Chapter 115

Steward Su said to the two of them with a smile: "He was just dozing off moments ago, his head bobbing. I told him, 'How about you sleep in this room—there are flying birds on the bed, a wooden horse on the floor, and a chest full of toys?' He nodded in agreement at first, but then changed his mind, tugging at my sleeve to leave. His little hand pointed at this room..."

He was still fussing and whining even now.

Huo Jilin took him over, and Huo Yu burrowed into the crook of his neck, whimpering a few times. Once he realized it was Huo Jilin, he settled right down and stopped fussing.

With that soft little face pressed against him, Huo Jilin couldn't do anything but give in. He gave up and just held the kid, pacing around the room.

Pretty soon, he heard the little guy's steady breathing.

Chen Jue glanced over from beside him and said, "He's asleep."

Huo Jilin held his chubby little butt, not wanting to put him down just yet.

When he set him in the little wooden crib, Huo Yu stretched out his hands and pouted a bit. Luckily, it was just a reflex—he didn't wake up.

He fell asleep crazy fast—like a light switch. Steward Su watched him with affectionate eyes: "He's such a little grown-up now, all attached to home. It'll be a while before he can sleep anywhere else."

Huo Jilin looked at the little guy sleeping in the crib and shook his head, helpless.

Huo Yu wasn't so easy to fool anymore.

Especially since he and Chen Jue had been gone a lot lately, Huo Yu had gotten even more sharp.

Whenever he knew they were home, he'd go looking for them first.

Getting him to sleep on his own was probably gonna take a while longer.

After sending Steward Su to bed, Huo Jilin pinched Huo Yu's cheek. It was as soft and squishy as a steamed bun—so much so he wanted to pinch it again. Chen Jue scolded him: "Don't pinch. He'll start drooling."

Huo Jilin turned back to the bed, pulled the curtains shut, and said to Chen Jue, "I'm testing how deep his sleep is. I don't want him waking up in the middle of the night."

Chen Jue laughed, resting his head on his hands: "That'd definitely be because you're not sleeping right."

He lay flat on the bed in snow-white nightclothes that made his skin look like jade against snow, his expression calm and relaxed—like a snowflake drifting down from the heavens, not of this world. Free-spirited and serene, even joking like that didn't take away from his otherworldly vibe at all.

"Only in paleness does one truly see a flower's brilliance." Only now did Huo Jilin get what that meant.

It wasn't about Chen Jue being a flower—it was about the glow he saw in him right then.

Chen Jue always drew him in, no matter what.

Huo Jilin leaned down to kiss him: "You're right. I'm planning on sleeping improperly."

Chen Jue's eyes curved into a smile: "...Then hurry up."

That "improper sleep" didn't end fast at all—it dragged on for almost another hour.

Huo Jilin thought of himself as a man with total self-control. But with Huo Yu right there, Chen Jue was more restrained, keeping his voice low—a husky whisper like the tail end of a zither string—and it completely destroyed Huo Jilin's self-control.

When it was over, the bed curtains were inevitably a mess again. Huo Jilin lifted the curtain to check on Huo Yu, who was sleeping soundly, breathing softly. But his little arm had slipped out of the crib, fist clenched, showing off a chubby little arm like a lotus root.

Huo Jilin gently took his hand and tucked it back under the covers.

He got up, went to the outer room to get some water, and after they both cleaned up, he poured Chen Jue a cup.

Chen Jue drank half, and he downed the rest.

"Let's get to bed early," Chen Jue said with a yawn. Even though it was probably around ten—in their past life, he could've scrolled on his phone for another two hours—they'd been living here for a year now, following the local schedule, and were already dead tired.

They'd also have to get up early tomorrow, following this world's schedule.

Over the next few days, Huo Jilin went to the Capital Garrison for work as usual.

His training of the soldiers followed the same format as when he was a Regional Commander, split into two parts. The first part was rebuilding military discipline—strict rules, daily roll calls, timing down to the minute.

The second part was the actual training.

That was also split into two parts. The first covered standard drills: horseback archery, sparring, running, jumping. The second introduced new special-forces training methods.

This worked really well. In just ten months as Regional Commander of Dongling County, he'd trained up outstanding soldiers like Li Jun and Xu Gengliang.

Soldiers are the nation's weapons. First, they have to obey their Commander—that's why Huo Jilin stressed discipline.

Second, they have to withstand endless trials and tempering.

Soldiers have to be trained, and the harder the training, the tougher they get.

On the battlefield, you kill without blinking. And in this era of cold weapons, lives were literally on the line.

