Nightfall

Just as he walked into the mist on the mountainside, Ning Que heard the sudden rush of horses galloping as tirelessly as rainfall behind him!

Along with the gallop, those fearful memories that lay deep in his heart all these years suddenly recaptured him, which then uncontrollably inundated him and occupied his entire body in an instant, making it extremely stiff.

He bit his tongue to shake off the fear with his extremely strong willpower, then slowly turned around to look at those behind him.

The mountain path in the dense twilight had somehow disappeared, and even those clouds had gone elsewhere. What he saw was just a magnificent city standing between heaven and earth, its huge shadow cut off the official road to the north.

On the road, ten cavalrymen in black armor were galloping towards him as fiercely as thunder. The surface of the official road resonated with their approach, as all the travelers sought to make way for them.

Ning Que hid behind the tables and chairs of a tea stall, staring blankly at those cavalrymen driving past. Suddenly, he noticed that he was much shorter than those horses and passengers on the road.

He looked down to find that only a single small shoe on his foot, and he hadn’t noticed till now that his left foot had been punctured by a stone and was bleeding.

…

…

After leaving Chang’an City, he went north all the way, walking along with the caravans in a daze. After being questioned several times by those curious people from the Tang Empire, he found it could put him in danger, and so quietly left the travelers under the cover of darkness one midnight.

He did not meet any wild beasts in the wild, and he could pick up fruits to feed himself, though the hunger never really left him. By the time he came out of the woods, he had almost reached the Hebei Province. By then he had become sallow and emaciated, so he didn’t have to worry about being recognized. On both sides of the road, as well as in the mountains, were hunger-ridden kids like him.

The Wilderness suffered from a severe drought, and the Hebei Province suffered from the severe drought too. In the first year of the Tianqi era, the Great Tang Empire was struck by a rare natural disaster. The new emperor had to confront a tough test when ascending the throne. Rushing from Daze to Chang’an city, His Majesty urgently arranged for relief supplies for the people in the disaster areas. Refugees from the Wilderness had entered the Hebei Province, and those from the Hebei Province were proceeding to the south. Those who set off first were luckily relieved by the imperial court, yet the remaining ones in the Hebei Province who stayed around the vast Min Mountain had to face a more severe test.

Along the official road, both imperial officials and local government runners were counting the number of refugees in order to distribute porridge. More and more refugees were migrating from the north to the south. For the people at that time, the north was like the underworld, a horrifying world of disease and famine.

While the rest were all moving to the south, Ning Que continued, in the opposite direction, to the Hebei Province. He roughly proceeded along the road at the foot of Min Mountain, where he soon encountered ill-intentioned thieves. He hid himself in the grass to avoid being spotted. While in the grass, he found several icy corpses spread out around him.

In a small wooded region where almost all the bark had been stripped off, he was surrounded by a group of scrawny refugees. Judging from their clothes, Ning Que judged that they were from the north of the Yan Kingdom. They had naturally flown into the territory of the Tang Emperor, since the royals of the Yan Kingdom couldn’t afford the relief work.

“Unfortunately, it’s only a little kid, weighing just a few pounds.”

Those starving refugees stared at the muddy little boy. The eyes of their chief glowed green, looking like the wolves that Ning Que was to become quite familiar with later. But this wolf was a skinny one, whose fur was heavily festered.

“We do not have any strength now, you’d better take off your clothes by yourself, and then jump into the pot.”

The chief put his finger into the mouth, as if he wanted to taste meat. He looked at the boy lifelessly and said, “Be careful when you jump, do not spill out too much water. In such a year, no one has the extra energy to chop firewood and boil water.”

Seven or eight starving refugees surrounding the little boy slowly nodded their heads. They were not much more than skeletons, barely being able to move.

Ning Que looked at them and said, “You don’t have strength, but I do.”

The chief laughed, which sounded like a cry. He pointed his withered fingers tremblingly at the little boy’s face and said, “If you still have strength, why not escape?”

Ning Que did not say anything again. He took out the chopper, which had accompanied him along the way, from behind his waist. Concentrating all his power which he had accumulated by eating fruit, wild grass, as well as the handful of rice offered by well-meaning people, he jumped up and chopped down straight towards the nose of the chief.

