Chapter 653: Hidden Secrets

Afei helped Chen Xianba back to the village, but instead of taking him home, he settled him in his own house first. Chen Xianba had asked for this himself. He did not want his elderly parents to see him in such a miserable state.

Afei began pounding herbs, preparing a poultice for Chen Xianba's bruises. Chen Xianba, meanwhile, could barely contain the excitement churning inside him.

“Say, that guy with the greatsword today, the one who hit me three times... wasn't that Li Liangshen, one of the legendary Four Great Swordsmen?”

Without stopping his pounding, Afei replied, “He already introduced himself.”

“Ha! I actually took three moves from Li Liangshen and survived!”

Chen Xianba's face was full of pride.

Afei shook his head.

“Man, I never would've guessed you're actually the Young Marquis. You knew all along, didn't you? Hey, if you knew your status was that noble, why were you still willing to hang around with me all this time?”

Afei answered quite naturally, “Because I was afraid of being bullied. And because I was afraid of going hungry.”

Chen Xianba had always been close to Afei. Once they were a little older, Chen Xianba often helped Afei with farm work or caught fish for him to eat. Anyone who wanted to bully Afei, or mock him for being a cripple, first had to answer to Chen Xianba's fists.

“Looks like you're going to leave our Chen Family Village.” Leaning against the bed, Chen Xianba looked at Afei. “I'm really going to miss you.”

“I don't want to leave. I think this place is pretty good.”

“Say, if you go back, does that mean you'll have a chance to see the Marquis of Pingxi someday?”

The Marquis of Zhenbei, now Prince Zhenbei, still held an unshakable place in the hearts of the older generation. But among the young, the Marquis of Pingxi was the true idol. He embodied nearly everything young people admired.

By comparison, Prince Zhenbei had become much more low-key. In fact, the entire Residence kept an extraordinarily low profile.

Afei smiled. “You really can't wait to see me go, can you?”

“If you leave, your life will be a whole lot better than it is here. No, forget better. It'll be like heaven and earth.”

“I told you already, I don't want to go back. The reason Nanny took me away in the first place was because I couldn't stay at home.”

“Hard to say. My dad used to love smacking me with the sole of his shoe. Now he's old, hasn't his temper gotten a lot better? Maybe your father is the same.”

After a pause, Chen Xianba continued, “Besides, if they really want to take you away, forget Li Liangshen for a moment. You saw all those armored soldiers covering the hills and fields. If they truly mean to take you, who could possibly stop them?”

Afei wrapped the herbs in gauze and put them in a pot to steam.

There were never any strict rules governing the use of local herbs. The people before had done it this way, so the people after them copied it. Nobody really knew whether it worked, but at the very least, the person being “treated” ought to receive a fair amount of comfort from the process.

“Afei.”

“What now?”

“Brother.”

“What are you trying to say?” Afei turned to look at Chen Xianba. “You want me to take you with me?”

“Bah!”

Chen Xianba gave a dismissive snort.

“I don't give a damn about the Zhenbei Army or Prince Zhenbei Residence. My dream is to go to Jin, to eastern Jin, and serve the Marquis of Pingxi! Only the Marquis of Pingxi is worthy of my loyalty, worthy of me staking my life on him!!!”

Chen Xianba's words rang with conviction. That truly was what he believed.

All along, Marquis Zheng and the Demon Kings around him had put considerable effort into building their public image. Of course, they had never really planned that far ahead. At most, when they opened schools in eastern Jin, they had laid some groundwork in advance and cultivated a visibly useful reserve of future manpower. As for drawing in other ambitious men from elsewhere, they had never expected all that much. In the Blind Man's words, building a persona was mainly useful because it would make rebelling later more convenient.

If they truly wanted to play some century-long game, or imitate Sima Yi, it was not as though they couldn't.

It simply was not the first choice for Marquis Zheng and the Demon Kings. Something about doing things that way always felt too roundabout.

“So what were you trying to say just now?”

“Afei, if there's really no other way and you have to go back, then bear with it for a few years. Once I've earned merit under the Marquis of Pingxi and made something of myself, I'll be able to keep looking out for you again.”

It was the foolish bravado of a young man, but Afei knew there was incomparable sincerity in Chen Xianba's words.

Afei nodded. “All right.”

* * *

At the little pier, Mr. Zhou was still telling his story. He had already reached the part where Chu's four Pillars of State surrounded and attacked the Marquis of Pingxi.

Though even Marquis Zheng himself probably had no idea where Chu was supposed to find four Pillars of State after two of them were already dead.

