He Simu repeated in a low voice: "Alive."
Duan Xu's fingers carelessly stroked her hair, raised his eyelids and asked openly, "Have you never lived?"
He Simu's fiery gaze turned cold. She narrowed her eyes dangerously and looked at this usually daring guy. He seemed to be addicted to challenging her.
Duan Xu looked back into her eyes without avoiding, with an innocent and frank smile, the light of the candlelight reflected in his eyes.
He Simu's eyes slowly turned from sharp to confused - the spell she wanted to use to punish Duan Xu did not work. She raised her hand in front of her eyes, flipped it left and right, and whispered: "My power..."
Duan Xu was such a smart person that he immediately reacted and said, "After you exchanged feelings with me, did your magic power disappear?"
He Simu and Duan Xu simultaneously lowered their heads to look at the Ghost King Lamp on her waist. The lamp-shaped jade pendant usually emitted a layer of faint blue light, but now it was just like an ordinary jade pendant, and the blue light completely disappeared.
Duan Xu raised his eyes and looked at He Simu who looked up at the same time. His eyes curved and the curve of his mouth became bigger and bigger. He said word by word: "Your magic power is gone."
Before He Simu could react, their positions were reversed as the world spun around. She was lying on the bed while Duan Xu was above her, slowly leaning down and looking at her with a smile on his face.
The mattress felt softer than his skin. He Simu was in a daze for a moment, and when he saw Duan Xu's unfathomable gaze, he felt something was wrong.
What did her aunt do? She didn't tell her in advance that after her senses changed, her power would disappear and she would be like a mortal!
General Duan, who always believed in never resisting if he couldn't win, and showing no mercy if he could win, looked down at He Simu and just smiled, not knowing what he was thinking.
He Simu warned with a cold look: "It will only take ten days to regain my senses. After ten days, I will recover my strength. If you dare to do anything to me, you will die in ten days."
Duan Xu turned his head away, not showing any fear at all, and said with a smile: "Ten days..."
He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, "How about I only live for ten days?"
He Simu's eyes fixed: "What are you going to do..."
Before she could finish her words, Duan Xu's hand gently grabbed her waist. He Simu shuddered and curled up into a ball, not knowing what had just happened.
“This feeling is an itch.”
Duan Xu said cheerfully: "Let me tell you a secret, I am extremely sensitive, so I am very ticklish - every time you press on me and touch me, I have a hard time enduring it."
Sure enough, she took away his sense of touch, and incidentally became as ticklish as he was.
Duan Xu smiled innocently, with the aura of a man who would avenge his grievances and revenge his enemies. He rolled up his sleeves and started to mess around He Simu's waist, armpits, and soles. He Simu felt the "itch" for the first time in four hundred years, and the evil ghost couldn't stand it at all. She struggled over and over. Without the evil ghost's magic power, she couldn't beat Duan Xu with her strength, so she could only threaten him while laughing.
“Hahahaha… you bastard… wait for me for ten days… hahahaha… I will definitely kill you!”
"I'm going to die anyway, so I have to live life to the fullest in these ten days."
Duan Xu supported He Simu's hair with one hand and temporarily stopped moving the other hand. He looked at He Simu's stern but weak expression and looked deeply into the dark background behind her eyes. The once arrogant background was rarely trembling.
He blinked his eyes, chuckled and whispered: "He Simu, you are afraid too."
He Simu gritted his teeth and said word by word: "Duan, Shun, Xi!"
"Well! What's the matter?"
Duan Xu responded in a long voice, he smiled slightly, then stood up, let her go slowly, and sat beside her with his legs bent.
He Si Mu sat up from the bed and almost immediately moved away from him, staring at her, the person who had been cursed for four hundred years of bad luck.
As He Simu struggled, the wound on Duan Xu's body began to bleed from the gauze. He glanced at it and said calmly, "It really doesn't hurt anymore. It was the same when I touched you. I didn't feel anything, as if my body was dead."
After a pause, Duan Xu looked at He Simu's vigilant eyes and said with a smile: "So this is how you have always felt the world."
Pain, warmth, cold, hard, softness, these feelings disappeared without a trace in an instant, leaving only a world that was so far away that it seemed impossible to perceive.
They formed a spell, and he could slowly get to know her.
He Simu seemed to know what he was thinking, and frowned and said, "You know me, what do you want to do?"
Duan Xu blinked silently, then said lightly: "Who knows, maybe it's just like how you wanted to understand me in the beginning. You are so special, it makes people curious."
He Simu looked at Duan Xu for a while, then moved his wrist lightly.
“The living should learn to keep their distance from death.”
Duan Xu looked at He Simu and smiled without saying anything.
Although He Simu unexpectedly lost her magic power, her real body also unexpectedly turned into a living person - breathing, pulse, warm and soft, no longer the state of a dead person at first glance.
And the most important point is that she can't go back to "He Xiaoxiao's" body, nor can she become invisible.
So "He Xiaoxiao" was lying on the bed, unconscious, and a strange beauty who came from nowhere appeared in Duan Xu's camp. Duan Xu claimed that this was a friend from Daizhou, and asked Meng Wan to take her around the city.
