He asked in a cold voice, “Why does your Princess need to bear a child with Jiang Yu?”

Zhao Bai glanced at him and said coldly, “The Chen Kingdom is controlled by the Empress Dowager and the Jiang faction. The Princess urgently needs to become their Chen Kingdom’s Regent Princess Imperial and return to preside over the overall situation. The Jiang faction naturally wants to extract benefits.”

These words she spoke were half-true and half-false, but the reasoning was sufficiently sound.

The Chen Kingdom had already elevated Wen Yu to Princess Imperial and acknowledged that their Chen King was Great Liang’s Prince Consort. Then in the future, the one to inherit both kingdoms’ imperial fortunes must be Wen Yu’s child.

If the Jiang family wanted to preserve their glory and wealth, using the usual method of placing a daughter beside the Chen King to have a Jiang family woman bear the Chen King’s heir was already useless. It would be better to directly have Wen Yu bear a Jiang family heir—this way they could settle things once and for all.

It was just somewhat shocking to the world when spread abroad.

Zhao Bai wasn’t afraid that after Xiao Li learned this, it would become a point for their Wei camp to attack Wen Yu.

After all, these were just things she said with empty words—there was no solid evidence.

What surprised her, however, was that after Xiao Li finished listening, his expression became so chillingly cold as he asked a question: “What about the Chen King?”

At first, Zhao Bai didn’t quite understand the meaning in Xiao Li’s words. After carefully pondering it, she finally realized he was asking why the Chen King hadn’t stopped the Jiang family from daring to make such an impertinent demand.

Zhao Bai replied, “The Chen King has suffered from illness and hasn’t managed state affairs for a long time. The Chen Kingdom is currently under Empress Dowager Jiang’s regent rule behind the curtain.”

This was an implicit way of indicating that the Chen King currently had no real power in the Chen Kingdom and had long been sidelined by the Empress Dowager and the Jiang family.

To personally tell him that the Chen King had a hidden illness and couldn’t perform his marital duties—this would damage Wen Yu’s dignity, so Zhao Bai naturally couldn’t do such a thing.

Letting him know that Wen Yu would bear a child with someone else, in Zhao Bai’s view, wasn’t actually such a big deal.

After all, Great Liang’s founding emperor’s elder sister, the Grand Princess Imperial of Xiangcheng, had kept countless male favorites back in the day. It was rumored that quite a few military generals in the court had also been her intimate companions.

If King Changliang had successfully ascended the throne back then, as King Changliang’s only daughter, if Wen Yu wanted to keep male favorites, that too would be entirely natural.

If Xiao Li were more compliant, Zhao Bai’s hostility toward him wouldn’t be so intense either. After all, she had wrongly accused Xiao Li before and nearly caused his death—she did feel guilty about that in her heart.

But since he had now joined the Wei camp, he was going to be an enemy to their Liang camp. This time he was also detaining Wen Yu and refusing to release her—who knew what scheme he was plotting. Fearing he would harm Wen Yu, that bit of guilt in her heart had been scattered by anger.

The way he looked at Wen Yu back in Pingzhou was definitely not the gaze a subordinate should have for a superior.

He was merely enduring, restraining himself.

Zhao Bai could smell the dangerous flavor in the way he looked at Wen Yu.

He clearly wanted to pin down their Great Liang’s pearl-like brilliant Princess beneath his claws and slowly chew her up—bones, skin and all—and swallow her down.

That was transgression!

Now, the dangerous meaning in his eyes was only more intense than before. That’s why Zhao Bai was even more afraid he would do something to Wen Yu.

But for some reason, after the person opposite her finished hearing her explanation, the anger that hadn’t been very obvious before now overflowed from his entire being like gunpowder smoke and embers. The smile that curved at the corner of his lips was extremely cold, almost mocking, but even more so was an indescribable fury: “Your Liang camp has helped your Princess marry a fine husband indeed.”

