Zheng Yan and Wu Du escort Duan Ling to the doors of the imperial study, where Zheng Yan bows. “Your Majesty, Wang Shan is here.”
“Come on in,” says Li Yanqiu’s voice.
In his head, Duan Ling has prepared himself for this meeting countless times, and yet in the very moment he steps into the study, his mind becomes entirely blank.
The other day, when he ran into Li Yanqiu in the covered gallery, he was unable to say anything at all. Even today, he still can’t get a word out at all.
Li Yanqiu is sitting behind his desk with Duan Ling’s exam papers spread across it. He looks up from the essay and studies Duan Ling. This time, Duan Ling gets a clear view of Li Yanqiu’s features.
He looks a lot like Duan Ling’s father; his eyebrows, eyes, and nose clearly belong to the person he keeps seeing in dream after dream. He’s lost him for far too long, and as soon as he sees Li Yanqiu he feels as though he’s in a dream again.
Once, he was afraid that since life is so long, as time goes by, he’ll one day forget what his father looked like; that he’ll end up losing that one lamp in his life — the light of his life, irreplaceable. And yet seeing Li Yanqiu again fills him with a sense of attachment — as though as long as Li Yanqiu is here before him, he can feel his father’s presence through him.
It’s a link tying them together in their blood, something that’ll never vanish.
“Wang Shan?”
Duan Ling comes to himself, and getting on his knees, he kowtows.
“Greetings, Your Majesty. I’m the commoner Wang Shan.”
“You won’t be a commoner anymore after today. They haven’t finished judging all the exam papers yet, but I never once expected for the first one I get to read to be yours. Have a seat. There are some things I’d like to ask you.”
Duan Ling immediately bows again and withdraws to one side of the room, at a seat behind a low table. As he raises his eyes to look at Li Yanqiu, Li Yanqiu just happens to also be looking his way.
It’s been a very long day for Duan Ling; he’d come back to the city at dawn and arrive at the palace in the evening, writing his exams through the night; and before he knew it, it’s already past midnight.
Li Yanqiu is even more exhausted than he is, having spent the morning assembly locked in a battle of wits with his officials, and the meetings went on well after the assembly’s dismissal. He leans against the side of his desk, and quietly regards the other party in the room, neither of them saying a word.
Outside, it’s still raining, a downpour that seems almost like a waterfall hitting the windows, its rhythm mixing with the whistling noise of the wind.
“What’s that sound?” Li Yanqiu asks slowly, distracted.
“Lying in bed in the dead of night I listen to the storm; on iron hooves I ride on the frozen Yellow River in my dreams.”2
Li Yanqiu can’t help but smile, and slowly, he lets out a sigh.
Duan Ling knows that Li Yanqiu has probably already found out about his origins, family, age, and his marital status from Wu Du … So for the moment he can’t actually think of anything else to ask.
“You wrote this paper?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Of course I wrote the paper myself. Who could have taken my exam for me?
“Your essay makes me think of a certain someone.”
“Were they a friend of Your Majesty’s?”
"He was a man of few words, and never wrote any essays. But he’s also said some of these things — for instance, ‘when walking on a wide path, one must only beware that it may be the wrong path.’”
Duan Ling knows that though they’ve moved the capital to Jiangzhou, the political situation remains precarious and any wrong move could cause the foundations that Great Chen has been building upon for years to collapse beneath them. Thus Li Yanqiu is under a lot of pressure; the responsibility of running the entire empire is pressing down on his shoulders. From that perspective, Mu Kuangda is a truly reassuring existence for the Li family.
To deal with those inside the empire, they have a good chancellor, but they have no valiant general to deal with those outside. Their empire’s greatest bane is their foreign adversaries. Duan Ling believes Mu Kuangda still has the ability to stabilise the situation — all they have to do is give him another three years at most, and the powers of Jiangzhou will be firmly gathered in the central government’s grip. As for whether the ones holding onto this power at last will be the Mus or the Lis … Well, that is something that one cannot say for sure.
“We’re living in a golden age. Your Majesty has put in place a policy of light compulsory service and low taxes, so the commoners can expect to live in peace and have work to do. Though we’re plagued with flooding for the moment, it surely won’t last. There’s no need for Your Majesty to be worried.”
