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Chapter 196 - The Overbearing General’s Pretty Warlord (XV)

Chu Ziling bowed his head slightly.

The fears of the past few days have now been confirmed.

His own plans were in vain.

Even if his face did not show it, his mouth was inevitably a little bitter and he said against his will, “Congratulations, my lord.”

He reassured himself that it wasn’t a sure thing, so he didn’t have to bother with regrets.

If Shi Jinghong had read the letter and then cleaned his hands before eating it, or if he had not licked his fingers to turn the pages as was his custom, the poison would not have entered his mouth.

He would have been able to accept it if it had simply fallen through.

Fear only Shi Jinghong He senses something ……

The more he thought about it, the more his fingers stiffened as he gripped the reins of the horse.

The letter was not long, why did Shi Tingyun read it back and forth so many times ……

As he wondered, Shi Tingyun suddenly spoke, “A Ling.”

Chu Ziling glanced over his shoulder, “…… gongzi?”

Shi Tingyun folded the letter and put it in his arms: “Inform them that Pei Cheng has won a great victory and is celebrating tonight!”

A cold breeze blew through Chu Ziling and he shuddered, realising that his soft armour was drenched in cold sweat.

He squeezed the slippery reins of his horse, trying to sound pleased enough, “Yes.”

Yan Yuanheng knew that he could not disgrace Shi Tingyun in front of others, so he waited until Chu Ziling had left before asking, “You should be happy when you win, but should you not be more restrained?”

It was not his intention to question Shi Tingyun’s orders, but he was speaking from his own temperament.

Shi Tingyun, who was about to gallop forward, turns back at the sound of the words.

The white horse spurted hot air beneath his hips, and the horseshoes stamped a half-moon of grey marks on the ground.

Shi Tingyun smiled and said, “This is not a war zone and this is not a time for war. The soldiers have been marching for a long time and are inevitably tired, so if there is good news, it will be good for their morale to celebrate.”

He added, “Yuan Heng, I am different from you. You are a humble gentleman, but I am a rude man. You can walk the path of a saint, but I cannot. I, Shi Tingyun, laugh when I win, but get angry when I lose. All things in this world are only as good as the word ‘I am happy’.”

When Yan Yuanheng saw how reckless he was, his heart beat more and more out of order: “I’m sorry, I don’t know military matters, so I’m sorry for being so abrupt.”

Yuan Heng, there is no need to talk about the word “abrupt” between you and me.” The young man on the white horse tightened his grip on the reins and said frankly, “I am galloping through heaven and earth, and I only wish to keep you in the temple and be a saint for a lifetime.”

With that, he shook the reins, “Heave!”

The white horse is ordered to gallop, raising its hooves and stirring up a hazy cloud of dust and smoke.

Yan Yuanheng has never heard a man say the word ‘driving’ with such panache.

He watched Shi Tingyun gallop his horse to the front of the army and raise his voice to say something that he could not quite make out from a distance, but Yan Yuanheng thought that he must be there to announce the happy event.

As it happened, a cheer went up from the front ranks.

The horses felt the same, and several neighs and cheers arose.

In the midst of all the joyous clamour, Yan Yuanheng’s gaze followed Shi Tingyun’s white horse and silver helmet, with a dazzling white tassel on it.

In the midst of the jubilation, Chu Ziling could not help but be annoyed.

After setting up camp for the night, he crouched in front of a small stove and pondered on the pretext of making a stomach-boosting and calming medicine for Gongshifu on behalf of Ah Shu.

He knew in his heart how important the location of Pei was.

It was precisely because he knew better that he was so irritated that he could not even help thinking about the past.

When Chu Ziling was twelve years old, he walked all the way to Wangcheng with the money he got from pawning his family’s miscellaneous goods.

On the road, he wondered every day and night what he should do and what he could do.

Who knows if the King of the Southern Border remembers this jade pendant, and who knows if he is a petty thief who is trying to take over the honor of the prince’s name from a dead man.

If he is to embark on the road to glory that belongs to him, he must establish a merit that will benefit the southern border, and it must be a great merit.

At that time, Chu Ziling was much more mature and sophisticated than the average child, but she was no less naive and vicious than anyone else.

He quickly came up with a great idea.

Chu Ziling asked around and picked a small, isolated county and told the recruiter. His family had been attacked by bandits and he had escaped with his life, but his parents had been killed in a tragic accident. He had nowhere else to go and wanted to join the army to fight the bandits and avenge his father’s death.

The recruiter’s surveyed him for a moment, with some difficulty and some sympathy.

He said, “There is an order from above that child soldiers are strictly forbidden to be recruited now unless it is war time.”

Chu Ziling, unwilling to give up, begged, “Master, take me. I can do anything, play the hand, serve tea, wash the feet, I just want to take revenge for my family ……”

A ten year old boy was picking at the recruiter’s little table, saying childish things about wanting revenge. The recruiter couldn’t resist and softened up a bit and turned around and went to the camp, looking like he was going to talk to the local chief officer.

Chu Ziling waited outside the camp, full of the belief that he had succeeded.

A reprimand came from far and near.

