Chapter 27: Dallying HuaLian; Night-Fall in Sinner's Pit (Part 4)

"Ke Mo, what's going on?" The Guoshi asked in BanYuenese as she landed.

The moment she spoke, Xie Lian thought her voice was very different than what he had imagined. Although still cold, her voice was tiny, like the grumblings of a sulky child, not one that's cool and powerful. If not for his good hearing, he might have not even hear her properly. "What's going on? THEY'RE ALL DEAD!!!" Ke Mo shouted.

"How did they all die?" The Guoshi asked.

"Isn't it because you pushed them all down and trapped them in this godforsaken hell!"

"Who's here? There's another person." The Guoshi said.

At the bottom of the pit, there should be two other 'people', but San Lang had no breaths nor heartbeat, so the Guoshi didn't detect his presence. It was also complete chaos on top of the walls earlier, and no one kept track of who fell and who ran away, so she thought there was only Xie Lian there.

"It was they who killed all of my soldiers, are you happy now? Everyone you wanted to kill are finally dead!"

The Guoshi was silent, and suddenly a tiny burst of light flared, illuminating a small, black-clad girl with a palm torch.

The girl looked to be fifteen or sixteen, both eyes blackened, not unbeautiful, but just unhappy, her forehead and cheeks full of bruises, clear and distinct under the light. The hand controlling the palm torch was shaking, causing the flames to flicker.

If it wasn't confirmed earlier, no one would think this pale little girl was the Guoshi of BanYue.

The flames in her hand illuminated herself and her surroundings. Next to her feet was piled with armored corpses of BanYue soldiers.

Xie Lian couldn't help but sneak a look beside him. That palm torch in the Guoshi's hand was very small, and did not light up the entire pit, so they were still immersed in darkness. But using the wee light, Xie Lian could still see faintly that the one next to him was dressed in red. It wasn't clear, and he wasn't sure, but he could still somewhat distinguish what's close to him. San Lang was already taller than him, but now, maybe, he seemed taller than before.

Xie Lian moved his eyes up, paused at the neck, then continued upward, stopping at an elegantly shaped chin.

San Lang's upper face was still hidden in the shadows, but Xie Lian thought the bottom half was distinctly different than before. Still handsome, but the lines were much more defined. Feeling he was being watched, San Lang tilted his head, and his lips curled upwards slightly.

Perhaps he wanted too much to get a better look, to get closer, that without realizing it, Xie Lian took a step closer to him.

Just then, Ke Mo wailed in the distance, seeming to be in shock after seeing the bloody tragedy before him. Xie Lian abruptly snapped out of it and turned to look, and saw Ke Mo was clutching his own head, but despite the general's cries, the Guoshi's expression remained wooden and only nodded, "Good."

In the midst of mourning, hearing those words made Ke Mo rage once more, "GOOD? What's good?? How do you mean?!"

"Good means we're finally freed." Guoshi said.

She turned to Xie Lian who's still shrouded in the dark, "Were you the one who killed them?"

"This... was an accident." Xie Lian replied.

"YOU'RE LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH!" Ke Mo exclaimed.

Xie Lian responded boldly facedly, "Life is full of accidents!"

Guoshi gave him a look but her expression was unreadable, "Who are you?"

Her words were actually spoken in perfect Han dialect*, and it wasn't in an interrogative tone either.

"I'm a heavenly official. This one here is... my friend." Xie Lian replied.

Ke Mo couldn't understand their words, but could still tell they weren't fighting, and demanded, "What are you two saying?"

The Guoshi looked Xie Lian over, eyed San Lang for a moment before quickly looking away and said, "We've never had heavenly officials visit before. I thought you've all already abandoned this place."

Xie Lian had thought they would have to fight the Guoshi of BanYue, but was surprised to find she was this despondent, devoid of any will to fight. She spoke up again, "Do you two want to leave?"

"Of course, we do, but there's an array set in this pit, so we can't." Xie Lian said.

