Twin Moons Force the Draw
When the dark-faced soldier saw General Zhu staring at Fang Yingjie, heard that ringing "Excellent," and even caught the flicker of satisfaction on the man's face, the anger in his own eyes finally sank beyond concealment.
The step he had been forced back was only half a pace.
In the chaos of a battlefield, perhaps no one would have seen it clearly. In the crush of a clash before a horse, perhaps it might have looked like nothing more than a man bleeding off the last of an impact's force.
But here, inside Yan Pavilion—before General Zhu's very eyes, after three hidden-armored guards had just been scattered bare-handed by a mere attendant from a pleasure house—that half-step was no half-step at all.
It was face.
It was standing.
The dark-faced soldier's shoulders slowly tightened.
He did not speak at once.
He did not step forward again.
But the hand hanging at his side had already curled, little by little, into a fist.
General Zhu, however, did not look at him.
As though he had not noticed the gloom on the dark-faced man's features at all, he merely shifted his gaze away from Fang Yingjie's bloodied palms and let it fall, slowly, into the patch of lamplight outside the door.
"Majide."
He called once.
Then again:
"Ma Quanzhong."
At the sound of those two names, the lamplight beyond the doorway stirred faintly.
It was not the dark-faced soldier who moved.
Nor were the three hidden-armored guards.
It was the two Muslim bladesmen who had been standing in the shadows beyond the door. They stepped forward at the same time. Beneath their cloth robes, only a sliver of cold light had shown before. Now that sliver abruptly lengthened.
Two soft sounds of steel leaving the sheath—one short, one light.
Like two thin moons sliding out of the night.
Fang Yingjie's gaze darkened.
He had not yet had the chance to recover his breath.
The dark-faced soldier's punch still left a dull pressure in his chest. The thread of inner force in his energy center had not yet broken, but both palms were numb, and the old wounds there had been jarred open again. Blood was slowly seeping between his fingers.
But the two bladesmen were already inside Yan Pavilion.
They did not shout a challenge.
They did not strike a stance.
They did not even spare Iron Mask a glance.
One came from the left, one from the right, as though they had long ago measured every pace inside the room. One slanted in; the other skimmed low. The lamplight had only just begun to sway when the first curved saber was already before Fang Yingjie's eyes.
It did not chop straight down.
It shaved in on a slant.
Like moonlight brushing the edge of a cloud—seeming to hang high above, while its true chill had already laid itself against the side of his wrist.
Fang Yingjie twisted sharply aside. His right palm lifted on instinct, trying to use Dragoncloud Palm to turn the blade away. But the palm force had only just risen when the curved saber slid along the edge of his hand and slipped past it. The blade skimmed down so close to the back of his hand that it nearly touched skin.
A soft hiss.
His sleeve split open.
A bead of blood flew free.
The other curved saber had already come around beneath his ribs.
Fang Yingjie shifted his footing and retreated in a rush, so fast his shoulder nearly slammed into the zither table. Shards of broken porcelain cracked beneath his feet. Wine and incense ash were kicked up under his soles and scattered into chaos.
Yan Ji's face went pale, and the words burst out of her mouth before she could stop them.
"Xiaomu—"
The second half of the cry never left her lips. She bit it back by force.
General Zhu heard it.
He did not turn around.
Only the corner of his eye moved, very slightly.
As though he had casually tucked those two syllables away in his mind.
The dark-faced soldier stood to one side, his expression even uglier than before.
Being forced back half a step had already been humiliation enough. Now General Zhu would not let him press forward, and had instead called the two Muslim bladesmen into the room. The shame lay over his face like a sheet of iron.
He said nothing.
He only stared at Fang Yingjie.
Anger burned in his eyes like fire, yet he held it down by brute force.
Fang Yingjie no longer had the luxury of noticing anyone's expression.
The two curved sabers were too fast.
And too strange.
The three hidden-armored guards had attacked through the centerline—middle gate, shoulders, wrists, knees. The dark-faced soldier's拳 had come head-on, all weight and crushing force. But these two bladesmen moved along no path he knew.
One saber seemed to be coming from above, yet in the next instant it was already sliding along his ribs.
One looked as though it meant to take his knee, yet its point suddenly flicked toward his wrist.
They did not meet him head-on.
They gave him nothing to catch.
Nothing to turn aside.
The blades slid, coiled, slanted, and cut with a coldness like two crescents that refused to shine on men, striking only from the corners where the lamplight failed to reach.
Fang Yingjie retreated three steps in succession.
The first saved his left wrist.
The second saved his ribs.
On the third, his foot came down on broken porcelain, and his body lurched sharply sideways.
That lurch was exactly what the bladesman on the right had been waiting for.
His curved saber had been low. Suddenly the point snapped upward, cold light flashing toward the front of Fang Yingjie's knee. If that upward cut landed cleanly, it would not merely sever tendon and bone—it would rob him of his footing on the spot.
Fang Yingjie dropped through the waist and rooted that step by force.
But the instant he sank, his chest tightened again.
The punch force the dark-faced soldier had left behind was still there.
It lay inside him like a slab of iron jammed across his lungs. Every sharp turn, every sudden lift of breath, made the sweet metallic taste rising in his throat a little stronger.
The left-hand saber came again.
This time it did not go for his shoulder or chest. It merely skimmed past the back of his outstretched hand. Fang Yingjie's palm movement had only just begun when the blade had already slipped around his palm force like a fish in water sliding past a crack in stone.
A hiss.
Another shallow cut opened across the back of his hand.
Blood ran down along his knuckles.
Teeth clenched, Fang Yingjie snatched up a silver-stemmed goblet from beside the zither table and hurled it at the oncoming blade-light.
The goblet turned in the air, flashing.
The bladesman flicked his wrist. The back of the curved saber touched it lightly.
Clang.
The goblet spun away, struck the edge of the screen, and dropped among broken porcelain and spilled wine.
The other man had already circled behind him.
Fang Yingjie had no time to turn. His hand found an object at random, and he flung it backward without looking.
It was an imported agate cup.
The cup was a deep translucent red, sitting beneath the lamp a moment before like a thing made of blood. Now it flew from his hand and smashed straight toward the bladesman's face.
The man did not evade.
His curved saber slashed once on a slant.
The agate cup split cleanly in two beneath the blade. The fragments flew apart, one half striking the floor, the other bouncing against the leg of the zither table with a crisp crack.
Yan Ji's fingertips tightened.
Those were all treasures from Yan Pavilion.
Some had been gifts from patrons.
Some Madam Qi had brought out merely to give the place a richer face.
Some were not even Baoque Tower's own property.
But at this moment she did not tell him to stop.
Not a single word.
Fang Yingjie had no thought to spare for them either.
He retreated another half-step, his shoulder striking the screen. The jade pendants hanging from it clattered wildly. Lamplight broke and swam over the silk panels. In the same motion, he tore down a string of small jade drops and lashed them forward, cord and beads together.
The beads scattered.
The bladesman on the left slanted his body and slid through the flying jade like a shadow slipping between raindrops. His curved saber turned in his hand. He did not waste a strike on the tumbling beads; he simply passed under them and came straight for Fang Yingjie's chest.
