Chapter 46: The Emperor Gets Jealous “Minister Xie preserves his virtue, fearing his beloved might…”
The scout returned, covered in mud from the waist down. “There’s a swamp stretching three to five li nearby. Luoxian County lies just beyond it.”
“Is there another path?” Zhu Zhao asked immediately.
After all, they were traveling with the Emperor. The carriage couldn’t pass, and they certainly couldn’t let Ying Xi wade through mud.
The soldier replied, “We would have to double back to the fork in the road. Detouring to Luoxian would add two extra days to the journey.”
Returning to the mountain forest in this rain wasn’t suitable either.
Ostensibly, Zhu Zhao was the one making the decisions, but he hesitated, unsure if he should make this particular call.
Ying Xi asked, “General Xie, in your usual marches, have you encountered such a large swamp?”
Before Xie Qianli could answer, Lian Qing quickly chimed in, eager to talk. “We encounter roads harder than this all the time!”
Lian Qing pointed his horsewhip into the distance, where the rain curtain blurred the world. “Last autumn, the rains were endless, and the swamps were even bigger. If you fell in and no one pulled you out, the muck would swallow you whole instantly. The brothers had to link arms to cross it. The cold seeped right into the bone seams.”
The Qingniu rebels had gathered around the Heluo region. Xie Qianli had walked this path back then. This man’s martial prowess and physical stamina far exceeded his own; as the Emperor, Ying Xi couldn’t help but feel a sense of crisis.
At the very least, his will could not be inferior. Ying Xi nodded.
Zhu Zhao then ordered, “Command the soldiers to support one another in the same manner and cross the swamp!”
Lian Qing relayed the order. The Longwu Army, well-trained and disciplined, immediately and skillfully formed groups.
In an instant, men linked arms with men, forming rows of three or four. Standing on the bank of the stream, their goal was the other side.
Lian Qing glanced at Ying Xi, who was rolling up his trouser legs in the rain. His heart trembled violently, regretting his big mouth—why did he insist they could wade through?
Although the Emperor’s face was disguised, his legs were not. His ankles were slender, his calves cold and white; moistened by the spring rain, they looked like white jade glistening with dew.
To let such a beautiful pair of legs churn through the mud… Lian Qing quickly looked toward Xie Qianli with a guilty conscience!
Through the misty rain, Xie Qianli’s silver helmet obscured part of his brow and eyes, making his expression unreadable.
He reached out toward Ying Xi and removed the silver gauntlet from his left hand. If Ying Xi’s identity weren’t currently a secret, Xie Qianli would have simply carried the Emperor across on his back.
Lian Qing’s eyes widened, shining brightly.
Between the Emperor and the British Duke lay an atmosphere Lian Qing couldn’t quite decipher: The General was fiercely loyal to His Majesty—even a blind man or a fool could see that.
But as Xie Qianli removed his gauntlet, his eyes lowered, and the corners of his mouth seemed to curve upward slightly. Was the rain too thick, causing a visual error?
A sense of panic pricked at him like needles, and Lian Qing shuddered.
Perhaps His Majesty felt that, in his guise as the Dishi‘s attendant, it was inappropriate for the General to support him. Instead, the Emperor and the Dishi helped each other wade into the swamp.
[System Mission: Hold hands with the Dishi (1/1)]
[Mission Reward: Dishi Favorability +5]
Xie Qianli put his gauntlet back on, alone.
Lian Qing took this scene in, desperately looking for a sign of disappointment on Xie Qianli’s face. He found none.
Instead, Xie Qianli scolded him, “What are you dazing off for? Move.”
“Y-Yes!”
Exiting the swamp, they approached Luoxian.
As they walked, Ying Xi’s expression grew increasingly grave.
The Heluo region was the Great Qin’s vital grain-producing area. Although there were patches of swamp here, it shouldn’t be that as far as the eye could see, there was no sign of human habitation and no trace of cultivation. This meant that this wilderness would yield absolutely nothing come autumn.
Ying Xi asked, “General Lian, was it this desolate here last year?”
Lian Qing, suddenly named, stammered, “Yes, yes, but when we fought here it was autumn. It should look different in spring.”
“Different how?” Ying Xi pressed.
Even Lian Qing knew the answer to that. “There should be farming. It can’t just be left barren!”
When they finally encountered a household along the way, the soldiers of the Amnesty Mission hurriedly inquired if bandits were disrupting the local farming.
The two Longwu Army soldiers sent out were young, yet these men, known for their vigor and spirit, returned with lowered brows and drooping eyes, looking dejected as if they had been wronged.
Ying Xi noticed a stain on their silver armor that hadn’t been wiped clean. It was a milky white fragment—eggshell.
“L-Lower official pays respects to the Chief and Deputy Amnesty Envoys!”
