Chapter 83: Loyal Heart, Part Nineteen (5)

Many took up their Paper Talismans, testing whether they could kindle them with Spiritual Power, and one after another the talisman-papers in their hands flickered weakly alight. Hearing the question, they answered in a scatter: 'Two parts of mine have come back.'

'One part for me…'

'It's coming back so slowly!'

When they had set out, they had all believed that, set against the First Siege of the Burial Mounds thirteen years before, this battle would surely match it and more, grave and tragic enough to be written into the histories. Who would have guessed that as many as had climbed the mountain came down again. This Second Siege of the Burial Mounds could indeed be written into the histories — though not for any tragic grandeur, but because it was, beyond all doubt, the most absurd, the most laughable, the most inexplicable undertaking the Hundred Cultivation Clans had ever attempted.

Some counted themselves lucky to have come through the calamity alive; others sighed over how swiftly the winds and clouds had shifted. Several dozen clan heads gathered, and after a brief discussion agreed with one voice to first seek out some safe place, to rest and recover until their Spiritual Power had returned to eight parts or more before each set off home, lest complications multiply on the road and some further mishap befall them.

One thought told Wei Wuxian all he needed: the 'safe place' nearest to Yiling was, naturally, the territory of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan. 'So,' he said, 'you mean to head for Lotus Pier next?'

Lan Qiren said warily, 'Why do you ask?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'No reason. Just asking whether I might come along.'

Sect Leader Yao said warily, 'Wei Wuxian! Say what you like about today's good deed, but one thing is one thing and another is another. Understand this clearly: if you imagine we will befriend you, that is out of the question.'

Wei Wuxian was speechless a moment, then said, 'Rest easy — no one is forcing you to befriend me. Still, we're on the same side now, aren't we? The great personage who schemed today to surround and kill you holds the Stygian Tiger Seal in his hand. Can you deal with that?'

The clan heads exchanged glances. True enough, what Wei Wuxian said was no lie; were he willing to join them, that would be an immense help. But everyone had cried out for the Yiling Patriarch's head for so many years that to ask them, all at once, to work alongside him was more than their pride could bear.

Lan Wangji, meanwhile, said to Lan Qiren, 'Uncle, is there any word of my brother now?'

After a silence, Lan Qiren said, 'None.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Zewu-jun may even now be under Jin Guangyao's thumb. Master Lan, one more pair of hands is one more help. Even if you cannot set your mind at ease over me, at least let Hanguang-jun take part in whatever you plan next. That is his own brother, after all.'

'……' Weariness filled Lan Qiren's whole face. To Lan Wangji he said, 'Come if you will.'

Now the rest looked at once to Jiang Cheng. Of the three most eminent clan elders present, Lan Qiren had spoken his mind, and Nie Huaisang's word counted for nothing either way, so that all hung now on Jiang Cheng. Over there Jiang Cheng was working his Spiritual Power afresh, testing Zidian, which though it brightened and dimmed by turns at least no longer guttered out. His face, lit by the purple glow, was strange and unfathomable. Everyone knew this Sect Leader Jiang, who had broken with Wei Wuxian, could least of all abide the sight of him, and supposed the talk would surely fall apart. Yet he only gave a cold laugh and said, 'You dare set foot in Lotus Pier again?'

Having let fall that one line, with neither head nor tail to it, he said no more. No one could make sense of it, unable to tell whether it was assent or refusal; but when the company set out and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji fell in with the procession, he did not spare them so much as a glance — which they took to mean he neither agreed nor objected.

By the time they came down the mountain it was already nightfall, and when they reached the town the lamps were out and all the world lay still. Everyone was worn to the bone in body and spirit, bedraggled past all order, so that even their formation stood crooked and ragged. The one mercy was that, rousing themselves enough to take a count of heads, they found almost none missing. Since most had not recovered their Spiritual Power and could not ride their swords, the water route was the swiftest way to Lotus Pier, and so this column of several thousand set off, travel-worn, for the wharf near Yiling. But the decision had been hasty, and so many boats could not be mustered there in a moment; the clan heads had no choice but to engage every craft at the wharf, great and small, fishing boats included, and packed them tight with the disciples of every clan, drifting down with the current.

A dozen-odd young clansmen were crammed aboard a single fishing boat. These youths had nearly all been reared in comfort, never once pressed into so dark, so decrepit a vessel — heaped everywhere with grimy nets and wooden buckets, reeking of fish, its planks creaking underfoot. The wind ran strong in the night, the hull rose and pitched, and several of the northern youths grew so badly seasick that, having held out a while, they could hold out no longer, and rushed from the cabin to retch dryly and slump dizzy-headed onto the deck.

