by Tao Wong
Once the group was inside, they were shown to seats where snacks and a pot of steaming tea awaited them. Small washing bowls and towels were placed on side tables, which the nobles went to immediately to wash off the grime of the road. Tou He and Wu Ying glanced at one another before they copied the actions of their friends, washing hands and dabbing at their faces with wet cloths before they took their seats.
For a time, the group waited, sipping on tea. Tou He and Bao Cong, after a short wait, started in on the snacks, unperturbed by their surroundings. Wu Ying on the other hand sat at the edge of his seat, his hands on his knees, tense and waiting. Yin Xue did not bother sitting, sipping on his tea as he strolled around the hall, peering at various pieces of artwork and stone carvings. He would occasionally stop and admire a piece. As for Li Yao, she sat primly on her seat with her teacup, neither tense nor lounging. Content to wait.
Long minutes ticked away and Tou He’s slurping as he ate made Wu Ying grit his teeth in annoyance. He almost spoke up twice but clenched his jaw. The second time because Li Yao caught his eye and shook her head, forcing him to hold onto his patience. Wu Ying was so close but still so far as Lord Wen took his time showing up. Each minute was torture for Wu Ying, one that he tried to ignore by focusing on his breathing, the slide of cold air into his lungs and the way his aura teased at the various unaspected portions of chi that flowed through the hall.
It was nearly half an hour later before the doors leading further into the structure opened. Wu Ying shot to his feet and winced, realizing how eager he seemed. Li Yao stood up more languidly, followed by his friends all turning to stare at the newcomer.
Lord Wen was a large man, standing just over six feet, and big the way once muscular men who aged and stopped exercising were. There was still strength in his frame, but it was hidden underneath layers of fat. A slight graying in Lord Wen’s hair and his imperial-styled beard showed the stress of the past few years. Lord Wen was dressed in the long, glittering robes that were his wont, golden thread and red on pale silk laid over his body. Numerous other accessories lay on his body, from jade bracelets and rings to a necklace that held the kingdom seal, the mark of his nobility.
“Lord Wen.” Wu Ying bowed.
His companions mimicked his movements, even Yin Xue, much to Wu Ying’s surprise. Though he noticed that Yin Xue did call his father by his paternal honorific.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Lord Wen said, brushing past the bowing Wu Ying to take a seat. He flopped down, legs crossing as he stared at Wu Ying, unperturbed by the presence of the others. He did, however, fix his son with a reproachful gaze. “Not you.”
“I came to speak with you about—”
Lord Wen cut off Wu Ying. “Stealing my villagers. I know. What makes you think I should even countenance a discussion?”
Wu Ying hesitated as Lord Wen went on the attack immediately.
“If you did not want to, you would not be speaking with us.” Li Yao offered Lord Wen a smile, bowing again as she re-introduced herself. “I’m sure there is some agreement we could come to.”
“For the loss of an entire village?” Lord Wen snorted. “Is the House Lee offering their support?”
Li Yao’s eyes widened, and Wu Ying saw the growing smirk on Lord Wen’s face. Lord Wen was playing with them.
Rather than let the others speak any further, Wu Ying stepped forward, drawing Lord Wen’s sneering focus again. “This is between you and me. They are just here as my…” Wu Ying glanced at Yin Xue and then Bao Cong before changing the word he was going to use. “Companions.”
Lord Wen snorted, his disdain clear. Yet Lord Wen flicked a gaze to the three nobles in quick order before stopping on Tou He, and he bit off whatever acerbic comment he might have voiced. “What do you offer then, Wu Ying?”
“Cultivator Long,” Wu Ying quietly corrected Lord Wen.
He watched as the nobleman narrowed his eyes and smiled when Lord Wen grudgingly corrected his words. It was a minor victory, but it did assert Wu Ying’s standing. He was no peasant, but a cultivator in a Sect that required respect. He was not bargaining as a peasant to his Lord and landholder, but one of near equals.
