A Despicable Act
As paper money fluttered through the air amid the heart-rending wails of the people, three large coffins and one small one marched forward into the city.
Perhaps the servants of the Zhenguo Duke Estate carrying them had frozen stiff from waiting since dawn — one of them slipped, and with a dull thud, the coffin crashed to the ground. One after another, the remaining three coffins fell with three more resounding booms.
The coffins, thin as paper, shattered. The rope of the small coffin, which had been coming in last, snapped; it lurched sideways and its end slammed down into the earth. It broke apart. The corpse of a young child in tattered armor rolled out of the coffin, and the head the enemy had severed tumbled, unbidden, into the snow.
“Jingdong!”
Welling with tears, Bai Jindong madly sprinted forward and snatched up Jingdong's head. At the sight of that lifeless young face, it felt as though a silver spear had been driven clean through her chest. Clutching her brother's head, she could hold back no longer and broke into open sobs, her voice cracking and tearing apart.
“Jingdong!”
“Jingdong!”
Bai Jinchi cried out in shock as well.
Bai Jinxiu's eyes went wide as saucers.
“Jingdong!”
She spun around, and the moment she saw Bai Jingdong's head rolling across the ground, her eyes narrowed as if they would split at the corners. It felt as though her gallbladder had shattered, as though an icy wind were coiling around and through her chest. Fury boiled up inside her, and her mind was nothing but a shrill, piercing scream. She wanted to seize a sword that very instant and run Prince Xin through.
“Nuo Ping! Stop Prince Xin's carriage!”
“Ah...”
Madam Wang staggered with a shriek and seized her son's head. For a moment she screamed like someone who had lost her mind, then threw herself down beside her son's body. She wrapped her arms tight around him — already mottled with death marks and covered in wounds — and wailed in despair.
Madam Wang was ordinarily the gentlest of women, but now her eyes blazed scarlet and her face was that of a demon risen from hell. Like a madwoman, she screamed incoherently, cursing — cursing Prince Xin, the legitimate son of the august Emperor himself!
“Prince Xin, you wretched, accursed son of a bitch! My son... my son...! You let my son's body come home in pieces! You couldn't even put clean clothes on him! A ten-year-old child! A child barely ten years old! You dog! You shameless, heartless bastard!”
Madam Wang screamed until her throat seemed to tear, her face turned to the heavens, then pressed her face back down against her son's body. And then, as if soothing a small child, she began to whisper in a tiny voice.
“My son, it's all right. Don't be afraid, my son... Your mother is here. Your mother is right here. Mother will... keep you warm. It's all right, there's nothing to fear. It's all right...”
Nuo Ping, watching a boy who had once been so bright and innocent return as a mutilated corpse, felt rage smoldering in his eyes, murderous energy surging up within him. But before he could give chase, Dong Qingping rode his horse straight into the city, cutting off Prince Xin's carriage before it could travel thirty feet past the gates.
When a general fell in battle, those escorting the coffin home — unless the remains were utterly lost — sewed the severed body back together so it could be buried whole. And dressing the dead in clean clothes and armor was the barest courtesy owed to them.
No one was ignorant of the cruelty of the battlefield, yet nothing had ever cut so deep as the sight of a ten-year-old boy who had been running about just months ago appearing before them in pieces.
Dong Qing'e mounted his horse and, with reddened eyes, glared at the armed guards of Prince Xin's residence, blades already drawn. The guards of the Duke Estate had drawn their swords as well, and the two sides faced each other, poised to strike at any moment.
The instant the ten-year-old's body had fallen to the ground, the Duke Estate's guards had been seething with fury, half-mad with the urge to kill Prince Xin on the spot.
“Prince Xin! The Duke and every man of the Duke Estate gave their lives for this country in loyal devotion. You, a prince entrusted with escorting their coffins — why did you bring them back without so much as a change of clean clothes, heads severed from their bodies? To leave the dead in such a state! Prince Xin! Why do you insult the souls of the loyal dead like this!”
Dong Qing'e's eyes were wild as he pointed his riding whip at the four ornate carriages. There was not a shred of respect in his bearing — only a killing intent that seemed ready to pierce the sky.
Lu Yuanfeng and the other young dandies of the capital had never witnessed such a grisly scene in their lives. Hot blood churned and boiled in their chests, as if molten magma were coursing through their veins. Blind rage consumed them; they wanted nothing more than to charge forward and fight Prince Xin to the death.
Perhaps even heaven could no longer bear to watch in silence — the axle of Prince Xin's carriage snapped, a wheel broke free and toppled the two guards flanking it. The brazier inside rocked, and the carriage's curtains caught fire. Prince Xin and the delicate beauties inside shrieked and came scrambling out.
Xiao Rongyan's bodyguard slipped silently to his side and murmured in a hushed voice.
“My lord, your subordinate failed you. It seems I was spotted by the commander of the Duke Estate's guards and that gentleman on horseback when I attacked the carriage.”
Xiao Rongyan answered without so much as a flicker.
“It doesn't matter.”
The guard nodded. Then he bowed his head, kept his silence, and stood off to one side — like a man who had done nothing at all.
The people of the city stared bug-eyed as the so-called 'gravely injured' Prince Xin hopped about nimbly, patting out the flames clinging to his robes without the slightest discomfort. Beside him, a slender beauty trembled and glanced anxiously about.
“Prince Xin, you look terribly wounded indeed!”
Bai Jingyan regarded him with fury-filled eyes, radiating a killing intent like a raging gale.
“You still had strength left to amuse yourself with a beauty inside your carriage, yet none to have a ten-year-old child's body sewn together and dressed in clean clothes before bringing him home.”
Prince Xin's eyes nearly bulged from his head. It had never once occurred to him that the people of Dadu would see him standing there unharmed.
