Chapter 69

Fan Changyu had already spent three days digging earth and stone in the camp. Since soldiers strictly supervised them while they worked and did not allow them to wander around, the only terrain she could observe was the route between the barracks where they were confined and the mountain where they excavated.

One soldier was assigned to watch every ten people, and a collective punishment system was also enforced. If one person in a group escaped, the other nine would be punished regardless of whether they knew about it or not, so long as they failed to report it. As a result, not only were the soldiers watching them, but the refugees working together were also watching one another. Escaping was far from easy.

Aside from that, however, the soldiers maintained strict discipline. They did not withhold food from the refugees, nor did they harass the women in the barracks.

Instead, it was some of the unmarried men among the refugees who constantly cast lecherous looks at the women, whistling and making vulgar remarks.

Fortunately, the men’s and women’s quarters were separated. The only times the two groups interacted were when they assembled in the morning to head up the mountain and during meal distributions.

Women whose husbands, fathers, or brothers were also among the refugees were rarely bothered by the troublemakers. Those who were alone—whether young maidens or married women—became targets for their crude teasing.

Some of the hooligans even tried persuading solitary women to team up with them for excavation work. Their pitch was simple: work with them, suffer less, and eat your fill. Of course, the price was enduring their unwanted advances.

Fan Changyu was good-looking. She had already attracted attention when she first arrived, though she herself had no idea.

At that time, nobody was willing to partner with her because those hooligans had planned to let her suffer for half a day first. Once she realized how difficult it was to earn enough food through excavation alone, they intended to extend a helping hand, expecting her to obediently rely on them.

Who would have thought Fan Changyu was such an oddball? Not only did she refuse to depend on them for food, she became the fiercest competitor in snatching up extra rations.

For the first two days, she diligently excavated stone and earth, steadily earning two extra steamed buns every meal. Then she noticed that a huge man working alongside them had actually received a chicken drumstick. Suddenly, steamed buns and plain porridge seemed rather bland. Unable to resist, she asked around to find out why he could get meat.

A woman whose sleeping mat was beside hers explained, “That fellow is incredibly strong. Besides digging stone every day, he also carries away all the stone he excavates. It seems one of the officers likes him and wants him to enlist. But his wife and children are here, so he keeps digging stone to make sure they all have enough to eat.”

Biting into a steamed bun, Fan Changyu asked, “So if you do more work—digging and transporting stone—you get to eat meat?”

The woman nodded.

“You’ve seen how big those baskets are. A full basket of stone weighs nearly three hundred pounds. Even the soldiers have to carry them in pairs. Among all of us refugees, he’s the only one who can move one by himself.”

Later, carrying her bowl of porridge, Fan Changyu wandered back to the old man. After listening to him finish explaining a new passage from the Analects, she suddenly asked,

“How about we eat meat tomorrow?”

The old man’s expression darkened. He snorted through his nose.

“I am teaching you the wisdom of Confucius and Mencius, and all you can think about is satisfying your appetite?”

Scratching her head awkwardly, Fan Changyu replied,

“I was listening. You said, ‘Be strict with yourself and lenient toward others, and resentment will stay far away.’ It means we should reflect on our own faults more and blame others less. I remembered correctly, didn’t I?”

Then she couldn’t help adding,

“Don’t you want to eat meat at all?”

The old man’s throat bobbed visibly.

Closing his eyes, he scolded,

“Vulgar.”

Fan Changyu wasn’t offended in the slightest. That afternoon, she worked with unprecedented enthusiasm.

Previously, she had only worked enough to match her appetite. Once she could consistently earn two extra buns, she had started slacking off. But now, motivated by thoughts of meat, she dug fifteen full baskets in a single afternoon and told the soldiers she would carry them herself.

The soldier supervising them thought she had gone insane.

Pointing at a basket filled with rocks, he said,

“Do you know how much that weighs? One basket on your back could snap your legs in half!”

Only then did the old man realize what she had meant at lunch. Worried that something might happen to a young woman attempting such a feat, he came over with a sour face.

