Wu Xiaoliu had, after all, spent several years working in the Tian household. When it came to navigating the intricacies of aristocratic households, he had a real knack for it. Xiao Nanhui showed nothing on her face, but she knew deep down that she could never match him in this regard, and quietly congratulated herself for having bet on the right person.
All things considered, this matter was not terribly difficult to arrange. Even the most devoted of maids would be unwilling to follow their young mistress to her death. Everyone knew the Sun household was no place to live a good life. As early as half a month ago, some of the younger maids had tried to flee before the day arrived, only to be dragged back, beaten half to death, and thrown out of the estate — frightening the rest into abandoning any such notions.
Wu Xiaoliu knew that if he wanted to slip an unfamiliar face into the group, he would need to find someone who would not draw attention. The people around the Tian family’s young mistress were all known faces — there would be too much watching and worrying on all sides.
After much deliberation, he settled on two positions: the laundry-and-mending servant and the sedan-chair attendant. As luck would have it, there was a pair of siblings, both around fifteen or sixteen years of age, the children of a household steward. Having been chosen to go serve at the Sun household, they had been miserable about it for quite some time. The moment Wu Xiaoliu came to them, he had barely said two words before they agreed tearfully, terrified the two of them might change their minds. They spent the whole night going over every trivial detail of the Tian household, top to bottom, so there would be no slip-ups — and they even rushed to sew a maid’s outfit tailored to Xiao Nanhui’s frame.
Xiao Nanhui was simply delighted to have a clean set of clothes to wear, and did not feel anxious in the slightest. Only Wu Xiaoliu went around with a furrowed brow, sighing more in two or three days than most people sigh in a lifetime.
And just like that, the day the Tian family married off their daughter arrived.
The wedding procession spread across the road in a swathe of blood red, yet it set out just past the Hour of the Ox, with no one crying out, no gongs, no drums — just a column of people carrying the bride away in utter silence.
It did not feel like a joyful occasion at all. It felt like a funeral.
The entire eastern city was still lost in darkness. Xiao Nanhui walked behind the bride’s sedan chair, turning to look back at the crumbling ancient city half-swallowed by yellow sand, and pulled her face cloth tighter.
She was one step closer to her goal.
Suyan’s eastern and western cities had once been separated by nothing more than a river, but ever since the Sun clan had diverted its source and redirected its course, the Tianmu River no longer flowed through this place. Over time, as wind and sand eroded the land, the original riverbed had sunken and collapsed, becoming a long ravine stretching for more than a hundred li, impossible for any person to cross on foot.
So to enter the western city from the east, one had to circle back to the Lingxi Gobi and pass through the Sanmu Pass.
Seen from above, the Sanmu Pass resembled a fish’s mouth — a canyon entrance that narrowed from wide to thin. If Bijiang could be thought of as a round cloth sack, then the Sanmu Pass was the drawstring at the top.
It was here that Xiao Zhun had once suffered his defeat, which was also why the Sun clan and Bai Shi needed only to station troops at the Sanmu Pass and send mounted patrols to sweep the Gobi in order to hold Bijiang firmly in their grasp.
In recent years, with Bai Shi sowing chaos throughout Bijiang, few people traveled outside the Gobi. What had once been an official road was now strewn with coarse, sharp sand and gravel. The cart wheels lurched violently over it, and those on foot developed blisters on the soles of their feet. Xiao Nanhui had planned ahead and wrapped her feet in two thick layers of cloth before setting out, yet by the time half a day had passed, both feet still ached terribly.
Even so, she refused to waste a single moment, and kept Wu Xiaoliu at her side, pressing him in a low voice about the power dynamics along the Suyan region over the past years. Wu Xiaoliu talked until his mouth ran dry. At first he was willing to say a little, but gradually, no amount of threats or coaxing could get another word out of him.
At midday, the sun blazed mercilessly overhead. Just as it began to tilt slightly westward, the wind and sand ahead thinned a little, and the group finally caught sight of that strange and distinctive pass, flickering in and out of view.
It was a towering stone idol — built from piled sandstone — that had somehow stood for hundreds of years in the wind and sand without falling, though its features had grown blurred. On the idol’s face were three hollows: two where the eyes should be, and one at the center of the forehead, which from a distance made it look as though it had a third eye. That was how this place came to be called the “Sanmu Pass” — the Three-Eyed Pass.
As they say, mountains that look close can exhaust a galloping horse to death. After spotting the idol, Xiao Nanhui and the others walked for nearly another hour before they reached the entrance to the canyon. A camel-mounted escort from the Sun clan was waiting at the pass, their manner utterly arrogant — they could not even be bothered to ride forward a few steps in greeting. Only after the procession reached them did one man slowly dismount from his camel, speaking in the thick local dialect of Suyan, his expression a mask of smiles that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Is this the young mistress of the Tian family?”
