Chapter 44: The Past (4)

Chapter 44: The Past (4)

The master slapped his thigh and called out, "Right! Damuqi!"

Pei Mingqi couldn't take it anymore and slammed his hand on the table: "When the hell is the lamb coming?"

The master, still scared of the soldiers, had a whole speech ready, but upon seeing Pei Mingqi's menacing look, he swallowed them back down.

Wen Ren Yue, meanwhile, looked at the snowman in Le Wuya's hands.

Under the warmth of his palm, the snow gradually hardened, taking on a crystalline clarity.

What he had carved seemed to be a person.

Pei Mingqi, having finished his outburst, also noticed this.

He compared it and found the little snowman quite crude—no proper nose, no proper eyes—definitely not capturing the style of Scholar Ming before him.

Noticing this, Pei Mingqi felt a bit pleased: "Who is this you've made?"

Le Wuya: "General Pei, it's me."

Pei Mingqi openly demanded: "Make one of me."

Le Wuya refused: "No." This one was for Xiaoliu.

Xiaoliu was already pitiful—said to be raised under the noble consort's name, but that was only for a good title. A perfectly good prince, yet he grew up as if in a Taoist temple.

Separated from his mother, living a cold life, and now someone wanted to snatch his gift!

Thinking of this, Le Wuya's heart suddenly softened.

Since he was already in such a state, scheming to bully him seemed too much.

As Le Wuya's mind wandered, his hand slipped, and the snowman's head rolled straight to the ground.

Le Wuya let go and said dejectedly: "Ah, my head fell off."

"Don't say that!" Pei Mingqi was furious. He snatched the snowman's body from Le Wuya's hands, picked up the head, and shoved it back on. "What the hell are you saying?! Isn't it fine now?!"

He spun around and handed the repaired snowman to Deputy General An: "You go, put it outside in the snow. Freeze it solid!"

Deputy General An kept nodding and agreeing, took the snowman out, and after setting it down, he came back and casually sat at the soldiers' table.

With no snowman to pass the time, Le Wuya gazed out the window at the heavy snow filling the sky and earth, zoned out.

He thought that when he returned to Nanting, he should go to the ice room and get a block of ice to carve a proper one for Xiaoliu.

Before, with nothing to do for fun in the borderlands, he had learned ice carving from a specialist at Tianlang Camp.

When he pretended to be a merchant and crossed the Jing tribe's border to trade goods, it was winter, so ice and snow were available for his use.

Wearing a fur cloak, Le Wuya carved stars, roses, and eagles by moonlight, practicing hard just to show off to Pei Mingqi when he returned.

His skill improved a ton during those months of wandering.

Later, even back in the capital, he liked to get ice from the icehouse and carve small trinkets for his own amusement.

It wasn't until the doctor told him to stay away from cold that he gave up the craft.

But Le Wuya soon realized one thing:

After being reborn into this world, he had only seen Xiaoliu once.

His mind was full of Xiaoliu's youthful appearance.

The more lifelike the carving, the more it would give him away.

...Le Wuya felt he had been silently pissed off by Zhi Jie again.

While he was lost in thought, a small lamb, perfectly roasted, was brought out.

When the master stayed quiet, his movements were exceptionally swift. With lightning-fast knife work, soon a steaming plate of golden-brown roast lamb was placed on the table.

Le Wuya snapped out of it and eagerly raised his chopsticks to grab a piece, but Wen Ren Yue and Pei Mingqi both shot their chopsticks out at the same time, each picking up a piece from the two ends of the lamb, and held them to Le Wuya's mouth from either side.

Le Wuya: "..."

Wen Ren Yue: "..."

Pei Mingqi: "..."

Wen Ren Yue and Pei Mingqi exchanged a glance across the table, both spotting confusion and rivalry in each other's eyes.

Neither budged.

Both held their chopsticks in the air, waiting to see which piece Le Wuya would accept.

Deputy General An spotted this from the corner of his eye and was super glad that he had moved away fast enough.

