Chapter 774: Marquis Pingxi Residence, Blood Fan Li

Marquis Pingxi's command banner had already been raised.

Armies gathered beneath Zhennan Pass.

The formal fighting had not yet begun, but the clouds of war already hung over the entire region.

And movements on this scale in eastern Jin could not possibly remain hidden from Chu's eyes.

So the first blood was shed not on the main battlefield... but south of Zhennan Pass and among the mountains west of it.

Scouts.

Mounted patrols.

Spies.

Across that vast, sprawling region, both sides had already begun a struggle where one lived and the other died.

...

"Hoo..."

Guo Dong drank deeply from his waterskin and wiped his mouth.

Then he bent slightly at the waist and stared toward the woods ahead.

His brows drew together.

He lowered the waterskin.

Then crouched.

Behind him stood five or six men dressed like hunters.

All were his subordinates.

"Commandant Guo, what is it?"

An old veteran asked curiously.

Guo Dong glanced at the man, nicknamed Pi Si.

He licked his lips.

"There's baleful qi ahead."

"..." Pi Si.

Truthfully... if Commandant Guo had said there were sounds ahead... traces of a campfire... bloodstains... or any other normal sign...

Pi Si would not have found it strange.

But baleful qi?

What the fuck?

Were they here to fight a war... or hunt demons?

Guo Dong saw Pi Si's expression and did not become angry.

His rank as Commandant had been personally granted by Marquis Pingxi.

More specifically...

Marquis Zheng had made him a "Mojin Commandant."

Years ago, Guo Dong had climbed step by step from corvée laborer to auxiliary soldier to regular troop, surviving one battle after another.

But his present official status?

That had come from digging up the ancestral tombs of Chu nobles so effectively that Marquis Pingxi had turned him into a model representative.

Put more bluntly... his real talent had never been battlefield killing.

It was tomb robbing.

Of course... when done secretly, it was tomb robbing.

When done openly and righteously... it was "taking from the people and using it for the people."

What a waste to leave wealth buried underground forever where it never saw daylight.

Better to excavate it, hand it to the Residence, and let the Residence turn it into meals for students at the academies, medicine for the clinics, and compensation for Standard households.

Guo Dong had crawled out of corpse piles on battlefields.

He had long since stopped caring about taboos involving the dead.

After the campaign against Chu ended, he did not idle either.

First, he brought his mother from Yan lands.

Then his paralyzed elder brother.

Then the woman to whom he had been betrothed.

They married.

Settled down.

No matter what sort of Commandant he was... it remained an official rank personally granted by the Marquis.

Plenty of face came with it.

But Guo Dong did not lose himself in the comfort of domestic life.

He did not possess the ability or cleverness of his good brother Xu An.

Still... the two of them had once raised great shields together and stormed city walls.

Guo Dong might constantly dream about wife, children, and a warm kang bed... but he was not so useless that comfort erased every last scrap of ambition.

So after the Chu campaign, he submitted a request upward.

He hoped to continue using his particular skills in service of the Residence.

The request passed through several hands.

In the end... it actually landed on Mr. Bei's desk.

Mr. Bei wrote his approval.

Work hard.

Be bold.

But be meticulous.

The old partition of Jin had come from big fish eating small fish and small fish eating shrimp.

Back then, the Jin lands had possessed countless feudal lords.

A city.

A patch of territory.

Each was almost its own tiny state.

Naturally... the Situ Clan's imperial tombs could not be touched.

Prince Cheng Residence still existed.

Some dignity had to be left for them.

As the Blind Man once casually reported to Marquis Zheng over breakfast:

There was no need to let Prince Cheng Residence experience Puyi's feelings firsthand.

But the ancient tombs and burial grounds belonging to other old families and feudal lords scattered across eastern Jin... were not so fortunate.

After successive wars, even the Situ Clan itself had shrunk into a corner of Prince Cheng Residence, trembling and keeping quiet.

The other old families and feudal houses had long since fled, scattered, vanished, or simply died out.

Their ancestral tombs and old burial sites... had no one left to guard them.

Some had even been forgotten entirely.

And so Guo Dong truly took up that duty.

Help "them" find their ancestors.

Then help those "ancestors" get some fresh air.

Everything recovered from a tomb first went through Marquis Pingxi Residence.

Only afterward did the Residence issue Guo Dong his reward.

He handled filthy work.

But his own hands remained remarkably clean.

Perhaps it was truly a case of planting willows unintentionally and ending up beneath their shade.

Guo Dong might genuinely have possessed talent for the trade.

