Leading the Way
Faint, drifting snowflakes cut across Bai Jingyan's line of sight. In her vision there was nothing but the white of the snow and the blackness of the dark.
All the men of the Bai family had left the world behind. In this splendid city of Dadu, the people who had feared and hated the Bai clan must be lying awake with joy tonight.
And yet the road ahead was long, and no one could say what the future would bring. A cold light flashed through Bai Jingyan's eyes.
The venomous vermin was lying in wait. In winter it hibernated; it would only emerge to hunt in spring.
There is no need to rush. No need to rush at all…
Her eyes rimmed red, Lady Dong lowered her head and turned slightly to tuck the collar of Bai Jingyan's coat closed. Her hands, beyond her control, were trembling.
"I told you children to stay at the residence and look after your grandmother and the younger ones. You never listen…"
Bai Jingyan lightly took hold of her mother's chilled hand. Afraid the tears would spill over, she gripped it all the tighter.
"We're old enough now to share the burden you and my aunts have carried. We're not children anymore, Mother."
In her past life, Bai Jingyan had been bedridden with illness, and her mother had been left to hold the Bai estate alone. In this life, she could never abandon her mother to that loneliness, unable to offer any help at all.
Second Madam Yu drew her daughter Bai Jinxiu into her arms, her tears falling without end. If not for her daughter, she would have followed her husband and sons into death that very moment. But her daughter had already lost her grandfather, her father, her brothers — how could she take her mother from her too?
In one household in Dadu, a lamp flickered to life. Word had spread that the families of the Duke of Zhenguo's retainers had gone to the south gate before dawn to welcome the coffins home, and people scrambled out of bed, threw on their clothes, and hurried into the streets carrying torches. As it happened, their neighbors were stepping out their doors at the same moment, torches in hand, treading through the snow.
"Did you hear? The Bai survivors are headed for the south gate!"
"I heard! The heroes of the Duke's household come home today. That house has protected us for generations — the least we can do is go out and meet them!"
While the two were talking, the door of the house next door creaked open. A young man walking out with his aged father looked over at the neighbors and asked, "Are you headed to the south gate?"
At the south gate, the gate officer stood atop the city wall. Lanterns were being lit here and there across Dadu, and their warm, gentle glow filled the city to its edges. Gazing down at the crowds streaming in from every direction, he saw nothing but groups of common folk — three here, five there — carrying lanterns and holding umbrellas against the snow. The sheer scale of it dwarfed even New Year's Eve.
It was deep winter, the snow falling in great sheets, and dawn had not yet broken.
At the sight of it, the gate officer's emotions surged up, and he roared at the top of his voice, "Raise the lanterns on the gate higher! Light the road for the loyal souls of our Great Jin!"
At those words, the women of the Bai family all reddened at the eyes. Then, one by one, they straightened their backs and stood waiting for the returning dead amid the biting wind and snow.
The court's great ministers had chased only profit and shirked only harm. After word arrived from the Southern Border, the Emperor's attitude had grown strangely cold — it seemed he had no intention of simply letting the Bai family be. So although everyone had heard the rumors, not one of them had dared to come to the south gate, just as none had dared approach the Duke's estate on New Year's Eve.
Among the noble officials, only a handful had dared to come here. When Dong Qingping and Dong Qing'e heard that Lady Dong had led the Bai survivors to the south gate, they rose at once, wiped their faces roughly with a cloth, and rode out into the night.
Lady Dong, moved to tears, could only try to stop them.
"Brother! Qing'e — why have you come?"
Dong Qingping patted her shoulder and answered with a smile. "It's all right."
But there was something even Bai Jingyan had not anticipated: Xiao Rongyan had come to the south gate, leading Lu Yuanfeng and the other young lords of official families.
Lu Yuanfeng bowed respectfully to the ladies of the Bai family. Xiao Rongyan gave a slight nod of his head, then lifted his gaze again to Bai Jingyan, who was returning the greeting.
Dressed in mourning white with a white band bound around her hair, Bai Jingyan carried an extraordinary bearing, buried as it was beneath her grief.
