Chapter 30: The Past
Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio Editor: Nyoi_Bo_Studio
Although no other nation could match the power of the Kingdom of Qing, there was no end of scheming within the corridors of the imperial court. In the eyes of the citizens, the government's most treacherous officials were the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and Eunuch Hong Gonggong, leader of the palace eunuchs, all mentioned in the previous joke. It went without saying that the Director of the Overwatch Council was also infamous, but out of respect for his relationship with Fei Jie, Fan Xian had decided not to make him the butt of the joke.
He'd based the joke off of one he'd heard about Taiwanese politics during his previous life. He also relayed it in a letter to his sister, which had amused her greatly. After telling it to his grandmother - that seemingly befuddled but actually shrewd old lady - she'd burst out laughing too.
Having made the most powerful woman in Danzhou laugh, Fan Xian told her that he would be going out for a while. She didn't seem to mind; she'd gone back to her usual expression, that of an unruffled as an old well. She sent him off with a disinterested grunt of approval.
As he left the manor, he felt thankful for his growing closeness to his grandmother. After all, grandmothers had taken care of him in a lot of different ways. As he thought about it, he remembered a rumor he had heard. The House of Fan had been a great clan in Jingdu, but his father Count Sinan's branch of the family was small and insignificant, so they were often pushed around. Not long after his grandmother had given birth to Count Sinan, she was pressed into service as the wet nurse of Prince Cheng's household - unheard of for a member of the nobility.
Luckily, the previous emperor had no heirs, and as a result of his overactive sex life, he died an untimely death. The two most likely successors to the throne were murdered by an assassin from the Kingdom of Northern Wei, and the prince who had ordered the assassinations was also assassinated. Eventually, after an absurd and complicated chain of events - nothing particularly out of the ordinary for the politics of the kingdom - the ever-cautious Prince Cheng managed to ascend to the throne.
Cheng spent a number of peaceful years as Emperor, and when he passed away, the title of Emperor was passed on to the current Emperor. The Emperor led expeditions to conquer the barbarians to the west and the Kingdom of Northern Wei to the north. The once-mighty Kingdom of Northern Wei fell to pieces in the chaos, breaking up into the Kingdom of Northern Qi and a few small vassal states, as well as the always-neutral city of Dongyi.
The role of the Emperor was historically to achieve political and military victories. But the current Emperor was also considered a great master of both literature and martial arts. As a result, there were often officials who presented petitions to His Majesty, asking that he go up to the highest mountain to take part in rituals to thank heaven for peace and prosperity and praying for blessings at the temple.
But for some reason, His Majesty had always refused. Officials would try to win the emperor over with elegant coaxing, assuming the Emperor was just fishing for compliments, but were instead beaten to a bloody pulp.
The old mistress was the wet nurse of this decisive warrior of great power, an emperor who kept himself hidden within the palace.
Fan Xian had been suspicious about his father for years. Count Sinan's secret power far outweighed the power he should have had as an official. He had even gotten Fei Jie from the Overwatch Council to be Fan Xian's teacher. But knowing now that his grandmother had been the Emperor's wet nurse, his suspicions had been resolved.
His father Count Sinan was much like Cao Yin, a noble who lived during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor in Fan Xian's previous world. Cao Yin's mother, Sun Shi, had been the nanny of the Kangxi Emperor, and so Cao Yin was trusted by the Emperor throughout his life, becoming a close aide to the Emperor. Even though he was only a minor official, he was allowed to report directly to the Emperor. When Kangxi went on expeditions to the south, the Cao family would often accompany him. Cao Yin was feared by officials across the country.
In the later years of Kangxi's reign, Cao Yin was investigated for running up huge debts in the treasury. However, Kangxi saw to it during that time to pardon him again and again, situation after situation. It was not until after Cao Yin's death that his family fell on hard times, having growing distant from the Emperor.
And so Cao Yin's grandson, Cao Xueqin, came to Beijing at the age of 18, and wrote Dream of the Red Chamber.
This was the story that Fan Xian had copied and brought to this world.
"Master Cao, it seems that although we find ourselves in different places, we are kindred spirits. It seems appropriate that I'm copying your book." Thinking on the similarities between Cao's family and his own, he couldn't help but laugh. He gently folded up the letter that contained the tenth chapter of The Story of the Stone and left the manor.
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On a cliff overlooking the coast, Fan Xian closed his eyes in meditation. His body was filled from head to toe with a mysterious feeling. Because he had been a materialist in his past life, he now found that this powerful energy swirled around him and gave him a dreamlike feeling - almost as if he were falling in love.
Love is always a bittersweet thing, and his practice with this powerful energy brought him both pleasure and pain. It was clear that it was changing his body in exceedingly mysterious ways, greatly improving his strength and his responses. But it often refused to do as he commanded and would scatter, putting him in danger.
Because of the years he had spent being beaten senseless by Wu Zhu, his zhenqi had become more well-behaved. But today he was approaching great danger - it was the final day of his zhenqi training.
Wu Zhu stood calmly to one side, looking at Fan Xian, who sat cross-legged and in a deep meditative trance. He held his wooden stick in his hand like he usually would.
Following his will, the zhenqi that had pooled into his dantian flowed slowly out and was carefully guided through the meridians in his chest and belly, and as it had done for the past dozen or so years, it disappeared without trace, sinking into the xueshan point in his spine by his kidneys.
But the leftover zhenqi stayed strong, and as it flowed through his meridians it felt like thousands of hot knives scraping at their walls.
Fan Xian trembled all over, and cold sweat caused his clothes to stick to his body. His eyes shut tight and his long eyelashes quivered as he endured indescribable pain.
After many years of practice with this powerful energy, he had found that even the greatest of difficulties could be surmounted after a quick rest. After that, things had been easy. He had never imagined that getting past the first scroll would be quite so hard to bear.
The zhenqi continued to rampage through the meridians in his chest and belly, scouring them deeply and endlessly. This sometimes allowed the meridians to grow larger and wider, and allowed zhenqi to flow much quicker, but it could also cause immense damage. The power to expand one's intangible meridians also caused intense mental pain that was difficult to stand.
Fortunately, 12 years of diligent practice made it so that Fan Xian to was able to make his meridians significantly stronger. No energy overflowed through the walls of his veins, something that would have led to really serious problems. His powers of concentration had been greatly honed throughout his strange lives, both in this world and the last, making him much stronger than the average person.
...
...
Though it seemed like a long time had passed, the sun was only just rising above the eastern sea. As it hung there in the distance, it threw its warm red light upon the cliff, shining upon two lonesome figures, one standing, one sitting.
The zhenqi reversed its flow and headed upward. Powerful and ruthless, it broke through the thin barriers of his body. Flowing from the cycle gate point in his chest straight to the tianshu point in his belly, it suddenly shot up to the top of his nose, slicing like a knife!
In the red dawn light, Fan Xian felt as if he had been suddenly struck by lightning. His head shot up, looking up at the sky, his mouth wide open, unable to make a single sound.