Chapter 46: Senior Brother, Senior Brother will not let you get tired at all, Senior Brother only wants...
"You don't need to do anything. Whether it's too fast or not isn't something you need to worry about." Yang Yan's heart felt like it was being repeatedly crushed by a heavy object, causing a sharp pain. However, he relied on his manly intuition to offer her advice. "You just need to feel it with your heart to see if he truly respects you and considers everything for you. This is before marriage, but men always pretend. If he makes you uncomfortable at some point before marriage, you should cut your losses immediately."
"If you really do get to that point..." He paused, and though he didn't want to say it, he still said the words "discussing marriage." "If you really get to the point of discussing marriage, you'll need to consider his family background and the personalities of his mother and father. Also, whether he has brothers, whether his family is harmonious, whether he's a capable leader at home, and whether he's capable of protecting you if something goes wrong. These are far more important than whether you're acting too hastily."
Yang Yan spoke seriously, each word coming out with great difficulty. With each word, he felt as if something had cut into his heart.
He couldn't let her go. If she could turn back, he would definitely not make the same mistake as in his previous life again. But if she really never turned back, he also hoped that she could live a better life, at least not run into a jerk like him again.
Chai Heng listened carefully to everything he said, agreeing with most of it, but also with a few other things. For example, she couldn't really do nothing.
She didn't dare to act like she did in her previous life, holding her heart sincerely and without any guard.
But if you want to be with someone, it’s definitely not okay to be full of guard.
She suddenly felt that she had asked the wrong person. For someone like Yang Yan, weighing the pros and cons would always be above all else. He was used to looking at everyone with the same eyes he used to look at his political enemies, and he always felt that he could control everything, so the experience he gave her was naturally not worth referring to. If she did as he said, within half a year, Cui Miao would probably conclude that she had no interest in him at all and become silently frustrated.
"Why don't you speak?"
"Do you understand?"
Seeing her silence, Yang Yan couldn't help but ask her. He almost knocked on the table and asked her to repeat what he had just said.
"I understand." Chai Heng nodded, "but I don't think everything you said is right." She suddenly felt that it would be better to ask Zhou Jiu than to ask him. After thinking about it, she stood up and left.
"Where are you going again?" She left as soon as she said so. Yang Yan felt a little uncomfortable and subconsciously reached out to hold her.
He was injured now, and he didn't expect her to care about him. When they talked together, Yang Yan didn't expect her to say anything he liked to hear.
Up to now in this life, his expectations of her have been lowered again and again. Now, he actually just wants her to stay with him for a while longer, even if it is just to talk to him about Cui Miao.
But she only sat here for a short while before leaving again.
Chai Heng was suddenly pulled by Yang Yan. She first turned around and looked at him in confusion, and then, seeing his hesitant look, she realized belatedly that he actually hoped she would stay.
Once this thought came to her mind, she was a little stunned.
During the year she was imprisoned in Fuyuan, he came to see her secretly many times at night. She actually wanted him to stay with her and talk to her.
She had experienced this kind of thing before, so she knew what it felt like, but she had never imagined that there would actually be a time when their past lives and this life would be reversed. This feeling of unreality made Chai Heng a little dazed, but the daze lasted only for a moment, and she immediately pushed Yang Yan's hand away.
"When I arrived, Cui Miao was still waiting for me in the room."
"If I talk to you for too long, he'll think too much."
Chai Heng whispered that she had originally come to discuss her senior brother's affairs, but the two of them had drifted off into conversation. Cui Miao was still waiting for her, and she and Yang Yan were once husband and wife, so Cui Miao couldn't help but become suspicious during their conversation.
She didn't want Cui Miao to have the same feelings as she did back then.
These two sentences have many meanings.
Firstly, it shows how important Cui Miao is in her heart, and secondly, in order to prevent Cui Miao from thinking too much, she decided to see him less often in the future.
Yang Yan felt as if his heart had sunk into the water, as if it would never surface again. He gathered his hands, which she had pushed away, but his palms felt empty, just like everything he had done to her in his life, and he could never hold her.
