In Life and in Death Together
The Grand Princess led the way, and the other bereaved families followed behind her. Through the pouring snow, a grand procession stretched out behind the coffins. They intended to walk the entire way to the burial ground.
Bai Jingyan did not walk beside the Grand Princess from start to finish.
Xiao Rongyan had brought a single guard and two horses. Holding the reins, he followed at a slow pace at the very rear of the procession.
The commoners who had been kneeling on both sides of the road rose in a rush. Carrying bright lanterns in their hands, they supported one another and joined hands, walking behind the Bai family guards. Watching this scene, Xiao Rongyan could not suppress his admiration.
In all his life, he had never seen such a funeral. Not for a king or prince — and yet grander than any of them.
The funeral procession left through the southern gate of Dadu.
Nanmen Chang stood atop the high wall of the gate, gazing into the darkness where heavy snow fell in sheets. On either side of the street, the people held up their lights, and the warm glow of the lanterns lit up more than twenty coffins so clearly that they stood out starkly against the night.
The mournful wailing of the people shook the very heavens, and Nanmen Chang's chest felt as though it would tear apart. Hot tears streamed down his face.
Gripping his sword, he ordered the gate guards to descend to the gates, and had the soldiers resting at the garrison brought out as well.
As they watched the coffins approach, slow and single-file, Nanmen Chang and the several hundred gate soldiers standing outside the gate sank to one knee in unison, struck their fists against their chests, and saluted.
"We see off the King of Zhenguo, the Duke of Zhenguo, and his generals!"
The soldiers moved as one, flawless and precise. Their thunderous voices rang out in perfect unison, as if the very spirit of the battlefield had come alive again.
The road to the burial ground was long, endlessly long. It was not until the sky began to lighten that they arrived.
They buried the dead, filled in the earth, and paid their respects.
Bai Jingyan stood before the gravestones, swallowing her tears as she watched coffin after coffin vanish from before her eyes. It felt as if her heart were being ripped apart.
Now the world no longer had the Duke of Zhenguo, that paragon of blazing righteousness. And the seventeen sons of the Bai family of Dadu, so learned in letters and formidable in arms, had vanished from this world as well.
A servant of the Bai family came galloping up on horseback. Wary of drawing every eye, she dismounted far off and hurried around behind Bai Jingyan, speaking in a low voice.
"Eldest Miss, a servant of King Yang has come. He bribed the gatekeeper with a fortune and demanded that Chunyan be brought out to him at once. The gatekeeper is waiting at the estate right now, and Nanny Dong sent me to ask how we should handle it."
So it has come, just as expected.
Bai Jingyan had known King Yang would grow restless. She had known he would move on the day of the Bai family's funeral, taking advantage of the chaos.
Bai Jingyan folded her hands demurely over her abdomen and straightened her back. Gazing at the gravestones of her grandfather, her father, and the rest of the Bai family dead, she spoke slowly.
"King Yang's man won't leave without seeing Chunyan. Tell Nanny Dong not to rush. Once the funeral rites are finished and the people of the estate and the citizens of Dadu have gone home, have the gatekeeper send word to Chunyan that Dong Ji is waiting outside the gate! If the two of them are talking, send someone to listen in on every word they exchange — and if they hand anything over between them... make certain to seize them and bind them right before everyone's eyes, then drag them before the Grand Princess and the people."
"Yes, Miss!"
The servant bowed three times toward the gravestones, then hurried away once more.
In five days, Bai Jindong would be leaving home. The thought left her uneasy.
"Big sister... in five days I'll be leaving the house. But I'm so anxious. If something else happens to the Bai family and I'm not here to stand guard..."
"Don't worry. Mother will be at home. Nothing will happen!"
Bai Jingyan replied. Once King Yang was dealt with properly today, no great calamity would befall the Bai family.
Bai Jindong lifted her head. She saw Lady Dong standing at the very front, eyes brimming with tears, as steady as the anchor-pillar that holds the raging sea in place.
