A Single Tie Of Long Hair Seals A Lifelong Commitment - Chapter 46

“Didn’t I give you silver?” Chen Liangyu asked.

Land on the outskirts of the city was not expensive, priced at about one and a half taels per mu (acre).

The money pouch she had handed over at the pier near Jinshu Alley a few days ago contained at least four and a half taels of silver, plus some copper coins. That was enough for this person to buy two mu of land and still have enough left for a year and a half of expenses.

“It’s been used up.”

The person dared not look at her, adding in a low voice: “It was used for travel expenses.”

She still had the bundle of firewood on her back. Due to the fight, shoving, and running just now, a corner of the false stubble pasted on her face had peeled off.

Travel expenses?

“Is your family from Liangxi?” Chen Liangyu asked.

The person shook her head. “No.”

“Have you studied martial arts?”

“A little.”

Chen Liangyu was silent for a moment.

The person raised her eyelids, stealing a glance at her, and saw Chen Liangyu’s eyes lowered, not knowing what she was thinking.

It was not a day for offerings, so the Mountain God Temple was empty. A huge statue of the Mountain God stood within—it was the image of a Goddess—and offerings dedicated to the Mountain God were placed on the altar below.

The sounds of fighting outside grew fainter.

“In Yongdu, you at least knew how to earn an honest living, but now…” Chen Liangyu felt the rest of the sentence would be too harsh, so she left it unsaid.

Perhaps she was truly out of options.

Or, perhaps people simply had different aspirations.

The person was a little surprised.

She looked down at her own tattered clothes. She looked like a beggar.

She instantly understood Chen Liangyu’s meaning and was terribly embarrassed. She was still wearing the same porter’s clothes from years ago. She had no money to buy new clothing, nor did she see the need, so she had worn this same outfit all these years. However, the hemp clothes were prone to tearing, and she had mended and patched them repeatedly, leaving her looking dirty and disheveled. Chen Liangyu must have misunderstood that she had actually resorted to begging.

“I carry firewood for people up the mountain. I get five wen for a bundle of wood.”

She mumbled, trying to subtly explain that she had not begged for food.

Her face felt a little itchy. The person reached up and scratched it twice, pulling an even larger gap in her stubble.

She and Chen Liangyu met eyes, and both fell silent. She simply tore off the stubble and found a new piece to paste onto her face.

Chen Liangyu observed her for a moment. Her palm had calluses. Chen Liangyu’s right hand also had calluses worn in the web of her thumb and index finger from drawing a bow.

“What is your name? Where is your native place? Who is your esteemed father?”

“Bu Ping’er,” she said. “My father… passed away.”

Bu.

Chen Liangyu wondered if any high-ranking military official in the court bore the surname Bu.

There were colorful murals on the walls of the Mountain God Temple. Following the sequence, they depicted the story of a goddess ascending to immortality and protecting the mountain people.

It looked like someone had lived here. There was a stove built with broken stones, from which hung a chipped pot, and several places showed signs of recent fires. Rice straw was spread along the wall, pressed into several flat pits, and what looked like dried bloodstains were visible on the straw.

Rong Jun searched everywhere in the Mountain God Temple, fearing someone might be hiding. The temple was small, and aside from behind the Mountain God statue, there was nowhere to hide. He had searched behind the statue three times already.

He really did manage to pull someone out from a pile of earth behind the straw bedding.

“Where did this brat come from?” Rong Jun said.

It was a small beggar, just a half-grown child.

He was too terrified to move, letting Rong Jun hold him up.

Upon seeing Pu Ping’er, he seemed very happy, but glancing at the room and courtyard full of people holding weapons, his eyes were filled with worry for Pu Ping’er, and a look of pleading for help.

As soon as Rong Jun let go, the little beggar dropped to the ground and kept bowing his head to Rong Jun, making muffled, inarticulate sounds.

While bowing, he clasped his hands together and shook them up and down in a gesture of supplication.

He turned out to be a little mute. He was begging for mercy.

It seemed he wasn’t begging for mercy for himself. While bowing, he desperately tugged at Pu Ping’er, urging her to kneel and bow with him.

Pu Ping’er pulled the little beggar up, hugging him tightly, and said, “He’s my younger brother. He’s simple-minded.”

