Chapter 39 Thirty-Nine I will never consider it
She always felt that the giant monster above her was breathing, alive, and would suddenly swoop down and swallow her!
The giant monster seemed to have really moved. Wang Yuying instinctively closed her eyes, but then quickly reopened them, afraid of delaying her attack. Just as she lifted her eyelids, she heard a clang, and the strongman swung down a vajra, taller than the two of them and too heavy for them to hold with both arms, aiming it at her. Xu Heng and Jing Ye, with a sword and a saber, blocked it for her.
All the warriors are really moving! There are rebels hiding in the wooden carvings; the breathing I just noticed wasn't an illusion!
With a slight maneuver in the narrow passage, the strongman trapped the soldiers from the outskirts of the capital who were entering the palace.
Not wanting to hold her back, Wang Yuying quickly drew her sword. Xu Heng, however, kept his eyes fixed ahead and ordered Wang Yuying behind him, "Get out!"
"No need!" Although Wang Yuying's voice trembled and her heart pounded, she tried her best to overcome her fear and fight against the strongman.
"Don't follow me in a three-on-one fight, it's a waste of manpower. Go deal with the others!" Wang Yuying shouted, and Jing Ye immediately obeyed and went to deal with the other wooden warriors. Xu Heng, however, remained around Wang Yuying, repeatedly leaving his back exposed to her without any defenses.
If necessary, Wang Yuying would also turn her back to Xu Heng. Her gaze swept among the various strongmen, and she needed to quickly determine whether they were forming a battle formation.
It wasn't a battle formation; the warriors were merely moving to fight. But the swords of the soldiers from the outskirts of the capital were cutting through thick wood, while the warriors were injuring the flesh and blood of the soldiers. Take Jing Ye, for example. Because he had been charging at the forefront, he had already been hit three times by barbed vajras. His back armor was torn and covered in blood.
While fending off the wooden warriors, Wang Yuying tried to calm down and analyze the situation—the warriors swung vajras, slashed with swords, and used vajra ropes to lasso; whenever they lowered their arms and bent down to make a move, their necks would tilt back and their heads would be raised high and far away.
"Try beheading?" Wang Yuying accidentally murmured her guess. Jing Ye heard this and immediately leaped onto the strongman's ribbon, then climbed up the ribbon to the strongman's shoulder, and swung his knife to chop. The indented wooden marks on the strongman's neck visibly deepened rapidly, but the strongman was still moving.
With strongmen on either side of Wang Yuying, she couldn't keep an eye on Jingye all the time. Suddenly, she heard a loud crash and felt the earth shake. She looked up and saw that the strongmen had used their pestles to swing Jingye onto the roof. A corner of the main hall was missing, and broken wood and plaster fell down one after another.
She suddenly became a little worried, wondering if Jing Ye had been hit by that Vajra pestle? If he had, the injury would surely be serious.
Of the three, only Xu Heng had visited Tonghua Temple before. He recalled that after passing through the Vajra Warrior Corridor, he would see a giant Buddha with a compassionate face and bowed head. Thinking of the Bodhisattva with lowered brows and the Vajra with wrathful eyes, Xu Heng feared he wouldn't have time to act, so he looked up and told Jing Ye, who was still leaping and dodging on the shoulders of the warriors, "Blind its eyes!"
Jing Ye was puzzled. Wang Yuying said she understood beheading, but the strongman's eyes were made of wood painted black and white. How could he become blind? Was he not allowed to turn his eyes? But even a blind person can move their eyes.
Xu Heng inhaled: "Destroy the eyeball! Stop it from rolling!"
Jing Ye understood. He plunged his knife into the strongman's left eye, and the wooden eyeball that had been constantly turning stopped moving. Without hesitation, he then stabbed the right eye, and the strongman suddenly stopped moving, turning back into an inanimate object.
Xu Heng gripped the hilt of his sword tightly; sure enough, his eyes were the switch.
