Inside the Qinling cave.
As soon as Duan Ling trips and starts slipping, he catches on that something isn’t quite right and he reacts right away — when Bian Lingbai stomps on his hand, he quickly takes the bow off his back and cries out to divert Bian Lingbai’s attention, then while falling off the cliff he uses the bowstring to catch an outcropping of rock jutting out of the cliff face nearby at the same time.
Fingers gripping the bow tightly, Duan Ling hangs upside down from the precipice and kicks at some rocks next to him. A loose rock rolls down towards the bottom of the abyss, producing a muffled sound.
Bian Lingbai’s footsteps grow distant. Duan Ling is covered in a cold sweat, pressed up against the bottom of the cliff. That was too close.
Just moments ago, Bian Lingbai was still asking him to lure out Helian Bo, so he clearly hadn’t thought about killing Duan Ling before they left Tongguan. He’d only decided to kick him off when they got here, so it must have been an idea that occurred to him after he found the treasure.
Duan Ling had meant to tell him about the treasure trove ahead of time so that Bian Lingbai would come back in here again. That way, all he has to do is wait for Wu Du to come back and ask him to either poison the place or let that gold centipede give him a bite, and they’d be able to kill him without anyone knowing, for the dead cannot bear witness.
When that time comes, Duan Ling would be able to escort the poisoned Bian Lingbai back to Tongguan to demand medical treatment, and help Bian Lingbai control Tongguan in the meantime. But no calculation of Duan Ling’s foresaw Bian Lingbai’s capriciousness — one second he’s still cordial, and the next he’s murderous at the discovery of the treasure. As for how he’s supposed to lure out Helian Bo now, what he’s going to do once Wu Du comes back and so on, none of those things were within the scope of Bian Lingbai’s consideration; the only thing he thought of was to kill, and think about what to do after. Duan Ling is used to dealing with intelligent people, and this new development doesn’t fit common sense at all. He’s really underestimated the extent of Bian Lingbai’s stupidity.
Duan Ling hangs in the dark next to the cliff for a while, attempting to move along the cliff face, and while groping the wall around him he suddenly finds a wooden tenon sticking out of it.
The tenon’s not long, just wide enough for one person to stand on, and it had been nailed into the cliff face. Duan Ling grabs the tenon and slowly crawls on top of it. He wonders if Bian Lingbai has gone far yet, and doesn’t dare climb up hastily.
Reasonably speaking, Bian Lingbai will probably send someone here to stand guard. The Tongguan Guard is waiting on the other side of the streams though, and if Bian Lingbai is going over there to give them instructions, it’ll take them a bit of time after he informs them. If he leaves the cave right now, maybe he can escape successfully.
Duan Ling climbs up quietly, trying his best to keep his footfalls silent, but when he gets outside of the cave he can hear Bian Lingbai’s voice.
“… Stand guard right here, don’t allow anyone inside …”
Duan Ling has no alternative but to quickly retreat, dashing back into the deeper part of the cave. Disorderly footsteps from the outside echo their way to him, and he nearly slips from the damp stone path into the abyss again. He can’t help breaking out into a cold sweat; thankfully their footsteps stop once they reach the mouth of the cave.
Duan Ling walks to the edge of the precipice again, back to where they left their tracks earlier. He looks down to find nothing but emptiness beneath the cliff except for the single wooden tenon that had previously saved his life.
With a dead end in front of him and guards blocking his retreat, Duan Ling has no choice but to brace himself and hook the bowstring onto a craggy rock at the edge of the cliff, trying to step onto the tenon. He gives it a firm push with his foot and finds the tenon surprisingly stable.
He steps onto it. Gradually his eyes get used to the low light, and when he looks down again, he finds another tenon a step away at a level with him hidden in the dark, nearly camouflaged against the rock.
Duan Ling pauses to think. With the tenon nailed into such a well-concealed spot, if he hadn’t fallen down the cliff earlier he couldn’t possibly have seen it. He steps onto the second tenon and immediately finds many more — all the tenons form into a plank walkway, but instead of extending down into what they thought was the bottom of the abyss before, it leads to the left side of the cliff!
Following the suspended plank walkway formed by these tenons, Duan Ling walks over step by step until he reaches a platform about a hundred paces from the precipice he fell off of earlier. As he does so he can hear the babbling of a stream — this area is even larger than he’d imagined. Soon he finds another tunnel behind the platform. Duan Ling heads inside, his foot kicks against something that bangs against the stone, and he immediately gets down to hold it in place. Groping around the floor, he finds some half-burnt sticks of firewood, and there’s still a bit of crude oil on them.
Duan LIng lights a torch and looks around him. He notices signs of human habitation on the platform, as though someone’s been living here, and it’s recent.
Who on earth could it be?
He suddenly recalls the mysterious assassin who attacked Fei Hongde. Could it be him? Was he the one who came to steal things at the Bian estate as well? Whatever could his objective be?
Underneath where he is, there is another dark tunnel. Duan Ling follows the tunnel and finds a solid stone door. The iron lock on the door has been cut clean into two by some sharp weapon. The broken chain lies abandoned nearby.
He pushes the door open to reveal a hidden room, and neatly stacked iron cases are just lying there in the room, spread out before him. One of the iron cases has had its lock pried open. Duan Ling touches his torch to one of the braziers inside the room and flames flare into light. The gold light that comes afterwards nearly blinds him.
Gold — an entire hidden room full of gold! Every case is filled with neatly stacked gold bars. Duan Ling picks one up and glances at it, downright incredulous. He begins to count, going by twenty taels to a bar, one case will hold a thousand taels. This room has fifty-six cases of gold in it; that’s fifty-six thousand taels!
