Chapter 72: Attack
Liangzhou.
A majestic pass perched high on the east side of the river led to the main city. With walls stretching nearly a thousand meters and several feet high, it guarded the main road to the Central Plains.
It was twilight, and smoke rose in spirals from within the city. The guards on the mountain pass yawned as they changed shifts. All of the sudden, they suddenly glimpsed dust flying up from the plains to the west and a dozen fast horses galloping in the dissipating twilight. They immediately dropped down in front of the watchtower and blew their bugle horns.
At the sound of the horn, the outer city gate opened and Chief Commandant Qin Fei, who had arrived in Liangzhou not long ago, stepped forward to welcome. Seeing the dying Li Xuanzhen on horseback, he shouted, “What’s going on?”
The Crown Prince’s personal soldiers rolled off their horses: “We were ambushed on our way back to the city!”
Qin Fei, torn with anxiety, picked up the pale Li Xuanzhen on his back and rushed into the hall: “Who were the people who ambushed you?”
A personal soldier shook his head: “We could not tell their background. They may have been the remnants of He clan’s army.”
The remnants of Liangzhou had not yet been eliminated. Although Yelu Khan had killed the chief of the He clan, the He clansmen were still lurking in the dark, waiting for the right moment.
The military doctor soon arrived. Several arrows had hit Li Xuanzhen and coupled with the galloping all night, the wound was a tragic sight. However, it was fortunate that the weather was cold so the wound had not yet festered, and the poison on the arrow was very common, not difficult to treat.
Qin Fei paused and said, “What was His Highness doing at the Yelu tribe for no reason?”
The Crown Prince was usually careful, but when he went mad, he lost his reason. For example, taking only a few of his personal soldiers with Yelu Khan to go to the Yelu tribe.
The soldier wiped his sweat and replied, “Yelu Khan’s adopted son, Bemutai, invited him, requesting that His Highness go to the Yelu tribe to observe the marriage ceremony. He also said he wanted to get drunk with His Highness, and His Highness could not refuse to go.”
Li Xuanzhen and Yelu Khan collaborated in combat, and during that period, Bemutai mentioned several times that the Khan would soon marry Princess Wenzhao. At first, Li Xuanzhen did not pay attention, but when Yelu Khan departed to return to his tribe, he suddenly changed his mind and agreed with Bemutai’s invitation to go.
Qin Fei’s eyebrows knitted: Could it be that because the Crown Prince had not witnessed Princess Wenzhao getting married, he deliberately went to observe the ceremony?
Didn’t the Crown Prince always hate Princess Wenzhao…
The military doctor had applied medicine to Li Xuanzhen’s injuries. Qin Fei was afraid an accident would occur during the night, and he kept watch by Li Xuanzhen’s bed, not daring to close his eyes.
In the middle of the night, Li Xuanzhen developed a high fever and spouted lots of nonsense.
Qin Fei wrung a handkerchief to wipe Li Xuanzhen’s face and heard his mouth shouting something over and over again. He froze for a moment, shock coloring his face. The handkerchief fell into the copper basin, water splashing all around.
Li Xuanzhen abruptly straightened up on the couch and sat up. His hair was hanging down, eyes bloodshot, bare back muscles riddled with scars, seeming exactly like a malicious spirit.
Qin Fei was startled.
Li Xuanzhen tumbled off the couch barefoot and stumbled out of the house.
“I do not regret it!” In the quiet night, his voice sounded like a desperate shout, “I have no regrets!”
Qin Fei came back to his senses, grabbed the clothes hung over the screen, and followed him down with a thud, “Your Highness!”
Li Xuanzhen’s upper body was bare, his long hair was scattered, wearing only a thin pair of pants. He stepped barefoot through the ankle-deep snow, pounced on a soldier on night duty, pulling him off his horse. He turned over and climbed on, squeezed the horse’s belly, and ran out in the snow!
Qin Fei was so anxious that he stomped his foot and grabbed a horse to follow him.
Li Xuanzhen rode out of the gatehouse and headed straight to the west.
The northern wind was bone-chilling. Qin Fei, riding on the horse, was shivering from the cold, yet Li Xuanzhen was wearing no clothes but galloped like nothing was amiss. His long hair was tangled by the wind, his flesh was frozen until it was blue. He looked as if he was insane.
Qin Fei urged his horse forward, catching up with Li Xuanzhen, and reached out to control his reins. When Li Xuanzhen’s horse slowed down, he promptly flew forward and rolled off the horse with Li Xuanzhen in his arms.
With a few thumps, Li Xuanzhen tumbled off his horse.
He laid on his back on the cold snow, looking at the bright moon hanging high in the night sky, his mad look seeming to have eased off.
“Ah Yue…” he reached out and grabbed at the cold air, blood spilling from the wound on his back, “Why are you Xie Manyuan’s daughter?”
…
In the third month of that year, when the springtime bamboo shoots were raging and the willows drooping from the delicate orioles, he was as badly wounded as he was now.
The military doctor told him that only the miracle doctor in Chibi could cure his injuries.
Li Xuanzhen disguised himself as a Southern Chu person seeking medical help and went to Chibi alone. He arrived at the pier, the boat slowly docked, and a young girl on the shore looked over with a smile.
The young girl was not very old, fair and carved from jade, delicate and bright. Standing there in the wind, smiling, her eyes were like shining crescent moons.
For a moment, Li Xuanzhen felt in a trance, feeling a sense of déjà vu seeing the young girl in front of him.
Obviously, it was their first time meeting, but he inwardly had a feeling of closeness to the girl.
It was like walking alone in the snowy night and suddenly seeing a flickering fire, a pot of gurgling and boiling soup porridge, warmth filling your cold and stiff limbs.
Li Xuanzhen has never had that feeling. His heart felt strange, but his face did not show it, and he went to the miracle doctor’s house for treatment.
The next day, a sky of rain fell unceasingly over Chibi. His injuries worsened, and he could not get up, lying on the porch outside the doctor’s house, drenched.
In his drowsy state, a pair of white hands reached over, helped him up, and dragged him into the promenade to take shelter from the rain. They brought a bowl of scalding medicine to his lips and fed him.
Li Xuanzhen’s consciousness was going in and out until two days later when he was completely awake.
The young girl he had seen on the pier was playing cuju under the veranda. Seeing that he was awake, she tossed the cuju with a beautiful kick and approached with matching dimples on her cheeks, “Brother, you’re awake!”
She brought medicine to Li Xuanzhen every day, and seeing that he was all alone and pitiful, she would occasionally share some food with him.
It was not until a month later that Li Xuanzhen asked her, “What is your name?”
The young girl smiled lightly: “My name is Ah Yue.”
Li Xuanzhen repeated it several times and thought in his heart, this name really suited her: clear as the bright moon.
Ah Yue asked Li Xuanzhen, “What is Brother’s name?”
“My surname is Yang.” Li Xuanzhen thought for a moment, “Yang Changsheng.”
Yang was his made-up surname.
Changsheng Nu was the name given to him by Tang Ying.
He had thought that with his mother gone, no one would ever call him that again. Yet, when the young girl smiled and called him Changsheng gege, he suddenly felt that perhaps he would not always be alone in this life.