In the camp, Pei Shu gently lifted Jing Hengbo in his arms, his eyes sweeping across the scene. Everyone still maintained their gaping expressions. Jiang Ya’s face was blue-purple, and if you looked carefully, you could see his legs trembling.
There was no need to verify whether that “Your Majesty” just now was real or fake. Young Marshal Pei was famous for his arrogance and having eyes above everyone, with legends saying he was devoted only to the Queen with unwavering loyalty. The scene before them now was the perfect illustration of such “devotion.”
When Pei Shu’s dark eyes swept over, Jiang Ya felt as if struck by a diamond pestle, his head buzzing as his whole body began trembling.
“Bastards!” The Marshal’s expected roar echoed throughout the camp.
With a “thump,” everyone knelt down. Jiang Ya knelt the fastest—his legs had long been too weak to support him. Fortunately he knelt quickly, as Pei Shu’s furious palm strike that followed whooshed over his head. With a thunderous crash, half the tent behind collapsed. Jiang Ya prostrated on the ground, not daring to turn his head, feeling the cool air above his head. Rather than fear, he felt grateful—just one moment slower and he would now be a headless corpse.
Pei Shu had already checked Jing Hengbo’s pulse and knew she wasn’t seriously injured, just external wounds. However, her internal organs had somehow become empty—the true energy she’d cultivated for three years was gone. This made him furious with nowhere to vent, wanting to kick these idiots to death.
“Idiots! Blind idiots! Are your brains all filled with swamp water! How was Lei Xi discovered? How were the prisoners captured? How did that Yu Kingdom elite force ten li away never manage to act—who did all this? Didn’t any of you use your brains to think! Medical officer! Medical officer! Get over here within half an incense stick’s time! If you can’t get here, bring me your head yourself!”
He stormed into the tent carrying Jing Hengbo, leaving everyone looking at each other in bewilderment.
The Queen had exposed Lei Xi’s treachery?
The Queen had captured the prisoners?
That elite Yu Kingdom force ambushed in the valley that inexplicably never acted—the entire force was controlled single-handedly by the Queen?
Jiang Ya’s face paled as he stood stunned for a long while, connecting all the events together. The more he thought, the uglier his expression became. After a long moment, he punched the ground hard. “Indeed stupid enough!”
…
Pei Shu carried Jing Hengbo into the tent while the soldiers dispersed dejectedly.
On the treetops over there, the white figure remained motionless.
Gong Yin’s gaze stayed fixed on that tent, his eyes holding both melancholy and contemplation.
A tall, thin figure quietly emerged from behind the trees. Nan Jin silently gazed at his profile.
Having seen him only a few times, she couldn’t fathom his thoughts. He was like a sea floating with broken ice—cold and distant.
…
The escort army’s medical officer came running breathlessly, but Pei Shu wouldn’t let him touch Jing Hengbo, examining her wounds himself first.
He felt Jing Hengbo had already opened her heart to him, and he had made his promise. His previous waiting had yielded results—from now on, he and Jing Hengbo would naturally be a loving couple destined to be together. Naturally there weren’t so many restrictions between men and women anymore. A husband undressing his wife was perfectly natural, right?
So he took the medical officer’s medicine box, shooed the medical officer out of the tent, and began examining Jing Hengbo himself. First checking her upper body, the bloodstains were only on her arms—all flesh wounds.
Wounds always hurt when touched. Jing Hengbo was awakened by pain, and upon opening her eyes, immediately met a strange face that was both frowning and smiling.
The face was too close, close enough that she couldn’t see pores. Just as Jing Hengbo’s mind drifted to “Which family’s pretty boy has such good skin I want to peel off his face and stick it on mine but this expression is so magical looking both lewd and pained could he have been sodomized…” she suddenly realized, shrinking back in alarm. “Pei Shu!”
“It’s me.” Pei Shu’s smile became even more radiant. “Don’t move, I’ll treat your wounds.” He boldly reached to unbutton her clothes.
“What are you doing?” Jing Hengbo slapped his hand away, looking around. Eh, where was Gong Yin? Hadn’t he come? Just before fainting, she’d clearly seen a white figure…
“Treating your wounds.” Pei Shu leaned closer, raising one eyebrow, looking at her with some surprise, amusement, and tolerance. “You really don’t take care of yourself. Why do you always charge ahead in everything? You’re the Queen, the Queen! Being so reckless and careless with your life—are you deliberately trying to make my life difficult?”
Jing Hengbo stared at him directly, her hair standing on end from his suddenly intimate tone—what had gotten into this kid? Was he in heat? Though he’d always had feelings for her, hadn’t he always been rather reserved before?
She suddenly remembered her actions before fainting—she seemed to have embraced someone, thinking it was Gong Yin, but clearly it wasn’t. So who was that white figure? Her gaze suddenly fell on Pei Shu’s clothing, and she was shocked again—why was this guy wearing only undergarments?