"Behead them again!" he ordered decisively.
Jingye obeyed the order and desperately chopped at the neck of the immobile strongman. After thirty or forty strokes, the head was finally severed. A dozen or so feathered arrows flew straight out from below. Jingye was caught off guard and was half a step too slow when he dodged to the side. One of the arrows hit his right arm.
Jing Ye, who considered himself tough and fearless, didn't care about pain. After the arrows ran out, he glanced inside the strongman's room and immediately shouted, "Yingniang, it's empty inside, there's someone there!"
"I'm going down there and killing them all!" He jumped in impatiently.
"Be careful yourself." Wang Yuying glanced at him, then looked away. She was worried about Jing Ye, but she couldn't jump in too. Wang Yuying touched the strongman's boots with her toes, then stepped on his belt, using the momentum to climb onto the left shoulder of another strongman, and commanded the soldiers below: "Listen up, everyone, we'll blind all their eyes first!"
She planned to lock up all the strongmen first, then cut off their heads to capture the rebels. However, just as the sword pierced her left eye, Xu Heng floated down onto the right shoulder of the same strongman: "You poked my eye, I'll cut off your head."
He tried to change her plans, saying that beheading her would lead to a sneak attack, which was too dangerous.
Wang Yuying gestured with her chin toward the strongman next door: "You go over there, we'll each take charge of one!"
Xu Heng hesitated for a moment, but still obeyed Wang Yuying. He leaped onto the shoulder of another strongman, bent his waist to avoid the Vajra Rope, and then rolled and thrust in the air as one with his sword, destroying the eyes of a row of strongmen in one fell swoop.
After the group dealt with the rebels among the strongmen, Wang Yuying, fearing there might still be traps, took the initiative to suggest, "Destroy them, remove their limbs!"
Xu Heng had the same thought, and he nodded slightly.
Jingye immediately took the lead and cut off the strongman's arms and legs, scattering them on the ground and intertwining them over the corpses of the rebels.
Looking at the enormous limbs, Wang Yuying felt dizzy again, but she steadied herself by adjusting her breathing.
Xu Heng then left her side and walked silently to the center of the crowd. With a stern expression, he raised his arm and declared loudly: "Whoever captures the remaining traitors and beheads their chieftain will be rewarded with a thousand taels of gold and a noble title!"
Upon hearing this, the soldiers raised their arms and shouted, swearing their loyalty to the emperor. Jing Ye, who had just entered the battlefield, was completely immersed in the action and joined in waving flags and shouting, vowing to be loyal to the death.
Wang Yuying glanced at Jing Ye, then casually raised her right arm, mimicking the movements of the other soldiers. Looking sideways again, she noticed Xu Heng smiling at her across the crowd, his eyes gentle and serene.
After a moment, Wang Yuying smiled back, her heart completely calm.
Xu Heng's smile spread like ripples on water, then his expression turned serious, and he and his soldiers stormed into the main hall. Dozens of the Empress Dowager's private soldiers were guarding the entrance, and they immediately clashed.
Wang Yuying originally wanted to find the Empress Dowager, but when she looked into the hall, she suddenly saw a giant gilded Buddha that reached the sky, almost twice the size of the strongman from before. Although it had a dignified and solemn appearance with its head bowed, she was still so frightened that she began to feel dizzy again.
"Retreat, fire!" Jing Ye ordered.
The soldiers retreated, and the archers stepped forward to fire arrows. After they were all shot, a second wave of archers would come in, and so on. Wang Yuying calmed down for a while, and by keeping her eyelids down and looking straight ahead, she was fine.
She saw the rebels in the hall raising their shields to defend themselves, and they were finding it increasingly difficult. From time to time, glimpses of their hair and phoenix hairpins would appear behind those shields; it must be the Empress Dowager.
“Mother,” Xu Heng raised his hand, and the archers immediately put away their bows. The hall fell silent, but the number of arrows on the ground was no less than the number in the incense burner in the front courtyard.
