The stream was the same stream, only no longer quiet and beautiful.
Li Wu gripped Han Fengyue by his topknot and hauled his head up from beneath the water’s surface. Han Fengyue, starved of air for some time, finally broke back into open air and gasped desperately, his chest heaving in great lurching waves.
“Puh — huff — huff huff——”
Li Wu held him by the topknot and forced his flushed, reddened face to turn toward him.
“Talk. Why have you been trailing us like a shadow?”
Han Fengyue’s face was a mess — stream water mixed with tears and saliva — and his lips moved to form the beginning of a “spit,” but before that defiant gesture could take shape, Li Wu shoved his head back under the water.
Han Fengyue’s hands thrashed uselessly in the air. The stream bubbled and gurgled around him; his agonized face swayed beneath the surface, and the topknot that had been so neatly arranged was now half-undone, strands floating loose in every direction.
Li Wu planted himself squarely on Han Fengyue’s back and looked up toward his two brothers, who were busily scavenging through the battlefield:
“How many times have I told you — when it comes to picking through the spoils, you need nerve and a careful eye. The way you two go about it, what good things could you possibly find? Check the soles of the boots, check the inner lining of the clothes — and if those turn up nothing, take off the foot wrappings and give them a good shake……A great fortune is heaven’s gift, but a modest fortune comes from thrift. These things others have abandoned — we collect every last one of them……”
From inside the carriage, Shen Zhuxi raised her voice: “Are you done yet? When can I come out?”
“I’ll call you when it’s done, what’s your hurry?!” Li Wu snapped back with an equally loud, disgruntled voice. “Come out now and you won’t be able to eat for a month!”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to eat?” the curious little blockhead inside the carriage pressed.
“Because they soiled themselves from every end while they were fleeing!”
“Disgusting!”
The carriage door, which had opened the tiniest crack, was immediately pulled firmly shut.
Li Wu grabbed Han Fengyue by the head and dragged him roughly back out of the water. Han Fengyue’s eyes had rolled back, and he was completely unresponsive. Without the slightest hesitation, Li Wu gave that delicate, fine-featured face two hard slaps.
Jolted by the force, Han Fengyue coughed out a mouthful of stream water and came to, sputtering and retching.
“I’ve thought of a character that suits you perfectly — even dead ducks keep their beaks shut, they say. How about I carve the character for ‘duck’ onto that fair and pretty face of yours — what do you think?”
“You——”
“Think carefully before you speak.” Li Wu let the tip of his blade glide lightly across Han Fengyue’s face.
Han Fengyue swallowed the insults that had been rising to his lips and glared at Li Wu with a look that could kill.
“Why were you following us?” Li Wu asked.
Feeling the pressure of the blade tip against his cheek, Han Fengyue bit back his anger and opened his mouth: “I wasn’t following you.”
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, a sharp, searing pain shot through his cheek. Han Fengyue cried out in agony, the fury and fear of being disfigured twisting his entire face.
“That is the truth!”
“This cut — is for following my woman.” Li Wu crouched down and fixed him with a cold, level stare. “Following your old man’s woman is a far more serious offense than following your old man.”
“Your woman?” Han Fengyue clutched at his wounded cheek and burst into laughter. “A dirt-poor ruffian who crawled out of a mud pit — you want a toad to feast on swan’s flesh, and you don’t even stop to weigh whether you have the fate to eat swan’s flesh at all!”
Li Wu’s gaze sharpened: “……What do you mean?”
“You have no idea who the woman you married actually is, do you?” Han Fengyue let out a sinister laugh. “She is a woman who will get you killed — you cannot protect her at all. You cannot even protect yourself. Even if you kill me today, you will sooner or later lose your life because of her!”
Li Wu’s expression went cold. The tip of his blade moved to press against Han Fengyue’s other cheek.
“……I dislike riddles.”
“How about a partnership?” Han Fengyue smiled, blood seeping through the fingers pressed to his cheek. “From the look of things, you’re not simply passing through, are you? Did you offend someone — or are you wanted for something? I can sort all of it out for you. If you know who my elder brother is, then you should know we have the Military Commissioner of Wuying backing us. In the chaos of today’s world, military power is what puts steel in your spine — and among the sixteen military commissioners that still remain, the Military Commissioner of Wuying ranks in the top three for troop strength.”
“If you partner with me, I can not only help you settle your troubles, I can also introduce you to General Chunyu An, and see you rise through the ranks with ease — not a bad deal, is it?”
“What do you want?” Li Wu fixed his gaze on him.
