Survivors of the Red House
Wang Yan was the first to let go.
She did not speak at once, nor did she hurry to ask how Fang Yingjie had survived these past ten years. She only lowered her eyes to the fire before the graves.
Half the spirit money had already collapsed into ash.
The night wind moved through the low trees, lifting a few gray flakes and sending them drifting to the wine flask before they settled beside the packet of sugar crisps. The little fried fish gleamed in the firelight, and even the edge of the oil paper stirred softly in the wind, as though that small shop that had never opened ten years ago still refused, even now, to fall completely silent.
Wang Yan went back to the fire and crouched down, gathering the scattered sheets of spirit money one by one.
Her fingers were still trembling slightly.
But the motion of her hands was steady.
It was the kind of steadiness born of habit—the kind a person learned only after ten years of forcing calm onto her face no matter how violently her heart churned beneath it.
"Let us finish burning these for Father and Mother first."
Her voice was hoarse, but calmer now than it had been moments ago.
Fang Yingjie stood stunned for an instant, then stepped forward as well.
He knelt before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian.
The ground was damp. The moment his knees touched it, cold seeped through the worn cloth of his trousers. Yet he seemed not to feel it. He only lowered his head and knocked it hard against the earth three times.
With the first bow, he remembered Wang Afu laughing over a wine jar in his hands.
With the second, he remembered Madam Qian bringing over hot rice and flatbread.
With the third, he remembered the warm yellow lamplight inside the Wang family's little house, and the tiny dream of a shop that had not yet been shattered.
He stayed bent to the ground, his throat clenched so tightly it hurt.
"Uncle Afu."
"Aunt Qian."
"Little Twig has come to see you."
At those words, the spirit money in Wang Yan's hand stilled for a moment.
Iron Mask stood to one side, his head lowered, staring at the place where Fang Yingjie had bowed.
It was as if he understood something.
And as if he understood nothing at all.
Only the hand that had rested on Fang Yingjie's shoulder a moment before slowly dropped back to his side, the fingers tightening one by one.
Wang Yan did not turn around.
She placed the last few sheets into the fire.
Flames licked up the paper, and it curled at once. Firelight washed across her face and turned the tear-tracks at the corners of her eyes pale and faint. Watching the paper burn away, she said softly,
"Father. Mother."
"Little Twig has come to see you too."
"You always used to say he looked half-sick, like a twig that had never properly dried in the sun—one gust of wind and he would topple."
A faint smile touched her lips.
There was little joy in it, but neither was it all bitterness.
"But he did not fall."
Fang Yingjie remained kneeling beside her, his head still lowered.
Iron Mask remained standing as well, the slow, dulled gaze behind his mask falling upon Fang Yingjie, as though from beneath very deep water, struggling to recognize someone from long ago.
The fire flickered across the iron mask, turning its old metal surface bright and dim by turns. It hid most of his face, and with it all the wounds of the last ten years—the wounds he refused to let anyone see. But Fang Yingjie knew who stood behind that mask.
It was Wang Shun.
The Wang Shun who had once mended nets in silence, fed the stove, and shielded his little sister without a word.
Only after the last bundle of spirit money had burned did Wang Yan slowly rise.
The night wind stirred the edge of her cloak, revealing a glimpse of dark red beneath. Here, before the graves, that red no longer looked bright. It was more like old blood washed through with water until only a deep stain remained.
She looked at Fang Yingjie.
"After the boat overturned that day, I didn't die."
Fang Yingjie's fingers clenched sharply.
He said nothing.
Wang Yan kept her eyes on the fire before the graves, as if she were speaking neither to Fang Yingjie nor to Iron Mask, but to the dead lying beneath the earth.
"I was hauled out of the water."
She paused.
"Not to be saved."
"To be taken as cargo."
Something heavy slammed into Fang Yingjie's chest.
He looked up.
Wang Yan's face was calm.
Too calm—as if she were not speaking of herself at all.
"At first, the man said he would send me home. But when he saw I had no money on me, and heard that I could not even explain clearly where I had come from, he sold me to men on a boat. Those men sold me again. Then I was sold again after that. I don't even remember how many hands I passed through."
Her gaze lowered to the ash in the fire as it slowly caved inward.
"In the end, I came to Baoque Tower."
Fang Yingjie swallowed.
"Yanzi…"
Wang Yan shook her head.
"I wasn't called Yan Ji then."
"I was only a servant girl."
"I carried water, washed clothes, swept floors, emptied chamber pots, and endured scolding. When drunken guests vomited on the floor, I was the one sent to wipe it clean. The old clothes the girls no longer wanted, the bedding even the rough women said was too filthy to touch—they all threw it to me to wash."
She spoke slowly.
Without anger.
And because there was no anger in her voice, it felt all the colder.
"I was still young then, and I didn't look the way I do now. No one in the house really treated me as a girl. They only thought of me as one more bought servant to be ordered about."
She paused.
"In a way, that was better."
Fang Yingjie felt the pressure in his chest tighten.
"And after that?"
Wang Yan was silent for a while.
In the firelight, her brows and eyes seemed to darken inch by inch.
"Then I grew older."
Her voice dropped lower.
"And the house was no longer willing to let me remain a servant girl."
The night wind rose suddenly.
Ash scattered from the fire in a rush, a few flakes dropping beside the sugar crisps.
Wang Yan bent and gently brushed them away.
"One night, one of the housemen told me to bring wine to a guest."
"I refused."
"The madam slapped me."
As she said this, she raised a hand and touched her own cheek.
That face was dazzling now—bright enough to command a whole hall of men. Yet that touch made it seem as though her fingers had strayed back to the girl she had once been, not yet fully grown.
"Later, they put something in the wine."
"The door was bolted from the outside."
"When I woke up, I was no longer a servant girl."
The color drained from Fang Yingjie's face, little by little.
He rose so abruptly that the motion was almost violent.
Iron Mask seemed to react as well. A low, muffled rasp escaped his throat.
But Wang Yan remained calm.
"Sit down."
She looked at Fang Yingjie.
"This is not something you can go back and kill your way through now."
Inside his sleeve, Fang Yingjie's hand closed into a fist. The new scar across his palm burned under the pressure of his nails.
