by Jeremy Han
“Yes. But it is not time,” Kong replied, glaring at him. “Remember to put your mission first.”
Defiance flashed across Yang’s eyes. “I promise you it will be done before the operation against the emperor.”
“Too risky!” Kong screamed at him.
“It is a blood debt,” Yang said. It was almost a whisper, but the intensity was like a sword. Yang’s cold determination frightened even the grand eunuch.
“I forbid it,” Kong said firmly after regaining his composure.
Yang stared at him for a long time, and Kong looked into those eyes and saw something other than a mindless, raging assassin. He saw cunning, and he could almost see the calculations going on in his prodigy’s brain.
He knows what he is doing. The boy has grown into a man with his own mind.
“Do you have a plan?” Kong asked.
“Of course I do,f” Yang replied confidently. “You taught me well.”
He put his hand on Yang’s broad shoulders, and said in a paternal way, “Always have a plan. And be careful.”
73
The thick morning fog almost concealed the man who stood by the pier. He had been instructed to wait there for a boat to appear. In the weak, greyish light he tried to make out the shape of the vessel but it was difficult, and he could her nothing besides the water lapping against the pillars that supported the pier.
It was too cold even for the birds, and he tightened the cloak around his shoulders with his one good hand. By now he had gotten so used to functioning with only one hand that despite his disability he still maintained his neatly trimmed moustache.
He looked around himself as far as he could in the thick vapor. It was empty but slowly, like a ghost coming to haunt the dark, brooding shape of the craft appeared. He could discern the shape of three men on the deck, similarly wrapped up against the cold. He took no chances, and his good hand slipped into the tunic and gripped a dagger. He could either hurl it or fight with it.
He called out, “A bad day to return.”
A familiar voice replied, “Not if one’s mother is sick.”
“You have money to engage a doctor?”
“No. I’m just a filial son,” Meng Da replied.
An released his grip on the dagger as Meng’s voice, coupled with the right code, set him at ease. If Meng had replied that his ‘father’ was sick instead of his ‘mother’, it would mean he was under duress.
When the boat was near enough Meng leapt onto the jetty, followed by Zhao and Li. Zhao’s eyes met An’s, and for a moment there was awkwardness as both remembered the night fifteen years ago. Zhao nodded at him, and Li reciprocated.
The past was the past and in their professions losing their limb or life was normal. There was nothing to be resentful about, and personally they were not enemies. It was simply the way things were.
“This way, gentlemen,” An indicated, and they followed.
An hour later they were in the safe house, and Ji Gang watched with folded arms as his visitors came in from the cold. He had many questions for Zhao.
The men took off their cloaks and hung them, dusting off a soft layer of ice, but they held on to their weapons. Despite their alliance they did not totally trust each other. Ji Gang’s countenance was not welcoming either. An, who was no longer an agent, played the host. He welcomed Zhao and Li, and served a bottle of wine to warm everyone. Meng drank heartily, but Ji Gang did not touch his cup and Zhao and Li merely sipped. An took a step behind his former enemies. The Acrobat’s eyes casually followed the movement and noted they were taking positions. An and Meng to their back, Ji Gang at the front.
“Explain why you did not tell me Wang Zhen is your spy!” Ji Gang’s voice boomed. He did not like to be kept in the dark.
“The time was not ripe. We had nothing concrete until we received the letter regarding the harvest sacrifice.”
“This is dangerous!” Meng yelled. “What if Wang is a mole? He could be luring us all into a trap.”
This time Li spoke. “I managed to recruit Wang only because he was scared shitless.”
“Why?”
Li told him about the mysterious person with the bag. “A man who almost lost his life twice is unlikely to be very loyal to the master who tried to kill him.”
Ji Gang frowned. He was a master of using fear to his advantage, but if what Li had said was true then Wang would make a useful mole in the enemy’s camp. It could be the break he needed. Still remained unconvinced.
