The Past- 3 years ago

  Xinyue sat across from General Yichen in his tent, Zixin and Haoran behind her on either side. Hongyi and Bowen are behind General Yichen. The anticipation in the room almost choked her. The two generals stared at each other from across the table, both wanting the other to speak first.

  Hongyi cleared his throat, and they all turned to glance at him. “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just waiting for this meeting to begin.” Even in this situation, he remained joking and lively.

  “As are we.” Haoran shot back from behind Xinyue, and Zixin elbowed him in the side. It wasn’t the time for hostility. The generals were meeting to reach an understanding, not to foster animosity.

  General Yichen crossed one foot over his knee and leaned back in his chair. “I guess we should begin with what you know.”

  “I know everything that you have told me.” Xinyue knew that there were gaps in her knowledge. She wouldn’t be able to fill them in without General Yichen’s help. The messenger they received from the Royal Court of Wu was sparse at best. She needed this meeting to go well to understand her role in this place. It was obviously far more than bandits.

  General Yichen raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Were you not given at least a briefing before you came all this way?”

  “Hm.” General Xinyue nodded. “We were told bandits were on the border threatening the people.”

  “That’s it?”

  Xinyue nodded. That was all she thought she needed to know when she had come here.

  This time, General Yichen turned to glance at Haoran and Zixin. “None of you were told anything about the situation? About the history of this place?”

  Zixin shook his head. “It’s rare for us to receive a messenger, and, even then, it is normally orders without much explanation.”

  Hongyi and Bowen glanced at each other. The answer seemed to make them uncomfortable.

  “I believe that to explain the situation, I may have to say some things that would make you and your subordinates uncomfortable.” General Yichen sighed. He sounded resigned, almost like he knew this conversation had to happen and wasn’t looking forward to it. “Excuse me for dropping etiquette.”

  “I understand. If it allows me to understand the situation, I won’t mind.” Xinyue was used to being treated differently; after all, she had a unique situation.

  “You are a member of the Wu Royal family, illegitimate or not, do you know nothing of your history?”

  Xinyue wasn’t expecting that and raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. “I wasn’t raised in the palace.”

  “Neither was I, I was raised in the temple.” General Yichen shrugged. “But I still was given all the information.”

  “You misunderstood. I was never raised in the palace, even before the temple.” Xinyue explained. “Before I was raised in my mother’s household.”

  Hongyi shifted from foot to foot, and Bowen put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  “I see. How much about the founding of the four kingdoms do you understand?”

  “General.” Bowen’s voice was low in warning, but General Yichen raised a hand to keep him from speaking further.

  Xinyue’s brows furrowed. The founding of the four kingdoms was a legend that all children were taught. It was a less-than-pleasant story with a tragic end, but it was a part of the history that made up the land. Why would the story have anything to do with the situation now?

  “I know that there are many discrepancies between various regions, and the Kingdoms as well have their own variation.” Xinyue shrugged. Being in the military and traveling to different places, Xinyue had heard several variations of the legend. It wasn’t surprising since the legend had sparked several tense moments between troops. Areas in Wu also had different ways that they thought the legend should be told.

  “General Xinyue, you know the basic story?” Bowen asked. He seemed to have resigned himself to General Yichen’s insistence that their secrets were to be told to General Xinyue.

  “Four different Spirits came to the earthly plane from Heaven. When they were here, they decided to bless the people, creating cultivators and temples. Later on, they had a falling out over the Piece of Heaven. They each created their own kingdom.” It was a short version without opinion or blame.

  “Do you believe that there is a Piece of Heaven? That still exists today?” General Yichen uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his elbows on the table in front of them.

  “No.”

  “You believe that it no longer exists?” Hongyi asked.

  “No, I never believed in it in the first place.” Hongyi blinked a few times and looked to Bowen for help to understand the General. He obviously hadn’t been counting on that answer. “I believe that the Piece of Heaven was a part of the legend that we, as the descendants, used to defend our ancestors’ actions,” Xinyue explained further. Xinyue believed in the gods, to an extent. She was raised in the temple and had grown up celebrating and praying to them. But it was difficult for her to really wrap her mind around all the atrocities she had seen, some of which had occurred in a God or Goddess’ name.

  “I see.” General Yichen looked genuinely taken aback by her answer. “Do you believe in the Heavens?”

  “Yes, it’s hard to say that we are not connected to the Heavens.” The unnatural color of her eyes and the rest of the royal family demonstrated the will of the Heavens. Even if Xinyue wanted to deny the presence of the gods, she couldn’t.

