Mu Fengliu turned over the young Marquis Cao Lie’s words with great care, and the more he considered them, the more he felt that the Young Lord was infinitely more mature, infinitely more formidable, than he had assumed.
A thought even occurred to him — if Shanhe Seal had been passed to the Young Lord earlier, might it have become stronger than it had been under his father?
“I stand corrected.”
Mu Fengliu rose and bowed low to Cao Lie.
Cao Lie moved quickly and caught Mu Fengliu by the arm before he could complete the gesture: “There is no need for this, Advisor.”
Mu Fengliu said: “The Young Lord was right just now. If asked to devote myself entirely to one thing, I can manage passably well. If asked to command the whole picture, I cannot see it clearly. The Young Lord’s ability far surpasses mine.”
Cao Lie smiled: “The Advisor says this, and I am both uneasy and pleased at once — still, the same point stands: masterful flattery does have a way of lifting one’s spirits.”
Mu Fengliu was amused into laughter, so he played along with a quip of his own: “The finest lords require only the most simple and unadorned flattery.”
Cao Lie burst out laughing: “Well said — simple and unadorned.”
The two men settled back into their seats. After Mu Fengliu collected his thoughts, he said: “If forced to choose between the two, I still believe Mei Wujiu is preferable.”
Cao Lie asked: “Is it because he has an heir?”
Mu Fengliu nodded: “Lü Wuman remains alone to this day — no wife, no children, no heir. Such men can be somewhat frightening. Comparatively speaking, Mei Wujiu is easier to manage.”
Cao Lie said: “This matter, Advisor, I leave entirely in your hands. Arrange things as you see fit — I intend to take some leisure for a while.”
Mu Fengliu smiled: “Those two are not worth the Young Lord’s personal attention. If the Young Lord were to appear in person, it would truly be elevating them beyond their station.”
He offered his assessment: “If nothing goes wrong, within five days Lü Wuman should lead his forces back. And the timing could not be better.”
He looked at Cao Lie and said: “I am told there is a place called Mengyuangu — the people there are fierce and unyielding, and have never submitted. Lü Wuman’s subordinate Xu Heihu has been besieging Mengyuangu and cannot breach it — so I advised Mei Wujiu to urge Lü Wuman to go to Mengyuangu personally.”
“Then — I advised Mei Wujiu to seize the opportunity and absorb the Baishan Army in its entirety. And I arranged for someone to ensure the Sixth Chief drank enough — and told him that one of the Baishan Army’s wives was exceptionally beautiful, a peerless beauty in every gathering, and goaded him into going…”
Cao Lie smiled: “Only the Advisor could devise an interlocking stratagem like this.”
He considered it for a moment and said: “The Advisor’s intent is to first send Lü Wuman away from the Western Capital with tens of thousands of his troops, wait until he has just arrived at Mengyuangu, and then immediately send word that the Baishan Army has revolted.”
Mu Fengliu said: “That way, even as Lü Wuman rushes back, he will still leave a portion of his forces with Xu Heihu.”
Cao Lie picked up the thread: “And those tens of thousands of men, marching back and forth without rest, will be exhausted troops.”
Mu Fengliu said: “More than ten days of travel, not a single day of rest — on that kind of forced march, even iron men would be ground down. Those troops — and that’s assuming they’re not even split — even if they returned at full strength, they would be nothing to fear.”
Cao Lie smiled: “So Mei Wujiu will not be able to resist this opportunity. In truth, one could say it’s not that he fell for our trap — it’s that he simply cannot restrain his own desires.”
Mu Fengliu said: “So when the day Lü Wuman returns arrives, it will be the day of his death. Those who betrayed Shanhe Seal — they cannot be allowed to come to a good end.”
Cao Lie gave a soft sound of assent, and clasped his hands: “My thanks to the Advisor for all this planning.”
Mu Fengliu bowed: “All of it is in service to the Young Lord.”
The two men strategized for a while longer, going over the plan once more to ensure there were no gaps.