“You’re correct. Our greatest bane remains in the north.”
Li Yanqiu puts Duan Ling’s exam papers aside. “The glow of a pearl will eventually shine through layers of dust. I’ve already read your exam paper, but for the sake of fairness it will be handed over to the grading officials to judge regardless, for that is the only way for everyone to recognise your worth. I’m done asking you questions, so you may go. Send Wu Du in when you see him.”
And so Duan Ling pushes the door open again and heads outside. Though they’d barely spoken, for some strange reason, he finds his heart feeling exceptionally calm. This formal meeting between them seems to have settled him. These two brothers, his uncle and his father, seem to possess a strange ability to view everything with an indifferent eye, whether or not the world is being turned upside down. When you’re next to them, even if the sky is falling, there’s nothing to fear.
Wu Du meets Duan Ling’s eyes before going into the study. Duan Ling stands outside to wait for him, and he gives Zheng Yan a look, but Zheng Yan is looking pensive, staring up at the curtain of rain dripping down from the eaves. Meanwhile, Duan Ling’s entire heart is hinged on Wu Du inside the study, and he can hear Li Yanqiu’s voice; not loud, as though he’s giving Wu Du instructions, with nothing more than an occasional certainly from Wu Du.
This time, the conversation doesn’t go on for very long before Li Yanqiu says, “You may go.”
Wu Du only comes out after that, giving Zheng Yan a quick nod before he takes Duan Ling away with him.
“What did he ask you?” Duan Ling asks.
Standing in the veranda, Wu Du shakes a woven rush raincoat open and puts it around Duan Ling. “He asked me whether I found any clues to the Zhenshanhe’s whereabouts …”
Suddenly, Wu Du stops talking, and whips his head around as he notices something.
“Let’s go,” he says.
Wu Du takes Duan Ling’s hand, and once he gets them both out of the palace gardens, they take several quick steps into the palace, dodging into a narrow passageway between two buildings. He’d occasionally make Duan Ling walk at his side and at other times behind him, turning back to look up at the tops of the walls every once in a while.
This time, Duan Ling notices as well — a figure flashing past across the top of the passageway.
When they’re out of the palace, the flooding has already reached Benxiao’s knees. Wu Du makes Duan Ling get on the horse first, then he turns it around, using his back to block the line of sight from the top of the palace wall to the rear gates.
“Gup!” With a shake of the reins, Benxiao crisscrosses the water like a boat towards the opposing shore, cutting through the dark.
The chancellor’s estate is as brightly lit as ever. So many things have already happened, and it’s only their first day back; the two of them get back home sopping wet, with flood water already in their rooms. They hadn’t been home all day, and Duan Ling was nodding off before, but now that he sees the state of their house, he wakes up instantly.
Benxiao has no room to lie down in the stables, so it can’t go to sleep. All it can do is rest standing up.
Wu Du walks up to organise the luggage on the table. Duan Ling asks, “Who was tailing us earlier?”
“Shadow Guard,” Wu Du replies. “They’re too brazen. If it wasn’t raining and I wasn’t with you, I’d definitely teach them a lesson.”
Duan Ling knows Cai Yan is already trying to figure out some way to deal with him. Perhaps they were only tailing him today just to see what they’re capable of. Next time they may try more audacious methods.
“What did His Majesty say to you?” Wu Du asks.
“Nothing at all. He just asked a few vague questions, it wasn’t anything concrete.”
Duan Ling tells Wu Du what happened in his meeting with Li Yanqiu before asking him, “Then what did you two talk about in the study?”
“He said … He suddenly had a change of heart.”
“What?!” Duan Ling says, flabbergasted.
“He told me to keep on doing whatever I was doing. Since I don’t want to join the Eastern Palace, then I should remain at your side as I have been, and he’ll take care of the rest. And in a few days once the flood subsides, he says he has other things he wants to assign to me. I’m guessing it’s about the Zhenshanhe again.”
“Do you have any clues to its whereabouts?”
Wu Du shakes his head. “That’s why I asked you what you talked to him about in the imperial study.”
“I didn’t say anything though.” Duan Ling frowns.
