Chương 27: Five Hundred Riders to Take a Prince’s Head

He Zheng's first strike was only a probe, but he held nothing back. His long saber came howling sideways at Gu Zhiwei's face. Her Spirit had spread out half a beat ahead of him. The moment He Zheng began to move, the full path of that gleaming blade was already laid bare before her eyes. She advanced instead of retreating. Before anyone could see what had happened, the back of her saber had already slammed into the inside of his wrist. At Strength 20, she had been able to press a dent into a solid wooden table.

Now, at Strength 31, her raw power was already on par with the strongest warriors a battlefield could produce. Clang! He Zheng's saber flew from his hand and buried itself in the dirt, still humming and trembling. Silence fell all around them. He Zheng stared at his numb hand, then at Gu Zhiwei. He clearly couldn't believe she had been the one to send his saber flying. Unconvinced, he bent down and pulled out his saber. This time, there was no trace of probing restraint.

He charged forward in a single stride, bringing the long saber down toward Gu Zhiwei's neck and shoulder. The strike looked brutally straightforward. Then, halfway down, his hips twisted and his foot shifted. The descending blade reversed without warning, sweeping low before rising toward her ribs. It was a beautiful feint. But the instant his toes turned, Gu Zhiwei was already moving. The subtle shifts that flashed past too quickly for the onlookers to catch were as clear to her as footage played in slow motion.

By the time He Zheng's blade swept upward, Gu Zhiwei was already where his changed attack left him most exposed. He Zheng had only just realized something was wrong when the back of her saber struck him squarely in the chest. Thud! The move looked utterly plain, yet it sent the burly man staggering three full steps sideways. His lower back crashed into the weapons rack, sending spears clattering across the ground. This time, his expression truly changed.

"Again!" For his third strike, He Zheng abandoned all feints. He gripped the saber in both hands, his back and waist drawn taut, and drove his entire body forward behind the descending blade. It was a battlefield technique meant to smash through an enemy formation, relying on height, weight, and brute force. An ordinary fighter might block the blade, but the force behind it would still drive him into the ground. Gu Zhiwei did not dodge.

Looking at the strike crashing down like a mountain, she suddenly wanted to know exactly how strong she was now. She raised her saber crosswise. The clash of steel rang through everyone's ears, and sparks burst between the two blades. The web between Gu Zhiwei's thumb and forefinger jolted violently, but her wrist sank only slightly. That's all? The next instant, Gu Zhiwei looked up at him and unleashed the strength in her arm. He Zheng felt an even fiercer force rebound through his blade.

His heart lurched, and he immediately pulled back to bleed off the impact. In the blink of an eye, they exchanged several more blows, steel ringing against steel as sparks scattered between them. Yet no matter how quickly He Zheng moved, Gu Zhiwei blocked him with ease and counterattacked in the same breath. Even the watching soldiers burst into cheers. Their general's dignity, apparently, was not part of the military code. Gu Zhiwei soon caught an opening.

Following the momentum, she twisted her saber and abruptly exerted her strength. He Zheng's weapon flew from his hand once more and buried itself in the ground several paces away, its hilt trembling faintly. Her own blade stopped steadily one inch before his Adam's apple. For a moment, no one spoke. Only the bonfire crackled. Gu Zhiwei broke the silence first. She smoothly withdrew her saber, turned, and slid it back onto the rack. Then she looked at He Zheng.

"Well? Five hundred men, General. Will you lend them to me?" He Zheng stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly burst out laughing.

"Good! You've got the skill to back up that nerve of yours. I'll give you five hundred of my best men. Go bring me Alezhen's head!" His expression then turned solemn.

"If you truly kill that brute, then from this day forward, should you ever have need of me, I will answer. And on behalf of the people of the north, you have my deepest thanks." He Zheng bowed. Gu Zhiwei hurried forward and helped him straighten.

"You are a man of honor, General. I'll need more information. I need to know how often the Beirong have attacked recently and how many men they sent each time." He Zheng immediately ordered someone to bring the recent battle reports. A quarter of an hour later, inside the tent He Zheng had arranged for her, Gu Zhiwei marked every Beirong incursion over the past six months on a map, along with their troop numbers and movements between camps. March, Guangning, two hundred cavalry.

