Chapter 422 A Temptress?

Chapter 422: That Little Fox?

The army doctor froze, looked up at him, and was about to speak—but when he met Cui Ji's calm, unreadable eyes, every word of advice died in his throat.

He silently set the medicine bowl on the low table beside him, picked up the knife and tweezers from the tray—heated red, then cooled to just the right temperature—and began treating the wound, trying to be as gentle as he could.

The sharp blade sliced through the inflamed, swollen flesh, scraping away the dead tissue with a soft, wet "sizzle." Pus and blood were cleared away, revealing the vivid red muscle beneath.

Cui Ji's face was eerily calm, almost numb, his eyes even a little glazed over.

After binding the wound in layers of bandages, he finally looked up, unable to hold it in any longer, and said in a low voice:

"General, the wound's been taken care of, but you've been fighting for days on end—old wounds not yet healed, new ones piled on top. Your qi and blood are depleted, your spirit worn thin... Please... you really must take better care of yourself."

The words were tactful, but the worry behind them was plain to see.

Cui Ji seemed to come back to himself, his gaze slowly focusing on the doctor's worried face. He gave a barely noticeable nod. "Mm."

The doctor knew that "mm" was just a formality—the general hadn't listened to a word of it.

He sighed to himself, packed up his kit, bowed, and backed out of the tent.

The tent flap fell, shutting out the wind and snow and the footsteps of the patrols.

Cui Ji was alone in the tent now. The lamplight threw his lone, straight-backed shadow onto the tent wall, swaying slightly as the flame danced.

He sat still, his gaze resting on some empty spot in the air, unmoving for a long time.

Then, as if remembering something, he reached awkwardly with his uninjured right hand toward a hidden compartment at the head of the bed, tucked against the inner wall.

After a moment of fumbling, he pulled out a small black wooden box, about the size of his palm.

The box was old, the corners worn, but the surface was smooth and clean.

Cui Ji placed it on his knee, carefully flicking open the little brass clasp with his fingertip, and slowly opened it.

Inside, lined with plain silk, lay a small lock of hair.

A red string carefully bound the hair—the strands jet-black and glossy, catching the dim lamplight.

His eyes locked onto that lock of hair, and something faint finally flickered in his dead eyes.

He reached out, brushing the smooth, cool strands with the lightest touch.

The wind and snow wailed outside; the only sound inside the tent was the occasional crackle of the lamp.

Cui Ji stayed frozen in that position, his eyes glued to that lock of black hair.

He didn't know how long it had been.

Then, a voice that sounded like it had trekked across a thousand mountains and rivers suddenly spoke from right behind him, impossibly close:

"Cui Ji..."

Cui Ji's fingers stopped mid-motion.

He didn't turn around, didn't even flutter an eyelash.

Another hallucination. He was used to it by now, numb to it.

Only the cool strands under his fingers seemed to hold a warmth that wasn't really there.

"Cheng... Ge..." The voice sounded again.

Closer than before, clearer, and hoarse with the exhaustion of a long journey—and... a note of careful, tentative hope.

Cui Ji's heart seemed to skip a beat. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to shake off the tormenting voice.

"I'm back..."

Before the words even faded, a cool hand grabbed his wrist out of nowhere.

Cui Ji's whole body jolted!

He whipped his head around, following that hand up—

The lamplight swayed, shadows danced.

A face was inches away.

Pale, gaunt, a jaw so sharp it could cut—the face still bore traces of deliberately smeared soot, now patchy and smudged.

But the eyes—those eyes were startlingly bright, like stars in the northern night sky, gazing at him without blinking.

Their eyes met.

The air seemed to be sucked dry in an instant; time froze into solid ice.

Cui Ji's pupils contracted to their absolute limit. His breath stopped. His mind went completely blank.

The wrist being gripped conveyed a clear sense of touch and warmth, and the face before him overlapped with and separated from the contours he had traced countless times in his memories...

He stared at the figure before him, as if trying to see through him—to determine whether this was a ghost or flesh and blood.

Cheng Ge's gaze instinctively fell on his left arm, wrapped in bandages but still seeping blood, and the wooden box resting on his knee containing the lock of hair.

He instinctively raised his other hand, clutching something wrapped haphazardly in oil paper, still carrying a trace of body heat, and held it out toward Cui Ji. His voice was so dry it barely formed words:

"I... I brought this for you from outside... They said you hadn't eaten dinner..."

Before he could finish—

A tremendous, irresistible force suddenly surged forward!

