TAMW CH69

Yuqing’s frame was not yet heavy with child. Though the wind and sand in Baizhou blew harsher than in the capital, the winter sunlight remained mild, and the chill was never bitter.

Within half a month, Second Uncle had sent over the official seals for the family shops in the capital.

These storefronts had originally been under Yuqing’s management. After the old master passed away, the uncles had plotted to divide the inheritance, assuming Zhou Xiao had accumulated ample military honors and would care little for trade. They seized control for a time, yet every ledger, grain depot, and jade shop had to pass through Yuqing’s network of eyes and ears; diverting silver or pulling sleights of hand proved nearly impossible.

At first, they refused to return the shops, but now, for reasons unknown, they had relented.

Yuqing did not refuse. The Zhou family’s businesses rightfully belonged under his stewardship; in truth, without Ruan Yuqing, those enterprises would never have reached such vast proportions.

Zhou Xiao regularly handed over his military stipend, often urging him with gentle concern to put the account books aside.

Carrying a child, he could not afford to exhaust his mind.

In these early days of pregnancy, Yuqing frequently lacked an appetite, and auditing ledgers offered a welcome distraction.

Moreover, the border conflict had grown perilous. The imperial treasury was depleted, and Yuqing had intercepted several carrier pigeons from Zhou Xiao’s adjutants urgently requesting provisions.

When war loomed, grain had to march before the troops.

Without supplies, even the sharpest weapons and bravest soldiers held little advantage; maintaining an army devoured coin.

At dawn, Yuqing felt sick to his stomach once more.

The physician had warned that a man’s pregnancy often brought more severe reactions.

At first, he simply lacked an appetite, yet without food, how could the child thrive in his womb?

Yuqing forced himself to swallow a few bites. Inevitably, the food churned and came straight back up, but if he starved himself, bitter stomach bile surged into his throat, leaving him in acute misery.

His frail constitution could hardly bear two or three days of such torment before his complexion faded to a pale pallor.

Seeing him suffer, the servants wanted to dispatch a rider to the garrison, but Yuqing stopped them.

“Word came yesterday that the enemy breached the border, and the General has already marched out. Sending word now will only burden his mind.”

“Madame, but your condition…” Seeing him heave in distress, the servant hurried to summon the physician.

Yet Yuqing knew full well that a physician could offer little relief. A man conceiving was an unnatural feat achieved through potent drafts, defying the will of heaven. Even immortals would struggle to cure it, so he chose to endure it in silence rather than trouble others.

Yuqing drew a deep breath, taking only a sip of warm tea to settle his throat.

“Yet the General…” the servant hesitated.

“What of him?” Yuqing turned a page of the ledger with languid grace.

“The townsfolk in Baizhou say yesterday’s battle went poorly.”

The young emperor of the Li Dynasty had only recently ascended the throne. The court remained unstable, surrounded by domestic strife and foreign threats, with corrupt officials holding sway while the treasury lay empty. Rumors claimed grain shipments had failed to arrive on schedule. Though yesterday’s clash ended in victory, more than half of the army’s supply depots had been set ablaze.

If word reached the capital, court ministers would surely accuse the General of poor command, an offense punishable by death. If Zhou Xiao were summoned home now, however, the blame could be shifted onto one of his adjutants.

Yuqing frowned. Zhou Xiao had ridden home repeatedly just to bring him sweets and delicacies, seemingly oblivious to how precarious the war was. He was acting like an infatuated, reckless commander.

At such a juncture, how could Yuqing allow him to be distracted?

For nearly half a month, the General did not return.

News from the servants indicated that the imperial transport official had taken enemy bribes, cutting off the army’s supply lines through treason.

The grain was indeed gone.

Biting down on a strip of cloth, Zhou Xiao held still as the field surgeon stitched the blade wound along his arm.

The surgeon heated the scalpel in the flame, excising the torn flesh that could no longer be sewn. Veins throbbed across Zhou Xiao’s temples. He focused on his adjutant’s report to distract from the searing pain. “Provisions have been cut for three days, General…”

“Has the transport official been executed?” Zhou Xiao rasped.

