By the time they got home, the water had receded out of the courtyard, leaving a mess behind. Duan Ling lays the soldier down on the spare daybed Wu Du often sits on, and performs acupuncture on him before he begins putting together a prescription with which to lower his fever. As he unties the soldier’s armour, he notices an arrow wound on his thigh and cuts along his abdomen, thus deducing that his wounds probably became infected, and that he ran out of poultices for cuts sometime during his journey. After getting caught in the rain and catching a cold that weakened him on top of the infections, that’s how he managed to get so sick.
“Young master Wang!” A young servant wades through the water at the gates and yells into the house, “The imperial honour roll has been announced! The young master sent me here to let you know.”
Duan Ling is in the middle of mixing herbs together, and he asks, “Am I on it?”
Wu Du stops doing whatever he’s doing.
“You came in seventh in the metropolitan exams!” The boy says with a smile.
“Well, good.” Duan Ling’s mind is still on the soldier’s illness; those serving in the army are typically people with good constitutions, so if Duan Ling gives him a strong prescription, he ought to be able to take it.
The boy waits quietly.
Wu Du just stares at Duan Ling with a smile on his face. Duan Ling suddenly realises. “I have to give him a red pocket, don’t I?”
Wu Du pulls a red envelope out of a pocket under his lapel and hands it to Duan Ling, and in turn Duan Ling takes it from him and gives it to the boy. He says his thanks, and as though just waking up to it, he says, “You already knew?”
“I had no idea.” Wu Du says solemnly, “But I knew you were definitely going to pass.”
Duan Ling is actually really happy about it on the inside, but for a second he also feels a bit bewildered — this is probably the first time since the founding of Great Chen where a crown prince attended the civil exams and even managed to get placed on the honour roll.
“But is it really because … because I wrote a good essay, that I was chosen?” On second thought, maybe he’s not especially excited only because he’s had to write a make-up exam, and met with Li Yanqiu. That initial period of excitement’s already passed.
“Shh.” Wu Du points at the soldier lying on the daybed, meaning he should be careful what he says. Then he walks over to Duan Ling and sits down on his knees next to him, turns to look into his eyes, and leans in a little closer.
Thinking he’s about to say something, Duan Ling leans in as well, but Wu Du’s lips is suddenly on his; Duan Ling’s cheeks turn crimson at once, and Wu Du leans into the kiss, wrapping an arm around his waist, licking his mouth open to suck on his tongue. By then, Duan Ling is lost inside this kiss.
It’s ages before he lets go of Duan Ling, and they look into each other’s eyes, smiling. Only now is Duan Ling’s heart truly overflowing with joy — which has nothing to do with the exams, nor anything to do with politics. It’s a delight that comes from deep within. He has indeed confirmed his competence.
Wu Du muses for a heartbeat, and in apparent earnestness he raises an eyebrow. “As I recall, you said that if you make it on the honour roll you wanted me to promise you one thing. What is it?”
Duan Ling is reminded of what he had in mind back then, and he’s all at once feeling self-conscious again. He hems and haws for a long time before saying, “It’s uh … nothing really.”
The palace exam is taking place tomorrow.“ Wu Du whispers next to Duan Ling’s ear. “When the palace exam is over, I’ll teach you a little something …”
Duan Ling can’t help letting his mind wander, and he swallows. But as he looks up again at Wu Du, the soldier lying nearby begins to cough violently, finally awake. Duan Ling and Wu Du hurriedly move apart as the soldier opens his eyes. “Water … water.”
The air at dusk after rain is clean and crisp, and a streak of blood red stains the horizon. Beneath the eaves in the Eastern Palace, a wind chime chimes.
“I have an idea that may be able to rid Your Highness of Wang Shan.”
“Speak.”
Feng Duo meditates over this for quite a while, and after pacing several steps in the hall, he begins to speak. “From the situation at hand, Wang Shan has passed the metropolitan exam, and the palace exam has been moved forward to tomorrow. He’s going to be a palace graduate whether or not he ends up as one of the top three.”
Feng Duo turns his gaze towards Cai Yan, a seemingly meaningful look in his eyes, though he’s never asked any unnecessary questions. Cai Yan, however, is somewhat uncomfortable, breaking eye contact.
“To rid us of this person, we’ll have to manufacture an incident. This incident mustn’t happen inside the capital — the farther away the better.”
“Quite right. Go on.”
