Chapter 381 Your Life Is Mine

Chapter 381: Pay with Your Life

Seeing Cheng Ge curled up on the ground, pale and trembling, Wuliji's pupils contracted sharply, and the icy calm on his face shattered in an instant.

He hurried back in a few quick strides, dropped to one knee, and scooped him up from the ground, moving with rare haste.

"Where are you hurt?!" His voice was low, but taut as a bowstring.

His gaze swept urgently over Cheng Ge's face, contorted with pain, finally landing on the unnaturally bent left leg, and he reached out to examine it.

Cheng Ge's vision darkened and blurred from the pain. Cold sweat rolled down his temples, dampening his hairline.

The searing pain in his knee made thinking nearly impossible. He could only curl in on himself instinctively, trying to ease the agony.

The next second, Wuliji rolled up his pant leg in a flash, and a rough hand gripped his calf.

Cheng Ge's heart lurched.

The sharp pain in his knee still raged, but this sudden contact crept up his spine like a vine of ice and fire.

He jerked his head up, his eyes bloodshot with pain. His left hand shot out and yanked the curved blade from the sheath at Wuliji's waist.

"Shing!" The cold, sharp ring of the blade leaving its sheath sliced through the still air of the tent.

The blade's edge reflected the dancing lamplight as it drove straight at Wuliji's face! The movement was fast, ruthless, desperate—carrying the desperate resolve of mutual destruction.

Wuliji's eyes went wide.

Wuliji's pupils contracted the instant the blade flashed toward him.

He was still half-kneeling, most of his attention fixed on Cheng Ge's injured knee. This unprovoked attack caught him completely off guard.

Yet his battle-forged instincts were ingrained in his very bones.

In a flash, he leaned back slightly, his left hand slamming into the inside of Cheng Ge's wrist!

"Ugh!" A sharp pain and numbness shot through Cheng Ge's wrist, and his grip failed.

"Clang!" The curved blade was knocked from his hand and landed on the felt rug a few steps away with a dull thud.

It all happened in the span of a single breath.

Wuliji slowly straightened to his full height, looking down at Cheng Ge, who was clutching his wrist and gasping for breath.

The usual calm on his face was completely gone, replaced by a suffocating, oppressive coldness.

His gaze was dark and menacing, like storm clouds gathering before a blizzard.

Cheng Ge stared up at him in return, the wild crimson in his eyes not yet faded. He was like a cornered beast stripped of its fangs yet still refusing to lower its head, his glare silently screaming defiance.

The tent fell into dead silence, broken only by the sound of their heavy, strained breathing.

The next second, Cheng Ge moved—lunging forward to grab the blade from the ground!

Wuliji's eyes sharpened, every muscle in his body tensing, his right foot instinctively stepping half a pace forward.

Cheng Ge grabbed the curved blade without even glancing at Wuliji. He twisted his wrist and drove the tip toward his own heart with vicious intent.

Wuliji's breath caught.

His breath stopped completely in that instant, his pupils constricting to pinpoints.

All the anger and dark intensity on his face shattered into sheer terror!

Time seemed to stretch infinitely. He could see the cold glint of the blade's tip, could see the fierce resolve to die blazing in Cheng Ge's eyes.

His body moved faster than thought, closing the hair's breadth between the sharp edge and flesh—

"Thud!" A muffled sound of a blade cutting into flesh.

Warm crimson liquid seeped through Wuliji's fingers, running down the blade, dripping onto the front of Cheng Ge's clothes.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.

The tent was filled only with their ragged, chaotic breathing and the unnervingly clear sound of blood dripping onto the felt rug.

The blade hung between them.

The tip was stained with blood, a hair's breadth from Cheng Ge's heart.

The blade itself was bloody, gripped tightly in Wuliji's palm.

Sweat slid from Wuliji's temple and ran down his brow. His chest heaved violently, but his gaze stayed locked on Cheng Ge's face.

The two held their standoff—one gripping the handle pointed at himself, the other gripping the blade, bleeding profusely.

Until a single drop of warm blood slid down the blade and landed precisely on the back of Cheng Ge's hand. The scalding sensation made him flinch violently.

Almost simultaneously, Wuliji forced out a blood-tinged phrase through gritted teeth: "Let... go."

His voice was as dry as sand, yet carried an unyielding command.

The fingers Cheng Ge had wrapped around the handle twitched almost imperceptibly.

