After Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin headed south, Jing Luo used the Thunder Division affair as an opportunity to carry out a sweeping purge of Immortal Treasury Palace. Once the purge was over, the numbers in the Wind, Rain, Thunder, and Lightning Divisions dropped sharply, and the entire structure of the palace was set to change at its roots.
Before Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin came down the mountain, Jing Luo had already held a long discussion with them about these matters. Pooling their ideas, the three decided that instead of endlessly recruiting people to fill every vacancy, they would simplify the whole system.
The most important decision was to abolish the four Wind, Rain, Thunder, and Lightning Divisions altogether.
All business previously handled by the Rain Division would be handed over to people who knew nothing of martial arts but were skilled in commerce, who would manage it as a full-time profession. Former Rain Division members would no longer remain stationed in one place. Instead, they would become an audit team traveling from region to region to inspect accounts. The Wind, Lightning, and Thunder Divisions would be merged and collectively called the regional branches. Some elite members would be transferred to headquarters to form a dedicated inspection team. Unlike the old Lightning Division, which monitored fixed areas, this team would travel from place to place like the auditors.
Personnel from the old Lightning Division headquarters would establish a Court to try unlawful cases reported by the audit and inspection teams. The name had been inspired by Fu Xi Yan.
Correspondingly, the chief managers would all have to be reassigned as well.
Yu Su Huan knew no martial arts and had originally been the Rain Division Chief Manager, so she naturally became head of the headquarters audit team. This time, everyone under her would be an ordinary person and newly recruited at that, so when she intervened in their work she would no longer face the same layers of hesitation and constraint as before.
Jing Luo would oversee the Court.
Shou Nan Shan would be relieved of his position as Wind Division Chief Manager and, because he had reached the Martial King Stage, promoted to elder.
Zhao Tong Qu would become head of the inspection team. At first glance, that sounded perfectly appropriate for his status. The only problem was that beneath him would be three deputy heads: Tan Bu Ju, Gao Ze, and Shen Bo You, who between them controlled every member of the inspection team. If Zhao Tong Qu wanted to issue an order or accomplish anything at all, he would have to go through those three. And every one of those three happened to be someone who did not get along with him. In practice, the arrangement stripped him of power.
Supposedly, on the day the reforms were announced, Zhao Tong Qu gave several cold laughs and then drank himself into a stupor, eventually passing out outside Ying Zhu Cui’s courtyard.
When Jing Luo heard about it, he had already prepared himself for Ying Zhu Cui to come looking for trouble. Instead, she merely had Zhao Tong Qu sent back to his residence, then went down the mountain to Houjia Alley.
No one knew what she discussed with Yu Cao and Tan Chang Gong, but afterward she simply settled down and began living long-term in the residence there.
From that point on, Zhao Tong Qu became a completely isolated man on Mount Fujun.
Even Yu Su Huan, who had seen more than her share of palace intrigue, could not help marveling at Jing Luo’s art of killing with a soft knife.
While handling all of this, Jing Luo did not forget to keep an eye on Southern Yu. But Immortal Treasury Palace was located in northern Northern Zhou, separated from Southern Yu by vast distances, so the news that reached him was seriously delayed.
By the time he learned that the Spirit Sect had convened a martial arts assembly to denounce Fu Xi Yan, the newlywed road-trippers were already driving their donkey cart south, watching the walls of Lin’an slowly rise from the horizon.
The officials following them this time were different from the yamen runners in the county town who had stood a zhang away while trembling slightly. Every one of these men was skilled at tracking. They never showed themselves directly, yet their presence could be felt everywhere.
Fu Xi Yan had assumed that once they reached Lin’an, someone would at least come out to stop them. This was the city beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet, the heart of the imperial capital. Were they really not afraid that he might suddenly get inspired, join Pei Yuan Jin for another trip to the palace, and pay a visit to the young emperor’s mother?
