Across the vast, desolate land, a cavalry force of two hundred riders advanced at a measured pace.
They came upon a village that had once been peaceful and tranquil, but now only ruin and desolation remained.
That quiet, harmonious place had been swallowed by fire and reduced to ash.
Corpse after corpse bore silent witness to the wretchedness of these times.
A figure encased entirely in armor walked slowly forward, then sank to his knees, reaching out a hand toward the infant wrapped in swaddling cloth.
Four or five months old, perhaps?
Come into this world, yet gone before ever having the chance to see what it looked like.
Among the refugees he had let go today out of a moment of weakness—was the killer among them?
The man's hand shook as he gently folded the tattered rags around the child.
Another armored figure came up behind him. "Mingjian, do you regret going soft today?"
"Remember—put away that pitiful compassion of yours. Your misplaced mercy only means more children end up like this."
"The refugees… have ceased to be human."
"All hands—bury the bodies, and bury them deep!"
"Then rest where you stand!"
"This is a good place. Let it remind you what you're here to do!"
The man kneeling on the ground buried the infant, then leaped onto his horse and rode hard in the direction they had come from earlier that day.
The leader raised a hand, and some thirty riders mounted up swiftly and galloped after him.
Deep in the night, they returned, caked in blood and exhaustion.
…
The following day, the wolf soldiers broke camp and set out once more.
Spotting a band of refugees in the distance, the cavalry swept forward in a single line.
Drawing close, they did not rush to kill, but took a moment to assess the group.
"These refugees have been raiding. Kill them—leave no one." The lead rider spurred his horse forward, and his blade had already swept across a refugee's throat.
In moments, the refugee band was torn to pieces.
Those who fled far enough were left alone—there were too many refugees to hope to kill them all. Better to focus every effort on destroying the main body each time.
Those who ran today would run even faster the next time they faced the wolf soldiers. Simply put, they would unravel their own ranks from within.
"Bury the bodies where they fall. Search them for valuables. This money is soaked in too much blood for us to keep—but perhaps it can be used to save some lives."
…
Word of the wolf soldiers spread like wildfire, and their fearsome reputation reached every corner of the western territories.
Their numbers were not great, yet the quality of their fighters was extraordinary and their equipment beyond compare. Not just the men—even their horses wore chanfrons and barding. In all this time, not a single wolf soldier had been reported killed.
Though there were supposedly fewer than a thousand of them—an exaggeration, as people always inflate such things—they could sweep back and forth through refugee forces numbering in the tens of thousands, cutting through again and again at will.
Fortunately, the wolf soldiers directed their violence at the refugees. Otherwise, the imperial court would have been losing sleep long ago.
The court made inquiries from every direction, trying to learn where the wolf soldiers had come from, and came up with nothing.
The court was quietly alarmed. If these wolf soldiers could carve through refugee armies as though it were sport, what would happen if they turned on imperial troops?
Fortunately, they were cavalry—ill-suited to siege warfare—and they had not attacked any imperial forces. Otherwise, the regional governor would likely have already fled.
As the year drew toward its end, the crisis of the refugees in the west had eased considerably.
The court was killing. The wolf soldiers were killing. The refugee bands were fragile by nature, and the great plague that followed the great disaster was carrying off more and more. Their spread had been contained.
Then the wolf soldiers vanished—as silently and without warning as they had appeared.
They vanished because it was time to go home for the New Year.
The master had said: unless something was truly, extraordinarily urgent, everyone was to come home and celebrate the New Year together.
At the Zhao household, everyone gathered on the open ground before Zhao Baihui's three-story building.
A dozen or so tables stood in the center for eating.
More tables around the perimeter were laden with all manner of food.
All thirty-five members of the Zhao family, Zhao Baihui included, were present.
Zhao Baihui accepted with resigned good humor the kowtowing and New Year greetings from the young men and maidservants, and scattered another pile of red envelopes.
"Jinyi, would you give me a break next year? This round has left your master positively anemic." A thousand coins apiece—well, that felt good.
But he couldn't very well say that out loud.
"Master, absolutely not. It only comes once a year. There has to be some ceremony to it."
"We can never forget—it was you who kept us alive, and gave us a comfortable life besides."
Mingcheng stepped forward and nodded. "Jinyi's right. Speak for others as you like, but I will kowtow to the master once every year, without fail."
"Do as you please. All I want is for all of you to live well." Zhao Baihui kept his voice casual, but inwardly he was genuinely moved.
Grateful children, every one of them.
Well—mostly it was because he had done such a fine job with their moral education.
The New Year holiday remained three days with pay, and after that, it was back to work.
Jinwen had been thinking about the situation over at Xinghuo Village, and set off on the second day of the New Year with a wagon convoy.
Traveling with her were her parents and brothers—Da Gou, Da Lü, Da Niu, and Da Ma, the whole family.
