Chapter 64

When Ye Rui came out of the bookstore, worry was written all over her face. In the past, she had wanted nothing more than for Xie Tinglan to look at her a few more times, to pay her more attention. But now that Xie Tinglan knew where she was, Ye Rui felt her scalp go numb.

Even the flesh on her back seemed to throb with phantom pain. That single word—“distraction”—burst out of her memories and, with effortless ease, shattered every last bit of her defenses.

What was Xie Tinglan to her now?

Ye Rui didn’t know. Right now, Xie Tinglan was like a thorn driven deep into her memory; those bittersweet recollections always came wrapped in bone-deep pain. Even the brush of those memories had grown sharp with thorns.

The pain wouldn’t kill her. It would only slowly, bit by bit, tear open her heart and lay bare the love and hate written inside, until she understood what it meant to be impossible to forget.

Ye Rui’s gaze darkened. Thinking of Xie Tinglan’s pale face, the expression of endurance on her face as she bore the pain, and her cold hand, Ye Rui still felt her heart ache.

It was like an incurable curse.

“This was inevitable. If she truly meant to find you, then of course she could find you,” Mu Xue’s words still rang in her ears, making Ye Rui break out in goosebumps.

“But she won’t come looking for you. She won’t leave the Capital City lightly; there are too many things waiting for her there. So you’re safe in Qingzhou City.”

Thinking of that, Ye Rui relaxed a little. She was still in the military camp, where security was tight. Even Yin Yue might not be able to break in, and even if she did, Ye Rui might not be able to beat her now.

Besides, if she didn’t go back, what could they do? They couldn’t exactly tie her up and drag her back, could they?

Did Xie Tinglan have some reason she absolutely had to tie her up and take her back?

At night in Qingzhou City, one could still hear the synchronized footsteps of the patrol soldiers. Carried on the winter wind, the entire city seemed like a sleeping beast, pressing down so hard it made it difficult to breathe.

Ye Rui pulled her robe closer and quickened her pace, determined to get back to the military camp before the evening drum sounded, or else she would be in for another beating.

Earlier, one of the sisters had taken leave and gone drinking at night, delaying her return. By the time the first strike of the curfew drum sounded, she had only just made it back to the camp. Li Yan had punished her with thirty military strokes herself. Ye Rui had gone to watch, and the numbness had crawled all the way up her back.

She had thought the military lashes she once received were already heavy enough, but in the camp, the real soldiers struck far harder than the palace guards.

The title of death-blow staff really wasn’t exaggerated.

Luckily, Ye Rui made it back to camp before the drum sounded. But just as she stepped inside and finished writing her entry record, someone from Li Yan came to summon her.

Ye Rui felt the fear of being suddenly called in by her superior. On the way there, she mentally retraced everything she had done to make sure she hadn’t made any mistakes; only after confirming that she hadn’t did she stop feeling so guilty.

Li Yan’s discussion tent was in the center of the camp. Unlike building proper houses, it hadn’t been set up with much fanfare; it was simply pitched as a tent. Li Yan had said she didn’t want to waste too many people or too many resources. Still, the former site of the Crow Tribe would be their future main camp, so the soldiers’ quarters had to be built properly. Rest was the foundation.

Ye Rui felt like she could barely recognize the place. She had left not long after they started building the quarters; when she returned today, she had slept away half the day, then left again after waking, and only now had she found time to look carefully at the camp’s current layout.

The camp had four entrances in the east, south, west, and north; each entrance had a watchtower beside it. The soldiers’ quarters were close to the entrances; deeper inside were the armory and the grain storehouses, and at the very center was Li Yan’s discussion tent.

It was much the same layout the Phoenix Army had used when they first camped outside Qingzhou City; the only difference was that the ground there had been uneven, so no proper housing could be built. Here, on the flat grassland, everyone wanted to live a little better if they could.

A large area had also been set aside for stables; from here on, everyone would need to train hard in horsemanship to prepare for battle on the plains.

