Chapter 617: - When Autumn Comes and the Horses Grow Fat

West of Fengxin City, a column of cavalry was moving along at an unhurried pace.

There was a carriage among them.

From the east, meaning from behind, the Marquis of Pingxi caught up on his Pixiu with only a handful of personal guards.

“Greetings, Marquis!”

“Greetings, Marquis!”

Zheng Fan rode straight in without anyone stopping him. Even the personal guards beside the Prince of Jingnan obediently cleared the front of the carriage when the Marquis of Pingxi approached.

He dismounted and climbed aboard.

The carriage was fairly spacious, but certainly not luxurious.

Zheng Fan lifted the curtain and ducked inside.

Tian Wujing sat within. A stack of memorials was piled at his feet.

He showed no surprise whatsoever at Zheng Fan’s arrival. He merely pointed toward the small brazier in front of him.

“Make tea.”

Water was already boiling on the brazier, with tea leaves and cups arranged nearby.

Zheng Fan nodded and prepared two cups.

The carriage continued moving the entire time. It did not stop.

Tian Wujing accepted a cup and held it between his hands.

“Eastern Jin is actually a very good place. A land open to war on four sides is likewise a land from which four sides can be contested. Put a mediocrity there and he only invites his own destruction. But the land itself does not change. Put a tiger there, and it becomes a place from which one can strike in all four directions, letting the tiger’s might reach wherever it pleases.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

Tian Wujing looked at him.

“You, Marquis of Pingxi, are a tiger.”

Zheng Fan smiled and shook his head.

“I saw it very early. To be born human is to have a cage before you. Everyone has one. It is a kind of restraint. And you...”

“I don’t have a cage?” Zheng Fan asked.

“No. You do.”

“Then...”

“But the key to your cage is in your own hand. Other people’s cages are truly cages. Yours is merely decoration used as camouflage. You are always preparing. And the moment the time is right, you will open it yourself and walk out.”

Zheng Fan shrugged.

“But Your Highness is blocking the door of my cage.”

Tian Wujing nodded.

“But I know Your Highness was standing there to help conceal me. And now, for example, you’ve moved aside.”

“You still need time. You are still too weak. Eastern Jin without the Jingnan Army supporting it cannot hold up this stage with your present strength alone. Chu does not dare march north because of you. The Savages of the snowfield do not dare march south because of you either. As for the Jin lands not daring to rebel, perhaps half of that can be credited to you. The Marquis of Pingxi being a brilliant campaigner is famous enough. But your enemies are restrained because what they fear is not you, Marquis of Pingxi. They fear the Black Dragon Banner. When your opponents see a banner bearing your surname and fear it even more than the Black Dragon Banner, then you can walk out of the cage openly and without hesitation.”

“Truthfully, I wouldn’t mind if Your Highness kept standing at the door of my cage forever.”

“That is what you think now. You will not think that way forever. Even the most beautiful scenery becomes tiresome if you stare at it long enough, much less someone blocking your road.”

“Your Highness has always been the one guiding my way.”

“But the road I walk has no return.”

Silence settled inside the carriage.

A long while later, Tian Wujing took a sip of tea.

“The tea has cooled enough. You can drink it.”

Zheng Fan lowered his head and drank.

“Truthfully, there is not much I can teach you.”

“Before Your Highness left, I had been thinking about asking you to guide my martial training.”

After all, they both walked the path of the Martial Artist.

Among the Martial Artists of this age, perhaps there were others capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with Tian Wujing, but they were unquestionably as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns.

“Sixth Grade is enough for practical use.”

“I still want to pursue some progress along the martial path. I also feel I have room to improve.”

“Training step by step really is slower, but your talent is genuinely not bad.”

“It can’t compare to yours, Your Highness.”

Tian Wujing nodded.

“Mm.”

“...” Zheng Fan.

“You can wait for certain opportunities,” Tian Wujing said. “An opportunity is not the same as pulling on seedlings to make them grow. It is a chance for something to click into place.”

Zheng Fan badly wanted to say that the Sword Saint seemed to encounter one of those “chances” every other day.

He himself, meanwhile, seemed mostly responsible for providing those chances to other people.

“A son worth a thousand gold does not sit beneath dangerous eaves. But if your feet never touch mud, how can you stand firmly?”

“Yes. Your Highness’s lesson is correct.”

“It is not a lesson. You already valued your life before. Now your life is worth even more. As one of Great Yan’s Marquises of military merit, there will be many people who want you dead. Zheng Fan, I have always felt you are not truly obsessed with martial arts. Look at Li Liangting. Does he not sit there perfectly well and receive the reverence of ten thousand men?”

“I...”

There was no way for Zheng Fan to explain his true reason directly.

Because he was one dragging seven along with him.

A perfect case of the emperor not being anxious while an entire crowd of eunuchs panicked on his behalf.

“I’m greedy, Your Highness.”

“You appear greedy, but in truth there are many things you do not care about very much. Sometimes I find myself curious about what sort of person is actually hidden beneath that skin of yours. Most people reach eighty or ninety and still cannot see through the world. Those who truly can are countable on one hand. You are clearly still young, yet somehow you give the impression that you saw through it all long ago.”

At that, Tian Wujing set down his teacup.

“That is good.”

“Your Highness, are you returning to Yanjing?”

“I’m returning to Litian City. I miss her.”

Zheng Fan pressed his lips together, looking as though he very much wanted to ask something.

