by Yan LeiSheng
Chen Qilang hastened to explain: “Boss, the kid knew very advanced kung-fu, I–”
“I saw how it played out – you didn’t even try!”
“Please understa–”
A sudden pain in his stomach cut him off mid-sentence. When he looked down the boss was extracting a knife with a needle-like blade from his abdomen.
It was the last thing he saw before his entire body stiffened. Betraying no emotion, the boss had stabbed him using a move much faster than all his knife twirls and serpent steps could ever be, stepping over his body as if it was nothing more than a tree trunk or pile of stones.
“So, imperial whore, you escaped my hunters and managed to return.”
Her time in the West had clearly improved her fighting skills. He would have to look further into it and find an opponent who could match her level of skill when the time came.
The man’s mouth twisted in a rictus smile before he let out a short laugh.
“Come, Pang Chun, we’re leaving!” he called to a silhouette behind him.
Pang Chun had stood by in silence as he watched him kill Chen Qilang. He responded simply, “Of course.” He jerked his head. “Uncle Gao, should we tell Uncle Yu?”
“Tell him what?”
Didn’t Pang Chun understand that his master wanted to deal with this personally? While the captain general had ordered him to work with Uncle Yu, he wasn’t going to hand his rival such a victory. Not daring to say more, Pang Chun simply nodded.
Chapter 1
The prefecture of Shaoxing was once known as Kuaiji. According to legend, it was there, or more precisely in Shaoxing, that Emperor Yu the Great had gathered his feudal lords after taming the waters in the area, which until then had suffered from frequent flooding. The historical documents recorded:
“After containing the floods, Yu the Great gathered his feudal lords to evaluate their performance. He died and was buried in this place. And so, the town took the name of Kuaiji, meaning gathering.”
It had always been known for its grandeur and refinement. At one time, students travelled from all over the country to study at the University of Mount Wolong established by Fan Zhongyan, a great politician and man of letters of the Song dynasty. Later, the celebrated neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi led conferences there, strengthening the institution’s reputation as a center of classical learning before it lost its prestige under the Yuans.
Two years earlier the prefectural magistrate of Shaoxing and the district commander had renovated the establishment, constructing the Hall of High Virtue and the Pavilion of the Great Classics. Masters and students alike gathered in great numbers, and the new Jishan University reveled in a renewed glory that was greater than ever. Each year more than four hundred scholars gathered there from as far away as the most distant southern regions and the most remote reaches of the north.
The warden was a lean old man of sixty years named Wu. His job was to maintain the building, but as he worked in the most illustrious university in the known world, he felt as though he too were invested with a scholarly duty. Thus, he studied the Four Books and the Five Classics, though he enjoyed other works for entertainment.
He was currently deep into a recent edition of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Jiang Daqi, the pages of which were almost new. Old Wu had read through to the tenth chapter, a high point in the story where Zhu Geliang foils the plot of Zhou Yu, and was so deeply engrossed that he almost didn’t hear a visitor looking to make themselves known. Jishan University, a staunch proponent of universal education, opened its doors to any student as long as they identified themselves. The warden didn’t even raise his head, only gesturing at the register set next to him.
“Sign here,” he said simply.
The scratching of the pen on the paper reached his ear. He placed his finger on the passage “Capturing arrows with boats of straw”1, then finally lifted his head to ask, “Which master are you looking for?”
1 A famous passage from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms which relates one of Zhu Geliang’s ingenious strategies, where instead of making arrows to defend his devastated country, he sends straw boats before the enemy, where they absorb thousands of enemy arrows which he then collects to use in his attack. The modern expression “Capturing arrows with boats of straw” can thus mean “Use the enemy’s own resources against them.”
But there was no one there. Had he imagined it? To set his mind at ease, he looked down at the register and saw several words written in a refined script: Looking for a friend.
Most students simply wrote their name in the register, as their handwritten signatures were complex and often illegible to prevent forgery. Wu wondered why this mysterious visitor had kept their identity from him, but he wasn’t curious enough to go search inside the buildings. He cursed the sneaky children who often came to play tricks on him, then returned to delve once more into the rivalries of Zhu Geliang and Zhou Yu.
The old warden was of course unaware that it was the secret code of the Central Plain Brotherhood. Founded by Wei Yu – the man who assassinated the first emperor of China – this secular organization, whose name had changed many times, was subtle as a breeze. Its members had been so numerous and their operations so confidential that they could sometimes have been in one another’s presence without knowing. To compensate for the fallibility of code names, which were too easy to unearth, an old master had had the ingenious idea of these coded signatures. People were often intrigued by these seemingly incomprehensible phrases, each of which carried a meaning learned by new members on their initiation.
It was Shao Jun who had just signed the register, but rather than entering the buildings she left to climb a tree on the northern side of Mount Wolong from which she could easily observe the university. In doing so, she obeyed the final instructions given to her just before her master’s death.
Would the last mentor of the Brotherhood really come to find her?
