Chapter 512: Part Two: Heavy Bet!

Clack, clack, clack, clack.

The crisp sound of chess pieces tapping lightly against the board made even the ornaments beside it tremble faintly; the white-haired, white-bearded old man in loose robes sat placidly inside the Xue family's small courtyard.

Across from him sat Li Guanyi, now grown up.

The Listening Wind Pavilion.

The small courtyard residence where Xue Daoyong himself lived—listen to the wind rise, listen to the wind chant—it was also the place where this fierce tiger of troubled times sniffed at the world with care; in his youth, it was here that Li Guanyi saw the divine weapon, the Cloud-Piercing Heaven-Shaking Bow.

It was also Xue Daoyong who, in that brief span of time, saw in the then thirteen-year-old Li Guanyi the boldness to change the world; now this fierce tiger of troubled times seemed to be tapping the chessboard, seemed to be pondering the game, but in truth was sizing up Li Guanyi.

Several days had already passed since that unprecedented—and likely never to be repeated—coming-of-age ceremony; the situation across the realm appeared calm on the surface, but in truth still lay in a faint tremor, the four corners swept as if by a storm.

And without a doubt, the one who stirred the realm's upheaval, the surging waves, was precisely this youth who had just come of age before their eyes; Li Guanyi held a chess piece between his fingers, his gaze calm, contemplating the board in silence, and the wind caught in his sleeves was itself a single thread that stirred the world.

The Empress Xue and Chen Tianyi had already been brought back to the Xue household.

Chen Dingye's methods were indeed ruthless; Chen Tianyi's primordial spirit had suffered a certain degree of impact, and by the most direct means the memories of Chen Dingye within that primordial spirit had been completely erased—a physical obliteration, more direct and more cruel than any number of primordial-spirit mystic arts.

But for Chen Tianyi, perhaps this very cruelty was the last sliver of warmth hidden in Chen Dingye's heart.

Otherwise, Chen Tianyi and Noble Consort Xue would have found it extremely difficult to face Li Guanyi.

Xue Daoyong deliberated for a long while, then set down a piece, saying: "Your achievements of such merit, and your relationship with Shuangtao—within the clan, many people already know of it, and even those who don't can guess it."

"And now, whether those who once held goodwill toward you both, or those who, because of Chen Dingye's machinations, are rather displeased with you and wish to have my Xue family place its bet on Tianyi—regarding your arrival…"

"They are very pleased."

Li Guanyi set down a piece and said: "Pleased?"

Xue Daoyong smiled faintly: "The realm has been in turmoil for over three hundred years; across those three hundred-odd years, over a vast territory of ten thousand li, how many heroes rose, ceaselessly warring against one another—and now at last they see the possibility of unifying the realm."

"Relying on the bond between you, Guanyi, and the Xue family, they have already begun dreaming."

"Perhaps in those dreams, gold and silver, power and rank, honors and titles, are all within easy reach."

Xue Daoyong calmly set down another piece and said: "However, this old man did not expect that, in this age of turmoil, after I roamed the four corners and placed bet after bet, in the end, standing before me at the very last would be the very Xue family offspring I have built up over a hundred years."

"Guanyi, you just go ahead and do what you ought to do."

"The Xue family here—leave it to this old man."

Li Guanyi looked at the old man before him; compared to seven years ago, Xue Daoyong looked far more aged, but that bearing—like a tiger pressing its claws down, extraordinary in mien—remained, unchanged from seven years prior.

"Does Xue Lao mean to move against the Xue family children?"

Xue Daoyong laughed heartily: "Wrong."

"This old man is protecting the true children of the Xue family."

"In times of turmoil, men's hearts are restless and grasping; even though the Xue family has always followed the ancestors' teachings, with so many descendants, in the face of such upheaval, there are more and more who cannot contain themselves. What this old man has built is already enough to grant them wealth and rank."

"This old man's relationship with you is also enough to let them live out their days in peace."

