Chapter 766: Forbidden City Journal (12)

Women of the palace did, at least, learn a bit of immortal-maiden exercises.

However, even immortal-maiden exercises were not the kind of serious internal training that built up qi; they belonged to the “movement-art” category—a kind of beauty calisthenics.

It was taken for granted that palace women, who had nothing else in particular to do, would gather by faction in some hidden rear courtyard every morning, waving their arms and legs around.

But swordplay was, unmistakably, an art meant to harm others.

In the Forbidden City, where they had even ripped out the trees to guard against assassins, they were teaching swordplay to a princess, a future outsider who would in any case be married off far away?

Of course, Qing was not sharp enough, nor versed enough in palace matters, to pick up on that contradiction.

She was just at the level of, didn’t they say she wasn’t allowed to learn it?

“Ah. That.”

Haeryu flinched and glanced at Gabiya.

Gabiya gave no response. She just looked like a corpse. Judging by the faint rise and fall of her chest, she somehow still had her life, but that was all.

With that miserable face, unable even to close her eyes, the rolled-back, empty whites just stared into space.

Haeryu did not stop at looking; she went over and poked her, then straightened her front and slung her over her shoulder.

“I’ll put this away first and then tell you.”

“Uh, you mean put her in her quarters, right? Not bury her somewhere secluded.”

“Oh, if I were going to bury her, there are much better ways.”

Qing was uncertain. That was a joke... right?

In any case.

“My Lady, heehee, Your Highness the Princess. Do you... maybe remember Guardian Captain Beom? Guardian Captain Beom of the Imperial Guard detail. He was the one in charge of your protection.”

“Guardian Captain” was the post in charge of guarding imperial-blooded royals.

Naturally, Qing had no way of knowing that.

“No...”

“I see...”

Haeryu’s shoulders slumped.

But only for a moment—then she smiled again.

“You asked to learn. Don’t you remember? For almost a month you kept begging, telling him to hurry up and hand over his swordplay...”

Yeonsul, before she became a princess—Yeonsul the “lord,” eight years old.

A time when she had, surprisingly, been a perfectly ordinary little brat, not at all exceptional.

One day, for some reason, when she saw the long sword at her guard’s hip, her eyes had flashed, glinting dangerously.

And from then on, morning to night, she pestered him to teach her swordplay: if he did, she’d reward him; if he didn’t, she’d jump from here; she wouldn’t eat until he did teach her; of course she ate very well; she’d lie down on the bed and say she felt sick because he wouldn’t teach her, that it might be lovesickness, or something like it—thousands of times a day, swordplay! swordplay! absolutely swordplay! she’d die before giving up swordplay! More important than food... well, not quite.

“Mm.”

“So we trained together, too.”

Listening to Haeryu, it sounded like Guardian Captain Beom had come up with a rather clever plan.

If she wanted to hold a sword, first she had to do basic conditioning, so if she truly wanted to learn, she would have to thoroughly master the fundamentals first.

He had probably thought that she’d soon drop out, unable to endure the grueling basic training.

And yet she had endured all of it.

For nearly three full months, if he told her to run she ran, if he told her to sit she sat, if he told her to lift she lifted, putting her whole heart into it; he had surely thought, ah, this is no ordinary stubborn little brat.

And then, in secret, the transmission of swordplay had begun.

Yeonsul the “lord” grew and grew, shooting up like a bamboo sprout.

And so, at ten years old.

She received the rank of princess, and the legend of great, strong, mighty Princess Yeonsul began...

Apparently, Her Majesty the Empress had said that her body had been fully grown like an adult’s from childhood.

Listening now, it seemed there had been a particular culprit behind that after all.

“What swordplay was it? It’s not like he would’ve just taught her any old thing, right?”

“Oh, but you still remember it even now, don’t you? I heard about Heavenly Flower Sword, too. They say you’re still renowned as a master of Yue Maiden Sword, so even if your memories are gone, the training engraved into your body must have remained.”

“Huh?”

“You read the ‘Yue Maiden’ section of Spring and Autumn of Wu and Yue and said you were going to become A Qing, and after that you wore only blue skirts every day. You only started pestering Guardian Captain Beom because of that, too.”