When she arrived at the discussion tent, Ye Rui lifted the flap and saw Li Yan standing before a sand table, apparently deep in thought. Seeing Ye Rui arrive, Li Yan’s brows and eyes softened at once, and she motioned her over. “Ye Rui, come here.”

Ye Rui walked to the sand table and saw little flags of the Qingzhou Army planted where they currently were. Closest to them were the Silverstone Tribe to the east and the Flying Horse Tribe to the north. The Flying Horse Tribe was best at mounted combat; if they clashed with them, the Phoenix Army might suffer losses.

Fortunately, the Flying Horse Tribe was still being held in check by the Fox Spirit Army, which kept them from acting rashly.

Nothing on the sand table seemed to indicate any special event, but Li Yan’s expression was unusual, so Ye Rui asked worriedly, “Captain, has something happened?”

“There’s something I’ve actually been thinking about for quite some time.”

Li Yan frowned tightly. With the pointer in her hand, she circled the tribes surrounding the Phoenix Army and said, “Even if we have the strength to defeat them one by one and occupy their lands, we don’t have enough troops to spread out and hold them.”

Ye Rui had thought of that as well. Even if they went to Jiangnan to recruit people this time, they would only get around a thousand soldiers. For Qingzhou City, which had thirty thousand troops, that was just a drop in the bucket.

That was probably why Li Yan had always held back. They simply didn’t have enough troops to divide and garrison the land they occupied. Capturing the Crow Tribe had already been the limit of what the Phoenix Army could spread itself to hold.

“So for now, we can only defend, not attack,” Li Yan said. She pointed to the Fox Spirit Army’s camp. “Even if we take the Flying Horse Tribe and join up with the Fox Spirit Army, we still won’t be able to push farther in. When all is said and done, the entire Qingzhou Army still isn’t enough to spread out and garrison so many barbarian tribes.”

Ye Rui knew that; Zhang Tingluo knew it too. But now they had no choice. Could it really be, as Mu Xue had said, that the only remaining option was to choose a side?

Choosing a side meant getting dragged into political struggle. Even after leaving the Capital City, could she still not escape that fate?

This was a matter of life and death. If they chose wrongly, the entire Qingzhou Army would be dragged down with them. The emperor absolutely would not want the Qingzhou Army, which meant only other forces remained. And if some other power wanted to win over the Qingzhou Army, that would mean—rebellion.

There was, in fact, one tiny, almost negligible path: turn the various barbarian tribes against the Western Barbarian King. But then the Qingzhou Army would have to offer them some benefits too.

Peace without bloodshed was of course ideal, but the two armies had fought for so long that blood feuds had already piled up. To get them to cooperate with the Qingzhou Army and turn enmity into friendship was probably a fool’s dream.

“Ye Rui, do you think there’s a way to break this deadlock?”

When they captured the Crow Tribe, Li Yan had naturally been pleased; because of the resources and terrain here, the soldiers’ living conditions and supplies had improved greatly. But the happiness didn’t last long before she began to think about this problem. This wasn’t paranoia. The fact that Zhang Tingluo had personally gone to recruit troops had already given Li Yan a sense of crisis.

“There is. It’s just not the right time yet.”

Ye Rui didn’t plan to keep her in suspense. She continued, “The Qingzhou Army will one day have to choose a side. Captain, perhaps Great Yan is going to change.”

Li Yan’s expression changed. Her eyes instinctively flicked toward the tent flap before she lowered her voice. “Ye Rui, from now on... don’t speak like that so casually.”

Ye Rui sighed, then nodded. “I’m sorry, Captain. I misspoke.”

Li Yan was a little helpless as well. She set the pointer down and said, “Everyone in the Qingzhou Army camp understands certain things, but if some of it gets out, then that person will have a reason to come after us.”

