Chapter 4 Showdown "So please be a human being."
A breeze blew by, and Chai Heng's head was buzzing. He was just about to ask, "Who do you want to forgive?"
Then I heard Yang Yan continue:
"Since you died a few days earlier than me in your previous life, I can let go of all the things you did, including disobeying discipline, repeatedly sneaking out of Fuyuan, and even colluding with Lu Shichu to stab me. As long as you behave yourself in the future, we can still live a good life after returning to the capital."
Yang Yan rubbed the ring on his finger, and as if remembering something, his tone softened a little, "Haven't you always wanted to buy a new hilltop for Furong Mountain? When we return to the capital, I will accompany you to see the hilltop. Let's put the past things behind us."
Chai Heng: “…”
In her previous life, Yang Yan only lived five days longer than her, and Chai Heng actually knew this.
After a person dies, his soul will stay in his original home for a few days. In his previous life, there was a serious epidemic in Yongzhou, and memorials from the court were sent to him almost all the time.
The young emperor was young, having recently been forced by Yang Yan to kill his brother and seize the throne. He hadn't recovered from the shock and was still a novice in handling state affairs. He relied on Yang Yan as his teacher for everything. Before he heard the news of her death, he had been up for three days and three nights reviewing memorials. After returning to the Marquis' Mansion and hurriedly handling her funeral, he went to the Wenhua Hall to lecture the young emperor all night. It happened to rain heavily, and he caught a cold. Even his iron body couldn't bear it, and he fainted upon returning, never to wake up.
In this world, death is different for each person.
After her death, the one who was most heartbroken was Yang Qingping. She had raised this girl, and although they had disagreed on some issues during their teenage years and had a few arguments, and the girl seemed to prefer Xue Ruyue, her tears at the funeral hall were ultimately untrue.
When he died, things were different. The whole nation mourned, and the young emperor held a lavish ceremony for his teacher, a ceremony that was almost as extravagant as the death of the previous emperor. That was right. He had single-handedly helped her ascend to the throne, and his power was immense. He died young, so there was no need to deliberately eliminate him in the future. If she were the young emperor, she would also treat Yang Yan as her adopted parent.
Having said that, the time transfer method is a good thing.
If he died ten or twenty years after her death, there might be a moment when he would miss his late wife. There might also be a moment when he would recall the ups and downs of the decade from his youth to middle age, and reflect for a moment whether he had done too much to her.
But now, he died a few days after she died.
Both of them were very shocked.
Chai Heng didn't expect him to feel any guilt or reflect on his actions.
"I have nothing to ask you to forgive."
"It's true that I was planning to seek peace with you the night before you left for Yongzhou, but that was only because I knew that I had caused trouble for you and mother in this matter concerning the Xue family. But you can't use the word 'forgiveness' on me." Chai Heng put away her sword, brushed off the dust on her dress, and stood firm.
Her skin was naturally fair, but from rolling around in the fields, her face was now dusty. She was in her early twenties, and she could get up again after falling down; she was very tough.
Yang Yan looked down along her face, finally resting his complicated gaze on her left leg.
"Does it hurt?"
He suddenly spoke and tapped her left leg with the stick at hand.
Chai Heng knew what he was referring to, and couldn't help but ask, "Yang Yan, you've already done it. Don't you think it's hypocritical to ask this?"
Let his leg be broken by a trap for no reason, and see if it hurts?
Sensing the hostility in her words, Yang Yan knew what she was suspicious of and said in a deep voice, "I didn't let anyone let go of the poisoned trap."
He acknowledged the harsh words he said, but you can't blame him for things he didn't do.
It wasn't him who put it there, but it just happened to be a coincidence that after he said he would break her legs if she dared to touch Xue Ruyue again, there was an animal trap in the big pit in front of Xue's house. Who could believe such a coincidence?
Chai Heng didn't want to argue with him about these things, it was pointless. What's more, the conflicts between them had been going on for a long time, one thing after another, and it wasn't just about how she died in her previous life.
"Yang Yan, I don't want to argue with you. We've known each other for so many years, and our memories aren't all bad."
"I remember many years ago when I just returned to Beijing and my mother sent me to study at Nanyang Academy, the grandson of the Minister of Revenue bullied me, and you helped me beat him up."
"Later, we got married. Although we agreed to be just a couple in name only, every time I went back to the Chai Mansion and my mother gave me a hard time, you would quietly help me out. To help you manage your connections at court, I was working for the Imperial Guards. One time, a notorious thief who had just been released from prison targeted me at a lantern festival. He threw a flying knife at me, and I was choosing masks with my eldest sister at the time. It was you who rushed over and blocked the knife for me."
Those relatively good memories from the past emerged in his mind. As Yang Yan listened to her gentle narration, he seemed to recall many things in his mind.
But this warmth did not last long.
