Chapter 133: Dear friend

When Qi Shou'an's right hand lifted the tent's curtain, she still thought that Wei Xiren would insist that she meet the Shejin deputy general, Yu Jiuyun, in a small town not far from the camp. She'd even thought of how she'd explain it.

She sent the letter, but Yu Jiuyun didn't respond. Typically, Yu Jiuyun led the patrol squads, but recently, someone else had taken her place. In the end, this was the border of the two states, and she couldn't go looking for Yu Jiuyun anywhere, and could only wait for her to contact her.

But when she stepped into the tent, Qi Shou'an caught the scent of a terrible, sour scent. The awful scent was mixed with that of blood, and it choked her until she coughed. She shifted her gaze, finding Wei Xiren sitting, cross-legged, on a cushion, cleaning her long dao, and without even thinking, Qi Shou'an said, "Jiangjun, I've already sent a letter to Shejin thrice…"

Before she'd even finished speaking, Wei Xiren cut her off. "You don't need to send any more."

A thread of bewilderment flashed in Qi Shou'an's eyes, and when she raised her gaze to look at Wei Xiren, she found a struggle on Wei Xiren's face. Her heart skipped an inexplicable beat, and Qi Shou'an felt that even her pupils trembled for a moment, but she still said, "Has Jiangjun asked about and understood it?"

Wei Xiren pressed her lips together, not saying anything, and after a long while, she picked up a water pouch, drinking from it, clear water slipping down her chin and dripping into her collar. Qi Shou'an found it strange, but she couldn't guess at anything, and could only continue looking at her.

From outside the tent, the sound of hoofbeats arose suddenly, likely the carts carrying provisions having arrived. Qi Shou'an suddenly grew aware of the traces of where sweat had soaked Wei Xiren's collar, and felt things were even stranger.

"That friend of yours, was she called Yu Jiuyun?"

In the end, Wei Xiren spoke, and when she did, an emotion that Qi Shou'an couldn't understand was muddled in with her gaze. Seeing this, Qi Shou'an felt even more flustered; after all, Wei Xiren had never been so cautious and careful. From the time she'd first met Wei Xiren, Wei Xiren had always had a direct, open disposition.

If she was happy, then she was happy, and if she hated something, then she hated it. The innate skill of this general who rode a white steed seemed to always have been in her martial abilities, and the remaining half of her heart couldn't hide away even the slightest emotion.

"Jiangjun," Qi Shou'an felt her voice grow hoarse, "if there's something, you should just say it directly."

Qi Shou'an watched Wei Xiren start to speak a few times before hesitating, but in the end, she swallowed it all back. When she spoke again, though, it was a question. "How long has it been since the last time you met that friend of yours?"

"About a month?"

Qi Shou'an narrowed her eyes, thinking on it carefully. A month and a half ago was the last time she'd drunk wine together with Yu Jiuyun at that small town not far away from the camp; the two hadn't met again after that. Just in time, a sudden alarm bell sounded in her mind, and she recalled that, that time, Yu Jiuyun had unexpectedly revealed to her that someone from the Shejin court had come to the border.

Qi Shou'an assumed that this was what Wei Xiren was talking about, and this was what she hoped Wei Xiren wanted to talk about. So, she hurriedly spoke, and explained the matter she'd remembered from that day to the general before her, but she couldn't see a single speck of ease on her face.

In the end, Wei Xiren couldn't hold it in any further, and she pushed the massive wooden box on the table towards her, closing her eyes. "Go on, take a look yourself."

The wooden box was a neat square, quite larger than a typical box. If a typical box was used to store some small items, then this large box was just large enough to hold a head.

Qi Shou'an had, in the end, studied some, and her train of thought was far more nimble than Wei Xiren's. She could practically even guess what had been placed in this box, but she didn't dare to believe it, and, slowly, suppressing the shake of her hands, she opened the wooden box.

A woman's head sat, unmoving, within.

If her muddy eyes and the horrible expression on her face could be ignored, this head could be counted as dignified. Its hair was neatly combed, and only a few stray strands of hair on her forehead expressed the fierce battle she'd been in. But Qi Shou'an couldn't be more familiar with the turquoise strand of beads wound through her braid.

