Chapter 96 Death Death

The next day when she woke up, Jiang Si was chatting warmly with the old lady. Due to the humid weather in the south, clothes couldn’t dry properly. He had changed out of his wet clothes from yesterday and put on what must have been the old lady’s son-in-law’s clothes from when he was alive.

Seeing Qiu Shuzhi up, Jiang Si held a set of clean clothes and walked towards her with a gentle smile: “Wife-master, you’re awake? Come, change into some clean clothes. These are from the old lady’s daughter when she was alive. I compared them, they should fit you well.”

Since opening up last night, Jiang Si had been calling her “wife-master” intimately, without any shyness. He didn’t care at all that there was neither the name nor the act of marriage between them.

Qiu Shuzhi looked at the wet clothes she had taken off last night, which had disappeared: “Where are my clothes?”

A flicker passed through Jiang Si’s eyes but quickly vanished: “Wife-master’s clothes, I hung them under the eaves to dry last night. Who knew that when I went to look for them today, the clothes were gone. Perhaps they were blown away by the strong wind. Anyway, it was just wet clothes, and we have ready-made ones here!”

Jiang Si’s tone was slightly coquettish: “We should hurry on our journey.”

Qiu Shuzhi’s gaze became slightly heavy. She had fallen into the river, her fate unknown. If someone with ulterior motives had taken her clothes, it would surely throw Yue Guanyi into confusion.

She felt her collar, fortunately, she had put the jade pendant he gave her in her bosom when she went to sleep last night.

If only the clothes were found, but not the jade pendant she always wore, with Yue Guanyi’s keen insight, he should realize something was amiss.

Qiu Shuzhi put her mind at ease and put on the clothes she had prepared.

After bidding farewell to the old lady, Qiu Shuzhi and Jiang Si set off together.

From what they learned from the old lady, they had already entered Dian territory, which was within the sphere of influence of the King of Dian.

Although Qiu Shuzhi wanted to help the young emperor stabilize the court situation and overthrow the King of Dian’s power, she didn’t dare to proceed recklessly by herself. She had intended to take Jiang Si in the opposite direction to meet up with Yue Guanyi.

But the further they walked, the deeper the dense forest became. Layers of thick undergrowth and towering old trees formed a dark canopy. Even stranger was that all the knowledge she had learned before about determining direction was useless here. They were either going in circles or heading deeper into the dense forest.

Not only that, as the sun gradually rose, the rain mist from the night’s downpour in the forest began to evaporate, spreading through the deep forest. The mist extended to her ankles and showed signs of rising further.

“Wife-master……” Jiang Si, holding her hand, suddenly spoke.

“What is it?” Qiu Shuzhi turned back. The humid and stuffy jungle made her sweat constantly. Sweat dampened her fair neck, and wisps of jet-black hair clung to the side of her face. Weak sunlight filtered through the tree shade, illuminating her hair. At that moment, she looked just like a mountain deity enshrined in the mountains.

Jiang Si’s seductive eyes lowered slightly: “It’s nothing, just that I can’t walk much further. My feet are a bit sore and weak.”

His voice was soft and naturally sweet, especially when speaking to Qiu Shuzhi, it sounded more like he was acting coy.

Qiu Shuzhi looked at the sky, took off her outer garment and spread it on the somewhat damp ground: “Then let’s rest for a while before moving on. Come, sit here.”

Jiang Si looked at the mud-stained clothes on the ground, his eyes shimmering with light as if greatly moved. He suddenly threw himself onto Qiu Shuzhi, arms around her neck, planting dense kisses with a strange exotic fragrance on her neck.

In the depths of the uninhabited forest, only the snakes, insects, rats, and ants crawling in dark corners witnessed his unrestrained release of true feelings at this moment.

While kissing her, he asked with slight trepidation: “Wife-master, will you ever hate Lan’er in the future?”

Qiu Shuzhi’s arms paused slightly, then embraced his waist accommodatingly: “How could I?”

Jiang Si’s coquettish and unrestrained eyebrows became even more profound: “Really? No matter what I’ve done, you won’t hate me?”

The mist in the dense forest was getting thicker, imperceptibly spreading throughout the entire forest. Everything in front was a vast expanse of white, like an abyss of fog, slowly encroaching upon her. Her vision gradually blurred, and her limbs became weak and tired, unable to lift.

Qiu Shuzhi’s heart gradually cooled. She instantly realized this was no ordinary water vapor, but miasma.

Despite inhaling a large amount of miasma, Qiu Shuzhi remained calm and composed, her expression even more indifferent, but her voice was exceptionally gentle and utterly bewitching: “Of course, you are the person I love most.”

Jiang Si held her closer and closer, her vision became more and more blurred until she finally passed out completely.

Jiang Si wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye and gently laid her limp body on the ground.

From the pervasive mist, a group of people dressed in Miao ethnic clothing emerged. They walked up to Jiang Si and bowed respectfully: “Greetings to the Holy Child.”

Jiang Si’s father was originally the Holy Child of the Miao region, but later, because he fell in love with the King of Dian and became his consort, he completely lost himself. He forgot his mission to protect the Miao region. The dignified Holy Child of the Miao indulged in love affairs, competing for favor with a group of men. Not only did he lose face for the Miao, but he also helped the King of Dian continuously suppress Miao forces, causing the Miao, who once controlled half of Dian territory, to continuously decline, their domain constantly shrinking. The Miao people had long been dissatisfied with him.

