Chapter 45: Invisible Rival
“‘I have a person in my heart, and I fear he would be displeased…'”
The sky had turned late.
Ying Xi held the black falcon. Xie Qianli said no more, and the two brushed past each other without any extra glances, like two strangers.
Ying Xi took the black falcon back to the tent.
He shared a room but not a bed with Zhu Zhao, for the sake of his surveillance plan. Zhu Zhao hadn’t returned yet.
That falcon shook all the way. Ying Xi thought it was sick, or maybe like him, it was prone to trembling and dizziness from hunger.
Food was brought into the tent. Ying Xi fed it while he ate. Falcons are omnivores; it opened its mouth wide for whatever he fed it.
No little girl dislikes a cute animal. Tian Tong said excitedly, [It’s so cute~]
The eagle seemed to understand these words. While eating, it crowded and pestered him, rubbing its beak against Ying Xi’s fingers and butting its head against Ying Xi’s waist, arching back and forth. It tickled.
The cloying gugu sounds echoed through the tent.
Ying Xi had no choice but to hug it while feeding. When he looked down, the black falcon was still blinking its bright eyes at him, nictitating membranes flashing, acting obedient.
Tian Tong: [Wuwuwu, you must take down the big wolf dog~~~]
Ying Xi: “…”
He really didn’t understand how one could ship from a falcon to a person. After feeding the falcon full, he opened the tent to let it fly.
The oil lamp was like a bean. Ying Xi rested briefly, thinking about the next few camps, and wondering if the experience gained from this trip on the Southern Xiaoshan Road could be expanded to other places plagued by bandits in the future?
He intended to summarize, so he trimmed the lamp and wrote some text at the desk, leaving a page full of fluent and graceful running script.
Then he sent a Swan Goose Message to Yujing, asking about the recent situation in the court.
After putting down the brush, Tian Tong sheepishly popped out a sentence: [I think the big wolf dog likes you. He definitely likes you~]
This system thought anyone who interacted with him liked him.
So Ying Xi shook his head slightly, politely refusing to ship along.
Tian Tong spared no effort: [He’s very handsome~]
“Su Xueyi is also very handsome.”
[Then you like Su Xueyi!]
“What Zhen means is, appearance is not a reason. He cannot possibly like Zhen.” Ying Xi said coolly.
Tian Tong: [I don’t understand.] It added: [The big wolf dog treats you especially well!]
“Zhen is their Sovereign. Who dares to treat Zhen poorly?” Ying Xi said naturally.
The overwhelming sense of being an Emperor almost choked Tian Tong, but logically speaking, that seemed correct too.
Tian Tong was afraid His Majesty would become even more unable to distinguish what kind of ‘good’ was a lover’s ‘good’. His Majesty didn’t seem to be enlightened.
Tian Tong wanted to scratch its ears and cheeks. [Please distinguish it properly!]
Ying Xi: “He likes women.”
[Straight?]
Ying Xi more or less guessed what ‘straight’ meant.
In his youth at Fanglan Hall, what he wanted to marry was a girl. Since knowing that he was not a woman, there hadn’t been a single word between the Crown Prince and the Duke of Ying’s heir for years.
The other party might be angry at his deception, or perhaps felt awkward and disgusted. Ying Xi didn’t want to trace back anymore; he could only make this guess.
At night, the mountain wind howled outside the tent, making the canvas flap loudly.
Ying Xi hurriedly put away his desire to talk, stood up, and closed the tent flap.
Through the crack in the door, he heard the Longwu Army soldiers patrolling outside. Their voices weren’t loud, joking with each other. “The Lady of the Fortress is named Hua Wanhong. She was only fourteen when she was made to be the concubine of the Camp Lord. Such good years wasted on a wretched old man.”
“Lady Hua took the young men of the camp to see the barracks. The young lads were shoveling food into their mouths, and she was just staring straight at our General.”
