Chapter 37 – Vegetable Dumpling Soup

The murky, foul-smelling water rippled outward in spreading rings as some unknown sticky filth dropped down from above with a splat.

Zero-Two twitched his ears, halted his steps, and pressed against the slick, grime-coated stone wall. After a few breaths, he said, “Trouble — they’ve caught up.”

“We can still make it. Don’t dawdle.”

The two of them picked up their pace and hurried forward.

The sunlight was blazing. Under its blinding glare, Gongsun Jing’s chest swelled with pride as his sharp gaze swept over the shopkeeper lying on the ground, face swollen and bruised, too weak to rise.

The shopkeeper’s cheeks trembled slightly. He didn’t dare look at the young man.

“The Yin Dynasty deserves to fall!” Gongsun Jing raised his foot and tilted the shopkeeper’s chin up with it, sneering. “This is the Crown Prince you swore your loyalty to — a man who turns a blind eye to the lives of an entire town’s people and slips away through a filthy sewer himself.”

The Crown Prince?

The shopkeeper’s gaze went blank for a moment, and then the truth suddenly dawned on him — his real master was the imperial family!

No wonder. No wonder the county office dragged out over a dozen so-called “suspected accomplices” every day to be beheaded in the market square. These were no accomplices — they were innocent people, all of it meant to force the Crown Prince out to save them!

“Ptui!” The shopkeeper’s heart blazed with fury. He glared at that face, wishing he could tear it apart with his bare hands, and spat a mouthful of blood onto Gongsun Jing’s shoe. “You vile, wicked wretch — what right do you have to speak of the Crown Prince!”

“A fine little lackey.” Gongsun Jing kicked him away with disgust and ordered those at his sides, “Chop him up and feed him to the dogs.”

The closer they drew to the outlet, the deeper the accumulated water grew, until near the end they were practically swimming.

It had rained little in recent days, and the outlet was half submerged in the river, the other half exposed on the bank wall.

They had entered the tunnel in the mid-afternoon, and by the time they saw daylight again it was already dusk. Everything was dim and murky, and the fishing boats and cargo vessels on the river had already lit their lanterns.

They parted the water grass and climbed ashore, slipping into the willow grove along the bank under the cover of the trees.

“Your Highness, wait here. I’ll go find us a boat.”

“Mm.”

Zhan Changfeng opened the waterproof oilskin bundle and changed into dry clothes. She had not brought much with her — a sword, a Cangyun Ravine Arrow Token, and an Emperor’s Flower. These things had been confiscated by Jiang Wei earlier, but she had managed to take them back in the confusion.

Before long, Zero-Two returned. “They haven’t caught up to this side yet. We need to move quickly — once we’re on the water, we’ll be safe.”

“Lead the way.”

At this hour, the porters had all finished unloading and gone home to rest, and the fishermen had returned as well. The dock was sparsely populated and very quiet.

Zhan Changfeng followed Zero-Two, striding briskly toward a cargo ship, when suddenly she glanced toward a woman running a roadside stall.

Her footsteps stopped.

“Your Highness, what’s wrong? Quickly, let’s go!” Zero-Two was growing anxious now — those people could arrive at any moment.

Zhan Changfeng’s heartbeat quickened, as though something unseen was pulling at her through fate itself, making it impossible for her to simply leave.

She glanced at the cargo ship moored in the distance, then turned on her heel and walked toward the woman.

The woman was adding water to her pot with a worried frown on her face. Seeing Zhan Changfeng standing before the stall, she called out, “Come have a taste! Delicious and filling!”

“What kind of soup is this?”

The woman gave an ingratiating smile to the adult behind the child, then answered, “Vegetable dumpling soup! The vegetables are shepherd’s purse, and the dumplings are plain flour dumplings. There’s also soy sauce, star anise, and fennel in there — take a whiff, isn’t it savory? Isn’t it fragrant? Only five copper coins a bowl, guaranteed to fill you up. Want two bowls?”

The pot was as wide as a washbasin. The soup was dark with soy sauce, and cabbage leaves drifted through the broth. The woman stirred it with a ladle, and flour dumplings the size of a baby’s fist bobbed up from the bottom, rising and falling.

