Chapter 3
The woman in white watched the mud-covered figure lying motionless on the ground, a trace of impatience appearing on her beautiful face. In her eyes, this person had already behaved despicably and shamelessly by spying on her while she bathed, and now, on the verge of death, she was even pretending to faint. It only made her more irritating.
“Get up.” The woman in white lowered her sword and pressed its tip against the muddy figure’s chest.
The person on the ground still did not move at all. The woman in white had no choice but to withdraw her sword and crouch down. Her pale, slender fingers gently rested against the muddy figure’s wrist.
The pulse was weak and slow…
It seemed she really had fainted. With her body this weak, stranded on Fengjue Mountain—a place ordinary people could hardly climb in the first place—she would only be waiting for death. There was no need for the woman in white to kill her herself. It would save her sword from being dirtied as well.
The woman in white withdrew her hand and was just about to rise and leave when her gaze was drawn to a square jade pendant hanging from the muddy figure’s waist. She slowly reached out and picked it up, gently wiping away the mud on its surface. A single character was clearly engraved upon it: Zhao.
She had seen this jade pendant before!
“Zhao Huaining?” The woman in white’s expression shifted slightly. Her gaze slowly moved to that mud-covered face. After staring for quite a while, she finally raised a hand and wiped away the mud. As more and more grime was cleared away, the contours of the face beneath gradually became distinct.
The woman in white stopped moving and stared blankly at the familiar face.
It really was her!
The moment she remembered that Zhao Huaining had been lying above the pool and had seen her body, a rosy flush appeared on her otherwise fair, tranquil face.
She bit her lip, a complicated look flickering through her eyes. Logically speaking, she ought to save Zhao Huaining. After all, Zhao Huaining’s mother had been her first teacher when she was young. It was just that……
The woman in white struggled with herself for a moment before raising her hands to properly tie her robes. In the end, she hoisted Zhao Huaining onto her back. Supporting Zhao Huaining behind her with her right hand and carrying her sword in her left, she walked over to the tree beside the stone pool, slid the sword back into its scabbard, and fastened it at her waist. Then she bent down and picked up a pair of white shoes patterned with subtle lotus designs.
Water continued to flow from the stone pool with a soft rushing sound. Carrying Zhao Huaining on her back, the woman in white turned and left. The western sun stretched her shadow far across the ground…
The woman in white seemed extremely familiar with the paths here. She moved through the dense forest with ease, and before long, she carried Zhao Huaining into a spacious cave.
A row of bamboo fencing stood in front of the cave. Inside were a bamboo bed, a table, and chairs. A pair of bowls and chopsticks rested on the table, making it look as though someone lived here regularly.
The woman in white set Zhao Huaining down beside a stack of firewood against the cave wall, then got up and left. She gathered several medicinal herbs from the mountain forest, washed them clean, tossed them into an earthenware pot, lit a fire, and began decocting them.
The firewood crackled beneath the pot, and before long, the scent of medicine filled the cave.
Zhao Huaining sat leaning against the stone wall. She could feel the warmth of the firelight, and when the medicinal smell entered her nose, she gave a muffled cough. Her eyelids slowly lifted.
The first thing she saw was a woman in white sitting before the fire.
Gradually, the memories from before she lost consciousness flashed through Zhao Huaining’s mind. She cautiously stole a glance at the woman and felt immensely grateful that she had survived beneath her sword.
“Many thanks, heroine, for sparing my life.” Zhao Huaining felt awful all over. She moved her cracked lips and spoke her thanks.
The woman in white had already noticed that Zhao Huaining was awake, but at those words, she froze.
Heroine?
Zhao Huaining had never called her that before. For a moment, she could not tell whether there was some teasing mockery behind the title.
“Drink the medicine first.” The woman in white spoke slowly. She picked up a bowl with a chipped rim from beside her, rinsed it, then poured the decocted medicine into it.
“Here.” The woman in white held the medicine out to Zhao Huaining.
“Thank you.” Enduring her discomfort, Zhao Huaining raised both hands to accept it. After blowing on it to cool it, she tipped her head back and gulped it all down.
A trace of surprise flashed through the woman in white’s eyes.
Zhao Huaining was famously obsessed with cleanliness. Never mind that this bowl was chipped—it was also the bowl she normally used to feed the small animals on the mountain. By all rights, Zhao Huaining should never have agreed to drink medicine from such a battered bowl. Yet throughout the entire process, she had not shown the slightest trace of disgust.
Moreover, everyone at the academy knew that Zhao Huaining hated bitterness and disliked drinking medicine more than anything. But judging from how smoothly she had just drained the whole bowl, where was there even the slightest sign that she feared bitter medicine?
“Heroine, may I have some more?” Zhao Huaining felt utterly miserable. She had spent years marching and fighting, and sometimes she would take military physicians and soldiers into the mountains to gather medicinal herbs for emergencies. Because of that, she could tell from the smell that the woman had given her medicine to replenish her qi. Wanting to rid herself of this terrible weakness as quickly as possible, she held out the chipped bowl.
