The moonlight was soft, and the stream gurgled gently.
Xie Zheng tilted his head slightly, gazing at Fan Changyu who had been silent for a while.
Fan Changyu met his gaze, pausing for a moment before seemingly realizing the intimacy of the gesture. She awkwardly withdrew her hand and placed it on her knee.
The atmosphere between them became somewhat delicate. As she was about to suggest leaving, Xie Zheng suddenly said, “If you’re still feeling down, I can spar with you for a few rounds.”
To leave just like that, after her unconscious gesture of comforting him by touching his head earlier, would have felt strange.
Fan Changyu, recalling his ghost-like speed from before, indeed became interested in the idea of sparring with him. She nodded.
She only had a boning knife with her. Xie Zheng put on his upper garment but didn’t take any weapon, preparing to fight bare-handed.
Feeling underestimated, Fan Changyu pressed her lips together and said, “You should at least take a dagger.”
Xie Zheng put one hand behind his back and simply said to her, “Come.”
This posture of giving her a handicap made Fan Changyu press her lips even tighter. Without another word, her eyes suddenly sharpened like those of a hunting tiger. She charged forward like an arrow released from a bow.
She tried to control Xie Zheng’s single hand with one of hers while slashing at his neck with the boning knife. But as she got close, she found Xie Zheng as slippery as a fish. Whenever she tried to grab his hand, he would always avoid it a step ahead, calm and at ease. As he dodged her knife by sidestepping, a gust of wind from his palm swept towards her face. Fan Changyu hurriedly avoided it, but unexpectedly, that hand hooked her elbow and pulled downward, causing her to lose balance and nearly fall backward.
Xie Zheng changed his downward pull to a grip on her arm, intending to pull her up when he suddenly felt a chill at his neck.
He asked with a smile, “What’s this? Repaying kindness with enmity?”
Fan Changyu, with her boning knife against his neck, said, “All’s fair in war.”
Xie Zheng’s smile brightened even more as he looked at her and said, “You have a point.”
Fan Changyu gazed at his smiling dark eyes and withdrew her knife, pressing her lips together as she said, “I’m not as skilled as you.”
Noticing her dejection, Xie Zheng said, “Close combat excels in speed. You’re proficient with heavy weapons, and when using a light weapon, you can’t employ your broad, powerful moves. If it were just a contest of drawing speed, it would be unreasonable for me not to surpass you after over a decade of intense practice.”
Fan Changyu recalled the move he used to take her down and asked, “What was that move when you hooked my elbow and pulled downward?”
Instead of answering, Xie Zheng once again hooked her elbow and pulled downward. This time, Fan Changyu instantly tensed her body and didn’t budge an inch.
Xie Zheng asked her, “Do you understand now?”
Fan Changyu thought back to when she nearly fell earlier. His palm wind had forced her to dodge, causing her to shift her stance instead of standing firmly.
She frowned and said, “So the key isn’t in the downward pull?”
Xie Zheng nodded approvingly and said, “Sometimes, there’s no need to use brute force. Following the flow and using the opponent’s force against them can achieve more with less effort.”
Fan Changyu gripped her boning knife tightly and charged at him, saying, “Again!”
Their previous exchange had merely been a warm-up for Fan Changyu. Skilled in fierce attacks, she no longer followed Xie Zheng’s moves to maneuver but focused solely on offense. Her knife strikes became increasingly fierce, one after another. Despite wielding only a three-inch boning knife, she managed to create afterimages with her swings.
Xie Zheng noticed her playing to her strengths and avoiding her weaknesses, using offense as defense. He was somewhat surprised, a flash of astonishment crossing his eyes. She had been holding back earlier, merely probing his fighting style.
This realization brought a hint of amusement to his eyes, though he didn’t hold back in his techniques.
Only through such genuine practice could Fan Changyu learn and improve her martial skills most quickly.
Having learned from her previous mistake, Fan Changyu no longer tried to grab Xie Zheng’s hand. Her knife-wielding handled the attack, while her fist-clenching hand also struck, one hit following another, aiming to force Xie Zheng into a passive defense, leaving him no chance to counterattack.
But this round of sparring lasted only slightly longer than the previous one. After a few exchanges, she was once again outmaneuvered by Xie Zheng’s ghost-like movements. He got behind her, and using the momentum of her knife strike, pushed her shoulder and back. Fan Changyu was instantly propelled far away, half-falling into the grass.
