Chapter 586: - Tian Wujing

Fire.

A great fire.

A great fire fed by an entire imperial capital and everyone inside it.

Count Pingye sat astride his horse, eyes wide open.

If not for that dream, perhaps Zheng Fan would have assumed Prince of Jingnan had shattered the Chu capital and then simply burned the city in one stroke. Perhaps he would even have sat comfortably in the saddle, leisurely admiring this extravagantly enormous “bonfire.”

If melancholy took him, he could sigh: “One torch from Yan, and alas, all is scorched earth.”

If he wanted atmosphere, he could take a cup of wine, face the soaring flames, and sip while listening to the miserable screams rising from within the city.

If he wanted something rousing, he could stand before the soldiers and give a speech, setting their blood ablaze.

But right now, Zheng Fan had no interest whatsoever in any of that.

The moment he saw the flames, he felt only emptiness inside.

He had lived two lives. To speak a little realistically, because of his family circumstances in his previous life, Zheng Fan had never been especially close to his father. His old man had never been much of a father either. After his marriage fell apart, he often drank himself senseless. Many times, perhaps he even forgot he still had a son.

There had been few warm memories between father and son.

Later, his father died in a traffic accident. It had been sudden. But Zheng Fan had still been young then, and besides... well, sudden was sudden.

At his father’s funeral, there had been reluctance and grief, yes. But more than anything, there had been bewilderment at the realization that he was changing from someone who was “almost” an orphan into someone who truly was one.

Parental love was forever praised, forever adorned with grand comparisons. Yet in truth, father and son, mother and child, brothers and sisters—so long as it was a relationship, it still needed maintaining.

Ordinary people were not Pixiu. They could not stand face-to-face and instantly feel some resonance through their bloodline.

If a relationship was never maintained, never tended, then to put it bluntly, there were plenty of fathers and sons, mothers and children, brothers and sisters who ended up living like strangers.

But Old Tian had genuinely treated him well.

So well that there was simply nothing to say.

Sometimes even Zheng Fan himself found it difficult to explain why.

The Blind Man, as an observer, could probably analyze Tian Wujing’s state of mind. But he would never be stupid enough to sit down with his own Master and dissect it.

Relationships between people could not be calculated.

If calculation entered into it, then it was no longer a real relationship. It was only mutual use.

A muddled account, in many cases, was rather beautiful.

“Maybe Tian Wujing is still fine,” the Sword Saint said. “Martial Artists have thick hides, after all.”

By now, the Sword Saint was no longer thinking in terms of thresholds or curiosity. Once the dream’s warning seemed to echo reality, he had genuinely begun worrying about Zheng Fan.

As for Tian Wujing, the Sword Saint felt no special sympathy between great men.

He had once sighed that no one beneath Heaven suffered as much as the Southern Marquis.

But that was all.

Tian Wujing did not come over every few days to freeload a meal in his courtyard. Tian Wujing did not bring candy for his stepson. Tian Wujing did not smoothly call his wife “Sister-in-law.”

How could any man truly regard everyone as equally close?

He was the Sword Saint, not the Sage of Confucianism.

And even if he were the Sage of Confucianism, at this moment he should not be worrying about Tian Wujing alone. He should be worrying about the common people trapped inside Ying Capital.

Zheng Fan said nothing and urged his horse forward.

Only his pace slowed.

What had to be faced still had to be faced.

In his previous life, he had even dared end his own life early. There was no reason he should become more cowardly the longer he lived this one.

That would also betray all the times Old Tian had forcibly shoved him onto the stage.

But he still did not want to make the horse go any faster.

Better slower.

Better slower still.

Fourth Lady rode beside him and said nothing. She knew Master did not need anyone helping him share this burden right now.

“Haaah...”

Count Pingye let out a long breath.

His eyes were slightly red. The closer they drew to Ying Capital, the more smoke filled the air and stung them.

But with his own people beside him, Zheng Fan had no interest in finding some excuse and claiming it was only the smoke.

If even at a moment like this he still needed to hide his emotions and cover every lapse of composure, then life would be far too boring.

“Truthfully, I had this feeling a long, long time ago.”

Four years earlier.

The Tian residence.

