WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈

Chapter 30: Infiltration

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The boat had anchored two piers beyond ours, its bow facing the river. It looked much closer than it had in Lanxi yesterday.

The closer it was, the easier it would be to swim over. But that also meant we would be easier for them to spot.

Would the gain be worth the risk?

I waited until darkness had deepened, left Du Gi on watch, pulled my bamboo hat low, and stepped down onto the plank. I needed to buy supper, and while I was at it, familiarize myself with the dock.

Tonglu's dock was so small that it did not take long to walk around it. Lanterns were scattered sparsely along the short stretch, and mountains rose close on both sides of the river. The only flat ground was a narrow strip along the water.

I strolled about like an ordinary traveler, giving their boat a sidelong look.

A deck lantern illuminated the cart, and two silhouettes sat beside it. Nothing had changed since yesterday.

Except the dock was empty.

Lanxi had been packed with ships, but here, it was so quiet that ours and theirs seemed to be the only boats around.

Then again, Lanxi was where several waterways met and split apart. All those ships gathered there must have scattered toward their own destinations. Apparently, fewer boats than I expected were heading straight to Hangzhou.

After taking in my surroundings, I stopped at an inn and bought a few steamed buns and pancakes. I wrapped the freshly steamed food in oil paper, and I hurried back to the boat before it could go cold.

When I crawled beneath the straw mat, Du Gi looked away from the gap and turned toward me.

I settled beside him and unpacked what I had bought. Thin steam rose as I unwrapped the oil paper. The smell of buns quickly filled the cramped cargo hold. Only then did the hunger in my stomach, which had endured all day on scraps of flatbread, begin to roar.

We hurriedly shared the food before it cooled. The hot buns went down, warming my chilled stomach.

But contrary to my expectations, they were nothing special. The filling held only scattered bits of dried greens or something similar, while the pancakes smelled only of oil and tasted bland.

They were the worst food I had paid for since coming down from the mountain.

As I chewed a bun, a question suddenly occurred to me.

“Come to think of it, there are people aboard our boat too. Did you check on them?”

“The boatmen will be dead asleep in their quarters.”

Du Gi answered as if it were no concern.

“The only one worth worrying about is the worker guarding the cargo at the stern. But they are not sitting there alert, keeping watch. They are the sort to doze by a brazier through the night. As long as we slip out through the cargo stacks, there is no chance of being noticed.”

I assumed Du Gi had checked thoroughly, so I kept chewing in silence. Then I realized there were people I had forgotten to account for.

“What about the two traveling merchants who boarded with us? What happened to them?”

Du Gi paused with a bite of bun in his mouth and looked at me with a baffled expression.

“They got off at Lanxi yesterday. You did not notice until now?”

Had they?

Thinking back, I supposed I had not seen them all day. I had simply assumed they were holed up somewhere.

I muttered some vague excuse, then picked up a pancake in embarrassment. At least the pancakes tasted a little better.

Once we had eaten, we put our heads together in earnest.

The most important calculation was timing. When should I enter the water?

Just after a watch changed would not do. The eyes of someone newly on duty would be at their sharpest. Nor could I go right before a shift change, since another person would soon come out and the two would meet on deck.

The best opportunity was in between. Long enough after the watch began for drowsiness to set in, but with plenty of time before the next person came out.

It would be even better if dawn overlapped with it. People were heaviest with sleep just before daybreak, especially those who had stayed awake all night.

“How long until the watch changes?”

“A little over half an hour. Yesterday, they changed about that often.”

That was enough to make the plan clear. Around the Tiger Hour, shortly after the shift changed. That would be the right time.

Night had not yet grown deep, so there were still about two double-hours left.

Du Gi took charge of watching them. I was the one entering the water, after all. He only needed to keep track of when the shift changed through the gap in the mat.

With Du Gi keeping watch, I decided to continue circulating energy through my dantian. Until dawn, I intended to draw up every last bit I could.

I sat cross-legged and closed my eyes.

* * *

“Excuse me.”

At the low call, I slowly gathered the energy that had risen to the crown of my head, guiding it through my chest and back into my dantian before opening my eyes.

“It is almost time.”

