XXI.
It was just as she had left it. The thin walls, the wooden floorboards, the incense, it was all so vividly familiar that Jinzhang felt as though she was dreaming. The moonlight on the running water in the fountain was surreal. She walked numbly toward it, leaving dusty black charcoal footprints behind her. There was a distant roaring in her ears. There was a painful restricted feeling in her chest.
The water was just as clear as had always been. But no, it had always been tainted. From the beginning. Now all she could see was the stream choked with the bones of innocents. She was empty, used up. But in the back of her mind there were bubbles- little bursts of clarity. She remembered being very young and watching the workmen put the finishing touches on the newly built temple. Her father's big paw over her wing. The stares of the other children. The dancing shadow of a bat. Her rippling reflection in the water was darkened with soot, her black eyes shining. Wings spread wide. Blazing fire. Her father's soft brown eyes. His fur black with soot. Black with soot.
Shen's attentive eyes were on her back; he was waiting for her reaction. Perhaps she would start crying. But she was empty. Her mind had cleared.
"There is someone I need to speak with," she said, and walked slowly to the head of the stairs leading to the lower levels of the temple. Her profile was sharp and rigid, the moonlight at her back. Shen took a step in her direction and she raised a wing- the only sign she gave that indicated not to follow. Then she descended the steps, out of sight.
Jinzhang's feet were virtually soundless as she walked slowly down the long hallway. Thick pillars intermittently blocked the moonlight that bathed the left side of her face, leaving the other side in shadow. She reached the door at the end of the hall. She slid it open and it made a soft, high squeak.
The room was bare of trinkets and comforts but for an empty mat and a one hard wooden chair. She stepped inside, looked blankly at the empty mat, and sensed him behind her. She slid away, turning lithely to face Huli-Jing. The old fox's eyes widened for the barest moment. Then he dropped his guarded stance and folded his arms.
"You." His voice was low and rough. "I allowed myself to believe I was finally free of you. What is the meaning of this, bat?"
Jinzhang looked directly into Huli-Jing's eyes. She had respected him more than she could say. Now, everything about him made her sick with rage. Inside, she was drowning in it, that slick, fluid emotion. She said, "I know it's late."
"I don't want an explanation," Huli-Jing cut in. "No. This is your last display of impudence at this temple. I cannot abide your disrespect any longer. I want you gone by morning. Get out of my-"
"I know it's late." Jinzhang repeated, the malice leaking into her voice. Her expression was dark but controlled. "But, you see, I've just returned. And I thought I had questions for you, but I don't any longer. It was you."
"I haven't an idea what-"
"Don't lie!" she yelled. Her breaths shuddered in her chest. She struggled to control her voice. "Don't lie to me, you pompous hypocrite, you killed them."
The Jinzhang's astonishment, the fox smiled sourly. "Oh, Jinzhang," he said. "You've got it wrong again. We all killed them. Every adult in town had a hand in that business. We all had something to gain."
Struck with fresh horror, Jinzhang stared at him. "No."
"Even your dear father-"
"Shut up!"
"Even he helped to build the fateful fire. Wretched simpleton that he was, he felt remorse. When a squirming infant was thrust through the gap in the wood, he took it from the burning wings. And I told him, I warned him that it could only grow full of misery, that it would be kind to drown it, but he would not kill it. And I was right. Wasn't I, Jinzhang? Does this knowledge bring you peace? No. You can never find peace. You should not be alive.
She was on her knees. She could feel her body, muscles weak yet buzzing with pops of frantic energy. Her mind had gone white, clean, blank. She felt the air stir around her and she thought, sluggishly, that something was about to happen. Something important. His words echoed in her mind. Peace? What did that mean? Peace. Something to do with good and evil. Something to do with acceptance. He had turned from her and he began to walk away.
"Why?"
He didn't turn to look at her. "There wasn't enough food to go round. It was a harsh winter," he said. "It was us or them." Why wouldn't he just look at her? "Would you wish the pain of starvation upon us all?" he asked.
She looked up at his aging face, searched inside herself for the answer. "Yes."
A flash of surprise showed in his slanted eyes, and with that, Jinzhang's mind caught on fire. Her coiled legs kicked out against the floor and she threw herself at the fox. He dived away, but she was already twisting toward him, her limbs fluid and elastic, her jaw set in a furious grimace, her heart pounding painfully in her throat. But every wandering tendril of thought was focused exclusively on the fox's movements to block and strike, and her mind had never moved so quickly. He was powerful- he hit her several times, so that she stumbled backward. But she came back, never tiring, until she saw the glint of fear in him, and that gave her a disturbing twinge of satisfaction.
Huli-Jing managed to whip around and Jinzhang got a face full of his bushy red tail. Next thing, he was sprinting, four-legged, down the hallway and into the depths of the temple. And all down the hall, doors were sliding open with hesitation, young faces peered around and caught sight of the bat. Jinzhang was fighting for breath, her yellow mane wild, her clothes were dusty black. There was a pregnant pause as she attempted to gather her wits. Then, the confused young students were knocked back into their quarters by the air off of the bat's wings as she streaked past.
The hallways were narrow and black. They crisscrossed like a checker board. Jinzhang chose directions at random, barreled down empty hall after empty hall, her frustration growing with each passing moment. But there- there was a figure down that hall. She turned sharply, her momentum throwing her into the wall with a loud clatter. The figure jumped and spun around as she sped toward it.
