Outstanding Talent
At the thought of Bai Bu, who had cherished her like his own daughter, Bai Jinchi's eyes turned red. She nodded.
"Thank you, sister. And thank you, Bai Bu. Then I won't refuse!"
"If Bai Bu could see you taming Ping'an, he'd be overjoyed."
Bai Jingyan gazed at her young sister with a smile.
Taming a horse and being accepted as its master were, without question, two entirely different things.
A tamed horse could be worked as one pleased, but it would never give its whole heart. A horse that accepted someone as its master, however, would guard that master with its very life, swift as the wind. Bai Jingyan thought it would be good for Bai Jinchi to have a horse she could ride beside her into war — then, perhaps, her sister's safety would be a little more assured.
"Don't worry, sister! Within three days, I'll make Ping'an accept me as his master — I swear it!"
Bai Jinchi vowed.
"I believe you."
Bai Jinchi looked into Bai Jingyan's shining eyes. Every time her sister told her she believed in her, her heart swelled. No one had ever told her they believed in her before!
So every time her sister said she believed, she wanted to deliver results and show her. She didn't think that simply saying the words meant her elder sister truly trusted her every time. She didn't want to disappoint her. And she didn't want to be a burden on her mind.
Xiao Rongyan's guard was eager to return to Mengcheng and deliver the words that the Eldest Young Miss Bai had entrusted to him.
When word came that the guard sent to carry a message to Bai Jingyan had returned, Xiao Rongyan had the map put away, then sat down before the brazier and bade the guard enter.
"Greetings to my lord!"
The guard came in carrying the cold air of the night with him, sank to one knee, and bowed.
Xiao Rongyan stirred the charcoal in the brazier with a pair of tongs, eyes lowered.
"Did the message and the letter reach her?"
"Yes, my lord. They were delivered. The Eldest Young Miss Bai read the letter, then burned it before my eyes."
The guard answered.
Xiao Rongyan watched the red silver charcoal crumbling to ash in the brazier, and the corner of his mouth lifted faintly. He judged that Bai Jingyan had recognized the letter as being in his own hand, and had burned it deliberately in front of the guard to put his mind at ease.
"What did she say?"
"She asked whether my lord wanted anything from her. There was no anger in it, nor mockery — it sounded like an ordinary question. I did not deny it; I answered that my lord had said nothing on that count."
The guard paused, then went on.
"And then… as I was about to withdraw, she spoke further. She said that to reclaim Southern Yan, winning the war alone would not be enough. She said Southern Yan has clung to Great Yan's antiquated institutions, and for over a decade its people have lived as the oxen and horses of their king and lords. A life of ease, once tasted, is far harder to give up again — so the people of Southern Yan, having once known the benevolent governance of Marquis Xi, must be nursing no small measure of resentment toward their court!"
The guard relayed Bai Jingyan's words to Xiao Rongyan without missing a single syllable.
Xiao Rongyan's hand with the tongs stopped moving. He turned her words over in his mind, then narrowed his eyes. She was telling him to use the hearts of the people.
In an instant, he was back on that New Year's Eve night in the capital of Dadu. The people of Dadu had gathered of their own accord before the gates of the Zhenguo Duke Estate, waiting alongside the Bai family for news from within the palace.
When the bodies of the Zhenguo Duke Estate were brought back to Dadu, the people had all poured from their homes, carrying lanterns and umbrellas, to receive the loyal souls of the Bai clan at the south gate.
Xiao Rongyan gazed at the flame flickering its tongue inside the brazier. If rumors were spread in advance to prepare Southern Yan, then even in these chaotic times — could Great Yan's meager forces take Southern Yan?
His guard knelt quietly to one side. After a long while, Xiao Rongyan gave his next order.
"Bring Wang Qiuzhou to me."
His lord was summoning Lord Wang — so he had made up his mind.
The guard answered and went to fetch him.
Wang Qiuzhou hurried into the room. In the depths of Xiao Rongyan's fathomless eyes there was not the slightest ripple. His gaze held only a cold, quiet chill.
"When does the Mengcheng market close?"
"My lord, it will run two more days besides today."
Wang Qiuzhou answered respectfully.
"Send men to spread a rumor through the streets for those two days — from the marketplace all the way to Southern Yan's capital — that Great Yan's army will invade Southern Yan."
Xiao Rongyan dropped a few more pieces of charcoal into the brazier and set down the tongs.
"Spread it alongside word that Great Yan's Emperor has given his soldiers strict orders never to harm the people. Say that the purpose of this war is to drag down a Southern Yan emperor who has no right to his throne and restore a whole and undivided Great Yan; that the institutions Marquis Xi abolished — Great Yan's outdated system — will be torn down, Great Yan set back upon its true course, and welfare provided for the people."
The marketplace of Mengcheng was the loudest, most crowded place for miles. He meant to borrow all these mouths to carry the rumor far and wide.
Wang Qiuzhou grasped Xiao Rongyan's intent at once and nodded.
"My lord, leave it to me — it will be handled properly. Have no worry!"
Xiao Rongyan nodded back.
Once Wang Qiuzhou had gone, the light in Xiao Rongyan's eyes, seated before the brazier, deepened a shade. Never once had he thought to make use of public sentiment.
It was worth trying. If Bai Jingyan's method truly worked, Great Yan could keep its losses of troops to a minimum.
But if it truly worked, he would owe Bai Jingyan yet another towering debt — and what, this time, would he repay it with…
At that thought, a faint smile crept unbidden to the corner of Xiao Rongyan's eyes.
