Chapter 90: Journey to the Capital (IV)

Chapter 90: Journey to the Capital (IV)

After Le Wuya left the Spring-Autumn Gate and set off on his own, Helian Che spotted him alone.

...

Helian Che and his party had just arrived in the capital and were lodged at the Sifang Pavilion arranged by the Ministry of Rites.

The Golden Guard watched the Sifang Pavilion like a swarm of ants, keeping a close watch, under orders that the Jing tribe envoy wasn't to leave the pavilion for even a second.

But the moves of those capital secret guards, in Helian Che's eyes, were like self-important little birds preening their half-grown feathers in front of him.

The Ministry of Rites did not know that Helian Che had hidden a man of similar height, age, and build inside a gift box.

Since Yaya was lost, his uncle Damuqi had found him this companion to fill the emptiness in his heart.

And this man became Helian Che's first completely devoted subordinate, fearing him, respecting him, ready to give his whole self to him.

His uncle had gotten it wrong.

There was no other Yaya.

So no one could fill the hollow in Helian Che's heart.

Helian Che had this man wear his clothes and practice sword forms in the courtyard, while he himself, taking advantage of the water, meat, and firewood carriers filing in before noon, disguised himself as a wood carrier, spread his hands, and walked right out of the Sifang Pavilion through the main gate.

He'd been a frontline soldier, a spy scouting enemy movements, a "rebel" swinging his blade across the land—he could be dignified and commanding, or he could hide his form and presence, turning into a silent, simple-minded giant.

Helian Che wandered the streets of the capital.

The flashy clothes and happy chatter around him—he walked through it all as a mere observer, unmoved, just using his eyes to take it all in and remember.

He wanted to know what it was about the capital that had tied that person's heart down, making him choose to be Le Wuya instead of Helian Yaya.

Suddenly, Helian Che's eyes flickered.

...He seemed to have spotted that young magistrate from Nanting.

These past days, the business of the Jing tribe's copper mines had been on his mind, leaving him no time to think about this man.

Who'd have thought they'd run into each other again in a strange place?

Le Wuya carried a box in his arms, and the occasional hot breeze lifted the sheer veil on his hat.

Fine beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, making his jade-like complexion even more striking.

He showed no sign of tiredness, his eyes gleaming with sharp, clear light as he ducked into antique shops one after another.

Helian Che's private trip this time was mainly to scout the route and get a feel for the capital's layout.

It was his habit whenever he arrived somewhere new.

With nothing urgent to do, he decided to tail Le Wuya and see what this young magistrate was up to.

Helian Che had seen Le Wuya's cleverness on horseback and knew better than to underestimate him, so he kept a moderate distance, making sure Le Wuya stayed in his peripheral vision.

Whenever Le Wuya went into a shop, he'd stay at least as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea, at most as long as two sticks of incense burn.

While waiting for Le Wuya, Helian Che, with nothing better to do, bought a pair of finely crafted gold and silver boxes from an antique shop.

Ever since he'd had a younger brother, he'd gotten into the habit of keeping fine things in pairs, saving one set for Yaya.

Later, when Yaya flapped his wings and flew off, the habit stuck.

In a shop called "Miao Qing," Le Wuya stayed the longest.

During that time, Helian Che noticed a Jing tribesman selling some very authentic saffron and struck up a conversation with him in the Jing language.

In his disguise, Helian Che looked more like a Dayu person.

The traveling merchant, at first glance, took him for a half-Yu, half-Jing mixed-blood, and was startled to hear him speak the Jing language fluently and purely.

Once he got over it, he was overjoyed and, without any shyness, started pushing his authentic saffron, casting greedy glances at Helian Che's plain-looking clothes and the bulging money pouch at his waist, scheming to use their "hometown" connection to fleece him good.

Unfortunately, Helian Che wasn't easy to fleece.

After a few exchanges, the merchant broke into a sweat, realizing the man in front of him knew the market and wasn't easy to fool, and gave up in a fluster.

At that moment, Le Wuya finally came out of "Miao Qing."

The box he'd been holding was gone.

He seemed to have pulled off something big, his steps turning light and cheerful now that he was unburdened.

Taking a look, Helian Che noticed that compared to their last meeting, Le Wuya had gotten thinner, his waist now a slender wisp that swayed with a delicate grace whenever he walked a little faster.

Helian Che frowned and handed the gold box in his hand to the merchant: "Fill it up."

He needed to eat properly.

Helian Che had figured that after rushing around so energetically for half the day, Le Wuya would surely go eat a proper meal.

Who'd have thought he was so picky, only going for sweets and plain tea.

Seeing this, Helian Che grew more and more disapproving, his brow furrowing tighter, and bought a bundle of jerky that could really fill a man's stomach, carrying it in his hand.

After leaving the teahouse, Le Wuya headed for the courier station on the edge of the capital.

