Snow Flower, Fire Storm

I

1994 YEARS AGO, THE CAPITAL CITY

The lanterns swung ever so gently in the night breeze, lighting up the streets below with their soft yellow glow. Xie Xiao gazed down from his perch atop an old calligraphy shop, pouting at how the mesh of streets sprawling before him happened to be too bright for his taste.

Judging from the position of the waning moon up in the velvet black sky, the time was already way past midnight. Most lanterns should have gone out by now, or put out, yet all of them burned on with a steady intensity, the entire capital city aglow by the overlapping lights spilling out of the outrageous number of lanterns that were either hanging from the roof edges of every building in sight or dangling from the web of criss-crossing ropes stretched above the streets. It created an illusion that there was a bit of sun trapped in the city.

How inconvenient, thought Xie Xiao foully.

Xie Xiao didn't know whether to be amazed by this night-time brilliance of the capital city or to spurn its extravagance. Surely people here had better things to do with their money than keeping a thousand lanterns burning all night when there was no one even using the streets. And how could anyone get a good night's sleep when there was enough light in the city to wake up a demon? Sometimes the minds of the people of the capital were beyond Xie Xiao's understanding.

However it was also true that this was Xie Xiao's first time in the capital. Maybe he was being too quick to judge the people living here when he hadn't even met one yet. If his master were here he would tell him it was wrong to judge people even if you thought you knew them, but wisdom like that usually flew straight over Xie Xiao's head. How would you decide who your friends and foes were if you didn't judge people, he'd ask back. How could you win a fight if you were reluctant to guage your opponent? The master would always answer with a sigh, and tell him he was simply missing the point.

Xie Xiao shook his head, snapping himself out of thoughts about his master. This wasn't the time or place  for it.

Surveying the streets spread out haphazardly around him from his vantage point, Xie Xiao thought something was amiss. He'd been told numerous times that in daylight the capital city was a charming  place bursting with colours and raucous activity, that even during the odd hours of the night there would be people out on the streets, going about unfinished businesses, unscrupulous men slinking off to seedy taverns or to brothels haunted by bedecked women with their painted faces, leaning over dainty little balconies, beckoning passerby with their vapid smiles. There would even be people outside holding celebrations just for the sake of it—from what he had heard of the people living here, they celebrated anything and everything. But tonight the city was eerily quiet, not a soul venturing out of their homes, the night so still that the uncanniness of it made the city lose its enchantment on Xie Xiao.

He would have felt better if he could have spotted at least a mouse step out of the shadows in its quest for food. The utter, dubious tranquility of the night made him feel a little off-centre, like he wasn't putting his weight in the right place, like he wasn't looking for the right thing.

Still pondering about the situation, Xie Xiao kept observing his surroundings. Poor scouting could lead to an untimely abortion of a mission, or to heavy casualties. However if anything went wrong tonight, Xie Xiao guessed he would be the only casuality.

The city seemed to be watching Xie Xiao back as well, and it put him on edge. It was true that there were no revelers or drunks out tonight, but that didn't mean the streets were completely empty.

It wasn't just the lanterns that was making him feel uneasy. Every street he passed on his way had dozens of imperial guards posted at regular intervals to watch the night for trouble. It had taken him quite a bit of skill to sneak past so many of them. Why was the security in the capital so stringent? What was the king even thinking? Was it possible that His Imperial Majesty had really gone so far just because of a single prisoner?