Extreme rage leaves no corpse intact

Su Chutui rode silently on his horse, a look of shame etched on his face.

For a proud man, being tossed about and gifted from person to person would inevitably stir feelings of humiliation, provided he possessed even a shred of self-esteem.

Ye Chang had been closely observing his expression. Though the look of shame was faint and meticulously concealed, Ye Chang caught it nonetheless.

This man was depressed and unappreciated by the world; one could provoke his spirit, but not insult his dignity.

The small group moved forward in silence, passing through the long street until they reached the North Market, where Ye Chang led them inside.

Su Chutui followed closely, still uttering not a word. Ye Chang halted his steps within the market, turned to look at him, and said, "You are a stout warrior, and I dare not treat you merely as a menial. Earlier, it was difficult to refuse Master Shen’s warm generosity, so I had no choice but to accept. But now, whatever you are thinking in your heart, you may speak it freely to me."

Su Chutui glanced at him, lowered his gaze, and remained silent.

"Master Shen was right about one thing, however: I truly enjoy making the acquaintance of brave and heroic men. Look at the two men by my side. Shanzhi is a wandering monk whom I met in the wilderness, yet I now regard him as a mentor. Mao'er is a chivalrous swordsman from Chang'an whom I encountered in the marketplace, yet I now rely on him like my own arms and legs. As for myself, born in a remote and humble hamlet, my origins can hardly be considered wealthy or noble. Therefore, I believe that whether one is a hero depends not on birth, but on ambition, talent, and relentless striving."

His words rang out with resolute conviction. Su Chutui’s brows twitched involuntarily, though the glimmer in his eyes vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"If there is anything you need, just tell me." Seeing that verbal persuasion had failed, Ye Chang decided to appeal to material temptation.

"In my youth, through ignorance and folly, I sank to the lowest rungs and cast myself among the ranks of slaves. By now, any grand ambitions I once had are completely extinguished. Although Lord Ye holds high hopes for me, I now desire nothing more than to be a free man." Su Chutui sighed. "Lord Ye may rest assured. Since Master Shen has given me to Lord Ye, I shall faithfully serve my master..."

Even as he was speaking, Ye Chang performed a startling action.

He waved the indenture paper before Su Chutui's eyes, and with a few swift motions, tore it thoroughly to pieces. Seeming unsatisfied, he scooped up the handful of paper scraps and tossed them high into the air.

Fluttering and drifting down like snow or catkins, the indenture that represented Su Chutui's personal freedom fell gently, becoming mere litter on the streets of Luoyang's North Market.

Su Chutui froze instantly.

Setting aside his formidable martial prowess, even an ordinary able-bodied slave was worth several strings of cash. Yet Ye Chang had torn up the indenture without the slightest flicker of emotion on his face.

"Now, you are a free man," Ye Chang said calmly.

A free man.

When the thing he had dreamed of day and night suddenly appeared before him, Su Chutui felt only a vast emptiness, unsure whether he should laugh with a sense of relief or weep bitterly with emotion.

He simply stared blankly at Ye Chang for a long moment before asking in a raspy voice, "Lord Ye... is this genuine?"

"Genuine," Ye Chang replied. "If you are willing, you may accompany me, and I am prepared to treat you as an equal and a friend. If you harbor other ambitions, you are entirely free to go your own way."

"Go my own way... go my own way... go my own way..." Su Chutui repeated the phrase three times over.

When he was someone else's bondservant, the thought of going his own way was utterly impossible. Even though Shen Xi was considered a mild-tempered master, there were still numerous rules, leaving no room whatsoever for personal autonomy.

After thinking for a moment, Su Chutui said, "I am penniless, how am I to go my own way?"

Ye Chang smiled and signaled to Jia Mao'er, who immediately drew out a golden ingot and placed it directly into Su Chutui's hands. "This golden ingot is enough for you to carouse through the pleasure quarters of Luoyang City several times over."

Taking the golden ingot, Su Chutui remained silent for a while before handing it back. "My life is cheap; it is not worth so much money... If you have some loose change to spare, grant me a few coins, and I shall be endlessly grateful."

Jia Mao'er's expression shifted abruptly.

If he accepted the money, it would be, as Su Chutui had just implied, blood-money, and presumably Su Chutui would not leave. But by refusing it, didn't it mean this fellow had no intention whatsoever of selling his skills and loyalty to Ye Chang?

He glanced at Ye Chang. Ye Chang also felt he had overdone the performance and could not help a sense of discouragement. It was understandable that Nan Qiyun, who later became so historically renowned, had rejected his overtures; but this fellow Su Tuo'er, who had never left even a ripple in history, also looked down his nose at the hand extended to him.

It seemed he needed to polish his image so he could appear somewhat more charismatic in the future.

Though he felt amused and regretful inwardly, Ye Chang still nodded. Jia Mao'er took back the golden ingot and instead pulled half a string of copper coins from his tunic.

***

This time, Su Chutui accepted the half-string of coins, cupped his hands in salute, and said, "Though the mountains are high and the waters long, the day of reciprocation will surely come."

