Chapter 128: Unexpected occurrences
Actually, at first, Song Juguang didn't know what Qin Zhixun's "I've already won against you" meant; after the Great Li's capital saw off the Shejin Envoy, it returned to its usual tranquility. If some upset had to be mentioned, then it would only be learning that the prisoner who'd tried to assassinate Qin Zhixun had run into a wall and passed away.
The one most shocked by this was Jiang Changbai. Though that night Song Juguang had told her everything, Jiang Changbai was still curious about Song Juguang's past. So, she'd specially ordered the Warden to treat that prisoner a bit better, and at least keep her a live, so that she could question her in the future.
She hadn't imagined that, before she'd even managed to make the time to go question her, she'd die. With neither a name nor relatives, it was said that it was the old woman in the cell next to hers who'd found a mat to wrap her body in.
Song Juguang, though, wasn't emotionally impacted by this in the slightest, because she'd not inherited even the faintest hint of a memory from the body, and so, towards this so-called "younger sister", she naturally had not feelings. To her, this prisoner was no different from the countless others.
All in the capital was well, and countless scholars were just awaiting the next day's metropolitan exams. However, at the Western border, over a thousand li away, the high-ranking Wei Xiren, guarding the border, had caught wind of something off. Seven years ago, Song Juguang had initially intended to transfer her back to the capital, but by luck, at the time, Jiang Changbai had wanted to help Liang Jiwen return to Shejin and vie for the throne, and so an officer capable at conflict had been necessary, and so Wei Xiren had remained at the border.
On the wilderness of the spring evening, snow continued to cover the grassland in a mottled blanket. Wei Xiren pushed aside the heavy general's curtain and entered, leaving the chilly breeze, carrying fine particles of ice, outside the tent. Atop the desk was lit a hazy oil lantern, showing the uneven ink marks on the territory map.
"Jiangjun, this is the fourth time this month," the deputy general, Qi Shou'an, took out the tongs and lit the brazier, the sparks jumping out with a crackle, and said, voice puzzled, "it's like the Shejinese are mad wolves."
Wei Xiren crossed her legs and sat at the desk, propping up her chin and staring at the territory map in a daze. "Didn't they just send an envoy to the capital? How come they're being so improper?"
The month before, Qin Zhixun's convoy had passed by here, and Wei Xiren had even treated them well as a host. She hadn't imagined that, from the start of this month, there'd be frequent skirmishes causing chaos at the border. They'd captured a few alive, but when they spoke, it was always in Shejinese.
At the time, though Song Juguang hadn't been able to transfer Wei Xiren back to the capital, she'd sent someone to monitor her, so that, if one day, she went mad, any massive messes could be avoided. That person was, in fact, Qi Shou'an, who wasn't martially skilled, but who had studied extensively.
But seven years had already passed, and the two seemed to have been kneaded into a ball and then separated equally out once more. Wei Xiren was no longer as impulsive as she'd been in her youth, and her expression had grown more calm, while Qi Shou'an had learned martial arts from Wei Xiren, and was no longer the frail willow in the wind she'd been back then.
"Our sisters who died in battle, have their bodies been brought back?" Wei Xiren finally sighed, and asked.
"They have." Qi Shou'an was left rather sorrowful at the topic being raised; even though she'd been sharpened by the seven years at the border, her heart was still that of the scholar from back then, who liked discussing things in flowery language and expounding on poetry; facing death directly, of course she couldn't be happy. "The survivors said it seemed as if those Shejinese bandits couldn't feel pain, and even when they lost their arms, they continued fighting."
Wei Xiren, hearing this, frowned. The pain of a lost limb was heard to bear, and passing out from the pain wasn't uncommon; even if some people who'd been heroic all their lives could grit their teeth and bear it, such people ought not to be here.
Just as she was thinking, outside the tent, a sudden commotion arose. A young personal bodyguard, Xiao Liu, entered, her head drenched in blood; at a careful look, it was visible that she'd lost her left ear, and the blood had gotten all over half her body.
Xiao Liu had been personally taken in by Wei Xiren; she didn't know her own name, only that she'd been the sixth-born in her family. After studying a bit, she'd chosen the name Xiao Liucai, but everyone in the battalion still called her Xiao Liu.[1] Seeing her state, Wei Xiren's heart ached, and she hurriedly rushed to hers side, remembering to pull aside the curtain and shout out, "Quick, call the army physician!"
