Chapter 78 Reclaiming the Vast Land
The troops sent out were all personally selected by Fu Man; killing a sickly boy would be as easy as crushing an ant. Furthermore, the inn belonged to the Lu family; the plan should have been flawless. Who would have thought that after one night, not a single troop would return to report?
Lu Xu had been operating in Cangqian for many years, so how could he not be surprised upon hearing this news? Looking at his two grandsons who dared not utter a sound, he suddenly felt dizzy.
After a long pause, he asked in a cold voice, "Is there anything else that hasn't been explained?"
Lu Xi and Lu Xing were given a beating by their grandfather as part of the family discipline. They had been locked up since noon and had vomited several times over. Hearing that the men their grandfather had personally sent had failed, they were anxious but helpless and could only shake their heads.
What could they possibly know?
Even Lu Xi had only known Fang Bai for less than two months. For half a month of that time, they had no contact.
Lu Xu's eyes, beneath his white eyebrows, gleamed with a chilling light, and his voice was so deep it could melt water:
"A sickly young boy has managed to manipulate the two of you so easily. Youzhi, do you know that the strategy of offering salt as a sign of loyalty was devised by this very boy?"
Lu Xi suddenly looked up, staring incredulously at Zhang Bian beside him.
Zhang Bian had been interrogated by Lu Xuan earlier, and upon seeing this, he could only sigh.
"My lord didn't believe Fang Bai, so I hid myself. I intended to report back later, but alas..."
Lu Xi's legs went weak.
Lu Xu slammed his cane heavily on the ground, pointing it at Lu Xing: "And you, Qian Zhi! He turned around and offered you the plan to divide the mulberry fields, do you know how treacherous this plan is?"
He took a deep breath, trying his best to suppress the anger surging in his chest.
“My decision to allow Youzhi to repair the pond and control the rice supply is a brave move, a strategic retreat to advance, first to protect the family, and then to plan for the future. This is a well-intentioned plan.”
"But Fang Bai's instigation of you to implement the land redistribution system is like inviting a wolf into the house, causing trouble within the walls! This is a conspiracy!"
His gaze was like a knife, sweeping across his two grandsons' pale faces: "If I had been foolish enough to allow you to do this, the Lu family would no longer be the target of everyone's anger, but rather the arrow waiting to be shot on the target! With powerful enemies outside and endless internal strife, within a year, the foundation of my Lu family would be completely dragged down by the two of you and this outsider!"
"This shows how vicious this scoundrel is and how far-reaching his schemes are!"
“He is no ordinary man; his ambitions are probably not limited to the position of strategist. Today he can abandon Lu Xi and join you, Lu Xing; tomorrow he will trample the entire Lu family underfoot for greater benefits.”
Lu Xi broke out in a cold sweat, both shocked and furious, and nearly punched Lu Xing. Lu Xing, who was usually at odds with him, seemed to have lost his soul, sitting blankly on the ground, completely unresponsive.
Fu Man spoke up at the right moment to calm things down: "Master, please calm down and take care of yourself. A sickly young man may have just run away to protect himself; he won't cause any big trouble."
Lu Xu snorted coldly, his emotions calming down slightly: "Qianzhi, you secretly detained the inn's accountant for half a month and made a fuss about it. That couple must have been resentful and outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant. I'm afraid there was a mistake in a crucial link, and the medicine wasn't delivered as planned."
Fu Man understood immediately: "This old servant will take care of it immediately to prevent any future troubles. Apart from that one dose of sleeping potion, the medicine prescribed by Doctor Jiang is all ordinary tonics, and nothing suspicious can be found."
Lu Xi's legs tightened. He had asked Physician Jiang to examine Fang Bai's pulse daily; his grandfather actually knew…
Lu Xu nodded, closing his eyes wearily.
"The first batch are all suicide squad members. If they are captured, they can commit suicide. As for Fang Bai... send more men. We need to see him alive or dead. Once found, we will deal with him according to the original plan."
—Beheading, disfigurement, or drowning. Eliminate all future troubles.
Looking at his two grandsons on the ground, he turned his head away:
"Never mind, the most important thing right now is to clean it up."
Birds chirped outside, and the night was drawing to a close.
Neither of them dared to speak. Lu Xu was also exhausted, and with Fu Man's help, he got up and went back to his room. But no sooner had they stood still than someone came to report: "It's terrible, Master! The inn is on fire! The fire has spread to the surrounding area for three miles, especially the Xi Chun Tang, run by Miss Cui, which has been severely damaged!"
