Volume 5, Chapter 94 – Brewing (2-in-1)

The next day, after waking up, Bai Zhuqing got out of bed and suddenly heard a crisp series of chimes.

It was the distinctive sound of little bells, and it was extremely close to her—so close that it practically moved in rhythm with her every action.

What the heck?

She instinctively raised a hand, and only then did she notice that both of her wrists had been fitted with a pair of golden bracelets. A thin red cord was wound around each one, the end of the cord tied into an elaborate flower-like knot, beneath which hung a cluster of bells. Three bells to a cluster, and they gave off soft chimes with every movement she made.

Th-th-this… what kind of new kink was this?

Bai Zhuqing stared blankly. She had just started to get out of bed when her legs moved, and a similar jingling rose from her ankles. Only then did she discover that her feet had also been fitted with a pair of golden anklets. Like the bracelets, they had matching pendants, each with two clusters of delicate little bells.

“Do you like them?”

A slightly husky, low female voice came from behind her. Bai Zhuqing turned around and saw Bai Xiang lying on her side with her head propped up, the upper edge of her nightgown arched up to reveal a breathtaking line of rising and falling curves. Her eyes were half narrowed as she looked at Bai Zhuqing with unmistakable amusement.

“Sis…” Bai Zhuqing’s face flushed faintly red. Sitting on her knees on the bed, she looked at Bai Xiang with embarrassed annoyance. “Are you treating me like a pet?”

Bracelets and anklets, both with bells attached—bells and all that… wasn’t that something only kittens and puppies got?

And yet she was being made to wear them. Wasn’t her sister going too far?

“Oh?” Bai Xiang arched a brow. “Why does it sound like you’re not very happy about it?”

Without waiting for Bai Zhuqing to answer, she bent one knee and stretched forward, lifting one bare leg. She spread her five lustrous white toes, each one like a polished jade bead, and curled them with astonishing dexterity to pinch Bai Zhuqing’s chin. “So do you really not like them? Hmm?”

How could Bai Zhuqing possibly withstand that kind of teasing? Her whole face instantly turned beet red. She grabbed Bai Xiang’s ankle with a bit of ferocity, flipped over, and sat on Bai Xiang’s waist, pinning both of Bai Xiang’s wrists down by the pillow as if trying to project some dominant air.

It was useless.

No matter how sternly she set her face, no matter how much she struck poses and tried to look imposing, the moment she moved, the bells on her wrists and ankles would ring nonstop with cheerful little chimes. Instead of seeming intimidating, she felt more like a little pet scrambling all over its owner without the slightest bit of threat.

That effect showed up directly on Bai Xiang’s face as well. Bai Zhuqing had still been trying to look fierce, but when she lowered her head, she saw Bai Xiang looking up at her with curved lips and narrowed eyes, her entire expression dripping with mockery. Combined with the jingling bells, Bai Zhuqing’s momentum immediately deflated by more than half. Sulking, she let Bai Xiang go and turned her head stubbornly to one side.

“You’re too much, Sis!” she complained. “You were like this last night, and you’re still like this today!”

“I was obviously worried about you… Have you thought through how you’re going to handle that matter?”

“What matter?” Bai Xiang asked.

“What other matter could it be!” Bai Zhuqing was furious. “Of course I mean your birth mother coming back to acknowledge you!”

When it came to being well-informed, she truly was a step behind Bai Maoxu, who had an intelligence network at hand, and she was probably also behind Xiang Xian, who had already sent Yuming disciples to help Yu Daoyong build his tower. But no matter how delayed she was, it was only by a little over ten minutes. News about “those claims from the Xuantian Holy Mother” and “the fact that she was about to head for Great Xia to reunite with this side” had been delivered to her soon enough, immediately sending her rushing toward Listening-to-Rain Tower in a flurry to make sure Bai Xiang was in a normal state of mind.

But this awful sister of hers… she had been wholeheartedly doing this for Bai Xiang’s sake, worrying about her, and Bai Xiang had only smiled and joked with her!

Especially last night! After her bath, she had meant to speak plainly and have a serious discussion with her sister about this matter. Instead, the moment she climbed into bed, she was dragged into a soft, warm embrace. After a bout of rubbing and tormenting that left her thoroughly disoriented, she could no longer tell east from west, knowing only that the oriole-like notes in her throat had become zither strings, plucked by fingertips into a lilting melody.