"Greed that knows no bounds is the root of a man's downfall; ambition that suddenly rises is the very origin of inviting disaster upon oneself. This old man is the head of the Xue family; to avoid the day when the great blade falls and slaughters my Xue family to the last, implicating all nine clans, it is better to root out this calamity in advance."

A wind seemed to rise; the pond outside the Listening Wind Pavilion rippled, and even the four-cornered hanging curtains of the pavilion seemed to sway gently in that breeze; Xue Daoyong smiled and said: "This old man speaks bluntly—these people, if their hearts are not gathered in early, you, Guanyi, might still be able to tolerate them for a time."

"But the passage of a thousand autumns is what wears away kindness most of all."

"As the days slowly pass, one always fears that their ambition will grow day by day, until one day they touch a true bottom line that must not be touched; the Fire Qilin's blade-edge falls, and the Xue family is likely to suffer grievous casualties, while you too will inevitably leave behind a stroke of cold-hearted ingratitude upon the endless green annals of history."

"This old man valued you back then, but not for such an outcome."

Li Guanyi set down a piece, looked at the old man before him, and spoke of that long-ago conversation with the elder, his voice warm and even: "In business, speak of profit."

"Great merchants scheme for a state."

"And Xue Lao schemes for an eternal peace."

Xue Daoyong laughed heartily: "Hahaha, 'eternal peace'—the weight of those four characters is really a bit too heavy; truly cannot be dwelt upon."

His voice paused briefly, then he sighed again, clenched his fist and murmured: "But are the affairs of the world such that, because they cannot be done, one does not strive for them? In times of turmoil, when the situation shifts suddenly and the winds are hard to settle, all men are afraid."

"I, however, say otherwise—steel the heart, possess such boldness, stride alone like a tiger, and place a heavy bet."

"Now the heavens are at peace, the winds are gradually stilling, the situation is Meng Dahao."

"Others say this is the time to advance with vigor; I, however, say no."

"At this very juncture, one should rather retreat before the torrent, lie dormant, only thus can one preserve oneself."

"This advance and this retreat—this is everything this old man has gained over a hundred-odd years; in the final analysis, it is simply gathering this heart so it does not move, does not waver."

Li Guanyi said: "Xue Lao…"

Xue Daoyong raised his hand and waved it dismissively, saying: "Speak only of the matter at hand."

"This old man prides himself that over these years he has kept a fairly decent watch over his own boys, but human desire truly cannot be relaxed even a fraction; the slightest lapse, and one may be taken advantage of. And as it happens, this old man especially does not trust that lot."

"However, although we have now taken the capital of Chen, Chen's Jiangzhou city is, after all, one of the top three great fortresses under heaven—Zhenxi Xiongcheng—its sheer size is likely the greatest among all the territories and cities under your control."

"Add to that the population, the factions, the order—after the recent battle, having just been taken into your hand, maintaining such a great city afterward will likely require no small investment of manpower and material resources."

"And on the other side, Yue Pengwu and the others' advance is also extremely difficult."

"They need logistical supplies."

"The northern Turks are still eyeing the Central Plains; Ying's Jiang Wanxiang, though old, is not yet dead—after these successive years of great war, Ying remains the great nation with the deepest reserves; when you must face him later, do you have any strategy?"

Li Guanyi said: "It is nothing more than campaigning, that's all."

Xue Daoyong held a chess piece between his fingers and tapped it once against the table; naturally, someone had already brought two items—both documents—placed one on each side of Xue Daoyong; the old man smiled faintly and said:

"I won't hide it from you: while Yue Pengwu has been campaigning in all directions, the various city lords and great clans across this vast territory—whether they have already clashed with Yue Pengwu and the others, or have not yet encountered them—have all, by every means, sent secret letters from the front to Yicheng, to this old man's hands."

"Here, since you happen to be here, I'll just bring all these things out for you to see."

"Hahaha, no matter what, it's all up to you."

Xue Daoyong swept his sleeve; accompanied by a low tiger's roar, his qi surged like a tide, and the stack of letters placed on the old man's left side flew toward Li Guanyi—each of these letters, one by one, had never been opened.

