Chapter 70 Meet Lu Tingwan, Come Back with Me
"Bai Tu's holding Lu Tingwan hostage shouldn't just be a bargaining chip." Cheng Xianzhi was thinking.
"Bai Tu, give me the lighter and take Xie Zhao away." Lu Tingwan said with difficulty.
Bai Tu used up all his energy. Lu Tingwan raised his right arm and shot an arrow steadily under the blind spot. Bai Tu felt the pain in his leg and loosened his grip a little.
Lu Tingwan managed to break free. Xie Zhao stepped forward to support Bai Tu, then turned and shouted to Lu Tingwan, "Jiang Yanli, come this way."
But she didn't, and found the right moment to snatch the lighter from Xie Zhao's hand.
Seeing this, Bai Tu used up his last bit of strength to push Xie Zhao away and aimed his crossbow at Lu Tingwan.
"Jiang Yanli, Baita Village was destroyed tonight because of you. I want you to pay for your life!"
Lu Tingwan stood still and raised the lighter.
"Bai Tu, how dare you!" Xie Zhao didn't dare to step forward, for fear of angering Bai Tu who had lost his mind.
The crossbow was aimed at Lu Tingwan's heart.
"Xie Zhao, Bai Tu, if you still refuse to repent, I will flatten the entire Qingyao Mountain and capture you all in one fell swoop."
"See, this is your true face, Jiang Yanli, do you still want us to surrender?" Bai Tu said.
Lu Tingwan retreated step by step, with a cliff behind him and a white map in front of him. Cheng Xianzhi's army was on the left.
"Lu Tingwan, come here." At this moment, Cheng Xianzhi stretched out his hand.
Lu Tingwan looked at him. The plot against her was suffocating her. She retreated step by step. In despair, she seemed to see someone clearly. The voice passed through the maple forest like a gentle breeze.
"Jiang Yanli! Come here." It was Luo Yunchu's voice.
Three months ago, he made friends with people from the Tanzhou Chamber of Commerce at the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce. He heard that a batch of facial cleansing creams in Qingfeng County were very popular, and that the Tanzhou Chamber of Commerce intended to increase the production of the facial cleansing creams and sell them to Kyoto to open up trade routes.
After understanding the ins and outs of this cleansing cream, he suddenly felt that this product, sales methods and Lu Tingwan were closely related.
From the news about Lu Tingwan that I had heard before, he had disappeared quietly in Tanzhou.
For this purpose, he came to Tanzhou and, with the introduction of the Chamber of Commerce, found the shop where the cleansing cream was originally sold. He looked for clues from it, and after several twists and turns, he became more certain that Lu Tingwan was in Qingyao Mountain.
Hearing that Cheng Xianzhi led his troops to attack the mountain, he followed the traces of the army going up the mountain and saw this scene of confrontation.
Lu Tingwan wasn't sure whether it was reality or an illusion. After just one glance, she took the lighter and jumped towards the cliff.
"Lu Tingwan!" Cheng Xianzhi lost his composure.
"Jiang Yanli!" Luo Yunchu and Xie Zhao shouted together.
With a whoosh sound.
Lu Tingwan was hit by the arrow as Bai Tu's arrow left the crossbow.
The short arrow pierced through the chest.
"Lu Tingwan..." The moment Cheng Xianzhi broke away, Han Zhou's hidden weapon flew over and pierced Bai Tu's throat. A stream of hot blood gushed out, and the longbow in Xie Zhao's hand slowly fell.
Luo Yunchu also rushed out.
At the moment she fell, she looked at the scenery on the cliff. The cold moon and the breeze came, they broke into the long night and then tore the long night into pieces.
She gazed into the distance, a thousand-foot-deep cliff below her, the darkness swallowing everything. She murmured softly, "The wind and the moon are beautiful, but the long night is almost over."
Xie Zhao covered Bai Tu's throat, and blood oozed out from between his fingers, which he couldn't stop at all. The army's spears were placed behind the two of them, and Xie Zhao knelt dejectedly beside Bai Tu.
"Bai Tu, you, you hold on..." Xie Zhao's face looked ugly, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"A Zhao, I, I can't leave. You, you must, must go out..." Bai Tu slowly raised his hand and shook it lightly.
