The intimidating aura emanating from Fu Chengfeng made everyone shiver even though they did not feel cold1. Even before Fu Chengfeng unsheathed his sword, he had already won over his enemies without striking a blow2.
Only a clang could be heard as the sword in the bailiff's hand fell to the ground. Then he backed away slowly, his face filled with fear. "You...... you...... you......"
The rest of the bailiffs followed suit, their swords trembling vaguely.
Fu Chengfeng was expressionless as he coldly looked at everyone with icy eyes and asked, "Were you guys the ones who caught her?"
The leading bailiff replied, "We were."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the sword in Fu Chengfeng's hand moved slightly. The bailiff hastily added, "But she has already escaped."
Fu Chengfeng: "Where has she escaped to?"
"Don't, don't know."
With a swoosh, Fu Chengfeng unsheathed his long double-edged sword. The bailiff was so frightened by the cold blade on his neck that he lost two of his three souls. With his legs shaking, he confessed, "She was captured by Kaoshan Wang3's men when she was sent to Jinling."
Fu Chengfeng: "Why did Kaoshan Wang3 capture her?"
"I really don't know about that. I'm just a lowly bailiff. How can I know what's on Kaoshan Wang3's mind."
Fu Chengfeng saw that the bailiff did not look like he was lying. Besides, he did have a point. Not to mention the bailiff, even the County Magistrate might not necessarily know.
"How long has she been taken away?" Fu Chengfeng asked again.
The bailiff: "Not that long. If you go after them now, you'll catch up in less than a shichen4."
Hearing this answer, Fu Chengfeng put his sword back into its sheath and instructed coldly, "Line up in two rows with a few meters apart between each person."
Everyone froze momentarily before quickly forming two lines as Fu Chengfeng had requested.
Fu Chengfeng jumped up and used the 'Dragonfly Lightly Touching the Water' move, which was stepping on everyone's heads, to break away from the tombstone mechanism. He didn't know the Five Elements Technique, but he had a certain amount of cleverness. If he couldn't find a way out, he would create his own and follow it, and then he would naturally be able to escape.
*
Meanwhile, on the other side, Rong Yi was on a spurred horse and drinking the west wind5. While others were spurring their horses, she could only drink the west wind5.
"Could you slow down a bit? There's a prisoner still alive in this prison carriage. You must think of her feelings." Rong Yi shouted weakly. This was the eighth time she had protested, and the result was the same as the previous seven, to no avail.
With a long sigh, Rong Yi decided to use a roundabout tactic. "Even if you don't consider my feelings, you should also consider the horses' feelings! If we go on like this, the horses will not be able to take it any longer."
With a 'thud', the horses' hooves sound immediately ceased. The horse caravan came to a halt. Rong Yi was instantly overjoyed, relieved that they still had an ounce of humanity left in them, when she suddenly realised something was wrong. They ignored her when she said she couldn't stand the bumps and bruises. But, as soon as Rong Yi pointed out that the horses couldn't stand the constant travelling, they stopped. Did that mean she was no better than a horse in their eyes? What an insult!
Rong Yi glanced sideways at the cavalry leader and asked, "Didn't you refuse to stop before, no matter what?"
"The horses need a rest." The cavalry leader answered.
Just as she thought.
Fine. It was still good to rest. Rong Yi would just treat her humiliation as something fleeting.
"Could you help me take off my handcuffs? This thing is heavy and ugly, unsuitable to be used as jewellery." Rong Yi requested.
The cavalry leader gave her a strange look, jumped off his horse and swung his sword at her.
Rong Yi was so scared that she closed her eyes and shouted, "You don't have to kill me, even if you don't want to unlock my handcuffs!"
There was a clang, and the handcuff chain snapped. Rong Yi opened her eyes and found that her hand was still intact, so she breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought you were so annoyed with me that you wanted to kill me."
The cavalry leader remained expressionless as he asked, "So you also know you are so annoying?"
"Umm. Big Brother, can you not be so blunt?" Rong Yi's fragile little heart received such a heavy blow.
The cavalry leader ignored her as he took a water pouch from his horse's back, tilted his head, and drank from it.
I want to have a sip. Rong Yi swallowed longingly and asked, "Can I have some?"
The cavalry leader stopped drinking, looked down at her for a few seconds, and handed her the water pouch.
"No, no, no. A gentleman does not take what others like. I can see that you are very fond of this water pouch, and I cannot fight for it from you." Rong Yi sincerely refused.
The cavalry leader frowned. "You just said you wanted to drink some water."
"I meant, give me a water pouch you haven't drunk." Rong Yi explained with a smile.
The cavalry leader's face darkened then. He sullenly tied the water pouch and re-hung it on his horse.
The cavalry leader seemed angry, so Rong Yi quickly explained, "Don't get me wrong. I have no intention of snubbing you. I won't drink the water they've been drinking either."
As Rong Yi spoke, the faces of all the remaining cavalrymen darkened.
Rong Yi sighed silently in her heart. It was hard to please everyone! Whenever she tried to please one person, she would offend a group of people. She had handled this business poorly. If Mom found out about this, she would look down on her.
"Don't be like that, guys. I just want a clean water pouch. Don't you all have one each? It's not too much for me to ask for another water pouch......" Rong Yi's voice trailed off until it faded into silence. With every word she uttered, the cavalrymen's faces grew sterner. She was unsure if they would cut her down and feed her to the horses before she could get her point across.
"It's not a crime to be obsessed with cleanliness. You can't take your anger out on me." Rong Yi felt the urge to plead for herself before the cavalrymen's stares crushed her.
The cavalry leader relented and stared at her for several seconds before saying coldly, "There is no other clean water pouch."
