Chapter 83 083 I won't lock you in a cage anymore
To avoid running into the hunting party head-on, they took the mountain path leading to the northwest foothills, thus avoiding the hunting grounds of Langya Mountain and preventing the release of animals from turning into killing.
The forest is deep and lush, and occasionally one can hear the clear chirping of birds.
The carriage was a bit stuffy. Eunuch Shen raised the bamboo curtain and, as if by magic, produced an exquisite glass bowl filled with chilled fresh fruit. Lu Yuanyuan looked out the window while picking up a piece of fruit and putting it in her mouth. The sweet and crisp juice burst in her mouth.
Before transmigrating into the book, she had a misconception about ancient official roads, thinking they were equivalent to modern, smooth, and wide highways. Only after seeing them with her own eyes did she realize that many official roads were actually just narrow, winding paths, and even worse, potholed gravel roads.
Moreover, the road they were traveling on was on the shady side of Langya Mountain, a route rarely taken, even more desolate and difficult to traverse than the official road on the sunny side. The roadside weeds were waist-high, threatening to engulf the path at any moment. Because of the shady location, the vegetation on this side was noticeably shorter than on the sunny side, the dense canopies hanging low, branches sometimes brushing against the roof of the cart, making a rustling sound, and leaves falling in droves onto the ruts.
Lu Yuanyuan swallowed the last bite of fruit, then suddenly, she caught a faint whiff of something and sniffed in confusion: "Can you smell anything?"
Eunuch Shen was taken aback and carefully observed her expression: "Is the incense today not to the princess's liking?"
“…No, it’s not.” Lu Yuanyuan sniffed again, grabbed the window frame, sat up straight, and looked out the window: “It’s a foul smell coming from outside.”
Outside the carriage, the trees seemed to recede into the distance, the wheels rolling steadily over the gravel road, everything appearing calm and peaceful. A breeze brushed against his nose, instantly dispelling the faint, unpleasant odor. Even with a forceful sniff, only the unique scent of leaves could be detected.
Lu Yuanyuan frowned slightly, then turned to ask the guards escorting her outside the carriage, "Just now, didn't any of you smell anything bad?"
"Your Highness, I am dull-witted and have not smelled anything."
Eunuch Shen seized the opportunity to flatter her: "Your Highness, in such desolate wilderness, there are often animal droppings or carcasses in the grass. The guards are all uncouth men, so naturally they are not so careful. Unlike you, Your Highness, who is of noble birth and has a meticulous mind..."
Lu Yuanyuan ignored his flattery, leaned against the car wall, looked at her palm, and clenched her fingers.
Human senses are far too dull. A shadowy figure, like a monstrous beast beneath the water, silently approached the boat, yet those on board seemed to lose all awareness of its presence. This left her with a lingering unease, a feeling of being unable to stand firmly on solid ground.
Lu Yuanyuan pursed her lips, then suddenly raised her hand and knocked on the carriage wall: "Stop, just leave it here."
According to the original plan, they should have ventured a little deeper into the forest. But now, she decided to follow her instincts, change the plan, and finish the job quickly.
The guards readily agreed.
Just as mentioned at the beginning, Lu Yuanyuan did not get out of the carriage this time. She watched as the guards worked together to carry the cage down, one person clearing the way to drive away the snakes, while two others carried the cage through a clump of waist-high bushes beside the official road, preparing to release the small monster in the woods ahead. In addition, two guards with swords stood guard beside the carriage.
The unexpected happened in that instant.
With a deep roar, a colossal creature swiftly pushed aside the grass and pounced from behind a tree at a guard beside the carriage, just an arm's length away from Lu Yuanyuan. At the same time, she smelled the strong, pungent stench unique to large carnivores—the same fleeting odor she had just detected, only amplified a thousandfold!
The horses pulling the carriage neighed in terror, and the carriage lurched violently, as if it had become a weightless toy. The people inside were instantly thrown about, rolling into a heap. Lu Yuanyuan's heart nearly jumped out of her throat. Through the shattered window, she gasped and saw a hideous brown beast's face flash by—it was a bear!
The guards were all armed and highly skilled fighters, yet, against a robust brown bear, their mere arm strength was utterly insufficient to pierce its vitals. With a single swipe of the bear's paw, their arms and heads were easily severed. Red and white splattered across the surrounding grass, blood and flesh flying everywhere.
Blood splattered on Eunuch Shen's legs. He was already terrified out of his wits, but at this critical moment, he actually remembered to take Lu Yuanyuan with him. In a panic, he pushed aside the fallen chests and cabinets, dragged her out of the carriage, and shouted, "Princess! Run!"
