Chapter 145: The Feigned Resurrection

Wei Ba stood in the shadows while the armor-clad guards stood in the light. Light poured in from behind them, casting blurred silhouettes onto the folding screen. Through these shadows, Wei Ba could gauge the distance between them and himself, knowing that with a single forward lunge, the long spears or iron halberds in their hands could pierce his chest.

His heart hammered like a drum. A sudden chill enveloped his entire body, and his scalp prickled slightly. He loosened his fingers, then gripped his shield and short blade tightly once more, slowing his breathing as much as possible to keep his calm.

The more dangerous the situation, the less one could afford to lose one's reason. Charging out now might seem fierce and blood-stirring, but he could kill at most two guards—three if he were lucky—and then... dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Wei Ba tried hard not to think of Xiahou Hui, though he could clearly hear her voice, which had turned somewhat grating. Xiahou Hui was still in the main hall, while Xiahou Mao had already reached the entrance. It seemed this young woman loathed him to the core; she would not rest until she saw him dead with her own eyes.

Just as Wei Ba surmised, Xiahou Hui hated him to the extreme. Not only because Wei Ba had beguiled Xiahou Mao, plunging the entire Guanzhong region into peril, but even more because Wei Ba had subjected her to unprecedented failure, letting her taste the bitterness of defeat.

At this moment, life and death hung by a thread, yet the corner was dead silent without the slightest rustle, not even a quiver of the wall-hangings. Seeing this, Xiahou Hui's resolve to kill Wei Ba only hardened. To remain calm under such perilous circumstances proved that Wei Ba was a formidable opponent, possessing a coldness and ruthlessness far beyond his years—cruel not only to his enemies, but even crueler to himself.

She had to kill him. Even if it cost her life, she must rid Great Wei of such a terrifying foe.

"Attack!"

"Understood!" the guards roared in unison, stepping forward as their long spears and iron halberds toppled the screen, revealing Wei Ba's somewhat pale face. The crossbowmen locked their sights on him and squeezed the triggers.

The very instant the guards launched their assault, Wei Ba pulled hard with all his might, tearing down the entire wall-hanging. Amidst dust and overhead hooks, it plummeted, dropping squarely over the heads of the guards. Simultaneously, he sidestepped forward, using his shield to guard his face and back as he dashed straight between two long spears.

The razor-sharp spearheads scraped against his shield, emitting a harsh, grating screech. Wei Ba swung his short blade, forcefully deflecting an iron halberd aimed at his lower abdomen. The dagger slid along the halberd shaft, plunging straight into the guard's throat. With a violent twist of his wrist, he shredded the man's windpipe.

The wall-hanging tumbled down with a rushing wind, enveloping Wei Ba and the guards entirely. Plunged into sudden darkness, the guards panicked. Though they knew Wei Ba was right beside them, none dared to strike blindly for fear of hitting their own comrades. Huddled together, they found their long spears and halberds useless, inferior by far to the nimbleness of Wei Ba's short blade.

Watching the churning figures writhing beneath the wall-hanging, Xiahou Hui shrieked, "Step forward and attack! Kill them all! Everyone!"

The guards exchanged glances, yet none dared to disobey Xiahou Hui's command. They stepped forward and struck indiscriminately, paying no heed to whether the writhing body before them was a companion or Wei Ba. Kill them all; better to mistakenly slay an ally than let Wei Ba escape.

It was fortunate that these men were hardened, cold-blooded elites steeled in warfare, enabling them to execute Xiahou Hui's ruthless order without flinching. Ordinary soldiers would have broken into utter chaos by now.

Halberds and spears thrust wildly in all directions, while dozens of hand-crossbows shrieked, loosing volley after volley of lethal bolts. At such close quarters, no suit of iron armor could withstand this onslaught. Within moments, more than a dozen struggling figures collapsed. Fresh blood rapidly stained the pierced wall-hanging, pooling wantonly across the floor of the grand hall.

Seeing not a single movement left beneath the drapery, Xiahou Hui finally let out a breath. Still uneasy, she was about to order the wall-hanging lifted from the corpses to find Wei Ba and sever his head, when violent battle cries suddenly erupted from the entrance.

Dun Wu, accompanied by Zhu Yi and the others, had arrived.

Xiahou Hui sneered, cast one final glance at the corpses beneath the drapery, and whirled around. "Fall back!"

"Understood!" the guards bellowed in response. Hearing the order, they immediately wheeled about, shielding Xiahou Hui as they hacked their way forward.

Zhu Yi, towering in stature, peered through the crowd to see the hall slick with blood and strewn with corpses, but caught no sight of Wei Ba. His heart plummeted, his scalp tingled fiercely, and his eyes flushed crimson. Roaring aloud, he gripped his saber in both hands, hacked a guard charging toward the entrance to the ground, and bellowed, "Young Master—!"

Hearing Zhu Yi's cry, Dun Wu and the others grew anxious as well. Disregarding the need to intercept Xiahou Mao, they rushed headlong into the hall. But the entrance was narrow, and Xiahou Hui alongside her guards was desperate to break out; how could they allow these reinforcements to easily force their way in? A fierce melee erupted right at the threshold.

The Wei family warriors were highly skilled in combat, and those assigned to Wei Ba by Wei Yan were no weaklings. Yet Xiahou Hui's guards were likewise no ordinary soldiers. Equal in lethal skill and cold-blooded resolve to the Wei retainers, they would not have hesitated moments earlier to execute Xiahou Hui's command and slaughter their own comrades just to kill Wei Ba. They knew full well Xiahou Hui's noble status; if she died here, breaking out alone would be utterly meaningless.

