Yang Guo turned around with bloodshot eyes and saw a troop of Jin Dynasty warriors gathered not far away. At their head stood a delicate young woman—it was Pucha Qiucao, whom he had met in Daxing Prefecture.
Pucha Qiucao had received Song Qingshu's orders to descend the mountain and stop the Jin soldiers from attacking. After settling the three thousand elite troops, she worried that Chongyang Palace lacked sufficient strength, so she led a group of highly skilled warriors up the mountain to reinforce them, only to run into Yang Guo.
Back in the imperial palace, Yang Guo had publicly fled from their marriage arrangement, leaving Pucha Qiucao humiliated and furious. At the time, she had practically wanted to kill him, but the world was vast, and she had no idea where Yang Guo had gone.
Yet now that she saw him in person, Pucha Qiucao was startled to find that she could not summon any anger at all. The joy in her heart outweighed her fury instead. Feelings had always been this unreasonable.
Pucha Qiucao was momentarily at a loss, unsure how to begin. After considering it for a while, she finally asked, "Where have you been all this time? A lot of people have been looking for you."
Looking at the girl who was nominally his fiancée, Yang Guo was briefly distracted. He asked instinctively, "Did that include you?"
Pucha Qiucao blushed. But as a woman of the grasslands, she was not as bashful as women from Jiangnan. She answered frankly, "I was looking for you too."
When he saw her shy expression, an image abruptly surfaced in Yang Guo's mind: Xiaolongnü yielding tenderly in another man's arms. He shut his eyes in pain, crouched down on the ground, and began to cry bitterly.
Yang Guo had always