Chapter 443: I Curse Myself

Hero Chen’s swordsmanship had not reached the transcendent summit of the Sword Saint.

But it had unquestionably entered the hall.

So if Hero Chen said the Swordsmith of Chu had arrived then the person coming had to be that Swordsmith.

Count Zheng had already risen and was preparing to leave when two men appeared on the second floor.

The man in front wore a white robe over a padded inner garment.

His entire bearing radiated wealth and nobility.

There was no mystery to it.

In this era, anyone who dared walk outside dressed entirely in white was almost always rich or noble.

Poor households rarely liked white clothes.

Too easy to stain.

Too easy to ruin.

Behind the white-robed man walked another man with long, flowing hair.

His features were handsome.

His entire image carried the romantic, unconstrained flavor Chu people especially admired.

Instinctively—

Count Zheng knew the people had arrived.

Leaving now would only attract attention.

Hero Chen, meanwhile, finally seemed to realize he had misunderstood the situation.

And that the misunderstanding might have created a problem.

Hero Chen did not feel this was entirely his fault.

The previous several times he had met Zheng Fan, Zheng Fan and the Blind Man had arranged him so thoroughly that every step had already been calculated.

So when this honest Hero Chen met Count Zheng again he simply decided not to bring his brain.

Why bother?

They could calculate everything anyway.

They would arrange everything properly.

Only this time apparently they had not.

Zheng Fan’s first impression was that the white-robed man must be the Swordsmith of Chu.

After all, he walked in front.

The man behind him remained half a step back clearly showing respect.

How to put it?

When Count Zheng walked beside the Marquis of Jingnan he also adopted exactly that half-step-behind posture.

But then Hero Chen gripped his sword, rose, looked toward the man in back, and cupped his fist.

“Greetings, Sir.”

Only then did Count Zheng realize the long-haired man behind was the Swordsmith of Chu, one of the Four Great Swordsmen.

For an instant—

Count Zheng’s heart seemed to skip a beat.

There were very few people in this world before whom one of the Four Great Swordsmen would willingly walk half a step behind.

Li Liangshen of Yan would retreat one step only when the Emperor of Yan or the two Marquises of North and South were present.

Baili Sword of Qian would probably give only the Emperor of Qian that much face.

As for the Sword Saint of Jin these days he seemed too lazy to give anyone face at all.

Even when he went outside with Zheng Fan, the two simply walked shoulder to shoulder like brothers.

Chu...

Then there was probably only one person who could make the Swordsmith willingly stand behind him.

Because setting aside his identity as one of the Four Great Swordsmen the Swordsmith came from the **Dugu Clan**.

And the Dugu Clan itself was one of Great Chu’s supreme aristocratic houses a family that had once stood shoulder to shoulder with the Qu Clan at its height.

Even without the title of Swordsmith, his lineage alone meant there were not many people in Chu whose faces he needed to respect.

Add the status of one of the Four Great Swordsmen and that became even more pronounced.

It was said the Swordsmith possessed an excessively carefree temperament.

Earlier, he had openly cheered for the Eldest Prince of Chu.

Then for reasons nobody understood, he somehow switched to supporting the Third Prince.

And in the end he calmly appeared behind the Fourth Prince the current Regent.

Nobody knew whether he had long ago reached some private understanding with the Fourth Prince.

There was no reason to investigate too deeply.

No matter which prince ultimately seized the throne they would still need to win him over.

He had always possessed the freedom to play however he pleased.

Unlike that blockheaded honest Hero Chen, who saw the Swordsmith and immediately skipped over the “principal person” to greet the man behind him the moment Zheng Fan rose he first saluted the white-robed man.

The etiquette he used was Qian etiquette.

Count Zheng was someone obsessed with details.

Naturally, he would never make a mistake on something like this.

The white-robed man smiled faintly.

Reserved.

Then, without waiting for introductions he sat down.

The Swordsmith followed and seated himself beside him.

A square table.

Exactly four people.

The white-robed man pointed toward Hero Chen and asked the Swordsmith:

“This is Hero Chen?”

Hero Chen nodded.

“Yes.

“It’s me.”

The Swordsmith had clearly heard of Hero Chen’s temperament long before this.

He showed no irritation at being answered before he could speak.

Instead, he smiled.

“I had already heard Hero Chen’s name while I was in Chu.

