Chapter 148
Chapter 148
On the black lacquered writing table, a red brush had sketched the Monstrous Beast Yonghe. The middle-aged man who had just hurled the inkstone was still cursing under his breath, his gaze sweeping over the table for something else he could use to hit someone.
But after looking twice, he found that the jade-handled brush was a cherished possession, and the bamboo slips were military reports that could not be thrown around at will.
The bronze writing knife used to scrape mistakes from the bamboo slips was sharp and dangerous.
So the middle-aged man simply snatched up the wooden trough that held sealing clay and used it as a weapon, hurling it at Han Lie.
Han Lie caught that too. Beside him, Ye Sima was still crying out as he tried to wipe the ink from his eyes, only to have sealing clay flung all over his face as well.
“Bastard!”
Seeing that Han Lie still dared to dodge, the furious man bent down to pull off one of his boots.
“Uncle Chen.”
Holding the inkstone in one hand and the sealing-clay box in the other, Han Lie called out to him.
The middle-aged man slowly raised his head. On his square face, as blocky as a mahjong tile, the anger had yet to fade.
He gave up on the stubborn leather boot, strode over to the weapon rack in the tent, and grabbed a spear.
“You still dare call me that!”
The wooden shaft whistled through the air. Han Lie knew the man was worried about him, so he did not dodge this time. He stood there and took the blow hard across the back of his shoulder.
General Chen showed not the slightest mercy. Dull thuds echoed through the great tent as the spear shaft rose and fell, striking Han Lie a full twenty times.
Ye Sima stood to the side, his face covered in both dust and ink, but he did not dare make a sound. He only stood there with his hands at his sides.
General Chen was clear in reward and punishment, and among that pack of beastly officers, he was one of the few with a decent temper.
For him to lose his temper so badly in front of Han Lie, to be so angry that he personally carried out the punishment, he must truly see the man as a nephew of his own family.
Everyone knew only that Han Lie’s late father had once been friends with General Chen. They had not known that their friendship ran this deep.
Ye Sima tasted the implications of that and immediately felt annoyed at himself for his earlier rudeness.
All over a woman. Why had he bothered locking horns with Han Lie?
As he listened to the sharp cracks of the beating, he privately decided that later he would switch Han Lie to a better tent and send over some food and drink.
Han Lie took all twenty blows. Beneath his clothes, a large patch across his back and shoulder blades had turned black and blue.
Seeing him still standing there like a block of wood, without a single soft word, only made General Chen angrier the more he struck him.
“If you weren’t your father’s only son, I’d beat you to death and be done with it.”
With a bang, he tossed aside the wooden spear he had been using as a punishment rod. The spear spun through the air and slotted itself back into the weapon rack.
Only then did Han Lie cup his hands, lower his head, and say, “I’ve made you worry.”
His expression had not changed, but a fine sheen of sweat had formed on his forehead.
Everyone in the Jade Balance Army had eaten Monstrous Beast meat and been transformed by the Secret Elixir. When someone of General Chen’s skill exerted his full strength, it was not something an ordinary person could withstand.
General Chen snatched up the bronze water kettle beside him and took several fierce gulps. Only after his chest rose and fell violently a few times did he say, “Come here and sit down.”
Then he turned to Ye Sima, his tone easing. “You may leave.”
Ye Sima understood that he was not qualified to listen to what came next. He cupped his hands and was about to leave.
But Han Lie stopped him. “May I trouble Ye Sima to send some food and water to me and… my woman.”
He stumbled over the words. General Chen whipped his head around to look at him as if he had seen a ghost.
What was that? A woman?
Ye Sima immediately put on a smiling face. “Don’t worry, Brother Han.”
He lifted the tent flap and went out. In the vast military tent, only Han Lie and General Chen remained.
Before Han Lie could kneel and sit, General Chen was already questioning him with a cold face. “What do you mean, your woman?”
“Whose daughter is she? How did you meet? Are you going to marry her?”
He gripped his cup, asking every detail in an icy tone.
Han Lie lowered his head.
He was not very good at lying. After hesitating for several breaths, he said awkwardly, “In the Blackstone Tribe… I was burned and rescued. She was the one who took care of me.”