The surface of the dumplings was pitted and uneven, and stained a dull brown from the soy sauce — not the least bit appealing in appearance.

Zhan Changfeng felt a vague wave of nausea for no apparent reason. They looked like severed heads soaked in blood.

“Your Highness! The ship is about to leave — let’s go, please! If you’re hungry, you can eat on board!”

Zhan Changfeng stepped back. She needed to leave this place as quickly as possible and go to Hengzhou to arrange matters. She didn’t know how far those people’s influence had spread — perhaps the whole world was already being played like puppets in their hands. If that were so, wouldn’t the lords’ wars be laughable farces?

But Zhan Changfeng could not take a second step back. She stared fixedly at the woman, the sounds around her fading away. “Why do you look so worried?”

“Oh heavens,” the woman groaned, slapping her thighs several times as her wrinkle-creased yellow face turned suddenly somber. “It’s my husband — the county magistrate sealed off the whole town, and my husband couldn’t get out!”

“Once the lockdown is lifted, he’ll naturally come out. Rest easy.”

“Your Highness!” Zero-Two’s face twitched. “Your Highness, we really must go now!”

“It’s not as simple as you make it sound,” the woman wiped her tears. “I heard from the guards that the county office is arresting people everywhere — dragging out ten-odd people every day to be beheaded at the market square. My husband has such a fierce-looking face; what if he gets caught by mistake?”

Zhan Changfeng froze at those words, then turned to Zero-Two with a suddenly steely gaze. “Why did you not tell me.”

“. Your Highness, your life is worth ten thousand — please consider the greater picture.” As long as the Crown Prince did not die and the Yi Family did not fall, what did it matter if some common people were sacrificed.

Zero-Two stood his ground without retreating, looking straight at her — yet he found those dark eyes like a sunken abyss, growing ever deeper and more coldly piercing, stirring an inexplicable trembling from the depths of his heart.

“What else have you been hiding from me!”

Zero-Two couldn’t help but clench his jaw. He knew this demand perhaps held no real purpose beyond battering his psychological defenses — or perhaps Her Highness had already sensed something and was waiting for him to confess. He could choose to stay silent, to flatly deny everything. But faced with those eyes, his mouth had already opened.

He could not resist. “. After the surprise attack on Flag Mountain, some people were captured — among them Songshi Zi of Liyun Temple, and Master Huang, who hadn’t managed to escape in time. Every day at the market square, they are strapped to the wooden donkey and subjected to death by a thousand cuts. As of now, they have received one hundred and twenty cuts and still have not died.”

The last two words seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth. To endure such torture and not die was the greatest hell of all.

Zhan Changfeng was silent for a long moment — and then she laughed.

Zero-Two, fearing she had been struck too hard by the blow, fell to his knees in anguish. “Your Highness, if we go to Hengzhou now, one day we can return in force and avenge them!”

Zhan Changfeng paid him no mind, and instead turned abruptly to the woman, who had been frightened speechless. “If your loved ones were being persecuted, could you turn a blind eye and flee alone?”

“Ah?!” The woman waved her hands in a panic. “No, of course not.”

“If innocent people died miserably because of you, could you sit back and watch while you took shelter in safety?”

“No!”

“Did you hear that, Zero-Two? Even a country woman knows how to choose.”

“But you are not the same as them!”

“How am I any different?” Zhan Changfeng heard the overlapping thunder of hoofbeats; a great sweeping wind puffed out the ship’s sails. “I am first a sentient being who has awakened among the countless living — and only then the Crown Prince of the Yin Dynasty.”

“The Crown Prince of the Yin Dynasty may use all the people under heaven as pawns for a single goal, bearing the weight of countless blood debts without fear. But I cannot use the promise of future vengeance as an excuse to justify retreating now.”

Zhan Changfeng drew her sword. The blade reflected her sharp brows and keen eyes — and the pursuers charging toward her on horseback.

This was her true self: acting only on her own will, growing strong only for the sake of strength, no matter how formidable the opponent — just raise the sword and cut them down.

She would either press forward through thorns, bloodied, until her destruction — or she would conquer the world!

(End of Chapter)