Three Steps: From Assassin to Empress - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: “Ying Xiu, from Guangling, Xuzhou.”

…

As the man got closer, Ying Xiu’s heart pounded faster. The man was so beautiful he could make the world lose its color. If it were anyone else, Ying Xiu would have knocked him out, found a place to hide, and waited to disembark. But now he just stood there, flustered, just to get a few more glances.

“You, I…” The young man stammered, trying to say something. After a long moment, he finally found his voice. “I’m a scholar staying in Xiaohuai, and I accidentally boarded the wrong ship. Please forgive me.” He seemed to remember something and added anxiously, “I left some silver, it’s under the pillar in the corridor.”

It was a clumsy lie. Assassins are good at lurking in the shadows and striking their targets with a single, precise blow. They are not good at appearing in public, and even their lies are full of stammers. He had a sword hidden in his robe, yet he claimed to be a scholar who mistakenly boarded the wrong ship.

His friend, Jianxin, once said that Ying Xiu had a personality as pure as a blank sheet of paper, and it was a good thing he had such extraordinary martial arts skills, which had allowed him to survive until today in these chaotic times. Ying Xiu hadn’t cared before. Deception and manipulation were the work of spies. What he had to do was much simpler: identify who needed to be killed, then kill them.

But now, he regretted it a little. He wished he had learned some of the ways of spies. At least he could have come up with a fluent lie. The young man nervously explained that he had paid for his passage on the ship. His worried and earnest demeanor was touching.

Emperor Zhaosu asked, “How did you get on board?”

Ying Xiu answered honestly, “There was a rope ladder.”

This grand ship was the culmination of countless years of effort by palace artisans. It was over a hundred feet high, and even using the official gangplank would take a while. This young man claimed he climbed a rope ladder to get on board.

Emperor Zhaosu was silent. He couldn’t wrap his head around how a spy could have such a great disparity between his intelligence and his martial arts skills. It made him ask a third question, something he rarely did: “Show me again.”

“I can, but…” Ying Xiu said, a little embarrassed, “not right now.” The river was surrounded by warships from the Lord of Jiangzhou’s forces. If he were to jump off and climb back up the rope ladder now, it would attract their attention.

Ying Xiu added, “I’ll show you when I come again.”

When I come again. Emperor Zhaosu chewed on these three words. He lightly curved his lips into a faint smile. The young man was so mesmerized that his sword dropped to the floor with a clatter. Emperor Zhaosu glanced at the bl00d-stained sword and said softly, “Okay.”

There was a bit of noise on the deck outside, as if an argument was taking place, but no one came to tell him what was happening. Perhaps it was because the hermit in front of him had no status. Thinking this, Ying Xiu felt a little sorry for him. He decided that if anyone came to search, he would jump out the window and get off the ship, so as not to cause any trouble for the man.

But the expected search didn’t happen. The silence quickly returned. After a moment, a young boy knocked on the door.

Ying Xiu grabbed his sword from the floor and quickly hid behind a screen, watching as the man in the white robe sat calmly on a cushion. The boy who entered had a solemn and respectful aura about him, and he didn’t seem like an ordinary servant of a noble.

The boy announced that the ship had docked and then bowed and left.

Ying Xiu peeked out for a bit, then cautiously came out from behind the screen. He pushed open a window, and in one fluid motion, stepped onto the sill, ready to jump off the ship. He seemed to remember something and suddenly turned to Emperor Zhaosu: “Ying Xiu, from Guangling, Xuzhou.”

Emperor Zhaosu replied, “Xie Zhou, from Jiankang.”

Jiankang, the capital of the Southern Dynasty. And the name Xie easily brought to mind the Xie clan of Jianzhang, the leading aristocratic family. Was he a member of the Xie family? It would be difficult to kidnap a servant or retainer of the Xie clan.

