The Scream That Brought the Prince Running
Be it asleep or awake, always beware of fire; even an extinguished flame must be checked again. How could any person endure such wounds and still act so composed? Yeon Pa looked at the grotesquely swollen, lumpy wound with deep pity, then studied Cheong’s face once more. In that instant, it felt as if a hammer had struck her square in the chest. Only now did she notice the tightly furrowed brows and the faint trembling at the corners of those eyes. She had assumed the girl’s expression was merely sullen, but no—the poor thing had been stubbornly enduring agony the entire time, so of course her face refused to relax.
This old woman has no shame, working a young lady this hard. It was hardly the time to be attending the Prince. If anything, the Prince should be the one nursing her. And not just any prince—the very Prince she cherished most in all the world. The fact that her guilt had reached the point of thinking even he should tend to the girl showed just how deeply sorry Yeon Pa felt. Her expression sank into a pool of remorse.
But Cheong’s eyes were in no condition to read anyone’s face. So whether Yeon Pa looked guilty or not, Cheong simply patted medicine onto her side, pressed a large cotton pad over the wound, laid a strip of bandage across it, and then suddenly yanked it tight—
“Aaaack!!”
The scream tore from her throat before she could stop it. Pressing the entire wound at once might have been one thing, but the burst injury had only half-healed; pinching the swollen center again sent fresh agony surging through her. Cheong collapsed on the spot, head thunking against the floor, body curled tight as she shook with choked, wheezing breaths.
Yeon Pa cried out in alarm. “W-what are you doing?!”
“What is going on?!”
The terrible scream was followed by a furious shout. Jayu kicked the door open and burst inside. Cheong was still wearing nothing but her underclothes while tending her wounds. The sight that filled Jayu’s eyes was Cheong’s bare back as she bowed deeply to Yeon Pa. It was so white it dazzled, flawless as carved white jade, the kind of rear view that could stop a man’s heart. Jayu sucked in a sharp breath.
But only for a moment. His gaze soon landed on the hideous, bloated mass of flesh on her left flank, and his expression hardened at once.
“Yeon Pa? How—”
“Your Highness!” Yeon Pa hurriedly stepped behind Cheong to block his view. “How can you enter a lady’s room so carelessly?! Get out this instant!”
“Ah, uh, um. Sorry. My apologies.”
“Leave at once!”
Jayu was thoroughly flustered. He had never seen Yeon Pa angry before. She had always doted on him, praising him no matter what he did—even if he harmed someone—cooing that their prince had to be strong, that blood looked good on him. So her fierce glare left him at a loss. He awkwardly retreated, politely pulling the door he had kicked open and stepping back across the threshold.
Then, as if a thought had struck him, he spoke through the narrow gap of the still-open door. “If I did not see wrongly, my friend’s condition looked rather poor. Perhaps—”
“Close it!”
Whether she meant the door or his mouth was unclear, but the command was sharp and unmistakable. Unable to ask for clarification, Jayu closed both. Only then did Cheong manage to push herself upright.
“Haa… I nearly died…”
“You foolish child! What in the world were you thinking?!” Yeon Pa shrieked.
Cheong offered a weak excuse. “Haa, huu… I have to bind the wound tight or I won’t be able to move. I stepped on the True Stance earlier—if it had sloshed around, I really would have lost consciousness right there.”
“Ahem.”
“This isn’t something I can do alone. It’s fortunate you’re here, Yeon Pa. Could you help me?”
“Fortunate? Oh, you poor thing…”
The ones who were truly fortunate were Yeon Pa and the Prince, who had found Cheong when her life hung by a thread. Had the girl simply passed by, she would never have ended up in such a wretched state. Yet they could not simply leave the wound untreated. Although the west wind was blowing and the wildfire would not spread quickly, the villagers would not have abandoned their homes for nothing. The settlement itself was far from safe.
So Yeon Pa had no choice but to press the cotton pad down carefully.
“Ugh, a little harder. No, just a bit… more… more… more… hngh.”
“A-are you all right?”
“I’m not all right, which is exactly why you need to press harder.”
Painful or not, it had to be done in one decisive go. But the person helping her kept hesitating, so the work made no progress. Come on, just do it in one shot. And what was this? Why was the original foul-mouthed grandmother suddenly acting like a frail old lady? Of course her curses had always carried affection, but this sudden change? Were all grandmothers weak in front of patients?
In the end, what should have been one sharp burst of pain became a long, drawn-out torment. Cheong gently shook her body to test the pressure. A stabbing pain like a nail being driven straight to the head flared up at once. Still, this much was bearable. At least her vision no longer went white, her body no longer trembled uncontrollably, and her breath no longer caught until she doubled over.
----
The seventh of the Eight Blood Cavalry, the man who had earned the title of Great Yellow from the Emperor himself—Makseok—had been driven into the ground by Cheong’s underhanded trick. To be precise, he had become a human arrow hurtling toward the earth. One could even say he had challenged the land itself. The result, however, was utter defeat. The lesson that humans could never defy nature left his nose crooked and his face scraped raw.
It was not only his nose. He had plowed face-first across ground frozen solid in the twelfth month, so his nose was twisted and long scabs ran down his entire face like black rain. The reason his face had not been completely torn off was, of course, thanks to the Emperor’s grace—the Emperor’s Blood Divine Art he had bestowed.