But judging by their texture, they were all extremely refined.

Some were a single sheet of paper—pine-grain frost paper worth one or two taels of silver; some were even more costly, the so-called pine-needle snow paper, said to be produced only by the Wonderful Brush Mountain Manor—even the names themselves were elegant; under the push of his sleeve's qi, these letters fluttered gracefully, like frost, like snow.

Within the Listening Wind Pavilion sat two men; outside the pavilion the pond rippled, the hanging curtains swayed; and the letters of the foremost noble figures under heaven fluttered like butterflies; the Qin Wang extended his hand, five fingers slightly curled.

He pressed down toward the surface below.

This Changfeng was gripped in his hand and pressed down; those letters fell, and Li Guanyi pinched up one of them, simply extending it casually toward the side, where there stood an ever-burning lamp fueled by the oil of the North Sea Kunpeng, which could burn long without going out.

The letters Li Guanyi had pinched up were handed over and ignited in an instant.

In a flash, they were stained into ash; the very instant they caught fire, the inked characters within the letters all faintly lit up for a moment, a radiance like that of gold, and only then, beneath the licking of the fire-tongues, were they utterly reduced to ash.

Qin Wang's sleeves rolled; the ash of these noble houses' letters left the faintest trace at the bottom of his eyes, and then vanished completely.

Xue Daoyong watched Li Guanyi burn every last letter to ash, and said:

"You don't even look at them, and just burn them like this?"

Li Guanyi said: "What they would say in their letters, I need not read to know — either they mean to make a last-ditch stand, to seize a patch of land and build a hegemony of their own; or they mean to hold out for the highest bidder. If they want to surrender, fine, but they want us to meet their conditions."

"They want us to keep their status, their rights — even if they surrender, the cities they hold are still to remain under their own control, merely paying nominal allegiance to Tiance Prefecture."

"If they truly meant to surrender, their letters wouldn't have come to you, Xue Lao."

Xue Daoyong sighed with feeling, and said:

"After all, this is a way to take many cities of Chen without drawing blade or spear, and it could cut down a great deal of logistical drain. This way, once Chen is unified, when we face Ying, we won't be at too great a disadvantage."

Li Guanyi loosened his fingers, letting the letter in his hand be carried off entirely by the hot wind of the flame; he drew back his palm and answered: "But it would plant hidden dangers."

"Hidden dangers that would erupt fully in later generations, severing the very foundations of an age of peace. I won't say something like 'let my generation fight all the wars, all the battles.' Every generation has its own 'war.'"

"But I will not throw these hidden dangers to later generations."

Qin Wang sat back down, his bearing carrying a resolve and grandeur that even moved Xue Daoyong:

"Fight!"

"No compromise!"

"No ambiguity whatsoever."

"Not unification won through negotiation and treaty, through surrender and the exchange of profit, but a realm leveled by blade and sword, by blood and qi. Every opponent is met with hard blade and hard spear — an open, above-board contest beneath heaven."

"Defeat every opponent, crush every foe; only upon the ruins of the past generation can a new age and a new spirit possibly be built. How could such a great undertaking brook the slightest compromise?"

"To have such an open, above-board grandeur of a great nation, there is only fighting — fighting until the enemy surrenders utterly, fighting until total victory."

"Xue Lao, only peace and the founding of the state."

"Within it, not the slightest impurity can be allowed."

Li Guanyi sighed with feeling, lifted the chess piece in his hand, and set it back down upon the board.

Xue Daoyong looked at the young man before him and felt an indescribable emotion. If one were a seasoned great merchant, a powerful minister of the realm, a chancellor, then everything in this world was, at its essence, nothing more than an exchange of profit.

But upon this still-young monarch, there seemed to burn a kind of persistence that transcended profit. He too pursued profit, he too had his own preferences, yet on this one matter alone, he was utterly stubborn, refusing to yield an inch.

It was precisely this stubbornness that, for some reason, stirred Xue Daoyong.