A chill passed through Fang Yingjie.
The man looked obstructed, but in truth his rhythm had not been disturbed in the slightest.
The second curved saber was there too.
One above.
One below.
One from the front.
One from the side.
The two lines of cold light never met, yet together they sealed every inch of space into which Fang Yingjie might retreat.
He drove off the ground and threw himself sideways by half a foot.
There was nothing graceful in the movement.
It was almost ugly.
His shoulder scraped the edge of the zither table. His sleeve knocked over a small bronze beast. It was a foreign ornament General Zhu had idly handled after entering the room—a fierce-faced thing with wings rising from its back, which had been sitting steadily on the corner of the table only moments before. Now it crashed to the floor and rolled to the bladesman's feet.
The man flicked up the tip of his boot.
The bronze beast flew.
He had actually used that kick to send it hurtling at Fang Yingjie's face.
Fang Yingjie turned his head aside.
The bronze beast shot past his ear and slammed into the wall behind him. It fell with a dull thud, one horn already broken off.
At last General Zhu laughed.
Not in anger.
Not in regret.
He laughed the way a man laughs when a good show suddenly turns finer than he had expected.
All through the room, precious objects shattered one after another in the crossing saber-light. The things that were usually cherished, guarded, and carefully entered into ledgers had now become nothing more than whatever Fang Yingjie could seize in hand to buy himself a single breath.
But when that breath was gone, the sabers still came.
Fang Yingjie snatched up half a rolled old score.
The score opened in a rustle beneath the wavering light, its pages spreading like a sheet of white surf flung suddenly into the air. He whipped it forward, trying to blind the bladesman on the left for an instant.
The saber-light cut straight through the paper.
The score split in two.
The blade's coldness did not diminish in the least.
Fang Yingjie jerked his hand back, yet the edge still opened his sleeve again. Half the torn cloth fluttered downward. Before it could reach the floor, the wind from the other curved saber swept it away sideways.
Then he understood at last.
These things could block three hidden-armored guards for an instant.
They might even have made the dark-faced soldier frown for half a beat.
But they could not stop these two sabers.
They were too slick.
Too thin.
Too skilled at finding seams.
If they could go around an obstacle, they never struck through it.
If they could slide in close, they never stayed at a distance.
Fang Yingjie had been able to scatter the three hidden-armored guards bare-handed because those men had to seize, suppress, and lock him down. He could borrow their wrists, shoulders, waists, and arms and tear open a line of space between them.
He had been able to force the dark-faced soldier back half a step because the man's punch had been heavy enough—and straight enough. Straight meant there was a path to borrow. Heavy meant there was force to lead away.
But these two curved sabers gave him no path.
They cared nothing for the centerline.
They kept to no orthodox line.
One moved like wind.
One moved like water.
One forced him to raise a hand before his eyes; the other had already slid in from a corner the lamp could not reach.
Empty-handed, he could not take them.
If he kept trying, something worse would happen.
Another blade slid in from beneath his ribs.
Fang Yingjie had nowhere left to retreat. His left hand seized a jade paperweight from beside the zither table and hurled it at the saber's edge.
The paperweight was heavy, square, like a chunk of white stone.
The blade did not meet it.
The bladesman merely turned his wrist and let the curved saber glide along the paperweight's side, the point still flicking toward Fang Yingjie's wrist.
Fang Yingjie's heart sank. He had no choice but to let go.
The jade paperweight fell from his hand.
Crack.
The white jade broke cleanly in two.
In ordinary times, the breaking of a thing like that would have been enough to keep Madam Qi fretting over her accounts for half a month.
But at this moment, no one cared about accounts.
Yan Ji's gaze was no longer on the objects at all.
She was looking only at Fang Yingjie.
At how his shoulders were sinking lower and lower.
At how ragged his breathing had become.
At how those two curved sabers were driving his steps, inch by inch, toward the long table.
And on that long table, the Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber still lay where it had been set.
Its black-gold sheath rested beneath the low lamp, and that faint thread of jade-cold gleam was so still it felt almost cruel.
The two curved sabers crossed once more.
The bladesman on the left feinted toward his shoulder; the one on the right made the true cut toward his waist and ribs. Fang Yingjie was already half a beat too slow. He could only throw up a palm force in a desperate partial guard. The saber slid along the edge of his hand and away, but the point still left a shallow line across his side.
Blood seeped through his clothes.
Yan Ji's face turned utterly white.
She could not call for them to stop.
That would be useless.
She could not plead with General Zhu either.
She would not plead.
She could not.
Her eyes fixed on the saber.
On the Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber that had lain silently upon the long table ever since it entered the room.
Then, at last, she spoke.
Only a single word.
"The saber!"
It was not shrill.
It did not tremble.
Yet it split the chaos of lamplight through the room like a single line of cold steel.
Fang Yingjie heard it.
So did the two bladesmen.
So did the dark-faced soldier.
The tall man in blue by the corridor pillar lifted his eyes slightly.
General Zhu said nothing.
He merely watched.
Watched to see whether Fang Yingjie would take it.
At last Fang Yingjie's gaze fell upon the long table.
The Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber was still there.
Only a few feet away.
But between him and it lay two curved sabers.
The bladesman on the left moved first.
As though he had known all along that Fang Yingjie would reach for the weapon, he stepped in on a slant and cut straight for Fang Yingjie's right wrist. At the same time, the bladesman on the right skimmed low across the ground, his blade curling upward from below to seal the path back toward the long table.
Fang Yingjie did not try to catch the saber with his palm again.
He already knew he could not.
He snatched up one broken half of the jade paperweight from the floor and hurled it at the blade on the right. The bladesman's attack shifted off line, but still did not meet it head-on. The curved saber merely slid along the jade.
And in that one gliding instant, Fang Yingjie threw himself into a roll.
Broken porcelain bit into his shoulder.
Wine soaked his sleeve.
Incense ash smeared across his face.
He had no thought for pain, no thought for how wretched he looked. His left hand struck the floor for balance, opening the cuts in his palm still wider, while his right shoulder slammed hard into the leg of the long table.
The table jolted.
Several small objects on top leaped and rattled.
Within its sheath, the Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber gave a faint sound.
Very faint.
Yet it was like moonlight stirring deep inside a bank of heavy clouds.
The bladesman on the left hardened his gaze. His curved saber came down at once.
Straight at Fang Yingjie's reaching right hand.
His hand had almost reached it when he suddenly drew it back.
The saber swept across his fingertips, so close it nearly pared half the nail from one finger.
At the same instant, his left palm struck the edge of the long table.
Bang.
The table jolted again.
The Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber hopped half an inch within its sheath.
The second attack from the bladesman on the right was already there.
This time he was not cutting at the hand.
He was cutting at the throat.
Fang Yingjie ducked low, nearly rolling half a turn flush against the long table. The wind of the blade skimmed across the crown of his head, severing a few loose strands of hair. Before they could touch the floor, the wavering lamplight seemed to scatter them apart.
Yan Ji's heart felt as though someone had seized it in a fist.
Iron Mask, slumped against the doorway of the inner corridor, let out a muffled sound deep in his throat, as though he wanted to stand and could not raise even one shoulder.