“We have an extremely good opportunity in our hands. Let him pass the palace exam as one of the top three graduates.”
“And then what?” Cai Yan mutters a question.
“And then he’ll have two paths to choose from. The first is to join the Hanlin Academy,2 and the second is to leave the capital and take on an official post. That’s how things have always been done; every graduate in every generation in every dynasty has been given those same choices. I’ve read his exam essay, and when the time comes, Your Highness should advise His Majesty that Wang Shan is suitable for bringing stability to the empire’s regions, and keeping him in Hanlin Academy as a teacher would be a waste of his talent. That way, we can get him out of the city.”
“Good idea.” A smile spreads across Cai Yan’s face, and the storm clouds that have been hanging over him flitter away so that he seems able to spy a ray of light. “Make him a Vice Magistrate somewhere and send the Shadow Guard after him. It’s decided!”
“But there’s one more thing we must make sure of. We’ll need to keep Wu Du in the city — we must not allow him to leave.”
Cai Yan thinks quietly for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “There’s no way Wu Du will agree to that. He’ll definitely leave with Wang Shan.” As Cai Yan is thinking, he meets Feng Duo’s gaze to find it full of misgivings, and so he adds, “Wu Du is disagreeable and eccentric, and has never allowed anyone to control him. Look, to date he still hasn’t accepted an official position.”
“How about this then? Suggest to Chancellor Mu that he should find some pretext to keep Wu Du behind.”
Cai Yan falls silent, his brows locked in a frown. He says after a pause, “If Wu Du remains with him the entire time, can we still kill him?”
“If that’s the case, we’ll be needing Wuluohou Mu’s help. But, once he’s far from home, he’ll be a stranger in a strange land, so it’ll be far easier to kill him. Furthermore, once he’s away from Mu Kuangda’s watchful eyes, no one’s going to suspect us of anything even if we keep trying. If he’s sent all the way to Jiaozhou3 where there are often pirate attacks, there’ll be even more of a justification for attacks on his person.”
Cai Yan feels a great weight coming off his chest; as long as he can toss Duan Ling out to the middle of nowhere and send a force of Shadow Guard after him, even if they can’t kill him in one try, surely two or three goes will do it? No matter how careful they try to be, they’re only two people after all.
“If Wu Du is with him, how sure are you that this can be done?”
“Ten out of ten. But we’ll have to kill Wu Du as well, otherwise he’ll definitely come back for vengeance if he ever finds out.”
“I leave it in your hands.”
Sitting in the palace hall, Cai Yan’s gaze is cheerless, evasive, and unreadable.
At nightfall, Wu Du helps the soldier sit up on the daybed and lean against the backrest, while Duan Ling feeds him some medicated congee. The soldier’s pretty lucky, actually, to have somehow gotten over his illness. He says his name is Sun Ting, a local from Ye who joined the army at sixteen, and it’s already been ten years. When the troops were deployed years ago, he was one of the soldiers who fought alongside Li Jianhong.
Later, Li Jianhong’s command was taken from him and the Northern Command was restructured; Sun Ting was redeployed back to Ye to defend the frontier. Ye, Hejian, and Changzhou have remained peaceful for years. It was totally unexpected for the Mongolians to suddenly attack with a force of ten thousand. All of Ye, from the upper ranks to the lower ranks, chose to defend the city to the death, and it had cost them dearly to hold back the enemy.
“Who was leading them?” Duan Ling asks.
“It was a Mongolian named Huaerca.”
Duan Ling has never heard of him. “Who does he serve under?”
“Ögedei. But they’re already gone. Nobody came back after that night.”
The Mongolians are always like that; they wander along the Great Wall, attacking the cities and farmsteads in their path. Wherever they pass they leave the land barren and lifeless — burning every village to cinders, killing everyone, taking all their food.
“They’ll be back.” Duan Ling says with a frown, “The imperial court won’t be sending more men to reinforce you.”
“Then what do we do? If Ye is taken, it’s over for Hejian, and Changzhou will fall too. The entirety of Hebei will fall into Mongolian hands!”
“What happened to the governor?” Duan Ling asks.
Sun Ting shakes his head. And so Duan Ling says a few things to console him before making him lie down, promising to take him to see the emperor the next day.
That night, beneath a clear sky that stretched on for miles, the furrow between Duan Ling’s brows won’t go away and he can’t fall asleep. He sits outside their door, leaning against Wu Du’s chest, thinking about what could be done about Ye.
