King Kang’s detached palace was situated in Tongcheng of Jizhou. By now it was the height of summer, the hottest time of the year in Tongcheng.
Several consecutive months of scorching heat and drought had made water as precious as oil in Tongcheng. The villages outside the city had to travel several li just to draw water.
A place like this was deeply suspicious of outsiders, and with the assassination attempt on King Kang, Tongcheng had effectively become a city without a master. In the span of barely a month, more than half the population had packed up and left. Had the rains not been so scarce, the official road leading into Tongcheng would likely have been overtaken by weeds long ago.
In this atmosphere of universal anxiety and self-preservation, the escort bureau’s business had become unexpectedly brisk. The wealthy residents of the city were scrambling to spend their silver to save their lives, evacuating Tongcheng with their entire households in tow. On a lucky day, a single routine escort mission could earn a hundred taels of silver.
Xiao Nanhui spotted this as an opportunity and found herself a position among the escort bureau’s guard team. Both she and Bolao were skilled fighters — earning their keep was no problem. They had made several trips back and forth along the official road outside Tongcheng and had become familiar faces soon enough.
Everything was in place. All that was missing now was one thing: a chance to enter the city.
But getting into Tongcheng these days was far harder than getting out.
After King Kang’s death, his army of one hundred thousand troops had been placed under the temporary command of Jizhou’s Governor, Lu Songping. Lu Songping could be counted among the youngest governors Tiancheng had ever dispatched to the regions. Young as he was, his ambitions were anything but small — a fact that was evident enough from his willingness to take on Jizhou, that smoldering hot potato of a post.
Following the assassination a month ago, Tongcheng had been placed on emergency alert. To enter the city, one not only needed official travel documents but also proof of registered residency in Tongcheng. Lu Songping publicly declared this was to prevent further infiltration by Bijiang spies. But there were also rumors that the governor had long since colluded with the Bai Family, and that this was merely a smokescreen to keep the eyes and ears of the Tiancheng court at bay.
Unfortunately for Xiao Nanhui, most of the escorts the bureau arranged were for people fleeing out of Tongcheng. Anyone who wanted to go in at a moment like this and willingly walk into that den of wolves must have had their head badly rattled. She had spent several frustrating days waiting, and just when she was on the verge of giving up and resorting to scaling the city walls under cover of night, someone actually appeared who wanted to go in.
Nobody was eager to take on the job of entering the city, so Xiao Nanhui claimed the assignment without much trouble. Her client’s surname was Jia — young, presentable, and not at all the sort who looked like his head had been rattled. Xiao Nanhui had tried to probe indirectly as to why he needed to enter the city, but her questions were met each time with nothing but silence.
After a while, she gave up being curious. So long as she achieved her goal, there was no need to dig to the roots over such formalities.
Young Master Jia proved to be extraordinarily efficient. From the moment he paid the deposit to their departure, no more than half a day had passed before Xiao Nanhui found herself standing beneath the gates of Tongcheng before she had even quite registered what was happening.
The guards at the city gate were three times their usual number. Apart from Young Master Jia, who had already handed over silver, Xiao Nanhui and the others had their personal luggage turned inside out and were ordered not to remain within the city for more than three days. Only after a red stamp bearing the date of entry had been pressed into their travel documents were they permitted through the gates.
The emptied city of Tongcheng was quiet in a way that felt faintly eerie. Most of the households that had chosen to stay had also chosen to shut their doors and windows tight, keeping to themselves inside.
The air carried the smell of deathly stillness. This oppressive atmosphere had begun to pervade everything from the moment they entered Jizhou, growing denser the further west and south they went.
A suppressed mood is contagious, and Xiao Nanhui felt that even the usually chatty Bolao had grown far quieter. Young Master Jia clearly had no desire to linger either. He handed over the remaining payment in full and then hurried off on his own.
After a moment’s consideration, Xiao Nanhui decided she and Bolao should split up and act separately.
“No.”
She had barely gotten halfway through her sentence when she was cut off by a blunt refusal. She was rather annoyed. “I wasn’t even finished. What’s your hurry?”
Bolao gave her a languid, sideways glance. “Do I not know what nonsense you’re holding in? You just want to shake me off and go off on your own. Before we left, the Marquis specifically told me to stay by your side every step of the way.”
There it was — using Xiao Zhun as a cudgel to beat her with, again.
But her manpower was limited, and she could have used one person split into two. Keeping a sharp mind like Bolao beside her, only to eat and sleep, was a genuine waste.
When it came to handling Bolao, Xiao Nanhui had years of experience.