Ye Rui felt anger rise at that. After joining the army and going to the battlefield, she had only then truly understood that the words defend the home and protect the country were forged from soldiers’ flesh and blood. Yet as the Son of Heaven, he abandoned his soldiers for the sake of power struggles, killed people, and slaughtered villages. What right did a man like that have to sit on that throne?

“But the powers in the Capital City all harbor their own motives; none of them can be trusted. A foolish ruler holds power, while treacherous ministers dominate. The ones who suffer are soldiers like us.”

From previous conversations, Ye Rui knew Li Yan had never been to the Capital City. Her information all came from hearsay, and from what she learned through Zhang Tingluo. What she said wasn’t wrong; she probably had also lumped Xie Tinglan in with the treacherous ministers.

Xie Tinglan’s methods were ruthless, and she had done plenty of dirty work for the emperor. It was understandable that the world misunderstood her.

“You came from the Capital City. Do you think there’s any power worth relying on?”

Ye Rui had originally wanted to mention Xie Tinglan, but on a personal level, she didn’t want to be connected to Xie Tinglan at all. Besides, Xie Tinglan’s true aim was a secret she could not speak of. If she let it slip later, wouldn’t she be harming Xie Tinglan?

Hutu: 【Thinking of her everywhere you go; who wouldn’t want to give you a like for that?】

Ye Rui: 【Then give me one, would you!】

Ye Rui never expected that a giant thumbs-up would actually appear in her mind. She was almost angered into laughter. How had she forgotten that her system was a particularly earnest little dimwit?

“The various forces in the Capital City are all tangled together. I can’t explain them clearly right now, so please forgive me, Captain.”

Li Yan didn’t mind. She raised a hand and waved it off. “It’s fine. I’m only discussing things with you casually right now; otherwise, I wouldn’t even know where to put this unease of mine.”

Li Yan sat down at the desk, poured herself a cup of tea that had gone completely cold, then poured one for Ye Rui as well. Letting out a long sigh, she said, “I don’t know how many years the Qingzhou Army can hold out. And... I think you and I both understand that choosing a side means...”

Li Yan did not say the last two words, but Ye Rui understood anyway. It was as if fate itself was pushing people forward; undercurrents churned unseen, and everything seemed to be sliding toward chaos. Great changes were coming to Great Yan.

“Do you know why I’m only telling you this?”

Li Yan smiled bitterly. Her fingertips traced the rim of the teacup again and again, her expression heavy with worry. Ye Rui naturally didn’t understand. Perhaps it was because the strategy for breaking the Crow Tribe’s defenses had won Li Yan’s trust, but she had only been in the army for less than a year; was that really enough to earn such trust?

“I don’t know.”

Li Yan chuckled softly, faint lines forming at the corners of her eyes. “I’ve been in the army for fifteen years. I’ve seen all kinds of people, and you have the makings of a military talent. Maybe that’s unfair to the other captains, but sometimes that’s just how cruel the world is.”

She paused, then went on, “The situation in the Qingzhou Army is becoming more and more severe. We need more people to step forward. Ye Rui, I hope to cultivate you; you also need to grow up faster.”

Ye Rui froze slightly and immediately felt the pressure. Feeling pressure in a situation like this was normal. It made her think of a distant memory from her past life.

Back then, not long after she first joined the company, she had shown some planning talent. Her manager had called her into the office and spoken to her earnestly for a long time, telling her to keep improving her professional ability. The manager believed Ye Rui could stand higher and go farther.

At the time, Ye Rui had still been just a greenhorn, and she had felt an invisible weight pressing down on her. She had even questioned whether she was really as good as the manager said. Later, she relied on that pressure and that burst of energy to become the company’s fastest person to rise to chief planner.

Her future had once looked bright. Who would have thought that because she worked too hard, she would just die of overwork like that?

The same pressure was now falling on her again; the difference was that this time, what Ye Rui carried was the lives and trust of tens of thousands of soldiers. She didn’t know if she could do it, but she wanted to try.

