At the Door of Justice

by San Bei Jiu

  The Owl enters the Temple (Night Owl’s account)

  After a nice long nap, I got up and looked for Yan Ching, found him in his study. He updated me on the case, combining the information from me and River Ghost we were almost certain that we were on the right track. The only thing we could do now was to break into the temple’s private quarters and see if we could find out more. I was obviously the best candidate for the job. We wait for night fall.

  It was not necessary to wait for midnight as this area of town was quite deserted after sundown; I made my way in through the back walls. It was easy.

  The temple was built over quite a big area, as most of the halls and shrines were public area, they were already covered by Yan Ching’s men this morning. I decided to focus on the priests’ living quarters and a shrine that was cordoned off. This shrine was discovered by Yan Ching’s men when they secretly surveyed the temple this morning, worshippers were not allowed into this shrine, and nobody seems to know what it was for.

  As I stealthily made my way through the corridors, I could hear laughter’s coming from the priests’ living quarters. I climbed up to the roof with ease; my cloth-sole shoes did not make a sound. I slowly removed a piece of the tiles from the roof and looked inside and saw the priests’ having their dinner, they were drinking wine and were having an extraordinarily sumptuous feast. That was unusual; Taoist priests were normally very conservative people, even though some of them do drink wine and eat meat, they usually do not over indulge.

  I believe these bunch of priests were pretenders, they were facilitating the communication for the syndicate. During the day they pretend to be priests, but they could not bear to live the austere lifestyle at night, so they stuffed themselves with good food during the night.

  I opened a few more tiles so that I could get inside the roof, it did not take me long to get to the cross beam directly on top of the dinner party. I laid there quietly listen to the conversation, as they drank more and more wine, they started to talk more.

  I got bits and pieces of the conversation, most of the time the older priest was complaining about how wrong it was to drink and eat so much. He kept reminding everyone that Old Granny will be very angry if she finds out what they were doing. I believe the Old Granny was the name of their superior, or may even be the Mastermind.

  The younger priests were consoling him that nobody would find out about this dinner. As they babbled through the night, I was about to leave when the older priest said something that captured my interest. He said, “Xiao Yuan, tomorrow when you goes back to visit Granny, make sure you do not smell of wine, if not we will all be in trouble.” The young priest Xiao Yuan dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand.

  This was the break through that would lead us to this Old Granny, with some luck this would be the end of our quest.

  I left the priests to their dinner and went to the secretive shrine; the locked door presented no challenge to me. Behind the door was a well kept sanctuary, it was paneled on three sides with steps, and on the layered wooden steps were row and rows of ancestral tablets (Ancestral tablets were wooden pieces with names of deceased ancestors’ name written on it, it’s used for remembrance and worship). I looked through the names on them, none of them were Yangs; they were the ancestors from three families, Cheng, Xie and Li. But the top rows of the panels were tablets that had no names on them!

  I left the temple and reported back to Yan Ching, it was not even midnight.

  Yan Ching began to see the Light

  When Night Owl came to me with his finding, I began to see the light; I knew we were getting closer. The doctor and butcher were surnamed Xie, the carpenter and the head priest were surnamed Cheng, it was no coincidence; they must be from the same family. These two families together with the third family were somehow related to the Yangs, and they were behind the theft of the Jade Statue. I just need to figure out the relationship and we would be closer to solving the mystery.

  The most promising lead was that the young priest Xiao Yuan was going to visit the ‘granny’ tomorrow, he would lead us to deeper into the organization. I will have Night Owl and River Ghost led the tracking of this young priest, we were getting close.

  I needed more information; I hope White Fan could deliver something enlightening to me.

  In the North (White Fan’s account)

  The north was very cold and remote, but somehow they managed to find me, the message was delivered by a stranger to my room. Before I could ask him anything he was gone.

  After reading through the message carefully, I realized that the message had taken a long time to reach me as the message was dated more than three days ago. I knew I had to drop all my travel plans and go to the settlement. I checked with the innkeeper on the location of this exile settlement, fortunately it was not far away.

  Along with the message, I was given 3 pigeons, if I needed to send a reply to Yan Ching, I could used them to send it to the nearest Swallows branch. I set off immediately; I hired the innkeeper’s helper as a guide.

  After half a day of ridding in the frozen landscape, we arrived at the remote settlement. I was a miserable place, the ground was frozen, and the trees were frozen, even the small stream running through it was frozen. I wondered how people could survive in such extreme environment.

  As I walk through the little village, I realized that I was no longer in the Song Empire; this place was now occupied by the Kingdom of Liao. The villagers were mainly Liao tribesmen. The Kingdom of Song (A Chinese dynasty) and the Kingdom of Liao (Northern Kingdom) had been at war for decades, the border between them oscillates with the times.

  After sometime, I managed to find a villager in Song dressing, I said, “Mister, I am foreign to this land in the north; I believe you are of Song origin, can you help me?”

  He looked at me curiously and replied, “Yes, I am of Song origin. What can I do for you?”

  I said, “Firstly I am looking for a Song exiled prisoners’ settlement here, am I in the right place?”

  He replied, “Yes, this place was a Song Dynasty exiled settlement, but it was abandoned years ago due to war between the two countries. My grandfather was the last exiled prisoner here; he decided not to go back to the Middle Kingdom, he married my grandmother who was a Liao lady, my clan had lived here ever since. About twenty years ago, the Liao army invaded this land, now we are citizen of Da Liao.” He said proudly.

  He added, “My grandfather told me that the Song rulers were very corrupted, he was sentenced by some evil officials unfairly and was sent here, he had no intention of going back. After the invasion, we were treated fairly by the Liao rulers; we were just like one of their own.”

  I asked him if he could bring me to his grandfather, but unfortunately he had passed away ten years ago, but his father who was second generation of the clan was here. I was brought before the father of this young man.

