Let's rewind the time a bit.
After Lu Kan and the Three-Tailed Black Scorpion brothers finished registering and having their records filed, they went to the side hall to collect their uniform equipment.
At this time, their personal information — stored in the secret underground hall of the Shou Gong Jian — had already passed through several hands and was delivered to the Grand General’s Mansion of the Dayin Wu Dynasty.
The Grand General’s Mansion of the Dayin Wu Dynasty was located just west of the Imperial City, not far from the Shou Gong Jian.
The entire Grand General’s Mansion was surrounded by high walls about twenty li long and wide, matching the scale of the Imperial City walls.
Watchtowers and arrow towers stood densely atop the walls; ironclad elite soldiers patrolled up and down along the walls.
Every fifteen minutes or so, whole squads of cavalry galloped out from the four gates, riding around the walls in patrol.
Within this vast Grand General’s Mansion lay military camps and training grounds on all sides, with granaries and armories underground.
Tens of thousands of the most elite Imperial Guards were stationed here year-round.
This place was not only the highest military command center of the Dayin Wu Dynasty, but also one of the most important fortresses guarding the Imperial City.
The sky was already bright, and inside the central White Tiger Hall of the Grand General’s Mansion, the sound of snoring thundered like a storm, mixed with the heavy scent of alcohol.
The White Tiger Hall was the place where the Grand General of the Dayin Wu Dynasty held military councils — the most important command institution.
Every order issued here concerned the lives, deaths, and honor of millions of Dayin soldiers.
At this moment, inside the spacious hall, several bronze braziers burned dim coals, barely putting out any heat but enough to keep the large room warm.
Three-inch thick carpets covered the floor, and all over the ground lay dozens of men and women passed out drunk.
The men were all large and muscular, with thick, powerful joints, dressed in various styled tight robes.
Each robe bore fierce animal patterns, clearly marking them as high-ranking and powerful military generals.
The women were all thinly clad, pretty and lovely, entwined with these men like octopuses, tangled tightly together.
Scattered around them were piles of wine jars, pots, goblets, and drinking bowls.
Musical instruments, colorful ribbons, jade pendants, and other trinkets lay strewn about in chaos.
There were also cosmetics, perfumes, and scented oils tossed messily onto the floor.
These men and women were deeply asleep, some mumbling nonsense, some farting and burping, some snoring nonstop, while others chuckled creepily at some pleasant dream.
Two men dressed in cyan tight robes with sharp, refined faces cautiously pushed open the hall’s great door.
Step by tiny step, they carefully avoided the sleeping figures lying on the floor and made their way to the giant wooden table at the back of the hall.
Underneath the table lay a burly man over eight feet tall, with long hair unbound, a sunflower-shaped oily round face, and a belly so swollen it looked like a woman eight or nine months pregnant.
He lay spread-eagled, snoring comfortably.
This man was none other than the current Martial Duke of the Dayin Wu Dynasty — Le Wu, the Emperor’s maternal uncle, the top general commanding all of the Dayin armies.
His other titles were unimportant.
What mattered most was that he was the Empress Dowager’s dear brother—more important than anything else.
“Grand General!” The two muscular men, Le Wu’s most trusted aides, gently prodded the giant arm that was thicker than ordinary man’s thighs.
Le Wu muttered unclearly, “Little beauties!”
“Grand General?” The two aides carefully nudged his belly again.
“Here, Uncle loves you!” Le Wu giggled, his oily face breaking into a very strange smile.
“Wow, what a black dog, enough meat for forty jin!” One sighed, leaning close to Le Wu’s ear, hurriedly whispering, “Tsk, tsk, fat and fine!”
“Black dog, don’t try to escape!” Le Wu suddenly widened his eyes, sitting upright with a ‘whoosh’: “Kids, prepare the cauldrons, stock up on garlic paste. Watch your uncle… huh, what nonsense are you shouting about?”
Le Wu, still groggy, looked at the two aides and lightly slapped each of them across the face.
The two men cheerfully accepted the slap.
One slipped a thin little scroll from his sleeve and with a mischievous smile handed it over to Le Wu: “Grand General, here, good news for you.”
Le Wu rolled his eyes and snorted coldly, “I can’t read, you know that already. Just tell me, what good news?”
The man hurriedly spread out the little scroll.
It contained a full record of Lu Kan’s life since birth, as well as a palm-sized charcoal sketch exquisitely capturing Lu Kan’s spirit and disposition — almost exactly like the real person.
“Remember some time ago, at the court hall during a meeting, when you publicly scolded Bai Changkong, the Vice Head of the National University?”
The two men wore big smiles as they looked at Le Wu.
Le Wu’s huge goldfish-like eyeballs rotated, and a fierce gleam flashed in his black-and-white irises: “Bai Changkong, that old thief! You useless trash, didn’t I order you to kidnap his granddaughter before the New Year and give him a hundredfold revenge? Yet none of you dared to move?”
Growing angrier and angrier as he spoke, Le Wu slapped both of them again, one light but firm slap apiece.
“Ah, Grand General, don’t be angry, please don’t!” They awkwardly laughed and scrambled to flatter him: “Isn’t this a chance for revenge?”
“That rascal?” Le Wu playfully shook his groggy head, pointing at Lu Kan’s portrait.
“That’s right!”
One smiled, explaining in detail Lu Kan’s background and the fact that he had just joined the Shou Gong Jian.
“Lu Kan has a marriage engagement with Bai Changkong’s granddaughter?” Le Wu cocked his head, looked at Lu Kan’s portrait, and suddenly slapped his thigh, sighing: “Ah, what a juicy morsel, fallen right into the dog’s mouth. How did this kid get so lucky?”
