Chapter 779: Bloodline (13)

“Yeonsul, raise your head.”

She knew perfectly well what was packed into that address—no, it wasn’t even anything so grand as “implication.” How could she not know what it meant for the Son of Heaven to call her that?

Did Her Majesty the Empress finally lose patience and go tell him everything?

Well, sure. News that her daughter was supposed to marry the Crown Prince and all that horrifying mess was flying around. As a mother, how was the Empress supposed to sit still and watch her two children get married to each other?

In that case, she could have at least given me a heads-up...

“Guu—”

“Remove the veil from her face as well.”

Qing obediently pulled the veil down.

The Son of Heaven quietly took in Qing’s face.

It had been quite some time since she’d entered the Forbidden City, and only now was this the first time they were facing each other bare-faced.

During the earlier audience he’d had no intention of ever seeing her again, planning to shove her off to some out-of-the-way corner of the Forbidden City, so he hadn’t bothered to order the veil removed.

That expression, eyes alone shifting sideways in a thoroughly troubled attempt to read the room, was so familiar that the face itself felt familiar.

No wonder the Empress had recognized her at a single glance. It felt that self-evident.

“A princess of the Central Plains not only wanders outside the palace, she only comes before me when summoned, and only then reaches this place. It is utterly outrageous. Well? Do you have any excuse to offer?”

Mm. This is not exactly a “happy to see you” mood...

Honestly, if the Son of Heaven were the sort of man who, upon hearing she was his daughter, would instantly throw away the grave dignity of the august Emperor and go, “Come here, let me hug you just once,” and rush at her, then Her Majesty the Empress would long ago have spilled everything about her identity.

From what she’d heard, even to the giant child Yeonsul in the past, he’d always been a cold and strict father; the moment she stood before him, she’d shrink, cowed, and just watch his mood.

Qing was soft where affection was concerned.

So if there was no affection, she wasn’t soft at all.

Of course, she was thoroughly shriveled up right now under the pressure, but apart from that, the fact that the Son of Heaven was coming at her like this actually made it easier to speak.

“Your Majesty, this lowly one is not Yeonsul of the Forbidden City, but the Heavenly Flower Sword of the Priestess Order Temple. This lowly one has no memories of the past and does not know Yeonsul, so I am afraid I cannot bear it when Your Majesty calls me a princess of the Heavenly Dynasty.”

It was what she should have said to the Empress from the start.

But how was she supposed to say that to her face?

Only because this was a father who showed no affection at all could she bring herself to say it so readily.

“You are not Yeonsul?”

“Strictly speaking, this lowly one does not know for certain either, so I cannot definitively say—”

“You are Yeonsul.”

Well, I guess being the Son of Heaven means you get to cut people off.

And if he was going to play the “if I say you’re a princess, then you’re a princess” card—

“You watched the Heaven-Endowed Grace Grand Rite closely as well. It is a rite that grants great power by bringing down the blood of the Heavenly Dynasty. The efficacy was proven using your blood, so the blood of the Heavenly Dynasty flows in that body of yours.”

Ah. So that’s how it is.

No wonder the Imperial Physician had drawn her blood, making some rather flimsy excuse in the process.

So it wasn’t a health check, it was a genetic test.

The hammering show, the strongman act—no, a technique that mixed the sacred blood of the imperial house into human blood and had others absorb it. The result of that sorcery was a paternity test.

Until now there had already been near-certainty, but now it seemed they had obtained complete proof.

Of course, since they’d already had that near-certainty, it wasn’t as if this came as any great surprise now.

Either way, the problem was not this body, but the mind—call it the soul. In a world where people shot out laser swords, cast sorcery, and jiangshi walked around, it would have been stranger if souls didn’t exist.

Even so—

“With deepest apologies, Your Majesty, this lowly one wishes only to live as a wild woman of the martial world.”

At that, the Son of Heaven snorted.

“Your words are ridiculous. You conspired with your mother and pretended to be punished, and spent every day together. How is it that before the Empress you are a daughter, and before me you call yourself a martial artist?”

“Th-the Empress was in a wounded state of mind and unwell, and—”

“Enough. If you were an ordinary subject, you would have been executed at once for the crime of daring to insult the Heavenly Dynasty. As a member of the Heavenly Dynasty, however, this can be overlooked as a mere lapse in family affairs.”

