CQDF 3

Tearing Up the Pig-Torture Script: Consort Qi Dominates Her Fiefdom

CHAPTER 3: The Lone Wolf of the North, Confined Strategy in the Secret Room

The night before leaving the capital, heavy snow fell like a cascading waterfall.

Chang'an City was shrouded in a blanket of thick, heavy silver. Yet inside the secret underground chamber beneath the Weiyang Palace side hall, a single, dim eternal lamp flickered. Dampness seeped from the subterranean stone walls, making the enclosed space oppressive and freezing.

Yu Xiaoqing had changed into an utterly inconspicuous coarse hempen garment, her hood pulled down low to reveal only the delicate line of her completely bloodless chin. She sat quietly on a stone chair, her right hand holding the sleeping young Liu Ruyi, while the thumb of her left hand rhythmically and slowly stroked the first knuckle of her index finger.

It was an instinctive habit she fell into when deep in thought, one she wasn't even conscious of.

Creak—

The heavy stone door was pushed open slowly, and a biting chill mixed with the smell of dried blood and northern dust instantly swept through the entire chamber.

Yu Xiaoqing raised her eyes.

The man entering was immensely tall, clad in deep-black heavy armor that cast an icy gleam under the faint lamplight. He unclasped his heavy black cloak, revealing a strikingly youthful yet sharply chiseled, knife-edge countenance.

Those eyes were as deep as the most ancient cold pools of the northern frontier, bottomless, carrying the hardened apathy and blood-soaked indifference of one who had spent years stationed on the border and witnessed mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The young-generation wolf general, Shi Zhongyuan. Twenty-four years old, the true master of the thirty thousand elite Yanmen iron cavalry of the northern Han frontier.

Shi Zhongyuan closed the stone door behind him without offering an immediate salute. Standing five paces away from Yu Xiaoqing, he looked down condescendingly at the infamous Consort Qi, rumored to be the "favorite of the inner court who wreaked havoc on the state".

In his eyes, there was no dazzled awe—only undisguised frost and disgust.

According to the gossip rippling through Chang'an, Consort Qi was nothing more than a brainless dancing girl who relied solely on her beauty and tearful wails before the Emperor to subvert the foundations of the country. Had the Emperor not held a chokehold over the Shi clan's livelihood, he would never have led his life-or-death brothers into escorting such dead weight.

"Your humble servant, Shi Zhongyuan, pays respects to Consort Qi."

He bowed, his tone as stiff as raw iron freshly hacked out of a snowbank, utterly devoid of a subject's submissive respect.

Yu Xiaoqing did not move, nor did she grow angry at his cold reception. She simply watched him quietly; her eyes, half-hidden beneath her hood, were crystal-clear, hyper-rational, and possessed a chilling, analytical sharpness.

This was certainly not the gaze of a pampered palace favorite.

Shi Zhongyuan’s brows twitched imperceptibly, a strange unease rising within him. The woman before him was twenty-six, right at the peak of a woman's radiant youth, yet the aura radiating from her felt as steady and unfathomable as an ancient bronze bell enduring the tests of time.

"General Shi," Yu Xiaoqing finally spoke, her voice somewhat raspy yet exceptionally composed. "His Majesty should have already handed the covert tiger tally over to you."

"Indeed," Shi Zhongyuan replied coldly, his right hand resting on the hilt of his side-sword. "The Gaozu Emperor has commanded this subordinate to lead a hundred elite cavalry to escort Her Ladyship and the Prince of Zhao to their fief. I shall certainly 'do my utmost'."

He heavily emphasized the words "do my utmost".

The subtext was painfully clear: if an assassination squad sent by Empress Lü intercepted them along the road, he would make a token effort, but if Consort Qi proved useless and turned into a liability dragging them down, he would abandon her without a second thought.

"Is the General wondering if, should I happen to die at the hands of 'wandering bandits' on the road, you can simply lead your men back to the northern frontier without being shackled by Chang'an's leash?" Yu Xiaoqing lifted her chin slightly, her hood slipping back to reveal a stunningly exquisite face entirely devoid of flattery.

Shi Zhongyuan’s pupils contracted sharply, his hand tightening instinctively around the sword hilt.

She saw right through it.

"Her Ladyship would do well to mind her words." Shi Zhongyuan stepped forward, a terrifying martial pressure crashing toward Yu Xiaoqing like an overwhelming tide, his tone freezing. "Chang'an is not the northern frontier. If this subordinate wants someone dead, there is no need for bandits."

