Setting a trap
Three days later, early in the morning, a man claiming to be a servant of the Xie family came to the Jiang residence to deliver a message, saying that Xie Qi invited Miss Jiang to meet at the Garan Temple outside the capital.
Since everyone knew that Xie Qi wanted to meet the young lady, Zou Shi and Li Wan did not think much of it and left the mansion by carriage according to the appointed time.
To avoid attracting attention, besides the two of them, they only brought Xiuhe, a maid, and a coachman.
The frosty wind howled, and the higher up the mountain, the denser the pines and cypresses became. The wheels rolled over the frozen ground, making the journey on the mountain road difficult.
Inside the carriage, Madam Zou said unhappily, "Although unmarried men and women should keep their distance from each other, everyone already knows about your affair with Xie Qi. Why bother coming to this desolate place to meet?"
Li Wan also felt strange. She lifted the carriage curtain and saw nothing but white snow and withered trees, a desolate and eerie sight.
Li Wan vaguely sensed something was wrong, so she asked, "Mother, did you see the messenger from the Xie residence today?"
Madam Zou was taken aback. "I didn't see him. The gatekeeper told me that the man only relayed Lord Xie's message and then left."
Madam Zou's brows twitched. "What do you mean, Sister Wan? Do you suspect that the messenger wasn't Lord Xie?"
Li Wan was also unsure, but the current situation made people feel wary.
Regardless of what Xie Qi wanted to say to her, there was no shortage of secluded places in the vast capital city, so why come to the mountain?
Feeling increasingly uneasy, Li Wan said, "Mother, why don't we go back first and discuss the specifics after Father finishes his shift?"
She looked at the smooth dirt road and said, "Judging from the tracks on the road, Xie Qi should not have gone up the mountain yet."
"Okay, let's go back first, this place is creepy."
Ms. Zou was also flustered and hurriedly called the coachman to turn around and go down the mountain.
The driver responded and gently pulled the reins, causing the horse to turn halfway around.
Suddenly, the creaking sound of the wheels turning stopped abruptly, followed by a muffled thud. The driver had been stabbed and fell straight into the carriage.
"Ah!" The three women in the car exclaimed in unison, and Zou Shi turned pale instantly in fright.
The horse was startled, and the carriage shook violently. Just as Li Wan was about to reach for the reins, she felt a chill on her neck—a sharp knife was pressed against her throat.
Several masked men stopped the carriage and surrounded it.
Xiuhe stared wide-eyed at the knife against Li Wan's neck, her voice trembling as she shouted, "You audacious thief! We are from the residence of the Minister of Revenue. If you dare to harm us, Lord Jiang will..."
Before she could finish speaking, she was knocked unconscious by a palm strike from the masked man.
Li Wan instinctively tried to help her up, but a sudden, sharp pain shot through the back of her neck, her vision went black, and she lost consciousness.
Zou covered her mouth, desperately trying to suppress her screams, and watched helplessly as the masked men carried Wan'er away. Only when she was alone in the howling mountain forest did she cry out in terror.
...
"Ah Wan, Ah Wan."
When Li Wan heard her mother's voice, she struggled to open her eyes and saw her mother's familiar face.
"Awan is awake," her mother said joyfully, wiping away her tears.
Then her father and brother also gathered around her.
"Father, brother," Li Wan called weakly. Through her hazy vision, she saw the earthen tile roof above her head and the gray bed curtains that her mother had patched up again and again.
It's Ushida Village, her room!
Li Wan looked around at her family in disbelief, tears streaming down her face. "Am I back?"
Her mother gently wiped away her tears with her warm fingers and said with heartache, "Waking up means you're back, back by your mother and father's side."
"mother!"
Li Wan wanted to reach out and hug her... In an instant, her vision gradually darkened, and she sank into the endless darkness until she fell into an ice cave.
It's cold, so cold. The howling wind cuts through my skin like knives.
