Chapter 3 – A Chaotic Age, Chaotic Laws

How could a woman become Emperor!

Zhan Changfeng suddenly felt that it was unfair to her imperial aunt, unfair to herself. The already withering realm looked even more twisted in her eyes.

What use was there in having such a world?

For the first time, Zhan Changfeng harbored thoughts unbefitting of her status as Crown Prince.

“What would happen if the imperial aunt were summoned back?” she asked again.

The old emperor was shrewd and wise. “She is past twenty and still unmarried, which is already improper by the rites. I will select a good match for her from among the sons of noble families. Once she has a husband to rein her in and children to occupy her, she will naturally have no energy left to lead armies into battle.”

Pausing in thought, the old emperor continued, “However, there has been a rampant bandit problem along the Winding Mountain Road of late, with many rebels causing trouble. Perhaps she can be sent to pacify that first.”

“Your grandson has received your instruction,” said Zhan Changfeng, bowing her head in a salute to conceal the expression on her face.

“There is still much for you to learn,” the old emperor sighed once more. “In the future, the Yi family’s realm will be yours, and it is up to you to continue the Yi family’s bloodline.”

Zhan Changfeng did not ask whether a son born of Yi Shang could inherit the throne. The answer was self-evident — he could not.

The child of a daughter of the Yi family was not of the Yi family, even if he or she carried half the Yi family’s blood.

Just as a daughter born to a son of the Yi family was water poured out — no longer belonging to the family.

In the early days of the forty-sixth year of the Chengming reign, the old emperor issued eight successive edicts ordering Imperial Princess and General Who Conquered the South, Yi Shang, to return to the capital. Unfortunately, none of the eight envoys managed to successfully reach Xifeng City, and the edicts never made it into Yi Shang’s hands.

It was not until more than half a year later that Ling Huaizhi became the ninth envoy.

He raised his eyes to gaze at the distant city walls. Once a handsome and refined man, he was now covered in the weariness of a long journey.

Xifeng City lay on the southern border, close to the Yi barbarian tribes.

The internal strife of the Three Southern Provinces had been pacified, yet external threats had just begun to stir. Fortunately, Yi Shang had the foresight to have built a city at the border between the two peoples several years prior, establishing a line of defense.

Xifeng City’s name carried the meaning of “ceasing conflict,” yet in truth, war beacons blazed frequently there. Even the city walls were of a dark, somber color, as though they had been painted layer by layer with blood.

In front of the city stood a row of long poles, each hung with a string of heads — some shriveled and dried, some freshly severed — like clusters of black lanterns. Ling Huaizhi dared not look for long and kept his gaze fixed on the tightly shut city gates.

Behind the battlements, soldiers stood upright, looking down at him with sharp, piercing eyes, yet not a single one spoke a word.

Ling Huaizhi was a noble young master from the Imperial City, famed for his talent, but he had never encountered such a scene before. Suppressing his anxiety, two patches of crimson appeared on his face, which had lost any discernible color from the hardships of travel.

A garrison commander above called out in a booming, murderous voice, “Who goes there, lurking about so furtively?! State your name at once, or don’t blame me for showing no mercy and shooting you down!”

Before the words even finished, dozens of arrowheads had already been trained on him.

What else could he do? He had no choice but to abandon the dignity of a noble-born gentleman and shout at the top of his lungs, “I am Ling Huaizhi, imperial envoy of the Emperor! Open the city gates at once and let me in to see the General!”

The poor young nobleman had trudged through treacherous mountains and desolate wilderness for three months, been robbed, lost his horse, had his servants flee, and watched his guards die. His black hair was matted in knots, half his face was caked in grime, his lips were cracked, and his voice was so hoarse that heaven only knew what he was actually shouting.

The garrison commander waved him off impatiently. “Move along, the refugee camp is three li away — go there yourself!”

Ling Huaizhi stared wide-eyed and was about to argue, but the moment his foot moved half a step forward, an arrow thudded into the ground right in front of him, radiating killing intent!

“Get lost!”

“You — you!” Ling Huaizhi stormed off furiously, flinging his sleeve, but had not gone far before he collapsed onto the ground from hunger.

What had his life come to!

The young nobleman had been worn down by months of hardship until he had no temper left. When he thought about it, the fact that he had made it this far without ending up headless like his predecessors was already extraordinary good fortune. With a sigh, he forced himself to get back up, found a water source, washed his face, combed his hair, and returned to the city gates.

“I am the imperial envoy!” he shouted again and again, waving the bright yellow imperial edict.

The garrison commander said something to the person beside him, and after a long moment, the city gates opened a crack. A soldier stepped out. “Hand over the edict so the General can verify its authenticity.”

Circumstances were stronger than the man. Ling Huaizhi had no choice but to submit and hand over the edict. He was about to follow the soldier into the city when he was stopped.

“You cannot enter yet. Wait here!”

“You are going too far!” Ling Huaizhi finally shouted in fury.

The soldier looked at him as though he were a fool, did not bother arguing, and simply shut the city gates. There were so many spies around — who knew if this man was one of them? Did he really think Xifeng City was some open market?

