Chương 35: 22.2. The Han Dukedom

"Oh?" Rozaline looked at the departing figure behind Han Ci. Then she looked back down at the low table filled with dishes. Some cooked fish from the north, leaves emitting the scent of spiritual herbs and a tantalising few slices of dragon meat.

"Something wrong?" Tang Qingyu stuck her head from the next table lined up on the side, trying to get a closer look.

"My, my, nothing, I think our senior brother just ignored us."

"Senior Damarius?"

"No, Senior brother Faust."

"Senior brother Faust?" Qingyu mulled it over for a few moments, fiddling with her hair for a moment.

"Ah! The one you introduced to us, but who promptly left and said he'd rather die than get involved in our conversation!"

"I didn't think you'd remember him." Rozaline thought back, Faust was better known among the lower and middle ranked disciples rather than the high and top performing disciples.

"So. What about him?!" Qingyu demanded, sitting back at her seat.

"Oh, I just thought I saw him." Rozaline shrugged the question off.

"You… Really? Here?" Qingyu looked around. The two stopped talking and turned to face the seat at the front and center of the hall. Duke Han, a large framed man with dark hair, smiled gently at his only grandson, Han Ci, who bowed with a slight tremor, a dark robed old woman helping support him on the side.

"Please, please, sit." Duke Han insisted, even standing up to help his grandson take a seat beside him, taking over the dark robed woman's role.

"Have you been alright sonny?" The duke asked, returning to his seat at the front of the hall.

"Indeed. I even met an interesting person today, he should be…" Han Ci looked around before frowning, "nevermind, I thought he was behind me."

"Should I go bring him back?" The dark robed old woman asked, hiding in the shadows behind the tables. Han Ci shook his head.

"As he said before, those of humble background aren't as inclined to such gatherings. It won't be late to invite him another time."

"They must have been truly knowledgeable for the young master to say such things." The second prince raised his cup gently on the table to the duke's right. He wore a golden leaf crown and gold trimmed, vibrant purple robes with dragons fighting in the clouds embroidered across it.

"Indeed." Han Ci smiled back at the second prince, also raising his cup.

"So, you met someone interesting?" The princess, whose table was to the left of the main one, asked curiously, leaning over it. She was dressed in black and gold robes that seemed to droop a little too low, revealing her shoulders and cleavage, with her hair tied up with long golden pins and thin drains adorned with tiny jewels. Han Ci hesitated, looking at the princess for a moment before redirecting his gaze away and slowly nodding.

"A scholar came to document my condition for future scholars. But he was well learned in many fields. It was delightful." The princess nodded along, not continuing. Rozaline shifted her gaze to the princess's side. A shorter green haired girl in white robes with a small snake wrapped around her arm was looking around, her eyes darting across the floor and furniture but timidly avoiding meeting anyone's gaze. Who was that? She wondered.

She had received a brief update on the capital and all the parties attending this banquet, but she hadn't heard anything about this green haired girl.

"Do you know who the green haired girl is?" Rozaline whispered to Qingyu beside her. Qingyu shook her head.

"Nothing. But she definitely isn't from any of the top thousand clans of the capital."

"Oh, you're so sure?" Qingyu shrugged, "herbs, mucus, bloods, creatures, venoms, medicines… Poison is basically just memorisation. What's a few thousand names and faces?"

"Hmm…" Rozaline looked to the other side. Bu Yuanzhi, wearing a pink robe embroidered with golden cranes, calmly sipped a cup of tea. He didn't turn towards her but smirked. Several other nobles and clan representatives nearby perked their ears up to listen.

"Ah, tea from the eastern continent. How refreshing." Bu Yuanzhi turned back to Rozaline and Tang Qingyu, "I don't care much for who she is, but she does remind me of the 5th." He divulged what he knew.

"The fifth?" Qingyu asked, but before she could speak again, Rozaline put a finger to her mouth and gestured towards the princess with her head.

"Let's not go there." She warned. Tang Qingyu nodded after a moment. She and Rozaline would have been too young to remember clearly.

"There must be hundreds of people who look similar though, right? There's almost half a trillion people in the empire, aren't there?" Quinyu asked.

"A plague from the northern wastelands and a fight between 8 Deity Transformation powerhouses in a provincial capital dropped it closer to four hundred billion quite recently actually." Bu Yuanzhi helpfully supplied, smiling gently as he appeared to ignore them, focused on the table and tea in front of him.

