Inside his chambers, Xu Ji could hear raised voices outside. He frowned slightly and ordered: “Go see who is making all that noise out there. This is the palace — how dare anyone carry on so!”

Someone immediately stepped outside to inquire, and saw that Minister Gui Yuanshu was running out through the palace gates at a remarkable pace.

The attendant quickly asked those nearby what had happened, and was told that Da Ning’s newly appointed Deputy Minister of Rites had gotten into a brawl with a Western Regions envoy at the city gate.

The attendant was frightened. Even by a lower standard, this was a diplomatic incident. He didn’t dare delay and rushed back to report it to Xu Ji.

Upon hearing it, Xu Ji didn’t dare delay either. This was far too serious. He was Chancellor, but this was not a matter he could resolve on his own authority.

And His Majesty hadn’t returned yet. Xu Ji thought for a moment, then hurried to the Eastern Warm Chamber, where he sent an inner attendant to request an audience with Her Majesty the Empress to ask if he might enter.

Shortly after, an attendant returned to tell him that the Empress had permitted him to enter the inner palace. Xu Ji hitched up his long robes and trotted in at a clip.

Gao Xining was inside, playing with little Tuotuo. The Imperial Noble Consort Xiahou Yuli and the others were all there as well.

After Xu Ji arrived and paid his respects to the Empress and the assembled consorts, Gao Xining asked: “What on earth is so urgent that even *you* can’t handle it and had to come ask me?”

Xu Ji replied: “The newly appointed Deputy Minister of Rites, Jia Ruan, has somehow gotten into a fight with an envoy who arrived from the Western Regions to pay tribute.”

Gao Xining blinked — and then the corner of her brow arched upward.

“Someone threw punches?”

Xu Ji bowed his head. “Your Majesty, please do not be angry. I am told Jia Ruan came off fine.”

“Whether he came off fine or not is beside the point. A Western Regions man — *dared* to throw punches at the gates of our own capital, at the foot of the Son of Heaven?”

Gao Xining called out toward the door: “Deploy the Black Cavalry!”

The moment Xu Ji heard that, his instinct was to press his palm flat against his own forehead. *I never should have come.*

Gao Xining strode toward the exit, walked a few steps, then turned back into the room, saying as she went: “Yuli, watch the child.”

Xu Ji had no idea why the Empress had gone back inside, and not daring to leave first, stood waiting in the courtyard.

A moment later Gao Xining came back out — and Xu Ji got such a fright his heart clenched.

She had changed. She walked out wearing the black brocade uniform of the Grand Adjudicator of the Adjudicator’s Office.

Xu Ji thought to himself: even if I beat my forehead into pulp right now, it probably won’t do me any good.

—

Outside the city gates.

The entire group of Western Regions envoys was thoroughly frightened. They had truly not expected Da Ning’s Ministry of Rites official to be so ferociously direct.

The truth was, they had been nursing grievances all along the road here, because they had received not a single special privilege — not one.

Throughout the entire journey, at every city gate and checkpoint they passed, they had to queue up and follow the rules like everyone else.

They had tried negotiating with the border army general assigned to escort them, asking whether an exception could be made — surely it wasn’t necessary to waste so much time standing in line.

The general’s response: *Our own people have to queue. What makes you guests think you’re exempt?*

There was simply no logic to it, they thought. Of course locals have to queue — that was only natural. But shouldn’t guests be accommodated?

No. Not in the slightest. In any matter that involved rules, they received no accommodation whatsoever.

They had to queue at city gates alongside Da Ning’s common people, and every single vehicle was subject to inspection.

So they had complained bitterly throughout — and the more they thought back on how things used to be, the more intolerable it became.

Before the fall of the Chu Kingdom, the Western Regions peoples had once traveled in a grand delegation to Daxing City to pay tribute. The Chu Emperor Yang Jing had ridden out of the city in person to receive them.

From the moment they crossed into the country, they had been treated as guests of the highest order.

