Yang Da Investigates

The sound of hoofbeats rolled in from the far end of the village road. At first it was distant, mingling with the evening insects, too faint to make out clearly.

Before long, it grew closer and more urgent. Three swift horses charged into Three Trees Village in a cloud of yellow dust. Dirt billowed onto the fences lining the road, choking several households into slamming their doors shut.

Several men squatting at the village entrance shelling peanuts scattered the shells in their hands all over the ground.

One craned his neck to look down the road. The moment he saw the rider leading the charge, his knees went weak.

"Yang Da!"

"Yang Da's back!"

"He came back on horseback, with a face as black as the bottom of a pot!"

As word spread, everyone along the village road ducked their heads.

A woman holding a child stole a glance from behind her kitchen door, then hurriedly retreated.

Aunt Zhang grabbed Zhang Xiaohu by the ear and scolded him under her breath. "What are you looking at? Is this something you can gawk at? Get inside!"

Zhang Xiaohu bared his teeth in pain but dared not make a sound.

An old hen had barely flapped twice before the hoofbeats frightened it back into its coop.

Three Trees Village was usually as noisy as a stall full of cracked gongs, but now it was as though someone had seized it by the throat.

The villagers knew Yang Da had returned to avenge Yang Er. They dreaded being dragged into it and bringing death upon themselves.

At the village entrance, Yang Shuqing swung down from his horse.

He wore the black uniform of the County Office, a saber hanging across his waist. Dust and mud from the journey coated his boots, and his whole face was taut and livid.

Years of service at the County Office had worn away much of his peasant roughness, but now all the savagery beneath that official skin had surfaced.

Behind him, Zhao Si carried a chain, while Ma Liu kept a hand on his saber hilt.

Neither spoke.

The more silent they were, the more frightening they became.

Zhao Si glanced toward a gap in a nearby door.

The face behind it vanished in a flash, and the bolt slid home with a clack.

Yang Shuqing paid it no attention and led the two straight to the village chief's home.

Village Chief Yang Shuyu was drinking porridge.

He had just lifted a bowl of coarse rice porridge to his lips when someone ran up outside the courtyard and shouted, "Village Chief! Constable Yang's back!"

Clatter.

The porridge bowl nearly slipped to the floor.

Most of the color drained from Yang Shuyu's face, and even his beard trembled. He set the bowl on the table and rushed to the door without bothering to finish fastening his clothes.

By the time Yang Shuqing stepped through the courtyard gate, Yang Shuyu had forced out a smile uglier than tears.

"C-Constable Yang, you're back..."

Yang Shuqing did not even look at that smiling face before asking,

"Where's the body?"

He squeezed the words out between his teeth.

Sweat sprang out across Yang Shuyu's back at the question.

"At... at Second Master's house. No one in the village dared touch it. We've been waiting for you to return and deal with it!"

"Lead the way."

"Yes, yes."

Yang Shuyu bent low as he led them onward, his legs so unsteady that he nearly tripped over the threshold.

The courtyard gate at Yang Er's house was still half closed.

When they pushed it open, a strange stench of sour wine and decay, fermented by the stifling summer heat, struck them head-on. Ma Liu wrinkled his nose and nearly vomited up the dry flatbread he had eaten the night before.

Flies swarmed through the room, buzzing around the Grand Tutor Chair.

Yang Er still lay there.

In the midsummer weather, his corpse had already bloated. Half his face had swollen dark green, the wound across his neck had crusted black and red, and the broad bloodstains on his clothes had stiffened and darkened.

His eyes were still open.

Wide open.

As though waiting for someone to collect his debt.

Yang Shuqing stood just inside the threshold without moving for a long time.

Zhao Si and Ma Liu withdrew into the courtyard, even keeping their breathing quiet.

Yang Shuyu lowered his head so far it nearly buried itself in his chest. He dared not utter a single word.

Only the beating of flies' wings remained in the room.

Yang Shuqing walked up to the Grand Tutor Chair and looked down at his younger brother.

This fat, greedy, foul-mouthed, good-for-nothing bastard was his brother.

As a child, he had clung to Yang Shuqing's arm and cried when he was hungry.

When thunder sounded at night, he had crawled under Yang Shuqing's ragged quilt, calling for his big brother.

Even after growing into this rotten excuse for a man, he was still his brother.

Outsiders could curse him all they liked.

But outsiders could not kill him.

Yang Shuqing reached out and slowly closed Yang Er's eyes.

