When they were about to leave Song County, Prince Su’s pursuing troops arrived.
Mo Zi looked back. On the main road, there was a dark mass of heads like crows, with dust half a sky high. She clicked her tongue. “How many people did Prince Su send to chase us?”
After looking, Zan Jin said, “Over a thousand cavalry.”
“That old man really thinks highly of us.” While urging his horse faster, Jin Yin shouted, “After exhausting these past few days, why exactly did we come?” Waving his hand, his three hundred cavalry began to cover the rear.
“To hear secrets.” Mo Zi urged her horse to run fast, or else she’d be chopped into mincemeat. How would she know the treasure was real if she didn’t come? How would she know the story of the Wang and Min families? How would she know there was such a thing as a key?
Jin Yin was both exasperated and amused. “You just keep causing trouble—whatever mess you stir up, your husband will deal with it.”
“And there’s you as my brother to deal with it too.” When fleeing for their lives, no one could be too carefree. Even Yuan Cheng was shouting.
“When we get back, you must give me an explanation, or this matter won’t pass.” Jin Yin felt bad about the silver. “I told you long ago there was a secret in the Water Purification Pearls, but you didn’t believe me. How about now?” He had to strike first to gain the advantage.
“Young Master is brilliant.” Dou Lu rode past expressionlessly. “However, right now it’s better to hurry and run. Without our lives, Young Master, with all that silver of yours, will you help distribute it to the common people?”
As soon as she finished speaking, Jin Yin clamped his legs and took a commanding lead far ahead.
“Can this miser become emperor?” Mo Zi smiled bitterly.
“Girl, save your strength for talking. I’m afraid these horses can’t hold up.” Song Yan saw that although Jin Yin’s people had diverted most of the pursuing troops, there were still two hundred cavalry following closely, getting nearer and nearer. “It’s still ten li to Heng City, and this area is open flatland—very hard to hide.”
Mo Zi knew Song Yan wouldn’t say such things casually. “Foster Father, then what do we do?”
“Leave it to fate.” Song Yan pointed at the sky above.
As soon as he finished speaking, as if Heaven wanted to play a joke on them, Mo Zi’s horse’s front hooves weakened and buckled, and she fell toward the ground.
Before Dou Lu’s cry of alarm ended, several shadows leaped from horseback.
Mo Zi felt someone grab her arm. Her body became airborne, and with an upward force, she landed on another horse. She had just made out that it was Zan Jin when she realized he had actually jumped down.
She pulled the reins, forcibly turning the horse around, and shouted, “Zan Jin! What are you doing? Hurry up!”
“You go first. I’ll delay them for a while.” Zan Jin drew the Cuixin sword.
“Delay nothing! With so many people, the horse hooves alone could trample you to death!” Mo Zi knew that with a horse in an exhausted state carrying two people, it would be very difficult to shake off pursuers. But it was also impossible to leave Zan Jin behind. “Hurry up! We’ll run as far as we can.”
When she and Zan Jin stopped, Yuan Cheng and Jin Yin stopped one by one.
“You all go first!” Zan Jin roared.
“Big fool, if you don’t leave, Mo Zi won’t leave first. If she doesn’t leave, Yuan Cheng won’t leave, Dou Lu won’t leave, and in the end, no one can leave.” Jin Yin’s ears were shaken by his loud voice. He dug at them.
“Mo Zi, ride my horse and get reinforcements at the fastest speed.” Song Yan simply dismounted. Of all of them, only his horse was still in good condition.
“Foster Father, my horsemanship is terrible.” She’d ridden her own horse into the ground.
“A Hao, you ride my foster father’s horse. A Yue will substitute. In case we’re intercepted on the way.” Yuan Cheng’s arrangement was most appropriate. These two people’s martial skills weren’t top-notch, but their horsemanship was better than those of them who knew no martial arts. “Dou Lu, Mo Zi, you two are the lightest—share one horse. Everyone else, quickly mount. We can’t just sit and wait for death.”
