【"No good. It's no good at all. Too slow."】
In his room, Ji Zhao, having completed one full circulation of the heavenly cycle, opened his eyes in a somewhat sour mood.
He had gotten the hang of both the Qi Conversion Art and the Storm Strike on practically a single pass; after that, a few more looks and a few runs of calculation in his head, and he had trained them more or less through. But internal arts were so slow it was hard to muster even a shred of enthusiasm. If he did not sense carefully, he could not even feel his inner breath growing.
Watching through the memories, he had not felt much of anything, but actually cultivating, he felt the difficulty. His meridians were extremely narrow and the inner breath flowed through them with great strain. Every time he ran his internal art he had to concentrate intensely; the effort was no less than tackling a big math problem that would take a whole evening study session to work out.
【"Constitution is too poor."】
Ji Zhao knew perfectly well that this body's foundation was too poor. He would have to put together some medicinal baths, together with marrow cleansing, to improve it after the fact before he could cultivate normally. But where would he find the time or energy for such things now?
【"If only there were some demonic art that's quick to get started. What a pity. My Martial Attainment isn't enough, and I don't understand the changes in the nature of inner breath well enough either. Otherwise I'd really like to change the Rotten Wood Scripture's route."】
Ji Zhao was not an impatient man. Progress like a chicken pecking through a mountain of rice, a dog licking away a mountain of flour, a lamp flame burning through a lock — even that he could bear. He had persevered through training more tedious than this, with even less in the way of visible results, thousands and millions of times over... But the situation now was that if he did not change something, all of Anchun would be game over.
And from what Ji Zhao had observed these past two days, the morale of the soldiers and people in the city was extremely low. In his view, even if Han Yi did not open the gates, Anchun would be taken sooner or later.
There was only one way to prevent that: to cut down Liu Wei in the next assault.
First of all, Ji Zhao was sure of one thing: if morale inside the city was low, there was no reason for the attackers' morale to be high. By rights, a pack of have-nothing roving bandits — no gear, no training, no pay — should have fallen into infighting and collapsed long ago after besieging a city for a while without success. The only reason they were holding together at all was Liu Wei keeping a lid on them.
He was no ordinary roving bandit. Long before Tang Cheng, Duke of Sacred Might, rose in revolt, Liu Wei had been the third chief of the Twelve Strongholds of Qingzhou. To say his name shook the jianghu might be going too far, but across the whole of the Qingzhou martial world he was without doubt a strongman of note.
At a juncture like this, to command a pack of have-nothing roving bandits who had nothing at all and might scatter at any moment, you needed a strongman like that to hold them down — or rather, you needed extreme personal worship and heroism to bind together the army's spirit and morale.
In later ages both of those terms would be pejoratives, but times differ, and some things cannot be judged by a single yardstick. For example, a certain group of people might be classed as left-wing for their radical ideas; then a few years pass, and the people have not changed, nor have their ideas, and yet they are classed as right-wing. The root cause is that the world has changed.
Especially in a world like this one, where martial arts existed, personal worship and heroism were only natural.
Moreover, a master like Liu Wei made one thing very easy: being first over the wall.
In this world, the defending side no longer held the absolute advantage, for a simple reason: martial arts masters had made being first over the wall a perfectly ordinary thing. Raise your inner breath, work your lightness arts, and up you went. If there was no master of equal rank on the walls to hold him in check, and the master who had scaled the wall first was left free to go on a killing spree, then the gates would fall in the blink of an eye.
...In other words, if Liu Wei could be killed during an assault, before the eyes of everyone, the Black Cavalry bandits would collapse just as quickly. That was the weakness of personal worship.
The way to govern an army still lay in strict military discipline, fine equipment, ample pay, timely logistics and professional training — and on top of that, the support of famous generals and able commanders. Anything beyond those was a crooked path.
【"I need to lure him into the city and surround him to kill him... But before that, I have to deal with Han Yi."】
Ji Zhao's thoughts turned a hundred ways. Whichever of these he did, he felt, he would need Ji Bei's cooperation; without her, nothing could proceed smoothly at all. Yet in the eyes of Ji Bei as she was now, Ji Zhao was nothing but a problem brother who, only a few days ago, had nearly gotten himself hacked to death like an idiot. Under these circumstances, if he wanted her approval, he really would have to show some genuine ability.
Genuine ability Ji Zhao did not lack. But the factor that was Ji Tan left him uneasy. He had a feeling that showing too sudden and too great a change in front of her could plant a hidden danger — what if the Daoist Dong really was that 'one thread of life,' and learned of this through Ji Tan... But with his predecessor's obsession in place, he could not very well do anything about her either.
【"..."】
【"If I can't even break through the predicament right in front of me, what's the point of talking about later?"】
In the afternoon, Ji Zhao went out with the dagger — Ji Tan, having been roundly cursed out by Ji Bei, had naturally not gotten her way.
His destination was the blacksmith's shop; he wanted to see whether there were any weapons that suited his hand — ordinarily, blacksmiths among the common people were not permitted to forge weapons at will, but with the country in turmoil and wars coming one after another, many things had naturally been relaxed.
The smithy was bustling and blazing hot. Ji Zhao walked in and swept his eyes around. Inside, it was much like the Ji family's storeroom, already more than half empty. Any weapon of even passable quality had been sent to the soldiers defending the walls, and even so, many still had no weapons and could only make do with farm tools — the attacking side was no different in that respect. Tang Cheng, Duke of Sacred Might, had intercepted a shipment of arms, but Liu Wei's men had gotten nothing of it.
The long weapon Ji Zhao had in mind was certainly not to be had here, but there were still a few things left over.
Ji Zhao took a liking to a pair of sleeve hammers, about one chi long — less than half the length of the whip-and-mace Liu Wei wielded. He reached out and gripped them. A little light, but for this body the weight was just right. Without hesitation Ji Zhao paid for them on the spot, wrapped them in strips of cloth and carried them back to the Ji household. But the moment he came through the gate, a cool voice suddenly rang out.
"What's that on your back?"
Ji Zhao looked toward the voice. It was Ji Tan, holding some tableware, on her way to the kitchen.
"Weapons." Ji Zhao saw no point hiding something so obvious. "A pair of sleeve hammers. I passed the blacksmith's today, they felt right in my hand, so I bought them."
"Oh...?" Ji Tan was a little curious. "I honestly can't tell whether you've become better behaved or worse. What, the next time the Black Cavalry bandits attack, you still want to go?"
"Who knows." Ji Zhao was naturally not foolish enough to reveal his purpose, and at once deployed the classic Riddler routine. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't."
"What do you mean, maybe you will?"
Just then, Ji Bei's intensely oppressive voice rang out abruptly from behind. Ji Zhao looked back. She was striding toward them, expressionless.
"You still haven't learned to behave? Spare me some worry, will you!"