Xue Fen was alone in one of the bandit's caves, her bed roll out and the sun already long set, but she was too excited to even think about sleep. She sat on the ground next to the small fire she and her uncle had set to keep warm, examining with one hand the dagger – longer than a knife, too short for a sword – she'd taken from the bandits' stash as her weapon, its blade matte but its point sharp and illuminated in the firelight. And her other hand was wrapped tight around the handle of the pistol Lian had picked out, tight as if it was going to escape her grasp at any minute.
When she'd held the knife to Quan's throat the night before, she'd felt a rush, but not the one she'd expected. It had made her sick to her stomach, the way the blade cut through that first layer of his skin, as if it was nothing. She'd thought it would be harder – she'd needed it to be harder. She'd never killed anyone, hardly even slaughtered an animal until these last few lean years, and she'd expected it to be more difficult somehow, different from carving a chicken or slicing a roast. But it wasn't. His skin had given way just like any other animals', and that disgusted her from the stomach out: just how easy it would be to kill someone.
Li Jie had left over half an hour earlier, saying he needed to urinate. She figured he would be out talking to the peasants, reassuring them, and she knew that was his rightful place. But right then she wanted someone to reassure her. Not about the next day's trap – she knew that was well designed. But she needed someone to talk to about what it would be like to actually put the sharp end of that dagger into someone's skin. Someone's bone. Someone's heart. She needed someone to tell her she could do it without throwing up all over the battlefield the next day.
Just then that someone arrived. She stood a few feet away, staring at Fen's fire, and casually asked. "Can't sleep?"
Fen looked up at Lian, but the Shuli Go didn't look back. Fen answered truthfully. "No."
"It's not usually like this," Lian said vacantly, her eyes flickering in time with the fire. "Usually you don't know when it's coming, or even if it's coming. It just happens and you react."
"...I don't know how you did it," Fen admitted. She held the blade out at arm's length against the backdrop of the fire, where its dull surface could block out most, but not all, of the firelight. The edge still gleamed under the mixture of stars, moon, and whispery flames. "I don't know how you could take someone's life so easily."
Lian sighed. A sigh that said 'I can't believe we're back on this topic again' as if there had ever been any other topic worth discussing between the two of them. Fen felt the same rage that had taken hold of her the night before, when she'd decided she would kill Quan. Then she remembered the convulsions in her stomach and they came back to her again. She let Lian talk and just held the dagger out there, admiring the contrast between the dull and the shine.
"I could lie and tell you it isn't easy. And maybe it wasn't, once. I don't remember that though. It's always been easy."
"There must be something wrong with you," Fen said.
Lian laughed and Fen dropped her short sword to look at the older woman. The laugh was not, to her surprise, dismissive.
"You're right, there probably is," Lian admitted. "There's something wrong with anybody who kills someone. That's true."
"But you'll still do it."
"Sure... and so will you."
Fen shook her head and placed the dagger on the ground. "I don't know. When I think about it..."
"It's not the same. Thinking about it and doing it. Not even close."
Fen thought for a moment then said, "Quan told me the Tiendu Shu believe all life is connected. That makes them pacifists right? I mean, if you're killing something, you're hurting the universe, right?"
"Is that what you guys talked about last night?"
"Something like that."
"Well yeah, that's how I understand it."
"But you expect him to kill tomorrow?"
"I expect him to survive tomorrow. Tiendu Shu doesn't teach absolute pacifism. Eating meat to survive is part of their world. Fighting for survival is a part of life."
"I don't know if I can do it."
Lian stepped between Fen and the fire, stood over the girl, and said, "Let's find out."
She pulled Fen up, then took a dozen long paces away from the girl before turning back to face her.
"The pistol, aim it at me."
Fen's heart began to race and she felt a tingle erupt across every surface of her body before turning in on her, tingling her lungs, her heart, her soul. Her hand had left a layer of perspiration on the pistol and she almost dropped it out of her grip. She stared at the Shuli Go, who stood in utter relaxation not twenty feet away.
