Chapter 234: Hero Chen

The mountain roads were impassable for carriages. Even ox carts were useless. Yet an old man in a blue cotton-padded jacket still sat steadily atop a cart.

It was not being pulled by an animal.

It was being pulled by a man.

The man walked with a slight limp. A sword hung at his waist. Yet even across this jagged, rocky mountain terrain, he pulled the cart so steadily that it barely jolted.

Beside the cart walked a woman. She wore a black-veiled bamboo hat that concealed her face, but her waist was slender and graceful. White Chu boots covered her feet. There was not the slightest weakness in her bearing; instead, she radiated heroic spirit.

The old man reclined sideways on the cart, a fan in his left hand and a wine gourd in his right. A patched cloth pouch had been sewn to his waist. Inside were dried tofu and fennel beans.

One slice of dried tofu, two beans, washed down with a mouthful of yellow wine, all while drinking in the mountain scenery tsk.

That flavor.

Beautiful enough to make a man’s very bones go soft.

And yet even as the old man ate, drank, and reclined there, he paid no attention to the hardship of the man pulling the cart or the difficulty of the woman walking beside it. His mouth never stopped moving.

“The last time I came here, this could still be considered Jin territory. Now I return and it has become Yan land. Is it the things that remain while people change, or the people that remain while things change?

“Think back several centuries. When the Yu Clan opened up the Three Jin lands, how heroic they were. And now? Their ancestral temple has been moved away, and their descendants have entered Yanjing.

“The glamorous figures of an age—when all is said and done, even they return to dust.”

The man pulling the cart merely smiled when he heard this.

He had long since grown accustomed to the old man’s endless chatter.

See a sunset—poetic inspiration surged.

See a child—poetic inspiration surged.

See a beautiful young woman—poetic inspiration surged.

Even while squatting in the latrine, with a yellow dragon roaring below, poetry could still surge above.

“Who knows? Perhaps the next time I return to Qian, my homeland will no longer speak the Wu River dialect, and instead Yan accents and northern tones will have become the fashion.”

Unlike the taciturn man, the woman had a stubborn temperament. She especially disliked people like the old man who loved idle talk about romance and the moon.

Just then, a mountain breeze lifted her black veil slightly, revealing a pair of exquisitely shaped red lips.

“The Three Jin lands looked powerful and claimed to possess more than a million mounted warriors, yet in the end the pattern of the Three Clans dividing Jin endured for sixty years. The people of Yan merely seized the advantage because the Jin emperor sold out the fate of his state and the Jin factions were divided against one another.

“My Great Qian may have suffered a temporary setback, but the Yan people have not seized even a single piece of our territory. His Majesty’s resolve to strengthen the country is already clear throughout court and countryside. In the future, never mind another Yan invasion to the south—perhaps the civil and military officials of my Great Qian will be the ones marching north.”

The old man glanced at the woman.

Then snorted disdainfully.

“The Yan people sent sixty thousand iron cavalry all the way to the walls of Upper Capital, then calmly withdrew. This old man truly has no idea where your confidence comes from, young lady.”

“That was then. This is now.”

“Heh. A woman’s view.”

“Then I would very much like to hear a great man’s view. And I am also quite curious—when the Yan cavalry marched south, where exactly was Mr. Yao?”

“At home.”

“Doing what at home?”

“Making babies.”

“…”

The woman fell silent.

“Hehehehe.”

The man pulling the cart burst out laughing.

The woman spat lightly and muttered, “Shameless.”

The old man reclining on the cart was none other than Yao Zizhan, Mr. Yao himself, one of the representative literary figures of the State of Qian. He did not care in the slightest.

He said directly, “This old man’s talents lie in poetry, songs, and elegant prose.

“In peaceful times, I can summon friends, drink in a pavilion, and perhaps leave behind a fine anecdote.

“When idle, I can wander about searching for good food, and that too might become an interesting tale.

“If I ascend the hall to hear cases, and the strong and weak are clearly distinguished, I can cut down the strong and make good the losses of the weak. That too might become a story praised by later generations.

