Because Yelü Ye had accepted Ye Li’s suggestion to secretly observe the candidates, she put the matter aside. Sure enough, just two days after the Northern Rong wedding envoys arrived in the capital, Yelü Ye’s election results were announced—Princess Ronghua was indeed chosen as the bride. Whether in terms of status, age, or personality, Princess Ronghua was the most suitable candidate. Although Princess Zhaoren went to the palace that day to plead with the Emperor, whatever Mo Jingqi said to her must have been effective, as she left the palace in a daze and said nothing more. Meanwhile, Princess Ronghua nearly turned the capital upside down, and in her eyes, Ye Li—the culprit who caused her to marry outside the kingdom—naturally couldn’t be spared. Unfortunately, the Prince of Ding’s mansion was too well-guarded to enter at will, and by this time, Ye Li was already leisurely relaxing at Princess Imperial Xifu’s villa outside the city.
Although Princess Imperial Xifu was over seventy years old, perhaps due to her daily care and excellent temperament, she remained vigorous. She looked no different from when they had met a year ago, and she was especially delighted to see Ye Li and Mo Xiuyao arrive together. The Princess Imperial’s warmth made both Ye Li and Mo Xiuyao feel somewhat guilty. In the past year, after Mo Xiuyao’s health improved and Ye Li’s extended absence, they hadn’t visited the Princess Imperial at all. Yet the elderly lady never forgot to send them gifts during festivals and holidays. Though not expensive items, they represented the old lady’s thoughtfulness and affection.
The Princess Imperial pulled Ye Li to sit beside her, and after glancing at Mo Xiuyao standing nearby, shooed him away, saying she wanted to have a private conversation with Ye Li. Mo Xiuyao could only leave with a wry smile.
Watching Mo Xiuyao leave, the Princess Imperial held Ye Li’s hand and smiled at her warmly. Ye Li suddenly felt embarrassed, finding the Princess Imperial’s gaze somewhat unnerving. “Imperial Aunt…”
The Princess Imperial looked at her kindly and smiled, “I see you’ve grown thinner compared to last year. That boy Xiuyao doesn’t know how to care for his wife—how could he let a young woman travel to the southern border?”
Ye Li lowered her head, feeling ashamed—it had been her insistence on going to the southern border. But she’d let Mo Xiuyao take the blame for this one. The Princess Imperial looked at her and nodded with satisfaction, “I’ve heard about your affairs in the South and Yongzhou. You’re truly well-raised by the Xu family. We were fortunate to have you in Yonglin this time—that child Jingli was truly too reckless. I’m too old to control them now, but with you helping Xiuyao, his burden is much lighter. The men of the Prince of Ding’s mansion are born with heavy responsibilities, even more so for Xiuyao. Fortunately, he has you.”
Ye Li said softly, “These are all things I should do.”
The Princess Imperial shook her head, “Not just among the capital’s young ladies, but even among all the past Princess Consorts of Ding, none could do better than you. However…”
Ye Li looked at the Princess Imperial questioningly. The Princess Imperial smiled at her and said, “Xiuyao isn’t young anymore. Shouldn’t you two be thinking about heirs for the Prince of Ding’s mansion? Among all the prince’s mansions in the capital now, only the Prince of Ding’s mansion has no heir yet.”
Hearing this, Ye Li’s face instantly turned crimson. She stared speechlessly at the expectant Princess Imperial, unable to respond for a long while. The Princess Imperial looked at her teasingly and smiled, “Child, bearing children is a natural thing. You’ve been married for over a year now—what is there to be shy about?”
Ye Li felt incredibly embarrassed. Had she become more conservative after staying in this era for so long? But regarding children… she truly hadn’t thought about it. First, her current body wasn’t even sixteen years old, and second, her current situation was not suitable for having children. But she couldn’t directly tell the Princess Imperial she didn’t want children, so she could only give vague responses hoping to get past the topic. The Princess Imperial attributed it to shyness, gave a few more pieces of advice, and let it go. Though she made a mental note to remind Mo Xiuyao later. Seeing Princess Imperial drop the subject, Ye Li secretly sighed in relief and quickly changed the topic to interesting happenings in the capital.
Mo Xiuyao only stayed with Ye Li for two days before returning to the capital. With all the Northern Rong wedding envoys having arrived in the capital, he couldn’t avoid his duties as the prince in charge of the marriage alliance. Besides spending time each day keeping the Princess Imperial company, Ye Li spent the rest of her time in the deep valley below Black Wind Cliff. Although the Princess Imperial knew Ye Li went out every day, she didn’t question her whereabouts. With the Princess Imperial’s cover, Ye Li’s actions became much more convenient.