Jinwen's father had lived in Taoyuan Town for two years now and was by any measure the envied chief of the local security brigade.
The security brigade had expanded to a hundred men, with ten squad leaders and three company commanders.
Company commanders received Level Four wages—a little over two coins a day.
As a respected company commander, Wang Da Gou's name was simply too ugly to keep, so he had someone choose a proper new name for him, and gave his three sons new names into the bargain.
He had wanted to ask Master Zhao to bestow the names, but didn't quite have the standing to make such a request.
Zhao Baihui had declared that he would no longer casually name people. Naming an entire family made him feel as though his hair was going to fall out from the effort.
In truth, it was plain laziness. He had never liked exerting himself physically, and now he didn't even want to exert his mind. He was living so comfortably day by day that he was in danger of evolving into a vegetable.
Strictly speaking, having three company commanders for one security office was somewhat bloated and wasteful—two would have been just right, and arguably even one might have been enough, since squad leaders could handle ordinary matters and serious trouble almost never arose.
But the three men's positions carried a certain awkward significance: as the fathers of three of the young mistresses, it was impossible to demote any of them without causing offense or playing favorites.
In the end, Wang Da Gou had volunteered to relocate to Xinghuo Village on his own initiative.
And so his family packed up and set out together with Jinwen.
That evening, Lin Xuejin came home from work and his wife presented him with several letters.
"Letters from the capital. One from your father, one from mine, and a few from your friends."
Lin Xuejin nodded without much concern. He had been here for more than a year now, and letters between himself and the capital came and went regularly.
"Let's eat first. I'll read them after dinner."
After the meal, Lin Xuejin returned to his study and broke the seal on his father's letter. He had barely read a few lines before he shot to his feet in excitement.
"Ha! That old scoundrel has been stripped of office? Wonderful! Wonderful! This calls for a drink!"
The old scoundrel he meant was the current Grand Chancellor.
Lin Xuejin had long considered the Chancellor a man of hollow ability who had clambered to the highest position through sheer scheming, devoting himself entirely to the manipulation of power while giving no thought to loyal service to the throne and the welfare of the realm.
In his own day, Lin Xuejin had sought to change things, submitting memorial after memorial to the court, only to be rebuffed and dismissed by this very man—until at last, in fury, he had flung off his official seal and walked away.
He thought of the northern barbarians who had penetrated deep into the heartland the year before last, and again launched raid after raid along the frontier last year, burning and plundering as they pleased.
Last year's tax revenues had fallen further still, disasters had struck in region after region, and the west was only the worst of it.
The Chancellor's failures had been laid bare, and he had been removed from office and expelled from the capital before the year turned.
After the ensuing struggle, one of the leading figures of Lin Xuejin's own faction had taken the chancellorship.
How could he not be glad?
He read on, and when he reached the part where his father, his father-in-law, and several old friends all urged him to return to the capital and accept an appointment, he found himself hesitating.
Here, he was only a deputy town head—the equivalent of a village elder in rank.
And yet he was truly happy.
He felt that he had genuinely accomplished real things for ordinary people.
"My lord, what is all this? So many people writing to you at once." His wife came in to replace his candle.
Husband and wife kept no secrets. Lin Xuejin told her everything.
"Though I'm glad about the news, to speak honestly—after being here so long, I have little faith in the court."
"I don't believe Chancellor Li can turn the tide. If it were Master Zhao, that might be a different matter."
The longer he stayed here, the more keenly he felt the difference between Zhao Baihui and everyone else.
"So I find myself thinking that things are quite good as they are."
His wife nodded, excused herself, and then immediately rushed off to find Jinyi.
Her husband had lost his mind. He didn't even want to be a high official anymore—he was starting to show alarming signs of evolving in Master Zhao's direction.
That simply would not do. Master Zhao's laziness was something else entirely. If it weren't for Jinyi and the others holding this household together…
Half an hour later, Zhao Baihui arrived. It was the first time in all this while that he had come calling at Lin Xuejin's door.
Lin Xuejin was genuinely surprised and pleased.
"Master Zhao, what brings you here?"
"Your wife told me what's going on. I have a thought or two."
"Please, speak."
"Submit a memorial. Say that you wish to serve as the prefect of Qingjiang Prefecture, and that you require military authority as well. Your terms: tax revenue doubled this year."
"And three years from now, annual tax revenue of no less than eighty thousand taels."
"I believe the court will most likely accept your terms."
Lin Xuejin shot upright in shock. "Master Zhao, is that even possible? Last year the entire prefecture brought in only twenty-two thousand taels! You want to double it this year? And quadruple it in three years?"
"That's me being conservative. Just do as I say. And if you fall short when the time comes—what's the worst that happens? You resign again."
Lin Xuejin was speechless.
"Ha—I'm joking. Don't worry. If you come up short, however much you need, I'll cover it."
"I'll just brew up another batch of Celestial Brew. A small matter, nothing more."