Chen Wuya pushed open the shack door, the shard of pottery still pressed against his palm, its chill not yet faded. Without looking at the three of them, he went straight to the water jar in the corner, ladled out a bowl of clean water, and set it on the table.
The young man stared at the bowl, his throat bobbing once. The woman lowered her head, twisting the hem of her clothes between her fingers. The older man sat against the wall with his eyelids drooping, as if he had fallen asleep again.
"The letter has been buried in the dry well." Chen Wuya spoke quietly. "They'll send someone to retrieve it tonight."
No one answered.
"Your 'temporary suspension of operations' sounded perfectly reasonable." He leaned against the edge of the table and sat down. "But do you know what's most absurd? They won't suspect the order itself. They'll only suspect the people who delivered it."
The woman's shoulders trembled faintly.
"For example, why were you the ones insisting on a retreat? Were you afraid of death? Had you wavered?" Chen Wuya smiled. "In their eyes, spies aren't people. They're tools. Tools aren't supposed to make judgments; they're only supposed to carry out orders. The moment you start thinking for them, you become a liability."
The young man abruptly raised his head. "What about you? Aren't you using us too?"
"Of course I am." Chen Wuya nodded. "But the way I use you is by letting you decide for yourselves whether you want to be used."
He paused. "Last night, you wrote the false order because I forced you to. But if I asked you today, 'Are you still willing to write one?' and your answer was different, that would be the beginning of your submission."
The older man opened his eyes. "You think we'll believe you?"
"I don't need you to believe me." Chen Wuya rose and walked over to the young man. "I need you to see one thing clearly: the foreign tribes never give anyone a choice. Say you won't deliver a message, and your family dies. Say you want to see the general, and you're silenced on the spot. But me? I can lock you up right now, or I can let you go."
He looked at the three of them. "But you can't go anywhere, can you? The border is under tight scrutiny, there are hostages in the villages, and their eyes are everywhere outside. Escape? Where would you run?"
The young man clenched his teeth and said nothing.
"I'm no righteous hero, and I don't preach lofty ideals." Chen Wuya turned toward the door. "I'm just a good-for-nothing driven out of an academy, a man who's survived this long by relying on crooked arguments. But even so, I was able to carve out a path for myself. What about you? Three years, five years, ten years—will you keep serving as expendable material, waiting until the day they're done with you and toss you aside?"
He pulled the door open. Sunlight poured in, spilling across the three faces.
"At this time tomorrow, I'll arrange for you to be housed separately. Those who should die will die, and those who should be kept will be kept." With that, he stepped outside.
The door closed behind him, and the shack remained silent for a long while.
Deep into the night, when the oil lamp was nearly extinguished, the woman suddenly said in a low voice, "My son... he's only six."
No one responded.
Her voice trembled. "They're keeping him in a settlement in East Valley. Once a month, they make me deliver a message, and then they let him eat his fill once. If I don't go... they say he's fallen ill, and a few days later, they say he died in an accident."
The young man slowly raised his head.
"Last winter, my husband fell off a cliff while transporting grain." She gripped the hem of her clothes tightly. "They said the snowy road was slippery, but I know... he was trying to escape. He fled thirty li, but they still caught up with him."
The young man's fists slowly tightened.
"And me?" the older man suddenly spoke. "I was once a centurion in the frontier army's Scout Camp. In that battle, the commanding general abandoned the city, and the three hundred of us stayed behind to cover the retreat. The entire army was wiped out, and I was captured. They gave me two choices: die, or work for them. I refused. The next day, my wife and children's names appeared on the list of the fallen."
He gave a bitter laugh. "They didn't even leave their corpses behind."
The young man suddenly stood and paced back and forth around the shack. His breathing grew faster and faster. At last, he stopped by the wall and drove his fist into the earthen bricks.
"I started delivering messages when I was sixteen!" His voice was hoarse. "I thought I was serving the Northern Lands, helping them defend the border! Only later did I realize that we were hurting people! Every time intelligence got sent out, villages were burned and civilians were taken away! But I didn't dare stop... My parents are still back home. As long as I disobey for even one day, they won't have a moment's peace!"
He turned around, his eyes reddened. "You think we don't want to escape? We dream of it! But where could you run? The world is vast, but who would believe a spy? Who would dare take us in?"
Silence fell over the shack.
No one knew how long passed before the young man went to the door and pounded on it twice.
