Xie Wuhao led his camel along behind the caravan, heading inward — everything went unbelievably smoothly.

Now, with his feet planted firmly on the ground, he could hardly believe he was actually walking on the marble-veined stone floor of the Tan people’s Sun Palace. It felt dreamlike, hazy.

That animals didn’t take to Brother Chen and the others was already a known thing — the first time he’d left Yanjing, his own horse had kept its distance from them. Not being liked wasn’t necessarily bad — it took a spirited animal, one that had seen the world, to have the nerve to act that way.

Who would have guessed — a long-haul merchant caravan’s camel, afraid of him? So he’d been rushed along in their place, and even now, having walked all the way here, he still couldn’t believe it: was this really the Tan people’s Sun Palace?

Me, Xie Wuhao, twenty-six years old, widowed for a year, from the Southern School’s Gong family, an official of the imperial court, one of the Four Chief Enforcers of Jiu Si Tang — and here I am, standing at the enemy’s doorstep?

His ears were filled with a foreign tongue. Xie Wuhao had picked up some vocabulary, but strung together in sentences, he lagged a few beats behind in understanding.

Fortunately, he was posing as a low-ranking warrior hired by the Matini merchants — he had no friends among them, his tent was set apart from the others, and all he had to do was lead his camel and keep pace with the caravan.

There was always distance kept between different groups within the horse caravan; a single person tending three or four animals had enough on their hands without paying attention to others — everyone was too exhausted and preoccupied to bother with him.

The low-ranking warrior in charge of three camels was about as lowly a position as existed in this whole group.

Xie Wuhao had imagined a hundred different ways he might die on this mission — he’d never imagined it would be like this.

Their group slowly approached the front of the Sun Palace, and a number of people came out from the palace-city to greet them. Yes — greet them.

Xie Wuhao led his camel along, head down, though he wasn’t afraid — in fact, he felt a thrill of excitement as he walked deeper in. Soon, he heard a burst of laughter.

Unbelievable — the Tan people, whom the people of Daliang considered demons, were capable of laughter like this: fawning, obsequious, almost servile.

No one searched their luggage, their horses, or their camel train. They were simply led straight into the vaulted passageway beneath the Sun Palace.

The passage was long, paved with massive slabs of cloud-patterned marble. Though intelligence reports back in Daliang had always painted the Tan people as crude, savage, uncivilized brutes, once here, Xie Wuhao could sense that the Tan people had a cultural depth all their own.

Take, for instance, the eagles carved into the stone walls flanking the passage, along with various scenes tied to the Sun Lord — the sun’s children dancing joyfully, riding horses to hunt, riding horses to kill, riding horses into battle, leading horses to prostrate themselves before the sun…

Of course, Xie Wuhao gave these carvings their due measure of contempt as well — those little carved figures were hideously ugly, faces flat as griddle cakes, and most of them, most of them weren’t even wearing clothes — utterly shameless.

Halfway down the passage, the laughing group of Tan people crowded around, and before Xie Wuhao could react, they swarmed forward and led away their camels — and the goods too?

Someone stuffed a purse full of gold coins into his hand, then dumped his shabby luggage and tent onto the ground, and the group walked off laughing?

Just left? Weren’t they going to check the quality of the spices he’d brought? Weren’t they going to see if he’d shorted the weight? Shouldn’t there be some clever back-and-forth between enemies — you looking down on me with suspicion, me calmly and coolly handling it to slip away unscathed? At the very least, shouldn’t they test him, see whether he was really Matini?

Xie Wuhao stood there clutching the purse, utterly at a loss for what to do. But before he could even get a firm grip on it, an old Matini man walked up and took the purse from him, then counted out ten silver coins from an even larger pouch.

The old man was thoroughly mischievous — he even held the purse up next to Xie Wuhao’s ear and jingled it, making him listen to the coins clink. Clearly, he was being teased. The people around laughed, and Xie Wuhao lowered his head in feigned “embarrassment.”

He fingered the coins —

He’d seen this kind of silver coin elsewhere — in that ancient city-state, one silver piece could buy three fattened sheep.

The old man beamed with satisfaction, reached out and patted Xie Wuhao’s shoulder, saying a long string of babble he didn’t understand at all.

Xie Wuhao glanced sideways and saw the other warriors carefully stowing away their silver coins, so he quickly did the same.

Once the coins were put away, he followed the group in a daze deeper into the Sun Palace. With guilt weighing on him, his pace couldn’t help quickening, pulling him ahead of the group — until, at the sound of an orderly rumble of wheels and hooves approaching, someone yanked him back.

