Dark Waters Hide the Bones
No matter how heavy the burden, he had to keep moving.
The sound of water in the cave had not changed.
Neither had the darkness.
After hoisting Fang Tieshan onto his back once more, Fang Yingjie stood for a long time in that low, wet pocket of stone, cold shadows pressing in around him.
It was not that he did not want to go.
His feet were still on solid ground, yet for one brief moment he no longer knew where to place the next step.
Only a little while ago, in this very hollow of the cave, his father had still been leaning against the damp rock, his voice so faint it was nearly inaudible, yet he had forced himself to finish those last few words. Now that voice had broken off. Even the last trace of breath had gone. The body on Fang Yingjie's back had suddenly become light—so light it filled him with panic. And yet when that lightness settled, it felt as though the whole underworld had dropped onto his shoulders.
He could not stop.
Beyond the fallen rock, the men of the Crimson Flame Palace might not yet have withdrawn.
And at the end of the black water ahead, there might not be any true way out at all.
But whether it led to life or not, he had to carry his father out first.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie drew a breath and tightened the strip of cloth across his chest, already soaked through. It bit across his ribs and made his chest clench, but he paid it no mind. He only shifted the body on his back a little higher, a little steadier.
Then he stepped forward.
Deeper in, the stone passage dipped again.
Not the kind of low tunnel where a man could still hunch and hurry through, but one where the rock overhead pressed almost to shoulder height, forcing him to bend his knees, bow his back, and inch onward a little at a time. Dark water ran through the cracks in the stone underfoot, first over his ankles, then up to his calves. Beneath the water, broken rock and fine sand dragged at every step.
With Fang Tieshan on his back, Fang Yingjie first had to turn sideways to squeeze through a narrow fissure of rock.
The man on his back would no longer move to avoid the walls on his own.
His head would tilt. His hands would hang. His shoulders would shift and slide with every turn Fang Yingjie made. And those irons they had not yet fully removed, hidden beneath the soaked clothes, would give off a dull, cold clink whenever the stone closed in too near.
So Fang Yingjie moved very slowly.
Not out of fear.
Simply because he could not let his father strike the rock again.
Ahead, the ceiling suddenly dropped. A jagged spur of stone slanted down like the half-closed jaws of some beast. Fang Yingjie had barely tested a step forward before he realized his father's shoulder would almost scrape against it.
He stopped at once.
In the dark, there was only the sound of water.
No one would lean close to his ear now and murmur, Lower.
Fang Yingjie's throat tightened. Slowly, he bent his knees until he was almost kneeling in the cold water, then lowered his upper body even further. In that instant, it no longer felt as though he was carrying a man out of the cave. It felt as though he was using his own spine to shield his father from the stone.
The rock scraped across his shoulder.
Then across the cloth on his back.
A sharp edge sliced open the back of his hand, and the blood was quickly thinned away by the water. He did not lower his head to look. He only held fast to the bend of Fang Tieshan's legs and inched on until the two of them had finally passed beneath that narrow lip of stone. Only then did he straighten again.
The hollow behind them was gone from sight.
The place where his father had breathed his last had already been swallowed back into the darkness, as though it had never existed at all.
Fang Yingjie did not turn around.
It was not that he did not want to.
He simply dared not.
He was afraid that if he looked back once, he would never be able to move his feet again.
So he only kept going.
He did not know how much time passed in that hidden passage.
Time no longer meant anything here. Only the sound of water changed.
At first it had come as though through thick walls of stone, from somewhere impossibly far away. The farther he went, the heavier it became, low and deep, as if a broad current were rushing just beyond the rock. Then, after a time, even the air began to change.
It was no longer only the trapped damp of the underground, rank and cold.
A faint scent of grass slowly entered the wind.
Rotting reeds.
Lake mud.
And something else too—like the first breath of cold air that skimmed across the water just before dawn.
Fang Yingjie's steps faltered.
He lifted his head.
Deep in the darkness ahead, there seemed to be the faintest trace of gray.
Not lamplight.
Lamplight would not scatter like that. Nor would it be so cold.
It was a thin wash of daylight.
Fang Yingjie's chest tightened sharply.
Yet that pale gray, barely enough to be called light, did not make him move any faster. Instead, he steadied his pace even more, afraid that at the last few yards, some final misstep would ruin everything.
The water grew deeper.
At first it had only covered his ankles. Then it rose to his calves. The stone floor sloped downward, and the current ran harder than before, making his footing slip more than once. So he drove his heels down and let the short phrases his father had taught him sink back into his body, one by one.
Keep your footing steady.
Only then will what you carry remain steady.
If what you carry is steady, Father will not be jolted even an inch.
Even if Father could no longer feel pain.
That was still how he thought.
At last, the stone passage narrowed into a low opening.
The mouth of it was hidden behind tangled reed roots and water grass. From inside, all he could see beyond it was a blank whiteness of mist. If not for the wind indeed coming in through that gap—bearing the chill, fish-rank breath peculiar to a lakeshore—he might have believed it was only another gray shadow in the rock wall.
Fang Yingjie did not crawl out at once.
He stood in the water first and listened, holding his breath for a long while.
There was wind outside.
The soft brush of reed leaves rubbing together.
Far away, the faint cry of water birds.
And farther still, scraps of human voices, muted by mist—perhaps fishermen rising early on their boats, perhaps someone onshore calling softly to another through the dawn.
Nothing more.
No clash of blades.
No footsteps.
No barked orders from men of the Crimson Flame Palace keeping their voices low.
Only then did Fang Yingjie slowly bend down.
The opening was narrower than he had expected. Alone, he could have passed through it without much trouble. Carrying Fang Tieshan, he had to edge through an inch at a time. First he steadied his father's head and shoulders, then turned half sideways and forced his own shoulder and back against the slick stone. Broken reed roots brushed against his face, cold and itching, and he scarcely dared blink.
When the final strip of rock scraped over his spine, he gave one hard push forward and fell with Fang Tieshan into shallow mud and water.
Wet reeds slapped across his face.
Outside, the sky had not fully brightened yet.
The morning mist over Poyang Lake hung low and heavy, sheathing heaven and earth in gray-white gauze. The lake itself lay hidden behind it, distance swallowed whole; only the damp breath of open water drifted in from deep within the reed beds. Whole stretches of reeds leaned under the wind, night dew gathered at their tips and dropped in strings. Very far off, two or three fishing lights floated in the mist, appearing and disappearing like dying stars that had not yet gone out.
Fang Yingjie lay prostrate in the wet mud for a long while without moving.
He had made it out.
Out from beneath the Crimson Flame Palace.
Out from that death cell where day and night did not exist.
Out from iron chains, poisoned incense, blades, fire, and cold water.
Yet the first breath of the living world that truly filled his lungs was neither warm nor clean.
It smelled of lake mud.
Of fish.
Of reed roots rotting and growing again in shallow water.
That smell flooded into his chest so suddenly that, for one instant, he could not tell whether he had truly returned to the world of the living, or merely moved from one darkness into another, wider and colder than before.
Bracing himself on the ground, he rested a moment. Then, very slowly, he lowered Fang Tieshan from his back.
The cloth strip, soaked through, had become heavy and tight, nearly embedded in the fabric. Fang Yingjie loosened the knot a little at a time. His fingers were so numb with cold they barely obeyed him, and it took him two tries before it finally gave way. He did not dare let his father slip down all at once. Instead, he knelt first, braced himself, supported his father's shoulders with his left arm and his waist with his right hand, and set him down as gently as he could on a slightly higher patch of muddy grass.
When Fang Tieshan lay there, he made no sound at all.
Yet Fang Yingjie's hand still remained behind his shoulder. He did not pull it away at once.
