The Road to Glory

Chapter 208

"Now in Liang territory, everyone..."

Wen Yu slightly lifted her gaze but remained silent.

Gu Xiyun continued, "Now in Liang territory, everyone calls him a mad dog."

"I haven't discovered what relationship he had with that courtesan, but I heard he held a grand funeral for her in Dingzhou."

Little A Li in the rocking cradle hadn't fallen into deep sleep yet, her mouth twitching as if about to wake up crying. Wen Yu reached out and gently patted the child's side through the fleece blanket, and only then did little A Li stop her crying, clutching her small fists as she continued sleeping.

Gu Xiyun rocked the cradle a couple of times along with her. After little A Li's breathing steadied somewhat, she looked at Wen Yu and said, "I believe you wouldn't misjudge someone, A Yu, but in these times, human hearts are the most fragile things against hardship. Especially now that he holds great power, with the realm within his grasp..."

She paused before pursing her lips and continuing, "He might no longer be the person you once knew."

Gu Xiyun knew Wen Yu's temperament well - she appeared the most easygoing and indifferent, as if nothing could overly concern her. But once something found its place in her heart, it could never be easily discarded.

Wen Yu had summoned that person back twice, and both times he had refused. In Gu Xiyun's view, this showed his heart had already grown wild.

Power could corrupt many things, and ambition and desire would expand infinitely along with it.

The fact that he had gone to such lengths for another woman now, coupled with the unclear rumors circulating about them, made Gu Xiyun even more furious.

How dare he?

If only her elder brother were still here, that fellow wouldn't even have had the chance to approach Wen Yu!

A fire had been burning in her heart since she first heard this news.

After hearing all this, Wen Yu remained unusually calm. After tucking in her sleeping daughter's blanket corners, she straightened up and said, "I understand."

"You must be exhausted from the long military journey, A Yun. I've already had A Zhao prepare Yunshu Pavilion. Go take a look, and if there's anything missing, just tell A Zhao and the others."

As a female general, there was no inconvenience in Gu Xiyun staying overnight in Wen Yu's palace.

She knew Wen Yu said this because she wanted some quiet time alone. Though worried about Wen Yu, she also understood it would be inappropriate to stay longer, so she stood up and said, "Alright, I'll go take a look first."

After Gu Xiyun left, Wen Yu gently rocked the cradle for a while longer before propping her elbow by the bedside, silently watching her sleeping daughter.

Little A Li wore a small white jade lock around her neck. Beside the cradle, aside from some fleece toys sewn by Tong Que and the others, there were also some smoothly polished wood carvings in the shapes of kittens and puppies.

Not long after, footsteps sounded outside the hall again - it was Zhao Bai.

She clearly already knew what Gu Xiyun had discussed with Wen Yu. After entering the hall, she directly knelt down: "I beg for Your Highness's punishment. This servant took it upon herself to conceal reports about Xiao Li's activities in Liang territory."

Wen Yu asked calmly, "Why conceal it from me?"

Zhao Bai bowed her head and said, "Your Highness has just given birth and hasn't fully recovered yet. With the numerous administrative affairs from Liang and Chen territories requiring your attention, I feared learning this would distress you and harm your health. So I wanted to wait a few more days before telling you."

She just hadn't expected that this delay would still result in Gu Xiyun revealing everything to Wen Yu today.

After Zhao Bai finished speaking, the hall fell into prolonged silence.Wen Yu sat sideways on the stool, the brocade skirt embroidered with intricate patterns trailing down onto the yak-hair rug below. With one hand, she gently patted her sleeping daughter in the cradle, her profile outlined by the daylight streaming through the window into a soft contour—like a white-feathered peacock resting with bowed head, or a jade Guanyin statue gazing down with compassionate sorrow upon the world.

After a long while, a clear, deep voice echoed from the hall: "You may withdraw."

The trailing tone resembled the chime of jade striking jade—clear and cold, yet devoid of any discernible emotion.

Daliang, Dingzhou.

Once again, it was early winter. The distant mountains were blanketed in a layer of white snow, while the withered grass nearby stood stiff and thorny like iron caltrops.

At the edge of the wild, withered fields lay a newly raised grave mound. Even from afar, the sounds of craftsmen chiseling and cutting stone could be heard.

