Chapter 122 Part 2

He broke in here late at night, just for this? Lu Wenjun had never expected such a thing before. For a moment, she lost her composure. Her mind went completely blank, and she had no idea how to respond.

As she stood there, the door behind her opened and Xuyu walked out.

“Stop.” She said, then came to Lu Wenjun’s side and whispered to her to go into the house.

Chengping had already reached the gate of the courtyard. When he heard her voice, he stopped and stood there for a long time, before slowly turning his head.

“You’re here too?”

He looked at Xuyu who walked down the steps and stood in the moonlight, smiled, and then nodded.

“So it’s true.” He said to himself.

“Pei Er really deceived me and set a trap for me…”

His gaze flickered under the moonlight, a whirlwind of emotions flashing through his eyes—bewilderment, anger—but in the end, he let out a quiet breath, as if everything had melted away into a resigned relief: So be it. This is for the best.

Before deciding on this plan, Xuyu had considered many possible contingencies—including the possibility that, once the switch was made, Chengping would discover the plan.

For each situation, a corresponding response method had been developed.

However, what happened tonight was something she had never imagined before.

In the brief moment when Chengping finished speaking and left, Xuyu in the house quickly made this decision.

They had to figure out Chengping’s true motives. Otherwise, it would be better to abandon the entire plan and return empty-handed than to let Pei Xiaoyuan walked into an unknown trap by meeting Li Yan.

If they failed to capture Li Yan this time, there would always be another chance, and another after that. Compared to Pei Xiaoyuan’s safety, ten Li Yans weren’t worth the risk.

“What do you mean?” Xuyu stared at him and asked.

Chengping turned around, looked at her for a moment, and asked, “Did Pei Er really lie to me? He didn’t intend to join Li Yan, but used himself as bait to lure out Li Yan through me?”

“Weren’t you the one who deceived him first?” Xuyu asked coldly.

“You killed Prince Kang. Although you used Wenjun and the Crown Prince to shift suspicion, but do you really think my father is so easily deceived? He was still suspicious and summoned Prince Consort to question him. In order to protect you, he took the blame himself. He confessed in front of my father, claiming it was his doing. When he said that, he didn’t think about me or his own future. He just wanted to save you first. If that isn’t loyalty, then what is? And how did you repay him? The first time I saw you both in Ganliang County Governor’s Mansion at the beginning of the year, you struck me as the closest of friends. He never wronged you. It was you who betrayed him first. Or rather, from the very beginning, you befriended him with ulterior motives—didn’t you?”

The moonlight cast a pale glow over Chengping’s face. He was silent for a moment before asking in a low voice: “How did he know that I had contact with Li Yan?”

“Was it really difficult to figure out? Your motive for killing Prince Kang was far too suspicious, and the result was complete upheaval in the court. With both the Crown Prince and Prince Kang gone in an instant, my father was nearly driven to his grave. Who benefited the most from that? A little more digging into your childhood ties with Li Yan in Chang’an, and the connection wasn’t hard to make. It’s just that Prince Consort is too loyal and trusts you too much. When I reminded him, he didn’t dare to believe it at first. You are younger than him. I think in his eyes, at most, you’re just an unruly Hu boy—reckless, unwilling to be bound by propriety, often causing trouble but never truly wicked. He never even considered suspecting you of something like this!”

“I underestimated you before…”

He stared at Xuyu, his gaze carrying a dazed, almost dreamlike stillness. He murmured under his breath, then suddenly paused. His eyes sharpened, and when he spoke again, his tone had shifted—laced now with a hint of self-mocking cold laughter.

“Even blood brothers turn their swords against each other, let alone an outsider of a different race like me? So be it. Let him see me for what I truly am. If I am no better than a beast, then let him sever all ties with me completely. That will only make things easier—I won’t have to hold back anymore. But don’t worry, Princess. As for Li Yan, I won’t say a word. Whether you catch him in the end—that will depend on his luck.”

He glanced at the door behind Xuyu again, where just a moment ago, Lu Wenjun walked inside.

“You don’t need to doubt what I just said to Wenjun. Marrying her was only a means to take a hostage and put Li Yan at ease. I have no real intention of bringing along a woman who’s good for nothing but crying—why would I willingly invite such trouble on myself? You can send her back. This far is enough—she’s no longer needed. As for Li Yan, I will handle him myself.”

After he said that, he turned around and left.

“Wait!” Xuyu spoke again.

“Why did you do this? What exactly do you know? Why should I trust you?”

She studied Chengping’s face under the moonlight—a face that seemed both familiar and unfamiliar all at once—throwing three sharp questions at him in succession.

Chengping glanced at her and said, “Princess, are you still unwilling to let me go? Aren’t you afraid that I will take you as hostage? Don’t you know that you’re now more valuable than anyone else!”

“Hostage is nothing more than for exchange. Whatever you want, I can afford it. As for my life, if anything bad happens to me, you will never leave here alive.”

Xuyu didn’t move.

“Tell me, how did you guess this was a trap?”

Chengping looked at her for a moment.

