The panicked warhorses were all calmed by the horse-handlers, and a nearby tent was cleared to tend the injured.

Fan Changyu intended to help Carpenter Zhao and Grand Preceptor Tao take shelter from the rain; when she touched Carpenter Zhao’s arm he let out an “ouch.”

Fan Changyu hurriedly asked, “Did I pull and hurt you just now?”

Carpenter Zhao waved his hand, “Old bones, no good. Joints get injured the moment they’re jostled.”

Realizing she must have yanked too hard in the urgency, causing the old man’s joint to strain, Fan Changyu felt guilty. Inside the tent she fetched a chair for Carpenter Zhao to sit on.

The veterinarian who’d been kicked was rescued by the soldiers and was now lying in the tent setting his bones, wailing both piteously and loudly. Seeing it would be some time before he could be bandaged, Fan Changyu fetched a basin of hot water and wrung out a cloth to apply to Carpenter Zhao’s arm.

Grand Preceptor Tao stood in the tent for a long while, watching Fan Changyu bustle about caring for Carpenter Zhao while he was completely left aside—receiving none of Carpenter Zhao’s treatment—and his displeasure pulled his mustache down at the corners of his mouth.

He sat down in the chair opposite Carpenter Zhao and also went “ouch,” a sound that even drowned out the cries of the veterinarian who had been kicked.

Fan Changyu spun about like a top, heard the sound, and turned to ask, “Are you all right?”

Grand Preceptor Tao closed his eyes and said, “This old man’s head aches.”

Fan Changyu said, “He must have caught a chill from being drenched.”

She turned and instructed the military doctor to also take Grand Preceptor Tao’s pulse and prescribe medicine for him.

The bodyguards who had accompanied Grand Preceptor Tao knew his true identity and dared not let anything happen to him; they hastened to say they would take him back to the main tent and have the doctor tend him there, but Grand Preceptor Tao absolutely refused to go.

When the medic finally took his pulse, he discovered the stubborn old man had already developed a fever and hurriedly ordered a soldier to fetch a packet of medicine for treating wind-cold to be decocted.

There were not enough hands to boil the medicine, so Fan Changyu volunteered to help Carpenter Zhao and Grand Preceptor Tao with the decoction.

Because Grand Preceptor Tao stubbornly refused to return to the main tent that had been allocated to him and insisted on squeezing into the wounded tent, the lower-ranking soldiers, seeing that he and Carpenter Zhao were both old men, even arranged their beds side by side.

Carpenter Zhao was mild-mannered. Grand Preceptor Tao, with his headache and fever, grew more irritable, and would not respond even when Carpenter Zhao tried to make conversation.

When Fan Changyu went to boil the herbs, he could no longer bear his headache and said, “My medicine must be boiled first!”

Fan Changyu thought the old man was like a child, insisting on precedence even in such matters, and said helplessly, “We’ll boil both pots together, there’s no first or second.”

Only then did Grand Preceptor Tao fall silent.

Carpenter Zhao, not sensing Grand Preceptor Tao’s inexplicable hostility toward him, chatted on: “It’s Changyu’s good fortune to meet a gentleman even in the army, and the old gentleman is willing to form this kind of good bond.”

Hearing this, Grand Preceptor Tao felt somewhat eased and asked, “What relation are you to that girl?”

Carpenter Zhao replied, “Neighbors for over ten years. I watched the girl grow up, she’s like my own granddaughter.”

Grand Preceptor Tao suddenly felt this affable old man was subtly boasting of his closeness to the girl; thinking of his own failure to take disciples, he fell silent in a sulk.

Carpenter Zhao sighed again as he spoke, “What a fine girl, such a pity fate’s hard on her. No parents, divorced from the husband she married into, and now who knows where her younger sister was stolen off to…”

Grand Preceptor Tao had originally thought Fan Changyu’s temperament tougher than most; after hearing her background from Carpenter Zhao, he felt more pity and his resentment at her refusing to take him as master softened. He said, “I have a student in the army—half like a son—he’s become an officer. If that girl can’t find a good family in future, I’ll have that rascal find a steady, ambitious young man from under his command to marry her.”

Carpenter Zhao, hearing the old man willing to take charge of Fan Changyu’s lifelong affairs, felt him to be a benefactor. After offering thanks, the two warmed to each other and talked more and more.

With that little prejudice gone, Grand Preceptor Tao found the veterinarian old man, though illiterate, to be perceptive; hearing of his half-life as a veterinarian and carpenter, he discovered much rustic charm.

When Fan Changyu returned with the decocted medicine and found the two of them talking as if they had met a kindred spirit late in life and were deep in agreeable conversation, she was thoroughly puzzled.

She did not yet know they had already arranged a “steady, ambitious young man” as a husband for her.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

On the afternoon of the second day, news of the victory at Lucheng reached the camp: the Yanzhou troops’ ambush of the Chongzhou army at Yixian Gorge had also been a great triumph, they had even captured Prince Changxin’s heir alive. Army morale rose sharply and everyone rejoiced.

