Chapter 14 - So it’s you (2/2)

Bai Jiu didn’t get angry. He looked at me, dumbfounded. “Why hasn’t your temper changed at all after all these years of imprisonment?”

I ignored the both of them. “I saved you, you saved me. We’re now even. Let’s part ways here. I need to go find Moxi.” I was about to go when I suddenly remembered that Moxi had honored him as his master. My brain took a turn and I came to have a general grasp of what was going on. “It’s fine that you asked Moxi to help you fight your battles and win the kingdom for you. But after that, please let Moxi go. I do not want to have to see betrayal and perfidy happening to Moxi. The boy is good-hearted, he will be sad.”

Bai Jiu made no answer. Chang’an suddenly asked me, “Sansheng, is Moxi the reincarnation of…”

I glanced back to Chang’an and said, “Yes, but that belongs to the past.”

Not wishing to waste more words, I recited an incantation and went directly to Rongshan.

At the foothill of Rongshan was a fortress called Rongcheng – built on the mountainside and surrounded by steep cliffs. It was easily defensible and difficult to attack, but once the fortress was captured, it’d be fairly easy to charge into the capital. Rongcheng was hence the court’s last stronghold of the Imperial City. This poison the water source in Rongcheng, or light fire on their granary, or something similar.

By the time I got to Rongshan, however, I hadn’t the need to do any of these things.

The armies had engaged.

I searched for his shadow from above the chaotic battlefield. He could not speak, so how did he give orders in battles?

While I was on pins and needles, a small voice slowly traveled, belonging to only a few people at first, then expanding to dozens, hundreds, and thousands, and finally all of the rebel soldiers chanted:

“The fortress keeper has been beheaded!”

“The fortress keeper has been beheaded!”

The riotous battlefield momentarily quieted down in solemnity. All eyes slowly converged at one spot. I naturally also turned to look that way.

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Mountain winds suddenly picked up, sending flowers on Rongshan raining across my ears and down to the battlefield, drifting to that man in waves.

He was carrying a decapitated head sitting on horseback. The distance was too far for me to see his face. I only saw sunlight bouncing off of his cold sword, so blindingly that my eyes began to tear.

It was Moxi!

I hadn’t expected this separation would last two long decades.

You’ve become a brave general who proudly stands above thousands.

I’d left you for so long. Did you resent me?

Suddenly, I perceived a flash out of the corner of my eye. A sharp arrow was flying straight for Moxi who was on horseback. I panicked. A beam of dark energy instantaneously followed the arrow, and at the moment the arrow almost pierced into Moxi’s chest, it sliced the arrow shaft in half. But because the arrowhead still had momentum, it grazed Moxi’s face despite having swerved off its original track, and then plunged into the ground behind him.

Everything happened in a split second. I anxiously kept my eyes peeled to see

whether he was hurt anywhere or not.

He also made a sudden upward gaze as he stared in my direction. I knew it was too far for him to see me clearly, but I had a strange feeling that he did and that he knew I was Sansheng.

The soldiers reacted and promptly surrounded Moxi in a circle.

I could see Moxi even less clearly now, causing me to burn with anxiousness. The troops around Moxi all of a sudden dispersed as he tossed the decapitated head in his hand to a soldier nearby, then lightly trod on horseback and swiftly flew toward where I was.

This time, I was sure he saw me.

I turned around and left the rock cliff. I daydreamed about the place I would be reuniting with Moxi. It should be a wonderful place complete with falling petals, amid which he would hug me and I would hug him, calling his name over and over again. We’d then develop that inexplicable urge to do a bit of those ooh ooh ah ah things and finally go find a place to properly take care of that urge.

Yes! It’d be a fairy tale come true!

Unfortunately, it was difficult for us to get in the mood for those ooh ooh ah ah things by the time Moxi found me, the reason being that right before he saw me, I had stepped onto a snare the hunters had left in the mountains.

Snap. My ankle was clamped tightly. It couldn’t have wounded me for real, but it did hurt quite badly.

While I was near tears and accusing Heaven of being blind, a figure besmirched in the bloodiness of battle swiftly walked over. I still couldn’t make out his face for he was lowering his head to carefully remove the snare for me. Afterwards, he rolled my trousers up to check whether the injury had reached my bones.

The large and warm hands that were holding my ankles trembled slightly, as if they were tensed, as if they were excited, but also as if they were abashed.

“Moxi!”

He stiffened. Without any decorum, I removed his helmet for him. I cupped his cheeks and slowly lifted his face.

Gazing at his blood-stained face, I didn’t expect to see eyes so eternally transparent even after his shares of battles and intrigues. I sighed: “You’re grown now so this must be embarrassing for you, but Sansheng really can’t wait anymore. What am I going to do?”

He didn’t know what I was going on about.

The moment my lips inched near, his eyes abruptly widened. I sighed inwardly, but still placed a kiss onto his lips in the end.

“Moxi, Moxi…” I clung onto his neck, rubbing my cheek onto his temple whispering:

“I miss you so much, Sansheng misses you.”

His body went as rigid as iron. Even more rigid was his neck, refusing to tilt toward me for even half an inch. It was too tiring to cling onto him so I simply let him go, choosing to stare at him with a smile instead. “I’ve come for you, so why do you still have this look on your face?”

He slightly recovered at these words. My reflection gradually took form in his eyes.

He slowly raised his hand, as if he couldn’t believe he could touch my cheek. I beamed at him, letting his rough fingers slowly graze my face – my eyes, my nose, my lips, over and over again as if to test whether the one standing in front of him was real and alive.

Finally, he hugged me with shaking hands, a long sigh drifting into my ears – a sigh that finally dispelled all the grief and sorrow of parting we had kept buried. I reckoned even if he could speak, he’d still only sigh in my ear right now.

Because we had been separated for too long, there was too much to say that our time was better used in embracing.

Unsurprisingly, he brought me back to the camp.

The use of a spell would have easily fixed the wound on my foot, but I had chanted to make it look even worse. When he saw that the bleeding couldn’t be stopped, the crease in Moxi’s brow had deepened. He transferred me onto his back and headed straightaway for the camp.

I reveled in the feeling of being so deeply cared for.

I received countless salutes from the soldiers while I was on his back. What they saw wasn’t a man carrying a woman, but rather a fairy carrying a witch, their eyeballs nearly popping out from their sockets.

I had never cared about how others saw me, but Moxi was afraid that these rough men would give me a hard time. His expression frosted up as he slowly swept his eyes across them. Instantaneously, everyone around us withdrew his gaze.

Amid the warmth in my heart, I pressed even closer to Moxi.

When we got to the main tent, I lifted aside the curtain for him and promptly saw a woman sitting inside.

A woman…

“Moxi,” I felt my mind leaving me. “Did you get married in the time I was away?” I sadly asked.