Chapter 1031: Final Chapter!

Chu lands.

Ying City.

A carriage slowly came to a stop before a restaurant called the Drunken Life Restaurant.

It was not some venerable old establishment, but over the past few years it had become quite famous in Ying City. The “drunken” in its name referred to its drunken shrimp and drunken crab, both considered exceptional. Diners flocked here, and discerning gourmets from both near and far came in an endless stream.

“Grandfather, Grandmother, we’re here.”

A young boy carefully lifted the carriage curtain and made his report.

Inside sat a man and a woman, both past middle age but not yet truly old. The woman had kept herself well. A beauty mark rested beneath her lip, and her complexion remained rosy. She wore a red padded jacket that looked especially festive.

The man wore a wolfskin outer robe. His hair had been arranged with meticulous care, though fully half of it had turned white.

The boy hopped down first, eagerly set the footstool in place, and helped his grandfather out of the carriage. When he moved to help his grandmother as well, she waved him off with a smile. Instead, she accepted her husband’s hand and let him support her down.

They were plainly a deeply affectionate couple. The corners of their eyes carried the quiet traces of two people who had supported one another through long years.

“This is the place?” the woman asked.

“This is it,” the man answered.

White lanterns hung before the restaurant doors, each draped in black gauze.

Business today was perhaps twenty or thirty percent lighter than usual.

And the Drunken Life Restaurant was hardly alone. Nearly every restaurant and teahouse along the street was the same.

News of the Emperor’s death had reached Ying City. The former capital of Chu had gone into mourning, white cloth everywhere.

Officials in the city and families of any standing had all voluntarily suspended unnecessary festivities and amusements. Naturally, the markets and streets had grown much quieter as well.

Just then, a patrol from the City Patrol Office passed by. The armored soldiers appeared to be inspecting each shopfront to ensure compliance with the regulations for imperial mourning. When they reached the Drunken Life Restaurant, they stopped.

There was nothing wrong with the restaurant’s decorations.

Rather, the lieutenant commander leading the patrol had noticed the couple standing beside the carriage.

The woman’s padded jacket was the most fashionable winter style among women in the Yan lands. It suited the broader frames common among Yan women and, unlike the more rigid fashions of Qian and Chu, allowed greater freedom for work and movement.

The man’s hairstyle, meanwhile, gave the lieutenant commander an immediate sense of familiarity.

It was true that Yan people had never placed much importance on elaborate hairstyles. Especially after close-cropped hair became fashionable in eastern Jin, young men across Yan had taken to the vigorous, clean-cut style. Older Yan men, however, often let their hair grow again with age.

For a Yan man stationed in the former capital of Chu, the officer spent most days looking at Chu hairstyles with their carefully arranged temples. Seeing the style of an elderly Yan man again made him instinctively think of his own father, far away in Sanshi Commandery.

But just as he prepared to approach and strike up a conversation, someone stepped sideways in front of him and displayed a token.

The Yan lieutenant commander glanced at it.

Then he silently withdrew without coming forward.

Lu Bing put the token away and returned to the man’s side.

Back when the Four Great States still stood side by side, setting aside the long-divided lands of the Three Jins, Great Yan’s Secret Intelligence Department had ranked behind both Great Qian’s Silver-Armored Guards and Great Chu’s Phoenix Nest Internal Guard.

Now the Secret Intelligence Department ranked first.

Undisputedly first.

Because Qian and Chu had both been destroyed beneath the iron hooves of Great Yan.

As the longest-serving living fossil in the Secret Intelligence Department, Lu Bing had naturally noticed exactly where the Yan lieutenant commander’s gaze had lingered.

“Your Majesty, the Chu hairstyle...”

The man raised one hand and cut him off.

Lu Bing immediately fell silent.

The man had just started toward the entrance when he stopped again and looked at Lu Bing.

This man had been his imperial father’s milk-brother. By generation, he himself ought to call him Uncle.

At the very end, whether by feeling or propriety, there were a few more words he ought to leave him.

“Changing hairstyles is easy. Changing hearts is hard. Over the years, many ministers have submitted memorials to Us arguing that in the former lands of Qian and Chu, the people should be made to shave their hair, change their clothing, and imitate the customs and institutions of Great Yan in every respect. Only then, they said, could hearts be brought together and the realm made secure.

“We have suppressed every one of those proposals and never approved them.

“In truth, how much of Great Yan’s own clothing, hairstyles, customs, and festivals could really be called pure, untouched tradition?

“The fashions of eastern Jin arose and quickly swept through the Three Jins, then spread into the old Yan lands.

“Ritual and propriety are useful things when brought out for formal occasions and spoken of as proper words. There is no harm in that. But one cannot force everyone into the same mold with them.

“The Great Yan Dynasty is not a Great Yan Dynasty belonging only to Yan people. And We have no interest in being an Emperor of Great Yan carved out of a single mold.

“You find Chu hairstyles strange and unpleasant to look at. That is normal. But why did you never find anything worth criticizing when the boys of your Lu family cut their hair short after joining the army?

“What displeases the eye is not the hairstyle. It is not the clothing.

“It is the heart.

“To bring All Under Heaven into one is to bring hearts into one. It is not to make clothing identical. It is not to make hairstyles identical.

“Some words may be proposed by ministers. The ministers are not wrong for proposing them.

“But an Emperor must never truly allow his own thinking to become trapped there.

“The literary culture of Qian can be taken and used.

“The rites of Chu can be taken and used.

“Great Yan’s military institutions can continue to be inherited.

“Take the essence and discard the dross. A sovereign ought to possess that breadth of spirit.”

Lu Bing bowed in silence.

He knew these words were not truly meant for him.

“What needed saying, We already said before. What needed writing down, We already wrote down. Since We are standing before this door, We can still say a few more words before going inside.

“It is not that We cannot let go of All Under Heaven. It is not that We cannot let go of these rivers and mountains.

“We simply cannot let go of that son of Ours.

“Repeat what We just said to the new sovereign exactly as We said it.”

“This subject obeys the decree.”

Ji Chengjue turned, took He Sisi’s hand, and the husband and wife entered the restaurant together.

