The Tianming Army soldiers who had swum over from the south bank were evidently in considerably better condition — because Yu Jiuling and his group had been moving non-stop for two days straight, and had gone without sleep through the night besides. Every one of them was running on fumes.
So they had barely pulled themselves onto the bank when the Tianming Army caught up — barely a moment’s gap between them.
Dong Dongdong and Qi Qiangqi had significantly more energy to spare than the rest, so Dong Dongdong immediately called out, “Young Lord Cao, all of you go — Old Qi and I will hold them!”
Cao Lie struggled to his feet. They had shed their weapons to cross the river faster, so Cao Lie bent down and picked up a wooden stick from the ground. “If we go, we go together.”
The Tianming Army soldiers clawed their way out of the water. They were under a death order — capture Prince Ning’s spies at any cost — so they gritted their teeth and pushed forward.
The very instant their feet touched the north bank’s soil, a spear laid itself across Cao Lie’s shoulder.
The man behind Cao Lie looked at the Tianming Army soldiers who had just crawled ashore, and said, very mildly: “What audacity you have.”
Those Tianming Army soldiers looked up — and the moment they saw who had spoken, they all recoiled in shock.
Without a word, some of them turned and threw themselves straight back into the river, swimming for the south bank with even greater urgency than they had come.
Some were struck dumb — standing where they were, trembling uncontrollably, faces white, lips turning blue, shaking without stopping.
Others simply dropped to their knees and covered their heads.
Tang Pidi stepped out from behind Cao Lie.
He walked forward. The Tianming Army soldiers trembled harder.
“The river is the boundary. Cross it, and you die.”
Tang Pidi looked at those Tianming Army soldiers — a single glance, a glance that carried the crushing weight of a divine Pressure Aura.
“Great General, please spare us — Great General, mercy—”
One of the men, apparently a commander of some kind, kowtowed rapidly as he spoke. “Great General, please let me explain — it is truly because the Great General’s people were the ones who… who first crossed to the south bank.”
Tang Pidi said, “The rule that those who cross the boundary will die — that was set by me for you. It was not set for my people.”
He gestured toward the soldiers. Behind him, from the reed marshes, Prince Ning’s combat troops stepped out.
Every Tianming Army soldier who had made it to shore was disarmed and pressed flat against the bank.
Tang Pidi said, “When you return, tell Yang Xuanji: my people crossed the river to the south bank and have since returned to the north. You dared pursue them across the boundary — that is a provocation. This time I am releasing you, but I am noting one debt: ten thousand Tianming Army heads. I will come to collect them when the time comes. Tell Yang Xuanji to have them ready.”
With that, Tang Pidi waved a hand. The Prince Ning soldiers released the Tianming Army men.
Those men behaved like a collection of frogs who had received a terrible fright — they leapt one after another into the river and, drawing on every last reserve of strength, swam desperately for the south bank. They seemed to move even faster than when they’d come.
Yu Jiuling swallowed and looked at the fleeing Tianming Army soldiers, then looked at Old Tang.
Then Yu Jiuling could not help but raise his thumb.
Cen Xiaoxiao witnessed this, and for all her arrogance, she could not help but feel genuine respect.
Tang Pidi had only needed to show his face, and those enemy soldiers had been so frightened they fell to their knees begging for their lives. The kind of Aura of Power this required — how many battles won, how many men slain, before it could be cultivated?
Yu Jiuling couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Old Tang, how do you make people this scared of you? When did people start fearing you this much?”
Tang Pidi smiled. “From the moment they thought they could try me.”
He walked on, speaking as he went. “When enemies think you are arrogant and insufferable… you had better actually be arrogant and insufferable.”
Cao Lie’s heart gave a start at those words.
Yang Xuanji, at the very beginning, must have seen no reason to take Tang Pidi seriously — after all, his own forces were ten times Tang Pidi’s.
And so Tang Pidi’s defiant posture, in Yang Xuanji’s eyes at that time, must have looked like pure braggadocio — the kind of insufferable arrogance that makes an observer want to laugh.
Yet after being beaten badly enough, Yang Xuanji had finally understood: in this world, there are people whose insufferable arrogance is not, in fact, an act.
