In order to hold this year’s midsummer festival at the ancestral homeland, the royal encampment began its migration at a remarkable pace.
In their previous life, at this same time, Xie Yuzhang’s belly had already grown large. She had spent the entire journey sitting inside a carriage. After eight or nine days of jolting and jostling, she had gone into labor just as they reached the ancestral homeland.
This time, Xie Yuzhang rode on horseback with her personal guards, keeping pace with the procession.
This migration was a homecoming — and the mood throughout the tribe was light and cheerful. Xie Yuzhang had no interest in the company of the young nobles in the prime of their years, and instead deliberately mingled with the noble youths of her own age — the boys and girls her equal in years.
Many were Ashina’s grandchildren, though there were also a few sons and daughters younger than even his grandchildren.
These young people had no weighty duties yet. They rode their fine horses, galloping ahead of the procession one moment and falling behind it the next, in high spirits.
Ashina had been watching his children with a pleased expression — until, amid the group, he caught sight of his young wife.
Ashina: “…”
Ah, when will she ever grow up.
Dielitele looked on with longing at the cousins and nephews who were able to mingle freely with Xie Yuzhang. Though he was already fifteen — technically old enough to still be counted among the young — he could no longer spend his days in mere play as the younger ones could.
His mother, Zhadayali, had always been strict with him. In situations like a migration, she required Dielitele to take on the responsibilities of the eldest son of Wuwei’s household, attending to the management of their own procession throughout the entire journey.
Dielitele could only ride alongside his mother’s large carriage at all times, ready to handle any unexpected situations.
And he did it very well. When his grandfather Ashina made his rounds to inspect the procession, he singled out Dielitele for particular praise, bringing a glow of pride to Zhadayali’s face. His father Wuwei was proud as well and offered him a few words of encouragement.
When Xie Yuzhang and the young people rode past on horseback, Dielitele straightened his back and tried his best to look like a young man rather than a boy.
Unfortunately, Xie Yuzhang didn’t spare him so much as a glance — and he felt a hollow pang of disappointment.
“Dielitele!” Zhadayali pulled aside the carriage curtain and asked, “What are you looking at?”
Dielitele said, “Nishi and the others are certainly having fun.”
At the word, Zhadayali looked forward.
Among the young nobles, there were a handful of girls, though boys were the majority — the daughters and granddaughters of Ashina Khan were closely watched by chieftains from every tribe, and many were betrothed and taken away as early as eleven or twelve.
Among this group of young men and women, one slender figure stood out particularly.
This was not only because her figure was several degrees more delicate than those of the steppe girls — but also because her clothing was made of Central Plains fabrics, lustrous and radiant. Even seen from behind, she stood apart from all the rest, a crane among a flock of common birds.
Zhadayali narrowed her eyes and gazed for a while, then glanced at Dielitele. She said nothing, and retreated back into the carriage.
That evening, after the camp had been pitched, Zhadayali called him to her side and smiled, asking, “Were you thinking that the Princess Consort Baohua is very beautiful?”
His father had taken beautiful slave women to serve him, and there was no one else in his mother’s tent. Dielitele kept no secrets from his mother, and so he admitted it candidly: “Yes — she is truly beautiful. When I see her, my heart always pounds faster, my throat goes dry, and water doesn’t quench it.”
Zhadayali laughed. “You fool, you’re at the age where you want a woman.”
On the Mobei steppe, men and women were free in their customs. Dielitele had seen plenty of men and women ducking into tents together, and had a general understanding of how things worked between them. He scratched his head, his face flushing slightly, and smiled.
Zhadayali asked, “Do you want to have her?”
Dielitele said, “Of course — everyone does.”
Zhadayali looked surprised. “Everyone meaning who?”
“Like Nishi and the others.” Dielitele let out his cousins’ secrets to his mother. “They said when they were drinking that Grandfather was too old — what a shame for the Zhao Princess. They said that if they could hold the Zhao Princess while they slept, they’d be willing to die for it.”
