Archery

After returning home, Jia Heng first put away the collection of examination essays he had bought, then washed his face and poured himself a cup of tea to settle the alcohol rising within him.

Earlier, though he had taken advantage of his tipsiness to give Lai Sheng and the other vicious servants a beating, he had both measured his blows and weighed the consequences.

As long as beating Lai Sheng caused no deaths or serious injuries, Jia Zhen's options would be limited, however furious he became. That completely ruled out bringing in the authorities. Invoking so-called family laws and clan rules would not be so easy, either. Unless I committed some monstrous, shocking outrage during the ancestral rites, such as burning down the Jia family's ancestral hall, Jia Zhen's hope of subduing me with those rules would be nothing but a fool's dream!

In this age, family laws and clan rules might carry the force of golden decrees and jade statutes in remote places where clans held overwhelming power. But in the Divine Capital, the nation's foremost city, the state had its own laws. How could arbitrary private punishment be tolerated?

In fact, the authorities of successive dynasties had always taken a disapproving stance toward private punishment.

"If a father demanded his son's death, the son had no choice but to die"-that saying was actually rather misleading.

Even after the Western Jin first advocated the "five mourning grades rule," no dynasty had ever held that a father deliberately beating his son to death-a tragedy that violated human bonds-was entirely without consequence. The degree of kinship merely reduced the criminal penalty, sparing him a death sentence.

If that was true even of fathers and sons, how much more so of members of the same clan?

The power over life and death belonged entirely to the sovereign.

Even if Jia Zhen was the clan head, this was neither a festival nor a ceremonial occasion, and the capital was the nation's foremost city, where state laws were strict. If Jia Zhen wanted to put on airs as clan head and privately punish a distant relative nearly beyond the five mourning grades, he would still draw public condemnation.

Not to mention that the cause of Jia Zhen's dispute was hardly something he could bring out into the light.

Still, there was no guarantee that Jia Zhen would not resort to schemes and secret attacks. That was why Jia Heng had said he would not go to Ningguo Mansion to meet him.

"On the contrary, if I swallowed my anger today and went to Ningguo Mansion to submit to a reprimand, I would only fan the flames of Jia Zhen's arrogance." Jia Heng took a sip of tea and set the matter aside.

Though Jia Zhen's conduct was infuriating, as long as Jia Heng kept Qin Ye's household on his side and held firmly to the right of the matter, he had nothing to fear.

Then, as he had over the previous two days, Jia Heng changed into close-fitting martial attire, intending to borrow a horse from his cousin Dong Qian first.

Dong Qian was a junior officer in the Five-City Military Command. Since he often had to accompany his superiors on street patrols to maintain public order, he could only return home in the evening. As usual, Jia Heng borrowed a horse from Dong Qian's mother, then rode straight to Xie Zaiyi's home near Anhua Gate, only to find him absent.

Xie Zaiyi's wife, Madam Zhao, was washing clothes in the courtyard. Looking up to see Jia Heng arrive as before, she smiled. "Brother Jia, my husband asked me to let you know that some high officials from the Ministry of War will be inspecting the city defenses over the next couple of days. Everyone at Anhua Gate is busy preparing for it, so I'm afraid he won't be able to go outside the city with you today."

Though disappointed, Jia Heng could only say, "Sister-in-law, could you fetch me a bow from inside, then? I'll go practice in the countryside myself."

Since Xie Zaiyi was not home, he remained in the courtyard with its inner gate wide open, rather than entering the house, and spoke in a clear, carrying voice.

Madam Zhao wiped her wet hands on her apron and smiled. "Just a moment, Brother Jia."

With that, she went inside. Before long, she brought out a heavy bow and a quiver of arrows and handed them to Jia Heng.

Jia Heng thanked her and carried the bow and arrows outside, where he untied the horse from the stone post and headed out of the city.

It was an autumn afternoon. Jia Heng rode toward Anhua Gate. Unlike his previous visit with Xie Zaiyi, he was alone on horseback this time. Gazing at the distant wilderness lush with fragrant grass, he lifted his eyes to the vast wooded slopes of the Qinling Mountains beneath blue skies and white clouds, and a stirring sense of grandeur rose within him.

He squeezed the horse's flanks and cried, "Hyah!" The swift horse galloped across the wilderness, where wild grass stretched to the horizon.

Jia Heng first worked on becoming more comfortable in the saddle, then drew in the reins and guided the horse toward the practice grounds.

