Chapter 765: You're Here Too?

The matter could be considered a success.

Strictly speaking, it was not yet complete. Zheng Fan was still on the snowfields rather than back in Fengxin City. The black-armored man had been bound up like a rice dumpling, but they had not yet brought him home, built a sufficiently secure prison, and reinforced it with formations to seal him away for good.

Still, the hardest part, and the part most likely to go wrong, had been accomplished.

Whether problems arose on the journey back, or whether anything strange happened after they locked him away, could be left for later.

A stone had finally dropped from Marquis Zheng's heart.

He was not particularly ecstatic.

After everything he had done, capturing the target was only natural. Almost inevitable.

Letting the bastard escape after all that effort... that would have been the real surprise.

Master Kongyuan and Liaofan truly possessed absurdly deep fortune.

It would not even be an exaggeration to say that if you stabbed either monk and let him bleed, what came out would not be blood.

It would be blessings.

This remarkable master-and-disciple pair had originally been preaching peacefully on the snowfields, dreaming that one day, with Marquis Pingxi's support, they might build a temple of their own outside Fengxin City.

Then Marquis Zheng forcibly assigned them this mission.

Marquis Zheng did not believe the mystical babble Qi Refiners liked to use. He knew far more ways of talking circles around people than they did.

But luck?

Fortune?

That, he believed in.

So in a sense... he had sacrificed two monks to pave the road ahead.

And the result?

One went mad.

The other developed schizophrenia.

Yet somehow, in the currents of fate, their suffering exchanged for the clue he needed.

The moment he obtained that clue, he wasted not a single day. He assembled troops and marched deep into the snowfields in the dead of winter.

After doing all that... if something had still gone wrong... there really would have been no justice beneath Heaven.

After gathering the bodies of their fallen comrades and treating the wounded, the army began its return journey.

On the third day, they linked up with scouts sent out by Liang Cheng's force.

The following day, Zheng Fan's column reunited with the main army.

Then the entire force began withdrawing south.

During the return march, the chief of the Dishan Tribe came forward with his wife, children, and the tribe's nobles.

They wore sheepskins over their bodies.

Each held a jade pendant in his mouth.

They knelt prostrate across the army's road of advance.

...

"Heh-heh-heh."

Marquis Zheng laughed.

He turned toward Gou Moli beside him.

"Savages have learned this little ritual too?"

Gou Moli answered:

"It means he's a man with a brain. Everyone laughs at a monkey wearing a scholar's cap, but at least that monkey has the heart to become human. That's already far better than the monkeys who know nothing except eating and sleeping."

Marquis Zheng's smile faded.

He nodded.

"True. Anyone capable of getting involved with that side couldn't have been some useless sack of wine and meat. He has ambitions of his own."

"How does Master intend to deal with him?"

"Deal with him?"

Marquis Zheng shook his head.

"Let's meet him first. Ask some questions."

The chief of the Dishan Tribe, Di Qiu, was brought outside the command tent with his wife and children.

They knelt properly once more.

Marquis Zheng did not receive them inside.

He came out himself.

Di Qiu was enormous.

Among Savages, one glance at his face and build was enough to tell he was a warrior.

The totem of the Dishan Tribe had also been tattooed across his body.

"This criminal kowtows before the mighty Marquis Pingxi. Every crime was committed by this criminal alone. This criminal is willing to offer his own life and the lives of his family to bear the Marquis's wrath. I ask only that the Marquis, in his great mercy, spare the Dishan Tribe."

As a tribal chief, being willing to step forward at a moment like this and offer himself for the survival of the entire tribe did make Di Qiu a man.

At minimum... he possessed responsibility.

Marquis Zheng walked up to him and looked down.

"This Marquis asks you. How did you learn of them?"

"The Guides of Stars informed our tribe. Our grazing lands lie far to the north, so they hoped to use our strength to intercept and kill that group."

"And you chose to do the opposite?"