The shield bearers inside the hall stood like a wall in front of the Empress Dowager, preventing Xu Heng and the others from seeing her face.
Xu Heng's voice was loud and clear, like the grandest of bells: "Mother, the Buddhist temple is a pure place, and it is not suitable to start a war. Rather than fighting each other and spilling blood before the Buddha, it would be better for you to lay down your arms and cease hostilities. I will continue to support you as before. A plain carriage and a phoenix palanquin are already prepared outside the temple to welcome Mother back to the palace!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Wang Yuying frowned slightly. There was no phoenix carriage outside the temple.
The rebels remained unmoved.
The Empress Dowager stood behind the shield, perfectly lucid. If she returned to the palace with the Emperor now, she would "die of illness" in less than three days, and then the Emperor would gain the good reputation he loved most.
The victor is king, the loser is villain. She felt that her chances of winning were always higher than Xu Heng's, so why did she lose? Just like that year when he seized the opportunity to ascend the throne.
She resented the injustice of fate, that heaven and earth would not lend her any help, and she also hated the passage of time, growing older and older. Her mind flashed quickly to the image of the young and untimely Crown Prince Huai, and that year when she, dressed in a feathered robe, danced by the Four Seas Pond, a dance that had captivated the late emperor, all the way to the Thousand Steps Corridor... No, she could not recall these things. Only when life is nearing its end and one acknowledges decline does one wallow in the past.
But she still has a chance of winning.
The sound of horses' hooves, like the beat of drums, came from afar and grew closer.
Xu Heng and Wang Yuying both stiffened and turned to look at the entrance of the hall.
The Empress Dowager smiled; the last reinforcements she had been waiting for had arrived.
Zheng Yangzhi led the crowd into the hall, and the first thing he did was look for the Taoist robe in the crowd. He was slightly relieved to see that Wang Yuying was still alive, but his heart was still clenched with worry because she was covered in blood all over her body, even on her face, and he didn't know how many wounds she had.
Zheng Yangzhi walked up to the emperor and knelt down directly: "Your Majesty, I, Zheng Yangzhi, am late in coming to your aid. Please forgive me!"
Behind the shield, the Empress Dowager was stunned, as if she had misheard. It wasn't until she heard the Emperor gently call Zheng Yangzhi by his courtesy name and ask him to be quiet that a chill ran down her spine.
The tide has turned.
Zheng Zi misled me!
The Empress Dowager actually shed tears. In this final moment, instead of cursing the Emperor and Zheng Yangzhi, those two ungrateful wretches, she thought of the late Emperor. Only after being dragged back from the Western Palace did she belatedly realize that the late Emperor who said, "Oh, you're even afraid of needles, so don't do needlework," the late Emperor who insisted on giving her an illegitimate child, the late Emperor who made all the decisions for her, was truly gone, gone for a long time, and could no longer protect her.
Therefore, she is no longer afraid of needles, and she cannot be escorted back to the palace to fulfill Xu Heng's wishes.
The Empress Dowager gave the order decisively, her voice not trembling: "Charge the Buddha!"
The rebels rushed towards the giant Buddha, which was about to topple over.
"Run!" Someone shouted first, and everyone rushed out of the main hall. Only Zheng Yangzhi ran against the flow towards Wang Yuying. Wang Yuying herself knew to run, and Jing Ye and Xu Heng protected her on either side. The four of them ran through the long corridor and retreated into the courtyard. Just then, the giant Buddha crashed down, crushing the Empress Dowager and all the rebels under it and flattening them instantly.
The main hall collapsed and crumbled at an extremely rapid pace.
Everyone turned around and witnessed this, remaining silent for a long time.
Unconsciously, Xu Heng turned to look at Wang Yuying on his right. In the setting sun, she was carrying a sword, and her originally plain white Taoist robe was almost bright red. He examined her face. Peach blossom faces are common in this world, but they are tasteless. However, a peach blossom face with a strong contrast and full of murderous aura is rare and unique.