With his mind racing, Ying Xiu jumped from the window toward the rising sun on the river. He flipped over in mid-air, his black robes fluttering like a flower, and landed steadily on the shore, which was obscured by hills. The young man was skilled at hiding. His movements were light and graceful, and he quickly disappeared from view.

Emperor Zhaosu looked away, picked up his Konghou, and lightly plucked the strings. The young man’s eyes reappeared in his mind. They were a very familiar gaze, one he had seen countless times in his dreams. Although similar, they were completely different. Ying Xiu’s eyes were clear, clean, and bright. He had a sword that was dripping bl00d, yet his eyes were like that.

“Tap, tap…”

The screen door was knocked upon. The commander of the Imperial Guards, General Shang Weijun, knelt on the ground and said with great trepidation, “I have been derelict in my duty. I beg Your Majesty to punish me.”

Emperor Zhaosu continued to pluck the strings, letting the man kneel on the ground. He said softly, “Ying Xiu, from Guangling, Xuzhou. Go and investigate.”

General Shang’s pupils shrank. He quickly hid his shock and bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He remained kneeling, waiting for Emperor Zhaosu’s next command.

The next moment, Emperor Zhaosu’s indifferent voice came from above: “As for the Xiangli clan, you deal with them.”

“Your servant obeys.” General Shang was not surprised by this. “Dealing with them” from the emperor had only one meaning: from this day on, the aristocratic family that had ruled Jiangzhou for decades would cease to exist. All because they had dared to board Emperor Zhaosu’s ship, which he was using to travel incognito, and disturb his peace while searching for an assassin.

More shocking than that command was the fact that the young assassin named Ying Xiu had not only survived but had left completely unharmed. And it seemed he had even exchanged names with His Majesty. Ying Xiu, this person was truly enigmatic.

The enigmatic Ying Xiu changed his clothes, hired a small boat at the dock, and sat in it, still thinking about the man in the white robe. Youthful and pure, with a graceful and beautiful demeanor. The breathtaking beauty and the sense of danger that was impossible to ignore had a huge impact on Ying Xiu.

Xie Zhou, Xie Zhou. The young assassin repeated the name. Xie Zhou from the capital, Jiankang. The world was so vast, when would he be able to see him again?

Ying Xiu returned to the rendezvous point alone. The tavern on the bank of the Xiao Qinhuai River had not yet opened. Only two or three scholars, who had failed to get official positions, were sitting on the flagstones, raising their cups to drink with each other.

The young man, now dressed in a simple blue tunic and looking no different from an ordinary person, pushed open the tavern’s screen and questioned the owner who was dozing in a rattan chair. “Why haven’t you served the wine yet today?”

He was asking why they hadn’t come to meet him at Po Gang Canal at 3 a.m.

The owner opened his eyes, his gaze sharp. He first sized him up. “You’re here,” he said, sounding a little surprised that Ying Xiu had made it out unscathed. His surprise quickly turned into indifference. “You think about why I haven’t served you wine. I should have brewed the wine at 3 a.m. Why did you act four kes early?”

The tavern owner, Ying Xiu’s superior, had always been dissatisfied with him. Ying Xiu was too upright and soft-hearted, as straight as a piece of wood. In his eyes, right was right, and wrong was wrong. Those who made mistakes should be punished, and murderers should pay with their lives. He saw things in stark black and white, tolerating no flaws.

The most fatal flaw was that he didn’t follow orders and always acted on his own initiative. Tonight, to save the child of an unknown commoner, he had exposed himself by acting ahead of schedule. He hadn’t sent anyone to meet Ying Xiu, intending to teach him a lesson. He wanted to use the Lord of Jiangzhou’s forces to make him understand that as an assassin, the last thing he should have was a kind heart.

Ying Xiu didn’t explain. He only said, “I’m willing to accept my punishment.”

