The Fire Demon Approaches
Always be careful with fire, whether sleeping or awake. Even check the extinguished embers. A few months ago, an order came down to each army to conscript useless veterans.
The commanders happily rounded up all the dregs and sent them off. One might wonder what “useless veterans” even means. But soldiers’ pay does increase, if only by a tiny amount each year. It’s a pittance, yet it still rises annually. The problem is whether they actually earn that increase.
The time when soldiers are most loyal and obedient is surprisingly during their first year, as fresh recruits. As they gain experience, they start slacking off, making excuses even for simple tasks. And instead of slacking alone, they drag their entire squad of ten into it with every trick imaginable.
Accumulating years doesn’t turn them into skilled soldiers like the “real army” up north. Keeping them around is nothing but a loss. They’re waste that treats orders like a joke and passes those cunning ways down to others.
So among the commanders of the thousand-man units, they secretly traded these discards. It was a mutual favor—killing off each other’s trash. If a soldier died during an operation, they could even allocate condolence money in the books. Since that money never reached the bereaved families, disposing of the waste was economically sound.
Could the higher-ups truly be unaware of this? This was an operation to assassinate a prince, after all. Success meant silencing witnesses. Failure meant execution. So they chose fire. Since these men were going to die anyway, burning them wasn’t a waste. It was convenient too—no need for the hassle of individual executions.
That said, not the entire national army was like this. Beyond the firebreak lay the real army. The Northern Army! Battle-hardened elite troops who clashed with the barbarians in the north almost daily. They were granted proper martial arts, received sufficient salaries, massive supplies, and huge bonuses for their children’s careers. Their loyalty was ironclad. They were among the few troops that could truly be called elite in the Central Plains.
Such soldiers were treated as precious from the start. So behind the firebreak—where trees, leaves, and everything burnable had been cleared and the ground plowed bare to stop the flames from spreading—the real elite troops lay in ambush.
It wasn’t that they particularly wanted to use fire. A search-and-destroy operation? With these wastes who possessed not a shred of military discipline and would do anything to avoid, hide from, or slack off on any task, what kind of search-and-destroy could they manage? It would be riddled with holes, practically the same as letting the enemy escape.
But deploying the Northern Army was impossible. Their numbers were insufficient, and they were the nation’s precious assets (this part mattered most) whose loss could bring serious repercussions. Setting the fire, however, made everything so convenient. If the wastes burned to death alongside the target, that was fine too. Even if some survived, fires on three sides would force them out from one direction, where the properly positioned elite soldiers could simply finish the job.
Thus, the soldiers inside the fire line, who patrolled casually while pretending to search the mountain, served as a sort of beacon or signal flare. If a bloody battle broke out within? For whatever reason—whether they had linked up with missed escorts or the injured old man had fought a desperate, death-defying duel—it meant the prey possessed that much combat strength. Then, regardless of the fire line’s progress, they simply needed to set the blaze. After all, even if the fire spread, what did it matter if a few lowly things burned to death?
The man wearing the crested helmet laughed.
“Begin the fire attack. It’s a westerly wind right now, yes?”
“W-well, the feng shui master said a northerly or southeasterly wind might blow.”
When a westerly wind blew, the weather warmed. When the temperature rose like that, it meant one of two things: cold air descending from the North Sea, or—though rare—hotter winds rising from the South Sea.
The helmeted man burst into laughter.
“Southeasterly wind? Heh heh. Is that feng shui master’s surname perhaps Zhuge by any chance?”
It was open mockery. In truth, weather forecasting in the primitive ancient Central Plains was merely a collection of statistics built from experience, so its accuracy was never particularly high. (Cheong’s hometown was the same, but there instruments provided diverse data from many angles and performed superior calculations instead.)
“If you could grant us four days—no, three more days of grace—”
The general from the military earnestly pleaded, but the helmeted man cut him off sharply.
“Do it now.”
“However, if the fire spreads, the common people will suffer greatly. We are the ones who protect His Majesty’s—”
“You fool!”