He stared at Wang Yan.
There was fury in his eyes.
And pain.
And beneath both, a helplessness so deep it was almost unbearable.
Wang Yan looked back at him and said softly, almost suddenly,
"Little Twig, don't look at me like that."
His throat tightened shut.
"In these ten years, if I had to feel the pain of every single thing that happened, I would have died of pain long ago."
She turned back toward the fire.
"So I learned."
"I learned the qin, learned the flute, learned to sing, learned to write, learned to keep accounts, learned how to talk to people, learned how to see what a guest wanted to hear before he ever opened his mouth."
"They said in the house that these were the skills a woman needed."
A faint laugh escaped her.
"But even then, I knew it wasn't skill."
"It was fate."
The fire reached the final stack of spirit money and began to burn lower.
Wang Yan crouched down and stirred it with a thin twig.
"If I could not play the qin, then I could only let others choose me."
"If I played better than the rest, then at least I might choose a little in return."
"If I could make a whole hall wait on a single word from me, then at the very least there were some doors I could still decide to open—or not open—for myself."
Fang Yingjie remembered the night before, when Yan Pavilion had refused all guests.
Jewels, poetry, qin music—the whole glittering house had been made to wait on one sentence alone:
Tonight, Yan Pavilion receives no guests.
At the time, he had only been Mu Qi of the outer court, watching from far away.
Now he finally understood that behind those words there had been no pride, no elegance for its own sake.
It was the life Wang Yan had clawed out of the mud, inch by inch.
Fang Yingjie said in a low voice,
"So that was how you became Yan Ji."
Wang Yan kept looking into the fire.
"Yes."
"Wang Yan could not have survived."
"Yan Ji could."
"So I let her live."
When she finished, silence fell before the graves.
Far away, Lujin Town still held a few scattered lights, and the direction of Baoque Tower shone brighter still. But the distance was too great. By the time that light reached here, it had become only a blurred wash of red, like fire belonging to another world.
Fang Yingjie looked at Wang Yan's profile.
Ten years ago, Wang Yan had been the girl who stood at the bow shouting for everyone to hold fast; the girl who planted her hands on her hips and laughed as she called him Little Twig; the daughter of the Wang family who had dreamed of selling fried fish in a small shop and learning to keep accounts.
Now Yan Ji could sit at ease beneath the gaze of a hall full of men, dismiss every guest with a single sentence and make them wait for next month, and speak of bitterness as though it were some old story that had happened to someone else.
All at once, Fang Yingjie felt that while he had spent those ten years in darkness beneath the earth, never seeing daylight, Wang Yan had suffered in the brightest place of all—forced little by little to learn how to hide every wound from sight.
One had suffered in darkness.
One had suffered in the light.
The suffering was different.
And yet neither had died.
Wang Yan turned to Iron Mask.
He was still standing there.
Now that the fire was burning low, his figure seemed heavier than before, like an old stone set to keep watch beside the graves.
"Later, I came into a little money," Wang Yan said. "And I had people I could send on errands for me."
"Then I began to investigate what had happened at Taihukou."
Fang Yingjie looked up.
"What did you find?"
Wang Yan did not answer at once.
Instead, she went to Iron Mask's side and reached up to smooth the front of his clothes where the wind had disordered them.
The gesture was light.
And practiced.
Iron Mask did not avoid her hand.
He only lowered his head and watched it, like someone who did not understand what on him had gone awry, yet still let her touch him.
Wang Yan said,
"The first thing I found was Father and Mother's bones."
Fang Yingjie's heart tightened.
Her voice was very low.
"They died quickly."
"I don't know whether that counts as mercy."
She paused.
"At least they were not dragged on to live into something else, the way I was."
Fang Yingjie's lips moved, but no words came.
Wang Yan went on,
"When Chief Steward Zhou took my father back to Taihukou, it was never to save him."
"It was to close the mouth of the affair."
"My father still thought then that he was being taken back to untangle the trouble around the Wang family."
"There was silver ready, and calling cards, and medicine for wounds. To anyone looking on, it all seemed like a road out."
Her gaze shifted to the packet of sugar crisps before the grave.
"Only later did I understand that it was the Wang family's last journey."
"Tang Yacai, Lu Zhongren, and several others—the ones who ran messages, passed word along, and knew the boat routes—they were all part of that chain."
Her voice turned colder.
"And afterward, none of them remained."
"Some died in the water. Some died on the road. Some vanished without even a corpse left behind."
"Not a single one who could still speak was left alive."
She lifted her eyes to Fang Yingjie.
"They destroyed the Wang family, and in the end they did not walk out of that dead road themselves."
Fang Yingjie felt cold all over.
But there was no fierce satisfaction in Wang Yan's face.
"They died. So what of it?"
"Father and Mother will not come back."
"The shop will not open."
"And no one will ever bring me that packet of sugar crisps again."
Only then did her gaze leave the sweets and settle on Iron Mask.
"By the time I found my brother, it was already years later."
At the word brother, Iron Mask slowly turned his head toward her.
Wang Yan reached out and lightly touched the back of his hand.
"They all thought he was dead.
"There were too many bodies then. The rain was heavy, and the banks were all mud. Some people were killed and thrown aside; some were half-dead, but others took them for dead anyway."
"My brother's life was hard to stamp out."
"He didn't die."
The back of Iron Mask's hand was covered with old scars.
Some were cuts from blades.
Others looked like marks left by rope biting deep into flesh.
Wang Yan said softly,
"But that doesn't mean he lived well."
"When I found him, he no longer knew who he was."
"He did not know me either."
Behind the mask, Iron Mask's eyes shifted faintly.
It seemed he heard.
And yet he only heard.
"Half his face was ruined."
"His throat was damaged too."
"He had been struck on the head, and large parts of him were gone."
"People said he was mad."
"They said he guarded two sets of bones in a paupers' graveyard, and if anyone came near, he attacked; if anyone tried to move the bones, he bit."
At last, a glimmer of moisture rose again in Wang Yan's eyes.
But she did not let it fall.
"They said he was mad."
"I said he wasn't."
"He only still remembered what he was meant to guard."
Fang Yingjie looked at Iron Mask.
