Wind swept scraps of grass into the air, and an eagle cried high in the heavens. Dusk was approaching, yet the vast, magnificent scenery beneath Heaven did nothing to ease Huo Yuan’s constricted state of mind.
The moment he chose to throw in his lot with the Northern Alliance and overstep his authority to seize control of the Southern Border army, his road of retreat vanished and his future became uncertain. The lives and fortunes of the Huo family and all his trusted subordinates now rested on his shoulders, and the weight of that burden left him faintly short of breath.
Everyone in the chiliarchy under Fu Xuan who openly refused to obey orders had already been dealt with, but Huo Yuan knew the Fu family’s foundations were still there. News leaking out was inevitable.
He was not especially worried about the Fu family’s remaining forces launching a desperate counterattack. Past glory could only shelter old men whose best years were behind them, while countless members of the Southern Border army’s younger generation had been promoted through his hands. He believed that if he truly revealed all of them, heh, everyone would be shocked, including Liu Tan Du, the man regarded as master of the Southern Border.
Of course, compared with Liu Tan Du, he still fell short. Fortunately, the Northern Alliance’s plan this time treated Liu Tan Du as the key piece. As long as Liu Tan Du stood on the same side as him, even if Liu later learned that Huo Yuan had used his banner to deal with the Fu family, Huo Yuan could explain it away as taking precautions before trouble arose.
Now, the only thing that mattered was what was happening inside Jiangling.
His expression remained as mild and unruffled as the weather, but the way he kept glancing toward Jiangling had already betrayed his anxiety. There were few fools among his trusted men, so the moment someone appeared from that direction, they hurried over to report.
After receiving the report, Huo Yuan stood where he was for a moment before preparing to go down from the city wall. Unexpectedly, the other party came up first. At the sight of that flowing white robe, airy as an immortal’s, Huo Yuan paused in surprise, then quickly recovered his composure. “Mr. Mei?”
Huo Yuan did not know much about Mei Xia Ying’s background. He only knew the man’s martial arts were extraordinarily high, and that whenever Madam Liu or Wen Ping mentioned him, they became deeply evasive.
Mei Xia Ying said, “I stopped three separate attempts to send messages from the army to the Fu family.”
Huo Yuan said, “I didn’t expect there to be three.”
The messengers must have been acting on Fu Xuan’s orders, which meant Fu Xuan had prepared safeguards long ago. Thinking that all three attempts had been blocked, Huo Yuan felt a trace of satisfaction. “A pity for him. All that repeated caution still ran into you, Mr. Mei.”
Mei Xia Ying sighed regretfully. “But I can’t be certain there wasn’t a fourth. When I killed the third messenger, Fu Xi Yan returned. Before we left, Alliance Leader Wen repeatedly stressed that we must not provoke the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror or the Immortal Treasury Palace. There was nothing I could do.”
After taking this step, the word of Wen Hong Xuan, Supreme Leader of the Northern Alliance, was practically an imperial edict. Huo Yuan was somewhat dissatisfied that Mei Xia Ying had failed to complete the task, but once Wen Hong Xuan was invoked, he could hardly say more.
The two stood atop the city wall, looking at the sky, then the earth, without speaking again. One was weighed down by worry, while the other was perfectly at ease.
After another while, more people returned.
This time, the approaching group revealed themselves from far away. When Huo Yuan saw Wen Ping, Wu Kuan, and the others, he stopped putting on airs and personally went down from the tower. After exchanging a few pleasantries, his gaze swept over the unconscious Liu Huan being carried on someone’s back, then moved to the rear of the group. The person he wanted to see was not there.
Wen Ping said, “Miss Huo has already returned to the north with the Bitter-Faced Monk.”
Huo Yuan’s heart tightened. “Why did she go north?”
Wu Kuan lied with his eyes wide open. “Second Brother is impatient by nature. After taking such a fine disciple as Miss Huo, he couldn’t wait to bring her back and train her properly!”