As though if he kept supporting him like this, then his father was only resting a moment.
Not dead.
In the dawn mist, the sky brightened by another thin degree.
And it was in that faint increase of light that Fang Yingjie truly saw his father's condition for the first time.
The outer coat they had thrown over him from some guard was already soaked through, clinging to the tattered prison clothes beneath. Across the front, dark stains had spread under the water until old blood and fresh were impossible to tell apart. Around the wrists, the throat, beneath the shoulders, wounds lay over wounds. And deeper down, beneath the clothes, the irons they had not yet finished removing still pressed through in hard, dim outlines.
This was not the body of an old man who had died an ordinary death.
Anyone with a practiced eye would know, after no more than a glance, that something was wrong.
Then, from somewhere out in the mist, came the soft dip of an oar.
Fang Yingjie looked up.
Beyond the fringe of reeds by the lake, a small fishing skiff was gliding slowly past. The figures aboard were blurred, perhaps fishermen setting out before sunrise to cast their nets. The boat was not all that far away. If he called out now, they might well hear him.
His throat moved.
For a moment, he almost shouted.
All it would take was for someone to come ashore.
All it would take was for someone to lend a hand.
Then Father would not have to lie in this patch of wet mud any longer.
But the cry never left his mouth.
Fang Yingjie lowered his gaze again to Fang Tieshan—to the uneven ridges of iron beneath the wet clothing, to the face that had gone more than twenty years without seeing daylight and had now finally seen it again only to lie silent beneath it.
His father could not be seen like this.
Fang Tieshan was no ordinary dead man.
He was the Stronghold Lord of Fang Stronghold.
The thirty-fourth Sect Leader of the Mount Hua Sect.
The Dragoncloud Divine Hand, missing for more than twenty years.
And living proof that the Crimson Flame Palace had hidden away in darkness for more than twenty years.
If his body were recognized, what emerged today would not be only the name of a dead man.
It would be the old case of the Fang family.
The old affairs of Mount Hua.
The secret the Crimson Flame Palace had buried underground for over two decades.
And the narrow path to survival that Feng Wuying and Feng Feiyun had carved out at the cost of their lives might be traced back to its source along these waterways because of a single exposed corpse.
He could not go to the authorities.
He could not take him to a public mortuary.
He could not tell any stranger, This is my father.
Still less could he say that he himself was Fang Yingjie.
The little skiff drifted farther and farther away in the mist.
The sound of the oar, one stroke after another, was slowly devoured by wind and reeds.
Fang Yingjie lowered his head and gently drew his father's exposed hand back into the sleeve, then pulled the front of the garment up to cover him more fully.
His movements were very light.
Light enough to suggest he was afraid the cold wind might touch him.
But his father would never feel cold again.
Closing his eyes briefly, Fang Yingjie bent down and lifted Fang Tieshan onto his back once more.
He could not remain by the water's outlet.
If men from the Crimson Flame Palace truly followed the hidden channel out, this would be the first place they searched. His father could no longer walk. He could not allow him, even in death, to fall back into their hands.
Beyond the reed beds ran an old embankment.
Carrying Fang Tieshan, Fang Yingjie followed the foot of it step by step. The lakeshore mud was soft, and with every step his ruined boots sank in before dragging free again. Blood, mud, and water had long since mixed together across his body. When the cold wind struck, his clothes clung heavily to his back, like night itself still damp upon him.
He did not know how far he went.
He knew only that he had to put distance between them and that place where the water emerged.
Farther.
Then farther still.
Until at last, as the mist thinned a little, a broken roofline of gray tiles appeared ahead through the reeds, slanting downward.
Fang Yingjie slowed.
He took a few more steps before he saw clearly that it was a ruined temple.
It was not large. It stood alone behind the old embankment, like something forgotten by the world. The characters over the lintel had been worn away by wind and rain, and only the remnant of the character water could still barely be made out. One half of the wooden door hung crooked on its hinges. The other had long since fallen to the side. Wet mud had gathered at the entrance, and weeds grew up through the cracks between the bricks.
An old temple by the lake.
Perhaps once it had housed a water deity and watched over the fishermen.
Now the incense had died, and no one came anymore.
Standing outside, Fang Yingjie turned his head and listened first.
There was no one inside.
No breathing.
No footsteps.
Only water leaking from the eaves, taking a very long time between drops before one would finally fall into the open center of the temple with a faint sound.
Only then did he carry Fang Tieshan inside.
It was colder within than outside.
The clay idol at the center had collapsed on one side, and even the remaining half of its face was mottled and blurred by damp. A long crack split the offering table, its surface thick with dust. A broken incense burner lay tipped to one side, holding nothing but black ash that had been dampened by rain and dried again. In one corner, a few bundles of dead reeds had been piled up. Webs hung from the rafters and swayed almost imperceptibly in the wind.
The fallen door panel was still mostly intact.
Fang Yingjie dragged it first into a corner that was somewhat sheltered from the wind.
The wood made a faint scraping sound over the floor, and he immediately slowed his movements, as if afraid of disturbing something. Then he used his sleeve to wipe away the worst of the mud and dust from the panel, and pushed aside a few broken roof tiles that were in the way.
Only when he had cleared out a place barely fit for someone to lie flat did he finally bend down and untie the cloth across his chest.
This time, when he lowered Fang Tieshan from his back, he moved even more slowly than he had outside on the mud.
First he supported his father's shoulders and back, then his waist, and only then let that gaunt, battered body sink inch by inch onto the wooden panel. Yet even so, the remaining irons beneath the clothes still gave off the faintest dull sound when he was laid down.
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened sharply.
As though that small sound might still have hurt his father.
He knelt beside the door panel for a while before rising at last.
In one corner of the temple was a chipped earthen bowl, lying upside down in the dust. Fang Yingjie picked it up, went outside, and washed it again and again in the shallow lake water until mud no longer floated up into it. Only then did he fill it halfway with clean, icy water and bring it back inside.
He tore a small strip from the inner edge of his own clothing, one piece still comparatively clean, dipped it in the water, and slowly began to wipe Fang Tieshan's face.
First the dried blood beside the brow.
Then the dark stain at the corner of the mouth.
Then the mud and water smeared at the side of the neck.
Little by little, that face emerged clearly in the dim morning light.
It was terribly thin.
White with a lifeless pallor.
Yet around the brows and eyes there still remained that same hardness that suffering had never broken.
As Fang Yingjie wiped, his movements grew slower and slower.
By the dying light in the dungeon, he had always seen his father through a veil—through yellow lamplight, through chains of iron, through long estrangement and thirty hurried days. Now, with true daylight finally reaching him, he was looking carefully, for the first time, at his father in the pale morning light of the living world.
And it was already the last time.
The strip of cloth lay still in his hand for a long while.
Only when the water in the bowl had turned cloudy did he lower his head, go outside again, and fetch another half-bowl.
By the time he came back the second time, the sky beyond the temple door had grown lighter.
A thread of gray-white morning light slanted into the temple and fell across Fang Tieshan's face. In that moment, he no longer looked like a man who had just been carried out of the hidden prison of the Crimson Flame Palace.
He looked as though he had merely been too tired, and had finally fallen into a deep sleep.
Fang Yingjie sat down beside the panel and slowly smoothed out his father's loose hair.
Several strands had stuck to the side of his face, clotted there by blood and water. Fang Yingjie gently loosened them one by one. Then he drew the soaked outer garment higher, doing what he could to cover the ruined prison clothes beneath and the wounds that showed through.
But the irons could not truly be hidden by cloth.
He could only press the exposed parts as far beneath the garment as possible, then pull over a few dry, dead reeds from the wall and scatter them loosely to either side, so that anyone looking in from the doorway would not see at once that something was wrong.
