Longevity - Chapter 24

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 24: A Lie Grows Wings
The three Hwaso that Jangseong had handed over vanished in an instant.
Batulu chewed the lump, which looked to be half a geun, two or three times before swallowing it. Worried he might choke, Jangseong held out a water skin, but Batulu waved it away.
He glanced left and right, then leaned toward Jangseong.

“Bring a few more.”

The official carriage, pulled by four horses, had a roomy interior. Jangseong stooped to climb in and scooped out a fistful of Hwaso.
After slipping them secretly into Batulu’s robe, he asked in a low voice.

“Senior Brother, can we reach Yongzhou in five days?”

The thunder of hoofbeats and the wind were fierce. Batulu strained to listen.

“What?”

Jangseong glanced back into the carriage. Na Yang-ja sat against the wall, eyes closed.
He pressed his mouth close to Batulu’s ear and asked again.
Batulu shook his head at once.

“It’s difficult.”

Jangseong’s hand stiffened on his knee.

“Even if the roads are clear?”
“Still no. From Yuzhou to Yongzhou is more than three thousand li. Five hundred li a day is the most a horse can manage. Six days at the very fastest.”

Five days. Six days.
One day short.

“What about the Eight Hundred Li Express?”
“That works only because they swap horses at every station along the way. Run one horse eight hundred li, and it’ll drop dead before it arrives.”

Batulu swallowed the Hwaso in his mouth and tightened his grip on the reins.

“Even the finest horse tops out at four or five hundred li a day. Horses aren’t like oxen. They can’t endure for long.”

Yi Jung-yong, galloping on the right side of the carriage, caught their conversation.

“There’s a post station every fifty li along the Official Road. If we change horses often, we can cut the time.”

Jin Ib-chu cut in from the left.

“Do you think every station is as well stocked as the one we just left? At the small county stations, there are often only a few sound horses to spare.”

He pointed in turn at the carriage and the three warhorses.

“We need seven horses at a time. Only the large stations in prefectural or garrison towns could supply that many.”

Yi Jung-yong considered this for a moment, then nodded.

“Then we’ll pick only the large stations to switch horses.”

Jangseong turned his gaze toward the road ahead. His calculation that five days would do had rested on the assumption that horses could run without end.
Now he knew that assumption was wrong. The next calculation would have to account for how far a horse could endure and where the horses could be exchanged.
Just then, Jeon Jin-gung raised her head.

“Up.”

Everyone followed the tip of her finger and looked up at the sky.
Three messenger pigeons were flying from south to north. They were over thirty zhang high, spaced apart yet all heading the same way.
Ordinary people were forbidden by law to keep messenger pigeons. At the sight of three of them flying together, Yi Jung-yong’s face hardened.

“It might have been sent by the government office.”

They were too high. Jeon Jin-gung didn’t draw her flying blades either.
At that moment, from the cage hung in front of the carriage came a cooing sound. The captive pigeons saw their kin in the sky and beat their wings.
The two in front simply flew past.
The one trailing behind slowed its flight. Tracing a wide circle, it descended toward the carriage.
Jeon Jin-gung’s hand moved.
Swish!
A cross-shaped hidden dart pierced the pigeon’s wing. As the bird fell limp, Jeon Jin-gung urged her horse forward and caught it before it hit the ground.
She pulled the bamboo tube tied to its leg and unrolled the paper.

“It isn’t the government’s. It’s from the Gaebang.”

Before she could catch her breath, Yi Jung-yong asked.

“What does it say?”

Jeon Jin-gung’s eyes raced down the lines of script.

“They know our teacher’s name. It says six of us killed Branch Leader Kim Daetong, and that we’re disguised as government constables, heading north in a carriage.”

Jangseong looked down at the soldier’s uniform. The Gaebang had already uncovered even the disguise.

“Where is this message being sent to?”

Jeon Jin-gung examined the paper, front and back.

“It has no destination.”

Jin Ib-chu wrinkled his nose.

“These bastards are persistent. There are so many people and so many eyes around that it won’t be easy to shake them off.”

Perhaps because he had filled his belly with huaso, Batulu’s voice rang with vigor.

“What does it matter how many people there are? If they block our way, we’ll just kill them again.”

