Chapter 2

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The smile on Zhu Yan’s face froze for a moment, as if she didn’t expect her mother to say such a thing.

Abyss. This name has existed in the palace for hundreds of years, but it has always been a taboo. Every time the Red King mentioned it, was accompanied by angry insults. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Sharks and the Red people had a hundred-year history and made great contributions to the Red Palace, and he still had the death elixir book given by the Emperor Gaozu in his hand, his father would have pulled him out and split him up by five horses in anger.

“Most of the world cannot be saved. Zhu Yan speaks to the mirror, and flowers speaks to the tree.”

He once said this on the eve of leaving the Red King’s residence where he had lived for a hundred years. That sentence made her be afraid of heaven and earth for a long time, and her heart felt empty.

“Those abyss people from the Blue Sea have beautiful faces given by the gods. As dazzling as the sun and gentle as spring water, which girl wouldn’t like them?” The princess’s mother sighed slightly and hesitated. “I’m not talking about you,” she said. “Back in those days, so was the Grand Madam.”

“Well?” Zhu Yan couldn’t help but wonder, “what happened to great-grandmother?”

The Princess’s mother went silent for a moment, shook her head, and diverted the topic: “Well, if it hadn’t been for this, your father would have let you and the other six princesses to go to the Imperial City and take part in the selection of Imperial Concubines; the appearance of my Ah-Yan may not be inferior of that of the snow warbler Princess Xueying of the Bai Clan, maybe…”

“Ah, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, mother! Xueying the snow warbler is much more beautiful than I am!” She impolitely interrupted her mother’s imagination and poured cold water bluntly on her face. “What’s more, all the queens and princes of Kongsang are selected from the Bai Clan. There, I can’t really do anything about that! Could it be that you want your daughter to remain a child at home?”

The concubine frowned: “When I married your father, I was not an Imperial Concubine It’s good to be with someone you like. Is the status so important?”

Of course it’s important! Otherwise, in your early years, you wouldn’t have been bullied by that old witch every day until she died. Zhu Yan muttered the words in her heart, but she was afraid that her mother would be sad, so she dared not let a word slip out of her mouth.

The Imperial Concubine looked at her stubborn expression and sighed softly: “Yes, how can you be inferior to others? With your fiery temper, if you really go to Jialan Imperial Capital, you will cause troubles all the time. Maybe would it even affect the whole family. So, ‘cough-cough’, not marrying to the Imperial Capital is a blessing in disguise…”

“Don’t say that, mother!” but the mother replied: “Daughter, I know you better!” She made a wide gesture with her hand.

“Then you still talk back to your father?” the mother coughed and scolded her, “Back then… ahem, if you have lowered your head at that time and said something nice to calm your father’s anger, that Shark man probably wouldn’t ended up like that…

The people have lived in the palace for more than a hundred years in peace and haven’t caused any trouble. If it weren’t for you to make a fuss, how could it be…”

“……” The smile on Zhu Yan’s face disappeared and she remained silent.

Yes, if she would have knelt down and begged her father at that time, Yuan might not have…

“Ah-Yan, you have been spoiled since childhood.” Her mother looked at her own daughter and shook her head.

“This girl is so brave, skillful, smart and capable, but she never wants to admit defeat – if she were to be a boy, her father would have been so happy, but she was born to be a daughter…”

“So this is also my fault now?” she was a little annoyed and jumped up. “It’s clearly my father’s fault. He can’t give birth to a son! You see, he has married so many concubines and for more than ten years he wasn’t able to conceive a son…”

“What are you talking about?” a thunder stride came from the outside, and the Red King strode in.

She shrunk her head in fright and swallowed the second half of the sentence still pending on her tongue.

“You’re going to get married in a few days, and you still talking about these nonsenses!” The Red King glared at the careless daughter and was so angry that his thick eyebrows stood up like thunder bolts; “that big mouth of yours, and so outspoken, when you going to be married into Susa Haru, who else will be there to back you up?”