When he had finished, he reached out to adjust Fang Tieshan's arm.
That hand was still slightly bent, as though even in the final moment it had remained fastened to his wrist, forbidding him to lose himself, forbidding him to stop.
Fang Yingjie took hold of his father's icy hand and carefully tried to move it to the side.
He had shifted it scarcely half an inch before he stopped.
The body had already begun to stiffen.
If he forced it any further, it would become arranging. Manipulating.
He would not do that.
Fang Tieshan had stood too straight all his life.
And now, after death, even to let him lie in peace and order, Fang Yingjie had to proceed with utmost care.
His hand remained resting on the back of his father's for a long time.
He wanted to call him Father.
But when the word rose to his throat, he forced it back down.
This ruined temple was not in some utterly trackless wilderness. From beyond the reeds, distant human voices would occasionally carry over. If someone passed along the embankment, if someone heard movement inside the temple, that would mean one more danger, one more uncertainty.
Now, even grief had to be kept quiet.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie bent down and rested his forehead lightly against the back of Fang Tieshan's cold hand.
Only for a moment.
A very brief moment.
Then he straightened again.
His eyes were still red, but there were no tears left on his face.
Down in the depths below, the words they had not managed to finish had already been cut off by the sound of dark water with his father's last breath. Now he could not be only a son who had lost his father.
He still had to find some place where his father could rest, if only for a little while.
Even if it meant no more than moving him from this old door panel.
Even if it meant only sparing him from lying forever in a ruined temple where the incense had long since died.
Fang Yingjie rose and found a battered reed mat in the corner. It was damp, its edges frayed, and a layer of dust fell from it when he lifted it. In silence, he brushed the dust away, shook it out, and gently spread it over Fang Tieshan's body.
When it reached the chest, his hand paused.
In the end, he drew it a little higher.
As if afraid the wind in the temple might be cold.
Then he knelt again beside the wooden panel and said softly,
"Father."
The word was so quiet it was almost only for himself to hear.
He paused for a breath.
"I'm going to buy you a coffin."
The broken temple gave no answer.
Only a drop of water that had gathered under the eaves through the long night finally fell, striking the dark mud floor with a faint slap.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie stood.
He did not leave at once. First he pulled the crooked temple door a little farther inward, then dragged over several bundles of fallen reeds from outside and propped them slantwise against the entrance. It was not much, not nearly enough, but from a distance it made the place still look like what it was: an old temple long abandoned by human feet.
Before stepping out, he turned back for one last look.
Fang Tieshan lay quietly upon that old door panel, the broken reed mat over him, one side of his face touched by a dim wash of morning light. The last trace of incense in the temple was gone, the idol half destroyed—and yet this dead man somehow made the whole ruined place seem hushed and still.
Fang Yingjie looked for a long time.
Then he turned and walked into the waking dawn mist in the direction of Lujin Town.
A Coffin for One Tael
The mist at the far end of the reed flats was beginning to thin.
Fang Yingjie walked on along the old embankment. Under his feet, the mud gradually gave way to firmer ground, and beyond the sparse weeds at last appeared a dirt road rutted by cartwheels. The surface was still wet. There had perhaps been a light rain in the night, and shallow pools had gathered in the tracks, reflecting a line of gray-white sky at the horizon.
Beyond that lay the town.
There was no wall at its entrance, only two crooked rows of wooden posts driven into the roadside, with weatherworn banners hanging from them in the lake wind. Furthest out stood a slanted wooden signboard. Most of the ink had faded, but two characters could still be made out:
Lujin.
Fang Yingjie did not slow.
He did not know which prefecture or county this town belonged to, nor which waterways its people depended on for their lives. He knew only that the ruined Water God Temple was not far from here, and that his father was still waiting there.
He had to be quick.
Yet once he entered the town, he found he could not help but slow down.
Lujin woke early.
The sky had not yet fully brightened, but half the street nearest the wharf was already alive with voices. At the fish market, basket after basket of lake fish was dumped onto wet flagstones, their silver scales flashing with a cold sheen. Fishmongers with their sleeves rolled high split bellies open with quick, practiced strokes, and water and blood ran together into the cracks between the stones. Two boatmen carrying rolled reed mats crossed through the middle of the street, their steps smacking sharply against the ground. Salt sacks, firewood, broken baskets, bamboo poles—everything lay in disorder outside the shopfronts.
A woman crouched at a stall picking through shrimp, haggling with the vendor as she did so.
A child, clutching a coarse ceramic bowl, stood by a porridge stand blowing on the steam before drinking slowly.
A shop hand had just unloaded two jars of yellow wine and was being scolded by his employer for moving too slowly.
Cookfire steam, fish stink, damp wood, the wet breath of the lake wind—all of it mingled into one.
A gust of wind caught the steam from the porridge stall and sent it drifting across in front of him.
The scent of rice was faint—nothing more than plain white porridge, perhaps without even a few scraps of pickled greens in it. Yet the moment that little thread of warmth reached his nose, Fang Yingjie's stomach suddenly clenched in on itself.
In the next instant, it growled.
At first the sound was low, as though he had forced it back down. But then came another, unmistakable rumble, drawn long from the hollow pit of his belly, loud enough that even he heard it clearly.
Fang Yingjie's steps faltered.
Only then did he realize that from yesterday until now, he had not eaten a single proper mouthful of anything. The blood-soaked struggle underground, the long trek through the hidden river with his father on his back, the placing of his father's body inside the ruined temple—everything had drained the last of his strength dry.
But he looked toward that porridge stall only once before turning his eyes away.
He had no money.
And even if he had, his father was still waiting in the ruined temple.
What he needed first was not a bowl of hot porridge.
It was a coffin.
This was morning for the living.
They quarreled over a day's livelihood, wore out their tongues for a few copper coins, bustled about over whether a fish was fat enough, whether salt had gone dear, when a boat might come in.
As Fang Yingjie walked among them, an absurd illusion suddenly came over him.
As though the underground stone prison of last night, the blades and fire, the farewells spoken over dark water under crushing silence, had never happened at all.
No one here knew that Fang Tieshan was dead.
No one knew that a hidden tunnel beneath the Crimson Flame Palace had collapsed.
No one knew that a man once renowned throughout the martial world was lying at this very moment in a broken, incense-starved temple deep in the reeds, covered with nothing but a damp old mat.
Lujin had awakened at dawn.
Only Fang Yingjie seemed to have come walking out from the place where the dead remained.
He lowered his head slightly.
The clothes on his body were far from those of an ordinary passerby. The guard's outer robe he had changed into in the dungeon beneath the Crimson Flame Palace had long since been soaked through by dark water, then stained and scuffed by reeds and mudflats until it was mottled beyond telling. Parts of the hem had dried; others still clung cold and wet to his legs. The blood had been washed pale by water and might not be obvious at a glance, but there was no disguising that it was unclean. His face was too pale as well, with dark hollows beneath the eyes, like someone who had not slept all night—or someone only just risen from serious illness.
He did not want people looking too closely at him.
So he kept to the side of the street and avoided meeting anyone's gaze. When a shoulder pole brushed past him, he stepped aside. When a street vendor shouted to ask whether he wanted a hot flatbread, he walked on as though he had not heard.
Until he saw the shop on the corner.
The storefront was small, but by the door leaned two unfinished coffins that had not yet been lacquered. Fresh-planed wood showed pale on their surfaces, and beside them lay several planks of varying thickness. Beneath the eaves hung an old signboard with neat characters on it:
Zhou's Longevity Goods.
Fang Yingjie stopped.
He stood outside for one breath.
Then another.
Only then did he step inside.