Even the imperial treasury may not have this much gold in it! Duan Ling finds himself holding his breath.
But even this wasn’t the most precious item in the room. Once Duan Ling has taken a look around, he finds a recessed area in the rock wall, and there are signs that something used to be there. Among the dust is an empty, rectangular shape. Perhaps a box used to be placed there, but someone has taken it away.
What could be more precious than fifty-thousand taels of gold? Judging by the empty spot, it seems to have been a small casket the size of one’s palm. Firstly, someone was here before, secondly, this person has no appetite for gold at all, and all he did was take away the most important item in the hidden room. Is it that assassin? Thinking about it, Duan Ling can comprehend his reasoning. If it were him he wouldn’t walk around with a bunch of gold bars on his person either.
Duan Ling turns around and leaves the room, closing the stone door behind him, to look for some other way out. By sheer accident, he spots a rope hanging off the platform, extending towards the bottom of the abyss. He waffles for a moment before deciding to check out what’s down there, and climbs down on the rope.
How did the gold bars ever get moved in here on the wooden plank way? Duan Ling is quite confounded by it. He expects the rope to go to the bottom of the cave, but he reaches the end of the rope by the time he’s halfway there. A cavern appears before him just wide enough for one person to walk through. Duan Ling raises a torch in front of him and continues forward, feeling a cold draft coming from the cavern ahead. Suddenly, the space in front of him widens.
It’s been impossible to tell day from night inside the cave, and apparently it’s already night time. Starlight glitters above the earth; he has emerged on higher ground with the ravine below him. Tight bundles of shrubbery conceals the way forward, but the assassin from before had used his sword to cut down the thistles and thorny bushes to make a path that takes one up to the mountain’s top. He’s even cut down a tree to make a marker.
Once out of the cave, the path isn’t difficult to walk anymore. Duan Ling climbs up to the top and finds a great big tree, burnt-black by lightning. He puts out the torch in order to prevent drawing any attention to himself. Looking down, he can tell he’s already travelled to the end of the Qingling, and not far from him, where the peaks form a continuous chain, stands Tongguan.
Since Wu Du’s departure, it is the third day.
Late at night in Xichuan, stars flicker above while the city lies there in the darkness like a ghost town in the days before the capital’s relocation. With Liao’s invasion of the south, a sprawling ancient city established a thousand years ago welcomed the biggest economic boom it has ever seen in all its history, but a year after its new emperor’s ascension, it is going completely into hibernation to await the next opportunity to flourish once more.
When Wu Du wakes up, he washes his face next to the well and rinses down his entire body, then he changes into fresh clothes before sitting down in the courtyard. In the night’s tranquil silence, he hears snoring coming from beyond the courtyard, thus he opens the gates — to find Zheng Yan passed-out drunk outside. Wu Du drags him in and splashes a bucket of water on top of his head.
Zheng Yan shudders, sobering up immediately. When he realises that it’s Wu Du, he starts laughing in earnest.
The servants in the estate had brought dinner over and left it in the veranda along with a note asking Wu Du to go see Mu Kuangda after he wakes. And so Wu Du sits down to eat, not even bothering to spare Zheng Yan a glance.
Zheng Yan yawns, and comes to sit down in front of the veranda with his clothes and his hair dishevelled, looking up at the starry night sky.
“I thought you were going to sleep ‘til dawn.”
“I had a dream about an old acquaintance, and woke up.” Wu Du eats everything on the table, and picks up the tea cup to rinse out his mouth.
Zheng Yan waves his wine jug at Wu Du, wanting to pour him a cup, but Wu Du is moving his cup away. “I’ve got important work to do. I can’t drink.”
“Life is as ethereal as a waking dream; how much joy can we ever hope to gain?” Zheng Yan says with nonchalance, “Have some. Time will keep flowing, people are always coming and going, and it all happens in the blink of an eye.”
Those words do touch Wu Du; he finishes his tea and sets his empty cup in front of Zheng Yan. Zheng Yan fills it up with wine, and raising his wine jug he knocks the edge of it lightly with the wine cup, a clink that rings out quietly in the night.
“Life is as ethereal as a waking dream; how much joy can we ever hope to gain,” Wu Du murmurs quietly to himself, shaking his head. A bitter smile appears on his face.
Zheng Yan wants to pour him another, but Wu Du won’t let him. He turns his cup over on the table. “I’ll drink with you again when we see each other in Jiangzhou.”
“Who’d you dream of?” Zheng Yan asks without looking at Wu Du, drinking on his own.
“Zhenshanhe. Overnight, everything changed. I still remember what he said to me that day — in your hands, the Lieguangjian has turned into a butcher’s knife fit for nothing but the slaughtering of livestock. When can you revive the White Tiger Hall’s renown?”
“That day it was like he hit me over the head with a truncheon and I woke right up.” Wu Du pauses to think quietly. “But I never expected for him to be gone in one night, just like that. The political situation changed as easily as turbulence, with everyone caught in the vortex, anxiously wondering what tomorrow may bring.”
Zheng Yan says slowly, “The anniversary of the late emperor’s death is coming up.”
“The seventh day of the seventh month.” Wu Du heaves a sigh. “I wonder if His Majesty chose the Seventh of Seventh to move the capital because of this anniversary; to move the whole country east right after the memorial rites, after His Majesty explains what’s happening clearly, so that he’d be able to find his way home.”
“His way home.” Zheng Yan smiles. He looks around the courtyard and says, “It’s been years since I saw you last, but I never thought to see you fiddling with the flowers and such. How come it feels like there’s more than one person living in this house?”