The Marquis of Jingnan had given the order to the personal guards eating before him:

“Leave no chickens or dogs alive.”

If someone had not watched the Marquis of Jingnan interact with the Tian Clan earlier that day, they might have assumed Great Yan’s Southern Marquis had never been close to his family.

But Zheng Fan could see it clearly. The Tian Clan might have had its faults, but its people had genuinely treated Tian Wujing well. And the Marquis of Jingnan had genuinely loved and enjoyed that atmosphere of family.

If you did not care about something, destroying it meant nothing.

The greatest torment in this world was to make a man destroy with his own hands the beauty he cherished.

That sentence:

“Wujing respectfully asks Great-Uncle to ascend to Heaven.”

It had been like taking a knife and slicing his own heart apart strip by strip, even insisting each cut remain neat and symmetrical.

After that came Du Juan’s death.

He returned victorious to Shengle City.

During the victory celebration, he received news that his wife had died.

The Marquis’s hair turned white overnight.

That was the first time the words “Jingnan rebellion” had left his mouth.

And yet he could not rebel.

Could not truly rebel.

There were even matters he could not investigate, did not dare investigate.

For Great Yan.

For the grand cause.

For the ideal.

He had already exterminated his own entire clan.

If he himself turned back afterward, then what meaning would remain in the deaths of the relatives he had personally ordered slaughtered?

It was a road from which there had never been any return. Once you stepped onto it, you could never leave.

The Blind Man had said that on that night, the Marquis went to see Tian Tian.

Perhaps that had been the only time father and son ever truly met.

The Blind Man said Tian Wujing’s refusal to see his own son might have had many reasons, all the ones people guessed. But the greatest reason was probably that after becoming a father, he was afraid he would no longer be able to control himself.

“Swear that this Black Dragon Banner will always remain in your hands.”

There had been too much foreshadowing.

Far too much.

Who knew how many flags had been planted already?

Sometimes Zheng Fan could only pretend not to understand.

There was not even any way to persuade him.

No reason to comfort him.

Put yourself in his position and think from his perspective.

Perhaps what you would want most was simply to hurry up and die, to finally be free.

But Zheng Fan truly did not want Old Tian to die.

He had already grown accustomed to that figure appearing before him.

There was one thing Zheng Fan had never told anyone.

He disliked saluting. He disliked kneeling. When he knelt to others, it was so that one day he would never have to kneel again.

But every time he saluted Old Tian, there was genuinely not the slightest resistance in his heart.

At that moment, two groups of riders swept in from either side.

They were Jingnan Army scouts patrolling the perimeter.

No misunderstanding occurred. The armor worn by Zheng Fan’s personal guards was clearly Yan regulation, and one Lieutenant Commander riding at the front recognized Count Pingye immediately.

“Greetings, Count Pingye!”

“Greetings, Count!”

“Greetings, Count!”

Zheng Fan drew a deep breath and asked:

“Where is the Prince?”

Anxiety appeared on the Lieutenant Commander’s face.

“Reporting to the Count. His Highness led troops into Ying Capital earlier. When this subordinate rotated out with my patrol, His Highness... His Highness still had not emerged. By now... by now His Highness should have left the city.”

Zheng Fan said nothing more and rode onward.

The fire consuming Ying Capital would not burn itself out quickly. Several days would have been entirely normal.

The closer Zheng Fan came to the city walls, the more anxiety he sensed in every soldier who saluted him.

This was anxiety shared by the entire army.

Which meant one thing.

The Prince still had not come out.

If the city were merely burning, no one would have believed an ordinary fire capable of threatening their prince.

But the problem was that most of the Jingnan cavalry who had entered with him had already come back out.

They had withdrawn early. Apart from casualties suffered during the earlier fighting, the fire itself had not inflicted particularly serious losses.

After Count Pingye dismounted, he immediately summoned one Brigadier General who had earlier followed Prince of Jingnan into the city.

Zheng Fan walked toward the North Gate while listening to the officer’s account.

At last, he learned everything that had happened from the moment Prince of Jingnan entered the city until the Fire Phoenix appeared.

The Sword Saint, who had remained behind Zheng Fan the entire time, spoke:

“So Tian Wujing guessed the city might burn, which is why he never let the main army enter?”