May, Yong'an Fort, eight hundred cavalry. Beginning in July, their main force moved north from Blackwater Lake. For the six months that followed, only scattered patrols rode south, until the most recent attack, when a thousand cavalry suddenly struck the city. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Her fingertip rested on the site of that final attack as she sank into thought. At that moment, her Spirit seeped into the inked lines.

Wind and snow struck her face. She stood on a snow-covered road running through a forest, surrounded by endless white. Shouts came ceaselessly from up ahead, mingled with the shrilling of warhorses and the ringing clash of weapons. A group of Yan soldiers escorting provisions had been surrounded. Enemy riders circled through the snow, picking at the battered survivors as they fought like cornered beasts.

Ji Heng crawled out from beneath an overturned grain cart, a stack of account books clutched in his arms and someone else's blood spattered across his face. He stuffed the books inside his robes first. Only then did he bend down and pull a long saber from the hand of a corpse half buried in the snow. A rider charged him. Ji Heng turned sideways to evade the attack, then swept his blade upward along the horse's flank and slit the rider's throat.

Before the corpse had even struck the ground, Ji Heng had already turned his wrist with the momentum. His saber caught the second man's descending strike. He guided the force aside, then drove the point straight into the man's chest. A third rider came crashing toward him. Ji Heng retreated half a step. Steel flashed. He took out the horse's leg first, then cut down the rider as he fell. His movements were so swift that no one could make out where one ended and the next began.

In the end, all they saw was Ji Heng striding among enemy soldiers and warhorses with his saber in hand. Wherever his blade passed, men fell. By the time reinforcements arrived, thirty-three corpses lay at his feet. A prince of Yan rode over in a great cloak, white frost crusting his helmet.

"Which camp are you with?"

"I'm not one of your soldiers." Ji Heng planted the saber in the snow.

"I'm only an accountant."

"An accountant with skills like these?"

"The world is in chaos. Without a useful skill or two, how could I travel among the kingdoms?" The prince of Yan looked over the corpses covering the ground and laughed.

"Fine saber work. Join me. Serve in my personal guard." Then he turned to his deputy general.

"Leave twenty men to deal with the grain carts. The rest of you, follow me. Since they dared raid our provisions, don't let them return alive."

"You cannot pursue them." The voice came from the side. The prince turned and found Ji Heng crouching beside a corpse, untying a waterskin from the dead man's waist. Ji Heng pulled out the stopper and examined it, then reached out to touch the warhorse beside him.

"These men did not come from far away." He looked up in the direction from which the enemy cavalry had come.

"Their camp should be nearby. Eagle's Beak Gorge ahead is steep and treacherous, perfect terrain for an ambush."

"They did not come to steal provisions. They came to lure Your Highness into pursuing them." The prince stared at him for a moment, then whipped around.

"Pass down the order! The entire army is to withdraw to camp!" At the command, the cavalry who had been preparing to give chase all pulled back. Only then did the prince of Yan turn to Ji Heng again. His gaze had changed.

"What is your name?"

"Ji Heng."

"You are very good." He nodded.

"Making you a personal guard would be an insult to your talents. Come serve as my strategist instead." The memory shifted. Ji Heng now stood in the royal court of Yan. He wore deep-crimson official robes, the Chancellor's seal hanging at his waist, and displayed a brand-new map before the throne. The territory of Yan marked upon it had expanded dozens of times over compared to five years before.

Under Ji Heng's governance, Yan's farms prospered, trade flourished, its treasuries filled, and its armies were better armed than ever before. The prince of Yan from those days was now the King of Yan.

"Chancellor," he said with a smile, "back then, I thought I was recruiting a strategist. Only now do I realize I brought Yan a statesman without equal." The civil and military officials of the entire court knelt before him, but Ji Heng turned and looked at Gu Zhiwei. This time, he said nothing. He merely handed her a book with a plain, unlettered cover and yellowed corners. The next instant, the vision shattered. Gu Zhiwei abruptly straightened.

