Loyal Unto Death
Only after a long while did Bai Jingyan finally speak, her voice hoarse and low.
"Bai Jindong, close the door. I have something to tell you."
Bai Jindong shut the door and walked with Bai Jinxiu to stand behind Bai Jingyan.
"Eldest sister."
Bai Jingyan lifted her head and looked at the five bloodstained bamboo slips lying on the table. Her breath, already damp, grew ragged once more. Then she closed her eyes tightly and said:
"The reason I never told you until now was that I could not be certain the news was true."
She turned to face Bai Jinxiu and Bai Jindong, who stood frozen, at a loss, and began to weep again.
"Grandfather, my father, my uncles... all seventeen men of our Bai family... fell at the Southern Border."
Bai Jinxiu's eyes flew open so wide it seemed they might burst from her skull. For an instant she could not breathe, and she nearly fainted. It felt as though the heavens were collapsing; the wound on her forehead throbbed violently, the shock driving the blood up through her skull as if it might tear the bandage open.
"How... how could they... all of them... every single one..."
Tears streamed down Bai Jindong's face. She sobbed so hard she could not speak.
"Eldest sister, it must be a mistake! It has to be!"
It had been the same in her previous life. When the news arrived, the Bai family could not bring themselves to believe it.
Bai Jingyan walked to the table. On the backs of her hands, pressed atop the five bamboo slips, blue veins bulged one after another, as if the grief tearing through her might break through the thin skin. Yet once again she gathered her emotions. This was a life lived twice — how could she allow herself to crumble so easily!
"These are the records kept by the Bai Family Army's administrative officer... the account of the march and of the battle itself."
Bai Jingyan picked up two of the bamboo slips.
"Fang Yan, commander of the Fierce Tiger Battalion of the Bai Family Army, along with Shen Qingzhu and the family guard Wu Che, risked their lives to see these five slips delivered. Shen Qingzhu's whereabouts are now unknown... Fang Yan and Wu Che have left this world. The blood on these slips is Wu Che's — and Fang Yan's. And it was bought with the blood of our tens of thousands of Bai Family Army soldiers!"
She pressed one slip into Bai Jinxiu's trembling hand, and another into Bai Jindong's.
Then, looking at her younger sisters — eyes brimming with tears, faces heavy with grief — she spoke.
"You must know this as well. Our Bai family's men did not die in war against a foreign land. They died pierced by the suspicion of the Emperor of Great Jin — they died at the hands of a fellow... countryman of Great Jin!"
Tears streaming, Bai Jinxiu unrolled the bamboo slip with shaking fingers.
Bai Jindong did the same without delay, tears falling drop by drop as her eyes raced down the characters.
By the time she finished the first slip, Bai Jindong burst into sobs and staggered against the table. When she lifted the second, her whole body shook like a leaf in the wind, and then she wept so wretchedly that she no longer looked like herself.
Bai Jingyan stood rigid before the brazier. She had already cried out like a madwoman, yet the tears rose again. A bone-piercing cold made her whole frame tremble. She stood close to the fire, but the chill would not melt; her body was frozen to the point of numbness.
Bai Jinxiu, standing before the table, held a bamboo slip in trembling hands, her breath labored with grief and despair. Then, her face hollow and vacant, she sank to the floor with the slip clutched to her chest.
"Jindong was... only ten! Only ten years old!"
The sorrow and pain Bai Jindong had been holding back turned to fury, and fire blazed in her eyes. She clenched her fists until the bones creaked, and strode straight for the door.
"Stop right there! Where do you think you're going!"
Bai Jingyan called out to her without even turning her head.
"The heavens are heartless! For generation after generation, the Bai family guarded this country and protected its people with nothing but loyalty — so why must we come to this! I will throw this life away if I have to and kill that dog of an emperor! I will wipe out Liu Huanzhang's entire family, every last one of them!"
The depth of Bai Jindong's resentment seemed as though it might tear a hole clean through the sky. She wanted the whole of Great Jin to be buried in the graves alongside the men of the Bai family.