Without building a strong body, none of it was possible.

With the strict discipline and training intensity higher than usual that Huo Jilin enforced, complaints started popping up.

Not from the regular soldiers, but from the cavalry captains, commanders, and squad leaders—the officers who cracked first.

These officers were mostly noble sons, lazy and carefree, holding cushy positions to coast toward future titles. They barely even showed up for roll call themselves, let alone managed the soldiers under them.

If it weren't for the veteran general Wei Yan, this two-thousand-man Capital Garrison would've been nothing but loose sand.

Being dragged out for training at set times every day, put through the same tough regimen regardless of rank—not just boring and monotonous, but also requiring total obedience to Huo Jilin's picky orders—these noble brats couldn't take it past five days.

On their day off, they gathered at a tavern to vent about Huo Jilin.

"Is Huo Jilin so bored 'cause he's got only one husband at home? Showing up for roll call every damn day—he's lost his mind."

Feng Chunhe from the Third Battalion was the first to bitch about it bluntly.

His jab was scathing.

The hot topic in the capital about Huo Jilin right now was that he'd taken a male husband as his main wife.

After Huo Jilin got his rewards and promotion, he'd risen to become a close minister of the emperor and a new noble in the capital. But he was just a new face—the capital had no shortage of officials.

Third-rank ministers were a dime a dozen, let alone a third-rank military officer.

The Daliang Dynasty valued civil affairs over military ones. Plus, Huo Jilin came from the countryside. The Huo family had been dukes over twenty years ago, but in twenty years, the capital had churned out countless new dukes.

They wouldn't acknowledge Huo Jilin's achievements. For a military general to fight on the frontier and keep enemies at the border was just his job.

Huo Jilin had stopped this plague, kept it from spreading across the nation, cut it off at the capital's gates, and avoided mass panic. They had no idea how bad it could've been, so they didn't pay it any mind.

The only thing that made him a topic of conversation was that he'd married a male husband.

"Who would've thought a marquis household that was once among the nation's nobility could fall this far—a proper marquis can't even afford a wife. Truly pathetic."

"He really only has one male wife? That can't be right, right? Is this male wife a concubine? It's not that he's ashamed of his plain village wife and only brought his concubine along, is it?"

"I don't believe it either. Who doesn't have a few concubines? How could he marry a man as his main wife? That male wife is probably just a concubine. His main wife is either his childhood wife from the village left behind in his hometown, or she's been divorced."

"But I do think this descendant of the Huo family might really have married a male wife, because he's from that Pingshan Village, a poor backwater mountain village. How could he possibly find a wife?"

"Exactly. He's just a general with no backing now—even the servants in his marquis manor were gifts from the emperor. If not for the emperor's favor, his manor wouldn't even be able to function, let alone support wives and concubines."

"You can't say that. The Huo family was implicated in the imperial power struggle back then. Exiling the entire family was already an act of imperial grace. It's remarkable that a single bloodline of the Huo family survived."

"Now that he's suddenly become a close minister of the emperor, taking a wife is only a matter of time."

"I wonder which family would be willing to marry their daughter to him."

"No woman in my family would be willing. That male wife of his is said to be formidable—a third-rank lady of the marquis household, personally appointed by the emperor. If my daughter married him, would she be the main wife or a concubine?"

"Exactly. The women of our capital are all refined ladies; there's no way they'd stoop to being concubines. I suppose only smaller households would be willing to marry their daughters off for a shot at a better life."

"That's possible. After all, he's not bad-looking. They say many people were surprised when he entered the capital. He doesn't look like a country bumpkin at all—more like a nobleman's son."

"He does have the Huo family blood after all. If the Huo family had stayed in the capital all these years, his standing might have been better. What a pity..."

These were the various rumors circulating as the young gentlemen mocked Huo Jilin in the taverns.

Meanwhile, the ladies of the house brought up Huo Jilin's family situation at their flower-viewing banquets when discussing marriages for their eligible children.

Huo Jilin had been in the capital for ten days now, but the topic of discussion about him remained the same.

No one took this new arrival in the capital too seriously.

So when Feng Chunhe, furious, mocked him without restraint—knowing full well that mocking a superior was taboo—he didn't care at all.

He didn't think much of Huo Jilin at all. He hadn't even shown up on the day Huo Jilin assumed his post.

His father was a Grand Secretary, who followed Grand Tutor Liang's lead. Since Huo Jilin was the emperor's close minister, Feng Chunhe intended to put him in his place.

