By this point, it was the first large gathering Xie Yuzhang had convened since she and her people had settled in Mobei. Everyone who held any kind of position or status had come. They gathered in front of Xie Yuzhang’s tent, most having already heard news of Ma Jianye’s execution, and they clustered in groups of three and five, murmuring to their acquaintances.
The felt curtain of the tent was lifted from within, and the crowd fell quiet.
The first to emerge were two maids, who respectfully held the curtain open. The one to come out after them was Xie Yuzhang.
She was still in her riding attire, her waist cinched slender, a black-handled dagger tucked at her hip — never parted from her.
She walked out of the tent and stood at the top of the steps, sweeping her gaze over the assembled crowd.
Everyone fell silent. Yuan Yu was the Princess’s household steward and, by protocol, ranked second only to Xie Yuzhang. He stepped forward, hands folded in a formal salute. “Your Highness, we have heard that Ma Jianye has been put to death, though we do not know whether it is true. Whatever the circumstances, we respectfully request that Your Highness make them publicly known to us all.”
Xie Yuzhang inclined her head, stepped forward, gathered her breath, and spoke in a clear and carrying voice: “Ma Jianye was insolent and defied me, repeatedly refusing to obey my commands. Although I have come to this place as part of a marriage alliance, far from my homeland, I will not allow him to treat me in such a manner — and so I had him put to death.”
Her voice rang out firm and resonant. After a pause, she continued: “I urge everyone to take this as a warning and not to follow his example. You have all come such a great distance to accompany me, Princess Baohua — in this life, we are bound together by fate. If one of us flourishes, all flourish; if one suffers, all suffer. I will do my utmost to give everyone a better life. I ask that you each hold your post and fulfill your duties. If we stand united, ruler and subjects alike, with one heart and one mind, we will be able to stand firm here, and stand steady.”
Yuan Yu raised his voice in response: “Your Highness speaks the truth! We, your subjects, all follow Your Highness’s commands, and will serve faithfully with undivided loyalty!”
Wang Zhong was the first to draw his blade, dropping to one knee, his voice ringing out: “This soldier swears lifelong loyalty to Your Highness — my loyalty will never waver!”
With Ma Jianye dead, Wang Zhong now held supreme authority in the guard. And since he had already commanded more genuine respect among the men than Ma Jianye ever had, the moment he spoke, the troop commanders and squad leaders all drew their blades, dropping to their knees in unison. A gleaming forest of swords struck the ground: “We pledge our loyalty to Your Highness! Our loyalty will never waver!”
Yuan Yu knelt: “May Your Highness reign for ten thousand years!”
A great wave of figures dropped to their knees, even the maids at Xie Yuzhang’s side among them.
“Ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand thousand years!”
Xie Yuzhang stood there, looking out over a vast sea of bowed heads.
In this life, the scattering of hearts, the flight of people in every direction each trying to save themselves — she would never allow that to happen again.
Inside the tent, Nanny Xia and Lin Fei heard the thunderous chorus of voices outside. They looked at each other, and both smiled with deep relief.
Their young princess had truly grown up at last.
She no longer needed to be protected. She had stood up on her own, and with these two hands, she held up the sky above them all.
With Ma Jianye gone, the appointments changed.
Xie Yuzhang named Wang Zhong the new head of the guard, and Li Yong as his deputy. As for the positions that opened up below them, Xie Yuzhang left those in Wang Zhong and Li Yong’s hands to fill — a certain level of authority ought to come with a certain level of responsibility.
Unsurprisingly, this announcement was met with spontaneous cheering in some quarters. Not just among the guard, but even the household retainers and administrative managers smiled openly.
How deeply disliked Ma Jianye had been was made plain by this alone.
When the crowd had dispersed, Yuan Yu did not leave. He followed Xie Yuzhang back into her tent and presented her with a rolled document.
“What is this?” Xie Yuzhang accepted it in some surprise. She unrolled it and read through it quickly. After a long moment of silence: “Did he do all of this?”
“Yes,” Yuan Yu said, bowing. “The investigation is not yet complete. I have been looking into it these past days, and originally intended to gather everything in order before reporting it to Your Highness.”
