Before I could answer, two figures raced into the room entryway. Jìngxī and Língzhú took in the sight of the shattered statue and then bowed to me, I could see that they were hiding their annoyance. “Scholar Zhang, we would prefer to have this statue replaced… This was our late master's temple.”

  For some reason that made me feel better.

  "Take it up with the Asuran Hand of The South" I jested. Seeing the shock on their faces I felt that was the moment to give them a wink before striding out of the side room and into the courtyard.

  I strode confidently to a table where Xiao Qi had laid out my writing supplies. LuChengFeng, Xiao Qi, Steward Feng, and the wolves looked to me expectantly. Wei Jin followed closely behind me.

  I took a pencil and a fresh sheet of paper. My hand flew across the sheet with swift certainty, the knowledge of a future flowing through my fingers. I sketched a design not of elegant, expensive steel, but of rugged, simple cast iron. A long triple barrel on a wooden stock. A Ming Dynasty SanYanChong.

  “Rider to the foundry,” I ordered. One of Feng's wolves heeded the call.

  “Tell the smiths to halt production on the steel prototypes,” I wrote in a quick, precise script. “They are to begin casting these instead. It is simpler, cheaper. I want them to make ten of them.” and they were cheaper. Even in my modern day, rural folks would cast these in their backyards as fireworks, so my short videos would suggest anyways. I'd made sure to give my design comfortable margins on thickness.

  “Tell them to abandon the workshops, but to load what they can with them, we will mobilize and produce as we encamp” It would have been a matter of time before the investigation into Lord Feng uncovered them too, and it would have been yet another piece of damning evidence.

  I sealed the message and handed it to a waiting Wolf. My gaze then fell upon a map of the Central Plains. My finger traced a path south, to JiangNan Circuit, to a small, insignificant dot marked as Song's ancestral home.

  They could not fight him head-on in the capital. Not yet. But a man's pride, as Layla had taught me, was his greatest vulnerability.

  “Another rider,” I said, my voice as cold and hard as the new iron I had designed. “To the Qinling Mountains. Find the Black Wind Cliff Escorts. Tell them the Black Wind flows towards JiangNan. They are to rendezvous three li north of the Song clan village." Xiao Qi had provided an excellent map of the region, ever since Layla had mentioned Song's village.

  I turned to Lu Chengfeng, “Commander Lu,” I said, handing him the rolled schematics for the firearm and a second copy of the map. “You will ride ahead. Take five of your best men and the fastest horses. Your destination is the Qinling Mountains. You will find the Black Wind Cliff Escorts and take command.” I would have sent Wei Jin, who was actually their commander, but alas he had no horse to call his own. Plus I'd assumed he'd rather stay with Layla.

  I met his gaze, the weight of the task passing between us. “Drill them relentlessly. This,” I tapped the scroll, “is a new kind of weapon. It requires a new kind of discipline. They are already drilled in the Mandarin Duck formation, pikemen to repel charges, shield-bearers, and now these SanYanChong wielders will replace the existing bowmen. By the time we arrive, I expect a unified force. Any extra SanYanChong you manage to produce beyond equipping the men there will be reserved for the Wolves.”

  I turned to Wei Jin “in his absence you will train the Wolves in using these firearms. Volley Fire like archers and crossbowmen.” Then to both “Instill semaphores with hand symbols rather than by verbal command. Everyone uses cotton balls to plug their ears, I have no use for a deaf army.”

  Lu Chengfeng took the scroll and gave a crisp martial salute. There was no hesitation. “It will be done,” he said, before turning and issuing a series of crisp commands. Within minutes, he and his vanguard were a cloud of dust on the horizon, a promise of the storm to come. Wei Jin likewise gave a crisp salute and left to familiarize himself with the remainder of the wolves.

  With the troops dispatched to their tasks, I made my way to the side hall where Layla rested. She was lying on her stomach her head propped up by a folded blanket, pale but alert and looking around.

  Wei Jin entered after me and made his way over to the small caldron in the corner of the room, carefully feeding silk strips into a pot of simmering wine.

  "RuLin," Layla said weakly, and somehow her voice still carried that familiar wry musicality. "You look terrible."

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  "Me?" I said with some incredulity. I probably also smelled terrible and I expected her to comment on it again. As if she read my mind she smiled weakly and said "I was getting used to the smell of the stables"

  I suppressed a smile. The guilt made it easier.

  "I came to apologize." I said sincerely.

  "For what? The thrilling rescue? The exotic temple accommodations?" She gestured at the bare wooden walls. "I've performed in worse venues."

  "For roping you into this. Song's men—"

  "Were Song's men," she cut me off, gentle but firm. "They would have found a reason eventually. A girl like me, useful to a man like him? I was never going to escape that." She paused, her eyes meeting mine. "I spent ten years imagining the men who might buy my contract. Vice-Director Song was among the better possibilities I had prepared myself for."

