Chapter 47: You have to coax him into joining the camp quickly

The moment he saw Cui Miao, Chai Heng felt the blood in his body freeze.

"What do you mean?"

Lu Shichu said, "I've made my point very clear. Either you trick your ex-husband Yang Yan into coming to the Xirong camp, or Lord Cui will suffer in this camp."

"We are brothers and sisters, and we grew up together in Furong Mountain. I won't rush you into making a decision. Master Cui, I'll put you in the tent next door for now. Think carefully about what to do."

Lu Shichu told someone to take Cui Miao away first. He knew that Chai Heng certainly didn't want to see him at the moment. After saying this, he ordered his servants to prepare some food and drink for her, and asked a few soldiers with better martial arts skills to guard her, and did not stay.

Chai Heng was alone in the tent, her head was dizzy, and she remembered that Cui Miao was in the tent next door, so she crawled over and talked to Cui Miao through the curtain.

"Are you okay, Cui Miao?"

"I'm fine." Cui Miao's voice was a little hoarse. After falling into the hands of the Western Rong people, he actually didn't want to live. He didn't want to see Chai Heng in trouble even more than dying.

"Don't do anything you don't want to do. Didn't you return to Furong Mountain from the capital to live a happier life?" Cui Miao swallowed the blood foam in his throat and said in a hoarse voice, "So don't make a decision that will make you unhappy because of anyone or anything."

He was thinking about her all the time.

This made Chai Heng even more confused.

"You and Yang Yan should have been in the government office tonight. You were arrested. Where is Yang Yan?" Chai Heng asked.

"As soon as the riot broke out in the city, someone spread the news to the neighboring city, and reinforcements arrived. The Ministry of War had a lot of documents. When the Western Rong army arrived at the government office, Lord Yang was calmly destroying the documents. I led my brothers to fight, and I think it was the reinforcements that saved Lord Yang."

The situation was very chaotic at the time, and Cui Miao actually didn't know whether Yang Yan had been rescued. But now that the Western Rong people hadn't captured him, and Lu Shichu had insisted that Chai Heng write a letter stating that Yang Yan had been rescued, it was another question as to where to send the letter to the post station.

Cui Miao leaned against the curtain, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and said with a wry smile, "I never thought that the one who would finally collaborate with the enemy would be Lord Lu."

"I didn't expect that either."

I never thought that my senior brother, who was so good to me in the previous life and this life, would collude with Tuoba Ye at such a time.

Many fragments of her youth flashed through Chai Heng's mind, including the senior brother who took her to catch rabbits on Furong Mountain, the senior brother who taught her to read word by word, and the senior brother who always gently comforted her when she was confused in this life. Countless figures were pieced together, but they could not piece together the current Lu Shichu.

"Are you worried about Lord Yang?"

Cui Miao suddenly asked.

He asked this question out of the blue, which made Chai Heng confused at first, but then she realized that it was because she had just asked where Yang Yan was.

"I'm not worried about him. People like him will always turn danger into safety. He is the luckiest person I have ever met." Chai Heng also leaned against the curtain. In her previous life, she felt that Yang Yan was lucky, at least luckier than her. He could always turn danger into safety no matter what the situation was.

Cui Miao hadn't spoken so openly to Chai Heng in a long time: "You've been married for only a year, but I don't know why, but you always give me the feeling that you know each other so well, as if you've been together for more than ten years."

"Maybe just a dozen years."

Chai Heng laughed and said, "I once had a dream. In the dream, he and I really were husband and wife for a long time. I loved him very much, but he hated me and always bullied me for others."

"But I'm a slow-witted person. At that time, my real family was gone. He was the only one I had. So when he treated me badly, I could only comfort myself that it didn't matter. Until he wanted to teach me a lesson for others, I died. Only after dying once did I feel the pain and realize how wrong I was."

"Later, when I woke up from the dream, I told myself that I should never like him again, so that no matter what he did, he wouldn't hurt me. I will never forgive him either."

Cui Miao listened quietly. Although she was talking about a dream, Cui Miao felt that it was real.

He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know where to start, so he could only say, "It's all in the past. It was just a dream. Go get some sleep first. You must have been terrified today. You need to have enough strength to face those Xirong people."

Chai Heng couldn't sleep, but still said, "Okay."

*

At dawn, the city of Linzi, which was bustling just a day ago, became a dead city overnight.

The Western Rong soldiers originally wanted to occupy Linzi City. Fortunately, Yang Yan had a premonition that Tuoba Ye wanted to open up two battlefields, so he wrote to the court early and asked the court to send Chu Yanhuai to lead troops to support.

Chu Yanhuai was a dedicated general. When the court asked him to lead the troops, he immediately rushed from the capital with 5,000 soldiers. He arrived the very night Linzi City was in chaos. Although he was unable to prevent the Western Rong army from storming the city and the massacre, after a night of fighting, he at least managed to recapture the ruined city.

The saint has been recruiting new generals in recent years in order to let the younger generation replace Prince Jing, the god of war of Da Qi.