“At this time, you know what I want,” Wu Ying said. “Perhaps it will be easier if you tell us what you desire.”
“And why should I name my price when you are the one who wants to buy?”
“Most merchants do,” Wu Ying said. When Lord Wen’s eyes narrowed at the insult—comparing him to a lowly merchant[65]!—Wu Ying continued speaking. “But as you know, my means are limited. Even so, we are speaking. So there is something that you want from me. And my companions.”
“What I want is for my village and lands to be unmolested. Can you do that? Can you stop the army?” Even as Wu Ying shook his head, Lord Wen continued. “Of course not. Even having you guard my lands from a raiding party is more than can be expected of the five of you.”
Wu Ying inclined his head in acknowledgment of the point. While Lord Wen was not a prosperous nobleman, his lands were still large enough that the group would be unable to patrol all of it. Perhaps they might be able to stop one or two intruders, but if the army itself arrived, they would have to pull back.
“How bad is it? With the Wei army?” Yin Xue interrupted. “They’ve never done permanent harm.”
Wu Ying pressed his lips together. Permanent. That was only from the view of a noble. Too often, they’d taken rice, seed, food. Slaughtered animals or stolen horses. It left the villagers bereft of everything but their houses and whatever rice they had managed to hide or had been left untouched. Still, there was truth to the words too. They rarely killed, took slaves, or burnt down residences.
“This time it’s different,” Lord Wen replied to his son. “This time, they are destroying what they cannot hold. They are taking slaves.”
There was a joint hiss at his words. That was not entirely new news. Rumors had floated as far as the Sect itself of a change in policy. The closer they got, the more details had been offered. And slavery was not unknown, though it was not practiced in the State of Shen or, normally, the State of Wei. That it was happening now…
“Why?” Yin Xue asked.
“Money,” Bao Cong answered for Lord Wen. “Wars are expensive. For us. For them. And the appetite of Cai has grown. They need more slaves every year as they expand eastward.”
Wu Ying frowned and cudgeled his brain for information on the State of Cai. Farther east and north of Wei, it was blocked from expansion by a small mountain range and the river that flowed between the pair. So long as the state of Wei held both, it stymied the State of Cai’s expansionist tendencies to the west. It helped that expanding to the north and east was easier too. But so long as the State of Cai expanded, it needed slaves.
“And you’ve confirmed they are taking slaves?” Tou He said, speaking up.
“We have,” Lord Wen said. “Most of the villages close to the border have been emptied. Lord Yu is suffering. The king has indicated he will aid him, but there’s only so much that can be done. His largesse will run out soon.”
“Then why care if I take my family away?” Wu Ying said, eyes narrowing.
“Because it is not guaranteed the army will reach us. For your family—for the village—to leave in time, they will have to depart at least a few weeks before the army arrives. I am giving up my village for a risk. And even if the raiding parties come, not all of my villages will be hit. The tradeoff is poor.”
“For you,” Wu Ying said flatly.
“That is what matters.”
Wu Ying bit his tongue as he stopped himself from retorting. He forced himself to draw a deep breath, to find calm before he spoke. “Then we come back to the question. What do you want?”
“From you?” Lord Wen stood. He walked to the door and only turned at the border of the room, offering the stunned group a taunting half-smile. “Coming?”
The group scrambled after the sauntering Lord. They went down one hallway then ano
ther, heading deeper into the building itself until they reached a new room. Within, multiple scrolls and books sat on bookshelves while the clear daylight streamed in from open windows. Dominating one side of the room was a wooden table, while the other side had lounging chairs for easy reading. It was to the table that Lord Wen walked. Wu Ying was surprised to note a map of the country and the State of Wei were laid out. On it were multiple markers—simple carvings of the words Wei and Shen.
It took little thought to realize that the map and figurines denoted the positions of the armies. Of as much interest to Wu Ying were smaller carvings of carriages and little boats placed along different trading routes. Those, Wu Ying estimated, were likely merchants Lord Wen had interest in—or maybe even the conveyances of a branch family.