“Perhaps twenty years from now, when Baili Sword steps down and a new generation of Four Great Swordsmen is chosen—

Hero Chen here may be the one to take his place.”

Count Zheng felt the Swordsmith really did know how to speak.

No wonder he had become the only one among the Four Great Swordsmen who had never actually fought anyone, possessed no real battle record, and had somehow been forcefully promoted into the group through Yu Huaping’s praise.

Then, the Swordsmith looked toward Zheng Fan.

The man’s gaze was extraordinarily clear.

A kind of true purity without the slightest impurity.

Almost as though it could look directly through a person’s heart.

Zheng Fan, however, was not worried that his true nature would be exposed.

For example, that someone might discover he practiced martial arts.

The red stone Xue San had extracted from the fallen meteor had become the Demon Child’s new home.

And when Zheng Fan carried the red “Demon Child” on his body the Blind Man’s mental power could not approach him at all.

For insurance—

Zheng Fan had specifically gone next door and asked the Sword Saint to test it too.

The result had been the same.

In other words, after changing shells, the Demon Child now possessed an unimaginably powerful ability to conceal aura.

That was also why Count Zheng had possessed the confidence to live openly inside the Fan Residence.

And why, inside the imperial villa, he had needed to focus only on handling the Princess.

True experts did not need to reach the Sword Saint’s level.

Basically, anyone around Fifth or Sixth Grade and even some Seventh or Eighth Grade cultivators with particularly sharp sensitivity to aura could tell whether another person practiced martial arts.

So now sitting at the table—

Zheng Fan could calmly meet the Swordsmith’s gaze.

“This gentleman—

I imagine you must be the young Mr. Su Mingzhe, the disciple Master Yao accepted several years ago?”

Zheng Fan had only just prepared to answer when Hero Chen spoke directly:

“Yes.”

Zheng Fan stood again.

Saluted.

“Before the two of you, this junior would never dare be called ‘Mister.’

“Please simply call me Mingzhe.”

The white-robed man smiled.

“As expected of a disciple chosen by Master Yao.

“Your composure and bearing are indeed uncommon.”

One was the publicly known Swordsmith of Great Chu.

The other himself.

The Regent had not revealed his identity.

But he knew perfectly well that not just anyone could remain this calm while sitting in front of him.

In the Regent’s eyes—

Zheng Fan’s composure became what people called **the bearing of a great household.**

Neither man could possibly imagine that the person sitting before them was Count Pingye of Great Yan.

A general who had personally stood before the Emperor of Yan, the Marquis of Zhenbei, and the Marquis of Jingnan.

A man tempered by years of campaigning.

That did not mean the two Chu men were foolish.

Count Zheng himself had never imagined that all he wanted was to buy Hero Chen a meal and, while he was at it, trick this honest swordsman into becoming his bodyguard after delivering the gift only for the Regent of Great Chu and the Swordsmith of Chu to somehow sit down at the same table.

A tiny Drunken Wind Restaurant.

At this exact moment had somehow become crowded with enormous Buddhas.

Zheng Fan reached out and pushed the envelope Hero Chen had placed on the table toward the Regent.

“This is the letter my teacher asked this junior to deliver.”

The Regent spread one hand.

The Swordsmith drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and passed it over.

The Regent first wiped his hands.

Then carefully opened the envelope.

He withdrew the first sheet of paper.

It contained a lyric.

Yao Zizhan had written it after obeying the Emperor of Qian’s command and taking office as Governor-General of the Three Frontiers.

The poem described a hunt outside the city with eight hundred cavalry.

The first half portrayed the grand spectacle of detachments from every army following the Governor-General into the hunt.

The second half expressed the ambition of an old man who refused to admit age and still yearned to achieve great deeds.

The whole lyric was majestic.

Heroic.

“Excellent lyric.

“Excellent indeed.”

After reading it, the Regent passed the sheet to the Swordsmith.

The Swordsmith read it.

Then could not help laughing.

“The lyric is excellent.

“But Master Yao spent his entire life studying scholarship.

“He understands nothing of warfare.

“In the end, he is still a giant of letters.

“He can write with such blazing passion about something he himself does not understand at all.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the Swordsmith seemed to remember that Yao Zizhan’s disciple was sitting at the same table.

He waved one hand.

“My tongue slipped.

“My tongue slipped.

“Young Mr. Mingzhe, do not take it to heart.”