Hearing this, the Guoshi walked to one of the walls, raised her hand and drew something, then turned around and said, "There. I released the array. You two can leave now."

"..."

This was way too easy!

Xie Lian really didn't know what to say now. Just then came a voice calling from above, "HEY! IS ANYONE DOWN THERE? IF NOT, I'M LEAVING!"

It was Fu Yao's voice.

Xie Lian heard San Lang 'tsk' next to him and immediately looked up. There was a shadow of a man looking down into the pit, and Xie Lian shouted, "FU YAO! THERE'S PEOPLE DOWN HERE! I'M DOWN HERE!"

After Xie Lian shouted, he also waved, and Fu Yao shouted back from above, "You're actually down there? What's at the bottom besides you?"

"Um... a lot of things. Why don't you come down and see for yourself?" Xie Lian said.

Fu Yao probably thought the same and blew a large ball of fire into the pit. In an instant, the entire Sinner's Pit was lit up, bright like day, and Xie Lian finally saw clearly the kind of place he's been standing in.

All around him were mountains of bloody corpses piled high; innumerable bodies of the BanYue soldiers stacked on top of each other, faces and limbs blackened, dark blood smearing the bright armors. The corner Xie Lian was standing was the only spot in the entire Sinner's Pit that did not have a dead body.

This was all done in a flash, in the dark, by San Lang after he jumped in.

Xie Lian turned to look at the boy next to him again.

Before in the dark, he thought San Lang looked taller and was distinctly different in various places, but now, under the bright firelight, the one standing next to him was the same handsome youth he'd known. When he saw Xie Lian looked over, he grinned.

Xie Lian looked down to check his wrists and boots, and both were also the same as before, having nothing that would cause any jingling sound.

Just then, Xie Lian heard a muffled sound, and it was Fu Yao who had jumped down.

"Weren't you looking after the merchants?" Xie Lian asked.

Having just entered the pit, Fu Yao wasn't yet used to the stench of blood and fanned his hand to make the air flow, then he replied indifferently, "We waited for over six hours, and there was still no sight of you, so we figured something had happened. I drew a circle for them to wait in and came to check things out myself."

Xie Lian frowned, "The circle won't last long. With you gone, what if they leave the circle thinking you'd left them behind?"

Fu Yao shrugged, "Eight horses can't stop a man who really wants to seek death; I can't stop stubborn people, so nothing. What's with those two over there? Who's who?"

Fu Yao was tense, ready to defend against the two unknowns, but soon discovered astonishingly that Ke Mo was already heavily wounded on the ground, barely able to stand, and the Guoshi of BanYue had her head lowered and silent.

"That one is the General of BanYue, and the other one is the Guoshi of BanYue. Right now, they're..."

Ke Mo suddenly leapt up before Xie Lian could finish.

He had been lying on the ground gathering his strength and was finally able to jump up in a shout, aiming his fists at the Guoshi of BanYue. A large beefy warrior attacking a little girl; in the past, Xie Lian would never allow this sort of thing to happen before him.

But Ke Mo had every reason to hate the Guoshi, and she could very well defend herself yet she didn't, letting herself be thrown around like a broken ragdoll.

Ke Mo shouted at the Guoshi, "Where are your scorpion snakes? Come on! Let them bite me to death too! Give me that release!" The Guoshi gloomily replied, "Ke Mo, my snakes don't listen to me anymore."

"Then why don't they kill you??" He tsked.

"...I'm sorry, Ke Mo." The Guoshi apologized softly.

"DO YOU REALLY HATE US THAT MUCH?"

The Guoshi shook her head, and Ke Mo became angrier, "YOU'RE GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME! IF YOU DON'T HATE US, WHY DID YOU BETRAY US? YOU SHAMELESS SPY, DISGUSTING MOLE, TRAITOR!!"

Fu Yao watched him strike harder and harder, and the blows were all single-sided and couldn't help but frown, "What are they saying? Shouldn't we go stop them?"

