The bright moon hung overhead, dimming the stars. Across the vast lands of Mengwu, only the chilly moonlight provided any illumination. In its faint glow, the felt tents of the royal encampment looked larger and grander than those they had seen elsewhere.
A ring of iron fencing surrounded the tents, with Mengwu soldiers occasionally patrolling the perimeter while leading dogs.
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin cleared the fence and made their way toward the center of the encampment. Unlike the young emperor of Southern Yu, who moved from bedchamber to bedchamber at every opportunity, the people of Mengwu revered warriors, and the Mengwu king was the mightiest warrior among them. His tent was the largest and most conspicuous one right in the middle. If technology had permitted it, he might have recorded a voice shouting Come at me if you dare! and played it outside his door twenty-four hours a day.
The farther they ventured toward the inner rings of tents, the tighter the guards became. Those near the central tent had even been arranged in a formation. Neither Fu Xi Yan nor Pei Yuan Jin understood formations, so in the end Pei Yuan Jin simply slashed through the air with his sword and forcibly broke through.
Crimson flames burst out in the darkness, brilliant as fireworks, instantly turning the quiet night lively.
Mengwu soldiers came rushing over with their weapons, shouting at the tops of their lungs.
Fu Xi Yan waved a hand. Their weapons instantly flew free, spun one hundred and eighty degrees in midair, then shot back toward their former owners.
The soldiers jumped and scrambled in terror. A few braver souls abandoned their weapons altogether and charged straight at the pair.
Fu Xi Yan conscientiously took one step backward and let Pei Yuan Jin stand in front of him.
Pei Yuan Jin casually traced a sword flower with his wrist and swept the Crimson Dragon King outward. Crisscrossing sword qi carved a warning line into the earth, seven fen deep, that plainly meant Do not cross. The flying sand and dust blinded the soldiers, while the wind-driven grit struck their armor hard enough to hurt.
Elio’s Notes: Seven fen is only a little over two centimeters. The sword mark is shallow, but Pei Yuan Jin’s warning is anything but.
They were now only a few zhang from the Mengwu king’s tent, yet despite all the uproar, it remained dark and completely unresponsive.
Stepping onto Shattered Stars, Lingering Shadows, Fu Xi Yan moved as fluidly as a fish through water, slipped past the Mengwu soldiers’ defensive line, and appeared outside the tent.
The instant he raised the entrance flap, an overwhelming sense of danger struck!
He retreated at once. Hundreds of little pellets shot out of the darkness, as dense as a torrential downpour without a single gap. They moved so quickly that even Fu Xi Yan, whose lightness skills were nearly flawless, was caught off guard and found it difficult to escape.
With the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror protecting his body, he usually took the attitude that if an attack could not be dodged, he could simply endure it. Pellets were the sole exception. He still remembered the ambush accompanied by the sound of a bell. Those had been pellets too, and they had managed to leave marks on his body.
Thoughts racing, Fu Xi Yan formed a hand seal with his right hand. True qi poured out through his pores and surrounded his body. The pellets struck his shield of true qi, but instead of piercing it or falling to the ground, they stuck to its surface.
Fu Xi Yan was alarmed to feel his true qi draining away at a terrifying rate.
The True Astral Shield was a defensive technique he had recently found in the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror’s library. It was not the most powerful technique there, but its entry requirements were low and it was quick to learn, making it perfect for a business traveler forever rushing from place to place with no time to sit down and study martial arts properly.
Even though it was a second-best choice, the True Astral Shield had once been a signature technique for lower-level disciples of a cultivation sect. In a world where Foundation Establishment was the apparent ceiling, it should have been more than enough.
After knocking the soldiers struggling toward them even farther away, Pei Yuan Jin finally noticed Fu Xi Yan’s predicament. At a thought, a long arc of crimson sword light descended upon the pellets.
Under the Crimson Dragon King’s sword qi, the pellets actually emitted a faint light. Although it flashed only briefly, that alone proved how extraordinary they were. Then, after that flicker, the pellets dissolved into the air like bubbles.
Fu Xi Yan hurriedly dispelled the True Astral Shield. In that brief interval, he had felt as though his entire store of true essence was about to be emptied. At last, he understood how Chen Wen Ju and the others had felt when he used the Taotie Gu on them.
The Mengwu soldiers closed in again. Having witnessed the pair’s strength, they dared not approach too closely, but neither did they want to let them go. They kept their distance of three or four zhang, cursing and shouting.
Fu Xi Yan treated their curses as background noise, taking advantage of the language barrier. His eyes remained fixed on the Mengwu king’s tent. “It looks like there’s no one inside.”
Carrying the Crimson Dragon King, Pei Yuan Jin walked slowly toward the tent. As he reached for the flap, Fu Xi Yan warned him to watch out for the pellets.
The flap rose slowly. The tent was empty. On the table facing the entrance sat a compound mechanical bow. Seeing that the soldiers did not try to stop Pei Yuan Jin entering, Fu Xi Yan knew the Mengwu king genuinely was absent.
Pei Yuan Jin turned to leave once he saw there was no one there, but Fu Xi Yan called from outside, “Bring that bow out. See if it still has any pellets in it.”
He was deeply bothered by those pellets.
To this day, the only thing capable of overcoming the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror’s restorative power and leaving marks on his body had been a collection of mysterious pellets. After he picked them up and saved them, they had vanished without a trace. Although these new pellets had disappeared differently, he hoped they were the same kind. At least then he would have one fewer danger to guard against.
