Always Be Careful with Fire
Having won the martial arts tournament, the fighter Tong Chang of the Imperial Noble Consort’s faction was granted a private audience with the Son of Heaven.
Watching it all unfold, Empress Ga Hwiryung’s nails sank into the soft inner flesh of her fan with a vicious crack.
The clamor of the banquet hall stabbed at her ears, yet her mind held room for only one man.
“Just who in the world is that madman?”
Her voice was cold and glacial. A pale hand smashed down upon the gold-ornamented table.
Anger and bewilderment warred across the face framed by a phoenix hairpin.
“……I do not know either, Mother.”
At his mother’s fury the Second Prince lowered his head, face rigid.
He had prided himself on knowing every last detail of the Imperial Noble Consort’s power base. Clearly a gaping hole had opened in their intelligence net.
A young master of that caliber had entered the enemy camp—and they had been utterly in the dark.
“Ah—Your Highness. From what I overheard a moment ago……”
One of the attendant Golden Guard experts spoke carefully.
Thanks to the arts he cultivated, his ears were sharper than most among the Golden Guard.
“That fellow’s name isn’t Tong Chang. It seemed to be Dan Mujin.”
The moment he heard the true identity, sparks flared in Second Prince Ju Gachi’s eyes.
“……What? Dan Mujin? That insolent troubleshooter who has obstructed this body’s every move has crawled in here?!”
The Second Prince’s face flushed purple in an instant. Enraged, he drove a clenched fist into the floor with a heavy thud.
“That insect dares set foot in the Imperial Palace……!”
He looked ready to vault onto the dais that very second and slaughter the man currently in private audience with the Emperor.
Then a Golden Guard came sprinting from afar, face frantic.
He shoved through the chaotic banquet throng with sheer force and threw himself down before the Empress.
“Your Majesty the Empress—disaster!”
This was the man she had hidden inside the Heavenly Treasury Pavilion against just such a contingency; the Empress’s expression turned ice-cold.
An unnameable dread crawled up her spine.
“A thief broke into the Heavenly Treasury Pavilion—and that madwoman opened the chest.”
“……What?”
The Empress’s heart plummeted.
Given the nature of the scheme they had been weaving, the entire Empress faction froze solid in an instant.
“And the thief? You killed her, I trust?”
She ground the words out between clenched teeth.
The Golden Guard could only shake his head, betraying her hope.
“That is…… she was seized by the Imperial Army experts before we could act and dragged straight to the prison…… Forgive me, Your Majesty.”
She would be executed according to procedure once she was inside, the man explained.
“You incompetent fool!”
The Empress, who always maintained perfect composure, lost her reason and shrieked.
The members of her faction flinched at the rare outburst.
“She may babble something before the sentence is carried out. Go at once and seal her mouth forever.”
She had no intention of shouldering unwanted aftermath or risk.
Slip in secretly, she ordered, and kill the thief under the guise of an accident.
“Yes! It shall be done without delay.”
The Golden Guard melted back into the crowd with a swift light-body technique.
In the interval the Empress sank into thought.
She fretted at her jade ring, then clicked her tongue as if resigning herself.
“This will not do. Inform His Majesty that I am unwell and somehow advance the banquet’s schedule.”
Intelligence said that before the closing of the assembly there would be a bestowal of gifts from the Emperor.
At her words the Second Prince nodded toward a subordinate Golden Guard.
“Deliver the message.”
“Yes!”
Another Golden Guard moved at once.
A plan that had been stacking up without a hitch now seemed to be lurching violently off course.
And the Second Prince had felt this exact sensation more than once before—always thanks to a certain someone.
“Dan Mujin……”
He fixed a murderous stare on the man upon the dais.
His eyes glittered with more killing intent than ever before.
Divine Thief Yang Yang leaned her back against the cold stone wall of the prison cell.
The pressure-point seal that had locked her throat rigid finally loosened only as evening fell. The moment her voice returned she began to scream at the top of her lungs until the whole dungeon rang.
Hidden inside the gift the Emperor had prepared, she shouted, was a monstrous thunder-bomb that had no business being there.
If they did not release her this instant, she threatened, exalted personages would be blown to pieces.
A passing Imperial Army jailer came out looking thoroughly fed up and opened his mouth.
“Tsk tsk, noisy little thing. You’ll say anything to stay alive. Are you claiming His Majesty intends to kill his own consorts with a thunder-bomb?”
He had already been warned something like this would happen; the jailer only sneered.
“How should I know! Just open the chest and check, I’m telling you! Maybe His Majesty didn’t plant it!”
Yang Yang waved both hands in frustration from behind the bars.
“Silence!”
The jailer slammed the iron bars with a bang, done listening.
The roar was so ferocious that Yang Yang flinched and retreated.
“Besides—if I lay a hand on the Emperor’s property and nothing turns up, my head rolls on the spot. You want me to stake my neck on the word of some common thief? Do I look that crazy?”
