Legend of Fu Yao

She racked her brains, thinking, ‘Would this be another way of expressing her feelings?’ During her previous life, when little boys chased after little girls, they would always pull at their braids and made them cry.

“You don’t understand Tai Yan. People who grew up where I trained wouldn’t develop romantic feelings.” Zhangsun Wuji could tell what she was thinking, and he smirked. “If there was somebody who, from the first day you appeared, tried ways and means to chase you away, laid traps where you trained, let venomous beasts into your room while you slept, placed numbing needles in your clothes on the second day of your competition, following you wherever you went, constantly thinking up ways and means to get you in trouble—do you think this is called affection?”

Meng Fuyao remained silent for a moment before retorting, “What kind of lousy junior disciple is she, and, listening to her tone, what is she fighting with you for? Zhangsun Wuji, it’s not that I want to chastise you, but you’re the soon-to-be king of the top nation. What other position under the heavens could be higher than yours? Just let her off and save on this annoying nonsense.”

“Do you honestly think that there would be anyone or anything willing to let her off given that personality of hers?” Zhangsun Wuji sighed and continued quietly, “Apart from you, this is probably the only other thing in my life that I cannot stand, yet can’t do anything about.”

Meng Fuyao rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear anything.’

“Sleep.” Zhangsun Wuji patted her and said, “If you can’t fall asleep, I don’t mind accompanying you…”

“I’m so sleepy!” Meng Fuyao dashed to her room, sprinting faster than a hare, leaving Zhangsun Wuji and Lord Yuan Bao facing each other. After a long time, Lord Yuan Bao gave a long, melancholic sigh.

‘Ah… Black Pearl, why didn’t you die from obesity…’

Hearing Tai Yan’s tone, it seemed that Feng Jingfan had been saved by her, and unsurprisingly, the earth-shaking news arrived that Princess Lotus and Fourth Prince Feng of Xuanji had run into assassins at the border of Tiansha, the prince had managed to escape, but the princess was killed, and the King of Xuanji was extremely upset. Although he had many children, he had never chosen an heir, and it was said that he secretly wanted to choose the elegant and benevolent Lotus. Yet such an incident occurred, and the aggrieved empress had thrown a fit and prepared to head to Tiansha to settle scores with Zhan Nancheng, only to be stopped by the King of Xuanji. The couple even had a huge fight at the entrance of the palace, and the king’s face ended up having a few new scratch marks. With such a sacrifice, he managed to control the female tiger in his palace and hurriedly wrote a letter to Zhan Nancheng, beseeching him to hand over the murderer, but where was Zhan Nancheng supposed to look for the murderer? All the officials he had sent to Fu Mountain to investigate the murder had not come back to him.

Zhan Nancheng sighed impatiently as he scrunched his eyebrows. Just then, he met Meng Fuyao who was there to greet him. During this period, he had enjoyed working with her, and she had provided him with a considerable amount of military stratagems and advice. Zhan Nancheng had also begun bringing her along with him more and more, at the beginning they were separated by quite a distance, but later he let down his guard and often asked her to meet him.

Upon hearing it, she smiled and said, “How is this difficult? A three-legged toad is hard to find, but two-legged assassins are a dime a dozen.”

Thereafter, along with a group of guards, she personally left for Fu Mountain that night, traveling hundreds of miles to kill all the bandits located near the mountain.

After that, she ordered the heads of the bandits to be placed in front of the messengers from Xuanji, intentionally forgetting to preserve the heads, which began to rot in the summer heat, causing the officials and Fourth Prince Feng to run away before even taking a look at the heads, retching, and vomiting against the mountain walls.

Meng Fuyao grabbed a head and ran after them, saying, “Eh eh, take a good look first, seeking revenge for the princess is more important-”

Fourth Prince Feng covered his face with his robes as he shut his eyes and turned away, waving his hand and exclaiming, “It’s fine—It’s fine—It’s fine—”

‘Fine it is then, who asked you not to look carefully.’

When Meng Fuyao returned to the palace to report to Zhan Nancheng, the two of them smiled at each other, and Zhan Nancheng’s eyes glinted as he asked, “Did you do it? You and I have always been honest and frank with each other, you can tell me, I won’t tell anyone else.”

Meng Fuyao smiled at him and said, “Your Majesty, during the incident at Fu Mountain last night, your servant was still at the restaurant drinking wine. I think Your Majesty knows it too, but if I had been given the chance, I truly wanted to say that I had done it myself.”

Zhan Nancheng broke into laughter, thinking that he and Meng Fuyao had come to understand each other even more. But Meng Fuyao brought out a piece of paper and discreetly handed it to Zhan Nancheng. “Your Majesty, I found something important!”

The moment Zhan Nancheng read it, his expression changed.

Written in crooked handwriting were the words: “Black Dragon in the wild, raising our flag high in the wind!”

Zhan Nancheng rolled the piece of paper up and leaned heavily against his armrest, then stood up and walked around the room restlessly, his head bowed in thought. From his semi-bowed appearance, his eyes flickered, and his expression was that of anger, with a hint of concern within the anger, as he continued to think without saying anything.

Meng Fuyao pretended not to know anything and asked innocently, “I don’t know what kind of secret language that is, there was a folksong from the village in the four wilderness, has Your Majesty heard of it?”