The next evening, in the early dusk before darkness had fully settled, yellow lanterns were hung high outside the shops of the Mengcheng marketplace.
Warm light wreathed the town, and the crowds pressed in, bustling and loud. Children's laughter rang out, shopkeepers cried their wares without pause. It was noisy and chaotic — yet it was the kind of noise that set a heart at ease.
Xiao Rongyan was due to enter Southern Yan's capital early the next morning, so tonight he had come out to see the market.
He had arrived with great fanfare and toured the market grandly besides; word had already spread that he was one of the market's big spenders, and the sharp-eyed merchants, recognizing him, lifted their goods high and pressed close.
On the first day, Xiao Rongyan's attention had been captured by the white horse, and he had not managed to see the slave quarter. Today, then, he had made a point of going there.
When he arrived at the slave market under the protection of blade-bearing guards, the largest slave dealer in the market was dragging along a girl whose hair hung in wild tangles, standing up on a raised platform and shouting to the crowd.
"This girl may look a sorry sight, but look at the clothes she wears — she's clearly the daughter of some wealthy house of Jin! Her skin must be fine as well. Take her home, teach her properly, and you'll enjoy years of pleasure from her!"
Before the slave dealer's voice had even faded, a man who had come to watch called out loudly from among the crowd.
"She's dressed in that many layers — how would anyone know if her skin's fine or not? Strip her and show us! Let us touch her, then we'll know for ourselves whether the skin's truly fine!"
A woman likewise come to gawk frowned, muttered under her breath, and walked away.
The girl, held by the nape in the dealer's grip, shook all over and hugged her arms tight around herself. Her face had gone deathly white. If they truly stripped her before all these people, if they laid their hands upon her body, she would not be able to go on living. She thrashed, trying to break free.
"Let go of me! Kill me instead! Don't you dare shame me!"
She wept and refused the humiliation in the standard tongue of Jin — so she really did seem to be the young miss of a wealthy house.
The more piteously the child above wept, the more gleeful the onlookers below grew.
"Touching her we can't allow! But showing her properly, that we can do!"
The slave dealer moved to tear the girl's clothes — and then, as though something had bitten him, he snatched his hand back. He glanced left and right as if he'd seen a ghost. In the moment his eyes had wandered, the girl had slipped from his grasp and was about to dash her head against a pillar; fortunately, two laborers working under the dealer yanked her back at once.
The dealer bowed his head and looked down at his hand, swollen up like a loaf. A ghost?
"Oi! Are you showing her or not?"
One of the men bellowed.
"If I show her, will you buy her?"
The dealer asked with a grin.
The man shoved both hands into his sleeves, his ears burning red, and buried himself in the crowd. He'd only wanted a free show for his eyes — if he had money to buy a slave, he'd sooner spend it in a pleasure house.
The girl only kept weeping, begging to be killed rather than shamed.
The wealthy household matrons who had taken an interest in the girl speaking such refined Jin watched her try to end her own life and gave up any thought of buying her. If she only went home to die, it would be as good as throwing their silver away.
Xiao Rongyan stood some distance off, looking toward the wooden platform stacked high with planks. A small stone lay close by the slave dealer's feet. Then Xiao Rongyan turned his gaze to the iron cage behind the dealer.
The cage stood in shadow. Inside, a boy in tattered clothes sat cross-legged. He did not look to be very old — perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Sitting as upright and steadfast as a pine, he gave off the air of a young master from a great house.
Perhaps he sensed that someone was watching him, for the boy lifted his head.
Xiao Rongyan narrowed his eyes. The eyes were familiar. Deep and utterly calm — and having struck the dealer's hand with a stone, the boy clearly had respectable martial skill. Why, then, was he penned up here like this?
Could his family have been poor, and sold him off?
But look at him — sitting so composed inside that iron cage, meeting Xiao Rongyan's gaze without a flicker of fear. Where in that boy was there anything of a poor household? And at fifteen or sixteen, he was already a strong pair of hands — unlike a child of three or four, he was labor of the finest kind.
Xiao Rongyan weighed it briefly, then called over Wang Qiuzhou, who stood beside him.
Wang Qiuzhou nodded, threaded his way through the crowd to the slave dealer, pointed at the iron cage, and said he wished to buy the cross-legged boy.
At those words the dealer began bowing and scraping at once.
"You've a good eye, sir! That one's a soldier of Jin I picked up on the road — strong as an ox, and he'll do any rough work you set him to! Though he does cost a bit more!"
Wang Qiuzhou smiled, drew a money pouch from his sleeve, and tossed it to the dealer.
"That should cover the Jin soldier and that Jin young miss over there as well. Enough?"
The dealer opened the pouch, and his smile split so wide his eyes nearly disappeared. Bowing even lower than before, he answered.
"Oh yes! Yes indeed! More than enough! You've paid far too generously — my conscience wouldn't sit right. Pick out two more slaves to take with you!"
The dealer began introducing the slaves he had in his keeping, but Wang Qiuzhou cut in with a smile.
"No need. These two will do! My master is waiting, and it's not as though the choice is mine to make anyway!"
Only then did the dealer nod again and again, pulling out the young miss from before and the boy from the iron cage and handing them over to Wang Qiuzhou.
Before leaving, the boy bowed to the slave dealer. Whatever the man's motive in saving him, the fact remained that he had saved his life, and that deserved gratitude. He had fallen into the Jinghe River, its waters cold enough to pierce bone — had the dealer not spared him, he would surely have frozen to death.
The dealer stood dumbfounded for a long while; never before had a man he'd sold come back to thank him. By the time he came to his senses, the boy was already gone with that household's steward.