Chapter 12: 12

Chapter 12: Alley

The black-clothed girl walked deep into the alley. Occasionally, someone would hang up a festive red lantern. Unlike the others, the girl did not have any vague clues to latch onto or a laid-out path. She walked through this town alone.

Near the alley, a fancily dressed boy held an imperial seal. A coiling dragon was engraved in it. Under the sunlight, it glimmered. The boy looked at the treasure in his hands, enamored by it.

Beside him, a tall old man knelt down on one knee and was carefully wiping the dirt off the boy’s boots with his cuff.

Out of the corner of his eye, the boy had long ago spotted that strange girl. Based on her cloth-draped hat, green knife sheath, and her firm steps, it was obvious she was not from this small town.

The boy did not pay mind to her. He was too engaged with this ancient imperial seal. Tough, secretly, he hoped that the girl would have designs about stealing this treasure. That would make his life more interesting.

Anyway, he had already accomplished his two goals. The harvest was more than he expected. If he did not find something to do, then he could only leave with his old servant. That would be too boring. There would be something missing in his heart if he left now.

Left a prince, forever not an emperor. 

Every chosen person could bring three items divided between three embroidered bags. Before entering the town, they would need to hand one of these bags to the gatekeeper. This was the toll for entering. No matter how dilapidated the gate was, no matter how lowly the gatekeeper was, even if an emperor or patriarch came here, they would have to follow this rule. The two embroidered bags left indicated that one could take at most two treasures out of this town. One could only return the rest of the treasures if they found more than two. 

The item in one of the boy’s bags was three special kinds of copper coins: evil warding coin, imperial spring coin, god offering coin. 

Although they were called copper coins, they actually consisted of a rare gold essence. For ordinary people, even silver was not common, let alone gold. 

The fancily dressed boy had studied all about these three copper coins that were obscure in history but could not make out anything of them, so he traded them away.

Up ahead, the girl with a chilly aura walked forward, ignoring the master-servant pair.

The boy had a change of heart and put away the imperial seal in his one embroidered bag. He hung it around his waist and stood in the middle of the small alley. He had no intention of letting her pass.

The tall old man stood up and said in a soft voice, “Your Highness, this person is an expert in the martial way. Do not take this person lightly. If this was outside the town, it would not matter, but here, this little one’s pure martial physique is bearing the suppression of this world. Extremely painful. If I fully circulate my qi and open my acupoints, my meridians will be flooded. If things get out of hand, my death will be a small matter, but your Highness’s safety is of the utmost importance. If anything in the slightest goes wrong with your cultivation because of this one’s lack of care, Your Highness, how will I be able to explain that to his and her majesty?”

The boy said, annoyed, “Wu, after you left the palace, you’ve become more chatty. You would say so few words back in the palace. You are now even worse than my sister’s stupid parrot.”

The old man called himself “this little one.” He was a servant to the core, a loyal eunuch to the palace. When he saw that the young master did not seem to understand, he could only put it more bluntly. “Your Highness, this person in the alley poses a threat to you.”

The boy smiled lazily and replied, “Although I have heard that the path of cultivation is filled with the wicked and twisted, I have just met this girl. What are the chances she’s going to kill me and take my treasures? Unlikely, right? If every person ‘above the mountain’ was like that, wouldn’t the world be in chaos?”

The old man sighed. Although the monarchy below the mountain and the immortal families above the mountain were intimately connected, they stood on two opposing ends. They despised each other.

The boy was a bit discouraged by the old man’s words. “Ah, forget it. As a man, it would be improper for me to bother this girl over some bad blood.”

The girl walked past him, her left hand on the hilt of her knife.

The boy smiled, turned to the side, and motioned for the girl to pass him.

The black-clothed girl slowed down a little, her body tensed up, her eyes full of vigilance.

When the eunuch saw the girl’s bloody hands wrapped in cotton, he frowned.

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Suddenly, the eunuch roared, “You dare!” His words came down like thunder. His feet seemed to drift as he came to the boy’s side. The old man gently pushed the boy against the alley wall and then spread out his hand. 

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Thunk. A stone crashed into his hand. Someone had tried to use a stone to smash the young master’s head in. The force applied to the stone was shocking, almost enough to penetrate a wall. The old man crumbled the stone in his palm by making a fist. Instead of first targeting the assassin, he punched the black-clothed girl with his right hand.

The girl hesitated for a moment and suppressed her instinct reaction of unsheathing her knife. She just tilted her head and avoided the powerful punch.

The wind generated by the fist ruffled the fabric covering the girl’s face and her hat. 

After the punch, the old man followed with a chop, the fist aiming straight for the girl’s head. There was no pause between his attacks.

The girl raised her arms up quickly, crossed them together, and blocked the path of the punch.

In an instant, she retreated a dozen steps back. The girl let out a cough. She stretched out one of her bloody hands and straightened out her slanted hat.

She was a little angry.

The girl turned around and looked at the tall old man who was frantically looking around. She said with a stone face, “If it weren’t for me, you’d be a dead man.”

The old man pretended to not hear that. Experienced with assassination and sneak attacks, he already dropped the girl’s threat level to secondary. The first priority belonged to finding out the person who shot the stone.

A tall, thin man stood on the other side of the alley. His arms were thick and muscular, biceps bulging like iron balls. Two bags hung from his waist, full of round objects. 

He stood in place, as if the sneak attack was just a  warning shot. He looked closely at the girl and then grinned. He stuck out his tongue, his eyes fiery.

The girl smiled and said, “Come.” 

A sword flew and pierced the thin man through the head.

Then, the sword arrived by the girl’s side. It spun around her rapidly, acting like a child.

She then said, “Leave!”

The flying sword vanished.

The boy and old man froze. The old eunuch was not shocked by the flying sword, but by the fact that the girl could control the flying sword with her will. He feared her.

This fear made the old man go into a trance, as if he returned to when he was once a boy. The first time he entered the palace, he was trembling in fear when he caught a glance at a superior wearing a scarlet four-claw dragon robe walking in the palace. He was in awe of the piercing scarlet.

The boy let out a bitter smile, took a step forward, and asked in concern, “Grandpa Wu, you okay?”

The white-haired eunuch had a grave face and shook his head. “Please take care. If nothing works, I’ll just…”

The boy shook his head and asked, “How about we just apologize?”

The old man was caught off guard and began reproaching himself.

This servant has humiliated the lord, the imperial family! Deserving of death!

The boy stood there smiling and said, “Grandpa Wu, we’ve done something wrong. Saying sorry, what’s the problem?”

The old man felt that this was beneath his master, but the boy was already walking towards the girl. The old man looked at this, a mixture of feelings swirling.

There was not a single speck of dirt on the boy’s back.

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