Chapter 264: Prevention is Key

The sound of horse hooves fades into the distance. Jing Chao, the divine archer, struck once and left, decisive, ruthless, and resolute.

Chen Ji turns his head to look at the arrow hole in the city gate tower. The feathered arrow had immense power and force, actually splitting a gap in a wooden beam on the city gate tower. There are also two other similar new arrow holes on the tower.

This is not the first time Jing Chao has tried to persuade them to surrender.

He turns to look, and Hu Junxian holds the surrender silk cloth in his hand, silently looking at the distant large camp of Jing Chao.

The next moment.

Hu Junxian throws the silk cloth into the black night, letting it flutter towards the distance: "If you were me, would you open the city gates?"

Chen Ji does not answer. This is not a question he can answer, nor one he should answer.

Seeing his silence, Hu Junxian continues to ask: "If I don't surrender, I, Hu, will die for my country, and my name will naturally be remembered for a thousand years. Later historians will definitely say that I, Hu, was both loyal and righteous. If I surrender, I, Hu, will be scorned by historians for ten thousand years, but the common people behind Guyuan can still be preserved. If it were you, what would you do?"

Chen Ji remains silent for a long time, still unwilling to answer the question: "General Hu, I am merely a bastard son of the Chen family, my position is low and my words carry little weight. It is better to discuss this with Vice Commander Zhou."

Hu Junxian leans against the parapet wall and says indifferently: "Wang Dao Sheng was indeed not wrong about you. You are truly born with a cautious nature, hiding everything. Someone like you should only go to the capital, where even the stone lions grow minds, not stay in the borderlands."

Chen Ji does not retort.

Then he hears Hu Junxian continue: "As for Zhou You, I have already locked him in the big prison."

Chen Ji is slightly startled: "What crime did Vice Commander Zhou commit?"

Hu Junxian turns and enters the city gate tower, sitting on a chair like a mountain, burly and imposing: "I put my trust in the wrong person, which allowed him the opportunity to burn all the grain and fodder."

Could it be that Zhou You was faking it but then actually went through with it?

Chen Ji asks hesitantly: "Why would Vice Commander Zhou want to rebel?"

Hu Junxian sneers: "Half of the border army wants to rebel day and night, so it is not strange for him to want to rebel. It would be strange if he didn't."

Chen Ji is stunned. He did not expect the other party to say such a thing: "Could it be that General Hu also wants to rebel?"

Hu Junxian says expressionlessly: "That is none of your concern."

Chen Ji probes: "General Hu, how much longer can the border army's grain last?"

Hu Junxian says calmly: "If we kill the camels used by the conscripts, we can hold out for another five days. If we kill the warhorses, we can hold out for another three days."

Chen Ji asks again: "When can reinforcements arrive?"

Hu Junxian says: "Possibly within twenty days, or possibly never."

Chen Ji falls into thought. If that is the case, no matter whether Hu Junxian opens the city gates or not, Guyuan is doomed. Jing Chao only needs to besiege Guyuan for another fifteen days, and by then the border army will not even have the strength to defend the city.

At this moment, personal guards serve tea to the two of them. Hu Junxian picks up the teacup and drinks it all in one go: "Stay away from the Crown Prince these few days. When the Jing Chao Tian Ce army enters the city, they will presumably arrest all the border army leaders and followers of the Crown Prince immediately. Perhaps if you disguise yourself as a common person, you can escape disaster. My words are finished here, and this can also be considered an explanation to your teacher."

After speaking, he calls someone to bring a household register document: "This household register document can help you deceive others. When the Jing Chao Tian Ce army sees the document, they will only think you are an ordinary common person of Guyuan and will not suspect anything more."

Chen Ji's heart suddenly becomes alert. Hu Junxian is going to open the city gates and surrender. Calling him here at this time is just to teach him how to escape the Jing Chao army's city-wide search.

But there are four people here, and there is only one copy of the household register document.

He holds the household register document in his hand, stands up, and takes his leave.

Just as he is about to exit the city gate tower, Hu Junxian suddenly opens his mouth and asks: "If your teacher Wang Dao Sheng were here, would he open the city gates and surrender?"

Chen Ji stands at the threshold of the city gate tower, turns around, and says calmly: "I do not know how Teacher would choose... but I would not."

Hu Junxian silently examines Chen Ji. Chen Ji meets his gaze without avoidance or concession.

After more than ten breaths, Hu Junxian says indifferently: "Understood. Go."

After Chen Ji leaves, he stands up and goes to the edge of the parapet wall. His old, calloused hands stroke the even rougher city wall bricks and stones. He sighs for a long time: "Guyuan, ah, Guyuan..."

Chen Ji urges his horse to gallop, with extreme urgency.

Hu Junxian did not clearly say whether he would open the city gates and surrender, but Chen Ji vaguely has a feeling that the other party will surrender.

If that moment arrives, whether Jing Chao will keep their promise not to slaughter the city, or follow the ancestral teaching to slaughter the city, no one dares to say for sure. Before that, Chen Ji still has things to do.

He lowers his body and passes through the chaotic streets of Guyuan. When he returns to the door of Longmen Inn, he flips off his horse, pats the back of Date Date: "Go back to the stable yourself."

After speaking, Date Date bites the reins and heads towards the backyard. Chen Ji, covered in dust, lifts the door curtain.

In an instant, everyone's gazes in the main hall of the inn converge, like beams of light hitting Chen Ji's body.

