Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 182: The Flame Capital

The Flame Capital was not far from Ning Province. Xiao Province lay to Ning’s west and Ming Province to its east, with the Flame Capital located in Ming.

After the dynasty moved south, the land around a bend in the Great River was separated from Ming Province and placed under the direct administration of Chengtian Prefecture. Chengtian comprised Shangyuan, Baixia, and Guining Counties. Shangyuan formed the left half of the Flame Capital and Baixia the right.

Ding Songyan stood at the edge of the flying vessel and gazed down at the vast, magnificent city below.

Beneath the afternoon sun, the Great River curved northward here before surging east. The imperial city stood in the northern part of the capital, with the inner palace to its west and the Three Departments, Six Ministries, and Nine Offices to its east. High officials and nobles all lived around it.

Farther south within the city lay a lake called Golden Pool. Though not large, it thronged with visitors and clustered boats. Three rivers entered it from the west and south, merged into one, then wound out of the city through Yukan Water Gate in the northeast before rejoining the Great River.

Ding Songyan had heard that at night, pleasure boats lit their lanterns along the river between Golden Pool and Yukan Water Gate. Music drifted endlessly between the banks, accompanied by the fragrance of rouge and powder. It was one of the Flame Capital’s great sights and the epitome of mortal bustle.

Merchants filled the western city, where pavilions and towers often exceeded the limits prescribed for them. Workshops covered the east, and strange mechanical creations were a common sight. Numerous markets occupied the south, which brimmed most strongly with the smoke and warmth of ordinary life.

As Ding Songyan admired the passing crowds with the Candle-Star Pupils, he suspected the Flame Capital held more than 1 million people.

Suddenly, he spotted three enormous waterwheels beside the river north of the city. They stood 65 to 69 meters tall, perhaps even as high as 77. All were currently motionless, forming a sharp contrast with their busy counterparts in the eastern suburbs.

”What are those?” Ding Songyan asked Master Granduncle Wang beside him.

Wang Zhou followed the direction of his finger and chuckled.

”High waterwheels. During summer, they draw water from the river and spray it toward the imperial city to dispel the heat.”

Artificial rain? Ding Songyan considered this before asking, ”Isn’t it dirty?”

Wang Zhou stared blankly for a moment before answering, ”They spray only the eastern side, not the palace. During the summer heat, capable people summon rain over the palace grounds instead.”

According to the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas, many divine monsters and strange beasts could flood the world or bring rain across the Eight Wilds. But heaven and earth had been severed for thousands of years. No martial art, even cultivated to its utmost limit, could still achieve such feats. Many martial artists could nevertheless influence a single city or part of one. They simply required extensive preparations, unlike Heaven-Man Realm Supreme Masters, who could do so with casual ease.

Before long, the flying vessel landed on the drill ground in the western suburbs. Ding Songyan hung back and blended in among his senior brothers and sisters as he followed Master Granduncle Wang to the ground.

They were welcomed by the sect’s Grandmaster Yang Dongsheng, several disciples who had been serving as guards at Prince Kang’s estate, and a pale, beardless eunuch with an effeminate air and a fly whisk in hand.

Yang Dongsheng stepped forward to greet his master uncle, Wang Zhou, then gave Ding Songyan and the others a deliberately casual nod.

In private, he was deeply grateful to his martial nephew, Ding Songyan. He had wanted to return to the Brightnight Sect since this time last year and use Ding’s annotated Celestial Stars Scripture to improve several alien apertures and nonhuman viscera. He hoped this would take him a step further and make him a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster.

He was only in his forties, still in the prime of life. He had once believed this was as far as his martial path would take him. At most, years of painstaking effort might reveal a few more external apertures and let him advance another step or two. Now, however, the perfected Dharma Realm seemed entirely conceivable, and even the Heaven-Man Realm might not lie beyond hope. That would have to wait until Martial Nephew Ding entered the Heaven-Man Realm and finished perfecting the Celestial Stars Scripture and Candlelit Nocturne Sutra.

