【First Update of the Day】
On the rain-lashed Tai'an Road, an eight-horse carriage draped in thick brocade and crafted of yellow rosewood raced madly down the main thoroughfare. The Western Desert blood horses from Xibei occasionally kicked up snow from both sides of the road, sending street vendors scattering in panic.
An uninformed passerby quietly asked the seasoned vendors about the commotion. A bald vendor, who had hoped to make a fortune selling fireworks for the New Year, cautiously glanced at the carriage—now only visible as a trail of churned-up snow—and whispered, "The Zhao Ming Grand Duke's family has fallen. As the saying goes, 'When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter.' Look at their former prestige, and now... Hmph! Haven't you noticed the patrols these days? They're rounding up rebels. Yanbei has been causing trouble up north recently. The master of the Holy Gold Palace issued a decree calling for loyalists, but no one answered. Forced to move the capital, now that they're back, do you think these people will have an easy time?"
The passerby was taken aback. "Does that mean there will be war? Will Zhenhuang send troops to attack Yanbei?"
"Who knows!" The vendor spat and clicked his tongue. "But in my opinion, Yanbei isn't to be trifled with. Who's to say who will attack whom first?"
"You're asking for death!" A sharp cry erupted nearby as a heavily made-up woman strode forward, shrieking, "Talking about such things in front of my house—do you have a death wish? Watch out, or I'll have every one of you dragged to the magistrate!"
The two men immediately put on apologetic faces, gathered their goods, and hurried away. Once at a distance, they turned back to glare fiercely at the garish woman, spat contemptuously, and snarled, "Damn whore!" before striding off.
A young maidservant in red, her hair tied in a small bun, flushed with anger and made to chase after them, but the woman grabbed her arm. The maid stared in disbelief, fuming, "Sister Hong, are we just going to let them off like that? Let me go fetch Gensheng and the others—we'll break those bastards' legs!"
"Enough!" Sister Hong raised a hand to massage her temples. Her face, caked in heavy rouge, appeared somewhat vulgar, yet a closer look revealed an undeniable beauty that would have shone brighter without the thick makeup. "The event in West Alley is about to begin. Let's go. The Zhao Ming Grand Duke was kind to me. Back then, I couldn't protect Mr. Jing's bloodline. This time, even if it costs me everything, I must save the Grand Duke's children."
The two draped themselves in cloaks, and the maid raised a bamboo umbrella. Master and servant gradually vanished into the pouring rain, their footprints soon buried by the heavy snow.
This winter was exceptionally cold. On this day, Shuanghuan City was deluged with rain, interspersed with massive hailstones. Elderly residents remarked that this year's rain was peculiar—by this time, peach blossoms should have already bloomed.
Standing among the crowd, Sister Hong, wrapped in a large cloak and sheltered only by her bamboo umbrella, let out a cold laugh. Just then, a scholar who fancied himself literate swayed his head and declared, "The Zhao Ming Grand Duke's family died unjustly!" No sooner had he spoken than several brutish men surged from the crowd, seized the scholar, and hauled him away, shouting and cursing.The crowd fell deathly silent. Sister Hong glanced at the boot prints left by the men on the ground—the insignia of the Southern City Garrison was clearly stamped there. Just then, a palace matron in her fifties slowly ascended the high platform in the western alley. Her hair was pinned with the palace-mandated Yueji hairpiece, swaying unsteadily. Though she wore the lowly servant robes of the palace, to the commoners present, she carried an air of imperial nobility.
After all, she was someone who moved within the palace walls. In this remote border town, even the ceremonial officials dared not offend her. With lowered eyes and submissive tones, one official said, "The young ladies of the Zhao Ming Grand Duke's household have always remained secluded within their chambers. Only someone like you, Matron, would recognize them. Please proceed with the identification."
The matron's lips twitched—whether in a smile or something else was unclear. After a pause, she rasped, "I merely attended to the Grand Duke's family members when they visited the palace in the past. Who would have thought the once-proud daughters of the Huaiyin Helian clan would be reduced to this? Truly, fortune shifts like the river's course—thirty years east, thirty years west. One cannot help but sigh."
The official chuckled lightly and hastily agreed. He gestured toward several soldiers in the distance, and a long procession slowly approached—over a hundred people in total, all disheveled and dressed in rags, heavy chains weighing down their hands and feet. Under the watchful eyes of dozens of guards brandishing whips and long blades, they trudged forward weakly.
Suddenly, a fierce gust of wind swept through, howling down the long street like a madman. The unseasonable cold sent shivers through everyone. At the front of the procession, a thinly clad young woman, caught off guard by the icy blast, lost her footing and stumbled to the ground.
"Miss!" A young maid closely following her darted forward, helping the girl up with trembling hands. "Miss, are you all right?" she asked anxiously.