He clenched his fists. He had already been exposed — there was no longer any reason to fear acting boldly.
Face darkening, Prince Xin looked past the encircling soldiers at Bai Jingyan standing beyond them and answered curtly.
“Out of respect for the Bai family's honor, it was said you were gravely injured. Or would you have me declare before all these people the crime of how Bai Weiting defied my command and buried hundreds of thousands of troops in the Southern Border?”
“The commander of that campaign was my grandfather! Tell me — why should a man who has fought countless wars in his lifetime be made to follow the orders of some young, ignorant fool who has never known hardship in all his pampered days!”
Bai Jingyan could not stop the tears. Rage scorched her chest, and every ounce of her reason seemed to burn away in fury. Her emotions were so violently inflamed that her voice trembled without pause.
“Even if my grandfather's march had been wrong, every man of our Bai family gave his body for the people — for this country! There is not one reason under heaven why they should die only to have their bodies torn apart. Then what in God's name is this madness! My brother is only ten years old. Ten! A ten-year-old child went to war. He died fighting for our Great Jin — he is a hero! And you dare dishonor him like this!”
Prince Xin's irritation climbed all the way up his throat, but he had no retort to offer her words, so he only gritted his teeth.
“Even if my brother were a commoner, shouldn't a prince of the imperial house — you, Prince Xin — have at least seen to the dignity of a child's corpse? You haven't a shred of human feeling! No — you are less than a beast! Our soldiers died protecting the people, protecting this country! And you, a prince, were lounging in that gaudy carriage with a courtesan. Do you believe you deserve to be a prince? Do you believe you deserve to live off the taxes of the people of the world? A shameless creature without an ounce of virtue or honor — a beast that knows nothing but pleasure. If a thing like you ever enters the Eastern Palace, then the people of Great Jin are to become your oxen and horses, are they? A prince, you say? Heaven forbid. You are not even a man!”
Prince Xin's face drained white in an instant. If Bai Jingyan's words reached the ears of the people, this affair would become the greatest obstacle standing between him and the throne.
What a vicious woman! Quivering with fury, Prince Xin pointed at Bai Jingyan and roared.
“Guards! Cut that woman down where she stands!”
“Who dares!”
Bai Jindong drew her blade and planted herself in front of Bai Jingyan, shielding her, her deadly gaze sweeping over Prince Xin's guards.
“Prince Xin — watch your tongue!”
Lady Dong hurried forward to protect her daughter, taking the frontmost position and radiating the majesty of the family matriarch.
“Even if this loyalty of ours — a loyalty that has staked the very lives of the Bai family — were a crime, it is for His Majesty to review the campaign records himself and pass judgment! Until His Majesty does, every loyal soul of our Duke Estate is a hero who gave their life for this nation. Prince Xin — to heap disgrace upon these honored dead, and now to kill the Bai family's surviving kin as well. Are you not the least bit afraid the whole world will learn of your crimes?”
Wounded Bai Jinchi smelled of blood even from her gums, and the tears mixing with the blood on her face were thick with murderous intent. Together with the Bai family's guards, she pressed forward to shield Bai Jingyan, spoiling for all-out war with Prince Xin.
Bai Jingyan could restrain her fury no longer. She pulled Bai Jindong back from where she stood guarding her, then stepped forward — two paces — and brought her chest right up against the tip of a blade in Prince Xin's guard's hand. Under that overwhelming killing aura, Prince Xin was forced back a step.
“You want to kill me? Then go ahead — kill me!”
Bai Jingyan shouted, ruin pouring from her eyes.
“Show the people of the world! Show them how, in broad daylight, a prince of the Great Jin imperial house treats the bereaved of his fallen heroes! Let all the people see it plainly — see what fate awaits those who give their bodies for Great Jin! Even if only my ghost remains after death, I will stand right here and watch! Watch whether anyone will ever take the field for Great Jin again! Whether anyone will dare lay their life on the line for Great Jin! Whether your Li family has any right at all to hold these rivers and mountains!”
Xiao Rongyan stood apart from the crowd, a man who seemed to have nothing to do with any of this — and yet a ripple stirred in the depths of his dark eyes.
Whatever others might have missed, Xiao Rongyan read the rebellion in Bai Jingyan's words. The moment the head of the seventeenth man of the Duke Estate had hit the ground, Bai Jingyan had lost her reason. The intent to commit treason lay nakedly exposed, and the suffocating, pressing cadence of her speech was as sharp as it was terrifying.
Prince Xin was already sweating cold sweat at her words, and now the enraged commoners, every one of them, were surging forward without a trace of fear — lining up beside Bai Jingyan, ready to tear into him. His throat burned; he stumbled back.
“You... you lowborn rabble — would you commit treason?”
The crowd surged as one, bearing down on him with the air of men ready to flay the skin from his bones. Watching their fighting spirit rise, Prince Xin panicked. He forced himself to appear calm and endure, but his legs were retreating of their own accord.
Prince Xin knew all too well how devastating the tongues of the common people could be. But believing the men of the Bai family all dead, he had acted rashly.
Just as Prince Xin stood at a loss, the Chief Eunuch suddenly came galloping up at speed, shrieking in his thin, reedy voice.
“By His Majesty's sacred decree! Prince Xin is to return to the palace at once to receive instruction! Your Highness — come back to the palace with me, quickly!”
Prince Xin, who had been at a complete loss for how to escape this situation, saw that his father had sent someone to pull him out of the fire, and hastily dropped to his knees and bowed.
“I obey!”
Rising to his feet, Prince Xin shot one last venomous glare at Bai Jingyan, then boarded the carriage the Chief Eunuch had brought and was borne away toward the imperial palace.