That, at least, was not exactly a lie.
The anger on General Chen’s face eased a little despite himself.
Still, he remained somewhat displeased. “Sand People? This…”
According to Great Xia’s hierarchy of status and disdain, a woman of the Sand People was not worthy of Han Lie in General Chen’s mind.
He clicked his tongue, but said nothing more and steered the topic back to the matter at hand.
“Tell me about the giant beast you encountered in Ascending Dragon Valley, in Yunwu County.”
Giant beast?
Han Lie did not react at first. Then his head snapped up to look at General Chen.
Did he mean the Supreme Deity?
Seeing the look in his eyes, General Chen’s expression flashed with exasperation, as if he hated iron for not becoming steel. “What? Were you going to say it was some god?”
“Are you trying to spread superstition?”
He suddenly leaned forward, his lowered voice carrying a stern warning unlike anything before. “The gods of this world perished long ago. There is only the Son of Heaven, who patrols the realm on Heaven’s behalf!”
“There are no gods. There is only a gigantic Monstrous Beast never before seen in this world!”
“It was ignorant country fools spreading rumors, and the County Governor in the Commandery of Yunwu County playing at ghosts and gods!”
His words echoed through the tent.
They already represented the attitude of certain people.
There were no gods in this world, only rare Monstrous Beasts.
Han Lie clenched his jaw, but did not utter a single word.
Seeing that he finally stopped being stubborn, General Chen breathed a slight sigh of relief.
He leaned close to Han Lie’s ear and said, “What the truth is doesn’t matter. What matters is sparing the lives of the people involved!”
Han Lie silently lowered his head, emotions churning in his heart, impossible to describe.
General Chen sat back where he had been and continued, “Your mission this time was all because of an order from the County Governor of Yunwu County.”
“But you were far too reckless. Fortunately, the Prefect of Huanzhou was sharp enough to report it to the Imperial Court.”
“As for you…” General Chen sighed. “Your merits and faults will be discussed later.”
In just a few words, he had revealed the Prefect’s strategy for dividing the spoils.
Just like Qin Ying, he had twisted the timeline with a black heart and dumped everything onto the County Governor.
Even though that dead County Governor had never had the chance to issue any mission order at all.
But here on the borderlands, whatever the Prefect said was simply what it was.
This was a compromise between multiple parties.
The ones sacrificed were naturally Han Lie and the others, as well as… Qin Ying, whose worship had diminished.
General Chen feared he would get trapped in a dead end of his own thinking, but could not spell it out too plainly, so he added, “The County Governor of Yunwu County stirred up public outrage. He deserved death many times over.”
“The illicit worship in Yunwu County City has already been destroyed. We, the Fengshan Elite Cavalry, have been ordered to investigate the giant beast that can scatter rice and grain.”
Han Lie abruptly raised his head and said solemnly, “It was not illicit worship!”
The Supreme Deity truly had brought down rain and saved the people.
One look in his eyes was enough to know he was unconvinced. General Chen clenched his back teeth again. “Then what do you plan to do? Do you know what the appearance of this kind of… thing means?”
It meant there existed in this world a power capable of easily overturning a city or a region, and that power was beyond the control of the Great Xia Imperial Court. It would be a cold day in hell before the Son of Heaven acknowledged that.
It also meant that Han Lie and the others would be sliced to pieces and ground into dust.
General Chen straightened in his seat, pulled a wine flask from who knew where, and tossed it to him. “Take a few drinks. Think it through. Don’t lose your head.”
Han Lie’s fingers clutched the wine flask so tightly that he left several finger marks in it.
General Chen shook his head without a word.
Then he changed the subject. “Tell me in detail what happened on this trip. How did you get out in the end?”
…
Inside the military tent, Han Lie recited, stiff and proper, the lines Qin Ying had taught him in advance.
Elsewhere, Qin Ying was walking in circles inside a tent, then lying down to study the painted patterns of birds and beasts on the little couch.
Just then, a voice called from outside, “Hey, Ye Sima said to move you into a larger tent and send over some beast meat and wine.”