She thought of Yan Zheng at an inopportune moment and suddenly felt Yan Zheng’s bitter temper was exactly like this strange old man’s. If Yan Zheng’s sharp tongue left him lonely his whole life, would he end up like this old man when he was old?

Fan Changyu stopped her odd thoughts, cast a glance at the odd old man who had gone cold and would no longer speak to her, tore half the roast chicken off and put it into his steamed-bun bowl, sighed, and, taking the remaining roast chicken, returned to the women’s barracks.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

That night, spring thunder exploded and a torrential downpour arrived.

The water gathering on the ground increased. Watching the lightning still dazzlingly bright through the cracks of the doors and windows, listening to the thunder outside that drowned everything and the children’s noisy cries inside the barracks, she felt a certain unease in her heart.

She sat up; the moment her foot hit the ground she felt she had stepped into a puddle, the floor of the barracks had accumulated rainwater.

Thinking of what the old man had said, that before the spring floods the dam must be finished, Fan Changyu recalled the scene she had seen that afternoon when she carried earth and stones to the dam mouth, and felt it was much like what the old man had said.

She hoped, best of all, that tomorrow these soldiers would release them, but under the cover of the storm and thunder there seemed to be other faint sounds outside.

Fan Changyu hesitated a moment, but decided to throw on her clothes and get up to look at the door.

To prevent their escaping, the place detaining them was not tents but the earthen-walled, tile-roofed houses the soldiers had requisitioned after the local people fled south.

At night the main gates were always locked.

Wading through the rain to the gate, Fan Changyu, by the light of lightning, discovered that the soldiers who had been posted outside were nowhere to be seen; not far off, at the houses holding the migrant men, it seemed someone from inside was using a hard object to smash the door lock.

She quickly realized something must have happened at the barracks, and that this stormy night was their perfect chance to escape.

There was nothing in the room but beds. Fan Changyu thought for a moment, then stepped back two paces, charged forward and with a fierce kick struck the door panel — the wooden door immediately toppled outward.

Ignoring the women in the room with their various expressions, Fan Changyu dashed out into the heavy rain and ran straight for the barracks room where their belongings were kept.

Soon others realized and hurriedly followed.

The men in the male barracks, seeing this, also stopped smashing locks; after a moment the gate together with its frame had been knocked off and flung out. That big fellow failed to restrain his force and fell into the rain-soaked ground, and only after getting up did he go to the opposite barracks to look for his wife and children.

For a time the camp holding the migrants was in utter chaos, everyone calling out names looking for kin.

Alone, Fan Changyu quickly found her bundle, squeezed with difficulty against the tide of people out of the room where bundles were kept, and saw the old man stumbling out of the barracks that had held him.

His wet clothes clung to him, making his gaunt frame look all the more bony.

Fan Changyu had intended to leave just like that, but thinking that though his temper was odd he had earnestly taught her the Four Books, and that there is the folk saying “one day as teacher, lifelong as father,” what he had taught her could at least count as being half a teacher.

She gritted her teeth, and in the end still grabbed her bundle and rushed into the rain, saying to the old man, “I’ll carry you and escape.”

Before he could say anything, Fan Changyu had already swung him onto her back; he was drenched like a long-necked wild chicken, yet still stubbornly said, “I’ll walk myself, I don’t need you to carry me!”

Fan Changyu knew his peculiar temper and did not pick a quarrel with him now; having memorized the camp’s layout over the past days, she quickly carried the old man and escaped to the main road.

Now and then a bolt of lightning struck; water droplets fell from Fan Changyu’s eyelashes, yet she saw many soldiers’ corpses fallen in disorder on the ground, the rainwater tinged with a faint rouge color.

In the pouring rain in the distance tents were burning; it seemed two forces were clashing.

The old man’s face turned grave: “We’re done for, I’m afraid the rebels discovered that they’re building this dam to block the water.”

Squinting through the heavy rain to make out the way, Fan Changyu asked, “Were these soldiers killed by the rebels?”

The old man said, “Since they began building this dam, the scouts the rebels sent to reconnoiter this area have not returned. It must be that the rebels detected it, and so they dispatched a force to launch a surprise attack — the purpose being to cover the scouts so the scouts could carry the message back!”

Fan Changyu did not understand: “What does this have to do with building the dam?”

The old man’s expression grew stern: “Have you seen any flood-control dam that can be finished in ten or fifteen days? This dam, built hurriedly merely to temporarily stop the water, if the rebels’ fifty thousand troops surround Lucheng, the water pooled behind the dam rushing downstream could defeat the rebels’ fifty thousand without a single soldier. If the rebels learn in advance that upstream there is an interception capable of drowning their whole army, do you think the rebels would still fall into the trap and be lured into the valley?”

Only then did Fan Changyu understand why the soldiers were detaining them.

But at the moment saving their lives was the priority. To avoid being discovered, she murmured an apology, stripped the outer armor off two dead Jizhou soldiers and put the garments on herself and the old man.

Ahead she also saw a horse; the horse was lowering its head, nosing at a fallen general on the ground.

Fan Changyu hurried over to lead the horse, thinking that since her own horse had been taken by the soldiers and never found, she might as well take this one as compensation from the camp.

As she moved to go, the bloodied man on the ground grabbed at the hem of her clothing; having recognized the Jizhou uniform on her, he choked on blood and rasped, “Three scouts escaped from Lukou Road, hurry… chase after them…” then his words cut off and he died.

