Commander Xu Studied Poetry and Books

"The long wind will one day cleave the waves; I'll hoist my cloudlike sail and cross the boundless sea..."

Sunlight shone into the courtyard of a residence in Yuannan City.

A schoolteacher in a long gown, with short hair and a goatee, held a thread-bound book and swayed his head as he read the words aloud.

A long table and a grand armchair also stood in the courtyard.

A tall, broad-shouldered bald man in a shirt and military trousers sat at the table, practicing his characters from a copybook.

"Wait!"

He suddenly looked up. His brow ridge jutted out, his eyes stared sideways at the teacher, and black stubble ran from his ears to his chin.

"Read that last line again!"

The teacher immediately stopped swaying his head. He hurriedly looked down at the page and said hesitantly, "The long wind will one day... cleave the waves..."

"Hey! You actually fucking read it again?!"

Commander Xu threw down his brush, splattering a large blot of ink across the white paper. He rubbed his bald head, his face full of menace.

"Don't you know I recently ordered a strict search of every ferry crossing, big and small? I shut the small ones down altogether, smashed the boats, and still sent men to patrol them, all to track down a major criminal!"

"I'm trying to stop that number one fiend from crossing the river, and here you are reading me a line about cleaving the waves?"

The teacher hurriedly said, "It's a poem by Li Bai."

Commander Xu's eyebrows nearly stood on end. "What, does Li Bai get to be right just because he's Li Bai? Even if he were Li Black or Li Yellow, he couldn't make trouble for me at a time like this!"

The teacher dropped to his knees with a thud and cried, "Your wisdom is unmatched, Commander! Though there are words in this poem that don't sound good, it has a good title. It's called The Road Is Hard!"

"Oh?"

Commander Xu's expression softened. "The Road Is Hard. That means the road can't be traveled?"

The teacher gave an ingratiating smile. "Yes, yes. Not only does the poem's title mean the road can't be traveled, but Li Bai himself enjoyed a brief period of prestige when he was young, and after that he was never given an important post."

"In his old age, he was exiled. He finally lived long enough to see a general amnesty, only to die before he could make it back to Chang'an!"

Commander Xu's expression brightened.

The teacher did not know who the wanted criminal actually was. All he knew in general was that the man might have once held office and later committed an offense.

But when Commander Xu heard this, he mentally fitted Li Bai's story to that man and felt an indescribable satisfaction.

A good omen, very auspicious.

"Hahaha, good. Give him twenty silver dollars. You may go."

The teacher hurriedly kowtowed to thank him and went off to collect his reward.

As he was leaving, Adjutant Zhou happened to come in. He glanced at the teacher and saw the mark on his forehead.

"Big Brother, you don't even like these pedantic, poverty-stricken scholars. Why insist on having them come bobbing around in front of you?"

Commander Xu laughed. "Didn't the president mention in his telegram that I should read more?"

Commander Xu had long wanted to establish ties with the president, but had only managed to make some contact with the president's trusted associates.

Then, a little while ago, the president had actually sent a special envoy to visit him in person. Adjutant Zhou had still been in the small town at the time.

After Adjutant Zhou returned, however, he had met the envoy too.

He also knew that, through the envoy's introduction, Commander Xu and the president had exchanged telegrams on several occasions.

The president had written the messages himself, in a warm and earnest tone, expressing great expectations for him.

Commander Xu had little education. He usually preferred listening to storytellers recount historical tales, claiming that "good men listen to the Water Margin, and heroes listen to the Three Kingdoms," and that was enough.

It was unclear how the president's special envoy had reported this, but the president had actually mentioned the matter as well.

He used the story of Amon of Wu from the Three Kingdoms to urge Commander Xu to read more, so that when he was promoted in the future, he would have a greater reputation and could fully display his talents.

Adjutant Zhou snorted. "When all's said and done, he wants to use us as knives. It's not much different from the work I did in the small town."

"That's different. After you made your position clear, those ungrateful bastards in the small town still didn't know to come over to our side. But we've come over to the president's side very smoothly."

Commander Xu chuckled. "Don't be afraid of being used. Being used is a good thing. As long as we spot the right opportunities, the more we're used, the more we'll get our hands on."

"Back when we were young and went to the capital to seek our fortunes, if we hadn't spotted our chance, thrown in with our adoptive father, and done so much to please him, how would we ever have had the chance to learn all these skills?"

"When we came back to Yi Province, we were able to recruit troops, seek support here and there, and work our way up to commander. That was also thanks to what we'd accumulated in the capital."

At this point, Commander Xu looked a little sad.

"Speaking of that makes me sad. We knew how to behave, but our adoptive father couldn't read the situation. If he'd been willing to die six months or a year earlier, or had known his place and been a little more obedient, we wouldn't have had to plot against him."

"Alas, it's all his fault. He made me damage the bond between father and sons."

Adjutant Zhou nevertheless said, "Getting benefits of enough weight from the president is much harder than getting them from Eunuch Chen."

"Wealth and honor are sought amid danger. We've already waded through mountains of corpses and seas of fire. What's a few more trips?"

Commander Xu's expression grew calm. "But if he wants us to do the work, he has to give us enough support. Hasn't that envoy been keeping in contact lately, saying more skilled reinforcements are on their way?"

Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrived: a guard's announcement rang out at the main gate.

A middle-aged man in a suit and bow tie walked in.

He had a square face and was clean-shaven, but one could tell he was no longer young. The lines on his forehead and neck were deep. Although he wore a suit, he carried a birdcage covered with red cloth.

This man was Meng Daizong, the special envoy sent by the president.

