Zhu Yu – Chapter 94

Grand Tutor Tao thought he knew his stubborn disciple well enough, but after Fan Changyu was taken away, he suddenly felt uncertain. He kept looking out the carriage window and eventually got out to pace around the carriage, occasionally glancing in the direction Xie Zheng had taken Fan Changyu.

A young officer leading the troops came to inquire, “Grand Tutor, the army has been resting here for a while now. Should we… continue on our way?”

Grand Tutor Tao, hands behind his back, looked into the distance and said, “Let’s wait a bit longer.”

The young officer bowed and withdrew.

Changning poked her head out of the carriage window, resting her chin on the sill, and asked, “Grandfather, when will my sister come back?”

Grand Tutor Tao, his heart pounding, didn’t bother to correct Changning’s form of address and simply said, “She should be back soon.”

He reasoned that even if that brat got angry and wanted to take her away on the spot, there was still a little one here. Surely he wouldn’t leave the little one behind?

This thought made him feel a bit more at ease.

Changning, still leaning on the window sill, suddenly cried out in delight, “Sister!”

Grand Tutor Tao snapped out of his thoughts and looked up to see that brat, who had left with a face full of dark clouds, now returning with a normal expression, leading the horse and bringing back his newly adopted goddaughter.

Seeing this scene, a strange thought of “every beast has its master” rose in his mind.

After dismounting at the gentle slope, Fan Changyu walked alongside Xie Zheng back. Her lips still felt numb and sore, and when she touched them, she realized they were probably swollen.

Fan Changyu felt she needed to learn her lesson. She couldn’t bite him every time, or she’d end up losing more than she gained. When he bit back, he was much more excessive than her. For a moment, she felt he might have truly wanted to devour her whole.

His breathing was very unsteady, and he held her, panting for a long time. Near the bite mark on her shoulder, he had bitten her a few more times.

It wasn’t biting, as it didn’t break the skin and didn’t hurt much, but it left several red marks.

When she saw Grand Tutor Tao, Fan Changyu was afraid he would notice her swollen lips, so she tried to speak with her lips pressed together: “Godfather.”

Before Grand Tutor Tao could examine her closely, Changning bounded out of the carriage like an agile fat rabbit, opening her arms towards Fan Changyu and saying, “Sister, hug!”

Fan Changyu picked up her sister and smiled indulgently, coaxing her, “Is Ning’er a little sticky rice cake? I’ve never seen anyone so clingy.”

Changning whimpered without speaking, clinging to her neck and refusing to let go. She caught sight of Xie Zheng watching her from the corner of her eye and obediently called out, “Brother-in-law.”

Ever since she had woken Xie Zheng with an embroidery needle and seen his terrifying expression like an evil ghost, Changning had been very afraid of him.

Xie Zheng nodded slightly in response to Changning’s greeting, then looked at Grand Tutor Tao.

Although his gaze had calmed down by now, Grand Tutor Tao still felt inexplicably uneasy under his stare.

Xie Zheng said, “I’ll leave her in your care, Teacher.”

Grand Tutor Tao understood this meant he should take good care of Fan Changyu. He composed himself and said, “I’ve finally taken a goddaughter. Of course, I’ll protect her like a precious treasure. You don’t need to tell me that.”

After Fan Changyu boarded the carriage with Changning, the army was ready to set off again.

Xie Zheng sat on his horse by the roadside, the wind blowing through the forest rustling his robes, wrapping around his tall, straight figure. Fan Changyu lifted the carriage curtain to look at him and said, “I’m leaving.”

Xie Zheng nodded and said, “Be careful on the journey.”

Changning squeezed her head out from the corner of the carriage window, clinging to the sill, and said, “Ning’er is leaving too.”

With her sister by her side, she wasn’t as afraid of her brother-in-law anymore and even waved her chubby little hand in farewell.

Xie Zheng had very little experience dealing with children and didn’t know how to coax them. He simply said, “Listen to your sister.”

Changning said proudly, “Ning’er is the most obedient.”