His fingers trembled when their pads touched the stiffened flesh.

"Your big brother came too late."

His voice was so low that even Zhao Si outside the door could not make out the words.

Yang Shuqing bent down and picked up the Black Iron Token beside the Grand Tutor Chair.

The Command Token was heavy. A crooked character meaning "evil" marked its front, while nine ghostly faces bared their teeth on the back.

He examined it three times, scraping his nail along the cast markings at its edge.

It was genuine.

Tokens of the Nine Evil Sect had been confiscated and stored in the County Office's storeroom. He had seen them more than once.

The iron, the patterns, the depth of the engraved ghost faces-all matched.

Yang Shuqing held the Command Token in his palm and crouched to inspect the wound.

A single stroke had cleanly slit the neck from left to right, angling slightly upward.

The killer was either shorter than Yang Er or had lowered their body when striking.

As for the slashes across his chest, the blade had followed curved paths at vicious angles. They did bear traces of those lunatics from the Nine Evil Sect.

Yet the longer Yang Shuqing looked, the deeper his brow furrowed.

It all fit too neatly, as though someone had chewed his food for him and delivered it straight to his mouth.

He tucked the Command Token inside his robe, turned, and went outside.

Yang Shuyu hurried up to meet him, rubbing his hands rapidly as sweat streamed down his temples.

"Constable Yang, this matter... no one in the village would dare get involved in this."

Yang Shuqing stared at him.

"Talk. Everything before and after the body was found. Don't leave out a single word."

Yang Shuyu dared conceal nothing. He told him everything: Zhang Xiaoshan had come that morning to collect the food box, found the door open, entered the room, and seen the corpse, with the Command Token lying beside the chair.

He stammered through the account, nearly biting his tongue several times.

After listening, Yang Shuqing asked, "Who had Yang Er made enemies of while he was alive?"

Yang Shuyu's face twitched.

That question could get someone killed. Who hadn't Yang Er made an enemy of?

He had stolen chickens, seized firewood, forced people to sell their fields, harassed widows, and refused to pay his wine debts. Even the old dog at the village entrance had taken a kick from him.

If they really made a list, half of Three Trees Village would end up on the paper.

Yang Shuyu's lips moved, but for a long while he could not squeeze out a word.

Remembering his younger brother's temperament, Yang Shuqing did not press him further and changed the question.

"What about Wang Yue?"

As though granted a pardon, Yang Shuyu hurriedly recounted the expedition to kill the snake on Greenwood Mountain.

Wang Yue had led men up the mountain, accompanied by the hunter Yang Dongxi, and had specifically demanded that Yi Yang come along.

They encountered the snake halfway up.

Afterward, only Yi Yang returned.

When Zhou Liang took hunters up the mountain, they found several corpses, along with snake blood, human blood, and a jumble of footprints.

As for Wang Yue, his whereabouts were unknown.

At this point, Yang Shuyu stole a glance at Yang Shuqing. Seeing that he had not erupted in anger, he added quietly, "Old Yi said the snake swept him down the slope. He was unconscious all night and only climbed back after daybreak."

Yang Shuqing's pupils contracted.

Yi Yang-the old woodcutter his younger brother had mentioned in his letter.

The only person who had returned from the mountain alive.

Those words began turning over in his mind.

Wang Yue had gone up the mountain ostensibly to kill the snake, but his true purpose lay elsewhere.

In that letter to Yang Da, Yang Er had mentioned purplewood, as well as Yi Yang.

Outsiders should not have known about this.

Now Yang Er was dead, Wang Yue was missing, and the purplewood was nowhere to be seen.

Yet Yi Yang was alive.

And then there was the Nine Evil Sect Command Token.

Yang Shuqing tapped his saber hilt twice.

People from the Nine Evil Sect came to Three Trees Village to kill Yang Er?

What for? To feast on all that fat with their wine?

Bullshit.

But the Command Token was genuine, and the blade marks matched too.

At first glance, it looked like the work of an evil sect. On closer inspection, however, there were plenty of things that did not add up.

Yang Shuqing suppressed his doubts. "Take me to that old woodcutter."

Inside the Yi Family Courtyard.

Yi Yang reclined in a wicker chair, a battered fan covering his chest. His eyes were half closed, and his face wore the frailty of someone recovering from illness.

Someone knocked at the courtyard gate.

Knock, knock.

Yi Yang moved the fan aside and braced himself against the wicker chair to stand, deliberately making his knees crack twice.