When Li Wan opened her eyes again, she was met with a bottomless cliff.
She was lying on the edge of the cliff, as if a stronger wind could blow her off the cliff.
She suddenly came to her senses and struggled to roll onto flat ground.
"Don't move!"
A masked, burly man blocked her lower back with a knife, preventing her from moving any further.
Li Wan then noticed that she was surrounded by masked men in black, each holding a knife.
She struggled to sit up, curling her body up, her voice trembling uncontrollably, "Who are you? Why are you arresting me?"
"Mountain bandits," the burly man replied bluntly.
Li Wan immediately denied that they were bandits. Bandits would only rob people for money or sex, but they had neither searched the Jiang family's carriage nor kidnapped Xiuhe, who was just as beautiful as a flower. They had only captured her.
Look at them, their eyes are full of murderous intent, clearly they're after her life.
A short, thin man walked up to the burly man and asked, "Brother, the girl said she'd kill him if she caught him, so... what are we waiting for?"
Girl! What girl would want to kill her?
Li Wan quickly thought for a moment, and then a bright and handsome face appeared in her mind.
It was Princess Qiongying! Apart from her, Li Wan couldn't think of any other girl she had ever offended.
Yes, everyone knows about her affair with Xie Qi. As Xie Qi's admirer, Princess Qiongying naturally harbors hatred towards her.
The cold wind made her eyes sting. She raised her hand to touch the corner of her eye, where the warmth of her mother's fingers still lingered.
She was certain that what she had just experienced was not a dream, and that there could not be such a colorful, warm, and clear dream.
She did return to Niutian Village and truly saw her family, but for some reason, she returned to Jiang Feiwan.
Why couldn't she stay a little longer with her family? Why bring her back to this dangerous, turbulent capital city?
Li Wan cried in grievance, her chest heaving violently. The loneliness of the past few months seemed to find an outlet and burst forth.
I wonder if dying now will allow me to return to Niutian Village.
If she could go back, she would love nothing more than for the masked man to quickly and decisively stab her.
"Big brother!" the short, thin man urged again.
The burly man glared at him, looked around, then his face hardened, and he raised his knife to slash at Li Wan.
Li Wan closed her eyes tightly, waiting for the executioner's blade to fall.
"Whoosh!"
An arrow shot from a distance, deflecting the knife.
Just as the burly man was about to raise his head, "whoosh!" another long arrow pierced straight into his throat.
"There's something buried..." The short, thin man's words were cut off by the swift arrow inserted into his throat.
Immediately afterwards, "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." more arrows shot in from all directions.
In the blink of an eye, all the masked men were shot dead by arrows and fell in front of Li Wan.
However, no one appeared in front of her.
...The surroundings were deathly silent.
Li Wan sat in the middle of a pile of corpses, and it took her a long time to calm down.
Who saved her, but why doesn't he show himself?
She looked around but couldn't see a single living person. It was getting dark, the wind in the mountains was getting stronger, and the temperature was getting lower.
We can't just sit here and wait to die, otherwise we'll freeze to death instead of being killed.
Driven by her survival instinct, she shakily stood up and stepped over the corpses to head down the mountain.
The muddy road surface was covered with thick ice, and every step required caution.
Li Wan wrapped her pale yellow cloak tightly around herself and, relying on her past experience of going up the mountain with her father to dig for wild mushrooms, finally found the way down the mountain.
Her whole body was unbearably cold; her breath froze into fine frost the moment it touched her eyelashes; all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart.
Just when she thought she couldn't hold on any longer, she suddenly heard a familiar voice calling her name.
"Sister! Jiang Feiwan!"
It's my younger brother, Jiang Feiche.
Li Wan was overjoyed and quickly called out, "Brother, I'm here."
That cry exhausted all her strength, and she fainted into a thin but warm embrace.
...
On a cold winter night, a dark figure leaped into the Ningyuan Marquis's residence.
