Chapter 26: Fangpan City
The moment Chun Tian saw the man, she froze, stunned. They were standing so close. For the first time, she clearly saw the depth and stillness in Li Wei’s eyes. Reflected within them was her own face, startled, overjoyed, confused–caught between fear and disbelief.
“I’ve been waiting here for you for days,” Li Wei let go of her arm, his tense expression finally loosening. Arms crossed before him, his voice carried a restrained trace of exasperation. “If you hadn’t shown up soon, I would’ve assumed something had happened to you on the road, again.”
He had left five or six days later than planned, with no time to search slowly along the way. Estimating that, unfamiliar with the region, she wouldn’t reach the pass too quickly, he had ridden hard day and night, aiming to intercept her before she crossed the Yumen Pass. But days passed, and she was nowhere to be seen. He thought to backtrack and search, but feared they might miss each other in transit. Just as his patience was wearing thin, he finally caught sight of her.
“Da-ye…” She looked up at him, a flood of mixed emotions rising all at once. “Da-ye, why are you here?”
At that moment, a gaunt soldier with a weathered face that looked like it had encountered many vicissitudes in life, walked up from the gate and called out, “Is it her?”
Li Wei turned and gave a slight nod, gesturing toward the caravan now surrounded by soldiers. “Don’t make a fuss over there.”
“I understand. Once the inspection’s over, we’ll just issue a fine and be done with it.” The speaker was Yan Song, the Chief overseeing Yumen Pass. He narrowed his thin eyes, glancing Chun Tian up and down. “So this is Junior Commandant Chun’s daughter?”
“She is,” Li Wei replied with a wry smile.
“Heh, you really made him search high and low,” Yan Song shook his head, then looked at her. “Niece, what’s the point of all this? Junior Commandant Chun has been gone for seven or eight years now. I can hardly remember what he looked like.”
This man knew her father.
“Da-ye, you knew my father?” she asked, eyes wide as she stared at him.
Someone called out from the gate. Yan Song glanced back, swallowed his words, and patted Li Wei on the shoulder. “Take her back to Fangpan City first. Your sister-in-law’s (Yan Song’s wife) waiting at home. I’ll return tomorrow morning.”
Li Wei nodded and let out a quiet sigh as he looked at Chun Tian’s dazed face. “Let’s go back.”
The merchant caravan, people and goods alike, was escorted away by soldiers. Chun Tian was overwhelmed with disappointment. This was her only wish: to bring her father’s remains home. She had come so far, stood now on the very soil beyond the frontier, and still, she was being sent back. Back to where?
She refused to move, her feet rooted to the ground. Her voice trembled with urgency behind Li Wei: “Da-ye, I don’t want to go back.”
Li Wei turned and threatened, “If you don’t come now, once the commanding officer comes to inspect the gate, you’ll be taken in for questioning. No travel pass and crossing the border, your head won’t stay on your neck. And those merchants who brought you out? They’ll be executed too. Yan da-ge and I will also be punished. Are you going or not?”
She bit her lip hard, stomped her foot in frustration, then followed behind him.
Beneath the city wall, a small side gate creaked open. A soldier ushered them through. As they passed through the dim passageway, Chasing Thunder caught sight of its master and came galloping forward, hooves clattering in a steady rhythm.
Chun Tian mounted Chasing Thunder, and Li Wei led the reins ahead of her. The sun was half-set, sky tinged with a cold gray-blue. Overhead, an eurasian goshawk stretched its wings wide as it circled, soaring the sky. Li Wei looked back once. Chun Tian’s face was blank, her figure slumped in the saddle, drained and silent.
He said quietly, “Your father most likely died near the Irtysh River. That region is now grazing land for the Turks, still eight hundred li from Ganluchuan. How do you plan to get there? And with tensions mounting at the border, skirmishes happening more and more–sooner or later, the court will go to war with the Turks. If you head out now, you’re walking to your death. Do you understand?”
She murmured listlessly, “I understand. Many thanks to Da-ye, for the warning.”
They continued in silence, Li Wei leading the horse toward Fangpan City. The last of the sun had been swallowed by the earth, casting only faint light. A chill wind rose, and the cry of the goshawks overhead mingled with the sound of hooves on dirt. When he glanced back again, he saw her quietly clutching her sleeve, wiping her tears in secret under the faint twilight.
