Chapter 450: Prelude to Great Chaos

Chapter 450: Prelude to Chaos

Zhao Changhe had already fought nearly as many battles on the battlefield as he had in the jianghu.

Perhaps it was because his identity as a prince was becoming more and more entrenched, drawing him ever deeper into the affairs of the realm rather than the jianghu.

Perhaps it was because the Blood Fiend Blade Technique and the Blood Asura Body were too well-suited for battlefield slaughter.

Where the wild blade rose, bloodlust filled the sky, ordinary soldiers panicked and scattered in terror—this technique, along with the mighty image of the broadsword, seemed almost born for the battlefield. Once he broke through the Secret Treasury, the manifestation of the Blood God’s Dharma Form only made it more pronounced.

When such a fierce general charged on horseback, Yue Hongling was no pushover either. The two arrows swiftly converged, and Zhao Changhe reined his horse back, charging out of the formation together as if entering an unguarded land.

Only after they had galloped far away and shaken off the battle formation did Sisi finally catch up, like a maidservant coming to receive her master.

“Go.” Yue Hongling glanced back at the dust behind her and slumped weakly over her saddle: “It’s best if they can’t see you clearly. Don’t show yourself.”

Sisi: “…”

So it really was the master coming to fetch his wife home, and she was just the maidservant accompanying them.

Zhao Changhe also said, “Take a side path. Don’t reveal any connection to your clan.”

Thanks a lot… Sisi rolled her eyes, reined her horse into a side path, and said, “Let’s go.”

With a “local” leading the way, things were much easier. Before long, they twisted and turned into the mountains, leaving the pursuers far behind.

Before the pursuers could surround the mountain, the three horses burst out from the other side of the forest and disappeared beyond the horizon, impossible to track.

The maidservant wasn’t entirely useless, after all.

Zhao Changhe didn’t know what powder she had scattered, but countless poisonous insects and snakes swarmed over, covering all traces of the horses’ hoofprints.

…

At the Ancient Spirit Tribe’s stockade.

Sisi wore a sour expression, leading two horses up the mountain alone.

Yue Hongling had fainted at some point, held in Zhao Changhe’s arms on his horse as he treated her wounds.

How he treated her, Sisi didn’t know—she only saw his big hands roaming all over her body, finally lingering over her heart, rubbing and kneading. Was this some kind of magic? Was this how healing internal energy worked?

As it happened, the Return Spring Technique really was like that—wherever the injury was, you rubbed and worked the energy there.

Of course, Yue Hongling’s injury wasn’t to her heart; she had merely fainted from blood loss. The Return Spring Technique applied to the heart was just to regulate blood supply.

Actually, she could have held on and not fainted, but with her most trusted man by her side, she no longer forced herself and let her consciousness slip away. Before she could fall onto the horse’s back, she felt herself being pulled into a familiar chest.

Yue Hongling closed her eyes in satisfaction.

He still smelled rank—let’s see if you mind.

Of course, Zhao Changhe didn’t mind. His heart ached for her. The few brief lines in the Chaos Chronicle sounded gallant and passionate, but seeing it in person, he knew what “life and death together” and “bloody breakthrough” truly meant.

Her body was covered in wounds—dozens of them, shallow and deep. The deepest was on her left shoulder, where the shoulder blade was visible.

She was drenched in blood like a blood-soaked figure, and most of it was her own, not splattered from others.

A single sword strike, life and death decided in an instant. The so-called storms of the jianghu truly meant hanging your life on the edge of your belt.

With such blood loss, she still fought on horseback. If Zhao Changhe hadn’t come, she might have continued to flee into the forest, wounded, and under a massive manhunt, carved out a thrilling legend of wilderness survival.

Her strength had grown fast… How could it not?

But such progress came at a heavy cost to her body.

A body full of hidden injuries and latent problems—by middle age, she might find something wrong everywhere. For martial advancement, it might only support her up to the Second Secret Treasury, with no room for further ascent.

Like the last afterglow of the setting sun in the jianghu, destined to sink into the sea, its light never to be seen again.

Yue Hongling came from a humble background, without the ancient blessings Zhao Changhe had, like the Blind Man’s guidance. She had fought her way to where she was today with only the opportunities from secret realms she had stumbled upon in her early jianghu days. That was truly remarkable… Even more remarkable was that she had never changed her original intent, always walking the path of chivalry, doing the things Zhao Changhe most yearned for but rarely did himself, entangled as he was in countless affairs.

