Wen Yu drew her garments together. Her jet-black, lustrous long hair hung obediently down her back. Apart from a trace of drowsy fatigue visible on her face, nothing else seemed amiss.
When she walked to the outer hall and opened the palace doors, Zhao Bai, due to the urgent nature of the situation, had no time to wonder why there were no palace servants on duty in the hall tonight. She hastily reported:
“Princess, we’ve captured a group of wolf riders who attempted a nighttime raid on the imperial prison. They claim to have discovered at Heng Lake that thirty thousand Western Ling troops are heading north. After severe interrogation of Pei Yuan, I learned that Pei Song intends to lead these thirty thousand Western Ling troops north to seize Tiger Gorge Pass! Yang Shuo is his man!”
Wen Yu’s brow furrowed. The drowsiness on her face instantly faded. After what seemed like brief contemplation in her dark, tranquil eyes, she calmly instructed: “Urgently summon Prime Minister Qi, Sikong Wei, Lu Yi, He Zhang, Zhao Shengming, and all the other ministers into the palace.”
Since learning of this news from the interrogation, Zhao Bai’s heart had been pounding wildly without cease, and the clammy cold sweat on her palms hadn’t dried once.
The wolf riders had discovered traces of the Western Ling army’s march at Heng Lake, indicating that the Western Ling troops had set out long ago. Calculating the time it took for the wolf riders to return to the royal court, during this period the Western Ling army had already advanced who knows how much farther north.
Currently, the Chen Kingdom’s forces had been beaten back and were defending at Gele City. Continuing to hold their position was already difficult, let alone sending troops to intercept this Western Ling army. Moreover, even if there were troops available to dispatch, they likely couldn’t catch up anymore.
What was even more deadly was that Pei Yuan had confessed that Yang Shuo, the general guarding Tiger Gorge Pass, was Pei Song’s man.
Although after discovering eagle-dog traces within Chen Kingdom’s borders, Wen Yu had already sent a message back inside the pass, ordering Fan Yuan to lead troops deep into the Western Frontier to guard against Yang Shuo.
However, it would take time for the message to reach Liang territory. The Liang domain was vast, and the terrain and climate of the Western Frontier were extremely unfavorable to the southern border soldiers. Even if Fan Yuan set out immediately upon receiving the news, he couldn’t possibly reach Tiger Gorge Pass before the Western Ling army.
If Yang Shuo, who had defected to Pei Song, and the Western Ling army together ambushed Fan Yuan in the Western Frontier, once news of this defeat and the change of hands at Tiger Gorge Pass spread, it would certainly cause tremendous panic throughout Liang territory.
And once the Western Ling army entered Tiger Gorge Pass, there would be no further geographical barriers to the east to stop them…
Just thinking about these things, Zhao Bai could feel the veins at her temples pounding heavily against her pressure points as blood surged through them.
Without exaggeration, this was a disaster even greater than the national calamity three years ago when Pei Song rebelled and attacked Luodu!
Seeing Wen Yu remain so composed, she finally steadied herself somewhat. But after receiving her orders, she still couldn’t spare a moment to ask anything more and turned to hurriedly go down and relay the verbal decree.
As the Azure Cloud Guards who had received orders rushed out of the royal palace like morning swallows to deliver messages to various residences, though the lamps in the east and west wing towers had not yet been extinguished, a line of pale white had already appeared on the eastern horizon.
—
After the palace servants finished helping Wen Yu change clothes and wash up, when the Azure Cloud Guards entered the hall to report that Prime Minister Qi and the others had arrived at the Imperial Study,
Xiao Li, who had returned from checking on A’Li in the side hall, said nothing. He simply leaned against the carved moongate hung with pearl curtains inside the hall, arms crossed, watching Wen Yu in the mirror.
After Bronze Sparrow finished pinning the last large hairpin in Wen Yu’s hair, she glanced back through the bronze mirror and, sensing he had something he wanted to say to Wen Yu alone, exchanged a look with the Azure Cloud Guard who had come to report. She then withdrew with the palace servants.
