The Red Tiger of Ming was not hard to find. He stood by the pond on the northern side of the farmstead, bathed in moonlight and the shine of dew in the grass. Unsheathed was his sword; a rare sight even within Cn Ming’s halls. Few were the cultivators who could make him draw his sword; most of them succumbed to his sheath alone. But now did Lu Yuxin stand with that pale steel held aloft; a raised mirror for the moon and the cold stars above. He faced the water, his posture that of a statue. Deep breaths left him as the night’s mists and the earth itself appeared to quiver with anticipation.
How long he had been standing like this, only he and the stars knew. Dew shone on his bde’s edge.
Behind him, a gray shadow drew closer. When saw that the swordmaster had not left to chase the spirit beast without permission, Huijin’s breath shuddered with relief. But his relief soon waned to a dark, cavernous quietude, a hollow within his breast. He did not draw nearer. Some ten steps away, he halted to behold the swordmaster’s arts.
The clouds hid the moon and unveiled her after turn. Sheep bleated in the distance, their bleats mere whispers on the wind.
Lu Yuxin swung. He struck but once. The bde sang as it cut the night. First; up. The pond stirred. A wall of water rose; an impenetrable wave shot towards the skies. Then; down. The waters fell. Motes of water drifted across the pond as the master sheathed his sword.
And shrouded in the night, the ashen one watched him. Quiet was he, but the moon’s light silvered his dark eyes and revealed in them a voracious envy. What was the ndowner’s petty envy to the abyss in those eyes? This was an envy weaved and twined with pain, not with hatred. He watched a while; watched as long as he could endure it, then found himself a dry rock to sit upon, for he was so tired that his knees would not hold him.
Lu Yuxin’s breath left him as hot vapor; a dragon’s exhale. No longer did his breaths mist. He stood with his eyes closed until the pond no longer rippled; until the shy moon showed herself in the quiet surface. Then, and only then, did he turn to face the gray servant. He was not surprised by his presence.
“I have spoken with Yin Yue,” said that quiet voice. “Before we retire to sleep, we must make a decision.”
Lu Yuxin inclined his head. “Tell me then, what is Ming-zongzhu’s will?”
Huijin stood up and told him what Yin Yue had requested of him. Then, as the swordmaster listened to him in grave silence, he said, “next, I shall want your thoughts on a matter I have not yet raised to him.”
Lu Yuxin hesitated, some remark held back and swallowed. He encouraged the other with a nod.
“I came to learn that Qian Xuegang owns the half to a deed to a swathe of nd north of here. If he comes to possess both parts of the deed, he will own far more nd than his pastures.” Huijin did not say how he came to learn this. Well did he know that the Red Tiger looked down on him; saw him as a kind of servant who’d look into his master’s drawers and under his mattress, read correspondence that did not belong to him and listen at the doors.
And yet, though he knew all this, he still could not will himself to reveal how he came into his knowledge. Shame eluded him; his cheeks did not redden this night. But his throat closed around the confession all the same.
“Then, six moon’s ago, brigands came to harass the vilge,” he went on. “Their chief saw the crane token and disparaged ge — the te Ming-zongzhu. These rough men came from the mountains, from Cn Mao’s former nds. Since then, Qian Xuegang has taken to seek a wife, and that with some hasted.” He thought for a brief moment, then admitted, “I can draw no conclusion from this, so I have not yet told Yin Yue.”
Half a deed? Brigands from the mountains? Lu Yuxin found his ears wilted and his eyes wearied at these intrigues. He thought to himself that he ought ask how this gray one came to learn all this, but in the end, he had but one question he deemed right to ask.
“Was Qian Xuegang’s name on the deed?”
“No name was written on it, Lu-gongzi.”
Lu Yuxin shook his head. Cn Mao’s old nds, he reflected. And Cn Mao builds an army to the north. With grim severity, he decred, “time is a wheel, and it turns anew. Brigands in the mountains. One cn too diminished to face the threat, another ready to rise to the occasion. These rough men disparage the te Ming-zongzhu and go unpunished for two seasons. Dissatisfaction will be spread between towns and vilges. Some shall murmur that it is just right that Cn Mao recims their old nd. And if they succeed, Yin Yue’s legacy will be one of desotion and shame.”
“Then are they brigands, or are they Mao loyalists?” asked Huijin.
“If they are, then this Qian Xuegang might have ties to them,” answered Lu Yuxin. “Consider. These brigands hide within their burrows, but he has the deed which professes him the rightful owner of these nds. Cultivate those nds, use the brigands as bor. Then, at Cn Mao’s behest, turn them from miners and foresters to brigands again. The nd will fall back in Mao’s hands.”
The noose tightens, Huijin, said his bck eyes.
The ashen one rested his hands on his elbows, his reflection a dark shudder on the pond’s surface.
“Tomorrow?” was all he asked.
“Shang Hansheng’s cottage might have answers,” Lu Yuxin returned to him.
***
And so, as soon as dawn’s light warmed the hills, Ming-zongzhu and his small retinue set foot towards the mountains where the hermit Shang Hansheng had been rumored to dwell in poverty and seclusion. To curb Qian Xuegang’s suspicions, the ashen one announced that Ming-zongzhu would hunt the spirit beast in the distant woodnds, and therefore could not be expected to return to Caodi that day. Under the shroud of this lie, the three were obliged to take a longer, convoluted road, and the heavy rain at noon did not ease their path. But the ashen servant kept their fare dry and brought with him herbs and incense to repel flies and ticks. And towards the afternoon, the skies lightened and the sun broke through the thick coats of the sky.
Yin Yue walked ahead, his shoulders no longer bent and his eyes no longer downcast. The day had brought him some unexpected relief, for he was certain that he would be left behind if his servant and shifu decided to examine the hermit’s cottage.