The recruiter came back in the dust, followed by a big, burly man who, by the way he was dressed, was indeed the chief recruiter.

The man, dark and strong like a wall of towers, looked down at Chu Ziling and said gruffly, “Is that you? Enlisting in the army?”

Chu Ziling held back his fear and nodded once.

He asked, “By which bandits were your parents killed?”

Chu Ziling had come well-prepared and asked the innkeeper which hills were nearby for bandits.

He faltered as he gave the name of Mount Dalian and looked up at the black tower with tears in his eyes, trying to get a little sympathy out of him.

Who would have thought that the next moment he would be pushed away by a large, bushy hand?

As he fell to the ground, a small, simple cloth bag was thrown over him.

The black tower of an officer looked at him coldly: “Boy, you can’t even stand up to a push, and you’re going to kill someone? Go away, don’t be a fool, don’t get involved in adults’ business, go east, find a good house, go work, that’s what you should do.”

There was good-natured laughter from the surrounding crowd.

Chu Ziling, his face red with humiliation, got up and clutched his cloth bag.

He could feel that it contained three days’ worth of dried food, hardened at the bottom, and a few pieces of broken silver.

When food and silver are mixed together, you can imagine how dirty it is.

And he had a thank you to say.

He got up in humiliation and, covered in dust and ashes, carried his cloth sack and headed east.

It was only when he was in the middle of nowhere that Chu Ziling’s pent-up emotions came out.

He swung the sack and smashed it hard against the willow tree to one side until the dried food was in pieces, then he dropped the dirty little sack and went away in annoyance.

Half a month later, he heard from a traveller at a small noodle shop at a side table that the bandits in Dalian Mountain had been exterminated by the Northern Government Army.

He only thought the name of the place sounded familiar, so he had heard it before and did not take it to heart.

It was about two years ago.

He coincidentally met the black tower-like mangler in the northern army.

He was finally transferred from the poor countryside to the main camp, but he was only a minor adjutant in Dingyuan City, and he did not even have a turn to enter the tent for the usual daily deliberations.

He was able to live with the Duke and was valued by him and the General, and was even entitled to sit in on the battle discussions.

He had long since lost sight of himself and even had to salute himself as he passed him by.

This gives Chu Ziling a genuine feeling of pleasure from the bottom of his heart.

Chu Ziling is glad he didn’t join the army in the first place.

To join the army, one had to climb up from the bottom. If he hadn’t been in the general’s army, he might have died in one of the small battles against the bandits, and his life would have been difficult.

Looking back on his journey, Chu Ziling takes a long breath.

He stroked the pendant at his waist, knowing that he was now in a somewhat different frame of mind.

Chu Ziling has been lucky, though not fortunate, in this half of his life.

I’m sure the Wen official will be furious when he hears of this unsuccessful attack and allows the northern army to capture Pei City.

Chu Ziling has a slight headache when he thinks about it.

He has hibernated so far, but still has no real achievements. It was easy to win the trust of the Southlanders with information, and he struck a blow with faith and confidence, but his fist hit the cotton.

Chu Ziling can only imagine what a caustic and critical face the Wen official named Ai Sha would have had.

Having made an alliance with him himself several years ago, he made a pact with him that he would only send letters and not reply to them, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the Duke.

As a precaution, it would be best for him to write to Ai Sha today, after the Prince has gone to bed, to explain the situation.

He didn’t even notice that the tent behind him had been lifted a crack.

Half of Chi Xiaochi’s face flickers through the gap.

Inside the tent.

Chi Xiaochi released the curtain and gingerly walked over to the soft couch and sat down on the footrest.

Lou Ying is reclining on a couch, still holding a book in his hand.

Over the past few days, the two have always kept a somewhat delicate distance.

He turned a page of the book, “Worried?”

As soon as Lou Ying started talking, Chi Xiaochi quietly put his legs down: “…… is worried.”

Chi Xiaochi’s demeanour is much more natural and relaxed when he talks about his mission: “A poisonous snake has been coiled in the ground for seven or eight years, suffering from hunger and starvation, waiting for the right moment to bite a person to death. When he got the chance, he spat out the poison with all his strength, but he didn’t see anyone fall down for half a day. When I looked, damn it, where was he.”

Lou Ying couldn’t help but let out a laugh, “You still have the intention to scare him. It’s obviously a letter without words, and you’ve been reading it for so long.”

Shi Jinghong’s message to Shi Tingyun was conveyed by messenger.

Inside that letter, there was practically no word.

Lou Ying lowered her voice, as if she was afraid Chu Ziling, who was boiling medicine outside, would hear her: “Is General Shi worried that Chu Ziling will open your letter?”

Chi Xiaochi sits closer to facilitate the conversation: “He’s worried too much. Chu Ziling is too cautious to have the guts of such a dog.”

Lou Ying : “In General Shih’s opinion, it must be there.”

Chi Xiaochi laughs, “More or less. After all, when the old man opened the letter, he saw that the seal, the wooden cylinder and the handwriting were all in perfect order, but the top of the letter was blatantly addressed to that Lord Ai Sha, so he must have been quite shocked.”

