Chapter 791: Life or Death

Guo Zhou'er had actually lied, because Guo Guangyi needed at most one day to gather the routed troops — two or three days were completely unnecessary.

So once she had talked Li Wushu and Li Qishu into it, Guo Zhou'er arranged for the sharper Li Qishu to crate up the gold and silver vessels in the white tent, while the duller Li Wushu was to escort her out of the city.

Li Qishu went off cheerfully; with his "clever brain," how could he not think of using this chance to grab a big haul for himself?

Li Wushu also very much wanted to grab a haul, but he had just sworn to heaven to follow arrangements, and now he could hardly refuse, so he could only obey and help Guo Zhou'er slip out of the city.

And no sooner had they left the city and traveled barely an hour than they saw from a hillside that outside Talas City banners blotted out the sun — Guo Guangyi, leading his thousand elite White Wolf Army cavalry, had returned to Talas City ahead of schedule.

Li Wushu turned pale with fright, and before he could speak, a band of horsemen suddenly burst out from behind the hill.

The moment Guo Zhou'er saw them, she let out a sharp cry from among the riders, spurred her horse, and in an instant shot out from between Li Wushu and the several dozen Li family riders.

Li Wushu was stunned; he did not even realize Guo Zhou'er was fleeing. Only when the opposing riders raised their crossbows and loosed a volley at them did Li Wushu realize something was wrong.

But it was too late. This squad of riders, wearing ring-linked armor beneath their outer clothes, was extremely fierce. Though they numbered only a dozen or so, their fighting strength far exceeded that of the Li family riders.

First they loosed a volley of crossbow bolts, then immediately spurred their horses to charge. The steel blades in their hands easily pierced through the Li family riders' bodies, and in a few dozen breaths they had killed all several dozen Li cavalrymen.

Li Wushu was shot in the thigh, and when he fell from his horse he also cracked his ribs. He lay on the ground groaning in pain, his face deathly pale as he looked at Guo Zhou'er and pleaded brokenly, "Second Lady, why? Why?"

Guo Zhou'er's face was icy. She walked up to Li Wushu holding a short sword, a mocking cold light curling at the corner of her mouth.

"Why? Wushu, you didn't really think anyone from your Li family would still be alive, did you?

The moment you followed Guo Guangyi's arrangement and forced me to marry into the Li family, you were all dead men."

Li Wushu desperately stifled his hissing cries of pain, tears and snot streaming down his face as he looked at Guo Zhou'er. "Second Lady, this was decided by Guo Guangyi and that old wretch Li Guoshou — it wasn't me!"

"And did Wushu object at the time? Li Guoshou is as good as a corpse — could he alone bear this heaven-shaking crime?"

Guo Zhou'er's eyes had turned red. She had once had a future everyone envied, but these people before her had destroyed it all; she could now see the end of her life at a single glance.

"Go die!" Guo Zhou'er screamed, rushing forward and driving the sword into the left side of Li Wushu's neck.

Blood poured out with a gushing sound. Li Wushu clutched his neck and thrashed on the ground like a loach.

"Second Lady, which members of the Li family are still present? After the rebellion is put down, please point them out one by one. The extermination of the Li clan is the decree of the Compassionate Empress Dowager!"

Guo Zhou'er wiped the blood from the dagger with a silk handkerchief and nodded obediently at the rider who had spoken from horseback.

"Rest assured, Commandant Zhang. This slave is a condemned person; that I may cling to life at all is entirely by the Empress Dowager's merciful grace. How would I dare not serve with all my heart and strength?"

With that, Guo Zhou'er looked toward a rider in a black robe beside Commandant Zhang, and tears came streaming down.

"Is Ce-ge'er well? In the blink of an eye, it has been fifteen years since we last met."

The "Ce-ge'er" Guo Zhou'er spoke of was none other than Guo Tiance — once Zhang Zhao's personal attendant and secretary, now the second most powerful man in the Great Zhou court, the Commissioner of Military Affairs.

In former days, Guo Tiance's parents had died young, and he had been raised by his grandfather Guo Xuanyi.

Guo Xuanyi was hale and strong, and at the age of fifty-one he had still been blessed with a daughter he treasured like a pearl in his palm — the very Guo Zhou'er now before them.

Although Guo Zhou'er and Guo Wan'er were cousins still within the five degrees of mourning, she was the Commissioner of Military Affairs Guo Tiance's full paternal aunt.

