Yesterday the guests had packed the place and everything had been chaotic, so the people of the palace itself had ended up pushed to the back. Now, as the two walked along, congratulations followed without pause, while magpies sang in response from the branches.
Fu Xi Yan looked at them curiously. “Huh. Are there magpies in autumn too?”
The question came completely out of nowhere. Magpies lived around ten years. They were not like the mythical lu fish that died in winter and returned in summer, so naturally they existed in autumn. Yet the beastkeeper following beside them understood what he meant and explained, “Magpies are birds that love their homes. They do not migrate in winter cold or summer heat.”
Elio’s Notes: The lu fish, 鯥, is a strange creature from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. The text describes it as becoming dormant “as if dead” in winter and reviving in summer.
Fu Xi Yan felt a little envious.
What homebody actually enjoyed running all over the place?
The beastkeeper looked at him, then at Pei Yuan Jin. After hesitating, he stepped forward. “Young Master, Young Madam, please forgive me. The Red Peng egg the two of you brought back still has not hatched.”
If he had not mentioned it, Fu Xi Yan would nearly have forgotten the matter.
The beastkeeper looked miserable. “I have tried every method. I even had an immortal crane incubate it, but there has never been any movement.” As an old beastkeeper of Immortal Treasury Palace, he had handled countless birds and animals. This was the first time he had encountered an egg as troublesome as a Red Peng’s.
Fu Xi Yan comforted him. “If it were that easy to hatch, what we saw that day would have been a Red Peng, not a Red Peng egg. Why don’t we go take a look together?”
Come to think of it, he had not seen the white tiger in ages either.
For yesterday’s wedding procession, Pei Yuan Jin had originally wanted to bring the white tiger. But there had been far too many spectators. The tiger was still an animal, and if it became frightened and caused trouble, that would ruin the occasion. Pei Yuan Jin had therefore abandoned that impressive option.
On the wedding day, to avoid frightening the guests, the white tiger had been kept confined. Its roommate was the civet cat Pei Yuan Jin had once impulsively purchased. At the moment, one large and one small, both lay on a rock lazily swishing their tails and basking in the sun. When the beastkeeper approached, the tiger turned its head lazily, twitched its nose, then abruptly leapt up and shot toward the approaching footsteps.
Fu Xi Yan looked up and saw an enormous tiger charging toward him, dirt and straw still clinging to its belly, while he himself was wearing clothes freshly changed that morning.
Without the slightest hesitation, he shifted one step sideways and was already hiding behind Pei Yuan Jin.
The white tiger pounced on empty air and landed on all four paws, then roared at Pei Yuan Jin as though demanding an explanation.
Pei Yuan Jin raised one brow.
The white tiger’s imposing air immediately weakened. The civet cat following behind it, however, continued approaching with the iron-blooded swagger of someone declaring, I’m six foot three today and nobody can tell me otherwise.
Fu Xi Yan poked his head out from behind Pei Yuan Jin.
The white tiger looked at him, twitched its nose, then cautiously edged closer. This time Fu Xi Yan finally did not hide. He reached out to rub its head, then its ears. Afterward, he sniffed his hand and told the beastkeeper, “It really does stink.”
The beastkeeper looked embarrassed. “It does not like other people touching it. In the past, only the Young Master could.”
Fu Xi Yan scratched beneath the tiger’s chin. “How about I give you a bath? We’ll splurge and use soap. From this day forward, you can cast off your infamous title as Stinky Tiger and become Fragrant Tiger.”
Pei Yuan Jin watched coldly as he coaxed it.
The white tiger was incapable of thinking that far. Although the person in front of it had lost weight and looked almost transformed, his scent was still pleasant, so it accepted his affection.
Before they could bathe the white tiger, however, the beastkeeper first took them to see the Red Peng egg.
The egg looked exactly the same as when they first saw it, without the slightest change.
Fu Xi Yan held it in his hands, bent one finger and knocked on it the way someone might test whether a watermelon was ripe, listened with his ear close, tossed it up and down, then suddenly said, “Could it need nourishment from qi and blood?” Without waiting for Pei Yuan Jin to offer an opinion, he lightly drew a fingernail across his fingertip. A drop of blood welled out and landed on the shell.
By the time Pei Yuan Jin seized his hand, the tiny wound had already healed.
“Look!” Fu Xi Yan shouted excitedly at the egg.
The drop of blood on the shell had already been reduced to a faint mark. A moment later, even that trace disappeared, as though the blood had never existed.
Pei Yuan Jin’s expression turned cold.
