The woman named Xinghua was tied to a wooden stake, with two piles of gray-black dry firewood at her feet. In Liu Datou’s eyes, that was the color of death.
Several men had been dancing for nearly an hour, exhausted to the point of collapse, yet the light of the setting sun still bathed the land.
“A drought demon—there must be a drought demon at work!” The Ghost King’s voice was shrill as his bony finger pointed at Xinghua, bound to the frame. “Burn her! Burn her now!”
“Once the drought demon is burned, Heaven will surely send rain to bless us!” He raised his hands and knelt in worship toward the sky.
“Don’t burn my daughter! She’s no drought demon, she’s not!” Xinghua’s mother broke free from the grasp of several people and rushed forward.
She spread her arms like a hen protecting her chicks, standing in front of Xinghua.
Xinghua’s hands and feet were bound, her mouth gagged. Watching her mother, she could only sob muffled cries. No matter how she twisted, she couldn’t move an inch.
“Ignorant woman, stand back at once!” the Ghost King barked. “Do you dare to provoke Heaven’s wrath?”
He turned to the man in the fine cotton robe. “Clan Leader Liu, drag her away now. If you miss the auspicious hour and no rain comes, don’t blame me, the Heavenly Master!”
“Of course, of course,” Clan Leader Liu said with a fawning smile, signaling to the clansmen behind him.
Two young men stepped forward hesitantly, reaching for Xinghua’s mother, who was already half-mad with grief.
As the three struggled, the Ghost King grew impatient. He barked orders to his six subordinates. “Light the fire! Execute the drought demon!”
Whoosh!
Crackle, crackle!
The dry wood ignited instantly in the roaring flames.
The fire hadn’t yet reached Xinghua, but the smoke already stung her eyes, forcing them shut.
“Ah—Xinghua, my poor daughter!” Xinghua’s mother lashed out wildly at the young men holding her back.
“You devils! I’ll fight you to the death!”
“Wahhh—!”
“My daughter was about to be married! Why are you doing this to her?”
Her mother’s wails grew louder, while Xinghua’s struggles grew weaker. Soon, the flames had crept to her feet…
The fire burned for no one knew how long. The sun set, the moon rose, yet the blaze still hadn’t died.
This Xu Xinghua was not a member of the Liu clan, but she was a villager of Liu Village. The clan leader’s son had taken a liking to her beauty and wanted to take her as a concubine.
But Xinghua was already betrothed and about to be married. After the clan leader’s son was rejected by the Xu family, he sneaked into her chamber one night, attempting to force himself on her. He was beaten by Xu Xinghua’s father and brother and had been bedridden ever since.
The Liu clan made up seventy percent of the village. Clan Leader Liu was both the clan head and the village chief. He had Xu Xinghua’s father and brother sent off to forced labor, and with no men left in the house, he seized their daughter, claiming she was a reincarnated drought demon!
Liu Datou shook his head. He knew in his heart that this was the village chief using the rampant rumors to take revenge on the Xu family and to assert his authority in the village.
Lately, the villagers had been placing their faith instead in the Oracle, deferring all difficult decisions to her little by little eating away at the clan chief’s power. It’s no wonder he needed to use such brutal methods to intimidate the ignorant clansmen!
Some saw through Clan Leader Liu’s scheme clearly, but others genuinely believed in the drought demon story.
But after the “drought demon” was killed, the rain still didn’t come. Instead, the moon shone bright and clear over everyone’s heads.
“If the drought demon is dead, why hasn’t it rained yet?” someone in the crowd whispered.
“Yeah, why no rain?”
“Didn’t the Heavenly Master say it would rain once the drought demon was dead?”
One question followed another. The murmur of doubt grew louder until Liu Datou craned his neck and shouted, “Clan leader, you burned the drought demon to death—so why isn’t it raining?”
“That’s right, Clan Leader. If this isn’t Heaven’s punishment but that drought demon you named Xu Xinghua causing trouble, why isn’t it raining?”
“Maybe the drought demon still has accomplices. We need to search again more carefully!” Clan Leader Liu’s gaze swept over the crowd. Instinctively, everyone shrank back, and no one dared speak another word.
That night, some heard a woman’s sobbing drifting intermittently from the riverbank. Clan Leader Liu’s son, still bedridden from his injuries, suddenly fell into a high fever, crying that a female ghost had come for his life in the night.
By the next morning, the news had spread. Clan Leader Liu led the villagers to dig up the new grave that had been filled less than a day earlier. Inside the coffin lay the charred body of Xu Xinghua. It was said that the moment the coffin was opened, Xu Xinghua’s corpse was suddenly covered all over in white fuzz. They dragged the body out and burned it again on a pyre.
The incident was too bizarre, and many had witnessed it firsthand. Because it involved claims of a drought demon, word soon reached Magistrate Zhou.
Smack!
The sound of a teacup shattering came from Magistrate Zhou’s study. “I knew something would go wrong!” he growled through gritted teeth.
Village clan heads and elders administering their own private justice—it wasn’t unheard of in the past. As the saying goes, the emperor’s power stops at the county gate. Sometimes, a clan leader’s word carried more weight than the law from above.
But what times were these? Just two days ago, the Emperor decreed that spreading rumors of drought demons was a serious crime.
Magistrate Zhou had been monitoring the drought demon rumors for days and had already sensed something off. The rumors, which he had managed to suppress through careful maneuvering, had suddenly flared up again—and they were now pointing obliquely at the Grand Mentor!
Cold sweat broke out on his back the moment he realized this. He knew this wasn’t something a lowly magistrate like himself could handle.
Acting on the advice of his counselor, he wrote a secret letter that very night and sent it to the capital by eight-hundred-li urgent express. It had only been two days when the Liu Village incident exploded.
At that very moment, Yue Fuguang—still far from the capital—had no idea that a conspiracy targeting both herself and Dayan was already taking shape. And the whole thing had begun with a single man’s greed and an innocent girl’s brutal death.
More tragedies cloaked in the guise of drought demons to satisfy selfish desires were already unfolding in silence.
When she next passed through that region, it would be more than a month later. And men like Clan Leader Liu would soon meet a reckoning far sooner—and far more gruesome—than they ever imagined.
If only they had known… But in this world, there were never enough “if onlys.”
The main road to the capital, paved with concrete, was broad and smooth. On ordinary days, a constant stream of merchants and travelers jammed the road.
These days, the adjacent earth-track side road was almost never used.
But today was different. The Grand Mentor was returning to the capital. The main road had been temporarily closed to traffic to ensure his swift, unimpeded journey.
At the ten-li pavilion outside the capital’s outskirts, imperial guards stood at attention with halberds, flanking the main road all the way to the distant city gate.
Dark-colored banners with golden-threaded dragons shimmered in and out of sight under the early summer breeze.
Inside the pavilion, Emperor Mingxi did not sit on his mat. Instead, he stood on the steps with clasped hands, dressed in black robes and crimson leggings, his gaze fixed expectantly northeast.
By his side stood Crown Prince Xie Zhiyan and Eunuch Qian behind them. All three wore identical expressions, glancing toward the distance, dropping their gazes, then holding their breath.
Flanking them and outside the pavilion stood a crowd of officials in purple and red robes.
“Old Wei, shouldn’t the Grand Mentor’s carriage be here soon?” Cai Xian said, craning his neck. But the mountains and trees blocked his view, and he couldn’t see much beyond.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Wei Ping answered, shielding his eyes with his hand. It was only early May—why was it so hot already?