“Welcome, honored guests! What would you like?”

A waiter immediately hurried forward.

After stepping over the threshold, Ji Chengjue and He Sisi turned to face Lu Bing and the others still standing outside.

Ji Chengjue waved at him.

“Uncle, this is far enough. Go back.”

Tears stood in Lu Bing’s eyes and in the eyes of the others with him. They turned and left. Even the little grandson kept looking back as he walked away, openly crying.

Ji Chengjue’s gaze settled upon the restaurant threshold.

At that moment, He Sisi, once Empress of Great Yan, suddenly felt as though her husband had become twenty years younger in an instant.

The Emperor of Great Yan had fallen gravely ill and died. Crown Prince Ji Chuanye, acting under the late Emperor’s final edict, had inherited the great throne.

Three days later, the Empress, overcome by grief and longing, had followed the late Emperor in death.

News of the state funeral had only just reached Ying City.

But who in all Xia could possibly know that the late Emperor and late Empress of Great Yan, for whom the whole realm was presently mourning... were standing here alive and perfectly well?

Ji Chengjue reached out and wrapped an arm intimately around He Sisi’s shoulders. Caring nothing for etiquette or the fact they were in public, he leaned over and bit her lightly on the earlobe.

“Wife, once we crossed that threshold, the two of us were finally, completely free.”

“What? You’re afraid your own son wouldn’t let you go?”

“Never use ordinary reason to judge an Emperor. Right now, he is an Emperor first and only then my son.”

There was one sentence Ji Chengjue did not say.

Years ago... he had been the one who personally drove a dagger into his own imperial father’s chest.

And at the time...

Chuanye had been staying with the Lu family.

By staging his own “death” early, Ji Chengjue had cleared the road for his son ahead of time.

But once that son truly sat upon the dragon throne and began looking back upon this father of his... who could say some dream in the middle of some night would not suddenly leave him unable to sleep?

Ji Chengjue trusted Chuanye.

What he did not trust... was the Emperor.

Fortunately... beneath the whole of Heaven... there was still one place where a “Retired Emperor” like him could spend the rest of his life without worry.

“Honored guests, are you here to eat or stay the night?” the waiter asked again with a broad smile.

“Eat. And stay.”

“Excellent! What would the two honored guests like? Our drunken shrimp and drunken crab are the specialties of the house...”

“Half a roast duck. Half a pot of corn cakes baked against the side of the pot. Great Marsh Fragrant Tongue tea to cut the grease.”

“Uh...”

“Just pass the order along,” Ji Chengjue said with a wave.

“Yes, yes. Please wait a moment, honored guests.”

The waiter hurried off to relay the order.

Ji Chengjue and He Sisi sat down together.

At the table to their left sat a group who looked like wandering heroes of the jianghu. Men and women alike wore swords.

At the end of every scabbard hung a purple tassel.

In the jianghu of the present age, there were once again Four Great Swordsmen standing side by side.

Hero Chen of the former Qian lands had already half withdrawn from the world, yet he had long since replaced Baili Sword as a certain symbol in the hearts of the people of Qian.

Qian might have been destroyed... but Qian people could still boast.

Then there was a woman surnamed Yuan, given name Yu. In her early years she had been utterly unknown. The moment she truly entered the world, however, she had appeared at the summit.

The final two possessed identities and status so lofty that people had no choice but to admire them. One could only sigh that the Regent Prince who had once been invincible upon the battlefield had somehow remained unprecedented even when it came to his descendants.

One was the Grand Princess of the Prince Residence.

The other... was the current Regent Prince himself.

Great Yan had never placed excessive weight upon rigid rules. Or perhaps, once a person reached sufficient height, rules began serving him rather than the other way around.

Five years after the unification of All Under Heaven, when the former Prince publicly died after old injuries returned, the Emperor did not abolish the title of Regent Prince. Instead, he allowed “Regent Prince” to become an inherited princely title and passed it directly to the next generation, honoring the former Prince’s extraordinary merits toward Great Yan.

After all, Great Yan had precedent for similarly unconventional arrangements.

What other state had once gone through a long period when even imperial Princes had to kneel and salute a Marquis?

No one suspected that the ranking of the Four Great Swordsmen had been padded with status.

The Grand Princess had personally traveled to the South Sea and, with one sword and one person, destroyed the so-called Seventy-Two Caves of the South Sea.

That was a real achievement.

And even within Great Yan, the Regent Prince Residence practically stood shoulder to shoulder with the Ji house. But in the South Sea, the Residence’s influence still could not reach deeply enough to manufacture such a reputation.

As for the present Regent Prince himself, almost no one had originally known he was also a swordsman.

Of the previous Four Great Swordsmen, the first three had remained unchanged. The final seat had belonged to a one-eyed swordsman from the Zhao lands.

That man once sparred with Hero Chen for an entire day without falling behind. From then on, he entered the ranks of the Four Great Swordsmen.

Afterward, he sent invitations throughout the jianghu, preparing to found his own sect.

On the very day the sect was established... before the eyes of everyone gathered there...

Great Yan’s Regent Prince, a man whose slightest movement could stir winds and clouds across the whole realm... arrived alone in the Zhao lands.

With a sword bearing a purple tassel upon its scabbard... he struck once.

One sword.

And nailed the one-eyed swordsman, who had only recently entered the Four Great Swordsmen, dead upon his own sect plaque.

From then on... the seats of the Four Great Swordsmen were completely fixed.

And people noticed something else.

Including that Prince of Great Yan, all four used swords with purple tassels hanging from their scabbards.

A rumor long circulated but never confirmed was finally established as fact.

All four of the present age’s Great Swordsmen... were disciples of one man.

The Sword Saint of Jin.

In the previous generation, Sword Saint Yu Huaping had almost single-handedly crushed his peers and raised the benchmark of the sword path.

In the next generation... his four disciples had become an entire sky unto themselves.

The sight of those purple tassels made Ji Chengjue want to laugh.

He knew perfectly well just how arrogant Zheng Fan’s son was.

To make that brat put on a python robe and run into the jianghu like some roughneck merely to kill one wandering swordsman... it really had put him out.