"A plague?" Quinyu tilted her head.

"My, the heir to a clan of poison masters, doesn't know about the plague that recently spread."

"..." Qinyu glared daggers at her but couldn't say anything. Rozaline ignored her, focusing on the food. The banquet continued without any special announcements from the duke. Rozaline knew the banquet was just for face. To neither ruin his own by heading to the palace to beg, nor the princesses by forcing royalty to come out specifically to meet him. There was going to be a negotiation between the princess and the duke eventually. Everyone here wanted to see the outcome first hand, or as closely as possible.

The duke changing sides would mean a massive loss to the second prince's faction and a massive gain for the fourth princess. The only thing the princess lacked right now was raw military might. Something the duke had in plentiful supply. With several dedicated combatants at the Essence Unity and Nascent Soul realms.

"Do you think they're going to negotiate in public or in private?" Qinyu asked. A ridiculous question.

"Why would they argue about this in public?" Rozaline went to take a sip of the beverage provided.

"So, what do you think of joining me on a small expedition?" The princess asked the duke.

"Pft." Rozaline struggled to not spit the beverage back out, placing a hand to her mouth and laying the cup back down. Qingyu looked away as well, clutching her stomach and covering her mouth.

"Isn't a sudden expedition a bit rash, sister?" The second prince made a strained smile.

"What kind of expedition does your highness have in mind?" The duke responded casually, ignoring the prince. No word about it was spoken, but only the deaf and foolish would miss the implication. The princess may well have said outright, "join my side." And the duke answered with, "on what conditions."

"I'm thinking of doing some work in the White Sun prefecture. Since it's your home prefecture, naturally I thought of you first." The princess responded. I wasn't asking. Rozaline translated in her mind.

"What kind of work are you planning?" The duke wasn't satisfied and refused the threat. The hall had become a mixture of silent and boisterous as the fools who came just for the banquet continued in lieu of the other guests' silence. Even the second prince, despite the scowl on his face that he quickly hid, remained silent as the two conversed.

"Since it's in the north where a plague has been working its way towards the central province, I thought we should establish a more expansive medical network. Say… A program to have a fully staffed clinic in every town and village with more than ten thousand people?"

"That's insane. Where do you plan to get that many physicians?" The second prince scoffed, his words falling on deaf ears. Rozaline committed the dialogue to memory. She didn't have enough information to deduce exactly what the princess was offering. She probably hadn't offered to have people see Han Ci just yet, but the plague in the north was a real issue and perfect for bringing up talk of medical practitioners. Even Qingyu stayed unusually silent as they listened intently.

A lot of the words the princess and duke exchanged required some kind of background information to know the underlying meaning, so it went over the audience's heads. But there were bits and pieces people could catch. With different information in the hands of different people, everyone here would have a slightly different take on the negotiation. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Rozaline sighed slightly.

It seemed there was going to be another information war in the latter half of the banquet. Still, she wondered why the princess decided to have the negotiation in public like this, even if it was in coded conversation. She glanced over at Bu Yuanzhi, but he appeared entirely uninterested in the duke and princesses conversation, entirely focused on the dishes and drinks laid out in front of him. Faust crouched beside the termite infestation, his palm to the wood as he spread Spirit Qi to encompass every termite.

He twisted his hand, until only a finger was touching the wood and his palm was facing up. With a sudden gripping of his fist, the miniscule of Qi from the termites hiding in the wood all combusted into bits of Fire Qi, before being extinguished. With a few more twists of the hand and some carefully controlled Spirit Qi, Faust manipulated the bits of Wood and Water Qi to regenerate the interior of the wood. Soon enough, the termite infestation was repaired. Faust wandered around to the front of the small courtyard.

Reaching out with his hand, he made a yanking motion as he walked through the thin cobbled path. Countless overgrown weeds flew out by their roots, landing in scattered heaps atop the cobblestones. A second swing of the hand and pointing his fingers to the sky and the remaining grass was cut to length before the rest fell beside the weeds on the path. With a snap of his fingers, the weeds and grass tips ignited, burning up in a flicker of flames before the ashes dispersed across the courtyard.

Faust entered the head house, holding his hand ahead of him as dust was practically ripped from the walls alongside some flakes of paint. The main room seemed to be a study with a few bits of intricately carved wooden furniture that lacked any precious metals. Faust considered laying down his materials, but decided to unpack the next day after he had properly cleaned. For now, he went through the left interior room to find a wooden bedframe.

