Chapter 77:
The soldiers below the city were strong and well-mounted, their offensive growing fiercer. The defenders on the city wall began to falter, with soldiers continuously climbing up, the fighting becoming increasingly intense.
Lu Ping glared furiously and bellowed, “Lu Ziyan, back when you first joined the army, you were a deputy general under my command. For the sake of the Old Marquis, I took good care of you. And now, do you really want to force me into a desperate situation!”
Below the city, Lu Ziyan, mounted on his Treasure Horse, heard this and gave a cold smile.
Ming Feng, at his side, tightened the reins, steadied his breath, and shouted loudly, “Deputy Lu, open the city gate and surrender now, and the General will not force you into desperation.”
“What a joke! If I surrender now and am captured and taken back to the Capital City, how could I keep my life!” Lu Ping burst into laughter, suddenly drew his Precious Saber from his waist, chopped off a soldier’s head, and drank its blood directly.
Fresh hot blood flowed down his short beard, the gurgling swallowing sounds making the generals and soldiers beside him shiver with fear.
They had taken many lives with their hands, but they had never seen anyone drink human blood raw like this.
As expected of someone with half Qiang Tribe blood.
The city gate was extremely high, but Lu Ziyan’s eyesight was excellent, allowing him to see the scene on the gate tower clearly.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he extended his palm toward those behind him.
Ming Feng handed over the heavy bow.
On the gate tower, after Lu Ping finished drinking his fill, he casually tossed aside the head in his hand. Then a sharp whistling sound rang out. His face changed drastically as he hurriedly dodged to the side, but he was still pierced through the shoulder bone by the arrow.
With the leader injured, the gate tower immediately fell into chaos.
Lu Ping’s shoulder was hit by the arrow, but it was not life-threatening. He quickly stabilized the situation, but in that short time, more and more attacking soldiers had climbed onto the city wall.
Amid the bloody slaughter, the sun gradually sank in the west. After attacking the city gate for several hours, it was finally breached.
Lu Ping drew his saber to take his own life but was captured by Ming Feng.
Cheers erupted around them, crashing like waves, deafening.
As Lu Ziyan was ordering the cleanup of the battlefield, a black shadow suddenly descended rapidly from the sky.
“It’s Yun Jin.”
With that, Ming Feng hurried over. The black Eagle landed on his shoulder, with a sealed Bamboo Tube hanging from its neck. He stroked Yun Jin’s head, removed the Bamboo Tube, opened it, and presented the letter with both hands bowed.
Lu Ziyan handed his Spear to the deputy general, took the letter, and his dark eyes fell upon it…
Then, in front of the many deputy generals, his expression changed drastically. The gaze that had shown no change over two days of attacking the city suddenly filled with fury. He bellowed, “Ben Yun!”
The pitch-black warhorse heard its master’s call and came charging from somewhere. Lu Ziyan flipped onto its back, left instructions to return to the Capital City first and leave all matters to Ming Feng, then galloped away.
The other deputy generals watched this young, famously cold-faced Killing God depart in a hurry, all showing fear on their faces.
They feared something had happened in the Capital City.
Fortunately, Ming Feng was Lu Ziyan’s trusted beloved general with considerable prestige in the military camp. With Lu Ziyan absent, he could hold things together for a short time. Moreover, with the city gate breached and Lu Ping captured, the mission was accomplished.
He only needed to stay behind to clean up the battlefield, stabilize the situation, and escort Lu Ping back to the Capital City.
Ming Feng was a retainer of the Lu Family, like Ming Jian, having followed Lu Ziyan since childhood. He knew that anything that could make his master panic like this was no small matter.
Either something had happened to one of the Madams, or…
………..
In September’s sky, the scorching heat of midsummer had not yet fully dissipated. Xie Wanning feared the heat, so the Ice Urn in the room was still in use.
At dawn, the young lady on the canopy bed frowned tightly, thin sweat beading on her forehead. She slept extremely restlessly. Suddenly, she sat up abruptly and cried out softly, “No.”
Er Qing, who had been keeping vigil outside, was startled by the sound. She pushed open the door, went around the screen, and asked with concern, “Young Lady had another nightmare?”
Clearly, these past few months, there had been none…
“It’s fine,” Xie Wanning clutched her chest and slowly shook her head. “It’s not the previous dream.”
She took a deep breath and, seeing the gray light outside the window, said, “You go back to sleep for a bit. I’ll rest by myself.”
Her face did not look good. Er Qing worriedly said, “Young Lady should rest too. Tomorrow is your Wedding Day. If you don’t get enough rest, you won’t look pretty.”
Xie Wanning hummed in agreement, lay back down, and closed her eyes to feign sleep.
Only after Er Qing left and the door was closed again did she open her eyes once more.
She had actually dreamed of Lu Ziyan.
After more than two months without seeing him, Xie Wanning had actually thought of him very little. Her reality was stable; nothing couldn’t be smoothed over.
The fright he had brought her, the anger from his relentless entanglement… and her past passionate pursuit of him.
She rarely thought of them anymore, yet on the eve of her marriage, she dreamed of him again…
Unlike that previous dream.
The Lu Ziyan in the dream was not the famously youthful Marquis Lu who had risen smoothly in officialdom, basking in success.
He…
Xie Wanning pursed her lips, unsure what this dream meant.
They say thoughts by day lead to dreams by night, but she had no such thoughts, yet she dreamed of Lu Ziyan bedridden and gravely ill, in a state of Excessive Grief.
His face still looked young, but his hair was entirely gray, with scarcely any black strands left. His deep, inscrutable eyes were now dull and lifeless, without a trace of vitality.
No matter what state the Lu Ziyan in the dream was in, it wouldn’t shock Xie Wanning, but his room…
In front of his bed hung a piece of her old clothes that she had worn.
A piece she hadn’t worn yet in reality, but had worn several times in those previous dreams after marrying him.
The wind blew the empty clothes, making for a chilling sight, yet the Lu Ziyan in the dream kept staring at that garment.
That gaze made Xie Wanning feel a chill down her spine even recalling it now.
Was this dream as real as those previous ones?
The aftermath after she spat blood and died?
Xie Wanning’s heart trembled faintly.
No, the him in the dream clearly liked Liu Manrou, was cold and ruthless to her, his heart entirely on Liu Manrou.
He doted on Liu Manrou, took her from Concubine to take her as a Concubine, and finally made her Second Wife as an Equal Wife, trampling the face of Xie Wanning, the principal wife, into the dirt.
He even called her a wicked woman. Knowing she had only two accustomed Maidservants, he took Er Xia and ordered Er Qing beaten to death.
She was driven to death by him—how could he grieve excessively over her death?
But no matter how Xie Wanning thought about it, that gaze of Lu Ziyan in the dream was firmly etched in her mind, unforgettable.
When she broke off the engagement, Lu Ziyan had said he had only ever liked one young lady: her.
…So was everything in that dream an illusion?
No no no!
Xie Wanning sat up again. She had already verified that the dreams were real.
Liu Manrou’s face, her pregnancy—all had appeared in the dreams first.
People she had never met appeared in the dreams before reality. Doesn’t that prove the dreams’ reality?
As for why Lu Ziyan became like that…
One more chapter, a tiny bit late
