Chapter 947: I Want to Watch (1)

The banquet was over.

There was no reason a wedding had to drag on forever, day after day. Guests just had to wish the bride and groom a happy life, then leave. That was all.

“Heh heh heh, Inspector, you’ll be returning to the Central Plain now, yes? Would this old servant be honored to escort you?”

The elderly eunuch’s syrupy voice even carried a hint of coyness, and Qing reflexively rubbed at the goosebumps climbing up her arms.

Maybe it was rude, but she wasn’t the only one reacting like that. Beside her, Kim Heojung wore the same expression—and the Golden Guard inspector standing next to the eunuch did, too.

Besides, eunuchs tended to enjoy getting that sort of reaction. The reason the old eunuch was smiling with such visible satisfaction was probably exactly that.

In any case, traveling together with a eunuch felt like far too much, and even if it was a little late to pretend there was a clean separation between them—

She still didn’t want to get any more tangled up with the Forbidden City.

So Qing put on an awkward smile and held out a report document that had been rolled up tight and sealed.

“Mm. It’s a shame, but I have places I need to stop along the way, and the procedures for entering the Forbidden City are a hassle. Still, I wrote a report—could you deliver it and present it for me?”

A report was an official written account of a mission’s results.

And since Qing was a Royal Censor of the Twelve Circuits, hers was the kind that went straight to the Son of Heaven without detours.

So Ximen Cheonhwa, Royal Censor and princess-in-name, handed over this extremely important document and said—

“It’s more serious than I expected, so... could you make sure it doesn’t arrive late?”

By “doesn’t arrive late,” she meant: you’re going back to the Forbidden City anyway, so there’s no need to race like your hair’s on fire—but don’t drag your feet and laze around, either.

“This old minister humbly receives your command.”

The eunuch accepted it politely and replied in a solemn voice.

But to the eunuch’s ears, Qing’s words landed with a completely different meaning.

Immediate express delivery. Deliver it as fast as possible.

To be fair, it wasn’t even an overinterpretation.

That was how it always went. A single casual sentence tossed out by someone high could turn into a thunderbolt for someone low.

And so the eunuch ran.

He galloped on a swift horse, then abandoned the exhausted mount and used lightness skill to keep sprinting.

It was a relentless advance without sleep, day or night. Only after reaching Liaoning did he finally pull a fresh horse from a relay post and steal a moment’s rest in the saddle.

The Golden Guard inspector attached to him was dying from the sudden forced march without rest.

Still, even he could make one simple calculation: if this slick old eunuch was moving like this, then the Royal Censor’s authority wasn’t ordinary. And if that was the case, then for his own survival, the smartest move was to keep his mouth shut and go along with it.

A three-thousand-li road from Dunhua to the capital.

And after ten days passed—

*****

The Son of Heaven stared down at the Royal Censor’s sealed report.

His expression was unreadable.

He sat alone on the highest seat beneath heaven, and the hall behind him was structured so that brilliant sunlight poured in like a flood, illuminating the grand chamber from behind his throne.

A face turned into backlight, with the sun at its back, was swallowed in shadow. You couldn’t see it clearly.

And even without that... who in the world would dare scrutinize the Son of Heaven’s face?

So whether his features were visible or not made little difference. It was a face no one could dare look at in the first place.

If the man sitting on the throne weren’t even the Son of Heaven, but merely a substitute—who would notice? And even if someone noticed, who would dare step forward and point it out?

Then was the Son of Heaven truly necessary?

And yet—

If someone unworthy sat in that seat, war would boil across the world. Blood and pus would overflow, and screams would whip the land into madness.

The Son of Heaven was the Heaven-granted authority that crushed chaos and forced the world into peace.

He was the world’s heaviest counterweight itself—

Or the man wearing the world’s heaviest shackles.

And the Son of Heaven’s blood, too, carried those shackles.

That was why the Son of Heaven’s feelings, as he looked at this report, were complicated beyond measure.

He had let the princess go because she had the potential to become a peerless master, the kind who could one day place the martial world beneath her feet.

And when the time came, if he summoned her back and revealed her as imperial blood, the martial world would be absorbed under the imperial house.

What kind of animals were the martial world scum?

The land was vast and the people many, so the empire had been forced to leave local powers and warlords alone. But now those same people used the name “martial world” to carry swords for private ends and throw the world into disorder.

Bringing that chaos to heel was the imperial house’s duty—and its long-held obsession.

As a member of the imperial house, the princess, too, would be expected to devote her life to that ambition.

But was that really the only reason he had let her go—cold strategy with duty and the world in mind?