It was as if she were fulfilling his dreams for him.

He had once said he wished her heart could stay, but Zhao Changhe never dared to speak it aloud. Would the Yue Hongling who once put down her sword to cook for him still be the Yue Hongling of his dreams?

He didn’t know…

Zhao Changhe silently channeled the Return Spring Technique, carefully healing her wounds, finally lingering over her heart to regulate it slowly. The soft warmth beneath his hand barely registered in his mind.

“S-Sage?” A few young girls in ambush poked their heads out from the grass, astonished to see their Sage leading a horse like a maidservant, while the man they thought had been taken into her tent was now holding the Lady Yue they had met a few days ago, stroking her with great comfort. The Sage’s face was as sour as if she had just swallowed a few rotten duck eggs.

“Sage what? Leftover sage?” Sisi snapped. “Stop groping. We’re almost at the stockade, and there are men on guard outside. Do you want them to see this?”

Zhao Changhe withdrew his hands like lightning, wrapping Yue Hongling entirely in his arms, as if he didn’t even want anyone to see her torn, bloodied clothes.

Sisi angrily slapped the horse’s rump: “Giddyup!”

The three horses charged into the stockade.

…

In Xizhou Town, Shi Wuding sat with a dark expression, looking at the group of tribal chieftains and his own Sword Hut disciples in the tent: “Can anyone tell me why Yue Hongling is in Dali?”

Lei Ao and the others exchanged glances, none able to answer.

Just that evening, the Pacification Commissioner stationed in Xizhou had been assassinated. People had seen a flash of red, and even the Sword Hut disciples had clashed with her before she escaped.

When the Sword Hut launched a full-scale search for Yue Hongling in the Xizhou area, a few hours later, the main Pacification Commissioner in Dali was assassinated.

Xizhou and Dali were close, but not close enough for teleportation!

In fact, Yue Hongling had arrived in Dali even earlier. The assassination must have been launched before dawn, in the deepest part of the night. The Chaos Chronicle said Yue Hongling’s assassination “failed, trapped, broke out and fled.” During the breakout, she must have seized the moment when Lan Tiankuo thought he had succeeded, letting his guard down, and launched a desperate counterattack without regard for life or death. That process would have taken some time.

So Yue Hongling killed someone in Xizhou in the evening, then rode nonstop through the night across the entire Erhai Lake to Dali, under the full search of the Sword Hut disciples, galloping all the way without anyone noticing, and without needing time to scout, she went straight to a suitable ambush point, then carried out an assassination and counter-encirclement operation against the 11th on the Human Ranking in peak condition…

Was Yue Hongling a god?

Lei Ao finally said, “Instead of asking us, why don’t you ask your Sword Hut disciples whether the person they fought earlier was really Yue Hongling?”

The Sword Hut disciple felt insulted and jumped up in anger: “You can doubt our eyes, but you cannot doubt our knowledge of swordsmanship! That was Yue Hongling’s sword style, no mistake!”

Lei Ao also grew angry: “So Yue Hongling knows how to clone herself, does she?”

In truth, everyone knew they had been tricked by a diversion. Yue Hongling’s knowledge of Miaojiang gu techniques was limited; her greatest fear was Shi Wuding. As long as someone kept Shi Wuding’s attention elsewhere, she would dare any risk.

And precisely, Shi Wuding had been drawn not only by a fake Yue Hongling of unknown authenticity but also by Wang Daozhong…

Now, a major incident had occurred. The main Pacification Commissioner had been killed, and the killer was also a Xia person. A group of conspirators who had been plotting to use such an excuse to unite the Miao tribes and rebel suddenly found themselves without a reason.

You send out proclamations to the tribes saying, “The Xia Pacification Commissioner is oppressing us! Rebel against him!” But the man is already dead—what are you talking about?

What to do?

“What else can we do?” Shi Wuding said coldly. “Whatever we do, first search. Find Yue Hongling. Then, under torture, we can make her point the blame at anyone we want. Or find the fake from earlier. No matter what use it serves, it’s better than guessing blindly like this!”

The chieftains stood up one after another: “As long as they are still in the Cangshan and Erhai area, they cannot escape!”