Severing Time & Space

Hou Jingshu, Part I

Hou Jingshu pouted as she sat in the small carriage trundling along the dirt road in the middle of nowhere. She rested with her chin on her hand, stared out the window, and refused to look at the other person sitting inside of the carriage with her. Outside the window was a view featuring a cornucopia of trees and mountains but not much else.

Certainly, it was nothing like the imperial capital.

“Come on, my dear daughter. Are you still upset with me?” asked the man sitting on the opposite side of the carriage. He was an elderly man with graying hair and wrinkles around his eyes. While his age did show, his physique retained the perfectly sculpted muscles he had acquired in his youth, though they were hidden by his elegant robes.

Hou Jingshu had heard many stories of her father’s prowess as a cultivator, though he was only at the first subrealm of the Human Limit Realm. That was very good for a person in a small nation like the Shang Kingdom. However, Hou Jingshu had heard stories that the Human Limit Realm was the bare minimum requirement for people to be considered worthy of attention in other kingdoms and powerful sects.

“Oh, no. I’m not upset at all. Why would I be angry? It is not like you pulled me away from everything I know and love, and are forcing me to live in the middle of nowhere. I am most certainly not upset, so please do not worry yourself over me, Father,” Hou Jingshu said in a cold voice.

“You are most definitely upset,” her father said with a dry smile.

“Hmph.”

Hou Jingshu had no desire to speak with Father, but he was also the only person in the carriage with her.

They were on a journey to some remote city way out in the sticks. The months spent inside of this carriage were some of the longest of her young life. How far out had they traveled? She didn’t know. Hou Jingshu didn’t even know there were cities this far away from the royal capital.

While their carriage would normally have numerous guards surrounding it, there were none this time. Hou Jingshu didn’t know what her father was thinking, but there must have been an important reason for why they were traveling without so much as a single guard. Even Father’s right hand man was not present to protect them. That was unusual in and of itself since that old man would never allow Father to travel alone under normal circumstances.

Hou Jingshu couldn’t help but think something worrisome was happening.

She just didn’t know what.

She glanced at her father out of the corner of her left eye and frowned when she saw the creases on his forehead. He seemed stressed about something, though Hou Jingshu had noticed this about him for a while now. Even before they left the capital and journeyed to this remote location, Father appeared to have been fretting over something. She didn’t know what it was, but it must have been very serious.

“Your Imperial Majesty, we are approaching Zahn City. We should be there within fifteen minutes,” came the voice of their driver.

Father seemed to sigh in relief. A genuine smile appeared on his face. Hou Jingshu noticed this before she looked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Zahn City. However, it appeared they were still too far for her to see it. All she saw were two very big mountains forming what looked like fangs in the distance.

“It seems we have finally arrived. And we didn’t run into any trouble. That is good,” Father said.

“Were you expecting trouble, Father?” asked Hou Jingshu.

“Oh, are you speaking to me again?”

“O-of course not! I was just curious since it sounds like you were expecting us to be attacked or something!” Hou Jingshu said in a harsh voice. She could feel her cheeks burning so she looked away.

Father chuckled. “I wouldn’t say I was expecting trouble, but I would not have been surprised if trouble found us. There are many disparate elements within the Shang Kingdom. Not everyone listens to me despite my authority, especially the sects that are affiliated with one of the Three Celestial Sects or the Xia Dynasty. There have also been rumors that mercenaries from Qing have been crossing the border and causing trouble.”

Hou Jingshu nodded. She might have been young, but she wasn’t so young that she couldn’t understand what Father was talking about. Ever since she turned five, she had been taught by some of the best tutors, and was quite proud of how knowledgeable she was about worldly matters.

There were many sects, not just within the Shang Kingdom but spread across the entire Xiao Continent, and while some of those sects were beholden to the emperor of their respective kingdoms, some were branches of the Three Celestial Sects that ruled from on high. These branch sects had no loyalty to the kingdom and were instead loyal to the sect they belonged to. What’s more, emperors had to pay yearly taxes to these sects in exchange for their “protection,” a word she used very loosely.

We’re basically being bullied by the Celestial Sword Sect…

The Shang Kingdom did not have many ties to a Celestial Sect because they were small, but that did not mean they had none. Father paid a heavy tax toward the Celestial Sword Sect for their protection. Those sects who swore loyalty to someone other than their kingdom could pose a problem if they chose to rebel.

As they neared Zahn City, Father seemed to become more and more lax. He had been exceedingly cautious to cover their tracks during their travels, to the point where he wouldn’t get more than maybe two or three hours of sleep a night. He even had bags under his eyes. She thought Father was being paranoid. It was like he expected them to be attacked, though she had held her tongue because even now, she understood her position. It was not her place to question his decisions.

That did not mean she wouldn’t complain, however.