Qiang Jin Jiu (Author : Tang Jiuqing 唐酒卿)

Chapter 127 : Vulture

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Ji Gang rose to his feet abruptly. “Nonsense!”
Although Li Xiong had been beaten back by Ji Gang, he was not afraid of him. He retorted resolutely, “I’m not talking nonsense. I have seen him before. There’s a portrait of him in Gedale. My big bro used to live there. I remember it clearly!” 

Fei Sheng thought this did not augur well, considering that he was not Shen Zechuan’s trusted subordinate yet, so there were some matters he was not at liberty to remain here and listen. Thus he got up and said, “Seems to me like he’s more or less done with eating. Master, I’ll inform the kitchen to stop serving up the meat.”  

Once Fei Sheng withdrew, Shen Zechuan asked Ji Gang to sit and said to Li Xiong, “Look carefully. Are you sure it’s my portrait?”   

Li Xiong grasped the handkerchief he used to wipe his mouth with two fingers and scrutinized Shen Zechuan for a moment. He answered hesitantly, “It kind of looks like… yet also kind of doesn’t…”  

Shen Zechuan felt a slight stir in his heart. He stirred the spoon in the soup and lowered his eyes. “The person in the portrait you’ve seen is a woman, yes?”    

It finally dawned on Li Xiong. “Oh, right. That’s a woman; you’re a man.” 

In just a short moment, Shen Zechuan made plenty of conjectures. He watched the sour plums stirring in the soup and thought back to what Zhou Gui had once said. He also remembered his mother, Bai Cha, as well as Lei Jingzhe who had just returned to the Prefecture of Dunzhou’s territory. 

“What place is this ‘Gedale’?” Shen Zechuan asked without batting an eyelid. 

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“Gedale lies to the east of Chashi River and is a part of the area within the Biansha’s borders. In the early days, it was a temporary residence for the Zhongbo bandits to hide from the pursuit of the Zhongbo garrison troops, but later, they engaged in the illicit trade of selling women from decent families and was wiped out by the garrison troops of two prefectures led by my elder brother, Tantai Long. The remaining people defected to the Biansha Cavalry, and the one roaming around this place back then was the Biansha’s Liaoying Tribe.” Tantai Hu raised his head to watch Meng pass through the layers of clouds. “Lei Jingzhe came from that place. After leaving the Zhu clan, he had nowhere to go. He thought of following the Zhongbo bandits to make his fortune, so he went to Gedale. But for some reason, he failed to build up a brigade of bandits there and eventually returned to the Prefecture of Duanzhou, where he met up with Lei Changming and started to make his mark.”   

“After Tantai Long wiped out the Gedale’s bandits, the Liaoying Tribe headed north. Those bandits who had initially defected to them followed them north too.” Chen Yang squatted on the ground and rubbed at a handful of dry soil. “The Liaoying Tribe is now the reserve cavalry of the Hanshe Tribe. All the saker falcons of the Biansha people are tamed by the Liaoying Tribe. At first, their status among the Twelve Tribes of Biansha was pretty low, equivalent to that of an ‘eagle slave’, but twenty years ago, an ‘esuheri’ appeared in the Liaoying Tribe.”  
Tantai Hu was not from Libei, so he did not know the implication of this form of address.  

Gu Jin explained from the side, “That is, ‘hero’.” 

“You know Biansha is made up of numerous tribes, right?” Chen Yang looked back and smiled at Tantai Hu. “Only tribes where ‘heroes’ have appeared can be called as one of the Twelve Tribes. Coincidentally, our lord and this ‘hero’ were both born in the same year. Ever since His Lordship established the Libei Armored Cavalry at Luoxia Pass, this ‘hero’ conquered the three tribes of Liaoying, Gouma, and Changjiu in the desert and defeated the old chief of the Hanshe Tribe in the north with saker falcons. From then on, he became the one and only ‘Great Hero’ to command the four tribes since the reign of Yongyi. He also became Libei’s arch-enemy.”