Chương 16: Who Is the Baleful Star

Gu Zhiwei had slept only three hours. When she woke, the sky outside the window was already full daylight. Fresh mourning was not yet over, so she wore plain clothes again today, with nothing but a simple green jade pendant at her waist. A maid gathered her hair into a low bun, the wooden comb scraping her scalp; the small sting actually cleared some of the fog out of her head. Gu Zhiwei opened the group chat over breakfast. Matt: Already at the Insignia Guard.

Yang Jingchu set me up with a roster entry at the garrison office. Someone who looked like a player came sniffing around asking what connections got me in. Gu Zhiwei: Oliver messaged me last night. The players in the palace playing outlanders have started hunting other players under cover of the baleful star. Be careful, keep your identities buried. Matt: Got it. I dropped Yang Jingchu's name and somebody standing nearby immediately hauled the guy off. He hasn't dared talk to me since.

Wang Pu: Yang Jingchu's name is that good? Can I borrow it up on the northern frontier? Come on, how am I not family with Sis Gu? Gu Zhiwei: It isn't Yang Jingchu's name that works, it's his father's. Chancellor Yang Chongli. Don't try that on the northern frontier. Run into a general who's on bad terms with the Chancellor and out there, where the mountains are high and the Emperor is far away, he'll invent a reason and have you offed. Wang Pu: Yeah, no kidding. I've got these people figured out.

Gutless as hell against an actual enemy, but shut the camp gates and start grinding down their own? Absolute pros. Aglaya: Hi, I am Aglaya, very happy to join this amazing team. Wang Pu: Heyyyyyyy, welcome Aglaya! I'm Wang Pu, I am OBSESSED with Russian smoked sausage, two people from socialist countries are bound to have tons in common. That Matt in this chat is pretty handsome, sure, but he's an American, if you know what I mean. Matt: Only the weak fight with ideological trash talk. Gu Zhiwei: Chat's over.

We're going into the palace for a banquet. Chen Li: Zhiwei, be careful in the palace today. Watch that batch of players especially. Gu Zhiwei: Understood. The carriage was already waiting outside the gate. Gu Zhiwei left Master Xie's Rules of Verse on the desk and pressed her fingers to her temple. So much for cramming. Now let the skill do the performing.

The Winding Stream Banquet was held in Qingyi Garden, on the lakeshore inside the palace. Living water had been drawn from Hanguang Pool into a runnel that wound down among the flowering trees and rockery, no more than half a foot deep, clear enough to show the fine white pebbles laid along its bed. Brocade mats and low tables had been set along the water, with gilded censers and branches of seasonal blossom placed at intervals between them.

The late-spring wind was warm, the crabapple at its fullest bloom, the shadows of the flowers falling on the water and being kneaded to pieces by the current. Palace servants set winged cups into the stream. The cups floated among the petals and drifted slowly down with the water, and whenever a cup came to rest before someone's mat, the rest clapped and hooted until that person composed a poem on the spot. Everyone seated there was a young lord or a great-clan daughter whose name carried weight in the capital.

The men mostly wore round-collared brocade robes with jade belts and gold hooks; the women's gauze skirts trailed on the ground, their hairpins catching the sun. On the low tables stood silver plates and jade cups, cherries and cream curds and freshly cut melon piled into neat little mounds. Even the dishes holding the fruit were inlaid with gold and silver. At the far end, a dozen or so beautiful musicians sat in a waterside pavilion, the notes of pipa, harp, reed pipe, and flute weaving together.

Princess Changning sat at the head of the pavilion in a crimson court dress, her brows and eyes somewhat like Lady Gu's. She asked first after Gu Zhiwei's mother's illness, and only once Gu Zhiwei was seated did she say quietly, "I heard about my uncle from Mother. Zhiwei, you've suffered."

To avoid another slip like the one she'd made with Yang Jingchu, Gu Zhiwei had dug thoroughly through the memories of how these two cousins normally dealt with each other before coming, and now she thanked her exactly as the old habit required. Across the water, Princess Yihua was turning a delicate green jade wine cup in her fingers. She glanced over, cool.

"Today is a small gathering to enjoy the spring. Why does the Elder Sister raise such sad matters? Zhiwei has long had a name in the capital for talent. Some of my guests came today precisely because they'd heard of her." It sounded polite enough. The tone underneath it was a dare. Gu Zhiwei swept a look over these so-called guests. A young man with long, narrow eyes and no flesh over the middle of his face.

A woman with black hair, sharp face and green eyes, wearing a Daoist robe that fit neither one world nor the other. Almost certainly the outlander players.

"Your Highness flatters me." Yihua smiled without much interest and signaled the servants to continue. A servant pushed a winged cup into the water. The cup spun down with the current and stopped first at the mat of a round-faced girl. She stood up, twisting her handkerchief into a knot, the red climbing her face until it reached her ears, and finally squeezed out: "Your servant... suddenly needs to be excused." The whole party burst out laughing. She gathered her skirts and all but fled.

