Chapter 94: Fate Cannot Be Changed
A heavy snowfall completely isolated the Royal Hunting Ground from the outside world, turning them into two separate worlds.
Normally, the snow here belongs to Chuyun City. Clouds drifting over from Gaoliang Mountain, whether raining or snowing, always hit Chuyun City first. To the people of the Royal Hunting Ground, this is common knowledge.
This snowfall was different, mainly because the snowflakes were so huge. When the black clouds drifted over from Gaoliang Mountain, it was like someone had hung a black blanket in the sky.
The black blanket started dropping snow while over Gaoliang Mountain, and in a very short time, it turned the top of Gaoliang Mountain white.
When the black blanket also covered the blue sky over the Royal Hunting Ground, Yun Ce decided to eat hot pot today.
The materials brought back from Chuyun City this time were really too abundant. If they didn’t consume them diligently, many rare meats would be hard to store by Early Spring Month.
To be honest, Yun Ce doesn’t like eating pickled meat, smoked meat, or cured meat. Essentially, these meats are just spoiled meats, a compromise humans make with the heavens when storing food.
Meat is naturally best when fresh.
Great Han people classify meat very meticulously. Whenever they see a live animal, their first consideration is whether this thing can be eaten.
Once they discover it can be eaten, they must figure out which part is the most delicious. If it can’t be eaten, they must figure out why not, and whether it’s a problem with their cooking method.
1 This is the biggest difference between the descendants of the Yellow Emperor and other people’s descendants. There was originally another big difference, which was farming, but unfortunately, only the Yellow Emperor was brought to this world by the dragon, while the Yan Emperor was not.
1 The Yellow Emperor’s signature skill was nomadic herding, which the Great Han people have fully inherited. They just keep smaller numbers: one kind is sheep called horses, and the other is horses called Thunder Smoke Beasts.
1 The Yan Emperor, also known as Shen Nong, didn’t come, so the Great Han people don’t know much about farming. Thus, the Great Han lifestyle is left with only hunting and gathering.
1 Fortunately, this land is truly very rich, continuously producing a great abundance of delicacies, so people are even less willing to farm.
1 Yun Ce looked at the nearly transparent meat slices in front of him. Steward Qiu said this was meat from a wild beast called “shadow.” This wild beast is transparent all over, so it can only be caught with traps. Its meat is very elastic, and when bitten, it makes squeaking sounds. Some people in Chang’an City who know how to eat “shadow” meat can produce a beautiful piece of music while eating it.
1 Yun Ce took a bite and found this piece of meat made a “fa” sound. He took another bite and chewed carefully, but it still made a “fa” sound.
1 Yun Ce examined the sliced “shadow” meat and felt that the sound it made was closely related to the thickness and size of the meat slices. If considered carefully, it should also be greatly related to the meat’s doneness.
1 To eat meat and produce music, that feast must be incredibly complicated.
1 There were many people eating at home, and each one made “fa” sounds from their mouths, so Yun Ce’s hot pot meal ended amid a chorus of “fa fa fa fa.”
1 Properly feeling life and properly integrating into life is actually a very beautiful and important thing, sometimes more important than changing the heavens and earth.
2 Peng Zeng left before the heavy snow, taking with him that old woman who had been very good to him. When he left, his injuries hadn’t healed; he could merely walk.
2 The two of them supported each other and left the Royal Hunting Ground, even though Yun Ce told him it was about to snow heavily. They still left resolutely.
2 Watching their figures disappear on the mountain road, Yun Ce always felt that the old woman walked much more determinedly than Peng Zeng.
2 The road is one they chose themselves, so Yun Ce could only respect their fate. To ease his guilt a bit, Yun Ce even gave Peng Zeng a bag of money and a bag of food.
2 The black blanket cloud left a two-foot-thick layer of snow on the Royal Hunting Ground, then hurried on to Chuyun City without stopping. Once the clouds were far from the Royal Hunting Ground, Yun Ce realized they were really very neat, truly just like a blanket.
2 Ever since getting that silly dog, chopping firewood has become E Ji’s greatest pleasure. That dog seems to have no limit on how many times it can open its mouth wide; as long as you pinch its tail, it opens its mouth without hesitation.
2 Faced with the titles Black Armored Army and Tiger Guards, Old Cheng unhesitatingly chose Tiger Guards. Old Cao and the others like to call him Black Armored Army Centurion, but Old Cheng has never liked it; he seems to dislike Zhou Chengming a lot.
2 This was Old Cheng’s first time leaving the Hunting Palace to find Yun Ce.
2 After he left the Hunting Palace, the gate of the Hunting Palace quickly closed, and the guards were very diligent.
2 “The Hunting Palace lacks firewood and also lacks servants to do work.”
3 Yun Ce still respected this Centurion who had been lamed and then driven out of the Tiger Guards by Zhou Chengming. However, when he proposed that the Hunting Ground Camp provide some people to serve as their servants, Yun Ce’s slight fondness for him vanished completely.
