Daze was a city of rain. By the time Gu Mang finished counting the grain and provisions, the sky had already grown dim and heavy. Thick clouds like ink were rolling over the distant mountains, steadily approaching the outskirts of the city.
Gu Mang arranged for the cultivators who had transported the provisions to go to the barracks and rest. He also ordered people to cover the stacks of grain and hay in the granary with oilcloth.
Beyond the frontier, the wind began howling. The young cultivators shouted and hurried about, pressing down all four corners of the oilcloth just before the torrential rain began to fall.
Gu Mang heard someone shouting, “Hurry, hurry! It’s raining! Cover it quickly if you want to eat; cover it slowly and you’ll be drinking porridge! We’re fighting Heaven itself for our meals!”
Those words were something he used to shout often back when he was in the Bastard Army.
Gu Mang immediately looked up and, sure enough, saw one of his former subordinates with his trouser legs rolled up, standing on top of a stack of grain and shouting orders.
When that former subordinate noticed Gu Mang looking at him, he came stomping across the golden pile of grain.
“You’re Marshal Mo’s personal guard?”
“…Yeah.”
“New here, aren’t you? Don’t just stand there like an idiot. Even Marshal Mo’s personal guards in the Northern Frontier Army have work to do. Come on, hurry up and help!”
“Oh, sure.”
Gu Mang rolled up his sleeves, planted one hand against the side, and vaulted onto the grain pile in a few quick movements. Together, the two of them pressed bricks and stones onto all the corners of the oilcloth.
His former subordinate looked quite pleased.
“You’re pretty agile. No wonder you can work at Marshal Mo’s side.”
Gu Mang stepped carefully across the soft grain as they pressed down the cloth and chatted.
The former subordinate was a complete chatterbox and kept rambling beside Gu Mang.
“Hey, hey, put another one next to that piece.”
“The brick you’re holding isn’t heavy enough. You have no idea how fierce the torrential rain and winds are out here at the frontier. A little brick gets blown into the sky like a leaf.”
“What? You think I’m exaggerating? Not at all! Don’t let my young age fool you. I’m an old-timer in the Northern Frontier Army. I was already in the army back when the Northern Frontier Army was still called the Bastard Army. I fought alongside Gu—cough, I fought alongside Gu Mang. That rule about weighing down the oilcloth with bricks was something Gu Mang taught all of us back then.”
Gu Mang found it amusing and held back a laugh as he teased him.
“Gu Mang personally taught you how to weigh down the cloth?”
“Of course! I learned it in one go, and he even praised me for being clever. Why are you laughing? You don’t believe me?”
The young cultivator widened his eyes.
“I really am not lying to you. Don’t look at what a bastard Gu Mang became later. Back when he was in the army, well, he actually seemed pretty decent.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Marshal Mo is aloof, while Gu Mang was approachable. Their styles of managing the army were completely different. When we were first reorganized into the Northern Frontier Army, we weren’t used to it.”
Gu Mang smiled.
“Marshal Mo isn’t aloof. He’s just not good with words. He’s actually very good to all of you.”
The young cultivator shifted a brick that had been placed slightly crooked.
“Eh, whatever. Marshal Mo is just like that. He’s so serious in everything he says and does, and he’s cold and doesn’t like talking to people. But once you get used to it, it’s fine. At least it’s better than being assigned to Lord Xianwangshu.”
Gu Mang froze.
“Assigned to Lord Xianwangshu?”
“Yeah. There was a rumor that when His Majesty reorganized the Bastard Army before, he originally wanted to assign us to Lord Xianwangshu, or simply break us up and distribute us among the various military camps. But later, I don’t know what happened. I heard Marshal Mo went and said something to him, and then the army was transferred to Marshal Mo instead.”
“…”
The smile on Gu Mang’s face faded slightly.
He fell into thought.
So this had been His Majesty’s original plan for the thirty thousand remnants of the army he had left behind.
But Gu Mang knew what kind of person His Majesty was. Without some exchange of interests, His Majesty would never casually change his original decision.
What had Mo Xi done to make His Majesty change his mind?
“Ah, it’s raining.”
The young cultivator poked him.
“There’s only a little left. Once we’ve finished putting the bricks down, let’s go back to the camp and get out of the rain. There are oil-paper umbrellas in the granary. I’ll take you to get one later.”
Gu Mang came back to himself and nodded.
