Chapter 39. She kissed his face.
In the pitch-black rain, Song Jie and his men arrived at the foot of Yuqing Mountain and encountered the Imperial Guards and Xiao Zhen, who were struggling to descend the mountain.
Rainwater lashed the stone path leading up the mountain, soaking Xiao Zhen to the bone and making him look unusually disheveled. But Song Jie still relentlessly mocked him, "You managed to infiltrate Yuqing Temple with so many Imperial Guards and even kidnap Xie Yushu. You're even more useless than I thought."
Xiao Zhen stood at the foot of the horse with his head down, and replied, "It was my negligence." He seemed to accept his fate passively.
He heard Song Jie cough twice on horseback, and once again assessed how much Song Jie cared about Xie Yushu. He had thought that Song Jie would send someone to inquire, but he did not expect that Song Jie would come in person so quickly.
On such a rainy night, Song Jie, wearing a bamboo hat, personally rode over. He didn't even bother to continue humiliating him, but immediately asked, "How long have the assassins been holding Xie Yushu? Which direction did they go? Have your men given chase?"
Xiao Zhen answered each question. Two imperial guards chased after the assassin but lost track of him. However, Xie Yushu's attendants chased after him immediately and have not yet returned. They must have caught up with the assassin.
"A follower?" Song Jie thought of the lame follower, frowned, and ordered Cang Shu, "Take Panpan and go after him."
"Yes!" Cang Shu responded, dismounted, and led Panpan and the two greyhounds down from the carriage behind him.
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The horse stopped in front of a dilapidated temple.
Xie Yushu was already shivering from the rain when she heard someone call out softly, "My lord."
Pei Heng seemed to give the man a look to keep quiet, then dismounted and carried Xie Yushu down with him. He took a few steps into the temple, grabbed a cloak, and wrapped it around Xie Yushu's soaking wet body.
Xie Yushu gripped her cloak tightly and glanced around. There were actually five men in black hiding in the small, dilapidated temple, each holding a sword and watching her warily. They seemed to be Pei Heng's soldiers.
"My lord, you are injured!" A boy who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen years old rushed to check the injury on Pei Heng's arm.
"It's nothing." Pei Heng simply wrapped his wound tightly with a strip of cloth to stop the bleeding, glanced at Xie Yushu who was trembling, and ordered, "Light the firewood."
Several men in black appeared to be there and quickly lit a fire in the dilapidated temple.
Xie Yushu went to the fire herself, because she didn't want to get sick, as it was easy to die from illness in this era.
She let the fire dry her wet clothes and glanced at Pei Heng, who had his back to her.
Pei Heng looked at the dark, rainy night and seemed to have made up his mind. He turned around and walked towards her, looking at her, and said to the others, "You all go and keep watch on the mountain path. Xiao Dao should catch up soon."
"Yes." The five men in black leaped out of the dilapidated temple and disappeared into the vast night in a few bounds.
Pei Heng's dark eyes remained fixed on her as he slowly raised his hand and pulled off the black cloth covering his face.
This was Xie Yushu's first time meeting the legendary General Pei. He looked nothing like Pei Shilin. He had deep features, sword-like eyebrows and bright eyes. His face, wet with rain, was light beige. There was a faint scar on his right cheek, like a knife wound that had just healed.
He had a dashing face, but his broad shoulders and deep eyes exuded a strong sense of oppression, as if he might kill someone at any moment.
He looks fierce.
Xie Yushu withdrew his gaze, looked at his hands, and said, "You're showing me your face, are you trying to silence me? Or do you want to join forces with me?"
Pei Heng didn't speak, but suddenly leaned down and pressed down on her. She subconsciously stepped back and grabbed the stone at her feet, but he only reached out and picked up a corner of her cloak that was hanging on the ground, and extinguished the burning flames.
A burnt smell rose up, and Xie Yushu realized that he was too close to the fire.
"Be careful, don't get yourself into trouble," Pei Heng said meaningfully.
Xie Yushu looked at him, the firelight flickering on his face and in his pupils. He squatted down beside her, turned his head to look at her, and said, "I need Xiaodao. Come with me. I don't have time to waste."
It seems he wants to join forces with her.
Just as Xie Yushu was about to set her terms, she heard him say in a low voice, "Xiaodao is related to the lives of tens of thousands of people on the battlefield, Miss Yushu. I can't reveal too much to you, but my soldiers are waiting for me at the front. If I can take Xiaodao away, at least they won't have to make useless sacrifices for an unproven secret."
His voice was so sincere, it felt like it weighed a ton.
Xie Yushu swallowed the words she was about to say, and her heart felt like it was being crushed by a stone. She looked at Pei Heng's face, and upon closer inspection, she could see many small new and old scars. She noticed that there was a piece missing from his right earlobe, which was exactly on the same line as the scar on his face.
Was it a sword or an arrow that barely grazed his cheek and sliced off his earlobe?
In the original drama, Pei Heng truly sacrificed his life for his country. He can be considered the last loyal member of the Pei family. He went to the battlefield in his teens and fought his way up from vanguard to general in more than ten years.