A noob translator, きつね, translated this noob translation. Please read this chapter at xin-shou.site. If you read this in another location other than the site stated, it has been taken without the translator's permission. Please don't support this kind of act.
"It doesn't matter if there's no water pouch as long as there's clean water." Rong Yi was pleased that after the earlier 'unpleasantness', the cavalry leader could still concentrate on the main point of this conversation.
The corners of the cavalry leader's mouth twitched slightly. Without a word of reply, he jumped on his horse and commanded, "Depart."
No way! She still hadn't recovered from being thrown around just now! Rong Yi immediately grabbed hold of the prison carriage and shouted, "Stop—" Rong Yi only uttered this one word, and the cavalry leader gave her a stern look. Rong Yi smiled awkwardly and said, "I don't object to your departure plan. I just want to say that you haven't helped me unlock my handcuffs yet." Rong Yi was afraid that the cavalry leader would not understand what she meant, so she added at the end, "Breaking the chains of the handcuffs and uncuffing them are two different things."
The corners of the cavalry leader's mouth twitched a few more times before he drew his sword and slashed twice without hesitation.
Rong Yi unconsciously closed her eyes. She opened them again when she heard the sound of the handcuffs breaking. After she could move her wrists much easier, she expressed her gratitude, "Thank you."
The cavalry leader simply ignored her, sheathed his sword and spurred his horse away.
"Ah——" Rong Yi hadn't expected him to start driving the horse without telling her, so her forehead hit the prison carriage hard, causing her to grimace in pain.
Rong Yi didn't know if it was an illusion, but she felt the carriage seemed to go twice as fast as before.
He's getting back at me!
Rong Yi murmured to herself. Using her hand as a pillow, she lay flat in the prison carriage and looked up at the blue sky and white clouds above her, feeling much better.
Once the leader removed her handcuffs, her mood turned different. Although the prison carriage was still a prison carriage, Rong Yi no longer felt like she was in prison.
Sure enough, one should be optimistic. Using the escort as a joyride not only soothed Rong Yi's spirit but also turned the physical torture into enjoyment.
With a big smile, Rong Yi treated this unexpected disaster as a life experience.
*
After escaping from the tombstone mechanism, Fu Chengfeng stormed into Moon Manor and stole a ten thousand mile horse6 to break out from the city. The bailiff did not lie to him. It took him only half a shichen4 to find a spider's thread and a horse's trail7 on his way to Jinling—a pair of broken handcuffs.
A distinctive feature of the official handcuffs was that the insides were engraved with the mark of the local government to which they belonged.
Fu Chengfeng picked up the broken pair of handcuffs, took a closer look at them, and sure enough, he found a mark on the inner wall—月8.
These were the handcuffs of Yue County.
The handcuffs had obviously been removed from a prisoner, and Rong Yi was the only prisoner to emerge from Yue County today. Looking at the cracks on the handcuffs, it was obvious that they had just been cut off. Fu Chengfeng could almost tell that the handcuffs were originally on Rong Yi's hands. But it was only almost; he still needed further confirmation.
After placing the inside of the handcuffs on the tip of his nose and sniffing them, a smile immediately appeared at the corner of his mouth. He said to himself, "This girl must not have bathed for a long time."
Throwing off the handcuffs, Fu Chengfeng flew onto his horse and raised his whip in hot pursuit. After a short distance, he came to a fork in the road. He jumped down, checked both routes separately, and found two new wheel marks on the road to the east. Years of tracking experience told him to head west. Only an empty vehicle travelling very fast would leave such shallow wheel tracks.
Fu Chengfeng guessed right. Rong Yi was indeed on her way to the west and had mounted a horse as she had requested. Her only regret was that the horse's back was not big enough, and it was a bit cramped for two people to ride.
"If there is another fork in the road ahead, will you drive the horse to one road and then lead me to another to cover your tracks?" Rong Yi asked the cavalry leader in front of her.
"There will be no more forks in the road." The cavalry leader replied.
Rong Yi rolled her eyes. Of course, she knew there would be no more forks in the road. That was just a mockery. Was she too subtle in her sarcasm? Rong Yi pursed her lips and realised she was indeed a subtle person.
There were only two roads from Yue County to Jinling, one going east across three counties by water and the other going west by land. At the fork in the road just now, he asked the rest of the cavalry to take the empty prison carriage to the east by water while he took her to the west by land.
"Why don't you let them go by land, and we'll go by water?" Rong Yi asked.
Cavalry leader: "The land route is safer."
Rong Yi: "Is the water route that dangerous?"
Cavalry leader: "The water is very dangerous."
Rong Yi was taken aback momentarily, then suddenly realised and said with a smile: "So you are seasick!"
The cavalry leader's eyelashes fluttered slightly, and he made no reply.
"By the way, I've known you for so long, but I still don't know your name." Rong Yi said with a smile.
"We don't know each other that well." The cavalry leader answered coldly. His mission was to capture her and return to Jinling, not to make friends with her.
"Er. You're hitting me a bit too much." Rong Yi's fragile little heart took another blow.
The cavalry leader's dark eyes moved slightly. After a moment of silence, he let out, "Qin Mu'an."
When Rong Yi heard his name, she asked without thinking, "Is Qin Muzhi a relative of yours?"
Qin Mu'an jerked his mount to a halt. "He's my elder brother. Do you know him?"
Rong Yi was shocked. She had only thought their surnames were similar and had asked him in passing. She had no idea that he and Qin Muzhi were related.
Footnotes Full List
- Chinese idiom: tremble with fear; shudder
- Chinese idiom: defeat one's enemy without a fight
- kaoshan=backer; patron; backing, wang=King
- 2 hours
- (fig.) shouting about one's decaying influences
- fine, speedy steed
- Chinese idiom: clues; traces
- Yuè=moon
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