Beauty, Power and Intrigue Chapter 86

Song Chuyi summoned a maid, who took a small knife and carefully trimmed away the singed fur on White Blade bit by bit. Meanwhile, she wrapped herself in a light fur robe and sat before the chessboard where she had played a game against herself that morning. She glanced down briefly, then returned several pieces to their original positions.

Longgu Buwang was slightly startled. Every single piece he had secretly moved had been discovered. Seeing Song Chuyi’s leisurely, self-satisfied manner, Longgu Buwang felt truly stifled. “You said you would punish White Blade – why haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Song Chuyi said, placing a white piece and pondering aloud, “I did say that. But then I thought it over carefully – how could I lower myself to the level of a little beast? It would be beneath my dignity. However, if you wish to hold it accountable, I won’t look down on you for it.”

With things said to that extent, how could Longgu Buwang still teach White Blade a lesson? Nursing a belly full of anger, he said furiously, “So you go back on your word to me?”

Song Chuyi paused, then turned, swept back her wide sleeves, and made a deep bow to Longgu Buwang. “I am still too young and somewhat impulsive. I should not have made promises to you so casually. I apologize to you here.”

“Forget it.” Longgu Buwang rose and left. He did not feel he had gained any advantage from Song Chuyi’s bow of apology. Young and impulsive – who wasn’t young? Who wasn’t impulsive?

After the trimming, a patch of fur was missing from the top of White Blade’s head, making it look somewhat less fierce. Song Chuyi reached out, lifted its wolf face, and examined it for a long while before snorting with laughter. “So silly, hahaha.”

White Blade’s bean-like eyes looked all the more innocent. Seeing its master laugh so shamelessly, it aggrievedly crawled onto her lap and whimpered.

“White Blade, you’re a wolf…” Song Chuyi rubbed its head and realized it was just as Longgu Buwang had said – White Blade had been raised by her into something like a puppy. Apart from its size and fierce appearance, it had none of a wolf’s wildness. Now with a bald patch on its head, it looked even sillier and even less like a wolf.

Song Chuyi studied the chess position for a while, then heard a crunching sound coming from the courtyard. She called a maid in and asked, “What’s going on outside?”

“It’s Deputy Envoy Longgu chopping firewood. Just now he had all the dry firewood brought into the plum garden,” the maid said.

“He’s really quite angry this time.” Song Chuyi grinned, patted White Blade on the head, and said, “Let’s go take a look.”

White Blade scrambled up and trotted after Song Chuyi out the door.

In the plum garden ahead, Longgu Buwang wore only a white underrobe, with two large piles of dry firewood stacked beside him. He was indeed chopping wood with a sword.

Before today, Song Chuyi had not known that Longgu Buwang was actually quite skilled with a sword. He split nearly every piece of wood with a single stroke, the cuts neat and even. The sword in his hand was just an ordinary bronze sword, without the kind of blade that could slice through a hair blown against it. To achieve this level meant he must have a solid foundation in martial arts.

She was not surprised, though. Pang Juan had been accomplished in both civil and military affairs – able to charge into battle at the front and retire to the tent to devise strategy. Longgu Buwang admired Pang Juan, so it was only to be expected that he would learn from him.

After watching Longgu Buwang from behind for a while, Song Chuyi noticed that his robe had come open at the front. The corners of her lips curved, and she led White Blade over to the corridor on the opposite side. Across the small lake, she could see the firm muscles of his chest and abdomen. Though not yet perfect, for someone his age they were truly quite impressive. So Song Chuyi then led White Blade directly into the plum grove, crouched in front of him, and watched from close range.

The snow was still falling. Longgu Buwang imagined the wood as White Blade and Song Chuyi, chopping with great relish, while that one person and one wolf watched with keen interest.

As he chopped, Longgu Buwang began to feel rather uncomfortable all over. He stopped and frowned at Song Chuyi. “What are you doing here?”

Song Chuyi secretly pinched herself, her eyes reddening, and said with a choke in her voice, “Buwang, I saw you in the snow on such a cold day with so little on, and my heart truly ached. I plan never to make you angry again.”

Song Chuyi stepped forward and patted him on the chest. “Forgive me.”

Longgu Buwang looked at Song Chuyi and saw that she was indeed “sincere and earnest,” so he tossed aside his sword and exhaled a great puff of mist. “Forget it. I don’t hold grudges.”

“Go take a bath quickly, don’t catch cold.” Song Chuyi said with a smile, “Want me to scrub your back for you?”

Longgu Buwang looked at her suspiciously, hesitated a moment, and said, “How about we bathe together? I’ll scrub your back too.”

“I just bathed. Didn’t you see?” Song Chuyi said.

“When?” Duan Gu Buwang asked in surprise. Remembering Song Chuyi’s godlike speed, he actually half believed it.

Song Chuyi patted his shoulder and said sorrowfully, “It’s fine if you don’t care about me. Go on.”

With that, she led White Blade back to the room forlornly.

Longgu Buwang was utterly bewildered. Song Chuyi’s attitude was the exact opposite of before, which he found truly hard to accept. Just as he stepped onto the corridor, he saw Ji Yu approaching and could not help asking, “Commander Ji, did teacher suffer a setback in the Qin palace?”

Otherwise, why would she be so abnormal?

Ji Yu paused and said, “No.”

“Then why…” Longgu Buwang said.

Ji Yu looked Longgu Buwang up and down and said, “Because you’re wearing too little today.”

What did that have to do with how much he was wearing? Why was everyone so strange after a trip to the Qin palace? Saying things he couldn’t understand at all. Was the plan going too smoothly, or too dangerously?

Longgu Buwang, full of worry, summoned a maid to send clothes to the bathhouse.

