The Gen-character death warrior bowed his head in acknowledgment.

But Pei Song asked again, “Did you remember that guard’s appearance?”

The Gen-character death warrior said, “That day when we surrounded and attacked him, it was a rainy night and pitch dark. We couldn’t see very clearly and only remember a general impression.”

Pei Song then gestured to a nearby personal guard: “Take him to see the painter. Even if it’s only thirty percent accurate, you must draw it for me. We must ascertain that guard’s origins.”

The Gen-character death warrior seemed to recall something upon hearing this and said, “That evening when the guard was captured protecting his master, the former dynasty remnant Hanyang called him ‘Xiao Li’ once, but this subordinate doesn’t know which specific characters.”

Pei Song’s fingertips tapping on the desk paused for a moment. The corners of his mouth curved up as he said, “First go see the painter to make the portrait.”

After the Gen-character death warrior followed the personal soldier out of the tent, Pei Song spoke with a thin smile, his voice chillingly cold: “The person who stirred up storms south of Yongzhou back then is about to become clear.”

The voice of a guard came from outside the tent: “Minister, Lady Jiang requests an audience.”

Pei Song’s expression eased slightly, his smile deepening a few degrees as he said, “Enter.”

In a moment, a gentle woman wearing a green fox fur cloak entered the tent carrying a cup of soup, her expression somewhat unnatural as she said, “I… made a cup of snow clam soup for the Minister.”

Pei Song propped up his head, watching Jiang Yichu approach holding the soup cup. After she placed it on his desk, she took out a white jade small bowl and ladled out a bowl for him.

Looking at the soup bowl offered by the beauty’s slender jade hands, he didn’t accept it. Instead, he regarded the soup meaningfully and said, “Elder Sister suddenly cooking for me with her own hands—my heart truly feels quite uneasy. Or is it that Elder Sister has already remembered who I am?”

Jiang Yichu’s face showed slight panic. Holding the soup bowl with downcast long lashes, she said, “The Minister shouldn’t jest. This criminal woman…”

The moment these two words left her mouth, she noticed with alarm that Pei Song’s expression had suddenly darkened. She quickly corrected herself: “This concubine married into the prince’s manor at eighteen and is now twenty-three. I’ve never met the Minister before—how could I deserve the Minister calling me Elder Sister?”

“This soup is only because this concubine saw that Dingzhou’s weather is cold and the Minister labors over military affairs, so I specially brought it to nourish the Minister. If the Minister fears this concubine has tampered with the soup, this concubine can test it for poison for the Minister.”

Hearing her first statement, Pei Song’s expression didn’t improve. Only after hearing her latter explanation did the corners of his lips curve up slightly: “If you can’t remember, Elder Sister, then take your time remembering. As for this soup… I’ll still have to trouble Elder Sister to taste it first.”

Jiang Yichu set down the white jade small bowl, saying, “I’ll have someone fetch another bowl.”

But Pei Song picked up that bowl and directly handed it to Jiang Yichu. The beast-head iron thumb ring on his index finger roared ferociously, making one’s blood run cold with just a glance.

A gentle and refined smile hung at his lips: “No need to trouble yourself. Elder Sister can just taste it like this.”

Jiang Yichu somewhat stiffly took the white jade bowl. She didn’t use the spoon inside to scoop and drink, only tasting a sip from the bowl’s rim before saying, “The Minister can be at ease now.”

Pei Song smiled, took back the white jade small bowl, turned it in his hand once, and drank the remaining soup in the bowl in one gulp from where Jiang Yichu had drunk. Then, looking at Jiang Yichu’s face flushing red and white, he said suggestively, “Delicious.”

Jiang Yichu’s body stiffened even more.

After Pei Song set down the bowl, he grasped one of Jiang Yichu’s hands and with a forceful yank, pulled her entire person into his embrace.

Amid Jiang Yichu’s panicked expression, he reached out to clamp her chin, staring at her faintly: “As the saying goes, one doesn’t accept rewards without merit. Elder Sister suddenly trying to please me like this—you have a request of me, don’t you?”