Chu Yanhuai was the best candidate he found.

But for all his good qualities, his only flaw was his inflexibility and his stubbornness. While he spoke of loyalty, his loyalty was only to the Great Qi, not to the imperial power. Therefore, the sage was wary of this man, and so he specially dispatched Xue Huaiyuan to serve as the military supervisor.

When Yang Yan received the imperial edict and learned that Xue Huaiyuan was to be the military supervisor, his face turned cold.

When he thought of Xue Huaiyuan, he couldn't help but think of the experience in his previous life when Chai Heng entered the Xue family with a knife. The blood in the Xue family courtyard seemed to be still vivid in his mind.

"Sir, are you still looking for your wife these days?" Zhou Jiu had been looking for Chai Heng in the city for several days. Linzi City was so small, and he had turned everything upside down.

Zhou Jiu was also worried about Chai Heng's life or death, but no news was often the best news. He prayed for Chai Heng every day, praying that she would find good fortune.

"Keep looking."

"Okay, then I'll send people to the surrounding counties and prefectures to look for him." Zhou Jiu didn't dare to disobey his master. After the inn where Chai Heng lived was slaughtered until only half a person was left, his master hadn't slept for several nights.

Zhou Jiu had never noticed that Yang Yan had this problem before.

After his divorce from Chai Heng, Zhou Jiu realized that his master was actually an anxious person. His anxiety manifested itself in a simple way: he would constantly process official documents, staying awake late into the night and working until dawn, for several days in a row.

Sometimes Zhou Jiu was really worried that his master would die because of his poor health, but then he thought, what if, what if his wife found him?

*

Lu Shichu did not lie to Chai Heng. He did not hurt her during the days she was in the Xirong camp and he prepared food and drinks for her.

Chai Heng ate whatever he brought her, after all, she had to be well fed to have the strength to deal with them.

But such days did not last long.

On the fifth day in the camp, because Chu Yanhuai used Yang Yan's tactics to make the Western Rong Army, which was originally going to capture Linzi City, suffer several times, Tuoba Ye could no longer tolerate it and began to urge Lu Shichu to lure Yang Yan over quickly.

Lu Shichu originally wanted to give Chai Heng more time to let her think carefully before making a choice, but now there is really no way.

So on the fifth day, he started to attack Cui Miao.

After Chai Heng finished eating the cakes and goat milk brought by the Western Rong soldiers, he was talking to Cui Miao through the curtain when suddenly Cui Miao's voice stopped.

Then, from the tent next door came the voices of soldiers, the sounds of various torture instruments falling to the ground, and suppressed groans.

"Cui Miao!"

"How are you?"

Cui Miao gritted his teeth and tried to comfort her through the curtain: "I'm fine. I'm not in pain, it's okay. Just cover your ears and don't listen to anything."

The other party's torture instruments seemed to be tightening, and then Chai Heng heard the sound of bones breaking and rapid breathing.

Chai Heng hurriedly slapped the curtain, trying to get them to stop, but no one paid attention to her. At this time, Lu Shichu walked in again.

"Junior sister, the torture is too awful, so I won't show you. But I can promise you, if you don't write a letter to Yang Yan today as I ask, Cui Miao will have one hand chopped off tomorrow, and the other the day after that. This is the Xirong military camp, and I can only protect you. As for others, I really can't do anything."

Lu Shichu squatted down, wiped the tears from Chai Heng's face, and gave her gentle advice.

"If you hesitate for a moment longer, I will immediately cut off one of Cui Miao's fingers. Otherwise, you will always think that my senior brother will not take any real action."

He opened his thin lips and began to count: "One."

"two"

Chai Heng didn't let him count to three.

"I wrote."

The muffled groaning sound in her ears continued, and she could hear that the clamp was being used.

"Whatever you tell me to write, I'll write it right away. Tell them to stop. Cui Miao is already injured. If you keep doing this, he'll die."

Lu Shichu continued to wipe her tears: "That's good, this is my junior sister, senior brother has prepared paper and pen for you, write."

Chai Heng continued to plead: "Let them stop first."

"They will stop when you finish writing."

Chai Heng quickly got up, and Lu Shichu put the paper and pen on the table beside her and motioned her to come over. Chai Heng hurried over, and Lu Shichu told her:

"Write in the letter that you are afraid."

"Say you're bleeding a lot and you're dying. Say you're in pain."

Chai Heng sniffed, picked up the pen and wrote according to what Lu Shichu said.

Her mind was full of thoughts about saving Cui Miao first. As for Yang Yan, he would not come. The letter was written and it was done with. When he saw it, he would hesitate for a moment at most and then burn it immediately.

"Anything else?"

"No more, this is enough." Tears soaked the letter paper. Lu Shichu looked at Chai Heng's slightly crooked handwriting and was very satisfied. He kept his word and asked the torturer to stop for a while.

Then he immediately took the letter and handed it to his subordinates.

"Send it to the post station and give it to Lord Yang."