No one argued with him.
Yi Jung-yong and Jin Ib-chu calculated the road ahead, yet neither dampened Batulu’s momentum.
The blood of the people who had died at the North Gate and of the two horses had not yet grown distant. What was needed now was not to speak every fact aloud, but the strength to keep riding.
Whenever the road forked, Batulu did not hesitate. He had traveled between Jezhou and Yuzhou for a long time, so he glanced once at the boundary marker and chose the short road to Yongzhou.
After they had ridden about a hundred li, steam rose from the horses’ necks and flanks. In the cold air of early spring, sweat drifted up like white mist.
Jangseong studied the wet back of the horse ahead and asked,

“Senior Brother Batulu, are the horses all right?”
“They’re fine. A horse runs by sweating.”

Batulu examined the horses’ ears and their gait.

“If the sweat suddenly stops, though, you have to let them rest. That means their bodies have stopped cooling down.”

Jangseong revised his earlier thinking, which had treated the horses’ sweat only as a sign of danger. Now what he needed to watch was not how much they sweated, but the moment the sweating stopped.
The soldiers’ uniforms and the official carriage proved far more useful than expected.
At the checkpoint set up on the border between the commandery and the county, the moment the guards spotted the carriage from afar, they pulled aside the wooden barricades and horse-blocking stakes. The soldiers didn’t even ask what they were carrying before clearing the way.
Each time they passed, Jangseong bowed his head slightly. He feared someone might look closely at his face, but no one was willing to take responsibility for stopping an official carriage on urgent business.
That only meant the danger had grown just as much.
Once the government office began searching for them, the carriage and the soldiers’ uniforms would become the most conspicuous markers of all. For now, they were simply being let through.
The conversation between Yi Jung-yong and Jin Ib-chu continued in front of the carriage.

“Where do you think the messenger pigeon went?”
“Most likely to Yunzhou. To reach Yongzhou, they’d have to pass through there.”

Jin Ib-chu glanced back at the sky behind them.

“If the Gaebang means to hog the Secret Manual, they won’t tell the other sects.”
“That works in our favor. The downside is that Gaebang people are posted in every province.”

Wherever a message had been received, they could station men at every crossroad. And wherever it hadn’t, anyone who had spotted their party could still release another pigeon.
By the time the sun had slipped toward the west, the walls of Chaoge Commandery came into view.
Several ragged figures sat scattered just inside and outside the gate. As the carriage drew closer, they all lifted their heads at once.
Jangseong’s hand slid across his knee toward the crossbow.
But no one moved to block the road. The Gaebang people only looked back and forth between the carriage and the constables’ uniforms.
Once they had passed through the gate, Jin Ib-chu let out a breath.

“Looks like they haven’t received the message yet.”

Yi Jung-yong looked north.

“Then the pigeon must have flown farther off. That makes Yunzhou all the more likely.”

Yunzhou was a prefectural city that could hardly be avoided on the road to Yongzhou. Jangseong committed the words to memory without ever having seen a map.
Ahead of them, Batulu suddenly sat upright.

“Second Senior Brother Yi, isn’t that a post station up ahead?”

Yi Jung-yong narrowed his eyes.

“Looks like it. Why do you ask?”
“The horse is foaming at the mouth. We have to let it rest now, or switch it out.”

White foam clung to the corners of the lead horse’s mouth. With every stride, a thin streak of red seeped through the froth.

“We’re heading to the post station.”

Yi Jung-yong spurred his horse forward first. Jin Ib-chu followed close behind, making for the station.
By the time the carriage arrived, the two men were already speaking with the station’s Stationmaster about horses. The Stationmaster pointed, looking troubled, at the empty stable.

“Even if this is urgent military business, I have nothing to give you. The Northern front has erupted into war, and the couriers who passed through before you bought up every good horse.”

Only a few old horses with sagging backs and a couple of limping animals remained in the stable. Far from replacing all seven, they didn’t even have enough to pull the carriage, let alone four.
Batulu inspected the animals and waved a hand.

“Forget it. Those nags won’t get us ten li. Bring water first. Throw in plenty of coarse salt.”

The Stationmaster called for the postal attendants. A large wooden tub was filled with water, and coarse salt went in by the handful.
Batulu loosened the reins and lowered the horses’ heads toward the tub. So they wouldn’t gulp down too much at once, he pulled the animals away from the trough several times and then let them drink again.
The party went inside the post station for a while.
While exchanging a few words with the Stationmaster, Jin Ib-chu learned how things stood up north. Li Keyong, the Jiedushi of Hedong, had led his troops and was attacking Yunzhou.
The Stationmaster’s gaze settled on Na Yang-ja as he stepped down from the carriage. The sight of a Taoist adept emerging from an official carriage left him wearing a suspicious expression.
The instant Na Yang-ja’s feet touched the ground, his body swayed. Yi Jung-yong hurried over to steady his arm.
Jangseong watched the scene from beside the curtain. His color was paler than it had been when he ate earlier in the day, and each step he took left him breathing shorter.
Jin Ib-chu stepped in to block the Stationmaster’s view.

