Chapter 457 - 380: Big Brother, Tell Me, Did I Win This Time?
Chapter 457: Chapter 380: Big Brother, Tell Me, Did I Win This Time?
「In the Imperial Study of the Qin Kingdom Royal Palace.」
The Sovereign of Qin sat at his desk, focused on the government affairs that had piled up for days.
For days, his thoughts had been a tangled mess. His mind was consumed by the battlefield at Huai Mountain Pass, thousands of miles away. He could hardly find peace day or night, waiting only for a report from the front lines.
Just as he lifted his vermilion brush to approve a memorial, a soft SNAP echoed in the room—the brush he held tightly in his hand had inexplicably broken in two.
Before he could even process what had happened, a flurry of panicked footsteps sounded from outside the Imperial Study.
Immediately after, Eunuch Li, his face deathly pale, scrambled into the hall, tumbling as he went. His voice trembled uncontrollably. "Your Majesty... It’s terrible... Something awful has happened..."
"What has you in such a panic?"
The Sovereign of Qin looked up, his brows tightly furrowed. His tone was tinged with clear displeasure.
A faint sense of foreboding stirred in his heart.
"Your Majesty..." Eunuch Li was on the verge of tears, prostrating himself on the floor and kowtowing repeatedly. "A report just came from the Ancestral Temple... The Second Prince’s Life Lamp... it suddenly... it suddenly went out..."
As his words faded, Eunuch Li kowtowed several more times. Only the sound of his suppressed sobs and his head hitting the floor echoed in the silent study.
The Sovereign of Qin froze, stunned. The broken piece of the brush slowly slipped from his fingers, landing with a soft TAP on the open memorial below.
The crimson ink spread like a pool of blood, gradually staining the paper red.
...
Inside the Hall of Serenity, incense smoke curled through the air.
Empress Shi was kneeling on a prayer cushion before a statue of the Buddha, her hands slowly moving over her Buddhist Beads as she softly chanted scriptures.
Empress Shi didn’t normally practice Buddhism, but for days now, she had been piously praying for her two sons, who were far away on the border.
However, just as she was halfway through her chanting, her eyes closed in deep concentration, she heard a soft SNAP.
The string of Buddhist Beads she held had inexplicably broken.
Dozens of sandalwood beads scattered in an instant, clattering across the floor and filling the silent hall with a chaotic, jarring sound.
Her chanting came to an abrupt halt.
Empress Shi stared blankly at the scattered Buddhist Beads, her heart beginning to pound uncontrollably. A powerful sense of unease, like an icy tide, rose from the depths of her soul, swiftly drowning all her prayers.
She knelt there, motionless, her vacant gaze fixed on the scattered beads.
After a long moment, as awareness slowly returned to Empress Shi, a sharp pain suddenly seized her chest.
Tears welled up in her eyes without warning, streaming silently down her cheeks. No matter what, she couldn’t stop them.
...
「In the courtyard of Prince Shuang’s Mansion, the sunlight was soft.」
Qin Siyao sat quietly by a stone bench, her head bowed in concentration as she embroidered.
Although she wasn’t very good at making shoes, her embroidery was decent enough. Over the past few days, she had already finished several handkerchiefs.
’When Xiao Mo returns from the front lines,’ she thought, ’I’ll give all these handkerchiefs to him.’
Just as her mind began to wander, a sharp pain shot through her fingertip—
"Hiss..."
Qin Siyao drew in a soft breath and lowered her gaze. A bead of crimson blood was slowly welling up from her fingertip.
But she paid no mind to the wound on her finger.
An inexplicable feeling of emptiness filled her chest.
It was stifling, and cold.
"Second Brother..."
Qin Siyao unconsciously pressed a hand to her chest. As if sensing something, she looked up and stared blankly toward the distant horizon.
...
「Thirty li outside Huai Mountain City, within the Jin Kingdom encampment.」
Ji Yue slowly opened her eyes.
She pushed herself up, her head groggy and aching faintly, as if she had slept for days and nights on end.
"Husband..."
As her consciousness gradually cleared, she instinctively looked around the tent—but there was no sign of her husband.
The tent was silent, save for the sound of her own breathing.
Just then, she saw an object lying beside her pillow.
It was a Jade Pendant.
Ji Yue was all too familiar with it—it was the Jade Pendant her husband never took off, the one he always wore close to his skin.
Beneath the Jade Pendant was a letter.
A powerful sense of dread surged through her.
Ji Yue hurriedly pulled out the letter, her fingers trembling slightly as she unfolded it.
As she read, her eyes began to tremble violently, as if something deep within her pupils was shattering piece by piece.
"Husband—!"
She snatched up the letter and the Jade Pendant and stumbled out of the tent.
The daylight outside was blinding.
The sight that met her eyes was a field of corpses, the bodies of Jin Kingdom and Qin Kingdom soldiers piled layer upon layer, strewn everywhere.
A slight breeze blew past, carrying a stench of blood so thick it was almost suffocating.
Ji Yue bit down hard on her lower lip, suppressing the acrid feeling and dizziness that churned in her chest. Heedless of anything else, she broke into a desperate run toward the Black Beast Forest.
...
Within the Black Beast Forest, the sounds of battle gradually faded.
Of the Jin Kingdom’s great army, those who hadn’t been killed had either surrendered or fled.
Qin Jingsu searched relentlessly through the corpses in the Black Beast Forest.
His expression was frantic, almost crazed, but as the commander, he forced himself to remain calm.
Just as Qin Jingsu was about to despair, a soldier ran up to him and exclaimed, "Crown Prince, we found him! We found the Second Prince!"
"Where?" Qin Jingsu’s eyes were bloodshot as he gripped the soldier’s shoulders tightly.
The soldier was startled and quickly pointed. "Reporting to Your Highness, the Second Prince is under a tree about twenty zhang in that direction. The Medical Cultivators have already gone ahead."
Before the soldier could even finish, Qin Jingsu was already running in the direction he had pointed.
Soon, Qin Jingsu saw his younger brother.
Qin Jingyuan was leaning against a tree while the army’s Medical Cultivators attended to him.