Blue

From a lonely village in the middle of a forest came a thin trail of incense smoke. Beneath the dusty temple eaves, a Captain and his closest men were praying for the souls of two deceased comrades. So long were their hands clasped together that they began to grow sticky with sweat, as a neverending stream of muddled sutra chanting filled their ears.

Soon Captain Song found the dry, stuffy air in there too much to bear, so he stepped out onto the temple's front veranda and cast his gaze over its humble grounds. This wasn't supposed to happen, not here, he thought, this was supposed to be an easy mission. He felt terribly guilty for not being there to stop it, and the setting sun, which dyed the whole place red, seemed to express the heavens' shame.

Just as the sun was about to set, he saw an officious-looking scholar run through the temple's front gate.

That was Lin Yuchen, of course, who knew just how upset his childhood friend must have been. He knew just how thick the bond between warriors who ate from the same pot and drank from the same cup was. And, he knew his friend wasn't one of those heartless military men for whom even a thousand underlings' deaths isn't enough to phase them. When he reminded himself of this, he realized that there truly was nothing he could say.

Captain Song knew there was nothing his friend could say, too, which is why he got the first word in. "I don't know why you've come here."

The flatness of his tone really took Yuchen by surprise: normally that man's voice danced with vigor. "I came to offer my condolences."

"Thank you," he hesitated for a moment, "You don't know what it's like, though. At the end of the day I can't help but blame myself. I thought I could trust Bai not to do something stupid, so I went out hunting with Zhaoyuan, Zhijun and a few others. We killed a few stags and a hare."

Lin Yuchen only nodded.

"That old man is actually insane. I am convinced now. As soon as he saw a massive hole like that, he should have called it off and told me. We could have gone in ahead and killed the bastard, then you all could have done your archeology thing. Though my lack of oversight is equally to blame, I can't bring myself to forgive him for getting two of my men meaninglessly killed and a third injured."

Losing his composure, Captain Song turned round and punched a nearby stone lantern with his bare fist. It shattered into dust.

"Feng Zhenshu was going to be a father--he left behind a pregnant wife in the Capital. I don't know what I'm going to say to her. No matter what I say it isn't going to be pretty. And Wenming had a family too. We warriors aren't the faceless brutes a lot of scholars think we are."

"It was very reckless of him," Lin Yuchen finally spoke, "It's a relief more didn't die. I had my own suspicions--so did Professor Kang--but I didn't dare rebuke him."

"And...why didn't you?"

"Because...he's my boss."

"Bosses aren't infallible. You can't just blindly follow everything he says. And with how old he is now? He was always a little impulsive, but now he's become quite dangerous, too. His head is not fully with it. With all due respect I think it's time for him to retire."

"You might be right about that. Though, it's quite unfortunate that our visit to the Western Continent coincided with a massive beast migration."

"There's a reason I gave up on the way of the scholar and took up the way of the warrior instead," Captain Song said in a half-whisper, as though about to tell a secret, "And it's this: no matter how many books you read, you can't prepare yourself to face the real world. Books tell it one way and one way only, whereas reality is chaotic and founded upon random events. You can't place all your faith in books. The only thing you can truly trust is your own strength."

All Lin Yuchen could do was nod and listen to the sound of crickets. They talked a little more about this and that, but before long they went back to the inn. When they walked into the lobby they saw that several tables had been set up on which dozens of artifacts were arrayed. At that moment, Professor Bai and some others were inspecting them and assigning quality estimates, but Captain Song marched past them without even a hello.

After he had gone on his way, Professor Bai looked at Lin Yuchen and said, "Is he really that upset? I feel terrible, but it wasn't entirely my fault."

Lin Yuchen could tell from just how strange he was acting that in all his years of going on expeditions, never before had something like this ever happened. It was written all over his wrinkly face. It's true that at one time Captain Song would have considered himself a protege of the famous professor, but now it was clear a rift had appeared between them, a rift that, like a bleach stain, can be scrubbed until the end of time but can't ever fully be erased.

"He's upset, but it's only because he is in mourning. The bond between soldiers is apparently very strong," Lin Yuchen told him.

"Yes, I can see that. But he will surely not stay mad at me forever...Anyway, do you want to tell me about these wooden cases you found? We were just about to pick the lock on the locked one."

Professor Lin joined him in front of the table, where a few students were also standing, among them Xu Shen and Qiu Shujie. Professor Kang was there too. He was hunched over the table, trying to force a thin brass rod into the lock.