Even having faced many life-and-death scenes, Fan Changyu felt a sudden chill run over her skin in that rainy night.

The old man stood in the rain with his hands behind his back in silence. Fan Changyu led the horse over, hesitated a few breaths, then asked, “Will you come with me?”

Through the curtain of rain the old man looked at Fan Changyu and sighed: “If you were a man, I would certainly have you ride across Wuling and ambush those three rebel scouts on the main thoroughfare of Lukou Road into Lucheng; their lives and deaths concern the survival of the whole of Lucheng and even all of Jizhou. But even if you possess martial skill, you are only a woman — the rise and fall of the realm is no responsibility for women. Go and save yourself; I will take this news back to the camp.”

Fan Changyu said, “Then we part here.”

She swung up onto the horse, dug the horse with her spurs and rode hard along the official road. Rainwater clung to her cheeks and ran down from her jaw; lightning cleaving the sky revealed the struggle in her eyes.

She wanted to find Changning, and after finding Changning live an ordinary life as before.

Warfare and the like were things for those high officials to worry over; the fate of a city or a land in life or death terms could never fall upon a small common woman like herself.

But the massacres in Qingping County and Lin’an Town were still vivid in her memory; bandit raids had already turned those two places into death towns. If the forces from the camp failed to catch the scouts and the plan to drown the Chongzhou army failed, once Lucheng fell, what fate would await the townspeople there?

Fan Changyu lashed the horse with the reins; the steed tore through the downpour, rain and cold wind striking her face in stinging lashes.

In that instant many people flashed through her mind — the dead Captain Wang and his wife, the neighbors in the west alley, Carpenter Zhao and Yan Zheng still in Lucheng…

She had in fact already killed many people, but the bloodshed at Qingping County and Lin’an Town still made her shudder when she recalled it.

Perhaps… if she pursued them, she could still stop those three scouts from carrying the news back?

Fan Changyu drew two deep breaths and finally pulled the reins to make the warhorse stop. She did not take her bundle, only grabbed several slaughter knives from inside, fastened her wrist guards, abandoned the warhorse, and, like a leopard going out to hunt in the rain, ran toward Wuling.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

Lucheng.

Unlike the torrential rain upstream in Jizhou, in Lucheng’s nightfall only a fine, drizzling rain fell.

He Jingyuan stood on the city tower, looking toward the vaguely outlined mountain range in the distance, and asked, “Where have the rebels already been drawn to?”

The deputy general at his side answered, “The scout reports that the rebels have reached the river mouth, but they are extremely cautious and will not advance deeply.”

He Jingyuan pondered for a moment and then said, “Raise my command banner, continue to lure the enemy.”

Orders were immediately passed down; the city gate opened a crack and one scout rode out to report.

He Jingyuan glanced in the direction of the Wuhé upstream; his face betrayed nothing, but the hand resting on the battlement clenched tightly into a fist.

If this stratagem failed, Lucheng would have only thirty thousand troops left to resist the enemy, of which over ten thousand were newly conscripted recruits from not long ago, not yet fully proficient with a single spear technique.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

In the wilds of Yanzhou the drizzle was likewise fine as silk.

Xie Zheng rode his horse and stood on a low slope, his expression cold and stern as he watched the battle below; torches braided into a mass, and only occasionally could one tell in the firelight whether the banners were Yanzhou’s or Chongzhou’s.

Beads of rain condensed from the fine drizzle and slid from his jaw; he stared intently as the Yanzhou banners advanced in stretches within the firelight, his eyelashes not once fluttering.

Gongsun Yin used a feather fan to shield against the slanting drizzle and asked, “If you don’t go down, the Chongzhou army won’t enter the First Gorge.”

Xie Zheng replied, “We have laid an ambush in the First Gorge; the Sui family father and son will surely have set traps elsewhere as well — let us wait for them to throw out the bait first.”

Gongsun Yin’s foxlike eyes lifted in a quirk: “You mean to eat their bait, then lure them into the First Gorge?”

Xie Zheng made no reply.

Gongsun Yin considered the bait Xie Zheng mentioned; his pupils narrowed and he was about to speak when the battle below stirred slightly.

A young commander burst forth from the Chongzhou army, white horse and silver spear, handsome with a wicked edge; he cradled in his arms a little girl, frightened into sobbing by the slaughter of the battlefield, and arrogantly shouted toward the mêlée of the Yanzhou troops, “Where is the Marquis of Wu’an? Come out and meet your death!”

Gongsun Yin frowned at the figure standing before the Chongzhou army in the firelight and said, “You bear some resemblance to your former self.”

Xie Zheng’s phoenix-like eyes glanced coldly over. “Since when have your eyes gone bad?”

Before Gongsun Yin could react, Xie Zheng had already lifted the long halberd planted in the ground, spurred his horse and leapt down the gentle slope. The dark cloak behind him was lifted high by the wind in the drizzle, like a fierce black cloud.

—

Author’s note:

For those little darlings who didn’t understand from the main text, here’s a brief summary: there are three battles in total. The first battle is on the heroine’s side — the rebels sent a small force specifically to cover the scouts, intending to use the army to draw most attention so that the scouts could carry the news back; if the scouts succeed in bringing the news back, then the second battle, that is He Jingyuan’s battle, is doomed to fail. The third battle is on the hero’s side.