Volume 1, Chapter 54: The Zhou Family

Zhou Mancang’s home was truly barest of the bare, stripped of almost everything.

The moment Xue Nian and Shen Ran stepped across the threshold, a choking wave of dust and a woman’s weeping rushed out to meet them.

An old woman with a head of completely white hair was leaning sickly against the room's only bed, while beside her on the floor sat another woman with unkempt, tangled hair. Both had eyes swollen and red, weeping as if the world were coming to an end.

Not far away, a boy of about twelve or thirteen held the hand of a little girl of eight or nine, his face a mask of anxiety.

He seemed to want to comfort them, yet lacked the courage to do so.

Catching sight of Xue Nian stepping into the room, the boy hurriedly pulled the girl along, dropped to his knees, and began kowtowing with a loud thud.

The boy’s voice was laced with sobs.

Choking back tears, he cried, "Young General, please save my father! They said they’re going to feed my father to the tigers!"

His crimson robes brushing the floor, Xue Nian bent down to help him up, his manner exceptionally gentle. "Goudan, don't panic yet. I've brought silver."

With that, he cast a glance at Wang Yan nearby. Wang Yan immediately signaled for men to carry in a large chest. Upon opening it, the interior was filled with an entire chest of gleaming white silver.

Goudan had never seen so much silver in all his days, and his eyes instantly bulged in shock.

The atmosphere in the room froze for a split second.

The next moment—

The white-haired old woman and the disheveled woman scrambled over, supporting one another, and dropped heavily to their knees before Shen Ran and Xue Nian. Striking their heads against the floor with loud thuds, they hailed them as their "benefactors."

These two were none other than Zhou Mancang’s mother and wife.

Seeing them kneel, Goudan and the little girl, who had only just stood up, dropped to their knees once more.

Xue Nian, after all, was a military man who had loathed rigid rules and tedious formalities since childhood. He himself disliked kneeling before others and naturally abhorred the sight of people dropping to their knees at every turn.

He reached out with both hands to support Zhou Mancang’s mother, then said warmly, "Grandmother, please don't do this. Mancang and I serve together in the Imperial Guards; helping one another is only right."

Serving together in the Imperial Guards. One was the commander, though holding no active post, yet commanding a retinue of scions of wealth and power who could swagger through military camps unchecked. As their leader, if Xue Nian so much as stamped his foot, even the Commander-in-Chief would break out in a cold sweat.

The other was a nameless private, whose very severance pay could be arbitrarily delayed and withheld.

How could the two possibly be mentioned in the same breath?

Shen Ran tilted his head to glance at Xue Nian, then stepped forward to help support Zhou Mancang’s mother as well, smiling faintly. "Grandmother, saving a life is of the utmost urgency."

At these words, the weeping of Zhou Mancang’s mother and wife abruptly cut off.

Zhou Mancang’s mother cast a timid look at the young man before her, whose beauty resembled dew upon a hibiscus blossom, and felt a sudden wave of dizziness wash over her.

Though she had seen little of the world, she was, after all, well-advanced in years and possessed an almost hypersensitive instinct for danger. Though she knew not why, the very instant she laid eyes on Shen Ran, she felt an inexplicable dread, a creeping chill.

"Save him! Yes, save him!"

Zhou Mancang’s mother muttered dazedly, "Cuihua, quickly come with me to save Mancang!"

Acting on impulse, she grabbed her daughter-in-law Cuihua’s hand and, trembling, made to head straight for the door.

Xue Nian hurriedly intercepted them. "Grandmother, at your age, you shouldn't exert yourself. Since Goudan and Mancang were the ones who went up the mountain and ran into bandits, we need only have him make the trip with us."

Hearing this, Cuihua, who had been wiping her tears all this while, shrank back timidly and stammered, "But, but... Goudan is the only male heir we have in our family! Mancang has already been captured, and those bandits are so vicious. If Goudan, he..."

At this point, Cuihua found herself unable to continue. "Then none of us will survive!"

She yanked the little girl toward her by the hand. "Why don't, why don't you take Niuniu to save Mancang instead?"

Shen Ran: "..."

Xue Nian: "..."

Even in the imperial family, sons were prized over daughters, yet princesses were still raised in silk and brocade and carefully instructed. Compared to these rustic countryside folks, however, that preference was nothing at all.

Yet there was no way to reason with an illiterate country woman.

Xue Nian had no choice but to pretend he hadn't heard.

He looked toward Goudan. "Goudan, will you come with us to rescue your father?"

Goudan nodded heavily and answered in a loud, firm voice, "I'll go! I want to go!"

The moment those words fell, Cuihua’s body swayed violently, and she collapsed heavily onto the floor with a dull thud.

...

True to Xue Nian’s expectations, the only ones waiting in the woods were two blade-wielding bandits, whose attire marked them as mere foot soldiers.

Wang Yan and one of the personal guards carried the chest, advancing alongside Xue Nian and Goudan to negotiate.

The remaining four guards stayed behind to protect Shen Ran.

Even though Shen Ran’s own martial arts were exceptional, how could the Emperor ever truly travel without a guard?

This time, Shen Ran did not insist otherwise.

Concealed within the trees, he watched Xue Nian’s group conduct the negotiations.

Things proceeded exceptionally smoothly at first.

Upon seeing the silver and hearing the fabricated story Xue Nian had primed Goudan to tell, one of the soldiers immediately darted back to send word.

After about the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, the sound of thundering hooves broke the silence as twenty-odd riders came galloping toward them.

The man in the lead was broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, his face covered in a dense beard. He looked utterly ferocious, clad in armor and brandishing a gleaming saber—a visage fierce enough to stop a crying child at night.

Tied hand and foot, dragged cruelly behind the man’s horse, was none other than Zhou Mancang.

His face was smeared with blood, and due to the violent dragging and battering, he had already lost consciousness, clearly hanging on by a mere thread.

Faced with such a terrifying sight, Goudan’s face drained of color. "Father!"

He let out a cry, lunging forward as if to throw himself upon the man.

Yet Wang Yan and the other guard pulled him back, leaving Xue Nian standing alone in the clearing.

Xue Nian tilted his chin up slightly, smiling with innocent, pristine charm in the pale light of dawn. "Esteemed hero, a thousand taels of silver, exactly equivalent to a hundred taels of gold, are all brought here. May I ask if you can release the captive now?"

Since the bandit chief sat high upon his horse, Xue Nian had to raise his chin to meet his gaze, exposing a smooth, jade-white jawline.

His slender neck looked as though it could be snapped with a single pinch.