Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
With his cheeks flushing red and his chest being pushed down upon, Shulitu had never felt so tired, and neither had he ever been so persistent in resisting.
He refused to enter the tent, and stubbornly insisted on facing the unpredictable Court Attendants soldiers right in the open, together with several dozen officers. The torches were blazing all around them, and these soldiers were arguing about the fate of the hostages right in front of them.
The Court Attendants Army were not as united in mind as a piece of iron board as many believed. The other 10,000 men corps had returned and every corps had their own opinions that differed slightly from the others. The key issue revolved around whether the young king Shulitu and the wing guard Silver Condor should be killed or spared. Some soldiers insisted on killing them because Shulitu had protected those aristocratic military officers and Silver Condor was partly responsible for the fiasco with the counterfeit remains. Others thought they shouldn’t kill more people without a righteous reasons. Especially so regarding the young king – who was the great grandson of the Khan and who hadn’t reached adulthood yet – his blood shouldn’t be spilled.
Shulitu believed that his presence would offer some confidence as well as pressure to his advocates, so he refused to enter the tent. Once the parties involved were no longer present, people were more prone to making cruel decisions – this was one of the lessons he had learned in life.
His grandfather had once held the intention of killing him, and it was only at the last moment when he saw Shulitu’s eyes that he had changed his mind. The same went for the Dragon King’s military counselor. He always refused to observe the battlefield himself, and one of the reasons for doing so was that this was the only way he could continue to make decisions that affected the lives of thousands of soldiers without hesitation.
Shulitu had a sense of duty. He turned his head to glance at the officers behind him. “I heard that the Dragon King’s back. He’ll figure something out.”
Azheba and the others bowed to pay their respects – this was not a cowards’ impulsive act of allegiance but rather their respect for a member of the Khan’s family, and this twelve-year-old kid was qualified to be an excellent member of it.
Mo Lin looked at the crowd of soldiers who were whispering furtively to each other, believing that their denate was coming to an end. He bent at the waist and whispered to Shulitu, “Stay close to me.”
“But…” Shulitu wanted to believe that the Court Attendants soldiers would come to their senses, but he soon understood that Mo Lin was right – those soldiers who had hoped to spare the young king were now turning away to avoid eye contact with him.
“It won’t be necessary,” he said. He had made up his mind, yet he was grateful for Mo Lin’s favorable intention. “I’ve always been prepared for death. I’d rather die together with a group of the most outstanding officers on the grassland than die from a cup of poisonous wine alone.”
Mo Lin was surprised. This kid, whose fate was to be a puppet, still carried a kind of noble dignity within him and didn’t abandon his sanity. He bent forward and whispered, “Your Highness remind me of the Khan.”
Shulitu was slightly surprised, then he smiled.
Azheba and several other officers walked in front of the young king. They all sensed danger and they couldn’t let a kid be the first one to face it.
Someone in the crowd said, “Your Highness, are you willing to leave by yourself and leave the officers behind?”
“No,” Shulitu uttered one terse word.
Rather than persuading him hypocritically, the officers whipped out their sabers simultaneously – but regardless of however many sabers they had, they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves against a torrential rain of arrows. They were just symbolically showing their uncompromising attitude.
The groups of soldiers started backing away like the tide, then they drew their bows and nocked their arrows all at the same time.
Gu Shenwei arrived right at this moment, only followed by Han Fen and Fang Wenshi.
The look in the Court Attendants soldiers’ eyes made Fang Wenshi nervous. It contained a unique apathy that was liable to change at any moment – either into a friendly smile or into a hostile grimace, totally unpredictable and undetectable.
That was why Fang Wenshi admired the Dragon King so much – his response was to merely lower his head slightly and continued walking without looking at anyone; if someone was in his way, he would just gently push him aside, and then slowly continue making his way through the crowd. All the while, the soldiers who were touched by him would always jump aside like they had been burned by fire and then started whispering and pointing with their comrades.
Han Fen had dressed herself in a standard soldier’s uniform and she was like the Dragon King’s shadow, imitating his manner and expressions at every twist and turn.
The impact brought by the Dragon King rippled through the crowds, and those bows which had just been raised were lowered, but none of the soldiers put their arrows away.
Gu Shenwei stood between the soldiers and the officers. First, he nodded at Shulitu and the others, then he turned and faced the soldiers. He was just about to speak when someone on the opposite side asked, “Is it true that the Khan burned an arrow in your hand?”
“You should asked those who saw it with their own eyes.”
The crowd went silent. Then an arrow was shot at the Dragon King. The arrow was not fast and lacked strength, so Gu Shenwei easily grabbed it with his hand. That man spoke up again, demanding, “Show us one more time.”
Gu Shenwei held the arrow stick in both hands before snapping it in half gently. “Neither the Khan nor I are juggling entertainers.”
That man was awed. Then another man yelled out, “It’s true. I saw it with my own eyes. The fire was burning right in the Dragon King’s hand, yet he remained unharmed.”
All the soldiers looked at the Dragon King’s hands – they were indeed unharmed.
“Please allow us to send these men to Heaven, Dragon King. This is the Khan’s command. We must obey,” the next man said in a more respectful tone.
“Don’t believe the rumors so easily. If the Khan issued a command from the Heavens, there should have been a vision, but I saw nothing.”
“The fake body was a vision, and the officers’ turning themselves in was also a vision.”
The voice received a lot of responses and Gu Shenwei felt that the crowd was about to go out of control. His influence was not powerful enough to manipulate the minds of tens of thousands of soldiers.
