Qu Fongning was called up in the middle of morning training. This meeting had apparently ignited public anger; Staff Officer Bana, Inner Affairs Minister Baden, and a number of other captains and deputy captains he often bullied were all gesticulating, pointing at him, and saying things in a great stir. Qu Fongning rigidly went up a step, his eyes shooting off to the side, not at all looking likely to confess and apologize.

Gerrgu was awfully worried, repeatedly craning his neck to look. “It’s over, it’s over, little brother Fongning is going to get berated.”

The Ghost Whisperer stood silently in file, listening to the rise of the terror chiming low voice:

“Little Monkey, did you miss me?”

The voice was smiling and the tone full of affection; there was not one bit of admonition. Qu Fongning sealed his lips for words, yet his shoulders rose and fell.

Yujien chuckled, as if having expected it. “Fine, angry again. Can’t even linger for just a few days? Passed your due date?” He drew him to his knees, his voice so gentle as to nearly mute, “I had been galloping non-stop, rushing back to see you sooner. Come up at noon. Let me cherish you, mn?”

Qu Fongning shifted his mask, took a step back from his legs, and wordlessly retreated.

In the eyes of the gathering, he didn’t even return to his column, just mounted by the field, and rode off in the swelling voices.

“General, look at him, see what he has become! You can’t keep indulging him like this anymore!” Bana’s brow stood vertical from the fury.

Yujien seemed to have signed as well. “About time for some governance.”

Before the midday training, a guard came to seek Captain Qu. Qu Fongning was practicing blows by himself on the battalion grounds. His snow-white underlayer was soaked with sweat. Every punch struck out with extraordinary ferocity. At the call, he didn’t even turn his head, and only answered curtly, “Not going!”

The guard was well prepared and drew out a roll of accounts. “The general had said, if Captain Qu doesn’t go, this account book will go up to Internal Affairs for review.”

Fist frozen in mid-air, Qu Fongning clenched his teeth and snatched the account book, and dragging along the Ghost Whisperer, went up the cliffs.

~

Layers of vestures draped heavy before the Sky Gale Cliff. The Ghost Whisperer didn’t have the status to be near and had to stand by at the end of the mountain path.

The main ger’s curtain was half-open, with a corner of the felt carpet dimly visible. Qu Fongning stepped in very unwillingly. A moment later, there floated down words that seemed to have traveled from an even further place.

“Our Ningning’s got a big temper now, eh? The golden drums haven’t dropped, and you’ve just left as you pleased. Got any rules left in you?”

“And the stuff Bana said—insensible to discipline, unanswered at the third call—wasn’t wrongly accusing you, yeah? And these ghost scribble accounts, who are you fooling? I whipped and galloped back, and caught right on all these good deeds you’re doing, yeah?”

Qu Fongning replied darkly, “Then that’s really unfortunate. I’m wild of nature, can’t follow all these rules of yours.”

Yujien’s voice stopped as if to frown. “Ningning, I’m speaking seriously with you. Who are making this odd tone for?”

“I’ve got an odd tone? Aren’t I thanking you?” Qu Fongning’s voice was trembling from the depth of his throat, like he was trying to stifle his anger.

Yujien opened his mouth after a break, but it was a laugh. “Ningning, the way you’re looking, clearly wants to wolf me down to death.” The laughter in his voice thickened. “Come, I’ll let you bite.” Noises of mad struggling, and his breaths started to sound heavy, speaking so low like respiring, “No more rows. Haven’t you touched you for over a month, missed you so much. Come…”

The words unfinished, in came a ruckus of even more violent noises, followed by a heavy paa. And Qu Fongning’s furious voice roaring, “Don’t touch me!”

The bed boards shifted; Yujien seemed to have sat up, and his voice added on some austerity, “Enough is enough. Such a puny matter and you’re clamoring the chickens to flight and dogs to leap. Your temper’s getting worse and worse, gaining pieces and going on wholes! I see you’re spoiled!”

The fold of his back convulsed twice, like he was readying to go down the cockpit. Something was slammed down with a pang. Qu Fongning straight up yelled, “I have a bad temper! If you don’t like me to fuss, then you shouldn’t have indulged me in the beginning! No one’s pleading with you in tears! When you’re happy, you don’t care about anything! As soon as you get mad, you think I’m spoiled! Anyway, it’s always whatever you say! I’m just a play dough for you to knead!”

