Nine Nights Owl Song

My name is Shen Qing. I'm from Bingzhou, an orphan, and I have no family. This is the version I tell everyone.

It's not fake, but it's not the whole truth either.

I am from Bingzhou, that's true; I am an orphan, that's true; I have no family, that's true.

But I wasn't born an orphan. I used to have a home, a father, a mother, and an older sister.

That year, Bingzhou suffered a severe drought, resulting in a complete crop failure, and my father led the whole family to flee the famine.

After walking for half a month, they ran out of dry rations, gnawed all the tree bark, and couldn't even dig up any more clay.

My mother and sister starved to death on the road. My father left me in a dilapidated temple and said, "I'll go find some food." He never came back.

I was six years old that year, and my left arm was still intact.

How did I get into the Dark Pavilion? I don't remember.

It seems I was taken away by a man in a gray robe, who gave me a steamed bun.

He said, "Come with me and you'll have steamed buns to eat every day," so I went with him.

For a single steamed bun, I risked my life for the secret society.

It was in the training camp that I learned that in places where people eat steamed buns every day, people die every day.

Of the fifty children who survived, I was one of the five.

I crawled out of that pile of forty-five dead bodies, missing an arm.

The first person I killed was in the second month of training camp. A boy three years older than me snatched my steamed bun, and I shoved his head into a water tank.

He struggled for a long time, splashing water all over my face, but I didn't let go of his hand.

Once he stopped moving, I let go, dragged his body out of the water vat, picked up the water-soaked steamed bun, and ate it.

The steamed buns are sweet, the water is salty, and the blood is fishy.

That was the first time I killed someone, not the last.

Number Eight was the most inconspicuous person in the training camp.

Thinner than everyone else, shorter than everyone else, and more silent than everyone else.

She huddled in the corner of the shed every day, like a stone, and no one paid any attention to her.

I noticed her because the way she looked at people was different. It wasn't fear or wariness; it was something I'd never seen in anyone's eyes before—emptiness.

There was nothing in her eyes, like two dry wells, like the abandoned villages I passed through when I fled famine in Bingzhou—no one, no sound, nothing at all.

A seven-year-old child's eyes should reflect fear, curiosity, and the light of wanting to live.

She didn't. She had nothing.

The day I delivered the medicine to her, it wasn't the butcher who asked me to; I went by myself.

She killed her partner in the mine and returned alone.

According to the rules of the Dark Pavilion, anyone who returns alone will be watched.

I want to tell her, but I'm not sure if she'll listen.

She listened, but didn't say thank you or ask why.

I still remember the way she took her medicine.

The medicine was bitter, dark in color, and had an unpleasant smell. She picked it up, tilted her head back, and gulped it down without even flinching. After finishing, she put the empty bowl back on the table with swift and decisive movements.

She must have killed people in the same way—swift, decisive, and without hesitation.

I knew then that she would be the one who lived the longest among our group.

Because she was neither afraid of death nor afraid of living.

I knew she left the Dark Pavilion.

That night, she came out of the stone house, carrying her bundle, and walked down the mountain.

I watched her from afar along the mountain road of Cangwu Mountain, unaware of her presence.

She doesn't need to know; she's used to being alone, and having someone else watching over her would feel like a burden.

After leaving the Dark Pavilion, I went to the Northern Border.

I served as a soldier in the Yanyun Iron Cavalry for a year and killed many people in the northern border.

He saved up some money, bought a sword, and started living the life of a lone wolf.

Kill corrupt officials, kill tyrants, kill those who deserve to die. Sometimes it's a midnight infiltration, sometimes it's broad daylight, and sometimes it's an infiltration disguised as the target's closest confidant.

I've been killing alone for many years.

Pedestrians walked past me on the street without giving me a second glance.

A young man with a missing left arm, wearing a faded gray cloth robe and carrying a long sword wrapped in coarse cloth, walked on the street of Chongrenfang.

Such people are not uncommon in Luoyang.

No one knows who I am, no one knows how many people I have killed.

No one knows that I came to Luoyang today to find someone.

The informant in the Dark Pavilion said she returned to the Marquis of Dingyuan's mansion, became the legitimate daughter, and became the head of the pavilion.