“Nonsense! Aren’t two buns and a bowl of porridge enough for you? If not, I’ll give you my share.”

Ignoring him, Fan Changyu asked the soldier,

“If I carry all fifteen baskets down the mountain, can I get a chicken drumstick tonight?”

The commotion caught the attention of the officer in charge of all the refugees.

After hearing her question, he clearly thought she was dreaming.

“Forget fifteen baskets. If you can carry just this one basket down to the foot of the mountain, I’ll reward you with an entire roast chicken!”

Fan Changyu visibly froze.

There was such a good deal?

The promise immediately drew everyone’s attention. Refugees who had been bent over digging stone stopped what they were doing and looked over, leaning on their hoes and discussing the spectacle.

The woman who had spoken with Fan Changyu earlier looked deeply worried. She clearly hadn’t expected Fan Changyu to be planning something like this and feared she had inadvertently caused trouble.

The old man’s wrinkled brows twisted into a knot.

“Girl, don’t be foolish!”

The officer hadn’t actually believed Fan Changyu would try. Seeing her standing there silently, he assumed she had been frightened.

“Well? Are you carrying it or not?”

Fan Changyu said to the old man,

“Don’t worry about me.”

Then she walked over to the officer.

“I’ll carry it. As long as you keep your word, sir.”

Lifting three hundred pounds with one hand was still difficult for her.

But carrying it on her back?

That was no challenge at all.

Everyone watched, some frowning, others eager for entertainment.

The tall but slender young woman planted her feet firmly on the packed earth, slipped the basket straps over both shoulders, gripped them tightly with her hands, and sank slightly into the ground.

Then she lifted the nearly three-hundred-pound basket of stone onto her back.

A chorus of gasps erupted.

The hooligans leaning on their hoes stared with mouths hanging open, looking as though they had seen a ghost. At the same time, they felt grateful they hadn’t said anything inappropriate on her first day. Otherwise, getting beaten into a pig’s head would probably have been the least of their worries.

The officer was equally dumbfounded.

He had heard reports from subordinates about a woman who excavated stone tirelessly and earned extra buns every meal.

But excavation relied on technique and endurance. Anyone could do it.

Carrying such an enormous load, however?

In the entire military camp, only a few generals were capable of that.

Fan Changyu scarcely used her crutch for support. Holding the basket straps, she steadily walked downhill.

It wasn’t effortless, but neither did she appear particularly strained.

Even after she disappeared into the distance, the quarry remained deathly silent.

Watching her departing figure, the old man fell into thought.

Stroking his sparse gray goatee, he murmured,

“With bones and constitution like that… had she been born male, she would surely have become someone extraordinary…”

That evening, when rations were distributed, Fan Changyu truly received a whole roast chicken.

Carrying her porridge bowl, she found a quiet spot and squatted down with the old man. Tearing off a large drumstick, she offered it to him.

Instead of accepting it, he looked at her with a complicated expression.

“How did the scouting go?”

Fan Changyu looked up.

“How did you know I was scouting?”

The old man’s heavily wrinkled eyelids drooped low, but his eyes remained clear.

“Every time we’ve gone up the mountain these past days, you’ve been secretly studying the terrain and military deployment. You ask everyone endless questions. You’ve been eyeing other people’s meat for two days already. Why suddenly make such a fuss today? Because you’ve already figured out the surrounding geography and defenses and wanted to inspect military positions elsewhere.”

Their voices were extremely low, and nobody was nearby.

Seeing that the old man had discerned her intentions, Fan Changyu said,

“You don’t need to worry. I won’t run away and cause trouble for everyone. I carried the stones to the dam because I wanted to see how construction was progressing and how much longer we’ll be trapped here. It looked nearly finished. We should be released soon.”

If they intended to keep her here for a year or more, she certainly couldn’t wait that long.

The old man snorted.

“And you needed such a foolish method to check construction progress? Let me tell you this. That dam must be completed before the first torrential spring rain arrives.”

Fan Changyu frowned.

“Why?”

The old man shot her a sideways glance.