“Okay.”
The rain soon grew heavier, and the colors of heaven and earth seemed to be washed pale in an instant.
Daze—this city’s name had come from rain like this.
Gu Mang stood beneath the awning outside the granary. The cultivators responsible for storing the provisions had already opened umbrellas, raised protective barriers, or simply laughed and ran off.
The Northern Frontier Army was still the same as when he had been there before. Most of them were energetic, optimistic young people.
Even with a major battle coming tomorrow, it did not stop them from laughing and chasing one another through the rainwater puddles.
“Come on. The rain’s a little heavy, but we can splash our way back.”
The young cultivator invited him.
“It’s always been like this here. Those bad habits Gu Mang left behind can’t be changed. We’re noisy and undisciplined. Back then, he was always the fastest one running around in the rain.”
Standing beneath the dry awning, Gu Mang smiled.
“Because he was young back then. If you made him do it now, he definitely wouldn’t have the energy for it anymore. You go back first. I’ll leave once the rain gets a little lighter.”
The young cultivator didn’t insist. He simply stepped into the water and disappeared fearlessly into the depths of the rushing curtain of rain.
The granary was empty now.
Gu Mang stood quietly beside the wooden railing, looking up at the vast, indistinct landscape. The rain splashed against the ground, filling the air with the heavy smell of wet earth. Water gathered from the eaves and poured down in streams, leaving puddles everywhere.
Standing to one side, he watched the Northern Frontier cultivators with their arms around one another’s shoulders, laughing and shouting.
He watched their young backs disappear one after another into the distance.
And finally, he saw twenty-year-old Gu Mang and seventeen-year-old Mo Xi laughing as they held up a sheet of oilcloth and plunged headfirst into the torrential rain.
Gu Mang blinked his deep-blue eyes.
And those shadows became blurred.
When the rain finally weakened, Gu Mang opened his oil-paper umbrella and prepared to return.
But as he passed the central command tent, he saw candlelight glowing inside.
The dim, warm light reflected in the puddles, and whenever raindrops struck them, they became trembling ripples of light.
Gu Mang stopped.
Could it be that it was already this late, and Mo Xi still hadn’t returned?
He knew Mo Xi had a habit of going through his strategy once more on his own after finishing the battle plans.
But this was far too long.
He should have gone through it five or six times by now, let alone once.
Finding it strange, Gu Mang closed his umbrella and leaned against the tent. He gently lifted the curtain and walked inside.
There was indeed someone standing beside the sand table with his arms crossed, deep in thought.
But to Gu Mang’s surprise, that person wasn’t Mo Xi.
It was…
Gu Mang was slightly startled.
Murong Lian?
Murong Lian was half leaning, half sitting beside the sand table, holding a pipe that sent wisps of smoke curling upward.
His peach-blossom eyes were narrowed as he lazily smoked his tobacco and studied the map on the sand table.
Perhaps the rain was too loud, or perhaps he was simply too focused. He hadn’t heard Gu Mang enter.
He merely raised a hand, picked up several small flags, and placed them at different strategic choke points on the sand table.
Gu Mang watched carefully for a while.
Then, suddenly, he felt cold sweat trickling down his back.
The positions beneath Murong Lian’s flags were strange and unexpectedly obscure. His marching route was different from Mo Xi’s, but his methods were just as ruthless and forceful.
If his strategy were followed, the chances of victory might not be as high as Mo Xi’s.
But as long as he won, the speed would be even more astonishing than Mo Xi’s.
Murong Lian wasn’t playing around.
He was genuinely conducting a serious strategic simulation.
And he kept revising his own ideas.
He repeatedly switched out the flags representing different magical abilities, making adjustment after adjustment.
With every change, Gu Mang could clearly see the intention and reasoning behind it.
Then what had Murong Lian’s casual strategy during the military meeting been?
The one that Murong Mengze had broken in only two moves?
“Cough, cough, cough!”
A sudden, wrenching fit of violent coughing jolted Gu Mang out of his thoughts.
Murong Lian lowered his pipe and frowned as he coughed uncontrollably. His expression was extremely dark.
One hand pressed against his chest, as though he were desperately trying to suppress something.
But in the end, he still coughed up tiny flecks of blood.
“…”
Murong Lian wiped away the blood with a snow-white handkerchief edged in gold, his expression gloomy.
He straightened and stared at the sand table for a while.