But in Mr. Zhou's story, Marquis Zheng was fighting them regardless, and once again the battle was so fierce that mountains collapsed, the earth split, and rivers flowed backward.

Nanny rose first.

The old Confucian scholar reached out to support her. He was always saying that his legs, feet, and back were bad, and that he needed Chen Xianba to carry him whenever he went out. But at this moment, as a man, the old scholar felt that he ought to extend a hand to the woman beside him.

Yes, a woman.

He had always thought she was beautiful, full of bearing, and refined. As for her age, what did it matter? His own hair had long since gone completely white.

Nanny did not refuse his support.

What puzzled the old scholar was that she did not head home. Instead, she walked toward the village entrance.

There was a stone stele at the entrance. An archway had once stood behind it, but the previous summer five old people had died one after another. The villagers had invited a feng shui master, who declared that the archway was obstructing their longevity fortune, so the villagers tore it down.

They had, however, left behind two long stone benches.

Nanny sat on one, and the old scholar sat beside her.

Thinking that she wanted some time alone with him, the old scholar was delighted. He could not help saying again, “Truth be told, apart from being a little lazy, I'm a pretty good man in every other respect.”

Nanny laughed.

“You look really beautiful when you smile.”

Nanny laughed even more happily.

“Heh heh heh.” The old scholar laughed along with her.

“And you?” Nanny asked. “Why are you hiding away in this village?”

“My late wife was from Chen Family Village. After she passed away, I settled here.”

The old scholar lived quite well among the villagers. He was the village schoolteacher, and many children from the surrounding villages and hamlets also came to him to learn their characters.

Of course, that was hardly the greatest of his abilities.

“You want to marry me?” Nanny asked directly.

“If you're willing, I would.”

Nanny gave no sign one way or the other.

“Does that mean you've agreed?” The old scholar suddenly felt that today's surprises had come far too abruptly.

Nanny said, “I'm old.”

“I don't mind.”

“But I still want a betrothal gift.”

“Easy enough. Whatever a sixteen-year-old bride ought to receive, you'll get too!”

“My betrothal gift is very simple. A sword.”

“I'll send someone into the city and have a blacksmith forge one immediately. We can even have both our names engraved on it...”

Nanny pointed ahead.

“I want that one.”

Clad in armor, Li Liangshen was walking slowly toward them. A Pi Beast followed behind him.

“Black Qilin Battle Armor... Pi Beast... Ancient sword...”

Those three clues alone were enough to narrow the newcomer's identity to an exceedingly small range.

That range contained exactly one person.

The old scholar immediately shook his head.

“Well. No chance now.”

Li Liangshen stopped before Nanny, removed his sword, and bowed with great respect.

“Greetings, Nanny.”

Nanny came from the Residence. More precisely, she had entered the Residence with the Old Madam. In the earliest days, she had been the head of the Old Madam's personal maids, and she was considerably older than the Old Madam herself.

“I never thought the Residence would still find this place.”

Li Liangshen frowned slightly, then quickly relaxed again.

Yan Feizi had traded a Residence waist token for his own freedom. According to Yan Feizi, Nanny believed that she had grown too old to continue protecting the Young Marquis properly, so she had sent Yan Feizi out to find people from the Residence.

Clearly, Yan Feizi had lied.

But it did not matter.

The most important thing was that one of the Residence's Grand Commanders had finally found their Young Marquis.

The Marquis of Zhenbei Residence had always been an exceptionally unusual existence. From the Grand Commanders down to the lowliest grunts, for a very long time they had eyes only for their own Marquis, not for their sovereign.

The Jingnan Army was different. First, its backbone had been personally promoted by the Prince of Jingnan. Second, over these past years the Prince of Jingnan had campaigned north and south without suffering a single defeat, building an extraordinarily powerful prestige within the army.

The Zhenbei Army, however, had effectively been the private army of the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence from a very early point.

Look at it another way. The Situ, Helian, and Wenren clans had stood independently for a century. They had lacked only one final formality. In substance, they had long since become states within a state.

What difference was there with the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence?

The only difference was that this generation's Marquis of Zhenbei had, by his own strength, forcibly hitched the Residence's accumulated wealth and foundations to Great Yan's war chariot. He had also sent the Commandery Princess to Yanjing, making his position clear to the world, and above all to the commanders of the Zhenbei Army under him: he, Li Liangting, would not rebel against Great Yan.

The Emperor of Qian and the Regent of Chu had both once lamented how wonderful it would be if they too had a Li Liangting or a Tian Wujing under their command.