“It is but nonsensical and ignorant gibberish,” replied Zhan Nancheng. Then, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked at her, saying slowly after a moment, “General Meng, since you were unhappy about not being able to fight when you were at Wuji, are you willing to help Tiansha and establish yourself lest you live a life without achievement?”

‘My God, you’ve finally asked the question!’

Meng Fuyao felt a tinge of warmth in her heart, and her eyes became teary, but on her face was an excited and nonchalant expression as she said immediately, “Very well, these few days I’ve already quit being Wuji’s official. Now, I will build up a huge army under Your Majesty’s command, best if it’s a border army so that I can-”

“You are such a talented individual, how could I ask you to suffer and be the leader of the border army?” Zhan Nancheng waved his hand. “You will hold a vice-captain position in the imperial camp’s Flying Leopard Army. Although it’s of the fourth rank and not as high as your original position, if you do it well, the position of the General of the Flying Leopard Army will be yours!”

“Your order is my command!”

After a thousand years outside of Tiansha, returning on the seventh month, Black Dragon rises from the wild.

Ever since parting at Pandu she had not heard any news from Zhan Beiye, yet the moment she heard from him, it was with such shocking accomplishment.

On the thirteenth day of the seventh month, Zhan Beiye had just arrived at Geya and barely had any rest, yet he immediately summoned the huge army hidden in Geya to join the north-eastern border soldiers in battle. Killing the enemy general Liu Wei, he earned the title of “Unstoppable King” as he raised the flags of rebellion and successfully stormed his way into the mainland of Tiansha.

At the same time, when he was on the way to Geya, the warriors from the wild had already begun their attack, using the strength that they had built over many years, from Pan Du to Geya, killing the assassins hidden in Changchun Mountain and all who doubted Zhan Beiye’s loyalty for the kingdom.

Rumors of Zhan Nancheng’s army misusing his army had also spread all around and even a legend was spread, “The gods determine the victors of war, the ancestors have a saying, within the two generations, Black Dragon of the wild has sided with the Ferocious King, the king chosen by the heavens has arrived.” The legend quickly spread thousands of miles to the mainland of Tiansha, eating away at the people’s faith in the current king.

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, Yuecheng fell.

On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, Yunyang fell.

On the twentieth day of the seventh month, Kuixi fell.

On the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month, Jinyan, the capital city of the Taijing government, surrendered the city as the Black Dragon banner approached.

On the twenty-sixth day of the seventh month, the final barrier between the north of Tiansha and the central region, the city of Jinshui, was broken, and three thousand soldiers were released.

On the twenty-seventh day of the seventh month, the capital city of Minglin surrendered.

On the third day of the eighth month, when the great Black Dragon army was resting their horses by the river, the undefeated army finally encountered their first great resistance right in front of the greatest border of Tiansha. The two armies were separated by the river as they stared at each other, shouting across at each other. The killing intent of both sides could be felt across the river like a black cloud, a huge battle imminent.

On the third day of the eighth month, at night, along the banks of a ferociously flowing river, atop a tall rock, was a man in black sitting on a black horse, staring far into the south, the moonlight engraving his shadow on the ground like iron.

The wind howled, the night seemed to slow as he flew by in his black robes, the red embroidery on his shirt like a furnace burning from within.

As the moon shone on his single face, illuminating his dark eyebrows, illuminating textures on his shirt, illuminating the expression on his face as he looked up into the sky above the heart of Tiansha, his eyes were filled with deep longing.

‘Fuyao… I used the fastest time of two months to return to Tiansha and to the place closest to you.

‘Are you… well?

‘At this moment.’

When the Ferocious King Beiye blazed through the seven nations, the city of Pandu was facing a similar rebellion, and 100,000 soldiers were being activated to quell the rebellion. Compared to the flames of war, a certain person’s promotion was not that obvious anymore, such as, a certain True Martial Arts Champion, a famous, skilled martial artist with no brains who gave up his position in Wuji to become a vice-captain in Tiansha’s imperial army.

One was an earth-shaking change, while the other was an inconspicuous promotion. From the looks of it, they seemed entirely unrelated, and nobody would think of linking these two things together.

Hence, nobody knew the secret and unspeakable link between the two, just like the infinite possibilities on a chess board, nobody would be able to predict the ending of the nation’s great civil war at this moment.

On the third day of the eighth month, at night! There was wind and rain, the moonlight shone on the lonely river!

Meng Fuyao finally returned from her new position, swaying as she walked back, hugging several trees and smiling stupidly along the way—she had been invited to drink again. The new captain was generous and idiotic, just because she said a few words of praise he had been extremely happy and treated her out of his own pocket, inviting his fellow soldiers every few days to drink until they became good brothers. If not for the fact that there was an imminent war at hand and that the king would be angered, he would have brought the entire camp out to drink with beautiful ladies.

She had drunk too much again tonight. Leaning against a tree, she shouted for beauties, and knocking into another tree, she shouted for handsome men, making things difficult for Tie Cheng as he struggled to support her, unable to overcome her strength.

Before returning to Meng Fuyao’s manor, they had to pass by a small alley in the common folk’s neighbourhood, and Meng Fuyao walked by with familiarity, counting the number of shadows that the walked past. Suddenly, just as they rounded a bend, they banged into someone.