“You haven’t paid tuition. You haven’t kowtowed and served tea to accept me as your teacher. It’s one thing to ask me rigid questions from the Four Books, but why should I teach you this?”

“Oh.”

Fan Changyu took him literally and stopped asking.

She happily bit into the oily drumstick he had rejected.

The old man glared.

“You foolish piglet! That’s the extent of your intelligence!”

Fan Changyu was baffled by the scolding.

Not wanting to argue with a skinny, white-haired old eccentric, she pursed her lips and shifted farther away, silently continuing to eat her drumstick.

Her actions clearly conveyed her displeasure.

The old man became even angrier.

His chest rose and fell dramatically.

“No tea, and you’ve forgotten how to kowtow too?”

Only then did Fan Changyu realize he had actually been trying to take her as a disciple.

She knew her own limitations.

After hesitating for a while, she politely declined.

“Honestly, I’m not cut out for studying. My mother used to say reading more is never a bad thing, so I only half-understood the books I read. I already feel embarrassed letting you teach me for free. There was silver in the bundle the soldiers confiscated. If they return our belongings when we’re released, I’ll pay you tuition then.”

The main issue was that becoming his disciple would mean caring for him in his old age.

After hearing him spend so much time complaining about his former student, Fan Changyu had concluded that he had once expected that student to support him, only to be abandoned. That was probably why he wanted a new disciple now.

But she still had to find her younger sister.

She couldn’t remain here indefinitely, nor could she devote herself to caring for the old man forever.

Hearing his offer rejected, the old man’s stubbornness flared up.

“Do you know how many people have offered ten thousand gold pieces and begged me to take them as disciples, only to be refused?”

Fan Changyu, having already finished the drumstick, stared at the chicken bone in shock.

“Being a teacher pays that much?”

The old man: “…”

His wrinkled face turned red with rage.

Closing his eyes, he barked,

“Forget it! Truly rotten wood that cannot be carved!”

Thinking of the equally lonely Zhao couple, Fan Changyu suddenly felt sorry for him.

He was only this angry because she had refused to become his disciple.

His temper was terrible, he had no children, and finding someone willing to care for him in old age probably wasn’t easy.

For some reason, Yan Zheng suddenly came to mind.

She realized his foul temper was remarkably similar to this strange old man’s.

If Yan Zheng spent his entire life alone because his mouth was too vicious, wouldn’t he end up exactly like this old man when he got older?

Fan Changyu quickly stopped that bizarre train of thought.

Looking at the old eccentric sitting there with a cold face, refusing to speak to her, she tore the roast chicken in half and placed one half into his bowl beside the steamed buns.

With a sigh, she carried the remaining half back to the women’s barracks.

—

That night, spring thunder exploded across the sky, followed by torrential rain.

Water rapidly accumulated on the ground.

Watching the blinding flashes of lightning shining through cracks in the doors and windows, listening to thunder that drowned out everything else and the noisy crying of children in the barracks, Fan Changyu felt increasingly uneasy.

She sat up.

The moment her feet touched the floor, she stepped into water.

Rainwater had already accumulated inside the barracks.

Remembering the old man’s words that the dam must be completed before the spring floods arrived, she recalled what she had seen that afternoon while transporting stone.

The situation indeed seemed to match his prediction.

She hoped the soldiers would release them tomorrow.

Yet beneath the roar of rain and thunder, she thought she could faintly hear other noises outside.

After a moment’s hesitation, she threw on a coat and went to investigate.

To prevent escapes, they weren’t housed in tents.

Instead, the soldiers had commandeered mud-brick houses abandoned by local residents who had fled south.

The doors were always locked at night.

Wading through water to the entrance, Fan Changyu used a flash of lightning to look outside.

The guards who normally stood watch had vanished.

Near the building holding the male refugees, someone appeared to be smashing at the door lock with a hard object.

She quickly realized something had happened in the military camp.

And this stormy night presented the perfect chance to escape.

There was nothing hard enough inside the room to break the door.

After thinking briefly, she stepped back two paces, charged forward, and delivered a vicious kick.

