Early morning.
Outside the main gates of the Chengyi Count's Manor, the bluestone paved road emanated a bone-piercing chill. Jenny Huang stood motionless in the mist.
Xu Qinghuan was about to board her carriage when she caught sight of the figure from the corner of her eye. She paused and glanced sideways at Li Sheng, who looked equally bewildered.
"Jenny?! Come here." With a flick of her wrist, Xu Qinghuan cracked the reins in the air. Her voice sounded somewhat abrupt in the empty, long street.
Jenny Huang trotted over. Her eyes, which usually only focused on mechanical parts, now harbored a fire so intense it almost burned to look at.
Xu Qinghuan did not waste words; she grabbed the girl by the arm.
Jenny Huang, having tinkered with wood and iron all year round, had quite a bit of strength in her hands. But Xu Qinghuan used brute force, dragging and shoving her straight into the carriage.
Clang.
Xu Qinghuan slammed the carriage door shut from the inside. The sound of the wooden latch falling echoed in the cramped cabin, hurting the ears. Li Sheng tactfully led the servants to scatter ten yards away. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword at his waist, his back to the carriage, but his ears pricked up sharply.
"What is this all about?" Xu Qinghuan settled onto a large cushion, her breathing still uneven.
Jenny Huang remained silent and placed the box she was holding onto the small table between them. It was a delicate mechanical box, still covered in charcoal ash.
With a click, the mechanism sprang open. No dazzling jewels were revealed inside; instead, a pungent smell of sulfur and saltpeter rushed to the nose.
"Princess, take a look at this," Jenny Huang's voice was a bit hoarse. She pulled out a few badly crumpled pieces of rough paper from the bottom of the box and spread them out in front of Xu Qinghuan.
The drawings on the paper were messy, the charcoal lines thick and black. Xu Qinghuan leaned in closer. It was annotated: five parts saltpeter, two parts sulfur, three parts charcoal. Next to it was a drawing of a sealed thick bamboo tube stuffed with a packet of quicklime.
"A few days ago, while modifying the connecting shaft of that spinning machine, I accidentally mixed quicklime, sulfur, and saltpeter in a bucket," Jenny Huang gestured, dark mud still lodged under her fingernails. "At first, it just smoked, so I clamped the lid down tight."
"Who would have thought that in less than half a cup of tea's time, the lid, along with the entire bottom of the iron bucket, flew off with a loud bang. A bowl-sized hole was blown into the plaster of the workshop wall in that corner. Sparks jumped into a pile of cotton, nearly setting me on fire too."
Xu Qinghuan's pupils contracted. She looked down at the rough sketches. It was the primitive embryo of a black powder explosive charge, even featuring an ignition design using the heat generated by damp quicklime.
"Are you saying this thing can explode?"
"It can," Jenny Huang said with absolute certainty. She reached into the bamboo tube and pulled out a piece of thin string. "I rubbed crushed flint and fine hemp into the fuse. As long as the quicklime in this bamboo tube is soaked with water, the heat will ignite the powder."
"This thing is deadlier than any catapult or heavy crossbow. If this bamboo tube were replaced with cast iron and filled with iron shrapnel..."
"So I figured, keeping something like this in Jiangnan is too unsafe. I had to come find you in person!"
Xu Qinghuan's mental ledger quickly flipped to the relevant page. It wasn't that she couldn't obtain such blueprints from her system, but a genius who could localize this technology in this era and figure out the exact proportions herself was the most reliable amulet she could have.
Pressing her hand on the rough paper, Xu Qinghuan said, "Put the spinning machine aside for now. If I give you the best materials and the purest sulfur, can you produce this in large quantities?"
"Yes, but I have to oversee it." Jenny Huang looked up at her without flinching. "Princess, you said you are going to the Northern Frontier. That place is full of people who kill with swords. This thing I made hasn't been tested in a real battle yet. Take me with you. Maybe I can improve it even more over there."
Xu Qinghuan looked at this girl who had barely reached adulthood. Right now, Jenny Huang showed not a trace of timidity.
