Chapter 249 They were all watching her...
The Western Mausoleum soldier was yanked back by He Yi, stumbling backward. He Yi stood behind the ballista, adjusting its arm to aim at Wen Yu on the city tower.
From the distant tower, Mu Youliang saw this and roared, "Fire the catapults!"
The launched rolling stones streaked across the battlefield like meteors, continuously crashing into the Western Mausoleum Army formations. However, due to poor accuracy, few hit the ballistas.
Yet each massive rolling stone claimed at least three to five Western Mausoleum soldiers upon impact. As the thrown stones gradually closed in on the ballistas, it became clear that Chen Jun's forces on the tower were calibrating while launching.
The Western Mausoleum soldiers adjusting the ballistas felt their lives threatened by the approaching stones, as if a giant guillotine hung overhead, ready to drop at any moment.
Shrouded in this fear, their hands trembled during calibration, causing the massive bolts shot toward the tower to miss their marks.
He Yi's eyes remained sharp and unblinking as she finalized the ballista arm's elevation. Fixating on Wen Yu drumming on the tower where the bolt tip pointed, she commanded, "Tighten the winch! Loose the arrows!"
Over a dozen Western Mausoleum soldiers gritted their teeth, straining to turn the ballista's winch. Just as the three giant bows were nearly fully drawn and ready to release, turmoil erupted from the front lines.
He Yi looked up to see a Liang female general, face splattered with blood, leading a cavalry unit that pierced through the layered Western Mausoleum defenses like a wedge, charging toward them on horseback.
Sensing danger, she shouted "Loose!" but the mounted female general had already used her spear to fling a Western Mausoleum soldier toward them.
The nearly released bolt and ballista arm were violently knocked off course by the crashing soldier. The loosened winch sent soldiers on both sides flying backward, while the massive bolt pierced through the soldier's corpse and veered into the battlefield ahead.
Furious, He Yi had no time to vent her rage before Gu Xiyun urged her horse forward, trampling numerous soldiers. With twin short poles on her back, she wielded a long spear, sweeping it forcefully toward He Yi.
Having left her chariot in haste without proper weapons, He Yi could only retreat, her calf hitting the ballista. She leveraged it to lean back and evade.
The drumbeats from the tower remained powerful and overwhelming, making one's blood surge in rhythm. Gu Xiyun, failing her first strike, switched her spear to her right hand, swung it in a full arc from horseback to fend off interfering soldiers, and with a fierce cry, thrust forcefully at He Yi on the ballista.
He Yi pushed off the ballista to somersault away, landing awkwardly on its other side. Gu Xiyun's powerful spear thrust cleanly pierced through the ballista arm, sending wood splinters flying.
Trembling with residual fear and rage, He Yi loudly ordered nearby soldiers to surround and kill Gu Xiyun.
Seeing He Yi in danger, her guards on the chariot anxiously retrieved her sword and threw it, shouting, "Princess, catch your blade!"Gu Xiyun gritted her teeth and forcefully twisted the spear shaft, completely shattering the ballista's arm into splinters. She withdrew her spear to deflect the long pikes thrust at her by the Western Mausoleum soldiers. However, He Yi, now armed with her Crescent Golden Blades, showed no fear, swinging the blades directly at Gu Xiyun's face.
Gu Xiyun blocked with her spear shaft, but the immense force sent a numbing shock through her palms.
With weapons in hand, He Yi was like a leopard reclaiming its fangs. After her leaping strike missed, she landed and scraped the twin golden blades together before aiming for the legs of Gu Xiyun's warhorse.
The warhorse whinnied and collapsed. Seeing the danger, Gu Xiyun leaped from the saddle and rolled on the ground to evade the pikes thrust by the Western Mausoleum soldiers. She barely found an opening to rise when another golden blade came slashing down from above.
The roles of attacker and defender had reversed. Gu Xiyun had no choice but to abandon her spear and draw the twin spears strapped to her back, panting as she crossed them to block He Yi's descending golden blade.
In her reckless charge to destroy the ballista personally calibrated by He Yi, she had ventured too deep alone. The few Liang cavalry she had brought were now locked in desperate combat, those still alive fighting for their lives.
He Yi's eyes and brows were filled with malice, her shoulder and arm muscles taut as she continued to press the blade downward.
Gu Xiyun knelt on one knee, bracing the spear shaft with her shoulder for leverage. Her teeth were nearly grinding to the point of drawing blood, yet the ferocity in her eyes matched He Yi's without concession.
This instead earned Gu Xiyun a sliver of He Yi's admiration. Her gaze swept past Gu Xiyun to the dark-clad princess beating the war drum on the high tower behind her, and she said coldly, "Your Liang's little princess is about to lose. With your martial prowess, why not switch allegiance to me?"
Gu Xiyun let out a cold laugh, practically spitting out two words through gritted teeth: "Bullshit!"
With a sudden burst of strength in her arms, she forcefully shoved aside He Yi's pressing golden blade. Adopting a reckless fighting style, she charged at He Yi, roaring hoarsely: "My princess is ordained by heaven! She will unite these lands and reign over eternity!"
...
On the city tower, the wind still whipped the iron caltrops on the Dragon Banner against the flagpole, creating sharp, clanging sounds. Stray arrows flew horizontally, and soldiers at the battlements were occasionally struck by arrows from below, tumbling headfirst off the wall.
Mu Youliang shouted commands, and the soldiers hurried through the hail of arrows to fill gaps at the ramparts. Yet, with their numbers, they clearly couldn't outlast the Western Mausoleum forces.
Zhao Bai's lapel was marked with messy arrow grazes, already stained with blood. As stray arrows neared the high platform, her sword-swinging movements showed slight hesitation.
