In a moment of desperation, Jiang Xingyan found clarity. She rolled toward life by throwing herself toward death, tumbling sideways.
She avoided the fatal blow from the spiked mace, but her left shoulder took a brutal hit.
The agony of breaking bone mixed with the searing pain of the spikes piercing her skin. The overwhelming shock of it made her vision go black and her head spin.
She bit the tip of her tongue hard, drawing blood to cling to a sliver of consciousness. With her right hand, she launched a dark, gleaming caltrop, aiming for the Iron Pagoda soldier’s only weak spot—his eye.
The man cried out, clutched his face, toppled backward, and died instantly.
That hidden weapon was coated in a lethal, fast-acting poison. Even a scratch was enough to kill.
Even with one arm completely disabled, the Hellish King could still kill effortlessly.
The remaining Iron Pagoda soldiers didn’t dare get too close.
Jiang Xingyan focused her gaze and saw they had lost their warhorses, becoming foot soldiers for close combat.
In the distance, the armored horses had all collapsed. Only one or two were still breathing raggedly, but death was inevitable.
Her mind was a tangled mess, full of information that needed sorting, all jumbled together and pressing painfully against her skull.
The men opposite her exchanged glances, silently conferring, then began to slowly close in.
Jiang Xingyan, her back against a large tree, tightened her grip on a hidden weapon, ready to send the first one who showed himself straight to the King of Hell.
“General, I’m here to help you!”
Xin Zhui’s voice, approaching from afar, sounded at that moment like a celestial deity descending to earth. Jiang Xingyan found herself forgiving all his past foolishness.
The Iron Pagoda soldiers instantly halted, wary looking around.
A figure suddenly appeared behind Jiang Xingyan, scooped her up onto his back, and ran.
The Iron Pagoda troops made to pursue, but a retreat horn sounded from the mountain. They had no choice but to stay with their horses and wait for the logistics corps to pull them back up the slope.
Xin Zhui had led his black horse to a safe place and then set it free to run. Years of training meant it knew how to find its way back to camp on its own.
He hadn’t dared delay for a moment. Doubling back at a full sprint, he followed the trail of battle until he found Jiang Xingyan. Seeing her surrounded by four or five men, he had deliberately called out from behind to draw their attention.
After rescuing her, he had glanced her over quickly. There was no blood on her, so she probably wasn’t seriously wounded… but why was she so weak?
Jiang Xingyan strained to look back. Seeing no pursuers, she finally relaxed completely.
With the sudden loss of that driving willpower, she nearly passed out from the pain. Biting her tongue, using the last shred of her clarity, she issued a command into Xin Zhui’s ear: “Tell the Second Prince… the entire army must immediately infiltrate Qingzhou City… seize the Prefect’s office…”
The final part of her order, “Don’t kill the Prefect yet,” remained unspoken. Jiang Xingyan’s head lolled to the side as she completely lost consciousness, sinking into a deep coma.
“General’s Wife!”
——-
A mere five days after Jiang Xingyan left, a major problem landed in the laps of Dongyang and Xiafeng.
The two women frowned, propping their chins in their hands with sighs.
“We’ve been thinking for two days straight, and we’re still no closer to a solution.”
“If Miss were here, she would have solved this ages ago.”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, right, should we go ask the State Preceptor?”
“Good idea! The State Preceptor has been Miss’s playmate since childhood. He must have learned a lot from her.”
Creak!
They had just stood up when the door opened.
Huo Ci stood in the doorway, his tone carrying a hint of apology but more so determination. “Has something happened with the shops? I can help.”
Dongyang and Xiafeng exchanged a glance, both wary.
“These trivial matters are not worth troubling the General over.”
Huo Ci wasn’t annoyed. He patiently explained, “I know you are wary of me, and would rather seek out Yun Chunfeng.”
“But currently, my identity is, after all, still that of your Miss.”
“If I step in to resolve this, wouldn’t it only solidify A-Yan’s standing in the shop managers’ eyes?”
Xiafeng thought it over; it did make sense.
Dongyang nodded in agreement. Deciding to treat a dead horse as if it were still alive, they resolved to explain the situation to him.
“General, ever since our Miss reorganized the shops, all the managers have been highly motivated, introducing new products to attract customers.”
“The managers have a good eye, the shop goods are novel and practical, and the prices are reasonable. Business has been booming, the shops are bustling every day.”
“The competitors can’t stand it. They’ve actually banded together and are boycotting us by slashing their prices.”
“For the same item, if we sell it for one qian, they sell it for seventy wen.”
“Their goods are counterfeits, so of course their costs are low.”
“But our shops sell genuine goods, and the cost alone is eighty wen.”
“The common folk don’t know any better. They’ve all gone to buy from the other shops. We haven’t made a single sale in days.”
Dongyang added, “Other items are one thing, but as the weather gradually gets hotter, the pastries and dried fruits from the dessert shop simply can’t last more than a few days.”
“If we can’t sell them soon, the losses will be disastrous.”
Huo Ci pondered briefly, and a solution came to him.
“Although I am not well-versed in the ways of commerce—”
This opening sentence made Dongyang and Xiafeng deflate simultaneously.
Had they wasted their breath?
Seeing their speechless expressions, Huo Ci gave a faint smile. “However, the essence of commerce is not much different from capturing cities and seizing territory.”
“Both require employing every means at your disposal to fight and compete.”
“Two similar shops are like two rival states.”
“A shop vying for customers, a state contending for land—the underlying principles are interconnected.”
While Dongyang was still lost in the clouds, Xiafeng’s eyes lit up.
She had read a few pages of military strategy with Miss a few days ago and found it very insightful.
“As the Art of War says, the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. The next best is to disrupt their alliances. The next is to attack their army. The worst is to besiege their city.”
“They’ve immediately resorted to the crudest tactic of price-slashing, trying to breach our defenses. Isn’t that just like the worst strategy of besieging a city?”
“Of course we shouldn’t engage them in a price war. That method of hurting the enemy five hundred while damaging ourselves a thousand is foolish.”
“Don’t forget, A-Yan holds the title of First-Rank Lady of the Court.”
“Add to that, each shop is officially gathering provisions by Imperial Decree, recognized by His Majesty himself as royal merchants. Why worry about having no way to deal with those scattered, undisciplined rivals?”
“Not only will we not lower our prices, we will raise them.”
“We simply need to do this—”
Huo Ci lowered his voice, instructing Xiafeng and Dongyang on what they needed to do.
The two women went from initial distrust to complete astonishment by the end.
General Huo truly was a military genius without equal. No wonder Beiluo suffered defeat every time.
Wait!
The two instantly reined in their innate admiration for strength and competence.
No matter how capable he was, wasn’t he still the scoundrel who had betrayed their Miss’s sincere heart?
Yes! Exactly!
“Hmph!”
Xiafeng and Dongyang snorted in unison, turned, and walked away.
Huo Ci was left utterly bewildered.
If there was one thing in this world most difficult to decipher, it was a woman’s mind.
Speaking of women, the first one Huo Ci thought of was Jiang Xingyan.
Time flew; a full five days had already passed.
He wondered if everything was going smoothly for A-Yan?
That thousand-li raid must be so hard on her.
“Why did those two girls go back to their room in such a huff?”
Dongxue came in, looking confused, carrying a set of matched clothes.
She was wondering if the General had bullied them, and whether she should report it to the State Preceptor.
She looked up and saw that the entire left arm of Jiang Xingyan’s body was gushing blood from the shoulder down, soaking through the clothes and dripping onto the floor.
“Miss!”