Zhadayali smiled faintly. “Do you think they’re worthy of her?”
Dielitele asked, “Is there such a thing as being worthy or not?”
“Of course there is.” Zhadayali’s eyes were sharp and bright. “The only one who can hold the Zhao Princess is your grandfather — and why? Because he is the Heavenly Khan! The most beautiful women belong only to the most powerful men. Even if a weak man possesses such a woman, he cannot keep her — she will be taken from him sooner or later.”
Dielitele considered this for a moment, then nodded. “That’s true!”
Zhadayali looked at her son, who was growing stronger and taller with each passing day, and felt deep satisfaction. “So you must work hard. After your father becomes Khan, it will be your turn.”
She cupped her son’s face in her hands, her eyes full of expectation.
The entire purpose and hope of her life did not rest with her husband. It rested with her son.
This migration was entirely unlike the one in her previous life for Xie Yuzhang. The circumstances were different, and so too was the mood.
Her black Wuzhui horse had been roaming freely on the steppe since their arrival, and with daily rides had shed much of the fat it had carried before, growing ever leaner and more refined, its speed no longer what it once was — it had finally become a truly exceptional horse.
Each day she rode, looking out at the vast open sky and earth, white clouds hanging low. The wind swept over the sea of grass, lifting it in wave after wave of green.
In her previous life, she had grown thoroughly tired of it. In this life, she felt as if her very heart had been opened wide.
She looked back. The procession stretched behind her in an endless stream, too long to see where it ended. Not just nobles and ordinary herders — even the faces of the slaves broke into smiles. Going back to the ancestral homeland meant that winter would be less brutal.
Cattle and sheep moved in great dense herds, and horses were led by their lead stallion — the herders only needed to control the lead horse, and not one of the others would go astray.
The Mobei Khanate was not a single unified ethnicity. It was, in truth, a great whole formed from the fusion of many peoples and tribes. In times of abundance, when the winters were not so bitterly cold, they could shelter in the depths of the steppe and endure the cold months. Of course, when nature grew harsh and merciless toward them, these nomadic peoples with a wildness deep in their bones would raise their blades and sweep southward, cutting down the people of the Central Plains and plundering grain and prisoners.
In the era of Great Zhao’s most flourishing martial Emperors — the Martial Emperor and the Cultured Emperor — such things had not occurred for many years. In part because Zhao’s military strength was formidable and its borders unbreachable, and in part because the court had established trading markets along the frontier, keeping the commercial routes open. The northern peoples could trade their meat, hides, dairy products, and goods of spices and gemstones they had obtained from further north and west, in exchange for the grain of the Central Plains dynasty.
In this virtuous cycle, the borderlands had known peace for many years.
And in the future — Li Gu could do the same.
The wind came in strong gusts, stirring the hem of Xie Yuzhang’s garments. Her gaze grew deep and far-seeing, as if it pierced through time itself, seeing at once the past, the present, and the future.
The angle from which she saw the world was different now — and with it, her heart and mind had quietly changed as well.
“Baohua!” Ashina noticed Xie Yuzhang had reined in her horse at the edge of the procession, staring silently at the distance. He rode over to her. “What are you daydreaming about?”
Xie Yuzhang turned to look at him. This man’s hair and beard were streaked with grey, yet despite his age he was powerful and strongly built, and his commanding presence was enough to make others tremble.
In his lifetime he had killed countless people, exterminated countless tribes. And yet under his rule, the steppe was strong and stable. The Shibi Khan of the west and the Chuluo Khan of the north had both been defeated at his hands.
While he lived, the lives of the khanate’s people were steady and full of vitality — the hardships they truly had to struggle against came mostly from nature itself.
He did not die by an enemy’s blade or arrow. A venomous snake bit him. He was poisoned and died.
Wuwei took the throne. Though Wuwei was an accomplished warrior, he still fell far short of his father. His older brothers did not truly submit to him in their hearts, and as contradictions deepened with time, the once-mighty khanate shattered into fragments.