With their captain unconscious after being slammed into the dirt, the Golden Guards fell into a dilemma. If they reported losing the unidentified rampaging rickshaw and its passenger, he would surely fly into a rage. And if it were only rage, they would be lucky. That dog-like bastard loved to swing his whip at subordinates. He had not always been such a vicious superior. But after becoming one of the Eight Blood Cavalry, his personality had grown as ugly as his cultivation had grown powerful.
The guards privately agreed that only after rising in rank had his true nature emerged—the rotten-tempered bastard had been holding it in, and now the real him had come out. So if they said they had lost the target, he would undoubtedly rampage again. Then what? Simple. They just had to make sure they did not lose him.
The guards coordinated their story: the rickshaw, unable to slow down on the Bow Ridge path, had plunged off the southern cliff. But their efforts were in vain. When Makseok regained consciousness, he flew into a fury.
“Eight men to deal with a single bastard, and eight of you still failed?! Is this the level of the Golden Guards? Ha, I can’t believe it! You pathetic worms!”
The guards’ faces darkened. Six had died and two were gravely wounded, yet instead of mourning he raged at them for failing. Moreover, why was he calling the living, healthy guards “pathetic worms” when the truly pathetic ones were already dead? And above all, for someone who called himself captain, he had failed to catch even the rickshaw puller, fallen, and fainted—yet he had plenty to say.
Makseok’s own temper flared at his subordinates’ attitude. “These worthless subordinates of mine show respect to a mere Zhang Tianhu, the son of some lowly farmer, yet they act insolent toward me—this body who is the eldest grandson of a prestigious family and whom His Majesty personally appointed as the Seventh!”
In that moment the guards gained a great realization. So that was why the general hated him like an enemy; he had actually been envious. But respect could not be demanded through status or rank. Status could buy deference, but true respect had to come from the heart.
Shouting “Respect me!” would not suddenly make respect bloom in the guards’ hearts. Especially not when the words came from a man with a crooked nose. Makseok fumed alone for a while, then, exhausted by his own anger, abruptly turned his head away. The bastard’s sulking again. The guards wore fed-up expressions. Once Makseok sulked, he would give no orders and simply glare, as if to say, “Let’s see how well you do without me.”
So the guards decided to finish what they had been doing. What had they been doing again? Right, heading home. Only then did fresh anger surge in their hearts. If they had simply let the rickshaw pass, their comrades would not have died and they would not be suffering like this. Among the dead had been four men scheduled for promotion; that was not entirely bad. They should have just pretended to chase. The ones who had rushed forward to look good in front of Makseok were the same ones who always earned scorn for being blinded by promotion anyway, so the guards felt little regret.
Thus the guards descended the mountain, crossed the river to escape the wildfire—and heard Makseok muttering loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Ha, you stupid bastards. You were going north anyway, yet you already crossed the river. There are idiots who cross every bend, soaking themselves like morons. Let’s see how many times you cross.”
It was a familiar yet utterly infuriating attitude. Still, Makseok was not entirely wrong. When they turned north to avoid the opposite slope, the Musu River curved back around to block their path once more. Worse, the river hugged a cliff and bent northeast again, meaning they would have to cross it two more times.
You son of a bitch, you could have said something earlier.
The guards crossed the river again. And again. Only then did they spot a fortress-like village with a few wisps of smoke rising from it. Their wet clothes had frozen stiff in the biting river wind, their teeth chattering. The guards’ faces brightened as they headed for the closed gate—the same one Cheong had shut and barred when she entered—only for the bastard to mutter loudly once more.
“These lowly things seem to have so much leisure that they can rest here? With a wildfire that could spread at any moment, why not just settle down and live here forever? You look like drowned rats; a beast pen would suit you perfectly.”
The veins on the guards’ foreheads bulged in unison. Had he not been a high expert, they would have struck him in the back of the head and stabbed him long ago. The reason they had not done so was not because he was their superior. In both East and West, the leading cause of death for combat unit commanders was betrayal by their own men.
With no other choice, the guards reluctantly bypassed the village. But the rising smoke made even Makseok crave a hot cup of tea. So after circling around, he looked at the wide-open northern gate and muttered loudly again.
“Ha, they have an injured man yet show no intention of treating him. Is this what you call camaraderie? These disloyal bastards—well, I already knew that about them.”
The veins on both sides of the guards’ foreheads bulged prominently. It was not a good sign. Usually the third vein meant it would soon sprout all over the body of the detestable superior.
And so the Golden Guards set foot inside the village. They carried the injured into a building with smoke rising from it, drew lots to form a search party, and gathered together—only to hear more muttering.
“The south gate is closed but no one is there, and the north gate is wide open, so they must have fled as soon as they saw the wildfire. If they ran without even putting out the fires in their houses, only one or two feeble old bastards too weak to move would be left. Are they making such a fuss because they’re afraid of that? Is this truly the attitude of warriors who serve His Majesty? How truly majestic it makes my heart feel.”
Muttering while they painstakingly prepared the lots was unbearably irritating. They wanted to kill him. But the guards had seen this act many times. If they had not drawn lots he would have grumbled that they were entering unfamiliar land without scouting. Since the order had come from above, they did not add this particular offense to their growing ledger of grudges.
Thus the guards stoked the weakened fire, wrung out their wet clothes and hung them up, and finally settled in for a long rest.