With that, he turned, dismounted, handed the reins back to Ye Chang's retainer, and simply strolled away, swaying slightly with every step, merging into the bustling crowd of the North Market. In less than the time it takes to blink, he had vanished.

"Such ungrateful ill fortune!" Seeing the fellow leave without a backward glance, Shanzhi could not help uttering a complaint.

The monk was straightforward and kept nothing bottled up inside. Seeing that Ye Chang treated people warmly and frequently performed acts of kindness, he genuinely believed he was following a man of great virtue. In his heart, he held Ye Chang in profound respect; otherwise, he would not have followed him persistently since their first meeting.

Naturally, it displeased the monk to see something Ye Chang valued so highly treated like dirt by another.

Ye Chang, however, cast off his disappointment in an instant: while it would have been wonderful to recruit him, it was no great loss if he refused—after all, it had only ever been an unexpected windfall.

"Let's turn back and deal with those assassins," he said to the others. "As for Balhae, our reach cannot extend that far for the moment, but the assassins who carried out the deed are right here before us."

Before his voice had even faded, he caught sight of Yang Shenming's official procession passing by the entrance of the North Market. He immediately stopped. Naturally, Yang Shenming was looking for him, and if he were caught now, certain matters would become much more difficult to handle.

Officials were always talking about considering the bigger picture, but at this moment, Ye Chang preferred to set the bigger picture aside. What he wanted to do was follow his impulses.

Yang Shenming was likely anxious to find him, and his retinue of several dozen men swept past in the blink of the quarter-hour. They rode straight to Yuji Lane, hammered on the gates, and inquired only to find that Ye Chang had left again for parts unknown, which sent Yang Shenming into a fury.

"No wonder Han Chaozong and the others, for all they value Ye Eleventh's competence, never promote him to any position of genuine importance, and even when the Emperor's golden decree was returned, they never exerted themselves to truly help him—this Ye Eleventh is truly a chaotic and erratic character!"

He pondered for quite a while, unable to guess where Ye Chang might have gone, and promptly dispatched men to make inquiries. Before the scouts returned, a minor official came running with a report: the disaster victims at the north of the city had beaten all the assassins to death.

This unexpected turn of events nearly caused Yang Shenming's jaw to drop to the ground.

He had been desperate to find Ye Chang, and furthermore, because those assassins had dared to carry out hits within his jurisdiction repeatedly, it was a direct slap to his own face; hence, he had deliberately left the assassins hanging.

He never imagined that in the span of a single turn of the head, the assassins would be utterly wiped out...

"Beaten to death completely? Not a single one left alive?"

The reporting official smiled bitterly and said, "Not a single one left alive indeed. Not only were they beaten to death, but nearly every single one of them was torn to pieces."

"This... was this another stunt pulled by Ye Eleventh?" Yang Shenming thought that since those commoners had originally been guarded by regular troops, how could they possibly have gone to kill the assassins? But a second thought made him realize where the crux of the matter lay: "The Chief Clerk ran off there again?"

"Your Honor is perceptive."

Yang Shenming did not feel perceptive in the slightest. Judging by the emergency administrative strategy Ye Chang had submitted during their interview, he had supposed the man to be orderly and methodical; why, then, when it came to practical execution, was this fellow so utterly unreliable?

"Is he still outside the North Gate?" Upon receiving confirmation from the minor official, Yang Shenming made a decisive choice. "Return immediately and tell him to wait for me outside the North Gate!"

He mounted his horse once more, this time traveling light and fast without his official retinue, taking only a few attendants and whipping his mount into a gallop all the way from the yamen to the northern outskirts of the city.

When he arrived, however, he did not find a scene of utter chaos, but rather one of strict order.

The corpses of the assassins were no longer in sight. Meanwhile, the refugees who had supposedly battered the assassins to death in the heat of a riot were now standing in neat lines, smiling and conversing with the officers and clerks.

"This Ye Eleventh..."

Yang Shenming was utterly baffled. Exactly what method had Ye Chang employed to transform the situation into this state?

"What on earth is going on?" he asked, grabbing a clerk who hurried forward to greet him.

The clerk glanced back. Ye Chang was speaking mildly and amiably with the refugees and paid no attention to this side. His face filled with awe, the clerk whispered in report, "Lord Ye merely spoke a few words to the commoners, and these disaster victims worked themselves into a frenzy, ignoring the guards' attempts to stop them, and rushed forward to bludgeon every single assassin on the pillars to death."

As he said this, the awe in the clerk's eyes turned to dread.

He found it very hard to comprehend how Ye Chang had managed to ignite a monstrous fury in those refugees with just a few sparse words, successfully redirecting the hatred the victims previously felt toward him onto these assassins.

After pressing for details, it turned out to be nothing more than the claim that these assassins had infiltrated the crowd with the intent to murder powerful nobles, which would implicate all the refugees in the crime. Yang Shenming found it hard to believe that such empty, groundless lies could actually convince over two thousand ordinary people.