“I want the woman in that carriage.” Han Fengyue spoke before the blade tip could cut further into his cheek. “Don’t be hasty! I know you can’t bear to part with such a breathtakingly beautiful wife — no man could. But if you keep her, you won’t even know how you end up dying.”
“Why would I die?”
Han Fengyue seemed entirely confident in how this would end. He twisted his lips into a cold smile and said, slowly: “Because she is royalty — a princess of a kingdom. The current Emperor of Great Yan will not permit his sister to be married to a lowly commoner. She was originally supposed to——”
Li Wu cut him off: “How did you recognize her?”
Words that should have struck the man before him like a thunderbolt instead drifted in like a feather falling into still water, sending not even the faintest ripple back.
He did not appear the least bit surprised that his wife was a princess.
Han Fengyue stared at the calm man before him in disbelief, finding himself pulled off course without even realizing it.
“The Changsha Han clan is a distinguished family — when my elder brother and I entered the palace to attend an imperial banquet, we happened, quite by chance, to glimpse her from afar on one occasion. At the time, everyone was remarking on it — that Princess of Yue and Fu Xuanmiao, the most celebrated young nobleman in the land, were a couple that seemed made by heaven itself——”
Han Fengyue’s intention had been to stir up the other man’s jealousy and rage and find an opening to exploit. What he had not anticipated was that this fellow had such a boundlessly broad mind that he showed absolutely no interest in whatever his woman’s previous man had been.
“What does it have to do with me whether the Princess of Yue and some worthless so-called nobleman were a perfect match?” He furrowed his brow with clear impatience and pressed: “Who else knows about this?”
“This matter is of the utmost importance — I would naturally not tell anyone else, lest it cause unnecessary……”
Han Fengyue never managed to finish a complete sentence.
With a crack, his eyes went wide, and his head drooped from his suddenly limp neck. His pupils, not yet returned to awareness, continued following the movement of Li Wu’s face.
“You’re wearing new clothes too — going to meet King Yama in them is perfectly fitting.”
Li Wu released his grip on Han Fengyue’s neck. The lifeless body toppled over, and the face, still clinging to its last traces of vitality, plunged into the cold stream. Water splashed across his features; the pupils, slowly dilating, did not blink.
Li Wu methodically and efficiently stripped Han Fengyue of every last possession on his person — not even the jade charm on his folding fan was spared. Li Que, having finished with the battlefield, walked over and in a single glance could see that Han Fengyue, face-down in the stream, had no breath left in him.
Li Que said in surprise: “Elder Brother said earlier he intended to spare his life — what changed your mind?”
“He recognized your sister-in-law.” Li Wu said flatly.
Li Que’s expression shifted. He flicked a glance toward the carriage to confirm the doors and windows were still firmly shut, then said: “He was going to bring Sister-in-Law back to the imperial family?”
“The military commissioners each act as a law unto themselves, and the Han clan are all lapdogs of Chunyu An — Han Fengyue was likely planning to hold your sister-in-law hostage within the Wuying army, using her as leverage to extort concessions from the Yuanlong Emperor.”
“……Then what do we do?” Li Que looked down at the body on the ground. “Should we burn him — destroy all the evidence completely?”
“There’s no time for that.” Li Wu said. “Han Fengyue still has a troop of men — their finding his body is only a matter of time.”
“Then what do we……”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Li Wu said. “The one who should be worried is the poet Jia Duck of Baitu County.”
Li Que smiled: “Three people act, three people answer for it — don’t forget, Elder Brother, the credit for this belongs to Jia Magpie as well.”
Li Kun walked over too. He had long since grown accustomed to seeing a living person become a corpse. He stepped over Han Fengyue’s outstretched hand to reach the riverside, paying no mind to the body whatsoever, and bent down to swish his two blood-soaked battle-axes back and forth in the stream.
When killing, his eyes blazed with fury and ferocity; at this very moment, however, he was again like a child, his eyes glowing with the pure, clear light of a small animal.
“And there’s Jia Vulture……” Li Kun reminded them. “Jia Vulture helped too……”
Li Wu clapped both brothers on the shoulder: “They won’t forget — when the time comes, you’ll all appear together on the wanted poster.”
Han Fengnian was in high standing with the Military Commissioner of Wuying. Though Li Wu had killed his younger brother without any particular preparation, he felt no great sense of panic in his heart.
When he thought it over carefully, the openings they had left behind were actually rather few.