Jing Ye was also watching Wang Yuying from the left. He thought she could be summed up in four words: heroic and dashing!
These are the words he knows! He can write all four characters!
Jingye was incredibly proud, but then he thought about how his companions were still around, and the young lady was still the young lady. He felt like he had really struck gold in his life, and he couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.
Zheng Yangzhi stood behind, squinting his phoenix eyes, peering at the red and white hue in front of the setting sun. In the mortal world, people of all temperaments and emotions, even the setting sun had to play second fiddle to her.
Wang Yuying had no reason to watch the sunset. So why was the Buddha so close? The Buddha's head, three times her height, hung on the steps, its eyes looking down directly at her.
It's too huge, it's terrifying.
She suddenly realized that the Buddha's head had broken off and was rolling towards her.
Perhaps because the rebels had been defeated and she had lost her last breath, Wang Yuying could no longer suppress her dizziness. Xu Heng, who was next to her, was the first to notice something was wrong—although he didn’t know why, her breathing was very short, which was a sign of her extreme tension. She had done the same thing in the corridor of the strongman earlier.
Xu Heng silently observed where Wang Yuying was glancing and noticed that she was looking everywhere except at the fallen Buddha head.
She's hiding from the Buddha's head!
Xu Heng examined the Buddha's head again. It was full, dignified, and had a smile on its face. There was nothing frightening about it, unless... it was a giant Buddha or a powerful warrior! What they had in common was their enormous size!
She's afraid of huge things!
"Don't be afraid, I'm here." Xu Heng comforted her gently, then decisively raised his hand to cover Wang Yuying's eyes. He instinctively placed his palm on Wang Yuying's skin as if they were husband and wife. Before he could even touch her, Wang Yuying quickly pulled away—not only did she tilt her face back and lean her upper body backward, but she also took two steps back.
Her intention to avoid being touched was so obvious it was almost exaggerated. Xu Heng's raised right arm froze in mid-air, his whole body paused, and then his eyes quickly dimmed.
Wang Yuying, looking up, was suddenly struck by the sight of the Buddha's head again. The dizziness, already intense like a raging torrent, was a result of her willpower building a protective barrier, temporarily trapping her within it. Now, the barrier collapsed, and the ferocious dragon and tiger roared as they pounced on her. Wang Yuying's vision went completely black, and she was thrown backward as if she had been knocked down. In the last vestiges of consciousness, she noticed two more embraces coming from behind her. She thought: Oh well, in this cold weather, I'm not picky about what I wear. In this moment of desperation, as long as it's not Xu Heng touching her, those two are temporarily acceptable...
Wang Yuying lost her five senses and completely lost control of her body.
Jing Ye and Zheng Yangzhi embraced each other, one looking upwards and the other kneeling downwards. Jing Ye was closer than Zheng Yangzhi and took a few steps ahead to embrace Wang Yuying.
The moment she stumbled into Jingye's arms, he instinctively held her tighter. Jingye had heard people say that if you miss someone too much, a day apart can feel like three autumns. He used to think it was an exaggeration, but now he realized it was true. He truly missed Wang Yuying, a longing different from the one he felt during the battle. This longing also contained a kind of desire unrelated to physical intimacy, a pure yearning to be close to her. Jingye pressed his chest tightly against Wang Yuying's back, his heart aching, and he couldn't help but nuzzle his chin against her shoulder.
"General Jing was eager to protect me and disregarded etiquette to lend a helping hand in this time of crisis. I am very pleased and will reward him handsomely." Xu Heng, who had come to his senses, spoke gently, but there was no warmth in his eyes when he looked at Jing Ye. He reached out to take Wang Yuying from him.
Jing Ye's statue embraced Wang Yuying, remaining motionless.
The setting sun was like blood, the emperor and his ministers faced each other, and the soldiers around them silently laid down their weapons and knelt on the ground.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
