
Baoque Tower lay on the other side of the night.
And in this one moment, Baoque Tower's most sought-after courtesan was not Yan Ji.
The masked guard was not Iron Mask.
The outer-court drudge was not Mu Qi.
Before the lonely grave stood only Wang Yan, Wang Shun, and Fang Yingjie.
Poetic Coda
Cold red lanterns, deep night wind;
thin earth over nameless burial, heavy on the heart.
A cheap coffin's silver buried a father's bones;
ten years later, sweet crisps were offered to the dead.
Iron Mask stood wordless, groping toward an old dream;
Yan Ji spoke low, calling back the self he had once been.
When the grave-fire burned low, the martial world felt far away;
old names met again, and tears soaked their robes.
(End of Chapter Thirty-Nine)