Chương 28: Kill a Prince, Find a Mother

Under the sinking sun, more than four hundred tents stretched across the distant riverbend. Cooking smoke was beginning to rise. Horses huddled out of the wind, chewing fodder, while a cavalry patrol rode past the camp every seven or eight minutes. Alezhen had been traveling for more than ten days, yet his guard had never once slackened.

"Should we lure him out?" After practicing all along the journey, Aglaya was already itching to collect her first Virtue Value. Gu Zhiwei shook her head.

"The throne is within reach. This is when he values his life most. He won't ride out lightly."

"Then we wait for dark and sneak in?" Wang Pu rubbed his hands together. At long last, he was getting his steppe night-raid dungeon. Gu Zhiwei did not leave them guessing. She immediately had everyone change into Beirong soldiers' hide armor, complete with helmets and face coverings. At a glance, it was impossible to tell which side they belonged to. Then she called once more for the earth to answer her. With 36 Spirit, she could not divert a flood, but it was enough to touch those small, secret lives.

Gu Zhiwei closed her eyes. Wind skimmed the tips of the grass. From deep within the soil came the faint rustle of roots growing. Beetles crouched in cracks between stones, and winged insects flitted through the night. Countless traces of life, so faint that a human could barely have noticed them, lay scattered between heaven and earth. She lifted a hand and gently plucked at empty air. In that instant, it was as though her fingertips had set some invisible string humming.

A ripple spread outward from her, sinking soundlessly through the grass, gravel, and damp earth, spreading farther and farther into the night. She heard no actual sound, yet she could sense countless tiny presences stirring awake in the dark, answering the call from deep within the earth and gathering toward her. Swarms of leafcutter ants poured toward her. They shouldered the tiny grains of rice she scattered and crawled silently toward Alezhen's camp.

Even after witnessing the miracle of steppe wolves leading the way a few days earlier, the sight still left them shaken.

"I swear, every time Sis Gu unleashes her ultimate, I get this weird feeling she doesn't even exist in the same dimension as the rest of us," Wang Pu could not help grumbling.

"Ha, this is nothing. You should've seen her divert that monstrous flood in Yunzhou." Aglaya looked thoroughly accustomed to it by now. The most stunned of all, of course, were He Zheng's soldiers. At first, they had merely admired her courage and martial skill. After seeing her break their sense of what was possible again and again, they now followed every order she gave without question. After a brief wait, Gu Zhiwei sensed the response from the ants.

Following her directions, the leafcutter ants had dropped the rice grains, soaked beforehand in a sleeping draught, into the food and water inside Alezhen's camp. She immediately ordered two hundred men to spread out in a ring a hundred meters beyond the camp, posing as troops hunting down fleeing soldiers. They were to capture some and deliberately let others escape. Then she changed into Beirong hide armor herself and, after nightfall, led the remaining three hundred toward Alezhen's camp.

The man clearly valued his life. His command tent was only a decoy, guarded by his personal soldiers, while he slept in an unremarkable tent nearby. Without the leafcutter ants leading her to him, she probably wouldn't have been able to pinpoint his location right away. The drug had clearly taken effect. When Gu Zhiwei slipped into the tent, Alezhen was sprawled on his back, sleeping soundly. She did not hesitate. Her long saber left its sheath and went straight for his throat.

Yet the instant the blade closed in, the man on the bed snapped his eyes open. Alezhen had clearly survived countless battles. Relying almost entirely on instinct, he jerked his head aside. The blade skimmed past his neck and merely sliced a gash through the pillow. He rolled over and reached for the short knife beneath it, but his movements were clearly a beat too slow. The drug had already taken hold. Realizing something was wrong, he immediately opened his mouth to call for help.

Before Alezhen could force out the first sound, Gu Zhiwei's next attack was already upon him. He could only snatch up whatever lay within reach and block in frantic haste.