Du Gi had turned around and was looking at me.

I nodded and rose, feeling through my dantian. My Inner Energy was now just shy of half.

I regretted that I had not reached the depth of breathing I had achieved last night. Still, compared to the twenty percent I had when I first boarded the boat, it was more than double.

I cast aside my lingering regret and began preparing.

In the shadowed cargo hold, I removed the outer clothes I had been wearing. Once I changed into the dark clothes I had bought, my outline became much harder to distinguish in the darkness. I folded my old clothes and pushed them beside the cloth wrapped around Hyeonam's sword.

Next, I wrapped black cloth around my head. I wound it down past my forehead and beneath my nose, leaving only my eyes exposed. Each breath I drew through the cloth dampened my face.

Du Gi looked me over from head to toe and gave a short laugh.

“You look the part. You would make a fine night thief.”

“I do not know about that, but I imagine you would suit it much better.”

After giving him a casual reply, I untied the sword I had bought at the smithy from my waist and slung it diagonally across my back. It would be cumbersome in the water, but it was better than going in empty-handed.

“The signal?”

“Two whistles. When you hear them, jump into the water no matter what you are doing.”

I wondered whether a whistle would carry that far, but Du Gi had surely considered it. I nodded and crawled toward the waterward end of the cargo hold. I checked the stern. Only a thin glow from the brazier leaked out of the straw-mat shelter. There was no sign of anyone awake.

Black water rippled beyond the gunwale. As I drew a deep breath, cold air filled my lungs through the cloth.

The side of the boat was high enough that if I simply jumped, there would be a splash and a sound.

I gripped the gunwale with both hands and lowered myself over the side. A sharp chill rushed up from my toes. At that instant, I released my grip.

The water received me without a sound.

At the same time, bone-cutting cold seized my entire body. I had prepared myself, but I still had to grit my teeth to keep them from chattering.

I quickly looked around.

Hidden in the shadow of our boat, I found both the stern and the dock quiet. Only my head rose above the black surface. Other than Du Gi, no one was looking this way.

I drew in one great breath and sank beneath the water.

I moved my arms only below me so as not to disturb the surface. I slowly bent and extended my legs, advancing only on their recoil. It was the same way I had dived beneath tidal rocks as a child, holding my breath to gather abalone.

The water was pitch-black, as if ink had been stirred into it. Opening my eyes made no difference, so I relied only on my sense of direction. Their boat was upstream, two piers away. I had marked the route by angling against the current.

When my breath began to run short, I slowly raised my head.

I exposed only the tip of my nose and took a breath. In that brief moment, I raised my eyes and confirmed my destination.

Their boat was already right in front of me.

A single lantern lit the deck. Its light reached only the side facing the pier. The waterward side where I approached was turned away from the light and submerged in darkness.

My prediction had been correct.

I sank beneath the water again and closed the last distance. Soon, my fingertips touched something hard. I felt around. It seemed to be a damp, moss-covered plank along the hull.

I had reached their boat.

From the water to the gunwale was about my own height. If I hung there and lifted my head, I would be high enough to see the deck.

After catching my breath, I felt along the seams in the planks for a gap where I could hook my fingers. My wet hands kept slipping. Clenching my teeth, I put strength into both arms and pulled my nose above the gunwale.

Only then did I see the state of the deck.

At the center was a cart covered in oilcloth and bound tightly with rope. A lantern stood beside it. Two people sat within its light.

One leaned against the gunwale, nodding off. The other sat beside them with one knee raised, blankly watching downstream.

To reach the cart, I would have to cross the deck at an angle. Even if I chose only darkness and avoided the light, I would have to pass close to the lantern once. If the person still awake merely turned their head, I would be fully exposed in the light.

My arms, which had been holding me up, began to shake from the cold. My hands, chilled by the water, did not seem likely to hold on much longer.

But I could not climb up carelessly. I had to wait for the awake person to turn away, close their eyes, or leave some other opening.

I gritted my teeth and waited for that single instant.

How much time passed? The person watching downstream rose with a groan and stretched. Then they lightly tapped their dozing companion's shoulder.

Low voices passed between them. The sleepy person sluggishly raised their head, and the two exchanged a few words.

