Chapter 98: Holding Court in Chang'an

Yongfu Ward was where the imperial clan of the Tang court lived. The common people were allowed to pass through, but the security was formidable. Not far away stood the garrison of the Northern Court Vanguard Guard, and the two institutions under the Temple of Yin and Yang—the Shrine of the Imperial Deities and the Demon-Suppressing Academy—were located in neighboring Xingning Ward. And yet, despite all this, an assassin still dared to infiltrate the Hejian Prince’s residence and attempt to kill Li Xiaogong. What kind of enmity could be so deep?

Lu Xin followed Li Chunfeng all the way to the main street. Looking up, he saw black clouds roiling above the entire city of Chang'an. The sky hung so low it seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Looking around, the Prince’s Avenue, which should have been blazing with lantern light, was utterly dark, not a single lamp lit, let alone any pedestrians. Worse still, the temperature on the street was shockingly low; even Lu Xin, a seasoned martial artist, could not help tightening his robe as waves of chill seeped through the air.

“Achoo... It’s only the hour of Rooster, so why isn’t there a single soul out here?”

The scholar suddenly sneezed, then rubbed his eyes, still dazed and clearly not yet sobered. Yue Bubai had slept for a little over an hour. After walking a bit, he had regained some energy, but even as a fox demon, he found the atmosphere in Chang'an strangely unnatural and profoundly unsettling.

“Brother Lu, with the heavens and earth changing color and an assassin appearing even inside the prince’s residence, I must hurry back to the Court of Judicial Review at once.”

“This is urgent, Brother Wei. Do not worry about us. Go quickly.”

After a hurried exchange, Wei Qing borrowed a horse from the prince’s residence and rode straight for the Court of Judicial Review. With his years of experience in investigation, he could naturally tell that Chang'an that night was anything but normal. After Wei Qing left, Li Chunfeng took a sword talisman from his sleeve. He then murmured a few words of incantation, and the talisman flew above the prince’s residence, where it unfurled into a vast barrier of reddish-gold light.

“Master, who was it that just tried to assassinate Li Xiaogong? With you here, how could anyone still slip into the depths of the manor?”

Lu Xin could not understand. With Li Chunfeng’s cultivation, what sort of person could carry out an assassination right under his nose? Two days earlier, the two beings of the Bodhisattva realm, Hui Neng and Hui Jing, had only just stepped through the gates of the Qian residence when Li Chunfeng sensed them; this alone showed the strength of his sixfold perception. Yet now, Li Chunfeng’s reaction suggested that he did not even know where the assassin was.

“That silver dart was a secret weapon unique to a certain assassin sect in the martial world, called the Snow-Night Dart. Driven by inner force, it flies like a streak of white silk and can take a man’s head from a thousand paces away. As for that talisman, it was a Daoist Wind-Thunder Talisman. When applied to a blade, it can send the weapon flying ten thousand paces!”

“You mean that dart came flying in from outside the residence?”

Ten thousand paces was roughly ten miles. By Li Chunfeng’s account, the silver dart had flown into the residence from a great distance, rather than some assassin lurking inside the manor. Such an explanation left Lu Xin deeply shocked. The most powerful sniper rifles in the modern world had an effective range of only a little over two thousand meters, far short of ten miles. And that was merely maximum range; assassination demanded a single fatal shot, so the effective range was even shorter.

Yet here, more than a thousand years earlier, in the Tang Dynasty, Yin-Yang masters could casually take a person’s head from ten thousand paces away. Was this difference truly the progress of technology, or simply the ignorance of modern men who knew nothing of the world beyond their own wells?

“With the Shrine of the Imperial Deities stationed here, and with the imperial city so near, no sect in the world, however rebellious its intentions, would dare show itself lightly. Besides, the Hejian Prince is not so easy to kill.”

Li Chunfeng’s gaze flickered as he stared toward the south. Then the group left Yongfu Ward and hurried toward Wuben Ward, outside the Anshang Gate.

Tomorrow was the day the Tang court held the imperial examinations, and all the scholars from across the realm would be lodging in the National Academy and the surrounding districts—either in government-run hostels or at nearby inns. And Wuben Ward was where the National Academy stood.

Wuben Ward faced the Anshang Gate of the imperial palace, aligned in a straight line with the Imperial Ancestral Temple inside the palace walls. The temple enshrined the ancestors of the Li clan, while the National Academy venerated the Sage Confucius and the founding master of letters. In function, the two were similar.

Li Chunfeng surmised that if any force wished to plunge Chang'an into chaos, the most direct and effective move would be to strike at the National Academy. If they slaughtered all the scholars who had come to the capital for the examinations, they would not only shatter Emperor Taizong’s hope of finding talented men to govern the realm, but also send shockwaves throughout the land, terrifying the people of every prefecture and commandery.

If a court could not even protect its capital, if it could not even protect the lives of scholars, then how could it hope to protect the world? Once the common people lost faith in the court, the Great Tang, only just founded, would be well on its way to collapse and disintegration.

The distance from Yongfu Ward to Wuben Ward was not far. Apart from the scholar, the others were all Yin-Yang masters, and their pace was swift. By the time they arrived, less than a quarter of an hour had passed. Perhaps because the weather had suddenly turned cold, Wuben Ward, which had once housed many scholars, was even livelier at night than during the day. But now, not a single human figure could be seen in the streets or alleys.