After clearing the dust, he pulled out some new bedding from his spatial pouch. It was just the simple things he usually kept for the roadside inns that didn't always have their own bedding.

"Haaa…." Faust spun on his heels and let himself fall backward onto the bed. Crack!

"..." Faust's eyes twitched and he took a deep breath. Fix the bedframe. He added to his mental list of things to do before he could study in earnest. He thought back to Duke han's residence. The layout of the halls was suddenly so clear. Unlike before when the memories had felt blurry, or his sense of direction felt off. Thinking carefully, he also vaguely recalled a few other familiar faces in the hall, Bu Yuanzhi, Miu and of course the fourth princess.

Just thinking about what would have happened had he stepped inside was gonna give him nightmares. He turned to the side, he'd get some sleep first. Exhaustion could hit even at the Nascent Soul realm where sleep became optional, let alone the Open Palace realm. The next day, Faust visited the nearest commercial area to his small courtyard, restocking on ink and paper. It was too bad the type of jade needed for memory storing was nowhere to be found.

"Halt." The brocade guard in front of the grand archive stopped Faust on the stone steps once again. The same one as last time.

"I have a pass." Faust showed his Clear Mirror sect token. The brocade guard stared for a moment, before taking a closer look.

"Clear Mirror sect. Understood. I hope your stay is informative." The guard stepped back. Faust eyes twitched. You saw me in the Clear Mirror sect uniform the other day. You didn't think to tell me the sect token could be used as a pass? Faust walked past the brocade guard and stopped to register with one of the scholars in front of the entrance. After he passed the scholar, he looked back at the guard. It was strange.

All the recent events were caused by him being turned back from the archive, then running into Faram. Faust shook his head, then looked back into the archive. He stopped inside the main hall and took a deep breath. The scent of paper and ink filled his nose. Old wood came from above and even the Qi here seemed old, slow and vast. The interior revealed a cavernous hall that cut through several stories, culminating in a ceiling of magnificent black and gold arches.

Colossal bookshelves climbed floor to ceiling between each level, separated by a labyrinth of narrow walkways where figures flitted between the stacks. Looking back down, the main floor was a sea of activity, crowded with countless tables where scholars sat hunched over mountains of ancient books and sprawling documents. Continuing forwards, down some steps and off to the side of the tables, Faust glanced at some of the scholar's work. Some were studying bureaucracy, others agriculture, some were studying medicine.

There were also people studying alchemy and formation craft. There was even a man with bronze skin and arm muscles thicker than a person's waist hunched over a table, reading intently on body tempering. Faust smiled lightly before continuing further in, past the tables in the center of the hall and towards the back where the hall ended and became a narrow passage between rows of shelves. So many scholars. Even the body tempering cultivators similar to Satheon were studying quietly and intently.

Vaguely, Faust felt he could see sunshine and rainbows reflected off the occasional golden plating. He continued through the narrow pathways. The lanterns became sparser and the hall's dazzling light faded quickly into constricted, near pitch black corridors. Inevitably, Faust had to retrieve his own lantern, the light flickering across the golden plaques labeling each row.

The rows seemed endless and after a few minutes he couldn't hear the scritch— scratch of pens or the flipping of pages from the main study area. But, every now and again, the shelves opened up into a small alcove with a simple wooden table and chair. Most were empty, but after some time, he passed a scholar sitting at a table with a lantern, leisurely reading some books on imperial law.

Following some thin stairs downward and going past more plaques, Faust stopped in front of one in particular, holding the lantern up to see more clearly.

'Books on technique mastery and creation. Middle Blue Moon period.' Faust turned down the corridor and began browsing the scrolls and books, even stone and wooden murals lining the shelves. Long Tao walked up the Diamond Mountain markets, looking around. Yellow Phoenix and dragon kites were scattered across the sky. Some simple ones made of paper and string while others were enchanted to fly around the air themselves.

He paused with the crowd of disciples and merchants to watch as a massive flock of flying paper dragons and phoenixes filled the sky like a wave, shooting over the markets.

"Wow…" Tao couldn't help admiring the sight.

"I wonder which elder is doing it?" Another disciple wondered.

"Surely they're not so bored as to pay for so much yellow paper or cloth and cut out thousands of dragons and phoenixes?" Someone else rebuked.

"What do you know? How could we fathom the intentions of the elders?"

