The Promise She Could Not Keep
General's Courtyard.
Bai Jingyan sat beside the Grand Princess, watching Wei Zhong as he bowed in formal greeting.
Behind the glass partition, the candlelight blazed and leapt ever upward.
Wei Zhong knelt in the center of the room, his gaze lowered, not daring to look upon either the Grand Princess or Bai Jingyan.
Though the Grand Princess was advanced in years, her silver hair was neatly combed back, and her fingers moved over her prayer beads. Her face was kind and gentle, yet there was something stern and unyielding in her eyes that could not be hidden.
"When the Eldest Young Lady departs for the Southern Border, serve her without the slightest misstep. I have already handed over the half of the black jade dragon tally that is mine. From this moment on, you and I have nothing to do with one another. The Eldest Young Lady is your true master now — you must protect her with your very lives!"
At her words, Wei Zhong lifted his gaze slightly, then let it fall to the embroidered shoes on Bai Jingyan's feet before turning his body a fraction toward where she sat. Then he bowed with perfect courtesy.
"Wei Zhong pays his respects to his new master."
When Wei Zhong had first entered, Bai Jingyan had studied his bearing and footfalls with care. He was unmistakably a man of considerable martial skill.
He was pushing forty, and missing a finger on his right hand, yet he remained robust and full of vitality. His voice was somewhat thin, and his face bore no beard.
Bai Jingyan could roughly guess the truth of it. Wei Zhong was a eunuch who had entered the Bai household alongside her grandmother — not the leader of the Shadow Guard, but the one charged with maintaining its lines of communication.
"On the fifteenth of the first month, Grandmother will be visiting the imperial temple. It will be a bother, but I need you to arrange an opportunity for the leader of the Shadow Guard and myself to meet."
Bai Jingyan said.
Wei Zhong was now bound to serve Bai Jingyan as his master, and so of course he was obliged to obey her.
"A bother, she says. I will see to it that a private meeting is arranged exactly as you command, without anyone the wiser."
After Wei Zhong had withdrawn, the Grand Princess looked at Bai Jingyan, who did not come to her side, and the rims of her eyes reddened.
"Once you reach the Southern Border, please take care of yourself."
Bai Jingyan rose and bowed.
"Do not worry yourself, Grandmother. If nothing else requires me, I will take my leave."
The Grand Princess pressed her lips inward. Her face was brimming with sorrow. Only after a long moment did she slowly nod.
"You have borne the greatest burden of anyone these past days, Ayan. Go and rest."
As she watched Bai Jingyan withdraw with impeccable courtesy, retreating step by proper step, tears at last spilled down the Grand Princess's cheeks.
"Grand Princess, Your Highness…."
Nanny Zhang, carrying a bowl of goat's-milk jujube tea, hurried around the folding screen, lifting the curtain aside as she entered. Seeing the Grand Princess weeping, she rushed over and offered comfort in a soft voice.
"Not a single day of rest since the Second Young Lady was married off — that is how it has been for our Eldest Young Lady. Only today has the great affair finally been concluded, and even she must be worn through in body and mind."
When the Grand Princess said nothing, Nanny Zhang's own eyes grew red. She strove to put on a smiling face.
"Your Highness would not take any supper, so I had the jujubes our Eldest Young Lady brought last time boiled into goat's-milk tea. Do try a sip. The steamed plum blossom cakes turned out wonderfully today as well — shall I bring you a plate?"
After a long while, the Grand Princess shook her head.
"Take it to Ayan."
After stopping to see Qi Zhengyu, Bai Jingyan walked toward Qinghui Yuan with Xiao Ruohai, whose wounds had been bound in bandages.
"Xiao Ruogang has already departed for the Southern Border at the head of a handpicked group. Along the way he will send men back at intervals to report to you, my lady. Before you even reach the Southern Border, you will have a full picture of the situation there."
Xiao Ruohai followed half a step behind Bai Jingyan, head and waist inclined in deference as he spoke.
"As for the matter you asked me to investigate — I have learned it. Du Zimei, the strategist of the King Yang Estate, was struck down by a blade while shielding King Yang on the day of the Second Young Lady's wedding. He is dead."
Bai Jingyan stopped in her tracks. Du Zimei was dead?
The white silk of the corridor fluttered before her. Bai Jingyan thought of the letter written in King Yang's own hand.
Only now did she understand how King Yang had come to possess such a brilliant piece on his board.
King Yang was a consummate actor, and shrewd in weighing gain against loss. But he had never possessed Du Zimei's singular gift — the talent to seize control of a situation while, at the very same moment, laying a trap within it.
Bai Jingyan could not help but mourn Du Zimei's death. It seemed King Yang was simply fated to survive. In her past life, Bai Jinxiu had taken the blade in his place; in this one, Du Zimei had thrown away his life — and every time, King Yang had been the one left standing.
Without Du Zimei, there would likely be no great need to keep a wary eye on King Yang any longer.
Bai Jingyan turned her head to look at Xiao Ruohai, who had changed into clean clothes.
"You two have both toiled hard."
"Serving you is our duty, my lady. Nothing more."
Xiao Ruohai hesitated a moment, then pushed back the hem of his robe and knelt in a full bow.
"Today, in a clash with King Yang's bodyguard Gao Sheng, I judged it would serve you best to keep such a man close at hand — and so I held back my strikes, unwilling to wound him. For that, three of my comrades died wrongful deaths. My lady, I beg your forgiveness."
Bai Jingyan could hardly bring herself to blame him.
She reached out and helped him to his feet.
