Chapter 23: Venting Pent-up Rage
The masked woman used those Lu Ban Wings to glide down from the cliff, covering hundreds of zhang in the blink of an eye, and vanished into the valley’s mountain forest.
The instant she entered the forest, she forcefully tugged at both ends of the wings, and the pair of flying wings suddenly retracted into the box. At the same time, her feet successively touched the tree branches, using the rebound force to deftly dissipate the downward momentum, finally landing steadily on her feet in a clearing in the forest.
Like Lu Yun, the masked woman dared not pause even slightly and immediately dashed through the dense mountain forest, running northward for over twenty li. As the forest thinned, she slowed her steps, took out a strangely shaped copper whistle, and blew it hard several times, but it seemed to produce no sound at all.
Strangely, she just put away the whistle, chose a hidden spot, and quietly waited. Not long after, a carriage slowly approached from ahead. The white-haired coachman narrowed his eyes slightly, as if dozing off. A girl who looked like a maid stuck her head out of the carriage, seemingly searching for someone.
“I’m here.” The masked woman emerged from the hiding spot. The coachman and the maid both looked over, and the latter jumped down from the carriage in surprise, hurrying to meet her.
Moments later, the carriage slowly traveled along the official road heading north. Inside the carriage, there was no masked woman, only a delicate and sickly official miss. But the maid was still the same maid. She leaned close to the woman’s ear and cautiously asked, “Miss, did you succeed?”
“Of course.” That official miss was naturally the masked woman. Though she was disguised as delicate and weak, upon hearing the maid’s question, her refined face still couldn’t help but light up with excitement. She patted the golden box beside her and said, “With this miss taking action, it was naturally a piece of cake!”
“Miss is amazing!” The maid’s eyes shone with adoration as she couldn’t help but softly plead, “Can this servant take a look?”
“Just one look.” The woman herself was extremely curious too. After succeeding, she had been focused on escaping and hadn’t even glanced at what the Imperial Seal looked like.
The little maid nodded vigorously like pounding garlic, and then she saw her own miss slowly lifting the golden box carved with coiling dragons and phoenixes.
“Wow, what a beautiful box!” The little maid excitedly clasped her hands over her heart.
“Look inside!” The woman pressed the mechanism on the lid like showing off a treasure, smiling as she watched the maid, waiting to see her exaggerated expression amplified tenfold.
The maid stared at the box unblinkingly. As soon as the lid opened, her eyes widened round, and her eyeballs nearly popped out.
‘As expected, exaggerated enough, but why does she look like she’s seen a ghost?’ The woman felt a bit disappointed.
“M-Miss…” The maid pointed a trembling finger at the inside of the box and stammered, “You’re joking with this servant, right?”
The woman was stunned, hurriedly looked down, and instantly felt as if all her blood had frozen. The golden box fell from her hand to the ground, and a fist-sized stone rolled out from inside, cleverly drilling under the seat…
Seeing her own miss petrified, the maid swallowed hard, fearfully hugging her head as if some terrifying event was about to happen.
Inside the carriage compartment, after a moment of dead silence, panting sounds gradually arose, growing louder and louder—it was practically heavy breathing.
Hearing that sound, the dozing coachman quickly covered his ears.
“You, come out here!” The next moment, a shrill, piercing roar nearly blew the carriage roof away, followed by a series of bangs, accompanied by a woman’s furious cursing: “Come out obediently and face your death!”
Inside the carriage, the maid tried to hold back her enraged, irrational miss to stop her from dismantling the carriage seat. But how could she stop her? She saw her flip over the low seat fixed to the carriage floor, glaring viciously at… that stone, and sneering, “You think you can hide?!”
“Go die!” With that, she grabbed the stone, swung her arm fully, and threw it out the window with all her strength!
Glancing at the stone disappearing like a meteor in the distance, the coachman shook his head helplessly. If those followers knew that their noble, composed, kind, and elegant Saintess, actually harbored such a childish and crude inner self, who knows if they would be heartbroken…
After the outburst, the woman finally calmed down, sat in the maid’s seat, and began reviewing the previous events. In a flash, she understood, gnashing her teeth and saying, “It must have been switched by that kid!”
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“That thing is right in my hand.” Lu Yun spoke as he took an object from his bosom and held it in his palm for Uncle Bao to see.
Uncle Bao’s eyes nearly bulged out. He hurriedly rubbed his eyes hard, confirming he wasn’t seeing things. Then, trembling, he reached out a hand, pointed at the object, and stammered with his mouth agape: “This, this, this… what is this?!”
In Lu Yun’s palm was an object four inches square, green like blue, warm and lustrous. On top, five dragons intertwined, shaped like dragon, bird, fish, and snake forms. Below, it was perfectly square, clearly a great seal.
