There circulated in the court of Tiancheng a hand-copied volume of secrets that no one had ever actually laid eyes upon, known as A Hundred Methods for Glimpsing the Imperial Countenance.
As its name suggested, it was a guide to meeting the Emperor by a hundred different means.
Whether such a volume truly existed was a mystery without an answer. But the mere fact that it circulated as rumor illustrated one thing clearly: the current Emperor of Tiancheng was famously averse to being seen.
How averse, exactly? Legend had it that on the day of his enthronement, the Emperor was supposed to ride the imperial palanquin along the Grand Enlightenment Passage to the Yuanming Hall, where the assembled ministers awaited their first audience with the new sovereign. But when the palanquin was lifted, it was discovered that the Emperor had ordered a cover fitted over it — and over that cover, a layer of gauze, embroidered so densely with patterns that it could be admired only from a distance and never approached too closely.
From that point on, any court official with even a shred of perceptiveness understood one thing: the Emperor did not like to show his face.
The head eunuch was the first to grasp this, relocating the dragon throne in the Yuanming Hall another ten feet back. The eunuchs in the inner palace wasted no time following suit, fitting the side chambers of the Yuanhe Hall with gauze screens. Even the candles in the Yuanhua Hall were lit with a stinginess that beggared belief — and one had to wonder whether the beauties of the rear palace had ever managed to make out the Emperor’s face during those intimate moments.
Such behavior — this shrinking from wind, this hiding from light — was the sort of thing that, had Xiao Nanhui heard of it in the past, would have kept her quietly laughing to herself for a very long time. Hmph. So the Emperor was too ugly to be seen, was he? Or perhaps he had some dreadful affliction on his face. Either way, there must be something wrong — otherwise, what kind of grown man hides and covers himself like some cloistered young woman? Truly insufferable.
But now, in this moment, she could not bring herself to laugh at all.
Early that morning, she had parted ways with the other three. In the end, she had still been unable to avoid knocking Su Pingchuan unconscious — but all in all, the westward journey had gone relatively smoothly.
Yet that smoothness did not last long before it was utterly shattered by a question that struck her without warning.
Did she know what the Emperor looked like?
The answer was painfully obvious.
The closest she had ever come to the Emperor was that audience outside the Taihe Bathhouse and Gardens. But a gauze screen had stood between them, and what little wit she possessed had been entirely consumed by her verbal sparring with him. She had not spared a single thought for what he actually looked like.
A person she had never even seen — how was she supposed to pass such critical information to him?
Where was the Emperor’s military camp? What were his daily routines, morning and evening? Who attended him inside? And most importantly — which one was the Emperor?
Xiao Nanhui sat beside the dried-up bed of the Tianmu River and racked her brains through the entire night. Her mind grew emptier and emptier, until at last only cold wind and sand remained.
She had also considered giving up and simply going to find Xiao Zhun first. She knew Suibei Camp inside and out, and she would certainly recognize Xiao Zhun on sight. She hadn’t seen him in so long — she longed to rush straight to his camp.
That impulse was ultimately suppressed by her reason, because doing so would inevitably drag Xiao Zhun into this affair.
The matter was still unclear, but one thing was certain: this was no simple business. Rumor had it that the Emperor’s thoughts were impossible to read, and Xiao Zhun was a man of great influence and authority — suspicion was easily invited. With affairs at such a precarious juncture, she could not pull him into the fire.
Dawn came early in the gobi. When the horizon brightened once more, she could not afford to waste any more time and set off in a daze.
Based on what she had gleaned from Su Pingchuan, the Emperor was most likely with the Black Feather Division. And based on the most recent coded letter Bolao had sent her, the Black Feather Division’s main force should be encamped somewhere near the lower reaches of the Tianmu River.
Xiao Nanhui had caught a distant glimpse of that area once, back when she had accompanied the young lady of the Tian Family to her wedding. Thanks to the Sun Family, an artificial dam had been built to divert the water of the upper Tianmu River. The dried-up riverbed downstream, ravaged by wind and sand over the years, had gradually subsided and collapsed into a hundred-li-long ravine that split the eastern and western districts of Suyan into two — a chasm so sheer that even birds and beasts would shrink from it.
For a great army, such formidable terrain made for a fine hiding place, though a poor route of advance. The Bai Family clearly understood this well enough — otherwise they would never have left such a gap unguarded.
With her destination confirmed, only two difficulties remained.
The first was her concern about the Emperor. The second was how to infiltrate the Black Feather Division camp.
Whether it was Suibei Camp or the Black Feather Division, she had served in the military for many years. If she walked in openly by identifying herself, she ran the risk of running into someone who knew her. One look at each other, and the risk of tipping off the wrong person would be very real. Should she disguise herself and slip in under cover of night? Setting aside the fact that the Black Feather Division’s defenses were sure to be exceptionally tight — she could not be confident of coming and going without leaving a trace. And even if luck was on her side and she actually managed to sneak in, the first problem would still be waiting for her.
She wracked her brains for a while, and was left with only the most foolish of options.
Taking a deep breath, she began making her way along the dried riverbed toward the upper reaches of the Tianmu River.
The further north she went, the deeper the ravine grew. The jagged riverbanks were stripped bare of every blade of grass — not a single pebble could hide itself from view.
Xiao Nanhui felt that she was not walking through a ravine at all, but along the blade of a great sword suspended between Bijiang and Tiancheng.
When she estimated she had reached the edge of the military camp, she stopped, found a crevice in the rock to conceal herself, and waited until dusk — until the light had turned murky and ambiguous between heaven and earth — before she finally made her move.
The Black Feather Division’s eyes were truly extraordinary. She didn’t even need to make any furtive movements — barely had she poked her head out and taken a few steps before an arrow was fired at her.
The first arrow was merely a probe. She rolled aside and dodged it cleanly.
It seemed that the agility of that dodge made an impression, because the second arrow came with killing intent.
She had no idea which lieutenant had drilled those archers, but she had already dodged with what she thought was quite good timing — and yet the arrow still buried itself in her thigh. Fortunately, it missed anything vital.
“Who goes there?”
The voice from the cliff face echoed through the ravine.
Xiao Nanhui said nothing. She scrambled to her feet and made a show of fleeing, but hadn’t taken two steps before the Black Feather soldiers descended from above and pinned her to the ground.
These were sentinels of the Black Feather Division, concealed without rest in the surrounding cliff faces and rock crevices. Any suspicious figure who appeared would be dealt with immediately.
She was still wearing the southern Qiang clothing she had acquired in the Bijiang settlement, and her face was covered in a smudged mess of grime. When she opened her mouth, out poured a stream of Lingxi dialect.
“It’s a woman.”
The few Black Feather soldiers exchanged glances. They seemed to have already formed a rough assessment of her identity.
“Search her.”
She was pinned down, and everything she carried was emptied out.
“What’s she got on her?”
“Apart from a half-length staff, nothing but some dry rations.”
Before the soldier had finished speaking, something the size of a palm slipped from Xiao Nanhui’s inner garment and landed on the ground with a clang — clearly made of hard metal.
She stayed face-down on the ground, her peripheral vision catching a soldier picking up that iron tablet. A silence fell over the group, and then someone spoke in a low voice.
“Bring her back to camp.”
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