The square-faced Yang Dongsheng did not speak to Ding Songyan. He had spent three years in the Flame Capital and was not familiar with this martial nephew. Seeking him out for a conversation would easily arouse suspicion.

Ding Songyan stood among the crowd and silently examined everyone present with the Candle-Star Pupils.

The identity the Brightnight Sect had constructed for him was that of a martial prodigy. He already possessed a foundation in body tempering and qi cultivation, then condensed every human aperture in the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra within a little over half a year of joining the sect. Like Zheng Zhuxi, he subsequently reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm in one year and seven months. He had come to broaden his horizons in the Flame Capital before traveling the jianghu next summer.

At that point, Ding Songyan could reveal his Dharma Realm strength. Becoming a Grandmaster in less than a year would be astonishing, but the histories of the major sects and schools all contained similar figures.

Some people could struggle their entire lives without entering the Dharma Realm. Others needed a full ten years to become Grandmasters, while a rare few could accomplish it in two years or even one.

People were simply built differently!

After seeing Yang Dongsheng and the departing disciples off, Ding Songyan and the others followed the eunuch Zhang Dou into the Flame Capital through its western gate.

Crowds packed the city, filled with people of every description. The senior brothers and sisters beside Ding Songyan were all widely traveled and experienced, yet even they were dazzled by the sights.

There were nearly four-meter-tall Kuafu, the Hollowbreasted with great holes through their torsos, the Forked-Tongue with long divided tongues, the Boneless with only one arm and one leg and bodies as supple as silk, the Fire-Shunners performing fire-breathing tricks beside the street, and the Di bouncing along on their fish tails. These and countless others mingled with remarkable ease amid the city’s everyday bustle.

When they saw a Hollowbreasted too lazy to walk place a pole through the hole in his chest and hire two men to carry him to the market, one at either end, Ding Songyan and the others fell silent.

Prince Kang’s estate was not in the city’s north. It stood far from the inner palace on Lotus Whisper Street, in the western city near the southern quarter.

The entire street belonged to the estate.

They entered the estate through a side gate and were shown to a flower hall. Wang Zhou, Ding Songyan, and the others waited only fifteen minutes before a group entered.

The man leading them was around thirty and stood 1.8 meters tall. He had bronze skin and bore some resemblance to Zheng Ziming around the eyes and brows. His strong, sharply defined features were undeniably handsome, while his shrewd and capable bearing concealed a hint of scholarly refinement.

He wore a golden crown and a bright red brocade robe embroidered with a divine man treading upon a dragon. Thick animal fur was clearly visible on his neck and the backs of his hands.

Upon seeing him, Wang Zhou stepped forward and offered a solemn salute.

”Wang Zhou of the Brightnight Sect greets Your Highness.”

Ding Songyan and the others followed suit.

Prince Kang, Hong Jingyuan, laughed heartily.

”Senior Wang, there is no need for such ceremony.

”The Brightnight Sect and I are family. You need not be so formal.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ding Songyan discreetly swept the Candle-Star Pupils across the prince and everyone around him.

Nothing was amiss.

Even so, Ding Songyan froze briefly during his inspection. The man standing behind Hong Jingyuan to the right had a truly extraordinary appearance.

His face did not merely resemble a bird’s; he had the head of one, crane-like and single-horned, though its features approached a human’s. His beak was white, and his body was human in shape, but cyan feathers marked with red covered parts of his skin.

The Niao clan of Yanchang... The name abruptly surfaced in Ding Songyan’s mind.

The Yanchang were one of the Hundred Species. They had avian heads and human bodies and used Niao as their clan name. They cultivated inheritances derived from strange birds with great ease.

This man had clearly cultivated a Bifang inheritance.

Combining the man’s appearance with information from the Brightnight Sect and Zheng Zhuxi, Ding Songyan already knew his identity.

Heaven-Scorching Flame Niao Jingbai, a first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster who cultivated the Calamitous Fire Scripture.

