The Third Scholar of the Song Dynasty

Chapter 20

"We are friends, and friends should be willing to go to great lengths for each other, even to the death." The little girl actually knew this saying. Wasn't she a pampered princess of Western Xia? How could she be so familiar with this江湖 (jianghu, a term referring to the martial arts world) slang?

Who told you that?

"My master."

It got dark quickly, and whether they forgot or did it on purpose, no one brought them dinner. The two were hungry and had no other choice but to chat idly.

From the little girl, she learned that the girl was Li Yuanhao's daughter, that Li Yuanhao was dead, and that her eleven-year-old brother was now the king of Western Xia, but that power was in the hands of the young Empress Dowager, Meizang. Meizang wanted to marry her off to a Khitan for a political alliance, so she escaped.

Li Yuxuan chuckled and said, "Why don't you marry him? Is it because he's not handsome enough?"

Li Xinyun paused for a moment in the darkness: "I've never seen them, but I don't like the Khitans."

"Aren't you going back? It's not a solution for you to stay out here like this. You have to go back eventually."

"I'll go back after I get married." That's a very firm statement.

Light and footsteps came from outside, and the two women fell silent. The footsteps approached them, and soon the door to the woodshed opened. A man carrying a gas lantern walked in, placed two black steamed buns and a bowl of water in front of them, and said, "Get up and eat."

Strange, this man speaks the official language of the Song Dynasty. Li Yuxuan looked at the man's face in the lamplight, and realized that he was the man who had been escorting her, the leader of this group.

What is he here for?

Murder to silence her, to destroy evidence? She had been wondering why they arrested her, and why they didn't use her to pay the annual tax, but instead made her run away feeling guilty. It was really strange.

She gave that Eiffel Tower-like figure a disdainful look: "If you can't eat, you feed me."

Anyone with eyes can see they can't eat it all. Are they supposed to eat it like dogs? They'd rather starve than do that.

The man chuckled coldly and untied the ropes binding her hands: 'Do you think I'm afraid you'll starve to death?'

"Why would I bring you food if you're not afraid of starving to death? It's better if you starve to death so that Western Xia and the Song Dynasty can unite and destroy you, Khitan. Don't glare at me. It's not surprising that I know you're Khitan, because the person next to me is Princess Xinyun of Western Xia. Don't glare at her. Everyone saw that you captured us. I'm afraid someone has already gone to Helan Mountain to report this. (Helan Mountain was the location of the Western Xia palace at the time.) As for me, besides being an imperial envoy of the Song Dynasty, I'm also the sworn brother of the current Prince Xin and the future consort of Princess Fu'an. Tell me, if the two of us die, is it possible that Western Xia and the Song Dynasty could unite to attack you, Khitan? Moreover, you even want to seize the annual tribute that the Song Dynasty gives to Western Xia. Thinking about it this way, the reason to attack you is more than sufficient." It was so satisfying that this guy could understand her words.

The man's face darkened: "What did you say? I don't understand. Eat something now, or I'll kill you all."

Li Yuxuan stretched his hands, picked up the water and drank a few sips, then helped Li Xinyun up, fed her water and a steamed bun... and then ate a steamed bun himself. The two of them treated the man as if he were invisible.

The man suddenly asked Li Yuxuan, "You are not Prince Xin!" Although it was a question, it was stated as a statement.

This question does not need an answer.

Why are you wearing Prince Xin's clothes?

"Is the person you're looking for Prince Xin?" Have they arrested the wrong person? She was just holding Prince Xin's clothes. What a huge misunderstanding.

How do you know I'm not Prince Xin?

"You said it yourself. I knew it when I arrested you last night." If you knew you made a mistake, why didn't you let me go back? A child who doesn't admit their mistakes isn't a good child.

"Why are you arresting Prince Xin? Aren't you afraid of starting a war?"

"I am not a Khitan." He stubbornly insisted.