After saying those words, he directly ignored the long sword Zhao Bai had pressed against his neck and turned to leave.

Zhao Bai felt as if someone had viciously slapped her face. Half her heart was filled with fury, while the other half was self-reproach and heartache from witnessing with her own eyes how Wen Yu had step by step walked to her current situation. But her gaze quickly became firm again. The sword edge pressed down with more force as she coldly shouted, “Everything the Princess wants, she will seize back herself. She doesn’t need some worthless husband to protect her. Southern Chen was selected by the Princess because of Southern Chen’s troops, not because of the Chen King!”

This time, the sword edge she pressed down went deeper than before. Blood beads were already clearly seeping from the side of Xiao Li’s neck, sliding down and soaking into his collar.

Zhao Bai stared at his back and said coldly, “You’d better remain hostile and opposed to the Princess forever. Otherwise, just based on your act of imprisoning the Princess, you’ll never compare to Jiang Yu! Pei Song has the hatred of killing your mother toward you, and you’re still irreconcilable enemies with him. He has the hatred of exterminating her family toward the Princess—what do you think the Princess’s state of mind is when imprisoned by you?”

After saying these sentences, she sheathed her sword and walked back with her head down, treading through the accumulated snow.

Xiao Li’s stern features were concealed in the darkness beneath the tree shadows, making his expression impossible to read. Only the aura around his entire body was cold and heavy: “Because she is a Great Liang Princess, because Wen clan blood flows through her veins, you all take it for granted that she should shoulder everything, that she should walk the most difficult path? After all, she’s intelligent. After all, she’s resilient. After all, she never speaks of suffering or exhaustion, and she’s omnipotent—each time she strategizes from within the command tent, she can bring your Liang camp back from the brink of death.”

Zhao Bai stopped in her tracks, about to angrily refute something, but then heard him continue: “But when I met her, she didn’t yet have the status of Great Liang Princess. She wasn’t someone who knew everything. She was also a living, breathing person. She only became that way in order to be your Princess. What right do you have to be protected by her meticulous and flawless plans, and then feel she was born with skin like copper and bones like iron, not needing any protection?”

Zhao Bai was rendered speechless by these words of his. Xiao Li had already walked away, treading through the accumulated snow.

In the end, Zhao Bai furiously punched the side of a tree. Snow on the tree rustled and fell. She closed her eyes somewhat awkwardly.

—

When Xiao Li returned to camp, he had no desire to sleep at all. He had the sentry on night watch return to camp to rest, taking over the watch himself.

After sitting down beside the fire, he stared into the flames, lost in thought.

Actually, from the very beginning when he captured Wen Yu, he hadn’t decided what exactly to do with her.

Did he hate her for still suspecting him after they had shared so many brushes with death together, and finally even ruthlessly trying to kill him?

He did hate her.

But from the moment he recognized her from afar and shot an arrow to save her from Pei Fifteen’s hands, the first thought that emerged in his mind was: How can I help her deceive Wei Ang?

He didn’t know whether Wei Ang recognized her or whether she had any means to deal with it.

But if he appeared before her, she would certainly understand that all her disguises couldn’t fool him.

So he had Wei Ang conduct the interrogation himself—both to avoid suspicion so he could better help her conceal her identity later, and to see how she would respond so he could act accordingly to help her.

When he still hated her and hadn’t decided how to deal with her, he originally didn’t want to see her.

Sure enough, after seeing her because he was furious that she risked her life while pregnant to seize Jiang Yu’s severed head, the one who lost his composure was himself.

He had wanted to question her about why she was so reckless with her life while pregnant. But when he saw her looking at him with such joy mixed with sorrow, the words on the tip of his tongue turned into accusations about that arrow from before.

He wanted to ask her: when she married into Southern Chen with her ten-li red bridal procession, knowing he had died from that poisoned arrow with his bones scattered in the wilderness, did her heart ever feel even a trace of guilt?

In the end, his remaining dignity didn’t allow him to ask this out loud.