The shop smelled strongly of sawdust. Behind half a curtain in the rear came the soft, rasping sound of wood being planed. Behind the counter sat a shopkeeper of about fifty, head lowered over an abacus. Hearing footsteps, he lifted his eyes.
The man looked first at Fang Yingjie's clothes, then at his face. A trace of appraisal flickered through his gaze, but he asked no needless questions. He merely pushed the abacus beads aside.
"What do you need?"
Fang Yingjie's throat moved.
When he spoke, his voice came out even hoarser than he had expected.
"A coffin."
The shopkeeper did not so much as blink.
A man in this trade had long since ceased changing expression over a single word like that. He nodded, rose from behind the counter, and asked casually,
"For whom in the family?"
Fang Yingjie was silent for a moment.
"An elder."
The shopkeeper asked again, "Just passed?"
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Yes."
He did not say my father.
He could not say my father.
Those two words sat pressed beneath the root of his tongue, so heavy they almost hurt. But when they reached his lips, all that remained was an elder.
The shopkeeper noticed nothing. He simply went on with the business.
"Do you want thick boards or thin?"
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
Seeing that he did not understand, the shopkeeper pointed toward the two coffins by the door.
"The thicker one is solid. It holds up better, and it lasts longer once buried. The thin one is cheaper. If you need it in haste, it will do."
Fang Yingjie followed his finger.
Of the two coffins by the door, one was made from thicker boards, its edges smoothly planed; the other was plainly more flimsy, with small knots still visible in the wood, even the lid seeming light.
He looked at them for a while, then said,
"The thin one."
The shopkeeper nodded.
"And the wood? Fir, pine, or mixed timber?"
Fang Yingjie did not understand at once.
The shopkeeper explained, "Fir is light. Pine is passable too. If all you want is the cheapest, mixed wood will cost the least."
Fang Yingjie asked, "Which is cheapest?"
"Mixed wood."
"Then mixed wood."
The shopkeeper gave a grunt of acknowledgment, as though he had heard that answer countless times before, and continued,
"Do you want it lacquered?"
Fang Yingjie looked at him.
The shopkeeper said, "Lacquer costs extra. It can still be used without it, only it looks plainer."
"No lacquer."
"Burial clothes?"
Fang Yingjie's throat shifted.
He thought of the ruined temple. His father was still wearing that soaked guard's outer robe, with torn prison clothes crushed beneath it and the remnants of irons that had not all been stripped away. That was not what a dead man ought to be laid into a coffin in.
But he had no money.
He did not even know yet whether he could afford the coffin.
After a pause, he said quietly,
"Not for now."
The shopkeeper glanced at him, but said nothing, only went on.
"You'll need coffin nails and hemp rope at least. And if you want it carried over, that's another charge. Is your home in town, or out by one of the lakeside villages?"
That string of questions fell one after another, and for an instant Fang Yingjie could not take them in.
Coffin nails.
Hemp rope.
A porter's fee.
So that was how it was. From a dead body with nowhere to lie, to a coffin, to being borne away by others—between each step stood one more item, one more sum of money to be counted.
Last night he had carried his father through a path of blood, through hidden tunnels, through freezing water. He had thought that once he reached the world of the living, he would at least be able to find his father a coffin first.
But standing in this shop, he suddenly understood—
A coffin could not be taken away just because he said, I want one.
It had to be bought with silver.
His voice slowed.
"How much for the thinnest mixed-wood coffin?"
The answer came at once.
"One tael."
Fang Yingjie did not move.
Thinking he had not heard clearly, the shopkeeper added,
"The thinnest one. Mixed-wood boards. One tael of silver. Nails and rope cost a few copper coins more. If you want it delivered, that depends on the distance."
The shop fell silent.
From the back came the steady rasp of wood being planed, one stroke after another. Outside, the fish market was still crying out in trade, its noise drifting in faintly through the doorway, as though from another world.
But Fang Yingjie heard only those two words.
One tael.
Not a hundred taels.
Not a fortune in gold.
Just one tael.
The thinnest mixed-wood coffin cost one tael of silver.
His father had once been the Stronghold Lord of Fang Stronghold, the former Sect Leader of the Mount Hua Sect, the man known throughout the martial world as the Dragoncloud Divine Hand. In years past, had he sent out a single word, heroes of the orthodox sects would have come from a thousand li away to answer it.
But now he was dead.
And his only son stood in a coffin shop unable to pay even for the thinnest mixed-wood coffin.
By instinct, Fang Yingjie reached into his robe.
There was nothing there inside the drenched front of his clothes.
He felt again at his waist.
No purse.
No broken silver.
No copper coins.
All he had left now was a body full of wounds, the chill of river water in his bones, the scent of blood still not wholly dried upon him.
And the Fang family's fist-and-blade arts and Dragoncloud Palm that his father had only just placed in his hands.
But fame in the martial world could not be spent as money.
Nor could peerless martial arts buy a coffin.
Seeing him stand there in silence, the shopkeeper frowned slightly, though his tone remained civil enough.
"Sir, would you like to place the order?"
Fang Yingjie's fingers lingered for a moment in the empty fold of his robe, then slowly withdrew.
He lifted his eyes and looked at the thinnest mixed-wood coffin by the door.
It was leaning there only a few steps away from him. The boards were rough, the corners not even especially true. In former days, he might not have spared it a second glance.
But now he wanted only to take it away.
Take it back to the ruined temple.
So that his father would not have to go on lying atop old door planks.
So that the tattered mat would no longer have to serve as the last scrap of dignity covering his body.
But he could not take it.
Fang Yingjie stood there a long time before he finally spoke.
"I... I'll come back later."
The moment he heard that, the shopkeeper understood something of the matter. He did not press, only nodded.
"All right. If you need it urgently, don't leave it until dark. By then, whether you need it carried or nailed shut, everything becomes more troublesome."
Need it urgently.
The words were too ordinary.
But when they fell on Fang Yingjie's ears, it was as though someone had gently pressed a hand against his chest.
Of course his father needed it urgently.
How could the dead not?
His body was lying in the ruined temple. Once the morning air warmed and the sun climbed, he could no longer remain as still and untouched as he was now. Yet Fang Yingjie could not even produce that one tael of silver needed for something "urgent."
He said nothing more.
He turned and walked out of the coffin shop.
Outside, Lujin was even livelier than before. The lake mist still had not fully burned away, yet more people had filled the street. A fishwife was shouting at a customer over two missing copper coins. A few more boatmen had crowded around the porridge stall, crouched by the roadside and eating fast from their bowls. Not far away, someone flung down a bundle of new hemp rope, sending up a small puff of dust.
The lives of the living were still hurrying onward.
Standing at the roadside, Fang Yingjie suddenly felt that the shopkeeper's words—one tael of silver—were heavier than the broken chains that had pressed across his back last night.
He turned and looked once more at Zhou's Longevity Goods.
That thin coffin was still there by the door.
Waiting for someone to buy it.
And he had no money.
Slowly, Fang Yingjie clenched his hand.
His father was still in the ruined temple.
He had to find one tael of silver first.
No Way to Make a Living
Fang Yingjie walked on along the street.
Lujin Town lived by the water, and if there was one thing it seemed never to lack, it was work for strong backs.
The stretch of road nearest the wharf was busier than the streets deeper in town. Boats crowded the stone landing, several black-canopied cargo vessels pulled in close with wet hawsers hanging from their prows. Fish baskets, sacks of salt, wine jars, and bundles of firewood brought in from west of the lake lay piled by the dock. A dozen laborers in short jackets moved back and forth without pause. A shoulder dipped, and a sack was up on a back; feet crossed the slick stones quick and steady as though they had done it a thousand times before.
A man who looked to be the foreman stood beside a tall wooden stool with an account book in his hand, shouting without letup.
