Within the inner city of the capital stood Fengle Tower.
Outside, it was the bitterest part of winter, cold enough for dripping water to freeze on contact. Heavy snow had sealed the streets.
Inside the tavern, however, warm fragrance drifted through the air, and the place was alive with the lushness of spring.
Four waist-high purple-bronze braziers stood at the four corners of the main hall, each burning the finest smokeless silver-thread charcoal.
The strains of zithers and flutes floated from behind the beaded curtain of a private room on the second floor, playing one of those soft, lilting melodies from the Qinhuai River.
In the main hall, more than a dozen tables of diners sat around the braziers, warming their wine.
The tables were laden with seasonal delicacies: fermented fish, slices of mutton fat thin as cicada wings, and steaming hotpots to warm away the winter chill.
Several potbellied merchants were raising cups with the idle officials across from them.
Their conversation concerned next year's silk market in Jiangnan, or perhaps which brothel had produced the newest beauty.
At the Son of Heaven's feet, the capital basked in prosperity and extravagance, utterly oblivious to the mountain of corpses and sea of blood in the northern frontier.
…
Just as everyone was in high spirits, the felt door curtain was suddenly thrown open.
A blast of icy wind swept into the hall, making several diners near the entrance shiver.
The closest tables took a quick look.
The newcomer was a burly fur trader, wrapped in a tattered sheepskin coat.
No one knew what kind of weapon had slashed it, but through the holes, filthy reeds bulged out, clotted together with dark-red scabs of blood.
He staggered into the hall, bringing with him the sour reek of sweat.
Several diners at the neighboring table immediately raised their sleeves to cover their noses. Their brows furrowed, their faces full of disgust.
The waiter, a white towel draped over his shoulder, took one look at the man's clothes.
He judged him to be some impoverished refugee who had fled to the capital. His face darkened at once, and he snatched up the cudgel by the door, preparing to beat the eyesore of a beggar back out.
But before the waiter could take another step, the fur trader pulled half a gray cloth pouch from inside his clothes and hurried to the counter.
He slapped the money pouch onto the table.
The cloth came undone, and more than a dozen pieces of broken silver rolled out.
Yet the silver was stained with blood, radiating a sinister, murderous air.
The waiter's feet stopped dead.
He stared at the bloodstained silver and swallowed.
Then he dropped the cudgel, replaced his grim expression with an obsequious smile, and said, “Half the fattest roast goose! And three jin of firebrand liquor!”
“Right away, sir! Please, take a seat inside! The finest food and drink will be out in a flash!”
The waiter swiftly gathered up the broken silver and called toward the kitchen.
The fur trader, Old Xing, made his way to an empty table in the corner and sat down, letting out a long breath.
“Ah… now that’s better!”
The food and liquor arrived in no time. Old Xing did not touch his chopsticks, nor did he bother with the usual ritual of pouring the wine.
He simply grabbed the wine jar, tipped back his head, and began gulping straight from the mouth.
As the fiery liquor slid down his throat, Old Xing finally felt satisfied.
He lowered the jar with a smack of his lips and wiped the wine from the corner of his mouth.
Then he exhaled a long breath of murky white vapor and stared blankly at the empty porcelain bowl before him.
“When this job is over…” Old Xing muttered through clenched teeth, his voice filled with the exhaustion of a man who had barely survived.
“I’d rather starve to death begging in the capital than ever earn that blood money in the north again.”
At the neighboring table, a shopkeeper wearing a melon cap and a slate-blue Jiangnan silk jacket turned around.
He casually grabbed a handful of fried soybeans from the table, tossed them into his mouth, and cracked them between his teeth as he sized up Old Xing.
“Judging by your accent, sir, you’re an old hand who travels beyond the frontier.” A probing light flickered in the shopkeeper’s eyes.
“What happened in the north? Has some great disaster truly struck? To frighten a hardened traveler like you so badly that you no longer dare take on the trade?”
Across from the shopkeeper sat a thin, pale-faced tea drinker in a blue robe.
This man often visited the household of a relative who worked in the Ministry of War’s Military Selection Office, and he was quite well informed.
The blue-robed man took a sip of Dragon Well tea and lowered his voice.
“Shopkeeper, you may not know this, but rumors have already spread among the officials in the capital. Zhenbei Pass… is probably lost.”
The words “Zhenbei Pass” made the diners at several nearby tables stop eating and turn to look.
