Li Xuan didn't dare to hold her hand.
He quickly grasped the reins again.
Lin Ruochu's heart twisted into knots. Li Xuan's silent demand was asking her for an explanation.
She hated that she couldn't say anything, biting her lip until it bled before finally uttering three defeated and frustrated words:
"I'm sorry."
Li Xuan's heart sank heavily once more.
Just like when he saw those four words "Heart belongs to Shao Mu" she had written two years ago, as if an invisible hand had seized his heart and torn it violently in half.
She still refused to confide in him.
Or perhaps there were no unavoidable circumstances to begin with.
It was merely his own wishful thinking.
Li Xuan collected himself, and after a long pause, replied in his restored cool voice:
"Alright, I will rescue Tao Yuan."
Lin Ruochu expressed her gratitude and added: "Also… please don't tell my family about this. I've been disowned – they wouldn't want to know about my affairs."
Li Xuan nodded: "Understood. I won't speak of this to anyone else."
Hearing the cold hardness in his voice, Lin Ruochu's heart sank further.
The two faced each other in silence, quietly sharing the same horse as they headed toward the moonlit horizon where stars were growing sparse.
When the buildings of White Cloud Temple came into view, the sky was already beginning to pale.
The long night had finally passed.
Li Xuan leaped down from the horse and, holding the reins, followed a small path that wound through lush tree canopies around the temple's front gate toward the back mountain.
This was the same side path Lin Ruochu had taken when she stole the horse to descend the mountain.
Sitting on the horse, watching Li Xuan's tall figure, Lin Ruochu grew more puzzled – would capital gossip include such detailed knowledge of White Cloud Temple's back paths that he could navigate them so familiarly?
Most temple priests and Kun Dao rose early for meditation. Lin Ruochu had originally planned to return before dawn – at this hour, it was already somewhat risky.
As if reading her thoughts, Li Xuan led the horse to a concealed spot near the back gate. Gripping the reins with both hands, he pulled sharply, using internal energy to snap the rope cleanly.
"Leave the horse in the back mountains, make it look like it broke free and escaped on its own. This happens occasionally – the temple won't suspect anything. You'll be safer returning alone and more discreet."
Lin Ruochu nodded and dismounted from the horse.
As her feet touched the ground, her knees buckled and she nearly fell. Li Xuan stepped forward to support her arm, only releasing his stiff grip and stepping aside when he saw she was steady.
Lin Ruochu removed the cloak and returned it to him – a man's cloak would be difficult for her to explain.
Only then, in the emerging morning light, did Li Xuan truly see her condition.
It wasn't just blood and grime on her face – her entire body looked as if it had been dragged through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, drenched in crimson that obscured her dress's original color.
There was even a tear across the front of her garment.
The battle-hardened Li Xuan instantly recognized it as a slash from a curved blade.
His normally calm, cool eyes narrowed to pinpoints, and his recently released hand clamped tightly around Lin Ruochu's slender wrist once more.
"You call this unharmed? Still claim this is all others' blood? How badly are you actually injured?"
His urgent tone was completely different from during their nighttime journey.
The intelligence about these bandits had arrived too late – by the time he rushed over, he was already a step behind. Seeing the flames and corpses outside the house, he had assumed the entire household must have perished. Just as he was grieving inwardly, he saw a slender woman running out from the flames.
At that time, he had thought she was a surviving daughter of a farming family, but when he clearly saw the woman's face, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.
He knew the origins of those bandits, and naturally understood their brutality.
So in that moment, he even forgot his mission, rushing straight to her side. Only when he saw she could speak and move, even pulling out a hairpin to kill, did his suspended heart settle back down.
But now, what was with these wounds and blood?
Li Xuan frowned deeply, gazing intently at the woman before him. In an instant, thousands of worries surged in his heart, making him wish he could hoist her over his shoulder again, gallop away on horseback, and hide her in a safe place known only to him.
Lin Ruochu watched his unusually urgent demeanor—so unlike his usual aloofness—and instead felt a small flicker of happiness.
This time, it was her turn to press down his slightly trembling hand, gently prying open his fingertips one by one.
"If I had really been slashed across the chest by a blade, how would I have the strength to stand here talking to you? I would have long perished back when you were carrying me over your shoulder, hitting me with that cold, hard pauldron."
"I'm fine, it's just my clothes that got torn by the blade."
As she spoke, Lin Ruochu stretched her arms, twisted her waist, and expanded her chest to prove she wasn't pushing herself.
Seeing her calm expression, though somewhat fatigued but with flushed cheeks that indeed showed no signs of fatal injury, Li Xuan released his grip.
Remembering his earlier impropriety, he coughed lightly and turned his face away.
Noticing his reddened earlobes, Lin Ruochu also averted her gaze, allowing a small curve to lift the corner of her lips.
"You… returning like this would also cause trouble."
After a long pause, Li Xuan retrieved a cloth bundle from behind his back, taking out a set of women's cotton clothing to hand to her.
"Change into this. I'll help you… dispose of the bloodied clothes."
The bloodstained garments were indeed problematic—even if they avoided the Kun Dao in the temple, it would be hard not to be noticed by Jinyu back at the cottage.
But still…
Holding the clothes, Lin Ruochu wondered why Li Xuan would carry women's clothing with him, and where she should change.
She had only ever visited military camps for fun, completely lacking actual campaign experience.
In this regard, Li Xuan—accustomed to years of rough living—was more experienced. He single-handedly arranged his cloak into a cylindrical curtain.
"Go inside to change."
He said, then after a pause added:
"I won't look."
His large black cotton cloak indeed provided thorough coverage from top to bottom.
But for Lin Ruochu, raised in the capital, this was truly somewhat "wild."
Her face turned carnelian red, while the Female Ghost in her mind hummed and hawed indistinctly, annoyingly persistent.
Li Xuan turned his face completely away.
Lin Ruochu also knew there was no better alternative. Confronting the bandits alone had been outside the plan—a risky move. Had she not encountered Li Xuan, she'd likely be in far greater trouble now.
Setting aside further thoughts, she clutched the clothes, bent down, and crawled into this "cloak tent."
Vision instantly plunged into darkness. Changing clothes blindly was quite challenging, and the cloak billowed restlessly with her movements.
Li Xuan kept his head turned toward the fish-belly white dawn at the forest's edge, his jaw stiff as a straight line, ears burning like sunset clouds.
After a short while, the movements inside the cloak ceased.
Lin Ruochu emerged from the top of the cloak, revealing her head—her hair disheveled, stray strands sticking to her forehead, face flushed from being muffled under the cloak.
She shifted her eyes, meeting Li Xuan's gaze directly, then smiled somewhat sheepishly with slightly narrowed eyes:
"Li Xuan, thank you."
A few strands of morning light filtered through the pine forest, falling upon her dirt-streaked cheeks. For a moment, it made Li Xuan feel as if he had returned to those days before he departed for the frontier.
Yet her coiled hair reminded him that she had long been married to another, no longer the vibrant young maiden in the General Residence who delighted in brandishing blades and spears.
His gaze flickered briefly before he turned his face away. Gathering his cloak from where it billowed around him, he replied in a hardened voice:
"No need for thanks."