Chapter 129

"Auntie, I'm doing well in Jingcheng; I've been promoted again."

"Xue Lao arranged a spacious lodging for me, with plenty of snacks—delicious too—and I've met many like-minded friends; we often go hunting together. The spring scenery in Jingcheng is beautiful, the people live in peace and prosperity, and I'm getting along very well…"

Li Guanyi picked up his brush.

He pondered how to write the letter to his aunt.

Yesterday he stormed the Ghost Market, cut down many men, and his blade was even dulled; he wasn't at the Xue residence now—his surroundings were plain, the windows barred with wrist-thick hundred-forged steel, the boy sat cross-legged, idly shoving a steamed bun into his mouth, eating it with gusto.

This was the Jin Wuwei's detention cell.

Commonly called the little black room.

Master Siming vanished yesterday for no apparent reason; the General dragged him back, stripped his rank token, weapons, and battle halberd, then kicked him in the buttocks and tossed him into the little black room before storming off to brawl with the city guards.

It's said their Jin Wuwei General stood alone on the Imperial Road and cursed at dozens of men.

He was a true old veteran thug who rose from the bottom ranks.

Once let loose, he ranted nonstop, every three words mentioning his ancestors.

The officials turned purple with rage, stammering "y-y-you" over and over—some even fainted from anger.

Gong Zhenyong sneered, asking if he'd spent too much time in brothels.

So those few civil officials woke up again.

Ding-ding-ding, ding-ding-ding—

A light tapping came at the window; Li Guanyi ignored it. The tapping ceased, then came a crisp thud—as if something had been tossed in. The boy's ears twitched.

Huh? Gold?!

Li Guanyi blinked, turned his head, and saw a tiny speck of gold right in front of him. He reached out, picked it up. Then a second piece landed before him. The boy picked up several more, slowly walking to the window, and looked up.

A pale finger flicked him on the forehead.

He sat there, looking up, and saw a smiling face—pale as jade, eyes bright as apricot kernels, black hair hanging in twin pigtails, bangs falling over her brow—it was the Young Lady.

"You're such a gold addict!"

The Young Lady scolded: "I had to use gold just to lure you over."

Li Guanyi's face broke into a radiant smile: "Young Lady!"

Xue Shuangtao stood on a stone, tiptoeing: "Two days ago you fought General Yue Qianfeng, the Crimson Dragon. I wanted to visit you, but Grandfather said you were fine and told me to stay inside the palace. But only two days later, why are you fighting again?"

Li Guanyi grinned: "Can't help it—I just ran into it…"

"Now you've lost even your Eighth Rank. Your crimson robe, your Bai Yu belt—all stripped away."

This was actually Gong Zhenyong protecting him.

Generals from the military frontier were famously protective of their own.

"My own man—I'm the one who strips his robe and rank. What are you doing? I've done this much already—are you now demanding I chop him up?!"

"If you chop him today, are you challenging me?"

"Who dares speak? I'll grab my blade right now and go chop that boy to pieces—I'll remember you for life!"

As Gong Zhenyong pinched his own thigh, eyes red, he spat these words—the civil officials all wilted. No one wanted to push a palace guard general to the brink, especially not Gong Zhenyong, the 【Qin Xun Yi Wei Yu Lin Lang Jiang】.

What is Yi Wei?

Only great-grandsons of Second Rank, grandsons of Third Rank, or sons of Fourth Rank may hold this post.

Qin Xun Yi Wei is higher still: sons of Second or Third Rank may be appointed as personal guards.

Qin Xun Yi Wei Yu Lin Lang Jiang means that every one of Gong Zhenyong's men is at least the son of a Fourth Rank military officer; the upper limit? The actual sons of Second Rank ministers, princes, and Supreme Pillars of State. Gong Zhenyong's current rank isn't high, but every great general in history has held this position.

His men aren't soldiers—they're officers.

No one dared offend him.

Gong Zhenyong used the crude tactics of a bottom-rank thug to debate a room full of scholars.

Li Guanyi, meanwhile, sat in the little black room, thinking—when he felt a hand rub his head. He looked up and saw the girl on tiptoe outside the window, bathed in sunlight, smiling brightly at him: "Mm-hmm. But you did the right thing."

"If no one praises you, I will."

"You're my Mr. Li."

"The Fire Qilin of the world!"

"Even if the Emperor himself thinks you're wrong, I'll stand by you."

The boy looked up, said nothing, just stood there letting the Young Lady tousle his hair. He handed her the letter: "Young Lady, deliver this to my aunt. Tell her not to worry."

Xue Shuangtao nodded, then said: "Hold out your hand."

Li Guanyi frowned, confused, but extended his palm. The girl placed her hand in it and opened her fingers.

A handful of gold beans.

