The air in the Censorate prison was its usual aura of despair. The lower levels, which I had visited before, were a pit of human misery. The upper floors, where Inspector Chen had been held, a sterile world of political confinement. My destination was somewhere in the middle level. Not a place of torture, but still a place where hope was systematically starved.

  Auntie Ying led me down a clean-swept but dim corridor. She stopped before a heavy wooden door, reinforced with iron straps, and turned the key in the lock. The bolt slid back with a heavy, final-sounding thud.

  “I will wait outside,” she said. She opened the door and stepped aside, leaving me to enter alone before closing it behind me.

  The cell was clean, but stark. A simple bed, a table, a waste bucket, but also a desk and two chairs. Seated on the edge of the desk, staring at a patch of weak sunlight filtering through a high, barred window, was Ex-Vice-Director Song. He was dressed in the simple, undyed hemp of a prisoner. Like ChenHuaRong before him, his feet were bare against the rough floors of the prison. He was thinner, perhaps even healthier looking in that regard, and the arrogance had been stripped from his posture, leaving behind a man who looked weary and small.

  He turned his head slowly as I entered. There was no hatred in his eyes, no flicker of rage. There was only a profound, hollowed-out calm. It was the look of a man who had been running a frantic race his entire life and had finally been forced to stop.

  “Officer Zhang, we meet at last” he said, his voice a quiet rasp. He gestured to the other chair beside the table. “I had a feeling you might come.”

  I placed my tray of simple food, chicken legs, some vegetables and rice and two sets of utensils before him. I took out two cups and poured some wine into both from a gourd that hung from my belt.

  “Zhang Lin… right?” Song asked as he poked at the food with his chopsticks. He drained the wine in a single gulp before I could even sit down and drink my own. I nodded in response to his question. "Naturally," I replied.

  I reached into my sleeve and produced the note and the two heavy ingots of silver I had carried from JiangNan. I said simply, “The resident Daoist of your ancestral temple asked me to deliver these.”

  Song took the items. He weighed the silver in his palm, a meaningless fortune, before placing the ingots on the table and unrolling the hasty, ink-smeared letter of resignation from Guo Xuan. He read it, and for the first time, an emotion broke through his placid exterior. He laughed. It was hearty, genuine laughter, very much unlike what I'd heard in the Jade Grotto.

  "'Flows like water,'" he read aloud. He folded the note and placed it back on the table. "At the first sign of a storm, he flowed right out the back door. Fitting, I suppose. In the end, you are surrounded only by the reflections of your own choices.”

  He looked at me, his gaze analytical, devoid of personal animosity. “To think it was the Youzhou generals who ended up taking me down. The armor, the Buddha from my own temple. What a message.” He looked at me “I was honestly hoping that it would be you who'd free me from my burden.” I did not disabuse him of the notion. It was a clean, logical explanation that required nothing else.

  He nodded slowly, “Vengeance. Yes, I can understand that.” He fell silent, his gaze turning inward. Finally, he looked at me again, and his eyes were filled with concern. “My family… my mother?” He paused, “... my wife?”

  “They are safe,” I said. I assumed his wife was one of the women at the village. The order for Song's capture had also required the capture of his family, like it had for Chen HuaRong. “Alive. I gave them what shelter I could. They are… thinking things through, deciding on a new path. They'll take on new names and new identities wherever they may decide to go”

  Relief, so profound it was almost a physical thing, washed over him. His shoulders slumped.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “Whatever else has happened… thank you for that. For saving them. It is better than the fate of my concubines here…” He lowered his gaze, and his eyes were wet. “All I ever wanted was to be a good son. To be a successful man. To wash the provincial dirt from my name and make my mother proud.”

  A sad, self-aware smile touched his lips. “I remember the day I passed the examinations. I swore to myself I would be different. I would be an honest official, a man of integrity, like the heroes in the histories.” He shook his head slowly. “But this city… this system… it doesn't reward integrity, Zhang RuLin. It rewards connections. It rewards favors. It rewards the ‘flexibility'. A small compromise here, a blind eye turned there… each step is so small you don't even notice you're on a different road. And one day you wake up and realize you've become the very thing you once despised.”

  There was a sincerity in his words that I hadn't expected.

  “Be careful. This bureaucracy is a swamp. It will pull you down, cover you in its filth. Don't become what I became. Be better.” He leaned back, the last of his energy spent.

  As I rose to leave, he asked one final question, his voice barely a whisper. “Layla, Is she… well?”

  “She is,” I said, and for the first time in our conversation, I allowed a genuine smile to touch my lips. “She is doing better than she has ever been.”

  He smiled back warmly. “If you ever get the chance to, pass my apologies to Chen HuaRong for me.”

  The bamboo grove was a world of crisp, vertical lines and shifting green light. The early autumn air was cool and clean, a welcome respite from the capital's lingering summer heat. Xiao Kai and I walked in comfortable silence along a well-tended path that wound its way up the hill, the soft rustle of leaves, the only sound accompanying our footsteps and the sounds of our voices. After months of confinement, conspiracy, and bloodshed, this simple, shared peace felt like a luxury more precious than gold. At that very moment it felt as if that was all we had to do.

  We stopped where the path opened onto a small bluff overlooking a clear, fast-running stream that tumbled over a series of mossy rocks in a miniature waterfall. The sound was a pleasant, soothing murmur. For a long time, we simply stood, watching the water flow.

  “My name,” she said, her voice quiet but clear, breaking the gentle silence, “is Chen Qianyu.”

  I turned to her. She was not looking at me, but out at the water, her profile serene in the dappled sunlight.