He had not expected Xie Yuzhang to act so swiftly and decisively, putting Ma Jianye to death before the full accounting was done. Even Yuan Yu himself had only intended, following the laws of Great Zhao, to strip the man of his post.
Xie Yuzhang had never imagined that in so short a time, Ma Jianye would have already seized people’s property and forcibly taken another man’s wife. And Yuan Yu had made it clear that the investigation was not yet finished.
She pressed her lips together and crushed the rolled document in her hands, crumpling it.
Yuan Yu said, “Fortunately, Your Highness acted with wisdom and eliminated this scoundrel on behalf of everyone.”
The flattery did nothing to improve Xie Yuzhang’s mood. In fact, it made her feel considerably worse.
She drew a few sharp breaths, smoothed the document back out, and handed it back to Yuan Yu: “Continue the investigation. Once everything is accounted for, make it public — let everyone know what he did.”
Yuan Yu received the order and was about to leave when Xie Yuzhang called out after him, saying through gritted teeth, “Tell Wang Zhong to leave Ma Jianye’s body on public display for three days!”
Yuan Yu felt that this order showed excessive severity, but Xie Yuzhang was clearly in a fury, so why antagonize her over a Ma Jianye — and he agreed, took his orders, and left.
Once Yuan Yu was gone, Xie Yuzhang retreated to the inner chamber, still fuming. Lin Fei brought her a cup of hot milk tea. “Why are you unhappy again?”
After a long, pent-up silence, Xie Yuzhang said, “Ma Jianye forcibly seized someone’s family heirloom and took a man’s wife by force.”
Lin Fei said, “That only proves he deserved to die. It proves you did the right thing.”
“But I shouldn’t have been willful. I should have listened to you from the beginning.” Xie Yuzhang said gloomily. “These things… all happened after we arrived here.”
Lin Fei understood.
She knew from Xie Yuzhang’s “dream” that Ma Jianye had sold them out to Xia’erdan, and had wanted Wang Zhong and the others to kill Ma Jianye as a result. But Xie Yuzhang had wanted to deal with the traitor with her own hands — and so it had been put off until today. Which meant that in the intervening time, Ma Jianye had been free to commit these wrongs.
The stolen property could be returned to its rightful owners. But the woman who had been violated — how could that experience ever be undone?
Xie Yuzhang was consumed with self-reproach.
Lin Fei took her hand again, offering comfort. “You couldn’t have foreseen it.”
She thought for a moment, then corrected herself: “And even in the dream, you couldn’t have known everything, could you?”
She had long since figured it out — Xie Yuzhang’s dream was entirely from a first-person perspective. In the dream, Xie Yuzhang had lived as herself, and she could only see, hear, and directly experience what she herself had witnessed. Whatever she had not known in the dream, she naturally could not know in reality either.
Xie Yuzhang reflected deeply on herself.
“I cannot be willful,” she said, reproaching herself. “I carry the responsibility for so many people. The slightest willfulness leads to a mistake like this. To those who suffer for it, it is real pain.”
Today’s events had been a warning to her. The ones who had suffered this time were a few commoners and craftspeople. In the future, it could be Lin Fei herself.
Her moment of willfulness had brought this kind of backlash. It was clear that willfulness was something a person in a position of authority could not afford in the slightest.
“A’Fei, in the future, whenever I am being irrational or willful, you must stop me,” she said, with gravity.
“Alright,” Lin Fei said, equally earnest. “Then I will serve as your remonstrating official.”
Xie Yuzhang nodded. “From now on, those who must be killed are killed at once. What needs to be done is done at once. We will never allow personal feelings to cause hesitation, delay, and unnecessary complications.”
Lin Fei looked at her intently.
Xie Yuzhang asked, “What is it?”
Lin Fei said, “Do you know what it is you’re saying? These are the qualities of someone who accomplishes great things.”
Xie Yuzhang was silent for a while. “No,” she said. “I am only a small, ordinary woman.”
I never sought to accomplish great things. I only want you and I, and all those who follow me, to be safe and well, and for all of us together… to go home to Yunjing.
Heaven and earth were about to be thrown into turmoil — the age of fire and war, of rising storms and surging tides, was almost upon them. In such an era, safety was the greatest of great things.