Once he got away from the main streets of the capital, the crowds thinned out.

This made Helian Che's tailing more obvious.

But since leaving the teahouse, Le Wuya seemed to have picked up some worries, walking with his head down, completely unaware of Helian Che's presence.

...

The box in his hand was heavy.

And Helian Che's gaze slowly turned cold and wet.

When lost in his own thoughts, Helian Che wore that grim, deathly look, his emerald eyes fixed in their sockets with a wild, numb quality, like a merciless, fierce hawk.

He started to miss the paintings he'd collected of Helian Yaya.

Those paintings were made over countless seasons, days, and nights after Yaya left, slowly piling up until they filled an entire room.

Helian Che clumsily imagined what he'd look like all grown up, sketching his form on paper, imagining him still by his side.

Ever since he lost his younger brother, Helian Che had become a grieving beast trapped in its own cage.

He walled himself off, sealing himself in an isolated world as punishment he inflicted on himself.

But it seemed even the heavens despised him, because everyone around him kept leaving, one after another.

First his father, then his mother.

Later, even his uncle—the only one unafraid of his cold demeanor, willing to talk and joke around with him—was gone.

And it all started when Yaya left.

He wondered if this was his punishment for losing Yaya.

After his last family member disappeared under a cloud of shame, the whole Helian clan got dragged down and punished.

Helian Che was stripped of his Junior General rank completely, and he was sent to the front lines, reduced to just another ordinary soldier in the Jing army.

But the Helian name, earned through blood and steel, ran deep and commanded respect in the army; even without rank, their reputation held strong.

Even at his lowest, Helian Che still had men willing to die for him.

He quietly investigated, and at last, from the lips of Meng Zha—his uncle's personal guard who had narrowly escaped death—he pieced together the face of the young general who had spirited Damuqi away.

Meng Zha called the man a "Snow Spirit."

In the Jing tribe, a "Snow Spirit" meant a beautiful, eerie monster.

Following that description, Helian Che sketched the "Snow Spirit's" face on white cotton paper.

But gradually, his strokes slowed and became hesitant.

The lines of that face were way too familiar to Helian Che.

It was the face he dreamed of day and night, the one he could never have.

It matched the person in his imagination exactly.

But at this moment, that rough sketch became a terrible curse, making the blood in Helian Che's veins, stagnant for so long, slowly churn and boil.

He asked in a dark voice, "Does he look like this?"

Meng Zha met his eyes, got startled, and felt like he'd seen some terrifying ghost. He dropped his gaze, not daring to look at him, his voice shaking: "Y-yeah... yeah..."

It was exactly because he'd looked down that he missed Helian Che's hand trembling slightly.

...

What happened next was something Helian Che had never seen, not even in his darkest, longest nightmares.

Using this sketch, he found out the man was the second son of Le Qianzhang, General Zhaoyi of Dayu, named Le Wuya, seventeen years old, born to Le Qianzhang and a Jing woman.

Clutching this information, Helian Che sat alone under the vast sky and solitary moon, shaking with hatred.

...Seventeen...

Yaya had been gone, lost and homeless, dead without a trace, for exactly sixteen and a half years.

The three who'd snuck into Ranqiu Pass to take Yaya had moved with such skill and coordination.

Now that he thought about it, if they weren't seasoned bandits from Ranqiu Mountain, they had to be trained soldiers!

Those bastards on Ranqiu Mountain had just taken the fall for the real kidnappers!

At that moment, Helian Che gritted his teeth, thinking Yaya had been fooled by these rotten Dayu people, tricked into turning on his own family and killing his uncle and clan.

But was Yaya, carrying such a heavy blood debt, still the same Yaya who used to lean against his chest and watch the moon?

Helian Che didn't know.

He only knew that tomorrow was the siege of Tongma.

The Jing soldiers sharpened their blades and swore to take back Tongma and avenge their blood debt.

By then, would he, now just a common soldier, get a glimpse of him in the desperate fighting?

Maybe that Young General Yue wasn't Yaya.

...It couldn't be Yaya.

...

To take back Tongma, the Jing tribe launched a brutal siege.

Days of fierce fighting brought countless casualties.

Dayu kept sending reinforcements, joining up with General Dingyuan Pei, who'd taken Tongma, to surround and wipe out this Jing army.

By this point, Helian Che knew the Jing tribe had lost; victory was out of reach.

He gritted his teeth and held his ground, only wondering: with such a big win on the line, would that young general named Le come to grab some easy glory?

On the third day, in the stinking wind and slanting sun with jackdaws circling, Helian Che finally saw a fresh wave of Dayu reinforcements charge in.

These soldiers were younger, looked fresh off their first battle, full of fire—not afraid of blood, not afraid of death, charging ahead without stopping, smashing the already crumbling rear lines to pieces.

