heartache
Outside Shanshan City, yellow sand was rolling and the sound of killing was deafening.
Ning Lingyi's plan of escaping the enemy's trap split Tuoba Hong's army of ten thousand cavalry into pieces.
Dozens of Southern Dynasty teams, each with about a hundred people each, rushed in all directions. Each team was desperately guarding a woman who looked very similar to Ning Lingyi, with a veil covering her face. It was difficult to tell her true identity.
"Chase! Don't let any one go!" Tuoba Hong couldn't determine which team Ning Lingyi was in, so he could only divide his troops and pounce on every suspicious target like casting a net.
Although the Beishuo cavalry was elite, they could not withstand such a pull.
The army of tens of thousands of people quickly split into dozens of groups, with hundreds and dozens at the least, chasing in different directions. The vast Gobi Desert was suddenly filled with smoke and dust, and the sound of killing was heard everywhere.
The bait teams, composed of Shanshan border residents and elite troops from the Southern Dynasty, were much more familiar with this land than the Beishuo people. They used every sand dune, every dry ditch, and every red willow bush to deal with the pursuers.
A small team that broke out to the southeast was about to be caught up. The captain suddenly blew a whistle, and the team suddenly dispersed and entered a huge group of yardang landforms. The pursuers immediately lost their way when they entered. They were greeted by cold arrows shot from behind wind-eroded rock pillars and suddenly thrown tripwires. They fell to the ground and suffered heavy losses.
Another team was galloping towards the southwest. When they were about to be surrounded, several soldiers suddenly lit the pottery jars on their backs and threw them towards the pursuing troops from Beishuo. Those were fire bombs secretly made by Zhou's Trading Company. Although their power was not as strong as those used by the army, they were more unexpected.
There were several loud "booms", flames shot up into the sky, smoke and dust filled the air, the pursuing troops of Beishuo were thrown into chaos, horses neighed in fear, and the Southern Dynasty troops took the opportunity to escape and disappeared in the sea of sand.
There were even a few daring teams that made a feint and then rushed in the opposite direction, heading towards Beishuo. They did not engage with the large enemy forces, but instead targeted lone scouts and small teams, and immediately fled after chopping them down.
Tuoba Hong himself led a thousand of his most elite guards and, relying on his intuition, held on to a team.
The guard was exceptionally strong and his resistance was particularly fierce, and the figure on horseback, "Ning Lingyi", was the most composed.
He was certain in his heart that this was the one!
He pursued them relentlessly and fought several battles. The Southern Dynasty team suffered heavy casualties and was finally surrounded by him in a low sand valley.
"Ning Lingyi! Get off your horse and be tied up!" Tuoba Hong shouted sternly.
The remaining Southern Dynasty soldiers formed a circle, protecting the woman in the center, with determined eyes, and no one surrendered.
The woman slowly raised her hand and lifted her veil.
Although she showed a young and pale face, it was not Ning Lingyi at all!
She wore ill-fitting clothes just to confuse people.
"Beishuo bastards!" the woman screamed. "His Majesty is already safe! You won't succeed!"
After saying this, he drew out a short blade and was about to commit suicide.
Tuoba Hong's personal guards were quick-witted and shot an arrow at her wrist, causing the short blade to fall to the ground.
"Tie him up and torture him severely!" Tuoba Hong's face turned terribly pale, and a surge of rage at being toyed with almost burst out of his head.
Wrong again!
He looked around and saw that most of the pursuers he had sent out were still entangled with the baits in the distance and could not be recalled in a short time. His original advantage in military strength had been completely wiped out by this damn tactic of scattering beans to make soldiers!
Calm down, you must calm down!
Ning Lingyi, where are you?
He carefully observed the direction of the fleeing teams and quickly deduced their positions in his mind.
The southeast and south are the heartland of the Southern Dynasty and seem the safest, but Ning Lingyi is a cunning military strategist and might not choose them. The northeast and north are the Beishuo sphere of influence and are too risky. The west is the Yesha Plain, where bloody battles are still going on, and the possibility is also low...
Then, only the southwest is left!
That's deep inside the former Western Qiang territory, with complex terrain and a mixed tribe. It's a dangerous place, but it could also be the most unexpected hiding place! With Ning Lingyi's courage, she's very likely to take such a risky move!
"Everyone, follow me! Chase in the southwest direction!" Tuoba Hong no longer hesitated. He kicked his horse's belly and shot towards the southwest with the few hundred remaining guards around him like an arrow.
This time, his intuition was right.
After galloping for about half a day, the scouts ahead reported back that they had discovered a Southern Dynasty team of about a hundred people, moving swiftly and with extremely tight guards, rushing southwest along a dried-up ancient river channel!
"Speed up! Catch up with them!"
Ning Lingyi, you can't escape this time!
The Southern Dynasty team also discovered the pursuers and rode their horses desperately. A fierce chase took place on the vast Gobi Desert, with arrows whistling and people being shot and falling off their horses from time to time.
Finally, the terrain ahead suddenly changed, and a huge red cliff blocked the way. Below the cliff was a canyon hundreds of feet deep. The bottom of the valley was an ancient cracked and hardened lake bed, like a hideous scar on the earth.
The Southern Dynasty team was forced into a desperate situation and stopped at the edge of the cliff.
Tuoba Hong led his army slowly approaching, forming a semicircular encirclement.