Faced with the enemy capital, refusing to let your army enter really did seem strange.

After all, Prince of Jingnan was never going to show kindness to the Chu people and then use Chu territory to establish himself as an independent king. He had no reason to treat them gently.

Once a state was defeated, unless it surrendered with dignity, its capital was inevitably ravaged.

Several generations might live peacefully beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet, but when the dynasty collapsed, they often paid back all that security with interest.

Fourth Lady answered the Sword Saint:

“The Regent of Chu was not inside the capital, and the main strength of the Imperial Clan Guards was not here either. That itself meant something inside the city had to be wrong. Under those circumstances, keeping the main force outside was the correct choice.”

If the army’s main body had entered and then been trapped by the fire, how many Yan soldiers would have burned or suffocated to death?

If they died fighting, so be it.

Great Yan’s iron cavalry could make anyone who tried to bite them lose a layer of skin first.

But being burned alive like this would have been an enormous waste.

The Brigadier General immediately said:

“After the Fire Phoenix appeared, His Highness ordered us to withdraw from the city. If we had delayed even a little longer, or waited until the fire was fully established, then half the brothers making it out alive would already have counted as extraordinary luck.”

“What about the Prince? He never left?”

“Reporting to the Count, no. Brothers have already gone back inside looking for His Highness, but none have come out.”

At first, when the order to withdraw came, the Jingnan Army had obeyed because it was accustomed to obeying every military command issued by its prince.

But once the fire suddenly rose, the soldiers began worrying about him. Inevitably, some men tried to go back and search.

The Sword Saint said:

“If this fire was caused by the Fire Phoenix spirit, then the imperial city, as the core of the formation, must be where the flames are worst. And Tian Wujing will not leave. He came here for two things. First, to trample Chu pride and dignity into the ground. Second, to destroy this capital. Both of those require him to remain.”

“Does Prince of Jingnan still have a chance?” Fourth Lady asked in Zheng Fan’s place.

The Sword Saint shook his head.

“This is a grand formation. A blood sacrifice. With a sacrifice on this scale, only Heaven knows how powerful that Fire Phoenix can become for a short time.”

Fourth Lady gave him a look.

The Sword Saint shook his head again.

“Depends on fate.”

Meaning:

If Tian Wujing wanted to flee, he could certainly have escaped before things reached this point.

A Fire Phoenix sounded extraordinary.

But in the end, it was not a true Fire Phoenix.

Only a spirit.

And besides, even if it were a genuine Fire Phoenix, so what?

If those so-called divine beasts had really been invincible in ancient times, why would historical records describe them becoming mounts for the Marquises of Yan and Chu?

Once something could be ridden, once it could be tamed, that meant it was never as unbeatable as the embellished legends claimed.

But if Tian Wujing had refused to leave, if he had deliberately forced the Fire Phoenix spirit at the heart of the formation to activate the entire grand formation and fight until one side perished...

The Sword Saint was not a Martial Artist.

It was difficult for him to place himself in the position of a peak Third Grade Martial Artist and judge the chance of survival.

Mm.

For himself, probably... certain death.

Because a swordsman’s body could never compare with that of a Martial Artist.

Count Pingye said nothing.

But he had heard the Sword Saint’s words.

He lifted his head.

Even separated by the city wall, he could still see the sky beyond glowing red.

“Move aside!”

The Yan soldiers before him hesitated.

Then they stepped away.

They controlled the gate.

The cruelty of war revealed itself clearly at that moment.

Once the fire began, enormous numbers of civilians wanted to flee the city.

Earlier, when the Yan army suddenly arrived, everyone had instinctively assumed that being inside the walls was safest.

But once the flames erupted in an almost impossible fashion, everyone panicked and tried to get out.

The Yan army held the gate.

With arrows.

With battle formations.

They blocked the way.

Naturally they could not stop absolutely everyone from escaping.

Ying Capital was enormous. Powerful cultivators or a handful of rich households could use retained experts to help themselves over the walls, then evade the Yan patrols outside.

But not many could be brought along.

Compared with the large populations of great households and great clans, only a few core members could escape this way.

Try taking too many, and discovery became inevitable.

Count Pingye entered the gate on his own initiative.

