Chapter 229: "Whether to Save Her Depends on You, My Lord..."
The sun blazed fiercely, with scorching heat rising from the ground. Beyond the shade of the forest, aside from half-withered weeds baked by the sun, hardly any living creatures could be seen.
Xiao Li and the Wolf Cavalry had pursued relentlessly through the night and half the day. Both men and horses were exhausted and parched. When they came across a stream, Xiao Li immediately ordered a halt to let the horses drink and rest briefly.
The Wolf Cavalry knelt by the water, scooping up a few mouthfuls before filling their waterskins. The sound of urgent hoofbeats approached from afar, putting the drinking cavalry on alert. Only when they recognized the returning scout did they relax and resume their rest.
"My Lord, Azure Cloud Cavalry has been spotted ten li ahead. They seem to be attempting to cross Straw Cape Lake to rendezvous with the Liang army via a shortcut," reported the scout, dismounting and rushing to Xiao Li.
Xiao Li's gaze turned icy. "How far is the nearest crossing from here?"
"Fifteen li," answered a Wolf Cavalry soldier.
Xiao Li tossed his waterskin to the thirsty scout and mounted his horse. "After them!"
The Wolf Cavalry swiftly mounted and galloped along the forested official road, resembling a pack of wolves unleashed for the hunt.
As they neared the crossing mentioned by the scout, the wind carried a faint hint of blood amid the oppressive heat.
Realizing what it meant, Xiao Li cracked his whip sharply. "Yah!"
His warhorse charged toward the crossing, where several corpses lay strewn about—some belonging to Azure Guard members, others to men disguised as boatmen, clearly assassins in disguise.
The carriage escorted by the Azure Guard was riddled with arrows, overturned by the roadside. The horses pulling it had also been struck multiple times, lying in expanding pools of blood.
Xiao Li's heart clenched. Without a second thought, he spurred his horse forward, nearly tumbling from the saddle in his haste to reach the overturned carriage.
"Wen Yu!"
Pulling aside the carriage curtain, he saw only bloodstains inside—no body.
Bracing himself against the doorframe, Xiao Li rose, his breathing ragged from the emotional turmoil. The violence and gloom radiating from him were barely contained.
"My Lord, there's a boat on the lake," said a Wolf Cavalry soldier who had caught up, squinting at the distant vessel.
Xiao Li looked toward the lake, spotting the retreating canopy-covered boat. Scanning the crossing, he noted fresh signs of a recent landing.
His face taut, he retrieved his bow from his horse and commanded coldly, "Launch the boats and pursue."
Several small, uncovered boats remained at the crossing, weathered and cracked from exposure. The Wolf Cavalry cut the moorings and pushed them into the water.
Each small boat could only hold four or five men. They rowed furiously, trying to close in on the larger vessel, but those aboard had already noticed them from the shore.
As soon as the small boats entered arrow range, a hail of arrows rained down from the large boat. One Wolf Cavalry soldier, dodging the arrows, fell into the water.
"Lord, the arrows are too dense. We can't get closer," reported the rower.
Xiao Li gripped his bow, glaring coldly at the figures on the large boat. Pei Yuan, upon seeing Xiao Li, paled and shouted to his men, "Shoot! Shoot now!"
Xiao Li ordered his troops, "Keep advancing."If Pei Yuan had appeared within Chen territory, had Pei Song also taken refuge here?
If Wen Yu fell into their hands...
He gripped his bow single-handedly, drawing several long arrows from his quiver and nocking them on the string. The taut muscles of his forearm tightened as he drew the bow into a full crescent. The sharp arrows, cutting through the shimmering heat haze under the blazing sun, shot from the string, piercing through several archers on the opposing large ship who were still attempting to fire, pinning them to the cabin wall.
A denser volley of arrows rained down on the ships behind. Within range, the Wolf Cavalry leaped into the water to evade the arrows.
Xiao Li’s armor was heavy, and as his black cloak floated on the water’s surface, Pei Yuan immediately shouted, “Fire! A heavy reward for whoever kills Xiao Li!”
In an instant, arrows like locusts swarmed toward the spot where the cloak floated.
Yet, after a long while, no blood stained the water.
Fearing the ship’s arrows would run out, Pei Yuan gestured for the crossbowmen stationed along the ship’s edge to halt. Leaning over the railing, he watched the cloak-floating area with caution and apprehension.
Unexpectedly, a massive splash erupted from beneath the ship. Pei Yuan and his men, who had been monitoring the waters behind the stern, were caught off guard, their vision blurred by the spray. In their panic, the crossbowmen unleashed a chaotic volley, all shots missing their mark.
Seizing the opportunity, Xiao Li and the Wolf Cavalry who had dived over together climbed the ship’s side and leaped aboard. The moment their short blades were drawn, blood sprayed, and several corpses at the stern toppled into the water, dyeing the emerald lake crimson.
He had shed his armor upon entering the water—the cloak floating on the surface was merely a decoy.
The moment Pei Yuan saw Xiao Li board the ship, he knew things had taken a dire turn. Snatching a crossbow from one of the Hawk Hounds, he fled backward while firing arrows at Xiao Li.
The incoming arrows were deflected by Xiao Li’s short blade, but its defensive range was limited. With a flick of his foot, he sent a long blade flying into his grasp. Twirling it skillfully, he cleanly blocked the subsequent arrows, which embedded themselves deeply into the ship’s planks on either side.
“Where is Wen Yu?” he demanded coldly, the tip of his blade pointed directly at Pei Yuan.
Just then, another arrow shot toward him. Xiao Li tilted his head to evade the unusually long arrow, unlike the short bolts of a crossbow. As he deflected the other arrows, he glanced curiously at the quivering arrow embedded in a nearby wooden pillar.