I'm not sure if she still remembers me. We didn't exchange more than ten sentences in the training camp. She might not even have forgotten my number.

I waited for her for three days at the alleyway behind the City God Temple.

It wasn't a matter of waiting passively; an informant from the Dark Pavilion said she passed by this place almost every morning.

She didn't come on the first day, but she came after a short while on the second day, and finally on the third day.

She emerged from the alleyway, wearing a lotus-colored cotton robe, her hair tied up with a white jade hairpin, and a narrow-bladed straight knife hanging at her waist.

She no longer looked like an assassin; she looked like a person, a living person. Her eyes were different too; they were no longer empty, but filled with something, something more solid than hardness.

Like a piece of iron that has been burned, quenched in water, and hammered countless times, it has finally become what it was meant to be.

I call her "Number Eight".

The training camp number was the only connection between us. She didn't correct me, nor did she say, "My name is Su Jiuge now" or "Call me Pavilion Master."

She just looked at me, just like she did seven years ago when she watched me walk in with a bowl of medicine outside the mine, without saying a word, without surprise, and without looking away.

I asked a lot of questions.

I asked her if she had become the head of the pavilion, and she said yes.

I asked her if she had returned to the Marquis of Dingyuan's mansion as the legitimate daughter, and she said yes.

I asked her if she had killed Chen Beixuan of the Blood Hall and destroyed the Blood Hall, and she said yes.

Her answer was concise, to the point, and exactly the same as it was seven years ago.

It has changed, yet it hasn't.

What has changed is her eyes; what remains unchanged is her silence.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked.

I looked into her eyes, those eyes that had once been empty.

She waited a long time for my answer.

The Dark Pavilion is recruiting. The new rule is not to kill the innocent, not to harm the loyal and good, and not to do anything unjust.

The deputy leader is Ghost Hand, I know him. He's a veteran top assassin of the Dark Pavilion, the former head of the training camp. He's not a good person, but he's not bad either. That's what she said.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked.

I told her my real name and handed her the sword.

The ceremony of recognizing the sword as its master involved handing it over with the hilt facing forward, waiting for its return. Su Jiuge. She took the sword, examined it, then returned it to me, saying a few words.

The first sentence is "From today onwards you are a member of the Dark Pavilion," and the second sentence is "Let's go back to the Marquis's residence and have dumplings on the first day of the New Year."

Dumplings. On the first day of the New Year, she treated me to dumplings.

No one has ever treated me to dumplings in my entire life.

When I was in Bingzhou, my family was so poor that we couldn't even afford dumplings for the New Year. When I was in Ange, we did have dumplings for the New Year, but I didn't like them. Eating dumplings alone was meaningless; it felt like I was just completing a task.

Today is different. Today, someone treated me to dumplings, in a place that feels like home.

Dumplings made by the Shen family.

She ate a large plate, and I ate two plates.

As Shen watched me eat, she smiled and said, "This child is starving," and gave me another plate.

Su Jiuge glanced at me, said nothing, and pushed the dish of vinegar in front of her toward me.

She knows I like to dip things in vinegar; she mentioned it once during training camp, and she remembered it.

From today onwards, I have a family.

They are not family in the blood sense, but in a different way.

Someone to eat dumplings with, someone who remembers you like to dip them in vinegar.

Su Jiuge walked in front, and I walked behind, always keeping a distance of three steps.

Not too far, not too close, just enough for me to stand in front of her in a moment of crisis.

She doesn't need me to block her; she's much stronger than me. But I still maintain this distance; it's my rule.

The first day of the first month of the eighteenth year of Yong'an.

The Dark Pavilion gained a top-notch assassin, the Marquis of Dingyuan gained a new diner, and Shen Qing gained a new home.

These three "more"s all refer to the same thing.

The New Year's sun shines on the city of Luoyang.

Su Jiuge was walking home, and I followed behind her. The shadow in front was short, and the shadow behind was long; the two shadows walked side by side on the bluestone slabs.

She didn't turn around, and I kept watching her back.

Seven years ago, she lost the last person she trusted in the mine, and from that day on, she never trusted anyone again.

Today, she reached out her hand to me, not saying "Come to the Dark Pavilion," but "Are you coming or not?" She was asking for my opinion.

This is trust; she's willing to trust again.

I won't let her regret it.