"If you throw your life away, will that bring vengeance for the people of the Bai family?"
Bai Jingyan turned, her bloodshot eyes fixed on her sister.
"And then what?"
"And then what?"
Bai Jindong ground her molars so hard it seemed they might crack.
"Kill Liu Huanzhang's whole family — and then what? Do you think you can kill Prince Xin? Do you think you can kill the Emperor? Say you are brave, say you possess invincible skill — say everything goes exactly as you wish. What then of the women left in the Bai family? For the capital crime of regicide... for nothing but the reckless courage of a hotheaded fool, must every woman of the Bai family pay with her life? I know you do not fear death. But when you are dead, will you have the face to see Grandmother? Will you have the courage to face your father!"
Watching Bai Jindong's trembling lips, her eyes filled with nothing but sorrow and despair, Bai Jingyan felt as though her own heart were being torn apart. But she suppressed the resentment that raged toward the heavens, and with tears held back, she began to reason with her.
"Grandmother is the Grand Princess of the realm. If you kill Prince Xin and the Emperor, how will you ever face her?"
The resentment and rage drained out of Bai Jindong all at once, and like a puppet with its strings cut, she sank to her knees on the floor. Tears and snot streamed down her face in a hopeless mess.
"What wrong did our Bai family ever commit, that we should come to this! The Bai family saved the people of Great Jin — so who is going to save the Bai family, which gave its very loyalty!"
"Any fool can summon the courage of a reckless hothead."
Bai Jingyan bent down, picked up the fallen bamboo slip, rolled it up with care, and laid it back on the red sandalwood table.
"Killing a man is the easiest thing in the world — and the most foolish act of all."
"Eldest sister... do you have a plan?"
Bai Jinxiu asked in a low, choked voice, forcing down the grief that was consuming her.
"There is a saying in the art of war: the commander who can win a war is the one who seizes victory by creating a favorable position. We are outsiders with no power in the court. So we must use the currents of circumstance and the hearts of the people to reclaim justice for the fallen souls of the Bai family."
Bai Jingyan hurled the little figure of a warrior on horseback, sword in hand, into the brazier. Sparks flew in every direction, and then the flames suddenly leapt high. In her black eyes — cold enough to freeze a man to the marrow — the fire glimmered and burned.
Though resentment lingered in her gaze, Bai Jingyan recovered her calm. Bai Jindong and Bai Jinxiu, who had lost themselves to fury that could have pierced the sky, slowly regained their composure as well, following her lead.
When someone dependable stands firm, even a heart lost in panic and helplessness will gradually find its footing.
Watching the flames swallow the little figure whole, Bai Jingyan spoke in a suppressed voice.
"In Qinghui Courtyard, you may weep as much as you need. But we still have our aged Grandmother, and we have younger siblings. Fifth Aunt is with child! So you must never weaken, never break down. You must stand unyielding and help our mother and our aunts — and raise the Bai family back up."
She might have been frail and sickly, but Bai Jingyan's eyes burned with a fire that could scorch. She was someone her sisters could lean upon and trust with everything they had.
"I understand!"
Bai Jindong said through clenched teeth.
"I understand too!"
Bai Jinxiu answered through her tears.
"I will go tell my mother myself! Bai Jinsuo will go to Second Aunt, and Bai Jindong, you go to Third Aunt!"
Bai Jingyan's voice seemed to hang suspended in the air.
Though Bai Jindong was born of Lady Xu, she had been raised at Lady Li's side alongside Bai Jinchi all these years, and so she regarded Lady Li as her own mother.
"Never breathe a word about the bamboo slips. They are the most important things our Bai family possesses — and our final resort."
Bai Jingyan fell silent for a moment, then spoke again.
"Tomorrow night — New Year's Eve. The news that Grandfather has fallen in battle will reach us. Be ready."
The moment she closed her eyes, she could hear it — the despair-laden weeping of the Bai family on New Year's Eve of her previous life, when the news had arrived. The fireworks that had once embroidered the heavens in brilliant light shimmered before her eyes, and she could almost hear the sound of wailing! The Zhenguo Duke Estate, crushed beneath its misery, unable to rise, slumping limp and lifeless.
