The mountain wind rustled the leaves in the treetops. The man before her lowered his head slightly, his gaze fixed on her. They were barely half a foot apart, so close that the sound of each other's breathing was clearly audible as they spoke.
Fan Changyu looked at the man, whose eyes and brows exuded a vicious aura, and instinctively sensed danger. The force with which he gripped her shoulder was immense. She tried to struggle, but not only did she fail to break free, he gripped her even tighter, making her bones ache faintly.
She frowned. "What nonsense are you talking about?"
Xie Zheng asked her in a frigid voice, "Aren't you heading to Jizhou to join the army?"
Fan Changyu said, "I am going to join the army, but it's not what you think."
Xie Zheng was so furious he laughed. "Not what you think? Then why were you afraid of me finding out, leaving without a single word?"
Fan Changyu looked at his fierce, bloodshot eyes, and a sliver of guilt rose in her heart. Leaving without saying goodbye was indeed a lapse in judgment on her part, but there were some things she truly didn't know how to bring up to his face.
She pressed her lips together slightly and said, "I'm sorry."
Looking at this girl who was always so honest she couldn't even tell a lie, Xie Zheng, for a fleeting moment, had the urge to strangle her. The hand gripping her shoulder was trembling. His face somewhat contorted, he pulled her into his embrace, not wanting her to see the even more savage and terrifying look in his eyes.
He practically ground out through his teeth, "Fan Changyu, you should have stabbed me twice before you left, wounded me so badly I couldn't get out of bed."
Black rage churned in his chest. The deep-seated terror that felt as if he were the only person left in the world drilled out from the cracks in his bones, seeping into his flesh and blood bit by bit, causing the arms holding her to spasm uncontrollably.
What pride, what fortitude—it all shattered like thin ice under the sun.
Why was she so unwilling to be with him?
Why did everyone abandon him?
That woman back then, and now her too.
He was resolving all the obstacles she thought stood between them.
But she still didn't want him!
He had carved out his entire heart for her, and she had cast it aside with disdain!
For an instant, Xie Zheng felt as if he were no longer himself, because he couldn't control his own body. He saw himself lower his head and, through her clothes, bite down viciously on Fan Changyu's shoulder.
Fan Changyu cried out with a muffled grunt of pain, but his teeth only clenched tighter. A bloody tint spread through his phoenix eyes, and his arms locked around the person in his embrace, not loosening in the slightest no matter how she struggled, like a wild wolf biting into its dying prey.
Fan Changyu cursed through the pain, "Are you insane?"
The man biting her finally let go. His lips were stained with blood, yet his face was somewhat pale. He lowered his eyes to look at her and murmured, "Fan Changyu, why can't you just love me?"
The words were less a question and more a plea.
A light breeze stirred the messy strands of hair falling across his forehead.
In that moment, the expression on his face was one of unprecedented vulnerability.
The anger on Fan Changyu's face froze. The Xie Zheng in her memory had always been proud. When had he ever looked so humbled, as if brought down to the dust? Her heart softened, and she sighed. "How could I not love you?"
She raised a hand to stroke his hair, her gaze gentle yet firm. "If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have come looking for you. I wouldn't be so afraid you'd die that I'd go to the battlefield in your place."
As her hand rested on the crown of his head, the vicious aura around him dissipated by more than half. He stared at her blankly for a moment, then the corners of his lips curved in a self-deprecating smile. "The person you love is the Yan Zheng you imagined."
Fan Changyu hadn't expected him to suddenly get stuck on this point. She said, "When you were Yan Zheng, I loved you. Now that you're Xie Zheng, I love you too."
"When you had nothing, I would have slaughtered pigs to support you. Now that you're far more capable than I am, I'm also learning to become stronger, which is why I'm going to join the army."
Xie Zheng was completely stunned. His dark eyes stared at her blankly. His raven-like eyelashes were dark and curled, looking fluffy in the sunlight. His coolly refined and exquisite face actually revealed a hint of docility.