Fang Yingjie had already rolled to the far side of the long table.
His body had not yet steadied.
The two curved sabers came again from left and right.
This time he did not retreat.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
He reached out in one violent motion.
Before the Darkcloud Jade Moon Saber could settle back onto the table, he caught the hilt in his hand.
Weight.
That was the first thing he felt.
Not cumbersome weight.
Not the kind that dragged at the wrist.
Steady weight.
Like a stone that had finally fallen into the place where it belonged.
Like a force that had hung too long in midair and at last found its resting point.
Fang Yingjie's five fingers tightened.
The blood in his palm smeared itself across the dark blue-black hilt.
And at last, that weight settled fully into his hand.
A Saber Asks the Heart
But having a saber in hand did not mean the saber had already saved his life.
The curved saber on the left was already there.
Its edge slanted down at once, striking straight for the wrist with which he gripped his weapon. Fang Yingjie had no time to draw. He could only jerk the sheathed saber up across his body and force a block.
Clang!
The sound was colder than the crash of the agate cup and jade paperweight shattering a moment before.
The curved saber struck the blacksteel scabbard and sent a violent shock up Fang Yingjie's arm. The old wound in the web of his thumb had already split open; with that one impact, blood at once squeezed out between his fingers.
His weight dropped backward, shoulder and back slamming into the edge of the long table.
But this time, he did not roll.
Nor did he retreat in disorder.
The weight of the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber was like a nail at last driven home, pinning him fast amid the shattered porcelain, spilled wine, and fallen ash.
The saber on the right came in close the next instant.
That cut did not strike at the scabbard or the blade. It slipped low instead, circling toward his waist and ribs. Fang Yingjie pinned the scabbard with his left hand, twisted sharply on his feet, and turned around the edge of the long table by a hair's breadth.
The wind of the blade grazed his clothes.
His side turned cold again.
The blood did not gush out at once. First there was only a pulse of heat.
Fang Yingjie clenched his teeth.
He knew he could not go on like this.
If he had a saber in hand and still used it only to defend himself, then sooner or later he would die all the same.
But to draw the saber meant to strike.
And striking was no longer the same as practicing forms with an old curtain rod in the night.
It was no longer the same as running through the Fang family saber paths over and over again in an empty courtyard.
Fang Yingjie's fingers closed, one by one, around the hilt.
The blood on his palm slicked the dark green-black grip for an instant. Then he locked down on it by sheer force.
And in that blur of a moment, he seemed to hear Fang Tieshan's voice again.
It was not loud.
But it was heavy.
Heavy as the old breath passed down bit by bit in those ten years beneath the earth, father and son leaning side by side against a wall of freezing stone.
"A saber may be slow, but it must never float."
Then another sentence:
"Before you draw, ask your heart."
Ask his heart.
Why was he drawing the saber?
Not to win.
Not to seize General Zhu's gift.
Not to display his skill before a roomful of eyes.
And not to kill these two Hui sabermen.
He drew because Wang Yan was still standing by the zither table.
Because Iron Mask was still slumped against the inner corridor door, unable to lift half his body.
Because he had crawled out from those ten buried years with almost nothing left, and yet there was still one thing inside him that would not bow its head, would not let itself be trampled.
That one thing could not retreat any farther.
And it could not drift any longer.
Something in Fang Yingjie's gaze suddenly sank and hardened.
The Hui saberman on the left seemed to sense it. He shifted his footing and pressed in first.
The one on the right lunged at the same time.
Two crescent arcs, one high and one low, one before him and one to the side, sealed shut every open space before him once more.
In that instant, Fang Yingjie drew.
The Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber finally left its scabbard.
The lamplight in the pavilion seemed to dim by a layer.
The blade was black.
It reflected no light.
It swallowed it.
Only along the edge did a thread-thin line of jade-green shimmer into being, as though the clouds had split somewhere in their deepest dark and let slip the coldest sliver of moonlight.
The moment that green line appeared, the eyes of both Hui sabermen changed.
It was not fear.
It was recognition.
They knew at once that this saber could not be met head-on.
But they realized it half a beat too late.
Fang Yingjie swept his saber across to meet them.
Break the Wave at the Gate.
This stroke was not fast.
At least, it was slower than either of the curved sabers.
But it was heavy.
Heavy as a wall reared up against a breaker at the gate.
The curved saber on the left slashed down in a diagonal line.
Fang Yingjie did not meet edge with edge.
He turned his blade sideways, took the force on the back of the saber, and let the line of its edge slide obliquely along his opponent's weapon.
Clang!
A cold ring.
That one turn and scrape forced the curved saber aside by half a foot. A fine nick at once appeared on its edge, as though a sliver of cold moonlight had taken a bite from it.
The Hui saberman's gaze darkened, and his wrist instinctively drew back a fraction.
It was not that his strength fell short of Fang Yingjie's.
It was that he suddenly understood: if his saber struck this black blade too solidly, the blade would be the one devoured.
Fang Yingjie's wrist shook from the impact. Blood ran faster from the split in his thumb. Half his arm had nearly gone numb.
But he did not retreat.
The weight of the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber had borne that downward pressure for him. Its edge, too, had forced the Hui saberman to think twice before sending his weapon in with full commitment again.
The second curved saber slipped in low.
Fang Yingjie's heart sank.
If Fang Tieshan had been here, the next motion would already have been there. Once the returning motion rose, it would guard the centerline and press down the lower path in the same breath.
But he was not Fang Tieshan.
He knew how the return should go.
He was only half a beat too slow.
And that half beat was life and death.
The saber point was already at his knee.
Fang Yingjie could only drag his blade sideways by force.
Severing the River Crosswise.
The Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber swept beneath the low lamps, one black line like a river cut off in midflow inside Yan Pavilion.
The two curved sabers, one high and one low a moment before, were driven apart by that single stroke.
Half a step.
Only half a step.
But it was enough to make General Zhu's eyes flare.
"Good!"
He cried out again at last.
This time the shout was brighter than before.
He stared at the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber in Fang Yingjie's hand as though a beautiful dead thing had suddenly come alive in blood and lamplight.
"It looked dead inside the case," General Zhu said with a laugh.
"In his hand, it lives."
The black-faced soldier's expression darkened further.
The beardless middle-aged attendant in white merely lifted his eyes.
The tall man in blue still leaned against the corridor pillar, his face unreadable.
He looked once at Fang Yingjie's saber.
Then once at Fang Yingjie's feet.
That stroke had been heavy, but it had not floated.
The fingers hidden in his sleeve curled, ever so slightly.
Then loosened again.
He said nothing.
General Zhu was enjoying himself too much.
So he merely watched.
The Hui saberman on the left advanced another half step.
His curved saber feinted high, but the point suddenly flicked up from low at the side.
Before it could close, Fang Yingjie dropped the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber with the motion.
Its edge pressed down only lightly.
The curved saber veered away at once, and another pale scar appeared upon its surface.
The saberman on the right circled behind him, trying to slide in from the blind point his saber had not yet covered.
Fang Yingjie's steps were disorderly, but his blade cut across first.
Its gleam was not bright.
It was black.
