Zheng Hu followed behind Xiao Li, stepping through the snow and mud with uneven footfalls, his armor also stained with blood. He grumbled to Song Qin: “There really hasn’t been a single day of peace. I just finished killing off that band of barbarians with Second Brother, and before I could even get a proper sleep back at camp, we received word that something happened here. Fortunately, this gang of rebel soldiers wasn’t quick enough, so we managed to catch up…”

He noticed Song Qin’s expression seemed off and was feeling somewhat puzzled when Song Qin gave him a look.

Zheng Hu’s view had been blocked earlier by Xiao Li walking in front, but with this shift in position, he finally saw Xiao Li and Wen Yu gazing at each other from a distance in silence.

He quickly shut his mouth and took the large bow from Xiao Li’s hand, saying: “That… Second Brother, let me hold it for you!”

But the bow was truly heavy. After Zheng Hu took it, both his hands were instantly pulled downward by its weight. He quickly applied more strength to steady it, squeezing out a few words through his teeth to Song Qin: “Why is this bow so heavy…”

Xiao Li lifted his foot and slowly walked toward Wen Yu.

Wen Yu looked at his appearance, fresh from the battlefield with his killing aura not yet receded. Her gaze touched upon the bloodstains on his collar and she frowned slightly. When he drew near, she said: “The remaining guards on the mountain—I had them hide in the cellar. Dou Jianliang led Chen troops disguised as displaced people to infiltrate the northern border, which suggests Pei Song still has some conspiracy. You can report this troop movement anomaly to Wei Qishan, but don’t kill this person yet. I still have things to ask him…”

“Are you injured?” Xiao Li interrupted in a hoarse voice.

Between his brows and eyes still clung scattered bloodstains splattered from the previous fierce battle. His gaze swept inch by inch over her blood-stained cloak, his eyes threaded with bloodshot lines from going too long without rest, making the cold, hard expression on his face lose some of its usual ferocity in this exhaustion.

Wen Yu was slightly startled. Before she could answer, he had already grasped one of her hands. He continued examining inch by inch every bloodstain on her body, as if trying to determine whether she truly had any wounds.

Wen Yu instinctively struggled once but couldn’t break free. Not wanting to make too much of a scene in front of so many soldiers, she let him be and said: “I’m not injured. This isn’t my blood.”

“That’s good then.” Xiao Li’s expression seemed to relax somewhat.

Wen Yu wanted to continue her previous topic: “I was afraid the scouts who went to report might have been silenced, so I had someone light the wolf smoke signal to intimidate them. If other Wei troops in the area see it, you can use this to expose Pei Song’s conspiracy…”

“Wen Yu.” Xiao Li suddenly called her name softly.

Wen Yu stopped speaking and met his exhausted gaze that seemed to be suppressing something. For an instant, she felt Xiao Li very much wanted to embrace her, but perhaps fearing his blood-stained armor was too filthy, he restrained himself again. He only gripped her wrist tightly and said to her: “I’m very tired. I want to sleep for a while.”

He looked as if he hadn’t closed his eyes in ages. His face bore dried bloodstains mixed with sweat and mud. Though still resolute, though still unyielding, his whole person resembled a weathered mountain of rock, cracked and eroded by wind and rain.

Even if it ultimately crumbled into a pile of broken stones, he refused to reveal even the slightest hint of weakness.

He only looked at her and asked: “When I wake up, will I still be able to see you?”

Wen Yu pressed her lips tightly together.

He knew everything.

He knew that she lit the wolf smoke signal not only to intimidate Dou Jianliang, but also to send a signal to the Liang camp forces still searching for her within the border.

To keep Dou Jianliang stable, she had performed her act thoroughly. Giving him that meaningless gold hairpin to take to the Liang camp was merely to make Dou Jianliang believe she truly placed her hopes in him.

At the Ma Family Bridge battle, whether it was his sole doing or had the Jiang family’s approval—he still couldn’t produce evidence. Based on his word alone, Wen Yu naturally couldn’t presume to trust him completely.

Protecting herself from being controlled by Dou Jianliang, then using the wolf smoke and the large-scale troop movements from various camps to draw the Liang camp forces’ attention to this mountain hermitage—that was her true purpose.

That section of wrist was already gripped painfully, as if some kind of brand had been seared upon it.

Wen Yu couldn’t give him an answer for a long time.

