webnovelvip Chapter 380 The Moon Goddess's Plans: She intends to take her relationship with Xu Longxiang a
Chapter 380 The Moon Goddess's Plans: She intends to take her relationship with Xu Longxiang a
The weight that had been hanging over Zhou Cheng's heart for so long finally lifted!
He felt as if he had just escaped death; the cold sweat on his back had soaked through his undershirt, sticking stickily to his skin, icy and bone-chilling.
His earnest admonition was certainly not just for the sake of Han Zhong and his family.
He was Han Zhong's closest deputy general. If news of Han Zhong's betrayal of the emperor and disobedience to the emperor's orders were to leak out, he would also be unable to escape death!
He went to such lengths to save his own life.
We finally managed to persuade the general to come back!
Without hesitation, he quickly clasped his hands in a fist and bowed, his voice carrying a hint of relief as if he had survived a disaster.
"Then I'll take care of it right away!"
Han Zhong nodded without saying anything.
His gaze fell on the candlelight, on that small patch of flickering, orange-red light, but he didn't see anything else.
Zhou Cheng turned and strode out of the tent. His footsteps quickly disappeared into the night. The tent flap fell behind him with a soft "snap".
Han Zhong sat in the main seat, gazing at the tent curtain that was still swaying slightly, and sighed again.
The breath was very light, as light as a withered leaf falling from a branch, swirling twice in the air before landing on the ground without making a sound.
He lowered his head and looked at his hands, which had held swords and blades for most of his life.
In the candlelight, his hands were trembling slightly, not from fear, but from a complex emotion that even he himself couldn't quite explain.
There was guilt, helplessness, relief, and a faint, unacknowledged sense of relief.
He recalled what Xu Longxiang had said in the woods, the fire in his eyes that had burned for so long, and that winter night when he rode thirty miles to fetch a doctor, his boots filled with snow water.
He knew that his choice this time was right.
But I still feel a tightness in my chest.
The wind outside the tent picked up again, blowing in through the gaps and causing the candlelight to flicker violently, almost extinguishing it.
On the tent wall, Han Zhong's shadow swayed a few times, like a tree struggling in the wind, its roots still firmly planted in the soil, but its branches and leaves already blown about.
........
Meanwhile, on the official road.
The night was as dark as ink, and the moonlight was mostly obscured by clouds, so only a blurry outline could be seen.
Two fine horses galloped past one after the other, their hooves pounding the yellow earth and raising clouds of dust that looked like a gray mist under the moonlight.
Xu Longxiang lay prone on horseback, his dark cloak billowing behind him like a flag torn by the wind.
His face was covered in dust, his lips were chapped and peeling, and there were dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes still shone brightly, like two flames that had been blown by the wind for too long but had not been extinguished.
He was unaware of what was happening at that moment.
He had confidence in Han Zhong's character and knew that Han Zhong would definitely keep his promise.
However, he overlooked the fact that Han Zhong also had advisors and strategists around him.
Those people wanted to live and were unwilling to join the rebellion.
Even if he had guessed this, he would never have imagined that Han Zhong would tell his deputy about something so serious that could cost him his life.
Given his personality, he would shoulder everything himself, assuming that everyone in the world was like him.
The night wind howled past, and the horse's hooves shattered the moonlight.
As Xu Longxiang gazed at the approaching mountains ahead, he was still pondering what to say and do when he met the Moon Goddess.
What he didn't know was that no matter what he did, the result would be something he never expected.
The only difference is the level of excitement.
.......
The moon goddess sat before the bronze mirror, gazing at her pale, delicate face reflected there for a full hour.
Her fingers tapped lightly on the dressing table, very slowly and without rhythm, like a heart that had lost its beat.
She still can't believe that her army is gone just like that.
An army of 100,000, ten first-rank elders, and decades of hard work vanished overnight.
Every time she closes her eyes, the ruins appear before her.
Gravel, broken wood, and dark red blood seeping from the cracks in the rocks.
She opened her eyes, and the images were still there, as if etched into her mind, impossible to erase.
She was thinking about what to do next.
Without a doubt, she has to rely on the North to turn her life around.
The North was her only hope, the last piece of driftwood she clung to in her desperate situation.
She cannot let go; letting go would mean falling into an abyss.
In addition, there was the matter of rebuilding the army.
She had hundreds of thousands of followers, spread across three prefectures and sixteen counties in the southwest.
It is not too difficult to select young and strong men from among them and retrain them into an army.
Although their combat strength cannot compare with the elite force that had been trained for decades, they are still usable.
But what really gave her a headache wasn't the soldiers, it was the generals.
Those ten elders were first-grade experts whom she had painstakingly cultivated over nearly twenty years using the secret methods of the Moon Goddess Sect.
The weakest among them had the Vajra Realm cultivation level, while the strongest had reached the Celestial Phenomenon Realm.
That was the sharpest knife in her hand, her greatest source of confidence when facing any enemy.
Although the secret technique is powerful, it takes time, a lot of resources and luck to create a first-class expert. It's not something that can be done casually.
It took her twenty years, a full twenty years, to accumulate these ten.
