Jiang Yue was drenched in sweat, his face flushed like the evening sky, the smell of blood spreading through his labored breath.
With no time to rest, he said hurriedly: “Young lady, twenty li from here, on a large slope, we ran into pursuers sent by Chen Shi. Who could have known they would fire crossbow bolts, young master Xuexi, already ill, couldn’t dodge in time, and took a bolt in the knee……”
Fu Ying’s heart clenched, her nails digging fiercely into her palms.
What she cared about most was whether Wen Zhuo was still alive, but seeing Jiang Yue clutching his chest in obvious distress, she paused and let him catch his breath a moment.
“Your subordinate dragged him down that slope, dodging several waves of attacks. After killing all eleven of them, I found a thatched cottage not far off and settled him there, leaving him for now in the care of an elderly couple.”
Jiang Yue took a great gasping breath. “Young lady, getting a physician from the city would take at least an hour, so your subordinate rushed straight back to report. Please bring your medicine box and come with me at once, otherwise, the young master’s leg may be permanently crippled at best, or his life may be in danger at worst.”
Hearing Jiang Yue’s account, Fu Ying clenched both fists, a raging fury rising within her, her eyes filled with a crimson hatred.
She and Wen Zhuo had only ever had private dealings these past few days, when had there ever been any collusion of forces?
Sending Wen Zhuo off to Great Yong, parting ways today to forget each other in the wider world, she had already prepared herself never to see him again in this life.
But Chen Shi, suspicious by nature, had insisted she harbored ill intentions, had severely interrogated Fu Sang, and had even sent eleven riders to hunt down Wen Zhuo, drawing blades and loosing crossbows, determined to leave no one alive.
Truly detestable in the extreme.
She hurriedly packed her medicine box and gave the order: “Bi Luo, go downstairs quickly and prepare the horses, we’ll ride there!”
“Yes!” Bi Luo hurried off.
Watching Fu Ying’s busy figure, Jiang Yue suddenly remembered something of great importance.
“Young lady, before young master Xuexi lost consciousness… he had your subordinate personally deliver two items to you.”
Hearing this name she had been anxious over for so long, Fu Ying could not help but stop what she was doing, turning to look at Jiang Yue.
Jiang Yue drew out a jade pendant and a dagger from inside his robe, carefully handing them to Fu Ying.
The jade pendant was about the size of a palm, made of mutton-fat white jade, hollow-carved all over with a black tortoise-snake design and hornless dragon heads. Fu Ying had seen this piece at his waist when they first met in the snow.
The dagger was the one with the carved jade handle and lacquered sheath, fine in craftsmanship, surely the very one Wen Zhuo had used to gouge out the assassin’s eye the night before.
“This……”
As a princess, Fu Ying had seen no shortage of precious jade, and she could tell at once that this pendant was a rare treasure beyond compare. And this dagger too, what did he mean by giving these to her?
“Young master Xuexi said this jade pendant is worth a fortune, and the young lady could sell it to have your skin ailment cured. The dagger has a small mechanism, press the button, and snake venom will soak into the blade. Anyone struck by it would die from the poison in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. He hopes the young lady will use it to protect yourself in times of danger.”
Fu Ying took the jade pendant with trembling hands, feeling the fine, smooth texture of the beautiful jade in her palm, and felt as though some invisible force were pressing down on her heart, making even her breathing feel heavy.
The skin ailment had only ever been an excuse she had made up to avoid letting him see her face.
A fabricated lie, and yet he had remembered it for so long, even worrying that she might lack the means, and had given her such a precious, personal piece of jade in response.
She could hardly imagine how Wen Zhuo, enduring high fever and pain, with his consciousness on the verge of collapsing entirely, had still managed to take out these two items and, with heartfelt words, instruct Jiang Yue to deliver them to her.
Looking at the jade pendant in her hand, then raising her eyes to the dagger, Fu Ying’s eyes filled once more with a mixture of heartache and tears.
With trembling hands, she carefully put both items away, tucking them close to her chest as though she had received the rarest of treasures.