"Careful with that! Those are wine jars, not rocks!"
"Unload the salt from the third boat first! Don't let the fish block the way!"
"Old Cai, quit loafing. Get this load finished early—there's another shipment this afternoon!"
Fang Yingjie stood outside the wharf and watched for a moment, then went over.
The foreman was bent over his figures. Sensing someone stop in front of him, he did not even look up.
"If you're here for work, stand on the east side. We're full this morning."
"I'm looking for work," Fang Yingjie said.
Only then did the man raise his head.
His gaze swept Fang Yingjie from top to bottom.
His clothes were wet and filthy, his face pale. He was young, and not slight of build, but there was something about him that did not belong to the dockside. He did not look like a porter who knew the place. He looked like someone who had just crawled out of a disaster.
"Whose man are you?" the foreman asked.
Fang Yingjie paused. "I'm from out of town."
"Out of town where?"
"From the north."
The foreman frowned. "Who sent you here?"
Fang Yingjie did not answer.
The man waited a breath. When Fang Yingjie still said nothing, he tucked the ledger under his arm.
"No guarantor?"
"No."
"Worked a dock before?"
"No."
"Know anyone from the shipping firms?"
"I don't."
By the time the questions were done, the warmth in the man's face had gone flat.
"Then it won't do."
"I can carry," Fang Yingjie said.
"There are plenty who can carry." The foreman jerked his chin toward one side. "Look over there. They were waiting before dawn, and five or six still haven't gotten a turn. Cargo is counted here. If something goes wrong, someone pays for it. One sack of salt missing, one wine jar broken—who's taking that loss?"
Fang Yingjie glanced toward the east wall.
Several men in rough, worn clothes were indeed crouched there. One sat with his knees pulled up, dozing; another was chewing on a cold cake. When the foreman pointed, they only lifted their eyes with dull indifference.
They were not idle.
They were in line.
Waiting.
In this place, even the right to sell your strength was not something you got just by walking up.
Fang Yingjie looked back and asked, "What if I only take the heaviest loads and leave the fragile goods alone?"
The foreman gave him another look.
This time there was impatience in it.
"I said no, so it's no. No guarantor, no clear background—who would dare put you on a boat? What if you sling one sack of salt over your shoulder and disappear? Where am I supposed to find you then?"
Fang Yingjie's throat tightened.
He was not here to steal salt.
He only needed one tael of silver.
But saying so would not help him.
The foreman had already lowered his head again and reopened the ledger.
"Move aside. Don't block the way."
A porter came past with a huge bundle on his shoulder and clipped Fang Yingjie as he passed. Fang Yingjie had not rested all night, and there was nothing in his stomach. That single bump made him sway, almost stepping straight into the puddle beside him.
He steadied himself.
But he said nothing more.
The dock would not take him.
He turned and left.
Behind him the shouting went on without pause, sacks thudding onto planks, crates knocking against stone, ropes dragging over the landing with a harsh rasp. The sounds were all solid, all heavy—each one sounding as though it could be exchanged for a meal, a few coins, a day's wages.
But none of it had anything to do with him.
Fang Yingjie walked on along the road outside the wharf.
The farther he went, the more mixed the shops became. Shipping firms, inns for porters, freight depots—one pressed up against the next, each with its own wooden signboard hanging out front. Some were taking in mountain goods, some sending out wine jars; elsewhere clerks sweated as they bound up crates with coarse rope.
He stopped outside one freight house.
A board over the door read Prosperity Freight Company. Inside, two clerks were pushing wheelbarrows, taking baskets of dried fish and sacks of coarse salt into the rear courtyard. By the entrance sat a thin-faced middle-aged man with a teacup and a small abacus before him. He looked like the one in charge.
Fang Yingjie went up to him.
"Are you hiring day labor?"
The man looked up and gave him a glance. "For what kind of work?"
"Moving goods. Watching the storeroom. Anything."
The thin-faced steward let his eyes travel over Fang Yingjie's arms, his shoulders and back, then down to the water stains still dark on his clothes.
"Where are you from?"
"Out of town."
"Do you have travel papers?"
Fang Yingjie said nothing.
At that, the man smiled faintly. There was little warmth in it.
"No travel papers, no guarantor, no clear background. And you'll do anything?"
"I only want work for today," Fang Yingjie said quietly.
"There is work for today." The steward pointed into the yard. "But not for just anyone who shows up. Goods come in and goods go out. We have to know the people handling them. If you really want work, wait a few days at the edge of town. Find someone who knows you and will vouch for you. Then come ask again."
A few days.
The moment Fang Yingjie heard those words, something in his chest sank.
His father could not wait a few days.
He lowered his voice. "If I finish the work today, could you advance me part of the pay first?"
The steward stared, then his whole expression changed at once.
"You haven't even worked yet, and you're already asking for an advance?"
"I have urgent need of it."
"Who doesn't?" The man set down his teacup, his tone turning cold. "Of the people who come to a freight house begging for work, eight out of ten say it's urgent. Someone sick at home, robbed on the road, an old mother with no rice left in the pot—what story haven't I heard? If I advanced wages to every one of them, how long do you think this place would stay open?"
Fang Yingjie did not argue.
When the man saw he still had not gone, he frowned.
"Go on, go on. Don't block the customers."
Just then, a clerk inside pushed a wheelbarrow over the threshold, its wheel nearly scraping Fang Yingjie's foot. Fang Yingjie stepped aside and watched the load roll past in front of him. Then, at last, he turned and left.
The dock would not take him.
The freight house would not take him either.
After that he tried a shipping firm.
The moment they heard he had no one to vouch for him, they could not even be bothered to ask another question. They waved him off at once.
A small shop along the street needed someone to chop firewood and haul water, but when the shopkeeper saw the state of his clothes and the pallor in his face, he asked two questions about where he came from, frowned, and said he wanted no trouble.
Fang Yingjie withdrew from each place in turn.
He did not argue.
He did not grow angry.
He only understood more and more clearly that the hardest thing in this world was not always to strike out and carve a path with force.
Sometimes it was having strength in your body and still not being able to find anyone willing to buy it.
There were more people on the streets now.
The sky had grown lighter as well.
Fang Yingjie's steps had begun to slow.
His stomach had drawn tight with emptiness.
It was not the ordinary hunger of missing a meal. It felt as though everything inside had already been burned away, leaving only a thin shell of flesh still holding him upright.
He walked on by the side of the street and passed a little stall selling steamed buns and hot porridge.
In front of it was a child of five or six, holding a fresh white bun in both hands. As he walked, he kept turning back to look at the steam rolling up from the pot. A woman beside him called out impatiently. He stumbled, and the bun slipped from his hands. It rolled twice across the wet ground, picked up mud, and came to rest by the roadside.
The child froze, then bent to pick it up.
But the woman caught him by the arm at once with a frown.
"It's filthy. What are you picking it up for?"
The child looked back at it, reluctant, but let himself be led away.
Fang Yingjie stopped.
The bun had landed not far from him.
One side was smeared with mud, but the other was still white. When the morning breeze stirred, it even carried the faintest trace of flour.
He looked at it without moving at once.
He knew it was something someone else had thrown away.
He knew it had fallen to the ground and rolled through mud.
He knew that if he bent down to pick it up, someone on the street might see.
Then his stomach cramped so hard it seemed to draw in on itself.
The next instant, a loud, unmistakable growl dragged out of the hollow emptiness inside him. It was not loud, but it was near enough that he heard every bit of it.
Fang Yingjie's throat moved once.
In the end, he bent down and reached for the bun.
And just as his fingers were about to touch it, a mangy yellow-black cur shot out from the mouth of the alley beside him.
