Chapter 521

The old slaves are too aged to match Fei Cai’s feigned frenzy. They only surround him, not daring to close in, as he kicks one and shouts at them to stay out of his way to see the young tribe leader. They notice the bulge in his clothes and privately sneer: his luck has run out, stealing the young tribe leader’s own shoes of all things. Some even gloat that a punishment they had only meant as a latrine transfer might now cost him his life. The guards at Ma Ying Jie’s tent look at him as though he is already a dead man. ^{ch. 521}

Ma Ying Jie is already in a foul mood. His old personal servant has told him the shoes he cannot find have likely been stolen and sold, and that this is not the first time. He waits at the entrance. Fei Cai, terrified underneath but holding to Zhao Lian Yun’s coaching, walks toward him with his head held high. ^{ch. 521}

Ma Ying Jie is quietly startled: his escort of old slaves looks more like guards of honor than captors, and Fei Cai himself shows no trace of panic. His fury gives way to curiosity. Fei Cai flatly denies stealing anything, but when the old slaves point out the bulge in his clothes he opens his shirt himself, unwraps a bundle of fine white silk, and reveals the missing pair inside. Ma Ying Jie recognizes them as his own and remarks coldly on a thief bold enough to carry such plain proof. Fei Cai does not argue. He sets the shoes down and presses his forehead to the ground, ready to accept punishment, even as the old slaves clamor for a severe sentence and one suggests cutting off his hands. ^{ch. 521}

Killing a slave over stolen shoes would look brutal to a huge army now watching his every move. Mindful of his self image as a wise and benevolent ruler in the making, Ma Ying Jie offers Fei Cai a chance to explain. Fei Cai answers with the account Zhao Lian Yun gave him. ^{ch. 521}

His father, he says, died in his own tribe’s internal strife, so Ma Ying Jie’s destruction of Fei tribe amounts to avenging him. A mortal servant with no schemes or battle plans to offer, he says, could only think to wrap the shoes in silk, bought with his own savings, so his master’s feet would not be cold from sitting outside so long. Ma Ying Jie, a clean freak who would have been disgusted by bare shoes against his servant’s skin, is moved by the gesture and by the value of the silk itself, and his suspicion visibly softens. Fei Cai then kowtows again, confessing that he failed to realize his master would need the shoes to go outside. He begs punishment for it. Ma Ying Jie waves this off, relieved he nearly wronged a loyal servant, over the old slaves’ protests that he is lying. ^{ch. 521}

Fei Cai then asks for a full investigation, admitting shoe theft has indeed happened before, but naming the old slaves as the ones who did it and who resented him for refusing to join them. This was in fact his first theft, and he had never learned to recognize young tribe leader’s own shoes by sight. The old slaves had baited him, speaking as if carelessly about what a fine pair of shoes could fetch. The old slaves pale. Ma Ying Jie, now seventy-eighty percent convinced but unwilling to rule on instinct alone, summons an investigative Gu Master, who uncovers the truth within five minutes. ^{ch. 521}

The old slaves collapse in tears begging forgiveness. Ma Ying Jie condemns their fawning and bullying as worthy of death, but spares them for their years of service and reassigns them to clean latrines in the supply camp instead. He then tells Fei Cai that stealing his shoes was daring indeed, and names him head of the slaves as punishment, ordering him to redeem himself through proper service. Only after leaving does Fei Cai realize the sentence was in fact a promotion. He hurries to report to Zhao Lian Yun as she had asked. She is startled to hear how it ended, since her plan had rested entirely on Ma Ying Jie’s mood and could just as easily have gotten him killed. ^{ch. 521}