Chu Xuan, on learning the news that her grandfather had returned, saw to some affairs of the Chu River Star Region and then hurried at once back to the Chu family residence.
She'd never expected that the moment she reached the gate, she'd sense something amiss.
At the Chu family's gate stood a squad of peculiar soldiers.
Plainly dressed as these soldiers looked, Chu Xuan knew their identity at the first glance.
The Chu Family Shadow-Guard.
For the Chu Family Shadow-Guard to appear at the Chu family itself meant that some great matter was unfolding within the Chu residence.
"Where's my grandfather?" Chu Xuan asked the Chu Family Shadow-Guards.
Someone — she couldn't tell who — spoke up: "The Marshal is at the training ground."
The training ground?
Chu Xuan knit her brows, and at once strode in through the great gate of the Chu family.
"Training ground" was a very old term — a place for drilling the body and hand-to-hand combat skills.
In an age like the present, when people relied on mecha, or on injecting various enhancement serums, exceedingly few kept themselves strong and fit through their own exercise.
But the Chu family kept up the custom.
And the Chu family had a rule besides: the direct-line descendants of the Chu family were not permitted to inject those gene-enhancement serums.
As for the reason behind it, no one knew.
Chu Xuan walked into the training ground, and was startled to find five people kneeling within it.
All five she recognized.
And one of them she knew all the more intimately.
"Little Song…" Chu Xuan looked in astonishment at the Little Song kneeling on the ground — once her own guard, a brigadier general.
On account of his outstanding showing in several combat missions, he'd since been promoted to two-star major general; not yet 30 years of age, and already a two-star major general — a thing exceedingly rare even within the Chu family legion.
Brigadier General Song… no — now he ought to be called Major General Song — lifted his head and glanced at Chu Xuan, then lowered it in shame.
Chu Xuan looked again at the other four.
One three-star lieutenant general; besides Little Song, one more two-star major general; the remaining three all one-star brigadier generals.
Their ages ran from 30 to 60 or 70.
That three-star lieutenant general was a middle-aged man of 50 or 60.
"Uncle Guan." Chu Xuan looked in dismay at the uncle who had watched her grow up.
"Miss — it may be that Uncle Guan won't get the chance to see you put on your bridal gown after all." this three-star lieutenant general called Uncle Guan said in shame.
Some dim foreboding had already taken shape in Chu Xuan; she quickened her steps up the stone stairs.
Before the training ground stood a stone pavilion, and within it Chu Changhe was playing a game of Go with an old man near his own age.
Beside Chu Changhe, this man was already gray at both temples.
The hand that set down the stones was trembling now.
"Grandpa Song…" Chu Xuan's voice shook, a shock in her eyes.
"So Little Xuan's come. Our Little Xuan grows prettier by the day." This Grandpa Song looked toward Chu Xuan with a kindly, gentle face.
He wore a military uniform nearly faded of its color — but on it, those four stars had been polished bright, along with that golden 'Chu' character.
Song Shoucheng.
Chu Changhe's trusted intimate — one might even say his boyhood friend.
They'd studied together at the Northstar Starship Military Academy, then joined the border group-army.
When Chu Changhe was a ship's captain, he was the deputy captain.
When Chu Changhe was a fleet commander, he was the deputy fleet commander.
"All right, all right — no more, no more. Decades on, and I still can't beat you." Song Shoucheng set down the Go stone in his hand and waved a dismissing hand.
Chu Changhe, too, set down the black stone in his own hand, and looked at the Song Shoucheng across from him.
"Shoucheng — from when we first knew each other to now, you've saved my life six times, haven't you? There was one assassination attempt; the assassin used an old-style slug-thrower. You threw yourself in front of me and took the bullets for me — seven rounds in all. You lost half your life on the spot that time."
"And you've saved me five times. You and I, this whole life through — it's you saving me, me saving you. Near enough even." Song Shoucheng shook his head with a light laugh.
Chu Changhe rose to his feet, hands clasped behind his back, and looked at the five kneeling on the training ground.
"We've known each other 60 years and more, haven't we."
