Chapter 96: A Tiger Father Has No Coward Son

The heads were cut off one by one.

Because the effects of the powder still had not worn off, these honored officials used their own actions to provide a perfect interpretation of the phrase: entertainment unto death.

As for the other prisoners kneeling throughout the Prefectural Yamen, Zheng Fan did not order them beheaded as well.

The Great Yan Dynasty valued military merit.

It still retained the old method of calculating battlefield achievement through enemy heads.

But truthfully, during this assault on Mianzhou City, they had not actually killed that many people.

Compared with collecting a limited number of ordinary heads for merit, bringing back the heads of the Prefect and the other high-ranking officials carried far greater symbolic value.

It would also make the story much easier to exaggerate afterward.

As for exactly how to exaggerate it while remaining within the Basic Law—

Zheng Fan would need to discuss that with the Blind Man after returning.

For example:

Commander Zheng led four hundred tiger warriors and slaughtered Mianzhou City!

Don’t believe it?

Then look.

Even the heads of the city’s great officials were cut off and carried back.

As for everyone else’s heads they killed so many people that there were simply too many to carry!

Of course, there was another important reason for leaving the other people inside the yamen alive.

This era had no internet media.

No social platforms.

Whether a famous scholar cultivated reputation or an imperial prince built an image of wisdom and virtue, it all depended on mouths.

People had to talk.

People had to spread the story.

Zheng Fan believed Yan definitely maintained its own intelligence network inside Qian.

Trade between the two states was also extremely active.

Even during war, smuggling between them would probably be impossible to eliminate completely.

So when Zheng Fan left the Prefectural Yamen, he stabbed his saber into the flagstones and shouted:

“The man who breached this city—

Zheng Fan!”

To make sure these human propaganda machines did not mishear his name and ruin the transmission of his glorious achievement back to Yan, Zheng Fan even took up a brush personally and wrote on one of the pillars outside the yamen:

**ZHENG FAN, COMMANDER OF GREEN WILLOW FORTRESS OF THE GREAT YAN DYNASTY, WAS HERE!**

After finishing, he dusted off his hands and read it over again.

Truthfully, he felt the line was somewhat old-fashioned.

But compared with:

**SAY NO TO PORNOGRAPHY, GAMBLING, AND DRUGS
— PROCLAIMED BY GREEN WILLOW FORTRESS POLICE STATION OF THE GREAT YAN DYNASTY**

Zheng Fan still felt the first version was better.

Business concluded.

Zheng Fan waved his hand.

“Withdraw!”

From entering the city, to storming the yamen, to regrouping the troops, to riding back out through the same northern gate everything had happened extremely quickly.

Zheng Fan could not possibly give Mianzhou City enough time to recover from the initial shock.

Nor could he give nearby Qian forces time to react.

After all they currently numbered only a little over three hundred men.

And although Qian had already given Zheng Fan a truly astonishing amount of confidence, he was still not naïve enough to believe every army in the entire state was this useless.

If that were really true—

Zheng Fan genuinely would not bother returning home.

He would simply keep riding south, fight his way all the way to Shangjing, burn Qian’s imperial ancestral temple, and capture the three Yang sisters alive!

But now, their next objective was to return safely.

They had already fooled around enough.

Already had their fun.

Of pornography, gambling, and drugs they had personally cracked down on two.

At this point, returning home alive and intact was the highest priority.

After all he who laughs last laughs best.

Before leaving at the city gate—

Zheng Fan sat on horseback and looked back at Mianzhou City.

He felt that he ought to say something.

Leave behind a memorable line.

Otherwise, if future history textbooks recorded what he had done today without even one quotation from him for decoration, how dull would that be?

He thought for more than ten seconds.

Then Zheng Fan slowly said:

“Farewell... city with only one man.”

Mood.

Mockery.

Style.

Position.

Everything was there.

Zheng Fan was very satisfied with the line.

Unfortunately, Liang Cheng’s skill at flattery was badly underdeveloped.

If Xue San or the Blind Man were here, the rainbow-colored praise would already have been pouring down in waves.

Across all of Mianzhou City apart from that old man who had walked against the human tide with spear in hand nearly everyone else had turned their backs on Zheng Fan’s blades.

However, one man did not seem satisfied with Zheng Fan’s conclusion.

And he appeared to intend to express that dissatisfaction through action.

Above them on the gatehouse a man with disheveled hair appeared.

In his hands he held a crossbow.

No one knew when he had reached the gatehouse.

No one had even imagined there might still be someone up there.