"Alright, never mind, but your plan was really poor. With the wisdom of Prince Xin, Zhan Zhao, and Scholar Xu, your little tricks certainly won't fool them. If you had stolen the silver, you could have denied it to the death. If you hadn't stolen it, you could have just run away. After all, nobody knows you, and even if everyone knows the truth, there's no evidence. But now you've captured me and Princess Xinyun, becoming a troublesome fuse. I really don't know what you were thinking. Even if you're just a warrior, don't you have any strategists or advisors?"

The man's face turned pale. He had come to try and find out about the situation of the Song Dynasty and the tax revenue from Li Yuxuan, so he could make a decision on his next move. He hadn't expected that Li Yuxuan would also capture Princess Xinyun of Western Xia. What the man said wasn't entirely unreasonable—Shi Guang had planned to capture Prince Xin to negotiate with the Song court, but not only had he mistakenly arrested the wrong person, he had also captured an extra one…

Seeing the man remain silent, Li Yuxuan continued, "Actually, it's not that difficult. If you release us now, we can simply say we didn't know who you were when we go back, and we can all part ways amicably. After all, nobody wants to see war on the border, right? This way, it's good for you, good for me, good for him, and good for everyone, don't you think?"

"Shut your mouth, you bastard!" The man was enraged by what Li Yuxuan said and slapped her across the face. "I can kill you all and it will all be known to heaven and earth."

Li Yuxuan couldn't dodge it in time and took the slap squarely on his face, which immediately swelled up on one side and burned with pain. He bit his lower lip, and blood trickled down the corner of his mouth.

Li Xinyun, who had been silent until now, said in a hoarse voice, "Kid, I'll remember you. I'll get my revenge."

After hitting Li Yuxuan, the man paused for a moment, then picked up the Qi Si Feng Lantern and walked out.

The room returned to darkness.

Whether the man was frightened by her words or not, he forgot to tie her hands. She gritted her teeth and groped in the darkness to untie the ropes on her feet, then untied the ropes for Li Xinyun: "Are your acupoints still sealed?"

Li Xinyun replied in the darkness, "It was already untied."

"Then what do we do?"

"Run!"

Unexpected

How do we escape?

"I don't know, let's go outside first and talk about it later."

Seeing Li Xinyun about to open the wooden gate, Li Yuxuan grabbed her hand: "No rush, let's slip away around midnight, that's when we're most sleepy."

Li Xinyun made a shushing gesture to him, opened the wooden gate a little, looked outside, and then came back in: "Strange, there are no guards outside."

Li Yuxuan's mind raced: "He didn't do it on purpose, did he? He knew he had arrested the wrong people, but he didn't dare to kill us, so he deliberately let us escape."

"Who cares! Let's go out and talk about it. If we stay here and anger them, we might really be killed to silence us!" With this thought in mind, the two became bolder, crept to the entrance of the inn, opened the door, and slipped out.

Shh, there really isn't anyone guarding it.

The two raced away from the town. Reaching its edge, Li Xinyun suddenly stopped under a large tree and said, "Wait for me here." She vanished in a flash, only to reappear a moment later riding a horse and leading another. She handed the horse to Li Yuxuan: "Get on!"

Li Yuxuan climbed onto the horse's back by leaning against a large tree, and the two rode south, following the direction of the Big Dipper. At dawn, they found themselves on a desolate grassland.

Everything looked the same from all sides, and Li Yuxuan couldn't tell which way to go. He hoped to see the sun, but he couldn't even find the sunrise. The sky was overcast, as if it would rain at any moment.

The two had no choice but to continue riding forward, hoping to find a trace of human habitation. After an unknown amount of time, just as Li Yuxuan was becoming dizzy with hunger, Li Xinyun excitedly shouted from the side, "Look!"

Looking up, there was nothing there, just more grassland: "What are you looking at?"

"We've spotted a mountain range ahead. Where there are mountains, there must be people. Let's head over there."