After Mu Fengliu departed, Cao Lie walked back out into the courtyard and stood once again beside the winter plum that looked like a withered tree, tilting his head back to gaze at the sky.
The sky stretched wide and far — enough to broaden the mind.
Li Chi had once said that.
—
At that same moment, on the road toward Mengyuangu.
The column had been force-marching for a full day and night, and eventually had to stop for a brief rest — otherwise, even if they pushed through to Mengyuangu, they would be in no condition to fight.
Dantai Yajing arranged the troops in rotating watches, and he himself found a spot to lean against and rest for a while.
With no drowsiness coming, he gazed at a stretch of grave markers standing beyond the tree line in the distance. One headstone was noticeably larger than the rest — it appeared to belong to someone of standing.
Curious, he asked one of the men who had come from Mengyuangu whether he knew whose grave that was.
The man he asked was called Zhang Liaokuo. Seeing Dantai Yajing point in that direction, he replied: “That is the grave of Liao Xiaoxiao — the great mad scholar of the Yan era, the eccentric who spent almost his entire life in establishments of pleasure.”
Dantai Yajing heard the name, and it surfaced at once in his memory.
Going back two hundred years, when speaking of the great literary figures, this Liao Xiaoxiao could have overshadowed them all.
In his lifetime, the man had composed over thirteen or fourteen hundred poems and verses — every single one worthy of being passed down to posterity. And his calligraphy, acclaimed as the foremost wild brush of Dachu, flowed across the page like wind sweeping away the remnants of autumn, and when the characters were complete, they stood like a thousand mountains layered one upon another.
When the man had money, he went to the pleasure houses — drunk three times a day.
When he had no money, he would set out, find some shop at random, and beg a few sheets of rice paper on credit. He would dash off ink on the spot, sell the pieces, and return straight to the pleasure house.
So much so that someone once joked: the longest-tenured presence in that particular establishment was not any of the staff — but him, as a patron.
Later, a prince of Dachu who was utterly captivated by his talent bought out the pleasure house entirely and covered all his living expenses.
He, however, bid tearful farewells to the women there and departed that same day. He was found afterward in a thatched hut in the mountains — surrounded everywhere by the poems and writings he had left behind — and he himself had wasted away to skin and bone from hunger.
It was said that in his lifetime, the number of women with whom he had shared a remarkable connection was beyond counting.
And more outlandish still — there were even admirers who, desperate to meet him, had bribed their way into the establishment and disguised themselves as the women there in order to serve him.
When Zhang Liaokuo finished telling the story, Yu Jiuling, who had been sitting nearby, was visibly stunned.
A moment later, he stood up: “I have to go pay my respects.”
Dantai Yajing said: “Others who come may call it paying respects — or even offering tribute — but you cannot say such things. When you go, you should call it paying a visit to your founding ancestor.”
Yu Jiuling chuckled: “You’re talking nonsense. Am I that sort of person? … I can’t even write poetry.”
Dantai Yajing spat: “If you could also write poetry, heaven and earth alike would have no room for you.”
Yu Jiuling stood, and truly walked over to the grave marker of that great eccentric of the Yan era, Liao Xiaoxiao, where he knelt and knocked his head to the ground several times with great solemnity, muttering away under his breath about heaven only knew what.
When he came back, Dantai Yajing asked: “Did you actually go and make a wish to your founding ancestor?”
Yu Jiuling grinned: “How did you know… I did make a wish, yes. I asked him that if there’s an opportunity someday, he might visit me in a dream and tell me the story of his life in full.”
Dantai Yajing was puzzled: “Why?”
Yu Jiuling said: “I can’t write poetry — but can’t I tell a story? Take a tale like that, get it carved into printing blocks, sell it wide… my word, just thinking about it — it’s mountains of bright silver sitting right there in front of me. Stories of that sort sell best — doesn’t matter what age you’re in.”
Dantai Yajing’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he said quietly: “If you weren’t a bit plain-looking, I might have just mistaken you for Prince Ning standing in front of me.”