He had originally planned to keep his distance from Huo Jilin, each ignoring the other.

He hadn't shown up that day, thinking Huo Jilin would recognize his special status. But little did he know, Huo Jilin had no idea about the privileges of noble sons. He made this Cloud Cavalry Commandant shout drills, run, and practice bayonet fighting with the common soldiers every day, making him look like an idiot.

Clearly, Huo Jilin didn't know how to play the game!

"Truly a country bumpkin,"

Feng Chunhe's cutting remark made his group of friends burst into laughter.

Zhao Yu, who was usually dead tired after a day of training, perked up after a couple of drinks and almost choked on his drink: "Don't let him hear you."

As the second son of Grand Secretary Feng, Feng Chunhe thought he was better than everyone. He scoffed without hesitation: "How could he possibly get into my private booth? Or are you all planning to rat me out? And what did I say wrong? Who in the capital doesn't know he only has one male wife?"

Zhang Shaopu, son of the Vice Minister of Rites (Left), chuckled: "Then marry your sister to him and add another concubine to his household."

After speaking, Zhang Shaopu brushed a strand of hair off his forehead and snorted coldly.

He wasn't defending Huo Jilin—he was mocking him.

A military officer rising from the countryside like Huo Jilin wouldn't normally get any attention, but because he was handsome, everyone couldn't stop gushing over him.

Lately, all the young ladies of the capital were praising this Huo Jilin. It was driving him crazy.

During the plague, no one praised him. But the moment they saw his dashing appearance in the capital, they all fell for him, started praising his righteousness!

Shallow!

These women and men used to call him the most handsome man in the capital!

Zhang Shaopu fumed, gnashing his teeth at the thought of Huo Jilin's looks. That Huo Jilin really only had his face to offer.

"Get lost," Feng Chunhe cursed at him. "My sister won't be his concubine. Even if he came with a grand sedan chair to marry her as his main wife, I'd say he's not worthy! A country bumpkin with mud on his boots!"

Zhang Shaopu laughed again at his words: "He doesn't look like a bumpkin."

"His family were the Huos of Beiping. Don't call him a bumpkin," Li Mingzheng, the Cloud Cavalry Commandant of the Fourth Division, chimed in.

Clearly being sarcastic too.

He also didn't have a high opinion of Huo Jilin.

Huo Jilin had come to the capital alone—he was just waiting to fall flat on his face.

Sure enough, Chen Yueshan said directly: "Oh, give it a rest. The Huo family has been gone for years. If not for him showing up, I wouldn't even know there was a Huo family."

The Huo family had been exiled for over twenty years. How many noble houses had risen in the capital during that time?

"Huo Jilin thinks the emperor values him, so he's putting on airs,"

"Exactly. Huo Jilin is taking a chicken feather as a command arrow—does he really think he can crack down? Who does he think he is? This is the Capital Army Camp. Doesn't he realize we're not his country bumpkins? Come on, Zhao, my man, drink up!"

"Ziqin, cheers! Drinking alone is no fun. You hate that Huo Jilin too, right? He made you walk in the back in front of ten thousand people. I'd be angry too!" Zhao Yu was already quite drunk.

No matter the era, bitching about the boss is the best side dish for drinking.

He raised his cup to Zhao He, whose style name was Ziqin.

Feng Chunhe was also drunk and jumped into the conversation: "You've all seen enough of that cold face of his, haven't you? Ha, always pulling a long face, acting like he's unshakable even when the sky falls. So what if he's been to war? Big deal?!"

Feng Chunhe slammed his cup on the table: "He went to war because he had no choice. How could those Tatars of the Northern Yuan ever fight their way to the capital? Our emperor doesn't launch offensives. As long as those Northern Yuan Tatars don't attack, we're sitting pretty here in the Capital Army Camp. There's no need for him to put on such a show!"

Zhao He, who had been drinking in silence, shot him a glance. The soldiers of the Capital Army Camp were supposed to be an offensive force. If the emperor ordered an attack on Northern Yuan, they would be the elite troops sent in. But for years, as Zhao Yu had said, the troops here rotated every six years, over and over, and they had never launched an offensive.

Last year, when the Northern Yuan Tatars had broken through the Hexi Corridor, they still hadn't been deployed. Only local garrison troops were sent—part-time soldiers who were farmers. Their fighting ability was weak, so they were quickly routed. Then drafted laborers were sent, suffering defeat after defeat. If not for the last-ditch capture of the Northern Yuan crown prince, the enemy would have reached the capital. If they had... Could they hold the line?

