Missing Lieutenant

Walking into the barracks with unexposed surprise, Xuan Yueji looked at the stage that the soldiers were surrounding. Up there, there was a gruff looking man that he did not know. Though, since the man was standing at the middle with the soldier's admiring looks, he suspected that it was someone high in rank.

Since Xuan Yueji walked in with his fancy looking garments, he stood out like a sore thumb and the man on the stage turned to him. Immediately, a frown appeared on the man upon seeing that he was not in uniform, nor any of the soldier norms. Aside from that, the man also looked him up and down in detail when he saw the fancy mask.

There were two reasons why the man did so. One was that the crowned prince of the empire also wore a mask. If he were to mistake the crowned prince as a lowly soldier, he would definitely get punished.

Legends have already been sung and spoken about the prince's coldness and harshness. It was said that the crown prince was nice to the people of the empire, but to all enemies, he treated them like lowly bugs. If someone managed to anger or annoy him, they were immediately punished with things that they did not like.

An example could be when an official started talking to the emperor about the crowned princess consort. The crowned prince was already twenty two years old and had yet to find a single consort or concubine. In fact, he has yet to touch a single woman.

It had made many officials think that he was a cut sleeve. However, the official that suggested the idea about finding the prince a consort was rejected by not the emperor, but the prince himself. When the official continued to be persistent, the prince issued out a command to marry his daughter to his nemesis.

When the official protested and called out for forgiveness, the emperor only shrugged his shoulders and said, "The person you insulted was the crowned prince. Not Zhen."

In the end, the official's daughter was spared from marrying his nemesis, but he lost his job as a high ranking official and became a lowly official in the Civil Affairs Department. Later, rumors spread out that the official was thrown out by his wife because he could not provide enough dowry for his daughter. Truthfully, nobody knows what the official's fate is now because everyone knew that the romantic story between his daughter and the person who married his daughter was connected only due to the crown prince acting as Yue Lao.

(A/N: Yue Lao is the god of love and marriage in Chinese mythology.)

Secondly, the man was not sure who Xuan Yueji was. Though many of the soldiers were commoners or normal civilians, there were a few special ones that were sent in to strengthen themselves. However, all of them were forced to respect martial laws and did not behave outrageously like him, and walk in casually during such an important precession.

Besides, even the richest son that came to the military would not wear such fancy clothes to the courtyards for there were no green grasses, only dry dirt, sand, and mud that would dirty everything. Also, since the man was educated, he was able to tell what quality fabrics were by looking at a distance. The fabric for Xuan Yueji's robes were something of even higher quality than the royal family's, so the man could only suspect who he could actually be.

Casually walking up the stage as though he was the commander of the regiment, Xuan Yueji slowly pronounced, "Hello. I am Xuan Yueji. Who may you be?"

Hearing Xuan Yueji introduce himself, the gruff man responded with, "Chuangzhu Xiong."

(A/N: Chuangzhu is not his name. It's a ranking. Translation to English is detachment commander.)

"Oh, so it is Chuangzhu Xiong," Xuan Yueji greeted. "What could you be doing here? If I remember correctly, Chuangzhu Xiong should be guarding the trade in Caozhu."

Being the person who managed to father the only person to have managed to annoy him, Xuan Yueji naturally would not give up such an opportunity to humiliate him. Even if he did not know what the person's father looks like, it was more than enough to know the rank and surname. The only person he would not humiliate was the grandmaster of the Xiong family who was a general.

Xuan Yueji was not afraid about creating enemies that were of high ranking. However, he was a cultured person that did not make enemies of people he respected. Of course, there were circumstances in which he did annoy people that he respected, but those people could only blame themselves for being dumb in front of him at the wrong time.

General Xiong was a respectable man who built his reputation on the blood and sweat he shed at war and such. For people who did not resort to dirty tricks to rise in the political world, Xuan Yueji respected them. Not only that, the general had married a smart woman and made sure to have only her as his wife with no mistresses and concubines.

