Attacked
"Why are you here?" Rulan asked while wiping her tears.
Yuan Ming's eyes were filled with worry. "The soldiers who secretly escorted you said that there were a large number of assassins lying in ambush nearby. I was worried, so I sent another team from General Zhong to take you away."
Ru Lan chuckled and said, "General Zhong is such a nice man."
Yuan Ming was unhappy when he heard this: "You bastard, I'm so sorry I came to you."
Before the two could exchange a few words, a soldier outside the door called out, "Girls, those people are getting close. We need to hurry back to the barracks."
After saying that, Yuan Ming grabbed Rulan, picked up her medical books and ran out.
When the door opened, what caught her eyes was corpses all over the floor. The smell of blood filled her nostrils. Yuan Ming licked her lips unconsciously. The scene of her standing on a pile of corpses in her previous life flashed through her mind. The ugly appearance, the vicious curse, and the lingering memories kept coming to her mind, but Rulan was still trembling. The warmth from her palm brought Yuan Ming back to clarity.
Yuan Ming shook his head, trying to shake off the annoying memories, and forced himself to stay awake and run towards the outskirts of the woods with Rulan in his hand.
Yuan Ming is very skilled. Although he is accompanied by Rulan, who has no martial arts skills, he is still agile and his figure appears and disappears in the moonlight. He has accurately avoided the enemy's hidden arrows several times.
The two of them ran like this until Rulan's legs gave out and she fell to the ground. Yuan Ming finally stopped. Yuan Ming wiped the sweat off his face and looked back to make sure no one was following him.
Ru Lan just took a breath and immediately took the medical book from Yuan Ming's arms, saying thankfully, "Fortunately, fortunately, it's not lost or damaged."
Yuan Ming looked at Rulan helplessly, a faint smile on his lips: "This must be your master's relic, right? Now that you have it, what do you think about the thing I asked you before?"
Rulan held the medical book, her eyes changing from confusion to determination. "Yes! I'll go with you, but I want to leave a copy with you. If anything goes wrong in the future, it won't ruin the efforts of three generations of my master."
Yuan Ming said with ease, "Of course, no problem."
Rulan would never know that in her past life, Yuan Ming, in order to avenge her, used the blood of beggars from the ruined temple to pave the road from Mucheng to Rulan's hut, and everyone saw it and was terrified. Little did they know that the mad Yuan Ming, with a ferocious face, touched Rulan's relics, leaving a row of bloody tears.
During that crazy time, one of the few good things Yuan Ming did was to ensure that the medical books could be inherited.
The moon hung high in the sky, obscured by clouds. The wind rustled the leaves and grass. Rulan shuddered as the moon darkened and the wind blew. "Yuan...Ming, how long do we have to wait here?"
Yuan Ming frowned slightly and replied, "The people who are helping us haven't come out yet."
They were all warriors who had fought alongside Zhong Yingqi through thick and thin. Their fates would either be to return to the countryside or to die on the battlefield, but they certainly couldn't be so carelessly buried here. Yuan Ming had wronged too many people in his previous life, especially the warriors who had sacrificed their lives for the Qi Kingdom.
Now that I'm reborn, I have to change something.
Yuan Ming handed Rulan a sharp short knife and instructed her, "Hold the handle tightly and don't let go under any circumstances. Hide here and wait for me to come back."
In the blink of an eye, Yuan Ming disappeared into the darkness.
In the forest, a dozen soldiers clad in iron armor, wielding longswords, stood back to back. Their breathing was rapid, and sweat streamed down their cheeks, soaking their lapels. Surrounding them were secret guards, several times their number. Clad in black, they moved like shadows, their short blades gleaming coldly in the moonlight.
Soldier Liu Zizhuang brandished his long sword, glaring and shouting, "These bastards are endless! Brothers, if we can't even deal with them, we won't be able to face the general. Kill them!"
Swords flashed and blood flew everywhere.
Liu Zizhuang's shoulder was pierced by a hidden arrow, and his comrade was lying dying beside him, but the enemies were still moving like ghosts in the dark, gradually approaching, as if testing when the dying prey would take its last breath.
Liu Zizhuang thought sadly, "Is this the end of me today? My parents are still waiting for me to come home."
A man who has lived his whole life as a man still cries for his elderly parents before he dies. But before the tears can flow down his cheeks, things take a turn for the better.
A black-clad secret guard was about to deliver the final blow to Liu Zizhuang, but his life ended before Liu Zizhuang. Yuan Ming suddenly appeared from nowhere and chopped off his lungs with a single blow. The secret guard's body exploded like fireworks, and blood and flesh covered Yuan Ming's body. Yuan Ming looked like a burning red flower in the darkness, making people unable to take their eyes off him.
Yuan Ming at this moment is forever imprinted in Liu Zizhuang's heart. If there is a hero in the world who comes for him, it must be Yuan Ming, whose name is adorned with blood.
Yuan Ming wielded a long sword with a heroic look. Her face was calm, but as the tip of the sword danced, a fierce force came at her.
As the most dazzling protagonist on the night stage, Yuan Ming dispatched five secret guards in a flash. She knew that she couldn't defeat these agile secret guards on her own, but after being a tyrant for several years, the emotion of "fear" was far away from her, so she was fearless.
A fearless person is invincible.
The enemies in the dark became much more obedient, or perhaps they fought with the soldiers and encountered Yuan Ming's crazy attack, so their numbers were sharply reduced and they were no longer confident of completing the mission.
They came quietly and left quietly, all witnessed by the moon.
Yuan Ming let go of her long sword, and memories of the past began to flood back, making her extremely irritable and filled with a thirst for blood. It seemed that the mere contact with blood would trigger her ailments. She forced herself to calm down, telling herself not to be carried away by the past, not to repeat the mistakes of her past life. She repeated these words countless times in her mind before she could suppress the bloodlust.
