Since He Jingyuan received that letter sent from the main city of Jizhou and learned that the Fan family’s youngest daughter had been abducted for no reason, Fan Changyu, after looking over the dossier, had not slept a wink. He was inside the tent reading military manuals when a personal guard who had been posted outside suddenly entered to report that Gongsun Yin requested an audience.

He Jingyuan did not know exactly what sort of scheme the chief staff officer under the Marquis of Wu’an was up to; after a brief hesitation he still had the guard summon the man in.

When the tent flap was lifted, however, more than just Gongsun Yin entered.

He Jingyuan’s gaze fell on the man standing behind him in a dark robe patterned with cloud-scrolls and arrow-sleeves; after a start he rose at once. “Marquis?”

Xie Zheng lifted the corner of his mouth. “Lord He, I hope you are well.”

Compared with those old generals who had fought on the battlefields, he was indeed far too young; coupled with a handsome countenance, in earlier years there had been many in the army who resented him, thinking he had simply been born into good fortune — the only son of the Xie family, with an uncle like Wei Yan, so of course he rose rapidly in the army.

But with Jinzhou retaken and the twelve prefectures of Liaodong recovered, achievements that no one from the previous dynasty to now had dared surpass, the voices of doubt were finally suppressed.

Outsiders praised him as a naturally born genius; as a fellow military man, He Jingyuan knew well that any one of the feats he had achieved would be enough for an ordinary general to boast about for a lifetime.

And behind that brilliance must certainly have been blood and time after time of risking his life.

Although He Jingyuan was more than two cycles older than Xie Zheng in years, from the bottom of his heart he admired this youngest martial marquis in the history of the Great Yin court.

He led Xie Zheng to the main seat. “Why does the Marquis suddenly visit Lucheng?”

Xie Zheng did not refuse; if he did not sit in this seat, then none of the few people in the room would need to sit.

He took the seat with a casual posture, accepted a cup of tea personally offered by He Jingyuan, and when his eyes met He Jingyuan’s, because of the earlier matter of requisitioning grain He Jingyuan’s back bent a little and there was some shame in his eyes.

Xie Zheng’s mouth twitched; he did not press the issue at this time, only saying, “Sui Tuo has surrounded Jizhou with fifty thousand troops to thoroughly cut off the springtime waterway of grain. The front lines are still steady now, but I worry about the rear supplies, so I personally came to take a look.”

He Jingyuan cupped his fist and said solemnly, “Please rest assured, Marquis. So long as I, He, have even a single breath, I will not let bandits take Jizhou.”

Xie Zheng tapped the armrest of the grand chair with his knuckles; a smile showed in his black eyes, and without anger yet commanding: “My coming is not because I distrust Lord He. Whether Jizhou can be held depends entirely on Lucheng, but the current garrison in the city numbers only twenty thousand; once Prince Changxin besieges the city, it will be difficult to withstand. The newly conscripted soldiers are said to number fifty thousand, but in reality there are only thirty thousand, and they are all peasants who have never seen the battlefield. If it comes to the point of pushing the imperial guards up on the ramparts to defend to the death, Lucheng’s advantages will be small. I and Mr. Gongsun inspected the terrain around Lucheng and thought of a plan that can swallow up the fifty thousand troops Prince Changxin has besieging Lucheng outside the city.”

Since Lucheng had been besieged, He Jingyuan had not had a good night’s sleep; at hearing that Xie Zheng had a method to defeat the enemy he could not hide his surprise and asked, “What plan does the Marquis have in mind?”

Xie Zheng looked toward Gongsun Yin; Gongsun Yin answered on his behalf: “The water of the Wu River flows from west to east, passing Jizhou, but its source is in the Yanshan. After the spring thaw, the ice and snow on Yanshan melt and gather into the Wu River. We will send troops upstream to build a dam to temporarily block the Wu River. The riverbed around Lucheng will remain shallow; Lord He can again lure Prince Changxin’s troops to cross the riverbed, and at that moment, blowing open the upstream embankment, the water will flood Prince Changxin’s fifty thousand troops.”

At hearing this plan, He Jingyuan could not help but clap his hands in approval. “This plan is excellent! But building an embankment is no small matter; it will require the mobilization of thousands upon thousands of soldiers. How can we conceal this from Prince Changxin’s scouts?”

Xie Zheng said, “Prince Changxin has just written a battle challenge to me, intending to seize Yanzhou. I borrowed twenty thousand troops from Jizhou to return, and midway I shall station most of them at the upper reaches of the Wu River to build the dam. Lord He, if you send more men to intercept and kill the scouts, then we can deceive the heavens and cross the sea.”

He Jingyuan was quite puzzled. “Previously, Mr. Gongsun said to weaken Yanzhou’s defense and lure Prince Changxin into attacking it. If Prince Changxin takes the bait, he should march straight for Yanzhou to strike unprepared, should he not?”

Gongsun Yin smiled leisurely. “Lord He is not wrong, but Prince Changxin’s move is one of countering our stratagem with his own—he pretends to have fallen for our trap and attacks Yanzhou, when in truth, his target remains Jizhou. He means to seize the Salt Lake and dominate the waterways.”

