“The Young Lady’s been kidnapped!”
The guard who had been carrying Evelyn froze when the weight on his shoulder suddenly disappeared.
By the time he realized what had happened, his expression changed drastically and he shouted in alarm.
The other guards immediately panicked as well, turning around and looking in every direction.
Evelyn had clearly been right in front of them only a moment ago, yet somehow, in the blink of an eye, she had vanished.
“What?”
The white-haired old man was equally shocked.
He hurriedly looked around, and a thin layer of cold sweat soon appeared across his forehead.
Please don’t tell me someone actually kidnapped her.
If anything happened to Evelyn, even ten lives wouldn’t be enough to compensate for it.
Explaining the situation to Alaric Sterling would already be troublesome enough, but that was still secondary.
If Cedric Sterling, Evelyn’s uncle, found out that they had somehow managed to lose her in the middle of the street, there was no chance he would let them off easily.
The more the old man thought about it, the more anxious he became.
He was just about to order the guards to split up and search for her when a lazy, amused voice suddenly came from behind them.
“Oh? So she’s actually a young lady.”
Felix Ravenholt stood not far away, clearly entertained by the situation.
“But why is your young lady being taken home tied up like that?”
As he spoke, his gaze swept over the thick rope still wrapped around Evelyn.
After studying it for a moment, he raised his brows and continued in a deliberately thoughtful tone.
“Don’t tell me she didn’t want to stay home and tried to sneak away, only to get caught the moment she came out, so you decided to tie her up and carry her back?”
Evelyn turned toward the voice and silently added a comment of her own.
He had gotten the first part wrong, but the rest was surprisingly accurate.
She had only come out to take care of something and had no intention of running away from home.
If she had truly wanted to disappear, there was no way she would have allowed herself to be tied up and dragged back so easily.
Still, the fact that this person had managed to guess most of the situation from a single glance was almost impressive enough to deserve a round of applause.
Once Evelyn finally got a good look at Felix’s face, the vague suspicion in her mind disappeared completely.
It really was him.
The runaway monkey from ten years ago.
Felix had grown much taller, and his features had matured considerably, but that lively expression and his obvious enjoyment of other people’s trouble had hardly changed at all.
If the blue-clad young man in front of her was the same “monkey” she remembered, then the person currently holding her could only be the boy who had once snatched a spear from a masked attacker and knocked down more than ten cultivators with a single strike.
Lucian Ravenholt.
Evelyn raised her head and looked at him properly.
Ten years had passed, and the two brothers had truly grown up.
At the same time, the guards finally followed Felix’s voice and turned around.
Two striking young men stood nearby, one dressed in green and the other in blue, both wearing clothing that carried the distinct style of the Black Tortoise Clan.
As for Evelyn, who had disappeared from the guard’s shoulder just moments earlier, she was now being held securely in Lucian’s arms, with the rope still wrapped tightly around her body.
The white-haired old man stared for a moment before finally letting out the breath he had been holding.
He hurried over and said, “Oh! I was wondering who it was. So it’s Young Master Lucian and Young Master Felix of the Black Tortoise Clan.”
Thankfully, Evelyn had not been taken by some unknown stranger.
As long as she was still standing here unharmed, everything else could be dealt with slowly. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Felix, however, clearly had no interest in the old man’s polite greeting.
He waved one hand casually before glancing at the rope around Evelyn again.
“Forget the formalities. You’re treating your own young lady like this, and you’re still coming over to greet us politely? After seeing this, we’re not even sure whether we’re supposed to say we’re doing well.”
His tone sounded light and joking, but the words themselves were not particularly polite.
The smile on the old man’s face immediately stiffened.
Several guards standing behind him also looked awkwardly at one another, but none of them dared to respond.
Lucian did not join his younger brother in teasing them.
He simply gave the old man a slight nod before lowering his gaze and beginning to loosen the rope around Evelyn.
His movements were calm and efficient.
The rope that had been tied tightly around her soon began to loosen, one coil after another.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
Once the last of the restraints came free, Evelyn immediately rotated her wrists and moved her arms a few times.
Only then did she feel as though she could finally breathe properly again.
She had originally planned to thank Lucian, but before the words could leave her mouth, her gaze settled on his face.
After taking a proper look, she couldn’t help silently clicking her tongue in appreciation.