Then, Chai Heng continued, "I'm not someone who only remembers grudges and not kindness, so after what I went through in my past life, I can still convince myself that I didn't beat you up, but please be a human being."
Hearing this, Yang Yan's face turned ugly. He realized that she was scolding him in different ways.
…
Days passed quickly in Xirong, working from sunrise to sunset. Yang Yan had calmed down considerably since his showdown with her that night. These days, whenever Ji Changqing went to apply medicine to him, no matter how good or bad the application was, or how heavy the blows were, he would just close his eyes and say nothing, not making a fuss. He was so well-behaved that it was frightening.
"Did you give Lord Yang some love potion? Why has he been in such a good mood these days?" After applying the potion, Ji Changqing, feeling quite accomplished, couldn't help but ask Chai Heng.
Chai Heng, sitting in the courtyard basking in the sun, smiled upon hearing this and said, "It's not that his temper has improved, he just knows how to handle things now."
For such an old person, there is no need to be picky about who is giving him medicine.
Ji Zhangqing nodded thoughtfully, then chuckled, "By the way, Chai Si, Tuoba Yuanli hasn't bothered us since you came. You don't even know that before you came, he always sent soldiers to harass us. Do you think he will stop coming?"
For some reason, Chai Heng actually heard a hint of nostalgia for their visit from Ji Changqing's mouth.
All the good things in this world should not be mentioned. If you mention them too much, they may disappear.
Chai Heng was about to stop him and tell him to be careful with his words.
She heard the clatter of horse hooves in the distance, accompanied by the neighing of horses and the shouts of Qiang people. She subconsciously looked up and saw a column of armored troops marching towards their cabin.
"Are they always so grand?"
Ji Zhangqing: "Not really, maybe Tuoba Yuanli is just having a seizure."
As he spoke, he hid behind Chai Heng and said, "Prince Jing is your master. If this group of people really start fighting, Chai Si, you can beat them, right?"
His small, dark eyes turned behind Chai Heng.
Chai Heng: "Of course... I can't."
Ji Zhangqing was half discouraged, but still held on to a glimmer of hope: "Then can you beat several of them alone?"
"have no idea."
Before arriving in Xirong, Chai Heng hadn't touched a sword in her current state for a long time. Back in the capital, Madam Chai, determined to keep her a ladylike figure, would harshly reprimand her whenever she saw a sword in the house. Later, when she married, and since Yang Yan had no mother, Madam Chai assumed she could be her son-in-law's mother, regularly visiting the Marquis of Pingling's mansion. Fearing the nagging, she hid her swords.
To be precise, her fighting power was at its highest when she was a teenager in Furong Mountain.
Ji Zhangqing closed his eyes tightly, decided to ignore it, and huddled behind Chai Heng like a winter melon. Chai Heng did not pull him out, because just as she came to her senses, the mighty army was already in front of her, and at the same time, another winter melon had been thrown in front of her.
A cloud of dust rose from the ground, and Chai Heng could only see a sack. Inside the sack, there seemed to be a person, writhing and groaning.
"We Western Rong treat Great Qi with courtesy, yet your Great Qi monarch repeatedly sends spies to test us and flaunt his power. Do you really think we Western Rong are incapable of war?"
The man sitting on the tall horse had a strong build, dark blue eyes of a foreign race, broken eyebrows, and a deep scar at the peak of his brows. He was wrapped in a thick, shiny black wolf skin, had dark skin, and a very cold voice.
Chai Heng recognized him, Tuoba Yuanli's younger brother - Tuoba Ying.
The Tuoba royal family had three princes: Tuoba Yuanli was the eldest, Tuoba Ying was the second, and the youngest was Tuoba Ye. Tuoba Ye was not born of the same mother as the other two, and his temperament was completely different. He was not favored by the old Tuoba king, and was therefore excluded from the struggle for imperial power early on.
In her previous life, Chai Heng hadn't taken Tuoba Sanlang seriously. After all, she and Yang Yan had spent a long time in the Western Rong, and while the other two had troubled them, Tuoba Ye had never shown his face. But later on, he proved to be the most ruthless. He spent ten years hanging the heads of his two brothers at the gates of Jinyang City, and even dried his own father by drying him in the sun. He was a truly ruthless man.
At this moment, looking at Tuoba Ying in front of him and thinking of the head at the gate of Jinyang City many years later, Chai Heng was filled with mixed emotions.
"Second Prince, you're joking. The Western Rong are good at fighting, and their soldiers are very brave. This is well known to the surrounding countries. We in the Great Qi have always valued peace, so why would we test them?"
Yang Yan had walked out of the wooden house at some point. His wound had healed due to the frequent dressing changes he had made over the past few days, and he could walk without any problems.
Chai Heng was not very good at arguing with people, but she knew that Yang Yan was best at dealing with this kind of people, so she subconsciously moved the small stool to the side to make way for him.
