Song Yuzhang: Extra 16 - No Return [featuring Fu Mian]
The mahjong tiles clattered loudly. Fu Mian wasn’t fond of the game. When others played mahjong, he only watched, sitting a little farther back. One hand propped up his cheek as he stared at a long row of white tiles streaked with color. A bony index finger slowly rubbed along the edge of a tile. Fu Mian watched that finger, and before he knew it his eyelids began to fight each other. Half-asleep, half-awake, he heard a voice beside his ear, carrying a trace of laughter.
“Sleepy?”
Fu Mian immediately opened his eyes.
Morning stars dotted the bluish sky, bright to the point of dazzling. A cold wind brushed the withered grass, and the tip of his nose filled with the crisp scent of winter. Fu Mian was completely awake.
“Boss, it’s almost the hour of Yin. Shouldn’t we set off?”
Fu Mian lowered his head and glanced at the short martial clothes he wore. “Wait a little longer.”
The cold wind blew against his face, yet Fu Mian did not feel cold. On the contrary, he felt hot. Sweat began to bead along his back. His blood vessels throbbed vigorously, pounding. He could feel his face flushing and burning as well.
It was excitement.
The excitement of revenge.
He had waited a long time for this day.
Measured by ordinary time, it had only been four or five months. But to Fu Mian, those months had felt like forty or fifty years.
For a long time, he had been unable to sleep.
Sleep had suddenly vanished from him. He lay awake staring at trees, flowers, birds, guns, knives, blood… Only when his body was exhausted to the limit would he finally fall asleep. But that could hardly be called sleep.
His body slept while his mind remained intensely excited. Not a single night passed without dreams.
He couldn’t sleep, yet he feared waking.
Every time he woke, it felt as if another layer of skin had been flayed from his body.
Night after night, day after day, he wandered endlessly through the nightmares of the past. How could time not feel unbearably long?
A clear birdsong rang above his head. Fu Mian reached up and snapped off a branch of sickly green leaves. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled lightly, smelling the lingering fragrance of life upon it.
“Let’s go.”
Several desperadoes slipped silently into the city before dawn. Above the city gate, the ancient characters “Anjin” appeared faintly through the wind and dust.
Fu Mian’s once soft palms had long since grown rough and scarred. New wounds overlapped old ones. He felt no pain as his fingers wedged into the cracks of the bricks. Tilting his head slightly upward, he looked at the morning star hanging above and easily scaled the tall wall.
The others followed close behind.
Anjin was a quiet, peaceful little town. It might not be the sort where no one picked up lost items or where doors were left unlocked at night, but its people were simple and lived contentedly.
Inside the residence, the few guards leaned against the wall, dozing. None of them realized that several men had already slipped into the compound under cover of night.
In his sleep, Tang Jin felt something strange— as if someone were watching him.
The moment he opened his eyes, a pillow pressed down over his face.
Fu Mian used a great deal of force.
Tang Jin struggled violently, of course. But Fu Mian’s hand remained steady. Tang Jin thrashed wildly on the bed like a fish flopping out of water, yet Fu Mian’s hand did not move at all. Only when Tang Jin gradually lost strength did he finally let go.
When the hand lifted, Tang Jin had already gone limp like a puddle of mud. The room was dark; Fu Mian couldn’t see the expression on Tang Jin’s face. He could only hear heavy, desperate breathing.
In that instant, Fu Mian finally felt a long-lost calm.
“Where’s the money?”
Tang Jin panted, and through the roaring in his ears he recognized Fu Mian’s voice. Shock nearly overwhelmed the pain in his lungs. “Fu… Mian?”
The knife at his neck slid in another inch. Blood immediately appeared.
“The money.”
Tang Jin had never imagined things would turn out like this.
Five months earlier, Ye Zhuqing had boarded a ship and left, leaving behind an empty box. When Tang Jin unlocked it and found nothing inside, he had been furious. Later, he heard that Fu Pingchang had taken people to block the inn, only to suffer a sudden heart attack and die. That news had eased his anger somewhat.
Fortunately, Ye Zhuqing had tricked both sides. Tang Jin had only lost some money. Compared to the Fu family, he had actually come out ahead.
“The scene was something else, Boss Tang. It’s a pity you didn’t see it yourself. That Fu family brat—oh, I’m embarrassed even saying it. Not a stitch of clothing on him, clutching his father in the street and crying his heart out. Honestly… though you’ve got to admit, with skin that fine, he looked pretty good.”