“I heard it. She quietly slipped out of the mess hall to find our General and offer herself as a pillow mat. That Lady Hua is only nineteen, exactly the most beautiful age.”
Fingertips rested on the wooden slat of the tent door.
Knuckles curled into a bow shape.
Ying Xi’s eyes turned, and he took a light breath.
Outside, the soldiers’ teasing voices grew louder. “Guess what the General answered?”
“Answered what?”
“‘I have a person in my heart, and I fear he would be displeased.'”
“The General has someone in his heart! The Duke of Ying’s household is going to have a mistress! I wonder whose daughter it is? Who has the General been close with recently?”
An imperceptible, strange sourness exploded in Ying Xi’s heart.
The Emperor thought it was relief, thought he should offer congratulations, and also felt inexplicably angry.
He did not realize that this burning emotion driving his jealousy and annoyance was love; he had too little experience with it.
He sat back down on the edge of the bed from the doorway, took off his boots, and went to sleep, tossing and turning on the couch.
It was also a loss that he slept intermittently and lightly that night, causing suffering for the Dishi Zhu Zhao next door.
Zhu Zhao hadn’t contacted the Jiangnan Army for two months and was curious about the situation there, wanting to inquire about the development of Li Yilong’s troops.
But Zhu Zhao couldn’t get away at all.
As soon as he made a move, Ying Xi would let out a few coughs, and Zhu Zhao had no choice but to give up and lie back down. This repeated countless times.
Ying Xi was secretly playing tricks, acting as a mischievous student pranking his teacher in this life.
Zhu Zhao, however, was in a completely opposite state of mind. Thinking that Ying Xi’s body was in such poor condition yet he still forced himself to go out to observe the people’s sentiments—without special privileges, without attendants or guards—he leaned more and more toward the image of a wise ruler.
Finally, Zhu Zhao got up and ordered soldiers to fetch licorice tablets. The teacher fed medicine and water to the student in the night.
Ying Xi held the water cup, his palm warm. He was both afraid of poison and filled with regret.
The teacher-student bond of more than ten years was indeed hard to cut off in a single day. Even knowing the teacher was a traitor, if the teacher was willing to change his mind, he wasn’t unable to give the other party a chance to return to the Imperial Court.
[System Mission: Hold hands with the Imperial Tutor (0/1)]
Tsk, assigning missions in the middle of the night…
Recently, the System had been acting gently. Even if it assigned strange missions, it didn’t force Ying Xi to complete them immediately.
So, regarding holding hands, Ying Xi ignored it for the time being.
He put the tablet under his tongue and pretended to drink. After drinking, he fell back asleep.
The next day, the Amnesty Mission left behind some soldiers and clerks to complete the reorganization of Fufeng Camp.
The main force continued to march along the Southern Xiaoshan Road.
The Amnesty Mission absorbed the experience from the Fufeng Camp operation, so Black Cloud Camp, White Dragon Camp, Peach Blossom Camp, and others were taken down smoothly, singing a song of triumph all the way.
Passing the gap of Southern Xiaoshan Road, crossing Yanling Pass, and passing Yiyang County—these places had treacherous terrain and had produced fierce bandits.
Fierce bandits were the hardest group of bandits to deal with. For example, the ones encountered at Pingling Village back then were fierce bandits.
The Imperial Court could absolutely not tolerate fierce bandits, but previously, Ying Xi hadn’t felt this truly.
Established fierce bandits of the Jianghu were a scourge on the locality!
The Green Ox Camp bandits rode horses for hundreds of miles, slaughtering the commoners of Pingling Village. They had lost all conscience, their crimes numerous. Ying Xi had already felt this truly.
Finally arriving near Green Ox Camp, they questioned the local commoners. The commoners clearly showed expressions of hatred but spoke haltingly, daring to be angry but not daring to speak.