He looks around without changing his expression, seeing that half of the people in the main hall are Imperial Guards, and the other half are powerful families from Guyuan who have come to buy and sell news. Everyone's faces are filled with worry.

Seeing that it is Chen Ji who has returned, the man named Li who bought news from him earlier stands up and asks anxiously: "Do you have any news to sell today?"

Another person stands up: "Do you know the movements of Jing Chao? What plans does the border army have?"

"How many more days can Guyuan hold out?"

The crowd asks in a clamor, as if grasping a life-saving straw.

Li Xuan originally wanted to ask Chen Ji what happened after he was taken away by the border army, what Hu Junxian intended, and whether the border army still had grain, but now he cannot even get a word in.

Chen Ji pushes aside the people who have gathered around and goes straight to the counter: "Excuse me, I am the same as all of you, I know nothing."

He squeezes through the crowd and comes to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper, dressed in a black cloth shirt, is still steadily holding a pen and recording accounts. He says with interest: "If the guest were to sell some useful news at this time, perhaps he could earn a large sum of silver. These people are like sick people desperately seeking a doctor, perhaps they are willing to give up all their family property in exchange for a way out."

Chen Ji shakes his head: "Now is not the time to earn silver, shopkeeper. I have something to ask Hu Third Master. Do you know where he is?"

The shopkeeper smiles: "Guest, are you trying to buy news from me?"

Chen Ji looks at him: "Yes."

The shopkeeper shakes his head: "Hu Third Master is in the Tian Zi Yi number guest room. Guest, go find him yourself."

Chen Ji is slightly startled, turns around, and runs upstairs.

The shopkeeper looks at his back, then winks at Xiao Wu: "You watch the counter."

After speaking, he takes advantage of the people's inattention, bends down, lifts the wooden board under the counter, shrinks his body, and drills into the underground secret passage.

At the door of the Tian Zi Yi number room, Chen Ji gently knocks on the door with his knuckles.

The door opens, and Hu Third Master opens a crack in the door. Seeing that it is Chen Ji, he immediately pokes his head out to check the left and right of the corridor. After confirming that there is no one, he says in a low voice: "Come in and talk."

After the room door is reclosed, Hu Third Master asks curiously: "What is the matter you are looking for me for?"

Chen Ji says in a low voice: "Earlier, Hu Third Master once said that he could help me buy ginseng. I wonder if that was true or false?"

Hu Third Master smiles: "Naturally it is true."

Chen Ji takes a deep breath: "But I cannot wait four days. Can Hu Third Master advance the time? I need that batch of ginseng tomorrow."

"So urgent?" Hu Third Master wrinkles his eyebrows, his mind racing: "Is the Jing Chao Tian Ce army going to attack?!"

Chen Ji is silent for a moment: "Sorry, I cannot say."

Hu Third Master says calmly: "In this Guyuan city now, only one thing can be considered extremely urgent. And the only person who can make Guyuan fall tomorrow is Hu Junxian. Hu Junxian is thinking of opening the city gates and surrendering, is that right?"

Chen Ji says casually: "General Hu is loyal to the monarch and loves his country. I do not think he would do such a thing."

Hu Third Master smiles: "I understand my cousin better than you. He wishes that Jing Chao would drive straight in and enter the capital to take the head of Emperor Ning."

Chen Ji is startled: "Why?"

Hu Third Master sits squarely beside the Eight Immortals table and pours two cups of tea: "Sit down and talk."

Chen Ji sits down but does not touch the tea.

Hu Third Master glances at the cup, then opens his mouth and says: "Hu Junxian originally focused on cultivation, only holding the position of a participating general in the Ten Thousand Years Army. He entered the Xiantian Realm at the age of sixteen and the Seek Dao Realm at the age of twenty-seven. At that time, he was ambitious and always felt that the threshold of the Divine Path Realm was only one step away. He did not care about the social obligations among his colleagues and put aside matters of marrying a wife and having children. But someone could not bear to see the Hu family possibly produce two officials in the Divine Path Realm."

Hu Third Master continues: "Hu Junxian, and also that Hu Junyan from the Qintianjian, if both of them entered the Divine Path Realm, I am afraid many people would be in danger. So someone thought of a method to eliminate Hu Junxian, this hidden danger."

Chen Ji asks curiously: "Did someone poison him?"

Hu Third Master laughs coldly: "Why go to the trouble of poisoning? In the twenty-second year of Jialing, an imperial edict was sent to the Hu family, sealing him as the Vice Commander of Guyuan, with the official position of positive third rank."

Chen Ji's heart turns cold.

The Son of Heaven once said that once an official position reaches the positive third rank, it will contradict the path of cultivation and disperse one's cultivation realm.

If Hu Junxian did not accept the edict, it would be resisting the edict and showing disrespect. But if he accepted, at the instant Hu Junxian accepted the edict, his entire cultivation would turn to nothing, and from then on he could only steadily live as an ordinary person.

How vicious this imperial edict of sealing officials is, yet no one can find fault with it.

Chen Ji asks: "Did Hu Junxian accept?"

Hu Third Master sighs: "If he did not accept, the Hu family would bear the crime of resisting the edict. How could he sit by and do nothing? If you were him, would you hate or not hate?"

Chen Ji frowns: "To advance to the Divine Path Realm is as difficult as climbing the sky. Hu Junxian might not necessarily be able to cross that step. Why bother?"

Hu Third Master slowly says: "Preventing trouble before it happens."

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