61: Old Wolf's Question
Old Wolf had deferred the question once.
He had said, after the second charter scout on the Saturday a week and three days ago, that he would ask it on the Monday following. On the Monday following — the Monday before the Pingjiang Road second-Saturday — he had not appeared at the south-gate step at six. He had sent a small bonded-DM at 5:54 PM that read, in his hand: *Wanqing is at the bench in her father's back room. The question is not asked at the south-gate step when one of its parties is at a bench in her father's back room. I will be at the south-gate step at six on the Monday following her return.*
That Monday was now.
I logged in at 5:50 PM IRL. Wanqing logged in at 5:51. We took the south-gate ramp together to the south-gate step in silence. The bond aura at the eight-centimeter mark was at the steady gold it had been since the small Sunday at the IRL western fountain when the lock had lifted.
We sat on the step at five fifty-eight.
Old Wolf came up the south road at six exactly.
He had on the Vanishing Brigade silver-and-blue. He had the sword of his own name at his back, sheathed. He carried, this evening, a small wooden tankard he had been carrying when I had first met him at the south-gate step in late August. The tankard was empty. He set it on the step at his left side. He sat on the step at one meter from Wanqing's right.
He did not, before speaking, look at either of us.
He said: "Wanqing."
"Old Wolf."
"On the Saturday two weeks and four days ago, after the cleft engagements at Iron Hills west, I asked you whose tactical school you had come up under. You said the Hangzhou-9 cell of the Pioneer's Echo civic-historical study group. I said that night I would, on the following Monday, ask one further small question. The question was not, at the time, the question. The question, after I have spent the small two weeks and four days I have spent watching you and your guild commander work, has changed."
He paused.
He said: "The question now is not who taught you the cadence. The question now is who, among the small four people on this server who could have taught you the cadence at the small specific level you have it at, did. The four are: Bai Wenya the architect of the cell who dissolved her seat in the second month. Lin Tao the small careful tactical officer who took the cell to the small careful three-year campaign and died in the small careful third year. Yu Tienan the small careful intelligence officer who is, by my count, in Beijing now under a name not his own. And the fourth — the fourth I do not know the name of, and the fourth is the one who taught you. I am asking you the fourth's name."
He looked at Wanqing.
He waited.
Wanqing did not, in answering, look at him. She looked at the south road where it ran east toward the lower-city night market. She held both hands folded over each other on her knee in the small still-handed way she held them when she was about to say something she had decided to say carefully.
She said: "Su Lan."
"Su Lan."
"My aunt. My father's older sister. She left Suzhou in the first month of the launch-week-plus-one-month and went to the Hangzhou-9 cell as a small adjunct under Lin Tao on the small civic-historical mechanism Lin Tao had been teaching the small careful first-cycle adjuncts. She took the small careful first-cycle adjunct course for six IRL weeks. She came back to Suzhou. She did not, after coming back, speak about it to my father or to my mother or to me. I was twelve. I did not, at twelve, ask. She taught me the cadence at the small careful kitchen table on the Sundays I went to her flat through the small careful twelve-year span between my twelfth IRL year and my twenty-fourth. She taught the cadence the way a small careful aunt teaches a small careful niece a small careful family receipt — a small spoonful at a time, never named as a teaching, never written down, never confirmed when asked. I did not, until the second month after the launch-week of this game, recognize that the cadence she had taught me was the Pioneer's Echo civic-historical-study-group Hangzhou-9 cell first-cycle-adjunct cadence. I recognized it because the small careful version of the cadence I had been taught was the small careful version Lin Tao had taught — and Lin Tao had been dead by the time I was thirteen. The version had not, after my aunt's six IRL weeks, been altered. She had, at the small careful kitchen table, kept it for me."
She paused.
She said: "She is alive. She lives at the small careful Pingjiang Road five lanes north of my father's. She has, since 2008, not played any in-game game. She does not, in the present civic-historical context, have a public role. She is the fourth name. Su Lan."
Old Wolf was quiet a long moment.
He said: "I have, in two timelines of my own — by which I mean the small specific in-game launch period and the small specific in-game pre-alpha closed beta — never met Su Lan. I have known the name. I have known her hand at distance from the small careful early-cycle adjunct training documents I read in the second month at the Brigade. I had not, until tonight, known she had a niece. I had not, until tonight, known she was alive. The Brigade's civic-historical record at the present time has her marked deceased in 2009 in a small careful brief Suzhou industrial accident. The record is wrong."
"Yes."
"She let the record be wrong."
"Yes."
"She is at the Pingjiang Road five lanes north of your father."
"Yes."
"She is, this evening, at the small careful kitchen table where she taught you."
"She is."
He nodded once.
He picked up the small wooden tankard. He turned it in his right hand once. He set it back down on the step at his left side.
