As the new martial arts ranking emerged in Beiman, it received widespread acclaim from both dynasties and immediately inspired numerous imitations. Lists of the top ten literary scholars, generals, swordsmen, and female heroes flooded the realm. Even more absurd were the taverns advertising their “Top Ten Signature Dishes” and fabric shops boasting “Top Ten Silks,” leaving people both amused and exasperated. In Beiman, there was even a ranking of the top ten courtesans, which leaned heavily toward overt sensuality compared to the refined subtlety of the south. Among them, the courtesan from Feihu City’s Boiling Waves Pavilion, renowned for her dexterous tongue—rumored to tie cherries into knots—was famed for her exquisite technique known as “The Beauty Playing the Jade Flute.” Other bizarre rankings, such as those for “Yin-Yang Teapots,” further scandalized Central Plain scholars, though one could only speculate whether they secretly lusted after the described delights.
At this moment, the beauty’s delicate lips held a Qiang flute, and Xu Fengnian couldn’t help but let his mind wander. Previously, he had been filled with anger and bore some resentment toward this shepherd girl, but now, having calmed down, he found her more agreeable. Beautiful women were indeed gifts from heaven—pleasing to the eye and a feast for the senses. However, Xu Fengnian was notoriously picky. He knew that a poor shepherd girl might be worth ninety-five out of a hundred in looks and figure, but would inevitably lose points upon closer inspection: calloused hands from years of labor, a less-than-delicate posterior from riding sheep and horses, and perhaps ignorance or lack of refinement. Deducting points accordingly, she might still end up with around eighty-five, which was considered quite good.
Xu Fengnian had always scoffed at female warriors for good reason. Though they appeared ethereal and otherworldly, unless they had truly reached the pinnacle of cultivation, their hands would inevitably bear calluses, and if they wielded weapons, who could guarantee they were free of scars? He recalled an old saying from the old man in the sheepskin cloak: once, in the Southern Sea, there was a young and beautiful female warrior who walked barefoot in white robes, earning admiration from all. But when Li Chungan, then the martial arts champion, remarked that her feet were too large, the girl was said to have burst into tears. After losing a duel to Li Chungan, she never returned to the Central Plains. Evidently, being a famous female warrior was no easy feat—especially for those “gifted” with a voluptuous figure, whose every movement might draw admiring glances, while she herself likely suffered in silence.
The shepherd girl, upon first encountering the man who had passed her in the canyon, had gone through a whirlwind of emotions: surprise, fear, guilt, and finally joy. She tightly gripped her exquisite Qiang flute, too afraid to speak. At first, she feared that this young swordsman, who had done so much for her tribe, might leave without a word. Seeing him standing nearby with a faint smile, she finally felt reassured. Yet her palms had begun to sweat, leaving her beloved flute damp. Biting her lip, she dared not disturb her savior’s thoughts.
She was not born into the tribe. As an infant, she had been abandoned outside a felt tent, left only with a Qiang flute engraved with the words “Yelü Murong.” As she grew, her beauty became more striking, yet in the grasslands, a woman’s beauty was merely another commodity to be weighed and sold to the Xiti. The Xiti who ruled her tribe was a minor noble, more concerned with maintaining his status than expanding his influence. Upon hearing of the so-called unparalleled beauty that had appeared among his people, he quickly decided to offer her to a greater Xiti in exchange for new pastures. The small tribe, unwilling to endure such humiliation, chose to migrate en masse. Enraged, the petty Xiti sent cavalry to pursue them. Forced to flee across tribal borders, the shepherds paid a hefty toll in gold and silver to pass through neighboring lands, too afraid to reveal the truth. Yet the secret eventually reached an elderly and powerful Xiti, who, despite his age, was still ambitious and lusted after the girl. He slaughtered over a dozen trailing riders and pursued the tribe himself.
What followed was a deadly struggle among the Xitis. Though the shepherds suffered few casualties, several cavalry units were gradually eliminated, one by one. The last Xiti was a cadet branch of the Yelü clan, known for his cruelty in both governance and warfare. Uninterested in beauty, he ordered the extermination of the shepherds, leading to the cold-blooded decision to drive them into a trap. By sheer coincidence, the situation was disrupted by the chance intervention of a Buddhist sage from the Southern Lands and the heir of Beiliang, plunging the chaos even deeper and allowing the shepherds to barely survive. Eventually, they settled in this fertile land. A few days ago, in the canyon, the girl had approached the tribal chief, offering to go to the Xiti’s camp if they were ever harassed again. Though the elderly chief, burdened by the lives of a hundred souls, had initially resisted, he could no longer refuse. The tribe’s young warriors were already muttering in discontent.