After all, He Jingyuan was a veteran general with rich experience in warfare. In an instant, he understood that their earlier claim of leading troops back to reinforce Yanzhou was also a ploy—a counter to the counter—to make Prince Changxin believe they had truly gone to defend Yanzhou.

He lowered his eyes in thought for a moment, then said, “If Prince Changxin were to realize this too is a stratagem, what then?”

Xie Zheng replied with absolute certainty, “He will not realize it.”

He Jingyuan looked confused.

Gongsun Yin, holding back laughter, explained, “The Marquis’s only daughter is in Prince Changxin’s hands. This time, the Marquis’s pretext for borrowing troops to return to Yanzhou is, on the surface, to rescue his daughter.”

Xie Zheng’s cold gaze swept toward Gongsun Yin, who at once straightened his posture and sat upright.

He Jingyuan, however, was a bit bewildered. It took him a while before he composed himself and cupped his fists, saying, “I did not know before that the Marquis was blessed with a daughter. I imagine the young lady must have suffered greatly in the hands of those rebels.”

The laughter Gongsun Yin had struggled so hard to suppress almost burst forth again at He Jingyuan’s words.

Xie Zheng’s face darkened to the extreme, but in the end he still explained, “It is my wife’s younger sister. The rebels mistook her identity.”

A moment ago, He Jingyuan had just been forced to accept the notion that Xie Zheng had a daughter. Now, hearing that the one captured by the rebels was not his daughter but his wife’s younger sister—and realizing that Xie Zheng had a marchioness—though he had somewhat prepared himself mentally, he was still taken aback.

If it had only been a daughter, born of some woman he kept by his side, that would have been nothing unusual.

But now that he had a proper Marchioness, that was no small matter. Countless noble families in the capital had been scheming to marry into his house; even after the rumors spread that he had fallen out with Wei Yan, the royal family—long suppressed by Wei Yan—had thought to marry a princess to him, using his hand to curb Wei Yan’s power.

And now, that position so many had coveted with bloodshot eyes—when did it become occupied?

Not only He Jingyuan, but even Gongsun Yin was stunned.

He had originally thought that Xie Zheng’s feelings toward that butcher’s daughter surnamed Fan were nothing more than gratitude for saving his life, perhaps deepened into a mild affection over time. Who could have thought he actually regarded her as his wife?

For an instant, Gongsun Yin even wondered whether Xie Zheng had been bewitched by someone’s spell.

Though the Xie family now had only him as a male heir, it was still a century-old noble house. If he were to take a wife, it would stir up a storm across the capital—for it would mean that the entire balance of power there would be redrawn.

As for the position of the Xie family’s matriarch, only the most distinguished young ladies of noble birth from the capital’s great clans could ever be worthy. To marry a rustic woman from the countryside—wouldn’t that make the entire capital laugh?

Gongsun Yin’s brows furrowed tightly. He knew well that the man he had known for over a decade was by no means one to act on impulse. He wanted to ask a few more questions, but with He Jingyuan present, he restrained himself.

Seeing both He Jingyuan and Gongsun Yin lose their composure, Xie Zheng’s eyes remained calm, without the slightest ripple. He simply asked, “What does Lord He think of this plan?”

He Jingyuan returned to his senses, suppressing the tempest surging in his heart, and hurriedly said, “The plan is brilliant. All troops in Lucheng shall be at the Marquis’s command!”

As he spoke, he raised both hands above his head and presented the tiger tally of Jizhou.

There was no pledge of loyalty more sincere than this.

Xie Zheng received the tally, but he seemed not to take this iron token—capable of mobilizing all the troops in Jizhou—as anything of importance. 

He toyed with it between his fingers and, with lowered eyes, said, “There is another matter this Marquis wishes to consult Lord He about.”

That he used the words ‘consult’ made the matter rather intriguing. He Jingyuan vaguely guessed what he intended to ask. From the moment he had stopped Wei Xuan from collecting grain, He Jingyuan had already decided that, when the time came, he would tell Xie Zheng everything he knew. 

At this moment, he simply said, “Whatever the Marquis wishes to ask, please do. So long as this humble official knows of it, I will speak without concealment.”

At this assurance, the corners of Xie Zheng’s lips curved upward. “In Qingping County, Lin’an Town, there is a butcher family by the surname of Fan. Why did Wei Yan want the lives of that couple? The several times he sent men to their home—what was it that he sought?”

At hearing Xie Zheng ask so many questions concerning the Fan family, Gongsun Yin instinctively furrowed his brows. Could it be that the woman from the Fan family whom he had taken a fancy to was somehow connected to Wei Yan?

He Jingyuan’s expression, however, turned somewhat complicated. He also wished to know how much Xie Zheng had already uncovered about the events of those years. He said, “Before I answer, may the Marquis tell me why you wish to investigate what lies behind the Fan family?”

