Ashes to Crown

Chapter 123: Chapter 79: Hearsay

The young lady of this family was about fifteen or sixteen. Like the rest of her relatives, she was decked out in gold and silver. Her eyes were large and bright. She called over a waiter and ordered another pot of wine.

’Who would’ve thought? These country folk can really drink.’ The waiter glanced at the table. Almost everyone had a pot of wine, except for the boy and girl who were around ten years old. Even the old woman with graying hair and dim eyes had one.

The waiter brought the wine. The young lady didn’t keep it for herself, but instead handed it to the eager young boy.

”When you’re away from home, not only must you not let people look down on your food and clothes, you must also be polite,” the young lady said seriously in a low voice. ”This is what my aunt taught me. Go on, give the wine to them, and then ask them for information.”

The boy happily took the wine, grabbed the girl’s hand, and ran to the neighboring table.

”Sirs,” he called out, offering the wine. ”Please, have some wine.”

A group of travel-worn merchants was sitting there, chatting about everything under the sun. They were surprised to be suddenly interrupted, and even more surprised to see the two children and the wine.

”Why are you treating us to wine?” one of the merchants asked, glancing at the other table.

He had noticed the family the moment he entered—it was impossible not to. The whole group was glittering with gold.

”My name is Little Rabbit,” the boy said generously. ”You’re from the Capital City. I just overheard you talking about things in the capital, and it was all so new to me. I haven’t heard enough. Could you tell me more?”

’So that’s why.’ The merchants all smiled. Children always loved hearing fresh news from the outside world, especially from the Capital City.

One merchant said, ”There hasn’t been much news lately, aside from the Third Prince’s literary gathering. Or rather, how a group of young women forced their way through the gates of the Third Prince’s literary gathering.”

Little Rabbit immediately nodded. ”Let’s hear about that.” He patted the head of the little girl beside him. ”This is my younger sister, Qing Ting. I want her to listen and see what the girls in the Capital City are up to.”

His sister Qing Ting, who wasn’t even as tall as the table, looked at the merchant with wide, shining eyes and nodded vigorously.

Children from a wealthy family, and so polite too—who could refuse? The merchants smiled and began to talk, not stopping until they had finished their wine and food and had to leave to continue their journey.

Little Rabbit listened to his heart’s content. He thanked the merchants, then pulled his sister back to their table.

”Sister Xiao Man, you were wrong about everything,” he said, his face alight with excitement.

Xiao Man snorted, focusing on gnawing a pig’s trotter. ”How was I wrong?” she mumbled.

”You said Chu Zhao was only brave in her own territory,” Little Rabbit said. ”That after leaving the Border County and coming to the Capital City, she’d be a nobody and would hide at home, too afraid to go out. But now, everyone is talking about Chu Zhao.”

”Chu Zhao dares to fight,” Qing Ting added from the side.

Little Rabbit continued, ”She beat up some young lady right after arriving in the capital. After the fight, she even blocked the lady’s gate and cursed her out. Then she dared to fight the Third Prince, fight with scholars, and she actually won! The Third Prince is scared of her now. He invited her to the literary gathering to keep fighting.”

He spoke with great animation. He admired people who could fight. Sister Xiao Man always said that Chu Zhao only knew how to eat, drink, and play around while pretending to be a proper lady.

’Do you know what it means to pretend to be a proper lady? It means when someone curses at you, you just give them a placating smile. When someone hits you, all you do is cry. No matter how urgent the journey, you never ride a horse, only a carriage. Your hands only hold a needle and thread, never a blade, spear, or bow. You only have one thing on your mind: what kind of man you’ll marry. Then you have sons and raise daughters, and for your whole life, you’re just known by the title of ”proper lady,” and no one even knows your real name.’

’That’s so boring.’ He hadn’t been interested in this Chu Zhao at all.

But he hadn’t expected to hear Chu Zhao’s name before they even reached the Capital City. And whenever someone mentioned her, everyone else would chime in, as if they all knew her.

Not even this many people knew Chu Zhao back in the Border County.

Xiao Man frowned. She didn’t quite understand what was going on either. ’Logically, this shouldn’t be happening. It was one thing for Chu Zhao to rely on her father back in the Border County, but to think she’d still have this much nerve after coming to the capital... Daring to fight a Prince, no less.’

”Of course she would. Just look at who her mother is,” the old woman said with a chuckle from the side. ”Your aunt was just like that. Quiet and gentle as a child, but when it came time to fight, she was fiercer than anyone.”

Xiao Man pouted. ”How can she compare to Auntie?” She tossed down the pig’s trotter. ”Alright, let’s get a move on. We’ll go see for ourselves what’s really going on with her.”

The group paid their bill, packed their luggage, and set off. As they traveled, Little Rabbit rushed to the very front, eager to go see Chu Zhao fight.