“I’ve already contacted people from Andao Institute. They’ll lend us a night owl. You stay in Tongcheng and keep an eye on Lu Songping for me, and pass any news of mine back to Quecheng. That’s all.”
Sure enough, the moment the Andao Institute was mentioned, Bolao erupted like a hen whose feathers had been set ablaze.
“Why would you go contacting the Andao Institute? I’ve already left that place. I don’t want to see a single person from there, and any bird of theirs I see, I’ll wring its neck on the spot!”
Before the last words had left her mouth, a plump, round, mottled night owl swooped down with a whoosh and landed on Bolao’s shoulder with an agility entirely at odds with its considerable bulk.
Bolao turned her neck stiffly and locked eyes with the sharp-beaked, round-eyed raptor in a gaze that carried an unmistakable air of mortality.
Xiao Nanhui shaded her eyes and squinted up at the sky. “My, the Andao Institute really does work fast. Though it’s hardly surprising — your master has been in Wancheng these past days, which isn’t too far from here. Who knows, perhaps on some whim, she’ll come to Tongcheng for a visit.”
How could Bolao miss the layers of threat woven into those words? The night owl was the Andao Institute’s exclusive messenger bird — capable of enduring hunger and thirst while traveling a hundred li a day, ferocious beyond measure and impossible for outsiders to approach. A single night owl was worth a fortune, and was one of the prized possessions of the current sect leader, Xie Li. Even if she had the nerve to wring the bird’s neck, wouldn’t the old man Xie come at her with a blade before her hand had even dropped?
Either way, this time Xiao Nanhui had her well and truly cornered. She had no intention of taking her to Bijiang.
Yet thinking of the Marquis’s earnest face as he had issued his instructions before they departed, Bolao made one final struggle. “If I went with you, I could still pass along messages.”
Xiao Nanhui gave her a cool look, and decided not to say aloud the thought that followed: If they were both captured and cut down, there wouldn’t even be anyone left to collect the bodies.
After a moment’s deliberation, she decided to try something softer. “I heard that the grapes meant to be sent as tribute from the western Ling region have been held up in Tongcheng on account of King Kang’s business.”
Bolao lowered her eyes, making an effort to conceal her reaction.
“This year was supposed to be a drought year, the rainfall poor. But the grapes have turned out sweeter than usual.”
Xiao Nanhui was fairly certain she could actually hear Bolao swallowing.
Since entering Jizhou, the two of them had been roughing it on the road with nothing but plain and meager rations. Fresh fruits and melons, which Bolao loved most, had been absent for a long while. Her round, plump face had grown noticeably leaner than it had been back in Quecheng, and she was beginning to resemble a persimmon left to shrivel and dry.
“The Marquis — if the Marquis were to ask about this later—”
Xiao Nanhui cheerfully supplied the answer: “I’ll tell him I drugged you and tied you up!”
And so it was that the brave and fearsome Bolao, first assassin of the Andao Institute, was ultimately defeated by a fat bird and a bunch of grapes.
From Tongcheng heading west, the official road too was largely swallowed by the vast and boundless Gobi. Xiao Nanhui couldn’t bring herself to make Jixiang suffer the journey, and so entrusted him as well to Bolao’s care, offering a fussy string of repeated instructions before the two of them finally parted ways and went about their separate tasks.
The summer days in Tongcheng seemed to last especially long; it was only just past the hour of You, yet the world was still bathed in bright light.
King Kang’s detached palace lay deep within Tongcheng. King Kang had been a man of easy, willful temperament, with a particular fondness for flowers, plants, insects, and birds. His birth mother had been born in Wancheng, that city of misty rains, and upon inheriting his title of vassal prince, he had poured lavish sums into transplanting flora and redesigning his detached palace into a classic garden landscape — complete with carved beams and painted rafters, winding streams and flowing water, with every detail in place.
Perhaps elsewhere this would not have been considered especially extravagant, but in the arid western Ling region of Jizhou, it was a genuinely indulgent affair.
As Xiao Nanhui lay on top of the wall appreciating the scene in the light of the setting sun, her impression of this King Kang sank a few notches further.
She was well aware of the methods the current Emperor of Tiancheng employed. Under such a forceful ruler, vassal kings with too much ambition tended not to last very long.
Then again, the consequence of excessive caution was inaction, and sometimes inaction was the greatest incompetence of all.
It was past midway through the hour of Xu when the last sliver of light still clung to the sky. Soldiers who had stood guard all day handed their posts over to the night watch and filed tiredly out through a side gate of the detached palace.