The giant yellow apricot-colored flag slowly made its way into camp. A man under the flag raised his head to look at rolling dust at the north exit, smiled and said with a hint of admiration: “What a fierce calvary!” 

Chun Yuhong, riding forward to greet the man nods, “Your Highness is extremely wise to be able to see the fierceness of this calvary just by the dust they kicked up. Your Highness’ keen wisdom is not something we can match.” 

Chun Yuhong’s subordinates surrounding them promptly jumped in to offer up a chorus of praises. Everyone knows Prince Chu is currently the Emperor’s favorite so what better time than right now to get on his good side?

“Who is in command of this calvary?” No matter how glowing the praises were, Ning Yi’s faint smile never changed, “I can seek a reward for him just on his expert skill in training soldiers.”

“This is Shunyi Iron Calvary, the one that keeps winning battles lately.” Chun Yuhong replies, “Under the command of Official Wei who just returned after his disappearance.” 

Ning Yi suddenly stopped talking. Someone noticed with alarm that the faint smile on his face abruptly froze. 

Everyone there instantly fell silent upon seeing their Highness suddenly losing his perpetual placid expression.  

Not noticing the sudden silence, Chun Yuhong is still rattling on about the great accomplishments this legendary calvary has achieved along with the new nickname “The Fox of Grassland” that Wei Zhi gained in Da Yue. Finally noticing belatedly that Ning Yi has fallen silent and is just staring in the direction of the disappearing rolling dust, a somewhat embarrassed Chun Yuhong stopped talking after letting out a short laugh. 

Snapping back to attention the moment Chun Yuhong stopped talking, Ning Yi laughed softly and said “After hearing Shunyi Iron Calvary and Official Wei’s accompaniments, it sure makes one’s blood boil with excitement. This merits a reward. You all also have done a good job managing this base camp, I shall also report this back to His Majesty and ask him to reward you.” 

Ning Yi’s words caused a smile to appear on everyone’s face as they collectively thought that no wonder rumor has it that Prince Chu is extremely shrewd and skilled with words. Even though they all know that the basecamp has not sent out any soldiers into the battlefield lately but His Highness’ words still made everyone feel good. No wonder he has become the most popular prince lately. 

Unlike everyone around him, Chun Yuhong’s thoughts went deeper. He belongs to Prince Chu’s camp so now that he is the commanding general, then this Overseer should not be Prince Chu. It was rumored that the Seventh Prince would be the Overseer but for some reason, it ended up being Prince Chu. To have the commanding general and the Overseer all belonging to the same sect, that’s a big taboo for any ruler. Heaven knows how much His Highness had to work behind the scenes in order to make this happen. 

From the fact that Xin Ziyan left the Captial to come here as the military adviser, one can see how much sacrifice His Highness made in order to obtain the position of the Overseer — to the point that he is willing to throw out his most important hidden card– Xin Ziyan has always presented himself as Prince Chu’s opposer and critic on the palace court. This is precisely the reason His Majesty regards Xin Ziyan highly and often uses Xin Ziyan as the person to keep Prince Chu down. This is the reason Xin Ziyan is His Highness’ most important hidden card in the Capital and allows him great convenience to keep control of things there. However, now, His Majesty has sent Xin Ziyan to “spy” on His Highness due to the fact that the commanding general and the Overseers all belong on the same side. One could argue that His Majesty is still being tricked by His Highness but to His Highness, to lose a Xin Ziyan keeping control over the capital and to throw everything on this journey to the grassland, once something goes wrong, then there would be no recourse. The consequences of this would be even more terrifying. 

The situation at the Capital can change in an instant. Instead of staying in the Capital, he left. Even Xin Ziyan has been thrown out by him at the great risk that it might give someone else the chance they’ve been looking for. All this to come here to be the Overseer, why?  

Chun Yuhong’s thoughts are a jumbled mess. He keeps feeling this is a stupid move for His Highness who is always wise. This completely goes against the interest of Prince Chu’s camp. Chun Yuhong wonders if there is some deeper meaning? But no matter how he looks at it, this seems to be an unfavorable situation for Prince Chu. 

Just as Chun Yuhong’s thoughts turn to if he should find an opportunity to gently inquire His Highness’ intentions, someone came sprinting in while yelling “General, general, we have a problem!” 

“This is a military camp, why are you making a ruckus!” Chun Yuhong’s expression darkened. To yell in front of His Highness like this, isn’t this going to make His Highness think he is inept in training his own soldiers? 

Furious, he was about to have the lieutenant dragged out to get whipped when Ning Yi suddenly reached out a hand to stop him. 

He looked at the direction the lieutenant had run from– it was the direction Feng Zhi Wei and the Shunyi Iron Calvary had disappeared. 

“What happened?”

The lieutenant’s face paled the moment he raised his head and saw Ning Yi. Seeing his expression, Ning Yi’s eyes slowly narrowed. 

By this time someone had carried over Zhu Shirong’s body. Chun Yuhong’s expression turned to one of shock. 

The lieutenant explained what happened from beginning to end while stealing glances at Ning Yi the whole time. Chun Yuhong took him aside and cursed, “You dummy! Why didn’t you tell Wei Zhi that this is Prince Chu’s…”

“I said it.” The lieutenant said with a crestfallen expression, “Who knew once I said it…”

He looked back at Ning Yi and didn’t dare to finish his sentence. 

Dumbfounded, Chu Yuhong also turned to look back at Ning Yi. 

Sitting upright on his horse the whole time, Ning Yi seemingly had not heard their conversation and is focused on staring at Zhu Shirong who was pierced through the heart. This person belonged in his sect. When Scholar Hu was introduced to him, it was he who had the Ministry of War to set aside the South Basecamp’s Quartermaster position. 

Then today, when he arrived, this man died. 

Died, to show him? 

That knife pierced through the heart, it’s sure ruthless. It is obvious she made the order without any hesitation. 

When the knife came out, did she imagine this person to be him?

She left immediately after she killed this person. It was probably not because she was worried that he would hold her accountable but simply because she doesn’t want to see him? 

Ning Yi stared at the gaping bloody hole in front of Zhu Shirong’s chest for a long time before he finally slowly raised a hand, touched his own chest, at the same position. 

There, seemed to have also appeared a bloody hole, pierced through by the fierce howling wind of the grassland. 

It seems to be a pain, it seems to be empty, it seems…perhaps just a dream.

All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com 

The author calls our heroine’s Iron Calvary by a few different names. For simplicity’s sake, I think I will stick with Shunyi since that’s Zhi Wei’s official title as the queen. 

Also, in case the translation was confusing concerning Chun Yuhong’s inner dialog I will add a few things here: At this point, as the fight from the throne is heating up, everyone who is anyone has chosen which prince they will swear their loyalty to. The Emperor of course keeps a close tab on who has sworn allegiance to whom so no one is naive enough to believe that the Emperor is clueless of where their allegiance lie. Since Chun Yuhong is on Ning Yi’s camp then it is natural that the Emperor wouldn’t want Ning Yi to be the Overseer since it is highly unlikely Ning Yi would say anything negative concerning his own man. 

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