“A little kid. I found him.”
“Where’s he?” Zheng Yan knocks against the door frame with his wine jug. “Call 'im out here and lemme see.”
Wu says frostily, “Zheng Yan, don’t you dare get fresh with him. If you do, I’ll poison your wine.”
Zheng Yan gets up to go inside to look, but Wu Du sounds quite annoyed as he says to him, “You’re drunk out of your mind! He’s not here!”
Zheng Yan can only give up on the idea. Wu Du rises from his seat. “If you want to stay here you can go ahead and stay here. I’ve got work to do so I’ll see you later.”
“Where’re you goin’ where’re you goin’? I’m so bored at the palace, I’d rather go out somewhere …”
“Scram!”
Wu Du leaves him a single word before disappearing outside the courtyard.
The lamps in the study are still lit. As soon as Wu Du gets to the threshold, Mu Kuangda starts to speak. “There’s no need for you to come in. I’m going to the palace. Come to the palace with me.”
Wu Du’s brows knit together slightly, not sure what Mu Kuangda’s intentions are. Chang Liujun escorts Mu Kuangda out of the room, and they board a carriage in the rear courtyard. Chang Liujun gets into the coachman’s seat, while Mu Kuangda beckons Wu Du into the cab.
“There’s no rush. One thing at a time. Firstly, this is a letter for Wang Shan.” Mu Kuangda hands a letter to Wu Du. “Everything that needs doing in Tongguan, no matter big or small, he may do as he sees fit.”
That’s one great weight off Wu Du’s chest. He nods.
Mu Kuangda produces a roll of sealed and tied yellow silk. “And secondly, this is an imperial order appointing Master Fei Hongde to temporarily take on the role of Imperial Envoy. It may be announced publicly, or he can choose to keep it secret and leave it unannounced. Do whichever is appropriate according to the situation.
“Once you leave tonight, the imperial court will dispatch Zheng Li to Tongguan so he can take over the Tongguan Provincial Governor post. But the trip will take at least seven days from here, and that’s with him travelling as fast as he can. Zheng Li is already quite advanced in age, and it’s a difficult journey, so he can’t go any faster. Before he arrives, you’ll need to work with Wang Shan and make a concerted effort to hold Tongguan together.”
“I got it.” Wu Du puts away the things Mu Kuangda hands him, and turns to step off the carriage.
But Mu Kuangda is putting a hand on his arm to stop him. “There’s one more thing. But that’s for after we enter the palace.”
At the fifth of the night watch, the palace is lit up as bright as day; at the Directorate of the Imperial Stables, the Horsekeeper leads out a horse by the reins. It’s pitch-black all over except for its four snow white hooves as though it’s always standing in the snow, with eyes like freshly applied black lacquer and a mane like raging flames. When Wu Du sees this noble steed, he’s immediately transfixed.
“No one has ridden this horse since the late emperor’s passing. Wuluohou Mu brought it back, but ever since then it stopped following his commands. The crown prince tried to ride it several times but Benxiao won’t let him.” Mu Kuangda says so quietly to Wu Du.
“It won’t listen to anyone’s commands?” Wu Du asks him just as quietly.
“It listens to His Majesty, but His Majesty is in poor health and seldom goes riding.”
Wu Du puts a hand on Wanlibenxiao’s cheek, and moves closer. Wanlibenxiao turns its head, fixing its gaze on Wu Du, its eyes reflecting Wu Du’s features.
Cai Yan has been up all night; he’s clearly quite weary from the business of moving the capital as well, but when he arrives at the Imperial Stables he beams, forcing himself to appear refreshed so he can show Wu Du a warm smile.
“It’s become quite irascible since father passed away. You were the one with dad in those last days, and now it does seem like it recognises you after all.”
“It’s a pedigreed horse from Wusun.” Wu Du replies, “It’s very proud. Just give it some time to adjust.”
“I’ve really been racking my brain trying to find a way to tame it, but in all of Great Chen it only listens to my uncle. Anyone who’s tried to get on simply gets bucked off. Wuluohou Mu did come back on it, but once it found out that dad had died, it no longer listened to Wuluohou Mu either. The Grand Chancellor told me that you’ve been wearing yourself out lately with work, so I thought why not give it to you, so at least …”
Wu Du is quite shocked, and immediately tells him, “That will never do! The late emperor’s beloved steed only serves the Li family …”
Cai Yan waves his hand to stop Wu Du from continuing, and explains smilingly, “A horse must run. Uncle never did enjoy going on hunts, so on the contrary making it stay here in a little place like this is truly degrading treatment. Just try it. We’re not sure if it’s going to listen to you yet. If that doesn’t work, I have other plans, and we’ll worry about that later.”
Wu Du seems to hesitate.
Mu Kuangda advises, “Since His Highness wants to give you a good horse, just try to get on and see what happens.”
Wu Du knows that the crown prince’s appreciation for him is of his dedication and hard work for Southern Chen, so as he should have no qualms about accepting it, he puts his foot in the stirrup. Everyone takes a collective step back, with the Horsekeeper standing in front of Cai Yan lest Benxiao goes berserk again and offends the crown prince.
With one quick swing of his leg, Wu Du gets on Benxiao’s back.
To everyone’s surprise, Wanlibenxiao isn’t jittery at all. He lets Wu Du ride on its back as he wishes, and stands there calmly.
Wu Du stares down at it in wordless surprise.
An absolute silence befalls everyone all around.
“How odd,” Cai Yan says with a smile.
