Chapter 36: Defying Frost and Standing Proud against the Snow
In the vast sea of sand, a single horse trudged along, carrying two people.
Qi Xiao held the reins with one hand and wrapped the other around Fu Yunzhi, reaching out from time to time to touch his forehead.
“The fever seems to have gone down.”
Fu Yunzhi didn’t feel much like talking.
“Wifey,” Qi Xiao said with a drooping face, “you were the one who seduced me that day. You’re not allowed to be angry now.”
“…” Seduced?!
Fu Yunzhi was so angry he couldn’t speak.
Although he had been the one to initiate it that day, who was the one who had run up the stairs with such loud footsteps, taken off his outer robe, and stared at him with hungry eyes? That fervent gaze was like a starving man who hadn’t eaten in ten days looking at a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast. He couldn’t bear to watch any longer, so he had given his consent.
Who knew this person would take a mile when given an inch? He didn’t even want to count how many times they had done it. And afterward, when he was carried to be cleaned up, they had done it again in the bathtub. After it was all over, Fu Yunzhi felt like he was about to fall apart. And even now, a certain indescribable part was still aching, made even more uncomfortable by the jolting of the horse.
“Once a month,” Fu Yunzhi said through gritted teeth.
“Once every two days!”
“Once a month!” Fu Yunzhi was firm.
“How about two days?” Qi Xiao said pitifully. “I’ll be frustrated if it’s a month. What will you do if I become impotent?”
“You’ll become impotent from not doing that for a month?” Fu Yunzhi said fiercely. “Then how did you survive for the past ten-plus years? Did your thing just grow yesterday?!”
“I had my hands.”
Fu Yunzhi sneered. “Are your hands broken now?”
Qi Xiao was even more aggrieved and shouted, “Wifey! You’re here with me, and you’re still telling me to use my hands? Am I less important than your hands? You’d rather let my hands keep me company…”
Annoyed by his shouting, Fu Yunzhi reached out and covered his mouth. After a moment of silence, he said, “Qi Xiao, you weren’t like this before.”
Were you always this much of a rogue and so hard to deal with?
Give me back my pure and honest, silly general!
Qi Xiao also fell silent. After a long time, he said, “Yunzhi, you weren’t like this before either.”
“What about me?”
“You’re much more unrestrained now,” Qi Xiao said shyly.
But I like it, he thought.
Fu Yunzhi raised his hand and gave him a critical hit.
“Hiss… Wifey, can you not aim for the vital parts when you hit me…” Qi Xiao clutched his chest, grimacing in pain. It’s either my head or my ribs. You always hit the mark. Aren’t you afraid of killing your husband?
“If you don’t call me wifey, I won’t hit you,” Fu Yunzhi smiled.
“That’s my principle, I will never… ugh!”
The two of them bickered and played all the way. Although the journey was long, it didn’t feel that way to them.
This journey really is long…
On the other side, Rong Feijun looked at the seemingly endless sea of sand, forcing himself to endure the discomfort and continue forward.
Wulanbaer was amazed. It was less than half a day to the imperial city, and for the past few days, Rong Feijun had not uttered a single complaint, holding on until they reached their destination.
What kind of person is he…
Wulanbaer looked at his pale face and his hands, which were bleeding from gripping the reins so tightly in endurance. He felt a strange feeling in his heart. As for what it was, he couldn’t say.
A city gate made of sand and stone appeared at the end of the horizon. Rong Feijun breathed a sigh of relief.
His visit was originally supposed to be private, but now that the ambush by Sheng Luo had made it known to the world, Wulanbaer had simply had the people of the Shahan capital come out to welcome them.
“Karong! Karong!” The people of Shahan, upon seeing their king, all knelt and shouted his title excitedly.
“Lana,” Wulanbaer said, looking at Rong Feijun with a smile.
Seeing the people on both sides of the road echoing the cry, shouting “Lana,” Rong Feijun couldn’t help but ask curiously, “What does that mean?”