Jiang Jingye hunted Wuwei down, driving him like a stray dog with nowhere to run — even the great banner of the Khan dared not be raised while he fled in desperate wandering.
Xie Yuzhang often assumed a young and willful manner before Ashina, yet Ashina had always known she was a clever and quick-witted woman. Many of her words and actions had clear purpose behind them, but Ashina was content to favor her, content to stand behind her.
Some things between two people who understood each other needed no words at all. When one suited the temperament of the other, there was simply no getting past the feeling of “I’m willing.”
Yet Xie Yuzhang’s gaze at that moment left Ashina bewildered. She was plainly a girl just approaching marriageable age — and yet her eyes held a depth and maturity that did not belong to her years.
“Khan,” she said, with feeling, “the khanate today is truly at its peak.”
Ashina had fought for decades to earn the title of Heavenly Khan, to bring Mobei to the height it held today. He smiled. “Of course it is.”
Xie Yuzhang looked up at him. “You must take care of yourself, Khan. Live longer. Without you, Mobei will not hold.”
Ashina laughed. “What are you fretting about?”
Xie Yuzhang glanced at him. “I’m only fourteen. There are still many years ahead.” Then she pulled her horse around and galloped toward the front of the procession.
She called back over her shoulder: “Your beard has grown too long! I’ll trim it for you tonight!”
Ashina started and let out an “Oh!” — which drew a burst of laughter from those around him. Ashina’s old face flushed red, and he barked, “What are you laughing at? Get moving!”
Inwardly, he could not help savoring that last glance she had given him. It hadn’t looked like a young girl’s — it looked like a woman who had seen everything the world had to offer. Ashina was long-practiced in the ways of men and women. He looked at her slender, graceful figure growing smaller in the distance, and felt something in his chest grow burning hot.
This feeling, long unfamiliar — it was like being young again, riding out at night to keep a secret tryst with a beloved girl from another tribe, the heart full of anticipation on the way there, long before arriving.
Xie Yuzhang rode her horse and looked out at the horizon ahead. In her heart, though, she thought: seventeen was not so difficult as she had feared.
If Ashina did not die, he would inevitably bring grief between the steppe and the Central Plains — but that was a concern for the great lord of the realm, Li Gu, to bear. Xie Yuzhang could not carry worry that stretched so far into the future, and she had no power to concern herself with the great affairs of the realm.
What she could and should concern herself with was herself — and A’Fei — and Wan Xiu, Ming Qing, Yue Xiang, Xun’er, Suhe, and Xiao Ya, Zi Jin, Rong Rong…
Each of these graceful names corresponded to a young woman around her — bright and vivid lives.
If she could keep the peaceful life they had now, keep Xia’erdan from daring to harbor wild ambitions so that she would not be forced to flee in panic alongside Wuwei — then she truly found herself willing to have Ashina live longer. She found, in fact, that being his wife was something she could accept.
Compared to the revulsion and avoidance she had felt toward Ashina half a year ago, even she found it hard to believe the change in herself.
A person’s heart, a person’s way of thinking — it was like this, beyond one’s own control, always changing with the passage of time and the shift of circumstances.
The following day, everyone in the tribe caught sight of Ashina’s new look. That great beard he had always worn was now trimmed close against his jaw into a neat short beard. He had lost none of his commanding presence — if anything, he looked sharper and more vigorous, as if he had shed several years from his age.
By the third day, several people had taken to imitating the Khan’s new style and trimmed their own beards. Before long it had set off a whole new fashion — the men’s beards all grew shorter, and they looked considerably more spirited and refined for it.
In early summer, the sixth month, the royal encampment of the khanate finally reached the ancestral homeland.
The mountain silhouettes loomed dark and vast. The lake waters gleamed deep blue. Eagles soared through the sky above.
Xie Yuzhang sat on her horse, drew a wide circle in the air with her riding crop, pointing to the foothills below the mountains. “I want that piece of land — give it to my people to farm.”
Ashina said cheerfully, “It’s yours. All of it, yours.”