It’s not that the imperial court wants to sit around and do nothing; it’s just that they really don’t have any spare forces left. The moment those troops garrisoned at Yubiguan are pulled out, the Khitans will invade. Then all the major officials in court will certainly say in hindsight: see? We should have acquiesced to the Mongolian envoy’s terms and traded away Ye and Hejian. If we did that none of this would have happened.
Wu Du says, “Should we ask Xie You? Make him send some people to Ye and stabilise the situation for now.”
“No, he won’t do. We’ll have to talk to Han Bin, who’s stationed in Yubiguan.”
“Who’s Han Bin?”
Duan Ling stares at him, a bit speechless. “You’ve forgotten, Han Bin also betrayed my … my … late emperor. He’s part of the Northern Command — the General of Tiger’s Might.”
Wu Du remembers now. Mu Kuangda had only mentioned it once in passing, but Duan Ling has somehow kept it in his head all this time. Han Bin and Bian Lingbai were once the two most important generals of the Northern Command, and only he was familiar with the state of the frontier. After Zhao Kui’s death, troops at the border were mobilised to solidify their defenses at the border, and he was the only one who could fight the enemy head-on. Even though Xie You’s army is fifty-thousand strong, it’s made up of middle and upper class sons of the south. In the short term, they can be sent north to fight in a war, but they can’t defend the border in the long run.
Hebei used to have six cities in it, but after the signing of the Treaty of Shangzi, Shangzi, Tong, and Huqiu on the north side went to Liao, while Changzhou, Ye, and Hejian on the south side were left to Chen. After that, Liao lost to Yuan — that was the same year Li Jianhong let Jochi go — and the three cities in northern Hebei fell into Mongolian hands.
That commandery used to go by another name, which has since been forgotten … No matter what, Duan Ling must preserve it.
He falls asleep leaning on Wu Du, but when he awakes the next morning, it’s Sun Ting who wakes him.
“Um, young master,” Sun Ting says, “Don’t we have to go see the emperor today? If I can’t meet with His Majesty, I’ll just have to go home.”
Sun Ting’s wife and children are still in Ye. He’s been to Xichuan once before, so he’s aware of how things are done in the capital; without money, there’s no point going to the Ministry of War or the Ministry of Revenue. He wants to see the emperor? Even if he sticks around in the capital for three, five years, he still won’t get a chance to meet with him.
Duan Ling yawns. “What time is it?”
Wu Du is out in the courtyard doing some sword training. “It’s still early. Get up and eat some breakfast.”
Duan Ling says to Sun Ting, “You can wait here for the time being. I have to go to the palace today to take the palace exam, and when I get back I’ll give you a definite answer no matter what. Wait until I find out how this will be dealt with before you go.”
Never in a million years could Sun Ting have expected Duan Ling to be a metropolitan graduate, who may even turn out to be one of the top three palace graduates. He hurriedly bows at him.
But Duan Ling doesn’t dare accept this courtesy, and puts his hands together politely to return the gesture. After all, this man used to serve under his father, and he’s older by one generation, so he feels somewhat attached to him.
After breakfast, Wu Du takes Duan Ling all the way to the Hall of Peerless Harmony, but again he’s kept out by the Black Armours.
“The palace exam will be taking place today. All unauthorised persons must keep off the premises.”
Exasperated, Wu Du is so angry he laughs. “Nice. Real nice.”
Lest Wu Du really does start a fight, and who knows, maybe the entire Jiangzhou army may get some of it, Duan Ling says hurriedly, “That’s perfectly fine. I’m heading in now.”
As soon as Wu Du raises one hand, the two soldiers fearfully back away, clearly having been warned. But to their surprise, all Wu Du does is put his hand on the back of Duan Ling’s neck, and presses his forehead against his to whisper, “I’ll be waiting for you in the palace, but I will have to see the emperor first.”
“Alright.” Duan Ling nods.
No matter what feats Cai Yan is capable of, he wouldn’t dare try anything during the palace exam; Duan Ling and Wu Du exchange a look. Wu Du waves a hand, pointing at his abdomen to mean take care, remember you still have a secret weapon on your person, and Duan Ling nods back to mean he knows before following a soldier inside.