Pale as she always was, today her face had gone white to the point of being alarming. Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion, yet her gaze remained as firm and unshaken as ever.
"Young Master Lu, thank you for your help before the Duke's estate. Once the Bai family's affairs are settled, I will call on you personally to express my gratitude."
Lady Dong spoke in a soft voice.
"Madam, you give me far too much credit! I merely helped by chance — please think nothing of it."
Lu Yuanfeng seemed unusually scrupulous with his courtesies today.
The sky had begun to lighten, and the goose-feather snow was gradually ceasing.
Just as the bodies of the waiting crowd were starting to stiffen with cold, the sound of hoofbeats rose out of the white mist.
Then four carriages, lanterns hung from their corners, came slowly forward under the escort of guards bearing the banner of King Xin.
Second Madam Yu's legs gave out beneath her. Fortunately, Jinxiu was quick to notice and caught her arm. Jinxiu clutched her mother's hand tightly, her face already drenched in tears.
Lady Dong drew a deep breath and took Bai Jingyan's hand.
From a distance, King Xin's escort had spotted the lanterns burning brightly at the south gate's entrance. A rider spurred his horse ahead to the gate, glanced around hastily, and grasped the situation. Then he galloped back to the line of carriages and spoke in a low voice.
"Your Highness — the Bai survivors and the people of Dadu have all gathered at the south gate entrance."
King Xin, a lovely beauty nestled in his arms, heard the report and lifted the carriage curtain for a glance toward the south gate. At the sight of the dim yet brightly burning lantern light, his conscience pricked him for an instant, and he quickly ducked back inside the carriage. His palms had begun to sweat.
This time, King Xin had brought back only the bodies of Duke of Zhenguo Bai Weiting, Bai Weiting's fifth son Bai Qijing, and the Bai family's sixth and seventeenth grandsons. To humiliate the Bai clan before the assembled ministers of the court, he had deliberately placed the bodies in the crudest coffins he could find. Staring fixedly at a bronze incense burner shaped like a Pixiu, the fearsome beast of the old records, he brooded darkly for a long while before speaking.
"Tell them the King suffered grave injuries and cannot descend from the carriage. Then proceed straight into the city!"
"Yes! Understood."
King Xin's escort nodded.
Inside the carriage, the beauty, seeing the King's face darken, smiled and lifted the wine warming over the brazier, then poured a cup and brought it to his lips.
"The men of the Bai family are already dead — only the women are left. What could possibly worry Your Highness about them?"
When the alluring beauty smiled at him like a flower in bloom, King Xin narrowed his eyes. Casting off the last residue of his unease entirely, he drank the wine she offered with those pale white hands.
Yes — the men of the Bai family were all dead. What could a handful of women possibly do?
Besides, it was his late father the Emperor who could never tolerate the Bai family. When an Emperor resolved to kill a minister, that minister could only die. The Bai family had served its purpose and perished. There was nothing to fear.
Having reasoned this far, King Xin settled back comfortably against the plush cushions and toyed with the hands of the pretty beauty beside him, white and lovely as a carving.
The carriage swayed as it passed the city gate entrance, and Lady Dong led the people of the Bai family in a bow toward King Xin's carriage.
"We pay our respects to King Xin."
"Cough, cough…"
From within the carriage came the sound of King Xin coughing.
"I did my utmost. But I could only bring back His Grace and General Bai Qijing, the sixth grandson and the seventeenth. And I've taken grave wounds — I fear I cannot step down from the carriage. Cough! I shall have the soldiers escort His Grace back to the estate."
When King Xin finished speaking, the carriage began to move again.
So — Lady Dong's husband and sons had not come back? Bai Jingyan steadied her mother as she swayed.
"Mother!"
Seeing Lady Dong too stunned by the shock to gather herself, Bai Jingyan felt as though her heart were being torn apart.
Second Madam Yu's husband and two sons had not returned either.
At those words, her whole body stiffened, and she fell backward — had Bai Jinxiu not caught her quickly, she would surely have collapsed to the ground. Her tears poured down like water from a spring. She had gone suddenly blank, like a soul torn from her body, and could say nothing at all.