Then she had woken up in that muddled state, discovered that she’d been fitted with the kind of little bells only cats and dogs wore, and was now being toyed with and laughed at like this by Bai Xiang. Bai Zhuqing felt so wronged that she almost wanted to harden her heart and stop speaking to Bai Xiang for a while.

“Are you angry?”

Bai Xiang was still lying there. She caught her younger sister’s fingers and shook them twice as if she were playing with the paws of a kitten or puppy.

Jingle, jingle…

The bells rang out, and Bai Zhuqing immediately couldn’t keep it up anymore. Half angry and half amused, she looked at Bai Xiang. Yet after seeing that peerless face, the resentment in her heart had already faded by more than half. Purely out of habit, she asked, “What exactly are you thinking, Sis?”

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“What do you mean, what am I thinking?”

Bai Xiang looked at her. “You may as well be a little clearer.”

Bai Zhuqing was so busy admiring her sister’s glorious beauty that she had no idea she herself was also scenery in Bai Xiang’s eyes.

From this angle, Bai Xiang could take in her figure and appearance all at once.

Her long hair, black as a waterfall of ink, fell in two cascades over her shoulders, revealing curved willow brows and long lashes.

Black eyelashes really were different from white eyelashes. White lashes naturally carried an exotic charm of their own, whereas black lashes were like inborn eyeshadow, able to deepen the allure around a woman’s eyes and make her gaze seem more profound.

Moving lower, Bai Xiang’s gaze passed over the straight bridge of her nose and her tightly pressed red lips, then settled on the hollow of her collarbone between her pale throat and chest.

On a body like this, dressed in a crimson gauze skirt and adorned with little bell ornaments wrapped in red cord, she was both enchantingly sexy and adorably sweet. Anyone who looked at her would be unable to stop themselves from feeling tender toward her.

“…Are you even listening to me, Sis?!”

Bai Zhuqing’s lips had been moving for quite a while, and when she realized Bai Xiang had not listened to a word and had merely been staring at her and smiling the whole time, she immediately ground her teeth in anger, grabbed a strand of hair, and pounced on Bai Xiang to scratch at her face.

“Don’t make trouble.”

Bai Xiang reached out and wrapped an arm around her slim waist. A burst of vibration-force lashed out, and it was like snapping a whip through a serpent’s body—Bai Zhuqing’s bones all went soft at once. She gave a muffled sound and collapsed limply, obediently falling into Bai Xiang’s embrace.

Their eyes met, and only then did Bai Xiang finally show a serious expression. “I was born of heaven and earth. I have never had any birth mother.”

She was not joking. She truly thought so.

Whether in her previous life or this one, she had been an orphan abandoned by her birth mother. All the bitterness and resentment that one would normally vent at fate had already been exhausted during those ten years she spent bedridden. Now, when this topic was brought up, there was not the slightest ripple in her heart. In the truest sense of the phrase, she felt neither sorrow nor joy.

“Really?”

“That’s truly how you see it, Sis?”

Bai Zhuqing blinked, clearly not believing her.

After all, no matter what, that was still her birth mother.

If she remembered right, her sister was actually very observant of propriety. It was true that in some areas of thought she was far more open-minded than people of the present age, but when it came to “rites,” she stood on the same side as Grandfather and was very intolerant of certain things… things that could fairly be described as the collapse of ritual and music.

The Xia Code had indeed stripped away the dregs of the previous dynasty, but morality itself had been firmly preserved, and within it the matter of filial duty was divided into the debt of “giving birth” and the debt of “raising.”

Her sister had said the same thing when she rebuked Third Uncle, hadn’t she?

“It’s different.”

Bai Xiang closed her eyes.

“Don’t use those standards to bind me, and don’t let them imprison your own thoughts too deeply either.”

“Before anything else, you need to understand what is right and what is wrong.”

“Just as when I rebuked Bai Qingmin back then—the debt of giving birth and raising was only a pretext. The point was that he truly had done wrong over these years.”

“If that pretext hadn’t existed, would I have been unable to rebuke him?”

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“Would he then have escaped blame for not coming back all these years to help Grandfather?”

“Of course not.”

“It has always been a matter of deciding right and wrong first. That process of deciding right and wrong is morality. It is not the other way around. You must not put the cart before the horse.”