Given the Swordsmith’s status, even if he sat directly beside Yao Zizhan, the two could treat one another as equals laugh curse expose each other’s shortcomings and trade jokes.

But mocking a teacher directly in front of the teacher’s disciple how was the disciple supposed to react?

Yet Zheng Fan merely smiled and nodded with perfect ease.

“My teacher says the same.

“He says life is life, and poetry is poetry.

“Precisely because life itself is sometimes too bland, poetry is needed as seasoning.

“But if someone truly tries to live poetry as though it were life— then they have reversed root and branch.

“No one has ever heard of a man living on salt alone without eating rice.”

Hearing this, the Regent nodded.

“I have always admired Master Yao’s state of mind and his freedom.”

The Swordsmith said:

“That really does sound like something that old fellow would say.”

“My teacher also said that although His Majesty appointed him Governor-General of the Three Frontiers, what he truly needs to do is act as a peacemaker.

“Bring several factions to one table and get them talking.

“My teacher says he does not understand warfare.

“So he does not intend to point fingers at military affairs.”

The Swordsmith sighed.

“He still understands how to live better than most.”

The Regent said:

“Perhaps he learned from the lesson.

“I heard that when the Yan army invaded Qian and reached the gates of Shangjing, a Yan envoy entered the capital and met your Emperor.

“That envoy told your Emperor directly that he did not understand warfare.

“Your Emperor was so enraged that he immediately ordered the Three Frontiers armies not to return and reinforce the capital.

“And in the end— that merely allowed the Yan people to pin nearly all of Qian’s armies with little more than sixty thousand cavalry.

“Meanwhile, the main Yan force—three hundred thousand horsemen—was able to calmly borrow a road through Qian and invade Jin.”

Zheng Fan immediately straightened his expression.

“One can only say—

Yan fought that campaign extraordinarily well.”

The Regent shook his head.

“No.

“Qian cooperated extraordinarily well.”

As Regent of Great Chu and effectively the current Emperor of Chu in all but name he naturally possessed the freedom to speak without much restraint.

His position was fundamentally equal to the Emperors of Yan and Qian.

The Swordsmith said:

“That envoy— wasn’t he the man Yan now calls Count Pingye?”

Zheng Fan immediately replied:

“Yes.

“His name is Zheng Fan.”

The Swordsmith could not help gloating.

“I imagine your Emperor must regret it now.

“At the time, he probably thought Zheng Fan was merely a silver-tongued envoy.

“He allowed the man to enter the city safely— and allowed him to leave safely.

“Yes, since Great Xia there has always been the rule that warring states do not execute envoys.

“But in my opinion— that man surnamed Zheng should still have been chopped down.

“No.

“He would have been worth chopping down.

“Yan already possesses one Tian Wujing, still in the prime of life.

“Do not let a day come when Tian Wujing is finally gone— only for another Zheng Fan to step forward and inherit his banner.

“A commander of that caliber, especially one belonging to an enemy state— the fewer such men alive, the better.”

The Regent nodded as well.

“Zheng Fan possesses signs of being accomplished in both letters and arms.

“A man capable of writing *The Zheng Treatise on War* may very well become one of the great scholar-generals of his age.

“Give him another ten years— and he may truly take Tian Wujing’s banner and become a grave threat to both Chu and Qian.

“A pity.

“Such a general— yet he is a man of Yan.

“If only he were Chu-born.”

Soon enough.

**Brother-in-law.**

In a little while we may genuinely become family.

Zheng Fan, meanwhile, continued with righteous fervor:

“I disagree.

“When great states contend, national strength is the true foundation.

“The might of armies can suppress an age for a time— but it cannot suppress all ages forever.

“If Great Qian and Great Chu reform their administration and restore the people within— while strengthening arms and military preparedness without then even though Yan currently occupies the lands of the Three Jin, Great Qian possesses immense wealth and Great Chu vast territory.

“Two against one— this junior does not believe Yan is anything to fear.

“Nor do I believe a few men such as Tian Wujing and Zheng Fan can, by themselves, alter the fate of three great states.”

The Swordsmith immediately countered:

“Young sir, that argument is somewhat careless.

“Think about it.

“Not long ago, Tian Wujing suddenly raised troops and surrounded Zhennan Pass.

“Great Chu clearly knew Zhennan Pass was an extraordinarily strong defensive position.

“We clearly knew Yan troops are not especially skilled at siege warfare.

