Cradled by surrounding mountains, the emerald lake lay still as a mirror.
Two days of drizzling rain had finally ceased, and Xianling Village was just beginning to stir beneath the morning mist.
Zhu-shi rose before dawn, leaving the man beside her still snoring like thunder.
All around was quiet and still. Carrying a wooden bucket, she walked down to the lakeshore to fetch water. Xianling Lake was unruffled by ripples today, and amid the wild grass along the bank, delicate beeblossoms shyly displayed their pinkish-white petals. White mist drifted between water and sky, lending the lake the ethereal air of an immortal realm.
Zhu-shi stood in a daze for a short while. Only when a string of bubbles broke the nearby surface did she grip the bucket and trudge back with unsteady steps.
If any of the other village women had been there, they would likely have mocked her again for her weak arms, seeing that the bucket was barely four-fifths full.
Passing by Xianling Shrine, she happened to glance inside, and her footsteps abruptly halted.
Xianling Shrine was the most exquisite building in the entire village. It had pristine white walls and dark tiles, with neatly laid brickwork and tiles specially carted in from the outside world, which gleamed brightly whenever the rain washed over them.
At all times, only two spirit tablets were enshrined within. Yet now she saw that one of them was broken.
It had snapped into upper and lower halves, and the top piece had tumbled onto the altar table.
Perhaps some child playing a prank, she thought. Zhu-shi did not step closer to look, simply continuing on her way with her bucket.
Returning home, she hurried to kindle the stove to boil water, kneaded dough to bake flatbreads, and went out back to feed the chickens and pigs in their pens.
Only then did her two children awaken.
They were still very young, one two years old and the other four. Dressing them, putting on their shoes, and washing their faces all fell entirely to her.
The moment the children began to wail, her parents-in-law woke up as well, rubbing their eyes as they stepped out and barking at her to hurry with breakfast.
She brought out salted fish, pickled vegetables, flatbreads, and multigrain porridge, setting them on the table before carrying a basin of warm water into the inner bedroom to rouse her man. "It's daybreak. Father said we have to harvest the last batch of wheat today."
The man grunted a couple of times in discontent and dragged his feet for more than a quarter-hour before finally getting out of bed.
Only after seeing father and son off did Zhu-shi catch her breath, leaning against the doorframe to sit down.
Her mother-in-law strode over, tossed two garments at her, and snapped, "Don't slack off. Mend these."
As the children played nearby, Zhu-shi was patching the second garment when a sudden clamor erupted across the village.
Zhu-shi paid it no mind at first, but before long, four or five men arrived at her door and dragged her away without explanation.
Terrified, her mother-in-law hurried after them. When she caught up, she found several villagers throwing her daughter-in-law down before Xianling Shrine. The village chief's face was livid. Pointing at the tablet inside the shrine, he demanded, "Did you do this?"
"Do what?" Zhu-shi asked, utterly bewildered. "I didn't do anything."
"Did you break it? The tablet was perfectly fine last night!"
"It has nothing to do with me!" Zhu-shi protested. "Maybe one of the village kids did it!"
"Lao Qi!"
At the village chief's shout, a thin, scrawny man stepped forward from the side. "This morning, Zhu-shi was the only one I saw walking past the shrine."
Zhu-shi said coldly, "You were here too. Maybe you're the one who broke it."
Lao Qi struck her across the face with a hard slap.
The village chief said, "When your husband gets back, we'll settle this fairly."
With that, two villagers shoved her inside the shrine and locked her in.
Her mother-in-law cursed her from outside for stirring up trouble, then quickly left.
***
That evening, when the farmers returned from their day of labor in the fields, a merchant caravan accompanied them into the village.
The caravan numbered about thirty or forty people, driving ten large wagons. When the village children ran up begging for sweets, the men simply spread their empty hands, showing they had none.
The village chief stepped forward to greet them, and the leader of the group casually produced several ten-tael silver ingots. "We'd like to lodge here tonight and set out early tomorrow morning."
