Fragile Vessel
27
The bandage that was wrapped around his left hand hid the mutilation from sight, but Wan Zongran could still feel the three fingers that were now in a leather bag hanging from Wu Liuqi’s belt twitching.
He had fully expected to lose the entire hand. However, Wu Liuqi had only cut off three fingers, leaving him with his index finger and thumb. It would be a handicap, but he recognized Wu Liuqi’s act for the mercy that it was. They cauterized the wound and dosed him with a potion that they claimed would reduce the risk of infection. The burning and his cry of pain woke up Jiang Hong, who then got into a row with her lover; Wan Zongran drank a copious amount of rotgut while the two argued, and Du Kuang had sat silent as a stone throughout. Only after Master Si Wuliu finally stepped in did Jiang Hong and Wu Liuqi shut up.
The actual location of the sacred grounds of the Six Paths was another couple of hours away on foot, Si Wuliu said, and they would only move under the cover of full dark. It was well past midnight when the chief beggar got to his feet and the rest of the beggars followed, dousing all the fires but the one which Jiang Hong and Du Kuang were using to keep warm. Like a troop of disheveled ghosts, the beggars headed downhill towards the northwest. Overhead, the moon was more than three-quarters of the way through her journey.
Before the constable left with the convoy of beggars, Du Kuang had said, “I hope whatever you find is worth all you've done.”
Wan Zongran only exhaled and said nothing.
*
The walk meandered through chest-high grass until Wan Zongran lost all sense of direction. He was behind two senior beggars, each of them as old as Si Wuliu, and listened to the quiet rustling of movement around them. Eventually they came upon a wall of trees, so densely grown that it was much like a city wall. Si Wuliu motioned to Wan Zongran to step forward, and put an arm over the young man’s shoulder. A torch was lit and handed to the chief beggar.
“Groundskeeper!” Si Wuliu called out. “We of the Beggar Sect seek entry into the heart of the Six Paths.”
A cold wind blew out of the grove like the exhalation of a massive animal awakening from slumber. The flame of the torch stretched out with the wind, then righted itself. Wan Zongran shivered and licked his lips. His right hand fell to the sword at his hip, though he knew he was hardly a skilled adversary against whatever lived in these woods. The torch could only light a few paces in front of them, showing the cracked barks of the ancient trees and brown leaf litter carpeting the ground.
“What nuisance have you brought me now?” a brittle voice rasped from the shadows like an echo scraped over rough sand.
Wan Zongran must have flinched, because Si Wuliu tightened his arm around the constable’s shoulders. On Wan Zongran’s other side, Wu Liuqi stepped up and nudged him with his elbow.
“Stand tall,” he whispered. “Be respectful.”
A thin figure appeared in the depths of the woods. Wan Zongran squinted to make out who or what it was, and was startled when a wizened old woman stepped out into the light of the torch in the blink of an eye. Wan Zongran had not expected to see an old woman dressed in plain indigo linen pants and a gray tunic to be the Groundskeeper, yet the speed of her movements and the shrewdness of her gaze told him that she was far more than she appeared.
How did she traverse the distance? Wan Zongran quickly followed Wu Liuqi’s example of bowing at the waist, his right arm tucked against his belly, straightening only when Wu Liuqi did so.
The old woman sauntered over to Si Wuliu first and glared up at him. She was probably only four and half feet, but her demeanor was as imperious as an army general’s.
“Newcomer, hmm?” she said with a disdainful sniff, then spat to the side. “Pah! Not till I accept him into the Six Paths. Where is he, hmm?” Her eyes shifted to Si Wuliu’s left and she smiled unpleasantly. “You. I smell burnt flesh. They cut you, hmm? Think you’re now a beggar because you lost some fingers? What makes you a beggar?”
Wan Zongran looked directly at her. “Groundskeeper, I’m a beggar because I am asking for something.”
The old woman snorted. Her right hand shot out and grabbed Wan Zongran by the chin. Despite her thin fingers and short stature, Wan Zongran could not move an inch, not even when her fingertips dug into his flesh and pressed against bone. “If I rip off your jaw, would you be able to talk, hmm?”
