Governor’s Illness

that man windingly walking over from Tian Street.
The resplendent rays of the morning sun embraced him, as if he was greatly favored by the heavens. 

Shen Jue approached, yet he lifted a hand lightly.
Everyone fell silent and saluted with clasped hands as they lowered their heads and backed away to the left and right.
He got onto the carriage, and everyone watched him leave the palace.
They looked at each other, not knowing what to do next.

The day of offering incense arrived in the blink of an eye.
The imperial road had been cleared, and screen barriers had been put up on both sides.
People poked their heads out from upstairs to look at the long cluster of vast black below.
Because the previous emperor had passed away in the summer, the incense offering this year was extremely simple.
However, in the common people’s eyes, it still had the same luxury.
There were phoenix and dragon carriages, retinue yelling to clear the way, imperial guards escorting, depot guards accompanying, with exquisite brocades piling up in the style of the emperor.

The young emperor sat at the very front of the ranks.
He had finally left the palace and was very happy, holding the window as he looked at the scenery outside.
Behind the dragon carriage was the empress dowager’s phoenix carriage.
The empress dowager was sitting upright inside, slowly counting Buddha beads in her hands.
She still had a beautiful face, and she had a wig bun with pearls and jade pressing on top of her head, the soft hair at her temples looking more and more like clouds and the color of her skin like snow.
Rouge had been applied on her lips, oily and exquisite like a finely carved gem.
Zhu Xia was waiting upon her at the side, and when the carriage passed by Shen Jue, her eyes lit up as she saluted toward him through the window.

“Have you been well recently, Chief Officer?” the empress dowager glimpsed Shen Jue and said indifferently.

“Thank you for your concern, Empress Dowager, I am still the same.”

“But I heard that you recently provoked a lawsuit and got pinned to two lives.
I heard that their family is very insolent and often squats at the gate of the Eastern Depot these days, crying and shouting for justice.
Is this true?”

Shen Jue answered with a light smile, “It is indeed true.
His Majesty has already transferred it to the Ministry of Justice to investigate and handle, so I believe that there will be results in a few days.”

The empress dowager saw that he looked unperturbed, and she imperceptibly frowned.
However, her tone was still indifferent, seemingly calm.
“Chief Officer, you have calculated plans, I presume you won’t be dragged down by such rogues.”

“Thank you for your blessing.” Shen Jue squinted as he looked at the sunlight on the imperial road.
“Whether they are rogues or not still depends on the outcome.”

“Oh? Your words seem to have other secrets?”

“Empress Dowager, you worry too much, I don’t have other meanings.
It’s the Three Divisions’ duty anyway, so I’ll let them take care of it.
I expect that all of them have high talents and good virtues, so there definitely is no reason to wrong me.” Shen Jue lowered himself slightly to salute with clasped hands before spurring his horse forward.

The empress dowager looked at his back and snorted coldly.
If he let them take care of it, was he still Shen Jue? The empress dowager collected herself and asked Zhu Xia in a low voice, “Has the information been passed on properly to Wan Bohai?”

Zhu Xia nodded.
“It’s all set.”

“Good.” The empress dowager slowly hooked her lips up.
“This person is powerful, so I expect even Mrs.
Yao and her son can’t take him down.
But he definitely won’t expect that I still have a fallback, Guangling Temple, just wait and see!”

Zhu Xia’s heart was suspended, and she bit her lip slightly.
“Empress Dowager, are you going to kill him?”

The empress dowager held Zhu Xia’s hands and smiled.
“Foolish child, why would I kill him? I’m merely teaching him a lesson and letting him suffer.
Don’t worry, I’ll keep his life.
In any case, I can’t let you be a widow.”

Zhu Xia nodded hesitantly.

Shen Jue moved slowly, and Situ Jin spurred his horse to catch up.
He said in a low voice, “Governor.”

Shen Jue pressed his temples.
The weather had become cold, so he wasn’t feeling too well.
He turned his head and asked, “Xiahou Lian didn’t come, right.”

“No, I already informed him of the wrong time.
He should think that today is a holiday, and that the day after tomorrow is the day of offering incense.”

Shen Jue nodded.
“That’s good.” He didn’t want Xiahou Lian getting involved in the filthy matters of the imperial court.
Xiahou Lian finally had smooth and steady days, so he couldn’t be encumbered by him.

“Governor…” Situ Jin looked at Shen Jue’s pale face and said solemnly, “be careful.”

 ———————————————

Xiahou Lian was peeling garlic at home.

The Eastern Depot was very unpeaceful these days, as the Embroidered Uniform Guard was still investigating.
The Yao family had gathered a group of neighbors and carried the corpse to the Eastern Depot yamen to cry and scream.
All of the young and old in the Yao family slept at the gate, making a racket nonstop day and night.
It was unknown where their boldness came from, daring to challenge the Eastern Depot.
The hardest part was that this matter had already been presented as a memorial to the emperor, so the Eastern Depot couldn’t deal with them at will and could only let them cause a disturbance.

