The Nine Songs of Nan - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I will never forget that woman for as long as I live.

Her surname was Shen, her given name Zheng. She was the fourth child in her family, so many people also called her-Fourth Miss Shen.

Her death was desolate and agonizing. She kept coughing up blood, over and over. She had only just given birth not long before, and that was the first time I learned that there could be so much blood in a person’s body.

She must have been in terrible pain. I saw her hands clutching the bedding so hard that one of her nails snapped clean off.

But she kept smiling. Tenderly, wistfully, almost happily. Her lips moved, though I could not tell what she was saying. Perhaps she was calling the names of her family.

At the very end, she called for me and said, “Sang… Sangji, can you help me call Wanyan Huang here?”

I did not understand why she wanted to see the Eldest Prince. She was already on the verge of death.

Perhaps she still did not know that the Eldest Prince had given an order just yesterday: once she died, her corpse was to be hung from the city wall to humiliate her country, so the Daliang soldiers stationed across the river could see.

The Eldest Prince would not fall for her tricks again. He would not love her again. And he would not come again.

I did not want to bother with her at first, but she truly was too pitiful. After thinking it over, I decided I would at least go out and pretend.

Forget it. She was about to die anyway. I might as well let her be a little happier before the end.

I deliberately dawdled outside. By the time I circled around and returned, I saw flames leaping into the sky from far away, smoke billowing upward, and people rushing everywhere to put out the fire.

I hurried back with the crowd, only to discover that she had locked herself inside the room, set it ablaze, and burned herself alive.

The fire burned for nearly four hours before it was finally extinguished. But in the ruins, aside from one blackened, lonely skeleton, nothing remained.

I stared blankly at it. For some reason, I suddenly felt like crying.

That night, the Eldest Prince sent someone to summon me.

He was being absurd. In a tent lit bright with candles, he sat barefoot on the ground. Wine jars were scattered everywhere, and beside him were one, three, five… six. Six Hu women, each as lithe as a cat as they wound themselves around him, all coy smiles and seductive charm.

The Eldest Prince took a savage gulp of wine, then looked toward me, his gaze as vicious as a wolf king’s on the grasslands.

I heard him ask, “Before she died… did she say anything?”

I did not dare hide anything from him, so I told him the truth. But thinking back now, she had never really wanted me to fetch the Eldest Prince at all.

She only wanted to send me away. Then she burned herself to death, burned herself until only bones remained. That way, what would hang from the city wall would be nothing but her unyielding bones. Her country could not be humiliated by that.

She was so ruthless. Ruthless to others, and even more ruthless to herself.

The Eldest Prince showed no expression. Only the hand holding his wine paused for a moment. At once, a Hu woman leaned against him with a thousand charms and a hundred graces, feeding him more wine. I could not see his face, but he waved a hand at me, so I quietly withdrew on tiptoe.

That night, it began to rain. At first it was a soft, drizzling rain, but later, when I woke with a start in the middle of the night, the rain outside was roaring, thunder crashing again and again. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep, because her bones were still lying exposed in those cold rainswept ruins beneath the vast open sky.

The Eldest Prince had given no order, so none of us knew what to do with those bones.

In truth, I do not like the Han people. The Han people are the most cunning of all, especially those of the Shen Family. How many of us Jurchen soldiers had died at the hands of her father and brothers?

But no matter what, I had spent three years by Shen Zheng’s side.

She came to our Jurchen camp three years ago. Three years ago, the Eldest Prince led the bravest warriors of the Jurchen to break through Yumen Pass, which Daliang had kept sealed for more than a century. They drove straight into the heart of Daliang and finally set up camp on the banks of the Yellow River.

The Jurchen needed more time to familiarize ourselves with Daliang’s terrain. On top of that, none of us had expected a small place like Yumen Pass to inflict such heavy losses on us. Our supplies in the rear were insufficient as well. Under the weight of all these factors, we agreed to Daliang’s request for peace.

Back then, when the Eldest Prince was leading our soldiers in a fierce assault on Yumen Pass, he had once nearly died at Shen An’s hands because he had underestimated the enemy. So when the peace terms were being discussed, the Eldest Prince smiled faintly and said,

“Have a daughter of the Shen Family come for the marriage alliance. Didn’t Shen An say that every member of the Shen Family had hard bones? I’d like to see whether the bones of a Shen Family girl are just as hard.”

They called it a marriage alliance, but everyone knew that once this Shen Family girl came to the Jurchen, her days would not be easy.

Rather than a bride for an alliance, she was more like a tribute offering.

The Eldest Prince was a very… decisive man when it came to killing. Every one of us Jurchen revered and loved him.

On the day Yumen Pass fell, he ordered a massacre of the city. Blood and slaughter almost instantly stirred the Jurchen soldiers into a frenzy. Everyone worshiped him like a god. He sat astride a tall horse, looking down over the tragedy of the massacre with a faint smile on his lips.

I could not help shivering.

Three months later, the envoys said that the gold Daliang had agreed to pay for the peace with the Jurchen was already prepared. Likewise, the girl from the Shen Family had already arrived at the Jurchen main camp.

The Eldest Prince was intrigued. He asked me, “Which one came?”

There were three daughters in the Shen Family. The youngest had supposedly already married Daliang’s Crown Prince, leaving one Fourth Miss and one Fifth Miss.

I lowered my head and answered, “I hear it is the sickly Fourth Miss.”

He arched a brow, his handsome features carrying an unconcealable chill. “Is she the one the Shen Family abandoned?” he asked.

When the Eldest Prince had said he wanted a Shen Family girl to come for the marriage alliance, he had not specified which one. He liked watching people fight one another to the death.

Coming to the Jurchen meant a tragic fate anyone could imagine. Then what would those two unmarried daughters of the Shen Family do to escape that fate? Would they turn on each other? Would they tear each other apart?

But the truth disappointed him. I said, “No. She volunteered. I heard it was originally supposed to be Fifth Miss Shen. But the day before they set out, she drugged her own younger sister unconscious and took Fifth Miss Shen’s place in the bridal sedan.”

He froze for a moment. The Jurchen would never do such a thing. The Jurchen had always believed that the weak were prey to the strong, and the bonds between him and his brothers were not especially deep. Perhaps that was why he could not imagine such an outcome.

But I saw his brows lift with excitement. He asked me, “Is that so?”

His curiosity and interest in Shen Zheng began at that moment.

I still remember the first time he met Shen Zheng. The cold wind howled like knives. I pushed the door open for him, and the woman sitting by the window reading heard the sound and looked over. For a moment, I could not breathe.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, and she was nothing like any Jurchen woman.

We Jurchen women were like strong liquor. But she… she was like a flower blooming on a branch in early spring, her petals trembling in the still-biting spring wind, making one want to place a glass cover over her to keep her from any harm.

She was gentle and composed. There was none of the panic or screaming we had expected. She lifted her head and looked at the Eldest Prince very earnestly, her eyes dark as ink. Then the corners of her lips curved, and she smiled.

Even her voice was soft and gentle. She said, “You must be the Eldest Prince, Wanyan Huang. I am Shen Zheng.”