"Does the general have a fondness for men?"
*
The autumn breeze in the capital city carries the sweet fragrance of osmanthus blossoms.
Xu Qingyao leaned against the window, her fingertips gently fiddling with the glass rabbit that the "unknown kind person" had given her yesterday.
She smiled, pursed her lips, and looked up at the old osmanthus tree in the courtyard.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, the osmanthus trees are already adorned with golden blossoms, their fragrance floating in the night, like someone's subtle probing.
"Tsukimi," she suddenly called out.
The young maid rubbed her eyes and came in from the outer room: "Miss, would you like more tea?"
"Prepare an invitation." Xu Qingyao tapped the rabbit's tail with her fingertip, her voice soft yet firm. "For General Xiao—say that tomorrow night is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and if the general is free...would you like to gather at Zuixianlou?"
...
Mid-Autumn Festival night.
Outside the vermilion railings of Zuixianlou, colorful lanterns were already hanging everywhere. Xu Qingyao sat by the window on the second floor, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the edge of her teacup, her gaze occasionally sweeping towards the stairwell.
Yuejian whispered to herself, "Miss, will General Xiao come?"
Xu Qingyao raised an eyebrow, feigning regret: "If you don't come, then no one will pay for all this delicious food."
As soon as he finished speaking, steady footsteps came from the stairs.
Xiao Zhouyan was dressed in a dark brocade robe, with a gold-inlaid dagger hanging at his waist. His features were sharp and angular, but they softened the moment he saw her.
"Qingqing, you've got a clever plan," he said, though a smile played on his lips as he glanced at the table full of food. His voice was deep. "The roast goose from Zuixianlou is said to be limited today."
Xu Qingyao raised an eyebrow: "General, you are quite well-informed."
"Not even half as good as you." Xiao Zhouyan sat down and took out an oil paper package from his sleeve. "I picked up some roasted chestnuts while passing through the West Market."
The paper package was still warm; that steamed bun shop had become her new favorite place these past few days.
...
After several rounds of drinks, the streetlights outside the window began to twinkle. Xu Qingyao suddenly stood up: "Let me take the general to see a place."
Before Xiao Zhouyan could react, her wrist was already gripped.
Xu Qingyao pulled Xiao Zhouyan out of Zuixianlou and walked on the street. Her embroidered shoes stepped on the scattered osmanthus blossoms on the bluestone slabs, as if she were stepping on a ground full of starlight.
"Is Miss Xu trying to abduct an official of the imperial court?" Xiao Zhouyan let her pull him along, a smile playing on his lips.
“If the general is afraid, it’s not too late to go back now.” She turned around, the glass rabbit earrings at her temples swaying, reflecting the warm light of the street lanterns.
Xu Qingyao pulled Xiao Zhouyan through three dark alleys and stopped in front of an abandoned clock tower. Moonlight shone through the broken dome, turning the patina on the ground into a shimmering starry river.
“The highest point in the capital.” She lifted her skirt and stepped onto the rickety wooden stairs. “It’s three zhang higher than the observatory of the Taiqing Palace.”
Xiao Zhouyan suddenly grabbed her waist and leaped onto the crossbeam, startling a flock of roosting night herons. Amidst the flurry of feathers, his fingertips brushed against the glass rabbit on her earlobe: "My dear, do you know that these earrings were originally a pair?"
"What about the other one?"
"Seven years ago, on a snowy night in the North," he suddenly placed something cold into her palm, "he saved a frozen little rabbit."
Xu Qingyao looked down—the glass rabbit in her palm was missing half an ear, making it look more lonely compared to the one she wore.
It seems like I've seen this rabbit somewhere before...
Some images flashed through Xu Qingyao's mind, but only for a moment, and she didn't have time to think about them in detail.
"By the way," Xu Qingyao carefully placed the rabbit in her palm into her purse, "General, aren't you going to ask me why I brought you here?"
"Even if you want to take me to the Dragon Pool and Tiger Cave, I'll go."
Xiao Zhouyan said without hesitation that no matter where she wanted to take him, with him there, he would never let anything happen to her.
A bright moon shines on the clock tower, casting the shadows of the two people on the wall, making them look like an intimate couple.
"Does the general have a fondness for men?"
Xu Qingyao suddenly asked a question.
Xiao Zhouyan's eyes were full of surprise:
"I am fond of men?"