Mountains? Looking into the distance, I can see the silhouette of mountains, so far away...

Li Xinyun had already happily spurred her horse and galloped off in that direction. Li Yuxuan knew that Li Xinyun was far superior to her in terms of survival knowledge on the grasslands, so she mustered her strength and followed her.

Sure enough, after walking for a while, they rounded a small hill and found themselves in a more populated area, with tents and herders everywhere. As they continued walking, at sunset, a city suddenly appeared before them.

Two unfamiliar characters are prominently displayed on the city wall.

Looking at Li Xinyun, she shook her head as well. But she smiled brightly: "Who cares? As long as I have a place to sleep and a place to eat, that's fine."

Li Yuxuan knew that the two of them had attracted attention by entering the city in such a dusty and travel-worn manner. However, she looked around at the crowd and saw that there were quite a few people like them, dressed in all sorts of clothes. The two followed a caravan into the city and went into the first inn they entered.

Li Yuxuan had silver notes on him, but the shopkeeper refused to accept them and insisted on paying in silver. Li Yuxuan took off the jade pendant from his neck and handed it to the shopkeeper, who then asked the waiter to take them to a room upstairs.

Once inside the room, Li Yuxuan lay down on the bed and started to sleep. Li Xinyun, however, seemed tireless and went out to buy a lot of food.

When Li Yuxuan woke up, he saw her still eating. He asked curiously, "Aren't you tired at all? And where did you get the money to buy things?"

Li Xinyun pointed to Li Yuxuan's coat: "Your silver notes."

"Don't we want it here?"

“I took it to the pawnshop, and they offered it for ten taels out of one hundred.”

...

Li Yuxuan considered herself a wealthy person, but at this moment she was worshipping Li Xinyun, a super-rich man, treating a hundred taels of silver as ten taels. She really didn't care about losing her father's money. She wasn't her father, and she was supposed to rely on this money to support herself in her old age.

She tried to sit up to pull her coat back, but as soon as she moved, her muscles started to ache like needles, from head to toe, no part of her body was spared. The pain made her grimace and dare not move anymore. She had probably taken a nap and her tense nerves had relaxed, and the aftereffects of the bumpy ride of a day and a night had kicked in.

She was lamenting her tragic life and miserable fate when suddenly the room went dark. A slight noise came from the door, and with that noise, a biting cold wind rushed in without warning, instantly turning the room as cold as an ice cellar. She was so frightened by this sudden situation that she quickly shrank into the quilt.

A faint, ancient, eerie laugh echoed in her ears, fleeting across the room before fading into an unbearable silence. She hid under the covers, barely daring to breathe, silently chanting Amitabha Buddha. Although she didn't believe in ghosts, ever since encountering the Corpse Child, she had developed a sense of awe towards the things of the martial world. Besides, she knew absolutely no martial arts; anyone with even a little skill could easily mold her, flatten her, steam her, boil her, or tear her apart and sell her off.

It's strange, why can't I hear Li Xinyun's voice? And I can't hear any fighting sounds either.

After shivering and imagining things for a long time in bed, Li Yuxuan made sure she hadn't heard a single sound outside before cautiously poking her head out from under the covers. The room was still pitch black, but her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness under the covers. She saw the faint moonlight streaming in through the window and the open door.

She called softly, "Xinyun? Little girl?"

No one answered. Only her own breathing could be heard in the darkness.

The room was still chilly; northern nights are inherently freezing. As soon as she poked her head out from under the covers, the cold air made her sneeze twice. She didn't dare go out, so she huddled back under the covers for a while, calming her wildly beating heart. After giving herself a hundred pep talks and encouragements, she mustered her courage and sat up again.

Nothing happened.

She endured the pain and got up to light the oil lamp in the room.

The room was the same as before, except Li Xinyun was nowhere to be seen. Her leftover snacks were still where she had been sitting—no, some were scattered on the floor. A few more were on the windowsill. The window was open.

