For a split second, a wild hope flashed through her mind—that the arrow would strike the Crown Prince dead, leaving him with no energy to spare a glance her way, and allowing her to slip away in the chaos.
Yet, Nanzhi knew it was nothing more than a passing fantasy. Putting aside whether the Crown Prince would hunt her down, this desolate wilderness stretched for miles without a single human dwelling in sight. Even if she actually managed to escape, she would likely never make it out alive.
It was nighttime, pitch black, and she could barely see her own hand in front of her face. Furthermore, escaping successfully was far from guaranteed. Regaining her sanity in an instant, Nanzhi ruthlessly banished the unrealistic thought from her head.
She would be better off staying put and hiding safely behind the bushes. Swords and arrows outside had no eyes; if one strayed her way by accident, her precious life would be over.
She prayed in silence, begging the heavens not to let those assassins spot her. With that thought, Nanzhi crouched deep behind the brush, not daring to move a muscle or let out even the tiniest squeak.
Peering through a gap in the foliage, she watched the Crown Prince’s carriage. At the very moment of crisis, a hand shot out—the Crown Prince caught the flying arrow mid-air and tossed it aside.
Seeing that the Crown Prince was unharmed, Nanzhi let out a quiet sigh of relief. If he met an untimely end, those in his entourage—herself included—would likely suffer a grim fate. She valued her life dearly and had no wish to die just yet.
Still, a flicker of regret lingered in her chest. Why couldn’t that arrow have just pierced right through him? Truly, misfortunes live for a thousand years.
As the fighting slowly drew to a close and the Crown Prince’s guards gained the upper hand, she thought she could finally let her guard down. But then, with a heavy thud, an assassin tumbled backward through the air and crashed straight down right in front of her, catching her completely off guard and scaring her into sitting hard on the ground.
In a flash, Nanzhi’s terrified gaze locked directly with the assassin’s fierce, vicious glare, freezing her in her tracks.
Pulling herself together, she forced as much composure as she could muster and noticed with a sharp eye that the man had a gaping hole in his chest, blood gushing out in a steady stream. He looked deathly pale and desperately weak, as though he might draw his last breath at any second.
None of the Crown Prince’s men seemed to have noticed her corner yet. Staring unblinkingly at the fallen assassin, Nanzhi wanted nothing more than to crawl away from him, but before she could even shift her weight, her skirt was seized in a fierce, iron-clad grip that pinned her in place.
Even on the brink of death with such a severe wound, the man still possessed terrifying strength.
Terror seized Nanzhi’s heart, draining every drop of color from her face. With her life hanging in the balance, she cast all fear aside, made a split-second decision, pulled a hairpin straight out of her hair, and drove it with all her might into the assassin’s neck.
If he didn’t die, she likely would.
Caught completely off guard, a stream of dark blood spurted out, splashing directly across Nanzhi’s face. Snapping back to reality, her hands trembled uncontrollably as she clutched the hairpin, whispering under her breath, “I’m sorry.”
The stabbed assassin clearly hadn’t anticipated such a move from her; his eyes bulged wide in horror as the life drained out of him.
With shaking fingers, Nanzhi released her grip on the hairpin and reached out to test the air near his nostrils. Feeling no breath at all, the knot in her chest finally loosened, and she scrambled a few inches away.
I just killed a man. The realization hit her like a physical blow. She had never even harmed a chicken in her life, yet she had just taken a human life, leaving her feeling utterly dazed.
She forced her racing thoughts to settle. If I didn’t kill him, he would have killed me. This is ancient times, not a modern society of human rights and equality; the old world was always this cruel.
Having successfully reasoned with herself, the heavy weight in her chest lifted somewhat.
Just as she pulled herself together and reached with trembling hands for a handkerchief to wipe the blood from her face, a shadow darted toward her with lightning speed. Before she could react, a gleaming, razor-sharp sword was pressed flat against the tender skin of her neck, locking every nerve in her body in absolute tension.
“Don’t move, or I’ll kill you.”
Her earlier movements had caught the attention of the remaining assassins. Now trapped in a perilous predicament, Nanzhi felt as though the cold steel could slice through her windpipe at any second.
Right then, Qingyu’s tense voice cut through the air: “Milady, watch out!”
“Everyone stand down, or I’ll slaughter her right now!” The surviving assassin’s voice was chilling and merciless. His face was wrapped in a black cloth, concealing his features, leaving only a pair of eyes as sharp and ruthless as a hunting hawk’s visible above the mask.