Iron Mask stood there mute and expressionless, his old iron mask covering his face. Yet all at once Fang Yingjie felt that this silent man was not empty.
He had not forgotten everything.
He had only forgotten too many words, forgotten too many people, forgotten how to laugh, how to cry, how to call someone little sister.
But he still remembered how to guard.
To guard his parents' bones.
To guard Wang Yan.
To guard that last shattered remnant of home that had somehow not yet entirely blown away.
"I brought him back," Wang Yan said.
"At first, the house would not have him."
"What use was a man with a ruined face and a broken mind at Baoque Tower?"
"By then, I was already bringing silver into the house."
"So I told them this: if he stayed, I stayed."
Fang Yingjie looked at her.
Her tone remained even.
"In the end they made him wear the iron mask."
"They said that way he would not frighten the guests."
"They also said he was strong enough to block drunken men, and useful enough to stand watch outside my door."
She lifted a hand and gently touched the cold edge of his mask.
"From then on, he became Iron Mask."
Iron Mask did not move.
It was as though he had long since grown used to the name.
Wang Yan looked at him, her voice very soft.
"But I know he is not Iron Mask."
"He is my brother."
Iron Mask slowly lowered his head.
A heavy weight pressed against Fang Yingjie's chest.
He suddenly remembered Wang Shun in the old Wang family courtyard ten years ago.
Back then Wang Shun had also been sparing with words.
But that silence had belonged to youth—to someone taciturn, not to someone who did not know how to speak.
Now Iron Mask's silence existed because speech itself had been beaten to pieces inside his throat.
Fang Yingjie looked at Wang Yan, then at Iron Mask.
Night wind swept over the graves. The last red coals in the fire pulsed faintly, then dimmed.
He asked in a low voice, "Later, once you had money, why didn't you take Shunge away?"
Wang Yan did not answer immediately.
Fang Yingjie continued,
"This place sits right on the Poyang Lake water route. And it is too close to the Biyue Manor line as well."
"If you stayed at Baoque Tower, weren't you living under their eyes the whole time?"
Wang Yan looked at him.
Her gaze was quiet.
Too quiet for a woman barely into her twenties; it was the gaze of someone who had asked herself that same question a thousand times over the last ten years.
"Leave?" she said softly.
"And go where?"
For a moment, Fang Yingjie had no answer.
Wang Yan lowered her eyes to the packet of sugar crisps before the grave.
"With my brother beside me—one the prized courtesan of Baoque Tower, the other a half-wit in an iron mask—wherever we went, we would stand out more than we do here."
"Outside, people would recognize Yan Ji."
"They would see him and ask who Iron Mask was."
"If we boarded a boat, someone would remember."
"If we took a room at an inn, someone would remember."
"If we bought medicine, or grain, or clothes, someone would remember."
A faint smile touched her mouth.
"Little Twig, when two people with no roots left to them walk out of a red house carrying a lifetime of old trouble, that is not called escape."
"It is called placing yourself out on the road for others to find."
Fang Yingjie fell silent.
Wang Yan lifted her head and looked toward Lujin Town.
The red lanterns of Baoque Tower floated in the distance through the night, like a sheet of fire that refused to sink.
"It is close to Biyue Manor."
"But precisely because it is close, no one expects us to dare stay here."
"There are many people in Baoque Tower, all kinds of guests, all kinds of money passing through. To search for an orphan girl would be easy. To search for Yan Ji, they would first have to get past Mama Qi, past the accounts of Baoque Tower, past the eyes of a whole house full of guests."
"They think that because I have become a woman of the pleasure quarters, I am no longer Wang Yan."
"They think that because my brother wears an iron mask, he is no longer Wang Shun either."
She paused.
"Sometimes the most dangerous place is the safest of all."
"At least, it has been for these ten years."
Fang Yingjie's hand slowly clenched.
"It was I who dragged your family into this."
At last the words were forced out of his throat.
Wang Yan turned to him.
"If I had not followed Senior Xuan to your house…"
"If I had not been the one to suggest that we go to Madam Wen…"
"Uncle Afu would never have taken you and me to see her."
"You and I would never have been kept at Biyue Manor."
"Uncle Afu would never have gone back to Taihukou with Chief Steward Zhou."
"Uncle Afu and Aunt Qian would not have died."
"Shunge would not have become like this."
"And you would not have…"
He could not continue.
His voice shook.
"At the time, I thought it was a way out."
"But the road I pointed to was the Wang family's road to death."
Wang Yan looked at him quietly.
For a long time.
Then, very suddenly, she lifted her hand and tapped him lightly on the forehead.
It was not hard.
But for the briefest instant, it was as though the Wang Yan from ten years ago had returned.
"Little Twig," she said.
"You are still as good as ever at taking everything onto your own back."
Fang Yingjie froze.
Wang Yan drew back her hand.
There were still tears in her eyes, but her voice was clear.
"Yes, you suggested it."
His face went pale.
But she continued,
"And at the time, all of us believed it was a road out."
"My father believed it."
"My mother believed it."
"I believed it."
"Even my brother, cautious as he was, never imagined that boat would carry our whole family into ruin."
She paused.
"You were not the one who harmed the Wang family."
"You truly believed there was a road ahead."
Her gaze went to the packet of sugar crisps.
"But they did not."
"When Tang Yacai carried those sweets through the door, he wore the smile of an old acquaintance."
"When Chief Steward Zhou took my father back to Taihukou, he wore the face of a man offering a way out."
"When Madam Wen kept you and me at Biyue Manor, she wore the heart of someone protecting us."
Her voice lowered.
"But layer after layer, all of it was a snare they had laid long before."
"They did not fail to know what lay ahead."
"They knew exactly what lay ahead, and still dressed it up to look like a road to life."
She looked back at Fang Yingjie.
"Little Twig."
"You did not know."
Fang Yingjie closed his eyes.
At last the heat in them spilled over.
Wang Yan said softly,
"You were only a child then."
The words were light.
Yet they struck with more weight than any comfort could have.
Because for ten years, no one had treated Fang Yingjie as a child.
Not the underground prison.
Not Li Ying.
Not hatred.
Not even he himself.