“Yell, yell even harder. Let me see what new ways you can carp out this time!” urged Yujien.

“How can I carp with your honor? Who are you! General! Mastyer! Master!” Qu Fongning’s fury rose even higher.

Yujien frowned at him. “Other people mature as they grow, you’re growing backwards. Listen to yourself, are there any decent things you just said?”

Qu Fongning had reddened from the rage, and hearing this remark, his face drained white in an instant. “Yeah, I’m childish, not as sensible as others! They’ve got such delicate hands, such sweet lips. How adorably attentive? Unlike me, who only knows how to make work for you every day, I’ve really troubled your honor! I’ll just go to find a place for my sorry ass now and scram the fuck off! Be far away from you for the rest of my life!”

His entire body tensed tight. His eyes spat fire. Yet as he said to the end, tears plopped out in globs.

Yujien was inexplicably roared at, and his brows arched even deeper. “What are you howling and yammering about!”

“You know very well yourself!” Qu Fongning sobbed and roared. A slash, seeming like the tear of fabric. “The engagement’s even settled, haven’t got a few days left, stop taking me as a fool! I can’t make you do anything… I’ll go beyond the hinterlands myself! Never see you again!” One statement delivered full of sobs, he was already crying beside himself.

Yujien made out the sincerity in his words really with a great effort of his ears. “What engagement? With whom?” Then he glanced at his own shoulders and suddenly came around. “You think I’m going to marry Princess Herr Chuan? Qi’yoonr?”

“How am I to know who you’re going to marry? You’re the Prime Champion of the Steppes, who doesn’t want to marry you!” Qu Fongning sneered with his cracked throat, and sided his face, gritting his teeth. “Qi’yoonr, Qi’yoonr, cooing so intimately!”

Yujien held a pause and suddenly guffawed.

He laughed so heartily, further incensing Qu Fongning half to death, with his eyes glowering wide enough to fly out.

Yujien laughed for a good while, and almost wanting more, opened his mouth, still full of mirth. “Ningning, let’s agree on something. From now on, if you are to get mad, you must first find out the truth of the matter, okay?”

Qu Fongning refused to listen to him drawing on reason. “How can this be false? Still wearing it nice and snug, and can’t bear to take it off even now!”

Yujien nonchalantly yanked off the cloak and drew him over. “Why, heard I’m going to marry someone else, heartbroken?”

“I’m not heartbroken!” Qu Fongning sobbed, eyeing the small ball of snow-white softness shining in mute glamor, a demure elegance at the strike of a glance, and down fell the pitter-patter of his tears.

Yujien braced him between his knees and pushed his half-fallen mask onto his forehead.

“Old Oyghr told you? How much truth has he got in that mouth of his, and you believe him?”

Qu Fongning recovered a bit of his wits, chewed over this sentence, and snuffed his nose, glancing at him. “You’re not really getting married?”

Yujien’s eyes held the laugh, but his look belied much more seriousness. “Bailan Path is a pellet-sized nation of less than ten thousand tribesmen. They hold on to a critical path but have no notion of progress. Up and down, so many generations still eat from the same packs of passing caravans. For coin they have no coin, for men they have no men. What am I to marry their princess for?”

Qu Fongning’s tears were still unfinished, he mulled over it a bit and realized the catch.

“So, if it’s a princess from a major country, you’ll have to marry?”

Yujien’s brows shifted. “It’ll depend on whether it’s useful. If I have to say, in the world now, only affiances with Bi’ro are impossible to deny. But with Aby sending people over all-year round for proposals, this task shouldn’t ever fall on me.”

Qu Fongning was finally appeased, but his mouth persisted, “I see you want to marry very much!”

Yujien signed, but smiled at him with his eyes. “One princess is already enough for me to bear; how dare I provoke another one?”

Qu Fongning’s face reddened in a thump, his battened lips twisted a bit, and his eyes fell back on his hand. “Then why still accept her things?”