Of course they were afraid. They simply understood very clearly that if Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin truly intended to enter the palace, the few men assigned here would never be able to stop them. So Six Doors had only one mission this time: keep watch. Nothing more than keep watch.
Chai Mi, who had returned to Lin’an ahead of them, stood on the battlements and stared through an observation gap at the donkey cart, still no larger than an ant, inching slowly toward the city.
Only when the cart grew to about the size of a sparrow did he say, “Release the hawk.”
The majesty of a hawk striking across the open sky lay in the word strike, in the heroic spirit of competing with Heaven itself. Ever since Fu Xi Yan acquired a bird daughter at home, he had inevitably begun worrying about her education.
Fu Gui Gui now had a sparse layer of feathers over her body and no longer looked like a plucked, bald chicken. The tuft of fiery red on top of her head in particular looked full of youthful vigor. Unfortunately, she hated moving. Never mind that she could not fly. She had become so accustomed to being carried that the instant her claws touched the ground, she would cry “aiya, aiya,” and even now she still could not walk steadily without bracing herself on the ground with her tail as a third support point.
Fu Xi Yan’s hopes for her had fallen all the way from becoming an invincible Red Peng war bird to one modest goal: please do not lose to a healthy free-range chicken. At least every free-range chicken he had ever seen could flap its wings and get itself a little way off the ground.
To encourage her to defeat her terminal laziness, whenever Fu Xi Yan spotted a bird in flight he would point it out to Fu Gui Gui, hoping to awaken some envy and aspiration in her and finally move “learn to fly” higher on the schedule.
This time, he noticed the hawk not long after it left the city wall. He lifted Fu Gui Gui’s satisfyingly heavy body into the air and made her look at another family’s bird showing off its majestic bearing.
Fu Gui Gui stared stupidly as the hawk drew closer and grew larger. Her loose body slowly tensed. When the hawk was about a zhang away from them, her claws suddenly kicked off. The wings that had never once done anything useful spread with all their strength, and the tail hidden beneath her little skirt shot high into the air. Her plump body instantly rose above Fu Xi Yan’s head.
Fu Xi Yan did not even have time to feel excited before she completed a perfect parabola and landed on the ground with a splat. If Pei Yuan Jin had not reacted quickly and hauled back on the reins, the cart wheel would nearly have rolled straight over her.
“Ai… ya! Aiya!”
With one hand, Fu Xi Yan picked up his embarrassingly useless daughter. With the other, he caught an invitation that had dropped from the hawk’s claws. The invitation itself was perfectly ordinary, probably the cheapest, most common mass-market kind sold by any stationery shop. Whoever had written it was no great calligrapher either. The handwriting could only barely be called presentable. None of that mattered. What mattered was the content: the martial arts assembly would soon be held, and Young Master of Immortal Treasury Palace and the Master of the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror were sincerely invited to attend. The location was a drill ground in Lin’an.
Choosing a military drill ground as the meeting place made it obvious that the young emperor had stopped bothering to hide his hand behind the disturbance.
Fu Xi Yan looked at the date on the invitation and gave a cold little laugh. “How considerate. They’re not even rushing us.” They had actually been given three full days to rest. Was no one afraid Pei Yuan Jin might deal with Wu Xuan Yin before the martial arts assembly even began?
Pei Yuan Jin said, “She can refuse to appear.”
Fu Xi Yan suddenly thought of something terrifying. “What if Wu Xuan Yin says she’s pregnant? Ten months of pregnancy plus a month of confinement, and we’d have to wait a whole year! What if she gets pregnant again right after confinement… Then wouldn’t we have to wait for generations and generations without end?”
Pei Yuan Jin said, “Martial Gods do not become pregnant easily.”
The higher the martial arts cultivation, the harder pregnancy became. His own mother had taken a great many spiritual medicines in order to give birth to him, but her body had still been severely damaged and never truly recovered. She had died young.
Fu Xi Yan relaxed a little and tucked the invitation into his robe. “I’m curious what will happen during these three days.”