This little brother from back then had grown up very well.
Lucian’s skin had a healthy light bronze tone that looked warm and clean under the sunlight without appearing overly dark.
His eyebrows were sharply defined, his eyes deep and bright, and his nose was straight.
His thin lips were lightly pressed together, with the faintest hint of a smile resting at the corners.
What caught Evelyn’s attention most, however, were the decorations woven through his dark hair.
Several thin golden braids were mixed among the black strands, each decorated with small gold beads, while white feathers hung on both sides and swayed lightly near his shoulders whenever he moved.
Evelyn’s gaze slowly moved from his face to the golden beads and finally settled on one of the white feathers.
No wonder it had looked so familiar when she first saw it.
Back then, the two boys had left very different impressions on her.
One had bounced around like a monkey, while the other had wielded a spear with clean, decisive movements.
The situation had been far too chaotic for her to pay much attention to what either of them actually looked like.
Now that ten years had passed and she could finally look at them properly, she had to admit that both brothers had grown up rather well.
Lucian naturally noticed that Evelyn had been staring at him without the slightest attempt to hide it.
He lowered his gaze and looked at her in return.
The young girl in his arms had her head tilted slightly upward, her bright eyes studying him with open curiosity.
Under the sunlight, her eyes carried a faint brown tint, clear and lively, as though she were searching through her memories and trying to match his current appearance with someone she had once known.
Her face was small, and her cheeks still retained some of the softness of youth, though her chin was already delicate and well shaped.
Her fair skin was lightly flushed from all the running and struggling earlier, making her look especially lively.
What surprised him more was how calm she seemed.
She had been tied up and carried through the street only moments earlier, yet there was almost no fear or embarrassment on her face.
Instead, she was openly staring at him as though examining something interesting.
Lucian looked at her for a moment, and the vague sense of familiarity in his heart gradually became stronger.
He was certain he had seen those eyes before.
He simply could not immediately connect the young woman standing before him with the small child from his memories.
“Hey!”
Evelyn and Lucian turned toward him at the same time.
Felix was staring at Evelyn with wide eyes.
The confusion on his face quickly turned into obvious excitement.
“You’re that little girl from ten years ago, aren’t you?”
The more he looked, the more certain he became.
“The one from the mountain! You were holding a little fox back then!”
Before Evelyn even had a chance to answer, Felix had already hurried over.
Lucian, seeing that the rope had been completely removed, carefully set Evelyn back on her feet.
The moment her shoes touched the ground, Felix stepped right in front of her and grabbed both of her shoulders.
“It really is you!”
His face lit up with excitement.
“You scared us half to death that day. You were completely fine one moment, and then suddenly you collapsed. We tried calling you for ages, but no matter what we did, you wouldn’t wake up.”
Just like ten years ago, once Felix started talking, he showed no sign of stopping.
One sentence followed another, and before long, he had leaned even closer to examine Evelyn’s face.
“It’s been ten years. You’ve grown so much that I almost didn’t recognize you!”
The white-haired old man and several guards watched from the side, and their expressions gradually became strange.
So these two young masters had already known Evelyn ten years ago.
That certainly explained their familiarity.
Still, Felix was holding their young lady by the shoulders without hesitation and leaning closer and closer as he spoke.
Wasn’t that a little too casual?
Several of them instinctively looked toward Evelyn.
The moment they did, they realized something was wrong.
Her expression had clearly changed.
When she had been tied up like a bundle earlier, she had only looked annoyed.
Now, however, her lips were slowly tightening, and her bright eyes were fixed directly on Felix.
Her patience was clearly running out.
Unfortunately, Felix himself noticed absolutely nothing.
He continued talking enthusiastically, completely unaware that danger was already standing right in front of him.
Evelyn stared at his face, which was far too close to hers, and felt her temple twitch.
Talking was one thing.
Why did he have to stand so close?
More importantly— his spit was practically reaching her face.
Disgusting.
She had always been particular about cleanliness.
Evelyn endured it once, then twice, but in the end, she simply couldn’t take it anymore.
She raised her left hand and caught Felix’s right hand where it rested on her shoulder.
Felix seemed to think she was finally about to respond to him, because he did not even stop talking.
The next moment, Evelyn caught one of his fingers and bent it backward without the slightest hesitation.
“Ow—! That hurts!”