Qi Shou'an had gifted it to Yu Jiuyun for her previous birthday.

"Yesterday, a group of bandits attacked a merchant caravan from the Great Li, and a young girl who was lucky enough to survive came to the camp," Wei Xiren said, and then looked at Qi Shou'an, who'd gone stiff before her, and suddenly found she couldn't bear it, and thinking it over, she continued, "I sent a couple dozen of our sisters over, and found that it was those undead."

"But, Yu Jiuyun, she—" Only when she spoke did Qi Shou'an realise how hoarse her voice had grown, such that it took practically all her might to speak a few words. "But she's not a bandit."

After forcing herself to speak these nine words, Qi Shou'an couldn't manage to say anything further. It was as if, in the last few breaths, the sand-filled winds of the great desert had squeezed in their entirety into her throat. She couldn't swallow them down, nor spit them out. No matter how hard she tried, she could only make a meaningless, hoarse sound.

There was a lot she wanted to say. She wanted to say that Yu Jiuyun wasn't a bandit, that she was of noble origin, that she had firm blood ties to the current King of Shejin, Liang Jiwen. Her family was an influential Shejinese clan, and Yu Jiuyun had only taken the initiative to volunteer for military service guarding the border because she didn't have a good relationship with her family

She wanted to say that, though Yu Jiuyun was a deputy general, she'd always been against fighting and killing. She was inclined more towards the lives of the scholars in the Great Li. Precisely because the two of them had formed ties to each other precisely for this reason; after all, when Qi Shou'an had first come to the border, she'd been a scholar through and through. At the time, Yu Jiuyun had said that, one day, she'd go to the Great Li to take a look, but when Qi Shou'an had mentioned that she could help her change her identity and go live in the Great Li, she'd rejected her.

Yu Jiuyun had said she was Shejinese, and no matter where she went, she'd always return to Shejin.

But now, the mists of the past had returned to desolation, and the person she'd drunk and spoken with merrily before had been reduced to a head severed from her body.

Qi Shou'an suddenly staggered, her trembling hand wanting to reach out and close her dear friend's eyes. She had long since determined that Yu Jiuyun was a rarely-encountered dear friend, but she'd never told her so herself. But before she could manage to touch Yu Jiuyun, Wei Xiren seized her wrist tightly.

"Don't touch."

Wei Xiren's words were said urgently, and her tone carried the tint of an order, and even when faced with Qi Shou'an's shattered expression, she didn't loosen the force of her hand. Seeing Qi Shou'an didn't understand, Wei Xiren slowly turned the wooden box.

On the back of Yu Jiuyun's neck a dark red sigil had been drawn, its style the same as the one they'd cut out of those bandits a few days prior.

Qi Shou'an grasped at the table and dry heaved, feeling a burning pain in her throat. "They…even their own, they…"

It wasn't that Qi Shou'an hadn't ever seen the undead, but at this moment, she couldn't suppress the disgust roiling in her chest.

"Restrain yourself."

Wei Xiren hadn't studied, and didn't know how to comfort anyone, and only managed these two words after wracking her mind; when she spoke, she unconsciously loosened the hand gripping Qi Shou'an's wrist. Qi Shou'an, though, took advantage of this opportunity to struggle free, and in the end, reached out towards Yu Jiuyun's eyelids.

I can't let her die with her eyes open, Qi Shou'an thought.

But the next instant, something strange occurred; Qi Shou'an had only just touched her eyelashes when the head shook suddenly and violently, its teeth clattering, as if about to gnaw on her fingers.

"Careful!" Wei Xiren cried out loudly, grabbing Qi Shou'an's collar and dragging her towards herself. Her sleeve carelessly overturned the box, and the head rolled onto the ground, continuing to shake at a high frequency. The torches on the walls reflected on that pair of grey pupils, making a blood red suffuse them.

Qi Shou'an, startled, froze on the spot, unmoving. Wei Xiren, her motions rapid, pulled out her long dao, the blade wedging into the skull, letting out a tooth-aching, muffled sound.