While feeling relieved, he threw himself into the fierce scramble for meat.

The atmosphere at the main table was really awkward.

Looking at the two pieces of roasted meat left and right, Le Wuya was speechless for a few seconds, then asked Pei Mingqi: "Aren't you hungry?"

Pei Mingqi shot back: "Aren't you hungry?"

Le Wuya was speechless again for a moment, then asked Wen Ren Yue: "And what's your deal?"

Wen Ren Yue said gently: "You told me to grab first. I grabbed quickly, so the first piece goes to you."

Le Wuya sighed, raised his own plate, and signaled them: Put them both here.

Feeling he had lost the competition, Pei Mingqi had to gloomily put his meat into Le Wuya's plate, while sneaking a peek from the corner of his eye to see which piece Le Wuya would eat first.

Le Wuya ignored those two pieces, picked up a morsel himself, dipped it in sauce, and put it into his mouth.

Delicious!

He squinted, swayed his head in delight, showing complete delight and satisfaction.

He had heard of it for years and craved it for years, but in his previous life, he never got a single bite of this Tongma lamb.

Living a second life, getting to enjoy a treat like this made him feel it was quite worth it.

Pei Mingqi was originally a little annoyed, but seeing Le Wuya's satisfied expression, his restless heart suddenly settled.

He didn't disturb him anymore, only silently picked up his bowl and ate his meal just watching Le Wuya eat.

As Wenren Yue watched Le Wuya finally get an appetite, he felt relieved. Just as he was about to pick up his chopsticks, Le Wuya placed a piece of meat in his bowl.

When he met Le Wuya's bright smile, Wenren Yue accepted it and began chewing slowly.

On the other side, Pei Mingqi also received a piece of meat from Le Wuya.

Pei Mingqi, who had been eyeing Le Wuya’s every move with envy, itching to snatch the piece from Wenren Yue’s mouth, saw that he too had gotten a share. He pushed aside his jealousy, took it and ate.

The two exchanged glances across the table, then suddenly stopped chewing in unison.

...It seemed that what Le Wuya had given them was the very piece of meat each had just given him.

Wenren Yue’s piece had gone to Pei Mingqi, and Pei Mingqi’s to Wenren Yue.

Seeing both of them freeze mid-chew, looking like a pair of frozen squirrels, Le Wuya’s shoulders shook with barely suppressed laughter.

When he laughed, his eyes sparkled with an extraordinary brightness, full of the light of young Le Wuya—a dazzling blend of earthy yet lively charm.

Pei Mingqi caught sight of this scene, and a sudden lump caught in his throat, his nose stinging. He quickly lowered his head.

He remembered it vividly: four months after losing contact with Le Wuya, when he was so anxious he couldn’t sleep, lying outside the military camp and counting stars to ease his anxiety. Le Wuya had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, slightly out of breath, leaning on his knees, looking down at him.

“Hey! Why is our Little Phoenix all alone?”

Pei Mingqi stared in shock, his eyes wide, fixed on him.

Le Wuya lunged forward, falling straight into his arms. “The crow’s back!”

After half a year apart, Le Wuya had grown taller and thinner. He had tied his gorgeous curls into a high ponytail.

His starry eyes sparkled with laughter, as if the distant celestial stars had fallen from the sky and landed straight into Pei Mingqi’s embrace.

Pei Mingqi said nothing, but wrapped his arms around his little crow, hugging him so tightly that Le Wuya laughed and cried out, “Can’t breathe! Ease up! Ease up!”

Copying how Le Wuya had acted when he left, Pei Mingqi buried his face in the crook of Le Wuya’s neck, inhaling the faint scent of soap. Warmed by Le Wuya’s warm skin, he almost couldn’t resist the urge to bite down on that patch of skin.

*How dare you disappear without a trace!*

*How dare you make me worry like this!*

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After the surge of intense emotion subsided, he grasped Le Wuya’s shoulders and asked in rapid succession, “How is it? How is it?”

