Just two days ago.
A chilling mountain wind howled through the dark wilderness, concealing a disguised covert unit.
Crossing this mountain and walking another fifty kilometers would bring them to Pingyang County, situated on the border of Jiangling.
The silver-gray moonlight illuminated the mountaintop, casting the protruding shadows of rocks and trees into terrifying, pitch-black shapes. Half a joss stick’s length later, a shadow guard holding a pigeon reported to the leader, “Lord Lu, we have news! Our covert agents planted in the county town have sent word regarding the whereabouts of the Marquis of Wu’an.”
“On this trip, the Marquis of Wu’an brought a total of more than sixty people, all of them guards from the Marquis’s estate. In addition, there are his son and daughter. On the very next day after arriving in Pingyang County, the Marquis of Wu’an followed an imperial decree to inspect the dikes and water conservancy projects in the suburbs. For the days following, he has stayed entirely within the County Magistrate’s residence, not stepping out past the gates, with only guests coming to visit. As for his son and daughter, they occasionally go out for leisure and shopping.”
Hearing this, Lu Cong’s tense face relaxed slightly.
He retrieved the slip of paper from the pigeon’s leg, glanced over it slowly, and then burned it with a flint. He tightly clutched the scorching ashes into his palm and chuckled with a rattling laugh, “I’m not afraid of their guards being strict; I’m only afraid of them not coming out. As long as they go out, there’s always a chance. His son, Helan Jun, is skilled in martial arts and probably won’t be easy to deal with. Find a way to take the brothers and kidnap Helan Yan for me. With his beloved only daughter in our hands, it will be much easier for the master to get things done.”
The shadow guard acknowledged the order and had just turned away when he suddenly doubled back. “My lord, there is one more matter.”
Lu Cong had been planning to rest, so he had to pull himself together again.
“Speak.”
“A-Zhuang asks, after roasting for this long, can the roast chicken be eaten yet?”
“… “
He truly regretted countless times bringing an idiot along on the journey to execute the master’s secret orders. The fellow was robust and burly—able to fight three opponents single-handedly in combat, but also able to eat three times as much as anyone else in a single meal.
He pinched his temples and waved his hand impatiently, “Eat, eat! Tell him to hurry up and fill his stomach so he doesn’t delay tomorrow’s operation.”
“It’s been raining the past few days, and all the wood is damp. If it’s hard to get a fire going, using the paper in the basket is fine. But don’t go touching that basket in my carriage.”
“My lord, it seems… he has already taken it…” The shadow guard hesitated repeatedly, “It was the paper in your basket…”
At that moment, all sounds of nature fell silent, as if only breathing remained between heaven and earth.
Immediately following, a hysterical, tragic, and despairing roar pierced the night of the mountain forest: “YOU IDIOT! THAT WAS HELAN YAN’S PORTRAIT!!!!!!!!!”
Rustle, rustle, rustle. Dark figures flitted past, accompanied by the sound of stealthy footsteps treading over grass leaves. One, two, three… faces leaned in together, staring at the unconscious young woman beside the tree stump.
She was bound with thick, sturdy hemp rope, her hands and feet tied seamlessly, and a piece of dry cloth stuffed in her mouth. She was sleeping quietly, letting this group of shadow figures look her up and down.
This was the person they had just captured—although Helan Yan’s portrait had been burned, Lord Lu was clever after all.
The lord had lain in ambush around the estate, originally intending to capture Helan Yan, but over the past few days, none of the people going out had even a shadow of a female family member. Therefore, they had no choice but to change their approach, keeping an eye on the guests entering and leaving to investigate them.
Fortunately, the heavens had eyes. When they tracked someone all the way to Baiyun Village, they actually discovered a young woman.
The strange thing was that she looked remarkably similar to the Marquis of Wu’an.
The lord had stayed by the master’s side for many years and frequently dealt with the Marquis of Wu’an; he would recognize his face even if he were reduced to ashes! If this young woman wasn’t Helan Yan, then who else could she be?
So, taking advantage of the absence of others, they made a prompt decision and captured her.
Only, since Helan Yan was doing just fine, why was she dressed like a peasant girl?
Just as everyone was pondering this, Lord Lu proved his cleverness once again by slapping his forehead and figuring it out: “I get it! She wants to elope!”
“How do you say that?”
“How do you say that??”
“How do you say that!!!”
Shadow figures popped their heads out one after another.
