Three months after the stone tablet with characters of ancient Qidan was found, the Fourth Prince Wanyan Su set off with his mighty troops. The leading troop was cavalries which had gone through tough training. The troop was awarded by the Grand Khan of North Di. Wanyan Su arranged this troop at the forefront, which was not only very imposing but also useful for the removal of mines when crucially necessary.
“The removal of mines means that if there were some dangers, the troop would be the first to die, which could warn the troop behind.” Leng Changxi explained the term carefully to Qin Yunuan. Wanyan Su had arranged a very comfortable horse carriage for the two respected guests, Qin Yunuan and Leng Changxi, but Qin Yunuan refused. She felt so eye-catching for a woman with white gauze covering her eyes to ride a horse in the street.
Qin Yunuan ignored the horse carriage and listened carefully to Leng Changxi’s description of the troop.
“There are about one hundred and seventy people together with only seven women, including Yaqi, who is dispatched to serve you.”
“Seven women?” Qin Yunuan said in a slightly higher tone. She seemed to be a little bit surprised. The number was excess for a troop, which caught out this terribly dangerous task.
Yaqi was necessary to serve Qin Yunuan herself. What about the other six women?
“The rest of the six women are maidservants and dispatched from the Royal Palace for serving the troop on the way.”
Maidservants? Qin Yunuan knew clearly that those women were just for satisfying the sexual desires of those young and robust men. Qin Yunuan knew that it was so normal in North Di. Such an arrangement was considerate for those warriors who took the life risk to research for the treasure for North Di.
On the way, strong winds blew with sands. Qin Yunuan wrapped thick white gauzes on her body to roughly avoid the attack of bean-sized grits. At dusk, the leader warrior said towards the dim outline of a house in the sandstorms, “Prince, there is a village in front. We can have a rest temporarily.”
Wanyan Su felt unprepared with the sandstorm. He ordered the troop to proceed toward the village at full speed.
Qin Yunuan was about to ride a horse to proceed and exactly saw an imperial maidservant tumbled and luckily supported by a warrior. But the woman did not thank him and showed a disgusting face. She pushed the warrior away and even patted the place reluctantly, where she was touched by the warrior.
Qin Yunuan saw the whole scene and continued to proceed toward the village with the troop. When they arrived at the village, though the sandstorm was over, it was dark now. Only two solitary stone tablets were standing there as a milestone in front of the village.
“Tamuer Village.” Wanyan Su looked at those blurry characters and said, “It seems that our journey goes smoothly. We can arrive at Yeren Valley the day after tomorrow at the present speed.”
Yeren Valley was not far away from the capital of North Di. Few people dared to go there due to rare post houses and villages and the scary legend of Yeren Valley. This village was the nearest one from Yeren Valley. There was no other place to have a rest except this one.
“Yeren Valley? You guys will go to Yeren Valley?” Hearing the words of Wanyan Su, a short old man in a grey cotton-padded dress suddenly appeared behind the stone tablet. Such an inanimate man showed up abruptly, which made people doubt if he was stuck behind the stone tablet.
“My old friend.” Wanyan Su got down from the horse and supported the old man tumbling on the ground.
But the old man refused. He pushed Wanyan Su away and then stepped back, “Go away. You guys are insane. How dare you want to go such a terrible place?”
Wanyan Su smiled and tried to say with a soft smile, “My old friend, we came here by order of the Grand Khan. I just wonder if there is a place for us to have a rest in this village?”
The old man waved his hands and spit to the ground, “No! No! There are few people in our village. We have no inn. You guys are even more than out village people, so we can’t receive you guys. You should go back and never come here.”
Wanyan Su reached his hand to stop and said with a smile, “OK, listen, my old friend. We do not want to bother the village, but our water in the bottles had run out already on the way here. We want to buy some water. Could you save us? Please.”
The old man was about to shook head to refuse, but a young man in medium height came out behind the old man. He was slim with charming dark eyes. Such kind of figure was seldom seen in North Di. Men from North Di were always tall and robust.
“Sorry, sorry,” The young man explained in a hurry, “My father is a little bit silly. Sorry to slight your respected guys. Fine, there is a well inside our village. But now some people in our village have slept. To avoid making noises, you can dispatch two people to fetch water with me. If you are willing to eat some steamed buns at my house, you can fetch some.”