The two ignored everything and ran wildly through the woods with all their might. Unfortunately, Lu Yuanyuan was willing but unable to keep up. After running only a little over a hundred meters, her body started showing signs of distress. She felt dizzy, had tinnitus, and her legs were weak. She was panting heavily.
Without saying a word, Eunuch Shen picked her up and carried her on his back, his voice trembling with tears: "Your Highness, I'll carry you!"
"Nonsense! It's useless for him to go back alive alone. Princess Manjushri is the emperor's darling. Even if she loses just a single hair, if the emperor holds a grudge, all of them, the servants, will suffer along with her. If anything happens to her, even being torn to pieces wouldn't atone for his sins. He'd rather die here quickly!"
However, Grandpa Shen was not tall to begin with, and far from being strong. After carrying her for dozens of meters, he also became out of breath, his legs trembling as he ran.
Lu Yuanyuan was so jostled around that she felt like she was foaming at the mouth, and managed to say, "Maybe... you should... put me down?"
"What are you saying, Princess! How could I... Ah!"
A tree root in the weeds tripped them unexpectedly. A scream pierced the sky as both of them lost their balance.
...
When Lu Yuanyuan woke up, she saw a darkened sky.
Grandpa Shen has disappeared.
Half of her body was submerged in a shallow stream, her clothes were soaked, and she was shivering with cold.
Her memories of the time before she fainted gradually returned. It seemed that she and Eunuch Shen had also been separated after the fall.
The good news is that the bear didn't catch up and eat her; her body parts are still intact.
The bad news is, she doesn't know where she is.
Lu Yuanyuan struggled to sit up, but after a short while, she couldn't withstand the dizziness and lay back down.
From here, the official road from daytime is completely invisible. After nightfall, there is no light at all in the forest, and it is impossible to distinguish east from west.
Lu Yuanyuan: "..."
She lay flat by the stream, squinting, and thought of the phrase "fate plays tricks on people."
Why do I always encounter such unlucky things when I release animals?
This time, I also got a buff from Langya Mountain.
She suspected she and this place were incompatible. When she was a princess of the Yan Kingdom, she was almost dried into a dried-up corpse on Langya Mountain. This time, she was about to freeze into an icicle.
Furthermore, her birth charts are incompatible with Eunuch Shen's, and she has already been indirectly dragged into trouble by him twice.
In the mountains, nighttime temperatures can drop very low. And hypothermia is the most dangerous thing.
She couldn't stay in the water any longer. Lu Yuanyuan took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, turned over, and struggled to climb ashore, away from the stream. This exhausted the last bit of strength in her body. She lay on the grass, her eyelids heavy and sticking shut.
In her daze, she heard very light footsteps.
Something was approaching her.
She seemed to have fallen into a distant dream. In the dream, she returned to the bottom of Futu Valley and was washed ashore on a shallow beach. Yin Xiaozhu, wringing his long, wet hair, slowly walked towards her. His face was thin, his lips as red as maple leaves, gloomy yet alluring, like a beautiful ghost born from the mist.
However, Lu Yuanyuan quickly realized that she wasn't reliving an old dream. This time, the thing that approached her was very small and thin, making it impossible to lift her up.
It's not Yin Xiaozhu.
The other person's two thin arms slipped under her armpits, tightening around her upper body and dragging her legs on the ground. They dragged her like this, slowly moving her in a certain direction, her shoes leaving two long mud tracks in the grass.
She also heard a strange yet clear swallowing sound behind her ear.
Lu Yuanyuan's lips moved, and she briefly lost consciousness.
When she woke up again, her head was cold and heavy. She found herself lying in a small, dry cave, her left hand on her abdomen, and her right hand was being held, palm up.
A scarlet tongue licked the wound on her wrist, making a sticky, wet sound.
Lu Yuanyuan's eyelashes trembled, and her vision gradually cleared. In the moonlight, she saw the little monster squatting beside her, sniffing, licking, and sucking blood from her wrist, as if this was the only thing that mattered in the world.
Lu Yuanyuan felt dizzy and confused.
Didn't she already let the little monster go? How come... it came back?
Could it be that they saw the brown bear attacking them, followed them all the way, and found her lying unconscious by the stream, so they came to rescue her?
When animals are injured, they lick their wounds. Is it trying to stop the bleeding?
This time, however, the wound on her wrist was deeper. Licking it not only failed to stop the bleeding but also disrupted the scab formation, causing the bleeding to occur faster and more profusely.