But the Holy Child of the Miao had always been inherited through bloodline, so even if they were dissatisfied, there was nothing they could do.

Fortunately, Jiang Si also knew his parents couldn’t be relied upon, so he had set his sights on the Miao forces many years ago, consistently cultivating deep roots in the Miao region. Combined with his father’s identity, he naturally became the new Holy Child of the Miao.

After being completely abandoned by the King of Dian, Jiang Si immediately used Miao secret methods to contact his tribespeople, which led to the earlier scene of Qiu Shuzhi falling into the water.

Jiang Si’s otherworldly eyebrows cast a cold glance: “You’re late.”

A Miao person immediately knelt down. This person was Ali, who had escaped from the enclosure earlier: “Please forgive us, Holy Child.”

Jiang Si’s cold eyes swept over lightly: “Forget it, take her back.”

Ali looked at the sleeping Qiu Shuzhi and asked: “She’s the emperor’s person, a troublemaker. Taking her back to the Miao village will lead to endless trouble. Shouldn’t we kill her now?”

Jiang Si’s bewitching eyebrows immediately shot him a glare: “She can’t be killed now. She must be taken care of properly.”

Ali couldn’t argue: “Yes.”

Jiang Si looked at the sleeping Qiu Shuzhi on the ground, still unaware of everything, a faint worry rising in his heart.

Wife-master, I hope you won’t blame me when you know everything.

Meanwhile, on the other side, it was a completely different scene.

The Divine Machine Camp, having suffered an ambush, had numerous casualties and was greatly weakened. The firearms originally intended to be transported to the White Pole Army were also damaged by half. These weren’t the most important things though. The crucial point was that the Imperial Son-in-law Qiu Shuzhi had fallen off a cliff and her fate was unknown. The usually stern Crown Princess at that time seemed to go mad, wanting to rush over, with the posture of disregarding everything to follow Qiu Shuzhi and jump down.

With the Imperial Son-in-law’s fate uncertain and the Crown Princess about to jump off the cliff, even the elite Divine Machine Camp couldn’t bear such a great sin. So a group of officials and soldiers firmly held down Yue Guanyi just as he was about to follow Qiu Shuzhi and jump off the cliff.

On the banks of the surging river, only Yue Guanyi’s desperate, heartbreaking screams could be heard.

Zhang Xiao, looking at the ashen-faced and desperate Yue Guanyi, consoled him that Qiu Shuzhi might still have a glimmer of hope.

She sent people to relay the news back to the capital while dispatching soldiers from the Divine Machine Camp to follow Yue Guanyi’s personal Imperial Guards to search along the river under the cover of night. Yue Guanyi, disregarding Zhang Xiao’s obstruction, insisted on going along.

She looked at Yue Guanyi’s bloodshot eyes and desolate, desperate gaze, feeling slightly moved in her heart. She hadn’t expected the vicious, cold, and ruthless Yue Guanyi to be so devoted to Qiu Shuzhi, and felt somewhat touched.

He searched along the damp riverbank, from day to night, and then to day again. Yue Guanyi, as if mad, tirelessly searched without rest or sleep.

The cold late autumn river water reached his knees, but he remained unmoved, unwilling to miss a single clue.

Gradually, they reached the shallows of the river where the water flow slowed.

The first corpse was discovered. The body of a soldier who had been knocked into the water by a huge rock earlier had washed up on shore. The corpse, swollen and pale from being in the water, lay face up, its abdomen extremely bloated, its face so swollen that even the facial features and eyeballs were deformed from the pressure.

Yue Guanyi’s entire body suddenly shook, his face paler than the floating corpse. His violently trembling body, it was unclear whether from being frightened by the corpse or from being frozen by the river water, or perhaps from fear of the unidentified corpses to come.

Then, more and more corpses were discovered.

Countless bloated, pale corpses piled up in the shallows of the river. Wild dogs and crows were gnawing on their bodies, forming an extremely horrifying scene.

“Qiu Niang-” Yue Guanyi, looking at the mountain of corpses before him, his pale lips trembling.

The deepest fear, like sharp thorns, cut across his heart and spread upwards. He dared not go over, afraid that among these piled-up corpses, one person would be the one he had been thinking of constantly.

In his heart, he prayed over and over again, to the gods, to the mountain spirits, to demons and fierce ghosts, only hoping that his Qiu Niang was not among those people.

By the riverbank, a familiar figure floated up and down with the current.

Yue Guanyi’s feet, which had been running in the river water all night, finally gave out and he fell. The icy cold instantly spread from the soles of his feet, freezing his entire body. He stumbled over, tears falling unconsciously.

Trembling and extremely fearful, he turned the corpse face up. The body had already been bloated and rotted by the water, the clothes split open by the hugely swollen abdomen. The bloated face had been gnawed beyond recognition by fish in the river.

But the same clothes, the same figure, the same hair ornaments……

Yue Guanyi collapsed limply in the river water, desperate, helpless, and heartbroken. These emotions that could still touch his nerves were no longer present.

There is no greater sorrow than the death of the heart. He no longer had any desire to live on.

He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes filled with despair. In this life, he had committed too many evil deeds, his sins were heinous, and he deserved to go to the eighteenth level of hell to be tormented and gnawed by fierce ghosts for eternity.

But why did his Qiu Niang have to die?

What wrong had she done?

Yue Guanyi tightly hugged the foul-smelling floating corpse. The boundless despair accumulated in his chest violently struck his heart, and a mouthful of fresh blood spurted out, dyeing the river water red.

He could no longer support himself and collapsed completely.