Chương 13: The Emperor Doesn't Wait for Funerals

The first thing Gu Zhiwei saw when she rushed up onto the observatory terrace was the hem of Gu Yaozhi's robe hanging beneath the beam of the star-gazing pavilion. The bronze armillary sphere stood silent in the morning light, its sighting tube still angled toward the northern sky. He was wearing the crimson robes he wore to court. His jade belt and gauze cap lay on the desk beside him. The morning wind stirred his gray hair and set the corner of his gown swaying gently.

Gu Zhiwei stood at the top of the stone steps. So she was still one step too late. This man was, to her, nothing but a set of memories the System had poured into her head. But those memories all carried warmth. At five, she had lain across her father's knees learning to pick out the stars of the Big Dipper.

At seven, she had knocked over an inkstone and ruined a star chart, and Gu Yaozhi had sentenced her to copy out texts as punishment, then turned around and slipped a dish of pine-nut candy onto the corner of her desk. He had been a loving father and a learned man. Gu Zhao came up the stairs behind her, took one look, and stopped as though pinned there by some force he couldn't name.

"Father..." Gu Zhiwei was still settling into this identity and had no idea what comfort to offer, so all she said was, "Let's get Father down. Quickly." Gu Zhao didn't move. She tried again.

"Brother." The word seemed to drag him back from wherever he had gone. He scrambled onto a low side table to work at the knot, and twice his hands failed him. Footsteps clattered up the stairs as servants and officials on duty rushed up to see what had happened, all of them losing their heads at once. One dropped to his knees on the spot. Another ran off to fetch a physician. Those with sense left in them hurried to help Gu Zhao lower the body and check for breath. Gu Yaozhi's body had not yet gone entirely cold.

The hem of his robe was stained with dried patches of dark brown, and bending close, Gu Zhiwei caught the faintest smell of blood. Not his own. The wind at the execution ground had been strong the day before. Prisoners knelt all across the yard, among them women clutching children. Gu Yaozhi had stood below the execution platform, his boots sinking into bloodied water, dark droplets splashing across the hem of his robe. Gu Zhao saw the stains too.

He knelt on the stone and smoothed his father's robes flat, inch by inch, his movements so slow they were nearly clumsy. At last, he raised a hand to close Gu Yaozhi's eyes, and his fingertips rested there for a long time.

"I should have come in sooner... I..." His breath hitched. Then the tears came silently.

"I..." Gu Zhiwei knelt on one knee beside him, her knee against the cold stone.

"This isn't on you. Father barred the door from the inside. He had made up his mind."

"I wasn't even as watchful as you... How did I not see it!"

"Brother." He finally looked at her, his eyes raw with grief. Her throat closed up. She didn't offer any of those weightless comforts. She only reached out and steadied his shoulder.

White mourning banners went up over the Gu residence before noon. The front courtyard filled with officials who had come to pay their respects, murmuring among themselves on the far side of the mourning shed. Lady Gu fainted several times from weeping, and when she woke she still clutched Gu Zhao's sleeve, asking whether Gu Yaozhi was still up at the Bureau of Astronomy watching the stars. Gu Zhao knelt by the couch and tucked the quilt in around her.

"Father is tired. He wants to sleep a while first. You should rest a while too, Mother." When he stood his knees had gone numb, and he nearly walked into the low table by the bed. Gu Zhiwei caught his elbow.

"Go rest," he said once he had his balance, beating her to it.

"You haven't eaten anything since this morning, have you?"

"You haven't rested either."

"I'm the eldest." Gu Zhao lifted his hand and laid it lightly on the top of her head, the way he had for many years, as though making a promise to someone.

"With Father gone, I'll take care of you and Mother." He said it gently, but the grief behind his eyes was tightly held in check. From the outer courtyard came a thin, drawn-out cry.

"An imperial edict!" Inside the mourning hall and out, everyone dropped to their knees. The eunuch bearing the edict stepped over the threshold. His gaze swept across the coffin in the center of the room, and he didn't dare offer even a word of condolence. Gu Yaozhi had used his own death to refuse to go on hunting a baleful star for the Yong Emperor, and the Emperor had flown into a rage at his stubborn refusal to yield.

The eunuch unrolled the bright-yellow silk and read out the imperial will:"Gu Yaozhi is dead, yet the Bureau of Astronomy cannot remain without a head for even a day. Let his eldest son, Gu Zhao, assume the office of Director at once and continue the investigation into the baleful star." As the final words faded, the only sound in the courtyard was the white banners slapping against their bamboo poles. Angry as he was, the Emperor still had his priorities straight.

