Chapter 115

At dusk, Yan Ke had asked his disciple, Luo Huali, to play a tune with a leaf, intending to hint some stubborn guy in Liu’s house that he was determined to stay out of the valley. However, to his surprise, Prince Mu’s maidservant, and a bunch of martial artists, whose cultivation base was not lower than his, came following the melody! Although Yan Ke looked calm, his mind was spinning fast.

He had been living seclusion in the Valley of Fallen Blossom for years, but he was still as insightful as before. After thinking for a while, he had figured out something briefly. Liu Wuyi and his son posed no threat to anyone. And that damned princess went all the way from Linyang of the Wen Kingdom without a hitch, so it was unlikely that she had given away her whereabouts by getting into the mountains. Besides, if they were being followed on their way going up the mountains, he must have sensed. So, most likely, those people had come for Nangong Du!

Could it be that simple?

He gave Nangong Du and his maidservant a glance of false carelessness. From the girl’s worried look, he could tell that she had not noticed that she was being followed.

As Yan Ke expected, Xingyi knew nothing about this. She was confident about her own cultivation base, thinking that even if a bunch of guys were fighting her at the same time, they would not have the upper hand. Given the urgent situation, she had to come in haste to Mount Windward from Prince’s Mu’s fief, Muzhou, to find her master. However, to her great concern, Prince Mu was so sick that he was even unconscious! He had just recovered from the poisoning and was still very weak. How could he stand the cold wind?

It was getting colder in the faint moonlight. Xingyi had a hard time feeding Prince Mu a sip of water and a little bit of food softened with water. Having no time to think about the presence of outsiders, she held Nangong Du, who was trembling with cold, in her arms tightly.

Yan Ke was very disgusted with this. How could a maidservant hold her male master in her arms?! With a snort, he decided to kill Nangong Du with a borrowed sword! So what if he refused to give Nangong Du a hand and watched him get killed by someone else? He, Yan Ke, had never been a person who would return good for evil like a soft-hearted woman!

When Xingyi was wiping the cold sweat from Prince Mu’s forehead with her handkerchief, the stalkers got even closer.

Seeing the fire burn about, she helped her master lean against the trunk of a tree carefully. When she rose to her feet and was about to get more dry wood, she suddenly felt something wrong!

Yan Lingxiao and Luo Huali just sensed the killing intents around a little bit earlier than Xingyi did. Now they had known what Yan Ke mean by “everyone”. There were indeed a lot of masked people in black hiding in the surroundings!

Yan Ke blinked at his disciples, hinting them to stay out of other people’s business. Unfortunately, Lingxiao and Huali failed to understand what he meant and as soon as they saw those people, they instinctively rushed over and soon were locked in a fierce fight.

Reluctantly, Yan Ke joined the battle as well a moment later!

When a poisonous flying dagger whizzed past his ear, Yan Ke realized that his deduction was not entirely correct. In the darkness, who had time to distinguish Nangong Du from others? Moreover, there was no way that those people could tell they were not Nangong Du’s accomplices. Obviously, those men in black were determined to kill Prince Mu, and they would not spare the life of anyone with him!

An hour later, the sound of fierce fighting died away in the pitch-dark, maze-like jungle.

Liu Wuyi had set formation here to protect the grain he had grown. Obscured by thick, towering trees, it was dark in the woods even during the day. At night, it was pitch-dark even under some bare branches. Wild animals often died of thirst and starvation when they entered the formation by accident and became the main source of meat for the Lius.

Lingxiao and Huali retreated into the formation as they fought. They had run for a long time in the dark before they finally got out of the chase! Picking their ears warily, they listened carefully to any sound around them. For the first time, they realized that they were only physicians who learned from the Medical Sage, not famous martial artists!

At this point, Yan Ke, the Medical Sage and well-known martial artist, was fighting with two men in black, who were both on par with him. One could imagine how hard it would be to win!

To their surprise, none of those people showed intent to attack their real target, Nangong Du, who was lying still under the tree!

Perhaps it was because of the death of the bonfire, the dim moonlight, the poor eyesight of those men in black and the weak breathing of Nangong Du, nobody had even noticed his presence!

Xingyi heaved a sigh of relief. She took out all the poison from her pocket and threw it at her enemies while wrapping her master with a piece of red silk and running away. Before getting into Mount Windward, she had first gone to Li’s clinic in town, so she knew the existence of the formation in front of Liu’s house.

Zixiu, who was in the valley, had heard the sound of fighting, but he thought it was Lingxiao and Nangong Du fighting again!

Liu Wuyi thought the same way. And now they were busy comforting Liuxu, who had just woken up. The Lius had their own domestic affairs to sort out!

When she took the warm porridge bowl from Zixiu, the young woman started weeping again and her tears kept on falling into the bowl.