But lamenting was all they could do.

The Chu court had spent years guarding against Nian Yao.

The people of Qian had even, with remarkable tacit agreement, allowed their Tattooed-Face Chancellor to die in prison.

One could not really say they were wrong. The Marquis of Zhenbei Residence had grown too powerful to control long ago. Put the same situation through ten different histories, and in perhaps nine of them the Residence would eventually rebel.

Just like the Founding Emperor of Qian in his day, who had gone out leading troops on campaign only to have a yellow robe thrown over his shoulders and become emperor.

That was why Yan's system could never have functioned without the Iron Triangle. Without those three men, Great Yan would have fallen into civil war long ago and become hopelessly mired in it.

Even though the Marquis of Zhenbei himself had forcefully pushed through the division of the Zhenbei Army, in truth, if the Young Marquis had been inside the Residence back then as a male heir, there was no telling what the commanders below might have done.

Li Fusheng had once hinted that Zheng Fan should join them.

Join them to do what?

The answer went without saying.

It was only because, once their Marquis had “made up his mind,” those Grand Commanders and military chiefs no longer had any banner around which to gather or any goal left to pursue that they were forced to turn toward Yan and throw themselves into battle for the State of Yan.

But once a Young Marquis existed, it would not take many.

Two Grand Commanders would be enough.

All they had to do was defy the Marquis's military orders, launch attacks directly against the court's garrisons, and use the Young Marquis's name to force the issue.

Then let everyone see what choice the Marquis still had.

When all was said and done, regardless of how many achievements the Zhenbei Army had earned in Yan's foreign wars or how much blood it had shed, the Zhenbei Army's nature as a private army had always been at least as pronounced as that of the Qu Clan's Azure Luan Army, if not more so.

Of course, things were different now.

Of the original six Zhenbei garrisons, two were in Jin. Li Fusheng commanded one force, while the old force once commanded by Li Bao had itself been divided in two.

One force was stationed near Yanjing as garrison troops.

Three more remained in Beifeng Commandery.

The old days when three hundred thousand iron cavalry gathered together and the seven Grand Commanders shared an almost unspoken understanding that they might go seize the Dragon Throne were gone.

It was just that...

They had been missing him.

“Nanny, you've had a hard time all these years. I came today to take the Young Marquis home,” Li Liangshen said, stating his purpose plainly.

Nanny gave a cold snort.

“Your sword may be formidable, Li Liangshen, but don't think that just because this old woman is old, I'm no longer worth mentioning.”

Hearing this, the old scholar felt a surge of heroic spirit and puffed out his chest, clearly meaning that she still had him too.

Of course, the old scholar himself knew perfectly well that he was absolutely no match for Li Liangshen.

And Li Liangshen was standing so close.

“There's something I've always found strange. No, all of us adopted sons have found it strange. Why did Nanny take the Young Marquis away without a word back then? And why did the Young Marquis tell me earlier that the Marquis wanted to kill him?”

“Didn't he?” Nanny shot back. “For the sake of Great Yan, the Marquis has gone mad. Mad!”

As she spoke, Nanny raised a hand and pointed at Li Liangshen's face.

“But when you get right down to it, isn't it because of adopted sons like you, because of Grand Commanders like you? You clung to your armies, built up your own power, and grew too strong to control!”

Li Liangshen laughed.

“Because of us?”

“Heh. You dare say otherwise?”

The old scholar stroked his beard and interjected, “If that truly were the case, Great Yan could never have achieved what it has today.”

Li Liangshen looked at him.

The old scholar immediately deflated. He shut his mouth, drew in his shoulders, and curled himself up.

Li Liangshen turned back to Nanny.

“Even Tian Wujing didn't kill his own child. He gave the boy to the Marquis of Pingxi to raise. How could the Marquis possibly lay hands on his own child? The Marquis wouldn't do it.”

“Then how did the Young Marquis's leg become crippled? That day inside the Residence, if I hadn't sacrificed an eye and damaged my own qi sea to protect him, the Young Marquis might have died there before he ever had a chance to grow up! That is why I fled the Residence with the Young Marquis while he was still an infant. All these years, I never dared make the slightest contact with the Residence. Li Liangshen, put your hand on your conscience and tell me this. In all the world, who could kill the Young Marquis inside the Residence unless the Marquis himself had ordered it?”

Li Liangshen's gaze suddenly tightened.

Nanny's question had not left him speechless.

Because he had thought of someone.

[End of Chapter 653]