Huo Yuan flew into a rage, suspecting they wanted to use his daughter to keep him under control. When the apprenticeship had been accepted, no one had said she would be taken north. But she was already far away, so protesting would accomplish nothing. He could only say coldly, “She is my only daughter. How could I bear a long separation? Had I known this would happen, I might as well have kept her by my side and taught her myself.”
Wu Kuan and Wen Ping exchanged a glance, a trace of annoyance passing between them.
Huo Yuan suppressed his anger and asked, “When will General Liu appear?”
Wu Kuan glanced at Wen Ping. When he saw her looking back at him, he ducked his head, pretended he had only just noticed Mei Xia Ying, and hurried off to greet him. Wen Ping had no way to dodge the question and said, “You have Liu Tan Du’s command arrow. Can you control the Southern Border army with it?”
Huo Yuan’s head buzzed. He hurriedly asked, “General Liu is dead?”
If Liu Tan Du were dead, Huo Yuan might still have a chance to gamble.
Wen Ping said, “He isn’t dead.”
All the color drained from Huo Yuan’s face. He paced back and forth twice, then said, “The very reason Emperor Jianhong fears General Liu is that, here, an imperial edict is less useful than General Liu’s command arrow! Even if I hold that arrow, I’m only borrowing the tiger’s might. If Liu Tan Du appears, he can mobilize more than half the Southern Border troops. Of those remaining, Fu Xuan can call on another thirty to forty percent. What use would the scraps left over be to me?”
Wen Ping looked somewhat regretful when she heard this. “Then it seems Liu Tan Du has to die.” Today at the Liu residence, Liu Tan Du had been right in her hands. It was not as though she had lacked the opportunity. Unfortunately, she had let it slip by.
Huo Yuan shook his head. “Whoever kills Liu Tan Du becomes the enemy of a hundred thousand Southern Border soldiers. Who would acknowledge their enemy as a father?”
Wen Ping bit her lower lip. “This won’t work, that won’t work. Are we supposed to give up just like that?” The Northern Alliance would be abandoning only one plan, but Huo Yuan would be abandoning the foundation he had spent decades building! He bitterly regretted taking this road. The merit of helping a new ruler ascend was certainly tempting, but the risk was far too great.
Mei Xia Ying had grown tired of Wu Kuan’s endless chatter. He turned toward them. “Tell me everything that happened today, from beginning to end.”
Liu Tan Du urged the prefect to issue wanted notices, Chu Shao Yang went out to search for people, and Li Mu He dealt with Zhang A Gu’s corpse… For a time, the Liu residence was full of figures rushing back and forth.
Fu Fu, Fu Xuan, Fu Xi Yan, and Pei Yuan Jin looked extraordinarily idle in the middle of all that activity.
After comparing everything they had encountered, they realized the Northern Alliance was aiming far higher this time than it first appeared. Their moves looked scattered, one blow here and another there, but in fact every one of them had been woven into the scheme.
“They wanted to force Liu Tan Du into rebellion.”
Fu Xi Yan thought over everything Liu Tan Du had suffered that day: his wife was dead, his son was missing, his elder brother had died more than a year ago, his younger sister was still beside the emperor as an imperial consort, and there were the aftereffects of cultivating the Heaven-Mending, Future-Opening Art. For a moment, Fu Xi Yan did not even know how to evaluate the man. It was fortunate Liu Tan Du was not a transmigrator. With such a tragic life story, there would have been nothing left for Fu Xi Yan to do.
With Liu Tan Du absent, Fu Xi Yan had no need to watch his words. “Given everything that happened today, why didn’t Liu Tan Du rebel?”
Even though he had not been present, thinking back afterward, Fu Xi Yan still felt the Northern Alliance’s move had been viciously effective.
No wonder they had passed up so many earlier opportunities and insisted on waiting until Zhang A Gu arrived before making their move. No one else could make use of Zhang A Gu’s status as someone “acting on Heaven’s behalf” quite so effectively.
