The Lost Records of Chaoge

“Write the boy down as dead first.”

Lin Yan held the brush without moving.

The boy knelt in a pit, his hands tied behind his back. He looked about fifteen or sixteen. A tear in his shirt exposed a scabbed wound on his left shoulder. Four others knelt beside him: an old man with white hair, two men, and a woman. The woman kept her head bowed, her face pressed against her drawn-up knees.

All five were still alive.

“Write,” the old man beside Lin Yan urged again.

Lin Yan looked from the brush tip to the dirt beneath his fingernails.

The last thing he remembered was a scanner at the office jamming. On its screen lay a yellowed sheet, its edges curled and impossible to flatten. He had reached out to hold it down when the lights suddenly went out. When he woke, the back of his head throbbed as if someone had struck him, and his mouth tasted of earth.

There was no desk. No phone.

He had barely asked where he was before someone beside him pressed him down, put a brush in his hand, and pushed a few wooden slips toward him.

This body knew how to hold a brush.

Fragments of knowledge lingered in his mind: the old man was called Old Xing; Lin Yan copied records of fields and grain under him; yesterday they had left Chaoge to keep count at a sacrifice.

Chaoge.

He stared at the word, as if he might find some mistake in it, some place where he had misheard.

By the pit, the man with the knife nudged a stone aside with his foot. The blade was short, its edge freshly sharpened. The boy watched it. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Lin Yan’s hand trembled.

Old Xing frowned and bumped him with an elbow. “Did you hit your head? The Geng clan supplied them, and the count is settled. Just write.”

“He isn’t dead.”

Old Xing glanced at him.

That look made Lin Yan swallow the rest of what he had been about to say.

A few paces away, household guards stood watch. One stared at them, tapping his spear shaft against the toe of his boot, again and again. Lin Yan understood at once: he was allowed to sit outside the pit not because no one here would be killed, but because it was not his turn yet.

He lowered his head.

The characters on the wooden slip were crooked and strange, but as he looked at them, a few slowly began to make sense.

Date. Drought. Pray for rain. Five offerings.

Five people, written down after a single character for “offering.”

Old Xing’s finger landed on the last line. He urged Lin Yan to add: already offered. Lin Yan glanced at the spear shaft across his knees and bent over the slip. He wrote the two characters unevenly, but did not rewrite them.

Several bronze vessels stood behind the altar, their bellies blackened with smoke. A man in a feathered robe circled it, reciting words Lin Yan could not quite follow. At the end, the man’s voice rose sharply, and everyone kneeling around him bent low.

“The ancestors have received the offering.”

The man with the knife stepped forward and seized the boy by the hair.

The boy suddenly began to shout.

“I can still work!”

His cry jolted Lin Yan’s head up.

“I know how to knead clay and load a kiln. My father taught me. I can fire pottery!” The boy strained backward, scraping two shallow furrows in the dirt with his heels. “I don’t eat much. Ask my mother. I can still work...”

The man with the knife pressed down on his shoulder.

Lin Yan sprang to his feet.

He had no idea what standing up would accomplish. The boy was still several steps away. Lin Yan had no weapon. His legs shook, and all he clutched was a brush.

One of the guards immediately leveled his spear across Lin Yan’s path.

“Sit down.”

Old Xing tugged at Lin Yan’s robe. The old man’s hand was trembling too.

Then, from far off, came the sound of wheels.

The man in the feathered robe paused and looked toward the road. A few of the kneeling people turned their heads, only to be shouted down by the guards. A dark banner appeared over the rise.

It bore the image of a bird.

Soldiers came next, then a carriage and more people. The soldiers at the front did not approach the altar. First they took up positions on the two roads leading to the village. The guards’ spear shafts stopped tapping. Old Xing yanked Lin Yan back to his mat.

“Bow your head.”

“Who is it?”

“The King.”

Lin Yan’s fingers clenched around the brush.

Chaoge. Great Shang. The King.

The name surfaced in his mind: King Zhou.

Names that had once lived only on pages and screens now had bodies standing before him. The bronze-pillar torture, the wine pool, Bi Gan’s heart. He even remembered the smiling face of an actor watching people suffer in a television drama.

