Su Rong and Fen Ling had just traveled a hundred miles when they were ambushed.
A large number of assassins seemed to have been lying in wait for a while, seemingly impatient.
Hearing the sounds of fighting outside, Ning Ze turned pale with fear. He clung to Ning Yao’s arm and stammered, "S-sister, they’re assassins. We are indeed being targeted."
Ning Yao, however, was calm, much more composed than Ning Ze. Through the tiny gap in the curtain, she looked outside. Su Rong wasn’t fighting back; instead, she was sitting atop her horse beside the carriage, relaxed and showing no signs of nervousness.
Seeing this, she opened the curtain wider, deliberately showing Ning Ze the serene Su Rong. "Look, Su Rong isn’t even fighting back. It seems that she doesn’t regard these assassins as a threat."
Ning Ze turned his head and clearly saw Su Rong as well. He immediately felt reassured. Looking at her calm, unaffected face, slovenly sitting on horseback, watching the brutal scene unfold before her as though it were all a mundane spectacle, he was struck with shame. Back at the Crown Prince’s residence, he had harbored ill intentions towards Su Rong. He must have been foolishly courageous to do so. Luckily, he hadn’t followed through on his plans then, otherwise, he would likely have died at her hands without even knowing how it had happened.
After watching for a while, Ning Yao lowered her hand and whispered, "It doesn’t seem like these assassins were sent by the second prince."
Ning Ze immediately asked, "Sister, you mean, they’re not after us?"
"Yes, that seems likely." Ning Yao nodded.
Ning Ze suddenly realized that Su Rong’s identity itself was a huge problem. There were probably more people who wanted to kill her than there were people who wanted to kill him and his sister. His face turned pale again.
Ning Yao looked at Ning Ze helplessly, "People always say that experiencing difficult situations makes you grow, so why have you grown even more timid?"
Ning Ze, on the verge of tears, responded, "Look at my hand, Sister. How can I grow bolder?"
Ning Yao’s gaze fell on his severed finger and she sighed with sympathy, "Oh well, given your current condition, even our elder brother might be too lazy to lay a finger on you. That might be a good thing. "
Ning Ze: "..."
When he returned to Nanping, he would definitely kneel before Ning Chi, begging for mercy and promising to be a loyal brother in the future.
The commotion outside continued for more than half an hour, then gradually, the sounds of fighting died out.
Ning Yao lifted the curtain again to see that the ground around the carriage was littered with bodies, all dressed in black. None of Su Rong’s bodyguards seemed to be injured. Fen Ling and his men were checking every body, finishing off the ones that were still alive with a stroke of the sword. They searched the bodies for valuables, then moved them all together and set them ablaze. The process was carried out with practiced efficiency.
She lowered the curtain, thinking to herself that only a person like Su Rong could fight her way back to Nanchu, vying for the throne of Nanchu King.
After the assassins’ bodies were burned, the carriage continued on its way.
They had only traveled a few dozen miles further when they encountered a second wave of assassins. After dealing with them in the same way and traveling another few dozen miles, they ran into a third wave of assassins. After that, every ten miles or so, they were attacked again.
Ning Ze went from being terrified at first to becoming numb after over a dozen encounters.
His face expressionless, he said to Ning Yao, "Sister, if this keeps up, who knows when we’ll make it back home? Our journey to Nanping is a thousand miles long."
Ning Yao didn’t know either. She answered numbly, "We’ll get there eventually."
She really hadn’t expected that there would be so many people out to kill Su Rong. These people had laid traps all along the way, as if they wouldn’t rest until Su Rong was dead. The assassins knew that the two siblings were in the carriage, but they didn’t attack the carriage. Instead, they focused on Su Rong and Fen Ling. However, none of them managed to get close to Su Rong. She didn’t even have to lift a finger; her bodyguards took care of all the assassins.
When they had traveled about 400 miles, they arrived at a place called the entrance to the canyon. At the entrance, Su Rong suddenly ordered a halt.
Fen Ling also sensed that something was wrong. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and asked, "Sister?"
Su Rong stared at the entrance for a moment, then said softly, "Turn around. We’re going to take a detour."
Fen Ling nodded and made a decisive gesture.
The carriage turned around, avoiding the entrance to the canyon, and went back the way it came.
Ning Ze spoke softly, "Sister, we’re going back."
Ning Yao nodded, "I heard."
She lifted the curtain slightly and looked outside, seeing Fen Ling with a slight frown. There was no discernible emotion on Su Rong’s face.
After the carriage had backtracked ten miles, Su Rong suddenly opened the curtain from outside and asked the two inside, "Can you handle mountain roads?"
Ning Yao immediately replied, "Yes."
Ning Ze also nodded.
Su Rong decisively said, "If that’s the case, get out of the carriage. We’re taking the mountain path."
The two siblings nodded.
When the carriage reached the foot of a mountain, the siblings disembarked. However, when they saw the towering peaks and steep cliffs before them, their faces changed.
They had assumed that by "mountain road," Su Rong meant a regular path through the mountains - something they could handle. But who could have told them that Su Rong’s idea of a mountain road was quite different from what they had envisioned?
This "mountain road" barely qualified as a path. How were they supposed to traverse it?
Ning Yao looked at Su Rong and asked tentatively, "Miss Su, are we supposed to climb this cliff?"
"Yes."
Ning Yao looked at the cliff ahead and fell silent for a moment before finally admitting, "I’m afraid that my brother and I won’t be able to climb this cliff."
Su Rong said, "You can. Just keep your mouths and eyes shut."
Ning Yao didn’t understand but nodded anyway, "If that’s all it takes, we can do it." After saying that, she turned to Ning Ze.
Ning Ze immediately shut his eyes and clamped his mouth shut.
Then, under Ning Yao’s watchful gaze, Su Rong and Fen Ling took out their climbing ropes. Su Rong tied Ning Yao to herself while Fen Ling, looking at Ning Ze with distaste, did the same.
To the shock of the two siblings, Su Rong and Fen Ling began to climb the cliff, taking the siblings with them.
Ning Ze opened his eyes once midway through the climb, but was so scared that he immediately clamped them shut again. His body was rigid, as if he was terrified that a single misstep from Fen Ling would send them crashing down to a gruesome death.
Ning Yao was slightly braver, but she was dizzy and felt disoriented. She knew that Su Rong was skilled in martial arts, but she never thought that Su Rong could carry someone while climbing such a towering cliff.
Climbing a cliff was exhausting, so midway up, they stopped to rest on a protruding rock.
As the two of them rested and chatted, Fen Ling asked Su Rong, "Sister, were there troops ambushing us at the canyon entrance? It seemed like I could smell soldiers."
"That seems likely," Su Rong replied. "I heard the sound of armor rubbing together."
"Yes, that’s the sound," Fen Ling agreed. Then he guessed, "Where did these soldiers come from? Are they from Marquis Nanping’s residence? But that doesn’t seem right. We’re five hundred miles away from Marquis Nanping’s residence. That’s quite a distance."
"Perhaps the second prince sent them. As for where they came from..." Su Rong pondered, "Perhaps they are soldiers from Heyun County, which is about thirty miles away. There are probably two or three thousand soldiers."
"Two or three thousand soldiers could certainly kill us." Fen Ling remarked.
Indeed, although her bodyguards were all masters, they would have to back off when faced with a torrent of arrows from two or three thousand soldiers.
"Yes."
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