“These are current?” Wu Ying said.
“As of yesterday,” Lord Wen said.
The group crowded around the table, taking in their first clear view of the situation. One further addition that Wu Ying spotted was the use of a thin, light purple paper that was bunched and cut apart, to indicate areas the armies had traversed. In that way, a clearer history of the war was available.
“Not that close,” Wu Ying said with relief. His gaze had been drawn to the only Wei army—one of three that had deployed—that might threaten the village. A quick glance showed that a second army was stalemated at a river crossing, and the last army was running unchecked before the city of Yu.
“What happened there?” Li Yao said and pointed at the last army carving. A short distance away, the marker for the army of Shen sat, but it was behind the army of Wei.
“A play on spies. The Wei general supplied us the wrong information, sending our army in the wrong location. By the time they learned better, it was too late,” Lord Wen growled. “They will only catch them when they have begun besieging the city of Yu.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Tou He asked. “Surely the city can hold?”
Lord Wen shrugged. “Maybe. There are rumors that the army holds a Nascent Soul cultivator within.”
The group winced. If a Nascent Soul cultivator took action, the walls would not hold. No city could afford to build their walls with spiritual material, so the only reinforcement city walls received were from formations. Activating a formation was expensive and required a sacrifice of materials and spirit stones, so most cities never activated the ones they had in play. More than that, most cities did not invest in formations powerful enough to stop a Nascent Soul cultivator.
“But they couldn’t hold it, could they?” Li Yao said worriedly. The little cultivator leaned forward and stared at the terrain. “They’d have to strike and move on, in fear of being caught out.”
“Unless they entered the city and repaired the walls,” Yin Xue corrected her. “Then they could hold within and force our army to besiege our own city. Then they could have their reserves come to relieve them.” Yin Xue pointed at the fourth carving that sat behind Wei’s borders, just waiting to reinforce.
While the group chatted about the problem of the second Wei army, Wu Ying looked farther south and spotted the marker of a fourth token from their kingdom. This one was across the border, heading deeper into the state of Wei, having already sacked one town on the border crossing, it seemed. An arrow pointing north east of the marker indicated its route of progress, direct toward the Wei city of Guitong. As Wu Ying peered at the maps, he noted the numerous mountains that dotted the region next to the city and the Li River that flowed right past Guitong. He frowned, trying to remember why the name seemed so familiar—beyond the rice grown in the region that was known to be nearly as good as their village’s.
“They are attacking Guitong?” Yin Xue said, having spotted Wu Ying’s perusal and turning to his father. His voice held a strange tone, one that set Wu Ying’s senses on alert.
“Yes.”
“You don’t mean for us to…” Yin Xue stopped himself. “Of course you do.”
Realization struck Wu Ying while Yin Xue talked to his father. Old lessons about their liege lord’s upbringing. The Lord Wen and his family were not “true” members of the state of Shen, but branch members from a noble peerage in the state of Wei. The passing of some crucial information and an action during one of their intermittent wars—what action, Wu Ying could not recall—had seen to the grandfather of Lord Wen receiving his peerage in the state of Shen. It was why Lord Wen had such a small land allotment and why Lord Wen spent so much of his time currying favor in the court.
“You want us to take part in the army, don’t you?” Wu Ying summarized.
“Not exactly.” Lord Wen stopped talking to his son and turned fully to Wu Ying. “I want you to acquire something for me from the city.”
“What?”
“The cultivation method for my family.”
Wu Ying frowned. He had wondered why Yin Xue focused on the Yellow Emperor’s method of cultivation just like the rest of them. After all, most nobles, like Li Yao, had their own cultivation methods. Most of those methods were developed specifically for their bloodline, suiting them better than something more generic. Or at least, the nobles insisted it was better.
“And this information is in the city?” Wu Ying asked.