Pei Yuan Jin carried out the mechanical bow. Fu Xi Yan intended to study how it worked, but one look at its complicated construction convinced him not to waste time in enemy territory. He turned it over, found no pellets, and sighed.
Pei Yuan Jin asked, “Take it back?”
“The pellets are probably the important part.” The bow was ingenious, but hardly impossible to reproduce.
During their brief delay, more and more Mengwu soldiers had arrived, surrounding the pair so tightly that not a gap remained. Among them were several experts at the Vajra Stage.
Nevertheless, for the seat of Mengwu royalty, such security seemed rather weak.
Fu Xi Yan scanned the crowd several times and noticed a few people with Northern Zhou features observing them from among the soldiers. He darted forward. Before the Vajra Stage experts could react, he had seized the man who looked most unmistakably Northern Zhou and returned to his original position.
The man’s legs turned to jelly with terror. When Fu Xi Yan released him, he collapsed to the ground, clutching his head. “My lord, spare my life!”
Hearing such familiar words, Fu Xi Yan immediately gave him a friendly smile. “Don’t be afraid. Whether your life is spared… mostly depends on how cooperative you are.”
The man lifted his head to speak, but a Mengwu general began rattling off a rapid string of words in the Mengwu language. Someone promptly translated: “May we ask where our friends hail from? This is the royal encampment of Mengwu. Please leave at once!”
Fu Xi Yan did not make things difficult for the man he had caught. He simply addressed the general. “We wish to see the Mengwu king.”
After hearing the translation, the general frowned deeply. “Our king is the eagle of the grasslands. He is away inspecting his territory.”
Fu Xi Yan was not from Mengwu and had no idea whether its king routinely toured his territory. He looked at Pei Yuan Jin. Seeing that his partner had left everything to him, he asked directly about Aburslang’s whereabouts.
He was not particularly hopeful, but to his surprise the general knew. “Aburslang is accompanying the king on his inspection. His tribespeople are guests of the Ule tribe.”
Fu Xi Yan asked, “Did something happen to his tribe? Why are they staying with another tribe?”
The general answered, “The people of the grasslands are hospitable. Entertaining one another is perfectly normal.”
Fu Xi Yan had no way of knowing whether he was lying, so he asked about the route the king was taking on his inspection. What he really wanted was their current location.
The general said, “Based on their pace, by now they should have gone in the direction where the sun rises.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…” Can’t you people tell east from west without talking about sunrise and sunset?
Since the general was being so cooperative, Fu Xi Yan could hardly keep holding a man hostage. He had Pei Yuan Jin put away the Crimson Dragon King and expressed their entirely peaceful intention to pay a friendly visit without causing bloodshed.
Perhaps because the pair truly had not inflicted any casualties, the general proved quite reasonable. He voluntarily ordered the soldiers to open a passage and let them leave.
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin walked out of the royal encampment. Only after moving beyond everyone’s sight did they stop.
Fu Xi Yan asked, “Do you believe him?”
Pei Yuan Jin said, “Do you?”
“He only asked who we were once, right at the beginning. After that he never brought it up, like he wasn’t curious at all. He answered every question and gave us whatever we asked for… Is that a normal response to assassins? I suspect the only sincere thing he said was that the Mengwu king is the eagle of the grasslands.” Fu Xi Yan criticized him mercilessly.
Pei Yuan Jin nodded, his eyes showing an approving look that said great minds thought alike.
Fu Xi Yan said, “In that case, should we double back and take them by surprise?”
Pei Yuan Jin cast his vote in favor without a moment’s hesitation. Sometimes Fu Xi Yan suspected that after they married, his partner had taken all his opposing votes and simply changed them to approving ones.
Although both of them were far stronger than anyone currently left to guard the royal encampment, they had only just alerted their enemies, who ought to be on guard. Therefore, they made their return with extreme caution.
But they had still overestimated the royal encampment’s ability to learn from its mistakes. Despite having just suffered an intruder attack, its defenses were almost identical to before. In fact, the small difference was that the guards now seemed even more lax, perhaps assuming someone who had just left could not possibly return so quickly.
Fu Xi Yan could not help muttering, “This is a royal encampment, for goodness’ sake. Why are their defenses worse than Northern Zhou’s were back then? At least Northern Zhou had invited Grandmaster Song to guard it.” He paused, then spat three times. “Don’t talk about ghosts at night.”
Pei Yuan Jin: “…”
On their return, they had a clear objective: find someone who spoke the official language and question him. The earlier interpreter would do nicely, as would the frightened man whose legs had given way.
Outside the tents at night, only soldiers remained on patrol. Those two men had gone back inside the tents.
Fu Xi Yan did not have eyes that could see through walls, so he could not tell which tent they were in. But he did have keen ears. After something so dramatic, he refused to believe there was nobody gossiping about it.
With Pei Yuan Jin in tow, he carefully avoided the sentries and patrols and crossed the encampment. Just as they were reaching its northern edge, he finally heard a quiet voice speaking the official language inside a tent. “I think those two must have been sent by the Immortal Treasury Palace.”
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin looked at each other, delight plain in both pairs of eyes.
You can search everywhere and never find what you’re looking for, then stumble upon it when you least expect… Well, it had actually taken a fair amount of work.