Roosting birds scattered through the sky as the army marched out.
Half the Jingzhou army split off, advancing upstream along the Han River by land and water, straight for Yongzhou!
Li Jingxuan had been right about one thing.
The Prince of Badong had devoted all his attention to dividing his forces. Between allocating troops and officers and settling plans with Wang Yang for the fighting in Yingzhou, he had no time to spare for Li Jingxuan.
Even last night, the Prince of Badong had still been agonizing over whether to withdraw the six deathsworn men planted at Wang Yang's side.
When he first heard the disastrous news from Jingzhou, his composure had shattered, leaving him utterly at a loss! Wang Yang alone had stepped forward to steady their hearts, analyze their situation, and open a path to survival, hauling him bodily out of his hopeless predicament. At the time, he had truly been filled with remorse and shame, even a sense of unworthiness! He had felt that serving him was a waste of Wang Yang's talents!
He was grateful to Wang Yang! He revered Wang Yang! In that moment, he had even repudiated his decision never to let Wang Yang wield power once their enterprise succeeded!
But once the road ahead offered something to rely on and his spirits revived, those strange emotional surges receded like the tide, exposing the hard black reefs that had always lain beneath.
Such was the human heart.
When drowning, a man would weep with gratitude at the sight of a piece of wood, clasping it as though it were a boat and oars; once ashore, with his breathing steady again, he would cast that same wood beside the road as though it had no use.
Thus, wholehearted trust most often arose amid hardship; estrangement