The autumn wind swept the ground, carrying clouds of dust into the air from time to time. Lu Xin’s eyes were stung, and visibility all around was poor. Li Chunfeng stood outside the National Academy for a moment, and seeing no movement, continued on foot toward Vermilion Bird Avenue.

“Has Master sensed anything?”

“They are well hidden. Though I caught a trace of their aura, the true viper has not yet come out of its hole, so why should we startle it? Tonight, you will stay with your master and guard Chang'an. I should like to see exactly which power seeks to drag this world back into chaos.”

The night was quiet. Walking along the pitch-dark avenue, Lu Xin suddenly felt that in this vast city of Chang'an, it seemed that only the few of them were alive. The sensation was eerie, yet utterly real. Still, with Li Chunfeng present, Lu Xin did not feel afraid.

After turning past the Vermilion Bird Gate, there were still no signs of life on the streets. Li Chunfeng did not speak. He walked south for a while, then turned into Kaihua Ward. The group made no attempt to hide their auras, striding through the streets in full view, brazen to the extreme. Inside Kaihua Ward stood a temple called Xiaofu Temple. Within it rose a seven-story pagoda, about twenty zhang high. From the finial atop its spire, one could almost overlook half of Chang'an; it was the tallest building near the National Academy.

“This is an imperial temple, and its abbot is Master Xuanhong, a monk from Pure Land Temple. I have heard that Emperor Taizong often leaves the palace at midnight to practice here in the temple. Tonight, then, let us keep vigil for him atop this spire.”

Li Chunfeng looked up at the golden pagoda, his aura growing ever more formidable. As soon as he finished speaking, everyone saw a layer of white mist appear beneath their feet, lifting their bodies and carrying them swiftly upward toward the top of the tower. Reaching the seventh level of the pagoda, Li Chunfeng had the others leap inside, while he alone sat cross-legged atop the spire.

“Brother Xin, I’ve never been this high up before. I’ve been afraid of heights since I was little. My legs... my legs won’t stop shaking. Take me down, will you?”

Battered by the night wind at such a height, the scholar finally sobered up. He looked down from the tower, his legs trembling, his face deathly pale. Upon hearing this, Yue Bubai burst into laughter again.

“Just now we told you to hide at the Wei residence, but you insisted on coming along. Now that you’ve sobered up, you’re afraid, are you? That’s what they call having lust but no courage. Still, if you cry a little and beg your brother here, maybe I can find a way to get you down.”

“Get lost. I was speaking to Brother Xin—what business is it of yours, you damned fox? If I’m going to beg anyone, I’ll beg these two ladies. You cross-dressing freak, you perverted monster, get lost!”

“What did you say? Say it again if you dare. Do you believe I’ll make sure you never father a child?”

High atop the tower, the winter-cold wind howled, yet the two clowns were making a racket. Lu Xin could not bear to listen any longer and was about to stop them when, at that moment, he seemed to hear a flute.

The sound came from the southeast, faintly in and out of reach, strangely uncanny. The melody itself sounded extraordinarily ancient, its timbre desolate and forlorn, perfectly blending with the surrounding night.

“Be quiet. Listen. Listen carefully.”

Lu Xin shut his eyes at once, putting every thought into his hearing. When Yue Bubai heard this, his expression changed slightly, and he too closed his eyes. Soon after, the Yang sisters furrowed their brows as well, clearly hearing the bleak flute music. At this point, Li Chunfeng, standing atop the spire, had bright eyes fixed intently on the southeast.

In Li Chunfeng’s eyes, a firebird flew through the void outside Chang'an, as large as a tiger or leopard and ten zhang above the ground. Standing upon it was a woman in a dark-blue Daoist robe, her hair coiled in a Daoist knot. From her clothing, she was plainly a Daoist nun. Yet the woman was extraordinarily beautiful, with pale, slender hands holding a jade flute as she played.

At the sight of her, Li Chunfeng’s eyelid visibly twitched.

“Mount Three Pure Ones, the Phoenix Seal! How can the magical treasure of the Thousand-Handed Daoist Nun be in this woman’s hands?”

Li Chunfeng was visibly shaken, staring hard at the “firebird” beneath the Daoist nun’s feet, his gaze wary.

In the dim night sky, a woman dressed as a Daoist nun flew alone into Chang'an while playing a jade flute. No matter how one looked at it, the scene was bizarre beyond words. Another quarter of an hour passed before the firebird slowly reached Wuben Ward and came to a stop above an inn near the National Academy. Lu Xin looked toward the Daoist nun’s position and saw that the firebird was merely a magical transformation; its true form seemed to be a large vermilion seal.

The flute music still circled over Chang'an, and the Daoist nun’s appearance had no doubt drawn countless gazes hidden in the darkness. Seeing this, the scholar swallowed hard twice, so excited he could scarcely speak.

“Bro-Brother Xin. I’m not dreaming, am I? That Daoist nun is gorgeous as hell.”

“Damn it, and you’re still thinking about women at a time like this? Don’t you feel it? It was bitterly cold just now, but the moment that firebird appeared, the whole of Chang'an turned into a furnace!”

As Yue Bubai cursed the scholar for his lust, he reached up and wiped the sweat from his brow. Only then did the scholar realize that his back was already soaked through. Lu Xin, too, felt the heat unbearable. In truth, Xiaofu Temple was several li away from Wuben Ward, but the instant that firebird appeared, the temperature of the entire space changed in an inconceivable manner.

“Xin, if I remember correctly, that place below is the Hundred Blessings Inn. Judging by the woman’s bearing, I’m afraid she has come seeking revenge!”