“Well then that’s strange.” Wu Du picks up the bed and says to Duan Ling, “put bricks under the feet of the bed. Let’s prop it up so we can sleep.”
Duan Ling props up a tottering bed on the verge of collapse. It’s the first time he’s ever seen a flood so he’s not sure what to do either. He can only sit in the bed with Wu Du, not daring to move an inch lest the bed falls right into the water.
“I’m sleepy,” Duan Ling says.
“Sleep then. Be careful in the night. Don’t move around now.”
Duan Ling’s not sure whether to laugh or cry; he has no choice but to lie down carefully.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Duan Ling murmurs, wrapping himself around Wu Du, leaning against his shoulder.
His life is filled with uncertainty and danger. Mu Kuangda, Li Yanqiu, Cai Yan … so many things and so many people have formed an intricate net around him from which he cannot extricate himself — any move he makes will alert the rest. He needs to explain himself to Mu Kuangda, guard against Cai Yan’s scheming, and prove his identity to Li Yanqiu. So many difficult problems are standing before him like wall after wall that cannot be shaken.
“Don’t think about anything. Go on, sleep.”
By the next morning, as the sun shines into the room, the rain has already stopped, but a lot of Jianzhou is still submerged. It’s not just Jiangzhou — the Yangtze River outside the city has also risen sharply.
“Rise and shine!” Wu Du yells towards the room.
Duan Ling opens his eyes to find wooden planks in front of the bed, propped up by bricks, leading all the way from the bed to the spirit wall near the courtyard gates, taking a turn around the corner before it leaves the house like a tiny little pier.
Duan Ling breaks into a grin; the sun’s already halfway to noon, and he has no idea when Wu Du did so many things quietly without his knowing. He puts on an outer robe, secures his belt, and carefully walks along the plankway. Beyond the courtyard gates is a small boat with a small hot stove, boiling water.
Duan Ling sits down on the boat and Wu Du brushes his hair, tying it up for him. “I’ll take you somewhere fun. Let’s go—”
“Wait wait wait!” All of Duan LIng’s worries from the night before are gone, abandoned somewhere far behind, and in a sudden jolt of revelation an idea occurs to him.
This is a hundred-year flood, and for it to happen in the first new year right after the capital’s relocation makes it a truly bad omen. Everyone in the city is gossiping about this and feeling anxious. The palace is built on higher ground though, so it’s actually unscathed.
When Cai Yan gets up at dawn, the first thing he does is summon Feng Duo, and after hearing his report, Cai Yan looks furious.
“How long did he stay in the imperial study for?”
“Not even a quarter of an hour. Our men wanted to keep following them, but Wu Du already saw them so they could only retreat.”
“Where’s the exam paper?” Cai Yan’s voice is shaking.
“It’s still in the imperial study. His Majesty’s already read it, Your Highness. It won’t do any good no matter what we try now. Last night, His Majesty ordered the Imperial College to grade the papers through the night, and to begin choosing the names that go on the honour roll by dawn. The reason he gave was that things cannot be delayed any longer with the flooding that’s been going on. The results will be posted this afternoon, and the Palace Exams will be convened the day after tomorrow.”
“So fast?!” Cai Yan says incredulously.
"And if we wait until after the palace exams, it’ll be a murder … a murder of an official of the imperial court. Your Highness?’
Dishevelled and looking out of sorts, Cai Yan stands in the palace hall, gasping for breath repeatedly.
“Send for Wuluohou Mu.” Cai Yan says finally, “you may go.”
“Mu Qing—!”
Sitting at the prow, Duan Ling shouts into the grand chancellor’s estate through the back alley behind it while Wu Du stands at the aft, steering their tiny little black sampan.
Mu Qing sticks his head out of the second floor window, and noting that it’s Duan Ling and it seems like he’s out to have some fun, he lets out a cheer and hurries down the stairs.
“Bring some money!” Duan Ling shouts. “Bring a lot!”
“How much?!” Mu Qing says.
“A hundred, probably! I have a letter in your dad’s handwriting, so let’s go sign the stuff out first!”
Chang Liujun tosses out a bag of silvers that hits the boat with a thunk, and along with a bit of savings from Duan Ling and Wu Du, they have two hundred and twenty silver taels and forty taels of gold between them.
