Thunder rolled across the sky, sounding at times as though it were right before her eyes. Torrential rain nearly blocked out all visibility.
As hot blood fell into the icy rainwater, Su Jinyuan clung to a broken tree at the edge of the cliff, her body hidden in the shadow beneath it.
The raindrops struck the tree with a loud patter, washing away the blood that had fallen onto her.
“Where is she?”
“Looks like she came this way.”
“How did she disappear?”
The footsteps at the cliff’s edge drew closer and closer. Su Jinyuan bit down hard on her lip and held her breath.
She had never expected to be reborn, much less reborn at this particular moment. She had eloped with a man and encountered bandits, yet her virtue had not been ruined, and she had not yet taken that ambitious, treacherous man as her support.
She had barely managed to kill one person and escape when the others caught up with her.
She had fled for nearly five full days, yet she had still been driven to the end of the road.
Su Jinyuan looked down from the cliff. Clouds and mist swirled beneath her feet, obscuring the bottom completely.
She remembered that the Yulan River flowed below this cliff. After several consecutive days of heavy rain, the river had risen dramatically. If she fell from this height, her chances of surviving were less than thirty percent.
But rather than be captured and taken back, she would rather gamble on it…
The people atop the cliff had already reached the edge and were even looking in her direction.
Su Jinyuan gritted her teeth and was about to let go when, unexpectedly, screams rang out from above her head.
She watched helplessly as two heads came tumbling down. Their eyes were wide with terror, and when blood splashed over the edge of the cliff, it spattered her face and hair.
Swish.
The branches overhead were pushed aside, and raindrops smacked against her face.
“Su Yuanniang?”
The person standing at the edge of the cliff wore a dark-red round-collared brocade robe and a deep-purple cloak. His phoenix eyes held a faint chill.
Even having just killed someone, he showed no sign of strain. Standing beneath an umbrella, his grim, coldly handsome face seemed steeped in gloom.
“My name is Xie Yunyan.”
The youth lowered his head to look at her. “Are you the one who eloped with someone a month ago and made Eldest Brother Xiao lose all face?”
Su Jinyuan stared at Xie Yunyan, dazed for a moment.
In her previous life, when she saw him, the Xiao Family had already been confiscated and exterminated. Everyone in the Xiao Family had died in the Southern Region, while the youth raised by the Xiao Family since childhood had led troops to surround the city and perished alongside the imperial clan.
She remembered that by then, the youth had grown into a handsome young man of unparalleled beauty. Sitting high on horseback and looking down at her, he had also asked, “Su Yuanniang?”
“Kill her.”
He had said it with utter indifference. And when the blade fell—
Lu Zhuo, who had once coaxed her into eloping and abandoning the Xiao Family, who had sworn eternal vows with her, shoved her forward. Then, in her final moments, all she saw was the unmistakable mockery in Xie Yunyan’s eyes.
“I’m asking you a question.” Xie Yunyan prodded the broken branch with the tip of his sword.
Su Jinyuan’s body swayed, and the branch beneath her seemed as though it might snap at any moment. “It wasn’t an elopement.”
Xie Yunyan raised an eyebrow.
“My marriage to the Xiao Family was arranged by my father before he died. I would never go against it. It was my Aunt who deceived me, saying she had news of my younger brother.”
“My younger brother was abducted when he was four, and there has been no word of him ever since. On the day I was to be married, my Aunt suddenly came to me with one of his personal belongings and said that he had appeared in Qu’an.”
“I was so anxious that I left the Capital. Who could have known that Lu Zhuo would later abduct me by force in Qu’an?”
The rain struck her face painfully, making it difficult for Su Jinyuan to open her eyes.
She had almost no strength left in her hands, yet she clung desperately to the broken branch.
“Young Master Xie, if I had truly eloped with someone, I would have sought a place of wealth and comfort as far from the Capital as possible. Why would I have come all the way back toward the Capital, only to end up in this state?”
Seeing her wretched appearance, with her hair plastered to her face and her complexion as pale as a ghost, Xie Yunyan thought about it.
Indeed, who would elope and end up like this?
He had followed the news of her whereabouts all the way to Qu’an, then made his way here after several twists and turns.
This route was indeed headed back toward the Capital. Seeing the woman hanging from the cliff, her hands trembling as they gripped the branch, he knew she would fall in the next instant.