Xiahou Lian had an intuition that the matter wasn’t simple, but his position was low and he couldn’t help Shen Jue much.
The Yao family was so noisy the Eastern Depot yamen had no way of working, so Xiahou Lian had taken a group of brothers to move beds of nails from the prison outside, laying them at the gate.
The Yao family had no place to lie down and no place to stay at, so they shouted curses through the wall before leaving in resentment.

They had at least gotten them away, so everyone sighed in relief.

After peeling a small basket, Xiahou Lian stood up and went to the kitchen, and the front door was suddenly knocked on loudly.
Xiahou Lian wiped his hands and opened the door.
Zhu Shunzi was panting as he held the wall and stood in the doorway.

“What…”

Before Xiahou Lian could even finish, Zhu Shunzi tugged his arm and walked outside.
“You person! The emperor is going to Guangling Temple today to offer incense, yet you actually skipped work! If you’re going to skip then skip, but you were even discovered by your division leader! Thanks to your division leader’s kind heart, he didn’t report it and sent me to find you and get you to report for duty! Hurry, hurry, let’s hurry to Guangling Temple, I reckon we can still catch up right now.”

“What the hell?” Xiahou Lian knitted his brows and still went back to change into his yesa robes and bring his goose quill saber.
“Didn’t they say that the incense offering is the day after tomorrow?”

“You were dozing off when the superiors spoke, right! It’s today!” shouted Zhu Shunzi.

Zhu Shunzi didn’t have time to chatter away with him, and the two of them rushed on galloping horses to Guangling Temple.
They went along the ancient road, arrived at the foot of the mountain, and directly stepped up the stone steps of the mountain.
The mountain breeze was slight and bone-chilling, and the leaves of the old pagoda trees rustled.
The stone steps of Guangling Temple were too long, and the two of them were like two ants on them, climbing up with setbacks. 

As they climbed, Xiahou Lian felt that something was very wrong.
The emperor was offering incense, so there should be Embroidered Uniform guards and imperial guards guarding, but how come there wasn’t even a single person.

He turned his head to ask Zhu Shunzi, but Zhu Shunzi’s face had also stagnated.

Voices came from the forest.
Zhu Shunzi wanted to go there, but Xiahou Lian grabbed him and made a gesture to seal him off.
Xiahou Lian bent his waist as he made his way over.
The horseweed was very tall, reaching his thighs, and Xiahou Lian slowly moved over like a noiseless snake.
He neared a pagoda tree and put a bit of his body out, spying on the situation over there.

There were five soldiers from the Imperial Guard, and one of them had walked out a bit, only five steps away from Xiahou Lian.
He tore off his sweat towel and peed in the grass.

The other four were sitting on the ground and resting.
One with triangular eyes took out a string of tourmaline beads with a pair of pendants hanging from it, as well as a lazurite Buddha tower from inside his armor, and they glinted under the sun.
Tiny dots of blood stained the beads, and Triangle Eyes used his sleeve to wipe them carefully as he asked, “Ah, boss, how much do you say this thing can sell for?”

“How would I know? Send it to Liuli Factory, and it’ll definitely sell for a good price!” The one called the boss picked his teeth as he said, “It’s too bad we only cut his hand and didn’t catch him, otherwise the bounty would’ve been enough for us to use for the rest of our lives!”

Someone chuckled.
“Fuck, did you see his appearance, now that’s called beautiful! I heard that the people who come out of the palace are radiant and pretty, but I didn’t expect that a eunuch would also look fairy-like.”

The peeing person over there joined in loudly.
“He’s missing two ounces of flesh anyway, so just regard him as a woman! If he can pleasure me, then this life really is worthwhile!”

As he was saying this, a bit of an icy iron light suddenly flashed past their gazes, as if a saber had cut their eyelids, horrifying everyone.

Ten steps ahead of them, pagoda leaves swirled.
Their companion that had been going to the lavatory screamed as he backed away, one hand pulling on his trousers that hadn’t been put on properly yet and the other hand covering the side of his face.
He stepped on the pagoda leaves with crunches, and everyone saw that every time he stepped past a leaf, dripping blood would flow down from his mouth and stick to the leaf, a glaring red.

And what was forcing him back was a goose quill saber.
The saber had been reached into his mouth the entire time, and blood flowed along the corners of his mouth into the golden blood grooves.
He backed away, step by step, and the person hiding behind the pagoda leaves finally appeared.
He was a man wearing black yesa robes and holding the saber in one hand.
Under the mottled sunlight, his eyes were frighteningly black.

Everyone stood up and drew their sabers, facing the man.

“If you don’t want to die, tell me where the governor is? Or else,” the man forcibly shook his hand that was holding the saber, and the goose quill saber fractured their companion’s oral cavity, causing his entire mouth to split, with his chin falling down obliquely, “you’ll be like him.”

 

Translator Notes:

Lit.
Hall of Supreme Harmony. A flat scepter originally used at court for taking notes and later became a ritual implement, customarily used by officials to shield their mouths when speaking to the emperor.