From the age of eleven, he had been dragged into darkness and, bit by bit, beaten into what he was now by pain, hunger, iron chains, and the legacy his father pressed into his hands before death.
And yet here, with Wang Yan, he was still the sickly, awkward boy she had once laughed at and called Little Twig.
Fang Yingjie lowered his head.
After a long while, he said hoarsely,
"But I cannot say it had nothing to do with me."
Wang Yan looked at him.
He lifted his eyes.
"That road was the one I pointed to first."
"I cannot pretend that because I did not know, nothing happened."
"Uncle Afu and Aunt Qian lie buried here."
"Shunge became this."
"And you became Yan Ji."
His voice dropped lower.
"If I go on living, but strip all of that cleanly away from myself, then what kind of man am I?"
Wang Yan said nothing.
The firelight had sunk until only a knot of red coals remained.
Fang Yingjie looked at her, then at Iron Mask.
"From this day on, I will protect both of you."
Wang Yan gave a slight start.
Iron Mask slowly turned his masked face as well.
Fang Yingjie said,
"I am not strong enough yet."
"My martial skill is not yet refined enough."
"But I will train."
"I will grow stronger."
"If anyone tries to harm you again, they will have to step over me first."
The words were plain.
There was none of the polished rhetoric of a wandering hero, none of the ringing fervor of a young swordsman making a grand vow.
They were like a stone newly dug from the earth—rough, heavy, unadorned, and real.
Wang Yan looked at him.
And as she kept looking, she suddenly smiled.
There was still wetness in her eyes, but the smile held a little of the brightness she had once had.
"You sickly thing," she said.
"Take care of yourself first."
Fang Yingjie looked back at her.
Ten years ago, he would probably have lowered his head, not knowing how to answer.
But now, after those ten years, he only said quietly,
"I'm well now."
Wang Yan's smile faltered.
It was as though only at that moment did she truly remember that the youth before her was no longer the pale, wheezing Little Twig who had once gone breathless after only a few steps.
He had grown tall in the underground prison.
His shoulders and back had broadened.
There was still something of the old boy in his features, but beneath it lay knives, fire, chains, and the dead.
Wang Yan looked at him and said softly,
"Yes."
"You've grown up."
But Fang Yingjie shook his head.
"Not enough."
Wang Yan did not smile again.
She knew he was not speaking of height.
Nor of age.
The three of them stood in silence for a while.
The night wind passed through the low trees, and the red coals in the fire dimmed almost to black.
Wang Yan turned, poured the wine from the flask onto the ground before the graves, and watched it disappear into the soil. Then she straightened the cakes, the sugar crisps, and the fried fish once more.
"Father. Mother."
Her voice was low.
"Little Twig is still alive."
"My brother and I are still alive too."
"You can rest easy."
When she finished, she knelt and bowed once more.
Seeing her kneel, Iron Mask knelt beside her.
This time his movement was still clumsy, but much slower than before, as though inside the murk of his broken mind someone had begun, little by little, to set shattered things back in their old places—Father, Mother, little sister, Little Twig.
Fang Yingjie knelt as well.
All three bowed side by side before the graves.
The two low gravestones of Wang Afu and Madam Qian stood in silence.
There was no hot food before them.
No laughter.
No Wang family courtyard.
Only cold wine, cold cakes, cold sugar crisps, cold fried fish—
and three children who had survived.
A long while passed before Fang Yingjie slowly rose.
He looked at Wang Yan.
"Yanzi."
This time he did not call her Yan Ji.
Wang Yan lifted her eyes to him.
Fang Yingjie said,
"I want to take you to meet someone."
Night Oath by the Two Graves
Wang Yan did not ask at once who that person was.
She only looked at Fang Yingjie.
Something that had flickered to life in her eyes a moment ago, bright with the shock of reunion, slowly sank again. She remembered the day he had entered Baoque Tower under the name Mu Qi. On his very first day, he had asked for an advance of one tael of silver, only to buy a coffin for an elder at home.
At the time, she had not asked.
Everyone in Baoque Tower had things they could not speak of. She had her own.
And now, standing before the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian, Fang Yingjie was saying he wanted to bring them to meet someone.
All at once, Wang Yan understood. The dead hidden behind that one tael of silver would be met tonight as well.
She lowered her eyes gently.
"Let's go."
Iron Mask stood to one side without moving.
Wang Yan turned to him and said softly, "Brother, come."
Only then did Iron Mask slowly turn.
Before he left, he lowered his head and looked once more at the graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian. The fire before them was almost spent now, no more than a dim red knot of embers. The cold wine had already seeped into the earth. The sugar crisps and fried little fish still lay there in silence. Iron Mask seemed not to understand why they had to leave. But Wang Yan had already started walking, so he followed.
Fang Yingjie led the way.
When he had come here, he had followed Yan Ji and Iron Mask with uncertainty underfoot—shock, suspicion, and the hesitation of seeing what he had no right to see. But the road back was different. He walked very slowly, as though each step were carrying two old souls away from the Wang family graves and toward the deepest wound of his own ten years.
The night had grown darker still.
Far off, a few scattered lamps still burned in Luzhen. Beyond the wild grass and low trees, the red glow of Baoque Tower still floated faintly in the dark. But the farther west they went, the paler that red became, and the heavier the wind off the lake grew.
Wang Yan followed behind Fang Yingjie without speaking.
Iron Mask walked at her side, still never more than half a step away. When the night wind stirred the edge of her cloak now and then, he would instinctively shift, as if afraid even the wind might hurt her.
Fang Yingjie did not look back.
He took the path he had walked so often these past few nights, skirting the lanes at the edge of town, avoiding the main road the night watchmen used, then pushing through a stretch of low reeds. The sound of the lake struck the bank again and again in the darkness, like someone far away knocking softly at a door.
The ruined Water God Temple lay ahead.
It had long since fallen to ruin.
Half the eaves had collapsed. The clay face of the Water God had been stripped by wind and rain until only a blurred outline remained. By daylight, it was no more than an abandoned old shrine. But by night, it looked like an empty shell forgotten for years, crouching between the reeds and the lake wind.
Fang Yingjie stopped in front of it.
Wang Yan stopped as well.
Then she saw the reeds behind the temple.
And beyond the reeds, a patch of fresh earth.