There was no imperial decree in this world he absolutely had to obey.

But if his elder sister told him to do something... he had to listen.

He Sisi suddenly whispered:

“Husband, they’re saying they plan to enter the Great Marsh and seek a fortuitous encounter.”

“Oh?”

Ji Chengjue listened more carefully.

Only then did he learn that the group intended to travel deep into the Great Marsh toward a mysterious secret realm.

Rumor said the place was unimaginably dangerous. Of those who approached it, perhaps eight or nine out of ten never returned alive.

The tiny handful who survived generally emerged half mad, babbling incoherently that they had seen tombs inside.

So many tombs.

Because of that, the secret realm deep in the Great Marsh had acquired another name in the jianghu: the Divine Tomb.

People said enormous opportunities lay within.

Peerless martial manuals.

Divine weapons.

Treasures beyond imagining.

But Ji Chengjue knew perfectly well... the place was completely empty!

Back then, Zheng Fan and his people had thought they were all about to die. They dug themselves graves. The Princess Consort and all those gentlemen around him had prepared to be buried there together.

Then Zheng Fan somehow failed to die.

So the graves were simply left where they were.

The truly immoral part was that although the man had never been buried there, the formation had already been completed and remained in operation.

Over the years, Heaven only knew how many young men and women of the jianghu had gone charging inside for the sake of an empty tomb... and lost their lives.

Eleven years earlier, while Zheng Fan was still publicly alive, Ji Chengjue had made another imperial tour east.

He specifically asked Zheng Fan about it.

Didn’t the bastard’s conscience hurt at all?

Zheng Fan had answered without the slightest embarrassment:

He simply enjoyed watching generation after generation of heaven-blessed geniuses go inside and never return.

And if an absolute prodigy really appeared, managed to survive after having a layer of skin peeled off, and broke through every ordeal... he still would not give the fellow any fortuitous encounter.

He wanted that genius to reach the end and see nothing but empty graves.

He wanted the brat to understand with perfect clarity that he had been played.

Only then would it be satisfying.

Tsk.

The group at the neighboring table... was probably another band of dreamers filled with adventure and heroic ambition going off to feed themselves into the grinder.

Ji Chengjue almost laughed.

Because the owner of the tomb they were seeking... was sitting right here.

At that moment, a wild-looking Chu man in the opposite corner raised a leg of drunken crab in one hand and began reciting a mournful poem.

The State of Chu no longer existed.

The Emperor of Chu had become a King of Chu and moved to Yanjing.

The people of Chu could only use the old Songs of Chu and similar expressions to remember the Great Chu that had once been.

Watching him, Ji Chengjue could not help recalling something.

He had once asked Zheng Fan whether the things Old Fourth Xiong supposedly said before his death were actually true.

The death of the Emperor of Chu had been the final straw that broke Chu’s resistance.

The Yan accused the Crown Prince then serving as regent of patricide and demanded an explanation.

The Crown Prince could not defend himself.

Because his imperial father... truly had disappeared.

Later, the Yan produced a final edict supposedly left by the Emperor of Chu.

It was extraordinarily detailed.

It spoke to his Empress Mother.

To his younger sister.

To the Xiong Clan.

To Great Chu.

To the people of Great Chu.

It expressed the hope that no more lives would be lost and that the fighting would finally end.

In the end, the Crown Prince was removed.

The Chu Prince who had been sent to the Regent Prince Residence as a hostage for less than a year was returned to Ying Capital to inherit the throne.

Then, with the tacit consent of the Chu aristocracy and the major local powers, he announced that Great Chu would lower its status as a state and petition for incorporation into Great Yan.

From that moment onward...

All Under Heaven had, in substantive terms, completed unification.

Naturally, Ji Chengjue had read that final edict.

How to put it... as a fellow Emperor, he felt the words inside truly did fit the dignity and concerns of an Emperor.

The problem was that Ji Chengjue knew what had actually happened at Dongming Stockade that day.

So he had always felt that Old Fourth Xiong seemed to have said... a little too much.

When Ji Chengjue asked Zheng Fan about it, the bastard rolled his eyes and answered with perfect bluntness:

“I made it up to placate my wife.”

The Princess of Chu was Zheng Fan’s wife and had given birth to his daughter, now the object of admiration and infatuation for countless young heroes and heroines throughout the jianghu.

The truth was simple.

The scene that day had been chaos.

Zheng Fan issued the order:

“Leave not one alive.”

The Demon Kings went berserk with killing.

Even the Son of Heaven of Great Xia had not been allowed to leave behind some lengthy final speech or demonstrate much of anything.

Never mind the elder brother-in-law who had already been sickly by then.

No one even knew which Demon King’s stray attack had caught him.

No one had noticed.

The Emperor of Chu had simply been crushed to pieces.

After the fighting ended, no one was in any mood to wonder where the Emperor of Chu had gone, or where his corpse might be.

Most likely... there had been no corpse left at all.

So rather than saying the forged final edict was created to give Chu a dignified step down from its last resistance... it would be more accurate to say Zheng Fan had originally fabricated it to explain matters to his second wife and keep the peace at home.

“Today, my Great Chu... rise, my Great Chu... my Great Chu...”

The wild scholar had gotten drunk off the drunken crab and was beginning to lose control of his words.

The other patrons treated him as entertainment.

The Regent Prince had publicly “left” ten years ago.

But the next generation of Great Yan’s generals had stepped forward without the slightest gap.

They had been personally trained by the Regent Prince.

After he departed, they simply took up the responsibility of suppressing All Under Heaven in his place.

Chen Xianba had campaigned three times against the native peoples of the southwest.

This son-in-law of the native tribes had practically become their nightmare.

Now, in the southwest and northwest of the former Qian lands, the court was implementing the policy of replacing hereditary native chieftains with centrally appointed officials among both the native tribes and the Northern Qiang.

The Heir of Prince Jingnan, meanwhile, had specialized in suppressing rebellion in the former Chu lands.

His biological father had burned the Chu capital.

His foster father had dug up the ancestral graves of Chu’s nobility.

Now it was his turn.

