The Great King Ordered Me to Marry – Chapter 50

Speaking of the Market Master Wreaking Havoc in the Dream Market

The Master of the Huangliang Dream Market had barely stepped past the threshold before the fox opened her mouth and said they ought to leave.

Longming, for her part, had no intention of going yet — this place held too many irregularities, and she meant to verify every one of them.

            

“If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late.” Zhuoxue was already on her feet, eyes narrowed as she studied the scene beyond the curtain.

Her position was precarious. She had meant to lean on Longming — but now she and Longming were both inside the Dream Market, bound by the wooden tokens, while the Market Master was bound by nothing at all.

Look at the Market Master: no ghost mask covering her face, no wooden token worn upon her. Wasn’t that the same as being free to rouse killing intent whenever she pleased?

            

The Dream Market was, without question, a flawless cage. If she and Longming died here, how would that be any different from vanishing into thin air? It would surely go down as an unsolved mystery for the ages.

Longming didn’t move. Instead she looked at Zhuoxue and let two words fall from her lips.

“The Nightmare Tribe.”

            

Zhuoxue went still for a beat. What did the Nightmare Tribe have to do with this? Had they abducted the Master of the Huangliang Dream Market?

Or had they simply replaced the Market Master outright?

“How can you tell it’s the Nightmare Tribe?” Zhuoxue no longer wanted to linger so much as a moment — especially not now, with the torn pages of the Destiny Register hidden on her person. If they didn’t leave, hiding them would have been for nothing.

            

Longming didn’t answer. She strode toward the hanging curtain in swift, long paces as if to give chase, and demanded of the small demon at the door in a voice of ice, “Where did she go?”

The “she” in question could only be Liangmeng.

The small demon froze, cowed by the pair of crimson eyes burning behind Longming’s ghost mask, then raised a hand and pointed toward the distance, stammering, “My master went that way. My lord, has something happened?”

            

“I have urgent business to discuss with her.” Longming’s expression was stern and cold.

In truth, she had needed no pointed finger — the aura Liangmeng left behind would have guided her true. She had merely been curious whether the pavilion’s small demons were in league with her.

Evidently, the small demon had answered honestly.

            

Zhuoxue hurried along behind — and abruptly a palm pressed against her forehead. A talisman stamped itself into the space between her brows, leaving her thoughts briefly reeling.

When she looked up again, Longming had already vaulted into the air, skimming out across the vermilion roof tiles.

That figure flew swift as a hunting hawk. As if she could ever hope to follow.

            

Her forehead, at least, gave her neither ache nor itch. Zhuoxue rubbed her brow in silence, eye to eye with the small demon in the doorway.

The small demon asked anxiously, “May I ask, my lord — will you be staying, or leaving?”

Zhuoxue had no spiritual power to her name; she could barely protect herself, never mind give chase.

            

She gazed up at the vermilion tiles and asked, in a mournful murmur, “Did your master go out the same way — leaping eaves and scaling walls¹?”

The small demon nodded, looking thoroughly baffled too.

“I’m not leaving. Bring me a fresh pot of hot tea.” Zhuoxue turned and swept the gauze curtain aside. “The same blend your master always used to serve Longming.”

            

“Autumn Mountain Mist.” The small demon’s eyes lit up, bright and keen.

Surprise flickered across Zhuoxue’s face. She slowed her voice until she seemed to weigh out one word at a time: “You remember it that clearly. Then why didn’t your master use Autumn Mountain Mist today?”

“Whatever our master asks for, we fetch. We would never dare guess or pry,” the small demon said in a low voice.

            

Zhuoxue understood. In the whole of the Huangliang Dream Market, only Liangmeng alone was behaving out of the ordinary — and the small demons knew nothing of it.

Her fox ears gave a faint twitch with her thoughts. An idea stirred deep in her mind, and she said with a sly curve of her lips, “Could it be your master has been drowning lately in Mortal Realm storybooks, and changed her habits?”

“Well…” The small demon shook her head hard. “That I couldn’t say. Our master has stayed in her room these past two days, receiving no guests.”

            

Zhuoxue turned that over in thought. Then what of the claim, just now, that she was seeing a guest?

Why the lie?

After a moment, Zhuoxue said, “Never mind. Go brew me that blend after all. If your master asks, say a guest put you up to it.”

            

The small demon nodded and smiled. “I’ll go brew it right away.”

“Hold on.” Zhuoxue called her back.

The small demon turned around with great care. “Does the honored guest need anything else?”

            

“Do you have any snacks?” Zhuoxue asked.

The small demon’s face clouded. “Snacks we have — but I wouldn’t know which kind the guest would care to try.”

“I want chicken soup, freshly stewed.” Zhuoxue was neither lion nor tiger, so she opened her little fox mouth but a crack².

            

The small demon thought she had misheard. In all the Huangliang Dream Market’s crowd of guests, this was the very first to ask for chicken soup stewed fresh on the spot.

Zhuoxue’s golden eyes curved into crescents. “Can you manage it?”

