Chapter 148: And I, I Love Him!

"Go to hell!" Qin Cheng let out a cold shout in his heart, slamming his foot directly into Guo Feng's chest and sending him flying backwards!

Guo Feng's abilities should not have been so mediocre, but Qin Cheng had just vaulted over the courtyard wall, appearing before everyone's eyes like a god of slaughter, possessing a truly formidable visual impact. Coupled with the momentum of his leap from above, his ferocious and decisive downward slash left Guo Feng caught completely off guard. Therefore, even as Guo Feng was kicked flying by Qin Cheng and forced back the surge of blood rising to his throat, what he felt most deeply was a searing mix of shame and anger.

At that moment, Guo Xixi and Bai Xinxin finally hurried out of the room. The first thing they saw was Qin Cheng leaping high from the courtyard wall, his blade driving Guo Feng to his knees with a single slash before kicking him away.

Guo Xixi was slightly startled. Just as her hand brushed against the hilt of her sword, preparing to leap out and join the fray, she happened to catch sight of Qin Cheng turning his face toward them.

"Brother Qin?" Guo Xixi gasped, her movements freezing instantly in place.

"General." Upon seeing Qin Cheng, a look of immense relief and blissful happiness bloomed across Bai Xinxin's face.

From the very moment she was forcibly dragged away from the Linxiang Pavilion, Bai Xinxin knew without a doubt that Qin Cheng would come to rescue her. She had absolute confidence in herself, and in him.

Yet having such faith did not mean the reality was guaranteed. To say nothing else, had Guo Feng attempted to force himself upon her, Bai Xinxin knew that very moment would have marked her own death. But now, Qin Cheng had finally appeared before her eyes—and he had appeared with such an overwhelming, commanding presence, kicking Guo Feng away the absolute second they met. How could Bai Xinxin not be moved?

Thousands of words crowded together in her heart, yet when they finally passed her lips, they culminated in nothing more than that single, soft sigh: "General."

Seeing the smile on Bai Xinxin's face, Guo Xixi finally understood at that exact moment why Bai Xinxin had been so utterly certain she would be saved.

Would a young general who dared to lead two thousand light cavalry deep into the vast desert to slaughter enemies on all sides fail to rescue his own woman?

Guo Xixi looked at Bai Xinxin, her expression and her thoughts a tangled web of complexity. Perhaps no one could truly comprehend what she was feeling in her heart at that moment.

Was it sourness, bitterness, or a strange, quiet comfort?

Qin Cheng kicked Guo Feng away, his ring-pummel saber sweeping in a half-circle to force back Guo Dongdong and the several swordsmen who had pursued him into the courtyard. Seizing a momentary gap, he turned his head, and his gaze immediately locked onto the figure in red—the one who had driven him through two days and nights of burning anxiety and frantic pursuit.

He smiled at Bai Xinxin.

"Kill him!" Guo Feng vaulted up from the ground, shouting to the swordsmen while hurtling toward Qin Cheng himself, his long saber aiming straight for Qin Cheng's throat!

Qin Cheng sneered, his wrist turning the blade in his grip. He parried Guo Dongdong and one of the swordsmen beside him, moving with blinding speed to close in on Guo Feng. With an upward slash from beneath, he moved to carve open Guo Feng's chest!

Guo Feng was utterly alarmed, hurriedly altering his stance to pull back his blade for a block. Unexpectedly, the moment Qin Cheng's saber closed the distance, the blade shifted once more, beating back the nearby Guo Dongdong while a lightning-fast kick struck Guo Feng squarely in the neck!

In less than the blink of an eye, screams rang out once again. The several swordsmen who had swarmed Qin Cheng were stripped of their lives before exchanging even two blows!

Wherever Qin Cheng's long saber passed, he avoided no sharpness and showed no mercy to his opponents. Even Guo Dongdong, who merely wished to mediate the fight, was driven back relentlessly. If not for Guo Dongdong's formidable saber techniques, his fate would likely have been no different from the swordsmen lying dead on the ground.

True, Qin Cheng was somewhat familiar with Guo Dongdong, but was he anywhere near as close to him as Bai Xinxin?

The weight of the two women in his heart was entirely different!

