Chapter 169: Riding the Wind and Rain into Hangu Pass
Xu Fu was so excited she nearly forgot how to breathe.
Most people who sought immortals did it for their own futures, longevity, power, a promised destiny. Xu Fu was different. She did not chase the fruit. She chased the existence itself.
She had crossed seas, gambled her life on voyages that should have killed her, and kept going for the same reason every time. To witness gods and immortals. To confirm the mystery was real.
It was not a hobby. It was carved into her bones, something closer to instinct than desire.
Rowe was the first immortal she had ever met.
More than that, he was the first who had been gentle with her.
So in Xu Fu's heart, he was irreplaceable. Not as a symbol. As a fact written into the deepest layer of her origin.
"Great Monarch, Great Monarch…"
She did not need directions. She did not need a plan. The moment she felt his presence, she rushed toward the inn, face bright with emotion she did not know how to hide.
Magecraft gathered around her robes in a faint, flowing glow. As an immortal seeker, Xu Fu's skill was already profound, so close to the threshold of an Immortal that ordinary magi would have mistaken her for something other than human.
Under that veil of light, she moved through the crowded inn like a ghost. Merchants, travelers, the idle noise of a busy night, none of them noticed the timid girl slipping between them.
That timidity remained. She kept her head down, shoulders slightly drawn in, as if she were afraid her own happiness might offend the world.
She followed Rowe's aura in her senses, the same presence that had branded itself into her memory.
And the closer she got, the more nervous she became.
Because now she had to speak.
"Great Monarch, we meet again." Too abrupt.
"Great Monarch, hello, I am Xu Fu, the one you met before." Too formal.
The possibilities tangled in her mind until her cheeks warmed and her steps became strangely careful, as if she were approaching a sacred altar.
The feeling was complex, unclear, and embarrassingly sweet.
"Great Monarch…"
She finally reached the room. She phased through the wall without thinking and stepped inside.
Then froze.
Gauze curtains draped over the bed. Two figures were pressed close together beneath them, the posture unmistakably intimate.
Xu Fu blinked, head tilting.
"Eh? Great Emperor, and… Immortal Yu?"
Her mind went blank.
So this was their relationship?
She stood there, rooted to the floor, at a complete loss.
A voice spoke nearby, calm and mildly reproachful.
"It is rude to enter without knocking, little girl."
"S sorry!"
Xu Fu clutched her head at once, palms flattening against her hat and pushing it down as if the hat could hide her shame. She looked to the side, then made a small, startled sound.
"Great Monarch? How are you there, and that…"
Rowe was leaning against the wall, composed, watching her with faint amusement.
On the bed, Consort Yu stirred and propped herself up, eyes half open, lips pouting.
"So noisy. So annoying. Why does someone always bother me every time I sleep?"
Then her gaze sharpened.
"Wait. What is this?"
Under her hands was a doll made in Rowe's likeness.
Xu Fu's eyes lit up as if someone had struck flint in her skull.
"It is a puppet!"
Rowe smiled, unhurried.
"I had no choice. Someone insisted on hugging me and refused to let go, so I used a substitute."
Consort Yu's expression turned dangerous in the specific way that meant her pride had woken up before her sobriety.
"Hm."
She blinked, still groggy.
"You tricked me?"
Her fangs showed.
"I am going to… eat you. Hmph!"
With the wine not fully faded, her threat carried the weight of a natural disaster wearing a beautiful face.
Xu Fu looked at Consort Yu, then at Rowe, then tilted her head again. She did not know that the instant she entered, Rowe had used magecraft to slip free, then pulled a Shapeshifting Puppet Noble Phantasm from the Gate of Babylon to create the scene. He did it so smoothly that even Consort Yu had not noticed.
Avoiding awkward situations was, for Rowe, almost an instinct.
So his demeanor remained perfectly calm.
"A puppet…"
Xu Fu's thoughts ran off like a child chasing fireworks.
When I go back, I must make a big one. A very big Great Monarch doll.
Consort Yu rubbed her eyes, consciousness clearing. Only then did she fully register the extra person in the room.
