Chapter 4: Imperial Envoy Arrives
Late at night, the rain grew heavier, with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.
A bolt of lightning tore through the night sky, illuminating the heavens and earth in a sheet of white, also casting light on a pale face!
Inside the room, Lu Yun cleared away all stray thoughts, sitting cross-legged steadily on the couch, his body like dead wood, his mind like cold ashes. His legs embraced yin with yang, his hands embraced yang with yin, forming the Subdui Eight Trigrams Linked Seal. After circulating qi for several heavenly cycles, he felt the lower dantian three inches below his navel gradually becoming scorching hot like boiling water!
True water steamed up from the repository of stored essence, flowing along the Ren and Du meridians into the repository of stored qi at his heart’s Zhongwan, transforming into his own vital energy! The vital energy accumulated denser and denser in the Vermilion Palace Golden Citadel, ultimately condensing into strands of golden light that gathered into the ancestral aperture at his glabella! This process was extremely slow, but with each heavenly cycle, it accumulated a strand of golden light. After half an hour, his glabella ancestral aperture was enveloped in golden-white light! His entire body also became vibrant with life, every inch of skin crystal clear and translucent, just like a newborn infant!
Spring thunder bursts open the three palaces, the aperture of the primordial ancestral qi!
This was the Imperial Extreme Profound Cave Skill!
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Thunder boomed, and amid the curtain of rain, a black shadow vaguely appeared, flipping over the courtyard wall, swimming like a fish to outside Lu Yun’s room, then silently opening the window. His figure turned into a sharp arrow, shooting toward Lu Yun who was circulating qi, his right hand extended like a blade, slashing at his throat!
At the critical moment of life and death, Lu Yun, who had been in a statuesque meditative state, suddenly opened his eyes! His eyes seemed to bloom with divine light, captivating the heart and soul! But then the light quickly retracted inward, returning to normal, making the attacker feel as if it were an illusion!
But the opponent was utterly unaffected, his hand blade already reaching Lu Yun’s jaw! Without thinking, Lu Yun raised his hand and swung, his soft sleeve arriving later but striking first, whipping harshly on the opponent’s hand like a whip!
With a crisp ‘pa’ sound, the opponent’s right hand was deflected, but his follow-up moves came immediately, left fist, elbow, knee, right foot, carrying fierce gusts of wind, pummeling toward Lu Yun like raindrops!
Lu Yun remained unhurried, his hands dancing rapidly, countering move for move! In the blink of an eye, the two had exchanged over a dozen moves, so fast that their actions were impossible to discern!
The set of attacks failing, the opponent leaped backward, planting his feet firmly, no longer attacking. At that moment, another bolt of lightning lit up the room brightly, also revealing the opponent’s hunched back and the crisscrossing ferocious scars on his face.
Lu Yun maintained his cross-legged seated position throughout, showing no intent to attack.
Then, the opponent dropped to one knee, his voice hoarse like metal scraping as he said: “Young Master, your martial arts have advanced again, our hope for revenge has grown greater!”
Lu Yun sighed lightly and said: “Uncle Bao, how many times have I said it—don’t kneel. I am no longer Your Highness, and you are no longer an Imperial Guard.”
“Young Master, don’t say that,” Uncle Bao smiled bleakly, his voice hoarse: “If we forget that you are Your Highness, this subordinate will also forget that he is Du Mao’s…”
He actually referred to himself as Du Mao! The handsome and elegant twin sabers Du Mao, admired by countless capital city beauties!
“…” Lu Yun looked at Uncle Bao’s ferocious face and gave up his insistence.
Uncle Bao was indeed Du Mao. Back then, when he arrived in Qiantang County and discovered the crown prince was still alive, protecting the crown prince became Du Mao’s top priority. To conceal his identity, he ruined his own appearance and voice cords, disguising himself as a hunchback named Lu Bao. Under Lu Xin’s arrangements, he became a house servant in the Lu Clan’s Jiangnan estate.
Over the past ten years, Uncle Bao had become the estate’s manager, appearing like this every few days to hone the young master’s martial arts, and more importantly, to keep him constantly vigilant.
Uncle Bao helped Lu Yun tidy up the room, then stood with hands at sides in a kneeling sit on the cushion beside the couch, respectfully reporting: “Young Master, Xiahou Lei will arrive in Wu Commandery in ten days.”
Lu Yun nodded and said softly: “My father said there is official business; it should be protecting this imperial envoy.”
Hearing Lu Yun still refer to Lu Xin as father in private, Uncle Bao’s brows twitched, but Your Highness had his own insistence, and he was helpless. He could only pretend not to hear and continue on his own: “Young Master, our grand plan for revenge is finally taking the first step!”
“Indeed,” Lu Yun looked at his slender hands and said coldly: “I have waited for this day for a long time!”