Thud. The helmeted man’s hand struck the general’s head. Internal energy infused the blow; the helmet flew skyward and the general staggered before barely regaining his balance.
“Ha, you stupid bastard. You are His Majesty’s army. You do not protect His Majesty’s people. You protect only the most noble imperial family—nothing else. Hey, Jaseong. You.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“There is a traitor right there. So what should the army do?”
“...We must pursue and eliminate them.”
“Hmph. With such a soft heart, I had high hopes for your outstanding military talent, but you will never become a great man. Is it because of your lowly origins?”
The general gritted his teeth. The words “you will never become a great man” were a declaration that his promotions ended here.
“Go and burn them. Consider it fortunate the traitor has not hidden inside the city. At least we do not have to burn the city down.”
“I receive and obey the order.”
Cheong, lying sprawled out and listening carefully, suddenly noticed a red glow flickering at the edge of the sky. She was bewildered. What is that? Dawn? Did I doze off? But why is dawn rising from the west? Does the sun actually rise in the west here? Is there some event in this primitive ancient uncivilized Central Plains where the sun rises from the west on certain days?
When speaking of winds, a westerly wind did not mean wind flowing westward but wind blowing from the west. Therefore, in winter when the westerly wind blew, it was natural to set the fire in the west first for a fire attack.
There was a saying: firelight piercing the sky. It referred to a great fire or such momentum, where the blaze seemed to stab the heavens.
Cheong frowned, struggling to focus. What on earth is this? Could this be the aurora I’ve only heard about?
Then, not long after—
Ah. There’s a fire. A wildfire.
Hmm? Isn’t this actually a good thing? If I hide in a cave or dig really deep into the ground...
It was a thought born from Cheong’s background. People in her hometown did not live near mountains and forests, so she had no idea how terrifying a wildfire could be.
If caught in a wildfire, the hot air would first damage the lungs. That heat wave was more than twice as hot as boiling oil; a single breath would instantly cook the windpipe and lungs.
The speed of spread varied with the wind, but it matched a galloping horse or, with strong gusts, more than doubled that speed. The people of the Central Plains knew the terror of such wildfires and called it the work of demons, naming it the Fire Demon.
Hiding in a cave would mean being discovered as steamed Cheong instead of raw. Even a deep cave would lack enough air to breathe, like drowning on land. Digging into the ground would be the same—she would simply become Peking Cheong instead of Peking duck.
“Yeon Pa? It looks like a wildfire has started.”
“What!? We must flee at once! Your Highness! Your Highness, you must wake up!”
Yeon Pa’s face had gone deathly pale as she shook the prince violently. Just the sight of her roughly jostling the precious prince’s jade body showed how desperate and utterly flustered she was.
“Yeon Pa? There’s no need to rush so—”
“What nonsense is that!? It is the Fire Demon! The Fire Demon is closing in!”
“It’s still far away—”
“You foolish girl! The Fire Demon approaches faster than a fine steed at full gallop! It will swallow us in an instant! Your Highness, get onto the cart immediately!”
It was a small luggage cart Cheong had taken after raiding the soldiers’ temporary camp. Because of her injured side she could not carry anyone on her back. The moment the person being carried got startled and curled their legs, Cheong would be unable to endure the agony and would roll across the ground. At her speed, that would mean the carried person would suffer at least light injuries, or serious ones if worse.
Carrying someone in front would bind both hands. Carrying them over the shoulder would prevent violent movements—it would become a special form of Iron Mountain Crush that destroyed the carried person’s internal organs. Besides, there were not one but two pieces of luggage.
If Cheong had been in perfect condition she could have broken through with one on her back and one in front wrapped like a baby sling, but then she had spotted the cart. It was a small luggage cart about the size of those pulled by waste-paper collectors back in her hometown. Seeing it, Cheong had thought she could simply load the luggage and pull it herself.
“Tie them securely and don’t rush. They might bounce out. Jayu, keep your body as low as possible too.”
“How can you be so calm at a time like this!”
