Submission
Burned them to death... to think she would resort to such a cruel method!
When the Zhenguo King had led the Bai Family Army, there had never once been an act of arson or plunder. He had never put a captured city to the sword, much less executed surrendered soldiers—a man whose name was synonymous with benevolence and virtue.
Yet Bai Jingyan, for all that she was a descendant of the Bai clan, stood in complete opposition to the virtuous reputation of Bai Weiting, the Zhenguo King. They did say, after all, that nothing in this world was more venomous than a woman's heart. Liu Yushi had no wish to stand shoulder to shoulder with such a vicious creature.
At Liu Yushi's attitude toward Bai Jingyan, Bai Jinchi's temper flared and she shot him a withering glare. If the Crown Prince hadn't been standing there, she would surely have taught that pedant a lesson with her whip!
What is he so proud of, acting all high and mighty in front of Elder Sister? If Elder Sister hadn't marched out to war, he would never even have had the pretext of being an envoy of the victorious nation to come strutting about like this!
The Crown Prince glanced sideways at Liu Yushi, his brows beginning to rise—until his eyes met Advisor Fang's. Then, all smiles, he spoke to Bai Jingyan.
"General Bai will be eager to read her letter as well, so let us return to camp without delay. Once you've had a moment to rest, we shall receive Xiliang's envoy for the peace talks."
Bai Jingyan answered with a cupped-fist salute.
Li Zhijie, the Prince of Yan of Xiliang, had pressed the Crown Prince of Jin more than once to come to Chuishanguan and attend a banquet, and his intent was plain to see: to bind the Crown Prince and the Xiliang Princess Li Tianfu together, and place Li Tianfu into the Crown Prince's household.
After long deliberation, the Crown Prince had settled on meeting the Prince of Yan and the Princess at a point midway between Yuhuaduo and Chuishanguan—and that was what had brought him to Yuhuaduo today.
Zhan Yu steadied the Crown Prince as he boarded his carriage, but the Crown Prince waved Advisor Fang up into the carriage after him.
Mounted at the very head of the procession, shielding the Crown Prince's party from the front, Bai Jingyan led the way to Yuhuaduo in commanding style.
Inside the carriage, the Crown Prince leaned against a cushion and looked at Advisor Fang, smiling.
"As expected, Advisor Fang—your proposal seems to have done its work. Liu Yushi, who used to fawn over the Bai family, didn't show Bai Jingyan a shred of courtesy today!"
"Of course not!"
Advisor Fang nodded, all smiles.
"It is Your Highness's decisiveness that made it possible—every bit of it owed to Your Highness's wisdom! How else would the epithet Slaughter God have spread across the realm at such speed? Once word that Bai Jingyan burned the surrendered soldiers alive reaches the capital of Dadu, the Confucian scholars of the court and every learned subject will come to resent the Bai clan. Even if Bai Jingyan withdraws to Suyang and makes a show of renouncing power, she will not be able to turn the tide. The standing the Bai family has built on a century of benevolence may not crumble entirely at her hands, but it will certainly take a heavy blow."
His mood much improved, the Crown Prince nodded.
"If I defend the Bai family even in a moment like this, Bai Jingyan will repay me with the deepest loyalty. It is because you have stood at my side setting out plans like these, Advisor Fang, that I have come as far as I have!"
Liu Yushi had also brought with him a secret letter from the Emperor of Great Jin to the Crown Prince. In it, the Emperor wrote that ever since ascending to the position of Crown Prince, he had grown far more measured and handled affairs with clean efficiency, and that he hoped he would continue to keep Bai Jingyan firmly in hand.
The Crown Prince had seldom earned his father's praise in all his young years. He read the secret letter over and over, quite unable to contain his delight.
At the Crown Prince's words, Advisor Fang knelt there in the carriage, tears welling in both eyes and his whole frame trembling. The tears finally spilled over, and he bowed his head low.
"It is because Your Highness has trusted this old man that I have been free to give my abilities full play! Your Highness is my Bo Le, the discerning eye who knows a fine steed at a glance!"
"Rise, Advisor Fang—rise at once!"
The Crown Prince helped Advisor Fang up and settled him back into his seat.