Wait, is this a threat?

If she chose to be the Heavenly Flower Sword, she’d be killed; if she chose to be Yeonsul, he’d let it slide as a rebellious daughter?

“Therefore, you will now fulfill your duty as well. I have long sought to wipe these so-called rebels of the martial world from beneath Heaven, so you too, as one of the Heavenly Dynasty, will take part in Heaven’s will.”

“Your Majesty—”

“Your heart has always been too soft for the Heavenly Dynasty. The Priestess Order Temple shall be spared. You will not even need to wield the sword yourself. Princess Yeonsul, having learned the dreadful true nature of the martial world, will personally denounce those rebels.”

I was, in fact, Princess Yeonsul all along, and I went to personally observe the martial world to determine whether martial artists were rebels or not.

And now that I’ve decided they are rebels, I will exterminate them.

That was the kind of denunciation he wanted to make her deliver.

“Your Majesty—”

“Enough.”

“Please wait—please, just hear me out for a moment!”

Qing dared to raise her voice.

She had no idea why he hated the martial world this much. Maybe, as Jayu had put it, this was a blind hatred close to outright madness.

But considering the ritual just now, and the fact that the manufacturing of the Golden Guard’s monsters also used the blood of criminals, he didn’t really seem like someone who’d completely lost his mind.

“Martial artists are not rebels. They are the ones who honor justice and chivalry more than anyone, and who contribute to the world.”

“Justice and chivalry? How laughable. Do you truly not know what that word becomes when those two characters are combined into ‘righteous hero’?”

Justice was good and chivalry was good, but when you joined them into, “righteous hero” was by no means a positive word in the Central Plains.

Righteous heroes, in Qing’s homeland’s terms, were punks, thugs, gangsters, organized crime.

“That is not so. Even now, the righteous heroes of the martial world—no, the knights—uh, no, that’s not...”

“Knights” carried a good meaning, but in front of officials—especially before the Son of Heaven—that was not a word you put in your mouth.

“Knight” came from the story of Jing Ke, the legendary assassin who tried to kill the First Emperor.

“Mm, there are indeed evil ones, but at the very least the orthodox martial artists are striving for the peace of the world, so ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) please, such words—”

“Heh-heh-heh...”

This time the Son of Heaven cut her off with a harsh laugh.

Come to think of it, the Empress had been just as bad about never listening to other people. Husband sings, wife follows, as they say—though whether that proverb applies here, who knows.

“You are right. Among martial artists there are decent people, and there are villains so foul that even slow slicing would be too light a punishment.”

“Ah.”

Qing’s face brightened a little.

So he had been listening, huh?

Could this actually be something that could be worked through by talking?

But that hope lasted only a moment.

“Yet whether righteous knight or vicious demonic head, martial artists are a harmful presence to the world. Their very existence harms the peace of the realm, like vermin, so when you say such people are serving the world, I cannot help but laugh.”

The expression on the Son of Heaven’s face was so calm as he said it, as if he were stating the most obvious fact.

If only a vivid, blazing hatred had surfaced instead, she could have just written him off as a madman.

But why?

“In the past the Martial Celestial dared to invade the Forbidden City and commit a great crime, and that was not enough—he even laid hands on the sacred body of the Heavenly Dynasty to threaten it. He grabbed my ancestor by the scruff, lifted him up to the very top of Hwanggeuk Hall, and dared to voice his deluded demands that the affairs of the realm be properly managed.”

Qing knew the story well.

The abuses of the imperial house had gone too far, so the Martial Celestial of the time had stormed the palace, grabbed the Son of Heaven, and said, “Do it properly. Or else, you know what happens.”

“Do you know what my ancestor said to the Martial Celestial then?”

“I shall listen with full attention.”

“My ancestor laughed and said that in that case, he would hand the Heavenly Dynasty over to him. If the strongest man under Heaven became the Son of Heaven, then, as he claimed, would not all the world find peace? So sit on the steps of the Son of Heaven and govern the world.”

From here on was new to her.

In her imagination, she’d assumed he’d begged miserably for his life.

If what the Son of Heaven was saying was true, then yes, the old Martial Celestial, storming the palace because the country was a mess, had been something—but the Son of Heaven, hanging by the scruff at that great height and still laughing as he said, “Then you be the Son of Heaven,” had been no ordinary man either.