“What does he want in return?” Ji Gang asked. He knew there was nothing free on earth .
“He wants to be free from the grand eunuch’s shadow and to keep his position without being implicated in Kong’s plot.”
“That’s all?” Ji Gang did not quite believe it.
“That’s all he mentioned to us. Why don’t you ask him?”
Ji Gang nodded at An, and the ex-agent bowed and left.
That evening Wang found a letter had been mysteriously placed on his bed that instructed him to wait for Zhao and Li at a secluded area. When he was dismissed from the emperor’s presence, he sneaked out of the palace. The Forbidden City’s strength was also its weakness. It was simply too big to be completely guarded and there were doors used by servants that the officials did not know of for business that kept the palace going. Firewood, food supplies, even necessities like paper for hygiene had to find a way in.
Once Wang was out of sight of the palace he hurried, but in his haste, he did not see the shadow stretching from the street corner. By the time he noticed it, it was already too late.
“Wake up!” Cold water splashed onto his face and Wang jolted, his eyes opening like windows. Slowly, he looked around feeling restraints around his limps as he realized that he was tied up in a dungeon. He saw a huge, bald man sitting on a chair, staring at him as though his stare alone could wake the unconscious eunuch.
“We meet again, eunuch,” Ji Gang said with menace.
The eunuch panicked. Ji Gang was bad news. “Where am I?” he asked.
“Hell. Didn’t you know that I am sometimes known as the King of Hades?”
“Where is Commander Zhao and Li?” Wang demanded. “I work for them! They could vouch for me!” He did not know that the two men were watching through a window in another chamber.
At that moment Meng dragged a man in. The man was hogtied and blindfolded and Meng tossed him next to Wang as though he were nothing. Ji Gang continued with his discourse. “Watch what we do to our enemies.”
An brought in a pail of water. He set the pail down and then he brought a stack of rice paper. Soaking a piece of the paper in water until it was saturated, he placed it over the prisoner’s nose and mouth. Immediately the man gasped for air, his chest heaving as the wet paper was sucked closer to his face. Meng held the struggling man while An placed another piece over the first, and the man struggled harder. He tried to scream in frustration as An put on another piece of paper dripping with water without any expression on his face, as though he did this every day. The man started to beg but his words were muffled beyond comprehension as another layer of paper was added and Wang had never known that something as fragile as rice paper could be so frightening. The Eastern Depot agents were truly demons!
The man’s struggled sluggishly as he slowly went limp, and there was a hiss as gas escaped from his stomach cavity. He was dead.
Wang was shaking, but Ji Gang only smiled.
“Guess who is he?”
“Wh…who?” the shaken eunuch replied.
“Someone who saw you leave the palace.”
“What?” He thought he had been stealthy. “How do you know?”
“We are not called the imperial secret service for nothing.”
“Does he work for the grand eunuch?”
“Who knows?” Ji Gang said. “All we know is that he tried to follow you. Maybe he just had an errand for you. Or maybe he was from the Western Depot trying to silence you?”
“But you kil
led him all the same.”
Ji Gang shrugged. “And we will eliminate you too, the same way, if you betray us. Fancy dying like that?”
It was a message. We are watching you all the time.
“No…no,” Wang gasped.
Ji Gang looked into his eyes and saw no betrayal there, only fear and hatred. Good.
“Now, let’s talk.”
74
With shaking hands Wang downed a cup of wine to steady his nerves. At least he was alive.
He had had no intention of betraying his new allies given his hatred of Kong, but they had to test him. Trust was non-existent in this shadowy world, and he had crossed the threshold between the ordinary, mundane life of a servant to a conspirator against one of the most powerful men in the empire. This was not what he wanted, and he silently cursed his fate, but he remembered his near-death experience and resolved to see this through. He knew these men were not his enemy or was he theirs. Everyone in the room was against Kong Wei.
