Chapter 752: Bound for Beijing (5)

The summer wind in Henan blows from the southeast toward the northwest.

More precisely, it’s a southeasterly.

Which means: the wind runs from the foot of the mountain up toward the western highlands of the Central Plains.

In other words, anyone coming down the mountain runs straight into a fierce headwind.

And if raindrops hitch a ride on that headwind?

The rain doesn’t fall vertically. It falls sideways.

Qing’s expression as she sat in the Golden Palanquin was, if anything, settled and calm.

Like the snow-fox of her homeland’s western plateau, or like some enlightened monk who has transcended worldly afflictions and reached the Five Aggregates.

If you had to put a label on it, she was a snow-fox getting thoroughly drenched.

Qing calmly wiped her face.

She pushed aside the bangs plastered to her skin like seaweed and brushed them sideways, revealing that neat, clear forehead.

God, that’s cold.

This really feels like hazing.

The rain was coming sideways—more precisely, front to back—so what was the point of holding an umbrella over her? What did that actually accomplish?

But it was awkward to complain out loud, because she wasn’t the only one getting soaked.

Not only the burly men gripping the palanquin poles front and back, but the Chief Something-or-Other Eunuch holding the enormous umbrella tilted toward her was already in the state of someone who’d just been dipped in a river and yanked back out.

On top of that, the wind was so strong the giant umbrella kept buckling and wobbling; it was honestly impressive the old man was managing to hold out in this storm at all.

Qing wiped her face again and looked at the palanquin bearers’ backs.

Well, of course—they were all martial artists.

The palanquin bearers hustling down the mountain path were moving at a downright frantic pace.

It’s not like they wanted to trudge along under a palanquin in a pounding storm either. Their legs were all but yelling hurry up, hurry up, get me to a village so I can rest, as they half-ran their way down.

But rushing down a muddy, slippery mountain trail in the rain, four people moving as a single body while keeping the palanquin level—since when was that an easy job?

At minimum, top-tier?

Maybe they were top-tier palanquin-master artisans, specialized in carrying palanquins.

Or it was that realm that marks the starting point—and perfect match—for calling someone a low-class martial artist: peak-stage fighters using peak-level skill for this “art.”

Still, no one would keep a top-tier martial artist doing palanquin-labor long enough to become a master of palanquin-carrying.

So they were probably low-class fighters around the peak realm.

That old eunuch was at least that level too.

Theoretically they were her “escort,” but in reality this was a lot closer to escorting or transporting a prisoner.

From the start, the whole “suddenly summoned by the palace” situation reeked to high heaven.

She hadn’t destroyed the Minor Water Witch, just repelled her, so why would the Son of Heaven himself show up on the board to offer praise?

Obviously there was some scheme behind this.

And obviously it was going to be an unpleasant kind.

Qing did what Heavenly Flower Sword always did: first, check the escape routes and calculate her angles for escape.

But she couldn’t spend all day, sunrise to sunset, just measuring escape vectors.

And Righteous-Proper Martial Academy sat deep enough in the mountains that even with her lightfoot skill, it was over two shichen of running.

They say the hardest thing for a human being to endure is boredom.

Sitting there getting rained on, it was impossible to zone out properly.

Time stretched into this absurdly long string; so this is how long a single day really is, with the clouds smothering the sun so thoroughly she couldn’t even guess the hour.

So when she’d been sitting there in that endless, miserable time and finally caught sight of village rooftops down at the foot of the mountain in the distance—just how overjoyed do you think Qing was?

And on top of that, the moment they left the mountain path and the view suddenly opened up, there it was, waiting on the flat ground at the base of the mountain: a Golden Carriage.

The first dazzling smile of the day bloomed across Qing’s face.

Golden Palanquin, Golden Carriage. Both made of gold.

Where else would such luxurious hardware come from except the imperial palace?

Qing was feeling the value of a roof in her bones.

She’d long since shown outstanding skills as a beggar girl who could use the earth as her mattress and the sky as her blanket, flopping down to sleep right there on the roadside.

But even Qing didn’t lie around outdoors in a downpour, taking the rain full on. She’d at least duck under a tree or a bridge first. What kind of idiot lies down on the road in a sheet of rain?

For the record, one of Qing’s friends did do exactly that, but anyway.

“Elder, we’re switching to the carriage now, right?”

