Eastern Palace, lotus pond
The qin song ceased and the burbling waters sounded clearer.
A pair of swans took wing, flapping white feathers over the surface tracing dual criss-crossing trails.
Lu Yi stood waiting to one side. “Your Highness, the guards report Princess Yao has come to eavesdrop again. Should I have them drive her away?”
Xie Wuyang chuckled lowly. “Drive them off. My sister doesn’t come for music but those lotus roots in the palace kitchen. Drive her out so she stops sneaking in here stealing all my lotuses.”
“But Your Highness,” Lu Yi said, “this time she brought along Miss Jiang with her.”
The fingers on the strings stilled slightly, plucking out a faint, lingering note. Ripples vibrated through the water’s reflections as the qin player said softly, “So she’s here.”
“Your Highness?”
“No need to drive them away. Call off the guard.” The notes flowed again from beneath Xie Wuyang’s dancing fingertips, a smile playing about his lips as he played on, the attendant listening with bowed head. The autumn light spilled over the waterside pavilion, carrying the low, winding strains far and away on the breeze.
Armored footsteps strode rapidly over the Nine-Bend Bridge. A guard saluted on bended knee, “Your Highness, while on patrol we encountered Princess Yao’s party exiting a side gate into the Forbidden Hunting Park…seemingly by mistake entering…” He faltered. “…Entering Stone Tomb?”
The notes faltered. “They entered where?”
Head lowered, the guard said, “Stone Tomb, Your Highness.”
Before his voice faded, the qin player had already risen with only a fleeting glimpse of his frosty silhouette.
A lone string still quivered in the wind.
In the split second before the whistling arrows, Jiang Kui rooted herself and stretched out both hands to grab Princess Xie and Prince Kuan, springing upward!
She pirouetted weightlessly midair, azure sleeves fluttering like butterfly wings. Below, the torrent of arrows clattered loudly, ricocheting off the cave walls.
The arrow rain ceased. Carrying both royals, she landed with a crisp snap atop the twisted arrowheads, faint light from above illuminating the cold gleam on the sharp tips.
She surveyed their surroundings. The cave contained only them while the mechanism behind the wall of arrows had clearly been triggered.
Princess Xie’s face was bloodless. “Sister…you can fly?”
Jiang Kui nearly choked. “I know some martial arts…”
“But I heard you…always ill…frail and sickly…isn’t that what everyone says about you in Chang’an?” Princess Xie asked blankly before recalling Jiang Kui’s attempted sick leave that morning. But she was after all a general’s daughter so martial skills shouldn’t be out of the ordinary.
“You were pretending?” Princess Xie’s eyes bulged out. “All these years of pretending to be sick too?”
Bending swiftly to retrieve a fairly intact arrow, the girl before her moved briskly and sharply, none of the former delicate charm left. She weighed the keen tip and nodded. “Serviceable enough.”
The cold gleam highlighted her bright features, sharp as the blade’s edge.
Princess Xie clutched her chest, catching her breath before remembering her boastful promise to “look after her” in the palace earlier.
She threw her arms around Jiang Kui’s. “Sister…watch over me instead.”
Jiang Kui tilted her head bemusedly. “…Alright?”
“Let’s not discuss that first…” Prince Kuan had also recovered from the shock, pointing with a quivering finger at the blocked entrance. “We’re…trapped inside.”
When the stone slab crashed down concurrently with the arrow trap, it had sealed off the cave entrance entirely. In the quiet damp cave, their voices echoed eerily into unseen depths.
Occasional drips answered from the tunnel behind them.
“What now?” Princess Xie asked nervously. “Wait in place for rescue? Or find another way out?”
“Find another way out?” Prince Kuan’s shaking finger aimed backward into the pitch black tunnel. “Unless you want to head in there…”
When the stone slab crashed down, the facing wall silently slid open revealing the unlit passageway.
“Everyone stay put.” Jiang Kui decided. Not wanting to trigger anything else, she lightly trod upon the arrow carpet and approached the sealed entrance. Sinking her qi, she slowly pressed both palms against the stone door.
Princess Xie and Prince Kuan held their breaths.
The stone didn’t budge at all.
Jiang Kui turned. “We’ll wait here for rescue.”
Seeing their crestfallen looks, she sighed, “Don’t be like that. I can fight but I’m no immortal. This thing’s what, over a thousand catties?”
She hadn’t even finished speaking when more arrows whistled forth!
“Run!” Fleeing under the arrow fire, all three screamed as they fled into the passageway’s darkness. Jiang Kui guarded the rear, arrows whirling in a wide silvery arc to shield them.
The air rang loudly with deflected metal amidst the stirred winds, carrying a trace of plum blossoms.
“I’d still rather wait for rescue,” Prince Kuan’s muffled voice echoed along the narrow tunnel.
“Unless you’d rather be a human pincushion,” Princess Xie retorted into the pitch blackness.
