Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Inside the tent, the slave girls had already prepared the bedclothes along with water, milk and other things for bathing.
The old Khan wearily leaned on a soft couch and without any orders being given, two female slaves came forward to massage his legs. Gu Shenwei wanted to take his leave but was stopped.
“Let me finish. Old people are all very talkative, especially this old man when he is in a good mood. It would be cruel torture to shut him up suddenly.”
The Khan kept the Dragon King there but didn’t continue talking about the previous topic right away. Instead, he devoted himself to enjoying the service of the slave girls and only waved them away after a long while. Then he pointed to one of the figures and said to the Dragon King sitting in the chair, “You can take one with you tonight.”
Gu Shenwei shook his head. “I don’t have a place for her to stay.”
The Khan laughed out loud. “I’ve never heard a lamer excuse for refusing a woman. What ‘place’ does a woman need to stay? Their body is the ‘place’ of a man.” As his laughter died down, he added, “It seems that you are really in love. This is a real hassle.”
Gu Shenwei refused to comment. He didn’t think that anyone had the right to interfere in his private affairs and also didn’t intend to have an intense introspection in front of an outsider.
“It seems that I’m meddling too much.” The Khan sighed and adjust his position in the chair to make himself more comfortable. “Duodun is more aggressive and similar to the younger me.”
The Khan started to introduce his most favored descendants that he secretly supported. “You must have heard of the story of him trying to trick me into drinking urine. He’s really an asshole. I took a gulp and I wouldn’t have figured it out if I hadn’t seen the looks of the guests. I taught him a good lesson, but it appears he was only acting obedient while he was secretly busy, colluding with his henchmen. Now, he has gathered a group of people, mostly the same as him, as they have no background but are full of vigor and vitality. They are dead set on following him. No one has noticed him except for the Second Consort, but he has a bright future. I left him a hundred thousand cavalries in the Western Regions, and if he’s really capable, he will fight his way back to the prairie sooner or later.”
“The Second Consort… is very supportive of him.”
“Hehe, talking in such a roundabout way really departs from your image. Just say what you want to say.”
“The Second Consort said that she would marry the new Khan and become the Chief Consort.”
“That’s her dream. Duodun was raised by her. Before he was even eleven years old, the two were almost living together. This is a lesson for me. Never let a woman and man spend too much time together no matter how different their age or statuses are because attachment will always grow between the two. And when you are not firm enough, you will mistake attachment for love.
Gu Shenwei felt that some of these words were directed at himself. “Does the Khan have no intention of interfering?”
“It’s not necessary. The Second Consort is from the Naihang Tribe, and this alone is enough to turn the two of them against each other. Old Cha has his own plans and he will never let Duodun inherit the throne. The Second Consort is a smart woman but she’s too short-sighted and doesn’t understand that no matter which side she chooses, it’ll be a mistake. If she chooses her lover, she will lose the support of her family and she’ll have nothing. Duodun is no longer a teenager, and he will not hesitate to abandon her; if she chooses to support her family, Duodun will hate her and Old Cha will also slowly turn her into a figurehead. The Prairie will never belong to a woman. No matter how hard she works, the end is the same. Is there a more ideal punishment than this? The only regret is I won’t be able see it myself.”
The Khan talked about his hatred so lightly and casually but his means of revenge were so profound and insidious that Gu Shenwei was awed and also a bit chilled. Whether he liked it or not, the Khan had gained his approval within less than half a day, which he seldom gave to strangers.
“Duodun won’t be punished?”
“Merely joining the fight for the throne is punishment for him. All his contempt and humiliation for me will sooner or later fall on his head.” After a pause, the Khan smiled. “This is just self-deception. I’m just like any other old man in the world. I always see the younger me in my children so I desperately dote on them. I like this son and if I could, I’d just leave the throne to him rather than force him to fight for it.”
“Duodun will fulfill the Khan’s wishes.”
“Not really, so I have to have a backup plan.” The Khan turned and winked at the Dragon King. “This man is of humble origin, and he’s a bastard of King Dari. That woman brought the baby to the door of the camp, left a few words, and never showed up again. For the first ten years, no one thought of him as my grandson. He grew up among the servants and had to earn his own living by the time he could walk. Later, it was his appearance that told the story; the boy looked just like his father.”
The ‘bastard’ was named Luoluo. Because he had raised the horses and cattle well since he was little, he had earned the nickname ‘horsewhip.’ After his origin was proven by his appearance, King Dari explained everything to the Khan and acknowledged Luoluo’s identity even though he never showed any care for him since then.
The horsewhip Luoluo continued grazing but on a much larger scale, as he came to own one of the largest herds of cattle in all of Norland before the age of twenty. The Khan noticed him at that time and drafted him into the army but didn’t give him a position.
Luoluo was promoted entirely based on his battle achievements. In less than ten years, he had been promoted step by step from an ordinary cavalry, to captain of ten people, a hundred people, a thousand people, until he finally took charge of the army independently as a general.
Like Duodun, the Khan had secretly manipulated Luoluo to push him away from the chaotic Royal Court and send him to the southeastern frontier to fight the Central Plains.
