The twelfth day of the eleventh month, heavy snow.
Suitable for: traveling, hunting, sacrifice, making alliances, seeking an heir…
The emperor and the court officials had taken up residence in the travel palace near the hunting grounds the day before the winter hunt.
Shang Yinyu woke early to the sounds of the attendants outside making preparations.
This year two snowfalls had already fallen on the imperial city, and icicles hung from the corridor eaves.
The emperor’s couch was never cold. The floor heating burned in the room, and on the couch he was held by the shadow guard commander; held for long, he could even work up a sweat.
But today there was no shadow guard commander on the couch, and the temperature of the whole bedchamber seemed to have dropped a good deal with that.
With no Nineteen in the quilt, Shang Yinyu had no more sleepiness on waking and had An Dezhong bring the attendants in to serve his washing.
He had arranged for Nineteen to join the Imperial Guard, and the day before Nineteen had taken several shadow guards and a squad of the Imperial Guard to go ahead to the winter hunt grounds to prepare.
Shang Yinyu counted the time in his heart: before sunrise the emperor was to reach the hunting grounds to cook the soup rice, wait for the armies to drive the game into the central area of the grounds, and then the killing of the beasts…
The grounds were too large. Unless Nineteen came to find him of his own accord, he would only see Nineteen at the victory banquet.
“Meow, meow~”
Hearing a familiar cat’s cry outside the window, Shang Yinyu turned his head to look as he wiped his hands with a towel.
A huge cat head’s shadow was cast on the window, and the window lattice was patted so that it rattled. It patted only three times and then stopped and kept meowing.
“My Twenty is on shift again,” Shang Yinyu said with a laugh.
The first batch of shadow guards’ code names only went up to nineteen, and the second batch started again from twenty-one.
The big cat came every day, flying over eaves and walls to burrow into his palace, and even hit the time the shadow guards changed shift exactly, so Shang Yinyu casually started calling it “Twenty.”
Hearing the smile in His Majesty’s voice, An Dezhong understood, walked to the window and opened it.
A big white long-haired cat leapt in at once.
The big cat ran to Shang Yinyu’s feet, circling around him and meowing softly.
The attendants at the emperor’s side had gotten used to this big cat over these months.
They knew that although the cat was big and looked imposing, its temperament was extremely gentle, it didn’t scratch or claw people, and its cry was as sweet as a kitten’s. Their initial tension and wariness were long gone.
If the cat came when His Majesty was not there, they would even feed it some small pastries they carried with them, and they got along quite well.
When Shang Yinyu had finished washing and changing his clothes, he bent and picked up the big cat in one scoop, and asked An Dezhong: “I brought this cat to the travel palace. Did you notify Shou’an Palace?”
“Rest assured, Your Majesty. Before leaving the palace, this old servant went to Shou’an Palace himself and told them.”
At the time when it was about to be light but not yet light, the emperor’s winter hunt procession set out from the travel palace.
Countless people merged into the line: civil officials, generals, palace attendants, and officers and soldiers skilled in riding and archery transferred from all over the country, accompanying merchants, nearby commoners, and envoys of other countries…
Although the number of attendants had been reduced as much as possible, the procession still numbered nearly a hundred thousand and proceeded in a vast stream to the enclosed hunting ground.
Shang Yinyu sat in the imperial carriage, the big cat rolled over on his lap, kneaded by him until it gave comfortable purrs.
When Nineteen was kneaded by him, he always bore it in restraint and rarely made a sound.
Only when he hurt Nineteen, when Nineteen reached the limit he couldn’t bear, would a few low hums leak out of his throat.
Shang Yinyu still remembered the autumn hunt of the tenth year of Ganlu, when, before the hunt, he had taken Nineteen for a whole night in Ganlu Palace.
He had taken him hard, and when Nineteen got up from the couch he could hardly stand steady.
Nineteen still had to go to the hunting grounds with him in his capacity as imperial bodyguard, and like the other guards he had to wear armor and ride a horse.
Shang Yinyu had thought Nineteen would act coquettishly toward him and ask for permission to serve in the imperial carriage.
But Nineteen didn’t. He just rode Black Cloud Treading Snow and kept guard beside his carriage, and whenever Shang Yinyu lifted the curtain on the right side he could see Nineteen sitting on the big black horse in the Imperial Guard uniform.
The curtains of the imperial carriage were never lowered, and Nineteen, guarding at his front right, rode ramrod straight and simply never glanced his way.
In the end it was Shang Yinyu who had An Dezhong go invite Nineteen in. With a cold face he had Nineteen take off his armor and lie beside him, and did not say another word to Nineteen the whole way.
Nineteen lay trembling, terrified and uneasy.
Even so, when he met the assassins in the hunting grounds, Nineteen was still the first to charge forward, and when he fell from his horse, it was also Nineteen who flew over and shielded him with his body.
Shang Yinyu closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, and reached out to lift the window curtain to look outside. The familiar figure was not in the position in his memory.
This time he had sent Nineteen to the hunting grounds early, because whether Nineteen was riding guard beside the imperial carriage or accompanying him inside it, it would remind him of the past, and he was afraid he would feel bad.
But he had overlooked something: with Nineteen absent, sitting alone in the empty imperial carriage, those memories still came flooding up unavoidably.
Fortunately, it wasn’t that painful.
“I treated Nineteen badly before. From now on I won’t. Nineteen and I will be ruler and minister for a lifetime.”
“Meow-woo.”
“Is Twenty agreeing with me?” Shang Yinyu scratched the big cat’s chin.
