Chapter 4#

Slave#

The arrow was still lodged in Jin Yue’s back, his body burning with fever. He wanted to speak, but lacked the strength.

Helan Feng cracked his whip with sharp snaps; Jin Yue could only hear the pained cries of Hundar and the others. The sound of hooves gradually faded, and the surroundings fell silent.

“Can you walk?” Helan Feng turned to support him.

Helan Jinying rode over, blowing a whistle. “Dead?”

“Quickly, take him back,” Helan Feng said urgently. “He was pierced by Hundar’s arrow. Fortunately, it wasn’t a Golden Grain Arrow.”

In his daze, Jin Yue only knew he was lifted onto a horse, lying sideways across its back, limbs swaying as it moved. The arrow remained unremoved. Helan Jinying flicked it with a finger, and Jin Yue shuddered in sudden pain.

Helan Jinying turned his head. “Don’t worry. Hundar’s strength is weak; this arrow only pierced half an inch. We can scrape it out.”

His words had barely fallen when Jin Yue suddenly slipped from the horse’s back, landing on the ground with a thud.

“You!” Helan Feng quickly lifted the half-conscious Jin Yue, sensing he could no longer walk. Without hesitation, he crouched and simply hoisted Jin Yue onto his back. The added weight caused his feet to sink deeply into the snow.

“Why are you so good to the Great Yu hostage?” Helan Jinying asked with a smile.

Only after pricking up his ears did Helan Feng hear Helan Feng’s words: “He lent me a fox fur cloak, and gave Zhuozhuo dried pears.”

Helan Jinying burst into loud laughter. Helan Feng ignored him, carrying Jin Yue alone, stepping uncertainly through the snow towards the camp.

Jin Yue slept and woke, woke and slept. After a high fever, he was left extremely weak, his face so gaunt it seemed to have lost its form.

The arrow was removed, and Hundar, after being scolded by General Tiger, was sent to Helan Feng’s tent to look after Jin Yue.

Though Hundar was usually fierce, he had never truly killed anyone. He often lifted Jin Yue’s blanket to check if he was still breathing, which naturally earned him a beating from Helan Feng. Jin Yue, sometimes woken by their noise, found it烦扰 and remained silent under the covers.

“I didn’t know you had a fever. I thought you could dodge it,” Hundar often took advantage of Helan Feng’s absence to talk to him. “Or why don’t you shoot me with an arrow too?”

Helan Feng strode in. “I’ll do it in his place.”

Hundar immediately changed the subject. “My home is clean, no smell of sheep dung. Why don’t you come stay with me?”

But after receiving a few glares from Helan Feng, Hundar fell silent.

Since learning that Helan Jinying had become a centurion and even met the North Rong Heavenly Lord, Hundar and the others no longer dared to bully Helan Feng. Helan Feng was indifferent to their change. After driving Hundar away, he always reminded Jin Yue not to get too close to him.

“Don’t run off again,” Helan Feng said when Jin Yue fell ill. Unable to bear the silence, he found topics to chat about. “The Chasing Plains are too vast. Great Yu people can’t stand the cold. Without a horse, you won’t get far.”

Jin Yue kept his eyes closed. Helan Feng didn’t know if he heard him and leaned closer to check his breathing. Jin Yue’s eyelashes fluttered, and he cast a lazy glance at Helan Feng, a dark half-moon of eye visible beneath his eyelid, his gaze cold.

Helan Feng withdrew his hand. He heard Jin Yue’s hoarse reply, “Thank you for the reminder.”

After Jin Yue recovered, Helan Feng’s family finally moved into a new felt tent. The three siblings no longer had to挤 together in one tent.

Jin Yue noticed many Great Yu items in this tent: a low table, brand-new brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, a huge screen that was too large to place anywhere, and a vertical flute hanging on the wall. He guessed these must be their mother’s belongings.

Helan Feng was cleaning his small dagger when he turned to see Jin Yue standing inside the tent, quietly watching him.

Jin Yue had changed into North Rong slave attire. The cotton clothes were bulky and thick, making his pale face appear even more gaunt. He glanced at the fox fur cloak on his arm, hesitating slightly. “Can I keep this fox fur cloak?”

Helan Feng answered, “It originally belonged to you.”

“Do I need to kneel to you?” Jin Yue asked. “I am now your family’s slave.”

Helan Feng: “No need.” As he spoke, he pressed the small knife into Jin Yue’s hand for self-defense.

The knife was his personal item; Jin Yue had seen it at his waist before. The sheath was made of tanned bear hide, very tough, and the hilt was inlaid with several tiny gold beads, likely the most valuable thing on Helan Feng.