He elaborated on what he wrote, explaining, “The empress dowager and her son will enter the Hall of Great Harvest alone. That is the only time they will be unguarded by the Jinyi Wei. The altar mount has three levels of steps, and it will be ringed by Xi Chang agents. I bet that’s where the assassination will take place.”
“Won’t the assassins be heard?” Meng queried.
“Not necessarily. The hall is vast and the men surrounding it will only be stationed on the ground level of the circular mount. The hall stands on the highest level,” Wang explained as he recounted his visit. He realised that even the Eastern Depot men had never entered the hallowed compound before as they listened closely to him. It had indeed been a stroke of luck that the child-emperor had pulled him in.
Ji Gang had earlier filled the party who just arrived on the formation of the Xi Chang, and Zhao looked around at the other men for a moment before speaking up next. “If what you say is true, then it does not matter whether they hear anything or not. They are the grand eunuch’s men.”
“Exactly,” Ji Gang agreed with his former foe. He turned toward Wang. “What plan do you suggest?”
Wang took a deep breath. Surrounding him were tactical minds used to this sort of thing and feared that his plan might sound stupid. He noticed they were all staring at him now, and he realised that they were all planning blindly. He had been the only one who had seen the layout of the compound. It was his moment.
“The ceremony will only last for an hour. It is all timed to the minute. If we can put someone inside the altar, we can pre-empt the assassination.”
“That is extremely dangerous,” Meng whispered. “Imagine being found out.”
“No risk, no gain,” An replied blandly. As Ji Gang’s former second-in-command he had been at the forefront of all of the Eastern Depot’s dirtiest missions.
“The Temple of Heaven is sealed tighter than the Forbidden City. How could we get in?” Meng replied.
It was true. Officials entered the palatial complex all the time but at the temple, other than the emperor, only eunuchs who belonged to the Directorate of Ceremonies and had been specifically assigned to rituals could enter. This already placed them at a disadvantage. The grand eunuch and his men could move around at will while the Eastern Depot had no authority there. Kong was a master strategist who had chosen his battleground well. Everything was now turned against the Dong Chang.
“There is a way in, but it is not guaranteed,” Wang suggested.
“How?” Ji Gang asked eagerly.
“There is a pit where the burnt sacrifice is thrown in. It is known as the Pit of Hair and Bone. Before the emperor proceeds to the Hall of Abstinence he must offer a bull. The carcass will be consumed by flames before Heaven and the remains are dumped into the pit. The pit is deep though, so it would be difficult for cleaners to remove the ashes unless they could access the pit from below.”
“A service tunnel?” Meng asked, raising an eyebrow in incredulity.
“It is the only logical solution I can think of,” Wang said, and he added something that gave them a glimpse of why what he said made sense, “from a servant’s point of view.”
“It does makes sense,” Zhao agreed, reinforcing Wang’s suggestion. “If there was no outlet the place would stink, and an imperial temple cannot afford to have a stench.”
“So it is critical now for us to find the entrance to the pit,” Wang said as he folded his arms. “And how to get in without being detected.”
They were silent for a long time, until Ji Gang slowly looked at Wang. “It seems you are the only one who could get the map of the temple complex.”
“Me?” Wang’s voice went up an octave.
“If the Eastern Depot asks for it it would raise suspicions. But if you asked for it in the name of the empress dowager, they just might give it to you,” Ji Gang stressed.
“That would raise suspicion too!” the eunuch protested.
“The Directorate of Ceremonies is a bureaucracy. A request from you would not trigger the grand eunuch’s attention, not when he is busy with the ceremonial preparation. It will be logged as a routine request and forgotten by the clerks, but if the Eastern Depot asks it will be too obvious. We stand out like a sore thumb,” Ji Gang rebutted. He leaned forward across the table, and Wang felt an invisible hand constrict his chest. Ji Gang knew he was exerting psychological pressure on the eunuch, and he grinned like a feral wolf.