Though Han Fengyue’s men had seen their faces, they had no knowledge whatsoever of their true identities. Tracking them down would be like searching for a needle in the ocean — the only tool of any use would be a wanted poster.
But in most situations, a wanted poster was little more than a deterrent.
Han Fengyue’s group had passed through Xiangzhou, and they would certainly have seen the wanted posters issued there for the three of them — and yet Han Fengyue had recognized nothing, had he?
What a wanted poster actually looked like came entirely down to luck.
The artists who drew wanted posters for the local magistrates were not master painters of consummate skill. If a portrait came out even forty percent resembling the actual person, it was considered a remarkable stroke of ancestral fortune. For a portrait to truly capture a genuine likeness, it required not only outstanding artistic skill on the part of the artist, but also a witness with a steady head, a sharp memory, and the ability to describe clearly what they had seen — expecting a wanted poster to catch a criminal was frankly less realistic than expecting the criminal to walk in and turn themselves in.
Beyond that, the world was vast and boundless. Great Yan alone had sixteen military commissioners. If things truly became untenable, he could take Shen Blockhead and his two brothers and go find a new world beyond the seas.
Whatever happened, he would not hand Shen Blockhead over to these black-hearted creatures.
Shen Zhuxi had grown restless waiting inside the carriage. At last the carriage door was opened from outside. Li Wu bent down and, before she could get a clear look at the situation outside, climbed in.
“How are things out there?” Shen Zhuxi asked anxiously.
“Safe now — it’s just that they soiled themselves from every end while fleeing, so the ground out there doesn’t look too pleasant. Close your eyes when you come out.”
“Do I have to go out?” Shen Zhuxi asked in surprise.
“The carriage can’t manage the road ahead very well. If we pack up the essentials and ride on horseback, it’ll be much more convenient.” Li Wu said as he began gathering up the essentials on the carriage.
Seeing his hand moving toward the vanity case where she kept her phoenix token, Shen Zhuxi was startled. She snatched up the vanity case before he could reach it: “I’ll pack my own things!”
“I’m hardly eager to pack for you anyway.” Li Wu said with displeasure. “Hurry up — leave your rolled paper behind, we’ll buy more when we get to the city.”
“I know!” Shen Zhuxi said loudly, suppressing her guilty conscience.
Shen Zhuxi packed her essentials as quickly as she could. She had just bent down to climb out of the carriage when Li Wu, who was waiting at the door, suddenly scooped her up into his arms. Before she had time to let out a startled cry, Li Wu had already brought one hand up to cover her eyes.
“Don’t start shrieking now — if you startle me, your old man just might drop you.”
Shen Zhuxi swallowed the cry that had been rising in her throat.
Li Wu carried her one-armed, and with nimble ease swung himself up onto the back of the large yellow horse that stood at the head of the carriage.
“Ride!” Li Wu dug his heels into the horse’s flank, and the large yellow horse lifted its hooves and broke into a gallop.
The wind and dust rose, wild and unrestrained.
Hooves lifted high, leaping over one body after another.
Li Wu, full of bold and sweeping spirit, raised his voice and recited:
“Ten paces, one man slain — your old man buries no graves.”
“Grave-digging is charged separately — taking losses is not my way.”
“Great fortune comes from heaven, modest fortune from what I find.”
“Who reigns supreme at scavenging? Your humble Duck — king of them all!”
“This poem shall be titled ‘The Ballad of the Duck-Wanderer!’ Blockhead, what do you think?”
Shen Zhuxi: “……”
It was her own fault. She never should have told him the story of “The Ballad of the Wandering Hero.”
She was the sinner of the ages who had brought shame upon Li Bai’s name.
Li Wu, entirely oblivious to her mortification, galloped on with all the high-spirited grandeur of a man in his element.
Freed from the weight of the heavy carriage behind them, the large yellow horse was like a creature returned to the open steppe, tearing across the road in a full-tilt, unbridled sprint. Li Kun and Li Que’s horses, on the other hand, went from light to burdened, and their steps were no longer as nimble as before.
When Shen Zhuxi had been inside the carriage, she had already suspected the horse was no good at pulling carriages — now she was beginning to suspect it was no good at carrying people, either. She was bounced about on horseback in a seven-kinds-of-dazed, eight-kinds-of-confused stupor, and it was only because Li Wu kept her pressed firmly against him with one arm that she did not tumble off the horse.
To evade whatever pursuing soldiers might come from behind, the four of them on two horses did not continue toward Xuzhou. Instead they changed course once again, setting off on the road toward Tangzhou.