Chapter 791: A Cut for Lasting Peace

The history of eunuchs was as old as imperial power itself.

But throughout all the ages, Marquis Zheng was probably the first man ever to carry out a castration on such a magnificent stage.

By the same token, Grand General Nian had now created a precedent never seen before and unlikely ever to be seen again.

Before tens of thousands of troops, he had undergone the “rite of castration.”

The scale of the spectacle was unprecedented.

If Eunuch Wei in Yanjing ever remembered the tiny dark room where he had been cut all those years ago... he might weep with envy.

Still, Grand General Nian was no ordinary man.

He did not howl or collapse into a daze.

Aside from the first moment, when he seemed unsure what sort of expression a man ought to make when faced with this kind of bodily “incompleteness,” he soon returned to normal.

As though being castrated were no more remarkable than pulling an arrow from his flesh after battle.

Of course, whether his heart was truly as calm as his face... only Heaven knew.

Marquis Zheng did not care.

Either way... he felt great.

Eighth Prince, who had stood beside them and witnessed the entire thing from beginning to end, was already trembling.

Years ago, before Yupan City was encircled, the swordsmith had brought him rushing back to Chu. It had looked dangerous, but in his heart he knew there had always been people protecting him.

When a person had confidence beneath his feet and something to rely on... it was easy to pretend to be elegant, composed, and unflustered.

Easy enough to fool even yourself.

Only when every ladder beneath you was kicked away did you discover how small you truly were.

The cheers of tens of thousands of soldiers below made Eighth Prince’s head buzz.

His eyes remained fixed on the patch of red beneath Nian Yao’s lower body.

SLAP!

A hand landed on Eighth Prince’s shoulder.

“Ah!”

He cried out and dropped to his knees directly atop the platform.

Looking up... he discovered that Zheng Fan had somehow come to stand beside him.

“Marquis... Pingxi...”

“Getting distant with me now?”

“Bro... bro... brother-in-law...”

For some reason, calling the man before him “Brother-in-law” had suddenly become far more difficult than before.

“You’ll come back with me first. Your sister misses home.”

“G-good... good.”

Marquis Zheng nodded.

Then stepped forward again.

He raised one hand.

The Dispatch Officers who had been watching every movement and listening to every word from the platform immediately began signaling their formations to quiet down.

Gradually... the cheering below subsided.

“Send a detachment to tell the Chu army opposite that their Grand General has completely lost his balls. Ask them whether they still have theirs! If they dare fight, open the camp gates. We’ll form our battle lines, charge once, kill once, and settle it properly. If they’ve got no balls either... then forget it!”

“Hahahahahaha!”

“Chu slaves have no balls!”

“Ball-less Chu slaves!”

The mood exploded again.

These soldiers had originally come from different states.

Many came from different peoples altogether.

But once the most basic matters of pay, food, and military allowances were guaranteed, the Blind Man had supplemented all of that with years of ideological education.

Then came victory after victory.

And now...

Grand General Nian had turned their own comrades into human swine, so their Marquis had led them into Chu, captured Nian Yao alive, and castrated him before the whole army.

For these hardened soldiers, death in battle itself was not frightening.

No one ate this kind of meal for years without a certain ruthlessness in his bones.

What mattered was whether the heart was willing.

Whether the breath in the chest flowed smoothly.

Once that spirit ran true... what was so terrible about staking one’s life?

Below the platform, the Blind Man was very satisfied.

These men were the elite foundation of Marquis Pingxi Residence.

When eastern Jin grew richer and the army expanded further, many of them would likely become the backbone of the lower officer corps.

Prince Jingnan had been able to command the armies of Great Yan from top to bottom, with none daring disobey.

Prince Jingnan had also possessed the ability to rebel. Had he wished it, he could have raised waves capable of overturning Heaven.

Yet now Prince Jingnan was gone, and the former Jingnan Army had simply been divided and dismantled by court.

Why?

Because while Prince Jingnan lived, his soldiers preferred following their Prince.

But that did not mean they hated court.

Most of them were Yan men to begin with.

Compared with obeying court, they simply favored following their own lord more.

Marquis Pingxi Residence would be different.

Court authority would not be able to splash into eastern Jin.

From top to bottom, the people here possessed very little sense of belonging toward Yanjing.

In the old days, when Prince Zhenbei Residence and Prince Jingnan stood at the height of their prestige, some officers beneath them had privately entertained the idea of draping the yellow robe over their own lord’s shoulders and had even linked together in secret.

