sbdcsierra Chapter 256 The End
Chapter 256 The End
Bai Zhi has been eating alone for several days now. Every day, Chu Yunchuan would come back just before she fell asleep, snuggling into bed to hug her. When she woke up the next day, her side would be empty.
The small kitchen prepared medicinal meals every day, and Bai Zhi's illness subsided quickly. She recovered almost completely after only a day or two of rest. During the day, she would carry a small stool and stroll around the streets like an old man, sitting and eating wherever she went. The snacks in Ningzhou often used offal, which suited her taste perfectly.
Qiaoqiao and Chuqi both wrote her letters. Now the two children have their own things to do, and they both wrote to her, without prior arrangement, telling her to go back to Qingxian first and not to wait for them.
Upon returning to Qing County, Bai Zhi was troubled by these three characters—her name seal had been lost, half of which she had personally sold.
She had thought it would be fine as long as he came back, but now that he's actually back, her thoughts have changed. Bai Zhi sighed, rubbing her forehead as she looked at the letters from the two children, feeling extremely uneasy.
How could she explain to her mother that she had lost her name seal when she got home? Her mother had asked Zhou Shensi to bring her the name seal from afar; it was such a precious amulet, and she had never even used it once before losing it.
"Sigh... I should have printed it once as soon as I got it."
Bai Zhi felt both guilty and heartbroken, and the thought of going home made her hesitant to approach her mother. So, in her two replies, she added a sentence to each: "I've lost my name seal, so I'm not in a hurry to go home."
Ideally, we should find another piece of that jade, make it into a new name seal, and then go home.
But she couldn't remember the tongue-twisting name that the jade collector had mentioned once.
"What Queen Mother... Queen Mother Jade? Queen Mother... Jade Mother?"
Just then, Chu Yunchuan rushed back in a flurry of activity.
Bai Zhi went up to greet him: "You've come back just in time..."
"The antidote is done!" Chu Yunchuan picked her up and spun her around, his face beaming with joy. "Guess how it worked?"
Bai Zhi's eyes lit up: "It really worked? How did it work?"
“It’s Bijia, the medicine I took to stop my pregnancy. There’s one ingredient in it that’s the most important one in the antidote, which is why I was able to come back to life in the Southern Barbarians.” Chu Yunchuan carried Bai Zhi to the desk, looked up at her, and smiled with moist eyes. “That’s great, Bai Zhi. The war can stop, and we can go home soon.”
"The medicine to stop pregnancy? This is really..." Bai Zhi chuckled, holding Chu Yunchuan's head in her arms, her fingertips caressing the plum blossoms on the sick plum hairpin, and she laughed softly, "Your Majesty, you are truly the lucky star of the thirteen states."
Chu Yunchuan breathed warm air against her neck: "You are my lucky star."
The antidote was quickly mass-produced and distributed to the soldiers of the Yanxi army. Once they no longer needed to fear the barbarians' potent poison, the barbarian army was like cardboard, easily punctured. Soon, the barbarian army suffered repeated defeats.
Lu Jiliang, unwilling to pursue the enemy to the bitter end, sent an envoy to negotiate peace with Ge Zhen. The envoy left with an air of grandeur, but returned with only his head remaining.
Now the Yanxi army was even more invincible.
By the twelfth lunar month, the barbarian army had been forced to the edge of the Sun God Mountains in the far east by the Yanxi army.
Chu Yunchuan personally led the army in this battle, bringing Bai Zhi with him. Bai Zhi, wrapped tightly in her fox fur cloak in the biting wind, rode her horse and called out to Ge Zhen from afar, "Ge Zhen! Retreat any further and you'll be faced with a desolate mountain range! Beside you is a sheer cliff! Even if you were a fool, you should know that defeat is inevitable!"
The Yanxi army burst into laughter.
Across from him, Ge Zhen wore a barbarian wolf fur robe, his hair tied up high, and unusually, he didn't reply to a single word.
Qiao Juchong ordered the war drums to be sounded, and the Yanxi army advanced in several directions, taking the lead in the battle.
At this point, any resistance was merely a formality, and the barbarian army quickly retreated in disarray.
Qiao Wanwan led her men out from the side, carving a bloody path through the enemy lines and forcing Ge Zhen and her dozen or so personal guards to the edge of a cliff.