Jin Yue refused to take it. As they pushed it back and forth, Helan Jinying lifted the curtain and strode in casually.

“Isn’t this what Father left for you?” he remarked offhandedly. “Let’s go. We’re eating at General Tiger’s tent.”

He seemed to enter the tent just to say that. As he picked up Zhuozhuo and left, he glanced at Jin Yue again, sneering. “Is there really a slave who doesn’t kneel to his master or lift the tent flap?”

Jin Yue was terrified of Helan Jinying’s wolf-like eyes, which seemed to conceal a beast’s soul, ready at any moment to swallow and tear him apart. Without hesitation, he knelt, lowering his head to the ground.

Helan Feng: “He doesn’t need to kneel.”

Helan Jinying asked, “Why?”

Helan Feng: “He… he lent me a fox fur cloak, and gave Zhuozhuo dried pears.”

Helan Jinying laughed. “What kind of reason is that! Have you forgotten what I said? Great Yu people always have ulterior motives when they show you kindness. They are never our friends.” With that, he pulled Helan Feng away.

Helan Feng looked back, only to see Jin Yue still kneeling in place, motionless. Gateway: Ranking List | Book Guide | Strong Protagonist Cool Cicada Top

After the banquet, they returned home. The tent was cold and quiet. Although the lamp was lit, Jin Yue was not there. Where he had knelt, a small knife was placed, its gold-bead hilt glinting faintly under the oil lamp.

Yetai had a small population, and even fewer could afford to keep slaves. For convenience, General Tiger gathered the slaves of six or seven families in the tribe and set up a large felt tent for them to live in.

Jin Yue had been seriously ill before. Helan Feng and Zhuozhuo had requested their older brother to take him in, and Helan Jinying had indulged his younger siblings’ wishes. Now that Jin Yue had recovered, he was naturally driven back to the large slave tent.

The slave tent was dim and worn, permeated by a unique, strong odor—a mixture of sheep stench, dust, filthy felt, and oil grime—nauseating to the nose. Patches covered the tent’s walls, and the cold wind found every crack to penetrate. Slaves lived together, men and women mixed, the tent filled with huddled, tattered quilts, beneath which one or two sleeping figures lay.

Jin Yue found an empty spot in a corner. Beneath him was straw and a felt mat as thin as paper. Wrapped in his fox fur cloak, he had only a trace of warmth.

In the dead of night, the lightly sleeping Jin Yue was suddenly awakened by a hand on his body.

The person was about to lift his fox fur cloak. Jin Yue mustered all his strength and kicked the person off, terrified. The person dodged quickly, grabbing Jin Yue’s leg. The foul-smelling large hand was already pressing on his chest, and he muttered something in North Rong: “Male?”

But the movements didn’t pause at all. After tearing open the fox fur cloak, he immediately began ripping Jin Yue’s clothes. Horrified, Jin Yue let out a low growl and kicked again at the person’s groin.

But winter clothes were thick, and his strength was insufficient. His attacks were completely ineffective, giving the person an opportunity to pin down his limbs and hands. After a struggle, he remained firmly pressed down. The rough, foul-smelling hand groped across his face. Jin Yue’s eyes nearly shot fire. He opened his mouth and bit hard on the fingers.

The night attacker howled in pain. Before Jin Yue could crawl out from under him, he received a vicious slap. The person, his lust gone, grabbed Jin Yue’s hair and dragged him towards the tent entrance, cursing incoherently in the North Rong dialect.

Many slaves in the tent had already been woken, but not one helped. Slaves fighting among themselves, life or death, they were barely managing themselves and couldn’t possibly lend a hand.

Suddenly, Jin Yue twisted back, gripping the person’s wrist and digging his nails fiercely into the flesh. The person’s grip didn’t loosen. Jin Yue hugged his leg, summoned his strength, and drove his elbow hard into the person’s knee!

The person screamed again, this time completely letting go. Enduring the sharp pain in his scalp, Jin Yue got up and rushed out of the tent—in Yetai camp, the only person who could help him now was Helan Feng. He had to find Helan Feng immediately…

He crashed into someone’s arms and looked up to meet a pair of smiling wolf-like eyes.

Helan Jinying supported him with one hand and asked kindly, “Is the little general living comfortably?”

Jin Yue’s clothes were all disheveled. He had been wearing bulky garments to begin with, and now looked even more disheveled. He straightened his lapels, stood up straight, and said, “It is only today that Jin Yue knows how North Rong people treat their slaves.”

Helan Jinying: “Since you are a slave, do you still expect golden soup, jade meals, thick quilts, and warm furs?”

