Chapter 490: - Gentleman

Seventh Uncle smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t that be inappropriate?”

Count Pingye smiled as well. “This Count is very busy.”

With that, Zheng Fan lowered the carriage curtain and sat back down.

Little Eunuch Zhang urged the carriage forward again, only for it to stop once more. Seventh Uncle had not moved. He was still blocking the road.

Then Little Eunuch Zhang gritted his teeth.

As Eunuch Zhang’s godson, Little Eunuch Zhang was naturally no fool. He knew exactly who the man blocking the road was, but he knew even more clearly who sat inside the carriage behind him, and what kind of relationship that man had with his own master.

His godfather had once taught him that after losing your root, you became a rootless man. And if a rootless man wanted to stand in this world and survive, there was only one thing he could rely on: his master.

Your eyes should see only your own master.

So after only a brief hesitation, Little Eunuch Zhang drove the carriage straight at Seventh Uncle.

The sword in Seventh Uncle’s hand slid halfway from its sheath.

Inside the carriage, Longyuan at the Sword Saint’s side also slid halfway free.

The next instant, Seventh Uncle stepped aside.

The carriage rolled past him.

Little Eunuch Zhang let out a long breath.

Inside, the Sword Saint returned Longyuan to its sheath and looked at Zheng Fan. “Why do you seem much more hardheaded here than you were at Snow Sea Pass?”

Count Pingye shook his head. “Because Snow Sea Pass is my territory, so I actually have to watch my hands and feet more carefully there. But this is Yanjing. Here, I can afford to be more open. If he’d kept blocking the road, I really would have asked you to finally use that sword on him. The man’s already that old, yet he still has to carry a sword around everywhere. Must be exhausting.”

If something happened to the Commandery Princess at Snow Sea Pass, then responsibility would inevitably fall on Zheng Fan. But here in Yanjing, under countless watching eyes, there was actually room to reason.

Emperor Yan had given him such an extravagant entrance ceremony only yesterday. Surely His Majesty was not going to stand by and watch him get stabbed to death in broad daylight today.

“That sword of his wasn’t easy to cultivate either,” the Sword Saint said.

“I’m sick of him, and I’m sick of the madwoman behind him too.”

The Sword Saint nodded.

Count Pingye stretched, half closed his eyes, and leaned back against the carriage wall. “Less than half a year ago, I didn’t have this kind of confidence. Leaving aside the fact that the location is different, there are two other reasons. One is the princess. One princess was enough to leave the other three of the Four Rising Generals eating my dust. Reputation can be a burden, sure, but reputation can also keep you alive. And the other reason is you. You’ve recovered. Brother, you’re the key. At the end of the day, no matter how many titles you have, no matter how many responsibilities or connections hang from your name, if someone can simply stab you to death with one sword while you’re walking down the street, then all of it is bullshit. I don’t like putting my life in someone else’s willingness to consider the greater good. Mostly because I’m not the sort of person who enjoys considering the greater good myself.”

A princess.

A Sword Saint.

Between the two of them, Count Pingye could finally straighten his back in front of the Commandery Princess.

And Yanjing was relatively neutral ground.

After that, it came down to comparing backgrounds.

You have the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence standing behind you?

Fine.

I have the Marquis of Jingnan standing behind me.

Who the hell is afraid of whom?

...

The Blind Man and the Savage King had already entered Ji Chengjue’s residence with the rest of Zheng Fan’s retainers.

The residence was quite secure.

In order to protect his wife, Ji Chengjue had hired several experts and a considerable number of people skilled in stealth to guard the surrounding area.

The steward of the residence received Count Pingye’s retainers with great care.

There were fresh oranges.

The Blind Man grabbed several at once and stuffed his pockets full.

Fruit was difficult to come by at Snow Sea Pass. The Blind Man had even abused public resources for private ends and ordered people to transplant a few orange trees there.

Unfortunately, the fruit they produced tasted terrible.