Over more than a year, he had not developed any elaborate rules like "when the cock crows or the lamp goes out, the Mojin stop."

But he had developed one hell of a nose.

He knew nothing about feng shui.

Could not read geomantic terrain.

Yet sometimes all he needed was to stand somewhere... sniff the air... and like a dog smelling a buried bone... he would feel something.

Right now... he felt something.

Look at the terrain ahead.

Look at the slopes on either side.

By reason... there should be a tomb somewhere nearby.

Pi Si did not take him seriously.

He even suspected Guo Dong was talking nonsense.

Guo Dong did not care.

In truth... he had been pulled into this campaign from the military register.

Back when he was excavating tombs, he had commanded a group of men.

But those men had never technically belonged under his military jurisdiction.

Even though he was their leader and everyone treated him like their superior... his real registered assignment still belonged to Jin Shuke's Command at Zhennan Pass.

In later terms... it was like being permanently assigned out of town to handle business while your actual work unit remained somewhere far away.

So far away... you nearly forgot where it was.

Then Marquis Pingxi conducted a grand mobilization.

Jin Shuke's Command was second in quality only to Liang Cheng's personally led force.

Large numbers were drawn from it.

The clerks went down the registers one line at a time.

And Guo Dong received his summons.

So Commandant Guo... who had been digging graves only days earlier... somehow found himself reporting back to Zhennan Pass in a daze.

The Marquis was going to war.

Then he would go to war.

Nothing complicated about that.

His entire household lived in Fengxin City.

Marquis Pingxi Residence looked after them.

He had nothing he could not put down.

But then an awkward problem appeared.

You were a military Commandant.

You reported for duty.

And yet... you arrived alone?

Surely a Commandant ought to have at least a few men under him.

Guo Dong had none.

The fellows who followed him around digging tombs were not technically his subordinates.

Mr. Bei had merely sent word downward telling people to make things convenient and gather a group of "talented individuals" for him.

Those men obviously could not be brought into the army.

The officer responsible for assignments found himself in a difficult position.

They could hardly shove a Commandant into someone else's squad and make him an ordinary soldier.

In the end, Guo Dong's old brother Xu An, now one of Jin Shuke's personal guards, intervened.

He selected two veterans and several newer soldiers for Guo Dong.

That gave Commandant Guo enough men to form a small scout team.

Scout fighting could be exceptionally brutal.

But that depended on location and opponent.

Guo Dong's team had clearly not been assigned to the hottest zone.

Their main task was catching spies and intercepting couriers.

The danger was relatively low.

And so Pi Si, the veteran, along with the newer men who barely knew their commander... did not show Commandant Guo much respect.

Then... the mound ahead suddenly burst open from below.

Two people climbed out.

"Oh, great Lord A'Ming, I told you, didn't I? This is what truly excellent wine tastes like."

Kashir hugged a wineskin as he spoke.

A'Ming gave no comment.

He carried a bulging wineskin of his own.

Beneath the mound lay a tomb.

It was not large.

The owner had not been some fabulously rich or powerful figure in life.

But the burial goods inside included quite a lot of excellent wine.

The jars had essentially been aging underground all this time.

One could only say... when two wine-loving vampires went looking for good liquor, there was very little they could not find.

Of course... they had not actually come out here to search for wine.

The war had not formally begun yet.

So A'Ming did not need to remain beside Master every moment.

He happened to be bored.

Xue San had not come on this campaign.

So A'Ming simply took over part of Third Master's usual work.

He brought Kashir into the woods and tried his luck hunting enemy scouts.

A little fresh blood for the palate.

Instead, they failed to find any Chu scouts.

What they did find was a broken wine jar outside a tomb.

So the two went inside... and emerged loaded with wine.

The rest remained preserved below.

Once the war ended, they could send men back to excavate it properly.

After climbing out... the two drank directly from their wineskins.

One mouthful after another.

Pure contentment.

When A'Ming and Kashir appeared, Pi Si's eyes went wide.

At once he cast aside some of his contempt for his commander.

Following Guo Dong's lead, the group moved to surround the pair.

A'Ming noticed their approach.

But he continued drinking.

He did not attack first.

Coming out to rob a tomb and drink wine today was absurd enough.

If he then accidentally wiped out his own scouts... that would be difficult to explain.

At minimum... he needed to confirm whose men these were.

"Oh, those dreadful hunter disguises are truly idiotic."

Kashir had noticed them too.

But A'Ming did not move, so neither did he.

He tilted his head back and swallowed another mouthful.

