Zhan Haochen stopped, took off his outer garment, and draped it over her shoulders. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
His heart ached for her.
The little girl was slender and frail, looking especially small and pitiful beneath the moonlight.
If she hadn’t been kind enough to accompany him in search of his mother, she wouldn’t have had to suffer through this.
Shao Yutong murmured in response. Somehow, a strange sense of shared destiny welled up inside her—as if the two of them were destined to depend on each other for survival.
She edged a little closer to him. Her panicked, helpless heart slowly began to calm.
The woods were frighteningly quiet. There was nothing but the sound of their footsteps and the occasional chirping of insects.
Shao Yutong clutched the corner of Zhan Haochen’s clothes tightly, her eyes wide with fear, terrified that some monster might leap out from the shadows between the trees.
After walking for an unknown length of time, Zhan Haochen suddenly stopped.
“Ninth Cousin, what’s wrong?” Shao Yutong asked in a small voice.
“Listen,” Zhan Haochen said softly.
Shao Yutong tilted her head and listened carefully to the sounds around them.
The mountain wind roared past, stirring waves of sound through the pines. Aside from that, there was another extremely faint noise, as if someone were calling out in a low voice.
It came intermittently, scattered by the wind, or perhaps drifting from a great distance.
“Is that… Auntie’s voice? Did she come out too?”
Zhan Haochen wasn’t sure, but he knew this was their only lead.
“Come on. Let’s take a look.” He took Shao Yutong by the hand and walked in the direction of the voice.
The sound grew clearer. It really was his mother’s voice!
Zhan Haochen’s heart leaped into his throat. He quickened his pace, pulling Shao Yutong through the trees.
Bathed in the moonlight pouring down from above, he emerged at the edge of a steep cliff.
The cries were coming from the bottom.
“Mother!” Zhan Haochen dropped to his stomach at the cliff’s edge and shouted downward.
A faint response drifted up from below, and his heart eased slightly. At least Madam Zhan was still alive.
“Mother! Mother!” he called loudly.
Weak and dazed, Madam Zhan heard her son’s voice and thought she was hallucinating. It wasn’t until he called a second time that she tentatively asked, “Haochen?”
“Mother, it’s me! How are you?”
“Why did you come too? I… I’m fine. It’s just that my leg seems to be broken. I can’t move.” Madam Zhan’s voice was filled with pain.
Zhan Haochen leaned over the edge and looked down. The cliff was extremely high, and the bottom was shrouded in darkness. He couldn’t see a thing.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to remain calm. Then he looked around for vines or something similar, but found none. That was when he thought of the belt around his waist—and the sash on Shao Yutong’s dress.
“Yutong, untie your sash,” he said.
Shao Yutong obediently untied it. Zhan Haochen removed his own belt as well, tied the two together, then pulled off his coarse cloth shirt and tore it into strips, knotting them together one section at a time.
“I’m going down to save my mother,” Zhan Haoting said. “Wait here and don’t move around. I’ll be back up soon.”
“No, Ninth Cousin. It’s too dangerous.” Shao Yutong grabbed his hand, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Let’s go back and get help first.”
Zhan Haochen shook his head. “There’s no time. Every extra moment Mother spends down there puts her in greater danger. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
He patted Shao Yutong on the head, tied one end of the makeshift rope to a nearby tree, and fastened the other end securely around his waist.
“Wait here. If I haven’t come back up by the time it takes to burn one incense stick, go back and bring Uncle Xiao and the others here to help.”
Shao Yutong nodded, clenching her fists tightly as she watched Zhan Haochen slowly lower himself down the cliff using the strips of cloth.
Zhan Haochen, I’m still counting on you to protect me. Don’t you dare die this soon!
The cliff face was covered in moss and terribly slippery.
Zhan Haochen climbed down with painstaking care, planting his feet on protruding stones while gripping the cloth rope tightly.
The wind blew upward from the bottom of the cliff, stinging his face and making it difficult to keep his eyes open.
Suddenly, his foot slipped, and his entire body dropped a short distance.
“Ninth Cousin!” Shao Yutong cried out from above.
“I’m fine!” Zhan Haochen shouted back after steadying himself.
He took a deep breath and continued downward.
At last, he saw Madam Zhan lying at the bottom of the cliff.
She was curled up beside a large boulder, her leg smeared with blood and her face as pale as paper.
“Mother!” Zhan Haochen shouted, sliding down faster.
Madam Zhan slowly opened her eyes. When she saw him, tears immediately streamed down her face.
“Why did you come? It’s dangerous here. Go! Leave me alone.”
“Mother, how could I possibly leave you?” Zhan Haochen dropped down beside her and examined her injuries.
There were scrapes across Madam Zhan’s face and arms. Her left knee was swollen badly, and it was likely fractured. She couldn’t move it at all.
“Mother, bear with it. I’ll get you back up now,” Zhan Haochen said as he tried to help her to her feet.
“I can’t. My leg won’t move.” Madam Zhan spoke through the pain.
Zhan Haochen frowned. With only that crude cloth rope, it would indeed be difficult to pull his mother back up.
He walked around the area and discovered a vine as thick as his thumb. He tugged at it several times. It was sturdy.
He found a sharp stone and sawed through the vine at its root. Then he tossed the other end up to Shao Yutong.
“Yutong, tie the vine to the tree. Make sure it’s secure!”
Shao Yutong used all her strength to fasten the vine tightly around the tree.
“Ninth Cousin, it’s tied!” she shouted.
Zhan Haochen carefully helped Madam Zhan up and had her lie across his back.
“Mother, we’re going.”
With that, he gripped the vine and began climbing upward, one step at a time.
Madam Zhan’s entire weight pressed down on him, making every step incredibly difficult.
His arms felt as though they were about to snap. Sweat ran down his face and dripped onto his mother’s cheeks.
“Haochen, why don’t you go up first and call someone to rescue me?” Madam Zhan said, her heart aching for him.
“Mother, don’t say foolish things. I won’t leave you behind.”
Gritting his teeth, Zhan Haochen continued climbing.
Then, suddenly, there was a sharp snap.
The other end of the vine, tied around the tree trunk, had broken!
“Ah!”
Mother and son slammed into the cliff face like kites whose strings had been cut. Jagged branches and rocks tore bloody scratches across their bodies. The world spun wildly before their eyes as they plunged straight into the bottomless darkness below.
“Ninth Cousin! Great-Aunt!”
Shao Yutong panicked and threw herself over the edge, shouting desperately.
But the only answer was the mournful howl of the mountain wind.
Terror surged through her heart. She turned and stumbled back the way they had come.
After falling from such a height, there was no way Zhan Haochen and his mother could have survived.
She hadn’t even had the chance to make use of him yet. What rotten luck.
Behind her, Cheng Yao appeared at an unhurried pace.
By the time she arrived, Madam Zhan and her son had already fallen from the cliff. She had hidden nearby and watched Shao Yutong the entire time.
The heroine in the novel was supposed to be beautiful and kindhearted, while also clever and shrewd.
So Cheng Yao had assumed that Shao Yutong would at least try to climb down and save them. At the very least, she should have shouted for help from where she stood.
Who would have thought that she couldn’t even be bothered to put on an act, and had simply run away without a word?
Someone like that was still the protagonist? Had the author completely lost their mind?
Cheng Yao shook her head. With a single thought, she teleported to the bottom of the cliff.
