News of the turmoil in Yunjing slowly reached the ears of the Zhao people, and left them feeling unsettled and anxious.
Xie Yuzhang had Wuwei escort her on a tour among her subjects.
Once it was the old Khan who had ridden with beautiful Princess Zhao before him, bold and magnificent in his glory — now it was Wuwei’s turn at last. He was delighted to oblige.
The men of Mobei were nothing like Central Plains men, who hid their beautiful wives deep within their inner courtyards and rarely permitted them to be seen by other men. The men of Mobei were entirely the opposite — they loved to flaunt: Look at my woman. Beautiful, isn’t she? She is, isn’t she?
When the Zhao people saw the new Khan’s tender and devoted manner with Princess Baohua, their hearts were still full of worry for their homeland — but at least, for now, daily life was perfectly manageable.
The people’s hearts gradually settled.
At night, Wuwei held her and offered reassurance: “Don’t be afraid. Whatever happens down south, you will always be safe here in Mobei.”
Then, with a surge of great ambition, he declared: “Once I’ve dealt with Chuluo first, and the northern frontier is secured, I’ll lead you in a march straight to Yunjing!”
On the grasslands, the law of the jungle reigned — the strong consumed the weak, and the fit survived. Every shift of power tended to come with bloodshed and slaughter. The powerful rulers of the grasslands often fathered many children, and those who survived to adulthood were the ones with the strongest will to live — brother against brother was the norm.
Wuwei had inherited the Khan’s throne so smoothly in large part because, during Silibo’s years of dominance over the grasslands, he had quietly introduced certain Central Plains customs — such as designating a single successor as “Crown Prince” in advance.
But even so, after Wuwei inherited the position of Khan, though he needed certain military victories to consolidate his standing, he absolutely dared not lightly raise his sword against the south.
One always had to reach for the softer fruit first. Wuwei regretted hearing that the chaos in Hexi — which he had hoped to exploit — had already been swiftly and cleanly ended by Li the Eleventh. All he could do instead was to move against certain hostile tribes on the grasslands, to demonstrate the authority and might befitting a Khan.
Against the Khanate’s unified strength, these tribes were no match at all. Royal lines were cut down, the people made slaves, and beautiful women were sent into the tents of the victor.
In Wuwei’s plans, he needed more such victories.
Once enough of those had accumulated, he would need a greater victory — one that would show the world his courage was no less than the old Khan’s.
That so-called greater victory meant none other than Chuluo Khan.
He had also heard that Xie Yuzhang’s homeland was in chaos, teetering on the brink of collapse. He thought: once he had cut down Chuluo Khan beneath his horse, he could wheel south and take a generous plunder from the Central Plains.
When Xie Yuzhang heard the name of Chuluo Khan, a shadow crossed her eyes — but she smiled and said: “Very well.”
Then she added: “I’m tired. Let’s sleep.”
The longer Xie Yuzhang spent in Wuwei’s company, the more clearly she understood why she had fallen in love with him in her past life.
Whatever Wuwei was truly like as a person, he had one genuine virtue — he was deeply tender and protective of his women. He harbored no jealousy toward even his most powerful wife Zhadayali, and so all his women lived in relative peace and ease.
For the Xie Yuzhang of the past life, he had been a savior and a healer.
Even those closest to Xie Yuzhang were deeply pleased. Wan Xiu and Yue Xiang could not help saying: “It feels a little disloyal to say this, but — well, the old Khan was good to the Princess too, especially toward the end — but Wuwei Khan, he’s so young.”
They both felt that Wuwei and Xie Yuzhang were remarkably well matched — the picture of “a hero paired with a beauty” — and this hero was not only young but gentle and doting as well. How wonderful.
Whenever those around her expressed such admiration, Xie Yuzhang would simply offer a faint smile and say nothing.
