Chapter Ninety: Setting Out for the South

Xi Menghe fled wounded, and the others began discussing how to deal with what came next.

Several hundred cavalry had by then surrounded the dozen or so men in black, and many were asking their leader what should be done.

“Brother, what now?”

Some, however, had no intention of leaving. Instead, they urged him to order a fight to the death.

“These savages don’t seem willing to let us go.”

“I fought these savages alongside the prince back in the day. Why should I be afraid of them now? Brother, why don’t we just go all in? Anyway, Lord Yang’s task has already been completed. This trip won’t be for nothing.”

“Just give the word, Brother. The dozen of us are not cowards afraid of death. If you want us to bow and scrape before these people, that will never happen in this lifetime.”

“Calm down, all of you.” The leader was remarkably steady. Step by step, he walked toward Su Bai. Even his measured approach made the deputy captain beside Su Bai tighten his grip on his curved saber.

At last he stopped seven or eight paces away from Su Bai. A deep voice came from beneath his mask. “Might I ask how Your Excellency intends to deal with us?”

Every eye turned to Su Bai. His next words would decide the fate of these dozen men, perhaps dozens, perhaps even his own life.

“If I let these men go so easily, these savages at my side will surely suspect me. But this man is no ordinary fighter. Now that he is so close to me, if I refuse outright, I will be putting myself in danger.”

Su Bai hesitated. Then, when his eyes happened to fall on Jiang Xixuan’s body, he suddenly asked the black-clad leader in Mandarin, “This Lord Yang you speak of—do you mean Yang Tingyu?”

“Hm?” The expressions of the black-clad men instantly stiffened. “Y-you... how do you know?”

“I have old ties with your Lord Yang. The face you see now is not my true one.” Seeing their reaction, Su Bai immediately confirmed his suspicion. “May I ask your honorable name?”

The black-clad man still chose to trust Su Bai. After all, someone who could guess the identity of the man behind him so easily could not possibly be some minor Mongol captain. “I am Lu Jun.”

Still, so they would not give themselves away before the others, he added a reminder: “Keep your expression under control. Don’t let these people realize we know each other.”

Over the years, Su Bai had become a master of keeping his face unreadable. Even the deputy captain beside him could not detect the slightest flaw.

Especially with that mocking, sneering look in his eyes, he made it seem as though even the nomads, though they did not understand Su Bai’s words, could “guess” what he had said.

Seeing Lu Jun’s look of anger, the deputy captain immediately drew his long blade, waiting for Su Bai to order the slaughter of these ignorant men.

As expected, Su Bai thundered in Mongolian, “Do it! Leave none alive!”

But before they could act, Lu Jun flicked a throwing dart from his hand straight toward Su Bai. The latter had no time to react, and the dart sank into his right chest.

“Commander!” The deputy captain’s gaze shot to Su Bai at once, worried something had gone wrong.

But that very concern kept his attention from staying fully on Lu Jun. In the blink of an eye, a figure darted forward like a streak of smoke.

A palm strike hit the deputy captain’s right arm, making him cry out and draw back. The next instant, a hand clamped onto Su Bai’s right shoulder, and with a backward flip the assailant hauled him down from his horse. At the same time, a dagger slid from the man’s sleeve and pressed across Su Bai’s throat.

“Wait!” the deputy captain barked at once, raising a hand to stop the others. “No one move!”

Then he narrowed his eyes, his voice full of menace. “I advise you to release Captain Su at once, or I will grind you to dust!”

Lu Jun naturally could not understand Mongolian, so he turned to Su Bai and asked, “What did he say?”

Su Bai looked utterly fearless. “He said to let me go. I suggest you obey. At the very least, it would leave your corpses intact.”

“Then let us see whether your men can even find you a proper grave,” Lu Jun replied. As he spoke, the dagger in his hand pressed a little closer to Su Bai’s throat.

That sent the deputy captain into a complete panic. Why was his commander taken hostage every single time? This was far too much for an underling to bear.

He had no choice but to speak quickly. “We can discuss this. Is it not just a matter of surviving? As long as you release my lord, I will let you leave at once.”

As he spoke, he kept shooting frantic looks at Su Bai, signaling him not to provoke the other side and to soften first; there would be time to talk later.