Lu Xu shouted sternly, "Who started the fire!"
Lu Xi and Lu Xing were just feeling relieved when they heard the news, but their expressions changed drastically.
A few deaths are nothing. But the fire spreads for miles and affected the Cui family; the news will surely reach the governor's mansion! It can't be hidden!
Lu Xi slammed his cane on the ground: "Lu Xi, take your men and put out the fire immediately and seal off the warehouse! Lu Xing, go to the Cui family to apologize later!"
Li Si tossed aside the torch and clasped his hands in a fist salute to Yan Dibai: "Your Majesty, the fire is ready. The inn and Xichun Hall are the most engulfed by the flames, especially the Cui family's pharmacy; they'll be busy for a while."
Yan Dibai nodded, gazing at the firelight that illuminated the night sky. It was far less intense than the raging fire that had engulfed the capital, but it was enough to stir up a storm in Jiangzuo.
Zhang San, who had returned early after completing his mission, strode over and said, "Your Majesty, Imperial Attendant, let's go!"
Qingqing said softly, "Someone should be coming soon."
Yan Dibai lowered his eyes: "Get in the car."
Li Si brought up the rear, and Qingqing, not forgetting to peek out to express her gratitude, said, "Thank you for your help, Zhang Zhuangshi."
Startled, Zhang San roused himself and cracked his whip, shouting, "It is my duty! Giddy up!"
The horses neighed, and in no time they carried them to a house near Tiaoxi Pond.
Wang Wu had been waiting inside for a long time. When he heard the wheels turning, he knew that the mission had been successfully completed, and he quickly knelt down to wait.
Two burly men emerged from under the old, blue-roofed carriage, one on each side, and helped the boy in plain clothes down from the carriage.
Qingqing was the last to leave, avoiding their invitations and jumping off the cliff herself.
Yan Dibai glanced at her sideways, but didn't say anything to tease her.
The courtyard was secluded and quiet, bathed in the soft moonlight.
Yan Dibai and Qingqing sat down on a bamboo mat in the courtyard. Zhang San, Li Si, and Wang Wu stood like three iron towers, taut and respectful in a row, even their breathing deliberately soft.
They did not drink the tea that Wang Wu had poured in advance. Yan Dibai looked around, his gaze calmly sweeping over the three of them, his tone revealing neither joy nor anger: "This plan has been a success, and I must thank you all for your cooperation."
What was meant to be a comforting remark turned into an invisible whip, making the three men even more terrified. They repeatedly said, "I dare not," and "You flatter me." Their awkward demeanor was completely at odds with their physical stature, showing no trace of the pleasant conversation that usually follows a crisis.
Qingqing felt uneasy. Yan Dibai was a man whose attitude was sometimes down-to-earth and sometimes aloof. He was hypocritical and kind to Lu Xi, but indifferent to the true ministers who had followed him all the way. If his subordinates had grievances, how could he possibly get things done smoothly in the future?
Yan Dibai was interrogating her with his eyes when he noticed his sleeve being gently tugged. He frowned and asked, "What is it now?"
"Brave warriors, you've toiled all night. Why don't you sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk? We've worked together, and that's how we've shared hardships."
Qingqing naturally got up, picked up the pottery pot, and poured a cup of tea for each of the three of them.
The three burly men were stunned. A drink offered by the emperor? How could they dare to accept it? Almost instinctively, they once again turned their helpless gazes to Yan Dibai.
The young emperor sat quietly, his veil already removed, his extremely thin face revealing no emotion. He did not stop them, but his gaze swept over Qingqing and the steaming bowls of tea before he lowered his eyelashes in tacit agreement.
Qingqing smiled:
"His Majesty mentioned at the inn that today's success is largely due to the three brave men; otherwise, it would have been a much more difficult journey. Unfortunately, unlike before, I have nothing to offer as a reward, so I can only offer tea in lieu of thanks. I hope the three of you won't find it offensive."
It's already good enough that His Majesty doesn't despise these people; how could they possibly have the right to complain about them?
In the past, in the capital, let alone seeing His Majesty, even seeing a eunuch who emptied the chamber pot was a blessing!
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty..." Li Si's nose tingled, and his throat felt choked up. He was the first to pick up his teacup, as if holding some rare treasure, and exchanged an excited look with his two brothers. Then the three of them tilted their heads back and drank it all in one gulp.