Le Wuya, unaware of how close his neck had come to being bitten, winked proudly. “I caught someone!”

...

That trip of Le Wuya’s had been perilous.

At first, a few intelligence reports made it back to camp. But after a month, there was complete silence—no word at all—cutting off all contact with Le Qianzhang and the others.

Yet in Le Wuya’s own opinion, he had thoroughly enjoyed the adventure.

He and his expanded Tianlang Camp, disguised as a merchant caravan, traveled slowly along the border between the Jing tribe and Dayu.

Le Wuya had the appearance of a Jing tribe member. In the capital, he had often been cursed behind his back as a half-breed. But here, with his looks and fluent Jing speech, he was like a fish in water—he fit right in and thrived.

He fabricated false identities for all hundred or so members of his camp, carving radishes into seals to forge documents and imitating officials’ handwriting. They all became mixed-race Dayu and Jing people living on the border.

The official seals were alarmingly authentic. Once, a curious member of the Tianlang Camp struck up a conversation with a passing merchant and borrowed his seal to examine—it was nearly identical to their counterfeit ones.

Le Wuya gathered intelligence, procured grain, and traded items unrelated to military supplies all at the same time.

As things proceeded smoothly and no one suspected their identity, they ventured deeper into Jing territory.

Seeing the distance from home grow, the young men of Tianlang Camp grew uneasy.

They mingled with multiple merchant caravans, traveling together by day and often pitching tents together at night to avoid wolves and tigers.

The young soldiers were initially tense, terrified of slipping up.

In critical moments, Le Wuya stepped up, using his silver tongue to talk his way through anything. Once, someone in camp nearly let slip details about his hometown, and it was only thanks to Le Wuya’s quick thinking that disaster was averted.

At that time, his most capable deputy was Jiang He.

Jiang He might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he always maintained an unflappable composure. No matter how wildly Le Wuya spun stories, that perpetually deadpan face added immense credibility to his words.

Through these days and nights spent together, the Tianlang Camp grew more and more loyal to Le Wuya.

That their young general could draw a bow and fight on the battlefield was already enough to win their admiration. But they never expected he would also handle interpersonal dealings and trade matters with such effortless skill.

Along the way, they even managed to pick up a few small groups of Dayu soldiers.

Some had lost their way during campaigns and been forced to hide deep in the mountains. Others had been gravely wounded and survived against all odds, but didn’t know how to explain their long absence, so they lingered in foreign lands.

Le Wuya must have developed some mysterious skill, because the moment he laid eyes on any of these scattered soldiers, he could pick them out from the crowd.

Once they trusted that Le Wuya was from Dayu, these soldiers initially felt intense homesickness and emotional upheaval, eager to return home.

Le Wuya reassured and warned them, saying that if they went back like this, they couldn't explain where they'd been and would only face punishment. He told them to stick with him, and once they earned some merit, he'd speak up for them when they went back.

Not only would they avoid punishment, but they could even gain merits—didn't that sound great?

As the “caravan” grew, Le Wuya finally got the intel he was after.

A Jing official named Huyan Ming had recently come down from Shuonan City to inspect the border.

But he clearly wasn't really into army life. As soon as he arrived at the border, he holed up in the safety of the Jing city, hanging out in brothels, enjoying the singing girls and courtesans of the borderlands.

Word had it, he was in Tongma.

After thoroughly casing the place in Tongma City as a merchant, Le Wuya took four of his best men, sneaking into Tongma at night through the city’s drainage pipes.

When it came to infiltration techniques, Le Wuya had learned a great deal from Deputy General Yu Cailiang.

Deputy General Yu was a master of this stuff; rumor had it that he had once been the leader of scouts.

With a teacher like that and his own quick wit, getting close to the target was a piece of cake.

When Le Wuya, in disguise, approached, Huyan Ming was already dead drunk. He even lecherously stroked Le Wuya’s cheek twice, asking the “beauty” to drink with him.

In return, he received a sharp slap.