Life was harsh for the shepherds, and they could not afford sentimental luxuries. Yet she remained kind-hearted, always careful not to harm even an ant while sweeping the ground. Her survival was owed not only to her beauty but also to the tribe’s pity for her tragic fate. In the grasslands, beauty was seldom a blessing.
Xu Fengnian was never one to assume the best in people. Even someone as revered as the abbot of Liangchan Temple could not escape his suspicion. These past few days, he had been pondering the true nature of this “good fortune.” Especially in the canyon, the delayed arrival of the Buddhist lion’s roar had led to the deaths of hundreds of wild oxen—an indirect consequence of the old monk Longshu’s mistake. Did this not confirm the words of the Taoist priest from Xingziyan, that monks could never truly treat all beings equally? How could one even begin to calculate such a debt? The concept of fate and virtue, when stripped down, was nothing more than a meticulous accounting with Heaven itself, where every action had its cost and reward. The old monk had already reached the level of a Buddha, yet Xu Fengnian, using his own crude method, tried to think on a grand scale: when he eventually inherited the throne of Beiliang, would that have any bearing on the prophecy of the end of Buddhism in Beiman? There were whispers that Liangchan Temple had originally intended to send the young monk Nanbei to debate the Taoists on Golden Summit, but the plan was abandoned after a dream of the girl Dongxi. According to intelligence gathered by Beiliang spies, the dream foretold an army of iron riders descending upon Beiliang. While Xu Fengnian was curious about Nanbei’s journey to enlightenment, he was far more concerned about the origin of those riders. The dream’s implications were vast. Even Li Yishan, who had always dismissed superstition, had exhausted himself poring over Buddhist and Taoist scriptures, attempting to interpret the dream through the *I Ching*, only to gain little insight.
One thread pulled, the entire tapestry shifted. After the white-robed monk won the debate at Mount Longhu, he and the Grand Master Zhao Danping were summoned to the imperial capital of Tai’an. Soon after, the abbot himself descended the mountain to preach the Dharma to the Qilin Taoist of the Dao De Sect in Beiman.
After an initial surge of agitation, Xu Fengnian’s mind wandered far and wide, only to return to a state of calm so profound that he began to worry about his own physical condition. He sighed inwardly and approached the girl—worth at least eighty-five out of a hundred—and took the Qiang flute from her hands. Seeing the four Beiman characters engraved upon it, he frowned and asked, “Do you understand the language of the Southern Dynasties?”
Her voice was barely audible, like the buzzing of a mosquito: “I understand it, but I don’t speak it well.”
Beiman’s script and language had once been complex and varied, but under the rule of the female emperor, they had gradually been standardized. Still, the Northern and Southern Dynasties remained distinct. Every time the empress went on a hunting tour, she followed ancient customs, discussing matters with her ministers in whispered tones. The Northern court officials, especially those of noble birth, often mocked the accents of the Southern officials, proud of their own supposed purity of blood.
After the end of the Spring and Autumn Wars, the Central Plains stabilized. Beiman, under the rule of the female emperor—who had first acted as regent for her young son and later usurped the throne—was left in turmoil as it struggled to resettle the refugees from the war. During the six great wars between Beiman and Liyang, the latter claimed victory twice, but only once did they achieve a decisive win: when they seized the momentum of unifying the Spring and Autumn states, took advantage of Beiman’s instability, and launched a full-scale invasion. The emperor himself led the charge, attacking from three fronts and pushing all the way to the current capital of the Southern Dynasty. Unfortunately, he failed to finish the job, allowing Beiman to regroup. The world blamed Xu Shao, the King of Beiliang, for selfishly preserving his army and refusing to complete the conquest. In truth, however, secret negotiations were already underway. Xu Shao, risking his own head, personally petitioned the emperor, vowing that with a single secret decree, he would lead the Beiliang army alone into the north, even if it cost twenty thousand lives, to ensure that Beiman would never again bear the title of a kingdom.
