Xiao Li looked toward the table by the door and indeed saw a bottle of medicinal oil on it.

Only the place where Wen Yu was injured wasn’t just anywhere—it was her waist and abdomen. This location was far too intimate.

Xiao Li knew that greenwood woman had a bold personality. He hadn’t actually intended to follow her words. He stood up intending to call her in to apply the medicine, but heard the breathing of the person on the bed seemed somewhat shallower than before.

Looking back, he saw Wen Yu’s long lashes trembling as she slowly opened her eyes.

Xiao Li hadn’t expected her to wake at this moment. As their gazes collided, he still remembered her coldness and anger on horseback. After a moment of silence he said: “The physician examined you and said the child in your belly is fine. There’s porridge outside. I’ll go get some for you.”

After speaking he was about to step out the door, but behind him came Wen Yu’s voice, still slightly hoarse from having just awakened: “What you said just now, I heard it.”

Xiao Li, with his back to her, stopped in his tracks.

Speaking while lying down seemed to naturally put one at some disadvantage. Wen Yu propped her elbows on the soft bedding beneath her and sat up with some difficulty.

The injury to her abdomen had previously only been a dull ache in that one spot, but now it was affecting that whole area of muscles with a faint throbbing pain.

Xiao Li heard the undertone of endured pain in her breathing. The hand gripping the wooden carp tightened again and again. Finally he turned back, his powerful arm half-supporting and half-embracing her as he lifted her, placing two soft pillows behind her.

Wen Yu’s outer garment had been removed. Now she wore only her middle and inner garments. When Xiao Li’s hand passed under her armpit and across her back to half-embrace her, half her body weight pressed almost entirely on that iron-like arm of his, but this seemed not to constitute any burden for him at all.

To make her sit more comfortably, the hand he had wrapped around her back gripped her shoulder with five fingers, applying slight force upward. Wen Yu then sat closer to the headboard.

But in this position, he had almost completely embraced her in his arms with just one arm.

When Wen Yu raised her head slightly and he looked down, the two were separated by no more than an inch.

Only his expression remained cold and hard. Even though Wen Yu was enduring pain and her face showed some weakness, and the crossed collar of her garment had loosened somewhat from these movements, revealing half a collarbone that rose and fell noticeably with her breathing, the eyes that met Xiao Li’s remained calm and composed, dispelling that sense of intimacy.

Xiao Li silently locked eyes with her for two breaths. The force gripping her shoulder was somewhat strong. After placing her steadily against the cushions and releasing his hand to withdraw, he stepped back and sat back on the stool before the bed, distancing himself from the bed curtains’ enclosure.

As if invisibly drawing some insurmountable boundary line.

Wen Yu said “Thank you” to him in a hoarse voice. Thinking of what she had heard just after waking when someone entered the room—having no choice but to continue feigning sleep—she paused, then finally said: “I don’t know what aspect of unfairness you refer to, but if it concerns the two of us, in the past I was indeed self-righteous in making many decisions, ultimately resulting in owing you much…”

She looked at him, her calm eyes infused with some complex emotions: “But there’s one point—regardless of whether you believe me or not—I need to tell you again: I truly never thought of harming you, much less wanted things between us to reach the point of armed conflict.”

Xiao Li kept his head half-lowered without looking at her, his upper body leaning slightly forward, both elbows resting on his separated legs as his thumb rubbed the wooden carp in his hand. He spoke coldly: “You yourself know you’ve wronged me. Now that you’ve fallen into my hands, why shouldn’t I refuse to release you?”

Wen Yu looked at his shadow, silent and desolate as a rocky mountain. A single phrase turned over and over in her heart, but when it emerged from her mouth it had transformed into: “I’ve always wanted to compensate you.”

Xiao Li seemed to laugh, raising his head to look at her: “Such as?”

Wen Yu’s gaze remained calm, only her eyes seemed to hold some sorrow. She said: “Whatever you want—as long as it doesn’t violate natural law, doesn’t harm the common people, doesn’t bring disaster upon the innocent officials and soldiers of Liang and Chen Battalions, and is also within my power to accomplish—I can promise it to you.”