  That was a horrifying sentiment.

  Seeing my expression change Layla made an effort to lighten the mood, "To think it would be another girl beat you to paying my price... perhaps this temple was meant for me after all."

  "She is way too young, you know," I told her in all seriousness.

  "Oh! Sorry," she replied earnestly. "I didn't mean her, I meant women in general..." She glanced at Wei Jin. "...Never mind. I didn't think that through."

  She reached beneath her blanket and withdrew a rolled scroll. The maishenqi. Her deed of indenture. She held it in both hands, studying it.

  "I never expected to hold this again," she whispered. "Whatever comes next... I get to decide. That's more than I ever planned for."

  I glanced at Wei Jin. He was still focused on his work, stiring the silken cloths in the wine with care.

  I stoop down to one knee, and lean in, "Should I give you two some privacy?" I asked, pitching my voice lower.

  To my suprise, Layla's cheeks colored in a deep scarlet blush.

  She, shyly, nodded.

  I rose, and the smile that crossed my face was real. So was the envy beneath it. I let myself feel the sharp, clean ache of watching two people find each other while my own someone remained a thousand years away. I stood and walked towards the door. I cleared my throat and Wei Jin glanced my way, although our eyes never met and his vision never focused on me.

  At the doorway, a familiar figure was failing to conceal herself behind the frame.

  I took purposeful strides towards the door where I scooped Lady Feng up by the waist, spun her around as she let out a giggle, and set her down a few paces further from the door.

  "I wanted to see how it plays out!" she protested, more delighted than annoyed despite her efforts to scowl.

  "You have to trust well-crafted plans to execute themselves," I say with a shrug "If you watch them too closely, they might not work out."

  She considered this with genuine seriousness, her head tilting slightly. Then she jabbed a finger at my chest.

  "You have to tell me everything you learn later!"

  She was already turning, scampering off toward the courtyard where Xiao Qi was inventorying supplies. "You sound evil when you laugh, by the way!" She threw over her shoulder.

  Then she was gone.

  I shook my head. Lord Feng had spoiled his daughter thoroughly.

  There were worse paths for a clever girl.

  That afternoon the smiths of the foundry service arrived with their carts. Mostly full of anvils and tools, the hearths they would make again as we traveled. I had been overseeing them personally, at Lord Feng's request, and I was glad to see the chest containing the operations funding, locked by my own key, with the remainder of their supplies. That would last us for quite some time.

  The rest of us prepared for the slower journey south. Wei Jin personally oversaw the preparation of a simple but sturdy wagon that Xiao Qi procured for Layla, ensuring its bed was padded with the thickest blankets they could find. The air in the temple courtyard was crisp with the chill of the recent morning, filled with the low murmur of the remaining Wolves checking their gear and the soft clinking of bridles as they readied the horses. Lady Feng rode with Layla in the wagon which Xiao Qi drove. She seemed to be enjoying herself, and took to managing our silver. I supposed this was quite the adventure for her.

  Finally there was the question of provisions. The smiths had brought some grain and food of their own, but we were a party some forty strong now, even more if we were to meet with the Black Wind Cliff Escorts later. I sent Wang Er to depart early, with silver in hand, and purchase provisions at higher than market prices from the steady stream of merchants on the road from JiangNan to Chang'an.

  We were about to depart. I stood by my steed, my hand on the saddle, the others moving to their own mounts. In that moment of transition, a profound stillness fell over the courtyard. The wind died. The birds in the surrounding pines went silent.

  A figure stood at the temple's main gate, where moments before there had been no one. It was a woman, dressed in flowing robes the color of a deep river at midnight, dark cloth boots and her face hidden behind a simple, featureless white porcelain mask. She held herself with grace and elegance, but clear martial confidence. She held no weapon, yet her presence was a physical weight, a silent, unmovable wall between us and the road. A Jian hung from a simple scabbard at her side.

  Steward Feng moved.

  He was a black shadow stretching itself, a blur that crossed the twenty paces of the courtyard in a single, silent instant. His hand stuck out in the same palm strike that took XiaoHou Qing's life.

  The woman in the mask raised a pale, slender hand to meet his strike.

  There was no sharp clang of steel, no brutal crack of bone. There was only a deep, muffled BOOM, a concussive impact that kicked up a swirling vortex of dust and dead leaves around them.

  The woman was driven back three full steps. She came to a stop, her arm trembling slightly from the sheer force of the impact.

  Steward Feng had not moved a single inch. Clearly in Qi mastery he had the upper hand. But he did not press the attack. He stood frozen, his hand still extended.

  His breath, when it came, was flat and cold.

  “That's Tiān Hé Gōng… I killed you.”

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