Thank you CamiJune for the Kofi~
The General’s Beloved
The 23 unclaimed female corpses were finally buried in the wind platform outside Liangzhou city, as instructed by Xiao Jue. Standing on the wind platform and looking down, the valley was covered by clouds and mist, as if it were a fairyland.
The coffins were of the finest qualities, paid with the silvers from the Sun’s treasury. The Sun family has accumulated countless wealth over the years and had a specially renovated warehouse in the mansion for storing gold, silvers, and other treasures.
Because these 23 corpses were of unknown origin and no one knew their name, even the gravestone erected had no words engraved. There were 23 wordless gravestones, and 23 young girls slept there. If they came to know after death, they could sit here and watch the clouds sway. Just as Xiao Jue said if they reincarnate, they might be free enough to ride the winds and yell over the lakes and mountains.
He Yan and Song Taotao were not too far away. Chi Wu was standing on the side, looking at the people who were squatting on the ground and burning paper money. At the time of burial, Xiao Jue did not come. Many of these people who burned paper money came to look for the missing family members, but they couldn’t find their relatives. After all, many of the girls killed by Sun Ling didn’t even have their corpses left, and were eaten by wolfs or beasts in the wilderness of the mass grave.
A gray-haired old woman was burning paper money in an iron basin. She was too old to walk, and her grandson was walking up the mountain road with her on his back. Her little granddaughter was abducted by Sun Ling four years ago and never appeared again. Now also there were no traces of her granddaughter found in the corpses retrieved from Sun Ling’s courtyard.
The old woman tremblingly said, “I will burn paper money for these girls. In the future, if someone with good intentions sees my girl, they will burn paper money for the my girl… Girl, you can be free now…”
Song Taotao took a handkerchief to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes, and said, “It’s too hard to be a woman. If there is an afterlife, I don’t want to be a woman.”
“It has nothing to do with being a woman,” He Yan looked at the flying paper money, “Being a woman doesn’t mean one has to suffer, and the same is true for man. If you are dissatisfied with fate, you can take a different path. It’s just… She looked at these wordless graves. “For them, they had no choice at all. It’s too cruel.”
Song Taotao looked at her, “You are very different from ordinary men.”
“What?”
“If it was an ordinary man, most of them would probably say, what is wrong with you women, you only need to wear gorgeous clothes and sit in the house. When it is cold, there would be someone to add clothes and even someone to wait for you when you go in and out. You don’t even have to fight outside.” She imitated the gruff voice of men, as she said with disdain, “Is it good to be a pet? Putting the bird into a cage and expecting the bird to praise the cage looks good. I think they have a problem with their brains. .”
He Yan laughed, “You are also very different from ordinary women.”
“I was born different. By the way,” Song Taotao looked at her, “I still don’t know your name. You are not Cheng Lisu but instead a subordinate of Second Young Master Xiao, right?”
“My name is He Yan,” He Yan said, “He of firewood, Yan of river.”
“So it’s Brother He.” Song Taotao said, “You can call me Taotao.”
“This…” He Yan scratched her head, feeling it was a little too intimate. Although they were both women, the others didn’t know. She was afraid that this will give birth to reveries in the eyes of others.
“That’s it.” Song Taotao said, “I have already made an agreement with the second son of Xiao to accompany you to Liangzhou Wei for the time being, and when the second son of Xiao’s people arrive, he will send someone to take me back to Shuojing. So I may have to stay with you most of the time in the next few days.” Song Taotao smiled as her brows and eyes curled, “I haven’t been to the guardhouse yet.” She became happy again and continued chatting.
“Miss Song,” Chi Wu looked at the distance, “It’s getting late, so this subordinate will send you down the mountain first.”
“Let’s go.” He Yan also said.
A few people walked down the mountain with their backs to the graves. At the steps of the wind platform, there were clumps of white chrysanthemums growing in the grass. The breeze blew, and the chrysanthemums nodded slightly as if a delicate maiden was thanking them.
Not long after, their backs faded as they went further.