"Okay, then you go and accompany him first."
His voice was slow and deep, and he looked at her with a lingering gaze. He used his limited calmness to force himself to once again gently say what he meant against his will.
*
Yang Yan didn't see Chai Heng for several days. She was always with Cui Miao. During the day, they went to the city to help the refugees who had fled from Linxi Village. At night, they would chat in the breeze on the first floor of the inn. They were so close that even Zhou Jiu had conceded that his master could not catch up.
After harassing several surrounding villages, the Western Rong soldiers found that the people in the villages had been moved into the city. Since yesterday, they have begun to frequently send troops to roam around Linzi City.
This is a temptation.
It seems that only one team was sent, but in fact they were waiting to see when the people guarding the city would relax their guard during their shifts. By then, a large number of Western Rong soldiers would rush over.
The Jingnan Army, led by Prince Jing and his wife, had recently arrived at the Wuyue border, now the main battlefield with the Western Rong. Large quantities of food and wages from the imperial court were being transported there. Almost all the elite soldiers and generals were heading towards the Wuyue border.
Yang Yan had originally planned to return to Beijing in the next few days. Although memorials from the Ministry of War were constantly being submitted here, it was not a big deal for him to stay here all the time.
But after discovering that Tuoba Ye wanted to harass more than just a few surrounding villages, Yang Yan suddenly redefined Tuoba Ye's intentions and decided not to leave.
Not only did he not leave, he also wrote a letter to the court, asking the court to allocate part of the troops here, led by Chu Yanhuai.
For years, the Great Qi and the Western Rong had fought each other, often with only one main battlefield. This was due to insufficient military strength on both sides, and neither side dared to risk a single battle. Furthermore, the transportation of food and fodder took a long time. Both Great Qi's food and fodder required a long transport to reach the battlefield, and the Western Rong's food and fodder also required a long transport from the capital to the border. Splitting the battlefields would have been a significant expense for both treasuries.
In the past, when Tuoba Ye's two elder brothers and father were in charge, they never fought on two separate battlefields.
Not necessarily now.
Linzi City has a unique geographical location. If the city is captured, it will be very convenient for the Western Rong army to march south. At that time, burning, killing, looting, and breaking into the imperial city is just around the corner.
After making this clear, there were more soldiers guarding the city in the past few days, especially at night. The city gates were closed tightly and the soldiers on duty were extremely careful.
Everything in the city was going on as normal. Apart from the people in the inn and the people in the government office who knew about the current situation, the common people were still living their own lives.
When the situation was not so tense, Chai Heng could sit outside with Cui Miao and watch the moon. Now that they felt the tension of the situation, they both went to the county magistrate's mansion every day to train soldiers for the county magistrate.
It was the county magistrate himself who broke this peaceful situation.
This is a long and rather outrageous story. To preserve his reputation and avoid the blame for the fall of Linzi, County Magistrate Li had been personally patrolling the city gates at night. But one night, as soon as he ascended the tower, he saw two elderly men and women dressed as beggars outside the city.
The surviving villagers from the several villages outside the city had essentially all moved into the city, though there were still refugees who hadn't been able to follow the main force into the city due to the difficult mountain roads or other hardships along the way. The two elderly men were tattered, and in the deep night, the dew was heavy, and they were shivering from the cold.
Judging from the look of it, I don’t know how many days it has been hungry and cold, and whether it can survive this night.
County Magistrate Li stood on the city wall and looked down at the two old men. He couldn't help but recall that before he became county magistrate, he had also been a local official for a period of time. At that time, his original intention of serving the people was to serve the people.
So, he softened his heart for a moment and ordered his soldiers to open the city gate and let the people in.
When the city gate was opened, thousands of strong cavalrymen from the Western Rong immediately rushed in from all directions on tall horses and holding golden swords. By the time the soldiers reacted, it was too late to open the city gate.
Magistrate Li was captured alive.
Because it was the middle of the night and everyone was fast asleep, when the people in the inn heard the crying and shouting, there was already a sea of fire outside.