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. ↩︎
The highest learning in Imperial China since the Tang dynasty. ↩︎
Jiaozhou is part of Qingdao, a coastal province on the eastern side of China, and during the Northern Song dynasty, it was the only trading port north of the Yangtze. ↩︎
By the time they got home, the water had receded out of the courtyard, leaving a mess behind. Duan Ling lays the soldier down on the spare daybed Wu Du often sits on, and performs acupuncture on him before he begins putting together a prescription with which to lower his fever. As he unties the soldier’s armour, he notices an arrow wound on his thigh and cuts along his abdomen, thus deducing that his wounds probably became infected, and that he ran out of poultices for cuts sometime during his journey. After getting caught in the rain and catching a cold that weakened him on top of the infections, that’s how he managed to get so sick.
“Young master Wang!” A young servant wades through the water at the gates and yells into the house, “The imperial honour roll has been announced! The young master sent me here to let you know.”
Duan Ling is in the middle of mixing herbs together, and he asks, “Am I on it?”
Wu Du stops doing whatever he’s doing.
“You came in seventh in the metropolitan exams!” The boy says with a smile.
“Well, good.” Duan Ling’s mind is still on the soldier’s illness; those serving in the army are typically people with good constitutions, so if Duan Ling gives him a strong prescription, he ought to be able to take it.
The boy waits quietly.
Wu Du just stares at Duan Ling with a smile on his face. Duan Ling suddenly realises. “I have to give him a red pocket, don’t I?”
Wu Du pulls a red envelope out of a pocket under his lapel and hands it to Duan Ling, and in turn Duan Ling takes it from him and gives it to the boy. He says his thanks, and as though just waking up to it, he says, “You already knew?”
“I had no idea.” Wu Du says solemnly, “But I knew you were definitely going to pass.”
Duan Ling is actually really happy about it on the inside, but for a second he also feels a bit bewildered — this is probably the first time since the founding of Great Chen where a crown prince attended the civil exams and even managed to get placed on the honour roll.
“But is it really because … because I wrote a good essay, that I was chosen?” On second thought, maybe he’s not especially excited only because he’s had to write a make-up exam, and met with Li Yanqiu. That initial period of excitement’s already passed.
“Shh.” Wu Du points at the soldier lying on the daybed, meaning he should be careful what he says. Then he walks over to Duan Ling and sits down on his knees next to him, turns to look into his eyes, and leans in a little closer.
Thinking he’s about to say something, Duan Ling leans in as well, but Wu Du’s lips is suddenly on his; Duan Ling’s cheeks turn crimson at once, and Wu Du leans into the kiss, wrapping an arm around his waist, licking his mouth open to suck on his tongue. By then, Duan Ling is lost inside this kiss.
It’s ages before he lets go of Duan Ling, and they look into each other’s eyes, smiling. Only now is Duan Ling’s heart truly overflowing with joy — which has nothing to do with the exams, nor anything to do with politics. It’s a delight that comes from deep within. He has indeed confirmed his competence.
Wu Du muses for a heartbeat, and in apparent earnestness he raises an eyebrow. “As I recall, you said that if you make it on the honour roll you wanted me to promise you one thing. What is it?”
Duan Ling is reminded of what he had in mind back then, and he’s all at once feeling self-conscious again. He hems and haws for a long time before saying, “It’s uh … nothing really.”
The palace exam is taking place tomorrow.“ Wu Du whispers next to Duan Ling’s ear. “When the palace exam is over, I’ll teach you a little something …”
Duan Ling can’t help letting his mind wander, and he swallows. But as he looks up again at Wu Du, the soldier lying nearby begins to cough violently, finally awake. Duan Ling and Wu Du hurriedly move apart as the soldier opens his eyes. “Water … water.”
The air at dusk after rain is clean and crisp, and a streak of blood red stains the horizon. Beneath the eaves in the Eastern Palace, a wind chime chimes.
“I have an idea that may be able to rid Your Highness of Wang Shan.”
“Speak.”
Feng Duo meditates over this for quite a while, and after pacing several steps in the hall, he begins to speak. “From the situation at hand, Wang Shan has passed the metropolitan exam, and the palace exam has been moved forward to tomorrow. He’s going to be a palace graduate whether or not he ends up as one of the top three.”
Feng Duo turns his gaze towards Cai Yan, a seemingly meaningful look in his eyes, though he’s never asked any unnecessary questions. Cai Yan, however, is somewhat uncomfortable, breaking eye contact.
“To rid us of this person, we’ll have to manufacture an incident. This incident mustn’t happen inside the capital — the farther away the better.”
“Quite right. Go on.”