In his understanding, anything connected to a taste for blood was difficult to separate from wicked and heterodox practices. The immortal cranes, white tiger, green donkey, turtle, and other beasts raised by Immortal Treasury Palace all possessed the respectable image of mounts belonging to immortals.
Fu Xi Yan saw killing intent flash in Pei Yuan Jin’s eyes and feared he might smash the egg on the spot. He hurriedly snatched it from the beastkeeper and stroked it gently. “Aiya, the beloved pets of protagonists in novels always hatch from eggs like this.”
The white tiger jealously bumped Fu Xi Yan’s waist with its head.
Fu Xi Yan immediately added, “Mm. Some of them also deliver themselves to your door.”
Pei Yuan Jin took the egg from his hands and, under the protective force of Fu Xi Yan’s gaze, tossed it back to the beastkeeper.
Before leaving, Fu Xi Yan told the white tiger, “Son, wait for Dad to fetch soap and give you a bath.”
The white tiger roared. Whether it was agreeing or refusing, no one knew. In any case, it turned its rump toward everyone and strutted away as though it loved nobody.
The beastkeeper watched them leave, stroked the egg in his hands, and started walking back. Suddenly a chill ran down his spine. Fu Xi Yan came streaking back like a gust of wind, took the egg from his hands, shoved it under his clothes against his stomach, then dashed away just as quickly.
Pei Yuan Jin waited on the road. When Fu Xi Yan returned with a perfectly round belly, his face immediately darkened.
Fu Xi Yan rushed up, thrust his belly forward, and declared, “Yours.”
Pei Yuan Jin: “…”
“If you refuse to acknowledge it, I’ll leave for parts unknown, hide my name, find some impoverished backwater, and raise it alone through every hardship.” Fu Xi Yan sorrowfully stroked his “belly.” “My child, your father refuses to acknowledge you. The two of us truly have miserable lives. But it’s all right. Even if your dad has to pick garbage off the streets, I’ll still raise you into… a great big bird. Then your other father can watch you bring glory to the ancestors and regret everything.”
Pei Yuan Jin thought, If my family needs a bird to bring glory to the ancestors, that really would be something worth regretting.
But regardless, through Fu Xi Yan’s shameless persistence and relentless pestering, the bird son that was still only an egg was finally allowed to remain beside its “two fathers.”
Fu Xi Yan returned to his room, found the soap, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared for a happy parent-child scrubbing session with his tiger son. At that moment, Madam Fu sent someone to invite them to eat together and spend time as a family.
Madam Fu was not his biological mother, yet she had brought all her children on this long journey for him. Fu Xi Yan was deeply grateful and naturally would not refuse. As for the tiger son… the language barrier between humans and tigers was very solid. Since the tiger could not understand his words anyway, naturally Fu Xi Yan could not technically be accused of breaking a promise.
…
Strangely enough, the white tiger’s roars from the rear mountain were particularly loud that noon.
Yesterday the palace had been bustling with crowds and packed with guests. The Fu family had been busy with the ceremony and social obligations and had not properly toured this famous holy ground of the righteous path.
Under the midday sun, Immortal Treasury Palace’s peculiar structure, half embedded in the mountain and half open to the air, was revealed in full. The massive complex fused with the mountain itself possessed a strange beauty, both majestic and intricate.
Madam Fu’s courtyard lay close to the chrysanthemum garden on the eastern side. With considerable elegance, she had moved tables and chairs into the garden so they could admire the flowers while eating. When Fu Xi Yan took his seat, his mind blurred for a moment and he almost thought he was attending a picnic from his previous life.
The ingredients were supplied by Immortal Treasury Palace, but the cooks had been brought all the way from Jiangcheng by Madam Fu. They were skilled in both Qin and Hubei cuisine.
Fu Xi Yan had traveled constantly over the past several days and tasted plenty of good food, but had rarely been able to sit down and enjoy a proper meal. There were many kinds of meals. This one was clearly among the most complete: family beside him and food he liked in his mouth.
Perhaps because they were far from home, Madam Fu seemed warmer and more approachable than usual. They talked about housing prices in Luoyang, the new residence in Jiangcheng, the soap business, and seemingly endless other topics.
Madam Fu said, “Using the Four-Way Merchant Alliance’s trade routes, the soap has sold extremely well. Some imitations have appeared on the market, but under the alliance’s suppression, none have amounted to much.”
Fu Xi Yan looked surprised. “None of the imitations are high quality? I thought someone would try to take a share.”
Madam Fu said, “With your and Yuan Jin’s reputations, probably no one is that eager to court disaster.” This was true. Money was wonderful, but compared with one’s life, life still mattered more.