Black as a bank of storm cloud pressing down overhead.
The Hui saberman had just begun to close when a chill flashed at his wrist. He withdrew at once, leaping back.
A fraction slower, and the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber would have sheared away more than the cuff of his sleeve.
Half a strip of cloth fluttered down, caught by the wind of the blade before it touched the ground and swept aside.
The light in General Zhu's eyes burned even brighter.
"A fine saber!"
This time, it was hard to tell whether he praised the weapon or the man.
The two Hui sabermen, however, no longer dared to press in rashly.
They circled Fang Yingjie on left and right. Their saber-light remained swift, but the easy, flesh-skimming confidence from before was gone.
Because the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber was too sharp.
Sharp enough that one misjudged step would chip the curved sabers in their hands, shear the iron clasps from their wrists, perhaps even cost them their fingers.
Fang Yingjie's chest still felt clogged and heavy. His palm still burned. Blood still seeped from his shoulder, his back, and the cut at his ribs.
But now he had a saber in hand.
A real saber.
A saber that could bear the force of the Fang family's saber art.
With a low shout, he dropped his weight into the blade and drove forward.
Breaking the Stockade, Splitting the Mountain.
The edge of the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber slanted down.
The Hui saberman sprang back at once.
He did not take it head-on.
Only a fool would meet such a saber head-on.
Yet no matter how fast he withdrew, one of the iron clasps on his wrist guard still took the faintest brush from the blade.
A light sound.
The clasp split in two and fell to the floor.
The noise was not loud.
But everyone in Yan Pavilion heard it.
The Hui saberman lowered his eyes to the broken clasp, and his gaze at last turned fully grave.
Not frightened.
Cautious.
The other Hui saberman, too, put aside his contempt.
They exchanged one glance.
In the next instant, their footwork changed.
They no longer fought for the three feet before Fang Yingjie.
Nor did they test the edge of the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber again.
They began to circle wider.
Sharper.
More lightly.
One slanted inward on his feet, but his saber never truly closed; it only flashed once before Fang Yingjie's eyes and withdrew.
The other slipped around through the lamplight behind him and cut in from an impossibly narrow angle, only to retreat before the black saber could swing back.
One lured him into striking.
The other waited for the return.
One feinted at the shoulder.
The other cut in truth at the ribs.
They no longer let their curved sabers touch the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber.
They only made Fang Yingjie draw.
Again and again.
Again and again they made him recover.
Again and again they forced him to be half a beat too slow.
A precious saber could drive men back.
It could not make up that lost half beat for him.
Fang Yingjie soon sensed the change.
A moment ago, with the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber's frightening edge in his hand, neither Hui saberman had dared enter the three-foot circle around him.
But now they had changed their saber path and no longer tried to force their way inside it.
They pulled at him from beyond it.
Tempted him.
Wore him down.
The heavier his blade sank, the more control the returning motion required.
The sharper his edge, the less willing his opponents were to meet it.
The Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber was still a treasure.
But a treasure did not kill by itself.
Fang Yingjie's saber work was still green.
He could block—
but half a beat slow.
He could break through—
but leave an opening.
He could force one man back in a single moment—
only to be driven back toward the zither table by the other in the next.
The saberman on the left slashed high in feint.
Fang Yingjie raised his blade to block.
He blocked empty air.
The flashing steel had only been a lure.
The true chill came from the right rear.
Shhk.
The cloth at Fang Yingjie's shoulder split open.
Blood welled out at once.
He gritted his teeth and swung back.
But the saberman on the left had already circled around from the other side, curving low for his knee, while the saberman on the right sent a false attack high, a flash before the eyes, only to turn the true killing intent beneath the ribs again.
Fang Yingjie knew the Fang family saber guarded the centerline.
But these two refused to attack along the centerline.
He knew the next motion should protect the wrist.
But knowing and being in time were two different things.
Three more exchanges.
He blocked two cuts.
Missed half of one.
A curved saber skimmed across the back of his hand. Beads of blood spattered the hilt of the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber. On that dark green-black grip, the blood did not look bright red. It only made the color seem deeper still.
Two crescent blades circled one black saber, faster and colder with every turn.
Fang Yingjie's strokes were still heavy.
The Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber was still keen.
But his saber art, in the end, had not yet ripened.
General Zhu watched, spellbound.
From the moment Fang Yingjie had drawn the saber, he had not looked at Yan Ji again.
In his eyes there was only that black blade now.
And only Mu Qi, filthy and bloodied, palms bleeding, yet still gripping the saber with all his strength.
Yan Ji saw it.
She saw, too, that Fang Yingjie was nearing the end of what he could hold.
It was not that he had no saber.
It was that he was not yet practiced enough.
It was not that he had no courage.
It was that he was not yet fast enough.
The two curved sabers crossed once more.
The saberman on the left feinted high, drawing Fang Yingjie's blade across to intercept; but the right-hand saber was already sliding in from the rear on a slant, its cold killing edge driving straight toward his chest.
If Fang Yingjie was slower by even half a breath this time, he would lose.
Yan Ji's gaze suddenly dropped to the zither table.
The zither was still there.
Its strings had been struck earlier, and their last trembling notes had long since faded. The table sat askew by half an inch. Stains of wine were not yet dry upon it. Ash clung to the tail of the instrument like a crust of frost.
Yan Ji looked at that zither, and something in her eyes became still.
She could not shout again.
She could not beg.
And she could not weep.
The only thing she could do was the thing she did best.
She stepped toward the zither table.
Jade Moon Stirred by Strings
As Yan Ji moved toward the qin table, the two curved sabers still did not relent.
The saberman on the left feinted high. The one on the right slid in from behind at an angle. Fang Yingjie swept his saber across to intercept. The Wuyun Biyue Saber pinned down one flash of cold steel, but the other had already skimmed across his chest.
His robe split open.
A thin stain of blood spread beneath the cloth.
Fang Yingjie dropped his weight hard through his stance, barely keeping that stroke from driving him to the floor.
But he knew he was close to the end.
The heavy, smothered pain in his chest, where the black-faced soldier's fist force had struck him, was still there. Blood was still running from his palm.
The Wuyun Biyue Saber was heavy.
That weight kept his blade from drifting and let him hold his ground amid the storm of steel. But that same weight also had to be gathered, guided, and turned. It demanded timing, strength, and the true saber sense of a man who had trained it into his bones.
He did not have that yet.
The saberman on the left slashed again.
Fang Yingjie saw it.
He knew how to block it.
But when he turned his saber this time, he was still half a beat too slow.
And in that half beat, the curved blade on the right had already slid up to his chest.
At that instant, Yan Ji's hand fell to the strings.
The first note rang out, hard and sharp.
It was not soft.
It was not seductive.
The sound was short, cold, urgent—like someone striking a Hu drum far away in wind and sand.
The lantern shadows in Yan Pavilion, which had been thrown into chaos, seemed to freeze for a breath beneath that single note.
General Zhu had been watching the saber in Fang Yingjie's hand.
At that sound, the corner of his eye shifted.
The second note followed at once.
This one was lower than the first.
Low as hoofbeats crossing cold, dry sand, with the murmur of hidden water buried underneath.