Yu Jiuling said: “The Chief would never do something like that. He’d write up page after page of calligraphy, claiming it was that great eccentric’s authentic brushwork… now that’s fast money.”
Dantai Yajing laughed: “You have truly inherited Prince Ning’s legacy.”
After resting for a day, they set out again — switching fresh horses and pressing on day and night.
—
Several days later, at Mengyuangu.
Atop the wooden wall, Xiao Qi stared out at the carpet of bodies before the stockade and let out a long, heavy breath. Two more days and nights of continuous fighting had passed, and everyone had long since been ground down in body and spirit — yet not a single inch of ground had been yielded.
Under Xu Heihu’s relentless assault, Mengyuangu’s side had also suffered no small losses. Countless men had been wounded, and now there were already many women who had climbed up to hold the walls in their place.
He turned to look back into the village. A small boy clutched a wooden toy, standing there crying — his father had perhaps already fallen in battle. An elderly man leaning on a walking stick made his way over to the boy, lowered himself unsteadily until he could crouch down, set his stick aside, and opened both arms wide to draw the child into a tight embrace.
The boy had been crying softly at first; held in that embrace, he broke into wailing sobs.
Xiao Qi clenched his fist, the veins on the back of his hand standing out clearly.
“The enemy is coming again!”
Someone shouted, their voice gone dry and hoarse.
Xiao Qi turned immediately to look beyond the wooden wall — a dark mass of bandits came surging forward toward the stockade once more.
Mengyuangu had long since exhausted its arrows; the only option was to wait for the enemy to close the distance and then hurl stones or logs down at them.
If they were still waiting for a miracle — they had forgotten that they themselves were the miracle.
For a single village to hold off wave after wave of bandit assaults for this many days — if this battle were ever recorded in history, it might well be studied by military minds of future generations.
“Kill!”
Xiao Qi roared.
It was in that moment that he spotted Lady Lin Huiyun among the crowd on the wall — he had no idea how long she had been up here. From the filth on her clothes and her disheveled hair, she had likely been here for quite some time.
She was straining to lift stones and stack them along the top edge of the wall. Xiao Qi could see, even from this distance, that Lin Huiyun’s hands were marked with red.
She moved back and forth in silence, clearly exhausted, but never once stopped.
“My Lady!”
Xiao Qi called out and ran over. Lin Huiyun looked toward him, momentarily at a loss.
When she made out that it was Xiao Qi, a faint glimmer came into her eyes.
She had thought everyone had fallen — Xiao Qi among them. She had not expected to find an old friend standing beside her now.
“My Lady, please go back down.”
Xiao Qi urged, his voice rough and worn.
Lin Huiyun shook her head. Her eyes moved instinctively toward the village, where she saw the old man holding the child and offering comfort, and something in her settled into a quiet peace.
That was her child — the child of the Baishan Army’s chief. Xiao Qi had not recognized him at first. The boy had been dressed in clothes given by the villagers of Mengyuangu, and his face was streaked with dirt — so he had not been recognized.
She had left her son in the village, bound her daughter to her back, and climbed the wall to fight.
The daughter on her back — barely more than a year old — had fallen asleep. The little face was grimy, tear tracks dried on both cheeks.
“I will not go back down, Xiao Qi. I cannot tell Rui’er, when he grows up, that his mother once hid behind everyone else while strangers were dying for her sake — and that his mother didn’t dare face it.”
She looked toward the village. The old man had sat down with the child, and seemed to be telling a story — Rui’er had stopped crying.
Lin Huiyun said: “If there ever comes a day when I can speak to him of the past, I want him to know why he survived, and what he must live for.”
She turned back toward the world beyond the wall. The enemy was nearly at the base now.
“His father was a hero without rival. His mother is no coward either. When he grows up — when the people of Mengyuangu need someone to stand forward — I hope he is the first.”
She let out a slow breath. “I hope he grows up to be, like his father, a hero without rival.”
—