[Day 156] Silence After the Broken Bridge

Cao Cao’s (曹操) two thousand cavalry had fully vanished behind the northern horizon. The sound of hooves was no longer heard. The dust that had been rising at the north end of Changban Bridge (長坂橋) was now settling.

Zhang Fei (張飛) held his horse still at the middle of the bridge. His eyes confirmed once more that the two thousand had fully withdrawn. Only after the northern dust had settled did Zhang Fei at last dismount.

His feet touched the wooden planks of the bridge. Gripping the Eight-Serpent Spear (八蛇矛) in his right hand, Zhang Fei stood alone at the middle of the bridge. The bridge was narrow — wide enough for one man, too narrow for two to stand side by side. Zhang Fei’s feet planted themselves firmly at the center of that narrow width.

He raised the Eight-Serpent Spear high. The blade shaped like eight serpents flashed in the dusk before the moon had yet risen. Then the tip of the spear struck hard upon the wooden planks of the bridge.

One plank broke away and fell. The sound of splitting wood dropped to the surface of the stream (川) below. As the broken plank settled slowly onto the water, a single white spray rose.

Zhang Fei raised the spear again. With the second stroke, another plank broke. With the third, another. With the fourth, another still. From the middle of the bridge southward, five planks, then six, broke and fell in turn.

The southern half of the bridge was now gone. Upon the stream, broken wooden planks drifted. The connection from one end of the bridge to the other was severed. Even if Cao Cao’s two thousand cavalry returned at tomorrow’s dawn, not a single step could cross upon this bridge.

Zhang Fei raised the spear upright one last time. At the middle of the bridge there was a single standing upright. Then the tip of the spear settled quietly down. After that final stroke, every sound upon the bridge ceased.

The evening wind, too, paused for a while. The wind that had been flowing from north to south came to a stop, for one breath, at the middle of the bridge. It was the rhythm of the fifth wind. After the previous four winds had passed in turn over the five shoulders of Changban, the fifth wind was opening a single blank at the middle of Changban Bridge.

Inside that blank, Zhang Fei looked toward the vanished dust to the north, then toward the hill of Liu Bei’s (劉備) main body to the south. The north was now empty. To the south, only the faint outline of the hill remained under the evening sky. At the center between those two outlines lay the broken plank of one bridge, and the single breath of one man.

Zhang Fei’s twenty riders now emerged from the woods to the east of the bridge. Each in turn untied the bundles of tree branches from the tails of their horses. Twenty bundles settled upon the earth of Changban. The phantom of twenty ambushers returned now to twenty real riders.

Zhang Fei gave them one nod.

“We return. Southward.”

Zhang Fei mounted again. The twenty riders followed him. With the broken bridge behind them, the hooves of twenty-one riders turned toward the hill of Liu Bei’s main body to the south.

As the hooves faded, the silence at the middle of Changban Bridge grew deeper. Upon the water, the last of the broken planks drifted slowly downstream. Above that plank, the wind that had paused began to flow once more, a thin current, from north to south.

The red glow on the western sky of Changban had now fully gone. In the eastern sky, the moon had begun to rise, one sliver at a time. The evening of Changban had fully closed. Cao Cao’s two thousand cavalry’s dust had returned behind the northern horizon, and Liu Bei’s column of twenty-four thousand had continued further down the southern road.

The breaking of one plank, the single breath of one man, and the single blank of one wind were, this evening, the last three traces of Changban. It was the third evening of Book 6.

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