After seeing off the matchmaker and Qin Moqing, Su Ruolang had just returned to her room and hadn’t even sat down when someone suddenly arrived.
The visitor was none other than her stepmother, Chen Shi.
“You little wretch! How dare you secretly communicate behind my back.” Chen Shi had long been holding back a bellyful of anger. “With your status, you think you’re worthy of marrying the County Magistrate’s son?”
“Nephew,” Su Ruolang corrected.
“I think you don’t know your own place. How could someone of your standing ever hope to marry into such a wealthy family?” Chen Shi couldn’t help but feel angry at the sight of Su Ruolang.
Ever since this fool had stopped being foolish, she no longer knew what it meant to be meek and submissive.
Her eyes held a calmness that was hard to fathom, and from head to toe, there wasn’t a trace of her previous timidity.
“Oh?” Su Ruolang asked flatly. “Then what do you think I should do?”
“Tomorrow, you go and cancel that marriage contract. Since you’re not married yet, it doesn’t count!” Chen Shi paused, then added righteously, “Take Shan’er with you. She happened to go to the market today and hasn’t met this young master yet.”
“When the time comes, just say that you and Qin Gongzi have incompatible birth signs, and that Shan’er is his ideal match. If he insists on marrying you, pretend you’re going to dash your head against a wall and die in front of him… As long as this matter is settled, your father and I will definitely not treat you unfairly!”
Chen Shi spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Su Ruolang couldn’t help but laugh out loud at her words.
To pretend to dash her head against a wall and die, just to give her fiancé to her stepsister Su Yunshan?
Really… even a production team donkey wouldn’t dare think like that.
“What are you laughing at?” Chen Shi was so furious she almost saw smoke rising from the top of her head.
After laughing, Su Ruolang said seriously, “How about I hang myself at the entrance of the county magistrate’s office tonight? That way, I can appear in Qin Moqing’s dreams and tell him to marry your daughter, Su Yunshan?”
The calmer her tone, the angrier Chen Shi became.
Upon hearing this, Chen Shi raised her hand and delivered a fierce slap: “You little wretch, you’ve got some nerve, daring to speak to me like this—”
Before she could finish, her wrist was easily intercepted by Su Ruolang.
Su Ruolang raised an eyebrow slightly: “Are you trying to teach me how to speak?”
“You, you…” Chen Shi was both shocked and uncertain.
The Su Ruolang before her eyes was clearly the same person as before, yet she seemed like a completely different person.
The coldness that inadvertently flickered in her half-smiling eyes was so unfamiliar it sent chills down Chen Shi’s spine.
It was like an old painting hanging on the wall at home, unchanged for over a decade, until one day the figure in the painting suddenly curled its lips, as if about to transform into a demon and emerge…
“You what?” Su Ruolang sneered, leaning in closer. “I’m asking you, why aren’t you answering?”
Chen Shi grew even more terrified. At this point, she no longer cared about marriage prospects. Shaking off Su Ruolang’s hand as if seeing a ghost, she fled through the door.
Only after running far from Su Ruolang’s room did she finally muster the courage to jump up and curse again: “You… you little wretch must be possessed by evil spirits. In a few days, I’ll find a Taoist priest. I don’t believe you can still cause trouble!”
Su Ruolang: “…”
She had previously suspected whether the murderer might be her stepmother, Chen Shi.
But now it seemed Chen Shi only knew how to bully the weak and fear the strong, appearing somewhat hollow and weak on the inside.
Could someone like this truly have the courage to kill her?
Or perhaps… the real murderer was someone else?
…
That night, the moon was dark and the wind high.
More than a dozen boxes of betrothal gifts had all been locked away by Chen Shi in her room, leaving the empty courtyard with only the rustling of fallen leaves.
Su Ruolang, dressed in a neat short outfit, climbed over the wall and left the courtyard with a small hoe in hand, not making a single sound.
The mountains under the night sky were shrouded in mist, so dark that one could not see their own hand in front of their face.
The mountains were rich in ginseng treasures, and her fragile body was in desperate need of good medicinal herbs… Otherwise, even without others coming to kill her, she would soon die from poison.
Just as she reached the edge of the forest, Su Ruolang heard a strange noise.
Was that an arrow?
Holding her breath, she listened carefully—it was indeed the whistling sound of an arrow.
Following it came hurried footsteps, so many that there were at least a dozen!
Most hunters in the mountains hunted alone and would never gather in such numbers.
Su Ruolang grew alert and followed the sound, spotting a group of black-clad men surrounding a single man.
The man was slender and tall, wearing a mask that obscured his face…
In an instant, a sharp arrow struck his arm.
More assassins closed in, encircling him, and soon noticed Su Ruolang not far away.
"There's someone over there!"
"A woman? Kill her too, leave no witnesses!"
Kill her too?
Leave no witnesses?
Su Ruolang, who had initially intended to stay out of trouble, narrowed her eyes coldly at these words.
With a slight twist of her wrist and a flick of her fingers, several tiny silver needles sliced through the night. The force was not enough to be fatal, but striking the acupoints was sufficient to knock them unconscious.
At the very least, they would be out for three to five hours without issue.
"Ouch—"
A few cries of pain rang out, followed by the sound of bodies hitting the ground one after another.
Su Ruolang patted the dust off her hands with satisfaction and turned her gaze to the slender man she had just saved, only to be met with a sudden surge of chilling hostility.
The next moment, her neck was seized by the man.
Everything happened too quickly to react. Her breath caught, and she felt the man’s palm was unusually hot…
Something was wrong!
Her heart tightened. "Let go!"
Qin Moqing’s mind was hazy, and he couldn’t even see the woman’s face clearly.
With his skills, he should never have been ambushed so easily.
But he had accidentally inhaled soporific incense, and under its effects, his mind was in chaos. His entire body burned with heat, and even his breath felt scorching.
Reason told him that a woman appearing in the mountains late at night was suspicious. Even if she had just saved him, her intentions might still be dubious.
He gripped her neck warily, but the softness of her skin beneath his palm stirred something within him.
The delicate fragrance unique to women lingered in his nostrils, like silk, like threads, like a feather drifting lightly… or like a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface, stirring the beast lurking beneath the dark currents.
The beast was poised, eager to find an outlet for release.
"What do you want…" Su Ruolang clenched her hand into a palm strike, aiming for the back of his neck.
But her wrist was immediately caught, and no matter how she struggled, she couldn’t break free.
In her panic, she kicked out, but her lips were unexpectedly met by something.
It was…
Hot, scorching, a man’s lips.
In the darkness, she couldn’t see his face clearly, only catching a glimpse of an intricately patterned golden mask covering half of it, revealing a sharply defined jawline.
The outline felt strangely familiar…
As the kiss deepened, the air seemed to grow scorching.
The difference in strength was too great, and Su Ruolang’s resistance felt like throwing mud into the sea.
In her shame and anger, she bit down hard on the man’s lips.
A metallic sweetness spread, and as if sensing her pain, his movements softened…
The mountain forest in the deep night was cold and desolate, yet within the man’s embrace, it suddenly felt like a spring breeze had swept through.
The extremely low voice came from behind the mask, carrying the last shred of sanity amidst madness: "Miss, one month later, I will marry you…"
The night deepened, the tree shadows swayed, and everything finally ceased after a long while.