This man was tall and burly, with a deep, booming voice. Peering through the latticework bricks of the shrine, Zhu-shi could not shake the feeling that he looked utterly mismatched with the fine silk robes he wore.
The village chief had harbored doubts at first, but the sight of solid silver immediately put his mind at ease. If these people were so wealthy, what could they possibly covet from poor villagers?
And so the caravan settled in, its members dispersed among the households for the night.
With outsiders present, it was inconvenient for the village chief to deal with the broken spirit tablet in the shrine—family scandals were best kept behind closed doors, after all.
The caravan leader asked him, "I thought the place where Emperor Gaozu raised his banner would be quite prosperous."
"Those who leave never come back," the village chief sighed. "A bunch of ungrateful wretches, all of them!"
"Still, this is a fine place. Peaceful, and with far more people than I expected." Other villages had two hundred people at most, but Xianling Village numbered more than three hundred souls and covered plenty of ground. The leader smiled faintly. "On our way in, I noticed all the wheat fields had been reaped. You must have had an exhausting day. Is everyone back?"
"Aye, we can start planting rice in a couple of days." Only then did the village chief realize something was off—how would these newcomers know how hard they had worked today? "Wait, how did you..."
The caravan leader suddenly blew a whistle—one long blast, followed by two short ones.
In the quiet village, the sharp piercing sound carried with startling clarity.
Sensing danger, the village chief shouted, "Help—!" But barely a syllable had left his lips before the caravan leader knocked him unconscious with a single blow.
Moments later, screams and wails erupted all across the village.
The young, able-bodied men grabbed whatever implements they could find to fight back, only to watch two hundred men suddenly burst from the surrounding thickets, encircling them completely. The bandits then used the elderly and the children as hostages, and the men had no choice but to drop their farming tools.
Within a quarter of an hour, the turmoil had ceased.
Stripped of weapons, every man, woman, and child in the village was herded onto the open ground before the shrine. Two to three hundred armed men glared down at them with ruthless, predatory eyes.
Only then did the people of Xianling Village realize they had mistakenly welcomed a pack of vicious bandits into their midst as gods of fortune.
Just as the bandit leader was about to speak, a red-tailed peregrine falcon swooped down from the sky, landed on his shoulder, and spoke in human tongue: "Official troops are approaching from the southwest. Three to four hundred men, fifteen li away."
The bandits started in surprise, while the villagers felt a surge of wild hope.
Imperial soldiers were coming? Could they be saved?
One of the bandits spoke up: "General, our pursuers are here!"
"If they were pursuers, why would they come from the southwest?" The leader frowned, looking at the falcon. "Are you certain they are imperial troops?"
"They are troops, but their uniforms differ from the soldiers we fought at Woling Pass. They wear teal pauldrons." The falcon added, "Oh, and there are women traveling with that company!"
The leader relaxed completely, even letting out a low chuckle. "How could pursuers bring women along?"
His subordinate remained anxious. "They're heading right this way. What should we do?"
The leader sneered. "They have men, and we have men. What is there to fear? But we can't let them ruin our plans. First, send someone to the town to deliver word."
A trusted lieutenant stepped forward and whispered into his ear. The leader nodded. "Not a bad idea."
He then barked at the villagers, "Anyone whose household has no children under eleven, step forward!"
The villagers hesitated, none daring to move.
The leader smiled. "Only those who stay behind will suffer."
At that, a large crowd of villagers stepped out from the ranks.
The leader ordered them to walk down to the water's edge. Then, raising his blade, he brought it down in a swift arc, lopping off the head of the nearest person.
"Slaughter every last one!"
Screams tore through the crowd as some fought desperately to resist.
Yet among them were women, the elderly, and the weak. How could they possibly stand against a pack of wolflike, bloodthirsty killers?
It was an utter massacre.
By the time the last cry for help was choked off, the lake water had been dyed a deep, sickening crimson.
Corpses lay strewn in every direction, numbering well over a hundred.
Chapter 96