The third mark of the Hour of the Tiger. Two hours after the snow ceased, the cold tightened instead.
When Sun Jiu rose from his hidden sentry post, the ligaments behind his knees emitted an extremely faint, solitary muffled sound---like an old bow arm slowly resetting after being drawn taut, wood fibers groaning wearily in the depths. Forty-seven years old. Twenty-three years in the border army. His knees remembered every stone ridge, every earthen slope, every frozen tree root they had ever crouched upon. At this moment, they reminded him: these two watches tonight, too cold.
He did not stop to rub them. He merely slowed the rhythm of standing, letting blood seep back into his numb calves, one degree at a time.
The wall.
When he patrolled the eastern flank, a thin sliver of moonlight leaked through a rift in the clouds, as faint as someone striking a damp match along the rim of an inkstone---it would not ignite, only deepened the darkness.
The wall was newly raised. Yesterday at dusk, thirty-two men had filled this gap in forty-seven breaths. The stakes were two inches thicker than the old ones, their bases repeatedly compacted with rammed earth, the tops cut at an angle---he had done that cutting himself, the blade following the wood grain, shavings curling into long, thin reeds, falling on the snow like a thin, curled layer of silence.
He stood three paces before the wall.
No wind. No sound. Only his own breath, condensing into small, fleeting puffs of white mist in the cold air.
Then, he saw it.
Not a crack. It was the extremely fine, not yet fully sealed gap at the junction of the stake's base and the frozen soil---about half a finger's width, like a newly formed scab, its edges still seeping a damp, darker colour. When they rammed the earth yesterday, this spot hadn't been compacted firmly enough. He remembered. At the time, he was shaping the stake top, glanced back, thought: "Two more shovel fills there."
Then someone from the west side called him to verify the supply inventory.
Then he forgot.
Now, standing here, looking at that half-finger-wide gap.
No complete sentence formed in his mind. No "This was my oversight." No "Must fix it tomorrow morning." Not even "At least nothing happened." Only an extremely faint, almost tactile knowing---like pressing a fingertip against an old scar through clothing: it doesn't hurt, but you know it's there.
He did not crouch to inspect it.
Did not immediately fetch tools to fill the earth.
Did not return to camp to report.
He was just... too tired.
Not bodily fatigue. It was that bone-deep weariness that can't even muster a "I'll deal with it tomorrow" to oneself. Twenty-three years. He had never missed a single watch, never delayed a single report, never let any task that ought to be done lie unfinished until daybreak.
Tonight.
He turned, walked back toward the camp.
That half-finger-wide gap, behind him, was filled inch by inch by newly fallen, fine snow powder.
The first mark of the Hour of the Rabbit. The sky was the colour of quenched, leaden iron.
Chen Si was hauling his third load of timber past the eastern wall. The six-foot stake on his shoulder pressed his right side down; he instinctively shifted it to the other shoulder, his steps veering half a foot sideways---landing precisely on that patch of frozen earth, loosely packed as cotton wool beneath its thin, deceptive mantle of fresh snow.
It wasn't a collapse.
It was that thin snow-crust bearing weight, giving no warning, simply sinking in silence.
The stake's foundation shuddered for an instant.
Chen Si felt it. That extremely slight instability transmitted from the soles of his feet, like stepping on a stairway tread hollowed by insects; in the zero-point-three seconds before the collapse, the stair would first sigh.
Instinctively, he pushed the timber on his shoulder outward.
Not to save himself.
To keep that six-foot stake from striking the man hauling the second load behind him.
The timber hit the ground with a dull thud like distant thunder. Chen Si's body lost balance, tilting to the right. His right hand reached out instinctively to brace against the ground---and then, that stake, newly set yesterday, its base repeatedly compacted, tilted toward him with a speed almost gentle.
Not a thunderous fall.
A slow, quiet lying down, like a man too long weary finally allowing himself to rest.
The stake's body grazed Chen Si's right ring finger.
The rough wood grain met skin, scraped, then---pressed.
Time stretched into an impossibly fine filament across three breaths.