Her husband and sons — not even their bodies had been recovered?
"My son! My son!"
Fourth Madam Wang lost all control and stumbled toward the smallest coffin at the very rear. Heavy snow had fallen all night, leaving the road slick, so that even walking forward was a struggle. Twice Wang slipped and fell, and twice she got up and staggered on toward the coffin. Then she gathered the small coffin, piled deep with snow, into her arms and wept as though her heart would break.
"My son… It's your mother! Come home with your mother now!"
Supported by Bai Jindong, Lady Li walked forward, sobbing. Touching her son's cold coffin, she made to carry his body home herself.
Fifth Madam Ji, belly swollen like a hill, seemed to be the one still holding fast to her reason. She longed to rush to her husband's coffin, but she suppressed the impulse. Pressing her palms hard against her belly, she swallowed her tears and spoke through her choked voice.
"Eldest Sister — let us hurry home."
Supported by a maidservant, Bai Jinchi also walked toward the coffin of Bai Jingming, her elder brother.
Lady Dong's fists clenched until they ached. A hatred that seemed to pierce the heavens surged up from her chest, but she forced herself to speak.
"Thank you, Your Highness."
Bai Jingyan's fists tightened as well. Just as in her past life, those who returned were only her grandfather, her fifth uncle, her brother Ming, and her seventeenth brother, the youngest of them all. And this King Xin, who claimed to be gravely wounded…
From the window of the luxurious carriage swaying past before her eyes drifted the faint scent of wine and of sandalwood. Bai Jingyan rose abruptly and looked up with a sharp gaze. The cold wind had lifted part of the carriage curtain, and beneath it, a beauty fine as a peony lay crumpled and disheveled in the arms of the "gravely wounded" King Xin.
Xiao Rongyan stood at the very edge of the crowd, wrapped in his cloak, but his hearing was so keen that he caught the sound of the woman inside the finely crafted carriage coquetting. His deep eyes seemed to grow colder and colder, and then he turned his head to look at the guard standing directly beside him.
The guard nodded and hurried off somewhere.
Bai Jingyan turned her head back to look at the soldiers carrying the coffins. Not a single one was a soldier of the Bai Family Army — every last one served under King Xin. She clenched the fist hidden in her sleeve until her nails bit into her palm.
King Xin's escort set down the coffins and followed the King's carriage into the city, leaving the four coffins holding the bodies exactly where they lay, outside the gate.
Lady Dong strove with all her strength to hold on to her composure — to keep from crumbling.
She led the women of the Bai family to their knees and bowed.
"I, Lady Dong, eldest legitimate daughter-in-law of the Bai family, leading the family of the Bai clan, will now escort my father-in-law and the heroes of the Bai family home!"
Swallowing her tears, Bai Jingyan knelt and bowed low and long.
The common folk knelt as well, weeping in their grief, crying out with one voice — "Your Grace!" The endless sound of weeping rang up into the sky of that early morning, beneath its cloak of heavy clouds.
Supported by Granny Jin, Lady Dong rose to her feet. Standing before the coffin of the Duke of Zhenguo, she clenched her jaw, held back her tears, and raised her voice high.
"Lift the coffins! Scatter the coins! Lead the way!"
The Bai family's servants immediately came forward, surrounding the four coffins and lifting the wooden carrying poles. Dong Qing'e was a rough, weathered soldier. With reddened eyes, he flung down the reins he held and strode forward to shoulder a coffin himself, then roared out, "Lift the coffins!"
"Lift the coffins!"
At the sound of the coffins rising, the weeping of the people grew louder and louder.
Gentlefolk did not lightly carry another family's coffin. Even when kin of the household returned, such a thing was rare.
But Dong Qing'e was different. He had been a soldier under the Duke himself. The hot blood filling his chest had never cooled.
Bai Jingyan took up the paper money and gazed at the four coffins with eyes deep and dark. Then she took her place at the very front and scattered the paper money high into the air.
Behind her, Bai Jinxiu took the paper money directly from Bai Jingyan's hands, scattering it for the souls of the Bai family's fallen as she led the way home.