Ling Huaizhi felt dizzy and faint, and leaned against the city wall to rest. But the smell seeping into his nose was nothing but rot and something strange and foul. He touched the wall with his hand — damp and cold — and when he opened his palm to look, there was a faint smear of blood.

With a shudder, he moved away from the city wall and stood there in a daze for another three or four hours before — with a thud — he collapsed to the ground.

When he next awoke, he found himself looking up at bed curtains, and a wave of emotion washed over him.

At just the right moment, there was a knock at the door. “Envoy Ling, the General wishes to see you.”

He found that he had been cleaned up, and only needed to dress and tidy his appearance. Yet the moment he stepped over the threshold, he could not help but hesitate, for deep down he was a little afraid.

He was not naive enough to think the Imperial Princess would simply agree to return to the capital with him.

“Ling Huaizhi pays his respects to Your Highness.” He clasped his hands in a salute, eyes fixed on his own feet.

“There is no ‘Your Highness’ here, only the General.”

A woman of twenty, clad in a red robe and black armor, stood tall and upright. When her gaze met his, it was solitary and indifferent. Ling Huaizhi nearly thought he had mistaken her for someone else.

“…General.” He steadied himself. Though the imperial edict had already reached Yi Shang’s hands, he still had to fulfill his mission. “This humble official has come by imperial command to request that the General hand over affairs in Xifeng and accompany this official back to the Imperial City to report to His Majesty.”

“Very well,” Yi Shang said, as though consenting to some trivial, inconsequential request.

“His Majesty misses you dearly. Furthermore, Winding Mountain requires your—” Ling Huaizhi suddenly stopped, barely able to believe it. She had agreed. She had agreed so easily, just like that?!

Ling Huaizhi withdrew in a daze, unsettled by how smoothly things had gone.

Yi Shang let out a soft laugh and picked up a cloth to wipe her long spear. The gleaming spearhead had been tempered by the lives of a thousand men. The cold light of winter fell upon it, colder than ice.

This was a deep pool, carrying the love and hatred of the mortal world. This was a silent abyss — all things important or trivial would become meaningless before it.

This was an ending.

A white plum blossom drifted down from its branch. A light breeze stirred, carrying the noble purity of a gentleman.

Mei Yichi saw the smile at the corner of her lips and furrowed his brow ever so slightly, extending his invitation once more. “Come with me back to the mountains. The path of the Dao is open and unobstructed.”

Her smile was one of indifference and desolation born of having experienced the world and seen through its vanity — it filled those younger than her with inexplicable despair, and drew sighs of rueful understanding from her peers. It was a feeling only those living through this age of devastation and slaughter could truly comprehend.

But Mei Yichi did not understand. He had been born into the world of refined elegance, raised on Huhao Mountain, immersed in the teachings of the Dao and its precepts. All things of the mortal world were to him as if viewed from behind a mountain across a river. He could not understand the entangled emotions of ordinary people, nor did he grasp why they chased after food and shelter, or power and wealth.

Of course, he had no intention of understanding it either. But he had encountered Yi Shang — a woman with a Dao-seed planted in her heart who nonetheless drifted amid the mortal world.

That Dao-heart, imprisoned within the mundane, made him feel as though he were looking at a brilliant pearl tossed into a pile of rags, a beautiful jade lying idle gathering dust. He felt pity and unease, and could not help but want to “set things right” and place her where she truly belonged.

Yet she only ever acknowledged herself as a general.

“You will die,” Mei Yichi said, having glimpsed her future.

“Of course I will die.”

“Come with me.”

Yi Shang pressed her lips into a firm line. “I do not know what this Dao you speak of so constantly is, nor do I know any reason I would leave with you. What I do know is that I am who I am today because of the choices I have made and the convictions I have held.”

“Is the mortal world really so worth lingering in?” Mei Yichi was genuinely puzzled.

“Lingering in?” Yi Shang found it almost amusing. “On the contrary, I despise it.”

“I despise war. I have contempt for foolish and cowardly common people. I loathe the scheming of the court. I even want to cast aside this life that seems to have no end. But I have never retreated.”

Yi Shang continued, “War is fought for the nation and its people. Even foolish and cowardly commoners will do everything in their power to survive. In the court there are still men of loyalty and righteousness. This life may not be without an end. They have not driven me to despair — how could I dare to disappoint them?”

Mei Yichi fell silent. He wanted to say she was obstinately clinging to her delusions, yet somehow he could not bring himself to utter the words.

The affairs of the mortal world were far more complex than any scripture or Daoist teaching.

Ling Huaizhi had known it wouldn’t be so simple. Every day he went to ask when they would depart, and was always told that there were many matters still to be handed over.

After that first time, he never once caught a glimpse of Yi Shang.

He found himself recalling the palace banquet during the Ghost Festival. In those days, the Yin Dynasty was still relatively peaceful. She had been the Imperial Princess on the high platform — stately, graceful, and magnificent, drawing the admiration of all.

Surely staying in the palace as an Imperial Princess, waited upon hand and foot, couldn’t be worse than this life of constant uncertainty between life and death?

She wasn’t even a man.

