"Go!"
Li Sheng roared.
He grabbed the sesame oil jar from the stove and smashed it hard against the doorframe.
Oil splattered everywhere.
Immediately after, he hurled a fire poker still sparking with embers.
Boom.
Flames shot up.
Black smoke, thick with the smell of burning oil, instantly sealed off the cramped kitchen.
Li Sheng didn't look back. He grabbed Xu Qinghuan's wrist and dragged her toward the back alley.
His grip was shockingly strong, making her bones ache.
Xu Qinghuan stumbled.
The back door was pushed open.
The rain wasn't just falling; it was pouring in sheets.
It drenched them from head to toe.
An instant, bone-chilling cold.
It was the kind of cold that could freeze your marrow.
The two plunged headlong into the narrow, muddy alley behind the teahouse.
Their feet slipped, stumbling unevenly through the muck.
"Chase them!"
Duan Tiande's voice came from behind.
Neither hurried nor slow.
Through the firelight and the curtain of rain, it carried the mocking tone of a cat playing with a mouse.
The sound of heavy boots stepping into puddles—splash, splash.
It was the footsteps of the grim reaper.
At the mouth of the alley, two accompanying guards from the Xu manor drew their swords and turned around.
"Eldest Miss, go quickly!"
Blades clashed.
Then came the muffled sound of sharp steel slicing into flesh.
Squelch.
No one screamed.
Only the heavy thud of bodies collapsing into the mud.
Xu Qinghuan instinctively looked back.
The rain was too heavy.
The blood on the ground was washed away the moment it spilled, turning into a pale red stream that drained into the foul ditch.
Two living, breathing lives.
Gone, just like that.
Without even a sound.
Xu Qinghuan's calves cramped and gave way.
Li Sheng pulled her with all his might.
"Don't look! Run!"
The two scrambled miserably through the alleyway piled with slop buckets.
Was it a dead end ahead?
No, there was a corner.
As she ran, Xu Qinghuan tremblingly reached into her robes.
It was a stack of banknotes she had just gotten from her old man.
A full ten thousand taels.
"Take it! Take all the money! Just don't kill me!"
She threw the thick stack of banknotes into the air.
The wind was too strong, the rain too fierce.
Before the ten thousand taels of banknotes could even take flight, they were soaked.
Smack.
They fell into a dirty puddle by their feet.
A black boot stepped on them.
It was Duan Tiande.
He didn't even glance at the ten thousand taels under his foot, and even ground his heel into them a couple of times.
Trampling the paper that represented power and desire into the muck.
Xu Qinghuan froze.
The rules of the business world were useless here.
On this stormy night, in this dead-end alley.
Money was just waste paper.
Only blades were hard currency.
"System!"
Xu Qinghuan screamed frantically in her mind.
"Help! Exchange for weapons! I want a gun! I want a cannon! Even a stun baton will do!"
Unfortunately, the system gave no response.
"Watch out!"
Li Sheng suddenly let out a fierce shout.
He shielded Xu Qinghuan with his back and pushed her against the base of the wall.
Thwack.
A muffled thud.
Li Sheng's body jolted.
A sharp weapon piercing flesh.
Sinking all the way into the bone.
Li Sheng let out a muffled groan, a trace of bloody froth spilling from the corner of his mouth.
A pitch-black crossbow bolt was nailed into his left shoulder blade.
Blood instantly gushed out.
It was hot.
Splashing onto Xu Qinghuan's freezing neck.
Scaldingly hot.
The metallic scent of rust rushed straight to her head.
Xu Qinghuan's pupils contracted violently.
This wasn't a play.
This wasn't a corporate war.
"Go..."
Li Sheng didn't fall.
He gritted his teeth, his features twisted in agony, yet he still pushed Xu Qinghuan forward with all his might.
"Miss, ahead is the broken bridge of the Qinhuai River... jump down... you might survive..."
"What about you?"
Xu Qinghuan's voice trembled, her teeth chattering.
"I'll hold them off!"
Li Sheng roared.
The self-defense short sword in his hand already had a chipped edge, but he gripped it until his knuckles turned white.
The two stumbled out of the alleyway.