She had once been so disgusted by his feelings for her, viewing them as a nuisance. Knowing he was dead, she probably only felt she had eliminated a potential spy and conveniently solved a troublesome problem.

He brought up this arrow grudge countless times, wanting to tell himself to give up hope, to stop harboring any fantasies about her. He also wanted to obtain from her a definitive answer so he could more firmly and more justifiably hate her.

His infatuation with this Great Liang noble lady was like being trapped in a swamp. He had witnessed her ruthlessness and cruelty—it was time to climb out.

But she was so distressed, and so guilt-ridden.

It made him unable for a time to distinguish whether the disgust she had once spoken aloud was real, or whether this moment’s guilt was real.

She was too intelligent and too skilled at perceiving people’s hearts. He truly couldn’t tell the difference.

But even if she had truly once ordered his death, he still couldn’t bear to hurt her.

Xiao Li felt he might be ill—afflicted with a sickness where approaching that Great Liang Princess caused him to lose all reason and principles.

Knowing full well there was an abyss below, as long as she stood there, he would still leap down without hesitation.

Pain and numbness repeated in cycles, tormenting him until his entire being seemed to have been hollowed out into an empty shell.

Reason tore at him, telling him not to see her again. But his body would often sit on the hill throughout entire nights, staring sleeplessly at the military tent where she was imprisoned.

It seemed his illness had grown even worse.

He no longer cared whether she had truly wanted to kill him back then.

In any case, she was in his hands.

In any case, she owed him. He wanted to hide her away in a place only he knew.

That way, whether she felt disgust or hatred toward him, she would never be able to escape him.

But when occasionally lucid, his pride still didn’t allow him to do this.

His mother had spent over a decade teaching him to be an upright and good person. He couldn’t transform himself into such a wretched state.

So in the end, he decided to let Wen Yu go.

Once she was far away and he could no longer see her, his illness would recover.

But then she got injured right under his nose.

If he let her out, she wouldn’t be as safe as being confined by him. Why shouldn’t he continue confining her?

She was still carrying a child. If the child was lost, she would be very distressed.

But in the end, the child was also fake.

She brought the wooden carving he had once carved for her and told him she liked him.

Xiao Li almost wanted to laugh. To leave, she truly spoke without choosing her words.

How could she say she liked him?

She could deceive him about other things, but not this.

He had nothing left that could be deceived away. This heart that had been trampled into fragments was still oozing pus and blood without scabbing over—it couldn’t withstand any more trampling.

Wei Qishan hadn’t obtained her. Pei Song’s people weren’t certain of her whereabouts either. The Liang camp had denied she was in the northern territory. The war situation in the southern territory could at least remain stable until spring.

He would let her leave, just not now.

Continuing to keep her in the mountain hermitage was to let her recover from her injuries, or perhaps also to see how she would continue deceiving him.

But if her guard hadn’t come looking for him tonight, he wouldn’t have known that the Chen King she had married without looking back was such a worthless coward.

She had also agreed to bear a child with Jiang Yu?

No wonder. No wonder she risked her own life to seize back Jiang Yu’s severed head. No wonder every time he mentioned Jiang Yu, she became so distressed.

How could she still say she liked him?

Or was it that such deception had long since become part of her methods?

A thick branch that was about to be added to the fire was snapped into two pieces in Xiao Li’s hands.

After the firewood was thrown into the fire, countless sparks scattered, blown in all directions by the bitter cold wind.

Xiao Li’s jaw tightened in the firelight. In his pitch-black eyes reflected the leaping flames, as if molten lava was also churning in the depths of his pupils.

He was still furious.

Furious at Wen Yu’s deception. Furious that despite all her calculations and schemes, she had married such a person. And furious that the people of their Liang camp actually took all of this for granted.

She married an incompetent husband and needed to compromise with external relatives to bear a child together in order to obtain power. What right did her guards and ministers have to feel that all of this was something she should “fight for”?

Just because she had always protected them behind her?