In the end, it was only after revealing the identity of the Imperial Army’s Amnesty Envoys that the commoners were willing to believe them and gradually shook out the details of Green Ox Camp.
It turned out this Green Ox Camp had a full set of ‘Four Pillars and Eight Columns’. There were over a thousand thieves, countless minions and family members, and they occupied the mountain, encircling a hundred acres of fertile fields.
The bandit leader, Han Laoda, was violent and bloodthirsty, with countless lives on his hands. He loved to make people ‘Wear Flowers and Hang Armor’.
‘Wearing Flowers’ meant stripping a hostage naked in summer and tying them to a tree. If the ransom wasn’t paid, they were left to be bitten to death by mosquitoes and insects, the wounds covering their body like flowers.
‘Hanging Armor’ meant pouring basin after basin of water on a hostage in winter. In the severe cold, before long, the person would freeze into a shiny, hard human stick.
Even with the Emperor’s peaceful state of mind, hearing this made his teeth itch.
Seeing the commoner who exposed Green Ox Camp’s crimes pull up his sleeves and roll up his pant legs, there were indeed deep, festering wounds on his body. He was a survivor taken hostage by Green Ox Camp, surviving only because his family scraped together enough money and had a distant relation to a top leader.
Offering amnesty to this bunch of fierce bandits was purely looking for trouble for the Imperial Court.
Ying Xi had just established the Longwu Army; he absolutely could not let these dregs dull his sharp sword.
Therefore, Green Ox Camp would be eliminated directly. He didn’t even let Zhu Zhao go up to negotiate.
On the morning of the action, Ying Xi ordered notices to be posted in the villages, gathering commoners from all villages to watch the battle at the foot of the mountain.
The Emperor instructed Zhu Zhao to mobilize the local troops that could be gathered to first surround the entire mountain heavily, blocking the mountain road exits, giving the bandits no chance to escape.
As for the main battlefield, Xie Qianli personally led the Longwu Army to attack the mountain stronghold.
Archers fired from a distance, releasing fire arrows specifically to burn the roofs of the camp.
Northern roofs were mostly made of thatch. With sesame oil cloth wrapped around arrowheads, they ignited upon impact.
The sky was blotted out by fire arrows.
On the ground was the coverage of the City-Piercing Crossbows.
A City-Piercing Crossbow was about ten feet long, four or five feet wide, and four or five feet high. The bolts it carried were more than ten feet long; when dense, these bolts could pierce through city gates.
City-Piercing Crossbows suppressed the mountain stronghold. Any bandit who showed their head died.
The force of the crossbow bolts was so powerful that before long, the sound of collapsing houses was everywhere.
Those commoners really had guts. They brought their own farm tools to the mountain to help, watching the officials clear out the bandits.
After going up the mountain, just seeing these giant crossbow machines left them shocked by the Imperial Army.
When the crossbows fired, the sound was like a thunderclap!
The mountain bandits who usually harmed the villages and did evil were now suppressed by layers of crossbow bolts, turtle-ing inside the stronghold.
The commoners naturally clapped their hands in satisfaction.
Later, the commoners coming up the mountain to watch the bandit suppression didn’t bring farm tools, but gongs and drums to cheer for the court. The scene was actually like a festival.
Han Laoda screamed inside the camp:
“Xie Qianli!!!”
“Relying on your superior weaponry to bully the weak! Turn off your crossbows! Dare to duel me one-on-one?”
“If I lose to you, kill me or bury me, I’ll let you execute me!!!”
As soon as Han Laoda’s voice fell, a strange atmosphere rapidly spread through the Longwu Army. The soldiers looked at each other.
Then, the City-Piercing Crossbow bolts ran out, and the fire coverage came to an end. The Longwu Army infantry entered the camp to join the battle.
The fierce bandit minions swarmed out, wanting to cut a bloody path to escape.
Han Laoda led the charge toward Xie Qianli.