Funeral paper money, scattered by the wind across the mountain wilderness, had frozen together with the frost and snow in some places, while in others, it was trampled into the mud.

Dozens of Xiao Li's personal guards waited by the wild path. He alone trod through the remnants of snow, making his way toward the grave mound.

As he drew closer, the clinking sounds of stone chiseling grew clearer, casting an oppressive loneliness in the vast emptiness of the world that made it hard to breathe.

Song Qin still wore the blood-stained armor from the day of the city siege. His hair, unkempt for days, was disheveled and floating loosely, and the stubble on his chin had grown into a shadowy blue.

He had grown so thin that his cheeks were sunken, making his cheekbones starkly prominent. His fingers, whether frostbitten or scraped during the stone chiseling, were stained with blood. Yet, as if feeling no pain, he continued to swing the hammer, blow after blow, carving the stone tablet before him.

Only when the blood dripping from his hands soiled the stone tablet did he casually wipe it away with a cloth already stained with untold amounts of grime. Occasionally, he turned to ask the stonemason beside him a question or two, and upon receiving an answer, he would resume carving the tablet with a focus that seemed less like engraving an epitaph and more like preparing a betrothal gift for a long-admired maiden.

Xiao Li stood silently watching this scene from a short distance away.

At the sight of him, the stonemasons below grew somewhat fearful. The foreman overseeing the tomb construction wiped the mud and dust from his hands onto his clothes, then hurried over with a bow, calling out, "My Lord..."

Xiao Li said nothing.

Seeing him fix his gaze on Song Qin chiseling the tombstone nearby, the foreman said, "General Song has been here all these days, neither eating nor drinking. It's truly worrying..."

Xiao Li replied, "You may go."

He still carried the aura of battle from the battlefield. The foreman dared not linger too close and, upon hearing this, hastily withdrew.

When the wounds on Song Qin's fingers, crusted with blood, split open once more from the force of his hammer swings, a large, sinewy hand reached out and intercepted the hammer.

Blood dripped down the handle he held. Song Qin did not look up, only saying, "Let go."

His voice was hoarse, like sharp stones scraping over rubble.

Xiao Li's sharp brows furrowed. "The dead cannot return, Brother."

Mudan's death was a devastating blow to all of them.

No one had expected that when Song Qin entered the city to fetch Mudan that day, she would deceive them, claiming she was now with a wealthy merchant who adored her, that she had converted the Drunken Red Chamber into a tavern, that she was living well and did not wish to leave with them, and that they should no longer worry about her.

Little did they know, there was no wealthy merchant at all—the one she had been involved with was a General Pei, stationed in Yongzhou.After the defeat at Yongzhou, that Pei general retreated north with Mudan. The jackals under Pei Song’s command, having heard that he kept a courtesan as his mistress, were all eager to catch a glimpse of her beauty.

Fearing punishment for the defeat, the Pei general sought to win them over and hosted a banquet, demanding Mudan perform a dance.

Among high officials and nobles, exchanging concubines was nothing unusual, let alone a former courtesan kept as a mistress.

Mudan understood what this dance meant.

It seemed she had been waiting for such a day all along.

That night, dressed in red as vibrant as a wedding gown, she led the girls who had refused to leave after the dissolution of the Drunken Red Chamber and had followed her ever since. They performed at the banquet, and after getting several Pei generals drunk, she tore down the curtains in the hall, intending to strangle them.

But the plan was exposed. One of the Pei generals had a high tolerance for alcohol and had only pretended to be drunk.

When Song Qin learned from scouts that the retreating Pei general had taken a courtesan mistress with him, he knew Mudan had deceived him.

After sending word to Xiao Li, he gathered his men and rushed ahead to rescue her.

But he was still too late.

By the time Xiao Li arrived with his army, breached the city gates, and stormed into the general’s residence, the blood flowing from the front hall had already reached the steps outside.

Mudan breathed her last in Song Qin’s arms. Covered in blood, she still smiled brilliantly, beautifully, and said to them, “I’m sorry... I lied to you and Ahuan...”

Song Qin begged her to stop speaking. A man of seven feet, who had just fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, could do nothing but let tears fall like pearls, unable to utter another word.

He said he would take her to a physician, but her bones were shattered, and he couldn’t even find a place to hold her without causing more pain.

