Chapter 203: 267. Infiltration

“Li Zhen, your ears are showing again. I told you to keep them flat against your head!”

Jia reached up to fix Jung’s disguise, but her sister batted her hands away and smoothed it out herself.

“Stop fussing! I’m doing my best, but this is uncomfortable, and it makes it hard to hear. Why does it matter anyway? I thought you were using magic to hide them, Li’er.”

Jia rolled her eyes.

“Your ears are too tall! It’s easier to add than remove with illusions, and keeping up two disguises by myself is already hard enough! And just call me ‘Meili.’ If you get too fancy with the fake names you’re just going to mess them up.”

“Is that why mine is almost exactly the same? Li Meili and Tian Lihua are such cute names, but mine hardly changed at all!”

Eui chuckled and shook her head.

“Hey, at least you didn’t get stuck with ‘Jing Yi.’ How did you even come up with that one, Jia? The only person we know with the name Yi is a huge, burly dude. Are you sure it’s a feminine name?”

Jia crossed her arms and pouted.

“It’s unisex! I think...probably. Look, just don’t overthink it, alright?”

“I’m more worried that you underthought these names, Jia.”

“Shut up! We’re almost there.”

Jia did a final check of their disguises before they approached the gate, to make sure nothing was amiss.

An Eui’s disguise was fairly simple—she changed her eyes from crimson red to their original dark brown color and hid her rat tail safely beneath her clothing. Her facial features were very slightly adjusted, and her brand hidden. It was a little uncanny to look at—like someone had tried to draw Eui from memory and almost gotten it. She adopted the alias Jing Yi.

Lee Jung’s disguise had been the most difficult—her long rabbit ears were nearly impossible to hide behind illusion unless she consistently held them flush against the back of her head, and she kept slipping. All Jia had to do was add a bit of extra volume to her hair and the disguise was complete, but constantly worrying about the ears was taxing. For an alias, Jia had kept things simple by reading her sister’s name the Qin way—Li Zhen.

Rika had handled her own disguise, with a bit of input from Jia. It mostly consisted of darkening her light brown hair to black, and lightening her tan skin a little bit. Rika was from the southern parts of Yamato, and while Qin wasn’t entirely void of darker skin tones, they agreed that it would draw less attention if she changed it. She didn’t bother changing her face much, arguing that most people wouldn’t recognize her anyway. She’d chosen Tian Lihua as her Qin alias.

Finally, Jia herself had needed the most extensive makeover. Her white hair had been turned black, and her cat ears were hidden beneath a pair of tight buns—a fashion choice inspired by Yan Yue, who’d frequently worn her hair the same way. Her eyes were changed to look more human, and their brilliant golden hue was toned down to a darker amber color, closer to Narae’s. Lastly, her tail was hidden beneath her clothes, but as she didn’t have the same degree of articulation with hers that Eui did, she’d needed to tie it down against her waist—a decision she now regretted, as she was finding it extremely uncomfortable. She adopted the name Li Meili, so that she could still identify herself as Jung’s sister.

For clothing, all four of them wore simple undyed cloth robes that would hopefully blend in among the common populace of Qin. None of the farmers working in the paddies outside of town had spared them so much as a glance so far, which Jia considered a good sign.

Also a good sign was the fact that people seemed to be passing through the gates completely unobstructed. There were a couple of guards posted, but they mostly ignored people as they came and went. If all went well, they’d be able to just walk right in.

As if just to spite her for even having the thought, one of the guards turned to look at their group and kept looking as they approached. As soon as they were within earshot, the guard waved them over.

“You four! Step aside, please.”

Jia swallowed hard, but they’d expected at least this much. It was no problem. The four of them moved to the side of the road and approached the guard. He leaned on his spear lazily and eyed them up for a few moments before speaking.

“Afternoon, ladies. I haven’t seen your faces before—travelers? Where are your husbands?”

Jia had just been about to open her mouth to respond to the first question before being taken aback by the second. Husbands? That was not something she’s been prepared to answer. Eui stepped forward and put on her best scowl.

“Pardon me, sir! My name is Jing Yi, and we are indeed travelers. This is my wife, Li Meili, and her sister Li Zhen. With us is Tian Lihua, the daughter of a family friend—tragically unwedded, for now.”

Eui’s voice was a bit lower than usual as she spoke, and Jia had to fight down her panic as she spoke in Eui’s mind.

“What are you doing?!”

Eui’s response came with absolute confidence.

“Don’t worry, Jia. I’ve got this one.”

The guard blinked a few times and adjusted his helmet, staring down at Eui’s diminutive figure.

“Er, my apologies, sir. I mistook you for—uh, must have been the light.”

Eui nodded amiably.

“I have often received compliments on my youthful physique! An honest mistake.”

“Ahem, yes, of course.”

Jia could feel Eui’s smug satisfaction.

