Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
That night Fan Xian went home, and having learned that Yang Wanli and his group had come by, Fan Xian was not greatly concerned. What he had wanted to say to them was what he had said in the tavern: he asked them to be good officials, to love and protect the common people, and to work to rise through the ranks. Though Fan Xian was not some great hero of the people, if his own disciples could become such people, then he would be satisfied. As for any clandestine tasks he could give them to carry out, that was a matter for another time.
As he was about to depart, he naturally wanted to meet with his younger sister Ruoruo for a tearful goodbye, and to warn Sizhe about the issues of his money-making ventures. He paid his respects to his father and to Lady Liu, and then returned to his bedroom, preparing himself for bed, and comforting his own forlorn young wife… only to find that his brother-in-law, the simpleminded Dabao, was in his bedroom.
Fan Xian smiled as he chatted with Dabao, and nearby, Lin Wan’er watched them, feeling somewhat odd. Her husband and her brother had a strange relationship. She didn’t think they’d have that much to talk about, and she didn’t know why Fan Xian had such a patient temper.
Some time later, Fan Xian and Dabao put their left hands on each other’s shoulders with a laugh and said something that sounded like a catchphrase. Finally, Fan Xian had a servant lead Dabao out.
What were you saying to Dabao?
Lin Wan’er clutched a thin quilt miserably as she watched him, pouting as if she were jealous of her brother. Her bare feet poked out from the hem of the quilt, snow-white under the golden coverlet. They were very beautiful.
Fan Xian smiled and sat on the side of the bed, extending a hand to rub his wife’s feet, his fingertips pressing down on her soft soles.
He was promising little Xianxian that he would be a good boy when I’m not here to play with him in the capital.’
Lin Wan’er felt an ache in her sole, and heard the play on words in his terms of endearment, and her snow-white face suddenly turned red. Even her ears went somewhat rosy. It seemed she was very pleased. She hurriedly withdrew her feet.
It’s still early, isn’t it?
she said timidly.
Fan Xian laughed.
It’s not too soon. Tomorrow I shall be leaving, and it must be as early as possible.
I see. Will your father see you off in the morning?
Lin Wan’er touched her husband – a refined scholar in public, and a shameless pervert behind closed doors. She didn’t know what to do, and had no choice but to distract him. But she had tried to distract him too many times.
Fan Xian had long been immune to it.
Your father scolded me, firstly about the exam hall scandal, and then about the diplomatic mission to Northern Qi. I don’t want to listen to his and my father’s arrangements.
In truth, he could clearly see that his father-in-law was concerned during his visit to the Prime Minister’s manor, but he didn’t know what the Prime Minister was worried about.
As he responded, he slid his feet under the quilt to stroke his wife’s. In a moment, he penetrated the covers, spread out his toes, and took hold of her soft flesh, leading her to cry out in surprise.
In their pillow talk as husband and wife, they would remember back to their meeting at the Temple of Qing. In the midst of such sweetness, Fan Xian’s heart pounded. He thought of the grandmaster Ku He of Northern Qi, and he thought of the Temple of the Void; for some reason, he became serious.
Sensing that he was out of sorts, Lin Wan’er propped herself up and leaned lazily onto his chest, smiling.
You leave tomorrow. What else are you thinking about?
Feeling his wife’s hair tickling his own bare chest, Fan Xian smiled. He put such trivial matters out of his mind, and with a furtive glance his gaze went past his wife’s night-black hair and greedily fell onto her soft, half-exposed bosom.
Wan’er looked him in the eyes, and felt that her husband’s clear and bright eyes seemed as if they could talk, with their soft gaze even gentler than that of any average woman. For a moment it seemed as if they were saying he would miss her, that they were saying he hated to have to part with her, that he would return as soon as he could… Hey—how could a gaze seem to say such vulgar words?
Following Fan Xian’s gaze, she finally realized that her undershirt had slipped down to her waist, and her top half was completely exposed. With an embarrassed squeal, she hurriedly dug under the quilt.
The sight inspired his arousal, and he feigned anger:
We are husband and wife, and yet you still hide?
Lin Wan’er’s face half-emerged from the blanket, and she looked at her husband shyly. But there was a shy smile in her limpid eyes, and her covered lips trembled as she spoke.
Fan Xian couldn’t make out what she had said. Her pale bare foot softly made its way out of the quilt, and her face emerged, revealing those soft and tender lips. With strands of hair just falling by them, she spoke bashfully.
My husband, did you not say before that… you wish to preserve… some… sense of mystery?
The erotic scene had left Fan Xian staring in awe, and now she kept that damnable sense of mystery – he lifted the quilt, drew her close, and together they watched Venus descend.
Some time later, after the winds had ceased, the rain had stopped, and the clouds had scattered, they were tired, Lin Wan’er finally opened her lake-like eyes.
You must come back soon,
she said tiredly.
Fan Xian’s eyes were closed, and he had a satisfied smile on the corners of his lips. He ran his fingers through his wife’s hair.
Don’t worry,
he said gently.
I’ve lived a life full of good luck. The journey will go just fine.