With no one else in the hall, Xiao Li finally spoke: “I’ll take the wolf riders to pursue that Western Ling army.”
Wen Yu sat before the vanity mirror without turning around, only saying: “The Liang reinforcements and border garrison troops from all quarters are currently at the royal court. I will consult with the ministers to devise a proper solution.”
The elaborate court dress of intertwined black and gold she wore, along with the resplendent hairpins in her hair, seemed like an invisible barrier, isolating all of last night’s tenderness and mutual dependence between them.
Xiao Li noticed this. He pressed his lips together slightly and, looking at her back, said: “The Chen army at the border is trapped and dying in Gele City. Though the royal court has reinforcements, if we dispatch troops now, how could we still catch up with that Western Ling army?”
After these words fell, he didn’t hear Wen Yu speak again for a long time.
Xiao Li looked at that slender back, cold and tense beneath the magnificent garments. After a moment of silence, he continued: “When I had Tiger lead the wolf riders to leave the royal court first, I ordered them to retreat toward Tiger Gorge Pass. Having discovered that Western Ling army heading to Tiger Gorge Pass at Heng Lake, they will surely follow all the way, leaving markers. It won’t be difficult for me to lead men and catch up to them at full gallop.”
Wen Yu finally turned to look at him. Her court-painted face was calm to the point of coldness, yet beneath that dignity seemed to hide another current of secret fury: “After catching up, then what?”
She stared at him coldly, questioning: “How many men do your wolf riders have? How many men does Western Ling have?”
Without waiting for Xiao Li to answer, she replied for him: “The Western Ling army heading to Tiger Gorge Pass numbers thirty thousand. Those surrounding and defending in Chen Kingdom’s western border number another seventy thousand! If Yang Shuo truly is Pei Song’s man, then Tiger Gorge Pass’s natural defenses would be meaningless to those thirty thousand Western Ling troops. What could you accomplish by chasing them with wolf riders numbering less than ten thousand?
“Go throw your lives away?”
Caught between two groups of Western Ling forces, the wolf riders would already be at a disadvantage in numbers just trying to restrain that Western Ling army heading to Tiger Gorge Pass. If the Western Ling army attacking Chen Kingdom’s western border received news and deployed additional forces to surround them, what chance would they have of escaping alive?
This situation was no longer nine deaths and one survival—it was certain death with no survival.
After coldly questioning him with those words, Wen Yu rose to leave.
But as she passed by Xiao Li’s side, he grabbed her elbow. Xiao Li said: “The wolf riders are all fine young men who can each match ten. A’Yu, I want to try.
“For you, and for Great Liang.”
Not knowing which word angered Wen Yu, she suddenly flung off Xiao Li’s hand gripping her elbow and turned to stare at him coldly: “Xiao Li, I agreed to marry you, but I can also go back on my word. Right now you are nothing to me.
“You didn’t accept the imperial edict, nor are you a minister or general of my Great Liang.
“I don’t need you to do anything for me, and Great Liang doesn’t need it either!
“If Tiger Gorge Pass falls, if the Western Frontier is lost, that’s all due to my, Wen Yu’s, incompetence. Even if my name stinks through history, I alone will bear it! There’s no need for you to lead thousands of young men to fill it with their lives, to dye this page of history with some blood color, merely to earn a mournful cry of tragic heroism from future generations!”
After saying this, she made to continue walking quickly outside, but unexpectedly Xiao Li suddenly extended his arm, reaching across her shoulders and neck to firmly embrace her from behind.
The muscular contours that rose beneath his narrow sleeves as his elbow bent and the veins protruding on the back of his hand all proclaimed their master’s current state of mind.