“Sir,” Ji Yu said, knocking on Song Chuyi’s door.

“Come in.”

Ji Yu pushed the door open and entered. He saw that Song Chuyi had already changed clothes and was teaching Ning Ya to read, not showing the slightest bit of the flippant, playful manner from earlier.

“Have a seat,” Song Chuyi said, turning around.

Ji Yu knelt down on the mat opposite her and said, “I sent people to scout within a ten-li radius. The snow is not deep. Merchant caravans are coming and going on the official road, and the accumulated snow has been almost entirely cleared – only after it froze has the road become somewhat slippery. Beyond seven li there is no heavy snow. If the snowfall does not grow heavier in the next two days, we can set out on schedule.”

“Good. Then pass the word down: everyone is to rest well these two days, and while at it, go buy what we’ll need for the journey,” Song Chuyi said.

“Yes, sir.” Ji Yu acknowledged the order and was about to rise and withdraw when he heard Song Chuyi say, “Commander Ji, I wish to take you as my teacher and have you teach me skills for self-defense.”

Ji Yu was stunned for a moment, then cupped his hands and said, “Sir, you are a scholar of broad learning. I am merely a martial man. I dare not presume to be your teacher. If you wish to learn, I will naturally impart everything I know without reservation.”

“How could a student of Master Yi be merely a martial man?” Song Chuyi looked at Ji Yu and, seeing his expression unchanged, knew his mind was made up and that he would not take her as a disciple. So she bowed and said, “Since that is so, thank you in advance.”

Ji Yu returned the bow and rose to leave.

Watching him close the door, Song Chuyi lowered her eyes, lost in thought.

After her rebirth, Song Chuyi had encountered no small number of people, yet the one who had most caught her special regard was not any of those scholars, but Ji Yu.

Ji Yu was a man who almost never spoke a wasted word. Whatever he did say was either something that had to be said or a remark that struck straight to the heart of the matter. His mind was forever calm and steady, and from the very first time they met in the mountains of Song, Song Chuyi knew him to be a man of great loyalty and courage. He also trusted people without suspicion – so bold as to entrust the lives of thirty thousand soldiers to a youth like her. Such a man was certainly no creature destined to remain in a pond.

So Song Chuyi wanted to win him over for her own use – not to turn him into a subordinate or a servant, but to build with him a relationship of mutual support and mutual aid.

Yet in this world, among people of talent and ability, lasting friendship is rare, because their pursuits differ and their choices differ. Once they each serve a different master in the future, it is not impossible that they might become enemies overnight. It was the same between her and Min Chi – neither had betrayed the other.

Song Chuyi hated Min Chi because he had exploited the feelings between them. Had it not been for that, even if Min Chi had led his army to breach the city that day, she would have accepted defeat wholeheartedly—she would not have hated him, but would have admired his methods.

But the changes of the world are not so hard to predict as the human heart.

Song Chuyi gave a faint sigh, then turned back to watch Ning Ya write.

The little girl gripped the brush, writing every stroke with the utmost care. She knew that brush, ink, and bamboo slips were all precious things – the price of even a single ordinary bamboo scroll was an astronomical sum to her. And to her, literacy was something only people of noble station were entitled to. In her heart, Song Chuyi was like a god – and now this god had shown her favor and was even teaching her to read. Ning Ya treasured the opportunity and revered Song Chuyi all the more.

“Ning Ya, I separated you from your mother – are you sad? Do you hate me?” Song Chuyi suddenly asked once she saw the girl finish the last stroke.

Ning Ya hurriedly set down the brush and prostrated herself before Song Chuyi. “I do not hate you. You treat me well. If I did not know gratitude, my heart would have been eaten by dogs.”

There was no polish in these words at all – utterly plain – yet to Song Chuyi’s ears they sounded utterly lovely.

Song Chuyi reached out and helped her up. “Do you know why I didn’t sell you?”

This question was not really directed at Ning Ya; she answered it herself. “Because your mother truly loves you. That love made me unable to bear destroying it.”

Many people, when they cannot put food on the table, sell their sons and daughters -and that means falling from commoner status into the slave registers, never to rise again for all eternity. Ning Ya’s mother, even gravely ill, still treasured her daughter as the flesh of her heart and could not bear to let her go.

She could not stop her husband from selling their daughter, but if Ji Huan had not, in a moment of impulsiveness that day, thumped his chest and pledged his own life to guarantee that the girl would never be humiliated, that woman would likely have dragged her sick body along after the convoy the whole way.

“The reason people are noble is that they love themselves,” Song Chuyi said, stroking Ning Ya’s tender little face and smiling slightly.

Song Chuyi was never soft-hearted when it came to the slave trade. Since even parents did not cherish their own children, why should she trouble herself with needless worries? But toward people like Ning Ya and her mother, she would not cruelly mistreat them either.

Thinking of the old man in her household – though starving to death like that had been very foolish – she would forever keep it engraved in her heart.

If only… she could have been reborn ten-some years earlier.

Song Chuyi told Ning Ya to take White Blade out to play, leaving only herself in the room.

After sitting quietly for a good while, she finally took the map out of the box and traced her finger over a stretch of open land between Qin and Wei.

Song Chuyi had noticed this place long ago but had never gone to verify it, because she felt somewhat lost and timid. The place her finger traced should originally have been where Yangcheng was located, yet what was drawn on the map was all encompassed within Wei territory – there was no place called Yangcheng at all.

Was the map wrong? Or had something in the world she knew changed?

Song Chuyi had looked at this map the whole way, and though she had kept her expression unchanged, some part of her heart was anxious. Perhaps in a month she would reach the place where Yangcheng should have been, and those questions she had been avoiding would have to be faced after all.

If Yangcheng no longer existed, did that self still exist?