“And yet we still continuously transferred more soldiers toward Zhennan Pass.

“Why?

“Because the man commanding the enemy— was Tian Wujing.

“When the enemy possesses a commander who specializes in turning impossibility into possibility— that pressure...

“Tsk, tsk.”

Zheng Fan immediately replied:

“This junior still does not agree.

“Nothing beneath Heaven exists completely independently.

“Everything reinforces something else.

“Tian Wujing is formidable because the Jingnan Army beneath his command is formidable.

“Take away that elite cavalry— and Tian Wujing becomes little more than a first-rate jianghu expert.

“As for Zheng Fan—

I hear half the soldiers beneath him are barbarians.

“He merely relies on those troops as the foundation of his position.

“Without those elite soldiers and capable generals beneath him— what could he possibly accomplish?”

Hearing this the Regent actually nodded.

“That has reason.

“Did the Yan people not once lose beside the Wang River?

“Yan’s strength lies in the Zhenbei and Jingnan Armies.

“But not every Yan soldier is skilled at war.”

The Regent was naturally evaluating Zheng Fan’s argument from his own position.

Because the very thing he was currently doing was attempting to seize military authority back from the great noble clans and consolidate their elite private armies into his own hands.

His goal was to forge a truly elite field army one belonging to Great Chu.

And to himself.

Zheng Fan immediately continued:

“Exactly.

“Great Qian and Great Chu have never lacked talented people.

“Nor do we lack generals capable of fighting.

“Nor commanders capable of unifying armies.

“What we lack— are elite formations capable of matching Yan’s Zhenbei and Jingnan Armies.

“But this junior believes there is still time.

“My Emperor has spent the past two years sharpening weapons, feeding horses, and training new armies.

“Great Chu is obviously doing the same.

“Give it another three years.

“When the armies of Qian and Chu have been remade— the arrogance Yan has accumulated over these past years should finally begin costing it dearly.

“In fact— this junior believes the Yan people today are merely being propped up by a blaze of false fire.

“In reality— their strength already shows signs of failing to continue.

“As the saying goes, It rises in a rush; it falls in a flash.”

A smile appeared on the Regent’s face.

He lifted his wine cup.

“For that line alone— young sir deserves a full cup.”

All four men lifted their cups.

And drained them.

“Young Mr. Su sounds as though you understand military affairs?” the Regent asked.

“This junior is untalented and would not dare claim such a thing.

“But I have long remained among my teacher’s staff.

“I often have opportunities to read military reports and memorials.

“Occasionally I help my teacher discuss them.”

“Oh.

“No wonder.”

Then, the Regent carefully put the letter away.

It seemed he was preparing to leave.

Most likely he had originally come merely because he wanted to read Yao Zizhan’s new lyric.

Only after his interest was stirred had he spoken with Zheng Fan for several extra rounds.

As for why the Regent had appeared here incognito the answer was almost already obvious.

He was the Regent.

Effectively Great Chu’s present “Emperor.”

With military affairs erupting at Zhennan Pass, there was no way he could openly leave Ying Capital with great fanfare simply to escort his younger sister into marriage.

But as an elder brother he could still slip out in plain clothes and see his sister one last time before she married.

Especially when that younger sister had only recently disappeared.

She must have been frightened.

Seeing the Regent prepare to leave—

Zheng Fan also planned to exchange a few polite words and take his own leave.

The Regent stood before him.

The Swordsmith of Chu stood beside the Regent.

Outside there had to be an entire group of Great Chu’s true elite experts secretly guarding him.

The pressure on Count Zheng was absolutely not ordinary.

Fortunately.

Fortunately the real Mr. Su Mingzhe had developed diarrhea halfway here and failed to arrive.

But just as Zheng Fan prepared to invent some excuse about wanting to travel through Great Chu and admire its magnificent mountains and rivers one sentence from the Regent sent Count Zheng’s heart plunging straight into the abyss again.

It even gave him the absurd sensation that this entire world was deliberately playing with him.

“Young Mr. Su should come with us to the imperial villa now.

“After all, you represent Master Yao.

“If Master Yao’s personal disciple attends the wedding feast, I imagine it will add considerable brilliance to the celebration.

“The villa is not far from here.

“If we leave now, we can arrive this afternoon.

“Along the way—

I can continue discussing poetry, letters, romance, and the finer things with you.”

“...”

Zheng Fan.

[End of Chapter 443]