The arrow was exceptionally long, not like the armor-piercing arrows used in the military, but more akin to those used by nomadic tribes for hunting.
Pei Yuan seized the chance to retreat further, signaling his men on the deck to hold Xiao Li back.
Xiao Li’s gaze fell upon the archers. He noticed they did not use the iron thumb ring method common in the Liang and Chen armies but drew their bows with three fingers, much like the Western Mausoleum Army he had previously eliminated. His curiosity deepened.
As cold arrows whizzed toward him, he advanced instead of retreating, using his blade to block the lethal shots as he charged forward. Closing in on several Hawk Hounds, he captured one and used him as a human shield, deflecting arrows while engaging the others.
Pressing toward an archer who had repeatedly fired at him, he disarmed a Hawk Hound with a flick of his blade and kicked the long blade toward the archer.
The archer tried to flee upon realizing his intent but failed to evade the blade, which struck him in the back, sending him collapsing to the ground.The Wolf Cavalry from the rear finally caught up, engaging all the Hawk Hounds and unidentified thugs who had been locked in combat with Xiao Li.
Just as Xiao Li prepared to press onward into the ship’s cabin, Pei Yuan’s voice suddenly rang out from below the vessel: “Xiao Li, I have Han Yang in my grasp. Since you bear a grudge against her as well, shall I end her life for you?”
Xiao Li glanced down toward the sound and saw that Pei Yuan had, unnoticed, boarded a small boat with his men, already some distance from the main ship. Besides Pei Yuan and a Hawk Hound, there was a woman in white wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a veil that draped down to her knees, completely obscuring her face.
Pei Yuan’s blade pressed against the woman’s neck through the thin veil, the pressure causing blood to seep out and stain the snowy fabric in a stark, vivid red.
The woman, restrained, shook her head slightly in distress.
Xiao Li’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his dagger, his voice cold and menacing: “If you dare harm even a single hair on her head, I will flay and boil you alive just as I did with Yu Jingwen back then—and it won’t take more than a quarter of an hour!”
Pei Yuan responded with an ambiguous laugh: “How terrifying, my lord.
“But since you care so much for the life of this Wen woman, whether she lives or dies is now in your hands.”
With that, he shoved the bound woman straight into the river.
“Wen Yu!”
Xiao Li’s eyes blazed crimson with fury. He hurled his dagger at Pei Yuan with all his might and then vaulted over the ship’s railing into the water.
Pei Yuan dodged the dagger clumsily, watching as it embedded itself with a sharp clang into the stern’s partition. Trembling with fear, he shouted, “Fire the arrows! Today, we must take the life of this Xiao family wolf!”
He himself released the crossbow’s mechanism, firing over a dozen short arrows in rapid succession toward the spot where Xiao Li had submerged.
Xiao Li, exposed and unprotected underwater and at close range, faced a relentless barrage of arrows raining down from above. He swam forward with all his strength but couldn’t evade them entirely—an arrow soon struck his shoulder, spreading a cloud of blood in the water.
Pei Yuan, watching from the boat, yelled at the spreading crimson in the lake, “There! Keep firing!”
Volleys of short arrows continued to pierce the water in waves.
“My lord!” The Wolf Cavalry on the main ship, seeing the dire situation, sent those skilled in swimming to dive in and search for Xiao Li.
Xiao Li, an expert swimmer, pressed on despite his injury, heading directly for the white-clad woman whose bound hands prevented her from surfacing.
The woman, unable to swim, gasped underwater through her nose and mouth, releasing large streams of bubbles.
Fortunately, she had fallen close to Pei Yuan’s boat. Using the vessel as cover, Xiao Li dove deeper to rescue her. The woman’s hat had come off when she hit the water, and now, fully drowned, she no longer exhaled bubbles to obscure her face—allowing Xiao Li to see clearly that she was not Wen Yu.
The tension in his body eased abruptly, and only then did he feel the numbing, throbbing pain from the arrow wound in his shoulder.
The skilled Wolf Cavalry swimmers caught up and, seeing Xiao Li sinking, assumed he was exhausted and tried to pull him away to the surface.
Xiao Li pointed toward the bound woman sinking into the depths.
Understanding his signal, the Wolf Cavalry went to rescue her.
Xiao Li, meanwhile, continued swimming toward the small boat where Pei Yuan and his men were.
Pei Yuan, crossbow in hand, stared coldly at the water’s surface. The water was muddied with large streaks of blood, but no body floated into view.On the large vessel, a middle-aged man holding a great bow with a quiver on his back shouted something to him in tribal language.
Pei Yuan could not understand the man's words. The Hawk Hound beside him translated, "Commandant, the Pureshi tribesman says that since we failed to capture Han Yang this time, to prevent them from escaping to join the Liang army, we should continue the pursuit and not waste any more time here."
They had previously ambushed the Azure Cloud Cavalry unit attempting to board a boat at the ferry crossing. Unexpectedly, the woman wearing a veiled hat in the carriage was also highly skilled—clearly just a decoy. Upon discovering the ambush, they decisively abandoned the carriage and fled.
They had split their forces, sending part to continue the chase while the remainder chose to take a boat shortcut to intercept the Azure Cloud Cavalry ahead at the crossroads.
Unexpectedly, as the large vessel sailed across the lake, Xiao Li and his group—who were also pursuing the Azure Guard—spotted them. Mistaking them for having successfully intercepted and killed the Azure Guard, Xiao Li’s forces closed in, demanding to take custody of the prisoners.
Recalling his narrow escapes from Xiao Li on multiple occasions, Pei Yuan’s expression darkened with barely concealed ferocity. He cursed, "What do they know? If we don’t slaughter that wolf today, when will we ever get another chance like this?"
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