The Sky Is Wide for the Bird to Fly

In other words, Hong Chenglüe either had to compromise with He Chunhua, or put his bold words into action. This put him in a very passive position. Yet once He Lingchuan realized this, a deeper worry crept into his heart. Hong Chenglüe clearly knew that making bold boasts could not be proven on the spot, so why had he insisted on meeting He Chunhua face-to-face? Did he have some other arrangement here? He Lingchuan leaned close and voiced his concerns. He had barely spoken two sentences, however, before He Chunhua nodded and cut him off. "All right, I know." From this angle, He Lingchuan could see the muscles in his neck pulled taut. Clearly, He Chunhua was not nearly as calm as he appeared on the surface. Only after quite a while did the stone figure speak again: "Let me see A-Jin first." This was not an unreasonable request. He Chunhua turned his head and gave a slight jerk of his chin; the soldiers guarding the carriage immediately pulled open the carriage door. Inside, the old maid propped a pillow behind A-Jin's back so she could lean against the cabin wall. Only then did life return to A-Jin's eyes. "Hong-lang." "How are you?" The stone figure couldn't help taking two steps toward her. "Did they mistreat you?" "I'm fine. If anything, you're the one being troubled," A-Jin sighed. "It seems I've dragged you down again." The stone figure said firmly, "The thing holding me back was never you!" In broad daylight and before a thousand men, the two of them were actually flaunting their affection? He Chunhua cleared his throat and said to A-Jin, "Madame Miao, do not forget our agreement." A-Jin's surname was Miao. Over the past two days, He Chunhua had visited her multiple times to have her persuade Hong Chenglüe. She had agreed, neither stubborn nor resistant. A-Jin paid him no heed at all, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on her husband atop the mountain peak. "Hong-lang, you never have to worry about me again. From now on, the sky is wide for the bird to fly!" With that, she smiled toward Hong Chenglüe, but black blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Hong Chenglüe and He Chunhua were both aghast, crying out almost in unison, "What are you doing?!" Hong Chenglüe was nearly scared out of his wits. "How is that possible? I took her medicine away!" He Chunhua lunged forward, discarding all decorum, and forced A-Jin's jaws apart. Her teeth were clenched tight, her body trembled uncontrollably, and blood seeped from all seven orifices. He Lingchuan dashed over as well, barking an urgent order to the medicine ape: "Lingguang, save her!" Lingguang leapt into the carriage, sniffed the scent at A-Jin's mouth, and produced a gourd from who-knew-where to pour liquid into her mouth. "It's the virulent poison 'Hanjiu Powder,' meant for deathsworn assassins." The liquid inside the gourd was pale yellow, somewhat foul-smelling but clear. A-Jin's throat muscles were clenched so tightly that she couldn't swallow at all. Lingguang quickly reached out with its paws and massaged her throat twice until the liquid finally glugged down. Even as she choked, Lingguang couldn't afford to care, continuing to pour it down her throat relentlessly. After a dozen breaths, it flipped A-Jin over and pressed hard on her abdomen. "Spit it out, hurry!" A-Jin threw up violently in a wet mess. Lingguang then poured more liquid into her to flush her stomach, preparing to induce vomiting again. At a time like this, no miraculous elixir was more effective than basic methods. However, this time A-Jin took only two mouthfuls before going limp. No matter how the ape massaged and pumped her, there was no response. "It's no use," Lingguang panted. "The poison acts too fast." While pouring the medicine, it had seen that the woman's mouth was already corroded, to say nothing of her far more delicate internal organs. To describe this venom as "killing the moment it touches the throat" was not an exaggeration in the slightest. In both the Yuan Kingdom and the Beijia Kingdom, Hanjiu Powder was known as the drug of choice for silencing someone forever. "Try again!" He Chunhua snapped, his expression severe and voice harsh. "Find another way!" Hong Chenglüe had been on the verge of yielding, and