  I bowed, a deep and formal gesture of respect. “Then you must no longer call me Master Zhang,” I said. “Just Zhang RuLin. I am not your master, Qianyu. You teach me as much as I teach you. We are partners in this, and you are my zhiji.”

  She finally turned to look at me, and for the first time, I saw a genuine, unguarded smile touch her lips. It transformed her face, chasing away the last of the shadows. “Zhiji,” she repeated, testing the word. Then she smiled “I suppose I’m the only one who can read your writing.”

  Her smile faded and her brow furrowed slightly. “Can we truly afford to be idle like this? With Song's network still a threat, and the Chancellor's eyes everywhere?”

  “We can,” I reassured her. “The board is quiet for now. I don't expect any major moves until the middle of winter, at the earliest.” I looked south, my mind tracing the map of the empire. “In fact, our next move should be a peaceful one. We need to move your family, get them south, past Suiyang. Just as a precaution. A day off to enjoy the scenery before we begin that journey cannot hurt.” The An Lushan rebellion was still months away, in December, though they didn't keep time this way here. Her family should have no part in any battles, even decisive victories, they'd deserved a rest.

  She accepted my assessment with a nod, but I could see a million questions in her eyes. In that instant I felt the weight of my secrets, the truth of the thousand-year gulf that separated my past from her present, settled on my shoulders. I owed her the whole truth and to be honest I wanted to tell someone else. I was afraid that my memories would fade, and with them my beloved, my family, and my past. Here at last was someone who might not yet understand, but could perhaps come to understand one day.

  “QianYu, I'm…” I opened my mouth to speak, to begin the impossible story. But as I turned to face her the blank, white porcelain mask was on her face. Her eyes were narrowed, focused on the path behind me.

  I turned to look over my shoulder. Three figures were approaching, their movements silent and impossibly fast, their dark robes billowing as they leapt over rocks and streams on their way up the hill. They flowed through the bamboo grove not like men walking, but like shadows gliding over the earth. Chen Qianyu, stepped in front of me, her hand reaching for the hilt of her dark steel sword.

  Before she could draw, the figures were already just ten paces away. The one in front leapt at her, palm outstretched, and when they clashed she staggered two steps back. I could hear from her breathing that the blow fell just short of the Stewards, as it didn't appear she was injured.

  Suddenly the figures bowed in a fluid, synchronized grace. They were palace eunuchs, their faces smooth and ageless, their fine silk robes marking them as men of considerable rank. The leader spoke, his voice a high, reedy tenor that held no warmth “It appears that after all these years, I've yet to surpass the Asuran Hand of the South. Please forgive my transgression, I wanted merely to test myself.”

  We returned the bow, our initial alarm replaced by a tense, wary confusion.

  “There is no need for alarm,” the leader said. He looked past Qianyu, his gaze fixing on me. “We are here for Xiàowèi Zhang.”

  I stepped forward. “I am Zhang RuLin, Collating Officer of the Left Guard. I'm afraid you have the wrong man. I am no Xiàowèi.”

  A thin, dry smile touched the eunuch's lips. “You are about to be,” he said. With a sharp, practiced flick of his wrist, he and his attendants unfurled a brilliant yellow scroll, bound with silken red cord and stamped with the Imperial Seal. “An Edict from the Son of Heaven!”

  We hurriedly dropped to our knees, pressing our foreheads to the cool earth as the eunuch began to read in a loud, formal monotone. The edict was a work of political artistry, framing the battle at SongJiaTun not as a clash between a rogue army and a private company, but as a heroic defense of the empire. It spoke of a brave, outnumbered force led by a loyal officer of the Imperial Guard who, through tactical brilliance and personal valor, had crushed a nascent rebellion.

  “…and in the final, decisive charge,” the eunuch's voice rang out, “Collating Officer Zhang RuLin did personally engage and slay the rebel general, Yan Pei, securing a great victory for the Dragon Throne…”

  “Your Majesty, that is not true!” I protested from the ground, glancing at Chen QianYu.

  The eunuch paused his reading, but his voice carried a note of cool, dismissive instruction. “The Son of Heaven cannot reward a mask with no name.”

  He continued. I was to be stripped of my minor post in the Armoury. In its place, I was bestowed the rank of Shéncè Xiàowèi, Colonel in the Divine Strategy Army, a grade four posting that vaulted me into the upper echelons of the military. I was not to be assigned to an existing unit, but was tasked with forming my own detachment, its size and composition left to my discretion. Highly irregular.

  The reading concluded. We remained with our heads bowed until the eunuch gave the signal. “You may rise.”

  We got to our feet, my mind reeling. The lead eunuch rerolled the edict and handed it to me. His expression, for the first time, softened with a flicker of something that might have been genuine approval.

  “The Son of Heaven has been watching your career with great personal interest, Colonel Zhang,” he said, his voice now a more confidential murmur. “He sees in you the potential for greatness. A man of unorthodox methods, but unswerving loyalty. He believes that one day, you might make a fine Jiedushi on the northern frontier.”

  I bowed again, a cold dread beginning to seep into my bones. “I am a humble servant, unworthy of such an honor.”

  The eunuch held up a pale, slender hand, stopping my protest. A knowing smile spread across his face.

  “The soon to be released Vice Minister Feng certainly thought you might be. And now, an opportunity,” he said, his voice a silken whisper, “has already opened up.”

  He looked past me, his gaze fixed on the distant northern horizon.

  “Two days ago, An Lushan rebelled. His armies march on Luoyang as we speak.”

  He turned his gaze back to me, and his eyes were as bright and shone as chips of ice.

  “Take his head, Colonel Zhang, and you may also take his place.”