Chen Si looked down, saw his own finger pinned between timber and frozen ground. Beneath the nail, a circle of deep red rapidly seeped outward, like rice paper slowly saturated from the reverse side by vermilion ink. No searing pain. Only an unfamiliar heat, not his own, climbing from fingertip along the knuckles upward.
He opened his mouth.
No sound came.
Ten yards away, Zhao Tieshan in the cook tent heard that dull thud. He set down the sack in his hands, didn't run, just walked toward the sound at a pace he never knew he still possessed. Each step planted with absolute steadiness, like the gait he'd developed hauling grain across ice---the gait of a man who will not let himself fall.
Fifteen yards away, Li Si'er stopped the well windlass. The bucket hung mid-air, droplets falling along its rim, striking the ice in fine, clear, transparent pits. He did not shout "something's happened," just set down the bucket and turned.
Twenty yards away, Bo Zhong rose from his wooden stump.
The old injury in his right knee burned like red-hot iron wire in the low temperature; he paid it no heed. He walked toward the east side, his gait slightly limping, yet faster than any step he'd taken in the past forty-odd days. His right hand pulled from his coat, knuckles stiff as withered branches, but he clenched his fist.
He was the first to arrive.
Not because he walked fastest.
Because his sleeping mat was closest to the wall, and---he had woken when Chen Si hauled the first load of timber. No reason. Just the bone-marrow instinct, honed by thirty-five years of military life, for sensing when something was wrong.
He crouched.
When those trembling hands pressed against the timber, only then did Chen Si collect himself.
"Uncle Zhong..."
Bo Zhong did not answer. He used his own weight to lever the stake, his right hand hooking into the gap between timber and frozen earth---the gap was a finger's width wider than last night---his left hand cradling Chen Si's wrist.
"Count to three." His voice was like grinding sand, "One, two---"
The timber was heaved aside.
Chen Si's ring finger was freed from its compression. The knuckle was already deformed, bent at an angle that should not exist, like a willow branch bent too far, losing its memory of springing back. Blood seeped from the nail bed, trickling slowly along the longitudinal grooves beside the finger, dripping onto the snow, piercing tiny, vivid red pores.
Bo Zhong wrapped his own scarf around the wound. His movements were clumsy, his right hand trembling uncontrollably, but he wrapped it tightly. One turn, two, three. The cloth's edges soon darkened with blood, but he did not stop.
Chen Si looked at him.
Looked at those hands, unable to form a steady grip due to old injuries and cold, how they wound, turn after turn, pressing his blood back into his veins.
He wanted to say, "Uncle Zhong, I can do it myself."
He wanted to say, "Sorry, I didn't steady myself."
He wanted to say, "It doesn't hurt."
None of the three sentences could leave his throat. It was as if frozen solid. He just looked at the ridge of Bo Zhong's brow, the skin there taut with effort, creased into three deep vertical lines, like marks carved into wood with a blade.
Lu Wanning was the third to arrive.
She did not ask "What happened?" Merely crouched, took the scarf from Bo Zhong's hands, and re-bandaged it with her own medical gauze. Her fingers were very steady, the pressure on the haemostasis points precise as the daily morning calibration of her medicine scales. But she did not speak.
Gu Changfeng was the seventh.
He stood at the edge of the crowd, did not push through. He just looked at that fallen stake, looked at the gap at its base---repeatedly compacted, yet still unable to hold. The gap was wider now, its edges ragged, like some unfinished, interrupted conversation.
His thoughts did not run the entire course.
No "Who was responsible for repairing this wall?"
No "Were there omissions in yesterday's ramming procedure?"
No "Who should be held accountable?"
Only one image, like an ice-pierce driven into his retina---
Last night, at the Hour of the Rat, he passed the eastern wall, saw Sun Jiu standing there. He asked "What's wrong?" Sun Jiu said "Nothing, just looking." He did not press. He turned and walked away.
Now he stood here, looking at that gap.
That gap, between the Hour of the Rat and the Hour of the Rabbit, had been filled with fresh snow, trodden down by Chen Si, then split open by the falling stake.
And at the Hour of the Rat, he had not crouched down, had not used his own finger to probe the depth of that snow.
Outside the wounded tent, Sun Jiu knelt there.