In a sense, Fan Changyu was also a martial arts enthusiast.
She raised her head, a small flame seemingly burning in her eyes, and shouted, “Again!”
Xie Zheng stood not far away, his clothes fluttering in the night breeze, framing his cold, jade-like face, giving him an almost otherworldly appearance.
Like a young bull, Fan Changyu charged at him again with her knife.
In no time, her knife-wielding arm was redirected by Xie Zheng, and she stumbled into the grass once more.
The black cloud horse grazing nearby, perhaps annoyed that she had crushed a patch of tender grass, even came over and nudged her with its head.
Fan Changyu got up, clutching her boning knife, spitting out “ptui ptui” to get rid of the grass she had accidentally eaten. She looked at Xie Zheng and shouted, “Again!”
…
After being thrown out for the umpteenth time, Fan Changyu’s clothes, covered in grass stains and mud, were a mess. Her face was dirty, and there were even a few blades of grass stuck in her hair.
She lay on her back, looking up at the sky and breathing heavily. Her whole body was so sore that she didn’t want to move a finger, yet she felt exhilarated.
Her mind was blank, free of any distracting thoughts. She felt she could fall asleep in an instant if she closed her eyes.
Xie Zheng took a water flask from the horse’s back and handed it to her, saying, “Have some water.”
Fan Changyu had sweated a lot and was indeed very thirsty. She sat up, probably a bit dizzy from being thrown around so many times. She took the flask and started gulping down the water.
After drinking, she handed it back to Xie Zheng. He looked at it for a moment, then tilted his head back and took a few swigs.
Fan Changyu stared blankly, her mind finally registering that the water flask was Xie Zheng’s. She had drunk from it, and now he was drinking from it too. What did this mean?
Before she could feel embarrassed about it, she remembered him kissing her on horseback earlier. Fan Changyu unconsciously wiped her lips with the back of her hand again, suddenly feeling that sharing a water flask didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.
There was grass and mud on the back of her hand too, and this wiping left some on her lips.
Xie Zheng finished drinking and screwed the cap back on. Noticing something unusual about her, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Fan Changyu said awkwardly, “There’s something dirty on my face. I’m going to wash my face.”
With that, she got up and walked towards the riverside.
Xie Zheng’s voice came from behind, “You’re covered in mud. Don’t you want to wash your clothes too?”
Fan Changyu thought he was being crude and turned back to glare at him. But seeing Xie Zheng’s serious expression, it seemed he wasn’t intentionally teasing her. She frowned slightly.
Xie Zheng realized she had misunderstood and said, “The army will break camp tomorrow and join forces with the Chongzhou and Jizhou armies to annihilate the rebels. You might not have spare clothes on the road.”
As he spoke, he took off his outer robe and hung it on a nearby tree branch, saying, “You can borrow my outer robe for now.”
With that, he turned and walked into the woods, seemingly to give her privacy intentionally.
Fan Changyu watched him walk away, then turned her gaze to the robe hanging on the tree branch.
Her hair was also covered in grass and mud. After a moment’s hesitation, she went over and took the robe, then hid behind a large rock by the riverbank. She placed the robe on the rock, let down her hair, and took off her mud-caked uniform. Then she immersed herself in the cold water.
Although it was late spring, the river water at night was still bone-chillingly cold. However, Fan Changyu had a strong constitution and wasn’t afraid of the cold. After washing off all the mud, she started scrubbing her long hair.
The sound of burning firewood came from the shore. She peeked out from behind the rock and saw Xie Zheng sitting by a fire with his back to her. He had gone into the woods to gather firewood.
Fan Changyu watched him for a while and noticed that he never turned his head. After washing her hair clean, she shivered as she got out of the water, wrung out her hair, and wrapped herself in the robe that was draped over the rock.
As she tied the robe, Fan Changyu realized there was a problem. The robe was too big for her, and even after tying it, the neckline was still wide open.
She frowned, then decided to wring out her washed undergarment as much as possible and put it on underneath before wrapping herself in the outer robe.
After doing all this, she finally came out from behind the rock and squatted by the river to wash her grass-stained and mud-caked uniform.