Magistrate Gao Mingyang rushed out of the dilapidated Luoxian County Office. To Magistrate Gao, the rank and titles of the two envoys were greater than the heavens.
Along the way, Gao Mingyang had heard of the Amnesty Mission’s deeds—whether it was Candlelight persuading Fufeng Fortress to surrender, or Xie Qianli eradicating Boss Han. Each event thundered in his ears.
The petty official, Magistrate Gao, nodded like a pounding garlic pestle. “The Chief Envoy possesses great talent, the Deputy Envoy is mighty. This lower official… only looks up in admiration, utterly impressed…”
Ying Xi detested people speaking nonsense the most in his life. Unable to hold back, he shot the magistrate a sideways glance. His gaze was cold, like a bone-scraping knife.
The magistrate felt an inexplicable terror. Seeing Ying Xi dressed as an attendant, he dared not look down on him. Instead, intimidated, he spoke briefly: “Luoxian and the counties surrounding Luoyang have all been harmed by the remnants of the Qingniu rebels! This lower official has engaged with them many times, only to be toyed with by those wretches, causing us to miss the farming season. I deserve to die ten thousand times! To let the Court lose the hearts of the people, I deserve ten thousand deaths! Please, Envoys, save me!”
After speaking, Magistrate Gao actually began to cry.
A grown man, oblivious to the shame, knelt before Zhu Zhao and clung to the Dishi‘s left leg.
Zhu Zhao truly had a good temper. He didn’t move, merely letting his crane-patterned official robes wrinkle. “Speak in detail.”
Magistrate Gao regulated his breathing, knowing the envoys would extend a helping hand, and looked up to explain.
“It is like this…”
It turned out that after the Qingniu Army routed, the largest group of remnants fled into the mountains and annexed the original local bandit stronghold, drastically increasing their power. These remnants knew military training methods, making the bandits disciplined. Magistrate Gao had once organized local bailiffs to go up the mountain to suppress them, but they were beaten badly.
Even more terrifying was that there were no fields on the mountain, so they had to come down to rob. They robbed money, grain, and people, affecting the farming and land reclamation below.
The commoners, having missed the farming season and knowing they couldn’t pay the autumn taxes—and not wanting to be punished by the Court for tax evasion—were forced to become bandits themselves!
With so many people turning to banditry, there wasn’t enough in Luoxian to rob, so they went directly to rob other counties.
Organized and formatted, they had become a replica of the original Qingniu Army.
“The most hateful thing is…” Magistrate Gao looked up, his expression indescribably defeated. “The composition of the personnel in the Luoshan Stronghold is complex. I couldn’t suppress them, so I tried to offer amnesty. I once held talks with the Fortress Master. Fortress Master Dong agreed so readily.”
“I sent them formal bailiff uniforms, hoping to educate them to contribute to the people of Luoxian in the future.”
“Who knew that after accepting the clothes, they would put them on and descend the mountain to rob under the guise of officials?”
“The other counties didn’t know the situation. They truly thought it was the government conducting business. They were deceived, running around in circles, suffering countless heavy losses.”
Thus, the government completely lost its credibility.
The people couldn’t see the good in the government. Whether bailiffs or the Longwu Army, in the eyes of the commoners, they were either mountain bandits or useless waste!
Recalling the fragment of eggshell from earlier, its edges like sharp thorns, it pricked uncomfortably at Ying Xi’s heart.
Ying Xi said gloomily, “Why did you not report this to the Emperor?”
The majesty of a monarch was dissolved into Ying Xi’s marrow. It was fortunate that everyone in this meeting at the County Office was in the know.
Magistrate Gao vaguely sensed something different about this attendant. Assuming he was some Prince inspecting the work, he mumbled in a low voice, “It… it doesn’t fit the mainstream.”
“???”
Inside the County Office, the high-ranking civil and military officials of Great Qin fell silent for a moment, unable to instantly comprehend the mind of this grassroots official.
Magistrate Gao looked down at the ground, his voice buzzing like a mosquito. “Didn’t… didn’t the Court announce that the Qingniu rebels had been wiped out across the entire territory?”
“The remnants in Luoshan Stronghold didn’t raise a rebellion flag. Logically, they count as bandits and should be handled by me.”
“That I cannot handle them is due to my mediocre ability.”
“Mediocrity doesn’t matter, but one shouldn’t go against the situation. If I blame the rampant banditry on the unfinished Qingniu rebellion, where would the Court put its face? Saying the war wasn’t fought cleanly?”
“Therefore, I have been wholeheartedly looking forward to the arrival of the Envoys to save the counties from fire and water,” Magistrate Gao suddenly raised his voice, his gaze pious, blood boiling as he raised his head and pumped his arm. “I have waited for you Envoys for a long time!!!”
The excited Magistrate Gao caused a second silence.