"Yes. This criminal has never agreed with those Guides. But this criminal coveted the thing they spoke of. So I pretended to accept their request while secretly establishing contact with the people from the far north. I planned to receive them out of the Guides' pursuit... and then place that thing under my own control."

Di Qiu was remarkably frank.

"The thing" naturally meant the black-armored man.

He had not fully awakened.

He remained extremely weak.

And yet, relying on brief eruptions of strength, he had endured three Second Grade swords from the Sword Saint without dying.

For the tribes of the snowfields today... an existence like that truly was a killing weapon of terrifying proportions.

Coveting it was ordinary human nature.

Wanting to monopolize it was understandable too.

Ambition... who did not possess some?

Di Qiu continued:

"But this criminal truly did not know that the Marquis wanted this thing as well. Had I known earlier, how could I ever have dared compete with you? This criminal would have gone personally, seized the thing, and delivered it before the Marquis."

Half true.

Half false.

Zheng Fan understood perfectly.

If Marquis Pingxi Residence had merely sent word asking for the man, Di Qiu and the Dishan Tribe behind him would unquestionably have manufactured some complication.

They would never have handed the target over cleanly.

If absolutely necessary, they could choose a compromise.

Say the man escaped.

The thing was a person, after all.

Was it really so strange for a person to run away?

But once Marquis Pingxi Residence sent an army into the snowfields and made clear it intended to obtain the man at all costs...

Di Qiu no longer dared resist.

"Originally, this Marquis intended to return to Snow Sea Pass and then send troops to destroy your Dishan Tribe."

Di Qiu pressed his forehead to the ground.

He did not dare lift his head.

"Now, this Marquis is thinking of changing his mind. Di Qiu."

"This criminal is here."

"This Marquis orders you to select three thousand strong clansmen and follow me inside the passes. You will serve as armored slaves under Marquis Pingxi Residence. If war comes, you may redeem your crimes through military merit. If there is no merit to be won, then your descendants will remain slaves generation after generation."

"This slave thanks the Marquis for his great mercy!"

Zheng Fan turned around.

Armored guards stepped forward from both sides and escorted the family away.

Gou Moli walked out afterward.

"Master, your heart softened again."

Zheng Fan shook his head.

"I just like the tattoos on that fellow."

Gou Moli asked:

"Master is preparing to move troops?"

"I hadn't planned to. But since this affair went so smoothly, after we return we may as well stretch our limbs a little along the way."

"Master is wise."

"We'll talk about it after we get back."

"Yes."

Zheng Fan returned to the command tent.

Inside, the Sword Saint was still holding Longyuan and wiping it carefully.

A sword needed nourishment.

A swordsman nourished his blade with his qi.

This time, Longyuan had been contaminated.

Most of the years of nourishment the Sword Saint had invested into it had effectively been wasted.

"Can you repair it?" Zheng Fan asked.

The Sword Saint nodded.

Then shook his head.

"Yes. But it will take a long time."

"Any faster method?"

"Find the person who forged it and have him repair it. That would be faster."

"I'll send an official letter. You can wait for him at Zhennan Pass."

"No need. I can still make do with it."

At minimum... it still worked perfectly well as a shoulder pole, fire tongs, or a rod for rocking a cradle.

"You can't 'make do' with something like this," Zheng Fan said.

"I simply don't think it's worth going to all that trouble."

"I'm not afraid of trouble. Think about me, will you? Fine. I'll send word to the Dugu Clan of Chu in a little while. Once we enter Snow Sea Pass, you can go straight to Zhennan Pass. It won't delay you long. Once Longyuan is repaired, you can return to Fengxin City."

"So urgent?"

The Sword Saint finally caught the implication.

"We're going to war?"

"My brother-in-law is about to formally ascend the throne."

In truth, the Regent of Chu had intended to formally take the throne during the first half of the year.

But the Queen Mother had fallen seriously ill, so the ceremony had been delayed under the excuse of praying for her recovery.

Of course... that was only an excuse.

The real reason was that the war against Qian had not yet ended at the time.