Putting himself in Liu Tan Du’s place, staying behind looked like a dead end. Emperor Jianhong had already wanted to move against him. Now that such a perfect excuse had been delivered into his hands, whether Liu Tan Du had been framed or not, the emperor could simply make the charge stick.
Fu Xuan had never asked Liu Tan Du this question, nor would it have been appropriate to do so. This was an age that prized loyalty to sovereign and country. Asking would itself imply doubt about Liu Tan Du’s loyalty. Although Fu Xuan personally did not place much faith in such things, he could only interpret the matter from his own perspective. “His younger sister and nephew are still in Haojing.”
Fu Xi Yan fell silent. To him, that answer was obviously very persuasive.
Fu Xuan gave a cold laugh. “But the north won’t care about that.” The way they had treated Rong Yue and the Rong family already made that clear. In their eyes, family mattered far less than the grand ambition of overturning a dynasty and founding another.
Fu Xi Yan remembered Mei Xia Ying standing guard outside their residence. “Did any of you send someone back to warn the Fu residence?”
Fu Fu said irritably, “We were busy fighting. Who had time for that?”
Fu Xuan could not help looking at him. The question in his eyes was obvious: And what exactly were you fighting at the time? A yawn? A nap?
Fu Fu ignored him.
Fu Xi Yan sighed. “They wanted to force Liu Tan Du into rebellion for the sake of military power. If military power is what they’re after, there’s no way they would leave the army camp untouched.”
Fu Xuan froze. His face instantly turned pale, and he spun around and ran outside.
Fu Xi Yan, uneasy, followed him. Pei Yuan Jin glanced at Fu Fu, who remained where he stood, thought for a moment, and said, “I’ll escort you back first.”
Fu Fu was no fool and immediately understood what was happening. He hurriedly urged Pei Yuan Jin to follow the others. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay here. Someone has to inform Liu Tan Du, and there are experts from the Qinling Sect here too!”
Pei Yuan Jin did not insist. He had Xiao Sang step into the sunlight to keep watch while the Hidden Dragon Unit and Phoenix-Roosting Unit continued protecting Fu Fu from the shadows, then quickly caught up.
Seeing that Fu Xuan was running too slowly, Fu Xi Yan simply grabbed the back of his collar and flew across the rooftops with him.
Only now did Fu Xi Yan finally understand the Northern Alliance’s entire scheme.
In truth, everything they had done that day revolved around Liu Tan Du. The core objective was only one thing: the Northern Alliance wanted control of the Southern Border army.
To accomplish that, they had devised four steps.
First, kill Zhang A Gu and completely sever Liu Tan Du from Emperor Jianhong, forcing him to stand wholly on the Northern Alliance’s side. This was the most important step.
Second, although this had not yet been confirmed, if they wanted to clear the way for Liu Tan Du to seize full military control, then no opposing voices could be allowed to remain inside the army. The Fu family’s forces would naturally be among the first to be purged.
Third, if Fu Xuan dared remain away from the army for so long, he must have left safeguards behind. The moment anyone made a move inside the camp, someone would inevitably try to send word out. Mei Xia Ying’s blockade of the Fu residence had been meant to cut off that flow of information.
Finally, for the third step to work smoothly, Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin could not be allowed to remain at home.
After becoming a restaurant owner himself, Fu Xi Yan had speculated that Madam Fenfang’s private banquet might be a bribe meant to negotiate terms, or perhaps a trap with a killing formation waiting inside. He had gone there fully prepared for a major battle.
He had never imagined that, in the end, it would turn out to be nothing more than a seemingly insignificant piece of bait.
The reason he had failed to see it was that he could not believe they would waste such a large asset on something so minor. With an entire restaurant at their disposal, could they find nothing better to do than use it as bait? Wouldn’t a simple challenge letter have achieved the same effect?