The three felt their way unsteadily along the cramped pathway, Prince Kuan leading, Princess Xie behind, and Jiang Kui at the very back. After what felt like forever, the thin crack of light from the cave mouth had long disappeared. Unable to see even five fingers in the dark, the three could only follow each other’s voices.
Prince Kuan suddenly said, “It’s blocked up ahead.”
No sooner had he spoken when a dim glow bloomed, faintly illuminating their path thus far.
At the end of the tunnel stood a towering bronze door seeping fiery light through the crack, throwing its angular frame into a wavering silhouette like a giant candle. The ancient style and craftsmanship were evident in the door’s exquisite bas-reliefs etched with dense motifs in each corner filled with archaic glyphs flowing like cryptic spells.
“We’ve stumbled into someone’s tomb…” Princess Xie whispered.
Jiang Kui was taken aback, “What do you mean?”
“Look around us.”
The leaking firelight flowed like water down the tunnel walls, revealing the solemn stone guardians lining both sides – twelve pairs of guardian beasts carved kneeling or standing upright like an honor guard.
Princess Xie spoke very softly. “Haven’t you noticed we’ve been descending the entire time? This is a spirit way. The warriors flanking it are to ward off evil spirits while we are heading toward the tomb occupant’s final resting place.”
Prince Kuan cut in fearfully, “L-look! The statues are moving…even the walls!”
Behind them, the stone sentinels slowly shifted toward the center, pulling the corridor walls inward inch by inch until seamlessly slotting into place with holes carved through the now conjoined walls – the passageway was collapsing!
This tomb didn’t tolerate intruders, now even cutting off entry and exit!
“We have to open the door!” Princess Xie urged anxiously, “Or we’ll be crushed alive here!”
“How to open it?” Jiang Kui tapped the bronze door with an arrow – a clear metallic chime rang out.
Meanwhile, statue by statue marched into their slots, the walls’ grating rumbled ever nearer. Before their eyes, the walls threatened to close in like the pitiless jaws of some hungry beast.
Prince Kuan tremulously raised his shaking hand. “I might be able to…”
Princess Xie whipped around sharply. “You can?”
“There’s a spell diagram carved into it.” Prince Kuan answered softly, tracing the uneven relief upon the door. “The Later Heaven Tu Formation – undoing it should open the door.”
Princess Xie cocked an eyebrow. “And you know how to undo it?”
Prince Kuan mumbled almost inaudibly, “…I dabble in fortune telling, a bit of esoterica…but promise not to tell my mother.”
“That is, if we can even make it out alive!” Princess Xie said impatiently. “Hurry and undo it!”
Muttering under his breath, Prince Kuan caressed the door while Jiang Kui turned, nocking the scavenged arrows to shoot into the moving tiles’ tracks, slowing the walls’ pace.
A grating shriek rang out as the stone guardians dragged the embedded arrows, scoring long, ghastly tracks into the hard floor…yet the walls’ closure didn’t slow one bit!
“Faster! No more time!” Princess Xie yelled frantically. “We’re gonna die here!”
Prince Kuan traced the door, face anxious and perspiring, incantations spilling faster from his lips.
“No more time.” Jiang Kui pulled Prince Kuan back. “Step back three paces, both of you!”
Taking a deep breath, she shifted left foot back, right foot forward – a double palm strike!
With an earth-rending rumble, the monolithic bronze gate crashed down before her like a shattering mountain!
Wind and dust blasted forth as the tunnel’s end framed the fluttering-haired girl poised with one foot atop the toppled obstacle, fiery light playing on her shapely figure.
Behind her, Princess Xie was dumbfounded. “How many hundred catties was that?”
Jiang Kui blinked. “…Maybe five hundred?”
All color drained from Prince Kuan as he clutched Jiang Kui’s sleeve beseechingly. “Sister…watch over me.”
With the passageway moments from sealing them in, the three darted past the felled gate, the final pair of stone guardians embedding with a thunderous boom on either side. As the deafening echoes faded, they raised their heads as one to behold stretches of iron welded into a vast sky above.
Beneath the cavernous dome, huge stone orbs ran along elaborate tracks, water cascaded down artful channels, countless delicate instruments whirred at astonishing speeds – the mechanical heartbeat powering the entire tomb’s active functions.
“Just whose tomb is this?” Princess Xie wondered aloud.
A faint clatter made Jiang Kui glance down as a one-finger wide bamboo tube rolled to a stop by her feet. She picked it up and extracted the thin sheet of birchbark with two hastily scrawled words: Knock unconscious.
Prince Kuan craned his head curiously. “What’s that say?”
Without answering, Jiang Kui abruptly whipped two knife hand chops behind her, felling her companions left and right.
Standing over their prone forms, her arms casually folded, she called loudly into the shadows, “Come on out!”
A playful voice echoed in response, “Miss Jiang Kui, you’ll owe me big this time!”
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