Chapter 1

The mountain road was not easy to traverse by carriage, nor by ox cart, yet an old man in a blue cotton-padded coat sat steadily on his ride.

The one pulling the cart was not an animal, but a person.

The person walked with a limp, a sword hanging at his waist, but he pulled the cart steadily across the rocky terrain.

Beside the cart was a woman. She wore a black veil hat, obscuring her true features, but her waist was slender, and she wore white Chu boots. She did not seem at all delicate, but rather full of heroic spirit.

The old man, reclining on the cart, held a fan in his left hand and a wine gourd in his right. A patched bag was sewn at his waist, containing dried tea and aniseed beans.

A slice of dried tea, two beans, washed down with a mouthful of yellow wine,

accompanied by the mountain scenery entering his throat,

tsk,

this taste,

was so wonderful it made his bones melt.

However, as the old man ate, drank, and reclined, he neither cared about the hardship of the man pulling the cart, nor minded the woman’s difficulty in walking alongside, and his mouth remained incessantly chattering.

"The last time I came here, this place was still considered Jin territory, but now it has become Yan territory. Is it a case of things changing or people changing?

To think, hundreds of years ago, the Yu clan opened up the lands of the Three Jin, what heroes they were. But now, even they have come to the point where their ancestral temples are moved and their descendants enter Yanjing.

Romantic figures, in the end, must all return to romance."

The man pulling the cart merely smiled upon hearing this. He was already used to the old man’s rambling.

Gazing at the sunset, he would be filled with poetic inspiration;

Looking at a young child, he would be filled with poetic inspiration;

Looking at a beautiful maiden, he would be filled with poetic inspiration;

Even when entering the outhouse, while the Yellow Dragon roared below, his mind could still be surging with poetic sentiments.

"I wonder, after returning to Qian, whether the local dialect of Wuchuan will still be spoken in my hometown, or whether the northern accent of Yan will have become the prevailing fashion."

Unlike the man's taciturn nature, the woman was stubborn and disliked the old man's fondness for empty talk.

Just then, a mountain breeze brushed her face, gently lifting her black veil, revealing a pair of delicate red lips.

"The lands of the Three Jin, seemingly powerful, boasting of millions of Jin knights, ultimately saw the division of Jin into three, a situation that has dragged on for sixty years. The Yan people merely took advantage of the Jin Emperor's betrayal of the country and the disunity of the Jin families to seize the opportunity.

My great Qian, though temporarily挫折, has ultimately not allowed the Yan people to occupy a single piece of territory. The current emperor's determination to strengthen the country is clear to all, and in the future, let alone the Yan people advancing south again, our Qian civil and military officials may well go north."

The old man glanced at the woman,

and chuckled dismissively:

"The Yan people's sixty thousand iron cavalry charged straight to the walls of the capital, and then retreated leisurely. I really don't know where your confidence comes from, young lady."

"This is one time, that is another."

"Heh, a woman's opinion."

"Then I would like to hear the opinion of a true man. And I am also very curious, when the Yan cavalry advanced south, where was Master Yao?"

"At home."

"Doing what at home?"

"Making babies."

"............" the woman.

"Hehehehe." The man pulling the cart laughed.

The woman spat and said in a low voice:

"Shameless."

The representative figure of Qian culture, Master Yao Zizhan, lying on the cart, did not take it to heart,

and said directly:

"What I am good at are poetry and songs;

In times of peace and prosperity, inviting friends and companions to drink and make merry in pavilions can become a pleasant tale;

When idle, seeking out delicacies can also be regarded as an anecdote;

Ascending to the court, judging cases, weakening the strong and helping the weak, can also be praised as a good deed;

But when it comes to military affairs, I have mastered nine of the ten竅, leaving only one completely不懂;

Assisting the people, pacifying the people, raising supplies; transporting grain, planning strategies, making decisive decisions; I don't understand any of these;

An official like me is only good for ringing the bell in peaceful times, or putting up a layer of window paper to look presentable. If something really happens, my absence from my position is actually the greatest help.

Great Xia, do you think what I'm saying makes sense?"

Chen Daxia, the man pulling the cart, nodded and answered seriously:

"It makes sense."

"Outrageous!" the woman shouted angrily.

Yao Zizhan touched his earlobe and smacked his lips.

"You consume the fat of the land. In times of chaos, even if you have no real talent, can you really be worse than a bookkeeper or half a peasant?"

"My dear lady, you are wrong again. I am indeed a facade for prosperous times. No matter whether the face underneath is truly beautiful or ugly, whether it is covered in sores or festering, it always needs someone like me to beautify it.

The monarch needs praise, and the people need a sense of honor;

But to put it bluntly, you should just think that only our emperor wants this facade. Doesn't his Yan Emperor want it?

Heh, to put it bluntly, even if I go to the battlefield and get captured, as long as I reveal my identity, no matter how barbarous the Zhenbei Army is, they will have to respectfully invite me onto a carriage and serve me with good food and drink, sending me to Yanjing;

Wen Sutong can be treated as a divine statue in Yanjing. If I were to go to Yanjing, wouldn't the Yan Emperor have to personally come out of the city to greet me, and shout:

'The culture of the world returns to Yan today!'

Isn't this boosting the morale of others and diminishing our own prestige?

Although I, Yao Zizhan, am an old bone, do you believe that the Yan Emperor would be willing to exchange three thousand iron cavalry for me to enter Yan? Rather than that, it would be better to stay in my hometown and tease my lovely wives and concubines. This is truly thinking of the country and contributing to the country."