…
After going down the mountain and returning to the inn where they were staying, Song Taotao plunged into the room to take a bath. They have been busy today and burning paper money earlier left a lot of paper dust on their body, so they had to rinse it off.
Sun’s mansion was sealed, so naturally, they couldn’t go back to stay there. So they stayed in the inn where they first visited. The innkeeper knew Xiao Jue’s true identity, and now that Sun Xiangfu and his son were imprisoned, so he dared not neglect his service. The innkeeper was being diligent as if he was some servant, circling around He Yan.
He Yan said, “Nothing, nothing. I’ll do it myself.” She took a handkerchief and went straight into the room.
Fei Nu was packing up things in the room. He was shocked when she saw him. He Yan asked, “Brother Fei Nu, what are you doing?”
Fei Nu said with a stiff face, “I am going to live with Chi Wu.”
When they were in Sun’s Mansion before, the three of them lived together, Xiao Jue was in the inner room, while Fei Nu and He Yan were outside, and they didn’t felt anything wrong with the arrangement. So He Yan casually said, “It’s troublesome to move around.”
Fei Nu stood still and looked at her incredulously, “You are a woman, how can you be in the same room with me?”
He Yan, “…You don’t have to put on a look of shame.”
Fei Nu didn’t say a word, and quickly packed up his luggage as if she was some kind of scourge. He avoided her and left immediately.
He Yan was the only one left in the room.
She was startled for a moment, shook her head, and smiled. In the eyes of Xiao Jue the master and his servant, her behavior was unexpected, but she had been in the barracks for a long time and was used to living with men. What was so difficult about living with a man? She didn’t feel ashamed as a girl, and she didn’t know why Fei Nu was being so awkward.
He Yan walked up to the bed and found water and clean white cloths on the table. There was also hot water left for bathing in the room, which Fei Nu had put there. She still had injuries on her body. This person was the same as his master. Sometimes he is insensitive, but sometimes he is quite considerate.
There was no one in the room, so she sat down to undress and take a rough bath. She didn’t have the chance to examine her scars yesterday. When replacing the used cloth, she noticed that her wounds were not light.
Naturally, the wounds hurt, but it was tolerable. He Yan turned sideways and looked at the girl in the mirror. With a wound on her fair skin, this was definitely not good-looking.
Miss He cherished her beauty and couldn’t wait to pamper herself with nectar and flower dew. Now she has replaced her, she made her body look completely unrecognizable. If the real Miss He returns and sees such a scene, she will faint in anger.
She has been very careful to protect herself, but once she decided to go out on her own and lost the asylum of her family, it was inevitable that she would get injured. Humans grow up from injury after injury, and the scars left behind will eventually become armor one day.
The body of a female general could never be as flawless as an ordinary girl. The old wounds would fall on her, like a paper slashed by a strange knife, far from beautiful and could even be called scary.
Which girl wouldn’t love beauty? Even for He Yan who had pretended to be a man for more than a decade in her previous life, when she wore her female clothes and looked at the scars on her back, she would still feel ashamed when facing Xu Zhiheng. She never wore thin gauze. Once, Xu Zhiheng gave her a water-colored pomegranate gauze dress that was as thin as cicada wings, with pomegranate flowers embroidered on her shoulders and necks. She liked it very much but she never wore it. Because there was a scar on her shoulder left by an arrow that an enemy shot.
She also remembered the look in Xu Zhiheng’s eyes when he looked at those scars. Although he didn’t say anything, he deliberately avoided looking at them. It was more hurtful than directly taunting and expressing dislike.
He Yan stared at the bronze mirror in a daze. Why is this scar on a man a medal and a shame on a woman? How unfair this is, but it is the world’s righteous belief that all women serve people with beauty, and they must maintain their beauty all the time.
What a load of nonsense.
He Yan lowered her head, rubbed the ointment on the wound thinly, and then wrapped it with a cloth strip. She did these things very well. Even in pain, she didn’t even frown, and the pain soon resided. After finishing all this, she rested in the room for a while, then got up and pushed the door open to go out in front of Xiao Jue’s room.
The light was on in the room, and Xiao Jue should be inside. He Yan knocked on the door, “General?”