Usually, when officers took the lead and stirred up the troops, such a thing could come together easily.

But by the same principle, if the man above had no desire to rebel, it was also easy for him to crush the scheme himself.

But what if even the ordinary soldiers wanted it?

That... was the power of a persona.

From the very beginning, the Blind Man and the other Demon Kings had always been helping Zheng Fan build a persona that belonged to him alone.

And because living inside that persona felt damned good, Marquis Zheng himself had wholeheartedly played along.

Over enough years... all it would take was one tiny spark.

Everything could ignite in an instant.

Thinking about it, the Blind Man felt quietly pleased.

He reached into his pocket and took out another orange.

Slowly peeled it.

Oranges could not be eaten in excess.

Too many made the body run hot.

So after peeling it... the Blind Man did not eat a single piece.

He stuffed the whole thing into Gou Moli’s mouth.

With the Yan deliberately shouting and spreading word, the Chu camp opposite quickly learned what had happened.

Naturally... anger erupted throughout the camp.

But the camp gates did not open.

The Chu army made no preparations to come out and fight.

In total numbers, this force already matched the troops Marquis Zheng had brought, perhaps even exceeded them slightly.

But aside from one unit of Chu Imperial Clan Guards, most of the army consisted of commandery troops transferred from different regions.

Its composition was mixed.

Its command structure chaotic.

Simply blocking the road here and making a show of resistance was already the greatest gesture they could reasonably make.

Any Chu commander with even a little sense would never choose to leave camp and hand the Yan a free battle.

Marquis Pingxi had no interest in storming their camp either.

His war aims had already been achieved perfectly.

Now came the time to pack up and go home.

The road back through Mount Meng would be slow.

But that slowness was exactly what they needed.

It would give them time to rebuild Fan City’s administrative and military structure.

They also needed to leave a force behind to garrison the place.

Fan City’s strategic value was simply too great.

If Zhennan Pass was a spear held against Chu’s throat... then Fan City was a shield.

A true buffer zone.

And on the grander strategic level, Chu, once so overbearing and constantly swallowing neighboring lands, had been beaten flat by tiger-and-wolf Yan.

Its influence over the cluster of small states beyond South Gate Pass in Jin had faded enormously.

Fence-sitters naturally leaned toward the stronger wind.

Small states never possessed many choices.

At present, Ran Min guarded South Gate Pass.

Under Little Sixth’s plan, Ran Min was supposed to extend Great Yan’s influence outward and bring more small states into Yan’s orbit, ideally creating several more vassals like the State of Liang.

Give it time.

Fan City would lean upon Mount Meng.

Farther southwest, it would connect toward Qishan.

The two great natural mountain barriers that had once formed Chu’s strongest defense against threats from the north... would gradually be infiltrated and controlled by Yan.

Then one day, once the State of Yan had rested and recovered its strength, an invasion of Chu would no longer need to rely solely on the road through Zhennan Pass.

The vast lands of Chu... would become a sieve beneath Yan iron hooves.

Of course...

Marquis Zheng had not made this dangerous gamble for the sake of such lofty “greater interests.”

But that did not stop him from using those grand strategic arguments afterward to gild the face of his original motive.

In short... the grand castration ceremony came to an end.

Over the following days, Chu continued sending reinforcements into the area.

The Yan, meanwhile, began inventorying supplies and packing up in preparation for the return through Mount Meng into Jin.

The Chu seemed to understand the Yan intended to leave.

They did not launch any offensive.

The Yan knew they were going home as well.

They could not be bothered to continue provoking the other side.

The two armies reached a strange harmony based entirely on mutual understanding.

Of course...

Yanjing did not yet know the result of the fighting here.

But once news of the war began reached the capital, orders from Yanjing, from court, and from Great Yan’s new Emperor were already on the road.

By now, they should have reached Chu too.

The Yan Emperor’s edicts were exceptionally hard-line.

And the Crown Prince had been sent directly toward Marquis Pingxi Residence.

The attitude could not have been clearer.

If Chu wanted a limited fight...

Marquis Pingxi Residence would fight it.

If Chu wanted a full national war... then fine.

The Yan would tighten their belts and fight Chu again.

This was not a threat.

The image of the Yan as poor, stubborn, and violently fearless had already been carved deeply into the hearts of every state.

Chu had just lost its Grand General and one Pillar of State.

Under any rational calculation, it did not dare force matters into another national war.

For the sake of face, Chu would not request another formal peace treaty.

Both sides would simply end things through tacit understanding.

Truthfully... the Yan were relieved as well.