Excluding its guest advisers, Prince Kang’s estate had ten Grandmasters of its own. Four stood clearly above the rest and were Hong Jingyuan’s trusted confidants. Niao Jingbai was one of them.

Ding Songyan’s gaze moved on and found another man.

He stood at 1.9 meters tall and had a heavy build with an endearingly guileless face. The skin of his body was yellowish, while his face was sickly pale, making his approximate age difficult to judge. He wore a dark cyan cotton robe, and a longsword in a fish-scale sheath hung at his waist.

Ice Divine Sword Shi Mantian, another first-rank Spirit Resonated Grandmaster and one of Hong Jingyuan’s four chief confidants... Ding Songyan recalled his senior sister’s introduction in her letter.

Shi Mantian had been a Grandmaster of the Mortal Mountain School, one of New Yu’s leading factions. When the junior sister he had grown up with married someone else, he left the school in anger, traveled south to the Flame Capital, and entered Prince Kang’s service.

Had his junior sister not always regarded him solely as an elder brother without ever showing the slightest romantic interest, he likely would have challenged her husband to a deathmatch.

He cultivated the Mortal Mountain School’s Far North Scripture and was renowned throughout the world for the Great Snow Divine Sword and Ice Soul Finger.

Ding Songyan found the prospect extremely tempting. He very much wanted to spar with Shi Mantian and use the experience to create his own Four Seasons Sword Art.

From Shi Mantian’s physical abnormalities and the traits of his art, Ding Songyan had long since found the corresponding entry in the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Wenlin, shaped like a boar with a yellow body, white head, and white tail. The result of consuming it? Grants command over cold and heat, the power to level mountain forests, the ability to soar thousands of miles, and dominion over the world’s gales.

At the same time, Ding Songyan recalled the entries related to the Bifang.

Bifang, shaped like a crane with one leg, a cyan body patterned in red, and a white beak. The result of consuming it? Grants the power to kindle wildfires and set the wilderness ablaze.

Bifang Deity, a Bifang with a human face. The result of consuming it? Grants command over calamitous flame and disastrous smoke, the power to reflect the constellations, and the ability to drive the Celestial Thearch’s chariot.

Judging from Niao Jingbai’s human-like features and the name Calamitous Fire Scripture, he cultivates the Bifang Deity’s heritage... Ding Songyan did not look any longer, lest someone notice.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Wang Zhou, Hong Jingyuan gave Ding Songyan and the others a slight nod, then left the flower hall with his confidants and attendants.

”His Highness is too courteous,” Wang Zhou remarked softly.

The eunuch Zhang Dou smiled upon hearing this.

”The Brightnight Sect is family. How could His Highness treat you like ordinary guests?

”Senior Wang, I will take you to a private courtyard shortly. Feel free to ask for anything you need.

”His Highness will not disturb you under ordinary circumstances. If something arises, he will send someone to invite you. You may spend your days however you please, provided you do not go far. If you wish to wander farther afield, simply inform us servants in advance so we can find you if anything urgent occurs.”

Once Wang Zhou had finished exchanging courtesies, Zhang Dou addressed the two female disciples,

”Heroines, you will be assigned to the inner court and charged with protecting the prince’s consorts. The work should not be too strenuous.”

Prince Kang had one principal consort and two secondary consorts. His principal consort was a disciple of the Five Saints Sect and, like Hong Jingyuan, had reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm as a third-rank Form Transfigured martial artist.

After the two female disciples accepted their assignments, Zhang Dou smiled at Ding Songyan and the others.

”Young Heroes, you three will serve as guards, patrolling and watching over the courtyards. You will have two days off every ten. Is that acceptable?”

Two days off every ten? That does not sound as leisurely as Senior Sister claimed... I have ended up working a job after all... Ding Songyan grumbled inwardly but raised no objection.

Seeing that none of them objected, Zhang Dou summoned a young eunuch.

”Zhang Quan, take these three young men to their respective courtyards and have someone familiarize them with the estate’s affairs.”