One side fought desperately to rescue their young master; the other fought fiercely to escort their mistress to safety. Dozens of brave warriors clashed savagely at the threshold, neither side yielding an inch. Dun Wu knew that Wei Ba's chances of survival were grim, and that the Xiahou girl clustered among the guards was the root cause of it all. He swore he would not let her escape under any circumstances. Roaring with fury, he slew three men in rapid succession and charged toward Xiahou Hui with unstoppable valor.

More guards rushed before Xiahou Hui, risking their lives to shield her safety with their own bodies.

Both sides were blinded by bloodlust. Inside and out, bodies fell one after another. Blood pooled thickly and slickly on the bluestone-paved ground. From time to time, men tripped over corpses or slipped in the gore, only to become corpses themselves the next second, adding to the ever-growing crimson tide.

Watching the carnage unfolding before her eyes, Xiahou Hui's face turned as pale as the silk handkerchief in her hand, devoid of a shred of color. Born into a military family, she had witnessed blood before, but never had she beheld such a harrowing, close-quarters slaughterhouse. She watched blades flash and fall, heard the grating scrape of sabers against iron armor, the sickening thud of steel cleaving flesh and bone. She watched fountains of blood erupt, listened to overlapping shrieks of agony, saw mighty warriors brought low, and heard wretched, pitiful groans. She stood rooted to the spot, petrified.

Unable to control her limbs, she took step after step backward, unconsciously drifting away from the protection of the guards. Deprived of their support, her legs began to tremble violently, turning as soft as cotton without a shred of strength. No longer able to support her weight, she swayed twice and pitched forward toward the ground.

As she was about to crash face-first, a blood-smeared face with a severed throat loomed closer and closer. Xiahou Hui opened her eyes in terror, yet remained powerless to control her body. The dread swelling in her chest welled up into a piercing scream that tore through her throat, burst past her trembling lips, and pierced everyone's ears.

"Ah—!"

"Be careful, my lady." A blood-drenched hand reached out from behind her, sliding beneath her armpits to cup her heaving breasts—which rose and fell violently with terror—while simultaneously propping up her limp body.

Xiahou Hui steadied herself. Just as she was about to turn her head in gratitude, a sudden realization struck her. Her soft body instantly turned rigid as stone. Her lips quivered. "Wei... Wei Ba?"

"It is I, my lady." With one arm cradling Xiahou Hui's full breasts, Wei Ba rested his short blade against the side of her neck and smiled faintly. "I am truly sorry to disappoint your expectations. I am still alive."

Xiahou Hui was utterly dumbfounded. She could not fathom how Wei Ba had survived. She had clearly seen everyone covered by the wall-hanging hacked to pieces on the ground.

"You... how are you not dead?"

"My lady may consider me dead, or treat me as a vengeful ghost. I don't mind." Wei Ba chuckled lightly, then raised his voice. "Stop fighting! Drop your weapons and surrender, or I'll kill her right now!"

The guards and retainers currently locked in combat were startled by the sudden roar. However, the Wei retainers faced the main hall and had already witnessed Wei Ba crawling out from the pile of corpses; hence, they felt pure elation rather than utter shock. But the Cao Wei guards were struck dumb with horror. Whirling around, they discovered in dismay not only that Xiahou Hui, the very person they were sworn to protect, had been captured by the enemy, but that this enemy was none other than the Wei Ba they had just supposedly slain.

A deep chill gripped their hearts, draining every ounce of courage and strength from their limbs in an instant.

Elated, Dun Wu and the others rapidly cut down the remaining guards who attempted to resist, swarming around Wei Ba to secure the situation.

"Young Master, is it truly you?" Dun Wu asked, astonished and overjoyed. "How on earth did you survive?"

"Of course it's me." Wei Ba used a blood-stained sleeve to wipe his itchy nose, released the color-drained Xiahou Hui, and caught sight of the bloody handprint left on the silk fabric of her chest. Only then did he realize why the place he had grabbed felt so soft and full. He froze for a moment, completely forgetting to answer Dun Wu's question until he noticed the decidedly peculiar looks in the eyes of Dun Wu, Zhu Yi, and the others, which finally snapped him back to reality.

He chose not to answer Dun Wu's question, however. The way he had survived sounded impressive, but in truth, it was somewhat humiliating.

After tearing down the wall-hanging and charging out of the corner to kill a guard, he had used his momentum to throw himself flat on the ground, curling into a ball while shielding most of his body with his shield. The guards trapped beneath the drapery had their vision obstructed and never noticed his movement, so none of them thought to strike the ground. The guards outside the drapery were even less likely to guess it; focused entirely on hacking down the standing figures, how could they have known that the Wei Ba they truly wanted to kill had simply lain down on the floor to play dead before they even struck?

This trick was hardly brilliant. Had Xiahou Hui spared a moment to order the wall-hanging lifted, Wei Ba—pinned beneath the corpses of the guards—would have been just as doomed. Yet in that split second of life and death, this was the only ploy Wei Ba could conjure to buy a few moments of time and await reinforcements. This sliver of hope was all he had.

And he had seized that chance. Dun Wu had arrived in the nick of time with reinforcements, capturing Xiahou Hui's attention and sparking a desperate, bloody brawl at the entrance—ultimately gifting him the opportunity to "rise from the dead" and capture Xiahou Hui alive.

Such an embarrassing sequence of events was hardly something he could recount before his subordinates. Therefore, maintaining a solemn expression, he stared at Xiahou Hui and said, "Actually, I am already dead. I am merely a resentful ghost returned to exact vengeance upon this young lady."

Dun Wu and the others knew better than to believe such nonsense and burst into loud laughter. Xiahou Hui, however, rolled her eyes and fainted dead away.

(To be continued)