From the reactions around her, Gu Zhiwei gathered that this girl was the third daughter of the Vice Minister of Personnel. The cup drifted on and stopped before the young man at Yihua's side. He rose with his cup, his voice unhurried.

"Drifting clouds veil the sun; Chang'an fades from sight, and sorrow fills the heart." The line landed. The garden roared.

"Fine lines."

"Truly exquisite." Gu Zhiwei was speechless. Damn. Opening move and he's already plagiarizing Li Bai. [1] Except that after the applause died down, someone at a neighboring mat asked under his breath, "Where is this Chang'an? An uncommon name." Nobody knew. The cup floated on and knocked against the edge of her mat with a small clack. Gu Zhiwei picked it up. Copying Li Bai was showing off, certainly, but it might also be bait to see whether she was a player. She had no intention of giving him that.

She reached for what she had memorized the night before, and the familiarity with meter and rule came flooding up again, as though someone were reciting inside her skull. A couplet came out of her on its own: The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"One night of wind has swept the West Terrace bare; the moon lights a thousand gates, the water darkens alone." Another wave of applause, warmer this time.

"She's taken the allusion from Master Xie's Remembering Song Zihuan at the West Terrace," said a great-clan son on her left, clapping.

"Beautifully used. It gives the mood a longer reach, and it lands more solidly than that gentleman's 'Chang'an' did just now." Yang Lingyi, seated on her left, wore a smile of pure vindication. The look on Yihua's face had gone very bad. She set the green jade cup back on her table.

"My friends from foreign lands aren't very familiar with our Great Yong culture. Let me give a line instead, and Sister Gu can match it. Would that suit?" Everyone knew this was cheating. Nobody dared say so. Changning opened her mouth, but Gu Zhiwei got there first.

"Your Highness, please give your line." Yihua held a smile at the corner of her mouth, and the malice in her eyes was not hidden at all. She glanced off at the distant palace towers and recited as if idly, "A guest star lies athwart the Purple Pole; the dark of night invades the golden gates." The banquet went silent. A guest star trespassing on the Emperor's Seat was exactly what Gu Yaozhi had memorialized, and the Gu family had just buried him for it.

For Yihua to build a poem out of that, now, was nothing but a knife aimed at Gu Zhiwei. Changning's face darkened too.

"Yihua."

"It's only matching couplets. Elder Sister needn't be so serious." Yihua raised her cup, her smile thin. Before Changning could answer, Gu Zhiwei's line was already out.

"The rising sun breaks through the ninefold sky; heaven's light fills all Nine Provinces." It fell, and the frozen air over the mats went warm again in an instant. So a guest star trespassed on the palace. What of it? The sun rises through the clouds in the end and lights the whole realm. Read as praise of the throne, that rising sun was the Yong Emperor, which left not one thing in it anyone could pick at, and made Yihua's couplet look like something with a very ugly intention behind it.

The shadow between Changning's brows cleared entirely. She drank her cup off, smiling.

"Bad" no longer covered Yihua's expression. She said through her teeth, "Sister of the Gu family. Quick-witted indeed."

"Your Highness yields too generously." Gu Zhiwei lowered her eyes and privately thanked that Commoner Scholar of the Realm again. Skill delivered right on schedule. Five stars, would recommend. When the banquet paused, Gu Zhiwei pulled up the Forum, and sure enough there was a new thread. 【The system is a straight-up scam! Gives me a highborn lady's identity and none of the highborn lady skills. Makes a STEM major improvise poetry on the spot. I had to fake a bathroom emergency to escape!

】 That reminded Gu Zhiwei of the round-faced girl from the Vice Minister's house. She looked up. Still not back. 【I'm at the Winding Stream Banquet too, shaking in my boots rn. Thank god the cup hasn't stopped in front of me yet. That Gu Zhiwei is also here. The girl opens her mouth and poetry falls out. THAT is a highborn daughter. I'm a knockoff, ok? 】 【Does she look gullible to you? Her brother is a solid brick wall. Nobody's gotten inside the Bureau of Astronomy to this day.

】 【Honestly, when I heard she bought a foreign girl at West Market I assumed she was a player. 】 【100% NPC. No player has that kind of cultural grounding. She was working in Great Yong allusions. That outlander player though, zero shame, flexing with a Li Bai poem. 】 【HAHAHAHAHA isn't that standard procedure when you get dropped into another world? Go ahead and use it yourself. 】 【Nah, no can do. This girl has some dignity. 】 【Has anyone considered that she just likes foreigners?

Also, in this world's setting there are tons of foreigners living and trading in Great Yong. Changle Ward alone houses tens of thousands. You can't assume every foreigner you spot means a player. 】 【We non-Asian players are feeling kind of attacked rn. 】 【Can confirm she does like foreigners. My identity is a new recruit in the Insignia Guard. A few days ago I was patrolling near her house and saw her coming home from buying a foreign girl, with a foreign man escorting them. And then guess what. 】 【Details.

