Legend of Fu Yao

Entering the palace with the new empress were the Consort of Nobility, Tang Yiguang, and the Consort of Virtue, Hua Zhirong. Apart from the four imperial consorts, there was also the Jade Consort, Jian Xue.

The ceremonial preparations were almost complete, and all the streets were decorated with brightly colored lanterns and red streamers. In particular, the short street from the Regent King’s manor leading to the imperial palace was especially vibrant with flowers everywhere, characteristic of the royal family style.

Because there were too many flowers, the supervisor in charge of building the structures had to go into the city to hire laborers to finish the work before the big wedding day. In the city, the queue for laborers had stretched into a long line, and their physical condition was scrutinized carefully by the eunuchs as if they were animals. However, it was but a trifling issue they had to suffer—whenever the royal family hired workers, the remuneration and clothing were always pretty good. Furthermore, it was also an honor to talk about it.

That bright morning, the Minister of Rites, Eunuch Zhao, headed out to the city again and bumped into the head housekeeper of the Regent King’s manor, so they set out together to select laborers. After a while, they had selected ten men and were about to leave when Eunuch Zhao noticed a young lad standing in the corner of the street.

The young lad was dark and strong, his features well-defined. There was also a scar on his face, and he was covered in a layer of dust and dirt, even the color of his clothes was already unrecognizable. He was a lad that the people of the city often met hanging around.

The only strange thing was the whip he carried on his back—black and covered with streaks of metal. There was nothing strange about it, just that, weren’t whips supposed to be carried at the waist, so why was he carrying it on his back?

Eunuch Zhao’s curiosity got the better of him, and he approached the young man and asked, “Why do you carry that whip on your back?”

The young lad raised his head, and a strange, bright expression appeared on his dirt-ridden face. The expression was similar to that of a wild beast, and Eunuch Zhao unconsciously stepped back.

Nonetheless, the young lad retracted his expression and rasped, “Are you looking for laborers?”

Eunuch Zhao shook his head. The ten people he wanted were already selected. When the young man saw him shake his head, he immediately turned away and ignored him.

However, Eunuch Zhao’s interest was piqued. He felt that this lad was rather interesting and reached out to pull the whip on his hack when the lad suddenly turned around and moved his fingers!

Fortunately for Eunuch Zhao, someone was with him and immediately pulled him away, along with a laugh. “Eunuch Zhao, you’d better not touch this lad’s whip, I recognize him, several days ago he was selling his arts at the Nation Protecting Temple, and he had whipped a bunch of thugs half to death. They had thought that he was weak, but once they touched his whip, he flipped over and whipped them till their legs broke. Therefore, you can touch him all you want, but don’t touch his whip.”

Eunuch Zhao was intrigued by the story and asked, “What kind of treasure is it? Is it that precious?” However, he did not try to touch it anymore, and the young lad slowly let go. Eunuch Zhao peered at him, thinking that his build was pretty decent and would make for a good laborer. He thought for a moment, then asked, “Want to work for me?”

The young lad raised an eyebrow and asked, “Where?”

“The palace!” said Eunuch Zhao confidently, expecting the lad to smile with happiness. However, the young lad immediately shook his head and said, “Not going!”

Eunuch Zhao tutted and turned to the Regent King’s manor’s head housekeeper and asked, “Old Lee, look at this lad, isn’t he interesting? Doesn’t the Regent King’s manor require workers too? Why don’t you ask him if he’s willing to go?”

Upon hearing “Regent King’s manor”, the young lad immediately raised his head and exclaimed, “I’ll go!”

Eunuch Zhao and Old Lee were startled for a moment, then Eunuch Zhao gave a self-mocking laugh and said, “Even a foreign, wandering lad knows that the Regent King’s manor is superior to the imperial palace…” He patted the young lad’s shoulder and said, “Next time when you have completed your work at the Regent King’s manor, you can come to the palace and do some odd jobs. I come to the city often, my surname is Zhao.”

The young lad raised his head again, looked at Eunuch Zhao intently, then nodded.

After wandering around for more than a month, this was the first person that treated him kindly. The young lad’s weather-beaten, hardened gaze softened slightly.

This young lad was naturally Little Seven.

Protecting the whip, wandering the earth, waiting for Meng Fuyao to wield it, Little Seven could never go back unless he found her.

That day after being chased away by Zhan Beiye, Little Seven stood at the top of Mt. Yu. The sky was vast above him, and he didn’t know where to start searching. He had tried searching in the country, but even with Zhan Beiye’s supply of personnel, it was fruitless. Hence, he began looking at other countries. Simple-minded people would have simple thoughts, and the straightforward thought was to head to the heart of everything. Little Seven’s eyes fell on Xuanyuan, the neighboring country of Dahan.

When finding someone, one must naturally start from the closest point, and he had spent quite a significant amount of effort and energy to get into Xuanyuan, but that didn’t require mentioning anymore. When he kept moving, he actually still didn’t think of anything, and after entering Xuanyuan, he quickly became a nobody and spent his days begging or stealing food until he reached Kunjing—Meng Fuyao was a magnet for royal trouble and her favorite hobby was to create havoc in other people’s countries; hence, a trip to Kunjing was a definite must.