Zixiu, who was standing by the bed with a tray in his hands, suddenly became restless. He could not bear to see a girl cry, especially when he knew that the princess was probably his sister! Apart from the period she lost consciousness, she had been crying ever since she stepped into the house! Her puffy and red eyes reminded Zixiu of Lin Daiyu (The heroine of the Chinese classic a Dream of Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone, who is very sentimental and often weeps). She cried even more than Lin Daiyu!

Zixiu scratched his head anxiously, without knowing what to do. After quite a while, he stammered a few words, trying to comfort Liuxu, but instead of stop crying, Liuxu felt even more grieved.

Finally, Liu Wuyi, who did not want to say anything more, had to interrupt his son’s words, which could not convey his meaning at all. “Come on, have some porridge, or it will get cold!” he said gently.

His words seemed to work! Holding back her tears, Liuxu took a few sips of the porridge chokingly.

Seeing her trembling shoulders, Liu Wuyi could not bear to ask what she had been through. However, he would not allow himself to be kept in the dark all along. Now that Liuxu had come to him, he was certain that Wang Ning would show up soon. Therefore, he needed to make things clear so as to come up with countermeasures ASAP. As a girl was able to find him here alone without attracting attention from those lackeys of the royal families of both countries, Liuxu could not be vulnerable. Besides, Zixiu had already mentioned this topic just now. Thinking of this, Liu Wuyi threw all caution to the wind, and after Liuxu had finished her porridge and calmed down a little, he got to the point straight. “What the hell happened?”

“Huh!?” Zixiu did not expect his dad to be so blunt, and he could not help but widened his eyes. Of course, he was eager to know how come that perverted woman had chosen him as the target of kidnapping, which made him suffer a lot!

Liu Wuyi and his son stared at Liuxu, one with a heavy heart, and the other full of anticipation.

Liuxu put down the bowl on the table, but instead of answering, she only covered her mouth with her hand while shaking her head. Obviously, there were things she did not want to bring up. After a while, tears shimmered in her beautiful eyes again.

Seeing that, Zixiu felt both grieved and resentful. Needless to say, the princess must have suffered no less than he did! Once, he was bruised and hungry after being mistreated by Nangong Du in the latter’s mansion, and if he had not clenched his teeth and cursed that asshole bitterly, he would not have been able to hold back his tears either! At the thought of this, even now he still felt sorry for himself! The princess was a girl, so it was no wonder she would cry after much suffering.

Burning in rage, he was about to say something to comfort Liuxu again but was stopped by his dad with a gentle tug.

As Liu Wuyi expected, Liuxu finally answered with her lips trembling, “Dad, the empress of the Wen Kingdom, my mom, is forcing me to marry Prince Mu! I don’t want to be Prince Mu’s consort for the alliance between the two countries! I don’t want to!”

Getting more irritated, she suddenly loosened her grip on the quilt and grabbed Liu Wuyi by the sleeve. “Dad, please don’t drive me away! I want to live with you and my elder brother…”

Elder brother? Zixiu’s heart skipped a beat. He was Liuxu’s brother, and Liuxu was the empress’ daughter, so did that mean the express was his… stepmother?

“You escaped from the imperial palace?” Disregarding the ambiguous inquiring look in his son’s eyes, Liu Wuyi asked Liuxu calmly.

The latter did not deny it.

“Then where’s your baby’s father?”

“My baby?” Liuxu shivered and lowered her head slowly. When she saw her own bulging belly, she suddenly turned pale and cried even more miserably.

Realizing what might have happened to this girl, Liu Wuyi felt a twinge in his heart. People were morally bankrupt in this troubled world, and even Zixiu could not protect himself, let alone a weak girl like Liuxu!

How shameless! Some people were utterly devoid of conscience! The furious father clenched his fists tightly.

After a moment of silence, the girl gradually stopped weeping. Zixiu gently handed over the small handkerchief he had been taking with him to her. He felt very depressed. Such a thing must have hurt a girl a thousand times more than it hurt him! ‘May all the perverts in the world die a violent death!’ he cursed inwardly. He swore that he would tell Lingxiao and his senior brother to avenge Liuxu one day!

Liuxu took the handkerchief with her shivering hands and wiped off her tears before she looked up at her elder brother with an aggrieved look. However, though the word had sprung to her lips, she failed to call him “brother”.

She stared at Zixiu in surprise. To be precise, she paid almost all her attention to Zixiu’s big belly. ‘Is he really my… BROTHER?’

When Zixiu finally noticed that Liuxu was staring at him with a suspicious look, he awkwardly covered his belly with the tray in an instant. Ever since those outsiders entered the valley the night before, so many things had happened. With his mind in turmoil, he even forgot to cover his abnormal belly.