Chasing Jade (Zhu Yu)

The scent of blood, damp earth, and the acrid burn of pine resin torches filled the rain-soaked air.

Sui Yuanqing charged through the ranks of the Yanzhou Army with Changning in tow, his long spear sweeping soldiers aside with the momentum of his horse. Changning's face was splattered with blood, her cries hoarse from screaming.

Sui Yuanqing's own face was streaked with blood, yet he grinned wildly, even teasing Changning in the midst of battle: "Kid, if your old man doesn’t have the guts to come save you, you might as well stay at my Changxin Prince Manor. My nephew seems to like you—you’d make a decent little maid for him..."

With a thrust of his spear, he knocked another Yanzhou general from his horse. Just as he moved to finish the man, a halberd suddenly slashed in from the side, deflecting his spear before sweeping horizontally toward him. Sui Yuanqing barely managed to block with the shaft of his weapon, but the force still sent him and his horse stumbling back two steps before he regained his footing.

He raised his eyes to meet the halberd’s owner, lips curling in a taunting smirk. "I thought the esteemed Marquis was too noble to show himself."

The drizzle had now turned into a downpour. Xie Zheng stood motionless in the rain, lightning fracturing the black sky behind him. His soaked cloak dripped water down his horse’s flanks, the halberd slung across his back, its blade still slick with blood. His cold phoenix eyes fixed on Sui Yuanqing, offering no reply.

Noticing the blood on the halberd’s edge, Sui Yuanqing glanced down at his own arm—sure enough, a gash had been opened. The rainwater soaking his clothes seeped into the wound, sending sharp pain radiating through him.

His brow furrowed. Damn, he’s fast.

Xie Zheng sneered. "Taking a child onto the battlefield—how bold of you, Sui Shizi ."

Sui Yuanqing’s expression darkened at the jab, but he wasted no time engaging further. Wheeling his horse around, he spurred it back toward his own lines with Changning in tow.

Dazed by the night’s carnage and the darkness, Changning hadn’t recognized Xie Zheng until she heard his voice. As Sui Yuanqing galloped away with her, she suddenly burst into loud sobs. "Brother-in-law—!"

Perched precariously on the saddle in front of Sui Yuanqing, she twisted her small body to look back, her swollen eyes still streaming tears.

Sui Yuanqing shoved the nearly-falling child back into place, his expression turning oddly strained. "What did you just call him?"

Now that Xie Zheng was here, Changning found her courage. Glaring at her captor with puffy eyes, she spat, "My brother-in-law will make you pay!"

Sui Yuanqing looked as if he’d seen a ghost. "So you’re not even his daughter?"

The moment Xie Zheng heard Changning’s cries, he urged his horse forward in pursuit. His lieutenant, scrambling up from the ground, called out, "Marquis, it could be a trap!"

Xie Zheng narrowed his eyes at Sui Yuanqing’s retreating figure, then signaled only a few personal guards to follow. "Hold your position here. Do not pursue."

With that, he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and gave chase.

The lieutenant opened his mouth to protest, but Xie Zheng was already gone, his black cloak slicing through the cold wind like a blade.

Arrows whistled past Sui Yuanqing’s scalp in the darkness, forcing him to duck low to evade the relentless white-feathered shafts. Memories of being hunted down in Qingping County resurfaced, filling him with bitter humiliation.Changning was pressed tightly against the horse's back by him. Knowing that someone had come to rescue her, she mustered all her strength to resist Sui Yuanqing, either pulling his hair or biting the hand that held the reins.

A sharp pain shot through the back of his hand, and Sui Yuanqing hissed lightly. With his other hand, he pinched Changning’s cheeks between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to release her bite, then coldly threatened, “If you don’t know what’s good for you, I’ll throw you off this horse right now and let the hooves trample you to death!”

Changning’s cheeks ached from his grip, and tears welled up uncontrollably in her eyes.

Seeing her subdued, Sui Yuanqing withdrew his hand. As he and the Chongzhou cavalry zigzagged to evade the arrows behind them, he weighed in his mind whether this little girl in his grasp—who wasn’t even Xie Zheng’s daughter—was truly worth the immense risk he was taking to save her.

Their original plan had been to use the child as bait to lure Xie Zheng into an ambush. Even if they couldn’t kill him, they’d at least make him suffer.

But the bait hadn’t been as heavy as he’d anticipated, yet Xie Zheng had still taken it. A sense of foreboding suddenly gripped Sui Yuanqing.

Where had his calculations gone wrong?

From what he knew of Xie Zheng, the man shouldn’t be one to act on impulse.

His father’s rebellion hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. The seeds of resentment toward the imperial family had been sown years ago when the Grand Princess Consort died in the Eastern Palace.

His father believed the fire that had claimed the Grand Princess Consort and her son was the emperor’s warning to him. To protect himself, he had spent the past decade biding his time.

To deal with Wei Yan, they first had to break the sharp blade in his hand. From the moment Xie Zheng rose to fame, his father had groomed Sui Yuanqing to be the one to defeat him.

Military strategy emphasized knowing both oneself and the enemy. Everything Xie Zheng had learned, Sui Yuanqing had studied in turn. Every battle Xie Zheng had won, his father’s strategists had analyzed with him repeatedly, searching for weaknesses and devising counter-tactics.

Having spent years replicating everything Xie Zheng had done, Sui Yuanqing sometimes felt as if he had become Xie Zheng’s shadow.

Apart from Xie Zheng himself, no one in this world should understand him better than Sui Yuanqing.

If it had been the child of that woman, Xie Zheng’s pride might have driven him to take such a risk.