The fruit at Ji Chengjue’s residence was fresh, all of it tribute from different regions. His Majesty had the Imperial Household Department regularly send some over for his grandson.

“Shameless. Stealing oranges from a child.”

Gou Moli mocked him without the slightest restraint.

“Children have weak constitutions. Too many oranges give them internal heat.”

The Blind Man peeled another orange.

Gou Moli, meanwhile, sat on the steps.

This was only a small guest courtyard, a square patch of sky enclosed by walls, but Gou Moli still greedily stuck out his tongue and breathed in the air as deeply as he could.

The Blind Man put a segment of orange into his mouth. “You look like a dog.”

Gou Moli did not get angry.

He called himself Little Dog often enough anyway.

Instead, he said proudly, “Never imagined I’d get to breathe in the fragrance of Yanjing this freely.”

“It probably isn’t quite how you imagined it happening. The method, I mean.”

Gou Moli shook his head. “No. I never imagined I’d one day lead an army into this capital. I served as an auxiliary soldier beneath the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence in Beifeng Commandery. I know exactly how difficult it would be to conquer this country. Back then, all I really wanted was to take most of Jin. That would have been enough. I couldn’t push the Yan too hard. Who knew the Yan really were a tiger’s ass? Touch them and they explode—and they’d rather die than lose face.”

“Heh.”

“I thought winning one battle at the Wang River would be enough. We could divide the territory along the river, or perhaps later find a chance to take Yingdu. My demands weren’t high. I was even willing to bow my head and become a vassal of Yan, as long as...”

“As long as they married the Commandery Princess to you?”

“That was my dream. No, it became an obsession. Back then the Commandery Princess was still young. Sure, she whipped me once, but I wasn’t about to develop thoughts about some little girl because of that. If anything, you Xia people are stranger. Some of your nobles really like them young. We of the Sacred Race prefer women built big enough to bear children. I don’t even know what she looks like now, but I still can’t stop thinking about her. Because she was part of an oath I made to myself.”

“A goal you gave yourself while you were lying low?”

“That’s exactly it. Again and again, I struggled through the mud. Again and again, I bowed and scraped before other people. Again and again, I endured those short-sighted tribal chiefs on the snowfields who thought far too highly of themselves. I swallowed that much humiliation for that many years. I needed some reason to keep myself going. She was the reward I set aside for myself.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you.”

“But I don’t like living that way.”

“I can tell. You people are all lunatics. In your eyes, nothing matters more than whether you yourselves are happy!”

“That’s called living according to your own heart.”

“Heh.”

The Blind Man peeled another strip of orange skin away. “I’ll tell you the truth. Even with the foundation we have now, even with Snow Sea Pass as our base, lowering our heads a little and lying low for a while to plan for the future isn’t something we can’t accept. But if someone truly pushed us all the way to our bottom line...”

“Give me an example. What counts as your bottom line?”

“Probably the lives of the few of us, or forcing Master to hand over one of his women.”

“I think anything except the Count’s own life can be handed over.”

“You see? That’s the biggest difference between you and us. We’ve always been prepared, if things truly become impossible, to flip the table. Worst case, we go to the snowfields, or the desert, or open an inn in Qian’s Jiangnan.”

“You could bear to give all this up?”

“Yes.”

“Tsk.”

The Blind Man glanced at him. “Look at you. You spent half your life bowing and scraping, and in the end your grand undertaking turned into a dream. Was it worth it?”

“I came. I saw. I lived it.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Something the Count once said.”

The Blind Man nodded. “The more someone in officialdom loves boasting about how incorruptible he is, the more he loves proclaiming that he loves the common people like his own children, the less likely he is to survive an actual investigation.”

“You’re mocking your own Master?”

“I’d say it to Master’s face.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The Blind Man started peeling a second orange. “I’m really not lying.”

“Then when the Count gets back, say it again in front of him.”

“Say what?”

“What you just said.”

“What did I say?”