The scene that played out, perhaps, went something like this:
Yang Xuanji says to his generals: look at that Tang Pidi — he is truly insufferable.
His generals say: then let us go teach him a lesson. Let him learn that arrogance has its price.
After the first engagement, they think Tang Pidi certainly is arrogant…
After the second, they think Tang Pidi may not actually be arrogant — he truly is capable.
After the third, they think Tang Pidi’s arrogance is entirely reasonable — perfectly reasonable, in every way.
If you are a Tianming Army soldier who has survived multiple battles against the Prince Ning forces — to react as those men just did upon seeing Tang Pidi is entirely reasonable. Perfectly reasonable.
Just how far had the Prince Ning Army’s arrogance gone?
When Yang Xuanji originally selected his leading general and sent an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men into Yuzhou Province, Tang Pidi met them with forty thousand. In one engagement, those hundred and fifty thousand were routed — and yet at that point the Tianming Army still hadn’t quite grasped how fearsome Tang Pidi truly was.
In the second engagement, the Tianming Army was beaten again, suffering heavy losses, and had no choice but to retreat — but just then, Yang Xuanji’s reinforcements arrived. So the retreating Tianming Army turned back around, hoping to recover some face.
And what they saw when they returned was: the Prince Ning soldiers casually cutting off heads on the battlefield, completely ignoring their approach.
The retreating Tianming general said they should hold off, prepare properly, and fight on their terms. The reinforcement general disagreed — gave the order to charge.
And then they watched as the Prince Ning soldiers — some of them still with fresh heads hanging from their belts — went back to cutting more heads.
So at some point unknown to anyone, a saying had begun to spread through the Tianming Army: to face Tang Pidi, five times your number is enough to hold even ground. Ten times your number, and you can attack.
In truth, Yang Xuanji right now did have ten times Tang Pidi’s numbers — yet he still did not dare move rashly.
In this past year and more, the Tianming Army and the Prince Ning Army had clashed again and again without the Tianming Army winning a single time: large battles, large losses; small battles, small losses.
The only force that could stand against Tang Pidi was Yang Xuanji’s heavy-armored infantry — but Tang Pidi had tens of thousands of steppe light cavalry, and dealing with heavy armor took only one technique.
Whenever Yang Xuanji sent out the heavy armor, Tang Pidi would send the light cavalry circling around the rear to sever the heavy armor’s supply lines.
And besides — heavy-armored infantry are not an offensive force. Only a fool would send heavy armor on a direct charge.
So the heavy armor was the finest shield Yang Xuanji possessed, but it was not his sharpest blade.
The Tianming Army’s cavalry was far smaller in scale than Prince Ning’s cavalry force — they could not stop steppe light cavalry from circling endlessly on harassment raids. And they certainly wouldn’t use their own light cavalry to charge a formation head-on — but they could weave back and forth, grinding down the enemy’s strength with attrition.
This was also why Yang Xuanji had agreed to let Zhuge Jingzhan personally go to Yuzhou Province — because on the frontal battlefield, he knew he could not win.
He had never stopped searching for a way to defeat Tang Pidi: he explored every possible avenue, and dispatching Zhuge Jingzhan to Yuzhou Province was but one of them.
This time, Yang Xuanji had prepared to cross the river for a decisive battle, because he had received intelligence that Tang Pidi’s main force had been split apart to send troops back for disaster relief — even a portion of the steppe light cavalry had been deployed elsewhere.
Yet now Cao Lie’s group had assassinated Zhuge Jingzhan and burned a large portion of the supplies. Yang Xuanji’s plan for a river-crossing decisive battle would almost certainly not proceed as intended.
—
On the road back, Yu Jiuling was genuinely overjoyed — his face wore a pride that came from deep within.
He said to Tang Pidi with a grin: “Old Tang, if I asked you to sum up my performance this time in a single line, could you actually find the right words in the dictionary? Never mind the perfect words — is there even anything that would roughly do?”
Tang Pidi narrowed his eyes, looked at him, and shook his head. “No.”
Yu Jiuling: “Then at least find me some nice-sounding ones to compliment me with.”
Tang Pidi looked at him again. “No.”
