The king was nowhere to be found inside the royal tent. Even the slowest person would have realized something was wrong, and Fu Xi Yan was the sort who could invent a conspiracy even when nothing at all was happening.
The eagles keenly sensed the change in the tent’s atmosphere and were about to flap their wings in warning. But Fu Xi Yan had already flashed behind the hunched man and rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Don’t make a sound.”
The man trembled all over. Whether he understood or not, he frantically tried to retrieve something from his robes. Before his hand reached his lapel, Fu Xi Yan swiftly sealed his acupoints. He then tossed a handful of the sleeping drug he had acquired from the Di’an Office during his undercover mission in Southern Yu, ostensibly for official use, toward the eagles, and began searching the quiet tent for clues.
Despite housing eagles, the tent was exceptionally clean, too clean to look inhabited. Fu Xi Yan even checked the pillow and found not a single hair.
There were three possible explanations:
The person responsible for cleaning was meticulous and had removed every strand;
The king of Mengwu was bald;
Or the king of Mengwu had never slept here in the first place.
Considering the Mengwu people’s reverence for strength, the only reason their king would not sleep in his own tent was that he was no longer in the camp.
Fu Xi Yan’s thoughts raced in every direction, and countless conspiracies came to mind.
He approached the hunched man and was just about to reach into his robes when Pei Yuan Jin flicked a snuff bottle from the table against his hand. Rubbing the spot, Fu Xi Yan protested, “I only wanted to see what he was reaching for.”
Pei Yuan Jin raised an eyebrow. With a casual flick of sword qi, he severed the man’s belt. As his robe fell open, the object hidden against his chest dropped out.
Fu Xi Yan caught it before it hit the ground.
It was a ball half the size of a fist. Its shell felt metallic but strangely fragile. Fu Xi Yan dared not squeeze it. He brought it closer to examine, but Pei Yuan Jin snatched it away.
Fu Xi Yan asked curiously, “What is it?”
“It looks like a Thunderclap Bomb.”
“A Thunderclap Bomb that big?” Fu Xi Yan was astonished. Thunderclap Bombs were a specialty of Ghostshadow Organization. He still remembered the destruction caused when a handful had been thrown during the prison break. If the hunched man had succeeded, both he and the eagles would have been killed, their infiltration exposed. It was the kind of tactic that cost the attacker a thousand to inflict a hundred on the enemy.
“If the Mengwu king has this technology, why not use it during the siege?” Without waiting for an answer, Fu Xi Yan continued speculating aloud. “Are they short of raw materials, or are they holding back for some reason?”
Which explanation was right, or whether there was another, he could not yet say.
Leaving the unconscious eagles and the immobilized hunched man behind, Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin wandered through the Mengwu encampment as though it belonged to them.
The farther north they went, the fewer people they encountered. Some were not even soldiers. The place was practically a ghost town, with nine out of ten dwellings empty. Fu Xi Yan remembered their first arrival at Yanmen Pass. Both armies had been fighting, and the enormous Mengwu host had seemed to number at least tens of thousands. Where had all those soldiers gone?
The more Fu Xi Yan considered it, the more alarmed he became.
Having lived in two different lifetimes, he possessed a perspective no one else could match, and his thoughts often leapt in unexpected directions. But in his former life he had been a student with little worldly experience, and in this life he was an earl’s son by a concubine, never trained as an heir. The scale at which he considered problems remained limited. After meeting Pei Yuan Jin, the two had developed a chameleon-like tendency to mirror one another. When unsure what to do, they simply charged ahead together. Their analysis of the immediate situation was often imaginative and unconventional, but they rarely stepped back to consider the larger picture.
Mengwu had first supported the northern army’s advance on Yulin Town, then secretly assembled its own forces to attack Yanmen Pass. This was unambiguously a war between states. Yulin and Yanmen were merely small squares on the board. Mengwu was ambitious and possessed a weapon as powerful as the Thunderclap Bomb. What would it do if Yanmen Pass could not be captured?
