Chapter 59: Origins
When she spoke, even Song Juguang herself was shocked. Actually, she herself hadn't even understood why she was rushing about all day; it was as if she were moving instinctively to follow Jiang Changbai's footsteps. It was only the words she'd spoken thoughtlessly just then that had caused her to become aware of her heart, unseen to herself.
She'd only been wanting to see Jiang Changbai.
She couldn't understand why, with merely an evening's time, Jiang Changbai's attitude towards her had changed so drastically. A couple days before, everything had still been as ever, but on the next day, she'd avoided her. The relationship between them had clearly long since no longer been as tense as it had before, but with a single night's passing, Song Juguang had once more had to run in order to catch up to Jiang Changbai.
So, overtaken by emotion, Song Juguang raised her hand to grab Jiang Changbai's shoulder, and looked at her fixedly. "This minister merely wished to see you."
The senseless words made Jiang Changbai's heart skip a beat, and a difficult to express emotion flowed up the back of her neck to the crown of her head. In this moment, she felt that, the Song Juguang before her and she herself were both utterly strange, and everything was dim and murky, as if her spirit had once more disengaged—just like the dream from that night.
Jiang Changbai understood in her mind that that was merely a dream. It was only because of a day of excessive exhaustion that the dreamscape had been monstrous and multi-coloured. A dreamscape that had dissipated on opening one's eyes ought not to to impact anyone, but she'd only wanted to see Song Juguang, and her mind had been full only of the tableaux of the dreamscape. As a result, she could only avoid her.
But she had no way to tell this to Song Juguang. Jiang Changbai raised her gaze and met Song Juguang's, her voice lowering a bit as well. "I'm here."
When she finished speaking, she raised her hand, wanting to push aside Song Juguang's hands, as if wanting to end this topic like so. But before Jiang Changbai had raised her arm fully, Song Juguang pulled her hands back. With an expression of slight desolation, she said, "But you were just in the Board of Astronomy."
Without Song Juguang's restraint, Jiang Changbai grew a bit more at ease as well, and thoughtlessly picked up a memorial to flip through. And, seemingly facing the same issue as Song Juguang, she merely said, "I just had something to discuss with Qin Anhe."
Yet Song Juguang retreated a few steps, laughing bitterly. "If Bixia truly didn't wish to see this minister, you could have just sent this minister away to the border, and not allowed entry to the capital without summons. It's just that the mountains are precipitous and the road is long—"
With a "pa-la", the brush that had just been picked up fell to the desktop, and some messy, crimson-red ink marks splashed on the memorial that had just been spread open. Jiang Changbai suddenly raised her head to look at Song Juguang, and in a split second, the fragment of dreamscape fused with reality.
Realising she'd lost control of herself, Jiang Changbai calmed her mind. Her gaze swept over Xun Zhu and Qing Huai, and she waved her hand. "Leave us. The capital is bustling and busy, and there's no subordinates who I can trust," Jiang Changbai said, hearing her own heart hammering, but her expression was only relaxed and at ease. "Even if A Guang were to want to leave and relieve her boredom, We wouldn't be willing to let you go, would We? How could it be that We aren't willing to see you?"
Song Juguang's expression darkened, and she didn't speak; Jiang Changbai gazed at her, equally silent. Half an incense's time passed like this, and it was, in the end, Jiang Changbai who spoke first. "Ah, just stay in the capital, won't you; stay somewhere I can see you."
The moon had risen high, and the Regent's residence's study still had its lights lit. But in such a large residence, only this place was lit up. If one were to look by the light of the moon, one would discover that the places further from the moonlight were more desolate; though there weren't the traces of dilapidation on display, it still lacked a bit of human vitality.
In the past, people had come and gone here. When Emperor Tai had reigned, Song Juguang had received no small measure of regard, and there had been many slaves serving there. But afterwards, she'd raised troops from the border, and the slaves had all scattered. More recently, there had only been her.
