忍痛割愛
Rěntòng gē'ài
Part with what you treasure.
Part reluctantly with what one treasures.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kageyama had seen many bodies in his lifetime. Those who had fallen in war, or passed with old age. He had grown accustomed to death, or at least to how to deal with it. But it was still never pleasant.

The eyes of the corpse, as it lay on the grass of the canal side, looked to the heavens. The pupils and irises alike were cloudy white, as though the color had been washed out by the river.

Death washes the detail from our lives. The line of forgotten poetry slipped through Kageyama's mind and away.

"Male. Fourth or fifth decade of life." The green king's soldiers from the nearest guardhouse had been summoned, and the doctor assigned to the unit was now squatting beside the body. "I can tell little without his fingers, but I suspect from his palms he was a farmer at one point. He was severely malnourished though, and his clothes mere rags. Most likely one of the many refugees fleeing famine in the central regions."

The doctor lifted the corpse's wrist. The sawn off stubs where the fingers had been were black circles on transparent flesh. "The fingers were most likely removed prior to death, as you suspected Lord Kageyama. There are no signs of a struggle or of restraint, so some sort of drug was used to sedate him as they were removed."

"Was that the cause of death?" Sanli asked, coming to stand beside Kageyama.

"No. After removing the fingers, a blow to the back of the head was delivered. Several blows actually. It looks like the killer was too weak to kill in one hit."

Kageyama frowned. A woman perhaps, or someone inexperienced in violence.

"This is the third one this week," the doctor sighed to himself.

"The third?" asked Sanli in surprise. "How many times has this murderer struck?"

The doctor covered the bloated body with a straw mat, and nodded for the soldiers to take it away. Then he stood, wiping his hands on his medical apron before respectfully bowing to Sanli.

"Forgive me my prince, but this isn't the work of one murderer. The bodies are coming from further upstream, from the Central Lands. The rebels there have taken to this manner of execution to make an example of those who refuse to join them."

Sanli's jaw set. Kageyama reached out and discreetly squeezed his elbow.

"Is there something else, doctor?" Kageyama asked, sensing the doctor was holding something back.

The doctor's mouth wrinkled as he pondered. "Hmm, it is hard to tell exactly, but this body was not in the water as long as the others. I would say no longer than three or four days."

Kageyama glanced at Sanli, wondering if the prince realized what that meant.

"The body is from Linjing," Sanli said.

The doctor nodded. "Most likely. Though forgive me, I may be incorrect." The man bowed. "If my lords have no further questions for me, I will return to my post."

"Thank you for your information, doctor," Sanli said, and nodded the man away.

Sanli and Kageyama turned and made their way toward where Ao waited, perched by the small shrine beneath the willow tree.

Beside him, Kageyama could hear Sanli's grinding teeth. Wait... three... two...on-

"How can these rebels claim to be against the oppression of the Five Gods and then go around killing those who refuse to join them!" Sanli spat.

Kageyama sighed. "War is never pretty. There is always cruelty on both sides."

"It's disgusting," said Sanli. "And now someone is killing in Linjing? Disgusting."

Kageyama did not reply. Something was niggling at the back of his mind. Why use a sedative? Surely the rebels had strength and bonds enough to restrain one man while they tortured him.

A sedative required more expertise, more finesse. It required someone who knew how to make such things. Someone like himself, or...

They reached Ao, who stood to meet them. Kageyama noticed the statuette of the tiger in the small shrine had been knocked on its side.

"Ready for lunch?" Ao said cheerfully.

"We just pulled a dead man from the river!" said Sanli in exasperation.

"Oh. So not ready then?" asked Ao, disappointed. Sanli stomped off.

*~*~*~*~*~*

They bought a tall tack of lunch boxes from a restaurant and headed home to eat.

By the time they had returned to the house, Sanli's mood had worsened.

"What is the point of having troops if they can't do their job? What is the Golden Army doing? What is my brother doing with our own army?" he ranted to the alley walls.

They approached Kageyama's home from the alley. There was a small gateway that led from the alleyway to the courtyard. A wooden sign carved with the characters hung over the gateway, and Kageyama glanced up as they passed beneath it. 柳居. Liu Ju. Willow House. Kageyama had always refused to call it that. There were no willow trees on the property. And so the house remained nameless.

"I should have studied the martial arts, like Zhangyu. Instead I focused on magic." Sanli spat the word with hatred. "And now I know the handful of pretty spells the gods permit us to use."

Sanli's derogatory tone was nothing new. At times Kageyama had patience for it. But not now, tired and with the smell of a four day-old corpse in his nose.

"You focused on magic because it was what you are good at. And there are plenty of useful spells. Stop being dramatic," Kageyama ground out.

"I focused on magic because you didn't have the patience to teach me the sword," Sanli snapped.

"Not all the patience in the world would help me teach you the sword," Kageyama snapped back, and immediately regretted it.