This was her chance. Her chance to finally get vengeance for her father, to right the wrong that had been done to her family. She was asking for it, literally, asking her to point the gun at her. She could say it was an accident. Or she could be upfront and claim the victory for her family. No matter what it would be done – this woman she'd hated since she was ten years old would be gone. And it would be her bullet that killed her. It would be her victory. She looked down at the pistol in her hand then back up at Lian. She wiped her palm on her clothing, then the handle of the weapon as well. She transferred the gun to her right hand and lifted it up.
"No," Lian instructed her, "keep your arm straight. Raise it directly from the shoulder. Now put your other hand on the other side of the handle. That's right. Now make sure your legs are a bit further apart. Yup, just like that. That'll keep you steady. Ok. That's good. Now when you aim make sure the gun is all aligned and you can only see the back of it, and your target. That means it's straight. Ok, now you pull back the cock. Right. Then it's just the trigger."
It was just the trigger, cold and metallic under Fen's finger. One simple pull away from everything she'd wanted these past four years. Every night waking up to clean and feed her father, every prayer of atonement she'd sent to her mother and her ancestors, every red face of shame she'd felt selling another prized family possession to pay for food and shelter. All of that weighed against one thin strip of metal, curved to fit her finger. All she needed to do was pull it and all those feelings could disappear. She breathed in deep and held it, felt her arm go rigid so she wouldn't miss, and looked down the length of the barrel again, then onto her target.
And her target looked back at her. Placid, as if her life was not in someone else's hands at all. The thought hit her like a stone to the side of the face: a life in her hands. That's what this feeling was. The nausea – that was still there – but also the thrill she'd expected the night before, the bile in her throat and the expected joy rising in her chest. It was all there. And so was the other woman, standing there, looking completely unfazed, an entirely different world where she was not aware she was about to die.
Fen pulled that thought as if on a string, then tied it to another. She dropped first one hand, then lowered the pistol with the other. "You didn't load it," she said. "There's no bullet in here is there?"
Lian's response was flat, almost bored. "Fen tomorrow there could be fifty men on horseback riding down to trample you to death. The last thing I need in this world is another member of your family hurt because of something I've done. The gun's loaded."
Fen shook her head. She didn't believe it. She couldn't believe this woman who she hated so deeply.
"Your father didn't believe me either when I told him to leave me alone and look—"
Fen raised her arm and pulled the trigger. The small cave erupted into an explosion of light and sound as the gunpowder ignited and Fen's arm was thrown back by the force of the bullet leaving the barrel. A huff of smoke lingered in front of her for a moment before dissipating, revealing Lian still standing, completely untouched.
Fen dropped the pistol as the nausea replaced everything else, and she turned to the ground to heave the contents of her dinner onto the ground. A crowd of villagers and soldiers approached to find out what was wrong.
"It's fine, it's fine," Lian reassured them, ushering them out of the cave, "was just giving Ms. Xue here a lesson in firearms."
Li Jie was slightly harder to turn away, but when he saw Fen wiping her mouth, he decided to leave her with her privacy for a while longer. She spit a few times to get the last terrible, bitter taste out of her mouth, but it wouldn't disappear. The vibration that affected her entire body had turned it into convulsions, long after it usually did when she became sick. She remained hunched over, staring at the pistol and hating it, hating everything, hating this entire series of events that had led her there that night. But her anger towards Lian had diminished slightly, somehow. She couldn't explain it. Then Lian did.
"How do you do it?" Lian asked rhetorically, standing next to Fen's curled up form. "It's easy. It's your life or theirs. Their life or the life of someone you love. And after a while you don't even need to hate them first. Because hating someone doesn't make it easier to kill them. It just makes it easier to forgive yourself after you've done it."
Fen suddenly felt exhausted, as the bitter taste left her mouth and the shaking was replaced by a deep, gnawing hunger. She just wanted to go to sleep, but Lian picked up the pistol and shoved it back into her hand.
"Alright, let's go back to that storeroom and I'll show you how to reload. And next time, remember what I told you. Fifteen feet, no more."
Lian took the girl under one arm and led her away by the shoulder, out of the fire and into the starlight.