Chapter 51 Heaven and Earth Know My Heart

When Pei Yunchu woke up, it was already pitch black.

Without even taking a careful look at her surroundings, she immediately cried out, "Where is Gu Liubai?"

"He and the outlaws from Yinshan have already set off."

Only when Li Xizhi's voice sounded did she realize she was in the familiar carriage.

"That scoundrel, he actually left without saying goodbye?"

Her body began to tremble, and tears immediately blurred her eyes with anger.

Outside the carriage, Li Xizhi explained softly, "My lady was too badly injured. He and the Yinshan outlaws stayed by your side talking for a long time, but you never woke up, so he didn't dare to disturb you."

"What!"

Pei Yunchu was heartbroken.

She had actually missed the chance to sit and chat with those people!

Why did she have to fall asleep at a time like that, whether early or late?

Her entire body shook!

Li Xizhi quickly added, "Knowing that my lady was asleep, Fifteen Gu deliberately left a letter before he departed."

"There's a letter for me?" Pei Yunchu instantly grew anxious. "Give it to me quickly!"

The carriage curtain was lifted, and Li Xizhi, as he handed the letter inward, caught sight of her tear-streaked face. He was momentarily stunned. "My lady, you—"

Realizing that she had actually been cried to tears of anger by that scoundrel, Pei Yunchu flushed with shame and annoyance. "With so many wounds, how can it not hurt?"

"It must hurt terribly!" Li Xizhi said with absolute certainty, then guiltily dropped the carriage curtain.

He muttered inwardly to himself: Is that pain from the wounds? That's heartache!

Clutching the precious letter, Pei Yunchu felt it was inappropriate to appear too eager all at once.

With quick-witted ingenuity, she managed to dredge up a person from the depths of her memory. Letting out a heavy, cold hum, she asked, "What about that great swordsman of the Xie family? Wasn't he next to Xu Tuibei earlier? Later, when Xu Tuibei charged over, why hasn't his shadow been seen since? Could it be that he greased the soles of his feet and slipped away right then?"

Li Xizhi truly admired her.

Clearly dying of eagerness to read the letter, she could still think of bringing this up.

He quickly replied, "Oh, you mean Feng Shuqing. When the Tibetans came in to loot, Gu Liubai found a place and entrusted him to look after the luggage. He's tired now and is resting."

As for anything concerning Gu Liubai, Pei Yunchu was genuinely concerned.

She instantly knitted her brows. "What kind of luggage could Fifteen Gu possibly have that's so important? In the middle of a battle like that, he actually entrusted a swordsman like him specifically to watch his luggage?"

Li Xizhi mused, "It should be all the belongings he brought out from Mingbo Slope. I heard Chen Tu say that it contains keepsakes left by his mother, so there must be some very crucial items inside."

"That scoundrel."

Pei Yunchu cursed, yet inexplicably let out a sigh.

She thought to herself that no matter how strong Gu Liubai was, he was currently still a pitiful child with no father to cherish him and no mother to love him.

The starry sky beyond the frontier was very bright.

Each star hung very close to people's heads, but the frontier night was also very dark, for there were no glowing lights from thousands of household windows.

The interior of the carriage was dim, but when Pei Yunchu untied the hemp thread and unfurled the small sheepskin scroll, the carriage suddenly lit up.

The characters were not written with ordinary ink; it was unknown whether they were ground from some kind of fluorite powder or something else entirely, but they glowed with a soft blue light, sparkling like fireflies in midsummer.

"So flamboyant and fussy," Pei Yunchu cursed, yet her heart swelled with joy.

She was, after all, only a young girl. Which maiden would not adore such delicate thoughtfulness, or fail to fancy such beautiful things?

"I have to leave first; being surrounded and interrogated by the cavalry coming from Yangguan will be very troublesome."

Gu Liubai's handwriting was extremely fine, but every single character was exceptionally neat. Having served as a frontier military secret agent for many years, even the corners of every stroke were distinct.

Pei Yunchu could not help but nod in agreement.

The battle of Peshawar, just as Gesang had said, was the result of Gu Liubai grasping Zanduo's mindset to the absolute extreme, which led to such a world-shaking outcome. However, trying to clearly articulate all the ins and outs of the details beforehand was exceedingly difficult.

The frontier generals would likely need to interrogate for ages before believing what had happened here.

Moreover, neither Gu Liubai nor the Yinshan outlaws wanted their old foundations exposed to these people.

She understood this point very well.

"I am going to Zhouzhou because Zhou Luer is from there, and I want to send him back home. Some matters involved will be rather troublesome, but I do not want you to step forward. Because if I let you help, some of the figures behind the scenes might become untraceable to me."

Looking at the subsequent lines of text on the sheepskin scroll, Pei Yunchu's brows furrowed deeply.

What kind of burden was Zhou Luer carrying?

If even Gu Liubai called it troublesome, then this matter must be monumental.

"If you wish to go to Zhouzhou to watch the show, that is fine, but do not let anyone know you intend to help us. We will stay in Zhouzhou for a while, and after resolving Zhou Luer's affairs, we will head to Chang'an."

