An Jiu suddenly sat up, beads of sweat on her forehead.
“Were you dreaming?” Chu Dingjiang reached out and embraced her.
An Jiu took a deep breath. “I haven’t dreamed of those things in a long time.”
Chu Dingjiang did not ask further, just gently patting her back.
In her dream, she had accidentally killed her father over and over, watched her mother die before her eyes as if trapped in an endless cycle, until that person opened the car window, flicked away his cigarette, and gave her a slight smile.
“I once thought that person’s waiting was my destiny, but he turned out to be my true nightmare,” An Jiu hugged Chu Dingjiang tightly. “You have to promise me…”
“Hmm?”
“That you will never leave me, always be good to me, just like now.”
“Mmm.”
“Maybe you don’t think you’re successful enough, but in my heart, you are the strongest man in the world, strong enough that the moment I see you, I feel nothing can make me despair.”
Chu Dingjiang lifted his hand to stroke her hair, his voice slightly hoarse. “I always thought you wouldn’t say such sweet words, but it seems you can be quite deadly with them.”
An Jiu laughed. “I’m telling the truth.”
“I promise.” Chu Dingjiang spoke softly. “Sleep now.”
They lay back down, with An Jiu clinging to him like a koala.
In her drowsy state, she murmured, “My husband.”
This time, An Jiu showed no embarrassment, saying it very naturally.
“Mm.” Chu Dingjiang patted her rhythmically, mentally planning that it was time to prepare for the wedding.
The next morning, Mei Tingzhu came to look for An Jiu.
After taking a seat, she first mentioned the Matriarch’s situation, seeing An Jiu’s perfunctory attitude, she then turned to discussing the placement of the Mei family.
“Your troops are still short-handed, and the family’s current situation can’t be of much help. But at least several generations of the Mei family have served in the Control Crane Army, if you need anything, just say so,” Mei Tingzhu said.
A few days ago, Chu Dingjiang had already analyzed the Mei family’s development with her. Even though they were the ones needing help, they were putting on an air of bestowing a favor. But thinking that they did indeed need manpower, An Jiu echoed Chu Dingjiang’s instructions, “We do need people, but I don’t want to trouble the clan too much…”
“We’re all family, let’s not talk about that.” Mei Tingzhu waved it off. “Until the poison issue is resolved, we can only linger here. At least being able to help is better than idling.”
“Then I won’t be polite.” An Jiu readily accepted her goodwill.
The Mei family had only a small number of people. After getting the list, An Jiu divided them into a group, also choosing Mei family members as the leaders. According to Chu Dingjiang’s plan, a thousand troops would be divided into ten groups of one hundred each, and the Mei family would not be part of these ten groups, but rather serve as an independent scouting unit.
Of course, the Mei family was not yet aware of this.
Mei Tingzhu had originally intended that after An Jiu recruited new soldiers, she would need to train them, and the Mei family members were all seasoned assassins. Using them to train the recruits would be most suitable. In this way, the Mei family would have a chance to take control of the entire self-defense army.
But Mei Tingzhu never imagined that An Jiu would arrange the powerful old members of the Control Crane Army as scouts.
An Jiu had been busy going out to recruit people in the morning, only eating lunch in the afternoon.
“Isn’t the division you made a bit too simple?” An Jiu asked, her cheeks puffed out as she ate, frowning at Chu Dingjiang who was buried in something on the desk.
Chu Dingjiang did not look up. “A thousand people are not many, the internal hierarchy doesn’t need to be too complex. But simplicity also has its drawbacks. The leaders of these ten groups must all be trusted confidants.”
An Jiu brought her bowl over and leaned in close.
Chu Dingjiang calmly put his things away and turned to her.
“What were you writing?” An Jiu craned her neck and caught sight of a stack of books with a sheet of paper peeking out. “Writing a letter?”
“Mm, I’m writing to ask Shang Changying’s child if they’ve been born yet, and to have him keep an eye on Wei Yuyi in the capital, to see if there are any suitable young ladies.” Chu Dingjiang guided An Jiu to sit at the dining table.
An Jiu quickly nodded. “Mm, mm, you should pay attention to this. I could see he’s quite eager.”
Chu Dingjiang raised an eyebrow. “Eager?”
“Yes, the first time he met me he said he wanted to marry me, it’s clear he’s very eager.” An Jiu shoveled another mouthful of food into her mouth, mumbling, “Oh right, the most important thing is that she’s beautiful.”