Xie Zheng seemed to hear the movement and turned to look at her, asking, “Don’t you want to dry your hair by the fire first?”
Fan Changyu thought about finishing washing her clothes first and then drying them by the fire. She said, “I’m not cold.”
Footsteps approached from behind, and as they neared, she looked up to see Xie Zheng, bare-chested, stepping into the river past her.
Fan Changyu frowned and asked, “Are you going to bathe?”
Xie Zheng glanced at her and said, “I was swimming here before you came.”
With that, he dove into the water like a silverfish, and in no time, he had swum several zhang away from the shore.
Seeing his intention to continue swimming in the river, Fan Changyu thought that with her washing clothes on the bank and him swimming in the middle of the river, they shouldn’t disturb each other. So she lowered her head and continued washing her clothes.
Suddenly, there was a disturbance in the water in front of her. Fan Changyu looked up to see Xie Zheng emerging from the water, holding a fish. The splash of water drenched Fan Changyu, and water dripped from his black hair and exquisite jaw. Like a young man, he laughed heartily, “We have fish to eat!”
The fish in his hand was struggling vigorously, constantly flapping its tail, splashing fishy water droplets onto Fan Changyu’s face.
Fan Changyu had to turn her face away and use her sleeve to shield herself, saying with a mix of helplessness and slight annoyance, “Put the fish away first!”
The originally gathered neckline of the robe scattered open due to this raised arm movement. Fan Changyu almost instantly felt a chill.
The person in front of her suddenly fell silent, staring at her blankly. The fish escaped from his hand and splashed back into the water, spraying his face, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Fan Changyu realized something was wrong and looked down. She saw that the neckline of the outer robe was wide open, and her undergarment underneath was wet, clinging to her body and revealing rounded curves. A hint of something small and protruding could be vaguely seen.
Her face instantly turned red enough to emit smoke. Without thinking, she kicked out, cursing, “You pervert!”
Xie Zheng, caught off guard, was kicked face-first into the river. He choked on a mouthful of water and couldn’t get up for a long time.
Fan Changyu, filled with shame and anger, initially thought he was pretending. But after a long while without seeing him surface, she finally realized something was wrong. She called out to the water, “Yan Zheng?”
She still habitually called him Yan Zheng.
There wasn’t even a ripple on the water’s surface. Fan Changyu feared that her kick might have knocked him unconscious. With a life at stake, she put aside all other concerns. She threw his outer robe onto the shore and went into the water to save him.
A moment later, she dragged the choking man out and threw him on the shore. She pressed hard on his chest several times. Seeing Xie Zheng turn his head and spit out a mouthful of water, slowly regaining consciousness, she finally sat down exhausted nearby.
She was tired, her breathing heavy, but her face was almost expressionless.
What kind of crazy things happened today?
Xie Zheng opened his eyes to see Fan Changyu sitting beside him, wearing only trousers and an undergarment. Her long, wet hair was scattered about, and the skin not covered by her black hair and undergarment was as white as frost and snow in the moonlight. Her expression was hard to read, either cold or a kind of resignation after too many shocks.
But her whole being seemed to tug at his heartstrings. He was first stunned, then felt a surge of heat in his nose.
Realizing what it was, Xie Zheng hurriedly raised a hand to cover his nose, his ears turning completely red. He hastily turned away, unprecedentedly flustered, “Sor… sorry…”
Fan Changyu was so irritated she wanted to hit someone. She snapped, “Shut up!”
She picked up the outer robe she had taken off earlier and wrapped it around herself. With no outlet for her pent-up frustration, she continued to warn him fiercely, “You didn’t see anything!”
With that, she walked far away and sat down, questioning her life choices.
Xie Zheng looked at her back, wrapped in his robe, then at the unfinished laundry by the river. He splashed some cold water on his face to drive away the heat, then finished washing her clothes. He hung them on tree branches at a distance from the fire to dry, then went back to the river to catch two more fish. After cleaning and gutting them, he skewered them on tree branches and placed them by the fire to roast.
When the fish were done, he took them over to Fan Changyu, carefully saying, “Have something to eat.”
Fan Changyu, wrapped in his outer robe, seemed to have not yet recovered from the series of shocks. She just stared at him with her wide almond eyes and threatened him again, “Don’t you dare tell anyone about tonight!”