Yang Yang had nothing left to say.
Even she had to admit betting your life on a criminal’s claim was no easy choice.
“Damn it all. So what happens now? From the look of that ignition device earlier, there wasn’t much time left……”
Inside the massive chest had been a complex mechanism of the sort one only saw in secret caves.
She had hoped that saving the lives of the high and mighty might buy her some chance of survival.
At this rate the last person to have touched the thing—herself—would be branded with a false charge and lose her head.
Is Divine Thief Yang Yang’s head going to end up hanging in the street like this?
The original plan had never been this. Her grand theft had been completely wrecked after she blundered into some incomprehensible imperial conspiracy.
When Dan Mujin had drawn everyone’s eyes earlier she had thought things were finally going well. How had it come to this?
She heaved a long sigh and rested her forehead against the sturdy bars.
That was when it happened. The moment the jailer’s figure vanished at the far end of the corridor, a black-clad figure seeped out of the shadows of the setting sun as if materializing from nowhere.
Face wrapped in black cloth, a small jar held in one hand—an unidentified man in black.
His movements were nothing like those of trained soldiers; they were those of an assassin. Yang Yang’s instincts screamed that something was terribly wrong.
“Wh-who are you?”
The black-clad man gave no answer. He quietly opened the lid of the jar.
An oily smell wafted up. At his waist hung a fire-starter.
The connection between the two items hit her; she realized his purpose and could only scream.
“Eek! S-save me! There’s an arsonist in here! An innocent thief is going to die……! Somebody, pleaseee……!”
She rattled the bars with all the strength she had left as a baby and even flung out palm force loaded with qi, yet the Imperial Palace prison was so solid not a single scratch appeared.
And the jailer, thoroughly sick of her screeching, showed no sign of approaching.
“These bars are forged with ten-thousand-year cold iron to hold the likes of you. Die quietly with your secret.”
The black-clad man smiled thinly behind the cloth.
“Th-that’s insane. My end is burning to death in a prison cell? N-no! Somebody, please! I’ll serve you for the rest of my life!”
Intent on killing her under cover of a fire, the black-clad man poured oil in a thick stream through the bars.
Then click!—he struck a spark with the fire-starter. Yang Yang scrambled to the far end of the cell.
“H-hey. Let’s talk a minute. I won’t tell a soul. I look talkative but I’m actually tight-lipped, okay? Not Divine Thief Yang Yang—Silent Yang Yang, that’s me!”
“Fool. Your petty greed for treasure made you learn far too much.”
Opening the golden chest in the Heavenly Treasury Pavilion was what had brought her to this, it seemed.
But the realization came too late. The black-clad man, flame cupped in his hand, lowered himself toward the oil-soaked floor.
“Farewell, thief.”
“Eeeek, is anybody there?! Please, anybodyyy!”
Her cry rebounded off the prison walls in a long echo, yet no one came to save her.
Just as despair swallowed Yang Yang and the tiny flame was about to touch the oil—
“Whoa there, watch the fire!”
Thud!
A dull impact sent the black-clad man crumpling forward. Behind him stood a tall, handsome young man wearing a crooked grin.
“D-Dan Mujin?”
At the appearance of someone she had never imagined, Divine Thief Yang Yang’s eyes went round as saucers.
Why was he here in the middle of a prison when he ought to be at the Imperial Banquet? And to save a full-fledged criminal, no less.
She could only blink for a long moment, too stunned for words.
“Hey, what are you doing in there?”
Dan Mujin scratched his chin and grinned, looking thoroughly amused by her oil-soaked, bedraggled rat appearance.
“M-Mujin! Waaaah!”
Relief and some nameless emotion surged up together; she forgot her age and burst into childish tears.
Dan Mujin flinched and took a step back.
“What the—why’s she suddenly like this?”
“Hic, but the tears just come out! I really thought I was going to burn to death!”
She sniffled, reeking of oil and soaked through, muttering how scared and miserable she had been.
Dan Mujin shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it and walked up to the bars.
Back on Mount Emei she had swaggered that she was no ordinary thief but Divine Thief Yang Yang—all that tough-girl act, and now this.
Clack. Clink.
Dan Mujin drew a prison key from his robes and began unlocking the cold-iron-reinforced cell door.
The bars that had not budged no matter how hard she pounded them now swung open with a hollow creak right in front of her face.
Yang Yang startled.
“……Hey, where’d you get that key? Don’t tell me you beat up a jailer and stole it?”
If so, he had assaulted Imperial troops and broken out a criminal—he would become a wanted heavy offender himself.
Yang Yang herself didn’t care about such things in a thief’s life, but a troubleshooter who had even opened a business in Beijing? Why would he do this?
“What? Beat him up? Hell no. You think I’m a criminal like you?”