Though a rival, Chu Dingjiang couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Wei Yuyi. Thinking it over, their relationship had also been rather arduous, but at least she had managed to see him and was willing to put in more effort to consider him.
Chu Dingjiang suddenly felt that he and Wei Yuyi both belonged to the masochist type, ignoring all the normal young ladies and fixating on someone so carefree!
An Jiu had no idea what he was thinking, lost in her musings. “Do you think Wei Yuyi can sense my emotions?”
“As a blood cultivator, he shouldn’t be able to feel them,” Chu Dingjiang replied.
“Okay, since he’s taken my lifeblood, this small price is negligible.” An Jiu finished her bowl in a flurry, hastily wiping her mouth before standing up. “I and Blood Demon agreed to go to Bianjing.”
“To snatch people from Huarong’s hands?” Chu Dingjiang quietly cleared the table.
They were both unused to having outsiders loitering on their turf, so they had no servants to attend them. An Jiu was the type to just eat and leave, leaving Chu Dingjiang to handle the cooking and cleaning.
“If not, where else can we find people in the short term? Summer is coming, and winter won’t be far behind.” An Jiu said determinedly. “Those people were attracted by the silver, but they’re not on the bounty list.”
Winter was the season when Liao cavalry would “hunt” within the borders of the Song Dynasty.
Chu Dingjiang said, “While they may be working for money, the truly capable ones are the assassins on the bounty list. If you go snatch them, Huarong won’t just let it go.”
Living with Mosigui for so long, An Jiu had picked up his bad habits, smacking her lips. “There’s such a thing? Then what do we do?”
She didn’t have many friends, and even though she and Huarong now had some distance, at the end of the day, she still cared for him a little.
“If it were anyone else, I’d just go snatch them. But Huarong has been helping me all along, and in the end, I deceived him for your sake.” An Jiu sighed, “I owe him more than he owes me.”
Huarong’s mother’s death could be said to be partly Chu Dingjiang’s doing, and as someone in the know, An Jiu had pretended not to know when Huarong came to her in his aimless despair, and she had also become more intimate with Chu Dingjiang. These were the root causes of her estrangement from Huarong, and she was powerless to change it because out of the two, she could only choose one.
“The you from before wouldn’t have had so many scruples, would you?” Chu Dingjiang asked with a smile.
An Jiu said, “My life wasn’t this complicated back then!”
Before, her entire life was just accepting orders, executing orders, and completing missions.
“I remember Misty Peak Mansion had quite a few assassins, right?” An Jiu’s eyes suddenly brightened. “Can you go ask Wei Yuyi if he still has any connections with Misty Peak Mansion? If not, I’ll just go snatch some people.”
This was also a shortcut – whether it was Misty Peak Mansion, the Control Crane Army, or the bounty list, at their core they were all assassin organizations, with the same essential nature – obedience.
These assassins were accustomed to obeying the strong, so “snatching” was an accurate term for An Jiu.
“I have some reservations, don’t rush into action yet, let me think it through.” Chu Dingjiang instinctively felt he shouldn’t let An Jiu go raid Misty Peak Mansion, not because he was afraid of offending anyone, but because he had some inexplicable misgivings that he needed to carefully weigh the pros and cons before allowing her to do so.
An Jiu realized that since Misty Peak Mansion’s background was complex and she didn’t know who the assassins were currently taking orders from, it wasn’t a good idea to rashly go snatch them. Since Chu Dingjiang had reservations, she subconsciously trusted him and immediately decided not to act. “Okay, you think it over, I’ll go wander the streets and see if I can find any more suitable people.”
An Jiu combed through all the able-bodied men in the town, managing to find a few with good aptitude.
But even so, with a thousand positions to fill, she still hadn’t even recruited a tenth of the required manpower.
Chu Dingjiang watched her leave, then picked up a bowl and went to the well to fetch water and wash the dishes.
As he scrubbed, his mind began to ponder various matters, like a large net with countless intertwined threads, as he carefully untangled them, many previously obscure things became much clearer.
And what he was thinking about now was not just Misty Peak Mansion.
When they had infiltrated the Misty Peak Mansion’s main compound, there had been quite a few blue energy crossbows hidden there.
Ever since first encountering the blue energy crossbows during the trials, he had been discreetly investigating, but due to having few informants in Liao and being distracted by the various upheavals in the Song Dynasty, he had yet to uncover who was producing these blue energy crossbows.
It was time to have an open discussion with Wei Yuyi!
Chu Dingjiang dried his hands after placing the clean bowls and then headed out.