"I truly adore the fine wines of the East. The winemakers of the West should line up so I can kick each of them hard in the backside with the pointed toe of my boot!"

Fortunately... the misunderstanding never occurred.

They did not even need to exchange challenges or counter-challenges.

Because Guo Dong recognized A'Ming.

During the campaign against Chu, Guo Dong had seen the Marquis several times on the battlefield.

Once when he ate watermelon handed down by the Marquis.

Once when the Marquis personally granted him rank.

And the man before him... had stood behind the Marquis both times.

"Greetings... my lord."

Only those truly close to Marquis Pingxi Residence understood when to call these people "Mister."

Guo Dong was nowhere near that level.

Pi Si and the others froze.

Then immediately understood and saluted as well.

A'Ming had not yet spoken when Kashir opened his mouth first.

"Excellent. Then you men can go below and carry out the wine for us. Once battle begins, this wine can be used to treat wounds. We found it only with great difficulty, so be careful transporting it."

A'Ming hesitated.

Then decided not to rebuke Kashir for making decisions on his own.

Guo Dong nodded.

"This general obeys."

"Mm. Go down without worry. There are no traps and no dark creatures."

"Dark..."

Guo Dong suddenly understood what the old man probably meant.

After that...

Guo Dong's scout team began hauling wine jars from the underground chamber.

One jar after another.

Kashir watched carefully from beside them.

From time to time, he warned them to be gentle.

This wine was precious medicine for wounded soldiers.

In truth, armies had long used strong liquor to wash wounds and reduce festering.

The military physicians beneath Marquis Pingxi Residence had all been personally trained under Siniang's system.

She had established proper procedures.

Disinfection, in particular... was treated with exceptional seriousness.

The perfume workshops under the Residence would rather reduce perfume output than fail to distill enough alcohol for battlefield use.

Silver was dead.

People were alive.

Enough living people could always seize more silver.

Pi Si and the others had no objection to hauling the jars.

Because on the very first trip underground, Guo Dong had said only one thing:

That lord is someone who stands beside the Marquis.

It was not flattery.

Nor did they expect some reward.

But to these rough soldiers...

Marquis Pingxi had already become a new "god."

Anyone able to stand beside that god... naturally carried some trace of divinity too.

Kashir supervised the hauling.

A'Ming chose a place farther away.

He leaned against a tree.

Pulled some dead leaves around himself.

He was not sleeping.

Merely emptying his mind.

There was a saying:

Where the heart finds peace is home.

For A'Ming... whenever the mood struck him... anywhere could become a coffin.

Then... five figures appeared southwest of the tomb.

The man in front wore a straw rain cape and bamboo hat.

The four behind him wore regulation Yan armor.

"Who are you? What are you doing?"

The newcomers challenged first.

Guo Dong and Pi Si happened to emerge carrying another jar.

They put it down.

Dusting the dirt from his clothes, Guo Dong looked over.

Pi Si's eyes narrowed slightly.

He swept one glance backward.

The other men in hunter clothing immediately shut their mouths.

That prevented them from stepping forward and greeting what looked like fellow soldiers.

Pi Si's expression and signal had been obvious.

But from the opposite perspective... it also looked exactly like a gang of genuine tomb robbers suddenly caught by military patrolmen.

Kashir sniffed lightly.

He detected the faint scent of incense.

Very light.

Very refined.

An old vampire who had fled from the West to the East might possess all kinds of irritating habits.

But one thing could not be denied.

He had lived an extraordinarily long and rich life.

Guo Dong stepped forward.

"Officer, with war breaking out everywhere, brothers like us are only trying to make a living."

He took several small pieces of silver from his pocket.

"Shallow tomb. Nothing weighty inside. Just some jars of wine. We were wondering how to carry them back."

It was not that Guo Dong had suddenly become clever.

In truth... he still had not noticed anything unusual about these "comrades."

The reason he did not reveal his identity was simply that he tried thinking from A'Ming's perspective.

Wine used to treat wounded soldiers?

Guo Dong did not believe that for a second.

Clearly... the lord had simply become greedy for wine.

So naturally... the matter should not be publicized.

This was merely Guo Dong's limited understanding of "knowing how the world works."

He was helping a superior conceal a small indulgence.

Still, after spending the past year robbing tombs, Guo Dong's underworld jargon had become smooth beyond measure.

And after Pi Si and the others had spent so long crawling in and out of the burial chamber, their hunter clothes were filthy enough that they genuinely looked like underground rats.

So through one mistake layered over another... the supposed "comrades" opposite them accepted that this was simply a group of tomb robbers.