“That Count Pingye is hypocritical, pretends to be noble, puts on airs, says one thing and does another...”

Creak.

The courtyard gate opened.

Count Pingye walked in, the Sword Saint behind him.

“...” Gou Moli.

Count Pingye glanced at Gou Moli.

Gou Moli immediately dropped to his knees.

“You seem to have plenty of free time.”

Gou Moli trembled.

Count Pingye looked at the Blind Man. “Were the gifts for the princess’s side delivered?”

The Blind Man nodded. “Aside from the gifts for Her Highness’s wife and child, the other gifts meant for women were sent into the palace earlier. They should already have been handed over to the palace attendants by now. I sent He Chunlai and Chen Daole with them. Heh.”

Everyone tacitly understood there was something questionable about He Chunlai and Chen Daole’s backgrounds.

Both were Jin men, and both had probably once taken part in activities to resist Yan and restore Jin.

Sending the two of them to deliver gifts into the palace was simply the Blind Man indulging one of his more perverse jokes.

Look.

The imperial palace of the Great Yan Dynasty is right there in front of you.

Go on.

Have at it.

“All of them were sent in?” Zheng Fan asked.

“Mm? Master, is there a problem?”

The Blind Man looked puzzled.

Count Pingye glanced at the Sword Saint standing beside him, then shook his head. “No. Liqing should be able to sort it out herself.”

Count Pingye had also prepared a Horn Gentleman carved from old mountainwood of the snowfields.

The wood was extremely precious.

It resisted water.

It resisted cold.

If held for long enough, it warmed in the hand.

Savage tribes often used it medicinally for ailments such as rheumatism and chills.

The object was a beautifully crafted wooden dildo, coyly known as a “Horn Gentleman.”

Count Pingye had originally prepared it as a gift for the Empress Dowager of Jin.

But now, it appeared it had probably been sent into the palace along with everything else.

This was not something Zheng Fan felt comfortable saying in front of the Sword Saint. The Sword Saint bore the surname Yu, after all. What exactly were your intentions, sending something like that to the man’s Empress Dowager?

The Blind Man naturally had no idea that Master and the Fourth Lady had even prepared such a gift. There were limits to foresight. No matter how godlike your calculations, some forms of perversity simply could not be predicted.

Assuming Zheng Fan was worried about the princess inside the palace, the Blind Man reassured him. “Master, the princess was raised in the imperial palace of Great Chu. She should know perfectly well how to deal with these things.”

“Mm, mm.”

Count Pingye nodded.

“Oh, right. We ran into Seventh Uncle on the road earlier.”

Gou Moli, still kneeling on the ground, suddenly lifted his head.

The Blind Man reached over, pressed down on the top of his skull, and pushed him flat again.

“So the Commandery Princess has awakened.”

“She has. There are plenty of capable people in Yanjing, after all. She invited me to the Rear Garden. I refused and told her that if she wants to see me, she can come here herself.”

The Blind Man nodded. “As she should.”

“But there’s no telling whether that madwoman might actually come.”

Count Pingye pointed at Gou Moli. “So tie this bastard up first. Otherwise he might suddenly jump out later and embarrass me.”

“...” Gou Moli.

...

“Elder Sister, what has you so happy?”

“Heh-heh. Didn’t I go to Noble Consort Qin’s place today to meet that princess from Great Chu?”

“The one Count Pingye stole back from Chu?”

“Who else?”

“Elder Sister, what does the princess look like?”

“I wouldn’t call her devastatingly beautiful, the sort who topples cities or makes the moon hide in shame, but she has a charm of her own. Quite pleasing to the eye. More importantly, she’s a genuine princess, and Great Chu has always placed enormous weight on etiquette and ceremony. Watching the way she deals with people, you can see the bearing of a great house. Just standing beside her made me feel somewhat overshadowed.”

“Elder Sister, there’s no need to belittle yourself. You have beauty enough to sink fish and make geese fall from the sky.”