He saw from afar that the figure who was closely guarded by the crowd finally turned around.
Although her face was still covered with a veil, he was certain that it was Ning Lingyi from her graceful demeanor while riding a horse and her calm demeanor in the face of desperate situations.
He felt a mixture of joy and indescribable complex emotions in his heart. He shouted, "Ning Lingyi, surrender! For the sake of our past friendship, I will never harm your life! You have no way out!"
The wind was so strong at the cliff that it made the clothes rustle.
The figure trembled slightly, slowly raised her hand, and signaled to her left and right. The soldiers around her knelt down in unison, and some of them uttered suppressed sobs.
Then, under Tuoba Hong's astonished gaze, she dismounted, walked to a relatively flat boulder on the edge of the cliff, tore off a piece of her white clothes, and asked the soldier beside her for pen and ink.
Just like that, she bent over and wrote quickly on the top of the cliff in the whistling wind.
The ominous premonition in Tuoba Hong's heart rose, so strong that it made his heart palpitate: "Ning Lingyi! What are you doing? Stop!"
He didn't care about anything else, just waved his hand and rushed forward with his personal guards!
It's too late after all.
He saw from afar that after the man finished writing, he handed the piece of cloth to a crying general beside him. Then, she looked to the south and swept across the surrounding Beishuo army. Her eyes seemed to linger on him for a moment, and her expression was complicated and difficult to discern.
Then, in the horrified eyes of everyone, she leaped up and fell into the hundred-foot abyss like a drifting white feather!
"No!" Tuoba Hong rushed to the edge of the cliff frantically.
"His Majesty!"
On the cliff, the remaining Southern Dynasty soldiers cried out in despair. Many of them struggled to jump down, but were held tightly by their companions.
Tuoba Hong reined in his horse, rushed to the group of grief-stricken Southern Dynasty soldiers, and snatched the cloth that the general was holding tightly in his hand.
On the white silk cloth were written a few words in his familiar handwriting.
Tuoba Khan personally witnessed:
If you make a wrong move in chess, the whole game will be lost. You can be defeated and die, but you cannot be humiliated.
All the officers and men under my command are following my orders. I hope the Great Khan will not massacre them. The people of Shanshan have suffered innocently. I beg the Great Khan to be merciful and spare their lives. In this life, our fate is limited, and our national hatred is difficult to resolve. If there is an afterlife, I hope we will not meet on the battlefield.
Ning Lingyi's last work
"No, it's impossible..." Tuoba Hong held the cloth that still had a trace of weak body temperature and murmured to himself, "How could you die? How could you die? I never thought of you dying, I just wanted to win you, just wanted..."
He just wanted to capture her, force the Southern Dynasty to surrender, and win hegemony over the world.
He admired her, feared her, and even during those repeated confrontations and tests, he had already planted a complex emotion that even he himself did not want to delve into.
He never thought that it would be him who pushed her into such a desperate situation.
No, this is not true. This must be Ning Lingyi's plan. She will never die.
Of course it is. How could Ning Lingyi die?
"Search! Go and search for me! If he's dead or alive, I must find his body!" He seemed like a madman.
The Beishuo soldiers found their way down to the valley and began a lengthy search.
A few days later, the setting sun was as red as blood, making the red cliffs even more desolate.
The soldiers finally brought back a body.
It was found among the rocks at the bottom of the valley.
The huge impact had already left its body in tatters, making it unrecognizable. It was then pecked at by vultures that smelled the blood, making it an even more horrible sight.
Tuoba Hong walked step by step to the corpse.
He actually knelt down beside Ning Lingyi's body.
He stared at the blurry corpse, his mind flashing back to the stunning moment he first met her, the sharp exchanges at the negotiation table, the worthy opponents on the battlefield, and the images of her that he himself hadn't even noticed but had already memorized in his heart...
"I...I didn't think..."
He stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to touch something, but retracted it as if burned. He didn't dare to touch her body, but just tightly clenched the blood-stained silk cloth in his hand.
"I really didn't mean to..."
He didn't know what he was explaining or to whom he was explaining it.
Maybe it's with yourself, or maybe it's with someone who has passed away.
Ning Lingyi was dead? She was dead? She jumped off a cliff right in front of him?
Is this true? How can this be true?
He thought, why don't you surrender? I won't kill you, didn't I?
Were we not engaged? How could I kill you? Isn't defeat common in the military? Don't you have many tricks and schemes?
Even if you are caught by me, you can command your army to rescue you, you can convince me to let you go like before, or you can even escape again with a trick. How could you want to die?
A gust of desolate and biting desert wind whistled past, stirring up dust and sweeping across the hundred-foot cliff with a whimper. Tuoba Hong knelt there, motionless. He really couldn't understand.
He was even more unwilling to believe it.
He even thought that Ning Lingyi would defeat him and completely annex Beishuo. He never thought that Ning Lingyi would commit suicide. But this last letter, this corpse, and the heartbreak of these Southern Dynasty soldiers before him...
She actually went.
He wondered, shouldn't I have forced you? Shouldn't I have pursued you this far? Shouldn't I have fought you to the death on the battlefield? Then he wouldn't have written, "If there's an afterlife, I hope we won't meet on the battlefield."
Tuoba Hong felt as if there was a void in his heart. He touched his heart and felt great pain.
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