Not ordered by Chu Hongying. He hadn't even seen her approach. When he withdrew from the crowd by the wall, and his knee touched the frozen ground, only then did he realize he was already kneeling.
The spot beneath his knee was precisely where the wood shavings had fallen yesterday as he shaped the stake top. Snow covered it now, but he remembered.
Chu Hongying stood before him.
She did not say "Rise." Did not ask "Do you know where you were wrong?" Did not even look down at him.
She just stood there, like a boundary marker.
Gu Changfeng stood five paces away. His gaze rested on Sun Jiu's back, on the patch of slightly darker cotton on his jacket, stitches fine and dense, sent by his wife last year through someone. He looked at that patch, for a very long time.
No one spoke.
At this moment, the camp was submerged in a strange, overly wakeful stillness. Cooking smoke still rose, the windlass still turned, supplies still moved. But all sounds were pressed very low, so low as if afraid to startle this morning---the morning inside the wounded tent, where someone was trying to reset broken bone into its original place.
Lu Wanning tied the final stitch.
She bit off the thread with her teeth, made a very small knot that would not chafe the wound. Then she raised her head, for the first time meeting Chen Si's eyes directly.
"Seven days," she said. "No water. No force. Don't..."
She paused, swallowing "don't carry heavy loads"---there was no work in camp that didn't require carrying heavy loads.
Chen Si looked at his right hand, wrapped in layers of white gauze. The ring finger was a full circle thicker than usual, and at the end of the bandage was a small, freshly oozing, slowly expanding patch of deep crimson. He wanted to say, "Then what can I do for these seven days?"
He did not ask.
The tent flap lifted. Chu Hongying entered.
Her gaze passed over Lu Wanning's shoulder, resting on Chen Si's hand. Not long---three breaths, just enough to assess the injury, the state of the bleeding, and that patch of deep crimson at the bandage's end, still slowly spreading.
Then she turned and walked out.
Sun Jiu still knelt there.
His knees had begun to sink into the frozen surface, the skin touching ice turning a damp, dark colour. His back was ramrod straight, like a training stake forgotten in a corner of the drill ground, unused by anyone.
Chu Hongying stood before him.
She spoke, her voice very soft, like confirming a fading fact:
"Last night, at the Hour of the Rat, you patrolled the eastern flank."
Sun Jiu did not raise his head.
"Yes."
"You saw that gap."
Silence.
Three breaths. Five. Ten.
"...I saw it."
"You did not report it."
"I did not."
"You did not fill the earth."
"I did not."
"You did not stay there, waiting for the next watch to take over."
"I did not."
Chu Hongying looked at him. His head was bowed very low, the nape of his neck exposed, skin weathered by years of wind and snow, coarse as sandpaper. The old scar running from behind his left ear down into his collar, in the morning light, bore the aged, almost leather-white patina of deep time.
She spoke. Not an interrogation, not a verdict. Only a statement---
"You thought someone else would find it tomorrow morning."
Sun Jiu's Adam's apple bobbed.
"...Yes."
"You thought one night wouldn't matter."
"...Yes."
"You were just too tired."
Sun Jiu did not answer.
His shoulders---those shoulders that had borne twenty-three years of border gales, never faltering in any campaign---trembled once, almost imperceptibly.
Chu Hongying watched that tremor.
She remembered her own words last night, standing inside the camp gate, asking Gu Changfeng: "And if there is no chaos?"
Now she understood.
Chaos had never vanished.
It had merely shifted---from the blade outside, to the crevice within. From the enemy, to the comrade. From "what must be defended against" to "who must be forgiven."
She spoke, her voice even softer than before:
"Sun Jiu."
"Your subordinate is here."
"How do you wish me to deal with you?"
This was not a command. This was a question.
Sun Jiu raised his head.
His eyes were not red, his pupils did not flicker. He merely looked at her, as he had looked for twenty-three years at a flag he had never questioned. Then he said:
"Your subordinate... does not know."
This was the first time Chu Hongying had heard this sentence.
Not "Please forgive me, General."
Not "I am willing to accept punishment."
