I'm a little sad.
Following the vague clues provided by Gui Luo and the intermittent hoofprints on the ground, Tang Qi and his men tracked the horses to a secluded grove by a stream. Sure enough, Deng Ning and his remaining few dozen soldiers were there, exhausted and tending to their wounds, trying to catch their breath.
The two sides met face to face without exchanging even a polite word.
"Denning!" Ye Qian spoke first, his voice hoarse. He was already frail, and now, gripping the reins tightly, his fingers were bloodless. "Where is my sister?!"
Deng Ning slowly stood up, a twisted smugness on his face, as if he particularly enjoyed the anxiety and anger in the other person's eyes. He glanced at Ye Qian's bloodless face and deliberately dragged out his words, "Young Master Ye, you dared to chase after me with your physique? What a touching display of brotherly and sisterly affection."
Tang Qi frowned, interrupting Ye Qian coldly before Ye Qian could reply: "Instead of worrying about others, you should weigh your own situation first." His voice wasn't loud, but the sarcasm in his words was palpable, instantly crushing Deng Ning's feigned composure. "Gui Luo has already been defeated; don't expect any reinforcements. When you colluded with Nan Zhou, betraying Jue City and Shuo Dynasty, did you ever imagine this day would come?"
Deng Ning's face twitched, then he let out a hoarse laugh: "Just because I lost, does that mean you can definitely win?" He looked around at Tang Qi and the others, his eyes filled with madness and resentment. "Don't dream about it. My today is your tomorrow!"
"Enough with the nonsense!" Shen Zhiqing sat steadily on her horse, her voice cold and firm. She looked at Deng Ning and said, "Your defeat is inevitable. Hand over Ye Jin, and we might consider leaving you a whole corpse."
But Deng Ning's smile became even more cruel. He chuckled and finally fixed his gaze on Ye Qian, whose face was deathly pale: "What a pity. You came so late, and she's too stubborn to listen to reason, so I had no choice but to send her on her way."
Ye Qian felt a buzzing sound in his ears and his vision went black. He quickly gripped the saddle tightly, and the familiar dull pain in his chest surged up again.
"You... what did you say!" Ye Qian's voice trembled with disbelief, his eyes filled with pain and horror.
Tang Qi's heart sank. He immediately spurred his horse closer to Ye Qian, feeling the man beside him trembling uncontrollably. Deng Ning still wore that smug and cruel expression. Tang Qi almost forgot to breathe, a fear he had never felt before gripping his heart.
"Ye Qian," Deng Ning seemed particularly pleased with their reaction, and continued in that light tone, "You don't know what she was like before she died, do you? Do you want me to tell you?"
His gaze swept over the faces in front of him, and his tone became increasingly arrogant: "Actually, your sister's death was not worth it at all. In fact, she didn't have to die at all. I just asked her for something, but unfortunately, she was too ungrateful."
"Shut up!"
Tang Qi roared, not wanting to hear another word from him, and raised his sword to leap off his horse. But before he could move, Deng Ning's voice came again: "She's very stubborn, but she's soft on the inside."
His smile was cruel: "So, I used a knife to slice her flesh piece by piece."
"Crack!" A bone-breaking sound rang out, and a soldier who was protecting Deng Ning was sent flying like a tattered sack, crashing into a rock and falling still without a sound.
It was Hu Xingche. The bowstring in his hand was still trembling; the arrow he had just fired had pierced the throat of the guard. His fists were clenched so tightly they cracked, and his eyes were fixed on Deng Ning.
The man opposite showed no sign of stopping; he was still laughing: "One hundred and thirty-six cuts. I stabbed her a full one hundred and thirty-six times."
Several more arrows flew, and all the remaining men around Deng Ning fell down, leaving only him standing in the middle, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, yet still staring intently at them, his tone full of cruelty: "Actually, there should have been more."
He opened his arms, a regretful expression on his face, as if he had missed a good show: "It's a pity she couldn't hold on."
These words were like the final spark, burning away the last vestige of reason in Tang Qi's mind.
He didn't roar like Hu Xingche, nor did he rush forward immediately. But the hand gripping the sword hilt had completely lost its color, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged out.
Tang Qi slowly raised her head. Her eyes, which were usually bright and sparkling, were now empty, filled only with a deathly stillness.
The gaze fell on Deng Ning, causing the laughter of those who were sneer to suddenly catch in their throats.
"You said..." Tang Qi began, his voice unusually calm: "One hundred and thirty-six cuts?"
Deng Ning, barely managing to hold on, spat out a mouthful of blood, his face revealing an even more arrogant expression: "What? You want to avenge her? Come on! Let me tell you, she may be tough, but in the end, she's still like—"
Before he could finish speaking, Tang Qi moved.
The warhorse beneath him let out a short neigh, and he pounced out like a shadow. Deng Ning's pupils shrank sharply as he desperately raised his knife to block.
