Chapter 31 Assault

Yuxi hadn’t slept for long when they had to wake up again. All she remembered was that she was twisting and turning all night while he was snoring soundly, like nothing was about to happen the next day.
But it was going to be them against Booyeong and his entire army. How were they even going to make it out alive? She was confident that Booyeong, for his hatred of her, would take the chance to gut her alive. She couldn’t fathom how he had such a deep animosity toward her. Even if they were each other’s bane, couldn’t they have avoided each other?
She wore Zhan Peng’s clothes and headed out of the cottage. He apparently had woken up to practise his martial arts, and was now performing some warming-up exercises.
“Zhan Peng, are you.. Are you ready for this?”
He stopped what he was doing and directed his attention to her. She couldn’t help but realise how good looking he was, albeit a little sweaty, when focused on exercise. He had a robust-looking physique, and his seriousness added to his attraction. His eyes had looked ready to kill, especially with his excellent charisma.
“You’ve changed, Yuxi.” He moved closer to her and tilted her chin up so that their eyes met. “In the past, you rushed into everything, without thinking whether success was workable. But now,” he ran his hands in her hair.
“You seem to have matured into that beautiful and smart woman I want to soon call my wife.”
She shivered when he pronounced the word wife. It was a word she never associated herself with all this life. She had come to realise that telling herself that she had her fiance Lang Juan was just believing in a fairytale that didn’t exist. Because she had desires that needed satisfying on a daily basis, she had created this fantasy of her own that Lang Juan would be able to accept her for who she was and he would serve as that partner in bed.
But, she had never known or remembered him. Finding out he was dead didn’t create any misery for her, and she got over it quickly. It hadn’t changed how she blindly lusted after Zhan Peng, but coming to terms that she might marry Zhan Peng in the future was something she had mixed feelings about.
If they had a future. Right now, what challenged them was how they would prevail against a camp filled with skilled fighters. Unless there was a miracle, they probably wouldn’t be able to succeed without even a solid plan or any people to back them up in the assault.
“Zhan Peng, I’m just not sure-not sure about charging Booyeong’s camp without any strategy-”
“Who says I don’t have one? I told you to rest well, and everything will go to plan-”
“I just can’t calm down!” She was close to breaking down in her anxiety. “I’m afraid that something will go wrong, then I can’t ever see you again-”
“How many hours do we have?”
“What?”
She looked up at the sky. It was still early in the morning. But what did he mean by that question?
“We have enough time.”
“Enough time for making up for lost time later. Just in case you complain about not being able to see each other again.”
“Wha-”
She gasped when he hoisted her up in his arms and pitched her against a wall of the cottage. He was swifter than usual as he threw off his trousers and pushed his hardened member inside her without saying a word.
“Ah, Zhan Peng..” She presumed she looked lewd right now as he thrust into her eagerly. In fact, it didn’t matter that they were doing it outside. This could be their last. Once they entered Booyeong’s camp, their fates were unknown.
After a night of fun in the comfort of someone else’s bed, doing it out there in the open felt so preposterous to her. Yet, it was thrilling. It seemed he wanted to explore his greatest fantasies with her. In just those two hours, they had tried all the wildest positions that were unheard of in her mind. He even chose the weirdest spots in the open.
She loved it when Zhan Peng took her by surprise, without telling her of his intention. At first, it irritated her, but now she was seeing it differently. She adored it when he exerted his dominance over her. Perhaps there was a reason why the gods of the worlds created men before women.
She was awakened by Zhan Peng’s gentle tap on her shoulder, and she rubbed her eyes, waking from her slumber.
“It’s time to go. But before we go…”
He took her hand and led her into the cottage. A chest lay open on the floor, with its lock ‌broken by Zhan Peng’s sword.
“...A change of clothes will do us some good.”
The garment he pulled out of the chest looked a little less ordinary than any she had seen. Bright red sequins adorned the sides of the black dress, and it looked to be made of the most exquisite brocade she had ever observed. To discover such clothes in a house in the middle of the forest didn’t seem possible for her. But it was a pleasure to be relieved from the filth of Zhan Peng’s old clothes, and she put on the dress without hesitancy. It was almost instantly that she felt a magical force course through her body.
Zhan Peng also wore the male equivalent of the dress, a black tunic with some red threads, almost invisible to the average person, but her eyes were keen enough to spot the unique design. These two garments were a pair. The question was why someone would have a pair of matching outfits and for what purpose, someone kept them in that chest.
She watched Zhan Peng for any signs that he was encountering a similar surge of power, but he looked incredibly calm. She dismissed it ‌ she was just imagining things and signalled to him that she was ready to leave.
They were near the bandits’ camp. She knew it as she heard the faraway noises coming from that feared place; distant clattering of metal as the men sparred with swords, and creepy jingling of chains.
There was no mistake about it; they had to be close, probably less than three thousand li away. Zhan Peng retained his composure.
“You know what you have to do?” Zhan Peng enquired. She shook her head.
“I would like to tell you to wait here for me, but I know you’ll have nothing of the sort. Stay close. I’ll do all the fighting.”
“I will.”
She wouldn’t act rashly this time. Her last blunder had almost resulted in her demise. Now when there was an opportunity for her to get back at the very person who humiliated and abused her, she had to value it. For the first time, she listened to Zhan Peng.
“Don’t worry.”
His hand on her arm was extremely comforting. She relaxed her shoulders, trying to calm herself and believe in him for once. After all, hadn’t he been the one who defeated the rapist and also rescued her when they threw her down the ravine? For someone with great strength like him, there wasn’t much for her to worry about.
The men were prepared. They formed a barrier in front of them where she recognised their leader standing behind them. Apparently, Zhan Peng’s plan was a direct confrontation, believing that would allow them less time to be prepared. While the men stood ready, some uncertainty between them was clearly evident. She heard them converse in their foreign language, probably unsure what was going on.
They were trained to defend, not offend. Zhan Peng raised his blade.
Her eyes almost popped out of her head when out of nowhere, lightning cracked across the sky, shooting small bolts of light towards the unsuspecting bandits.