Seizing the Initiative
Jian Zeping was so furious that he could only sneer. Xiliang, he thought, had grown shameless beyond all shamelessness.
"They say our General Bai launched a plot to assassinate the Prince of Yan out of fear that he would have his military authority stripped away, and that she even spirited away soldiers of the Haoying Battalion along with her. I'll grant that much. But then what possible reason could there be for taking along assassins dressed in Jin attire—an act that was entirely unnecessary?"
Li Zhijie gazed at Bai Jingyan with his peach-blossom eyes, feigning frailty.
"Shouldn't that be a question you put to General Bai herself?"
Bai Jingyan stood there with transcendent composure. Tall and slender, a sword in her hand, her features handsome and sharply defined, her expression calm and untroubled—there was not the slightest trace of the fear that the Crown Prince might grow suspicious of her.
The Crown Prince watched out of the corner of his eye as Bai Jingyan, utterly composed, made no desperate attempt to defend herself, and a quiet thrill of delight welled up in him. He had been worried that the Prince of Yan—such a refined, romantic figure—might take a liking to her, and that some tender affection might bloom between the two.
But from what he could see now, Li Zhijie had been caught by Bai Jingyan hiding assassins in Jin attire at Chuishanguan, and the two had become adversaries ever since. It seemed he was now trying to pin those very assassins on Bai Jingyan.
The more Li Zhijie stamped about, heaping filth upon Bai Jingyan, the more fiercely the Crown Prince would move to protect her. Only then would he believe she was worth his own undivided loyalty.
Bai Jinchi's eyes reddened. The moment she pictured her ninth elder brother lying wounded, fury seethed and boiled within her. She wanted to tear this Li Zhijie apart. In the end, she could hold back no longer, and coarse words burst from her lips, every bit as rough as Cheng Yuanzhi's own.
"Debate this, my ass!"
Li Zhijie, the Prince of Yan—a man who had lived his whole life as the paragon of refinement, adored by every woman who laid eyes on him—was struck dumb for an instant at hearing such coarse profanity from a young lady of a noble house. Then he turned his gaze toward Bai Jinchi, who was bristling with rage.
The young lady's face had flushed scarlet with fury, and she was glaring at him with eyes full of pure venom.
Bai Jingyan raised a hand and pulled Bai Jinchi back behind her.
Wei Zhaonian, Shen Kunyang, and Gu Wenchang, the moment they heard Bai Jinchi spew her curse, all turned their heads as one to glare at Cheng Yuanzhi.
Cheng Yuanzhi met the stares of the three men with a look of utter bewilderment.
"What's everyone staring at me for?"
Shen Kunyang furrowed his brow and rebuked him in a low voice.
"Loose talk in front of the Fourth Young Miss, and now look—what on earth have you been teaching her!"
"……"
When Bai Jinchi hurled her curse at Li Zhijie, the Crown Prince felt, strangely enough, a sense of satisfaction. The corners of his mouth lifted into a smile as he spoke.
"I, too, have questions for the Prince of Yan. Yesterday's talks were scheduled at a time he chose, yet he kept pushing the hour back, complaining it was too late, and then suddenly started making noises about serving maids and trying to change the date of the talks altogether. And now today he pulls a stunt like this! Am I to keep swallowing every word out of his mouth while he does whatever he pleases, ordering this and commanding that?"
Having said this much, the Crown Prince's expression hardened.
"It was my decision to send the Haoying Battalion to Chuishanguan in the dead of night. Anyone who isn't a fool knows full well that Xiliang is hiding something! Had the treaty been signed and sealed, I would not have pressed every little matter—but to provoke incident after incident like this, testing my patience! It seems now you intend to seize the upper hand with the corpses of our Haoying Battalion soldiers. Am I wrong?"
As Li Zhijie looked at Bai Jingyan in her bloodstained armor, his right eye gave a sudden twitch—and in that instant, he understood everything.
The Crown Prince sent Bai Jingyan to Chuishanguan!
That was why she cowered not one bit—why she strode so boldly through the military camp in armor still soaked with blood.
"Your Highness. The wounds upon the Prince of Yan's body were not the doing of anyone I brought with me! On this point alone, I, Bai Jingyan, swear it here and now. If those wounds were the work of the men I led, then let the entire Bai clan be exterminated to the last member, and let us be denied even a patch of earth to bury our bones!"
