Days of nonstop riding had long exhausted the mounts’ strength.
Li Sheng tugged hard at the taut reins. Beneath him, the tall, sturdy chestnut mare snorted heavily, thick white foam dripping from her mouth down along the bit.
Her four powerful legs trembled uncontrollably, barely managing to stop at the fork in the post road ten li outside the capital.
Li Sheng hadn’t slept in ten straight days. Dark, sunken circles ringed his eyes, and his chin was covered in a tangled mess of stubble.
He swung down from the horse, and when his boots hit solid ground, his body swayed twice. His coarse cotton uniform was crusted with a layer of whitish salt, the result of being repeatedly soaked through by summer sweat.
He walked to the equally travel-worn carriage behind him and, leaning close to the thick cloth curtain, reported in a lowered voice.
“Miss, two more relay stations ahead, and we’ll reach the outer city gates of the capital. On this journey, we’ve already spotted several groups of covert watchmen tracking our wheel ruts. Should we head straight back to the Xu residence, or go somewhere else first…?”
The carriage curtain was pushed open by a fair-skinned hand.
Xu Qinghuan sat inside the slightly jostling carriage, flanked by two female guards.
Her gaze passed over Li Sheng’s shoulder, fixing on the towering, undulating city wall on the distant horizon.
The waters of the capital ran far murkier than the yellow sands of Zhenbei Pass.
Countless eyes lurked in the shadows, waiting to devour the Xu family whole.
If she made a grand show of driving the carriage straight through the Xu residence’s main gate, she might as well paint a bright, glaring target on her father Xu Youde’s forehead—giving his political enemies the perfect excuse to impeach him for forming private cliques or wielding personal military power.
“We’re not returning to the residence,” Xu Qinghuan said.
She let the curtain fall back, tossed the carved imperial commissioner’s token onto the cushion beside her, and laid out the rest of their itinerary with crisp decisiveness.
“After everything’s done, the carriage will go straight to the secret entrance of Shuitang Hall. You find a place outside the city, change into civilian clothes, and send the urgent letter and the bundle via the covert line into the Xu residence. Make absolutely sure you avoid the lookouts at the main gate.”
Li Sheng didn’t hesitate. He clasped his fists crisply in acknowledgment, pulled a plain gray cloth bundle from a hidden compartment at the back of the carriage, tucked it—along with a letter sealed with wax—into his chest, took his horse, and vanished into the dense woods beside the road.
……
Meanwhile, in the study of the Xu residence.
Doors and windows were shut tight. The only light came from a single small oil lamp on the desk.
Xu Youde was sprawled across the wide huanghuali wood desk, every wrinkle on his face squeezed together, his hands cupping and fiddling with seven or eight heavy gold ingots with a miser’s delight.
This was pocket money he and his eldest son, Xu Wuyou, had scraped together through various shady deals—meant to be stashed into his personal little treasury for retirement.
Xu Youde picked up one ingot, bit down hard, then held it under the lamplight to admire the clear bite mark, humming a countryside tune in contentment.
He was just figuring out where to hide the money in a secret compartment under his bed to fool the housekeeper when suddenly—
Thud.
A dull, heavy sound came from the closed rear window.
It was jarringly abrupt in the quiet study.
Xu Youde’s body jolted in fright. Instinctively, he shoved all the gold ingots into his loose trouser waistband, clutching and holding it tight, terrified that some unlucky thief might have broken in to rob him.
He crouched behind the desk and listened for a long while. Hearing nothing but the rustle of wind through leaves, he finally plucked up his courage and crept to the window on tiptoed steps.
After all—this was beneath the emperor’s own nose.
He slid back the latch and pushed the window open a crack to peek outside.
There was no ghost in sight. But on the inside of the red-lacquer window frame, a steel dagger was thrust deep into the wood.
The blade had bitten three finger-widths into the timber, pinning a letter and a small gray cloth bundle firmly to the frame.
“Which godforsaken bastard throws sharp objects into my study!” Xu Youde cursed as he yanked out the dagger, grabbed the bundle and the letter, and shut the window again.
He carried them to the lamp and glanced at the envelope.
On it, scrawled in bold, aggressive strokes, were the words “Xu Qinghuan.” The brushwork was so fierce it looked ready to tear through the paper—radiating a merciless, ruthless energy.
