Chapter 761: Forbidden City Journal (7)

Above Gabiya’s head floated the red number forty-seven.

Qing casually pulled her gaze back, but, hmm. For a supposedly wicked, demonic temptress, that was actually pretty low, wasn’t it?

To begin with, if Gabiya’s bad karma score had hit a perfect one hundred—full marks, the passing grade for “beast”—Qing would never have treated her this warmly.

If only she were a properly wicked bitch, Qing would have yanked her joints out one by one, hung her upside down, and shaken her until everything she knew fell out of her mouth.

(If you’ve ever seen a joint dislocated, you know how fucking horrific that torture is.)

Mm. What a waste...

Not knowing the least bit of Qing’s vicious thoughts, Gabiya only tilted her head.

Unlike her usual “fatal seductress” act, it was actually a pretty cute little motion—but only for a moment.

“...Huh? Ah! Fufu, it’d be terrible if a mosquito got in, wouldn’t it? But. Did you really think this heavenly maiden came here just to let that happen? I came to light Gara Incense for you, My Lady.”

Gabiya lifted the wooden box in her hand.

Nothing inside the Forbidden City could be called “cheap,” but this particular wooden case was especially luxurious.

“Gara Incense?”

“Gara, Gara Incense is the most expensive kind of agarwood incense there is, made from the hardened sap of agarwood trees.”

Gara Incense had to be as black and glossy as obsidian among all agarwoods, smooth and gleaming, without even a single blemish.

Because of that, its preciousness was said to be the greatest under Heaven, and people even called it a Heavenly Treasure.

In the Buddhist scriptures, “Gara” appeared as a divine thing, a “fragrant jewel-tree that grows in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.”

This incense was named Gara Incense because it resembled that fragrance.

“One little box of this costs two gold ingots, you know. They say it’s more expensive than gold itself.”

So if a box the size of a rice bowl cost two gold ingots, just how much fucking gold was she burning here?

And Gara Incense, seriously?

It sounded like the kind of name that wouldn’t have any scent at all.

Anyway.

If there were bugs around, wouldn’t you normally burn mosquito coils, not something this expensive?

But incense was originally invented to drive away insects, after all.

Qing had been living in the Central Plains for years now; people lighting incense in summer was something she’d long since accepted.

It was just that the sight of high-grade incense being lit always drew her eye, every single time.

They scooped up incense powder—ground so fine it looked like pancake flour—and poured it out over a mold shaped like a tightly packed maze.

Then they brushed it carefully, working the powder into all the spaces, and when they gently lifted the mold away, what was left inside the censer was a long maze traced entirely in incense powder.

A single stroke that filled the entire space, the longest possible line.

When they lit the tip of that line, the neatly packed powder would slowly burn, and its fragrance would spread.

Watching that, Qing found herself secretly curious just how good this stuff smelled.

At last, the gentle, natural scent of the so-called fragrance of Heaven, Gara Incense, slipped into Qing’s nose.

“Ah. This is Gara Incense? I knew it.”

“Oh, you’ve smelled it before, My Lady?”

“This is the smell I always get when I go visit a friend’s place.”

“Pardon? That can’t be.”

It was the fragrance she always smelled whenever she dropped by Seol Trading Company.

No matter how well Seol Trading was doing, there was no way they were constantly burning some insanely expensive incense that cost two whole gold ingots for something about the size of a rice bowl.

Of course, Seol Trading could afford it.

And even if they couldn’t, they had more than enough will to wring themselves dry to somehow burn the best incense under Heaven for the most precious person under Heaven.

Qing just didn’t know that.

So the only thought that came to mind was—

Hmm. Are they just Gara-scamming me here?

Talking big so they can brag about how expensive it is, like, look how precious the incense I’m burning for you is.

But Qing’s nose was no ordinary nose.

Soon enough, she picked up the tiny difference.

“But... sniff sniff ...it’s a little different? Weirdly, it smells just a bit richer? Slightly, um, what is this? Kinda sweet...?”

Qing’s sense of smell surpassed that of ordinary humans.

If she had to quantify it, it would be about three to four times better than a normal person’s.

For reference, a dog’s sense of smell was said to be ten thousand times that of a human, so unfortunately, Qing was still worse than a dog.

Gabiya’s face lit up.

“Ah, I knew it! My Lady. Gara Incense is the very best among all agarwood incenses, you see? So if you’ve smelled agarwood before, you might think it’s similar. But how could My Lady possibly have smelled such an unbelievably precious Gara Incense before?”

“Is that so?”

And why the hell is she talking like that?