Lu Cong looked around at this flock of unpromising hidden guards waiting to be fed, and gave each of them a sharp rap on the head.
“You haven’t even heard of this little bit of gossip? What are you good for! Isn’t there a secret rumor? Helan Yan had an affair with the family’s groom. The two of them were不清不楚 (tangled up in an improper relationship), and the Marquis and his wife refused to allow it, yet she still made a fuss and threatened to take her own life. The Marquis of Wu’an had no tricks left against her, so he turned a blind eye. Perhaps this time, she took advantage of going out to elope with the groom! When returning to the capital, they’ll just slap on a cover story that the daughter died of illness along the way, making it easy to explain to the emperor and the in-laws.”
As soon as Lu Cong finished speaking, a chorus of croaking sounds immediately followed.
Where did frogs come from… Beside the tree stump, where no one paid her any mind, the unconscious Shen Mingyu twitched her ears.
“The Marquis of Wu’an has truly guts of steel! He even dares to keep things hidden from the imperial decree of marriage!”
“Exactly, exactly!”
“What other choice is there? His daughter is threatening to die; he certainly can’t just sit by and watch his own daughter perish, right? If you were the Marquis of Wu’an, you’d have to hide it too!”
“Aish, it’s just a pity I’m not the Marquis of Wu’an. If I were the Marquis of Wu’an, I’d definitely break Helan Yan’s legs!”
The group began chattering noisily, forcing Lu Cong to cover his ears in sheer unbearable annoyance. Just as he was about to scold them, a subordinate hurriedly ran over: “This is bad! My lord, this is bad! We’ve captured the wrong person!”
“I sent word over there saying that Helan Yan is in our hands and if they don’t obey, we’ll tear up the ransom ticket. Who would have guessed that they completely ignored us and threw the kidnapping threat away! They even mocked us as traveling swindlers, saying their young mistress was safely staying at home and their eyes weren’t blind.”
“Outrageous!”
In all his life, Lu Cong hated most being called a swindler. “Since they don’t believe it, let’s give them a taste of our color. Tomorrow, we’ll chop off one of Helan Yan’s fingers and send it over!”
“But my lord, what they said sounded completely plausible, doesn’t seem fake… And half an hour ago, our informant also saw Helan Jun escorting a soft-top sedan through the gate. The woman inside that sedan—he was calling her ‘young sister’…”
Lu Cong frowned, just about to stroke his neck and ponder, when it suddenly occurred to him: What if this was just a smoke screen set up by the Marquis of Wu’an…
He glanced sideways again at the young woman bound beside the tree stump. She looked so much alike, and she was someone he had personally tracked down using his own clues. If she wasn’t born to the Marquis of Wu’an, then it would truly be a ghost!
This was clearly Helan Yan.
Lu Cong clicked his tongue and chuckled with a rattling laugh. This time, he had clearly seen through their calculations—they wanted him to think he had caught the wrong person, lower his guard, and then trap them all in one net when he came knocking later. What a pity, what a pity; they didn’t even look at who he was working for. Was he really that easy to deceive?
“What is the lord laughing at…?”
“Nothing. I almost fell for their trick.” Lu Cong fiercely gulped down water from his waterskin, and then, his gaze pausing, he raised his foot and kicked the young woman.
The person didn’t move at all and still hadn’t woken up. He ordered his subordinates to splash water on her.
Cough, cough, cough… The bound person finally began to cough.
Lu Cong squatted down, pinched her chin, and scrutinized her with a gloomy gaze: “You are Helan Yan?”
She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Lu Cong kicked her hard again. She was in tears from the pain, her damp, dark eyes glaring wide, before she finally nodded with difficulty.
“I said there wouldn’t be any mistake.” Lu Cong tossed away her face and stood up in long strides: “Keep a close watch on her. I’ll go to the County Magistrate’s residence myself to check out the situation. This woman is of utmost importance. If any of you dare to lose her, none of you will live!”
Following the order, Shen Mingyu had her mouth stuffed with the dry cloth once again.
She shrank her shoulders in fear, not knowing what kind of people these were—they wore night-walking clothes and carried gleaming silver sabers, as if a single slash could chop her, a little chick of a girl, into two halves. Shen Mingyu had grown up in the countryside all her life, and such a grand and terrifying battle array only existed in the stories told by the old village tutor.
As late autumn approached, the dark mountain forest was filled with dense fog, cold and desolate. These people moved logs to pile together and burn a fire to keep warm, leaving only the young woman within visible range not far away to shiver gently in the cold.