The region around Zhennan Pass... especially the mountains west of it, where Marquis Zheng had once carried the Princess out on his back... contained an extraordinarily complicated mixture of people.

Refugees from Jin.

Refugees from Chu.

People who, for one reason or another, dared not return home.

Others unwilling to cross the border and live under someone else's roof.

Many simply built shacks among these mountain ridges and stayed.

Neither Marquis Pingxi Residence nor the Chu had the manpower to clean out the entire region.

At minimum... not before the main battlefield produced a result.

And in truth... the men wearing Yan armor could never have imagined that actual Yan scouts would ignore their real duties, rob a tomb, and haul out wine.

It simply violated common sense.

Coincidence.

Pure damned coincidence.

A'Ming remained lying where he was.

Dead leaves covered most of his body.

When he lay still... he settled faster than an old monk entering meditation.

Like a corpse.

His body carried no warmth.

If he did not move, even an expert would find it difficult to detect him.

Kashir curled his body inward.

Inside his heart, he muttered things even he himself did not understand.

As the four "Yan soldiers" drew closer... he sensed danger.

Clearly... all four were experts.

Not necessarily high in cultivation realm.

But unquestionably men who knew how to kill.

And men who had already killed plenty.

The man in the straw rain cape... was probably their leader.

That man removed his bamboo hat.

He looked at Guo Dong and smiled.

"Only wine?"

"Yes. The tomb owner must've been a drunk. Maybe he even drank himself to death."

The rain-caped man ignored the silver in Guo Dong's hand.

He bent down.

Reached out.

And slapped the mud seal off one wine jar.

Kashir's heart began bleeding.

Opened just like that?

What a waste.

What a terrible waste.

He and Lord A'Ming had only opened a single jar earlier and carefully poured it into their wineskins.

Once the seal broke and the aroma spread... the wine immediately lost part of itself.

The man lowered his head.

He sniffed the mouth of the jar.

"Peach Blossom Brew. Interesting."

Rouge from Xiahang stains the brushes of Shangjing; Fine wine from Wuchuan loosens the ink of Hengzhou.

Peach Blossom Brew... was a specialty of Wuchuan.

The State of Qian produced gifted scholars.

Beautiful women.

Poetry and songs.

Fine wine.

In all of Xia... it stood foremost in nearly everything.

Mm.

Other than its army being useless...

Qian seemed to excel at basically everything else.

"Anyone buried with Peach Blossom Brew could never have been an ordinary person."

Guo Dong scratched his head.

"Officer, you're learned. But this lowly one really doesn't understand any of that. How about you..."

"Leave the wine. You lot can get lost."

"Ah. Ah, wait..."

Guo Dong became awkward.

What the fuck?

They could not take the wine?

The rain-caped man said:

"What? Still not satisfied? Then don't blame me for arresting all of you as Chu scouts and hauling you back to camp for a reward."

"No, Officer. It's just..."

Guo Dong gritted his teeth.

He decided to speak plainly.

Worst case... he would keep A'Ming out of it and shoulder the responsibility himself.

"May I ask your honored name and which army camp your scout unit belongs to?"

The instant a proper military challenge left his mouth... all four armored "Yan soldiers" stepped forward together.

Hands on their sabers.

The man in the rain cape rotated the bamboo hat in his hand.

Then... as though he had suddenly thought of something amusing... the corner of his mouth curved upward.

"I am Zheng Fanli, under Marquis Pingxi."

"..." Kashir.

Kashir spoke:

"Oh, heavens. May I ask which Fan Li you are? According to the rumors of the jianghu, Marquis Pingxi has a Blind Fan Li, a Woman Fan Li, and a Blood Fan Li beneath him."

"Blood Fan Li?"

The rain-caped man chuckled.

"I suppose I'm Blood Fan Li."

Because he was not blind.

And he was not a woman.

Kashir opened his mouth.

"Oh, heavens."

At this point, even Guo Dong understood that something was wrong with these "comrades."

It was fine that he did not recognize them.

But this old man beside one of the Marquis's own great retainers did not recognize them either?

Impossible.

Guo Dong immediately shouted:

"Men! Seize them..."

BANG!

The rain-caped man kicked Guo Dong away.

A'Ming rose.

His figure flashed forward.

He caught Guo Dong around the waist and lowered him to the ground.

Guo Dong spat out blood.

Then struggled back to his feet.

A'Ming looked at the rain-caped man.

"Marquis Pingxi Residence. Blood Fan Li."

The man nodded.

"Great Chu. Nian Yao."

[End of Chapter 774]