"Bang!" Li Si smashed the empty teacup with a flourish, shattering the wall between the emperor and his ministers. The three men roared in rough voices, "Thank you, Your Majesty! Thank you, Imperial Attendant Yang! A thousand jars of fine wine cannot compare to a single cup of this tea!"
Qingqing smiled faintly, retreating to Yan Dibai's side, her heart calming slightly. Just then, a very soft, almost imperceptible humming sound came from beside her:
"You certainly know how to pick your moments to win people over."
Before Qingqing could respond, the young man glanced at the three who had finally relaxed, and his tone suddenly changed, taking on the caution befitting a person in a superior position:
"Now that we've exchanged pleasantries, it's time to settle some things."
His voice suddenly hardened: "Confess to everything you have done along the way."
Qingqing was bewildered.
Instead of taking the opportunity to solidify the relationship through proper courtly conduct, Yan Dibai abruptly questioned him.
Upon hearing this, the three men all grabbed their knees, clearly feeling guilty.
Did they really have something going on between them?
Li Si clicked his tongue inwardly, knowing he couldn't escape it. These things had been weighing on his mind for days, and hiding them any longer would only make him feel worse. From the moment they decided to sail south, until they learned of His Majesty's instructions from the old farmer, the group had been living in constant fear, afraid that His Majesty would discover their little schemes and incur His Majesty's wrath.
Just when they feared most, their hopes for the official meeting today were dashed. They still clung to the hope that Yan Dibai was naive and clueless. Little did they know, His Majesty had already suspected something was amiss and had been watching them like skeptical monkeys.
Whether you stick your neck out or not, you'll still get stabbed. I'm not going to be that stinking turtle anymore!
Li Si wiped his face, curled up, and bowed his head:
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty. We...we did not arrive late on purpose. It is..."
Yan Dibai raised an eyebrow: "It's not that you're late, it's that you hesitated, isn't that right?"
Li Si shuddered and lowered his head, not daring to speak again. Yan Di's thin white lips parted slightly, "Since Yang Liuqing has pardoned you all for me, I will not go back on my word. Whatever you did before, I will not care." He glanced at the courtyard wall, "Acquiring several residences at the same time requires quite a bit of financial resources. I did not know that there were tomb keepers in the world before, let alone that the tomb keepers' salaries were very generous."
The words were like a needle, precisely piercing the composure the three had barely maintained. "Your Majesty, please investigate! This matter has nothing to do with Li Si!" Zhang San suddenly raised his head, shoved aside Li Si who was still trying to give a vague explanation, and kowtowed heavily to the ground.
"Now that things have come to this, we dare not hide it any longer."
“Our ancestors were indeed close generals of Emperor Taizu of Yan, and they voluntarily guarded his mausoleum and the entire Yan and Jin regions for generations. In the beginning, we received salaries from the court and incense offerings. But... less than a hundred years later, the imperial mausoleum was moved to another location, and no one remembered Yanxiao Ridge anymore. The salaries stopped, and of the original twelve mausoleum guardians, only the three of us brothers remained. We made a living by farming and hunting, guarding our ancestral precepts and an empty mountain, living in seclusion from the world.”
He swallowed hard and grumbled:
"A few days before the palace fell, we heard the commotion of troops and knew something was wrong. We tried to enter the palace to investigate, but the guards wouldn't allow it, so we turned back disappointed. Unexpectedly, the palace fell in less than two days. The warning mechanism in the mountains suddenly malfunctioned, and we knew that someone from the royal family had triggered the crossbow. We were filled with both sorrow and joy. How could someone without the blood of a true dragon open this century-old mechanism? So we disguised ourselves and went to the palace again."
"But halfway through, I was blinded by greed! I heard that the throne had been changed and Your Majesty was imprisoned. I thought that the new emperor might also know the secrets of the palace. Rather than following the infamous and hopeless late emperor, it would be better to switch allegiance to the new emperor, so that I would have somewhere to go and would not fail the wishes of my ancestors. So I took it upon myself to approach the new emperor!" Zhang San said with difficulty, "We three mountain men have never experienced anything like this in our lives. We only know how to be loyal to the Yan family and continue the mission of our ancestors... and we thought that was the right thing to do."
“We chased after the new emperor to Jizhou with great difficulty and found his carriage.” At this point, Zhang San’s face was full of embarrassment. “But… the guards treated us like refugees and drove us away. The new emperor was even worse; he would rather go back and grab a palace maid than let us get close to the carriage. At that moment, we realized that we were nothing. What we were protecting had long been discarded by others.”
