448 ESCAPE ROUTE

"She will not leave you if you did nothing." He said with the matter- of- fact tone and Xiao Tianyao hated it when he talked in that way.

"So?" Xiao Jun prodded.

Xiao Tianyao threw his head back as he closed his eyes. "… I locked her." He said.

He didn't know it until he said it, but he felt ashamed of his action and Xiao Jun reaction didn't help.

"You… What?" He almost jumped from his couch.

"You heard me Jun." He said tiredly, without opened his eyes. Xiao Tianyao didn't want to see the judgment in his eyes.

"Tianyao, to lock her up was…" Xiao Jun lost for words and Xiao Tianyao interjected his line of thought.

"I know. I know…" Xiao Tianyao admitted it, whatever Xiao Jun wanted to say, it would be true.

"You are insane…" He slumped again on the couch.

There was a silence between them until Xiao Tianyao decided to respond his brother words.

"I think, I am going to go insane for real now…" Xiao Tianyao mumbled.

"What was in your mind when you did that toward her?" Xiao Jun stared at his brother and arranged his words carefully. "Is it something that related to your memory?"

Xiao Jun knew when Xiao Tianyao came to Senja, to ask her restored his memory, help him to relive the terrifying memory. He didn't know the detail, but with the way Ye Bai warned him to not let Xiao Tianyao knew about the truth, he had his own guess and it proved right.

There was tacit understanding between all of the people who knew about this to not talking about this sensitive matter, but the way Xiao Tianyao treated Senja afterward wasn't right.

He had been trying to convince his brother to stop ignoring the girl, but he just brushed him away and cut the topic.

To Xiao Jun surprised, Xiao Tianyao answered him as he admitted. "Yes."

"Mind to tell me what happened? Maybe I could help here and there?" He asked casually, didn't want his brother to feel pressure

Another silence.

Xiao Jun didn't say anything either, he let Xiao Tianyao have his time. It wasn't easy to talk with him about his feeling. So, the last thing that he should do was to rush him.

After a long silence, finally Xiao Tianyao opened his eyes and looked at the night sky.

"I am afraid something happened to her, like what had happened to Luna." Xiao Tianyao started and Xiao Jun waited for his next words. "She came to me last night to talk about this matter, but I am so pathetic to pretending to be asleep so I could avoid her." He let out a mocking laughed, more to himself.

Xiao Jun widened his eyes, didn't believe that his brother would do something so coward like that. "So pathetic…" Xiao Jun agreed, his agreement was regarded a menacing glared from Xiao Tianyao that he reciprocated with a smile.

"Anyway, long story short." Xiao Tianyao straightened his back. "After some argument, Senja said that she had found Yun whereabouts and she decided to leave. I can't accept that." He shook his head.

"So you locked her up?" Xiao Jun surmised for him.

"I did."He said faintly.

"You know it was wrong right?"

Xiao Jun was talking with him with the way an elder brother scolded his younger brother. It had been a long time since they were having this kind of conversation. Xiao Tianyao usually wouldn't listen to him and Xiao Jun didn't have any reason to worry about him either.

Since Luna's death, he was literary back on track.

But, the Xiao Tianyao in front of him now was full with confusion and unsure about everything he did.

Never in million times that Xiao Jun would have thought Xiao Tianyao locked a woman inside his bedroom. If someone told him about this news, he would have laughed at it.

But, it was happening right now and he couldn't find any humor in this matter. His brother mind was haywire.

"Tianyao, if you continue to treat her like that, you will lose her before you actually do." Xiao Jun said.

"I know…" Xiao Tianyao mumbled. "I thought if I locked her, she wouldn't go anywhere."

"But she is gone even after you did it."

Xiao Tianyao couldn't retort Xiao Jun's words in this matter. He was right.

The night was getting late and Xiao Tianyao wouldn't stop until he found her, so he stood up and waved his hand toward Xiao Jun, indicated he was leaving.

Either Xiao Jun or Xiao Tianyao, both of them were curious where's Senja now? All the guard was on track to find her around the fortress, but no one came back with pleasant news.

That devil little girl really knew how to hide herself well.

Xiao Jun started to think, instead of locked her up inside the room, it would be much better to tie her up in the dungeon and see how she could escape from it…

.....

The sun was up and still there was no any news about Senja's whereabouts.

At first, Xiao Tianyao thought she was sulking and hid herself somewhere because he locked her up, but after all the guards turned all the places in the fortress upside down, they still couldn't find Senja, not even her shadow!

"Where is she?" Xiao Tianyao was pacing back and forth while occasionally grabbed his hair in frustration.

Xiao Tianyao had spent last night looking for her as well, but she was nowhere, literary nowhere inside the fortress.

A hundred people would have chance to miss her hiding place, but thousands of them? What chanced she had?

If Senja was still inside the fortress, someone would have found her by now. But, if no one could find her, then…

She would be outside the fortress…

That the last thing Xiao Tianyao hoped would never happen. She and her purple hair wasn't a good combination to hide from Xiao Zi's spies.