Xiao Li’s jaw rested right at Wen Yu’s shoulder. Feeling that slender form he could firmly encircle with one arm beneath his palm, the hand gripping Wen Yu’s shoulder unconsciously applied even more force. His face was cold and resolute, his eyes soaked in suppressed, sharp pain that made them bloodshot. His breathing was disordered, yet he said nothing.
After a long while, he finally said: “But what can be done, Wen Yu? Even if my name is to rot in history, I want it written together with yours.
“How can the rivers and mountains you’ve sacrificed yourself again and again to preserve be seized by foreign petty thieves?
“I told you before—as long as I still draw breath, I will never let you fall into the kind of perilous situation you encountered in the Northern Border.
“The ministers of Chen Kingdom and Great Liang are dissatisfied that I attacked the royal court, aren’t they? If I lead the wolf riders to restrain the Western Ling army and resolve the siege of Tiger Gorge Pass, this matter can be set aside. When you speak of marrying me in the future, what grounds will they have to object?
“You can’t go back on your word. When you agreed to marry me, you agreed.
His eyes grew more bloodshot, but he quickly suppressed it again, gripping Wen Yu’s slender shoulders tightly: “I’m not going just to show bravery either. There’s still no conclusive evidence whether Yang Shuo is Pei Song’s man. If this is another of Pei Song’s alienation schemes, then when the Western Ling army attacks Tiger Gorge Pass and I create a disturbance beforehand, it will alert those inside the pass.
“Moreover, given Lord Chen and General Fan’s vigilance, after learning that I forced Yang Shuo to let the wolf riders leave the pass, they may have already advanced toward Tiger Gorge Pass. Even if Yang Shuo has truly defected to Pei Song, if I can delay for a day or half a day, I can gain another day or half a day for General Fan and the others’ march.”
Wen Yu felt the force with which the person behind her embraced her. She closed her eyes tightly, suppressing the stinging pain in them.
She bore the Wen surname. Revenge and restoring order to these rivers and mountains was her destiny.
So she could die for these rivers and mountains. She had already prepared herself when she learned of her parents’ and nephews’ deaths and headed south.
But it was enough for her alone to bear such a destiny.
She didn’t want to, and was unwilling to, let him walk the same path with her!
Wen Yu swallowed the needle-like hoarseness in her throat. When she opened her eyes again, though she tried with all her might to restrain it, she still couldn’t suppress the redness rising within them. She swept aside Xiao Li’s hand confining her shoulder, turned to look at him with a cold and almost fierce expression: “So you want to gamble that Yang Shuo hasn’t betrayed, to gamble on the infinitesimally small possibility that the Liang army has already been dispatched to the Western Frontier?”
Xiao Li gazed at her silently. After a long while he said: “Having reached this point, even if it’s a one-in-ten-thousand possibility, we can only gamble. A’Yu, you understand this better than I do.”
Wen Yu uncharacteristically shouted at him: “I don’t understand!”
Then she turned around and closed her eyes again, saying coldly: “I told you, you’re not my minister or general, you don’t need to…”
Xiao Li said: “Now I am.”
Behind her, he knelt on one knee according to Liang military protocol: “Xiao Li is willing to serve Hanyang of the Wen clan as lord. The twenty-four northern border provinces shall henceforth be Liang territory. The thirty thousand Yanyun wolf riders shall all be Liang cavalry.
“This general requests my lord’s permission to lead the wolf riders to rush to Tiger Gorge Pass to resist the enemy.”
Wen Yu turned back to stare at him in shock. The cold, hard mask she had been forcing herself to maintain cracked from a tear track that had rolled down before she even knew it.
After Wei Qishan pushed forward the former false Jin princess Wang Wanzhen and proclaimed a return to being Jin subjects, the Northern Border had been called Jin territory by those in Wei’s camp. It was just that Wei’s camp had experienced many upheavals these past two years, and the Northern Border people had been Liang subjects for decades. With this chaotic world’s campaign not yet concluded, no one paid attention to the Northern Border’s renaming within Wei’s camp.