Su Bai put on a reluctant expression and translated the deputy captain’s words to Lu Jun with a sidelong glance.

“Very well. Then leave sixteen horses behind, and wait here for the time it takes a single stick of incense to burn. When the time is up, ride forward and you will see your lord.”

After speaking, Lu Jun jabbed Su Bai’s backside with his knee, signaling him to translate for the Mongol deputy captain.

After hearing the translation, the deputy captain lowered his head in thought. He had expected these men to agree at once, but instead they were bargaining.

“Even if I killed them, it would amount to only a minor merit,” he thought. “But if I can latch onto Captain Su, that would be a true opportunity for advancement.”

After weighing it all, he decided to let these men go.

He instructed the junior officer beside him, “Do as he says. We will wait here.”

“Yes!” the junior officer replied, bowing with clasped fists.

“Help me get her down,” Su Bai said quietly to Lu Jun.

Lu Jun did not even turn his head, only gave him a reassuring look. “No problem.”

When Gu Fanshuang saw Su Bai being taken away, she had just started to rise when someone struck a pressure point and immobilized her. She tried to speak, but not a sound would come out, so she could only give up.

She had heard very little of the conversation between Su Bai and Lu Jun, and so she was deeply worried for his safety.

Yet seeing how calm and composed Su Bai remained, her heart finally settled a little.

Sitting on his horse, the deputy captain watched the dozen men ride off so brazenly before him, and his mood was sour indeed. Still, thinking of the favor he might gain from his “superior” afterward, his emotions eased somewhat as he watched them grow distant.

The dozen men then spurred their horses hard all the way toward Qingzhou.

Su Bai suddenly halted and looked toward Gu Fanshuang. She had been laid across a horse, her acupoints sealed.

Feeling his gaze upon her, her little face flushed scarlet at once, for she was presently facing him with her rear, and the angle was rather awkward.

“What’s wrong, brother?” Lu Jun asked. He was deeply grateful to Su Bai, not only for helping him kill Jiang Xixuan, but also for helping him break free from the encirclement.

Su Bai did not answer. Instead, he placed a finger before his lips, signaling everyone not to speak.

Gu Fanshuang lifted an eyebrow, still puzzled. “What is he doing? Why has everyone around him stopped talking?”

On Su Bai’s side, he slowly removed the mask from his face, revealing that ferocious countenance to all present: several scars crisscrossed it, each two or three inches long, and none looked like wounds cut by a blade.

He then put away the nomad mask and replaced it with the face of Ming Li, the one he usually wore.

Only then did he signal for Gu Fanshuang’s acupoints to be released. The black-clad man was momentarily stunned; only after being reminded again did he hand Gu Fanshuang over to Su Bai.

The instant Gu Fanshuang saw that face she had thought of day and night, she threw herself into his arms, and Su Bai felt a dampness spreading against his chest.

To meet again at the very threshold of life and death—such feelings were truly impossible to suppress.

Su Bai smiled awkwardly and cupped his hands to everyone. “Gentlemen, until we meet again by fate. Do remember to send my regards to Uncle Yang when you return.”

Lu Jun knew they should probably give the couple some space under these circumstances, so he cupped his fists and thanked Su Bai. “Many thanks, brother, for helping us escape. May we meet again someday. Farewell.”

“Farewell,” everyone else echoed, cupping their hands as well.

The dozen horses surged off on the wind, raising clouds of dust. Su Bai rode toward the Qingzhou pass, while Gu Fanshuang leaned against his chest, occasionally looking up at him with a blissful smile.

Su Bai sighed helplessly. “Why have you been grinning like a fool the whole way? That hardly suits the eldest senior sister’s dignity.”

“Bleh, I don’t care.” Gu Fanshuang stuck out her tongue, then continued to hold his waist from the side, resting her head on his chest, her lips unable to keep from curving upward.

Seeing his helpless expression, she burst into laughter. “This time I really was close to losing you. When that old man caught me, I was genuinely startled. And it was you who tied me up yourself.”

Su Bai nodded. “Yes. I didn’t say a word at the time precisely so you wouldn’t recognize me right away. If that old man had realized we knew each other, we would have been finished.”

“I was wondering why that person was mute,” Gu Fanshuang teased as she raised her head.