Whenever unrest appeared in the former Chu lands, he struck it down with thunderous force.

The Barbarian foster son of the former Regent Prince, who had once stood among that younger trio, had originally been responsible for suppressing the snowfield.

After the Regent Prince’s public death, however, he was transferred to Beifeng Commandery.

In short... less than twenty years was nowhere near enough to make the whole realm completely peaceful.

But at the very least, everyone believed Great Yan’s martial vigor remained powerful enough to suppress All Under Heaven for a very long time.

After that... everything would depend on how the successive Emperors governed.

As for the Regent Prince Residence still standing in eastern Jin... it had somehow become the seed of future upheaval that everyone in the realm half expected and half dreaded.

Yet so long as the Residence did not rebel for one more day... the black dragon banner would continue flying over All Under Heaven for one more day.

They waited for a long time.

The food still did not arrive.

Ji Chengjue became irritated.

What the hell was that Zheng bastard trying to do?

Fine.

He had not personally come out to welcome him.

But he was still putting on airs and making him wait this long?

The “late Emperor” was furious.

He stood.

And strode directly into the restaurant’s rear courtyard.

The first thing he saw was a man built like an iron tower walking over with an armful of firewood.

“Move aside!”

Then he saw a man dressed in formal evening clothes coming out of the wine cellar carrying a wine dipper, a faintly tipsy fragrance of alcohol clinging to him.

At a second-floor window, a stunning woman sat with several other women playing bamboo tiles, crisp clacks sounding again and again.

Beside a pond, a powerful-looking man was digging mud.

A blind man crouched at the edge, repeatedly telling him he had worked hard and offering him an orange.

Only after all that... did Ji Chengjue deign to look toward the center of the courtyard.

A man lay there in a reclining chair, rocking slowly while basking in the sun.

Ji Chengjue walked over.

The man in the chair opened his eyes.

“You’re blocking my sunlight.”

Ji Chengjue exploded.

He reached out and seized the man in the chair by the throat.

“You bastard Zheng! My hair is already white! How the fuck have you not aged at all?!”

The two wrestled for a long time.

In the end, the former Emperor was still getting on in years and was no match for a man who looked barely middle-aged.

He lost first.

“Sister, come upstairs and play. Let the two of them make their own mess.”

At the second-floor window, Siniang waved He Sisi up.

Being called “little sister” by a Siniang who still looked so young made He Sisi, already a grandmother several times over, feel distinctly strange.

Still, she smiled and went upstairs of her own accord.

“You bastard. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, ‘dying’ so damned early?”

“What’s there to be ashamed of? Ah. I originally wanted to hold on a few more years. At the very least, I thought I’d make one western expedition. Then I learned the new state founded by the Barbarians west of the desert was actually flying the black dragon banner too.

“That’s when I knew there was no need for a western expedition.

“I could rest.

“If he ever comes back one day, he’ll come find me first. We’ll have a cup of wine and eat a steamed bun.”

“What about me? What about me? Do you know how I’ve spent these years? You bastard, you got bored of the game and simply put everything down. I still had to keep struggling to hold together this hard-won unified realm.

“Did you ever think about me?”

“Of course.”

“Where?”

“Look. Isn’t he digging mud over there?”

Zheng Fan pointed toward Liang Cheng, who was working in the pond.

Ji Chengjue looked over in confusion.

Just then, a scar-faced man drove a cart in through the rear gate, cursing the entire way.

“What pain-in-the-ass guest specifically comes to our Drunken Life Restaurant demanding roast duck? Made me run all the way to the market in the middle of the damned afternoon just to buy a duck!”

The scar-faced man noticed the people in the courtyard.

He stared carefully.

Belched.

Then grinned and called:

“Oh, you’re here! Little Dog pays his respects. Little Dog will go wash the duck for you.”

Immediately afterward, the waiter who had led Ji Chengjue inside earlier stripped off his outer clothes, kicked away the stilts beneath his feet, and revealed his dwarf body.

A blueprint was still in his hands.

He bounced excitedly on his feet.

“Come on, come on! Ah Cheng, dig faster! Dig! I designed the roast-duck oven ages ago. We’ll build it tonight and I guarantee it works! Blind Man, what are you standing there watching for? Come clear the kitchen with me. Can’t you see the roast-duck master is already here?”

Zheng Fan reached out and hooked an arm around Ji Chengjue’s shoulders.

“See that?

“Starting tomorrow, our Drunken Life Restaurant gets a new signature dish... authentic Yanjing roast duck.”

...

[End of the Book]

Extra — Sword Saint

“Wine.”

“Coming.”

A lame man handed over a flask he had just bought from the wine shop ahead to a white-haired old man sitting on a handcart.

The old man impatiently pulled out the stopper, took a drink, let out a long “Ah,” smacked his lips twice, and said:

“Too much water mixed in.”

The lame man looked at him.

“I’ll go buy another flask.”

“No, no, no. No need. This is fine. Exactly the right flavor.”

“Oh?”

“Wine is like life. I hear the liquor of eastern Jin is the strongest beneath Heaven. They even use it in the army to treat wounded soldiers. Gluttons for wine everywhere race toward it like beasts toward a feast.

“But that kind of liquor injures the spleen and stomach. First it makes the drinker float as though he has become an immortal. Afterward, the body pays the price.

“Such wine resembles a life of swift gratitude and vengeance. Magnificent in words. Magnificent in deeds. Magnificent in temperament. After the magnificence comes the censor beaten beneath the court rod, the general marching to his death, the virtuous woman dying for chastity.

“The act is hurried.

“The ending is hurried.

“That is the life of strong liquor.

“Then there is another kind of wine. Water mixed into it. There is still the flavor of wine, but never enough of it. One drinks with a frown yet does not throw the cup away.

“That is more like you and me, like the countless ordinary people beneath Heaven. The magnificence of life and death stands far beyond us. Yet we are not vicious enough to plunge into the deepest evil either.

“A man lives one life. There is a little color in it, a little wine flavor. But when people of our age and later generations look upon it, read it, savor it... no one will cry, ‘This deserves a great bowl of wine!’

“And yet diluted wine can be sold for a very long time.

