ITVCFITB CHAPTER 81

Chapter 81 – When Two Princes Meet

With the secret order in hand, the Fourth Prince moved fast. Troops were tapped and dispatched under the emperor’s token, quietly, but not so quiet that Yan Xiang’s network didn’t catch the wind.

The emperor had uprooted Yan’s visible allies, but the hidden ties ran deep. Purge everyone who’d ever dealt with Yan and the court would stand empty. So long as those ties existed, a puff of rumor would go straight back to the Yan clan.

What do troops mean? Conquest.

Where were Yan’s private armies garrisoned? On whose land?

This wasn’t a whim. The emperor’s lists were ready: commanders slotted, logistics in order, even veterans recalled by Grand General Wei placed in key positions. He had planned to break the Yan clan for a long time.

When the Fourth Prince took his leave, the emperor was almost giddy.

At last the Yan clan will fall. At last I’ll be free of their leash.

In the face of imperial power, “kinship” is nothing. The Li dynasty’s world had become the Yan family’s stage, no heir of Li could accept it.

The entire imperial clan and every minister who backed imperial authority, welcomed the move. A state may hold many voices, but not many factions. When crisis comes, who acts? Who bears the blame? Only shirking follows.

The Yan clan hadn’t raised private troops in a day. Unlike the Lin family’s single stronghold, they controlled three prefectures, garrisons quietly bought and turned. A head-on assault would trigger open resistance; hence the emperor’s order for a silent campaign.

In the capital, Yan Xiang sat under house arrest, but he wasn’t foolish enough to raise a rebel banner with the Empress, Crown Prince, and Grand Empress Dowager still in the palace. He would weigh success or extinction. If they won, fame forever; if they lost, blood to the last babe-in-arms.

Would the Yan clan not fight back as the emperor gnawed at their roots? They would but without waving the Yan flag. Otherwise, the emperor would devour them piece by piece.

Yan convened his think tank. First: test how much the emperor and Fourth Prince truly knew. Second: prepare to shed skins, turn “soldiers” back into “peasants” before the army arrived. A column can’t beat a messenger on a goat track.

The emperor’s secrecy was tight: the Fourth and Wei’s veterans split into two prongs and set out along different routes. Yan’s people scrambled to warn the strongholds.

The Fourth Prince, for all his vanity, wasn’t an empty suit and he had Shen Mingyun at his back again. Those “tips” and “hunches” came right on time. Mingyun abandoned the idea of redeeming diet pills and redeemed “useful tools” instead. If the Fourth still couldn’t find the hideouts, those points would be a waste.

He did. His spies tailed Yan’s courier and pivoted the main force straight at the first den, officially to “suppress bandits.”

Idle “farmers,” stockpiled blades… who were they fooling? When the men resisted, that fiction died. The Fourth’s sudden strike cracked the first outpost in two days.

Wei’s column took the second after seven, high ground, tight passes, and a slow choke as Yan’s grain ran dry. When the summit fell, those who didn’t die surrendered.

Together, the Fourth Prince and Wei set their sights on the third hold. The first two had been decoys; the third was the bone.

Back in the capital, Yan Xiang nearly choked on his fury. How had the Fourth found them so quickly? How had he deployed so precisely?

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In Gucheng, aside from the usual border squabbles, life was steady. Someone even tried to kidnap the Third Prince Consort; they were hauled off to prison before they got within spitting distance of the wall. Everyone knew what Luo Shuyu meant to the Third Prince and to Gucheng.

Luo Shuyu and Li Mingjin were already abreast of the emperor’s clash with the Yan clan.

During Shen Mingyun’s confinement, Chen Rong moved next door from the Third Prince’s estate, close enough for a knock on the wall. Family and chief strategist deserved good quarters.

That afternoon, after a meeting at camp, Chen came by to scrounge dinner.

“You don’t have a cook?” Mingjin asked, deadpan.

“Not one worth the salt,” Chen said, thinking of his half-baked senior brother. “Spare me one from your kitchen?”

“No,” Mingjin said primly. “A’Yu likes their dishes.”

“What A’Yu likes,” Chen muttered, “is obviously what you can’t bear to share.”

Luo Shuyu laughed, letting them spar. It was the same every time: Chen angling for a cook, Mingjin guarding the pantry like a dragon.

“Keep it up,” Mingjin warned. “Keep grabbing, and you won’t even get leftovers.”

“Can you be any more childish?”

“You’re childish.”

Shuyu cut in, amused. “Where’s Doctor Lin today?”

“Crafting ‘medicinal cuisine,’” Chen said, face bleak. “Every. Single. Day.”

