Xiao Li raised his eyes to look at her. Under eyelids covered in fine sweat, those eyes like a wolf’s or an eagle’s still held ferocity from enduring pain.

Wen Yu silently met his gaze.

Her eyes were calm, tranquil, faintly carrying a trace of pity. Under the blazing firelight, facing his extremely aggressive and oppressive stare, she did not yield in the slightest.

The two remained in a standoff for a moment. Xiao Li finally loosened his five fingers gripping that section of gauze, lowering his sweat-dampened eyelids.

The firelight plated half his body with a layer of warm light. Those clearly defined muscular blocks, though currently lying quiet and dormant, still allowed one to feel the terrifying power accumulated within.

Wen Yu smoothed out the gauze. Her left hand’s slender finger joints pressed one end fixed at his shoulder. Her fingertips did not directly touch his skin, but the thin layer of gauze could not block much either—she could clearly feel the warmth transmitted from the skin beneath.

Due to enduring pain, Xiao Li’s breathing grew somewhat heavier. The muscles on his body were stretched extremely tight, hard as stone, hard as iron.

Wen Yu glanced at his pale, forbearing complexion and temples hanging with fine sweat. When she carefully covered the gauze over his back, even though she had been mentally prepared, seeing that wound with putrefied flesh everted like a long, thin eye, her breathing still imperceptibly caught.

Was he injured this severely?

She looked away, unable to bear watching anymore. Just as she was about to wrap the gauze around from under his arm across his chest, she noticed that round scar on his rear shoulder where the skin tone clearly differed from the surrounding flesh. Around it trailed several shallow marks from torn flesh that had regrown, likely caused when removing the arrow.

Was this the arrow wound that had nearly taken his life back then?

Wen Yu’s fingertips trembled slightly, wanting to touch it, yet ultimately didn’t dare.

She suddenly felt unbearably guilty. When she lowered her eyes, even her breathing carried subtle tremors.

Forcefully suppressing that suffocating feeling rising in her chest, as she continued wrapping the gauze around his chest, because she was distracted thinking of other matters, several times when her slightly cool sleeves and hair brushed across Xiao Li’s bare shoulder and arm, she remained unaware.

Neither of them spoke. For a time, throughout the entire military tent, aside from the occasional faint rustling of their clothing rubbing together and the crackling of burning firewood in the brazier, there were no other sounds.

In a trance, it felt like returning to that New Year’s Eve night at the Xiao household in Yong City.

At that time, he had also returned on a snowy night carrying injuries.

She had also silently and meticulously bandaged him like this.

Recalling the past, Wen Yu’s heart couldn’t help but turn with a hundred emotions. After tying a knot at his front shoulder and raising her eyes, her gaze happened to collide with Xiao Li’s.

More accurately, he had been watching her all along.

His gaze was dark and deep, like the mouth of a pitch-black abyss that never saw daylight.

From his eyes, Wen Yu suddenly found some differences from before.

Back then, he hadn’t dared even look at her more. But now the way he looked at her carried unmistakably aggressive intent—so fierce, so wild.

Like a hunter using his gaze to confine his prey, only for some unknown reason was he restraining himself and had yet to make a move.

After such a thought suddenly emerged in her heart, Wen Yu realized the two were positioned too close. Just as she was about to withdraw her hand from his shoulder and step back, unexpectedly he grabbed her pale wrist in one motion, restricting her movement.

Wen Yu looked at him in startled suspicion. Though his breath was burning hot, his voice was as indifferent as before: “Didn’t you have something to say to me?”

Wen Yu struggled once with force, but couldn’t break free. Moreover, his five fingers like iron pincers seemed to have a tendency to grip even tighter. She finally calmed down again, lowering her eyes: “Let’s talk.”

Xiao Li continued staring at her: “Talk about what.”

Wen Yu said: “You can’t keep me confined for a lifetime. If I continue unable to return, and Jiang Yu died in the northern border, the forces of Liang and Chen will never give up. When that time comes, the northern border will have no peace. If my identity is exposed, you will also earn a name of disloyalty with Wei Qishan, which brings you no benefit whatsoever.”

But Xiao Li asked with some coldness in his laugh: “Would you let yourself be exposed?”

Wen Yu did not answer.

He answered for her: “You won’t. Whether for the southern border’s war situation or to avoid falling into Marquis Wei’s hands, you won’t. Otherwise why would you falsely claim to be Jiang Yu’s concubine?”

He was so close to her, his breath so hot, yet his tone so cold and sharp: “Letting you return—that would be disloyalty to Marquis Wei.”

Wen Yu calmly met his gaze. The two were nearly breathing together, yet the words they spoke had nothing to do with romance: “I’m afraid the loyalty you think you have differs from the loyalty Wei Qishan wants.”

“If there were still other choices, naturally I also wouldn’t want to announce to the world that I was captured by your Northern Wei. But the Empress Dowager Jiang has painfully lost her nephew, Prime Minister Jiang has sorrowfully lost his beloved son, and I have been unable to return to give them an explanation. When that time comes, whether Southern Chen becomes a mad dog will not be something I can control.”

Xiao Li fell silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed coldly: “Didn’t your Liang camp just recently arrange for ‘Princess Hanyang’ to parade through the streets mingling with the people, breaking the rumors spread by Pei Song’s side? Now you turn around and accuse my Northern Wei of detaining ‘Princess Hanyang’—this is truly a baseless charge.”