A hawk’s cry came from the sky and the Gyrfalcon that had found Xie Zheng dove straight down. He raised his arm, and the Gyrfalcon landed steadily on his forearm.

Changning’s eyes immediately lit up: “Falcon!”

To Fan Changyu’s surprise, Xie Zheng brought the Gyrfalcon to the carriage window and said, “Take the Gyrfalcon with you. It can deliver messages faster.”

Fan Changyu asked, “What about you?”

Xie Zheng said, “If you send it with a message for me, it can find me. If I send a message to you from here, it might not be able to find you.”

Before Fan Changyu could agree, Changning had already shouted, “Ning’er will raise chickens to feed the falcon!”

Grand Tutor Tao, standing nearby, said, “Girl, it’s rare for this brat to be so generous. Don’t be polite to him. He hasn’t shown any filial piety to me in all these years, but now he’s willing to give away all his good things…”

He was feeling a bit sour and disgruntled, thinking to himself that the old saying was true: boys forget their mothers once they have wives. His treatment as a half-father figure wasn’t much better.

But then he thought, this half-daughter-in-law was also his goddaughter. It wasn’t a bad thing for his simple girl to have a cunning brat protecting her. Not only did he stop feeling sour, but he even felt quite pleased.

In the end, the Gyrfalcon was taken into the carriage by Changning. As the carriage slowly moved forward among the infantry, Xie Zheng said to Xie Wu and Xie Qi, who were on horseback behind him, “Go on, take good care of her.”

Xie Wu and Xie Qi saluted and then rode off to follow the army.

Xie Zheng stood with his remaining personal guards at the entrance of the official road. Only when he could no longer see the tail of the Ji Prefecture army did he pull on the reins, turning his horse around and saying, “Back to camp?”

At the Yan Prefecture camp.

When Gong Sun Yin learned that Xie Zheng had personally gone after them but couldn’t bring her back, he came over with his fan, gloating and ready to offer some perfunctory words of comfort.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he entered the camp, he found the Yan Prefecture generals and advisors crowded in a military tent. Xie Zheng, dressed in a dark arrow-sleeved robe, sat at the head, with maps of Kang City and its defenses laid out before him, discussing something with his subordinate generals. This was completely unrelated to the dejected image Gong Sun Yin had imagined.

Seeing him, Xie Zheng immediately tossed the map over, saying, “You’ve come at the right time. You can instruct them on the tactics for attacking the west gate.”

Gong Sun Yin barely caught the map thrown at him, looked at the areas Xie Zheng had newly circled, and exclaimed, “Weren’t we supposed to wear down Kang City and wait for He Jing Yuan to take Chong Prefecture before making a move?”

After all, his siege of Kang City was just to keep busy for the court to see, after giving up the military achievements in Chong Prefecture.

If he were to take Kang City with lightning speed, he would still have to send troops to aid Chong Prefecture afterward, and he might get caught up in the power struggle between Wei Yan and the Li family again.

Xie Zheng raised his cold, sharp phoenix eyes slightly, a thin smile on his lips as he asked, “Who said I was going to take Kang City directly?”

Gong Sun Yin looked more closely at the areas circled on the map and asked in confusion, “Aren’t you planning for a quick, decisive attack?”

Xie Zheng said, “Pulling out all the claws and fangs of the Kang City rebels, then letting them barely survive is also a way of wearing them down.”

Gong Sun Yin pondered this. It made sense, but wasn’t their initial strategy to surround the city without attacking, wearing down the patience of the rebels inside before launching an assault? Why had the tactics suddenly changed?

They continued discussing and planning until late into the night. After the generals and advisors in the central military tent had gradually left, Gong Sun Yin drank a cup of tea to moisten his throat before asking, “Is this because you couldn’t bring her back, so you want to fight a battle to vent your frustration?”

The bright candles in the tent cast a cold, eerie light on Xie Zheng’s dark iron wrist guards. He held a bamboo scroll and said, “In three days, I want Kang City to have no strength left to send out troops, only able to defend desperately.”