Then Xiao Li laughed again, looking at her with both hatred and mockery in his eyes: “You want to grant me fame and fortune? But is it possible, Wen Yu, that everything you could give me, I now already have?”

Wen Yu paused for a breath and said: “I know that with your abilities, Wei Qishan must value you extremely. The county princess is beautiful and also a good match for you. What you can obtain in Northern Wei already far exceeds what you had in my Liang Battalion. So after falling into your hands, I never expected you would still help conceal my identity.”

“Don’t overthink it. If you had fallen into Marquis Wei’s hands, he would also treat you courteously in order to use you and the child in your belly to control Liang and Chen Battalions. Then it would be difficult for me to seek revenge for that arrow you shot me.”

Xiao Li coldly interrupted her.

Wen Yu looked at him silently for a while, then said: “If you still hate me that much, I said long ago—you can take revenge for that arrow.”

Xiao Li’s jaw tightened, as if wanting to say something, but Wen Yu didn’t give him that opportunity. Her dark hair pressed against her pale cheeks, her eyes somber as she continued: “Were you going to say to wait until I’ve given birth to the child in my belly? I’ve also told you many times—there is no child. This pregnancy pulse was fake from beginning to end, just a trick I used to deceive the Wang faction and Jiang faction people of Chen Kingdom in order to seize power and return to preside over the overall situation.”

Xiao Li was first stunned, then pressed his lips tight. His five fingers clenched into fists as he said coldly with slight mockery: “To trick me into letting you leave, you’ve become desperate enough to start making up such lies?”

Wen Yu quietly met his gaze for two breaths. Some things need no words—truth and falsehood can be discerned from the eyes alone. She was still in the weakness after injury, her whole person radiating exhaustion. She said: “Do you truly think an ordinary pregnancy pulse could remain so stable after falling from a horse and a carriage crash?”

Xiao Li sat on the stool with his ten fingers interlaced, staring at her abdomen. The aura surrounding him was cold, heavy and gloomy. For a long time he said nothing more.

Wen Yu didn’t know if he believed her or not. After a while, she finally continued: “I’m not a saint. My schemes that I thought were good for everyone ultimately had flaws. But with the mistake already made, all I can do is make amends and salvage what I can. After the Majialiang Massacre, my journey north to see Wei Qishan was like this. After learning you were still alive and reuniting with you in this manner, my continuous desire to have a proper conversation with you was also like this.”

Xiao Li still only listened in silence.

He had always been puzzled about her reason for journeying north. Only now did he learn.

It was to see Wei Qishan.

At first he found it absurd, but then he felt almost certain that this was something Wen Yu would do.

If Wei Qishan hadn’t directly used the Majialiang Massacre to produce a former Jin princess and return to being a Jin subject, then Wen Yu personally traveling to the northern border to apologize to Wei Qishan and discuss peace—regardless of whether Wei Qishan would be won over by her bearing and boldness, in the eyes of all under heaven, Liang Battalion would no longer owe Northern Wei.

As Xiao Li pondered these things, he heard Wen Yu continue: “I know I’ve wronged you. Apart from this life which I cannot give you before Pei Song dies and the overall situation is settled, I’m willing to compensate you for everything else.”

He raised his head, colliding directly with Wen Yu’s somber eyes that held sadness: “But you carved that box of wooden sculptures to give me. You’re not as hard-hearted as you claim to be, are you?”

She seemed both sad and confused: “Xiao Li, must we really make things so irreconcilable between us?”

All the coldness Xiao Li had forcibly affected had long shown cracks in that box of wooden carvings he had carved stroke by stroke.

Only after a long silence, what he asked was a question completely unrelated to everything Wen Yu had said: “Have you ever drowned?”

Wen Yu didn’t know what he meant by this and didn’t answer immediately.

He didn’t seem to want her to answer him either, continuing on his own: “When someone is truly drowning, they won’t struggle anymore. They’ll only feel that they can breathe in the water, so no matter how deep the abyss, they’ll only sink down peacefully. Whether it’s death or release, in any case everything is over.”

“All those who still have the strength to struggle are still desperately hoping to grab a life-saving straw.”

