The instant the door was braced shut, Chen Wuya heard a dull crack from his ribs. He slid down the wall to the floor, one hand still clamped tightly over the bamboo slip against his chest. It was still burning hot, like a coal freshly raked from the stove. The footsteps outside stopped. No one broke in, and no one spoke again. Only the wind squeezed through the crack beneath the door, carrying the lingering warmth of the crimson light atop the distant mountain.
He took several ragged breaths and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. His fingertips brushed the split in his lip, and pain flared hot and sharp. The room was dim. Bai Zhi lay in the straw pile in the corner, breathing so faintly that her chest barely rose and fell. He wanted to crawl over and check on her, but the moment he moved, the turbulent current inside him surged up again. The taste of blood filled his throat, and he could only grit his teeth and endure it.
The silence outside was unnaturally deep. The pursuers should not have given up so easily.
He stared at the patch of mud visible through the gap in the door and suddenly noticed something wrong—when those black-clad men had leaped onto the rocks across the way, loose stones from their soles had scattered there. Now, though, the edge of one stone had shifted slightly, as if someone had lightly stepped on it. He narrowed his eyes and was about to take a closer look when an exceedingly soft cough came from outside.
Not an assassin.
Old Wu Tou.
The cough was dry and slow, hoarse with years—the exact same cough as the old man who always squatted by the well in the refugee camp, smoking