“Of course. Did you think you’d be riding a palanquin all the way to Beijing? Under the shade of an old man’s umbrella?”

Hmph. There’s always someone who has to answer like that.

You could just say yes or no.

Like at a dinner table, you ask, Wow, can I eat this? and get, What, you’re gonna sit there and stare at food instead of shoving it in your mouth?—that kind of jagged answer.

Granted, the old man hadn’t been like that from the start, so maybe he was still bitter about the elixir she’d snatched, or maybe his pride was bruised from having to hold an umbrella for a kid young enough to be his granddaughter.

Whatever. I’ll just be the bigger person.

“At last...!”

It had been a long, humiliating ordeal.

From here on out, she could sleep and eat and sleep and eat in comfort inside a carriage with an actual roof.

And sleeping and eating were, of course, the two things Qing was most confident in.

She shifted her body, ready to get up.

“Oh dear. Heavenly Flower Sword. Please, stay where you are.”

“I’m sorry, but the cold rain is seeping into my bones. I know it’s shameless, but could I go ahead and get inside to warm up a little?”

“Get inside? Inside where?”

Wi Baseon shot back like he couldn’t imagine what she was talking about.

“The carriage? The Golden Carriage?”

“My, my. Heavenly Flower Sword. How could we possibly seat the young hero summoned by His Majesty in such a humble place? Your seat is not in there.”

The old eunuch’s smile turned sly.

As Qing felt a quiet, creeping sense of dread, what is this old man plotting now, she lifted one eyebrow—

And suddenly, the Golden Palanquin shot upward.

The palanquin bearers jerked both arms high in a motion like they’d just been ordered to attention, raising the palanquin’s height.

Like that, the Golden Carriage drew closer.

Then the four bearers leapt up in unison and—THUD!

With a rough impact, the Golden Palanquin landed on top of the Golden Carriage.

“Wait, don’t tell me my ‘seat’ is...”

“Exactly. A seat befitting a hero who should be admired by all under Heaven.”

Qing’s expression twisted like she’d just bitten into something foul.

In the meantime, they removed the palanquin’s four legs and started hammering away—CLACK CLACK—driving in wedges and pegs.

Apparently the Golden Palanquin and Golden Carriage had been designed from the start to combine into a single unit.

Then they attached the removed palanquin legs to long poles, raised a huge canopy of fabric and stood it straight up like a vertical banner.

Four massive phrases rose into view.

「Young Hero Ximen Qing」

「Harboring Righteousness, Sword Turned Against Injustice」

「None Under Heaven Can Defeat This Foe-Slayer」

「Summoned to Climb the Steps of the Son of Heaven」

Thick red cloth embroidered in gold thread with these grand characters surged up, and four men took their places in a line in front of the carriage, each holding one.

And as if they’d just been waiting for that cue, in rushed a column of people.

A drummer with a sling-drum, musicians with long flutes.

Soldiers in full dress uniforms carrying crescent-bladed halberds.

Almost a hundred people took up tight, precise positions around the Golden Carriage, military discipline on full display.

Mm. Okay. I get the idea.

Like at one of those theme parks, when the main parade finally kicks off and the highlight float rolls out—

The actors in costume take their places on a glittering carriage, then start dancing, singing, waving at everyone.

This was exactly that.

A hero personally summoned by the Son of Heaven couldn’t have some plain, boring trip. That would look bad.

You had to beat the drums and blow the flutes and raise the banners, making noise about how such a great hero is passing through, projecting her majesty.

And at the center of nearly a hundred people, seated atop the Golden Carriage, on the Golden Palanquin, the “young hero” was supposed to sit there in solemn dignity and wave.

...In this weather?

Qing’s expression steadily rotted.

Strictly speaking, a rescript from the Son of Heaven required a minimum of fifty soldiers as escort.

So Heavenly Flower Sword’s journey to the palace wasn’t, in itself, some outrageous-scale procession.

But up until now, they’d made a point of climbing to Righteous-Proper Martial Academy with as few people as possible, pretending nothing special was going on.

Because if they’d given advance notice and time, she’d just come up with every excuse under the sun to refuse.

The plan was to move quietly and quickly and lure Heavenly Flower Sword out first.

And once they had her seated in a palanquin?

From that point on, it was actually safer to blast it to the entire world.

