"Yes, I understand, my lord."
"The situation cannot be said to be good, but neither is it bad. Anyway, the eastern half of the Situ Family has long been ravaged. Continuing the fight won’t cause too much loss.
However, with Qian and Chu joining forces, we ultimately need to find a way to break the deadlock."
"It would be great if we could capture Town South Pass," Zheng Fan said.
Capturing Town South Pass would completely restore the border line that the Situ Family held over Chu State, isolating the threat from the Chu people. Defending one point instead of a whole front clearly has lower costs and less difficulty.
"Without sufficient assurance, it’s better not to act rashly. Siege warfare is fundantally different from cavalry maneuvering; the forr entails greater consequences. Placing your stakes on the table hastily and expecting to retract them easily is difficult,"
At this point, Tian Wujing continued:
"Moreover, having Chu people occasionally barking in our ears saves us from boredom."
Zheng Fan’s mouth twitched involuntarily; he detected a sense of nurturing the enemy to maintain importance in Tian Wujing’s words.
It was unclear whether Tian Wujing was doing this intentionally or if it was a form of self-consolation due to being constrained by the situation.
Tian Wujing walked up to the entrance of a shrine and stopped.
The shrine’s signboard had fallen to the ground, shattered into many pieces, evidently deliberately destroyed. The disarray inside the dilapidated threshold was also visible.
"This was originally the ancestral shrine of an official family within Fengxin City. Later, the Situ Yi brothers ca here and removed all the patriarchal tablets, turning it into their Situ Family’s Ancestral Temple."
"Ancestral Temple? Even a sparrow, though small, has all its vital organs," Zheng Fan quipped.
"I thought you would say it was retribution," Tian Wujing remarked.
"My lord, I don’t believe in that,"
Tian Wujing nodded and walked inside.
Zheng Fan was unsure why Lord Jingnan brought him here. He initially thought Lord Jingnan would take him to the county princess, even if just to go through the motions and say he was temporarily unable to help.
Yet, clearly, once deciding whether to act or not, Lord Jingnan showed no interest in even pretending, or else there wouldn’t have been two court eunuchs crashing headfirst into the Li Tian City Marquis Manor gate in succession.
The shrine was quite disorganized, with a Buddha statue in the main hall that had fallen from its altar, leaning against a corner wall.
The statue, carved from wood, had already cracked, with obvious mold marks visible in so areas.
The Buddha statue also needs people to tend to it. Neglected for long enough, it ages swiftly.
Tian Wujing pointed at this wooden Buddha statue,
and asked Zheng Fan:
"What do you think of it?"
Zheng Fan pondered for a mont,
and said:
"In the eyes of believers, it is a Buddha. In the eyes of craftsn, it is a creation. In the eyes of rchants, it is rchandise;
but in my eyes, it’s now just a piece of rotten wood."
"Brilliant, truly brilliant!"
Just as Zheng Fan finished speaking, an old man surprisingly walked out from behind the shrine, followed by a burly man.
This burly man was comparable to Fanli in height, sporting rings in both nostrils, and was built like a bull.
The old man appeared quite short in comparison, old age naturally causing the body to shrink, standing not much taller than Xue Three.
"Prince, is this Lord Pingye?" the old man asked Tian Wujing, pointing at Zheng Fan.
"That’s him."
"Oh, rustic as I am, I greet Lord Pingye. May Lord Pingye enjoy good fortune and health."
The old man bowed to Zheng Fan, who fixed his gaze, not returning the salute.
Without Mo Wan on his person and the demonic generals absent, two unfamiliar individuals suddenly erging made Lord Zheng instinctively apprehensive.
But soon, Zheng Fan settled, as no matter what, Lord Jingnan stood beside him.
The old man did not find Zheng Fan’s reaction rude; instead, he smiled and said:
"Allow to introduce myself. I am Zeng Shulang, the head of Tianji Pavilion."
"Tianji Pavilion?"
"Oh, it seems Lord Pingye has heard of us, hehe."
"Your people have attempted to assassinate ."
"..." Zeng Shulang.
Back at the inn outside Yin City, Zheng Fan had been attacked by the spider lady of Tianji Pavilion from Jin land, with Hui Wenzu present at that ti as well.
Nevertheless, experiencing many storms, this head of Tianji Pavilion quickly brushed off the awkward mont and continued:
"As the saying goes, ’Not fighting, not knowing.’ Lord Pingye, I beseech you to forgive past grievances. Today, my Tianji Pavilion has been swept away by storms, and few of us remain."
In the war of Jin’s demise, amidst chaotic flas of war, even an establishnt like Tianji Pavilion, which stood in Jin land for over a century, suffered significant devastation. Now, it rely struggles to survive.
Yet, Zheng Fan didn’t quite understand why Lord Jingnan brought him to see this old man.
Tian Wujing found a spot to sit down, seemingly uninterested in joining the conversation.
Zheng Fan’s mind began to race swiftly,
it’s worth ntioning,
that whenever he stood beside Lord Jingnan, Lord Zheng’s mind often functioned at a higher level than usual, partly due to the imnse pressure of standing next to him, and also because he considered himself to be Lord Jingnan’s student.
Thus,
Zheng Fan pointed at himself,
then pointed at the old Zeng,
and said:
"Are you here to seek refuge with ...Yan?"
"With Jin’s fate ended, Ji replaces Yu, as determined by the Heavenly Dao. How could my Tianji Pavilion dare to go against fate?"
"Heh, you old fox have quite a way with smooth words,"
It was reminiscent of how he previously described the rotten wood with parallelism.
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