The moment Deng Ning's knife collided with Tang Qi's longsword, it shattered into several pieces in the middle. Behind him, Hu Xingche, in coordination with Tang Qi, fired several arrows in quick succession.
"Pfft!" Deng Ning spat out a mouthful of blood and flew backward, crashing heavily into a large tree behind him.
He collapsed to the ground, his right arm hanging limply, all the bones shattered. He didn't know how many ribs were broken in his chest, and the pain made his vision blur. But he raised his head, looking at Tang Qi walking towards him step by step. Far from being afraid, he grinned, his bloodied mouth taunting, "Ha—getting impatient already? I haven't even told you her last—"
Tang Qi didn't speak, but raised his hand and waved.
"Ugh!" A piece of flesh was sliced off Deng Ning's left knee, and blood immediately gushed out. He groaned, cold sweat pouring down his forehead, but he kept saying, "Yes! That's how! I cut her flesh off bit by bit like this."
"Second strike." Tang Qi's voice was completely calm. The sword flashed again, and the bone was exposed on his right knee as well.
Deng Ning was in so much pain that his whole body was convulsing, but he still gritted his teeth and laughed intermittently: "What you're doing now is... no different from what I did back then!"
The sword flashed again and again, each time slicing off a piece of flesh from Deng Ning's body.
Shoulders, arms, back... blood quickly turned him into a blood-soaked figure.
Hu Xingche turned his head away, unable to bear to look any longer.
Shen Zhiqing covered his mouth tightly, his hand gripping Ye Qian's trembling violently. The person beside him was shaking so badly that it felt as if every sword was cutting into his own body.
Deng Ning's breath grew weaker and weaker, the excruciating pain contorting his face, but he never begged for mercy. He looked at Tang Qi, his eyes filled with malice and a twisted pleasure: "Do you know? She didn't even utter a sound of pain before she died. She bled to death, for that secret, to protect those who had been dead for so long, she bled to death in the end!"
He coughed up blood while laughing, his voice growing softer and softer, yet like a leech, it burrowed into everyone's ears: "So stupid, hahahahaha, so stupid! She's not in pain, how could she not be in pain!"
Tang Qi finally stopped. He stood in front of Deng Ning, looking at his enemy who was on the verge of death but still smiling. He slowly raised his sword, the tip pointing at Deng Ning's heart.
Deng Ning looked at him, and with her last bit of strength, forced a hideous smile. Her voice was weak but clear: "Remember how I look now... She died... in a way that was only worse than this, hahahaha... hahaha... ha."
Tang Qi flicked his wrist, and the longsword pierced down without hesitation.
"Pfft."
The sword tip pierced his heart, and Deng Ning's body stiffened abruptly before going completely limp. The defiant, twisted smile on his face froze, his eyes remaining wide open, staring blankly at the sky.
Tang Qi slowly withdrew his sword, blood dripping slowly from its blade. He stared at Deng Ning's corpse, his face expressionless, devoid of either the satisfaction of revenge or a sense of relief, only a heavy numbness.
He turned around and saw Ye Qian staring blankly at Deng Ning's corpse, his eyes wide open, his face devoid of color. Shen Zhiqing supported him, her own face streaked with tears. Hu Xingche lowered his head, looking at the bloodstains on the ground, remaining silent.
The revenge has been taken. Deng Ning is dead.
But no one spoke.
The air was thick with the stench of blood and a suffocating oppression. Dunning's dying words pierced everyone's hearts like knives.
He killed Deng Ning and avenged himself, but he wasn't happy at all.
Deng Ning was right; Ye Jin was exactly the same person he was before he died.
He killed Deng Ning in the same way. Every stab, every sword, and even every moment of Deng Ning's pain told him what Ye Jin had experienced before his death.
She said she felt no pain after 136 cuts.
Tang Qi finally knelt down and began to vomit next to Deng Ning's body.
Pain and nausea surged up at the same time, and Tang Qi could no longer see anything in front of her, as if her entire stomach was about to be vomited up.
Ye Qian behind him didn't react, still staring blankly ahead.
Hu Xingche walked to Ye Qian's side, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder, but his movements were somewhat stiff. In the end, he simply said in a deep voice, "It's over, Young Master Ye."
Just then, Gui Luo and Li Pingfeng, both wearing blue ghost masks, emerged from the shadows of the woods. They looked at Deng Ning's corpse, then at the silent crowd.
Gui Luo's gaze fell on Shen Zhiqing, who seemed relatively normal. His voice behind the mask was calm and even: "He wasn't with the people leading the troops in Nanzhou. It took me a while to find him. By the time I got there, the person you wanted was already dead."
Tang Qi raised his eyes to meet his gaze. He took a deep breath of the air, thick with the smell of blood, and tried to suppress the nausea rising in his heart.
"Where is she?" His voice was hoarse, almost hoarse: "Where is she?"
Gui Luo's gaze swept over the group, his voice unusually tinged with emotion: "It's better not to go see her. Let's bury her here."
The unspoken meaning couldn't be clearer.
"Next spring, this place will be lush and green."
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