"Who the hell are you?! Did Togel send you?" Spotting Gu Zhiwei's clothing, he pressed even as he dodged. Togel was the eldest prince's name. Thank goodness for the all-purpose System. The Beirong language sounded like perfectly normal Chinese to her. She assumed it worked the other way around too. But she had no intention of answering. Her long saber trembled, and she surged in close. Cold light flashed again and again, every strike aimed at a vital point, denying him even a moment to breathe.

The personal guard keeping watch in the neighboring tent had barely eaten or drunk anything that evening, so the drug had little effect on him. Hearing the commotion inside Alezhen's tent, he had just stepped forward to investigate when Wang Pu, lying in ambush outside, knocked him unconscious with a single blow. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Alezhen was clearly a formidable warrior himself.

Even after taking several cuts, he kept slipping away from her attacks. At last, catching them off guard, he rammed into the low table beside him and sent it toppling, then staggered toward the tent flap. Gu Zhiwei would never give him the chance to escape. She raised her hand and hurled her long saber. The blade tore through the air and plunged deep into Alezhen's back, sending him pitching forward onto the ground. He struggled to rise, but Gu Zhiwei had already caught up.

Planting one foot on his back, she wrenched the saber free, bent down, and swept the blade across his throat. Blood spattered the tent flap. Alezhen clutched his neck and convulsed twice before finally collapsing. 【Virtue Value tally: Evil ringleader Alezhen slain. Virtue Value gained: 10. 】 This was the highest amount of Virtue Value Gu Zhiwei had ever received for killing a single person, twice what Fang Yan had been worth. Just how much evil had Alezhen done in his life?

With that thought, Gu Zhiwei flicked the blood from her blade and lifted the tent flap.

"Target down. Proceed as planned." Upon receiving the signal, Matt and Aglaya led the rest in setting fires throughout the camp while cutting down the Beirong soldiers awakened by the uproar. These men were all Alezhen's personal troops and had helped him slaughter countless civilians. The two of them racked up quite a bit of Virtue Value along the way, and Gu Zhiwei soon joined in. This was Aglaya's first real battle, so Matt kept part of his attention fixed on her. A saber hacked past the back of her neck.

She ducked under it and caught the man's wrist with her other hand. She still wasn't used to controlling her newly boosted Strength. With one yank, she dragged the Beirong soldier clean off his horse. Aglaya looked down at her hand, astonishment flickering across her face. Then she immediately stepped forward to finish him off. The camp descended into total chaos. Many of He Zheng's five hundred spoke Berirong well enough to pass.

Following Gu Zhiwei's instructions, they shouted through the crowd that Alezhen was dead, that the khanate now belonged to Togel, and that everyone should surrender at once. Some were doubtful, while others flew into a rage and sought vengeance for their master. Gu Zhiwei seized a warhorse and charged straight between three riders. Borrowing the horse's momentum, her long saber swept across one man's throat. The swing carried straight into the rider beside him, slashing diagonally across his shoulder and neck.

The third man immediately swung his saber at her. Gu Zhiwei flattened herself against the horse's back, letting the blade pass overhead. As the two horses crossed, her long saber swept upward beneath his ribs. His body went rigid, then toppled from the saddle. Matt and Wang Pu were doing just fine. Aglaya, however, had somehow developed an entirely new fighting style. She spammed her skill at every Beirong rider charging toward her.

"Look to your left!"

"Someone's on your right!"

"Your buddy's dead!" A heartbeat later, every flicker of hesitation became another kill for her. Her skill was absurdly useful here. By the end, Wang Pu was even feeling the tiniest bit jealous. In less than an hour, aside from those who had fled, the only person left breathing in the entire camp was the personal guard Wang Pu had knocked unconscious earlier. Once everyone else had withdrawn, Aglaya changed into a dress and slapped him awake, activating her skill at the same time.