“I told you it was a man’s name!”

“It’s unisex!”

The guard took a moment to regain his composure before resuming his questioning.

“What is your place of origin and business in Qinghe?”

Eui didn’t hesitate—that was a question they’d been prepared for.

“We’ve just come from Nanmen, and we’re passing through on our way up north to meet some acquaintances.”

“What for?”

That was a more intrusive line of questioning than they’d expected, but Eui adapted smoothly.

“A wedding, we should hope. Hua’er here has a suitor waiting for her that her father has been in correspondence with.”

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Jia surreptitiously pinched her own arm to draw Eui’s attention.

“Eui, stop embellishing! The more complicated you make this story, the harder it’s going to be to keep straight!”

The guard furrowed his brows.

“Why isn’t he here, then? He should be accompanying his own daughter.”

Before Eui could respond, Rika bowed deeply.

“Please forgive my Uncle Jing Yi—this is the furthest away from our hometown we’ve ever traveled, and I think he’s a bit flustered by the big city.”

The guard blinked, looking back over his shoulder at the town then back to Rika with an incredulous expression.

“Big—? Oh, by the Emperor, you’re frontier folk. Do you even know the name of your destination?”

When he was met by silence, the guard covered his face with a gauntleted hand and groaned.

“Alright, I’ll give you a chance to save face. Go straight down the main road to the bridge crossing the river. The magistrate’s office is the first building on the left—the big red one, you can’t miss it. The clerks there will help you get your paperwork sorted out.”

The girls exchanged uncertain glances, but the guard held up a hand to preempt any questions.

“Look, Nanmen is a sect village, right? Things are different here in the country—you can’t just wander around willy-nilly on some cult-jackass’ say so. Take your letter of permission up to the magistrate’s office, and they’ll get you sorted out with proper traveling papers. You’re lucky—some cities would have turned you away or even just arrested you on the spot.”

Jia was more confused with every word the man said.

“Our letter of permission...?”

“Is not sufficient to let you go wherever you want, no matter what those self-important dickheads living on the mountains told you. I’ll bet whoever signed it wasn’t even a sect elder—just some inner-disciple with a big head. Like I said—go to the magistrate’s office, tell them you’re from the sect village, they’ll explain better than I can.”

Eui bowed.

“Thank you, sir. Are we free to go, then?”

The guard waved them off.

“Yeah, yeah, go on. Don’t cause any trouble—I don’t know how they do things on the frontier, but we don’t have any cultivators here. If you stir up shit, nobody’s gonna care if your friend’s cousin is an inner sect member or whatever—you’re on your own. Good luck with the marriage arrangements.”

The girls bowed and moved on through the open gate. The other guard gave them a nod of acknowledgement, then promptly forgot they ever existed, going back to lazily watching people come and go through the gates. Jia let out a sigh of relief once they were properly inside the walls.

“Well, that could have gone better.”

Eui chuckled.

“Could have gone a whole lot worse, too.”

“Ri—I mean, Tian Lihua, how did you get him to just start rambling like that? You barely said anything!”

Rika shrugged.

“Eh, it’s easier to feign ignorance than to sell an elaborate lie. Uncle Jing Yi was getting a bit too caught up in his story. I didn’t expect him to just go off like that.”

Jung covered her mouth and tittered.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never played dumb for a guard, Jia. It can be remarkably effective on low-ranking figures of authority—I know I taught you that.”

Jia nudged her big sister gently with an elbow.

“It’s Li Meili, sister. And I usually just tried to avoid talking to guards at all. No offense, but your social tricks would just get me beaten most of the time.”

“Well, you always did have too sharp a tongue for your own good. Speaking of which, was it just me, or did you get the impression that the guard wasn’t too fond of sorcerers?”

“Cultivators, Li Zhen. You need to start talking like a citizen of the empire. But yes, he did seem pretty disdainful.”

Rika put her hands behind her head and stared up at the sky as she hummed thoughtfully.

“Maybe he’s got a grudge or something?”

Eui frowned and shook her head.

“Don’t think so. I didn’t feel any anger or hatred from him, just...contempt. I doubt it’s personal. More importantly, what do we do now? Should we actually visit that magistrate?”

Jia grimaced.

“I dunno—that sounds like a pretty good way to out ourselves in a hurry. If we learned anything from that conversation, it’s that we don’t know anything. We need way more information if we’re going to blend in convincingly. Tian Lihua’s trick of playing dumb isn’t going to keep working forever.”

Rika nodded.

“Fair enough. Stick to the original plan, then?”

“Yeah. You’re sure you’ll be alright on your own?”

Even disguised, Rika’s signature grin was unmistakable as she put her hands on her hips and beamed happily at Jia.

“Are you kidding? I was practically made for jobs like this, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to really test myself ever since my breakthrough. You guys just relax and leave everything to me. I’ll have what we need in no time!”