"They punished you—but I stand with you."

"These are all my gold beans—I saved them for years. I'm giving them all to you."

Xue Shuangtao's face beamed with a radiant smile:

"Don't say it's too little."

The girl waved, turned, and lightly leapt off the stone. Li Guanyi clutched the gold beans, silent. He felt his mood lift—her words, her comfort, her coming to him now, meant more than the gold.

Xue Shuangtao's smile vanished, replaced by worry.

She bit her lip and ran to find her aunt.

And after the girl had walked far away,

A boy burst from the grass, eyes wide, crouching, still clutching two blades of grass. Two more emerged behind the rockery, one flipped out from behind a stone, two floated up from the pond.

They spat out two mouthfuls of waterweed.

The boys exchanged glances, then surged together with a splash to the window.

Zhou Liu cried: "Boss, what's going on here?"

"Why has the eldest Young Lady of the Xue family come specifically to see you?!"

Li Guanyi rolled his eyes and said, "Don't call me boss!"

Zhou Liuying said, "Alright, boss."

"No problem, boss."

Then the young Imperial Guard officers all burst into laughter together.

Li Guanyi's mouth corner twitched.

He always felt that this title sounded like some bandit chieftain's boss. After yesterday's events, by now, Li Guanyi's prestige among the young men of the martial-merit noble families had reached a boiling point. The civil officials' sons felt that a son of wealth and rank should not sit in a dangerous hall, and that he had been too reckless.

The martial-merit noble family sons, however, felt it was thrilling, and when mentioning him they no longer called him by name.

Those ten Imperial Guards who had broken through the Ghost Market all had capital to boast about outside.

Zhou Liuying laughed loudly and said: "Boss, let me tell you, yesterday I climbed over the wall to get out, and even stole a horse from home, but when I went back later, my old man didn't even hit me, just asked me one thing."

"Asked me whether I was afraid at the time, and whether I was brave against the enemy."

"I said I didn't retreat a single step, and my old man actually drank with me! He never used to let me drink at home, hahahaha, it was the first time he treated me like this, told me I must follow you."

Zhou Liuying was puffed up with pride.

Li Guanyi sighed and said, "Alright, alright, how did the matter I asked you about go?"

Zhou Liuying and Ye Buyi exchanged a glance and said: "General Gong is still spraying blood at those civil officials and great Confucian scholars. At this point, the civil officials' meaning is no longer that you killed people, but that before the Grand Sacrifice, you actually stirred up such a huge incident, causing the Chen Kingdom to lose face before all the other nations, damaging the nation's foundation."

"Saying you don't understand the big picture."

"The General was about to be unable to hold on."

"But don't worry, Scholar Wang Tong stepped in."

"Then, we swept the area around the Ghost Market—armor, crossbow bolts, and people. Those people there basically don't have enough lives even if they had three; their relatives who don't report them will be exiled three thousand li, probably having to go to the Western Regions as laborers for life. Those who commit evil are all to be beheaded; hanging is not equal to it."

"The chief villains are to be executed by lingchi."

"The Imperial Guards worked all night, all young men cooped up in the palace with nothing to do and bursting with energy. The people they pulled out weren't just the dozen or so you rescued—there are about a thousand people in total still alive."

"According to our country's laws, each is given silver, sent back to their hometown. If they have no relatives, they are settled on the spot, given land and exempted from taxes for three years. After Xue Laoyezi learned of your matter, he took over handling all these people—basically no different from what you guessed."

Li Guanyi nodded and said softly.

"A thousand people…"

Ye Buyi and Zhou Liuying exchanged a glance. They did not mention that when the Imperial Guards went, they found boiled human leg bones—not from lack of food. The chief villain was a scoundrel who told the Imperial Guards he just wanted to try it out, that he hadn't gotten many people involved.

All his people were here, so he immediately confessed and submitted to the law, saying not many were killed, could he be shown leniency? Gong Zhenyong hacked him three hundred times with a blade, whittling him down to a skeleton; he died from fright and pain upon seeing his own white bones.

But Li Guanyi had already guessed something.

He cupped his hands: "Many thanks, brothers."

Ye Buyi, Zhou Liuying, and the others solemnly returned the salute.

The youth thought for a moment, stretched out his hand—in his palm were the golden beans the Young Lady had given him: "Although they were given by the Young Lady, I'll borrow flowers to offer to Buddha—let me treat you brothers to a drink."

The crowd exchanged glances, and Ye Buyi said: "That was given to you by the eldest Young Lady of the Xue family."

Li Guanyi said with a slight smile: "Her gift to me is worth more than gold."

"That cannot be divided among you."

Everyone laughed, and only then accepted, feeling even more goodwill toward the youth currently locked up in prison.