“And yet men like me are often the ones who grow old without dying.

“Now my limit is finally here. I taste this life of mine... forget whether even a dog would turn its nose up at it.

“I myself find it tasteless to eat... yet somehow a pity to throw away.”

Hero Chen looked at Master Yao and smiled.

“I’m the same.”

After Qian fell, Yao Zizhan entered Yanjing and served as an official in Yan under the identity of a surrendered minister of a fallen state.

Long ago, Yao Zizhan had joked that the late Emperor of Yan was willing to trade ten thousand iron cavalry for the Literary Sage to enter Yan.

In the end... the joke became reality.

After arriving in Yan, Yao Zizhan spent the final decade and more of his life writing an astonishing number of poems and lyrics.

Some remembered the landscapes and customs of the former Qian, north and south of the river.

Some contemplated the habits and lives of nobles and commoners.

Some mourned winds that had blown through ancient ages.

Others... were polished masterpieces singing the praises of the Great Yan Dynasty.

This old man had possessed overflowing talent his entire life.

He had also spent that life absurdly and willfully.

Yet in the final years... he had, at last, done one thoroughly decent thing.

Before Li Xundao died, he had once told Yao Zizhan:

If people of later generations still wished to remember Great Qian... they would have to search for it inside Master Yao’s poems.

That was why Yao Zizhan did not care if people cursed him as a hawk and hound of Yan.

He wanted only to write more poems.

Compose more lyrics.

Use them to comfort the spirits in Heaven of certain people he had cared about... and add a little more wine flavor to his own life.

Hero Chen had been similar when it came to great affairs of state.

If anything, he had always been even more willing than Yao Zizhan to throw his life away.

The problem was... again and again, he never found the right opportunity to do it.

During Great Yan’s Regent Prince’s war to destroy Qian, Hero Chen had carried the resolve to die and defended Yangmen Pass to the bitter end.

In the end... he defended absolutely nothing.

Master Yao asked:

“Hero Chen, have you ever wondered whether the whole situation today might be different if, outside Yin City back then, you had truly killed that man surnamed Zheng with one sword?”

Hero Chen shook his head.

“Never.”

Then Hero Chen took hold of the cart handles again and continued pulling forward.

“That man crossed the line between life and death far too many times in this life. So many that adding me would have made no difference, and removing me would have made no difference either.

“Besides...

“I never wanted him dead.”

Master Yao took another drink of wine.

He shook his head.

“In truth, you were always the one who lived with the clearest understanding.”

Just then, a man in white appeared ahead.

He held the hand of a woman beside him.

Like Hero Chen, he was pulling a handcart, with the woman seated upon it.

Hero Chen immediately released his own cart handles.

The sudden jolt nearly bounced Master Yao off the back.

“This disciple greets Master.”

The Sword Saint nodded slightly.

Hero Chen then bowed toward the woman on the cart.

“This disciple greets Master’s Wife.”

The woman smiled at him with quiet reserve.

Master Yao saw the scene and laughed.

“What virtue or ability does this Yao Zizhan possess, that with my final limit already approaching I should actually have the Sword Saint see me off?”

Yu Huaping shook his head.

“I brought my wife to sweep her mother’s grave. We were already coming to send someone off.

“You happened to be leaving as well.

“There are still paper ingots and spirit money on the cart that we did not finish burning. Taking them home feels unlucky. Throwing them away feels wasteful, since my wife and I folded them by hand ourselves.

“So... we can send them along with you. Use them on the road.”

Yu Huaping waved one hand.

The strings of paper ingots and spirit money flew from the cart toward Yao Zizhan.

Yao Zizhan spread both arms and gathered every last one.

“Then I truly am basking in the old lady’s reflected glory.”

If one carefully compared ages, that old lady might not even have been older than Master Yao.

That alone showed just how much water Master Yao’s flask of wine really contained.

Had his limit not genuinely arrived, a man of his age could already have been called a living symbol of longevity.

Of course... compared with the one who had truly become something like a living national treasure... there was still no comparison.

Hero Chen was just preparing to apologize to his master and explain something when the Sword Saint raised a hand to stop him.

The Sword Saint knew what his disciple wanted to say.

Hero Chen had once fought that swordsman of Zhao and ended in a draw.

But the Sword Saint understood perfectly well.

Hero Chen’s sword... had long since lost its edge.

That did not mean Hero Chen had grown weak.

He had simply become lazy.

And for a swordsman... laziness could sometimes be an extraordinarily high realm.

There was nothing wrong with that.

The problem was those disciples of his.

They had stubbornly decided to complete an achievement on their master’s behalf: all Four Great Swordsmen beneath Heaven... must come from his school.

They had even forced his youngest disciple, long since wearing the python robe of a Prince, to descend personally into the jianghu in his noble body and kill a wandering swordsman.

Truthfully, there were many things the Sword Saint himself had stopped caring about long ago.

Just like that other man who stepped away at the height of his achievements.

People changed.

Before one’s disciples grew up, one dreamed of the glorious things they might accomplish in the future.

Once they were grown and each began racing toward surpassing the master, wave after wave crashing against the old wave ahead... the reality itself was already there.

Empty reputation no longer mattered.

Still... his disciples had done it out of filial affection.

Yu Huaping was happy.

It was the same sort of genuine delight an old patriarch felt on his grand birthday, surrounded by children and grandchildren loudly wishing him fortune vast as the Eastern Sea.

Master Yao spoke again.

“Why choose another day when we have happened upon today? I only have a few days left anyway. We have wine. We have paper money.

“Let it be today.

“Right now.

“Right here.”

Hero Chen nodded.

He waved one hand.

Sword qi blasted a pit directly into the ground ahead.

Master Yao stared at the hole, somewhat surprised.

Then he complained:

“When I said to keep things simple, did you really have to be this simple?”

“What else would you have me do?”

“At least dig it with your own hands.”

“That’s too much trouble.”

Master Yao helplessly waved a hand.

“Fine. Fine. This will do.”

Then he struggled down from the cart.

Struggled into the pit.

Struggled onto his back.

And finally... struggled to straighten his white beard.

