"Let me go, let me go! You beasts, aren't you afraid of being struck by lightning?" Huan'er used all her strength, kicking and struggling wildly with her legs.
Soon, the short, fat, and burly man dragged her to the target location, turned her over, and then let go of her. He then slowly began to undress, revealing an extremely evil and wicked grin.
"What are you going to do? No, please, please don't..." Huan'er begged as she used all her strength to support her already extremely weak little body with her arms as she tried to back away.
She was, after all, just an innocent thirteen-year-old child, and at this moment she was already terrified out of her wits. She didn't even bother to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth, nor did she care about the pain from the red finger marks on her face. Even her pitiful pleas sounded increasingly weak.
At this critical moment, as the short, stout man was holding his belt and about to approach her step by step, Huan'er looked back and realized there was no way to retreat. In despair, she closed her innocent, bright, and clear eyes and gave up all struggle.
"Clang!"
Unexpectedly, a sound like something heavy falling to the ground suddenly reached her ears. Instantly, everything around her seemed to freeze, becoming extremely quiet.
Confused and bewildered, Huan'er cautiously opened her eyes, only to be stunned by what she saw.
The short, stout man who had tried to assault her was lying on the ground, coughing up mouthfuls of blood. One hand was on his blood-soaked left chest, and his whole body was trembling and convulsing. His eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead, looking extremely miserable and in great pain.
Beside the burly man, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, stood a tall, imposing, and handsome young man with his black hair half-tied up, dressed in a white brocade robe and a black cloak.
The man held a long sword horizontally in front of him, glaring angrily at the beast who had fallen to the ground in a sorry state. Drops of blood were still dripping from the sharp tip of the sword.
A moment later, the man's wise, starry eyes immediately turned to the other burly man, who was already stunned and speechless with fright, standing by the pavilion not far behind him.
The burly man seemed to have suddenly come to his senses, but he was so frightened that he couldn't even hold onto the broadsword in his hand. He just stood there blankly, letting it slide freely to the ground. Before he could even pick it up, he turned and scrambled away in a panic.
Unexpectedly, before he could escape two steps, the long sword that flew from the man's hand pierced his heart squarely. He screamed and fell heavily to the ground, dying instantly.
The man then slowly walked towards her, drew his sword, turned his back to her, and said in a low voice, "You reap what you sow! How dare you abduct a woman in broad daylight? Do you really think the heavens are blind?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the man quickly came to his senses, took off his cloak, and rushed to Huan'er's side, who was lying on the ground in a disheveled state and seemed to have lost her soul.
He knelt down and wrapped Huan'er tightly in his warm, dark cloak. He gently placed a long, slender hand on her thin shoulder and whispered in her ear with concern, "Miss, are you alright?"
It was this incredibly warm and heartfelt greeting that finally roused Huan'er from her dazed state. As if she had just woken from a nightmare and was still shaken, she instantly threw herself into the man's arms, bursting into tears that streamed down her face. "Waaah..."
After a while, seeing her curled up in his arms, seemingly having calmed down, the man gently patted her shoulder and comforted her, "Miss, it's alright now, don't worry anymore."
At this point, Huan'er hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly to the man to express her gratitude, saying, "Huan'er thanks you for saving my life. I will never forget your great kindness. May I ask your honorable name?"
The man quickly helped her up, saying, "Get up, get up. It's just a small favor to help someone in need, young lady. You can just call me Brother Lu."
“Brother Lu…” Huan’er stood up shyly and repeated the sentence in a low voice.
At this moment, the man looked at the two ugly corpses, then carefully examined Huan'er, and asked with a puzzled expression, "Judging from the girl's clothes and appearance, she seems to be a respectable woman. I wonder why she would appear in this desolate wilderness so early in the morning and encounter this group of robbers?"
Upon hearing this, Huan'er's face immediately fell, she sniffed and said, "Huan'er, are you here to see my old lady?"
"Looking for your old lady?" the man asked, frowning in confusion.
Huan'er nodded, and then slowly began to explain...
After a long pause, the man finally understood everything and said to Huan'er, "What a coincidence! I just came from visiting the City God Temple in the south of the city. Master Xuan Kong hasn't been in the temple recently, and I've never heard anyone mention anyone waiting for him there. Presumably, your old lady isn't in the City God Temple. Perhaps she's already gone home by another route, and it's not impossible that she missed you."