Thanks to Shi Tingyun’s memory, Chi Xiaochi remembered that Chu Ziling was secretly in contact with a second-ranking Wen official named Ai Sha, and even remembered the location of his residence.

At the time of Shi Tingyun’s imprisonment, he clearly heard talk of Lord Ai Sha’s purchase of a house in one of the west streets of the main southern city, doubling the size of the original residence and how prosperous and glorious it was.

By interfering with geomagnetism, the pigeons that were meant to fly to the southern border went to the Shi Jinghong tent.

The other dove, following Shi Tingyun’s memory, flew to the house of the still depressed second-ranking Wen official in the west street of the main city of the southern border.

Chi Xiaochi was prepared for anything when he was in the carriage.

He wrote on the paper, “Ai Sha, Your Excellency, the matter involved in this letter is so huge that Ziling used a special ink, which is difficult to distinguish with the eye, and it needs to be combined with the fire paint on the small wooden cylinder sent with it in order to reveal its shape.

He also said that all one had to do was to soak the lacquer in hot tea, leave it to melt a little, spray it on the paper with water and wait a few minutes for the writing to appear.

…… is simply a full instruction manual for suicide.

And Chi Xiaochi has no qualms at all about using Shi Tingyun’s handwriting directly.

Lou Ying asked him, “Aren’t you worried that Ai Sha will get suspicious when he reads the handwriting?”

”A man like Chu Ziling would trust no one, be careful of everything, and dig three graves for when he died,” says Chi Xiaochi. Chi Xiaochi said, “He had been Shi Tingyun’s boy for many years, so it was not unusual for him to imitate Shi Tingyun’s handwriting. Even if the letter was discovered, he could claim that he was sending it on Shi Tingyun’s behalf and that Shi Tingyun was trying to seize power by secretly communicating with the southern border. –The Shi family’s army is indeed powerful, and he has left this handwriting in order to make the Shi family split from the royal family.”

Lou Ying lowered his voice again, “If Ai Sha doesn’t spray the water himself but leaves it to his men or entourage ……”

”Who cares who it is, one poisoned hair is enough.” Chi Xiaochi moved closer again, “The hemlock poison will be diluted by the water, and a death by medicine is considered a bad life, a wound by medicine a great life. Sir, if the Southlanders find out that he has poisoned the fire paint, then Chu Ziling, the pawn, will the Southlanders still dare to use him, whether he intentionally betrayed the Southlanders or was detected by his master and his whereabouts revealed?”

”Does he know now?”

Chi Xiaochi shook his head: “My guess is that his letters were sent one way. Besides, the people he chose to contact to avoid the limelight were not important people, and the fact that a second-ranking Wen official had died of poison in his study would not even reach the battlefield, regardless of whether it was Ai Sha, Buyai Ti, Hameti, or Hamabai.”

Lou Ying reminded him, “That last one is not a surname, it’s a swear word.”

Chi Xiaochi : “…… oh.”

Chi Xiaochi added, “I know.”

Lou Ying couldn’t help but smile.

”In any case, he did the poisoning, and he knocked on the poke with his own hands.” Chi Xiaochi stretched out his hands and said, “I only wrote a letter of instruction, I didn’t ask him to harm anyone. It was he, Chu Ziling, who took advantage of the situation and broke his own arm, so what does it have to do with me, Shi Tingyun?”

Lou Ying smiles.

He had understood Chi Xiaochi’s whole plan and managed to hook Chi Xiaochi unknowingly close by with his bass.

Lou Ying reached out and gently rested her hand on his index finger, which he had inadvertently placed on the edge of his couch.

The gesture wasn’t exactly flirtatious, but it made Chi Xiaochi blush.

…… Lou Ying hooks in exactly where he wears his ring.

Demonically, Chi Xiaochi did not withdraw his hand: “Mr. ……”

Lou Ying smiled: “Finally, I’ve got you here.”

Chi Xiaochi’s attitude towards Lou Ying has changed a little since her last successful date.

…… seems to be, not so afraid of him.

He took a small breath and said, “Sir cheat.”

Lou Ying liked his childish tone, “Just get you.”

Chi Xiaochi, sitting on a pedal, tilted his chin: “What will you do when you catch me?”

Lou Ying said, “It’s nothing, I want to watch you.”

Between the two of them, they did not hear the soft knocking on the door outside.

On previous occasions, Yan Yuanheng has visited Shi Tingyun late at night to have tea and a chat, only to be informed that his son had gone to bed with his master.

He thought privately that he could always come earlier today.

Chu Ziling at the door said that the Duke was inside talking to the Duke’s Master and must not have rested yet.

Yan Yuanheng took the book of arms that he had filled with notes, made sure that the props he had prepared for the chat were in order, and groomed himself slightly nervously before raising his hand to knock on the door.

However, after several low calls, there was no answer.

Is …… not available?

But he did hear a low human whisper from within.

Yan Yuanheng lifted the tent curtain and entered, but his eyes froze in place as soon as he turned his head.

Shi Tingyun is sitting on a soft couch, staring at a sickly Wen man in a green shirt, in a very odd atmosphere.

What made him pale was Shi Tingyun’s hand with the man and the flushed side of his face.