I’m loaded too, you know? If I really wanted, I could buy this crap by the ladle and fill my room with a full-on chemical-warfare smokescreen.

Of course, I’d rather spend that money ordering another dish.

Burning this much gold just to burn incense really was literally burning money.

But there’s always a big difference between someone who doesn’t drive a luxury imported car and someone who can’t.

If someone then says, “And just who do you think you are, driving an import?”

An old palace maid’s words suddenly came back to her.

This girl was lacking in the proper etiquette for serving her mistress—mm, yes. Clearly. Very lacking.

But who cared?

It wasn’t like Qing had been a “mistress” for all that long anyway.

And if someone burned expensive incense for you, they were allowed to show off a little.

Even Jomsun, when she stuck out that potato—

Spring potatoes are the best. Bet your house doesn’t have these, huh?

She might talk like a dog chewing a bone, but goodwill was still goodwill.

And that goodwill didn’t vanish just because she came in the middle of the night to burn incense, using the very best stuff she could get her hands on.

“And also, My Lady, fufu... fufufu...”

All of a sudden, Gabiya started letting out a very, very fatal little laugh.

What now? Use your words.

Then she licked her lips and, with yet another “I’m so fatal” pose, pulled out a jade bottle from her bosom and thrust it toward Qing.

“This is the famous Indian perfumed oil.”

Gabiya’s face as she said it was all, Well? Don’t you want it so badly you’re dying inside?—so confident and smug.

Qing answered her.

“Hm. Is it that big a deal?”

“Oh, come now, My Lady, this is perfumed oil. Indian perfumed oil. Not the cheap low-grade stuff or fakes that circulate in the Central Plains, but real Indian perfumed oil, made by Indians with Indian secret methods! You could stand to be a little happier about it.”

Perfumed oil was the oil used for bodywork—massage, what the Central Plains called chuna therapy.

And among them, Indian perfumed oil was considered the very finest.

Because Indian massage culture, this technique of rubbing perfumed oil into the body, was a product of ultra-ancient primitive civilization going back as far as six thousand years.

In Indian it was Ayurveda; in Qing’s homeland they called it “aroma” massage.

It even appeared in Buddhist scriptures as a miraculous treatment method.

According to the scriptures, Shakyamuni had his life saved twice by this perfumed-oil massage.

Once from twisted bowels and intestinal obstruction, and a second time when his wounds festered, fever burned through his body, pus rose, and his flesh began to rot—this perfumed-oil treatment saved his life.

Beyond that, Indian myths and the lives of great emperors, generals, poets, and so on were full of “great Indian figures” who’d been healed by this perfumed-oil massage.

But nobody on earth gave a shit about great Indian figures.

So as Gabiya launched into a passionate hymn of praise to Indian perfumed-oil massage, Qing’s only impression was, Man, Indian names really are weird.

“So this heavenly maiden is offering you a massage filled with six thousand years of Indian essence, My Lady.”

“Mm. Thanks, I guess?”

“Oh honestly, this is so good for you. Especially for a woman, if I may say so. Speaking in terms of this perfumed oil, it makes your skin as clear, as clear as white jade...”

Gabiya’s voice trailed off.

What good was the best beauty regimen for making skin as clear as white jade?

Qing’s skin was already in the best possible condition a woman could have.

Especially those hands—long fingers, pale translucent skin—she had the number-one “beautiful hands” straight through the hearts of the Central Plains populace.

“And besides that, it trims away excess fat and, um, well, anyway, in terms of beauty, it has the best possible effects...”

The confidence was steadily leaking out of Gabiya’s tone.

“Y-you’re already perfect, of course, but still! Wouldn’t it be nice to polish yourself even more? It’s something this heavenly maiden has to do for you—I mean, really wants to do for you.”

Qing snorted.

What is this, a new style of cringe?

I’ll give you a very high score for originality.

Mm. Her speech was rough and clumsy, but she didn’t really seem like a bad kid.

“You went to all this trouble, so I should try it once at least. Ah, I like it when they press hard, really dig in. A massage needs some pressure.”

“Oh, come on, My Lady. That’s not massage. All that pressing and pulling is just more of your Central-Plains style, that crude, brute-force, barbarian chuna method. What I’m going to give you isn’t that kind of thing—it’s a real massage.”

Mm. She’s a good kid... right?

*****

By nature, humans have an instinctive tendency to avoid their own faults.

In Qing’s homeland, this was a psychologically proven fact, verified through countless cases.

For example, there had once been a fad for a certain type of parent.

The “no-medicine, let-the-child-die” club.

Even after their child’s condition worsened and left them with a major disability, these people never once used medicine.