They only felt it was thrilling.

Li Guanyi sat there, his mood not at all pleasant. Many things were gradually taking shape in his mind. He looked at the sky and for the first time began to think about where he and his aunt would go. The youth's head knocked against the wall.

After a while, he heard noisy sounds again—those young martial officers had come back, bringing wine and meat, and more friends, then set up a banquet right outside the Imperial Guard's detention place.

Then a wine cup was passed in through the window, and Ye Buyi said: "Come, drink together."

Li Guanyi agreed with a smile.

After a bout of drinking, that group of ten became thirty-three—they had brought all their martial-merit friends over, and then drank together heartily. But after all, they were Imperial Guards and couldn't stay here too long, so in the end it was Li Guanyi alone again.

Xue Lao came once, told him not to worry, and also said he had been reckless.

The old man's voice was gentle: "Saving people is like putting out a fire; this old man understands your meaning, but you do have other options…" The old man told Li Guanyi about the choice of planning before acting, and other more stable methods, and said:

"You leveraged the Imperial Guards and the Grand Sacrifice to kick this Ghost Market into the fire, but you yourself inevitably got caught in the backlash. Yet in an urgent situation, this is already the best choice."

"But you did well, did right."

The old man stretched out his hand and picked up a wine cup, asking:

"Will you take advantage of the situation to take these people into your own command?"

Li Guanyi replied: "Saving people is saving people; I didn't do those things in order to subdue them."

Xue Lao laughed, and said softly: "Stubborn, obstinate child, but that's fine too—only this kind is blazing. A youth without this spirit isn't a youth. The scheming matters, we'll handle them. Then, this old man is going to teach you something."

"You should already know, right?"

Li Guanyi's pupils paused slightly, and he nodded.

The old man stretched out a finger and pointed at Li Guanyi, each word deliberate: "You saved them and sent them back to their hometowns, but today you destroyed a band of thieves. There are still others in the world… they have no power to protect themselves. This world is not a bright and peaceful age—they will surely suffer disaster a second time."

"I once saved a person; that person was rescued seven times, sold seven times, and went mad."

"But the people you saved don't need to worry about these things, because of the Imperial Guards and this old man."

"But one day when you don't have these? These are all external things."

"Without this old man's power, without the identity of an Imperial Guard."

"In this world, saving people is like killing people."

Li Guanyi suddenly understood the heart-wrenching sorrow in Master Siming's eyes, because in certain circumstances, being bought off was already better than being killed during plunder, being taken away, being killed on the road after being violated.

An old man who had lived so long must have seen many sorrowful things.

Li Guanyi looked at Xue Daoyong. The fierce tiger of these troubled times stretched out a hand and ruffled the youth's hair, saying softly: "You knew this old man had your back, so you went to save people; you knew about the Imperial Guards, so you went in alone and broke this Ghost Market. You have courage, you have vision, you dare to gamble and dare to kill."

"But remember, there will come a day when you must have your own 【backbone】."

The old man saw Li Guanyi's expression, patted his head, and laughed: "No need to feel guilty—we're bound by an oath, and shielding our younger kin, allowing them to err and then grow, is precisely our duty toward you."

"But—"

He looked at Li Guanyi and said softly: "You must grow."

"A youth with spirit is like Bai Hu with wings—but if he does not grow, he remains a fool."

The things churning within Li Guanyi coalesced; he bowed his hands.

"I humbly accept your teaching."

The old man left.

There was also a pot of wine here.

There were scrolls, but all of them were admonitions about loyalty to the emperor and love for the nation.

He kicked off his shoes, sat cross-legged there—it was already night—when suddenly the chains were unlocked. Unexpectedly, a scholar entered: young, yet with solemn bearing, clad in a purple robe—it was Wang Tong.

Seeing Li Guanyi drinking alone at night, Wang Tong smiled freely and said:

"Li Guanyi, you're quite carefree."

Li Guanyi rose to greet him: "Master?! How did you come here?"

Wang Tong lifted the imperial edict in his hand and said: "Naturally, to deliver you an imperial decree." He sat casually beside Li Guanyi, tossed the edict to him without ceremony, and said: "The ministers argued all day—it was Dan Tai Xianming who submitted the decree."

"He said: you cleared the Ghost Market—you must be rewarded; yet you disrupted the Grand Sacrifice and shamed the state—you must be punished. Your punishment shall be postponed. As for the Ghost Market, it will surely be eradicated, but publicly, this matter must be suppressed and kept from public knowledge."

"The Emperor said 'agreed.'"

"Your reward and punishment will likely be decided after the Grand Sacrifice."

Li Guanyi fell silent.

Wang Tong said: "After all, this is Chen."