Xie Zhao stretched out his arm, held it tightly, and gestured as if he was making a big comeback every time.
"I promised you that I would not let you down, but Bai Tu... I'm sorry..." Xie Zhao fell into grief and regret.
He advised Lu Tingwan that he couldn't save everyone, so what about him?
Bai Tu died in front of him, and Cheng Xianzhi caught Lu Tingwan at the last moment, just a little bit, just a little bit.
By dawn, the army had regrouped and returned to their tents, leaving Xie Zhao and the others in custody. The villagers had also restricted their access to the mountain, but Cheng Xianzhi wouldn't make it too difficult for them. Once he understood what they wanted to know, he would naturally make appropriate arrangements.
The arrow that hit Lu Tingwan did not hit any vital parts. The military doctor had just left the tent when Cheng Xianzhi sat on the edge of the military bed, thinking for a long time.
The person on the couch moved his hands slightly and spoke incoherently. Cheng Xianzhi looked over and saw that he was still unconscious and was just talking nonsense.
He couldn't hear clearly either. He smoothed a strand of messy hair on her forehead with his fingertips, staring at the long-lost, pale and colorless face, and fell into deep thought.
After noon, Lu Tingwan woke up. She lay on the couch, unable to move. The pain in her body reminded her of the dispute last night.
Her throat was extremely dry, and gradually the moon-like outline came closer and entered her eyes.
She called out his name silently: "Cheng, Cheng Xianzhi..."
"Awake." Cheng Xianzhi's expression was indifferent, with an unclear emotion between his brows. He was probably like this, never showing his emotions.
"Where is this?"
"Military camp."
"Where's Xie Zhao? Where are the people from Baita Village?"
Lu Tingwan tried to stand up, and Cheng Xianzhi stepped forward to support her, letting her lean on the soft pillow.
Before she could catch her breath, a cup of hot tea was handed to her.
"Thank...thank you very much..." She was a little afraid to look at him, her eyes were wandering and evasive.
Cheng Xianzhi just looked at her and asked bluntly, "I called you over, why didn't you run to me?"
"What?" Lu Tingwan tried hard to recall what happened last night. He did call out at that time, and there was another person, but that person only appeared before she was shot by the arrow. Maybe it was an illusion.
"If you think I can't be trusted, then why didn't you go over when Luo Yunchu called you?"
"Luo Yunchu?" Only when Lu Tingwan heard the name from his mouth did she confirm that what she saw was real.
Rather than wondering why Luo Yunchu was here, she wanted to know more about the situation of Xie Zhao and the others.
"Cheng Xianzhi," Lu Tingwan's voice was filled with tears, his eyes full of helplessness, "Xie Zhao and the others, are they dead, dead?"
She was afraid, afraid that their heads would be hung on the city walls.
He remained silent.
Lu Tingwan felt even more uneasy. A mist gathered in her eyes like a river. Her eyelashes trembled slightly, and tears immediately flowed from the corners of her eyes. Her heart felt like it was being pressed down by a huge rock, so heavy that she couldn't breathe. It became increasingly difficult to stop crying, and it gradually turned into sobbing.
Cheng Xianzhi said helplessly, "Not dead."
"Hmm?" Her sobs stopped abruptly, and her eyes were filled with questions. She suppressed her emotions, "So, what are you going to do?"
"You didn't respond to any of my questions. Wait until you answer my questions before you talk to me about Baita Village." His tone was still unquestionable.
Lu Tingwan nodded while sobbing.
Seeing her agree, Cheng Xianzhi asked.
"Why did you leave Kyoto alone?"
Lu Tingwan slowly raised her eyes, her eyes showing traces of tears, her tears still wet: "I went to Gongsun Mansion to look for you, didn't you send someone to send me away, telling me not to embarrass myself in Gongsun Mansion?"
He doesn't know about this!
Since she said so, there must be something wrong. She must have been sent by a servant from the Minister of the Central Secretariat.
If she clearly stated her identity and asked for a meeting, the servants would not dare to offend her without the master's permission. There was only one possibility, that Gongsun Xue was conveying the message in his name.
"How did you get into Baita Village?"
"Bai Tu, Bai Tu kidnapped me to the mountain..."
