Chapter 86

Mo Yanyun stood firmly in front of Qin Yanzhou’s door, speaking with earnest persistence. "...Young Master, is our Northern Territory not good enough? Why must you insist on staying with the Lotus Sect? They are a pack of hypocrites who do nothing but harm. They constantly use gods and Buddhas as a front to swindle people everywhere; they are by no means a righteous path."

"Move!" Qin Yanzhou had no desire to waste words with him.

Outside, the lightning flashed and thunder roared with a deafening rumble, making it impossible for him to hear what was happening in the room next door.

The less he could hear, the more anxious he became, his heart burning with worry.

Yet the door was blocked, and he couldn't get out.

Mo Yanyun continued his sermon-like chatter. "Lady Dai is in our Northern Territory; we all treat her with the utmost reverence. If she told us to catch a chicken, we wouldn't dare chase a dog. Jewels, fine jades, silks, satins, powerful servants, or beautiful maids—what has she asked for that our Marquis hasn't given?"

Indeed, Mo Yanyun believed that Lady Dai and her son had slipped out of the city entirely under the instructions of the Lotus Sect. Because Summer Valley was no longer safe, they were being moved to another stronghold according to orders.

As for why Lady Dai would submit to the Lotus Sect, it was easy to understand—her young son was being held there, leaving her with no choice.

It never occurred to him that Lady Dai was completely unaware of any "detention," and that her departure was a choice to leave both the Northern Territory and the Lotus Sect behind.

Qin Yanzhou was irritated beyond measure.

Ever since he had opened his door, this giant of a man had been nagging him for over half an hour. The words rolled back and forth like a broken wheel, an endless, chanting drone.

Now that his mother was with the Marquis of Wu'an, it was clearly inappropriate for him to strike the man's subordinate. He couldn't hit him, and he couldn't curse him away.

"Shut up!"

Mo Yanyun kept babbling: "Aya, Young Master, listen to me..."

While Qin Yanzhou’s room was noisy, the adjoining chamber was filled with a different kind of heat.

The bath barrel Lady Dai had used earlier had not been taken out, and water was now splashed everywhere.

Some had spilled directly onto the floor, some lent a shimmering wetness to the black armor discarded on the ground, and some had soaked into a dark red cloak.

Clothes were strewn all over the room. Beside the black armor lay a lady’s thin apricot-colored chemise. The closer one got to the bed, the fewer water stains there were, but the more clothes—especially women’s garments—cluttered the path.

The dragons of lightning flashing outside the window were the only source of light. Occasionally, as a bolt streaked past, the interior of the room would be illuminated for a fleeting second.

In those moments, the room was bright, save for a dark shadow coiled upon the bed.

The man was tall and imposing, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He knelt on the bed, his back to the outside, pinning a figure into the corner. The lightning highlighted the scarred, dark skin of his back. At this moment, with his forceful movements, the firm muscles of his back and waist tensed into fluid lines.

The sound of swallowing was exceptionally clear in this small space—ravenous, as if he wished he could devour her whole, flesh and bone.

"Dai Li." He rarely called her by her full name.

Hearing those two deep syllables, Dai Li felt her scalp tingle for some reason. That sense of foreboding grew heavier, like a wet blanket stifling her.

"I am asking you one last time," Qin Shaozong’s voice was hoarse and heavy. "Did you head south on your own because you wanted to leave, or did the Lotus Sect really give that boy a mission?"

"Wuuu..." Dai Li attempted to muddle her way through.

Qin Shaozong gave a light tsk and reached out to cup the lower half of her face. "Speak. Stop trying to play dumb with me!"

Her face was truly small; he could nearly cover it with one palm. Held by the chin in his hand, she looked so delicate.

Her lips were a vivid red and somewhat swollen; the tip of her nose and the corners of her eyes were flushed. Against the small cinnabar mole on her forehead, her jade-white skin was strikingly pale where it wasn't red, and her eyes were as dark and glossy as polished obsidian.

The colors were so exquisite and vibrant that it was likely no one else in the world could suit his tastes more perfectly.

However, the more Qin Shaozong looked at her now, the more furious he became. His heart, liver, lungs, and kidneys—every part of him burned with agitation.

This vixen was full of schemes. With one roll of her eyes, she could come up with eight hundred tricks. When she was caught doing something bad and couldn't deceive him, she would start playing the fool.

His calloused long fingers curled slightly and then straightened, probing into her red lips to pinch that soft, crimson tongue. "If you won't talk, do you no longer want your tongue?"

With a foreign object in her mouth, Dai Li instinctively wanted to bite down, but she jolted awake halfway through the thought.

Her eyelashes were damp with a bit of moisture, looking somewhat misted. She lifted her eyes to look at the man before her, whose expression remained grim. She didn't bite him; instead, she lightly brushed the tip of her tongue against his finger.

"I want it," she murmured, the words blurred and sweet.

"My Lady’s ability to sail with the wind is truly unrivaled; it fills me with admiration." Qin Shaozong let out a sharp, angry laugh. He withdrew his hand, deliberately using his glistening fingers to rub against her lips. "This trip south—was it entirely because you wanted to leave?"

