Volume Two: Outlaws Here Chapter Eighty-Five: The Foxes

The city was in turmoil, yet the instigator was utterly at ease.

“Changtian, what did you promise him?” Xu Yong scratched his head. He knew he had caused trouble, and a rare, simple grin hung on his face.

Lin Changtian shot him a sidelong glance and forced down the urge to beat Xu Yong to death before speaking slowly. “You look so steady on ordinary days. So today you finally show your true colors? Do away with that sinful smile of yours. Yes, that’s it—use the upper two-thirds of your lip to cover those one and a half sky-reaching front teeth of yours. I have no desire whatsoever to look at that ugly face. Good. Keep that posture. Now explain to me why you had to kill Liang Ji on the arena. If we hadn’t kept a reserve hand today, the arrival of our people from Mount Sishan would have been finished right here.”

“Well, then just take it as me being jealous over a woman, all right? I truly can’t think of any better excuse.” Xu Yong spread his hands, brazen as ever. “If it’s for the woman you love, and you kill someone in the street, then go ahead and do it. In Aima City, the way they look at us is no different from the way they’d look at a band of grassland bandits. Since that’s the case, there’s no need to reason with them. But I’m afraid you may have deceived even yourself about what’s hidden in your heart. I don’t care, but can you really be so reckless with the lives of more than a dozen sworn comrades?”

Xu Yong curled his lip and gave a bitter smile. “What if I told you that killing him wasn’t really my own intention—would you believe me?”

“I know. A voice that suddenly pours itself into the ear, right? Many people have that. It’s just that common folk who have stepped beyond the mortal body feel it more strongly.”

Lin Changtian’s expression remained calm, as though he had long since expected it.

“You see... Lord Yu Baili never said there would be so many flaws. His strength grows day by day, but the voice in his heart grows ever more solid, and it seems... terribly like the murmur of that campus fog back when the awakened world had only just arrived.”

The atmosphere in the room froze to the point of stillness. Xu Yong set his face and lowered his voice, deliberately adopting a grave demeanor.

The chill deepened until even the candle flame began to tremble.

“I understand the point, but can’t you stop using your ice-control ability to build the mood? Back when Zhang Zhen was telling ghost stories, it was lucky he never ran into you, or he would have had to switch careers and become a motivational speaker.”

“What does motivational speaking have to do with this?” Xu Yong withdrew his power and laughed awkwardly.

Lin Changtian nodded toward the corner with clear disgust. “It’s all just a job meant to fool people. If you can’t even understand that and still call yourself the king of cold jokes, then hurry off and squat in a corner somewhere. You’re the sort who could go his whole life without ever eating four proper hot dishes.”

Xu Yong said nothing. He casually calculated the feng shui with his fingers, then obediently went to crouch with his head against the corner on the south side.

“This was Elder Liu’s idea. Asking Ma Hui to make amends was a serious matter. Even if you hadn’t caused trouble, we would still have gone to speak to him. A while ago he suffered badly at the hands of Lin Yuan, losing even the three major strongholds in the west. I heard that battle ended in utter defeat. Countless elite troops were sent out, only to return in disgrace. Not only did half of them fail to come back, even several famed and ferocious generals were ensnared in Lin Yuan’s scheme. As for the three major strongholds in the west, they were not far from Weinan Mountain Pass. The promise Ma Hui made to preserve your life in public was naturally meant to help him recover his face.”

After chattering on for a long while, Lin Changtian felt thirsty. Not caring that Xu Yong was listening in shocked silence, he grabbed a cup of hot tea with one hand and gulped it down in one breath. Then he flushed red and remained mute for a long while.

“Speaking of which... you’ve chilled the whole room with your power, so why is this tea still so scorching?” Lin Changtian remained composed, found ointment for burns without panic, smeared it over his lips, and only then began shouting.

Xu Yong gave him a glance and said with clear disdain, “This isn’t some science-fiction novel. What bug are you trying to pick here? If you’ve got time for that, you might as well think about how to patch up the boast you just made. If you’ve tricked Ma Hui, I’m afraid war will flare once more across the southern part of the northern domain.”

“Boast, you say? That may not be quite right. Do you know how Ma Hui lost?”