In an instant, everyone’s attention converged entirely on Nanzhi. Amidst the inky blackness of the night, countless pairs of eyes stared straight at her in unison.
Shen Huaixu clearly noticed Nanzhi’s perilous predicament as well. The hand gripping his long sword tightened until his knuckles cracked and the veins on the back of his hand bulged menacingly, yet his exterior remained utterly glacial, his eyes flashing with a freezing light as he glared in Nanzhi’s direction.
In the dead of night, the surrounding air seemed practically frozen solid by Shen Huaixu’s chilling gaze, plunging the clearing into a terrifying silence.
“What is your goal?” The Crown Prince’s dark, merciless voice rang out clearly for all to hear.
By this point, the pack of assassins had been thoroughly wiped out, leaving only the lone survivor holding Nanzhi hostage.
With steady, measured strides, Shen Huaixu walked step by step toward Nanzhi. The soles of his boots stepped straight through the blood-soaked mud, gathering streaks of crimson along the way.
The Crown Prince’s guards converged in a tight formation, surrounding the hostage-taking assassin from all sides in the blink of an eye.
The Crown Prince stared calmly at the assassin, his eyes devoid of any visible ripples.
With eyes as sharp as a hawk’s, the assassin stared back, letting out a cold laugh. “Your Highness the Crown Prince, if you don’t wish to see this beauty in my hands perish, trade places with her right now.”
“Then go ahead and kill her.” Shen Huaixu didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. His tone remained indifferent, and he didn’t even furrow a brow, acting as though Nanzhi’s life and death meant absolutely nothing to him.
Having survived the harrowing ordeal moments prior, Nanzhi’s heart had settled into a strange, calm stillness. She only cursed her wretched luck for running into such an ill-fated disaster the moment she ventured out with the Crown Prince.
True to a man destined to be Crown Prince—cold-blooded through and through. She wasn’t even the least bit surprised that those words had tumbled from his lips.
Nanzhi understood all too well: in the Crown Prince’s eyes, she was merely an expendable plaything. The assassin had picked the wrong leverage.
The Crown Prince’s status was paramount; her life was trivial by comparison. If the Crown Prince were to die here, her entire family would undoubtedly face total ruin.
Yet, she had no intention of dying either.
Nanzhi’s ethereal, jade-like face was still smeared with blood, making her look thoroughly disheveled, yet it failed to detract from her breathtaking beauty. The reflection of the sharp, gleaming sword blade flickered clearly within her brown pupils.
As the standoff dragged on without the assassin making a move, intuition told Nanzhi that the man holding her hostage was no ordinary cutthroat; a common assassin would have ruthlessly slit her throat long ago.
Maintaining a calm exterior while her slender fingers curled tightly into her palms, pressing her nails hard into her flesh, she whispered in a voice meant only for the two of them: “If you kill me, His Highness won’t even bat an eye. On the other hand, your current situation is precarious—why don’t you shove me forward to throw off their attention and use the chaos to slip away?”
Since she clearly held no weight in the Crown Prince’s heart, she wasn’t foolish enough to expect him to rescue her. But she wasn’t about to sit idly by and wait for death, either. Her only path was self-preservation—to gamble and talk him into it.
The assassin glanced down at her through narrowed eyes, his expression slackening slightly. It would truly be a pity to slaughter such an peerless, breathtaking beauty.
He leaned in close to Nanzhi’s ear, his breath cold and venomous like a snake darting its tongue: “Beauty, we will meet again.”
Sweeping his gaze around at the ring of guards glaring at him with predatory eyes, he weighed his options.
Amidst the tense atmosphere, Shen Huaixu stared at him with cold disdain and commanded unhurriedly, “Take him down.”
Seeing the guards tense and prepare to swarm him, the assassin’s eyes flickered. Seizing a moment of distraction, he violently shoved Nanzhi forward, turned on his heel, and vanished into the night with a burst of speed.
Off balance from the shove, Nanzhi pitched forward and was about to crash hard onto the ground when Shen Huaixu swept forward like a gust of wind, catching her falling body in the nick of time.
As Shen Huaixu’s arm wrapped securely around her waist, Nanzhi raised her head. Their eyes met, and looking deep into the ocean-like abyss of the Crown Prince’s gaze, she offered a faint, obedient smile: “Thank you, Your Highness.”