He looked at Wuliji's bleeding hand, at the storm of complex emotions swirling in those eyes, and his reason slowly returned.

A deeper confusion and an indescribable panic followed.

He couldn't kill Wuliji, and he couldn't kill himself. The realization sent a chill through him.

In the end, the tension that had been stretched nearly to the breaking point slowly ebbed from Cheng Ge's fingers. He let go of the handle.

"Clatter." The curved blade, no longer supported, fell onto the felt rug between them with a soft sound.

The blade was still stained with stark red.

Wuliji released his grip on the blade at the same time.

The instant his hand was free, it began to tremble uncontrollably.

A wound deep enough to show bone gaped open in his palm, flesh peeled back, blood gushing forth and instantly staining half his hand and sleeve crimson.

He didn't so much as glance at his own hand. His gaze remained fixed on Cheng Ge, making sure he wouldn't try to harm himself again.

Once he released the handle, Cheng Ge seemed to lose the last shred of strength holding him up.

He hung his head low, disheveled black hair plastered to his sweat-dampened forehead and cheeks, his entire figure nearly swallowed by shadow.

Wuliji remained on one knee. The suicidal madness of moments ago and the deathly emptiness now both left a suffocating weight on his chest that he couldn't shake.

He reached out with his uninjured left hand, his fingertips hesitating, with a care he himself hadn't noticed, and gently touched Cheng Ge's lowered chin.

A smear of blood, still tacky from his own hand, marked the pale, bloodless skin, leaving a stark dark red spot.

Cheng Ge, however, seemed oblivious, utterly still, not even a flicker in his lashes.

Wuliji's brow knit tighter. His lips moved as if to speak, his throat worked, but only a faint, breathy sound came out.

He wanted to check on Cheng Ge, to demand why he'd done this, perhaps even... say something else.

But words felt so useless right then, and his habitual silence seemed to have lost its effect.

Just as he tried to form words—

Cheng Ge's body slumped sideways without any warning!

Wuliji: "!!!"

Wuliji's pupils shrank, his heart squeezed by an invisible hand!

All his hesitation, his deliberation, even the searing pain in his palm—scattered in that instant by sheer shock!

Almost on instinct, he shot out both hands—the bloody right and the uninjured left—at once.

He caught him just before his head cracked against the hard edge of the couch, pulling him into his arms.

He was feather-light in his arms, limp and cold from exhaustion.

Cheng Ge's eyes were shut tight, his face deathly pale in the dim light, his lips drained of all color.

A few days earlier, Yun Xunyu had personally led his troops out, striking like thunder and driving the Western Rong–Southern barbarian alliance back to their dens, teaching them a brutal lesson.

Those barbarians had taken a beating, their ranks decimated, and now they cowered like stray dogs, licking their wounds in their dens, too scared to poke their heads out again anytime soon. The pressure on the northern border had lifted considerably.

Lü Rou had just come in from outside, carrying the chill and exhaustion with her.

She'd spent another full day searching the camp's perimeter, even the snowy forests and mountains farther out—still no trace of Cheng Ge.

Days of heavy snow had buried too many tracks; hope slipped away like sand through her fingers—the harder she gripped, the faster it ran out.

Many in camp urged her to give up, their words wearing thin on her ears.

"With snow this heavy, someone caught out there is probably long gone..."

"Maybe... already buried in the snow, or torn apart by wolves..."

Every word cut like a dull blade, but she stubbornly refused to believe it—couldn't believe it.

Alive, she had to see him; dead... she wouldn't even let herself think that word.

Back in her little tent, she didn't even bother kicking off her snow-caked boots.

Her throat was parched, so she grabbed the cold, rough clay jug off the table and gulped straight from the spout.

The water sliding down her throat cleared her foggy head for a second.

She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, then slammed the jug back on the table with a dull thud.

She took a deep breath and turned to head back out, while the sky wasn't fully dark yet.

But the moment she turned, she nearly slammed into a "wall"—someone who'd appeared silently behind her.

Lü Rou's heart lurched, and she instinctively stepped back, looking up.

The tent was dim; before she could make out the newcomer's face, a familiar voice reached her.

"Dear, where've you been?" The voice wasn't loud, but it froze Lü Rou on the spot.

After a long moment, a figure in red slipped out of that unremarkable little tent, vanishing into the deepening dusk and the camp's tangled shadows.

...

Within a day, the northern border erupted—the flames of war reignited!

