In the Prince's Residence in Jingzhou, candle shadows lay heavy.
The Prince of Badong's trusted advisers had gathered, sitting in solemn rows. The atmosphere was oppressive, without a trace of victory's joy on their faces.
All of this was because of Xue Shao, the recording adjutant (director of the Military Headquarters' administrative office), who was kneeling on the floor begging forgiveness. He had lost the Prince's bride-to-be.
Xue Shao had represented the Prince of Badong in fetching the bride. The return journey had gone smoothly at first, but upon reaching Yingzhou, the princess consort had seemed unwilling to enter Jingzhou too soon and deliberately delayed their progress. That alone would not have mattered much. What alarmed him most was discovering that Yingzhou was repairing its defenses and tightening security. Nearly twice as many swift boats as usual patrolled the river, he encountered several troop movements along the road, and every waterway checkpoint conducted inspections.
With a guilty conscience, Xue Shao was like a bird startled by a bowstring. Seeing these preparations, he assumed Jingzhou's affair had been exposed. Without even considering whether the timing matched, he made a swift decision: he changed his disguise, abandoned the bridal procession, and fled back to Jiangling in a small boat.
Scions of great clans valued their own lives and generally put self-preservation first when trouble arose. Even abandoning an army and fleeing during wartime was far from unheard of. By the standards of the gentry of the time, Xue Shao's behavior was nothing unusual. But most of the Prince of Badong's trusted advisers came from humble backgrounds and had little sympathy for this aristocratic mindset.
More importantly, people habitually overestimated themselves and looked down on others. A test of life and death might be difficult, but so long as it happened to someone