Cheng Huaili had left similar secret passages in the border garrison city too — labyrinthine inside, but with only one exit. Without a map, going in rashly would spring traps.
She turned her eyes toward the direction of the setting sun.
In winter the wind was cold, and at sunset it turned bitingly desolate and bleak.
Cheng Huaili was carried out through the exit of the secret passage into open wilderness stretching in every direction.
He sucked in a frantic breath and looked back with reluctance.
“General, Lord Song is holding the rear. This is no place to linger — let’s go quickly.” A subordinate urged.
Cheng Huaili came to himself and nodded. Yes, he had to return to the border garrison — only there were people who were truly loyal to him, and only there could he be completely safe.
The wheelchair creaked and groaned as it was pushed forward. Occasional pits in the ground nearly sent him jolting out of it.
Cheng Huaili gripped the armrests, disheveled and vexed.
In the light of the setting sun, his shadow looked like a torn and tattered rag, cast crookedly across the grass — nothing remained of the proud, triumphant bearing he had once possessed returning from battle in glory.
Bitter resentment, and nothing he could do about it.
The rag-shadow helplessly continued to inch forward with the motion of the wheelchair.
Inch by inch, it suddenly ran into a pair of black cloud-pattern boots.
Cheng Huaili’s eyelid gave a twitch, and he stiffly raised his head.
Before his eyes, Chen Baoxiang stood right in front of him. In her hand she held an old dagger, which she was idly cleaning of rust with her sleeve, turning it over and back again.
Her brows and eyes bore every trace of Chen Yuan’er’s likeness, yet there was not a shred of frailty or helplessness in her expression. The corner of her eye swept over him — cold and detached, as if regarding a dead man.
“You?” His pupils contracted sharply. “How did you know I was here?”
“Wanting to return to the border garrison city?” She answered his question with a question, tugging the corner of her mouth gently upward. “Do you think you lost to me because the terrain wasn’t in your favor?”
“Stop playing dumb when you know perfectly well!” Cheng Huaili, with nowhere left to retreat, finally erupted in fury. “If Song Juqing, that treacherous wretch, hadn’t defected in the middle of battle, how could I have possibly lost to a little brat like you!”
Chen Baoxiang raised an eyebrow: “Wasn’t Song Juqing your most prized disciple? How could he betray you?”
“Because……” Cheng Huaili started to speak, then felt the shame of it and clamped his mouth shut.
“——Because he was taught by you, so he resembles you most.” Chen Baoxiang finished lightly on his behalf. “Isn’t defecting in the middle of battle your own specialty?”
The cold-gleaming dagger pressed against his chest. Cheng Huaili’s whole body went rigid, and he called out hoarsely: “Baoxiang.”
He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live.
“That name was given to me by Grandmother Ye. You are not worthy to call it.”
Chen Baoxiang was unmoved. Her left hand struck like lightning, seizing him hard by the throat, while her right wrist twisted — and the dagger plunged into his only remaining leg.
The scream that erupted was sharp as a coarse blade scraping iron, then in the drawn-out agony it dissolved into the ragged, drowning rasp of a hoarse, choked sob.
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