"............" the woman.

"What's the matter? Speechless?"

"This is sophistry."

"Heh, this is not sophistry. In this world, where are things that are purely black and white? There has never been any real logic to speak of;

I have wasted most of my life. In my early years, I liked to be romantic and carefree, feeling that all worldly affairs were vulgar and filthy, and only I was noble and pure;

But as I grew old, after being struck by the Yan people, I finally understood;

Poetry, songs, zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, praising virtues, peaceful and prosperous times,

no matter how beautifully you dress them up,

in the end, they cannot withstand the real swords and guns of others!

Great Xia, do you think this is the truth?"

"It is."

Chen Daxia responded.

The woman seemed unconvinced, but she also understood that she could never win an argument with this old man. Perhaps her stubbornness was just a condiment for the old man's journey.

The old man shook his head and sighed:

"In my early years, I also longed for the Jianghu. People say that the Jianghu of our great Qian is the most exciting, the Jianghu of great Chu is the most mysterious, and the Jianghu of great Jin is the most unrestrained, but only the Jianghu of great Yan is the most boring.

So boring that Li Liangshen, one of the four great swordsmen, is actually a general in the Zhenbei Army. Where is there any semblance of a Jianghu figure's spirit?

And the pie in Yan is only so big. The Yan court takes a bite, the aristocratic families take a bite, and the Zhenbei Marquis's mansion takes another bite. After a few families divide it up, how can the Jianghu still afford to raise fish and shrimp?

But now, it seems that I was wrong.

Beneath the capital, Qian Baili Jian, the number one swordsman of this era, fled in panic with his sister before the iron cavalry of the Zhenbei Army;

Earlier, it was rumored that in the capital of Jin, the Jin Sword Saint Yu Huaping fought the Yan Nanhou, and the Sword Saint was defeated.

Jianghu, after all, is Jianghu, and because it cannot be brought to the table, it is called Jianghu."

Chen Daxia stopped walking.

"What's the matter, Daxia, don't you like what I just said?"

Chen Daxia shook his head and said:

"Someone said something similar to you before."

"Oh? Who?"

"A Yan person."

"That's not surprising. The Yan people only believe in sabers, and nothing else."

"Perhaps."

Chen Daxia continued to pull the cart forward.

Yao Zizhan took another sip of wine and pointed to the mountains ahead, saying:

"Ahead, it's almost Geda Mountain."

The woman spoke at this moment:

"Everyone knows that when you, Yao Dajia, were young, you traveled through the Heavenly Fracture Mountains and were captured alive by savages, almost losing your life there. The world would have lost countless popular poems and beautiful articles because of this;

But little did they know that there was such a twist to it."

"There's not much of a twist. I'm not afraid to tell you, the one who captured me here back then was Helian Xiongbi.

That kid Helian Xiongbi hadn't become the head of his Helian family yet. He was very young, just like I was back then."

"Was it Helian Xiongbi who saved you in the first place?" the woman asked.

"Hehe, nonsense. I was just traveling in this area back then, and I had a few familiar savages as companions. You probably can't imagine, when that kid Helian Xiongbi was young, he was a literary youth;

He was actually drinking wine and reciting poetry here,

I heard him,

and I laughed twice,

and then I was captured by that kid!"

Chen Daxia "hehe"ed twice.

"He didn't kill you?"

"That's right, he couldn't bear to kill me. This place is the secret of his Helian family. In theory, he should have killed me, but he was so impressed by my literary talent that he promised to let me write him a poem every day. As long as the poem satisfied him, he would allow me to live another day.

So I wrote and wrote, and wrote him poems for three whole months."

"Nowadays, countless courtesans would pay a fortune for one of your poems, but back then they were so cheap."

"These were life-saving poems, cheap my foot!"

Yao Zizhan glared at the woman unhappily,

and continued:

"Three months later, Helian Xiongbi released me. He told me not to talk about what happened here."

"That's it?"

"There's one more thing."

"What thing?"

"This thing."

"What is it exactly?"

"He said that if one day he died, I should come and write him a funeral couplet, with the best poem."

Having said that,

Yao Zizhan sprinkled the wine from his pot outside the cart,

sighed,

and said:

"Alas, alas."

"I didn't expect you to be such a sentimental person." The woman sighed.

Chen Daxia said, "I didn't expect it either."

The old man squinted his slightly tipsy eyes,

and said:

"Daxia, do you have a crush on this girl?"

"I do."

"Then have you told her?"

"I haven't."

"Why not?"

"I'm crippled and disabled."

"But you're not useless. In my opinion, if you really fought, this girl still wouldn't be able to beat you, right? Surely you didn't break your leg and lose the thing down there at the same time?"

Chen Daxia released one hand,

confirmed,

and said:

"I didn't."

"Then what are you afraid of? She's beautiful, you have a sword, a perfect match!"

The woman remained silent.

But Chen Daxia said:

"What parents in this world would be willing to marry their daughter to a cripple?"

Yao Zizhan "hehehe" laughed,

grabbed a handful of aniseed beans and chewed them "crunch crunch" in his mouth,

and said:

"What does it have to do with her parents? When we get back from Geda Mountain, take your sword and go to the capital, and demand that she be your wife by name;

Just wait and see,

that night, a bright red sedan chair will carry her to your place!"

The woman's body trembled.

But Chen Daxia shook his head and said:

"They give out wives?"

Yao Zizhan slapped his thigh,

and laughed and scolded:

"That's right, that's what they specialize in!"