She had already escaped the shackles of being Heaven’s descendant once, through death itself. And with that nature still unchanged, it seemed she had been living well outside the palace walls.

Maybe it was the father’s heart, not the Son of Heaven’s—unwilling to lock a daughter who had finally been freed back inside the palace.

So, as the Son of Heaven, the Royal Censor’s report was deeply pleasing.

But as a father... it could also be unbearably wistful, even sorrowful.

Of course—

His expression remained unreadable.

Because the sun was too blinding behind him, because backlight swallowed his face, because authority itself crushed the heads of those kneeling below.

Then the Son of Heaven unfolded the report.

In that instant, his eyes flew wide.

The eyes of the one above ten thousand—eyes that were never permitted to lose their composure—trembled thinly.

Was the report’s content truly that shocking?

“Huh.”

A sound even leaked out, like a moan from some emotion he couldn’t suppress.

The kneeling officials’ nerves snapped taut.

Ignoring them, the Son of Heaven stared down at the document with shaking eyes and muttered inwardly.

What... what in the world is this? This handwriting—

The handwriting was upright and easy to read at a glance—neat, tidy, elegant, with not a single messy section.

And yet it filled the space with a grand, heavy presence. The force in each stroke was hard as steel. The balance didn’t lean anywhere.

It was a script that ruled with the solemn weight of a mountain.

And what was this—these curves?

Each stroke of that majestic writing was not rigidly straight, but formed subtle arcs.

Because nothing in Heaven and Earth was truly straight—life itself moved with that principle.

It held doctrine and restraint, vast and towering, and yet it writhed with living motion like nature itself.

It was as if the entire world had been engraved into the strokes.

The Son of Heaven was so overwhelmed by the writing that he couldn’t even take in the content.

For a long while he stared as if bewitched, practically licking the letter with his eyes as he examined the structure of the strokes—studying the horizontal and vertical lines, being crushed by the downward flicks and hooks that resembled mountain mass, feeling the weight of the dots, watching the bends flow with dignified inevitability—

For a long, long time.

Even more, each stroke changed form in the most natural way depending on its exact position.

This was the trace of a master whose art had been completed long ago.

The Son of Heaven’s work was words and writing. How could he keep his mind steady when this heaven-shaking script had suddenly appeared?

Only after a significant stretch of time did the meaning finally enter his eyes.

[Long live His Majesty, and may he be at peace forever. This Royal Censor respectfully presents this sealed report to the Son of Heaven.]

The long-standing bandits of the north—the northern frontier’s momentum was rising again. Many tribes had secretly bound themselves together, and they had even accepted a heterodox cult called the Blood Cult, rapidly swelling their power.

As an omen, the northern frontier barbarians had dared to present themselves as envoys to the Northern Grand General and weave a crafty plot, urging that they scheme against the Central Plain. The time of invasion could not be far—

The Son of Heaven’s gaze gradually went flat.

The Central Plain meant the empire—but it also meant the center of the world.

And a vast empire standing at the world’s center could never be flimsy. Especially to the border barbarians, the Central Plain had always been a colossal wall blocking their path.

Weak barbarians were nourished with tribute, causing countless barbarian powers to rise along the frontier and fight among themselves, unable to look toward the Central Plain.

And when a barbarian power grew too strong, soldiers were dispatched immediately to crush it.

That was how the frontier barbarians were constantly culled back into squabbling fragments, never permitted to unite into something bold enough to challenge a great state.

Naturally, intelligence on the barbarians was also painstakingly accumulated.

Suspicious Mongol activity had already been detected earlier and was under careful observation.

This marriage-alliance procession itself was proof.

Those northern barbarians—the Mongols—were acting strange. So the empire raised the Jurchens and invested their chieftain as a grand general.

The Jurchen great chieftain might believe he had unified the tribes through his own ability, but before that... it was only possible because the Central Plain had chosen to turn a blind eye to Manchuria’s unification and allow that growth.

But the Blood Cult?

It wasn’t that a mere heterodox cult was frightening.

It was that... until now, no information had been obtained that the Mongol barbarians were colluding with the Blood Cult.

If this was true, then wouldn’t the credibility of the intelligence built up so far be shaken at its foundation?

So the Son of Heaven gestured and summoned the head eunuch waiting below the steps with hands folded in deference.

The head eunuch received the report and carried it down.

Then, standing before the hall, he cleared his throat with an ominous, weighty sound and unfolded the report, raising a booming voice—

“......”

“......”

“......?”

The officials began stealing glances at the head eunuch.

His face was powdered, his mouth hung open, his eyes were wide, and only his pupils trembled violently.

