“I’ll go to this scroll tent,” she murmured to herself. “And try to read. But only a little.”

----------------------------------------

Outside of the meeting tent, the camp seemed to have risen to life. Everyone had finished up breakfast, so the paths between tents were lively with running children, women sitting together and sewing, and old men playing games on small tables they seemed to have carried outside.

Abrial approached one of these tables around which four old men were seated, intently throwing wooden sticks and moving round flat pieces around a board. As she reached them, one man rolled the sticks and burst into cheers when he saw he’d rolled the highest score.

“Ha! Ha!” he cackled, pushing his round black piece across the board. The other men rolled their eyes grumpily and cursed. “That’s it! I’ve won! Now hand me the pendants!”

The other men grumbled, pushing over tassels tied to jade tokens, which the triumphant old man gathered greedily.

“Hey there!” Abrial called out, reaching the table. The old men looked up, only the winner smiling widely. “I have a question!”

“Watch your manners, young woman!” one of the losers admonished. “You should greet your elders respectfully!”

Abrial blinked blankly. “Was I disrespectful?”

“Are you kidding me?” that old man continued to scold. “Who greets their elders by saying ‘Hey!’? Who do you think you are?”

The other old men grumbled along with him, all except the winner, who was caressing the jade tokens delightedly.

Abrial frowned.

“How else should I greet you?”

“You should bow your head and say, ‘Excuse me, Sirs’! How else?”

Abrial crossed her arms, furrowing her brows in genuine confusion.

“But…I don’t really see the point in that. Everyone keeps telling me I don’t talk with enough respect to my elders, but why should I talk to you any differently than someone my age? Are you better?”

The angry old man spluttered, pointing a finger at her in outrage.

“You — you! How can you talk to us like that? Elders are wiser and have lived more years. Of course we are more deserving of respect!”

Abrial scrunched up her nose .

“My parents are older than me. But they still made bad decisions. And the Emperor is way older than all of you, isn’t he? He’s four hundred years old or something! But he’s still evil. I don’t think elders are wiser at all. Doesn’t it depend on the person?”

The old man’s jaw dropped. He seemed to be so stunned that nothing except disbelieving stuttering came out of his mouth.

“Young lady! What is your question?” interrupted the winner of the game, a gloating grin still on his wrinkled face. He was clearly in a good mood. “You seem forward, and you don’t follow tradition blindly. I like that! Forwardness is the precursor to success.”

Abrial didn’t know what to say to that, so she just asked her question.

“I’m looking for the scroll tent. Do you know where I can find it?”

The old man grinned wider, showing crooked teeth. He pointed down the path with a knobbly finger.

“Keep walking north, then turn at the next east-facing path. You will find it along that path.”

Abrial nodded. “Thanks!”

After she had strode off, the three losers burst into furious grumbling about that mannerless young woman.

“What a rude woman!”

“Such an arrogant girl…Where did she learn to act like that? From that monstrous Bi Chanjuan?”

“She’ll never get married like that…”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The winner laughed jollily with a gleam in his eye, stowing the jade pendants away in his pocket. “You all are too rigid. Can’t you see she has an untamed spirit? People like her are hard to come by, like these precious jade tokens.”

The losers rolled their eyes.

“You are always coming up with stupid views,” muttered the angriest loser. “And stop rubbing the tokens in our faces.”

“And you’re always grumpy when you lose,” cackled the winner. “Come, let’s play another round. I bet you can’t win the pendants back! Hee hee!”

----------------------------------------

Just as the man had told her, Abrial found the tent by turning onto the next east-facing path between tents and traveling down some ways. She knew she had found it because the large flap of the enormous, burlap-colored tent had been pinned open, and from the entrance she could see that it was filled with shelves and shelves of scrolls.

When Abrial stepped inside, she immediately felt dizzy. This was the tallest tent she’d entered so far. It was so tall that a wooden structure had been built to create a second floor with wooden steps leading up to it, so that people could reach the scrolls on the upper half of the towering shelves. Stuffed into shelves in a complicated maze all around, pressing in from all sides, were paper scrolls. Many were old and yellowed, stacked roll on roll with their titles on the outer edge of the scroll; others were new and well-kept. The shelves were a mosaic of colors made up by the cover clothes of the scrolls, scarlets and bright yellow and river blue.