“And the Martial Celestial said, ‘No, thanks. Why would I do something so troublesome? I have my hands full just perfecting myself. Stop spouting nonsense and do it properly yourself.’”

“Ah.”

Well, of course.

He was an old man whose life was nothing but training and more training, and sometimes showing off in front of juniors.

Qing had personally confirmed the truth of that at the execution wall, chasing the old Martial Celestial’s afterimage or whatever it was, so she could say with absolute certainty.

“From that moment on, the Heavenly Dynasty and the martial world could no longer coexist. Do you understand?”

Mm, so in the end this was an ancestral grudge, wasn’t it?

Purely personal—well, familial? Anyway, a private reason to burn the martial world to the ground.

How exactly am I supposed to “understand” this?

Is it because I’m Princess Yeonsul, so that ancestor is my ancestor too, so we’re supposed to share the same grudge?

“You do not understand at all.”

“Pardon?”

“Do you think I cannot read that expression? And if you do not understand, then you will of course have not the slightest intention of complying.”

“But for such a reason—”

“You have always been that way. Even as you trembled in fear before your father and watched my mood, in the end you never once corrected your conduct. Because in your mind, I was wrong. To you, it was nothing but unjust scolding.”

Yeonsul had liked mingling freely with the servants. Not just “easygoing” free—she treated them like family.

The Son of Heaven had scolded her time and again. A person of dignity must maintain the dignity of that station and not show any opening to those beneath them. A princess, as the mistress of the Imperial Physicians and the palace, must be someone difficult to approach.

But in front of him alone, Yeonsul had said, Yes, Father, and then never changed at all.

Because to Yeonsul, that wasn’t right.

To her, it was right to show affection to anyone who cherished her, regardless of rank.

All her conduct was like that.

Be it her mother or her nurse, she would flop down and act with a free familiarity no eight-year-old should have shown. To Yeonsul, that sort of spoiled behavior was filial piety; if her mother was happy and she was happy, then everyone was happy.

She had snuck out of the palace in secret.

Every eunuch and military officer had been on her side, and after pestering them for days she had ended up going on an excursion outside the walls.

The existence of the Heavenly Dynasty outside the palace was itself a great danger to the people; if anything unpleasant happened, there was no telling what it might lead to.

But all she’d thought was, What could happen from just a brief outing? What danger could there possibly be in the sacred precincts of Beijing, with the Forbidden City right there?

She’d even pestered her guards into teaching her swordsmanship.

Because she could not understand why, just because she was a princess, something that would never be used to harm anyone and was only being learned for fun should be forbidden.

If she thought something was right, she would see it through and never change.

If she thought it was wrong, she would never do it at all.

“Of course, you did not hold such firmly established convictions. But that was your nature. If you could not accept something yourself, other people’s advice was nothing but interference and nagging.”

Mm. So the Son of Heaven knew she’d learned martial arts too.

Well, it had all happened inside the Forbidden City. Of course he knew.

In any case, just from listening, it was abundantly clear how badly this Yeonsul kid had refused to listen. Truly, she’d been a monumental pain in the ass.

“I must make you understand the harm the martial world does. Why the martial world must be destroyed, and how its very existence threatens the world.”

“I shall listen with full attention.”

The Son of Heaven paused for a moment.

As if calmly gathering his thoughts, he tapped the armrest of the ornate dragon throne with his fingertips, tap, tap.

And after a brief silence, he opened his mouth.

“The Martial Celestial ought to have received the authority of the Son of Heaven. If not that, then at the very least, he should never have laid hands on the sacred body of the Son of Heaven.”

“...May I ask why?”

“Do you know what the Son of Heaven is? Do you know what mission Heaven has entrusted to the Heavenly Dynasty, what duty is contained in our blood, and what kind of governance the Son of Heaven must carry out?”

Uh, weren’t you going to explain this to me, and you start with questions?

As Qing faltered, the Son of Heaven’s eyes took on a faintly exasperated look, as if to say he’d expected nothing more.

Qing felt a flicker of indignation.

The Son of Heaven proceeded to ask and answer himself, speaking in a solemn voice.

“The Son of Heaven is the one who exists above the people.”