Jiang Yichu’s lips, which couldn’t hide their pallor even with rouge, pressed together repeatedly. Her voice trembled slightly as she said, “I saw that many former Liang old ministers have all been exiled to do hard labor… Dingzhou’s wind and snow are severe. They don’t even have proper cold-weather clothing, and some have been beaten half to death by supervising soldiers. I fear they won’t last many days. The Minister aims to unify the Central Plains, but he should bestow benevolent virtue to win people’s hearts. I hope… the Minister will spare their lives.”

Pei Song laughed coldly, staring at the person whose eyes had already gathered tearful mist: “So Elder Sister wants to plead for those old fellows…”

He drew out his tone extremely long: “It’s not impossible…”

Jiang Yichu stared at the person before her, still in shock. Just as a few traces of surprised joy appeared in her eyes, she felt pain in her jaw—she had been leaned into and kissed by the other party.

Completely different from her husband’s refined and gentle way of kissing in the past, this person’s kiss was like a wild dog gnawing bones, always using sharp teeth to grind and bite at her, as if wanting to dismantle and swallow her bit by bit starting from her lips.

As the other’s breathing grew rougher, one hand climbed up her waist. When he forcefully kneaded her chest, she began to struggle in fear, only to be pulled even more forcefully into his embrace. Her sash was torn loose, and the other party kissed his way down along her neck.

Jiang Yichu’s eyes filled with tears from fear. In her vigorous struggle, she inadvertently pressed against Pei Song’s abdomen. The other party suddenly let out a muffled groan and also loosened his restraining force on her.

Jiang Yichu clutched her garment closed and immediately retreated to the entrance of the large tent, her face pale.

Strangely, Pei Song’s complexion was also pale. He covered his abdomen with one hand, cold sweat faintly visible at his temples. When he raised his eyes and discovered Jiang Yichu was looking at him, he only coldly spat out one word from his thin lips: “Get out.”

Jiang Yichu fled the central military tent as if granted amnesty. The guards waiting outside saw her clothing in disarray but probably didn’t know what had happened.

However, Jiang Yichu had no time to care about these things. She only somewhat blankly recalled that scene of Pei Song covering his abdomen.

He was injured!

And he was even concealing it from everyone in the military, high and low!

The five fingers hidden in Jiang Yichu’s sleeves trembled slightly. She had to find a way to meet those advisors and old ministers who were devoted to her father-in-law and husband but had been demoted to hard labor, and tell them this news.

Perhaps they could find a way to assassinate Pei Song!

—

When Xiao Li woke again, it was already two days later.

Looking at the completely unfamiliar humble dwelling, he endured the pain of his entire body’s bones feeling like they had been disassembled and reassembled as he sat up. The quilt fell from his body. Looking down, he saw that the wounds on his body had all been rebandaged, and the room was still filled with a lingering medicinal herb scent that wouldn’t dissipate.

Where was this?

Where was Wen Yu?

Thinking of those bizarre and grotesque dreams during his coma, he raised his hand to touch his lower lip. Only feeling his lips painfully stinging, unable to figure out what was going on, he shook his head and got up to put on his clothes.

There were faint voices in the courtyard. When he pushed open the door, the sudden flood of bright daylight made him raise his elbow to shield his eyes, somewhat unadapted.

The old woman drying medicinal herbs in the courtyard saw him and said, “Young man, you’re awake?”

Xiao Li adapted somewhat, lowered his arm, and looking at the full courtyard of medicinal herbs being dried in winnowing baskets, asked hesitantly, “Was it you who saved me? There was also a young lady with me…”

“You mean your wife? She knows some medicinal herbs and went to the medicine field with the old man and A’niu.” The old woman said to him with a smile, “It’s your good fortune that you encountered the old man and A’niu going into the mountains to gather medicine. Otherwise, with all those injuries on you, it would still be hard to say whether you could have pulled through…”

Hearing the words “your wife,” Xiao Li was stunned for a moment, actually unable to distinguish whether he had truly awakened or was having another dream within a dream.

Just then, Wen Yu returned from outside carrying a medicine basket. Seeing him, she said, “You’re awake?”

The old woman teased, “Indeed! The first thing he did upon waking was look for you!”

The big fellow following behind Wen Yu carried a load of medicinal herbs on his shoulder. Looking at Xiao Li, he smiled foolishly with slurred speech: “Big brother… awake!”