3 Even if he said “employment,” Yun Ce would still help ask Steward Qiu and the others’ opinions. If they wanted to earn a bit more money or get more materials in the cold winter, it wasn’t impossible to go to the Hunting Palace to work.
3 As for servants, forget it. They are a group of people who work for nothing, not only without wages but also not treated as humans by those they serve.
3 “The people of the Hunting Ground Camp are just a bunch of wild mountain villagers. How would they know how to care for nobles? Plus, the local customs here are fierce. If some shortsighted person sees the fine appearance or good money of the nobles in the Hunting Palace and gets evil intentions, how would I explain it to Brother Cao far away in Chuyun City?”
3 Such reasoning was enough to send off a rough man like Old Cheng, so half an hour later, the woman Old Cao had introduced to him arrived.
3 Receiving the woman was naturally the young lord E Ji’s duty. Although the woman who ran the brothel was very beautiful, E Ji didn’t give her any good expression and bluntly told her that the people of the Hunting Ground Camp were all official attendants of the Royal Hunting Ground and it was impossible for them to do servants’ work.
3 E Ji also warned Hua Ji that not only was the situation outside getting more chaotic, but several bands of bandits had already appeared near the Royal Hunting Ground. The current manpower at the Hunting Ground Camp was insufficient for defense. If not for her young master holding on desperately, she would want to go to the Hunting Palace to borrow more people from inside to bolster the defenses.
3 It was the first time Yun Ce saw the silver-tongued E Ji. Even Feng An and Liang Kun, after witnessing E Ji’s sharp tongue, thought she had the temperament of a great household’s matron.
3 The heavy snow covered the ground. Not to mention thieves, even wild beasts couldn’t cross the difficult snowfields to enter the Royal Hunting Ground.
3 Yet, under these circumstances, there was still one person who crawled more than ten li, bit by bit dragging his body to the Royal Hunting Ground.
4 Feng An heard the continuous faint knocking at the door and thought it was some mischievous little bird. After opening the gate, he discovered it was Peng Zeng, who had already left.
4 This time, his injuries were even worse. Not only had he been stabbed more than a dozen times in the chest and abdomen, but a section of intestine was protruding from one wound. Having been in the snow too long, that section of intestine had turned black and was no longer viable.
4 The wounds were all from a knife, probably inflicted by a woman or child, because each knife wound looked terrifying but wasn’t truly fatal, and none of the cuts were very deep.
4 “The one who tried to kill me is Hu Po!”
4 Peng Zeng struggled to say this before passing out, as if Yun Ce would surely avenge him. He fainted very decisively.
4 Yun Ce naturally wouldn’t waste effort helping him pursue and kill Hu Po; it wasn’t his business anyway. Peng Zeng always made the wrong choice at the critical moment. Even if he were saved this time, he’d end up in the same situation next time.
4 Doggy was still full of curiosity about his body and once again ran a silver thread through it. Not only did it pull down a section of Peng Zeng’s intestine, but in the end, it thoughtfully stitched up the wounds on his body with needle and thread.
4 He was thrown back into that room that hadn’t been cleaned up yet, and then no one paid attention to him. Anyway, a person like him is never willing to die.
4 Raising carrier pigeons is a very troublesome matter. Although Old Qiu had already explained in detail to Yun Ce and E Ji how to raise carrier pigeons, the two of theirs looked listless. In contrast, the four carrier pigeons raised by An Ji and the others were all spirited and full of promise.
4 Yun Ce thought their process of raising carrier pigeons was no different from An Ji and the others’, until one night he discovered that the silly dog always stared at the carrier pigeons in the dead of night, keeping them on the edge of mental collapse. No wonder theirs were so poor.
5 With Peng Zeng as a precedent, Yun Ce had almost no interest in actively participating to change others’ fates. He felt he wasn’t a god, but just an ordinary Great Han person.
5 Many times, only the part you integrate into is what concerns you. If you’re not even willing to integrate, then without a doubt, wanting to integrate into that part amounts to robbery.
5 This was the profound truth Yun Ce comprehended during this heavy snow—if you’re not even a Great Han person, how can the Great Han be yours?
5 Yun Ce had no way to integrate into Chuyun City. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to; it was that the thick smoke rising from Chuyun City was clearly visible even from Gaoliang Mountain two hundred li away.
5 This was what Old Qiu told Yun Ce. They went up Gaoliang Mountain together again, and sure enough, as Old Qiu said, Chuyun City now had rolling thick smoke. Although no sounds of fighting could be heard, just seeing where the smoke was rising showed it was a fierce battle engulfing the whole city.
5 Feng An watched for a long time and finally shed tears. Yun Ce didn’t understand why he was crying, but Liang Kun said that lately when reading books, he always gained insights.
5 And every insight told him to act with kindness.
5 Yun Ce didn’t know if that’s what Liang Kun truly thought. At least, Feng An definitely wasn’t crying over the burning Chuyun City because his heart had become kinder.
5 But seeing a large bird burst out from the black smoke and head straight for the Royal Hunting Ground, Yun Ce knew Zhang Min had arrived.