”It’ll be over if we’re late, won’t it?” he urged as he spoke. ”Sister Xiao Man, ride faster!”

Xiao Man was sitting behind him on the horse.

Xiao Man reached out, pushed his head to face forward, and said, ”I only allowed you to ride with me. If you start giving orders again, you can go sit in the carriage.”

Little Rabbit muttered, ”Sister Chu Zhao definitely isn’t as fierce as you.”

Xiao Man scoffed. ”Oh, so it’s ’Sister’ now? In that case, you can just stay in the Capital City. Don’t bother coming back.”

Although he was very curious about this ’Sister Chu Zhao,’ the thought of leaving his home and family was too much for Little Rabbit. He obediently offered Xiao Man a placating smile. ”My dear sister, I was wrong. When we get back, I’ll help you beat up Third Brother.”

The brother and sister bickered, but as they left the flat, main road and entered a mountain gorge, their chatter stopped, and they both looked ahead.

A group of about seventeen or eighteen people stood at the foot of the steep mountain cliffs. Some were squatting by the roadside, some stood on the cliffs, and one man on horseback blocked the center of the road. Holding sabers and carrying spears, they all looked fierce and menacing.

”We’ve finally been waiting for you,” the burly man in the lead shouted fiercely, pointing his saber at the caravan of carts, horses, young, and old.

’These country bumpkins... even their carriage is adorned with silver bells. The reflection in this valley is so bright you can barely open your eyes. It’s like they’re afraid people *won’t* know a fat sheep has arrived.’

They had been watching these country bumpkins ever since they entered the city. The longer they watched, the more their mouths watered. They had hastily gathered their men to wait here, worried that some other group of bandits would beat them to it.

’A fat sheep this rare is truly a gift from the heavens.’

”Drop everything you have! Not even the clothes on your backs are to be kept. Otherwise, we can’t guarantee your lives,” the leader yelled with a savage grin.

The surrounding bandits let out strange cries. They weren’t afraid of their targets turning back to run. ’Run? In this valley, there’s no escape, even if they grew wings.’

The country bumpkins grew restless, and a cacophony of voices arose—men, women, old, and young. But it didn’t sound like crying or screaming... it was also a series of strange cries?

They started whipping their horses, but not to flee. They were charging—

HUH?

The bandits were stunned for a moment. ’Are they trying to charge through? With what? Those seven or eight scrawny servants? The teenage girl? The ten-year-old children? Or the old man and woman in the carriage?’

The carriage sped forward, its curtain flying up. Inside, the old woman’s gray hair flew about wildly. She looked pathetic and pitiful, but suddenly, she raised her hand—

’What’s that?’ The bandit chief’s eyes went wide. He felt like *he* was the one with dim eyes. ’Did I just see an iron flute?’

Amidst the strange cries, he thought he heard a TING as the old woman brought the iron flute to her lips, and a dart shot out from it—

’How could it be a dart? It must be fake, right?’

Closer and closer it came—

”It’s real!”

Those were the bandit chief’s last words on earth. As he spoke them, his body flew into the air and crashed to the ground, only to be trampled by horse hooves a moment later.

Following the dart, the group—old and young alike—charged into the throng of bandits. Drawing sabers, spears, swords, and halberds from goodness knows where, they began cutting the bandits down as easily as slicing melons.

”When you’re away from home, you must have the best food and clothes. Not only does it keep people from looking down on you, but it also attracts fat sheep—”

”These bandits in the Central Plains are no good. We’ve been showing off this whole way, and only this handful showed up.”

”Sister Xiao Man, these bandits look really poor.”

”Even if they’re poor, we rob them! Don’t forget our rule: a thief never leaves empty-handed!”

”You bandits! Drop everything you have! Not even the clothes on your backs are to be kept. As for your lives—you can’t keep those either.”

In the twilight of the valley, the sounds of fighting and screaming were endless.

...

...

Nightfall concealed the bloodshed, which was not discovered until dawn.

When the local officials arrived, they saw more than a dozen corpses, stripped of every scrap of clothing, laid out stark naked and neatly by the roadside.

Besides the bodies, bloodstains, severed limbs, and tracks from a carriage and horses, nothing was left at the scene.

No, that wasn’t entirely true.

A government officer picked a silk flower from the hair of one of the corpses.

”How bizarre.”

The head official looked at the dead body on the ground. Though he’d never seen it stripped naked before, the face was not unfamiliar. There was a wanted poster for him hanging on the city gates right now.

This was the chief of a group of bandits that had plagued the area for years.

”Why does it look like this group of bandits was robbed?”

The official reached out and took the silk flower. Being a man of wide experience, he recognized it at a glance as a cotton flower.

”Since when did this bandit develop a habit of wearing flowers?”

Strange things happen every year, but this year has been especially full of them.

First, there were the young women of the Capital City competing with men, and now there’s a male bandit wearing a flower in his hair in death.