He was too young, too short and too weak to jump high enough. But these starving people in the woods had been short of food for too many days and had already used up all their power. They couldn’t do much more than merely gaze at his chop.

Puff! The boy missed his target. The chopper, with which he intended to chop off the nose of the chief, actually poked into the bone above the eye of his enemy. Because the chief was starved to a skinny skeleton, the frame of his skull was quite clear. Therefore, the scene of a chopper poking into his bone was clear and the sound produced was also clear. The rusty blade of the chopper directly penetrated his eyeball and went deep into his brain.

Without even a hum, the chief stiffly flopped to the ground like a piece of wood.

Ning Qi walked ahead while gasping. He stamped down on the neck of the chief. Then he put forth his strength to pull out the chopper, along with which a burst of bluish yellow liquid soared into the air. It was not blood.

He gazed at the wizened eyeball hanging on the chopper for a long time. Then he raised his head and turned his sight to those ghostly starving refugees around him, saying, “If you want to eat a man, then eat yourself, for I will not let you eat me. ”

…

…

The mist hovering around the mountainside behind the Academy became heavier and heavier, which even devoured the last trace of twilight from the outside world. The weird squawks of night birds, maybe crows or something more sinister, were heard from elsewhere in the woods.

Ning Que was climbing uphill along the tilting Mountain Path. Each time he took a new step, his body would become stiff for a long time. It had been a long time since he entered the mist and he had overcome a thousand steps, yet still did not know how far it was from the top of the mountain.

Looking closely, you could find his eyes were empty and unfocused. It seemed that he was not looking at the road under his feet, but something in the far distance. Something that had occurred a long time ago.

…

…

He went all the way to the north and entered the back-lands of the Hebei Province along the Min Mountain. The field was completely occupied by starving refugees from the Wilderness and the north of the Yan Kingdom. However, because of the long-lasting drought, people began to exchange their children to eat. Yet, even so, the vast majority of those starving people had become corpses by the side of the road or food in the belly of the wild beasts of the Min Mountain. With their deaths, Ning Que’s path through the mountains had become safer.

Then one day, the long-expected rain fell from the sky. From the cellars in the country, villagers crawled out and kneeled down in the rainwater, crying and fiercely kowtowing to show their thanks to the mercy of Haotian. Even more had no strength to show any emotion for the severe hunger.

In the heavy rain, Ning Que sat under a small tree beside the mountain, blankly looking around, not knowing where to go.

These days, many refugees had ventured into the vast Min Mountain, hoping to could find something to eat despite the numerous wild beasts. Yet Ning Que didn’t follow the trend because he knew he was too weak at the moment to kill the horrible beasts in the mountain, though he still could kill faint refugees with his full strength.

He bit at the beef jerky he had taken out and tore off a few strips of shredded meat. He then raised his head to take in a few mouthfuls of rainwater, which was chewed together with the meat and swallowed into his abdomen, without any expression of enjoyment. The never-ending torment over these days had changed the white and tender young boy from the General’s Mansion into an extremely dirty and thin one. The skin of the little boy’s lips was severely chapped, and blood leaked out from his teeth from time to time as he chewed the meat.

The rain got less dense. He checked the chopper behind him and, picking up the stick beside him, he continued northward along the road at the foot of the mountain. He made sure he could escape into the Min Mountain at any time. Because he knew that the rainfall would help the others to revive, and if so, those adults who revived would be healthier than ever. They could become his enemies once more at any time.

Piles of corpses could be found along the road ahead, which had already decayed and filled the air with the stench of rot once soaked in the rainwater. A few equally skinny wild dogs were squatting beside the dead and eating them. One was biting an arm with bare bones, struggling to drag it back and sometimes making muffled whines, while another was sitting on its back legs like what human beings did, striving to bite at a thin and rotten thigh which was held in its two front paws.

On hearing Ning Que’s footsteps, those wild dogs stopped eating and looked up vigilantly. They stared at the little boy on the road, spurting out a low and terrifying scream. Two of them determined that the skinny little boy would not be a threat to them, so they even abandoned the unsavory rotten corpse and began approaching Ning Que.

