Chapter 50: All Gathered, Awaiting Awakening

Chapter 50: All Gathered, Awaiting Awakening

The news that the Mandarin Duck Swords had reappeared in the martial world quickly reached the ears of the strategist who had served Wanyan Dahong.

He felt that even an eight-hundred-li express dispatch could not express his shock. He even began to suspect that Xie Jingxing had planned the whole thing.

Maybe Xie Jingxing even had spies planted by the Emperor—how else would he have known the strategist had reached out to Wanyan Dahong, and even managed to get his hands on the Beggar Gang's legendary Mandarin Duck Swords?

Either way, Wanyan Dahong was dead, and the Mongol tribes would never take orders from a Han Chinese like him. Seizing the chaos, he fled with a few personal guards, racing along his pre-planned route toward the capital.

The moment he entered the Hall of Mental Cultivation, once the Emperor had dismissed the attendants, he knelt and kowtowed, shouting: "Your Majesty, disaster! General Xie has rebelled!"

The Emperor's wrist trembled, and the beads in his hand nearly slipped to the floor. His imposing eyes locked onto the ragged confidant kneeling below, and he said: "Do you know that crying wolf is a capital offense?"

"I know, Your Majesty, but please hear me out." The man thumped his head on the floor. "I went to the grasslands and made contact with Wanyan Dahong. Because of his brother's death, he'd long harbored a grudge against General Xie, so he was easy to convince. Everything was going to plan... until Wanyan Dahong heard the General had arrived at the frontier camp and issued him a challenge."

"Wanyan Dahong had once cut down Old General Xue with his long blade, and Old General Xue had been General Xie's master, a man he deeply respected. When Wanyan Dahong issued his challenge to the newly arrived General Xie, the General wasn't swayed by that red-and-white banner and refused to accept. That defied common sense—so Wanyan Dahong concluded the man who'd ridden to the frontier was a body double."

"If it had been an ordinary body double, that'd be one thing. Though Wanyan Dahong was past forty, his horsemanship was formidable—even the best young warriors of the grasslands couldn't match him. So I and Wanyan Dahong conspired to use the small gate our people had opened, sneak him in, and have him kill the body double—this would have made General Xie's crime of deceiving the Emperor a done deal!"

The Emperor looked at the man shaking like a leaf on the floor and said: "Continue."

"But who could've guessed the body double turned out to be the heir to the Beggar Gang's Mandarin Duck Twin Swords!"

Clatter—

The jade beads in the Emperor's hand hit the floor, the string snapping with a sharp sound. Fine jade beads rolled everywhere across the floor.

The strategist trembled even more violently with fear. In his line of sight, he could see plump, glossy, crystal-clear jade beads rolling across the floor, and he thumped his head on the floor even harder.

A hint of unease crept into the Emperor's voice as he said: "Continue."

The strategist froze, his words stuck in his throat.

The usually composed Emperor suddenly exploded in fury: "Weren't you supposed to expose Xie Jingxing as a body double? If he used the Mandarin Duck Twin Swords, doesn't that make him the body double?!"

Only then did the strategist remember what came next, and he could only answer honestly: "But—but right after that person used the Mandarin Duck Swords, General Xie appeared. He personally went up on the city wall to direct the battle, and within three days had driven the grassland tribes back more than thirty li."

The point was that even if the one who killed Wanyan Dahong was a body double, it could easily be chalked up to Xie Jingxing's military strategy—after all, Xie Jingxing had appeared on the city wall at the same time. How could that possibly be a crime of deceiving the Emperor?

It was all just that coincidental.

The Emperor swept all the memorials off his desk, his whole demeanor bordering on madness—"So what you're saying is, Xie Jingxing knew every one of my deployments, had complete knowledge of all my movements, and countered every single one, pulling up all my spies by the roots—is that it?"

"I wouldn't dare!"

"I demand the truth!" The Emperor's tone turned even harsher. "When you first came into the Hall of Mental Cultivation, what was the first thing you said?"

The strategist kept kowtowing, but pressed by the Emperor, he could only force two words from the back of his throat: "Rebellion..."

"Yes. To pull all this off without a single misstep, he truly must be planning rebellion." The Emperor clapped his hands together and said, "Since he intends to rebel, I must strike first."

The lamplight in the Hall of Mental Cultivation slowly dimmed, and the Emperor sat alone on the floor, pondering for a full day and night.

·

By the time news from the capital reached the military camp, Xie Jingxing had already been keeping vigil by Ning Xishi's side for over a month, barely getting any sleep.

Every day, except for necessary inspections, he rarely left Ning Xishi's side, and even his rest was just a light doze.

During this time, Xie Jingxing had grown noticeably thinner, and the Master Healer often forced him to drink medicinal broth and ordered him to rest.

Meanwhile, not only the army's Master Healer, but also Ning Xishi's senior martial brother and second and third senior martial sisters had all arrived—yet he remained groggy and out cold.

"I've long heard of Wanyan Dahong's fighting style. His vibrational force is terrifying—many who crossed blows with him looked fine on the outside, but their hearts had been shaken into mush." Tong Kehua's expression was grim. "Xiao Xi's pulse being so weak is likely because of this."

"That's not all. His cultivation is deep enough that he shouldn't have been shaken to this degree by Wanyan Dahong's brute force," Xiao Shaoqing said, ever the careful thinker. "The main factor is the Mandarin Duck Swords. He's still young, and activating the swords was already a stretch, let alone while wounded..."