“Groundskeeper, please don’t hurt him,” Wu Liuqi said hurriedly. “He’s trying to save the lives of some innocents.”
“Innocence doesn’t exist,” the Groundskeeper snarled, but she let go of Wan Zongran. “What did you chop off this boy, hmm? Toes or fingers or a hand?” Turning to Si Wuliu, she added, “Ling Yi-er used to chop off entire hands or ears or even noses for me, hmm? He knew what’s what when someone wants to go in there. You have grown soft, Beggar Sect, hmm?”
Ling Yi-er. That would be the leader four generations ago. Wan Zongran clamped his mouth shut as Wu Liuqi handed the bag over to the Groundskeeper. She peered inside and sniffed, before picking one out. To Wan Zongran’s horrified disgust, the Groundskeeper tore off one joint, popped it into her mouth, and started chewing.
When she saw Wan Zongran staring, she grinned, revealing sharp teeth stained dark. “That’s payment for letting you come in here, hmm? This isn’t a playground for kiddies to run around in.” She turned and motioned for them to follow her.
Si Wuliu patted Wan Zongran on the shoulder. “You and Liuqi go in. The rest of us will keep watch here. If the Groundskeeper is with you, she isn’t guarding the perimeter.”
*
At the top of the hill, Du Kuang straightened and sniffed the air. Jiang Hong, who was staring in the direction where the Beggar Sect had taken Wan Zongran, noticed his alertness. “Is there something wrong?”
“You don’t see it?” he asked, a slight crease forming between his brows. “There’s something old and… huge. Right there.”
He pointed in the direction she was looking at before, but all Jiang Hong could see was a dark path bordered by grass, leading towards a forest if that shadowy mass were trees, and faint stars overhead.
Du Kuang stood and joined her. For a moment he seemed about ready to walk down the path, but after a few breaths he sighed and went back to the makeshift bench to sit.
Jiang Hong joined him. “What is it?”
“I thought we should go and save your friend. And then I thought the better of it. Something that old with that dense a qi isn’t something both of us can fight.”
“He’s hardly my friend,” she grumbled under her breath. “He’s a dog of the law.”
Du Kuang chuckled quietly. “Yet you allowed him to join us. We could have left him behind at any time since we met.”
She was silent, and then she exhaled a long sigh. “I guess I just can’t help rooting for hopeless causes.”
“Why is he hopeless?”
“He’s in love with someone who doesn’t love him back.” The thief scoffed. “All of these things – the investigation, joining the Beggar Sect, going to their secret hideout… It’s all for that person.”
Du Kuang hummed and stood up. “We should follow them.”
Jiang Hong gazed up at him. “What? I thought you said…”
“People willing to do anything for love make stupid mistakes,” the blind swordsman said. A corner of his lips twitched. “I’m proof of that.”
*
Despite her short stature, the Groundskeeper kept a good way in front of Wan Zongran and Wu Liuqi, the undergrowth rustling loudly as she passed.
Perhaps it was Wan Zongran’s imagination, but the Groundskeeper’s shadow seemed to loom over them, far bigger than the old woman should cast. On either side the trees were gnarled and twisted stretching up overhead, blocking out all sight of the night sky.
“It’s so quiet,” Wu Liuqi murmured to Wan Zongran. His nonchalant air from earlier had faded. Now, he looked nervous and concerned.
“Is it not supposed to be so quiet?” Wan Zongran whispered back. He was a city man, used to the sounds of late-night revelers and the watchmen on their rounds, calling out the hour; the night shift he used to be stuck with early in his career led him more often than not to the red lantern districts, mostly to deal with drunk and disorderly patrons.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been allowed to come in here.” The beggar’s gaze never left the Groundskeeper, who was so far ahead that the light of the two men’s torches could barely land on her.
Wan Zongran felt the hair on the back of his neck prickling, like he was being watched. His gaze darted right and left, and saw a massive shadow within the shadows of the forest. He was about to tell Wu Liuqi when the beggar caught his eye and shook his head, mouthing, I see it too.
No wonder the Six Paths did not mount a guard around this place, leaving it to the mysterious elderly Groundskeeper to manage. She was not alone. But whatever that massive shadowy form was, it made no sound as it kept pace just out of their direct line of sight.