Yu Jiuling: “I’ll take it that you’re at a loss for words because I’m simply too outstanding. Not that I actually care that much about being praised by other people, of course…”
Tang Pidi said, “Ten thousand people each have ten thousand kinds of pride in wanting to be recognized by others. But you cannot be proud simply because I recognize you. I am the one who is proud — proud to have a friend like you.”
Yu Jiuling: “What the—?”
His eyes lit up as though lightning was dancing behind them, crackling and sparking.
Tang Pidi gave Yu Jiuling’s shoulder a pat. “When you want other people’s recognition, it means you lack confidence in your own past. When you feel that none of this matters to you in the slightest, it means you have already stopped putting any weight on the future at all.”
Yu Jiuling: “What the—?!”
Tang Pidi: “The first half I give to you. The second half I say about myself.”
Yu Jiuling: “What the—!!!”
Tang Pidi smiled. “Our lord sent word to me that you had likely gone to the south bank of the river. I was worried. Seeing that you’ve come back is genuinely wonderful. Especially wonderful.”
Yu Jiuling broke into a grin, his face covered in small contentment and small freckles all at once.
Honestly, when Old Tang paid you a compliment… it was more satisfying than being praised by Li Chi.
At least in Yu Jiuling’s view, being praised by someone as formidable as Old Tang — that was truly something to be proud of.
“What else did our lord say?”
Yu Jiuling asked with a smile, the happiness on his face deepening.
Tang Pidi said, “He said if I found you, to give each person thirty strokes of the military rod first, hitting the others on the backside — hitting Yu Jiuling on the mouth.”
Yu Jiuling: “What the—…”
Cao Lie spoke up from nearby. “If he truly means to hit us — on the backside for the others, on the mouth for Yu Jiuling — I am willing to accept Prince Ning’s punishment.”
Yu Jiuling: “……”
Tang Pidi said to Cao Lie, “Prince Ning specifically mentioned you, saying your conduct has been growing more and more reckless lately. He said when I see you, I am to give you a proper talking-to, then write him back.”
Cao Lie laughed awkwardly.
Tang Pidi: “I have already written back.”
Cao Lie asked curiously, “You hadn’t even seen me yet, and you’d already written back to Prince Ning? What did you say?”
Tang Pidi tilted his head up and looked at the sky, his tone perfectly even. “Look to yourself for the reason.”
Cao Lie blinked — then burst out laughing.
—
Just as they were making their way back toward the main camp, a personal guard came riding from the direction of camp, and the moment he spotted Tang Pidi he drew up and saluted with both fists. “Great General — Prince Ning has arrived!”
Tang Pidi’s eyes lit up.
Yu Jiuling first felt a surge of joy, then a wave of anxiety…
Our lord had sent him to dissuade Cao Lie, and yet not only had he failed to dissuade him — he had gone along with Cao Lie and trotted right into enemy territory himself.
If our lord actually decided to pursue the matter, a full year’s salary might well be forfeit.
Losing his salary was not really the frightening part. What was frightening was all those young ladies waiting on Yu Jiuling’s generosity, their mouths open and expectant, depending on him entirely.
Yu Jiuling felt that would be a genuinely cruel thing, and the more he thought about it, the more pitiable those young ladies seemed.
So he immediately turned to Cao Lie. “Last time I still had some gold beads left over from the mission…”
Cao Lie: “Keep them.”
Yu Jiuling looked at Cao Lie. He had already been thinking through how to move him with sentiment and reason until Cao Lie felt, as a matter of principle, that those gold beads were rightfully his.
But Cao Lie had given him just three words: *Keep them.*
Seeing Yu Jiuling’s expression, Cao Lie asked in puzzlement, “Have I misread you? You don’t want them?”
Yu Jiuling said, “You have misread me. I think there aren’t enough.”
Cao Lie gave an understanding sound and said, “Once we’re back in Yuzhou City I’ll send you a full chest to play with. Isn’t your sister-in-law with child now? When the child grows a bit, you can play marbles with the little one using gold beads — though gold beads aren’t ideal for it, jade beads make a better sound when they knock together. Gold beads are better for slingshots.”
Yu Jiuling: “????”
—