“Woo.” The big cat closed its two paws around Shang Yinyu’s hand.
Before sunrise, the emperor and the court officials reached the hunting grounds.
Shang Yinyu got out of the carriage. On the flat open ground enclosed by yellow tent curtains, the cooking tools and ingredients had already been set out.
Naturally the emperor could not really be made to cook. Shang Yinyu walked over and poured the rice offered by an attendant into the designated pot, and this procedure was done; the rest was left to the imperial cooks.
When the soup rice and meat were cooked, Shang Yinyu bestowed the food on the court officials.
“Since it is a hunt, according to the rules there must be a prize.”
Shang Yinyu sat around the largest felt tent for the meal with several dozen officials of the third rank and above. After the food was cleared away, Shang Yinyu drank a mouthful of hot tea and said, according to the words in his memory:
“Since I took the throne, ten years of martial examinations have been held, yet not one general has emerged who can level Jin for me. This time, whoever takes first place, I will grant him a set of Mingguang armor.”
In the tenth year of Ganlu, the hunt had produced assassins and the Son of Heaven had raged, and everyone had trembled in fear of a wrong step costing them their heads.
The victory banquet became a banquet of accusation, and only after he returned did Shang Yinyu discover that the armor prepared had never been bestowed at all. The game had not been tallied either, so there was no way to know who took first place, and the matter of the Mingguang armor naturally came to nothing.
This time, he would surely be able to bestow this set of Mingguang armor.
With the business explained, Shang Yinyu took the big cat strolling within the range of the tents.
Within the enclosure the sound of herds of horses galloping was ceaseless, accompanied by the roars of beasts and the cries of birds. This was the armies driving the wild beasts toward the center.
It would take some time for them to be driven into the designated position, and the court officials were in their own felt tents, gathered around braziers, lecturing the sons and grandsons from their households whom they had brought.
Influenced by the emperor’s having women attend school and allowing women to take the imperial examinations, there were many more women in military dress among the officials’ family members on this hunt.
A household servant guarding outside the felt tent reported that His Majesty was coming this way.
A few officials huddled by the brazier hurriedly stood. Thinking of taking their daughters or granddaughters before His Majesty to become familiar faces, they pushed aside the tent curtain, and as soon as they did they saw the more-than-one-meter-long big cat beside the emperor.
The officials, with remarkable tacit understanding, withdrew their stepped-out feet, only daring to salute from afar, hurriedly dropped the curtain, picked up their bows and arrows, and shrank back to the brazier.
Shang Yinyu and Twenty, one person and one cat, strolled in the snow, and it was very quiet around them.
Until the roars of beasts and the sound of hooves gradually drew near, and standing before the curtain one could see large numbers of wild beasts driven into the designated area.
Shang Yinyu entered the felt tent, handed the big cat to An Dezhong, and was served in changing into bright yellow military dress.
His mount, Night-Shining Jade Lion, was stamping the ground outside the tent, neighing with hissing sounds.
Shang Yinyu swung up onto Night-Shining Jade Lion and, leading the other officials in military dress and attendants, galloped into the encirclement.
He drew the bow and nocked an arrow; one arrow left the string and pinned through the beast’s neck.
Shang Yinyu had come only to put on a show. He had no interest at all in the prize he had set. After showing off his greatly improved archery before the court officials, he dismissed them all and, leading a squad of guards, coasted around the hunting ground.
Year after year of hunting, Shang Yinyu had long since lost interest in hunting wild beasts. Apart from putting on a show, this winter hunt was also pulling all of Great Xia’s armies out for a run, which could count as a military exercise.
While riding around the grounds, Shang Yinyu watched the soldiers either driving beasts or drawing bows and nocking arrows.
His fixed impression of Great Xia’s army was still the army Qiao Beiji would train five years later; he needed to know more about the real strength of Great Xia’s armies now.
As he was thinking this, Shang Yinyu heard a cry of alarm, “Your Majesty, be careful!”
With a sense of foreboding he turned his head and saw a huge gray bear burst out of the encirclement, charging toward him.
Fuck! What kind of luck is this?!
Last time at the autumn hunt there had been assassins; this time he had deliberately changed it to a winter hunt, and the forces connected with that batch of assassins had been secretly eliminated by him. And he could still run into this?!
It was too late to draw bow and nock arrow again; Shang Yinyu instinctively reached a hand into his coat.
Before Shang Yinyu had drawn the gun from his coat, from the corner of his eye he saw two arrows shot from the other side, one going straight into the gray bear’s left eye and one pinning into its neck.
Then a figure in the black-and-red Imperial Guard uniform flew over, landed on the gray bear’s head, light as a falling leaf. As the body turned, it was again like a blade unwrapped from its leather sheath, the edge revealed.
A backhand curved-blade cut across the throat, the gray bear’s roar stopped abruptly, and the smell of blood spread from the blade tip.
Nineteen…
Shang Yinyu released the hand gripping the gun.
Qiao Beiji quickly wiped the blood splattered on his face, lowered his head, turned, and hurried to the front of the emperor’s horse and knelt on one knee. “This subordinate is late. Your Majesty has been startled.”
Shang Yinyu looked down at the person kneeling before his horse. Nineteen was very close to him, so close that he seemed to smell the blood on the other, carrying the chill of weapons.
Strangely, he did not dislike this feeling; instead his heart beat faster, and he was excited, wanting to pin the person before him in the snow and bully him.
Shang Yinyu suddenly remembered today’s almanac description.
Suitable for: making alliances, seeking an heir.