Inside the Pillow Cloud Hall, Xie Qi, dressed in a dark brocade robe with cloud patterns, sat behind a table.
He held the scroll in one hand, his fingers long and distinct, with a thin callus on the base of his thumb, a result of years of practicing martial arts with a pen.
"My lord." The guard, Mo Jiu, bowed.
"Speak," Xie Qi said, putting down his book.
"After Miss Jiang was captured by Princess Qiongying's men, they were supposed to kill her immediately. However, our men, following your orders, delayed her for a while. When they pretended to make their move, they were shot and killed by a group of archers."
"After the archers rescued Miss Jiang, they immediately withdrew. I followed them all the way into the capital and saw them enter the Earl of Chengen's mansion with my own eyes."
"The Earl Cheng'en's Mansion".
The Chengen Earl's Mansion is the maternal family of Consort Xue and also the maternal family of the Third Prince.
Xie Qi casually picked up a wolf-hair brush and played with it.
It seems that the Fourth Prince is just a henchman, and the real person behind Jiang Feiwan is the Third Prince, Xiao Xian.
He sneered, "Xiao Xian, you've been hiding your true intentions well."
In order to get Jiang Feiwan to his side, Xiao Cheng outwardly used the Fourth Prince to threaten her, while secretly spreading rumors about him and Jiang Feiwan. He really went to great lengths.
Xiao Xian and Jiang Feiwan.
Just thinking about how they pretended not to recognize each other at the Yongyi Marquis's residence made him want to applaud their acting skills.
Fine, in order not to let their painstaking efforts go to waste, Xie Qi is determined to marry Jiang Feiwan, this liar and superb actress!
"Find a matchmaker tomorrow," Xie Qi instructed.
Mo Jiu was taken aback. Everyone knew that Miss Jiang was the Third Prince's spy, so why did they still want to marry her? Oh well, the adults must have their reasons.
Mo Jiu hurriedly accepted the order, saying, "Yes," and then silently withdrew.
Xie Qi glanced at the dark window, where the cold air condensed into a layer of frost, obscuring the view of the courtyard outside.
"Crack." The wolf hair brush, as thick as a finger, snapped in his hand.
Meanwhile, the Third Prince's residence was also brightly lit, just like the Pillow Cloud Hall.
According to the laws of this dynasty, princes can leave the palace and establish their own residences when they reach adulthood. Apart from the crown prince who lives in the Eastern Palace and the young sixth prince, the third and fourth princes have already established residences outside the palace.
In the main hall of the bedroom, Xiao Xian, dressed in a moon-white nightgown, stood with his hands behind his back by the window.
Commander Liang Huan of the garrison bowed and said, "Your Highness, I was ordered by you to secretly protect Miss Jiang. When I discovered that Miss Jiang had been kidnapped by the people of Princess Qiongying and taken to the edge of a cliff, and the swordsmen were about to kill Miss Jiang, I ordered the archers to shoot and kill the people of Princess Qiongying."
Fearing there might be an oversight, Liang Huan quickly added, "Please rest assured, Your Highness, the archers were all operating from concealed positions and their identities were never revealed."
Xiao Cheng paused, turned to look at him, and asked, "Did Princess Qiongying's men kidnap Miss Jiang to the edge of the cliff before killing her?"
Liang Huan nodded: "Yes." He didn't understand why His Highness would ask such a question.
Xiao Xian pondered for a moment before smiling helplessly, "You've already been exposed. As expected of Xie Qi, I'm completely convinced."
Liang Huan asked, puzzled, "What does Your Highness mean?"
Xiao Xian sighed, "Given Princess Qiongying's personality, she would have eliminated Miss Jiang on the spot after luring her out. Why would she bother to kidnap her to the edge of the cliff and waste time? I suspect that Xie Qi must have planted a spy among Princess Qiongying's people."
Liang Huan was startled. "Does Your Highness mean that Xie Qi set a trap to lure us into making a move?"
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