After nearly half a month, when Ye Li appeared again at the foot of the cliff, she nodded with satisfaction seeing the elite troops training hard in the field, sweating profusely. To achieve such results in less than a month was quite remarkable. If only they weren’t so pressed for time—they should have had at least two months of physical training before discussing anything else. The dust-covered, sweat-soaked soldiers felt nervous seeing the still-smiling Young Master Chu appear again. They didn’t know Young Master Chu’s identity, but they knew Qin Feng’s status. Anyone who could have Qin Feng as a personal guard must be extraordinary. But that wasn’t the most important thing—what mattered was that though they had only seen Young Master Chu twice before, each encounter left a deep impression. In their first meeting, this young master mercilessly crushed everyone’s confidence, then smiled while watching them all crawl on the ground. In their second meeting, Young Master Chu’s display of skill shocked them all while leaving them with tasks that had them exhausted for the past half month. Now, what would Young Master Chu bring this time?
“Everyone, though we haven’t met for half a month, Qin Feng has reported your training progress to me. I’m very satisfied. Especially… since you are the first batch to receive this training, and not a single one of you has dropped out. However, the previous training was just basic physical conditioning—not dropping out only means your physical fitness and potential are good. Starting today, you will begin receiving more detailed training. Of course, the original physical training will continue daily.” The soldiers couldn’t help but groan inwardly—this meant they needed to squeeze time for learning other things out of their already exhausting daily training schedule.
The training over the past half month had been effective—at least these soldiers from different units now had much better discipline. Even though they were crying out internally, they still stood straight and proper externally. Ye Li nodded with satisfaction internally and said, “Those whose names I call, step forward.” Looking down at the scroll in her hand, Ye Li called out seven or eight names, and those called stepped forward to form another line. Without exception, these were all people who had special skills and relatively rich knowledge. Ye Li looked at the people Qin Feng had selected and said, “Go to the training ground ten li southeast and wait for me.”
The specially selected soldiers hesitated, and one stepped forward to ask, “Young Master Chu, may we ask what we’ll be doing? Why aren’t we training with everyone else?”
Ye Li smiled, “Because I think you need different training. Of course… I should probably ask for your opinion first. Are you afraid of death?”
The soldiers immediately felt insulted and glared at Ye Li. “If we feared death, we wouldn’t be in the Mo army!”
“Only cowards fear death!”
“We don’t fear death, but we want to know what we’re doing! At least we don’t want to die without knowing why.”
Ye Li wasn’t angry and nodded with a smile, “Very good, I like people who have their thoughts. But now… your first task is to obey, your second task is to completely obey, and your third is… to obey! Understand?” Ye Li’s calm yet solemn voice made everyone pause, and the training ground suddenly fell silent. Both those who were called and those who remained stopped discussing and answered in unison, “Understood!”
“Very good, now run there—you have one-quarter of an hour.”
The selected men turned without hesitation and ran out of the training ground, disappearing into the dense forest.
Ye Li turned to look at those who remained, smiling sweetly, “Don’t worry about them—I won’t send them to their deaths. Now you should worry about yourselves. Next, you’ll learn weighted training, full-armored swimming, wilderness survival, breakthrough and anti-breakthrough training, infiltration and counter-infiltration training, plus penetration and intelligence reconnaissance training. Your instructors will arrive early tomorrow morning. Also, the final assessment is set for two months from now. I can tell you the assessment items in advance so you can prepare mentally. You’ll carry forty jin of weight plus one day’s military rations and survive in the wilderness for seven days. Your mission objective: raid a joint force of Black Cloud Cavalry and Dark Guards, six hundred strong, stationed twelve hundred li away. Requirements: two teams will search for and potentially ambush you along the way, no stealing food or horses from local farmers, no revealing identities, being caught by local garrisons or patrols means elimination, being captured or seriously wounded by attackers means elimination, failing to reach the objective within the time limit means elimination. Understand?” Every soldier on the training ground turned pale. They had thought their training was already difficult, but Young Master Chu always knew how to make it harder. Compared to what was coming, their current training seemed like retirement life.
Ye Li raised an eyebrow at them, “You should be grateful it’s not winter, or your days would be even harder. Don’t worry though, I’ll make it up to you this winter. Also… want to add some sun resistance training?”
‘Please no…’ was the thought in every soldier’s heart. Ye Li didn’t press the issue, “The northern weather isn’t very useful for that anyway. Probably won’t have the chance this year. Once you qualify, next year you might have the opportunity to bring more companions to train in the south. For now, that’s all. Qin Feng.”