Outsiders all said that, though her position was high, in reality, she was no more than a straggler from the past, having extended all her efforts without having obtained anything. But only Song Juguang herself knew that, comparing her current life to that of the past, it truly was far more contented. In the past, when people had crowded around her, it had merely been in order to confuse Emperor Tai, and make him think that she was merely a commoner drunk on power; now, she'd already accomplished her goal, and naturally, she didn't need to confuse anyone anymore.
Coming alone, and going alone—that was the type of life she was most accustomed to.
But at this moment, by the light candle flame, she was writing something calmly and tranquilly. Her brush flowed with the fluidity of a serpent, but the words she wrote weren't in the language of any of the states in this world. From childhood, others had all felt that she wasn't skilled in literary matters, but Song Juguang had an innate intelligence; it was merely that she was somewhat unfamiliar with the script of the Great Li.
As the incense burnt to its end, the fine xuan paper filled with writing. It was an ordinary brush, ordinary ink, and even more ordinary paper, but this moment was far from ordinary; with each stroke and line of the brush, the aura of a mystery within a mystery disseminated. If Qin Anhe were to see it, she would have revered it as a priceless treasure. After all, the strange shape of this writing was almost identical to what she would draw when drawing a talisman.
As someone capable of writing this, Song Juguang naturally wasn't an ordinary person. The identity of a refugee was fake; needing to get close to influential officials was genuine. Going through countless hardships and tribulations to come to the capital city, her only goal had been to assist Jiang Changbai to ascend the throne.
When a woman of the heavens is born, countless will aid her.
The candle flame had nearly burnt out, and the moonlight gradually spilled through the window; Song Juguang's writing seemed to come to an end as well. She set the brush down, blowing out the candles, and raised her head, looking at the moon hung high in the night sky. Though the script of her homeland was different from that of the Great Li's, emotions were the same—such as, when seeing the moon, she'd think of her homeland.
In the end, I'll have to return, Song Juguang told herself. After all, I must depart from every person and thing in the Great Li.
The final spark of light in the Regent's residence went out as well.
But the heavens would always brighten, and in the light of day, the capital was bustling and raucous. The newly-established textile shop had people coming and going, and the proprietor's face carried a smile, unable to take in all of the earnings. This shop had been opened for her by her daughter through her work slaughtering pigs in the food market, but now her daughter had switched jobs; though she was still slaughtering the living, working for the government, when spoken aloud, was more prestigious than before.
From the time the new Emperor had ascended the throne, a not insignificant number of corrupt officials had been arrested. The assets that had been seized returned to where they'd come from, and those that had no origin had been confiscated. The commoners of the capital had been allocated a not insignificant amount of money as well, and now they had money, the business in this shop of hers had increased a great deal as well. Now, the available labour she had wasn't enough, and seeing a new customer enter, there was no one to rush forward and greet them.
Though the two customers who'd entered wore civilian attire, there was an aura of nobility in each and every movement of the one at the lead, and anyone with the slightest intelligence could see that she wasn't a common person. The proprietor blinked, and hurried to welcome them.
Jiang Changbai had initially wanted to go out and relieve her boredom; after all, even someone more made of iron, being closed up in the imperial study day after day, reading through memorials, would be driven to madness. Seeing the crowd around this place as she'd passed by, curiosity had risen in her mind, and she'd come in to take a look. The moment before, she'd been secretly delighted no one had discovered her, and the next moment, she saw the proprietor coming towards her with a smile. She suddenly felt that this proprietor's face was somewhat familiar—at another glance, though she was smiling, a faint worry was apparent. But Jiang Changbai didn't think on it further, only calmly listening to the proprietor's prices.
The proprietor said, "Take a look at this cloth—it was produced over in Luyuan, and only arrived in the capital yesterday. Not much was transported this year; if you go to another shop, they might not even have it. Ah, this crimson suits you well."
Jiang Changbai didn't reply, stroking it without thought. Her inadvertently raised gaze, though, glimpsed a simple, coarse, grey cloth in the corner. She didn't know what material it had been made with; looking at it, it seemed even rougher than what was worn by the commoners in the fields. Suddenly catching sight of it, it didn't seem like something that would appear on a shelf with cloths as fine and sumptuous as these. "Can you give me that one to look at?" Jiang Changbai asked as she pointed at the bolt of cloth in the corner.