The little beggar seemed to disagree with this description, struggling slightly to protest.

“Your skills are good. Follow me,” Chen Liangyu said.

Xie Wenjun sat on a stone stool, shifted her gaze from the pair to her toes, rested her chin on her knees, casually picked up a piece of rice straw, snapped it into small segments, and tossed them on the ground.

Then she heard Chen Liangyu say, “I will give you a chance to make a name for yourself.”

Xie Wenjun picked up the pieces of straw she had snapped and tried to piece them back together to see if it was possible.

“If you have the courage, you won’t have to do the back-breaking labor of carrying goods and firewood anymore.”

Pu Ping’er’s hand trembled as she was pasting the false stubble. It was crooked.

She raised her head stiffly, her eyes flashing with wild joy, but immediately becoming conflicted and struggling. She turned her head to the right, staring south. After a moment of hesitation, she shook her head and refused.

“I still have someone to wait for.”

“Wait for whom?”

Pu Ping’er looked around at the soldiers in the room, her face revealing caution and fear. She responded to the question she didn’t want to answer with silence.

Xie Wenjun failed to piece the straw back together. She rose from the stone stool and walked up to the two. “Just like you, if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to say anything.”

Chen Liangyu shrugged.

A voice came from outside: “Your Highness the Princess, General Chen, this subordinate greets you! The assassins have been executed. Your subject Du Peixun is late in protecting you. I deserve ten thousand deaths!”

Immediately followed by another voice: “Your subject Qiu Renshan is late in guarding you. I deserve ten thousand deaths!”

Qiu Renshan? Chen Liangyu raised an eyebrow. “Oh, an acquaintance.”

Pu Ping’er froze entirely, her eyes wide, unable to hide her caution and fear.

The little beggar, strangled by her rigid arm, nearly suffocated.

“You are safe now, you may go.” Something occurred to Chen Liangyu, and she grabbed Rong Rong’s handkerchief, borrowed a little blood from an injured Eastern Palace Guard, and used her fingertip to draw four characters on the cloth: Find Chen Liangyu.

She took out her general’s seal and stamped it.

“Keep an eye out for news of recruitment. If you are willing, come and find me anytime.”

Pu Ping’er accepted the stamped handkerchief with a tremble, carefully folded it, and tucked it close to her body inside her clothes.

She pulled the little beggar, followed Chen Liangyu and Xie Wenjun out the door, and slipped away, avoiding Qiu Renshan.

“Lord Qiu, it’s been a while. Are you well?” Chen Liangyu stepped over the threshold and greeted the acquaintance.

Qiu Renshan said, “I dare not say so. This subordinate is now merely a sixth-rank Prefecture Assistant. I am grateful that the General still remembers my name.”

Xie Wenjun granted them permission to rise, and Du Peixun and Qiu Renshan stood up to answer.

“Why is Lord Qiu here?” Chen Liangyu asked.

Qiu Renshan replied, “This subordinate was originally serving as the County Magistrate of Yanjiang County, where I investigated several cases of private salt smuggling. I was then transferred to Chong’an Prefecture to serve as the Prefecture Assistant.”

“Who ordered the assassins?”

“All the assassins have been executed and left no confession.”

Chen Liangyu’s expression soured a bit. “No survivors?”

With dozens of assassins attempting to kill the Imperial Family, they certainly should have captured a few alive for interrogation. Not leaving a single survivor was a mistake too basic for even Du Peixun and Qiu Renshan, who were civil officials, to make.

Unless someone feared revealing something and didn’t want the interrogation to happen.

Qiu Renshan said, “They were all desperate men. Seeing the officials surround them and knowing they couldn’t escape, they took their own lives.”

Xie Wenjun said, “Lord Du, Lord Qiu, how did you two know that I and General Chen were in Liangxi City? And how did you calculate that I would be attacked, allowing you to arrive at precisely the right time to save me?”

Du Peixun replied, “To answer Your Highness, Prefecture Assistant Qiu received a report from the Yongjia City garrison that Your Highness and General Chen were both in Chong’an and heading towards Liangxi City. Therefore, he mobilized the officials and soldiers to guard against any unforeseen events.”