“Mmm…” Bai Zhuqing listened obediently, half understanding and half not.

Over the years, she had gained quite a bit of experience in governance. When she hardened her heart, she was even capable of killing people. But no one had ever explained this kind of reasoning to her. Not even her mother, Zhu Ying, had ever said such things.

“If you really want to lecture me about rites and doctrine, then how exactly should your relationship with me be judged?”

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes and reached out to pinch Bai Zhuqing’s cheek, squeezing her face until it bulged out chubbily. “Isn’t that the greatest offense to ritual propriety of all?”

“Awrigh! Awrigh! I know awready!”

With her cheeks pinched, Bai Zhuqing could only make muffled sounds. “I won’t bwing it up anymore! Sis, wet go!”

When Bai Xiang finally released her, Bai Zhuqing angrily took out a small mirror and smoothed away the redness on her face with circulating qi. Then she lay down again and rolled back into Bai Xiang’s arms, wrapping her arms around her waist and murmuring softly, “As long as you’ve thought it through clearly, Sis…”

What she worried about was Bai Xiang—worried that Bai Xiang would be troubled by this and have her state of mind thrown into disorder.

Now, seeing that Bai Xiang clearly had thoughts of her own, and that her will and convictions were exceptionally firm, Bai Zhuqing had nothing left to worry about.

With the bells chiming, she obediently got out of bed and went to prepare food for Bai Xiang.

“So lively…”

Bai Xiang sat up and watched the crimson dress depart with its tinkling bells. A crooked thought could not help but stir in her heart, and she found herself thinking that the bells might be hung somewhere else too.

For example, around the neck.

Or in certain other places.

“Birth mother…”

Thinking of that earlier topic, she set both feet on the floor and walked to the dressing mirror. She tucked her hanging white hair behind her ear and looked at that face—a face that, as time passed, was becoming ever more a blend of charm and majesty.

The outlines of her previous life had already blurred completely, but she felt no regret at all, as if this alone were what it meant for appearance to arise from the heart—this was the face she ought to have, shaped by the radiance of her soul-abilities.

“All the way to where I stand now, I have never received any grace from you.”

“In my previous life, perhaps there might still have been something to say. But in this life, if you intend to haggle with me over the grace of giving birth…”

The empress in the mirror opened her golden pupils, and a dangerous smile slowly spread across her face.

…

Over the next few days, Bai Xiang seemed not to have been affected by this matter at all. She did whatever she needed to do, and a few days later she even bade farewell to Grandfather Bai Shengju and the rest of her family and old friends, returning to the Xia Capital together with Bai Zhuqing.

After returning, the first thing she did was prepare a conference. This meeting was aimed more at the outside world—at all those who, at this very moment, were watching her, watching her personal will and her political inclinations.

And indeed, the time had come.

One only had to look at Watchman Qiao Wen of Wangchuan Circuit to see just how many people at every level of this country were inwardly inclined toward the West.

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Qiao Wen still counted as a positive example. At the very least, his desire to study the Sacred Weapon Clan had been for the sake of his own people. He had wanted to use superior technology to reduce casualties; at minimum, that starting point had been good.

But many more people did not necessarily harbor only such thoughts.

That was why Bai Xiang wanted to hold an open conference like this.

She intended to use this opportunity to formally, and without leaving the slightest room for retreat, declare her stance to the outside world and utterly cut off the lingering wishful thinking in those people’s hearts.

The time: the tenth year of Zhengyuan, May 16, 10:00 a.m.

The place: Zhengyuan Palace, Front Hall of the Imperial Seat.

At this very moment, the hall was packed black with people. There were not only reporters from Great Xia’s own newspapers and senior figures from local radio stations; there were also invited media from other races.

Everyone was whispering to one another, discussing in hushed tones, wondering what exactly “the High Emperor’s first such formal public appearance” was meant to announce.

In the gaps between those discussions, there were naturally people talking about the stir caused by the tiny state of Xuanxia, and about whether the Xuantian Holy Mother might truly be the High Emperor’s real birth mother.

“Have you heard about it…?”

“Of course. It involves His Majesty the Xia Emperor, after all. It’s spread like wildfire lately…”

“Haven’t you heard what people are saying? Isn’t it obvious? If His Majesty the Xia Emperor didn’t nod, who would dare discuss this publicly…?”