"Everyone beyond the frontier yearns to see with their own eyes what Chang'an looks like, and I am no exception."

"I want to see the peaceful, bustling hearth and smoke that Liang Fengning spoke of, I want to see the place where Gu Beixi practiced his sword, and above all, I want to know what kind of person my mother truly was."

"Storms can break out beyond the frontier at any moment, but in Chang'an, one has a better chance of spotting the brewing tempest in advance, and a truer chance of remaining aloof from the storm itself. Here, there is no opportunity for a fair contest with someone like Xie Wan."

"People like Xie Wan will not be in short supply. If I stay beyond the frontier, and the Yinshan outlaws remain in Yinshan, we will be destroyed by others sooner or later. Rather than letting others destroy us, it is better to destroy others first."

"Furthermore, Chang'an should provide the answers to certain things I have been curious about since childhood."

……

The wind began to blow at Luzhou Post Station.

Ripples surged across the calm water surface, and countless water plants danced wildly at the dark bottom of the pool.

Xie Wan walked along the boardwalk, his black hair also dancing wildly in the wind.

The slender green plants whipped against the wooden walkway, no longer making a gentle rustling sound, but a violent, lashing sound.

Facing the wind, a mad smile gradually crept onto the corners of Xie Wan's lips. Soon, as if completely deranged, he spread his arms wide, as though he wanted to embrace the night and the distant giant mountains into his arms, only to tear them mercilessly to pieces.

Only heaven and earth knew his heart.

Those self-righteous people always assumed everyone else was as cowardly and bound by convention as they imagined.

Marching step by step, following the path meticulously mapped out for them by others?

If so, he would rather be a true madman.

He had already caught sight of the flying shadows in the wilderness; those riders were bringing forth the world he longed to see.

Peshawar had been ground to dust.

The disappearance of that city should drive the emperor in the imperial palace—who dreamed day and night of destroying Goguryeo, the Uyghurs, and Tubo—into an even greater frenzy.

Only madmen could thrive in a mad world.

If he calmly pondered where the limits of the Great Tang lay, and failed to launch a war against Goguryeo, where would his own opportunities come from?

The Pei family could not be allowed to forever dictate terms among the western and northern frontier armies.

Those stubbornly obstinate souls who thought nothing ever changed, who did not even hold him in their eyes, would receive a lesson they would never forget.

As for how many people died, he simply did not care.

A man like him had never cared for the so-called golden age; he purely relished watching the Hu barbarians salivating as they devoured the fat meat of the Great Tang, tearing everyone who stood in his way to shreds.

The more chaotic, the better; the more chaotic, the more splendid.

Those who threatened him, those who belittled him, even Pei Yunchu, even his brother's most trusted confidant, even his own brother—all of them must die.

The great swordsman he had personally crafted must also die.

Only with the death of the great swordsman would there be no one left to challenge, thus achieving eternity.

Die, die, die, die, die!

The tall grass violently lashing the boardwalk transformed into dancing, chaotic lines within his pupils, as though eager to slice everything he loathed into countless fragments.

The sound of hoofbeats ceased.

Several riders galloped swiftly before him, handing over the latest secret reports.

Xie Wan's fingers suddenly stiffened.

His crazed expression abruptly twisted into something distorted.

Peshawar's city walls had fallen, yet Pei Yunchu remained alive, Feng Shuqing remained alive, Mangbuzhi was dead, and Gesang—who had single-handedly brought about the alliance between him and Zanduo—was also dead.

In that tiny city of Peshawar, the Tibetans had left behind nearly six thousand corpses!

Those three thousand Turks were still alive, the terrifying two hundred Black Cavalry were still alive, the Uyghurs had never made a move, and the Turks had traveled unimpeded through the dark of night, even launching a surprise raid on a Uyghur camp and plundering vast amounts of provisions and grain.

That gravedigger from Mingbo Slope was still alive.

Everything that transpired in Peshawar seemed inextricably linked to this single man.

He could not fathom how, when all of these converging forces became an unstoppable momentum, the resulting tempest could be completely shattered by such a person.

Slowly raising his head, his gaze once more fell upon the distant giant mountains, those colossal peaks spanning heaven and earth seemed to tumble down upon him all at once.

Crashing against his face, shattering his heart!

……

The Great Tang cavalry from the direction of Yangguan had arrived at Peshawar.

Fearing an ambush by the main Tibetan army, these cavalrymen had proceeded with utmost caution along the way, arriving not only slowly but also heavily dispersed.

They looked sparse, scattered, and ragged.

When several cavalry commanders arrived before Li Xizhi outside the city walls, Li Xizhi did not look at them right away.

He gazed far into the distance toward Yangguan.

He knew that by this time, the young man he respected from the bottom of his heart, along with the outlaws of Yinshan, should have already found a way to pass through the frontier pass.

"Fifteen Gu says: Live, live, live, live, live!

I say: Votes, votes, votes, votes, votes!"