"Help!"
After hearing a few screams, Chai Heng jumped up from the bed. She pushed open the door of the inn and saw the waiter lying in front of her in a twisted posture, with a mouthful of blood foam spitting on her skirt.
Two Western Rong soldiers were holding knives in the corridor, hacking and killing people in each room. While Chai Heng was stunned, a big knife was already chopped towards her face. She reacted quickly, dodged it immediately, and then kicked the Western Rong soldier in front of her on the neck.
The downstairs was in a mess. The several eight-immortal tables that were originally used to entertain guests were turned to pieces. Chai Heng's mind was in a mess. Linzi City was peaceful during the day, but at night it was filled with shouts and screams of killing. She had only seen such a terrifying scene in her previous life on the Wu Yue battlefield.
Chai Heng didn't dare to imagine what the situation was like outside, but she couldn't hide in this inn, so she went downstairs with a knife.
Outside, corpses littered the ground, the once neatly arranged stalls hacked to pieces by the Xirong men with their swords. As Chai Heng emerged from the inn, two groups of Xirong soldiers surrounded her. She instinctively retreated, then realized she had nowhere to retreat. She drew her knife and prepared to fight, but she was outnumbered and was forced to her knees.
The night is pitch black.
There was a "dripping" sound in Chai Heng's ears, the sound was so clear that he didn't know whose blood was falling.
The two teams of Western Rong people did not kill her.
She didn't even suffer a single scratch.
The horse's hooves had already landed in front of her. She raised her head in the darkness and saw the familiar face of her senior brother.
Lu Shichu looked at her, his expression as gentle as ever. He still recognized her, but she no longer recognized him.
"Ah Heng, what's wrong? You don't even call me Senior Brother?"
Lu Shichu was still dressed in a blue shirt and looked unkempt. When he said this, Chai Heng felt inexplicably cold.
Before this, even though Yang Yan had told her so much, even though all the evidence pointed to him collaborating with the enemy, Chai Heng had not completely convicted him in her heart.
She was thinking, maybe her senior brother was just planning something, or maybe Yang Yan had made a mistake in his previous life. But at this moment, the Xirong soldier behind him was still holding the innkeeper's head in his hand, and the pale head was bleeding. She had no way to excuse him anymore.
"Why you?"
"You clearly know why Master and his wife fought their entire lives in wars?"
Chai Heng looked at him disappointedly, her voice shaking. In her opinion, the hatred between her parents was irreconcilable. Even if he rushed to the Golden Palace, assassinated the emperor, or took back what originally belonged to him in other ways, she could understand.
But how could he do such a thing as colluding with foreign enemies to attack his own homeland?
Lu Shichu didn't want to look at Chai Heng's disappointed eyes. He was not so clean to begin with. As early as the coup d'état twenty years ago, as early as the night he changed his name and identity, he was destined to be unclean.
"You think too highly of me, Ah Heng."
"But the kindnesses in this world must be repaid one by one. I must first repay the kindness of my royal father and royal mother. As for the kindness of my master and mistress, I will repay them in my next life."
The firelight illuminated most of Lu Shichu's face. He smiled slightly, and that expression seemed both familiar and unfamiliar to Chai Heng.
Chai Heng didn't think she would be of any value in the hands of this group of Western Rong people. The reason she didn't die when she was with Yang Yan in the Western Rong camp was purely because Tuoba Yuanli didn't want to kill her.
But Tuoba Ye was different. Chai Heng had heard about the ways he played with captives in her previous life. In his hands, she would probably be living a life worse than death.
So she looked at Lu Shichu and raised her head: "Kill me, for the sake of me being your junior sister."
"Ah Heng, you're overthinking it. You're my senior brother's junior sister. He will never hurt you in his life. He wants to protect you."
As Lu Shichu spoke, he gestured to the soldiers behind him to take him away. Chai Heng was escorted up and forced to ride a horse with him.