The conversation had circled back to the original question.

How could Dai Li admit to that? "...No."

Qin Shaozong sneered. "Still lying. You truly don't know what's good for you."

Outside, purple light streaked across the sky like a giant tiger wreaking havoc in the heavens. With a casual swipe of its claws, several bolts of purple lightning surged for thousands of miles.

The thunder in the firmament was deafening. The interior was not as loud as the commotion outside, but it was far from quiet.

The plain curtains on either side of the bed were not drawn. In the flickering purple light, the two figures shifted between shadow and clarity.

Dai Li arched her back, grasping the hollowed-out bed frame. She tried to scratch the wooden crossbeam with her nails, but finding it impossible to leave a mark, she turned to grab the pillow beneath the frame instead.

She whimpered while clutching the pillowcase until it was a wrinkled mess. "I really didn't lie to you..."

"Did you want to escape yourself, or was it a mission from the Lotus Sect? Tell the truth." He didn't believe her for a second.

Dai Li’s cheek rubbed against the quilt, her face flushed and her eyelashes clumped together from the moisture. She was being worn down by his "interrogation" and knew he was convinced she had wanted to run away on her own, refusing to hear anything else.

She was forced to confess.

"It was... my own idea." Dai Li’s voice was barely audible. Once she finished that sentence, she began calling his name in a soft, pleading tone, saying every sweet thing she could think of. These endearments were much louder than her previous words.

The thunder roared outside, but Qin Shaozong heard both sentences clearly. The man laughed from sheer rage. "So that is to say, when My Lady first saw me today, she lied to me?"

Dai Li thought to herself that this was obvious, but since the man was currently in a towering rage, she didn't dare stroke the tiger's whiskers further. She could only whisper, "I was wrong."

The veins on Qin Shaozong’s forehead throbbed.

She was still like this—avoiding the main issue and focusing on the trivial, never changing. He couldn't help but raise his hand and deliver a sharp "smack."

Dai Li’s pupils suddenly contracted. It didn't hurt much, but the sound was very loud, occurring during a brief lull in the thunder. Her sense of shame spiked in that instant, fearing that the sound had pierced through the wall and reached the room next door.

Dai Li was exhausted and tried to lay back down stealthily.

"You refuse the easy way and insist on the hard way. Behave." He raised his hand and gave her another smack.

"What did My Lady promise me before? Setting aside what came later, you were the one who personally agreed to the initial one-year pact, were you not?" After finishing his sentence, he gave her another one.

At first, Dai Li bit the corner of the quilt and whimpered. Later, she found that if she didn't respond, he would sometimes give her two smacks for every sentence he spoke.

Dai Li was going mad.

"...It was I who promised." Having no other choice, she could only admit it.

Behind her came another cold sneer. "Breaking your word, going back on your promises, and burning bridges once you've crossed them!"

He spoke these three phrases slowly, but the force behind each was heavy, delivered through gritted teeth. With every phrase that fell, he gave her a sharp "smack."

"Of everything I promised Lady Dai, which have I failed to do? At the very beginning, when there was no news of that brat, did I not send men to Yangzhou?"

"...Yes."

He smacked her again and asked once more, "Later, when we learned the boy had appeared in Yangzhou ten years ago, after I reached an agreement with you, did I not do as I said? Did I not issue search orders to every province and organize an inspection team for you to travel across the lands?"

"...Yes."

Outside, a sudden crack of thunder erupted. The roar of the thunder completely overlapped with the sound of the "smack," the former swallowing the latter whole.

Though she had been hit several times, Dai Li pretended she hadn't heard a thing, practicing a form of self-deception. "Qin Changgeng, I was wrong."

Qin Shaozong could not bear to hear her admit fault right now; it was like pouring oil on a fire. The more he heard it, the more furious he became.

Since the moment he found her, she had admitted fault many times. But every single time, it was because she saw the situation was turning against her; she apologized only to escape, a mere formality without a shred of sincerity.

He ignored her apology and continued coldly, "Later, when we found your son, that brat had stirred up a mess of trouble. He offended Yanzhou, Qingzhou, and several smaller factions. Was it not I who settled every single one of those matters for him?"

"...Yes," Dai Li replied, her eyes shimmering with tears.

He did not stop his movements.

The sound was truly too shameful for Dai Li to bear. She had exhausted all her sweet words, yet the man showed no intention of stopping.

She broke into a frantic sweat and, in desperation, grabbed a random garment and draped it over her head.

Out of sight, out of mind; if she couldn't see it or hear it, it wasn't happening.

Qin Shaozong gave a cold huff and reached out to pull the clothes away. "If you dare to do it, you must dare to face it. Since you had the courage to break our contract and flee without a word, why do you lack the courage to face the consequences now? I have never broken my word to you, yet you have played me for a fool time and time again. It is true that the Lotus Sect committed evils, but it is also true that you wanted to use the opportunity to burn your bridges. So you simply went with the flow to make your escape, is that not so?"

The pillowcase Dai Li was biting on had long been stained with damp patches of varying shades.

Seeing her silence, that shameful sound rang out twice more.

