gnovel Chapter 018: Bo Cong Can Be Trusted
Chapter 018: Bo Cong Can Be Trusted
Three days ago.
"Zhou Sanwei handed me the wooden bird, and I carved it for a whole afternoon. On the left side, I copied my father's words—'The sun shines brightly.'"
On the right side is what I wanted to carve myself: "Bo Cong, my friend, awaiting your arrival for the Northern Expedition."
After I finished carving, I returned the wooden bird to Zhou Sanwei. He cut open the bird's belly, stuffed in the evidence, and put it back under your pillow. Then I went to the gate of the Dali Temple and knelt down.
Three days ago, after she finished carving the words on the wooden bird, she returned the wooden bird and then knelt on the bluestone slab outside Dali Temple.
When Yue Yinping was kneeling there, the wooden bird was still under Zhao Bozong's pillow, its belly sealed with evidence.
She knew that the wooden bird would return to her through Zhao Bozong's hands.
She set up a trap, turning Zhao Bocong into a chess piece and the wooden bird into the heaviest piece on the chessboard.
Yue Yinping never trusted him from beginning to end. She only used him.
Zhao Bocong picked up the wooden bird from the desk. Zhou Sanwei had cut open the seam at the bottom before; he had cut it open.
He brought the wooden bird close to the window paper, his fingertips probing into the gap.
Deep inside the abdomen, in the void left after the evidence index and list were removed, at the bottom of the wooden bird's tail feathers, at the end of the void.
When Zhou Sanwei cut open the wooden bird, he started from the bottom, cutting along the wood grain to create a slit large enough for a rolled-up piece of paper to pass through.
But when the blade reached its end, it encountered resistance; there was a small, protruding knot on the inside of the wooden bird's tail feathers.
Zhou Sanwei's knife stopped in front of the wooden joint. He thought he had cut to the bottom, but in fact there was an extremely thin layer behind the joint.
Zhao Bozong used the bamboo knife he used for cutting paper on his desk to probe along the wood grain. The tip of the knife touched a knot in the wood, went around it, and then pushed it forward a little further.
The interlayer is exposed.
It was very narrow, smaller than a little fingernail, and stuffed with a roll of paper. The paper was rolled so tightly that it almost blended into the wood grain.
He used the tip of the knife to pull the paper roll out and unfold it.
There is only one line of text.
The ink was very light, as if the ink on the tip of the brush was almost used up when writing, and the writer was reluctant to grind more ink, so he squeezed out the last bit of ink from the tip of the brush to finish writing the line.
The strokes are so light that there is almost no return stroke at the end, and the ink seeps into the paper fibers, leaving the edges slightly fuzzy.
Yue Fei's handwriting.
"Bo Cong is trustworthy. Yue Fei left behind a message."
The air in the study seemed to freeze.
The shadows of the plum branches on the window paper stopped swaying; the wind had died down.
Zhao Bocong held the paper up to the light. The words were illuminated by the sunlight, and the ink was visible from the back, like a very faint water stain.
Leave this before you go.
Before his departure. Not in prison, nor the night before the Fengbo Pavilion, but before his departure—before Yue Fei left Xiangyang.
In July of the eleventh year of the Shaoxing reign (1145), Yue Fei was summoned back to Lin'an from Xiangyang. In August, he was relieved of his military command and reassigned as Deputy Privy Councilor. In October, he was dismissed from his post and retired to Lin'an. In November, he was imprisoned in the Dali Temple.
On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, he was ordered to commit suicide at Fengbo Pavilion.
He left Xiangyang in July.
At that time, he didn't know he would be imprisoned or sentenced to death. But he knew one thing: once he left Xiangyang, he would most likely never return.
Before leaving Xiangyang, he carved a piece of mulberry wood. He shaped it into a bird, and on the bird's wing, he carved four characters with the tip of his knife.
It wasn't carved for Zhao Bozong to see; Zhao Bozong was in Lin'an Palace when it was carved.
Yue Fei did not know Zhao Bocong, nor did he know the name of this seven-year-old child who entered the palace, or whether he would ever come to Xiangyang or see this wooden bird.
He just carved it.
Then he left a hidden compartment deep inside the wooden bird's belly. Inside the compartment was a note with a line of text written on it.
He wrote it to himself.
A man who was about to leave Xiangyang and knew he would not be able to return wrote himself a letter before leaving.
The letter contained only four characters: "Bo Cong can be entrusted."