In that silence, the Dishi sighed. The temperature around the British Duke, Xie Qianli, dropped chillingly. Lian Qing suppressed the twitching of his mouth. All three, overtly or covertly, invariably focused their gaze on the Emperor.
If deception had levels, Gao Mingyang certainly belonged to the highest tier.
His bureaucracy, his slick thoughts, and his limited abilities created the situation where Luoxian was desolate and the problems grew larger.
Yet, seemingly, he hadn’t violated any specific law—if not for the fact that Ying Xi was standing right in front of him, listening to Magistrate Gao dissect his own mental journey.
Ying Xi slowly took a long breath.
The cold air of the rainy night suppressed the Emperor’s complex emotions. A ninth-rank magistrate, with a heart of seven orifices—how difficult the human heart is to fathom!
One must observe from others’ perspectives and communicate with people of different levels in the world to accumulate rich experience and insight, to foresee and solve various intractable diseases.
Ying Xi closed his eyes.
If there was anything to reflect on from his past life, it was that his life had been short, spent putting out fires everywhere, failing to see these conditions of the people.
“It is not too late to mend the fold after the sheep is lost,” Zhu Zhao said. “Missing the farming season means grain cannot be planted, but it does not mean beans cannot be planted. Planting cotton after Grain Rain will still yield cash crops in the autumn harvest. Exchanging cotton for grain is still feasible.”
Zhu Zhao was erudite and versatile. On the spot, he recited formulas for changing soil properties, pest control, ripening acceleration, planting essentials, and agricultural techniques. This was the magic of the Dishi.
Ying Xi thought, Teacher seems willing to actively contribute his talents to Great Qin again. He felt gratified.
Tian Tong giggled, “See, Your Majesty! Thanks to you doing the missions, favorability went up by five points~”
The bandit trouble had to be eliminated, but the fields could not lie waste. Both had to be addressed simultaneously.
Tomorrow, Zhu Zhao would represent the Court and personally enter the villages to encourage agriculture. Tonight, the Amnesty Mission would rest in Luoxian.
Luoxian’s finances were tight; it had long been unable to support a post station.
Magistrate Gao sacrificed his ego, giving up the entire County Office for the Longwu Army to rest, and giving up his room and his wife’s room to the big shots from the Court.
Magistrate Gao was impoverished. Hosting them rashly, there wasn’t a single piece of gold or silver ware to be seen in the room, and his wife’s rouge box had hit the bottom. From this point of view, he wasn’t a completely corrupt official. Ying Xi once again understood the complexity of people.
There were two superior rooms in the County Office.
Observation revealed: Magistrate Gao’s room was very small, with only one double bed.
Madam Gao’s room was spacious, with two beds, and even a small cot for the serving maid.
Thus, the Emperor and the Dishi, the General and the Deputy, stood in the corridor facing the choice of rooms.
Xie Qianli was tall and long-legged. he saw the difference between the two rooms early on, yet his gaze lingered on the large room, seemingly in thought.
Logically, the Emperor should sleep in the main seat of the County Office, but the main room couldn’t fit another narrow cot, and the double bed was too large, taking up most of the space.
However, seeing the double bed, his heart felt blocked, as if a fishbone were stuck in it. His gaze inadvertently swept over Ying Xi’s thin shoulders clad only in inner garments, then hurriedly tightened his focus on his waistline.
Xie Qianli whispered, “Your Majesty is the Supreme of the Ninety-Five; sharing a bed with the Mister is perhaps inappropriate. I ask Your Majesty to think thrice.”
“Think thrice” meant Zhu Zhao should squeeze in with the two of them.
But the words were too implicit. Ying Xi needed to complete his surveillance plan; master and disciple could not be separated.
Ying Xi inevitably thought elsewhere: Letting We sleep in the double room with the Dishi… is it because Xie Qianli doesn’t want to sleep in another woman’s room?
—”I have a person in my heart; I fear he might be displeased.”
In the lamplight, Ying Xi narrowed his dark grey eyes, the depths filled with sharp, flowing light.
Ying Xi sized up Xie Qianli. The other party had removed his armor and was wearing casual clothes, weakening his killing aura and becoming clean and bright, like the youth in his distant memories.
And now, this person’s considerate, cautious appearance was entirely given to that mysterious crush who wasn’t even a certainty yet, and he dared to use the Emperor as an excuse?
A chest full of emotions turned into a nameless karmic fire!
Ying Xi glared at Xie Qianli.
Only, that look lacked the feeling of an Emperor. Containing annoyance and anger, it stung Xie Qianli into lowering his head for no reason, looking bewildered, not knowing where he had erred.
Ying Xi had already occupied the large room with two beds. Across the threshold, fingernails digging into his palm, he tossed out words that floated lightly into the air.
“Minister Xie preserves his virtue, fearing his beloved might be displeased. We ought to help fulfill a beauty’s wish.”
The spring rain was hazy. The door locked.
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