Ma Jianye’s head had been treated with lime and mounted on a wooden stake at the entrance of the Zhao people’s living quarter. Everyone who entered and left could see it clearly.
At first, some people were frightened. But after looking at it a few more times, the fear faded — and what remained was deep satisfaction.
Yuan Yu investigated Ma Jianye’s crimes until every act was thoroughly confirmed, then made the findings public. Children began throwing rocks at the dead man’s head from a distance, and adults passing by spat at it.
Ma Jianye’s handful of “personal soldiers” dared not show their faces, and each of them was playing the turtle with its head pulled in.
Yuan Yu confiscated the contents of Ma Jianye’s tent and first returned the stolen possessions to their rightful owners. Whatever was left over should have been put in the common fund, but Xie Yuzhang had no interest in such a small amount, and had Yuan Yu quietly distribute it as compensation to the households whose women had been harmed.
The atmosphere in the camp and in the guard changed entirely — even the air seemed fresher.
Among the “personal soldiers” under investigation, two were found to be particularly despicable, having committed numerous infuriating acts themselves. Such men had foul water running through their bones. Xie Yuzhang, having lived through two lifetimes, was nothing like an ordinary young woman in her heart — she extended not even a shred of mercy.
Those two were stripped of their soldier’s coats, given military flogging, and then sold into slavery.
Yuan Yu shared drinks with Wang Zhong. “Her Highness is young,” he remarked, “and her temper runs a bit harsh.”
Wang Zhong waved a hand. “I don’t care about that! Whatever Her Highness orders, I do.”
Yuan Yu laughed. The two men clinked cups and drained them.
But in Ma Jianye’s tent, something had been found among the confiscated items — a wrapped parcel that looked like medicinal material, and no one could identify what it was. Yuan Yu had someone take it to Bao Zhongxin for identification. It was not long before Bao Zhongxin brought the parcel back to him, asking to confirm: “This was found in Ma Jianye’s tent?”
Yuan Yu asked, “Is something wrong?”
“It’s poisonous,” Bao Zhongxin said. “Ground into powder and put into tea, if someone drinks it they’ll suffer severe vomiting and diarrhea — it can take a life.”
The tea of that era was different from the steeped tea or powdered tea of the later Great Mu dynasty.
On the steppe, tea was made with milk and salt. Among the Zhao people of the Central Plains, it was boiled with scallions, ginger, dates, orange peel, mint, and other ingredients. Both versions had a fairly strong flavor — something foreign added in small quantities would not be easy to detect.
Yuan Yu felt that something was very wrong. He took Bao Zhongxin with him and went to report it to Xie Yuzhang.
“We don’t know who he intended to harm,” he said. “After questioning, no one seems to have fallen ill recently, so it appears he hadn’t yet acted. This person is truly lucky to still be alive.”
Xie Yuzhang looked up in a daze and repeated, “The symptoms were vomiting and diarrhea?”
Bao Zhongxin said, “Yes — they’d look much the same as dysentery and similar ailments. But if the poison isn’t treated and one tries to cure it as dysentery, it cannot be cured.”
After they left, Lin Fei pressed her hand to her chest, frightened at the thought. “So the person he intended to harm was…”
“Yuan Ling has already been investigating him — he may have noticed,” Xie Yuzhang said. “But now it’s already the third month. Yuan Ling’s time was supposed to be the next month…”
Lin Fei said, “Let’s keep watch. When the fourth month comes, we’ll see.”
Then the news that Xie Yuzhang had killed Ma Jianye reached Ashina’s ears, and he asked her about it: “Why did you kill your head guard?”
Xie Yuzhang’s bright eyes went wide. “He thought that because I was young and far from home, he could disobey me. So I killed him.”
“Well done!” Ashina said approvingly. “The women of our Mobei should have exactly this kind of resolve! Anyone who won’t listen — kill them!”
The conditions for survival on the steppe were far harsher than those in the Central Plains, and the law of the strong devouring the weak had always been its guiding principle. The more Ashina looked at Xie Yuzhang, the more he felt she was born for the steppe — it was impossible not to adore her.
The Zhao Princess was beautiful and fierce — and so it became the common understanding of all.