His Majesty had gone to such trouble to praise and summon her—he couldn’t suddenly change his mind, and if she ran, all under Heaven would be watching and suspecting something.

So now they were going to scream it to the heavens: Heavenly Flower Sword is on her way to the Son of Heaven. She is entering the palace.

Except... the state of the weather...?

From time immemorial, there have been certain human traits that never, ever change.

One of them is war.

War—war never changes.

And another is civil servants.

Civil servants—civil servants never change, either.

No matter what happens, as long as you quietly do exactly what you’re told, no one can blame you. I just did what I was ordered, so it’s not my fault.

Try to adapt to circumstances, make a judgment call, improvise a bit based on the situation—and if anything at all goes wrong, whose fault do you think it becomes?

That’s why the gardener in charge of the palace trees goes out into a deluge with a watering can and waters the flowerbeds already submerged in rainwater, and why Heavenly Flower Sword’s escort corps is hauling her in an open palanquin through a storm.

Look, we’re just doing what we were told.

Like this:

“Young Hero Ximen Qing goes to Beijing! Ximen Qing, who repelled the Minor Water Witch of the Blood Cult, goes to see His Majesty!”

A bellow from one of the brawny men ripped through the rain.

The flutes shrilled, PEEE-REE-REE, singing the ceremonial music of the Central Plains, while the drumbeats—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP—pounded out a rhythm that jolted the heart and pushed the march along.

And the soldiers scattered coins in all directions—the famous Heavenly Grace Coins, tokens of the Son of Heaven’s mercy.

Heavenly Grace Coins were small coins with “Long Live” engraved on them; if you took one to a government office, you’d receive a measure of rice as a royal favor.

So right now, the heavens were pouring down both rain and rice.

That’s why, in this filthy, miserable weather and brutal storm, the marketplace was still jam-packed with commoners.

And as all those commoners gazed up, there, on the flashing Golden Carriage that gleamed even in the dim weather, sat the young hero, high and aloof.

Water is an efficient substance; it always seeks the shortest path as it flows.

On a face, that shortest path traces the contours: across the nose, sharp like a lovely little rock jutting from the water.

The water streamed down either side of that nose, carving its course.

Her hair settled into those flows, bangs draped over her face like strips of seaweed, only the straight ridge of her nose sticking out white through the curtain.

It was a bizarre sight with just the lower half of her face exposed, and that lower face was so smooth and delicate.

She looked like the ghost of some peerless beauty.

She wore a splendid red robe, but soaked through with rain, every outrageous line of her body was starkly, violently visible—

It was the kind of sight that stopped words in people’s throats.

A peerless beauty’s ghost, sitting on a golden throne atop a Golden Carriage in a downpour, sultry posture laid bare.

Behind her, an old man in an official’s hat and robe held a small parasol.

It didn’t block the rain in the slightest. It was just decorative—something that was supposed to be there when a high-born lady went out.

“Heavenly Flower Sword. Please, smile a little. Wave your hand. And for heaven’s sake, could you please push your bangs aside? You’ve got such a lovely face—why present yourself like this?”

“They’re just going to fall back down right away anyway. And you want me to smile like this?”

“Ahem.”

“Seriously, does this look right to you?”

“How was anyone supposed to know it would rain like this?”

This was the purest kind of desk-bound administration.

The palace did have its intentions. They’d sent a Golden Palanquin to show Heavenly Flower Sword the utmost respect.

If you invite a guest and then humiliate them, the host’s reputation goes down with them. They had no intention of insulting her or subjecting her to shame.

But what could they do about the weather?

Unlike in Qing’s homeland, the weather in the Central Plains wasn’t something you could know ahead of time. It was a matter of faith—you just prayed and left it in the hands of the heavens.

Truth be told, even Wi Baseon was thinking, Yeah, no, this isn’t it. This really can’t be right. I’m Chief Brush-and-Seal Eunuch, ranked high even among eunuchs, and here I am in freezing rain, doing this...

Qing, for her part, was thinking, What the hell am I even doing?

Could she see out through the hair veiling her eyes? Honestly, hardly at all.

But it wasn’t like the view was anything she particularly wanted to see. In what universe is this a normal situation?

Even as the two of them, more clear-eyed than anyone, were becoming steadily more aware of how ridiculous this all was, the carriage still rolled on.

Toward Beijing. On and on.