Her body tensed. For a moment, she looked ready to strike.
Then she recognized the girl, exhaled, and immediately frowned.
"It is you, little girl."
Consort Yu did not mention the doll beneath her. She changed the subject with suspicious speed.
She remembered enough.
She really had hugged him.
She really had refused to let him leave.
And he had not left.
That fact warmed something in her chest before she could stop it. Consort Yu picked up the Rowe doll as if she were about to throw it away, then paused mid motion, eyes unfocused for a heartbeat.
Another thought surfaced, colder.
Xu Fu had come right up to them.
Why had she sensed nothing?
Even drunk, she should not have lost every instinct of vigilance.
Had she truly become that lazy?
Consort Yu sank into silent suspicion.
Rowe, meanwhile, bent slightly and rubbed Xu Fu's head, smoothing the tension out of her posture with a casual gentleness.
"Remember this. Next time, come through the door. Otherwise I will be angry."
"S sorry, Great Monarch." Xu Fu shrank back a little, but her face stayed flushed with excitement. "I was just too happy. I heard you were here."
"You came specifically to find me," Rowe said.
"Yes."
Xu Fu produced a letter and offered it to him with both hands.
"It is from Great Qin. King Zheng of Qin… people say he is very formidable. He wrote to tell me you were here, and he asked me to deliver this to you."
Rowe looked down at the sealed message.
Qin ruled as the strongest state under Heaven, and its king was not the sort of person who reached that position by luck. The letter's existence proved something else as well.
Caution.
Foresight.
A mind that planned in steps, always anticipating what could go wrong.
King Zheng knew Rowe's location, yet he did not send an envoy directly into Rowe's path. He sent the letter to Xu Fu, and let Xu Fu's hands carry it the rest of the way.
It avoided the risk of offending an unknown power. It also displayed sincerity without forcing contact.
A clean move.
Xu Fu saw the thoughtful pause on Rowe's face and panicked immediately.
"Great Monarch, please do not misunderstand. I did not come to recruit you for Qin. I have not even been to Qin yet. I only came because I heard you were here."
Her voice grew faster, as if fear might make her lose him again.
"I want to stay by your side. I want to follow your commands. Whatever it is, I will do it. No hesitation."
Her desire was painfully simple.
To be near him.
To be useful to him.
And to never be left behind by the miracle she had finally touched.
Rowe's expression softened.
"Great Qin," he said. "That is convenient. I was going there anyway."
Consort Yu had climbed off the bed. She watched Xu Fu, then watched Rowe, and without realizing it, hugged the Rowe doll tighter against her chest.
Something unpleasant stirred.
A sense of crisis she did not want to name.
Xu Fu tilted her head, surprised.
"You are going to Qin?"
Rowe raised a hand, intending to reassure her again, but Xu Fu suddenly snatched off her square hat, revealing long dark hair that spilled down like silk.
She looked up at him with apprehension on her face and expectation blazing in her eyes.
Rowe paused, considered, then rested his hand on her head anyway.
His impression of Xu Fu was good. Her reverence was fervent, perhaps too fervent, but no other warning signs had surfaced yet. Keeping her at a deliberate distance would only invite worse outcomes.
Consort Yu's internal warning bells rang loud enough to qualify as an alarm.
"Wherever you go, I will go," Xu Fu said, voice trembling with happiness as she leaned into the warmth of the gesture.
Rowe withdrew his hand.
He turned slightly toward Consort Yu.
"What do you say?"
"Does that even need saying?" Consort Yu bared her fangs. "You want to ditch me? Dream on."
Rowe nodded once.
"Then we go to Qin together. We will see what kind of person King Zheng truly is."
Xu Fu hesitated, then tried to be practical.
"How do we go? This is Yan. Qin is very far. I have a boat, and a carriage…"
"Be quiet." Consort Yu's tone snapped like a whip. "It is not your turn to speak."
"Eh. S sorry."
Consort Yu's hostility came too fast. Xu Fu's trembling made it worse, because it made Consort Yu suspect the girl was hiding something sharper under all that timidity.