Xie Lian couldn't watch anymore either and rushed forward to stop Ke Mo, "General! General! Why don't you tell us who that YongAn thug really is, we'll..."

Suddenly, the Guoshi grabbed his wrist.

The grip was hard and came unexpectedly, and Xie Lian's heart dropped, thinking she was going to ambush him, but when he looked back down at her, the Guoshi was on the ground, a small bruise at the corner of her mouth, her head raised, watching him intently. She didn't say a single word, but her dark eyes were intense with a flaming sense of life.

This demeanor overlapped with an image from a fargone memory. After a pause, Xie Lian blurted, "It's you?"

The Guoshi's voice also trembled, "General Hua?"

This back and forth stunned everyone in the pit. Fu Yao rushed forward, knocked Ke Mo out with a punch, and demanded, "You two know each other?"

Xie Lian didn't answer him. He knelt down, gripped the shoulders of the Guoshi, and examined her face.

Earlier, they stood too far apart and he couldn't see clearly. Plus, it had been over two hundred years, this girl had matured in that time, and for many various reasons, he didn't recognize her at first. But now that he looked again properly, it's the same face in his memories.

Xie Lian couldn't speak for the longest time, and it was a good moment before he sighed, "Ban Yue?"

The Guoshi quickly clutched at his sleeves, and the gloomy face suddenly came alive and excited, "It's me! General Hua, do you still remember me?"

"Of course I remember you. But..." Xie Lian gazed at her for a moment and sighed, "But what have you done to yourself?"

Hearing his words, her eyes suddenly filled with pain.

"I'm sorry, Captain... I messed up." She muttered.

In that exchange, there was 'General' this, 'Captain' that, making it glaringly obvious to the bystanders. Fu Yao was in shock, "Captain? General? YOU? How did this happen? Then the Tomb of the General is?"

"My tomb." Xie Lian replied.

"Didn't you say you only came to collect junk two hundred years ago???" Fu Yao questioned.

"This... is a long story. That was originally the plan." Xie Lian answered.

Around two hundred years ago, due to some reason, Xie Lian couldn't muck around in the East anymore and decided to stay out of sight for a while. He had planned to cross the Qing ridge and head to the South to start a brand new life of scraps. Thus, he took up his compass and walked southward.

But the more he walked, the more he thought woefully, how come the sceneries were all wrong? There should be an abundance of trees and greeneries, cities and crowds, so how come his path was becoming more desolate?

Suspicions aside, however, Xie Lian stubbornly continued on until he walked and walked and came upon the Gobi desert. It took a gust of wind blowing a fistful of sand into his face before Xie Lian finally realized that his compass was broken.

The direction it was guiding him this entire journey was wrong!

Since there wasn't anything he could do about the whole thing, he might as well take this chance to visit the desert sceneries and continued walking. Only, he changed course slightly and traveled northwest ward and finally arrived at the border, where he settled nearby the Kingdom of BanYue.

"At first, I was just collecting junk around the area," Xie Lian said, "But the border was troubled, and with so many skirmishes, there were often runaway soldiers, so the army would draft anyone into recruit to make up the numbers."

"So you were forced into the army?" San Lang asked.

"Yeah," Xie Lian replied, "But doing anything was more or less the same, so it didn't matter to me. And then after chasing away some bandits a couple of times, I somehow got promoted to Captain. The people gave me face and would call me General too."

"Why did she call you General Hua?" Fu Yao questioned. "Your surname isn't Hua."

Xie Lian waved his hand and said dismissively, "Don't worry about it. I randomly made up a fake name at the time. I think it was 'Hua Xie.'"

Hearing the name, San Lang's expression changed slightly, his lips twitching. Xie Lian didn't pay attention and continued, "With a battle-torn border came many orphans. When I was free, I'd play with them sometimes. One of them... was named Ban Yue."

When there were bandits, Xie Lian was surely the bravest soldier, and no one dared block his way, nor did anyone dare stand beside him even. But when there weren't, it was as if anyone could order him around.

