“You shut up.” The man waved his hand resolutely, and by the time he turned to Feng Zhi Wei, he had a kind expression on his face as he said, “This is my son, Shaojun. I am sorry that he made a fool of himself in front of you, our guest.”
Feng Zhi Wei smiled and looked at him with her hands behind her back, and said nonchalantly, “It’s alright, it’s alright.”
Her matter-of-course attitude made the young man named Sahojun so angry that veins popped out of his neck, but he didn’t dare to interrupt his dad.
“My name is Qi Wei. I didn’t know we had guests arriving from afar and failed to welcome you properly.” The way the man looked at people was a bit peculiar, with a little coldness, sadness, and vigilance in his eyes. He stared at Feng Zhi Wei and said with an extend of his hand, “Please come into the hall for tea.”
“Please.” Not sparing a glance towards Qi Shaojun’s (the village leader) direction at all, Feng Zhi Wei immediately walked into the main hall with the man. Qi Shaojun was stunned for a good bit before he stamped his feet and followed.
“I haven’t thanked you for showing mercy to my son and gifting him the medicine.” After the host and the guest sat down, the man began to thank Feng Zhi Wei.
Feng Zhi Wei smiled with her misty eyes, “Of course I should, of course I should.”
The man didn’t ask what she meant by “of course, I should” but held the tea bowl and fell in deep thought, seemingly as if he had something he wanted to ask but couldn’t get the words to come out. Feng Zhi Wei examined him and discovered that he was not an old man, at most, he should only be in his forties. His face was very similar to Qi Shaojun’s but seemed to have some sort of illness that caused his face to have a golden tinge to it. Coupled with his haggard expression, it caused the man to look much older than his actual age.
She thought for a moment, took out a bottle handed it over to the man, and said sincerely, “It seemed Uncle Qi has a chronic illness of dryness and heat? I have some medicine here, maybe you could try it.”
Qi Wei looked at her with surprise, thanked her, put the bottle away but did not take the medicine immediately.
Suddenly, there came the sound of footsteps, and Qi Shaojun burst in, pointed at Feng Zhi Wei, and said loudly, “Dad, don’t take this man’s things! He is doing this for no good reason, maybe he is a spy of the government army!”
“You get out!” Qi Wei glared and scolded the child until he left again.
Feng Zhi Wei smiled lightly, thinking that although this child was arrogant he was obviously very filial, otherwise how would his sick old father who would fall down at the lightest push be able to order him about without a protest from him?
“Judging by your accent and behavior, you don’t seem to be from my land of Xiliang?” Qi Wei hesitated for a long time and finally started the first sentence.
Feng Zhi Wei smiled slightly as she sipped the tea, but her casual offhanded answer was shocking.
“My Xiliang? General Qi must surely be joking. You, who is an old general of Tiansheng, how did you become a Xiliang person?”
*Clang!*
The teacup fell to the ground and exploded into pieces. Qi Wei stood up abruptly. Qi Shaojun poked his head in to see what had happened but was dragged out again.
Feng Zhi Wei sat calmly still in her seat, her very motion of sipping tea didn’t even change.
“You…you…” Qi Wei’s voice had become hoarse. He said the word “you” more than ten times but couldn’t get himself to squeeze out a complete sentence. His face was flushed bright red, his chest was heaving, and his breath was so unstable that he had to support himself upright by holding onto the table.
“Help the old village leader sit down and calm down.” Feng Zhi Wei instructed the two male servants lightly. The two male servants looked at each other. They didn’t want to do as the man said, but somehow, they felt there was a hint of dignity and authority in this man’s casual manner that could not be disobeyed, so they stepped forward to help Qi Wei.
Qi Wei brushed away the servants, stared at Feng Zhi Wei, and struggled to say in a hoarse voice, “You must give an explanation today, otherwise even if our Tianfeng Villiage had to fight to our last person, we will not allow you to come and go freely!”
“Yes!” Qi Shaojun poked his head in again and shouted, “We will! You, you arrogant lunatic!” He was promptly dragged away again.
Feng Zhi Wei put down her tea bowl, looked at Qi Wei, and smiled faintly, “Tianfeng Village, Tianfeng Village…is it Tiansheng’s Tian but the Feng from Huofeng (fire phoenix)?”
After hearing this, Qi Wei’s body swayed again but Feng Zhi Wei was already continuing on leisurely after letting out a slight sigh, “I didn’t expect to actually meet here, the only male general of the Fire Phoenix (Huofeng in Chinese), one of General Qiu’s most trusted general, General Qi. General Qi disappeared in the battle of Teng Mountain that year, General Qiu searched many places for him but it was to no avail. Later, she received news that General Qi and a small team under his command died in the battle at the southern foot of Teng Mountain. After death, their bodies were supposedly even burned to ashes. Later, General Qiu sent people to sneak into Teng Mountain, but they only found a patch of scorched earth… who would’ve thought you, general, are still alive!”