The soil had not yet fully settled. The mound was not high. Before it stood a blank stone, set shallowly into the ground and leaning ever so slightly, as though the one who had raised it had already spent the last of his strength, yet still forced himself to leave the dead at least one mark.
Wang Yan's face slowly changed.
Fang Yingjie walked over and stopped before the grave.
The night wind moved through the reeds. A thin sheen of dew had gathered on the nameless stone. As he had done so many nights before, Fang Yingjie reached out and gently wiped the moisture away.
Then he knelt.
"Father."
The single word fell into the night.
The light in Wang Yan's eyes shuddered.
She had already guessed part of it. But hearing him say it aloud still felt like something had seized her heart and squeezed hard.
Father.
She stood where she was and, for a moment, could not move.
Iron Mask did not seem to understand. He looked at Fang Yingjie, then at the grave, his gaze behind the mask dull and bewildered.
At last Wang Yan stepped forward slowly.
She stopped three paces from the grave and adjusted her cloak, then smoothed her cuffs. The gesture was unnecessary, yet she did it all the same, as though she could not bear to stand before this grave carelessly, still carrying the disarray of a red-light house and the dust of the night wind.
Then she knelt.
Looking at the blank stone, she did not speak at once.
After a while, she said in a low voice, "Old Master Fang."
"Wang Yan has come to kowtow before you."
Then she bowed and knocked her head heavily against the ground.
Iron Mask remained standing beside her.
Wang Yan lifted her head and looked at him.
"Brother."
Iron Mask lowered his head slowly.
"Kowtow," Wang Yan said softly.
She paused, then added, "This is Little Wood's father."
At the words Little Wood, something in Iron Mask's dull gaze finally stirred.
He looked at Fang Yingjie, then at the grave. After standing there a moment, he slowly sank to his knees.
When his knees struck the earth, it was a heavy sound.
Mimicking Wang Yan, he braced both hands on the ground and bowed his head.
Once.
The earth gave a faint tremor.
Still kneeling before the grave, Fang Yingjie felt heat gathering little by little behind his eyes.
He did not speak.
So the three of them remained kneeling there.
The graves of Wang Afu and Madam Qian stood in the wild woods north of town.
Fang Tieshan's grave stood behind the ruined temple, beyond the reeds.
The two graves were not far apart. Yet they might as well have been divided by ten years of black water, ten years of red lanterns, ten years of iron chains, and ten years of windblown hardship.
Only after a long while did Fang Yingjie murmur, "Father, I brought them."
The night wind passed over the blank stone.
The stone did not answer.
Fang Yingjie looked at it and spoke in a voice so low it seemed buried in the earth itself, yet each word was pressed out with painful clarity.
"Do you still remember?"
"Your son once told you about a family by Taihu Lake, surnamed Wang."
At that, his throat tightened.
"Uncle Afu and Aunt Qian are gone."
"But Yanzi is still alive."
"Brother Shun is still alive too."
"They did not all die."
He lowered his head until his forehead touched the damp earth.
"Father."
"We did not all die either."
Wang Yan's eyes burned. At once she lowered them.
She did not cry out loud.
But her fingertips slowly dug into the wet soil.
Iron Mask knelt beside them, as though he understood none of this. Yet when Fang Yingjie said Yanzi and Brother Shun, his head moved again with that same sluggish reaction.
Fang Yingjie slowly straightened.
He looked at the nameless stone before the grave as though he were looking at his father—and at all the things left unsaid over the past ten years.
"I was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Crimson Flame Palace for ten years."
"Only later did I learn that Father was there too."
Wang Yan lifted her head.
She knew he was going to speak now.
To speak of how the Little Wood she had thought long dead had somehow survived these ten years.
His voice was very even.
So even it was as if all that pain had been ground over in his heart a thousand times, until what remained was only cold, hard bone.
"At first, I did not know he was my father."
"And he did not know I was his son."
"The dungeon was dark, damp, cold. There was no way to tell day from night. After a while, the sound of chains, voices, screams—all of it became no different from the sound of water."
"I was still young then. I had not fully recovered from my illness. When they first threw me in, I was always feverish. I would black out, then wake again. When I woke, I would hear water dripping. I would hear chains dragging across the ground. I would hear someone coughing in the dark."
He paused.
"That man was my father."
Wang Yan's fingers trembled faintly.
Fang Yingjie went on.
"By then, he had already gone blind."
"He carried old wounds all over his body."
"The people of the Crimson Flame Palace tortured him. They tortured me too."
"But we stayed there in the same darkness, never knowing who the other was."
"Then I grew up, little by little."
"And he kept on living."
"We endured ten years in that same prison, with only that narrow strip of darkness between us."
The wind grew colder.
The reeds whispered in fine, ceaseless rustling.
Listening to him, Wang Yan suddenly felt her chest tighten unbearably.
She had survived ten years inside Baoque Tower. Red lanterns, perfume powder, music, painted smiles, wine cups, the hands of guests, the glances of Mama Qi—layer by layer, they had wrapped her up and turned her into Yan Ji.
Fang Yingjie, meanwhile, had survived ten years in a dungeon. Iron chains, black water, wet stone, hidden wounds, hunger, a father who was a father and yet unknown to him—layer by layer, they had worn him down into the person kneeling here now.
A little while ago, she had said that Wang Yan could not go on living, but Yan Ji could.
And Fang Yingjie?
Little Wood could not have lived either.
The one who had survived was this youth, kneeling before his father's grave with every pain pressed low and buried deep.
Fang Yingjie did not look at her.
He simply went on speaking to the grave.
"Later, Li Ying came."
At that name, Wang Yan's gaze darkened.
Iron Mask's fingers, too, twitched as if something had pierced them, slowly clawing into the mud before his knees.
"She brought my mother with her," Fang Yingjie said.
Wang Yan's breath caught.
His voice dropped even lower.
"Not alive."
"She was wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth…"
He could not say the last word.
Could not bring himself to.
But Wang Yan already understood.
The color drained slowly from her face.
Fang Yingjie closed his eyes for a moment.
"I recognized the hairpin."
"I recognized my mother's eyes and brows."
"That was when I learned they had killed her long before."
