CH 36

His eyes were red as a rabbit’s. Wouldn’t she make fun of him if he let her see him?

Xia Yujin straightened his clothes and stood by the riverside in a daze. When his mood evened, he went back to the wine house to look for the drinking companion and exchange their clothes back. He only said that the wind was blowing, borrowed a copper mirror from someone to look at the corner of his eyes and, once he confirmed that he looked normal, he turned into Yanzi Lane and rushed into a shabby old house. After some threats, he collected something, and hurried back home.

Ye Zhao wasn’t asleep, polishing her sword in the light of the lamps. He didn’t know if she was waiting for him or not.

Xia Yujin had never shown his wife any favor and felt very embarrassed. He stood in the doorway, mind in turmoil, but after long minutes of hesitation he couldn’t come up with excuses anymore. In the end, Ye Zhao walked over, half-leaning on the doorjamb, and raised her eyebrows at him. “What? You came back in the middle of the night, do you have something to tell me?”

How could Xia Yujin admit to something as embarrassing as eavesdropping? He hemmed and hawed for a long time before illogically saying, “I wanted to see if you were asleep or not. Am I not allowed to care about that?”

“Huh?” Ye Zhao was a little surprised. She looked at the sky, where a dark layer of cloud covered the moon, then lowered her head to look down at his restless feet. Understanding suddenly dawned in her mind. “Did you know I was with Prince Yinuo this evening?” she tentatively asked. “Are you uncomfortable because someone gossiped about it?”

“A little.” Xia Yujin really wasn’t used to speaking well to her. He turned the sentence over in his head, practiced a little, but the words that came out were still looking for trouble. “I want to know why you’re with this damn cut-sleeve everyday. He shouldn’t be this interesting to you, should he?” But after he said this, he felt that it was only right that a man of character ask his wife about her whereabouts. Puffing out his chest, he tried to put on as serious a look as possible as he waited for her answer.

“Prince Yinuo isn’t as simple as he looks. He’s one of the best warriors in Eastern Xia, aggressive and fond of killing. He does everything ruthlessly and decisively. He has four or five consorts, almost all of whom he married to get benefits, so don’t go imagining things. I’m a general of the Great Qin, it wouldn’t be good if it spread out.” Ye Zhao patted him on the shoulder. After hesitating, she gave a wry smile. “The Emperor thinks the Eastern Xia monarchy has wild ambitions and won’t easily admit defeat. He fears that this visit might be a pretext for something, so he ordered some officials who were once envoys to Eastern Xia and me to take turns accompanying him around when he goes out and to watch him closely, so that he does not cause any trouble.”

That weasel wouldn’t let his own wife go out and keep rude men company, but he didn’t have a problem with others’ wives!

Xia Yujin furiously cursed eighteen generations of the weasel’s ancestors in his head, then his face suddenly changed with a sudden realization. “The Emperor has good foresight, I also felt that this guy was fishy!”

Ye Zhao smiled. “You too?”

Xia Yujin was temporarily left speechless. Thankfully, he was quick-witted, and very quickly managed to lay excuse upon excuse. “I just think their requests during the peace talks were too reasonable and that the negotiations went too smoothly. It looks as though they did their best not to provoke the Emperor or the ministers. But who doesn’t get greedy when it comes down to business? As though they don’t understand the principle of asking for too much and bargaining down! Do they think they are the reincarnation of Confucius and Mencius?”

“Some people can also do business honestly,” Ye Zhao said.

Xia Yujin shook his head. “It’s not that they’re moderate, only very smart. If they want to become frequent business partners, they can only build up an honest reputation and work on the long term. They can’t afford to violate our rules for an insignificant benefit and strike out from a long-term financial gain. It’s like the peace talks are some kind of direct nation-to-nation transaction… The Emperor couldn’t control it. They take a blow once, and when it’s passed they can expand blood and tears to become our allies. Then, how much can they defraud us?”

Ye Zhao laughed loudly and said, “Brilliant!”

Seeing that the atmosphere had relaxed and that the circumstances were good, Xia Yujin took out a long package wrapped in brocade from behind his back and stuffed it in her hand. “And… This… For you, don’t be mad.”

Ye Zhao happily took it, opened it, and remained dumbfounded…

Inside the cloth, lying there quietly and unadorned, was a well-crafted dagger, with the words “Tiger Roar” engraved in seal script on its tiger-shaped handle.

Ye Zhao almost jumped up from her seat, rushing to her dressing cabinet, rummaging in the drawer for a paulownia wood box. Inside, when she opened it, lay the same “Tiger Roar” dagger. It was an antique from the previous dynasty, her beloved treasure.

She took the two daggers, weighing them in her hand, then carefully examined them, but they both were the same, down to the patina or the touch, and she actually couldn’t tell which one was the real one.

“No need to look,” Xia Yujin said slowly, “this is Master Li’s work. How could you find a flaw so easily?”

“I got my Tiger Roar on the battlefield three years ago,” Ye Zhao said, stupefied. “How could there be a fake?”

“Have you ever loaned it to someone after you got back?” asked Xia Yujin.

“Two months ago, a small crack appeared on the dagger’s sheath, so I sent it to Zhenbao Pavilion for repairs… Would it…?”

