Gazing at Shenzhou, the Greatest Military Treatise Under Heaven

Jiakang City!

Yuwen Liqian and her party.

The Han Kingdom's delegation set out through the city gates.

Beyond Jiakang City, there were no waterways left, only the rumble of carriage wheels and horses' hooves.

The delegations of four kingdoms were bound for the Yan Capital—and for Yan Prince's Manor!

August sixteenth!

For the first time in ten years, the Prince of Yan would descend Mount Zhongnan and travel to the manor that had stood for a decade without ever welcoming its true master.

Six carriages rolled slowly through the gates.

Yuwen Liqian opened her carriage window. Behind them, Su Beihai and several others stood seeing them off.

After four days there, her feelings were complicated!

And she found herself looking forward to meeting the Prince of Yan more than ever.

The Great Chu delegation traveled with them, accompanied by White Deer Academy scholars and their attendants, most of whom were renowned Confucian masters.

Many Han Kingdom scholars deliberately kept their distance. To Confucian scholars everywhere, White Deer Academy was the sacred ground they revered most.

Those who came out of White Deer Academy naturally considered themselves the rightful standard of scholarship under heaven.

Some Han Kingdom scholars tried to make their acquaintance, but most were quietly ignored.

Scholars had looked down on one another since ancient times.

There were exceptions, of course!

Quite a few Great Chu scholars came forward to meet Zhao Wenxian of the Han Kingdom.

In the Han Kingdom, Zhao Wenxian was merely a Cultivated Scholar who had failed the examinations, with no reputation to speak of.

The scholars had paid him little regard when he joined the Han Kingdom delegation. Yet in the space of a single day,

this rather shabby-looking, middle-aged Cultivated Scholar had proved remarkably popular among the people of Great Chu!

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