Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Zhang Ji, who had been in charge of imparting the knowledge recorded in ancient books in this ancient castle, had had plenty of time to formulate a specific career plan for himself. The Unique King, the owner of the Golden Roc Castle, was his superior who delegated power to him. The Norland and the Central Plains were his pawns who eliminated his enemies and paved the way forward for him. And Shangguan Yun, his favorite student, was his companion walking side by side with him on this journey. He had never cared about the mediocre or failed ones behind him.
On this path, Servant Huan had merely been a passer-by who was of even less importance than Shangguan Hong, a person who he had once used during a certain period.
As a result, when faced with the Dragon King, Zhang Ji couldn’t help himself from feeling mixed emotions. Surprisingly, instead of dying, that Servant Huan had become someone whose status was far higher than his, which he found so humiliating that he even felt a touch uneasy about it.
But he wouldn’t show any of this on his face. Zhang Ji was Zhang Ji after all. Even if he were overwhelmed by emotion, he could always push it all down. His career plan had been thoroughly ruined, but he hadn’t failed yet. He still had a chance to defeat the Dragon King.
“You’re my enemy,” said Zhang Ji simply.
Only those who knew this teacher very well could detect a hint of compliment in this remark, and Gu Shenwei was one of them. So he briefly nodded and saluted him. “I’m honored to be in this position.”
“If you want my advice, then you’ll have to answer my question first. And you must be completely honest. Don’t keep anything back.”
Zhang Ji still couldn’t get rid himself of his habit of being a teacher. In his eyes, the Dragon King would always be that student who had brought him good wine on a regular basis and who would occasionally consult him in a modest manner.
“I tell lies more often than I tell the truth. But in this conversation with Mr. Zhang, I’ll make an exception.”
“Um. Rest assured. I won’t ask you anything about the future. I just want to know how you managed to maneuver to the rear of Luoluo’s army in the battle of Thousand Horsemen Pass and then make it to the center of the Middle Regiment’s camp. That movement required an extremely complex and meticulous plan as well as a leader who had a panoramic view of the battleground. I don’t believe – no offence – that anyone in the Dragon Army is capable of this.”
The most simple and direct answer would be that, “It was a miracle.”
The battle of Thousand Horsemen Pass had been full of accidents from start to finish. Gu Shenwei had once spent a lot of time researching all of these mysteries and conflicts that had taken place in various areas of the battleground back then. However, he hadn’t found anything except for who had obviously betrayed him. With regards to what kind of impact these traitors had had on the battle, he had never figured it out either.
Zhang Ji had raised a question that was very difficult to answer. Gu Shenwei didn’t want to lie, and neither did he want to give him a simple, seemingly perfunctory answer. After mulling it over for a while, he said, “My generals and I formulated a plan, but we failed to carry out every single part of it. Originally, I merely wanted to defend against Luoluo’s attack and prove that he was not invincible so as to boost the morale of my troops, and then wait for winter to come. Maneuvering to the rear of Luoluo’s army and charging into the Middle Regiment’s camp was not in the original plan. The truth was that I was lost.”
Upon hearing this unbelievable answer, Zhang Ji grabbed the teacup on the table and gulped down the tea as if it were wine. And then he let out a few laughs, a relieved look on his face. “I see. I see… ”
Zhang Ji had finally freed himself from that burden. “I thought that… never mind. Thank you for being honest with me, Dragon King. I’ll repay the favor. Tell me about your confusion. Try to be specific and don’t hide any details, because that would only make me more perplexed and in that case, I might not be able to offer you the advice you want.”
What Zhang Ji was most proud of was his wisdom and discernment. When he heard that the crushing defeat that he suffered in the battle of Thousand Horsemen Pass had nothing to do with his tactics, he regained his confidence.
Gu Shenwei believed that he was telling the truth, but he didn’t talk about what decisions he had made during that battle. Saying that he had gotten lost was an answer just as overly simple as saying that it was a miracle. Without the Dragon Army troops who were willing to risk life and limb to follow him, or Dugu Xian and the others’ unshakable determination to keep attacking, or even Liman and the Second Consort who had commanded the left wing troops to hold the ground, by no means could Shulitu’s army have possibly won.
