In the end, Mu Rong Shu let them go by having them work as mascots. She made them wear huge, heavy costumes – dinosaurs (a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a bipedal Triceratops and a bipedal Pterosaur) – and hand out brochures for the antique store the next day.
"Why dinosaurs?" I asked, bewildered. After all, dinosaurs had nothing to do with antiques, or so I thought. At least they were both…well, ancient, but dinosaurs existed millions of years ago whereas the antiques were thousands of years old at best.
"Because we both like dinosaurs," Mu Rong Shu replied, and that was that.
The attempt didn't really raise our sales, though a few more customers did drop by to satisfy their curiosity…only to be disappointed when they didn't see any dinosaurs in the store. These were customers with kids, so yeah. Of course they would be curious.
Nothing much happened other than that, so we closed the store up for the day. We hadn't gotten very far in returning home when we spotted the Huang siblings rushing over.
"That's rare," I remarked. "I never thought the Huang siblings would be the ones paying us a visit."
"Something's not right." Mu Rong Shu had noticed something amiss. "The both of them look very flustered."
She was right, now that she mentioned it. Huang Hong Lin, in particular, looked as if she was panicking. I frowned and hastened toward them, Mu Rong Shu keeping pace at my side. Huang Hong Lin skidded to a stop, heaving heavily.
"You guys!" she panted. It was clear that she had run some of the way here. "Follow us!"
"What's happening?" I demanded, trying not to panic as well. Panic was contagious. I had to force myself to calm down.
"The imperial family. They are after you."
"There's been quite a lot of…uh, rumors flying around." Huang Fei Hong joined in, looking a little sheepish. "We don't know what's real and what's fake, but what we do know for sure is that you have become the next target for the imperial family."
"They moved sooner than I thought they would," Mu Rong Shu muttered. "But I'm not surprised."
"What did you guys do?" Huang Hong Lin asked, leading us along the road to her house. I raised a hand and gestured toward my car.
"It'll be faster if we drive."
"Okay." Huang Fei Hong was amicable. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the same fears his sister was suffering. Nor did he seem to want to run again, even though he wasn't as out of breath as his sister. He appeared more than happy to take a ride in my Toyota.
Huang Hong Lin, as exhausted as she was, didn't argue. She gratefully slumped onto one of the backseats.
"Put on your seatbelt," I reminded her after I slid into the driver's seat and strapped in. She nodded and buckled up. I was glad I didn't have to explain to her why. Seatbelts saved lives.
"We…sort of pissed off Wang Ling Er two days ago," Mu Rong Shu explained without preamble after slotting her seatbelt in. She glanced back sheepishly and briefly gave an account of yesterday's events. "Obviously we told her no and she got all angry."
"How shameless!" Huang Hong Lin wasn't able to hide her anger. "How could she demand such nonsense from you?! What kind of ultimatum is that?! Threatening you to divorce your husband so that she can marry him instead? And if you refuse, she and the imperial family will kill you? What sort of tyrants do they think they are?"
"They are the imperial family," Huang Fei Hong replied dryly. "They appear to believe that they can do whatever they want. They think they have the authority and status to make unreasonable demands of others…and that people should just bow down and obey them."
"Are you serious?" I rolled my eyes. That was one hell of a sense of entitlement. "Even emperors had to be careful not to piss off the common populace. If they are corrupted and abuse their authority, commoners will revolt and overthrow them. That's the whole idea behind the heavenly mandate. Those who are not fit to rule will be overthrown and replaced by those fit to rule."
"But how do you decide who is fit to rule and who's not?" Huang Fei Hong asked cynically. I shrugged.
"If the population is happy and satisfied, what reason would they have to revolt?"
"That's…true, I guess."
"Whatever the case, we can't let the imperial family do whatever they want!" Huang Hong Lin was vehement. "Give them an inch and they will take a foot! What right do they have to break up families and force marriages on others?"
"Oh, I'm with you on that." Huang Fei Hong was rubbing his hands in glee. He grinned. "I look forward to locking horns with the imperial family. I hope they won't disappoint me."
"Well, you'll get your wish soon," I muttered, glancing at the rearview mirror. A flash of light had caught my attention and I squinted from behind my glasses. A sinking feeling settled at the pit of my stomach and I sighed. "They are here."
The chariot belonging to the Qin Emperor was in pursuit. The Qin Emperor himself was settled comfortably at the back of the chariot, which was being pulled by two massive war stallions. They neighed thunderously, hauling the carriage and stomping toward my car.
"How the hell are they moving so fast?!" Huang Hong Lin complained, spinning around to stare at approaching chariot through the rear window.
"They?" I repeated, and then glanced at the rearview window again. Oh. It wasn't just the Qin Emperor – for some reason, Wang Ni Tian was also riding in the chariot, a couple of seats away from the Qin Emperor. Behind him was his sister, tucked into another cushioned seat and strapped in. She grinned malevolently, staring at my poor Toyota in vindication.
"They really know how to hold a grudge," Mu Rong Shu remarked wryly and shook her head in exasperation.
"They're getting closer! They're too fast!" Huang Hong Lin shouted a warning. "Watch out! Brace for impact!"