Bai Jingyan turned to look at Li Zhijie.
"You say the men I brought tried to assassinate you? Then can you swear it here, before the Heavenly God of Xiliang?"
At the words Heavenly God, every Xiliang soldier Li Zhijie had brought with him bowed their heads in reverence.
Xiliang worshipped the Heavenly God. To the people of Xiliang, he was something most sacred.
Li Zhijie's complexion shifted, and Bai Jingyan asked with an expression that was neither quite a smile nor quite not one.
"What's the matter? Do you lack the courage, Prince of Yan?"
Li Zhijie could swear an oath. But he could not swear one to the Heavenly God.
When Li Zhijie clamped his mouth shut and said nothing, the Crown Prince opened his mouth, radiating the air of a sovereign of a victorious nation.
"It was Xiliang that allied with Southern Yan and invaded our Great Jin in the first place. And now you have signed a treaty with us. If you intend to keep manufacturing incidents like this, we may well make public to all the world what Xiliang has hidden at Chuishanguan—and for what purpose. It would be a simple enough matter to call upon the other states and carve up Xiliang together with our Great Jin. At that point, our General Bai could lead Jin's soldiers and flatten your capital of Yunjing to bare ground!"
Bai Jingyan bowed her head and offered the Crown Prince a formal fist-and-palm salute of respect.
"Marshal, I shall do my utmost to live up to Your Highness's expectations."
The Crown Prince, having no real grasp of Xiliang's intentions, was deliberately blustering as though he knew everything—but to Li Zhijie and Liu Chentuo's ears, his words sounded entirely different.
What the Crown Prince meant by "what was hidden at Chuishanguan" was the assassins dressed in Jin attire.
But to Li Zhijie and Liu Chentuo, it sounded as though the Crown Prince had learned they were concealing a man of the Bai clan at Chuishanguan, and had therefore sent Bai Jingyan to retrieve him.
For a moment, Li Zhijie found himself doubting the intelligence from Southern Yan. Was the Jin imperial house truly so wary of the Bai clan's rising power? Were they truly employing the Bai while watching them so closely?
And if the Jin imperial house truly distrusted the Bai clan, why would the Crown Prince have ordered Bai Jingyan to lead the Haoying Battalion there to rescue a man of the Bai family?
Li Zhijie gathered his wits again. It was undeniably Xiliang's fault for never mentioning the confined man of the Bai clan during the talks. The Crown Prince of Jin was right. If Jin spread this truth among the other states, the barbarian tribes coveting Xiliang's fertile lands would come swarming in, eager to claw away whatever they could.
With that thought, Li Zhijie's body began to ache. The wound in his chest burst open again, and fresh blood seeped out.
The Crown Prince, hands clasped behind his back, continued in a dark voice.
"Prince of Yan—if you wish this matter to pass without further consequence, then leave the corpses of our Haoying Battalion soldiers and go, and be quick about it! For the sake of Xiliang's innocent people, I am prepared to treat this as though it never happened. But if you stir up trouble again, I suspect the imperial nobles gathered in Yunjing will learn firsthand just how sharp the blades of our Jin soldiers can be!"
Li Zhijie's gaze wavered between the Crown Prince and Bai Jingyan. The two stood shoulder to shoulder, regarding him with identical eyes—as though they shared the same enmity toward a common foe.
He had misjudged the Crown Prince of Jin's faith in Bai Jingyan. He had lost... he had no choice but to admit it.
Bai Jingyan, sword still in hand, turned her head away to avoid Li Zhijie's gaze and spoke in a low voice to the Crown Prince.
"Your Highness—if we leave behind the corpses of those masters in Jin attire, the capable men of the Haoying Battalion will be able to trace the clues from the bodies. Then we can determine Xiliang's exact intentions and defend against them in advance."
When Advisor Fang, standing behind the Crown Prince, looked toward her, Bai Jingyan offered him a fist-and-palm salute as well.
"What does Advisor Fang think?"
At her show of deference, the advisor's mood improved noticeably. He stroked his beard and nodded, then took a step forward and spoke from behind the Crown Prince's shoulder.