One youth said, 'Oh heavens above, my insides are churning like an upended river! Hey, Sizhui-xiong, you're throwing up too? Aren't you a Gusu man? You're no northerner — how is it your seasickness has you worse off than me?'

Lan Sizhui waved a hand, his face gone green, and said, 'I… I don't know why either. It's been this way since I was on a boat at four or five years old… maybe I was simply born this way.'

As he spoke the nausea surged up in him again; bracing himself on the gunwale he rose, just making ready to be sick once more, when all at once he saw a pitch-black figure clinging to the hull beneath the rail, half its body steeped in the river water, staring straight up at him.

In that instant Lan Sizhui swallowed back down what he had been about to bring up. His hand had no sooner pressed to the hilt of his sword than, fixing his gaze, he called out low, 'A ghost—'

Hearing this, Jin Ling came charging out of the cabin, sword in hand. 'A ghost? Where? I'll help you kill it!'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Not a ghost — the Ghost General!'

The youths crowded at once to the deck's edge, following the line of Lan Sizhui's pointing. Sure enough, the black figure clinging below the rail, gazing up from beneath, was none other than the Ghost General, Wen Ning.

After they had come down from the Burial Mounds, Wen Ning had vanished from sight; who could have guessed that now, without a sound, he had clambered onto this very fishing boat — and there was no telling how long he had been clinging there.

True, on the Burial Mounds not long before, Wen Ning had fought shoulder to shoulder with them; but then there had been a crowd, with many elders close at hand, whereas now, in the dead of night and out upon the water, with Wen Ning appearing for no reason and in so eerie a fashion, the youths were startled all the same. They sat staring at one another, wide eyes against wide eyes, for a good while, until Ouyang Zizhen was the first to shrink back, sitting down on the deck. 'Why has the Ghost General come to us all on his own?'

One muttered, 'No wonder the boat felt slow — turns out there was an extra body hung on it, dead weight and then some.'

'What… what is he clinging there for?'

'Whatever it is, it's surely not to harm us — or he'd never have guarded us up on the Burial Mounds in the daylight.'

'But there's no danger now either, so why has he come to us again…'

'Pfft!'

'Jingyi, what are you laughing at?'

Lan Jingyi said, 'Look at the state of him, clinging out there on the hull without a twitch — like some dazed great sea-turtle!'

Once he said it, some did indeed find the likeness; but before the laughter could rise, Ouyang Zizhen cried out in alarm, 'He's getting up!'

Sure enough, Wen Ning's body broke free of the water, both hands gripping a thick hemp rope let down from the deck, and began slowly to climb. Several youths scattered with a roar, the timid ones dashing in panicked circles about the deck with a thudding of feet, crying out wildly, 'He's coming up, he's coming up! The Ghost General's coming up!'

Lan Jingyi said, 'What's there to be afraid of — it's not as if we've never seen him before!'

'What do we do — should we call someone?!'

When Wen Ning came dripping over the rail and dropped heavily onto the deck, the whole fishing boat seemed to lurch with his landing; the youths were strung to the utmost, longing to crowd to the far side of the deck, their hearts hammering, yet ashamed to draw their swords against him. Wen Ning fixed his eyes on Lan Sizhui's face and walked toward him. Lan Sizhui, sensing that he was the one Wen Ning had come for, steadied himself, and Wen Ning asked him, 'You — what is your name?'

Lan Sizhui started faintly, stood very straight, and answered, 'This junior is a disciple of the Gusu Lan Clan, named Lan Yuan.'

Wen Ning said, 'Lan Yuan?'

Lan Sizhui nodded. Wen Ning said, 'Do you… do you know who it was that gave you this name?'

The dead are plainly without light or expression in their faces, yet Lan Sizhui had the impression that Wen Ning's eyes had somehow brightened.

He felt, too, that at this moment Wen Ning's heart was greatly stirred — stirred to the point that even his speech came halting — and that it stirred him, faintly, in turn, as though some secret sealed away for years were about to be uncovered.

Lan Sizhui answered carefully, 'My name was given by my parents, naturally.'

Wen Ning said, 'Then — are your parents still living?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'My parents died when I was very small.'

At his side one youth tugged his sleeve and murmured, 'Sizhui, don't say so much — mind there's something strange about this.'

Wen Ning was stunned a moment, then said, 'Sizhui? Sizhui is your courtesy name?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'It is.'