Not "Grant me a chance to redeem my fault, I beg you."
It was a forty-seven-year-old veteran, kneeling on frozen ground, saying to her: I do not know what you should do with me.
She should know.
She was the General.
From the age of fifteen, she had been trained in how to handle this---negligence, dereliction, foreseeable yet unprevented calamity. Military law had clear provisions, case records had precedents, discipline had three degrees of severity.
But all those provisions presupposed one premise:
That the one at fault knew he was at fault.
Sun Jiu had seen that gap last night. He knew it was unfinished work. He knew he should have crouched down, filled two shovelfuls of earth, or at least reported it to the next watch.
He did not.
Not because he chose to be derelict.
Because he did not choose---his body, in that instant at the third mark of the Hour of the Tiger, when his knee ligaments groaned like an old bow resetting, had already decided for him: Too tired. Tomorrow.
And "tomorrow", at the first mark of the Hour of the Rabbit, had broken Chen Si's ring finger.
Which article of military law covered this?
There was no such article.
Chu Hongying lowered her head.
For the first time---after forty-odd days of "no commands"---she realized: what she had been avoiding was not authority.
It was judgment.
Because judgment presupposes knowing right from wrong. And she, was losing her certainty of wrong.
Three hundred yards away, at the edge of the observation point.
Shen Yuzhu had witnessed this entire scene from beginning to end.
Not through the Mirror-Sigil. He merely stood there, using that perception already fused with the camp's soul-vein network, to touch this confrontation without a victor.
He saw the colour of Sun Jiu's soul-breath---not guilt, not fear, but a weariness so deep and heavy, like a river that had flowed too many years, nearly dry, finally ceasing its flow at some moment.
He saw the fine crack within Chu Hongying's soul-breath---not weakness, but the existential boundary she had touched after forty-odd days of "no commands". She was on this side, Sun Jiu on that side, and spanning between them was not authority, but the legitimacy of judgment.
She no longer knew if she still possessed it.
He saw the very shallow depression Gu Changfeng's blade left in the snow when he set it down. That was not forgiveness. That was juxtaposition---writing his own name beside Sun Jiu's name, on the same fissure not yet assigned to anyone.
Then he saw that gap.
That chasm, slowly widening, between "the collective functions smoothly" and "the individual, bearing responsibility, has lost its language".
He remembered himself.
Remembered the young Observation Officer, forged by the Empire, yet never once forgiven by the Empire for a single error.
Remembered each time after the Mirror-Sigil misread, the system's icy [Perceptual Error, Correction Recommended].
Remembered never once hearing anyone say to him---"It's all right. Be careful next time."
So all his life, he had been waiting for a sentence no one had ever taught them how to speak.
Now, Sun Jiu knelt there, waiting for that sentence.
And no one knew how to say it.
Deep within the Mirror-Sigil, an annotation surfaced autonomously, no longer icy, nearly a sigh:
---
Error. No owner.
Fault. No name.
Someone is willing to kneel.
The collective does not know how to lift him up.
---
Shen Yuzhu lowered his head.
He looked at his own left hand. Beneath the sleeve, a faint, moon-white glow flowed quietly, not kindled from the depths of the sigil, but seeping from his own body temperature---like a newborn river, belonging only to himself.
This river no longer flowed toward the Nightcrow Division's Spirit-Pivot.
But where did it flow?
He did not know.
He only knew that he stood here, at the core where over three hundred light points pulsed, on this snow plain that was losing its grammar of forgiveness---and he was the only one who, having never been forgiven, therefore knew best the weight of that sentence.
He had to go.
Not because of the Empire's thirty-day countdown.
Not because of the warning cipher's "Undefined Zone".
Not because of the Bronze Door's whisper.
Because---
He did not want Sun Jiu to wait a lifetime, as he had.
He walked down from the observation point.
His steps were very slow. Not hesitation, but each step was a confirmation: Is this the right direction? Is this the path he ought to take?
The snow beneath his feet compacted, emitting that familiar, faint creak. He had heard this sound for over a hundred days and nights, never as clearly as now.
He did not walk toward the command tent.
He walked toward East Three Sentry.