"Open up!" he shouted. "We want to talk!"
Footsteps sounded outside, and the door was pushed open. Chen Wuya stood in the doorway, still holding half a coarse flatbread, as if he had just finished dinner.
"Go ahead," he said.
The young man stared at him. "We're willing to submit."
Chen Wuya did not move.
"Not because we're afraid of death." The young man's voice sank. "It's because you were right. We aren't subordinates. We're expendable material. But you gave us a chance—to choose for ourselves."
The woman rose. "My son... is still in their hands. But I don't want to work for them anymore. Even if I can't save him in the end, I can't go on harming other people's children."
The older man slowly stood and cupped his fists. "This old man has clung to life for many years solely to preserve what remains of his body. Today, I'm willing to cast off my old fate and exchange it for a new path."
Chen Wuya looked at them for a long while, then turned and walked out of the shack.
The three exchanged glances.
A moment later, he returned with three cloth bundles in his hands.
"Change into these." He threw the bundles onto the ground. "Burn your old clothes."
The young man lowered his head and undid his outer robe. Beneath it was a short shirt washed pale with wear. He took it off and piled it in the corner together with the belt around his waist. The woman also untied the dark shawl from her shoulders, revealing a coarse-cloth skirt beneath. When the older man took off his boots, he drew a thin blade from the lining and gently placed it on the ground.
Chen Wuya took the knife and casually thrust it into a crack in the wall.
"Starting tomorrow, you'll learn bookkeeping from me," he said. "The camp is short of people to manage affairs."
The young man blinked. "Bookkeeping?"
"You think submitting means charging into battle with a knife?" Chen Wuya laughed. "For the refugee camp to survive, someone has to manage the grain, the medicine, and who comes and goes. You know their message routes well, so we can put that knowledge to use against them."
The woman asked softly, "What if... they realize we haven't sent any messages?"
"They will." Chen Wuya nodded. "But they won't act immediately. They'll wait, investigate, and test you. That stretch of time is our opportunity."
He looked at the three of them. "The way you used to send messages, you'll now teach others how to counter it. Every road you've traveled and every contact point you remember will become part of the defensive line."
The young man suddenly asked, "Will you trust us?"
Chen Wuya looked at him. "Whether I trust you or not isn't important. What matters is that you've already made your choice. From this moment on, you're neither traitors nor surrendered captives. You're people of the refugee camp."
At daybreak, several people had already gathered on the open ground.
Chen Wuya led the three of them out of the shack. Old Wu Tou stood not far away, leaning on his cane, and silently handed over three bowls of rice porridge.
He took one bowl and handed it to the young man.
"This bowl is my treat," he told those around them.
The crowd fell silent for a moment.
A child rose onto his toes and asked, "Aren't they bad people?"
Chen Wuya lowered his head and looked at the child. "They were yesterday. They aren't today."
Some people murmured quietly, but no one stepped forward to stop them.
The woman held the bowl, her fingertips trembling faintly. Steam rose from it, blurring her vision.
The older man took a sip of porridge and suddenly felt his throat burning.
Chen Wuya stood in the middle of the open ground and said no more. He knew that trust was not built with a single sentence. But the first step had already been taken.
Old Wu Tou walked over to him and said in a low voice, "The fishing boats from Donglin Ferry Crossing docked half an hour ago."
Chen Wuya nodded. "Let's go take a look."
The two walked side by side toward the edge of the camp. As they passed the cooking tent, a corner of the curtain lifted, and a flour-dusted hand withdrew.
Chen Wuya did not slow his steps.
But his right hand quietly slid into his sleeve and once again closed around the shard of pottery.
Its edge was still sharp. Pressed against his palm, it carried that familiar chill.
Ahead, several villagers were gathered around a newly dug well, discussing where it should be placed. The young man followed behind them, pointing at some spot and saying something. The woman carried a wooden basin toward the washing area, her steps far steadier than yesterday. The older man stood before the grain store, flipping through an old ledger with a slight frown.
Chen Wuya stopped.
Old Wu Tou asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing." He said, "I just think crooked arguments are sometimes more effective than righteous ones."
Old Wu Tou did not laugh. He merely nodded.
In the distance, a man in an ordinary short jacket entered the camp carrying a shoulder pole. Faint traces of a hidden compartment could be seen beneath the baskets.
Chen Wuya watched the man and said softly, "Wait for him to come see me on his own."
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