The dog had clearly fixed on the food as well. Its nose twitched, and baring its teeth, it lunged straight in. Fang Yingjie's hand had just reached the bun when the dog's jaws came close too, a low growl rumbling in its throat as if it meant to snap his hand away along with it.
Fang Yingjie's eyes darkened.
He hardly thought at all. His right palm had already thrust forward.
It was not a heavy strike.
His body simply moved faster than thought. At the instant the dog sprang in, the palm came down with sinking force, slapping the wet ground half a foot in front of its nose.
With a dull crack, mud and water splashed up.
The dog was so startled by the force and the shock of it that it yelped and skittered back several paces. Even then it still bared its teeth unwillingly—but when it met Fang Yingjie's suddenly chilled gaze, it tucked its tail between its legs and bolted back into the alley.
Two people by the roadside heard the commotion and glanced over casually before going back to their own business.
Fang Yingjie did not look at them.
He only picked up the bun.
One side was already smeared with mud. He wiped it slowly with his sleeve, pinched off the filthiest bit, and stood there with it in his hand for a moment before lowering his head and taking a bite.
The bun was no longer warm.
It had almost no taste.
But when that first mouthful went down, at last something solid seemed to fall into the ache of his empty stomach.
He ate slowly.
Not because he was not hungry, but because his throat was too tight, and swallowing hurt.
At the second bite, he suddenly thought of his father beneath the old mat in the ruined shrine, and his hand paused.
If his father were still alive, what would he say if he saw him eating a bun picked up from the street?
Would he frown?
Would he curse him for losing all dignity?
Fang Yingjie did not know.
He only knew his father was still waiting for that coffin.
And he could not collapse here.
So he lowered his head and finished the rest of the bun, bite by bite.
Even the dirty little piece he had pinched off, he could not quite bring himself to throw far away. He only set it by the wall. Not long after, the same cur from before crept cautiously back out, snatched it in its mouth, and ran.
Fang Yingjie watched it once, then turned and went on.
He could no longer afford the luxury of shame—not even over fighting a dog for a bun fallen in the mud.
Because his father was still waiting for him.
By the time he reached the end of the street, his steps had slowed more than before. The clothes soaked through the night before clung to him under the wind, cold and heavy. The places on his shoulders and back where the cloth straps had cut into him throbbed in waves. Even the wound across the back of his right hand, carved open in the tunnel beneath the earth, had begun to burn with a faint heat.
But still he did not stop.
He kept his eyes on the street ahead, looking for another shop, another yard, another place—anyone at all who might take on a day laborer willing to sell his life and strength for a single day.
That was when he saw the red paper.
It had been pasted onto a wall of blue brick, the color bright and fresh, the characters written large, two copper tacks pinning it at the corners. Unlike the old notices around it with their curling edges—missing-person notices, shipping notices, all weathered by time—this one had only just gone up. The morning mist had dampened it a little, but the paper was still smooth.
At first Fang Yingjie only swept it with a passing glance.
Then, in the next instant, he stopped.
Written on the paper were the words:
Baoque Tower seeks outer-yard guards and porters.
Strong men preferred.
Food and lodging provided.
Monthly wage: three qian.
Those in urgent need may receive an advance.
He read the first lines quickly.
But the last one nailed his gaze in place like an iron spike.
In urgent need.
May receive an advance.
Fang Yingjie stood before that wall for a long time without moving.
People passed behind him in the street. Some carried fish baskets, some pushed empty carts; others glanced idly at the red hiring notice and walked on. No one knew what those few brief words meant to him.
The dock would not have him.
The freight houses would not have him.
The shipping firms would not have him.
But this place, at least, said plainly that money could be advanced.
An advance meant a coffin.
Fang Yingjie lifted his head.
Across the street stood a three-story building by the water. Its eaves arched high, colored lanterns not yet fully extinguished. The plaque above the entrance was black lacquer picked out in gold, and even in the thin morning light the three large characters seemed to gleam:
Baoque Tower.
Mu Qi Enters Baoque Tower
The front entrance of Baoque Tower did not open onto the red hiring notice.
That sheet of red paper was pasted to a blue-brick wall along the side street, half a waterside stone lane away from the main gate. Fang Yingjie stood where he was and looked at it for a moment before slowly turning and following the wall toward the side of the building.
From a distance, the tower had seemed only taller and brighter than the other shops in Luzin Town. Up close, its true bearing revealed itself.
Baoque Tower stood beside the water, its three tiers of sweeping eaves rising one above another, the uppermost corner almost reaching into the lake mist. Above the main entrance hung a black plaque edged in gold, the three great characters on it rounded and lavish in style. Two great lanterns still smoldered before the door, their fading red glow staining the vermilion pillars as if some trace of last night's drunkenness still clung there. From within came the faintest lingering thread of string music, so slight it seemed some guest in a private room had drunk too deep and only now, just before dawn, had finally dispersed.
Servants were already sweeping before the main entrance. Nearby, two neatly dressed men with the look of brothel attendants stood talking in low voices. A soft sedan chair waited by the door, its curtains lowered—whether for someone expected or someone just sent off, there was no telling.
That was the entrance for guests.
Fang Yingjie did not go near it.
He circled to the side of the tower.
There, the scene was altogether different.
Jars of wine were being lifted down from carts, the clay seals at their mouths still damp. Two bamboo baskets overflowed with chickens, ducks, fish, and cuts of meat; every so often a fish tail twitched and flicked out a spray of rank water. A rough servant woman came out the back door with a wooden bucket and sloshed half a pail of cloudy vegetable wash into the ditch, all the while cursing whichever private room had ruined a fresh set of hand towels the night before. Several young laborers hurried past with bent backs, carrying charcoal, rice, and bundles of newly washed tablecloths. Their steps were too rushed for any of them to spare him more than a glance.
The front gate sold lamplight and rouge.
What entered through the side gate was firewood, rice, wine, and meat.
Standing there beside it, Fang Yingjie finally understood that the four words hiring porters and odd-job hands on the red notice had not been written merely for show.
They truly did need people here.
And it truly looked like the kind of place that would feed a man.
He stepped forward.
The one guarding the side entrance was a dark-faced man in his thirties, sleeves rolled up, hands on his hips as he watched the unloading. When Fang Yingjie stopped before him, the man said nothing at first. He simply looked him over from head to toe.
"What do you want?"
"I saw the hiring notice," Fang Yingjie said.
The man flicked a glance toward the wall where the notice hung. His expression did not change.
"Outer-yard hand, or porter?"
"Either."
The man gave him another look.
"Go see Steward Wang."
He lifted a hand and pointed inside.
"Follow the corridor to the end. The little accounts room on the right. Don't go staring where you shouldn't, and don't walk into places you've no business entering."
Fang Yingjie nodded. "Thank you."
He stepped through the side gate.
Inside Baoque Tower, it was warmer than it had been outside.
Not a clean warmth, but one made of wine fumes, powder, the steam of cooking, and the stale after-smell of banked charcoal, all pressed together into a heavy air that clung to the skin. Last night's revelry had only just ebbed; this morning's bustle had already begun. It felt like the tower was never truly quiet. Beneath the corridor eaves, someone hurried past carrying a copper kettle. Elsewhere, someone else turned a corner with trays and dishes balanced in both hands. From the upper floor came the soft complaint of a woman who sounded only half awake, grumbling that someone had loosened the strings of her zither again the night before.
Fang Yingjie did not let his eyes wander.
He followed the dark-faced man's directions down the corridor and, at the far end, found exactly what he had been told to expect: a half-open little room. Inside stood an old writing desk. Behind it sat a man in his forties, pale-skinned, heavy-lidded, with two neatly trimmed moustaches. Several account books lay open before him, with an abacus and a teacup set close at hand.