Zheng Hu, watching the two from a distance, saw Xiao Li holding Wen Yu’s wrist and assumed the pair had already reconciled. Wanting to make Wen Yu feel sympathy for Xiao Li, he raised his voice: “Sister-in-law, my Second Brother hasn’t closed his eyes for three days and nights. As soon as he returned to camp and heard something happened on your end, he turned his horse around and came this way without even dismounting!”

Wen Yu felt that “sister-in-law” stab her heart like a shallow cut. She finally looked at Xiao Li and spoke: “You didn’t need to come in person.”

Xiao Li gazed at her silently. The look in his eyes at that instant was so heavy that Wen Yu couldn’t meet his gaze.

A withered bamboo leaf from the bamboo grove clung to the shoulder joint of his armor. Wen Yu averted her eyes and raised her hand to help remove it, but before her hand could touch his shoulder armor, the hand gripping hers suddenly exerted force. Wen Yu was pulled stumbling into his embrace reeking of blood.

A powerful large palm pressed against her back, and her raised hand, wrist pressed against his shoulder armor.

This was a solid, extremely forceful embrace.

Xiao Li’s arms closed around her, that hand cinching her waist so tightly. The bloodstains on his armor smeared her snow-white cloak into a mess. He buried his face in the fur collar of her cloak and her half-pinned black hair, breathing desperately. His breath was so heavy, so labored, like an injured beast, full of pain and despair.

No matter how unwilling, he had no way to deal with her anymore.

Wen Yu was pressed so that her cheek rested against his cold chest armor. Besides the wind, all she could hear in her ears was his thundering heartbeat transmitted through the layer of armor, like someone beating a muffled drum.

An astringent feeling rose unbidden in her chest.

This seemed to be the only real embrace between them.

Xiao Li’s extremely suppressed, painfully fierce voice sounded in her ear: “Are you this heartless to everyone?”

He was so close to her that the hot breath he exhaled as he spoke landed entirely on her ear, intimate as lovers’ whispers.

The hand pressing on her back was also so forceful, grasping until the cloak wrinkled, as if wanting to penetrate that layer of fabric, then penetrate flesh and bone, to tightly grip that beating heart in her chest and ask whether she had any sincerity at all.

But what he said was: “I won’t like you anymore, Wen Yu.”

Yet the hand cinched around her waist showed no intention of loosening, and was even tightening further.

Wen Yu endured the pain in her back, only then feeling the ache in her chest dissipate somewhat.

The hand resting on Xiao Li’s shoulder slowly clenched into a fist. She struggled to restrain all emotion and responded with a very soft, very calm “Mm.”

Xiao Li’s breathing grew heavier. Though he was the one embracing her, at this moment he seemed to have truly become a collapsing mountain of rock, only able to stand in this renewed snowstorm by relying entirely on Wen Yu’s support.

He seemed to summon tremendous effort before painfully and fiercely continuing to whisper in her ear: “I will also marry another woman and have children with her.”

Between breaths was entirely Wen Yu’s scent and the fragrance of her hair. His chest felt so stifled, so swollen, and screamed with such sharp pain.

Xiao Li felt like he was about to explode.

Explode into a mess of bloody flesh scattered across heaven and earth—would she hurt then? Would she spare him another glance?

Wen Yu was silent for a long while before speaking a single, extremely soft word: “Alright.”

Alright.

That word seemed to crush Xiao Li’s last thread of hope. He closed his heart-piercingly red eyes heavily, and when he opened them again, all emotion seemed to have been suppressed.

He released his arms that had been cinched around Wen Yu and stepped back, saying: “You should go.”

Wen Yu looked at him steadily for a moment, but then turned and walked toward Dou Jianliang, who had been pinned to the ground by his earlier arrow.

Xiao Li’s arrow had aimed for Dou Jianliang’s right chest. At this moment, blood had presumably blocked the wound, so the blood seeping from the arrow hole wasn’t so shockingly vivid. Instead, blood kept overflowing from the corner of his mouth—perhaps that arrow had pierced some other organ.

Wen Yu crouched halfway before him and said: “You should know you won’t survive, but your wife, children, parents, and all your clansmen are indeed still imprisoned in the Southern Chen dungeons. If you tell me truthfully—at the Ma Family Bridge battle, did the Jiang family participate or not? If they did, what evidence exists? Colluding with the enemy and betraying the nation is a crime punishable by the execution of nine generations of kin. If it truly wasn’t your sole doing, at least your Dou clan won’t face total annihilation of nine generations.”

