Chapter 600: Costing you an arm
General Chu had dispatched all 50,000 men stationed at Fenglin Prefecture. Would Long Feiye and Han Yunxi be able to defeat them? It wasn’t clear what Long Feiye thought, but General Chu was about to fall apart.
Others would definitely censure him for setting 50,000 against 5,000. Even if they won, they’d be accused of having an unfair advantage in battle. As a seasoned winner of countless battles, General Chu was very conscious of his own reputation. But this time, he threw that all out of the window. No matter how big the sacrifice, he had to destroy Long Feiye’s troops within a day!
General Chu’s orders sent a ripple of motion amongst his troops. All 25,000 cavalry forces geared into action along with the other soldiers. Eventually, their superiority in numbers began to gain a definite upper hand. But just as General Chu was feeling smug over making the right choice, he discovered something horrifying.
Where is Long Feiye and Han Yunxi?
The two of them had vanished after the armies started fighting!
“Where are they?!” General Chu even stopped shooting his arrows to search for Long Feiye amongst the crowd. Unfortunately, he didn’t spot a hint of the man. Chu Yunyi was searching as well, but didn’t find anything, either. With the tides turning in their favor, the disappearance of the two primary antagonists left them fearful and uneasy instead of happy.
“General, watch out!”
A sudden arrow flew out from behind General Chu, who followed its trajectory to see a black-robed man carrying a woman rise up from below the city. His other hand wielded a sword as he headed towards him! This was none other than Long Feiye with Han Yunxi in his arms!
To catch brigands, first capture their king. Their target was General Chu!
Thankful for the warning, General Chu quickly backed away. At the same time, more arrows flew past him at the foes. Long Feiye was almost at the top of the tower, but now had to pause to deflect the incoming arrows. He gathered strength and made a flying leap into the air. General Chu recovered his wits and immediately launched an arrow after him. Because he was completely focused on Long Feiye, he failed to notice when Han Yunxi shot out a single needle from her Pear Blossom Teardrop Rain bracelet!
“Be careful!” Chu Yunyi cried in alarm as he shoved General Chu out of the way. The motion caused the needle to fly off course and bury itself in Chu Yunyi’s shoulder instead. Heaven knows what kind of poison Han Yunxi had used, because Chu Yunyi immediately crumpled to the ground, completely out strength.
Long Feiye and Han Yunxi only just realized Chu Yunyi had an injured eye after they scaled the watchtower. Both of them were very curious: just who managed the feat? Still, there was no time to consider that now.
“Big bro!” General Chu exclaimed in alarm. He hadn’t expected Han Yunxi to hide a trick like that up her sleeve.
Chu Yunyi came to a resolution and shoved him aside. “Don’t bother with me! Kill them! If I die, you’ll be the one to lead the Nether Clan!”
General Chu angrily released a slew of arrows towards Long Feiye and Han Yunxi. His skills were on par with Chu Yunyi, each and every shot filled with strength that forced Long Feiye to back off. Compared with the additional arrows from his archers, Long Feiye was forced out of the watchtower altogether and into the air, where he had no place to take cover from so many arrows. Seeing this, General Chu increased his offensive in the Driving Arrow Arts.
“Han Yunxi, hand over the antidote or else I’ll have you two die right in front of the city walls!” General Chu threatened.
But Han Yunxi was completely unworried and challenged back, “Get it yourself if you have the skills!”
“Imbecile woman!” General Chu cursed. He leaped onto a parapet and grabbed another handful of arrows, before shooting them wildly at the pair. His archers followed his lead exactly. As hundreds of arrows bore upon them, the fully exposed Long Feiye and Han Yunxi were left completely defenselves!
Thud!
A single arrow buried itself in Long Feiye’s shoulder. Thrilled, General Chu began to shoot arrows as if he’d gone mad, refusing to give Long Feiye a chance to catch his breath. The shoulder he’d injured was connected to the arm holding Han Yunxi, so he had no choice but to draw back and get down low. General Chu chased after him with his archers in tow, forcing Long Feiye to continuously retreat.
General Chu laughed coldly and said, “Duke of Qin, you really shouldn’t have brought a woman onto the battlefield! Things like that will just spoil your plans! Hand her over and I’ll spare your life!”
Long Feiye kept retreating in silence, though blood poured without stop from his wound. Han Yunxi took the chance to curse back, “So what if I’m a woman? Wasn’t your mother a woman as well? Is she a ‘thing?’” As she spoke, she shot out her poisoned needles, but General Chu dodged each and every one.
“You can’t tell good from bad! If I was you, I’d hand over the antidote instead of causing trouble for the Duke of Qin!” General Chu was so absorbed with the antidote that he didn’t even see Long Feiye’s lips quirk up into a cold smile. He kept chasing after the pair down the stairs.
“General Chu, how about we make a bet? See if the Duke of Qin will hand me over!” Han Yunxi smiled arrogantly, spurring General Chu to chase after them even faster.
“Even if he won’t, he’ll have to!” General Chu signaled his troops with a glance. Immediately, all of the surrounding archers came to encircle Long Feiye on all sides. He stood above them all, a single arrow aimed at Han Yunxi.