"Then, may I ask what you are doing here, Shuzhu Xuan?" Chuangzhu Xiong responded the same way that Xuan Yueji greeted him.

Chuckling at the snarky retort of him, Xuan Yueji smiled despite nobody being able to see it, "Chuangzhu Xiong doesn't know this, but I'm not trapped by martial laws. Even if you were to report to the emperor about me not being at my post, he would not care."

Chuangzhu Xiong frowned, but he knew that Xuan Yueji was telling the truth. Everyone knew that Grand Advisor Chen was the person behind him. They also knew that the backstory that Chen Shi gave to fill out the papers were most likely false since he did not behave like an orphan who used to live in the wild.

Grand Advisor Chen was a special person to the emperor. He held lots of power and has been the only person to have been given a carriage personally by the emperor. There has been no other record of another person receiving the same favor.

It has also been known that the emperor has long wanted Grand Advisor Chen to continue working until he passed, but Chen Shi already wanted to retire and the emperor had to utilize multiple blackmails in order to get him working for him again. Another thing to note, Grand Advisor Chen did not listen to anyone but the emperor. He did not pay attention to the princes, the imperial family, or officials of which is designated for his job, but only to what the emperor commanded.

Clearly, the role of Grand Advisor was to only advise the emperor about national affairs without affecting the political situations at court. However, the emperor had Chen Shi participating in court everyday with special privileges. Not only that, the emperor gave Chen Shi so power that he could affect the internal running of the military if he wanted to.

"Since I'm clearly in the higher position, Chuangzhu Xiong, why don't you tell me what you're doing here?" Xuan Yueji asked once again with a smirk on his lips though nobody could see since he had a mask that covered his entire face on.

Chuangzhu felt insulted, so he did not answer and kept silent. Even with the deep stare of Xuan Yueji engraving him on the inside, he did not answer. Nobody knew why he did not speak when everything was in fact a simple matter.

Giving a light and simple laugh, Xuan Yueji said, "Since you're not willing to answer me then I can ask someone else then. Shuzhu!"

Hearing his name called, the shuzhu responded out loud while speedily walking from his rank in line to where Xuan Yueji stood, "Here, sir!"

Smirking once again, Xuan Yueji asked, "Why don't you explain to me what's going on?"

"Yes, sir," the shuzhu said. "Chuangzhu Xiong is here due to the absence of the current lieutenant."

"Oh, you guys had a lieutenant?" Xuan Yueji asked with interest.

"Yes. However, the lieutenant suddenly disappeared," the shuzhu answered.

"Hm… Have you guys tried to search for the lieutenant already?" Xuan Yueji asked.

"Yes, we have. The search ended in failure," the shuzhu said.

"How much did you guys search for?" Xuan Yueji inquired further.

Sighing, the shuzhu said, "We searched for 3 days throughout the entire central plains before stopping the search. Aside from that, we had a few soldiers privately search for the lieutenant secretly in the western plains and the eastern plains."

"What does your lieutenant look like?" Xuan Yueji asked with growing interest in the case. "Actually, no need to describe. Is there anyone who has good art skills?"

Answering his question, the shuzhu pointed to a soldier in the line, "That one there is a talented artist."

"Alright. Soldier, draw your lieutenant for me," Xuan Yueji commanded. "I shall search for him or her in my spare time."

All the soldiers standing in line thought, "In your spare time? Dear heavens… Do you really have spare time? The amount of times in which you have disappeared to whichever world… Truly…"

However, none of them spoke out their thoughts and just stood in line, watching their colleague draw a painting of their lieutenant. Though their colleague was not an exemplary artist, they had to admit that he was talented in his own way as he was able to embody the air that their lieutenant gave out. Once the soldier was done painting, Xuan Yueji looked at the sketch.

With a hand on his chin, Xuan Yueji asked out with a high pitch, "Your lieutenant is a woman?"