To the best of my ability - Part 1
Shin Ye-eun had heard similar stories when she was a child. In remote areas far from the capital, bandits would occasionally venture into villages and towns, bringing back girls they fancied to their mountain valleys to be their wives or concubines.
That was a terrible thing. Even at that time, Xin Rui'en understood that just because of someone else's whim, she would have to leave her hometown, face a person she had never met, and become his wife. And live with him for the rest of her life.
As she grew a little older, she realized that these things were actually far removed from her life. The Xin family had fallen on hard times, but with the protection of the He family, they still held some status in the city. The fact that she didn't have to face bandits she had never met before brought her a sense of relief.
Xin Ruien first met He Zian when she was a teenager. He Zian's parents liked her very much and kept stroking her head, making her hair very oily, which disgusted Xin Ruien at the time. From then on, Xin Ruien often went to the He family to practice martial arts.
He Zi'an was very lively, and Xin Rui'en sometimes felt she couldn't keep up with his pace. Su Yishan, who was with He Zi'an, was much quieter and easier to understand. Later, Xin Rui'en gradually matured and understood some of the rules that governed this world.
She was going to marry He Zi'an. She thought it was fine, at least she didn't dislike He Zi'an. As He Zi'an made a name for himself in their area, the He and Xin families' fortunes visibly improved.
"I want to go to Mount Hua." He Zi'an said this after finishing his sword practice, his face bearing his usual cheerful smile. "We should have a bigger world."
Su Yishan and Ke'er were also there at the time. Xin Ruien didn't know who he was referring to when he said "we".
Alright, since we're going, let's go. He's the most outstanding young man in this area; no one doubts his abilities. Xin Ruien also has complete faith in him.
"Maybe I can even take a look at Wenqu City," Xin Ruien thought.
Marriage and the future are her own. But there's nothing she can decide, and she's slowly accepting that fact.
Xin Ruien never imagined that she would end up marrying neither bandits nor a descendant of the He family. At this moment, a fierce wind was howling outside, and fine yellow sand seeped in through the cracks in the windows, accumulating on the window frames. Even the surface of the table felt slightly rough to the touch.
The entire room was decorated in a festive red. Red curtains, red quilts, a red velvet carpet on the floor, and red silk hanging on the bronze mirror of the dressing table. Even the tea set on the table was red.
"Ouch!" the guard exclaimed as soon as she entered the room. She quickly went to the window and closed it tightly. "My dear sister, I told you not to open the window because it's windy. Otherwise, I'll have to dig you out of the sand pile in a bit."
"It's a bit stuffy," Shin Yee-eun said listlessly.
The guard glanced at the food on the table. "You haven't eaten again?"
Before Xin Ruien could answer, she shouted at the top of her lungs, "Someone come here!"
The maidservant who was waiting outside pushed open the door. "Lord Nishimiya."
"Take this away and make Miss Xin a hot one." The guard waved his hand and ordered, "Change the dishes; Miss Xin doesn't like these."
Shin Ye-eun frowned but said nothing.
The maid took the vegetables. The guard got up to close the door, then returned to Xin Ruien's side and sat down, saying frankly, "I know you don't like that kid Ling Guang. He has now inherited Xuanyuan's legacy and is the master of the Blood Palace. Everyone in the Blood Palace, from top to bottom, has to listen to him. I can't help you with anything."
“I didn’t expect anything from you either,” Shin Yee-eun replied. “You’re all cut from the same cloth.”
"You girls from the Central Plains really have a nasty way of speaking," the soldier pouted. "Tell me honestly, haven't I been good to you?"
Indeed, these days, it was the guards who kept her company and helped her pass the time. They also frequently dragged Xin Ruien along on outings, even if Xin Ruien didn't want to.
It's just that one plays the good cop and the other the bad cop.
"Look, she's not saying anything again." The guard said, seeing her sullen look, "Even if someone wants to help you, you still have to help yourself."
The guard got up and paced back and forth in the room twice. Finally, as if he had made up his mind, he said, "I've heard that a group of people from the Central Plains are heading this way."
Shin Ye-eun finally looked up at her.
"You're still the same, not eating or drinking. Do you expect them to carry you out when they arrive?"
Why are you telling me all this?
"I just can't stand that kid Ling Guang, he acts like a bandit king." The guard said indignantly.
A maid knocked on the door and brought in new dishes.
The supervising soldier was also taken aback. "So fast?"
"It just so happens that His Highness the Crown Prince also wants to eat something. All of these dishes are ready-made, and Miss Xin has never tried them before."
"Alright." The guard waved his hand and then instructed Xin Ruien, "Eat well, I need to go check on how your senior brother is recovering."
As soon as they stepped out the door and the guard turned a corner, Ling Guang came to greet them.
"How is it, Senior Sister? Has she eaten?"
"You're too impatient, kid. I haven't even said two words yet, and you've already had the dishes brought in."
"Is it too early?" Ling Guang's face showed some regret.
The guard patted his shoulder, comforting her junior brother: "Don't worry, your senior sister is very persuasive and will arrange everything clearly for her."
"That's great. I knew I'd have to rely on my senior sister."
“But he really doesn’t have any feelings for you,” the soldier added.
"Feelings can be cultivated gradually."
"Do as you please." The guard paused, then asked, "How is Master? I want to go see him."
Ling Guang said worriedly, "He's a little better. But he says he needs to rest quietly and won't see anyone."
"I see."
"Otherwise, I'll go ask Master again and tell him that you want to see him, Senior Sister." Ling Guang looked at Jianbing honestly.
"No need," the guard waved his hand absentmindedly. "I'm going back to rest. You should get some rest too."