Lin Yuchen took the chance to explain the finding. "So, we found these in a hidden room. To access the room, one has to trigger a mechanism by pulling on a random stone, and somehow Miss Qiu over here was lucky enough to find it on her first try. In the middle of the room were two stone platforms, where these two wooden cases were resting. One of them was locked, the other had a busted lock, and was empty."

Suddenly they all heard a faint click. "Got it!" Professor Kang called out, then slowly opened the case.

Inside was a ornately-carved piece of jade, about a foot long and half a foot tall. It was comma-shaped, kind of like one half of the yin yang circle. For that reason they were called 'hooked jade', though I believe 'magatama' is another name they were known by. Also, it wasn't green like you might be thinking; no, actually it was a light shade of blue, just a bit darker than sky blue.

The fact that it was throwing off immense light meant that it was obviously a rare object with magical properties. There must have been some profound story behind it.

"Why, this is a fantastic discovery indeed," Professor Bai stroked his thin white beard. He took the thing out of its case to give it a closer look.

"Eh? What sort of stone is this?" Shujie intoned, "It's blue like sapphire."

"No, this is not sapphire; it is jade. And it's the rarest variety of jade you will ever find: blue jade. In the ancient empires, the color blue was associated with royal power and sovereignty, as blue is the color of Heaven, whence all kings ultimately derive their lineage. Hence blue jade, among other blue stones, was used to create objects that symbolized royal power. Much like Artifacts today, in ancient times ownership of blue jade was the sole right of the king; if others wanted to use it they required express permission of the king."

To be certain, none of them were prepared for the impromptu lecture on ancient history. But they figured the gravity of this discovery justified it, so they listened on.

"Now, of course the most famous symbol of royal power ever created was the Jade Tripod, which was carved by the First God himself during the Third World. It was also made of blue jade. The subsequent kings would use it to performed sacrifices to Heaven and to their ancestors, and so it became an indispensable symbol of the realm and of the kings' right to rule.

"After the Third World came to an end, however, the Tripod was lost. In the Fourth World, its Memory turned it into an object of legend, and all kings and lords, whether from true lineages or fake ones, sought it out, but it was never found. And so, in its place, a number of substitute blue jade objects were created, among them blue jade staves, swords, wine pots, and blue hooked jades such as this one. Over time these replacements themselves came to be objects of legend, and they were hotly fought over for thousands of years."

"So...what does that mean about this object's Quality?" a student asked.

"Rare, definitely Rare, of at least the second or third grade."

As soon as he said that, the room filled with gasps and woahs.

He went on, "Obviously, being imitations, they can't hold a candle to the original Tripod, which, like all objects created by the God, is Mythical, but they are still extremely lucky objects with a lot of history behind them, and most were created by beings who can be considered lesser gods in their own right."

However boring his lecture was, they couldn't help but be impressed by his encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff.

Of course, the mystery that now remained was why there had been a second, empty case.

When asked about that, he replied, "Well, it is quite obvious that the other case was designed to hold the exact same type of object. Certainly there could have been upwards of several dozens of blue hooked jades just like this one in those days. It is very possible that whoever owned the first one originally had two, but lost the second."

Hearing his theory parroted by the professor, Xu Shen made an almost imperceptible grin.

"Of course, it is only possible to speculate at this point," he said further, "Getting anywhere near the bottom of this mystery will require the help of Priests...Any questions?"

"Uh, yes, professor, I have a question," said Xie Cai, who had sneaked in while he was busy lecturing.

"And, what is it?"

"How much does it cost?"

"Pardon?"

"As in, what is its monetary value?"

"Uh, well," Professor Bai tried not to laugh at him, "as you should know, all Artifacts under Heaven are the sole property of the Emperor. That should mean it doesn't actually have a price, shouldn't it? It is priceless. Ah, well, but I assume you were saying that in a hypothetical sense, in which case my answer would be, probably several million taels of silver."

Everyone who heard that thought their ears were playing tricks.

"Ehh? Did he just say million?"

"I thought I just heard thousand?"

"How many million?"

Et cetera. Needless to say, with the exception of the professors and Xie Cai, most of them had never seen anything worth that much money. Or even a tenth of that. To put it in perspective, a couple thousand taels will buy you a decent house in a medium-sized city. So that, squared.

After all that was settled, Professor Bai moved on to inspecting the other Artifacts. But not a single one was nearly as rare or interesting as the hooked jade was. For that reason, within ten minutes everyone but him had gone off to bed. Not minding this at all, he stayed up late into the night--almost until dawn, in fact--cataloguing troves of Common swords, daggers, coins and books.