  “All beings are blessed by the Heavens as well as our Kingdoms. We must be thankful to the gods.” Xinyue raised an eyebrow at Bowen. She hadn’t expected the man to be so religious.

  “I am not sacrilegious, but I do think that the legend has been altered by people and time. A Piece of Heaven, if it were to exist, would have been found long ago.”

  General Yichen shifted a bit in his seat and turned to glance at Bowen. “What if it’s been hidden?”

  “Hidden?” Xinyue repeated. “Are you saying that the Spirits hid the Piece of Heaven? That it exists?”

  “To find the Piece of Heaven…” Zixin let his words trail off. He wouldn’t say out loud what they were all thinking. The Piece of Heaven was supposed to be an object of extreme power. To find such a thing would change the tide of any war; the kingdom that had it would be all-powerful.

  “Well, not the Spirits, not together. One of them.”

  “So it was the Tortoise who hid it!” Haoran’s outburst made Zixin cling to his arm. He tried to shush the man as he jumped to the conclusion that most citizens of the Wu Kingdom would make. After all, in the Wu Kingdom, they believed that the Mu Kingdom had stolen the Piece of Heaven all those centuries ago.

  Yichen raised an eyebrow at Haoran. “Not at all.” The response was automatic, without fanfare.

  “What?” Haoran deflated. His shock caused him not to address the General by title. He was certain that the Mu Kingdom had hidden it.

  “General.” Hongyi prompted Haoran, shaking him by his arm.

  “Ah, I apologize, General Yichen.” Haoran saluted, for once, he sounded sincere when speaking to the Long Kingdom’s General.

  “It’s understandable.” General Yichen nodded. He understood what the man was going through. “You are not the first person to react in such a way.” He turned and glanced back at Bowen, giving the man a meaningful glance. Bowen pursed his lips in response.

  “It was my ancestor who hid the Piece of Heaven.”

  “The Dragon, General?” Zixin could barely contain his shock, his voice becoming high-pitched as he called the man’s title. Out of all of the Spirits, the Dragon was the one that was the least vilified in the legend. Even the Mu Kingdom, whose legend believed that the Dragon was responsible for the Piece of Heaven going missing, believed that the Piece of Heaven was lost by the Dragon by accident.

  “Hm.” The General answered a bit flippantly. His eyes did not leave Xinyue’s face as he told her this bit of information. It was a secret of the Kingdom of Wu, and in that moment, Xinyue felt both scared and honored to be entrusted with such a thing.

  “So you know where the Piece of Heaven is hidden?” Haoran leaned forward with excitement. It was a logical conclusion.

  “But why haven’t you used it all this time?” Zixin wondered.

  “He doesn’t know.” Xinyue had already made the conclusion that General Yichen had yet to say. There was only one reason why the Long Kingdom hadn’t used the Piece of Heaven throughout the multiple kings that sat on the throne.

  “You’re right.” General Yichen shrugged and raised an eyebrow. He was still waiting for something from Xinyue, but she wasn’t sure just what.

  “The King of Long hasn’t told you?” Haoran asked.

  “No one knows.” Xinyue’s head hurt as all the gaps began to fill in by themselves. “That’s why the bandits are here.”

  “Yes.” General Yichen nodded. He didn’t even look the least bit ashamed that we withheld the information, instead, he looked satisfied that Xinyue put the pieces together without his help.

  “The bandits?” Zixin echoed Xinyue’s conclusion. He was still a step behind, the gaps hadn’t yet filled in for him.

  “The Piece of Heaven must have been hidden in these mountains, but the bandits also don’t know exactly where.” Xinyue filled Zixin in on what she had concluded. “It also explains why they’re cultivators.”

  “Right,” Hongyi snapped his fingers as it began to make sense, “The Piece of Heaven was supposed to ease the pain of people.”

  Bowen signed. “Not just people, cultivators in particular. Those who were blessed by the Spirits and are connected to the Heavens.”

  “To help them leave the temples. They would gain their freedom if they found it.” Xinyue could understand now why the Master answered the way he did. If the bandits did find the Piece of Heaven, all cultivators could be free of the temples. They would no longer have to be chained to the kingdoms.

  “And this is a bad thing?” Haoran put his hands slightly in the air as they all turned to look at him. “I know it would be bad for the royal families, but, well, it would save countless people and give them their freedom.”

  Xinyue had had the same thought. It may be treasonous, but there was a part of her that agreed with Haoran. She waited for General Yichen to correct him, but he didn’t say anything.