“Maybe today is meant to respond to that matter?”

“No idea. Let’s just wait and see…”

It was amid just such an atmosphere—oppressive, gloomy, yet feverish all at once—that Bai Xiang made her entrance.

Her attire today was extraordinarily formal. She wore a dragon robe of dark black embroidered with golden patterns, and at her waist hung a jade seal and a black-and-gold sash with golden plaques and jade tokens suspended from the fastening cords. At her side she wore her bound Dao sword in a thunderwood sheath. On her black-silk-clad feet were high-top strapped sandals with gilt trim. Even her white hair was largely drawn up and restrained beneath an imperial crown hung with bead curtains.

There was no doubt that this outfit brought the “martial” element in her tall figure and that supremely beautiful face to its absolute peak. As she passed, countless cameras began flashing, and everyone frantically pressed their shutters.

Bai Xiang ascended the platform and sat down with composure.

A shout suddenly rang out from nearby: “Rites of audience before the hall—”

At once, many of the Xia reporters quite consciously bent down and bowed, and in doing so prompted the foreign reporters unfamiliar with the etiquette to follow suit. In one voice, everyone offered congratulations: “This common one pays respects to / has audience with His Majesty the Xia Emperor—”

Bai Xiang nodded, and only then did the crowd rise.

“Many thanks, Your Majesty—”

“I have gathered you all here today because I wish to borrow your tongues and pens to deliver a declaration.”

Bai Xiang leaned back in her chair, one hand curled into a fist and supporting her cheek, the other resting casually on the armrest.

As she spoke, she even lifted one black-silk-clad foot, utterly contrary to the impression from rumor that she respected etiquette.

Quite a few foreign reporters frowned at once when they saw this.

Instinctively, they had an ominous premonition.

“Taishang. Hereby. Gives. Order.”

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Those red lips moved, and without the slightest warning, the words began to fall.

“Void arose from Heaven and Earth, and sapient beings clung to it. This was truly born of helpless necessity; for that, no campaign of suppression shall be waged.

“But now that a new road has been opened and the righteous path reestablished, all living beings can cast off the suffering of corruption and return to qi, severing and abandoning the old way.

“Therefore let this decree be known: all who honor the voidfiends are brigands and calamities. They are not human. They are of demonkind, and Xia shall not tolerate them.”

Th-this… what exactly was this…???

Almost every reporter was sweating by the time they had written that much, their eyes wider than brass bells, all of them thinking the same thing:

Something huge had happened.

What did that decree mean?

Put plainly:

[The Void Tribulation was a calamity born between Heaven and Earth. Sapient beings could only choose to attach themselves to it; that was an act of helpless survival, and no pursuit or extermination will be made on that basis.]

[But now I have created a new road of the Path of Qi. Within the old arts of Dao-Void Methods and other sinister, aberrant paths, I have reestablished the righteous path, allowing all living beings to escape the suffering of being eroded and tainted by demonic power. Since that is now possible, all living beings should naturally return to qi methods and sever those old mistaken roads entirely.]

[Therefore, today I issue this decree here: all those who revere voidfiend methods are bandits and scourges.]

[They are not human. They are demons, and the state of Great Xia will not tolerate them.]

A declaration like this… once such a declaration was sent out, wouldn’t it mean that Great Xia was cutting itself off diplomatically and severing normal relations with every other nation standing alongside it?

Not to mention that this included the Federation, and even the Sacred Weapon Clan, whom so many nations had already publicly recognized as a “new humanity”…!

“So she really did it after all.”

Yuzhou, inside a certain manor.

In front of a television screen, a refined man opened a folding fan and closed his eyes as he let out a turbid breath.

“Do you believe me now when I say she is a calamity?”

“Master Liu?”

In the face of his question, Liu Haoran only pressed his lips together and frowned, his eyes fixed on the noble figure on the screen, slowly shaking his head bit by bit.

“This is not something I… not something I should concern myself with.”

“If you want to drag me into matters like these, you’re thinking too much.”

“Is that so?” The refined man arched a brow.

“Fine, then. I’ll be going first.”

“But Master Liu, do not forget: once the rabbits are dead, the hounds are cooked; once the birds are gone, the bows are put away.”

“Among the people purged some time ago, there were good students of yours as well, weren’t there…?”