Lu Yuanyuan wanted to stop it from doing something that was meant to be good but turned out badly, but she was too weak to pull her hand back, and her throat was terribly hoarse. Fortunately, at that moment, she caught a glimpse of the flickering light of a torch in the boundless darkness outside the cave.
In the darkness, even a tiny spark of fire was conspicuous, let alone the sounds of soldiers clashing across the mountains. Sensing numerous footsteps approaching the cave, the little monster finally stopped licking, seemingly intending to leave. Lu Yuanyuan instinctively grasped its wrist. This unintentional attempt to stop it delayed its departure. An arrow flew from afar, striking its hind leg.
The little monster shuddered, enduring the pain, and limped away.
No, we can't let it run into people outside now, otherwise, soldiers who don't know the truth might shoot it into a pincushion. Lu Yuanyuan gritted her teeth, tightened her grip on its wrist, and said in a hoarse voice, "...Don't be afraid."
Holding her tightly, the little monster stiffened slightly, its golden-green eyes narrowing as if it had made a decision. It slowly crouched back down and hid beside her.
The cave was low but not well-hidden, and the patrolling soldiers quickly spotted the mud tracks on the ground and surrounded it. The leader was a dignified-looking man. He swiftly entered the cave, and upon seeing her, rushed excitedly towards her: "Fengzhu!"
This person was the Crown Prince, the original owner's older brother and Yue Hong's father.
Lu Yuanyuan was helped to sit up by him, and he hugged her to his chest, calling out softly, "Royal brother, I'm alright."
Having successfully found his sister, and knowing she was still alive, the Crown Prince's tense expression relaxed after a whole night. His sharp gaze turned to the little monster beside him, filled with disgust: "Is this the monster you raised? How did it get here?"
Lu Yuanyuan nodded and said weakly, "Brother, don't kill it...it saved me."
Having said that, she could finally let her consciousness sink into the dark tide with peace of mind.
.
That day, Lu Yuanyuan returned to the palace.
The female doctor cleaned and bandaged the wound on her wrist.
The scratches on her body were the deepest. The high fever was mainly caused by being submerged in water.
The eunuch Shen, who carried her away, also luckily escaped with his life.
This matter alarmed the emperor and his concubines. Regardless of whether she was questioned by him or the crown prince, Lu Yuanyuan insisted that she was just bored at the camp and wanted to take a walk in the woods.
The original owner of this body was in poor health and rarely left the palace. When she did have the chance, her behavior was somewhat unconventional and eccentric, which was understandable. Besides, the emperor doted on this daughter, so even if she went too far in her mischief, he couldn't bear to punish her.
If he told the truth, saying that he went into the forest to release the little monster, the emperor and the crown prince would definitely be angry with it.
That night, Lu Yuanyuan lay on her bed in the palace. She opened her eyes, turned her head, and saw the golden cage in the distance.
The little monster followed her back one last time, and now the prince has ordered it to be locked back in a cage.
Lu Yuanyuan's face was flushed red. She put on her clothes and walked unsteadily to the cage.
The little monster had a familiar collar around its neck, the arrow in its leg had been removed, but the wound had not fully healed. It limped and curled up in the cage.
Lu Yuanyuan held onto the cage and sat down.
The little monster raised its head.
In the candlelight, her silhouette was reflected in its eyes, a deep and mysterious sight.
"I let you go, so why did you come back to drag me ashore?" Lu Yuanyuan considered for a moment before revealing her guess: "You came back specifically to save me because you were worried about me?"
"..."
They looked at each other, and the little monster's ugly face twitched slightly, turning to the side of the candlelight, looking somewhat strange.
Its gaze lingered on her bandaged wrist.
The firelight flickered, casting a dark shadow in its pupils, like an eerie will-o'-the-wisp.
After a long pause, it lowered its eyes, seemingly acknowledging her statement.
This further confirmed Lu Yuanyuan's guess—this little monster really could understand human speech.
Her feelings were complicated.
The original owner had abused it for so long, the little monster should hate her. Seeing her lying by the stream, it was already good enough that it didn't celebrate with champagne or kick her while she was down, but it actually saved her?
There's a saying: "Give a lash a piece of candy." This animal endured a hundred lashes, yet was appeased by a single piece of candy... Isn't it too naive and easily fooled?
With a "click," she raised her hand and unlocked the cage door.
The little monster remained motionless, silently staring at her.
"Come out," Lu Yuanyuan said softly. "I won't keep you locked in the cage anymore. You can stay here for now, and we can talk about other things after your leg heals."
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