“Silibo’s accumulated authority runs so deep that everyone is still living under his shadow — including his enemies and his own sons.” Xie Yuzhang said. “In the end, it was his enemies who first came to understand that the Mobei Khanate ruled by his son was no longer the Mobei Khanate of before.”
Lin Fei asked: “So in these coming years, is there anything we can do?”
Lin Fei was not without patience — she could wait. But she could not sit idly by and only wait.
Lin Fei had always believed that all things could be shaped by human hands.
This conviction of hers had, in their past life, gradually and quietly taken root in Xie Yuzhang.
“Of course there is. But the time hasn’t come yet.” Xie Yuzhang said. “And besides, I need to see how things unfold first. I still can’t work out, even now, how Silibo ended up being killed. It simply doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Originally, Silibo was supposed to die an accidental death more than a year from now. By that point, Li Gu would already have taken Yunjing — he had bypassed the capital entirely and kept marching south, all the way to the northern bank of the great river, securing the entire north and seizing half the realm, before returning to Yunjing to formally ascend the throne.”
“Silibo was still alive when he took Yunjing. When that news reached us here, though Father had not yet formally abdicated, everyone knew — Great Zhao was finished.”
That was when Xie Yuzhang had lost her homeland, lost the identity of a princess. When Silibo was alive, it had not been so apparent — but the moment Silibo died, Ma Jianye had sold her to Xia’erdan.
Wuwei hadn’t expected that his subordinate Xia’erdan would play such an underhanded trick either. At that point he had just inherited the Khan’s throne and was in critical need of solidifying his power. Xia’erdan had been clever enough to make clear: he wanted only Xie Yuzhang herself; the subjects and guards she had brought as part of the marriage alliance properly belonged to the Khanate as a whole, and he would not presume to claim them alone.
So Wuwei had had no choice but to graciously accept Ma Jianye’s allegiance, and watch helplessly as Xia’erdan took sole possession of Xie Yuzhang.
“Didn’t the old Khan make a move south at that time?” Lin Fei found it hard to believe — given Silibo’s ferocity and cunning, how could he have let such an opportunity slip by?
“Of course he made a move — how could he possibly let it pass?” Xie Yuzhang agreed. “He wept for Li Ming, held a memorial service, wiped away his tears, and then raised his blade and headed south. But Li Gu is not someone to be trifled with — he was prepared for it. Silibo never managed to gain any real advantage, and unwilling to give up, he kept harassing and probing. One day, while relieving himself outside his military tent, he was bitten by a venomous snake and died.”
“…” Lin Fei said: “All right, at least this lifetime he’ll die in a way that suits a hero.”
She paused, thinking, then drew a sharp breath. “The way you describe it — before Silibo died, Li Gu was fighting on two fronts, both north and south?”
“He was.” Xie Yuzhang said. “Impressive, isn’t he?”
Lin Fei said: “Extraordinary!”
Xie Yuzhang said: “He’s exceptionally bloodthirsty — he has never once shown mercy, and it’s genuinely frightening. From what I heard, toward the end of his campaigns, some places didn’t dare resist when word came that he was approaching — they surrendered outright.”
She said: “Back then, I was truly afraid of him.”
Lin Fei asked: “Are you still afraid of him, this time around?”
Xie Yuzhang sighed: “I’m not joking. Sometimes I can’t help but go back over everything I said and did with him, wondering if there’s any slip I might have made. When we see him again in a few years’ time, he’ll no longer be the same person he was three or four years ago. If at that point he looks back and realizes I was deceiving him — that would be disastrous.”
She added: “Three years ago I was still too impulsive, not careful enough. My head would get hot and I’d just go and say or do whatever I felt. My only thought was to catch his interest first, make him like me first. Looking back now, I can see the whole thing was rather too deliberate — I could have managed it so much more naturally.”
“It was already very good,” Lin Fei said. “Any better, and you’d have been a legendary femme fatale.”
The two of them both laughed.