In that instant, cold sweat broke out all over Xie Wuhao’s body — though without any hair left, he felt it standing on end somewhere all the same.

The Matini man who’d pulled him back was quite agitated, even kicking him a few times, dragging him aside and shoving him against the city wall.

Just then, the most magnificent carriage in the whole procession — one that had kept apart from the rest the entire journey — slowly entered the long passageway of the Sun Palace.

Xie Wuhao had noticed this carriage the night before; in Daliang terms, it had stood entirely aloof from the rest of the caravan, surrounded by warriors clad head to toe in silver armor.

These were Gaofeixi’ao people — they looked down on the Matini.

Handmaidens in white robes cooked and boiled water by the bonfire, then carried it to the carriage on golden trays.

The carriage itself was strange — pulled by six purely black horses with feathered plumes atop their heads, its body shaped like a small house, its fittings cast in pure copper yet polished by the driver to a gleam like gold.

It had begun moving with the first rays of dawn, the Matini trailing behind it like faithful followers, all the way to the vaulted gates of the Sun Palace, where it finally slowed and stopped, letting the Matini go in first.

A group of barefoot slaves pushed a great rolled-up carpet toward the archway.

The Matini pressed themselves against the wall, struggling to stay clear, terrified of soiling the carpet. Xie Wuhao’s mind turned quickly, and he soon understood — this was to keep them off the ground meant for someone of importance.

Ah, and here I am, a proper court official too.

He got kicked, and someone snickered — though without any real malice, the way old men back home might chuckle at a group of foolish young boys carrying on, saying, “Ah, we used to be even sillier than that at their age.”

The carpet was finally laid out, and more Tan people came out from within to greet the arrivals. Xie Wuhao was tugged again, and he saw the Matini all bow slightly at the waist in unison, hands pressed to their chests, showing submission toward the carriage.

He’d assumed it was the caravan’s leader — but… maybe not? Was this King Gongjitan?

His heart pounded like thunder in that instant, and his nose caught a thick, lingering scent of hovering-flower perfume.

He raised his head slightly and saw a pair of small calfskin boots, elaborately embroidered with intricate floral patterns. A woman?

Those boots stepped down onto the back of a kneeling Tan man to disembark, and Xie Wuhao beheld the bane of his existence… a pair of feet.

Yes — he didn’t dare raise his head to look further. One wrong move and he might be dragged off and executed on the spot, undoing everything.

So he never saw the proud, high-spirited woman herself — golden-haired, blue-eyed, tall and statuesque, skin like snow, but what drew the eye most was her air of sharp, imposing grace, carrying something of an old, weathered toughness about her — oh, and she had naturally curly hair too.

In the years that followed, Xie Wuhao would always call her “Sheep’s Wool Curls.”

The woman stepped down from the carriage and surveyed her surroundings like a monarch. Seeing the Tan people who’d come to greet her, she let out a disdainful huff and spoke a long string of rhythmic words, her voice androgynous, brimming with authority and overwhelming force — not that Xie Wuhao understood a word of it.

The Tan people seemed flustered, hunching over as they scurried forward in small steps, their broad, sturdy frames stooped like servant girls who’d suffered abuse in someone’s household.

They approached and, half-crouching, reached to touch the surface of her shoes; the woman’s tone grew even more impatient, and she raised a whip inlaid with turquoise gems to block them — she wasn’t even willing to let them touch her shoes.

The Tan people grew even more flustered, one of them prostrating himself to try and kiss the surface of the woman’s shoes — but before his head even made contact with the boot, he was struck cleanly with the whip, and still didn’t dare protest.

The man who’d been struck wore luxurious robes, an elaborate string of gemstones around his neck. Xie Wuhao, familiar with Tan customs, could tell from the massive rings on his hands — five of them across both hands — that he commanded five tribes.

And yet a man of such standing, wanting merely to kiss a woman’s shoe, had been struck for it.

Before Xie Wuhao could finish being stunned, the woman said something clearly severe — frightening, by the look of it — and the Matini around him grew nervous too, some even beginning to tremble.

The woman vented her fury, the Tan man apologized and begged forgiveness, and finally, with a swirl of her robe, she stormed off in a rage. Xie Wuhao didn’t notice — she was wearing men’s trousers underneath.

Once the group had all passed through, the carpet was rolled back up, and Xie Wuhao watched the silver-armored warriors she’d brought collect an entire chest of gold coins from the old Matini man — both sides pleased with the exchange, embracing each other, kissing each other’s cheeks.

No matter how many times he witnessed this foreign custom, Xie Wuhao felt his whole head go numb with disbelief.