She wore a narrow-sleeved green robe, her hair done in the simple twin-knots of a serving girl, and cried in utter silence, just like a delicate young woman from some humble household, swallowing her grievances with downcast eyes. Her tear-streaked cheeks had washed away the yellow powder on her face, leaving pale tracks behind. It was only then he realized how fair her complexion was–glowing like mutton-fat jade in the fading dusk. She should have been the treasured daughter of a noble house, tucked away behind fine drapery and brocade in the boudoir, how had she ended up here, in this desolate borderland of sand and wind?
Men, faced with women in tears, are soft nine times out of ten. Li Wei searched his mind for some way to get her to stop crying, but nothing felt appropriate. Just then, a gray rabbit darted out from the sea buckthorn brush ahead. After a pause, he said, “This time of year, rabbits stay close to their burrows, their kits are especially cute. Do you like rabbits? I could catch one for you to play with?”
Between a grown man of twenty-eight years old and a fifteen-year-old girl, the distance was too vast–too many years, too many differences. There was little they could truly talk about. Chun Tian finally managed to hold back her tears. After a long silence, she asked in a low voice, “Da-ye came out just to look for me?”
“Yes.”
“Da-ye is a good mad, afraid I’d meet some misfortune again.” She sniffled. “But this time, I won’t accept Da-ye’s kindness. Da-ye shouldn’t have come.”
Li Wei gave a bitter smile, yet he had come all the same. Why? Perhaps it was the shock of seeing her the first time, lying half-dead, and the fear that she might die on the road once more. To be honest, he’d never met a girl so young who still had the strength to bite her rescuer when death was already at her heels.
As they neared Fangpan City, Chun Tian finally stopped crying. Yan Song and his family were now living in the city. Madam Yan was a forthright woman; her daughter had long since married, and her seventeen- or eighteen-year-old son was working in Dunhuang.
The house was lit with warm lamps. Hearing hooves outside, Madam Yan came out carrying a lantern. Seeing Li Wei return with a young girl, she immediately understood, it was the daughter of that Junior Commandant Chun they’d spoken of. Beaming, she stepped forward to help Chun Tian off the horse. “So you found her after all.”
Taking Chun Tian’s hand, she led Chun Tian inside. “My good girl, your filial heart is truly admirable. But how could you go off alone to that foreign and barren land? No travel permit, no kin–do you have any idea how dangerous it is out there?”
Chun Tian lifted her sleeve to rub her face, wind-chapped and stiff. Her voice was hoarse as she bowed to Madam Yan in greeting. Madam Yan waved it off, cleared the kang bed, and pushed her to sit. Then, in a whirlwind of motion, she bustled into the kitchen to cook several hot dishes and brought up a jar of wine from the cellar for Li Wei. “Technically speaking, you’re still in mourning for your wife, and drinking isn’t proper, but since you’ve come, I can’t let you go without a toast. Just one cup tonight, and the rest you save for when your da-ge returns tomorrow, you two can have a proper drink then.”
Li Wei agreed. The three sat down to eat. Li Wei introduced Chuntian to Madam Yan and her husband, Yan Song. Yan Song had spent many years stationed at the border town of Hehe in Guazhou. Before joining the Moli Army, Li Wei had also spent half a year there. At the time, he served in the same unit as Yan Song, and through those circumstances, the two formed a deep friendship.
The next morning, Yan Song returned from the garrison and brought with him Chun Tian’s horse, belongings, and the hundred taels of silver converted to tea vouchers, all returned in full.
“The man who took you out of the pass is a known smuggler. We gave him a good beating and sent him back to his hometown,” Yan Song told Chun Tian. “You’re lucky he wasn’t truly malicious. If he had been, once you were past the gates of Yumen Pass, he could’ve robbed you clean and tossed you into the desert to fend for yourself. Out there, no one would hear your cries. Heaven wouldn’t answer, and earth wouldn’t care.”
Then he told her how he had come to know Commandant Chun: “I was stationed in Hehe for over ten years and didn’t have much to do with the Yiwu troops. Junior Commandant Chun was first assigned to Yiwu County when he arrived in Beiting, and only later transferred to Ganluchuan. I happened to be escorting an official from the Official Designation Assault-Resisting Garrison to Yiwu when I accidentally offended a Right Courageous Commandant, one of the Wei family’s relatives. The man was arrogant beyond reason, throwing around Commander-in-chief Wei’s name, and wanted to take my head.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Junior Commandant Chun held no high post at the time, nothing of consequence, but when the entire hall was silent, he stood up to defend me and argued my case. He saved my life.”