"You realized, didn't you, that the Emperor means to take my life on this journey to the Southern Border. That is why your heart grew urgent — you wanted to bind more capable hands to my side, to see me delivered there alive. And only then could you face my father without shame. I know it all."
Xiao Ruohai stood with his back bowed low the entire time. At the mention of her father, he bent even deeper, the rims of his eyes red, unable to say a word.
"Go back and rest. Once we have seen Grandmother off to the imperial temple on the fifteenth, we will make our own preparations to depart for the Southern Border."
Bai Jingyan said in a low voice.
"I will escort you to Qinghui Yuan first, and return after."
Xiao Ruohai's resolve was unshakable.
Bai Jingyan did not refuse him again, and simply nodded.
Xiao Ruohai stood at no great distance from Qinghui Yuan, and did not turn back until he had confirmed with his own eyes that Bai Jingyan had entered safely.
The moment she stepped inside, Chun Tao helped her out of her outer garments and murmured,
"Nanny Zhang came by just now. She said that since you did not take a proper supper, the Grand Princess has sent over goat's-milk jujube tea and some refreshments for you."
Bai Jingyan stood before the brazier and stretched out her hands to the flames. She glanced once at the small table, where the goat's-milk jujube tea sat beside steamed plum blossom cakes still breathing their faint fragrance. After a brief silence, she told Chun Tao to take it all away.
The Wei Zhong she had met earlier was her grandmother's man, and she had no intention of using him.
Nuo Ping was a man of great standing within the Bai household guard — he had to be left behind for her mother.
And as for the Shadow Guard….
Her third sister, Bai Jindong, would soon be setting out on a long and distant road. Though many hands had been assigned to her, she would be endlessly roaming far from home, and the more masters of martial skill at her side, the safer she would be.
Chun Tao lifted the thick felt curtain and entered, offering a deep bow before asking,
"Shall I have bathwater prepared, my lady?"
Bai Jingyan had been run off her feet for days on end. The Bai family funerals were concluded, and King Yang had been cast into prison. She had been holding herself together by sheer will — but now that the strain had let go, exhaustion came flooding in all at once.
"Yes."
At her answer, Chun Tao bowed and slipped outside, instructing the maids and servants to ready the water.
That night, Bai Jingyan fell into a deep sleep.
In her dream, she made her way to the battlefield of the Southern Border. Her grandfather was there, and her father, her uncles, her brothers.
Blood flowed like a river, and corpses and wreckage littered the ground in every direction. The clash of weapons and the brutal roar of battle rang out from all sides. Sparks scattering from grinding steel swept across her eyes, yet she could not blink.
Bai Jingyan stared hard at something surging toward her from the distant sky, black as spilled ink. Tens of thousands of sharp arrows came streaking through the air at terrible speed, the shriek of their passing splitting the eardrums like a plague of cicadas blotting out the heavens.
She stood upon the muddy ground where blood and water ran together, gazing at the mountain of dead bodies — and then, like one possessed, she sprinted toward the lone figure still swinging his sword without pause, driving back the enemy.
"Father! Father, get down! Quickly!"
She had barely reached his side. Before her fingers could so much as touch his armor, a hiss of arrows sliced past her ear. Her father twisted swiftly, swept her into his arms, and dropped low, shielding her with his own body as the barrens rained down. She heard the sound of sharp arrowheads punching through armor, burrowing into flesh.
Bai Jingyan's eyes flew open so wide they felt they would tear. Staring up at her father's ashen face, his jaw clenched tight, she gripped the armor over his chest and wept without end.
"Father! Father!"
"Ayan, when an age of peace comes at last, I meant to take you and your mother, and Ayu, and travel from place to place to see every beautiful corner of this world. I wanted us to live the most ordinary life of the most ordinary people. But your father could not keep the promise he made to you and your mother. And now I can no longer even protect you…."
Amid the deluge of arrows, a faint smile touched her father's handsome, scholarly face. He raised his hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"Our Ayan has grown up. Protect your mother well in my stead. Do not seek vengeance, and do not let hatred take root. Live out your remaining years in peace."
Watching her father dissolve like sand scattered on the wind, Bai Jingyan felt as though her chest were being torn open, as though her very organs were burning. She thrust out her hands desperately, trying to hold on — but there was nothing left to grasp.
"Sister!"
At the sound, Bai Jingyan whipped her head around. Her brother stood before the mound of corpses, drenched in blood from head to toe. She ran to him as though mad.
"Ayu! Ayu!"
Even knowing that her father and her brother were already dead.
Even knowing it was only a dream.
Even knowing it was a dream that rotted her from the inside out and burned her alive — she did not want to wake.
Her family was here.
Across Bai Jingyou's blood-red face spread a smile heavy with regret. He was on the verge of weeping.
"Sister, I promised that when I returned with victory in hand, I would bring you the finest pigeon-blood ruby from the Southern Border. I don't think I'll be able to keep that promise."
Bai Jingyan clutched her brother tightly and closed her eyes, sobbing aloud.
"I don't need any ruby! I don't need anything! As long as you're alive, that is enough! Ayu… Ayu!"
"Ayan…."
Hearing someone call her name, Bai Jingyan turned her head once more.
"Grandfather!"
Her grandfather was dressed just as he was when he practiced his martial arts at home. And as he always did, he was smiling and waving to her, his face full of warmth and tenderness.
The hands that had been wrapped around her brother hung suspended in empty air. His shadow had vanished without a trace. Bai Jingyan, her throat sealed tight, walked step by halting step toward her grandfather, tears brimming in her eyes — and then, unable to contain her grief, she sank to her knees before him, threw her arms around his legs, and wept as though her heart would break.
"Grandfather! Grandfather…."