Not only had they faced no obstruction at any city gate or checkpoint along the way, but at every stop the local officials had come out to greet them with bowed heads and humble expressions.

And it wasn’t just the envoys themselves — even the merchants who traveled alongside the delegation had enjoyed the same privileges.

The Chu Emperor Yang Jing had even issued a decree: to demonstrate Chu’s magnanimity as a great nation, all food, drink, and purchases for the entire Western Regions delegation, from the border all the way to Daxing City, would be provided without charge, so that the guests might experience Chu’s generosity.

Never mind that this contributed to escalating unrest across the country in its aftermath — Yang Jing never once thought there was anything wrong with it.

*We are a great and magnificent nation. What’s wrong with being a gracious host? Is showing grand imperial hospitality somehow a problem?*

What he never considered was how shamelessly the Western Regions people pushed their advantage — eating, drinking, and taking without paying all along the route, bankrupting countless people in the process.

When those who suffered great losses went to the local authorities to seek redress, they were shut down with a single sentence: *If you want answers, go to Daxing City and find the Emperor. Why are you coming to us? We’re not the ones who said not to charge them.*

You lost money — the local authorities won’t help. But if you *dared* to charge those honored guests, the authorities would arrest you without the slightest hesitation.

Many among this current Western Regions delegation had been part of that earlier mission.

Those people in particular nursed the deepest resentment.

The way they had swaggered through during the Chu era — how could this compare? Back then they could bully Central Plains people practically at will.

There had even been incidents of Western Regions envoys violating Central Plains women on the road, and local authorities not only did nothing — they politely sent the perpetrators on their way.

This time, those who had made the earlier journey had spent the time before entering the country boasting ceaselessly about how gloriously they’d been treated — how much face they’d had, how eagerly the Central Plains people had sought their approval.

And then they entered the country and found nothing even close to that. So the braggers had been ridiculed mercilessly by everyone else.

After all that, they finally arrived at the gates of Chang’an — only to find that the one who came out to receive them was merely a Deputy Minister of Rites. Not even the full Minister. Quite a few of them exploded.

The leader of the Jinjiao Kingdom’s envoy delegation was their Chancellor, Bokedoyue. In Jinjiao, this Chancellor ranked second only to the King himself. Even members of the royal family showed him deference, and the princes all courted his favor.

When he looked at this Deputy Minister — dressed in his long formal robes, wearing a smile that was clearly not genuine warmth — Bokedoyue’s temper snapped.

And this Deputy Minister clearly had no regard for any of them at all. After coming out, he said only: *Honored guests have traveled far. By order of His Majesty the Emperor of Da Ning, I have come to receive you. You may follow me into the city now to get settled. When His Majesty has a free moment, he will receive you all.*

What did *that* mean?

Plainly, they were being treated as an afterthought. Whether they would even get to see the Emperor of Da Ning depended entirely on whenever *he* felt like it.

During the Chu era, the Chu Emperor Yang Jing had been waiting for them outside the capital long in advance.

Deputy Minister of Rites Jia Ruan, for his part, had never expected these people to be so brazen. Before leaving, he had told himself that surely these fellows, upon seeing him, would at least throw out a few words of flattery.

Instead, the moment he stepped outside the gate, he found them all staring at him like they wanted to eat him alive.

The Jinjiao Chancellor Bokedoyue walked straight up and declared: “Since your Ning Emperor has no intention of seeing us immediately, then we won’t be entering the city for now.”

Jia Ruan’s response was immediate: “Once inside, all food and lodging will be managed by the Ministry of Rites of Da Ning. If you don’t enter the city, you cover your own expenses for everything. And to ensure your safety out here — in case anyone gets lost or starts trouble — we will of course dispatch troops to *protect* you.”

That sent Bokedoyue into a fury. He rounded on Jia Ruan and shouted: “What are you but one of your Ning Emperor’s hounds?! Who do you think you’re performing for in front of me? If this were Jinjiao, I’d have your head on the ground this instant!”

