Chapter 778: Bloodline (12)

The hammering went on for quite some time after that.

Back in Sichuan, he had been a beneficiary of the Grand Rite who’d kept rampaging even after being struck by Qing’s beyond-peak sword energy—sword energy that had swelled and heaved until it rose like an enormous club, an extra-large beyond-peak sword aura.

Even under the long, relentless barrage of hammer blows, not only did his expression not twist in pain, but a smile of outright ecstasy kept slipping out, twitching at the corners of his mouth.

The Son of Heaven sat slanted in his seat, heel hooked on the armrest, chin propped on his hand, gazing down at the scene with indifferent eyes.

Inside, however, things were far from simple.

Heaven-Endowed Grace Grand Rite.

A great ritual of receiving the grace Heaven bestows.

This was not some new name the palace had slapped on, like the Imperial Martial Arts, but the original Sanskrit name written straight into Central Plains speech.

It was that Indian ritual—an utterly strange spell that hardened a person’s body by {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} way of noble blood.

Those uncultivated Indian barbarians dared to divide themselves into high and low ranks even with Heaven above them.

So this ritual was a grace that those of high rank in India bestowed on the lowly beneath them.

But in the Central Plains, there were no ranks.

Take away the Son of Heaven, and everyone was equal as human; there were only differences in honor based on whether one’s office was high or low.

Because the Son of Heaven was not human.

The Son of Heaven was a divine being, Heaven’s own son.

So the power of the Heaven-Endowed Grace Rite, when it used the Son of Heaven’s blood—Heaven’s blood—was such that even Ashiya, who conducted the Rite, had not anticipated it and could not hide her dismay.

In the original form of the ritual, a whole cup of noble blood had to be used, and Indian ritual cups were much larger than those of the Central Plains.

But they couldn’t very well draw that much blood from the Son of Heaven.

So even though they had mixed in less than half the usual proportion, the result had come out more than twice as strong, so of course she was rattled.

If Perfected Danlun had been present, he would have explained that this was only to be expected.

In India, the highest-status people were the priests.

In the term “priest,” the “priest” was an official; priests were officials who managed the business of the gods.

Though they were close to gods, they were not gods, and however noble Indians might consider that blood, they could not escape the frame of humankind.

But the Son of Heaven was a divine being.

In ancient times, the Three Sovereigns, divine beings who descended from Heaven, had taken pity on humans and cared for them; the Son of Heaven was the direct descendant who inherited their blood.

One could certainly question how the current Zhou clan had inherited that blood, but the power of ritual came not from fact and logic; it came from faith and feeling.

The Son of Heaven tapped a finger on the armrest.

It was a habit that came out whenever he was deep in thought.

The Grand Rite had been a success.

He now had five newly Heaven-Endowed men, and as living witnesses to a miracle, they would become blind devotees who served the Son of Heaven.

However, it was a Grand Rite in which not all could succeed.

At least one—one among them—had to fail and, in the trial of verification, die under the hammers, coughing blood.

There had been occasions where the Grand Rite failed for one man.

They would say that though he had feigned loyalty, in truth he had not obeyed in his heart, and so this Heaven-sent punishment had fallen upon him.

And because high-ranking officials of the inner palace who knew the secret of the Rite would sometimes try to slip in their own subordinates or sons, they deliberately added some other blood now and then and had that one cut out.

In other words, the ones who survived, imbued with the power of the Heaven-Endowed Grace once Heavenly blood was mixed in, would live, and the ones who had other blood added and gained no effect would die under the hammers.

And in this Grand Rite, one of the Golden Guard knights had not received the Son of Heaven’s blood, but Seomun Cheong’s.

By rights, he should have died on the spot under the hammers, which was why they had slipped in a man who ought to die.

“How was that man? Was the Grand Rite certain?”

He asked the question alone in his chamber.

At that, a body rose silently from the shadows behind the imperial robe rack at his back—the Shadow Guardian.

“It went far beyond certainty. The man is twice as tough as the others; even this humble one struggled quite a bit to process the remains.”

Sometimes, Golden Guard knights who had successfully undergone the Grand Rite would explode in the middle of the night and be found as nothing but scattered chunks of flesh.

They were men whose reputations had been poor, who had been insolent to their superiors or abused their juniors, or who had taken excessive bribes, or sold their Golden Guard identity tags too freely—(the sale itself was legal).

