The Emperor’s Daily Nitpicking - CH 31

A rare break in the torrential downpour gave a chance to absorb the remaining water that had accumulated everywhere.

The Wujinxuan Palace in the Path of the Gods on the Great Rift Valley was bathed almost from top to bottom in a heavy pool of black water. The water had not yet run off the roof and was dripping in a series of curtains along the long corridor, pattering and making the chambers look quieter and quieter.

The copper door at the end of the corridor creaked suddenly, and two chamberlains led a thin figure hurriedly towards Cynthia’s room.

“An, I’ve been awake for a long time. I’m waiting for you to tell a story!” Cynthia was restless even as she lay in bed, rolling twice under the covers and almost breaking her stoned arm, causing the two chambermaids to whimper.

The thin figure was none other than Angel; the white rabbit boy brought back by Kevin. Cynthia didn’t like to call people by their full names, trying to save time and memory, always calling them by the first syllable only. The first time she called him “An,” Angel’s ears turned red, and he said, “No, no, no, that’s a girl’s name.”

Unfortunately, at four and a half years old, Cynthia, who was somehow like her uncle when he was a child, took them as wind past her ears and dismissed them with a huff. The next day they met, she continued to call with only one word, and Angel had no choice but to let her call that.

Since her arm had been petrified, Cynthia couldn’t go out and roll over the place. The guards followed Oswald’s orders and watched her from morning to night so she would not fall into anything.

It was a death sentence for a child of that age to be unable to leave the house, especially when Oswald was away. She had nowhere to cry or make a fuss, and the idea of hanging herself was a little beyond her intelligence, so she could only obediently lay and accept her fate.

For this reason, Angel had to go to the Wujinxuan Palace daily. The good news was that, apart from her fondness for endless stories, she hadn’t developed any other habits yet, so she wasn’t too hard to please.

“We finished the book yesterday.” Angel said, “What do you want to listen to today?”

Cynthia peeked out the door twice, and when she saw that the chamberlain was standing respectfully at the door and had no intention of coming in to arrest her, she hurriedly fished a book out from under her pillow.

The sneaky look of a child of this age was a little amusing. Angel was too afraid to laugh at the obvious, only pursing the corners of his lips. He took the book from Cynthia’s hand and flipped through several pages.

No kidding. The book was so ragged it looked like it had just been picked up from the rubbish heap. Angel was careful to turn the pages and accidentally pulled off a few pieces of paper.

Angel: “……”

He held the pages with a terrified expression, “Your Highness, tell me honestly. Where did you find this book?”

If it was some ancient book or something, he couldn’t afford to pay for it if two pages fell out!

Cynthia lowered her voice to a whisper, “I stole it from my uncle’s bookshelf last night.”

Angel’s hand shook.

How could you steal the Emperor’s things?!

Cynthia immediately became defensive again, “But uncle said I could look at everything in his study except the ones on his desk! And this book was placed there yesterday, so it’s okay for me to use it for a day since uncle is not here anyway!”

“Yesterday?” Angel asked questioningly.

Oswald’s trip was not supposed to be publicised. Only those who frequented the Wujinxuan Palace knew about it. He had made all the necessary arrangements before he left, so neither the Priest Institution, the Medical Institution, nor the three military camps had any problems and were operating as usual.

When Angel was leaving the Wujinxuan Palace yesterday, he saw the Elder of the Priest Institution enter the study tremblingly. If he was not mistaken, it was likely that the Elder had put the book in the study. After all, he had previously heard him talk about finding a book for the Emperor.

Angel couldn’t do anything about the little girl, so he pulled up a chair and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding up the ragged book like an ancient ancestor and giving it a brief glance: “Are you sure you want to hear this, Your Majesty? This book is all about –”

How to dig the tomb of gods…..

At least the two pages he casually flipped through were all about the time of Emperor Besserman when the strange disease spread in the palace. The Emperor was so overwhelmed that he listened to the advice of the Great Elder of the Spirit Clan and formed a group of people to go to the Tomb of the God Phae. There were missing pages in the middle, but there were also intermittent references to quite a few things that happened in the Tomb of the God. However, the wording was so exaggerated and distorted that it didn’t seem to describe a historical fact but rather a mythological story, which nobody knew was true or not.

Angel finished reading it and couldn’t help flipping back to the front of the cover to look at it again.

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia rolled around reluctantly on the bed. When she saw that Angel was hesitant to start, she couldn’t help but tilt her head and ask him, “Why aren’t you telling the story?”

Angel closed the cover, “How come this book doesn’t even have a name.”

“Never mind! I’m listening to the story, not the name.” Cynthia waved her tiny hand, “Tell it!”

“All right. Then – well, let’s start with Emperor Besserman leading people into the tomb of the god Phae.” Angel’s speed of reading a book was so fast that he knew the content almost as soon as he scanned it. He raised his eyes and asked Cynthia, “Do you know about the Tomb of the God Phae?”

The little girl nodded, her eyes curving in a smile, “Yes, I do! Uncle says the most powerful god of the olden days sleeps there!”

Angel pursed his lips and looked down at the book’s pages, speaking slowly, “The Tomb of the God Phae is in the area of the Whitehead Hill, below the Eternal Waterfall, where there is no sunlight, and it is always dark. It’s a good place for a long sleep.”

“Why would a place with no sunlight be a good place?” Cynthia couldn’t resist interrupting.