“Yes, beheaded before the ranks.”

“Consecrate the battle standard with his blood. Launch a night raid to take the next city,” Zhou Xiao commanded, clenching his fist.

The remaining grain could not sustain the army for more than two weeks. Waiting for imperial reinforcements was out of the question; their only hope was to break through the front lines. If the enemy continued this war of attrition, they would be slaughtered like fish on a chopping board.

Zhou Xiao closed his eyes. Once the surgeon dressed his arm, he drew a sheet of paper to pen a letter to Yuqing.

If the garrison could not hold, it would still take the Louzhou invaders several months to breach the heartland of the Li Dynasty, ample time for Yuqing to take the household staff and flee Baizhou.

He mapped out a safe route, naming trusted allies in the capital. As the brush moved across the parchment, all he truly wanted to ask was how Yuqing was faring, whether he was eating well, and to assure him that his husband was safe.

He missed his beloved wife terribly.

After years in military barracks, Zhou Xiao had thought himself free of earthly attachments. Now that he had a family of his own, reluctance gnawed at his resolve. Yesterday, locked in bloody combat, a sudden, desperate thought had struck him: he did not want to die on this battlefield, simply because he had a wife waiting at home.

For a general to harbor such hesitation was absurd. Yet with rations dwindling and his troops marching forward, a heavy dread weighed on his chest.

Zhou Xiao did not know if he would ever live to see his unborn child. All he could do was seize another city before his own end, buying a few more days of peace for the people of the empire.

Stepping out of the command tent with the letter, he blew a sharp whistle. A hunting eagle circled in the pale sky and swooped down to land on his arm.

At the break of dawn, Zhou Xiao gazed toward the eastern horizon where the first sliver of morning light broke over the frontier. He closed his eyes, tying the letter to the bird to send it to his wife.

The eagle circled upward into the air, lingering for a moment. Then, the rhythmic thunder of approaching hooves rolled across the plains.

In the distance, a black steed galloped into view, mounted by a slender figure clad in white robes.

Zhou Xiao froze.

Yuqing rode at full gallop. He seemed to have grown even leaner over the past fortnight, his long hair streaming in the desert wind, fluttering like dark silk against the dawn. Behind him, the morning sun rose in golden splendor, bathing his silhouette in radiant light, making him appear like a celestial spirit descending from the clouds.

For an instant, Zhou Xiao could not tell whether this was real flesh and blood or a fevered hallucination born of his own longing.

The eagle circled downward, folding its wings and perching gently on Yuqing’s forearm.

Yuqing reined in the black horse as the beast slowed to a halt. Looking down at Zhou Xiao from the saddle, the corners of his lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. “The General has not returned home in half a month. Have you forgotten Yuqing?”

Zhou Xiao grasped the reins, his reason snapping back through the haze of shock and delight. “Why are you here?”

Yuqing dismounted smoothly, his sharp eyes catching the blood seeping through Zhou Xiao’s armor where the wound had torn open.

“I came to resolve the General’s pressing crisis,” Yuqing said softly, his hand reaching out to brush the stray locks from Zhou Xiao’s brow.

His fingertips were icy. Pregnant as he was, he had ridden hard across the frontier.

Casting everything else aside, Zhou Xiao seized his cold hand and pressed it hard against his own cheek. “You’re freezing. You’ve grown so thin.”

Yuqing paused, caught off guard. He had expected Zhou Xiao to ask about the crisis, yet the man’s very first words were concern over his weight.

In this general’s eyes, did a newly wedded wife truly outweigh the entire army he had commanded for years?

He was a hopelessly infatuated commander indeed.

Yuqing tucked Zhou Xiao’s hair behind his ear and gestured toward the horizon behind him. “Look, General.”

He had not come alone; trailing behind him in the distance was a massive convoy of supply wagons.

“Grain?” A bright spark flared in Zhou Xiao’s eyes. “Where did this come from?”

