Chapter 23

Total extermination— this huge incident implicating a vassal Prince, defending general, and literary official shook every level of society and left an impression upon the people most deep.

Han Yuan was beheaded, the Prince of An's state was taken away, and Jin Yunfeng had killed himself. There were more than a dozen people in the Jin family, young and old, man and woman, and not a single one had the fortune to flee.

Very few knew that there were two who could have possibly escaped death, but were ultimately unable to get away from the Flying Dragon Guard's inescapable net.

And what no one knew was that those two, whose fates were sealed without a doubt, would actually be living incognito in a small town at the border. Seven years later, they would meet once more with the one that had been their savior.

This unexpected discovery gave Fu Shen a fright comparable to the one he got from the imperial marriage sanction one month prior.

He had changed a lot over these many years. Polished and worn down by the affairs of the world and teased by fate, he hadn't been that Eldest Young Master who had relied solely on passion for how he behaved for a long time now. Experiencing a life of war that pushed one beyond their capabilities caused him to quickly discard his completely useless childishness and willfulness, as well as his unnecessary sensitivity.

When his mental state settled and he humbled, he understood what it was to 'not have the freedom to act on one's own', and learned to honor that 'every person has their own ambitions'. He even re-established his friendship with Yan Xiaohan, requesting that past events be written off and mentioned no longer.

At the time he angrily threw down the jade pendant, the noise of its breaking had symbolized breaking all ties with him. Yet, when he re-thought about it after the anger has dissipated, he realized that he should have actually been happy with this, as Yan Xiaohan had saved his reputation that day. Arranging for the Flying Dragon Guard to get to work after he left was at least half to keep it from him and not hurt him deeply.

At the very minimum, he treated Fu Shen with extreme benevolence, moral principles notwithstanding.

What a pity it was that he was in a rage then, and no matter what Yan Xiaohan did, it was all him 'actively scheming' in his eyes. They had become estranged afterwards, up until the winter of the eighteenth year of Yuantai when foreign envoys came to Court. A polo event was being held in the palace – the Yuantai Emperor ordered the Imperial Guard to take part and form polo teams with the younger generations of affluent families, then meet the polo experts of the foreign nation head-on.

At half-time, the ball was hit off the field. The young imperial eunuch in charge of picking up the ball was a bit slow, and the ball hadn't yet left his hand when a foreign player impatiently swung at it. People constantly used a good bit of strength when striking in polo, and were that stick to come down, he would be partially mauled, if not dead. Fu Shen was closest, and he rushed over to hook the eunuch with his club, promptly throwing him over to where he was.

Polo had always been a rough sport, with collision injuries a frequent event. That foreigner was being deliberately provocative, and he didn't stop, the next swing being brandished straight towards Fu Shen's face.

The club hadn't yet reached the space before Fu Shen's eyes when something came whirling over from his peripheral vision and slammed into the foreign player's temple. With the amount of force it had, it actually managed to smash an eight-chi tall man off his horse and onto the ground.

Fu Shen looked back in amazement, only to see Yan Xiaohan sitting upright on his own horse and nonchalantly shaking out his wrist. "Sorry, my hand slipped," he admitted indifferently.

That throw had undoubtedly used a great amount of strength, and to feign that it was a misstep would have had a considerable strain on the wrist. Fu Shen observed carefully, and in the second half of the game, Yan Xiaohan had indeed switched to a left-handed club. His right hand that held the reins was concealed by a wristguard, but it still slightly trembled uncontrollably.

His mood was complicated. It was hard to avoid thinking about the past, then from consoling himself that since they already had a clean break, their debts of kindness were repaid and they owed each other nothing.

After the polo match ended, he blocked Yan Xiaohan's way outside the field and gave him a bottle of high-grade wound medicine in a show of thanks. Yan Xiaohan didn't let him go with just that, asking him something while strenuously attempting to wrap up his own swelling right hand. "Non-Han peoples everywhere are aimed for us, and will snag any loophole to be underhanded. Weren't you just putting yourself in danger saving that eunuch?"

He still has the guts to say the word 'save'?

The look on Fu Shen's face towards him was not good. "What's the alternative?" he questioned harshly. "Watching as someone else beats him to death?"

"That was just an imperial eunuch." Yan Xiaohan really couldn't manage this one-handed, so he simply gave up and didn't mind it anymore, placing his right hand on his knee. "Was he worth your help?" he asked calmly.

Fu Shen caught his unspoken implicit meaning and was consequently angered further. He pulled the bandage to the side, sprinkled medicine on it, and bound it all in one go, turning the other's right hand into a zongzi in no time flat. He then icily threw out a few words, turned, and left.

"What about him being a eunuch? Those that shouldn't be saved are unscrupulous, cruel dogs that bite the hand that feeds them, and deserve death."

They were estranged yet again.

The next year, northern Xinjiang underwent rapid change. Fu Shen experienced the pains of bereavement in quick succession, and his mourning clothes weren't yet shed when the gentlemen of the Court considered him a live target and pushed him onto the battlefield.

In the early winter of the twentieth year of Yuantai, before Fu Shen departed the capital, Yan Xiaohan took the initiative to send him an another invitation, requesting for him to have a sit-down in a park somewhere. Heavy snow was swirling about the capital that day, and passers-by were sparse. Fu Shen unexpectedly did him the honor of coming, treading through the withered grass and snow cover, walking through the small bridge by the lakeside, and entering the Lakeheart Pavilion.