“Manage, yes — though we must trouble the guest to wait a while.” The small demon was sweating buckets. “I have never once stewed chicken soup. If the flavor falls short, please don’t take it amiss.”

            

“A Huangliang Dream Market this vast, and not a single cook among you?” Zhuoxue marveled.

“Even the snacks are steamed up by demons using spellwork,” the small demon said sheepishly. “We have fasted from grains for years now. We have no need of the five grains of the mortal world, but distinguished guests do favor the taste, so we had no choice but to go to the Mortal Realm and learn the ways of it.”

Zhuoxue grumbled inwardly — just don’t let them all be stones turned demon; one bite, and her teeth would crack.

            

“No matter. Chicken soup is what I want — off you go.” She gave a light smirk. This was, of course, purely to trip the small demon up.

The small demon caught none of it — whatever the guest said, went — and only bowed her head. “Please wait just a little, honored guest.”

With that, she even gathered up the pot of still-warm tea from the table, set it on her tray, and carried it off with her.

            

The room fell silent.

Zhuoxue wandered to the window and gazed out, listless. The street market below was overrun with demons; immortals were there too, though far fewer by comparison.

If Auntie Lan had been able to get word through, then the sealed Heavenly Gate must have already opened — that would explain how immortals could descend to the mortal realm.

            

The street kept up its tableau of demons and immortals in easy harmony. The Market Master had left in a great hurry, yet without stirring so much as a blade of grass in this place.

Zhuoxue turned to glance back at the narrow, silent door. Beyond the curtain, not a sound — the small demon brewing tea and stewing soup could not possibly return for a good while yet.

She poked her head out, saw the gallery stood empty, and crept outside on tiptoe, making a circuit along the vermilion railing to examine each partitioned room in turn.

            

This floor was plainly for receiving guests; apart from their different folding screens, every partition was identical.

Having seen the floor through, she gathered up her skirt and climbed. The moment her head cleared the top of the stairs, she knew for certain she had found the right place.

The story above, though hung with red silk like the floors below, was different: here stood a single door, and before it hung a jade bell strung with the tail feathers of birds — a most distinctive sight.

            

This had to be the Market Master’s bedchamber. A pity her lingtai stood empty of power — she could not read whether any spell traces lay upon the door.

If she barged up to push it open and that jade bell set up a sudden, endless ringing — how awkward that would be.

Fortunately, a close look revealed the jade bell to be no bell at all. It should not ring.

            

Still, Zhuoxue kept a measure of caution. She leaned in and gently poked a hole through the window lattice paper — an old habit from the Nightmare Dream, one she could not kick just yet.

Peering close, she found the room inside a shambles. Silken robes in every color lay discarded on the floor; a candlestick had toppled over, its wax tears dripping down onto the carpet, which bore scorch marks from the flame.

The cabinets and racks had all been ransacked, their contents strewn across the floor. Jars and pots lay everywhere — whether they held spices or elixirs was anyone’s guess.

            

Could it truly be the Nightmare Tribe’s doing, as Longming said?

The Market Master spoke blunt and straight; she had plainly come for the Destiny Register. If harm had found her, then apart from Tianji and the Nightmare Tribe, no one else would nurse such ill intent.

There was no need to go inside — she had seen all she could from outside the window. Zhuoxue turned to head back down at once, and had just reached the stairs when she caught a faint, barely-there creak.

            

The sound had come from inside Liangmeng’s bedchamber, weak as a whisper. Had her ears not been as sharp as they were just now, she would never have noticed it.

She turned her head toward it, found the hole she had just poked, and slowly leaned in.

Beneath that flower-and-bird embroidered carpet, something was faintly burrowing — the rise and fall so slight it was like a mountain rat digging its tunnel.

            

But this was not the Mortal Realm. Where would a mountain rat come from?

It struck Zhuoxue as very strange. A pity she could not simply push the door open — barge in so rashly, and she might well be mistaken for the very thief who had ransacked the place.

Voices drifted up from the light well below. One small demon said, “What’s that you’re carrying? Why does it smell so good?”

            

“The chicken soup a guest requested — though who knows if it’s stewed through. I have been refining my spellwork of late, but what I study is the □□ art; fire arts are the one thing I haven’t practiced in earnest,” another demon said sheepishly.

“No matter. Even the pastries we threw together haphazardly earned a distinguished guest’s praise,” a third consoled her.

Zhuoxue crept back downstairs on light feet. She had counted on a little more time to snoop — but the soup had cooked far faster than she expected.

            

A short while later, the small demon shuffled in, a wooden tray held high in her left hand and another balanced on her right: chicken soup and hot tea, both aboard.

Catching the savory aroma, Zhuoxue asked, unhurried, “Are you few small demons really all the staff this pavilion has?”

With a flick of spellwork, the small demon sent the trays spinning from her palms to settle neatly on the table; only then did she answer, “We have always kept close at our master’s side. When the market opens we attend the guests; when it closes we travel with her, hunting for rare and curious treasures.”

            

“And attendants who serve her at close quarters?” Zhuoxue pressed.

The small demon shook her head. “Our master’s bedchamber holds rare treasures beyond counting. We treat it as the pavilion’s forbidden ground and would never dare enter unbidden — so there are no close attendants either.”