“The head of Zhenbao Pavilion is an old friend of Master Li’s.” Xia Yujin took the dagger she kept in her dressing cabinet, separated the tiger-headed handle from the body of the blade, and pointed at a small decorative pattern, which looked almost as if it had been accidentally, drawn in an unnoticeable spot in the upper right corner. “His fakes are all signed. If you look at the strokes against the light, you’ll see his name.”

Ye Zhao walked to a candle and took a closer look. When she saw it, she quickly asked, “How did you know?”

Xia Yujin awkwardly rubbed his nose. “Master Li is a clever man,” he explained. “He doesn’t flaunt his talent, he doesn’t love money or sex, just counterfeits. His craftsmanship is unrivaled in this world, so he’s become bold. Every year, he makes a fake of one of the most difficult items to forge, to deceive one of the people who are the most impossible to deceive, and everyone privately bets whether he’ll succeed or not. Two years ago, I was the one he duped, with an exquisite white jade sphere in the shape of a lion’s head. I got lucky, though: I broke it by accident and managed to see this mark. Since then, we’ve struck up a difficult friendship. Earlier this year, he let out in our group of friends that the person to deceive was you, who’s considered to be a weapons expert. I bet you wouldn’t find out, and won more than a thousand taels…”

Xia Yujin’s voice got smaller and smaller, looking very embarrassed.

Although Ye Zhao didn’t know why he had suddenly found his conscience and told her the truth, in the end it was a gesture of good will.

Happy and unwilling to condemn him, she spread out her hands and jokingly said, “You won’t give me a bit of the money you won?”

Xia Yujin immediately and obediently took out his purse, grabbed two large banknotes at random, and gave them to her. “You’re not mad?” he asked weakly. Seeing that she didn’t seem to intend to blame him, he added, “It took me a lot of effort to get this thing back from Master Li. I even had to bluff and intimidate him.”

Ye Zhao took the money without really looking at it and picked the two daggers back up. “If you play, you must agree to lose. Master Li’s work is stunning beyond compare,” she said with admiration. “I never had the slightest suspicion.”

Xia Yujin let out a sigh of relief.

“I had a pair of matching daggers,” Ye Zhao continued, “but I carelessly lost one. An ordinary swordsmith made a new one, but it doesn’t match the original. Do you think Master Li could match it for me from a drawing?”

“The more difficult it is for an ordinary craftsman to make something, the more he likes it,” Xia Yujin said, “and he got a little worried that you know the truth about your Tiger Roar dagger. If you promise a lot of money, and scare him some more, he’ll most likely agree.”

Delighted, Ye Zhao arranged to go back to Yanzi Lane with him the next morning to see Master Li.

But when they arrived in Yanzi Lane the next day, they were told bad news.

Master Li was dead, killed from a dagger to the chest, and was found in the morning by the delivery of iron eggs from his family.

The coroner determined that the time of death was midnight.

The city magistrate dispatched a constable to inquire among the neighbors.

All the neighbors insisted that no one had come over to Master Li’s house except for Xia Yujin, and that no one had fought with him.

Xia Yujin was struck dumb.

The author has something to say:

Alright, I accidentally saw some stuff, so let me make things clear.

Xia Yujin can be redeemed, because he’s not bad inside. For example, he’s kind, not selfish, he can think of others. He’s also intelligent, persistent, and doesn’t have any dark, negative thoughts and ambitions; he just offends everyone around him. He loves having fun, and longing for freedom for so long had led him to acting unreasonably and carelessly. He has a strong rebellious streak, which makes him appear quite unreliable.

But in fact, those he bullies are people who are on the same level as him, and he absolutely won’t do anything to ordinary people.

If Ye Zhao can pick up gold from trash, it’s because gold is gold inside, only covered by dust.

But trash will be trash to the end. You can recycle some and transform it into something useful, but most of it just degrades.

So…

People can’t change who they are. Don’t believe that the scoundrel will turn over a new leaf and the prodigal son will correct himself so easily.

If you don’t have Ye Zhao’s excellent insight, don’t take her as an example to dig through trash!

As for the male lead and his concubines…

When I decided on Ye Zhao’s character, I thought that (even with the natural protagonist advantages), a female general who went to war at 12 or 13, or who was appointed to this position after only 2 or 3 years of fighting, sounded improbable, so I aged her up. And the male lead couldn’t be too young, but a prince from the imperial family in a feudal, patriarchal society would normally have concubines. If he has no love interest, no venereal disease, and no uncommon sexual orientation, and yet still no wife at 20, his mother would be worried. So I had to choose between making him sick or someone who remarries. I really couldn’t think of a better reason for him to be over 20 and single, so in the end I decided to mix both and created Xia Yujin’s background:

Sickly from childhood, can die at any moment, his mother is in a hurry to further his bloodline, so she gives him a concubine.

But, surprise, he doesn’t die and actually gets better. But he has a bad reputation, and his mother is picky about his choices, so he reaches over 20 without being married. […]

Ye Zhao is a woman from the past, she didn’t transmigrate, and she doesn’t need a man to consolidate her family’s status. She also doesn’t care for the continuation or favor of her family. […]