The woman in white grew even more puzzled, but she still turned, picked up the earthenware pot, and poured more medicine into the bowl.
After blowing on it until it cooled, Zhao Huaining once again drank it all in one go.
“Do you feel any better?” the woman in white asked.
With her eyes closed, Zhao Huaining replied, “A little better. Thank you, heroine.”
“Since you feel better, I assume you can think normally now. I’ll give you two choices. Either I kill you, or I gouge out both your eyes. Choose for yourself.” The woman in white stood to the side and stared fixedly at Zhao Huaining.
In truth, she did not want to kill her. Otherwise, she would never have saved her in the first place. But Zhao Huaining had seen her naked body, and she could not find any reason to simply let the matter go.
Zhao Huaining’s eyes flew open in shock.
She had thought the woman spared her because they were both women. Why was she still settling accounts now?
“Heroine, I’m a woman too.” Zhao Huaining ignored how terrible she felt and replied with her heart pounding.
At those words, the woman in white’s delicate brows drew together slightly. Her red lips parted. “What does that have to do with whether you’re a woman?”
“Of course it matters. We’re both women. Whatever you have, I have too… Surely one woman looking at another a couple of times isn’t a crime worthy of death!” Zhao Huaining said weakly.
She had assumed the woman in white would let her off on account of them both being women. But when she saw the woman’s gaze becoming colder and colder, her heart sank straight to the bottom.
The woman in white saw that not only did Zhao Huaining show no remorse whatsoever, but she had even brushed aside the matter of spying on her naked body as merely “looking a couple of times.” The more she listened, the angrier she became. She turned around, picked up her sword, and drew it.
Zhao Huaining was horrified.
She had no idea why the woman had suddenly become murderous again. As the gleaming sword edge drew closer and closer, she gritted her teeth, yanked open the ties at the front of her clothes, and pulled her lapels apart to either side.
The woman in white clearly had not expected such a move. Startled, she immediately stopped and turned her back.
“What are you doing?” Her icy voice reached Zhao Huaining’s ears.
“I saw you, so you can look at me too. Then we’ll both have seen each other, and we’ll be even.” After Zhao Huaining finished speaking, she saw the woman suddenly turn around and glare at her. Frightened, she pressed her back tightly against the cave wall and said nervously, “If—if you think I’m too covered in mud to see clearly, I can go outside and wash first, then let you look. But after you’ve looked, you—you can’t kill me or gouge out my eyes anymore, all right?”
At those words, beneath the woman in white’s frosty expression appeared a few traces of speechless frustration and exasperation. After a long while, she slid her sword back into its scabbard and said coldly, “Utterly shameless.”
Seeing this, Zhao Huaining knew the woman had given up on the matter. The tension holding her up finally vanished, and her entire body slid several inches down the cave wall.
“Thank you.” Zhao Huaining spoke with lingering fear.
Right now, the other woman was strong and she was weak. It could never hurt to thank her more. As long as she could stay alive, forget being called shameless—even if the woman cursed eight generations of her ancestors, Zhao Huaining would have no objection whatsoever.
The woman in white lowered her eyes.
Truthfully, she could not deny that the instant Zhao Huaining had pulled her clothes open, she had indeed seen the front of the other woman’s body. Under those circumstances, gouging out Zhao Huaining’s eyes afterward would be rather difficult to justify.
But since when had Zhao Huaining become this cunning and shameless?
“No need to thank me. If I discover you doing anything shameless again, I’ll still kill you.” As the woman in white spoke, she put down her sword, picked up the earthenware pot, and poured all the remaining medicine into the chipped bowl in one go. Then she took the pot away to wash it.
Zhao Huaining watched weakly as the woman busied herself and asked somewhat sheepishly, “May I ask the heroine’s esteemed name?”
The woman in white, who was putting rice into the earthenware pot, froze. Then she replied coldly, “You already know, yet you still ask!!”
Zhao Huaining blinked and began carefully searching her memories.
But no matter how long she thought, she truly could not remember the woman before her at all. Logically speaking, if they had met before, she certainly would have remembered someone with martial arts this impressive.
“I really don’t know you, heroine,” Zhao Huaining said. “Normally, I never forget a beauty once I’ve seen her. If I’d met you before, I definitely would have recognized you at first glance.”
Silver-tongued and glib!!!
The woman in white silently cursed her without expression, then looked at Zhao Huaining and asked, “Aren’t you Zhao Huaining?”
“I am. You—you know me?” Zhao Huaining was astonished.
Could the woman have seen her once along the road when she returned triumphantly to the capital after one of her campaigns? That was entirely possible. After all, she was an undefeated general. Every time she returned victorious and entered the city, the roads on both sides were always packed with civilians welcoming her home. Perhaps this woman had once caught sight of her among the crowds.