Just how shocking was the report’s contents, that even the head eunuch—who had seen everything life could throw at him—couldn’t bring himself to speak?

It wasn’t the content.

It was the handwriting.

How could such writing exist? How could a master’s hand like this exist—and remain unknown to the world? So majestic that—(omitted).

It seemed the court conference would need a little more time before it could begin....

*****

April 1st.

Even in Liaoning, the northern land, April meant spring blooming up.

The earth, as if winter had never happened, hid its naked exposed flesh again—greenery rising fresh and vivid. Sunlight was warm, teasing the skin with a prickly tickle.

Across the spread fields, farmers bent and straightened their backs, turning hard labor into song. No matter where you went, cheerful melodies wound into your ears.

They waded through the paddy water to plant rice seedlings.

Spring light is good, and my heart is even happier.

La-la-dung, la-la-dung—spring has finally come.

At this time of year, feeling lightheaded was human nature.

After a winter spent huddled indoors with clothes tightly fastened, travelers finally came outside again because the weather was good.

The streets were packed—black was hair, shouts pulled in customers, big and small disputes raised voices here and there, and crowds bunched into circles as if some spectacle had broken out.

Every inn overflowed with guests. Even at midday, the rooms reeked of liquor, loud with chatter as people poured out what winter had trapped inside them.

It was so hard to hear that voices rose higher and higher, until it devolved into full-on quacking shrieks.

In the middle of it all—

One table piled with dishes like a mountain.

A large table that could seat ten had plates stacked on plates between plates. Even if ten people ate, it looked excessive.

Qing stared at it with a fresh swell of feeling.

Hadn’t it been early spring—exactly this season—when she first stepped into the martial world, waking up in some unfamiliar cave out of nowhere?

Since then, April 1st had become a kind of personal anniversary for her.

Her seventh anniversary.

Wow. Seven years already?

Time felt insanely fast... but when she really thought about it, an unbelievable amount had happened.

She still remembered her first anniversary like it was yesterday—the time she’d ordered sweet-and-sour chicken.

Now that she thought about it, it hadn’t even been much of a “dish,” just something simple. But back then, it had been a huge splurge.

And then some bastard had dropped out of nowhere, and she hadn’t even gotten a single bite.

Right. His name was... um... what was it again?

Well. Not important. The point was: that happened.

Thinking back, it was almost funny.

Her money pouch was fat—no, past fat. It was at the level where just thinking about her bills made it feel like it might burst.

She didn’t have to count nonexistent coins and agonize.

So the table was basically a banquet all by itself.

And on top of that—

“Miss, you look like you’re in a particularly good mood today. Did something nice happen?”

“...? Sis, aren’t you always in a good mood as long as there’s food?”

“No. You’re a little different from usual.”

The Moyong siblings whispered. Across from them, Kim swallowed hard.

More than anything, she wasn’t celebrating alone while making a spectacle of herself, either.

What else was living well, if not this?

“Alright, alright. Enough. Let’s eat first. Today has to start with sweet-and-sour chicken.”

Qing giggled and stretched out her hand, snatching the fried chicken leg that lay there gleaming with a golden crust, tempting her like it was posing on purpose.

Chopsticks were fine, but chicken legs tasted best when you grabbed them with your hands and tore in.

Her fingers tugged without hesitation—

And the whole leg, thigh and all, came away cleanly in one perfect piece.

Honestly, that was a ridiculous feat.

Sweet-and-sour chicken wasn’t just “fried chicken.” It was boiled until tender, then oil was poured over it so only the skin was crisped and fried.

The meat was soft enough that if you pulled wrong, you’d just slide bone out of mush.

So holding the whole leg intact after a casual one-handed pull was, genuinely, an absurd little piece of skill.

It held a deep martial principle:

Drawing softness out through strength.

A master might ask what kind of lunatic used refined internal control just to remove a chicken leg—

But chicken legs were a serious matter.

Warm thigh meat, chicken fat running in glossy rivulets—Qing’s salivary glands detonated.

She could already see it: she’d cram it in, chew hard, and—wow—salty oil, crisp skin, and then tender meat packed with juice melting apart—

Her eyes curved into a pretty crescent without her meaning to as she opened her mouth wide—

That was when it happened.

CRUNCH! SMASH! THUD-THUD-THUD! CLANG!

Sounds of things breaking. A heavy impact as something dropped. A table flipping and tumbling with an awful racket. Plates shattering into sharp, ringing fragments—

In the middle of it all, Qing blinked.

The tender chicken leg, unable to withstand the shock, had stripped down to bare bone.

And it froze there—stopped short at the exact moment it had been about to slide under her face veil.