The three of them sit down in the boat, and with a single push of Wu Du’s pole the boat turns the corner out of the alleyway into a main street, speeding towards the city’s south. Amid this disaster, the commoners in Jiangnan have found ways to entertain themselves, building temporary shacks on the second floors to open their businesses as they usually would at ground level. Many people are travelling the city by boat, and kids sit in wooden basins to paddle through the water.
Over the course of the night, Jiangzhou has become a city of water. Duan Ling can’t help smiling at the sight, and to Mu Qing, this scenery is even more novel, and he’s so excited he can barely contain himself. Before they begin, Wu Du takes their boat to the Black Armours headquarters, where Xie You is standing at the prow of a boat, leaving to patrol the city by sail.
“General Xie.” Duan Ling hands over a letter from the chancellor’s estate. “Please sign here to give us permission to act at our discretion.”
The first thing he did after waking up this morning was to see Mu Kuangda about an officially written letter from the chancellor to allot them grain from the city’s granaries for temporary disaster relief. He brought some money out of their house as well, so that if they don’t have enough grain to pass around, they can buy some more. But to do any of that he’ll still need Xie You’s permission.
Mu Qing is with them, so he’s like a walking token. Xie You sizes up Duan Ling for a moment — followed by two of the great assassins, accompanied by the chancellor’s son — and signs the form for him. The Jiangzhou army will allocate him ten boats to use at his discretion.
And so Duan Ling ends up leading ten of the Black Armours black sampans; he orders the awnings on the boats removed for now, and their majestic fleet sails off towards the granaries. Once they’ve received the food, they zigzag through the streets with Wu Du at their lead, separating to move through the streets and alleyways to pass out grain.
This is his home; his country.
Duan Ling brings those commoners in affected areas onto the boats and takes them to higher ground. When he’s finished distributing all the food they have, he looks up towards the riverbank in the distance, already turned into a vast expanse of water, and cannot help but sigh as he looks around some more.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
From a poem titled Rainstorm on the Eleventh month 4th, by Lu You. It’s meant to convey a scholar’s willingness to fight for their country. ↩︎
Zheng Yan and Wu Du escort Duan Ling to the doors of the imperial study, where Zheng Yan bows. “Your Majesty, Wang Shan is here.”
“Come on in,” says Li Yanqiu’s voice.
In his head, Duan Ling has prepared himself for this meeting countless times, and yet in the very moment he steps into the study, his mind becomes entirely blank.
The other day, when he ran into Li Yanqiu in the covered gallery, he was unable to say anything at all. Even today, he still can’t get a word out at all.
Li Yanqiu is sitting behind his desk with Duan Ling’s exam papers spread across it. He looks up from the essay and studies Duan Ling. This time, Duan Ling gets a clear view of Li Yanqiu’s features.
He looks a lot like Duan Ling’s father; his eyebrows, eyes, and nose clearly belong to the person he keeps seeing in dream after dream. He’s lost him for far too long, and as soon as he sees Li Yanqiu he feels as though he’s in a dream again.
Once, he was afraid that since life is so long, as time goes by, he’ll one day forget what his father looked like; that he’ll end up losing that one lamp in his life — the light of his life, irreplaceable. And yet seeing Li Yanqiu again fills him with a sense of attachment — as though as long as Li Yanqiu is here before him, he can feel his father’s presence through him.
It’s a link tying them together in their blood, something that’ll never vanish.
“Wang Shan?”
Duan Ling comes to himself, and getting on his knees, he kowtows.
“Greetings, Your Majesty. I’m the commoner Wang Shan.”
“You won’t be a commoner anymore after today. They haven’t finished judging all the exam papers yet, but I never once expected for the first one I get to read to be yours. Have a seat. There are some things I’d like to ask you.”
Duan Ling immediately bows again and withdraws to one side of the room, at a seat behind a low table. As he raises his eyes to look at Li Yanqiu, Li Yanqiu just happens to also be looking his way.
It’s been a very long day for Duan Ling; he’d come back to the city at dawn and arrive at the palace in the evening, writing his exams through the night; and before he knew it, it’s already past midnight.