Afterward, several domestic matters still had to be settled.

Zheng Fan had once ridden in the same carriage as that brother-in-law of his.

In Zheng Fan's eyes, the man possessed an obvious streak of obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Even when cooking himself a bowl of noodles simply to fill his stomach, he still had to care about the plating.

"We're about to attack them, and you still want them to repair my sword for me?"

"Separate matters. Haven't I sold horses to Chu too?"

"Why fight?" the Sword Saint asked. "You don't have to."

"It's late winter. Soldiers and civilians are idle anyway."

"They can stay home and beat their children."

The moment the Sword Saint said it... he regretted it slightly.

Marquis Zheng did not care.

He said:

"The key is the Standard-household system under our Residence. Without wars, there is no military merit. Without military merit, there is no profit. And once there is no profit, all sorts of problems begin appearing. Strangely enough, once war begins, the problems become fewer. Sometimes they disappear completely."

The system the Blind Man had designed for the lands under Marquis Pingxi Residence carried shadows of both Qin's military-merit order from another timeline and the Later Jin Eight Banners.

At its root... this was a military bloc.

Over the past year, everyone had worked without complaint to restore production.

But if they went too long without war, without income flowing in from campaigns abroad, then the entire system would be like a living spring whose source had been blocked.

Of course... "war" here did not mean some enormous national conflict.

It meant a limited campaign.

Still, it would certainly be far larger than the mere two or three thousand cavalry sent outside Fan City.

As for whether that might trigger a war between states... if Chu truly dared begin a national war, it would be because Chu was ready.

It would not depend on whether you had provoked them first.

"Tiring."

The Sword Saint sounded helpless.

"We'll see how things look. No hurry. Maybe we won't fight after all. We'll decide according to the situation then. Oh, right. You took that fellow down. I said whoever captured him would be appointed Garrison Commander."

"Wouldn't that make me another Li Liangshen?"

"You want the post?"

"You said whoever cut off his head."

The Sword Saint clearly possessed no interest whatsoever in becoming some Garrison Commander.

"Heh."

Zheng Fan left the command tent and headed toward the tent where Xue San was being treated.

Xue San was still unconscious.

Liang Cheng had only just drawn part of the corpse poison out of his body.

A wooden basin beside him was filled with black, bloody water.

Tian Tian and Liu Dahu stood nearby, carefully passing whatever Liang Cheng needed.

"How is he?" Zheng Fan asked.

"Fortunately, he reacted decisively. He fought poison with poison and sealed off the spread of the corpse poison. His own body is practically a medicine jar already, so his resistance is fairly strong. Otherwise there truly would have been no saving him. I'll draw the corpse poison out a few more times. What remains after that, he can slowly digest himself. He should wake in about half a month. Once he wakes, he'll be able to manage the rest himself."

"Mm."

Zheng Fan nodded.

Xue San's luck truly had been rotten beyond belief.

He had thought the black-armored man was out of power and rushed forward to steal the kill.

Instead, the bastard sprayed corpse qi directly into his face.

Anyone else... would never have survived.

"Master, that thing truly is a zombie," Liang Cheng said.

"I know. Tell me something different. Something only you, a Zombie Progenitor, would notice."

"His aura is extremely pure. If we insist on dividing bloodlines into ranks, his bloodline is very high. This subordinate finds it difficult to imagine that here, of all places, we would encounter..."

Zheng Fan teased:

"A genuine blood relative?"

Liang Cheng did not object.

He actually nodded.

"Not only the level of his bloodline. His physique too. His zombie physique is vastly stronger than mine in my current state."

"He was fierce. You didn't see it. Even with the Sword Saint opening Second Grade, he couldn't kill him in one breath. Dai Li, one of Xue San's men, said the man had been sealed away the whole time and had already been awakened twice before to drive off attacking forces."

"His strength is depleted," Liang Cheng said. "You could also call it a state between sleeping and waking."

"I don't enjoy expressions that abstract. Say it in a way people can understand."