If Gu Shenwei had tried to tell him all this, it would have been too complicated, so he had ultimately chosen to skip these details. Instead, he told Zhan Ji about the intelligence that he had gotten from Madam Meng. “I don’t trust her, but I’ve been wondering how and why Madam would frame me. She has already lost all favor with the Unique King, and she also betrayed the Central Plains by supporting me. And now she’s trying to played me off of Wei Song – she has offended almost every potential backer she could have. Exactly what kind of benefit can she get?”
“Do you think that I’ll help you just because Madam Meng and I are enemies?”
“I do.” There was no need for Gu Shenwei to explain. Everybody in the castle knew about Madam Meng’s means of dealing with enemies. Nominally, she had lost favor with her husband because of the exposure of the adulterous relationship. But actually, Zhang Ji was the true mastermind behind this. This teacher had by no means not taken any precautions.
“I once tried to persuade the King Lord to kill this woman and put an end to the trouble once and for all, but he disagreed. Originally, I thought that my words would matter more if I managed to use Luoluo’s army to take back the Western Regions, and that it would naturally be easier to eliminate Madam Meng then. I didn’t expect that… you would be the one to save her.”
“Um. I did that by accident, so she won’t be grateful to me.”
“Wei Song wants to kill you?” asked Zhang Ji next. He had already started thinking about potential plots. Even if it was his enemy that he was offering help to, he still wanted to do it wholeheartedly, which was his preference.
“This is a personal matter.”
“You suspect that he was the one who hired killers to kill the Gu family?”
“He might have been the one, but Wei Song doesn’t seem to be very close to the Unique King, so I suspect that he’s merely an insider. No matter what, I killed his son. Thus, he wants to take revenge.”
“Vengeance yet again,” Zhang Ji said scornfully. His view of vengeance was the same as that of Fang Wenshi. They both believed that vengeance was a burden for those who vied for supremacy. “Madam Meng admitted that her subordinate assassinated the envoy of the Central Plains, but then she shifted the responsibility onto Wei Song?”
“Yes.”
“Actually, it would be a good thing for both Jade City and the entire Western Regions if Wei Song was proved to be the mastermind.”
“I suspect that Wei Song already thought of this when he asked Madam Meng for help. He has surely has taken precautions.”
“It’s a trap,” Zhang Ji said in a sure tone. “I don’t know much about Wei Song, but I do know that Madam Meng is not as weak as you think she is. The King Lord forgave the Tenth Young Master, and he will also forgive his wife sooner or later. Thus, you were not definitively right to say that Madam Meng has lost favor her husband, because it’s only temporary. I believe that she has a plan to get back into favor with the King Lord. At the very least, she will help Shangguan Fei return to the stone castle.”
“That won’t be easy. It’s easier for the Unique King to accept Madam Meng than it is for him to accept Shangguan Fei.”
Both Shangguan Fei’s personality and his sexual orientation were huge obstacles to his returning to the stone castle, and by no means would the Unique King ignore these.
“Unless… ” Zhang Ji contemplated for a while. “Unless the King Lord only has one son left at that point.”
“Shangguan Yun.” Gu Shenwei immediately thought of the Third Young Master that he had assigned to the Xiaowan Kingdom.
Zhang Ji sighed deeply. “The Third Young Master has let the King Lord down, and to be honest, I’m a little disappointed as well. He has lost his will to fight. He’d rather surrender to the Dragon King than rise up and fight back. Madam Meng will eliminate him sooner or later, but he’s not her most important target at the moment.”
All of the Unique King’s sons were either dead or injured, unless he had another bastard son somewhere. There was only one other person that Gu Shenwei could think of. “Luo Ningcha’s son?”