Knowing Xiao Zi had laid his eyes on her because of her ability, it wasn't easy to shake him away.

"Don't you think she will be outside the fortress?" Xiao Tianyao turned at his brother.

"I start to think that way." Xiao Jun agreed with his brother. "But, how did she do it?"

Xiao Tianyao shook his head. "I don't know Jun, she is so…" He lost for words to describe his wife mischievousness.

"Wicked?" Xiao Jun helped him. But, Xiao Tianyao glared at him viciously.

"I will go." Xiao Tianyao said.

"You can't leave Tianyao…" Xiao Jun warned him.

"Try me." Xiao Tianyao left him without a second glance.

Senja was outside there and he was very sure about this now.

.....

A carriage with three horses was running on a rocky road.

It swayed the contained inside the carriage left and right. Occasionally, an apple would fall from it or an orange, but the owner seemed didn't care. He was humming along the way with a big pocket of money on his hand.

Because of a big rock on their track, the carriage was jerked away and a girl's head unintentionally slammed on the side of the carriage.

She sat up abruptly while holding her head with both of her hand, a grunted and whimpered escaped from her lips.

This was the worst way to wake up.

"Can't you drive it more smoothly please? My head almost split into two." She grumbled as she opened the curtain that separated the carriage from the coachman.

"You didn't pay me for that." He said leisurely, kept humming again.

"I paid you good money to bring me to the nearest village safe and sound!"

Senja crawled from the carriage and slumped on the seat beside him.

"Breakfast?" That man offered her an apple and Senja received it with 'thanks'.

The road was still bumpy and both of them didn't talk to each other. Mostly because Senja was eating and that man was humming.

In that silence, Senja though about last night event, she wondered if Xiao Tianyao had already known by now if she was at the outside of the fortress? Actually, she was curious with his reaction.

But, she couldn't accept the way he treated her. His action to show off his power on her wouldn't be end good, because she despised people like that.

Xiao Tianyao usually wouldn't act out of impulse, but, something sorrowful happened recently and Senja could understand that.

However, she wasn't a woman who could be intimidated easily and that couldn't justify everything that he had done toward her.

Last night, actually when Xiao Tianyao was inside the room and went rampant she was still there.

She was deliberately messed up the room, turned all the chairs upside down, screw up with the bed and cabinet.

Because she was hiding inside the cabinet, but because it was full of book, there was no space for her and if Senja pulled it out and put it on the floor just like that, they would immediately know her hiding place. So, to cover up, she messed up all the room and threw all the books on the floor.

Thinking that it wasn't enough, Senja shifted the board on the roof, misleading them to another assumption. Well, she knew there was ten Crescent Moon Members on the roof, so she wouldn't be able to go passed them without notified them. Either she would fight them or hypnotized them, both options wasn't in Senja favor.

She couldn't hypnotize ten people at the same time and to fight them off was out of the options.

Once they were fed by her trick and the room was empty, she got herself out from the cabinet. Ironically, hiding inside the cabinet was inspired by Luna who was hiding Xiao Mugi. Senja felt bad about this.

Afterwards, all she has to do was avoiding all the guards, hypnotize some of them and running toward the northern gate. She had been there for more than two weeks. Of course she wouldn't spend her time to sit idle and mourned over Xiao Tianyao's cold treatment. She needed to make use of her time.

She had memorized the fortress layout, so last night she knew where she needed to go.

Xiao Tianyao wouldn't have thought that she would be running out from the fortress instead of his bedroom.

He knew, last night was delivery day, so there would be many carriages on the northern gate to bring their ration.

Senja slipped into one of the carriage and got out from the fortress, easy peasy.

Midway, when the carriage stopped at the village nearby, she got off without anyone notice that they had brought one extra person.

When she walked passed a merchant, he was talking about going to Q City, the first City that would be taken down before they moved to L City.

And that was the direction that she was headed. The other Senja said they lived nearby.

So with that, Senja talked with the merchant and paid him off good amount of money that she… ehem, borrowed from Xiao Tianyao without his awareness.

Well, he was rich after all. This amount of money was nothing for him.

And then, that was how she ended with Ju Long, he was a thirty something man with scrawny body and tanned skin.

Maybe this was the answer of her pray. Maybe she meant to go home. Maybe she had to fulfill her promise to grandma Rianya. Maybe she shouldn't have any relationship with Xiao Tianyao and made everything became more complicated for her.

Finally she was away from him! Yeay!

She thought about doing celebrate dancing or punching the air for her freedom and a step away from home. Her home.

But, she didn't feel a little bit enthusiasm with this. In the contrary she felt down…

With a heavy breath, she threw the core of the apple agitatedly, readjusted her turban, closed her eyes and thought about what she would do if she was finally at home… but, somehow her mind changed direction to; what is Xiao Tianyao doing now?