At first, Cai Yan had thought that even if Wu Du does manage to tame Benxiao in the end, it’ll take him quite a lot of work, but to his surprise this legendary horse isn’t showing any resistance at all. It simply stands there quietly.
With everyone making it sound so terrible earlier, Wu Du is quite on his guard, but now he’s not seeing Benxiao put up any fight.
“Gup!” Wu Du commands.
Benxiao takes a small canter forward, and gallops for a circle around the training grounds outside the stables.
“Whoa —!” Wu Du reins it in.
Benxiao stops, and turns his head to give everyone a look.
Wu Du wraps the reins twice over the back of his hand, and stares at Mu Kuangda uncertainly. Reading his mind, Mu Kuangda turns to Cai Yan. “Well then, on behalf of Wu Du, please allow me to thank Your Highness for conferring this kind gift.”
Cai Yan smiles knowingly back, but his heart is a bit uneasy. No one else has been able to ride it; three months ago he tried to mount the horse forcefully himself and fell quite miserably on his face; Benxiao nearly trampled him to death. He wanted more than anything to have it killed, but alas Li Yanqiu is quite fond of this horse so he couldn’t do it.
Giving it to Wu Du now will get it out of his sight, and if anything it takes one great worry away from him at last. He’ll also be able to buy his loyalty, hitting two birds with one stone.
“I shall now take my leave.” From his perch on the horse, Wu Du puts one fist in a hand and raises them in salute at Cai Yan, and before leaving the Imperial Stables, he glances at Mu Kuangda.
“Take care on your journey,” Mu Kuangda says to Wu Du.
Wu Du nods, steering Benxiao away from the palace.
“Gup!” Wu Du calls out.
It has been a year since Wanlibenxiao left the palace, and as soon as it’s outside of the gates it sweeps past the Street of the Vermilion Bird as though riding on the wind and stepping through clouds, and charges out of Xichuan like a hurricane. What takes an ordinary horse an hour to travel takes Benxiao only half that time.
“Gup!” Wu Du calls out again, infected by Wanlibenxiao’s jubilant mood.
Benxiao whips onto the highway like a gale, vanishing at the horizon in moments. Wu Du bends down a bit more, the tails of his robe fluttering in the wind while Wanlibenxiao leaves the mountains, the rivers, and the ravines entirely behind them.
A stroke of dawn appears at the horizon. In rolling clouds of gold a noble steed steps onto the winding mountain paths, climbing the heights and fording rivers, jumping through rocks and leaping across ravines as expediently as it would travel level ground, making a beeline to the northwest.
It is morning in Tongguan, and the fog has filled up the gaps between the mountain tops.
Duan Ling slept on the mountains last night, and on waking, he washes his face, picks some wild fruit, and steals a few bird eggs out of their nests to fill his belly. Once he figures out which way to go, he departs the Qinling Mountains. Other people will probably get lost after a mile or so, and either get eaten by a bear or starve to death, but surviving in the wilderness is no big deal for Duan Ling. He’s even managed to escape from a place like the Xianbei Mountains — Qinling is in a warm climate and its greenery is dense and lush. It’s practically paradise.
He wonders how Bian Lingbai would explain his absence once he got back. Would he say Duan Ling fell off a cliff? Helian Bo will surely come looking. There’s no way to explain the sudden disappearance of a person, and he most likely won’t tell Fei Hongde either.
He’ll probably tell everyone that he’s sent his nephew away to run an errand. Naturally, no one will dare ask him what sort of an errand it is.
If Duan Ling were Bian Lingbai, this would be the only way he’ll use to deal with the aftermath of his actions. However, Bian Lingbai doesn’t conform to common sense in the slightest, so he can’t trust in his own speculation entirely, otherwise he’s only going to be at a disadvantage again.
His first priority is to inform the fast-approaching Wu Du to watch out for Bian Lingbai taking desperate measures in his desperation. Helan Jie is still out there chasing down an assassin, so as long as he doesn’t let himself be discovered by someone from the Bian estate, he’ll probably be safe enough.
Duan Ling decides to take his chances just this once, enter Tongguan, and check around.
He blends with the commoners entering and leaving Tongguan and enters the city, avoiding the patrolling soldiers on its street lest he gets questioned while he walks through its streets. Tongguan is built against a mountain, with stone-slab footpaths everywhere going up and down like a complicated maze. Duan Ling runs every which way through the alleys with no goal in sight, and digging through his pockets, he curses himself for not bringing some gold bars with him. Fortunately he finds some silver bits on his person, and he buys breakfast, wolfing it all down. As he’s about to consider whether he should go check outside the city magistrate’s estate, he suddenly spies two people entering a tailor’s.
He only gets a quick glimpse at the back of one figure, but he can tell that it’s Yao Jing.
Duan Ling immediately dashes into the alley behind the tailor’s and slips in through the backdoor. He can hear the lady proprietor talking to Yao Jing at the front of the store.
“This blanket was shipped here from Arabia.2 Put it over the shoulders in the winter, it’s very warm.”
Yao Jing is picking out a shawl. The proprietor adds, “There’s a big mirror in the back, if you like you can try it on, miss.”
“I’ll go take a look,” Yao Jing says to her steward and walks in on her own.
As soon as she gets to the inner room, a hand reaches over, covers her mouth, keeping back her cry of alarm.
“It’s me,” Duan Ling whispers.
Yao Jing’s eyes are brimming with surprise, and Duan Ling puts a finger in front of his mouth for quiet before leading her to the side of the room.
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 word for the Arabs in medieval China was “Dasi”, if you’re interested in the historical background, this wikipedia section is interesting. ↩︎
Inside the Qinling cave.