“After that, whenever I had the chance, I’d invite Junior Commandant Chun for a drink,” Yan Song recalled, counting on his fingers. “Over those few years, I saw him three times in total, and shared two drinks with him. He had a fair face that turned even paler with each cup. When he was drunk, you couldn’t even tell. Spoke gently too. He’d say his wife was beautiful and virtuous, and that he had a darling, treasured little daughter. We teased him, saying we’d never met this famed wife, so who knew if she was really that pretty. Junior Commandant Chun swore up and down he’d bring his wife and daughter along next time he had leave. But by the end of the night, he just toppled over with a loud thump.” He looked at Chun Tian, sighing, “Never imagined that little girl of his would already be this grown.”
“Later, in the sixth year of Jingyuan, the battle at Ganluchuan broke out. That was the end of him, buried somewhere out in Hu territory. His remains were never brought back. The army didn’t even posthumously honor him, nor offer compensation.” He exhaled deeply. “We risk our lives for the court, but what good does it do? We’re nobodies–our voices don’t carry. Even if we wanted to seek justice for Junior Commandant Chun, there was nothing we could do.”
Chun Tian’s face was somber, her chest rising and falling, caught somewhere between grief and pride. Yan Song took another sip of wine and continued, “At the start of this year, Li Wei wrote to ask me about Junior Commandant Chun. I was surprised. No one had ever asked about him before.”
Then he turned to look at Chun Tian, just a young girl of fourteen or fifteen. “Niece, let Uncle just say this: the dead are gone, but the living still have to go on. You’re still so young. To have such devotion in your heart is already rare. If your father’s spirit sees this, he would surely feel at peace. You made it all the way to Yumen Pass, your heart has done its part. Now go back with Li Wei.”
Madam Yan, having listened to the whole story from the side, pulled Chun Tian into her arms, comforting her gently: “My poor child, you’ve been away from home for so long. Your family must be worried sick. Your mother has only you, disappearing for over half a year, who knows how many tears she’s cried, how her heart must ache.”
Chun Tian forced a smile. “Yes.”
Li Wei, sitting nearby with a cup of unfortified wine, watched her face grow paler, the light in her eyes dimming with each passing moment. There were no tears, but she seemed full of a stubborn and quiet strength.
That night, the sky was dreamy. The moon was large and round, the stars dense and bright. Chun Tian didn’t sleep. On a night like this, it was difficult to close one’s eyes.
In the stillness of the late hours, Li Wei pushed open the door to her room. Moonlight and starlight spilled in like silver water. He stood within it, stars seeming to rest on his shoulders, moonlight reflected in his eyes. He stepped in, luminous like the moon itself, tossed her bundle onto the bed, and said, “The night wind is cold. Change into something suitable. We’re leaving.”
She asked, “Where are we going?”
Li Wei replied, “I’m taking you to the place you want to go.”
She quickly changed clothes and rushed out. Li Wei was already waiting outside with two horses. He gestured for silence, and the two of them quietly slipped out of the Yan household, heading north along a desolate path.
Chun Tian grew uneasy. “Where are we going?”
“To the north. There’s a river called the Hulu River. We need to cross it before dawn, slip past Yumen Pass.”
“You’ve left, then what about Uncle Yan and Aunt Yan? And what about Changliu?”
Li Wei swung onto his horse. “I left a letter with the Yan family, asking them to pass it to Lu Mingyue. Let Changliu stay at her house a little longer. If the journey goes smoothly, we’ll be back in two or three months.” He paused for a moment, then added quietly, “After sending you off this time, I’ll never take up the reins again. I’ll stay home and accompany him properly.”
She was the last caravan he would ever escort–just one person, one horse, yet unlike any before.
Chun Tian rummaged through her bundle, then finally pulled out all the silver she had and held it out to him. “Da-ye, this is all the money I have.”
Li Wei threw his head back and laughed heartily.
The two of them rode under the moonlight. It was a night so intoxicating she had never seen anything like it. The land stretched barren and cold, wind howling across it. The sky above was like a sheet of glazed glass, gray tinted with blue. The moon hung vast and bright as a suspended lamp; as if she could make out Chang’e’s palace, Wu Gang’s laurel tree–clear and distinct. The stars were piercing in their brilliance, scattered across the sky in clusters, as if within arm’s reach.
From then on, such a dazzling night lived on in all her dreams–days, months, years, even a lifetime–never fading.
TN: Hope everyone is doing well! And their journey begins! Have a great week ❤
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