“Get lost. You’re the mute one,” Su Bai said with a glare, not wanting to speak further.

“Hahaha!”

Then Su Bai grew serious. “What exactly was that woman’s role? Why were you with her?”

“Ah, that. Let me tell you properly,” Gu Fanshuang said, like an old storyteller under a bridge, deliberately drawing things out.

After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense...

“So that’s how it is...” Su Bai pieced together Gu Fanshuang’s account with his own deductions and had basically figured out the truth.

“So what exactly is how it is?” Gu Fanshuang asked, utterly confused by his look of sudden enlightenment.

But Su Bai could not tell her everything, so he brushed it off with a joke. “It means you, with that meddlesome heart of yours, had to go poking around in other people’s affairs and nearly got yourself trapped. If you can avoid getting involved in this sort of thing next time, then do your best not to. Understood?”

How could Gu Fanshuang fail to see the deep concern in his eyes? She trusted that Su Bai knew his limits and would never harm her.

So she did not press further, and instead joked just as he had. “Hmph, do you think I’m as heartless as you? I watched Jiang Xixuan have her neck twisted right in front of me. At the time I was truly afraid that the old bastard would kill me too.”

“Yes. And fortunately, you didn’t look at me a few more times then, or he would certainly have noticed something strange. Using you to threaten me not only let him retreat unharmed, but also allowed him to continue using my identity to search for whoever he wanted.”

Su Bai recalled the scene and knew there had been a fair bit of luck in it. He lowered his head to look at Gu Fanshuang’s face, gently stroking her with his left hand. “You’ve worked hard. You came all this way to find a useless man like me.”

Along the way, Su Bai had already told Gu Fanshuang everything about his sealed inner power.

Gu Fanshuang covered his mouth with her hand, her willow brows shooting upward as she scolded him angrily. “I came all this way to hear you say you’ve become worthless? Wake up and face reality.”

Su Bai froze. Looking at Gu Fanshuang before him, pointing at his nose and scolding him, he heard her say, “Even if you spend the rest of your life bedridden, you will still be unique in my heart. You are absolutely not allowed to say such discouraging things again. Understand?”

Su Bai met her gaze in silence for a long while. Then Gu Fanshuang bent a finger and tapped him on the forehead. “Answer me. Did you remember that?”

“Even if I wanted to forget, I never could.” Tears welled in Su Bai’s eyes. He clamped his legs around the horse’s belly, spread his arms, and pulled Gu Fanshuang tightly into his embrace. “Thank you.”

One moment she was staring at him in a daze, and the next he was holding her so tightly that Gu Fanshuang did not know what to do. “What’s wrong with you? What are you thanking me for? I’d been hoping I could come all the way to Bingzhou and help you somehow.

“In the end, I didn’t help at all. I only made you worry more. Just like the last mission we took, it still had to be you who made it work.”

Su Bai shook his head fiercely. “No. Without you, I couldn’t have done it at all.”

“What?” Gu Fanshuang was a little stunned. She truly had not done much.

Su Bai slowly loosened his embrace. As the moon rose, he said to Gu Fanshuang with deep feeling, “Thank you for appearing in my life. I am not yet a living corpse only because of you.”

A smile touched Gu Fanshuang’s lips. She pressed them together and said, “Then if you don’t want to become that, remember this: never leave my side.”

“I will never be able to leave you in this life. Never.” Su Bai spoke each word distinctly.

The pale moonlight spilled across the earth, and beneath its glow, a man and woman held each other gently. There were no heart-rending sobs, no vows sworn unto death—only an all-encompassing tenderness in the quiet of that moonlit night.

On the other side, the Mongol deputy captain had no such elegance. Looking at the empty plain, hatred surged in his heart like a tidal wave.

He was already certain that the supposed captain was a fake, and that from beginning to end he had been played for a fool.

But before his subordinates, he could not simply say he had been deceived. So he spoke with deliberate meaning to the junior officer. “The lord has already returned safely to camp. Let us go back as well.”

“Th... Then, sir, when did the captain say that?”

“I say he said it, so he said it!” The deputy captain had not expected his subordinate to undercut him like that, and he vented his anger directly on him. “If you want to look for the captain, then look properly. The rest of you come with me. You stay here and search inch by inch. If you do not find him, do not come back to see me!”