Gongsun Chou and Pei Yuan, along with others, pulled Pei Song along as they hurried down from the city tower. They saw that the Xiao camp’s troops were already pouring in through the city gate entrance in large numbers.
From the long street behind them, a scout came galloping urgently to report: “Minister—the South Gate has fallen—”
The Xiao camp’s troops were attacking the North and East gates, while the Liang and Chen camps were attacking the South and West gates.
With the South Gate fallen, it meant that the Liang camp’s troops had also broken through.
Luodu could no longer be defended.
Gongsun Chou looked back at the endless stream of Xiao soldiers pouring through the gate, then suddenly stopped in his tracks and said: “You all must quickly escort the lord to break through at the West Gate!”
When Pei Song saw Gongsun Chou stop, he finally regained some sense from the grief and shock of Qin Yi’s death. His eyes, red enough to drip blood, looked toward Gongsun Chou: “What about you, sir?”
Gongsun Chou met Pei Song’s gaze. In this moment, beyond the weariness in his eyes, there was also a sense of resignation and acceptance of fate. He smiled and said: “This old minister will defend the gates of Luodu for my lord.”
With Pei Song’s hopes of unifying the land and becoming the supreme ruler now impossible, his words were an acknowledgment of Pei Song as his sovereign—he would defend the capital to the death for him.
How could Pei Song not understand the meaning behind Gongsun Chou’s words? He immediately shouted: “If I lose Luodu today, I can retake it another day! Sir, come with me!”
He tried to step forward to bring Gongsun Chou along, but the accompanying scouts silently and sorrowfully stopped him.
With the pursuing troops so close behind, someone had to stay here to steady the troops’ morale and rally the scattered Pei soldiers to resist, in order to buy them a bit more time.
Seeing Pei Song struggling to pull him away but being held back by the scouts, Gongsun Chou’s eyes reddened. He resolutely turned away, waving his hand behind him: “Quickly escort the lord away!”
“Master, forgive us.”
After Pei Yuan said this, the scouts immediately supported Pei Song and forcibly led him toward the carriage.
Pei Song gritted his teeth, staring fixedly at that aged figure commanding the remaining Pei soldiers to fight under the pressure of the advancing army. He bit down until his mouth filled with the taste of blood. As the scouts were about to push him into the carriage, his hand, veins bulging, gripped the carriage door with great force. Tears rolled from his crimson eyes as he roared an oath: “Song will definitely kill his way back to Luodu and make you the Imperial Tutor!”
With his back to him, tears also streamed down Gongsun Chou’s aged face.
As the Xiao soldiers who had breached the barbican gate continued to surge forward like a tidal wave, he stood among the Pei soldiers, drew his sword, raised his arm high and shouted: “Our lord overthrew the corrupt Former Liang! Our lord is the one favored by Heaven’s mandate! Defend Luodu to the death for our lord!”
But this rallying cry was quickly drowned out by the sounds of thousands of troops in fierce combat.
—
Once the South Gate fell, Zhao Bai led a team of Azure Cloud Guards into the city, heading straight for Jiang Yichu’s residence as indicated by the intelligence previously sent out by Azure Cloud Guards who had infiltrated the city.
When they arrived, they found the place already deserted.
After the Azure Cloud Guards searched the entire residence, they shook their heads at Zhao Bai: “Commander, we’ve searched everywhere. The Heir’s Consort and young County Princess are nowhere to be found.”
Zhao Bai’s face was as cold as frost. Just as she was about to turn and leave, she caught sight of a white feather lying in the flower garden.
Her expression changed slightly. She picked up the white feather and, looking at the direction indicated by its base, murmured: “This is… the west?”
Just then, an Azure Cloud Guard rushed in from outside to report: “Commander, a squad of Pei camp cavalry is escorting several carriages toward the West Gate!”
Zhao Bai tucked away the white tail feather, turned and headed out, saying: “It must be the Heir’s Consort and the others. Pursue quickly!”
—
The tightly shut West Gate of Luodu opened wide. A cavalry unit galloped out, their ink-colored cloaks nearly covering their entire bodies. As the war horses charged forward, two scythe-like gleaming curved blades emerged from within their black robes, and the soldiers nearby fell like grass being cut down.
With such a ghostly cavalry unit leading the way, the Chen soldiers blocking outside the West Gate naturally could not withstand them.
Chen Wei, responsible for guarding the West Gate, immediately ordered: “Quickly send word to the other three gates—Pei Song is breaking through at the West Gate!”
The messenger mounted his horse and rushed off to seek reinforcement. Chen Wei continued ordering: “Erect the shield wall!”
