Liu Bei POV

“Uncle…” Just as I was about to carry her onto the bed, she called out to me.

“Liu Qi?” I thought she was awake, and looked closely at her only to see that she was just sleeptalking.

But Liu Qi was really defenseless at this time. When I carried her, her tight expression completely loosened up, her eyes slowly closed and her whole body relaxed, just as how anyone would be when they were asleep.

She was quiet beautiful yet she always kept up that frown, I thought as I reached out and touched her cheeks.

Her cheeks were smooth and bouncy, probably because she’s always led a comfortable life. This expedition has probably caused no small amount of stress.

“… Un… Uncle?”

“Ah! Liu, Liu Qi.”

I don’t know if it’s because I used too much strength, but Liu Qi slowly opened her eyes and looked at me. Because my hand was out, I felt like I was doing something wrong when she called out to me and hurriedly retracted my hand as I smiled and replied her.

“This is?” Liu Qi slowly sat up as she rubbed her eyes.

“You fell asleep just now, with your eyes open while you were sitting up. I thought you were exhausted and was carrying you to the bed.” I explained what happened in detail. Of course, I neglected certain choice details.

“Ah, sorry for bothering uncle.” She said and stood up with her back facing me, probably to readjust her emotions, “I’m really embarra.s.sed to show uncle such an unsightly state of mine.”

“No, you don’t need to be so bothered about it.”

The face that you fell asleep with your eyes open was a little scary though.

“But with our present situation, there might be all sorts of problems so I don’t dare to fall into too deep a sleep lest I fall prey to would-be a.s.sailants.”

“Ah, un. I know.” I nodded as I figured that it would be that sort of reason after all, “Then why don’t you go ahead and sleep first? If you have anything to discuss, we can do so tomorrow.”

“Ah, no need. It’s fine to discuss it today. I’m not sleepy anymore.”

Not sleepy? What nonsense. Look at what sort of state you were in when you fell asleep. I doubted what she said, but when she turned around, she had the usual expression on so I was convinced that she had no intention of going back to sleep.

“Alright.” I nodded, and went over to take a seat, “But please do it as quickly as possible. It’s not getting earlier and we both have preparations of our own to make.”

To be honest, I said all that because I hoped that she could have an earlier rest.

“I know. I will do my best to keep it short.” She nodded, and stubbornly sat down beside me instead of sitting down at the main seat, and gathered her emotions before she continued, “I don’t know if you’ve detected it, but from my point of view, today’s battle didn’t proceed very smoothly.”

“Ah, un. I was planning to speak about this as well.”

“Please hold on, uncle. Let me ask uncle a question. Did an enemy manage to get close to you once or more times?”

“Eh?”

I was rather surprised at how she was able to tell. Could it be that there’s some scar on me from today’s battle?

When she saw my stunned look, she nodded understandingly and continued, “Enemies have made it to me 3 times today. I even got cut once.”

As she said so, she pulled up her left sleeve, revealing a shallow cut on her forearm that had begun to heal.

“That’s quite dangerous.” I sighed as I said so. It could have easily gone terribly bad after all.

“No, if it weren’t for Wen Ping who blocked it for me, I would probably be meeting our ancestors by now.”

“Don’t say that, aren’t you well and alive now?” I frowned and stopped her from saying disheartening words.

“But this doesn’t make sense. As Jing state generals, wouldn’t they listen to your orders? What’s up with them? Are they new troops? Or are they exceptionally unruly?”

When I finished, Liu Qi’s eyes flitted and she frowned, making her expression even more serious than before. Her gaze then wavered as she looked at the spear rack on the left, then the ground beside me before finally looking at me once again, as though she finally decided on how she was going to word what she wanted to say.

“… Uncle, are they really just unruly?” She asked.

“Eh? Why are you asking me?” I shot the question back, “They’re Jing state troops so shouldn’t you know better than me?”

“… Uncle, think about it.” Her expression was still very serious, “Back then, did your troops descend into chaos; and without any emergency orders being issued, the troops attacked the wings while the enemy was allowed to charge into the center? And so, the main body descended into chaos?”

“Un… Was that the case? Back then I was knocked off my horse by an axeman so I don’t know how the battle proceeded after that.”

Chen Dao and the rest didn’t tell me about it in detail either.

“I don’t know how it was like on uncle’s side, but for mine, we suffered a charge into the heart of our main body 3 times.” She said as she raised 3 fingers, “I’m not too knowledgeable on strategies, but I have read some books before. We held the advantage but the vanguard did not hold the defensive lines, and the main body broke formation easily. Such things would only happen if the officers and warrant officers were highly incompetent.”

“How could that be?” I frowned, “Could it be that, as you said, Cai Mao did something funny, and we ended up with 5,000 reserves instead of 5,000 elites?”

“Uncle only got half of it right. These troops are indeed the elite. This, you can tell from how they form up and how they march.” She paused here and got up and crept quietly to the entrance of the tent. she then looked about before coming back.

“In the worst case scenario, all 5,000 elites are Cai Mao’s personal troops. And their goal would be to create an accident during the chaos of battle, and have us die in combat.”