The boy was still pinned in the pit.

Lin Yan looked at him, then slowly sat down.

Old Xing did not see. His forehead was already pressed almost to the ground.

A pair of dust-covered shoes stopped before Lin Yan’s mat. He looked up and first saw the sword at the man’s waist, then the hand hanging from his sleeve. There was no elaborate embroidery on the cuff, only a dark line stitched along the edge.

The King was younger than Lin Yan had expected, and quieter.

He did not look at the bronze vessels. He walked straight to the pit.

The man with the knife knelt, still holding the blade.

“Put it down.”

The King’s voice was not loud, but the man flinched as if struck and hurriedly dropped the knife.

The King turned to the man in the feathered robe.

“Who gave you permission to hold this sacrifice?”

“My King.” The man bowed low. “The drought has lasted many days. The crops in the fields are nearly dead...”

“Who gave you permission?”

The man did not answer.

Lin Yan held his breath. Another explanation occurred to him: perhaps the Geng clan had not provided enough offerings, or perhaps they had used something belonging to the King without permission.

Two of the King’s soldiers climbed down into the pit.

The boy’s face went white. He scrabbled backward. One soldier steadied him while another drew a short knife.

The blade pressed against the boy’s wrist.

Lin Yan’s stomach clenched.

The rope snapped.

The boy did not move, as if he had not yet understood what had happened.

“Untie them all,” the King said.

The woman was the first to cry out. Her wrists were swollen where the rope had cut into them. Even after it was removed, her arms remained stiffly behind her back. A soldier helped bring her hands around in front of her, then went to untie the old man.

The man in the feathered robe raised his head.

“My King, the ancestors have received the offering. The rite cannot be abandoned halfway.”

“Who heard them receive it?”

The man opened his mouth, then closed it.

The King watched him. “Did you receive the order issued here last year?”

The clan ritualist bowed lower. His feathers swept the ash.

A scribe beside the King unrolled the wooden slip he had brought and asked the local steward, “No person may be used as an offering. Who received the order on behalf of the Geng clan?”

Silence fell before the altar. The wind blew one corner of the feathered robe across the ritualist’s face. He did not brush it away.

One of the household guards edged backward. A royal guard walked over and grasped his spear shaft. The two men froze for a moment. Then the household guard let go and knelt.

“Take the knives and spears away,” the King said. “Do not point them at these people.”

Lin Yan realized he meant the five who had just been untied.

They were being protected.

A middle-aged man emerged from behind the bronze vessels, a smile pressed onto his face. He bowed to the King, then glanced at the boy on the ground.

“I failed to govern my household. The clan ritualist listened to rumors and acted on his own. I knew nothing of this in advance.”

The King ignored the excuse. He asked the people beside him, “What is that?”

A wooden slip with writing on it lay beside the bronze vessels. A guard picked it up and handed it over. The steward’s smile stiffened.

The King passed the slip to the scribe in charge of the record.

“Find out who sent it.”

Holding the slip, the scribe turned toward the local officials. One by one, they bowed lower.

No one spoke.

After waiting a moment, the King said, “Question the people who sent them, the people who received them, and the people who arranged the sacrifice separately. Do not let them crowd together.”

Several guards answered and moved toward the altar and the road.

Lin Yan looked at the wooden slip and felt his arm go cold inside his sleeve.

He had one too.

It said: five offerings.

Old Xing slipped his brush into his sleeve and gently nudged Lin Yan, urging him to do the same. Lin Yan lowered his head to gather the slips, but heard the King ask, “Where is the person who kept count?”

Old Xing pressed his forehead to the ground.

“Here, my lord.”

“Bring them.”

Both men’s slips were collected.

The King turned to the last one. His gaze paused.

“Dead?”

Old Xing’s forehead remained against the mat.

“N-not yet.”

The King looked at Lin Yan.

Lin Yan’s neck went rigid. He wanted to explain that he had just woken in this place, that he did not know who anyone was, that Old Xing had told him what to write. But how much of it would the man before him believe?

He lowered the hand holding the brush.

“He said to write it first.”

Old Xing’s shoulders trembled.

“Who?”

Lin Yan did not point to Old Xing at once.