A moment later, Fu Ying and Bi Luo finished their preparations and led their horses out of the residence.
Jiang Yue, covered in blood as he was, could not be seen by the guards, so he hid himself away, planning to meet up with them along the way.
Just as they pulled the gate open, Chen Shi stepped in front of them, and the guards at the gate raised their spears, blocking the two women’s path.
Chen Shi called out loudly: “Wait! Where are the Princess and Miss Bi Luo headed?”
Him again……
Hearing his voice, Fu Ying’s heart filled with irritation, her willow brows knitting, her exquisitely beautiful face full of disgust.
She raised her eyes, fixing a sharp gaze on Chen Shi, as though she meant to cut him to a thousand pieces.
Fu Sang had been taken away, and she could no longer see her, perhaps subjected to brutal torture, perhaps in mortal danger, Wen Zhuo had been shot clean through the knee, his life hanging in the balance, all because Chen Shi had been determined to see him dead.
Whether or not Shang Jue had ordered it, Chen Shi’s vile nature and venomous heart were plain for all to see.
“Kneel.”
Two cold words, carrying a command that brooked no argument.
A chill radiated from her face, Fu Ying, unable to suppress the fury filling her heart, finally lost her composure entirely.
Meeting her blade-like gaze, Chen Shi could not help but freeze for a moment, then, unwillingly, knelt on one knee in the snow.
Fu Ying stepped forward, looking down at him from above.
“Crack—”
A crisp, resounding sound rang out.
Chen Shi’s left cheek was struck to the side, instantly turning ghostly pale before a clear handprint showed on it.
He did not dare turn his head, staying frozen in the position of the blow like a statue, his eyes full of disbelief, resentment, and fury he could not suppress.
Her face stern, her tone cold and proud, brooking no argument, Fu Ying said: “Where I go, is that something the likes of you may question? Commander Chen, do not overstep your bounds.”
To strike him once, and then still address him as “Commander Chen”, truly ironic.
Watching this scene from behind, Bi Luo felt a burst of relief spread through her chest, the pent-up resentment she had carried for so long finally finding an outlet.
Fu Ying raised her hand, pointing at a guard by the gate who had been frozen with fear. “You, come here. Slap him fifty times across the face, and don’t stop until you’re done!”
“Your subordinate… obeys!”
The guard answered tremblingly, and raised his hand toward Chen Shi.
Hand rising, hand falling, a continuous string of slapping sounds rang out behind them.
Fu Ying and Bi Luo mounted their horses swiftly and rode off without so much as a backward glance.
She was grateful now that she had learned to ride as a child.
Fu Zhaoxing had deeply loved his only daughter, and had personally taught Fu Ying rites and music, riding and archery, poetry and classics from a young age. Fu Ying, studious by nature and gifted with sharp intelligence, had mastered every one of these skills.
Her loving father had died an unnatural death, the man she loved had also been struck down in a hidden ambush, his life hanging by a thread……
Fu Ying rode hard, whip in hand, all the way to the thatched cottage standing in the vast wilderness, with Jiang Yue leading the way.
Jiang Yue leapt off his horse and knocked on the wooden gate.
An elderly man well past seventy, leaning on a cane, came out from the house, shuffling his way over to open the door for them.
“Oh, young master, you’re finally here. That gentleman still hasn’t woken, burning up all over.”
The old man, his eyes clouded with a hazy white film, peered carefully behind Jiang Yue, and upon seeing the urgent looks on Fu Ying’s and Bi Luo’s faces, quickly stepped aside to let them in.
Fu Ying bowed hastily to the old man, then hurried across the courtyard in a few quick steps, lifted the padded door curtain, and stepped inside.
The room was very dark. To get through the harsh winter, all the windows had been sealed shut with wooden boards, blocking out most of the light, and only a single, scuffed oil lamp cast a faint glow, just enough to make out the scene in the room.
Fu Ying, in her cloak and fine clothing beneath it, looked utterly out of place against the shabby, run-down surroundings of the cottage.