Gu Shenwei had never heard of this person. Amongst all the important princes and grandchildren collected by Fang Wenshi, there was no name of horsewhip or Luoluo. In the eyes of an ordinary noble, a ‘bastard’ could not inherit the throne.
“Luoluo has an advantage over Duodun.” The Khan coolly analyzed his son and grandson. “He has been leading the army all these years and has a group of loyal soldiers instead of reckless friends. Of course, it’s a small army of just ten thousand people, but their loyalty can greatly compensate for its lacking numbers and they can defeat enemies many times of itself. Besides, if Luoluo wants to, he can rapidly expand his army in the southern area.”
Duodun and Luoluo, a son and a grandson, one in the west and the other in the east. No matter which one succeeded, the monopolistic power gathered in the consorts’ side would be shattered.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t like Luoluo. He’s a savage. Even when he became a general, there was always a smell of cattle about him. But that’s exactly the smell that the Norland people should have and is also the smell of my ancestors. Many descendants of mine and I myself are unable to accept it but that disposition really was inherited by a bastard. Maybe this is the will of Heaven.”
“Both of them are still very weak.” Gu Shenwei pointed a hole in the Khan’s plans. Even if Duodun and Luoluo each had a hundred thousand horsemen, it was still not enough for them to compete for the title of Khan.
“This is indeed a dilemma. In the Norland, anyone who’s powerful enough will be noticed by the ten kings and they will reap the new risers like reaping the crops. But power is a wonderful thing. Soldiers and horses are only part of it. Since I’ve decided to support the two of them, I have a way to greatly improve their strength in a very short time.”
“Three people.”
“Right, three.”
All of a sudden, the Khan fell silent like the addle-brained King Dari who had suddenly forgotten what he was going to say and just blankly stared at the Dragon King.
Gu Shenwei was really taken aback this time. “Me?”
The Khan nodded.
Gu Shenwei’s approval for the Khan, which he had just been built up, vanished in an instant. Before that, the means the Khan was using to draw him over were just right, but now it was overdone. “I’m really flattered.”
“Hear me out, and you may not think so.”
Gu Shenwei had a premonition that his origin and the experience of his father Gu Lun at the Norland would be discussed again.
“Your real name is Gu Shenwei and you are the son of Gu Lun, a man of the Central Plains.”
“Yes.” Gu Shenwei wasn’t surprised at all that the Khan knew his past. After all, even the Second Consort knew it.
“Then you are probably half a Norland man.
Gu Shenwei kept silent because this wasn’t what the Second Consort had said several days ago, and he couldn’t help but become skeptical no matter if the other side was telling the truth or not.
“I still have some impressions about your father so I sent someone to investigate and found that I had been very generous back then. In order to not let the hostages feel lonely, I had arranged female slaves for them. One of the slave girls gained your father’s favor and gave birth to a boy and a girl. And your father took them away when he returned to the Central Plains. If there were no accidents, you should be one of them.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Gu Shenwei stiffly. He didn’t like that the Khan always used ‘women’ to skirt around a topic, but he could bear it. But he couldn’t accept that the other side was using his own origin to deceive him.
The Khan smiled. “I’m sorry, there’s no princess and princess consort in this story so you think that I’m lying to you. Well, forget it. Anyways, that’s not why I chose you.”
The Khan stood up and started slowly pacing again. But he didn’t ask the Dragon King to help him this time.
“There was no place for you in my original plan. There were many rumors about you but I wasn’t interested until you went south into the wilderness with a band of a rabble, discovered the Land of Fragrance, and then returned to the Western Regions. Only then did I realize that I might have overlooked a hero.”
The Dragon Army was still very weak at that time so the Khan had continued to observe. If the Dragon Army had been defeated by Golden Roc Castle, it would be the Unique King who was talking face to face with the Lord of the Prairie at the moment.
“Duodun and Luoluo have no support from the consorts’ side. That’s what I value about them, but that’s also their most fatal flaw. The whole Royal Court is like a castle built on numerous stones. Now that most of the stones are from the consorts’ side, they will not open the door for an outsider easily. I need someone to help me eradicate this castle and give the new Khan a chance to rebuild.”
The third finger of the Khan turned out to be a destroyer, not a pillar of stability.
“What can I get?” Gu Shenwei asked bluntly. The Khan’s plan was strangely similar to that of several kings, but his reward should be more generous.
“Two posthumous edicts. One for Duodun and the other for Luoluo. It’s up to you to make a choice. You can tear off one and keep one, and then bring it to your new master. That’s your reward.”
This was also the ‘strength’ that the Khan had left for his son and grandson. A posthumous edict from the Khan had a greater influence on the grassland than thousands of horses and soldiers.
This reward was indeed more generous than that of the kings. There was no greater credit or reward than helping a new Khan inherit the throne with a posthumous edict.
“I’m tired.” The Khan surprisingly ordered his guest to leave, neither asking the Dragon King to keep the secret nor trying to persuade him to accept the task as if the problem had been solved and there was nothing more to say.
“Come see me at this time tomorrow night to take the edicts. Choose a woman’s name, perhaps you can choose two. No matter if you believe it or not, the slave who was favored by your father is still alive.”
“I have to leave the palace the first thing in the morning.”
“Then find yourself a way. Take it as my last test for you.”