Meng Wan had just led He Simu away with a puzzled look on his face when General Qin's deputy general came to find Duan Xu and saluted with a bad look on his face, saying, "General Duan, the governor-general Zheng is here with the imperial edict. Please go to the front camp."
Zheng An was a third-rank assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel, specially appointed governor of Yanbian, a classmate and friend of Duan Xu's father, and a mainstay of Du Xiang's party.
Naturally, this person will not bring any good news to Qin Shuai.
Duan Xu smiled slightly, changed his clothes and went out. When he arrived at the front camp, he saw General Qin and other generals standing in the camp, and a middle-aged man in purple clothes with crane patterns standing with his hands behind his back.
Zheng An glanced at the famous young man, nodded with a smile, and then took the imperial edict from the waiter next to him.
"The emperor has ordered." His tone was slow and majestic, with the arrogance of having been in a high position for a long time. The generals in the camp knelt down one after another, waiting for his order.
Duan Xu knelt in the crowd, bowed his head and listened to Zheng An reading the long imperial edict. The emperor first praised General Qin for his contribution in repelling the enemy, then rewarded the generals generously, without mentioning Duan Xu in particular, as if this was just an ordinary commendation order.
But near the end of the imperial edict, the emperor changed the subject and said that although he gave Marshal Qin the power to act at his own discretion, the military's horse management had been tainted for a long time, and it was imperative to conquer Yunzhou and obtain the horse farm first.
As soon as he finished speaking, Duan Xu felt several eyes focused on him. He remained motionless. When he heard General Qin's unexpected response, "Your servant Qin Huanda accepts the order," he kowtowed and accepted the order in a serious manner.
He was lying on the ground in his arms, with the corners of his lips slightly raised.
After Lord Zheng An finished announcing the decree, he left. When he passed by Duan Xu, he gently patted his shoulder without saying anything. The people in the camp stood up from the ground, and everyone's eyes were focused on Duan Xu. They had just agreed on the direction of attack yesterday, and today the imperial decree arrived, and the judgment was made entirely according to Duan Xu's opinion. No one would believe that Duan Xu did not use any tricks.
That's why he gave in so easily yesterday - it was more of a pity than a concession, the pity of a winner for a loser who thought he was a winner.
Duan Xu stood up from the ground leisurely, smiling brightly: "Since the emperor has made a decision, we have no choice but to discuss it again and make arrangements for the troops."
Qin Huanda looked at Duan Xu, he placed the imperial edict on the table and said calmly: "You all go down, General Duan, you stay."
Duan Xu stood in the camp, his smile leisurely and his posture upright. Others passed by him one after another. The sunlight that lifted the door curtain fell on his silver armor, reflecting a dazzling light.
"You finally got what you wanted." Qin Shuai looked at Duan Xu sharply.
Duan Xu smiled and said evasively: "It's the emperor's wisdom, what does it have to do with me?"
"Do you know that the one who has a capable general but a king who does not interfere will win? The decision on the battlefield should be made by the commander-in-chief. You used means to make the emperor order intervention, which is a taboo in the army!" General Qin slammed the table angrily, and the dust on the table trembled in the sunlight.
"Putting aside the party disputes, I admire your talents, but you are still too young and only want to make achievements! Isn't the fundamental purpose of your wanting Yunluo Province to go to war with Danzhi one day? But you need to know that war is fought with money, and it costs thousands of gold every day and wastes people's money. Danzhi's invasion has already burned up a lot of Daliang's savings. How long can it last like this? If attacking Youzhou can force Danzhi to negotiate, strangling their throat will bring decades of peace. Daliang will recuperate and then work on great undertakings. This is the right way!"
Duan Xu looked at the imperial edict on Qin Shuai's desk. After a moment of silence, his eyes moved to Qin Shuai's face. The smile in his eyes faded, and he said slowly: "What about the people on the north bank? What should we do?"
Qin Shuai was stunned.
Duan Xu pointed outside the camp and said, "The commander-in-chief is leading his army into Shuozhou this time. Aren't the people along the way preparing food and drink to welcome the king's army? When I was trapped in the city, Lin Huaide's family of 23 died tragically under the city gate for food and grass in the city. Before he died, he said that their ancestors swore that if Daliang led the army to recover the country, they would go all out and die without hesitation."
"We have lived in seclusion in a corner. We have rested and recuperated on the south bank for decades, while the people on the north bank suffered. We allowed them to be oppressed and tamed. In the end, our blood-related people became enemies. General Qin, is this what you call maturity?"
Duan Xu's eyes flashed with a sharp light, like an invincible blade. He smiled and said, "I am a young man with no worries. I only have one life. I can't let those people who are still holding on to the north bank become a joke."
Qin Shuai was speechless. He recalled that when he first saw this young man in Nandu, he thought he was indeed extraordinary, like pine and cypress, and probably just a more outstanding nobleman. But now he found that Duan Xu was not pine and cypress.
He is a thorn.