"The bandit leader is about to be captured! Surrender now to avoid death!" Qiao Wanwan roared.
However, the barbarian showed no intention of surrendering and even launched a counterattack. His desperate fighting spirit, like a cornered beast, was almost too much for Qiao Wanwan to handle.
Comrades quickly came to their aid, tearing the bloody path wider and wider. Bai Zhi simply abandoned her horse, using her lightness skill to slip through the chaos of the army and land beside Qiao Wanwan.
She patted Qiao Wanwan's shoulder armor: "I'm going to talk to Ge Zhen."
Go ahead, but be careful.
Bai Zhi walked over step by step. Only a dozen people away, at such close range, she could clearly see Ge Zhen's face. That repulsive face was now covered in blood, and his young fox eyes narrowed, staring intently at Bai Zhi.
Like a blood-stained Bodhisattva.
“You’re at your wit’s end, Ge Zhen.” Bai Zhi looked at the dozen or so barbarian guards in front of her, each of them filled with gritted teeth and hostility. “It’s fine if you go to die, but why take these people with you? If you keep killing, the barbarians will become extinct. Are you a spy sent by the Great Yan?”
Ge Zhen sneered: "Why are you here?"
Bai Zhi grinned, her laughter extremely arrogant: "See how you got caught, that's satisfying."
"...Why is it always you? Why is it always you blocking my way? You hypocritical bastards, why, why do you always have to block my way! Whenever I want something, you always stand in my way!" Ge Zhen's voice grew louder and louder, his eyes were bloodshot and his whites were covered with blood vessels.
Bai Zhi's smile faded: "Ge Zhen, it's you who always blocks my way, it's you who wants to kill me, it's you who wants to start a war, it's you who turned my life into a mess, and you still have the nerve to turn the tables on me?"
Ge Zhen suddenly burst into wild laughter. Her voice was shrill and echoed through the cliffs and canyons, sounding like the wailing of ten thousand ghosts.
She said, word by word, "You were the one who stopped me first. Back then, you were the one who married into the Marquis's mansion first, and you stood in the way of what I wanted most."
Bai Zhi felt a surge of anger and suddenly raised her voice: "If you want Gu Yan, why don't you just marry Gu Yan directly? You can't even catch a hot bite of shit, and you're blaming me?"
"Even if I haven't gotten it yet, no one is allowed to touch my things!"
At Ge Zhen's command, more than a dozen guards attacked Bai Zhi simultaneously. Qiao Wanwan reacted quickly, holding her spear horizontally in front of Bai Zhi: "Capture the bandit leader alive!"
"Yes!"
These dozen or so men were elites from the barbarian army, and their fighting style was nothing short of suicidal, making it quite difficult for the soldiers to defend themselves. Ge Zhen stood on the edge of the cliff, laughing as if he were watching a good show.
Bai Zhi's anger burned so fiercely that her limbs itched, and she wanted to beat Ge Zhen to relieve this overwhelming itch. Her eyes were bloodshot as she bent down and picked up a broken spear from the chaotic battlefield.
Soon, the broken gun was grasped by another hand, the hand of Chu Yunchuan, whom she knew very well.
Chu Yunchuan pulled out the broken gun, handed her a dagger, and said, "If you're not used to using a gun and haven't been trained, use this. There's a blood groove on it; if you stab it in, blood will spurt out. The blade is very sharp, so don't cut yourself."
Bai Zhi carefully sheathed the dagger and nodded vigorously.
During the battle, several of the dozen or so guards had already died, creating an opening. Bai Zhi gripped her dagger tightly, her toes barely touching the ground, and rushed straight towards Ge Zhen through the opening.
Ge Zhen seemed to have expected this, and laughed loudly, "Bai Zhi! You want to kill me? I won't let you have your way! Only I can kill me!"
Then she spread her arms and leaned back, saying, "If there is an afterlife, I will surely win!"
Bai Zhi rushed over to grab her, but it was too late. Her fingertips brushed against the wolf-fur robe, grasping at thin air in vain.
The words "I'll make sure you don't get your way!" echoed in her ears. Enraged, Bai Zhi slammed the dagger to the ground and roared down the cliff, "Ge Zhen!!!"