Chapter 29 – The Chess Board

“Enough. If you have something to say, say it.” Zhan Changfeng brushed the dust from her sleeve, as composed and dignified as ever, as though it was not she who was surrounded, but the group of people across from her.

Wu Bing let out a low laugh, as though a scorching iron had been pressed into his chest, and his whole person grew agitated.

The young Wu Cheng’s eyes were filled with wariness as he sneered, “You are the one begging us for your life right now. Being this obstinate will not end well for you.”

Zhan Changfeng felt her communication difficulties growing ever more severe, but considering the current situation, she still explained patiently, “The Founding Emperor created the ‘Tianfu’ gold and silver and hid them away. Though I cannot be certain the treasure is in this underground palace right now, given that not even the palace doors have been opened yet, the gold bars in Chong Mingxian’s hands could not possibly have come from within.”

“Therefore, the only possibility is that you deliberately gave them to him, with no other purpose than to lure me out.”

Zhan Changfeng tilted her head toward the palace doors and sighed. “I have lost my kingdom and my home. There is nothing of value left on my person to scheme for. The only thing anyone still has reason to covet is my mastery of the Imperial Arts.”

“And in this world, I am the only one who knows them.”

“You dare—”

“Cheng’er!” Wu Bing rebuked the young man sharply.

This was an undeniable truth. Though Wu Bing had the upper hand, he still dared not underestimate her, for as she had said, she was the last person who knew the Imperial Arts, and the last legitimate Son of Heaven.

The legitimacy spoken of here was not a matter of bloodline, but rather the accumulated thought, character, depth, and secrets passed down through every Son of Heaven of the Yin Dynasty.

With her, the imperial lineage would truly be severed. Even if someone later sat upon the throne, they would be nothing more than a man above men.

And so, even if she had nothing left, Wu Bing would still address her as Your Highness.

“There is no need for veiled words between us,” Wu Bing said. “What we seek and what you seek are different things. If you can open this door, I will not trouble you in the slightest.”

“How do you know what we want is different?” Zhan Changfeng found this remark intriguing. Could there be something inside besides the Dragon Scale Divine Scripture?

Wu Bing spoke with confidence. “The world is on the verge of chaos. You have come for the military strategy volumes of the Dragon Scale Divine Scripture and the treasure hoard. Am I wrong?”

“My Gaotian Tribe has no interest in the world at large,” he declared proudly.

No interest — quite the boast. Then what were they interested in? Zhan Changfeng suddenly felt that this underground palace was not as straightforward as she had imagined.

“I will hold you to your word,” she replied casually, and turned her full attention to examining the massive bronze door before her.

Wu Bing and his people stood back at a distance and did not disturb her.

Wu Cheng said with displeasure, “Why did our ancestral master not pass down the Dragon Scale Divine Scripture? If he had, we would not have to act according to her whims.”

“You must not say such things,” Wu Bing shook his head. “The Dragon Scale Divine Scripture was never truly the ancestral master’s to begin with. It chose the Former King of its own accord. The ancestral master had no say in the matter.”

Wu Cheng fell silent, staring at Zhan Changfeng’s back, a strange light flickering in his eyes.

He was so deep in thought that Zhan Changfeng unexpectedly turned and cast him a glance.

But after that one glance, she paid him no further attention, instead turning to Wu Bing. “Was it your people who took away the Founding Emperor’s treasury stores?”

“I can tell from examining those ‘Tianfu’ gold bars that their age is indeed eight hundred years — they were not recently made.”

Wu Bing was momentarily speechless. Are you truly not taking us seriously at all? At a time like this, you are still fretting over material possessions?!

“Heh heh. The Tianfu gold bars in the Gaotian Tribe’s possession were a gift given to our ancestral master by the Former King at the time.” The moment he said it, Wu Bing felt it had come out wrong — no matter how he put it, it sounded as though the Emperor had bestowed a gift upon them and they had dutifully kept it as a family heirloom for eight hundred years.

Sure enough, Zhan Changfeng gave him a complicated look.

Just as Wu Bing was about to explain, Zhan Changfeng nodded with an air of great satisfaction. “That does make sense. Even I never found them — how could you possibly have?”

Good heavens, Wu Bing clutched his erratically beating heart, so furious he was practically steaming from every orifice. “You — just hurry up and open the door!”

The old man truly did not want to exchange another word with her.

Having gotten her answer, Zhan Changfeng had no desire to speak either, and devoted her full attention to studying the object before her.

This great bronze door was covered entirely in moving relief carvings arranged in the pattern of the Eight Trigrams, though the Heaven and Earth positions were vacant. Solving it was no great difficulty.

Even so —

She stepped back a little and directed Jiang Wei. “Go and move the relief carving one zhang and three chi to the right toward the Heaven position, and the one nine and a half chi to the lower left toward the Earth position.”

“On it.” Jiang Wei looked up to locate the precise positions, activated his Lightness Technique, and flew up to the door, doing as she instructed to restore Heaven and Earth to their proper places.

Once Heaven and Earth were restored, gears began to turn, and every relief carving on the door came to life, unlocking layer by layer.

The Gaotian Tribe members watched on impassively, unmoved. This mechanism was indeed not difficult — they had solved it themselves before. The challenge lay in what came after.