“Miss.”
The elderly woman keeping watch by the bed, wiping the cold sweat from the unconscious Wen Zhuo’s forehead, felt some of her worry ease upon seeing Fu Ying arrive with her medicine box and maid in tow.
“This is your gentleman, isn’t it? Come quickly and see him.”
Fu Ying nodded, hurriedly picking up the oil lamp and bringing it close to the bedside.
Wen Zhuo lay motionless on the kang, an old cotton quilt draped over him, his left leg exposed, a crossbow bolt embedded in his knee, the clothing around the wound completely soaked through with blood.
He had remained unconscious the whole time, his handsome face pale as paper, his breath nearly imperceptible.
Looking at him, she could not help but recall an eerily similar scene from before.
Back then, in her own boudoir, she had tended to the wound on his shoulder while he lay unconscious.
Now, he lay just the same, his eyes shut tight, his breath faint.
As Fu Ying looked on, her eyes gradually filled with tears, blurring her vision, melting the little light in the room into a hazy blur.
She had seen the shocking scars all over his body, old wounds layered with new, every one of them testifying to his years riding into war and death on the battlefield, his fierce and imposing bearing.
As a general who had campaigned across the land, how could his hands and feet withstand even the slightest injury, let alone a wound from an arrow as severe as this?
Fu Ying handed the oil lamp to Bi Luo and took out a scalpel, hemostatic forceps, and gauze from her medicine box.
“Old sir,” she turned to ask the old man, “please light a few more candles for me. It’s too dark for me to see clearly, and I’m afraid a single mistake could cost him his life.”
Having said this, she gave Bi Luo a look.
Bi Luo took out ten taels of silver from inside her robe and handed it to the old man. “Old sir, I beg you!”
The elderly couple lived in poverty, scraping by day to day, and the few candles left in their home had been set aside for the coming New Year, meant for a family reunion with their son and daughter-in-law.
Hearing Fu Ying’s request, the old man, trembling, pushed Bi Luo’s hand away. “We still have candles at home, I’ll fetch them for you right away. A human life matters more than anything, this old man wants none of that money.”
“I’ll go get them, miss, just focus on treating the gentleman.”
The old woman, whose eyes were still sound, went to the cabinet to fetch the candles, lit them, and set them by the bedside.
The room brightened considerably at once. Fu Ying put on clean leather gloves and used scissors to cut away all the clothing around Wen Zhuo’s knee.
With each cut of the scissors, the fabric bled, staining her gloves with blood, giving off a sticky, rust-like, metallic smell.
With no time to wipe it away, Fu Ying leaned in close to carefully examine the crossbow bolt and the wound on Wen Zhuo’s knee, her expression grave, saying nothing.
“Young lady, how bad is the young master’s injury?”
Bi Luo, sensing something was wrong from Fu Ying’s expression, asked with deep concern.
“The bolt struck him squarely in the knee, shattering the kneecap, but fortunately the arrow carries no poison. I will do everything I can to save his knee and keep him from a permanent limp.”
Bi Luo and Jiang Yue, standing behind her, both nodded in relief.
In the brief time they had spent together, everyone could see that Wen Zhuo was a man of outstanding character who cherished Fu Ying deeply, none of them wanted anything to go wrong for him.
Once Fu Ying had thoroughly disinfected the wound, she used her left hand, holding the scalpel, to keep the kneecap in place and prevent further displacement, while her right hand gripped the shaft of the bolt and pulled it out with force.
Everyone in the room watched, hardly daring to breathe, their breath seeming to stop entirely from the tension.
Treating a fracture together with an arrow wound required debridement, realignment, splinting, applying medicine, and bandaging, every step essential, none to be skipped.
To keep her view clear, Bi Luo held the candle in closer to Fu Ying.
Fu Ying, fully focused, held her forceps and carefully pieced the shattered fragments of Wen Zhuo’s kneecap back together, one by one.