A large hand clamped down hard on the back of his head, with such force it nearly crushed his skull.

A shadow loomed over him in an instant.

The next second, a scorching, soft pressure—carrying the scent of blood and medicine—pressed down heavily, almost ferociously, sealing off all his unspoken words!

"Mmph—!" Cheng Ge was caught completely off guard, his eyes flying wide.

Cheng Ge could feel his trembling, taste the heavy metallic tang of blood between his lips and teeth, feel the fingers buried deep in his hair at the nape of his neck, gripping with a force on the verge of collapse.

As if through this almost painful contact, he wanted to brand this person—so recently regained—into his very flesh and bone, never to be separated again.

Time lost all meaning.

No one knew how long passed, until Cheng Ge's vision went dark from lack of oxygen and his lungs ached with pain, only then did Cui Ji, as if drained of all his strength, slowly release his grip.

But his forehead still pressed against Cheng Ge's, the tips of their noses touching, their scorching, erratic breaths intertwining.

Those deep, bloodshot eyes, now mere inches away, locked onto Cheng Ge with a tempest raging within—

Lingering fear, wild joy, fury, agony, the overwhelming shock of regaining what was lost... emotions upon emotions churned together, nearly drowning him.

He spoke, his voice hoarse as a broken bellows, trembling with a gritted-teeth, post-survival intensity:

"Mu... Yu..."

Two words, heavy as mountains, slammed into the stagnant air between them.

"Cui... Ji..."

He had just parted his lips, the final syllable of "Ji" not yet fully dissolved in the scorching air, when he was swallowed by an even fiercer, more relentless wave.

Cui Ji kissed him once more.

This time, it was no longer that near-destructive confirmation, but something deeper, heavier—the aftershock of nearly losing him, and a greedy, almost obsessive hunger to reclaim every moment of their separation.

His uninjured hand clamped onto the back of Cheng Ge's neck, a grip that allowed no resistance, yet carried a careful tenderness, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the skin there.

Cheng Ge was stiff at first, caught off guard by the relentless, unannounced barrage of fierce kisses.

Perhaps it was the exhaustion of the long journey finally finding its haven, perhaps it was the shock of seeing Cui Ji's wounds, or perhaps... the feeling that had never truly died, only forcibly suppressed.

The kiss grew longer, more lingering, and more... real.

No longer a one-sided plunder, but the trembling comfort of two souls, long wandering across a desolate icefield, finally touching each other's warmth.

Just as this silence, threaded with tenderness and pain, was about to swallow everything once more—

"General!!! Young Master Lin requests to see you... Holy shit!!!"

The tent flap was yanked open, Zhao Cheng's signature booming voice rushing in with a gust of cold wind, only to cut off at its peak, morphing into an earth-shattering, warped cry of shock.

Time seemed to hit pause.

Zhao Cheng remained frozen in the act of lifting the flap, one foot still outside, the other already inside.

His eyes bulged wide, his mouth agape enough to fit an egg, his expression shifting from urgency to shock to utter panic in a flash—a whirlwind of rapid-fire expressions.

"I-I didn't see anything!" Zhao Cheng's brain finally kicked back into gear, and his first instinct was to flee!

He yanked his foot back, nearly tripping himself in the process, his voice cracking, "General, you're busy!"

Before the words even faded, he was gone, scrambling away as if his pants were on fire, leaving behind a trail of frantic footsteps and the lingering echo of that "holy shit" still hanging in the air.

Inside the tent.

The tender moment was shattered.

Cheng Ge shoved Cui Ji away abruptly, his face a patchwork of red and white—half lingering passion, half embarrassment and awkwardness at being caught.

He instinctively raised a hand to wipe his lips, a gesture that only made him look more guilty.

Cui Ji, too, was thrown off by the abrupt interruption, his breath uneven, his gaze dark as he stared toward the tent entrance.

A brief, deathly silence.

The tent flap wasn't lifted again, but it hadn't fully closed either, leaving a gap.

Through that gap and the tent fabric, two figures were vaguely visible standing still at the edge of the campfire's glow.

………

Zhao Cheng's earth-shattering "holy shit" and his frantic retreat were like a spark into a vat of boiling oil, instantly igniting the gossip-fueled curiosity simmering beneath the camp's lifeless surface.

The news spread like wildfire through the camp, or like dandelion seeds blown by the north wind, radiating outward from the commander's tent to every corner.

"Did you hear? General Zhao came out of the main tent, face green as grass!" Over at the field kitchen, a cook chopping frozen meat whispered in a hushed, mysterious tone.