Yuan Ming heard Liu Zizhuang groaning in pain from behind her. She turned her head slightly and saw the soldiers supporting each other. She stepped forward, took the immobilized Liu Zizhuang, and without hesitation placed his hand on her shoulder, as if they were a pair of comrades relying on each other.
Liu Zizhuang couldn't help but say, "Miss, you are the general's guest, there is no need to do this. Life and death are common on the battlefield, and I can't bear the consequences."
"Shut up." Yuan Ming said impatiently, "I'm in a state of confusion. Be careful or I'll chop you."
Liu Zizhuang really shut up, because Yuan Ming was dragging a long knife in his right hand, and the tip of the knife made a scraping sound against the ground. Coupled with Yuan Ming's gloomy expression, Liu Zizhuang swallowed and realized that the other party might really intend to chop him.
Rulan, who had been waiting at the same place, huddled behind a tree, holding a dagger tightly in her hand. Finally, before dawn, she saw the wounded group of people. The thrilling night was finally over.
At daybreak, Yuan Ming and a group of people were resting on a flat ground. Yuan Ming's nose could no longer smell the blood, perhaps because it had been immersed in the smell for too long and his nose had adapted to it. However, the blood stains on his clothes were solidified, making Yuan Ming feel as if his body was covered with a brittle shell, and he felt completely uncomfortable.
If you feel uncomfortable, you will feel upset. If you feel upset, you will want to go crazy. If you can't go crazy, you will feel depressed. If you feel depressed, you will want to go crazy even more.
Yuan Ming fell into a strange emotional circle. He neurotically picked at the blood stains on his clothes. When he couldn't clean them up, he wanted to pick at his head, making his hair messy and like a madman.
Liu Zizhuang and others looked at General Zhong's distinguished guest, who had such... personality, and felt that powerful people really did have some little quirks. They nodded in their hearts and physically stepped back, leaving Yuan Ming room to go crazy.
Rulan observed Yuan Ming's symptoms, then watched the crowd's reactions, feeling a pang of pain. She thought back to the peasant woman she'd met as a child while walking the countryside with her master. Back then, amidst a severe drought, grain was as valuable as gold, if not more so. The frail little woman had starved to the point of being skin and bones, barely alive. The people around her were just like that, leaving her alone, ignoring them, silently waiting for her to die. Some, even more so, might have been planning to use her as a vegetable.
That scene was deeply imprinted in Xiao Rulan's heart and she still couldn't forget it. It even made her overlap the images of the two people, one who was weak due to hunger and the other who was strong due to madness.
Rulan walked over to Yuan Ming and gently patted her shoulder. Yuan Ming's eyes were fierce, and she quickly turned her head towards Rulan and gave her a sharp look. Everyone gasped, fearing that Yuan Ming, in a bad mood, would twist Rulan's head off.
Fortunately, Yuan Ming's eyes only held terror. When she realized it was Rulan, her long eyelashes drooped, covering her eyes, making her appear innocent and vulnerable. She slowly turned her head away, her hands digging much more slowly. "What are you doing here? I'm really scary right now, and I can't control myself."
Rulan shook her head slightly and pulled a green fruit from her sleeve. It looked very sour. She held it to Yuan Ming's lips and smiled kindly despite her young age. "Eat it. It might be sour or sweet. I've been eating fruit from this tree for years, and I still can't tell which ones are sweet and which are sour."
"I guess it's sour." Yuan Ming took a bite and said in disbelief, "It's sweet."
The stimulation of her taste buds soothed Yuan Ming's irritability. She smiled and said, "I'll eat more sweet things in the future."
The sun rises in the east, and the cycle repeats itself. Rulan checked the wounded soldiers' injuries and, thinking that they were still some distance away from the military camp, decided to pick some herbs nearby and apply some medicine to the wounded soldiers to prevent their injuries from getting worse.
Liu Zizhuang volunteered to collect herbs and patted his chest to say that the bloody wound on his shoulder was just a minor injury. However, as soon as he stood up, he sat down on the ground. Amidst the laughter of everyone, he gave up the will to show off.
Yuan Ming tidied herself up, as if the crazy woman had never appeared. She glanced at the wounded soldier's wounds, then glanced at Rulan, who had been scared as a quail all night, with a mixture of emotions in her heart. She said to Rulan, "You stay here, I'll go pick it. Also, if you follow me, you have to learn martial arts from me. If you tremble like a sieve when something happens, I don't want you to be on the run one day and not even be able to get on a horse to escape."
After being scolded, Rulan quietly retreated to the side, wanting to speak but hesitant. Yuan Ming hated to see his benefactor acting so cowardly, so he said, "If you have something to say, just say it now. What's the point of being so shy?"
"Do you... do you know any herbs?"
After Rulan finished speaking, Yuan Ming fell into a deathly silence. Liu Zizhuang, who was closest to her, saw this and hurriedly said, "General Zhong's distinguished guest is highly skilled in martial arts. He must know everything. A few herbs will surely not be a problem for the young lady."
That being said, Liu Zizhuang had prepared for the worst. Even if his savior gave him a poisonous plant, he would eat it without blinking.
However, Liu Zizhuang was overthinking it. Yuan Ming was just speechless. She had been a favored child for more than ten years, suffered torture for a few years, and was a tyrant feared by everyone until her death. She had experienced glory and desolation, but her ability had never been questioned. Besides, the medical book that Rulan guarded as a treasure was something Yuan Ming had memorized word for word in her previous life. A mere herb was nothing to worry about.
Yuan Ming waved his hand without explaining, and just said: "I'll be back soon, you guys stay here." After that, he left behind a handsome back and disappeared in the morning light.
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