Wan Zongran wished he could move faster, but though the undergrowth was thin, the tangled tree roots threatened to trip them if they were not careful about where they put their feet. Eventually they saw that there was a clear space ahead of them. The Groundskeeper came to a stop next to a low stump and sat on it, one foot propped up so she could rest her elbow.
When Wan Zongran and Wu Liuqi caught up to her, she was trying to pry something out from her back teeth with her fingers. With her other hand, she gestured impatiently to the left, which had a flight of steps leading down.
Exchanging a wary look, Wu Liuqi and Wan Zongran went down the steps. As they proceeded, the tiles beneath their feet began to glow blue. When they got to the center of the floor, bright orange lights radiated outwards and revealed eight doorways.
The Groundskeeper called down from above, “You can go into all the rooms, hmm? There’s nothing here that will hurt you except me. When you see the old monk, light some joss sticks, bow, say your names. He likes to know who’s visited.”
“Old monk?” Wan Zongran glanced at Wu Liuqi, whose eyes were wide with amazement. “What old monk?”
“Groundskeeper, do you mean that the master of the Six Paths is still alive?” Wu Liuqi called up.
The Groundskeeper cackled but did not answer; a howl echoed behind her into the night sky. She waved at them to go on and she disappeared.
Without discussion, the two men decided to stay together. The first door they opened revealed an armory. Swords, spears, sabers, staves and shields were racked neatly into shelves. There were some that were mounted on the walls using bands of dark metal that flickered with green symbols when they approached the weapons.
“That’s the first Dog-Beating Stick,” said Wu Liuqi in awe, pointing to one four-foot-long stick that was about the thickness of a child’s wrist. It appeared to be length of streaked bamboo, but on closer inspection, Wan Zongran realized it was bronze; the green was the patina of verdigris. “The first Master Ling Yi-er made it himself, my old man told me. That’s centuries ago.”
“It doesn’t look that old,” Wan Zongran pointed out.
“It’s been used a couple times when our enemies pressed us too closely.” The beggar stared longingly at the Dog-Beating Stick before sighing. “Come on, this isn’t what we need.”
The second room was another armory. Wan Zongran wondered how this place had not been sacked by the Empire yet, if members of the various sects of the Six Paths were using this as a base to store weapons. No wonder they did not want to allow him to enter.
If I inform the higher-ups of this location, I would be promoted. I could easily outrank Prefect Wu. Wan Zongran shut down that thought as quickly as he could. He was not in this for fame or glory. He was here - his left hand twitched - he was here to clear Hu Yuan's name by learning more about Mrs Hu's background and figuring out why Hu Yao was targeted.
They found the old monk in the third room. He was laid on a stone slab with two tall floor lamps at either end, his head resting on his jiasha, and gleaming rings of metal rested on his chest under his crossed arms. The man was clearly dead, with a small hint of a smile on his face, but there was still color in his cheeks, as if he was in the middle of a nap. Wu Liuqi and Wan Zongran wanted to back out of the room, but the latter remembered what the Groundskeeper had said. Gulping down his nerves, he scanned the room and found a box of joss sticks.
Once the incense was offered and the two stammered their names, they quickly exited the room and shut the door firmly.
“I didn’t think he was real,” Wu Liuqi whispered, though there was no actual need to be quiet. “I always thought my foster father made him up.”
“How is he still perfectly preserved?” Wan Zongran hissed. Goosebumps were breaking out all over his arms. If that old monk had moved or blinked, Wan Zongran would have pissed his pants.
Wu Liuqi shrugged. “Perhaps he was a monk who attained enlightenment.”
The fourth room yielded bound books, but these were martial arts manuals; Wan Zongran skimmed over a few titles but nothing was relevant. Wu Liuqi was visibly reluctant to leave, so the constable left him inside and headed to the next room.
“Here we go,” he murmured when he saw an old-fashioned console right inside the door. The rest of the room was humming quietly. He could see the same flickers of green light running in neat lines along the floor and all over the rows of cabinets that stretched up to the tall ceiling.