Cold sweat immediately burst out on Xu Youde’s forehead.
He didn’t even bother with the gold ingots stuffed down his pants; with trembling hands, he tore open the wax seal.
He pulled out the letter and barely scanned the first two lines before his blood pressure shot straight to his brain.
The letter opened without a single word of greeting. Instead, it came straight to the point, bone-dry and stark: “The capital is crawling with eyes. To avoid involving the whole family in a mass execution, your daughter has gone into hiding outside the city. I’ve passed by the house without stepping in. Father, do not breathe a word of this.”
Xu Youde’s eyes went glassy. His legs gave way, and he collapsed into the wide armchair, the paper in his hands fluttering and rustling.
His ability to jump to catastrophic conclusions, thicker than a city wall, roared into full force.
In the north, she had stirred up a colossal mess—killed a rebel general, intercepted warhorses, even dared to seize the account books of a prince’s household. Now she had reached the capital but wouldn’t even step through her own front door, choosing instead to hide outside and keep her movements secret.
“It’s over, it’s over, it’s over…” Xu Youde clutched his chest and began wailing. “That wretched girl must have raised her own army in the north, won over the Zhenbei Army with bribes and loyalty, and now she’s running these underground meetings because she’s planning to recruit followers outside the city and start a rebellion!”
The father beat his thigh in anguish, slouched in his chair.
The Xu family had served loyally for three generations—sure, they were greedy, but at least they’d never done anything as treasonous as plotting a coup.
Now, this cursed daughter went off as an imperial commissioner and had gone and tied the whole family’s heads to a rebellion belt.
Still, amidst his lamenting, Xu Youde’s eyes caught sight of the gray cloth bundle that had come with the letter.
It was about the size of two fists, heavy enough to have substantial weight when held.
Xu Youde immediately stopped his bawling. His eyes began darting around speculatively.
He grabbed the bundle and weighed it in his hands.
Since the girl was preparing for rebellion, she must have confiscated plenty of war chests from corrupt officials in the north.
A bundle this heavy must contain gold bars from the north—probably rushed back through the covert channel so her father would have enough money to bribe connections in the capital.
Maybe there were even a few top-quality wild ginseng roots from deep in the northern mountains.
Full of anticipation, Xu Youde untied the tightly knotted cloth wraps, peeling the gray fabric open layer by layer.
What met his eyes were not glittering gold bars, nor whiskery old ginseng roots, but several lumps of crumpled, strangely blackish-brown hardened lumps.
A sharp, pungent stench of salt mixed with fermented sourness rushed straight up his nose, making him sneeze three resounding times before he could stop himself.
Were these supposed to be some sort of local specialty?
He squinted, studying the mess for a long time, before finally recognizing what it was—
Dried salted vegetables, a specialty of the northern desert region.
This thing was dried out to the extreme; you could strike sparks off it if you smashed it against a brick. Usually, even the army grooms who fed the horses wouldn’t deign to eat it.
“Your father doesn’t need your lousy scrap of vegetable stalk!” Xu Youde roared in fury, grabbing that piece of dried vegetable and hurling it into the corner.
“Xu Qinghuan, Xu Qinghuan! You extorted one hundred thousand taels of silver as reparations in Zhenbei Pass and stole several hundred warhorses, yet what you send your own father—just a lump of salty pickled vegetable to grind your teeth on! Why don’t you scoop up two catties of the northern desert sand and mail it back for me to brew into soup!”
After cursing for a full half-incense stick’s time, Xu Youde huffily snatched up the letter again and continued reading with grumbled complaints.
His gaze skipped past the part about hiding her whereabouts, and the content moved into a description of the frontline battle.
Xu Qinghuan’s tone in the letter was extremely plain, with not a hint of exaggerated embellishment; she merely repeated, in an account-book style, what had happened to Xu Zhan on the barren shore.
“Second Brother led an ambush at the mouth of the barren shore, single-handedly rode into and smashed over twenty fully armored heavy cavalrymen of the Helian Vanguard Battalion; and personally executed the two traitors Ma Jin’an and He Minghu, who had colluded with the enemy, seizing back the defense map of Zhenbei City. For now, the entire battalion is unscathed.”
Reading these few lines, Xu Youde’s eyes suddenly bulged wide, his breath halting for half a beat.