Right now, she could not abandon the Qingzhou Army, nor could she abandon the Phoenix Army. They were all her sisters.

Ye Rui said seriously, “I will. I’ll work hard.”

I just hope I won’t die so easily this time.

**

In the days that followed, Ye Rui didn’t inquire about news from the Capital City, and she didn’t have time to do so either, because battles on the Phoenix Army’s side were coming one after another.

After the Western Barbarian King received news that the Crow Tribe had been taken, he immediately sent troops overnight from the northern barbarian lands to the Flying Horse Tribe and the Silverstone Tribe, preparing to launch a counterattack against the Phoenix Army. Ye Rui even made a special trip to investigate after learning that the Flying Horse Tribe and Silverstone Tribe had suddenly gained many more troops, and only then did she discover that one of the Western Barbarian King’s favored concubines had come from the Crow Tribe. It was a fury for the sake of a beauty.

The Western Barbarian King issued a death order: they had to fight the Phoenix Army to the bitter end and avenge the Crow Tribe.

So by late spring, the Phoenix Army was being ambushed by warriors from the Flying Horse Tribe and the Silverstone Tribe almost every few days. Fortunately, the Fox Spirit Army was holding the Flying Horse Tribe in check, so the Phoenix Army’s danger wasn’t too great. But with a battle every few days, and the constant tension of having to stay on guard, all the soldiers were exhausted.

Only when things quieted down did Ye Rui realize that this Western Barbarian King was not a reckless fool. The barbarians had plenty of soldiers. Even if their equipment wasn’t particularly refined, and they had little more than brute force and charges for tactics, wear them down like this and the Phoenix Army would lose sooner or later.

Depleting the Phoenix Army’s soldiers and mental stamina—that was the Western Barbarian King’s strategy. They had clearly prepared for a long war, wearing them down bit by bit, tormenting them bit by bit.

Today, everyone had only just returned from the battlefield. No one had died, but many were injured, and the bloodstains on their bodies made them look even more drained and disheveled. At Ye Rui’s instruction, Pang Niu was using her thunderous voice to direct the wounded to have their injuries treated, while also sending the military doctors to those in worse condition.

Ye Rui’s ponytail was a little messy, and her black armor was stained with quite a bit of blood. After tiredly tallying up the wounded, she finally had time to sit down and catch her breath. Her arm had been cut too, though she had dodged quickly enough that it was only a superficial scrape. It wasn’t serious, so she didn’t ask the military doctor to treat her wound first.

When she had watched TV before, she hadn’t understood and had thought that martial arts masters would surely be as relaxed as fish in water once they went to the battlefield. But in reality, when a person stood in the midst of battle, danger came from every direction. Spears, halberds, short blades, and longswords all came for lives; no matter how high one’s martial skill, it might not be enough to get away unscathed.

Being as comfortable as a fish in water was impossible. Martial arts only gave one a few more means of surviving.

Of course, after several battles, Ye Rui was no longer as flustered as she had been at first. She was gradually starting to show the bearing of a commander, and she still had enough energy left to direct her own unit and steady their formation.

Watching her sisters being helped or carried into the wounded camp one after another, Ye Rui remained uneasy. At this rate, they would be defeated sooner or later. Even with the Fox Spirit Army’s help, the Fox Spirit Army, just like the Phoenix Army, had its own difficulties; namely, a lack of soldiers.

The Western Barbarian King had also seen through this. Knowing the Fox Spirit Army would never truly occupy the Flying Horse Tribe, he had become fearless.

They couldn’t keep sitting still and waiting to be slaughtered.

She picked up her longsword and went to the discussion tent to find Li Yan before even asking for permission. Li Yan was discussing the wounded with another captain; seeing Ye Rui enter, she told the other captain to leave first.

The other captain patted Ye Rui in encouragement and comfort before leaving the tent.

“Is something urgent?”