Afterward, things seemed to wrap up. The old Matini man gave a few simple instructions. This time Xie Wuhao mostly understood — gather at the city gate the day after tomorrow at this hour to depart?

The Matini scattered in all directions.

Left behind, Xie Wuhao slung a tattered tent over his back, carried a rusty iron spear, and wandered aimlessly deeper into the Sun Palace along with the shabbily armored Matini warriors.

Well, “warriors” was a stretch — this was really just a group of Matini laborers pretending to be warriors, their weapons probably hadn’t even killed a flightless chicken.

The Sun Palace was a cluster of palaces, but it was also a city in its own right.

It had an outer city and an inner palace — the palace hung high on a cliff, looking down over the world, while in the outer city, the common people scraped by under the protection of King Gongjitan.

In the outskirts, Xie Wuhao caught the smell of poverty — noise everywhere, mules and horses kicking up dung, the sour stench of stagnant groundwater, people in coarse woven clothes wandering through the narrow streets.

Some broad, sturdy women who didn’t look particularly wealthy tended sparse street stalls in the outer city, children hanging off them everywhere — one in front, one on the back, one on each side, and a whole trailing line behind. They looked worn down by hardship, their expressions numb, yet none of them begged.

Because this was near the palace, begging wasn’t permitted here — most of them made their living in service to the palace, things like scrubbing the streets. The poor generally wore simple clothing, essentially a large sheet wrapped around themselves from head to toe; if they had no home, they’d simply find some corner to curl up in.

The elderly Tan people, no longer strong enough to labor for the palace, mostly lived out their final days this way.

The Matini who’d arrived with him vanished, clearly familiar with the area, leaving Xie Wuhao standing alone in the streets of the Sun Palace like a lone boat adrift.

In truth, the street wasn’t long — you could see from one end to the other at a glance. Yet all the poor kept strictly within its bounds; even the Matini clustered here when they came, mainly for the cheap prices.

Soon, a broad, sturdy Tan man with a mouth full of yellow teeth grabbed hold of Xie Wuhao. He was very enthusiastic, gesturing wildly — Matini speech differed from the Tan language, so he resorted to gestures, signaling for Xie Wuhao to follow him.

With nowhere else to go, Xie Wuhao let himself be pulled along into… a bathhouse?

Travelers, after a long journey, often needed to soak in hot water upon returning home, to loosen the exhaustion from their bodies.

Xie Wuhao received similar treatment — he was led into a low-grade bathhouse, then enthusiastically pushed into a room with its own private marble tub.

Fortunately it was a private bath; the room was small, dimly lit, none too clean, with healthy moss growing in the cracks of the walls and millipedes crawling about. As he stepped into the tub, Xie Wuhao felt the bottom of the pool under his feet — it was even slick to the touch.

Having gone so long without proper bathing, now that he was here, he figured he might as well wash up. He sank into the hot water and let out a slow, drawn-out sigh.

Had it really been this easy to get in?

He felt almost giddy, wanting to rush straight back to the tomb chamber to tell his brothers — you all wasted your effort, stop digging that tunnel, and my hair didn’t have to be shaved for nothing either. This place didn’t even have a checkpoint or a password. From the outside it looked utterly impenetrable, but once inside, he realized the whole thing was soft as egg white and yolk.

But that thought of his turned out to be wrong.

He’d simply attached himself to the right person, without realizing that the woman who’d arrived at the Sun Palace today was named Yinina — her full name ran to some thirty-odd characters; it would take Xie Wuhao half his life to learn to read it properly.

When he couldn’t quite make it out, he simply called her Sheep’s Wool Curls.

This Yinina was of noble birth — younger sister of the Gaofeixi’ao king, a duchess quite famous in future history, a flamboyant widow who had inherited vast tracts of land, and a rare noblewoman with actual military accomplishments to her name.

As for why she’d come to Tan territory — well, that was a long story. It all traced back to Chen Dasheng and the others’ rampage, during which they’d treated everyone on both banks of the Tan River as Tan people and taken revenge accordingly.

At first, this group genuinely couldn’t tell the different peoples around the Tan River apart.

Later, once they understood, they started robbing caravans — raiding merchant trains near the ancient city of Jindanchu, wearing stolen clothes, wielding Tan weapons, running wild without restraint, raking in a fortune in gemstones, and bribing the Matini to guide them.

The place they called the “old city” was Jindanchu, and Jindanchu was the duchess’s own fief — everyone there lived under her protection, obligated to hand over half their earnings to buy safety.

Chen Dasheng and his men hadn’t paid her a single coin — naturally, this provoked outrage from all sides.

