Chapter 68

 

The foot of the mountain was about an incense stick’s walk from the wood where the Yuan family’s carriage was located, and Lu Shi Qing had been lingering for a while, therefore long before he met Shi Cui, Yuan Ci Xian and Jian Zhi had already returned to that place.

Seeing that the wood was empty and there was no carriage, the two of them exchanged glances after they were convinced that the meeting place was correct, and Shi Cui would never leave her post without reason.

Yuan Ci Xian silently glanced at the entrance of the wood, and signaled to withdraw first. Jian Zhi nodded slightly, took off the short-handled barrier sword at her waist, held it in her hand, and vigilantly guarded Yuan Ci Xian out of the wood.

The two walked out quickly all the way, and when they arrived at the official road where carriages would come and go outside the wood, Yuan Ci Xian frowned, stopped and looked back in the direction of the dense wood.

Her two maids had always act reliably, but Shi Cui disappeared for no reason. She subconsciously felt that there would an ambush, so she hurriedly evacuated from the dangerous area, but now it seemed that she was wrong?

Just like the saying killing people while the moon was dark and the wind was high, of course, you should choose the dense wood to do bad things. You can’t chase and fight on the official road in broad daylight, right? What’s more, today was the Flower Festival, there was an endless stream of horses and carriage coming and going on the official roads outside the city, in this moment alone, she had already seen two groups of people passing by. This place could be said to be very safe.

Jian Zhi also thought the same way, and said strangely: “Young lady, are we worrying too much? If someone really wants to harm you, they can do it just now in the wood. Now there are carriages and horses going around, and there is a post station not far away, how could there be a chance?”

She blinked her eyes, perhaps she was overly suspicious, and ordered: “Well, I’ll go to the post station at the front to settle down first, and you’ll go back to the wood to have a look, don’t be like Shi Cui and went away after a while.”

Jian Zhi took the order, and was about to move, but then heard a sound of carriage wheels coming here from afar. It was Shi Cui who drove over.

Yuan Ci Xian heaved a sigh of relief, and when the carriage came to her, she was about to criticize her for being so unreliable today, but seeing her nervous and anxious face, as if there was something wrong, her smile couldn’t help but stagnated.

Shi Cui pulled the rein and asked, “Miss, did you see Mr. Xu just now?”

Yuan Ci Xian frowned: “I said goodbye to him at the mountain entrance and never saw him again. What’s the matter? Where did you go?”

Shi Cui confirmed again: “Then did you ask someone to give this maid a note just now?”

She was even more puzzled, shaking her head in confusion: “What’s going on?”

Shi Cui explained anxiously: “This maid got a note when waiting in the wood, and it was written in your handwriting, saying that you were tired from walking, and asked this maid to pick you up at the mountain entrance. But when this maid drove there, this maid only saw Mr. Xu. After explaining the situation to him, he said that there was no such thing, and then he turned his horse’s head nervously, seemingly coming to find you.”

A thought flashed across Yuan Ci Xian’s mind like lightning, and her heart jumped up. Shi Cui was driving a carriage, so naturally couldn’t catch up with the horse, so according to Xu Shan’s speed, he should have reached this place long ago, and there was no reason to miss her.

She said: “Could it be that someone create a diversion to misled him with the illusion that I’m in danger, and then set a trap for him on the way ahead?”

She didn’t have time to think too deeply because she heard a particularly sudden and impatient sound of horseshoes coming from the official road.

The three master and servants turned their heads in unison, and saw Zheng Zhuo galloping, he seemed to have come back from the city’s direction. Seeing Yuan Ci Xian and the others were there, but Lu Shi Qing was nowhere to be seen, he reined his horse and asked, “How long has County Princess and Mr. Xu been apart?”

Yuan Ci Xian hurriedly replied: “About three quarters of an hour. What news has Your Highness received?”

He didn’t have time to explain, just threw down a sentence, “County Princess should go back to the city first.”

At this time how could Yuan Ci Xian still not understand anything. She was sure that Xu Shan had fallen into a trap, so how could she go back to the city first.

She remained silent for a while, then pulled the barrier sword in Jian Zhi’s hand, cut the rope that bound the horse, then stepped on the horse with the sword and chased in the direction where Zheng Zhuo left.

“Young lady!”

The last time Yuan Ci Xian galloped in such a hurry was the day after the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, when she thought Lu Shi Qing was in danger in Shangzhou.

On the bumpy wood road, she raised the whip again and again, feeling the buzz in her ears.

In fact, there was a subtle loophole in this creating diversion strategy, that was, it was too coincidental.

The matter of taking away Shi Cui seemed simple, but the calculation of the time must be very precise. One step earlier, the master and servant were very likely to meet at the mountain entrance, and one step later, they were likely to meet in the wood. However, since the other party worked so hard to accomplish the task, how could he carelessly disregard Xu Shan, this link, and let him coincidently run into Shi Cui, which gave him the chance to come rescue?

Unless, this link was the one targeted by the other party.

In the stone pavilion, Xu Shan himself said that too many coincidences were not coincidence. But how could he fall for it so easily? What about his so-called reverse reasoning? Such a smart, clear-headed person who knows how to judge the situation, why he did something stupid?

Yuan Ci Xian subconsciously evaded the answers to these questions, and swung her whip hard while her thoughts were in a whirl. But Zheng Zhuo was one step faster than her, and his riding skills were superior to hers, so she could only bite her lips all the way, and it was difficult to catch up.

She followed him all the way from the wood to the mountain, because the horse was galloping too fast, the silk ribbon in her hair was flying around randomly, blocking her view a few times, so she simply bit the ribbon in her mouth and stared closely at the front. When she was about to go up the mountain, she suddenly saw two black-clothed men riding horses rushing out of the crossing, as if they wanted to stop Zheng Zhuo.