his scheme had been on the brink of success. If A-Jin died at this critical juncture, his trump card against Hong Chenglüe would be gone, and worse, he would forge a mortal blood feud! Right now, he was furiously resentful that his men hadn't searched this paraplegic thoroughly. Had they lowered their guard just because she was a cripple? Lingguang tried several more methods, but A-Jin remained motionless. He Lingchuan checked her pulse; it was already gone. "Father, she's dead." As the poison took effect on A-Jin, the stone figure had also charged forward like mad. Yet it was merely a mouthpiece without any formidable defense; besieged by the surrounding soldiers' attacks, it was quickly smashed into a pile of rubble. Suppressing his turmoil, He Chunhua shouted sternly, "Seize Hong Chenglüe! Quickly!" The mortal enmity was already forged; he could not let him leave this place alive. Zeng Feixiong blew a whistle. The nearby soldiers stopped hiding, springing out from their concealed positions and charging toward the small peak. He Chunhua's eyes darted, and he shouted toward Hong Chenglüe, "She's not dead! Your wife has been saved!" Separated by over ten zhang and obstructed by so many people in and around the carriage, he didn't believe Hong Chenglüe could see that A-Jin was dead. As long as the man was uncertain, there was a chance to turn things around. Through the stone figure, Hong Chenglüe had seen the blood at his wife's mouth. Terrified out of his mind, he prepared to leap down without a second thought. Dong Rui grabbed his shoulder firmly. "Are you mad?! That's walking right into their trap!" Hong Chenglüe shook him off violently, but unexpectedly, a giant claw reached out from the side and gripped his arm tightly. Hong Chenglüe was actually unable to wrench free immediately. "Let go! She's poisoned!" It was the ghost ape manifesting its true form to help its master restrain Hong Chenglüe. But the latter possessed immense strength, and the ghost ape was still nursing injuries, requiring every ounce of its power just to hold him back. Dong Rui roared directly into Hong Chenglüe's ear, "Calm down! She took the poison willingly so you wouldn't die!" That word, "die," rang deafeningly in his ears. Hong Chenglüe froze, as if remembering something, and abruptly ceased his struggling. By now, the stone figure had been shattered, and the Yuan soldiers were surging forward, rushing toward the peak. Archery units close by were already drawing their bows and nocking arrows. "There's no time left, let's go!" Dong Rui waved his hand, and the strange bird behind him revealed itself. Its massive body had no trouble carrying two people on a short flight. Hong Chenglüe stared fixedly at the carriage not far away, his eyes bloodshot and his breathing ragged. Dong Rui leapt onto the bird's back and urged him frantically, "Go! Hurry, hurry, move!" Any later and it would be too late. Grinding his teeth so hard they nearly shattered, Hong Chenglüe turned and leapt onto the bird's back. The ghost ape transformed back into a tiny monkey and hopped into Dong Rui's embrace. The strange bird flapped its wings, taking to the air just before a dozen feathered arrows could reach them. Right after, Hong Chenglüe heard He Chunhua's shout, and the muscles in his cheek twitched uncontrollably. Fearing that Hong Chenglüe might do something foolish in his raging grief, Dong Rui quickly said, "He's tricking you, don't believe him!" Hong Chenglüe's voice sounded as if it came from the depths of an ice cellar. "That was Hanjiu Powder, a poison with no antidote!" He had once distributed this drug to Beijia Kingdom spies; he could recognize it at a single glance! It was also known by another name: "Ten-Breath Soul-Snatching Powder." Therefore, A-Jin was already... Dong Rui, sitting in front, couldn't help shivering, vividly feeling the fury of the man behind him threatening to erupt like a volcano. Hong Chenglüe suddenly unslung the longbow from his back, nocked an arrow, and fired. He wasn't shooting at He Chunhua, but at the ground— The sandy ground beneath the feet of the charging Yuan soldiers. Hong Chenglüe fired in rapid succession; with three whooshing sounds, each arrow sank over a foot into the earth. Beyond the soft sand, this showed