Three of its sides had stained glass windows, with the last side being the entrance, hung with drapes that blocked out the wind. The room was pleasantly warm and fragrant. There was a branch of white plum flowers stuck into a vase as well as a few various small dishes on the table, tea bubbling as it boiled atop a clay stove. Yan Xiaohan stood before a window watching the snow, and upon hearing him enter, turned around and gave him a faint smile.

Fu Shen wore white apparel, his face cold and detached. He'd grown taller, but had also lost a lot of weight from before; he seemed to have emerged from within the infantilism of youth and was now a distinct outline of his future handsomeness.

"What did you call me here for?"

His expression still wasn't good, but his eyes were no longer full of mistrust. Of course, that was likely because his resentment for what's happened to his family and country was pressing down too much on him, and he already didn't have the strength to bother with past trivial junk that didn't look so huge anymore.

"The army will set off tomorrow, and you and I have been acquainted, in any case," Yan Xiaohan spoke. "Would it be possible for General Fu to grant me the honor of taking a seat for a goodbye dinner, despite the meager wine I've prepared?"

Fu Shen bluntly pulled up his robes and sat down at the side of the table. "I'm already here. You don't have to punish yourself by standing, either. Sit."

Yan Xiaohan poured tea for him, raising his own cup in a toast. "There will be many hardships on the road ahead, and I only wish that you'll take good care of yourself, General. I hope that next year… I can still drink wine and admire the snow here with you."

The road ahead had more than just many hardships. There'd be vicious people and animals, and death was simply a certainty.

But he didn't persuade him otherwise, and couldn't, as he wasn't qualified to. The Fu family had three generations of devoted military souls, and in regards to Fu Shen, dying in battle was one of his possible endings.

Fu Shen grasped the cup in one hand, softly clinking it against his, and lightly jeered at him. "Shower your one-sided affection on me less. Who'd want to look next year's snow together with you? You might as well keep hoping. If I so unfortunately die in the war, the last thing I'd do before death is forgive you."

The wind sobbed above the lake. Snowflakes fluttered about, as if the blue heavens were an immense vacuum stuffed with resentment.

What was called a send-off party was really more of farewell.

"I pray that you'll have a swift victory and return in triumph." Yan Xiaohan's hands never shook and he smiled as always, his voice soft and even. "I hope that you will hate me all your life."

Facing countless calamities and dangers, Fu Shen ended up going against the current and killed his way to survival. Those prayers and hopes in Lakeheart Pavilion became reality, as by the time he returned to Court, Yan Xiaohan had been promoted to Royal Inspector Envoy and was even more of a nothing than he was before. The two sat opposing* each other in Court and fought when they met, finally fighting enough to be known by everyone as a pair of archenemies.

The incident from that dusted past was gently placed to the side.

Fu Shen had to honestly ask himself, though; had he truly, magnanimously, let it go?

The entire process was something he could ignore. The wound had scarred over and he was as calm as ever. But was that feeling of a blade stabbing through him so easy to forget?

Once a snake has bitten you, you'll fear well ropes for a decade. Fu Shen now kept an escape route for himself when doing anything, and it was a habit left over from back then. He wasn't worried about others betraying him, but he didn't dare to wholeheartedly trust in anyone again.

What he hadn't expected was for the layers of this old case to be hiding away an ultimate truth.

Cai Yue wasn't dead.

She was standing, alive, before him, and she could still vividly remember the circumstances of her narrow escape from death. "…This slave and Nian'er were arrested by the Flying Dragon Guard and shut up in prison, but we weren't tortured, and no one came to interrogate us. Around two days later, someone placed a knockout drug within our food and drink. After this slave woke up, someone had taken us by carriage to the woods on Gemstone Mountain. There was food, clothes, and a bundle of travel expenses, and we relied on that money to lodge within a nearby village and learn how to craft wine. The village met with disaster the year before – I heard you were in northern Xinjiang and frequently came into contact with traveling merchants there, and it was also safe and peaceful, so I took Nian'er with me up North. I didn't think that the Great Buddha would bless me, and I'd truly come to meet our savior…"

Who penned up this crafty escape plan was a detail that didn't need a

guess. After catching and bringing them back, Yan Xiaohan might have not yet time to make a report when Jin Yunfeng killed himself in jail. With everyone dead and judgment thus passed with the lids on their coffins, Cai Yue and the baby boy were irrelevant, and whether they lived or died was no longer important. Going along with the Flying Dragon Guard's method of cutting up weeds and destroying their roots, they were most likely to be disposed of with poisoned wine. He thereby used this opportunity to switch the lethal drugs* with knockout ones, then took the two out of the city as fake corpses, setting them free to escape and live another day.

As for why he was suddenly so enormously benevolent… though it sounded like he was favoring himself too much, Fu Shen couldn't find another reason to justify it.

It was because of him.

Fu Shen really didn't know how to assess Yan Xiaohan's senseless selfdisgracing. His heart was hammering, rapid as a drumbeat, aching and sore – he loathed that he wasn't able to fly off overnight past the rugged terrain, get back to the capital, and beat him up to make him never dare to pretend to be a big-tailed wolf again.

If he hadn't run into Cai Yue today, Yan Xiaohan would probably never tell him the truth about this of his own accord. To Fu Shen, he would eternally be one who sought nothing but profit, his surface unethical: never explaining, never disputing, and never wanting someone to understand. The origin of his birth was his original sin. Some people are born just to struggle, sinking and emerging, in the mud.

As matters stand, would he still dare to state upfront that, in his heart, there was nothing that mattered more than 'profit'?

The burn of his pot of strong liquor caused a faint heat within his chest.

"How cruel you are, Brother Yan." Fu Shen whispered to himself, grasping the armrest of his wheelchair. "Do you really have to heart to make me hate you all my life?"