Chapter Forty-Eight: Extracting Chestnuts from the Fire

At the third watch, the flames of the Yuzhang granary dyed half the sky in a crimson glow.

Liu Xie sat on his horse, standing still on Suzaku Avenue, gazing at the billowing smoke in the distance. The heatwave, mixed with a scorching, burnt stench, rushed toward him, yet it failed to suppress the cold glint leaping within the depths of his eyes—this fire was burning too suspiciously. Within a radius of thirty paces around the granary, the ground was paved entirely with bluestone; yet tonight, a fierce southeast gale was blowing.

"Your Majesty, the Shadow Guard reports." Jia Xu rode up close, a half-charred wheat spike slipping from his sleeve. "They found this in the ashes." The tip of the spike emitted an eerie, ghostly blue tint, clearly bearing the traces of having been soaked in wild-fire oil.

"Interesting, interesting, truly interesting..." Liu Xie narrowed his eyes, a cold, piercing light flashing through his gaze.

Liu Xie crushed the wheat spike between two fingers, the blue-black juice seeping into the lines of his palm. "Order Zhou Yi to take three hundred elite soldiers and seal off all exits of the Marquis Yue Estate." He suddenly pulled on the reins to turn his horse around. "Erniu, accompany Us to meet that 'old acquaintance'."

...

Deep inside the cellar of the Marquis Yue Estate, bronze lamp trees cast mottled bloodstains upon the walls.

Sun Ru was suspended in mid-air by iron chains, her lotus-colored gauze dress soaked in blood and filth. She stared at the brocade-robed, elderly man before her, a hoarse, cold laugh escaping her throat: "Libationer Zhang has quite the skill, to have even tracked down the Sun family's final secret tunnel."

Zhang Kai, the Yuzhang Libationer of the Yellow Heaven Cult, twirled a jade snuff bottle. The Bagua pattern, embroidered with gold thread on his cuffs, flickered indistinctly in the firelight. "Miss Sun, you are being overly formal. When your esteemed father joined our cult in jointly refining the 'Taiyi Golden Elixir' back then, he was even willing to share his alchemical secret chamber." He suddenly pinched Sun Ru's chin. "As for you, knowing full well that the Emperor was investigating the Marquis Yue Estate, why did you not send word?"

The secret door of the cellar was blasted open with a loud crash, fierce winds carrying sparks rolling inward. Before Zhang Kai could turn around, the Zhanlu Sword was already resting against the side of his neck.

"Why don't We answer that question instead?" Liu Xie's dark cloak fluttered violently in the wind, the blade pressing against Zhang Kai's throbbing carotid pulse. "Three days ago, when Miss Sun met Old Fu in the dungeon, she already knew that the so-called massacre was merely a trick by the Yellow Heaven Cult to kill with a borrowed knife."

Sun Ru suddenly raised her head, her chains clanking loudly. She recalled the night she sneaked into the county yamen, and the vermilion notes on the top-secret report reading "The Sun family privately transports wild-fire oil"—the handwriting was indistinguishable from her father's own brushwork.

In the twelfth month of the first year of Jian'an, the remnants of the Qingzhou Yellow Turbans intercepted an official boat and obtained a thousand shi of wild-fire oil. Liu Xie's sword tip flipped open the jade tally at Zhang Kai's waist, revealing the two characters "Taiping" on the back. "Three months later, this batch of wild-fire oil appeared in the Sun family's cargo warehouse." He suddenly flicked his wrist, severing the iron chains, and pulled Sun Ru into his embrace. "And the person managing the Sun family's affairs back then was none other than your good uncle."

Zhang Kai's expression changed drastically as toxic smoke suddenly exploded from his sleeve. Erniu swung his massive axe in a horizontal sweep, cutting the eight charging Yellow Turban warriors cleanly in half at the waist. Amidst the chaotic battle, Liu Xie shielded Sun Ru and retreated to a corner, suddenly feeling the person in his arms tremble violently.

"Why..." Sun Ru stared at the crates of documents in the cellar's hidden compartment, the topmost scroll marked "Yuzhang County Military Defense Map" clearly bearing the seal of the Marquis of Yue. She finally understood why her father's study had always inexplicably featured such classified maps.

"Because your Sun family has always been the Yellow Heaven Cult's money pouch." Liu Xie swung his sword, cleaving open a wooden box, and dozens of confidential letters scattered like snowflakes. "From the plague in the third year of Xiping to the drought of the present day, which natural disaster has ever been without..."

Before his voice faded, the entire cellar began to shake violently. The sound of exploding roof tiles came from overhead, and heatwaves mixed with cries poured downward—the fire dragon of the granary had actually burned its way into the Marquis Yue Estate along the underground secret tunnels!