He said: "I have, in my career, served three civic lines. The first was the Brigade — the original Vanishing Brigade, the version that existed before the small careful third-month-patch reorganization, the version that had a small civic charter and an old Brigade founder named Mei Qing. Mei Qing died in the second month of the launch-week. The reorganization that followed was the small careful end of the line I had served. I left the Brigade at month two and twenty-one days. The second was the small careful three-IRL-week consultancy I worked for the Continental committee's quiet section in month three of the launch-week, which was the small careful contract I left when I understood what they were quietly building. The third was the small careful Hangzhou-9-cell-residual line — which I did not know I was serving, until this evening, by serving you. I have, in the four IRL months since I split from the Brigade, been at the small careful eastern alcove of the south-gate gatehouse and the small careful western fountain noodle stall watching for a small careful guild commander who would be the small careful kind of guild commander I would, at the small careful end of my career, close on. Bladeless and you are that small careful guild commander."
He paused.
He said: "I have, in my career, served three civic lines. This is the fourth. The fourth is the one I will close on."
He looked at me.
He said: "I commit, tonight, the rest of my second-month Brigade-departure information to your tactical pool. The information includes: the small careful list of seventeen surviving Brigade splinter operatives with their IRL names and present employer; the small careful three-page Brigade founder-Mei-Qing personal succession plan that the third-month-patch reorganization buried; the small careful identification key for the Brigade's six remaining DM-intercept taps across the Jianghai server's continental routing; and the small careful original Brigade civic charter, which the third-month patch did not destroy but only relocated to a small careful in-game vault under the cairn at the marsh's south rim. The vault key is on my belt. I am giving it to Wanqing tonight. She will, in her own time, take possession."
Wanqing held out her hand.
Old Wolf, without looking, lifted the small key from his belt and put it in her palm. The key was — at the in-game render — a small dark key with a small carved letter at the head. The letter was a small Mei.
Wanqing closed her hand on the key.
She said: "Thank you, Old Wolf."
He said: "Don't thank me. The closing on this line is mine."
He stood up.
He picked up the small wooden tankard.
He said: "Tomorrow at seven PM IRL the first of the three cross-server ally requests will arrive at the south-gate step. The first is *Black River Concord*, sixty members, mid-tier funding through a small careful Tianxia-adjacent legal-services holding company MoonShadow flagged in her Friday addendum. The envoy will be a small careful 28-IRL-year-old named Liu Bofan. Bladeless, you will, at the front door, decline. The decline must be polite and short. I will be in the alcove. I will not, this knock, take the conversation. The next two will follow within the IRL week. The second I will take. The second is the splinter-affiliated. The second is the one whose senior officer I knew."
He looked at me.
He said: "Get some sleep."
He looked at Wanqing.
He said: "Tell your aunt, when you next see her, that an old man who knew her hand at distance is grateful she let the record be wrong. Tell her also: the fourth line will not, by my hand, be the line that asks her to let the record be true again."
Wanqing said: "I will tell her."
Old Wolf walked west toward the lower-city night market with the small wooden tankard in his right hand and the small handsbreadth of the sword of his own name unsheathed at his back.
When his bond marker had gone off the south-gate map Wanqing turned to me.
She said: "I did not, before tonight, plan to give him the name. I had decided, in Suzhou, that I would give him the cell-membership only. The name — Su Lan — I gave him because the question he asked second, after the first question, was the question my aunt had told me to expect. *Who, of the four who could have taught you, did.* My aunt told me, the Sunday before I came back to Hangzhou for the start of fall term, that if a small careful man with a small wooden tankard at the south-gate step ever asked the second question, I should give the name."
I held that.
I said: "Did she give you a description of the man."
"She did. The description was: *He will have a small careful empty tankard at his left side and a small careful sword at his back that he will keep unsheathed by a handsbreadth. He will not, when he asks, look at you. He will look at the south road where it runs east toward the lower-city night market. When he asks, give him the name. He has earned it. He has been asking it, in his own way, for two IRL years.*"
She paused.
She said: "I did not, until tonight, know my aunt knew that much."
I said: "She knew."
We sat on the south-gate step for the next fifty-six minutes without speaking.
The small dark key with the small Mei was, by the time Wanqing put it in the inside pocket of her dark cloak at 6:54 PM IRL, the small dark key it had been in Old Wolf's belt for four IRL months.
The vault under the cairn at the marsh's south rim would, by Wanqing's own small careful timing, be opened.
In my chest the second voice — *three months* — was quiet. The first voice — the old counter — said:
*Su Lan was the fourth name. The two unidentified Hangzhou-9-cell-residual members alive in this timeline were: Su Lan, and one other. The other I have not, in either timeline, identified. The third-party observer at the western fountain bench may, by simple subtraction, be the other.*
I logged out at 7:00 PM IRL.