However, the spring rain had triggered a debris flow, and the remnant Yanzhou forces were now trapped on the mountain. Upon learning that Lucheng had been defeated and that Yanzhou’s borrowing of troops was a stratagem, Prince Changxin, likely driven to desperation, took an unorthodox, forceful turn and led the remaining Chongzhou forces to encircle Yixian Gorge, vowing to besiege the Yanzhou army and Marquis Wu’an to death on the mountain.

After the camp commander received the news brought back by the scouts, he hurriedly summoned all his subordinate officers to deliberate ways to lift the siege.

The twenty thousand soldiers sent to repair the dam were all raw recruits with almost no combat experience; when the Chongzhou army suddenly attacked the previous night they had been flustered and had allowed three scouts to escape.

If they rashly moved to Yixian Gorge to relieve the trapped men, the mountain had just been lashed by rain and a debris flow had occurred; the terrain was complicated. If they carelessly blundered into a trap set by the Chongzhou army, the entire force might be annihilated.

While everyone was at a loss, the Grand Preceptor, whose chill had slightly abated, dragged his ailing body into the central tent and proposed the “Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao” stratagem.

He said, “The twenty thousand troops amassed at the river mouth—send the main force to Chongzhou but do not attack immediately; surround them but refrain from assaulting. There is no fear that Prince Changxin will not turn back to defend his stronghold. After all, Chongzhou itself is gone; even if he climbs the mountain to slaughter the Yanzhou troops, it will change nothing.”

The commander exclaimed, “A splendid stratagem! I will order the camp to break ground at once!”

Grand Preceptor Tao’s chill had not fully cleared; after a hoarse cough he added, “The remnant Yanzhou troops trapped on the mountain should have little grain left. We must also dispatch a separate detachment to deliver supplies.”

Yanzhou had fought the Chongzhou in a field engagement and had not carried many provisions; only because they were victorious and then unfortunately trapped by the debris flow did Chongzhou seize the initiative again.

The commander, nearly frantic, agreed at once: “What the Grand Preceptor says is right! But the supply flank is large and might be detected by Chongzhou scouts. For now dispatch a thousand men with provisions as an emergency measure.”

The orders to redeploy and to transport grain were issued quickly, and the army busied itself preparing to break camp.

Carpenter Zhao had to go with the army to besiege Chongzhou. Fan Changyu had intended to go as well, but as a woman currently quartered there—one, she had already merited reward, and two, there were surviving refugees temporarily being cared for—if she followed the army continuously it would violate military regulations.

Although she had intercepted and killed the three scouts, the commander could only award her a bounty and not grant her a military post.

She could have gone on her own, but Fan Changyu hesitated. Prince Changxin had taken his troops up the mountain to besiege Marquis Wu’an; Chongzhou city would surely be tightly sealed, and if she went she could not enter the city to look for Changning.

And Carpenter Zhao said Yan Zheng seemed to be among the thousand soldiers lent to Yanzhou. After the slaughter and then the mountain’s mudslide, it was unknown whether Yan Zheng was alive or dead.

Should she first go up the mountain at Yixian Gorge to search for Yan Zheng?

When Grand Preceptor Tao was leaving he saw Fan Changyu standing outside the tent lost in thought and asked, “Girl, I am going with the army to deliver provisions to the troops on the mountain—do you want to come with me?”

Only in the past two days had Fan Changyu learned that the odd old man’s surname was Tao, and that because he possessed some real learning he had become an advisor in the army; even the commander treated him respectfully.

She looked at Grand Preceptor Tao’s wrinkled face, thought seriously for a moment, and finally nodded.

It would be good to see Yan Zheng once more. If he had died there, she would bury him and erect a stele.

He seemed to have no one else at home; they had at least known each other and had been nominal husband and wife for several months—on festival days she could burn paper offerings for him too.

If he were still alive, they should not be so estranged as to never meet again.

The supply detachment left first. Carpenter Zhao came to see them off, and what puzzled Fan Changyu was that Carpenter Zhao said far more to the old man in farewell than he did to her.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

To avoid Chongzhou scouts, the supply column had to take a detour through the mountains. Even so, they encountered several bands of scouts; fortunately the column included accompanying archers who pursued and shot down scouts over a dozen li, preventing the marching news from being revealed to Chongzhou too quickly.

Because Fan Changyu had crossed Mount Wu and killed three Chongzhou scouts, she had gained a modest reputation among these raw soldiers; sometimes when scouts were pursued she would be invited to join the pursuit.

She was not skilled with bow and arrow. When she trained alongside the archers, her strength was so great she could snap a bow in half, yet her aim was terribly poor—she was not even as accurate as when she picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it by hand.

Not wanting to waste weapons, Fan Changyu gave up the practice altogether. But when she saw an archer shoot down a wild hare on the road for supper, she couldn’t help her envy and praised him lavishly for his skill.

Some of the older soldiers laughed.

“Miss Fan, that’s because you’ve never seen our Lord Marquis shoot. His archery—that’s true mastery. Within a hundred paces, not just a rabbit, even a willow leaf wouldn’t escape his arrow.”

Fan Changyu had heard of the saying ‘pierce a willow at a hundred paces’, but ‘pierce a willow leaf’ was new to her. Willow leaves were so slender—how could one strike them from such a distance?

Astonishment aside, the image of the battle-hardened Marquis Wu’an rose even higher in her mind.