Before the thought had fully formed, the entire northern border appeared in Fu Xi Yan’s mind!
The garrison commander knew of Fu Xi Yan’s reconnaissance mission. Fu Xi Yan assumed he would be waiting up on the city wall for news, so he rushed back without stopping, eager to deliver his fresh, urgent discovery. Instead he found nobody there. After asking around, he learned that the commander had only just left.
He followed the trail and finally spotted the man at the entrance to the military quarters. Besides the commander and his deputy, however, there was an unfamiliar face.
Afraid of interrupting, Fu Xi Yan tugged Pei Yuan Jin away. But the sharp-eyed deputy spotted him and called out, leaving him no chance to escape. He had to turn back.
The commander introduced the newcomer. He was an imperial guardsman of the Yulin Guard from Haojing, named Xu Hai.
Fu Xi Yan saw that his face looked somewhat worn, but his eyes shone brightly. He was clearly an accomplished martial artist.
Xu Hai’s eyes lit up at the sight of Pei Yuan Jin. He then revealed another identity: he was a disciple of the Qinling Sect and the junior martial brother of Cen Bao En.
Before they could begin exchanging pleasantries, the commander interrupted. “Yulin Town fell to the northern army twelve days ago.”
Fu Xi Yan’s expression changed. “How did it happen?”
Xu Hai repeated the details from the memorial sent to the Ministry of War.
When Fu Xi Yan heard that a former subordinate of the Prince of Longnan had helped the attackers from inside Yulin Town, he frowned. When he learned that the prince himself had not appeared, he began to suspect something. But he did not voice his theory rashly. “What did the emperor… His Majesty say?”
Xu Hai replied, “His Majesty believes it is a plot by the northern lands to drive a wedge between people. The Prince of Longnan died in battle years ago and cannot possibly have returned to the world.”
The commander said, “With Yulin Town fallen, Yanmen Pass may be attacked from front and rear.”
Xu Hai drew a secret imperial edict from his robes. The commander hastily knelt, raised both hands above his head, and received it respectfully. The edict authorized him to requisition troops from Shimen as he saw fit. If those were insufficient, he could recruit soldiers locally.
Unable to contain himself, the deputy said, “Is that all? If Mengwu attacks from one side and the northern army from the other, what use will ten thousand Shimen troops and a batch of raw recruits be?”
Xu Hai said, “I am not going back for the time being.”
The deputy: “…”
Xu Hai knew that he was merely at the peak of the Vajra Stage, not someone who could determine the course of a war. He explained, “Even before the news of Yulin Town’s fall arrived, Southern Yu ships had been spotted crossing our southern border. Northern Zhou is now truly beset on both sides, from north and south.”
Those days, the court received terrible news almost daily. First Southern Yu violated the border, then Yulin Town fell, and while the court was still overwhelmed, Yanmen Pass sent an urgent plea for help.
Fu Xi Yan frowned. “Southern Yu crossed the border? On the Prince of Yue’s orders?”
He had never thought badly of Qin Zhao.
Because they came from different countries, Fu Xi Yan had never entirely lowered his guard around Qin Zhao. Yet throughout their dealings, Qin Zhao had always known where to draw the line. Even when he used Fu Xi Yan for his own purposes, he handled matters beautifully and later sent the River-Mud Moon Begonia, leaving no grounds for complaint. Hearing that Qin Zhao was taking advantage of his troubles felt strangely out of character.
Xu Hai said, “Prince Qin Zhao of Yue has ascended the throne as the new emperor. His reign title is Yonghe, Eternal Harmony.”
Fu Xi Yan could not help muttering, “What kind of Eternal Harmony is that? Soy milk?”
Elio’s Notes: 永和 (Yonghe) is both the new emperor’s reign title and the name of a familiar Chinese soy-milk brand. The joke lands only in Fu Xi Yan’s modern-world frame of reference.
No one else reacted. Only Pei Yuan Jin humored him. “You want soy milk?”