  “That is if the Piece of Heaven really did grant them freedom.” Hongyi tilted his head to the side as he inspected Haoran, it was if he was seeing the man for the first time. “Everything that we know about the stone is pure speculation.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  That was the problem, Xinyue realized. No one knew exactly how powerful the Piece of Heaven really was, they didn’t even know what it looked like. It could very well do nothing but be a pretty rock used as an excuse for the Spirits to fight with one another.

  “Did the Long Kingdom never try to find it?” Zixin was asking the right questions. How come the Piece of Heaven was never found in all the centuries that it was hidden?

  “We sent troops and various groups of people to these mountains looking for the Piece of Heaven, but it was never found. The lucky ones returned empty-handed, the unlucky ones never returned.” General Yichen said, and a cold wind seemed to blow through the tent. The hair on Xinyue’s neck stood up.

  “How did you know it was here?” Xinyue tapped a finger on her knee, her hands hidden from view beneath the table.

  General Yichen paused as if to consider his next choice of words. “There was a record.”

  “Written by whom?”

  There had to be a reason why the Dragon hid the Piece of Heaven, it wouldn’t make sense if he did it without a purpose. Every legend about the Dragon painted him in a good light. Throughout the centuries, that very legend had given an unknown amount of credibility to the Long Kingdom and its royal bloodline. This secret would change the four kingdoms as they knew them. General Yichen was entrusting them with something that could destroy his kingdom’s credibility.

  “We’re unsure,” Hongyi answered, his eyes shifting as he glanced at General Yichen. A lie.

  “Does the King of Wu know that it’s hidden here?” There had to be a reason why the King sent Xinyue to this place. The bandits were one thing, but Xinyue doubted that was the only reason.

  “All of the royals have some idea that the Piece of Heaven still exists.” General Yichen stared into Xinyue’s eyes. “The young princes and princesses are told at a young age.”

  There it was. The reason why Xinyue didn’t know and the reason that General Yichen hadn’t yet informed her of these facts.

  “You thought that as an illegitimate member, the King of Wu would have made an exception?” Haoran drew in a hiss when Xinyue referred to herself in such a way. It was rare for anyone to bring up Xinyue’s heritage, at least directly to her face. When Xinyue first joined the military, there were a few who dared to taunt her, but they were punished harshly. It was her duty as a General and a commanding officer to establish order. Her blood may be the reason for their censure, but it was also the reason for her position in the military.

  “I did.” General Yichen nodded, confirming Xinyue’s suspicions. “I thought he would have informed you. If not as a child, then now.”

  Xinyue thought back to her previous conversations with the General. “You didn’t trust me.”

  “I still don’t.”

  “Fair enough.” It wasn’t as if Xinyue trusted General Yichen either, but she respected him. She gathered that Yichen felt much the same way as her. Xinyue nodded to herself, respect is as good a point as any to start a partnership. “What happened in the village?”

  “The Magistrate had kept a copy of the records left to the Long Royals on the whereabouts of the Piece of Heaven. That is what he was trying to save when the building burned down.”

  “But they were missing?” Xinyue remembered the nervousness of the Magistrate, the fear in his eyes. She thought he was afraid of the General and his position as the Crown Prince, but what if he was scared of something else?

  “They could have been burned in the fire?” Zixin suggested.

  “It’s unlikely,” Bowen said, his voice firm. “All of the other records survived except that particular one? It would be highly improbable.”

  “Impossible,” Hongyi added. He looked at Zixin as if he were stupid, his eyebrow raised and his upper lip curled.

  Zixin shrugged. “All possibilities have to be addressed.”

  Hongyi’s face smoothed as he heard the explanation, and he started nodding to himself. He liked Zixin’s answer.

  “The farmer’s house.” Xinyue prompted. She wanted the conversation to remain on track. She still had more questions to ask and more answers to hear. “Why did they attack the farmer’s house?”

  Bowen shifted uncomfortably behind General Yichen.

  “The records.”

  “General-“ Bowen started, but was interrupted as Yichen continued.

  “The one who wrote them, their family remained in the area.”

  “So it wasn’t the Dragon who wrote them?” Xinyue checked. She had to make certain.

  “No. It was his aide, or at least we think it was his aide. They seemed close according to the record.”

  “And this record,” Xinyue decided to push her luck and see how much Yichen would reveal to her. “Does it say why the Dragon has the Piece of Heaven?”

  Yichen shook his head. “It didn’t.”

  “So the bandits went after the family for what? Revenge?” Haoran scrunched up his face. “But no one was killed? Not even maimed.”

  “We assume they looked in both the Magistrate’s office and the farmer’s house, checking for the records.” Yichen sighed and leaned back in his chair. “They found the ones in the Magistrate’s office. From what we gathered, the family had no idea about the records or their ancestry. The Magistrate is an old acquaintance of the King of Long. He was entrusted to this outpost in case the Piece of Heaven ever did appear.”

