by Jeremy Han
“Ji Gang, the Eastern Depot failed to protect the throne. It did not detect such a vicious attempt on the Son of Heaven. Do you disagree?” she said in a clipped tone.
“No, Majesty,” the commander replied tersely. He did not contest her indictment. He noted that her voice was cold, devoid of emotion, completely unlike the breathless, seductive purring the night before. She was the sovereign now, and he was the servant.
“Your failure will be dealt with later,” she said as she turned to Zhao and Li. When she spoke to the smaller man, whose name she could not bother to remember, her tone had softened. “You saved my son.”
“Yes, Majesty. It is the duty of the Jinyi Wei to protect his Majesty.” He had replied promptly despite not feeling any allegiance toward her. Old habits die hard and The Acrobat was very much still a member of the imperial bodyguard at heart despite leaving the corps more than thirty years ago.
“And you also found the escape route.”
“Zhao Qi told me about the possibility of such a place when we arrived," Li Jing replied. "At least, that would be the way he would have designed it. The rest was luck.”
She leaned back, as though re-appraising the two warriors. “Now, I can see why they bested you fifteen years ago,” she said, her frosty tone washing over the commander of the Eastern Depot like a blast of winter air.
Then, as he expected, she changed her tactics again.
“Nevertheless, there are more important things to deal with now. I want to hear a plan to take his Majesty to safety.”
Ji Gang spoke, matching her cold, official tone. “Majesty, I recommend we head to Nanjing instead of returning to Suzhou.”
“Why? Nanjing is a lot further than Suzhou.”
“We have to assume the entire itinerary is compromised. Discretion failed to protect you, and now we have to assume that every hostile force is aware of your presence. Hence, you must be properly guarded.”
She thought about what he said before replying. “The Grand Commandant at Nanjing must be made aware of this. He will have to coordinate the fight against the rebels.”
“Majesty, I am concerned about his involvement.”
“Because he is a eunuch?” she asked.
“Yes," Ji answered surely. "We do not know how far the conspiracy goes.”
She thought for awhile over the points he had raised. “We will assess the situation when we get there," she replied at length. "However, I doubt anyone would dare to plan something as audacious as this in the southern capital.”
Ji Gang spoke again. “Majesty, there is another matter we need to discuss.”
“What is it, Commander?”
“We need to plug some gaps,” he said, turning slowly to the semi-conscious eunuch who was delirious with fever.
“You wish to kill him?” she asked with a frown.
“He is a possible mole.”
“Explain,” she demanded.
“Up to the point you disembarked, no other eunuch knew exactly where you were. He is the closest to the imperial family and only he knows the exact timing and location of his Majesty.”
“There are other eunuchs in my entourage. It could be them,” she said, raising the counter-point.
“But they are dead,” Ji Gang said in a way that could chill blood. “And he is alive. That is too great a coincidence.”
Her temper flared. “Do you wish to kill every eunuch in the empire?” She pointed at the lying figure. “He almost lost his life saving the Son of Heaven. His Majesty would never allow what you suggest!”
Ji Gang almost blurted out ‘What does a mere boy know?’ but he held his tongue. Nobody contradicted the Son of Heaven’s wishes, even if the emperor was a drooling idiot.
Meng Da spoke up for the first time. “Majesty, there is a reason to keep him alive.”
“Oh?" she askes as she inclined her head. "Speak your mind.”
Zhao Qi found this contradiction between Meng Da and his commander strange. What is their game? he wondered. Ji Gang allowing a subordinate to openly overturn his recommendation?
“If he is the leak, then we can see where it leads to,” Meng Da explained.
“How?” she asked, leaning forward expectantly.
“By keeping him alive, and feeding him misinformation to see where the trail leads. Also if he is the mole, then the mastermind may send someone to clean up the loose end.”
Zhao Qi quickly spoke up as he realised where this was going, and wanted to use it to his advantage. “Majesty, I agree that we should keep him alive.”
“State your reason,” she replied.
“His injuries are too severe to travel. Leave him here in the south. If not, he will only slow you down. The time taken for the information to reach his masters will allow us to spring a trap, or to investigate in greater detail the attack last night before we see where the trail leads.”
Li Jing added in, “Then when he is well, we will send him back to the palace and see who he will contact first.”
“Majesty, we are not part of the system anymore," Zhao Qi continued. "We won’t be recognised by those who might have sent him. We volunteer to stay and observe him.”
Ji Gang glared at them. So they read my game…
“Majesty,” he said, and the commander of the Eastern Depot looked as though he regretted making a mistake. “If keeping him alive is of value, then I recommend Meng Da to stay with them and watch the eunuch. I will personally return with you to Beijing to investigate how black powder was used here and the origins of the yingshu flower.”
And to watch me, Zhao wanted to add.
“Hmmm….” her Majesty hummed as she weighed the matter. Everyone waited for her to decide like eager petitioners who, after presenting their cases, were awaited a verdict. She tilted her head and took a deep breath. To kill a snake, strike its head. The problem must start from the palace, so that is where the Eastern Depot should focus. Let the two ex-imperial bodyguards remain where it is not as crucial.