“Impossible. This lakeside is the only way from our village to the City God Temple. We can either take a boat around the lake to get into the city, or walk straight, which is the fastest way. The old lady has urgent business and wouldn’t take a boat. Besides, Huan’er caught up with her not long after she left, but she didn’t see anyone else along the way. She couldn’t have missed her. The old lady definitely didn’t go home.” Huan’er said with great certainty.
"Where else could she have gone?...By the way, does she have any relatives or friends? Could she have gone to see them?" The man scratched his head and guessed.
Huan'er shook her head and said sadly, "Our old lady has no relatives or friends except for the people in our village and Master Xuankong."
"That's strange. Could she, a living person, just vanish into thin air?" the man wondered.
Upon hearing this, both of them fell silent instantly.
After an unknown amount of time, the man suddenly came to his senses and said with a troubled expression, "Miss, what do you plan to do next? I can't just stay here waiting. Besides, I have important matters to attend to..."
Upon hearing this, Huan'er said somewhat awkwardly, "Oh, Brother Lu, you should go ahead and do what you need to do. I'm so sorry to have kept you up for so long."
"Then...can you still walk?" The man looked at Huan'er's injuries and still asked worriedly.
"Huan'er is fine, Brother Lu, don't worry. You should go and do your work, don't delay your important matters." Although she said it lightly, her body betrayed her lie. Huan'er tried to stand up, only to find that she was seriously injured and could not stand up.
"Alright, stop showing off. I think I'll help you to that pavilion over there and apply some medicine for you," the man said with a sigh of relief.
While applying medicine in the pavilion, Huan'er seemed to faintly hear someone making extremely faint moaning sounds. She quickly interrupted the man who was focused on his gentle movements and said, "Brother Lu, listen quickly, can you hear anything?"
Perhaps fearing he might hurt Huan'er by using too much force, he had been focused solely on his hand movements. Now that he had stopped and was listening intently, the man had indeed heard something.
So he put down the medicine bottle in his hand, picked up the sword on the stone table, walked out of the pavilion, and slowly and tentatively circled around to the other side of the reeds, following the sound.
As the sound drew closer, the man cautiously and quietly paced, silently drawing his sword. He gently parted the reeds with the scabbard he held tightly in his left hand, but suddenly his eyes widened as he stared at the old woman lying in the muddy swamp, covered in mud and seemingly on the verge of death. He cried out in alarm, "Who are you? Why are you here?"
The old woman, who had been stuck in the mud all night, was already dizzy from hunger, exhaustion, and fear. When she saw the man finally appear, she seemed to feel relieved and suddenly fainted.
"Grandpa, grandpa, wake up, wake up..." The man hurriedly bent down and shook the body hard twice, but there was no response. Without saying a word, he picked the old man up and ran back to the pavilion.
When Huan'er saw that familiar hairstyle from afar, with every hair ornament she had personally placed there for her every day, she jumped up in shock, but her legs seemed to have a screw loose and she couldn't move them. After a long while, she finally ran out of the pavilion, crying loudly, "Madam, Madam, what's wrong? What's wrong...?"
"Quickly, go find some clean water!" The man, ignoring his surprise, hurriedly ordered as he ran.
After much effort, the old woman finally opened her eyes again.
Upon seeing her awake, Huan'er looked at her with a worried expression and said sadly, "Grandma, what happened to you? Huan'er was so worried about you. How did you get stuck in the mud? How did you spend the night? Waaah..."
But when the old woman saw the man and woman in front of her clearly, she didn't even care about Huan'er's disheveled appearance. She just asked in extreme shock and weakness, "Huan'er, you... how did you get here? Where is Ruoxi?"
Huan'er seemed to only remember Ruoxi at this moment, and stammered, "Ruoxi, Ruoxi... she was originally going to come out with me to look for you, but as soon as we went out, the woodcutter from the village ran over and said that Wang Er seemed to have been poisoned in the mountains, so Ruoxi... so she asked me to come and catch up with you first. She... she went up the mountain with the woodcutter to detoxify Wang Er."
"What? Huan'er, how could you be so foolish? How could you leave a blind woman alone at home? If anything were to happen to her, I would become a sinner in this Western Qin!" the old woman exclaimed agitatedly.
"Then...what should we do? Ruoxi herself said that after she woke up this morning, she felt that she had regained some of her sense of light, so I...I..." Huan'er said in a panic.
"Hurry back, quick!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com