  The family was surnamed Su, Mister Su (the father was about sixty years of age). He was happy to see a Song traveler, the family received me warmly. After some greeting I asked the old man, “Dear Mister Su, I am here to look for a family that was exiled here about eighty to ninety years ago. Can you help me?”

  Old Mister Li nodded and said, “My father was the last prisoner in this exiled settlement, I was born even before he was pardoned by an Imperial Edict. At that time the rule was very lax here, even as a prisoner, he was allowed to married my mother who was a Liao woman. By the time he was pardoned, there were not many prisoners still in the camp, they stopped sending prisoners here long before that. I do not remember any family here.”

  He continued, “However, I was only a little boy at that time, so I might not remember too clearly, but there is one person who would surely know. That was the Magistrate who was in charge of this settlement; he might not be around anymore, but his son who was the Magistrate after him might have some records.”

  I was delighted, “Dear Mister Su, where can I find this Magistrate.”

 
Mister Su replied, “Their surname was Yuan, just like us they did not go back to the Middle Kingdom after the settlement was abandoned, they lived in the city half a day’s ride from here, the city of Lingzhou, that place is still under Song sovereignty. You will have no problem finding the family as they are the richest family in Lingzhou.”

  The old man went on to mumble, “When the rulers are corrupted and weak, it is better to stay in a frozen place like this, you can wear warm clothing to protect yourself against the cold, but nothing can protect you against the evil of this world.”

  I truly believe that he was quite right; there is no protection against human evilness. I thanked the family and set off immediately for the city of Lingzhou.

  I rode through the night and arrived at Lingzhou after midnight, the whole city was asleep. I managed to find an inn and checked with the innkeeper where the rich Yuan family lived.

  Against all common courtesy, I went to call on the former-Magistrates’ mansion at midnight. As I knocked on the door, I knew I had to do a lot of explaining to convince the sleepy Magistrate to talk to me.

  Two sleepy servants opened the door for me; before they could say anything I put a piece of silver into each of their hands. I told them if they could convince their master to see me, I would give them another two pieces each. Their jaws dropped to the floor, they bowed to me profusely and showed me into the main hall. Getting through the servants was the first step, now I needed these two servants to be able to convince Mister Yuan to wake up and listen to me.

  The drowsy Mister Yuan (Former Magistrate) was half dragged, half persuaded out of bed, reluctantly he came to the main hall and sat down. His eyes were so droopy that he did not even notice when I passed the silver pieces to the servant.

  It was after a cup of nice hot tea that he finally woke up; he sat up and rudely demanded what I wanted.

  I said, “Dear Mister Yuan, I am conducting an investigation of utmost importance, I am conducting this investigation on behalf of someone in Luoyang. Please listen to me.” These few words caught his attention; I could see the sparkle in his eyes.

  As a former Magistrate I believe Mister Yuan would be interested in what investigation I was conducting. There were two points that I found questionable about this Magistrate. Firstly, his family was the richest in the city, which would surely meant corruption; however it was not uncommon to have a corrupted magistrate, especially in such remote place. Therefore, when I mentioned investigation, Mister Yuan was curious.

  The second point was that the family did not go back to the Middle Kingdom; they had chosen to stay in this godforsaken part of the world, I believe they were hiding from something.

  When Mister Yuan sat up and listened, I knew I was on to something, I just did not know if his secret had anything to do with Yang family.

  I decided to test him straightaway, “Dear Sir, my investigation involves a family that was exiled here long ago, the Yang family.”

  I watched him closely and I saw him swallowed a few times. I was sure I was right on target, with sheer luck I had stumbled upon the right person in his weakest moment, he was ill-prepared for these questions, and I literally caught him half asleep.

  I followed up quickly and said, “I believe your father was the Magistrate in charge when they arrived, they set off from Luoyang with 146 family members, all women and children. Do you recall the incident?”

  He swallowed again and said, “No Sir, I was not the Magistrate at that time, I have no recollection of the family. If you want the records, I can show it to you, but it will take a few days, and I need to see your identity. Who are you working for?”

  I decided to frighten him further, I said, “Mister Yuan, you do not want to know who I am, the day I show you my identity it will be an official visit, by then it will be too late for you.”

  It was common for an investigating officer to make an ‘unofficial’ visit to the subject first before the official investigation starts, this was to give the subject an opportunity to bride him.

  He almost collapses to the floor.

  I continued my attack, “Mister Yuan, I believe you know something about that case, I had checked on many things before I came to you. Recently in the Imperial Capital, something had happened that might have involved this Yang family, the Emperor himself is interested at this case.”

  He fainted.

  The two servants rushed forward and helped him back on the chair. Hot towels and incense were used to revive him. After some time he was resuscitated, as he opened his eyes and he saw me, he let out a sigh of anguish and fainted again.

  The servants carried him back to his room, by now the entire household was awakened; everybody was staring at me who was still sitting in the main hall. When the eldest son approached me, I told him that I was an old friend of his father and I had very important news for him and that I must see him as soon as he wakes up.

  Soon I was requested by Mister Yuan into his bedroom, he was laying there looking very sick. As I sat down by his bed, he dismissed everybody except me and the eldest son.

  First he said to his son, “Dear son, what I am about to tell you was a family secret that I wish I did not have to tell you. I thought it was all over, I thought after my generation, this thing would have passed. But unfortunately it had came back to haunt us.”

  Then he looked at me, “Dear Sir, I want to emphasis to you that all this had nothing to do with my sons, and both my father and I were not bad people, we just wanted to help those poor souls. Yes, we took the money and became rich, that was the crime we had committed.” He began to believe that I was an Imperial investigator; I just kept quiet and played along.