The wind tangled Wen Yu's loose hair wildly behind her. In her usually calm eyes, as she beat the towering war drum before her stroke after stroke, only boundless sharpness remained.
The torn skin at the base of her thumbs had stained her entire palms red with seeping blood. Due to her constant raised-arm drumming posture, the blood flowed backward across the back of her hands and down her forearms, finally dripping to the ground mixed with sweat at her elbows.
Stray hairs clinging to her cheeks were matted together with sweat. Under the scorching sun, her face even bore a pallor akin to ice and snow, yet the aura she emanated was as rugged and majestic as the drumbeats.
In this moment, all Wen Yu could hear besides her own frantic heartbeat were the drumbeats and the cacophony of battle from below.
Her strength depleted, her arms ached with sharp pain to the point of numbness. Each swing of the drumstick felt like tearing her shoulder muscles anew. Sweat dripping from her temples could no longer be distinguished as from pain or exhaustion, yet she did not stop, and the sharpness in her eyes never waned.In that fleeting moment, many faces surfaced in her mind—her father the king, her mother the queen, her elder brother, General Gu and his son, Minister Zhou, her mentor...
They were all watching her.
As if in a trance, they seemed to truly materialize behind her, helping her lift the drumsticks to strike the war drum before her with greater force, transforming all her resentment and defiance into thunderous beats that reverberated across heaven and earth.
Another drop of sweat trickled down Wen Yu's temple. As it fell from her cheek, a bead of sweat simultaneously splattered onto the black iron hilt of Xiao Li's blade amidst the chaotic battlefield beyond Tiger Gorge Pass.
He cleaved through human barriers with his long blade, carving a bloody path through the fray on horseback. Sharp whistles echoed one after another as the Wolf Cavalry followed closely behind him, retreating from the disrupted battleground.
Their disruptive assault had nearly breached the enemy's central formation where the siege tower stood, forcing the Western Mausoleum Army—previously focused on assaulting the pass—to divert substantial forces to encircle them.
The defending generals inside Tiger Gorge Pass watched with uneasy astonishment, marveling at this unexpected reinforcement emerging from beyond the frontier.
Just as Yang Shuo arrived at the battlements, his lieutenant pointed toward the retreating figures of Xiao Li's company vanishing into the desert: "General, while the Western Mausoleum Army pressed their fierce assault, this cavalry unit emerged from nowhere in the desert to flank them from behind! They nearly reached the siege tower where the enemy commander resides, forcing the Western Mausoleum troops to redirect their forces before withdrawing."
Yang Shuo narrowed his eyes at the distant cavalry, but the retreating forces were already too far to discern their uniform details.
The lieutenant mused in bewilderment: "Though thirty thousand Western Mausoleum troops attack fiercely, Tiger Gorge Pass is impregnable by natural defenses. Even with a hundred thousand soldiers, they couldn't breach it. Why would that cavalry exert such effort to aid us..."
He almost chuckled dismissively, but then recalled recent rumors circulating in the city. His smile vanished as he turned to the silent Yang Shuo: "General, could they be reinforcements sent by the Princess?"
Rather than reinforcements, they might be "supervisors" sent to monitor the city's defense—especially since rumors of Yang Shuo's potential defection to Pei Song had spread through the city.
Yet after voicing his speculation, the lieutenant grew uncertain. With Western Mausoleum besieging Chen Kingdom for so long, and Chen previously seeking reinforcements from Liang Kingdom, how could they possibly spare troops to assist at Tiger Gorge Pass?
Yang Shuo offered no reply, only speaking in a low voice after the cavalry had completely disappeared into the desert with their Western Mausoleum pursuers: "Full alert. Defend Tiger Gorge Pass to the death."
The lieutenant promptly clasped his fists in acknowledgment.
The battlements of Tiger Gorge Pass had vanished behind them. Before them stretched a low sand dune. Xiao Li wore a cloth mask over half his face to shield against sand inhalation during the gallop.
He had been deep in thought since breaking through the enemy lines. Suddenly, he called out: "Zhao Youcai."
Zhao Youcai urged his horse forward: "My lord, what are your orders?"
Xiao Li commanded: "Lead the Wolf Cavalry to draw these Western Mausoleum troops farther out before losing them. Then rendezvous with Tiger."
"Where will you go, my lord?" Zhao Youcai asked urgently.
Xiao Li's stern features hardened like frost. "Pei Song isn't with the Western Mausoleum Army. Something's amiss."Earlier, Xiao Li had single-handedly fought his way to the front of the Western Mausoleum Army's command formation. Upon hearing his account, Zhao Youcai knew it couldn't be false. Yet it was truly suspicious that while the Western Mausoleum Army was launching such a massive assault on the city, Pei Song—the actual commander in every sense—was nowhere to be seen at the front lines.
Zhao Youcai understood that Xiao Li must be determined to track down Pei Song's whereabouts. He promptly thumped his chest and declared, "My lord, rest assured! I'll make sure these Western Mausoleum barbarians are led around in circles until they can't find their way back, then shake them off completely!"
Xiao Li said nothing more. He selected a dozen of his personal guards and, upon rounding the sand dune ahead, took an alternate route to circle back.
His personal guards were all elite Scouts from the Wolf Cavalry. After receiving his orders to conduct a discreet search, none of them managed to uncover even the slightest trace of Pei Song.
The sun, already past its zenith, slowly descended westward. Xiao Li's collar was soaked through with sweat. After hearing the Scouts' reports, he clenched the water pouch he had just drunk from, his brow furrowing. For once, his handsome face showed subtle signs of suppressed agitation.
He screwed the cap back on and hung the water pouch from his front saddle. Just then, the last dispatched Scout came galloping back, panting heavily, and reported, "My lord! This morning, a contingent from the Western Mausoleum Army headed upstream along the dried river valley, apparently in search of water!"
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