As soon as Duan Ling trips and starts slipping, he catches on that something isn’t quite right and he reacts right away — when Bian Lingbai stomps on his hand, he quickly takes the bow off his back and cries out to divert Bian Lingbai’s attention, then while falling off the cliff he uses the bowstring to catch an outcropping of rock jutting out of the cliff face nearby at the same time.
Fingers gripping the bow tightly, Duan Ling hangs upside down from the precipice and kicks at some rocks next to him. A loose rock rolls down towards the bottom of the abyss, producing a muffled sound.
Bian Lingbai’s footsteps grow distant. Duan Ling is covered in a cold sweat, pressed up against the bottom of the cliff. That was too close.
Just moments ago, Bian Lingbai was still asking him to lure out Helian Bo, so he clearly hadn’t thought about killing Duan Ling before they left Tongguan. He’d only decided to kick him off when they got here, so it must have been an idea that occurred to him after he found the treasure.
Duan Ling had meant to tell him about the treasure trove ahead of time so that Bian Lingbai would come back in here again. That way, all he has to do is wait for Wu Du to come back and ask him to either poison the place or let that gold centipede give him a bite, and they’d be able to kill him without anyone knowing, for the dead cannot bear witness.
When that time comes, Duan Ling would be able to escort the poisoned Bian Lingbai back to Tongguan to demand medical treatment, and help Bian Lingbai control Tongguan in the meantime. But no calculation of Duan Ling’s foresaw Bian Lingbai’s capriciousness — one second he’s still cordial, and the next he’s murderous at the discovery of the treasure. As for how he’s supposed to lure out Helian Bo now, what he’s going to do once Wu Du comes back and so on, none of those things were within the scope of Bian Lingbai’s consideration; the only thing he thought of was to kill, and think about what to do after. Duan Ling is used to dealing with intelligent people, and this new development doesn’t fit common sense at all. He’s really underestimated the extent of Bian Lingbai’s stupidity.
Duan Ling hangs in the dark next to the cliff for a while, attempting to move along the cliff face, and while groping the wall around him he suddenly finds a wooden tenon sticking out of it.
The tenon’s not long, just wide enough for one person to stand on, and it had been nailed into the cliff face. Duan Ling grabs the tenon and slowly crawls on top of it. He wonders if Bian Lingbai has gone far yet, and doesn’t dare climb up hastily.
Reasonably speaking, Bian Lingbai will probably send someone here to stand guard. The Tongguan Guard is waiting on the other side of the streams though, and if Bian Lingbai is going over there to give them instructions, it’ll take them a bit of time after he informs them. If he leaves the cave right now, maybe he can escape successfully.
Duan Ling climbs up quietly, trying his best to keep his footfalls silent, but when he gets outside of the cave he can hear Bian Lingbai’s voice.
“… Stand guard right here, don’t allow anyone inside …”
Duan Ling has no alternative but to quickly retreat, dashing back into the deeper part of the cave. Disorderly footsteps from the outside echo their way to him, and he nearly slips from the damp stone path into the abyss again. He can’t help breaking out into a cold sweat; thankfully their footsteps stop once they reach the mouth of the cave.
Duan Ling walks to the edge of the precipice again, back to where they left their tracks earlier. He looks down to find nothing but emptiness beneath the cliff except for the single wooden tenon that had previously saved his life.
With a dead end in front of him and guards blocking his retreat, Duan Ling has no choice but to brace himself and hook the bowstring onto a craggy rock at the edge of the cliff, trying to step onto the tenon. He gives it a firm push with his foot and finds the tenon surprisingly stable.
He steps onto it. Gradually his eyes get used to the low light, and when he looks down again, he finds another tenon a step away at a level with him hidden in the dark, nearly camouflaged against the rock.
Duan Ling pauses to think. With the tenon nailed into such a well-concealed spot, if he hadn’t fallen down the cliff earlier he couldn’t possibly have seen it. He steps onto the second tenon and immediately finds many more — all the tenons form into a plank walkway, but instead of extending down into what they thought was the bottom of the abyss before, it leads to the left side of the cliff!
Following the suspended plank walkway formed by these tenons, Duan Ling walks over step by step until he reaches a platform about a hundred paces from the precipice he fell off of earlier. As he does so he can hear the babbling of a stream — this area is even larger than he’d imagined. Soon he finds another tunnel behind the platform. Duan Ling heads inside, his foot kicks against something that bangs against the stone, and he immediately gets down to hold it in place. Groping around the floor, he finds some half-burnt sticks of firewood, and there’s still a bit of crude oil on them.
Duan LIng lights a torch and looks around him. He notices signs of human habitation on the platform, as though someone’s been living here, and it’s recent.
Who on earth could it be?
He suddenly recalls the mysterious assassin who attacked Fei Hongde. Could it be him? Was he the one who came to steal things at the Bian estate as well? Whatever could his objective be?
Underneath where he is, there is another dark tunnel. Duan Ling follows the tunnel and finds a solid stone door. The iron lock on the door has been cut clean into two by some sharp weapon. The broken chain lies abandoned nearby.
He pushes the door open to reveal a hidden room, and neatly stacked iron cases are just lying there in the room, spread out before him. One of the iron cases has had its lock pried open. Duan Ling touches his torch to one of the braziers inside the room and flames flare into light. The gold light that comes afterwards nearly blinds him.
Gold — an entire hidden room full of gold! Every case is filled with neatly stacked gold bars. Duan Ling picks one up and glances at it, downright incredulous. He begins to count, going by twenty taels to a bar, one case will hold a thousand taels. This room has fifty-six cases of gold in it; that’s fifty-six thousand taels!