"Actually, I think the talisman hall overseer punishes people by making them submit cutouts of various things to the merit hall." Tao continued through the market, leaving the lively chatter behind. He stopped by a stall he'd never seen before. A disciple the same age as him was selling skewers of some spirit beasts he'd caught during a mission. Soon, his mouth was covered in sauces and he smacked his lips before licking the bamboo skewer clean.

He was about to dig into the next skewer when he looked up and felt a shiver down his spine.

"Aneroze." Tao greeted her.

"My, my, not bowing again I see." Aneroze smiled gently, waving her fan in front of her as she came to a stop in front of Tao. Tao readied himself to sprint away.

"Oh well. You'll learn one day." Aneroze shrugged her fan casually.

"Huh?" Tao almost tripped over after taking one step to run. Was this the Aneroze he knew? Why was she so… Calm? Tao turned back to Aneroze from his about-to-run-away posture, standing up straight.

"Um… Are you alright?" He asked, still ready to bolt if he saw a cursed item or sharpened fan coming at him.

"Hmm?" Aneroze smiled cheerfully as she hummed, looking almost innocent.

"Oh my, you must have noticed." Tao took a step back, just in case. Aneroze took a step closer anyways.

"Today I was to meet some people, so I had medicine to suppress my physique." Aneroze explained. What? Medicine?

"Your physique?" Tao asked. Aneroze nodded gently, before spinning around and gesturing for him to follow, "you don't know? It's quite well known the Roze clan has a special physique that makes them incredible manipulators of Fire Qi. The only downside is that it makes them a bit temperamental." A bit? Tao wondered as he followed, relaxing enough to start on his next skewer.

"Wait. So this is the normal you?"

"My, of course? Am I not usually quite gentle?" Long Tao was about to speak, but the old ghost appeared in front of him looking at him sternly, before slowly shaking his head and disappearing.

"..." Long Tao pursed his lips, holding his tongue. He had been stabbed and nearly stabbed enough times by now. He took out his notebook and scribbled something down.

'Don't tell Aneroze the truth when she's lying to herself and others about her personality.' He thought for a few moments, tapping his chin with the pencil— then he crossed out Aneroze and replaced it with 'woman'.

"..." the old ghost looked over his shoulder blankly. He is learning… Just backwards… The old ghost shook his head before disappearing again. Tao would learn the next time he ran into some hot headed nobleman.

"Do you know what all the dragon and phoenix symbols are for?" Tao put the notebook away and caught up to Aneroze, walking beside her through the market. Aneroze waved her fan around, her eyes wandering through the crowd and stores for a moment.

"It's for the Rising Dragons and Phoenixes tournament. My, don't tell me you don't know about it. It's one of the most anticipated events at the end of every decade on the imperial calendar."

"... Ah! Right! The Rising Dragons and Phoenixes tournament!" Tao thumped a fist against his palm. I totally know what that is! Aneroze turned her head slightly and met his eyes, hiding her expression behind her fan, before turning away again.

"My, then I'm sure you know how the sect's disciples are selected for participating in the main tournament in the capital."

"..." Selecting disciples, main tournament, capital? Tao's eyes twitched and he plastered a smile on his face.

"Um… Could I ask senior sister to fill me in on the details? I only know the general layout…" He cupped a fist in his palm.

"My, so you do know etiquette— when you want something." Aneroze smirked, "well, if you must know. We'll be holding the sect tournament before sending the winners to participate in a bigger competition in the imperial capital." Tao nodded along, "are there any rewards for winning?"

"My, of course. Since it's possible to die in these tournaments, there's naturally an enticing enough reward." She began, "Just the sect competition has several 4th level pills and artifacts for the top ten, as well as a generous amount of imperial coinage. But the main competition even lets the winner enter the imperial treasury and select an item of their choosing."

"Seriously?" Tao voiced in disbelief. The current dynasty must have been almost two thousand years old and had inherited a mostly intact imperial treasury from the previous 9 dynasties. There were bound to be countless heaven and earth treasures there. Aneroze gave him a light smile, evidently seeing through his thoughts.

"If you wish to participate, the sect closes entry by the last ray of sunlight today." She briefly locked eyes with him.

"Eh?" Tao looked up, then narrowed his eyes and immediately bolted past Aneroze towards the market square where the administration buildings were clustered. Aneroze watched him dash ahead of her. The signup is on Starry mountain. She thought to herself, but Tao had already disappeared, so after blinking once in the direction Tao had disappeared she continued leisurely through the market.