“Hurry up. Fill it in.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“And now you suddenly care about formalities?”

“That’s different.”

“Fine. I’ll die. I’ll die now. I’m dying!”

After saying that...

Yao Zizhan truly stopped breathing.

His departure invisibly carried away the final trace of the old Great Qian.

Simple.

Clean.

Sudden.

And somehow... perfectly natural.

Some people believed he had died far, far too late.

They thought he should have hanged himself or burned himself alive on the day Shangjing fell, and only then would he have been worthy of the title Literary Sage.

Others believed he had died too early.

For a master of letters like him, every additional poem left behind would have given later generations one more landscape to admire.

Hero Chen began filling the grave.

Then Hero Chen began burning paper.

Yu Huaping took his wife’s hand and brought her over, indicating that they should burn some together.

His wife looked uncertain.

“Is that appropriate, Husband?”

Yu Huaping smiled.

“This paper money was deliberately left for him in the first place.”

She nodded.

“Husband mourns him too?”

Yu Huaping answered:

“I am simply watching the realm. In another ten years or so, the disorder beneath Heaven should finally be completely pacified.

“Once All Under Heaven is truly settled, custom says the age that follows belongs to scholars.

“Dahu and Erhu already entered the army, so we can set them aside. But our grandson? Our great-grandchildren?

“In the end, they will still have to study.

“They will still need to advance in the world.

“Look.

“That other fellow has already ‘died’ and did not leave many more poems behind. Even if he had not died, his life story would never allow later generations to raise him as some Literary Sage.

“So when all is said and done... the future Star of Literature will be the old man we just buried.

“When descendants someday seek academic fortune for their children and come worship him... people will probably crack their skulls open fighting over the first stick of incense.

“You and I today... are offering the first incense before even the first incense of the next thousand years.

“How could we not hurry and burn it for our descendants while the grave is still warm?”

Hero Chen, standing nearby, immediately moved aside.

He was afraid of blocking the place reserved for Master and Master’s Wife.

After finishing this earliest of all possible incense offerings, the Sword Saint looked toward Hero Chen.

“Going home?”

Hero Chen pointed at his leg.

“About time I went back and changed the leg again.”

The Sword Saint said:

“There’s a Drunken Life Restaurant in Ying City.”

Hero Chen understood immediately.

Then he asked:

“What about your home?”

Before the Sword Saint could answer, Hero Chen realized it himself.

“Next door.”

Master smiled.

Master’s Wife smiled.

Hero Chen laughed too.

Suddenly... the Sword Saint raised one hand.

A thread of sword qi shot straight into the firmament.

It was not borrowed down from Heaven.

It came from the man standing here.

One sword rose thousands of li into the sky... then fell from the lands of Jin all the way into Ying City.

At that exact moment... inside the Drunken Life Restaurant... a scar-faced coachman had been ordered by the newly arrived cook, whose status was very high and whose temper was even higher, to climb over the courtyard wall and catch a duck.

The duck was already extremely old.

It had lived long enough to watch generations of chickens and ducks grow old around it.

Years ago, it had absorbed sword qi from Longyuan.

Later, Third Master had fed it strange and inexplicable things.

Sword Maid and the Princess of the Prince Residence had both spent years teasing and playing with it.

It had never cultivated... yet somehow it had lived long enough to become almost a spirit creature.

Just as the coachman’s hand was about to close around its neck... a sword intent, somewhere between form and formlessness, landed in front of him with perfect precision.

“Apologies.

“Wrong road.”

The coachman spun around and scrambled back over the wall.

The new cook was waiting beside the roast-duck oven for his ingredient.

The Savage King came before the Son of Heaven of Great Yan and kowtowed.

“Your Majesty has excellent eyes. That duck has already become a spirit. This Little Dog truly cannot catch it.

“I’ll have to trouble Your Majesty to go personally.

“Only your dragon qi can suppress it enough to seize.”

Extra II

The wind of Jiangnan could intoxicate more than people.

It could intoxicate the saber at a blade-wielder’s waist... and the sword in a swordsman’s hand.

A woman in purple sat leaning against a willow tree.

A sword was planted in the ground beside her.

The scabbard... was noticeably thicker than normal.

In front of the woman, several lotus-leaf parcels had been opened.

Salted duck.

Drunken fragrant chicken.

Hu Family beef.

Cui Family pig’s head meat.

Several smaller paper packets below contained vegetarian side dishes and assorted fried beans to cut the grease.

The woman ate with impeccable manners.

Yet she ate quickly.

And, more importantly... she ate a great deal.

Of course, when the woman in question was beautiful enough, watching her eat could itself become a pleasure.

That was certainly the opinion of the two men sitting beneath two other willow trees nearby.

One was nearly forty years old. An air of authority clung to him, making it obvious his status was not low. This kind of bearing could only be cultivated by living in a high position for many years.

The other was in his early twenties. He also wore a sword and was a handsome young swordsman.

The older man had followed the woman for half a month.

The younger... for an entire month.

Everyone understood what they wanted.

Unfortunately, the woman had remained cold toward every hint and suggestion from both men, as though neither of them even entered her eyes.

Once the woman finished eating, the middle-aged man stood and approached with a water skin.

She did not even glance at it.

She took out her own and drank several large mouthfuls.

Then she patted her stomach.

Full.

Satisfied.

A contented smile appeared on her face.

She had possessed an enormous appetite since childhood and became hungry very easily. Eating had always been something of a problem.

Fortunately, her father had been excellent at earning a family fortune.

She had never lacked food.

And after her father “left,” the inheritance he left behind was even more abundant.

Her biological younger brother inherited the estate.

He treated his elder sister extremely well.

“Miss, this Chen has followed you for more than a month. Surely that proves my sincerity. My home is nearby. Please come home with me.”

The moment he finished speaking, a line of armed men in the matching uniforms of an escort agency stepped out from along the willow-lined riverbank.

Before Qian was destroyed by Yan, the Chen Escort Agency had already participated in smuggling with the State of Yan.