  He was in tears, he continued, “Out of the 146 that left Luoyang, only 41 made it to here, three women and the rest were children. The children were ranged from thirteen years old to infants, my father knew that at least half of them will not survive to the next year.

  But as the Magistrate of this poor place he was powerless to do anything. It happened all the time, this was a place for people to die, the Emperor did not want to sentence these women and children to death as it would be bad for his karma, he sent them here so that the land will do his dirty work.

  But the Yang family was well connected; they had a friend in Yunnan who was prepared to spent a lot of money to purchase their release, the amount was huge. My father who was the Magistrate of this miserable place and was paid only fifty silver pieces annually, this friend of the Yang’s was willing to pay two thousand gold pieces for the entire family.

  My father was tempted. My father devised a plan to let the Yangs go without anybody knowing, he made use of the war between Song and Liao to cover up the escape.

  He told their Yunnan friend to arrange the escape route from the neighbouring village, and we waited for a border war between the two armies. At that time the border conflicts between the two armies happened on a regular basis. Sometimes they just fought at the border; sometimes the fighting could push all the way to our settlement.

  So he waited for a battle to happen and reported that the Liao army had come to our settlement and had killed all the women and children. That was what we reported to the Imperial war department, but in actual fact we released them to their Yunnanese friend and they had made their way back to the Middle Kingdom.

  Because of the war between Song and Liao, the Imperial war department and the Imperial Legal administration had no time to bother with us, a few prisoners killed or taken by the Liao troops was not important. Nobody investigated this report. As they were only women and children we did not brand them, so today they would be the same as everyone else.”

  Branding was sometimes practiced on exiled prisoners, the words ‘Imperial Prisoner’ would be burned onto the forehead of the victim. With this permanent mark the prisoner would never be able to go back to normal society.

  My father was very worried about them betraying us, so with some of the gold pieces he hired a few of the former constables in
our service to follow the family. And we had them under surveillance for a long time; two thousand gold pieces could do wonders. We had them tracked on and off for twenty years, we saw them slowly settled back into the society under different names and we were quite confident that they had forgotten their past. Up till recently, I just had received a report on them.

  How did this come back to haunt us? I really could not understand.”

  I was delighted; I had found the trail of the Yang family.

  I asked him, “You said you had them under surveillance for twenty years? How did you and your father managed to do that?”

  The former Magistrate replied, “At that time my father had ten constables under his command, to release the Yang family, he roped in the cooperation of all the constables. They had to be in it together, it was a capital offense to release Imperial exiles, and my father was the leader of the group. My father knew he must get everybody involved in the plot, it was all or nothing.

  He split the gold pieces according to their ranks, and he appointed five of the constables to follow the Yang family to their respectively settlement, these five were given a bigger share. It also worked well for them as they had wanted to return to the south too. These five constables kept track of the Yang family; they quietly followed this family to various cities as they settled to their new life.

  This task was passed from generation to generation, in the beginning the progress report was sent to my father, and then it was sent to me when my father passed away. We maintained this contact through the years while we too settled into our new life. All the five constables had since passed away, now I am communicating with the second generation (the constables’ sons), the father (the constables) will tell the eldest son what had happened and why it was important to maintain contact. We all knew that if this was discovered, all of us will be sentenced to death, we could not take any chances.

  But after years of observing the Yangs’, we became convinced that the worst was behind us, we believe the descendants of the Yang family had let go of their past and had gotten on with their new life and new identities. Gradually we winded down our surveillance on them, about ten years back we decided that we could stop doing it all together.

  Last year, out of curiosity I sent someone to check on the respectively Yang family and found them to be quite normal, some of them were prosperous, some of them were not. The Yang descendants were spread across the entire Central Plains of the dynasty, there were so many of them now, they might not even know each other.

  When they left here, they had taken up three difference surname as there were three women; I believe they were the daughter-in-law of the family. These three branches of the Yang family settled in different part of the country, I believe after two or three generations, they did not even know each other.”

  I asked him, “What were the surnames that they had taken, and where are they now?”

  Mister Yuan told his son take open his cupboard and retrieved a pile of letters, slowly he looked through them and he replied, “The Li’s were in Zhengzhou, the Xie’s were in Kaifeng and Cheng’s settled in Luoyang. They did not settled in these places in the beginning, slowly as the years went by they moved and these few place were the last destination as reported one year ago.”

  The two other cities were one to two days journey from Luoyang.

  I asked, “May I take a look at these letters?”

  As I looked through the letters dating back to almost seventy years, I noticed the pattern of migration for the three different families; they were slowly drifting in the direction of Luoyang region. It seems like the migration was coordinated to finally return home. They might have deceived Mister Yuan and his constables that the Yangs had forgotten their past, but they did not deceive me, I saw a hidden hand behind these migrations.

  I carefully noted down all the names and addresses of the three families, and recorded their migration sequence through the years. By the time I was done, it was already dawn. After studying the letters and writing it down; I had greater insight to the three families.

  From the 41 members that survived the trip to the north, there were three women, as Mister Yuan had pointed out they were probably the daughters or daughter-in-laws of the Yang family. These three women were probably married to the sons or nephews of the Yangs, when all the male members were executed, they became widows.

  The children that survived the ordeal were sons and daughters of these three ladies or nephews as many of the other mothers died on the way to the north. As I slowly prodded deeper into the history of this family, I could feel the bitterness and despair of these three women at the exile settlement. They were left with no husbands, no brothers or father to protect them; they were left with a bunch of helpless children to care for. The environment in the north was impossible for adults, leave alone children.

  It took me till late morning to compose my findings; I sent it off in one of the pigeons provided by the Shadows.

  I also told Yan Ching that even if he had reasons to suspect these families’ involvement in the theft; he had to be careful about his approach. He had to find the master-mind first in order to find the statue, if he spooked them, the whole thing could be disastrous.