No one objected further. Mo Zi swiftly took down the saddlebag from the horse’s back and got on Dou Lu’s horse. A Hao took the lead, and in a moment was just a small black dot.
“Foster Father, your horse can run so well—were you deliberately going slow earlier?” Mo Zi cried out. “If I’d known, we should have had you go report first.”
“Even if I went, no one would recognize me—it would delay things.” Token items like that were sometimes useful, sometimes not. “Besides, leaving you all behind, I wouldn’t be at ease.”
“What did you pack in the saddlebag? You crushed the horse.” Yuan Cheng asked.
Mo Zi suddenly understood. “I was wondering why no one’s horse was as miserable as mine. I thought I was just focused on fleeing for my life and whipped too hard, and was planning to reflect on it when we got back.”
The more Yuan Cheng listened, the more he smiled. “Even fleeing for your life with you is interesting, but what exactly is in that bag?”
“Real hand grenades. Zhen Shi brought them and told me to find a chance to test them on real people.” This time it wasn’t wooden balls, but iron balls. Inside was filled with gunpowder. Instead of putting in small balls, they adopted a turtle-shell surface design. As long as the explosive force was strong enough, the iron shell would split into fragments and fly out. This way the size could be reduced, making them easy to carry.
“When does my wife plan to test them? As your husband sees it, right now is perfect.” Yuan Cheng absolutely belonged to the master class of finding mushiness interesting.
Mo Zi looked at the distance—it really was about right. She nimbly lit the fuse and put the iron ball down.
Jin Yin saw that dark thing, not much bigger than a fist, fall to the ground. “If your ball is meant to hit people, it’s best to wait until they’re a bit closer. With so many of them and your bag so small, by the time they’re close enough to shoot arrows, we’ll be in trouble.” Seeing she was placing the ball, not throwing it, he added, “Not enough strength—let Zan Jin and Huayi throw them—”
Bang!
Jin Yin looked back. The originally orderly formation of pursuing troops suddenly had a large gap, with seven or eight horses in front fallen.
Bang! Bang! Bang! With each sound, several horses fell, and a whole section of heads disappeared. The rest of the people and horses who hadn’t been hit by the explosions were frightened out of their wits. Circling around those craters, not knowing what was happening, watching dirt clods and rocks flying chaotically ahead, they didn’t dare chase anymore.
“Wow—that’s your ball?” Jin Yin was extremely curious.
“Probably.” With dust flying everywhere and unable to see clearly, Mo Zi was factual. “However, it could also be that seeing it for the first time, those people were frightened. When I designed it, I estimated based on a ten-chi diameter. It doesn’t have that much killing power.”
Jin Yin didn’t understand, but his eyes glowed. “Good stuff! If we sold it for silver—”
“Don’t be too clever for your own good.” Yuan Cheng timely poured cold water. “Sell this good stuff to Great Zhou or Daqiu—you’ll get rich, then just wait to get beaten.”
This kind of thing was naturally easy to understand. Jin Yin laughed it off. “I was just speaking casually.”
“Now you should clean up your profiteering merchant nature. You’re Chu Yu, you’re His Highness the Prince. Always putting silver on your lips doesn’t look good. We don’t mind hearing it, but I’m afraid your subordinates will be disappointed if they hear it.” Yuan Cheng was serious about this.
Jin Yin had great bearing and frankly accepted it. “Understood.”
“They don’t seem to be chasing anymore.” Smoke rolling, mud rolling, but no people rolling out. Dou Lu looked repeatedly.
“It’s not like they don’t value their lives.” Jin Yin asked Mo Zi again, “How many more iron balls are there?”
“None. They’re still in the testing phase—not many were made to begin with. However, looking at them now, they seem pretty good. Should we invest in large-scale production?” Mo Zi asked Yuan Cheng instead.
Yuan Cheng called to Jin Yin, “I need silver.”
“No wonder I couldn’t balance these accounts for you. Wondering how you were burning money, turns out you married a wife who knows how to spend money.” Jin Yin knew Mo Zi was capable, but he didn’t know she was this capable.