After Yan cavalry marched south and destroyed Qian, the Chen Escort Agency smoothly switched allegiance. It became one of the registered escort agencies operating under Great Yan’s Ministry of Revenue, even gaining responsibility for transporting a portion of the canal grain.

So although it was called an escort agency... it was no longer merely an escort agency.

The head of the Chen family carried a token from the Secret Intelligence Department.

His actual status was enough to stand level with an ordinary Prefect.

In other words, a man this powerful—someone accepted in both the legal and underworld spheres—had put down all his other affairs because he fell in love with a woman at first sight and followed her for a full month.

That could reasonably be called extraordinary sincerity.

At that moment, the young swordsman hesitated.

He was a Sixth Grade swordsman.

In the jianghu, he was by no means insignificant.

But the other side possessed numbers.

And these escorts might make their living in the jianghu, yet in substance they were half soldiers, entirely different from an ordinary rabble of wandering fighters.

So the young hero silently picked up his sword... then set it back down.

The woman before him had fascinated him enough to follow for this long.

But he treasured his own life more.

The woman brushed her hands clean and stood.

She intended to leave.

Just as she had throughout the previous month.

Whenever she arrived somewhere new, she ate the region’s famous foods.

After eating, she slept.

After sleeping, she ate again.

Once she had tried everything, she selected whatever suited her tastes and ate those dishes another round.

Once she grew tired of them... she moved on.

Again and again.

Chen Kui’s gaze darkened slightly.

Originally, he had intended to compete fairly with the younger hero.

He did not consider age a disadvantage.

He believed the steadiness and depth age had given him would be more attractive to a woman.

An old pear blossom pressing upon a young crabapple had always been considered a charming tale among the common people, in the jianghu, and even at court.

Winning a beauty under such circumstances was itself a delightful story.

Unfortunately... he was willing to play the game.

The woman with whom he had fallen in love at first sight... had no interest in it whatsoever.

So he no longer intended to play.

At his present position... forcibly seizing a common woman would no longer be called ordinary villainy.

It would be called deliberate self-staining.

Even if the affair spread, the higher levels of the Secret Intelligence Department would probably laugh it away.

They might even find this surrendered Qian man easier to control afterward.

The escort agency men blocked the woman’s road.

She turned and looked at Chen Kui.

Chen Kui said:

“I will marry you properly, with matchmaker and ceremony.”

Then... the woman looked toward the young hero.

He avoided her gaze.

The woman shook her head and sighed.

Her eyes fell upon her sword.

More precisely... upon the scabbard that was clearly twice as broad and thick as an ordinary one.

“When Father stole Mother back then, what magnificent heroic bearing he had.

“How is it that when someone tries to steal me... all I get are crooked melons and split dates like this?”

The story of the Regent Prince entering Chu and stealing away the Princess of Chu to make her his wife had long since become known in every household.

Every kind of regional opera had some version of it.

After all... in any age, heroes and romance were always among the elements most beloved by ordinary audiences.

Naturally, the longer a story was performed, the more it became distorted.

And exaggerated.

But she had personally asked her mother about what happened back then.

Her mother had answered seriously and tried her best to avoid favoritism or beautification.

Yet even stripped of exaggeration... even stripped of romantic polishing... hearing the story from her own mother had still been thrilling enough that she found herself thinking:

No wonder Mother could not resist choosing to “elope” with Father.

How many women in this world could have rejected her father under those circumstances?

Besides, in this age, having three wives and four concubines was simply part of ordinary custom.

For a man of her father’s rank... the number of women around him had already been remarkably small.

And as someone who grew up inside that household... she understood better than anyone.

The relaxed, carefree atmosphere of her family’s rear residence was nearly impossible to find even in the home of an ordinary wealthy clan.

Her mother had once sighed and said the thing she regretted least in this life was eloping with her father.

Set aside the upheaval of her homeland.

Set aside glory and wealth.

Simply being able to live in a rear household where food and clothing were abundant and no one made her life miserable... how many women in the world could enjoy such a thing?

Thinking of her father...

Zheng Lanxin suddenly felt uncomfortable.

Father had “left.”

Mother had “left” with Father.

And she, one of the most noble Grand Princesses in the present dynasty... had suddenly become, both nominally and in the eyes of the world... a child with no father and no mother.

When she was little, she had once imagined growing older and following her father.

Father could go to war.

She would stand in his command tent as a female personal guard.

Who could have guessed?

Before she even had time to grow up... her father had already conquered All Under Heaven.

Her father played with the realm until he grew bored.

Then he played himself right out of the realm too.

Now... all she had left was the jianghu to knead and toy with.

Unfortunately, the jianghu looked enormous and was actually rather dull.

The South Sea might have had plenty of Cave Masters, but most of them were famous in name alone.

If she had not been determined to complete that nice-sounding number, she would never have bothered taking ship after ship to isolated island after isolated island.

Tsk.

It had all been for the sake of finishing the achievement.

Chen Kui saw the woman remain silent and prepared to gesture for his men to use force.

At the same time...

Zheng Lanxin’s fingertip moved slightly.

If Longyuan revealed itself, every place she went erupted into noise.

The jianghu being stirred was one thing.

The real irritation was that local officials and garrison commanders would come running like lapdogs, crowd around her, and call her “Grand-Aunt” with every breath.

But if she did not reveal it... well.

Flies came buzzing on their own.

That was the problem with a woman traveling the jianghu alone.

Her younger brother had once suggested she simply dress richly, make herself up properly, wear gold and silver if necessary.

In the jianghu, a woman dressed like that was often far less likely to be provoked.

But Zheng Lanxin simply hated that kind of performance.

Longyuan was just about to emerge... when the ground began to tremble.

Chen Kui, the young swordsman, and every escort agency fighter turned toward the river embankment.

A formation of riders in brocade uniforms was galloping toward them.

Chen Kui’s eyes widened instantly.

He knew exactly what Brocade-Clad personal guards meant.

Across the Great Yan of today... only two people could use Brocade-Clad personal guards as their own escort.

One was the Regent Prince.

The other... was the Regent Prince’s elder brother.

The foster son of the former Regent Prince.

The man who had inherited his biological father’s princely title...

Prince Jingnan.