Another national war would have dragged the livelihood of Yan and Jin, which had only just begun to recover, back into hardship.

It was not that Chu had suddenly become cowardly.

Nor that Yan had simply gotten lucky.

The previous generation had earned this reputation with real blood and real victories.

They had beaten out Yan’s savage nerve.

They had beaten out the national prestige that intimidated all Xia.

Only because of what that generation paid... could the next generation gain the chance to rest, recover, and develop in peace.

...

Fan Residence.

Tomorrow... they would separate.

Gou Moli had invited Fan Zhengwen and Qu Peiluo over for a meal.

But the one returning to Jin would not be Gou Moli.

The Savage King had been chosen to remain behind and garrison Fan City.

Qu Peiluo would return to Fengxin.

Fan Zhengwen would go to Yanjing.

The two men who had originally been masters here were leaving.

Yet there was little sadness of parting.

Qu Peiluo would finally escape the deeply awkward position of being a half-recognized collaborator.

After entering Fengxin City and making the formal turn... he would become a genuine Chu traitor.

Fan Zhengwen, after this crisis, had recognized his own limitations and let go of quite a few former attachments.

He now believed the imperial court was where his future truly lay.

As for Gou Moli... his excitement was visible to the naked eye.

He... once King upon the snowfields... had endured defeat, imprisonment, becoming a dog, becoming a groom, and an entire chain of “good behavior.”

At last... he had once again been given the chance to command a region alone!

Everyone talked about rising again after falling.

Doing it was far harder.

Because once you had stood at the summit and seen the view from there... returning to the foot of the mountain made it very difficult to recover the simple heart that had once climbed steadily upward.

Gou Moli had endured.

Most importantly... he could finally get away from the Blind Man.

No more being force-fed oranges.

Blisters had already broken out at the corners of his mouth!

The meal was barbecue.

Whenever Marquis Zheng had nothing better to do, he liked calling people over every few days to grill skewers.

So Gou Moli used the same method to entertain the two departing former masters of the Residence.

Once the meat went onto the rack, Fan Zhengwen reached over to help turn it.

He learned quickly.

Gou Moli was happy to relax.

Holding a head of garlic, he began peeling it.

Meat should be eaten with garlic.

It cut the grease and made the whole thing more satisfying.

Pinching a clove between his fingers, Gou Moli asked:

“Do you two know how many different ways there are to cut that thing off?”

Fan Zhengwen smiled.

“I know a little medicine, but I genuinely never studied that particular field.”

Qu Peiluo shook his head as well.

As a former nobleman, why would he ever have bothered learning about such things?

Gou Moli grinned.

“It’s like peeling garlic. Look. You can put the clove in your palm and rub it back and forth. The skin comes away. Balls are the same. Rub and pinch hard enough for seven or eight days and the tissue dies. Just like an untreated wound from battle. It turns into rotten flesh. Another method is to break the root from underneath first, then pull directly. Like this... The simplest way is one cut. But then the garlic gets smaller. Eating it doesn’t feel quite as satisfying. Our Grand General Nian got the one-cut method. He lay there on the floor for several days. Tough bastard. The wound never festered. Heh-heh. Looks like he truly isn’t going to die.”

“The meat’s done,” Fan Zhengwen said.

“Good. Garlic’s peeled too. Here.”

Gou Moli held out the garlic.

“...” Fan Zhengwen.

“...” Qu Peiluo.

“Don’t look at me like that. You wonder why I know any of this? Years ago I thought there were only two places in the world where a man like me could truly learn things. One was Beifeng Commandery in Yan. The other was the imperial palace. If I could learn something worthwhile, I was willing to take that cut. But I’m a Savage. I don’t look like you people. Then I went and looked into it and discovered that cutting yourself so you could enter the palace actually required standing in line. The damned profession was popular. Ai. No choice. In the end I had to go to Beifeng Commandery.”

“Fortunately. Fortunately,” Fan Zhengwen said with feeling.

Gou Moli nodded in complete agreement.

Then he looked at Fan Zhengwen.

“You can’t anymore.”

Fan Zhengwen shook his head.

“No. I think I still can.”

“I heard you couldn’t even carry a suit of armor.”

“Plenty of internal strength. Plenty.”

“Hahahaha.” Gou Moli laughed. “So what? Your wife is the current Emperor’s maternal aunt. The current Emperor himself has only one Empress and one Noble Consort. Once you reach Yanjing, will you really have the face to take concubines?”

Fan Zhengwen’s face turned bitter.