“Little Sister, you don’t understand. For ordinary men, beautiful women are rare treasures. They dream of them, toss and turn at night thinking of them. But to men who truly hold power in their hands, beautiful faces are nothing more than flowers and grass growing everywhere around them. No matter how lovely the skin, it is still only the outside. Once a man reaches that level, what he values more is what lies beneath it. That princess’s innate nobility is something women like us, born among the common people, could never cultivate.”

Noble Lady Cai had been born in the State of Qian, while Attendant Lady Ding was a woman of Jin.

Both had come from common origins before being sent into the palace.

Noble Lady Cai had received her title in the first year of Yongping, when the Yan army was invading Qian.

Little Sixth had once privately joked to Count Pingye that during that period, his imperial father had repeatedly favored several consorts from Qian, hoping to produce one or two imperial sons with Qian blood.

Count Pingye had replied that he truly admired His Majesty: to labor for the nation by day and night alike, exhausting both mind and body in the service of state affairs.

In private, those two men would say absolutely anything and joke about absolutely anything.

Noble Lady Cai was one of the women Emperor Yan had favored during that period.

Later, the Jin lands were incorporated into the Great Yan Dynasty.

His Majesty then accepted several women from Jin into the palace as well.

In truth, the great clans of Jin had proactively sent them. It was an established custom.

Attendant Lady Ding was one of those women.

Over the past year, His Majesty had occasionally spent the night in her quarters.

Both court and countryside had long speculated about Emperor Yan’s health, but His Majesty lived deep within the palace. Even after bringing all the Three Jin lands under his control, he had never gone on an imperial tour. And under Wei Zhonghe’s management, the palace was sealed tighter than a drum. Outsiders had never been able to obtain reliable intelligence about Emperor Yan’s physical condition.

There was one thing, however, that could neither be faked nor concealed.

In all these years, none of the imperial consorts had given birth again.

The last woman to become pregnant had been Noble Consort Qin, but that had been several years ago, and the child had not survived.

The last woman to actually give birth to an imperial child was Consort Shu, mother of the Seventh Prince.

An imperial heir could not be fabricated.

Even an emperor would not dare, much less wish, to play tricks with something like that.

For that reason, the fact that Emperor Yan had produced no more children over these past years had become one of the strongest pieces of evidence supporting the widespread belief that his health had remained poor ever since the first year of Yongping.

The Emperor of Qian, who was around the same age as Emperor Yan, continued producing princes and princesses every year.

In particular, judging backward from the birthday of Qian’s Seventh Princess, her mother must have conceived while the Yan army was still camped outside Shangjing City.

A Qian scholar had even written a poem about it, depicting his Emperor remaining perfectly calm before the Yan invasion, a beauty holding his wine while he laughed and spoke, and the Yan invaders simply withdrew.

Of course, as flattery went, it was shameless enough to make a man blush.

But from another angle, it did demonstrate that the Emperor of Qian had remained in robust health.

“Oh, right, Elder Sister. What’s that?”

Attendant Lady Ding pointed at the box Noble Lady Cai had brought back with her.

The box was exquisitely wrapped, its grain fine and lustrous. Whatever lay within had to be precious.

“This? That princess brought a great many gifts. When Noble Consort Qin called us over to meet her, the princess let us choose whatever we liked. There were all kinds of wonderful things.”

“What a shame. My rank isn’t high enough to go there.”

“Listen to yourself. You’ve only been in the palace for how long? His Majesty has already favored you. It won’t be long before your rank rises too. By then, when I see you, I may have to be the one bowing.”

“Elder Sister is teasing me again.”

Just then, a young eunuch hurried over.

“Aiyo, Noble Lady Cai! You’ve certainly made this servant search for you.”

“Mm? Little Eunuch Li, what is it?”

“Aren’t the envoys from Qian supposed to meet Your Ladyship today? They’re waiting in Qihe Hall. Have you forgotten?”

“Ah! I really did forget. I was so busy going to see the princess that it completely slipped my mind.”