The wooden door instantly collapsed outward.

Ignoring the various expressions on the women’s faces, Fan Changyu rushed into the rain and headed straight for the barracks where their belongings were stored.

Others soon understood what was happening and hurried after her.

The men abandoned their attempts to smash the lock.

Moments later, the entire doorway and frame were rammed off their hinges. The huge man failed to stop his momentum and tumbled into the muddy rain before scrambling up to search for his wife and children.

Chaos erupted throughout the refugee compound.

Everyone shouted names, desperately searching for relatives.

Being alone, Fan Changyu quickly found her bundle.

Pushing against the crowd, she finally emerged from the storage barracks and spotted the old man stumbling out of his own building.

His soaked clothes clung tightly to his body, making him appear even more gaunt.

Fan Changyu originally intended to leave him behind.

But despite his strange personality, he had sincerely taught her the Four Books.

There was a saying among common folk:

“A teacher for a day is a father for life.”

He could be considered half a teacher to her.

Gritting her teeth, she finally ran through the rain carrying her bundle and said,

“I’ll carry you out.”

Before the old man could respond, she had already swung him onto her back.

Drenched and looking like a soaked wild pheasant with a long neck, he still stubbornly protested,

“I can walk myself! I don’t need you carrying me!”

Knowing his temperament, Fan Changyu ignored him.

Since she had already memorized the camp’s layout over the past several days, she quickly escaped onto the main road.

Occasional lightning illuminated the landscape.

Rainwater dripped from her eyelashes as she noticed corpses of soldiers lying scattered everywhere.

The water running across the ground carried a faint pinkish-red hue.

Far away, tents burned amid the torrential rain.

Two opposing forces seemed to be fighting.

The old man’s expression changed.

“This is bad. The rebels must have discovered the dam construction.”

Struggling to keep her eyes open in the rain, Fan Changyu asked,

“The rebels killed these soldiers?”

The old man replied,

“Ever since construction began, every rebel scout sent to investigate this region has disappeared without a trace. That must have alerted them. They likely dispatched a force to launch a surprise attack. Their purpose wasn’t the attack itself—it was to cover their scouts and ensure the information could be carried back!”

Fan Changyu frowned.

“What does that have to do with building the dam?”

The old man’s face turned grim.

“Have you ever seen a proper dam completed in ten days or half a month? This dam was hastily built only to temporarily hold back water. Fifty thousand rebel troops are besieging Lu City. Once the accumulated water surges downstream, Lu City can destroy all fifty thousand enemies without sacrificing a single soldier. If the rebels learn beforehand that a flood capable of annihilating their army has been trapped upstream, do you think they’ll still march into the river valley trap?”

Only then did Fan Changyu understand why the soldiers had detained them.

But survival was the priority now.

To avoid attracting attention, she muttered an apology and stripped armor and uniforms from two dead Ji Province soldiers, dressing both herself and the old man.

Further ahead, she spotted a horse.

The animal was nudging a fallen general with its nose.

Fan Changyu hurried over and took the reins.

Since the soldiers had confiscated her own horse and she hadn’t recovered it, she considered this compensation from the army.

Just as she turned to leave, the dying general grabbed her sleeve.

Recognizing the Ji Province uniform she wore, he struggled to speak through blood filling his throat.

“Three… scouts escaped through Lukou Pass… quickly… pursue…”

Then he died.

Despite everything she had experienced, Fan Changyu still felt goosebumps spread across her body.

The old man stood silently in the rain with his hands behind his back.

Leading the horse over, Fan Changyu hesitated before asking,

“Are you still coming with me?”

The old man gazed at her through the rain and sighed deeply.

“If you were a man, I would order you to cross Wu Ridge and intercept those three rebel scouts on the road leading into Lu City through Lukou Pass. Their lives determine the fate of Lu City—and perhaps all of Ji Province. But no matter how skilled you are, you’re still a woman. The rise and fall of the world is not a burden women are obligated to bear. Go save yourself. I’ll return this information to the army.”