“Because without light disturbance, you can sleep for a long time and not wake up,” Angel replied in a soft voice. “A group of loyal and pristine elves guard the tomb door for him so that no one can easily intrude. The departed spirits are the steps, the thorns are the fence, and a heavy square tablet is inscribed with a message for the living. Without souls to pave the way, the gates of the tomb will never open.”

Cynthia interrupted again, “What do you mean, without souls to pave the way, the gates of the tomb will never open? Then how did you say the Emperor of Bay……ummmm got in?”

The young girl, who could never remember people’s names, vaguely omitted Emperor Bessemer’s name.

Angel said wryly, “How am I supposed to know how Emperor Bessemer got in there?” He paused for a moment and then added, “Perhaps by paving the way with souls.”

“How do souls pave the way?” Cynthia asked.

“You have a soul when you die, and when enough people die, you pave the road,” Angel replied.

Cynthia still seemed confused, “But……but isn’t the god supposed to sleep there? Just like I’m lying in bed, how can anyone who wants to come in through the door of the room die there? How frightening! Wouldn’t they all be souls as soon as the door was opened?”

Angel tilted his head. “Then, it’s better not to come out. He ought to sleep there all along.”

Cynthia muttered, “What was the god thinking……”

“He didn’t have to think. He was already dead when the tomb was built.” Angel said.

Cynthia tilted her face for a moment, not understanding, and dismissed the question with a wave of her hand, “And what if no one is dead? Can you still get in without a soul paving the way?”

Angel replied, “Then, there’s only one way.”

“What way?”

“The god himself will open it.”

The little four-and-a-half-year-old girl suddenly brightened up and stared at the ragged book, her two eyes turning raw into cross-eyed, before suddenly looking up with the expression of a cat catching a thief and pointing at Angel with a grin, “You’re making it up! This page is obviously all pictures and only one line of text, and you’ve said so much that you’ve already exceeded it!”

Angel flushed red from ear to ear with a look of embarrassment at being exposed. He scratched his head and admitted, “Well, the god himself will open it, is my guess……”

***

The second half of the winding path was so dark that he couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t until he rounded the last corner that he saw a bit of light. It was an insect lamp that Kevin had dropped here in passing earlier.

It was hanging from the tip of a thorny branch, motionless because there was no wind.

The soft yellow light just fell on the square tablet on the ground, reflecting the rusty and indistinct writing on it.

Only half of the tablet was exposed to the ground. The mud buried at its bottom had grown thicker and thicker over the years, gradually covering up the bottom half.

Kevin’s footsteps were slow and silent as he crouched in front of the tablet and stretched out his long, thin fingers to dig at the soil, quickly pushing the uneven layer to one side and revealing the other half of the tablet.

The other half of the tablet was even rustier than the top, the lighter inscriptions having rusted away except for a few very deep grooves running down the centre like map lines.

After staring at the grooves for a moment, Kevin reached for the knife on his belt and cut the tip of each of the five fingers on his left hand.

To avoid healing too quickly, he made each cut so deep that beads of blood almost poured into the mud in a cascade.

The pain in his fingers was much sharper, but he only frowned and was back to his usual calm self. He placed his entire left hand over the square tablet. The tablet suddenly came to life, bright red blood flowing rapidly along the grooves as if it had been absorbed and soon covering the entire surface like a spider’s web.

The rusty bronze tablet suddenly turned scarlet as if it had just been forged. Some fragments shook off and fell onto the thorny bush, where they burst into flames in the blink of an eye.

The fire instantly shot up so high that the whole bush was enveloped in tongues of golden-red fire, spreading rapidly from the centre to the surroundings and turning into a sea of flames.

Amidst the sea of fire, the roars and cries of myriad beasts and raptors appeared, from far and near, as if they were coming from the depths of hell.

Kevin stood in front of the sea of fire with a calm expression, not even blinking as the wild tongues of fire approached his face.

He was staring behind the sea of fire.

It was only when a slow clinking of metal and stone sounded from the darkness behind the crimson that Kevin’s gaze twitched –

Because the tomb door had opened.

The door had probably been covered in dust for too long, and the smell of decaying dust reached out from the fire as it slowly opened.

Kevin took a breath, a cold, indifferent smile hanging from the corner of his mouth…..

It was a chaotic mess around the fire in front of the tomb when he opened the door to the tomb alone.

***

Oswald awoke to the murmur of the guards’ disbelief. The moment he opened his eyes, he felt an inexplicable “thud” in his heart. Not sure if it was intuition or what, he almost instinctively glanced at the spot where Kevin had been lying.

It was empty!

The moment those words crossed his mind, his body reacted first. He rose to his feet in a flash without saying a word and ran straight for the winding path. Behind him, a group of Wujin Iron soldiers hurried to catch up with him, their footsteps sounding scattered.

He was tall and had long legs, and it was a struggle for the others to keep up with him as he ran in giant strides. He had barely reached the corner when he saw a bright red light.

There was a fire!

Oswald’s face tensed, turning the corner in a single step.

The sight of that instant would probably stay with him forever –

He saw a sea of monstrous fire blazing into the sky with howls of the departed spirits coming out of the ground, heat rushing everywhere and bloody light filling the entire place.

Kevin appeared to glance at him through the rippling scarlet tongues of fire. Then, with a careless hand wave, he walked into the depths of the fire and disappeared completely.