Over the past year, Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin’s actions had sent two messages to the outside world.
First, they were very powerful. Second, they feared neither Heaven nor Earth.
Either quality alone made someone difficult to provoke. Possessing both meant that provoking them was essentially asking to die.
Fu Xi Yan smiled faintly.
Of course, that message could only frighten ordinary people. The world never lacked people who did not fear death, people actively seeking death, or people who wanted to win from within danger. Was Fu Xi Yan’s own Dao not about seeking a path to survival from desperate circumstances?
Fu Xi Yan said, “Could Mother help me manage my future share of the profits?”
Madam Fu paused. “Mm? What do you plan to do?”
“I want to do some charitable work with Mother.”
The dividends Madam Fu had already given him, combined with his wedding dowry, were enough for Fu Xi Yan to squander money for an entire lifetime. Once money exceeded the amount one could realistically spend, everything beyond that became little more than psychological satisfaction.
Fu Xi Yan now had other things to pursue spiritually. Once he no longer had to worry about spending, his desire for money had diminished sharply.
Madam Fu had been famous in Haojing for generosity and charity, and hers was the practical kind that actually accomplished things. Entrusting the money to her naturally gave him peace of mind.
Madam Fu smiled with satisfaction. “It is rare for you to have such thoughts. I was just planning to renovate the orphan relief institutions around Jiangcheng, and I happen to be short of funds.”
Hearing this, Pei Yuan Jin said, “Count me in.”
Concubine Qian joined the fun. “You two husbands still distinguish between each other? Shouldn’t all the money be handed to our Fourth to manage?”
Fu Xi Yan looked at Pei Yuan Jin and remembered that a long time ago Pei Yuan Jin had promised to hand over control of the household finances, but…
Pei Yuan Jin seemed to realize the same issue. “We’ll go back in a little while.”
The meal was nearly over.
Madam Fu signaled the steward to hand over a calling card. “The Chen family of the Four-Way Merchant Alliance sent someone. He wants to congratulate you in person and delivered a card this morning.” Because of the soap business, she had dealt with people from the alliance before, so the card had been delivered to her.
Along with the card, Fu Xi Yan received the list of wedding gifts from the Chen family. Since he was about to meet them, naturally he could not remain ignorant of what they had sent.
Such meticulous preparation made Fu Xi Yan marvel once again at his father’s good fortune.
The person Chen De Yuan sent was his steward, the same man who had once delivered goat milk to Fu Xi Yan. He was therefore a familiar face, and there was no need to verify his identity again.
Seeing Fu Xi Yan again, the steward was filled with emotion too.
Who could have imagined that the once unremarkable concubine-born son of an earl’s household, a young man who seemed completely sheltered beneath the protection of Immortal Treasury Palace’s Young Master, would transform into the Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, now holding the reins of the righteous path?
He bowed with utmost respect and offered them sincere congratulations.
Fu Xi Yan thanked him with a smile, then said, “When your family head sent you on this journey, he probably did not expect you to arrive in time for a wedding, did he?” He asked because although the gifts on the list could not be called shabby, they were far too ordinary for the head of the Chen family, one of the great families of the Four-Way Merchant Alliance.
The steward paused, then gave an awkward laugh. “Mirror Master has keen eyes. To tell the truth, I only heard after reaching Jiangcheng that the two of you had married and were heading north. I prepared the wedding gifts in haste. Afterward, the family head will certainly prepare another generous gift.”
He had arrived in Jiangcheng one step behind Pei Yuan Jin and the others. After that, he had needed to travel while preparing gifts and had still managed to catch the wedding. One could imagine how exhausting the journey had been.
Fu Xi Yan said, “A gift is about the thought behind it. I am very satisfied with this one. You were considerate.”
The steward relaxed slightly. “Mirror Master sees everything clearly. In truth, I came this time to deliver a letter.”
He carefully took a letter from inside his clothes and respectfully offered it with both hands.
Fu Xi Yan looked at the letter and sighed softly.
Strictly speaking, apart from their commercial cooperation over soap, he had no other connection with the Chen family. The soap business alone was not important enough for Chen De Yuan to dispatch his most trusted steward.
The steward had come, first, because Chen De Yuan trusted him; second, because he had met Fu Xi Yan before and could therefore earn Fu Xi Yan’s trust; and third, most importantly, because this letter was incredibly important and absolutely could not fall into someone else’s hands.
Fu Xi Yan believed that if anything went wrong on the road, the steward would sooner lose his own life and destroy the letter than allow its contents to leak.
