We Can't Very Well Spoil the Fun
However highly Li Zhijie might think of Bai Jingyan's beauty, the fact remained that in this summit between two nations, Bai Jingyan had maligned the dignity of Xiliang. No one could sit silently while their mother country was insulted. The dignity of a princess as an individual was one thing — but the dignity of a nation could never, under any circumstances, be trampled.
Li Zhijie's face went livid, then drained white — it was beyond words. Unable to hold his smiling mask a moment longer, he stared hard at Bai Jingyan before speaking to the Crown Prince.
"Your Highness, though the Princess was indeed the first to behave rudely, your General Bai is at this moment insulting our Xiliang. General Bai is, after all, one who delights in slaughter — it seems the notion of a diplomatic summit means nothing to her."
The Crown Prince clenched his fists, thinking he would have to defuse the taut atmosphere. But before he could open his mouth, Bai Jingyan spoke first.
"An insult, you say? I merely stated facts. Is the truth an insult? Then tell me, Prince of Yan — which part of what I, Bai Jingyan, said was a lie? How curious that the words from your mouth are precisely the same words your Pillar State General Yun Paxing uses. Don't tell me declaring facts is a Xiliang tradition they call insult?"
Li Zhijie turned his head toward the Crown Prince and summoned his smile once more.
"Your Highness, it appears General Bai has no interest in these talks. I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter."
Bai Jingyan looked at Li Zhijie and curled her lips in cold contempt. Then, in a voice heavy as iron, she pressed on without pause, leaving the Crown Prince no chance to interject.
"You speak truly. I want nothing to do with these talks! This is a war Xiliang started! You carry a wolf's heart but a mouse's gall — that is why you dragged Nanyan into it to swell your courage, is it not? Desperate to carve up our Great Jin between you by any means! And now, even in defeat, you sit there with such brazen faces and ask us to stop the war? So this is the shameless nation you've always been? And where in this world, pray tell, is there any good that serves Xiliang alone?
Xiliang and Nanyan forged their alliance and pushed in with overwhelming force, and our Jin lacked the strength! Did it never occur to you then that Xiliang was heaping an enormous humiliation upon our Great Jin? Why did you not cry out to stop the war back then?"
Bai Jingyan swept the pale-faced Xiliang envoys with a blade-sharp gaze.
"No one knows better than Xiliang that in an age of chaos, only the strong earn the right to respect! Now that Great Jin has won the war with a small force, do you pretend not to understand that principle? Do you truly intend to haggle over face and discuss humiliation — here, at this table?"
Though Liu Yushi had been deeply displeased by Bai Jingyan's killing of the surrendered soldiers, as one of Great Jin's envoys he was duty-bound to defend the dignity of Jin. Casting a cold smile, he lent his words to hers.
"Xiliang knows full well what it has done, yet plays ignorant to protect a scrap of petty pride? It seems you have forgotten something. Face is, by its very nature, something others must grant you. When it is offered, receive it graciously — if you insist on flushing red and baring your teeth instead, you may well be hurt badly. And once you're hurt, who is there to blame?"
This was, after all, the nature of a summit between nations — to talk until some decision favorable to one's country could be wrung from the table. And countless such summits had dissolved into nothing when the parties flushed red over their positions and refused to budge.
Li Zhijie had intended to conduct the talks amicably and see them through to a clean conclusion. That was the best look for everyone. But the impatient Li Tianfu had thrown a tantrum and ruined everything. If it came to this, the embarrassment and the difficulty belonged to Xiliang alone — for it was Xiliang, this time, who had bowed its head and requested the talks.
Seeing the Crown Prince of Jin sitting silently on his high seat with no apparent intention of mediating, Li Zhijie had no choice but to speak.
"It was war, was it not? People die, cities are taken — such things cannot be helped…"
"It is true our Jin has fought wars with many nations. But we have never once taken a single city from any of them."