"69. Come next year, when the Northstar Starship Military Academy opens its term, it'll be 70 years since we met," Song Shoucheng said.
"Why?" Chu Changhe asked suddenly.
Song Shoucheng let out a sigh.
"What's there left to ask about that?"
"I just want to know why. 69 years. I thought you'd long since forgotten your identity. But… I never imagined you'd carry out, in the end, the task the royal house set you. You even had Little Song work with you. Otherwise you could never have swapped out that dagger of mine without a soul the wiser." Chu Changhe looked at Song Shoucheng.
Song Shoucheng's gaze dimmed.
He said, "I owe the Qin family a life; I had to do one thing for the Qin family. 69 years — I'd even forgotten it myself; I'd taken myself for a man of the Chu family through and through. Until… a year ago, when someone made contact with me… I'm sorry, Elder Brother Chu."
"Then how did you talk Little Song round? Little Song was born and raised in the Chu River Star Region; I don't believe he'd betray the Chu family for words spoken by you, his grandfather," Chu Changhe said.
"One word — 'love.' He fell for a woman he never should have loved," Song Shoucheng said with a bitter smile.
Chu Xuan, off to the side, suddenly recalled that half a year back, word had gone round of this Little Song falling in love; the woman was a student girl at some academy, the two met by chance and fell in together.
As for what came after — one could well imagine.
It bore out that old saying: a hero finds it hard to pass the beauty's gate.
"Have you nothing else you'd wish to say?" Chu Changhe fixed his eyes on Song Shoucheng.
Song Shoucheng shook his head, and said with a bitter smile, "Betrayal is betrayal. Why paint it over prettily for myself?"
"And that grandson of yours? He's the only kin you have left in all the world. You wouldn't plead with me even for his sake?" Chu Changhe stared hard at Song Shoucheng.
Song Shoucheng looked toward the Little Song on the training ground.
"His temper takes after mine. If I die, he won't avenge me — but neither will he drag out a base life in this world."
Chu Changhe clenched his fist.
"Good! Good! Good! A fine Song Shoucheng. Men — take them down for me. Put them all to death!"
A squad of Chu Family Shadow-Guards appeared, ready to march the five on the training ground, and Song Shoucheng, all away.
But these six, at the last, turned to face Chu Changhe, and made a military salute.
"Marshal — take care! If there's a life to come, I hope I may truly serve, just once, as a soldier under your hand!"
These six, whatever their identities had bound them to, had lived within the Chu family many years, and had long since taken on the Chu family's soul.
And so, in the end, all six were led away.
"Grandfather, will you truly kill Grandpa Song!" Chu Xuan looked at Chu Changhe, unable to bear it.
Chu Changhe sat down in his chair, and said, as if in recollection, "Xuan-er, there's a thing you likely don't know. Back when you'd just been born, someone came to assassinate you. And the ones charged with your care then were, precisely, Little Song's parents — Song Shoucheng's son and daughter-in-law. In truth, Little Song had a younger sister once. To protect you at the time, Little Song's parents fled with Little Song's little sister; the assassin mistook Little Song's sister for you, chased them down, and killed all three of that family. From that day on, only the two of them were left — grandfather and grandson."
Chu Xuan's face was stricken; trembling, she backed several steps away, shaking her head, murmuring in bewilderment: "I… I don't understand… why? If Grandpa Song was the royal house's man, why did his children save me? I can't make sense of it… I don't understand!"
Chu Changhe drew a deep breath.
"This is the foolish stubbornness of our sort, I suppose. We of the Chu family — even were we betrayed by the Starlight royal house, we could not lead troops across the border. He, Song Shoucheng, owed the royal house a life and a single request; he kept the promise, he saw it through. And apart from this one thing, he was the most loyal soldier of the Chu family! I saved his life five times; he saved mine six. This once — count it as my repaying him."
Chu Changhe finished, and looked at the black-and-white game before him.
It seemed the black stones had already surrounded and slain the white — but in truth the black had left the white one thread of a chance.
A moment ago, Song Shoucheng had only to set his white stone there, and the game could have gone on.
Chu Changhe picked up that white stone, and slowly set it down…