】【Elaborate. 】 【OP, pray tell. 】 【Ha. That foreign man is my new colleague now. I dug around about where he came from. Word is our Right Commandant Yang personally bought him out of a foreign caravan. The Right Commandant's father is Chancellor Yang Chongli, who happens to be Gu Zhiwei's uncle. Tell me he got into the Insignia Guard without going through Gu Zhiwei and I'll call you a liar to your face. 】 【Excellent. As a non-Asian player I have hope again. 】 After that came a pile of people egging it on.

Gu Zhiwei even spotted Oliver's ID in there, stirring up the mud. At the very least it had nailed her NPC status down, and patched the hole from her meeting with Matt at West Market while it was at it. Gu Zhiwei liked that "100% NPC" post.

The banquet broke up as night was closing in, the delicate palace lanterns along the road coming alight one after another. Gu Zhiwei walked out of the palace gate and was about to board her carriage when a burst of wailing came from the other end of the long street. A dozen or more commoners, strung together on a rope, were being driven toward the Metropolitan Prefecture by bailiffs. Most were thinly dressed, their faces gone blank, bare feet crossing the cold flagstones.

A woman was trying to wrench a swaddled infant back out of a bailiff's hands. The baby had cried itself hoarse. She was on her knees, knocking her head against the ground again and again, begging, one hand still locked on a corner of the swaddling, and then the tip of a whip caught her across the shoulder.

"Let go! This child's birth hour might match with the baleful star, it has to be taken!" A second lash came down across her head. Blood ran from her temple at once, and still she screamed and would not let go. The maids beside the carriage lowered their heads, unable to keep watching. The young lords and great-clan daughters barely spared the scene a glance before climbing into their carriages and rolling away. One vermilion wall, and two worlds with nothing in common. Inside it the smell of wine had not yet faded.

Outside it, the sound of despair was ground to nothing in the thin cold wind of a late spring evening. Aglaya couldn't stand it and started forward. Gu Zhiwei caught her by the arm.

"Go and tell that officer that I've just cast a divination, that this child has an affinity with me, and that he is to give the child to you." Gu Zhiwei leaned hard on the word, and pressed two small pieces of silver into her hand. Aglaya understood instantly and walked over. Under the push of Aglaya's skill the man handed the baby across at once, his face full of fawning smiles.

"Aiya, it's this humble one's honor to be of use to a noble lady, I couldn't possibly accept this..." Then he took the silver with a great show of refusing it, and turned to bark at the woman.

"Quit your bawling. Your child is going off to a life of comfort. Keep wailing and spoil the noble lady's mood and see what I do to you." With that whole combination played out, even after the skill wore off the bailiff would only conclude that his own greed had gotten the better of him. And since the young lady of the Bureau of Astronomy had said she would handle it, there was nothing worth looking into.

Once the carriage left the avenue before the palace gates and turned into a side lane, the woman who had trailed them the whole way took her child back, weeping with gratitude, and knocked her forehead against the ground several times for Gu Zhiwei and Aglaya before she carried the baby away.

A palace carriage stood outside the Gu residence. What had beaten her home were gifts from the Emperor. The matter of Yihua's couplet had "happened" to reach the Yong Emperor by way of the Empress, and he had flown into a rage over his daughter's stupidity and over a poem that came close to cursing him, confining her to her quarters for three months, with no warm looks left over for the outlanders she'd sponsored either. All of which, of course, came later.

For now, judging by the gifts in front of her, the Emperor was satisfied with how she'd handled it. He was rewarding Gu Zhiwei for knowing what was good for her, and using the same gesture to prod Gu Zhao toward delivering the result he wanted, soon.

"Brother."

"Looks like today went smoothly?" Gu Zhao had kept dinner for her. Court banquets were never meant to fill anyone up.

"I did as you said. No trouble for our aunt." Gu Zhiwei summarized what had happened at the Winding Stream Banquet. When he heard Yihua's couplet his face went dark as well.

"That Yihua really is both stupid and poisonous."

"It's fine. Someone will deal with her."

"Our Zhiwei really has grown up." Gu Zhao looked at her.

"What is it? You don't look happy." She was a little startled by how sharp he was, and told him about borrowing the Gu family's name outside the palace gates to save that child. Gu Zhao was quiet for a long time, then let out a long breath.

"If this keeps up, I honestly won't know what the point of looking for the baleful star is anymore..." Gu Zhiwei agreed wholeheartedly.

"Personally, I think the Emperor himself looks more like a baleful star than..."

"Watch your tongue!" Gu Zhao cut her off at once. But the line of thought struck a spark. Back in her room she called up the system interface and tried an answer.

"The Yong Emperor is the true baleful star." The system interface glowed, faintly. [1] Li Bai (701–762) was one of the most famous poets of China's Tang dynasty, and is still basically a household name today. His poems are so iconic that Chinese time-travel fiction has developed a running joke around them: if you get sent back to ancient China and need to impress everyone at a poetry banquet, just steal a Li Bai poem and pray he hasn't been born yet. Instant literary genius. Zero original work required.