Jin Yue sneered. His abdomen ached faintly, and he panted slightly as he spoke. “I am now your family’s slave. Bullying me is no different from bullying you.”

Helan Jinying nodded. “The Han have a saying: even when beating a dog, you must consider its owner.”

Jin Yue’s gums ached with rage. The North Rong greatly valued dogs and did not consider them lowly. Helan Jinying said this deliberately to humiliate him.

“You won’t let me die,” Jin Yue said quickly. “Otherwise, you and Helan Feng wouldn’t have saved me. Humiliating the son of General Loyal Glory—does that make you happy? So it seems North Rong people only have such petty tricks. If you were truly brave, how could my father have annihilated thirty thousand North Rong soldiers on the battlefield that day?”

Helan Jinying quietly looked at Jin Yue, examining him up and down.

“Now you look like Jin Mingzhao’s son,” Helan Jinying said with a smile, not at all angry. “But what use is strength in words alone? Let’s see if you can survive North Rong’s winter.”

He glanced at the North Rong slave who had followed Jin Yue and simply instructed the soldiers behind him, “Throw him out.”

The soldiers dragged the wailing slave towards the Chasing Plains. Unable to beg for mercy, the slave began cursing Helan Jinying and Helan Feng in North Rong, calling them wolf cubs who eat their own parents. Jin Yue understood and couldn’t help but glance at Helan Jinying.

“Go back,” Helan Jinying said calmly, “Slave.”

The slave tent fell silent, as if nothing had happened. But the spot where Jin Yue had been was now subtly empty. He picked up the fox fur cloak from the ground, dusted it clean, and met the gaze of one slave. That person hurriedly turned away.

From this day on, no slave dared to speak to Jin Yue.

Thus, besides sweeping the tent, feeding sheep, washing horses, and chopping ice in the river daily, Jin Yue had nothing else to do.

Helan Feng’s siblings had long been accustomed to taking care of themselves. Even the youngest, Zhuozhuo, could cook and do laundry. Jin Yue once found Helan Feng’s clothes to wash, but as soon as they were put in water, Helan Feng, blushing, rushed over and took the basin away, water and all.

Snowy days were truly boring. The slaves ignored him, and he didn’t particularly want to get close to Helan Feng. Except for occasionally telling Zhuozhuo stories about Great Yu or enduring Hundar’s crude jokes, each day was a repetition of the last.

In a daze, over two months passed. Calluses slowly formed on Jin Yue’s palms. The pain of Jin Mingzhao’s death, the annihilation of the Cloud-Running Cavalry, and Bai Ni’s disappearance gradually lessened. Events from two months ago, or even everything in Liangjing from before, seemed veiled by a gauze curtain. When he occasionally looked back, he could only glimpse a hazy outline.

Thus he became a North Rong slave, seemingly without resentment, without resistance.

When the long winter reached its depth, Helan Feng and his siblings went on a trip to the Northern Capital.

Taking advantage of their absence, Jin Yue would sometimes, after sweeping the tent, sit cross-legged on the felt mat and softly play the vertical flute.

Hundar occasionally lingered at the tent entrance, gruffly asking Jin Yue questions. Even after Jin Yue answered, he wouldn’t leave, silently listening from outside the tent. The flute’s melody twisted and turned, weeping like the patter of rain.

One day, after the snow, the sun finally shone. Helan Feng’s family returned to Yetai. The moment he dismounted, he headed straight for the slave tent, but didn’t find Jin Yue. Gateway: Ranking List | Book Guide | Strong Protagonist Cool Cicada Top

Jin Yue was watching Hundar and the others hunt rabbits.

On clear days, the snow hares of the Chasing Plains would emerge from their burrows to forage. Their gray-white fur, under the sunlight, blended almost seamlessly with the snow’s reflection, making them extremely hard to spot. Hundar and Du Ze were skilled rabbit hunters in Yetai. Wanting to show off their skills in front of Jin Yue, they both said they would catch him a live rabbit, twirling their lassos skillfully.

The rabbits darted in all directions, fleet of foot. The Chasing Plains stretched endlessly, a vast white expanse, yet they always managed to dig out burrows in unmarked places, narrowly evading the hunters’ ropes.

When Helan Feng arrived at the Chasing Plains, he saw Hundar placing a rabbit into Jin Yue’s hands.

Since Jin Yue had become a slave in Yetai, Helan Feng had never seen such a warm, joyful smile on his face.

A mix of bewilderment and anger rose in him. He strode towards the two.

Author’s Note:

Today, please enjoy some warm roasted chestnuts. Stay healthy even if you don’t go out.