Seven days after returning undercover to the Tiancheng camp, Xiao Nanhui finally had access to charcoal.
To be precise — she was piggybacking off someone else’s charcoal.
The Emperor was deeply averse to cold, and the charcoal in the carriage burned in generous abundance.
Though she now had warmth, sleep eluded her.
The Emperor spoke little, and she had nothing to do. She could only close her eyes and feign rest, yet she kept catching herself listening to faint sounds and deducing what he was doing from them.
In the end, she lay there listening to the crackling of the charcoal, and found her mind drifting back to the night in Baiyao Pass — the night his outer garment had been torn apart by her, and the two of them had huddled together in nothing but thin inner robes through the cold.
Yes — Ding Weixiang had every right to resent her.
A pity she had not understood at the time, and had always assumed the Ding fellow had simply lost his mind.
Thinking of this, a new unease crept in. The Emperor had shown no sign of punishing her on the surface — but could it be that deep down he despised her utterly and had already resolved to implicate the Marquis Mansion?
Xiao Nanhui’s right eye gave a twitch. She peeled one eyelid open a crack and stole a glance at the man.
His posture had scarcely changed from an hour before. He was still going through the rolled reports, a wooden figure of a man.
No matter how much she looked, she could not read anything from him. She could not ask, either. She had no choice but to lower her eyelids, and in her peripheral vision, caught sight of a deployment map laid partially open on the floor. She found herself looking at it a moment longer than intended.
It was a deployment map of the region from Sanmu Pass to Suyan.
Before now, everything she knew about Tiancheng’s movements and strategy in this campaign had come filtered through Bolao’s letters — vague and piecemeal at best. Seeing it like this was suddenly far more illuminating.
Back when she had encountered the Black Feather Division’s ambush at Sanmu Pass, she had been puzzled by the Emperor’s decision. The Sun Family must have had the Bai Family backing them and would never submit easily to Tiancheng. Even with that “village elder” eliminated, the Bai Family would never stand by idly — and a clash between the two armies at the pass was all but inevitable.
Yet she had been in Bijiang for over three months and had never heard news of a battle at Sanmu Pass. Now, at last, she understood: the Emperor had left no garrison troops at the pass at all.
Sanmu Pass was a place armies had contended over since ancient times, but in the current situation, it was not a good choice. The pass had no city walls and provided no cover; pressing deep into that terrain would stretch supply lines to their limit. Leaving soldiers to hold it might appear to be seizing the upper hand, but the drain on resources would be enormous. The Emperor had done the opposite — he had purged the Sun Family from Sanmu Pass but then pulled back entirely, leaving no visible watchers. To any observer, it looked like a feint. The Bai Family appeared to have gained a piece of unclaimed territory delivered right to them, but in truth they could no longer use Sanmu Pass as a transit route the way they once had, and they now had to guard against Tiancheng launching another offensive through the same point at any time. They were harried and consumed from all sides, and had in fact come off the worse for it.
This approach — soft, circuitous, and full of concealed intent — was entirely consistent with the man himself.
The current configuration was one linked sequence of traps. The next move would have been the surprise strike at Famang Ridge; had that succeeded in taking the Bai Family’s rear while they were vulnerable, the campaign against Bijiang could be considered half-secured. As fate would have it, that critical step had gone wrong, and the Bai Family had rallied. Now both sides were locked in stalemate, waiting for some final weight to tip the scales — and when it did, the curtain on full-scale battle would be drawn.
Xiao Nanhui was so absorbed in thought that she did not notice her own neck growing longer and longer, and she had nearly craned forward until she was almost level with the map.
At that moment, the carriage stopped.
Ding Weixiang’s voice came from outside.
“Master, we have arrived.”
The Emperor looked up. Xiao Nanhui gave a start and lurched backward, her back striking the carriage wall with a sound that took a long time to fade.
The Emperor unhurriedly draped his outer robe over his shoulders and stood, not giving her so much as a glance, stepping directly over her rigid body toward the carriage door.
What was she supposed to do? Follow him?
The next second, the man seemed to have read her mind before she could open her mouth.
“There is no need to follow. We have found a familiar face to see to your arrangements.”
A familiar face?
“May I ask which familiar face of this subject’s—”
“The two of you have met on several occasions, and I am told you have also exchanged pointers in martial arts — he also spoke of you with considerable admiration.” The Emperor had barely finished when a man’s voice rang out past those near-soundless footsteps in front of the carriage.
“Your subject Lu Songping pays his respects to Your Majesty.”
Xiao Nanhui stared out in astonishment. She saw those long, slender, dangerously soft eyes of Lu Songping looking back at her with an expression she could not quite interpret.
Her tongue felt suddenly uncooperative. “Your — Your Majesty, this subject and Governor Lu have only met twice — we can hardly be called familiar—”
But the Emperor had already walked away, and Ding Weixiang followed, casting a sideways look in her direction as he went.
She interpreted the expression on his face. She decided it meant something like: You’re on your own. Good luck.
Lu Songping drifted up into the carriage like smoke — his movements eerily light, as though he made no sound even when killing someone and disposing of the body.
She tensed like a hedgehog, every muscle coiling, and with a turn of her arm, Pingxian flashed across the space between herself and Lu Songping like a band of silver light.
Lu Songping looked down at the glinting spearhead with a somewhat peculiar expression.
“General Xiao, I have no interest in your weapon. You may put it away.”
Xiao Nanhui gave a cold snort. “His Majesty is long gone. Why does Governor Lu still put on this performance for me? Back in Tong City, you were nothing like this polite.”
Lu Songping smiled — or rather, his face curved in a way that involved only the surface. “It was simply a matter of duty in those days. I am confident that, beyond the necessary security work, I was never a fraction out of line.”
He was implying that she had brought everything on herself.
The oblique intonation in his words was about seven or eight parts as maddening as the style favored by the Emperor’s own attendant.
“I had Bolao keeping a constant watch on you. With her there, of course you didn’t dare make a move.”
“Bolao?” Lu Songping paused, as though something had come back to him. “Ah — that was her name. She stayed at my residence for over two months. On her own, she ate through more than half of this year’s grape harvest. I imagine that bill will find its way to General Xiao’s account.”
What?!
Xiao Nanhui’s jaw clenched. She was fuming. “What did you just say?! Explain yourself — clearly!”
“I am speaking in perfectly clear official Mandarin. How is it that General Xiao cannot follow?” Lu Songping gathered up six reins with efficient grace and took hold of the carriage with the practiced ease of someone who had done it many times. “And it was not only grapes — even no small number of military reports she managed to steal glances at from me. Though General Xiao has been far away in Bijiang, it seems her heart has been aligned with mine all along.”
She and you are not aligned in the slightest!