After all, there was no guarantee that he had escaped the Eight Tigers. While she had made it to Europe with her master, he had been killed in Venice, and in Florence she would have been lost if hadn’t been for Ezio Auditore.
The sound of wings disturbed the silent night. In the darkness she couldn’t see what type of bird it was. Wrapped in her cloak, she faded into the night until she was almost invisible.
Where should she go now?
She remembered the spring day like yesterday, at the imperial harem when she had been recruited by the mentor she hoped to meet tonight. Chaos reigned in the palace following the brutal death of the Emperor, all the exits had been sealed, and the young concubine Shao Jun was completely confused. Despite being locked in the harem, she had led an easy, happy life, treated as a playmate by Zhengde, who often took her to play tricks on dignitaries or to tease the eunuchs. The conspiracy hatched by Uncle Zhang was only revealed to her later, and she too would have been exterminated if it hadn’t been for the mentor’s intervention. He had introduced her to the Brotherhood and given her boots with hidden daggers, then entrusted her to Zhu Jiuyuan before disappearing. She knew nothing about his identity or motivations, and even less about his current situation, supposing he was even still alive.
Master Zhu had fled to Italy to escape Zhang’s growing influence, but the eunuch’s seemingly limitless reach had flushed him out. In China, he had overcome all the members of the Central Plain Brotherhood… except the mentor.
When Zhu had used his final breath to tell her that the mentor was still alive, Shao Jun thought she had found hope to light the way out of the darkness in which she found herself. It would take more than a mere match to relight the embers, but with the mentor she might stand a chance of rebuilding the Brotherhood.
The foliage on her left quivered almost imperceptibly, a detail which would have escaped her if the night had not been so quiet.
“Master, it that you?” she ventured hoarsely.
A cold gleam suddenly flashed towards her, like a light. Like…
A blade!
Shao Jun drew her weapon in an instant. Anyone who was able to get this close without being noticed had to be dangerous. When he leapt, she guessed from his moves that while he was not a member of the Eight Tigers, he was at the very least one of Zhang Yong’s henchmen.
His sword skimmed past her feet at incredible speed. Crack! The branch she was standing on suddenly snapped. She would have fallen off her perch if she hadn’t already found another beneath her. Swinging from a two-fingered grip, she hurled herself in the air and grabbed a higher branch with an agile pirouette.
Shao Jun was fast, but her attacker was faster. After slicing the young woman’s first perch, he quickly cut the second she had just landed on, and began sweeping the air with wide, slicing strokes. Her legs at risk, Shao Jun had no time to regain her balance.
Realizing he had the upper hand, the man sniggered. He had orders to follow Shao Jun and not to kill her, but as he had been spotted, he felt justified in injuring her. He cruelly wondered if she would survive the loss of both her legs. But while the blade flashed through the night in all directions, it cut far more bark than flesh.
Crack! Wood chips flew. The blade grazed past Shao Jun’s feet to embed itself in the trunk like a knife in butter. It remained stuck there for a moment, an opening which the young woman quickly exploited to use her own sword on the man. He reacted with terrifying speed, using his middle and index fingers to draw the dagger hidden in his sleeve. She recoiled from it like a small animal, and he parried her blow at the last second with a metallic clang. His desperate defensive move, executed hastily and from unstable footing, caused him to fall from the tree.
Like a chess player who just made a mistake in a key game, he was forced to reevaluate his strategy. Deprived of his sword and with his adversary looming over him from the tree, it would have been suicide to try to reach her; better to keep his feet on firm ground and watch for the openings that would present themselves when she descended. He drew a blade from his left sleeve, ready to make good use of his two daggers. He hoped to parry the next strike with one, then immediately riposte with the second. It was his only chance of winning.
Clang! The blades clashed together. Shao Jun wielded hers with unusual strength, but the man was too busy watching for an opportunity to stab his left dagger between her ribs to dwell on it. While he had left enough space for her to jump to the ground, she didn’t seem to want to leave her tree.
“Die, whore!” he managed to blurt out. While Shao Jun was more skilled than he had imagined, she had her limits: she would be unable to gain the upper hand as long as he remained on the ground and she up in the tree. Truth be told, he thought he might even be able to stab his dagger between her shoulder blades at any second.
But it was he who felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder where the young woman’s sword had just been planted with unexpected speed. While the wound wasn’t mortal, it prevented him from using his arm. Unable to protect himself or attack on that side, he gritted his teeth but didn’t back down.
The fight had now become desperate for him. Aware that he was now defenseless on one side, he chose to put everything into one last decisive attack. As an old saying goes, “When opposing forces are equal, courage makes the difference”, an idea which the furious man was fully ready to embrace. His absolute focus allowed him to ignore his wound and think of only one thing: killing his opponent. He leapt straight upwards towards Shao Jun to sink his weapon into her heart, only to strike at thin air.
Impossible! He swore. The young woman flew through the air like a supernatural spirit.