“Come in.”
Pushing the door, Young Master Xiao was putting away his qin on the table. He Yan had almost forgotten that he had come to Liangzhou City this time to repair his qin too. Speaking of repairing the qin, He Yan remembered that she crushed it when she was drunk.
“General,” He Yan said bitterly, “Have you eaten?”
Xiao Jue stopped moving his hand, “Speak frankly.”
“Are we going back to the guardhouse tomorrow?” He Yan asked, “What do you plan to do with me?”
Now that Xiao Jue knew she was a girl, what if Xiao Jue really wanted to send her back to Shuojing? It was so hard to know even a little about He Rufei and finally, there’s a lead now, she definitely will not go back even if she is killed.
“What do you want me to do with you?” Second Young Master Xiao sat down at the table, looking at her calmly.
He Yan also hurriedly moved a stool to sit next to him, and seriously analyzed with him, “You have seen my ability. This time you brought me to Liangzhou. I was the one who alerted you about the assassin and I was also the one who helped you distract Yuan Baozhen. Ultimately, Ding Yi was killed by me. If I calculate it carefully. I have done more for you than Brother Fei Nu ever did.”
Fei Nu who was next door sneezed.
“A person like me, as a subordinate, can be one of the best, a good subordinate who is good at understanding .” He Yan boasted without any hesitation, “Liangzhou Wei has me, and I am like a tiger with wings. General, I think you can put me in the Nine Banners Battalion, you will never regret it as long as you keep me.”
Xiao Jue smiled and asked in return, “Nine Banner Battalion?”
“I know that the General is a quick-witted man, and you must have doubted my purpose of entering the Nine Banners Battalion. I’ll be straightforward. It is too slow to make achievements and build a career. I have heard those who are in Nine Banners Battalion can become officials even if they have a disability. Our He family is counting on me to make our ancestors proud so I thought the Nine Banners Battalion was a good place to go.”
Her remarks were frank. Xiao Jue took a sip of the tea on the table, and said unhurriedly, “No need for the future, I see that you have a disability right now also.”
He Yan, “…what?” Could it be Xiao Jue know that she was Mrs. Xu and was blind in her previous life?
She was nervous and saw him pointing to her head.
He Yan, “…” He’s the one whose head has something wrong instead! Cursing people without any reason.
It was just that people had to bow their heads under the eaves, and He Yan made a smile, “Don’t the General think so?”
Xiao Jue stared at her and sneered, “A Liar, our Nine Banners Battalion does not accept incompetent people.”
“Incompetent?” Xiao Jue can question her character, but he can’t question her ability. He Yan slapped the table, “Who are you talking about?”
“Ding Yi’s matters, weren’t you hurt when you fought him?” Xiao Jue twitched his mouth, his beautiful eyes were full of mockery, “If it’s not incompetent then what was it?”
“That’s…that’s…” That’s because Miss He is weak, and having learned the lessons from her previous life, of course, she has to be cautious!
“If Big Brother Fei Nu was there, he will be injured too!”
“You can put your deceitful mind on practicing, maybe it will improve a lot.”
The more this person gets along with her now, the more he reveals the bad side of his youth. He Yan took a deep breath and suddenly smiled.
“Okay, it doesn’t matter if the General insists on saying that. It doesn’t matter if you have a prejudice against me. It’s just that I suddenly miss the red mole on the General’s waist.”
Xiao Jue’s calm expression suddenly cracked.
“This rumor has been passed on and now it seems it would become true. I, the daughter of the captain of the city gate, whose family is not very prosperous, and have no fame. It’s my good fortune to be able to be associated with General’s name.” He Yan stood up and said slowly, “When people talk about me in the future, as the woman who was the General’s beloved, I think it’s not a loss. It’s just that it would be bad for the General to be tied to the likes of me. But the General doesn’t care what others say, so it shouldn’t matter, right?”
Xiao Jue stared at her with eyes like a knife, and said in a deep voice, “What beloved woman?”