“But military affairs? Of ten apertures, nine are open and one remains blocked—and that last one is the only one that matters.

“Aiding the people, pacifying the people, organizing supplies; transporting grain, making plans, acting decisively when the moment comes—this old man understands none of it.

“An official like me is useful in peaceful years for striking the ceremonial bell and pasting a layer of paper over the window to make everything look respectable. But when real trouble comes, the greatest help I can offer is to stay out of office and refrain from making things worse.

“Hero Chen, tell me. Does what this old man says make sense?”

The cart-pulling Hero Chen nodded and replied with complete seriousness, “It does.”

“Outrageous!” the woman snapped.

Yao Zizhan rubbed his earlobe and smacked his lips.

“You live off the people’s blood and sweat. In times of chaos, even if you possess no other useful talent, are you telling me you’re not even worth half an accountant or half a laborer?”

“Ah, young lady, you are wrong again. This old man truly is nothing more than decorative plaster for prosperous times. Whether the face beneath it is genuinely beautiful or merely pretending to be, whether it has sores or has already rotted through, someone like me is still needed to go up and make it look prettier.

“A ruler needs songs of praise. The common people need something that lets them share in the glory.

“But put plainly—do you think only our own His Majesty needs that layer of decorative plaster? Does the Emperor of Yan not need it too?

“Heh. Put it this way: even if this old man went to the battlefield and was captured, the moment I revealed my identity, no matter how domineering the Zhenbei Army might be, they would still respectfully invite me into a carriage, serve me good food and drink, and send me to Yanjing.

“If Wen Sutong can be set up like a sacred idol in Yanjing, then if this old man went there, wouldn’t the Emperor of Yan personally come out of the city to welcome me and shout:

“‘Today, all the literary splendor beneath Heaven returns to Yan!’

“Wouldn’t that be raising the enemy’s morale and diminishing our own prestige?

“I, Yao Zizhan, may already be a sack of old bones, but believe it or not, the Emperor of Yan would gladly trade three thousand iron cavalry to bring me into Yan.

“Compared to that, I’m better off staying home, teasing my pretty wife and beautiful concubines. That is true consideration for the state. That is my contribution to the nation.”

“…”

The woman fell silent again.

“What? Nothing to say now?”

“That is sophistry.”

“Heh. It isn’t sophistry. Since when has this world ever been simply black and white? Since when has there ever been some absolute principle that can truly be argued through?

“This old man wasted most of his life. In my younger years, I loved elegant pleasures and unfettered romance. I thought all worldly people and affairs were vulgar and filthy, and only I possessed some lofty, immaculate brilliance.

“Only now, in my old age, after the Yan people smashed us over the head with that hammer, have I finally understood.

“Poetry and songs, the qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, praise of sovereigns and peaceful flourishing—no matter how beautifully you dress them up, in the end, they still cannot defeat real blades and real spears!

“Hero Chen, isn’t that the truth?”

“It is.”

Hero Chen answered.

The woman still seemed unconvinced, but she had already understood that she would never win a verbal battle against this old man. Perhaps her stubbornness itself had become nothing more than seasoning for his journey.

The old man shook his head and sighed.

“In my younger years, this old man also yearned for the jianghu. People say Great Qian’s jianghu is the most splendid, Great Chu’s the most mysterious, Great Jin’s the most carefree, and only Great Yan’s jianghu is the dullest.

“So dull that Li Liangshen, one of the Four Great Swordsmen, is actually a commanding general of the Zhenbei Army. Where is even half the spirit of a man of the jianghu in that?

“And Yan’s plate is only so large. The Yan court takes a bite, the aristocratic clans take a bite, the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate takes another bite. Once those families divide everything among themselves, where is there any room left in the jianghu to raise fish or shrimp?

“But looking at it now, this old man was wrong.

“Beneath the walls of Upper Capital, Baili Jian of my Great Qian—the number-one swordsman of the age—fled in panic with his younger sister before the cavalry of the Zhenbei Army.