"Jiangjun," Xiao Liu's voice didn't retain its usual liveliness, the teenager's face painted in the red of blood, "I probably won't survive, but this needs to be given to you."
As she spoke, Xiao Liu opened her tightly clenched hand, where a wooden token laid in her hand. "I found it on one of those bandits. It's strange; originally, that bandit originally swung that great dao fiercely, but when kicked, spat out this wooden token and fell over, and didn't get up again."
Xiao Liu's words were halting and fragmented, and it took a long time for her to finish speaking. Wei Xiren didn't have the mind to pay any attention to what she was saying, and stubbornly glared out the tent. "Where's the army physician!"
"Jiangjun," Xiao Liu's breaths were faint, "after I die, why don't you carve 'Xiao Liu' onto my stele; no one calls me Xiao Liucai, so if it were carved on there, no one would know it."
"What nonsense are you spouting," Wei Xiren pressed harshly against Xiao Liu's bleeding left ear, as if doing so could stem the blood. "You can't die."
Just as she spoke, the army physician hurried in, panting, and took Xiao Liu from Wei Xiren's arms. This army physician had been transferred from the barracks in the capital, and had previously been Meng Daosheng's subordinate. If Chang Jiaye's soul hadn't reincarnated and had been blown over here, she'd have been able to recognise this army physician as the one who'd tried to hold her back at the barracks back then.
But, sadly, Chang Jiaye had probably long since drunk Meng Po Soup, and no one in the Western border battalion recognised this army physician.
Seeing that Xiao Liu's condition had stabilised, Wei Xiren let out a breath of relief. But before she'd even taken out her water flask to take a drink, she heard a scout's report.
"Report! Five li to the northwest, there are almost a hundred bandits!"
"Excessive force," Wei Xiren cursed to herself, and picked up her long dao from where it was hung on the stand. "Choose two hundred to go with me to face them!"
Five li to the northwest, the snow covered things thickly, and a squadron of people who appeared to be Shejinese rushed aggressively forward on horseback. Wei Xiren's horse arrived before the others, her long dao parting the sand-filled wind as she rushed at the opposing leader, who was dressed like a married woman, swinging her blade.
The woman didn't dodge, but rather used the thing in her hand to meet the blade's cutting edge. The instant the bag, made of rag cloth, was split open, Wei Xiren recognised that what was in her hand was a bag of rice, stamped with the Great Li's official seal.
Before she could think any further about the origins of the rice bag, the woman stabbed at her with a qiang. Wei Xiren hurriedly urged her horse to avoid it, but when she rose, she didn't forget to slash at the woman with her blade. In the haze, she suddenly saw that the woman's pupils were muddy as a dead fish's, and a wound she'd gotten who knew when was gurgling with blood.
The blade of the dao sank into her flesh, but the woman smiled as if mad, her fan-like hand grabbing the back of the blade directly. Wei Xiren turned and pulled it back, and the blade cut beneath her rib, a bloody wound opening. Fresh blood rushed out, but the woman seemed not to feel it, and, grabbing her qiang, stabbed at Wei Xiren.
"Jiangjun, careful!"
Qi Shou'an thrust her dao out to knock aside the broad dao that was bearing down on Wei Xiren, but, shockingly, she saw that only bone remained of the fierce bandit's right arm, yet she wielded the blade so formidably.
Wei Xiren's long dao left total annihilation, and in a single motion, she severed three changqiang. The fingers of the women carrying qiang gushed blood, but they still doggedly rushed at Wei Xiren. The most shocking was a one-eyed old woman, whose face was even bloodier than Liu Cai's had been, but was still full of vigour.
"Form an array!" Wei Xiren shouted, and the cavalry she'd brought with her formed a defensive array. But those bandits were like a human pyramid crawling up an ice wall, the bandit at the very top throwing themself directly downwards, utterly uncaring about the sharp rocks below.
Wei Xiren pierced through the throat of the bandit that threw themself downwards, but even on the brink of death, the bandit clung to the blade, eyes as cloudy as the one who'd been dressed like a married woman, staring at her fixedly. Behind her, the sound of blades rose, and the one-eyed old woman's blade had already reached her lower back.