Fang Yingjie did not turn around.
He could not.
The two curved sabers were still before him.
Yet the moment the music began, the steps of the two Western Regions sabermen did not stop, but something in their blade-work faltered by the finest thread, as though they had heard a sound that had no business existing in this place.
It was not that the music had shaken them.
Nor was it that some inner force had borne down on them.
It was simply that the tune was nothing like the music that should have belonged in Yan Pavilion.
This was Baoque Tower.
There should have been soft strings, hushed songs, and the lingering ache of desire beneath red lamps and low, shadowed light.
But what Yan Ji played now was not the clear, polished music one usually heard in a pleasure house.
Her fingertips fell to the strings—first clipped, then urgent; first cold, then dazzling. After only a few notes, it seemed as though a line of whirling dancers from the Western Regions had suddenly spun beneath the lamps, their skirts sweeping across golden bells, only for the bells to be pressed back, beat by beat, under drums from some distant frontier.
Cold.
Strange.
Gorgeous.
And beneath it all, a wildness that could not be named.
At last, General Zhu stopped looking only at the saber.
Slowly, his gaze moved to Yan Ji.
Yan Ji did not look at him.
She sat behind the qin table, her dark sleeves hanging low, her face still pale, but her fingertips steady.
Perfectly steady.
As though all the saber-light, shattered porcelain, and blood in the pavilion could not throw even a single string out of place.
The thin performer had been standing just inside the door.
At that moment, he suddenly lifted his head.
He looked at Yan Ji's hands. Surprise flashed in his eyes, and then something in them lit.
This was no ordinary frontier tune learned in a brothel.
Nor was it some exotic air copied out from an old score by a musician in the tower.
Most of the old Kucha tunes kept in the house had passed through paper and ink first. By the time they were played, the wind and sand had already drained out of them. But what Yan Ji was playing now, though it too came from an old mode, sounded as though she had broken it apart and set it back together inside the saber-light of this very night in Yan Pavilion.
There was wind and sand in it.
There were lamps.
There were blades.
There was blood.
Fang Yingjie gave another half step back.
That step brought him to the side of the qin table.
The Wuyun Biyue Saber lay across before him, its tip sinking by half an inch.
The two sabermen saw it at the same time.
He had slowed.
And that moment of slowness was the first sign of defeat.
The saberman on the left slashed in a feint. The one on the right drove in low, almost skimming the ground. Two arcs of curved steel, one high and one low, closed in on Fang Yingjie almost at the same instant.
Fang Yingjie clenched his teeth and swept his saber across to cover himself.
But he already knew this stroke might not arrive in time.
Then the music changed.
The urgent beat of the frontier drums suddenly stretched into a single, lingering note.
It was nothing like the night wind over Poyang Lake.
It was more like a lamp being lifted in the middle of a long night, casting its light all the way to a cold moon at the edge of the dunes.
General Zhu's eyes lit up.
"Stop."
His voice was not loud.
But the word fell, and both curved sabers halted at once.
Their edges stopped a scant four inches from Fang Yingjie.
One high.
One low.
One before him, one to the side.
Another fraction of an inch, and blood would have spilled.
Fang Yingjie's chest heaved. The Wuyun Biyue Saber was still held across before him. Blood from his palm seeped down the hilt and dripped onto the floor, mingling with broken porcelain, spilled wine, and incense ash.
He had not won.
He had only endured until that single word—stop.
The two sabermen lowered their blades and stepped back.
Their movements were still quiet.
There was no resentment in them.
Nor did they spare Fang Yingjie a second glance.
But as they retreated to either side of the doorway, both their gazes paused for an instant on the Wuyun Biyue Saber.
They would remember that blade.
General Zhu, however, was no longer looking at them.
He was looking at Yan Ji.
The music had not yet ended.
Yan Ji slowly gathered in the long trailing note beneath her fingertips, and when the final sound fell, it was like the first glimpse of water at the far side of windblown sand.
Yan Pavilion fell silent for a moment.
Then General Zhu smiled.
This time, it was not the bright smile he had worn when he was looking at the saber.
This time, it was the smile of a man who had truly heard something interesting.
"What tune was that?"
Yan Ji lowered her eyes. Her voice remained calm.
"An old tune, played anew."
"An old tune?"
He turned to look at the thin performer by the door.
"There is Kucha in it," the man said softly.
He paused, then added, "But it does not follow the old score."
The interest in General Zhu's eyes deepened.
Yan Ji did not lift her head.
She merely laid her fingers lightly against the strings, stilling the last trembling note.
Only now did the confrontation truly come to an end.
Not because Fang Yingjie had won.
Not because the two sabermen had been defeated.
But because with a single piece, Yan Ji had taken General Zhu's interest away from the edge of the saber and drawn it back to herself.
Reining In the Edge by Lamplight
At that moment, the pale-faced, clean-shaven middle-aged attendant stepped forward by half a pace.
It seemed this was the moment he had been waiting for all along.
General Zhu's interest had already shifted from the saber to the music.
The two Muslim bladesmen had sheathed their aggression and withdrawn as well.
Fang Yingjie still stood before the zither table with his saber held across him, his chest rising and falling unevenly, the blood from his palm dripping to the floor one drop at a time. Iron Mask was braced against the doorway of the inner corridor. Half the blood beneath the lower rim of his mask had already dried, while half his body still could not be lifted.
Shattered porcelain, spilled wine, fallen incense ash, a broken jade paperweight, a cracked agate cup, a little bronze beast with a chipped corner—all of it still lay strewn across the floor.
Yet the pale-faced, clean-shaven middle-aged attendant only glanced at the wreckage once before lowering his eyes and saying softly,
"Master Zhu, tonight you have had the pleasure of fine saberplay and fine music alike. If this goes on any longer, we will only disturb the lady's clear notes."
He spoke very quietly.
And very steadily.
As though the storm of steel that had just flashed through the pavilion had not been chaos, not a killing snare, not a moment in which a servant of a red-lantern house had nearly died beneath two curved sabers—
but merely a passing whim on General Zhu's part, one that had let him enjoy an extra display of good saberplay and an extra piece of fine music.
General Zhu gave a laugh.
He did not answer at once.
He was still looking at Yan Ji.
Yan Ji sat behind the zither table, her fingertips resting on the strings. Her face was terribly pale, yet her gaze had not faltered. After that single cry of "Stop," she had not spoken another word.
She knew that at a moment like this, the less she said, the steadier things would remain.
But then the dark-faced soldier took a step forward.
As his foot came down, the shattered porcelain on the floor gave a soft clink.
It was not a loud sound.
Yet the little slackening that had just crept into the room tightened at once.
The two Muslim bladesmen had already withdrawn to either side of the door.
The three guards with armor hidden beneath their robes were still standing nearby as well.
But the moment the dark-faced soldier moved, the oppressive heaviness in Yan Pavilion returned.
He was staring at Fang Yingjie.
Fang Yingjie saw him too.
There was none of the interest the man had shown while watching the saber, none of the excitement General Zhu had displayed as though watching a performance.
There was only fury.
And killing intent.
"My lord," the dark-faced soldier said in a low voice. "A man like this need not be left alive."