Qin Cheng knew only one thing: everyone connected to this incident, everyone standing in opposition to Bai Xinxin, had to die!

With such a simple boundary, Qin Cheng naturally knew where to draw the line.

He understood perfectly well who truly mattered to him.

Qin Cheng sprinted two steps across the courtyard wall, then pivoted in mid-air as he leaped high. Looking down at Bai Xinxin, he shouted, "Xinxin, today I will slaughter every single person here for your sake!"

His plain garments stained crimson, Qin Cheng told Bai Xinxin: I will slaughter everyone here for you!

The words fell, and several arcs of fresh blood sprayed into the air!

Bai Xinxin's tears finally broke and fell at that very moment, because she heard her general tell her that he was going to massacre everyone here for her sake!

Because of her, dozens of human lives were treated as nothing, killed without a second thought!

This was the very first time Qin Cheng had ever truly done something for Bai Xinxin.

And his first act bore the heavy cost of dozens of lives; his first act was the wholesale slaughter of everyone present!

A few tears fell, and yet a smile bloomed on Bai Xinxin's face once more.

Because she felt that at this very moment, watching Qin Cheng fight fiercely in the center of the courtyard, she ought to reward him with a smile.

He was her man—a man willing to make an enemy of the entire world for her sake!

And furthermore, he possessed the absolute strength to back it up!

...

Setting Bai Xinxin aside, leaving aside Guo Dongdong—who had been passively dragged into the fray before she could figure out what to do—and ignoring Guo Xixi, who stood dazed and unable to recover from her tangled emotions, the person most profoundly shaken at that moment was Xiao Linglong. Pale as a ghost, she was barely able to keep upright by clinging to the doorway.

She had run out of the room even before Bai Xinxin, which meant she had been fortunate enough to witness Qin Cheng vaulting over the courtyard wall. She had heard with absolute clarity the words Qin Cheng uttered after sweeping his icy gaze across everyone in the courtyard: "Today, all of you shall die!"

No one could possibly understand the shock and turbulence in her heart at that instant; a churning sea was not even half enough to describe it.

Then, before Xiao Linglong's widened eyes, Qin Cheng leaped down with effortless grace, his long saber descending in a vertical slash. Before she could even process what had happened, Guo Feng's body was sent flying backward.

This is impossible!

That was the loudest thought echoing in Xiao Linglong's mind after witnessing the scene. For over a decade, she had believed she understood Qin Cheng more thoroughly than anyone else—mediocre in martial arts and timid in temperament. How could a person like that possess such an oppressive, peerless dominance? How could he send Guo Feng flying at the very first exchange, claiming the lives of multiple swordsmen as easily as plucking flowers?

If she hadn't firmly believed in her heart that, given Qin Cheng's meager abilities and cowardly nature, he could never amount to anything in this lifetime, how could she have so decisively abandoned a decade of emotional attachment and left him behind without a second glance?

She had thought she knew Qin Cheng inside out, but seeing him tonight, she realized with bitter sorrow that the man before her—the man who was once destined to be hers, the man slaughtering his way through a swarm of swordsmen—was a complete stranger!

Could a military camp truly change a man to such an extreme degree?

Could it be that the decision she made back then was truly wrong?

Just as Xiao Linglong was wracked by this agonizing dilemma, she saw Qin Cheng leap into the air and cast his gaze directly toward her side, declaring, "Xinxin, today I will slaughter everyone for your sake!"

Everyone?

Did that include her as well?

At that moment, Xiao Linglong felt a searing, visceral sensation across her face, as if someone had struck her a vicious, hard slap. It burned fiercely, stinging with a humiliation so profound she wished the earth would swallow her whole.

...

When she saw Qin Cheng's long saber repeatedly beat back Guo Feng and Guo Dongdong within mere moments, harvesting the lives of several of her family's swordsmen in the process, Guo Xixi felt her entire world spinning out of control. In that brief instant, she almost collapsed to the ground.

Yet just as she attempted to rush forward to put a stop to it all, she heard Qin Cheng's deeply tender words. They sounded like a lover's whisper, yet carried the grand weight of a heroic declaration and a death sentence: "Xinxin, today I will slaughter everyone for your sake!"