Zheng Lanxin silently withdrew the sword qi she had already sent toward Longyuan.

She faced that direction.

And smiled.

People often said that a hero saving a beauty was the height of romance.

But first... one needed to see whether the beauty herself was willing to build the stage for him.

Clearly, Big Girl was willing.

Otherwise she could simply have summoned Longyuan and cut down everyone in front of her.

For a swordsman at the peak of Third Grade... that truly would not have been difficult.

As for Chen Kui’s unusual status... fine.

Let him be unusual.

Her father had worked himself half to death for half his life in pursuit of one thing: living according to his own wishes.

Her father had succeeded.

And his children had been born able to live without worrying over consequences either.

Oh.

Not entirely.

Her younger brother did have something to worry about.

Big Girl thought of that younger brother who had already inherited their father’s princely title.

Once, when she returned home and the siblings were together, he had sighed helplessly.

He said Godfather’s great ambition had always been something he wanted to help fulfill.

Unfortunately... their biological father had stubbornly managed to live himself into a “national treasure.”

So even if he wanted to rebel... did he first have to wait until his own father got tired of living and sent him a message in advance?

Until then... he still had to help stabilize the foundations of Great Yan?

A great many thoughts passed through Big Girl’s mind in an instant.

Perhaps she knew whom she was about to see and deliberately distracted herself beforehand so she would not become too absorbed.

A girl still had to preserve a little reserve.

Then she saw a general riding a Pixiu emerge from among the Brocade-Clad personal guards.

All reserve vanished instantly.

She directly inherited the spirit her mother had displayed years ago.

“Brother Tian!!!”

A faint smile appeared on Tian Tian’s face.

He had just suppressed another disturbance in Jiangnan and was resting his troops nearby.

After receiving Big Girl’s message, he had come with only his personal guards.

For most fathers, watching one’s cabbage get rooted up by a pig would be unbearable.

But from Zheng Fan’s point of view... if one placed Tian Tian and Big Girl side by side...

Tian Tian was actually the cabbage.

His own daughter... was the pig.

Whether deliberately or unconsciously, boys in this era generally married young.

Set aside imperial Princes.

Even that brat Zheng Lin had been pushed into an arranged marriage while still young.

Yet Tian Tian... had remained unmarried all this time.

It was difficult to believe that had not been deliberate.

As for the purpose... they were waiting for the pig at home to grow a little older.

Love stories in wine shops and teahouses always liked separating a wealthy young lady from the cousin who had grown up beside her.

Then she would fall in love with some impoverished scholar or beggar from the street.

Naturally, the childhood cousin would become the villain... the touchstone against which the lovers’ devotion was tested.

That sort of melodramatic garbage never happened in the Zheng family.

Big Girl looked down upon every variety of man outside.

From childhood... she had only ever adored Brother Tian.

One could interpret that as a natural affinity between two spiritually unusual children.

But one also could not deny... that with Tian Tian’s temperament... he was probably the finest possible husband any woman in the world could choose.

After being raised by his foster father from childhood, he had become the complete opposite of his biological father.

One could abandon his family for the state.

The other... for the sake of family... could abandon everything else.

Everything that had just happened had already entered Tian Tian’s eyes.

When Chen Kui came forward preparing to kneel and salute... the current Prince Jingnan could not even be bothered acknowledging him.

He casually waved one arm.

The Brocade-Clad personal guards drew their sabers and began killing.

There was no need to waste ink describing the massacre.

It was completely one-sided.

The Brocade-Clad personal guards inherited from the former Regent Prince simply crushed these jianghu fighters.

Big Girl ignored the blood around her and walked to Tian Tian.

At that moment...

Tian Tian’s gaze shifted toward the young swordsman standing not far away.

“Brother, don’t bother looking at him.”

Big Girl spoke immediately.

And because she was afraid Brother Tian might misunderstand... she crooked one finger.

Longyuan shot out from the thick double scabbard.

In an instant... the young Sixth Grade swordsman was nailed dead against the willow tree.

“...” the young swordsman.

Tian Tian merely smiled.

He possessed no obsession with moral purity.

As long as his younger sister was happy, that was enough.

And he had never forgotten something else.

Before Father “left,” he had held Tian Tian’s hand and said:

Big Girl...

I leave her in your care.

Afterward, the Brocade-Clad personal guards began cleaning up the corpses.

Tian Tian and Big Girl resumed their walk along the river embankment.

“The Emperor and your younger brother both wrote to me, asking whether I’m willing to lead an army and accompany Zheng Man on the western expedition.”

“Brother Tian doesn’t want to go?”

“Mm.” Tian Tian nodded somewhat helplessly. “I truly don’t.”

“But...”

“I have only one father in this life.

“His surname is Zheng.”

...

A freezing night.

An army camp stretched beyond sight.

Black dragon banners stood everywhere among the tents.

Then... one formation after another began rushing toward the commander’s tent.

A camp mutiny had erupted.

Among the rebels were fighters dressed in black armor.

There were even magicians setting fires throughout the camp to spread confusion.

Inside the commander’s tent... a white-haired man sat quietly.

A moment later, the Barbarian little prince, now visibly old, entered and knelt.

“King, the rebellion has begun.”

The man nodded.

He drew Kunwu from beside him and tossed it upward.

Kunwu pierced through the roof of the command tent and flew into the night sky.

In an instant... a dazzling white radiance exploded across the darkness.

At the same time, from every edge of the camp, Barbarian soldiers who had been prepared in advance began advancing in orderly formation toward the commander’s tent... suppressing every rebellion they encountered.

The man called King stood.

Before him, the tent flap was blown open by the wave of force.

The command tent occupied the highest ground in the camp.

So the enormous city wall ahead could be seen in full.

That city... was the center of politics.

Economics.

Culture.

And religion.

Even when the Barbarian Royal Court had stood at its absolute zenith years ago... it had never managed to break this city.

The Barbarian little prince smiled.

“They’ve truly run out of options. That’s why they could only resort to this. By tomorrow, the nobles inside the city should choose to surrender.”

The white-haired man shook his head slightly.

“Erase it.”

[End of Chapter 1031]