Li Yanqiu is even more exhausted than he is, having spent the morning assembly locked in a battle of wits with his officials, and the meetings went on well after the assembly’s dismissal. He leans against the side of his desk, and quietly regards the other party in the room, neither of them saying a word.
Outside, it’s still raining, a downpour that seems almost like a waterfall hitting the windows, its rhythm mixing with the whistling noise of the wind.
“What’s that sound?” Li Yanqiu asks slowly, distracted.
“Lying in bed in the dead of night I listen to the storm; on iron hooves I ride on the frozen Yellow River in my dreams.”2
Li Yanqiu can’t help but smile, and slowly, he lets out a sigh.
Duan Ling knows that Li Yanqiu has probably already found out about his origins, family, age, and his marital status from Wu Du … So for the moment he can’t actually think of anything else to ask.
“You wrote this paper?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Of course I wrote the paper myself. Who could have taken my exam for me?
“Your essay makes me think of a certain someone.”
“Were they a friend of Your Majesty’s?”
"He was a man of few words, and never wrote any essays. But he’s also said some of these things — for instance, ‘when walking on a wide path, one must only beware that it may be the wrong path.’”
Duan Ling knows that though they’ve moved the capital to Jiangzhou, the political situation remains precarious and any wrong move could cause the foundations that Great Chen has been building upon for years to collapse beneath them. Thus Li Yanqiu is under a lot of pressure; the responsibility of running the entire empire is pressing down on his shoulders. From that perspective, Mu Kuangda is a truly reassuring existence for the Li family.
To deal with those inside the empire, they have a good chancellor, but they have no valiant general to deal with those outside. Their empire’s greatest bane is their foreign adversaries. Duan Ling believes Mu Kuangda still has the ability to stabilise the situation — all they have to do is give him another three years at most, and the powers of Jiangzhou will be firmly gathered in the central government’s grip. As for whether the ones holding onto this power at last will be the Mus or the Lis … Well, that is something that one cannot say for sure.
“We’re living in a golden age. Your Majesty has put in place a policy of light compulsory service and low taxes, so the commoners can expect to live in peace and have work to do. Though we’re plagued with flooding for the moment, it surely won’t last. There’s no need for Your Majesty to be worried.”
“You’re correct. Our greatest bane remains in the north.”
Li Yanqiu puts Duan Ling’s exam papers aside. “The glow of a pearl will eventually shine through layers of dust. I’ve already read your exam paper, but for the sake of fairness it will be handed over to the grading officials to judge regardless, for that is the only way for everyone to recognise your worth. I’m done asking you questions, so you may go. Send Wu Du in when you see him.”
And so Duan Ling pushes the door open again and heads outside. Though they’d barely spoken, for some strange reason, he finds his heart feeling exceptionally calm. This formal meeting between them seems to have settled him. These two brothers, his uncle and his father, seem to possess a strange ability to view everything with an indifferent eye, whether or not the world is being turned upside down. When you’re next to them, even if the sky is falling, there’s nothing to fear.
Wu Du meets Duan Ling’s eyes before going into the study. Duan Ling stands outside to wait for him, and he gives Zheng Yan a look, but Zheng Yan is looking pensive, staring up at the curtain of rain dripping down from the eaves. Meanwhile, Duan Ling’s entire heart is hinged on Wu Du inside the study, and he can hear Li Yanqiu’s voice; not loud, as though he’s giving Wu Du instructions, with nothing more than an occasional certainly from Wu Du.
This time, the conversation doesn’t go on for very long before Li Yanqiu says, “You may go.”
Wu Du only comes out after that, giving Zheng Yan a quick nod before he takes Duan Ling away with him.
“What did he ask you?” Duan Ling asks.
Standing in the veranda, Wu Du shakes a woven rush raincoat open and puts it around Duan Ling. “He asked me whether I found any clues to the Zhenshanhe’s whereabouts …”
Suddenly, Wu Du stops talking, and whips his head around as he notices something.
“Let’s go,” he says.
Wu Du takes Duan Ling’s hand, and once he gets them both out of the palace gardens, they take several quick steps into the palace, dodging into a narrow passageway between two buildings. He’d occasionally make Duan Ling walk at his side and at other times behind him, turning back to look up at the tops of the walls every once in a while.