Suddenly her pants were tugged. Jing Hengbo looked down in alarm and slapped Pei Shu’s hand away again. “What are you doing now!”
Pei Shu half-knelt before her, staring at her pants with a frown. “How do you have wounds on your legs too? Why is there only blood without torn clothing? Where’s the wound?”
Jing Hengbo looked down and saw that somehow, Pei Shu had already removed her outer robe. On the gray-black soldier’s pants, near the inner thigh area, fresh bloodstains were visible.
She didn’t react at first, but after thinking carefully, her scalp exploded.
Holy shit!
This was that… that blood!
Pei Shu was still puzzling and chattering away, “Strange, a blade wound? Where’s the wound? What were you doing? Why would you be injured there? Which scoundrel dared to strike like that…”
“You scoundrel get away from me!” Her Majesty the Queen shrieked, kicking the Marshal out of the tent with one foot…
…
The tent shook, and then Young Marshal Pei, who had just entered not long ago, was kicked out. The soldiers turned around in amazement, all eyes shooting toward him.
The face-conscious Marshal coughed, turned around, and said seriously, “Women, you know, they’re just that willful. We men need to be more understanding…”
The soldiers nodded with deep feeling. Right, women were just that temperamental, and a woman who was Queen would naturally be the most temperamental of all. The Marshal wasn’t having it easy—with such a fiery temper, meeting such a tigress, he still had to be accommodating.
Jiang Ya, having made an error, now only wanted to make amends. He quickly smiled and said, “Well… women only act willful in front of people they’re close to. Marshal… what good fortune.”
The last sentence was spoken low, but Pei Shu heard it and beamed with joy. When Jiang Ya cheerfully added several more lines about “wishing the Marshal and Her Majesty an early happy union, and congratulating the future royal consort when the time comes,” the Marshal became even more elated, laughing as he patted his shoulder. “Well said! When the time comes, naturally the whole world will celebrate! You have good eyes, I’ll reward you well later!”
Captain Jiang, who had just been called a blind idiot and now had “good eyes,” nodded repeatedly, thanked him repeatedly, and wiped sweat repeatedly…
In the distant forest, Gong Yin, who had been silently gazing in that direction, suddenly curved his lips slightly.
Then he quietly turned away.
Nan Jin had been watching his back, now raising an eyebrow with a trace of surprise.
Gong Yin suddenly asked, “Do you have a mirror?”
This item was generally carried by females, but Nan Jin was hardly ordinary. She shook her head and expressionlessly pointed to a small water ditch ahead.
Gong Yin obligingly swept over to look at his reflection in the water. Nan Jin didn’t move, a strong sense of strangeness rising in her heart.
Someone like Gong Yin would never suddenly want to look in a mirror, much less do so in front of her. What was he planning?
The water was mirror-smooth, reflecting his snow-white figure.
Faintly visible, his eyes seemed to hold infinite meaning, then it vanished in an instant.
After a moment, he raised his head and gently exhaled a long breath, as if suddenly solving worldly puzzles, or perhaps suddenly accepting worldly upheavals. Still so quiet and composed, he said, “Let’s go.”
…
Pei Shu stood outside Jing Hengbo’s tent, listening to Nan Jin, who had just returned, tell him about what had happened to Jing Hengbo earlier.
Nan Jin’s account naturally omitted the existence of herself, Gong Yin, and the Long family, only describing what had occurred between Yu Guangting and Jing Hengbo.
Pei Shu maintained an expressionless face throughout, but his familiar subordinates all knew that while the Marshal was usually free with his emotions, if he suddenly showed no expression yet had a throbbing brow, he had truly developed killing intent.
After Nan Jin finished, regardless of what Pei Shu thought, she entered Jing Hengbo’s tent. Pei Shu seemed to remember something and followed behind her, earnestly instructing, “The Queen seems to have leg injuries. She was too shy to let me look. Please help her treat them properly and don’t leave any wounds.”
Nan Jin’s steps halted, and she turned back to stare at him.
Pei Shu only felt this woman’s gaze was strange—knowing yet melancholy, and seemingly even holding faint sympathy. He couldn’t help looking at himself in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
Nan Jin lowered her head and smiled faintly. After a long moment: “The infatuated hearts in this world, you and I, are destined to bear no fruit in the end…”
“What did you say?”
The curtain fell. Nan Jin had already entered. Pei Shu looked at the woman’s quickly disappearing figure, puzzled as he rubbed his chin.
“She couldn’t have fallen for me too…”
…
When Jing Hengbo saw Nan Jin enter, she greeted her naturally, though with some probing in her eyes.
