The vendor realised something was wrong. He drank furiously, grief spilling over: “Isn’t this nothing but bullying?”
The merchant pointed towards the Tiandu Guard, spreading his hands. “No choice. That’s the way of the world. Only two paths to take.”
The vendor was loath to risk his livelihood, and after much thought he asked, “Is there no other way?”
The merchant sipped his tea. “There is.”
“What way?”
“If you’ve the courage to stake your life on it. Load your gold and silver onto your horse, ride boldly out of the city. There are always a few who reach the next city unscathed, without paying a single coin for protection. Those who do, make a killing.”
The vendor’s face turned ashen.
At that moment, someone shouted: “Let’s go, let’s go! The west gate’s open!”
The resting caravans burst into motion, tallying crates, calling companions, and readying horses and camels with fresh hay.
At the west gate stood a grim line of heavy cavalry, clad head to toe in black armour, swords gleaming, banners snapping. They looked as if they had been waiting all along.
The flag was scarlet, embroidered with gold, bearing a single “yan”* character. The leader reined in his horse and turned. Merchants who had paid their tax led their animals forward, filing in close behind the armoured riders.
(*TN: 殷 can mean dark red, prosperous, numerous, etc… or used as a surname.)
The vendor hesitated, then ground his teeth and stepped out of the gate alone.
Others who had chosen to gamble on fate took the more remote ancient road.
The vendor muttered anxiously, “Xi-mei is waiting for me to return and marry her…”
A burly smuggler beside him, thick-browed and broad-backed, shot him a look. “Don’t say that again.”
“Why not?”
The smuggler snapped, “Men like you are nothing but trouble. When the moment comes, you’ll cling to your wares and lose your life besides. Folk like you die first.”
The vendor shuddered and fell silent.
The group trudged from noon till dusk. The road grew lonelier, the land bleaker. Nothing strange had happened; the vendor was just beginning to relax when suddenly his cheek turned icy.
He had no idea when it had started, but now fat goose-feather snowflakes were tumbling down, quickly smothering the trees and the ancient road. In the distance, a night-owl hooted and flapped further and further away.
The snow fell hard and bitterly cold.
The smuggler’s face darkened. “Bloody hell. Bad luck.”
The vendor blinked. “What’s the matter?”
With a rough motion, the smuggler threw open a cage and barked at the merchants behind him, quail-like with fright:
“You’d better buy my cockerels! Otherwise, when the evil spirits come to claim your lives, don’t expect me to save you!”
“Whatwhatwhat? Don’t try to scare us!”
“I’ve travelled north and south long enough to know. This isn’t just snow.”
“Boss, I’ll take two.”
“I’ll buy a few as well.”
The seasoned traders handed over silver without protest, each seizing a rooster for protection. The more timid muttered no more, but still bought their share.
The fruit vendor, scrawny and small, was left till last. All he managed was a limp little hen. Tears pricked his eyes.
“Good sirs, please swap with me for a stronger bird!”
But everyone looked away, silent.
The smuggler only gave a cold snort.
Then footsteps sounded. Light, deliberate, from within the trees. The smuggler’s face changed. He hissed,
“Turn your backs against the carts. Eyes shut, mouths shut. No matter what you hear, don’t answer.”
With a hiss of steel, he drew his knife, snatched up the chickens, and slaughtered a dozen in quick succession, tossing the bodies onto the snow.
Then he closed his eyes and faced the cart like the rest.
The woods fell still.
The faint steps drew nearer.
The vendor clutched his hen, eyes squeezed shut, terror choking him. Blindness made it worse. He pressed against the smuggler’s side. To his relief, the man didn’t shove him away.
At last, a sound. Footsteps on snow, but it didn’t sound right. Rustling, scraping. Not walking. Crawling…
Crawling…
The vendor trembled, close to sobbing.
The sound scraped past them. He let out the barest sigh, then it stopped. Silence pressed in from behind.
No one spoke.
The vendor was numb, every nerve taut. Something was there. Right beside him. Unnaturally cold. Stinking of soil and rot.
His terror mounted. He clamped his eyes tighter.
A foul, icy draught brushed his face. Time lost all meaning. Finally, the sound returned—rustling, crawling—moving past the caravan, receding into the distance.
The woods stirred again with the owls’ hoots.
“Oi! Oi, oi!”
The vendor opened his eyes, stunned. The smuggler was already packing up. “Come on, move it! What are you dawdling for?”
That moment had felt like another lifetime. Clinging to the cart, the vendor muttered, “After this trip, I’ll go back and farm.”
The smuggler’s face blackened. “Shut your mouth.”
Suddenly.
The headless chickens on the ground lurched upright. Their movements grotesque, blood spurting from the severed necks as they ran round the caravan, scattering crimson drops in the snow.
Everyone jolted in fright.
The smuggler’s face tightened, and he barked: “That thing hasn’t gone. It’s fixed on us. Quick, grab your blades!”
The traders, as if waking from a dream, snatched knives from under horse bellies, beneath carts, and out of their wares, levelling them at the dozen chickens.
Then…
Through the blizzard fell a scatter of flower petals. Golden lotuses burst apart into countless shimmering motes, dispersing the baleful aura from the birds.
A thread of black vapour snapped, and with a dull thud the headless chicken toppled onto the snow.
The peddler’s gaze flicked upward. “There’s someone there.”