Riding behind him, Mo Yan explained, “This general has been here before. ‘Lana’ means honored guest.”
“The poison in the Emperor’s body cannot be delayed any longer,” Wulanbaer said to Mo Yan. “I will take him to the Sacred Spring immediately. You lead the troops and follow my deputy to the military camp near the palace to rest.”
Mo Yan frowned. Leave the Emperor alone with the King of Shahan? The situation was unclear, and all the countries were coveting the world. He didn’t know if this King of Shahan could be trusted.
He turned to look at Rong Feijun, waiting for his instructions.
“It’s fine,” Rong Feijun said. “The Shadow Guards are still with me.”
Mo Yan seemed uneasy but could find no reason to object, and he didn’t dare to disobey the Emperor. His wrinkled face reminded Wulanbaer of the vegetables grown at the oasis; their leaves were just like that.
One couldn’t blame him for thinking of vegetable leaves. After all, fruits and vegetables were particularly rare in the desert. Every night before he went to sleep, Wulanbaer would think about how to get his people more fresh and delicious vegetables.
He couldn’t help but shake his head inwardly. The people around Rong Feijun are all like this. Even if he does something that harms himself, they don’t dare to disobey. Otherwise, how could this poison have been delayed for so long?
“Commander Mo, don’t look so glum,” Rong Feijun smiled. “I’ll be right back.” With that, he and Wulanbaer left together.
Wulanbaer led him to the west side of the city. What came into view was a towering shrine. It had at least a hundred steps, and Rong Feijun had to crane his neck to see its true form. It was ancient and solemn, built of earthy yellow sand and stone, its walls covered in the marks of wind and sand, marks that were visible even from this distance.
“The Sacred Spring is inside the shrine,” Wulanbaer said. “We need to go up.”
Rong Feijun looked at the seemingly endless steps and couldn’t help but say, “These steps… are very high.”
“Nine hundred and ninety-nine of them.” With that, Wulanbaer crossed his arms and looked at him, not speaking, just waiting for him to continue.
Rong Feijun looked at the dense steps, his heart a little panicked. Can I… really walk up?
He looked around. It was just him and Wulanbaer here.
He took a deep breath and said, pretending to be nonchalant, “I can’t walk up.”
Wulanbaer saw the fleeting embarrassment and apprehension in his eyes and smiled silently, squatting down.
“Get on.”
Rong Feijun looked at the broad back presented to him and, after a moment of hesitation, climbed on.
It seems… this is the only way.
It’s better than being carried up in a sedan chair.
Wulanbaer climbed the steps one by one. Rong Feijun leaned against his furry robe; it was very comfortable. The soft outer robe, combined with the swaying motion, made him feel very sleepy.
After enduring the long journey and the discomfort of his body, he was already at his limit, so his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
Seeing him blinking to stay awake, Wulanbaer said, “Tired? Want to sleep for a while?”
Rong Feijun shook his head.
After that, neither of them spoke again. Rong Feijun felt the atmosphere was particularly strange. The King of Shahan carrying the King of Langxuan was also very strange. No, or rather, their interaction had been strange from the very beginning…
He felt that their relationship shouldn’t be like this. Perhaps the poison in his body had changed this pattern.
The atmosphere was quiet, so Wulanbaer said, “Shall I tell you a joke, Your Majesty?”
“…”
“This shrine is the sacred place of Shahan,” Wulanbaer said. “All sacrifices and ceremonies are held here, including weddings. When a Shahan man gets married, the groom, with the blessings of his friends and family, will carry the bride up the steps of the shrine one by one to pray for Tataliya’s blessing. It also means that the two will be able to avoid the nine hundred and ninety-nine disasters in their lives. Oh, I should add, we Shahan people believe that a person will encounter nine hundred and ninety-nine disasters in their lifetime. This custom, isn’t it just like what we’re doing now, hahaha.”