Tang Jin hadn’t seen that scene, but he had gone to watch the punishment at the Fu ancestral hall when Fu Mian was expelled from the family.
They tied him to a bench. The elders took turns whipping him, some striking lightly, others heavily. After one round, his clothes were shredded, and he himself had become a gory mass of blood.
Fu Mian had originally been wearing mourning clothes. A few lashes tore the black silk on his arm apart, the bloodstained fabric falling to the ground. When the ropes were untied, he rolled off the bench with a dull thud, his limbs twitching violently.
Tang Jin couldn’t bear to watch and left. It wasn’t sympathy for Fu Mian—he simply found the scene too bloody and nauseating.
Now half a year had passed, and Tang Jin had nearly forgotten the whole matter. Who would have thought Fu Mian would suddenly descend from the heavens and hold a knife to his throat, forcing him to reveal where the family treasury was?
Tang Jin quickly regained his composure. He sensed there were several other people in the darkness. He had no time to think about who they were. “Let’s talk this out…”
“Mmph—”
Fu Mian clamped a hand over Tang Jin’s mouth and plunged the knife into his shoulder.
Warm blood splashed along the blade onto Fu Mian’s hand. “I’ll ask you one last time. Where’s the money?” Leaning down slightly, Fu Mian threatened in a low voice: “Don’t play tricks. Your father is already sixty. You wouldn’t want him to bury his son, would you?”
Tang Jin trembled with pain. When Fu Mian removed his hand, he stammered out the location where the money was hidden.
Fu Mian turned his head slightly, and one of the men immediately left.
The knife remained lodged in Tang Jin’s shoulder. Fu Mian wiped the blood from his hand onto the pillow beside Tang Jin. “That’s better. A wise man knows when to bow to circumstances. Boss Tang, you’re very sensible.”
Tang Jin clenched his teeth to keep from making a sound. Having traveled widely, his judgment was sharp. Except for the time he’d been fooled by Ye Zhuqing, he rarely misjudged people. Tonight’s Fu Mian was no longer the Fu Mian of the past. He’s killed someone, Tang Jin thought to himself. He must have killed someone.
A faint commotion sounded outside, as if someone were shouting. Tang Jin’s heart tightened, rising into his throat. The door was kicked open. The man who had gone out said, “Boss, someone spotted me!”
Joy surged inside Tang Jin, though he dared not show it. He forced his breathing to remain steady, holding his breath as he waited to see whether Fu Mian would flee or—
“What happened?”
Fu Mian’s voice was calm.
“The place is too big. I got turned around and ran into a night watchman. Had to stab him.”
“What about the body?”
“No time to deal with it. I tossed it in the grass. Someone will probably find it soon.”
Fu Mian turned and stepped away from the bed.
Tang Jin continued holding his breath. The footsteps grew distant. Hope slowly rose in his heart. Then—click. The electric light in the room turned on.
The brightness stabbed Tang Jin’s eyes shut.
“Since we’ve already been discovered,” Fu Mian said coldly, “no need to hold back.”
With his eyes closed, Tang Jin listened as Fu Mian began giving orders in the room, calmly assigning positions.
The more Tang Jin listened, the colder his heart became.
After the others rushed out, Fu Mian returned to the bedside. He saw Tang Jin’s eyes squeezed tightly shut, his eyelids and lips trembling.
“There’s a saying—misfortune shouldn’t extend to a man’s family. That was my original plan as well.” Fu Mian pressed down on Tang Jin’s shoulder. With his other hand he gripped the knife hilt and yanked hard, pulling the blade free. Tang Jin’s whole body jolted violently. Suddenly, his eyes flew open, and both hands lunged toward Fu Mian’s throat. Fu Mian drove the knife forward again. This time he stabbed for Tang Jin’s eye. The scream that tore from Tang Jin was as terrible as any a human could make. Fu Mian pulled the knife back out, flicked the eyeball off the blade, and watched Tang Jin rolling across the bed. For the first time in a long while, a smile appeared on his face.
Comfortable.
So comfortable.
So when people suffer, they all look equally ugly.
Once, Fu Mian had thought himself hideous—standing naked before the Fu family members who had burst in, his body lashed and covered with wounds, crawling step by step out of Anjin beneath everyone’s contemptuous gazes. At that time, he believed there was nothing in the world more wretched and ugly than himself.
But when he killed his first person, he realized something. Everyone looked ugly before death. He wasn’t special.
He had already died once. He would never be ugly again. Now it was someone else’s turn.
Fu Mian dragged the half-dead Tang Jin out of the room.