"Just as you, Master, are a Fifth Grade Martial Artist, a Martial Artist relies on two things: blood and qi, and physique. Zombies are similar. First, baleful qi. Second, the zombie body. His state between sleeping and waking is not literally half awake. His physique is simply too powerful, creating an imbalance. That body is so far beyond what his current mind and baleful qi can support that the physique itself suppresses them. Put another way, the zombie body he possesses is too advanced for his present ability to bear. His own body has become a seal upon himself."

"So how did that happen? Was it caused later?"

"I don't know. This subordinate still needs time. Once we return to Fengxin City and build a proper prison for him, we can try allowing him to wake again. This subordinate can question him personally."

Zheng Fan nodded.

Before leaving, Zheng Fan turned back.

He looked at Liang Cheng.

Then pointed upward.

"Could he have come the same way?"

Fallen from the sky.

Not literally smashed down from Heaven.

What Zheng Fan meant was:

Could this man have arrived like them?

"Probably not," Liang Cheng said. "Because this subordinate discovered something."

"Oh?"

"Fragments of his armor bear a clan crest."

"A clan crest?"

"Yes."

"Whose?"

"The Helian Clan."

"You're certain?"

"Master has forgotten? We once searched for the Helian Clan's hidden treasure. Naturally, we would recognize their crest."

"A Helian Clan man appears in the far north, turns into a zombie, and somehow confirms the prophecy. Tsk."

Zheng Fan smiled.

"This is becoming more and more interesting."

"But at minimum, we have already proven one thing. A prophecy can be interfered with ahead of time. It can be changed."

"Obviously. Otherwise what are we supposed to do? Eat, drink, and wait for death?"

Zheng Fan looked once more at the unconscious Xue San.

"When we get back, have the Blind Man contact the Secret Intelligence Department and investigate this bastard's life in detail. I don't think he's from recent generations. If he became a zombie and developed such a terrifying body, he should have some real age behind him."

"This subordinate thinks the same."

"Do you think it might have something to do with the environment in that far-northern place?"

"What does Master mean?"

"I mean, if that bastard soaked beneath the ice in some freezing pool in the far north for all those years and managed to soak himself into a body that strong, then even without fully waking, his flesh alone can take this kind of beating... How about you go soak there too? No reason he can soak himself stronger but you can't."

Liang Cheng nodded with deep conviction.

"There is one condition. Master must soak with this subordinate. You know perfectly well what condition this subordinate is in."

"..." Zheng Fan.

"Heh-heh. I was joking. Don't take it seriously. Don't take it seriously. You need to command troops for me. Where would you find the leisure to take a bathing vacation?"

Marquis Zheng pointed toward Tian Tian.

"Tian Tian. Come light Dad's cigarette."

"This child is coming."

Because Xue San was still unconscious, Marquis Zheng did not feel quite shameless enough to light a cigarette inside the sickroom.

Though compared with corpse poison... a little tobacco smoke probably did not count for much.

He walked outside the tent.

Crouched down.

Tian Tian first used his small body to block the wind.

Then took out a fire striker and lit Zheng Fan's cigarette.

Marquis Zheng drew once and rubbed Tian Tian's head.

The child had truly seen the world during this trip.

And he was extremely happy.

He had not actually entered the battlefield.

But for a boy who had spent almost his entire childhood playing alone inside a courtyard... this was already an extraordinarily rare experience.

Zheng Fan still remembered that after returning, Tian Tian had proudly informed him that he had protected First Mother very well.

"Dad."

"Mm?"

"The person we captured... who is he?"

"We still don't know. We need to investigate."

"Is he a bad person?"

"Mm."

Anyone capable of threatening Zheng Fan... was a bad person.

"Dad..."

"Tian Tian. No matter what happens, never hide anything from Dad."

"This child knows. Dad, it's just... it's just... it's just that on the day you brought that person back, I think I heard someone say something to me..."

"What did they say?"

"'You're... here too?'"

[End of Chapter 765]