He slowly said: “I’ve already let myself drown once.”

Wen Yu recalled the look in his eyes when he tore open the carriage door and looked at her. Suddenly feeling a dull ache in her heart, she hastily turned her head away, unable to continue looking calmly at those eyes of Xiao Li’s.

“You said you were once self-righteous in making many decisions, ultimately resulting in owing me.”

Xiao Li seemed to want to laugh, but the whites of his eyes slowly became tinged with ferocity again, though his voice was very calm: “I don’t know if the decisions you made count as self-righteous, but I’m very clear that when you made any decision on my behalf, you probably never considered how cruel it was to me.”

He extended his hand. The carp wooden carving that had left red marks on his knuckles fell from his palm, caught by the cord and swaying gently in the candlelight.

He asked: “Hadn’t you already thrown it away? Why bring it back to return to me?”

A broken mockery floated to his lips: “Because the humiliation back then wasn’t enough? You wanted to ridicule once more how lowly and contemptible I was in the past? How I dared harbor other thoughts toward you?”

Wen Yu was stunned, instinctively saying: “That’s not what I meant…”

Xiao Li asked with a cold laugh: “Then tell me, what did you mean by saying those things back then?”

Wen Yu was speechless. Yes, what she had done back then to drive Xiao Li away was indeed little different from what he described.

This was a wrong she had committed.

Wen Yu closed her eyes and paused for two breaths. When she opened them again, her eyes still couldn’t help reddening. Her voice grew hoarse: “I’m sorry, back then I…”

Xiao Li’s eyes were bloodshot as he stared at her fixedly. His gaze could already be called viciously fierce, yet he still smiled: “Since you already threw them away once in front of me, if you were going to throw them away again you should have thrown them farther away! Where I could never see them again!”

He had already decided to let himself drown, but she insisted on throwing him this straw, then blamed him for gripping it too tightly.

How could there be someone in this world like her—thinking herself benevolent but actually ruthless to the extreme?

Xiao Li lowered his head, laughing even more sarcastically and wantonly.

After laughing enough, he said: “Wen Yu, I hate you.”

He stood up to walk outside, but behind him came Wen Yu’s somber and hoarse voice: “I like you.”

His steps stopped dead.

“You were never lowly or contemptible. It was I who betrayed your feelings and disparaged them so. I’ve always felt very sorry.”

From the moment she heard him deprecate his past self in such a way, Wen Yu knew she had been completely wrong. She had been too self-righteous back then, thinking that method could drive him away, not realizing it had also trampled all his sincerity and dignity to dust.

“From the time you left Pingzhou, I kept thinking that if we could reunite someday, if there was an appropriate opportunity, I should tell you everything. You being sincere, courageous, and passionate—none of that was wrong. It was I who used the wrong way to reject you.”

She took a deep breath, lowering her eyes to look at the printed pattern on the brocade quilt: “It was also my cowardice—I didn’t dare face my own feelings directly, and I was afraid of embroiling you in conflict, so I said those hurtful words. Bringing these wooden carvings to return to you this time wasn’t to humiliate you again. I felt guilty about what I did to you.”

“Your feelings deserved to be treated well. Since I couldn’t accept them, I should at least return them to you properly.”

After speaking all the words that had been blocking her heart, Wen Yu only felt some soreness and swelling in her chest and eyes, but her whole person also felt much lighter.

This was something she had done wrong in the past, something she owed him. She needed to explain it properly to him.

A shadow fell across her.

Wen Yu tried her utmost to control her emotions at this moment, wanting to meet Xiao Li’s gaze calmly. But upon seeing his brow and eyes that were cold and hard to the point of indifference, the soreness in her eyes still intensified.

“Is this a new trick you’ve devised to make me let you go back?”

Xiao Li’s expression was cold and detached, yet he raised his hand to grip her chin, closing in bit by bit. His wolf-like eyes examined her fiercely, as if searching for some flaw in her face.

When the tear Wen Yu had been forcibly holding back in her eyes finally fell, his eyes filled with hatred and he savagely pressed his lips down on hers in a fierce kiss.