"What need have we for such words between us!"
Seated once more, Advisor Fang pressed on.
"But Your Highness—if we mean to bring down the Bai family's prestige, the tale of Bai Jingyan burning the surrendered troops must be spread far wider! Only then will the people see what a venomous heart beats in the descendant of Zhenguo King Bai Weiting—and only then will the Bai family's authority no longer be able to weigh down upon Your benevolent Majesty and Your Highness the Crown Prince!"
While the Crown Prince turned the matter over in his mind, Advisor Fang added one more word.
"Once that is done, the Bai family will turn on Bai Jingyan themselves, blaming her for staining the clan's good name. And once her reputation is thoroughly blackened, the killing of those surrendered soldiers will remain a buried blade, drawing censure again and again. Yet even then, if Your Highness keeps her close, Bai Jingyan will trust and follow Your Highness all the more deeply."
The Crown Prince nodded.
"Advisor Fang speaks wisely. That is exactly what we shall do!"
"And there is the matter of the Bai Family Army."
Advisor Fang stroked his beard and continued slowly.
"It would be best to leave the Bai Family Army at Yuhuaduo, and once the peace talks with Xiliang conclude, to send them to garrison the lands Xiliang has ceded. Bai Jingyan will be in Suyang, and the Bai Family Army on some far-flung frontier—neither will pose any great threat to His Majesty or to Your Highness."
The Crown Prince came to the Jin camp at Yuhuaduo and, as he made his rounds, discussed with his commanders who should accompany him to the banquet at the midpoint between Yuhuaduo and Chuishanguan.
Shi Panshan answered without a moment's thought, laughing.
"Why, General Bai must go with Your Highness, of course! With General Bai standing there, the Xiliang envoys will lose their nerve—and wouldn't that be all the better for Great Jin!"
The Crown Prince nodded and looked at Bai Jingyan with a smile.
"Though I wonder—would General Bai be willing to suffer the hardship of accompanying me?"
"If it is the Crown Prince's command, Bai Jingyan will naturally submit."
Bai Jingyan replied with a cupped-fist salute.
His spirits lifting further still, the Crown Prince said with a laugh.
"Then return to your barracks at once and make ready, General Bai—you shall come on to the banquet with Lord Liu and myself! General Zhang Danyue and his men can see to the camp inspection!"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
With her answer given, Bai Jingyan took Bai Jinchi and withdrew.
The moment she stepped into the barracks, Bai Jingyan tore open the letter Bai Jinxiu had sent. Even if the Crown Prince had already seen its contents, she was impatient to read it for herself.
Bai Jinchi came up close beside her and asked.
"What did Second Sister say?"
Bai Jingyan skimmed the letter quickly and took in the gist of it.
She had been worried that once the rumors of the Slaughter God reached Dadu, her mother and aunts would reproach her for it. But Bai Jinxiu's letter held only word that the Bai family was safe and sound.
More than that, the affair of the Zhongyong Marquis's household had been concluded, and Bai Jinxiu was two months with child. It seemed she had conceived on the very day of the wedding. The child had shared her life and death and still lived on in her womb, Bai Jinxiu wrote—surely a sturdy little thing.
"Oh my! Second Sister is pregnant?"
Bai Jinchi's voice rose with delight.
"Does that make me a fourth aunt now?"
Bai Jingyan turned to look at her beaming sister and nodded with a smile.
"That's right—you'll be an aunt before long. Once we're back in Dadu, you can start planning the pretty clothes and shoes you'll make for the little one."
"Sister, don't tell me you're setting me up to fail! Look at these hands of mine—what part of this says needlework to you?"
Laughing, Bai Jinchi held out both hands, joy brimming at the corners of her eyes.
"But I can teach my little nephew or niece to ride! And how to handle a whip! Every martial art there is—I'll teach them all!"
Bai Jingyan nodded, smiling.
What splendid news. Bai Jinxiu was with child, and Bai Qingjue still lived! If Bai Qingyun too was safe and sound, then heaven truly was watching over them.
Either way, everything was moving in a good direction. So long as her infamous name brought no harm to the Bai family, she had no intention of letting it trouble her.