Though dressed in the same coarse prisoner garb, the young woman carried an air of delicate grace. Her face pale, she shook her head gently. Obediently, she rose under the soldiers' curses, leaning on her maid's arm as she slowly approached the high platform. A soldier shoved her from behind, sending her stumbling to her knees.
The storm seemed to intensify. On the elevated platform, over a hundred women from the Zhao Ming Grand Duke's household knelt in dense rows. With the fall of the Zhao Ming Grand Duke's house, the Huaiyin Helian clan had been annihilated to the ninth degree. Men taller than a horsewhip were executed, while the rest were conscripted for frontier service. Women over sixteen were granted white silk for suicide, while those younger were sold into slavery—thus, this tragic farce unfolded.
And so, the first wave of postwar crisis triggered by Yanbei's independence arrived. Under the efforts of Zhao Che and Zhao Yang, Daxia was preparing to relocate the capital and resume court operations, while ruthlessly pursuing accountability for the war's chaos. The first to suffer this purge was the Huaiyin Helian clan—the Zhao Ming Grand Duke's household—which had lost its power yet still occupied a seat in the Elder Council.Helian Ling knelt on the bone-chilling ground, her personal maid Xiao Cha repeatedly pushing her arm, desperately trying to tuck the edge of her own robe beneath Helian Ling's knees. Helian Ling knelt there in a daze, silent and motionless.
All the tears that needed to be shed had long been exhausted over these past few days. Duke Helian Zhaoming's thirty-seven branches, totaling over four thousand eight hundred seventy people, had been brutally slaughtered within just three short days, rivers of blood flowing through the streets. That morning, when she watched her mother, three elder sisters, sisters-in-law, aunts, aunties from other households, maids, wet nurses, and elderly servants all hanged together with bloodthirsty white silk ribbons in the hall just one cell away from hers, she felt her entire heart had died.
Even now, whenever she closed her eyes, she could still see that gloomy hall filled with ghastly white silk, her mother and sisters hanging there like logs in rows. Wind mixed with icy hail kept blowing through the courtyard, falling on their purplish-blue pale faces, gradually accumulating without showing the slightest sign of melting.
When the prison officials came to collect the bodies, each was wrapped carelessly in a tattered mat and dragged away. As they passed before her, long hair swept across the filthy dust-covered floor, raising clouds of dust that made her cough violently. Fresh blood gushed from her mouth like a spring, mixing with her long-numbed tears as they splattered across the prison floor teeming with rats and cockroaches, laying the foundation for the most tragic memory of her life.
The former prosperity and imperial favor, the bustling aristocratic family with constant streams of carriages and horses, had thus been buried deep in the earth, scattered into the wild soil, dissipated in the turbulent years, becoming yet another sacrifice in the empire's power transition.
Among the peripheral crowd, a blue-cloth carriage stood quietly beneath a century-old banyan tree. The tree's lush foliage completely shielded it from the rain. The carriage curtain was lifted, with only a thin gauze covering the window, making the figure inside indistinct. Outside stood just one driver guarding the carriage. Yet for some reason, none of the hurried pedestrians seeking shelter from the rain approached this spot.
"Young Master, shall we go take a look?"
The gauze curtain lifted, revealing a face with sharp features. The man's narrow phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as he coldly gazed at the woman kneeling on the high platform, studying her carefully for a long time.
"These few are the last bloodline of the Helian clan of Huaiyin, aren't they."
His low voice emerged slowly, like ice in cold water. Though phrased as a question, it carried no interrogative tone.
The driver was quite young with a somewhat dark complexion and quickly replied, "Yes, the one at the front is Duke Zhaoming's daughter. Young Master, many remain loyal to the Helian clan. If we can gain control of Duke Zhaoming's daughter, it would benefit us without harm. Since we happen to encounter her, why not just purchase her?"
The man watched for a while longer, then suddenly released the curtain. It fell with a swish as he said decisively, "A Jing, let's move on."
The driver said nothing, cracked his whip, and urged the carriage forward.Just as they departed, over half of the onlookers who had been watching the commotion suddenly dispersed—there were pole-carrying porters, traveling escorts, acrobatic troupes, scholars in blue robes and green hats, and even tall, striking beauties from the northwestern tribes. These people gathered around the carriage like stars surrounding the moon, imperceptibly isolating it from all other pedestrians and carriages nearby.
"The market is open!"
A loud shout suddenly rang out as the trading on the rear platform began. The man inside the carriage slowly furrowed his brow, gradually recalling the Nine Nether Yellow Springs Platform in front of the Ziwei Plaza in his mind.
Daxia? Hmph...
The man snorted coldly, leaned back against the soft cushion, and closed his eyes to rest.
A Chu, if my predictions are correct, you should be taking the route through Biantang and traveling upstream from the Southern Border. I shall come to meet you.
The wind of Yanbei blew from behind—the grass on the plains had already turned green...
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