Dai Li’s eyelashes trembled. At this juncture, she truly couldn't argue her way out. Now, she only prayed that this chapter would end quickly and that he would stop dwelling on her lies.

No matter what he said, she agreed.

"Yes," she murmured muffledly, begging him once more to stop hitting her.

Qin Shaozong, however, asked on his own accord, "When I told you back then to stay by my side forever, you said you would give me an answer in a month. Had you already planned to use that as a stalling tactic?"

"...Yes."

Qin Shaozong gritted his teeth and gave her another smack. "Do you dare to do it again in the future?"

"I dare," Dai Li answered instinctively.

After giving that affirmative answer, Dai Li dithered for a moment, realizing too late that she had misspoken. "No, that’s not..."

Qin Shaozong could no longer remember how many times he had been driven to the point of a dizzying rage by her tonight.

Fine. It seemed she hadn't listened to a single word he said; she only wanted to hurry up and deal with him.

Good. Very good. She truly was in need of a lesson!

"Qin Changgeng, I didn't mean that just now," Dai Li said anxiously.

She hadn't expected to lose her head and misspeak, giving him a handle to use against her. As soon as those words fell, she realized he was gradually shifting his focus.

His touch moved along her waist, descending from top to bottom, finally landing on a tiny point. "You said it yourself; how could it be false?"

A fire threatened to burn in Qin Shaozong's eyes. "If those words don't count, and so many other words don't count, then how am I to tell which of your words will be true or false in the future?"

"Only that sentence doesn't count, everything else is true," Dai Li cried, a fresh wave of tears welling up instantly.

His fingertips were covered in thick calluses, very rough to the touch. Usually, even a light brush felt coarse; how could he deliberately toy with such a delicate place?

Qin Shaozong wasn't listening. He couldn't listen to another word.

Dai Li truly couldn't hold it in anymore. She reached back, trying to push him away, but before she could even touch him, he seized her wrist.

His palm was hot and heavy, like a red-hot shackle. Caught in his grip, Dai Li was unable to move.

"If you dare to run again, I'll break your son's legs!" Qin Shaozong said savagely.

She could agree to anything else he said, and she could endure it by closing her eyes and waiting for it to pass, but she had a violent reaction to this one sentence. "You hit me, and now you want to hit Zhou Zhou! Then wouldn't I have suffered all this for nothing?"

She began to struggle, no longer willing to cooperate with him.

Qin Shaozong pinned her down, holding her firmly beneath him. "I won't hit Qin Yanzhou."

Dai Li paused.

Qin Shaozong guided her hand downward, finally resting it on her own stomach. Dai Li's flat belly could no longer maintain its original state.

"If you dare to run again, we'll have one. When he grows up, I'll break both his legs."

"Qin Shaozong, you pervert!"

Qin Shaozong raised a long eyebrow. "What does 'pervert' mean?"

"It's... it's a compliment... stop rubbing, I can't take it anymore, wah..."

Qin Shaozong didn't believe a single word. "It seems your bad habit of lying won't change one bit. Very well, the road is long; we shall correct it slowly."

As if remembering something, Qin Shaozong added, "If you agree to a few things, I will tell you something important regarding that brat and the Lotus Sect."

The moment he finished speaking, Dai Li said impatiently, "I agree, I agree to anything."

The fire in Qin Shaozong's chest began to churn again. "Glib-tongued woman. Let me tell you, Dai Li, even if you flee to the ends of the earth, I will find you."

Outside the window, lightning flashed and thunder roared. Rain poured down in torrents. The flags used by the merchants to attract customers rattled in the wind, and the night remained restless until dawn.

*

The magistrate of Nanyang County was surnamed Mi, and his given name was Gao. Mi Gao was a diligent magistrate who liked to handle government affairs personally.

Before dawn today, a servant rushed in to report, "My Lord, a troop of cavalry opened the North Gate under the cover of night."

The words "cavalry" and "under cover of night" combined were enough to make Mi Gao gasp.

"Who are they?" Just after asking, Mi Gao muttered to himself, "I heard there was fighting over in Yanzhou, but that's not right either. Didn't they say the war in Yanzhou was over? Besides, they can fight their wars, but why come to Yuzhou?"

After his rambling, Mi Gao asked again who the newcomers were.

The servant shook his head, saying he didn't know. "After that cavalry unit opened the city gates, they went straight to a guesthouse in the north of the city. The entire troop checked in and there has been no movement since."

The reason he was only reporting now was that the guards at the North Gate had all been tied up. The night watchmen and patrols they encountered were also detained without exception, and they were only released at daybreak.

Mi Gao paced the room. "They released the men? It seems they mean no harm. If they truly wanted to seize the city, they could have killed them and crept into my manor under the cover of night. Which guesthouse are they at? Have the horses readied; I must pay them a visit."

...

When Dai Li woke up, the day was already bright outside.

She was still lying on the couch, staring blankly at the plain canopy above. Her memory was a bit muddled, and she didn't know what day or year it was.

It took a good while for the events of the previous night to come flooding back.

Qin Shaozong had tracked her down.

Dai Li let out a low, miserable groan and instinctively yanked the nearby duvet over her head. But she had barely been under for two seconds before she threw the covers aside again.