Even the imperial treasury may not have this much gold in it! Duan Ling finds himself holding his breath.
But even this wasn’t the most precious item in the room. Once Duan Ling has taken a look around, he finds a recessed area in the rock wall, and there are signs that something used to be there. Among the dust is an empty, rectangular shape. Perhaps a box used to be placed there, but someone has taken it away.
What could be more precious than fifty-thousand taels of gold? Judging by the empty spot, it seems to have been a small casket the size of one’s palm. Firstly, someone was here before, secondly, this person has no appetite for gold at all, and all he did was take away the most important item in the hidden room. Is it that assassin? Thinking about it, Duan Ling can comprehend his reasoning. If it were him he wouldn’t walk around with a bunch of gold bars on his person either.
Duan Ling turns around and leaves the room, closing the stone door behind him, to look for some other way out. By sheer accident, he spots a rope hanging off the platform, extending towards the bottom of the abyss. He waffles for a moment before deciding to check out what’s down there, and climbs down on the rope.
How did the gold bars ever get moved in here on the wooden plank way? Duan Ling is quite confounded by it. He expects the rope to go to the bottom of the cave, but he reaches the end of the rope by the time he’s halfway there. A cavern appears before him just wide enough for one person to walk through. Duan Ling raises a torch in front of him and continues forward, feeling a cold draft coming from the cavern ahead. Suddenly, the space in front of him widens.
It’s been impossible to tell day from night inside the cave, and apparently it’s already night time. Starlight glitters above the earth; he has emerged on higher ground with the ravine below him. Tight bundles of shrubbery conceals the way forward, but the assassin from before had used his sword to cut down the thistles and thorny bushes to make a path that takes one up to the mountain’s top. He’s even cut down a tree to make a marker.
Once out of the cave, the path isn’t difficult to walk anymore. Duan Ling climbs up to the top and finds a great big tree, burnt-black by lightning. He puts out the torch in order to prevent drawing any attention to himself. Looking down, he can tell he’s already travelled to the end of the Qingling, and not far from him, where the peaks form a continuous chain, stands Tongguan.
Since Wu Du’s departure, it is the third day.
Late at night in Xichuan, stars flicker above while the city lies there in the darkness like a ghost town in the days before the capital’s relocation. With Liao’s invasion of the south, a sprawling ancient city established a thousand years ago welcomed the biggest economic boom it has ever seen in all its history, but a year after its new emperor’s ascension, it is going completely into hibernation to await the next opportunity to flourish once more.
When Wu Du wakes up, he washes his face next to the well and rinses down his entire body, then he changes into fresh clothes before sitting down in the courtyard. In the night’s tranquil silence, he hears snoring coming from beyond the courtyard, thus he opens the gates — to find Zheng Yan passed-out drunk outside. Wu Du drags him in and splashes a bucket of water on top of his head.
Zheng Yan shudders, sobering up immediately. When he realises that it’s Wu Du, he starts laughing in earnest.
The servants in the estate had brought dinner over and left it in the veranda along with a note asking Wu Du to go see Mu Kuangda after he wakes. And so Wu Du sits down to eat, not even bothering to spare Zheng Yan a glance.
Zheng Yan yawns, and comes to sit down in front of the veranda with his clothes and his hair dishevelled, looking up at the starry night sky.
“I thought you were going to sleep ‘til dawn.”
“I had a dream about an old acquaintance, and woke up.” Wu Du eats everything on the table, and picks up the tea cup to rinse out his mouth.
Zheng Yan waves his wine jug at Wu Du, wanting to pour him a cup, but Wu Du is moving his cup away. “I’ve got important work to do. I can’t drink.”
“Life is as ethereal as a waking dream; how much joy can we ever hope to gain?” Zheng Yan says with nonchalance, “Have some. Time will keep flowing, people are always coming and going, and it all happens in the blink of an eye.”
Those words do touch Wu Du; he finishes his tea and sets his empty cup in front of Zheng Yan. Zheng Yan fills it up with wine, and raising his wine jug he knocks the edge of it lightly with the wine cup, a clink that rings out quietly in the night.
“Life is as ethereal as a waking dream; how much joy can we ever hope to gain,” Wu Du murmurs quietly to himself, shaking his head. A bitter smile appears on his face.
Zheng Yan wants to pour him another, but Wu Du won’t let him. He turns his cup over on the table. “I’ll drink with you again when we see each other in Jiangzhou.”
“Who’d you dream of?” Zheng Yan asks without looking at Wu Du, drinking on his own.
“Zhenshanhe. Overnight, everything changed. I still remember what he said to me that day — in your hands, the Lieguangjian has turned into a butcher’s knife fit for nothing but the slaughtering of livestock. When can you revive the White Tiger Hall’s renown?”
“That day it was like he hit me over the head with a truncheon and I woke right up.” Wu Du pauses to think quietly. “But I never expected for him to be gone in one night, just like that. The political situation changed as easily as turbulence, with everyone caught in the vortex, anxiously wondering what tomorrow may bring.”
Zheng Yan says slowly, “The anniversary of the late emperor’s death is coming up.”
“The seventh day of the seventh month.” Wu Du heaves a sigh. “I wonder if His Majesty chose the Seventh of Seventh to move the capital because of this anniversary; to move the whole country east right after the memorial rites, after His Majesty explains what’s happening clearly, so that he’d be able to find his way home.”
“His way home.” Zheng Yan smiles. He looks around the courtyard and says, “It’s been years since I saw you last, but I never thought to see you fiddling with the flowers and such. How come it feels like there’s more than one person living in this house?”