Fu Xi Yan said, “…It’s too late now. Forget it.”
Seeing the atmosphere turn awkward, the commander hastily said, “In that case, let us join forces to defend Yanmen Pass! Mirror Master Fu, did your investigation of Mengwu’s camp yield anything?”
Fu Xi Yan said, “A great deal. I discovered that almost everyone in the camp has disappeared.”
Everyone stared. “Disappeared?”
Fu Xi Yan explained, “There are still a few soldiers on the outskirts, including some of the scouts who have been showing their faces constantly these past two days. But inside that grand royal tent, there were only eagles and their keeper.”
The commander cried, “This is bad! They are making a show of one thing while secretly doing another!”
Perhaps Mengwu’s king truly had intended to take Yanmen Pass at first. But Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin’s arrival had drastically lowered the chances of success. The king must have changed his strategy and gone elsewhere!
The commander asked, “Where is the Prince of Pingluo now?”
Xu Hai answered, “He is at Yanzhou, intercepting the combined forces from the northern lands and Mengwu.”
The deputy said, “The coalition already numbered one hundred thousand. If Mengwu’s main army joins them, Yanzhou will be in terrible danger!”
Fu Xi Yan’s heart pounded. His first instinct was to say, I’ll go reinforce Yanzhou! But he quickly calmed himself. Since this was a war between nations, he had to move beyond immediate, local interests and look at the whole situation…
He was completely blind!
Fu Xi Yan desperately missed the internet from his previous life. Back then, no matter where something happened, all he had to do was open a social media site, and people would pick apart every detail until nothing could hide. Here, merely delivering a letter took days.
That thought reminded him of something. He suddenly asked Xu Hai, “The letter I sent to… His Majesty. How did he reply?”
Xu Hai froze. “His Majesty said nothing.”
Fu Xi Yan’s face immediately darkened. The commander’s heart sank, and he hurriedly intervened. “I sent two letters in total. Mirror Master Fu’s letter went later. Perhaps His Majesty had not received it before you left?”
Xu Hai was no fool. “I departed in a hurry. He probably had not had time to read the second letter.”
Fu Xi Yan sighed softly.
In that letter, he had very directly requested Jadeite Soil as payment for helping defend Yanmen Pass. The current situation was tense. Zheng Jiao Jiao, on the other side, had not yet made an appearance, while Mo Xiao Ran, who had previously seemed to crop up everywhere, had suddenly vanished, as though preparing some grand move. It was unsettling. Fu Xi Yan therefore wanted to refine the Golden Origin Pill as soon as possible.
If Pei Yuan Jin could only break through to the Golden Core Stage, all their troubles would become so trivial that he could say, Words drift across the sky: This is nothing at all.
Elio’s Notes: Fu Xi Yan is adapting the Chinese pop-culture catchphrase 天空飘来五个字，那都不是事儿 (“Five words drift across the sky: It’s no big deal”), imagining that Golden Core cultivation would trivialize every crisis.
The commander, deputy, and Xu Hai still had much to discuss about moving troops from Shimen and the disappearance of Mengwu’s army. Fu Xi Yan had intended to listen, but when he realized they had not invited him to remain, he gave up the idea.
His reputation as a jianghu expert was too deeply ingrained. The commander had tactfully avoided troubling him with city-defense administration. Fu Xi Yan did not spend his own time idly, however. After returning to his quarters, he practiced his martial arts with great seriousness, hoping to break through soon and add another measure of strength to their side.
Just before dawn, Fu Xi Yan’s right eyelid began twitching incessantly, as though foretelling disaster. Sure enough, it was not long before the commander sent someone to summon him. Apparently another unexpected visitor had arrived.
Fu Xi Yan touched his twitching eyelid and felt his heart pounding. “Who?”
The messenger answered, “An envoy from Youzhou.”
As a child, Fu Xi Yan had often watched the national flag-raising ceremony on television, and he felt a special fondness for Youzhou. Even though he knew the two places were not the same, he could not help transferring some of that affection to this one.