“We have an extremely good opportunity in our hands. Let him pass the palace exam as one of the top three graduates.”
“And then what?” Cai Yan mutters a question.
“And then he’ll have two paths to choose from. The first is to join the Hanlin Academy,2 and the second is to leave the capital and take on an official post. That’s how things have always been done; every graduate in every generation in every dynasty has been given those same choices. I’ve read his exam essay, and when the time comes, Your Highness should advise His Majesty that Wang Shan is suitable for bringing stability to the empire’s regions, and keeping him in Hanlin Academy as a teacher would be a waste of his talent. That way, we can get him out of the city.”
“Good idea.” A smile spreads across Cai Yan’s face, and the storm clouds that have been hanging over him flitter away so that he seems able to spy a ray of light. “Make him a Vice Magistrate somewhere and send the Shadow Guard after him. It’s decided!”
“But there’s one more thing we must make sure of. We’ll need to keep Wu Du in the city — we must not allow him to leave.”
Cai Yan thinks quietly for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “There’s no way Wu Du will agree to that. He’ll definitely leave with Wang Shan.” As Cai Yan is thinking, he meets Feng Duo’s gaze to find it full of misgivings, and so he adds, “Wu Du is disagreeable and eccentric, and has never allowed anyone to control him. Look, to date he still hasn’t accepted an official position.”
“How about this then? Suggest to Chancellor Mu that he should find some pretext to keep Wu Du behind.”
Cai Yan falls silent, his brows locked in a frown. He says after a pause, “If Wu Du remains with him the entire time, can we still kill him?”
“If that’s the case, we’ll be needing Wuluohou Mu’s help. But, once he’s far from home, he’ll be a stranger in a strange land, so it’ll be far easier to kill him. Furthermore, once he’s away from Mu Kuangda’s watchful eyes, no one’s going to suspect us of anything even if we keep trying. If he’s sent all the way to Jiaozhou3 where there are often pirate attacks, there’ll be even more of a justification for attacks on his person.”
Cai Yan feels a great weight coming off his chest; as long as he can toss Duan Ling out to the middle of nowhere and send a force of Shadow Guard after him, even if they can’t kill him in one try, surely two or three goes will do it? No matter how careful they try to be, they’re only two people after all.
“If Wu Du is with him, how sure are you that this can be done?”
“Ten out of ten. But we’ll have to kill Wu Du as well, otherwise he’ll definitely come back for vengeance if he ever finds out.”
“I leave it in your hands.”
Sitting in the palace hall, Cai Yan’s gaze is cheerless, evasive, and unreadable.
At nightfall, Wu Du helps the soldier sit up on the daybed and lean against the backrest, while Duan Ling feeds him some medicated congee. The soldier’s pretty lucky, actually, to have somehow gotten over his illness. He says his name is Sun Ting, a local from Ye who joined the army at sixteen, and it’s already been ten years. When the troops were deployed years ago, he was one of the soldiers who fought alongside Li Jianhong.
Later, Li Jianhong’s command was taken from him and the Northern Command was restructured; Sun Ting was redeployed back to Ye to defend the frontier. Ye, Hejian, and Changzhou have remained peaceful for years. It was totally unexpected for the Mongolians to suddenly attack with a force of ten thousand. All of Ye, from the upper ranks to the lower ranks, chose to defend the city to the death, and it had cost them dearly to hold back the enemy.
“Who was leading them?” Duan Ling asks.
“It was a Mongolian named Huaerca.”
Duan Ling has never heard of him. “Who does he serve under?”
“Ögedei. But they’re already gone. Nobody came back after that night.”
The Mongolians are always like that; they wander along the Great Wall, attacking the cities and farmsteads in their path. Wherever they pass they leave the land barren and lifeless — burning every village to cinders, killing everyone, taking all their food.
“They’ll be back.” Duan Ling says with a frown, “The imperial court won’t be sending more men to reinforce you.”
“Then what do we do? If Ye is taken, it’s over for Hejian, and Changzhou will fall too. The entirety of Hebei will fall into Mongolian hands!”
“What happened to the governor?” Duan Ling asks.
Sun Ting shakes his head. And so Duan Ling says a few things to console him before making him lie down, promising to take him to see the emperor the next day.
That night, beneath a clear sky that stretched on for miles, the furrow between Duan Ling’s brows won’t go away and he can’t fall asleep. He sits outside their door, leaning against Wu Du’s chest, thinking about what could be done about Ye.
