The moment those words left Hu’erhan’s mouth, no matter how sincere or earnest his expression might have been, using them to describe a man—and a prince who possessed absolute authority over the region at that—was unquestionably provocative, even disrespectful. Nalan Xuan, however, acted as though he had heard nothing offensive. If anything, he appeared to accept the compliment quite happily. One corner of his lips lifted into a smile that was anything but friendly. “General, you flatter me.”
The scene Feng Xuanzhe had expected never materialized, leaving him to sigh in disappointment. Hu’erhan, however, seemed completely bewitched. Even the commotion right beside him failed to call him back to his senses. He continued staring at Nalan Xuan’s face in a daze, utterly unable to look away.
Nalan Xuan led his horse forward a couple of steps. When Hu’erhan remained kneeling there without moving, Nalan Xuan frowned almost imperceptibly and stopped. Turning halfway around, he raised his lips in an imperious smile. “Does the general intend to remain kneeling there, or will you lead the way for this prince?”
That final form of self-address struck Hu’erhan like a thunderclap, jolting him abruptly awake. “Y-You’re the prince?!”
“Precisely.”
“Then he—” Hu’erhan, who had guarded the frontier and accumulated countless military achievements, completely forgot about appearances. His enormous, battle-hardened frame looked almost comical now. As though desperately searching for some reasonable explanation for his mistake, he pointed at Feng Xuanzhe like a drowning man grasping at anything within reach.
“I am Feng Xuanzhe, a friend of Prince Nanyang. Or, to put it more plainly, a guest-retainer at Prince Nanyang’s residence.” Feng Xuanzhe struggled to hold back his laughter as he used the most flattering wording possible to describe the fact that he was essentially living there and eating for free.
“But… how could Prince Nanyang possibly—” Even with the truth established before his eyes, Hu’erhan still found it difficult to accept. Beyond Xiliang’s frontier, most people made their living through herding and hunting. Its soldiers and horses had grown powerful through years of hard living, and the land itself was naturally far less prosperous than Hua in the Central Plains. Constant travel and labor produced no shortage of strong, rugged men, but someone as fair-skinned and delicately built as Nalan Xuan was extraordinarily rare, to say nothing of someone possessing such breathtaking beauty. To the straightforward thinking of a northwestern man, someone like Nalan Xuan, regardless of whether that person was male or female, ought to be held securely in someone’s arms, hidden safely at home, and carefully protected. There was no contempt in the thought, only the instinctive human desire to cherish and protect something beautiful.
“If the general has no further objections, then please lead us into the city.” Nalan Xuan had encountered every kind of gaze imaginable. Precisely because he had seen so many looks filled with contempt or disdain, he could tell that Hu’erhan’s contained neither improper desire nor disrespect. There was only disbelief born from the difference between their values.
Hu’erhan accompanied them into the city. Although Nalan Xuan was a prince, customs beyond Xiliang’s northwestern frontier were far simpler than those of the Central Plains. Schemes and rivalries certainly existed, but the common people showed no resistance whatsoever toward this prince who had suddenly appeared among them. As Nalan Xuan passed through the city, people turned curious eyes toward him, followed almost immediately by amazement. No one questioned him and no one protested. There was something in those gazes that resembled the entrusting of their lives to someone who could shelter them. Whenever Nalan Xuan met such eyes, even he, whose heart had long since grown cold toward the world, could not avoid feeling the invisible weight and responsibility settling upon his shoulders.
“Big Brother!” Suddenly, a little girl who barely reached Nalan Xuan’s waist wriggled free of her mother’s arms and threw herself against him. Clinging to Nalan Xuan’s leg, she gently rocked it as she looked up with a childish, innocent smile, as though she had just received the most precious treasure beneath heaven. “You’re so pretty! Mama said that starting today, you’re our prince, the greatest person here. Does that mean there won’t be any more wars? Does that mean my big brother can come home from the battlefield and play with me again?”
Had the same thing happened in Hua, a commoner would never have been allowed to approach a prince, much less cling to him. Even attempting to pass nearby for a glimpse might have been punished as disrespect. Before the child could ever reach him, the guards surrounding the prince would already have seized her, and her parents would hardly have escaped punishment either. Yet in Xiliang, the situation seemed perfectly ordinary. Nalan Xuan had no shortage of people around him, but not a single one rashly stepped forward to drag the girl away.
In the end, it was the rugged-looking Hu’erhan who came forward. He crouched, gently lifted the girl away from Nalan Xuan, then softly coaxed and comforted her, looking every bit like a loving father.
Nalan Xuan’s wavering lasted only for an instant. He had come here for one purpose alone: to borrow Xiliang’s military strength and strike Feng Xuanyi head-on, leaving him no peace. Nalan Xuan had never been someone who cared about other people’s feelings. Compared with his own gains and losses, other people had never possessed much value. Yet now, faced with the little girl’s clear, bright eyes shining with hope, he found himself unable to meet them. The cruel words reached his lips, but no matter what he did, he could not force them out. I came here to lead all of you into war, to spread the flames of battle across the realm and leave ordinary people suffering everywhere.
Someone once said that a woman’s rage could make a person wish for death, while a man’s rage could destroy an entire nation. What Nalan Xuan now carried in his heart was probably not far removed from that.
“What, gone soft?” Feng Xuanzhe sat elegantly sipping authentic milk tea, its fragrance lingering pleasantly on his tongue as he raised a brow in excellent spirits. “When you were scheming before, you didn’t even spare yourself. You threw yourself straight into the plan without hesitation. You were ruthless enough then, so what about now? Have you suddenly decided to turn back from the brink and leave everything in the past?”
Nalan Xuan looked at the documents in his hands, the border-defense deployment maps and terrain maps he had requested from Hu’erhan the moment he moved into Prince Nanyang’s residence. Nothing could shake his determination to avenge his child. A father cruel enough to do such a thing deserved to be carved apart alive. Countless strategies already existed in Nalan Xuan’s mind, but what he needed now was patience—the patience to wait and quietly arrange every piece until the day came to draw the net closed.
As the saying went, know yourself and know your enemy, and you could fight a hundred battles without defeat. Nalan Xuan had once served Hua as the General Who Pacifies the West, personally leading thousands of troops in a months-long confrontation against Xiliang. He understood Hua’s terrain, troop deployments, and, to varying degrees, the habits and personalities of its military commanders. When it came to knowing his enemy, Nalan Xuan had already done more than enough. In all of Xiliang, if Nalan Xuan claimed second place in understanding Hua’s military, no one would dare claim first. What he had to do now was learn himself—remain calm and patient until every soldier, every blade of grass, and every tree within his territory had been carved into his memory.
Without even raising his head or blinking as he studied the terrain map, Nalan Xuan said, “If Your Highness has so much free time, why not think properly about how to reclaim what you want? I don’t mind supporting one extra guest-retainer for nothing, but could I trouble you not to come here every time you see me solely to say all this irrelevant nonsense?”
“How true it is that a man under another’s roof has no choice but to lower his head.” Feng Xuanzhe tossed out the remark without much feeling. It sounded like a lament, yet carried none of the resentment one might expect, almost as though he were merely joking. “All right, I should go. Your deputy general, that celebrated and peerless hero, has arrived. If I stay any longer, I’ll only be in the way.”
Nalan Xuan said nothing, clearly conveying that Feng Xuanzhe could do whatever he pleased. But just as Feng Xuanzhe reached the doorway, he suddenly turned back with a half-smile and casually dropped one final remark. “I hear the story of how your beauty stunned everyone outside the city gates has already spread for a thousand li, and that deputy general of yours is apparently an indispensable figure in the tale.”
Leave a Reply