This particular year, the great duchess had just become a widow. As it happened, she’d traveled far from the capital to her fief nearby to unwind and go hunting — and, of all things, her own tax collector in Jindanchu had been robbed.

That was simply unforgivable.

The duchess was remarkably clever — allowing the Matini caravan to travel under her escort was really just a way to earn herself a reputation as a merciful lady of the land.

As for the Tan people — well, since you attacked my caravan and killed my tax collector, why don’t we sit down and have a talk?

You say it wasn’t you? Hmph. Was it the people of Daliang, then?

She was no weak branch of Gaofeixi’ao. Since she happened to be in the area, she simply came.

Xie Wuhao, turning over his own private calculations, finished his bath, went out to gnaw on some flatbread, and got swindled in the process.

This particular disreputable establishment charged him three silver coins — enough for a Matini merchant to stay at the finest inn here, eat the best food, and enjoy the finest hip-swinging dances for three whole days.

Xie Wuhao was a bold man — he showed his Daliang face openly in this old shop, unafraid, so long as people took him for Matini.

The Matini traded across the whole world; wherever they settled, their method was to intermarry with the locals, which meant their bloodlines were remarkably mixed — in short, quite varied in complexion.

The Tan people, meanwhile, couldn’t tell East Asian faces apart, and it would never occur to them that the youth in front of them hailed from the East — indeed, to the Tan people, Xie Wuhao’s face looked like that of a boy.

This kid’s skin was even smooth and hairless, soft as milk. Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.

Perhaps worried about being blamed by the boy’s family for overcharging him, and seeing that he’d arrived alongside the duchess’s procession, the shopkeeper gave Xie Wuhao the finest room available.

Xie Wuhao wandered the room for a whole day, and as the sun began to set, he prepared to head out. The yellow-toothed man, perhaps feeling a pang of guilt, came out holding a large sheet and wrapped Xie Wuhao from head to toe in it.

Xie Wuhao thought he’d met a kind soul, not realizing that the shopkeeper kept clicking his tongue behind his back — muttering to himself that this child’s parents really had some nerve, letting someone so young go out to trade on his own.

Damn bloodsucking, leech-like Matini people.

Wrapped in the large sheet, Xie Wuhao wandered from the outskirts toward the inner city, growing bolder and bolder, eventually strolling about with little caution at all.

Yet no patrol came to question him. Today’s circumstances were complicated — the Tan people needed to show submission before the duchess, so they didn’t dare send out their strongest warriors.

After all, the armor and weapons they wore were all imports from the great Gaofeixi’ao kingdom — trade explicitly forbidden by decree of the Gaofeixi’ao king himself.

Even when the Matini brought iron goods to sell, both sides had to play deaf and dumb about it — it was, in short, a case of covering one’s ears while stealing a bell.

Xie Wuhao, of course, had no idea about any of this.

He began to feel a rising unease inside, and the deeper he went, the more surreal it all felt — he even thought that if the opportunity arose, he might as well go kill King Gongjitan on the spot. Just as he was mulling this over, Xie Wuhao heard a clear, crisp woman’s voice call down from a palace window overhead.

“&……%%……&……&5”

Xie Wuhao naturally couldn’t understand the Gaofeixi’ao court language, but he knew, somehow, that she was calling to him.

He looked up and saw a tall, rather good-looking woman in a vivid crimson gold-threaded dress, her hair piled in curls like a sheep’s tail atop her head, lips blood-red as though she’d just eaten a dead child, speaking drunken nonsense at him.

The great duchess was drunk. Bored out of her mind, she lay sprawled at the window — being a widow wasn’t easy — and happened to spot a lone figure walking along the quiet palace corridor below.

Whoever it was, the great duchess called out to him, and seeing how poor he looked, casually grabbed a rare piece of fruit from the table beside her and tossed it down.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have bothered.

“Hey, catch!”

She tossed the fruit down. Xie Wuhao reached out and caught it, his sheet slipping in the process to reveal a fine bare shoulder. He caught the fruit and looked up, grinning at the sheep’s-wool curls above.

The duchess laughed too, sighed, and said in a lilting, song-like tone, “Ah, what an adorable little youth, skin as smooth as milk…”

But to Xie Wuhao’s ears, this came out as: “&……%&……%&……”

Xie Wuhao’s face was a picture of pure bewilderment — his bald head making his baffled, rather endearing features all the more obvious.

The tipsy duchess leaned against the window, beckoning to him with a curled finger and a wink.

Xie Wuhao felt a flash of contempt inside — hmph, shameless flirt.

He turned to leave, but then spotted a squad of silver-armored warriors approaching, unhurried, from the distance.