Guo Xixi let out a soul-deep wail of despair, finally unable to bear it a moment longer. She yanked her long sword from its scabbard and charged like a madwoman into the courtyard, screaming at the top of her lungs with every ounce of strength in her body: "Stop this instant, all of you!"

Her voice was raspy, yet laden with a profound and desolate sorrow. Its sharp timbre shocked the combatants so severely that every single person except Qin Cheng froze mid-action.

Guo Xixi sprang forward three steps. While everyone on her side stared at her in utter astonishment, she noticed that Qin Cheng's blade had not stopped its momentum. Without hesitation, she shoved Guo Feng aside and threw herself directly into the path of Qin Cheng's descending sword.

Guo Xixi knew that her shout alone, while enough to make her own people halt their attacks, would never be enough to make Qin Cheng stop. From the moment she heard Qin Cheng state twice—ignoring the presence of both herself and Guo Dongdong—that he intended to kill everyone present, she knew Qin Cheng had already placed them all in the category of enemies.

And through her understanding of Qin Cheng during their recent trip to Chang'an, Guo Xixi understood even better that Qin Cheng would never change his course simply because of who his opponents were.

Therefore, Guo Xixi cast her own sword aside and hurled herself forward to meet Qin Cheng's blade head-on.

"Xixi!" As Guo Feng and Guo Dongdong finally reacted, Guo Xixi had already intercepted Qin Cheng's strike!

"Brother Qin!" Guo Xixi closed her eyes, screaming out as if delivering her final dying words, "I am willing to pay with my life to absolve my brother of his crimes!"

The time was too short—far too short for Guo Xixi to say the many other things lingering in her heart. She desperately wanted to append another sentence to her plea, but she knew the moment these words left her mouth would be the moment her life ended.

The surrounding wilderness seemed to fall utterly silent in an instant. Aside from the sound of her own breathing and the frantic beating of her heart, Guo Xixi could hear nothing else.

The world grew entirely tranquil at that moment.

Suddenly, a massive wave of impact slammed into her body, and Guo Xixi couldn't help letting out a muffled groan as her body flew backward through the air.

She snapped her eyes wide open, knowing instantly that this did not feel like a blade piercing flesh!

Sure enough, the moment she opened her eyes, she caught sight of Qin Cheng executing a backward flip in mid-air before landing gracefully on his feet.

Just a heartbeat earlier, Qin Cheng's blade was about to touch Guo Xixi's body when he heard her heart-wrenching cry. In that split second, the emotion-laden scream seemed to strike a chord within him. He also caught sight of Guo Xixi's empty hands, her tightly shut eyes, and her chest thrust forward in defiance. Without a fraction of a second to think, he altered his technique mid-swing, shifting his blade into a heavy palm strike that hit Guo Xixi squarely on the shoulder, sending her flying backward out of harm's way while he used the recoil of the blow to flip backward and land firmly on the ground.

Without that split-second redirection of force, Guo Xixi would undoubtedly have been dead!

"Fall back, all of you! Not a single person is allowed to step forward!" Understanding the situation, Guo Xixi didn't even wait to steady her footing before shouting a fierce command to the others!

Because she knew how the people on her side would react after witnessing her take such a blow.

Landing, springing back up, and coughing up a mouthful of blood, Guo Xixi moved with lightning speed to draw a dagger, holding the gleaming blade against her own throat as she glared at the surrounding men who were still stirring restlessly. "I said, fall back!"

"Xixi, what on earth are you doing?!" Guo Feng roared angrily, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth as he tried to step forward, only to be forced back by Guo Xixi's resolute stance.

She said, "Brother, fall back."

Her voice was soft, yet her tone was absolute and brooked no argument.

Guo Dongdong sheathed his long saber, offering a bitter, helpless smile as he looked at Guo Xixi. "Why must you torture yourself like this?"

Guo Xixi offered a radiant smile—a smile of devastating, piercing beauty. She looked toward Qin Cheng, who stood tall with his blade in hand, still maintaining his guard, and her smile grew even more resplendent.

"Because," Guo Xixi's voice remained soft, her chin lifting slightly with an air of profound pride, "he is Qin Cheng. And I... am in love with him!"