"Wake up! What happened here? Did Togel launch a night raid?" The bewildered guard remembered the Beirong uniforms he had seen before being knocked unconscious, along with Alezhen's shout from inside the tent, demanding whether his attacker had been sent by Togel. His face crumpled.

"Yes! Yes, he did! Hurry, go check Lord Alezhen! Togel sent men to kill him!"

"Alezhen is already dead." Following Gu Zhiwei's instructions, Aglaya fed him the story without so much as blinking.

"Go and summon Alezhen's army back to the royal court. Togel is about to take the throne. If you are loyal, avenge your Lord Alezhen!" The man threw open the tent flap. Rage flared the moment he saw the devastation outside. The camp lay in ruins, and Alezhen's headless corpse had fallen in front of the tent. Under the influence of Aglaya's skill, he barely hesitated before grabbing provisions, readying a horse, and racing toward the main body of Alezhen's army.

Seven days later, in the Beirong capital. Gu Zhiwei and the other three entered the city. He Zheng's five hundred men had already turned back to report the good news. The Beirong capital was not what they had expected. For a nomadic steppe people, they had built a surprisingly sizable permanent settlement here. Vast fields had been cultivated beyond the walls. Inside, streets and lanes crisscrossed one another, with timber-and-earth houses interspersed among felt tents.

Traveling merchants, livestock, and freight wagons packed the roads. It already had the makings of a true city. The four arrived outside the khan's palace and claimed to be merchants from the Western Regions, bringing goods from the consort's homeland to ease her homesickness. Gu Zhiwei had come up with this cover story the moment she learned the khan's consort's background. Upon hearing it, Aglaya immediately pulled Matt over and declared that the two of them were perfect to take the lead.

Her current identity had come from Mihe, a coastal country in the Western Regions that probably corresponded to somewhere around Greece or Italy on Earth. Gu Zhiwei and Wang Pu followed behind, disguised as a servant boy and maid respectively. Wang Pu had refused at first, but when he saw Gu Zhiwei change without a word of complaint, his competitive streak kicked in and convinced him he could totally pull it off too. After they waited a while, one of the khan's consort's maids came out.

Aglaya immediately stepped forward and activated her skill.

"We are..." Before she could finish, the maid stared hard at her. Then, as though she had seen a ghost, she spun around and hurried back inside.??? The four exchanged baffled looks.

"What was that? Do I not look like I'm from the Western Regions?" Aglaya touched her face, suddenly feeling the faintest doubt about her own ancestry.

"Maybe people from Mihe look more Italian?" Wang Pu pointed at Aglaya's pale-gold hair. The four were still hesitating over whether to withdraw and try again later when the khan's consort's people returned. This time, the maid had brought six others with her, and they ceremoniously ushered the group inside. Aglaya cheered at the sight.

"Nothing works like 'people from back home'!" The group passed through a distinctly Mediterranean-style courtyard. Pale stone walls enclosed a pool. Grapevines and blooming purple flowers climbed between the columns, while blue-and-white glazed tiles paved the path to the hall. Bright sunlight spilled across the arcades and carved stone balustrades, and the faint fragrance of citrus and herbs drifted through the air. It could hardly have been more different from the steppe style outside.

The khan's consort from the Western Regions stood waiting beyond the doors, a secret hope flickering in her eyes. They all sensed at once that something was wrong and instinctively grew wary. Then Aglaya drew near enough to see the consort's face. Aglaya cursed under her breath. Wang Pu hurriedly craned his neck forward and whispered, "What is it? What is it?"

"No... she looks..." Aglaya could not even take another step. She stood frozen at the far end of the courtyard.

"She looks... just like this identity's mom..."??? The sudden turn left all of them reeling. The khan's consort had not taken her eyes off Aglaya since the moment they entered. For what felt like an eternity, she simply stared, until tears welled in her eyes.

"My Aglaya... my sweetheart, is that you...?" Well, that certainly explained the maid's reaction. Standing side by side, the two of them looked far too alike for anyone to believe they weren't related.