Accompanied by the cry of a crow, Shen Mingyu shrank her shoulders. It was so cold here; she wanted to go home, and she also missed Pei Shumin.
And her silver coins.
Thinking of the private savings she had worked so hard to accumulate before she even had a chance to spend them, her heart ached as if being sliced by a knife, and sorrow welled up from deep within.
Shen Mingyu lowered her head in sadness, rolling her eyes backward for a quick glance, when she suddenly spotted some gravel amidst the weeds.
She tried to reach out for it, her fingertips barely able to reach. Straining a little more, she managed to quietly grasp it into her palm.
Shen Mingyu let out a sigh of relief, but now was not the time yet. She could only grip the small pebble inside her sleeve, pretend nothing had happened, purse her little lips, and gaze with dark, bright eyes into the ink-black night.
Gradually, the bonfire died down, leaving only a short stub of wood still burning. Half of the shadow guards used their arms as pillows and dozed off, leaving the remaining half to continue keeping watch.
“We caught the wrong person! We caught the wrong person! Dammit!”
Close to the second watch of the night, Lu Cong suddenly rushed back in a rage and kicked a plump, sturdy hidden guard: “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t burned the portraits of the Helan siblings, we wouldn’t have caught the wrong person!”
After taking the kick, A-Zhuang actually didn’t budge an inch, causing Lu Cong to stumble backward and fall instead.
His anger flared even higher, and he cursed fiercely at the dazed, beefy shadow guard: “Eat, eat, eat! All you know is how to eat! You’ve ruined all my hard work and even alerted the enemy!”
“But… wasn’t she the one the lord ordered to capture?” A-Zhuang scratched his head, pointing at the young woman resting under the tree: “The lord said anyone who looks like the Marquis of Wu’an from the same mold must be Helan Yan.”
Lu Cong was choked up by the reply, and abruptly looked toward the young woman under the tree—that face indeed bore a seventy-percent resemblance to Helan Chang; the brows, eyes, and mouth were all alike.
He strode over, stared at her, grabbed her face and looked at it left and right. It really did look alike.
However—he had just returned from reconnoitering the County Magistrate’s residence, and Helan Yan was indeed someone else entirely, staying safely by her father’s side.
If Helan Yan was truly in the estate, then who was this person before him? Could it be that they really captured the wrong person? Was she just an ordinary peasant girl?
The more Lu Cong thought about it, the more irritated he became, locking eyes with her in a staring contest.
“My lord, what should we do now?”
“Forget it. Since the enemy has already been alerted, and those people under the Marquis of Wu’an are no ordinary folks, we can’t afford to linger in this wretched little place of Pingyang County any longer. Rest for the night, and we’ll pull back tomorrow morning.”
Lu Cong pointed casually, “Take her along too. Since she looks so much like her, I don’t believe there isn’t something fishy going on!”
Deep in the night at the third watch, the Hour of the Rat.
As the wind swept through the forest, the scattered shadow guards lay sprawled across one another. The young woman leaning against the large tree tilted her head for a quick nap, and upon hearing the sound of breathing echoing wave after wave, she quietly opened her eyes through her slits.
The shadow guards originally had a rotation scheduled for watch duty, but for some reason, one after another, they had all fallen asleep.
Shen Mingyu was greatly surprised, casting a silent glance around her. Right now was the best opportunity to escape. She immediately groped for that pebble from her sleeve, pressed it against the rope on her wrists, and began to saw back and forth, rubbing with all her might.
“Yuniang.”
A familiar voice suddenly drifted from behind the tree stump. Shen Mingyu started and hurriedly turned her head to look, only to see Pei Shumin standing straight and tall in the bleak moonlight.
The desolate mountain wind blew across his body; his clothes were thin and rough, yet he felt no cold, nor was there any trace of fear in his brows and eyes. He simply and decisively cut the ropes apart with a dagger, gently massaged her wrists that had been rubbed red, and firmly grasped her hands in his palms.
“The water they drew downstream was drugged by me; they’ll be able to sleep for two hours.” He asked in a low voice, “Yuniang, can you still walk?”
Shen Mingyu clutched his hand and managed to stand up, but after taking just two steps, she suddenly bent over: “Brother Pei, my stomach hurts.”
Pei Shumin pulled open her clothes, revealing the bruised and congested skin on the young girl’s soft flesh. His expression instantly changed: “They hit you?”