  I pointed to him a fact I had discovered while going through the letters and studying the family tree, I noticed that the Cheng family in Luoyang had got an old great grandmother in the household, and she was one of the original three ladies that came out of the northern settlement, the other two women had since passed away. She was his best bet.

  Yan Ching’s account

  As Night Owl and River Ghost set off to follow the young priest Xiao Yuan, the Swallows Syndicate delivered the message from White Fan. The brilliant White Fan had almost single-handedly solved the entire mystery. Now we had clarified the relationship between the three families (Xie, Cheng and Li) and the exiled Yang family. They were the same people; they had changed their surnames because they were escaped convicts and they had lived among us for three generations. And they had not forgotten the crime committed against their ancestor, they still wanted their revenge.

  It was remarkable that these three families had kept this mindset for three generations. After such a long time they still had the resolve to execute this theft which might lead to the death of their entire clan if discovered, they were still committed to this gamble. They were still so well organized that they were able to pull off such a complicated heist, it was so well orchestrated that they had almost gotten away with it…

  Even with all this information, I was still far from recovering the Statue; they could still destroy it at any time. Now it’s up to Owl and Ghost to find a way to recover the Statue safely before it’s too late.

  But now, at least we knew who we were up against.

  So near and yet so far (Owl’s account)

  River Ghost and I waited outside the temple for the young priest to depart for his ‘granny’, the streets were busy; we would have no problem in following him.

  As soon as the young priest came out, River Ghost and I followed from a discreet distance and the young priest’s tumbling foot step showed us the amount of wine his drank last night. His stumbling steps took us to the other end of the city; this was a quieter part of town.

  This part of Luoyang was mainly occupied by middle class merchants; the houses were not too big and were not over ostentatious. This was indeed a good place to disappear in the city.

  The priest entered a plain looking house; this house looked similar to many of the other houses along in this area. A stranger walking into this place might easily get lost in this maze of uniform buildings with identical front doors. We posted two lookouts at the front and back of the house. It was very difficult to remain undetected in this place because the whole street was deserted; anyone standing around at the front of the house would stick out like a sore thumb.

  After some time, I decided to venture into house in broad daylight; it would take all my burglaring ski
lls to enter a house in broad daylight. I easily made it over the wall on the west side of the house, I decided to hide in the store room and observe the household through a window. I spent the entire morning there, by noon I had concluded that the house was not guarded, there were only a few servants.

  I decided to venture into the main building; there were many rooms, as I went from one room to another I heard some noises. I followed the noises. It led me to a room which seems to be bigger than the rest, I listened outside the window, there were four to five voices coming from there. Among them I recognized the young monk’s voice and another voice which sounded feeble and old…I believe I had found Old Granny.

  I decided to leave it at that and come back tonight to have a more thorough reconnaissance.

  When I went back to Ghost and our team, Yan Ching was already there, he was very relieved to see me safely back, and he showed me the message from White Fan. I realized we had hit the vipers’ den.

  Owl found the Jade Statue

  Night came, moon rise, cold winter night.

  I made my way quietly along the corridors that I had passed this morning, when I reached the big hall it was brightly lighted up with candles and lantern. And the room was full of people. I noticed that even thought the room was filled with almost a hundred men, women and children, it was absolutely silent. They were all looking towards the back of the room; there sat an old lady, she was lying on a reclined chair with her eyes closed. Behind this old lady was the beautiful Jade Statue!!!

  A middle age man approached her side and whispered something to her ear; she opened her eyes and looked around at the faces. Her eyes were alert and sparkling; she sat up from her reclined seat and was helped to a big wooden armed chair. Despite her age, she was still nimble on her feet.

  When she had settled into the chair, the entire household kneeled down and greeted her respectfully. Finally she spoke up, her voice was sharp and clear, “My children, my family, we have arrived at our final destination. Our objective will be achieved soon. But Cheng Ting here had brought me some unfortunate news.” She pointed to the middle age man.

  She continued, “Our plot had been discovered, a small mistake I made eighty years ago had allowed them to trace this back to us, they will be on to us soon. I have decided to destroy the statue tonight, and you will all disappear from Luoyang. Houses and money and new identity had been prepared for your escape, you will go to the new cities and towns assigned to you and start you new life. All this had been briefed to you before, you should know what to do.”

  She continued, “I will not be going with any of you, I had gotten what I had lived for, I had my revenge for Yang family. I have discharged my duty. Cheng Ting will take over as the head of the family; he will organize your escape, please follow his instructions.

  Wherever you are going to, whoever your new identity is, I order you not to forget your original surname was Yang, you will tell that to your eldest son and he will do likewise. We must not forget our ancestors.”

  By now I had made my way to the wooden beams on the roof, I could hear the conversation clearly and I could see the Jade Statue. But I could not reach the statue without risking damaging it, the statue was place on a delicate stand and it was guarded by three young men (probably the grandsons) who obviously had some martial art training. For them to destroy the Jade statue was very easy, for me to snatch the Statue from them was near impossible.

  The middle age man, Cheng Ting said, “Grandmother. We will never forget our ancestry, I will organize a system to keep in contact after we disperse, we will come back together again just like the last time. But Granny, I beg you to come with us, we could not just leave you behind.”

  Granny said, “Dear Grandson, I am old, I am tired, I have pains all over my body, I no longer want to suffer another day of this pain. I had forced myself to live through these past twenty to thirty years because I want to see the evil Kuan family destroyed and I was afraid that without me around you all might not have the determination to push for this ending. Now my job is done, I am ready to go, please let me be.”

  Many of the family members started sobbing, quietly. But most of them were staring blankly at the Granny; they were like a battalion of well trained soldiers.