She was still inside the tent He Zheng had arranged for her, and the charcoal brazier beside the table was burning hot. The panel lit up. 【Record Two: The Commoner Scholar of the Realm. Current progress: 45% → 75%. 】 【Artifact obtained: The Unfailing Stratagem. Open it when faced with a difficult situation to receive a strategy. 】 What a pleasant surprise. This time, she had received an artifact before the record was even fully unlocked. At a thought from Gu Zhiwei, the book appeared in her palm.

She focused on the question of how to defeat the Beirong, then slowly opened it. Only a single line was written on the first page. Recruit defectors and absorb surrendered troops. Divide and conquer. Gu Zhiwei frowned.

"?? Hold on, Master Ji. Is there a customer service number I can call? I'd like to return this book." As though it had heard her thoughts, a line of tiny characters slowly appeared on the second page: The Beirong khan is gravely ill and will not live past autumn. His third son, Alezhen, and his eldest son are fighting for the succession, each backed by his own army. The Khan's consort, once a slave from the Western Regions, had a young son of her own and had spent years quietly building a faction behind the scenes.

Gu Zhiwei stared at the words will not live past autumn and tapped her knuckle lightly against the edge of the table.

On the day the five hundred cavalry set out, He Zheng sent along a veteran who knew the routes better than anyone.

"Are you sure you don't need more men, miss?" By now, He Zheng sincerely wanted her to have better odds.

"No need. I already have a plan. Besides, I can promise you I'll bring all five hundred back alive. Any more than that, and I can't make the same guarantee." Though she had declined more men, before leaving, Gu Zhiwei asked He Zheng for over five hundred sets of captured Beirong leather armor. The equipment was valuable to his undersupplied force, but after years of fighting the Beirong, he had accumulated quite a stockpile.

They had even built up a decent stock of captured Beirong warhorses, which were known for being strong and well-fed. They departed from Huaiyuan City. At first, barren gravel plains stretched endlessly before them, with only the occasional clump of withered grass hugging the earth. After another two days of travel, the sand and stones gradually thinned, and traces of green began creeping from the cracks in the soil. Only when they crossed the final low ridge did a vast grassland suddenly unfold before their eyes.

Gu Zhiwei dismounted and sat down atop a small earthen hill. She released her Spirit and asked the land a single question: Where is Alezhen? The wind in the distance answered first. It came from the northwest, crossing the wilderness and brushing past her hair, carrying faint traces of horses, iron, leather, and cooking smoke. It made no sound, yet it was like an invisible hand, gently drawing her mind in a certain direction. Then came the boundless grassland. Countless slender blades of grass swayed in the wind.

Here, a large force of cavalry had passed. There, only scattered scouts. Elsewhere, hundreds of soldiers had camped for the night, and the warmth of their cookfires still lingered in the soil. One trace after another gradually joined into a line within her mind. Alezhen was leading a fast-moving force of nearly a thousand men north. When Gu Zhiwei opened her eyes, several gray-black shapes had appeared on the distant slope. The lead wolf stood on high ground and watched her from afar for a moment.

Then it turned and trotted northwest. The faster Gu Zhiwei and the others rode, the faster the pack ran. If they lagged behind, the wolves would stop on a distant slope and glance back at them. The setting sun cast their lean shadows across the grass like a dozen silent signposts. Before dusk, the wolves suddenly veered away from their original course. Beyond an earthen rise, a shallow hollow appeared before them.

Reeds swayed along the water's edge, and a small spring lay hidden deep within the grasslands, its surface reflecting the last glow of sunset. They rested there for the night. The next day, the wolf pack appeared on time once more. After more than ten days of traveling this way, the lead wolf suddenly stopped one evening. The setting sun spilled over the grass from behind it, illuminating the rolling plains in the distance and an encampment of cavalry sheltered from the wind in the bend of a river.

At that moment, the wind, the grass, the roaming beasts, even the silent earth beneath her feet all pointed in the same direction. Alezhen is there.