After rejoicing a good while, Bai Jinchi recalled Liu Yushi's manner toward Bai Jingyan earlier that day and asked.
"Sister, we've won this war. The Crown Prince will likely tell us to return to Dadu along with the Xiliang peace envoy—will he take the Bai Family Army back to Dadu as well?"
To think Jinchi had an eye for such matters now. Bai Jingyan answered with a smile.
"The Emperor and the Crown Prince will never allow us to bring the Bai Family Army home. More than that—they may well order it to garrison the territory Xiliang has ceded."
The Bai family's fortunes rested on the Bai Family Army. If the army could not return with them...
"Then what do we do?"
Bai Jinchi asked, her brow furrowed.
"It's just as well if they don't come back. That happens to be exactly what I want."
Bai Jingyan reached out and ruffled Bai Jinchi's hair.
"Don't worry. I have it all thought out."
There was much Bai Jinchi could not make sense of, but if her eldest sister said she had it all thought out, she would worry no more.
In the early evening, Bai Jingyan, Zhang Danyue, and Liu Yushi led a body of soldiers, escorting the Crown Prince toward a spot somewhere between Yuhuaduo and Chuishanguan.
Li Zhijie, the Prince of Yan of Xiliang, wore a pale violet robe with a black cloak draped over it, an iron-ribbed folding fan in hand. He stood outside a tent—temporary, yet exceedingly lavish—awaiting the Crown Prince of Jin.
He watched the rider approaching at the very front of the column. At the sight of Bai Jingyan in silver armor, the Red-Tasseled Spear in one hand, he narrowed his phoenix eyes, lovely with the flush of peach blossom, then turned his head to the advisor standing at his side.
"Silver armor, a silver spear, the Sun-Shooting Bow. Is that person the Slaughter God, the Little White Marshal?"
Li Zhijie's advisor looked a little past twenty, his clean, beardless face refined and fair. He had been standing quietly behind Li Zhijie; at the question, he lifted his head to gaze into the distance, then lowered it again, stepped forward, and answered.
"It is the Little White Marshal."
Though the advisor wore the ordinary men's dress of Xiliang, his every movement and bearing—deferential yet careful—marked him unmistakably as a palace attendant.
Li Zhijie nodded, a cold smile curling the corners of his mouth.
"She's thinner and gaunter than I imagined! Even if she is the enemy who slew your father, this time it is our Xiliang that must lower its head. So mind yourself, Atuo—do not let your feelings run away with you."
The advisor called Atuo nodded and smiled.
"Rest assured, Wangye. That will not happen."
The advisor called Atuo was the adopted son of Fang Pingguo, Great General of Shu; his name was Liu Chentuo. Fang Pingguo had been like a benefactor to him.
Fang Pingguo had been beheaded at Bai Jingyan's hands, and Shu had since set itself upon the road to ruin. Carrying a heart heavy with grief and fury, Liu Chentuo had wandered into Xiliang, and after trials of every kind had castrated himself and entered the palace, where he came to attend Princess Li Tianfu. Then, by chance, he caught Li Zhijie's eye, became his advisor, and assisted him ever since.
For Liu Chentuo, who had come so far, so painfully, in a castrated body, there was but one wish left: vengeance for his adoptive father Fang Pingguo, and for Shu. That Xiliang had joined hands with Nanyan to attack Jin had owed much to his goading.
He had traveled from court to court, threading connections for Xiliang. Through the tie between the Prince of Nanyan's wife and Liu Huanzhang's wife, he had come to know Liu Huanzhang as well—and he was the very architect of Liu Huanzhang's becoming a spy for Nanyan.
Of course, Liu Chentuo knew the truth: that every man of the Bai family had been wiped out in this Southern Border war was the tangled fruit of many hands—Jin's internal strife, the schemes of rival states, the suspicions of doubtful sovereigns—and by no means his ability alone.
"If the Crown Prince of Jin falls so hard for the Princess's beauty that he asks to take her of his own accord, nothing could please me more..." Li Zhijie mused.
Liu Chentuo lowered his gaze further still. Hands clasped behind his back, he clenched them into tight fists.