“Yes. The Wen family estate is located in Guitong. While the main family spends most of its time in the capital, the family memorial is still located in the city. By tradition, the family cultivation style and the lineage tablet must be kept in the city. Relocating it and the ancestors would bring bad luck.” The last sentence was said with a sneer.
Wu Ying frowned, tapping his fingers on the side of his leg. “Even if we agree to do this, I don’t know what your style is. Unless it’s clearly marked, I could be easily led astray.”
“Then it’s a good thing you have my son. He will know what the true style looks like.” Lord Wen chuckled. “And there is no if. If you want my agreement for your village to leave, you will take on this task.”
Wu Ying stared at the marker for the fourth army. He had no desire to join the fight. He had no idea how the appearance of himself and his friends would even be taken. They might be powerful cultivators, but armies had a chain of command. Randomly adding in new people would be tricky. After all, spies were always trying to join armies.
Even so…
“Very well,” Wu Ying said. “But I will have your oath to allow my village to leave. You will even guarantee their safety.”
“If you promise to complete this task.” Lord Wen stared at Wu Ying, daring him to turn away or look aside.
Wu Ying returned the gaze and offered a single nod, agreeing to the task. It was a simple thing after all. Join the army, lay siege to a city, break into the city, and steal a cultivation manual from the nobleman’s home or burial grounds. All the while, not dying or losing any of his friends.
Simple.
Chapter 11
Of course, it wasn’t that simple. There was more to discuss. Wu Ying received, as best as he could, the information that Lord Wen had about the main family’s residence, the mausoleum, their numbers, and their security, as well as a map of the city itself. All of which was dated and liable to be inaccurate to some degree. Wu Ying was told where he should expect the documentation to be kept, and even given some brief overview of the cultivation style. Once all that was done, Lord Wen dismissed Wu Ying and his friends to the visiting hall they had come from. Only Yin Xue was left behind, to have a longer talk with his father in private.
It was nearly an hour later when Yin Xue came out. He refused to say anything about what had transpired behind closed doors, but he stared daggers at Wu Ying at every chance he could.
Their objective complete, Wu Ying took his friends over to his village. It would be a chance for him to show off to his friends where he came from, have the village thank them for their aid, and most of all, for him to see his parents.
In truth, Wu Ying felt an indescribable level of excitement and dread at the upcoming talk. He missed his parents, the village
, the rice fields. But… he also dreaded introducing them to Li Yao. He dreaded what his mother might say. He dreaded what Li Yao might say. It was one thing to know he was a peasant. It was another to see it in all its mundane drabness.
In this mixed state of mind, Wu Ying led his friends to the village. The first signs of it were the terraced paddy fields, the gentle slope of the surroundings carved into flat fields to allow for production of rice. Next was the small cluster of buildings that denoted the village proper. Some families, like his, had their residences situated farther afield from the center of town. That offered them some privacy and space to grow their own vegetables in their gardens, but the longer-standing members of the village had their houses in the village square itself. They were the original inhabitants, the ones who had grouped together to begin the cultivation of rice here. And of course, the schoolhouse, the tavern, and the blacksmith were all located in the center of the town.
As it was approaching evening by the time the group arrived in the village, few people were in the fields, the last few stragglers in the process of putting away the equipment they had used over the day.
The sight of a group of cultivators on horses made the villagers tense. That was no surprise to Wu Ying. Groups of men on horses were never good news for the village. After all, only nobles or the army came in large numbers, astride horses. Or bandits.
Luckily, the Sect robes the group wore allayed some of those fears. Still, Wu Ying noticed that a small number of villagers had clustered around Elder Ko. Among them was his father, who was just arriving, a sword belted to his side. Even with the slight hitch in his stride, Long Yu Ri was an intimidating sight. There was a hardness to his father that Wu Ying could not replicate. It came from his time in the army, from his time working the fields, from pain and hardship, a life hard lived.