The cavalry unit charged in a wedge formation, protecting several green-canopied carriages in the center. The whole formation was like an unstoppable spearhead, continuing to thrust outward through the breach opened in the military formation at extremely high speed.
The shield wall was only assembled and erected when this cavalry unit was about to break through the entire military formation. Through the gaps between the giant shields, densely packed spears over ten feet long protruded. Yet this cavalry unit showed no signs of slowing down whatsoever. Only when the war horses were nearly upon the long spears did the black-cloaked scouts on horseback flip their curved blades and, as easily as cutting tender bamboo shoots, severed the long spears blocking the horses’ advance.
The scouts drove their war horses forward without any further hesitation, crashing hard into the gaps in the shield wall. Although nearly ten soldiers were braced behind each giant shield, where two shields met was an unsupported weak point, which was immediately trampled through by the war horses.
The scouts drove their horses through the shield wall. With one rise and fall of their long scythe-like curved blades, another large swath of soldiers behind the shield wall fell, their blood spraying through the cold wind.
Taking lives was truly as easy as cutting grass.
Watching this scene from afar, Chen Wei’s eyes filled with anger, his face iron-blue. He raised one hand and shouted: “Archers and crossbowmen, prepare!”
Pei Song breaking out of the city while bringing carriages—there must be something suspicious about this. It was quite possible that Pei Song himself was inside the carriage.
Earlier, within the military formation, shooting arrows could easily injure their own soldiers. Now that the enemy had broken through the encirclement, they could cover them with a net of arrows.
The archers and crossbowmen drew their bows and loaded their crossbows, densely packed arrows aimed at the cavalry and carriages that had broken through the encirclement. But from behind came an urgent shout: “Do not shoot arrows at the carriages!”
Chen Wei turned around and saw Zhao Bai leading over a hundred Azure Cloud Guards galloping urgently toward them.
He recognized Zhao Bai and explained the situation: “Miss Zhao Bai, Pei Song is breaking through here!”
Zhao Bai’s face was extremely grim. She spurred her war horse to Chen Wei’s side and said: “Pei Song has taken the Heir’s Consort and young County Princess with him in his escape!”
Although Jiang Yichu had been taken by Pei Song into the Lanxing Pavilion and given the title of Lady, the Liang officials did not know about Jiang Yichu and Pei Song’s past. They all simply thought Pei Song had done this to humiliate the Wen family.
A year ago, when Grand Tutor Yu and other Former Liang officials managed to escape from Pei Song’s hands, it was Jiang Yichu who had made the greatest contribution.
Now, with Jiang Yichu and her daughter also in the carriage, whether considering their status or the merits they had established for Great Liang, they absolutely could not allow any harm to come to them.
With Zhao Bai putting it this way, Chen Wei could only order the archers and crossbowmen to avoid the carriages when shooting, only targeting the cavalry.
But with this concern, the rain of arrows ultimately failed to block this cavalry unit’s escape route.
Zhao Bai led the Azure Cloud Guards, followed by cavalry from the army, and continued the pursuit.
The Azure Cloud Guards were all skilled riders and archers who could find opportunities to shoot arrows at the black-cloaked scouts even while galloping on horseback.
However, these scouts protecting Pei Song’s escape were no ordinary warriors either. Even while fleeing, they could still pay attention to movements behind them, and most of the arrows shot were knocked down beneath their horses.
After this stalemate continued for over ten li, there was a fork in the road ahead. The scouts directly split into three groups of riders, and the three carriages they were protecting scattered in different directions.
Zhao Bai was just about to order her troops to also split up in pursuit when she suddenly heard a sharp whistle sound from the carriage on the right path.
Her expression changed, knowing it was a signal from the maid who had successfully infiltrated Jiang Yichu’s side, who had exposed herself to pass them this information. She immediately shouted: “Chase the carriage on the right!”
The other two groups of scouts who had just split off saw this and hurried back to help.
The cavalry lieutenant following behind the Azure Cloud Guards shouted: “Commander Zhao Bai, you continue the pursuit. Leave this to us!”
Seeing that the cavalry lieutenant had already led his men to block the fork in the road and intercept the other two groups of scouts, Zhao Bai shouted “Good!” from her horse and continued the pursuit with the Azure Cloud Guards.
Amid the thunderous sound of horse hooves and rolling carriage wheels, they suddenly saw a woman dressed as a maid pushed down from the carriage that the scouts had surrounded. A dagger was embedded in her neck, and the blood gushing out had already stained more than half her clothes.
The scouts following behind simply ignored her, driving their horses right over her.
“Qing Ling!”
Zhao Bai’s eyes nearly split with rage, her eye sockets instantly reddening in the face-cutting cold wind.