Fang Yingjie's grip tightened around the hilt.
The Blackcloud Jade-Moon Saber was still in his hand.
But he knew that in his current state, he could never withstand another round of heavy blows from the dark-faced soldier.
Still less could he withstand the two Muslim bladesmen joining in again.
The fingertips Yan Ji had resting on the strings tightened too, almost imperceptibly.
General Zhu did not speak at once.
He merely turned his eyes and looked at the dark-faced soldier.
A moment ago, when he had looked at Fang Yingjie, there had been light in his eyes.
When he had looked at Yan Ji, there had been light there too.
But the instant that gaze fell on the dark-faced soldier's face, that glimmer sank away.
The dark-faced soldier did not retreat.
With his head lowered, he pressed his voice even lower.
"This man dared offend you tonight, my lord. Leave him alive, and one day he will become a grave threat."
After he finished speaking, he remained where he was.
As though he were still waiting for General Zhu to change his mind.
Then, from beside a corridor pillar, there came a faint cough.
Very faint.
As faint as though someone had merely caught in the throat on a curl of lamp smoke.
Yet everyone in Yan Pavilion heard it.
The tall man in blue was still leaning there, his expression mild, as though that cough had not come from him at all.
General Zhu heard it.
He did not look toward the tall man in blue.
He only kept his eyes on the dark-faced soldier.
The pavilion fell silent.
Even the lantern shadows under the corridor outside seemed no longer to dare to sway.
A moment later, General Zhu said slowly,
"I said stop. Did you not hear me?"
His voice was not loud.
It still carried a trace of the looseness left behind by the music.
But beneath that looseness was a pressure that did not need anger to command obedience, something that abruptly made it impossible for anyone to answer back.
The dark-faced soldier's fist slowly unclenched.
The anger was still there in his eyes.
But no matter how fierce it was, it could only be forced down again.
"Yes, my lord," he said quietly.
Then he stepped back half a pace.
That half-step was uglier than the half-step Fang Yingjie had forced out of him earlier.
That first half-step had been a matter of martial skill.
This one was a matter of life.
General Zhu did not look at him again.
As though it were nothing worth dwelling on.
Instead, he turned and looked once more at the Blackcloud Jade-Moon Saber in Fang Yingjie's hand.
"Fine saber," he said.
Fang Yingjie did not answer.
The sweet, metallic taste was still thick in his throat. His breathing had not settled. Even standing there required him to hold himself upright by sheer force of will.
General Zhu's gaze moved from the blade to his face.
"And the man is not bad either," he said with a smile.
"Just too raw."
The two Muslim bladesmen did not react.
But the tall man in blue, by the corridor pillar, lifted his eyes ever so slightly.
Too raw.
The words were lightly spoken.
And exact.
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened around the hilt for an instant.
He knew General Zhu was right.
He had not lost on the saber.
He had lost on tempering.
General Zhu seemed to have no intention of waiting for an answer. He only stepped half a pace closer and lowered his eyes to the black blade.
The Blackcloud Jade-Moon Saber was still drinking in the lamplight.
Along the edge ran that thread of jade-green, cold amid the shattered gleam filling the pavilion, like a sliver of thin moonlight.
Then General Zhu said suddenly,
"This saber is yours."
Silence rippled through Yan Pavilion.
Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes.
General Zhu was looking at him, that trace of a smile still on his face.
"Do not ruin it."
He paused, then added,
"The next time I see you, I expect to see you wield it properly."
The Saber Stayed, and the Men Withdrew
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
The Dark Cloud, Jade Moon Saber still lay across his hands.
Its blade was black as ink, with that single thread of jade-green along the edge, cold beneath the low lamplight like a line of water. Blood from his palm seeped down the hilt, beaded beside the guard, then slid inch by inch toward the base of the blade.
The saber was too heavy.
Too precious.
And far too dangerous to keep.
In a low voice, Fang Yingjie said, "General Zhu bestows too much honor. Mu Qi dares not accept it."
General Zhu looked at him.
For an instant, he seemed taken aback.
Then he laughed.
"You dared draw it just now," he said. "And now you dare not accept it?"
Fang Yingjie did not reply.
It was not that he did not want the saber.
The moment it came into his hands, he knew it. All those saber forms he had once practiced with old curtain rods had, at last, found something real to fall upon.
But he also knew this was no ordinary reward.
If he kept the saber, it would not be only the saber that remained.
It would be General Zhu's gaze.
And the shadow that had come from the capital.
Yan Pavilion fell silent for a moment.
Yan Ji still sat behind the zither table.
Her fingertips still rested on the strings. The last echo of the tune she had played was already gone, yet she did not draw her hand back at once. She merely lifted her eyes and looked at Fang Yingjie.
The look was light.
But it was steady.
Softly, she said, "Take it."
Fang Yingjie turned to her.
Yan Ji did not repeat herself.
She knew he understood.
At this moment, to refuse it would not be modesty.
It would be a failure to recognize favor.
And it would push General Zhu's momentary amusement back toward murder.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.
His right hand turned, and he slid the Dark Cloud, Jade Moon Saber back into its scabbard.
The sound was soft.
Yet it was like a thread of cold moonlight sinking at last back into the depths of dark cloud.
Supporting the sheathed saber with both hands, Fang Yingjie said in a low voice, "Mu Qi thanks General Zhu for the gift of this saber."
General Zhu seemed not to care much whether he was thanked or not.
He only watched the saber return to its sheath, then glanced at Fang Yingjie's blood-covered hand. The smile was still there.
"Do not thank me too soon," he said. "I gave you the saber so that you would use it."
Fang Yingjie lowered his gaze. "Yes."
General Zhu added, "If you are still this raw next time, there will be no pleasure in it."
The words sounded almost like a joke.
Yet in Yan Pavilion, no one truly took them for one.
When he was finished, General Zhu said coolly, "All of you, out."
The words were not loud, yet they fell like a bolt sliding into place.
Inside and outside the room alike, not a single person dared pretend not to have heard.
So they withdrew.
The dark-faced soldier gave Fang Yingjie one last look before retreating outside with a grim expression.
The tall man in blue remained beside the corridor pillar. He did not enter the pavilion, but neither did he go far.
The gaunt performer who had been standing behind the door had originally taken half a step back with the others.
But at that moment, General Zhu glanced at him.
"You. Inside."
The gaunt performer stopped, lowered his head, answered softly, and came in from behind the door. He took up his place behind and to one side of the zither table, hands lowered.
And so only General Zhu, Yan Ji, the gaunt performer, and the two who had not yet gone—Fang Yingjie and Iron Mask—remained in Yan Pavilion.
Fang Yingjie stood beside the zither table, the Dark Cloud, Jade Moon Saber resting across the crook of his arm.
He did not move at once.
He looked first to Yan Ji.
She still sat behind the table.
Her clothing was not in disarray.
Only her hair had loosened a little, and one strand had fallen beside her temple. Her face was pale beneath the lamplight, thin and white as paper. But when she looked at Fang Yingjie, her gaze was still steady.
Fang Yingjie parted his lips.
He wanted to say something.
He wanted to ask whether she could leave.
