Jun Beiyue had already walked right up to Ziqing, and still she couldn’t quite come back to herself.

She’d rehearsed countless possible responses to this crisis in her mind, but never once had she imagined it would end like this — that this man would come in person!

Seeing Ziqing frozen in place, a wicked curve pulled at the corner of Jun Beiyue’s handsome mouth. “Killing on the battlefield wasn’t satisfying enough. I came here to have a good, thorough kill with you instead — let the head of Nangong City see who’s really the mantis waiting behind him.”

With that, he swept her into his arms without warning and, pushing off lightly with his toes, shot forward through the air.

Ziqing’s small face pressed against Jun Beiyue’s chest. Feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart, everything suddenly felt real — not like a dream at all.

She tilted her head back to look at him — his jaw clean-cut, the very lines of his face handsome enough to provoke universal envy.

He had come!

He’d come without a single word of warning!

She hadn’t been waiting for any decision, any reinforcements — she’d gotten the decision-maker himself instead. And what he’d said was that they’d kill without restraint, without holding back!

At last, husband and wife could fight side by side again.

Jun Beiyue’s gaze fixed ahead as he carried Ziqing, weaving silently through the snow-covered forest. Meanwhile, Yingzi split the hundred-odd shadow guards he’d brought into two groups, flying off in pursuit from both flanks like the wind.

With their master here, they no longer needed to hold back.

Of course they’d let loose now!

Soon, the once-quiet forest, as dawn slowly broke, grew steadily less peaceful.

Ziqing, her head buried against Jun Beiyue’s chest, listened to the wind roaring past her ears and only then realized just how fast he truly was.

“Why did you come.”

She finally spoke. Though she hadn’t wanted him to come, though she’d worried about the situation on the northern front, she had to admit — her heart was full of joy, full of satisfaction.

What a surprise, and such an unexpected one!

“Couldn’t find you. Got scared.”

He said it flatly, his voice as low and pleasant as always, calm as if making idle conversation — and yet it made her heart skip a beat, a bittersweet ache and sweetness all at once.

Could a man as god-like as him ever feel fear?

“It’s… it’s not like anything would happen to me.” She honestly didn’t know how to answer him.

“No word for over half a month isn’t nothing,” he said flatly.

“What’s happening on the northern front—” She tried to change the subject.

But he caught her chin, forcing her to look him directly in the eye. “What exactly happened?”

“Let’s catch them first. I’ll tell you when we get back.” She actually felt a flicker of fear toward him.

“They’re not going anywhere. Tell me now.” There seemed to be a double meaning in his words.

She simply wasn’t used to speaking of her own vulnerability, her own pain. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, pressing close against him, truly feeling his arrival, his presence. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I still haven’t finished our six-month bet — how could I dare let anything happen?”

He tilted her chin up again — but this time, instead of forcing her to meet his eyes, he simply kissed her.

His cool lips caught her soft, reddened ones without warning, and at once it turned into a storm — kissing, then softening, then biting — a fierce claiming, and a punishing one too.

It was so sudden, so wild, that Ziqing could barely keep up. In an instant, this man’s distinct scent surrounded her completely, filling her senses until she felt she might be devoured whole.

This man — so domineering!

Did he not realize they were still tracking someone right now?

And here he was, weaving through the forest with one arm while tormenting her with the other!

Domineering as he was, he had this particular talent for being so overbearing that people willingly surrendered to him. Ziqing had meant to resist at first, but helplessly, under Jun Beiyue’s overwhelming presence, she soon gave in completely.

It had been so long, so very long, since they’d been this close, this intimate.

Intimate enough that even a single kiss made the two of them feel merged into one, indistinguishable from each other.

Perhaps only like this could she truly feel it, truly feel that he had come.

Her Jun Beiyue — he had truly come.

At last, the kiss gradually softened from its fierce intensity into tenderness.

Before she knew it, Ziqing realized this man meant it — truly meant it.

Of course he meant it.

Ziqing grew anxious, but she had no strength left to resist his overbearing will.

In the frozen, snow-covered wilderness, she simply surrendered…