  Granny turned to the statue and said, “It is such a pity to destroy this piece of beautiful jade, unfortunately it’s the only way to bring the wrath of the Emperor upon the Kuans….Cheng Ting, you do it.”

  Cheng Ting said, “Yes, Granny.”

  I was shocked; they were going to destroy the Jade statue right now. The moment it is broken, everything would be over for the Kuan clan, the General and maybe even my friend Yan Ching. And these three families unknowingly were also bringing death upon themselves because the moment the statue is gone, nothing would stop the General from launching his army to kill the entire household.

  I had to do something; I had to stop this madness. I had no choice but to reveal myself, I came down from the cross beam and landed smoothly in the middle of room. I did not dare to land too close to the group of young men protecting the statue as it might cause them to do something stupid.

  The whole room was shocked, the men moved forward to form a circle around me while others stood in front of Granny to protect her. I could see that the few men around the statue already had their hands on the statue. They were about to smash it.

  I spoke calmly to defuse the tension, “Please calm down, I meant no harm, I am not here to punish anybody, and I just want to advert a disaster.”

  Cheng Ting spoke up, “Are you working for the Kuans?”

  I replied, “No, I am helping my friend who was the head of security of for the Kuans.”

  Cheng Ting, “You are helping the evil Kuans to advert a disaster? You are too late.”

  I said, “Dear Sir, the disaster is not only for the Kuan clan, it is also a disaster for your family as well. We had traced everything back to here, the simple fact that I am here now proves that we know everything. The moment you destroy the Statue, General Zhen will launch his army against you, he will kill everybody. He is a military man, he does not hold back, the moment the army enters the city, and many innocent people will die. Your entire clan will not escape.”

  His face turned pale, up till now the entire clan had always believed that they would escape. They had meticulously plotted their escape route through the years; they even had different identities and different life established in other cities. They had money stashed away to rebuild their businesses in their new lives, everything was taken care of. But now suddenly everything came crashing down, their dreams of a new life was shattered.

  Granny’s face was sheet white; she was facing the prospect of having the entire family annihilated once again, she knew what it was like the last time; she had no more strength to go through it again.

  I knew I had hit the right spot, I continued, “Dear Mister Cheng. I had said before, I am here to resolve the situation; I do not want to see any more bloodshed. Please give me one gong of time (about 2 hours); I will try to work something out for you.”

  Cheng Ting was hesitant and turned to look at his Grandmother. By now Granny had closed her eyes and had lay back to her armed chair. Without opening her eyes she said, “I want to see the head of the Kuan clan, bring the General as well, one gong of time, if I did not see you after that time, I will personally smash the Statue.”

  No reply was necessary; I left the house through the front door. My team was shocked to see me walking out of the house, the look on my face told them something was up.

  We rushed back to the Kuans’ mansion, to save time, I told Yan Ching that it was better that I update everybody all at once. I was brought to the study where everybody was present. No one made a sound as I recounted the event tonight, Mister Kuan’s face went through various colour and finally settled in green. The General was shaking his head helplessly.

  Yan Ching’s account

  It was fortunate that Night Owl had stopped the
m from smashing the Statue, now we might be able to negotiate for a settlement. They had the Statue, we had the General’s army that could destroy them, and the Yangs should know that if they destroy the statue, both the General and I will not rest until we get them. Even if we could not do it, the Imperial Authorities will be after them.

  I believe I could convince the General to let them live if they hand back the Statue, he will have to agree to the deal; there was no other way out.

  I believe I could get us out of the situation; it depended on one important factor; did the Yangs want to live? Or were they suicidal…

  Meanwhile everybody was in a state of panic; I knew I had to hold them together, at this crucial moment I could not allow anybody to do something stupid. Looking at the General I could tell that he was about to unleash his army on the Yang’s mansion, I must not allow that to happen. A sudden attack on the Yang’s would surely destroy the statue and along with it our only hope for salvation.

  Mister Kuan on the other had totally buckled under the pressure, the last few days of immense strain had taken a toll on him, and he was on the verge of total breakdown. That must not happen, I needed him to face the Old Granny tonight, without his presence no compromise could ever be reach.

  And I knew I must convince the bull-headed General to compromise.

  I tried to lift everybody’s spirit by saying, “Things are not as bad as it seemed.” The whole room turned to me, trying hard to believe that what I said was true, but I could see the uncertainty in their faces.

  I turned to the General, “Dear General Zhen, I know you could not wait to get your hands on these thieves, you are convinced that they deserve to die for this crime. But I beg you to consider carefully, there is no way to snatch the statue from them without risking the statue. We must compromise.”

  General Zhen replied indignantly, “And let them go? If this gets out, the Emperor will chop my head off for this act of weakness. How can we succumb to this? Are they not afraid of death? They are challenging the authority of the Emperor, how can we let them off?”

  I knew he wanted a tough solution; after all he was a soldier at heart, to him all obstacles must be removed by force and then deal with the fallout later; probably with more force.

  I reasoned with him, “General, if we charge into the house, there is a high chance that the statue will be destroyed, the Emperor will have your head any way. It does not change the outcome. I advise you to allow me to negotiate for a settlement, we might get the statue back and I assure you no one will ever talk about this incident again because we are all in it together. If words ever get out, the Kuan family, the Yang family, you and I will all be dead, who would dare to leak a word?”

  The General subconsciously put his hands on his neck, knowing full well that if the statue was destroyed, this neck of his will be chopped. He reluctantly agreed to let me negotiate with the Yang family; he knew he had no choice.

  But despite agreeing to a compromise, the General sent one of his lieutenant to mobilize his army, they were ordered to the city gate. The General wanted to have his military options at his finger tip; one wrong move from the Yang’s would send the five thousand strong brigade into the city.