Two other men seeking work were already standing at the doorway.
One was broad-shouldered and thick-armed in a coarse short jacket. The other was older, with worry etched plainly across his face. They answered a few quiet questions, and when they were done, the man behind the desk said coolly, "Go home and wait. If we truly need you, someone will send for you."
The broad-shouldered man looked as if he wanted to argue, but a pageboy beside the desk had already lifted a hand and ushered them out. They had no choice but to leave.
Fang Yingjie waited for them to pass before stepping in.
The man behind the desk raised his eyes.
"You're here for work too?"
"Yes."
"Name."
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
The man's brow tightened faintly when he saw him hesitate.
"I asked your name."
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.
"Mu Qi."
The two words came out softly.
Softly enough to sound well practiced.
Only he himself knew that when they touched his tongue again, they grated harder than the cold stones in the underground waterway the night before.
The man took up his brush and wrote a few strokes on the paper before him.
"Where are you from?"
"Not local."
"Where, exactly?"
"The north."
"The north is large." The man looked up at him. "Prefecture? County? Village?"
Fang Yingjie was silent for a beat.
"I came by water and ran into trouble. Everything I had before is gone."
It was not wholly true.
But it was not wholly false either.
He had indeed come out of the water.
And he truly had nothing left that could be brought out and shown to anyone.
The man studied him for a moment. His gaze slid from Fang Yingjie's face to the damp marks still darkening the hem of his clothes, then to the half-open wounds on the backs of his hands.
"Travel pass?"
"Gone."
"Guarantor?"
"None."
"Anyone in Luzin Town who knows you?"
"No one."
The man set his brush lightly against the inkstone.
"You've got nerve, then."
He did not say it harshly, but there was a cool, practiced calculation in his tone.
"No travel pass. No guarantor. No acquaintances. A past you'll only tell by halves. Baoque Tower may be hiring laborers, but we are not a roadside stall that takes in every stray who reaches out a hand."
"I can work," Fang Yingjie said.
"Everyone says that when they come."
The man glanced toward the corridor. Just then, two laborers were passing the doorway together with a great wooden crate between them. It was wrapped in coarse hemp cloth, iron-bound at the corners, and when they set it down it landed with a heavy thud.
The man tipped his chin.
"Move that crate to the wall."
Fang Yingjie turned.
The two laborers had just lowered it. At the order, they both stared, then stepped aside.
The crate was heavier than it looked. He could not tell whether it held porcelain or drinking vessels, but the weight dragged hard at the four corners, too much for one hand to lift. Fang Yingjie bent, braced both hands beneath it, sank through his heels, and tightened his back and waist as one.
What his father had taught him had never been only palm techniques.
If the feet were steady, the body did not scatter.
He used no inner force, nor did he dare show anything out of the ordinary. He relied only on raw strength and the sinew hammered into him by ten years in the underground prison. Inch by inch, he forced the crate half a foot off the ground, carried it to the wall, and set it down again with care.
When it touched the floor, the sound was not loud.
The man behind the desk shifted his gaze slightly.
Even the two laborers by the door could not help looking at Fang Yingjie again.
When he straightened, a tightness pulled across his chest. The movement had tugged at his wounds, and a faint sheen of cold sweat rose at his temples. He let his hands fall back to his sides and said nothing.
The man picked up his brush again.
"You've got enough strength."
"Will you take me?" Fang Yingjie asked.
"It isn't impossible," the man said. "The outer yard has indeed been short of hands lately. Carrying freight, watching the back gate, making the night rounds—wherever they need someone, that's where you'll be sent. Food and lodging included. Wages are three-tenths of a tael a month. You saw all that on the notice?"
"I did."
"Need silver in a hurry?"
Fang Yingjie paused. "Yes."
The man flicked one bead of the abacus.
"How much?"
"One tael."
For a moment, the room went still.
The man looked up, and this time it was as though he were finally studying Fang Yingjie in earnest.
"One tael?"
"Yes."
"You ask boldly." He gave a smile that never reached his eyes. "Outer-yard hands earn three-tenths of a tael a month. You open your mouth and ask for three or four months' wages before you've done a day's work."
Fang Yingjie did not argue.
He only said, "I need it urgently."
The man watched him a little longer.
"The notice says we may give an advance to those in urgent need. It does not mean the house hands a tael to every man who asks."
"How do I get the advance?" Fang Yingjie asked.
The man leaned back in his chair.
"If you take advance silver, you sign a contract."
"What contract?"
"A short-term labor contract for the outer yard." His tone was flat, as though he had recited the terms countless times before. "The house gives you the silver first, and you use it however you need. After that, you work here at Baoque Tower. The house feeds and lodges you. But until the advance is paid off, you receive no wages in hand."
Fang Yingjie's gaze darkened a fraction.
The man continued, "Don't think food and lodging mean no accounting. Rice costs grain. A bed costs mats. Blankets, clothing, medicine, if you need any of them, all go on the books. You work a month, three-tenths of a tael is put against the advance. But whatever you have eaten and used that month is entered as well. When the account is cleared, then you begin drawing cash wages."
At that, he lifted his teacup and took a sip.
"If the contract is not finished and the debt not cleared, and you run, that counts as breaking contract. Baoque Tower does not fear it will fail to find a man."
The room was warm and stifling, but Fang Yingjie felt a chill begin at the soles of his feet and climb slowly upward.
One tael of silver was not free silver.
Nor was it something he could repay after a few days' labor.
Once he took it, he would be pledging himself here first.
Three-tenths of a tael a month sounded decent enough. But if food counted, and lodging counted, and the house found reason to add a few more miscellaneous charges, who knew how long such a debt might take to clear? The red notice outside had been written cleanly enough:
Food and lodging included.
Those in urgent need may receive advance silver.
Only after entering did one learn that behind every word there waited an abacus.
The man watched him.
"Well? Have you thought it through?"
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
Of course he understood.
This was not day labor.
It was not a matter of hauling a few crates today and walking free tomorrow.
If he took the tael, he would remain at Baoque Tower under the name Mu Qi, bound as an outer-yard laborer for some unknown span of time. After he buried his father, he would not be able to leave at once. Feng Wuying and Feng Feiyun were of uncertain life and death. The Crimson Flame Palace might not have ceased its pursuit. Yet he, for the moment, would be pinned in place by a single sheet of contract paper.
But Fang Tieshan was still lying in the ruined temple, stretched upon an old door plank.
That thin coffin needed silver today.
After a long silence, Fang Yingjie asked only, "Can I get the silver today?"
The faintest trace of mockery passed through the man's eyes.
He had seen countless men like this.
Men who understood the contract, men who knew they were being trapped, men who knew they would lose in the bargain.
Yet once there was truly some fire at home burning at their heels, the question they asked in the end was never how long they would be bound, only whether the silver could be put in their hands now.
"You can get it today," the man said, "if the house is willing to take you."
"I'll sign."
The man did not answer at once.
He looked at Fang Yingjie for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Why do you need that tael so badly?"
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened slightly.
He had not meant to say more.
But if he said nothing, the man before him might never give him the chance at all.
After a moment's silence, he said in a low voice, "An elder in my family has passed away."
The man's expression paused, just slightly.
Fang Yingjie let one breath pass, then added, "I need to buy a coffin."
The little accounts room fell quiet.
Outside in the corridor, men were still unloading wine jars. Farther away, pageboys still ran back and forth. But when those words landed, the small patch of space in front of the desk seemed to go hollow for a moment.
The man did not speak at once.
"A man with a murky past like yours," he said at last, "would normally be taken on for a few trial days at most. If we gave you even a few tenths of a tael in advance, that would already be lenient."