“A little kid. I found him.”
“Where’s he?” Zheng Yan knocks against the door frame with his wine jug. “Call 'im out here and lemme see.”
Wu says frostily, “Zheng Yan, don’t you dare get fresh with him. If you do, I’ll poison your wine.”
Zheng Yan gets up to go inside to look, but Wu Du sounds quite annoyed as he says to him, “You’re drunk out of your mind! He’s not here!”
Zheng Yan can only give up on the idea. Wu Du rises from his seat. “If you want to stay here you can go ahead and stay here. I’ve got work to do so I’ll see you later.”
“Where’re you goin’ where’re you goin’? I’m so bored at the palace, I’d rather go out somewhere …”
“Scram!”
Wu Du leaves him a single word before disappearing outside the courtyard.
The lamps in the study are still lit. As soon as Wu Du gets to the threshold, Mu Kuangda starts to speak. “There’s no need for you to come in. I’m going to the palace. Come to the palace with me.”
Wu Du’s brows knit together slightly, not sure what Mu Kuangda’s intentions are. Chang Liujun escorts Mu Kuangda out of the room, and they board a carriage in the rear courtyard. Chang Liujun gets into the coachman’s seat, while Mu Kuangda beckons Wu Du into the cab.
“There’s no rush. One thing at a time. Firstly, this is a letter for Wang Shan.” Mu Kuangda hands a letter to Wu Du. “Everything that needs doing in Tongguan, no matter big or small, he may do as he sees fit.”
That’s one great weight off Wu Du’s chest. He nods.
Mu Kuangda produces a roll of sealed and tied yellow silk. “And secondly, this is an imperial order appointing Master Fei Hongde to temporarily take on the role of Imperial Envoy. It may be announced publicly, or he can choose to keep it secret and leave it unannounced. Do whichever is appropriate according to the situation.
“Once you leave tonight, the imperial court will dispatch Zheng Li to Tongguan so he can take over the Tongguan Provincial Governor post. But the trip will take at least seven days from here, and that’s with him travelling as fast as he can. Zheng Li is already quite advanced in age, and it’s a difficult journey, so he can’t go any faster. Before he arrives, you’ll need to work with Wang Shan and make a concerted effort to hold Tongguan together.”
“I got it.” Wu Du puts away the things Mu Kuangda hands him, and turns to step off the carriage.
But Mu Kuangda is putting a hand on his arm to stop him. “There’s one more thing. But that’s for after we enter the palace.”
At the fifth of the night watch, the palace is lit up as bright as day; at the Directorate of the Imperial Stables, the Horsekeeper leads out a horse by the reins. It’s pitch-black all over except for its four snow white hooves as though it’s always standing in the snow, with eyes like freshly applied black lacquer and a mane like raging flames. When Wu Du sees this noble steed, he’s immediately transfixed.
“No one has ridden this horse since the late emperor’s passing. Wuluohou Mu brought it back, but ever since then it stopped following his commands. The crown prince tried to ride it several times but Benxiao won’t let him.” Mu Kuangda says so quietly to Wu Du.
“It won’t listen to anyone’s commands?” Wu Du asks him just as quietly.
“It listens to His Majesty, but His Majesty is in poor health and seldom goes riding.”
Wu Du puts a hand on Wanlibenxiao’s cheek, and moves closer. Wanlibenxiao turns its head, fixing its gaze on Wu Du, its eyes reflecting Wu Du’s features.
Cai Yan has been up all night; he’s clearly quite weary from the business of moving the capital as well, but when he arrives at the Imperial Stables he beams, forcing himself to appear refreshed so he can show Wu Du a warm smile.
“It’s become quite irascible since father passed away. You were the one with dad in those last days, and now it does seem like it recognises you after all.”
“It’s a pedigreed horse from Wusun.” Wu Du replies, “It’s very proud. Just give it some time to adjust.”
“I’ve really been racking my brain trying to find a way to tame it, but in all of Great Chen it only listens to my uncle. Anyone who’s tried to get on simply gets bucked off. Wuluohou Mu did come back on it, but once it found out that dad had died, it no longer listened to Wuluohou Mu either. The Grand Chancellor told me that you’ve been wearing yourself out lately with work, so I thought why not give it to you, so at least …”
Wu Du is quite shocked, and immediately tells him, “That will never do! The late emperor’s beloved steed only serves the Li family …”
Cai Yan waves his hand to stop Wu Du from continuing, and explains smilingly, “A horse must run. Uncle never did enjoy going on hunts, so on the contrary making it stay here in a little place like this is truly degrading treatment. Just try it. We’re not sure if it’s going to listen to you yet. If that doesn’t work, I have other plans, and we’ll worry about that later.”
Wu Du seems to hesitate.
Mu Kuangda advises, “Since His Highness wants to give you a good horse, just try to get on and see what happens.”
Wu Du knows that the crown prince’s appreciation for him is of his dedication and hard work for Southern Chen, so as he should have no qualms about accepting it, he puts his foot in the stirrup. Everyone takes a collective step back, with the Horsekeeper standing in front of Cai Yan lest Benxiao goes berserk again and offends the crown prince.
With one quick swing of his leg, Wu Du gets on Benxiao’s back.
To everyone’s surprise, Wanlibenxiao isn’t jittery at all. He lets Wu Du ride on its back as he wishes, and stands there calmly.
Wu Du stares down at it in wordless surprise.
An absolute silence befalls everyone all around.
“How odd,” Cai Yan says with a smile.
