Chapter 221: The Secret of the Gold Coin

“Who can tell me when the damn Han Cavalry finally rode out of the city!”

“Why could they find our Cavalry Unit so accurately!”

“Why do our brave Kushan warriors keep losing to them over and over again!”

Outside the city of Yarkand, the Kushan Military Camp.

General Diliya’s roar could almost be heard from inside the main tent all the way outside the camp.

His angry expression needed no further words, but Diliya was not just angry now; he was mostly fearful and panicking.

Defeats came one after another, followed by more trouble.

From the day the army set out, the Kushan forces had not had an easy time.

They had thought that after suffering through the agony of crossing Congling, the upcoming battles would go smoothly. But the reality was that they had been thoroughly beaten by the Han People.

Vice General Balu had a gloomy face too. After thinking for a long time, he hesitated and said, “General, maybe we can gather our scattered forces together. Then we won’t have to worry about Han Army raids anymore.”

“Gather them together? Gather one thousand riders or two thousand? If we bring everyone into one group, how can we ever find the people of the Western Regions who are scattered across the desert and Gobi?”

Diliya had thought of Balu’s idea, but he knew it was just a wish in his mind.

Now, splitting the troops into hundreds of men made it hard enough to find the Western Regions people’s traces. If they banded together, there would be even less wealth to loot.

The Han People were truly formidable. They had secretly sent out exactly one thousand cavalry riders.

This number was exactly the enemy size that gave Diliya the most headache.

One thousand riders was not a large number. A cavalry force of this size usually had very fast reaction abilities and high mobility. It was hard for him to even set an ambush, let alone lay a trap.

He could not set an ambush, and he could not unite his troops.

Cavalry squads sent out to loot had no safety at all.

Diliya shook his head in despair after all his plans failed to work out: “Don’t send any more troops out to fight for supplies. The Han People won’t give us that chance.”

“But what about the Vice-King’s order? We don’t have enough food left either.”

“What should we do?”

A bitter, mocking smile appeared on Diliya’s face. He glanced at Paka and Balu and spat out two words from his mouth: “Kill the horses!”

Kill the horses?

The General was actually saying they should kill the horses?

Paka and Balu almost could not believe their ears. How could the General give such an order?

Did the General not know that warhorses were the Kushan people’s most precious wealth, their second life?

“You don’t have to look at me like that. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t want to do this either,” Diliya grunted. Then he walked out of the tent. “We have lost many warriors these past few days, so their warhorses are free now. Let’s deal with that group first.”

“Tell the warriors this is my order. If they want to stay alive, they must do this!”

Stay alive!

When had the Kushan Army ever had to worry about such a problem when marching out to war?

Ten years ago?

Or twenty years ago?

Balu and Paka did not know the answer, but they found no reason to argue with Diliya because they all wanted to stay alive too.

“I’ll go tell the warriors,” Paka said with a bitter shake of his head and then walked out of the main tent.

Soon, a series of loud arguments spread through the Kushan Military Camp. But the arguing did not last long, as if one side had compromised.

Then, the sad neighing of over a hundred warhorses echoed across the entire camp.

……

Mo Xiaobai, who had been staying inside the Wang City of Yarkand, did not know that the Kushan Army was butchering horses just to get enough to eat right now.

With victory reports from Li Guang arriving one by one, Mo Xiaobai finally felt completely at ease about this Great Western Regions War.

So now Mo Xiaobai had the energy to do something else.

Like… spying.

“I’m telling you, buddy, how do you know that Greek Alchemist actually had an affair with a Noblewoman of Yarkand?”

In the backyard of a Western Regions Restaurant located less than a hundred meters from the Yarkand Palace, the heads of Mo Xiaobai, Luyu, and A-Dai were lined up over the wall. Their eyes were all focused on the only small house in the backyard, full of gossip.

Hearing Fatty’s question in a lowered voice, Mo Xiaobai raised an eyebrow and smiled: “I have my own clever plan!”

“Tch, keep pretending to be mysterious. You must have discovered something when you went to that Alchemist’s house.”

“If you knew, why did you ask me?”

“What did I know? Just tell me quickly. Grandpa Fatty loves hearing about these big tabloids the most.”

“Since you asked so sincerely, I will be merciful and tell you. The reason I found out was entirely because of that Gold Coin.”

A corner of Mo Xiaobai’s mouth curved up. As he watched what was happening inside the room, he explained, “You might not know that for any Alchemist, refining and smelting metals is a very holy task. They often imagine this process as a way to create eternity, and the results they get are divine objects in their own hearts.”

“Imagine this: suppose you were that Alchemist, and that Gold Coin was your greatest creation. How would you commemorate it? Would you carve some useless stuff onto the coin?”

Gold Coin?

Commemorate?

Before Luyu could react to Mo Xiaobai’s few sentences, A-Dai already nodded in sudden realization: “I remember now! His Gold Coin had a portrait of a human head, his own and another woman’s!”

“That’s right!”

Seeing that A-Dai had guessed the meaning of the Gold Coin statue, Mo Xiaobai immediately nodded: “His Gold Coin had the head of himself and another female on it. I was guessing at the time what relationship the two could have.”

“Mother and son? Brother and sister? Sister and brother?”

“No, none of those answers are right. Maybe a blood relationship could make the bond between them and their family exceptionally deep, but such feelings could not be compared to eternity. Thinking of the eternity represented by high-purity Gold Coins, I naturally thought of love.”

Love is eternal!

For the ancient Greeks who championed romance, this made perfect sense.

“But how do you know the woman he loved was inside the city?”

“That question is even simpler. The story he was telling at the time was related to his holy profession. He kept looking out the window while telling those stories. What do you think would make him so distracted?”

Mo Xiaobai touched his chin with his right hand and spoke with a bit of the cunning of an “old fox”: “I am at least eighty percent sure that the time he went there was when he was supposed to meet his lover. He probably didn’t dare to be too loud, so he was too shy to tell us straight. He was going to see his girlfriend. What else could it be if it wasn’t a secret relationship?”

“After the big war broke out, I didn’t have time to worry about this side. I just asked someone to keep an eye on him. Yesterday, the message came back saying that he came here every now and then to meet secretly. The person he met was a Noblewoman of Yarkand. The noblewoman’s older brother is actually a Great General of the Kingdom of Yarkand who holds military power.”

After Mo Xiaobai finished spilling all the information he had discovered back then, Luyu couldn’t help but click his tongue in amazement: “You really can’t judge a book by its cover. This guy who looked so weird, obsessed only with Alchemy, actually managed to hook up with a noblewoman. I mean, wouldn’t that noblewoman have a husband?”

“No, she was a widow.”

“Then why didn’t he just go and propose? Why did he have to sneak around like that?”

“Propose? With what?”

Hearing this, Mo Xiaobai laughed and then pouted: “With all the wealth he has? Or that unremarkable Gold Coin? If he went to propose, his proposal might easily get thrown out by the noblewoman’s Big Brother.”