“Yes, Young Master!” Qin Feng stepped forward. He wasn’t too shocked by what Ye Li had said, as he had already been through many life-and-death experiences under Dark Three’s training these days. This was precisely why his admiration for Ye Li had grown even stronger. His loyalty to her now quietly matched his loyalty to the Prince of Ding. In Qin Feng’s eyes, the Princess Consort he served was a once-in-a-generation genius—you could never predict what brilliant ideas she had in mind. Just seeing how she had trained the few Dark Guards around her to their current level in less than a year showed how extraordinary she was. Thinking of Dark Three’s wicked training methods, Qin Feng silently prayed for the soldiers while following Ye Li into the forest.
“Follow me,” Ye Li turned back to tell him. Qin Feng responded and followed, leaving behind those pitiful soldiers who looked at him pleadingly. He was still struggling under someone else’s training—how could he save them?
The forest, full of poisonous insects, toxic plants, traps, and swamps, seemed like flat ground under Ye Li’s feet. Qin Feng carefully followed beside her but dejectedly found that the Princess’s movements were always slightly faster than his. Just as he was about to strike at a snake in a nearby tree branch, he heard a soft sound—a sharp flying dagger had already struck the two-foot snake’s vital point, making it fall to the ground with a splat. Ye Li walked forward, looked down, and turned to smile at Qin Feng, “Hundred Flowers Brocade Snake, non-poisonous, good for both practical and medicinal use. Take it back to Master Shen—he might teach you some methods for identifying poisonous creatures. Aren’t you learning that recently?”
Qin Feng nodded, carefully collecting the dead snake, and asked somewhat embarrassedly, “Does the Princess know all types of snakes?”
Ye Li answered without hesitation, “I know most of the poisonous ones—you learn by reading more books. Don’t worry, I’ve carefully checked this forest—there are only two types of poisonous snakes, and neither is very deadly. Even if not treated immediately, it won’t be fatal. When they start training here, I’ll have several skilled doctors stationed here permanently.”
Qin Feng wanted to say he wasn’t afraid, but thinking about all the snakes, insects, rats, and ants in this forest, he still felt the Princess’s choice of location was rather spine-chilling.
Ten li wasn’t a long distance for two agile people, and soon they arrived at another training ground on the other side of the valley. What surprised Qin Feng was that this training ground, which he had assumed would be even more brutal, wasn’t as he had imagined. It was still near the edge of the valley, but due to the terrain, it was brighter and more comfortable than the cliff bottom where they had been, with plenty of sunlight. A small courtyard stood by a stream at the forest’s edge, and the previously selected men were waiting on the grass in front of the yard.
Ye Li scanned the seven men—though they had some minor scratches on their faces and bodies, nothing was serious. She nodded with satisfaction, “It seems you’ve trained well too. I know you have doubts about why I separated you from the others. But don’t worry, I did this because your future learning direction differs from theirs. Similarly, your future missions will differ from theirs.”
One of them stood up and asked, “What’s different?”
Ye Li replied frankly, “Their future mission direction is small-scale intense combat, such as raids, rescues, protection, sniping, and so on, while you… might not need to fight. I need your mind more. Your future work will be infiltration and concealment, exploring and analyzing intelligence, transmitting information, and possibly assassination and protection as well.” The soldiers frowned, looked at each other, and asked, “Young Master Chu wants us to be spies?”
“Spies?” Ye Li raised an eyebrow, “You could say that—it’s one of the tasks you might need to do in the future. But I prefer to call it a special agent or intelligence officer. Compared to their focus on combat training, you’ll need to learn various national languages and even local dialects, psychological analysis, customs of different countries, disguise and makeup techniques, tracking and counter-tracking, and establishment and management of intelligence networks. Plus the use of various tools, combat, close-quarters assassination techniques, and so on… You were all chosen from these dozens of elites as the most suitable candidates in terms of background, ability, knowledge, and intelligence. Although you’re different from them, you’re still officially part of the Mo family army and all the promises I made last time still apply to you. Moreover, if you die in service or are injured, the compensation and family support will be tripled. Of course, before this, you have the chance to opt-out. Those who withdraw can return to continue training with the others.”
The men fell silent for a while. These few were the most promising among this batch. They quickly made their decision—though they didn’t know exactly who this Young Master Chu was, they felt he was different from other commanders. What he described was both novel and attractive to them, seeming to promise a different journey for their future lives. What man doesn’t want to make a name for himself and achieve success? Unlike those who couldn’t read and only knew how to obey, they thought more clearly, “We report to Young Master, we’ll stay.”
Ye Li raised an eyebrow, looking at them with a smile, “You truly aren’t afraid of death. I won’t deceive you—you should know that being a spy or agent is a very dangerous thing. Even without mortal danger, you might never return home or see your families again.”
“We understand, and trust that the Prince and Princess will take good care of our families.” This was true—compared to other armies, the Mo family army had always treated its soldiers very generously.
Ye Li nodded, “Very well. I guarantee your families will never want food or clothing. Today you can rest as you wish. Training begins tomorrow.”
“Yes, Young Master!”