"Strap yourselves in," I told them instead. "We're in for a ride!"
"Hell, yeah!" Huang Fei Hong cheered. "I knew you still have something hidden up your sleeve!"
"Oh." I grinned and shifted to the highest gear while flooring the accelerator. My car shot forward, almost like a bullet. "You have no idea."
Even though I was now driving at my Toyota's top speed, the speedometer showing me that I had hit about a hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, we still weren't able to shake the chariot loose. I was now speeding my car around the highway, zooming toward a more remote area where there were no other cars. Occasionally there were vehicles buzzing past us, their silhouettes a blur of bright colors. I weaved through the roads, overtaking other cars with ease and smoothly sliding my car back to the rightmost lane. There were a few furious honks and close shaves, but I paid them no heed. The rage of those drivers died away when the chariot trampled past them, and a few of them were unfortunate enough to have their cars knocked aside, their vehicles spinning about and crashing to the side of the road. A few of them managed to skid to a safe stop, but there were a few who were going to require hospitalization.
And their insurance companies weren't going to be happy about this.
Uncaring, the chariot continued thundering toward us, the war stallions bellowing furiously. Golden lightning flared up around them, sending up chunks of the road and scattering debris. A few of them actually hurtled toward us, trying to smash the slender frame of my car.
"They're gaining on us!" Huang Hong Lin cried, looking behind us again. "Can't you go any faster?"
"We're already moving at the vehicle's top speed," Mu Rong Shu informed her calmly. Huang Hong Lin gaped at her.
"But…"
"Don't worry. We haven't pulled out all the stops yet." I smirked, the lenses of my glasses gleaming in the shadows.
With one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on the gear stick, I began to infuse my Toyota with qi.
"Oh!" Huang Fei Hong clapped his hands excitedly. "Are you going to use Invisible Air?"
"What do you think this is, Fate/Zero?" I growled, infusing more of my qi into my Toyota. "And I'm not Arthuria Saber!"
That said, my car did transform. Armored plates began forming around my car, particularly the window, and the back of my Toyota shifted around to reveal a rocket engine that was shaped like a dragon's jaw. Flames erupted from the mechanical maw and propelled my Toyota forward at unprecedented speeds.
I could feel the inertia slam me back against my seat, grunting. From surprised cries or muffled curses, I could tell that my passengers were suffering similarly.
But I didn't have time to worry about them. Twisting my steering wheel about, I had my Toyota streak across the road like a black bullet, weaving from side to side and avoiding the golden lightning that sparked out from the chariot and attempted to hit my car. Concrete shattered and the road exploded where the volatile energies struck, sending up showers of debris.
The Qin Emperor didn't seem pleased. His fingers tightened over his armrests and he conjured a bunch of terracotta soldiers. They rose from the ground, almost as if the earth birthed them, and staggered forward to bar our way. I simply floored the accelerator and shifted the trajectory of my car accordingly, ramming the scattered terracotta soldiers and running them over. A few of them were sent flying like bowling pins, shattered and broken into countless pieces.
The armored prow of my Toyota, manifested by my qi, allowed me to knock the terracotta soldiers down effortlessly and destroy them with the sheer momentum. Drifting through the remote and mostly empty highway, I crashed the broadside of my car against ranks of terracotta soldiers, reducing them to fragments. I continued speeding forward, my Toyota continued to hurtle forward without slowing down at all. Sparks flew as the tires ground against the road, squealing in protest, but the flames continued to roar backward, pushing my car ever forward.
Whirling around, my Toyota continued to shoot forward, leaving the chariot in the dust. The Qin Emperor's expression remained impassive and he slammed his hand against his armrest, cracking it.
Then I caught sight of a tightly packed formation of terracotta soldiers, dozens of them standing shoulder to shoulder and crunching their shields together to form a wall.
No matter how armored my car was, if I collided against that wall of shields, we would come to a bone jarring stop. At the very least, it would delay us long enough for the Qin Emperor's chariot to catch up with us.
We couldn't let that happen now, could we?
With a grin, I floored the accelerator, not backing down despite the wall of shields forming solidly in front of me. Allowing my qi to surge into the Toyota once more, I had the dragon-shaped device at the back of my Toyota shift slightly downward. Like a rocket jet, the dragon engine blasted my car off the ground and sent us flying into the air.
The terracotta soldiers could do nothing but peer from behind their shields emotionlessly and blankly as my Toyota soared above them. Being puppets bound totally to the will of the Qin Emperor, they were not capable of feeling or sentient thought, but they would have expressed shock and dismay had they been able to.
As it was, they simply stood there stupidly while I left the suckers in the dust.
The Qin Emperor roared in fury. About a minute or so later, his chariot barreled right into the shield of walls, spikes emerging from the front and the war stallions stomping violently. The Qin Emperor trampled and crushed his own terracotta soldiers, grounding them to little more to dust. The collision slowed the chariot down slightly, the horses stumbling despite their aggression. It only took a moment for them to recover and haul the chariot along the ruined road, pursuing their target once more.
But by then, my Toyota and its passengers were far away from him.