"do what?"
"What are you doing?" Lu Tingwan's two hands were tangling together on the quilt, feeling extremely uneasy.
"Why did Bai Tu only take you up the mountain?"
Lu Tingwan described the situation at that time to him, and also told him about how she later joined the bandits and was taken down the mountain by Xie Zhao to rob people.
"Did you carve the mark at the entrance to the mountain path to leave a way out for yourself?" He searched for the answer he wanted according to his own logic, one sentence at a time, as if he was interrogating a prisoner.
And at this moment, she is indeed an accomplice of the criminal.
"How did you know?" Lu Tingwan asked helplessly. In just a moment, she figured it out. Cheng Xianzhi went up the mountain along the marks she had carved.
"You, you are! It was because you saw the goose-shaped mark that you were sure that it was the mark I left behind, so you let the army attack the mountain?" It turned out that Bai Tu was not wrong to blame her.
"I didn't kill Boren, but Boren died because of me..." She was almost mocking herself.
"Even without your mark, I can still attack the mountain. It's just a matter of time." Cheng Xianzhi stood up and walked under the candlelight, picking up the arm crossbow that Xie Zhao gave her.
"This crossbow, was it made by Xie Zhao?"
"Yeah." Lu Tingwan reluctantly lifted the blanket. The wound on her chest would be stretched if she moved even slightly. "Cheng Xianzhi, you'll let them go, right?"
"My purpose in sending troops to suppress the bandits this time is to persuade them to surrender. Xie Zhao and others have excellent organizational skills, as well as the ability to create weapons that are not available in Kyoto. I am willing to surrender and spare their lives, but our horses' hooves trampled through his residence and forced his brothers into a desperate situation. Do you think he is willing to serve me?" He let go of his crossbow and his gaze fell back on her.
The body under the middle garment was thin and petite, but the plumpness that should be there was faintly visible, and finally her eyes glanced away.
Lu Tingwan was not sure that if Bai Tu died, Xie Zhao would feel guilty and would probably hate Cheng Xianzhi even more, let alone surrender.
"Lu Tingwan, you haven't changed." Cheng Xianzhi said with a faint smile, but Lu Tingwan didn't think it was a compliment.
"What if I can convince Xie Zhao?"
"I will protect the lives of everyone in Baita Village." Cheng Xianzhi's eyes darkened.
"Okay." Lu Tingwan had something else on her mind, so she took something out of her hairpin. "Meeting in Tanzhou this time is a good opportunity to complete what we couldn't do in Kyoto."
Cheng Xianzhi didn't see where she took out the divorce papers. Does this person always carry the divorce papers with them?
"It's time to fulfill the promise you made to me." Lu Tingwan handed it to him.
Cheng Xianzhi sat down sternly and took the divorce letter, which was the same one he had seen before. There was an identical stain on the pen mark on it, which was accidentally rubbed by Lu Tingwan when she wrote the divorce letter.
"A divorce letter?" The color of her thin lips was just right, and the corners of her lips never drooped again.
A ball of warm flame burned, and the divorce letter turned into ashes in an instant.
"Cheng Xianzhi, you!" Lu Tingwan's chest heaved. He tried to take it back but pulled the wound. He watched the divorce letter burn to ashes before his eyes.
"It's not the right time yet." He remained calm.
"You tease me time and time again, is it fun? At the beginning, you agreed to sign the divorce papers for me, why don't you keep your promise now?" Lu Tingwan's only remaining hope was shattered again.
"Because you are still valuable now," Cheng Xianzhi tapped the wooden table with his fingertips, shaking off the ashes, "Come back to Kyoto with me."
"Impossible!" Lu Tingwan refused without hesitation.
"Then kill Xie Zhao!" Cheng Xianzi's eyes were sharp, he was not joking.
"Cheng Xianzhi, you," Lu Tingwan glared, his once clear and bright eyes now red, and snorted coldly, "despicable."
“I never consider myself a good person.”
"Lu Tingwan, you have no choice but to come back with me."
"What happens after that? What purpose do you need to fulfill in order to let me go?"
Cheng Xianzhi said coldly, "Convince Xie Zhao to surrender, and then we can discuss your departure or stay."
"Take me to him!"
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