However, he had no money and still had to eat, so he put the skills he learned previously when he was working in the tourism industry to use and performed in the streets, and the Nation Protecting Temple was the most suitable place for street arts. Finally, he got wind of the “Literate Magical Rabbit”.

Little Seven had never met Lord Yuan Bao before, but he had heard Zhan Beiye mention about this bad-tempered magic rodent, and now that he heard about the people in the streets talking about a “Your Mother” couplet-completing rabbit, he immediately thought of Lord Yuan Bao.

Things became slightly easier after that since wherever Lord Yuan Bao was, Meng Fuyao would also be there. Since it had been taken in as the little master’s pet, Meng Fuyao would be at the Regent King’s manor.

After confirming this piece of news, he sighed for a long time…. After two months of wandering from Dahan to Xuanyuan, he was no longer an honored noble of the Han dynasty, a hero, the young and ferocious Captain Little Seven in the Black Wind Calvary, or the “General Seven” that everyone patronized in the new dynasty. He was just a wanderer awaiting punishment, carrying a whip, walking across the earth’s surface endlessly. For two months, he had been drenched in the rain, covered in snow, fallen ill, fallen off a cliff, stealing food and got bitten by a family’s dog – that was when he was extremely tired, and in pain, and in the end he still got bitten. The first time he stole vegetables, he had been cursed by the owner and felt extremely sad for a long time, but after a while he got used to it, stuffing his robe with corn cobs and twisting the neck of the owner’s dog when it came running out.

However, all of that wasn’t the hardest to cope with.

The hardest to cope with was the loneliness, the bone-chilling loneliness of having been abandoned.

Spending nights alone out in the barren mountains and wilderness, a single shadow facing a pile of firewood that has been put out. Hearing the wolves howl at the moon, their cries reverberating across the valley, his heart would beat ferociously, and he too would have the urge to extend his neck towards the moon and howl, howl that the world was cold and cruel, howl so that he wouldn’t feel the loneliness.

It was the same as many years ago.

He was a wolf child.

His parents had died since he was young and he was abandoned in the mountains by his uncle. A female wolf adopted him; he had thought that it was his mother and fed on her milk, hunted with it, had played fights with his wolf siblings, hunted for rabbits in the snow during winter, his bare feet leaving footprints faster than his wolf siblings. When the moon was bright and round, he would howl to his heart’s content.

He did not know how many years he had lived this way, but he was discovered by a hunter and brought back. The old hunter taught him to eat rice and speak—initially, he only knew how to eat raw meat and bark.

After he had learned how to eat rice, speak human language and basic human behavior, the old hunter passed away, and his son threw him out once again—this wolf child was proud and ungrateful and behaved just like a wolf if he stayed he would jinx the family sooner or later!

He had heard this through a crack in the door and returned silently to the mountains to find his wolf family. However, the old female wolf had already been killed by hunters and the wolf siblings he had spent his younger days playing around with had grown into strong adult wolves, and they bared their claws at him, glaring at him with animosity, growling menacingly.

Hence, he understood, he couldn’t go back anymore.

Regardless of humans or wolves, no place was his home.

He eventually became a wanderer, picked up by humans, and even the last sliver of freedom in the mountainous wild was taken from him.

He also met the cold and fearless wolf-like Black Wind Calvary.

He had a family, had a master who was the eternal king in the future. He worshipped him the same way he worshipped the leader of the pack. Besides, humans were but weaker wolves.

He was the valiant Little Seven, giving all his energy and effort to Zhan Beiye, all his passion, and courage to the Black Wind Calvary. His gaze was straight, like a wild beast which could only look ahead, never turning around to look at the scenery around him, but also never turning back.

Hence, he had committed such a grave and painful mistake to the point where he was unable to face it himself. The last few months, every time he washed his face, he would see Zhan Beiye’s disappointed face. That expression was indescribable, and it only made him want to tear his heart out in guilt. He was terrified of facing this heart-wrenching foreign guilt, and since then, he stopped washing his face.

Those late nights, the intense loneliness, coupled with the howling of the wind, kept him awake. The hail would extinguish the fire he set for warmth in an instant, and he would awaken due to the cold, then climb to the highest mountain peak and stare wistfully in the direction of Dahan.

He wondered, ‘What is His Majesty doing now? Ji Yu and the rest must have replaced me for night duty.’

This thought made him miss the Black Wind Calvary; he had never been apart for this long previously. The days were as long as a lifetime, and he had finally gotten a clear look at himself—a wolf that hated humans due to his background as a wolf child, a proud and self-important wolf that was always being protected by humans.

Under the patience and guidance of his master and counterparts, over the last sixteen years, he had learned to let go of his hatred, let go of the innate wildness of a wolf and learned to become a human, beginning from the most difficult part.

Little Seven pursed his lips and hoisted the tools he had bought for himself along with the “you can touch everything but this” whip and followed the head housekeeper to the Regent King’s manor.

He thought that entering the Regent King’s manor would be the closest to reaching Meng Fuyao, yet what he did not know was that he had already missed an even better chance by accident.