Xie Zheng said, “My wife’s parents met an unnatural death. I must look into it for her sake.”

At these words, He Jingyuan suddenly raised his eyes, his expression nothing short of shock and horror.

Xie Zheng thought he, like Gongsun Yin, was simply surprised at the identity he had granted to Fan Changyu, and felt a trace of displeasure. His tone cooled slightly as he said, “May Lord He speak now?”

He Jingyuan’s fingertips trembled faintly. He lowered his aged eyelids, remained silent for a long time, then sighed. “That butcher of the Fan family who died was once a subordinate under the Prime Minister. Later he betrayed his master and fled to live in hiding under another name. But the Prime Minister eventually tracked him down, and for that, took his life. As for the thing the Prime Minister sought, I truly do not know what it was.”

Wei Yan had once shown him both favor and patronage. Though their political views now differed, He Jingyuan still addressed him respectfully as “Prime Minister.”

Xie Zheng’s brows and eyes suddenly sharpened, yet the smile still lingered on his lips. “If this Marquis has not guessed wrong, that item ought to be in Lord He’s possession.”

He Jingyuan said bitterly, “Indeed, it was I who took it—but I truly do not know what it was.”

Xie Zheng’s patience thinned. “Does Lord He think this Marquis will believe such a story?”

He Jingyuan said, “Whether the Marquis believes or not, every word I have said is true.”

Xie Zheng sneered. “You don’t even know what it was that Wei Yan sought—how could you possibly have helped him find it?”

He Jingyuan gave a self-deprecating smile. “All these years, my actions in Jizhou have already drawn the Prime Minister’s displeasure. He ordered me to kill the Fan couple merely to test whether I still remained loyal to him. He did not instruct me to retrieve anything. That item was entrusted to me by the Fan couple before their deaths. They told me to hand it over to the Prime Minister when he asked for it—but under no circumstances was I to open it myself.”

From this, Xie Zheng discerned something amiss and asked, “You were acquainted with the Fan couple?”

The depths of He Jingyuan’s eyes could not hide the vicissitudes of years. “They were old friends of mine.”

Gongsun Yin, who knew nothing of the Fan family’s affair, could not help interjecting, “So, in order to convince Wei Yan that you were still loyal, Lord He personally killed your old friends?”

He Jingyuan did not speak, which was as good as admission.

Seeing his sorrowful demeanor, Gongsun Yin said meaningfully, “Since ancient times, loyalty and righteousness are hard to reconcile—it is no wonder Lord He acted as he did.”

He Jingyuan heard the hint of mockery in his words and replied, “Had I not acted, the Prime Minister would have sent others. By my hand, the Fan couple could at least have their wish fulfilled—to preserve their two children. Had it been others, the roots would have been cut clean.”

Gongsun Yin was silent for a moment. No one understood Wei Yan’s methods better than they did.

After a pause, he asked, “Since Wei Yan never ordered Lord He to seek that object, when Lord He later presented it to him, were you not afraid he would become suspicious?”

He Jingyuan replied, “Of course I was afraid. But since the Marquis has now married the Fan family’s young lady, you should also know that the two sisters were entirely unaware of their parents’ affairs. My old friends are gone—I carry guilt in my heart and only wish to protect the last bit of their bloodline. At that time, Wei Xuan had been defeated in battle, rumors of the Marquis’s death were spreading outside, and the situation in the northwest was in chaos. The Prime Minister had no choice but to make use of me, so he turned a blind eye.”

Xie Zheng’s fingertips lightly tapped the armrest of the chair. He said nothing, but what He Jingyuan had described was largely consistent with his own prior suspicions.

Gongsun Yin asked again, “The thing the Fan couple gave Lord He, did you truly never look at it?”

He Jingyuan gave a bitter smile. “Mr. Gongsun jests. Had I looked, would the Prime Minister still have spared me?”

Gongsun Yin glanced at Xie Zheng and shrugged.

After all these questions, it seemed as though many riddles had been solved, yet the most crucial answers still remained untouched.

Xie Zheng suddenly lifted his gaze. “When Fan Erniu served under Wei Yan, what was his name and position?”

A bead of cold sweat rolled down He Jingyuan’s temple. “Marquis, forgive this humble official—but I cannot speak of that now.”

When Xie Zheng did not smile, his phoenix eyes carried a pressure that was almost unbearable. He studied He Jingyuan and asked, “Why not?”

Bitterness rose in He Jingyuan’s mouth. Of course he knew what the truth behind the Fan family meant to Xie Zheng. If Xie Zheng had no personal connection to them, if he had merely uncovered their names while investigating the Jinzhou case, He Jingyuan might still have hoped for a trace of mercy in his heart—that, since the Fan couple was long dead and the past already settled, he might let the Fan sisters live in peace.

But he had called Fan Changyu his wife—and the younger Fan daughter had been mistaken for his own child and abducted by rebels. He Jingyuan dared not imagine what would happen to the two Fan sisters if the truth were told.

He would tell Xie Zheng the true identities of the Fan couple—but not now. Not until the Fan sisters were both safe.