“And earlier, word came from the imperial region of Jin that the Sword Saint of Jin, Yu Huaping, fought the Southern Marquis of Yan and was defeated.

“The jianghu is ultimately only the jianghu.

“Precisely because it cannot ascend the grand stage, it is called jianghu.”

Hero Chen stopped walking.

“What? Hero, did this old man finally say something you don’t like hearing?”

Hero Chen shook his head.

“Someone said something similar to you before.”

“Oh? Where was he from?”

“Yan.”

“That isn’t surprising. Yan people only believe in sabers from horseback. They believe in nothing else.”

“Perhaps.”

Hero Chen resumed pulling the cart.

Yao Zizhan took another drink of wine, pointed toward the mountains ahead, and said, “Up there should more or less be Geda Mountain.”

At that moment, the woman spoke.

“Everyone knows that in your youth, Master Yao, you once traveled through the Tianduan Mountains and were captured alive by savages. You nearly lost your life here, and the world nearly lost countless famous poems and magnificent writings because of it.

“Who would have thought there were so many hidden twists behind that old story?”

“There weren’t that many twists. I’m not afraid to tell the two of you. The man who captured this old man back then was none other than Helian Xiongbi.

“That brat Helian Xiongbi had not yet become head of the Helian Clan. He was young then, just as I was.”

“Helian Xiongbi saved you back then?” the woman asked.

“Heh. Nonsense. This old man was merely traveling through this region, with a few tamed savages accompanying me. You could never imagine it, but when that brat Helian Xiongbi was young, he was an absolute literary peacock.

“He was actually drinking alone here while reciting poetry.

“This old man happened to overhear him.

“I laughed twice.

“And then that bastard captured me!”

Hero Chen chuckled.

“He actually didn’t kill you.”

“That’s right. He couldn’t bear to kill me. This place was a secret of the Helian Clan. By rights, he should have killed me, but my literary talent conquered him. He made a deal with me: write him one poem every day. As long as the poem satisfied him, he would let me live another day.

“So I wrote and wrote and wrote.

“For three whole months.”

“Nowadays, countless courtesans would spend a fortune for a single poem from you, yet back then they were so cheap.”

“Those poems were buying my life! Cheap your immortal grandpa!”

Yao Zizhan glared irritably at the woman.

Then continued, “Three months later, Helian Xiongbi let me go. He told me not to speak of what happened here.”

“That was all?”

“There was one more thing.”

“What?”

“This.”

“What exactly was it?”

“He said that if one day he died, I had to come back and offer him a pair of funeral couplets, accompanied by my finest poem.”

With that, Yao Zizhan poured the wine from his gourd onto the roadside.

He sighed.

“Alas. The dead deserve mourning.”

“I never imagined you were actually a man who valued friendship and loyalty,” the woman said with some emotion.

Hero Chen spoke.

“Neither did I.”

The old man narrowed his slightly drunken eyes.

“Hero, have you taken a fancy to this girl?”

“I have.”

“Have you told her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m lame. Crippled.”

“But you’re not useless. From what this old man can tell, if the two of you really fought, this girl still wouldn’t be your match. Unless when your leg was broken, that thing below was broken along with it?”

Hero Chen released one hand from the cart.

He checked.

Then said, “That part’s still fine.”

“Then what the hell are you afraid of? She’s beautiful. You have a sword. Perfect match!”

The woman remained silent.

Hero Chen said instead, “What parents beneath Heaven would willingly marry their daughter to a cripple?”

Yao Zizhan began chuckling.

He scooped up a handful of fennel beans, tossed them into his mouth, and crunched away.

“What does it have to do with her parents?

“When we return from Geda Mountain, take your sword and go to Upper Capital. Name her specifically and demand that she become your wife.

“Just wait and see.

“That very night, a great red bridal sedan will carry her straight to wherever you’re staying!”

The woman’s body trembled.

Hero Chen shook his head.

“They even hand out wives there?”

Yao Zizhan slapped his thigh and laughed as he cursed, “Exactly! That place specializes in handing out wives!”

[End of Chapter 234]