“If you’re in too much of a hurry, even things that could succeed will fail, won’t they?”
As Cheong spoke she took the harness, slipped it under her armpits across her chest, and tightened it. Hmm. Since the obstacle in the middle is rather large, it won’t slide down and tighten against my side. Still… this feels a bit strange. Human horse—I’m becoming a horse? There are perfectly good horses around. I wonder how the royal butt is doing. Horse… horse meat… I want to eat horse yukhoe…
“Come now, let’s go! Hurry!”
“Hold on tight! It will shake a lot until we reach the upper road where the ox carts are.”
And so Cheong began to run.
A woman pulling a cart loaded with two people would be a feat of strength that even street medicine peddlers would stare at in astonishment. And she was doing it while racing up a rugged mountain slope. If anyone had seen her, they would have declared it the real medicine for becoming an Xiang Yu-level warrior and tried to buy it with gold without hesitation. Just shut up and take my money!
The level of weather forecasting in the Central Plains was abysmal. It might rain or it might not. The exact probability? It hasn’t rained much lately, so it’s probably fairly high, right? Or maybe not. How could humans possibly fathom the will of the heavens?
Therefore, feng shui masters made their predictions in the widest possible range. Currently it is a westerly wind, but a northerly wind might blow, or a southeasterly. Then it might rain. The day is not cold, but there is a slim chance of snow. This way, no matter what happened, they would get at least one answer correct. It was the feng shui masters’ method of avoiding responsibility. Of course, such shallow tricks did not always work; in cases of drought or major typhoons, the feng shui masters were the first to be hanged.
However, this particular feng shui master should have used a little more imagination. He had not mentioned that the westerly wind could grow stronger.
As the night deepened, the westerly wind suddenly howled with a fierce sound, developing into a gale that shook the entire forest. When the wind grew strong, embers spread faster and farther. Thus, leaves carrying sparks and harboring flames swirled violently and easily leaped across the ten-zhang-wide wasteland that people had laboriously turned with their meager strength. It was exactly the spot where the feng shui master had insisted they must dig twenty zhang because it was vulnerable.
Even so, he had been a feng shui master rumored to be quite capable. The fire rose. The massive Fire Demon greedily raced forward.
Thud. Thud-thud!Bang!
The cart pulled by human power climbed the mountain at an unbelievable speed. It was more accurate to say it flew than rolled. The wheels spent far more time in the air than on the ground—a ratio of roughly one to nine. At that point it would not be wrong to say the cart was in flight.
The old woman and young prince riding the Central Plains’ first flying cart were in absolute hell from the rough ride. Jayu was unharmed but knew no martial arts, while Yeon Pa was a master yet riddled with holes, torn flesh, and stitched wounds across her entire body. So they could only cling to the safety lines tied all over the cart and bounce around with heavy thuds, at least not flying out.
Still, with three layers of coats and three hats each, they could endure the banging and collisions. Cheong felt the luggage inside the cart tumbling this way and that with every jolt.
“Hold on just a little longer! Just until we pass that ridge up ahead!”
Then the left wheel struck a large rock and bounced upward, causing the entire cart to suddenly tilt sideways. Cheong gritted her teeth, raised her left hand to grab the luggage support, and pulled down hard. Her ribs screamed. The three muscle sisters along her side screamed. The pelvis below shouted that it was still in the mountains! Just kill me instead! Aaaagh!
In that instant strength completely left her left leg. An unavoidable physiological reaction. Cheong gritted her teeth and stomped hard with her right foot. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“Ugh…”
The blurriness before her eyes was not due to her vision. It was from the tears that had welled up involuntarily from the excruciating pain. But whether blurry or not, she could barely see anyway, so it made little difference.
Thus, once they crossed one small ridge there would be a path—at least a proper road where the cart would not shake so violently—
“Run! Run away!”
“The flames are spreading! Hurry and run!”
The moment they crested the ridge, a group of mountain bandits came into view, rushing along the road. They were suspiciously well-dressed bandits wearing high-quality fur clothes.