“How else? Two old foxes going to war—that’s no longer mere trickery and double-dealing. Once the fighting reaches the critical point, it’s all about battering in with the whole family fortune.”

Xu Yong rose from the corner, his legs numb from crouching too long.

“From the departure of the main army from the capital to the defeat at Mangyang Mountain, Ma Hui’s top generals used only seventeen days. That included marching, arranging grain supplies, and everything else. In the end, they were shattered at Mangyang Mountain before the three strongholds, and more than a hundred thousand men fell back in rout to the three towns. Among them, Chuanli and Wanyang were torn open by the chaos of the fleeing army and had their defenses literally smashed apart. The grain stores in the cities could no longer keep up with the supply. Within just a few days, the chief magistrates there surrendered and handed over their seals. As for the remaining Xieli Town, it held out stubbornly to the end, but a single tree cannot support the whole forest. After the city fell, Lin Yuan’s soldiers even massacred the entire town. The assault was fierce, true enough, but before Ma Hui had even reached the point of staking his entire foundation, he had already been defeated so miserably. What else could he do besides swallow the bitter fruit?”

Just then, someone walked in from outside. Before the figure had even crossed the threshold, he had already heard the whole conversation.

Xu Yong looked up at once. Forgetting his aching legs, he hurriedly clasped his fists. “Why has Elder Liu come? You should be resting properly. Leave these odds and ends to us.”

The newcomer was none other than Liu Qingshan. He shook his shoulders, seeming to be in unusually high spirits tonight.

“You, Xu Yong, always look so honest in daily life. I never expected you to be such a romantic fool after all. There are not many people in this northern domain who would dare kill one of Ma Hui’s generals right under his nose.”

Xu Yong stared at Liu Qingshan, eyes wide and imploring. He respected this elder more than anyone. After all, when Zhang Yi rebelled, the first person Liu Qingshan saved was Xu Yong. How could he dare answer back to such a man? He could only place all his hopes on Lin Changtian, praying that he would say a few kind words on his behalf.

“Elder Liu, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood him here.” Lin Changtian blinked and, just as Xu Yong’s brows began to rise, said solemnly, “What honest fellow? He’s plainly a born thief. He only managed to keep up the act for so long, and now he’s finally shown his true colors.”

Xu Yong crouched back down, only this time he turned his face toward the wall. “So now my whole image has collapsed...” His face turned crimson, and the air of grievance around him seemed almost ready to solidify out of the void.

“Xu boy’s words do have some reason. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Ma Hui seems to have suffered a terrible defeat on the surface. If you dig deeper, these two old foxes have in fact lost nothing.” Liu Qingshan stroked his beard and narrowed his eyes, looking rather pleased. He enjoyed this feeling of peeling back the veil of conspiracy.

Unfortunately, no one in the room cooperated by asking, “Sir, what do you mean?”

The people from Mount Sishan had never been good at catching on, and that often made Liu Qingshan grit his teeth in exasperation. The brutes were all foolish beyond measure; Kui Sheng listened and then promptly fell asleep, Chen Ziliang was dull-witted, and Lin Changtian had never been one to humor the old man. The only little follower at his side was now radiating grievance in the corner.

But the awkwardness did not last long. Xu Yong turned around, cleared his throat, pricked up his ears, and put on a bewildered expression. After pretending to hesitate for quite a while, he slowly said, “Sir, what do you mean?”

Liu Qingshan shook his head, his wise gaze flashing, and Xu Yong, startled, lowered himself even further.

Lin Changtian gave a thumbs-up. What a fine display of doting on one’s young! He had already guessed what this so-called wisdom was going to do next.

“Ma Hui looks impressive, but among the three grand figures, he is actually the one most constrained by others. From a mere grass bandit to a lord who opened cities and claimed territory, he relied entirely on the full support of the great clans. The strangest part of that humiliation was that from the soldiers to the generals, not a single one could be separated from the major families. In other words, it was a war in which Ma Hui never truly intervened. The outcome need not be explained by this old man. Of course, one cannot say the great families were foolish. It was simply that they were too eager to show Ma Hui and the house of Qiu, one of the old Seven Great Houses, their muscle. In the end, after all their scheming, they failed to consider how long they had stretched their front. Once the supply line was choked in the rear, defeat became only natural. If there had not been such a hidden mechanism at work, Ma Hui would likely not have had the ability to massacre the Liang line in full public view.”