Through that, they had sent the message that even if a man had successfully undergone the Rite, receiving Heaven’s grace, if he grew greedy and harmful to the nation, he would suffer Heaven’s punishment.

So the Heaven-Endowed had been neatly prevented from causing harm.

Of course, there was a side effect.

Thanks to that, the Heaven-Endowed might not commit harms, but their personalities grew increasingly arrogant.

Simply being alive without dying became something like Heaven’s permission, making them wildly overconfident in themselves.

“Twice as tough?”

“Of late he has ingested many elixirs; perhaps their medicinal power remained in his blood in excess and affected things. That is this humble one’s opinion.”

If Perfected Danlun had known every detail about Qing, he might have interpreted it differently.

That Qing was currently master of the Divine Cult; that she was not only the heir of the Heavenly Dynasty’s blood but Heaven itself, the Maitreya Buddha of the Unborn Mother at last born into the world, a living sage-god—and that this had affected the ritual.

But the Emperor did not have Perfected Danlun’s depth of knowledge of rituals, and he knew nothing of the current situation of the Demonic Cult.

So the view of the Shadow Guardian, a master of the Manifest Realm, sounded reasonable to his ears and was something he could understand.

The conclusion was clear.

Precious blood flowed in Seomun Cheong.

The Heavenly Dynasty’s blood flowed in Seomun Cheong.

Seomun Cheong... was truly Yeonsul, the one to be addressed.

The Son of Heaven closed his eyes slowly.

So the Empress’s madness had not been madness.

When he had not known, he had thought nothing of it, but now that he knew, the Yeonsul before him had not felt like Yeonsul; he had thought that, after nearly dying and losing her memory, she was simply relearning and following palace protocol.

Tap. Tap-tap.

For a long time, in the quiet room, only the soft sound of the Son of Heaven’s fingers tapping spread out.

And at last—

“Bring Seomun Cheong—no, bring Yeonsul.”

*****

Beom Yakgong was the Grand Captain of Hwanggeuk Hall.

By rights, he could not leave the three main halls of Hwanggeuk Hall and the two palaces behind them, the combined Main Hall Three Palaces.

More precisely, he could not enter the northern sector of the inner palace, where the other master of the Manifest Realm dwelled—the Shadow Guardian, the Son of Heaven’s secret bodyguard.

For how else could you detect a master of the Manifest Realm sneaking in, if not with another master of the Manifest Realm?

So the Son of Heaven’s Shadow Guardian functioned as an invisible line that prevented Beom Yakgong from passing through the northern sector of the Forbidden City—the Main Hall Three Palaces, and the Eastern Six Palaces and Western Six Palaces to their left and right.

But the Southern Three Halls were different.

The Southern Three Halls lay directly east of Hwanggeuk Hall, a place where, even if Beom Yakgong stayed all year long, he would never cross paths with the Grand Captain.

Thus, the Southern Three Halls—Hilbang Hall.

There was no direct proof that Heavenly Flower Sword dared impersonate the Heavenly Dynasty and Princess Yeonsul.

Basically, she herself denied it, but her attitude was so ambiguous—she did not actively deny it either—that it was hard to pin down.

If one wanted proof of impersonation, the easiest kind to obtain would be witnesses: Lady Deokseong or Haeryu.

But those two had already recognized that Heavenly Flower Sword was the real Yeonsul; they would be the sort who would stake their lives to shield her, not witnesses.

So where, then, could he find proof?

In truth, he did not need to find any!

Because he could simply make it!

“Have you ever wanted to leave the palace? There is a great traitor in the palace right now; if you earn merit in putting down such a criminal, you can leave the palace with broad lands.”

“Gasp. Truly?”

The Hilbang Hall maids—the palace maids attached to the building without a mistress to serve, assigned exclusively to the hall—swallowed hard.

If you asked palace maids for their greatest dream, of course it would be to enter the harem of the Heavenly Dynasty.

But that was almost impossible in reality.

The ladies of the harem were on a different level of beauty from such maids to begin with, and the only chance was if some royal, sick of all that, took a liking to a plain face.

The second dream depended on the person.

Becoming a favored maid of the Empress or chief consort and ruling the Forbidden City as a grande dame of the harem.

Or having great merit acknowledged, receiving a pile of land-deeds, and leaving the palace.

What Beom Yakgong was offering was the latter: leaving the palace and spending the rest of their days living in luxury, being called “madam.”

“B-but, sir, how could someone like me...”