“I’m also helpless about it. She said this is to help her complete her life’s wish, praying that I do not take it off before I return to my country. And I wouldn’t know just as my forefoot stepped away, the rumors already spread across the steppes.”

Qu Fongning at least received his conditioning for two years, was not a stranger to the origin of these rumors of his, and scoffed a heavy hmph. “They like you so much, think they can tie you down with this.”

Yujien watched his puffed-up cheeks with absolute amusement. “Still fussing or no?”

Now Qu Fongning wilted completely and had to drop his head, shutting his words down, then his hand extended over. “Give me this!”

Yujien teased him, dangling the cloak. “What’re you going to do with it?”

“Tear it to strips, make a brush for my horse. The rest, cloth for sweat, for washing!” Qu Fongning humphed.

Yujien listened and laughed, and said generously, “Use it to wipe your feet if you please.” He embraced him deeper and said, “But, Ningning, you were rowing and yelling at me just now, shouldn’t you apologize to me?”

Lashes weeping, very soft and gooey, Qu Fongning whispered, “Sorry.”

“Ningning, you know which kind of apology I’m talking about,” Yujien said with a chuckle.

Naturally, Qu Fongning knew very well. He grievously gave him a look and tugged back his messy hair. His hand stretched over the tightly strapped silver buckled leather belt, unfastening it little by little, pulling it loose. And he bit his lower lip and bent down.

When the watery sucking sounds, men’s light, then disordered breaths, and the swaying of the huge heavy bed from the ger finally settled, the Ghost Whisperer no longer remembered how much cold sweat he had fallen.

~

The break after the midday training. Qu Fongning rested on Uncle Hwei’s knees, his mask loosened, thumbs kneading on his temples, and his face full of unspeakable fatigue. Uncle Hwei lazily made the hand gestures: “How goes the query for that stepmother-to-be of yours?”

“Queried away,” said Qu Fongning, tiredly.

Uncle Hwei triumphantly held his head. “Good, if it’s someone keen on management, it’ll be a great problem for you.” And he poked him, bantering, “How did you protest to him, going dead and alive?”

Qu Fongning closed his eyes. “Tiring.” He turned around. “More tiring than actual anger.”

The black chains on the Ghost Whisperer’s neck shuddered. His eyes moved from the tips of his feet to the exhausted eyes.

He was front on to the Ghost Whisperer, the lips beneath the mask opened and closed, soundlessly speaking to him:

“Faking is always very tiring, right?”

~

Twilight, the shadow of the City of Ghosts dragged long in the golden light. On the barren grass field, a well-cleaned white elephant was gazing vacantly into the distance.

Qu Fongning cantered by on loose rein, saw its dazed look, spun off the horse, and inquired on the issue. “Suppose it’s sad in its heart at losing its companions,” answered the mahout.

“It has always been together with A’da and A’nine. Now they’ve gone to the Wolfbend Mountain, of course it’ll be sad and lonely.” Qu Fongning signed and licked the elephant whistle for a blow. The white elephant fanned its great ears, lifted its head to see him, immediately swung its nose, and walked over to him, one limp after another. Its feet rose and fell, shaking the earth in its track.

The Ghost Whisperer followed like a shadow, and observed the ground strewn with footprints, for there had to be at least a dozen elephants here originally. Hearing the names made by Qu Fongning, he pondered: “I wonder which number is this one?”

“Little Fourteen! I’m here to see you! Aiya, don’t lick me!” He listened to Qu Fongning laughing and playing with the white elephant for a while, scratching its big ears. The white elephant obediently knelt down on its front legs, letting him climb on.

“So good,” Qu Fongning applauded, and hooked at the Ghost Whisperer. “You come up too!”

The Ghost Whisperer had to clamber up, to sit with him on the elephant’s back. He only felt the thickness beneath him very warm, his vision high and far, feeling much more sensation than usual. A thought stirred in his heart, “This life’s not in vain, dying here.”

And was unguarded when the person by his side opened his lips, “What are you waiting for?”

“Death,” he answered soundlessly.

Qu Fongning laughed. “What am I to kill you for? Your head isn’t worth any merit.” He tugged the iron chains on his neck, still smiling. “I forgot to ask. What’s your name?”

