"You've seen my skills back in Huozhou; do you really distrust me that much? Even if you don't trust me, you should trust the men of the Black Feather Camp. And even if you don't trust them, you should at least trust your Emperor. His Majesty is no fool; since he's sent you, he has clearly considered every possibility. If he isn't worried, why are you?"
At the mention of the Emperor, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
Perhaps the one who tied the knot had to be the one to untie it; perhaps the root of the problem lay with the Emperor himself.
As far as she knew, the Tiancheng dynasty had been founded by martial generals. Every monarch of the past had been proficient in riding and archery. The late Emperor, Su Yin, had even been a great martial arts master in his youth. For some reason, however, the throne had been passed to a prince who had never practiced martial arts.
The current Emperor of Tiancheng was a rare case of a ruler who excelled in civil matters but lacked martial prowess. Though he possessed the political acumen to govern people and the state, he was a "throne-bound emperor" who rarely even mounted a horse. Xiao Nanhui found it somewhat baffling: why would such a fragile man insist on leading an imperial expedition? On a battlefield where blades had no eyes, if he truly encountered a life-threatening situation, even ten Ding Weixiangs might not be able to provide a foolproof plan.
As she pondered this, her idea began to take a clearer shape. To avoid being too abrupt, she decided to lay some groundwork for her suggestion.
"Lieutenant Ding, you know Bo Lao, don't you?"
Ding Weixiang remained silent, but from the slight arch of his brow, she already had her answer.
"Like you, she hails from the Andao Academy, and she was a guard my foster father officially requested from the Academy. But since the day I met her, she hasn't actually protected me many times. Not only has she failed to protect me, she's even beaten me quite a few times. It's common for her to vanish for days on end. But look at me now—I'm still alive and well, aren't I? Hahaha..."
Ding Weixiang turned a deaf ear to her laughter, turning his head to stare at her until her chuckles turned dry and awkward.
Xiao Nanhui pulled back her smile and cleared her throat, determined to push further.
"I know everyone from your Andao Academy is loyal and devoted to their duty, but sometimes, being loyal to a fault isn't necessarily a good thing. Look, your master is already an adult. He's a man, he's not disabled, and he's physically well-developed. In truth, he should have learned some martial arts long ago to defend himself. They say even the best-laid plans can fail; it's better to rely on oneself than on others. If a moment truly comes where life hangs by a thread, perhaps he could..."
"You... you know nothing!"
Ding Weixiang finally spoke, his tone thick with an irrepressible indignation, as if he had just heard something both sacrilegious and utterly moronic.
Xiao Nanhui was stunned and confused. "I haven't even finished yet. What's the rush?"
"There's no need to finish! It's out of the question!"
After all that, this man didn't want to solve the problem at all; was he just waiting here to argue with her?
She was so angry she laughed. "Then why don't you tell me? Why is it out of the question?"
"It just is!"
Her good intentions had been treated like dirt, and she lost her temper as well. "Do you think I want to take on this thankless task?! That's the Emperor! If I teach him martial arts and something goes wrong, I'm the one who'll suffer! There's no such thing as a foolproof plan in this world. Even if the men of the Black Feather Camp are worth ten men each, and even if my martial arts were unrivaled under heaven, who can guarantee they'll be by his side every second of the day? This is a battlefield now. If there's a single oversight, whose master is the one who dies?!"
Her words were blunt and left no room for face, bordering on outright treason.
But Xiao Nanhui no longer cared. She poured out everything in her heart like beans from a bag.
Ding Weixiang fell silent again.
Having said her piece, her earlier anger dissipated, replaced by a weary wave of her hand.
Forget it. She was just being meddlesome.
Life and death were fated; let happen what may.
However, just as she was about to step out of the tent, the man behind her finally spoke.
"What you've proposed... is not entirely out of the question."
Xiao Nanhui paused and turned back, waiting for the next sentence.
"But before we begin, there is one thing I must caution you about."