Why would Qingqing ask this question?
He was so angry he laughed, wondering where his beloved had heard such rumors.
He hadn't intervened before to appease various factions. But after returning, he instructed Wei Er to deal with all the rumors!
Xu Qingyao shook her head slightly, ignoring the man's words, and said to herself, "General, you only need to answer a few questions for me."
"Speaking."
"The general is away fighting battles all year round, and there's no one by his side who cares about his well-being?"
"Knowing the cold and the heat?" Xiao Zhouyan recalled how Xu Qingyao shivered from the wind and snow in the northern frontier and laughed, "She herself is quite knowing the cold and the heat."
Where is this person now?
"Far away, yet right before my eyes."
Xiao Zhouyan's lips curled up.
"???"
What the heck?
Is it far away? Or is it right before your eyes?
Her?
When did she see him?
Dude, stop messing around, she wasn't even here yet.
"General, you... really married me just to shut everyone up?"
"Of course not, I sincerely want to marry you," Xiao Zhouyan replied softly.
She felt a pang of heartache; she truly didn't remember him.
Perhaps because Xiao Zhouyan's expression looked somewhat broken, she didn't know how to comfort him.
"General... were you very close to 'Xu Qingyao' when you were young?" An indescribable emotion welled up in Xu Qingyao's heart. If he and 'Xu Qingyao' were childhood sweethearts... then wouldn't she be the third party who interfered in their relationship now?
She saw the man in front of her shake his head, looking intently into her eyes, and say, word by word, "In the past and now, it has always been you, Qingqing, who have been by my side."
Fireworks exploded in the night sky at that moment, illuminating his smiling eyes: "Make a wish."
Xu Qingyao obediently closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.
I hope to go back soon.
***
Liangzhou City.
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival was quieter than usual.
Just as the fifth watch drum struck, Xu Zhiyuan heard a soft creaking sound from the window frame. Without lighting a lamp, his fingers were already on the short sword under his pillow.
"grown ups."
Zhang Cheng's voice was kept extremely low. Then a dark figure leaped into the house, bringing with it a stench of blood and unmelted snowflakes.
A knife wound on his shoulder was still bleeding, but he didn't bother to bandage it. He simply presented a roll of blood-stained burlap with both hands: "Sir, the dogs in the Zhao family are fiercer than people."
Xu Zhiyuan unfolded the burlap and examined it closely in the gradually brightening light—it was half a torn military ledger, with burn marks on the edges.
The imperial edict stating "Three thousand divine crossbows" was clearly visible, with the smaller characters "reported as damaged in the fourth year of the Zhengshi era" noted beside it. His fingertip paused at the foot of the page, where there was a blurry mark. When heated with a candle flame, it revealed a ferocious wolf's head emblem.
“Interesting.” Xu Zhiyuan brought the ledger closer to the candlelight, and the smell of burnt sea buckthorn gum, a common ingredient among the Turks, wafted out. “Let’s go meet the aggrieved party who ‘died unexpectedly’.”
At Chen Shi (7-9 AM), at the West Market Charity Hall.
The snow in front of the earthen house where the body was kept had not been swept away. An old man selling sesame cakes was huddled in the corner of the wall, and when he saw the official's boots approaching, he shrank into the shadows.
"Old man, is the body of the Wang merchant who died in the street last month still there?"
The old man blinked his one eye and suddenly coughed violently. Zhang Cheng understood and threw three copper coins into his broken bowl.
The old man held the coin in his gap-toothed mouth and said in a hoarse voice, "Sir, please don't ask... The corpse was dragged away by wild dogs that very night."
Before the words were finished, the crisp sound of horses' hooves breaking through the thin ice came from the alley entrance.
Zhang Cheng grabbed Xu Zhiyuan and hid behind the woodpile, whereupon Zhao Jing led seven or eight servants on horseback past.
The young nobleman's jade belt buckle was inlaid with turquoise, and the gilded polo mallet hanging in front of his saddle was still stained with brownish-red.
“That’s the blood of the Wang family’s son.” The old man suddenly spoke in a sinister tone, his cloudy eyes reflecting the snow. “Last month, his father went to the governor’s mansion to ask for military pay, and when he came back… he was only half a body hanging on the horse’s back.”
Xu Zhiyuan took out three copper coins and laid them on the ground—this was the secret signal taught by the prison guard.