Unexpectedly, after the proprietor followed where Jiang Changbai was pointing to look, her gaze flashed with some hesitance. "Those bolts were all ordered by a different customer; they just arrived, so I hadn't yet had the time to put them away."
Jiang Changbai didn't press the matter, only asking carelessly, "What's it made of?"
The proprietor hemmed hawed. "The material was supplied by that customer; we're only responsible for the production, and I'm not fully certain. If you want some, the next time that client comes, I can ask for you—"
Before the proprietor finished speaking, her gaze concentrated behind Jiang Changbai, and there was a bit of shock on her face. Jiang Changbai turned her head to look in the direction of the proprietor's gaze, and saw Song Juguang had just walked in from outside. Song Juguang's expression, seeing Jiang Changbai, was astonished as well, but in the next moment, from her attire, understood her intention. The "Bixia" she'd just been about to say was swallowed back, and she only nodded towards Jiang Changbai.
In the end, the proprietor was a businesswoman as well, and read the familiarity between them from the minute expressions on their faces. "Ah, you're acquainted. Isn't that a coincidence—this customer was just asking me what material this cloth was made of. You know, I don't know either, so I couldn't answer."
Song Juguang made a thoughtless sound of agreement, and had her subordinates move the bolts of cloth into a carriage, and turned her head to look at Jiang Changbai. "Let's walk a bit?"
Jiang Changbai nodded. "I was just thinking so."
At the moment, she didn't have the inclination to be curious about what those bolts were made of after all; rather, she thought of why Song Juguang and she had entered the same shop one after the other. Though the Regent's residence didn't have many servants, there ought to be someone who could come fetch things; why would she need to come fetch things herself?
Thinking of before, when Song Juguang had followed after her to the Board of Astronomy, and then returned to the imperial study when she herself had just sat down, Jiang Changbai was almost certain that today, Song Juguang had followed her.
But if she was following her, then let her follow. Now, Jiang Changbai didn't care about it as much as she had in the past—of those that flew in the skies and walked on the ground, who knew how many were Song Juguang's spies. With someone as important as she was, if she wanted to find tracks, wasn't it an easy matter?
The two had only taken a few steps when they heard the clamour behind them suddenly disappear. Only on turning around to look did they discover a few threatening thugs who had, at some point, come to stand in the doorway of the shop. The customers in the shop had long since scattered, and only the proprietor and a few of the labourers in the shop remained, facing them.
The man at the head said, "When are you going to pay your protection fee? If you don't pay it, my brothers and I will have to start breaking things."
Now, the proprietor's face no longer carried the smile of before, and she glared at the leader. "Where die you all come from? This old lady has had a shop on this street for at least two years, yet I've never heard of paying any protection fee before."
"But you've heard of it now!" The leader's voice rose suddenly, and he raised the wooden stick in his grasp, smashing it down. A crack appeared in the shelf from the blow, and a few bolts slowly rolled to the ground.
The proprietor didn't dare to show weakness either, and pointed at the leader with a stick as thick as an arm she'd gotten from who knew where. "If you make another move, this old lady will knock your head off." The proprietor didn't have the mind to pay attention to the labourers furtively slipping away; she glared at the people who'd come to pick a fight fiercely. Her daughter had made a living slaughtering pigs, and naturally, the mother wasn't a weak person who couldn't truss up even a chicken either. But int he next moment, worry rose in the proprietor's mind; with passage of time, more people had appeared behind those thugs.
The leader had initially been frightened by the proprietor's stick, but seeing more accomplices of his had come, his courage grew a bit. The two sides argued back and forth for a long while, and in the end, it was one of the thugs who raised a club first, shouting and striking at the proprietor. The proprietor raised a hand to fend it off, but a pair of hands couldn't easily face four, and suppressed by the numbers of the thugs, the proprietor gradually fell at a disadvantage.
Just then, a figure suddenly appeared from within the group, martial prowess clearly far above everyone on the scene. But in only a few breaths, the blustering thugs were all laid out on the ground.
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