He stared at Wen Yu without blinking: “So what if Southern Chen becomes a mad dog? I’d like to see what person in the world would believe the absurd words of that treacherous, faithless lot!”

Wen Yu, her wrist tightly gripped by him, met his gaze like this and suddenly said: “Was it you who led the volunteer troops to aid Wayao Fort?”

At this moment, Xiao Li avoided meeting her eyes: “So what if it was, so what if it wasn’t?”

Wen Yu said: “If it truly was you, at that time you had such a great grievance with my Liang camp, yet you could still disregard past wrongs to rush to our aid and stop Pei Song from devastating the people—how is it that now, you would rather have the two armies clash in armed conflict?”

Xiao Li released the hand gripping her pale wrist, his thin lips pressed tightly together. When he raised his eyes again, they revealed a fierce coldness, clearly an attitude refusing communication: “From the moment Chen’s army slaughtered twenty thousand of my Northern Wei soldiers at Majialiang, a battle between my Northern Wei and his Chen army became inevitable. I aided Wayao Fort also for Tongzhou’s sake, not because I still harbor any sentiment toward your Liang camp. Between you and me, separated by a mortal blood feud, there’s nothing more to discuss. If you want to persuade me to release you, you should abandon this hope.”

Wen Yu’s wrist still seemed to retain the burning temperature from his palm. She suddenly said: “Then why brave the wind and snow at night to buy pregnancy-preserving medicine?”

She didn’t mention the candied fruit, but having already exposed the matter of buying medicine, he should understand she already knew everything he had done.

Xiao Li’s brows furrowed. He easily guessed how she had learned of this. After two breaths of silence, he said coldly: “Naturally because the child in the Princess’s belly is useful.”

“The Princess could convince Southern Chen to support you as ruler also because of this child in your belly, right? If the southern border falls into chaos in the future, whoever holds this child can command the forces of both Liang and Chen, isn’t that so? How could I not ensure the Princess properly nurtures the pregnancy and gives birth to this child?”

Hearing this answer, Wen Yu was stunned for a long while before asking: “Do you hate me this much?”

Xiao Li’s entire aura turned cold and heavy. The forearm resting on the armrest wrapped in iron skin and studded with copper rivets showed protruding veins as his five fingers clenched into a fist with force. The way he stared at Wen Yu could not even be described as looking—it was almost as if he were chiseling her appearance inch by inch into his pupils. Yet his lip line was stretched extremely tight as he spat out a few words: “What else does the Princess think?”

That rainy night when he left Pingzhou, he still remembered every word and sentence she said.

She said: “I think General Xiao has probably misunderstood something.”

She said: “I carried this wood carving only because I greatly enjoyed the four words ‘fish leaping over dragon gate’ that the General spoke of in the past, and not for any other reason. The General has overstepped boundaries several times, truly making this palace lady’s position difficult.”

She said: “Since this wood carving has been lost, this palace lady will treat it as never having been found.”

She so detested his affection that even considering he had once saved her life, she had driven him away multiple times both openly and subtly.

In the end, she completely tore off all pretense, stating all her aversion nakedly and explicitly.

Even if he, Xiao Li, acknowledged his bones were base, he couldn’t debase himself again this time.

Hearing this, Wen Yu was lost in thought for quite a while. Finally, she calmly looked at him and said: “If I returned the pain of that arrow to you, could it make you feel better?”

Without waiting for Xiao Li to answer, she continued: “The poison used on that arrow that wounded you was zhenniao. Before personally killing Pei Song, I cannot die yet. You can choose some poison that won’t take my life but won’t make things easy for me either to use on an arrow.”

Xiao Li’s jaw clenched so tightly that a vein bulged at his temple, as if he wanted to dismember the person before him with his gaze: “You think this can make us even?”

He said harshly: “Don’t forget, Wen Yu, it was I who saved your life.”

But Wen Yu said: “I know.”

The way she looked at him remained calm, as if she were truly negotiating with him: “After I personally kill Pei Song and settle the arrangements for all the troops below, I’ll prepare my own white silk and return this life to you.”

Xiao Li stared at her fixedly, his eyes slowly taking on a bloodshot tinge. He seemed to have never been this angry before, saying word by word: “I said I would use the child in your belly to take revenge on you. I don’t need you teaching me how to vent my hatred.”

Wen Yu was silent for a breath, then told him truthfully: “There is no child.”

But Xiao Li misunderstood, thinking she meant she wouldn’t give birth to this child to become his tool for revenge against her.

He hadn’t tasted this heart-wrenching feeling for a very, very long time. His heart felt as if someone had ripped it out alive and thrown it onto a busy thoroughfare to be trampled into pulp.

His eyes bloodshot, he heard himself say as if unable to control the beast in his heart: “Fine then, you please me.”

Hearing these words, Wen Yu only hesitated for one breath, then truly took a step toward him, extending both hands to cup his face.

Her expression was so calm and gentle, yet in the depths of her eyes seemed hidden an inexplicable sorrow. She slowly pressed her lips toward his.

Her lips were warm and soft, and the force with which she cupped his cheeks was extremely light.

Xiao Li pressed his lips tightly together. After she lightly touched once, she separated slightly, then slowly pressed down again. As she lingered on his lips, Xiao Li suddenly grabbed her hands and pushed her away. Casually taking an outer robe to drape on himself, as he walked out he only left behind three words: “Not interesting.”