“Very well," she decided. "Ji Gang, take us back to the Forbidden City and continue your investigations from there. And you both,” she pointed, “stay here and watch where the trail with Wang Zhen leads. Remember one thing though. I, and I alone, will decide Zhu Wenkui’s fate when you have him in custody.” She fixed Zhao and Li with a glare to drive home her point, then she dismissed everyone.
While waiting for help to arrive, Zhao walked over to his former foe, saying, “You set the stage for us to stay in the south.”
“And you caught it quickly enough.”
“You want the mastermind in the imperial palace,” Zhao asserted. “That’s why you had to give her a reason to make sure you don’t stay here, despite the trail being the hottest.”
“I told you I would give you Zhu Wenkui, if he exists. To me, he is a mere pawn, but yes, I want the mastermind,” Ji Gang confirmed.
“My thanks.”
“Don’t thank me too soon.”
“Your man Meng Da…”
“He will hunt the woman with many hands. That part of the mystery is still unsolved.”
“Too many parts are linked, Ji Gang,” Zhao said.
“That’s why I am leaving Meng Da here.”
“And also to make sure I toe her Majesty’s line,” Zhao pressed.
Ji Gang refused to be baited. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
They remained silent for a while before Zhao asked carefully, “You seem reluctant to follow her Majesty’s wishes completely. Why?”
“There are some lines I do not wish to cross.”
“Like killing a member of the House of Zhu.”
“If indeed he is Zhu Wenkui.”
Zhao looked at him with great surprise. The empire’s greatest killer was refusing to obey the empress dowager’s orders. Ji Gang knew Zhao found it hard to believe and explained himself. “I swore to fight enemies of the state, never against members of the imperial family. But Yong Le was not an emperor I could disobey,” he s
aid softly.
“He does have that effect. Even Zheng He had no choice but to rebel against his benefactor because to defy Yong Le was instant death.”
There was silence again as both men weighed what was said. They were soldiers, and they knew that often their lives, their fates, their decisions were not their own to make. Zhao could not help but wonder why he felt compelled to continue to risk his life for Jian Wen even after the emperor-monk had died. Perhaps as commanders, they had ordered men to their deaths before, just as they accepted it when ordered likewise.
Life is a sad thing for men like us.
At that moment Zhao saw his former and greatest enemy for what he was: a human being, just like himself. For so many years Ji Gang had loomed like a monster in his mind, and the fact that Ji Gang had shed much blood in the name of the throne made it easy to picture him as stone cold. Yet the imperial secret agent was flesh and blood. Zhao had killed many men in his career too, but somehow it was an easier thing to accept your own actions and rationalisations than your enemy’s, but at the end of the day they were just soldiers. Men who killed because they had to. Ji Gang was ruthless, but he was never bloodthirsty or sadistic.
My hands are crimson too, so who am I to judge? Zhao thought before he spoke. “So we are no longer enemies?” he asked.
“No enemy is forever. In my mind none of you were my enemy after Yong Le died.”
“Indeed.”
“Still, we have a bridge to cross when you find out who the mysterious lost crown prince is,” Ji Gang said, thinking that things would be a lot easier without a woman’s vengeful interference getting in their way.
“Till then,” Zhao said gravely.
“Till then.”
50
Ten year old Wang Zhen looked at his father, wondering why the man behaved as though he had something to hide. The skinny boy accepted a bowl of rice gruel from the man and started to eat. Then his father had handed him a boiled egg.
An egg!
Wang Zhen was surprised. Their family was so poor that an egg was a treat. Usually, they had gruel with salted vegetables, and if they were lucky sometimes there was also some salted fish.
The impoverished child looked at his younger brother and saw that his sibling had an egg too. They giggled at the unexpected luxury,as they peeled the shell and Wang Zhen smiled at his father, hoping to get a response from the man. But he merely looked away.
Did Father get a job? If he had, then truly their troubles would be over. Winter was coming and the boy was old enough to know that the cold season would be particularly hard for the family. They lived in a hut with a single room, all eight of them. All of them slept together in the bare room on the floor. He had six siblings, the youngest of whom was just a few months old and still nursing at his mother’s flat, sagging breast. Wang Zhen could feel his ribs under the clothes and he knew it was the same for all his siblings.
Puzzled by his father’s behaviour he looked at his mother and noticed that she was crying softly. He scanned the room and saw that the rest of his brothers and sisters were slurping their rice gruel. None of them, save his younger brother and he, had an egg. He noticed the hungry, envious looks of his siblings, and he felt the responsibility to share the egg, as he was the eldest. But at the same time, selfishness tugged at him. An egg! And it’s mine! What should he do?
His younger brother looked to him with hungry eyes and hollow cheeks, waiting for his cue as the rest of their siblings eyed the egg in his hand hungrily. He hesitated as his hunger wrestled with his conscience, neither giving ground when finally duty, aided by guilt, won. He was the eldest, and how could he be so selfish as to eat an egg all by himself when his siblings were starving?
