Chang’an was snowing, yet Nanzhao remained green with lush grass. Dou Yanshan came down from his bamboo building, stretched with a long lazy yawn, took several deep breaths, then retrieved a scroll from his waist and began strolling around the beautiful bamboo building. His long hair hung loose over his shoulders and back, not tied up—he felt this casual draping over his body was very comfortable.

Reading early in the morning had always been his habit, but there were too few books here. For example, what he held in his hand right now was just an almanac.

The Guisi day of the Yimao month—suitable for breaking ground, for excavation, for burial. This was a good day. He always had to find something to do, otherwise he wouldn’t need Li Er to send people to kill him—he would gradually decay and rot away on his own.

Under his bamboo building, no pigs were raised. The ground was clean, with only a layer of fuzzy fine grass. The grass didn’t grow well because too much sulfur powder had been scattered here. Snakes, insects, and ants couldn’t survive on this land, so Dou Yanshan’s small building was very clean.

The old steward remained loyally handling the large and small matters of the tribe, sending people into the forest every day to search for food—this was a necessary daily labor.

Food was never enough to eat, especially these past few days. When Dou Yanshan saw even the old steward struggling to gnaw on bones from some unknown animal, he knew it was time to go out and search for food.

He had originally wanted to rely on the tribe’s people to go out and raid some small tribes to bring back some food. Who knew that after three hundred soldiers carrying bamboo poles and wearing rattan armor marched magnificently into the jungle, fewer than one hundred returned—the rest all fed the ants. No one would deploy troops to campaign in all directions when even the jungle’s wild beasts were starving mad. Moving out at this time was undoubtedly opposing the entire jungle.

Dou Yanshan voluntarily reduced his own food by half, relying on some bamboo shoots and yams to make up the difference.

There were still pigs in the pigsty, but no one agreed with Dou Yanshan’s opinion to slaughter them. Even the old steward disagreed. The pigs were the entire tribe’s last life-saving food supply. Clearly it hadn’t yet reached the most difficult time.

Dou Yanshan’s stomach was rumbling. For the first time, he discovered that hunger was so terrifying. Every single bone in his body was groaning. Heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys—all were crying out. Everything he saw looked like food.

He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten a proper meal. In his dream last night, he had eaten an entire roasted fat sheep by himself. As the young master of a prominent family, Dou Yanshan now urgently wanted a flatbread stuffed with lamb, or even the thick round bread the servants commonly ate would do.

Once again he leaned over the pigsty looking at the grunting fat pigs inside and drooling. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… there were twenty-two fat pigs of various sizes in total. He had degenerated to the point of counting them every day.

There were twenty-three dark things crawling in the pigsty. He very much hoped that the last dark thing fighting with the other pigs for food was also a pig.

When she raised her head and stared fixedly at Dou Yanshan, you would discover that it was indeed not a pig—it was a person, a woman.

“Tango, look how good I am to you. Now in the tribe, only you have food to eat every day. Although it’s a bit poor, it’s better than nothing. I’m about to starve to death. Why are you people so poor? There are only thirty of us, yet we’ve eaten through all your stored grain. Too lazy! Couldn’t you have stored more when there was plenty of food?”

Queen Tango stood up, tearing half a blade of green grass from the corner of her mouth. Her tall figure was still imposing, though the enormous breasts on her chest were somewhat withered. Only a torn cloth was tied around her waist. She roared and lunged toward Dou Yanshan, but was held back by an iron chain. The chain stretched taut—no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get one step closer to Dou Yanshan.

“Tango, I know every one of your tribes has hidden treasures. Some are said to be a thousand years old, smelted from gold dust panned by your ancestors. As long as you tell me where those gold artifacts are, I’ll release you. You can still be your queen, and I’ll take my people far away and never return. How about that?”

Seeing no way to get close to Dou Yanshan, Tango sat down, grabbed a handful of pig grass from the stone trough, stuffed it in her mouth and continued chewing, no longer looking at Dou Yanshan.

This game between the two had been going on for over half a year. Even after suffering the most terrible tortures, Tango hadn’t uttered a single word. Now they had entered a long-term standoff.

Dou Yanshan sighed. It wasn’t that he had no money—but all his money was in the Central Plains, and he couldn’t get back. The four people he’d sent out disappeared without trace as soon as they left the jungle.

They wouldn’t have run away. These men were death warriors cultivated by the Dou family—for the family, they would climb mountains of knives and descend into cauldrons of oil without blinking. Their disappearance meant they were either dead or captured by those Bai Qi Si fellows.

They wanted him to be trapped to death in this jungle! Before Dou Yanshan could lament a few more times, a thick fog drifted out from the valley. He wailed painfully, “Here it comes again.”

In winter, the thick fog never ceased and was very punctual. As long as the sun wasn’t visible, heavy fog would descend.

“Apricot blossom rain that soaks clothes without wetting them”—a beautiful artistic conception. This water vapor had the same effect as apricot blossom rain. Though it wouldn’t wet clothes when it touched the body, that bone-penetrating chill would drill into the bones.

In two or three steps he dove into the bamboo building. This crude little house, with only mud stuffed in the cracks, couldn’t block that pervasive morning fog. Even the flames in the fire pit seemed to dim.

