People in tattered clothes with miserable expressions—from octogenarian elders to wailing infants, from men emaciated as skeletons to women too weak to stand straight—densely packed both shores of Luzhen’s inland river.
However, among this crowd of people who had lost their homes, the most common sight wasn’t luggage and bundles, but flowers.
That’s right, fresh flowers, all kinds of fresh flowers.
White camellias, red balsams, March peach blossoms, April pear blossoms, brilliant yellow sunflowers, purple rhododendrons—all the flowers of spring were blooming to their fullest in their hands.
However, when Mo Zi looked carefully, she discovered that more than half the flowers had already withered, their petals yellowed and wilting on the branches. Looking further down at the ground, there were actually layers upon layers of petals, almost trampled into black mud, with only the topmost ones still showing some pink, white, and red. These people on the shores were not the first to arrive, and probably not the last either.
“Good heavens, where did all these people come from?” The Great Zhou had enjoyed peace and prosperity for a long time. Even though Bai He had traveled outside with Qiu Sanniang before, she had never seen so many faces full of suffering.
“They should be Yuling refugees.” Having heard of Ai Lian’s death, Mo Zi could feign indifference, but when she spoke these four words, sorrow rose from within her heart.
“Refugees?” Bai He stared blankly at those people. “Has Yuling really fallen as a nation?”
Those who have never experienced war will never understand how cruel war is!
Mo Zi bit her teeth, her eyes reddening. She was a soldier from a peaceful era, but had participated in rescue missions during multiple submarine disasters, watching warriors die helplessly before her eyes. She thought her will was strong enough, but when she saw the Yuling refugees, the impact she received was so enormous it drowned out everything in her mind—she could not think, could not speak.
Was it because she herself was a Yuling person, and the feeling of national destruction and family ruin that she couldn’t sense in distant Luo Zhou had finally surged forth in this moment?
She didn’t know.
She only knew that her heartache was about to tear her body into pieces.
“Big boat! Big boat!” Children’s voices, childish, not yet fully comprehending reality, not yet having abandoned hope for the future.
“Three young misses, buy flowers.” One voice began running alongside the boat.
“Miss, buy my white camellias.” A second voice began running alongside.
“Buy my peach branches, buy my spring apricots”—many voices began running alongside.
The voices became the faces of a dozen or so older children. They ran alongside the boat, reaching their small hands high, as if that way the flowers could be seen more clearly by Mo Zi and the others.
“Big sister, I just picked this hundred-day red when crossing the river. It can still bloom for a long, long time. Please buy it. Just five copper coins. My little brother is sick and wants to eat meat buns.” The shortest little girl among the children, probably seven or eight years old, her face filthy, her arms as thin as the peach branches of the children beside her.
She ran very fast, but because she was too small and thin, wearing adult clothes that hindered her movement, she was quickly pulled to the back by the bigger children. She let out a single cry, then disappeared from Mo Zi’s sight.
Survival of the fittest, the strong prey on the weak. How simple to say, but when Mo Zi faced those children desperately begging them to buy a single flower, she couldn’t apply this rule, because it was simply too cruel.
“How pitiful.” Boatman A’Da walked over, shaking his head and sighing. “Most likely they escaped from Yuling’s Baihua Zhou. More than half the people there are flower farmers. In this season there would normally be hundreds upon hundreds of boats carrying flowers to various docks in Hua Zhou, then resold throughout the nation. I heard that the people of Baihua Zhou treasure flowers like life itself, relying entirely on the flower season to earn their living for the year. The flowers in these people’s hands are now their only possessions.”
The boats that once carried flowers now carried the people who grew them—no wonder these shores, so desolate, released such rich floral fragrance.
Unfortunately, those who grew flowers were powerless to protect them, and those who viewed flowers had no heart to appreciate them.
“Buy flowers, please, we beg you, the flowers are about to wither, once they wither we can’t exchange them for money, so hungry, really so hungry”—the tottering flowers were their last chance to realize a small feast.
“Stop the boat.” Mo Zi heard someone say.
It wasn’t Bai He. She had already cried through a silk handkerchief, her eyes blurred with tears, unable to speak at all.
It wasn’t Xiao Yi either. She was a maid who didn’t like to speak orders, preferring to express herself through actions.
The person calling to stop the boat was Mo Zi herself. When rationality returned to her mind, before she could even manage a bitter smile, she heard—
“We cannot stop the boat!”
Mo Zi looked up and saw Second Master Xiao frowning deeply, looking down from the second-floor deck at the shores on both sides.
“If we stop the boat, what do you plan to do?” Drawing his gaze back, Xiao Wei looked coldly at Mo Zi.
Of course Mo Zi knew that stopping the boat was absurd. With so many refugees, trying to help them with her property of eight taels of silver was simply a fantasy. But once again, she heard her own voice.
“If we stop the boat, I can buy buns for that little girl’s brother.” Yes, she was very skilled at saving people with buns.
Xiao Wei glanced over but couldn’t see any little girl. However, he wasn’t stupid and could understand Mo Zi’s meaning. “Help one little girl, but what about those other children? Can you help every single person? Even if you can help them for one meal, can you help them for three meals, for a month, a year, a lifetime?”
Shi Lei came forward, also frowning heavily. “What bird’s use is good intentions! Truly a woman—long hair, short insight.”
Help one person at a time. If she took out all her silver, at least she could buy two baskets of steamed buns. That seriously ill little brother, if he ate his fill, might have resistance, might be able to survive. And those children whose flowers were about to wither—if full for one meal, they could endure two more days, their chance of being saved might increase by twenty percent. But if she did nothing, under such difficult conditions, children would be the first to suffer.