This time, Duan Ling notices as well — a figure flashing past across the top of the passageway.
When they’re out of the palace, the flooding has already reached Benxiao’s knees. Wu Du makes Duan Ling get on the horse first, then he turns it around, using his back to block the line of sight from the top of the palace wall to the rear gates.
“Gup!” With a shake of the reins, Benxiao crisscrosses the water like a boat towards the opposing shore, cutting through the dark.
The chancellor’s estate is as brightly lit as ever. So many things have already happened, and it’s only their first day back; the two of them get back home sopping wet, with flood water already in their rooms. They hadn’t been home all day, and Duan Ling was nodding off before, but now that he sees the state of their house, he wakes up instantly.
Benxiao has no room to lie down in the stables, so it can’t go to sleep. All it can do is rest standing up.
Wu Du walks up to organise the luggage on the table. Duan Ling asks, “Who was tailing us earlier?”
“Shadow Guard,” Wu Du replies. “They’re too brazen. If it wasn’t raining and I wasn’t with you, I’d definitely teach them a lesson.”
Duan Ling knows Cai Yan is already trying to figure out some way to deal with him. Perhaps they were only tailing him today just to see what they’re capable of. Next time they may try more audacious methods.
“What did His Majesty say to you?” Wu Du asks.
“Nothing at all. He just asked a few vague questions, it wasn’t anything concrete.”
Duan Ling tells Wu Du what happened in his meeting with Li Yanqiu before asking him, “Then what did you two talk about in the study?”
“He said … He suddenly had a change of heart.”
“What?!” Duan Ling says, flabbergasted.
“He told me to keep on doing whatever I was doing. Since I don’t want to join the Eastern Palace, then I should remain at your side as I have been, and he’ll take care of the rest. And in a few days once the flood subsides, he says he has other things he wants to assign to me. I’m guessing it’s about the Zhenshanhe again.”
“Do you have any clues to its whereabouts?”
Wu Du shakes his head. “That’s why I asked you what you talked to him about in the imperial study.”
“I didn’t say anything though.” Duan Ling frowns.
“Well then that’s strange.” Wu Du picks up the bed and says to Duan Ling, “put bricks under the feet of the bed. Let’s prop it up so we can sleep.”
Duan Ling props up a tottering bed on the verge of collapse. It’s the first time he’s ever seen a flood so he’s not sure what to do either. He can only sit in the bed with Wu Du, not daring to move an inch lest the bed falls right into the water.
“I’m sleepy,” Duan Ling says.
“Sleep then. Be careful in the night. Don’t move around now.”
Duan Ling’s not sure whether to laugh or cry; he has no choice but to lie down carefully.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Duan Ling murmurs, wrapping himself around Wu Du, leaning against his shoulder.
His life is filled with uncertainty and danger. Mu Kuangda, Li Yanqiu, Cai Yan … so many things and so many people have formed an intricate net around him from which he cannot extricate himself — any move he makes will alert the rest. He needs to explain himself to Mu Kuangda, guard against Cai Yan’s scheming, and prove his identity to Li Yanqiu. So many difficult problems are standing before him like wall after wall that cannot be shaken.
“Don’t think about anything. Go on, sleep.”
By the next morning, as the sun shines into the room, the rain has already stopped, but a lot of Jianzhou is still submerged. It’s not just Jiangzhou — the Yangtze River outside the city has also risen sharply.
“Rise and shine!” Wu Du yells towards the room.
Duan Ling opens his eyes to find wooden planks in front of the bed, propped up by bricks, leading all the way from the bed to the spirit wall near the courtyard gates, taking a turn around the corner before it leaves the house like a tiny little pier.
Duan Ling breaks into a grin; the sun’s already halfway to noon, and he has no idea when Wu Du did so many things quietly without his knowing. He puts on an outer robe, secures his belt, and carefully walks along the plankway. Beyond the courtyard gates is a small boat with a small hot stove, boiling water.
Duan Ling sits down on the boat and Wu Du brushes his hair, tying it up for him. “I’ll take you somewhere fun. Let’s go—”
“Wait wait wait!” All of Duan LIng’s worries from the night before are gone, abandoned somewhere far behind, and in a sudden jolt of revelation an idea occurs to him.