Pei Yuan Jin flicked the reins and urged the donkey onward.
Lin’an was already close enough to see clearly.
* * *
Lin’an had no snow, but a hurried downpour suddenly swept through the city. It came pouring down without warning, and just as pedestrians fled in panic beneath the eaves, the rain stopped again almost teasingly and the sky cleared.
Zhu Shou Xin, who had spent half the day being punished by standing outside Xuande Hall, watched the sudden rain and thought regretfully that it would be wonderful if the emperor’s expression could clear up as quickly as the sky had.
Unfortunately, the dark cloud created by Pei Yuan Jin and Fu Xi Yan breaking into the imperial palace twice was not something easily dispersed. Even now, whenever Qin Xiao Xun thought of Zheng Yu’s death, a chill still crawled through him.
That chill had only begun to ease recently, and then Ban Qing Yu died. The killers were, once again, those two bastards.
Qin Xiao Xun had received imperial instruction since childhood, yet whenever he thought of Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin, even he could not stop himself from swearing. Immortal Treasury Palace was in Northern Zhou, but for some inexplicable reason these two calamities insisted on wandering into Southern Yu whenever they had business or whenever they had nothing better to do. Did they truly think Southern Yu had no one left?
A fierce light flashed in his eyes. At last he ordered Xiao Jin Zi to call in Zhu Shou Xin, who had been standing outside for half the day.
Ever since someone threw a challenge letter right to his doorstep without letting him catch even a glimpse of their shadow, Zhu Shou Xin’s life had been miserable. If Deputy Commander A Dong had not been raised by wild beasts as a child and possessed even less sense than Zhu Shou Xin did, Zhu Shou Xin might already have been replaced.
Well aware of this, Zhu Shou Xin had kept his tail tightly tucked between his legs lately. He worked so diligently that he had reached the level of passing his own front door without going inside.
Elio’s Notes: “Passing one’s own door without entering” (过家门而不入) alludes to Yu the Great, who was traditionally said to have passed his home repeatedly without stopping while devoting himself to flood control. Here it exaggerates just how relentlessly Zhu Shou Xin has been working.
Unfortunately, Qin Xiao Xun did not care about those displays. He only wanted results.
“Where are they?”
When an emperor spoke, he did not necessarily bother taking the listener’s convenience into account. He was not obliged to explain the background and consequences of everything. A question dropped out of nowhere like this required Zhu Shou Xin to understand it on his own.
Zhu Shou Xin said, “Chai Mi just reported that they’ve reached the city gates and are preparing to line up to enter. The invitation to the martial arts assembly has also been delivered into their hands.”
Qin Xiao Xun leaned slightly forward. “How did they react?”
Chai Mi’s actual report had been “no reaction” and “accepted calmly,” but Zhu Shou Xin knew perfectly well Qin Xiao Xun would hate that answer. After a brief hesitation, he said, “They seemed to freeze for a moment.”
“Only froze for a moment?”
Even embellishment had to respect reality. Zhu Shou Xin knew that saying the two had “gone pale with shock” or “stared dumbfounded” would please the emperor more, but he did not dare treat Qin Xiao Xun like an idiot.
Qin Xiao Xun lowered his lashes.
His lashes were long. Whenever he looked downward like this, it gave him the green, unseasoned air of a young boy. But for Qin Xiao Xun himself, the gesture had only one purpose: to keep others from seeing the threads of unease in his eyes.
“Everything arranged?”
Zhu Shou Xin said, “Everything is ready. The Left and Right Divine Martial Armies are already concealed throughout the city. They can surround the drill ground and turn it into an isolated island at any moment.”
Qin Xiao Xun asked, “And the jianghu side?”
Zhu Shou Xin said, “Elder Wei is visiting the experts from every sect as they enter the city one by one, but some are still hesitating and watching the situation.”
Qin Xiao Xun sneered. “Have these people forgotten whose land they’re standing on?”
Zhu Shou Xin did not dare make a sound.
