Chapter 142: Chapter 142 I Also Want to Know the Answer
"..."
Empress Jiang raised her eyebrows slightly, looking at her with a hint of curiosity.
After a moment of silence, she eventually said nothing, only gave a faint smile, then turned and left.
It wasn’t until her footsteps could no longer be heard that Shang Ruyi managed to catch her breath, and Tushere and Lei Yu had already rushed in from outside. Tushere immediately stepped forward with a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead, urgently asking, "Miss, are you okay? The Empress, she didn’t blame you, did she?"
Shang Ruyi gave a weak smile and said, "The Empress of such stature, why would she trouble me?"
Only then did Tushere let go of the worry that had been on her mind for so long.
Lei Yu, sitting nearby, looked at her and said heavily, "Are you sure?"
Meeting her gaze, Shang Ruyi bitterly smiled and said, "Even if the Empress truly wants to settle accounts with me, it would have to wait until this crisis has passed. Now, whether we can survive until tomorrow, the day after, is uncertain."
Upon hearing this, the atmosphere in the room once again tensed up.
Indeed, the crisis before them was the mortal peril for everyone. With a hundred thousand Turkic soldiers besieging the city, not even a bird could fly out. In the face of such life-and-death situations, any grudges seemed insignificant.
Lei Yu sighed and then said, "Tushere, didn’t someone by the Empress’s side just tell you that they had prepared medicine for your lady? Hurry and get it, don’t delay."
Tushere agreed and immediately got up and went out.
Lying on the bed, after speaking for a while, Shang Ruyi felt a bit more awake and had gathered some strength, wanting to sit up. Lei Yu couldn’t stand her slow turtle-like movements on the bed, so she went forward to support her in sitting up. Even such a small movement made Shang Ruyi break out in a cold sweat from pain.
Lei Yu impatiently threw a handkerchief at her: "Wipe it yourself."
Shang Ruyi smiled and obediently took the handkerchief to wipe away her sweat—she probably knew why Lei Yu’s attitude towards her had changed again, after all, a married woman’s reputation diminishes after such an incident.
Especially since her husband was the very man Lei Yu had longed for.
She lamented her ill-fated life, encountering many complex individuals, each with countless schemes. Reflecting on it, she cherished more the friend Lei Yu who showed her emotions openly.
So she said, "I know what you’re angry about."
"..."
"But I can assure you, as Shang Ruyi, I walk my path with honesty."
These words somewhat eased Lei Yu’s knot of resentment, but after a moment of silence, Lei Yu couldn’t help but ask, "Then tell me, what is your relationship with the Emperor?"
"..."
"If there really is no relationship, why did he embrace you in front of everyone—at that moment, the way he looked at you, I don’t think there’s no relation at all."
"...!"
Shang Ruyi’s breathing suddenly became heavy.
The injury on her back seemed to begin to ache faintly again.
She involuntarily clenched the handkerchief tightly and, after a long silence, finally raised her head to face Lei Yu and said, "I guess I want to know the answer myself."
Having said that, she gave a faint smile.
Watching her pale face with a smile so light it resembled a wisp of cloud, Lei Yu furrowed her brows slightly.
Just as she was about to say something, she saw Shang Ruyi suddenly raise her head to look outside the door, and softly said, "Thunder?"
"Thunder?"
Lei Yu frowned, "In the middle of winter, where is there—"
Before she finished speaking, she realized it herself, immediately changed to a solemn expression, stood up swiftly: "The Turkic soldiers are attacking the city again!"
"What?!"
Shang Ruyi was shocked. Listening more carefully, she then discovered that amidst the rumbling sound she had just heard, there seemed to be other chaotic noises interspersed; at this moment, Tushere came rushing in from outside with the medicine, flustered: "Those Turkic soldiers are terrible, they attacked the city late into the night and after barely stopping for a while, they’re at it again."
Lei Yu said drily, "Do you think they’ll wait for your rest to be over before attacking?"
After saying that, she was already striding out, but as she reached the door, she turned back with concern: "Tushere, take good care of your lady, don’t let her run around carelessly and risk getting hurt."
Tushere nodded, immediately running to the bedside, while Lei Yu had already rushed out in a few steps.
Faced with everything happening before her, Shang Ruyi was somewhat bewildered, only able to watch helplessly as Lei Yu’s silhouette vanished at the doorway, and what surged in was a series of deafening booms stronger than the last.
Her complexion gradually turned pale: "Has the fight really started?"
Tushere, with her thin arms, did her best to hold her and, although her voice trembled a bit, attempted to reassure her: "Miss, don’t worry, the government office is far from the city gates, we won’t be hit by arrows here. But—"
She dared not finish her sentence.
She was reluctant to say it, but Shang Ruyi understood well in her heart that even though they were safe now, once the city fell...forget the soldiers defending outside, and even the Emperor himself, would likely be trampled into dust under the iron hooves of the Turkic soldiers!
Thinking of this, the blood in Shang Ruyi’s body ran cold.
She dared not move, nor could she, merely held tight in the embrace of Tushere, curled up in this room. But even so, the warfare was not far from them—
They first heard a series of rumbling booms, not thunder, but the sound of the Turkic people battering the city gates.
Though the government office was far from the city gates, Yanmen County was only so expansive, and the loud booms and earth-shattering tremors from the city gate being battered reached Shang Ruyi’s ears clearly, causing her heart to shake, nearly stopping her heartbeat.
Next came a piercing screech that sliced through the sky.
That sound was like a flock of birds passing overhead, but as birds pass, they stir the wind and leave behind scenery, while this sound—raised from the wind, leaves behind scenery, yet it is a landscape of rivers of blood and fields strewn with corpses.
That was the sound of a myriad of arrows being unleashed by the Turkic soldiers.
Shang Ruyi felt as if her eardrums would burst, and the wound from the arrow on her back, as if resonating, began to throb in pain.
Finally, there were countless screams and cries.
These sounds were clearer and more real than any before. Shang Ruyi could not ignore the thick smell of blood mingling with the screams; the people of Yanmen County were surely fleeing in all directions, yet regardless of how much they screamed, there was no escape. Where the arrows passed, it was a scene of corpses piled like mountains, and rivers of blood.
This small Yanmen County, in places she couldn’t see, had likely already become an earthly Purgatory...