When Guo Tiance had left with Zhang Zhao back then, he was just sixteen, and Guo Zhou'er was six. Before that, the young Guo Zhou'er had in fact been cared for by Guo Tiance.

That is to say, Guo Zhou'er was not only Guo Tiance's aunt, but the aunt Guo Tiance had carried on his back as she grew up.

The black-robed rider was a household officer of Guo Tiance and naturally knew of this relationship. He raised his head and sighed to the heavens — fate truly played cruel tricks. Guo Zhou'er had once possessed a boundless, brilliant future, yet in the end it had been destroyed by schemers.

"When the Commissioner learned that Second Lady had fallen into the tiger's maw, he was so frantic that he vomited three pints of blood that very night. It was only because the Empress dispatched the divine physician Han Baosheng overnight to treat him that his life was saved!"

Guo Zhou'er could hold on no longer and collapsed to the ground weeping. In truth, she had long known she would not die, because her own nephew Guo Tiance was the august Commissioner of Military Affairs.

More importantly, she had not been loose in her conduct; rather, after her father's death she had lost her backing and had been coerced, with no choice but to marry Li Quanjie.

If one insisted she was guilty of anything, it was that she had not found a chance to take her own life to preserve the Sage's face.

But the Sage is a hero of the realm, and surely would not harshly blame a weak woman over such a matter. However —

However, her two elder brothers, when she was forced to marry Li Quanjie, had feared Guo Guangyi's threats and had not come forward to stop it.

That was somewhat problematic. Your sister was already the Sage's woman, and watching her be forced to marry another man, yet cowering before tyranny and doing nothing — that was unquestionably a crime.

Even if they had only protested fiercely, or even if one of them should have died to preserve the whole family — instead her two brothers had done nothing at all.

But they were still her own full brothers! Even if the brothers deserved death, the seven or eight nephews and nieces were innocent.

So everything Guo Zhou'er was doing now was not for herself. She had already resigned herself to a life of green lamps and ancient Buddha, but the lives of her two brothers and more than a dozen relatives still had to be saved.

And to save them, the only way was to let the Li family bear all the fury — and with this meritorious service added on top, it should be enough.

"Second Lady, please stop crying and quickly lead us to White Water City. This opportunity was begged from the Sage by the Commissioner himself."

Seeing that Guo Zhou'er was still a clear-headed woman, the black-robed household officer's mood improved considerably.

What he had feared was that Guo Zhou'er had married Li Guoshou's grandson willingly — in that case, even Guo Tiance could not have saved her life.

These elite brocade-clad personal guards riding with him would certainly report the actual situation strictly upward.

"Guo Guangyi, you beast! Without our Li family, would you be where you are today!"

Li Siniang looked at her personal maids slaughtered all around the palace and Li Qishu stabbed to death on the ground, and her eyes seemed about to shoot fire.

But in the next moment, she fell into overwhelming terror, because Guo Guangyi was walking toward her holding a long blade.

"Great Khan, that ghost of a woman Guo Zhou'er is gone, and the Li family's old fifth went missing with her." A Han officer who followed Guo Guangyi ran up and whispered in Guo Guangyi's ear.

Guo Guangyi's expression changed, and he immediately realized someone had leaked the information. He could not help feeling a twinge of regret.

Had he known Guo Zhou'er was no easy woman to deal with, he should never have thought of using her beauty, intending to send her to the emir of Samanid Persia to buy himself greater capital.

But regret was too late now. Guo Guangyi gritted his teeth, grabbed his lawful wife — Li Guoshou's daughter, Li Siniang — by the throat.

"Don't blame me. Blame your father for being of no further use to me."

With that, Guo Guangyi did not hesitate in the slightest, and drove the long blade into Li Siniang's chest.

"Go kill that old waste Li Guoshou. Say it was done by Guo Zhou'er in collusion with Li Wushu. Then summon Hulunjian and the rest — we must leave for White Water City immediately."

White Water City is present-day Shymkent in Kazakhstan, located two hundred li southwest of Talas City.

This city had always been the dividing point between the Suyab-Talas power and Samanid Persia. Guo Guangyi had settled more than sixty thousand of the hundred thousand people relocated from Suyab in White Water City.

But in White Water City, these Suyab people were not the ones in charge. Those in charge were still the tribes loyal to Guo Guangyi, and these sixty thousand Suyab people had in fact become second-class citizens.