The gate area itself had burned badly inside the city, though mostly because the fire had spread so quickly.

The ground immediately beneath the walls remained relatively open.

The Star-Gazing Tower looked like a colossal torch.

But most areas directly under the walls were still comparatively safe.

The smoke was heavier.

But not yet unbearable.

So when Zheng Fan entered, he saw dense crowds of Chu people pressed against the walls, families clinging to one another.

They could not leave the city.

So they could only huddle there.

A country broken.

Homes destroyed.

Today, the people of Ying Capital understood those words in the deepest possible way.

Within that dark mass of people there were certainly routed Chu soldiers and great nobles hiding among the crowd.

The imperial city was burning worst of all, because the center of the fire lay there and the flames spread outward.

That region was also where the residences of the highest officials and nobles were concentrated.

Zheng Fan could already see quite a few men whose faces were blackened with soot but whose clothing beneath was plainly expensive silk, curled among the crowd and trembling.

Many children were crying.

Women held children in their arms.

Under ordinary circumstances, Count Pingye might have shown those children mercy.

When he guarded Snow Sea Pass, he had accepted as many displaced Jin refugees as possible.

But now, he had no interest.

No mood.

Children absorbed the emotions of adults. Their cries rose and fell without pause.

At that moment, the sound drove Count Pingye into an almost unbearable frenzy.

He nearly wanted to draw his Barbarian Saber and simply start killing.

The Sword Saint sighed.

“Forget it. I’ll go up the Star-Gazing Tower and take a look.”

The Star-Gazing Tower was Ying Capital’s highest point.

It was still burning.

But because it was so tall and so massive, there was plenty left to burn.

The Sword Saint intended to risk climbing it now, hoping to use the height to see what was happening deeper inside the city.

Then he vanished.

Count Pingye continued walking numbly for some distance.

The fire had already reached the houses on both sides of the avenue.

Ahead, one group stumbled out.

They wore Chu regulation armor.

Chu had many private armies and many different armor styles.

Presumably, these men had entered to rescue someone important and were now staggering from exhaustion.

As they passed Zheng Fan, Count Pingye drew his Barbarian Saber and hacked directly at the Chu guards before him.

The men had already been half-dazed by fire and smoke and were completely exhausted.

How could they possibly be Zheng Fan’s match?

Very quickly, he cut them all down.

The slightly fat Chu noble they had been protecting still held a wet cloth over his mouth.

He immediately dropped to his knees before Count Pingye.

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I am...”

Psh!

Count Pingye’s Barbarian Saber stabbed straight through the back of his neck.

Great Yan’s Count Pingye no longer had any interest in catching some valuable big fish.

Too lazy even to pull out the saber, he kicked the noble’s corpse over and sat directly upon it.

His right hand supported his forehead.

Count Pingye laughed.

“No fun, Fourth Lady. Really no fucking fun. Truthfully, I should have expected this day. The Blind Man joked more than once that so long as Old Tian remained alive, it would be difficult for us to fully stretch our arms and legs. But I genuinely never imagined he would suddenly leave like this. I thought I had prepared myself. I’d raise Tian Tian properly. I’d let Old Tian leave in peace. Right? Wasn’t what Old Tian valued about me my sincerity? He paid enough milk-powder money, didn’t he? But fuck, why?”

“Master. My condolences.”

“It isn’t about condolences! If he died, he killed himself! He was the one who didn’t want to live anymore! He went looking for release!”

Zheng Fan suddenly roared:

“This is a joyous funeral! A joyous fucking funeral! He finally doesn’t have to keep suffering anymore. He doesn’t have to endure that torment in his heart. He finally got the exile he wanted. He died on the battlefield. Look! Look at this! An entire Ying Capital to bury him. Half an imperial city to be buried with him. Where in this world could there possibly be a tomb more suited to him? Some treasured feng-shui burial ground? Old Tian wouldn’t care. He’d look down on it. This is the place that suits him. Maybe he planned it all long ago. When I sailed south from the Wang River... No. Earlier. Maybe from the very beginning of the Chu campaign, he had already calculated it. He wanted to die. But he still had to live. Had to keep carrying all of this. Had to open territory for Great Yan and cut down its powerful enemies. And now he thinks he can finally put the burden down. Look. The Chu imperial city is burning. Give it a few more days and this whole place will be white ground. How this war ends is basically up to us now. The result is already more or less fixed. If we don’t want to fight anymore, we just leave. So he decided this was enough. He crushed Yan’s aristocratic clans. He destroyed Jin. He drove away the Savages. He crippled Chu. As for Qian? A pile of mud that can’t even support a wall. He thinks he’s already done everything he could. He can finally let go and leave.”

