Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The northerners’ faith was simple. The Wolf-Headed Buddha was their supreme and only god: one face was the Buddha who delivered souls, the other the wolf who slaughtered. The gelu served as messenger between mortals and the divine. Northerners believed that if the gelu guided the dead onward, they would reach the Wolf-Headed Buddha and return to the tribe as warriors reborn. Without that rite, they became evil spirits and brought calamity upon the living. Gelus through the ages lived far from the tribes and tended the remains of the dead. As gelu to an entire nation, Old Ge resided in the Gelu Temple outside the city and performed rites for all the restless souls of the realm.

Old Ge had not entered the palace in many years. He came this time after hearing that Danchi had welcomed a Buddhist monk inside. As cultures from other lands flowed into Northern Qian, more and more northerners had begun following foreign religions. The royal house’s position was that the dignity of the Wolf-Headed Buddha could not be profaned.

“Worship a foreign god, and the Wolf-Headed Buddha will send disaster! The souls of Northern Qian warriors will have nowhere to go!” he had shrieked, veins standing out along his thin, dark neck.

Like every traditional northerner, Danchi believed the gelu’s words were the decree of heaven. He had just opened his mouth when I interrupted.

“If the Wolf-Headed Buddha truly possesses divine power, why should he fear one insignificant monk? And if he cannot even defend his own divine throne, how can he protect Great Qin? He may as well yield it to a true god now.”

At the time, the birthday arrangements had driven me nearly frantic. Since I placed no faith in gods or spirits, my tone was harsher than necessary. Old Ge shook with rage and pointed at me. “You profaned the god before! Your Majesty, if you allow this evil spirit to remain in the palace, she will surely bring catastrophe upon us!”

At last, my patience broke.

“Your people have worshiped this Wolf-Headed Buddha for generations. Other than teaching you not to blink when you slaughter your own kind, he does not seem to have spared you many disasters. You know better than I how many freeze or starve to death each year. Oh, I know what you will say: they were sinful. But how many infants die in their mothers’ arms before they even leave their swaddling clothes? What sins did they commit? Meanwhile, I – the evil spirit you condemn – have promoted farming and weaving. In these ten years of war, have you ever counted how many children survived because of that?”

“You!”

“Enough. If divine punishment truly exists, let it fall on me!”

Old Ge tried to continue, but I instructed the attendants, “Give Elder Ge lodging for the night and send him home tomorrow.”

No divine punishment came.

But he died inside the palace. With his life and the strange sorcery passed down through generations, he placed a curse upon me.

The downpour soaked my hair as I faced the old man’s gaunt corpse. The panic in my heart slowly settled into calm.

You would curse me?

I already carried the wronged souls of a million dead from Southern Xu. I did not believe any curse could cry out more bitterly than theirs.

I issued my orders coldly. “The gelu was murdered. The envoy from Liao is the chief suspect and will be detained. Everyone else will remain in the palace until we learn the truth.”

Attendants began guiding the crowd away. Several Southern Xu guards approached Old Ge’s unnatural remains with trembling hands, preparing to collect them.

“Wait! The gelu acted on heaven’s behalf. What is the empress trying to conceal?”

The speaker was Danchi’s younger brother, Yu Qing. Nearly forty, he had a body like an iron tower. In his early years, he had campaigned at Danchi’s side and been ennobled as a duke of the first rank. Now he stood second only to Chen Dong in the line of succession to Great Qin.

He and Chen Dong opposed each other at every turn, which was precisely why he had always been friendly with me. Of all the Northern Qian nobles, he was the only one who personally attended every banquet I held.

What was he doing now?

“What does Your Grace mean?” I asked. “Would you leave the gelu’s remains to rot in the rain?”

Yu Qing gave a cold laugh and drew the sword at his waist with a hiss of steel.

“The gelu became the Wolf-Headed Buddha to punish an evil spirit. Who else could Northern Qian’s evil spirit be?”

I glanced at his blade. “Does Your Grace intend to rebel?”

“His Majesty favored you, and you repaid him by overturning the natural order. You gave preferential treatment to Southern slaves and murdered countless subjects of Northern Qian. Now the gelu has sacrificed himself in death. As a prince of Northern Qian, am I expected to pretend I saw nothing?”

