The King's Mate - Part 1: Banyue

Chapter 11

Notes:

!!!!! PLEASE READ !!!!!

Okay so... I know I said I wasn't gonna upload these chapters for long time yet, but heck if so many people's opinion differ I'll listen.
I'm not brave enough to against such a majority.
But! I just don't think it's fair to people who really have to deal with the war much more personally than most, so I'll do it like this:

I'll post the whole chapter the way I wrote it last year and I'm not making any changes to the original version.
However, after the chapter is done, there will be 2! lines, and under those lines I'll put the summary version of the chapter which has already been here for the previous months.
So, if you don't want to read anything too closely related to war, you can skip the chapter, and just read the summary version at the end in order to keep up with what's happening at least a little bit, despite the overarching content.

I'll also put this explanation in all the notes for chapter 7 to 11, and I won't add anything else so you can just skip those notes if you're here for the whole thing.

Personally, I still think it's too soon but I hope this way works for everyone, somehow x.x

Chapter Text

By the time Xie Lian and General Shi deemed it safe enough to rest for the night in one of the still somewhat intact houses, it was already nearing mao shi. It also meant that their third wave of reinforcements was due to arrive any moment now, and while the sounds of battle had already died down significantly during the night, they definitely hadn't won yet. Still, the enemy forces should already be exhausted at this point, and the third wave should manage to win this blitz for good.

Still, neither of them bothered to make a makeshift bed, and both of them just sat down and leaned against a wall, still clutching their swords close to them. Even if they needed to sleep, it wouldn't do to let their guard down completely.

After having settled in, Xie Lian was just about to close his eyes when General Shi started talking again.

"QingXuan told me you're good friends with him", General Shi said, while side-eyeing Xie Lian.

"We're friends", Xie Lian confirmed, and frowned, wondering what General Shi was trying to get at.

General Shi huffed, but it sounded somewhat pleased.

"Good. QingXuan has a tendency to be overly excited and to be much too friendly to people, even those who don't want to deal with him. We already had quite a fiasco involving one of the court members because of that. But it's good to know you view him as a friend as well", he said, and nodded in approval.

Xie Lian didn't quite know what to say to that, and only hummed, pretending to be halfway asleep already. Luckily, it didn't take him long to fall asleep for real.

____________________

When Xie Lian woke up, the sun was already much higher in the sky than he'd anticipated, and he jolted up with a start, before hurrying out of the shed, only to almost bump into General Shi, who was standing just outside the door.

"So you finally woke up", General Shi stated.

"I'm sorry. I didn't intend to sleep for so long", Xie Lian immediately apologised, and only then realised the silence surrounding them.