Supporting himself against the wooden stick in his hand, Ning Que took off the chopper from behind his waist, half-lowered his body, and showed his slightly swollen and bleeding teeth. He roared at the two wild dogs like a savage.

Probably sensing the smell of blood on this little boy and being alarmed by the sense of danger emanating from the boy, which was out of proportion to his tiny figure, those wild dogs retreated with a squeak and scattered around the pile of death, waiting for him to pass before continuing their eating.

Induced by the decayed corpses beside the road, those house dogs that ought to have belonged to nursing homes had turned into wild dogs scrambling for rotten food. Ning Que had already become accustomed to scenes like this along the way and so numbly turned without any feeling. He decided to leave immediately, or else he would become another resident among this rotten corpses if he really tussled with them.

Just as he was about to leave, he heard a very slight sound.

He looked back at the corpses steeped in the rain to find nothing. So he was ready to leave again.

Just at the moment he was about to leave for the second time, the very slight sound was heard again, and this time, it was quite clear.

It was the sound of crying.

He returned to the pile of corpses, yelling, screaming, and waving a wooden stick and his chopper, hoping those wild dogs could be frightened away. Then he chopped off a decayed thigh with the chopper and threw it far into the parched field that had been freshly soaked in water.

Making several whines, the wild dogs ran to the rotten thigh and began fighting for it, temporarily ignoring him.

Following the faint weeping from below the pile of corpses, Ning Que began to move aside the corpses from the top of the pile. He really didn’t have much strength at the time, but fortunately, the dead had died of starvation and were already like walking skeletons before their death. What’s more, most of their inner organs had decomposed into water and vapor, so it was not so difficult to move them away.

Everywhere he touched was moist and slippery, like the sludge that was served as food in Chang’an City during the Spring Festival. Ning Que whipped the decayed meat off his hands and continued moving the corpses until he finally found the source of that faint weeping.

He turned over a half-bent corpse in the field which was dressed in servant clothes, then saw a little baby soaked in rainwater and fluid from the dead bodies. The baby was pale and weak with its blue lips and eyes closed, and no one could imagine how she had survived and cried out.

Rubbing off the rotten meat against his trousers, Ning Que carefully picked up the baby, looked at her for a long while and then broke the silence, “You do not want me to leave, so that’s why you cry?”

Holding the baby, he jumped off the pile of corpses and walked along the road to the distance. Those wild dogs, which had been staring at him with their green eyes for a long time, issued a delighted whine at the sight of him leaving. They ran back to the pile of carrion and, a moment later, there came the sounds of ripping and chewing.

Without any warning, it began raining heavily again.

Ning Que glanced at the Min Mountain in the far distance and then looked down at the pale baby. He figured, “If you continue to be drenched in the rain like this, I’m afraid you will never be able to cry again.” So he intended to find something to shelter themselves from the rain. That was when he saw a black umbrella by the side of the road.

The black umbrella was extremely old and quite dirty.

…

…

The mountain path was still shrouded in the mist.

Ning Que slightly lowered his head. Standing on the steep stone steps, he could not move forward.

…

…

Whiz! A feathered arrow accurately hit a gray rabbit.

Ning Que rushed to the rabbit in a flash and delightfully picked it up. With both of his hands crossed, he directly twisted the neck of the rabbit and threw it into the bag behind him, which was heavy and loaded with the bodies of his prey.

Squatting under the tree, he made a sniff and then pulled up the kudzu behind the tree, where a steep path was found. Then he climbed along the path up toward the cliff, on which was a grassland near a spring. On the grassland, he viewed his biggest achievement in the past three days with great satisfaction.

A blue sheep fell to the ground, screaming painfully. Beside her, two lambs were helplessly looking at her as they used their heads to rub against her mouth and nose from time to time, not knowing whether they intended to give her courage and confidence, or to comfort their beloved one before her death.

Ning Que quietly walked up, picking up the end of a rope from the grass, and fiercely pulled it. The trap hidden in the grass was suddenly tightened and the two lambs heavily flopped to the ground with a scream, their hooves tightly tied together.