  Traditionally, armies were not allowed into cities unless for the purposes of defending it. The reason was very simple, battle hardened troops were meant for fighting enemies in the battle field, they were not trained to reason, they do not stop and ask questions. They just kill. Therefore, when such killers were unleashed in the city, many innocent will die.

  Now I pray that the Yang family did not have a death wish, I hope they were not so blinded by their hatred that they were willing to die. I would have to convince them that life was worth living, that it was time to let go of the past. The fact that they had planned escape routes and their new lives proved that they wanted to live; I believe the only one that wanted to die was Granny!!!

  The Kuans meet the Yangs (Yan Ching’s account)

  When we reach the Yang’s residence, the place was brightly lighted as though they were celebrating a major festival. As we entered the main door, a voice spoke up, “Be careful what you do, do not attempt to snatch the Statue, we are prepared.”

  Everybody was shocked, this voice was not transmitted through normal vocal mean; it was transmitted through a vibration on the ground we were walking on. This person’s internal strength must be supernatural; his martial art skill would be above anyone of us present, maybe higher than us combined. This was a warning to us that they too had highly skilled people among them; it would be futile for us to try anything.

  The servants showed us into the main hall, the family was lined up on two sides with Granny sitting in the middle at the far end. Granny had a red rope tied to her hand; the other end of the rope was tied to the Jade Statue, one move of the hand would send the Statue crashing to the floor in pieces.

  We went before Granny and bowed to her respectfully; slowly she opened her eyes and took a long look at us, finally her stare stop at Mister Kuan. I could feel Mister Kuan trembling beside me. She turned to her grandson and said, “Cheng Ting, bring me my tonic, I am tired, but I think I will have to be up all night tonight.”

  Cheng Ting protested, “Granny, you must not take too much of that tonic, it can kill you.”

  Granny said, “Grandson, I had started all this, I have to end it, we might all be dead after tonight. Just do it.” As she spoke her voice was getting softer, she was indeed very weak. The tonic was brought to her, after drinking it she closed her eyes again. The whole hall filled with more than a hundred person stood and waited while she slept, nobody uttered a sound, even the crickets out in the garden were quiet.

  Granny speaks

  After about one joss stick of time, she slowly opened her eyes, she sat up looking revitalized and she looked at Mister Kuan and said, “You are Kuan Ling? Grandson of Kuan Su?” Her voice was sharp and piercing, there was no attempt to hide her hostility.

  Mister Kuan humbly nodded and said, “Yes Madam Yang, I am Kuan Ling.”

  Granny said, “Did you know what your grand father did to my family?”

  Mister Kuan, “I was only a little baby at the time, my father told me the incident later on.”

  Granny said, “Your father being an evil son of the Kuan family might not have told you the truth, I shall tell you the true story now.

  I am now hundred and eight years old, I was married into the Yang family at the age of fifteen. The Yang family had four sons and three daughters; I was married to the second son of the family. We had two sons and one daughter, my father-in-law was very happy with us.

  Our family was very prosperous, we were the leader in the tea market and we were much respected in the community. The Yang family was originally from Yunnan region, we monopolized the tea planting business there, thus our supply of tea leaves were unmatched, we moved to Luoyang to improve our distribution aspect of the business. My father-in-law also wanted to have some of his sons and grandsons to enter the Imperial Service, so Luoyang was an ideal location to settle in. He left his tea plantation to his sworn brother in Yunnan.

  I was twenty three years old when your grandfather conspired with the evil Magistrate accused us of treason; it was all fabricated lies, your evil grandfather wanted to take over our business. Your evil grandfather….”

  She paused as tears were rolling down her eyes.

  Mister Kuan humbly said, “Madam Yang, I am aware that my grandfather had wronged the Yang family terribly, he regretted it very much after that, and he even tried to find the exiled family to help you. But he just did not know how to make up for the terrible act he had done. He eventually died a broken man. His guilt drove him crazy in the end. He had suffered greatly for his sins.”

  Granny was furious; she said sharply, “Suffered greatly? You call that suffer? Did he see his own family dragged off to the execution ground? Did he watch as his own children freeze to death? Did he watch his own brothers and sisters starved to d
eath? Did he have to hide his own surname from people for generations?”

  The well-meaning comment from Mister Kuan had infuriated the bitter old lady; she had waited all her life for this moment, after all that she had gone through no suffering could be worse than that.

  Mister Kuan realizing his mistake was quick to apologize, “Madam I did not mean that my grandfather had in anyway made up for his action, no Madam. I would like to sincerely apologize for my grandfather’s action, if there is anything I can do to repair the damage…”

  Granny’s eyes were sparkling, “Are you willing to give your life to satisfy me?”

  Mister Kuan was squirming like a worm beside me. He had nothing to say.

  She continued, “After all the men were executed, the women and children were sent to the north, the journey took us four months by foot, we were paraded through the city before we left. It was winter. By the end of the first month all our shoes were worn out, none of us had shoes. Our clothing was falling off our bodies, the first to die was my little nephew, he was three years old, and he was the son of the third brother. After that I lost count, every other day someone died, first the young and the weakest, then the weaker adults.

  In the beginning we make the mistake of burying the corpse with their clothing, later we learned, all dead relatives were stripped naked before we buried them, the living would have to put on the clothing of the dead to stay warm. There was no question of dignity, only survival. Through my own stupidity I saw my own son freeze to death, if I had taken the clothing from his dead cousins he might have survived.”

  Her voice trail off to some place in the far north where her son was buried in a shallow grave, her eyes stared into empty space. The hall was quiet.

  Mister Kuan was humbly bowing his head to the lady, not only was he sorry for his grandfather’s action, he was also overwhelmed by the suffering. He had grown up with the knowledge of the atrocity, but he probably did not give too much thought to it as it was such a distanced event. But now he was forced to confront the reality of the event, now the victims were standing before him. Now he was face to face with the victims of his grandfather’s action.