He looked at the man with the knife, then at the Geng clan steward who had claimed to know nothing. The old man on the mat, shaking with fear just like him, had not been the one to order the sacrifice.

“He urged me to record it.” Lin Yan pointed to Old Xing. “But the count came from the altar. Five people. They said they had already been offered.”

The King handed the slip back.

“Correct it.”

Lin Yan took it, but the brush tip hovered over the wood.

“What should I write?”

Only then did the King glance at him. Lin Yan saw that the slip had no names, only a number and five marks that meant nothing by themselves. It recorded neither their ages nor where they lived, nor why they had been brought here.

He thought of the incomplete forms at his old job.

There was only a column for a quantity. When someone asked who the people were, the handlers would say they did not know, that they had been delivered by count long ago.

The King looked toward the five people he had rescued.

“Write down their names, and where they were taken from. Make it clear.”

Then he went to the woman and signaled for a soldier to give her a bowl of water.

She took it. The rim knocked against her teeth, and water spilled down the front of her robe. Halfway through drinking, she suddenly lowered the bowl and tried to kneel.

“Sit first.”

“My King, I...”

“Can you move your hands?”

She bent her fingers, but could not make a fist.

The King called for a healer and asked who else was in her household. She said she had a child who had been left at the Geng estate the night before. The steward, who had been keeping his head down, started to speak. The King raised a hand to stop him.

“Let her finish. Then you may speak.”

The healer crouched before the woman to examine her injuries, then went to look at the old man. Lin Yan moved his mat and slips a little closer.

The first person had to say his name twice before anyone could understand him.

The second spoke too quickly. Lin Yan could not keep up and asked him to repeat it. Old Xing remained kneeling where he was until the royal scribe gestured for him to help with a few characters. The old man’s knuckles shook badly as he held the brush. Lin Yan was no steadier.

They sat shoulder to shoulder. Neither dared mention the order to write the boy down as dead.

When it was the boy’s turn, he looked at Lin Yan, then at the knife on the ground.

“A-Tao.”

Lin Yan stopped writing.

“Tao, as in pottery?”

The boy nodded. His wrists were thin, and a red ring circled each where the ropes had been. He tried to cradle the water bowl in both hands, but it wobbled.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Where were you taken from?”

He named a place. Lin Yan did not know where it was, so Old Xing wrote it down for him.

“Who else is in your family?”

“My mother.”

When the King approached, Lin Yan was asking why A-Tao had been brought here.

A-Tao jerked his head up and tried to stand. He got halfway up before his legs gave way, and he fell beside the mat. He hurriedly braced himself with one hand, spilling the water in the other.

The King crouched, picked up the bowl, and handed it to a soldier behind him.

“Refill it after we’re done asking.”

A-Tao did not dare look at him.

“Who brought you here?”

“The Geng clan’s men.”

“Why?”

The boy fell silent for a moment.

The steward stood a few paces away, watching his face.

“Tell me,” the King said, his voice unchanged.

A-Tao pressed his lips together until they went pale. At last he said, “My family owed grain. They said I had to repay it.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does your mother know?”

“They won’t let her see the books.”

The steward hurried forward. “My King, there is an old contract at the estate. His father owed grain...”

The King rose.

“Bring it. Bring the account too. We will find out what was owed and how.”

The steward did not move.

The soldiers behind the King had already come up beside him.

“And the woman’s child,” the King said, pointing to her. “Bring that child as well.”

A-Tao suddenly reached out.

He touched the King’s sleeve, then pulled his hand back as if burned.

Two guards stepped forward at once.

“Wait,” the King said.

A-Tao bent low to the ground. His voice was much smaller now.

“Could...could someone tell my mother?”

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her I’m still alive.”

Lin Yan’s brush scraped a long, thin line across the wooden slip.

The King asked where A-Tao’s mother lived and called over one of the officials traveling with him. He repeated the place and the woman’s name. Only after the official repeated them correctly did the King send him with the soldiers going to check the accounts.

“Tell her first that her son is alive. If no one is home, look for her in the village. Do not ask only at the Geng estate.”

A-Tao remained kneeling.