Amid heavy coughing on the floor at the other end of the table, a thin yet refined man wearing only a pair of underpants, his face stained with rouge, convulsed and broke free from the entangling arms trying to hold him down.
He painfully straightened up.
Shivering weakly, he crawled under the table and grabbed the little scroll, carefully examining it.
As he read, this middle-aged man with a three-inch neatly trimmed beard and some scholarly charm burst into loud laughter.
“Master, master, the chance for revenge on old Bai has arrived!”
“Haha, that old rascal loves his good reputation more than anything, always trying every trick to beautify himself, putting on the mask of a moral gentleman. Who would’ve thought his own cheap grandson-in-law stabbed him firmly in the back.”
Le Wu stared blankly at the man: “Old Jia, stop babbling. Hurry up and tell me: how can this kid’s joining the Shou Gong Jian be used to take revenge on Bai Changkong?”
Le Wu’s closest strategist and military advisor — Jia Yu, the Grand General’s chief military counselor — chuckled, shook his head, and pointed at Lu Kan’s portrait.
“The grandson-in-law of Bai Changkong joined the Shou Gong Jian. You should know, the Shou Gong Jian is part of the inner court. Over the years, the Shou Gong Jian and the scholarly officials in the government have clashed fiercely.”
“The scholars call the Shou Gong Jian the ‘Eunuch Faction’ and have been attacking them with essays and articles for decades. The term ‘Eunuch Faction’ has become a foul word stinking for thirty li.”
“Who is Bai Changkong? He’s one of the representatives of those scholarly officials in court.”
“Lu Kan joining the Eunuch Faction means he can never truly be Bai Changkong’s grandson-in-law.”
“Lu Kan would rather join the Eunuch Faction than marry Bai Changkong’s granddaughter.”
“Think about it — how many dirty, secretive, shameful things are hidden here? How much filth and mire?”
Le Wu blinked, staring at Jia Yu, and after a long pause, honestly shook his head: “I don’t understand!”
Jia Yu patted Le Wu’s massive thigh: “Master, just leave this matter to me. You just wait and watch the show — then you’ll understand.”
Le Wu was silent for a moment, then grinned: “Okay, I’ll leave it to you, Old Jia. If you need men, give me men. If you need money, give me money!”
Inside the White Tiger Hall, Le Wu roared, waking one drunken general after another with kicks and shouts.
Fifteen minutes later, a group of staggering generals burst out of the hall, laughing and joking.
Another quarter hour passed; swarms of Imperial Guards in plain clothes carried copper gongs, war drums, and other instruments, rushing out of the garrison, laughing and shouting.
Within the Grand General’s Mansion, flocks of messenger hawk-eagles soared into the sky.
With sharp piercing cries, they sped toward military camps and battle fortresses stationed in various districts of Haokyo City.
Not long after, the military camps and battle fortresses that received the messages also had groups of plainclothes Imperial Guards brandishing war drums, copper gongs, horns, and hujia flutes, rushing out alive with excitement.
More hawks flew out of Haokyo, heading toward military camps across all the provinces, circuits, and prefectures of the Dayin Wu Dynasty.
These hawks were extraordinary creatures, capable of remarkable speeds — the fastest could cover ten to twenty thousand li in just a day and night.
Though Le Wu, the Grand General, wasn’t entirely reliable in some ways, thanks to the merit of the past Emperors, the current Dayin Wu Dynasty’s Imperial Guard had not yet decayed.
The military’s operational efficiency still remained astonishing, far surpassing other government offices or the ears and eyes of major noble clans.
When the furious Bai Changkong, accompanied by a few wise elder friends, galloped out from the foothills of Cuiwei Mountain, dozens of neighborhood intersections closest to the Imperial City already had plainclothes Imperial Guards beating gongs, blowing horns and hujia flutes, shouting loudly while foaming at the mouth to the gathered common folk.
“Oh my, something strange happened in Haokyo City today!”
“Hey, mister, what strange thing?”
“Ah, dear, this is really interesting news!”
“You all know Bai Changkong, the Vice Head of the National University, right? Haven’t met him but you’ve heard the name, right?”
“That’s quite a figure—the pride of Dayin’s literary establishment, Vice Head of the National University. Such an important man, a gentleman, flawless in virtue!”
“Exactly such a gentleman—tsk, tsk—his granddaughter has had some trouble!”
“What trouble? Eh, isn’t it usually something trivial between a man and woman? What else could it be?”
“Think about it yourselves, hehe—a daughter raised in deep seclusion, Bai Changkong’s granddaughter, born with high status and dazzling beauty, but uh, maybe a little ‘free-spirited’!”
“A daughter like that—what could she have done that made her childhood fiancé, hehe, rather join the Shou Gong Jian as a little eunuch than marry her?”
“Think it over carefully, think carefully again.”
“What could Miss Bai possibly have done shameful enough to force her fiancé to cut off a part of himself and escape the marriage?”
Passing by one of the intersections on horseback, Bai Changkong suddenly spat blood onto the street.
[There will be another chapter tonight around 8:30 pm.]
[From now on, if there is a second update, it will be released in the evening.]
[Also, the second chapter will contain a detailed explanation of the identity and background of Lady Tian'en Hou.]
Lady Tian'en Hou is a newly titled marquise, a collateral relative of Duke Lai’s family, granted her title due to merits.
When she married Madam Hu, he was merely a small figure.
So… Madam Hu is very beautiful, isn’t she!]
(End of chapter)