Lady Yu, Lady Li, and Lady Ji had wept themselves nearly senseless, and Lady Wang sat hollow-eyed and spiritless, like someone past feeling either sorrow or joy. But Lady Dong held her spine straight and kept her post, calm and unshaken.
All this while, her eldest aunt had held the Bai family up on her own. Heaven had collapsed and the world had fallen into chaos, yet her eldest aunt had met it all with composure. With a woman who had resolved everything so cleanly keeping watch over the house, what was there to fear?
Dong Qing'e, armored head to toe, buried the coffins of the Bai family dead with his own hands. Then, after driving his shovel into the ground frozen rock-hard, he fixed his tear-filled eyes on Bai Weiting's gravestone.
"In armor clad and helmet crowned, with brothers-in-arms we drove the foe..."
The war song of the Bai Family Army rang out.
At the sound of those words — in armor clad and helmet crowned, with brothers-in-arms we drove the foe — a raw, aching grief swept through Bai Jingyan like the bite of an unripe plum, and her vision began to blur.
"With long blade in hand to smite the foe, with brothers bound in life and death..."
The generals and soldiers, following Dong Qing'e's lead, pressed down their grief with the martial vigor of the song and raised their voices high.
Bai Jingyan looked at her uncle. In that instant, the tears that had welled to the brim of her eyes broke free at last.
"Guarding our mountains and rivers, guarding our people, true men who know no fear. Men of the realm who will not shed their armor until they fall in battle..."
Bai Jinxiu and Bai Jindong, who had been holding on so well, could hold back no longer and began to weep aloud.
This war song had been with them from the day they were born — a song they had learned together, sung together. It seemed to drag them back to those brutal battlefields, back to the night before their men marched out, when the soldiers had sworn in full battle dress, helmets strapped and long blades at their backs, that they would retreat unto death but never fall back.
The Grand Princess's hands trembled so violently she could not lean upon her staff. Tears spilled from her eyes as well.
They will not shed their armor until they fall in battle!
Every son of the Bai family had kept that vow!
Even her seventeenth grandson had fulfilled it!
Where under all of heaven was there a family so devoted and courageous, so devoted to nation and people as the Bai clan?
In that moment, regret came crashing over the Grand Princess. When her late husband had once asked which of the princes she would recommend as sovereign, she had named the current Emperor — believing him kind of heart and generous of spirit. Never had she imagined that once he ascended the throne, he would degenerate into a man so consumed by endless suspicion and jealous envy.
The Bai family carriages had been waiting nearby for some time. The servants helped their weeping, exhausted masters into the carriages. The commoners walked slowly behind them, their wailing somewhat quieter than it had been on the way out.
Inside her carriage, the Grand Princess leaned against the cushion and wept without end.
Nanny Zhang, her own face soaked with tears, poured the Grand Princess a cup of warm tea and offered what comfort she could.
"Your Highness, please weep no more. If you keep crying like this, it will ruin your eyes."
The Grand Princess shook her head with her eyes closed. Her throat was so swollen she could not get the tea down.
Bai Jingyan, Bai Jinxiu, Bai Jindong, and Bai Jinchi rode together in one carriage.
Bai Jinchi had never been to the battlefield. She had never sung this war song alongside the soldiers, and so it did not strike her with the heart-rending force it carried for Bai Jingyan, Bai Jinxiu, and Bai Jindong — she could not feel the grief that sank deep into the marrow the way they did.
Watching her three elder sisters with their eyes swollen shut, saying nothing at all, Bai Jinchi's heart ached for them.
"Big sister..."
Bai Jingyan opened her eyes slowly and spoke to Bai Jinchi.
"When we enter the city later, Nanny Zhang and Nanny Dong will discover King Yang's servant secretly meeting Chunyan. If the two of them exchange letters, Jinchi — when they try to explain themselves, you tear those letters open and read them aloud before everyone."