“It’s for your health.” Shuyu turned to QIngwang. “Ask Doctor Lin for Mister Chen’s taboos and have the kitchen plan dinner accordingly.”

“…Cousin,” Chen sighed, defeated.

Mingjin grinned. “See? He does care.”

Chen tilted his head. “Don’t laugh yet, Your Highness. You eat what I eat tonight.”

Mingjin blinked toward Shuyu. “…No. A’Yu, our menu stays.”

Shuyu only smiled. “You’ll find out when the dishes arrive.”

In this household, nothing ran without Luo Shuyu, big or small. If Mingjin sulked, Shuyu smoothed him out. Everyone knew the Third Prince Consort was the backbone; the Third Prince the banner. “Husband-managed” had become a badge of honor in camp: if you didn’t respect your spouse, you probably didn’t respect duty.

Why claw at concubines in the back house when you could learn a trade, earn your own coin, and buy the pretties you wanted? Shuyu’s “schools” taught not just children but women. War was fickle. If a husband didn’t return, a skill might keep a family alive.

Dinner proved kind. Mingjin got his meat; Chen got light dishes and a vegetable “meat” that wasn’t half bad. Better than moving out for the Fourth Prince’s face, anyway; once he’d left, moving back had been awkward. Mingjin, jealous since learning they were cousins, always grumbled Chen was stealing Shuyu’s time.

At table, the talk turned to the Fourth’s campaign.

“Didn’t know he had such a nose for hideouts,” Chen mused. “The Yan clan hid for years.”

Shuyu’s lashes dipped. “Ever read cultivation tales?”

“On idle days.”

“Then you know of the ‘son of fortune.’”

Chen blinked. “You’re saying the Fourth is—?”

Mingjin cut in. “Not him. Think of his consort, A’Yu’s cousin.”

Chen pictured Shen Mingyun: Mid-Autumn, New Year, rounder each time. “Him? Heaven’s eyesight has declined.”

Shuyu only smiled.

Whatever the cause, the Fourth was off to a roaring start. The Left Chancellor was pleased. The Emperor’s displeasure toward Yan was an open secret; the Crown Prince’s shine had long dulled. Once the Empress confided the truth of his birth, his world caved in and he never rebuilt it. If Yan could weather this, the Crown Prince might still have a road. But the pace of “bandit suppression” was unnerving.

Where had the Fourth gotten his secrets? How long had the emperor been digging?

Stronghold by stronghold fell, and the Yan clan finally felt fear. They had swaggered so long they forgot the world bore the Li name, not Yan.

They struck back.

Fufeng Prefecture. Pengnan. Jiangxia. Claws bared.

Soon after, the emperor learned Yan Xiang had slipped his leash “gold cicada casts its shell” and united with his field forces in Fufeng.

Their first proper clash? The Fourth Prince ate dirt. For all his quick wins, he’d just rammed into a veteran schemer and paid for it.

For the first time, he missed Mingyun’s constant prompts. Unfortunately, Mingyun was home with the children, until a letter arrived: he was bringing men south to help.

The courier arrived. Shen Mingyun did not.

The Fourth Prince’s eye twitched. Which wild man now?

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For once, he misjudged. Mingyun really had set out, system in tow, but trouble found him en route. He was rescued by that amnesiac man from before, now very not amnesiac.

After they got past the shock of “rounder Shen,” the man revealed himself: Second Prince of Zhou.

Mingyun lit up. “Then let’s form an alliance!”

A throne isn’t won by two hands; it’s shaped by nations. One more friend, one more path. He hadn’t saved the wrong man.

He brought the Zhou prince straight to the Fourth Prince’s camp. A godsend, a winter coal delivery.

Exactly what the Fourth needed: manpower. What would Zhou demand? That was someone else’s problem; Mingyun’s job was to build the bridge.

Days later, the Fourth Prince and Zhou’s Second Prince faced each other in the command tent, polite smiles stretched thin. Mingyun, round-cheeked and pleased, watched them play at courtesy, none the wiser.

Zhou’s Second Prince: “To win such a consort, Your Highness is truly blessed. May you and Young Lord Shen enjoy a hundred years of harmony.”

The Fourth Prince ground out two syllables. “…Thank you.”

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Author’s Note
Third Prince: Babe, today let’s write a fluffy pet story!
Luo Shuyu: Sure.
Third Prince: I’m a human film king; you’re a newly adult black cat. You love my scent and want to do-that in heat!
Luo Shuyu: I may be a cat spirit, but the law says no spirits after nation founding. I can’t become human.
Third Prince: … miscalculated.jpg

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