He Yan smiled and replied, “I am so good that everyone in Liangzhouwei knows me and always admired me as a rare man in the world. If they suddenly found out that I was a woman, they would definitely refuse to believe it. And would wonder why a woman entered the military camp. I can only say that it was naturally because the Gneeral loved me so much that he was reluctant to be separated from me, so he hid me in the barracks and brought me to Liangzhou to the garrison. After listening to all this, they would only envy my good luck. Of course, they would also lament the love of the General is as deep as the sea.”
Xiao Jue smiled instead of anger when he heard the words, “You don’t know how to be ashamed!”
He Yan propped her hands on the table and quickly said, “I am not an unreasonable person, nor am I asking the General to let me enter the Battalion through the back door. I just hope that the General will give me a chance to prove myself. Let’s go back to the guardhouse together and pretend that these all things never happened, I also ask the General to abandon your prejudice against me and treat me as an ordinary soldier. And yes,” she seemed to think of something, “I have injuries now, and I need to change my dressing at night. Living together is inconvenient, so I will have to trouble the General to find a room for me to be alone — the kind that I can take a bath in.”
Xiao Jue said coldly, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Then, I will have to be the woman the General loves deeply.” He Yan turned around nonchalantly, “Even if you shove me into the carriage and send me back to Shuojing, I’ll be able to spread the word to everyone immediately. Well, I think this inn is very good, as long as I scream…”
Xiao Jue held his forehead, “He Yan!”
He Yan smiled, hiding the anger behind it, “Too bad I’m a liar.”
Xiao Jue, “I give you my word.”
He Yan’s face changed faster than the three-year-old child. She touched her heart and said with regret, “I am a little bit disappointed that I can’t be the woman whom the General loves deeply.”
Xiao Jue’s face was green, “Get out!”
He Yan hummed happily and went out.
…
Early the next morning, when Fei Nu and Chi Wu woke up and went out, they found that He Yan was even earlier than the two of them.
They were about to go back to Liangzhouwei, she also deliberately cleaned up and picked out a piece of clothes that Cheng Lisu didn’t usually wear, making her look refreshed. She was born with good looks, if Fei Nu didn’t know that she was a woman, he would have not help but to praise such a handsome young man in his heart.
Chi Wu didn’t know He Yan’s identity. He held his chest and looked from a distance, and asked Fei Nu in a low voice, “You said this person is unbeatable in Liangzhou? Look at this body, it doesn’t look like it.”
Fei Nu sighed and thought this was not the only thing wrong with him.
As he was talking, Song Taotao came up from downstairs with a handful of red dates. When she saw He Yan, he naturally stretched out her hand and smiled, “Brother He, these are the date from the shopkeeper. They are very sweet. Don’t you want to try them?”
Liangzhou was rich in red dates — all of them were big and sweet, and the redness was very pleasing to the eye. He Yan took it and said, “Thank you.”
They were a pair of teenage girls standing there, a pleasant scene for the eyes like a reverie. Chi Wu poked Fei Nu in the arm and said, “Looking at them something feels wrong. Did Miss Song has taken a fancy to He Yan? What about Young Master Cheng? “
Fei Nu looked at him with difficulty and said, “…what are you blindly worrying about!”
“How can this be called blindly worrying? Young Master Cheng is the young master’s uncle, of course, we have to help Young Master Cheng. Or I will teach that boy a lesson in private so that he would stay away from Miss Song? Our Young Master Cheng is pure and kind at heart, and is He Yan’s opponent, Look at the way he smiles at Miss Song, I can’t stand it anymore.”
“Don’t say anything mindlessly, Young Master hates people who make a fuss” Fei Nu said, “You and I can do our own thing.”
Chi Wu was about to say something more when the door of the room opened, and Xiao Jue walked out of it.
“General.” He Yan greeted him warmly.
Xiao Jue didn’t seem to see her. He passed by her with a stingy look in his eyes, and said to Fei Nu, “Is the carriage ready?”
“They all are waiting downstairs.” Fei Nu replied.
“Let’s go.” He went downstairs.
Chi Wu and Fei Nu looked at each other, and Chi Wu asked in a low voice, “Does the surname He makes our young master angry?”