Which meant whatever was burrowing without pause beneath that carpet could not be one of the pavilion’s demons.

            

Something that reckless must be deep in power.

“The rarest things in the Dream Market are all kept in your master’s bedchamber — even the Misty Rain Dream?” Zhuoxue asked, weighing each word.

The small demon answered every question put to her. “That’s right. Each month when the market opens, the Misty Rain Dream is burned by our master’s own hand.”

            

Zhuoxue’s gaze sharpened. From Longming’s expression earlier, she had not been able to tell whether this Market Master was true or false either.

An aura could be imitated — but never flawlessly. Perhaps there had been no replacement at all; perhaps Liangmeng was being coerced.

That, too, was why the small demons had felt no suspicion.

            

The Market Master had deliberately abandoned her usual custom of burning incense and brewing tea — most likely to send a message through it.

Thank goodness Longming had given chase. If she had caught up in time, she might yet lay eyes on whoever pulled the strings.

Still, it was more than a little strange that even the pavilion’s small demons had noticed nothing amiss with Liangmeng. Unless this “Liangmeng” had woven her own story whole, a pile of lofty-sounding justifications prepared well in advance.

            

“Your master stayed shut in her room for two days, and no one in the pavilion thought it strange?” Zhuoxue asked.

The small demon faltered. “Why would we doubt our own master? Now and then she must go into closed-door cultivation. Even if she received no guests for all three days of the market, it would be nothing strange.”

Zhuoxue sank into thought.

            

“Honored guest — your chicken soup!” The small demon nervously ladled out half a bowl. The chicken within was golden, the knife work almost presentable.

Looking down, Zhuoxue saw that the pot held more seasonings than chicken, and understood at once why the fragrance ran so rich.

What filled the nose was pure seasoning, drowning out any flavor of chicken. Red jujubes floated on the soup’s surface, each one plump and round — though their flavor did not seem to have stewed out yet.

            

Oh well. It looked the part, at least. It was, after all, a first attempt.

Zhuoxue took a small sip, if only to spare the small demon a defeat — she was the one who had invented this pretext to send the demon off and have the run of the place.

“It’ll do,” said Zhuoxue, her mouth at odds with her heart.

            

The small demon brightened and bowed. “Then I shall wait just outside. If the honored guest needs anything, a single call will do.”

Zhuoxue nodded and touched the spot between her brows, deep in thought — had Longming caught up or not?

About a quarter of an hour later, a boom rolled in outside the window. Firelight sprayed; a distant tower’s tiles shattered and its stories toppled.

            

All along the street, demons and immortals stopped in their tracks and turned as one toward the flames. Even the drowsy stallkeepers startled awake and rose to watch.

Not one demon or immortal fled — each plainly trusted the wooden token they carried as a decree of life and death, certain the troublemaker would be fettered by it.

But then another building caved in. Its glazed tiles were crushed to powder in an instant, glittering dazzlingly beneath the lamplight, flowing like a river of stars.

            

Spiritual power spun into flying blades. A distant roof-eave, sheared clean through, came crashing down among the stalls with a boom; one demon was very nearly crushed.

That demon’s killing intent flared on the spot. He had barely vaulted forward when the wooden token at his waist shattered to nothing; green lacquer from his ghost mask seeped into his spiritual meridians, and he dropped from the air, stiff as a plank.

So the tokens had not failed — the one wreaking havoc simply wore none.

            

Demons and immortals scattered in all directions. One demon looked back at the tower behind and shouted aloud, “It’s the Market Master! I knew she built this Dream Market with no good in mind — she means to cage us inside and claim every drop of our spiritual power for her own!”

Some demons and immortals took it upon themselves to split their tokens open — only for green lacquer to spurt straight from the wood, brutally sealing shut their spiritual meridians.

From the high tower Zhuoxue saw it all with perfect clarity — watched a market that moments ago had bustled in easy harmony tangle, in a single breath, into chaos.

            

The pavilion’s small demons had fallen into disorder too. The one who had stewed the soup burst in and asked in a panic, “Forgive the intrusion, honored guest — something seems to have gone wrong in the Dream Market. Please retreat to safety at once.”

“Can you still reach your master?” Zhuoxue stepped away from the window.

The small demon shook her head, uneasy, her face gone ash-gray, stammering, “Honored guest — you had best go first.”

            

Zhuoxue shook her head. As she reckoned it, she and Longming might truly not need to leave.

Inside the Dream Market, the Nightmare King could at most decree the Market Master to act in his stead — and the Market Master, intent on sending a message, had clearly roused no killing intent.

Whether to kill or not was by no means the Nightmare King’s call.

            

A black shadow loomed abruptly at the window. The small demon dropped to the floor in fright.

Zhuoxue whipped around — and saw a ghost mask she knew.

A crimson face bristling with tusks, a flattened nose over bared teeth — and yet beneath it a water-ink silk gown drifting graceful as a painting. It was Longming.

            

She seized Longming’s sleeve at once. “Did you catch her?”

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