Although Fu Xi Yan had not yet opened it, he could already guess part of what it contained.
The person who had helped him leave Southern Yu was Prince Yue, Qin Zhao, but the vessel he used had belonged to the Chen family. The connection was obvious. Now the Chen family had traveled thousands of li and quietly entered Northern Zhou. What they wanted was equally predictable.
He glanced at Pei Yuan Jin. “A debt from the sixth month comes due fast.” The year had not even ended.
The steward immediately looked embarrassed.
Fu Xi Yan held the letter but did not hurry to open it. “What is the situation in Southern Yu right now?”
At this point, the steward stopped concealing anything and directly revealed his allegiance to Prince Yue. “Before I left Southern Yu, Prince Yue had already suffered three assassination attempts. Two body doubles died. During the last attack, the prince was shot in the abdomen. Fortunately, treatment came in time and his life is not presently in danger.”
Fu Xi Yan was astonished. He had not expected Southern Yu’s internal conflict to reach this point only to end up using such crude methods.
But after thinking more carefully, he had to admit that although the method looked simple, it was highly efficient for the young emperor, who had the support of the Spirit Sect and many experts.
“Once a month?”
The steward shook his head with a bitter smile. “Three times in three days.”
This time Fu Xi Yan was genuinely shocked.
No matter how little Prince Yue valued jianghu forces, he could not possibly be surrounded by no experts at all. Killing someone guarded that heavily ought to require careful thought and meticulous planning. Preparing one attempt over several months would already be rushed, never mind one attempt every day. Were they simply using repetition to gamble on eventually hitting the target?
Thinking about the two dead body doubles and Prince Yue himself being seriously injured, Fu Xi Yan put away his contempt. Or perhaps the first two attacks had only been used to conceal the final lethal strike?
Fu Xi Yan asked, “Is the young emperor dying?”
Otherwise, why would Qin Xiao Xun suddenly become this aggressive?
“Or… is Wu Xuan Yin dying?”
Fu Xi Yan thought, Who knew this month would be so auspicious? I just completed one of life’s great events with my wedding night, and now I get news that my enemy may be gravely ill. Double happiness really has arrived at the door.
The steward looked at him with a complicated expression. “It has to do with you.”
“Me?” Fu Xi Yan looked at Pei Yuan Jin.
Pei Yuan Jin seemed to have guessed part of the answer. Unhurriedly, he handed Fu Xi Yan tea to moisten his throat.
The steward said, “First, because you succeeded as Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror.”
Fu Xi Yan almost blurted, I got promoted and rich. What does that have to do with Southern Yu? Then he thought again and realized it actually was connected.
Song Qi Yun’s identity as the head of the Ghostshadow Organization might have seemed mysterious to outsiders, but both Song Qi Yun and the organization’s leader had appeared in Southern Yu and shown themselves in the new city. The Spirit Sect almost certainly knew, or at least suspected, the truth.
Song Qi Yun was dead, while the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror had fallen into Fu Xi Yan’s hands. To the Spirit Sect, and by extension the young emperor behind it, that was terrible news: one side had weakened while the other had grown stronger.
Especially since before Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin left Southern Yu, they had visited the imperial palace. They had only shouted a couple of times, but no one would believe that after those two shouts the entire matter was finished.
Fu Xi Yan asked, “If there’s a first reason, is there a second?”
The steward said, “Because you went to the imperial palace and demanded answers from the emperor. The palace walls may be high, but they were not higher than your voice. The story eventually began spreading.”
Fu Xi Yan smiled. “Oh? It only began spreading on its own?”
The steward gave an apologetic smile. “Naturally, we also pushed it along a little.”
The deaths of a hundred thousand innocent people in the new city had still caused small ripples among the population. Those ripples had not yet become towering waves capable of sweeping across the Southern Yu dynasty, but a single spark could start a prairie fire. Sometimes a dynasty’s collapse began in details no one had considered important. Even the Chongzhen Emperor could hardly have imagined that one spark contributing to the Ming dynasty’s downfall would come from a round of layoffs.
Elio’s Notes: This is a joking reference to late-Ming cuts to the imperial courier system. Li Zicheng, later a major rebel leader whose forces captured Beijing in 1644, is traditionally said to have lost his courier post during those cuts. The novel deliberately compresses a much larger historical collapse into a “layoff” punch line.
Popular rebel groups had therefore already appeared. Under suppression from the Spirit Sect, none had truly caught fire, but Qin Xiao Xun’s reputation had collapsed. Some scholars were already comparing him with infamous tyrants from history.