“I-I’ll lose my head, if the Grand Eunuch finds out,” the younger man stammered.
Zhao placed a comforting arm on Wang’s shoulder. “We are all at risk here,” he said. “All of us must do our part.”
Ji Gang softened his voice slightly, looking at the eunuch and saying, “You are really the best choice.” Imperial agents were experts of manipulation, and Wang looked uncomfortably from Ji Gang to Zhao, then at the corpse of the man the Dong Chang just executed.
“I’ll think of a way,” he said with great unease.
75
He started to watch the enemy’s lair. He had the advantage of anonymity, but the headquarters of the Eastern Depot was in the open for all to see, and Yang wanted to see if the man he hunted would appear. He was certain that after the destruction of the bandits the imperial agent he wanted would return hot on his heels. He knew the Dong Chang was not stupid, and would eventually discover the ruse and double-back to the capital.
Lure the wolf back to its lair and wait for it there….
A gut feeling told him that he was close and he searched his memory for his targets. There was the middle-aged man he had fought, the bald man who killed Shaggy, and finally the younger man with the well-defined features. His eyes scanned the crowds, looking for a man to match his memory.
Who are these three?
He must kill them, and he did not care in which particular order. He sat at a teahouse opposite the entrance of the dreaded secret service base. There was nothing else for him to do yet anyway, and as he sat he wondered why Kong had been so uptight. He was familiar with danger and risk, but from what he gathered Kong had secrets he did not wish to share. Even so, he did not feel any evil intentions from the old man. He had been taken aback by the order to kill Yin, but he was not surprised. He had considered the possibility of the grand eunuch backstabbing him before, but his instincts told him the old man valued him more than others.
I will know in three days when the ceremony is over and the emperor is dead.
He continued watching and planning, wondering, What should I do when I spot the enemy? He recalled how he baited had Yong, and he needed to figure out just what would entice his enemy to his death, but first he had to be sure that the quarry was even here.
When it was almost dusk his eyes locked onto a familiar face. The young agent entered the building after exchanging words with a man with one hand. He handed what looked like a letter to him, and left. The man with the stump was older, but he carried himself like a cat, hurrying away as the cold night descended.
Yang smiled; he had found what he needed. Like everything in life, a serendipitous encounter was all he had required, and the rest he would improvise. He got up, placed the straw hat back on his head, and followed after the man with one hand.
An knew he was being followed as he tried to make his way back to the safe house and his mind raced to find a reason why. Had his cover been compromised? He doubted it was a common thief trailing him. His tail had an aura of violence.
Must be the Xi Chang!
If he was from the rival camp then An could not lead him back to where Ji Gang and the rest were.
One way to find out if it’s true.
He turned into an alley that led to a quiet corner of the city where an old, disused temple was. It was quiet enough for an ambush, and though he had lost a hand he was still confident of his fighting ability.
Yang followed him openly and did not hide his presence anymore once he knew that his prey had spotted him. In fact, his prey was now leading him somewhere, and he concluded that the man must be highly skilled to take on the assassin.
He grinned. He loved challenges.
He adjusted the strap that held his massive sabre as he saw the desolate temple at the end of a long and quiet street. The walls of the alley were broken, and there was debris strewn all over the ground before him. The faded red walls and the collapsed roof of the temple had seen better days. A window on the left had been shattered and the huge oven for burning sacrifices at the front lay open like a broken jaw. From where he stood he could see the main hall where the statue of Buddha sat. It looked empty, but he knew better.
The wind blew.
He drew his sabre slowly and entered the temple.
76
An peeked from where he had hidden, frowning. He had never seen this giant before.
Who is this? He wondered as his quick mind analysed the situation.
The man had followed him from the Dong Chang headquarters, even though he had already retired, so the man must at least know who he was, or who he worked for. But there was still something that did not click about the situation. His stalker was young, and the chances of him knowing An’s past as an imperial agent was very unlikely. Then it struck him.