Ordinary people remained foggy and confused about what had happened in the new city, but the jianghu sects understood it clearly. Rebel forces were rising throughout Southern Yu, and many among them possessed martial arts. How could there be no jianghu sects acting behind them? It was only because the Southern Yu court had the Spirit Sect publicly safeguarding it that everyone remained angry yet silent.
Therefore, most sects attending this martial arts assembly had come only because appearances demanded it. They intended to go through the motions and nothing more.
The Heaven-and-Earth Mirror, Immortal Treasury Palace, the Spirit Sect… these were all top-tier factions of the jianghu. Ordinary sects who tried to involve themselves in a struggle between them would be reduced to ashes. Who would foolishly rush straight into it?
Qin Xiao Xun understood this too. Imperial pride merely made him ashamed to admit it. He sat there for a long while, slowly smoothing down his anger before finally giving himself a way out. “Fine. These people are insignificant. We can settle accounts later. Make certain the important people do not make mistakes.”
As he spoke, his gaze drifted over, carrying a cold edge that somehow felt even sharper than the winter wind outside.
Zhu Shou Xin kept his head lowered. “I respectfully obey Your Majesty’s order.”
Qin Xiao Xun stared at the top of his head and still felt uneasy. Perhaps the unease came from instinct. Perhaps it came from the shadow left by previous encounters. After thinking for a moment, he asked, “You still haven’t found that peddler from Chakeng?”
Zhu Shou Xin said, “We found him. He has been confirmed as a spy from Rongcheng. But according to his confession, before entering Chakeng he did not know about the martial arts assembly, so he never leaked anything about it to Pei Yuan Jin or Fu Xi Yan.”
“And the woman in red?”
Zhu Shou Xin said, “She raced past too quickly. The yamen runners never saw her face clearly. Six Doors still hasn’t identified her.”
Qin Xiao Xun frowned. “Tell Chai Mi to keep investigating.”
“Yes.”
“Any movement from Immortal Treasury Palace or the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror?”
Zhu Shou Xin said, “None.”
Hearing that the experts of Immortal Treasury Palace and the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror had not moved, Qin Xiao Xun relaxed slightly.
No matter how one looked at it, this assembly would ultimately settle matters through martial strength. Wu Xuan Yin and Ban Qing Yu had both said that after the battle at the new city, Pei Xiong Ji and the others had suffered serious depletion and would probably need a period of recovery before they could fight again. Even so, Immortal Treasury Palace possessed more top-level fighters than any faction in the world, and Qin Xiao Xun still feared it.
Qin Xiao Xun sneered. “How difficult for Pei Yuan Jin and Fu Xi Yan. They actually didn’t turn around and run.”
The invitation had not explicitly stated that Fu Xi Yan was the target, but the choice of the Lin’an drill ground already declared a position. If those two were clever, they ought to recognize the difficulty and retreat, turn around, and flee.
Then again, if Pei Yuan Jin and Fu Xi Yan truly left, that would not be a bad outcome for him. The entire purpose of this martial arts assembly was to neutralize Pei Yuan Jin’s challenge to Wu Xuan Yin.
He suppressed the faint disappointment in his heart and said calmly, “Since they insist on charging into the Hall of Yama, We have no reason to show mercy.”
* * *
Lin’an normally had enormous crowds flowing in and out every day. Once news of the martial arts assembly spread, even more people came. The city guards inspected entrants extremely strictly. Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin spent ages waiting in line, and to make matters worse, someone ahead of them brazenly cut in. The guards clearly saw it and did nothing, while the honest people behind simply swallowed the insult. The whole thing was infuriating.
Fu Xi Yan watched the man swagger into a position far ahead and immediately developed road rage. Standing up on the donkey cart, he shouted, “Uncle in the silk padded coat with your collar folded wrong! Don’t cut in line!”