Behind him came Lu Yuxin, his head also held high. But though he walked with affected ease, his raised shoulders belied his calm, and his sharp gaze sought the slightest shiver of a leaf and the smallest branch broken underfoot.
Where the swordmaster feigned his calm, the servant’s ease was true. Might be that a night’s sleep had soothed him. Might be that he had found some consotion in a few earnest words. But though he walked in his quiet, demure manner, with his head lowered and his thoughts hidden, his hand did not stray to the hilt of his bde. And as was his wont, his thoughts wandered ahead of him. ‘Huijin of Ming pys the ‘what if?’ with as much relish as old men py mahjong’, the te Ming-zongzhu used to say with a chuckle. He had listened and delighted in his gray friend’s many ‘what if this, and what if that?’ But now that Huijin had no one to share his convoluted thoughts with, he kept them to himself and turned them over like pebbles in his hand.
What if Qian Xuegang was a Mao loyalist? What if Chen Luoyang had not been taken by the spirit, but killed by a man?
What if the resentful spirit had not risen, but been summoned there to haunt the nds?
He did not share his thoughts. Often did he tell himself that he needed not spread his wildfire lest he had some reason to think as he did. And Yin Yue needed not be burdened by his specutions.
The path to the mountains crooked upwards; here and there could they see a pole driven into the earth; a marker to show that the road was fit for travel. Yet no sign was there of any hermit’s cottage. The sun had descended from the skies and hidden behind the peaks in the horizon, but just as Lu Yuxin thought to call their foray a failure, they crested a hill and saw there the remains of an old fire. By the stone pit stood a bench carved from the trunk of a tree. Likewise was there a crude work desk. Here did the road also fork; one path led deeper into the mountains. Another veered past a low cliff. No poles could they see there, but a lone, unlit ntern greeted them upon a low branch of white ash.
Huijin saw it first. He dried his cheeks; the long climb and the wet weather had left a sheen of sweat on his pale skin.
“Ah? Good, that’s good. Let Lu Yuxin draw ahead.”
The swordmaster did so. He ran his hand over the weather-worn desk, felt the joinery, sifted the coals with his foot. “Abandoned for some time.”
Huijin allowed his pensive gaze to wander over it. Why it occurred to him to look for carved letters on the wood, he did not know. Old oaths of friendship, protective verses, carved wards? And on the long edge closest to the firepit, he found a score of marks. These were short, thin cuts, like army warriors on parade. But at the corner, those cuts were no better than Cn Ming’s wine celr after Mao Riguang’s recent skirmish with their shelves.
Furrows marred the surface as well, but these held no particur patterns. Yin Yue came closer. He watched his Huijin for a while, then followed one such cut across the wood, his eyes distant. “Blood was spilled here. The wood is discolored.”
“Blood?” echoed Huijin. He ran his nail over the tainted wood and counted fifty such cuts. Then, as he looked at the sifted ashes, he found there charred little bones.
Lu Yuxin bent down and drew from the soil a bit of thin, oiled string. He followed it to a wooden hook fastened to the desk. When he saw this, Yin Yue covered his mouth. With eyes wide and abject horror on his face, he took to imagine what crimes might have been committed upon this wooden altar.
By the cold firepit, Huijin sat down and took a small branch to stir the small bones. They were not hollow; not the bones of birds. A thin shinbone spoke of a rger rodent; a mountain hare.
By the table, Lu Yuxin’s shattered the boy’s wild fancies.
“This is a trapper’s snare.”
“Shang Hansheng’s cottage must be near,” mused Huijin, “if he cleaned his kills here, then he must have had a way to carry water here.”
“Er, and—,” began Yin Yue, his cheeks red. He turned for the ntern on the branch. “That ntern over there proves the cottage must be near!”
“Come then,” said Huijin. He threw the stick over his shoulder. “Let us see what we’ll find. I warn you that Qian Xuegang is too clever to leave evidence of misdeeds behind, but we might still learn more.”
“Talismans first,” Lu Yuxin reminded him. He beckoned the boy closer, and as Yin Yue delivered him the paper stacks, he ran his sword against his lower arm and drained a little blood into a small bowl. Then, with a brush, he painted the needed wards, each different from the st, each meant to shield the boy from harm. A Heart Charm, to keep the fiends of the night away. A Charm of the Third Eye, to shield his mind from the hound’s baleful howl. A Throat Charm to stem the blood-flow of injury. A Crown Charm to keep his mind at ease. A Sor Charm to keep him warm from the ghost’s chilled yin.
“Lu Yuxin,” Yin Yue began as his shifu fastened those talismans to the inner lining of his cloak, “should you not make some talismans for yourself?”
“I do not need them,” came the curt answer.
“But what about Huijin?”
“When you can best Huijin in a spar, you can dictate who shall wear the charms, Yin Yue.”
The boy bristled. “Lu Yuxin!” He raised his voice. “I am not a child! I assure you, this is too much!”
Lu Yuxin fastened the st talisman. “Good,” he said.
Huijin frowned as he listened to this, but kept quiet. What did the Red Tiger of Ming know about his swordpy? “Consider it a favor to me, Yin Yue,” he said rather. “I insisted that you should wear them.”
No compint escaped Lu Yuxin, but his eyes clouded at this remark. It was not seemly. Ming-zongzhu should not indulge his servants with favors. Their adversaries would use it against them. And worse yet, the boy gazed at the gray one, his face soft. Even though the bloodied sheets made him shudder, he quieted and accepted the cloak lined with talismans, docile as a mb.
Then, he turned back, slight and small under the thick cloak.
“Take the lead, shifu,” he said.
