Chapter 15: The Changle Marquis Arrives at Lengshan
Within the Fangcun space.
Li Shun's consciousness had come to rest at the very outermost edge of the space, at the boundary where the mysterious white mist lay thick.
Unlike the dead still calm it usually presented, the white mist in recent days had been in constant, violent motion, as though something enormous were churning and thrashing within it, without pause.
Previously, Li Shun had attempted to force his consciousness into the mist, only to collide with what felt like an invisible wall of iron and bronze, leaving his soul rattled and his head spinning.
Now however, whether because his soul had grown more resilient through repeated brushes with mortal danger, or because the mist itself had undergone some subtle change, Li Shun found that his consciousness could slip into it, slipping through gaps like water finding cracks.
The moment he entered, above and below and all four directions became indistinguishable, and every direction the eye could reach was an unbroken, boundless expanse of pale white.
Yet somewhere in his mind, a wordless, intuitive understanding surfaced.
Spirit sense as hands — these formless masses of white mist around him... could perhaps be pushed?
No sooner had the thought formed than Li Shun tried it.
And what had appeared as light and intangible as a wisp of smoke proved, on actual contact, to weigh something like a thousand tons. Simply forcing open one tiny crack barely a hair's width left Li Shun's soul quaking violently, his head swimming. Utter exhaustion swept through his entire being in an instant.
But what filled him with immense and irrepressible joy was this: the small crack his spirit sense had forced open did not, like water flowing back together, reseal and smooth over. It held. Completely stable.
A glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel. Li Shun's spirit surged. He rested until his soul recovered its footing, then threw himself back into the work.
And so it continued, pushing, resting, pushing again. By the time a full day had passed, Li Shun felt as though every last reserve of his energy had been scraped hollow.
But looking at the small, hard-won expanse of newly opened territory before him, an immense and wordless satisfaction welled up from somewhere deep within him.
"At this rate, if I push myself, I should be able to open a new region within another ten-odd days at the most."
"When that happens, the Fangcun space will be able to accommodate another completely new puppet." The thought sent a wave of quiet excitement through him.
With hope ahead of him, Li Shun's drive doubled.
In the days that followed, he spent nearly every waking hour with his spirit sense submerged in the Fangcun space, tirelessly expanding its territory.
At the same time, he kept his eye on the situation unfolding in Lengshan County beyond.
Since the twentieth day of the second month, when that unit of Black Armor cavalry had entered the county in their urgent haste, the surface of Lengshan County appeared to have settled back into its usual calm.
But Li Shun, who had lived through one storm of blood and chaos already, could sense the undercurrents moving beneath.
For one thing, the number of soldiers guarding the city gates had nearly doubled.
For another, the long streets and back alleys had filled with additional figures in civilian clothing, sharp-eyed plainclothes constables and investigators, hawk-gazes scanning every face that passed.
Watching these abnormal arrangements with a cool and dispassionate eye, Li Shun caught the distinct scent of something out of the ordinary.
"Is it possible that someone of considerable standing is coming to Lengshan County?"
On the twenty-third day of the second month, County Commandant Cheng Yishu finally returned with his escort unit from the journey to see Feng Guan home. The road had apparently been smooth and uneventful in every direction. Feng Guan had been delivered safely to his home county without incident.
On hearing this, Li Shun let out a long quiet breath of relief.
The twenty-fourth day of the second month. Amid a spectacle of fanfare that shook the entire county, Li Shun finally learned the identity of the distinguished personage who had graced Lengshan County with their presence.
The surviving royal bloodline of the old Xu Kingdom. The current Great Qian dynasty's Marquis, the Changle Marquis.
Marquis, it was the highest of the twenty ranks of military merit in Great Qian. The apex of what any subject of the realm could attain.
No one could quite fathom why this person of such extraordinary status would condescend to appear in this remote backwater. But that bewilderment did not prevent the entire county's population from erupting into a near-frenzied rush to catch a glimpse.
Li Shun, naturally, was among the crowd.
On either side of the long main street, a thick transparent barrier of earth-yellow formation light rose from the ground, forcibly separating the surging masses from the wide thoroughfare.
Eight unicorn-creatures of pure unbroken snow-white, magnificent beyond ordinary measure, pulled a broad open palanquin carved in full from a single piece of agarwood, rolling slowly and ceremonially down the street.
Through the gentle sway of layered gauze curtains, the faint silhouette of a reclining figure was barely visible within.
As though struck into submission by some invisible, pervasive aura of grandeur, the entire clamoring street fell silent in an instant.
Every person held their breath, eyes burning with intensity, fixed upon the figure of the Changle Marquis.
The Marquis, seemingly unbothered by the scrutiny of so many thousands of eyes, reached out one pale wrist and, with an air of idle carelessness, pushed aside the gauze curtain.
In the instant the curtain lifted, the color of the sky and earth in every onlooker's vision seemed to go suddenly dark.
All that remained in sight was a face of such devastating, world-overturning beauty that it seemed to belong to another order of existence entirely.
Her skin was white as jade, carrying a cool, untouchable quality that kept the world at arm's length and yet it produced, somehow, a heartbreaking fragility, a quality of something that might shatter, that made every eye ache to look away and not quite be able to. Her long ink-black hair fell unbound down her back, like a waterfall of midnight. No powder, no rouge, no crown of gems or jade.
Only a single plain, unadorned wooden hairpin set at an angle to gather her hair. Looked at closely, one could see that the pin was carved with an ancient pattern of crossed sword-hilts subtlly, almost hidden.
The Changle Marquis reclined against her agarwood rest with languid ease, her gaze moving slowly across the crowd lining the long street, like deep water in autumn stirred by a slow current. Buried in the depths of those eyes was an emotion that could not quite be named, something like a sorrow one couldn't see the bottom of.
The agarwood palanquin moved the length of the street and came to a stop only at the gates of Lengshan County's Magistrate office.
County Magistrate Fang Xun had long been waiting there with the assembled officials of Lengshan County, every one of them arranged in proper form.
"This subordinate respectfully welcomes the Changle Marquis!"
Fang Xun bent in a deep bow and yet in the very instant his downcast gaze brushed against the magnificent palanquin ahead of him, something flared in the depths of those lowered eyes, impossible to entirely suppress: a burning, hungry greed.
Supported carefully on either side by two handmaids, the Changle Marquis descended from the palanquin in a slow, composed motion.
That devastatingly beautiful face, paired with a figure of willow-branch grace, left every official gathered in welcome momentarily frozen where they stood, breath simply stopping.
Fang Xun, a man seasoned by years of navigating the court recovered his wits first. He stepped quickly to one side and gestured inward with a formal bow of welcome. "Marquis, please, this way!"
She was welcomed into the residence with a banquet of considerable extravagance.
At the feast, though graceful dancers wove and spun across the center of the great hall, the eyes of the assembled officials drifted, again and again, to the Changle Marquis seated at the head of the table.
"If I may be so bold to ask, to what do we owe the unexpected honor of the Marquis's visit to Lengshan County?" When three rounds of wine had been drunk, Fang Xun raised his cup and ventured the inquiry.
"I was passing through the land of my ancestors." The Changle Marquis raised her eyelids slightly, her voice as clear and cool as spring water. "I heard that a descendant of the old Xiang royal family had been captured alive here in Lengshan. A passing curiosity, I wanted to see for myself."
At these words, a flush of satisfaction rose involuntarily to Fang Xun's face. Heart quietly swelling with pride, he immediately launched into an embellished, vivid account of every detail of the battle to suppress the rebellion and capture Xiong Jin.