Because the moment they used medicine, they would be admitting that their child’s entire condition was their fault.

They would have to accept and submit to the truth that their own wrong beliefs, their own stupidity, had caused their child irreparable harm.

You didn’t even have to go to such extremes; just looking at some shitty boss at work or the common bastard men and bitchy women in any neighborhood told you enough.

They’re the ones who did wrong, and yet they’re the ones who explode in anger instead.

Humans have a cowardly nature that tries to dodge their own faults.

When it all blows back on them later, that’s when it becomes the world’s fault. I’m not like this, the world made me this way.

Or it’s everyone else’s fault. Everyone else does this too, so why are you only coming after me?

Of course, just because they refuse to admit it doesn’t mean everyone else goes along.

So they’re proudly alone, while everyone watching thinks, you won’t find a more brain-damaged dumbfuck on earth.

In that same vein, the Crown Prince could never, ever give in—and must not.

Because what, now he was supposed to admit that Heavenly Flower Sword really did seem to be Princess Yeonsul?

If so, then what did that make the Crown Prince?

An idiot who couldn’t even recognize his own younger sister and then tried to take her as his bride, the destroyer of natural family bonds.

Without even his parents’ permission (from everyone else’s point of view),

and in the face of opposition from countless ministers—

Above all, he had proposed to Yeonsul.

Goose bumps exploded over the Crown Prince’s entire body, and at the same time, some unbearable, overwhelming force surged up from within him and rampaged out of control.

That rampaging force exploded in the largest muscles of his body, making the Crown Prince’s foot kick his quilt violently as he thrashed.

No.

The Crown Prince jerked upright and wiped away the cold sweat that had formed on him before he knew it.

He didn’t know what vile trick Ximen Qing had used to talk his mother—and his nurse—around her finger, but she would not fool him.

However, now that both his mother and his nurse had fallen completely for that witch’s schemes—tch—this couldn’t go on.

Someone. Someone with the eye and authority to prove that woman was a fake—

Faces flashed through the Crown Prince’s mind.

Once he’d ruled out the somewhat dangerous, politically entangled figures—

And so, the next day.

“Brother, are you saying you want me to send my maid to her right now?”

A veiled woman in fine silk spoke.

On that fine silk, a soaring phoenix was emblazoned, bold and clear.

For reference, only consorts and princesses within the palace were permitted to wear clothing embroidered with a phoenix.

“I—I’m sorry. But you know the current situation, don’t you? The opposition of the high and low officials is that severe...”

“So you want to attach my maid to that woman as well, to show your will even more plainly? Isn’t sending Lady Deokseong into Hilbang Hall already more than enough?”

Hadn’t he already shown his will—his resolve to take Heavenly Flower Sword as his consort—by letting his nurse enter Hilbang Hall?

At that, the Crown Prince scratched the back of his neck—a habit exactly like a certain someone’s—but in any case.

“Khmm. I have my circumstances too. I know she’s someone you cherish, like a sister.”

The ministers had literally thrown themselves on the floor, insisting they could never allow some woman who’d crawled around the martial world to become Crown Princess.

But this was, after all, a voluntary act born of loyal remonstrance.

So the Crown Prince could hardly step out in front and shout, I’ll do as I please, so kneel or lie down all you like!

That would be trampling on their loyal hearts.

All he could do was continue raising Heavenly Flower Sword’s treatment bit by bit.

It was a roundabout way of notifying his ministers that he absolutely would not change his mind.

...That was the excuse, anyway.

Truthfully, he only wanted to bring along the palace maid who had grown up with Yeonsul.

That girl would be able to sense the fake-ness of the fake, and of course she would then join in revealing the fake’s true identity.

He just couldn’t say that out loud, so the Crown Prince kept on adding flimsy excuses.

“But it’s exactly because she’s someone you’re close to and cherish that I want to bring her. And it won’t be bad for her, either. They say Heavenly Flower Sword is upright and cheerful. And then, later, once this matter is settled, I’ll have her return to serve you again—”

“Sure.”

An unexpectedly crisp reply.

The Crown Prince had been bracing himself to take a kick to the shins if her old temper flared up.

Instead, he could only stare and ask in surprise,

“Huh? You’re okay with it? Really?”

The veiled woman—Princess Yeonsul—answered in her distinctive voice that sounded just faintly singed by fire, yet gentle in tone.

“If that is truly what you want, Brother, then how could I possibly be stingy about welcoming a new sister-in-law? Through Ryua, I can get to know her better too. Your Highness? Are you... all right? Your face is twitching, you look like—like a stroke, you’re having a stroke, Your Highness, what—”