This is a hundred-year flood, and for it to happen in the first new year right after the capital’s relocation makes it a truly bad omen. Everyone in the city is gossiping about this and feeling anxious. The palace is built on higher ground though, so it’s actually unscathed.
When Cai Yan gets up at dawn, the first thing he does is summon Feng Duo, and after hearing his report, Cai Yan looks furious.
“How long did he stay in the imperial study for?”
“Not even a quarter of an hour. Our men wanted to keep following them, but Wu Du already saw them so they could only retreat.”
“Where’s the exam paper?” Cai Yan’s voice is shaking.
“It’s still in the imperial study. His Majesty’s already read it, Your Highness. It won’t do any good no matter what we try now. Last night, His Majesty ordered the Imperial College to grade the papers through the night, and to begin choosing the names that go on the honour roll by dawn. The reason he gave was that things cannot be delayed any longer with the flooding that’s been going on. The results will be posted this afternoon, and the Palace Exams will be convened the day after tomorrow.”
“So fast?!” Cai Yan says incredulously.
"And if we wait until after the palace exams, it’ll be a murder … a murder of an official of the imperial court. Your Highness?’
Dishevelled and looking out of sorts, Cai Yan stands in the palace hall, gasping for breath repeatedly.
“Send for Wuluohou Mu.” Cai Yan says finally, “you may go.”
“Mu Qing—!”
Sitting at the prow, Duan Ling shouts into the grand chancellor’s estate through the back alley behind it while Wu Du stands at the aft, steering their tiny little black sampan.
Mu Qing sticks his head out of the second floor window, and noting that it’s Duan Ling and it seems like he’s out to have some fun, he lets out a cheer and hurries down the stairs.
“Bring some money!” Duan Ling shouts. “Bring a lot!”
“How much?!” Mu Qing says.
“A hundred, probably! I have a letter in your dad’s handwriting, so let’s go sign the stuff out first!”
Chang Liujun tosses out a bag of silvers that hits the boat with a thunk, and along with a bit of savings from Duan Ling and Wu Du, they have two hundred and twenty silver taels and forty taels of gold between them.
The three of them sit down in the boat, and with a single push of Wu Du’s pole the boat turns the corner out of the alleyway into a main street, speeding towards the city’s south. Amid this disaster, the commoners in Jiangnan have found ways to entertain themselves, building temporary shacks on the second floors to open their businesses as they usually would at ground level. Many people are travelling the city by boat, and kids sit in wooden basins to paddle through the water.
Over the course of the night, Jiangzhou has become a city of water. Duan Ling can’t help smiling at the sight, and to Mu Qing, this scenery is even more novel, and he’s so excited he can barely contain himself. Before they begin, Wu Du takes their boat to the Black Armours headquarters, where Xie You is standing at the prow of a boat, leaving to patrol the city by sail.
“General Xie.” Duan Ling hands over a letter from the chancellor’s estate. “Please sign here to give us permission to act at our discretion.”
The first thing he did after waking up this morning was to see Mu Kuangda about an officially written letter from the chancellor to allot them grain from the city’s granaries for temporary disaster relief. He brought some money out of their house as well, so that if they don’t have enough grain to pass around, they can buy some more. But to do any of that he’ll still need Xie You’s permission.
Mu Qing is with them, so he’s like a walking token. Xie You sizes up Duan Ling for a moment — followed by two of the great assassins, accompanied by the chancellor’s son — and signs the form for him. The Jiangzhou army will allocate him ten boats to use at his discretion.
And so Duan Ling ends up leading ten of the Black Armours black sampans; he orders the awnings on the boats removed for now, and their majestic fleet sails off towards the granaries. Once they’ve received the food, they zigzag through the streets with Wu Du at their lead, separating to move through the streets and alleyways to pass out grain.
This is his home; his country.
Duan Ling brings those commoners in affected areas onto the boats and takes them to higher ground. When he’s finished distributing all the food they have, he looks up towards the riverbank in the distance, already turned into a vast expanse of water, and cannot help but sigh as he looks around some more.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
From a poem titled Rainstorm on the Eleventh month 4th, by Lu You. It’s meant to convey a scholar’s willingness to fight for their country. ↩︎