Seeing that he had everyone’s attention, the blue-robed man straightened his sleeves and continued.
“I’ve heard that the Helian King has raised fifty thousand armored cavalry from his royal encampment and surrounded Zhenbei Pass so completely that not even a drop of water could get through.”
“The city’s provisions are exhausted, and there are no reinforcements from outside. It is already a dead end.”
Old Xing’s eyes filled with alarming red veins as he stared at the blue-robed man.
“Fifty thousand cavalry?” Old Xing sneered. “Those weren’t fifty thousand cavalrymen. They were fifty thousand bloodthirsty beasts!”
Old Xing suddenly rose to his feet and kicked over the bench beneath him.
“I was trapped in a ruined temple fifty li outside Western Route Prefecture! I saw it with my own eyes. That wasn’t a battle—it was a living hell!”
He pointed toward the snowstorm outside the door.
“Beneath the walls, corpses were piled higher than the battlements! Great Qian soldiers and barbarian soldiers were tangled together, rotting in the snow. Put one foot down and you couldn’t tell whether you were stepping on mud or frozen intestines!”
As he spoke, the hands that had once wielded blades and spears began to tremble uncontrollably.
Old Xing seized the wine jar and took another deep swallow. Liquor ran down his chin and into his collar.
“After that, I found a chance to make my way to Zhenbei City. But that place was even more dangerous!”
“Stones couldn’t break down the city gates, so guess what those barbarian dogs did?” Old Xing swept his gaze around the room, his expression filled with terror. “They stripped the corpses of dead barbarians and diseased horses. Then they smeared those bodies with a black, stinking poison paste they had boiled up.”
“They called it corpse grease!”
The faint murmur of conversation in the tavern vanished completely.
Old Xing gestured with both hands, mimicking the motion of a trebuchet being loaded.
“Dozens of catapults were drawn back with ox sinew. Wave after wave, they hurled those rotting, ulcer-covered corpses straight into the inner city!”
“That poisonous yellow sludge splashed across the snow and burned even the frozen earth, sending up black smoke. If so much as a drop touched your flesh, you’d melt into a puddle of rot on the spot—pus streaming from your body, until not even your bones remained!”
The pipa music on the second floor stopped abruptly. The singing girl went white at the words and clutched her instrument tightly to her chest.
Every diner in the hall held their breath, chilled to the bone.
The fermented fish and sizzling roast goose on the tables instantly lost all their tempting fragrance. The deadly poison in Old Xing’s words seemed to rush straight into every face in the room.
A palpable terror spread rapidly through the crowd.
“My heavens…” The silk-shop owner’s forehead beaded with cold sweat as he muttered to himself.
In the deathly silence, the blue-robed man let out a long sigh and shook his head again and again.
“Human strength has its limits.” He set down his teacup, his tone firm yet tinged with pity. “Since the lands beyond the pass have become such a poisoned graveyard, what’s the point of holding it?”
“Wouldn’t it be better for the imperial court to make a decision quickly, send an envoy beyond the pass, and offer tribute? Send more annual payments, prepare several thousand bolts of the finest silk, and placate the Helian King properly. In exchange, he might withdraw his troops.”
The blue-robed man rose and dusted off the hem of his robe.
“Use money to avert disaster and preserve Jiangnan, the heartland of our wealth and grain. Surely that’s better than letting the soldiers and civilians of an entire city die for nothing!”
At those words, murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd.
“Exactly!”
“That makes sense!”
Crash!
Old Xing swung the coarse porcelain bowl in his hand and smashed it hard at the blue-robed man’s feet.
“Cut the dog’s crap!”
“You soft-boned coward, sitting by a warm brazier and drinking tea—what the hell do you know?” Old Xing pointed at the blue-robed man’s nose and cursed furiously.
Fragments of porcelain mingled with splashing wine and flew in every direction, startling the man in the blue robe into jerking his feet back.
“The soldiers guarding the frontier have never retreated a single step—not even when forced to swallow raw lime, not even when they had to carve the rotting flesh from their own bodies!”
“I saw it with my own eyes! A commander who had lost an arm pressed a red-hot iron block against his own festering wound! They filled the cracks in the city wall with their lives, all to keep that poisoned water from reaching the capital!”
Old Xing’s face twisted savagely. He drew the short defensive blade from his waist and slammed it onto the table with a sharp crack.
“They didn’t retreat! And now you want to send them money and silk so you can grovel like a slave? I’ll chop you down first!”