His hand clenched tight inside his sleeve.
Wang Yan lowered her head, and at last a tear slipped free.
She wiped it away at once.
Fang Yingjie either did not see, or saw and said nothing.
"That same day, Li Ying also told me…"
He paused.
"She said Yanzi had been dealt with as well."
Wang Yan's shoulders trembled faintly.
Fang Yingjie slowly turned to look at her.
The firelight was gone now. There was only the night, and far away, the dim red glow of Baoque Tower.
Looking at Wang Yan, something old and unhealed finally showed through his eyes.
"So I thought you were dead."
"I truly thought you were dead too."
Wang Yan's lips moved, but no words came.
Fang Yingjie turned back to the grave.
"Later, Father recognized me."
"Perhaps not all at once."
"He did not dare."
"And I did not dare believe it either."
"But he heard me humming the Shandong tune Mother used to hum, and that was how he finally knew I was his son."
His voice roughened for the first time.
"He called me Yingjie."
"That was when I learned, for the first time in ten years, that the one closest to me all along had been my father."
Wang Yan lifted a hand to cover her mouth.
At last she understood why the grave was left without a name.
It was not because Fang Yingjie had not wanted to carve one.
He had not dared.
Or perhaps, in that moment, everything had been too urgent, too poor, too painful—he had not even had the strength left to carve his father a name.
"Later, Father claimed me."
"But by then he was already terribly weak."
"The Crimson Flame Palace had spent years wearing his body away through torture."
"He knew that if there were one more round, he would not survive it."
"So when Senior Wind Without Shadow and Feng Feiyun came to rescue us, he was already near the end."
"Before we escaped, he had only thirty days left."
"In those thirty days, he passed Dragoncloud Palm on to me, and also the Fang family's boxing and saber methods."
"There was too much to the fist and saber arts. I could only memorize the formulas, the movement routes, the footwork, the points of power."
"The only thing I truly had time to practice was Dragoncloud Palm."
His gaze fell to his own hand.
The new scar across his palm could not be seen clearly in the dark. Only he himself knew it was still there, faintly hardening under the skin.
"Father said the Fang family's palm was not only meant to strike hard."
"The true skill lay in being able to hold something up."
"He said Fang Stronghold was not just a signboard."
"It had gates and courtyards, old people and children, people who practiced martial arts, and people who did not."
"If Fang Stronghold still stood, then what it protected was never only the Fang surname."
"If one day I returned, I could not go back carrying nothing but hatred."
"I had to remember the rules of the Fang family as well."
He paused.
"Honor the old and respect the worthy."
"Treat others with sincerity."
"Make no distinction between high and low."
Wang Yan lowered her eyes.
Spoken before a desolate grave behind a ruined temple, those three lines weighed more than all the proud boasts of the martial world.
"Father also said the Fang family saber was the hardest of all," Fang Yingjie went on.
"The saber need not be drawn."
"But once it is drawn, you must know why you drew it."
"You must not kill recklessly. You must not kill wantonly."
"But when the time truly comes to cut, your hand cannot soften."
As he spoke, he seemed to remember these past nights—standing before the grave, using a tree branch in place of a saber.
A single branch. A nameless grave. A body of martial skill not yet fully formed.
And yet that was already the first answer he could give the Fang family after his father's death.
"Later, we escaped."
His voice sank lower and lower.
"Father told me to carry him on my back."
"He taught me from behind—how to move, how to strike with the palm, how to press my breath down."
"We fled through the dark water. Ahead of us were blades, crossbows, men in pursuit."
"All the while, from behind me, he kept saying, 'Your father is here.'"
At those four words, Fang Yingjie stopped.
Wang Yan looked at him.
She saw his shoulders go taut, as though the weight of his father's body had settled onto his back once more.
Only after a long silence did he continue.
"But Father was already dying."
"He forced himself to hold on."
"He held on until we made it out of that dark waterway."
"He held on until he knew I would live."
He looked at the grave.
"And then he left."
The night was so deep it seemed to have no end.
The lake washed against the shore again and again.
At last Wang Yan could not help whispering, "Little Wood…"
Fang Yingjie shook his head.
"I had no money."
The three words fell so softly they almost had no sound at all, and yet they cut deeper than anything he had said before.
"Father had died."
"I could not even buy him a decent coffin."
"I did not dare tell anyone his name."
"I did not dare go to the authorities."
"I did not dare seek help from the martial world."
"I did not dare let anyone know Fang Tieshan had died in Luzhen."
"I could only hide Father in the ruined temple first."
"And then I went into town to look for work."
He paused.
"Baoque Tower was willing to advance me one tael of silver."
"So I became Mu Qi."
Wang Yan closed her eyes.
At last she understood how heavy that single tael had been.
It was not the advance wages of a newly hired servant.
It was a thin coffin.
It was the last scrap of dignity left to Fang Tieshan after death.
It was one tael of silver with which Fang Yingjie had pawned himself into a house of red lanterns so that his father could be laid in the ground.
Iron Mask knelt beside them, unable to understand all these words.
But perhaps he understood the line Father had died.
His hand slowly rose and pressed against his own chest.
As though there, too, was some old and buried place that had just been touched.
"I used that one tael to buy the thinnest coffin made of cheap wood," Fang Yingjie said.
"The shopkeeper even gave me a few old nails."
"I dragged the coffin back by myself."
"I placed Father inside."
"And buried him here."
He looked at the blank stone.
"I wanted to carve his name."
"But I did not dare."
"I was afraid the Crimson Flame Palace would come looking."
"And I was afraid that if someone saw the name Fang Tieshan, they would dig the grave up."
His voice went hoarse.
"So Father had to lie first in a nameless grave."
Wang Yan slowly bent forward and kowtowed once more.
"Old Master Fang," she said, her voice very low.
"You have been wronged."
When Iron Mask saw her bow, he bowed as well.
This time, she did not need to remind him.
Looking at the two of them, Fang Yingjie's eyes finally flushed completely red.
Suddenly he turned back toward the grave, like a child who had wandered far too long outside and could at last tell his father one unbelievable piece of good news.
"Father."
"I found Yanzi."
"Brother Shun is alive too."
"Li Ying lied to me."
"She said Yanzi was dead."