“My Lady, you should hurry and prepare.”

“Yes, yes. I’m going right now.”

Noble Lady Cai hurried off with Little Eunuch Li.

She was a native of Chu Commandery in the State of Qian. Her family had once been ordinary small merchants, but after their business failed, she had been sold to a merchant caravan bound for Yan in order to pay off their debts.

Naturally, the Secret Intelligence Department had played no small part behind the scenes.

Later, Noble Lady Cai had been taken into the palace and became one of Emperor Yan’s Qian-born consorts.

When she first entered the palace, Yan and Qian had not yet gone to war.

After learning the news, the Qian court did something rather shameless: it bestowed a noble title upon the family she had left behind in Chu Commandery.

It was only an empty title, with neither fief nor stipend, but it still ensured her family would live in comfort.

There was no helping it. Back then, Qian had possessed a profound lack of confidence whenever Yan was involved.

The Rear Garden outside Yanjing had, after all, originally been built for a former Emperor of Yan with Qian money and labor.

From then on, every time Qian sent envoys to Yan, they would dispatch a female official into the palace to visit Noble Lady Cai, inquire after her well-being, and exchange a few words.

The Yan palace made the process easy enough.

It was only a visit. There was no great harm in it.

Recently, friction along the border between the two states had become frequent. Zhong Tianlang had led cavalry forces in giving the Yan a few bloody noses, but once First Prince Ji Wujiang arrived at Nanwang City and began directing military affairs, the Qian suffered defeats in several consecutive small-scale clashes.

Not wishing for the fighting to escalate, the Qian immediately dispatched envoys to seek renewed negotiations along the border.

Since an envoy had come, custom required that they once again pay Noble Lady Cai a visit.

Noble Lady Cai was always extremely enthusiastic about these visits from her “family.”

For one thing, they let this pitiful woman feel that she too had a maiden family behind her.

For another, she could hear from the delegation’s female officials how her parents and siblings were doing.

But today, meeting the princess had genuinely made her forget the date.

Noble Lady Cai left in such a hurry that she forgot the box sitting on the stone table in the pavilion.

Attendant Lady Ding originally intended to call after her.

She hesitated.

Then she did not.

Instead, she picked up the box and carried it back to her own quarters.

She had barely returned and set the box down when a palace maid came to report that Noble Consort Qin wanted to see her.

The princess had distributed gifts today, but only consorts and noble ladies of sufficient rank had received them directly. Noble Consort Qin was skilled at managing the women of the inner palace, so she had opened her own jewelry drawers and distributed rewards among the lower-ranked Attendant Ladies, Talented Ladies, and First Attendants as well. She had also kept them for the evening meal.

So by the time Attendant Lady Ding returned to her quarters carrying the hairpin she had received, night had almost fallen.

The only reason everyone had returned instead of staying longer to chat was that the hour was approaching when His Majesty would either choose a name tablet or decide where he would spend the night.

Attendant Lady Ding set down the rather ordinary hairpin and snorted.

“This cheap thing, and she has the nerve to give it away. Does she really think I’ve never seen anything good before?”

Attendant Lady Ding had been born to a great clan of Jin and had grown up accustomed to fine clothes and rich food.

Then she took out the exquisite box she had quietly appropriated from Noble Lady Cai.

A linked series of clasps secured the lid.

They were not difficult to open, but the mechanism had an ingenious feel to it.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

One clasp after another came undone.

At last, Attendant Lady Ding slowly opened the box.

“What... is this?”

She lifted out an exquisitely crafted Horn Gentleman.

The object actually felt faintly warm in her hand.

But that shape...

It looked...

It looked like...

At that moment, Attendant Lady Ding suddenly realized there was another figure beside her.

She spun around.

Emperor Yan was standing there.

She had no idea when he had entered.

No one had announced him.

His Majesty’s face was dark.

Terribly dark.

“Y-Your Majesty...”

“It seems I can no longer satisfy you.”

[End of Chapter 490]