When night once again enveloped the earth, only a few dark red glimmers of firelight remained visible on the opposite side of the strait, flickering in and out through the thick smoke. This great fire was finally gradually extinguishing. Only the scattered sea breezes occasionally teased the dying flames, making the dead embers flicker briefly before falling silent forever.

They could no longer remain on the island. Goguryeo scouts had already appeared a hundred li away. The Great Tang wasn’t afraid of this matter being exposed, but concealment for as long as possible was best. A crocodile disguised as a log was most terrifying.

Gae Suwen’s leg injury showed no signs of improvement, but it also hadn’t worsened. The wound simply refused to heal properly. Yun Ye naturally knew what was going on—the medicinal powder had been handed to the military physician by him. After using it on Qiu Ran Ke last time, some remained, and this time it was applied to Gae Suwen. When that woman opened the bandages on Gae Suwen’s leg once again, she looked at the bright red wound and began weeping mournfully. Gae Suwen glanced at Yun Ye, who lay in a pile of furs reading, then resolutely ordered the woman to rinse his wound with clean water. Every martial arts master was also an expert at treating injuries. A wound ten days old shouldn’t look like this.

Yun Ye propped himself up and watched Gae Suwen with interest as he took a small dagger and cut the flesh on his own leg until the wound began bleeding again before stopping.

Using salt water to cleanse the wound—he actually thought of that. Watching the veins bulging on Gae Suwen’s forehead, then glancing at that particularly ferocious-looking face, Yun Ye shook his head and lay back down to continue reading his book. The campfire’s light flickered uncertainly. After reading two pages, he couldn’t continue. These vertically formatted books were truly murderous to read—not even punctuation marks. If you wanted to read, you had to parse the sentences first.

This time, Gae Suwen refused any more medicine. The woman, tears streaming down her face, bandaged him with dried cloth, then gently lay beside the fellow like a quiet little cat.

Irritably tossing aside his book, Yun Ye walked to the front of the prison cart and stared with wide eyes at Gae Suwen, who sat with closed eyes in meditation. Regarding this handsome fellow before him, what Yun Ye most wanted to do was beat that face into a pig’s head.

“Brother Yun had nightmares all night and must be very tired now. Why not sleep earlier? What’s the point of staring at me?”

“No particular reason. You sleep as you please, don’t mind me. You watched me sleep last night, so tonight I’ll watch you sleep. Fair and reasonable. I just don’t know if you grind your teeth when you sleep.”

“Very well. Since neither of us can sleep, we might as well chat. Marquis Yun, can you tell me what kind of country Goguryeo is in your eyes?” Gae Suwen opened his eyes and stared directly at Yun Ye, as if trying to see through him.

“Goguryeo? You want me to tell you my impression of it? Do you think I have anything good to say to you?”

“Whether good words or bad, they’re still spoken by a marquis like yourself. I will listen carefully, then extract principles from them. If I’m fortunate enough to return to Goguryeo, I will take your words seriously.”

After saying this, Gae Suwen bowed politely to Yun Ye, forcing Yun Ye to return the courtesy. These matters of etiquette had nothing to do with who was prisoner and who was jailer—they only related to a person’s cultivation and character.

“To speak honestly, I know very little about Goguryeo—I don’t even have grounds for hatred. Because when you defeated the Sui army, I wasn’t in this world, so there’s no deep-seated hatred.”

“With one fire you turned fifty thousand soldiers and civilians of Beisha City to ash, yet you still say you have no hatred? I dare not imagine what kind of life someone who truly had a grudge against you would lead.”

These past days, Gae Suwen had kept his eyes wide open, prepared to find prisoners Yun Ye had captured after victory. After all, for him, having only himself and Yonghua seemed too lonely. He was disappointed—aside from himself and Yonghua, Yun Ye had no other captives.

“Look, when a few of your people die, you get this agitated. The heads of our clan members were piled into a memorial mound by you, yet I’m not as angry as you. I said I don’t have that kind of deep-seated hatred toward Goguryeo, but you refuse to believe me. Everything I do stems from necessity. Liaodong has been our land since ancient times. A few years ago, you secretly occupied quite a large piece like a petty thief. That won’t do. My own things may sit idle, but you can’t take them. If you take them, you must be beaten, and we must carve off a large piece, or all of your land as compensation. Only then will our hearts be at ease. Then we’ll leave the land idle again, waiting for the next greedy ghost to come steal it.”

“Your Great Tang obtained such vast territory in this manner?”

“Yes. Otherwise, how do you think we got it? There’s no such thing as dragons in this world. Actually, the dragon’s appearance evolved from the process of the Central Plains battling foreign enemies.”

At Yunshan Academy, there’s a teacher who enjoys studying dragons. He says our ancestors’ earliest totem was the snake. Later, our ancestors were bullied by the Fish Clan, so they destroyed the Fish Clan and annexed their people and land. When they saw the Fish Clan’s totem, they found the scales and tail on the fish very beautiful, so they painted them onto their own snake.