Helian Che drew his bow, using that pose as cover to openly stare at the young general leading the charge at the very front.

He blazed bright, like a war banner snapping in the wind—wherever it pointed, the enemy crumbled and yielded!

One glance was enough.

Helian Che closed his eyes.

This was the first time he felt the pull of shared blood.

It was the Yaya he had longed for, without a doubt.

A wave of overwhelming confusion and grief surged up inside him.

But even with emotions raging like that, the iron arrowhead in his hand didn't move an inch.

After watching for a long time, Helian Che noticed something odd:

Helian Ya... or rather, Le Wuya, wielded a red-tasseled spear, but he didn't stab anyone—he just used his horse's charging momentum to knock the attacking Jing soldiers to the ground, sparing their lives.

At the same time, he kept looking around, like he was searching for someone.

The bond between brothers kicked in right then.

Across the corpse-strewn field and blood-soaked ground, Helian Che and Helian Ya finally met each other's gaze after nearly seventeen years apart.

Helian Che's eyesight was exceptionally sharp.

He watched helplessly as Le Wuya's expression went from pained surprise to gentle, peaceful, and resigned.

Then, he spurred his horse, lowered his spear, and galloped straight toward Helian Che.

...Just as in Helian Che's countless dreams, his long-lost brother rushed into his arms, brimming with hope.

But a fury ten thousand times more violent than before suddenly flooded Helian Che's chest, nearly blinding him and making him sway on his feet.

Because of that damned brotherly bond, he saw Le Wuya's intention at a glance:

He had come to die!

He must have figured out his origins and known the weight of his sins—that no death could atone for them.

So, facing the arrow aimed at him, he didn't raise a shield or knock it aside with his spear, but rode straight ahead, seeking a peaceful end.

Helian Che could barely breathe; a crimson haze veiled his vision, nearly obscuring the face before him:

—Don't you already know everything?

—Why would you rather die as a Yue than come back to me?

Amid the violent ringing in his ears and the dizziness, Helian Che calmly drew an arrow, nocked several onto the string, his face going a still, deathly pale.

Fine.

Whatever you want, big brother will give it to you.

...

Years later, Helian Che could no longer tell whether the emotions surging in his chest when he loosed those arrows were anger or jealousy.

Just as he didn't know why he followed this little magistrate, why he bought him these pointless trinkets.

He had tried to see this Magistrate Wenren as a painting tucked away in his box.

Only this painting could speak, laugh, move, and occasionally stir ripples in his heart the way his real brother did.

Yet things had subtly gotten out of hand.

When Helian Che stood outside the little magistrate's room at the post station, holding the gold-and-silver box, he was still puzzled: What the hell was he doing here?

But when Le Wuya pushed the door open without warning, stumbled into his arms, and looked up at him in surprise, the calm surface of Helian Che's heart erupted into towering waves once more.

In all his life, counting those six inseparable months of childhood, he had only been with Yaya three times.

Once on the battlefield, when he shot him through the chest with feelings he couldn't name.

Another time was right after Helian Che wiped out the last Huyan royal clan and took leadership of the Jing tribe.

Because they'd met so few times, he couldn't recall Le Wuya's true face.

He naturally assumed Yaya should look like the figure in the painting—quietly gazing at him, full of devotion and trust.

But the face before him, though different from the painting, was strikingly similar in demeanor.

Helian Che, face cold, dropped the two boxes, muttered words he didn't even understand himself, and hurriedly fled the scene.

He walked with such determination, never looking back, that as he came down the stairs, he nearly knocked a man flying off them.

The man was unharmed, but the gifts he was carrying slipped from his hands, and a few items tumbled down the steps.

The man steadied himself, patted his chest in shock, and shouted angrily, "Hey! Stop right there!"

Helian Che, as if hearing a stray cat meow, let it go in one ear and out the other, and fled like the wind.

Le Hang, who had dodged in time, grabbed Le Jue's arm: "Ayu, you okay?"

In front of his elder brother, Le Jue quickly retracted the prickles that had just risen, let it go, and resignedly ran down the steps to pick up the gifts, brushing off the dust: "Forget that brute. Hey, big brother, are you sure you've got the right place? The magistrate lives here, right?"

"The compound surname Wen Ren is rare to begin with. And the only one recently summoned to the capital is Magistrate Wenren Yue of Nanting in Yizhou," Le Hang said confidently. "When out-of-town officials come to the capital, most stay at the post stations on the outskirts. That's got to be it."

"But has he come back yet? On his first day in the capital, he'd have to wait for the imperial edict at the Spring and Autumn Gate, right?"

Before Le Hang could answer, Le Wuya, having finished a whole stick of dried meat and pulled himself together, pushed the door open again and called out, "Postmaster—"

His gaze drifted down and met the eyes of the two brothers on the stairs, catching them off guard.