Xiao Li looked at that big fellow, initially somewhat guarded, but seeing that the other was a simpleton, he relaxed his vigilance by a few degrees.

Wen Yu placed the medicine basket under the eaves and said to the old woman, “Granny, I’ll just leave this purple alfalfa here.”

The old woman said to her, “Just leave it there. I’ll handle it myself in a bit. Your husband hasn’t eaten anything for two days—go to the kitchen and heat up something for him to eat!”

Hearing the word “eat,” that big fellow put down his two medicine baskets, and the pair of large feet like palm-leaf fans wrapped in straw sandals also headed toward the kitchen: “Food! A’niu hungry!”

The old woman called out to stop him: “A’niu, come back here.”

Only then did A’niu walk over aggrievedly. His mountain-like form sat on a small stool as he picked up the freshly gathered medicinal herbs to clean them, muttering, “Food…”

The old woman glared at him once, then said somewhat embarrassedly to Xiao Li, “My A’niu fell ill as a child and the fever damaged his brain. I’ve made you witness something awkward.”

Xiao Li said, “Surviving a serious illness means he’s a person with future blessings.”

The old woman and her husband had long since come to terms with their grandson being simple-minded for so many years. Hearing Xiao Li say this, she still felt warmth in her heart and smiled: “Young man, the ordeal you’ve suffered this time is no less than my A’niu’s. But having such a beautiful and virtuous wife—isn’t that great fortune?”

Xiao Li guessed that Wen Yu must have said they were husband and wife for the convenience of concealing their identities, but hearing the old woman refer to her as “wife” repeatedly, he still felt somewhat at a loss.

He nodded slightly and said, “I’ll… go help in the kitchen.”

The old woman looked at his retreating back, shaking her head with a smile: “This young man—so thin-skinned! His wife isn’t even embarrassed, yet he’s the first to feel shy.”

Xiao Li entered the kitchen and saw Wen Yu skillfully making a fire behind the stove. He froze again for a moment and instinctively said, “Let me do it.”

He still remembered that when she first arrived at his home, she didn’t even know how to use a flint.

Wen Yu coughed twice from the smoke, but the flames in the stove opening burned steadily. She said, “It’s fine. I’ve learned to do these things following Granny over these two days. Doctor Tao said you broke two ribs, but fortunately they didn’t pierce any internal organs—otherwise it would have been truly dire. You should rest well and recuperate for a few days first.”

Xiao Li asked, “During the two days I was unconscious, what happened?”

Wen Yu added firewood to the stove opening. She had originally been somewhat annoyed that he refused to drink the medicine, resulting in high fever and unconsciousness the next day. But she also understood that the root cause of his serious illness was his injuries being too severe, and they had run out of adequate wound medicine at that time.

During the two days he was unconscious, every time she woke at night, she would lean over to listen to his breathing, afraid he wouldn’t make it through and would just die like that.

Now that the person was finally standing properly before her, the anger in her heart had dissipated. She said, “That day when I woke up, I discovered you had developed a fever. The wounds without medicine applied had also seeped blood. When I went out to find usable medicinal herbs for you, I encountered Doctor Tao and his grandson gathering medicine by climbing the cliff at the cliff’s edge. It was Doctor Tao who treated your injuries, and his grandson who carried you back.”

She glanced outside as she spoke: “That child called A’niu has the temperament of a child, but his strength is surprisingly great. This village is isolated, and there are many unmarried men of suitable age. I feared unnecessary trouble, so I said you and I were husband and wife.”

Having learned these circumstances, Xiao Li understood in his heart. But thinking of that alluring dream where he had pressed her wrist down, aside from feeling it was absurd, his head also throbbed painfully.

He stopped his thoughts, glanced outside, and seeing that the old woman and the simpleton were both processing those medicinal herbs, said, “I’ve been unconscious for two days and have already delayed our journey. To prevent the soldiers from pursuing us again, it’s better to set out early.”

Wen Yu said, “If I’m not mistaken, those who surrounded and attacked us that day should be the eagle dogs that Pei Song raised. Their eyes and ears are extraordinary—they’re all elite picked from ten thousand. You’ve already fought them face to face. It’s possible your appearance will also be sketched out by them. For the road ahead, it would be best if both you and I disguise ourselves.”