Though they often joked about it, Sanli's lack of martial skill was a sensitive topic . It was not for want of ability, or trying on the prince's part. Sanli simply lacked the instinct to harm that was required for a good fighter. He could defend well, but a fight was not won on defense alone. One had to eventually attack.

Sanli's already tight jaw grew tighter. "I am sorry I am such a disappointment," he said, and then turned on his heel and marched into the house.

Kageyama sighed, bringing his hands to his temples.

"Oh my," said Ao, her voice distorted. Kageyama looked up to see she had opened the top of the lunch boxes and was popping shrimp dumplings into her mouth until her cheeks bulged. "What was that all about?"

Kageyama shook his head. "He does this. He somehow thinks the fate of the world rests on his shoulders, and then feels responsible when bad things happen."

Ao shrugged, swallowing her huge mouthful before popping another dumpling into her mouth. "Why? He is not a god. Or a king. The fate of the empire does not rest with him."

"He is a prince though," said Kageyama. "He feels he owes it to those who have less than he has."

Ao looked away, across the courtyard. Kageyama had grown accustomed to that faraway look. She is thinking of Lulin.

"Why don't you go and talk to him?" Kageyama encouraged, nodding to the house. "He won't listen to me, when he gets like this."

Ao contemplated it. Then she carefully handed the lunchboxes to Kageyama, as though they were something precious.

"I will be right back. Do not eat all the dumplings."

Kageyama nodded as he looked down at the near empty lunch box. Well, it looks like you have near eaten them all already.

Ao disappeared into the house and Kageyama's sharp ears listened to her climbing the creaking staircase.

The windows of the second floor landing were open, so he could hear her settle beside Sanli on the floor in their room.

"You do not need to follow me, I know you are hungry," Sanli grumbled.

"I am curious as to why you are so upset?" Ao asked.

"Because people are dying, and I can do nothing about it!" Sanli exclaimed.

"Why is it that the plight of those you have never met concerns you so?" Ao asked, matter of fact.

"Because I am not completely selfish like you."

Kageyama winced, setting the lunch boxes down on a bench beneath the sakura tree he had planted. Then he sat beside them.

Ao's voice stayed calm and even, despite the princes jibe. "Hmmm, is that it? Your selflessness? Or is it your guilt that drives you to do this? Guilt that you escaped the fate that so many now suffer."

"That's NOT it-" Sanli countered.

"Guilt that you lived, and your mother died."

"Shut up Ao!"

But Ao's voice continued. "How many have I survived? How many of those I care for have I buried? If I let myself be consumed by guilt that I am alive and they are not, where would I be? How would I live?"

Sanli did not reply. On the bench, Kageyama idly ran his fingers along the rough wood beneath him. A year was marked in each line of the wood grain.

"If they really loved you, as I know your mother did," Ao continued, voice even, "Those that have left will want you to live well, and happy. Not always blaming yourself for something you cannot change."

She is talking of Zakhar, Kageyama suddenly realized.

Sanli must have realized it too, for there was a pause and then: "I am sorry I spoke rudely to you, Ao."

"You should be."

"I understand what you're saying. Thank you."

Beneath the cherry tree Kageyama smiled to himself. Then he cupped one hand around his mouth and yelled up to the open second story windows.

"Oi, you two, what are you doing? Come now or I'm eating all the food!"

*~*~*~*~*~*

Thanks to Ao's intervention, Sanli was prevented from slipping into one of his brooding moods.

Kageyama hated to admit it, but he was going to miss the girl when she went.

But Kageyama knew that in order to fully avoid the dark cloud that came to settle over Sanli at times, the prince needed to be kept busy. So he assigned Sanli the time consuming task of redoing all the protective seals on the house.

"Do you want me to add a guard-dog seal?" Sanli asked, after he had finished re-inking seals on the doors and windows that prevented breaking of the locks and shutters.

Kageyama sat on the veranda, reading over a letter from one of the many information sellers he kept contact with around the Empire. "What would that entail exactly?"

"I would need to carve the initial seal somewhere in the house. And then add supplemental zih in every room. They light up when an intruder is present."

Ah, like the lanterns Sanli made for our journey north. "That sounds practical... but I don't like the idea of you wielding a chisel. I have seen too many carving related injuries."

"Ao volunteered to help with the carving."

Kageyama finally looked up from his letter. "She did? But her writing is..." Kageyama did not need to finish. They had both seen Ao's chaotic scrawl.

"Is my scribesmanship that deplorable?" Ao leaned in the doorway, dressed in the loose boyish tunic and oversized linen pants she had been wearing since they began their trip to Luzhou. "And besides, the prince will write the characters for me. I will simply carve them out."

Kageyama was uncertain. "Alright... but be careful."

"No need to worry Lord Kageyama. If I lose a finger, I have another."

That didn't sound promising.

