kvmb Chapter 536
Chapter 536
In the distance, a muffled bell tolled from the direction of the palace. After twelve tolls, the rain suddenly intensified, and the copper bells on the eaves jingled wildly in the wind, eerily overlapping with the strange sound emanating from the throat of the man in black in the dungeon before his death.
Dongfang Wan'er gripped the bell tightly, feeling the silver disc warm slightly within her sleeve. She knew that when the lanterns of the Ghost Market lit up tomorrow, the secrets buried by time would finally be revealed with the wind and sand. The cinnabar birthmark on her wrist, the calluses on her mother's palm, and the lingering murderous intent in Ye Jiuchen's eyes would all become the red threads that strung together this earth-shattering conspiracy, weaving a net in the crimson and moonlight from which no one could escape.
At three-quarters past dusk, the late spring winds swept across the mass graves west of the city, carrying tattered paper talismans. As Dongfang Wan'er followed Ye Jiuchen into the Ghost Market, the silver bell on her ankle jingled softly at the entrance, coinciding with the summoning banner. Three ghostly lanterns hung from a crooked locust tree, their green light revealing the words "Ghost Market" riddled with holes from insects, resembling the peeling plaster on the walls of an old mansion's dungeon. She instinctively reached for the bronze bell in her sleeve, touching the raised, pavilion-like patterns on the silver plate, and suddenly heard the sound of camel bells coming from the shadows—a sound that perfectly matched the night watchman's drum in her father's study, a sound she remembered.
The stone-paved streets of the ghost market were damp with moisture. Stalls on both sides displayed dice made from human bones, glass eyeballs imported from the Western Regions, and incense infused with datura flowers for intoxication. Ye Jiuchen's black cloak swept over the stalls selling necromancy, the copper bells resonating with the soul-suppressing bells on the stalls, emitting a soft hum. Dongfang Wan'er stared at a ceramic jar with a double-fish pattern on one of the stalls; a half-piece of indigo cloth, identical to that of the man in black, was tied to the red rope binding the jar's mouth.
"Looking at the goods but not buying, be careful of being haunted by ghosts." A hoarse voice came from behind the pottery jar. The old man wearing a bamboo hat lifted his eyelids, his cloudy eyes reflecting the cinnabar mole on her wrist. Ye Jiuchen subtly pulled her behind him, his fingertips touching the mechanism at his waist, where three bone-piercing nails, bestowed by the late emperor, were hidden. Dongfang Wan'er noticed the medicine grinder on the old man's table; the dark brown powder remaining in the mortar was the poison the man in black had ingested the previous night.
They meandered through the spiderweb-like alleyways when they suddenly heard the sound of a rattle drum. Looking in the direction of the sound, they saw a blind dwarf performing a monkey show, the monkey's head adorned with an embroidered double fish holding a tail. Just as Ye Jiuchen was about to approach, a dark figure suddenly swept past from the eastern alleyway, the hem of his black robe brushing against the puddles, startling several glowing fireflies—exotic insects from the Western Regions fed with phosphorus powder.
"Hand over the bells." The man in black robes appeared on the broken wall three zhang away, the moonlight sharpening his silhouette like a knife. Nine bronze bells hung at his waist, identical in design to the one in Dongfang Wan'er's hand. As he raised his hand, his sleeve slipped down, revealing a tattoo on his forearm: two fish entwined around a curved blade, the emblem of the An Clan Merchant Guild of the Kingdom of Kucha. Ye Jiuchen's sword was already three inches from its sheath, the Big Dipper pattern on its spine gleaming coldly in the will-o'-the-wisp. Dongfang Wan'er noticed that in the shadows at the man in black robes' feet, several poisonous spiders with golden spots on their backs were crawling.
"Jiuchen, look at the soles of his boots!" she suddenly exclaimed. As Ye Jiuchen turned around, he caught a glimpse of the mandala pattern engraved on the soles of the black-robed man's boots—exactly the same pattern as the mechanism in the secret passage of the old house. At the same time, the old man selling herbs suddenly knocked over his medicine basket, his withered hand pointing to the street corner: "The third of the Double Fish Lanterns!" The moment the blue medicinal powder rose, Dongfang Wan'er was pulled into the narrow alley by Ye Jiuchen. A bell rang sharply behind her; it was the black-robed man's hidden arrow that grazed her hair and embedded itself in the brick wall.
The twin-fish lanterns on the street corner cast shimmering shadows in the wind, their tassels adorned with dried datura flowers, each petal facing west—the direction of Kucha. The copper ring on the shop's wooden door was carved with a bell-swallowing beast. Just as Dongfang Wan'er touched the ring, she heard the clatter of abacus beads coming from inside, a "clattering" sound mixed with low murmurs in Sogdian. Ye Jiuchen suddenly pressed her hand down, took a silver piece from his sleeve, and pressed it against the crack in the door. With a soft "click," the latch slid open automatically.
The room was filled with the scents of agarwood and blood. Persian carpets hung on the four walls, their weaves concealing countless hidden bell patterns. On a walnut counter in the center lay a painting of a pavilion identical to the one on the silver plate—nine lifelike bells dangled from the eaves, and the three characters "Shuangyu Fang" (Double Fish Pavilion) outlined in gold powder, their hooked strokes appearing in the candlelight. Dongfang Wan'er's Qing Shuang sword suddenly trembled slightly; the characters "Zhi Ge" (Stop the War) on the hilt and the inscription on the pavilion plaque in the painting seemed to be written by the same person.
