Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
For the first time in his life, Gu Shenwei felt that the wine tasted so sweet that it couldn’t possible be the same wine that he had drunk with the Queen yesterday.
In order to reach this wonderful state, he had to first put up with the initial sour and spicy flavors of the wine, the thick smell of barbecued meat, and random noises he could not understand. Gradually, the astringent and spicy notes transformed into a pure fragrance, and all of his senses except taste became vague and indistinct.
But he didn’t feel drunk. His mind was still clear and his palms as hard as iron.
The last person who had almost brought him into the world of drinking was Tie Hanfeng, but he had forced himself to retreat before becoming fully immersed in the heavy drinker’s realm. This time, however, he went a little further.
Ten steps away, Mo Lin was having a ‘secret talk’ with the six soldiers under Silver Condor. They whispered to each other secretively in their ears for a while and then raised their heads to cheer and drink like a blossoming flower in the night.
Five paces away, Shangguan Ru was drinking even harder than normal, but she didn’t show any signs of intoxication except for her cheeks, which were a bit redder than usual, and her laughter, which was was a bit heartier than usual.
One officer who seemed unconvinced was sitting opposite her and competing against her in a drinking contest while a dozen or so spectators were cheering nearby.
Mo Lin had chosen the place. “Deserters are the most aware group during wars. They create rumors, but might also spread the truth.”
The three took rotated between six horses and galloped hard to the northwest for nearly six hours before they finally arrived at the camp where the refugees and deserters were living together. They had brought a lot of wine and meat, so they were warmly welcomed by the hundreds of people who even took out their own food to share.
The deserters were afraid at first. But after figuring out that there were only three people on the other side, and after multiple assurances that they would not be forcibly recruited into hard labor, their wariness was quickly lifted by the smell of alcohol.
Shangguan Ru smiled and waved at Gu Shenwei. When he came closer, she said, “I won. You can ask him any questions you want now.”
The officer sitting on the opposite side was still swaying and waving his hand at the laughter of the crowd. “I’m too old to compete with the little girl now.”
This camp had not been disrupted yet, so there were many more young people babbling in the language of the Norland, throwing out random suggestions. A few of them said in the language of the Central Plains. “Ask him where he hid the silver.” “Ask him if he embezzled the payroll before.” “Ask him if he ever had an affair with a woman.”
The person who made the last suggestion was shoved out by the crowd.
Gu Shenwei sat with his knees on the blanket besides Shangguan Ru and thought for a while before asking, “Who’s the person that you miss the most at the moment?”
The Dragon King’s question was so simple that the audience was disappointed. The officer, however, squirmed and shook his head before whispering, “My wife.”
The answer rekindled public interests. Both the soldiers and the refugees laughed at the officer and began to pry more into his private affairs.
Shangguan Ru was very surprised. She thought that the Dragon King would ask something along the lines of whether the news of the Devil Bird was true or what the shaman’s secret was.
The officer suddenly grabbed the person next to him, stood up and cried out, almost in tears, “I’m going home and I’m not going to fight this bullshit battle anymore. I’m always anxious and don’t even know who the enemy will be tomorrow.”
“Go home!” They shouted all together, even those who sat far away. In a camp where more than half of them were deserters, this was not a taboo subject.
“The Khan did not support the war either. The reason why he burned down the Royal Court was to let us go home!” someone cried out, seeking a grander cause for their flight.
“Aren’t you here to uncover secrets?” Shangguan Ru asked in a low voice.
“Leave it to Mo Lin. He’s better at that than any one of us.”
Mo Lin was a man of the Norland. His lingual advantage together with his identity as a former wing guard made it much easier for him to be completely trusted by the soldiers.
Shangguan Ru was a bit unhappy. “Then what do you want us to do?”
“Drink.”
Shangguan Ru’s face darkened, “I ran dozens of miles through the dark just to drink?”
“Hmm. It’s not appropriate to drink in the camp. All the taverns of the Royal Court are gone, and only this kind of place still exists where we can drink.”
As she stared at the Dragon King, Shangguan Ru felt that the longer she stayed with this man, the weaker the shadow of Servant Huan she saw in him became. It was hard for her to understand how a man could change so much, but when she thought of herself, she could suddenly somewhat understand it. Although some parts of her had changed, there were still many other parts of her that had remained the same, just like the Dragon King. The current Dragon King still had parts of Servant Huan’s old personality, and they were all the most unusual parts of Servant Huan’s personality.
She smiled and handed him a bowl, saying, “I saw you drinking alone. That’s no fun at all. Come on, let’s have a drinking competition.”
Before Gu Shenwei could answer, the people around heard Shangguan Ru’s invitation and jeered, “You are the Dragon King, you should not withdraw from any challenges.
More and more people gathered around him. For these deserters and refugees, the word ‘Dragon King’ would only arouse curiosity instead of awe.
Gu Shenwei took the bowl and agreed, merely saying, “Okay.”
Someone held up the wine jar and helped fill the two’s bowls with wine. They looked at each other, then simultaneously downed it at the same time.
As one bowl after another was drank, the cheers grew louder and louder. The two people competing, however, were focused on drinking and said nothing. As they drank faster and faster, the crowd’s excitement gradually turned into surprise and finally into admiration.
“The Dragon King is a good drinker. Who said that he couldn’t drink?”
“The female general is even more capable of drinking. She’s already gone through one contest.”
After the tenth bowl, Gu Shenwei forgot the concept of numbers. His face was not red, but instead was becoming more and more pale, the opposite of Shangguan Ru’s.