“This couldn’t be… the Qian Dynasty’s Imperial Seal, could it?!” Uncle Bao had been the commander of the imperial guards back then, so he naturally knew the real thing. He felt his heart was about to leap out, tremblingly saying: “That’s…” He didn’t dare utter the remaining four words, as if afraid of heavenly punishment.
Lu Yun’s eyes also flashed with excitement. He nodded heavily and said, “It’s the Imperial Seal of the State!” As he spoke, he slowly lifted the Imperial Seal, revealing the eight seal script characters incised on its face—
‘By Heaven’s Mandate, long life eternal prosperity’!
Moreover, the upper left corner of the seal was missing a piece, supplemented with gold. This perfectly matched the legend that during the Qian Dynasty Founding Emperor’s usurpation of Wei, the Imperial Seal of the State had been smashed by the Wei Empress Dowager.
“It’s real, it’s really the Imperial Seal of the State!” Uncle Bao was so excited he nearly fainted. Now everything made sense! No wonder the Xiahou Clan mobilized so massively to attack Bai Liu Village and went to such lengths to avoid the Emperor’s eyes! It was all for the Imperial Seal of the State!
The Imperial Seal of the State originally belonged to the First Emperor. It was the token of ‘imperial power granted by heaven, legitimate and orthodox’! After the First Emperor, successive emperors all regarded obtaining this seal as a divine omen. Possessing it symbolized ‘receiving Heaven’s Mandate’; losing it meant ‘one’s allotted fate had ended’!
Ever since the northern Hu People caused chaos and the Qian Dynasty’s officials fled south, the Imperial Seal of the State naturally went to the Southern Dynasties. For centuries thereafter, the Southern Dynasties relied on this Imperial Seal and were regarded by the world as the legitimate rulers. Meanwhile, northern heroes rose with armies, and countless claimed emperorship. There were no lack of those who unified the north and threatened the world. Yet all were ridiculed as ‘whiteboard emperors’, lacking confidence and despised by the world.
After the Founding Emperor of this dynasty captured the Qian Dynasty capital, the top priority for the entire army was to search for the Imperial Seal of the State! However, they scoured Jinling and tortured all the Southern Dynasties nobles, but found nothing. Helplessly, the Founding Emperor had to have a seal made himself to ascend the throne. Even though he ascended under the merit of remaking the divine land, he still couldn’t avoid gossip that Great Xuan had not received heaven’s approval…
Lacking the Imperial Seal of the State became the greatest regret in the life of this heroic, meritorious founding emperor! In the subsequent years, he still kept sending people to search, but never found this damned Imperial Seal of the State! A few years later, he actually died of depression…
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After being excited for a while, Uncle Bao suppressed his pounding heartbeat, quickly gestured for Lu Yun to put away the Imperial Seal, then retreated three steps, knelt in a grand salute, and tearfully said in a trembling voice: “This humble subject congratulates Your Highness, rejoices for Your Highness. With the Imperial Seal in hand, it is Heaven’s Mandate!”
Lu Yun, however, was somewhat amused and exasperated. Looking around at the desolate forest, with nothing alive except him and Uncle Bao, he couldn’t help but give a bitter smile: “Uncle, don’t talk nonsense. This thing is completely useless to us; it’s actually big trouble!” He was very clear that the Xiahou Clan, the Royal Family, and everyone under heaven would frantically search for this Imperial Seal’s whereabouts. Though he had acted secretly, he couldn’t avoid leaving some traces. If someone followed them to him, there would be real trouble!
“It’s just temporarily useless. In the future, when Your Highness reclaims the throne, this thing will be of great use!” Uncle Bao was still extremely excited, chattering on for a while before suddenly thinking of something and puzzledly asking: “How did Young Master obtain this thing?”
“Right when it was knocked flying by someone…” Lu Yun smiled faintly: “Earlier, I deliberately used force to tear a hole in the bundle—one to see what was inside, and two… to make stealing beams and replacing pillars easier.”
Uncle Bao suddenly understood: “No wonder Young Master was easily knocked flying by them. I was wondering why Young Master was so off his game.”
“While bent down on the ground, I pretended to clutch my abdomen, opened the box and took out the Imperial Seal inside, then casually picked up a stone and put it in.” Lu Yun smiled: “At that moment, she told me to throw the bundle over, and I did just that…”
He rarely showed such a cheerful smile. Was it because he obtained the Imperial Seal and tricked the Xiahou Clan? Or because he had turned the tables and finally vented the anger from being stepped on at the bottom of the well?
It seemed… the latter weighed far more than the former.