"Your Highness, General Bai is quite right. Everything Xiliang has attempted falls precisely within what we anticipated. The Prince of Yan seemed greatly shaken by Your Highness's words—I doubt he will dare manufacture another incident."
The Crown Prince nodded.
Zhen Xiangzhi knitted his brows and, without meaning to, looked at Bai Jingyan.
Was her humbling herself this way to claim the corpses of the assassins in Jin attire truly for no other reason than to ascertain Xiliang's intentions?
Zhen Xiangzhi felt it could not be the whole of it. He even suspected some hidden connection between those assassins and Bai Jingyan herself.
His temples throbbed. And then, quite suddenly, he understood—his eyes flew wide as he stared at Bai Jingyan, and their gazes met.
Looking into those clear, deep eyes, Zhen Xiangzhi clenched his fists. Something seemed to surge faintly in his throat.
Everything he knew of what had happened at Chuishanguan had come from Bai Jingyan's and Shen Liangyu's own mouths. He had witnessed none of it with his own eyes. What if Bai Jingyan and Shen Liangyu had told only half the truth and concealed the rest? What if half of it was truth, and half was lie?
Bai Jingyan was a woman who prized loyalty and bonds above anyone. If those men in Jin attire were her people, she was exactly the sort who could never stand by and watch their corpses discarded like refuse and left to be defiled.
Then why had Bai Jingyan gone to Chuishanguan in the dead of night?
"Prince of Yan—anything more to say? If not, leave these corpses behind and be on your way!"
The Crown Prince declared.
Cheng Yuanzhi, Shen Kunyang, Shen Liangyu, and Gu Wenchang already had their hands on the hilts at their waists. Judging by the menace rolling off them, if Li Zhijie did not leave the corpses behind, he would not be leaving at all today.
It had come to this—so Li Zhijie had no choice but to swallow the humiliation for now.
The road ahead is long. We must travel to Jin together as well. A chance will come then.
"My deepest gratitude for your magnanimous forbearance, Your Highness the Crown Prince!"
Li Zhijie ground his teeth and knelt, addressing the Crown Prince.
"I trust the Prince of Yan will not again transgress the bounds of my forbearance."
Came the Crown Prince's voice.
Li Zhijie paid his respects and withdrew, supported by Liu Chentuo.
"Your Majesty, do not let your anger consume you. The road is long. Today's humiliation will be repaid a hundredfold—I swear it."
Liu Chentuo murmured his consolation.
Li Zhijie narrowed his peach-blossom eyes. A smile bloomed faintly on bloodless, pale lips.
"Indeed, the road is long. There is no need for this king to hurry."
"Shen Liangyu—see that the bodies of our Haoying Battalion brothers are carried back with full honors and given proper burial. Hand the corpses of these assassins over to the Haoying Battalion as well. Whatever it takes, dig something out of them—we must prove worthy of the Crown Prince's trust!"
Bai Jingyan turned her head and gave Shen Liangyu his orders.
Shen Liangyu gritted his teeth and nodded.
"Xiao Baishu, leave it to me."
"Your Highness, you have been up all night and must be exhausted. Please return and rest. I and General Zhang will see to the rest."
Bai Jingyan offered a fist-and-palm salute.
The Crown Prince, gazing at Bai Jingyan's haggard face, nodded and added his own admonition.
"General Bai, you've had no sleep all night either—go and rest at once. Your health is already frail; you must take care of yourself. Hand the remaining matters over to General Zhang Danyue!"
Zhang Danyue answered with a fist-and-palm salute. Inwardly, he marveled. That even this frail, ailing woman of the Bai clan should pour out such labor for the state—it commanded nothing less than his deepest respect.
"General Bai, after yesterday's fierce battle you spent the whole night tending to the wounded without a moment's sleep. Go rest your eyes, I beg you."
Zhang Danyue said.
"Your Highness, thank you for your concern. There is little time left for me to remain with the army, and I wished to do what more I could for you. Once we return to Suyang, such opportunities will not come again."
Bai Jingyan bowed respectfully to the Crown Prince and gestured him inward.
"Allow me to escort Your Highness to the command tent. There is also a matter I must speak with you about."
The Crown Prince nodded and set off toward the command tent alongside Bai Jingyan.