As a result, she was pointed a finger at her forehead and lectured for an hour. She wanted to talk back several times, but when she saw her mother’s pathetic eyes filling with tears, she could only keep silent and bear with it. Anyway, she would be married far away in more than a month. If her father scolded her harder, she would get a meal less. And the father is just talking without taking other actions, let him talk. Even if she marries Susa Haru all the way, people in the Huotu Clan should not dare to touch her with a finger. Didn’t the father mentioned earlier the soldiers that would go to kill them directly from the Celestial Wind City?

She, the Princess Zhu Yan, is the only legitimate daughter of the Red King. If her father won’t conceive any male sibling in the future, she would inherit the title of Red Queen and take charge of the whole Northwest. Therefore, after she reached the hairpin, the four tribes of the Kingdom of Sand rushed to propose, and the piles of princes almost broke the threshold.

At first, his father didn’t like these Western tribes. He wanted to choose a son-in-law from the six clans of Kongsang, but he didn’t want her to choose. In the end, she fell in love with a Shark slave and almost eloped. In his anger, the Red King asked for an Imperial edict from Emperor Jialan, and he simply and neatly chose a husband’s house for this careless daughter and sent her to get married.

The son-in-law chosen by the Red King is 20-year-old Ke Erke, the new King of Huotu. Ke Erke is only two years older than Zhu Yan. He is brave and loves hunting. It is said that he can tear the white wolf in the desert with his bare hands. After the death of the old Prince, he inherited the throne and guarded the western portal of Yunhuang for Kongsang, gaining the title of “King of Guangmo” canonized by the Imperial Capital. His biological mother is the eldest Concubine of the old King, the eldest Princess of Saqib, with a harsh personality and extraordinary scheming mind. It is said that this time Ke Erke successfully defeated his brothers to become the new King, and was able to seize the opportunity to propose to the Red King and marry the future Crown Princess of the Red Clan. Every step had something to do with the careful planning of his biological mother.

With such a mother-in-law, married into the desert alone, life was not prospecting to be too easy. Zhu Yan sighed and quietly bypassed the camp in the snow and arrived to the remote stables. Among the four major tribes of the Western Wilderness, the Huotu Clan in the Aymia Basin is known for its abundant horses, and the stables are naturally filled with various famous foals. The servants who manage the stables were all drunk, sleeping with their heads on the wine table. Because of the cold, the valuable horses leaned very close one into each other, nodding, snoring slightly, and the hot air condensed into white smoke in the night.

Her steps were so light that even the most vigilant horse did not open their eyes.

“Well, here we are. It’s so cold. It’s freezing to death.” Zhu Yan muttered and took out a jade bottle from her sleeve and pulled out the plug. In an instant, a few wisps of smoke rose from the jade bottle and were swept away by the wind and snow. The horses snorted, but didn’t wake up. They fell into a deep sleep with a sweep of their tails.

“That’s good, we won’t let these animals to spoil the game carelessly later.”

After taking care of the horses, Zhu Yan returned to the open space and pulled out the Jade Bone from her bun. As soon as the hairpin was removed, a long dark mass of red hair suddenly spread like satin, flying in the wind like a beautiful flag. She bent down and thrust the Jade Bone into the snow, pushing it hard with both hands. In the depths of winter in the desert, it was so cold that the ground had been frozen so hard that the hairpin made a friction sound like gold and iron clashing when finally penetrated. Holding the Jade Bone with both hands, she painstakingly drew a circle on the snow with great difficulty, encircling herself in the middle.

“Oh, after practicing for hundreds of times, the drawing is still not round.” She looked at the results of her own job, and couldn’t help but muttered, “Master, are you going to scold me again when you see it?”

With a sigh, Zhu Yan began to carve a complicated pattern on the snow with her right hand, starting from the center, daring not to deviate from each stroke. It took a quarter of an hour to draw all the complicated figures on the snow.

“Okay, now it should be correct.” After checking it again, her fingers were almost frozen. She slapped her mouth with the tip of the fingers breathing over them to loosen them up, then warmed her hands stroking the palms with a little bit of force. With a “brush” sound, she inserted the Jade Bone in the center of the newly created charm pushing it deep into the ground, revealing only a little bit of red outside the snow. Then she put her hands together and began to recite a spell.