Bi Luo had followed Fu Ying in her medical practice for years, but seeing such a bloody scene still made her hands tremble slightly, unable to bear looking directly at it.
When her arms grew tired from holding the candle, Jiang Yue took over, and the two of them switched off several times, both their arms growing sore.
Fu Ying never once rested, tirelessly applying medicine and pressing the wound for Wen Zhuo without pause.
She wiped away the fine sweat that had beaded on her forehead with her sleeve.
Although her own mouth and throat had long gone dry, and though she felt some fatigue from her prolonged focus, Wen Zhuo’s body could not wait.
A physician must always place the patient’s life and health above all else, this was the constant teaching her master, Xu Ji, had given her.
A long stretch of time slipped by unnoticed.
She had no idea how much time had passed by the time she finally finished splinting Wen Zhuo’s knee, bandaging the wound, and applying acupuncture.
With her full efforts devoted to his treatment, she was fully confident that this leg of his would heal completely.
Checking Wen Zhuo’s pulse and confirming that his breath was gradually recovering, his condition stabilizing, Fu Ying let out a long breath and said to the group behind her: “He’s out of serious danger now.”
The great stone that had been weighing on everyone’s hearts finally settled.
She tucked the quilt snugly around Wen Zhuo, and felt her whole body relax considerably.
Bi Luo went to gather up the scattered gauze and medical instruments, while Fu Ying carefully instructed the elderly couple: “Old sir, granny, because of the chill and the infection, he will likely keep running a high fever. We’ll go back first to brew medicine, and have my men bring it over later.”
“Rest assured, miss, we will look after him carefully.”
The old woman looked at Fu Ying’s exhausted face with eyes full of fondness and admiration.
This young lady was not old at all, yet her medical skill was so remarkably fine.
A woman’s stamina was naturally not as strong as a man’s, she must have been fighting off her own exhaustion the whole time, pushing through her fatigue to finish treating Wen Zhuo.
She took Fu Ying’s hand and patted it gently, as a gesture of comfort.
Fu Ying felt a roughness on the hand, as though brushed by tree bark.
The old woman must have labored for years, her hands covered in thick calluses, her fingers cracked from washing clothes and cooking through the bitter cold of many winters.
Fu Ying’s heart ached faintly.
The impoverished life of the common people had always felt so distant to her, but coming here today let her truly experience it, and it moved her deeply.
Before leaving, she still had Bi Luo secretly leave the ten taels of silver behind.
Winter days were short and nights long. By the second quarter of the hour of you, dusk had already deepened, stars twinkling in the night sky.
“Granny.”
Before stepping out through the wooden gate, Fu Ying said to the old woman who had come out to see them off: “Once he wakes, please, you and old sir, don’t mention me at all, just say a physician from the city was brought to treat him. If he asks… just act as though I never existed.”
Hearing Fu Ying’s request, the old woman looked somewhat puzzled. “Miss went to such great trouble to come here and heal the gentleman’s wounds, why wouldn’t you want me to mention you? If he knew what you’d done for him, he’d surely be moved and grateful.”
“Actually, he isn’t my husband……”
Fu Ying only shook her head, lowering her eyes, looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
“My own husband is away from home most of the year, rarely returning even a few times a year. In the loneliness of an empty chamber, I met him, and we came to care for each other. Today I came to see him, but it happened that my husband returned home unexpectedly… it was in his fury that he wounded him like this.”
“I… I see……”
The old woman, unable to quite believe it, found herself at a loss for words for a good while, unable to reconcile the pure, jade-like young woman before her with an adulteress betraying her husband to meet a secret lover.
“I hid from him the fact that I already had a husband. He probably doesn’t want to see me again.”
Fu Ying’s despondent words fell like an echo from a dry, empty well, hollow and desolate.
The old woman did not feel it was her place to comment further on their affairs. “Since miss has asked, then we won’t mention it.”
Only then did Fu Ying feel at ease, leading her horse out of the courtyard.
After only a few steps, she could not help but stop, turning to look back at the low, shabby cottage standing in the snow, her eyes filled with endless sorrow.