The wonderful part of drinking had passed. He did not know what he was drinking anymore, but was still convinced that his mind was clear and his hands steady. It was not until he lifted up the bowl to drink more wine, but let all the wine fall to the ground that he finally realized that he was already deeply intoxicated.
The spectators applauded and cheered. “The female general won again and the Dragon King lost.” “Ask the Dragon King a question.”
Shangguan Ru was also drunk, but she was experienced enough to hide her drunkness. She spread her arms and smilingly said, “This is just a drinking competition; there’s no need to ask a question.”
“No, no. That’s the rule.” The crowd continued to heckle them. In fact, this rule had been proposed by Shangguan Ru and had been used just once.
“A rule is a rule.” Gu Shenwei straightened up and felt that he was much taller than usual and even his voice was louder.
The expectant eyes all fell on Shangguan Ru’s rosy cheeks as she tried to say something, but suddenly shut her mouth and covered her face with her hands.
The crowd looked at each other, not understanding what had happened to the straightforward female general.
Shangguan Ru moved her hands away and revealed an irrepressible smile. “I really don’t know what to ask. Could you give me an idea?”
They had many questions for the Dragon King. In the end, it was an older soldier who seized the moment and asked, “Dragon King, was that Devil Bird really brought to the Royal Court by you?”
No one asked any other questions. All of them turned to look at the Dragon King.
There was only that smiling face swimming in front of Gu Shenwei’s eyes, and he didn’t hear the question clearly and had to have the crowd repeate it to him again and again until he finally responded, “The Devil Bird? No, I didn’t bring it.”
“But you have a giant bird that only eats people, right?”
“It is as tall as a tree and wind gales caused by its wing flaps can blow a hundred men away.”
“People will die when it stares at them.”
“Its feathers are highly poisonous and one of them can kill thousands of people.”
…
The image of the roc was growing more and more horrible.
Gu Shenwei rose to his feet. The smiling face in front of him spun and he followed it, also spinning. Yet he still believed that his mind was clear. Although the voice seemed so far away, it was still his. “I have a roc, red-capped, and red-eyed. It’s a head taller than me but it’s not my pet, nor is it my tool. We are friends, and it’s a free animal. I was nearby when it was first born from its eggshell, and I watched it grow up.”
Gu Shenwei paused for a moment. His words had attracted more attention. Even Mo Lin and the nearby soldiers had ended their ‘secret talks’ and gathered around to listen.
“The roc eats all kinds of animals, including humans. It especially likes eyeballs.”
The crowd cried out in unison and recoiled several steps from Gu Shenwei altogether.
“But it doesn’t kill people,” Gu Shenwei continued with certainty. “That was our agreement. If I kill people , then it can eat them. It has a very rich diet, including livestock and some beasts like wolves and tigers. So it can still live very well without eating people.”
“Are you sure, Dragon King? After all, it’s just a brutal beast,” asked a timid voice in the crowd.
“Sometimes beasts are more trustworthy than men.”
These words struck a chord among the people of the Norland who all liked horses. “So the Devil Bird that came to harm the prairie is for sure not the Dragon King’s?”
Mo Lin had already gathered a lot of information tonight and thought that he had more say than the Dragon King. So he pushed his way through the crowd and stood by the Dragon King’s side, loudly asking, “Everyone keeps saying that there’s a Devil Bird. Has anyone actually seen it with their own eyes?”
The crowd looked at each other and no one spoke for a long time. Finally, a deserter spoke up. “I have a friend, and he said…”
“He said that he heard about it from his friends.” Mo Lin helped him finish his sentence. The crowd laughed out loud, and the deserter blushed and no longer spoke up.
“I’ve never seen the Devil Bird, but I saw a corpse that was killed by the bird,” an officer said, who was the first to compete with Shangguan Ru in drinking.
“What did the corpse look like?” asked Gu Shenwei.
The officer shook his head as if he were very reluctant to bring up the memory again. “Less than half of the body was left. Almost all the flesh was gone, but the face was still there… His face looked like it had been pulled back and forth by several people, and his eyes were about to fall out. I thought that he had been scared to death before he was eaten.”
Silence reigned, and the fear that had just been dispelled returned to everyone’s heart, several times larger than before.
“He’s right,” Mo Lin cried out. “There’s more than one dead body.”
The crowd anxiously looked into the dark sky as if the Devil Bird were circling overhead.
“But the murderer was not the so-called Devil Bird, but rather people.” Mo Lin’s tone was even more certain than the Dragon King’s.
“How do you know?”
Mo Lin said to that officer, “Please think again. If no one had told you about the existence of the Devil Bird, how would you think the flesh had fallen off the body?”
The officer looked down and thought for a while before suddenly understanding. “It was done with a saber! The flesh was scraped off by a saber! And we said that the Devil Bird must have had a knife-like mouth. Now that I think about it, it’s more reasonable to say that it was scraped off by a saber directly!”
Some people believed this while others did not, and they started arguing about it. Gu Shenwei didn’t involve himself in any of the discussions. Mo Lin must have found some important clues and would naturally tell him all about it afterward.
He walked out of the crowd, found a quiet place, and vomited out the wine in his stomach, really feeling awake now.
On the way back, he met Shangguan Ru, who blocked his way. “When are you going to tell me the truth?” She was still smiling, but it seemed more like a forced one now. “I think that now is the right time. I’m just drunk enough to understand what you are going to say yet will not feel sad about it.”
“You have to leave the Royal Court.” Gu Shenwei did not expect that it would be so difficult to say these few words. “You’ve become an obstacle for me.”
