Her name carried the lifelong aspiration of Xiao Zhun: to return to the Southern Lands, to reclaim Bijiang.
And now, with that wish finally on the verge of being fulfilled, she could not be at his side. The Emperor’s timing in promoting her was truly the worst.
“Tell me — why did the Emperor not find someone else, but specifically come to me?”
Yaoyi was counting the silver in his jar and did not even look up: “Your face is unfamiliar — convenient for getting things done.”
Xiao Nanhui was taken aback, then felt this reasoning had a certain logic to it.
Every one of Tiancheng’s leading generals — who did not know their faces? The Bai clan must have put no small effort into gathering intelligence, and if the person sent were too conspicuous, word might reach the enemy’s ears before they ever set foot inside Jizhou’s borders.
She was different.
Before her promotion, she had been a mere squad captain — apart from her identity as the Qinghuai Marquis’s adopted daughter, no one would have thought twice about someone like her.
Moreover, she was a woman. The world was full of prejudice against women, but that very prejudice could at times be a remarkably effective disguise.
The Emperor truly had a way with people.
Someone so shrewd and perceptive — one wondered what manner of scene it would make when they faced that other person, unpredictable as spirits and ghosts.
Xiao Nanhui thought for a moment and finally asked: “Have you ever heard of a family name Zhong Li?”
Yaoyi paused, clearly recalling something, yet in the end only said vaguely: “It’s a rare compound surname. What made you think to ask?”
Xiao Nanhui was turning something over in her mind and did not notice Yaoyi’s expression: “I ran into someone by that name on this last trip to Huozhou. He said he was a household guest of the Chancellor’s Mansion.”
Yaoyi’s voice carried a trace of urgency he himself had not perceived: “He said it and you believed it? How many days have you even known him?”
Xiao Nanhui gave him a strange look: “I never took it as gospel — why are you agitated?”
The words were right there on the tip of Yaoyi’s tongue. They turned over several times and were swallowed back. In the end he said curtly: “When you’re out and about, who doesn’t carry a few alias names? Do you think everyone is as naive as you.”
Xiao Nanhui quietly exhaled through her nose in disdain.
I am not naive. I used your name, after all.
But naturally, that could not be said to Yaoyi. Telling him would mean suffering through the rest of this journey.
Xiao Nanhui was silently rather amused by this when suddenly, at the end of the dirt road, a figure appeared on horseback riding hard toward them.
Xiao Nanhui saw the official robes and her heart sank. As he drew near, she recognized him — it was Su Pingchuan, that nemesis she saw every single day.
Xiao Nanhui reined her horse to a halt and rapped on the carriage panel.
“Hey — has someone set their sights on that penny-pinching business of yours? There’s an official coming, looks like he means to shut you down.”
Yaoyi slid open the small window and poked his head out from inside the carriage, his little eyes wide with disbelief: “Impossible! I’ve already greased the right palms — all of them. Except for that newly appointed Left General, but at this hour he would normally be guarding the western approaches. How would he come all the way here?”
Xiao Nanhui frowned. She did not know either.
Yaoyi was exceedingly crafty, and always cautious in such matters — there should be no way anyone had managed to track him down.
Unless someone had leaked information and reported him.
And what’s more, that person had very likely just attended the “viewing” themselves, which is why they had been able to time it so precisely. With a moment’s thought, a name surfaced in Xiao Nanhui’s mind.
Who else could it be but that wretch Xu Shu?
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