And this man intended to resist.

Even though the invaders were already leaving even though he could simply hide and survive he still intended to resist.

Still intended to strike back.

Still intended to do something against the invaders, even if it cost him his life.

Liang Cheng saw the crossbow.

Several barbarians nearby saw it too.

They moved.

Some raised bows.

Some prepared to charge toward the gatehouse.

Others immediately closed around Zheng Fan to protect him.

But everything was too late.

BUZZ!

The crossbow bolt had already been fired.

It struck Zheng Fan directly in the chest.

BANG!

Zheng Fan fell from his horse and smashed heavily onto the ground.

“Kill him!”

Liang Cheng gave the order.

A group of barbarian soldiers immediately charged back toward the gatehouse.

...

After firing the crossbow, Sun Jianming immediately ducked down.

Arrow after arrow whistled above the battlement over his head.

He did not care.

He merely began reloading the crossbow in silence.

He had not chosen to run.

Because here, inside the gatehouse, he was alone.

There were obviously many people inside this city.

Yet not one of them was here to help him.

His father had died outside.

When everyone had tried to close the gate earlier, Sun Jianming had looked through a gap and seen it.

He had seen his father’s head cut high into the air.

But in the end the gates still had not closed.

Truthfully, whether they closed or not probably made little difference.

Everyone had been focused only on escaping.

No one had organized a proper defense.

Even if they had managed to shut the gates, the Yan troops could simply have taken their time and climbed the walls.

Sun Jianming had always thought his old man’s mind was too rigid.

The Sun Clan’s Double-Headed Spear of Liang Commandery had already become famous in his grandfather’s generation.

His father inherited that spear art.

He entered the army.

Became an Eighth-Grade Martial Artist.

Yet his official position remained insignificant for years.

He never truly rose.

For a long time, he remained nothing more than a Centurion.

He could not even earn some miscellaneous military title.

If a southwestern Tusi rebellion had not broken out during the previous Emperor’s reign if his father’s unit had not been transferred southwest to suppress it then even with his father’s genuine skill and the solid military merit he earned there, he might have spent his entire life climbing no higher than Patrol Lieutenant Commander.

Oh.

Although in the end, after growing old, he had still been demoted back down to Patrol Lieutenant Commander.

But at least when his father had enjoyed some glory, Sun Jianming himself had been able to dream.

Sun Jianming could not endure hardship.

He had little talent for martial arts.

So he had always planned to study music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and prose and spray himself with a layer of scholarly fragrance.

Later, he could cling to the thigh of some civil official, cultivate the image of a scholarly general, and rely on his father in the background as further support.

Surely then his official career would become far smoother.

Sun Jianming knew that military generals enjoyed enormous status in Yan.

Forget the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei.

Even ordinary military commanders beneath it could stand tall in front of civil officials.

But Great Qian had its own national circumstances.

In Great Qian, if a military officer wanted to rise, if he wanted to live well he had to become the dog of civil officials.

Even Great Qian’s senior frontier Garrison Commanders when they entered Shangjing had to kneel outside the residences of the Grand Councillors and announce themselves as humble hounds beneath the gate, begging for an audience.

And whether the Grand Councillor actually received them depended entirely on his mood.

Once, a rebellion by the southwestern Tusi chieftains had devastated the southwest for ten years.

The man who ultimately suppressed it completely was a tattoo-faced military commander.

Early in life, he had committed a crime.

Characters had been tattooed onto his face and he had been exiled into the army.

Step by step, he climbed upward through military merit.

At last, after suppressing that enormous rebellion, he entered the imperial court and joined the Privy Council.

At the time military men throughout Great Qian thought they had finally seen the day when they could raise their heads.

Among the Grand Councillors of the Privy Council there was finally a place for one of their own.

Unfortunately the good times did not last.

That inspirational hero for an entire generation of military men remained in the Privy Council for less than half a year.

Then he was accused of plotting rebellion and his entire clan to the ninth degree was exterminated.

The man who personally presided over the case was the current Chief Minister—

Grand Councillor Han.

The tiny spark of hope that had finally risen among Great Qian’s military men was extinguished.

Then, someone poured a basin of freezing water over the ashes.

Whenever Sun Jianming’s father drank too much at night, he would wipe his tears and remember that Tattoo-Faced Grand Councillor.

After all back then, his father had been one of the soldiers who followed that man southwest to suppress the rebellion.

So Sun Jianming had always been practical.

He knew he was no great talent.

Since he lacked the ability to change the rules, then naturally he should adapt to them.