The ceremonial official at the head of the procession quickly stepped forward. “Indeed.”
“We are subordinates of Governor Sun, here to receive you.”
Xiao Nanhui frowned slightly. So this Sun fellow had managed to secure the position of Governor. He had some ability after all.
The man paused, then continued: “All female servants and women traveling with the procession, step forward. We need to take a count.”
The people in the procession all startled, then exchanged glances. None dared speak, and the women stepped forward one by one.
Another man from the camel escort held a list of the dowry gifts provided by the Tian family, confirming each person’s identity by name as they came forward.
This man looked distinctly different from the others around him. He wore fine soft armor, and the saddle at his side was inlaid with seven-colored gemstones — ostentatious to the extreme. His thin, narrow face bore a pair of naturally yellowed wolf-like eyes, and above them, a nose that curved like an eagle’s talon. He was almost certainly someone difficult to deal with.
But none of that was what caught Xiao Nanhui’s attention. What she noticed first was the long rod strapped to his back. It was not the ordinary kind of staff a martial practitioner might carry, but rather a type of spear shaft unique to the southwestern regions — at first glance somewhat resembling an elongated flat-stringed crossbow stock.
The southwestern regions of Jizhou had once been home to nomadic hunting peoples, fierce and difficult to subdue. The rulers of that time, seeking to prevent private armies from forming, had decreed that no household could keep weapons — even iron implements had to be registered with the local authorities.
But the common people had their own way of dealing with this. Because bandits roamed frequently, some villagers kept long wooden poles at home, then hammered iron hoe-heads straight and sharpened them to create makeshift spear tips. In a dangerous moment, shaft and tip could be fitted together in an instant, and suddenly one had a weapon for self-defense. This tradition of separating tip from shaft had been passed down ever since.
The one strapped to this man’s back was the most typical variety. He had very likely been an outlaw at some point before eventually finding his way into service with the Sun clan. There were many riders of similar background in the area — most did not pledge loyalty to any single master, but shifted between factions depending on who held the upper hand. The Sun clan and Bai Shi’s forces probably drew a great number of such men. If so, breaking apart their coalition was not entirely without a starting point.
Lost in thought, Xiao Nanhui looked up to find that the people ahead of her had already been checked one by one, and it would soon be her turn. She quickly lowered her head. She knew her frame was considerably taller than most, and her manner of walking bore the marks of martial training — undetectable to an ordinary person, but anyone with even a little skill and a sharp eye would notice. If she walked up there stiff and upright, she was liable to be called out.
Strangely, the first person who flashed through her mind was him.
That first night at the rainy-night inn, he had already been hunching his back, looking sickly and wan — she supposed he had been doing the same, disguising his frame to avoid drawing attention. Thinking of this, she too pulled in her neck, let her shoulders droop, and shortened her steps, shuffling forward in small, careful increments.
Finally it was her turn. She sensed a pair of eyes linger on the top of her head for a moment, and the surrounding air went quiet. After a beat, that cold voice rang out again: “You — raise your head.”
Xiao Nanhui’s heart hammered wildly. She forced herself to assume a cowed, downcast expression and timidly lifted her face.
Since coming to Jizhou over a month ago, she had spent her days out in the open, and the wind had darkened her skin somewhat. Before setting out, she had asked the steward for half a bowl of ginger juice mixed with kudzu powder, which she rubbed over her face to dull the striking sharpness of her features, and then wrapped her face cloth around her head. At a glance, she looked no different from a village girl from some remote corner of the countryside.
The man on the camel swept her with a brazen look, then laughed and said something to the person beside him: “Take a look at this one.”
The four or five men nearby all turned their eyes toward her at once, each pausing involuntarily, then with strange expressions they all curled the corners of their mouths: “She does look quite a bit like someone.”
Like whom? What was so funny?
Xiao Nanhui was dying of curiosity on the inside, but kept the dull, vacant expression firmly in place. At last the man waved her off, signaling her to move along.
She let out a slow breath and shuffled over to the side.
A few more people were checked, and all the women and maids from the wedding procession had been accounted for. Xiao Nanhui hid behind a camel’s hindquarters and raised one eye to look at Wu Xiaoliu on the other side of the group — he seemed to be sneaking glances at her too, his expression uneasy.
The man who had spoken first wiped his nose and said nothing, only exchanging a glance with his left and right attendants. More than ten men then swung down from their camels and walked toward the remaining men in the wedding procession.
Xiao Nanhui’s heart went cold.
Something was wrong. They were going to —
Thud. A muffled sound.
The ceremonial official at the very front of the procession clutched his throat and went down. The scream was caught in his windpipe, coming out only as a broken hiss.
More than ten riders flung back their cloaks. Curved blades were drawn from behind their waists, and in the blazing afternoon sun, the tips of those blades caught the light and flashed a blinding white.
Leave the women. Kill all the men.