  Granny continued, “We reached the exile settlement on the fifth day of the lunar new year, had it been back in Luoyang, there would have been big celebration. The settlement had nothing, we were given a little rice and vegetable for a start, but we will have to find the rest on our own. The river was frozen, the land was frozen. There was no way we could survive the land.

  The Magistrate in charge of the settlement was a simple man; he did not bother much with the running of the place, he did not run it like a prison. The place was open, there was no worry about prisoners escaping, there was not where to escape to. The prisoners were allowed to stay in the little village among the villagers; there were even some marriages among them.

  By this time, our families were reduced to three women and many children; there was me, I was wife of the second son. The other women were the wife of a cousin, and the third one was the second daughter of the household, she was sixteen years old and unmarried. Three of us had to dig the frozen land for roots to feed the family, but no matter how hard we worked we could not find enough to feed the family. Eventually some of the children died…..”

  Another long pause as she remembered the long dead children.

  She continued, “Fortunately, before we all starved to death, my father-in-law’s friend in Yunnan came. He had sold off all his valuable tea plantations to raise the money to save us. He paid the Magistrate to secure our release; he spent the rest of his money to bring us back to the south and settled us down. After doing all this for us, he was penniless; but he had discharged his duty to his sworn brother, he died a broken man soon after.

  On the first mid autumn festival we celebrated outside captivity, the three women of the family kneeled down before heaven and earth and we sworn that we will avenge our family. I was the eldest among them, I was chosen as leader of the family. We told all the children how our family had been wronged by the Kuan; the children were told the stories over and over again to ensure that they did not forget.

  One month later we moved out of the city, we changed our surnames, we split into three families and we went our separate ways. But we kept in constant contact, and we knew we would come back to Luoyang again.

  As the years went by, our families grew bigger, and our collective wealth grew into a sizeable amount. After moving through several cities, my branch of the family finally moved into Luoyang, I had slowly sent my sons and nephews one by one into Luoyang to establish their separate life and identity. They became a normal citizen of Luoyang again, the other two families moved to Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, we used our collectively wealth to build a powerful business. When we had the money, we plotted for your downfall.”

  She looked at Mister Kuan with daggers flying out from her eyes.

  She continued, “Unfortunately, no matter how much money we made, we could not match your wealth; we knew we could not bring you down with money alone.

  Finally one of my grandsons came up with a plan to ruin you; that was when we dug the tunnel. But we did not rob all the gold and silver in the vault because we knew that would not be enough to bring you down, you had your wealth spread across the land. We were planning something else; we were looking for something else to ruin you. We waited……and then the General came along.

  We knew everything that happened in your household; I had a nephew and a niece working there” Two people stepped forward; they were servants in the Kuan household.

  Her voice was getting softer as the stress of narrating this story was taking a toll on her. She closed her eyes as the whole room waited.

  She continued as though there was no pause, “We did not harm anyone, we did not want to bring upon anybody the horror that was done to us; we only wanted justice.”

  At the back of the room a young voice spoke up, “That was not true, what about my father and brother that you had murdered?” It was the young grave robber, Master Zhang.

  Granny’s eyes were blinking, trying to understand the young man, she asked, “Who are you? “

  Master Zhang said, “I am the son of the grave robber family that you had murdered. We dug the tunnel for you and you decided to murder us. You had done the same as what was done to you.”

  Granny was speechless for a moment. There was a long awkward silence.

  It was quite clear that Granny did not know about the murder of the grave robbers.

  Granny’s awakening

  Two young men from the Yang family stepped forward, they were both in their twenties, one of them spoke, “We were the ones that had murdered your father and brother; we had wronged your family.” With that they took out a dagger and stabbed themselves in the heart.

  The entire room was shocked. The more shocking part was that there was no attempt from the Yang family to stop these two young men, there was total silence. As their bodies crumbled to the floor, a middle age man stepped forward and squatted beside them.

  After checking that they were actually dead, he looked up at Master Zhang and said, “This two were my sons, I was the one who gave the order to them for the killing; I think I should be held responsible as well for your family’s death.”

  He too took out a dagger, but before he could stab himself, Master Zhang shouted, “No, No, No more. I do not want any more blood.” And he ran out of the room. The madness of the situation had shaken everyone in my group, even the battle hardened General was looking sick. Needless to say Mister Kuan was close fainting.

  But the entire Yang family was expressionless, their faces were blank, there were neither sadness nor grieve. The only person who displayed some emotion was Granny; tears were flowing down her cheeks, as she slowly turned her head to look at her family.

  She suddenly realized she had failed the ancestors of the Yang family terribly.

  Over the years of bitterness, combined with her strong will, Granny Y
ang did not notice that she had turned her family into emotionless zombies. She had taught them to hate from a very young age and they were taught to perform their respective task to perfection regardless of consequences. She had taught them to uphold the family’s honour no matter what the cost; she had made them into perfect Yang family’s avenging agents.

  This group of men and women had grown up under the indoctrination of three bitter old women whom had only taught them how to hate, they had learned from a young age that they had only one mission in life…revenge. They had also learned that for the ultimate goal of revenge, anything else was dispensable, including ones own life.

  Granny Yang having witnessed her two great grandsons committing suicide in front of her with the entire family looking on. It had brought to her the sudden realization that she had been fatally mistaken. Perhaps her ancestors’ greatest wish was for her to bring up the family to be happy productive people, not vengeful walking dead.

  Her quiet sobbing turned into loud wails of heartbrokenness.

  The Yang family seems uncertain about the sudden change in their Granny; such open display of emotion was uncommon to them. All the Yang family members were trained from a young age to hide any emotion; they had always focused their entire existence on their one mission in life. They had never wasted their time on love, grieve or joy, all these were alien to them.