People who had lived peaceful lives too long were like sheep. When suddenly faced with a pack of hungry wolves, they had no ability to fight back. Fu Mian threw Tang Jin onto the ground and washed his hands in the courtyard pond.
Many koi swam in the water, their scales glittering. The rippling water carried the smell of blood. The fish opened their mouths, sucking in the blood-tinged water. Fu Mian found the sight interesting and smiled faintly.
Amid slaughter, he had rediscovered his smile.
Killing people. Taking money. Before the dawn light arrived, Fu Mian left the Tang residence with Tang Jin.
He had come silently. And he left silently. Everything was very quiet.
Interrogation bored Fu Mian. Usually, the person being questioned confessed very easily.
Tang Jin was the same.
At the same time, Tang Jin had questioned him in return. One eye streaming tears, the other bleeding, he asked: “Fu Mian… why have you become so cruel?”
Fu Mian played with a short dagger in his hand and glanced sideways at Tang Jin’s blood-smeared face. He smiled faintly. “I’ve never changed.”
Unfortunately, Ye Zhuqing had not gone to East City as Fu Mian had told Tang Jin. But that wasn’t entirely unfortunate. Fu Mian caught Ma Jiming instead.
So that was what his Zhuqing really was.
A bastard born of a whore.
Fu Mian killed Ma Jiming.
He killed Tang Jin as well. Tang Jin was less fortunate than Ma Jiming. Fu Mian first chopped off his hands and feet, leaving him to linger in agony for several days before finally killing him.
He refused to admit it was jealousy.
Everything Ye Zhuqing had told him was a lie—yet to Tang Jin he had revealed a faint trace of truth.
“Boss…”
Fu Mian lifted a hand slightly in a stopping gesture. Staring at the gun in his hand, he said quietly, “Don’t call me that anymore. Afraid people might not know what background we come from?”
“Y-yes… sir…”
For their young leader, every man under him felt genuine respect. He was ruthless. Fierce. Well-born and educated. Clever and capable. Following him, they had risen from ragged bandits to running a legitimate tobacco business. Without Fu Mian, they would have spent their whole lives hiding in the mountains chewing coarse corn cakes.
“What is it?”
“We found it—the grave of that wh—”
A sharp glance swept over. The man hurriedly corrected himself. “Xiao Yingtao’s grave.”
Qingxi was a beautiful place. Early spring had just arrived. Drizzling rain covered the entire small town in mist. Walking through it, Fu Mian thought the land seemed well suited for growing tobacco.
Someone held an umbrella for him as Fu Mian lifted his long robe and walked down the steps.
Qingxi had suffered bombing, but the graveyard lay in a remote place and had escaped destruction. Scattered people were still there paying respects.
Following the traces, they found the grave of Xiao Yingtao. The moment Fu Mian saw the grave mound, he laughed.
It was clearly untended. Grass had grown all over it, and unknown wildflowers swayed in the wind around its edges.
Fu Mian crouched down, examining the shabby grave mound from top to bottom. He plucked a bright red wildflower and smelled it lightly. All unfilial sons, he thought.
“Master, your disciple has come to see you again. You returned to your roots after death—how many years has it been now? Are you comfortable down there? Have you met that old friend who gave you the sword?”
“Oh right, let me introduce someone to you. A very important man. Handsome too—take a look. His name is Song Yuzhang, chairman of the Haizhou Chamber of Commerce. Though he holds high status, he and your disciple understand each other deeply…”
A light tap fell on his shoulder. The necklace he had just opened slipped from his hand and dropped to the ground. A hand picked it up.
Inside the necklace was a black-and-white portrait. The man in the photograph was extraordinarily handsome, his expression carrying a faint smile filled with bold spirit.
Fu Mian stared at the portrait. His fingers unconsciously tightened. The gold chain twisted into his palm. New hatred and old grudges, new wounds and old scars all throbbed together in pain. Voices around him questioned him anxiously, buzzing in his ears, but Fu Mian heard nothing. He saw nothing. As if yesterday had returned, a voice sounded again beside his ear.
“A-Mian.”
Gentle. Warm with a smile.
“Zhuqing.”
He murmured the name. Then he froze.
He realized that his voice sounded… joyful.
It even carried a smile. Blood slid down the chain. His hand dropped as well.
Fu Mian closed his eyes and fell with the wind. It felt comfortable—so comfortable it was like falling asleep.
All this time he had been walking a long road. At first he believed it was the road of revenge. Only at the end did he gradually realize— It had been a road back. A road of no return.
He was going to sleep now. This time, he would not have nightmares again.
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