This fierce bandit had a robust build and agile movements. He used a large saber; his blade moves were dark and underhanded, sweeping across a thousand troops with every strike.
But compared to a spear, a saber was ‘one inch shorter, one inch weaker’; the spear clearly held the advantage.
Xie Qianli, however, did not go for a quick victory by stabbing Han Laoda to death immediately.
This duel was dragged out.
Xie Qianli contained Han Laoda.
The Longwu Army’s spears shot out like dragons. Wearing battle armor, the mountain bandits couldn’t resist, and in an instant, they lay scattered all over the ground.
The gates of Green Ox Camp were wide open.
Officials and soldiers on the mountain, amnesty envoys, commoners from below the mountain… about a thousand people gathered at the bandit stronghold.
The smell of blood in the bandit stronghold choked the nose.
The fire was not yet extinguished.
Bandit leader Han Laoda was still fighting fiercely with Xie Qianli, thinking they were evenly matched and he still had a chance of winning. If he publicly defeated the Commander of the Longwu Army in front of everyone, he might get a chance to live.
Unexpectedly, as more and more people gathered, the Youlong E (Swimming Dragon Glaive) finally unleashed its fierce power, whipping up a whistling wind and forming sheets of clear light.
Around Xie Qianli, there seemed to be a silver-white circle that could not be approached.
Clang! The heavy spearhead collided with the blade body!
Han Laoda felt all the blood vessels in his body explode at once. The large saber flew out of his hand, landing far away, the blade snapping abruptly in the middle.
Han Laoda vomited a mouthful of fresh blood.
Blood sprinkled on the ground. Han Laoda looked down; his thighs and calves were stabbed in succession. He couldn’t stand and stumbled to his knees.
He used the broken saber to support himself up.
The spearhead stabbed blossom after blossom of red plums on his body. Blood splattered, and his clothes lost their original color.
The final move used was ‘Phoenix Nods Three Times’.
It looked like one spear thrust, but it wounded three vital points. It was a durable and practical ultimate skill in spearmanship.
When captured, Han Laoda was full of bloody holes.
Only then did he understand that his request for a duel was the real permission for Xie Qianli to ‘bully the weak’.
The Longwu Army tied Han Laoda up.
Han Laoda could only move his eyes. His whole body was in unbearable pain, his eyes filled with terror, pupils constricted like beans.
But there was something even more despairing.
Before Han Laoda was dragged down the mountain by the Longwu Army for public display, he heard Xie Qianli say sternly:
—”Make him Wear Flowers and Hang Armor, as a sacrifice to the living souls.”
Amnesty Chief Envoy Zhu Zhao, gentle as a spring breeze, his good name spreading far and wide.
Amnesty Deputy Envoy Xie Qianli, like the force of a thunderbolt, awe-inspiring in all directions.
The fierce battle at Green Ox Camp pulled out a tough nail.
Ying Xi took the opportunity to announce to the world, ordering various bandits via Imperial Decree to turn themselves in and accept reform.
The order had just been issued; results would take some time.
The Amnesty Mission continued its task. The mountain road ended, reaching the plains. Ahead lay the territory of Luozhou.
The Heluo region had always been the grain-producing area of the North.
Compared to the poor mountains and vicious waters passed on this Xiaoshan Road, the county seat of Luoxian was the best supply point. This meant the Amnesty Mission could sleep soundly in Luoxian, no longer needing to live in camps, guarding against insect bites and listening to wolves howling at night.
The sky was gloomy; it rained in late spring.
Luoxian’s jurisdiction was muddy everywhere.
The carriage got stuck in a mud pit, and the Dishi and his student had no choice but to get down and walk.
Ahead was a stream, and near the stream was all swamp. The silt bubbled with water, gudu gudu. Thinking of it horrifyingly, it looked as if someone had just sunk to the bottom.
The county seat of Luoxian was still far out of sight. How to cross the swamp?
In the spring rain, Ying Xi frowned.
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