Jia Ruan looked at him. “Have my head on the ground, will you? I’ll have your bloody nose on the ground first!”

This Deputy Minister of Rites, after all, was a man of the jianghu — the senior disciple of the Hung Blade Sect.

He rolled his sleeve straight up, stepped forward, and drove his fist directly into Bokedoyue’s nose.

That single punch sent Bokedoyue straight down onto his backside, blood erupting from his nose.

Given Jia Ruan’s ability, he could have killed him with one punch. He’d held back seven or eight parts of his strength.

Bokedoyue was only more enraged from being hit, and screamed at his men while wiping the blood: “Kill him! Kill him!”

It wasn’t that they were entirely ignorant — it was that the last time they’d come, they had truly run rampant without consequence.

But that was during the Chu Kingdom. This was Da Ning.

Given Jia Ruan’s character, was he the type to indulge them?

With a mutter — *oh, so you want to kill me* — he swore, stepped in, and mounted Bokedoyue like a horse, proceeding to deliver alternating open-handed slaps to both sides of Bokedoyue’s face in rapid succession.

He made him cry.

Actually made him cry.

Jia Ruan looked at this hard-headed fellow — sobbing on the ground — and he himself was caught off-guard. He found he couldn’t quite bring himself to keep hitting.

It’s always like this: if someone keeps fighting back at you, the angrier you get, and often you lose all sense of measure. But once they start crying… you feel faintly embarrassed to continue.

So Jia Ruan stood up, muttering: *You’re not very tough, are you. If you’re not tough, what were you strutting around for… I’ll have you know, the ones we’ve beaten for strutting before were actually tougher than you. At least most of them didn’t cry. You’re the first one to cry this fast.*

But this had thrown the entire Western Regions delegation into chaos.

Bokedoyue’s attendants didn’t dare actually kill anyone, but they did dare draw their blades to intimidate.

Allowing the envoys’ guards to retain their weapons had actually been an act of courtesy — Da Ning had neither disarmed them nor confiscated anything, which was a measure of respect.

But they seemed to think drawing blades was no big deal. What they hadn’t counted on was that the instant they drew, every Da Ning soldier in the vicinity moved.

Battle-hardened veterans who had clawed their way out of rivers of blood — they had their weapons in hand in an instant, and countless repeating crossbows locked onto the Western Regions men.

At that point, if anyone so much as flinched, none of these Westerners were likely to walk away alive.

Jia Ruan, as Deputy Minister of Rites, had not entirely forgotten his role and responsibilities. He raised his hand and pressed it downward — signaling no one to act.

Seeing this, Bokedoyue assumed Jia Ruan had suddenly grasped the gravity of the situation.

So he climbed to his feet, one hand pressed over his still-gushing nose, the other pointing at Jia Ruan, and screamed: “You — right now — immediately — *apologize* to me! Otherwise just wait for the united armies of all the Western Regions nations to come marching on your Central Plains!”

The words had barely left his mouth when, before Jia Ruan could respond, a figure shot out from behind him.

Bokedoyue saw a shadow flash across his vision — and then a large foot connected squarely with his face.

“Oh, get *stuffed*!”

Gui Yuanshu had come flying in with one kick and sent the just-risen Bokedoyue crashing back to the ground.

He had come to handle an emergency. Running all the way there, he had told himself: *when I arrive, I’ll put on a show of scolding Jia Ruan, give those Western Regions people a face-saving way out, and that’ll be the end of it.*

He had even worked out exactly how he was going to scold Jia Ruan.

But then the moment he arrived — he heard that man announce: *just wait for our Western Regions united army.*

Gui Yuanshu didn’t hold it together for even one breath.

Bokedoyue lay on the ground. His men helped him sit up. He looked at this new Da Ning official who had just arrived — and who was already rolling up his sleeves.

—