It’s not that the imperial court wants to sit around and do nothing; it’s just that they really don’t have any spare forces left. The moment those troops garrisoned at Yubiguan are pulled out, the Khitans will invade. Then all the major officials in court will certainly say in hindsight: see? We should have acquiesced to the Mongolian envoy’s terms and traded away Ye and Hejian. If we did that none of this would have happened.
Wu Du says, “Should we ask Xie You? Make him send some people to Ye and stabilise the situation for now.”
“No, he won’t do. We’ll have to talk to Han Bin, who’s stationed in Yubiguan.”
“Who’s Han Bin?”
Duan Ling stares at him, a bit speechless. “You’ve forgotten, Han Bin also betrayed my … my … late emperor. He’s part of the Northern Command — the General of Tiger’s Might.”
Wu Du remembers now. Mu Kuangda had only mentioned it once in passing, but Duan Ling has somehow kept it in his head all this time. Han Bin and Bian Lingbai were once the two most important generals of the Northern Command, and only he was familiar with the state of the frontier. After Zhao Kui’s death, troops at the border were mobilised to solidify their defenses at the border, and he was the only one who could fight the enemy head-on. Even though Xie You’s army is fifty-thousand strong, it’s made up of middle and upper class sons of the south. In the short term, they can be sent north to fight in a war, but they can’t defend the border in the long run.
Hebei used to have six cities in it, but after the signing of the Treaty of Shangzi, Shangzi, Tong, and Huqiu on the north side went to Liao, while Changzhou, Ye, and Hejian on the south side were left to Chen. After that, Liao lost to Yuan — that was the same year Li Jianhong let Jochi go — and the three cities in northern Hebei fell into Mongolian hands.
That commandery used to go by another name, which has since been forgotten … No matter what, Duan Ling must preserve it.
He falls asleep leaning on Wu Du, but when he awakes the next morning, it’s Sun Ting who wakes him.
“Um, young master,” Sun Ting says, “Don’t we have to go see the emperor today? If I can’t meet with His Majesty, I’ll just have to go home.”
Sun Ting’s wife and children are still in Ye. He’s been to Xichuan once before, so he’s aware of how things are done in the capital; without money, there’s no point going to the Ministry of War or the Ministry of Revenue. He wants to see the emperor? Even if he sticks around in the capital for three, five years, he still won’t get a chance to meet with him.
Duan Ling yawns. “What time is it?”
Wu Du is out in the courtyard doing some sword training. “It’s still early. Get up and eat some breakfast.”
Duan Ling says to Sun Ting, “You can wait here for the time being. I have to go to the palace today to take the palace exam, and when I get back I’ll give you a definite answer no matter what. Wait until I find out how this will be dealt with before you go.”
Never in a million years could Sun Ting have expected Duan Ling to be a metropolitan graduate, who may even turn out to be one of the top three palace graduates. He hurriedly bows at him.
But Duan Ling doesn’t dare accept this courtesy, and puts his hands together politely to return the gesture. After all, this man used to serve under his father, and he’s older by one generation, so he feels somewhat attached to him.
After breakfast, Wu Du takes Duan Ling all the way to the Hall of Peerless Harmony, but again he’s kept out by the Black Armours.
“The palace exam will be taking place today. All unauthorised persons must keep off the premises.”
Exasperated, Wu Du is so angry he laughs. “Nice. Real nice.”
Lest Wu Du really does start a fight, and who knows, maybe the entire Jiangzhou army may get some of it, Duan Ling says hurriedly, “That’s perfectly fine. I’m heading in now.”
As soon as Wu Du raises one hand, the two soldiers fearfully back away, clearly having been warned. But to their surprise, all Wu Du does is put his hand on the back of Duan Ling’s neck, and presses his forehead against his to whisper, “I’ll be waiting for you in the palace, but I will have to see the emperor first.”
“Alright.” Duan Ling nods.
No matter what feats Cai Yan is capable of, he wouldn’t dare try anything during the palace exam; Duan Ling and Wu Du exchange a look. Wu Du waves a hand, pointing at his abdomen to mean take care, remember you still have a secret weapon on your person, and Duan Ling nods back to mean he knows before following a soldier inside.
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. ↩︎
The highest learning in Imperial China since the Tang dynasty. ↩︎
Jiaozhou is part of Qingdao, a coastal province on the eastern side of China, and during the Northern Song dynasty, it was the only trading port north of the Yangtze. ↩︎