The tiger that had galloped through these chaotic times felt his heart begin to beat faster beyond his control; that aged frame, that blood and qi tempered through years of scheming atop a rotting officialdom, was jolted by such valor and persistence that it boiled up anew, burning so fiercely that Xue Daoyong's very heart ached.

The old man murmured: "Defeat every opponent, smash through every obstacle."

"Upon the ruins of the last age, build anew a great age of peace — ahahahaha, you little rascal, you really dare to say such things!"

Xue Daoyong burst into laughter.

Li Guanyi answered: "Without such boldness of spirit, how could one accomplish a first-rate great undertaking?"

Xue Daoyong said: "Then, in the end, you still mean to face Ying."

Li Guanyi said: "Ying, Jiang Wanxiang, and Jiang Su…"

"Jiang Su — Xue Lao, you don't understand him, but I understand him well."

"The first time I met Jiang Su, I was only fourteen or fifteen, at the second heaven of Wu Gong…"

Xue Daoyong's mouth corner twitched, and he said: "The second heaven of Wu Gong that pacified all of Jiangnan — still the second heaven of Wu Gong, yes?"

Li Guanyi's expression did not change: "In any case, I hadn't broken through yet at that time."

"Back then, my great-grandfather took me to the capital of Ying. Inside the Star-Plucking Tower, I saw the God of War Jiang Su for the first time, saw what they call the legend of Wu Gong. He, at that time, probably never even glanced at me properly."

"Back then, he could have killed me with a single move."

"After that, in the Western Regions, in Ying, in Jiangnan, I faced Jiang Su more than once. I know this man — his Wu Gong is already at the very pinnacle of the age. If he were to gather a great army and set aside his pride, even my great-grandfather would find him hard to defeat."

"But such a man is a man without a bottom line."

Xue Daoyong said: "Without a bottom line?"

Li Guanyi said: "Yes. He once led eighteen riders deep into the grasslands, and surrounded by the great army of Tie Futu, he fought to the death with that generation's Great Tian Kehan; all eighteen of his war-generals died upon the grasslands."

"He alone carried back the head of the grassland Great Khan to the border of Ying, and with the Great Khan's head, sacrificed to the Ying commoners who had been slain."

"He could also poison for the sake of victory; and to maintain the people's heart and public opinion of Ying, which his uncle had shattered, he beheaded his uncle in disgrace and hung him upon the city gate."

"Jiang Su can be a hero of soaring boldness, and also a base and shameless villain. Such a man has almost no weakness — he cares nothing for dignity, nothing for reputation, nothing for whether his own hands are clean, nothing for whether his deeds are above-board."

"He has only one thought: to obtain victory upon the battlefield."

"The process of victory is merely one of the means."

"He is a pure military commander — utterly without a bottom line, yet incomparably powerful. If we truly can reach that step, the final opponent we must face will be him. It must be him — Jiang Su."

Xue Daoyong looked at the Qin Wang before him, whose spirit blazed with heroic valor, and said:

"You do set great store by Jiang Su."

Li Guanyi answered:

"He is my blood-feud. How could I not set store by him?"

Xue Daoyong laughed; this tiger of the Xue clan amid chaotic times asked slyly:

"But Chen Dingye is also your enemy, and you don't set such store by him."

That remark struck straight at Li Guanyi.

Li Guanyi fell silent, seeming somewhat unsure of himself as well; he shed that invincible air of legend and word-of-mouth, sighed, and said:

"Because to me, Jiang Su is still that strong."

Even after traveling this long road to reach here, I still have no guarantee of defeating Jiang Su; from a strategic standpoint, Ying's losses are negligible, and this one or two years have allowed them to catch their breath.

The current Divine General is merely constrained by the need to care for Jiang Wanxiang—in fact, Jiang Wanxiang now acts like chains, binding Jiang Su.

If Jiang Wanxiang dies, the next emperor of Ying will become a puppet.

At that time, Jiang Su would become a sharp sword with no restraints and no rear worries—we will ultimately face him in that state.

The Divine General who represents three hundred years of Ying's imperial lineage.

Xue Daoyong's expression was solemn.