The frontier, which had relaxed a bit after the Western Rong and Southern barbarians retreated, was suddenly swallowed by even fiercer war.

And this time, the army marching north wasn't Great Zhou's—it was Nanling's!

Nanling's iron cavalry, like a beast lying in wait, burst from the flank without warning, striking like lightning at key pastures and passes held by the Northern Di.

The ferocity of the assault, the decisiveness of it all—nothing like the Nanling that had kept a delicate balance with everyone.

Inside the Northern Di royal court, in Great Khan Hutuke's yurt, the air was so thick you could wring it out.

"Useless! A bunch of useless fools!" Hutuke hurled his golden cup to the ground, wine splashing across the ornate carpet.

His chest heaved, veins bulging in his forehead, his tiger eyes bloodshot from rage and days without sleep.

"Are the Nanling people insane?! That mad dog Yun Xunyu, what the hell is he playing at?!"

The generals below stayed silent as winter cicadas, none daring to speak—they were just as baffled and humiliated.

They'd originally allied with the Western Rong and Southern barbarians, planning to tear open a gap while Great Zhou was distracted at home and grab some spoils.

But the Western Rong and Southern barbarians turned out to be useless—Yun Xunyu beat them senseless himself, and they slunk back to their dens, too scared to move.

Northern Di, already stretched thin facing Great Zhou alone, was weighing whether to grit its teeth and hold or pull back to save strength.

And right at that critical moment, Nanling pounced without warning, biting hard at their backs!

The attack was fast and cunning, hitting spots where Northern Di's troops were slow to move and defenses were thin.

Within days, two small tribal settlements were sacked, and a pass guarding water and grazing land had fallen.

Hutuke's rage blazed inside the yurt, nearly tearing the ornate roof apart.

He paced like a caged, wounded tiger, his heavy leather boots thudding against the carpet.

Over the past few days, he'd sent wave after wave of envoys with lavish gifts and earnest pleas, trying to talk to Nanling—if only for a temporary truce, to understand why.

But every attempt was like pressing a warm face to a cold ass—met with ruthless rejection and humiliation.

The last envoy was even beaten black and blue—no room left for negotiation at all.

"A just cause for war... a just cause for war..." Hutuke stopped pacing, panting, repeating the age-old rule every commander followed.

His face twisted, his bloodshot eyes full of disbelief at the sheer absurdity.

"Is Yun Xunyu crazy or just stupid? He doesn't even bother with a fig leaf—just lunges in and bites like this?!"

Our Northern Di and their Nanling have had no major wars in recent years. The occasional minor skirmishes along the border have long since subsided, and trade at the border markets has even been fairly smooth... What the hell is he after?!"

The generals under the tent lowered their heads, equally bewildered by this barrage of unprovoked attacks.

An enemy who plays by no rules and doesn't even bother to make up an excuse is often more terrifying than any opponent who declares war outright.

Because you never know where his bottom line is, nor what even more outrageous act he might commit next.

They even started to wonder—did Hutuke sleep with Yun Xunyu's wife?! Or dig up his ancestors' graves?! Otherwise, how could the man have gone this mad?

Hutuke was so furious his lungs felt like they were about to burst, a burning lump of molten lava stuck in his chest, searing his insides with throbbing pain.

Had circumstances permitted, he would have dug up every last one of Yun Xunyu's ancestors and fed them to the dogs without a second thought.

He stopped dead in his pacing, hissing out a name through clenched teeth: "Where is Wuliji?!"

The men under the tent lowered their heads even lower, their gazes nailed to the intricate patterns of the ornate carpet, as if staring hard enough might reveal an answer.

The air grew thick enough to cut with a knife, broken only by the occasional crackle of the charcoal fire, a faint spark flaring up.

Seeing the veins in the Great Khan's temples throbbing dangerously, one general who had heard a rumor swallowed hard and spoke in a voice so low it was almost inaudible:

"Reporting to the Great Khan... General Wuliji returned to the main camp last night to pick up his token... and hasn't left his tent since."

"What?" Hutuke turned slowly, the motion eerily deliberate, his eyes turning icy. "Picked up his token... and hasn't come out since?"

He chewed on those words, his voice quiet, but it sent the temperature in the tent plummeting.

"Does he intend to... hatch a brood of golden eagles in there? Or does he think my sword cannot reach the grasslands of his Uliangha Tribe?"