Qiao Beiji gave a bag of sugar beans to the martial artists in the tent to shut their mouths, and when he left the army tent, the heat on Nineteen’s face still had not come down.
This was a letter from His Majesty. His Majesty was not only a sovereign of the past but also his master, and would never be his wife, and as for lover…
He had served His Majesty, but he was only a shadow guard after all… If he took His Majesty as a lover, would that be overstepping?
Qiao Beiji returned to his own army tent. As a Staff General personally enfeoffed by the emperor, from the moment he arrived at Yumen Pass he had been looked after by all sides, and an independent felt tent was only one part of that.
Sitting down at the desk, Qiao Beiji calmed his chaotic thoughts and put himself in the state of reporting on a mission.
He took out the letter and carefully opened it.
What met his eyes was Master’s familiar handwriting.
Master asked whether he longed to be… embraced and touched, and whether he had reactions of body and mind.
This…
The heat on Qiao Beiji’s face, which had just gone down, rose instantly, even hotter than when he was teased by his colleagues.
How could he not want it? As soon as he closed his eyes, his mind was full of Master’s voice and appearance, and Master’s slender jade-like hands…
After a good while, Qiao Beiji spread out writing paper and prepared to reply.
Master asking about this might be out of concern for his physical condition, or out of worry that his state would affect the mission. He just had to report truthfully.
Truthfully writing out his unseemly thoughts about Master… whether Master, on seeing them, would severely punish him or recall him was not something he could interfere with, and everything was up to Master’s disposal.
·
The letters exchanged between Qiao Beiji and Shang Yinyu were not sent urgently. They were still disguised as family letters, secretly escorted by shadow guards, passed through various couriers, and reached the palace and the emperor’s hands only after more than half a month.
Thanks to Shang Yinyu having once ordered the repair of the official roads, otherwise a letter sent at the start of the month would not get a reply for two or three months.
The shadow guard presented the letter, then offered a small porcelain bottle, and only then saluted and withdrew.
Shang Yinyu set aside the half-reviewed memorial and opened the envelope first.
These days he had already received a large box of secret letters from the shadow guards, all about Qiao Beiji’s clothing, food, lodging and travel, one letter submitted to the palace every day.
With the shadow guards watching, Shang Yinyu was not curious about Qiao Beiji’s daily life, and in the letters he sent over he could skip asking about Qiao Beiji’s clothing, food, lodging and travel and ask only about the man himself.
This time, Beiji surely couldn’t send me a military report again.
Shang Yinyu unfolded the letter.
Several sheets of paper, but only at the top was written the line “All is well,” and the rest was blank.
This was not Qiao Beiji’s style of detailed reporting on everything.
Shang Yinyu looked at the large blank beneath the words, then turned his head to look at the small bottle the shadow guard had left on departing.
Obviously, what Qiao Beiji had really replied was not just these four plain words; there was other content that, being too secret, had to use the invisible secret-letter method used for passing messages between shadow guards.
Shang Yinyu was a little curious. Beiji had been at the frontier less than a month; what important information was there worth sending to me this way?
And it could not be developed by the shadow guards before submission; I had to do it myself.
He put down the letter paper, opened the bottle cap, and immediately a scent of wine drifted out.
Shang Yinyu poured the liquid in the bottle onto the paper, watched the dark orange wine-scented liquid spread, and blue-purple writing surfaced on the paper.
Shang Yinyu began to skim it.
He had told Qiao Beiji not to call him Master, and Qiao Beiji remembered and in the letter addressed him as Your Majesty.
“Your servant has been at Yumen Pass nearly half a month and often dreams of Your Majesty at night. In the dreams Your Majesty holds your servant and has relations of clouds and rain with your servant…”
Shang Yinyu: “??!”
Starting out this exciting right from the beginning?
Shang Yinyu felt he was truly wronged. He really hadn’t done anything; at most he and Beiji had relieved each other by hand a few times.
But Qiao Beiji was not one to show his depths in everyday life; deep in his heart he had always had a psychological shadow of being favored by him, and even after leaving his side, he was plagued by that kind of humiliating dream.
To fully understand Qiao Beiji’s psychological problem, Shang Yinyu read on.
This letter hidden by the color-development technique was Qiao Beiji’s usual style: every dream was written in great detail.
The pity was that Qiao Beiji only described actions and postures and did not write his own emotions at all, so Shang Yinyu could not tell whether Qiao Beiji, immersed in such dreams, was more fearful and despairing or more angry and out of control.
Shang Yinyu read on page by page. He was surprised that Qiao Beiji knew quite a few tricks, though they were all ones he himself had finished playing with in the past.
Pictures inevitably formed in his mind from Qiao Beiji’s written descriptions, and Shang Yinyu had a reaction too, but as soon as he thought of how helpless and despairing Qiao Beiji must be, plagued by such nightmares, his reactions all subsided, leaving only heartache and worry.
Worry about Qiao Beiji’s condition, and worry about whether he himself could live.
The nightmare matter had to be solved for Qiao Beiji, or Shang Yinyu feared that Qiao Beiji would go perverse in his sleep, and on returning to the imperial city, unable to tell dream from reality, draw his sword and send him to his death.
Shang Yinyu picked up his brush and wrote back to Qiao Beiji. He wrote how he usually embraced and touched Qiao Beiji, every movement and every step clearly set out, just to let Qiao Beiji distinguish his dreams from reality.
I did not bully you like in your dream. Remember: this is how I treat you, this and this and this.