“… Black Dog.”

“I’m asking for your real name,” Qu Fongning persisted.

The Ghost Whisperer was silent. Dzerens¹ ran agilely across the distant thickets, the large and the small soon vanished by the horizon.

Qu Fongning let down his legs and lolled comfortably. He rolled down a couple of folds of his high boots, lightly swaying the two golden bells.

“I looked up your crime case yesterday. The person who judged you guilty told me your stepfather was thirty-eighty years old and had been a hunter. He was violent of temper and often hit you and your mother. You got fed up and killed him out of spite. That year, you were just ten.”

“This case sounds reasonable in all aspects, but it cannot stand scrutiny. I’ve heard from Uighshön that you were strangely aloof in Mongus City and never conversed with anyone. The other feared you, threw stones at you, but you let your head break blood and never retaliated. A person’s nature is often apparent in their youth. If you are really someone violent and homicidal, how can mere iron chains latch you in?”

“Moreover, there are other ways to resolve ‘fed up with beatings’ beyond murder. And if you are to deal with everything with the knife, then you shouldn’t take the law to mind at all. But you are not this kind of person! When I was late to the last formation review, your steps were very hurried.”

“And, the most important point.”

He regarded the Ghost Whisperer’s gaunt frame with a small smile.

“Kids are usually fearful of adults. I think this small slack of yours couldn’t have been all that big when you were ten, either. Your stepfather was a hunter, strong of stature. If you were to kill him, you had to strike when he was most vulnerable. The case files mentioned when he was killed, he was fully naked, from which it could be deduced that he was sleeping. But there is another time when a man could be fully naked and completely vulnerable. You struck fourteen strikes on his lower body, every strike cutting to the bone. And I couldn’t help being curious: what was his item doing, making you hate him so much… And I heard you had a sister at home at the time, she was twelve, and beautiful.”

The Ghost Whisperer shivered uncontrollably, bent even deeper and lower, and the heavily ladened iron chains sagged onto the elephant bank, making a dull thud.

“I know you’ve got exceptional hearing. The first time you were behind my horse, you noticed these four skulls on my waist.” He patted his back waist. “Every time my whip was going to hook you, you would lightly shrink to the opposite direction, so as to avoid the iron chain’s rebound. I suppose nothing escapes your ears within three to five li. Even the canvases cannot block it, right?”

“He let me hear it on purpose today,” thought the Ghost Whisperer. Cold sweat slowly coursed down his spine, and slowly froze.

Qu Fongning held his gaze on him for a moment, and the corners of his eyes lifted.

“Whatever you heard that day, and whatever you saw when you rushed back, was not told to anyone. Even when the others cut off your hand, even if you would always bear an ominous name…” He protended his hand and tapped the pitch-black iron chains. “I think you are awe-inspiring.”

The Ghost Whisperer shook like a sieve, his head already dropped before his chest.

“Your stepfather often beat you. His temper was irascible, and his strength must’ve been great. You were beat lifeless but never thought to fight back. Only until you heard he was… and you hastened back. You must have been terrified. But you still took the strike to protect your only dear kin.”

Beneath the setting sun, his eyes also seemed to shine with a pale golden glimmer.

“—You are a hero.”

The Ghost Whisperer’s ceaseless trembling stopped. His remaining bony, withered hand held fast to his face, to hold back, what for over ten years never fell, the deluge of tears.

Qu Fongning’s eyes also seemed to bring about some moisture.

“Cry no more. Be my man! Together we’ll be true and dignified heroes… All these years of injustice and humiliation, I shall wash them away for you one by one.”

A beam of frosty radiance flashed before his neck. The Ghost Whisperer felt his body lighten, and that which followed him like a shadow and accompanied him for sixteen years—the black dog’s chains — had been sliced down to the earth, fallen to pieces.

He stretched out his suddenly lightened body in disbelief, while waves of heat scalded his sockets. He dared not to glimpse the way Qu Fongning looked as he recovered the blade into the sheath, only until he opened his mouth with a smile:

“You already know the secret of the general and I, you should at least tell me your name?”

His lips shifted, finally muttering aloud the name almost buried beneath the darkness:

“Amur…”

---