Rong Feijun: “…”
That’s not funny.
Not funny at all.
And it makes the atmosphere even more awkward.
Rong Feijun closed his eyes and decided it was better to just sleep. The King of Shahan couldn’t possibly assassinate him while he was asleep. Even if he did, there were still the Shadow Guards.
After a while, Wulanbaer heard the even breathing by his ear and felt like laughing. So this is what it takes to get you to sleep? Although he hadn’t been lying. It was true that Shahan people got married like this.
Tsk tsk, why do I feel like I’m taming a cat.
However, cats were much harder to tame than those “wolves.” At least he could conquer the wolves with force, but not cats.
Speaking of which, not long after Rong Feijun and his party arrived at the Shahan capital, Shen Linye and Qi Xiao’s men also arrived. Rong Feijun’s group had been ambushed multiple times, while Shen Linye’s group had had a smooth journey with no obstacles, so they had arrived on the same day, just one in the morning and the other at midnight.
And what about Qi Xiao and Fu Yunzhi?
“How many more days do we have to travel?” Fu Yunzhi asked, taking a sip of water.
“Three days, I think.”
“That’s good,” Fu Yunzhi said. “There’s nothing but yellow sand everywhere. I’m tired of looking at you.”
“But I’m not tired of looking at you,” Qi Xiao immediately said fawningly.
“Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful.”
Fu Yunzhi smiled with satisfaction. Seeing him smile so happily, Qi Xiao thought, Isn’t it just a routine? For years, as long as he said Fu Yunzhi was beautiful, he would immediately be happy. It was more magical than any panacea! As a result, his brain no longer needed to function to immediately come up with a bunch of lines praising his wifey’s beauty.
“Wait,” Fu Yunzhi frowned. “Don’t you smell it?”
“You smell the blood too?” Qi Xiao said.
He had noticed the rusty iron smell in the air early on, but thinking that a battle between Langxuan and Sheng Luo, and later with Shahan, had taken place here, he hadn’t paid much attention. There was always bloodshed in war.
Fu Yunzhi also thought of this, so he didn’t dwell on it.
The two continued forward, but they found a person on the road ahead. The person was covered in blood and lay motionless on the sand.
“Mmm…”
A barely audible moan came from the person. Fu Yunzhi and Qi Xiao exchanged a look. Still alive?
They dismounted and walked over to check.
Up close, they saw that the person’s arm had been severed. Blood was gushing from the wound, staining their white robes red. Their face was pale, and their body was twitching, likely due to excessive blood loss.
Fu Yunzhi frowned. He couldn’t just leave them to die. He took out the spare wound medicine and bandages from his bag, intending to stop the bleeding.
“I’ll do it,” Qi Xiao said, taking the bandages.
He had spent years on the battlefield, so he was very skilled at basic first aid and bandaging.
While Qi Xiao was treating the wound, Fu Yunzhi carefully observed the person.
He’s quite handsome, he thought. His features were regular, and he had a gentle and scholarly air. The fabric of his clothes was expensive, and he looked like the child of a wealthy family. He just didn’t know why he would be injured here.
Fu Yunzhi squatted down and searched the person’s sash, finding a piece of jade. It was a milky-white, top-grade Hetian jade, with the character “Zhuo” carved on it.
The person’s wound had been exposed to the wind and sand and was already infected. Qi Xiao took out a flask of water to clean it. Seeing Fu Yunzhi looking so intently, he asked, “Did you find anything?”
Fu Yunzhi fiddled with the jade pendant. “Judging by the material and carving, this jade is from the Junce Kingdom.”
“You’re saying this person is from Junce?”
Now that he mentioned it, the more Qi Xiao looked, the more he felt the person was from Junce, with the unique features of their people.
“If he’s from Junce, why would he be here?” Qi Xiao said. “Junce and Shahan are separated by several countries.”
Fu Yunzhi shrugged.
Who cares. We’ll know when we’ve treated him and he wakes up.
