Words He Wanted to Send
"Unnie! Eldest sister!"
Bai Jingyan, who had been sunk deep in sleep, felt her lashes tremble as she slowly opened her dry, stiffened eyes.
"Unnie, you scared me half to death!"
Still young, Bai Jinchi could hold it in no longer and burst into tears.
"You just kept crying in your dream, and no matter how we called you, you wouldn't wake up! If you hadn't come around, we were going to fetch Physician Hong all the way from Wengcheng!"
Bai Jinchi's face was so pale it was clear just how badly she'd been frightened.
"Jinchi, I…… I saw the family in my dream."
Bai Jingyan sat up and gently smoothed her sister's hair.
Bai Jinchi bowed her head in grief, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
"I saw him too. I saw Father in my dream as well. He told me to keep you safe! He said you're the one who will raise our Bai family back up!"
Hearing those words, Bai Jingyan felt her throat seize up completely. She opened her mouth, but not a single word would come out; all she could do was lift her hand and wipe the tears from Bai Jinchi's face.
"Unnie! I believe what Father said!"
Bai Jinchi looked up at her, eyes brimming with tears.
"Grandfather always said you were born to be a general! You defeated Xiliang's army of over a hundred thousand with barely fifty thousand men. Where in this world could you find anyone with such brilliance! I swear to you—I will become someone like you! I will be someone who can carry the banner of our Bai Family Army! Not someone who just throws tantrums like I used to, but someone who thinks everything through before she acts!"
Bai Jingyan gazed into her fourth sister's eyes—eyes both resolute and strong. The little sister who should have grown up spoiled in the embrace of her family had matured through the war in the Southern Border, and had become a woman strong enough to shoulder a part of the Bai family's future.
Bai Jingyan nodded.
"I believe in you, Jinchi."
Under his identity as the merchant prince Xiao Rongyan of Wei, Murong Yan crossed openly into Nanyan's borders by carriage. As it happened, it was the first market day of the year in Mengcheng, a city on Nanyan's frontier.
Morning sunlight broke through the clouds and washed the bustling city of Mengcheng in gold.
His caravan rolled into the city over that golden light, and hawkers' cries drifted in from beyond the carriage curtains. Xiao Rongyan lifted the blind and looked out. What met his eyes was a street scene vibrant in a way utterly unlike Great Yan.
In Mengcheng, nobles in splendid silks rubbed shoulders with commoners draped in ragged cloth—and there were even slaves, locked behind iron bars, being sold off like merchandise.
Porters bawled out to the merchants streaming in on horseback, loudly praising the superior quality of their furs and hides.
Peddling vendors who had come early enough to claim the stalls with thatched roofs held their wares high, as if afraid they might be overlooked, singing out their calls to catch the eye of passing customers or the servants of wealthy households.
A married woman with a basket slung over her arm haggled with a flushed face, determined to shave off even a single copper.
The whole place was thick with the smell of human life. It was a prosperity that could no longer be found anywhere in Great Yan, and it stirred something close to envy in him.
Dressed in a plain martial robe, Xiao Rongyan stepped down from the carriage and began to walk at a leisurely pace. The dozen or so sword-bearing guards trailing at his side made for a conspicuous sight.
The owner of a shop selling rare curiosities rarely seen in a border city wanted to approach and show off his pearls and jewels, but he feared the armed guards at Xiao Rongyan's side.
Xiao Rongyan walked slowly forward. Wherever he paused, if something caught his eye, he bought out the shop's entire stock on the spot.
Watching him spend money so lavishly, the townspeople seemed to lose some of their fear of the armed guards trailing behind him. From behind the protective wall of guards, they lifted their goods high and shouted for the young lord to come take a look.
Even the slave traders could not hold back, crowding forward to raise their voices.
"Young master, won't you buy a few slave girls? Very young, very fresh!"
Nanyan still maintained Great Yan's old institutions rather than the new policies of its emperor. Slave markets flourished unchecked, and nowhere more rampantly than in the border cities.
A small child with an iron chain around its neck caught the eye of a master passing by. The man tossed a few silver ingots to the trader and moved to drag the child away as if it were nothing more than a sack of goods.
A woman caged behind the iron bars began to wail, screaming in the dialect of Jin's borderlands. Beating the bars with bloodied hands, she begged the trader to buy her as well, sobbed that she could not live apart from her child—but the only answer she received was a whip that tore flesh from her back. Weeping, the woman could do nothing but watch as her child, screaming like an animal, was dragged off.
As Xiao Rongyan approached the slave-trading quarter, the slavers suddenly put on kindly expressions and began touting their wares.
"Young master, look at this one! My slaves are strong and healthy!"
One slaver dragged along a tall, strapping slave, matching Xiao Rongyan's stride and shouting across the line of guards.
"Young master, buy this fellow and you'll have yourself a dependable worker! There's nothing he doesn't know how to do!"
Another clutched a slave girl and bellowed even louder.
"Young master! Young master! My girls are beautiful! They look rough now, but buy them and scrub them clean, and they'll be fine! Best of all, this one's still a maiden! Keep her as a maid at your side, or take her as a chamber servant—either way, a bargain!"
"This one here is the finest grade of all! Young master, all my slaves are young! Raise them with a firm hand and they'll be useful everywhere! Whatever you command, they'll do it, no questions!"
Xiao Rongyan listened carefully to the voices of the slaves behind the iron bars. Every one of them had come from Jin or Great Yan.
The slaves from Great Yan were mostly sallow-skinned and gaunt, without a flicker of life left in their faces. The ones from Jin wept ceaselessly, pleading with the slavers to let them go.
With the combined armies of Nanyan and Xiliang attacking Jin, disaster had clearly befallen Jin's border people.