My guards moved warily in front of me.

The palace’s true elite guards were stationed in the outer court. Danchi had returned early to his sleeping chamber with his beauties, and most of the inner-palace guard remained near him. At that moment, I was surrounded only by envoys, noblewomen, and attendants with no martial skill. They could not stop a general’s sword.
“Your Grace, as long as I remain empress, drawing a weapon against me is an act of treason…”

“I will slay the evil spirit in the Wolf-Headed Buddha’s name!”

I had not imagined he would truly dare strike.

The flash of steel, the thunder, the screams around me, and my guards’ dying cries mingled with the pounding rain until it all felt like an absurd dream. At last, there was nowhere left to retreat. I fell backward with a splash into the flooded ground.

How laughable. For all these years, I had questioned every bite I ate three times over, never imagining I would die beneath a naked blade in open view.

Lightning split the sky. His sword descended.

I closed my eyes.

But death did not come.

No one saw what happened in that instant. When I opened my eyes, someone stood before me in the rain.

Naihe’s monastic robes were soaked through, and his whole figure seemed fashioned from translucent glass. His face was calm, even gentle. In his hands, however, he held a bloodstained sword, its edge turned toward Yu Qing.

“Who are you?” Yu Qing stared at him, trembling.

“Benefactor, a sword is meant to defend oneself and fight one’s enemies, not to slaughter the innocent.” His voice was not loud, yet everyone present heard him clearly.

“The gelu bled from his mouth and nose. He died when an external blow ruptured his organs. With so much blood on his face and clothing, there should have been a large pool on the ground. Yet there was none. Before the rain began, we all saw that apart from the formation he had drawn, the ground was clean.”

The crowd fell silent. For a time, there was only the rain.

He continued, “And then there is the formation itself. Since ancient times, formations have been drawn with either blood or cinnabar. These paving stones are rough. Had the gelu used his hands, they would be covered in wounds, yet his palms are unmarked. Then did he use a brush dipped in cinnabar? If so, where is the brush?”

A thin line of blood appeared on Yu Qing’s neck. He looked at the beautiful monk before him as though facing a monster.

Naihe met his gaze and smiled faintly. “Your Grace, you have misunderstood the empress.”

Rapid footsteps sounded nearby. Youchun came rushing back with the imperial guard. The moment Yu Qing had raised his sword, I had sent her for help.

Naihe released his grip. The blade struck the ground, splashing water.

The imperial guards bound Yu Qing. Youchun helped me up, her voice trembling. “Princess… no, Your Majesty, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

I was about to answer when I realized Naihe stood beside me holding an umbrella over my head, while he himself remained wholly exposed to the rain.

I stared at him. He met my eyes with the same composure. Rain ran from the point of his chin, and his lips were red as blood, making his beauty look more uncanny than ever.

With a face like that, he was either a Buddha or a demon.

“He actually took a sword from a Northern Qian general…”

Later that night, once the turmoil had subsided, I sat wrapped in blankets and murmured to myself.

“General He was the god of war to Northern Qian. Taking monastic vows would hardly make him abandon his martial arts. Of course he taught his disciple. What is so strange about that?”

Youchun added another blanket. “Are you still cold, Princess?”

“Not too badly.”

But Naihe was not what I had imagined. He was neither a mere messenger nor a harmless young monk. With martial skill that formidable, what had He Sulong sent him here to do?

“Princess, if you truly want to know, summon him tomorrow and ask. For now, you have a fever and refuse to take medicine. You should sleep.”

I murmured assent and lay down.

When I closed my eyes, images entangled me: Old Ge’s staring corpse, the bloody flash of Yu Qing’s sword, the furtive eyes watching from behind me. I counted my pulse and forced myself to remain calm. I needed to recover my strength. I had to uncover the truth of the gelu’s death. And imprisoning Yu Qing would inevitably cause an uproar at court. I had to decide how to meet it…

Half asleep, half awake, I heard someone draw back my bed curtains.

It was Danchi.

“Your Majesty, why are you here?”

“You are Our beauty. Why do you think We are here?” He gave a grotesque laugh and reached out to tear open my collar.