The console was one that he had only ever seen in outdated textbooks from his time in basic training, but the interface and input terminals were quite standard. The stylus was clumsy and he had to exert some force with both hands to scratch the words into the sensor pad, hissing in breath as his movements jarred the stitches in his mutilated left hand.
Text scrolled down the page from right to left as information was retrieved.
His first search for “people with wings” returned one hundred and seventy-four thousand, eight hundred and four entries, but a quick glance showed that most were references to martial arts moves or merely to people. With a deep sigh, he let his head droop with fatigue and frustration.
And then he picked up the stylus again. There was an option to search within results. “Wings” cut that immense number down to ninety-three thousand, five hundred and ninety-one entries. Then he remembered that Hu Yuan told him about Mrs Hu being a survivor of her clan's massacre. Searching within results for the Yi clan, he found only six hundred and seventeen entries.
“Did you find anything?” Wu Liuqi asked over the constable’s shoulder.
Wan Zongran almost jumped out of his skin. “Buddha save- You could have made a sound coming in!”
The beggar smirked. Then he took in the room properly and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like dead bugs and dust in here.”
“It is an enclosed room.” Wan Zongran skimmed through the first record that was unrolling down and across the page line by line. It described the clan briefly and moved on to another clan. Fed up, Wan Zongran moved on to the next. Six hundred and seventeen entries was not insurmountable. He surely would be able to find what he needed.
*
Du Kuang focused on the distant presence of dense qi ahead of him, knowing that Jiang Hong was on his right. With her help, they went around the encampment of beggars that blocked the main path; Jiang Hong’s qinggong was superior to his, and Du Kuang was no slouch at hiding his presence.
He had the added benefit of not needing light to see. Once they were clear of the beggars, Jiang Hong asked him to circulate some qi so she could be sure where he was, and he obliged, though he was worried the beggars would notice a man glowing in the dark.
“Brother Kuang, wait a moment.” Jiang Hong touched his shoulder a short while later. “How are you not tripping or stumbling?”
“Stumbling over what?”
“The roots of the trees that are all around us?” She sounded confused and a little annoyed.
Du Kuang frowned and swung his cane in front of him in an arc. It encountered no obstacle. “What are you talking about?”
He heard a thud.
“This?” Jiang Hong whispered, though she sounded less sure of herself. “I just kicked a root that’s right in front of your feet.”
Du Kuang put one foot forward. It landed on soft grass. Illusion. This whole place is an illusion. “We need to get you out of here.”
A swift rush of pressure forced him back a few steps. He sensed rather than heard the low, lazy growl that rumbled from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
“These grounds are sacred, hmm,” said the voice of an elderly woman. “Who let you in here?”
Du Kuang froze. He tilted his face up to where he sensed the presence of eyes looking at them. “We apologize. We got lost.”
“Hmm. She, perhaps, got lost, but you didn’t,” said the entity that sounded like an old woman but Du Kuang could tell was much older and much, much larger.
“Old mother, we’re very sorry. We’ll go back the way we came right now.” Jiang Hong took Du Kuang’s elbow and tugged. “We mean no offense. Have you seen a bunch of beggars anywhere?”
The entity laughed. The sound was doubled, with the old woman’s voice overlaid on an animal’s growl. Du Kuang did not know if Jiang Hong could hear it.
The old woman spat. “I am no one’s mother, child. I’m the Groundskeeper. You have entered forbidden grounds, hmm?”
Du Kuang shook off Jiang Hong’s hand and changed his grip on his cane.
“And trespassers,” the entity said, sounding less human with every word, “will be dealt with.”
*
He found what he was looking for before he knew it. At first, he did not realize that he was staring at the answer; he was tired and his eyes were glazing over, but suddenly he saw it:
'The Yi people are now named Outsiders, but they have been living throughout the lands in numerous tribes since before we arrived, sailing in from across the Great Dark Seas. They were wary of us at first, time would prove they had not been wary enough.
An elder of one of the Yi tribes, hoping perhaps to sway us to their way of living, taught us the secrets of qi channeling. Some intermarried with us, strengthening their numbers but weakening their blood. Yet they prove to be resilient in the face of the Conqueror. One Yi warrior was as good as ten men, and their elders were capable of channeling the qi of hundreds of their kind at once.