“Duke of Qin, if you don’t hand over that woman now, I’ll make you regret it forever!” But being the crafty type, he didn’t even give Long Feiye a chance to reply before releasing his arrow—at Long Feiye’s eye!
At that very same second, a needle flew out from nowhere to bury itself soundlessly in General Chu’s arm. He felt a burst of pain before the weapon even sank into his flesh. Right after that, his entire arm turned numb. He quickly realized that he’d been ambushed! The needle had been shot with such strength that it instantly buried itself in his arm. But how could it have flown here so silently?
He must have been too careless!
Thinking up to here, General Chu looked towards Long Feiye and Han Yunxi in alarm. Both of them were smiling at him with mocking expressions, irritating him to no end. General Chu finally realized that he’d fallen for their trick. The duo had purposely lured him down the stairs just to keep him distracted! Long Feiye had gotten injured on purpose, while Han Yunxi stirred him up with her words.
“Despicable!” He immediately abandoned all thought of pursuing Long Feiye and used the strength of a Driving Arrow to fly him back up the watchtower. Meanwhile, his archers kept up their assault on the pair. Still, the pressure was far more relaxed without General Chu joining the fray. Long Feiye could still fend them off easily even with one injured arm. Moreover, Tang Li was hidden on the side and attacking the archers with his weapons as well, forcing the group to retreat by the end.
Long Feiye landed on the ground and prepared to push off again, but Han Yunxi stopped him and said, “Don’t move about. Your wound needs to be treated immediately or else it’ll turn into a troublesome wound. Nobody can cure General Chu’s poison but me, so don’t you worry.”
Of course Han Yunxi was concerned with Long Feiye’s injury. She had just been acting back then to lure General Chu downstairs so Tang Li could have his chance to strike. His needle was from her, of course, and it was naturally coated in poison. The limits of the metal needle meant that it couldn’t hold the potency of fatal poisons, but this one was enough to cause General Chu trouble.
Long Feiye’s killing intent faded in the face of Han Yunxi’s earnest eyes. His lips twitched, almost wanting to smile, but he managed to stop himself. Without saying a word, he simply plopped to sit on the ground. Han Yunxi quickly took out some gauze and medicine from her pouch to help him treat his wound. She had done research on the Chu Clan’s arrows before and knew that they were of special make. The unique shape of their arrowheads made any arrow wounds difficult to heal. Long Feiye couldn’t afford to hurt his shoulder now when things were so chaotic. He still had plenty of things to take care of in the days to come.
Just like that, the couple got to fixing his wounds at the base of the city in the midst of a heated battle between two armies. Han Yunxi’s gaze turned serious and professional, but she also resembled a little old wife who was meticulous about every detail. Her dexterous hands worked with his wounds as Long Feiye watched blankly with hooded eyes. Still, the corners of his lips were clearly tugging up at the edges, showing that he was in a good mood.
Tang Li and Chu Xifeng were both on guard at the sides, both of them feeling helpless at the sight. Is this really the first time that the Duke of Qin’s gone to war? We don’t believe it, much less everyone else!
But this really was Long Feiye’s first time. And now he’d not only fought to the enemy gates, but was treating his injury right by their front door. If news of this spread, General Chu would lose face utterly! Still, the man himself was too busy to concern himself with such details now. Tang Li’s poisoned needle made his entire arm felt like ants were eating it alive. It was indescribably itchy and painful, making it almost impossible for him to hold onto an arrow, much less shoot one. He had already given full command of the army to his deputy general and retreated into his tent with Chu Yunyi to treat their wounds.
Unfortunately, neither the military’s doctors nor poison experts knew how to treat their poison. They couldn’t even identify the toxin. All they could do was numb the pain and itching for General Chu’s arm so he could bear it better. That might have helped, but the numbing made it impossible for General Chu to wield his arrows. This was probably the hardest thing to bear!
Chu Tianyin was already in Long Feiye’s hands, while Chu Yunyi had lost an eye. If General Chu’s arm turned useless as well, then the Nether Clan would really have no more leaders. General Chu was deathly afraid that his arm would be permanently crippled. He cradled it with his hand as he slammed it against the wall, almost on the verge of reason.
“Han Yunxi, it was all that slut and her poison!”
“I’m going to kill her! Kill her!”
Perhaps now, General Chu understood even better than Chu Qingge why people hated Han Yunxi so much. Unfortunately, it only got worse before he ever reached the limits of loathing. What Han Yunxi did next made him detest her from his core.
Things were originally turning in their favor on the battlefield. Their 50,000 strong men had completely overpowered Long Feiye’s 5,000 troops, but Han Yunxi accompanied her husband to the battlefields as soon as she bandaged his injury. The Duke of Qin didn’t attack at all, but left everything up to her. Before long, she’d poisoned multiple archers on the parapets.
Weren’t the two of them tending to injuries by the wall? Why were they back on a shooting spree again? And why was it Han Yunxi attacking, instead of the Duke of Qin?