Qin's Moon: Yang Shi's Long Song

The backyard of the general's mansion was quieter than he had imagined.

When Yang Hui climbed over the outer wall, he chose a spot in the shade of an old locust tree. There were no night patrols inside the wall—Han Fei's intelligence was correct; Ji Wuye had gone to the main camp outside the city, and with the mansion lacking its leader, the guard density was 20% lower than usual. He walked twenty steps along the wall and found the side room.

The door to the side room wasn't locked. When he pushed it open, the hinges creaked very softly, but the sound carried by the night wind didn't disturb anyone. Several broken wooden crates were piled inside, covered in dust. He crouched down and tapped the floor three times near the corner of the wall with his finger—listening for the echo. The second and third taps sounded different; there was a hollow sound underneath.

He found the crack in the floor.

He inserted his fingers into the crack and pulled upwards. The floorboards were movable; the entire piece was lifted up, revealing a stone staircase leading downwards. A chill rose from below, hitting his face with a dry cold—not the damp cold of winter, but the kind of cold that "no one has been here for a long time," like air sealed deep in a cellar for ten years.

He placed the floorboard aside and descended the stone steps. The floorboard behind him closed in above his head, completely shutting out the moonlight. The ground was pitch black, with only a dim yellow light shining from the corner at the end of the stone steps—an oil lamp, hanging on an iron frame on the wall, its flame flickering slightly, as if someone had just passed by.

He paused. He listened intently for three breaths. There were no footsteps, no breathing. Only the faint crackling of the lamplight, and the distant sound of dripping water—drip, drip, drip, at perfectly even intervals, like the ticking of a water clock.

First floor.

He walked down twelve steps close to the wall, rounded a bend, and the passageway widened, revealing iron-barred cells on both sides. They were empty. Some doors were open, some locked, but no one was inside. The cells looked long abandoned; dust covered the floor, and rotten straw piled in the corners.

At the end of the passageway was a door. A wooden door, but on either side of the doorframe stood a jailer—leaning against the wall, not in a guard's posture, but in a dozing posture. One had his head tilted to the side, the other his head bowed, the swords at their waists hanging loosely, as if they hadn't been drawn in a long time.

Yang Hui counted them. There were twenty people divided into three shifts, and only these two were on duty this shift. The other eighteen were resting in the guardhouse at the back. Half a cup of tea had already been used up during the shift change. He needed to pass between these two people without disturbing them, without making a sound, and without leaving any trace.

He didn't draw his sword. The sound of a sword being drawn—even a faint one—would be amplified in the utter silence of the passageway. He chose a different method.

He took off his shoes. Barefoot on the stone ground, he landed on his toes first with each step, then slowly lowered his foot to the ground. He moved sideways, hugging the shadow of the door frame, so that the two jailers' bodies blocked each other's view of the other side. He held his breath as low as possible, and as he passed the door frame, he narrowed his shoulders slightly, sliding through the gap of less than a foot and a half.

past.

The two jailers behind him didn't react. One shifted his position against the wall, the other smacked his lips and continued sleeping. He put on his shoes and continued walking. The stone steps led down to the second level. The air was colder than on the first level, and a thin layer of frost began to appear on the walls, icy to the touch. The number of oil lamps had decreased, with only one every ten steps, their light dim as if shrouded in mist.

The passageway on the second floor was narrower than the first. The sides were no longer cells, but solid stone walls, with only one passageway extending forward in the middle. After walking twenty steps, he saw the "blind spot for crossbowmen" marked on Han Fei's map—the base of the eastern wall, where those under six feet tall could avoid it.

He stopped there, leaned against the wall, and crouched down. He was exactly six feet tall, and when he crouched, his head was slightly lower than the base of the wall. About ten paces ahead of him, four crossbowmen stood in four different positions in the passageway—two facing the entrance, two with their backs to him. He couldn't see them all, but he could hear their breathing—even, steady, the breathing of someone sleeping while standing.

He waited three breaths. Then he moved. In the brief moment when one of the crossbowmen was reloading, he slid along the eastern wall, crouching low as he quickly passed through the exposed passage. He didn't look at the crossbowman's face, nor in anyone's direction. His gaze was fixed solely on the exit ahead—the bronze door of the third level. He passed through the second level with only one thought in mind: "Don't make a sound." When he stood up again, he was at the end of the passage, facing a bronze door, dark, cold, and covered with a thick layer of white frost. A thin layer of transparent ice froze at the hinges, and visible chill seeped from the cracks—the third level, he had arrived.

The four crossbowmen behind him remained motionless. He made it through.

He faced the bronze door and regulated his breathing. Han Fei had said that this door couldn't be split open with a sword; it needed to be heated with fire before prying it open. He took out the iron skewer, and then took out a flint and steel from his robes. He didn't light a fire—the light would be detected by the crossbowmen on the second floor. He used another method.

He pressed his palm against the bronze door, letting the warmth of his hand "heat" the hinge. His body heat, the warmth of a human body, slowly transferred through the cold bronze surface. The thin ice melted, very slowly, but he wasn't in a hurry. After a short while, the thin ice at the hinge had turned into a film of water. He inserted an iron skewer into the crack and found the gap where the flat end of the skewer fit perfectly. Then, using about 60% of his strength, he pried it down.

The bronze door emitted a deep, muffled "creak"—like an old man slowly exhaling a long-simmering breath from his chest. The door opened, just a crack, enough for him to squeeze through sideways.

Behind the door was another passageway. This passageway was shorter than the two above it—about ten steps. At the end of the passageway, he saw the stone chamber.

A chill swept out of the stone chamber, instantly freezing the sweat on his cheeks into a thin frost. Icicles hung from the walls of the chamber, and the floor was covered in white frost. In the very center stood a huge, transparent ice coffin.

A woman lay in the ice coffin.

She wore a tattered red dress, the sleeves held down by ice, flaring out at her sides. Her face was deathly pale—not the pale of an ordinary person, but the kind of pale that comes from being "frozen for ten years," her skin as thin as paper. Her long hair lay scattered on the ice, like ink poured into water. Her lips were the only color—a strange crimson, like a frozen flame, solidified on her lips. On each of her wrists was a dark gold chain, extending from the sides of the ice coffin and embedded deep within the stone walls, the chains covered with intricate runes that emitted a faint blue glow.

Yang Hui stood at the entrance of the stone chamber, gazing at the ice coffin. He heard his own breathing echo between the stone walls. He heard a heartbeat—not his, but coming from inside the ice coffin. Extremely slow, extremely faint, like the occasional flicker of a candle about to burn out. She was still alive. Frozen for ten years, she was still alive.

He took off the Heaven-Asking Sword and held it in his hand.

The black sword trembled slightly in his palm—as if sensing something, as if it had awakened. He looked down at the Heaven-Asking Sword, then up at the ice coffin. He uttered a very soft sentence, so soft that only he could hear it: "I'm too late."

Then he walked toward the ice coffin.