CHAPTER 4: THE ROAD TO BLUE MIST LAKE
Dawn painted the eastern sky in bruised purples and sickly yellows when the "escort" arrived at the **Tea-Cooling Pavilion**. There were no imperial banners, no fanfare. Just six hard-faced **Blackscale Guards** in unadorned lamellar armor, led by a captain whose eyes held the flat indifference of a butcher. Captain **Hong** carried a scroll bearing the Imperial Seal – Yan Ling's exile decree, thinly veiled as a "convalescent retreat."
Prince Yan Ling stood waiting, a small, worn travel bag at his feet containing only brushes, inkstone, paper, and the blue-glazed pot holding his uncle's chrysanthemum. He looked impossibly frail in the grey morning light, a wisp of silk against the decaying pavilion. He offered no resistance, no words. His stillness was unnerving, a stark contrast to the barely contained violence Captain Hong radiated.
**Zhi'er** watched from behind a grove of skeletal plum trees, heart hammering. The Emperor's decision felt like betrayal, even to him. *A quieter cage.* He saw the prince's gaze sweep the overgrown courtyard, lingering on the shattered wind chimes, the cracked stepping stones he'd never fixed. There was no sorrow, only a profound, weary acceptance. As the Blackscales formed a tight, impersonal cordon around Yan Ling, urging him towards a plain, enclosed carriage, Zhi'er made his choice. He melted into the pre-dawn shadows, a small, determined shadow trailing the procession leaving the only home Yan Ling had ever known.
---
The journey was a slow descent into the empire's decay. The carriage, devoid of comforts, rattled along neglected roads. Inside, Yan Ling sat rigidly upright, eyes closed, conserving his strength. Outside, Captain Hong's contempt was palpable. He set a punishing pace, ignoring the jolting that sent fresh spasms of pain through Yan Ling's frame. Rest stops were brief, utilitarian affairs by muddy streams. The guards spoke little to Yan Ling, treating him like dangerous cargo. Food was coarse travel rations tossed into the carriage.
*Passing through a once-prosperous village, Zhi'er saw fields choked with weeds, houses sagging under the weight of neglect. An old woman drawing water spat towards the carriage. "Ghost Prince," she muttered to a child. "Bad luck follows him. They say he blights the land."*
*Later, resting near a crumbling roadside shrine dedicated to a forgotten harvest god, Captain Hong scoffed, kicking a moss-covered statue. "Useless. Like praying to the **Jade Heaven** ghosts. Nothing left but dust and stories." One of his younger guards shifted uncomfortably. "My granddad... he swore he saw a star-ship once. Like a mountain flying..." Hong silenced him with a glare. "Fever dreams, boy. The world is mud and blood now. Forget fairy tales."*
Yan Ling heard it all. He said nothing. But Zhi'er, scrambling over rocks to keep pace unseen, noted the names: *Jade Heaven. Star-ships.* Echoes of the world Yan Ling had sealed away.
---
On the third day, the terrain grew rugged, the air cooler and damp. Dense forests of pine and cypress replaced the dying farmlands. They were nearing the **Blue Mist Mountains**. The isolation pressed in. Captain Hong grew visibly more tense, his hand never far from his sword hilt. The Blackscales scanned the treeline with predatory focus.
**Zhi'er** felt it too – a prickling unease. He'd survived the slums by reading the currents of danger. This forest felt *watched*. He saw flashes of movement too quick for birds – low to the ground, rustling the undergrowth parallel to the road. *Bandits? Or something worse?* He moved closer, desperation overriding caution.
Inside the jolting carriage, Yan Ling's eyes snapped open. He didn't look out the window. He looked down at his own hands, resting on his knees. The faintest tremor ran through his ink-stained fingers. *Hunters.* Not mortal ones. The scent was faint, masked by pine resin and damp earth, but unmistakable: the acrid tang of suppressed **Beast Taming Qi**. *Vermilion Bird scouts.* Xiao Hong wasn't waiting for him to reach the Summer Palace.
---
The attack came at dusk, as the carriage navigated a narrow pass shrouded in mist. Shadows detached themselves from the rocks – not men, but sleek, low-slung creatures resembling hairless wolves, their eyes glowing faintly crimson. **Shadow Jackals**, Zhi'er recognized with a jolt of terror. Creatures whispered about in Rat's Alley – predators said to be bred and controlled by mountain cults. Three of them, moving with unnatural silence and coordination, lunged for the carriage horses.
Chaos erupted. Horses screamed. The lead horse went down, thrashing, its throat torn open. The carriage lurched violently, tilting precariously. Blackscale Guards shouted, drawing swords. Captain Hong bellowed orders, his blade flashing as he met a Jackal's leap with a spray of dark blood. The beasts were fast, unnervingly intelligent, dodging sword strokes and harrying the guards.