Even though the old man was not a battlefield general, he understood how terrifying Jiang Su would be under Li Guanyi's described circumstances; by then, Chen would likely no longer exist, and there would be no need to worry about a third power in the Central Plains.

Only the slaughter between Qin and Ying would remain.

At most, one must consider the grasslands.

Xue Daoyong was still pondering how dire such a situation would be, how magnificent Jiang Su's all-out battle would be after Jiang Wanxiang's death, when he heard a light laugh.

"But what is there left to say, even now?"

The Qin Wang laughed, lifted his teacup as if it were a cup of strong liquor, and said:

"To sweep the world and unify the four corners is the long-held aspiration of myself and the Tiance Prefecture, the Anxi Protectorate, and the Fire Qilin Army."

"If this final battle truly comes, what could be more 【Undeniable】 than directly defeating that Divine General who upheld Ying's three-hundred-year dynasty and was invincible in the old era?"

"I have our aspiration, and Jiang Su may have his own stubbornness and conviction."

"The world is vast; it is this age and this chaotic era that have pushed us to this point."

The Qin Wang tilted his head and drank the tea; though it was only tea, the movement of his sleeves carried a stern aura, as if strong liquor had been spilled upon a blade, and he murmured calmly:

"If Jiang Su does not kill me, how can he uphold the state?"

"If I do not kill Jiang Su, how can I restore cosmic order?"

"At this point, grudges and enmities, friend and foe—only mutual slaughter remains!"

"He wants us to settle for a corner of the land and survive in peace—but I insist—"

"To seize the throne with rightful legitimacy, unparalleled in all history."

Xue Daoyong stared at the young man before him, silent for a long while, then burst into loud laughter—laughing with particular joy, delighted that the boy of years past, seven years gone, had not let his ambition grow dusty, and laughing with satisfaction that his own eyes had remained so accurate.

Yet with a touch of teasing, he said:

"But Qin Wang, Qin Wang—war is won by logistics and supplies, by national strength. Your foundation has always been inferior to Ying's. Even if you took Chen at relatively low cost, your logistics and reserves are nearly exhausted, aren't they?"

"Even if you gain Chen's resources, those great clans holding cities in defense will consume vast amounts of grain and supplies, and many of them may well set fire to the grain stores."

"Even if you swiftly capture these cities, you will suffer heavy losses."

"Meanwhile, Ying has not engaged in any major campaigns during this short time."

"Their national strength remains intact."

"In this one aspect of 【Strategic Calculation】, you are already at a disadvantage."

"But now, this old man's gambling instinct has been stirred again by you, you brat—I can't control myself; I still want to gamble once more…"

Xue Daoyong raised his hand and pressed his palm upon the other pile of Juan Sect scrolls. His fingers rested on the thick stack of white paper before him, a calm smile lingering on his lips: "They all say this great war is fought with national gold and silver, decided by logistics and supplies."

"They also say my Xue family's wealth rivals that of a nation."

"I have always told the younger members of our clan: humility brings gain, arrogance invites loss. Restrain yourself. Never, when dealing with outsiders, rely on your family's modest wealth and act recklessly—lest you bring disaster upon the clan."

"Thus, over these hundred years, my Xue family has remained safe and unscathed. Yet, though I have urged my kin to be humble and not proud, I have always harbored one lingering doubt."

"That is: has my Xue family truly been 【wealthy enough to rival a nation】?"

Xue Daoyong slowly rose. Behind him, the void rippled, and the low roar of a tiger echoed throughout the Tingfeng Pavilion. The old man's white hair lifted, his eyes rose like those of a tiger, fixed upon Li Guanyi.

His hand pressed upon the scrolls, slowly pushing them forward toward Li Guanyi.

Smiling faintly:

"Li Guanyi, over these hundred years, my Xue family's entire wealth—every merchant, every trade route, every shop, every silver and gold reserve, every resource—lies here."

"Do you dare accept it?"

Damn it, my sleep schedule is completely shattered.

If this continues, I might have to take leave to adjust (at peace)