Thinking about it, Fu Xi Yan realized perhaps it really would not.
A loud drum struck with a light mallet had sent his thinking down the wrong path and left him reacting from a disadvantage. It was like seeing black clouds massing ahead and hearing the wind roar. Everyone, relying on experience, would expect a downpour next. But then the sky shed only a few tears. Who would anticipate that?
Even so, after calculating every move, the other side probably never expected Liu Tan Du to choose to remain and face whatever towering fury Emperor Jianhong might unleash. One wrong move, and the whole board had come apart.
Taking Liu Huan away was their attempt to salvage the plan. There were two possibilities. First, they did not know Liu Huan’s true identity and intended to use him to threaten Liu Tan Du. But given that Madam Liu had been willing to die to complete the mission, that seemed unlikely. Which left the second possibility: Liu Huan’s identity was extremely important to the Northern Alliance.
That had been Fu Xi Yan’s suspicion for a long time, and now he was increasingly certain.
This was not the late Eastern Han, when rival warlords rose everywhere. If the Northern Alliance wanted to rebel, they would need a banner to rally behind. Liu Huan had to possess imperial blood.
Fu Xi Yan touched the sachet inside his robe. Perhaps this sachet could unlock part of the secret, assuming the monk had not lied.
He carried Fu Xuan along at great speed. Fu Xuan was uncomfortable at first, but eventually gave up on both face and dignity and simply pretended he was a banner flapping in the wind.
Pei Yuan Jin followed the two of them at an unhurried pace.
By the time the chiliarchy compound loomed ahead, night had fallen.
Fu Xuan suddenly said, “Wait.”
Fu Xi Yan stopped and set him down. “Uncle, should I go ahead and take a look while you wait here for General Liu?”
Fu Xuan pointed into the distance. “Beacon smoke?”
Fu Xi Yan froze and looked up. Sure enough, a column of pitch-black smoke was billowing and twisting in the wind. He stared in shock. “They’re playing this big?”
He knew the northern lands had troops stationed along the Northern Border, but the Southern and Northern Borders lay at opposite ends of Northern Zhou. Even if the Northern Alliance had grown wings, how could such a large force cross the realm without running into a single hero capable of shooting down condors?
Elio’s Notes: “Hero who shoots condors” is a wink at Jin Yong’s The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Fu Xi Yan is joking that if the Northern Alliance really had grown wings, surely someone should have shot them down along the way.
Fu Xuan’s expression was grave. “It could also be my people.”
If no message could reach the Fu residence, his subordinates might take the desperate step of lighting a beacon fire to attract attention. But lighting one without authorization was no minor offense. Just what had the north done inside the army to force them this far?
If Wen Ping, Wu Kuan, Mei Xia Ying, and the others knew what Fu Xuan was thinking at that moment, they would probably cry out that they had been falsely accused.
After hearing Wen Ping’s account, Mei Xia Ying wanted to exploit the gap in timing. Before Liu Tan Du could recover his bearings and discover that something had gone wrong in the army, they would claim that the imperial envoy had made trouble for and imprisoned him, lead the Southern Border army directly against Jiangling, occupy the city, and create a fait accompli.
As for Liu Tan Du, once he discovered what had happened, Mei Xia Ying would secretly kill him.
That way, even if others harbored doubts about Liu Tan Du’s death, once they had already led troops into Jiangling, every doubt would have to be swallowed.
The plan made Huo Yuan’s heart stir.
No matter which plan they followed, the Southern Border army needed someone to lead it. If that person was no longer Liu Tan Du, then it could only be… himself.
He remained silent and watched Wen Ping and Wu Kuan step aside to whisper together.
Mei Xia Ying looked at the silent Huo Yuan and smiled. “Once General Huo holds real power, I doubt the north would dare refuse to send your honored daughter back.”
A glint flashed through Huo Yuan’s eyes. He asked with a half-smile, “Aren’t you from the north?”