Xie Wenjun gave Du Peisun a look that was hard to decipher, then looked at Qiu Renshan, and said, “I have noted the meritorious service of both Lords in saving me.”

There was another round of pleasantries.

Du Peixun and Qiu Renshan had prepared thoroughly, even having a carriage ready to take them down the mountain.

The area in front of the Mountain God Temple was no longer a rugged, winding path, but a six-foot-wide official road. Looking into the distance, one could see the broad, open plains. At the end of the plains were more green hills, where a herd of horses seemed to be running.

Du Peixun said, “That is the southern horse stable. As the saying goes, ‘Looking at a mountain can run a horse to death,’ it doesn’t look far from here, but a round trip would still take a full day and night.”

The six horse stables of Zhonglin—East, West, South, North, Southeast, and Central—were fields for raising and storing warhorses.

They also stockpiled hay, black beans, and millet as high-quality feed for the warhorses.

These six horse stables were also common places for exiled prisoners to be sent.

Chen Liangyu and Xie Wenjun rode in the same carriage.

Something was odd. Everything was odd.

The unprovoked assassination attempt, and the inexplicable timely rescue by Du Peixun and Qiu Renshan.

The two exchanged glances, both having a sense of what was happening.

Someone had orchestrated a play, using the two of them as characters on the stage to perform a drama full of holes.

No wonder the assassins had been ambushing them for so long without attacking, only striking when they were close to the official road. The arrows seemed to have eyes; the ones shot at her and Xie Wenjun were all poor shots.

If it were done on purpose, it made sense.

To take a step back, if the news truly came from the Pavilion of Celebration, they only needed to attribute the rescue to the Pavilion of Celebration and pretend to be ignorant. This way, if there was merit in the rescue, they could take it; if the Princess was assassinated, they could push all the blame away and remain uninvolved.

The fact that Qiu Renshan was so eager to show his face to the Princess suggested that he had endured enough of his assignment outside the capital and was looking for an opportunity to return to Yongdu to be a Minister in the Ministry of Personnel.

He had served in the Ministry of Personnel for many years and was very sensitive to the timing of officials’ promotions and transfers. He had smelled an opportunity. In the current situation, if he bet correctly, it would be the merit of supporting the successor; if he didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. Princess Jiangning was just a Princess and had no chance of seizing the throne. No matter who succeeded, she would be the new Emperor’s sister and the Great Lin’s only Eldest Princess.

This was a venture with no risk and pure profit.

So, it was just a false alarm.

“Mediocre people ruin everything!” Chen Liangyu was both annoyed and helpless at Qiu Renshan’s conduct.

Xie Wenjun had other considerations and wasn’t annoyed by Qiu Renshan’s rashness. “Qiu Renshan has been in the Ministry of Personnel for many years and holds leverage over many people. His coming forward to pledge loyalty now is not a bad thing.”

“Does Your Highness think Du Peixun is genuinely confused, or was he tricked by Qiu Renshan?” Chen Liangyu asked.

Xie Wenjun said, “Neither. He’s pretending to be genuinely confused. This man knows best how to protect himself. He clearly understands that Qiu Renshan is not content here and likely wanted to see this ‘Buddha’ gone long ago, fearing Qiu Renshan would cause trouble for him. Since Qiu Renshan set up the stage, he simply followed along to sing a part, letting Qiu Renshan leave by his own means without offending anyone.”

Another way to describe protecting oneself is simply avoiding conflict and mediating.

This was very much in line with Du Peixun’s way of doing things.

Chen Liangyu lifted the curtain and looked out. The grassland was vast, and the mountains and rivers were a sea of green.

Thinking of Pu Ping’er, she turned to Xie Wenjun and asked, “Has there ever been a military official with the surname Bu in the court? Perhaps one who was convicted of a crime.”

Xie Wenjun said, “I don’t know. I don’t recall any.”

The first military official she knew after being taken into the Eastern Palace by Xie Yu was Zhao Zhouqing. Unfortunately, she remembered the name only from the news of Zhao Zhouqing’s demotion.

“Do you know that woman? I’ve never heard you mention her,” Xie Wenjun said.

Chen Liangyu said, “We met once before.”