“Aah!” he cried as his right shoulder felt the kiss of steel.
Now completely incapacitated, he staggered back two steps, unable to stand properly on his feet. His face was a mix of determination and futile rage.
Shao Jun slid lightly to the bottom of the tree. While she seemed to float in the air a few seconds before, it hadn’t been magic, but the rope dart given to her by former Emperor Zhengde when he sent her to the Leopard Quarter. Several feet long, it was soft as silk and just as thin and durable, able to hold up to two hundred pounds in weight. The young woman had used it for so long that she wielded it like an extension of her own arm. When the man had moved to attack, she had already lodged it in a high branch, which had allowed her to gain the upper hand. Her formidable adversary was no longer a threat.
She hesitated to kill him. She had taken lives since Zhu Jiuyuan’s death, but the vulnerability of her predator that had now become her prey made her uncomfortable. He had no such qualms and took to his heels. Shao Jun couldn’t allow him to escape. She bounded forward and caught him, half-heartedly planting her sword in his back. The point of the blade ripped through the man’s shoulder, causing him to trip and roll to the foot of a camphor tree. As she prepared to end him, a flash of light from the other side of the tree caught her attention.
It was a second assailant lying in wait for the right moment to strike, completely indifferent to the fate of his accomplice. He took advantage of the surprise to attack Shao Jun, forcing her to forget the man on the ground.
Despite her unusual agility it was too late to move out of reach of the attacker’s sword: she could only bend her body to an almost inhuman degree to avoid being sliced in two by the sneak attack. Cold sweat soaked her back.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had to deal with killers in the pay of the Eight Tigers. The one who had killed Master Zhu in Venice had followed her to Florence and would have killed her too if she hadn’t been trained by Ezio Auditore. The man before her seemed even more skilled. She was finished if he reached her.
Shao Jun felt as if time slowed as the blade grazed her waist: the wind blew quieter, a leaf stood motionless in the air, a diffuse light suddenly appeared and a sword miraculously emerged as if from nowhere to intercept the strike that would have cut her in two.
The young woman didn’t hear the collision of the blades, but she saw the sparks that burst forth from their meeting. She took advantage of the brief lull to take several steps back and catch her breath. The two silhouettes exchanged crashing blows for several seconds, then everything suddenly stopped.
She regained her breath, and both she and the man she had injured remained transfixed by the shadowy duel. Their faces were indiscernible in the darkness, but the one who had hidden behind the tree was the smaller of the two. In the confusion, she thought it resembled a battle between an angel and a demon.
Crash! The Eight Tigers attacker collapsed and was finished without ceremony. Shao Jun could finally breathe easily. Seized by fear, the injured man scrambled to his feet to resume his mad run. His attempt at escape was cut short by a blow almost imperceptible to the eye, and he fell to the ground. As he touched the earth, a light sparked in his hand and shot towards the sky before exploding into a thousand sparks.
A firework!
Shao Jun felt her heart stop. The man who had saved her withdrew his sword from the body under the tree, wiping it on the dead man’s clothes before turning towards the young woman.
“Imperial Favorite, Gao Feng’s men will soon arrive with reinforcements. Follow me!” he said quietly.
Gao Feng was one of the dead men? The questions would have to wait. A small troop of men was climbing the slope at the foot of the mountain where a string of lights twinkled. Shao Jun quickly followed the stranger in the opposite direction, into the dense forest of Mount Wolong which no paths dared traverse.
Then it hit her.
It was… it was him! The mentor! The one who had introduced her to the Brotherhood!
His voice was older, but it sounded like the one etched in her memory. And he had called her the “imperial favorite” just like the old Emperor, despite the title having officially disappeared with him. She was both emotional and excited. It was the mentor
who had saved her when she was just a teenager, initiated her into the Brotherhood without ever showing her his face or revealing his identity. She hadn’t seen him since and had even doubted that he still lived when she wrote the secret code on the university register. Yet he had come. Shao Jun felt like she had finally set foot on land after an eternity at sea.
Their walk led them to a clearing, at the center of which rose a large larch pine with dense branches.
“Young girl, we can rest here a moment without worry. They won’t find us here,” he declared in a low voice.
Shao Jun pushed through the foliage, finding a grotto formed by interlacing branches where the moonlight and stars failed to reach. She moved further in and bowed, a knee on the earth and her left hand on her chest.
“Master, please call me little sister, like before.”
This was how the young recruits of the Brotherhood showed their respect to their elders. When he had saved her from the grip of the Eight Tigers she had been little more than a child, so this nickname came naturally.
Shhh! A flame burned in the darkness as the mentor lit a small fire, by the light of which Shao Jun made out a thin face with a pointed beard. He looked at her and laughed affectionately.
“You’ve grown up, so I prefer to call you ‘young girl’. You know, in the Brotherhood, we don’t really pay much attention to official ranks, so you may simply call me Yangming.”
Shao Jun quivered. Yangming? To her ears, this quite ordinary name was a veritable cataclysm.