“So do you want to burn this money or not?” Mo Zi narrowed her eyes. “If not, forget it. We don’t even have enough for ourselves.”
“Want it, want it.” Joking aside, just buying a few warships from Mo Zi had been enough to make the Daqiu people flee in chaos. He didn’t dare complain about expensive prices anymore. “However many there are, I want them all.”
“There are urgent horses ahead, numerous people.” Zan Jin voiced a warning.
“It should be A Hao and A Yue bringing reinforcements.” This seemed certain. Mo Zi looked into the distance.
Human figures soon appeared ahead on the official road, changing from one to a string, from a string to a formation. In the formation, a large banner stood—it was the Yuan character crane flag. But as they drew closer and closer, the outlines of the three people in the lead became clear.
Zan Jin had good eyesight and said in surprise, “Brother Mo, it’s General Xiao and General Wei.”
General Xiao? General Wei?
“You mean Xiao Wei and Wei Jia?” How was that possible?
Zan Jin said yes.
“Great Zhou’s generals running out from our territory? Not good! Could they have secretly attacked while we were away?” Mo Zi called to Yuan Cheng.
But Yuan Cheng was unhurried. “Count the days—they should be arriving about now. They’re not attacking us, but helping us attack.”
Jin Yin also knew about this but was still surprised. “I didn’t expect the Great Zhou Emperor would really let you persuade him.”
“The relationship between Great Zhou and Daqiu can no longer be eased. The Nande court is spineless, playing both sides but actually leaning toward Daqiu. If the Great Zhou Emperor doesn’t ally with us, in the end he’ll be fighting alone. He had no choice.” This was a chaotic game, but Yuan Cheng had always seen it clearly, grasping the overall situation. Today, with the Great Zhou Emperor’s most prized generals appearing on the battlefield he needed them, the game was already seventy percent decided.
Mo Zi didn’t ask more. Yuan Cheng’s confident, calm, faint smile put her at ease. He was working hard to create a future suitable for the two of them to live in, and she just needed to do her own work well.
He saw that woman at a glance. It seemed the more perilous it became, the more outstanding she appeared—her spirit was soaring. Xiao Wei had thought his fate with Mo Zi had ended in the capital, never expecting the Emperor’s secret edict would command him and Wei Jia to lead fifty thousand men to support Nande’s Righteous Yuan Army. Marching day and night without sleep or rest, he told himself it was for the urgent military situation, but deep in his heart it was to meet her again. He had already been rejected by her in marriage, he knew. A great man need not worry about lacking a wife, he also knew. But his heart was not bound by reason—he was helpless about it.
“Prime Minister Yuan, Madam, Second Prince, are you all well?” Wei An asked as he approached.
That call of “Madam” shattered a trace of quiet joy in Xiao Wei’s heart, instantly like thunder crashing overhead.
“Madam?” He unconsciously repeated it, everything before his eyes a chaos.
“Miss Song and Prime Minister Yuan have been married for over three months.” Wei An seemed to have completely forgotten Xiao Wei’s identity as the former fiancé. Actually, how could he not remember? He was pretending.
Wei Jia saw Xiao Wei’s greatly shocked appearance and secretly groaned, though her face smiled. “Congratulations, congratulations! I wish you both a hundred years of harmony.” Alas, this was something that could be foreseen, but her friend had forced himself.
“Many thanks, Young General Wei.” Yuan Cheng cupped his hands in return. “However, this is not a place for idle chat. Behind us, the Second Prince’s three hundred cavalry are trapped. We should rescue people first as the priority.”
“Prime Minister Yuan, we’ll go rescue them. You should return to Heng City first.” Wei An said.
Yuan Cheng nodded. “Prince Su’s twenty thousand men are rushing this way. If you can rescue them, do so, but don’t delay.”
Wei An received the order.
“I’ll go too.” Without waiting for Yuan Cheng’s answer, Xiao Wei galloped away.