“Do not worry. Would I ask you to do anything difficult? All you need to do is give simple testimony; you will not be in danger.”

“Testimony, you say...”

The maid swallowed again.

Stories of such plots circulating through the palace were already too many to count; a palace maid could instantly understand and swallow hard.

In the Forbidden City, where petty sorcery was taboo, accusations and testimony from a maid were a truly powerful weapon.

Beom Yakgong gave a kindly smile.

“Besides, this is the will of His Highness the Crown Prince. Even if you do not leave the palace, if you would someday like to serve His Highness, this could be a great opportunity.”

“Ah.”

The maid sucked in a breath.

*****

When she heard that the Son of Heaven had summoned her, Qing grew tense.

No matter how much she was Qing, she could not help but be nervous before a call from the Son of Heaven.

This was a summons from the supreme power of the Central Plains, the one who held the right of life and death over countless people.

And the Son of Heaven was hardly an ordinary man.

Even just looking at his record so far, it was nothing if not spectacular.

In Sichuan, he had been the cold-blooded elder brother who tried to kill his own younger brother.

On the road to Guangzhou, he had been a severe case of anger-management failure, who did not hesitate over the countless lives that would be lost in his younger brother’s attempt to refuse death.

And in the courtyard of the Righteous-Proper Martial Academy, he had been a ruler who did not see the people as people at all.

And the recent Heavenly-Maiden Temple slaughter and feat-of-strength contest had hardly been something you could view kindly.

Yes, it was admirable that that evil Grand Rite—whatever it was called—had used villains, inhuman beasts, as its raw material.

But among the Golden Guard knights receiving the Grand Rite, at least two of them were not men who should have received the Rite; with karmic debt scores over a hundred, they were beasts who should have been used as the Rite’s material.

Of course, even so, the Son of Heaven’s karmic debt, whether broken or what, had remained stuck right at zero.

In any case.

He was clearly someone who did not hesitate to remove others for the sake of his own power.

And that kind of man also had no anger control?

If something rubbed him wrong, he might very well say, “Beat that bitch to a pulp and kill every last one of her kin.”

And beyond that, “Burn Priestess Order Temple and burn Martial Alliance as well,” and send the blades out—no, he would definitely do so, wouldn’t he.

Of course, if things went badly, Qing was confident she could pull her body out and run.

But then what about the fallout afterwards.

So Qing’s bearing was careful to the extreme, Heavenly Flower Sword Seomun Surin-style Beautiful-Woman Walking power fully engaged.

Thus, to the inner main palace of the Forbidden City—the Rear Three Palaces of the main complex.

And among them, the Son of Heaven’s own quarters, Geoncheong Palace.

The Rear Three Palaces of the main complex were a sacred men-forbidden zone.

No man but the Son of Heaven was allowed to enter; perhaps the Crown Prince could be an exception at most.

In fact, by the letter of the law, even the Crown Prince was not to set foot in the deepest heart of the Forbidden City.

So among humans, the only ones allowed to enter the Rear Three Palaces were those who were not “men”: the women of the inner palace and the eunuchs.

Of course, in the primitive ancient Central Plains, there was no recognition of mental gender.

Not only did they not recognize it, but if you said such things you’d be beaten to death as possessed by ghosts.

So in the Central Plains, Qing’s gender was “woman.”

Which meant she could enter the Rear Three Palaces.

And thus, Geoncheong Palace!

She passed through doors opened from left and right by eunuchs and walked corridors within, broken up in complex fashion by screens, turning left and right, until at last the door to the Son of Heaven’s innermost chamber—his bedroom—opened.

The inner chamber of Geoncheong Palace.

If you took every era together, the people who had ever come into this room could have their names written out in great big characters on a single sheet of paper and fill it.

Of course, Qing had no way of knowing that.

Nor did she have the leisure to think that way.

She simply could not afford to give anyone anything to seize on, so careful that she had never in her life been so careful.

Thus Qing clung to the floor, just about to cry the third shout of Ten Thousand Years in her Three Cheers.

“Fff.”

“That’s enough.”

The Son of Heaven waved a hand at Qing, who had just sucked in a huge breath to unleash a mighty roar of Ten Thousand Years.

Ah, she had not expected that.

Did “that’s enough” mean she didn’t need to shout the third Ten Thousand Years, or did it mean she could skip the whole bow?

As Qing hesitated for a moment, wondering, the Son of Heaven’s voice reached her.

“That is enough. Yeonsul, raise your head.”