Yue Maiden Sword? She’d learned Yue Maiden Sword?

When she had first fallen into this primitive, ancient, barbaric Central Plains, it had been the only martial art she had.

The hidden starting-art of Martial Life-and-Death Simulator, the basic martial art you got if you typed “A Qing” in as your name.

If Princess Yeonsul had been practicing that—

Then it meant Guardian Captain Beom had passed on the full, true copy of Yue Maiden Swordplay, Yue Maiden Heart Formula, and Yue Maiden Mountain Steps as a three-part set.

In that case, there was no way around it: the previous owner of this body must indeed have been Princess Yeonsul.

When it all lined up this perfectly... mm.

And then another thought struck her.

“Mm. Was that Guardian Captain Beom fellow close with Princess Yeonsul?”

“Of course. She was almost like his own daughter—ah, heheh, there I go running my mouth again. I mean, that’s just a manner of speaking. You understand, right? He’s since been promoted to Senior Guardian Captain and put in charge of Hwanggeuk Hall, so someday we should go visit him.”

“Figures. I get the feeling we’re going to anyway...”

Qing trailed off with a wry expression.

Somehow, she had the distinct feeling that in the not-too-distant future, yet another burdensome person would be added to her life.

*****

A maid of Hilbang Hall carefully set a tea-and-snack tray down in front of Qing.

Carefully. Very, very carefully.

Perhaps it was because of the mountain of snacks piled on the plates.

Normally, a tea tray would have one or two pieces of pastry to accompany the tea, but Qing’s tea tray consisted only of snacks—a mountain of snacks.

They were stacked high on the plate at such a steep angle it looked dangerously unstable; worried that one might fall, the maid lowered the tray with extreme caution—

THUNK.

Inevitably, one of the round confections lost its balance and rolled, ROLL ROLL, right up to Qing.

It was a Goryeo honey cookie, a round deep-fried pastry.

Qing absentmindedly picked it up.

“Ghk! I-I have committed a capital crime! F-forgive me, please, grant me your mercy!”

THUD! The maid slammed her forehead into the floor and shook as she begged forgiveness.

“Eh. It’s fine. I thought it looked a bit dangerous from the moment you walked in, whoever stacked it like this.”

BANG! This time the maid beside her slammed her head down.

“T-that’s... a c-capital crime, too! The plate was too small, so I had no choice but to...”

Qing blinked.

What? Do they think I’m going to eat them alive or something?

For some reason, today of all days, the maids of Hilbang Hall could not even meet her eyes, and if their eyes did meet hers, they all trembled and dropped their gazes.

What is this? Why am I suddenly some symbol of terror?

Well, the maids had seen the state Gabiya had been carried back in last night.

Her eye makeup had run all over her face, her mouth was shiny with thick drool, and her eyes were rolled back white as she hung unconscious—an awful, detailed sight.

They had not been fond of Gabiya’s behavior, throwing her weight around the moment she became a personal maid.

But when they saw her miserable end, they couldn’t help feeling a deep pity—and at the same time, a certain relief.

Maybe it was for the best.

And then, an indescribable fear.

The realistic dream of a palace maid was to be in a position where she received overflowing favor from a powerful mistress.

And her most realistic fear was to spend her days under a vicious, cruel mistress, suffering brutal abuse.

Once you became a personal maid, you couldn’t leave by your own will; you’d have to endure that horrific treatment forever.

On top of that, some of these terrifying mistresses deliberately took on personal maids just to torment them.

In practice, it was common for the lonely, neglected side-consorts of the Eastern Six Palaces to vent their frustration on their maids.

Even after Heavenly-Maiden Temple moved in and such things became less frequent, the Forbidden City was still full of grim rumors—this palace where someone had been beaten, that palace where someone had been slapped until her face swelled.

So if they made even the slightest mistake, wouldn’t they end up like Gabiya every single day?

This was the Lady who had scolded even that tiger-like Haeryu until her eyes swelled and her voice gave out.

If Qing had known all this, she would have felt mortally wronged.

