The Rise of Phoenixes Novel Translation #115

Turning his head, Helian yells “Are you done staring!” Jerked out of their trance by the thunderous yell, the men turn to stare at Helian blankly. 

This is their crown prince, now their king. Before he left to be the “hostage” prince in the Capital, he was their brother, the one who slept with them, hunted with them, wrestled with them, the one who would jump into the river butt naked in the summer and go hunting for bears in the winter. In their memory, their crown prince is sunny and generous mixed with a bit of shameless rouge in him. Whenever he lost a hunting bet, he was willing to do whatever punishment they name except he firmly refused to fork out any money. Different from the high and mighty old king, the crown prince was much more personable but that also meant he lacked a certain amount of authority in their eyes. Right now their kingdom is facing a crisis, they have lost many of their men, the future seems to be filled with confusion and uncertainty. Yet, the one yell jerked them awake. 

“Cease your moronic stares that only follow women around!” Helian points ahead “Look at the land in front of you. See it clearly. Four thousand of the Golden Lion warriors are buried under the northern snow. Their bodies will forever be spread around the wildgrassland’s field. See it clearly. The king who died in the south kingdom was the one who led your fathers to battle thirty years ago and plunged our flags all over the wildgrassland. Thirty years later he was murdered on his throne, your fathers and brothers’ bodies are left in the field. The Golden Roc’s betrayal has trampled all over the Golden Lion’s flag. They killed your king, trampled on your family’s bones then wiped their boots on your flag. How do you all have the audacity to appear in front of me while holding this flag? Why aren’t you hurrying home and use your women’s belt to hang yourselves?” 

“Ah!!!” The eight braves suddenly let out a loud sorrowful cry in unison like the wolves on a snowy mountain crying blood tears to the moon. 

“Ah!!!!!!” Hanging their head in shame, over ten thousand warriors begin to sob out loud. Every wildgrassland man is a soldier. It was their fathers and brothers who lost their lives. 

“Cry! Cry with all your might! How much tears you shed today will be how much blood you will shed of those who betrayed us tomorrow!” Helian’s expression is stony and ice cold. 

With a wave of Helian’s hand, a sack was dropped in front of the army. The sack was left open and out came rolling out countless bloodied ears. “Just last night, the Chimera tribe colluded with Golden Croc tribe in an attempt to use the Old Queen in their assassination of me.” Helian says coldly, “I have already sent their whole tribe to the next world.” 

The whole tribe! The warriors’ mouths fell open. If one traces all the way back, the twelves tribes came from the same ancestor but obviously after so many generations they have longed been divided into multiple tribes. However, there has always been one unwritten rule on the wildgrassland- It is that no matter how fierce the fighting and killing is, there shall not be total destruction of a tribe. One single member of a tribe must remain to carry on the name. Thirty years ago, while the old king had fought fiercely to unite the twelve tribes, he had killed a lot of members of the most bellicose Gold Roc tribe but even then he had left the ten year old Hong Jile. Thirty years later, Hong Jile rebelled. Four thousand warriors and the old king were killed but even Hong Jile didn’t dare to wipe out the Yinerji tribe right away. Who would’ve thought the thing that the old king and Hong Jile didn’t even dare to do, their new king, the one who used to love to smile is the one who did it first? (The name Golden Lion and Yinerji tribe both refer to Helian’s people)

“All sin will be washed clean by blood. The tribe of Yinerji will not accept any betrayal.” Helian says chillingly “The Chimera tribe is just the first one. I don’t care if there will be a second one. Whoever dares to touch my people, I will destroy that person’s tribe.” Abruptly punching his arm into the air, he yells “Hong Jile of the Gold Croc tribe, you wait, $%^@#!”

“Hong Jile of the Gold Croc tribe, you wait, $%^@#!” Tens of thousands of warriors raised their swords towards the sky and yelled in unison! The glint from their swords seemingly forced the bright sunlight to hide itself as the deafening yell from the warriors frightens the eagle that was resting in the far cliff into taking flight. Anger to stun them, sadness to force them, words to shame them and the tribe destruction to intimidate them. In unison, the warrior jumped off their horse, bowed to the ground as they yelled “King!”  

With this one word, blazing sunlight suddenly comes up from the horizon and shines its scorching light on everything in sight. His face somber, Helian stands in the middle of the blazing light. 

The last trace of worry hidden deep in Peony’s eyes fads away as she lets out a long sigh and a bright smile appears on her face. 

“Hong Jile of the Gold Croc tribe is still quite shrewd.” Zhi Wei turns and says to Helian, “From the moment you entered the twelve tribes’ territory his attack has already started. He first planned to use the Queen to force you to cross the river, if you managed to cross the river safely then there would still be the Chimera and Gold Roc’s warriors waiting to kill you. Even if they weren’t successful in killing you then it should’ve at least resulted in a heavy cost of lives among your men. By the time your imperial army arrives, what greets them would the embarrassing state of their new king. It would be questionable at that point if you could get the imperial army to even acknowledge you as their king. While the imperial army is technically part of the Golden Lion tribe but there are still men who came from the other tribes. If you are not on your guard, then this place could’ve been your resting place.” 

“Yes.” Helian admits it frankly “On the wildgrassland, the mightier arm wins. There is no rule that says who has to be the king. Plus, it sounds like my male cousins are having a heyday fighting among themselves. Every single one of them all has his own supporting influences. If I can’t control the imperial army then I won’t be able to walk out of here alive.”

“Even if you could control them right now,  but if you fail to satisfy them in the future then things might get dicey again.” Zhi Wei smiles as she slowly chews on a blade of grass. 

“I am not better than anyone else.” Helian’s voice had a mixture of modesty and pride in it “The only thing I have that others don’t is that the Queen supports me.” 

Zhi Wei was taken aback. On the wildgrassland, women do not have a high status so how could Peony play such an important role? 

“That crazy women, is Heaven’s child. Prophet Dama says she is the wildgrassland’s guardian.” Helian lets out an exasperated laugh, “Ha ha! Guardian! But then Peony does have her good points. Years ago, my father found her on the battlefield but in the end it was her who saved his life. She carried him out of the battlefield on her back. She also brought the King’s guards out alive with her. That’s how the Golden Lion was able to have its glory days later. So, in the wildgrassland, Peony is Queen.” 

“It’s a good thing you have such fierce lifeforce.” Zhi Wei jokes “Or else if just one of your brothers had survived then things could be very different.” (I think I mentioned before back when it came up with Hua Qing but someone could be called to have a “fierce lifeforce” when one or more of their family dies. The idea is that the person’s life is so “hardy” that it causes misfortune or even death to those around them.)

Zhi Wei turns around in surprise when the person beside her suddenly falls silent. His lips pressed together tightly as a strange expression flashed across his eyes. “No…in actuality…” After a long moment, Helian finally starts. 

“Report!” A rider come rushing in on a horse.

This is actually the end to this particular scene. Zhi Wei will discover later for herself what Helian had wanted to tell her. I wanted to include this particular scene because it is a foreshadow of Helian’s fate.

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