When the sigil drawn on the nape of the neck was bisected by the blade, the head finally stopped its squirming.

"Burn it," Wei Xiren called out towards the outside of the tent, her brows furrowed, but the next moment, the soldier standing guard outside the tent pulled the curtain aside, and said, "Jiangjun, a Xie-daren's arrived from the capital, and she says she wants to talk to you."

"Xie-daren?" Wei Xiren blinked, and for a moment, she couldn't think of who it was.

The surname "Xie" wasn't a common one in the Great Li, and in the court, there was only on person named Xie Qianbing. But Xie Qianbing was a major Minister, so how could she appear in such a remote, desolate place?

Wei Xiren asked, "Does she have official documents?"

"She doesn't," the soldier said, shaking her head. "Xie-daren said that her reason for visiting today was purely person, and not official at all."

Hearing this, Wei Xiren was even more puzzled, but she said, "Go ahead and let her in."

She turned her head, looking at Qi Shou'an, who was kneeling on the ground before that head, her body shaking uncontrollably. Wei Xiren, assuming it was some sort of bewitchment, rushed to Qi Shou'an's side, her hand reaching out to pull her away.

However, when she looked properly, she found that the head was still still and silent. The sound of sobbing suddenly reached her ears, and when she looked in the direction of the sound, she found Qi Shou'an's eyes had long since gone red.

"The King of Shejin's gone mad," Qi Shou'an mumbled to herself. Perhaps because Wei Xiren had been too agitated before and too forceful, Qi Shou'an had been hurt from the fall and couldn't stand up, and she crawled to the side on her knees.

When her fingers touched those eyelids again, there weren't any further strange movements. Qi Shou'an felt her hands were frigidly cold, but in the past, Yu Jiuyun's body temperature had always been hotter than hers; she oughtn't be so cold.

"Mad," Wei Xiren echoed, and she gently pressed her hand against Qi Shou'an's shoulder. "I'll write a letter now, and have it taken to the capital posthaste. It'll help her majesty make early plans, too."

"Jiangjun," Qi Shou'an suddenly raised her head to look at Wei Xiren, "will we go to war?"

Wei Xiren smiled bitterly. "That depends on her majesty's decision. But seeing this state of the Shejinese, even if we win, the Great Li won't have it easy."

Both of their eyes were filled with desolation—they'd both seen the undead, and knew how hard they were to deal with. But the next moment, Wei Xiren found a determination in Qi Shou'an's gaze, and heard her say, "If we go to war, I want to be on the vanguard."

Before Wei Xiren could even say "alright", she heard a voice come from outside the tent. "What war?"

After the words were spoken, the tent's curtain was pulled aside. Xie Qianbing, dressed in deep blue, close-fitting attire, had only taken a single stem inside when her expression changed.

At the moment, the inside of the tent could be said to be in utter disorder.

The brush rack on the desk had been swept aside, and a massive wooden box laid, overturned, on it, the ground covered in traces of blood, a long dao, its blade still wedged in the head, its eyes only just having been closed, atop the carpet laid on the ground—to say nothing of the sour scent of rot mixed with blood in the air.

In the past few years, Xie Qianbing had lived like a prince in the capital, and, though she'd been travelling recently, it had been on the official roads, staying in the best rooms in relay stations; she couldn't bear such a thing at all, and felt her stomach churn, as if she would retch at any moment.

Xie Qianbing covered her mouth, curling over and coughing.

Wei Xiren frowned, casting Qi Shou'an a gaze to indicate to her to take the head away, and then she opened the curtains of the tent that could be opened, letting the heat-filled desert breeze roll in from all sides.

But even so, Xie Qianbing only straightened after a long while. Wei Xiren took a few steps, about to support her, but, fearing that the scent of blood on her would make her feel ill, stopped in place, and took out her water pouch, passing it over. "Have some water?"

Xie Qianbing approached Wei Xiren, brows furrowed, carefully avoiding the already dried blood on the carpet. She didn't instantly take the water pouch from Wei Xiren, but rather stared fixedly into her eyes, and said, "In the six years since we last saw each other, Wei-jiangjun's grown quite a bit darker."

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