The uncle turned around viciously. The instant he saw Fu Xi Yan’s face, he froze. Then he noticed Fu Xi Yan standing on an unremarkable donkey cart, dressed in perfectly ordinary cloth, and his eyes instantly turned malicious. “What? Tired of waiting? Come sit in your uncle’s arms. I’ll hold you so you don’t get tired at all, and we’ll be through in no time.”
Pei Yuan Jin’s face darkened.
Fu Xi Yan silently recited Amitabha, may all beings be delivered from suffering and forced himself to suppress his anger. “How about this. You go to the back now, and I’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”
Since Fu Xi Yan was the only one standing, the uncle could not see Pei Yuan Jin. Hearing Fu Xi Yan speak softly only made him more certain that this pretty young man was weak and easy to bully. He said arrogantly, “I like standing right here. This is how your uncle always lines up! Not happy? Come over here if you’ve got a problem. I’ll even let you stand in front of me.” As though by accident, he lifted an arm and revealed the broad saber at his waist.
Martial artists ruled the age. As long as their backgrounds were clean, they were allowed to carry weapons in and out of the city.
Fu Xi Yan smiled from sheer anger. “Since Uncle is in such a hurry, why don’t we go in together?”
The uncle had only meant to provoke him, but seeing that smile stirred filthy thoughts in his head. “Fine. Fine!” A pretty face is all that matters. Man or woman, what difference does it make?
Fu Xi Yan pressed a hand to Pei Yuan Jin’s shoulder and, with a thought, told him to drive the donkey cart straight toward the city gate. Their target was far too conspicuous, and they were obviously no longer pretending to line up, so the city guards could hardly ignore them. One stepped forward and shouted, “Who goes there?!”
The uncle who had cut in assumed they had lost their minds from anger. Gripping the hilt of his saber, he stood to one side and watched eagerly for trouble.
Fu Xi Yan pulled out a wanted notice he had casually torn down while passing through another county town. “We’re wanted criminals.”
The lively city gate seemed to freeze beneath an arctic gust. The guard who had shouted stared at him blankly. One of his colleagues behind him recovered first and instinctively drew his saber. Just as the men were about to surround them, someone shouted, “Stop!” Chai Mi, who had watched the entire scene from above, feared the matter might spiral out of control and ruin the emperor’s plan, so he immediately sent someone down to intervene.
“Young Master Pei and Master Fu are honored guests of the martial arts assembly. Let them pass at once.”
The city guards hesitated. This was the imperial capital. If they knowingly allowed wanted criminals inside and something later happened, every one of them would suffer for it.
The man who came down was a Six Doors constable. Seeing them hesitate, he said irritably, “Six Doors issued the wanted notice. If I say it was a misunderstanding, then it was a misunderstanding. What else is there to doubt?”
Only then did the guards allow them through.
Fu Xi Yan turned back and pointed at the uncle, whose face had become utterly terrified the instant he heard the words “Young Master Pei and Master Fu.” Smiling, Fu Xi Yan said, “That man is my accomplice. Sir, please let him through with us.”
…
The word accomplice had already fixed the man’s status for him.
The man spun around to run, but how could he escape? Fu Xi Yan casually pointed, sending him sprawling face-first to the ground. At a signal from the Six Doors constable, the city guards hauled him upright.
The man had originally intended to draw his saber and resist, but when he saw Fu Xi Yan standing not far away with a smiling face, his hand drooped helplessly.
Fu Xi Yan rode through the gate on the donkey cart and even remembered to wave farewell. “Uncle, how’s that? Aren’t I loyal? I said we’d go in together, and together we went.”
The line-cutter had none of his earlier swagger left. He watched the cart travel farther away in pure terror.
Fu Xi Yan sat on the donkey cart without turning around, but his ears remained focused on the movement near the walls. When he heard the Six Doors constable hurry back up the battlements, he slapped his thigh and said, “Now that’s the kind of reception a wanted criminal ought to get!”
Pei Yuan Jin’s expression was still not particularly pleasant.
Fu Xi Yan thought the punishment had been about right.