In this rebellion of the vassal states, he led 30,000 troops to fight from the freezing winter to the height of summer, almost annihilating the two allied rebellious vassal states. Only a thousand soldiers from the two vassal states were left to protect their rulers as they fled to another small border city.
Pei Heng led tens of thousands of troops to the border, besieging the small country and forcing it to hand over the traitorous vassal state. He could have marched his troops into the small country, annihilated it in one fell swoop, and won a great victory.
But he suddenly disappeared before the battle, leaving only his deputy to lead the army in a desperate defense of the small city.
In the original drama, his disappearance before the battle was only described as being to carry out a secret mission for the emperor. After the mission failed, he returned to the front line and led his soldiers to charge into the city and fight. It took eight thousand soldiers to conquer the small country and take the head of the vassal king.
Xie Yushu was deeply impressed by the fact that in the original drama, Pei Heng had won a battle and was awarded the title of General of the Cavalry and a mansion, but he was not happy. He even said something treasonous to the emperor at the victory banquet.
He said, "Your Majesty, those soldiers could have avoided dying..."
After hearing this, the emperor turned away in a huff. He then believed that Pei Heng was difficult to control and tried to take back military power until Song Jie rebelled and forced the emperor to abdicate. Pei Heng then seized military power, eliminated Song Jie, and supported Xiao Zhen to succeed to the throne.
However, not long after Xiao Zhen ascended the throne, Pei Heng, who had been granted the title of a prince of a different surname, was convicted for refusing the new emperor's arranged marriage. It seems that Pei Heng's fate was suicide.
As for why he committed suicide, Xie Yushu didn't know either, because the script didn't include detailed plot information about Pei Heng, a supporting male character.
A poorly written drama with a bad ending.
Xie Yushu couldn't guess what connection the knife had with the battle, but she knew very well that Pei Heng wouldn't lie about something like this.
Could it be that when he said at the victory celebration banquet in the original drama, "Your Majesty, those soldiers could have avoided dying..." he meant that if he had taken Xiao Dao with him, so many soldiers wouldn't have died?
Why?
"That's all I can say." Pei Heng told her again, "Miss Yushu, whatever you guess or know, don't reveal it to anyone. This is to protect yourself."
That's why he said, "Be careful not to get burned."
Because the more inside information one knows, the less safe one becomes? Could his suicide in the original series ending also be related to this "secret mission"?
Xie Yushu desperately wanted to know the inside story, but Pei Heng would definitely not tell.
So she changed her approach and asked, "At least tell me where you're taking the knife? What will you do to him? Will he be in danger?"
With an extremely serious expression and a sincere tone, she said, "I bought Xiaodao from the roadside. He has no parents or relatives, and he considers me his only family. Since I promised him that I would take care of him forever, I cannot disregard his safety and hand him over to you."
Pei Heng gazed at her furrowed brows and her eyes, illuminated by the firelight. Her eyes held an unwavering determination that reminded him of the phrase "a promise is worth a thousand pieces of gold."
She... seemed very different from the person he had observed these past few days.
"Don't worry, he'll be safe. I'm just taking him to see someone." Pei Heng couldn't tell her much, so he raised his hand and swore, "I guarantee you with my life that he will be in no danger whatsoever. If anything happens to him, I'll pay with my life."
Whom to see?
It seemed she couldn't get any more information out of him, but she could rule out one possibility: Xiao Dao was the son of the former emperor and Wan Susu.
If the current emperor suspects that Xiao Dao is the son of the former emperor and his favorite concubine, he can simply order his secret guards or someone else to kill him. There is no reason to suddenly mobilize General Pei Heng before the battle, disregarding the safety of the soldiers, to capture the posthumous son of the former emperor alive.
Pei Heng would not swear an oath to her guaranteeing Xiao Dao's safety.
His resolute oath suggests that eliminating Xiaodao was not part of his secret order.
His goal was to take the knife, which would prevent his soldiers from suffering "unnecessary" casualties...
She seemed to wake up with a start; the important information in this line wasn't "[the assassin Xiao Xiaodao is the emperor's son]", but rather the two words "[is]"!
If the assassin Xiao Xiaodao were the emperor's son, Song Jie could say: He is also your son.
But he said: He is your son.
This statement can only mean that the old emperor's biological son was not his biological son; Xiao Xiaodao was.
Xie Yushu immediately thought of Xiao Zhen. Although she had no evidence, Song Jie hated Wan Susu and Xiao Zhen so much, why would he be so kind as to go to great lengths to support Wan Susu's son Xiao Zhen to become emperor?
Could it be that Song Jie knew Xiao Zhen wasn't the real prince, and deliberately wanted to anger Wan Susu and the old emperor to death at the end?
Xie Yushu felt a chill run down her spine as she guessed what was going on. Although there were still many things she couldn't understand, she thought: Why not give it a try? As long as she handed the knife to Pei Heng, she would know what Pei Heng was going to do.
She blinked slowly, and asked again as if she were sad, "Will I ever see him again?"
The firewood crackled, and the flames flickered in the wind, making her eyes shimmer as if they were filled with tears.