“This is the man who first uncovered the Gaebang’s rebellion. Only he knows the full details of the matter.”

The Stationmaster’s suspicion gave way to astonishment.

“Did the Gaebang really rise in rebellion?”

Jin Ib-chu didn’t lower his voice. He spoke clearly, as if he wanted every post attendant standing nearby to hear.

“The Gaebang’s Sect Leader has defected to Li Keyong. They’ve agreed to gather beggars from every corner of the land and lend their strength to the army.”

At those words, a post attendant carrying a bundle of straw stopped in his tracks.

“So that explains it. When I went into the city today, the beggars who usually scatter about were gathered inside and outside the city gates.”

The color drained from the stationmaster’s face.

“Shouldn’t we report this to the prefect at once and send out soldiers?”

Jin Ib-chu raised a hand to stop him.

“If we move in haste, they’ll only go into hiding. Do you have any messenger pigeons?”
“Five are bound for Yunzhou, and five for Yuzhou.”
“Release all of them. We must put everyone on guard first.”

Jin Ib-chu held out the birdcages he had brought in the carriage to the stationmaster.

“Feed these well, too. I’ll take them with me on the way back.”

The stationmaster accepted the cages and nodded repeatedly.

“Understood. I’ll send them off right away.”

Jangseong looked at Jin Ib-chu. The lie he had hastily cobbled together at the post station had been fleshed out by Jin Ib-chu with Li Keyong and the Gaebang’s Sect Leader.
The stationmaster filled the gaps in that lie with what he had seen of the beggars’ movements.

“Let’s go. We must leave our signatures in the official register.”

Jin Ib-chu led the stationmaster inside.
Jangseong didn’t know what a signature seal was, but he didn’t ask in a place where so many people were gathered. He waited with Batulu, watering the horses.
Batulu, perhaps parched himself, lifted the waterskin the horse had been drinking from. Salt water trickled down his chin and onto the front of his official robe.
Before long, Na Yang-ja emerged, supported by Yi Jung-yong and Jeon Jin-gung.
Jeon Jin-gung held Na Yang-ja’s left arm, while Yi Jung-yong pushed at his back to help him up into the carriage. Na Yang-ja said nothing, but Jangseong saw his hand lose its grip on the railing and then catch hold of it again.
Jangseong wanted to rush over. But he judged that if he got in the way, he would only block the narrow footboard, so he stayed where he was.
After Na Yang-ja had gone inside, Yi Jung-yong asked,

“Where’s Third Junior Brother?”
“He’s gone in to do the signing with the stationmaster.”

Jangseong brought out the question he had been waiting to ask.

“Senior Brother Yi, what exactly is a signature seal?”
“It’s leaving a name or a mark in the official register. Proof that this station hosted us. It’s used later when they bill for expenses.”

Jangseong nodded.
Jin Ib-chu wasn’t just playing at being a government constable. He was also leaving records at the post station, making the false identity look as real as the genuine article.

“But isn’t a Jiedushi a high official of the court? Why would one be able to rebel?”

Lee Jung-yong answered while studying the horse’s legs and breathing.

“Because he’s a high official who holds the army, that’s why he can rebel. Commoners can’t move soldiers just because they’ve made up their minds.”

Jangseong thought back to the messages he had sent earlier. He had branded the Gaebang as traitors, but the name the stationmaster feared most was that of the Jiedushi, who commanded vast numbers of troops.
Just then, a flurry of wings burst forth from the roof of the post station.
Ten messenger pigeons rose into the darkening sky. Five peeled off toward the south, and five toward the north.
Batulu set down his water skin and glanced at Yi Jung-yong.

Second Senior Brother Yi, what’s so amusing?

A faint smile hung at the corners of Yi Jung-yong’s mouth.

“There’s a saying: ‘Three men make a tiger.'”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that once enough people swear they’ve seen a tiger, even an imaginary one starts to seem real.”

Yi Jung-yong watched the pigeons scatter north and south.

“At a time like this, the government would rather snatch up innocent people than let a traitor slip through. Gaebang will have to prove first that it didn’t start a rebellion, and it will have to do that for a while.”

Jangseong also looked up, following the pigeon as it vanished into the dark.
At first, there had been only a few small slips of paper. Now two post stations, ten pigeons, and the testimony of a post attendant had all been added to it.
The lie no longer belonged to just the six of them.
Carried on wings, the words were racing north and south, faster than any man could run.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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