He befriended many scholars.

He visited many civil officials.

As a military officer, he worked with all his strength to cultivate an air of literary refinement.

But his father had successfully ruined everything.

The old man had originally only been stiff-necked and poor at socializing or flattering others.

But during these final years of his life, something seemed to have gone wrong inside his head.

He opposed civil officials.

He opposed military officers.

Civil officials made fortunes.

Military officers drank the soldiers’ blood.

For a hundred years, Great Qian’s civil and military establishments had maintained their own tacit understanding.

His father offended both sides at once.

He was demoted again and again.

And because Sun Jianming had such a father, his own career suffered too.

There was no helping it.

This era cared about sayings like:

A heroic father produces a worthy son.

If the father had something wrong with his head then people naturally assumed the son’s brain probably was not especially sound either.

At the thought a smile appeared at the corner of Sun Jianming’s mouth.

He had always believed his father had become muddle-headed.

That old age had made him stubborn.

Made him cling blindly to dead principles.

But facts had now proven his father had been right.

The Yan people really fucking came!

Long ago, his father had once told him that during the southwestern rebellion, the Tattoo-Faced Grand Councillor had said:

The southwestern Tusi rebellion might appear enormous, but it could never truly threaten Great Qian.

Great Qian’s real danger was Yan the State of Yan that had relied upon its own strength to contend against the barbarians for several hundred years!

That was why his father had followed news from Yan every year.

Especially news from that Marquis’s residence in Beifeng Commandery.

He gathered it from friends.

From the imperial court.

From merchant caravans.

Several years earlier, news frequently arrived that the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei had campaigned against the barbarians again.

Defeated another tribe.

Destroyed another tribe.

Every time, his father’s brow darkened.

These past few years such reports had grown rarer.

Almost nonexistent.

Yet his father’s brow had become even more tightly furrowed.

Sun Jianming had once laughed and asked:

Wasn’t that a good thing?

His father sighed and answered:

In the past although the residence of the Marquis of Zhenbei always won at least those wars proved the barbarians still dared make noise.

Still dared bare their teeth.

Still dared test Yan.

Now there was almost no news of war at all.

That meant the barbarians had already been beaten obedient.

And once the barbarians became obedient—

Yan’s hands would finally be free.

Sun Jianming tilted his head and glanced downward.

Barbarian soldiers had already appeared on the stairs leading into the gatehouse.

Wasn’t that exactly it, Father?

The Yan people had not merely freed their hands.

Judging from the look of things they had apparently even subdued the barbarians themselves.

Those men wearing Yan armor where the hell were the Yan people among them?

They were clearly barbarians!

Sun Jianming shifted his body.

He drew a deep breath and raised the crossbow again.

He genuinely did not know why he had refused to leave.

Earlier, he had been swept away by the fleeing garrison soldiers.

Yet somehow as though possessed he had turned around and come back.

Inside the small gatehouse armory there were several bows and crossbows.

At the very least, they possessed enough display pieces to make the place look properly equipped.

But no one had bothered to use them.

Sun Jianming took one crossbow and sat against the battlement.

He did not know whether his father had already gone up to Heaven.

The old man had only just died.

He probably had not had time to reach Heaven and bless his son yet.

But despite that Sun Jianming had still been fortunate enough to see that Yan force ride back out of the city.

Fucking hell.

There were only three or four hundred riders!

But how many thousands of men inside this city were capable of holding weapons?

An overwhelming sense of absurdity crashed into Sun Jianming.

And the anger inside him grew more intense.

Across the entire city only his father had taken the ancestral Double-Headed Spear and proactively charged the Yan troops.

If only...

Sigh.

At that moment, a figure suddenly rushed into view.

BUZZ!

Sun Jianming pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The bolt shot forward and struck a wooden board.

The barbarian soldier leading the charge had picked up a loose plank from the ground and used it as a shield.

The crossbow bolt actually punched halfway through the board.

But after losing most of its force, it failed to penetrate the barbarian’s armor.

There was no time to reload.

The barbarians had already charged up from behind.

Sun Jianming picked up a saber and slashed forward.

BANG!

The first clash knocked the saber straight aside.

His wrist went numb.

The weapon fell to the floor.

Then, three or four blades hacked into his body at once.

They knocked him violently to the ground.

There was no earth-shaking duel.

No exchange of dozens of moves.

No heroic feat where he dragged several enemies down with him before dying.

Before these barbarian soldiers he was weak as a tiny quail.

As his consciousness began fading—

Sun Jianming felt regret.