Chai Heng closed her eyes in despair, her eyelashes trembling slightly. She hadn't seen Yang Yan, Cui Miao, and the others at the inn, so it was likely that they were staying at the government office tonight.
The gates were wide open, meaning the entire city of Linzi had fallen. The news wouldn't need to be announced tomorrow; it could be spread tonight.
*
Chai Heng was brought by Lu Shichu to the camp of the Western Rong army. It was a separate tent with few furnishings, only a table and a couch.
When they arrived at the camp, Lu Shichu asked the soldiers to leave first. When there was no one around, he squatted down and untied the ropes on Chai Heng's wrists and ankles.
"Do you have any difficulties?"
Chai Heng felt a pang of pain in his nose as he looked at the person who bent down to untie the rope for him.
Lu Shichu could lie to her, but he didn't want to.
"I have no hardship. I just want the man on the throne to die. I want to take back everything that originally belonged to me." Lu Shichu said in a gentle voice, "I know you think I'm using the wrong method, but Ah Heng, I have no other choice. There is no faster way than this. Just think of it as you mistakenly recognized me as your senior brother all these years."
"No one in this camp will harm you. When the time is right, I will let you go. I'm keeping you here now, but I don't mean to keep you trapped here. If you were captured by someone in Linzi City, the outcome wouldn't be any better than it is now."
Lu Shichu still didn't want to look into Chai Heng's eyes. Her eyes were too clean and clear, making his meanness invisible.
"Then why do you want to keep me?"
"Use you as bait." Lu Shichu said, throwing the rope that bound her aside, "I cooperated with Tuoba Ye. Tuoba Ye asked me for two things. One is the defense map of my Great Qi. I got it from the prince and gave it to him. The other is the life of my master and mistress or the life of the chief official of my Great Qi's Ministry of War. My master and mistress are old, and I can't just watch them die. You don't want to watch it either, right? So let Yang Yan come."
"He treated you so badly, you should hate him. So I made the choice for you, captured you, and let him take you back in exchange."
"Brother won't let you get tired at all. I only want his life. If he dies, all the suffering you've endured before won't be in vain. You see, Brother still cares about you."
When Lu Shichu said the first few words, Chai Heng didn't feel creepy, but after he said these words, Chai Heng felt even more as if she had never known him.
But think about it.
He has always known his life experience and has lived in hatred since childhood. He has learned to hide his true self and to endure since childhood.
Yang Yan had always disliked him and his attitude towards him was not polite, even arrogant. Now that he had this opportunity, it would be best to get rid of Yang Yan.
"He's not a fool. If you ask him to come, he will come."
"Besides, Senior Brother, you overestimate me. He's unwilling to let me go just because he's used to it, not because he really likes me. In a life-or-death situation, he wouldn't be so foolish as to trade his life for mine."
"Besides, he won't believe you really arrested me. How could he believe you if you just say it?"
Chai Heng asked three questions in a row, and felt that Lu Shichu was really crazy, as he actually thought of using her to lure Yang Yan over.
Lu Shichu seemed to have expected her to say this.
"Whether he comes or not, we'll find out after we wait and see."
"As for how I can trust you here, according to Xirong's usual style, I should have cut off one of your fingers and sent it to Yang Yan to see. But my brother won't do that to you. I said, I won't let you get hurt."
"You just need to write a letter to Yang Yan and trick him into coming here."
Chai Heng found it ridiculous: "For my own life, I let someone else die for me. I'm sorry. Even if he is my ex-husband and we had many unhappy things in the past, I can't do such a thing."
"I know you can't do it."
"Ah Heng, you've been taught so well by Master and his wife, I won't force you. But what if, if you don't write this letter, someone else will die?"
Lu Shichu clapped his hands outside, and two soldiers escorted a familiar figure into the city. It was Cui Miao. He had been battling the Western Rong army for a long time in the city. Now, covered in blood, he gritted his teeth as he was pinned to the ground. He looked at Chai Heng and shouted, "Heng, don't listen to his threats!"
"Lu, don't even think about using me to threaten her!"
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