Zheng Zhuo did not lose his momentum at all, his body was jolting on the horse, but his hand already pulled out the sword from its sheath, and in the blink of an eye he raised his arm, cut the throats of two people, and then continued to charge forward.

Yuan Ci Xian followed closely behind, gritted her teeth and didn’t even look at the corpse on the ground. After a while, she saw another group of black-clothed men, there were seven of them, all of which were young men with strong physiques. But looking at the appearance, there was nothing particular, seemed to be just average Han martial arts.

Zheng Zhuo swung his knife to kill again, while looking back at her.

She got the hint from this look and knew that he meant to tell her to go first, so without stopping she was galloping on her horse, and in order to be quick, she stepped hard on a dead body without avoiding it.

It’s just that Zheng Zhuo couldn’t deal with seven people in one go. After she galloped all the way, she soon heard someone chasing behind her.

If she confronted this kind of martial artist head-on, as a woman, she would hardly have a chance of winning. Yuan Ci Xian recalled the posture of those black-clothed men just now, and felt that they seemed to be passively blocking, rather than trying to kill her and Zheng Zhuo. So she quietly put away the whip and hung it on the horse’s head, slowed down the horse’s speed, pretended to be tired, and held the barrier sword while waiting for him to catch up.

The man in black really didn’t intend to make a killing move, when he was about to catch up, he rose on his horse, then jumped forward and flew towards Yuan Ci Xian’s horse, as if he was going to restrain her from behind.

What she was waiting for was this moment, when she heard the movements behind her, before he sat firmly on her horse, without looking back, she turned the sword in her palm, and stabbed backward from the side. Quickly and ruthlessly, with a “whoosh” sound, the knife pierced the chest.

The man never expected this murderous hand, his eyes widened as he froze on the horse, then his eyes gradually became hollow.

Yuan Ci Xian pulled the rein with one hand to keep her body steady on the horse, while turning her head and pulling out the knife hard. The blood spattered three feet away, and the hot and fishy juice spilled on her face. She resisted a surge of nausea and pushed the man off the horse. The hand that held the whip trembled slightly.

She had been on the battlefield, but this was the first person she had killed with her own hands.

But Yuan Ci Xian soon had no time to think about it, because she was sure of one thing: the scattered actions of the black-clothed men indicated that Xu Shan had not been discovered yet. It was very likely that he realized something amiss on the way to find her, and instead hid in the mountains, using tricks to confuse them.

She had to find him before these people.

She raised her whip vigorously, and when she reached the fork in the road ahead, she quickly judged the terrain, picked a direction and ride all the way up. When she approached the top of the cliff, she heard a slight sound of sword clashing in the distance.

Because the road to the cliff was too narrow for a horse, she quickly came down and sprinted up the cliff. At a glance, she saw four black-clothed men fighting with Xu Shan, and two dead bodies lying on the side. It’s weird, like the two of them stabbed each other’s chests in a confrontation.

Under her anxiety, she couldn’t help but laugh.

A smart man has a smart man’s way of fighting. Although Xu Shan was not a martial artist, he was quite capable, not to mention being injured, even his mask had not fallen.

Lu Shi Qing dodged, avoiding the sword stabbing towards his mask, and kicked the person off the cliff with one foot, and when he looked up to see Yuan Ci Xian and saw her bloody face, he couldn’t help but suffocated.

He guessed that she would figure out the whole thing, but he thought that she would choose to send rescuers instead of coming in personally.

What is she doing now, risking her life for Xu Shan? Does she want to make him, Lu Shi Qing, a “widower”?

He gritted his teeth bitterly, held his breath and raised the knife to kill again.

Yuan Ci Xian didn’t dare to blindly move to add chaos, and only when he was surrounded by three people on the edge of the cliff did she rush up. When she rushed over, she stabbed one person’s back with a sword, and at the same time raised her knee to ruthlessly hit the other person’s vital parts.

Lu Shi Qing threw the third black-clothed man down the cliff, turned around and saw the assassin who was hit by Yuan Ci Xian was covered in sweat, rolling and crying on the ground. He couldn’t help feeling a pain somewhere, and looked at her in amazement, then remembered the swinging sword and the dead people on the ground.

The surroundings fell into dead silence in an instant. Yuan Ci Xian heaved a sigh of relief as she bent down and held her knees.

This seemingly very dangerous cliff top was indeed a place that could be used quite well. Xu Shan chose such a terrain also followed the so-called wisdom of “borrowing the momentum”.

She panted for a while and asked, “Is Sir injured?”

Lu Shi Qing almost spoke in his own voice, but when the words reached his lips, it stopped in the nick of time, and changed to Xu Shan’s voice: “I’m fine. County Princess’s knee…” He looked down hesitantly, “Are you okay?”

She stood up straight and waved her hands, “It hurts a little, but it’s okay.” The reason was that she seemed to have accidentally kicked the scabbard on the man’s waist just now.

Lu Shi Qing was taken aback.

What? It hurts a little? Could it be the bastard was hard just now?

Yuan Ci Xian didn’t know why he choked, and hurriedly said: “It’s not safe to stay here for too long, let’s hurry down the mountain, His Highness is already on the way to meet you.”

Lu Shi Qing’s eyes kept falling on her knees, and only after hearing this did he retract his eyes and nodded.

She turned around and walked down the mountain first, and finally had the time to raise her sleeves to wipe the blood on her face, but at this moment when she relaxed her guard, she suddenly heard a strange noise behind her.

Yuan Ci Xian looked back suddenly, and saw a “dead body” burst out violently, grabbed a dagger in his hand and stabbed it towards Xu Shan’s heart.

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