Then he raised the hand wearing a sapphire ring and slowly removed the carefully arranged flags one by one.
He dismantled the entire battle strategy he had painstakingly constructed.
When he was finished, he flicked his pale fingers and tossed the scattered little flags aside.
Then he sank heavily into a chair, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes in utter exhaustion.
Deep within the dim, flickering lamplight, Murong Lian’s profile looked so thin and lonely.
His hands were folded together, and he kept unconsciously rubbing the surface of the sapphire ring.
After a long while, Gu Mang heard him murmur with a sigh.
“…How ridiculous… Could it be that… I’m really not as good as you…?”
Could it be that I’m really not as good as you?
Those words lingered in Gu Mang’s ears almost all the way back.
He could not understand it at all.
Murong Lian had ideas of his own and refused to admit defeat. So why had he been so perfunctory during the military meeting?
Why had he waited until the night was silent and no one was around, only then smoking a pipe of A Fleeting Life Like a Dream, while alone in the hazy, desolate smoke, manipulating the soldiers and formations before the battlefield and simulating a magnificent lightning-fast campaign?
When Gu Mang returned to the commander’s sleeping tent, Mo Xi happened to be sending a message to His Majesty.
He released the messenger bird and, upon seeing Gu Mang enter the tent, the tension in his expression eased slightly.
“Where did you go? Why did you come back so late?”
As he spoke, he touched Gu Mang’s hair.
“Did you get caught in the rain?”
“…I went to count the provisions that had been brought into storage. I didn’t get wet. I had an umbrella.”
Gu Mang rubbed his nose.
He did not tell him about seeing Murong Lian in the main command tent.
Mo Xi pulled him into his arms and warmed him for a while before saying,
“The kitchen sent dinner. Shall we eat first and then rest?”
Gu Mang poked his head out to look.
Sure enough, there were several simple dishes on the table, with a bamboo tube beside them containing warm rice.
“You haven’t eaten either?”
“I was waiting for you.”
Gu Mang opened his mouth.
Originally, he wanted to say, You know how bad your stomach is. Why wait for me? You could have just left some food for me.
But when he saw the gentleness in Mo Xi’s dark eyes, the words died on his lips.
He sighed and pinched Mo Xi’s porcelain-like cheek.
Probably no one else in the entire world could get away with pinching Marshal Mo’s face like that.
Gu Mang said helplessly,
“You.”
When they sat down at the table, Gu Mang realized that all the dishes were foods the cultivators of the old Bastard Army had especially loved but rarely had the chance to eat.
There was a plate of glossy red-braised pork, served with white flour buns; a dish of crisp bamboo shoots and young lotus roots; and a bowl of egg-drop soup.
None of them were particularly refined dishes, but providing a serving to every person throughout the army was still a considerable expense.
Gu Mang said, “You’ve really improved their meals. Back when I was there, if I wanted to give them even one meal with meat, I had to beg Heaven and Earth countless times. Otherwise, I’d have to sell my looks and coax the pretty widow at the tavern in the village.”
Mo Xi ladled a bowl of soup and pushed it toward him.
“You’ve already done enough for them. You don’t need to sell yourself to some pretty widow anymore. If you really have to sell yourself, sell yourself to me.”
Gu Mang bit down on his chopsticks and laughed.
The egg-drop soup in the military camp was cooked in a huge pot, sprinkled with bright green scallions.
But Mo Xi knew that Gu Mang didn’t like eating them, so he had already removed all the scallions from the top.
Watching Gu Mang gulp down the hot soup and seeing it drive away the damp chill brought by the sudden rain, Mo Xi’s gaze gradually became incredibly gentle.
If it had been anyone else in the world, seeing that expression in Mo Xi’s eyes would have made them think they had encountered some kind of supernatural phenomenon.
Only Gu Mang wouldn’t.
After finishing the soup, he looked up and met Mo Xi’s gaze, then naturally grinned at him again.
Mo Xi sighed.
He took out a clean white handkerchief, wiped the corner of Gu Mang’s lips, and said,
“How are you still the same as before? You never remember to wipe your mouth after drinking soup.”
“Oh, young master, how could I be as particular as you? I grew up eating dirt.”
“…”
The two of them chatted idly for a while.
Halfway through the meal, Gu Mang thought for a moment and finally decided to speak.
“Oh, right, Mo Xi. There’s something I want to tell you.”