The old man suddenly pounced on him, pulling a scroll of petition from under the woodpile. Ten bloody finger marks were shockingly visible in the morning light.
At the northern camp, the wooden watchtowers were leaning precariously, and the guards' leather armor was bound with hemp ropes.
Xu Zhiyuan was about to reveal the fish-shaped talisman, but before he could react, he realized what was happening.
"Sir, be careful!" The jailer suddenly grabbed him.
A rusty arrow thudded into the ground three inches in front of Xu Zhiyuan's feet. The indigo cloth strip wrapped around the arrow's fletching was exactly the same as the scout's clothes from the previous day.
Beside the offering table for the Mid-Autumn Festival moon worship, more than twenty soldiers were fighting over half a moldy sesame cake.
A one-armed old soldier suddenly rushed out from the soup kitchen, his empty right sleeve fluttering in the wind: "Your Excellency the Imperial Envoy!"
The captain charged in, whip in hand: "Go back and eat—"
Xu Zhiyuan grabbed his wrist with his other hand. In the struggle, the captain's sleeve slipped down, revealing a brand-new wolf head tattoo on the inside of his arm.
He revealed the fish-shaped tally he had prepared, thus identifying himself.
The captain clasped his hands in reluctance: "This humble official was unaware that it was the Imperial Envoy visiting, and I have offended you greatly."
The wind outside the tent made the banners flutter. After dismissing the captain, Xu Zhiyuan stared at the half-bowl of bran porridge on the table. Suddenly, he lifted the straw curtain of the grain bin—the sack that should have been full of millet was full of sand and chaff.
"The fifteenth of every month..." The old soldier suddenly leaned closer, his breath carrying a putrid stench. "The grain carts at the North Gate are heading to the Gobi Desert... The guards all wear wolf-head thumb rings..."
Back at the inn, the full moon was slowly rising.
Zhang Cheng handed him a secret letter.
This was given to Zhang Cheng by the woman they met on the day they arrived in Liangzhou City.
*
August 15th, midnight.
Liu Qingniang always knew that the imperial envoy had sent his bodyguards to protect her.
She also wanted to prove that everything she said was true.
So after the guard left, she planned to sneak into the governor's mansion at night.
Liu Qingniang slid down the shadows of the west wall of the governor's mansion. Her bare feet touched the damp, cold moss, and the dying roar of her father still echoed in her ears: "The account book is in the hidden compartment of Zhao Deyan's study..."
The dog in the kitchen suddenly barked softly. Qingniang shook out half a piece of mutton mixed with datura from her sleeve, and watched the beast slump down.
As she climbed through the window, the wooden hairpin in her hair tore the gauze curtain—three days earlier, she had been wearing this very hairpin when she saved a young child in front of Zhao Jingma, in exchange for a route map drawn by a maid in the mansion.
Upon entering the study, moonlight filtered through the clouds, casting skull patterns on the window lattice onto the blue brick floor.
Qingniang's fingers brushed over the copy of "The Art of War" on the antique shelf. The third scroll bulged slightly—with a "click," the hidden compartment popped open, revealing half of a charred parchment scroll.
Suddenly, the sound of a boot crushing walnuts came from under the eaves. Qingniang, with a sheepskin scroll in her mouth, climbed onto the roof beam and saw Zhao Deyan, drunk, carrying a Hu woman in his arms.
"...The Khan requested three thousand crossbows..." The governor's plump hand caressed the Hu woman's waist, "...hidden in...Shuofang..."
As Hu Ji's silver bracelet clinked against the wine pot, Qing Niang saw the wolf head emblem on the sheepskin scroll. Beneath the Khan's seal were written in Chinese: "On the Mid-Autumn Festival night, grain and fodder were delivered in the poplar forest, signaled by cloud-patterned lanterns—King of the Ministry of War."
Suddenly, the roof tile made a "clunk" sound. Qingniang spun around to avoid the crossbow bolt shot from outside the window, but a corner of the parchment scroll was torn off by the wind from the arrow.
She stabbed the hairpin into the attacker's eye socket with her other hand, and the warm blood sprayed onto the secret letter, turning the three characters "Wang of the Ministry of War" into a purplish-black color.
When Qingniang climbed over the mansion wall, the fragments of the secret letter in her arms still carried the bitter smell of sea buckthorn gum.
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