When the laughter faded, Xie Yuzhang said: “The timeline has shifted now, and the things I know no longer line up. And over these years I’ve come to feel it deeply — once one thing changes, its effects tend to ripple outward in chains. You can never know how far the ripples will reach, or in which direction they’ll run.”
She spoke with a world-weary sigh.
“You old sage — think carefully.” Lin Fei dipped her brush in ink. “Are there any landmark figures or events to anchor to?”
“There are.” Xie Yuzhang said. “The northern frontier. Chuluo. Tuqitang.”
The northern frontier she meant was not Hexi’s northern border. Great Zhao lay to the south, the Khanate to the north. What was the northern frontier of Great Zhao was, to the Khanate, the southern border.
The Khanate’s northern frontier was further north still, far into the bitter cold — all the way to the mountain ranges that could not be crossed, their peaks crowned with ice that had not melted in ten thousand years. At the base of those mountains lived Chuluo Khan, pressed back and held there by Silibo’s long dominance, forced to retreat to that remote corner.
These mountains, which seemed to brush the very sky, were called by the Mobei people the Tianshan — the Mountains of Heaven.
After consolidating his confidence through several victories, Wuwei’s ambitions grew, and he turned his forces toward the Tianshan, intending to make an example of Chuluo Khan. He wished to be feared by all Khans as his father had been, to be exalted as the Great Khan of Khans.
Yet he had not considered: even his own father, Ashina Silibo, had only managed to push Chuluo Khan back to the Tianshan — even he had been unable to finish him off entirely.
After the great defeat at the Tianshan, Wuwei lost his authority and could no longer hold Tuqitang in check. Tuqitang led his people away from the royal court and the Khanate fractured. After that, Dangdang and Zhanshilu also broke away.
The great and powerful Khanate that Silibo had built over decades split into four.
Lin Fei made note of all this in writing.
“I think it will happen sooner now,” Lin Fei said. “With the old Khan dead, the greatest beneficiary is Hexi — is Li Gu. With no threat dragging at his northern flank, his pace will certainly be faster.”
Xie Yuzhang was startled.
They’re extraordinary!
The only cavalry that could match our Khan’s personal guard, in my mind, would be the Hexi iron cavalry — I cannot think of any other!
“Zhuzhu!” Lin Fei’s voice scattered the flash of something in Xie Yuzhang’s mind. Her eyes burned bright as she looked at Xie Yuzhang and said: “I think this time it definitely won’t take seven years. We can go back to Yunjing much sooner than that!”
Swept up in her fervor, Xie Yuzhang felt it too, and smiled, brimming with fighting spirit: “You’re right. And we can’t just sit and wait for things to happen. When the moment comes, we’ll push it along with our own hands!”
“But for now — let’s just live well.” Xie Yuzhang said. “These may be the best years we’ll have for a while.”
“Bite your tongue!” Lin Fei snapped at her.
“Bite my tongue, bite my tongue!” Xie Yuzhang hurriedly followed suit. “I take it back! I take it back! From now on we’ll always be doing wonderfully!”
Lin Fei burst out laughing.
“Fine, then.” She said. “It all depends on that Li Gu now.”
“Indeed.” Xie Yuzhang reclined on the couch, propping her chin on one hand, and gazed dreamily into the distance. “In my past life, I didn’t even know him, and he still treated me well. This life, with everything I’ve put into it — when we return to Yunjing, he ought to look after me, oughtn’t he? All I ask is that his Empress not make too much trouble for me.”
“I have my own money. When the time comes, I’ll tell Li Gu that we don’t want to live at Xiaoyao Marquis Mansion — I feel like he wouldn’t be stingy about it, he’d agree. We’ll buy our own house and land, and live with our own household staff.”
“Grain stored in the granary. Gold filling the vaults. Handsome young men in every room.”
“Five fine healthy young men — two for me, three for you.”
Lin Fei hurled her brush at her in fury: “Why do I get one more than you?!”