One of Guo Zhou'er's elder brothers had also been settled in White Water City, so she knew very well how deep the resentment of the Suyab commoners in White Water City ran.

Wisps of green smoke drifted over every corner of White Water City. The townsfolk, who spoke the same tongue and even dressed much alike, gripped long sabers and fought desperately through this small city that could hold no more than twenty or thirty thousand people.

Back then, Zhang Zhao had only wanted to separate Guo Xuancheng and Li Guoshou. For one thing, with no strong authority in Suyab, it was very hard to control Talas from six or seven hundred li away.

For another, he wanted to prevent either the Guo or Li family from growing too dominant and developing thoughts of independence.

But man proposes, Heaven disposes. Even Zhang Zhao could not arrange everything so that it stayed perfectly secure.

Today, fifteen years after his departure, the hundred thousand or so men he had left here to use in a pincer attack on the Samanid Persians now regarded each other as mortal enemies.

Commandant Zhang frowned as he watched the chaos in the city. These Suyab men were simply too poor at fighting. Over ten thousand of them had besieged the two thousand or so core tribesmen loyal to Guo Guangyi inside the city, yet after a full day they still had not completely subdued them, and instead had wrecked the entire city.

At this rate, no matter what, once Guo Guangyi arrived with his main army, the city could not be held.

"We can't keep this place. Take all the men with us. Once Chief Steward Hu brings the Western Expedition Army, we'll come back and retake it."

Commandant Zhang was a Tangut from Yinzhou. By reckoning, he belonged to the same generation as the uncle of that Zhang Pu who in history helped Li Jiqian establish himself in Yinzhou and Xiazhou. Having spent so long in the northwest, he understood clearly the ways of these steppe peoples.

In their eyes, women and children were resources for production and would not easily be killed, but the men would certainly be slaughtered to the last. So all they needed to do was take the men away.

As for the old people — hah! If these people truly were loyal subjects of the Son of Heaven, Commandant Zhang would certainly have chosen not to leave White Water City, and would have fought to the death alongside them.

But as things stood now, it all depended on their luck. If the Western Expedition Army came quickly, some of them might still have a way to live.

Commandant Zhang's proposal quickly won the approval of most people. They had only a day and a half more than Guo Guangyi. By now the Talas army was probably already close to White Water City, so they had to leave at once.

"Let's head northwest. About a hundred li from here is the Yaxartes River. Both banks have lush grass and water, and the river has fish, shrimp, and crabs to eat, so there's no shortage of water either. Staying there ten days would be no problem." Guo Zhou'er quickly made the suggestion, and it was a practical one.

Commandant Zhang and the black-robed family retainer considered it for a moment, then nodded at once.

The black-robed retainer looked at Guo Zhou'er, wanting to say something but hesitating. Guo Zhou'er knew what he meant, but she still could not bear it, and ran to her elder brother's house.

Guo Zhou'er's elder brother sat slumped at the doorway. When he saw Guo Zhou'er come, he forced a smile onto his face. If one asked who regretted things most, apart from Guo Zhou'er, he was the one who regretted them most.

First, he regretted not listening to his nephew Guo Tiance ten years ago and moving the whole family to live in the divine capital, Luoyang.

Second, he regretted not risking everything at the time to send Guo Zhou'er away, to Khotan.

He had had the time then, but he had believed Guo Guangjie's nonsense, thinking that if Guo Zhou'er married Li Quanjie, who was right before their eyes, she would eat well and drink well, far better than being sent ten thousand li away and never seen again.

But looking at it now, he had been terribly wrong. After Guo Zhou'er married Li Quanjie, not only had he gained no benefit at all, he had brought a heaven-shaking disaster upon himself.

The elder brother stammered for a long while. A turbid tear slid from his eye. He pulled his two sons and one daughter out from the house. "You'niang, don't hate me. Take care of them for me."

Guo Zhou'er's tears fell too. On countless nights she had hated her brother's uselessness, had even thought of never acknowledging him as her brother again. But now...

She cast one deep look at this brother of hers, who had a huge frame but not a shred of courage, then wiped away her tears, took her nephews and niece by the hand, and ran swiftly toward the gathering point.

Tomorrow the office is switching to a new system and organizing all-staff training. I really don't know why there's so much to study every day. There's definitely no slacking off. I can only come back at night and write a chapter of about five thousand characters, so it might come out a bit late. Sorry.

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