“Me?” Mei Xia Ying said. “I’m a man of the jianghu.”
Huo Yuan was just about to take the opportunity to probe his background when Wu Kuan and Wen Ping returned. At this point, the two had very few opportunities left. If they refused to follow Mei Xia Ying’s proposal, they could only slink back north in defeat. Even bringing Liu Huan back to offset part of their failure would not change the fact that the overall plan had collapsed.
In the past, Wen Ping would not have cared so much. Her father, Wen Hong Xuan, had once held absolute authority within the Alliance, and with him behind her, she had little to fear. But now the Northern Alliance had a new leader, so she had no choice but to be cautious. Other matters could be tolerated, but the new leader might use this failure as an excuse to complicate her marriage to Liu Huan and ruin her father’s arrangements.
At that thought, she stopped hesitating. “Fine. We’ll do it.”
Mei Xia Ying said, “There’s no time to lose. We have to move before Liu Tan Du and Fu Xuan react.”
For Huo Yuan, accomplishing this was by no means simple.
But with a blade already at his throat, he had to find a way. First, every remnant of the Fu family’s influence had to be identified. It would be too difficult for him to pick them out one by one, so he could only secretly contact Liu Tan Du’s trusted men and manipulate them into helping with the purge. Second, they also needed someone inside Jiangling to coordinate with them…
When he raised that point, Wen Ping agreed without hesitation.
She said, “We originally captured the Prefect of Jiangling. Unfortunately, he would rather die than submit, so he had to die. The Prefect’s adviser is one of ours. He can imitate the Prefect’s handwriting and has the official seal, so he can issue orders in the Prefect’s name.”
The group gathered together and worked out the plan, then split up to put it into action. In such haste, it could hardly be called meticulous, but it had the advantage of being a calculated strike against people who were completely unprepared.
Liu Tan Du and his trusted subordinates would never expect Huo Yuan to betray them. The people in the prefectural yamen would never expect that the Prefect was already dead and that his adviser was now carrying out a secret substitution.
But a fake was still a fake. Given enough time, it would not survive close scrutiny. So by the end, all twists and turns had been stripped from the plan until only a single word remained: speed!
Huo Yuan indignantly told the generals that Liu Tan Du had been humiliated by the imperial envoy and reduced to a prisoner. Wu Kuan slipped back into Jiangling to contact the adviser and keep an eye on Liu Tan Du. Wen Ping remained behind to guard the still-unconscious Liu Huan. As for Mei Xia Ying…
He was watching the slowly setting sun. Another day was ending. And perhaps this evening would be the last sunset many people in Jiangling would ever see.
A piercing whistle rang out.
Immediately afterward, the whistles relayed the signal layer by layer until it quickly reached the very center of the army camp.
The generals Huo Yuan had stirred into hesitation even as they itched to act heard the sound and hurriedly said, “Let’s see what happened first!”
Watching their backs as they rushed out, a fierce light flashed in Huo Yuan’s eyes, though there was a hint of bluster masking fear. If Liu Tan Du came to the camp now, after everything Huo Yuan had just said, he would not even have room to argue his innocence.
The sky had already darkened, yet the beacon smoke rising not far away was so abrupt, so conspicuous.
The sentry who blew the whistle had only recently joined the army and had never before seen a beacon fire lit in his life. He was indescribably excited and nervous. The veteran generals had seen beacons before, but only during drills. This time…
“There isn’t a drill scheduled lately, is there?” an old general asked, looking suspiciously at Huo Yuan.
Some even began to suspect that everything Huo Yuan had just told them was part of an exercise.
Huo Yuan nearly spat blood from frustration, but he followed their line of thought and pushed the matter in another direction. “Could Emperor Jianhong have sent troops to arrest the General?”
The old general looked puzzled. “Wasn’t the General already arrested?”
Huo Yuan: “…” I was too impatient and forgot the setup of my own story.