To put it short, everywhere Abrial turned, it was scrolls, scrolls, scrolls.

That was…well, probably why it was called the scroll tent.

Heck, it even smelled like paper in here! There was the scent of mashed, dried bark and treated bamboo hanging everywhere like a thick perfume. Abrial had never smelled or seen so much paper before. Her head began to hurt from the sight.

“Imagine how long it took to write all of these?” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “I would have gone insane!”

She began to stroll around, squinting at the characters spelling the scroll titles. It was difficult, because the handwriting was different on every single scroll, but she was able to make out what most of them said.

“The Origin of Magical Practices in the Southern Regions of the World,” she murmured, tracing her fingers along scrolls to better read them. “Studies on the Source of Ease in Summoning Winds; Five Hundred Uses for Shadow Magic. Cool. Don’t know what that is, but it sounds cool.”

Further across the first floor of scrolls, the subject abruptly changed. Abrial found a variety of strange titles: A White and Red Rose Meet Under the Autumn Moon; The Kiss of Spring Rain on Dewy Lips; When the Cherry Blossoms Bloom, We Will Meet Again.

Her eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment.

“What kind of books are these?”

Curious, she pulled down a scroll bound with a bright red silken cloth and unrolled it. The title read, A Night of Snow and Warmth in the Ancient Kingdom. She unrolled the first page and read off a couple sentences, squinting and pausing because it took her a moment to decipher the words:

“He caressed her smooth, jade-white chin with slender fingers. Boram gazed up at him, her eyes pleading. ‘Please…don’t go, Baekhyun,’ she murmured. Before she could say anything else, Baekhyun leaned down and…” Abrial’s eyes widened. “Kissed her passionately…?”

Immediately, she hurled the book across the room, her face contorting with flusterment.

“What is this?” she shrieked, wiping her hands furiously on her black and scarlet robes. “What did I just read? What kind of book was that?”

Evidently, there was no one else in the scroll tent to answer her.

She had never read something like that. It wasn’t that she had never thought about sexual things before, but—she’d never imagined that someone, you know, would write such things in a book! Where everyone could read it! It felt extremely scandalous to her, as the only time she had spoken about sexual things in eighteen years at the house was a few times when her mother explained what the purpose of a woman’s period was, and also when Abrial had forced Finley to reluctantly tell her about the purpose of kissing. Seeing something romantic and suggestive on a page, where anybody could read it, was entirely foreign to Abrial. Her hands felt like they were on fire after touching that book.

After the crimson humiliation burning in her cheeks had cooled down, Abrial replaced the book, feeling extremely perplexed. She headed up the stairs to the second story.

I just want to find out more about the Emperor, she thought firmly, trying to keep on track as she climbed the stairs. All I need is to answer some of my questions. Then I can get out of this place. Seriously, are all collections of books so weird?

On the second story, she finally found a section pertaining to what she was looking for. A well-kept section of shelf seemed to hold all sorts of books on the history of Gongkua and the ascension of the Emperor. She could definitely find something here! And even if not…she didn’t need to spend any more time here. The number of scrolls was making her dizzy again.

She pulled out a scroll with the inked title that read: The Truth of the Emperor’s Ascension: A Bloody Hidden History of Demonicism. It wasn’t bound with any cloth, and seemed extremely old, the paper yellowing and torn slightly at the edges.

She unrolled it carefully, since it seemed a little rough handling would rip it. It was a short scroll. She sat down on the wooden platform, struggling to read the small handwriting.

There are many stories of how the Emperor ascended to power, began the manuscript. Some say that he was chosen by Heaven to replace the previous King’s unprosperous regime. Some say the King abdicated the throne upon seeing how the Emperor conquered the invading forces from Roatia with such glorious ease. Others claim he is an immortal being who has always reigned. But all of these popular accounts are merely examples of brainwashing, and hide the truth. Inside this book lies the true, bloody and horrible story of the Emperor’s ascension to power…