“Since the General entrusted the capital’s shops to me, I had to show you how well I manage them.”

Yuqing smiled softly. His voice was as light as a floating feather, yet it made Zhou Xiao’s heart burn with heat.

Back in the capital, Yuqing had already overseen the Zhou family’s estates, using the silver provided by Senior Grand Secretary Zhou to establish commercial ventures. He had assumed that upon leaving for the frontier, the uncles would seize those assets, requiring careful maneuvering to reclaim. Yet Zhou Xiao had dispatched his adjutants to reclaim them by force, handing the entire fortune to Yuqing without even asking why he wanted it.

Since Zhou Xiao had surrendered the entirety of the Zhou legacy into his hands without reservation, then as his wife, Yuqing had to shoulder the authority of the master of the house.

“Qingming Grain Stores.”

The supply wagons bearing down on the camp belonged to the premier grain transport guild in the empire.

In two weeks, Yuqing had mobilized warehouses across every province neighboring Baizhou, gathering enough provisions to sustain the border army for at least six months.

“I knew the General launched repeated raids out of fear that supplies would run dry. Now, you need worry no longer.”

Had it not been for the dread of starving his men, a warrior of Zhou Xiao’s prowess would never have suffered such wounds. If the commander could scarcely endure half a month of non-stop skirmishes, his soldiers were surely at their breaking point.

Zhou Xiao stared in disbelief. “You didn’t reply to my letters for half a month because you were gathering grain?”

Yuqing tilted his head, asking softly, “Did you expect me to sit idly by, waiting for you to send a letter of divorce so I could flee Baizhou alone?”

Leaning closer, he murmured against his ear, “If I fled, what would become of the child in my womb?”

Having ridden hard through the desert, Yuqing carried the dry scent of wind and dust, layered beneath the soothing herbal incense used to calm his pregnancy.

Zhou Xiao had dispatched letter after letter without a single reply, secretly fearing Yuqing had abandoned him and slipped away in the night. He had believed himself forsaken by his wife, yet here he stood.

“General!” Yuqing let out a startled gasp as he was swept up into the air. “There are soldiers watching.”

“Let them watch. Must I ask permission to hold my own wife?”

Zhou Xiao carried him straight into the command tent, while the adjutant outside rushed off to receive the grain wagons.

The tent was sparsely furnished, holding only a narrow camp cot, a charcoal brazier, and a tactical sand table, where several green flags representing conquered enemy strongholds lay fallen.

“My wife…”

“Mind your wound,” Yuqing chided gently as he was set down on the cot.

The man’s bandage was already soaked with fresh blood from lifting him, yet Zhou Xiao seemed completely oblivious to the pain.

Yuqing sat on the edge of the cot while Zhou Xiao dropped to his knees before him, gazing up at his wife as though looking upon a deity. What virtue had he accumulated in this life to deserve such a spouse?

Yuqing stroked his cheek, his eyes curving with fond warmth. Looking down at the bleeding wound, tenderness and exasperation mingled in his chest.

While he had been scouring the provinces for grain, Zhou Xiao had sent an eagle every single day. Not a single message mentioned the perilous war; instead, every line urged him to pack his belongings, abandon Baizhou, and seek shelter with the Prime Minister in the capital.

At first, the letters were strategic and protective, but when no replies returned, the messages dissolved into petulant pouting: [Is my wife so busy that you cannot spare even a moment to miss me?]

He had not merely missed him; his wife had ridden across the frontier to save him.

Looking down at the man resting his cheek against his palm, Yuqing asked softly, “You are soon to be a father, yet you still act like this?”

“Let me listen, wife. Did our child trouble you today?”

Yuqing replied, “It is far too early to tell.”

Yuqing’s frame was naturally slender, his loose robes hiding any hint of a swell, especially in these early months.

Zhou Xiao pressed his ear against the soft lower abdomen with eager reverence.

“To have Qingqing in this life is my greatest blessing,” he murmured, burying his face between Yuqing’s thighs, his voice muffled by the silk, yet brimming with pure, uncontainable joy.