The big blue sheep, whose hind legs were caught in the trap, desperately struggled to move, looking at the sight of her trapped lambs and bleating anxiously.

“Your fate is good, at least there is someone worrying for you.”

Ning Que went to the beast traps and shook his head at the sight of the two lambs lying in the grass. Then he pulled out a knife from behind his waist, directly piercing it into the neck of the big blue sheep.

…

…

“I am back.”

Dragging the dead body of the blue sheep, carrying a heavy bag and leading two lambs, Ning Que returned to the shabby hunting lodge between trees.

A little girl ran out to greet him. She was around the age of four or five with a dark complexion, wearing hide clothes.

The hunting lodge was very shabby with dim light, and the Old Hunter sitting beside the copper brazier put down the tobacco rod, looked emotionlessly at Ning Que, and spat a thick glob of sputum on the ground before asking, “How about the harvest today?”

“Good.” Ning Que replied.

The Old Hunter’s face was full of wrinkles, from which you could never expect any hint of love or kindness, but only greed and cold.

“Let’s eat.”

The Old Hunter grabbed a piece of meat to eat and felt something was wrong with the taste, so he shouted in abuse, “You wicked thing! I told you to put less salt! Salt is so expensive! Who gave you the money? How wicked you are! Feeding you is just wasting my money. I will raise you for another two years, and then sell you to prostitutes to get some money!”

With her head lowered, the little girl was full of panic. Ning Que also lowered his head, looking at the sweet watery potato porridge, where his eyesight was reflected. From his eyes, one could see star-like flames burning.

He had listened to this kind of scolding for years. He had endured this treatment where the Old Hunter ate meat, while he and Sangsang couldn’t even drink the leftover broth for many years. He thought he had become accustomed to it, yet it seemed that he could no longer continue to endure it.

Little Sangsang held the porridge bowl with her two little hands, her thin arm somewhat trembling, and suddenly she began to cough.

Ning Que stretched out his hand to hold the bowl for her.

The Old Hunter drank some spirit, and said on top of the wine, “You are sensible. If the bowl had broken, just see how I would have dealt with her.”

Taking a glimpse at the bowl filled with meat in front of the Old Hunter, Ning Que stood up towards him and persuaded sincerely, “Grandpa, Sangsang was ill again last night. How about giving her a piece of meat?”

The Old Hunter slapped Ning Que’s head, glared at him, and cursed, “Prey is for you to eat? It is used to change for money and salt! You think I treat you badly, then go away! If you can seize a tiger and use the tiger bones to pay back the money I used to raise you for these years, then I’ll let you go! I spent a great price on that steel trap, yet you are so useless!”

Ning Que retreated without a word.

After drinking, the Old Hunter went out to see the prey that Ning Que brought back today.

A moment later, he indignantly came in with a whip, then began whipping Ning Que, scolding, “You prodigal son! I have taught you many times! Big prey should be slaughtered back here! Who told you to kill it outside?”

Ning Que’s face was full of bloodstains, yet he neither avoided nor evaded, because he was clear that it was meaningless to do so. He just lowered his head and explained, “That blue sheep was too heavy, I couldn’t drag it back if I didn’t kill it first. Anyway, I was careful when killing it, and you can still get the whole skin off of it.”

“You can’t drag it back? Then what’s the use of you?”

The Old Hunter furiously beat him, growling, “You only know the skin, but the blood is also able to earn money! You bastard!”

“Bastard!”

The Old Hunter walked out of the hunting lodge in a rage.

Ning Que looked at Sangsang, who was holding the porridge bowl with her lowered head, and wiped away the blood from his face. Then he smiled at her, saying, “That’s good. Do not try to block the whip for me, or else that old thing will beat me even more energetically. ”

Holding that big bowl, Sangsang vigorously nodded her head.

“Wicked girl! Go and get ready the bath water!”

The disgruntled abuse of the Old Hunter came from outside the lodge. No one knew what had aroused all his resentment.

Sangsang looked up nervously at Ning Que.

Ning Que was busy eating the meat that the Old Hunter forgot to hide. Then, after a moment of silence, he nodded.

…

…

The inside and the outside of the vast Min Mountain were totally different worlds.