“All right, all right. I know. You’re an old bastard like me. Your ambition doesn’t lie there anyway.”

“Heh-heh.” Fan Zhengwen nodded. “Truthfully, I’m both apprehensive and flattered.”

After all, being called “a man like me” by the former Savage King counted as enormous praise.

Gou Moli then patted Qu Peiluo on the shoulder with a hand that still smelled of garlic.

It was the shoulder-patting greeting currently fashionable in Fengxin City.

“You’re different.”

“How am I different?” Qu Peiluo asked.

“The people above will arrange a marriage for you. Probably some woman from the Ji imperial clan.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Don’t be stubborn. Master once said a good drama needs not only a heroine the man longs for but cannot possess, but also a second woman waiting alone in an empty room for him. That’s what makes it worth watching.”

“What is a ‘drama’?” Fan Zhengwen asked.

“Oh. Something fashionable in Fengxin City. Not opera. Written stage plays. Mostly about Master’s campaigns north and south. The common people love them.”

“I see.”

Gou Moli bent down and looked seriously at Qu Peiluo.

“The Qu Clan can rise again. A stained name? A traitor’s name? Those mean nothing. Whoever stands in the place of orthodoxy shines like the Stars at night.”

Fan Zhengwen asked:

“Then what counts as orthodoxy?”

“Orthodoxy means...”

Gou Moli bit more than half the meat from a skewer in one mouthful.

Then said:

“Winner takes all.”

...

Fan Residence.

The underground dungeon.

Nian Yao now lay on the bed that Eighth Prince had originally slept on.

Eighth Prince had just changed Nian Yao’s medicine.

Now he was wiping Nian Yao’s face with a cloth.

“Aiyo. You slave. Comfortable, aren’t you? I never imagined there would come a day when a master personally waited upon his slave.”

Nian Yao laughed dryly.

“This slave is terrified.”

“Hahahaha.”

The two of them could at least entertain each other amid the misery.

“That cut really made you suffer,” Eighth Prince said with emotion.

“Losing two lumps actually made my body feel a little lighter. They had started getting in the way anyway.”

“Oh? You weren’t using them?”

“You know who my wife is, don’t you?”

“I remember she was originally a maid from Fourth Brother’s residence too. Fourth Brother personally matched the two of you, right?”

“Correct.”

“Still can’t say they were useless. At worst, you just won’t be able to go outside chasing flowers and playing with grass anymore.”

“Married this many years, two children already grown so big. Sometimes it genuinely feels as though having nothing down there would be easier than having something. Saves effort. Less exhausting. Less boring.”

“That sounds rather profound.”

“Your Highness is still young.”

“That’s true.”

Once he finished wiping Nian Yao’s face, Eighth Prince leaned against the bed.

“That cut of yours was worth it, in a sense. That blade chopped directly into the face of Chu. From now on, Yan and Chu really will fight to the death without end.”

“I used to think the same,” Nian Yao said.

Eighth Prince looked surprised.

“Isn’t that what it means?”

“Your Highness, do you truly think that Marquis Pingxi did this only to vent his anger? That man acts as though he is reckless and whimsical, but beneath it he hides an extraordinary precision.”

“Oh? Explain.”

“Who was castrated?”

“You, Grand General.”

“Wrong. The dog slave Nian Yao.”

“Uh...”

“Who kept his body whole?”

Eighth Prince lowered his gaze and looked at himself.

“Me...”

“Wrong. A Prince of Great Chu. A son of Great Chu’s Xiong Clan. A member of Great Chu’s... nobility. And not only Your Highness. I suspect Qu Peiluo will be taken to Yan as well, granted rank and noble title. Years ago, when Yan entered Jin, Great Chu happened to be in the midst of the struggle among the imperial princes. The reason Great Chu’s powerful noble clans were able to unite so quickly and support the Regent in organizing resistance to the outside... was because the Yan Emperor was trampling the great clans of Yan. The nobles of Chu, wishing to preserve themselves, put aside their disputes and embraced the Regent. But now... the times have changed. The man cutting hardest into the noble clans is His Majesty. Those nobles understand that perfectly well. And the ones feeding them sweet dates... are the Yan. Marquis Pingxi Residence. Yan intends to divide them. A very good move.”

“They... aren’t that stupid, are they?”

“Heh-heh.”

“Then... is there a way to solve it?”

Nian Yao looked at Eighth Prince.

“There is.”

“Say it.”

“Cut yours off too. Then everyone gets treated the same.”

“...” Eighth Prince.

[End of Chapter 791]