Yan Xiaohan cleaned Fu Shen, changed him into clean clothes, and then returned to sit by Fu Shen’s bed the entire night under a dim lamp.
In the long, quiet autumn night, he held Fu Shen’s hand that he could never warm up, and placed a light, fleeting kiss on his cracked lips.
Internal flames rising, hatred surging, yet that kiss was gentle and restrained, like a beautiful dream he dared not shatter.
Yan Xiaohan whispered in his ear: “I will kill him.”
Chapter 77: Awakening | Gold Beans Falling from the Sky Woke Me Up
The world was a cold, hard gray-white, and he felt like he was trapped in an iron-gray cage, unable to distinguish day from night or feel the passage of time, with only a weak consciousness continuously asking: Who am I? Where am I?
The gray world gradually brightened.
He reached out and touched a rough stone texture, which triggered some memories. He remembered – this was the wall of Yanzhou City.
When he was eight, his second uncle had taken him to the grasslands, to the strictly defended North Yan military base, and they had climbed the city gate tower of Yanzhou.
He was just a tiny child, not even as tall as the wall’s crenellations, stretching his little hands to grab the wall’s cracks, lifted onto Fu Ting Xin’s shoulders.
In an instant, the world became vast, the mountains and rivers distant.
Outside the city were endless mountains and grasslands, inside were neat and clean houses and streets. Outside were sentries and lazily grazing war horses; inside were people coming and going, and steamer baskets selling buns, lifting the lid to release a large cloud of white steam.
“Shall we go back?” Fu Ting Xin carried him on his shoulders, turning to descend the city wall: “The sky is darkening. It’s about to rain.”
He reached out naively, and indeed, a raindrop fell from the vast blue-gray sky.
The scene suddenly changed.
This time, he stood atop Yanzhou’s city wall, grown tall like a cold iron blade standing against the wind, with a dark mass of Zhe tribal troops outside.
He no longer needed to sit on anyone’s shoulders to overlook this land.
“General,” a young deputy in black armor approached, “The North Yan cavalry is assembled and ready to fight.”