At first, Cai Yan had thought that even if Wu Du does manage to tame Benxiao in the end, it’ll take him quite a lot of work, but to his surprise this legendary horse isn’t showing any resistance at all. It simply stands there quietly.
With everyone making it sound so terrible earlier, Wu Du is quite on his guard, but now he’s not seeing Benxiao put up any fight.
“Gup!” Wu Du commands.
Benxiao takes a small canter forward, and gallops for a circle around the training grounds outside the stables.
“Whoa —!” Wu Du reins it in.
Benxiao stops, and turns his head to give everyone a look.
Wu Du wraps the reins twice over the back of his hand, and stares at Mu Kuangda uncertainly. Reading his mind, Mu Kuangda turns to Cai Yan. “Well then, on behalf of Wu Du, please allow me to thank Your Highness for conferring this kind gift.”
Cai Yan smiles knowingly back, but his heart is a bit uneasy. No one else has been able to ride it; three months ago he tried to mount the horse forcefully himself and fell quite miserably on his face; Benxiao nearly trampled him to death. He wanted more than anything to have it killed, but alas Li Yanqiu is quite fond of this horse so he couldn’t do it.
Giving it to Wu Du now will get it out of his sight, and if anything it takes one great worry away from him at last. He’ll also be able to buy his loyalty, hitting two birds with one stone.
“I shall now take my leave.” From his perch on the horse, Wu Du puts one fist in a hand and raises them in salute at Cai Yan, and before leaving the Imperial Stables, he glances at Mu Kuangda.
“Take care on your journey,” Mu Kuangda says to Wu Du.
Wu Du nods, steering Benxiao away from the palace.
“Gup!” Wu Du calls out.
It has been a year since Wanlibenxiao left the palace, and as soon as it’s outside of the gates it sweeps past the Street of the Vermilion Bird as though riding on the wind and stepping through clouds, and charges out of Xichuan like a hurricane. What takes an ordinary horse an hour to travel takes Benxiao only half that time.
“Gup!” Wu Du calls out again, infected by Wanlibenxiao’s jubilant mood.
Benxiao whips onto the highway like a gale, vanishing at the horizon in moments. Wu Du bends down a bit more, the tails of his robe fluttering in the wind while Wanlibenxiao leaves the mountains, the rivers, and the ravines entirely behind them.
A stroke of dawn appears at the horizon. In rolling clouds of gold a noble steed steps onto the winding mountain paths, climbing the heights and fording rivers, jumping through rocks and leaping across ravines as expediently as it would travel level ground, making a beeline to the northwest.
It is morning in Tongguan, and the fog has filled up the gaps between the mountain tops.
Duan Ling slept on the mountains last night, and on waking, he washes his face, picks some wild fruit, and steals a few bird eggs out of their nests to fill his belly. Once he figures out which way to go, he departs the Qinling Mountains. Other people will probably get lost after a mile or so, and either get eaten by a bear or starve to death, but surviving in the wilderness is no big deal for Duan Ling. He’s even managed to escape from a place like the Xianbei Mountains — Qinling is in a warm climate and its greenery is dense and lush. It’s practically paradise.
He wonders how Bian Lingbai would explain his absence once he got back. Would he say Duan Ling fell off a cliff? Helian Bo will surely come looking. There’s no way to explain the sudden disappearance of a person, and he most likely won’t tell Fei Hongde either.
He’ll probably tell everyone that he’s sent his nephew away to run an errand. Naturally, no one will dare ask him what sort of an errand it is.
If Duan Ling were Bian Lingbai, this would be the only way he’ll use to deal with the aftermath of his actions. However, Bian Lingbai doesn’t conform to common sense in the slightest, so he can’t trust in his own speculation entirely, otherwise he’s only going to be at a disadvantage again.
His first priority is to inform the fast-approaching Wu Du to watch out for Bian Lingbai taking desperate measures in his desperation. Helan Jie is still out there chasing down an assassin, so as long as he doesn’t let himself be discovered by someone from the Bian estate, he’ll probably be safe enough.
Duan Ling decides to take his chances just this once, enter Tongguan, and check around.
He blends with the commoners entering and leaving Tongguan and enters the city, avoiding the patrolling soldiers on its street lest he gets questioned while he walks through its streets. Tongguan is built against a mountain, with stone-slab footpaths everywhere going up and down like a complicated maze. Duan Ling runs every which way through the alleys with no goal in sight, and digging through his pockets, he curses himself for not bringing some gold bars with him. Fortunately he finds some silver bits on his person, and he buys breakfast, wolfing it all down. As he’s about to consider whether he should go check outside the city magistrate’s estate, he suddenly spies two people entering a tailor’s.
He only gets a quick glimpse at the back of one figure, but he can tell that it’s Yao Jing.
Duan Ling immediately dashes into the alley behind the tailor’s and slips in through the backdoor. He can hear the lady proprietor talking to Yao Jing at the front of the store.
“This blanket was shipped here from Arabia.2 Put it over the shoulders in the winter, it’s very warm.”
Yao Jing is picking out a shawl. The proprietor adds, “There’s a big mirror in the back, if you like you can try it on, miss.”
“I’ll go take a look,” Yao Jing says to her steward and walks in on her own.
As soon as she gets to the inner room, a hand reaches over, covers her mouth, keeping back her cry of alarm.
“It’s me,” Duan Ling whispers.
Yao Jing’s eyes are brimming with surprise, and Duan Ling puts a finger in front of his mouth for quiet before leading her to the side of the room.
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 word for the Arabs in medieval China was “Dasi”, if you’re interested in the historical background, this wikipedia section is interesting. ↩︎