Wen Ning said, 'Who gave it to you?'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Hanguang-jun.'

Wen Ning lowered his head and silently spoke the two words 'Sizhui' over twice. Seeing him seem to grasp something, Lan Sizhui began, 'Gen—' He had meant to call him General, but it felt odd, and he changed it: 'Master Wen? Is there something the matter with my name?'

'Oh.' Wen Ning raised his head, gazing at his face, and answered beside the point, 'You — you look very like, very like a distant kinsman of mine…'

The words sounded for all the world like the patter of some lesser cultivator or outer-surnamed disciple angling to claim kinship with a main-line scion and ingratiate himself. The youths grew more and more lost in the fog, making nothing of it. Lan Sizhui did not know how to answer either, and could only say, 'Is — is that so?'

Wen Ning said, 'It is!'

He strained the muscles at both corners of his mouth, trying, it seemed, to squeeze out a smile. For reasons he could not name, looking on the Ghost General in this guise, a warm closeness welled up in Lan Sizhui's heart, steeped in a deep ache — and with it a dim half-thought: that somewhere, surely, he had seen this face before. There was a name on the very verge of breaking through some barrier and struggling free. Only let that name spring from his lips, and a host of other things would come flooding up at once, and all would open clear before him.

But just then Lan Sizhui caught sight of Jin Ling at his side.

Jin Ling's face had gone dark, dreadful to look upon, the hand gripping his sword tightening and slackening by turns, the veins on its back surfacing and sinking. Only then did he remember: this seemingly harmless Ghost General, Wen Ning, was the man who had killed Jin Ling's father.

Following his gaze, Wen Ning's 'smile' faded by degrees; he turned slowly toward Jin Ling and said, 'Young Master Jin Rulan?'

Jin Ling said coldly, 'Who is that.'

After a silence, Wen Ning amended, 'Young Master Jin Ling.'

Jin Ling stared at him without let, while the other youths watched Jin Ling in tension, dreading that he might act on impulse. Lan Sizhui said, 'Young Master Jin…'

Jin Ling said, 'Out of the way. This is no concern of yours.'

Yet Lan Sizhui felt obscurely that it could not but be his concern, and stepped forward to stand in Jin Ling's path. 'Jin Ling, put your sword away first—'

Jin Ling's nerves had been strung taut to begin with, and with his line of sight cut off he barked out before he could help it, 'Don't stop me!'

He thrust out a hand and shoved. Lan Sizhui, already seasick and weak in the legs, was driven by the push against the gunwale and all but tipped over it headlong into the pitch-black night river, saved only when Wen Ning caught him by a hand and hauled him back. A knot of youths went at once to his aid, all hands at once: 'Sizhui-xiong!'

'Young Master Lan, are you all right? Are you still dizzy?'

Seeing Lan Sizhui's face gone white, Wen Ning grew anxious in the moment and said, 'Young Master Jin, you may come at me — Wen Ning will offer no resistance — but A—… Young Master Lan Yuan…'

Lan Jingyi, bold of spirit, reproached him, 'Jin Ling, how can you be like this! What has Sizhui done to provoke you?'

'Sizhui-xiong meant it for your good — fine if you won't be grateful, but how could you go shoving people?'

Jin Ling had thought at first that his hand had been too rough, and was himself taken aback; but seeing his peers all go to help the other and turn to reproach him, this scene laid itself over countless images out of the past. All these years, being without father or mother, everyone had said he was untaught and spoiled, foul-tempered and hard to get on with; neither at Koi Tower nor at Lotus Pier had he a single close friend of his own age to confide in. For all his exalted birth, his lot was awkward as this — as a child no clan scion had cared to play with him, and grown a little older, no clan scion was willing to follow him. The more he thought, the redder his eyes grew, until all at once he cried aloud, 'Yes! It's all my fault! I'm just that worthless a person! What of it?!'

The other youths were struck dumb in unison by his shout. After a mute interval someone, unconvinced, muttered, 'What's this — you were plainly the one who struck first… so why have you turned fierce on us instead?'

Jin Ling said savagely, 'What business is it of yours?! Since when is it your place to school me?!'

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had been on a boat close by to begin with, and at this shout Wei Wuxian started in the cabin, rushed out to look across the water between the boats, and seeing Jin Ling with sword raised against the others, said, 'What's going on?'

At the sight of these two, Lan Sizhui felt that any thorny situation could be cut through at a stroke, and cried out in delight, 'Hanguang-jun! Senior Wei! Come quick!'