“All of you. Line up here and take a bite from our eggs.” he commanded them like an officer. The younger siblings, those old enough to understand and walk, obeyed without hesitation, and his mother cried even harder at the sight of her two older boys caring for the rest. After the rest of the children had finished the egg, their father came. He had his hat on, a sign he was going out. He wore the hat low, obscuring his eyes.
“Zhen and Ren, come with me,” he beckoned. Ten year old Wang Zhen and his younger brother, nine year old Wang Ren, looked at each other. They had never followed their father to work before. Their father turned and quickly opened the door, creaking as a gush of cold wind rushed in. Their mother gathered the children into her arms and wept loudly now, and the children stared blankly at their two older brothers, not comprehending. In fact, the two older boys were as clueless as the rest, but they obediently followed their father into the cold.
“My sons…I’m so sorry!” their mother wailed as they stepped over the threshold.
Their father walked on. He did not speak to them, and they followed silently. Where is he taking us to? Wang Zhen thought. Maybe Father found a job and need us to help. Yes, that must be it. Hope filled his heart and he felt a little pride seep in. He was now a man, helping his family make ends meet. That must be it! An egg to give me strength, so that I could till the land like a man. He started to walk with a little spring in his step. He would comfort his mother tonight. She must have felt sorry for him, thinking he could not bear the labour of the fields, but he would prove himself. They would be so proud of him!
But instead of heading to the farms, his father entered the town. Maybe we are going to the warehouses as coolies, he had thought as his father led them to the town centre where a crowd had gathered. He led them before a rich-looking man who nodded at him. They obviously knew one another already. Several young boys were already there looking lost and bewildered. The wealthy man was certainly not their father.
Wang Zhen heard his father sob audibly. It was the first time he had ever seen the hardened man cry, and the sight of it unsettled him as a cold fear filled his heart. He hugged his two sons and Wang Zhen could feel his father’s protruding bones and heaving chest. The man looked into his boys’ eyes for the first time that day with watery, red eyes, His father spoke so closely to him he could smell his breath.
“Just remember... whatever happens today, it is for your own good. Both of you will never be hungry again. And because of what you do your younger siblings will have a chance this winter. We are eternally grateful.”
A tear rolled down his leathery, tan, lined skin.
He turned to the merchant and stretched out his hand, his head lowered with grief and shame as he pocketed the money that would give his famished family a chance to survive the cold season. He then turned and left. He could not bear to look back at his sons.
“Father wait! Father! Fa…ther! No…don’t leave us!” Wang Zhen and Wang Ren shouted. Wang Zhen felt his heart drop as fear gripped him and he almost lost control of his bowels. His father, unable to bear the sound of his sons’ distress quickened his pace and disappeared. The two boys tried to follow but were restrained by a burly man who dragged them to where the collection of boys stood. Wang Ren started to cry and Wang Zhen wanted to cry too as his young mind grappled with the ruthless fact that their father had sold them, but he knew that he must be strong now. He had been taking care of the younger ones all his life. He had fed them, cleaned them, dressed them, whatever his mother needed him to do as she nursed the youngest. It had seemed that every year, there was a youngest, and he would miss them all.
He hugged his younger brother as he cried next to him, trying to offer him some comfort. “Hush… father will be back. We will work for that man for a while and then we’ll go home,” he said, and desperately wished it were true.
The merchant counted the boys before saying, “Let’s go. We’ve got all we need.” The burly man herded the children like geese and the group of dirty, rag-tag boys walked in fearful silence until they came to a building. They entered it and were assembled at the courtyard when the first boy was taken from the group, led into a chamber while the rest waited, uncertain. For the first time Wang Zhen realised that all the boys looked as poor as he was. They were all skin
ny, dirty, and wore torn clothes that offered no protection against the slicing wind.
Then a long, drawn-out, bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence. The chilling sound seemed suspended in the air, sending shivers down the spines of every boy and they started to cry, not knowing what horror awaited them. Wang Zhen held his brother tightly, both of them were shaking as a warm wetness spread down his legs. One by one the crying boys were dragged in against their will like cattle to the slaughter.
Finally, they came for him. Wang Zhen struggled as they separated him from his brother, the younger boy wailing and calling after him as he stretched his hand out.
“Da-ge! Da-ge! ‘Elder brother!’"
“Di-di! ‘Younger brother!’"
They dragged him into a cold room, empty except for a strange looking bed. They forcefully strap him down with a leather belt, and mean-looking man pulled off Wang’s pants, pushing his legs apart and exposing his under-developed penis and testicles that looked shrivelled in the cold. An older man came forward with a slim, wicked looking curved blade. Fear spiked as adrenaline as he struggled helplessly against his restraint, his eyes wide with terror and looking as though they would burst out of the sockets. The orbs pushed against the socket so hard he felt a sharp pain lance his brain. He could feel his bony arms straining in vain against the leather, the friction burning his flesh but the man did not even seem to notice the screaming boy’s horror. He had done this many times before.
“NOOOOOO!”
He tried to kick but his legs were held down firmly. He felt the cold blade touch briefly below his scrotum, causing it to momentarily shrink before a white-hot, searing pain overwhelmed his senses. The sensation shot through his nervous system, exploding in his brain like a supernova as he screamed.