Wouldn’t that mean this woman had once admired her?
The thought immediately filled Zhao Huaining with smug delight.
Seeing her admit that she was Zhao Huaining, the woman in white turned away again. If Zhao Huaining wanted to pretend she did not know her, then so be it. She could not be bothered to keep dealing with her anyway.
Seeing that the woman ignored her, Zhao Huaining quietly continued drinking her medicine. Then she braced herself against the wall and tried to stand.
Little by little, she forced her legs straight. But the moment she stepped forward with her left foot, her body could no longer support her, and she fell.
The woman in white quietly cooked the plain rice porridge without even turning around at the sound. When the fragrance of cooked rice filled the cave, she ladled herself a bowl and sat down, eating it one small spoonful at a time.
After that fall, Zhao Huaining felt as though she was about to return to the underworld and see the King of Hell all over again. She lay sprawled where she had fallen without moving. Only after resting for quite a while did she clutch the chipped bowl and crawl toward the woman in white.
“Heroine.” Zhao Huaining spoke somewhat sheepishly. “That rice porridge smells really good…”
The woman in white’s gaze slowly fell upon Zhao Huaining.
The woman was covered from head to toe in mud, and her long black hair had been completely clumped together by sludge, making it look exactly like one of the mops monks dragged across temple floors.
“Your body is far too weak. Judging by the way you look, you’ve gone hungry for far more than just two or three meals. Don’t eat too much.” As the woman in white warned her, she ladled half a bowl for Zhao Huaining.
Perhaps Zhao Huaining simply looked too miserable. The woman in white felt a trace of compassion and therefore did not make things difficult for her when it came to food.
Holding the chipped bowl, Zhao Huaining stared blankly at the woman in white.
Ever since Zhao Huaining woke up, the other woman had been cold toward her. Yet when she spoke just now, Zhao Huaining somehow felt that this heroine was unbelievably gentle. Although her voice remained cool and aloof, to Zhao Huaining’s ears it sounded… it sounded just like the gentle way her mother used to coax her to eat when she was still alive.
The woman in white knew Zhao Huaining had been staring at her the entire time. Her fingers tightened around her spoon. She had originally planned to pretend not to notice, but the other woman’s gaze made her increasingly uncomfortable. In the end, she could only turn her head and meet Zhao Huaining’s eyes.
“If you’re not hungry, you can give the porridge back to me.”
The woman’s voice was as cold as an ice cave in the dead of winter.
At those words, Zhao Huaining hurriedly lowered her head and began drinking.
The moment the plain porridge entered her mouth, she felt warmth and comfort spread through her entire body. For the first time in her life, after finishing a bowl of porridge, she licked the bowl completely clean.
…….
The woman in white stared in astonishment as Zhao Huaining rotated the chipped bowl and licked every last trace from it.
Was this really the Zhao Huaining she remembered?
“This is the first time I’ve ever thought plain porridge tasted this good.” Zhao Huaining smiled happily. She turned toward the woman in white, only to find that the other woman had originally been looking at her and immediately turned her head away when Zhao Huaining looked over.
Zhao Huaining found that rather amusing. Lying beside the fire, she said, “Today, I was fortunate enough to receive the heroine’s mercy and be given a meal. Please tell me your name, so I may repay this kindness in the future.”
“Su Zhiqiu.” The woman in white spoke without expression.
She and Zhao Huaining already knew one another, yet Zhao Huaining kept asking for her name. Su Zhiqiu had originally intended to ignore her completely, but somewhere deep down, she also wanted to see what sort of trick Zhao Huaining would play next.
Zhao Huaining froze. “Su Zhiqiu… That name sounds kind of familiar.”
Hearing her murmur, Su Zhiqiu’s lips curled into a cold sneer.
She had wondered what sort of line Zhao Huaining was going to come up with.
So it was nothing more than that tired old trick!!!
“Su Zhiqiu… Where have I heard that name before? Ah~~~” Zhao Huaining was still speaking when her hand suddenly jerked. The chipped bowl dropped to the ground, and her entire body began writhing across the floor like a silkworm chrysalis.
Su Zhiqiu frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
Still writhing, Zhao Huaining said, “Something crawled up my trouser leg. It bit me, and it hurts.”
Seeing that Zhao Huaining’s mud-covered face had already flushed red and sweat had begun forming on her forehead, Su Zhiqiu immediately asked, “Where is it?”
“It’s under my butt. I—I can’t pull it off. Can you help me?” Zhao Huaining cried out in pain. She desperately reached backward with both arms, but whatever it was had latched onto her body and refused to come off no matter how hard she pulled.
Su Zhiqiu had already crouched beside Zhao Huaining and started reaching out, but her hand abruptly froze.
Her fair face turned bright red…
“U-Under your butt???”
How was she supposed to get it off?
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