That region of warm darkness pulsed quietly in the twilight, its expansion and contraction perfectly synchronized with the camp's three hundred-odd breaths. He stood at its boundary, saying nothing.
Only standing there.
Like a stake, long scoured by the river's flow, finally ceasing to drift with the current.
The darkness pulsed.
Not expansion, not contraction. A deeper, almost waiting stillness.
He spoke:
"I am going."
No response.
"I don't know if I can find it."
The darkness was silent.
"I don't know if, having found it, I can trade it for your thirty days."
The darkness was still silent.
Then---
Extremely, extremely lightly, the edge of the darkness advanced one inch.
Not an invasion. Not an urging. Not even an answer.
Only an approach.
Like someone, when you are about to embark on a long journey, does not say "Travel safely," does not say "Come back soon," merely presses your shoulder, lightly.
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes.
He remembered the Bronze Door's whisper that night:
"The Door does not summon heroes. Nor does it summon those who return. The Door is merely there. You may enter. Or you may continue standing in the snow."
He did not enter.
Nor did he continue standing in the snow.
He turned.
Inside the command tent, no lamp was lit.
Chu Hongying stood with her back to the tent entrance, her black cloak pooling on the ground like congealed night. Her hand rested at her waist---there, hidden, was the half-brass key, its fracture fresh, an old covenant she had broken with her own hand. Her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the jagged metal edge, as if confirming some reality that was slipping away.
She did not turn, but she knew it was him.
"You are going to the capital."
Not a question.
"Yes."
Silence.
Chu Hongying turned.
Her face held no surprise, no sorrow, not even the "finally" he had expected. Only a deep, almost weary understanding, as if she had seen this moment long ago, forty-odd days prior, the instant she snapped that brass key.
She walked to him.
From her bosom, she took the other half of the brass key---not the half sunk in the water bowl, but the other half, thrust into the earthen wall of the cellar. Its fracture, polished countless times by her fingertips, was now warm and smooth as old jade, its sharp corners blunted into fluid curves.
She placed it in his palm.
"This was left to me by my father."
The brass key was cold, yet rapidly absorbed his body heat.
"I thought it was meant to open some door."
"..."
"Only later did I understand. It is not a key."
Chu Hongying looked at him, and in her eyes was a light he had never seen before, almost tender.
"It is an acknowledgment---acknowledging that some doors need not be opened. Acknowledging that some roads must be walked alone."
Shen Yuzhu closed his fingers around the half-brass key.
He wanted to say "I will come back."
He wanted to say "I will find the reason that prevents us from being erased."
He wanted to say "When I return, you will no longer have to ask, 'When there is no chaos, where should the General stand?'"
But he said none of these things.
Because none of them were the truth of this moment.
The truth of this moment was: He did not know if he could come back.
Chu Hongying did not ask.
She merely stepped back, as if completing a transfer ceremony with no witness.
"When do you leave?"
"Tonight."
"Who is going with you?"
"No one."
She did not say "No." Did not say "Too dangerous." Did not say "You need an escort."
She merely nodded.
"Then you will need a horse."
As dusk descended, the camp began to murmur.
Not the sound of human voices. It was the rustle of snow powder brushing felt, the faintest creak of the well windlass in the wind, the steady, giant-beast-heartbeat pulse from the warm dark region of East Three Sentry, perfectly synchronized with the collective breath.
Shen Yuzhu led the chestnut mule, standing inside the camp gate.
His pack was very light: three days' dry rations, a water bag, that half-brass key, and the Bridge Log he never let leave his person. No weapons.
He did not look back.
Not because he did not want to see.
Because he knew, if he looked back, he would never be able to leave.
Behind him, over three hundred points of light pulsed quietly in the depths of his soul-sight. Qian Wu's steadiness, Li Si'er's vigilance, Zhao Tieshan's broadness, He Sanshi's weathered years, Bo Zhong's pain, Lu Wanning's scent of medicinal herbs, Gu Changfeng's empty sword hilt, Zhang San's hands still learning enough, Chen Si's bandaged ring finger, the short blade Sun Jiu had set down in the snow beside his knee...
He heard the well windlass turn, creak, creak.