For starters, Haeryu had only cried on her own; Qing hadn’t laid a finger on her.

And with Gabiya there had just been a teensy little misunderstanding, juuust a bit, and even then, depending on how you looked at it, it was a little ambiguous whether you could really say Qing had “made her cry,” judging purely by the end result.

But.

“Heehee, My Laaady.”

Once the maids withdrew, Gabiya refilled Qing’s teacup, then quietly slid into the seat beside her, hugged Qing’s arm, and clung to her.

Qing didn’t exactly hate the soft sensation pressing into her biceps, but still—what’s with her now?

“Gabiya?”

“Yes, My Laaady, it’s Gabiya.”

“My Lady” came out as “My Laaady,” lengthened with a nasal lilt Qing could only assume was meant to be cutesy; it was deeply burdensome.

“Isn’t that... a little uncomfortable?”

“I still can barely move my body. My muscles ache so much, because a certain someone was so cruel to me, ahh...”

Gabiya whispered into her ear, blowing that pained moan right into Qing’s eardrum.

Qing pressed her lips tightly together.

Well. I did do something I should feel a little bad about...

She tried to change the subject.

“Anyway, what kind of event was it at Heavenly-Maiden Temple?”

Haeryu had stepped out because the Crown Prince had summoned her, and Gabiya had just come back that morning from another Heavenly-Maiden Temple event.

Her karmic score currently sat at forty-two points.

What kind of event was this, that she came back having immediately racked up more good karma?

“I’m sorry. It’s a royal event, so even for you, My Lady, I can’t speak of it carelessly.”

“A royal event?”

“Yes. But if you’re really curious, next time there’s an event I can, personally, for you, ask His Highness if I’m allowed to tell you, My Lady. Whether it’s the sort of event I’m permitted to speak of to you.”

“His Highness? Ah. If even His Highness attends, then, well, there’s nothing for it.”

Qing accepted that easily.

If an imperial figure participated, it was only natural that one couldn’t casually chatter about the content of the event.

If Gabiya had still seemed suspicious, she might have been wary.

But Qing now knew that the girl, while somewhat impure in intent, had not meant to actually cause harm.

And there was something else she truly wanted to ask.

“Oh, right. Do you know anything about Princess Yeonsul? I heard Heavenly-Maiden Temple performed some miracle when she was badly ill.”

“Ah. That happened before I entered the palace. Lady Ashiya healed Princess Yeonsul, and for that merit we received permission for our Order of Heavenly Maidens to reside here.”

After Heavenly-Maiden Temple’s leader Ashiya received the temple plaque, she had gathered the sisters of the Order of Heavenly Maidens who had fled India.

Gabiya had entered the palace afterward and begun life as a maid, which was why she’d still been living in an empty, masterless palace, playing around.

“Thanks to that, I now get to serve you, My Lady. That must be fate, mustn’t it, destiny. The proof is how our chakras and chakras connected, how you came directly into my mind and engraved yourself there, that, ahh. Just thinking of it again makes me dizzy...”

Murmuring incomprehensible nonsense, Gabiya subtly leaned her head on Qing’s shoulder.

She really doesn’t know much...

Her pretending to be lethal while being secretly sloppy, too—it all fit.

However, what was certain was that Her Majesty the Empress’s “evil demon-women of Heavenly-Maiden Temple” could not be taken lightly.

So had this Lady Ashiya done the swapping?

If so, why had Qing woken up all alone in that cave?

If souls really did exist—

Then might the Princess Yeonsul in the Forbidden City actually be the real Yeonsul?

Maybe the real Princess had cried “Abandon the ship!” and bailed out of the body, changed vessels, and Qing had just ended up inside the leftover shell.

In that case, with just a few small misunderstandings cleared up, she might be able to return the real one to all the old ties here who missed Princess Yeonsul so much.

And Qing herself could go live her life without getting tangled up in the imperial house any further.

And then everyone lived happily ever after.

Wouldn’t that be nice.

Mm.

As long as Her Majesty the Empress didn’t start holding a grudge about someone daring to deceive her and such... mm. Surely not.

“Mm. In that case, that Lady Ashiya... do you think I could meet her?”