“No need to ask. I will not tell you.” Tian Wujing looked at him. “People who dare do such a thing are not afraid of you overturning the table. They may even be eager for you to overturn it. In this world, black and white look clearly separated, yet the overwhelming majority of things are gray. Who among us is truly cleaner than anyone else? Besides, everyone in the world has the right to raise the banner of avenging his family. I alone do not.”

“Your Highness, what can the world’s judgment add to or take from you?”

“This Prince is not indifferent to the world.”

Zheng Fan fell silent.

He understood.

“Also, this Prince is returning to Litian City, but I will not hurry back to Yanjing.”

“Then in the capital...”

Zheng Fan wanted to speak directly about the Emperor of Yan’s health, but did not quite know how to say it.

He knew Tian Wujing understood regardless.

“He deserves to suffer a little torment.”

Tian Wujing looked at Zheng Fan.

“After autumn begins, we will enter the capital. You will go with this Prince.”

It was winter now.

Autumn was the point by which, according to the Blind Man’s calculations, the Marquis of Pingxi Residence’s situation in eastern Jin should have largely stabilized and the framework of its armies should have taken shape.

Zheng Fan nodded.

“I thought you would keep asking me whom I favor.”

Zheng Fan smiled. “No. I simply think there is no need to bother Your Highness with such a tedious question.”

Tian Wujing pointed at him.

“You’ve grown sensible.”

“You taught me well.”

“That is enough. You should go back.”

Zheng Fan drew a deep breath.

At last, he asked the question that had been the true purpose of chasing the carriage out here.

“You really won’t see him?”

Tian Wujing shook his head.

Zheng Fan clenched his teeth.

“Fine. I’m going back.”

He turned and was about to leave the carriage when he stopped.

“Brother, remember what you promised me. When you decide it’s time to go, you have to discuss it with me first. The elder brother of the Marquis of Pingxi cannot make an undignified exit.”

“We’ll talk about it in autumn. It is still early. My wounds have not healed. How could I leave with dignity like this?”

“Exactly.”

Marquis Zheng climbed down from the carriage and mounted his Pixiu.

He watched as the carriage, escorted by the Jingnan Army, continued west.

The war was over.

It was time for him to return.

Zheng Fan had once asked Tian Wujing how tormented he would be if there were no more battles to fight.

Now Tian Wujing was returning to Litian City.

Returning to that Marquis Residence.

In truth, he was going back to endure exactly that torment.

Zheng Fan had visited Litian City at the beginning of the year. He clearly remembered that courtyard, that mourning hall, and the dead leaves scattered all across the ground.

Before long, another white-haired figure would appear on that threshold.

Old Tian had left.

But Old Tian had said he would remain in Litian City and wait until autumn before entering Yanjing.

He himself would no longer be in eastern Jin.

Yet from Litian City, he was still effectively raising a shield over the Marquis of Pingxi Residence in eastern Jin.

Waiting for that young Marquis of military merit who dared call him Brother until autumn came and the horses grew fat.

Riding behind Zheng Fan, the Blind Man could not help feeling a little regret.

He had taught Tian Tian countless times that the most delicious sachima in the world was the Dragon Throne.

But it seemed that man would never have the chance to hear it.

Still, he had to admit that there was genuine emotion in his heart.

So much so that when he looked at his Master’s back ahead of him, he found it a little difficult to understand.

Life was a play, and everything depended on acting.

Yet one somehow still insisted on playing oneself.

It looked contradictory.

In truth, perhaps that was the deeper wisdom.

His Master was exactly like that.

One Prince of Jingnan had left.

Back at home, there was still a Left Guli King.

Two or three true confidants, two or three friendships forged through life and death, were enough.

Too many and the feeling would thin out.

Too many and a person could not carry them all.

The Blind Man could not resist turning his head and looking behind him.

There lay the foundation of their entire group.

Real territory.

Real troops.

Real authority.

A real opening position.

He licked his lips and shook his head.

Back at that inn in Tiger Head City, the seven of them had once thought they were dragging one useless burden along.

But looking back now at everything that had happened and at where they stood today, if he truly asked his own conscience, who exactly had benefited more from whom?

At that moment, Zheng Fan turned his Pixiu around ahead of him.

“Sneaking one look would hardly count for anything.”

The Blind Man smiled.

“He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.”

There was one sentence the Blind Man did not say:

Once Fourth Lady is pregnant, you’ll understand.

“Autumn. Autumn...” Zheng Fan murmured. “Blind Man, do you think he can hold on until then?”

The Blind Man shook his head.

“Hard to say.”

Zheng Fan’s eyes narrowed.

The entire air around him began to change.

“For the next seasonal gift we send Little Sixth, change it to a suit of armor, a saber, and a bow.”

The Blind Man asked, “Master, won’t that be a little too obvious?”

“Before New Year, prepare a gift for the Fifth Prince in Yingdu as well.”

The Blind Man smiled.

“Understood.”

...

Inside the gently swaying carriage traveling west, Tian Wujing reached into his sleeve and took out a piece of sachima that had already turned black.

Once, at Snow Sea Pass, there had been a small child who liked hiding his snacks away for the person he was waiting for.

He often hid them until they turned black and spoiled.

Tian Wujing took a bite.

Closed his eyes.

Chewed slowly.

Savored it slowly.

Tian.

Tian Tian.

Sweet.

[End of Chapter 617]