Chapter 929

That night was unusually dark and long.

For the soldiers on both sides, who clashed again and again with blazing torches and sharpened weapons.

For the people, who trembled in fear and waited for the sudden upheaval to end.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“Gah!”

The fighting was not confined to the Imperial Palace. The chilling clash of blades and the screams covered the entire Imperial Capital for several shichen¹. Countless people who heard them remembered the fourth prince’s coup just over a decade earlier, which had overturned the Great Nation’s order and changed the course of its history.

Amid the chaos, some were gripped by more anger and fear than anyone else.

“Those bastards! I could chew them to death and it still wouldn’t be enough…!”

“I-it’s over. The Embroidered Uniform Guard must have discovered us!”

Dozens of people faced one another across a table inside an abandoned shrine thick with dust and cobwebs. Shadows from a dim oil lamp flickered over them. They were of different ages and dressed in all manner of clothes.

An old man listened to their cries, then spoke.

“Enough noise.”

His voice was low but firm. As if on cue, everyone fell silent and turned toward him.

His slight frame and deeply wrinkled skin showed his age. Yet his eyes were clear and shrewd, and though his clothes showed wear here and there, not a fold was out of place. His bearing, like his dress, spoke of the life he had led.

“Don’t let yourselves be swept up in this. The path before us was decided long ago.”

The old man lifted his lukewarm teacup, seemingly unconcerned by the trail of torches drawing closer beyond the window or the great roar that came with them.

“I don’t know what’s happening out there, but it may be for the best. Now that chaos has broken out, it’s time for us to act.”

The time had come.

At his brief words, some eyes lit up. Others trembled, unable to suppress their fear.

Restoration.

It was why they had gathered here today, and the cause they had taken up to save one person.

“Now…we must put everything back where it belongs.”

The old man’s eyes flashed with a strength hard to believe in a man of ninety, and a resolve firmer than anyone’s.

“Let us drive those cruel traitors—who have abandoned what is right and overturned the natural order—out of the Imperial Palace. Let us raise His Highness Prince Shangshan to the throne by the strength of the people.”

“……!”

“……!”

An unseen surge swept through the shrine like a wave.

They had come of their own resolve, yet amid their rising excitement and fear, they had briefly forgotten what their undertaking meant.

By the strength of the people. Raise a ruler of the people.

They looked at one another.

They differed in age, status, and gender. But now they were comrades in the same boat.

Each had lived a separate life. They had come together to steer the great ship that was the Great Nation onto the right course.

A few days earlier, the words of someone whose identity they did not know had lit a fuse hidden deep in their hearts.

“The azure heaven that once shone blue is fading, and dark clouds are rolling in.”

As the tune slipped from someone’s lips, a young Confucian scholar joined in as though entranced.

“The storm soon to come will swallow the world.”

“But, people, do not tremble. Do not be afraid.”

An old laborer, his skin darkened by the sun, muttered in a rough voice. In his hand was an axe with a keen, blue-steel edge. Once, he had led an army.

“For there is a mountain, the highest in all the world.”

“There is a stream that never runs dry.”

“Fruit ripens there, and animals run free.”

“And a home to keep out the storms, and a forest to provide firewood.”

It was no longer any one person’s voice.

Reciting the song that had spread through the Imperial Capital’s marketplaces over the past few days, they rose to their feet.

“It can shelter all the people, and still have room for more.”

Step. Creak.

The old shrine groaned as they filed out. The song continued, louder and stronger than before.

“So, people, do not tremble. Do not be afraid.”

The old man led the way, his white robes fluttering as he stepped onto the damp earth.

As he made his way along the rugged mountain path, shadows crouched in the darkness rose and followed him.

From dozens to hundreds.

From hundreds to thousands.

Before long, they had become an army. They carried sickles still caked with dirt, and spears, swords, and axes red with rust.

Step. Step.

They marched toward the faint dawn light in the east and the trail of torches creeping up the mountain like a living dragon.

The song on their lips became a fervent plea, then a mighty roar.

“Go to Mount Shangshan, go to Mount Shangshan.”

Thousands of pairs of solemn eyes shone in the dark.

“Though the raging storm swallow the Five Sacred Mountains of the Central Plains, it will never dare reach Mount Shangshan.”

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

The low mountain trembled. Those torches drawing closer by the moment were likely the punitive force sent by the Emperor, who had realized a restoration was underway.

But…

“The lord of Mount Shangshan has Heaven’s protection!”