The King ordered a soldier to help him back onto the mat. Wind blew ash from the altar across the water. A-Tao raised his sleeve and clumsily shielded himself and the person beside him.

The matter was not over. The clan ritualist and the Geng steward were taken aside and questioned separately. The cart used to transport the people was impounded. Several household guards were disarmed and made to wait for questioning. The King’s soldiers did not tie up everyone in the village. They asked those who wished to leave for their names and destinations, so they could be found later if needed.

Lin Yan heard people whispering.

“He really let them go?”

“He said it last year. No more human offerings.”

“The order reached the estate. Who dares ask about it?”

The speaker said nothing more.

The royal scribe checked the slips from the altar, then came to Lin Yan and asked him to read A-Tao’s name. Lin Yan did so, then added the details the scribe requested: not dead, ropes removed, grain debt under review.

The words already offered had dried on the old slip. Lin Yan did not scrape them away. He took another slip and added what had happened: the five were alive, and their ropes had been removed. The scribe checked it and told him to tie the old and new slips together and take them back to the grain office.

The King returned to his carriage and asked how long the fields had been dry. He did not leave with only the clan ritualist’s answer. He called over a farmer and asked why the irrigation ditch was blocked and how much grain the estate still had.

Lin Yan watched from a distance.

A-Tao was only a few steps away, holding a newly filled bowl. When the man with the knife was led away for questioning, Lin Yan saw the boy’s shoulders loosen a little.

He leaned toward Old Xing. “Is the King’s name Xin?”

Old Xing’s face changed at once. He pressed a hand to Lin Yan’s sleeve.

“Don’t say that carelessly.”

Lin Yan did not ask again.

He looked toward the carriage once more. He had the name right. He had Chaoge right. The Geng clan really had violated the King’s order. The King was punishing them and defending his own authority. That explanation made sense too.

Rescuing these five people was not enough to prove that everything he had read later was wrong. He remembered Bi Gan, who would die remonstrating with the King. He remembered the Zhou rebellion. He remembered plenty.

For now, staying alive mattered most.

He decided to return to Chaoge and find a chance to approach Bi Gan. That man should know how to get away.

The sun had shifted west. A-Tao could stand now. He came over to Lin Yan, his wrists still stiff, and held the bowl between both hands.

“For you.”

Lin Yan took it and drank only a mouthful.

The water tasted of earth. It was warm.

A-Tao stared at the wooden slips Lin Yan had put away.

“Is my name on there?”

“It is.”

“Does it say A-Tao?”

Lin Yan pulled the slip out and showed him.

A-Tao could not read, but he stared at the marks for a long time, as if he meant to remember every stroke. He looked from his own name toward the road the King’s carriage had taken.

“When my mother comes, can you show her too?”

“If she comes, I’ll show her.”

Only then did the boy smile. Mud still clung to his teeth.

Old Xing called from behind Lin Yan, telling him to pack up. The scribes returning to the city would take them along. The record of the sacrifice had to be checked again; it could not be sent back to the Geng estate.

Lin Yan had just put away his brush when the royal scribe handed him another wooden slip.

“The grain office is choosing officials tomorrow. You will keep the record.”

“Me?”

“You remembered what the five people said today. That’s good enough.”

Lin Yan took the list. He did not recognize most of the names. Old Xing pointed to one entry and muttered, “The Geng clan has trouble again.”

“What do you mean?”

The old man pointed at the small writing after the name.

After a moment, Lin Yan understood it.

Female. Enslaved.

“Women are allowed to take the examination too?”

“The King called her. Who’s going to dare keep her outside?”

Down the road, A-Tao still stood where they had left him. He was no longer kneeling, and no one was driving him with a spear. He waved with a hand he could not yet bend properly.

Lin Yan tucked the new list beneath the old record.

On the old slip at the very bottom, it still said: five offerings.

He placed the new slip, with all five names, on top of it.

Author’s note: A quick guide to names. “The King” in this story is Di Xin, the last king of Shang. Lin Yan knows him from later legends as “King Zhou.” That name has nothing to do with the Zhou clan, the rival family in the west led by Ji Chang. The two are different Chinese words that look identical in English. A short Names and Terms list is available if you’d like a reference. Thanks for reading!