just how formidable his arm strength was. Then, the wide, flat ground erupted in an explosion. It detonated with earth-shattering force, sending sand and rocks flying in all directions. The dust and smoke thrown up reached four or five zhang high. The twenty-odd Yuan soldiers charging in the vanguard were instantly engulfed by the smoke and dust, their fates unknown. An ambush underground! Those trailing behind immediately halted, not daring to advance any further. Besides, their target had already taken to the sky; what point was there for infantry to charge forward? The explosives the Xunzhou men had procured from the abandoned mine had proven useful once again. With skilled archers below, the strange bird dared not linger. Using the billowing smoke of the explosion as cover, it climbed higher and higher, soon disappearing into the dark clouds. He Chunhua looked up, staring after its receding figure, knowing that Hong Chenglüe was looking back at him in the same manner. The hatred and malice in that gaze felt like thorns in his back. Only after the strange bird vanished into the clouds did He Chunhua issue a cold command: "Recall the troops and return to camp!" The remaining men scrambled forward to clean up the battlefield and tend to the wounded. On the way back to camp, the icy aura radiating from He Chunhua made everyone steer clear of him. ... The moment they arrived at camp, He Lingchuan slipped away under the pretext of tending to the wounded. His father was burning with rage; why court bad luck? That explosion just now had killed three Yuan soldiers, critically wounded seven, and lightly injured twenty-one. Lingguang had gone to help treat them as well. At this moment, a soldier came over to ask He Lingchuan how to handle that woman's corpse. The troop had brought the carriage back with them; inside lay A-Jin's remains, along with the old maid whose legs were trembling in terror. He Lingchuan sighed. "Leave it to me." Leaving the carriage under the guard of his personal retainers, he was just about to return to his tent when he saw Zhao Pan walking toward him. "How did the trip to Baiming Valley go?" Seeing He Lingchuan's expression and the troop's morale, Zhao Pan's heart sank. "The talks fell through?" Though he disapproved of He Chunhua's methods, he too hoped Hong Chenglüe would leave Xiazhou. "They did. A-Jin took poison and died right in front of Hong Chenglüe." Zhao Pan was stunned. "What?!" Without asking He Lingchuan anything more, he strode off to find He Chunhua. About an hour later, He Lingchuan heard that several soldiers had been dragged out and given forty strokes of the cane, while the old maid who had attended to A-Jin was beheaded outright. Those soldiers had likely been tasked with watching A-Jin earlier but failed to discover that she had harbored deadly poison—dereliction of duty. As for the maid's death... that was merely He Chunhua venting his fury. He Lingchuan also heard that shouts of argument had erupted from the command tent. Who else could be arguing in there? None other than He Chunhua and Zhao Pan. At a time like this, He Lingchuan certainly wouldn't go anywhere near the infuriated Governor-General He; that would be asking for trouble. As a result, he successfully laid low until the beginning of the Hai Hour (nine in the evening), when He Chunhua finally seemed to remember him and sent someone to summon him. When He Lingchuan stepped into He Chunhua's tent, he found the desk and chairs overturned on the floor, clearly the master's doing. No one dared set them upright, which meant Governor-General He was still in a fit of rage. He had no choice but to brace himself, walk inside, and call out, "Father." He Chunhua had been standing with his hands behind his back, facing away from him. At the sound, he turned around. "You saw A-Jin a few days ago. Didn't you notice that she was intent on dying?" "No, she was very polite to me," He Lingchuan naturally wouldn't admit to anything. "She didn't look like someone who would take her own life." He Chunhua whipped his sleeve. "Not a shred of perceptiveness in you!" He Lingchuan thought to himself: Aren't you the same? You visited her at least three or four times and didn't notice anything amiss either, did you? A-Jin had fooled everyone.