Zhang Danyue raised his head with a cupped-fist salute and asked,
"Did the Prince of Yan just call that 'cannot be helped'? Does that remark not strike you as going a little too far?"
"General Bai burned every one of our surrendered soldiers to death! Our Pillar State General suffered grave wounds, and his son had his head cut off by the General Bai's men. His grandson was killed by General Bai's arrows. Therefore…"
The Xiliang envoy, on the verge of saying surely that balances the scales, remembered that every son of the Bai family was dead, and changed his words.
"Therefore, it might as well be counted as punishment received."
"Punishment received?"
Li Tianfu flew into a rage. It felt as though the blood rushed to her temples. She glared at the Xiliang envoy with her two lovely eyes.
"Are you all mad? Or did a horse's hoof crack your skulls open? Are you actually Xiliang's ministers or not? If you insist on speaking from Jin's side of the table, then go collect your salary from Jin! Bai Jingyan killed more than a hundred thousand of Xiliang's surrendered troops. They say the fires in Wengshan Canyon burned unbroken for a full fortnight! So does that mean Jin owes Xiliang an apology for it too? Then end this summit right here. Send someone else who actually wants this amity — because I will never go. Not in a thousand years."
"Your Highness the Princess!"
Li Zhijie, realizing he could no longer control the spoiled Li Tianfu of his childhood, seized her wrist in a crushing grip.
"Do not forget what the Empress Dowager and His Majesty charged you with before you left on this journey."
On that wavering throne sat an empress regnant — and Xiliang could not afford to fight a war now.
Watching this, Liu Yushi set down his wine cup, straightened his back, and spoke with perfect courtesy.
"Very well! Since Xiliang has the courage to wage war once more, our Jin can hardly refuse the invitation!"
A faint smile crept onto the corners of Bai Jingyan's lips. A clear light sparkled in her eyes.
"In that case, I, Bai Jingyan, will personally lead an army all the way to Yunjing in Xiliang, so that I may pay my respects to Her Highness the Princess of Pyeongyang."
"Why, you… you insufferable…!"
Never in her life had Li Tianfu been so thoroughly crushed in a war of words. Her eyes stung with fury.
"Is there anyone under heaven who does not know that the King of Zhenguo won glorious merit in battle, and that he possessed a benevolent heart? Above all, he was known as a man of extraordinary humility. As a descendant of the King of Zhenguo, General Bai should inherit his bearing and his bone — why, then, does she love war so?"
Discontent rippled through the Xiliang envoys.
"So it seems Xiliang does not enjoy war."
Liu Yushi turned slowly and looked into the eyes of the envoy who had just spoken. Though his features were strikingly handsome, the upward slant at the corners of his eyes made his face, when hardened, a rather fearsome thing to behold.
"If you dislike war so very much, why did you ally with Nanyan and invade our Great Jin's territory without provocation?"
Liu Yushi laughed aloud and pressed on.
"You marched all the way into our Jin's Wengshan — and now we must not counterattack? Ah, I see. Xiliang attacking our Great Jin is simply the natural order of things, but our Great Jin taking revenge means we enjoy war? You set the fires yourselves, yet we must not even light a candle? What manner of nonsense is this — do you even know how to write the word 'shame'?"
Bai Jingyan fixed her gaze on Li Tianfu, the Princess of Pyeongyang, who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.
"Her Highness the Princess of Pyeongyang asked me a question. She asked whether, if my killing of the surrendered soldiers tore the Bai family's good name apart overnight, my grandfather's coffin lid could ever rest closed. Then let me answer now."
Bai Jingyan rose with a smile on her lips and laid her hand on the sword at her hip. Then, with a keen, dark gleam in her eyes that brimmed with killing intent, she looked at Li Tianfu.