"But Yanzi isn't dead."
His voice roughened more and more.
"She lived."
"Brother Shun lived too."
"They suffered terribly."
"But they are still here."
Fang Yingjie lifted his head and looked at the night sky.
There were no stars in it. Only clouds, pressing low.
And yet it seemed as though, at last, he could see something through all that darkness.
"Father."
"Did you hear?"
"We still have our old people."
Wang Yan could not hold back any longer. Tears fell at last.
This time she did not lift a hand to wipe them away.
She let them fall.
Iron Mask knelt beside her and, suddenly, slowly stretched out a hand.
The motion was clumsy, hesitant.
First he touched the edge of Wang Yan's sleeve, then stopped as if unsure whether that was right. After a moment he shifted his hand toward Fang Yingjie.
Fang Yingjie saw it and reached out to clasp it.
Iron Mask's hand was very cold.
And very hard.
Fang Yingjie held it tightly.
The three of them knelt before Fang Tieshan's grave.
A nameless mound.
A leaning stone.
A stand of reeds.
There were no incense sticks, no sacrificial wine, no spirit paper.
Looking at the grave, Wang Yan suddenly felt a sharp ache in her heart.
She had come tonight to mourn her own parents. She had not known whom Little Wood wanted her to meet, and naturally she had brought nothing prepared for this grave.
After a moment of silence, she took a small handkerchief from her sleeve.
It had been meant as a personal thing for a woman of Baoque Tower to carry. In one corner, a tiny swallow was embroidered. Set before such a desolate grave, it was hardly proper. But at this moment, it was the only thing on her that was still clean.
She laid it gently before the grave, then reached out to smooth the damp earth beside the nameless stone.
"Old Master Fang," she said softly.
"We came in haste tonight. I brought you no offering."
"Please do not blame us."
She paused, her voice softer still.
"Next time, I will make it up to you."
Fang Yingjie's throat tightened sharply.
He lowered his head and for a long time said nothing.
Still kneeling there, Wang Yan said, "Old Master Fang, Little Wood has suffered too, these past days."
"If your spirit still watches from above, please do not blame him."
"He brought you out."
"And he remembered your words."
"He did not mean for you to sleep here."
"Yanzi," Fang Yingjie said in a low voice.
She did not turn back.
"I know," she said.
"But someone has to say these things to him for you."
The heat in Fang Yingjie's eyes could no longer be held down.
He lowered his head and knocked it heavily against the ground.
"Father."
"Your son has been unfilial."
"I can only let you rest here for now."
"But I will come back."
"When I can stand firm—when I can protect this grave, and protect the people I must protect—I will bring you back to Shandong."
"To Fang Stronghold."
As he spoke, his voice steadied little by little.
"I will go back."
"I will search for the traces Mother left behind."
"I will search into the old matter of Fang Stronghold."
"I will see how many of our people are still alive."
"And I will see whether the signboard of the Fang family can still be raised again."
The reeds bowed under the night wind.
Word by word, Fang Yingjie said, "I will make the Fang family's fist art solid."
"I will make the Fang family's saber steady."
"I will master Dragoncloud Palm."
"I will carry the bones of the Fang family home."
"I will not let them break in me."
Wang Yan listened without speaking.
Iron Mask, too, remained silent.
But this silence was no longer cold as before.
It was as though all three of them were listening, waiting to see whether the man lying beneath that nameless grave would offer some answer.
Of course, no answer came.
Only the wind.
Only the reeds.
Only the faint red lantern-glow of Baoque Tower in the distance.
At last Fang Yingjie slowly rose.
When he did, his body swayed once.
Wang Yan reached out and steadied him.
He did not pull away.
Holding his arm, she found that his sleeve was already soaked through with night dew, while the muscle beneath it was drawn tight as iron, as though every feeling from the Wang graves to Fang Tieshan's mound had been forced down into bone.
She looked at him.
"You come here every night?"
Fang Yingjie nodded.
"To practice?"
"Yes."
"And by day you still work in the Tower?"
"Yes."
Wang Yan frowned.
"How much do you sleep?"
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
Her voice sank. "Little Wood."
After a moment, he said quietly, "Enough to hold on."
For a second Wang Yan was so angry she almost laughed.
"You were always like this when you were little."
"If someone asked whether you hurt, you said no."
"If they asked whether you were tired, you said no."
"If they asked whether you were afraid, you wouldn't answer at all."
She paused.
"Ten years later, and you are still exactly the same."
Fang Yingjie lowered his eyes.
"I'm used to it."
Pain twisted in Wang Yan's heart, but her tone stayed hard.
"Then you'll have to get unused to it."
She looked at the nameless grave, then at the night road beyond the reeds.
"Don't come out here every single night anymore."
Fang Yingjie looked up, startled.
"I have to practice."
"There is more than one way to practice," Wang Yan said.
"You're in the outer yard now. If you keep climbing out over the wall and leaving town every night, sooner or later someone will see. Even if no one at Baoque Tower asks questions, what if some other eyes begin watching?"
Fang Yingjie said nothing.
Wang Yan looked at him steadily.
"You still have debts to repay. You have to stay alive. You have to return to Shandong. You have to go back to Mount Hua. You have to avenge your parents."
"You can only do any of that if you stay alive."
"If you won't even sleep, if you drag yourself down like this, do you think Old Master Fang will rest easy beneath the earth?"
Fang Yingjie fell silent.
When she spoke again, her voice had softened.
"Tomorrow, I'll think of a way."
He raised his eyes.
"A way for what?"
Wang Yan did not answer at once.
She only glanced toward Baoque Tower. Far away, the red lanterns still floated in the dark.
"The outer room of Yan Pavilion could use someone with a steady hand, who can read, and who knows how to keep quiet."
Fang Yingjie stared.
"You can be moved there," Wang Yan said. "By day, you'll do less heavy labor."
"And I can have people leave you some spare hours."
"As for a place to practice—it need not always be here before the grave."
Fang Yingjie frowned.
"Wouldn't that bring trouble on you?"
Wang Yan smiled faintly.
"If I move one outer-yard servant inside Baoque Tower, it won't be enough to bring trouble on myself."