When the gate opened, Yang Shuqing stood outside.

Zhao Si held his chain, and Ma Liu rested a hand on his saber. The two County Office runners blocked the space behind him like door gods.

At the sight of the three men, Yi Yang first stiffened, then hurriedly tried to bow.

"C-Constable Yang?"

His voice was hoarse, his breath weak, and his waist bent like an old shrimp.

"I heard you were back and was just wondering what we should do about what happened on the mountain. It truly wasn't that I refused to help that day. I nearly lost my own life..."

Yang Shuqing raised a hand to cut him off.

"We'll talk inside."

He stepped into the courtyard, his gaze sweeping over the wicker chair, the woodpile, the dry, cracked plaster, and the coarse pottery bowl beneath the old locust tree.

Poor.

Everything in this courtyard cried poverty.

So poor it hardly seemed worth suspecting him.

What great abilities could an almost sixty-year-old woodcutter conceal, living in a shabby courtyard like this and eating coarse rice and wild greens?

Zhao Si looked at the woodcutting blade in the corner, then at Yi Yang's withered frame, and let out a soft breath through his nose.

Ma Liu, however, did not relax. He stood by the courtyard gate, blocking the way out.

Yang Shuqing did not sit. Standing in the courtyard, he looked down at Yi Yang and asked,

"Old Man Yi, tell me again what happened on the mountain that day."

Yi Yang nodded repeatedly, still holding the back of the chair, and spoke as though recalling the events.

"Constable Wang ordered me to lead the way that day. How could an old man like me dare refuse? When we reached halfway up the mountain, that snake... oh, that snake was frighteningly thick. One sweep of its tail snapped trees."

He patted his chest, making the lingering terror on his face look real-more real than the real thing.

"Constable Wang and the others rushed up to fight it, while I hid behind them. Then the beast went mad and charged toward me. My legs were slow, and I couldn't dodge. It sent me tumbling down the slope."

"Where did you fall?"

"Below the shaded slope. There was a crooked tree there, and I crashed beside its roots."

"What was the sky like when you woke up?"

"Just getting light. The birds had only started calling. My head was muddled, and my whole body hurt like it was falling apart. I called out a few times, but no one answered, so I climbed up along the grass and vines."

"Did you hear any fighting in between?"

"No."

Yi Yang wore a miserable expression. "After I passed out, I knew nothing. When I woke, the mountain was so quiet it chilled my bones. I thought I'd reached the underworld."

At this point, he lowered his voice again.

"Constable Yang, to tell you the truth, while I was unconscious, I even dreamed that Black and White Impermanence came calling my name. I'm no good with words, so I didn't dare answer. Heh, I didn't answer, and I lived."

Yang Shuqing offered no opinion on ghosts or spirits. He asked about several finer details.

Yi Yang answered them all.

Some answers came slowly, and others required a long stretch of recollection, but his account held together from beginning to end.

He looked exactly as an old man still shaken out of his wits ought to look.

Even his fear came with a countryman's rambling mutters.

Yang Shuqing studied him: a gaunt body, graying hair.

Deep wrinkles, and calluses covering the backs of his hands.

His legs were still trembling.

If this man could truly have woven a scheme around Wang Yue, the giant snake, and the Nine Evil Sect, then he was no old woodcutter, but an old fox that had cultivated into a spirit deep in the mountains.

Then again, strange things were what this world had in greatest supply.

Yang Shuqing nodded, signaling that the questioning was over. "Old Man Yi, thank you for your trouble."

Yi Yang hastily waved his hands. "No, no, you needn't thank me. This old man's life is worth little. Coming back alive was already more than I could ask."

"I'll go and look at that snake on the mountain myself. Wang Yue was one of my men. There has to be an accounting."

Yang Shuqing turned and headed out.

At the courtyard gate, he stopped again and glanced back at Yi Yang.

"If you remember anything, come find me at the Village Chief's house."

Yi Yang bowed even lower. "Rest assured, Constable Yang. If this old man remembers so much as half a word, I'll crawl over to report it if I have to."

Yang Shuqing said nothing more and left with Zhao Si and Ma Liu.

The three walked along the village road toward the Village Chief's house. Once they had passed the stretch of earthen wall outside the Yi Family Courtyard, Zhao Si slowed half a step and edged closer.

"Chief, are we just letting that old man off?"

He kept his voice low, the chain swaying gently in his hand.

"Of everyone who went up the mountain that day, he was the only one who came back alive."