"I killed Xiliang's surrendered soldiers because Xiliang was the first to invade the territory of Jin. Because Xiliang slaughtered our Jin's people. If my grandfather, the King of Zhenguo, were alive today, he would already have led his troops in a charge upon Yunjing by now. Every time Xiliang killed one of our Jin's people, the soldiers of Jin would have killed a hundred of yours! No — a thousand, ten thousand, and it would have been only just! He would have gone on until every last Xiliang barbarian who spilled the blood of our people was dead. He would have made certain that for the next ten years, Xiliang would not dare so much as breathe near Great Jin's borders! Until the mere name of Great Jin set Xiliang trembling!"
Bai Jingyan's powerful voice swelled louder and louder.
Staring down at the Xiliang envoys — frozen in their stares, seething with rage, or choking on tears yet not daring to utter a single word — her voice grew heavier still.
"A stained name, you say? Infamy, black slander! Even if I must endure the curses of ten thousand men and become the target of every tongue's condemnation, if I could go back, I would make the same choice again. Remember this. The only reason we sit at this table today is out of consideration for Xiliang's innocent people — it is our Great Jin's soldiers sheathing their blades, swallowing humiliation so that bloodshed may end!
But if Xiliang invades the innocent Great Jin again — if you raise your blades against our people once more — it will not end with a hundred thousand surrendered soldiers. Jin's soldiers will trample Xiliang's land flat! Xiliang will have no choice but to perish, to become a nation that never existed in this world — and even then, will you still be propping up this miserable little pride of yours? Will you still be discussing humiliation with our Great Jin then?"
Bai Jingyan's words lit a fire in every breast. Not only the civil officials of the summit, including Liu Yushi, but the generals like Zhang Danyue who had swung blades on the battlefield felt their hearts surge. Great Jin's majesty rang through the air, and no one could suppress the storm in their chest.
Li Tianfu's face burned crimson with swallowed fury, and at last she could not hold back the humiliation. She screamed.
"Bai Jingyan! You killed the surrendered soldiers, and instead of repenting your wrong, you dare insult our Xiliang? You carry the heart of a venomous snake — that is why the Bai family line was severed, why your sons and grandsons all died on the battlefield!"
The instant those words left Li Tianfu's mouth, Li Zhijie's heart plummeted. Before he could offer an apology, Bai Jingyan, her face frozen hard as stone, kicked over the table laden with food.
Li Zhijie frantically pulled Li Tianfu behind him to shield her. His heart leapt into his throat.
A deathly silence fell over the command tent. Every soul held their breath.
Even Li Zhijie, it seemed, had never imagined Li Tianfu would spit words so venomous. Nor, of course, had anyone guessed that Bai Jingyan — who looked so delicate, so dazzlingly beautiful on the outside — harbored a nature this savage.
"General Bai, please — calm your anger!"
There was no strength in Li Zhijie's voice at all.
"The Princess of Xiliang has, in fact, reminded me of one truth! Yun Paxing, Pillar State General of Xiliang, cut off the head of my little brother — a boy of merely ten years old — slit open his belly, and desecrated the corpse of a child!"
Bai Jingyan turned to look at Liu Yushi.
"Lord Liu, every citizen of Jin bore witness together to the horrific state in which my little brother's remains returned to Dadu! You are our envoy to these talks — you must seek justice for my little brother. We should demand several more cities, so that my little brother's soul may be comforted — only then might the chilled hearts of Great Jin's people find even a flicker of warmth again."
Bai Jingyan's words were, unmistakably, paving the road for Liu Yushi. Her seventeenth brother had died a horrific death — so Jin must extract more cities in compensation. Liu Yushi was no fool; he carried the thread on as naturally as if he had rehearsed it.
"General Bai speaks with perfect justice. When the seventeenth son of the Bai family returned to Dadu, the entire nation sank into mourning. For that single atrocity alone, Xiliang ought to surrender some seventeen cities before this matter can be laid to rest."
Li Tianfu sucked in a sharp breath. Jin's greed was excessive — excessively, obscenely excessive.