Now they've all been lost overnight, and it's impossible to cultivate them again in a short time.
This is where the most severe losses occurred.
If this loss is not made up, the Moon Goddess Cult will never be able to truly recover its strength.
Her face was extremely pale, a bluish-white color, her lips were pressed into a thin line, and the knot between her brows could not be smoothed out no matter what.
The more she thought about it, the more frustrated she felt.
The army of 100,000 was gone, the ten elders were gone, and decades of hard work had vanished into thin air.
She didn't know what she had done wrong, or why God was treating her this way.
She only wanted to fulfill the cult leader's last wish, only wanted to strengthen the Moon Goddess Cult, only wanted to...
She was lost in thought.
She looked at herself in the mirror; her face was still beautiful, with eyebrows like distant mountains, a high nose bridge, and beautifully shaped lips.
But those eyes were as cold as two bottomless ice wells, with no water at the bottom, only frost.
The only thing she's grateful for now is that she got involved with the North before the barracks were destroyed.
At that time, she thought the North was begging her to form an alliance, but now it seems that she is the one begging the North.
Fate is such an ironic thing.
But it doesn't matter, as long as she can be tied to the North, she can regain her strength with the help of the North's troops.
The northern border has 300,000 iron cavalry, a powerful expert like Xu Longxiang at the Celestial Phenomenon Realm, and strategists like Fan Li and Sikong Xuan.
As long as she can keep Xu Longxiang firmly tied to the Moon Goddess Cult's war chariot, she will be able to get back what she has lost sooner or later.
The moon goddess's eyes flickered, like two eerie will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness.
She decided to meet Xu Longxiang and completely bind the Northern Border to the Moon Goddess Cult's war chariot.
If necessary, she felt she could develop a closer relationship with Xu Longxiang.
After all, she was a woman, and Xu Longxiang was a man.
In this world, there is no relationship more reliable than that one.
A cold smile slowly curved her lips, a smile devoid of any genuine joy, only scheming.
Just as she was thinking this, she heard hurried footsteps outside the door.
A woman in white walked in quickly, knelt on the ground, lowered her head, and her voice trembled slightly with nervousness.
"My Lord, Xu Longxiang from the Northern Territory requests an audience!"
The moon goddess's eyes suddenly lit up, like a lamp suddenly lit in the darkness.
She was just thinking about Xu Longxiang, but she didn't expect him to arrive so quickly.
It's true what they say, what you wish for comes true; God has finally opened his eyes.
She stood up, dressed in white as snow, her long hair cascading down to her waist.
She walked to the bronze mirror, raised her hand to tuck the stray hairs from her temples behind her ears, and then took out a white jade mask from her dressing case and slowly put it on her face.
The mask concealed her stunningly beautiful face, revealing only her eyes.
Those eyes appeared even more profound beneath the mask, like two ancient wells illuminated by moonlight.
She turned around, facing the door, her voice ethereal yet steady.
"Go, invite him in."
Xu Longxiang walked into the Moon Goddess Sect's headquarters, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings.
The passageway was lined with kneeling believers in white robes, their foreheads touching the ground, chanting incantations, like a group of puppets on strings.
Their eyes were empty and fanatical, the candlelight reflected in their pupils like two bundles of paper money burned for the dead.
His brow furrowed slightly.
He gained a new understanding of the power of the Moon Goddess Cult.
It is indeed remarkable that they were able to operate under the nose of the Qin Dynasty for decades and develop to this scale.
Yet, he also felt even more apprehensive.
The believers looked at the moon goddess as if she were a god, a savior, the only light in the world.
That kind of piety wasn't feigned; it was etched into his bones, seeped into his blood, and was something more terrifying than any sword.
He could almost imagine that if this group of people appeared in the North, the North would become like this.
The people stopped farming, the soldiers stopped training, and everyone knelt on the ground and kowtowed, chanting "May the Moon Goddess protect us."
His fingers slowly tightened inside his sleeve.
He was determined to stop these people from entering the North, no matter what.
We must never let them set foot in the North!
Fan Li followed behind Xu Longxiang, his gaze sweeping over the kneeling white-robed believers, his brows also furrowing slightly.
This month's cult really aligns with his inner thoughts about cults.
They spread rumors and mislead people, turning good people into mindless puppets.
It seems we'll have to be more careful when cooperating with the Moon Goddess Cult in the future.
We must not allow them to infiltrate the North, nor can we allow their methods to spread there, otherwise the consequences will be dire.
However, he also felt that cooperation with the Moon Cult would be very beneficial to the North.
After all, the existence of such a force on the southwestern border would certainly be a major threat to the Qin Dynasty.
With hundreds of thousands of believers spread across three prefectures and sixteen counties, and even local officials converted to the religion, this force was enough to distract Qin Mu and buy precious time and opportunities for the northern border.
A glint of light flashed in his eyes, a light so bright it was like a lamp suddenly lit in the darkness.
Ahead, a white-clad masked man led them through layers of corridors.
The candlelight on both sides of the passageway flickered gently in the wind, casting the shadows of the three people on the wall, sometimes long and sometimes short.
After passing through the last white jade gate, a bright and open space suddenly appeared before me.