Nie Jing

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Nie Jing (聶景), also known by her cryptonym The Fox and nicknamed Jingjing (景景), was an agent of the Qin dynasty. She worked closely alongside the Department of Immortality and its commander Yang Duanhe and pretended to be an informant for the youxia of Jade Spring, a village situated near Yangzhou City in Shang Commandery. She masterminded the destruction of the village and the massacre of its people by using the theft of a treasured talisman as a pretext.

Biography

Engineering the Jade Spring massacre

By 215 BCE, Nie Jing had earned the trust of the three young youxia of Jade Spring who were disciples of Wei Yu. The intelligence she supplied them as an informant were always valid, and they regarded her as not just a trustworthy ally but also a friend as close as family. In this position, she delivered her first false piece of intel that year regarding a treasure kept in Yangzhou Palace, claiming that it had been stolen from a poor farmer by corrupt officials and that the palace itself was virtually empty. By preying on their sense of justice for the downtrodden, she was able to induce them into infiltrating the palace to "steal it back". The mission was all a scheme by Nie Jing for the youxia to provoke an attack on their village by the Qin.

The suspicions of two of the youxia, Chu Huan and his sworn sibling, were first piqued when they encountered a far greater security detail at the palace than had been expected, notwithstanding that the emperor himself, Qin Shi Huang, was present. The two narrowly escaped with the treasure thanks to the assistance of their third companion, Yu Ying. On the way back home, the former two had to intervene to save villagers living on the outskirts of Jade Spring from bandits. When they showed mercy to the last bandit, Nie Jing suddenly appeared and executed him. Questioned about this ruthlessness and her flawed intel, Nie Jing advised that it was dangerous to spare an enemy and feigned surprise about Qin Shi Huang being at the palace. While Chu Huan rushed off on his own to locate and destroy the bandits' lair, Nie Jing and his sworn sibling walked back to Jade Spring together. Along the way, the youxia continued to express anxiety that the chaos they caused at the palace would be traced back to their village and endanger it, to which Nie Jing deceptively promised them that she would take measures to ensure otherwise. As they arrived, she left them with a message from Fan Zeng that a present was awaiting them with the resident martial arts instructor Ji Wei.

Nie Jing swiftly put her plan into motion by contacting Yang Duanhe, commander of the Department of Immortality, with news of the theft. The treasure in question was actually an invaluable talisman with magical powers, and Duanhe wasted no time in mobilizing his troops to raid Jade Spring and seize it back. They attacked the following morning and slaughtered the majority of the population, among them Chu Huan, and even attacked the safehouse where Yu Ying and Chu Huan's sworn sibling had retreated to with surviving children. Chu Huan's sibling was then baited into an ambush by one of the Qin soldiers. Erstwhile, Nie Jing had reacquired the talisman in the midst of the chaos at the village and was keeping surveillance from afar as these further events unfolded. It was only when the youxia was able to kill all but one of the ambushers, intending to leave the last alive for questioning, that she revealed herself by silencing the soldier with an arrow to the chest. She successfully disguised her execution as an impulsive act of vengefulness on behalf of Jade Spring and asserted to the youxia that only Grand General Meng Tian could have had the authority to order the attack.

At this point, Yu Ying caught up with them, and the three conferred on their next steps. The two youxia agreed that they must warn Jade Spring villagers presently in Yangzhou about the attack, but Nie Jing feigned a personal desire to stay out of the situation and keep a low profile, only advising before she left that they should gather their Yangzhou contacts at the back gate of the city by the stables since that would be "the fastest route out". Once again, Nie Jing was setting the youxia up for a trap, but they fell right into it, making contact with Fan Zeng and Jiu Wei to organize a meeting with the other villagers who had survived the massacre by being away from Jade Spring at the time. With Nie Jing's intel to the Department of Immortality, the Qin troops ambushed the survivors at the gate, exterminating all of them except the two youxia who were eventually able to kill all the attackers.

Battle of Tulu Pass

Youxia: "You pit the Qin and the Xiongnu against each other, for what end? We are not your pawns!"

Nie Jing: "There are only two types of people in this world, the sheep or the slaughterer. What are you?"

Youxia: "I'm your slaughterer!"

—Nie Jing dueling with the youxia of Jade Spring, 215 BCE

Nie Jing would not meet the two youxia again until the Xiongnu invasion at Tulu Pass, which Yang Duanhe would orchestrate with Touman Chanyu. The plot involved troops under the Department of Immortality destroying the section of the Great Wall at Tulu Pass with explosives, creating a breach that would allow Touman Chanyu's warriors to pour into Qin territory. In the meantime, Yu Ying, still not suspecting Nie Jing's role in masterminding the Jade Spring massacre, searched for her whereabouts, but Nie Jing eluded her at every turn until the battle.

The other youxia of Jade Spring, in alliance with Touman's exiled son and rival chanyu claimant Modu, managed to uncover Duanhe and Touman's scheme through their investigations. The two youxia arrived at Tulu Pass to thwart Duanhe's sabotage by destroying all oil jars, but they failed to prevent Duanhe from detonating his own explosives and creating the desired breach. Following a fierce duel between Duanhe and Yu Ying's partner, the latter chased their adversary along the Great Wall until they caught up and ended his life. It was at that precise moment that Nie Jing, with her face hidden behind a mask, leapt out of hiding to throw a knife at the youxia. She had hoped to kill them while they were distracted, but their reflexes proved too sharp, and the stage was set for an even fiercer duel. The contest dragged on through caustic taunts until the youxia finally managed to knock off Nie Jing's mask, exposing her identity. At that very moment, Yu Ying and Meng Tian arrived to join the fight, and seeing defeat, Nie Jing pulled out the magical talisman to project an energy shield that repulsed her foes with a shockwave, allowing her to escape.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Jade