“Shangguan Cheng. His name is Shangguan Cheng, since about… four or five years ago. I’ve never met him, but it’s said that he’s a clever boy. There’s a prophecy known to people in the castle that ‘the man with ten words will become a king’, or is it that ‘the man with ten sons will become a king’? Anyway, it’s all about the number ‘ten,’ and the King Lord seems to believe it wholeheartedly. The Tenth Young Master is a tomboy so she doesn’t count. With regards to Shangguan Hong, the King Lord has never considered acknowledging his identity, so he doesn’t count either. All in all, this makes Luo Ningcha’s son the tenth son. The King Lord picked his name himself. The character ‘Cheng'(In Chinese, the character Cheng means success.) has made his attitude very clear.”
“But he’s only… he’s only a baby,” Gu Shenwei felt that this was somewhat too incredible.
“Anybody who stays in the highest position for too long will feel lonely and will inevitably start believing in such things as destiny. If the Dragon King wins a few more battles by ‘getting lost’, you’ll believe in it as well. The King Lord does. I can understand, but I can’t persuade him. He just believes that this kid will succeed the throne.”
Someone who was at rock bottom and had nobody to rely on would also believe in destiny. Gu Shenwei recalled how persistent he used to be in trying to find “God’s will” when his family members had been killed.
Surprisingly, there was an uncanny similarity between someone who was at rock bottom and someone who was at the peak. Gu Shenwei secretly sighed at this thought and with that, shifted his attention to the current crisis. “So Shangguan Cheng is the biggest obstacle to Shangguan Fei’s returning to the Golden Roc Castle.”
“At least it is so in Madam Meng’s opinion.” Zhang Ji dipped his finger in water and started scribbling something on the table, but his thinking wasn’t interrupted. “But she doesn’t dare take action. First of all, the King Lord likes his youngest son very much. Second – alas – I didn’t expect that I, Zhang Ji, would have to say something like this someday. Luo Ningcha’s beauty is of enormous value, and even the King Lord wants to take advantage of it, which is also Shangguan Cheng’s protective amulet.”
Gu Shenwei could imagine that once Golden Roc Castle regained its former glory, Luo Ningcha would go back to the Unique King and give him everything she had taken.
“So Madam Meng intends to have a third party kill Luo Ningcha, but there’s still nothing that she can do to Shangguan Cheng.”
Zhang Ji shook his head. “There are actually eleven strokes in the words ‘The Tenth Son, Cheng.’ But… nominally, Shangguan Cheng is the tenth son. Actually he is the eleventh. Is he really going be a king? Alas, I shouldn’t have started thinking about these things, as the longer I think about it, the more confused I become. I myself am on the verge of believing this nonsense.”
After making these inexplicable remarks, Zhang Ji wiped the water off the table, raised his head and looked at the Dragon King, his eyes suddenly becoming icy and stern. “There’s a rumor. Though not widely-spread, it is known to a lot of people. It says that, back when the Dragon King was still in the stone castle, the relationship between the Dragon King and the Seventh Young Mistress once went beyond the mistress-servant level, and that you did something you were not supposed to do.”
“We’re in Jade City, where all kinds of rumors exist no matter how ridiculous they are. Hardly anybody truly believes this.” Gu Shenwei had never promised that he would be honest with him on this issue.
“Madam Meng doesn’t need many people to believe this rumor. As long as the King Lord believes it – even if he merely suspects it – her aim will have been achieved, which is clearing the hurdles to Shangguan Fei’s returning to the stone castle. If by any chance she manages to eliminate the Dragon King in passing, then that would be a big contribution of hers – hundreds, even thousands of times bigger than my contributions, a counselor who just lost a battle.”
Zhang Ji picked up his teacup, suggesting that the visitor should leave now.
Gu Shenwei stood up and took his leave, his mind much clearer than it was before he came here.
Zhang Ji was a mortal enemy of Madam Meng, but his analysis was absolutely unbiased. Gu Shenwei had identified his own misjudgment. Luo Ningcha, who was totally unaware of the actual situation, was actually the core of the whole conspiracy.
Watching the Dragon King leaving the tavern, Zhang Ji also came to understand an issue of his own: the reason why the Dragon King had won was because he knew how to take advantage of his enemies’ strength, which was exactly what he had taught Servant Huan.