***

"Ye Chang, what kind of sorcery are you playing at?" Failing to figure it out, he abandoned the thought and summoned Ye Chang directly to question him. "Just a moment ago, you gave the order to shoot and wound the refugees who tried to flee the trench, and I heard the commoners were harboring deep resentment. How is it that in the blink of an eye, they trust you implicitly once more?"

"These disaster victims have suffered in hardship here for a long time. Though they rely on the Emperor's grace and Your Honor's benevolent governance to survive until now, their hearts are filled with pent-up rage. Previously, cowed by the troops, they had nowhere to vent it. Now, with just a little provocation on my part, and offering them an outlet to blow off steam, how could they not go wild?"

The concept of crowd psychology did not exist in this era; otherwise, Yang Shenming would have recognized that Ye Chang was merely exploiting the psychology of collective catharsis. Even so, he could confirm that Ye Chang's grasp of human nature was truly incongruous with his youthful age.

"Ye Eleventh... an old fox who has lived through many years." Unable to help himself, Yang Shenming voiced his evaluation of Ye Chang directly to his face.

Ye Chang accepted this as a compliment and smiled broadly.

In truth, there was one more thing he had left unsaid. Because he represented the authority of the government, and because his very first act had been to double the food rations for the refugees, the victims had already held a favorable impression of him. When he incited the mob, he did not rely solely on his own words; he had also dispatched his retainers among the crowd, posing as investigators checking for remaining assassin accomplices, while actually spreading rumors. They whispered that these assassins might have been sent by the rural gentry of the refugees' hometowns, with the deliberate aim of framing the refugees so they would all be executed outside Luoyang City, thereby preventing them from returning home to file lawsuits.

The reason these refugees were stranded in Luoyang and unable to return home was precisely because local gentry had usurped their lands; their hatred for those gentry far outweighed their resentment toward Ye Chang for ordering the shooting of those who fled the trench.

"This move served another purpose as well: it acts as a deterrent to these commoners, letting them know that I truly dare to issue orders to kill." Seeing Yang Shenming hesitate, Ye Chang guessed the magistrate might be regretting his involvement, fearing that if the Luoyang Magistrate stripped him of his clerkship because of this incident, his trip to Luoyang would prove a massive loss. Therefore, Ye Chang added, "The upcoming task of settling the refugees requires strict discipline and absolute obedience. Going through this ordeal has saved us a lot of trouble."

Yang Shenming instantly dismissed his hesitation: just as Ye Chang had said, settling over two thousand people would never be a smooth process, especially under the circumstances of being displaced from their homes. To prevent these victims from becoming a permanent burden on Luoyang City, a certain degree of ruthless severity was essential.

"Have you figured out the identities of the assassins?"

"Yes. Letting the refugees beat them to death also saved us some trouble."

"How do you interpret that?"

"Since every last one of the assassins has been eliminated, there is no longer any need to bicker with a submissive vassal state over a foreign prince who no longer holds much utility." Ye Chang sneered. "The big figures in the imperial court will surely think the same. If I had been assassinated and killed, I dare say not a single person would think of avenging me."

Yang Shenming fell silent for a long moment before saying, "The imperial court simply wishes to avoid making enemies on multiple fronts."

"If you seek peace through appeasement, peace cannot be preserved; if you seek peace through struggle, peace endures forever." Ye Chang tossed out these words.

Yang Shenming spoke from personal experience: his grandfather, Yang Zhengdao, had once been handed over to the Turks by Dou Jiande and was only released back to the Central Plains after Li Jing defeated the Turks.

"Seek peace through struggle... and peace endures forever."

This single sentence left Yang Shenming dazed for quite a while. As he chewed over the meaning, the profound truth of it grew clearer and clearer.

"Ye Chang, do you have a courtesy name?" Stirred by these thoughts, he could not help asking.

Ye Chang felt a jolt in his heart.

He had never taken a courtesy name; he had simply been too lazy to choose one. Those close to him called him Ye Eleventh, while acquaintances called him Master Ye, and the thought had never crossed his mind before.

Yet for Yang Shenming to ask this question now carried a very distinct implication.

Aside from one's own senior family members, superiors, and elders who could bestow a courtesy name, close friends could also gift one—and all of these indicated an exceptionally intimate relationship.

Even when He Zhizhang had appreciated Ye Chang in the past, he had never mentioned granting him a courtesy name. For Yang Shenming to bring it up now was a transparent expression of his intent to bestow one. Under normal circumstances, Ye Chang should have shown boundless gratitude and kowtowed to beg for the name. But Ye Chang knew all too well that the ultimate fate of this very Yang Shenming was far from auspicious.

His older brother, Yang Shenjin, was currently in a political alliance with Li Linfu to jointly counter Li Shizhi, Wei Jian, and others. Once those major enemies were swept away, Li Linfu would turn around and wipe out all three Yang brothers in one fell swoop. Ye Chang didn't mind provoking ordinary troubles, but to become entangled in top-tier political struggles as a core member could only lead to a single outcome.

Furthermore, if he accepted a courtesy name from Yang Shenming, how could he face Han Chaozong in the future?

Yet if he refused, Yang Shenming was standing right before him, having already spoken the words aloud. How was Ye Chang to choose?