“Let’s just do our work.” Fei Nu didn’t answer and went downstairs.
“Second Young Master Xiao is still as cold as ever.” Song Taotao was on He Yan’s side, which made He Yan quite moved. The little girl sympathetically said to her, “You must be sad to work under him. When I return to Shuojing, I will tell my father to see if I can find a job for you in the capital. With your skills and character, it should not be difficult.”
“Huh?” He Yan didn’t expect Song Taotao to have this intention, so she waved her hand and said, “That’s not necessary. Thank you, Miss Song, for your kindness, but I am pretty good in Liangzhou, and General Xiao is not an unreasonable man. He’s pretty good, and it’s my honor to follow him.”
Song Taotao only thought she was speaking for Xiao Jue, and disagreed, “How is he worthy of you to follow? People in Shuojing say he is cruel and ruthless…”
Although Xiao Jue had a bad temper, He Yan didn’t scold him ignorantly. She only smiled and said, “He is not good, but didn’t he think of a way to get the Sun family into trouble for bullying you? If he is really that bad, why would he bother with the unclaimed female corpses in Sun’s mansion, even to the extent of burying them, and inviting monks to help them out.”
“But…” Song Taotao still argued.
The teenager smiled and touched her head, and said warmly, “Miss Song, you are still young, and you don’t know many things can’t be seen on the surface. Many times people have to get along with a person to know their character. A person treating you kindly and being considerate is not necessarily good; every cruel and ruthless person may not be a evil, they may also have an unknown side.”
Song Taotao was stunned. Before she could understand, He Yan had already walked downstairs. There seemed to be the remaining warmth of the young man’s palm on her head. She blushed and hurried to catch up with her, muttering in a low voice, “What young? You’re just a few years older than me.”
After that, there was no further dispute.
He Yan lowered her head and smiled, and the words Xiao Jue said to the poor girls yesterday rang in her mind again.
“Outside Liangzhou city, there is a peak platform called wind platform. These women couldn’t help themselves when they were alive, caged like a bird or like a fish in the pond. Buried here, may they be free to ride the wind and yell at the lakes and mountains in their next life.”
He understood the despairs of those women in order to say such words.
Therefore, she generously forgave Xiao Jue for being rude to her and didn’t take his bad behavior to heart.
After all, there were really not many gentle people in this world.
When she went downstairs, she saw Xiao Jue standing in front of the carriage, then walked over and asked, “General, are you sharing the carriage with me?”
After all, Song Taotao was a young girl. They were riding horses when they came. When returning back, they couldn’t let Song Taotao ride on them, so Fei Nu arranged two carriages.
Xiao Jue turned his head to look at her.
He Yan explained, “I can’t ride a carriage with Ms. Song. We are men and women. Being in the same carriage alone and if we were seen by others… wouldn’t Miss song’s reputation be at stake?”
Xiao Jue, “So?”
“So I should ride on the same carriage with the General.” He Yan said with a smile and was about to get into the carriage, but Xiao Jue pulled her down by the back collar of her clothes.
If it hadn’t been for He Yan grabbing a handful of his sleeve, she almost couldn’t stand firm.
“Do you not consider yourself a woman, or do you not consider me a man?” He raised his eyebrows, “Liar, I’m afraid you are too deep in the drama, so I remind you. The mission is over so you can stop pretending to be Cheng Lisu.” After that, he brushed off the sleeve that He Yan had just grabbed.
Chi Wu passed by and happened to hear Xiao Jue’s last sentence. He immediately came over to grab He Yan’s clothes and pulled her aside, “That’s right! Do you still think of yourself as Young Master Cheng? Why are you so ignorant, come here and ride on a horse with us!”
He Yan was just joking and didn’t really want to ride with Xiao Jue. Then so she turned and got on her horse happily.
Fei Nu instructed the coachman, “There is a girl in the carriage, so don’t go too fast.”
He Yan was startled and smiled unconsciously. It’s not that she was sentimental, but because she was injured in a fight with Ding Yi, she can’t ride the horse too vigorously.
She didn’t know if this was intentional. She was also a girl.
Chi Wu, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
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