The man in the blue robe went deathly pale and stumbled backward again and again.
The tavern keeper hurried over to restrain Old Xing, pulling a handkerchief from his robes and frantically wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
“Please, calm down, sir, calm down. The gentleman is only worried about the affairs of state.” The tavern keeper repeatedly cupped his hands in apology. “But no matter how you look at it, the poisoned water has entered the city, and outside there are fifty thousand cavalry surrounding us. With Northern Fort fallen, it may only be a matter of time before the capital is breached.”
The entire main hall sank into an atmosphere of utter despair.
No one contradicted the tavern keeper. There were no reinforcements, a deadly poison had spread through the city, and fifty thousand elite troops surrounded them. It was an unsolvable dead end.
Someone beckoned a waiter over, tossed down a few loose coins, and hurried outside.
Several wealthy merchants gathered together, speaking in hushed, hurried voices.
“Get back home at once. Count all the ready cash in the cellar, and pack the paintings and antiques that are light enough to transport.”
“Charter a boat at the docks tonight. Send the women of the household to Jinling first to escape the disaster!”
“Those northern horsemen move incredibly fast. Once Northern Fort falls, they could be at the capital in three to five days. Hurry, hurry!”
The fear of the city falling overwhelmed every last shred of reason.
Just as the atmosphere in the main hall grew so oppressive it was difficult to breathe, something strange suddenly happened beyond the tightly shut, carved wooden windows.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A fierce, dense thunder of hooves tore through the wind and snow, drawing rapidly nearer.
The warhorses were charging at full speed.
Along with the hoofbeats came the deafening clang of gongs.
Dang! Dang! Dang! The gongs rang out loud enough to shake the heavens.
The water in the teacups on the tables rippled in fine, widening circles.
Everyone in the tavern stopped what they were doing and turned toward the windows.
At the far end of the main street, three sturdy relay horses came thundering down the road, carrying runners from the Capital Prefecture. They swept through the street like a hurricane.
Their hooves kicked up great clouds of leftover snow, their momentum terrifying.
The lead runner wore a red-and-black official uniform, with a copper plaque bestowed by the emperor fastened at his waist.
He pulled hard on the reins, straightened in the saddle, and raised a victory proclamation with a red background and golden characters in his left hand.
Then he shouted toward both sides of the street:
“Great victory at Northern Fort—!”
His broken, hoarse cry tore through the falling snow.
Everyone in the main hall shuddered.
“The second son of the Chengyi Earl, General Xu Zhan!” the runner shouted, waving the proclamation as his voice rose higher and higher.
“With two hundred light cavalry, he launched a night raid on the enemy’s fifty-thousand-strong encampment! He beheaded the ten-thousand-man commander Badu! He burned the enemy’s heavy weapons and provisions! The northern army has suffered a crushing defeat and retreated along the entire front—!”
Boom!
Those few sentences struck the diners in Fengle Tower like a thunderclap from a clear sky, leaving them utterly stunned.
The second rider followed close behind. The runner beat his gong furiously and continued shouting:
“By His Majesty’s imperial command, Xu Zhan is hereby promoted to the rank of Third-Rank Martial Valor General! He is granted an hereditary title without reduction in rank—the Marquis of Pacifying the North—!”
Immediately afterward, the third rider galloped past, his voice ringing with fervor:
“Imperial Commissioner Xu Qinghuan! You sealed the city with iron resolve, saved lives, and healed the afflicted! You broke the barbarian poison plot and safeguarded four hundred thousand soldiers and civilians! His Majesty has specially bestowed upon you the title of First-Rank Noble Lady!”
The three riders galloped side by side, their voices roaring in unison as they echoed through the wind and snow:
“The Xu family’s two heroes! Heaven bless Great Qian!”
The horses never slowed. The runners’ shouts gradually faded into the distance as they raced toward the next street to announce the victory.
Inside Fengle Tower, silence reigned.
For a full three breaths, not even the sound of breathing could be heard in the main hall.
The wealthy merchants who had just been planning to charter a boat south watched helplessly as the banknotes clutched in their hands slipped loose and fell beside the brazier.
The man in the blue robe’s face shifted from red to white and back again.
Old Xing still stood frozen in the same pose, his blade pressed against the table.
Two hundred cavalry had defeated an army of fifty thousand? The deadly poison had been neutralized?
Everyone stood rooted to the spot, dumbfounded.