He was like a child who had never been given candy and, upon suddenly receiving a piece one day, reacted not with joy, but with stunned bewilderment.
After a long moment, he looked at her appraisingly and said, "Are you just trying to placate me?"
Fan Changyu was exasperated, but seeing him like this, she couldn't help but feel a pang of heartache.
She had always thought he was a child of fortune who could have anything he wanted. But at this moment, she suddenly felt that what he possessed was pitifully little.
That was why losing anything felt like it was being brutally stripped from his flesh and blood, enough to make him lose half his life.
She said, "I'm not placating you. I'm just telling you that I love you too, regardless of whether you're Yan Zheng or Xie Zheng."
"I rejected you before because I felt we wouldn't have a good outcome together. When you were Yan Zheng, all we had to worry about was daily necessities. But you could earn silver by copying books and writing eight-legged essays, and I could earn money by slaughtering and selling pork. Whatever difficulties we encountered, we could support each other and overcome them."
"But now that you're the Wu'an Marquis, I don't know how to help you with any difficulty you face. I don't understand what you're busy with or what you're worried about. My mother said that for a husband and wife to last a lifetime, they must be considerate and supportive of each other. Most of those who become resentful couples have already worn away their past affection before they can finish a lifetime of accommodation."
"I wanted to make a clean break, but then you told me we would watch the sunrise at Yan Mountain and go hunting in Huizhou together. You were afraid I'd be bullied, so you asked Old Mr. Tao to accept me as his goddaughter. I'm not made of stone. I feel sad and reluctant to part, too."
"I don't know if I'll regret choosing this path in the future, but at least for now, I'm willing to take the gamble."
She looked at him with a serious expression. "I will become the same kind of person as you and stand with you, open and proud."
The sun was high in the sky, yet not a single ray of light reflected in Xie Zheng's pitch-black eyes. They only mirrored Fan Changyu's silhouette, like a pool of thick ink about to swallow her whole.
He pulled her forcefully into his arms, his voice deep and hoarse. "No matter what status you have when you're with me, it is always open and proud."
Fan Changyu said, "What I'm seeking is the confidence to walk alongside you forever. This confidence doesn't lie in the depth of your feelings for me, but in myself. A falcon is powerful, but it can't carry another falcon on its back to fly, can it?"
Xie Zheng understood the meaning behind her words, but it was precisely because he understood that his thin lips pressed together even more tightly. He straightened up and said, "The battlefield is not a game. The slightest mistake can cost you your life. Even with the courage to take on ten thousand men, accidents can still happen. I will not let you put yourself in danger."
The battlefield could bring military honors, but buried beneath the yellow sand were mountains of white bones.
Fan Changyu looked at him and said, "I'm afraid of dying too. I can't bear to leave Ning Niang, and I can't bear to leave you. But if I don't walk this path myself, someone else might force me into a dangerous situation in the future. I still remember the two assassination attempts at our home in Lin'an Town. I never knew my enemy was such a person of immense power and influence. Even you nearly lost your life at his hands."
"Rather than being carefully protected like a porcelain vase, only to shatter to pieces the moment I'm dropped, I'd rather forge a body of bronze and iron. I told you, I want to walk side by side with you. He is my enemy too. For the sake of avenging my parents, this is what I should do. I love you, but I can't rely on you for the rest of my life. Otherwise, that wouldn't be me anymore."
Xie Zheng couldn't refute her words and finally made a concession. "Isn't it fine to just stay in the Yanzhou Army?"
Fan Changyu said, "That would be no different from being on the mountain before."
The two looked at each other, one with phoenix eyes filled with restrained silence, the other with apricot eyes clear and bright.
Finally, Xie Zheng relented. "Fine. You can go to Jizhou to join the army, but you must take Xie Wu and Xie Qi with you."
Fan Changyu knew this was the greatest concession he could make. She nodded, then added, "Take me back. Otherwise, Old Mr. Tao and Ning Niang will get anxious from waiting."