Then she added, "Besides, the night you carried Shen gongzi's qin into Yan Pavilion, Mama Qi and Steward Zhao both saw that your hands were steady and that you could read. That reason is enough."
Fang Yingjie looked at her.
Suddenly he remembered that night of the selection feast, when he had carried Young Master Shen's ancient qin into the outer room of Yan Pavilion. She had asked him his name through the lantern-shadow, asked which mu, which qi, asked about the injury on his hand, asked whether he could still work.
So from that very night, she had already seen him.
Only then, she had not been able to recognize him.
And he had not dared.
"Yanzi," Fang Yingjie said quietly.
Wang Yan looked at him. "What?"
"Thank you."
One brow lifted ever so slightly.
For the first time tonight, something of the old familiar spark finally rose to her face.
"What are you thanking me for?" she said.
"Didn't you say you wanted to protect us?"
"Then I have to make sure you stay alive long enough to do it."
Fang Yingjie stood there for a moment, caught off guard.
But Wang Yan had already turned away.
"Come."
"It will be dawn soon."
When Iron Mask heard her say it was time to go, he rose as well.
Fang Yingjie did not move at once.
He turned and looked once more at Fang Tieshan's grave.
The blank stone stood in the night dew, leaning slightly, yet still standing.
He walked to the grave and wiped the dampness from the stone one last time.
"Father," he said softly.
"I may not be able to come tomorrow night."
"But I have not forgotten."
He paused.
"Yanzi and Brother Shun have not forgotten either."
Then he stepped back and bowed deeply to the grave.
Wang Yan bowed as well.
Iron Mask looked at the two of them, then slowly bent in imitation.
Three figures bowed in the wasteland behind the ruined temple.
The lake wind swept past their backs. The reeds bent down in waves, then slowly rose again.
Only after a long while did the three of them turn and leave.
They did not take the same road back.
Fang Yingjie led Wang Yan and Iron Mask by another narrow path, avoiding the night watchmen at the edge of town, and also the mouth of the back alley behind Baoque Tower where they were most likely to be seen.
The horizon was still black.
But within that blackness there was already the faintest wash of gray.
Before long, Luzhen would wake. Shopfronts would open. Boatmen would call out for ferries. The red lanterns of Baoque Tower would go out one by one. The girls would sleep. The servants would rise. And Mu Qi would have to return to the outer yard and work.
Wang Yan walked beside Fang Yingjie.
She was no longer Yan Ji on the high platform at Baoque Tower.
And not entirely the Yanzi from the Wang family's small lakeside yard ten years ago.
She was only Wang Yan.
A woman who had survived the red tower.
Iron Mask followed half a step behind them.
Still silent.
But this time, his gaze did not rest only on Wang Yan's back. Every now and then, he would look at Fang Yingjie too, slowly, dimly, as though in the muddy depths of an old dream, another familiar shadow had finally come back into view.
When they were almost at the back street behind Baoque Tower, Wang Yan stopped.
"We cannot go in together."
Fang Yingjie nodded.
"I'll go back over the outer-yard wall."
"And my brother and I will go in through the back door."
Then she looked at him again.
"In daylight, let nothing show."
"I know."
Wang Yan looked at him with a half-smile that was almost not a smile.
"Good."
"Mu Qi."
At those two words, Fang Yingjie gave a slight start.
But there was the faintest trace of laughter in Wang Yan's eyes.
"In the daytime, you are still Mu Qi."
Fang Yingjie looked at her.
After a while, he nodded gently.
"Miss Yan Ji."
The shadow of a smile deepened on Wang Yan's lips, though she quickly pressed it down.
"Mm."
Iron Mask stood beside her, watching the two of them.
He seemed unable to understand why, a moment ago, they had been Little Wood and Yanzi, and now they had become Mu Qi and Miss Yan Ji again.
Wang Yan turned to him and said softly, "Brother, we're going back."
At once Iron Mask followed her toward the back door.
After a few steps, he suddenly stopped.
Then slowly turned around.
Fang Yingjie stood in the shadow of the alley, looking back at him.
Iron Mask lifted a hand.
The motion was awkward, slow.
It was as though he wanted to wave, and yet also as though he wanted to reach out and pat Fang Yingjie on the shoulder.
In the end, that hand simply hovered in midair for the space of a breath.
Fang Yingjie understood.
"Brother Shun," he said softly, "go on back."
Iron Mask did not answer.
But at last, that raised hand slowly lowered.
Then he turned and followed Wang Yan through the back door of Baoque Tower and into the night.
Fang Yingjie remained where he was for a while.
Only after the back door had closed again, only after that dim red slit of light had vanished into the crack, did he turn away and follow the narrow alley back toward the outer-yard wall.
The gray at the horizon had lightened a little more.
When he climbed back into the bunkroom, A-Dong was still sprawled in sleep, muttering some dream-slurred nonsense. The room still smelled of sweat and wine and mildew. The old bedding still pressed down heavy and stale.
Everything seemed unchanged.
Fang Yingjie stripped off the outer robe damp with dew and lay down again on the narrow bunk.
He closed his eyes.
Yet Wang Yan's words were still echoing in his ears:
Wang Yan could not have lived.
Yan Ji could.
And then, before his father's grave, the words he himself had spoken:
They did not all die.
We did not all die either.
Outside, someone had started drawing water.
The wooden bucket struck the rim of the well with a dull thud.
A new day at Baoque Tower was about to begin.
Fang Yingjie opened his eyes and looked up at the low rafters in the dark.
He knew that once daylight came, he would still be Mu Qi.
But after last night, Mu Qi was no longer only Mu Qi.
At last, inside this house of red lanterns, there was someone who knew who he truly was.
And at last, there was someone who had let him know—
that the lake-storm of ten years ago had not swallowed every last soul from the old days.
Poetic Coda
By twin graves they spoke through the cold of the night;
in dying candle-ash, old names still glowed.
The sugar crisps had not yet cooled;
his father's bones lay light beneath a thin, unlettered coffin.
The swallow returned to the red tower with blood and tears hidden deep;
Iron Mask kept watch by the wild grave as old dreams stirred awake.
Say not the lake wind swallowed all who came before—
mountains and rivers still await the road of the young.
(End of Chapter Forty)