  Through the suicide of her two great grandsons, Granny had suddenly realized that her eighty years of bitterness had deprived the entire family of a normal human existence. It was when she finally approaching her goal of revenge that she realized that she had dragged this family along with her on this road of misery. Now in her dying days, she suddenly remembered the day when the father-in-law was dragged to the execution ground, his last words were, “Take care of the Children.”………he did not say anything about revenge.

  It suddenly dawn on her that she had failed the Yang ancestors miserably, she had turned their sons and daughters into hundreds of bitter souls. Now the worst had happened, they were heading for total destruction again, if she smashes the jade statue; the entire Yang clan will be decimated by the General’s army. What had she done?

  For eighty years she was not able to shake off the notion of aguish and revenge, but at this moment suddenly all her bitterness evaporated into thin air. As she looked at her sons, daughters and their children and grandchildren, she no longer sees a group of hardened avengers seeking justice; instead she saw a bunch of helpless children. She knew she does not have much time left; she must reverse the things that she had done for the past eighty years, she need to restored the lives of her dear family. At the moment, nothing was more important.

  But first she had to resolve the present situation; the theft of the Jade Statue had to be dealt with, she had to convince the General to let the family go. She knew she must not display any weakness, she must find a solution so that her family will survive. She had plotted and schemed all her life, she was always a good judge of personalities, she knew the best person to deal with was Yan Ching.

  Yan Ching had a Wulin background; he would be more flexible and compassionate on his judgment, on the other hand the General would be hard headed like most military men were.

  Granny looked up at the Kuan’s entourage with teary eyes, she said, “You have seen the resolve of the Yang family, it was unfortunate that we had been discovered. But we are still having the Statue; I suggest we resolve this without further bloodshed.”

  The Yang family looked at their Granny in astonishment; throughout their life revenge for the family was never a compromise. Every one of them was prepared to destroy the Statue and eventually be killed by the General’s army; compromise did not cross their mind at all.

  Seizing the opportunity, Yan Ching said, “Yes, Madam Yang, I totally agree that it is time to bring this suffering to an end, enough time had been wasted on this meaningless road to revenge. Three generation had past, the perpetrators of the crime had since past away, the new generations had tried their best to make up for the ancestors error. Perhaps more could have been done, and I believe more will be done in the future.” Yan Ching looked at Mister Kuan and he nodded his head in agreement.

  Yan Ching continued, “The death of the grave robbing family had been resolved with the suicide of these two young men, whether they deserved death or not I do not judge. But the victims’ family Master Zhang had been satisfied, let these two brave young men be the last to die for this tragic episode.”

  Granny said, “Let this be over, what about my family?”

  Yan Ching, “We have agreed that as soon as we get back the Statue unharmed, we will leave everybody unharmed, I suggest that you leave Luoyang and start your lives elsewhere.”

  Yan Ching turned to the General, seeking an agreement. The General had by now enough of this madness; he wanted no part of it, he just wanted to get back the Statue and leave Luoyang. Without replying he just turned and left the room.

  Granny said to the family, “After this night, we will start our new life; we shall forget about revenge, we had wasted too much time, let’s hope it’s not too late. I had failed the Yang ancestors; I had guided you all on a path of hatred and misery. I want all that to change from now on, I want you all to lead a good happy life; that was what my father-in-law had told me to do. But in my bitterness I had forgotten all that for the past eighty years. Dear children, I am truly sorry.”

  I was very difficult for a hundred and eight years old granny to admit to her three generations of descendants that she was wrong for the past eighty years, but Granny was never one that lacks courage. And Granny knew that she did not have much time to undo the damages that all this hatred had done to the family, she knew that she was the only who can reverse that.

  The Final Settlement

  The entire Yang clan was again displaying a blank expression; they were trained from an early age to take orders from the Granny without questions. No matter how extraordinary the order seemed to be, there was no question of not obeying it.

  The only one of them showed some sign of hesitation was Cheng Ting, the eldest grandson, he was shaking his head in disbelief and he said, “My dearest Granny, how can we abandon our revenge now? My great grandfather was executed because of this evil people, my family had lived in shame ever since. My family did not dare to use our surname because of them; we could not even put my ancestors’ name on the ancestral tablet in the temple…all because of them. How can you let them go?”

  With tears flowing down her cheeks, Granny said, “Yes my dear grandson, I know it sounded unfair, I know it is against all that I had been preaching in the past. But now I want you all to live, to carry on your lives, to carry on the Yang clan. I do not want my family to go through what I went through; you are now the head of the household, you have the duty to lead them out alive.

  I have a plan to protect the Yang clan; I have a plan to ensure that these people will not go back on their words after we hand back the Statue. Grandson, show them your power.”

  Cheng Ting reluctantly obeyed, “Yes Granny.”

  He moved to the entrance of the main hall, he took a spear from the weapons rack beside the door way. The spear was about nine feet long, wooden shaft with a metal tip. Cheng Ting held the spear upside down pointing it to the ground and he leaped almost fifteen feet into the air, as he came down he brought the spear tip down thrusting it into the floor.

  Such a thrust would normally break the wooden shaft of the spear, but he had focused his entire body’s energy onto the tip of the spear. When the spear tip hit the floor, it penetrated the ground like tofu; the spear went in the floor by almost two feet.

  This was a powerful display of his internal energy; he was so skilled at it that he was able to channel his energy into the spear, pushing it through two feet of the concrete floor. His power was clearly beyond anyone present, had he chosen to rebel against his Granny’s wishes, there was no one present who could stop him.

  Granny said, “
Now I shall hand the Statue back to you, if you go back on your words and harm anyone in my family, this is what you can expect in return.”

  She continued, “My family might not be able to fight the General’s army, but any one of my grandsons is more than capable of taking out anyone of you individually.”