Great Yan had suffered terrible famines the previous year, leaving its people starving. Many had sold themselves—or been sold—to the slavers, thinking that at least as slaves they might get a mouthful of rice.
Xiao Rongyan passed straight through the slave market and headed for the horse-trading quarter. Only then did the slavers relax and shuffle back to their posts.
Even from a distance, a single white horse stood out. Powerfully built, it was so fierce that it seemed utterly untamed. The animal lifted its hooves high and circled its spot again and again, so violently that even the man selling it could not bring it under control.
A would-be buyer had seized its reins, only for the horse to wrench its head away with all its strength, sending the man tumbling backward into the wooden pen—where he landed hand-first in a fresh pile of steaming horse dung.
Face darkening with fury, he glared up at the wild beast. Too enraged to endure it, he wiped the dung from his hand, shook his head, and waved the horse off, muttering stubbornly that he wanted no part of it as he stalked away.
The horse trader then approached his next customer with a beaming face.
"My lord, won't you look at some other horses? The others are sturdy and gentle, truly! Look here—just see these teeth, this conformation! There's no horse in this whole market as good and as cheap as mine! I'll give you a fine price!"
"Never mind. I'll look elsewhere."
Having failed to hook a customer, the trader vented his frustration by lashing the white horse with his whip. Stung, the horse reared its front legs high and snorted fire through its nostrils, nearly uprooting the post to which its reins were tied.
At the sight of the horse, Xiao Rongyan found himself thinking of Jin Feng, the steed Bai Jingyan had ridden years ago—a name seemingly drawn from the phrase for wind-swift lightning, a rare treasure of a horse. He'd heard that Jin Feng had died saving her, and that since then, she had never raised another horse.
"You beast! You cursed beast! How many customers have you chased off already? If I can't sell you today, I swear I'll slaughter you and eat you for dinner!"
the trader snarled at the white horse.
"Every horse here. I'll take them all."
It was then that Xiao Rongyan spoke.
The trader turned his head. A nobleman, flawless and clear as jade, stood with the morning sun at his back, smiling gently as he addressed him.
One of the guards behind Xiao Rongyan stepped forward, tossed a money pouch to the trader, and asked,
"Will this cover it?"
The trader took one look at the heavy pouch and nodded again and again.
"More than enough! More than enough, my lord! Of course it's enough! It's just…… this white horse is terribly fierce, you see—"
"No matter. I have taken a liking to this white horse."
As he spoke, Xiao Rongyan stepped close to the animal. He raised his hand carefully, meaning to stroke its mane—but the horse backed away two paces and blew hot breath straight at him, its powerful muscles bunching tight in fierce refusal.
Xiao Rongyan's smile only deepened. A remarkably spirited animal, indeed.
He had no wish to tame this horse. He simply felt that it suited Bai Jingyan perfectly.
Withdrawing the hand he'd raised to pet it, Xiao Rongyan turned to his guards.
"Send someone to deliver this white horse to Eldest Miss Bai at Tianmenguan."
The guard flinched in surprise. Xiao Rongyan was besotted with the Bai family's fourth young miss—was he trying to curry favor with her elder sister?
Letting out a silent sigh, the guard nodded.
"I will send this horse to Eldest Miss Bai at once. Do you have a message for her?"
'A message?'
Xiao Rongyan gazed into the white horse's clear eyes—eyes like water freshly washed by rain—and fell briefly into thought.
"Tell her…… thank you for taking care of me all this way."
Xiao Rongyan had traveled from Qufeng with Jin's expeditionary army. All the way until their parting, Bai Jingyan had never once revealed his identity to the Crown Prince. If that wasn't looking after him every step of the way, what was?
Even if Bai Jingyan truly had exposed him to the Crown Prince, he had ways of smoothing things over—but she had chosen not to.
"Is there…… anything else you'd like to send to the fourth young miss?"
the guard asked carefully, as if testing the waters.
Xiao Rongyan turned his head, gave the guard—who stood there with a knowing look on his face—one long glance, then arched an eyebrow.
"Then tell her to take good care of Eldest Miss Bai for me."
"……"
'Has he gotten the message backwards?'
Xiao Rongyan stared at the pure white steed, thought for a moment, then spoke again.
"No. I'll write a letter to Eldest Miss Bai myself."
Xiliang's great army had met crushing defeat. Having lost an army of over a hundred thousand in a single night, Yun Paxing had now lost his son and grandson besides. His rage boiled over; after vomiting blood, he had yet to regain consciousness.
Utterly terror-stricken, the Xiliang army could not even linger in Fengcheng. They detoured around the ruined city and fell back toward Camel Valley—but no sooner had they begun to pitch camp than they caught sight of the Bai Family Army's black silk and White Python Banner drawing steadily nearer, and fled in haste all the way to the border line.
The Nanyan forces, retreating at a snail's pace toward Yaoguan Pass, soon heard the news: the Xiliang army had bolted like a whipped dog all the way back to the border between Xiliang and Jin. Zhang Tiansheng, Nanyan's marshal, instead ordered his great army to encamp at Fengming Mountain, not far from Yaoguan Pass.
Having marched out at such expense and effort, Zhang Tiansheng could not bring himself to return empty-handed. He needed to wait a little longer. The moment Jin's great army chased after the fleeing Xiliang forces, he meant to seize Fengcheng and claw something—anything—out of Jin. At the very least, he intended to recoup his military expenditures.
But before he could act on the plan, the moment darkness fell, word arrived from Yaoguan Pass: the winter grain and baggage trains that Zhang Tiansheng's own son had been escorting to the Nanyan army had been plundered—by the Bai Family Army.