Chapter 116 — Tianshui Stockade

Xiaobai seemed to notice Ming Li's gaze and turned to look at him, smiling. "Well? Does this outfit suit me?"

Ming Li gave a faint smile. By temperament he was loath to answer such faintly flirtatious talk, so he changed the subject. "You seem thoroughly familiar with the customs and country here in the south. Never mind the rest—you even found that old, remote village hidden in the deep mountains near the Fénxiá Valley. Have you been here before?"

Xiaobai pursed her lips and gazed ahead. In the distance the mountains ran on, linked ridge to ridge without end, the peculiar topography of the southern borderlands. Before them an ancient road wound away, and on either side, near and far, rose rugged hills of jutting rock. Far off, the peaks met the horizon in a long chain, and the lowering dark clouds hung upon the summits, drifting with the wind.

She walked on slowly, and after a long while sighed softly and said, low and mournful, "Been here before? I did far more than that..."

Ming Li was somewhat surprised. "What do you mean?"

Xiaobai let out a long breath and shook her head with a smile, as if to shake off the years gone by. "You don't know, do you? Our fox-demon clan had its origins right here in the southern borderlands. I grew up among these barren hills and wicked waters."

Ming Li was startled. "Then how is it that for a thousand years the folk tales of the Central Plains have always borne the shadow of your fox-demons?"

Xiaobai said mildly, "Because a thousand years ago I led our fox-demon clan away from here, to the Central Plains, and in the end we settled in the Fox Qi Mountains in the southwest."

Ming Li was greatly shocked and for a moment could not speak. At last he said, his voice rough, "What—you..."

Xiaobai regarded him with interest, smiled, and a light flickered in her eyes—half coy, half world-weary. "Didn't expect that, did you? That is where your Ming Wang Sect's headquarters stands today.

"As it happens, the very name Fox Qi Mountain most likely comes from our fox-demon clan."

Ming Li was silent a long while, then said slowly, "Then have you and the Ming Wang Sect ever..."

Xiaobai did not wait for him to finish, but shook her head outright. "Set your mind at ease on that score. Our fox-demon clan and the Ming Wang Sect have been neighbors for several hundred years and have always lived in peace. More than that—in those centuries there were several love affairs between man and demon. So you see, besides repaying you for freeing me from the Black Fire Altar, knowing that you are a disciple of the Ming Wang Sect is one of the reasons I am willing to help you."

Ming Li was reassured. Then another thought struck him. "When this business is done, will you go back to the Fox Qi Mountains to visit your kin?"

"My kin?" Xiaobai's face slowly darkened. She raised her head to the sky, and after a long while said softly, "My kin are all dead, and it was I who killed them."

Ming Li was startled again. Xiaobai gave a bitter laugh, her expression more desolate than before, but she would say no more.

Ming Li was silent a moment, then shifted the subject. "We have been walking three days now. How far is it still to that Qili Tong you spoke of?"

Xiaobai looked at him, her gaze brushing his face like water. "Qili Tong is the largest settlement of the Miao people in the southern borderlands. From what I remember, twenty li on from here is a lively place where several clans live mingled together, called Tianshui Stockade. From there a perilous little path runs south—that is the road to the Miao's Qili Tong." Then she gave a soft, bitter laugh. "Though I cannot say whether in these three hundred years the state of things here in the south has changed."

Ming Li nodded silently and unconsciously quickened his pace.

Xiaobai followed behind him, her gaze lingering on him a few moments before turning to the road ahead, to the ranges of mountains linked one to another, towering and steep, majestic and perilous, like giants gazing down at these few small figures on the ancient road between heaven and earth...

In the past ten years, Ming Li had come to the southern borderlands many times on Bilu's account, and he knew something of the local customs.

The southern borderlands were vast in extent and sparse in people. Apart from the savage tribes of the Ten Thousand Wild Mountains that stretch ten thousand li at the far south, the people who had lived for generations along the southern frontier belonged roughly to five principal clans: the Miao, the Tu, the Zhuang, the Li, and the Gaoshan.

By population, the Zhuang were the most numerous, making up nearly four tenths of the southern borderlands' people; by territory, the Miao were the strongest, holding the broadest and richest lands; by sheer temper, the smallest clan, the Gaoshan, were the fiercest.

These five clans had lived for ages along the southern frontier. Each had its own tongue, but by and large, when they spoke with one another they used a common speech akin to that of the Central Plains, though tinged more or less with local flavor.

Over the years there had of course been times of mutual understanding and amity, but no less of scheming and strife. Through the long ages there had gradually formed a state of affairs in which the five clans each held their own ground, their territories interlocking and overlapping.

Where the territories of the clans met, there were often villages and stockades where people of several clans lived together; in the largest, folk of all five clans dwelt in one place, mingled together.

The Tianshui Stockade of which Xiaobai spoke stood where the lands of four clans—Miao, Zhuang, Tu, and Gaoshan—met, and was a lively and well-known spot in the southern borderlands.

As the light gradually failed and dusk drew near, Ming Li, Xiaobai, and Xiaohui—two people and a monkey—at last walked into Tianshui Stockade.

Though the name contained the word "stockade," it was nothing like the mountain strongholds commonly built on hilltops in the south. Tianshui Stockade was built on a broad stretch of level ground, with a road leading out of it to each of the four directions. According to Xiaobai's explanation on the way, the place had originally been built by the Tu clan, and not on this site at all, but on a hill not far to the west. Because of a clear spring on that hilltop, it had been called Tianshui Stockade—the Stockade of Heaven's Water.

Later, however, as the four clans' territories came together and the people multiplied, the place became one of mixed population.

And as traders and travelers increased, living up on the hill became inconvenient—the site was cramped, and coming and going was difficult. The folk of the southern borderlands might be hardier than the people of the Central Plains, but no one cared to climb a mountain every day for exercise.

So by degrees people began moving down to live at the foot of the hill; from few they grew to many, and in time the whole population of the stockade migrated down. As trade among the four clans flourished and travelers came and went more frequently, the settlement grew larger day by day. The old stockade on the hilltop fell gradually into ruin, and only the name Tianshui Stockade was kept.

The light had just begun to dim, and the street was still full of passersby coming and going, a hubbub all around, the tongues of various clans rising from time to time—utterly unlike the desolation of the ancient road they had come by. Xiaohui, perched on Xiaobai's shoulder, found it all greatly amusing, its monkey head turning this way and that, chattering without cease.

A three-eyed monkey, after all, was no common sight, and it soon drew the eyes of the passersby. Several children in the dress of the southern clans ran laughing behind the two of them, pulling faces at Xiaohui and teasing it.