Outside the mountain, it had already become the fifth year of Tianqi era of the Tang Empire, while for those living inside the mountain, the days were merely monotonous repetitions day after day. As for the Old Hunter who had retained Ning Que and Sangsang, he finally found a way of killing time in this monotonous world—whipping, abusing and the like.

That year, Ning Que was already a lad of about ten.

That year, Sangsang was five.

…

…

Sangsang was pouring hot water into the bucket, which was immediately shrouded by hot vapor.

The naked Old Hunter in the bucket looked at her and scolded, “Damn you! You’re so dirty, go and wash yourself.”

Sangsang nodded, and then walked out of the room. Later she dragged herself back after picking up the basin of hot water from Ning Que.

The hot water was boiling, and was scaldingly hot.

Sangsang stepped onto the bench, pouring it over the Old Hunter from his head to his feet.

An extremely miserable cry sounded inside the room.

The old hunter ran out, naked, with blisters all over his body. He squinted, for his eyesight was blurred, as he crazily waved the hunting knife in his hand, cursing out the most vicious words he knew.

Bang! A crisp and loud sound of two metal clamps hitting each other was heard, after which the Old Hunter flopped over, uttering an even more mournful scream.

His right leg was caught in the stainless-steel beast trap used to hunt tigers and was half-broken.

Ning Que and Sangsang came over, looking at the Old Hunter lying in a pool of his own blood.

Even in such a situation, the Old Hunter still retained the ruthlessness of the mountain people, staring at Ning Que and scolding him even though he was dying, “You little git! You ungrateful thing! Damn you!”

“Well, we have paid you back for all these years, and now it’s time for revenge.”

Ning Que drew the hunting knife out from behind him, looking at the slouched flesh of the Old Hunter as well as the bloody root of his thigh, and then said, “I could have endured you for two more days, yet you didn’t give me the chance.”

“If you had not promised to sell Sangsang to prostitutes, we would not have killed you.”

“If you had not gone to take a bath, we couldn’t have killed you.”

Ning Que looked at him and, after a long moment of silence, he continued, “In fact, just now… if you had allowed Sangsang to eat the meat, maybe we would not have killed you. We just planned to sneak away.”

The Old Hunter heavily gasped, looking at him blankly.

Then Ning Que clenched the hunting knife and firmly chopped it down.

The head of the Old Hunter fell down.

After a while, Ning Que walked out of the hunting lodge, the boxwood bow and the quiver on his back, the hunting knife on his waist slightly swinging.

Sangsang followed him, holding the worn big black umbrella.

“If you are tired, then climb onto my back.”

Then the two disappeared into the vast Min Mountain.

…

…

Night had come, the thick mist in the mountain behind the Academy was as smooth and thick as milk.

Ning Que stood on the stone steps, with his head lowered. After a long period of silence, he slowly raised his hands.

He clenched his hand to make a hollow fist, as if he was holding an invisible knife.

The night wind was wuthering around the mountain path.

He slightly tilted and suddenly cut down, which broke through the night as well as the fog on the mountain path.

After the cut, another step appeared.

Total silence was found in the thick mist around the peak.

Then a voice of compassion sounded, “I do not know what kind of suffering Ning Que has experienced in his life, nor did he mention it in the old library. How could the mountain path be… so difficult for him?”

“The Mountain Path stretches endlessly ahead, where all previous painful memories are changed into reality to block those who climb. If they can overcome them easily, it will be easier to climb up. But if not, and thus wanting to retreat, then the top will never be reached.”

The words from Second Brother were gradually heard. It was only now that they could find the slightest tint of respect and seriousness in his voice.

“Both of the two climbers today are interesting, especially Ning Que.”

“Those painful memories in the depths of his heart, although I do not know what they really are, are things that he actually doesn’t want to forget, and does not even feel regretful for. To see through them is moreover unnecessary in his heart. Facing the darkest corner at the bottom of his heart, as well as those painful experiences, he still chose the same path he did years before.”

“If he cannot see through them, then how can he keep his heart unchanged over the years?”

“Since he doesn’t want to see through them, then he can just break through them.”

“He wants to break the mountain path.”