Le Wuya sat on his lap, smiling as he pressed a blade against the man’s neck. “Sir, have you sobered up?”

Feeling the cold blade at his throat, Huyan Ming's drunkenness vanished along with his cold sweat. When his eyes fell on Le Wuya’s slender waist, partly covered by strings of gold beads, he didn't have a single dirty thought left.

This man’s cowardice was beyond anything Le Wuya had expected. He couldn't handle even the slightest pain and spilled everything.

He spilled all the details about the deployment of troops within Tongma City.

He even had the troop deployment map on him, shown to him by the garrison commander that day, when he visited the brothel, and it also fell into Le Wuya's hands.

In addition, he volunteered a piece of information to Le Wuya: there was a Jing tribe force of over 500 elite soldiers stationed in the Bronze Horse Mountains outside the city; they used the high ground to launch surprise attacks and were highly elusive.

Le Wuya saw through his little scheme at once: "You specifically told me this—you don't like him much, do you?"

Lord Huyan gave a strained smile and did not answer.

Le Wuya asked again: "What is the name of the commander of the mountain garrison?"

As he asked, Le Wuya's heart started pounding crazily for no reason, thumping against his chest—whether from joy, unease, anticipation, or some omen, good or bad.

When Lord Huyan stammered out the name "Damuqi," he almost jumped for joy!

Le Wuya spared Lord Huyan's life and let him go.

The next day, a heavy snow fell over Bronze Horse, in what was already spring.

This hundred-man merchant caravan, taking cover in the heavy snowfall, snaked its way into the Bronze Horse Mountains.

The mountains stretched endlessly, still bare and desolate since nothing had come back to life yet.

They only took uncharted trails, and with the heavy snow, the journey became even more treacherous and grueling.

Yet no one complained of danger or hardship, because Le Wuya led them forward with fearless drive and ambition.

Their leader, full of hope, shared their suffering and toil, sparking a heroic spirit in them—as if they truly could find that force in these mountains and defeat them.

Jiang He asked him: "Young General, can that man's words be trusted?"

Le Wuya stuffed a handful of snow into his mouth to quench his thirst: "I could tell he was definitely out to harm someone. Either he wants to hurt us or hurt the people here."

After they had gone ten miles, Jiang He finally caught on: "He wants us to fight Damuqi. Either Damuqi kills us, or we kill Damuqi—either way, it's good for him."

Le Wuya held a frozen-hard flatbread in his mouth, letting the warmth melt the thin layer of ice on it: "Then let's see who's better."

They walked through the snowy mountains for three days and three nights.

On the day their rations were nearly gone, their hard work paid off. While resting with his men, Le Wuya noticed something odd about the bark at the base of a tree.

He brushed away the snow with his frozen hands and found that someone had carved a secret mark into the tree with a knife.

Finally, they had found signs of people!

Damuqi's command center was deep in the Bronze Horse Mountains, all elite troops. Though their small squad was well-trained, they were outnumbered. If they met the enemy head-on, they'd be wiped out in one go.

There was only one way to win.

Stay low, strike at the heart!

Le Wuya ordered them to don white robes and cloaks, using the snowstorm to hide their footprints and trail. They moved only along remote paths, slowly searching for clues of the enemy camp.

When thirsty, they sucked on ice and ate snow; when hungry, they hunted deer and pheasants, eating them raw so no smoke would give them away.

Like the most patient hunters, they slowly crept toward their goal.

...All of this was relayed to Pei Mingqi by the men of the Tianlang Camp.

They spoke with animated pride, recounting it as a point of pride and glory.

But Pei Mingqi only felt shocked and heartbroken.

He wondered whether Le Wuya, who grew up in the capital with a pampered, delicate frame, was just born for this harsh, desolate borderland battlefield, or if he was enduring these hardships step by step, gritting his teeth to fulfill some important goal.

His scheming and endurance eventually paid off.

The day they captured Damuqi was a tale the Tianlang Camp men never got tired of talking about.

That day, the second heavy snow of spring fell, muffling every sound in the world and providing the perfect cover for their movements.