By this point, how could Dou Jianliang not know he had fallen into Wen Yu’s trap?

Unwillingness seemed to fill his eyes, yet he also understood his fate was sealed. He stared fixedly in one direction as turbid tears rolled down: “It was me… it was me who was blinded by greed and fell into… fell into that traitor Pei’s cunning scheme.”

After struggling to explain clearly how Yu Jingwen had schemed to make him plan the Ma Family Bridge incident from beginning to end, he looked at Wen Yu as if seeking some guarantee, every word accompanied by gasping breaths: “This stratagem… it’s true I… I proposed it, but… but it also had Prime Minister Jiang’s… approval. Those two pieces of gold… gold leaf were the sign of… approval. If he hadn’t given me this… gold leaf, I… I wouldn’t have dared carry out this… this act that would cost… cost me my head.”

Wen Yu asked calmly: “There was no letter, and no trusted confidant from the Jiang family, was there?”

Dou Jianliang nodded with difficulty.

Wen Yu asked again: “Where are those two pieces of gold leaf now?”

Dou Jianliang tremblingly retrieved them from his chest.

He had actually been carrying them on his person all along.

After Wen Yu took them and wrapped them in a handkerchief, she said to him: “Whatever is your crime, this palace will not reduce it by even a fraction; whatever is not your fault, this palace will not add even the slightest bit. You single-handedly planned the poisonous scheme to slaughter Wei troops at Ma Family Bridge. In the underworld, twenty thousand wrongly killed soldiers are waiting to cry out for justice. Dou Jianliang, all of this is your own doing. But after presenting your stratagem, you acted on the Jiang family’s orders, so it won’t result in the execution of nine generations. This palace will spare your clansmen beyond the fifth degree of mourning.”

Having said this, Wen Yu stood and looked toward Gongsun Sanniang: “These past days, I’m grateful for the heroine’s care.”

Gongsun Sanniang had been shocked beyond measure since learning her identity, though she had immediately thought it made sense. But at the time the situation had been urgent, so she hadn’t dared be astonished for long. After witnessing firsthand how Wen Yu had played Dou Jianliang like a fool, she admired Wen Yu even more profoundly.

Being thanked by Wen Yu now, she quickly said she didn’t dare accept such words.

Wen Yu said: “The heroine’s previous job should be concluded. I would like to hire the heroine to escort me for a distance. Will the heroine accept this job?”

Gongsun Sanniang glanced at Xiao Li before readily agreeing: “I accept.”

Wen Yu said: “As for payment, after I rendezvous with my people, I will pay the heroine then.”

Having said this, she strode before Xiao Li and calmly stated her request: “I helped Governor Xiao capture the traitor Dou Jianliang without costing a single soldier. Governor Xiao can claim another great merit with Wei Qishan. In exchange, I ask the Governor for two fast horses. This isn’t excessive, is it?”

Xiao Li stared at her fixedly, his eyes somewhat red. In the end, he still ordered Zheng Hu: “Tiger, give her two horses.”

Zheng Hu had never expected things to take this turn and said urgently: “But Second Brother…”

Xiao Li, however, seemed to have reached the limit of his ability to suppress his fury and shouted: “Give them to her!”

Wen Yu’s cloak and dress were still covered with bloodstains from their earlier embrace. Her gaze was calm yet carried some decisiveness as she met Xiao Li’s eyes.

Zheng Hu quickly led over two warhorses.

After Wen Yu mounted, she didn’t look at anyone again and directly galloped away through the heavy snow with a crack of her whip.

Gongsun Sanniang also quickly spurred her horse to follow.

Xiao Li seemed to finally be unable to hold on any longer and suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

He had gone three consecutive days without closing his eyes, and when pursuing that barbarian army, his old injury had been aggravated. Holding on until now had been his limit.

Zheng Hu, Song Qin, and the others were startled, calling out “Second Brother” and “Governor” as they hurriedly surrounded him.

Xiao Li breathed in the icy air invading his lungs, wanting to say he was fine, but the sound of urgent hoofbeats approached again.

Wen Yu dismounted and stopped before him.

Xiao Li used the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his lips, unwilling to let her see his current wretched state, and asked coldly: “Weren’t you leaving?”

Wen Yu said: “It’s getting dark. Let me send a message to the Qingyun Guard.”

She stared at him: “After you finish this sleep, then I’ll leave.”