Zhao He frowned, letting out a heavy sigh. The alcohol seemed to settle in his chest, and he couldn't feel at ease until he let it out.

The soldiers of the Capital Army Camp were meant to guard the imperial city. They could go on the offensive, but when the enemy attacked, they had to defend with all their might, keeping the capital as secure as a fortress.

Every time Zhao He thought of this, he felt suffocated. The troops raised in the capital had become mere defenders. The title of strike force had long been empty.

He was also dissatisfied with Huo Jilin, but he had to admit that deep down, he envied him—envied that he could go to war and win great honors, envied that he could carve his own path.

Zhao He picked up the wine jug and refilled his cup, knocking it back in one shot. The fact that he'd been silent all night was finally noticed.

Feng Chunhe slurred his words: "Ziqin, why aren't you saying anything? You're not still planning to go train every day, are you?"

Zhao He was like him—the young lord of a ducal manor, with a father who was a Grand Secretary. He also had an older brother in the War Ministry. Zhao He took his military post very seriously. No matter how late he stayed out, he still showed up for muster the next day.

Feng Chunhe wanted to drag him into the mud with him, but couldn't.

Zhao He looked up at him: "Yeah, I'm gonna go every single day. What, you think you can tell me what to do now?"

Feng Chunhe, embarrassed by the brush-off, scoffed: "I'm just trying to look out for you. Wei Yan is at least a seasoned veteran—training under him wouldn't make you lose face. But this Huo Jilin is your age! You'd have to salute him every time you see him—you cool with that? I've never met anyone as weird as you. What's the point of going there every day?"

"Hey, hey, don't argue. If Ziqin goes over there, he might even send us intel now and then." Li Mingzheng tried to smooth things over, seeing everyone was getting drunk.

"Exactly, I'm planning to skip starting tomorrow."

"Then starting tomorrow, we're done training with him!"

"Great, if Brother Shaopu's leading, I'm with you too! I'd like to see Huo Jilin try anything with us!"

"Good!"

"Ziqin, you can turn in our leave requests for us this time."

Zhao He snapped: "What? You want me to turn in your leave requests too? In your dreams! Do you even know what military discipline is?!"

"Ha, we follow military discipline, but we're all sick—how else are we supposed to ask for leave? I'm sure the new General Huo will understand!"

"Tonight's on me! No matter how much you drink, I'll get you home! So how about we get Brother Ziqin to file our leave requests?" Li Mingzheng raised the wine jug to pour Zhao He a drink. Zhao He cursed: "You just wait."

Zhao He threw down the wine jug and left the private room. He didn't get why he was wasting his time with these bastards. If he didn't hang out with them, he had nowhere else to go. They'd grown up together, all went to the Imperial Academy together, and once had big dreams—who'd have thought that in just three years, they'd be nothing like their old selves.

He grabbed the stair railing with one hand and held his head with the other. A waiter came to help him, but he shoved him away.

"Your young master's not drunk yet!"

The waiter had no choice but to shake his head and walk away.

Zhao He stood for a moment at the top of the stairs. The draft blowing through the hall cleared his head a bit. He staggered down the stairs, feeling like he was walking on cotton, his footing unsteady. He'd drunk too much tonight—he'd poured it down without thinking.

He missed a step, stumbled down, and lurched forward. But out of nowhere, someone was coming out from the side of the stairs. Zhao He couldn't stop himself, and just as he was about to crash into the person, he jerked sideways—and with a crack, he hit the floor.

He'd overestimated his drunk reflexes.

The blind singing girl who'd come out from the side was startled and froze, clutching her pipa.

The waiter who rushed over paused at the sight.

Young Master Zhao was sprawled on the ground, and right in front of him were two patrons who'd just come out of a private room.

If Young Master Zhao had moved even one step further, he'd have touched the tips of their shoes.

The waiter's mouth opened a little at the sight, not sure how to approach. Young Master Zhao was a regular here and cared a lot about face—if he realized he was kneeling at someone's feet, he'd be humiliated.

Luckily, there weren't many guests at this hour. If it had been the evening rush with the first floor packed, Young Master Zhao would've been really embarrassed.

Just as the waiter hesitated, one of the two patrons who'd received such a grand bow spoke up.

"Get up."

Just three plain words, almost like adding "no need for such a grand bow."

The waiter had no idea how to look Young Master Zhao in the face.

Zhao He slowly looked up and saw Huo Jilin standing right in front of him.

Author's note: I forgot to add an extra update for the Dragon Boat Festival, so I'll post a bit more recently to make up for it.