"Speaking of which, since we first met after the fall of Yicheng, this long absence was because back then you were full of spirit—but still too fiery, seeing only the bright side of the world. Only now, after showing you its darkness, can I begin to teach you."

"You've seen it now—how do you feel?"

Li Guanyi suppressed his true thoughts, yet still said: "It's not pleasant."

"I feel suffocated. I feel I won't live long."

Wang Tong asked: "Why?"

The youth said: "At the Chen Grand Sacrifice, beneath Jiangzhou's walls, it's like this—so in ordinary times, Jiangzhou must be worse. If Jingcheng is like this, what of the whole realm?" He pointed to his own eyes: "My nature won't let me ignore injustice."

"The world is in chaos, and I'm not blind."

The youth sat there, his head thudding against the pillar: "My nature."

"In this world."

"Is destined to end badly."

Wang Tong raised his wine cup and laughed: "Good curse!"

"The Emperor said your Mu Zi Yi and recklessness are indeed true—he said you've read too little, so he sent me to teach you before the Grand Sacrifice—that itself is a reward. Come, read some classics, histories, philosophers, and collections."

Li Guanyi said: "Classics, histories, philosophers, and collections—no matter how much you read, you're still just a gentleman."

"A gentleman cannot save this chaotic world."

Wang Tong frowned: "There is truth of the sages in books."

Li Guanyi fell quiet, pressed his chest, and said:

"I had a master. I truly had a master."

"He said: you must clean the house before inviting guests. To me, this world is full of trash—no matter how fine something is, if you put it in a house full of trash, it only looks more chaotic."

Wang Tong seemed struck through; he fell silent, then said:

"The Six Arts of the gentleman—which do you favor?"

Li Guanyi answered: "Ritual, music, archery, charioteering, writing, arithmetic. Reading and writing poetry is enough. Arithmetic—I can manage. Archery and swordsmanship—kill ten, a hundred? Even two hundred—what then?"

"Just a ten-man fighter."

"A hundred-man fighter."

Wang Tong looked at him and laughed bitterly:

"You want to learn the art of the overlord from eight hundred years ago—the ten-thousand-man fighter?"

Li Guanyi looked at his master and said: "Can I trust you?"

"Yes."

"Do you see the common people in your eyes?"

Wang Tong said: "Yes."

"Good."

Thus, all his past experiences gathered in Li Guanyi's heart—all his memories, and Xue Lao's words. He raised his wine cup toward the master before him and said:

"Before, I only wanted to escort my aunt back to Jiangnan. We relied on each other. I was terrified of death—terribly afraid—because I feared that if I died, we'd be the only two left in this world."

"If I died, what would become of my aunt?"

"She'd be alone in this world, with no one to fight over roast goose with, no one to tease—how lonely would that be? Just thinking of it kept me awake all night."

"But yesterday I learned: there are others who care for her, who look after her. Leaving her there—she will be safe, absolutely safe—even without me. And as for myself..."

Li Guanyi closed his eyes: Qian Zheng, the farmer, the traffickers, the black market, the deserters, the Emperor, the noble clans, his parents, Yuwen Lie—this world, this blood feud with his parents, this fated enemy—he must avenge his parents' blood. His enemy is the Emperor of a great nation.

His fated adversary, the one he is doomed to kill, is the Fifth Divine General of the realm.

He closed his eyes: "Master, my life will end either in great triumph or great ruin."

He bowed deeply, his heart finally radiating clarity:

"I will not learn the art of the ten-thousand-man fighter."

"I wish to learn the art of the Red Emperor—the ten-million-man fighter!"

Wang Tong looked at the boy before him.

The cup in his hand slipped unconsciously to the ground, wine spilling, the fiery aroma unchanged.

After a long while, he exhaled.

This peerless great scholar slowly raised his hand in return.

"—Agreed."

The Historical Records, Annals I: ■ Though he did not cultivate Confucian learning in youth, his nature was clear and perceptive, fond of strategy, able to listen, bold and courageous; at fifteen he became a Gold Guard, once wielding a three-foot sword to penetrate shadowy realms, walking alone to slay over a hundred, saving nearly a thousand, drawing the emperor's suspicion, and being imprisoned within the palace.

The Master of Wenzhong went to visit him, sat close, and spoke.

He straightened his robes and cap, then bowed — and cultivated the art of defeating ten thousand men.

Within the prison.

He first saw the world.

………………

The next day, while Li Guanyi was sound asleep, he heard the commotion outside again — it seemed Gong Zhenyong was there. He rubbed his eyes and went over, saying, "What now…" The door opened, and he saw the youths, saw Gong Zhenyong, who stared strangely at Li Guanyi.

"Kid, you've got quite the network…"

He stepped back, and the youth in brocade robe and golden crown gently waved his folding fan.

Li Zhaowen.

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