Knowing their grief, she coughed up blood from her throat but continued to smile, struggling to speak in broken phrases: “I... I just couldn’t accept it. Those scholars always say... ‘Singing girls know not the grief of a fallen nation, across the river they still sing... still sing the Backyard Flowers.’ Yet we women of the red dust... clearly... clearly have such courage too...”

“But... what a pity I couldn’t see Pei... Pei Song. If I could have killed... killed him... it would have... avenged... avenged Aunt Hui...”

In the chaos, a Pei general who had lost an ear crawled out drunkenly from beneath a shattered chair, unaware of the situation, and began cursing, vowing revenge on Mudan and the others. In a fit of suppressed rage, Xiao Li drew his blade and cleaved the man in two, splattering red and white across the ground.

That night, the city blazed with fire, burning until dawn without extinguishing.

He gave no order to spare a single Pei soldier in the city.

Recalling the events of that day, a murderous aura surged in Xiao Li’s eyes. Suppressing his emotions, he released the hammer handle he had been gripping and said, “If you continue like this, Sister Mudan will not rest in peace underground.”

But Song Qin replied, “I was the one who caused Mudan’s death.”

Xiao Li frowned.

Song Qin’s expression was wooden, his eyes like stagnant water, bloodshot from lack of rest.

He spoke hoarsely, “That day, when I went to the Drunken Red Chamber to find her, she asked me, ‘Did he send you, or did you come on your own?’ I said it was you. Then she told me that a wealthy merchant had fallen for her and had long since converted the Drunken Red Chamber into a tavern. She said she was doing well and that you and Aunt Yuegui shouldn’t worry about her anymore. She told me not to worry about her either.”Song Qin seemed to find himself ridiculous, his facial muscles twitching yet unable to even lift the corners of his mouth: "And to think, it's fortunate it was your idea. Had I been the one wanting to seek her out myself, she might have hesitated to speak these truths for the sake of my pride..."

By this point, Xiao Li had already understood everything.

He gazed at the characters "Mudan" on the tombstone, stained red by the blood from Song Qin's hand, his thin lips pressed tightly together as he too fell into prolonged silence.

The word "love" is the most tormenting of all.

Song Qin let out a low, self-mocking chuckle, his eyes red with heart-wrenching pain: "Why didn't I realize she was lying back then? I only felt too ashamed to face her again..."

He caressed the epitaph as if unable to bear the agony any longer, bowing his head: "...If I hadn't been too cowardly to admit it, if I had confessed to her that I too wanted to take her away, would she have chosen a different path?"

But Mudan was gone, and no one could provide a definitive answer anymore.

When Xiao Li departed, the wind and snow had intensified once more.

Looking back from horseback at the solitary figure before the distant grave, Zheng Hu—who wasn't skilled with words and had earlier dared not accompany him to see Song Qin—finally spoke upon noticing Xiao Li's gaze: "Second Brother, how is Big Brother?"

Xiao Li withdrew his gaze and said, "Let him stay here to build the tomb for Sister Mudan."

Zheng Hu was thoroughly confused, but as Xiao Li had already urged his horse to turn back, he could only spur his own mount to follow.

The party returned to camp, where a personal guard stepped forward to take Xiao Li's horse. As he accepted the cloak Xiao Li had removed, the guard reported: "The military advisor requests an audience with you."

Xiao Li's expression remained indifferent as he headed straight for the central military tent: "I will not see him."

The guard jogged to keep pace with him: "This subordinate also informed him that you had left camp and wouldn't be in the army today, but the military advisor said he would wait outside your tent until you returned..."

As they spoke, they arrived at the central military tent.

Zhang Huai stood outside, appearing to have been waiting for some time. Without a cloak, his shoulders and hair were dusted with a layer of snow.

Hearing the commotion, he turned around, his frost-bitten face tinged blue yet wearing a gentle smile as he bowed respectfully to Xiao Li: "My Lord, you have returned."

Xiao Li brushed past him and entered the military tent directly. The group following behind, including Zheng Hu, all wore uneasy expressions, but Zhang Huai continued to stand quietly with bowed head, showing no trace of resentment.

Zheng Hu, who knew something of the reasons behind Xiao Li's displeasure with Zhang Huai, whispered as he passed by: "I'll plead with Second Brother on the military advisor's behalf."