His superior sneered, “Who would dare to punish you? Who doesn’t know that you are…” He swallowed the rest of his words. In a way, Ying Xiu was lucky in his naivety. He was a refugee from the south who somehow acquired extraordinary martial arts skills. Four years ago, he saved the master’s eldest son and was taken in as a retainer. He was only seventeen this year, yet he was already a trusted confidant of the eldest son and worked for him. In the future, he would be able to start a family, and his entire life would be under the protection of an aristocratic family, living as a protected household.

It was a great future, but Ying Xiu didn’t seem to cherish it. He even dared to mess up a mission personally arranged by the eldest son. In these times, saving a noble might lead to a good future, but what was the point of saving a commoner? It was just asking for trouble.

“Forget it,” his superior, after a great deal of thought, finally sighed. “Don’t let it happen again.”

This mission had gone more smoothly than expected, in fact, it had gone suspiciously smoothly. The powerful and deeply rooted Xiangli clan, which had occupied Jiangzhou and Xunyang for decades, was completely wiped out in just two hours. The court issued a decree ordering the confiscation of their property. Now, the stronghold, which spanned thousands of acres of fertile land and had over a thousand tenant farmers, was empty and had been taken over by the Jiangzhou prefectural guards.

The young Emperor Zhaosu in the capital was known for his tyrannical and violent methods. It was said that as a young man, he had killed all the eunuchs, sorcerers, and court officials in the palace, leaving rivers of bl00d. Nothing he did would be surprising. Jiangzhou was thousands of miles from the capital, Jiankang, which showed just how powerful the tyrant’s spies were.

The prefectural soldiers galloped through the streets, and the news spread with the sound of their horses’ hooves. The Xiao Qinhuai River became bustling instantly. The sounds of people, boats, and water rippled through the autumn wind. In the streets and on the river, iron-clad scouts were searching for the assassin, stopping and questioning everyone they saw.

A scout’s warship glided through the Xiao Qinhuai, passing by a small boat. In the sunlight, Ying Xiu lay lazily on the bow, propping his head on his hand. The black ribbon he had used to tie his hair was now casually wrapped around his wrist, his black hair scattered around him. With his eyes closed, he picked a lotus seed from the center of the river, peeled it, and bit into it. The petals fell all over the boat.

With lotus flowers all around, the young man seemed to be in a romantic mood. No one who saw him would suspect that he was the silver-masked assassin who had ended the life of the Lord of Jiangzhou with a single sword the night before. The scouts who passed by watched for a few moments, sighing at the carefree nature of youth before paddling away quickly.

The sound of the oars slicing through the water faded. Ying Xiu opened his eyes, his gaze falling upon a small boat next to him. A woman and her daughter were sitting in the boat, picking lotus seeds, staring at him blankly. The girl with her hair tied in two buns seemed to recognize the young man who had saved her last night. She opened her mouth to speak, but her mother quickly put a handful of sweet lotus seeds in her mouth. The girl began to chew instinctively.

By the time she had swallowed the lotus seeds, her mother had already rowed the small boat away, and she could no longer see the boy who looked like the moonlight. The mother and daughter had recognized him, even though he had changed his disguise.

Ying Xiu watched the old boat disappear into the depths of the lotus flowers. The memories of last night flashed through his mind: the tall, majestic ship, the vast and lonely private room, the white-robed hermit with the Konghou in his arms. The open window behind him showed the rising sun, its light reflecting on the river.

The Lord of Jiangzhou was dead, and Jianxin had not yet assigned him a new mission. This period would be free. Perhaps he could go see Xie Zhou.

Ying Xiu changed back into the disguise he had worn for the assassination, picked a bouquet of lotus flowers as a gift, and rowed his boat along the river to Po Gang Canal. The bleak river wind hit his face, carrying a faint scent of bl00d. The river water was tinged red, but he didn’t know whose bl00d it was.

The dock was filled with boats. Ying Xiu looked up, trying to find the large ship. The nobles’ ships had a designated dock. This must be the right place.

“Young friend,” someone appeared silently beside Ying Xiu, smiling slightly. “Are you looking for someone?”