When Shang Yinyu finished writing, he had An Dezhong fetch several boxes of calming, sleep-aiding incense and, together with the letter, they were sent off to the frontier.
In this way, Shang Yinyu and Qiao Beiji sent each other many “family letters.”
Shang Yinyu saw Qiao Beiji write:
“Every night before sleeping your servant gazes up at Your Majesty’s letter and burns the incense Your Majesty bestowed. At night I no longer dream, and often sleep until dawn…”
Shang Yinyu was satisfied. It was like seeing his patient gradually recover, and like seeing the sword hanging over his head move away.
Everything was getting better. The only thing that troubled Shang Yinyu was that the Qiao family’s granddaughter was used to life in the palace, every day feeding cats and walking dogs, combing foxes’ fur, chopping bamboo for the black-and-white fluff balls… and simply unwilling to leave the palace.
Shang Yinyu would have liked to pack up these pets along with Miss Qiao and send them out of the palace, but the day after he tactfully mentioned it to the Empress Dowager, when he went to Shou’an Palace he was shut out.
Shang Yinyu also thought of sending down an edict to simply move Miss Qiao out of the palace, but he feared that when Qiao Beiji came back, he would think he had bullied his childhood sweetheart.
Just then the weather was turning cold, and with the Qianqiu Festival and the Empress Dowager’s grand birthday, this plan was shelved for the time being.
The Governor of Liangjiang submitted nearly ten memorials in succession asking whether he could return to the capital to offer birthday congratulations to His Majesty, and Shang Yinyu lifted his brush and refused.
Every year at the Qianqiu Festival you jump around the most. Look at my Beiji, who has toiled uncomplainingly at the frontier for years and never asks to return to the capital.
Whether in the past or now, Qiao Beiji never asked to return to the capital.
Every Qianqiu Festival Beiji either sent him the pelt of a lead wolf from beyond the northern frontier or took a city for him.
At the Qianqiu Festival of the fifteenth year of Tianxi, Qiao Beiji led troops with the force of a splitting bamboo, broke several Jin cities in a row, and planted Great Xia’s banner in the Jin capital.
Qiao Beiji had given him the whole of Jin.
Thinking of the events before his rebirth, Shang Yinyu watched the attendants dress him in thickening clothes. Lately he found himself often recalling the past. Perhaps he missed Qiao Beiji a little.
Winter was coming, and the imperial city was getting colder; Mobei must be colder still. This was the first time in all these years that Beiji would spend the winter away. Could he get used to the frontier’s cold wind and heavy snow?
Shang Yinyu wanted to go to the frontier, to see his Beiji.
·
Mobei, the frontier.
Qiao Beiji rode Black Cloud Treading Snow, leading a squad of personal troops back from outside the pass, with a giant wolf killed by one arrow through the eye into the brain slung across the horse’s back.
These days the wolves at the frontier had been especially active and quite a few merchant caravans had been attacked, so Qiao Beiji, in his spare time, took his personal troops out hunting wolves.
The weather was getting colder, and he had killed a lead wolf. It was large, with a thick pelt, and could be made into a fur to present to His Majesty.
It had been over a month since he had received a letter from Master, and he did not know whether the cold was hindering the sending of letters or whether Master was too busy to write to him.
The sky was dim. The giant wolf’s fur was pure black, very similar in color to the big black horse, and from a distance it looked like a person riding a terrifying monster.
Before reaching the city gate, a guard called out from afar: “Who goes there?”
“Deputy General of Yumen Pass, Qiao Beiji.”
Someone on the wall shouted that it was Deputy General Qiao, someone came to verify his identity, and after confirmation the gate soon opened.
This had originally been a Jin city. A few months earlier Jin had invaded, and Qiao Beiji had fought them for several days with his troops, finally pursued the victory and took a Jin city, and Qiao Beiji was promoted from a third-rank Staff General to a lower second-rank Deputy General.
As soon as Qiao Beiji led his personal troops into the city, a colleague he knew well came toward him on horseback with an urgent look.
“Deputy General Qiao! Someone from the capital has come and asked for you by name. Hurry back to the camp with me.”
Qiao Beiji gave the lead wolf on his horse to his personal troops to deal with, had Black Cloud Treading Snow follow the colleague, and asked: “Who would come from the capital at this time? Which official is it?”
“I can’t say exactly who, but the show of authority is huge. Even General He performed a kneeling salute.”
General He was a first-rank Frontier General who, before being posted out, had been the palace’s former Imperial Guard commander. There were not many generals in the court before whom he would kneel to receive.
Qiao Beiji was led into the temporary mansion where the officers gathered, and then by people guarding the mansion gate to the residence for receiving distinguished guests.
From afar he saw General He standing outside the residence like a gate guard, and he also sensed several familiar presences, all shadow guards.
Qiao Beiji already had a guess in his heart, but because the guess was too unbelievable he did not dare to think further.
“General He.” Qiao Beiji saluted.
General He did not dare let him linger here and quickly stepped aside to let him in. “Go quickly. The master is waiting for you.”
Who else could be called “master” by a former Imperial Guard commander? Qiao Beiji felt thunder burst in his head.
He hurriedly said thanks and went in with quick steps.
Entering the residence, entering the main room, all those standing in the room were attendants of Ganlu Palace.
An Dezhong, in ordinary clothes, nodded slightly to Qiao Beiji and led him to the inner room.
“Your Majesty, Deputy General Qiao has arrived.”
Qiao Beiji looked at the familiar figure wrapped in a white fox fur. He stepped forward step by step and knelt on one knee.
“Master.”