Zheng Fan laughed as he spoke.

“Should I hire an acrobat troupe too? Let them perform here for a few days and celebrate?”

Fourth Lady said nothing.

She merely watched her Master in silence.

“He’s finally free. Yeah. Finally free.”

Count Pingye scrubbed both hands hard across his face.

His voice choked slightly.

“But I still don’t want to let him go. I really don’t. I still can’t let him go!”

Tian Wujing had lived bitterly.

He deserved release.

But emotionally, Zheng Fan still could not accept the reality that Tian Wujing might simply leave this world.

“Master, we can look ahead.”

Only after her Master had vented enough did Fourth Lady finally speak.

“Whatever Great Yan owes the Prince, we can collect it for Tian Tian. Whatever vengeance the Prince himself could not take, we can take it for him. And if future historians dare scribble nonsense, they’ll first have to consider whether they possess the courage. There is still much we can do.”

Simple comfort was useless.

You had to remind a man there were still things he could do.

Once he had things to do, he would have less energy left to drown in thoughts.

Count Pingye wiped away his tears.

He drew a deep breath.

Then he shouted toward the sea of fire ahead:

“Tian Wujing, you spineless bastard! You useless piece of shit! Fuck! Go die! Good that you’re dead! Dead and clean! Once you’re dead, this whole damned world is clean too! Go die! Go die already!”

After roaring all of that, he felt considerably better.

The only regret was that he had not used more of his signature obscenities.

Sometimes those words made emotional release easier.

But Count Pingye had still deliberately held them back.

Not because he did not dare.

Because he did not want to.

Zheng Fan grabbed his own hair with both hands.

“Fourth Lady.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Old Tian is dead.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Old Tian really died.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Old Tian is dead.”

“Yes.”

Zheng Fan turned his face and looked at Fourth Lady.

Firelight cast a red glow over her features.

Zheng Fan’s own face, by contrast, held a strange, sickly dissonance.

Fourth Lady knew this was the aftermath of violent emotional fluctuation.

“This is good. Really fucking good. No one can control us anymore. We can farm openly. Preserve our strength openly. Recruit men openly. No need to worry that if I do something over the line, somebody will ride over on a Pixiu and take my head. Fuck Great Yan. Fuck the greater situation. From now on, no motherfucker gets to ask me to risk my life for him again! Because the only man who could make me willingly risk my life for him is dead! He’s gone! From now on, I live only for myself. I live to make myself happy.”

Everyone beneath Heaven believed Prince of Jingnan had constantly promoted Count Pingye.

But in truth, only Prince of Jingnan had ever been capable of making Count Pingye work wholeheartedly.

Without calculating personal profit or loss.

Without calculating the losses of his own household.

Even making Zheng Fan, a man who cherished his own life above gold, repeatedly put himself in mortal danger.

Zheng Fan stood.

His back faced the burning rows of houses.

He looked at Fourth Lady.

Behind him, the fire blazed bright.

But the front of his face was sunk in shadow.

Count Pingye raised a hand.

He pointed toward Heaven.

And said word by word:

“From now on, no one gets to hold me in his hand again. Believe me. Word of what happened today will spread soon. A lot of people will celebrate. They’ll celebrate because Tian Wujing is dead. But I’ll make them understand. I’ll make them understand just how merciful and kind Tian Wujing was compared with us. Tian Wujing was a useless bastard. Didn’t dare do this, didn’t dare do that. Hesitated over one thing, wavered over another. Failed his family, failed his wife, failed his own son. I won’t. From now on, I absolutely will not live like that useless idiot Tian Wujing. A man with that much ability who still managed to turn himself into the most miserable fool in the whole fucking world.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

[End of Chapter 586]