Herding. This was the most complicated spell she had ever learned, and it was the first time to use it in an actual real combat, and it was inevitable that she was a little nervous. However, the more nervous, the more mistakes she made. She just said three or four sentences, and immediately made a mistake. She gave a soft “bah”, feeling anxious, and could only start all over again with a bitter face. This time, she concentrated more and didn’t let herself get distracted. The eulogy came out long and fluent as water.

With the sound of the spell still echoing in the air, the Jade Bone inserted into the snow absorbed the power of the earth, grew rapidly from less than a foot at a speed visible to the naked eye, and broke out from the snow in the twinkling of an eye, turning into a staff as exquisitely carved as a jade tree! At the same time the enchanted ground under her feet suddenly started to shine!

In the shining circle, the snow-covered ground began to rise and fall, as if something under the snow woke up and squirmed restlessly. The horses in the stable seemed to feel a certain ominous danger, and there was a bit of commotion, but they were trapped by her previous spell so they couldn’t wake up to run away in that moment.

“Up!” after reciting the last word, Zhu Yan raised her hand to hold the Jade Bone and pulled it up. Just listening to the sound of “brushing”, and the heavy snow all over the ground started to rise with it! There was a low roar under the snow. The earth broke in an instant and something soared out.

It was a beast that had never been seen in the world before. One by one, they flew out from the bottom of the earth, jumped up, formed in the air, and fell on the ground in an instant – those beasts surrounded her, ferocious and terrifying, eager to attack, but afraid of something, retreating outside the luminous circle. Zhu Yan raised the Jade Bone and pointed down towards them: “Kneel down!”

Those giants were instantly shaken, as if they were pressed by an irresistible force. Their bodies were so crushed that they knelt on the snow with their front knees bent to the ground. She raised the Jade Bone, gently touched the forehead of the beasts, and read the last sentence of Herding spirit skill according to the book: “All the creatures in the Six Harmonies and Eight Wastelands, obey my orders!”

The giants shuddered and bowed their heads, obeying. She lit the beast’s forehead with the Jade Bone and murmured as if she had given some instructions. When the Jade Bone was put away, she raised her hand, pointed to the tent in the distance, and whispered: “Go!”

Just hearing the sound of “brushing”, the wind and snow roared wildly, and the group of beasts had already swooped towards the golden tent! Zhu Yan looked at them from a distance and breathed a sigh of relief.

“The matter is finally settled, now we have to escape quickly.” She did not dare to stay put for a long time. Holding the Jade Bone into her palm, after the magic circle vanished, it had become again a one-foot hairpin. She inserted it into the newly made hair bun, pulled up the hood, covered her head and face, and chose the best night-shine jade lion horse from the stable, preparing him to be ready to use as a mount for running away.

A hundred miles north from here, through Xingxing Gorge, you can reach the Mountain of Emptiness. There are shrines and altars on the mountain, and it’s not too late to start making plans from there.

However, while she led the horse to leave, as soon as she turned around, she heard a strange sound in the empty stable – something seemed to pass gently through the darkness behind her, its claws rubbing against the ground. Zhu Yan got startled. She stopped and listened carefully. At first, she thought it was a wolf who broke into the camp hungry because of the cold winter, but it seemed to be the sound of metal dragging on to the ground. Just in case, she pulled out a knife from behind her waist, walked towards the sound, and neatly picked out the pile of grass that was in the way.

The strange sound stopped immediately. A pair of eyes flashed from the night, staring at her.

“Huh?” she frowned surprised, and found out it was just a child. Very small and thin, looking only about six or seven years old, like a crouching sand fox. Probably hungry, with a pair of shiny eyes in that pale little face that looked particularly big, the pupil dark blue, and a dirty face, one could not tell whether it was a boy or a girl.

The child was watching her from behind the mound, clutching a small piece of swill-soaked cake between his wet fingers, covered with red and swollen frostbite.

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