"What's wrong? Did the Northern Di attack again?" A new recruit washing vegetables looked up nervously.

"Attack, my ass! Something even juicier!" The cook slammed his knife into the cutting board, spittle flying.

"General Zhao said he saw... saw our general... kissing some unfamiliar little vixen! All tangled up, unable to part!"

"What?!" The few nearby gasped in unison.

"That can't be right? The general... hasn't he been waiting for word of his wife? She saved his life, didn't she?"

An older soldier furrowed his brow, disbelief written all over his face.

"Waiting for what?!" Another cook, face shiny with grease, sneered with jaded cynicism.

"Men, all the same! The wife's been 'gone' how long? Her body's not even cold yet! And here he is... tsk tsk!"

He shook his head with a heavy sigh, his ladle stirring the bland soup in the pot absently.

"Maybe it's that shameless hussy seducing the general?" The new recruit muttered, trying to make excuses for Cui Ji.

"Seduce?" The sneering cook laughed as if he'd heard the joke of the century.

"It takes two to tango! She seduces, and he's all over her like that?! Hah, if you ask me, they're both trash!"

As he spoke, his eyes reddened slightly, for reasons he didn't explain, and he wiped them roughly with his oily sleeve.

"I just feel bad for the general's wife! Such a good person, had the general's children, and I heard she was never in the best of health, yet she fought desperately to save him...

In the end, she didn't even get a whole body for burial... And now, before you know it, the one who shared his bed is already..." His voice choked up, and he couldn't go on.

Silence fell around them, broken only by the soup bubbling in the pot.

Several others' eyes reddened too, heads bowed, silently cursing Cui Ji for being heartless.

"So... who's this newcomer? What's their story? To charm our general like that?"

After a moment, curiosity got the better of someone, breaking the quiet.

"The general never touched another woman besides his wife! Could it really be some fox spirit in disguise?"

The cook who'd first spilled the beans perked up immediately, glancing around before lowering his voice to a whisper, barely containing his excitement.

"General Zhao said it himself! Didn't get a clear look at the face, but the figure..."

He paused deliberately, milking the suspense, then raised his hand and traced an exaggerated curve, eyes gleaming.

"That figure! Holy mother! General Zhao said the waist... thin as a willow branch, just a pinch," "and it'd snap!"

He made a grasping gesture in the air, clicking his tongue appreciatively. "A waist you can span with one hand! You know, like in those books!"

"Whoa—!" The crowd let out a collective gasp, their eyes wide.

The camp was all rough men—when had they ever heard anything so juicy and specific?

For a moment, their heads filled with all kinds of fantasies about that "span-with-one-hand" waist and the tricks of that "fox-spirit seductress."

"No wonder... no wonder the general lost it..." someone murmured, as if suddenly understanding everything.

"Pah! No matter how alluring, this isn't right! It's a betrayal of the missus!" another retorted immediately, but his voice didn't sound quite as sure as before.

The rumor festered and twisted through camp, getting wilder with every retelling.

From "the general has a new lover," to "the new lover is an enemy spy using her beauty to beguile," to "the general is bewitched by a fox spirit and losing his mind"... all kinds of versions were flying around.

...

That night, inside the Chief Commander's tent.

Compared to the howling wind outside and the camp buzzing with gossip, the tent felt strangely still—almost, somehow, wound tight with an odd tension.

A simple wooden table sat beside the brazier, with a few dishes a cut above what the regular soldiers got:

a plate of lamb braised until it fell apart, a steaming bowl of veggie stew, and several golden-baked flatbreads.

The food smelled great, mixed with the tent's leftover smell of medicine and charcoal—it should've made anyone's mouth water.

Cheng Ge was indeed hungry.

He had hurried all the way back to Cui Ji's side, his nerves wound tight the whole way.

Now that the crisis had temporarily eased and Cui Ji's injuries had stabilized, hunger hit him like a wave.

He didn't notice the silent, almost solid tension crackling between the other three men in the tent. Sitting down, he picked up his bowl and buried his head in his meal.

He ate with total focus, wolfing down big bites of lamb, his cheeks puffed out, occasionally lifting the bowl to take a sip of hot broth, letting out a satisfied sigh.

That completely shameless, pure-enjoyment way of eating, contrasted with his handsome profile, created a strange dissonance that made it hard to look away.

Yet, in stark contrast to his "hearty indulgence," the other three men at the table remained "silent as a riddle."