He reached the place where he had practiced with Xie Zaiyi before: a low hill covered in lush green grass, rarely visited by anyone. Dense hazel and pine surrounded it, their green shade enclosing the clearing and screening it from view-a perfect place to practice.

Jia Heng dismounted first and removed the archery target strapped behind the saddle, then drove the end of its wooden stake firmly into the soft turf. Once that was done, he swung back into the saddle, took up the bow, nocked an arrow, and urged his horse around the target, aiming and shooting as he rode.

Yet the moment he drew the bow, he sensed something was different. It seemed she had brought the wrong one. This was Xie Zaiyi's bow, with a draw weight of two stone.

The bow Jia Heng had used the other day had a draw weight of a little over one stone.

Jia Heng tried drawing it. Though it took some effort, he found he could actually manage it, which struck him as strange.

Thanks to the training this body had undergone, his physique was powerful, and his arms were far stronger than an ordinary man's. On his first attempt the other day, he had managed to draw a one-stone bow, even earning Xie Zaiyi's praise for his solid foundation.

Yet the horn bow he was drawing now had a weight of two stone, and he found it suited him even better than yesterday's.

Could crossing into this world have changed not only my soul, but my body as well? Jia Heng's eyes flickered as several possibilities occurred to him.

After considering it, he decided it was a good thing in any case and stopped dwelling on it.

The feathered arrows flew with sharp whooshes, cracking through the air. Yet... all ten missed!

The jolting of the horse naturally took a heavy toll on his accuracy.

Jia Heng was not discouraged. Recalling the key points Xie Zaiyi had taught him, he guided the horse around the target again, moving from right to left, and once more drew his bow and nocked his arrows. Amid a succession of whooshes, he loosed another ten arrows, and this time one struck the target.

He shot another ten arrows, and all ten missed again!

Jia Heng's expression remained impassive, showing neither pleasure nor disappointment. After three rounds, his arms ached, and he needed a little rest. It was a good opportunity to dismount and retrieve the arrows.

The more exhilarating shooting had been, the more exhausting gathering the arrows proved.

Some had flown quite far. With the quiver on his back, Jia Heng picked up the arrows embedded in the grass one by one and put them away.

Just then, he suddenly heard the clatter of hooves approaching from the distance, accompanied by men's and women's voices talking and laughing.

Jia Heng knitted his brows and looked up. The lush, dense woods were reflected in his calm, deep eyes, along with a party of riders in splendid clothes and a splash of bright red amid snowy white.

On a dozen or so bay horses sat several youths in brocade martial attire with bows and arrows on their backs, chatting and laughing as they let their horses amble along.

Amid the attendants riding before and behind them, only four led the party. Most of the others were dressed as household guards and retainers.

Jia Heng's expression shifted slightly. Among the dozen riders, he spotted a familiar figure-Feng Ziying.

Feng Ziying rode off to one side, however. Only four riders rode abreast.

Of the four, three appeared to be male and one female. The two riding on the outer edges looked about sixteen or seventeen. They wore lavish, wide-sleeved robes, the dense embroidery at their lapels glinting gold in the afternoon sunlight. Two mounted guards kept close beside them.

The guards were men of around thirty, powerfully built and broad-faced, with cool, composed eyes. Each held his reins in one hand and rested the other on the saber at his waist, keeping watch over their surroundings.

The two riders in the middle, however, were clearly girls dressed as men. One wore plain-colored, close-fitting martial attire with plum blossoms embroidered at the collar. A brocade belt set with lustrous emerald-green pearls cinched her slender waist high, accentuating her graceful figure.

She had a perfectly oval face, a small rosy mouth, and an exquisite nose. Beneath willow-leaf brows, her long phoenix eyes gleamed with a cool clarity, and a faint beauty mark lay near the corner of one eye. Her face was as fair as pear blossoms, smooth and flawless as jade, though her features carried a distinctly aloof, haunting beauty.

She rode a white horse, snowy from head to tail, with strong limbs and a placid bearing. A bell adorned with a bright red tassel swayed gently beneath its neck, scattering clear chimes through the woods and grass.

Beside her rode an even younger girl, barely in her early teens. Though her face was still youthful, she already possessed a lovely, delicate grace. Her eyes were like autumn waters, tender and captivating. She rode a bay horse, and two dimples appeared when she smiled.

As they talked, the riders had already drawn near.