He didn't know who Bo Cong was.
All he knew was that the descendant of Emperor Taizu who was selected to enter the palace in the second year of the Shaoxing era had the character "伯" (bo) in his name.
He wrote down the name he only half knew and half didn't know, sealed it deep inside the wooden bird's belly, and then left Xiangyang.
He took the wooden bird to Lin'an.
In November of the eleventh year of the Shaoxing era, he was imprisoned in the Dali Temple.
Before going to prison, he gave the wooden bird to Zhou Sanwei.
On Wednesday, Wei asked, "To whom should this be given?" He replied, "To the person whose name is written on it."
Yue Yinping took the note.
She held the note up in the light, at the exact same angle as Zhao Bocong had just been.
She read it once, then read it again. Then tears fell.
Tears welled up directly from her eyes and fell onto the note, onto the ink of the three words "Leave before departure".
She knelt for three days without crying. In the Dali Temple prison cell, her wrists were chained, the shackles made her wrist bones bluish-purple, and the scabs at the corners of her mouth were torn open by her smile, causing fresh blood to seep out, but she still didn't cry.
Now she cried. Her tears fell on the note, on the last line Yue Fei wrote before leaving Xiangyang.
"He doesn't know your name." Yue Yinping's voice was distorted by tears, each word sounding as if it had been pulled out of the water.
"He only remembered the child who was selected to enter the palace in the second year of the Shaoxing era, whose name contained the character 'Bo'. When he left Xiangyang, he didn't even know your full name. But he still wrote it down."
Yue Yinping turned the note over; there were no words on the back.
Yue Fei did not write a recipient, date, or fingerprint on the letter. He simply wrote four characters, folded it, and stuffed it deep inside the wooden bird's belly.
"He knew he wouldn't be coming back when he was in Xiangyang," Zhao Bozong said in a hoarse voice.
"He knows." Yue Yinping pressed the note to her chest, the fabric of her gray-blue blouse soaked with tears.
"In July of the eleventh year of Shaoxing, when he received the imperial edict to return to the capital, he said something to Uncle Niu Gao at the Xiangyang drill ground."
Uncle Niu Gao told me this later. He said, "Niu Gao, if I don't return from Lin'an, Xiangyang is in your hands."
Niu Gao said, "General Yue, don't worry, Xiangyang will not be lost."
Yue Fei said, "I'm not talking about Xiangyang, but the roots of the Yue Family Army." He left the roots in Xiangyang and took the wooden bird to Lin'an.
The wooden bird was the last thing he took with him from Xiangyang.
The mulberry wood was produced in Xiangyang, the knife used to carve the wooden bird was made by a blacksmith in Xiangyang, and the characters carved on the wings of the wooden bird were carved in the barracks next to the Xiangyang drill ground.
After he finished carving, he held the wooden bird up to the window and looked at the sunset over the training ground for a while.
"That's not a test." Yue Yinping removed the note from her chest, folded it, and stuffed it back into the wooden bird's lining.
Her fingers trembled slightly. "That was the last choice my father left me. He let me decide for myself who to entrust the Northern Expedition to."
He wrote "Bo Cong Ke Tuo," but didn't tell me whether I should believe you; he simply left the choice to me.
Zhao Bozong watched as she closed the wooden bird. The wood grain of the interlayer closed again, and the note was sealed back into the darkness.
"You chose me."
"Yes, but it wasn't my choice." She looked up, tears still streaming down her face, but her voice had regained its composure.
"You proved it yourself. You brought the wooden bird, put the evidence in the coffin, and stood in the crowd and shouted the first cry."
My father only wrote four words; he didn't tell me whether you were worth entrusting your life to.
I saw it myself. You were standing at the entrance of the Dali Temple, and the moment Qin Xi pried open the secret box, you were the first to shout out. I knew it then.
Zhao Bozong lowered his head and looked at the strip of cloth wrapped around the palm of his right hand.
It was Yue Yinping who tore off her mourning clothes to wrap his wound. The wound was healing, but the knot was still tied, and he hadn't untied it.
"Written before his departure," Zhao Bocong said. "It was written by your father before he left Xiangyang. He wrote these four characters five months before Fengbo Pavilion."
He doesn't know if you will find me, if I will come to Dali Temple, or if I will stand in the crowd and shout out the first word.
You've been using me the whole time.
But you didn't tell me that you carved the words on the wooden bird's wings.