The word “General Qiu” that so casually fell from her mouth made Qi Wei feel like he had been struck by lightning. His eyes wide open, in an instant, the battlefield life of all those years rushed from the past into his vision. The years of blood-stained yellow sand and white bones, the red phoenix flag flying in the rain of arrows, and the black-haired young girl general with a halberd fiercely pointing forward, all returned in an instant even if it seemed a lifetime ago.
He looked at the young man in front of him with shock. Previously, he had suspected that he was the famed official Wei Zhi of the Tiansheng envoy. He still seemed like the person, but every single word falling from his lips was shocking him to the core.
Feng Zhi Wei fell silent, drinking her tea slowly. Seemingly realizing something, Qi Wei waved away everyone around him. Once even Qi Shaojun was driven far away, the man stretched out his hand towards Feng Zhi Wei and said, “There is a lookout behind this hall, you can see the scenery of the valley from there. Would you sir be interested in going there to see it?”
Feng Zhi Wei looked at him with satisfaction and nodded. That one single glance from Feng Zhi Wei sent shockwaves to Qi Wei’s heart again– the eyes that looked calm yet firm…so much like that person!
He suddenly felt a dull ache in his lungs.
The two walked into the lookout in the back hall. It was a wide wooden platform, built very high. Just by standing on it, one would be washed by the wind, feeling cleansed, free and open.
Feng Zhi Wei leaned against the railing of the platform, facing Qi Wei’s excited and expectant eyes, and slowly took out a piece of cloth.
The cloth was old, with some dark marks, like bloodstains. Although the texture was marred due to age, one could still tell how precious and noble it must have been at one time.
Qi Wei looked at the carefully folded small stack and his whole body suddenly began to tremble.
Feng Zhi Wei held the stack of cloth with both hands and handed it to him.
Qi Wei suddenly took a step back.
Feng Zhi Wei was surprised, but Qi Wei had already knelt down and bowed low on the ground before raising his hands high to take the small stack.
Feng Zhi Wei looked at him with a smile, watching him as with trembling fingers he slowly unfolded the cloth. When the cloth was fully unfolded, his body jerked as if he was hit by a sudden lightning and froze.
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
I love this whole story arch so far! 😍
So do I 😍. I can’t wait to read what happens next!
Did the general know FZW from before? Is General Qiu referring to her own uncle? I might have missed it from an earlier chapter, but why is he so emotionally touched by her?
If I’m not mistaken I think General Qiu refers to Madam Feng when she was a Fire Phoenix general so FZW’s demeanor even though he’s in Wei Zhi mode probably still reminds him a lot of Madam Feng.
Now that I’m caught up on all the chapters I can finally thank Ninja for translating this novel for the past 6 years (not to be creepy but I have the same eyes of admiration for your work as all the characters do when they look at Zhi Wei/Wei Zhi when she’s being her awesome self 😭) Thank you so much for not giving up and hope you continue until the end cause I love reading your translations and how you give us so much context/explanations! It’s too bad the drama didn’t follow the novel as closely cause there are so many scenes that would’ve been awesome to see Ni Ni, Chen Kun and other characters perform (except the emperor, I’m glad he wasnt as sleazy in the drama cause I don’t need to see all that 🤣) but since the cast did so well I’m glad I can at least get to imagine them in the roles as I read. I enjoyed watching the drama well enough despite the flaws in last 3rd but reading this translated novel just made me love the story and characters so much more than I thought since it’s just so much more fleshed out so I hope you know your work is very very much loved and appreciated! Your site is basically a godsend cause this language is completely foreign to me so when I first started watching the drama I was actually so confused about Ning Yi’s backstory cause I was struggling to keep track of who was even who so your mini recaps were such a huge help in the first 10 eps or so until it all cleared up in my head lmaooo And then it turned out you were translating the source novel too so I started reading it after finishing the drama. Since the drama had a heavier focus on Ning Yi’s side, I actually love and appreciate even more that the novel is really much more FL centric and we get to actually focus more on Zhi Wei/Wei Zhi. So I hope you also know you do have other reader(s) who aren’t just waiting for Ning Yi to show up. I personally love her interactions with all MLs and just her interaction with everyone basically. She is such an interesting and fun FL to follow since she’s so unpredictable and I’m really enjoying how she’s been playing this long game. I made a little donation to show my appreciation, I feel bad that it can’t possibly compare to how many hours you’ve poured into this labor of love, if only I was richer 🥲.