Even so, Fu Xi Yan still did not think this was a good time to begin a war. War was always the final method of solving a problem because it involved too many people, most of whom would be innocent bystanders.
If someone conducted a public-opinion survey, most ordinary people would not willingly be dragged into war. A hundred thousand deaths were tragic, but they were not among those hundred thousand. Naturally, they would not want another hundred thousand people to pay the price for the first.
Fu Xi Yan thought that, by comparison, he would rather become an assassin. Even if it was dishonorable, even if the victory lacked fairness, none of that mattered. He could avenge those hundred thousand people by killing Qin Xiao Xun, killing Wu Xuan Yin, killing Ban Qing Yu, and killing every Spirit Sect member who had participated.
That was the promise he alone had made to those hundred thousand wronged souls. He should not drag even more people into it.
Fu Xi Yan finally opened the letter.
There was no writing on the paper. The steward produced a powder, scattered it over the page, then sprinkled on a little water. Characters slowly appeared. The originally elegant handwriting had spread with the moisture and looked somewhat rough.
The letter was written by Qin Zhao. He began by reminiscing, then congratulated Fu Xi Yan on succeeding as Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, and only at the end wrote: The cold winter approaches. The hearth is lit. A pot of warm wine awaits the New Year.
He said nothing about Southern Yu’s current situation, nothing about his own circumstances, and did not ask whether Fu Xi Yan would come. He only conveyed that around New Year, he intended to make a major move.
Fu Xi Yan thought, Emotional intelligence is one thing Qin Zhao genuinely possesses.
So the present question was not whether Qin Zhao would start a war. War was certain to happen. The question was whether Fu Xi Yan would participate.
Fu Xi Yan sighed deeply.
He disliked war because in his previous life he had been an ordinary person born in a peaceful era. Ordinary people tended to view war from the perspective of their own safety. Now that he was here, his first thought was still that when war began, common people would suffer.
But that was only his own perspective.
In many stories, a saint-like person would appear and, for the sake of peace beneath Heaven and to prevent suffering among the people, persuade one side of a conflict to put down the butcher’s knife and surrender half the country without spilling blood.
Fu Xi Yan was not a saint and could not become one. If he truly possessed the ability to pacify an entire realm with his mouth, he would use it on Qin Xiao Xun. A person could not pressure whichever side was closer to them and easier to persuade simply because that side was more reasonable. That would be bullying the soft while fearing the hard. So Fu Xi Yan would not persuade Qin Zhao to stop.
If Qin Zhao did not stop, then a major war would begin.
Fu Xi Yan sighed and told the steward, “I understand.”
The steward had not received an answer, but with a matter this large he had never expected Fu Xi Yan to slap his head and decide immediately. He respectfully withdrew and explained that he would wait for news at an inn below the mountain.
After he left, Fu Xi Yan placed the letter on the table and said miserably, “I originally wanted to wait until I reached Golden Core, then hit the Spirit Sect with a dimensionality reduction strike.”
Pei Yuan Jin tried to infer what “dimensionality reduction strike” meant.
“But if Southern Yu has already settled down by then, killing them afterward might trigger an entirely new round of chaos.” So the best option would be to use the upheaval that was already certain to occur and resolve everything at once.
The problem was that, for Fu Xi Yan, the timing had not yet arrived.
Pei Yuan Jin said, “It may not be impossible to kill them now.”
Fu Xi Yan turned toward him.
Pei Yuan Jin looked perfectly calm. After the battle in Luoshi, both his martial cultivation and his state of mind had advanced another step. He could no longer be compared with the person who had once fled for his life through Southern Yu.
Moreover, learning that Martial God was not actually a full realm above Martial King had done more than correct the direction of his martial path. It had also erased Pei Yuan Jin’s instinctive reverence toward Martial Gods.
In Fu Xi Yan’s words, You’re all just Foundation Establishment rookies pecking at each other, and you’ve even suffered cultivation deviation. Where exactly does your sense of superiority come from?
Fu Xi Yan thought about how he always seemed one breath short of advancing to Martial King because he had not found the One That Escapes. Yet his “One” was clearly standing right here.
His thoughts ran wild. One moment he wanted to go, the next he did not. A major reason not to go was, “Second Sister is getting married in the third month.” If he went to Southern Yu, there was a very good chance he would miss the wedding.
“I promised I’d attend,” he said, scratching his hair. “I can’t make my second sister get married twice just so I can keep my promise.” The moment the words left his mouth, he started spitting three times to ward them off.
Pei Yuan Jin, who had quietly watched the entire performance: “…”