Chapter 169: Chapter 169: No Matter What, I Will Never Hurt You

"Why do you keep staring at me? You should eat too," Cui Lingyao said as she ladled a bowl of old duck soup for him. "You’ve gotten so much thinner. Eat more."

Her concern was a rare thing.

Xie Jinbai didn’t want to waste a single bit of it.

He lifted the bowl and took a sip of the soup. Staring at the leg meat within, his mind seemed to wander before he suddenly turned his head and asked her, "Are you scared?"

Cui Lingyao froze.

Xie Jinbai said, "Did you find that kind of torture... too cruel?"

Torture.

The image of a calf, its bones gone, collapsing into a heap of soft flesh, appeared in her mind once more.

Cui Lingyao’s brow furrowed slightly.

She couldn’t bring herself to lie and say it wasn’t cruel, and she didn’t want to deceive him. She nodded honestly. "A little."

As she nodded, Xie Jinbai’s expression changed slightly.

Cui Lingyao hurriedly added, "I just found the image itself cruel. I wasn’t talking about you. You did nothing wrong. Li Lu colluded with the Qiang Clan. Whatever fate he meets, he deserves it."

The Qiang Clan’s sins were monstrous. They burned, killed, and pillaged, stopping at no evil.

They even practiced cannibalism.

Once their iron cavalry broke through Jiayun Pass, the Yue People would be nothing more than two-legged beasts in their eyes.

And Li Lu dared to collude with such Barbarians.

Death by a thousand cuts would be too good for him.

The sour feeling in his chest instantly vanished. Xie Jinbai relaxed and said, "I almost forgot. Yaoyao is quite the patriot."

When it came to the Alien Clans, she was always calling for their death and destruction, never showing any mercy.

So fierce.

Cui Lingyao said seriously, "More than torture, I’m afraid of those man-eating Alien Clans breaking through our borders and giving Great Yue no peace."

It was rare for her to be so solemn.

Ordinarily, Xie Jinbai would have just thought she’d been reading too many miscellaneous books and was being overly concerned with the fate of the nation. But now... he had already uncovered many of her secrets.

He knew her origins were mysterious, that perhaps she wasn’t from this world.

He also knew that she had most likely approached him with some purpose.

One of them was related to his offspring.

—She wanted him to have a child of his own blood.

As for the reason why, the previous Xie Jinbai had no idea.

But now, hearing her words again...

A flicker in his eyes, he said impassively, "You needn’t worry. Great Yue has endured for two hundred years. Our people are prosperous, our army is strong, and the border walls are like iron. Those savages from the wilderness won’t get in."

"Says who!"

Seeing him underestimate the enemy to such a degree, Cui Lingyao forgot all about her food. She slammed down her chopsticks and said, "It’s precisely because Great Yue is so prosperous and those Barbarians have nothing that we’re a juicy piece of meat in their eyes! They’re all thinking about taking a bite. Right now, our army is strong and they can’t do anything to us, but who can guarantee that Great Yue will always be prosperous and at peace?"

’Even a tiger has to nap sometime.’

’Besides, dynasties become unstable, and civil wars break out frequently.’

’If we wipe out our own elite forces, what will we have left to deter foreign enemies?’

Her little mouth had been running a mile a minute, rattling off a long speech. When she finally stopped, she realized just how quiet the room had become.

The man before her was looking at her, his head tilted, with an expression that could only be described as strange.

Cui Lingyao’s expression went blank. She forced a dry laugh and tried to backtrack, "Never mind. I’m not the Great General. This isn’t something I should be worrying about."

Xie Jinbai didn’t speak. His expression was unmoving as he just stared at her, deeply.

Cui Lingyao felt the side of her body he was staring at grow stiff.

She forced herself to remain calm, lowered her head to sip her soup, and picked up a napkin to wipe her lips, preparing to put some distance between them.

A hand grasped her wrist.

"Finished eating?"

"Mhm," Cui Lingyao nodded.

Xie Jinbai stood up, bent down, scooped his arms under her knees, and swept her up into his arms, carrying her into the inner chamber.

The moment they were on the bed, Cui Lingyao curled up her legs, pulled the covers over herself, and said, "I need to rinse my mouth."

Xie Jinbai glanced at her, turned to leave, and came back with a basin of water.

And some green salt.

’Truly, his service was impeccable.’

After she finished rinsing, he patiently went back out again to put the utensils away.

When he returned, he saw she was already lying down. Xie Jinbai lifted the covers, got into bed, and pulled her into his embrace. His hand instinctively began to massage her lower back. "You just woke up. Still sleepy?"

"Yaoyao..." he called her name softly, his voice gentle. "After everything that’s happened, is there nothing you want to tell me?"

His voice was so gentle, it practically flowed like water.

But it only made Cui Lingyao’s scalp tingle with apprehension. She didn’t dare let her guard down for a second.

In the afternoon, having just been reunited after what felt like a final farewell, he was in no mood to deal with anything else.

Now, his lust had been sated.

He had woken from his sleep.

Even his stomach was full.

Outside, the night was pitch-black and silent. There was no one to disturb them.

He held her locked in his arms, with all the time and energy in the world to slowly interrogate her.

To interrogate her about her secrets.

This man was too perceptive.

In his eyes, she was a collection of mysteries that couldn’t be explained by common sense.

As if it were a game, while others only had one life, she could be resurrected again and again.

In her soul state, she wore strange and outlandish clothes, and her facial features were different from both of the bodies she had used.

And... the Hundred Diseases Pill, which could bring the dead back to life.

All of it was a puzzle.

Xie Jinbai felt the body of the girl in his arms gradually stiffen. He held her, gently massaging her lower back as he softly coaxed, "Don’t be nervous. No matter what, I would never hurt you."

He would sooner hurt himself than lay a single finger on her.

That was an indisputable fact.

As long as she was certain of this, she could act with impunity.

He was teaching her how to use his love to control him.

Cui Lingyao’s eyelashes trembled. "What do you want to know?"

’There’s so much I want to know.’

But more than any of that, what Xie Jinbai cared about most was: "Will exposing all this bring you trouble?"

He could only be certain that she was, most likely, not of this world.

But he didn’t know if she had come to this world voluntarily, or if she was being controlled by some ’thing’ behind the scenes.

If it was the latter, then he had seen through the clues she had unintentionally revealed.

Would she be punished by that thing behind the scenes?

Xie Jinbai didn’t dare to think about it.

Because there was nothing he could do to change it.

That ’thing’—he couldn’t see it, couldn’t touch it.

No matter how strong his killing intent, he was powerless.

He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t solve this problem for her.

He...

Xie Jinbai reined in his thoughts. He lowered his head, pressing his lips to her forehead and nuzzling her reassuringly. "Let me ask a different question... What *can* you tell me?"

If she could speak, he would listen.

If she couldn’t, he wouldn’t force her to confess.

He was being so considerate.

Cui Lingyao’s heart seized, and she found it difficult to breathe.

She could have calmly faced his questioning, his uncontrollable anger, his endless suspicions.

But this... this soft trust.

It left her at a complete loss.

It seemed that as long as she shook her head, even if she was riddled with flaws and her impure intentions toward him were obvious, he would pretend not to see any of it.

And even...

Cui Lingyao swallowed.

An idea popped into her head, one she couldn’t suppress no matter how hard she tried.

’...Perhaps she could use this opportunity to demand that he take a concubine and have a child.’

If he didn’t do it, she would die.

Struck by lightning, electrocuted to death...

In any case, Cui Lingyao was certain that after having lost her twice, the current him would be completely obedient if she so much as mentioned the possibility of her ’death’.

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