He regretted that despite having a father who had once been an Eighth-Grade Martial Artist, he had spent most of his energy on music, chess, calligraphy, and painting.

In the end this son of a military family could not even hold a saber properly.

His father had already gone.

Now he should follow.

Fortunately in the end, he had seized his chance.

He had shot dead the man leading the enemy force.

That idiot had actually ridden out alone, stopped beneath the gatehouse, and stood there lost in thought.

Heh.

Was he stupid or what?

...

“Master?

“Master?

“Master?”

“Cough... cough, cough...”

Zheng Fan began coughing.

When he fell from the horse, his entire back had slammed into the ground.

Combined with the weight of the armor on his body that fall had genuinely hurt.

“Master, don’t move.

“I’ll remove the bolt for you.”

Liang Cheng possessed a zombie body.

So he could leave that broken spearhead inside his abdomen until there was time to deal with it properly.

Zheng Fan was different.

The crossbow bolt had struck directly over the heart.

If handled carelessly, removing it could very well kill him.

But Zheng Fan shook his head.

He reached up and grabbed the bolt sticking from his armor.

Before Liang Cheng could stop him—

Zheng Fan yanked it free himself.

CRACK...

The expected burst of blood never came.

Zheng Fan slowly sat up on his own.

He shook his head.

“I’m fine.”

As he spoke—

Zheng Fan began undoing his armor.

He reached inside and took out a stone.

Then he smiled.

“You know— before we left, the Blind Man told me not to keep carrying him around with me anymore.

“Good thing I didn’t listen.”

Son.

You saved your father’s life again.

After speaking, Zheng Fan coughed several more times.

At that moment, the barbarians who had gone up the gatehouse returned carrying Sun Jianming’s head.

He truly deserved his former reputation as a character whose cult in the comic had gotten him 404’d.

The brainwashing effect was genuinely powerful.

The barbarians’ feelings toward Zheng Fan were rooted in bone-deep fear.

But mixed into that fear was an equally powerful emotional dependence.

Toward this Qian man who had nearly killed their Master their rage was overwhelming.

“Master.

“Take his head back.

“Have Third Master shave the skull into a drinking bowl!”

Several barbarians suggested this.

In their hearts—

Xue San, who had once personally demonstrated the meaning of

“I’ll use your skull as a bowl” right in front of them represented the cruelest punishment imaginable.

A punishment so vicious that even the dead man’s soul would never find peace.

“No need.”

Zheng Fan shook his head.

In the end this had still been his own fault.

Why had he ridden out of formation and stopped beneath the gatehouse to stare into the distance like some idiot?

Things had gone too smoothly.

He had let his guard down.

Still the words he had only just spoken had immediately slapped him across the face.

He had called this a city with only one man.

Well.

The second man had immediately stood up.

But there were only two.

Zheng Fan mounted again to show that he was all right.

The others followed.

The group first returned to the low earth slope where they had rested earlier.

A grave mound had been built there.

Inside lay the corpse of the old spear-wielding man.

Several stones had been piled on top.

As for any epitaph first, conditions did not allow it.

Second asking these barbarians to compose one would have demanded far too much of their literary ability.

The bodies of the barbarians who had died had not been buried.

Zheng Fan had ordered that they be taken back with the army.

“Can you turn them into zombies?”

Zheng Fan asked Liang Cheng.

“Not yet.

“In the future— probably.”

“Then bring their bodies back.

“Preserve them carefully for now.”

“Mm.”

“You.

“Give me that head.”

Zheng Fan pointed toward one barbarian soldier.

The man immediately stepped forward and handed Sun Jianming’s head to him.

“Tsk.

“Eyes open in death.”

Sun Jianming’s eyes were still wide open.

Zheng Fan reached out and brushed one hand over them.

But the eyelids refused to close.

Zheng Fan knew several scientific explanations for that phenomenon.

Most likely, the eyelid muscles had lost tension, causing the eye opening to widen and preventing closure.

Still—

Zheng Fan had no intention of taking Sun Jianming’s head back as a trophy.

Instead he walked to the grave mound and placed the head beside it.

“You two can keep each other company here.

“I imagine you’ll have plenty to talk about.”

With that Zheng Fan raised his head and gave one final look toward distant Mianzhou City.

Then he turned and ordered:

“We’re going home!”

The cavalry mounted and rode away.

Soon they vanished into the darkness.

The night wind blew across the grave mound.

Other than that only deep silence remained.

And at that moment the eyes of the severed head slowly... closed.

(End of Chapter)