Li Si couldn't help but interject, his voice trembling with tears: "We slunk back to the mountains, our hearts were completely broken, and we felt we had let our ancestors down! But... but just then, we discovered that the mechanism of the ancestral tomb had been opened! The stream had changed its course! My father said on his deathbed that if the mountains collapsed and the water changed, it would be the time when a new ruler would descend and the mandate of heaven would not be broken!"
Li Si wiped his face hard with his sleeve:
“We’re not willing to give up! So we sneaked back to the capital and found a eunuch who was guarding the ruins and refused to leave. He insisted that His Majesty was still alive! He said that there was a court attendant named Yang by His Majesty’s side! Our second brother, Wang Wu, investigated the secret passages in the palace and found that they had been blocked. He immediately led us back and followed the trail to the Lu family’s fleet! He even cut down trees and built a ship overnight to follow them!”
Thinking of the torment he had endured along the way, Li Si finally couldn't hold back and burst into tears. "We've let down the founding emperor and Your Majesty. We've had a hard life since we can remember. We often didn't even have enough money to offer incense to the founding emperor and our father. Our father passed away early, so we had no choice but to sneak back to the mausoleum and steal some gold, silver, and jade artifacts to spend. We know we deserve to die, but this time when we went down to Jiangzuo, we counted our money ten times over and could only scrape together a string of cash. We can't do anything without what we stole before! Your Majesty, you are wise and discerning. It was our idea to steal the funerary objects, not our two older brothers'!"
After the three finished speaking, they were overcome with grief and dared not look at Yan Dibai again. The courtyard was filled only with heavy weeping.
Qingqing listened with mixed feelings, her throat tightening. In the end, those who protected Yan and Jin were not those high-ranking officials who spouted benevolence and morality, but these three clumsy, loyal souls forgotten in the mountains.
Who would have thought?
A night breeze swept through the courtyard, ruffling the wisps of hair on Yan Dibai's forehead. Yan Dibai silently watched the three men before him, tears streaming down their faces, his brow furrowed for a long time.
After a moment, he exhaled very slowly:
"stand up."
The three stopped sobbing instantly, but hesitated for a long time before moving.
"But did you all not hear what I said clearly?" he began, his voice regaining its usual coolness, though lacking some of the previous sharpness. His gaze swept over the three men's eyes, which lit up with disbelief, and he raised the now-cold teacup in front of him, tilting his head back to drink it all. Then, mimicking Li Si and the others' earlier actions, he threw the empty cup to the ground!
With a crisp "crack," porcelain shards flew everywhere.
The young man rose. "Wherever I am, that is the ancestral temple of the Yan dynasty. Your duty is to assist me in governing this vast land—"
He paused, each word striking the morning mist with crystal clarity:
"Take it back!"
Li Si, Zhang San, and Wang Wu were all shaken, then overjoyed, and knelt down deeply in the most solemn posture:
"Your subject Zhang San—"
"Your Majesty's Dwelling—"
"Your subject, Li Si—"
"I will not fail in my mission!"
"Clap, clap, clap." It was Yan Dibai clapping his hands three times. The morning light shone through the clouds, making his figure look very long.
The sky was beginning to lighten with the first light of dawn. After a great fire and a desperate escape, Jiangzuo was ushering in a new day.
Seeing this scene before her, Qingqing felt a surge of heroic emotion welling up inside her, and her eyes welled up slightly. She subconsciously looked at Yan Dibai, only to meet his gaze as he turned towards her.
His gaze was complex and unreadable, containing scrutiny, approval, and perhaps even a fleeting hint of comfort? Then, he reverted to his aloof demeanor. She shielded her eyes, as if everything that had just happened was merely an illusion.
The morning light completely dispelled the darkness, falling on Yan Dibai's slender shoulders and into Qingqing's eyes.
"The time has come. Now is the perfect time to return to the inn. Zhang Qing, Li Qing, and Wang Qing, you should all disguise yourselves and hide in the city. Now is the time to avoid trouble and make sure no one catches you."
The three hesitated for a moment, then immediately agreed.
Watching the young man and woman walk away side by side, the group was still filled with excitement. "Wait!" Li Si suddenly snapped out of his daze, slapping his firm forehead in surprise.
"His Majesty has uncovered all our secrets, but we still don't know how he saw through all our dirty secrets?"
As dawn broke, the bluestone slabs in the courtyard became clearly visible. The three of them stood there, yet inexplicably felt a subtle chill.
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