Later, the Deer Clan bullied our ancestors, so our ancestors destroyed the Deer Clan. Afterward, seeing the deer’s antlers were very beautiful, they painted deer antlers onto their snake’s head.

“The world has never had a peaceful moment. The Ox Clan, Horse Clan, Eagle Clan, and so on all came to bully our ancestors. Then our totem gained many more features, finally becoming what it is now.” For stubborn Goguryeo people like Gae Suwen, he needed to understand what the Chinese dragon truly was. To make it more convincing, Yun Ye deliberately brought out the Academy’s speculation to show off.

“Why do all your words say others bullied your ancestors, then your ancestors counterattacked? Is righteousness always on your side?” Gae Suwen gripped the prison cart’s pillar with his hand and asked without the slightest courtesy.

“Naturally. We learned the two virtues of humility and kindness from ancient times. We were the first race to know shame. When your ancestors were running naked across mountains and plains chasing wolves, my ancestors were in caves making pants from leaves to wear. When your ancestors copulated with wild beasts and miraculously crossed species barriers to produce freaks, my ancestors were already establishing human ethics. When your ancestors consumed raw meat and drank blood, my ancestors were already eating beggar’s chicken.”

“Tell me, our ancestors were the world’s wealthiest people. Would they covet the broken possessions of your ancestors, who were worse off than beggars? It’s like you, Gae Suwen—would you rob the moldy porridge from beggars’ hands on the street?”

“Of course not. Rather, those beggars dream of stripping you, this well-dressed noble, naked as a pig. To your ancestors, my ancestors were that well-dressed noble. Tell me, Old Gae, this being the case, if righteousness isn’t in my ancestors’ hands, could it possibly be in your ancestors’ hands?”

“Liaodong has been vacant for a thousand years…”

“Shut up! These words of yours are truly shameless. You’re not unfamiliar with the name Lelang Commandery, are you? Did you deliberately forget? But I can’t blame you—you’re all descendants of wild beasts, so confused memories are understandable.”

“The Great Tang won’t let Goguryeo go, will it? No matter how we grovel and flatter you, you won’t spare Goguryeo, will you? Goguryeo will certainly give you the most painful lesson, making you forget those legendary names this land once had.”

“Gae Suwen, you still have confidence. But I’ll take you along this entire journey, let you watch carefully how we break through those three fortified cities and retrieve the remains.”

“You still don’t understand. Our Emperor constantly laments that tigers and leopards in the wilderness are growing scarce, and every hunt is unsatisfying. The great generals all sit in their mansions lamenting the growth of fat from inactivity. The civil officials gathered in Chang’an are indignant that they cannot govern even larger territories.”

“Not to mention our common people, who grow increasingly dissatisfied with the barren land allotted to them. If you were in Chang’an, you would hear those roars erupting from the very bones. No need for nationwide conscription—our Majesty need only raise his arm in a call, and brave soldiers coming to Liaodong would fill all of Goguryeo, trampling to dust everyone who dares resist.”

“Gae Suwen, you’ve miscalculated. Did you think you could commit so many evil deeds without paying the price? Dream on.”

The two people in the prison cart stared dumbly at Yun Ye as he talked on and on, spittle flying. His arms kept gesticulating in coordination, his facial expressions alternating between ferocity and joy, his manner agitated, his fighting spirit high. After he finished his last sentence, his expression completely relaxed. He exhaled, seemingly quite satisfied, then walked back to the pile of furs with hands clasped behind his back, heavily lay down, yawned once, and before long, soft snoring sounds emerged…

“Suwen, what was he just doing?” Yonghua, nestled against Gae Suwen’s side, asked quietly.

“He was pumping himself up, steeling his will, also to prevent himself from having nightmares. Yonghua, the dream he had last night must have been terrifying, it certainly was. I just don’t know when our nightmare will end. I have a bad feeling—this time our nightmare will definitely be even more terrifying and even longer…”

They weren’t the only three having nightmares. There was another also having nightmares. The battle report clutched in his hand had almost become a crumpled ball. His face was ashen, and he kept muttering: “I knew I shouldn’t have let him go, I knew I shouldn’t have let him go. This old man joined the army as a youth. The number who died under this old man’s army’s butcher knife is countless, but I’ve never encountered anyone who did it this thoroughly. Beisha City was burned to nothing—could there still be living people inside?”

The warships from Sansan Port were about to be transported to the capital—could there still be living people at Sansan Port? Boy, this old man only wanted to use your wisdom to achieve the purpose of sending troops, not for you to paint thickly in oils and inks on the map. Don’t you know, every place you paint over becomes barren and lifeless?

Tomorrow’s court assembly—this old man might as well not attend!

“Old Fu, Old Fu! This master is feeling unwell. Tomorrow, go to the Ministry of Personnel and request leave for this master!”