“Princess, I admit that I underestimated you in the past. This time, you’ve completely exposed my true nature, leaving me with nowhere to hide before Pei Er. You seized the opportunity when he angered the emperor by taking the blame for me, using half-truths to the greatest effect—crafting the illusion that he was utterly cornered and disheartened. You leveraged Li Yan’s desire to win him over, then played on my own selfish motives, driving me to act as the intermediary, thus dispelling Li Yan’s suspicions. I have to say, turning an unexpected disaster into a chance to capture Li Yan in such a short time—you truly are clever. But you missed one thing in your calculations. That is how well I know Pei Er.

“He and I met as young men in the army, fought side by side, ate from the same pot, drank from the same ladle, and in the dead of winter, shared a single wolf pelt for warmth. He is the bravest, fiercest, most fearless man I have ever known—unafraid of demons or death. And yet, he is also the most kind-hearted, the most upright. Chen Shao came to me and said that Pei Er knew that the emperor was the instigator of the Battle of Beiyuan that year. He harbored hatred and wanted revenge, but he didn’t want the Pei family to bear the name of rebellion, so he was willing to support Li Yan. Isn’t this reason sufficient and reasonable? To the world, it is too sufficient and too reasonable! But when it comes to Pei Er, I can’t help but doubt it.

“I was the one who killed Prince Kang. Although it was not premeditated, perhaps deep down, I had already harbored such a thought. If his death led the emperor to suspect Pei Er and could not tolerated him anymore, then my hope that he would start a rebellion would come true. But when it truly happened, I didn’t believe it anymore.

“Based on my understanding of him, even if it were true—even if he could not let go of his father’s murder and hated the emperor to his very core—he would have found another way to settle that grudge. Even if revenge is hopeless in the end, I am certain he would sooner take his own life to atone before the General and the others than ever choose to help Li Yan.

“What kind of person is Li Yan? Although his veins may carry the noble blood of Crown Prince Jingsheng’s lineage, and on the surface, he appears gentle and elegant. But in truth, he is someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. In your holy dynasty, from scholars to street peddlers, when they talk about us, they just call us Beidi, a group of barbarians who wear their hair loose and wear left-side lapels, eat raw meat and drink blood. That one still polite. The less polite way? That we’re nothing more than beasts who happen to walk upright, just like you. But I know that among you, many may look well-dressed, but if you take off the outer shell and get rid of all the hypocrisy, how are they any different from us so-called barbarian beasts? In order to win me over, Li Yan promised that if he could capture Chang’an, he would first grant me three days and three nights to plunder as I pleased, then cede all lands from Beiyuan to Ganliang to me! And I am not the only one he tried to win over. I’m afraid that Chang’an will be plundered by countless iron horse riders for countless three days and three nights in the future! The land north of Beiyuan? I don’t know how many people he has promised it to!

“Pei Er will not serve such a person. In the past when we were fighting in Xifan, if there was any army that could be called a ‘righteous army’ and never harm the people along the path, even if they were Xifan people, it would be his army. A man like that could never do such a thing. So even though your plan is perfect and reasonable, my first reaction is doubt. His character determines the bottom line of his actions. He will not do this. Of course, I couldn’t be entirely certain. Because I didn’t expect that you had already uncovered my relationship with Li Yan. Perhaps Pei Er himself hadn’t fully grasped the truth about Li Yan. And it was true that I had more than once urged him to rise in rebellion. If he had now changed his mind, it’s natural for him to ask me for help.

“In the end, I made a decision. Whether he truly intended to defect to Li Yan or whether this was all a trap, I might as well go along with it. I’ll just consider it as repaying him for taking the blame for me and as a farewell to our years of brotherhood. Li Yan left the pass days ago, disguised as a traveling merchant. He has set aside his suspicions. Just now, he sent me the meeting location. I’ve verified there’s no trickery and passed it on to Pei Er exactly as agreed. I have done all I can. As for what happens next—whether he succeeds or fails—that is up to fate.”

Xuyu became more and more frightened as she listened. She steadied herself and spoke.

“Chengping, if I have misunderstood you before, I offer you my apologies. But since you are not truly set on following Li Yan to the end, why don’t you turn around and continue to stand with Pei Er? Fighting side by side, relying on each other as brothers, would that not be better?”

Chengping’s eyes were slightly teary.

“Princess, I killed people first. Then I betrayed the court. I have committed crimes too great to be undone. That you did not regard me as a scourge—that you would still offer me a path forward—I am deeply grateful. But it’s already impossible. Pei Er and I are different people. If he is a dragon or an elephant, then I was born a jackal or a wolf. How can we always walk the same path? That we once crossed paths, that he called me brother for those few years—that was already more than enough.

“You already know about my relationship with Li Yan, so I must have been included in your plan. If my guess is correct, once Li Yan shows himself, I likely won’t be able to leave as well. That’s why I have already planned to leave early—if I stay any longer and run into old friends from Chang’an, men I once drank and have fun with, we may end up drawing swords against each other.

“I’m leaving now. Princess, please give me some leeway and ask people to make way for me. Don’t make things difficult for me.”

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