Inside the overturned carriage, Yan Ling lay amidst splintered wood. Dust choked the air. Pain radiated from his ribs. Outside, the snarls of the Jackals and the shouts of men mingled. He heard a guard cry out, then gurgle into silence. Captain Hong roared in fury and pain. *They're being slaughtered.*
**Action: Zhi'er's Intervention & Glimpse of Power:**
> Zhi'er didn't think. He snatched a heavy, fist-sized river stone. He saw a Jackal, its maw dripping gore, poised to leap onto the back of a guard struggling with another beast. He hurled the stone with all his strength. It struck the Jackal's flank with a dull thud, not hurting it, but startling it. The distraction was enough for the guard to spin and bury his sword in its neck.
> Yan Ling, pushing himself up amidst the wreckage, saw the boy. Saw the desperate courage. He also saw the third Jackal, unnoticed by the surviving guards, slinking low through the mist towards the overturned carriage – towards *him*.
> The Jackal gathered itself to spring. Yan Ling's hand moved. Not to a weapon. To a loose sheet of rice paper and a broken inkstick lying amidst the debris. With a speed belying his frailness, he dipped a finger in his own blood welling from a cut on his temple, mixed it swiftly with the ink on the paper, and drew a single, slashing line – a crude, inverted "V" like a mountain peak. He slapped the paper onto the splintered floorboard just as the Jackal leaped.
> **EFFECT: Sealing Glyph (Crude)**
> *The glyph flared with a pulse of unseen force. The leaping Jackal *stalled* in mid-air, as if hitting an invisible wall. It hung there for a split second, snarling in confusion, before crashing heavily to the ground beside the carriage, disoriented but unharmed.*
> It bought seconds. The surviving Blackscales, rallied by Hong who was bleeding from a gash on his arm, descended on the dazed creature, cutting it down.
Silence fell, broken only by harsh breathing and the dying whimpers of the injured horse. Mist swirled thickly. Two Blackscales were dead. Captain Hong clutched his bleeding arm, his face pale with shock and pain. He stared at the overturned carriage, then at the dazed Jackal's corpse. His gaze flickered to the bloody scrap of paper on the floorboards, already crumbling to ash. Suspicion warred with fear in his eyes.
Yan Ling emerged slowly from the wreckage, leaning heavily on a piece of broken carriage frame. He looked at the carnage, then at Zhi'er, who stood frozen nearby, the river stone still in his hand. The prince's expression was unreadable.
"Boy," Captain Hong rasped, wincing as he applied pressure to his wound. His voice held a new, grudging edge. "You have stones. Literally. And... surprisingly good timing." He glared at Yan Ling. "And you, Prince... seem to have remarkably bad luck with paper." He gestured at the ashy remnants. "Get him out," he ordered a guard, nodding towards Yan Ling. "We walk. The Summer Palace isn't far. Let's hope the ghosts there are quieter than the ones following *you*."
---
The last leg of the journey was made on foot, under a bruised twilight sky. The Blackscales were grim and watchful, Captain Hong moving stiffly. Yan Ling walked slowly, supported by a guard who looked deeply uncomfortable. Zhi'er followed openly now, ignored by the guards, his mind reeling. He'd seen it – the prince's finger moving, the blood-ink glyph, the Jackal *stopping* mid-leap. It wasn't the terrifying void of the torn painting. It was... smaller. Precise. Controlled. A shield, not a sword. *He protected himself. He could have done more.* The thought was chilling.
As they rounded a final bend, the mist parted. **Blue Mist Lake** lay before them, vast and eerily still under the darkening sky, reflecting the bruised colors of dusk. On a promontory jutting into the lake stood the **Summer Palace**. It was not a place of joy. Built generations ago as a luxurious retreat, it now resembled a brooding fortress. High, dark stone walls, patched and crumbling in places, rose from the rocky shore. Towers, their once-graceful curves now stark and angular against the sky, pierced the gathering gloom. Many windows were dark, boarded up. A heavy, ancient gate, reinforced with iron bands, stood closed. It looked less like a palace and more like a prison waiting for its inmate.
Captain Hong stopped at the edge of the causeway leading to the gate. "End of the line, Prince," he said, his voice rough. "The caretaker will see you settled. Don't wander far." He shoved a small pouch of provisions at Zhi'er. "You too, rat. Seems you're part of his curse now." Without another word, he turned, gesturing sharply to his remaining men. They retreated swiftly back down the path, eager to be gone from the oppressive silence of the lake and the unsettling prince.
Yan Ling stood alone with Zhi'er before the looming gate of the Summer Palace. The mist curled around them like cold fingers. He looked up at the dark towers, his expression unreadable in the fading light. Zhi'er thought he saw a flicker of something deep in those frozen-lake eyes – not fear, but recognition. A grim familiarity.
"The gardener arrives," Yan Ling murmured, his voice barely a whisper over the lap of water against stone. "But this garden... is already full of thorns."