He opened his arms and decided to speak about the giant roc, yet a shrill cry suddenly came from behind him.
Gu Shenwei turned in surprise, and saw that the officers were running towards the young king Shulitu in panic.
Shulitu was twitching and screeching, and even several strong officers couldn’t hold him back.
“Vision, this is a vision!” a soldier yelled loudly. All of the soldiers’ faces flushed with excitement, and they raised their bows and nocked their arrows again.
All of a sudden, Shulitu stood up, his body straight as a board. He stared blankly into space, and the voice of an old man came out of his mouth. “My palace…”
Everybody was transfixed with shock. The officers closest to Shulitu knelt down to the ground immediately – they had heard it very clearly and could clearly tell that it was indeed the Khan’s voice.
“My palace… danger… take me back…”
Patches of soldiers knelt to the ground as if a hurricane were sweeping across the field. Those in the distance didn’t hear the voice, yet they followed the lead of those in front and also knelt. When the news that the young king had been possessed by the Khan spread, even the common soldiers who were confronting the Court Attendants troops panicked and knelt down.
Fang Wenshi was suspicious. He had never heard Khan’s voice before, but judging by the crowd’s reaction, there should be no misunderstanding this. But he knew that Shulitu had only seen the Khan once when he was young, so he couldn’t possibly have imitated the Khan so vividly.
Fang Wenshi knelt as well. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him. He raised his head and looked around. As expected, Han Fen who was dressed as a soldier was kneeling near the feet of Shulitu. She had lowered her head and he couldn’t tell what she was doing.
Dragon King was the only one who didn’t kneel, and he just lowed his head to pay his respects to Shulitu.
“Palace… return…” Shulitu said in the Khan’s voice once again.
This was a command. The Court Attendants Army got onto their horses as quickly as they could. Then Shulitu came around, looking at the mess and asking, discombobulated, “What’s going on?”
Most of the officers hadn’t believed the story that the Khan had gone to Heaven and become the Fire God, but now they had no reason to doubt its authenticity. All of them bent at the waist from five steps away, which made Shulitu the tallest man present.
All the soldiers in the camp fell in at an unprecedented speed. At the head of the procession, officers were guarding Shulitu, and the Court Attendants Army were following them. Then there were the common soldiers. None of the soldiers stayed behind because the Khan hadn’t commanded any of them to do so.
There were more than 100,000 cavalrymen. And when Shulitu reached the destination, more than 10,000 men were still on their horses and hadn’t moved a single step out of the camp.
About several miles from the camp, Shulitu was possessed by the Khan again. Instead of going to the intact palace in the north, Shulitu changed the direction of the army and led the procession towards an unknown small hill in the south.
This made the whole event even more bizarre, but nobody dared oppose his commands.
After walking for a few more miles, Mo Lin signaled the Dragon King to leave the procession with him.
Gu Shenwei had been keeping Mo Lin within his sight the whole way.
Dawn was about to break and the gravely cavalrymen were slowly processing in columns – the Court Attendants Army could still act orderly when necessary.
Mo Lin looked towards the hill in the distance, “You discovered it after all, Dragon King.”
“By accident.”
“Maybe it really is God’s will.”
“Maybe we should both stay in awe of God’s will. Nobody knows what God’s thinking, so I never bothered trying to figure it out.”
Mo Lin smiled and said, “The Khan was a great emperor, but sometimes he was like a child. He was wary of everyone around him, but he also wanted to keep them by his side, even in his death.”
“Maybe that’s because both emperors and children believe that they have the freedom to do so. I’m curious – how did they manage to keep the construction of such a large mausoleum a secret?”
“All of the materials were prepared forty years ago, and then ten years later, when people forgot about their existence, several thousand craftsman started their work, which lasted almost thirty years. Some people were born underground and died underground, having never seen the light of the sun in their whole lives. Finally, last year, the whole project was roughly finished. The craftsmen were buried in advance – before the Khan’s death, at the bottom of the mausoleum, along with 200 guardians. The wing guards are the only ones alive who know the truth.”
Mo Lin retold an extremely cruel deed in a very casual way, then he sighed. “the Khan seemed to have known that he would enjoy longevity, so he was in no hurry. Yet the mausoleum had barely been finished before he was murdered. Sometimes I think that that was retribution. The Khan and I have taken so many innocent lives. We deserve our punishment.
“The four wing guards have committed suicide.”
Mo Lin nodded – clearly, he wasn’t surprised. “What do you plan to do, Dragon King?”
“First, as a part of your punishment, you’re not allowed to kill yourself or me.”
Mo Lin smiled, “A punishment like that would make me feel ashamed.”
“Second, I’ll level that hill and fill in the valley, then destroy the rest of the Royal Court and assign a part of the Court Attendants Army to guard it for a year. In the spring of next year, when grass covers up the whole place, nobody will be able to find the entrance or the exit, and I think that nobody will even remember this place in a few more years.”
“What are the Dragon King’s conditions?” Mo Lin knew the Dragon King very well.
“The Western Regions.”
Mo Lin turned and looked towards the endless procession of cavalrymen, “As you wish, Dragon King. There are still more than 90,000 men in the Court Attendants Army, and I’ll try my best to make sure that they will willingly fight for the Dragon King.”
“For His Highness,” Gu Shenwei corrected him.
A small team rushed towards them from the rear, and Long Fanyun was leading the group. “Chu Nanping won.” A simple remark summarized the result of the competition, which was followed by a warning. “The scouts reported that King Shengri is mustering an army and that he’s probably also coming here.”
“He wants to flee,” Gu Shenwei stated simply, instantly drawing a conclusion.