She still wasn't used to calling Tao Taifu her godfather. She turned to walk toward the big black horse that was grazing, but he grabbed her hand.
She glanced at him, a little puzzled. "Yan Zheng?"
Dappled sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leafy canopy, scattering mottled light and shadows across the young man's hair and his jade-like face.
His pitch-black pupils locked onto her. He didn't say a word, yet it seemed he was silently asking her for something.
Fan Changyu didn't understand what he meant and asked again, "What's wrong?"
He said slowly, "You said you love me."
Fan Changyu first froze, then met his gaze. Thinking of what he had done to her in the past, she suddenly understood what his words meant.
He had done this sort of thing to her many times, but for her, it was still the first time.
It was different from the time he was sick, when she had naively kissed his forehead after he had kissed her eyelids.
Back then, she hadn't thought much of it, feeling it was similar to planting a smack on Changning's face. This time, because she understood the meaning, she hadn't even done anything yet, but just being watched by him made her heart pound, as if a small deer was trapped in her chest.
She had never seen how other people kissed, but every time Xie Zheng kissed her, he would just press down on her.
So, the question of whether to close her eyes or not was not within Fan Changyu's consideration.
She was considered tall among women, but Xie Zheng was still a good half-head taller than her.
Her face tense, she stood on her tiptoes and quickly brushed her lips against his beautifully shaped ones.
Unlike the swollen and painful sensation left on her lips every time Xie Zheng finished kissing her, Fan Changyu was surprised to find that his lips were quite soft.
Then why did her mouth hurt so much before?
Could it be because he bit her?
The moment this thought popped up, Fan Changyu felt that a gentleman's revenge was an opportunity not to be missed. The teeth marks on her shoulder still ached, so she unceremoniously bit his lip as well.
The force wasn't heavy, but she clearly felt the person before her hitch his breath.
Fan Changyu knew when to stop and quickly pulled back. "Alright, let's go back..."
Xie Zheng seemed not to have recovered either. There was a moment of stunned blankness on his face, his long, dark lashes trembling slightly. He already had a handsome, ascetic appearance. Due to his long years on the battlefield and his high position, his superior's bearing usually only made people feel an unapproachable majesty.
This rare expression of his, with less of its sharp dominance, made the stunning quality of his features all the more intense. Fan Changyu's heart throbbed wildly a few times.
How could a man be this good-looking?
Xie Zheng raised a hand to touch his lower lip where Fan Changyu had bitten it, then glanced at her again. His eyes were unreadable, and it was impossible to know what he was thinking. He put his fingers to his lips and blew a whistle. The big black horse grazing in the distance quickly galloped back.
After swinging himself onto the horse's back, he extended a hand to Fan Changyu. She took it, and with a gentle tug, he pulled her up onto the horse.
Fan Changyu asked curiously, "Can that whistle summon a Gyrfalcon and also command a horse?"
As she spoke, she looked at the index finger he had just used to whistle and noticed a scar ringing it, left by some unknown injury. It looked like a bite mark, but even more gruesome.
The man behind her replied, "Different lengths and pitches of the whistle carry different commands."
For the rest of the journey, the two didn't speak much. When Fan Changyu occasionally asked him a question or two, his answers were very simple, as if his mind was wandering.
It wasn't until the rear of the Jizhou army came into view on the gentle slope ahead that Xie Zheng suddenly reined in the horse.
Fan Changyu thought he was afraid of being too conspicuous by escorting her directly back to the army formation and was about to dismount, but he grabbed her arm.
She turned back in confusion, only to find his dark eyes locked on her once more. He was clearly very close to her, able to kiss her with just a slight dip of his head, yet he didn't press down another inch.
His intention couldn't be more obvious.
Fan Changyu faltered slightly. As she leaned in to kiss him, she was still thinking, why is it that when this person wants someone to kiss him, he has the wretched temper of someone who wants it but refuses to say it, and who would immediately turn hostile if you didn't?
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