Mo Zi opened her mouth. The words in her heart were right on the tip of her tongue, but in the end she fell silent. On the Yongfu, she could have told Second Master Xiao to get lost, but on this boat she was just a second-class maid. And even if the boat could stop, even if she could buy ten or twenty baskets of steamed buns, it would only make the Yuling people’s eyes red with competition. Once a riot was triggered, the consequences would be unthinkable.
“General Xiao speaks correctly. Mo Zi was thinking too simply.” Her autumn spring eyes lowered in compromise. Mo Zi took Bai He with one hand and Xiao Yi with the other, walking toward the forward cabin. “With so many refugees, sailing might also encounter troubles. To avoid frightening the ladies and young misses, please speed up the boat and enter the town as soon as possible.” Out of sight, out of mind.
“What’s wrong with this girl? One moment she’s not using her brain wanting to stop the boat, the next moment she seems enlightened wanting to flee quickly—she’s saying everything.” Shi Lei tugged his big beard and glanced quickly backward, then looked back at the refugees on shore. “Don’t know what the situation is really like inside Yuling. We’ve been away from the capital for over two months, and to catch that fellow, we can’t even contact the Ministry of War.”
After grumbling for a while about the number one corrupt official and finding Xiao Wei gave him no reaction at all, he forcefully patted his shoulder. “Brother Bai Yu, what are you thinking about so intently?”
“That maid called me General Xiao.” A very strange feeling.
“Huh?” Shi Lei was rough and careless. “Probably thinks ‘General’ sounds imposing. All that ‘Young Master’ this and that—even I find it effeminate.”
“It seems the reconciliation envoy the Emperor sent was of no use. Da Qiu has always been wildly ambitious—meat already in their mouth won’t be spit out.” Xiao Wei calculated from the number and timing of the refugees. “Yuling has probably already fallen as a nation.”
“Will Da Qiu attack us?” With wolf’s ambitions, the possibility of pressing the advantage was very high.
“That depends on Da Qiu’s current military strength. If attacking Yuling consumed too much, they’ll certainly lower their flags and rest, recovering their strength. Moreover, transforming Yuling people into Da Qiu people cannot be accomplished overnight.” Xiao Wei estimated they most likely wouldn’t immediately invade the Great Zhou.
“Yuling is a small nation but with rich land, with so many wealthy merchants and tycoons, each one rich enough to rival a nation. Now they’ve all become subjects under Da Qiu’s rule—truly detestable to the extreme.” Da Qiu was equivalent to swallowing down countless gold and jewels. Shi Lei felt greatly unbalanced. “Knowing this, our Great Zhou should have sent troops first. A hundred years ago, Yuling was originally our Great Zhou territory.”
“The four nations have been at peace for so long—who could have thought it?” Xiao Wei could only speak of it. Actually, it should have been anticipated. Three years ago, envoys from Nande, Da Qiu, and Yuling all gathered in the Great Zhou capital. The Da Qiu Crown Prince personally led the delegation. That man, only nineteen years old, gentlemanly and refined—yet he inadvertently let him see soul-stealing eyes.
“Luzhen has also deployed heavy troops for defense.” Shi Lei saw military boats arrayed on the river, bows and crossbows drawn, while on shore temporary checkpoints had been set up with several hundred sword-bearing soldiers stationed on both sides, preventing refugees from entering the town.
“Blocking them outside isn’t a solution either.” Although Xiao Wei disagreed with Mo Zi stopping the boat, he wasn’t truly coldhearted.
“Letting them in is even less of a solution. So many people surging in all at once—they’re not our Great Zhou citizens, so who will feed them? If they go mad with hunger and burn, kill, and plunder, what won’t they do? Luzhen doesn’t have heavy troop defense for the city—one or two thousand troops simply aren’t enough to suppress over ten thousand refugees.” Shi Lei was annoyed to death. “What is Hua Zhou’s water garrison doing, letting them all through?”
Hua Zhou and Yuling were separated by three rivers and five peaks. The two nations each shared one and a half rivers and two and a half peaks. At the border on the gorge shores, water garrisons and defense towns were established. Year-round there were at least ten thousand naval soldiers and five hundred warships. Since Da Qiu and Yuling started fighting, the Great Zhou’s strongest naval force of fifty thousand troops and a thousand warships had been deployed, guarding these water garrisons and defense towns as solid as gold.
“Probably they’re thinking the same as you.” Xiao Wei wasn’t surprised.
“The same as what?” Having spoken so much, he couldn’t remember which sentence.
“Yuling was originally our Great Zhou territory, so these refugees’ ancestors were also our Great Zhou citizens. Not let them in? Should we leave them to be trampled by Da Qiu instead?” Letting them in was certain, only how to solve these people’s food and clothing was an extremely thorny problem. After all, Yuling had been an independent nation for many years—many Great Zhou people wouldn’t consider them Great Zhou citizens.
At this moment, Boatman A’Da shouted out, “Sirs, there are official soldiers wanting to come aboard to inspect the boat.”
Xiao Wei looked and saw a small patrol boat blocking their path ahead. On it were twenty naval soldiers holding long spears with bows and arrows on their backs, strutting with heads held high, looking up at them with sidelong glances.
“Just let them come aboard.” Since Xiao Wei and Shi Lei couldn’t expose their identities, they naturally couldn’t display the official authority of superior to subordinate. They could only set up the gangplank to welcome the soldiers aboard.