Dou Yanshan wrapped his fur clothing tighter, shivering beside the fire pit. The resentment in his heart also emerged from the depths of his bones.

Li Er, I will kill you. Yun Ye, I will make you live with pigs for the rest of your life.

Hanhan pushed the door open with its mouth, its long snout twitching as it moved around. Its target was the basin of alfalfa grass in the room. Yun Ye had specifically brought back some alfalfa grass from the Academy after seeing Na Rimu’s gums bleeding when she brushed her teeth, planning to stir-fry it for Na Rimu to eat with rice. This thing had excellent hemostatic effects—Daoist Sun was already testing its efficacy.

The room seemed empty. Hanhan squeezed through the door, its plump body surprisingly agile. Just as it reached the side of the large flowerpot, a shoe flew over and hit its ear. The clever Hanhan turned and ran—there was someone in the room.

The Jiawu day of the Yimao month—suitable for sacrifice, suitable for entering doors, suitable for praying for blessings. Yun Ye also held a scroll in his hand, no different from Dou Yanshan—both were perpetual calendars.

“Calculating according to the cycle, Li Anlan should be giving birth. Perhaps it’s today.”

He muttered to himself, then placed the perpetual calendar on the table, put his palms together, and prayed for Li Anlan’s and the child’s safety.

Not knowing whether Li Anlan and her child ten thousand li away were safe, Yun Ye’s heart felt as if it were being fried in oil—restless whether sitting or lying down. His eyelids were twitching violently.

He took a deep breath and held it. Even when nearly suffocating, he couldn’t calm down. The last letter said everything was well with her and the fetus was safe.

The Yun family servants had also sent letters reporting all was well, just that the princess was somewhat overworked. Those natives weren’t obedient at all and constantly caused trouble. General Hong had already killed three waves of them, yet there were still rebels.

Clearly, they hadn’t used gentler methods, wanting to use absolute military force to quickly suppress the Liao people so they could start their plan to get rich.

Those veterans eager to get rich certainly wouldn’t be gentle. The entire Liao region was probably now rolling with severed heads.

A force without military discipline was just a gang of bandits. The only difference was they were more efficient, more organized, and more ferocious.

Whether the Liao people lived or died, Yun Ye couldn’t control it and had no way to control it. Beyond his reach—even the emperor’s edict wouldn’t have much binding force over ten thousand li away.

“When the general is abroad, not all sovereign commands need be obeyed”—this wasn’t empty talk. By the time a letter reached its destination, months had already passed, especially in that ghostly place of Lingnan. Not to mention the poor mountains and treacherous waters, fellows declaring themselves independent with armed forces emerged endlessly. With just a hundred or so men, they dared call themselves Heaven-Responding Kings. For food, they would do anything.

He could only hope that Li Anlan would follow his arrangements and not participate in the early killing. After the army’s slaughter, she could then provide comfort. If the military went too far, she should restrain them within limits. Whether good or bad, first she must secure the people’s hearts.

His mind raced chaotically like galloping horses—one moment the crying of an infant, the next moment corpses covering the ground. The two scenes continuously intertwined, inseparable.

Xinyue pushed the door open and came in, carrying a plate of jujube cake in her hands. This was the only kind of pastry she knew how to make. Yun Ye had eaten it until he almost vomited. Calling it jujube cake—it was all jujubes with barely any rice visible, so sweet it was bitter.

She herself enjoyed it tirelessly, loving sweets most. She could eat an entire plate alone without getting tired of it.

Like presenting a treasure, she placed the plate under Yun Ye’s nose to let him smell whether it was fragrant.

In fact, steamed jujubes had an indescribably nauseating smell. Yun Ye never ate boiled or steamed jujubes. Only because of Xinyue’s kind intentions would he grit his teeth and eat a little each time, then say he didn’t like eating sweet things.

She would give birth in just over two months. Yun Ye constantly urged her to keep moving, to exercise more—it was good for both her and the child, and would make delivery easier later.

The big-bellied woman before his eyes was constantly swaying about, while ten thousand li away, another was struggling with heaven for her life. In this era, giving birth was about the same as entering the gates of hell.

“Husband, your complexion looks very poor today. Did you not sleep well last night? That must be it—Na Rimu never sleeps properly. She clearly sleeps vertically at night, but by morning she’s often turned horizontal. Last night she put her leg on my chest, making me have nightmares all night.”

Knowing Yun Ye’s habits, Xinyue tore off a small piece of jujube cake and stuffed it in Yun Ye’s mouth, pressed his jaw up and down twice to count as chewing, then tore off a large piece for herself and enjoyed her own labor’s fruits with peace of mind.

Na Rimu had eaten too many frozen persimmons and had an upset stomach. She’d been whimpering for a long while—he didn’t know if she was better now.

He draped a blanket over Xinyue’s legs. Outside it was already so cold you couldn’t extend your hand. Long icicles hung from the eaves. Old Qian was using a bamboo pole to knock them down one by one—if those things fell on someone’s head, it would be very dangerous.

The sky outside was brilliantly clear, the sun shining with effort, yet Yun Ye felt no warmth. The little wind blowing on his face was like a knife cutting. He could only hope Na Rimu would get better today.

Yun Ye rubbed his hands together, thinking involuntarily.