One day he went and sat by a wall to start a campfire, using his own helmet to cook. As he cooked, the smell of it drifted out, and a few enraged soldiers came to kick over whatever it was he was cooking. Xie Lian picked up his helmet with a broken heart, but when he looked back, he saw a small disheveled and grimy child crouched behind him, picking at the stuff knocked to the ground with her hands without caring whether if it was too hot and stuffing it into her mouth.

He was shocked, "DON'T! Wait, little kid, you!"

As expected, that little kid scarfed down a few lumps of the stuff she picked off the ground then dry heaved heavily, crying loudly. Xie Lian was so shaken he picked her up upside down and ran laps until all the stuff she ate came back out. After that was done, he crouched down and wiped away his seat, "Are you alright, little kid... I'm so sorry. But don't ever tell your parents about this, and next time, don't pick up any more random stuff off the ground to eat... WAIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW!"

That child was face covered in tears but still went to pick off the ground again, still wanting to eat. It was only after Xie Lian grabbed her before he realized that this child's tummy skin was practically pressed to the back of her bones.

When people starved to this point, anything could be eaten. Even if it was disgusting to the point of tears, she would eat.

Xie Lian had no choice and went back to bring her the last of his rations. Then afterwards, he could often see this child stalking him in the shadows nearby.

In his memories, the little girl Ban Yue was always gloomy, her body and face full of bruises, and when she looked at him, she would stare just so from below. Because she was singled out by the BanYue children, other than Xie Lian, there was only a YongAn boy living at the border who'd sometimes pay attention to her, so she'd spend her days tagging along behind the two of them.

She rarely spoke, but she was fluent in the Han dialect, so Xie Lian didn't know where she came from, but she was a random wandering child, so he randomly took her in.

When he was free, sometimes he'd teach them songs, sometimes wrestle, sometimes show off his busker move 'Shattering Boulders on Chest,' or something, and they got along quite well.

Xie Lian shook his head, "I had thought the 'BanYue' in the 'Guoshi' title was the country, I didn't realize it was actually the name of the Guoshi."

"And then?" Fu Yao asked.

"And then... it's pretty much the same as what the memorial wrote," Xie Lian said.

After some silence, San Lang spoke up, "The memorial said you died."

On the subject of that memorial, Xie Lian felt quite bummed out. Weren't memorials usually praises and exaggerate good deeds to glorify the deceased? All those mentions of the demotions aside, why did it have to so solemnly record the embarrassing way he died?

While they were hiding away from the sandstorm and he read to this part, he could barely look at it straight on. If it wasn't for San Lang, who also understood BanYuenese and was watching him, he was going to pretend that segment never existed. Having something like that written down, even he wanted to laugh, never mind other people?

That he had the nerve to ask those seeking shelter in his memorial to not laugh as they commentated and laughed at his epitaph, it made him feel really bummed.

Xie Lian's forehead was becoming red from all the rubbing. "Oh, that. Um. Of course, I didn't die. I faked it."

Fu Yao was a face full of disbelief. Xie Lian explained himself, "I got trampled on too hard and couldn't get up, so there wasn't any other way besides faking my death anyway."

Truthfully, Xie Lian couldn't quite remember exactly how he 'died' nor why that battle broke out in the first place, only that it was over something petty. He really didn't want to fight; victory or defeat was meaningless. But by then, his rank could go no lower, and no one would listen to him. In the midst of battle, everyone saw red, so when he rushed out, it was blades and swords coming at him from both sides cutting him down.

Fu Yao questioned, "It must be because you're an eyesore standing the middle that you raised the ire of both sides, right? Otherwise why would people just cut you down when they see you? Besides, I'm sure you knew there were many who hated you, so why didn't you evade all those people? Why did you have to charge in? I'm sure you could've dodged if you wanted to."

1. Han was the dialect of YongAn.

2. The name 'Hua Xie' is meaningless, but the character for 'Hua' is the same as the one in Hua Cheng's name.