Falling Dreams of Fang Hua ✔

Chapter 064: Prince's Side Story

Before I followed Master, my name was Hong Jin. Later on I became Sixth.

My father was once a brave and skillful general, grand and impressive beyond measure. But when I was young, he hid his identity and led me from place to place, living a vagabond life. My body had always been weak and I was unsuited for combat. Yet night after night of sneak attacks by endless assassins trained me to develop excellent lightness techniques. What would you call this...something like practice makes perfect?

Speaking of these assassins, they really were strange. Some were sent by the palace by the dozens to live in our tiny thatched cottage. Others were forced to stand guard outside. As to this...I was always embarrassed, and wished we could make our cottage a little bigger.

Oh, but I'm getting off-topic...

Everything they said was official jargon before they took out their giant swords. They always waited for the leader to shout 'Go' before rushing us all at once. In eight to nine cases out of them, they'd aim for me first, so I had no choice but to break out of the house and escape, leaving my father leisurely inside. Usually, after I'd gone out long enough to buy some candied hawthorn, roast duck, and a jug of wine back, I'd find father waiting for me outside our dilapidated cottage. Mysteriously enough, all the assassins would be missing, so I'd happily pour wine for father instead.

The people from the imperial palace were always very polite. They give us warning when they appeared and leave very quickly. But there were other assassins, masked ones, that were harder to predict. They used strange movements and techniques. Some preferred long, thin swords while others preferred giant ones. Last year there was even one that used two iron balls fixed on a chain. Their identities ranged from male and female, young and old, with dialects ranging from the north to the south. There were all types of them. Once we met an assassin who spoke the Hmong language. I thought he was a woman, but he was just a delicately pretty man. When he chased me, he used poisonous powders as well-really ruthless!

Although we had assassins of all types, some of whom we couldn't even understand, eventually we grew familiar with their speech. The most common terms were "rare books" or "treasure map", etc. If the imperial palace sent out large teams of people, then these rogue assassins could be said to form loose alliances of their own. If only one person showed up, they use a paralysis agent to toss my father and me about before revealing themselves. If two or three showed up, one would block the door, one would attack my father, and the last would end up chasing me...in these situations, I'd use extra time to buy candied hawthorn since it was so hard to shake my stalker off my tail. Although our life was hard, it had its share of joys as well.

Until one day, I used five times as much time to get roast duck and wine before returning home. Father wasn't in his usual place, so I looked all over before finding him in the forest on the verge of death. He told me to live a good life on my own from then on.

He told me that someone had entrusted me into his arms on the battlefield. At that time, he'd promised that person to raise me up well. Originally, he thought all he had to do was to claim me as his flesh and blood and settle with the people who knew the truth to throw off attention. But who knew that the court would issue his arrest warrant the very next day, claiming that he had illicit relationships with the enemy to hide their own blood heir? In the jianghu, rumors spread that this heir's body hide various treasure maps and secret martial arts manuals until everyone heard the news. Thus, he had no choice but to live a life on the run with me. I only listened in silence with a dreary heart.

Before he died, my father gripped my hand and told me to protect the secrets etched on my body without telling anyone else. He must have started to go senile, or else how would he have forgotten that I was a mute?