Zhao Jian'an stared at Qiu Yang for a long time before saying, “Then leave tomorrow.”
Qiu Yang noticed nothing unusual. She nodded. “All right.”
That night, she packed her bundle. She folded her clothes inside, placed the blade manual at the bottom, and kept her travel permit and key against her body.
When she finished, exhaustion overcame her and she collapsed onto the bed. Yet sleep would not come. She lay with her eyes open, watching the stars beyond the window multiply and then slowly fade.
Qiu Yang did not sleep all night.
Before dawn, she shouldered her bundle and opened her door, nearly walking straight into Zhao Jian'an. He stood silently in the courtyard holding a small cloth pouch. When she appeared, he offered it.
“For the road.”
Qiu Yang took it and squeezed. Broken pieces of silver.
“Uncle Zhao—”
“Go on.” He interrupted, hands on her shoulders as he turned her toward the gate. “The city gates have just opened and there aren't many people yet. Hurry.”
She tucked the pouch into her clothes and looked at him.
Zhao Jian'an stood sideways with one hand braced on the doorframe. His knuckles tightened, then loosened, but he never looked at her again.
Qiu Yang understood. She said nothing more, turned, and pushed through the gate.
The alley was silent, the horizon washed pale gray. At its mouth, she looked back. The Zhao residence was already closed, not a trace of light showing through the seam.
She withdrew her gaze and headed for the city gate.
It had indeed just opened. Sleepy guards leaned yawning inside the arch. Qiu Yang approached with her head lowered and handed over her travel permit. The guard immediately woke, scanned it, and asked, “Leaving the city?”
She nodded.
“What for?”
“To join relatives.”
He gave her a sidelong look and returned the permit. “Go.”
Qiu Yang put it away and walked through the gate.
After half an hour, she left the official road and turned onto a smaller path leading toward the Far North. The scenery changed at once. Fields disappeared, replaced by barren slopes and dead grass.
She had never seen such desolation. A chill crawled over her back as she walked, and she silently quickened her pace.
That evening, she sheltered in a ruined temple, sitting against the wall with her bundle beneath her head. Wind battered the broken door panels outside. Unease kept her awake, and before dawn she rose and continued.
On the third afternoon, as she followed a river ditch northward, hoofbeats sounded behind her. Without thinking, Qiu Yang slipped below the bank and crouched motionless.
The pounding drew nearer. Several good horses were approaching fast. From below the ditch, she heard them thunder over the road above, shaking the ground.
Only when the sound faded did she stand and peer over the roadside. Several men in official uniforms rode south, apparently toward the capital.
Qiu Yang exhaled. They had not come for her.
But she recognized their uniforms. They belonged to the Ministry of Justice.
Crouched beside the road, she watched the riders vanish into the horizon, then continued north.
Two days later, she stopped at a roadside tea shed. Only an old man boiling water was there. Qiu Yang ordered a bowl of tea. Halfway through it, she heard him speaking with a carter.
“Old Wang, did you hear? They've arrested someone else in the capital.”
“What? Who?”
“A bureau director in the Ministry of War, surnamed Zhao. The charge was... sheltering some criminal, I think. They imprisoned him the day before yesterday.”
Qiu Yang's hand froze around her bowl. Tea sloshed over the rim and dotted the table.
She set it down. Her head felt heavier than it ever had, and for a moment she could not breathe.
“What did this Director Zhao do?” she asked softly.
“I don't know the details. I heard it involved Qiu Chengye's case,” the carter whispered. “They're retrying that traitor's old case and digging up everyone involved. Zhao's misfortune was signing documents in the Far North back then. Now he's been dragged into it.”
Qiu Yang finished her tea, left a copper coin, and walked away.
After some distance, she slowed and crouched beside the road.
Zhao Jian'an had been arrested.
Despite every precaution, they had taken him.
She remained there a while, a stone beneath her shoe pressing painfully into her sole.
Then she stood and kept walking north.
Forward.
More than ten days later, she finally reached Pingyuan Town.
A faded flag hung from a wooden pole at the entrance. Qiu Yang looked up at it, then entered.
The town was small and its streets laid out squarely. The smithy was easy to find. She soon reached it at the end of the street. A furnace blazed inside while an old man bent over his ironwork.
Qiu Yang waited at the doorway until his hammer fell, then asked, “Is this the Liao residence?”
The old man looked up, set down his hammer, and straightened. “It is. Who are you looking for?”
Without speaking, Qiu Yang drew out her travel permit and handed it over. Old Liao read it, looked at her again, then tipped his head toward the rear.
“So it's you. Come in.”
She followed him to the back courtyard. He opened a small room. “Stay here for now.”
Qiu Yang stopped at the entrance. “Uncle Zhao, he...”
“I know,” Old Liao interrupted. “He wrote about it. Settle in and don't think too much.”
Qiu Yang said no more. She entered and placed her bundle on the plank bed. Only then, feeling its full weight, did she realize how smoothly the journey had gone.
She had been extraordinarily fortunate. Alone with a bundle from the capital to this place, she had lost nothing but food and traveling money.
Qiu Yang looked out the window.
Several clouds drifted across the sky, met, gathered, and slowly formed a shape.
To Qiu Yang, they looked a little like Zhao Jian'an's face.