Fan Changyu nodded.

“Then this is where we part.”

She mounted the horse and spurred it onto the official road.

Rain streamed down her cheeks from her jaw.

Lightning illuminated the struggle in her eyes.

She wanted to find Changning.

To find Changning and return to the simple life they once had.

Wars and military affairs were concerns for high officials.

The survival of cities and territories had nothing to do with an ordinary woman like her.

Yet the tragedies of Qingping County and Lin’an Town remained vivid in her memory.

Bandits alone had transformed those places into cities of death.

If the scouts escaped and the flood plan failed, if Lu City fell…

What would happen to the people living there?

Fan Changyu cracked her whip.

The warhorse raced wildly through the storm.

Rain and cold wind lashed her face with painful force.

In that instant, countless faces flashed through her mind.

Constable Wang and his wife.

The neighbors from West Alley.

Carpenter Zhao and Yan Zheng, still in Lu City…

She had already killed many people.

Yet the bloodshed at Qingping County and Lin’an Town still haunted her.

Perhaps…

Perhaps she could stop those three scouts herself.

Taking two deep breaths, Fan Changyu finally yanked the reins and brought the horse to a halt.

She left her bundle behind.

Only several butcher knives were taken from it.

Fastening her wrist guards, she abandoned the horse and dashed toward Wu Ridge like a leopard hunting through the rain.

—

Lu City.

Unlike the torrential downpour upstream in Ji Province, only a light drizzle fell over Lu City.

Standing atop the city walls, He Jingyuan gazed toward the distant mountain range.

“Where have the rebels been lured to?”

A deputy general beside him replied,

“Scouts report they have reached the river mouth, but they remain extremely cautious and refuse to advance deeper.”

After a moment of thought, He Jingyuan said,

“Raise my command banner. Continue luring them.”

Orders were immediately passed down.

The city gates opened slightly, allowing a scout on horseback to ride out and deliver messages.

He Jingyuan glanced toward the upper reaches of the Wu River.

Nothing showed on his face, but the hand resting on the battlements had clenched into a fist.

If this plan failed, Lu City would be left with only thirty thousand soldiers.

More than ten thousand of them were recent recruits who had not even mastered a complete spear technique.

—

Light rain also fell across the wilderness of Yan Province.

Xie Zheng sat atop his horse on a low hillside, coldly observing the battle below.

Torches intertwined like a sea of fire.

Only occasionally could one distinguish whether the banners fluttering amid flame and rain belonged to Yan Province or Chong Province.

Droplets slid from his jaw.

His attention remained fixed on the distance the Yan Province forces advanced through the firelight.

Not even his eyelashes trembled.

Beside him, Gongsun Yin held a feather fan against the slanting rain and asked,

“If you don’t enter the battlefield personally, the Chong Province army won’t enter First-Line Gorge.”

Xie Zheng replied,

“We’ve prepared an ambush in First-Line Gorge. The Sui father and son have undoubtedly prepared one elsewhere. Let’s wait for them to cast their bait first.”

Gongsun Yin raised his fox-like eyes.

“You plan to swallow their bait and then lure them into First-Line Gorge?”

Xie Zheng neither confirmed nor denied it.

Gongsun Yin narrowed his eyes, contemplating what sort of bait Xie Zheng meant.

Before he could speak, a disturbance erupted below.

A young general charged out from the Chong Province army.

Mounted on a white horse and wielding a silver spear, he was handsome yet sinister-looking.

A crying little girl, terrified by the battlefield slaughter, was held in his arms.

Arrogantly, he shouted toward the Yan Province forces locked in combat:

“Where is the Marquis of Wuan? Come out and die!”

Frowning at the figure illuminated by firelight, Gongsun Yin remarked,

“He resembles your younger self somewhat.”

Xie Zheng cast him a flat glance.

“When did your eyesight fail?”

Before Gongsun Yin could react, Xie Zheng had already seized the halberd planted beside him.

Spurring his horse, he descended the slope.

Behind him, his black cloak billowed high in the rain like a powerful storm cloud.