With the light on in the room, she became a little bolder. Holding the lamp, she circled the room. She never wanted to think about the worst-case scenario first, so she guessed that Li Xinyun was deliberately scaring her and playing hide-and-seek with her. So she searched every nook and cranny of the room, not missing any place that could or could not be visited by people. She even chased out and gloriously killed a spider that had been under the bed for who knows how long and was freezing to death.

After searching for a long time, she couldn't find a single hair of Li Xinyun. She could only assume the worst about Li Xinyun's whereabouts.

Could it be that she was kidnapped so quickly? This was the answer she drew from the fruit crumbs on the windowsill. She wouldn't be playing hide-and-seek on the roof, would she? And why would she play hide-and-seek for no reason? From their interactions over the past few days, she knew that although Li Xinyun was mischievous and willful, she wasn't someone who was so mischievous as to be completely out of control.

This answer was completely unbelievable to her. Li Xinyun's martial arts skills were indeed impressive; she had observed them fight Wang Rou and the others from the sidelines and concluded that Li Xinyun possessed such high levels of martial arts that she had disarmed Li Yuxuan without uttering a word, and without even harming a single hair on her head. This was too incredible, too unbelievable.

She didn't believe it; she wouldn't give up.

"Miss Li, please come out! Don't scare me. You know I'm easily frightened. Please come out! I know it was wrong of me to hide when danger came. I know it was wrong of me not to catch you when you fell from the tree. I know it was wrong of me not to tell you my secret. Please, please come out!" Please come out! I'm so scared without you. I worry about you and about myself. I'm really timid. If you're gone, leaving me all alone, how am I supposed to face this completely unfamiliar place? And I'll feel guilty for the rest of my life. I deceived the feelings of such a pure young girl like you—

There was still no answer from the room. In that instant, Li Xinyun seemed to have vanished from the room.

The silence of the room made Li Yuxuan uneasy. He could no longer care about the pain in his body, so he threw on his coat and ran to the lobby on the first floor.

The waiter on night duty in the lobby was sleeping behind the counter when Li Yuxuan shook him awake like a rattle-drum. Seeing that Li Yuxuan was dressed in the long robes of a Song Dynasty scholar, the waiter knew she was the one who had traded a piece of fine Hetian jade for lodging earlier that day. Annoyed, he asked irritably, "What's the rush in the middle of the night?"

When Li Yuxuan saw the waiter speaking to her, the annoying thing was that she couldn't understand what he was saying at all. She could only ask him with gestures if he had seen her companion leave the house or be captured by someone.

The waiter, still half-asleep, watched Li Yuxuan anxiously talking and jumping around. After a while, he finally realized she was asking if anyone had gone out earlier and shook his head.

Li Yuxuan wanted to ask more, but seeing the waiter's blank look, he knew that he wouldn't get any answers by talking to him like this. So he had no choice but to give up and return to his room dejectedly.

There was still no sign of Li Xinyun in the room.

Or perhaps an assassin came just now, and Li Xinyun chased after him? But why didn't she leave a sound?

Li Yuxuan dared not sleep anymore, and sat on the bed with his eyes wide open, waiting for Li Xinyun to return.

She waited until the first light of dawn appeared outside the window, then got out of bed to get some water. Suddenly, she felt a chill in the room and instinctively looked towards the door, which was open again. Looking back at the bed, the water glass in her hand clattered to the floor, and she collapsed onto the bed.

extra

My acquaintance with Li Yuxuan was quite strange. The day after the imperial examination, to escape the pursuit of the examination committee, I hid in a latrine, where I unexpectedly encountered Li Yuxuan, the third-ranked scholar in the same examination. Before the exam, as classmates, we had a few casual interactions. He was a wealthy man, very generous with his money, and I used to think he was just a spoiled brat, speaking without restraint and able to chat and laugh with everyone. His cheerfulness and generosity attracted many people to him, and every time he appeared, I couldn't see the loneliness of years of hard study in him.