With her neck stabbed and pushed off the carriage to be trampled by the scouts’ chaotic hooves, that Azure Cloud Guard must have had no chance of survival.
As Zhao Bai galloped past her corpse on horseback, she could only look at her once with trembling breath and reddened eyes.
That one glance was all she had time for.
Pei Song’s purpose was precisely to use this Azure Cloud Guard’s tragic state to obstruct their pursuit.
They couldn’t stop. Once they stopped, after passing a mountain bend, Pei Song might abandon the carriage and hide with the Heir’s Consort and County Princess in the mountains.
If they lost track for even a moment, it would be difficult to recover the Heir’s Consort and County Princess.
—
Pei Yuan had been riding alongside the carriage the entire time. Earlier, in his clash with Xiao Li, his entire left arm had nearly been disabled by being twisted. Now he could only use his right hand.
He had been paying attention to the situation behind them. Seeing that as they approached a mountain bend, Zhao Bai had led the Azure Cloud Guards and caught up again, seemingly not having paused even for a moment for the Azure Cloud Guard who had been pushed from the carriage.
Although they had two horses pulling the carriage, the carriage’s speed still could not match that of riders galloping urgently.
At this rate, being caught by the Azure Cloud Guards was inevitable.
His expression couldn’t help but become somewhat grim. He called into the carriage: “Master, Hanyang’s people have caught up.”
The carriage was traveling extremely fast, and the road was bumpy, causing the entire carriage compartment to shake.
Pei Song sat on one side of the carriage, his hands still stained with blood from the Azure Cloud Guard’s neck earlier. He wiped carefully with a silk handkerchief, yet still couldn’t wipe it clean. His eyes were half-lowered, somewhat concealing the murderous intent within, as he said: “Send someone to intercept them.”
Outside, Pei Yuan responded “Yes.”
Hugging her daughter and cowering on the opposite side of the carriage, Jiang Yichu heard the words “Hanyang.” In her extreme despair, driven by that thread of hope, she almost instinctively wanted to look out the carriage window.
This subtle movement made Pei Song raise his eyes.
Jiang Yichu instantly dared not move, as if sitting across from her was some terrible beast.
Her face was deathly pale. Her skirt was still stained with blood, and her entire body trembled slightly. She pressed her daughter against herself, not daring to let A’Yin see the fresh blood splattered on the carriage wall and floor.
A’Yin was indeed very well-behaved, neither crying nor making a fuss.
Long ago, Jiang Yichu had discovered that her daughter’s reactions were somewhat dull and wooden—she didn’t even know to cry when frightened.
Only when truly terrified or sad would she open her mouth, her throat emitting extremely small sobbing sounds, while tears fell in large drops.
Her heart ached as if being stirred by a knife. Yet the person across from her still felt that allowing her daughter to return to her side was already the greatest mercy toward her.
At this moment, he was also looking at her with reddened eyes and a smile, as if he had reached the extreme of fragility but still refused to expose this fragility to her due to pride, asking: “Does Elder Sister so wish to leave me?”
Jiang Yichu couldn’t speak. When she saw the blood on Pei Song’s hands, she thought of the moment he had pulled out the dagger and stabbed it into the maid’s neck.
That was a maid who had served her for nearly a year, and she had died right before her eyes!
Pei Song studied Jiang Yichu’s paper-white complexion. Without needing her to say anything, he already knew the answer.
The blood vessels in his eyes were so red it was as if the whites of his eyes had cracked. Following Jiang Yichu’s gaze to his own hands, he smiled in self-deception and said: “I didn’t wipe the blood from my hands clean enough and frightened Elder Sister, didn’t I?”
He continued wiping with the silk handkerchief, as if trapped in some kind of performance, consoling her gently: “Elder Sister, don’t be afraid. That maid just now was a spy. I was careless. I didn’t expect that among the carefully selected servants, even a mute maid would be a plant placed by others.”
“Once we’re out of the Western Frontier, we’ll be safe. Elder Sister hasn’t seen the scenery beyond the Western Frontier, has she? There are great deserts and oases, herds of cattle and sheep, and jade-green silks. Elder Sister will like it…”
Listening to him say all this, Jiang Yichu only felt extremely pained. She tightly hugged her daughter in her arms, as if that was her only support, murmuring: “Let A’Yin and me go. I only beg you to let A’Yin and me go…”
Pei Song could no longer maintain that forced smile on his face. The curve of his lips froze. After a long while, he said something—not knowing if it was meant for Jiang Yichu or himself: “That’s not possible, Elder Sister. I only have you left…”
As his words fell, the entire rear wall of the carriage suddenly shook, as if struck by something.
From outside the carriage also came Pei Yuan’s loud shout: “Protect the lord!”