The relief carvings functioned as a lock. With the lock opened, the first great door withdrew to both sides, revealing another bronze door behind it.

In the center of this bronze door was a game of chess.

Zhan Changfeng studied it for a long while, then said, “I cannot solve this.”

“Do you take us for fools?!” Wu Cheng scoffed. “What ability does she have? She is merely grasping at straws. Elder, I happen to be in need of a vessel — why not let me use her to refine a Gu?”

Wu Bing naturally did not believe her. Though the Mystical Gate Escaping Techniques were only known to the Sons of Heaven throughout the ages and unknown to ordinary people, the Gaotian ancestors had followed the Founding Emperor and naturally knew at least a thing or two about the methods of Mystical Gate formations.

“Your Highness, please do not jest. Is this chess board not meant to be solved using the Mystical Gate Escaping Techniques?” His voice hardened with a threatening edge, hoarse and unsettling.

“It does indeed require the method of the Mystical Gate Escaping Techniques,” Zhan Changfeng did not deny this, “but it is also not purely the Mystical Gate Escaping Techniques.”

The Mystical Gate Escaping Techniques comprised one thousand and eighty formations, unchanged since antiquity.

But here, those one thousand and eighty formations had been condensed into one hundred and eighty, each assigned to one of one hundred and eighty black and white chess pieces, forming a single game of chess.

The contest between the black and white pieces was also a contest of mutual generation and mutual conquest among the one hundred and eighty formations — one could only marvel at the ingenuity of its creation.

Zhan Changfeng’s composure was rarely stirred, yet now her mind rippled with excitement, as it had the first time she picked up a sword, the first time she sat in the Hall of Statecraft, the first time she commanded all the court officials.

The unknown and the challenging — these were what she had pursued her entire life.

Her excitement now thoroughly roused, she dismissed the irrelevant people and matters around her and stood fixedly before the chess board, conjuring thousands upon thousands of troops in her mind as the situation shifted and changed in an instant.

The Gaotian Tribe members watched her standing there in silence without a word and grew impatient, wanting to step forward and push her along, but Wu Bing held them back.

Wu Bing’s eye was keen. Seeing her like this, she must be working through strategies to break the formation. What harm was there in waiting a little?

They waited. Two full hours passed.

Wu Cheng’s back and waist ached from standing so long. “Elder, she is just stalling for time. Do you really believe her? Perhaps her subordinates outside, seeing that she has not emerged for so long, will come looking for her.”

“Wait a little longer,” Wu Bing said, also feeling uneasy. “Go outside and keep watch.”

One man received the order and departed.

Zhan Changfeng used the one hundred and eighty formations on the chess board to work backward through the one thousand and eighty formations. At first things went relatively smoothly, but the further she went, the more difficult it became.

In particular, while she had memorized all one thousand and eighty formations, there were still nearly five hundred she had not mastered deeply. Now, attempting to work backward through them by force, she found herself ensnared.

She made a decisive call: she stopped working backward and began drilling through those five hundred formations anew.

A great stretch of time rushed by once more. This time, not only were the Gaotian Tribe members complaining — even Songshi Zi and Qiao Shan Ke had grievances.

The two hapless companions had already collapsed onto the ground, leaning against each other. Qiao Shan Ke said weakly, “At this rate, by the time she finishes, I fear the Gu will have tormented me to death.”

Songshi Zi’s expression abruptly changed. “It occurs to me that we never actually made any agreement — that she would help them open the door and they would remove the Gu from us, did we?”

This time Qiao Shan Ke’s expression changed as well. They really hadn’t!

“Hey, brothers of the Gaotian Tribe! We are just here to complete a job — pure hired help! Don’t do anything rash to us!”

“That’s right, that’s right! Even if we have to pay for our own lives, we can talk it over!”

Though they had been greatly shocked to learn that their employer was the former Crown Prince, right now even the King of Heaven himself would be useless — what mattered most was staying alive.

“Xiao Zhao” punched both of them. “Shut up and stop making noise, or you’ll die even faster.”

The two dared to be angry but not to speak, and looked toward Jiang Wei with pleading eyes.

Jiang Wei, deliberately trying to stall for time, struck up a conversation. “The people in the group at the front were all capable individuals. How did you manage to slip in among them?”

“Xiao Zhao” let out a great laugh and tore the human-skin mask from his face. “They did their work ruthlessly, I’ll grant them that — the moment they arrived, they killed Uncle Yuan who had been guiding the way. But what did that change? The moment anyone sets foot within Flag Mountain’s territory, they fall under our eyes. Leading the way, replacing someone — nothing to it.”

Jiang Wei caught the hatred in his eyes and felt a jolt in his heart. “They’re all dead?”

“Dying is too simple,” this “Xiao Zhao” said with a strange smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “You said it yourself — that group of people were all capable individuals. Their flesh and blood were of the highest quality, perfectly suited for testing Gu.”

Being a Gu test subject was little different from being a medicine test subject. Hearing this, Jiang Wei’s brow furrowed deeply, his anger surging as the muscles in his body swelled taut.

They were soldiers, they were skilled men, and yet they had been dealt the most degrading of deaths. How could that not break the heart?

Jiang Wei was on the verge of striking out, but in the end could only let out a cold sneer. “Impressive methods.”

Xiao Zhao also sneered. “Likewise.”

(End of Chapter)