"Jinzhang!" She met the cheetah's wide eyes out of the dark and skidded to a halt. "What- Where have you been? What's going on?" questioned Kuai frantically. "I've just seen Master Huli-"
"Which way?" Jinzhang demanded harshly.
Kuai recoiled. "Jinzhang. What's going on?"
She surveyed the nervousness in the cheetah's face. "You-" she breathed. "You knew, didn't you? You ALL knew!"
Kuai's face looked stricken, then evolved quickly into hard understanding, and then to cautious placation. "Now, look," he began. "I was just a kid-"
"So was I," Jinzhang growled.
"It- it was a hard decision for them, you know." She looked at him blankly. "I know you must be… just… Jinzhang, you know this is bigger than you."
"Bigger-?" Her eyes widened in shock. "How dare you? They were lives!"
He flinched. "Okay. What do you want me to say, that it was wrong?"
She stared with horrified, accusing eyes. She didn't know how to respond.
"It doesn't matter that it was wrong. It was all they could do," he said. "You can't change the past. You have a life now, don't you? You have everything you could need."
Silence hung in the air. "Kuai," Jinzhang said, her voice hushed. "Call me your equal."
"What?"
"Say that I am your equal!"
His expression hardened. "Why?"
She glared, baring small, needle teeth. "That's what I thought."
Before he could react, she darted past him, into the darkness. He shouted after her and took chase. She could hear his approach as she flew around corners and down passageways. Then, abruptly, the hall opened up into the cavernous main entrance. Tall pillars rose into the dark corners above. Entrances to more halls lined up in long rows all around. Jinzhang turned about, staring at the gaping black openings, panting.
"Huli-Jing!" she yelled, her broken voice ringing solidly in the open air. "Don't run away from me! You coward! You can't leave me this way!" She listened intently but was met with only silence. "You can't!" she screamed. "I won't let you! I want you to pay! I want you to suffer! Do you understand? The way they suffered!"
At this moment, Kuai slammed into her from behind and attempted to tackle her to the floor. She tried to twist around and kick out but he gripped the back of her head and crushed her face into the tile. Then he stilled as a wickedly curved blade rested in the air under his chin. Jinzhang felt his weight shift off of her and looked up to find Shen standing over them with his spear's tip brushing the cheetah's throat.
"Rambunctious little pimple, aren't you?" Shen said musingly. Kuai scrambled away, staring between the bat and the peacock, eyes goggling.
"Kuai," Jinzhang's voice was haggard and strange. "Wake the students and servants and tell them all to leave this place."
Kuai's chest rose and fell sporadically. "Wh-what?"
"You had better do it," she warned, "or they'll die in the flames."
Kuai's brow knitted. "Are you crazy?"
Jinzhang picked herself up off the ground so that he could see the way her eyes blazed. "Go!"
His astonishment faded into urgency. He turned and sprinted the way he had come, leaving Jinzhang and Shen alone. They exited the temple without a word between them. The wolves were already outside where the moonlight was eerily bright and caused the pristine snow on the ground the gleam. Laoban saw them and came running.
"What's happening?" he asked eagerly. Jinzhang walked past as though she didn't see him, and Shen waved him away, trailing curiously after the bat.
Jinzhang walked dazedly to the outskirts of the grounds and leapt onto the low branch of a tree. She sat facing the temple, her huge eyes fastened on its doors. Shen, after a moment or two, settled on a slightly higher branch of the same tree, and they waited. Jinzhang watched as sleepy and mystified kung fu students filed out of the wide double doors. Then came the servants, looking a little more awake and a lot more abashed. Masters came next, a group of them, talking animatedly with the harried young Kuai, who seemed to be struggling to explain. Huli-Jing did not appear. After the masters, none but Huli-Jing would remain. But Jinzhang waited until the pale light of the coming sunrise. Then, without warning or consultation, she reached into a fold in Shen's robe (causing an indignant cry of protest) and retrieved the small, knotted pocket of explosive powder.
"Give me a spark." If prompted, Shen couldn't explain exactly why he took the order. There were little reasons: the set of her jaw, the calmness of her voice, the cold, calculating purpose in her eyes. She lowered the bomb and he swiftly scraped the metal tips of his talons against the stone underfoot. The twisted cloth fuse caught the spark. Jinzhang gripped it in her wing, pupils dilating as the sun crested the mountainside, and hurled it in a high, blazing arc. It tumbled in the air and smashed through a rice paper window on the top floor.
With the sound of an immense firework, the wall of the loft tore apart and the spontaneous inferno ballooned outward. The cracks of splintering wood echoed amongst the mountaintops. Jinzhang and Shen stared at the fire. They watched it consume the wood frame of the temple with ravenous speed.
When Jinzhang opened her mouth, her voice felt like sandpaper in her throat. "Let him escape in the caves. If he can." Her lips pulled wide of their own accord and she laughed. At some point the brittle laughter turned to hearty sobs and she doubled over with the pain of it. Her stomach heaved like she may vomit. She clutched her middle. Shen watched her small body tremble violently and the sounds that tore from her were raw and bleeding. This was, he thought, exactly what a killer really looked and sounded like. It was pathetic, really. He sat beside her and brushed his feathers lightly over her wide ears. Choking with the forceful sobs, she grasped his wing and held it to her chest like a lifeline. They stayed like that for a long time.