Chapter 162: Ask The Heavens With Wine, Speak Of Desolation

In this vast courtyard, it seemed there was only this one radiant figure.

“Welcome back, Great General, triumphant.”

The girl in red like fire lifted a cup of wine and revealed a brilliant smile.

She had abandoned her usual cold demeanor. This image was very different from her usual self.

Gu Changqing was astonished, surprised at the girl’s dramatic change in temperament.

Even more surprising was why a betrothed maiden about to leave her chamber would summon him in this secluded courtyard.

But today Jiang Yunli seemed no longer the disciplined, ceremonious legitimate daughter of the Jiang family. She was a petulant, youthful maiden in the bloom of life.

Her face shone with a smile like a blooming flower, breathtakingly beautiful.

There was no chill in her eyes anymore. They were filled with unending warmth.

She poured a cup of hot wine.

She lifted her crimson skirt and, from among a thousand blossoms, walked slowly toward Gu Changqing.

“Care to taste?” Jiang Yunli said with a smile.

Gu Changqing hesitated for a moment, but still took the cup and drained it in one gulp, instantly feeling as if fierce flames scorched his heart.

This wine, of unknown brew, was intensely fierce and violent.

With just one cup, Gu Changqing felt the strong intoxication surge into his mind.

He couldn’t help but praise, “So strong.”

Seeing this, Jiang Yunli’s smile grew even brighter.

She led Gu Changqing to the pavilion, filled two cups, and clinked them together, saying, “To your triumphant return.”

Gu Changqing found the girl’s mood rather strange today, but he still drank a cup.

He swallowed the second cup.

Immediately he felt the fiery wine explode in his stomach, the blazing heat seeming to burn through tendons, his throat erupting in searing pain.

For a moment, Gu Changqing became somewhat dazed.

He examined the wine, surprised that this wine could have such a terrifying effect even on a Supreme cultivator.

Gu Changqing looked up and saw Jiang Yunli’s face.

She had a very beautiful face, classical and graceful, like a celestial beauty from a painting.

After drinking a cup of strong wine, her jade-white face flushed with rosy glow, her exquisite eyes sparkling. This icy beauty now showed a softness some young women possess.

“Come, sit down.”

Today’s Jiang Yunli paid no heed to rules at all.

She climbed over the railing that stretched across the lake and sat atop it. Her slender, delicate silhouette swayed on the water’s surface.

“Are you still wondering why I called you here?”

Jiang Yunli stared at the man sitting beside her. There was no restraint in her eyes, only sincerity.

Gu Changqing said nothing, only nodded.

The girl tilted her head and murmured to herself, “So tired.”

After a long pause, she sighed softly, “I just wanted someone to talk to, but it seems in the whole Jiang family, the only one I feel I can speak with is you.”

Gu Changqing did not fully grasp the meaning behind Jiang Yunli’s words and just simply listened silently.

The girl gazed at the bright moon in the sky, starlight flickering in her eyes. “My mother passed away when she gave birth to my younger brother.”

“The Jiang family oversees a vast number of affairs. My father had to manage them and couldn’t properly care for us siblings, so from a young age I knew I had to protect my brother.”

“But that brat is hopeless, only interested in playing. One day he kidnaps a noble maiden to be his maid, the next he takes some girl’s maidservant.”

“If he wants to play, let him. Our family’s great and secure and can tolerate his antics. But the thing is, he doesn’t love cultivation.”

Hearing this, Gu Changqing’s mouth involuntarily curved into a smile.

Kidnapping a noble family’s maiden to be a maid…

That was so Emperor Jiang…

Jiang Yunli didn’t notice Gu Changqing’s smile and she continued speaking to herself.

“He was born into the Jiang family, destined to bear many responsibilities. Anything is allowable, but how can he not love cultivation?”

“There’s no choice, since he only knows how to play, I must obey, fearing that one day if he angers my father, Father might remarry and have a son who would take this brat’s future position.”

“I used to think that if I was obedient like this, even if Father wanted to remarry, he would have to consider me, wouldn’t he?”

“With that thought, I never defied Father’s orders. I began to take charge of family affairs to pave the way for that brat to become head in the future.”

“Gradually, perhaps Father missed my mother, or perhaps he was somewhat wary of me, and indeed he never remarried.”

Gu Changqing listened to these words in silence.

At that point he turned his head. The woman was smiling foolishly, and Gu Changqing inexplicably felt a sting of pity.

Jiang Yunli continued, “Since childhood I’ve held this goal, as if my life had only two things: protect my brother, and obey my father.”

“I seem never to have had my own thoughts. No…maybe I did, but they were not important.”

“Until later, to continue the pure bloodline of Xuanyuan, my father planned to betroth me to the Ji family.”

“That day, I clearly remember, Father, unprecedentedly, asked me whether I agreed to the marriage.”

“Heh…”

Jiang Yunli laughed bitterly. “That was the only time I ever heard Father respect my opinion, but the problem was, was it even possible for me to say no?”

“Continuing the Xuanyuan bloodline is the destiny borne by me, a legitimate daughter of the Jiang family. If I refuse, it won’t be the Ji family, then it will be the Zhen family.”

“I’ve spent half my life paving the way for that brat, yet in the end I realized that it seems I have no path of my own.”

Jiang Yunli smiled bitterly, crystalline tears rolling down her cheeks.

“The world only knows me as cold, but which maiden doesn’t long for spring?”

“Have I never thought about whom I would want to call my beloved?”

“He would be a peerless hero, the most dazzling light among the crowd, a man unafraid of heaven and earth, overwhelmingly domineering and admired by all.”

“He need not be overly handsome, but strong of body and broad-shouldered. I want to be a little woman by his side, letting him hold up the sky for me.”

“But the young master of the Ji family… heh… what a joke.”

Perhaps sorrow rose in her heart. She poured another cup and drained it.

The blush on her face grew more radiant, her gaze flickering and hazy. “What, Great General, do you intend for me to drink alone?”

Gu Changqing remained silent, merely took the wine jar and poured himself a cup.

“You’re such a blockhead!”

Perhaps thinking Gu Changqing was taciturn and wooden, or referring to something else, Jiang Yunli crisply scolded him.

She rolled up her sleeve, “How could using a cup be satisfying?”

She tossed the wine jar to Gu Changqing.

She fetched another jar from the pavilion.

“Drink up!”

Jiang Yunli smiled charmingly and took a bold swig from the jar.

Gu Changqing inexplicably felt a pang of pity.

The world only knew her as a noble-born legitimate daughter of the Jiang family, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, never considering that this status had placed too many burdens upon her frail shoulders.

Watching Jiang Yunli drink heartily, Gu Changqing oddly felt he could not smell the wine from her jar.

He shook his somewhat dizzy head and did not dwell on it.

He raised the jar and gulped down large mouthfuls.

Under the moonlight, in the pavilion, above the lake.

Their shadows swayed in the silver lake bathed in moonlight.

A man in snow-white robes, a woman in flame-red garments, both clutching jars and drinking heartily.

Often, the crisp clinking of jars could be heard.

Often, one could hear the girl’s bright, pure laughter.

Often, too, one heard the girl speak.

“Jiang An, you really are a blockhead…”

As the revelry reached its peak, Gu Changqing, unusually, felt drowsy. He actually, in a daze, fell asleep… damn…