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Before the Great Xuan Dynasty was established, the Huaxia lands endured centuries of chaos. Northern barbarian tribes rose one after another, driving the Han Chinese Great Qian regime to the south. Over those centuries, the barbarian tribes established regimes in the north and ravaged the Han people, while the Great Qian regime in the south only sought self-preservation and clung to biased peace.
In the end, the Han people in the north abandoned hope in the southern dynasties’ royal army, rising in rebellion under the leadership of the Eight Great Clans. After more than a decade of bloody battles, they finally drove the barbarian invaders back to the grasslands. The clans then jointly elected the leading Huangfu Clan to establish the Great Xuan Dynasty!
After Great Xuan was founded, the Founding Emperor led his army south, extinguishing the corrupt Great Qian Dynasty and reunifying the Huaxia lands split for centuries, though it has been only twenty-some years since.
In just over twenty years, it was insufficient to erase the deep chasm formed by centuries of north-south division. Southern gentry and commoners regarded themselves as the orthodox Chinese lineage and looked down on the regime established by northerners. The northern court and noble clans also treated the wealthy south as fish and meat to be butchered at will, enclosing land on a large scale and establishing estates here, further intensifying north-south contradictions.
Over the past twenty-plus years, southern great aristocratic families repeatedly rebelled under the banner of the Great Qian Dynasty, only to be suppressed by the court time and again. To this day, the primary officials in the dozen-plus provinces of the south are uniformly northerners. These officials from the imperial clan and the Seven Great Noble Clans have as their primary mission supervising the southern powerful families, nipping rebellions in the bud.
The court also periodically dispatched imperial envoys on southern inspection tours to assess the results of quelling rebellion and pacifying revolts in each province. These envoys’ reports thus became key bases for provincial and commandery officials’ promotions. Therefore, whenever an imperial envoy arrived, local chiefs exerted twelvefold effort, handling matters with utmost caution, fearing any oversight might ruin their careers.
This time’s imperial envoy was of even more extraordinary status. He was the younger brother of Xiahou Clan Leader, Duke of Zhenguo, and Grand Tutor of the dynasty Xiahou Ba… the Marquis of Xiongwu and Left General Xiahou Lei!
After this dynasty was established, the Xiahou Clan became the leader of the Seven Great Noble Clans outside the imperial family. Then, ten years ago after the late emperor was assassinated, they supported Prince Ping, now the Initial Emperor, to ascend the throne. Over these ten years, the Xiahou Clan has monopolized Great Xuan’s military and political power, with disciples and former subordinates spread across the capital and localities, their power swelling dramatically, even faintly showing signs of overshadowing the imperial family!
Now, with an important figure from the Xiahou Clan coming south as imperial envoy, how could local officials not be trembling in fear and trepidation? Before Xiahou Lei’s procession even arrived, the Yangzhou Prefect led the province’s civil and military officials to welcome him at the border, kneeling to receive the imperial envoy lord. Lu Xin, as an assistant official of Yangzhou’s Wu Commandery, was also in the welcoming procession.
Looking at the dense crowd of over two hundred colleagues around him, Lu Xin felt immensely oppressed.
But what of it? He was merely a minor sixth-rank commandery lieutenant, able only to be manipulated by the big shots and serve as background filler, without the qualification to stand out.
That said, putting himself in the Prefect’s shoes, the lord might not be pleased either. The normally majestic frontier official and dignified third-rank Prefect was now like a quail trembling in the cold wind, his face already wearing a fawning smile, surely feeling far from comfortable inside.
Even that long-awaited, lofty imperial envoy lord probably wouldn’t be entirely pleased. It was said the Xiahou Clan’s family rules were extremely strict, with Clan Leader Xiahou Ba quick to apply family law to his clansmen, sparing not even his aged younger brother. And that Marquis of Xiongwu Xiahou Lei was somewhat inept in his old age; back in the capital, Lu Xin had occasionally heard that he was beaten by his elder brother with both carrot and stick, left bedridden. Who knew if he had taken more beatings in these years…
Speaking of which, it had been ten years since leaving the capital; he wondered how that woman was faring… But presumably, not well.
Lu Xin was lost in random thoughts when suddenly a horn blared long. Looking up, he saw a great cavalry force holding high banners and ceremonial guards, rolling in from the official road. Among those dozens of banners, two were particularly conspicuous: the leading one was a treasure-blue grand standard with seven large golden characters ‘Imperial Envoy Jiangnan Pacification Commissioner’!
This was the emperor-granted imperial envoy flag!
The other banner, similar in size with a black surface, bore two large seal-script characters ‘Xiahou’! Around the two characters ‘Xiahou’ was a circle of fierce tiger beast patterns! The reverse side of the banner was simply a man-eating tiger head!
This was the Xiahou Clan’s clan flag!
The two banners raced side by side, flapping fiercely on this land north of the river!
The Prefect lord had already hurried forward to greet them. Lu Xin quickly gathered his mind, following his colleagues to match the superior’s pace, preparing to respectfully welcome the imperial envoy! Respectfully welcome the Xiahou Clan’s representative!