But the Conqueror is strong, strong enough to kill the Venerable One who now lies in the heart of the Six Paths. Soon the Conqueror will unite all under his banner, and nothing will stop him from declaring himself Emperor.
By the time of writing, there are around fifty tribes left in the wild forests that we are aware of. We have heard rumors of tribes being slaughtered; their dwellings burned to the ground. Each of the leaders of the Six Paths have offered sanctuary and protection. However, they now distrust us entirely and have gone further into hiding, hoping that seclusion will protect them.
What the Conqueror wishes with them we do not know. We do know that his trustworthy lieutenant, General Shangguan who has with him the Seven Hounds of Heaven, is hunting down the remnants of the Yi people. Perhaps the Six Paths can stop them before it is too late.'
Wan Zongran paused and reread the section of the text. Then he checked the date of the entry.
“Hey,” he nudged Wu Liuqi, who was dozing on his forearms on the side of the console, drooling down the side of his mouth. “Hey, wake up.”
Wu Liuqi scowled; his eyes remained resolutely shut. “Whatever you found better be worth waking me up from my dream of eating a mountain of grilled boar sausages,” he warned sleepily, but he sat up anyway.
Wan Zongran ignored the threat and tugged him over to sit in front of the archaic console. “Look.”
“Fine, I'm looking. What am I looking at?”
“It's an entry on General Shangguan and the Seven Hounds of Heaven.”
“Yeah? We all know about those dogs of the Hall of Justice. Assholes whose eyes grow at the top of their head and think their farts are the finest of perfumes.”
“Look at the date.”
Wu Liuqi squinted, scanning the screen to locate the date, and then his eyes grew as wide as wine bowls. “This is from over nine hundred years ago.”
“Exactly,” said Wan Zongran in growing excitement. “General Shangguan. If it is Shangguan Yixiao, then this is...” He breathed out slowly, the import dawning on him. “It's impossible.”
Wu Liuqi licked his dry lips and read the entry again. “Maybe it was his ancestor. You know, inheriting the title and the job.”
Wan Zongran rubbed his forehead with his right hand and let his eyelids fall shut for a moment. He was exhausted. Yet, despite his fatigue, he knew this was important not only for the appearance of this General Shangguan, but also that he was hunting down the Yi clan; the Empire wanted them wiped out.
“What are the Great Dark Seas?” he mused aloud, never hearing of it prior to this. “'We arrived across the Great Dark Seas.' What does that mean?”
“Goddess knows.” Wu Liuqi yawned so widely that Wan Zongran thought he could see into the beggar's throat. “Listen, focus on your case, alright? I don't think we can stay in here for another day and night without food and water, and I doubt the Groundskeeper will offer anything to us.”
Wan Zongran sighed and squinted at the report again. He was not a clever man, but he had strong instincts, and reading this had triggered some little voice inside, telling him that this was key to Hu Yao's murder case.
“From at least nine hundred years ago, this… this Conqueror person wanted all of the Yi people killed,” he said slowly, trying to see how the information was connected. “The Yi clans went into hiding. Mrs Hu is also of the Yi clan... She’s the last surviving member of her clan, but Master Bai took her in as a student instead of sending her to another of her clan… What’s this got to do with Mrs Hu?”
“Maybe there wasn't any other Yi clan that Master Bai knew,” Wu Liuqi supplied in a drawl, his eyes already closed, his head lolling back. “They went into hiding, didn't they? Surely fifty clans would be able to survive nine hundred years. The Six Paths have done so.”
“Or there just isn't any other clans. She could be the last surviving member of all the Yi people.” A wisp of a thought snuck in, and his tired brain tried to shape the idea with words. “Except she had a son. She had a son who also had wings, like her. He had Yi blood in him. They killed her son first, to make sure… to make sure there won’t be more of them. To be sure that he cannot grow up and have children.”
Wu Liuqi sat up. “Down to the root.”
“Someone wants the Yi people erased completely.” Wan Zongran stared at the words on the screen, no longer reading. “We need to tell her.”