Dan Mujin shook his head left and right as if the idea were ridiculous.
Yang Yang’s head was still spinning, but the instant the iron door opened she shot out and launched herself at the black-clad man who had tried to burn her alive.
“You pure-evil bastard! Trying to burn a lovely young lady to death, huh?! You heartless, tearless piece of shit!”
A woman’s kicks rained down without pause on the unconscious man’s body.
Dan Mujin watched the revenge in silence for a while, then tilted his head and spoke.
“So who is this guy anyway? Why go so far as to set a fire just to kill you?”
Still not finished venting, Yang Yang gave him a couple more kicks before answering.
“How should I know! He shows up all wrapped in black and suddenly starts pouring oil……!”
She yanked off the hood to reveal a middle-aged face, still shuddered as if she had no idea who he was, and kept slapping until she was out of breath. Only then did her anger seem to ease; she panted her way over to Dan Mujin.
Looking unused to saying such things as a thief, she fidgeted, then finally forced out words of thanks.
“Anyway, uh…… thanks for saving me. Honestly I never thought you’d help me.”
When he had first uncovered her identity they had agreed each had their own business and shouldn’t get involved.
Somehow the two of them had become thoroughly entangled.
“Hey, thief. What kind of thanks is that? Can’t you put a little more heart into it? Huh? Bow so deep I can see the top of your head. You know what I paid to get you out?”
Dan Mujin milked every last drop of credit, preening and demanding deeper gratitude.
The attitude was a bit annoying, but she really had received enormous help, so she obediently displayed the crown of her head in thanks.
“Tch, I’m just not good with words, okay? It is sincere gratitude. And…… what price did you pay?”
Come to think of it, Dan Mujin had walked all the way into the deep prison where martial artists were held, yet there was not a single sign of fighting.
It looked as if he had simply strolled in through the front gate.
“The martial arts tournament—I ended up winning it. When the Emperor told me to name any wish I wanted, I asked if he could get you out of prison.”
“……!”
At Dan Mujin’s bombshell confession Yang Yang’s mouth fell open and she lost the power of speech.
What was wrong with this guy? The Emperor himself offers any wish you desire, and he spends that chance on someone whose face he’s only seen a few times?
Had he completely lost his mind?
“W-why go that far…… for me?”
The question rose naturally. From the way he had acted on Mount Emei she knew he was a decent person to some degree.
But this was something else. This went beyond common sense.
“Y-y-you…… don’t tell me you’ve fallen for me?”
It was the most plausible explanation she could invent.
Divine Thief Yang Yang stammered on, still unable to hide her fluster.
“Th-that would be a problem. As you know, this body has grand ambitions as a Divine Thief, so s-settling down and starting a family……”
“You’re the one spinning wild misunderstandings all by yourself. Annoying. Maybe I should’ve just left you.”
Dan Mujin scratched his cheek with an awkward look.
Realizing it had been a misunderstanding, Yang Yang flushed bright red and yelled.
“Ha! I was just saying it, okay? Just because you’re a little handsome doesn’t mean you get to act all high and mighty!”
Unable to control her emotions, she kicked his leg a few times.
“I just…… wanted to reach the Transcendent Realm, so I saved you. Take it however you want.”
Dan Mujin laid his true motive bare.
Yang Yang looked him up and down as if asking what nonsense that was.
What did that even mean—wanting to reach the Transcendent Realm? Did performing good deeds raise one’s martial realm or something?
“Ha, please. What kind of martial art is that?”
People commit evil because it benefits them.
But good deeds can also bring benefit? If a martial art like that ever spread, the Central Plains would turn into a perfect Peach Blossom Paradise overnight.
In short, the story made no sense.
Still full of questions, Yang Yang walked out of the prison side by side with Dan Mujin in bold strides.
Outside, the sunset was already spreading; the sun was going down.
Time had flown by. Then, suddenly remembering something she had forgotten in the face of imminent death by fire, she urgently slapped Dan Mujin’s shoulder.
“Oh—right! Mujin, what happened with the Imperial Banquet?”
“……What do you mean, what happened? They’re about to close it soon, I think? Once the Emperor hands out the gifts he prepared……”
“Gasp—that chest!”
Yang Yang suddenly clapped her knee as if struck by lightning. Dan Mujin tilted his head.
“What chest all of a sudden?”
“The chest the Emperor is giving as gifts to his consorts! Th-there’s a thunder-bomb planted inside it! That’s why that bastard almost burned me!”
And attached to it, she said, was a timed mechanism that would spark a flame after a set period—ready to explode at any moment.
“What……?”
The Heavenly Killing Star could sense only a person’s murderous intent. There was no way it could notice a chemical reaction in an inanimate object.
In other words, they were screwed.
“Son of a bitch! Why are you only telling me this now?!”
“B-because I only just remembered!”
“Damn it!”
The instant he heard it, Dan Mujin took off at full speed.