Parting today, they would likely never meet again in this life.
Her chest felt choked, her thoughts scattering in every direction, an indescribable sadness filling her heart.
“Young lady, let’s go.”
Seeing her cheeks flushed red from the cold, and unwilling to let her linger in her sorrow, Bi Luo spoke up to remind her.
“Mm.”
Fu Ying turned back, looking lost, suppressing the churning emotions entirely within her heart, and swung up onto her horse, riding off without a backward glance, whip in hand.
Their meeting, their knowing one another, would end here, on this final night, without resolution.
The following year, the thirteenth year of Xuanchong.
Khan Shang Zhi, dissatisfied that the Northern Di paid tribute to Great Yong year after year in rare treasures, gold, silver, and silk, cast aside the treaty that had stood for nearly a hundred years and raised an army in rebellion.
Shang Zhi’s son, Shang Jue, led an army of eighty thousand south, stationing his forces in Bingzhou.
The Great Yong court appointed the Prince of Wei, Wen Zhuo, as commanding general, with Right Valorous Marquis General Lu Hui as his deputy, and sent them north on a punitive campaign. The two armies fought fiercely for over five months.
The Great Yong forces under Wen Zhuo’s command proved unstoppable, sweeping forward with overwhelming force, driving the Northern Di forces back beyond the Great Wall in a campaign that crushed all resistance, reclaiming the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, lost for an entire generation.
Yunzhou changed hands, and the Northern Di’s military strength was severely depleted, its losses devastating, leaving it with no power left to resist. It was forced to submit to Great Yong, paying tribute and offering treasures, and handing over several of the Khan’s female relatives as hostages to seal a new treaty.
In accordance with the treaty, Great Yong withdrew its troops, without wiping out the Northern Di’s forces entirely.
Within a year, the balance of power across the realm shifted dramatically. Great Yong expanded its territory northward, its national strength growing immensely, with countless nations coming to pay tribute, ushering in an age of unprecedented prosperity.
“Clang—clang—”
Just as the hour of you arrived, the sound of the watchman’s clapper rang out.
The night watchman’s old, weathered voice followed after it: “The weather is dry and the wind is fierce, mind your fires and candles.”
In the southern part of Yunzhou city, the gate of one household opened, and two graceful women stepped out.
They had been neighbors for years, close in their friendship, often visiting one another’s homes. Today’s conversation had gone especially well, and even as they parted, they seemed reluctant to part ways.
“You’d best hurry home, Sister Ling, the curfew watch has already sounded.”
“If you hadn’t reminded me, I would have completely forgotten about the curfew. Ever since we came under Great Yong’s rule, we can’t go out at night anymore, I still haven’t gotten used to it.”
“My husband says the new county magistrate’s taxes are actually lower than before. After so many years of scraping by, we can finally breathe a little easier. You can’t have your cake and eat it too [1]you can’t have your cake and eat it too (yu yu xiong zhang bu ke jian de, 魚與熊掌不可兼得) Idiom, you can’t have two good things at once, a choice must be made jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3270276_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3270276_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, I suppose.”
One of the women, recalling everything that had happened recently, could not help but sigh with feeling: “Last year, when the Shang father and son took over the governance here, they really had no sense of their own limits. Their rebellion failed, and in the end they even lost their own homeland. Ambition alone just isn’t enough to hold onto a foundation like that.”
The other woman continued: “That’s right, they brought so many troops with them, only to lose to a crippled prince. Truly an eye-opening thing to witness.”
They were nothing more than ordinary common folk, and to them, matters of the state and the throne were little more than gossip to pass the time after a meal.
“I heard that as many as ten princesses were sent to Great Yong as hostages… at times like this, I’m endlessly grateful to just be an ordinary person, this kind of ruin would never fall on the likes of us.”
“That’s for certain, since ancient times, kings and rulers have always been fickle. There’s nothing more heartless than an imperial family.”
A string of silver-bell laughter rang out, echoing through the empty, deserted streets of the night.
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