Li Yan saw that Ye Rui had come in without waiting to be announced, and her face looked worried. Her heart skipped a beat too.

“Captain, we can’t keep going like this. We have to take the initiative.”

As soon as she said that, Ye Rui saw Li Yan’s face grow troubled. Ye Rui immediately added, “I don’t mean occupy their tribes; I mean making their army lose its combat ability.”

At that, Li Yan’s brows knit tightly. “You mean their grain and supplies?”

To render an army unable to fight, aside from poisoning the water and food, the other option was to destroy its grain stores. The former was far too vicious and would harm innocents, and Li Yan didn’t believe Ye Rui would do such a thing. So it had to be a move against their army’s grain supplies.

“Yes. If we can steal them, that would be best. But if we can’t, then we burn them outright.”

Ye Rui paused, then said seriously, “It’s summer now. They’ve already harvested grain for military use, which means if we destroy their grain stores now, they’ll have no choice but to borrow from other tribes; they won’t have enough left to stockpile for a long war.”

“As long as we get the Fox Spirit Army to cooperate and cut off their grain transport, they’ll be defeated within a month at most, and they won’t be able to make trouble again for at least a season.”

Ye Rui had thought it through. More troops meant more mouths to feed; more mouths meant more grain and supplies. If they wanted to fight the Phoenix Army in terms of troop numbers and drag things out in a long war, then the most important thing was sufficient grain.

“Then do you have a good plan?”

After Li Yan asked that, Ye Rui motioned for her to come to the sand table, then pointed at the Flying Horse Tribe. “The main force this time is the Flying Horse Tribe. I plan to first investigate where their grain is stored, then decide on a strategy to draw attention east while striking west.”

The moment Li Yan heard that, her expression sank. “You plan to go investigate yourself?”

Before Ye Rui could answer, Li Yan continued, “You need to understand that this is the grassland; there isn’t much cover here. You won’t be able to slip in silently.”

Of course Ye Rui knew the risk. But if she didn’t make some change, they might end up just as the Western Barbarian King wanted, and the Phoenix Army would be worn down to death.

She didn’t know where she found the courage, but the only thing she could think of was to put herself in danger.

Hutu: 【Want me to play you Liang Jingru’s “Courage”?】

Ye Rui: 【Thanks, but no need. We’re talking about something serious here!】

Hutu: 【……】

“As long as I have barbarian tribe clothing, I’m confident I can get in. Captain, we can’t keep being worn down like this.”

Seeing how anxious Ye Rui looked, Li Yan first steadied herself, then said, “The barbarian tribes’ clothes aren’t hard to come by, but you don’t speak their language. How are you supposed to blend in?”

Ye Rui didn’t yet have a concrete plan, but she did have a general idea. “I’ll think of a way. Captain, I won’t be in danger, and I’ll be bringing one more person with me.”

Li Yan immediately thought of Lu Yihua. She also had military talent and had recently been studying military strategy diligently. Her abilities were improving by leaps and bounds, and her coordination with Ye Rui was the best. “Little Hua?”

“Yes.”

Speaking of Little Hua, Ye Rui really felt comforted. She had improved quickly, and her work had become more and more steady; she was no longer the Lu Yihua Ye Rui had seen in the bandit stronghold that day. Whenever she had time now, she would read the picture books she had bought from the bookstore; Ye Rui would sometimes read with her too. All one could say was that they were much easier to understand than densely packed text.

This strategy had also been inspired by one of those military picture books.

“But if you don’t understand the language, then what?”

Li Yan was still worried, worried that both promising talents would be lost in the Flying Horse Tribe.

“I’ve been here long enough to pick up a few phrases. Don’t worry.”

Ye Rui had discovered that the barbarian tribes were numerous, and not every tribe even spoke the same language; some couldn’t even communicate with one another.

That was also a very good breakthrough point. It was time to start spouting nonsense again.

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Author’s note: Let’s move the plot along~