For that moment, both of them were looking at each other.

Now.

I hurriedly swung over the gunwale without a sound.

My wet feet touched the deck planks silently. Worried that they might leave water marks, I placed my feet lightly and lifted them again at once.

I lowered my body as much as possible and moved toward the cart with my back to the light. As I passed near the lantern, I even held my breath. Behind me, the two people were still murmuring to one another.

Only after pressing myself into the cart's shadow did I release a thin breath.

Ropes bound the oilcloth tightly over the cart. It would take too long to untie them, and I did not have that kind of time. I looked for a gap and found that the lower edge of the oilcloth near the cart's wheels had lifted. I quickly slipped my hand inside.

My fingertips touched rolled cloth. Then more, and more. Bolts of fabric filled the space, packed tightly together. I felt around in every direction, but found nothing else.

There was nothing special here.

I was about to pull my hand back, thinking I would at least have something to tell Du Gi, when the back of my hand caught on something. I felt around with my fingertips. It was not soft like cloth, but hard. It had corners and rough grain.

It seemed to be a chest.

Should I pretend I had not noticed and leave? I hesitated.

My body had grown cold, and the feeling in my extremities was beginning to fade. I did not know when the murmuring near the lantern would stop. Even if I returned and said there was nothing there, Du Gi would have nothing to criticize.

Yet I could not make myself leave.

This was what they had hidden on that enormous protection convoy. The thing they were taking all the way to Yeongpa despite Mount Hua Sect's attack, despite the convoy being thrown into chaos and so many people dying. The thing at the heart of the matter, the thing those Nangongs were so fixated on, the thing even the Alliance had become involved with.

What could it possibly be?

I shoved my hand deeper and felt all over the chest. The smooth grain became jagged and uneven at one corner. It seemed part of the corner had broken off.

Cloth had been wrapped around it as though to mend the damaged section. Had the cart overturned in the earlier battle?

As I followed the wrapped cloth, I found that one edge had come loose. There was enough room to force in a finger.

I pushed my fingertips through the gap.

Something smooth and finely textured touched them. Silk? It seemed to be wrapping a round object.

And it was not the only one. More identical objects were lined up beside it, stacked one after another.

Each was small enough to fit in my palm, yet thick and hard. Some kind of pattern stood out beneath the silk.

I carefully pulled one bundle through the broken gap. I worked it loose bit by bit and safely brought it out of the cart.

At that moment, a dry, bitter scent spread beneath my nose. It was an unfamiliar smell, neither quite grass nor medicine. What on earth was this?

As I frowned, unable to make sense of it, the nape of my neck suddenly prickled with cold.

My body moved before I could think. I dropped the object in my hand, drew my sword, and spun around.

A sword was already thrusting toward my face.

I twisted away first. Raising my sword at an angle, I struck the thrusting tip aside. The point passed an inch from my cheek, grazing the cloth over my face.

Cold sweat ran down my back. But my hand moved before thought did. Carrying the flow of my deflection, I reversed my sword and drove it toward my opponent's wrist.

In that brief instant, the face beyond the blade burned itself into my mind. It was Nangong Hwi. The people on watch had shown no sign of noticing me. How had he come out here?

Nangong Hwi swiftly withdrew the sword he had extended.

Before my blade could touch his wrist, his withdrawn blade struck mine aside. That was no speed one could achieve through swordsmanship alone.

There was no need to contend with him through strength, so I rode the force of the deflection and retreated, tap, tap, two quick steps. Only then did some distance open between us.

If he had been even a little slower in pulling back, I would have cut his wrist. His judgment was extraordinarily quick.

I watched Nangong Hwi from across that distance. He wore only inner garments, his unbound hair disheveled. He looked exactly like someone who had leapt out of bed.

Behind him, the people who had been on watch drew their swords with startled expressions and rushed over.

Should I flee?

Then I saw the bundle lying between Nangong Hwi and me. It pained me to have dropped it while drawing my sword. Could I retrieve it? I had to escape before the chief steward joined them.

Following my gaze, Nangong Hwi looked at it as well. Then his eyes slowly returned to me.

At last, Nangong Hwi spoke.

“Where did you come from?”

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