The three sisters could only cling to one another and weep without end.
Two hours later, Bai Jindong and Bai Jinxiu stumbled out of Qinghui Courtyard, their minds numb. The maids of Qinghui Courtyard hurried into the inner garden, boiling water and carrying over a basin to wash Bai Jingyan's face and change her clothes.
The morning's commotion — Chun Tao rushing madly to Bidong Courtyard to fetch Bai Jindong, then driving the servants out of Qinghui Courtyard — had leaked out after all. Before Bai Jingyan could even go to her, Lady Dong had already arrived at Qinghui Courtyard.
Only after entering the upper chamber and seeing Bai Jingyan changing her clothes, apparently unharmed, did Lady Dong breathe a sigh of relief, pressing her handkerchief hard against her chest.
"What happened this morning? They told me Chun Tao rushed off in a panic to fetch Jindong?"
Bai Jingyan looked at Lady Dong, seated on the heated brick bed, and waved the maids away.
"Mother..."
Bai Jingyan sat down beside Lady Dong and took her hand. Her eyes reddened once more. The words rose to her throat, but she could not find a way to bring them out, and all she could do was call for her mother, over and over.
"Mother! Mother..."
"What on earth is the matter?"
When she saw her daughter choking back sobs, unable to go on, Lady Dong's faint smile stiffened. A dreadful premonition seized her. Bai Jingyan had always been the calm, strong eldest daughter. Never once — not even before her mother — had she reddened at the eyes and shed tears.
"Mother..."
Bai Jingyan drew a deep breath and lifted her head. The tears would not stop. She simply gripped Lady Dong's arm with all her strength and forced the words out through her sobs.
"Grandfather, Father... my little brother — they are never coming home! The dispatch will arrive tomorrow."
For a long moment, the news struck Lady Dong like the collapse of the heavens, and she could not gather her wits. Her mind went white; her complexion was beyond description. Even her legs gave way beneath the shock, and she nearly toppled off the heated brick bed.
"Mother..."
Bai Jingyan wrapped her arms tightly around her.
"Mother, it's all right! I'm here, aren't I?"
Bai Jingyan sobbed so hard the words barely came. Before her mother, she had finally broken down completely.
She had come back, born again into this life — she had believed she could win. She had moved first, and she had believed that at the very least she could stand against even the King of Hell himself. She had never dreamed of a flawless victory. She had only believed she could save at least one of them. Just one.
At the sound of Bai Jingyan's voice, Lady Dong's senses returned, and her reddened eyes began slowly to move. Then, gripping her handkerchief tight and holding back her tears, it was a long while before she reached out and drew Bai Jingyan into her arms. A low, steady voice sounded.
"Your father and your brothers were born into a house of martial honor, so every time they marched to war, this mother steeled her heart. When your father returned with your brothers, victorious, I held feasts in their honor and celebrated their deeds. So even if they return to me now as corpses, your mother can lay them to rest with dignity! A'yan, do not be afraid... Your mother is the lady of this ducal estate, is she not? Your mother will endure."
In her past life, when the news had come, Grandmother had collapsed, and the aunts and the younger ones had wept without end. Even then, it had been their mother who held up the fallen sky of the Bai family. That scene still stood vivid before Bai Jingyan's eyes.
Her mother knew nothing of the martial arts and had never once set foot on a battlefield — and yet she was stronger and harder than most men. It was because of who she was that she would leave behind A Reckoning Letter to the Emperor and take her own life with the aunts beside her.
But for all that — her husband and her son had breathed their last at the Southern Border. How could her heart be bearing anything less than the weight of mountains?
Bai Jingyan knew her mother was enduring with the last ounce of her strength. Not because she was able to endure — but because as the lady of the estate, she had no choice but to endure.
Bai Jingyan pulled her mother close.
"Mother, it's all right... You don't have to hold yourself together in front of me. I will stand at your side... I will stay beside you forever."