"Watch out!" Ye Jiuchen's sword deflected a hidden weapon that burst through the window—a poisoned crossbow bolt with the Kucha script character for "kill" carved on its tip. Dongfang Wan'er seized the opportunity to open the ledger behind the counter. On the yellowed pages, in the account for the seventh day of the third month of the fourth year of Yonghui, it was clearly recorded that "Shuangyu Workshop received nine bronze bells, paid with three thousand taels of silver." The vermilion seal at the end was identical to the pattern on her father's official seal from back then.
The sounds of fighting outside suddenly ceased, replaced by the echoing of camel bells from underground, like a death knell from the underworld. Ye Jiuchen kicked over the charcoal brazier, sparks scattering onto the Persian carpet and revealing a hidden compartment beneath—neatly stacked Western Region scimitars, the double fish pattern on the hilts perfectly matching the tattoos of the black-robed man. As Dongfang Wan'er touched the hilts, she suddenly noticed scrolls of paper hidden in the scabbards of each sword. Unfolding them, she discovered they were smuggling ledgers between the imperial court and Western Region merchant groups, the vermilion annotations at the end bearing handwriting strikingly similar to that of the current emperor.
With a deafening roar, a corner of the roof collapsed. In the moonlight, the man in black removed his mask, revealing a scar on his left cheek—a scar that ran diagonally from the corner of his eye to his jaw, its arc mirroring the bloody handprint in the secret passage of his father's study. "An Shiping?" Dongfang Wan'er's hand trembled as she gripped her sword. This name had appeared in her father's dying ramblings, "You weren't already..."
"Die outside Yumen Pass?" An Shiping licked the blood from the corner of his mouth, the nine bells on his fingers ringing like a death knell. "Did Lord Dongfang ever tell you the true business of Shuangyufang?" He stepped over the broken tiles, the mandala pattern on the soles of his boots leaving eerie marks on the dust. "Those bells don't contain spices, they contain..."
Before he could finish speaking, a piercing nail suddenly pierced his throat. Ye Jiuchen's hand, still burning from gripping the crossbow, billowed in the wind, revealing the dragon embroidery on the lining—a five-clawed golden dragon that only direct descendants of the royal family were entitled to use. Dongfang Wan'er's pupils constricted as she looked at An Shiping's finger pointing at her before he fell, suddenly understanding the source of that eerie smile in his eyes.
"Jiuchen, your..." Her voice was interrupted by the sudden cry of the night watchman. Amidst the shout of "At midnight, ghosts roam freely," blue flames suddenly erupted around the shop, as someone had poured phosphorus powder outside. Ye Jiuchen dragged her towards the secret passage, his boot kicking a copper box from which rolled out a cinnabar mole sticker identical to the one on her wrist—but dyed with dead blood.
At the end of the secret passage was an abandoned drainage ditch. Beneath the decaying leaves, half a boundary marker was faintly visible, the four characters "Royal Estate Forbidden Area" covered in moss. Dongfang Wan'er leaned against the wall, panting. She touched a carving on the damp stone wall, which was a "An" character superimposed on a "Dong" character, resembling a curse entangled in bloodlines. Ye Jiuchen brushed the grass clippings from her hair, his fingertips lingering on the back of her neck for a moment. There was a light-colored birthmark there, its shape exactly the same as the bell pendant on the painting of the Twin Fish Pavilion.
In the distance, the lanterns of the ghost market went out one by one, with only an eerie red light emanating from the direction of Xiefang Courtyard. Dongfang Wan'er gripped the smuggling ledger tightly, her heart pounding like a drum—it turned out her father wasn't corrupt, but had uncovered irrefutable evidence of collusion between the royal family and the Western Regions merchant group; it turned out her mother's sighs while embroidering every day were a mask for the turmoil in her eyes; and Ye Jiuchen… She gazed at his sharply defined profile in the firelight, and suddenly remembered the seal he had stamped on the marriage certificate—the last stroke of the character "Chen" was from the same hand as the vermilion annotations on the ledger.
"At the morning court tomorrow, I will request an imperial decree to conduct a thorough investigation." Ye Jiuchen's voice interrupted her thoughts. He took out a gold-inlaid jade box from his sleeve, inside which lay half a jade pendant, the very half that Madam Dongfang had "lost" years ago. "Some truths should surface." He fastened her cloak, his fingertip tracing the cinnabar birthmark on her wrist, where blood had seeped out unnoticed, making it seem as if the birthmark had come to life.
Dongfang Wan'er gazed at the gradually brightening sky. Wisps of smoke rose from the ruins of the ghost market, the air thick with the sweet scent of datura and the stench of blood. She knew that when the morning bell tolled, the bell in her hand would no longer be an ornament, but a sharp blade piercing the darkness. And Ye Jiuchen, the man with whom she had set a wedding date, was he a good partner to walk hand in hand with, or a gatekeeper to another abyss?
The wind blew through the drainage ditch, carrying the distant tolling of the palace bells. After twelve rings, Dongfang Wan'er heard the bronze bell in her arms vibrate gently. A piece of paper popped out from the silver piece at the mouth of the Pisces, on which was written in Sogdian script: "When the Pisces bite each other's tails, the truth will devour the lies." She looked up at Ye Jiuchen and found that his eyes reflected the rising sun, yet hid a shadow deeper than the Ghost Market.
At that moment, the sound of rapid hoofbeats came from the direction of Xiefang Courtyard, accompanied by her mother's shrill scream. Dongfang Wan'er gripped the Qing Shuang sword tightly, the two characters "Zhi Ge" on the scabbard flickering in the morning light—perhaps from the day her father fell, her fate had been inextricably linked with this sword, this bell, and this man full of secrets, leaving her with no way out.