His gaze swept over Fang Yingjie's damp, wretched clothes once more.
"And the moment you open your mouth, you ask for a full tael. If trouble comes of it, whose account does that go on?"
Fang Yingjie stood where he was and did not retreat.
He knew there was no use saying more.
No one owed him this silver.
No one was going to trust him for free merely because of who his father was.
Because they did not know.
The man tapped two fingers softly against the edge of the ledger, as if he had already half decided to send him away.
"Here is what we can do. If you truly want to enter the tower, stay and work three days first. After three days, if you prove diligent, then we can discuss the advance—"
"No need."
The voice came from above.
It was not loud.
Indeed, across the corridor and through the ordinary noise of the house, it was almost soft.
But the man behind the desk changed expression at once, and the rest of his words died where they were.
Fang Yingjie looked up as well.
The voice had not come from the doorway.
It seemed to have fallen from the second-floor corridor, muted by hanging drapery and the wooden rail so that only its blurred gentleness remained. He lifted his eyes and saw only a pale gauze curtain stirring lightly at the upper turning of the gallery. Someone seemed to be standing behind it, but the face could not be made out.
The man behind the desk rose half a step, his tone much more respectful than before.
"And your meaning, miss?"
There was a brief pause above.
"Keep him."
"The contract stands as written."
"Give him the full advance."
Three short sentences.
Not hurried. Not forceful.
Yet they swept aside every hesitation that had come before.
The man lowered his eyes. "Yes."
The curtain above stirred once.
The voice did not come again.
Fang Yingjie looked at that spot, something in his chest moving faintly, but he did not dwell on it. Baoque Tower had its own people, its own rules, its own hidden currents. He was only an outsider who had come to beg a living. Why the woman above had spoken was none of his business, and not something he had the standing to ask.
For now, he heard only one thing:
the full advance.
The man behind the desk sat down again. His expression had returned to normal, though several degrees of refusal had vanished from it. He opened a drawer, took out a contract sheet with half its blanks already prepared, and spread it across the desk.
"Name."
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.
Lines of regulation were already written there in clear characters: hired to the outer yard; advance silver to be worked off under contract; no leaving before the debt was cleared; damage to property to be repaid at full value; and so on.
His gaze settled on the blank line at the bottom, the place for a signature.
The name to be written there was not Fang Yingjie.
It was Mu Qi.
The man extended the brush toward him.
"Can you write?"
"I can."
When the brush shaft touched his fingers, he felt, for a brief instant, strangely dazed.
He steadied himself and wrote two characters at the end of the contract:
Mu Qi
The hand was not ugly.
But it felt as though someone had taken the name Fang Yingjie and buried it in the earth all over again before his very eyes.
The man blew lightly on the wet ink, then stamped it with a small seal.
"Thumbprint."
Fang Yingjie pressed his thumb into the seal paste as instructed and set it beside the name.
The print bloomed red.
Like a fresh drop of blood.
The man folded the contract away and called toward the door, "Someone."
A pageboy entered at once.
"Take him to the outer yard to be entered on the rolls and given a token. Then draw one tael of advance silver from the books."
The pageboy acknowledged him.
The man behind the desk looked back at Fang Yingjie.
"Mu Qi. Once you take the silver, you belong to Baoque Tower from today onward. If you still have private matters to settle, return before sunset and report in. If you do not return—"
He left the sentence unfinished, only tapping one knuckle lightly against the contract he had just put away.
The meaning was plain enough.
"I'll return," Fang Yingjie said.
The man gave a flat little grunt.
The pageboy led Fang Yingjie out of the accounts room and down the corridor toward the outer yard. Men came and went all through Baoque Tower, and no one spared him a second glance. At a side counter, the pageboy took a crudely made wooden token from a cubby shelf, then had a shopkeeper-looking man weigh out a small lump of broken silver from a cash box.
It was not a large piece.
In the palm, it even seemed light.
The pageboy handed him the silver and the token together.
"Keep them safe. Don't lose the token. When you come back later, report to Old Zhao in the outer yard."
Fang Yingjie took the wooden token first.
Two characters were carved into it:
Baoque
On the reverse was another line in smaller script:
Outer Yard
Then the one tael of silver dropped into his palm.
Cold.
Solid.
Fang Yingjie slowly closed his fingers and clenched it tight.
At Zhou's Coffin Shop earlier, he had stood looking at that thin coffin by the door, and he had not even been able to say the words I'll take it. Now this little weight of silver had finally reached his hand. By rights, he should have been able to breathe easier.
But he could not.
What he felt instead was that the small cold lump in his palm weighed more than the prison irons whose marks still scarred his father's body.
Because this was not wages.
It was coffin money.
And it was the price of pawning himself to Baoque Tower first.
The pageboy saw him standing there and urged him on.
"Didn't you say you needed it urgently? What are you standing there for?"
Only then did Fang Yingjie lift his eyes.
"Thank you."
With that, he tucked the token into his breast, closed his hand even tighter around the silver, and turned at once toward the side gate.
Outside, the side entrance of Baoque Tower was still in tumult.
Men were carrying wine. Men were shouting. Men were hauling baskets of fresh fish into the rear kitchens. The morning had grown brighter than before, and the noise of Luzin Town had thickened with it. But the moment Fang Yingjie stepped out, he did not hesitate even for half a pace.
He headed straight for Zhou's Coffin Shop.
His father was still waiting for him in the ruined temple.
He had to buy that coffin first.
Swallow Shadow Behind the Curtain
Once Fang Yingjie stepped out through Baoque Tower's side door, he did not look back again.
That damp, gaunt figure passed a few shoulder-pole porters and was soon swallowed by the lake mist that had not yet burned away. His clothes were still half wet, and weariness showed plainly in his stride, yet the hand clutching the silver never loosened once.
As though it were not a tael of broken silver in his palm,
but the only thing left in this world that he could still hold on to.
On the second floor of Baoque Tower, at the far end of the waterside gallery, a pale bead curtain hung beneath the eaves. Behind it, the steam from tea had not yet faded, and on the table sat half a cup of clear tea, untouched. A morning breeze came off the lake and stirred the strands of beads into the faintest string of clicks.
The woman who had just spoken the word that kept Mu Qi there still stood behind the curtain.
She did not turn away at once.
Through the gauzy screen of beads, she simply watched the figure below go farther and farther, until at last he disappeared into the white haze lingering at the street corner.
Her maid lowered her voice. "Miss Yan Ji, do you truly mean to keep him?"
The woman did not answer.
After a moment, she asked softly, "Has he signed the contract?"
"Yes. Steward Wang did as you said. He gave him the full tael in advance."
The woman lowered her eyes slightly.
"What did he say his name was?"
The maid thought for a moment. "Mu Qi."
Behind the bead curtain, the woman's fingers paused, almost imperceptibly.
Just then the wind swept through the gallery and lifted the edge of her sleeve. On the pale blue cloth was embroidered a tiny swallow, its tail feathers fine and sharp, as though it might fly free from her cuff at any moment.
"Mu Qi..."
She repeated the two syllables under her breath.
Her voice was so soft that almost no feeling could be heard in it.
The maid glanced up at her, but all she saw was the woman still gazing through the curtain in the direction he had gone.
Only after a long while did Yan Ji speak.
"Keep him."
Poetic Coda
Through dark waters he bore a soul beyond the old pass;
at dawn, Lujin's mist pressed cold against his clothes.
One thin coffin for a tael brought a hero low;
half a coarse bun became a Young Master's meal.
In a ruined shrine he hid his kin where incense no longer burned;
in a pleasure house, a debt-bound contract stripped away his name.
Yet behind the curtain, in a voice soft and still,
she had already taken note of the lone wanderer.
(End of Chapter Thirty-Six)