They raised their voices higher.

Highborn and lowborn alike strained their throats, fighting to suppress the fear still welling up inside them.

Only a few days ago, on a day like any other, an unknown man in a bamboo hat had cast those words into their hearts. Now they shouted them with all their strength.

“He is descended from the dragon that commands rain and lightning, and fit to be a just and benevolent ruler!”

And just as their great shout shook the land around them—

Whoosh.

An unusually sharp gust cut through the gray dawn mist. A man appeared from within it and spoke.

“That’s quite a fine song.”

“……!”

“……!”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

Dried blood marked the golden armor he wore, but could not hide it. That armor meant only one thing.

“The Embroidered Uniform Guard…!”

At the words, forced out like a groan, trembling eyes turned to the torches rippling a few hundred jang² below.

Suspicion became certainty.

The Emperor had sent the Embroidered Uniform Guard to put down their restoration.

And perhaps Prince Shangshan had already…

“You monsters! Aren’t you afraid of Heaven?”

Some of the restoration army, consumed by rage, were about to rush at the man who was clearly an Embroidered Uniform Guard when the old man, who had led them all despite his age, suddenly spoke.

“Whose blood is on your armor?”

They stopped. The man answered evenly.

“The blood of traitors who endangered the ancestral temples and the state.”

“Then who are the traitors you speak of?”

“On the smaller scale, Wei Zhong, the East Depot’s Seal-Holding Eunuch, and those in league with him. On the larger scale, the foreign enemy called Dark Heaven.”

“…Dark Heaven. Dark Heaven, is it?”

The old man murmured the name. He knew of the force that had recently been drenching the martial world in blood.

And the voice of the man in bloodstained golden armor was familiar, too.

“Was it you?”

But unlike the restoration army, who could make no sense of this strange exchange, the Embroidered Uniform Guard understood what the old man’s brief question meant.

“It was.”

“Then what you said and did in the marketplace that day…”

“It was all done at His Majesty’s command—the imperial decree.”

“Ah.”

The old man let out a sigh. Some in the restoration army recognized the man at last, and their eyes widened.

“Could it be…?”

“Y-yes. That was his voice.”

They remembered it clearly: a voice that had carried over a crowd of hundreds, and a man in a bamboo hat who had dropped a great stone into their hearts before vanishing.

“My surname is Lee. I once served the late Emperor as Grand Preceptor. What is your name?”

The man, now wearing a golden helmet in place of his bamboo hat, answered with the respect due to an elder official. Decades ago, Lee had repeatedly urged the Emperor to keep eunuchs at a distance, only to be falsely accused and driven from office.

“Jeong Hogun, Thousand Captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. I have come to deliver His Majesty the Emperor’s command.”

His voice, charged with internal energy, pierced the dawn air and reached every ear.

“I was unworthy and failed to bring about an age of peace. I was unfilial and lost the late Emperor and the elders of the imperial family. But I have never once been disloyal. Now, at last, I seek to set the natural order right. Take up the banner of Imperial Younger Brother Zhu Bao and, with those who follow you, eliminate the traitors.”

“……!”

“……!”

The air seemed to stop. Shock swept through the restoration army like a great wave.

Imperial Younger Brother Zhu Bao.

Everyone understood what it meant.

Jeong Hogun walked slowly toward them with a banner in his hand. Beside a dragon embroidered in gold thread was Zhu Bao’s name. The sight erased their last shred of doubt.

“Ah…”

Cries of wonder rose all around him. The old man swallowed and fought back the tears gathering in his wrinkled eyes.

Then he dropped to both knees and accepted the Imperial Younger Brother’s banner in trembling hands.

“I receive and obey His Majesty’s solemn command.”

As the light of dawn grew clearer in the far west, the roar of thousands who had joined the Embroidered Uniform Guard broke the early-morning stillness.

They roused the people who had been paralyzed with fear and the loyal men who had already given up hope. Then they fell upon the traitors still locked in bloody fighting throughout the Imperial Capital.

They became a wave of people numbering tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands.

“Waaah!”

“Long live His Highness Prince Shangshan!”

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”

Crack!

“Gah!”

“Retreat! Retreat!”

Dawn was stained with countless screams and blood.

When that unusually dark, long night ended and daylight came, there were no more battles. Only the shouts of those pursuing the rebels, who had lost the will to fight and scattered in every direction, and their overflowing joy remained.

One day. Two.

Then three days passed in the blink of an eye, and someone opened their eyes.