Chapter 78: More Names
Sunan laughed with more joy than he ever had before in his entire life. He stepped forward and embraced Bao, who also started laughing, although, it only took a moment for her laughter to turn into tears.
“I don’t even know how to be a parent....” she murmured.
“It’s easy,” he said. “You feed them. Change their swaddling. And let them sleep. No challenge at all! Let’s go make an announcement. Everyone in the sect is going to be thrilled.”
“No, wait,” she said. “For safety’s sake....” She could only imagine what might happen if the Demon Emperor and his forces learned that she was with child, and thus more vulnerable than ever.
As it turned out, it only took a week for an event to occur which completely reinforced Bao’s fears. It was with a grim face that Wang Tian brought news from the heart of the empire, in the form of a single sheet of crumpled paper.
“Look at this,” he said, carefully flattening the piece of paper. “It’s a letter from the Demon King himself, to the magistrate of Yu Zhing. It’s a miracle that the Eyes of the Phoenix were able to get this.”
Magistrate Li
The time has come to deploy the three assassin squads you have been training. Send them to kill the leaders of the Dragon-Phoenix Sect, Sunan and Bao. They are holed up in a fortress on Zun Shan, a place not easily reached by armies or infiltrators. I am sending this letter with my newly appointed Bone General, Geng Long, who will give further instructions on how to carry out the mission. The assassin squads from Xuanlu will also join the mission.
The King of the Pure Ones
A meeting was held shortly after. Present were Sunan and Bao, as well as Wang Tian, Mao Yun, and Li Runfa.
Although everyone was indeed thrilled to hear of Bao’s pregnancy, they were equally perturbed that assassins were being deployed specifically to target Sunan and Bao.
“I don’t feel safe here,” Bao said.
Li Runfa drummed his fingers onto the table but didn’t say anything.
“This is surely the safest place to be,” Mao Yun said. “Surrounded by friends and guards.”
“And spies,” Li Runfa said. “I’m currently aware of five infiltrators, but there could be more. And considering that most recruiting goes on outside of the headquarters, it’s becoming more and more difficult to screen the newcomers.”
“If you know who the infiltrators are, why not just expel them?”
“It’s not the ones I know about that worry me.”
Wang Tian reached into the folds of his garment and pulled out a map of Qi Xien, something that all Eyes of the Phoenix carried with them. Unfolding it and laying it out onto the table, he said, “If you left Zun Shan, where would you go? Perhaps Zhe Valley? The Scorpion Swordsman would probably be willing to take you in.”
Li Runfa shook his head. “We would be even less sure of who may or may not be an agent of the Demon Emperor. If you leave, it must be in secret, and so must your destination.”
Wang Tian looked down at the map and frowned. “The Dai Bien Forest? Apparently, the Timeless Master worked out a deal with Hua Pi the Skin Dancer.”
Li Runfa shook his head again. “Hua Pi doesn’t control the entire Dai Bian Forest, only parts of it. The entire area is far too unstable. Besides, the man’s a maniac.”
“What about the Lands of the Hechi?” Sunan said.
“The goat people are peaceful,” Li Runfa said, “that much is true.”
“It’s the journey I would worry most about,” Wang Tian said. “To get there, you would have to take a ship from either Yu Zhing or Qi Fao. Qi Fao is too far to the north, and Yu Zhing is essentially the seat of the empire.”
Another long silence filled the chamber.
Finally, Bao said, “What about Naqan? My Uncle Gongye is there, and it’s about as far from the Demon Emperor as you can get.”
Naqan was definitely the furthest point from the empire in terms of civilized lands. It was so far away that it wasn’t even mentioned on Wang Tian’s map.
As the moments ticked by, everyone turned to look at Li Runfa. Finally, he shrugged. “Naqan would be a good choice. But the journey would be an arduous one. It would be hard to calculate directly, but I would guess at least three months. Maybe four.”
“That’s a long trip,” Sunan said.
“What about Nangu?” Li Runfa suggested. “It’s well beyond the borders of the empire, but closer than Naqan. The journey would be much shorter. Perhaps a month?”
Bao thought about it for a moment, and then nodded.
Of course, a decision like that couldn’t be made so quickly. The discussion went on late into the night, and continued the following day. Eventually, a plan was finalized. Preparations were made, and a week later, the plan was carried out.
An official announcement was made in the sect that Sunan and Bao had both received enlightenment in a dream, and were traveling to the lands of the Hechi to search for an ancient scripture. They set out accompanied by Wang Tian and a select group of the Eyes of the Phoenix, as well as Mao Yun and a few other of the most loyal and old-time members of the sect.
However, once they reached the bottom of Zun Shan, the group split up. Wang Tian and his Eyes of the Phoenix headed west into the Jian Shu Forest and the Southern Fei River. But Sunan, Bao, Mao Yun, and their handful of companions headed south, their true destination, of course, being Nangu. They also changed out of their Dragon-Phoenix Sect garb, donning nondescript travel clothing.
They went through Heiping Valley, stopping by the very same inn where they had fought the Bone General, before proceeding on toward Zhe Valley.