He wanted to ask whether he could stay.
He wanted to ask what came next.
But none of those questions could be spoken here.
General Zhu was still present.
The gaunt performer was still present.
And although the men outside had withdrawn, one word from General Zhu would bring them flooding back in at once.
Yan Ji spoke first.
She said only two words.
"Go out."
The words were light.
Light as the last fading note on a string.
But Fang Yingjie understood.
She was not driving him away.
She was telling him to take Iron Mask and leave.
She was also telling him to trust her.
Something tightened faintly in his throat.
He did not look at her again. He only answered in a low voice, "Yes."
Then he turned and bent to help Iron Mask.
The moment he moved, the heaviness in his chest surged back up.
A sweet taste rose in his throat. Blood nearly came with it, but he forced it down.
He could not collapse here.
At the very least, not in front of them.
He bent first to brace Iron Mask by the shoulder, careful to avoid the injured wrist.
From behind the mask came a muffled, indistinct sound.
As if he had heard.
As if he still had not fully awakened from the rage of moments before.
Using his shoulder to bear half the man's weight, Fang Yingjie lifted him inch by inch.
Iron Mask was heavy.
Heavier now than before.
The wounded were always harder to support than the fully conscious. And half of Iron Mask's body had all but gone limp, his full weight pressing down on Fang Yingjie's shoulder.
Fang Yingjie's palm was split open.
Blood still ran down the side of his shoulder.
Even so, he held him up.
Supporting Iron Mask, he slowly backed toward the side door leading into the inner corridor.
With every step, broken porcelain crackled beneath his feet.
The Dark Cloud, Jade Moon Saber lay across his arm, the scabbard dark and heavy, like a bank of cloud pressed deep into the night.
As he passed the zither table, he came very near to Yan Ji.
Near enough to see that the fingertips resting on the strings were still faintly white.
But she did not turn her head.
And he did not stop.
At last, supporting Iron Mask, Fang Yingjie retreated into the inner corridor.
The light from Yan Pavilion stretched his shadow long—
half of it still within the doorway,
the other half cast across the cold floor littered with broken porcelain, spilled wine, incense ash, and the chill left behind after the last gleam of steel had gone out.
General Zhu watched his retreating back and suddenly smiled.
"Mu Qi."
Fang Yingjie stopped.
He did not turn around. In a low voice, he said, "General Zhu."
General Zhu said, "The saber stays with you."
Fang Yingjie's hand tightened slightly on the scabbard.
General Zhu went on, "And do not die too quickly."
There was laughter in his voice.
"I still want to see what happens next."
Fang Yingjie kept his eyes lowered.
Only after a long moment did he answer, "Yes."
Supporting Iron Mask, Fang Yingjie withdrew into the inner corridor.
Behind him, the side door closed slowly.
At the same time, the main doors of Yan Pavilion closed once more as well.
As the two doors shut, one after the other, the lamplight within Yan Pavilion seemed to sink lower again.
The saber-light, the gusts of fists, the shattered porcelain, the smell of blood that had filled the room moments before—it was as if all of it had been shut outside the doors, and yet as if all of it still remained within.
And now, inside Yan Pavilion, only Yan Ji, General Zhu, and that gaunt performer were left.
Old Tune by Lamplight
Though all the doors had been shut,
the men outside still felt like a row of unsheathed shadows, unextinguished, pressing against the paper screens.
Yan Ji sat behind the qin table without rising.
General Zhu did not press any closer either.
He merely looked at the qin, at the fleck of incense ash clinging to its tail, and then suddenly smiled.
"Who taught you the piece you played just now?"
With her eyes lowered, Yan Ji said, "I heard it a few times in years past and remembered what I could."
"There is Kucha music here?"
General Zhu sounded as if he truly found it novel.
"Baoque Tower receives all kinds of guests," Yan Ji said. "Voices from south and north alike. After hearing enough of them, I remembered a little."
General Zhu turned toward the gaunt actor.
In a low voice, the actor said, "The sound was Kucha, but the ending was not from any old score."
"How so?" General Zhu asked.
"The old scores live on paper," said the actor. "But the passage the young lady played just now sounded as though it had passed once through saber-light."
General Zhu laughed.
"Passed once through saber-light."
He repeated the words very slowly, as if the more he rolled them over, the more amusing he found them.
Yan Ji did not answer.
She only lifted her hand again and adjusted two strings.
The qin gave a soft note.
It was not coquettish.
It was not yielding.
Watching her fingers, General Zhu said, "When southerners play western airs, there is usually too much water in them. They always lack a little wind and sand. You, however, have it."
Yan Ji said, "If General has heard the real thing, Yan Ji would never dare flaunt a poor imitation before him."
General Zhu's eyes brightened.
"There is plenty of it in the capital. At the frontier towns too."
The moment he began speaking of such things, his expression changed again, turning him back into that curious young guest from before—the one who delighted in lamps, in blades, in rare and wondrous things.
"The whirling dance, Kucha music, trees of fire and wheels of light, mechanical stages. Some men can turn themselves out of a single lantern; others can ride atop beasts and play the flute."
From the side, the gaunt actor murmured, "When paired well, western drums set beneath southern strings can make for quite another beauty of sound."
General Zhu laughed. "Exactly. Put the border army's drums together with southern strings, and it would not be unlistenable at all."
His spirits rose as he spoke, and he went on talking of the capital's lantern markets, of western music, of bronze beasts and glass cups brought from the Western Regions, of spinning wheels of light.
Most of the time, he was the one speaking.
The gaunt actor would occasionally add a line.
Yan Ji only answered in a low voice when he asked about melodies.
Then General Zhu suddenly asked, "Can a saber and a dance be made to enter a single piece?"
Yan Ji rested her fingertips lightly on the strings. "They can."
General Zhu looked at her.
Yan Ji said, "But a saber is too heavy, and a dance too swift. If they are to enter a piece, one must not seek speed alone."
"What, then?" General Zhu asked.
Yan Ji lowered her gaze.
"Restraint."
General Zhu smiled. "Restraint?"
"A saber that only goes out and never comes back," Yan Ji said, "kills people. A tune that only rushes forward and never gathers itself in is nothing but noise."
When those words fell, General Zhu looked at her, and the interest in his eyes deepened another layer.
Yan Ji remained behind the qin table the whole while.
Several times, when his interest rose, General Zhu leaned forward slightly. Yet each time, in the end, he stopped short of crossing that table.
It was not that desire had left him.
It was only that desire had changed its face.
It had shifted from the body to music.
From skin to lamps, blades, opera, wind, sand, and curious things.
That change was not necessarily safer.
But it was enough, at last, to keep the night from sinking into someplace fouler still.
From time to time the gaunt actor interjected.
One line about melody.
One line about mode.
One line about how even on old stages in the capital, the whirling dance had once entered the drumbeat.
General Zhu listened with evident pleasure, and asked Yan Ji to play another passage.
So she played.
She never played long.
Each passage ended at exactly the right point—enough that General Zhu would not lose interest, but not so much that she would lose command of herself.
Little by little, the lamp oil burned lower.
And in Yan Pavilion, the smell of blood, of wine, of incense ash was pressed thinner and thinner beneath the qin's voice.