Rowe let out a quiet breath, not quite a sigh, but close.
"Have you both forgotten who I am?"
He looked out at the dark window, voice even.
"I enter Qin in the name of Taiyi and Monarch Why would I travel by human carriages?"
He turned back to Xu Fu.
"Do you need to prepare anything?"
Xu Fu blinked. "Prepare?"
"Yes," Rowe said. "I will leave for Great Qin in the next two or three days."
"Eh? Already?" Xu Fu froze.
Consort Yu's lips curved with unhidden satisfaction.
"If you do not want to go, you do not have to."
"No, I am going!" Xu Fu raised her hand in panic. "Wherever the Monarch goes, I go."
Rowe nodded.
"Then rest for now."
Consort Yu swayed, head still heavy.
"I will sleep again. Still dizzy."
She lay back down and hugged the Rowe doll like it was a treasure she refused to admit she wanted.
Xu Fu's eyes flickered with envy, and her resolve hardened into something almost frightening.
But she did not leave. She found a place to sit, back straight, hands in her lap, as if she were attending court.
"I can stay here," she whispered, joy barely contained. "Being in the same room as the Monarch is an honor."
Rowe did not stop her.
He walked to the window and looked out.
Night had settled over the Divine Land. Darkness wrapped the city, broken only by scattered lantern light. The sky was clear, quiet, beautiful.
For a moment.
Rowe closed his eyes.
The air shifted.
An invisible bounded field expanded outward from him, not oppressive, simply absolute. Clouds began to gather. Water vapor condensed. Rivers, lakes, and seas responded as if called by a name they could not refuse.
The water cycle of the Three Realms, Heaven, Earth, and Man, turned under his will.
On the streets of Yan, pedestrians stopped and looked up.
"Why is it raining?"
"It is raining, hurry home!"
Some people ran. Others were caught and could only shelter under eaves, staring at the sudden change with alarm.
"Strange. A moment ago there was no wind, no rain, and now it is a downpour."
The rain fell like pillars between Heaven and Earth. The sound of water striking stone and wood became a roar, and the streets began to stream as if the city had grown veins overnight.
In Yan, not far away, Huang Shigong stood on a stone bridge with his hands behind his back, looking up into the storm. Rain fell onto his shoulders, yet he remained dry, protected by a quiet technique that did not need to announce itself.
"Is this the Monarch manifesting his Authority?" he murmured.
In the darkness beyond, the Juzi and many shadowed figures watched the water vapor's movement with disciplined eyes.
They saw it clearly.
It did not spread randomly.
It followed terrain, gathering into a single direction.
A tributary of the Great River, one of the two mother rivers of this land. Later generations would call it the Yellow River, but now it was simply the Great River. It cut its way through the plains, feeding into larger waters, and its influence bled outward until the flow turned, climbed, and poured toward the Wei River.
The Wei River, one of the Great River's great arteries, crossed fertile land and ran straight toward the outskirts of Hangu Pass.
At the bottom of the Wei River, in the deepest darkness, countless chains wrapped around a sealed presence.
Wuzhiqi's true body, the ancient demon god in the form of a silver haired woman, opened her eyes.
She lived in the water. She had once controlled these currents.
So she felt it immediately.
The dense surge of water vapor.
Back in Yan, Rowe opened his eyes.
"I will borrow the river for a while."
In the river depths, Wuzhiqi's laughter trembled through the water like delighted thunder.
"I could not ask for more. This gives me even more reasons to ask for your help later."
Even sealed, she could stir the waters. The fact she could send avatars proved the seal did not bind her completely.
So the ancient demon god moved.
From north to south, from west to east, water vapor traversed the Divine Land, linking into one vast expanse.
Rowe would use it as his vessel.
A solitary sail of rain and river, entering Hangu Pass, bound for Xianyang.
The storm still roared in the capital of Yan.
The Juzi stared at the rain, and something in him shifted.
What he saw no longer looked like weather.
It looked like an army.
Ten thousand chariots, about to enter Qin.
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