But merely her sister? For men like them, it simply wasn’t worth gambling the lives of thousands of soldiers.

Could it be… that he had overestimated Xie Zheng after all?

Lost in thought, Sui Yuanqing was jolted back to reality when his horse took an arrow to the foreleg. The steed whinnied in pain and, driven by momentum, began to collapse forward. His expression darkened as he swiftly grabbed Changning with one hand and used his spear to vault onto another cavalryman’s horse, narrowly avoiding being thrown to the ground with his mount.

Xie Zheng had already caught up. He reined his horse to a halt in the middle of the road, blocking Sui Yuanqing and his personal guards. With one hand lightly holding the reins and the other tilting his halberd at an angle, he regarded Sui Yuanqing with an amused glint in his eyes and remarked casually, “It seems the Young Prince of Sui didn’t learn his lesson last time. How forgetful.”

A thunderclap boomed overhead, and the flash of lightning carved out the sharp contours of Xie Zheng’s face, the cold darkness of night stretching behind him.

Though he stood alone against over a dozen Chongzhou riders, the sheer pressure he exuded left the cavalrymen struggling to breathe.Sui Yuanqing was also provoked by these words, nearly unable to suppress the anger in his eyes, but he quickly regained his composure and smirked, "They say the Marquis's horsemanship and archery are extraordinary. For Sui to experience it twice is indeed an honor, isn't it?"

The personal guards who had followed Xie Zheng finally caught up, blocking Sui Yuanqing's retreat path.

Sui Yuanqing showed no panic. He tilted his head slightly and asked Xie Zheng with a smile, "Sui had thought the Marquis was not the type to treat soldiers' lives as trivial. Yet, to save this child, the Marquis is willing to spare no expense."

As he spoke, he stroked Changning's rain-soaked hair, as if petting a small animal.

This was a blatant attempt to sow discord, aiming to stir discontent among Xie Zheng's troops.

Xie Zheng only countered, "Is this spring rain heavy?"

The downpour intensified, large raindrops hammering the ground, carving small pits in the mud under the firelight.

At first, Sui Yuanqing didn’t understand why Xie Zheng suddenly mentioned the rain. When realization struck, his expression darkened abruptly. The thought that the fifty thousand troops besieging Lu City might perish in this spring flood made a vein bulge at his temple, his eyes simmering with restrained fury. He raised his spear and pointed it at Xie Zheng, "You knew this was a trap all along? Borrowing twenty thousand troops from Jizhou was also a lie?"

Xie Zheng neither confirmed nor denied.

Sui Yuanqing glared at him, teeth clenched, then suddenly burst into laughter. "Fine! If the battle for Lu City is lost, so be it. Capturing you would bring far greater satisfaction than taking Lu City and marching straight to Jizhou!"

He lifted Changning from the saddle and sneered, "The Marquis's schemes are unmatched. Sui admits defeat. In that case, there’s no need to spare this child’s life."

With that, he tossed Changning into the air and thrust his spear upward.

Changning let out a short, terrified scream. Xie Zheng's eyes turned icy as he deflected Sui Yuanqing's weapon with his halberd, then leaped from his horse to catch Changning. Seizing the moment, Sui Yuanqing angled his spear beneath Xie Zheng’s armor, stabbing into his side.

Without the armor’s protection, the spear tip pierced flesh, likely hitting bone—Sui Yuanqing felt the resistance clearly.

Everything happened in an instant. Xie Zheng, still holding Changning with one arm, spotted a personal guard approaching and hurled the child toward him. With his other hand, he pressed down on the spear shaft, using its black-gold tip to pry open his own chest armor. Once back on his horse, he swung the halberd at Sui Yuanqing.

Sui Yuanqing, startled, pushed off the saddle with one hand, vaulting into the air to evade the strike. But he hadn’t anticipated Xie Zheng using the halberd to pole-vault into a mid-air kick aimed squarely at his chest.

The impact shattered ribs. Excruciating pain exploded in his chest, and the metallic taste of blood filled his throat.

Instinctively, he tried to rise, but the halberd’s blade was already at his throat.

The rain was too heavy, the pain too blinding—he couldn’t make out Xie Zheng’s expression at that moment.

But Sui Yuanqing knew with absolute clarity: he had lost, utterly and completely.

With his capture, the Chongzhou cavalry dared not act recklessly. Soon, Yanzhou riders arrived to bind Sui Yuanqing.

Xie Zheng looked down at him and ordered, "Take him back."

Sui Yuanqing’s personal guards watched helplessly as he was led away, too afraid to intervene. One of them, unnoticed by Xie Zheng’s men, mounted a horse and raced back to deliver the news.

Xie Zheng commanded several guards, "Head for First Line Gorge at once."Initially, there was concern about luring Prince Changxin's army into the canyon, but capturing Sui Yuanqing alive proved to be even more effective than using himself as bait.

The group rode back on horseback, with Xie Zheng sitting upright in the saddle, though his lips were faintly pale. Blood continuously seeped from his sleeve onto the hand gripping his halberd, trickling down his wrist and dripping from the blade.

The maroon inner robe successfully concealed the color of the blood, and the heavy rain masked the scent, so his personal guards had yet to notice his condition.

Changning sat on the horse of one of the guards, initially stunned by fear. Once she regained her composure, she couldn't hold back her sobs, incoherently calling out for "Elder Sister" and "Brother-in-law" in turns.

Xie Zheng glanced at her and, remembering they would pass through the battlefield littered with corpses on the way back, ordered his personal guard, "Cover her eyes."