Chapter 176 – Historically Memorable Villainy Arc
Song Rong felt like he had fallen into an ice cave. All the blood in his body seemed to have solidified, leaving only a bone-chilling coldness.
The other person continued to talk, but Song Rong no longer had the heart to listen. He had obtained the medicine, but he somehow lacked the strength to turn around.
It was like there was a big hole in his chest and the cold wind was pouring in mercilessly, freezing his heart to the point of pain. Yet at the same time, it was like there was a fire burning deep in his heart.
On that winter day five years ago, he knew better than anyone else what had happened in the army.
There was unrest at the border and it was the most stressful period of the war.
The army crawled on the ice and lay in the snow to fight desperately. They sent letter after letter back to the capital. The letters traveled across eight hundred miles, but it was like casting a stone into the vast ocean. They got no response. The army provisions that they depended on never arrived.
The army’s food reserves had been exhausted. If the army withdrew due to lack of food, then the twn border cities would surely fall into the hands of the enemy. But if they continue to fight to the death, then the land of white snow would eventually become the soldiers’ burial grounds.
In that world of snow and ice, he beheaded his own warhorse with his own hands and distributed the frozen meat piece by piece to his men. His eyes burned with unshed tears and his heart crackled with ice.
Then, the army provision suddenly arrived.
These were people who have been in the army for a long time. At a glance, they could tell that the army provisions this time were clearly different from before. The grains were uneven, some were big, and some were small. New rice was mixed with old rice. Because there were clearly not enough food grains, there was even cured meat wrapped in flatbread to make up the numbers.
These men were hardened on the battlefield. When they saw the food, they felt hope for the future and cast aside all their resentment and despair. The generals passed out the frozen and hard flatbread. The soldiers each took one and warmed it against their chests. Then they stuffed it hungrily down their gullets and washed it down with melted snow water.
The solders no longer felt bitter once they got some food in their bellies. The soldiers laughed and talked loudly, saying that it must not have been easy to get the army provisions this time and they wondered how many private granaries the guys from the Ministry of Revenue must have raided to get this food.
But Song Rong did not smile. As they unloaded wagon after wagon of army provisions, Song Rong only saw poverty. He saw the shortage of money and the shortage of food.
What kind of dire straits caused the people in the capital to have no choice but to put together whatever was edible and then send it all the way to the warfront over such a long distance?
At that time, he had already been away from the capital for a long time and he didn’t know what the situation was like back home. He thought that there was a famine in the country and that’s why the army provisions were delayed for so long this time. As a result, he completely lost all resentment towards the imperial brother who was far away in the capital, and instead he felt deep guilt in his heart.
From that moment on, the guilt made him keep his silence no matter how hard the imperial court put pressure on the army. When they sent him to battle, no matter how hard or difficult it was, he would not utter a single complaint.
It was precisely because of this guilt that when something happened in the imperial court, he did not even hesitate and rushed thousands of miles back to the capital to offer his assistance.
But he suddenly realized that he might be completely wrong.
The snowfall five years ago was even heavier than today. He heard that the entire capital was covered in snow, and many literati improvised and wrote heroic or exquisite poems.
No one knew, and no one needed to know, that thousands of miles away, the army was almost wiped out due to delayed provisions, and that a young official tried unsuccessfully to appeal to the emperor and nearly lost his legs from kneeling outside the palace gates for a long time.
Song Rong was sure that Song Zhilan would regret this one day, that the regret would come too late, and that he would go crazy with pain, but he did not expect that he would be the first to feel regret.
“Wangye… wangye?”
A worried voice pulled Song Rong put of his thoughts. He looked up to see the concerned gaze of the imperial guard. Song Rong came to his senses in a daze. His hand suddenly tightened around the bottle of medicine and then he strode back into the palace hall.
His steps became slower and slower, and his expression gradually calmed down. By the time he reached the door, the mistiness in his eyes had dissipated.
Song Rong centered himself, and then he opened the door to go in. He walked slowly to the couch, warmed his frozen hands, and then began to carefully apply the medicine on Lu Li’s wound.
The skin under his palm was slightly hot. He applied the cooling ointment carefully and rubbed it in meticulously inch-by-inch. Song Rong’s chest rose and fell more and more intensely, but the movements of his hands became gentler and gentler.
Finally, a hand reached out and took hold of his wrist.
There was almost no strength in that hand. It was only holding on to him weakly. But Song Rong’s movements abruptly halted. He raised his eyes to meet Lu Li’s gaze. Those clear eyes told him that Lu Li seemed to have perceived something.