After lingering for over a month in the heavily guarded General’s Residence, Ling Huaizhi finally managed to catch Yi Shang at the main gate.

At that moment, Yi Shang’s armor was stained with blood, and a loose strand of hair near her temple brushed across her stern cheek, carrying with it the smell of blood.

Unable to help himself, Ling Huaizhi stepped forward. “Your Highness, I have feelings for you!”

And so… his throat bobbed, and the rest of his words were swallowed by her clear, indifferent gaze.

And so — couldn’t you come back to the capital with me? I would give you a stable home.

Yi Shang glanced at him and strode toward the study, her generals following behind her.

The generals looked back with puzzled expressions at this “pretty boy,” shook their heads, and paid him no further attention.

Yi Shang and her generals gathered around the terrain map, rearranging troop formations. Just an hour ago, their supply convoy had been raided by a Yi barbarian tribe, followed by an unexpected skirmish on a small southeastern trail.

The Yi barbarian tribes had been making too many small incursions recently. It seemed a full-scale battle was on the horizon.

After the discussion concluded, one of the generals said with a teasing laugh, “The people back in the Imperial City are so desperate to have you return that they’ve resorted to sending a beauty as a ploy — now that’s entertaining, hahaha!”

“Heh, a pretty boy like that — how could he possibly be worthy of our General?”

One man stroked his beard. “A devoted couple raising a family, surrounded by grandchildren — this old man does envy that sort of life quite a bit.”

The atmosphere went quiet.

Yi Shang remained unmoved as a mountain. “With the nation in peril, everything else is not worth mentioning.”

“The General is right.”

The generals were reassured and took their leave one by one.

“I knew it — the General would never abandon us and leave.”

“Not that I can blame myself for worrying. Women always tend to crave stability, to be content with three meals a day. If the General grew weary and suddenly decided to go back and marry someone, what would become of this frontier?”

The generals had less and less patience for Ling Huaizhi, who hovered near the crescent moon gate. A man who only knew of romantic sentiments and poetry, delicate as a rabbit figurine, with no grasp of the greater picture whatsoever.

Mei Yichi had been invisibly shadowing Yi Shang the whole time. Now he remarked, as if to no one in particular, “He is genuinely sincere toward you. He can’t bear to see you suffer.”

Yi Shang didn’t immediately register who he was talking about. When she did, she felt nothing. “I had long heard that the son of the Right Chancellor was a man of talent and virtue. As it turns out, what people say always has its deviations.”

If before she had only thought of Ling Huaizhi in terms of being the Right Chancellor’s son, she now could not help but think a little less of him.

Ling Huaizhi had traveled the entire way from the Imperial City to Xifeng in a wretched state, experiencing firsthand the cruelties of this age. Yet over the course of a month, he never once asked about the plight of the displaced common people, never once inquired about the disputes with the Yi barbarian tribes. His sole focus was on bringing her back to the capital — he even went to the kitchens to cook and brew soups to curry her favor. One truly didn’t know whether to call him obliviously carefree or simply blind to the times.

“Shouldn’t you be moved by that?” Mei Yichi found people of the mortal world truly complicated.

“Moved by what?” She found it utterly baffling.

Mei Yichi solemnly produced a storybook from within his robes. “From my observations of the stories within, whenever phrases such as ‘I promise you a life of peace and security’ or ‘to spare you from hardship and wandering’ appear, the heroine’s heart invariably skips a beat and she finds her lifelong companion. I had assumed this was the crux of romantic affairs between men and women.”

Yi Shang’s mouth twitched. Looking at his matter-of-fact expression, she couldn’t help but feel a measure of rueful exasperation. Such a pure soul — how had he gone astray so quickly?

She tossed the storybook aside and said earnestly, “Stories in novels are all lies. Don’t believe them so readily.”

“Do you want to experience the mortal world for yourself?”

Mei Yichi nodded.

He had failed to bring Yi Shang back to Huhao Mountain and felt rather deflated about it. Having grown more curious about the mortal world, he wanted to learn more.

Yi Shang seemed to be turning something over in her mind. “Reading about it is nothing compared to experiencing it yourself.”

She said, “How about I lend you an identity?”

“Hmm?”

“You said Ling Huaizhi is sincere toward me, did you not? Why not disguise yourself as me and accompany him back? You can experience his sincerity firsthand. In any case, I don’t know him, and you don’t know him either.”

The idea was absurd, but Mei Yichi was not a man of the mortal world, and his thinking was naturally quite different. He actually began to consider it seriously.

“It’s workable. However…” Mei Yichi was perceptive. “By doing so, you would owe me a favor.”

“A favor it is, then. Come collect it whenever you feel like it.” Yi Shang laughed heartily.

Mei Yichi felt a touch of melancholy. “Do you have any other wishes? Since you’re going to owe me anyway, you might as well owe a few more.”

Yi Shang thought for a moment. “What I wish for, I can achieve myself. What I cannot achieve, you would be of no help with either.”

She pressed her fingers to the space between her brows, her tone suddenly growing heavy. After a pause, she said carefully, “If one day the Yin Dynasty falls, and you happen to be there, take my nephew with you. Leave a thread of Yi family bloodline to carry on.”