Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Hangover Soup

Pain.

Misery.

That was Shen Tang’s first coherent thought.

Her head hurt. Her hands hurt. Her back, legs, feet—every part of her body screamed like it had been beaten with clubs.

As her mind cleared, the stink of dirt and blood slammed into her nose.

She winced, temples throbbing, and opened her eyes.

She was face-down in a puddle. Her cheek was pressed into mud.

She lifted a hand to wipe her face—and saw her palm come away red.

Not mud.

Blood.

A pooled, sticky puddle of blood.

She forced herself upright, breathing hard, and looked around.

Firelight danced across the hollow. Half the mountain village was wrecked and burning. Limbs and bodies lay scattered everywhere, blood still streaming from open wounds and soaking into the earth.

Shouts still echoed. Metal still clashed.

For a dizzy second, Shen Tang wondered if she’d transmigrated again—woken up in the middle of a battlefield.

The only comfort was that the soldiers in red and black armor weren’t paying attention to her. If any one of them had decided she was a target, she’d be dead already.

“Shen Wu Lang—Young Master Shen—”

A familiar voice cut through the noise.

Shen Tang turned her head and saw Qi Shan coming toward her.

Relief washed over her. “Yuan Liang! Why are you here?”

Qi Shan’s mouth twitched. Whatever sarcasm he’d been about to unleash died on his tongue.

Why was he here?

Did she really have the nerve to ask?

He forced a gentle smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Does Young Master Shen remember what you did earlier?”

Shen Tang stiffened. His smile was wrong. Too sweet. Too sharp.

She swallowed. “…No.”

Then, quieter, “What did I do?”

Qi Shan’s voice went tight. “What did you do? You ran straight into Xiao City’s center near the yamen, then sprinted out of Xiao City and dove into the deep mountains over twenty li away.”

“You Li, You Li,” he said, biting each word. “You can really run.”

Shen Tang’s throat went dry.

Qi Shan didn’t let her breathe. “Other people get drunk and at worst babble. You get drunk and try to stab anyone you see. Is that it?”

Shen Tang blinked at him, dazed and mortified. Now that she was fully awake, she finally understood what the scene around her meant.

This bloodbath…

She’d helped make it.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, voice small. “I know I can’t hold my liquor, but… I didn’t know one bowl of Du Kang Wine would drop me. I didn’t know I’d… do this.”

Qi Shan’s anger drained out of him like air from a punctured skin. He waved a hand, exhausted. “Drink less from now on.”

Shen Tang nodded, miserable. “Okay.”

With their commander gone, the red-armored soldiers turned into headless flies. It didn’t take long for the black-armored soldiers to swallow them up. The shouting thinned, then faded.

Zhai Le dismissed his martial gall tiger tally and strode over, dragging the battered “thief” with one hand. His peach-blossom eyes glittered like he was waiting for praise.

He announced proudly, “Brother Shen! That petty thief who stole your treasure—I brought him to you!”

Shen Tang stared at him. “What?”

Qi Shan’s gaze slid to the “thief,” expression flat.

So this was the “thief” who’d driven Young Master Shen to sprint twenty-plus li in the dead of night with a sword?

If Shen Tang hadn’t blundered into this mess, the man would’ve died here.

Qi Shan’s eyes darkened.

An ordinary person didn’t draw an eighth-rank gong cheng chasing him down like this. That wasn’t something you “just ran into.”

The “thief,” half-dead and crusted in blood, jerked in shock at the word thief. Confusion flickered across his ruined face. He hadn’t stolen anything from Shen Tang.

But he did have a treasure.

His muscles tensed. His eyes sharpened with wary calculation.

Shen Tang looked at Zhai Le like he’d grown a second head. “What thief?”

Zhai Le blinked. “Didn’t you say he stole your treasure?”

Shen Tang’s face went hot. “I—I was drunk earlier.”

The silence that followed could’ve been used to build a house.

Shen Tang took a step back, suddenly very interested in anything other than the two men staring at her. She looked down—and realized her wooden clogs were still on the wrong feet.

When no one was watching, she quietly fixed them and pretended nothing happened.

The “thief” exhaled, barely. So it wasn’t aimed at him.

They were all too filthy and battered to return to Xiao City immediately. They decided to camp in the wild for the night and brought the injured “thief” down to the stream to rinse blood and grime.

Shen Tang had only her sleeping robe, so she could only wash her face.

The air was damp and heavy, the last heat of summer still pressing down. Dried blood and mud clung to skin like a second layer. Shen Tang wanted to crawl out of her own body.

“I’ll chop some firewood,” she said.

There was unburned wood left in the ruins. After resting, the weakness in her limbs had faded enough to move.

She used the Merciful Mother Sword to split wood. Zhai Le got roped into digging pits and burying bodies. Qi Shan stayed with the “thief,” cleaning and dressing what wounds he could in rough conditions.

With a ninth-rank, fifth-dafu rank’s recovery, the man would heal in seven or eight days of rest.

When the worst of the bleeding finally slowed, the “thief” managed to bow his head. “Thank you… righteous heroes. For saving my life.”