Fragrance

A sly glint flashed in Wu Junji's eyes. Skin them?

He would never let them off that easily.

A faint fragrance drifted through the air. Wu Junzheng twitched his doglike nose and nudged the Crown Prince's sleeve.

"Did you change your fragrance?"

All the flowers in the Ten Thousand Springs House could not rival the fragrance filling the Crown Prince's sleeves.

In the twenty-first year of Zhou Wu, fragrances swept through Chang'an. Ruan Yuan held a fragrance appreciation gathering, and princes and nobles arrived with scent suffusing their robes. As Ruan Yuan's disciple, Wu Junji attended to show his support.

A fragrance called Water-Born Fragrance took first place.

But it had come from the beggar Crown Prince's hands, so it was consigned to the filth of a brothel.

The verse meant that the Crown Prince smelled sweeter than the prostitutes of the Ten Thousand Springs House.

Its contempt and insult needed no explanation.

Wu Junzheng thought they had spat on the courtesy they were offered.

When Wu Junji used fragrances, he chose whatever cost the most: red sandalwood, agarwood, Clear Pear Curtain... The Crown Prince had given Ruan Yuan face by concocting a fragrance himself for the gathering. Anyone who got to smell it should have counted their blessings!

Through heaven and earth, no trace could be found; night after night, year after year, they longed for Water-Born Fragrance.

After the gathering, Water-Born Fragrance became a swan song, and for a time, one of Wu Junzheng's regrets.

Because he loved fragrance.

That nose of his had been born for seeking scents.

Wu Junji smelled nothing. The Academy's scholar robes smelled only of soap pods, with no particular fragrance.

He pushed Wu Junzheng's dog head away.

"You smelled wrong."

Wu Junzheng declared flatly, "Impossible."

Since it was not Wu Junji's fragrance, he began criticizing it without restraint.

"This fragrance smells cheap, like peach blossoms, though there's something extra that I can't quite put my finger on."

Wu Junji stopped writing.

Peach blossoms?

He opened the door. After the commotion in the dining hall, Zhou She seemed empty, but when he opened his heavenly eye, it was still packed.

He thought of that demon king of the plant world.

"It might be some Peach Blossom Demon. There's Night Reading later. If you have nothing to do, grind ink for me."

Demons had three stages.

At the awakening intelligence stage, they gained the ability to think like humans and instinctively began cultivating. But plants remained plants, and animals remained animals. Beneath humanity's butcher knives, they had no power to fight back.

At the demon spirit stage, they could barely take human form and could not suppress their innate nature. During this stage, they imitated humans and learned from them, yet remained unseen and unknown. They wandered like ghosts every day, visible only to those whose eyes had been opened.

This was a very delicate stage, during which demons and humans could not harm one another.

The third stage was the form transformation stage. Demons at this stage could freely switch between demon and human forms, integrate fully into human life, and wield extraordinary abilities. Once they turned to evil, they could wreak havoc across an entire region.

But only a tiny portion of demons could reach the form transformation stage.

Jixia Academy stood between the human and demon worlds, with human emperor fortune as an added lure. All the transformed demons under heaven fought tooth and nail to get in, creating the illusion that every demon could take human form.

In reality, the demons across the various kingdoms who had cultivated to the demon spirit stage numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Those who could reach the form transformation stage numbered ten thousand at most.

When demons were injured by fortune, a light injury sent them back to the demon spirit stage. After a few days, they would be perfectly good demons again.

A slightly heavier injury robbed them of their ability to transform, leaving them invisible, intangible demon spirits for the rest of their lives.

Anything more severe turned them straight back into beasts, kicking the bucket on the spot.

Wu Junzheng's false flood dragon fortune lacked sufficient power. Most of the demons in Zhou She had suffered only light injuries and reverted to the demon spirit stage.

As for why he had not seized the chance to kill them, as mentioned earlier, the demon spirit stage was a very delicate stage in which demons and humans could not harm one another.

At this stage, even if Wu Junzheng wanted to kill them, his fortune could only frighten the demons a little and force them to their knees. It could not inflict actual injury.

Great demons did not fear a flood dragon, because it could not kill them in one blow.

The malice all around was undisguised.

Once these demons recovered, even greater trouble would await Wu Junji.

They had to die.

Perhaps it was all in his mind, but Wu Junji, too, caught the peach blossom fragrance Wu Junzheng had mentioned.

Wu Junji immersed himself wholeheartedly in writing the Peaceful People's Encyclopedia.

He wrote from daylight into darkness, producing an opening of a full ten thousand characters. His limp handwriting went from feeble and powerless to strokes that revealed a keen edge. He never stopped for a moment, even as his wrists signaled that they could no longer bear the strain.

At last, a ripple stirred the stagnant water. He pried loose a tiny strand of human emperor fortune, which gathered at the tip of his brush like a gentle trickle.

Joy suddenly rose in Wu Junji's heart, like a darting carp splashing ripples across the dark pools of his eyes. The mysteries of fortune made ambition breed greed.

He refused to become a Tang Sanzang-shaped battery supplying an unreliable Sun Wukong.

He wanted to become his own Sun Wukong.

But this strand of fortune could neither kill demons nor protect him...

Wu Junji pondered how to extract the greatest possible value from it.

Grinding ink had made Wu Junzheng drowsy. His head dropped, jolting him awake for an instant.

He glanced at the sky, stretched, and asked,

"What time is Night Reading?"

"The hour of the rooster."

Wu Junzheng looked down. A bean-sized oil flame lit only the space immediately around it, and neat, clean handwriting covered a stack of rice paper.

The Crown Prince was slowly flexing his wrists.

Wu Junji had spent the entire afternoon bent over his desk, leaving ink stains on both hands.

His left-handed writing was better than his right.

Because the fracture in his right hand had left lasting damage. It was crippled.

No one pitied him. Others would only seize on his weaknesses to attack him.

Ugly handwriting. Ruined. Deaf, blind, and crippled. No use at all.

So he had to master writing with his left hand.

Wu Junzheng clicked his tongue softly, a subtle irritation rising within him.

"Your bones haven't finished growing yet. Writing for this long-do you not want your hands anymore?"

Wu Junji gave him a long, searching look, then suddenly smiled. Wu Junzheng knew that smile all too well. It heralded a rise from the depths, a reversal of fortunes-wild and triumphant.

Wu Junzheng's heart began pounding.

"...You."

He lowered his voice. "Are we going to skin someone tonight?"

He was not trying to undermine their own side, but he gestured at his own height, then at Wu Junji's.

"This prince doesn't yet have the strength to truss a chicken."

"As for you..." Everything else went unsaid.

Wu Junji did not get angry, because it was the truth.

He put away his manuscript and changed the subject.

"Are you hungry?"

Wu Junzheng rubbed his stomach. "A little."

There had been no fat in their midday meal, and two meals a day really were not enough.

Wu Junji packed his book bag and made a puzzling remark.

"We're eating meat tonight."

He stepped out and headed for Yuesi Pavilion. Jixia Academy had a special rule: Night Reading.

Night was a carnival for demons.

The moment Wu Junji stepped through the door, the carnival began.