"If it's not a test, then what is this? Lord Yang, please don't tell me that this person is not from Qi and that I asked one of our Qiang people to pretend to be him?"
Tuoba Ying whipped his whip and pointed, and several of his men understood and opened the sack. The man inside was twisted into a twist, tightly clutching a Da Qi military flag in his hand, mumbling something inaudibly.
"Take the cloth out of his mouth!"
"Untie his ropes too!"
Tuoba Ying gave the order.
It was the same men who stepped forward to untie the rope for him, and because he was not very obedient, they slapped him hard on the butt.
The restraints on his body were gone. The man in the sack had a dark face. He opened his mouth as far as he could, then suddenly raised the flag and said through gritted teeth:
"Show the might of our Great Qi army! Kill all the Qiang children!"
“…”
As soon as these words were spoken, there was a dead silence in the air.
Tuoba Ying was extremely disgusted and whipped him: "This man broke into my military camp early in the morning and tried to steal the military token. He waved a tattered flag around, as if he was afraid that our soldiers wouldn't see him. I don't know if he is an idiot or if he thinks I am an idiot."
As he spoke, he raised his hand to strike a second time. When he struck her the first time, Chai Heng hadn't reacted yet. Seeing the second lash about to fall, Chai Heng quickly stood up. Before she could stop Tuoba Ying's whip with her waist knife, Yang Yan had already raised his hand and grasped the whip tip. The whip tip slashed across her knuckles, leaving a burning blood mark.
His eyes were like torches, and he smiled and said, "Second Prince, the people of Great Qi are no straw dogs."
"The people are not straw dogs, so what about the spies?" asked Tuoba Ying.
Yang Yan said, "The battle between the two armies is a serious matter. Even if the Great Qi were to send a spy, it would not be someone with a single-minded mind."
Anyone present who was a little bit normal could have heard that Yang Yan was defending the man on the ground, but that man only heard the second half of the sentence. After Yang Yan finished speaking, he suddenly stiffened his neck and tried to refute the statement that he was stupid.
Before he could speak, Chai Heng quickly pushed him back: "Shut up."
He looked like he wasn't very smart, and Tuoba Ying didn't really come here to kill him in front of Yang Yan.
I just wanted to send this person to Yang Yan and do him a favor.
So he went down the slope, tapped the man on the back with the tip of his whip, and said word by word:
"This man certainly doesn't seem capable of being a spy. In that case, I will return him to you, Lord Yang, today." Tuoba Ying paused, then continued, "I also hope that Lord Yang will help me conduct a thorough trial. I will come back in three days to determine whether it was the Great Qi court behind this or someone else."
After saying this, he seemed to want to say something else, but the deputy general beside him suddenly reminded him: "Second Prince, the Khan has notified you to attend a banquet tonight. It's not good to be too late."
He then raised his chin and said, "Retreat," and then he led the group away in a mighty manner.
As soon as Tuoba Ying left, Ji Zhangqing came out from behind Chai Heng and quickly helped the man on the ground up.
"Tsk tsk, why is your face so dark? You can pass yourself off as a blind man when you go out at night."
"Why would a Qi person run around for no reason? He ran to the territory of Xirong to suffer. There are no old acquaintances of yours here." He patted the dust off the man's body with heartache.
But as soon as he stood up straight, he turned his gaze to Chai Heng: "Heng is an old acquaintance of mine."
Chai Heng was surprised for a moment by the intimate way of addressing him.
"Do you know him?" Yang Yan sat on the small stool where she had been sitting, with a half-smile on his face, as if he had just caught someone cheating. It was as if all the pent-up anger he had accumulated over the past few days had been released.
"Do I know you?" Chai Heng asked.
When the other person saw that she didn't know him, he immediately understood what was going on and hurried to the well to get himself a basin of water. After wiping off all the dust on his face, he just revealed a handsome face.
"Xu Jianxian?"
Chai Heng recognized him then and couldn't believe that the man who looked as miserable as a beggar was actually the wealthy businessman from Jiangning who used to be dressed in silk and satin and had never suffered any grievance or loss.
"Why are you in Tuoba Ying's camp?"
According to the development of his previous life, he should be with Tuoba Yuanli at this moment.
This is a long story. Xu Jianxian sighed and said, "Is there any ointment? Let me wait a moment and I will explain it to you slowly."
Tuoba Ying had just swung him hard on the back, and the ripped flesh was already visible. Chai Heng took a look and said, "The injury is quite serious."
There just happened to be another patient in the room who had been whipped.
She turned around, faced Yang Yan, and asked, "Do you have the ointment?"
She spoke to Xu Jianxian with concern, completely unaware that his injuries were much more serious than Xu Jianxian's. Not to mention that just now, when he blocked Tuoba Ying's whip for Xu Jianxian, his hand was also injured.
Yang Yan looked up at her and remained silent for a while, as if waiting for her to say something else.
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