One day ago, he had still used this to threaten her, forcing her to marry him.
Now, for the sake of a campaign no different from courting death, he pledged himself as her subject.
It had been a long time since Wen Yu had experienced this feeling of her heart being torn apart. Even after the tears in her eyes hastily fell, they still couldn’t carry away even a bit of the suffocating pain in her chest.
She said: “What if I don’t consent?”
Xiao Li fell silent again. After a few breaths he said: “Before Xiao Li is Lord of the Northern Border, he is first a Liang person. If the Western Frontier falls, countless Liang people will suffer the hardships of war again, and the Northern Border people won’t find peace either. Since Xiao Li commands troops, even if it means death, he should fight for all the people of Liang.”
His gaze toward Wen Yu was deep, suffocating with pain, yet tender. The redness in his eyes had almost slowly congealed into a blood-dark color.
Once upon a time, he thought Wen Yu’s heart held only the common people, only all under heaven.
But now, he had also seen her fear, seen how because of that one-in-ten-thousand remote possibility, she dared not let him gamble with his life, becoming hysterical to the point of severing all ties with him.
So he too was her softest vulnerability.
So his moon had always been shining on him too.
He spoke of the people, spoke of military duty, no longer saying he was going to this battle of certain death for her. He knew that if it were Wen Yu herself, she would definitely go.
He used her way to protect these rivers and mountains in her stead.
Another tear, due to Wen Yu’s slightly tilted head, slid from the corner of her eye across the bridge of her nose and hastily fell. She only felt pain densely packed inside her chest with each breath. Though the expression on her face remained cold, there was also a gradually cracking pain emerging from that hardness. She said: “Fine, you go. But if you die at Tiger Gorge Pass, don’t blame me for breaking my word…”
Xiao Li, kneeling there, clenched his palms so hard they were nearly bleeding. He answered: “Naturally.”
Her vision was nearly blurred. Wen Yu said viciously: “There are plenty of fine men under heaven, Xiao Li. If you die I won’t remember you for long. It won’t take much time before I set my eyes on other young men…”
She couldn’t say the rest of the words. Perhaps also because of her blurred vision, she didn’t see how the person kneeling two steps away rose, grabbed her shoulders with veins bulging in his hands, pushed and shoved her backward several steps until she was pressed against the carved moongate.
He locked her firmly between the carved moongate and his arms. Not knowing if it was from anger or pain, or perhaps both, the amplitude of his heaving chest and the roughness of his breathing were greater than ever before.
She was enveloped in this familiar scorching breath, yet only felt her eye sockets burning unbearably. She turned her face away, unwilling to look at him, but he grabbed her chin and turned it back.
That hand, calloused from years of gripping weapons, held her chin with tremendous force, enough to cause her pain. His eyes were so red, his gaze so fierce, yet his words were extremely soft: “Then do well as your princess who possesses the four seas, and don’t think of me again.”
When her lips were kissed, Wen Yu’s vision had been completely submerged by tears beyond her control.
Xiao Li tried his utmost to be gentle, yet the force crushing her lips was still extremely heavy. In the bitter, salty taste, he devoured everything of hers.
Their painful, bitter breaths intertwined, just like this destiny that had long been inextricably entangled.
When it ended, he used his rough fingertips to wipe away the wetness on her face, saying: “But I won’t let such a thing happen.”
After speaking, he took one last deep look at Wen Yu, turned and made to walk outside, but was called back by Wen Yu: “Xiao Li!”
He halted his steps but didn’t dare turn around again.
Wen Yu looked at that back, as tall and imposing as when they first met, and said: “When my brother sent me away from Luodu, he said he would come to bring me home.
“My brother broke his word.”
The redness in her eyes layered deeper and deeper, yet she still stared unblinkingly at that back: “After driving back the enemy at Tiger Gorge Pass, you come bring me back to Great Liang.
“You cannot break your word.”