That second son, framed and cast into a death cell, his right arm viciously severed; that once-broken man who had seemed destined to spend his remaining days in a wheelchair—
Yet, with only a single left arm, brandishing a weapon of iron, he had slaughtered fiercely before the armies of both sides?
And, driven solely by his own strength, flattened that pack of barbarian heavy cavalry into bloody pulp?
“Good! Good! Good!” Xu Youde leaped straight up from his chair, spittle flying in his excitement, his face red and glowing.
“I always said that Second Brother of mine was tough as nails! Smashing twenty heavy cavalry with one hand! That kind of feat—even in the entire military of Dagan—is a battle honor you could strut around with! The ancestral graves of the Xu family have finally shot a plume of heaven-reaching smoke today!”
His earlier dissatisfaction over his daughter’s rebellion and the salted vegetables was instantly cast aside. Xu Youde’s entire mind was filled with the image of his second son, clad in warlike armor, swaggering gloriously beyond the passes.
With such an unprecedented great deed as a foundation, even if those civil officials in the capital wanted to make trouble out of the smuggling case, they’d have to weigh whether that hammer that smashed the heavy cavalry might fall on their own heads.
This kind of battlefield merit—making ten thousandfold profit—had completely revived the Xu family’s standing in the imperial court.
Beaming with satisfaction, he picked up a thin taper, wired the lampwick a little brighter, and, his ruddy face shining, continued reading on, hoping this precious daughter might still have some good news to share with her Father.
The next paragraph read:
“Incidental note. This relentless one-sided slaughter by Second Brother, combined with the deliberately spread fearsome legend of his ruthless reputation, has thoroughly cornered Chen Changfeng, the strategist of the Helian Royal Court.
This lone wolf of the grasslands has already torn off all pretense; I fear he won’t even wait for the horses to fatten on autumn grass before marshaling his great army to swarm out in full force.”
Xu Youde’s newly straightened body froze.
“Great army... swarm out... in full force...?” He forced out these words through clenched teeth, saw darkness before his eyes, and nearly toppled backward.
One moment he was celebrating Xu Zhan’s peerless achievement; the next, this murderous daughter had slapped this damned death warrant squarely in his face!
Hugging his injured right foot, Xu Youde hopped around the study in a single-legged frenzy, sweating profusely, a string of guttural, distorted screams bursting from his mouth.
He rushed in circles a dozen times before managing to suppress the urge to pull down a roll of white silk and hang himself.
Stamping his feet and beating his chest, Xu Youde wailed:
“Your Father scraped and saved for years, barely hoarding a few coins for his retirement! Is he really going to tread the path to Dali Temple’s beheading platform with you two now?”
With trembling hands, he picked up the fallen letter again, steeling himself against the thought of family annihilation, ready to see what last words this unfilial daughter had to share in her final testament.
At the end of the page, a line of writing flowed as smoothly as running clouds and water, laced with an arrogance that seemed to control the entire situation.
It read:
“Do not worry, Father. Before this situation spiraled out of control, I deliberately released a rabid dog named Amur in the deep rear of the Helian army.
This man secretly carries Dagan’s new-style firearms and a deep-blood grudge; the backyard of the Grassland Royal Court will be turned to scorched plains. This game I have anticipated to the end—I await only the stirring of the wind.”
Xu Youde stared at these final two lines, reading them again and again, a full three times.
A deathly, disquieting silence suddenly fell over the study.
The Father who had just been cursing his daughter for courting calamity now slowly closed his slightly open mouth, and a newfound shock gradually kindled in his worldly-wise eyes.
Xu Youde swallowed a mouthful of spittle; the hand holding the letter was no longer trembling. He carefully folded the paper and stored it in the innermost pocket of his clothes, pressed tight against his body. Gazing at the dancing flame of the oil lamp, he let out a heartfelt sigh:
“This daughter of mine... she is so ferociously cruel—ten times more venomous than a starving old wolf in the great desert.”
Xu Youde slapped his thigh hard and kicked aside the gold ingot blocking his path.
He still admired with all his heart his daughter’s mastery in maneuvering men’s minds.
He had been too foolish!
“With this kind of genocidal scheme as the foundation—how could this war ever reach the foot of Zhenbei Pass? Those barbarians—I’m afraid they’ll turn around halfway to save their own burning homes!”