The old chancellor merely sneered at the emperor’s side.
The next day, Xu Shao was ordered to retreat to Beiliang, a gesture of goodwill from the Liyang court.
This was yet another time Xu Shao bore the blame for the greater good. Many veteran soldiers quietly left the Beiliang army at this time.
In the five subsequent wars, Liyang suffered more defeats than victories, with the fourth being the most devastating, nearly wiping out the elite border forces accumulated by the previous emperor. Along the eastern front north of Tai’an, a scorched-earth strategy was adopted, forbidding any offensive actions. It was only when General Gu Jiantang resigned from his post as Minister of War and personally took command of the Liaodong and Liaoxi regions, with strong support from Chancellor Zhang Julu—despite criticism from the literati—did the tide begin to turn slightly.
Xu Fengnian asked bluntly, “Do you know who your parents were?”
She shook her head. “I’m an orphan. The tribe raised me.”
Xu Fengnian, well-versed in the royal family’s dark secrets, smiled and asked, “Have you never wondered if you might be a lost princess of the Yelü or Murong clans?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open—clearly, the thought had never crossed her mind. Xu Fengnian caught a glimpse of her pink tongue behind her white teeth, and his heart stirred again. Yet he felt no shame at his thoughts; instead, he glanced downward and silently praised himself—his diligent practice of the Great Huang Ting had likely left no irreversible side effects. Otherwise, he really would have to find a block of tofu and run headfirst into it. With that worry gone, his mood lightened, and he pushed aside the troubling thoughts. He recalled how he had once paid handsomely for countless poems, only for his second sister to praise just one line—”Woes of tomorrow shall wait for tomorrow”—and how he had joyfully sent another seven hundred taels of silver to the poor scholar who wrote it, one tael per character. Later, he heard that the scholar had passed the imperial exams and gained a modest reputation in the capital, one of the few who refused to join the literati in condemning the young prince, likely earning him years of obscurity on a cold bench before finally securing a minor post in a remote county.
Sitting by the lake, Xu Fengnian beckoned her to sit beside him. The unique fragrance of her presence made him feel as though he had returned to a different world—since leaving Feihu City, he hadn’t even seen a female mosquito. While the wild oxen roamed, he had been absorbed in studying the “Fish Swimming Form” from the sword manual, too preoccupied to distinguish gender, let alone act on any distinction. Yet now, the thought sent a shiver down his spine, and he laughed heartily, finding a moment of joy amidst the hardships of his journey in Beiman. When he saw the girl sitting stiffly beside him, puzzled by his laughter, his face flushed slightly at the thought he had dared not voice. He lowered his head and gently stroked the Qiang flute—two deep purple bamboo tubes bound with gold and silver threads, the holes smooth and unmarred despite years of use. A fine instrument indeed. Though Xu Fengnian was no stranger to calligraphy, he carefully examined the four Beiman characters engraved on it—Murong first, then Yelü. The craftsmanship was exquisite. He did not offer to exchange it, merely smiling and saying, “Keep this token safe. One day, you may rise from shepherd girl to conquer the Xianbei. When that day comes, remember me kindly.”
Seeing him caress her flute so tenderly, the girl blushed deeply, her beauty even more radiant.
But when she saw the young man from the Southern Dynasty idly tapping the flute against his back, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment in her eyes.
Whether out of belated realization or deliberate mischief, Xu Fengnian caught her expression and couldn’t help but smile. He twirled a finger around the flute’s mouthpiece, mischief dancing in his eyes.
The girl, ever sensitive, looked on the verge of tears.
He handed the flute back to her, lying back on the grass. Such a peaceful day was unlikely to last.
The girl, still clutching the flute and sitting cross-legged beside him, lowered her head and murmured, “I’m sorry.”
This time, she truly wept.
Xu Fengnian knew she was apologizing for her fear after being rescued in the canyon. He smiled slightly and said in a calm tone, “It’s not wrong for a woman to be timid. If you feel it’s a flaw, you can always be braver. Sit on me, and I promise not to resist, even if it means sacrificing my honor.”
He had meant it as a joke, a playful tease.
But the girl, having exhausted all her courage in one go, sat heavily on his waist.
The young prince, caught off guard, sucked in a sharp breath and said with mock solemnity, “Lady, I must ask you to behave yourself!”
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