"The General needn't try to frighten me." Yu Xiaoqing didn't flinch or retreat, meeting his murderous gaze head-on. "Since I dared to abandon Chang'an's luxury and request an exile fief of my own volition, I have already placed my life outside the calculations of survival. General Shi, let's drop the pleasantries and talk business. Do you honestly think that if I die on the road, you and your entire Shi clan will be able to wash your hands of it and stay clean?"

Shi Zhongyuan sneered: "I am an officer of the Han empire, acting by imperial decree. If Her Ladyship meets with an untimely end, it is simply a matter of mandated fate and cosmic timing. What does that have to do with me?"

"Ignorant." Yu Xiaoqing parted her crimson lips, spitting out a single, chilling word.

"What did you say?" Murderous intent surged in Shi Zhongyuan's eyes; no one within the walls of Chang'an had ever dared speak to him in such a tone.

"I said you are ignorant." Yu Xiaoqing slowly stood up, cradling the sleeping Liu Ruyi tightly in her arms, her gaze burning as she locked onto him. "What kind of person is Empress Lü? She is a master stateswoman capable of carving up the empire alongside the Emperor! Today, my son and I are the single thorn in her eye. If we perish during your escort, take a guess: will Empress Lü ever let go of a northern lone wolf who commands thirty thousand iron cavalry and holds a secret imperial mandate?"

Yu Xiaoqing closed the distance by a step, her voice dropping to a whisper that pierced straight through to the bone:

"She will use the pretext of 'dereliction of duty in protection' to legally strip your Shi family of military authority, or even execute your entire clan down to the ninth generation! The veteran chancellors of Chang'an have long coveted the northern defense lines; do you truly believe that if I die, you can walk away unscathed? If my mother-son pair perishes, the entire Shi lineage will simply be the next name added to her liquidation roster."

Inside the secret chamber, absolute silence fell, broken only by the faint popping sound of the eternal lamp's wick.

Shi Zhongyuan stared fixedly at the woman before him.

He had originally thought he was simply taking on a routine escort gig to drop off a prince and his mother, never imagining that this woman could dissect the most ruthless power struggles of Chang'an's inner and outer courts in a single glance.

She wasn't begging for his protection; she was using a cold risk-and-reward calculus to forcefully chain him and his entire clan onto her ship.

This breadth of vision and strategic grit completely shattered his expectations.

"Consort Qi." The disgust in Shi Zhongyuan's eyes gradually faded, replaced by unprecedented gravity and alertness. "It seems everyone in Chang'an has underestimated you."

Yu Xiaoqing maintained her calm expression, a faint, subtle curve playing at the corner of her lips.

"If I hadn't let everyone assume I was just a petty, tearful palace woman fighting over affection, my son and I would have likely been murdered in Chang'an long ago."

As she spoke, she retrieved a stack of neatly folded xuan papers from her tunic, holding them out toward Shi Zhongyuan.

"What is this?" Shi Zhongyuan raised a brow, making no move to take them.

"A welcoming gift from this concubine to the General." Yu Xiaoqing placed the papers onto the stone table. "Inside are the optimized 'Blast Furnace Steelmaking Method' and 'Refined Salt Crystallization Method.' The northern Zhao territory abounds with iron ore, and the Dai region is rich in alkali flats. As long as the General can escort me safely to Zhao, within a year, I can have every soldier in Yanmen Pass equipped with elite hardened-steel black armor, multiply the Shi army's payroll tenfold, and free you from ever having to kowtow to the Chang'an court's whims again."

Shi Zhongyuan’s pupils contracted violently.

Hardened-steel black armor? Tenfold payroll?

If the contents of these papers were genuine, this wasn't just a political amulet—it was an supreme asset capable of completely reshaping the military and political landscape of the entire Han empire!

"Deal." Shi Zhongyuan gathered the papers, his voice dropping low and raspy, the frost in his eyes thoroughly replaced by an unprecedented, burning focus.

"I accept this transaction."

He stepped back a pace. This time, he folded his hands in a deep, formal martial salute. The friction of his dark iron heavy armor produced a deep, solemn echo.

"Three days from now, at the foot of Changle Slope. Your humble servant, Shi Zhongyuan, shall await Her Ladyship and the Prince of Zhao. Though it be a sea of blades or a mountain of fire, this subordinate... will ensure Her Ladyship's safe passage."

The stone door unsealed once more, and Shi Zhongyuan's figure vanished into the howling blizzard.

Yu Xiaoqing stared at the sealed stone door, slowly exhaling a long breath of turbid air.

She was no longer merely Consort Qi, waiting helplessly to be guided by destiny into the abyss of the human-pig slaughterhouse.

From this exact moment onward, she was rewriting her own fate with her own hands.

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