Wei Xiren abandoned her dao and turned around, using her wrist braces to meet her blade. Two fingers of her right hand stabbed into her opponent's good left eye like a hook. The one-eyed old woman didn't dodge, though, and let her, a strained smile on her face, stab into her eye socket, but her bloodied hands still persistently choked Wei Xiren's throat.
"Let go!" Qi Shou'an's blade cut off the old woman's wrist, but the severed hand continued to squeeze, unwavering, at Wei Xiren's neck. The bandits all about suddenly let out a high howl, the pitch as stiff as a marionette, and, not paying anything else any mind, they rushed forward.
Only once the snow was stained in the red of fresh blood were the bandits finally put an end to. A sudden lingering fear rose in Wei Xiren's mind, and she was glad she'd brought two hundred soldiers, or else she herself might even have been left her.
"Jiangjun," Qi Shou'an called out to her, "what about these corpses?"
Actually, the bandits laying on the ground could no longer be called corpses, as almost all of them had lost two limbs, and had only toppled over once they'd bled out.
But Wei Xiren swept a glance over them, and said, "Take them back with us, and have the army physician cut them open and take a look."
As she spoke, she remembered Xiao Liu, who'd rather die than not deliver that wooden talisman token to her. Wei Xiren didn't understand mystical and magical things, and couldn't understand such a thing, but she still felt something was off.
Could it be that every one of them has such a thing in their stomachs? Wei Xiren thought.
By the time they returned to camp, it was already late, and the army physician, bearing a medicine box, was already waiting inside the tent. Seeing the army physician looked familiar, Wei Xiren asked, "How's Xiao Liu?"
"The blood's been staunched," the army physician said, "she ought to be resting now."
"That's good," Wei Xiren said, letting out a long breath. "I'm alright; just a little bit of medicine, and I'll be fine."
But later, in the depths of night, an oil lamp remained lit in Wei Xiren's tent. A xuanya landed silently by her side, and obediently waited for her to bind a letter to its leg. Once she'd let the xuanya out, Wei Xiren, still seeming unable to relax, wrote another letter, in order to send someone back to the capital tomorrow.
But she felt it was still missing something.
She paced apprehensively about the tent, her mind running through all the people she'd gotten to know in these years, and then suddenly, as if having thought of something, she raced rapidly to Qi Shou'an's tent.
"Wake up!"
"Jiangjun, what is it?"
Qi Shou'an had just been sleeping deeply, and having been suddenly woken by Wei Xiren calling her name, her mind was still hazy. Wei Xiren pulled the heavy quilt covering her away, forcing her lucid. "Your relationship with that Shejin deputy general is still good, isn't it?"
Qi Shou'an, hearing this, grew immediately sober, and felt cold sweat rise on her back. Of course she knew this general hated the Shejinese to an extreme degree, and so her friendship with that deputy general had always been cautious and careful, and she hadn't dared for Wei Xiren to find out about it.
"Jiangjun, I…" she meant to say that, in the future, she'd definitely never contact that person anymore, but she hadn't imagined Wei Xiren would cut her off.
"Arrange to meet with her tomorrow," Wei Xiren's expression, in an usual turn, held not the slightest trace of hatred, and her eyes were even glinting brightly, quite obvious in the middle of the night. "Ask her how her side is preparing to deal with the bandits who've been at the border lately."
Qi Shou'an was intelligent, and in an instant, she understood Wei Xiren's meaning. So, she nodded, and pulled the quilt back onto the bed. "Jiangjun, can I sleep now?"
She closed her eyes, and, not hearing any sound of movement from Wei Xiren, still didn't relax, and opened her eyes to look. But what she saw was that Wei Xiren had already made it to the curtain, and she turned her head to look at her, and said, "Don't forget—the earlier, the better."
By the time the capital received the news, it was already summer, and the sun hung high in the heavens, broiling the world unceasingly. Everyone at court wore a mere single layer, but a chill dissipated all about.
Cheng Xuange still hadn't sent word back, and alongside the report that Wei Xiren had sent, everyone felt that Shejin was about to cause problems. Jiang Changbai's brows were tightly furrowed, and the ministers she stared at at the foot of the stares dared not to speak.
In the end, it was Xie Qianbing who, under pressure, stood forward, and bowed, making obeisance. "Bixia, this minister is willing to go on a diplomatic trip to Shejin."
Translator's notes:
[1]: The character for "six" (六) is pronounced "liu", hence her nickname.
Thank you for translating this!
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