The Gu family's gift for reading the stars ran down the bloodline. If the father was gone, the son would take his place. The eunuch rolled the edict closed and looked at Gu Zhao, kneeling below the steps.

"Director Gu. Receive the edict." The old Director's tombstone had not even been carved yet, and the new Director had already been appointed. That kind of efficiency. Even a corporate shark would be taking notes. Gu Zhao didn't move. His jaw was clenched tight. The eunuch bent forward slightly toward the kneeling man and lowered his voice.

"Director Gu. The wise know which way the wind blows. Her Majesty the Empress asks you to think of Lady Gu and of your sister." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Gu Zhao's face went white. At last, he bowed until his forehead touched the ground.

"Your servant receives the edict." Satisfied, the eunuch handed it down to him.

"His Majesty has been sleeping poorly of late. Lord Gu should not keep him waiting." Gu Zhao took it in both hands, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.

"Your servant understands."

After nightfall Gu Zhiwei kept watch alone in the side chamber off the mourning hall, and finally found a chance to open the System forum. Only one world channel was lit up on the homepage: Great Yong. It was already packed with posts. 【Anyone want to party up? Post your location first. I'm on the northern frontier and freezing to death, send help. 】 【Anybody in the capital? The soldiers have gone insane hunting for the baleful star, I nearly got hauled off the second I landed.

】 【Why is the Party button grayed out? Urgent. Currently panicking. 】 Gu Zhiwei found the six-person group chat and read what the others had left. Wang Pu: I'm at the northwest frontier garrison. My identity is a brand-new recruit, and my starting gear is one notched blade. The System really thinks the world of me. Wang Pu: Hold on, does it actually go below freezing here at night? My feet are turning into two popsicles. Chen Li: I'm in the southern part of the country. My System identity owns a grain business.

Safe for now. Matt: I'm at West Market in the capital, a guard for a merchant caravan from the Western Regions. Wang Pu: Uh oh, Sis Gu, Ye and Maria aren't answering. They didn't both get stuck in some other world, did they? Chen Li: Give it time. Everyone lands in different circumstances. Something may just be holding them up. The System had never promised the original twenty would enter the same world. The three hundred this round had evidently been drawn at random from over a hundred thousand players.

Having four of them land in Great Yong was already beating the odds by an absurd margin. She typed up a short account of what had happened since she landed, including her father's suicide and her brother's appointment as Director of the Bureau of Astronomy, sent it, then tapped 【Party】. The invite button was gray. 【Party invitations may only be sent to players in the current world with whom you have already met in person. 】 So much for assembling a party remotely through the forum.

The System wasn't leaving even that loophole open. Chen Li replied quickly: Good that you're safe. Is your identity's father the man who prophesied the coming of the baleful star? Wang Pu spammed a row of celebration emojis: We're golden! Sis Gu's in Great Yong too. This run is in the bag! Gu Zhiwei: I am begging you. Stop jinxing us. Gu Zhiwei: @Chen Li, yes, that's him. His name was Gu Yaozhi. Wang Pu: Hold up, Sis Gu, you spawned straight into the final circle?

If we're hunting a baleful star, who's supposed to compete with your family's build? Chen Li: The System gave us a five-year limit, which means the real baleful star may not surface for a long while. Let's not jump to conclusions yet. Matt: @Gu Zhiwei, let's meet at West Market tomorrow and form a party. Wang Pu: Then I'll figure out how to get out of the garrison and to the capital. Sis Gu, Brother Matt, wait for me. Is three months enough to run there? Gu Zhiwei: Figure out the rules first.

Don't get your head taken off for desertion. Wang Pu: Fair point. I'll figure out how to desert legally. For now, they agreed to gather leads separately wherever they had landed. Beyond the mourning hall, the water clock dripped. Five years. Gu Zhiwei found it hard, all at once, to picture living that long in a world like this one. Never mind. One step at a time.

The next afternoon Gu Zhiwei changed into a plain robe cut in the men's style and met Matt at a wine shop in West Market. His new identity came with a short beard, and he wore the narrow-sleeved leather coat commonly worn by guards employed by foreign merchants, a curved saber at his waist. His new identity had given him fluency in the Great Yong language and a working knowledge of the trade routes. Even with the beard, that face of his still drew plenty of attention.

Matt said, "If the baleful star means any person or thing that threatens the Emperor, then in this identity's memories, the merchant once supplied salt and tea to some unnamed armed force on the northern frontier. I can't say whether it's connected."