Pei Heng looked at that face and his heart fluttered. She was so good to a servant she had bought, so how could she be so bad to her husband?
A gust of wind swept in from outside the temple, and amidst the heavy rain came the sounds of fighting and Xiao Dao's voice: "Miss!"
Pei Heng turned his head and saw his man and Xiao Dao locked in a fierce battle in the night rain, forced to retreat step by step. He was about to get up when his wrist was grabbed by a pair of warm hands.
“Pei Heng!” Xie Yushu gripped his wrist tightly, looked up and said to him, “Swear that I will see Xiao Dao again.”
Pei Heng gazed at her face. She looked so young, her face without makeup appearing only sixteen or seventeen. If it were a family that doted on their daughter, they wouldn't bear to let her marry at that age...
He had been away from Bianjing for many years and was unaware of her affairs. He was simply puzzled, as she clearly didn't seem to have such a bad heart.
“You will meet again.” Pei Heng raised his hand and swore, “I promise you, as long as I do what I’m supposed to do, I will definitely bring the knife back to you.”
Her eyes were red from the wind, but she said confidently, "Okay."
She grabbed Pei Heng's wrist and stood up. They ran out of the dilapidated temple one after the other, and she shouted urgently, "Xiao Dao, stop!"
"Stop and step back," Pei Heng ordered.
His body and the knife stopped at the same time.
In the pouring rain, Xiao Dao rushed towards her immediately, grabbed her arm, pulled her into his embrace, and stepped back a few paces, keeping a distance from Pei Heng as he stared at her. "Miss, are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"No." Xie Yushu looked down and saw that Xiao Dao's foot was bleeding. One of his shoes looked like it had been punctured by something, and blood was seeping into the rainwater from the sole of his foot.
Her heart skipped a beat. Had Xiao Dao chased after her all this way?
She looked up at Xiaodao and suddenly felt a pang of reluctance to say to him: "You should go with Pei Heng."
So she said to Pei Heng, "Let's have a few words alone."
Pei Heng nodded and stepped aside, saying, "You two go inside and talk." The rain was too heavy, and she was soaked through again.
He waved for his men to step aside, and then stood under the eaves outside the dilapidated temple.
Xiao Dao helped Xie Yushu into the dilapidated temple and sat her down by the fire. He worriedly took off her soaking wet cloak and asked, "Did he bully you? Are you cold? I'll dry you off before you put it back on."
"Xiao Dao." Xie Yushu grasped his hand, pulled him to sit beside her, and looked at his right foot, saying, "Your foot is bleeding. Did you stab yourself?"
Xiao Dao then noticed that his foot was bleeding. He hadn't felt it while running, but now he realized it hurt a little: "It's nothing, it doesn't hurt at all."
He didn't care at all whether he was injured or not. He held up his cloak over the fire with both hands, just wanting Xie Yushu to warm up quickly.
Xie Yushu looked at him, and her heart softened as the flames warmed her.
She grasped the knife in her hand, pulled him close, and hugged him.
Xiao Dao's body stiffened instantly, and he heard her lean against his shoulder and whisper, "Xiao Dao, listen to me, you may soon find out who your parents are."
Xiao Dao was surprised and looked down at her, wanting to ask her why.
"Don't speak," she said in a low voice first, "Listen to me."
She leaned on his shoulder, as if embracing him, and whispered softly in his ear, "Pei Heng disappeared before the war to find you and take you away. I guess he wanted to verify your background."
Xiao Dao couldn't understand why his background would alarm the Great General and require verification.
But then he heard Xie Yushu say, "Go with him, he won't hurt you."
His heart sank, and he reached out to hug Xie Yushu: "You said you wouldn't send me away..."
"Of course I won't send you away." Xie Yushu's warm arms embraced him, and she said softly, "If I'm not mistaken, Xiao Dao took you away just to confirm your background. Who could mobilize the General to search for you and investigate your origins?"
Xiao Dao was stunned; the only person he could think of was the emperor…
"Xiao Dao." She called his name as if sighing, and said with some sadness, "If you were a prince like the Fourth Prince, I wouldn't have to live such a hard life..."
Xiao Dao's heart was broken. How could he be a prince? He was just an orphan without parents.
“But what if I really am just a beggar’s son…” he asked with a heavy heart, when suddenly a pair of warm lips pressed against his cheek.
She kissed his cheek.
Xiao Dao's body felt like it was on fire, burning like wood. He sat there frozen, unable to believe the light, gentle kiss.
But when he smelled her fragrance and heard her voice, she said, with her head on his shoulder, "Then you can come back to me and be my little knife forever."
The firewood snapped and collapsed with a "crack," just like his burning heart.
He held her tightly, firmly, and said he would do whatever she asked.
"Congratulations, host. You have gained 1 point of Popularity Points, from Xiao Dao." The system message echoed in her mind.
She lifted her eyelids and saw Pei Heng standing outside, seemingly glancing back before quickly turning back to face the torrential rain.
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The author's note: Obedient puppies get rewarded first.
My shoulder hurt today and I was thinking of taking a day off, but I gritted my teeth and wrote this anyway. I can't stop updating daily and keep you all waiting!
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