Kageyama went back to his letter. There was little that he hadn't already learned from keeping an ear open at the markets. The rebels, supposedly vanquished over the winter, had reemerged in the Central Lands. They had begun coercing citizens, some as young as children, to join their ranks to replace their depleted numbers. The rebels had also been taking control of villages, claiming their resources as their own, and then disappearing when the Golden Army came close.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Clink. Thunk. The sound of Ao's chisel next door was rhythmic.

It could be that these remaining rebels were just fragments, their attacks random acts of violence by a group of fanatics grasping at survival. But...no... something was wrong.

Kageyama reached for a map of the Inner Empire he had beside him. Taking a writing stick, he sketched out where the pockets of resistance were.

"Here... and here...and here as well. And they have taken the bridge by Kunmi. Hmmm."

Thunk. Clink. Thunk. Thunk. In the room beside him, the sound of tools clattering to the ground followed by Sanli's laughter and then Ao's curses reached him. Kageyama ignored it. They would come to him if they needed help.

He concentrated on the map. No, the attacks were not random. They were coordinated, designed to unsettle key parts of the empire, all for the purpose of...

What? For the purpose of what? Who was the larger power coordinating these rebels? And what did they want?

"What is that a map of, Lord Kageyama?"

Kageyama looked up. Ao stood above him, dark hair falling in a curtain as she bent to study the map before him.

Kageyama quickly rolled the map up. "Nothing."

"Nothing... I see. Well, Sanli needs you." Ao nodded to the adjoining room.

Kageyama stood and followed Ao through the sliding doors. His eyes narrowed at what he saw.

"What happened here?" Kageyama said, pointing to a half finished seal that had been carved into the floor near the window.

"Ao messed up the last line of the seal, so we had to start again."

"The prince was distracting me," Ao added.

Kageyama sighed. "Nevermind, I'll put furniture over it. What do you need me for?"

"The spell needs the blood of the home owner to complete," Sanli explained, reaching for Tenzetsuto around his waist.

Kageyama nodded and held out his hand. "Will my blood work? I am mu'ren."

"It will work. I think. It is just to bind the seal to you, not to activate it." Sanli said, sounding optimistically uncertain.

Sanli carefully took Kageyama's hand in his own, and then gently drew the tip of Tenzetsuto across the softest part of Kageyama's palm. The knife was designed to absorb pain, so Kageyama felt nothing as blood beaded along the thin knife cut.

"You do not have to be so gentle, Sanli," he chuckled. "It won't hurt no matter how hard you push."

"I only need a little," Sanli reminded. He caught some of the red beads on the blade of Tenzetsuto and brought it down to the second seal they had carved into the floor.

"Are you sure you scribed it right?" Kageyama asked sticking his palm into his mouth to lick off the rest of the blood. "I don't want you blowing my house into the canal. And us with it."

"Of course we did. Right Ao? After our first mistake we were very careful."

"Very," added Ao.

Kageyama stayed to watch the completion of the seal. After checking the four lines of zih one more time, Sanli cut his own palm. Taking the wooden yinzhang around his neck, he pressed it to the welling blood, then to where the last character of the final line finished.

The carved zih came alive, lighting as though white fire were burning beneath the boards of the floor. A score of small white pieces of light separated from the glowing characters, slowly at first, then faster and faster, scurrying like bugs across the floor and disappearing through the wall and ceiling to find the other zih they were bound to throughout the house.

One of the glowing lights stayed within the room, crawling up a support beam and stopping midway. There it found the character for dog, 狗, that Sanli must have carved earlier. Like water pouring into a mold, it filled in the lines of the character. The zih glowed brightly for a moment, vivid white, and then the glow faded, and the character was just lines in the wood once more.

"All done!" said Sanli, packing up his materials, brushes and ink and ink stone.

"So, you carved these in every room eh?" Kageyama asked, looking at the roughly hewn character for dog.

"Yes! They will light up white, if someone uninvited enters the house," Sanli said.

Kageyama's finger traced the rough character. This will be harder to hide with furniture. Oh well.

Sanli put away the chisel and hammer as well. Ao began to help, sweeping up the spirals of wood she had carved out of the floor into a cupped hand, then walking to the balcony to dump them out into the canal.

Once there she paused. "What day is it today, gentlemen?" she asked, eyes on the canal. Her form was a silhouette, the evening sky behind her.

Kageyama thought. "It is the seventh month... it is the seventh day, as well?"

Sanli gasped. "Lover's night! How can we have forgotten!"

Sanli and Kageyama joined Ao on the balcony. Below in the canal, even more boats were out than usual. Lanterns hung from their prows, red, green, yellow, pink, blue, and more, causing the dark water of the canal to flicker with colors. In the boats, young people, old people, people of all ages were crowded, dressed in their festival best, laughing and eating and drinking.

Particularly noticeable were the presence of couples. Everywhere, men and women sat side-by-side, arms linked, heads bent close together to speak over the noise of the gathering celebration.

"How could we have forgotten!" Sanli said again. "Quickly, let's dress and go out!"

*~*~*~*~*~*