"That treacherous little snake Chunyan has been consorting with the people of the King Yang Estate again?"
Bai Jinchi, unable to contain her fury, smashed her fist into the soft cushion right beside her.
"Big sister, I told you we shouldn't have let that girl live back then! We should have beaten her to death with the rod!"
"Big sister, you said the reason we spared Chunyan was that she might be useful again later. Was this the day you were waiting for?"
Bai Jinxiu asked, looking at Bai Jingyan.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
"If letters truly pass between them today, then perhaps you'll all finally learn who it is that has been scheming behind the scenes to bring the Bai family down."
"Big sister — you mean King Yang?"
Bai Jindong's eyes went round with shock.
Bai Jinchi too wore an expression of utter disbelief.
"King Yang is nothing but a weak, useless prince! He was the latest of them all to be invested as a prince, no less. And if the envoy from Xiliang hadn't mispronounced his title at the palace banquet the year before last, I'd wager His Majesty still wouldn't even remember having enfeoffed the man as a prince."
"And that, little sister, is exactly what you could stand to learn from King Yang."
Bai Jingyan looked at her fourth sister.
"King Yang cloaked himself without a single seam by showing the world a man who was cowardly, frail, and incompetent. Wear the mantle of weakness and uselessness, and no one will ever suspect you of anything — no matter what you do. And so you can act boldly, exactly as you please. Jinchi, do you understand what I mean?"
Bai Jinxiu saw a razor-sharp glint of killing intent in her eldest sister's eyes. The color drained steadily from her face.
Bai Jinxiu had... believed that King Yang harbored a deep and tender devotion for her eldest sister. She had even believed he was a man who looked at Bai Jingyan and no one else, knowing full well she could never bear his child.
"Big sister... could it be we've all misunderstood him?"
"Whether it's a misunderstanding or not — we'll know soon enough."
At the rear side gate of the Duke's estate, Dong Ji stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, stamping his feet against the cold. He kept huffing hot breath into his palms and rubbing furiously at his ears, which felt as though they would freeze and snap off at any moment.
"Master Dong... why not just wait in the carriage?"
The driver from the King Yang Estate urged him in a low voice.
Dong Ji shook his head. The Prince had told him that if he failed to handle this matter properly, he would be cast out. His heart was in his throat — how could he sit idle in a carriage when the task was not yet done?
At that thought, the rims of Dong Ji's eyes reddened. He turned away and secretly wiped his tears.
"I'll wait here."
A short while later, the side gate suddenly opened, and the very servant who had gone to deliver the message came out through it. In that instant, Dong Ji's heart plummeted.
"Where is Miss Chunyan? Can she not come out?"
"Don't worry — Miss Chunyan will be out shortly. I came out ahead of time to tell you, so you wouldn't wear yourself out fretting. You have no idea... how I had to dodge everyone's eyes just to pass the message along to her."
The servant said this with an ingratiating smile, rubbing her hands together.
Dong Ji sneered inwardly. She was angling for silver.
He fished a few ingots from his coat and handed them over. He could not hide the contempt on his face, and not even a word of thanks escaped his lips. His wind-scarred face had frozen stiff and red.
The servant received the silver with a beaming face, expressed her gratitude, and then went back inside, shutting the side gate behind her.
Dong Ji nearly chased after her to give her a piece of his mind, but remembering the letter hidden in his breast and the message the Prince had insisted Chunyan receive, he barely managed to swallow the words back down.
As for the servant, having pocketed the silver, she went cheerfully back into the side chamber where the brazier blazed and counted out her earnings. Nanny Zhang and Nanny Dong had already told her she could keep the silver — and more than that, the estate had promised to reward her for her service. What better fortune could there be?
Once she had tallied every last ingot, she stowed them carefully away, took up a plate of peanuts, and settled down beside the brazier to roast sweet potatoes.
Before long, someone came calling, and word was sent in that it was time to notify Chunyan.