By the end, General Zhu no longer mentioned the saber fight from before.
Nor did he mention Iron Mask again.
Still less did he mention Mu Qi.
It was as though all of that had merely been the opening flourish of an unusually fine night.
But Yan Ji knew he had remembered it all.
The blade.
The music.
And Mu Qi as well.
When dawn was almost upon them, someone tapped softly once on the door.
From outside, the clean-shaven middle-aged attendant said in a low voice, "Master Zhu, the sky will be light soon."
Only then did General Zhu seem to come back to himself from the music.
He glanced at the window paper.
Outside it was still dark, but no longer the darkest hour of the night.
General Zhu rose.
Yan Ji rose as well, stepping back behind the qin table and lowering her head slightly.
He looked at her for a moment, then suddenly said, "The lamps in this tower are too small."
Yan Ji did not answer.
General Zhu smiled. "If there is a chance, I will take you to see the lamps of the capital."
It sounded like flirtation.
And yet not merely flirtation.
With her eyes lowered, Yan Ji said, "Yan Ji is but a willow of shallow grace. I would not dare trouble General to remember me."
General Zhu only smiled. He did not force her to promise anything.
The door opened.
The men outside were all still there.
The black-faced soldier stood nearest, his expression cold and heavy.
The two Muslim saber-men waited where the lamplight thinned.
The tall man in blue still leaned against the corridor pillar, as though the saber-light, the music, and the blood of the whole night had never truly touched him.
General Zhu stepped out of Yan Pavilion and descended the stairs with his retinue.
The front hall of Baoque Tower was still lit.
But the light looked false now.
As though in a single night, everyone in the tower had learned how to pretend they had heard nothing at all.
Only after General Zhu and his party had gone did Madam Qi finally come up to Yan Pavilion.
Her steps were lighter than usual when she entered.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she saw shattered porcelain across the floor, spilled wine, incense ash, a jade paperweight snapped cleanly in two, a cracked agate cup, and a little bronze beast chipped at one corner.
The qin table sat half an inch out of place.
A string of jade pendants was missing from the screen.
There were still several patches of blood on the floor not yet wiped dry.
Then she saw Yan Ji's pale face.
Madam Qi's lips moved.
In the end, she asked nothing.
Anyone who had survived in Baoque Tower to this day knew that some things could not be asked.
Ask, and people died.
She merely turned and said softly to the maids and serving boys behind her, "Change the lamps."
Then, after a pause, she added, "Clean this up."
Everyone lowered their heads at once and began to move.
Madam Qi swept her gaze over the room, and her voice dropped even lower.
"No one speaks of tonight beyond this place."
No one dared answer too loudly.
They only bowed their heads together.
The lamps of Yan Pavilion were soon replaced with new ones.
The broken porcelain was swept away.
The wine was wiped clean.
The incense ash was covered again.
The screen was set upright.
The qin table was put back where it belonged.
But some things could not be swept away.
Some things could not be set back.
Once power from the capital had broken through Yan Pavilion, it could never again be the Yan Pavilion it had been before.
When everyone had finally withdrawn, silence at last returned to the room.
The lamp in the outer chamber had long since been replaced as well.
Fang Yingjie sat beside a floor mat, the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber lying across the space at his side.
His palm had already been bandaged, and the wounds near his shoulder and ribs had been hastily dressed with medicine, though traces of blood still showed faintly through the cloth. That vicious fight had cost him no small amount of strength, but after several hours, following the method of breath regulation Old Daoist Xuan had taught him, he had finally managed to press the turmoil in his chest down bit by bit.
Iron Mask lay on the mat.
The blood at his temple had stopped. Half the bloodstains had been wiped from the battered metal mask over his face, but it still looked cold and broken. The injured bones in his wrist and the wounds across his shoulder and back had all been wrapped, yet half his body still would not lift. Every breath came heavy, then hoarse, like a ruined bellows with a last ember still smoldering somewhere inside.
Fang Yingjie had remained at his side the whole time.
While General Zhu was still in Yan Pavilion, he had not left by so much as half a step.
Now and then, music drifted out from within the pavilion.
Never long.
Each passage rose sharply and settled firmly, as though through a single door it were pressing the saber-light that had filled the pavilion down little by little.
At last the sky began to pale, General Zhu took his men away, and the tower fell briefly into confusion again. Footsteps, low voices, the sounds of broken porcelain being swept up, of lamps being changed—layer by layer they receded.
At last the outer chamber grew still.
Then the door from Yan Pavilion into the outer chamber opened softly.
Yan Ji came out from within.
Her clothing was neat.
Only her coiffure was slightly disordered, with a single strand of hair still fallen beside her temple, and her face was terribly pale.
But her gaze was steady.
She crossed the threshold, entered the outer chamber, and came to stand before Fang Yingjie and Iron Mask.
Only then did Fang Yingjie slowly lift his head.
He looked at her.
First he saw that her clothes were still in order.
Then he saw how pale she was.
And only at the end did he see the exhaustion in her eyes—the exhaustion she had held at bay until this very moment.
Yan Ji's gaze fell to the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber lying beside him.
After a moment, she said softly, "I did what I promised you."
Something caught in Fang Yingjie's throat.
In a low voice, he said, "I'm sorry."
Yan Ji looked at him. "For what?"
"I should not have doubted you."
Yan Ji shook her head gently.
"You did not doubt me."
After a pause, her voice dropped even lower.
"You were afraid I would suffer."
Fang Yingjie looked up at her.
There was too much in that one look.
Guilt.
Fear.
Regret.
And also that scrap of pain which, only now, finally dared to loosen.
Yan Ji did not pursue it.
She looked instead at the Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber lying silent beside him. Blood he had not yet fully cleaned still darkened the patterns on the hilt.
Yan Ji said, "I did not trade myself for that saber."
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened slightly.
Looking at the weapon, Yan Ji said, word by word, "I won it from his hand."
For a long while, the chamber was silent.
Fang Yingjie lowered his head to look at the saber.
The Darkcloud Jade-Moon Saber was very heavy.
Heavy as a strip of night.
And as if, at last, the Fang family's saber art had found a true place to land.
But he also knew that he was not yet strong enough.
If General Zhu had not called a halt, he might not have held out against those two Muslim saber-men.
He remembered Fang Tieshan's words.
Before drawing the saber, ask your heart first.
A saber may be slow, but it must never drift.
That night, he had finally gained a saber.
But at the same moment it fell into his hand, another gaze had fallen upon him from the capital.
Outside the window, dawn was coming. Yet the lamps of Yan Pavilion had still not gone out.
From that night on, he had a saber.
And he also had the eyes of the capital upon him.
Poetic Coda
Twin moons and a cold edge pressed against the little tower;
at Darkcloud's first appearance, a jade gleam floated to the fore.
The youth had bone, yet youth still left him somewhat tender;
red sleeves, in silence, eased away their own hidden sorrow.
The saber took old hatred on through blood and wound;
the qin beneath the lamps turned toward a newer scheme.
Say not the treasured blade has merely found its master—
one backward glance from Jingluo has already moored the boat.
(End of Chapter Forty-Four)