The view ahead suddenly opened up, but it was also a dead end.
The water level of the Qinhuai River had surged, the murky water roaring as it crashed against the jagged rocks on the bank.
A broken bridge stretched out lonely toward the center of the river. Beyond that was the surging current.
Behind them.
Duan Tiande stopped in his tracks.
Five paces away.
He twirled a pair of Emei daggers in his hands. His face was streaked with rain, but it couldn't hide his cruel smile.
"Run."
"Why aren't you running anymore?"
Li Sheng panted heavily, blocking Xu Qinghuan.
"If you want to touch my Miss, you'll have to step over my dead body first!"
Duan Tiande sneered.
"I'll grant your wish."
His figure flashed.
Too fast.
So fast that Xu Qinghuan couldn't even see his movements clearly.
There was only a crisp crack.
"Ah——!"
Li Sheng screamed miserably and fell to his knees.
His right calf bent at a bizarre angle.
Stark white bone shards pierced through his trouser leg.
Duan Tiande only used one kick.
And crippled him.
Li Sheng collapsed into the muddy water, his whole body convulsing in pain, yet he still clung desperately to one of Duan Tiande's legs.
"Miss! Jump!!!"
His voice was mournful, mixing with the sound of the rain, piercing the heart like a knife.
Duan Tiande frowned in disgust and raised the Emei daggers in his hand.
The tips glinted with a cold light.
Aimed right at Li Sheng's back.
"Courting death."
"Stop!"
Xu Qinghuan screamed.
She had nowhere left to retreat, her back pressed against the freezing stone railing.
"Let him go! I won't run!"
Duan Tiande's hand paused.
The daggers hovered three inches above Li Sheng's back.
He looked up at Xu Qinghuan.
As if looking at a prey already caught in a net.
"County Princess Xu."
"Someone offered two hundred thousand taels for your life."
"It's worth a lot more than that handful of waste paper you just threw."
Xu Qinghuan took a deep breath. Rainwater choked her lungs, stinging painfully.
She forced herself to stay calm.
Even though her legs were so weak she could barely stand.
"Two hundred thousand taels."
"To buy my life, it is indeed worth it."
"But will you have the life to take it, and the life to spend it?"
"I am a County Princess personally titled by the imperial court. My father is the county magistrate, and my second brother commands heavy troops in the northern frontiers."
"If you kill me, they will turn this entire Jiangning City upside down to find you and hack you to pieces."
Duan Tiande laughed.
Revealing a mouthful of smoke-stained yellow teeth.
"Trying to scare me?"
"The rain tonight is falling at the perfect time."
"Tomorrow morning, this will just be an accidental drowning."
"Who would know I killed you?"
He kicked Li Sheng away.
Li Sheng rolled to the side and spat out a large mouthful of blood. He tried to get up but could not move at all.
Duan Tiande approached Xu Qinghuan step by step.
"The auspicious hour has arrived."
"County Princess Xu, it is time to hit the road."
The daggers were raised.
The cold steel reflected the lightning.
Xu Qinghuan closed her eyes.
Her father's chubby face flashed through her mind, along with her second brother's letter from home that hadn't arrived yet.
And that damn, incomplete exile mission.
Well, this was great. No need for exile anymore.
Straight to reincarnation.
The wind howled.
Swish—!
A sharp whistle.
It wasn't the sound of the daggers falling.
It was the wail of some sharper, faster weapon tearing through the air.
Coming from the river.
Duan Tiande's expression changed drastically.
It was the instinctual intuition for danger born from surviving in the martial world.
He turned slightly, bringing his daggers back to protect his chest.
Clang!
Sparks flew.
A white-feathered arrow.
It brushed past Duan Tiande's cheek and nailed itself fiercely into the stone slab behind him.
Sinking an inch into the stone, the tail of the arrow was still quivering wildly.
Duan Tiande touched his face.
Blood.
He turned to look at the river.
Xu Qinghuan opened her eyes.
She only saw that a small flatboat had appeared on the pitch-black river at some unknown point.
Without a lantern or a fire.
A figure stood at the bow of the boat.
Dressed entirely in white, their robes fluttering fiercely in the torrential rain.