He looked up at Gong Sun Yin: “Three days later, you will lead the troops to surround Kang City. Wait for news of victory from Chong Prefecture before breaking open the city gates.”

Gong Sun Yin pondered the meaning of his words, then suddenly changed expression and accused, “You plan to dump this mess on me?”

Xie Zheng glanced at him: “I’ll beat the Kang City rebels until they can barely survive before I leave. If you still can’t hold it, there’s no need for you to work under me in the future.”

Gong Sun Yin could now guess why he had rushed back to deal with these matters. Thinking about how he had raced to intercept someone but still failed, Gong Sun Yin suddenly felt that being left in Kang City wasn’t so frustrating after all.

He waved his fan and, fearing that Xie Zheng might be blinded by impulse, still offered some words of consolation: “Alright, alright. You want to go to Chong Prefecture to find Miss Fan in three days, right? Don’t blame Miss Fan for being heartless. I think it’s not a bad thing for Miss Fan to go to the Ji Prefecture army. Although He Jing Yuan has handed over the tiger tally to you if Li Huai’an finds something in Ji Prefecture and brings down He Jing Yuan, this tiger tally will eventually be taken back by those above. At that time, if Miss Fan can become a general in Ji Prefecture, with Grand Tutor Tao there as well, at least the military power of Ji Prefecture won’t fall into the hands of others.”

But Xie Zheng said, “A man of ambition seeks to achieve great things, but ultimately it’s all for the sake of his wife and children. This Marquis is not so incapable as to need a woman to secure military power for me. If I want Ji Prefecture, I can simply not hand over this military tally. Whether it’s the Li faction or the Wei faction, can those court intrigues and schemes stand against iron horses and bloody blades? In the end, it’s just a matter of killing more people.”

As he said this, his expression was extremely cold, his eyes filled with nothing but indifference. Even Gong Sun Yin, who considered himself quite familiar with Xie Zheng, felt a chill run down his spine at that moment.

“But if we kill all these people, the Great Yan court will become an empty shell. The policies and national strategies issued need to be passed down level by level, and someone has to implement them, otherwise, the common people will only become more chaotic,” he said, idly turning the white jade qilin ring on his finger. “The reforms of past dynasties have taken ten or even several decades, after all, you need to nurture people who can fill those positions before you can take action.”

Then he snorted lightly: “The young Emperor should worry about these things. This Marquis won’t bother to worry about it for him.”

Gong Sun Yin thought to himself that it was a good thing Xie Zheng wasn’t interested in that position. Otherwise, with Wei Yan in front and this fierce wolf behind, the young Emperor would be living in constant fear, and it would be heaven’s mercy if he didn’t die of fright at an early age.

He asked in confusion, “So do you plan to go and bring Miss Fan back in three days?”

Given his nature, if he wanted to bring her back, he shouldn’t have returned empty-handed when he went after her today.

Xie Zheng lowered his eyes to look at the bamboo scroll in his hand and said, “This is her aspiration. I can protect her, but I shouldn’t hinder her.”

Gong Sun Yin shuddered, his skin breaking out in goosebumps, and said, “Then let’s hope Miss Fan can appreciate your sentiment.”

Xie Zheng suddenly said, “I hear there are many young ladies who admire you.”

Gong Sun Yin straightened his back a bit, his fan-waving becoming more elegant and charming: “Not many, not many. Just enough to fill a cart with fruits and melons when I go out.”

Without looking up, Xie Zheng continued to look at the bamboo scroll: “Are there any young ladies who, because of your great talents and your status as a worthy man of Hejian, have resolved to study hard and become a worthy person of the age themselves?”

Gong Sun Yin opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond when he heard Xie Zheng say, “She said she wants to walk the path I’ve walked, to become someone like me.”

Gong Sun Yin was stunned for a moment before finally realizing what Xie Zheng was trying to say in such a roundabout way.

No wonder he had come back with such an attitude!

Gong Sun Yin’s face twisted with sourness as he stood up, flicking his sleeves, and said, “I take my leave!”