"Thank you, Senior Sister," Ling Guang said with a smile.
"Thank me for what?"
"Thank you for comforting the bride."
I just don't want to see a girl become depressed and pointlessly ruin her health. That lame lie about someone coming to save her will be exposed sooner or later.
"Take my advice, senior sister. If you really like her, you might as well let her go." Without turning his head, the guard waved and disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor.
*
The saintess he personally selected had run away, and more than half of the Seven Heroes of the Rain had been lost. For Han Hyo-joo, this was an unbearable humiliation.
However, the cause of all these changes is the young man who has seduced Nana.
Blood dripped from the tip of the sword onto the ground. Han Xiaozhou asked coldly, "Which sect are you from, and who sent you?"
Xiang Wu clutched his abdomen, struggling to regulate his breathing.
"You and Chunfeng did not exchange sword hearts. Yet a man can use the Misty Rain Song to such a masterful degree. Even if it is just one of its moves, it is truly rare."
Han Xiaozhou didn't ambush him; instead, she confronted him head-on. Xiang Wu, despite his best efforts, was as powerless as a child before this woman. Now it seemed that Xiang Wu had been able to hold out for so long simply because Han Xiaozhou wanted to test the extent of his understanding of Yan Yu Ci.
Xiang Wuxin knew that "Spring Breeze" was probably another name Lin Zhenna used within the sect. "My feelings for Miss Lin are genuine," he said, getting straight to the point: "I belong to no sect, and no one sent me here. I have no ulterior motives."
"If a man wants to cultivate the Misty Rain Song, he cannot succeed unless he practices a special technique in his childhood."
A man who becomes a monk halfway through his training could never master the Misty Rain Song technique, because he wouldn't have pure Yin energy within him. Lin Zhenna had explained this to Xiang Wu back in the Valley of Burial Swords. "Because my body contains Miss Lin's true energy, I am able to use the Misty Rain Song technique," Xiang Wu recounted what Lin Zhenna had told him.
"You can fool her with this kind of lie, that's one thing." Han Xiaozhou smiled contemptuously, but his face quickly showed a slight anger as he denied his statement: "Do you think you can even fool me with such a clumsy excuse? Yan Yu Ci is not some low-level martial art that has no threshold."
“Miss Lin has no reason to lie to herself,” Xiang Wuxin thought. “In other words, Miss Lin herself didn’t understand why he was able to use the Misty Rain Song. Or perhaps, the woman whom Miss Lin called her master deliberately distorted the knowledge she initially imparted to Miss Lin. Just like how she secretly planted the restriction on the sword heart in Miss Lin back then.”
She simply didn't trust her disciples.
"Miss Lin and I were trapped in the Hall of Longevity. In desperation, she gave me her true energy." Xiang Wu decided to explain from the very beginning, "so that I could use this sword technique."
"The Hall of Longevity." Han Xiaozhou looked at Xiang Wu meaningfully, "So it was your Hall of Longevity that set up this scheme, deceived her sympathy, and obtained our cultivation techniques."
Xiang Wuxin had a bad feeling. This woman had clearly positioned herself against him. No matter how he explained, she could always find a way to put him on the opposite side.
“You’re very clever,” Han Hyo-joo said. “You’ve been clutching your stomach since earlier, pretending to be seriously injured. You’re trying to lower my guard, aren’t you?”
Xiang Wu paused for a moment, then slowly lowered his left hand, which had been covering the wound on his abdomen. There was indeed a scar on his abdomen, but it was far from life-threatening.
Looking at Xiang Wu's wounds, Han Xiaozhou fell into deep thought. "Knowing how to fabricate true qi seems like the work of a descendant of Li Yan's lineage who only has a superficial understanding. But staging a self-inflicted injury to deceive Yan Yuci is indeed the way the Hall of Longevity operates."
Xiang Wu was already prepared to escape. Having escaped from the "sea of fire" in Peach Blossom Spring, escaping from just one person this time shouldn't be a problem, right? Xiang Wu asked himself.
"The important thing is to take Miss Lin with us. Judging from this woman's temperament, Miss Lin won't fare well if she stays. But where Miss Lin is now is also a problem." Xiang Wu pondered, then cursed himself, "How stupid of me, I shouldn't have separated from her in the first place."
Han Xiaozhou glanced at the longsword in his hand, then looked at Xiang Wu. "With your martial arts skills, you were able to withstand this sword strike from me. It doesn't seem like the methods of Li Yan and the Hall of Longevity."
But today's situation is different from that on Yunxia Peak. Back then, Wang Wenfang and Liu Mengde were two against seven; now Han Xiaozhou is one against him. Can he really escape from her clutches? Xiang Wu couldn't help but ask himself.
"It was a one-armed man. Senior Sister Wan, along with four other senior sisters, were all killed."
"That old bastard has been seriously injured by Master."
Xiang Wu had only met Lin Zhenna's fellow disciples once, and their faces were just a layer of sand in his memory, which had been blown away without him noticing at some point. However, these few blurry figures still appeared in Xiang Wu's mind, and their words echoed in his ears once more.
Old Dong's arm was a man? Xiang Wu's heart skipped a beat.
Han Hyo-joo's cloudy eyes cleared again, and her tone remained as cold as ever: "No matter what, I don't want you to be too active. As for the rest, we can ask you slowly after I cripple your hands and feet."
The longsword gleamed with a cold light.
The safest solution was still the one. Xiang Wu made his decision almost instantly: he would find the one-armed man first, and then escape with Miss Lin.
An enemy of that time can sometimes become a savior of the present.
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