The journey was relatively uneventful. On a few occasions they ran into bandits or wild animals, but considering the level of their martial arts, such encounters posed little threat. Crossing the mountains into Zhe Valley took longer than expected, but after that, travel went smoothly as they followed the Zhe River directly south.
Upon reaching the southernmost reaches of Zhe Valley, the other members of the sect returned north, with Bao and Sunan continuing south via boat down the Zhe River, with only Mao Yun as their escort.
The first thing they noticed upon entering the Nangu region was the humidity. All three of them had traveled through the jungles and swamps of the Banyan Region, but Nangu was even more lush with vegetation, and hotter. Oftentimes, it was difficult to see from one bank of the river to the other because of the mists that floated about.
They quickly found that the Nangu region was a dangerous place. All sorts of strange creatures and animals could be seen, and they soon abandoned any attempts to make camp on the riverbank at night. They headed down the river as quickly as possible to a city located at the mouth of the river where it flowed out into the Yao Yun Sea. From there, they booked passage on a ship that was heading west to a smaller city that they hoped to make their final destination.
The Nangu region was inhabited by a race of people who called themselves the Kithiri. For the most part, they looked just like the peoples to the north, except that they had skin the color of bronze, and spoke many strange languages and dialects, most of which were grouped under the general classification of the Singh language.
“I studied a bit of Classical Singh as a child,” Bao said, “but have forgotten most of it.”
Although Bao, Sunan, and Mao Yun stuck out a bit, the Kithiri were used to travelers, and didn’t pay them much heed.
After many days of travel along the southern coast of the continent, they reached their final destination, the city of Sunharee Machalee, which in the Classical Singh language that the locals spoke meant “golden fish.” It was built on the shores of a bay of the same name, and was a small city by the standards of the empire, but large for Nangu.
They spent a bit of time in the city, where they found a guide who spoke the Daoyun language they were used to using. With the help of the guide, they learned a bit more about the local culture, and then, considering how cheap things were here compared to the empire, they spent a bit of money to purchase some land south of the city. They had brought an entire case of gold taels with them, ensuring that money would not be a problem during their time away from the empire, at least not for many years to come.
Over the course of the following week, Mao Yun and Sunan built a small cabin there overlooking the bay. Behind the cabin, they tilled a bit of land where they planted some grains and vegetables. They also bought a few pigs and chickens, some fishing equipment, including a small boat, as well as various household items like a stove, quilts and blankets, and other things.
When the work was done, Bao and Sunan looked at their new home, and they were happy.
For Bao, there was something fresh and romantic to it all. She had been raised in the finery of a noble clan, in one of the most advanced and richest cities in the world. To her, a little cabin overlooking a bay, with a vegetable garden in the back and a rooster to wake them up in the morning, was like something from a story.
For Sunan, it reminded him of home. As he stood there, his arm wrapped around Bao’s shoulder, he thought of his own childhood, and the countless times he’d collected eggs from the chickens in the mornings, or wrestled with the pigs on cool spring evenings. Bao couldn’t tell because she wasn’t looking at his face, but tears had actually welled up in his eyes.
Mao Yun left the next day.
“I’ll be back in six months,” he said. “You’ll need help when the baby comes.”
Bao blushed. “I’m sure the Kithiri midwives will be fine, Mao Yun. You don’t need to come all the way back to--”
“You can’t stop me!” he interrupted with a grin. “Take care, you two.”
With that, he headed back north to the Banyan.
For years, Bao and Sunan had been up to their necks in either danger, intrigue, mystery, or martial arts.
But now, things were different. The pace of life slowed down, and everything was simple. They would wake with the sun to tend to the garden and the animals, and then go fishing in the afternoon. In the evenings, they would sit in front of the cabin and drink the local spiced tea as they watched the sun set over the waters of the Bay of Sunharee Machalee.
They made a few friends in the city, including a local fisherman named Lawat, who it turned out had a bit of a talent for Qi cultivation, which was a rarity this far south. Lawat agreed to teach them Classical Singh in exchange for some lessons about Qi manipulation.
Soon, Bao’s belly began to swell, but that didn’t stop her from helping with the daily tasks of life.
Time began to speed by.
In their third month in Nangu, they asked Lawat to take them to the best midwife in the city. She was a kindly woman, typical of the Kithiri, albeit somewhat plumper than the average citizen. She felt Bao’s pulse at her wrist, and then rubbed her belly, and finally did a few other tests. For the most part, the methods used by Kithiri midwives seemed similar to those used further in the north.
When she was finished, the midwife said something in Classical Singh that neither Bao nor Sunan could understand. “Ap judava bachon ko jam denge.”
Bao responded in her own heavily accented Classical Singh. “No understand?”
The midwife smiled. Pointing at Bao’s belly, she replied with a few words of Daoyun. “Baby is two.” She held up two fingers on her right hand. “Two baby.”
“Twins?!” Bao exclaimed in Daoyun. She quickly switched back to Classical Sing. “Me, two baby?”
The midwife nodded. “Judava. Two baby. Boy boy? Boy girl? Girl girl?” She shrugged. “Judava.”
“Twins....” Bao said, taking a deep breath. She looked over at Sunan. “We need to think of more names!”
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