Chapter 719 - 262: House Arrest
Chapter 719: Chapter 262: House Arrest
During the second month of spring, the weather in the Capital City grew warmer. Everything was coming back to life, marking the perfect season when the grass grew tall and the warblers took to the sky.
In the Western Regions Royal Court, however, sandstorms filled the sky. A single trip outside meant shaking five pounds of sand off your clothes upon returning.
With the yellow sand swirling in the distance and the bitter sorrow festering up close, the overwhelming anxiety felt like it could burn a person alive.
Chen Song looked at Yao Zhi, the Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard, and asked, "Commander Yao, are there truly no hidden agents left planted by the Wei Dynasty here in the Western Regions Royal Court?"
Zhao Jing had arrived under the pretext of "civilizing the people of the Western Regions," but the moment their group stepped foot in the Western Regions Royal Court, they had lost their freedom.
The Western Regions couldn’t even be bothered to offer a decent excuse. They simply corralled them in like a herd of cattle and sheep.
At first, Chen Song had been full of ambition, hoping to seize the opportunity to achieve a great merit. But after half a year of this, let alone achieving anything, he couldn’t even walk out the door. The sheer grind of it all had aged him several years.
Then there was Commander Yao, sitting across from him. As the Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard, he had been ordered by the Emperor to escort Zhao Jing and supervise the implementation of the civilizing efforts. However, after arriving in the Western Regions, they had been force-fed drugs. Like eagles with broken wings, they were left utterly powerless to do anything.
In private, Yao Zhi had actually attempted to discreetly contact the Wei Dynasty’s spies in the Western Regions. But he only reached out once and hadn’t dared to make another reckless move since. This was because Zhao Jing had privately warned him that the Western Regions Royal Court might be using him as bait, intending to round up every last Wei Dynasty spy planted in the Royal Court in one fell swoop.
They were better off quietly biding their time. The more they struggled, the more people would die.
Of course, only he and Zhao Jing knew about this. Everyone else, including Chen Song, was completely kept in the dark. But if anyone asked about it, Yao Zhi had a ready response. He would simply say, "You’re asking the wrong person. A matter of this magnitude isn’t something I would be privy to. Don’t worry needlessly; since we are here, we might as well accept our circumstances."
Chen Song scratched his head in utter frustration. How could he possibly accept his circumstances? How long had it been since he last saw his wife and children?
Even though they could still correspond as usual since arriving here, the contents of their letters were subjected to strict censorship. A single inappropriate word could get a letter rejected, instantly invalidating that opportunity to communicate with their families.
He came here to achieve greatness, not to be a prisoner.
Chen Song wasn’t the only one with furrowed brows and a growing aura of irritability. Weren’t all the others locked in the tent feeling exactly the same?
Including the escorts, there were over a hundred people on this journey. They had been split up and confined in two tents, with every inch of space packed tightly with people.
In the past, these men were all the cream of the crop. At the very least, they were well-read Advanced Scholars. Yet now, they were forced to share a single room, completely stripped of any privacy. The air inside the tent was foul and pungent, pushing many to the very limits of their psychological endurance. If the situation grew any more difficult, it was hard to say whether some of them would genuinely defect to the Royal Court.
The tent flap was lifted, and someone stooped to enter.
The interior of the tent brightened, then dimmed again. The crowd looked up toward the source of the light, only to see Zhao Jing coming in from outside, covered head to toe in sand and dust.
The crowd stirred briefly before quickly quieting down.
Chen Song stood up, walked over to Zhao Jing, and helped pat the dust from his hair and clothes before pulling him further inside to warm up.
"How is it? What’s the situation like out there now?"
The others appeared to be leaning against each other, feigning sleep, but their eyes were all locked in this direction. Their ears were pricked up, straining to catch whatever news Zhao Jing had brought back.
Zhao Jing was the only one among them who was allowed outside. Thanks to his skill in treating cattle and livestock, he enjoyed the best treatment of the group and could occasionally go out for a breath of fresh air.
Of course, it wasn’t all good news.
One only needed to look at Zhao Jing’s face.
Back when he had passed the imperial examinations, Scholar Zhao had been a noble, flawless gentleman. He was like a radiant pearl gracing the world, possessing an elegance and brilliance that mere mortals could not hope to match.
But looking at him now, his cheeks and ears were covered in frostbite. Even those hands, accustomed to holding ink and brush, were cracked from the cold, constantly oozing blood. And that was only what could be seen. In places hidden by his clothes, there was even more frostbite.
The rest of them spent their days confined to the tent. Although they barely had enough food to fill their bellies or charcoal to stay warm, they had numbers. They were all grown men, and just huddling together provided a little bit of shared body heat.
It wasn’t the same for Zhao Jing. In the midst of torrential blizzards and snowdrifts up to a man’s knees, he had to brave the bitter cold and frost to deliver calves and lambs. Once, during a massive wave of livestock births in the pastures, the commotion had drawn a ravenous pack of wolves. Zhao Jing had almost been eaten alive.