The next day, outside the prison of the Overwatch Council, which Fan Xian had seen once before, one of the current heads of the Overwatch Council stood by the iron gate, his face expressionless. Fan Xian narrowed his eyes and saw this former head of the Seventh Bureau, and was somewhat surprised to see the uneasiness in the man’s eyes.
And, surrounded by secret agents and swordsmen of the Sixth Bureau, a handful of carriages stopped outside the grand gate. Fan Xian stood some paces away from the carriages, and found that his Overwatch Council colleagues all seemed inexplicably nervous. The carriages had all been specially made, with walls of steel. The horses, whether from tiredness or nervousness, were panting incessantly.
With such a tense atmosphere, Fan Xian could not help but frown. He recalled the rumors surrounding this man who was about to be released from prison.
Xiao En, spymaster of Northern Wei, had had countless subordinates under his command, spread throughout the land. His spies were placed in every nation, skilled in manipulating the hearts of the people, trained in the use of poisons, toppling the sovereigns of countless petty kingdoms. Those who died by his hand, directly or indirectly, were enough to form a mountain of bones. And most fearsomely, this once-celebrated spymaster had a world-class mind and many powerful methods to employ; who knew how many times he had avoided the blades of assassins dispatched from enemy countries?
At that time, the civilian official most trusted by the King of Wei was Zhuang Mohan, and the military official he most relied on was Zhan Qingfeng; but the true pillar of the nation was Xiao En, who was always hidden in the shadows.
At that time, all of the land was in chaos. Thanks to the ruthless methods of Xiao En, the nations surrounding the Kingdom of Qing had been eliminated, which, as well as greatly expanding Northern Wei’s territory, had indirectly helped the Kingdom of Qing stabilize the country and found the nation.
But as the Kingdom of Qing slowly rose, Xiao En’s dark hand naturally reached southward. In those years, there had been chaos in the bureaucracy of the capital. After the demise of the founding Emperor, the two princes had pit themselves against each other, and behind this was the work of Xiao En. Northern Wei’s fierce armies were waiting for one of the princes to make a move against the other, at which point they would ride south and swallow up the Kingdom of Qing as their own territory.
But nobody knew that just at that moment, a young woman named Ye Qingmei, along with her young, blind manservant, entered the capital of the Kingdom of Qing. On the manservant’s back, he carried a black box.
Thus the two princes had mysteriously died, and King Cheng, the father of the current Emperor, had ascended to the throne. The Kingdom of Qing had not seen any real damage to its strength, and the capital gradually settled down; Northern Wei had missed its best chance to invade.
And it was at that moment that a man named Chen Pingping gradually emerged on the stage of history. Chen Pingping had started as a servant to King Cheng, but for some unknown reason, he had become King Cheng’s trusted aide, always by his side. And after the unconventional creation of the oddity that was the Overwatch Council, Chen Pingping had become its Director, a position he held to this day.
The people did not know what the Overwatch Council was at first; nor did they know that Ye Qingmei was still working behind the scenes. They only gradually became aware of Chen Pingping’s ruthlessness and of his dark gifts.
The world’s two most fearsome secret organizations answered to the world’s two greatest military powers. As the situation between Northern Wei and the Kingdom of Qing became more and more fraught, they began to secretly move against each other.
One year, the Kingdom of Qing finally took the plunge and carried out the first northern expedition. This operation, attempting the impossible, led to miserable defeat by Northern Wei, the most powerful country in the world.
In the face of Zhan Qingfeng’s cavalry and Xiao En’s dense spy network, the Crown Prince of the time – now today’s Emperor – suffered a series of losses, finally almost dying in the mountains and rivers of the north. The Black Knights, under the command of Chen Pingping, had led a daring rescue mission, clearing a bloody path through the battlefield to save his life and bring him back. At the same time, hidden within Shangjing, the capital of Northern Wei, a spy from the Overwatch Council disseminated rumors and bribed high officials, framing the High Commander Zhan Qingfeng. After a series of military operations, a small crack finally showed in the battlefield of the mountain ranges of the north.
The road home to Qing was long and dangerous, and troops were caught in dire straits without food or water many times. Chen Pingping – still young and strapping, unlike today – stoically gave all of his provisions to the Crown Prince and his subordinates, choosing to drink horse urine and eat wild grass… Finally, they were able to return to the capital, but with only a tenth of the men they had started with.
On the road, they had depended on a female prisoner from the City of Dongyi to attend to the Crown Prince, who had seen to his wounds and nursed him back to health. This female prisoner from Dongyi was the mother of the Great Prince of the Kingdom of Qing: Ning the Talented.
Some time later, the people still surmised that some plot of Chen Pingping’s had caused the royal family of Northern Wei to lose trust in Zhan Qingfeng, but nobody could say for sure. Even the Empress Dowager could not find out. Only a handful of people were faintly aware that it was said to have secretly had something to do with the Empress of Northern Wei.
From that day on, Chen Pingping had the absolute confidence of the Emperor and the Crown Prince. At the same time, a rumor spread through the land.
The North had Xiao En; the South had Chen Pingping.