Xie Jingxing looked at Xiao Shaoqing, who noticed the man's bloodshot eyes and felt a slight stir in his heart, so he added one more explanation: "The Mandarin Duck Swords are our sect's greatest treasure not only because of their immense power, but because they must be driven by the heart meridian. In short, using them shortens one's lifespan."

Xie Jingxing's vision swam, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

It was all his fault. All his fault. He had brought A Xi to this state.

Everything was his mistake—if he hadn't taken the carriage that day, but instead used medicine to forcibly stimulate his legs, A Xi would never have come to harm.

Over these days, Tong Kehua had also come to see the depth of Xie Jingxing's feelings for their Gang Leader, and she offered words of comfort: "For now, the main issue is still excessive blood loss. If he rests properly for a while and gets some nourishment, there should still be a chance he'll wake up."

Tong Kehua remembered that after their master had used the Mandarin Duck Swords back then, he had barely made it back to Shaozhou and had also been unconscious for a long time—but that was a secret of the sect, not something to be shared with outsiders.

Just as the atmosphere was tinged with both grief and a glimmer of hope, news from the capital arrived.

In summary, there were two pieces of news—

"The Emperor issued an edict revoking the marriage agreement, placating Minister Ning, and sending people to the General's residence to retrieve the person."

"But when they arrived, they discovered that Young Master Ning Xishi was not at the General's residence. They immediately had the General's steward arrested, and only then did the steward reveal the truth—the General, unable to bear being apart from Young Master Ning, had taken him along to the frontier."

These two pieces of news sent the entire capital into an uproar.

Minister Ning, who had originally gone joyfully to the General's residence to retrieve his son, not only failed to find him but learned of this matter as well. He was so enraged that he fell seriously ill and had not attended court for several days, recuperating at home.

At the same time, both the imperial family and the Ning family had sent people to the frontier, intending to bring Ning Xishi back.

Tong Kehua shook her head immediately upon hearing this: "No. If Xiao Xi can rest quietly for a while, there's still hope he might wake up. But if he has to endure the jostling of a long journey back to the capital, something truly terrible might happen."

Xie Jingxing rose to his feet, his armor clanking as he moved. He said: "You need not worry about the imperial decree. Leave everything to me. Until A Xi wakes, he will rest here."

Though Tong Kehua was of the martial world, she understood court protocol.

She had also heard of the grudges and entanglements between the Emperor and this Great General Xie—but in the past, General Xie had always yielded and obeyed.

Now he was answering like this—all for Xiao Xi's sake?

Tong Kehua looked at the sleeping youth. Over these days, Ning Xishi had also lost a great deal of weight. He and Xie Jingxing had grown thin together, almost like a pair suffering from lovesickness.

"Tell me, they don't actually have real feelings for each other, do they?" With no one else in the tent, Tong Kehua quietly asked Xiao Shaoqing. "Our Gang Leader has never fought this desperately before. Besides, didn't he say before that he would run if he could, and would never use the Mandarin Duck Swords?"

Xiao Shaoqing merely looked at Ning Xishi and did not answer.

Tong Kehua continued: "Even our master only used the Mandarin Duck Swords to avenge his daughter. Xiao Xi used them so easily... With his lightness skill, facing those rough fighters, he could have escaped with ease. But he stayed. And he ended up like this."

Xiao Shaoqing forced a light tone: "You know how Ning Xiao Xi is. His mouth speaks the harshest words, but his body does the gentlest, most devoted things. That's how these young wastrels are—they might not even know whether they like someone, they just cover themselves in wounds and go around toying with other people's feelings."

Tong Kehua jabbed Xiao Shaoqing with her elbow: "Come on, are you still holding a grudge about that time when he was fourteen and, to salvage your reputation, told everyone he would never compete in pitch-pot again? He was just a kid back then! Good heavens, Brother Xiao, don't hold onto that for so long."

"Fourteen—some people become fathers at fourteen. He wasn't that young." Xiao Shaoqing was stubborn.

"You're two fourteen-year-olds old now, and I don't see any children running around from you." Tong Kehua snorted. "Right now, Xiao Xi and the General are married, so don't you go doing anything else."

"You're really underestimating me. If I were going to do it, I'd have done it long ago—no need to wait till now." Xiao Shaoqing clapped his hands and walked out.

Only Tong Kehua remained, looking at the junior sister who'd come from afar, and said, "It's still the imperial decree, after all. The general is openly defying it now. Who knows how long he can keep this up."

"Don't worry, aren't we still here?" The junior sister took Tong Kehua's hand and said, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Our Xiao Xi is lucky—everything will be fine."

Just as everyone had gone over every possible scenario, figuring out how to conceal Ning Xishi's condition and deal with the people sent to take him back, the young man stepping down from the carriage looked so familiar that no one dared to tell a single lie.

In the end, Tong Kehua stepped forward and said, "Brother Lanzhi."

Ning Lanzhi, seeing several familiar faces who usually spent time with Ning Xishi, already harbored a bad premonition, but since they were out in the open, he merely gave a slight nod.

At the same time, he glanced around and said, "Where is Ning Xishi?"

A voice came from somewhere off to the side: "Naturally, he's in the general's tent."

==========Author's Note:==========

Good night