"The Northern Frontier is not like the capital; it's a place where human life is cheaper than grass. He Minghu, Ma Jin'an, and their lot kill without blinking an eye. If we encounter a charge by barbarian cavalry, even I can't guarantee I'll survive."
"If you follow me, you'll be tying your head to your waistband."
Jenny Huang hugged the box tightly. "Back in Jiangning, my head already stopped belonging to me. You bought me, Princess, gave me food, gave me books to read, and let me tinker with these things."
"My life has long been intertwined with these mechanical parts. Whether I die in the Northern Frontier or the capital, it's just a different hole to be buried in. I might as well go to the border and blow everything sky-high."
"Good!" Xu Qinghuan slammed her hand on the table, leaving no room for argument. "I approve."
She pushed open the carriage door and shouted to Li Sheng outside, "Li Sheng! Pick the carriage with the sturdiest axles at the back and clear out half the cargo inside. From now on, that carriage is her territory. Except for me, no one is allowed to peek inside."
Xu Qinghuan pointed to two burly men at the rear of the convoy. "You two, for the next sixty days, you will protect this carriage with your lives, through every meal and rest. If the carriage survives, you survive. If the carriage is lost, don't bother coming back."
The two death-sworn guards knelt on one knee to accept the order, an indelible murderous aura about them.
The convoy slowly began to move.
The horses' hooves stepped on the thin frost, making a muffled, heavy sound. The long line of thirty large carriages looked like a newly awakened python, slowly slithering down the East Main Street of the capital.
When they reached the archway of the North Gate, before the defending general could even check their documents, a sudden, urgent clatter of hooves came from behind.
"Little sister! Wait!"
Xu Wuyou galloped over on a single horse, the sweat from the beast steaming in the cold air. He dashed inside the city gate and forcefully yanked the reins. His mount let out a shrill whinny, its two front hooves almost striking sparks against the bluestone pavement.
Xu Qinghuan lifted the carriage curtain, frowning.
Xu Wuyou's legs wobbled slightly as he dismounted. Without bothering to greet anyone around him, he hurried to the carriage window, clutching a crumpled secret letter in his palm, and shoved it inside without a word.
"Just received this. It was passed along through the Xie Manor's channels," Xu Wuyou lowered his voice.
Xu Qinghuan glanced at the envelope. In the bottom right corner was a very inconspicuous secret plum blossom mark, the unique seal of the Xie family:
The remnants of the Wang family in Jiangnan have not been eradicated.
They have spent a fortune to recruit four hundred martial world assassins, who have already slipped out of the pass.
A death trap is set on the inevitable official road, a hundred miles before Juyong Pass. They seek no wealth, only the head of Ci'an.
Those old fools of the Wang family were certainly willing to spend heavily. Their home was raided, their roots severed, yet they still wanted to drag someone down with them before they died.
"Miss, the Eldest Miss of the Xie family is saving our lives," Li Sheng, who had also seen the contents from the side, said as sweat rolled down his forehead and cheeks. "Four hundred assassins. Those are ruthless killers who don't care about their own lives."
"Our few dozen guards probably won't be able to stop these nameless assassins. How about... we return to the manor first? We can take this letter to the Imperial Guards and request troops?"
"Call for reinforcements?" Xu Qinghuan gave a soft chuckle, the sound colder than the biting wind outside the window. "The Imperial Guards belong to the Emperor, not to my Xu family. To beg for troops is to tell His Majesty that I cannot even settle my own family vendettas, let alone patrol the Northern Frontier. Those imperial censors watching our every move would probably draft memorials impeaching us for cowardice on the spot."
With a flick of her wrist, she dropped the letter into the glowing red-clay stove beside her.
Orange flames instantly swallowed the paper. The secret plum blossom watermark flashed briefly amidst the soot before crumbling into ash.
"There is no turning back. The moment I stepped out the gates of the Earl's estate, a cliff opened up behind me," Xu Qinghuan said calmly. "Li Sheng, go and dig out the map of the Northern Frontier for me."
The map was unrolled across the low desk, its edges long frayed from use. Tracing her finger northward from the capital, Xu Qinghuan drew a jagged, winding line.