Heard cooking smoke rise, the crisp crack of firewood splitting.
Heard someone's suppressed, muffled cough.
Heard the steady, giant-beast-heartbeat pulse from the warm dark region of East Three Sentry, perfectly synchronized with the collective breath.
He heard the snow fall.
He heard himself say:
"...I'm going."
No one answered.
No answer was needed.
He took the first step.
The mule's hooves struck the fresh snow outside the camp gate, a muffled, almost wind-drowned thud. The prints were deep, their edges clean, like a seal yet to be inscribed with meaning, quietly sinking into the snow layer.
Second step.
Third.
He did not look back.
But through the Mirror-Sigil---that perception already fused with the camp's soul-vein network---he saw:
Qian Wu stood by the well, not drawing water, merely looking toward the gate.
Li Si'er leaned out from the cook tent, still holding the wooden ladle he had used for three years.
Bo Zhong rose from his wooden stump, his right hand still hidden in his coat, but he did not suppress the trembling.
Lu Wanning stood at the door of the medical tent, the Shadow Medical Canon in her hands open to a blank page, nothing written.
Gu Changfeng stood at the edge of the drill ground, his waist empty, that short blade no longer there.
Sun Jiu still knelt in place.
Snow fell on his shoulders, and he did not move.
Chu Hongying stood inside the camp gate, her black cloak lifting slightly in the night wind. She did not see him off. She merely stood there, like a boundary marker.
Boundary markers do not move.
But boundary markers know that someone is journeying far away.
The camp, behind him, slowly shrank into a blurred halo of light.
The snow fell heavier. That halo thinned progressively through the snow-curtain, from warm yellow to pale gold, from pale gold to grey-white, until finally---merging completely with the boundless, leaden grey between heaven and earth.
The sound of hooves was gradually swallowed by wind and snow.
No one saw him off.
No one said "Come back soon."
Not because they did not want to.
Because---some words, once spoken, become a promise.
And a promise was a weight none of them could afford at this moment.
A thousand li away, deep within the Nightcrow Division.
That narrow window, never marked on any architectural blueprint, never seeing sunlight, was now pushed open by an extremely slow, aged hand.
On the windowsill, that bluish-white mortal jade, in the darkness unwitnessed by any gaze, warmed for an instant, extremely, extremely lightly.
Like a seed, dormant for thirty years, finally touching soil temperature fit for germination.
The mute servant stood by the window.
He could not read, could not decipher the wisp of condensed spirit-trace within the jade, could not understand those warning ciphers about "Dust-Cleanse," "thirty days," "Undefined Zone." He did not even remember that thirty years ago, he had used this jade, carved with the outline of his home mountains, to trade with a young apprentice for half a dry ration.
But he recognized that carving.
It was the curve of mountain ranges, taught by his father, scored into stone with a fingernail---not for recording, but so that, in places where home could not be seen, it could still be touched.
He closed the jade into his palm.
The jade was cold. But his body heat, at an extremely slow, stubborn pace, seeped, particle by particle, into that slumbering thirty-year bluish-white.
He turned.
Facing north.
The fourth mark of the Hour of the Tiger.
Snow fell without sound.
The camp still breathed.
The thirty-day countdown silently tore off another page.
In the distance, the hoof prints of that chestnut mule were already completely covered by fresh snow.
As if no one had ever left.
But the pulse of the warm dark region of East Three Sentry---
was one beat slower than last night.
Not weariness.
It was waiting.
[Final Mirror-Sigil Record｜Quarter of the Rat｜Hour Mark]
He departed.
No one saw him off.
No one said "Come back soon."
Not because they did not want to.
Because---some words, once spoken, become a promise.
And a promise was a weight none of them could afford at this moment.
But what he did not know was this:
In the instant he turned away,
Over three hundred points of light brightened, all at once.
Not a fluctuation of the soul, not a flow of spirit-trace.
*Only---*
*Breath, all of them, slowed by one beat, simultaneously. *
This was not a promise.
This was existence itself, saying:
We are here.
We are waiting for you.
The Door did not summon him.
The River was waiting for him.
[CHAPTER 152 END]