"Wang Pu is on the northern frontier. We can have him look into it."

"Mm. I'll send him the route the merchant took at the time." Matt took a mouthful of the cloudy wine and immediately grimaced.

"This world genuinely needs to improve its brewing methods." Gu Zhiwei took the smallest sip, and her whole face puckered. Sour, astringent, with a finish like something that had been left too long in a damp cellar. That wasn't a technique. That was an accident. They had just finished comparing notes when a burst of cheering broke out below. A temporary wooden platform had been thrown up outside the wine shop, and a slave broker was leading several foreign women onto it to put them up for sale.

The wind carried dust and the stink of animal dung, and the onlookers were packed shoulder to shoulder. Matt glanced down, and his expression darkened. The young woman at the far edge of the platform had pale skin and tangled curls, her wrists rubbed raw and bloody by hemp rope. She had been keeping her head down the whole time, and then she saw Matt and Gu Zhiwei on the second floor and threw herself against the railing. The broker raised his hand to whip her.

She took several blows without flinching and still raised her head to shout at them.

"The Myriad Worlds System dropped me here yesterday! Are you two players?!" The onlookers couldn't hear the part about the System, and simply assumed the foreign girl had been frightened out of her mind. Gu Zhiwei and Matt stood up at the same moment. An hour later, the woman was sitting at the second-floor table, one hand rubbing feeling back into her wrists, the other tearing into a mutton flatbread.

"Thank you, thank you both. I'm Aglaya, from Russia." She swallowed too fast, choked, and pounded her own chest, then got half a bowl of tea down before she recovered.

"I woke up in a trading caravan. They told me my father owed the merchant money and handed me over to settle it. God knows I've never even seen the rotten man's face. My identity profile only says my family came here from the west. But the memory fragments only show my mother and a younger sister, and right now I have absolutely no idea where either of them are." A moment later, she tucked the remaining half of the flatbread into her sleeve pocket.

"Can I take this with me? After being sold once, I've decided keeping supplies on hand is a good habit." She had been out of danger for all of an hour, and there wasn't a trace of fright left on her face, only an impressively healthy appetite. Gu Zhiwei rather admired her sheer vitality. She had to present a formal card bearing the Gu family's name to prove she had the standing to secure Aglaya's freedom. Commoners were forbidden by policy from buying slaves.

Bringing home a foreign girl of unknown origin was bound to draw attention, but leaving a player to be sold in a slave market wasn't something she could do either. Matt escorted the two of them back to the Gu residence, and the party invitation on her Personal Panel finally lit up. Gu Zhiwei didn't hesitate. She sent Matt a party invite at once.

Gu Zhao only returned from the palace as the sky was going dark. He was still in fresh mourning and had no business attending court, but a summons from the Yong Emperor left no room to refuse. Seeing how worn he looked over dinner, Gu Zhiwei meant to tell him to turn in early, but Gu Zhao spoke first.

"The servants say you went to West Market today. And brought back a foreign girl?" Gu Zhiwei went completely rigid. Her father had only just died, and here she was out buying foreign girls. That was spoiled-heir behavior if she'd ever seen it. She rubbed the back of her neck and tried to explain.

"Her father sold her. I just felt sorry for her..." She hadn't finished assembling the excuse before Gu Zhao cut in gently.

"It's all right. It's good that you're willing to go out. Only one thing: be safe." There was not the least reproach in his voice, only an elder brother's concern.

"If you need money, tell me. Don't trouble Mother with it." Thinking of everything he had been through in these two short days, something turned over in her chest. He really was a very good brother. Great Yong's culture was somewhat similar to that of the Tang, where women were hardly confined to the home. Even by those standards, though, Gu Zhao was unusually open-minded. Gu Zhao rose to return to his rooms, then stopped as something occurred to him.

"One more thing. His Majesty summoned several outlanders into the palace today who claim mastery of the arcane arts. They're investigating the baleful star as well. Zhiwei, if anyone asks about the star charts Father left behind, tell them nothing." Gu Zhiwei nodded. Just then the gatekeeper came hurrying in and presented a calling card with both hands, the night damp still on it.

"My lord, there's a foreigner at the gate. He says he has a lead on the baleful star, and insists on seeing you at this very moment." The gatekeeper paused and glanced at Gu Zhiwei.

"He also asked that the young lady take a look at this card." Gu Zhiwei reached out and took it, and on the back of the calling card was a line of English that only a player would ever use.

"I'm a player. I have a lead on the baleful star you're looking for."