...

In front of Suzaku Gate, Zhou Yi was leading men to set up water-spraying engines when he suddenly saw three purple signal arrows burst into the night sky. This was the Shadow Guard's call for help, and its location pointed directly to the Marquis Yue Estate.

"Leave two hundred men to continue putting out the fire! Everyone else, follow me!" Zhou Yi grabbed his long saber and leaped onto his horse, only to see billowing dust and smoke at the end of the long street. Flames soaring into the sky erupted from the direction of the Marquis Yue Estate, where dark-armored cavalry could be vaguely seen falling into formation.

By this time, the Marquis Yue Estate had become a purgatory, and the centuries-old cypress trees were burning like torches. Liu Xie tore off his cloak, soaked it in the lotus pond, and bound Sun Ru tightly to his back. "Hold on tight!" The Zhanlu Sword cleaved open burning roof beams and pillars, the heat licking at their skin and raising blisters.

"The left corridor!" Sun Ru suddenly spoke up. "There is a secret drainage ditch behind the rockery built by my father!" Her fingertips dug deeply into Liu Xie's shoulder, twenty years of sheltered memories surging within the sea of fire—the time she fell into the drainage ditch while playing hide-and-seek at age seven, and her father, punishing her by making her copy the *Jijiuzhang*, told her: "This secret tunnel concerns the life of our entire clan; remember never to show it to outsiders."

The entrance to the drainage ditch was blocked by rubble, and with a fierce roar from Erniu, his giant axe cleaved a half-man-wide fissure. As everyone filed in one by one, Zhang Kai's grim laughter came from behind the wall of fire: "Little Emperor! Do you know how much wild-fire oil is buried beneath this city of Yuzhang?"

The cold, chilly water of the drainage ditch soaked their robes, and Sun Ru shivered against Liu Xie's back. She could feel the Emperor's tensed muscles and hear the steady heartbeat within his chest—completely different from the image of a tyrant she had imagined.

"It is the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams Formation." Jia Xu held up a fire starter to illuminate the stone wall, upon which were engraved pre-dynastic seal scripts. "The Dragon-Trapping Formation personally passed down by Zhang Jiao. It seems the Yellow Heaven Cult intends to bury us alive here."

Liu Xie suddenly chuckled softly, the tip of his sword brushing across a certain seal character: "Has Wenhe read *Mozi: Preparing for Tunnels*?" The bluestone pivoted in response, revealing a flight of stairs leading downward. "Back then, the Mohists built three hundred escape tunnels across the land to resist the tyrannical Qin." He lifted his foot and stepped into the darkness. "Coincidentally, I had Da Shuihe restart these ancient paths just last month."

...

At the fifth watch, at the pauper's graveyard twenty li east of Yuzhang city.

Liu Xie crawled out from a decayed coffin, blades of grass dampened by morning dew brushing against his cheek. Sun Ru in his arms had already fainted, yet the corners of her lips were still tightly biting down on half a jade pendant—the one she had torn from Zhang Kai's body before losing consciousness.

"Your Majesty!" Zhou Yi, scorched completely black, stumbled over, his long saber still dripping with blood. "We found this in the cellar of the Marquis Yue Estate." Inside the iron box presented to him were twelve gilded tiger tallies, neatly arranged.

Jia Xu drew in a sharp breath: "These are tallies for mobilizing troops across various commanderies!" He picked up the silk manuscript at the bottom of the box, his voice trembling. "The Yellow Heaven Cult has actually forged more than half of..."

"Report—" A Shadow Guard materialized like a ghost. "Urgent dispatch from the northwest! Yuan Shu has proclaimed himself Emperor in Shouchun and has already dispatched an army of one hundred thousand to invade Yuzhou!"

The veins on Liu Xie's hand gripping the sword bulged, and he suddenly burst into an upward laugh. The laughter startled the cold crows and shook the accumulated snow from the withered branches. "A brilliant drive of the tiger to devour the wolf! Hear My decree: order Huangfu Song to lead the Xilang iron cavalry eastward out of Wuguan, and do not obstruct Yuan Shu's army along the way." He pointed his sword toward the whitening eastern horizon. "Once this mad tiger tears open the gates of Yanzhou, it will be our turn to close the net."

Sun Ru slowly regained consciousness at this moment, just in time to hear these bone-chilling words. She gazed at the sharply defined profile of the Emperor's face, suddenly discovering that the smile reflecting the morning glow completely overlapped with the one she had seen in her dream on the day she attempted to assassinate him—in the dream, this man stood amid ten thousand *mu* of wheat waves, with a frolicking, pigtail-wearing child following closely behind him.