Having revealed the hidden truth, Liu Qingshan nodded and swayed with satisfaction, his face full of smugness as he leaned aside, waiting for something.

But Lin Changtian had never been one to indulge the old man. He pretended not to hear a word and silently counted to three on his fingers.

“Ah, here it comes!” Xu Yong sucked in a breath, instantly wearing a look of sudden enlightenment. His eyes held three parts clarity, three parts thought, four parts caution, and the remaining ninety percent pure admiration for Liu Qingshan. “Sir truly is a divine man!”

Fine. He looked exactly like a living Yan Fan.

Still, there is always someone tactless enough to play the spoil-sport. On Mount Sishan, that person was naturally Lin Changtian.

“Then may I ask, Elder Liu, since this task has fallen to us, what strategy should we use?” Lin Changtian tilted his head and, amid Liu Qingshan’s embarrassment, raised his own “immature” question.

There was an old saying on Mount Sishan: anything Liu Qingshan could not answer must mean the question itself was flawed.

Xu Yong turned his head away and crouched back in his corner, once more suffused with grievance.

“I... truly do not know. Boy, if you have some underhanded trick, why not speak it and let us hear?” Liu Qingshan placed a hand on Lin Changtian’s shoulder, glaring as though he might strike at any moment.

It would have been fine if Lin Changtian answered, but if he began to hem and haw, he would certainly be in for another beating.

“I don’t know either, but if we are talking military affairs on Mount Sishan, shouldn’t we ask Kui Sheng?” Lin Changtian replied honestly. He remembered all the fists and kicks he had suffered from the old man over the years.

Liu Qingshan nodded, walked over to the corner, and kicked Xu Yong once. “Stop dawdling. Take your woman and leave early tomorrow morning. Something may go wrong in Aima City, so it would be best to return first to Weinan Mountain Pass.”

“That isn’t my woman.” Xu Yong flushed red, his voice barely above a whisper.

Perhaps because he had never seen this fellow acting shy before, Lin Changtian circled around him and studied him with amazement. “Then you don’t want me to go to Ma Hui and end this match for you?”

“Hmph.” Xu Yong’s mouth curled with a cold smile. Frost gathered in his hand, and his grin turned somewhat eerie. “I, Xu, hate gutter-snakes who love to wag their tongues. If, someday, someone carelessly goes out in summer and slips on the ice, then don’t blame me. For who knows when a shard of ice might fall with perfect precision right into someone’s mouth?”

Lin Changtian also laughed and straightened his back. What, was he the sort of coward who feared threats?

The frosty glimmer deepened by several degrees.

“Mm, Brother Xu speaks reasonably. I, Lin, also hate these slanderous villains most of all! If, someday, some blind fool ruins our brothers’ good deed, hmph, I will surely make him bleed for three feet and rid the people of a menace!” Lin Changtian wore a face of lofty righteousness, every inch the ancient knight-errant.

Liu Qingshan imitated Lin Changtian’s earlier gesture and gave a thumbs-up. What a fine example of brotherly harmony!

“But jokes are jokes. We still need to be on guard.” Liu Qingshan warned Xu Yong a few more times. At his age, he had truly seen far too many plots and betrayals.

Xu Yong ceased his fooling around and bowed deeply to Liu Qingshan. “Even if I did not flatter you, Elder’s instruction will remain in my heart. As for that matter of the voice in the mind, surely you must be able to...”

Liu Qingshan waved his hand and smiled bitterly. “Changtian did speak to me about it before. To be honest, I have seen all manner of great scenes, but this is the one thing I have never even heard of. Not only in the order that came after the awakened world, but even if you go back several hundred years, neither the Central Plains nor the northern domain has ever recorded anything so bizarre.”

“Not even a thousand years ago?” Lin Changtian frowned, pressed his lips together, and in the end did not voice the thought that followed.

He could not very well tell the two of them that he had seen this matter in a dream, could he?