“OK.” Wanyan Su turned back to order the troop to pitch camps five miles away from the village. The place was sparse white aspens woods but could keep out of sandstorms and burning sun. The woods looked gloomy in the dark, which showed a kind of unspeakable fear.
One hundred and seventy people pitched camps there. Wanyan Su selected two robust and shrewd men to fetch water together with the young man. Before entering the village, Wanyan Su indicated the two that they should be shrewd and acted accordingly and tried their best to collect some useful intelligence.
Qin Yunuan sat beside an aspen root. She took the ox-horn kettle Leng Changxi passed to her. Yaqi aside was untying the tightly wrapped roast cakes. She took a patch of cake for Qin Yunuan and put it into a clean handkerchief then passed it to her.
Qin Yunuan was chewing a little bit hard roasted cake carefully. Her nose had caught the information agilely in the air.
“Something weird in the aspens.” Qin Yunuan said calmly and lowered her head to eat the still crisp edge of the cake.
Leng Chanxi sat down and drank water, “I think so. Under the burning sun for the whole day, the aspens are still humid. There must be someone pouring water for the woods. The nearest place from here is the village. Aspens need no watering when naturally growing. If no one came here to do watering from five miles away, the aspens must be planted just now.”
“I think so too,” Qin Yunuan continued, “But it is not due to the aspens. The key is that village,” Qin Yunuan looked at Leng Changxi and said, “There must be a kind of smell. There must be fuel fume smell in the place where people live. But the Tamuer Village’s air is too clean.”
“Maybe the strong wind blew the smell away?” Yaqi said.
“Yaqi, you should believe my nose. It never goes wrong.”
Yaiqi withdrew her neck and held a piece of cake Qin Yunuan passed to her. At the same time, male’s whoops came from the other side of the camp suddenly. They were speaking dirty words of the North Di language. Qin Yunuan frowned because she had mastered the language generally.
Those whooping people also noticed the side of Qin Yunuan. They glimpsed at Qin Yunuan prudently. And then they pulled those imperial maidservants sieged by them toward the woods. It seemed that they would have sex with those women. Qin Yunuan did not stop them and just turned sideways to avoid hearing the noises from the woods. As usual, those imperial maidservants would probably know that their mission was to satisfy those soldiers when they went out together with the troops. But there was one imperial maidservant who showed resistance. With hands and feet, she lowered her head and resisted a soldier who was dragging her.
“Go away. You are such dirty perverts. How dare you touch me?” The woman said arrogantly.
But then the seeming chaste woman was slapped by that soldier. The red palm print seemed not to vent the anger of the warrior totally. He dragged the hair of the woman, shouting, “You are just a bitch. Don’t pretend to be chaste.”
When the woman tidied her tousy hair back to her ears, she showed her comely and pure face. Qin Yunuan and Leng Changxi were astonished.
“Stop. What are you doing?” Wanyan Su showed up. He hugged the abused woman and felt sorry to touch the red fingerprint on her face, “Yasu, how come you came here?”
Right. The woman was Side Concubine Yasu in the Fourth Prince’s Mansion, who tumbled and was noticed by Qin Yunuan but disliked the warrior who supported her.
The close guard of the Fourth Prince rebuked that soldier at once, “This is the Side Concubine of the Fourth Prince’s Mansion. Your behaviors are so dirty. Even if you were dispatched by the Grand Khan, it would be not enough to be executed for your disrespect towards Side Concubine.”
The soldier shuddered and knelt. Wanyan Su supported the frightened Suya and helped her sit down. Qin Yunuan gave the ox-horn kettle to them and heard their intermittent words.
“Why do you come here? You hid in the troop as an imperial maidservant. I even can’t recognize you with makeup.”
“Your Highness, I realized that I’d better come with you to Yeren Valley instead of stopping you. If you were in danger, I would be beside you.”
While communicating, the close guard came to ask how to dispose of that solider who did not respect Side Concubine. Wanyan Su was hesitant because the soldier was dispatched by the Grand Khan, and he could not punish him badly.
“How to punish him? Behead him here.” Leng Changxi said coldly without any human kindness.