She now roughly guessed that Nan Jin indeed had some relationship with Gong Yin, and it was no ordinary relationship. The way she looked at Gong Yin was too strange—as a woman, as a woman very interested in matters of love, she was quite sharp in this regard.
Therefore, her current warmth carried several points of wariness.
Otherworldly sects produced many eccentrics. She wasn’t completely ignorant about everything that had happened at the Yelu estate earlier.
Nan Jin’s demeanor was even more natural than hers, showing no guilty conscience of having secrets exposed. She grabbed a small bundle nearby and threw it to her.
“What’s this?” Jing Hengbo unwrapped the bundle to find clean, soft undergarments and a small porcelain bottle. Removing the stopper to smell it, the scent was cool and comfortable.
Nan Jin answered numbly, “For pain relief and preventing infection.”
“How is this little bit enough…” Jing Hengbo shook her head with a smile, but halfway through the motion suddenly froze, staring fixedly at Nan Jin. Nan Jin wouldn’t look at her, crossing her arms and gazing at the tent roof as if flowers had suddenly bloomed there.
Jing Hengbo’s face alternated between red and white, looking like she wanted to burrow underground. However, she suddenly jumped up and grabbed Nan Jin’s arm. “You saw?”
Nan Jin shook her head decisively.
Jing Hengbo had just breathed a sigh of relief when she suddenly remembered a more important question, grabbing her again. “Did you… tell him?”
This time Nan Jin shook even more firmly, her neck bones crackling.
“Excellent.” Jing Hengbo put her arm around Nan Jin’s neck, thought for a moment, then asked sneakily, “That thing you gave me, it’s not some safflower and musk contraceptive, is it…”
Nan Jin suddenly flung her arm away and strode out. “Use it or not, up to you!”
“Hey, hey, don’t go! I just read too many palace intrigue novels…” Jing Hengbo watched Nan Jin finally leave, her mouth corners drooping.
“Damn, completely lost face… Is it too late to kill and silence witnesses now?”
…
As soon as Nan Jin stepped out of the tent, she stopped. Her nostrils flared, her face grim.
The tent curtain lifted as Jing Hengbo, having finally adjusted her mindset, poked her head out and sniffed. “What’s wrong? Such a strong smell of blood.”
Just as she finished speaking, she saw Pei Shu approaching with large strides, accompanied by his loyal subordinates. As they walked, they wiped blood-stained knives on their shoe soles, their faces and clothing also splattered with fresh blood. Behind them, thick bloody scent wafted from the tent holding the exiled prisoners.
Before Jing Hengbo could ask what had happened, a soldier passing that tent peeked inside and stumbled.
“Trouble! All the exiled prisoners have been killed by assassins!”
Everyone was shocked, and the entire camp fell into chaos. Jing Hengbo’s heart jumped.
“Shut up!” Pei Shu roared. “What assassins! I ordered their execution!”
Jing Hengbo frowned—what had gotten into this guy? Such murderous intent.
“Marshal!” Jiang Ya rushed over, falling to his knees in despair. “You’re going to get me killed…”
His responsibility was escorting over a hundred exiled prisoners to Daomao for supervision. Having one young master from the Yelu family escape was already a crime. Now Pei Shu had killed all hundred-plus people in one go—this crime could exterminate his entire family.
“Pei Shu, give me an explanation.” Jing Hengbo stared at Pei Shu, seeing infinite killing intent and determination in his dark pupils.
She felt secretly uneasy. Pei Shu’s temperament was too violent and domineering. Over a hundred lives, killed without even a word of consultation—who knew what disasters this might bring in the future…
Pei Shu smiled carelessly and looked up at the sky.
“An explanation will naturally be given, but why should you and I be so hasty?” He beckoned, and guards brought over horses. He mounted and pointed ahead with his whip.
“The Horizontal Halberd Army has already departed. Soon, this two-thousand-man escort army will also merge with the Horizontal Halberd Army. If we still carried those hundred burdens, how could we fight? They were all death row inmates anyway. Rather than traveling thousands of li to suffer at Daomao, isn’t it better to help them find release here?”
“Fight?” Jing Hengbo only caught those two words.
“Right, fight. I’m going to immediately lead troops into Yu Kingdom’s heartland, first kill Yu Guangting, then slaughter the Yu Kingdom king, finally destroy Yu Kingdom—killing gods if gods block, killing Buddhas if Buddhas block!”
“Pei Shu, you’ve gone mad!” Jing Hengbo was exasperated—what kind of madness was this?
“I’m not mad.” The Marshal leaned down from his horse, his crystal-bright black eyes boring into the peach blossom sea in her eyes. “Hengbo, when a man lives in this world, every word is a nail in the board. Yu Guangting dared to deceive and hurt you, so I must kill and destroy him. Not only him—everyone in this world who betrays you, hurts you, or turns against you, as long as I, Pei Shu, live one day, I will fight them to the death!”