When an unsuspecting Damuqi lifted his tent flap at dawn to face the crystalline world, he found himself face to face with Le Wuya, who had already slipped close to their main camp.

Le Wuya's hair was white with snow, and his cheeks were stained with blood like red plum blossoms.

The blood belonged to Damuqi's sentries, both overt and hidden.

Recognizing this as the main command tent, Le Wuya, not having time to spit out the ice and snow he had been holding in his mouth to mask his breath, silently and fiercely raised his bow, aiming at Damuqi's shoulder.

Arrow nocked and ready!

For some reason, Damuqi stared at Le Wuya's face, dumbfounded, staring straight at him, not reacting.

Le Wuya's arrows were specially made, fitted with a thin steel cable, and the arrowhead was equipped with sharp barbs.

When the arrow struck Damuqi's shoulder socket and he fell backward, Le Wuya bent down, yanked the cable, and dragged Damuqi over!

The rustling sound of something being dragged alerted Meng Zha, a guard patrolling nearby.

He came around a tent, saw the scene, and was about to draw his sword to shout when Le Wuya pulled out a blade, sprinted forward, and struck at Meng Zha's head!

Meng Zha blocked with his sword held horizontally, but Le Wuya's strike was fierce and powerful. Meng Zha's hands were still cold and stiff from patrolling in the blizzard. The sword sparked nicely as it scraped across his blade, pushing the blade back, then hacking deep into his skull!

Meng Zha lost consciousness from the shock and pain.

Le Wuya's arrows were coated with poison, causing numbness throughout the body and inability to speak.

Knowing he could not linger, amid the rising war cries and the desperate cover fire of the Tianlang Camp warriors, Le Wuya leaped into a snowdrift, disappearing into the vast blizzard like a swift snow fox.

The snow fox had dragged a fierce beast back to its den, causing quite a sensation.

Capturing a Jing general alive from the enemy's stronghold, transporting him intact like cargo back to Dayu, and even earning some money by bringing back two chests of pearls and treasures—for a young man of Le Wuya's age and achievements, it was enough to be reported to the court and earn generous rewards.

After being captured, Damuqi remained silent as expected.

He had only one request: he wanted to see the young man who had captured him.

Without his father's permission, Le Wuya naturally could not go.

Le Qianzhang was also pondering how to deal with this enemy general his son had kidnapped.

While discussing the matter with Pei Ying, Le Wuya, who had been sneaking pastries from his father's tent and stuffing sweet fillings into Pei Mingqi's mouth, suddenly spoke up: "Father."

Le Qianzhang, Pei Ying, and Pei Mingqi all looked at him.

Le Wuya brushed the crumbs off his hands: "Do you intend to attack Bronze Horse?"

Le Qianzhang and Pei Ying, both seasoned generals, understood Le Wuya's implication after a moment of shock.

They both looked astonished.

Especially Le Qianzhang, he kept his eyes fixed on Le Wuya as if seeing him for the first time.

Pei Mingqi was always straightforward; at first, he didn't get it: "You Que, what did you say?"

Le Wuya stood up straight and licked his lips.

Pei Mingqi knew this was his way of trying to please others—putting on an innocent, proper look so that people would listen to him.

But the words he spoke were completely opposite to his sunny, bright demeanor and bright eyes.

Calm, crisp, and vicious.

"That Lord Huyan told us the layout of the Copper Horse city defenses. After capturing Damuqi, I went to verify it, and it was mostly correct. Looks like Lord Huyan feels guilty and didn't tell anyone about what happened that day. The Copper Horse garrison also doesn't know that the city's troop layout is in our hands. So why shouldn't we attack Copper Horse? If Copper Horse is lost, Lord Huyan Ming, to cover up his mistake, will naturally seek self-preservation, say..."

Le Wuya pressed his chin with his fingers and said seriously, "Claiming that after being captured, Damuqi defected and betrayed us, leaking Copper Horse intelligence, causing the fall of Copper Horse."