Xie Yunyan pushed off from the cliff’s edge and soared into the air, reaching Su Jinyuan’s side in moments.
He wrapped one arm around Su Jinyuan’s waist while continuing to hold the umbrella in his other hand.
The edge of the umbrella caught on the tree and borrowed its leverage, carrying Su Jinyuan back up to the top of the cliff. Yet the moment they landed, he released her with clear disdain. Su Jinyuan’s legs went weak, and she collapsed onto the ground, her body covered in mud.
“My apologies, Miss Su.” Xie Yunyan smiled faintly. “My hand slipped.”
Su Jinyuan fell silent for a moment, then gritted her teeth and looked at the youth’s radiant smile. Even knowing perfectly well that he had done it on purpose, what could she do?
Although Xie Yunyan was not the Xiao Family’s biological son, he had grown up in the Xiao Family and was like a blood brother to the Xiao Family’s several young masters. Even his name had been chosen in sequence after the names of the Xiao Family’s sons.
She had been the one to flee from the wedding first. If the Xiao Family treated her poorly, she could only endure it. Besides, the man before her would one day become someone who killed without batting an eye. She had no interest in using her life to test his temper.
Xie Yunyan did not ask a single word about her condition. He merely held up his umbrella and started down the mountain.
Su Jinyuan hurried to follow, limping behind him.
The mountain path was muddy, and the rain fell in torrents.
Su Jinyuan had already injured her legs while being pursued. As she made her way downhill, she fell into the mud several times.
When Xie Yunyan saw her tumble into a mud pit, blood showing at her elbows, he took half a step back and smiled gently. “Miss Su, do you need help?”
“No.”
The man was obviously tormenting her. Su Jinyuan had no intention of humiliating herself by asking him for help. She gritted her teeth, pulled herself up, and continued following behind him.
By the time they reached the ruined temple at the foot of the mountain, Su Jinyuan was not only drenched like a drowned rat, but her entire body was also covered in bruises. She shivered violently from the cold.
By contrast, aside from a little mud on the soles of his shoes, Xie Yunyan was completely clean—not even a strand of hair was wet.
A group of people had been tied up inside the ruined temple. Su Jinyuan recognized several of them at a glance as the men who had been pursuing her.
When they saw Xie Yunyan return, they all began trembling in fear, muffled cries of “mmph, mmph” coming from behind the objects stuffed in their mouths.
As Xie Yunyan passed them, he suddenly swung his hand and struck at one of them. The man’s arm was severed at the shoulder and fell to the ground. His eyes bulged from the pain as muffled cries escaped his mouth.
Xie Yunyan lowered his gaze. “You’re too noisy.”
The man’s cries stopped abruptly. The others who had been making noise also fell silent as chickens.
Xie Yunyan turned to Su Jinyuan. “Miss Su, don’t be afraid. These people are no good. It was only a minor warning.”
His smile was bright, and when he revealed a row of white teeth, the corners of his eyes lifted slightly, carrying a trace of cool indifference.
“People from the Xiao Family aren’t so easy to bully. It’s a pity we didn’t catch Lu Zhuo. Otherwise, I would have cut off both his hands and broken his bones inch by inch, then made him apologize to Miss Su.”
Su Jinyuan’s lips were pale.
She had seen this man slaughter people without a second thought. She had also seen him take lives while chatting and laughing.
Rather than standing up for her, these words sounded more like a warning. And the “people from the Xiao Family” he referred to did not mean her, but Eldest Young Master Xiao, Xiao Yunxi—the man she had been meant to marry a month ago.
Su Jinyuan took a deep breath. “Young Master Xie, I wasn’t there that day. What happened to the wedding banquet?”
“Miss Su was abducted, so naturally the wedding could not continue.”
Though Xie Yunyan smiled faintly, there was a chill in his phoenix eyes.
“The wedding procession never received the bride. The Su Family said that you had run away with someone. If an urgent military report from the Southern Lands had not happened to arrive in the Capital that day, prompting Eldest Brother and Uncle Xiao to muster the troops and set out on campaign, the entire Xiao Family would likely have become a laughingstock.”
“Before setting out, Eldest Brother was still thinking of covering for you. He ordered everyone in the Xiao Family not to discuss the matter and told outsiders only that you were ill. He sent me to search for you in secret.”
When Xie Yunyan lifted his eyes, his expression was exceptionally cold.
“Miss Su, you certainly made me look for you.”