All heads tilted skyward.
The night was deep indigo, bright clouds hanging high, flakes drifting down like scattered pearls.
A figure in a bamboo hat, light as a feather, trod upon the snowy bough of a pine.
The wind keened through the forest.
The straw-hatted man folded his arms, his hair streaming in the gale. He seemed to notice the company, dipped his head in greeting, then let himself fall backward and vanished from the treetops with a flicker.
The peddler breathed, “Who is he?”
The smuggler, better travelled than most, slapped his brow. “Golden lotus, bamboo hat… reminds me of someone. I’ve crossed paths with him once.”
The others exclaimed: “Flying atop the trees, surely that was an immortal! How could you have glimpsed him so easily?”
The smuggler snapped: “Do you take me for a liar? Years ago, when I was running goods to Nanshui, I saw him enter a temple with my own eyes. He grabbed the resident deity and thrashed him soundly, demanding to know if he still dared to take a wife! I swear it on my life. He wore a bamboo hat, and lotus marks glowed upon him!”
The peddler gaped. “Gods can be beaten?!”
The smuggler snorted. “Why not? Once he was done, he smashed the temple too. Kicked down a pillar and had it hauled off to mend a bridge. The statue? He shattered it with a single punch and told the grannies to sweep up the rubble for paving stones. All the offerings he handed out to the common folk, and he sent the maidens and young wives straight back home.”
The peddler stammered: “And… and then?”
The smuggler rolled his eyes. “Then what? Naturally the magistrate put a price on his head! Come nightfall, even little ghosts went knocking door to door with lanterns, hunting him down. If fate’s brought him to us—well, that’s luck worth burning incense for.”
…
Snow heaped thick upon the forest.
“Whoa.”
Steel-shod hooves stamped to a halt. The iron cavalry reined in as the Tiandu Guards obeyed their orders to the letter. A captain swung down, checked the trail, then galloped up to the fore. “Your Majesty, the tracks are lost.”
A tiger’s claw reached out to catch a snowflake, then blew it softly away. The flakes settled on snow-white fur.
The rider was tall, armoured in supple mail, a long black blade at his hip. His frame was man’s, but his head the visage of a great beast.
The hand that emerged from his sleeve was a muscled paw, tipped with white-furred claws.
Those beast’s eyes gleamed molten gold, cold and pitiless. He twitched an ear; a dusting of snow slipped from his dark-grey lashes.
“You conjured this snowstorm, thinking to cover your tracks?”
He tightened his reins. “You lot stay behind and cover. I’ll go on alone.”
The captain’s face darkened. He clasped his fists. “But my lord, whenever we don’t follow, you vanish for months on end. Not a word home, not a whisper of news…”
Yin Feixue drawled, “That’s only because you’re too slow.”
“Your Majesty, have you considered not every man of the Tiandu Guard can fly?”
“Which is why I said, stay here.”
“You were gone over half a year last time…”
Yin Feixue’s expression iced over. The captain slapped his own mouth shut, speechless.
They could only watch their city lord spur his horse alone into the wilderness, scattering snow as he rode. A masked Tiandu Guard muttered muffled reassurance: “Don’t fret, captain. Our king is wise and mighty, he knows his limits. Always returns victorious, doesn’t he?”
“Aye! That Vampire King’s a fool, spurning our city’s amnesty and daring to mouth off at our lord. If our lordship’s anger’s roused, it’s only right!”
The captain hunched deeper into his armour, grinding his teeth… whether from cold or fury, none could tell. “Do you know how our king offered terms to the Vampire King of Yinliu Village?”
A young trooper pricked up his ears. “How?”
The captain rubbed his hands for warmth. “His Majesty said, since the Vampire King’s body was impervious to blade and fire, and immune to vermin, he’d grant him the title of Great Gate General, and set him as the gate of Tiandu City, to guard a hundred years.”
The soldier hissed.
The captain sighed, hollow-eyed. “And the Vampire King’s fangs lengthened inches on the spot. His claws jabbed right here”—he tapped his chest—“splintered several coffin boards, screeching like thunder.”
“Majestic, our king,” the soldier breathed.
“Shut it. Keep sharp on the forest. If His Majesty goes missing again, we’ll not hear the end of it.”
Chuckles rattled inside helmets, and the men dispersed to their posts.
Elsewhere, Yin Feixue spurred on for several leagues. Snow blanketed the earth several inches thick. Directions were buried, even the trees obscured.
The drifts deepened; his mount floundered.
He abandoned the beast, flared his nostrils, and swept the snow aside with bursts of qi, forging a path toward Yinliu Village.
“Vampire King.
“Your welcome is dreadfully meagre. I brought you several fat roosters from Nanshui. They’re as sweet as nectar… and this is how you greet me?”
He pressed forward, scattering snow as he strode.
Suddenly his tiger eyes hardened, golden pupils flashing with cold light.
Beneath a snow-caked ridge, a shadow flickered, swift as lightning.
Yin Feixue strode three paces, then snapped up a claw. His great blade spun from his grip, cleaving half a snow-hill, burying itself in a tree trunk.
Snow sloughed down in sheets.
There, in the moonlit hush, azure robes rippling like waves, white boots alighting weightless, stood a figure poised upon the blade’s edge.
Yin Feixue lifted his gaze into a pair of eyes, calm as still water, beneath the shadow of a bamboo hat.