  “Did the record have more information? Information that could help the bandits?” Xinyue was trying to make sense of just how important these records were. They could possibly discredit the Long Royals, but did they carry enough information for the bandits to find the Piece of Heaven’s location?

  “We’ve tried to use the records over the years to varying levels of success. Some parties who came here and made it back used the records but didn’t find anything.” Yichen shrugged. “It may amount to nothing.”

  “Or it could have a clue that you’ve missed.” Xinyue grasped why Yichen had revealed this information. He was worried about what the bandit would find. He needed someone else to look at the record, to find what he may have missed. “You have a copy of the records with you.” It wasn’t a question. A man like General Yichen wouldn’t have come to these mountains without it.

  Yichen shifted and took the gold knife from his waist. The gold ball at the end of the hilt gleamed in the candlelight, and with one hand on the hilt, he twisted it. With a few twists, the ball came off the hilt. Turning the knife upside down, a small scroll fell from the container.

  It was small, but Yichen was a man of great cultivation.

  The room was enveloped in the magic as Yichen called to it, and it flowed throughout the space. Deep like the ocean, it rose and thudded into the small scroll. With a tiny flick of his fingers, Yichen unraveled it, and from the paper floated words. Thick with cultivation, the words glowed and swept through the space. In the air, they mingled and melded, making sentences and stories.

  “The aide must have been a cultivator of great power,” Xinyue said as the words poured out before her.

  “Hm.” Yichen agreed, his eyes bright and glowing softly with the magic.

  Xinyue glanced over the words and the story. It read much like what had been told to her as a child, except the person who wrote it wasn’t as biased. They wrote from an outsider’s perspective on the Spirits, not flattering them, but also condemning them. It wasn’t until Xinyue was almost at the end of the story that she took a pause.

  “He doesn’t agree with the Dragon.” It was subtle, but it was there. The aide’s opinion. It wasn’t just the words he used but the writing itself. The other strokes of ink were slow and deliberate. A historian who wasn’t part of the story itself, but, as he revealed the Dragon’s intent to hide the Piece of Heaven, he wrote faster, more slanted, and with more passion. The strokes of ink were rough, almost unhinged. It looked like he wanted to stop writing. Xinyue understood; she wrote like that in times of war. When she wanted to get done with her work quickly, she had to report the overall death count.

  “You think so?” Yichen had his eyebrows drawn, and he squinted at the words, trying to see what Xinyue saw.

  “It’s the way he writes.” Xinyue pointed at the words, at the sentences on the Piece of Heaven.

  Yichen looked over the writing with wide eyes as he saw what Xinyue could see.

  “General,” Zixin interrupted the two. “Take a look at this.”

  Zixin pointed to one of the lines. It floated in a paragraph before the record finished. “The Dragon is akin to water; his ire ebbs and flows as does his happiness. At times, he is as peaceful as a still water lake. At others, he is as angry as a roaring waterfall.” Zixin read aloud.

  “So?” Hongyi prompted.

  “What if the Dragon hid the Piece of Heaven by the water?” Zixin asked.

  “Yes, but where?” Hongyi exasperated. “There are a lot of places with water.”

  “But there are only a few lakes and waterfalls in this mountain range.” Xinyue grasped what Zixin meant. She leaned over the map of the area. “The farmer and his children were settled here.” She drew a circle with her index finger.

  “The Piece of Heaven would have to be close by.” Yichen put a hand on his chin, a smile on his face. “There is only one lake and a few waterfalls in the area. We can search tomorrow.”

  “Are we really going to do this? The aide could have just been remarking on the Dragon’s personality?” Hongyi whined.

  “We have to check every possibility. Besides, you don’t seem to have a better idea.” Haoran said, his arms crossed.

  Hongyi sighed.

  “He’s right,” Bowen affirmed with a nod of approval at Haoran. “We don’t have that much time, especially if the bandits also figure it out.”

  “But what if it isn’t?” Hongyi asked.

  “Then we at least know it’s not.” Bowen shrugged.

  “Okay. I’m in.” Hongyi grinned, his mood shifting like the wind.

  General Yichen looked at General Xinyue. Xinyue didn’t understand why he looked at her and what he expected. She tilted her head to the side in question.

  “General Xinyue, are you okay with the search tomorrow?” Yichen asked.

  “Yes, General Yichen.” Xinyue smiled under her veil. They had reached a new level of respect.

  “Great. We will keep it to only the members in this tent. See you tomorrow morning.”

  They were dismissed.