Given the level of attention the Southern Yu court was paying them, even though the man’s conflict with them had happened openly in front of countless witnesses, he would probably still be questioned in detail. That alone would waste several times more time than he had saved by cutting in line. A suitable lesson.
Fu Xi Yan had guessed correctly. Everyone who came into contact with the pair fell under Six Doors’ investigation. Even though Chai Mi had watched the whole incident from the wall, what if the argument had merely been a cover for passing information? Following the principle that it was better to arrest the wrong man than let the right one slip away, the line-cutter spent five days in jail before being released. That, however, was beyond anything Fu Xi Yan had expected.
All it proved was that he had still underestimated just how wary Qin Xiao Xun was of them.
The donkey cart moved slowly through the streets. Unlike the small county town, where everyone had treated them like an approaching disaster, in Lin’an they looked like ordinary travelers. Pedestrians filled the roads and paid them little attention.
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin wandered around for quite a while before finally catching a pickpocket. They treated him like treasure, frightening the thief so badly that he wept and swore he would turn over a new leaf.
Fu Xi Yan was deeply moved. “That’s all right. Six Doors may come looking for you in a little while, so whether you want to turn over a new leaf or not, you probably will. Before that, one question. Do you know which inns the martial artists attending the assembly are staying at?”
* * *
From the quality of the man who cut in line, Fu Xi Yan had already anticipated how uneven the quality of the attendees would be. Even so, when he heard the answer, he was still surprised.
The pickpocket gave them the names of five or six inns. Fu Xi Yan visited them one by one, starting with the closest, and discovered that Qin Xiao Xun had practically invited the entire Southern Yu martial world. Among them were numerous sects that had once abused their power in Northern Zhou, only to be driven out by Immortal Treasury Palace and forced to flee to Southern Yu, where they had rebuilt themselves. By coincidence, all of these sects had ended up staying together at Qifu Inn.
Elio’s Notes: The Chinese wording is scrambled here (这些门派小店在就一起住在), and the same odd phrase appears in more than one mirror. The point is still clear: these sects are staying together at Qifu Inn. I’ve kept that meaning without guessing at what the garbled characters were meant to be.
“So this is the Avengers Alliance.” Standing outside the entrance and looking at the brilliantly lit inn, Fu Xi Yan could not help sighing.
The innkeeper saw two refined-looking young men without weapons and assumed they were scholars who had wandered into the wrong place. He hurriedly said, “Sorry, the inn is full. You’ll have to stay somewhere else.”
Fu Xi Yan said, “If it’s full, could you ask someone to spare a room?”
His voice was neither loud nor soft, yet it was just loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the main hall.
Many of the people eating and drinking turned around, curious to see who had the nerve to make such an audacious demand. The instant they saw the bird beside the pair, their pupils contracted. After they recognized the two men as well, several tables rose to their feet, hands instinctively going to their weapons.
Fu Xi Yan behaved as though he had not noticed the hostility. Smiling broadly, he walked inside. “Fate lets people meet across a thousand li. Being able to meet all you heroes here is destiny! Which one of you has a room that’s especially spacious and comfortable? Could you spare one for us?”
Someone said, “If you want Elder Yun’s room, you’ll have to prove you have the ability.”
Fu Xi Yan asked, “And which one is Elder Yun? Perhaps we can discuss it?”
The man everyone called Elder Yun was an old man over seventy and one of the strongest martial artists staying at the inn. Relying on his age and seniority, he had forcibly taken the best room for himself. He had not even had time to lie down in it yet, and now an even bigger hooligan had arrived.
Elder Yun silently memorized the face of the person who had thrown him into the fire.
Yu Xiong Jian belonged to the Beishan Sect, the very sect whose room Elder Yun had taken.
Swallowing his resentment by force, Elder Yun piled a smile onto his face and cupped his hands toward Fu Xi Yan. “What a coincidence. This old man is advanced in years and cannot sleep on soft beds. I was just thinking of changing rooms!”