“If His Majesty wants someone arrested, he only needs to issue an imperial edict. Why mobilize troops… So it must be an enemy attack!”
The old generals hurriedly put on their helmets and armor, mounted their horses, and led their men racing toward the rising beacon smoke. But before they had gone halfway, they saw a cavalry force numbering several thousand already far beyond the place where the smoke had risen, charging toward them with thunderous speed.
The patrolling soldiers rode alongside the cavalry at a measured distance but made no attempt to stop them.
The old generals were just about to order a formation when they saw one rider holding a golden-yellow scroll high overhead. In the dim half-light of evening, it was extraordinarily conspicuous.
“An imperial edict!”
“An imperial edict!”
“An imperial edict!”
…
The man holding the scroll had a voice like a great bell. As though afraid anyone might fail to hear him, he shouted the words over and over all along the way.
The old generals exchanged glances and suddenly regretted not listening to Huo Yuan earlier. It seemed Emperor Jianhong really did intend to move against General Liu. But if they tried to act now, it was obviously already too late.
In no more time than it took them to exchange a look, the cavalry had already closed in, and the cries of “An imperial edict!” had spread throughout the camp. If the generals wanted to rebel now, they had already lost the initiative. In such haste, it would also be difficult to reach a common decision. Meanwhile, the newcomers’ momentum was like a rainbow, their formation like a sharp arrow. The slightest reckless movement from this side would bring that arrow straight through their center without hesitation.
The newcomers were covered in travel dust and exhaustion. They had plainly come from very far away.
They had raced a thousand li to arrive with the force of thunder. Whose army was this?
While they were still wondering, someone had already swung down from his horse. He did not immediately prepare to receive the decree, instead asking warily, “Who comes?”
The man beside the rider holding the imperial edict suddenly reached into a travel bag hanging beside his horse’s rump and pulled out a military standard. The pole was not long, but the banner itself was bright and new.
The character “Ji” blazed against the vivid red cloth with overwhelming presence.
The generals recognized that character. It had been personally written by Northern Zhou’s founding emperor, and throughout the entire realm, only the Ji family of the hereditary Duke Haixi had received such an honor.
Since the founding of the dynasty, commanders of the Southern and Northern Borders had changed repeatedly as the political situation at court shifted. Only the Western Border had remained in the hands of Duke Haixi’s direct Ji line from the very beginning, untouched by outsiders.
Even more remarkably, no matter who succeeded to the throne or how he became emperor, once he ascended, not one had ever thought of moving against the Western Border.
That unshakable position, like a pillar holding up the heavens, had always given Duke Haixi a transcendent standing at court.
And now that Duke Haixi’s heir had appeared here, it could only mean His Majesty had finally exhausted all patience with the Southern Border.
The generals stood on the ground, staring at the military standard and the imperial edict held high above them, their thoughts spinning in a hundred directions. Once they calmed down enough to think, they began to feel grateful they had not lost their heads and followed Huo Yuan to Jiangling to go mad.
If Duke Haixi’s heir was already here, then Jiangling had surely been prepared for as well. Even if they rebelled and seized Jiangling, what then? Enemies would surround them on every side. Even if General Liu had prepared three years’ worth of grain in advance, could they really hold the city for three years? And after those three years?
Death would still be unavoidable.
But further thought was pointless. At this point, they were meat on a chopping block, waiting to be carved up. They could only hope the heir would show mercy out of consideration for fellow soldiers.
Night deepened, and all was quiet.
Pei Yuan Jin walked with his hands clasped behind his back high above the army camp. He looked as though he were strolling leisurely through a courtyard, yet in truth he was sweeping across the sky at tremendous speed.
Thanks to his habit of wearing black, no one had yet noticed that someone was drifting back and forth above their heads.
The beacon smoke had already gone out, but no battle had begun. Everything in the camp appeared normal. Some people were patrolling, some were slacking off, and others were hiding inside rooms whispering among themselves.