To be precise, he had originally been one of the leaders President Yuan had sent to hunt down Cai Shanjun. But they had traveled overseas by a roundabout route and then passed through Jiaozhi, and the pursuers had suffered heavy losses along the way.

In the end, only Meng Daizong's group reached Yi Province, where he found a way to contact Commander Xu.

"Brother Xu, Brother Zhou, why haven't you gone to inspect the ferry crossings today?"

As soon as Meng Daizong arrived, he spoke as though he were among his own people. "The small crossings can be destroyed, but you still need to use the big ones yourselves, so you can't very well touch them. That means you have to inspect them often!"

The current ran extremely fast in many stretches of the great river near Yuannan City, and it was full of hidden reefs and treacherous shoals. Some places looked safe, but once one reached the middle of the river, one would encounter whirlpools beyond human strength to resist.

To cross the river, unless one relied on especially sturdy large boats, one could only follow the well-traveled routes from those ferry crossings.

Adjutant Zhou smiled. "We've stationed hundreds of men to guard each of the large crossings, all under the command of our trusted men. Besides, the skilled men at your side have also been sent out and stationed at those places. There's no way that man can bluff his way through."

"If anything really happens, it's just as easy for us to rush to their aid from here. Why must we keep running back and forth?"

Meng Daizong frowned. "By my reckoning, that man should have tried to cross the river a few days ago, but there's still been no movement. It's hard to feel at ease."

"That's Cai Shanjun, after all. We must be careful, and then more careful still!"

Commander Xu also said, "Didn't you say he'd already been struck by a deadly poison, couldn't use his cultivation, and had only two sick cats left at his side?"

Hearing this, Meng Daizong could not help nodding. "That poison is indeed no ordinary thing."

"It's a strange substance compounded from some of the most poisonous things in the world, known as the Six Certain Deaths Pill."

"It uses a venomous snake's whiskers, a scorpion's teeth, a toad's claws, a centipede's hair, a great man's black heart, and the sting on a widow's tail."

"Even if he used every bit of his cultivation, he could suppress the poison at most. There's no way he could recover."

Those poisonous ingredients sounded strange enough, but when practitioners refined medicines, they sometimes used not physical substances, but formless poisons.

Those were the truly strange poisons, fierce poisons, deadly poisons that were difficult to deal with.

Commander Xu said, "He can't recover, but the people at his side need to recuperate too. Perhaps he's giving them a little more time."

"Reasonable."

Meng Daizong smiled. "If that's the case, then death is at his door and his mind has grown muddled. He can wait and wait, but what can he possibly get by waiting?"

"We, on the other hand, can wait for real help to arrive."

Listening to him, Commander Xu patted his bald head, picked up a brush, and said, "The help we've been waiting for is... him?"

As he said "him," Commander Xu flicked his wrist, and the brush suddenly vanished.

The brush grazed a red-lacquered pillar in the corridor in an instant, gouging a deep mark into it.

The person hidden in the shadows behind the side of the pillar clapped both palms together at full speed.

Smack!!

His palms smashed the brush's shaft, but its soft tip continued forward and struck his forehead.

The black-clad figure stiffened. He felt the brush remain against his forehead for a second or two before it rolled off.

He was dressed entirely in black, with a black hood and a black cloth covering his face.

By rights, dressed all in black in broad daylight, he should have been even more conspicuous.

Yet this man had slipped in without the guards noticing a thing.

"Good! Good!"

Meng Daizong praised him. "Commander Xu, what a firm and direct force you have."

That was not a finely controlled penetrating force channeled into the brush tip. Rather, because the force was purely firm and direct and did not disperse, it carried the soft tip along with its impact, causing it to strike the man's forehead.

Meng Daizong gestured toward the man. "This is one of the reinforcements."

Commander Xu snorted. "Looks like he's the same sort as the ninjas you brought before, just more rude than those underlings of yours."

President Yuan had first made a name for himself on Goryeo Island when he was young. Even then, he had often dealt with people from Dongying and had recruited a Dongying Iga School ninja master to train ninja death warriors for him.

By the time he became president, a large number of Iga ninjas were already serving him in secret.

Meng Daizong hurriedly said, "Don't misunderstand. He didn't sneak in to make a show of force. Years ago, the president gave these few dozen men to Liu Zhixiang, the grand commander of Bashu. Although we've now called on them for our use, they've also brought a letter written by Liu Zhixiang himself!"

The ninja bowed to Commander Xu, then presented the letter.

Commander Xu unfolded it and read it, and a smile appeared on his face.

Liu Zhixiang was one of President Yuan's trusted men, and Bashu bordered Yi Province. The fact that this letter had not been sent by telegram made it seem even more intimate.

What it mentioned was no longer merely the empty promises in the telegrams, but concrete plans.

As soon as Cai Shanjun was eliminated, Liu Zhixiang would immediately mobilize his troops to advance and put pressure on Yi Province, giving Commander Xu tangible support so that he could strengthen his position.

That would turn a deed that might otherwise provoke an angry crackdown within Yi Province into an established act of merit, showing Yi Province's loyalty to the president.

There were fence-sitters within Yi Province too. When the time came, Commander Xu's situation could naturally turn from peril to safety, with everything looking bright.

That was what one could truly call great wealth and honor sought amid danger!

"Hahaha!"

Commander Xu could not suppress his smile. "In his telegram, the president changed my name to Youjiang. It turns out he really does hope to help me gain a territory of my own in the future."

"In that case, how could I not spill my heart and brains for the president!"

He burst out laughing and waved his great hand.

"Patrol. We must patrol. Bring my car around."

"From today until the day that Cai dies, I'll inspect the big ferry crossings every day. There must not be the slightest lapse!!"