Jiang Yunshu walked for two hours along the mountain path before being led to a dilapidated little house deep in the hills.
Truthfully, she could have covered the distance in just one hour, but she deliberately feigned weakness, pretending to be too exhausted to move quickly.
First, she wanted to conceal her true stamina, lulling the kidnappers into complacency.
Second, by dragging out the journey, she seized several opportunities to smear traces of blood from her arm onto trees and rocks—subtle markers to help Xie Lin track her.
At first, Jiang Yunshu had hesitated to leave any clues. With four kidnappers watching her every move, discovery would mean disaster.
The bloodstains she left at the foot of the mountain could be dismissed as accidental if noticed—just a careless smear from her wound.
But leaving marks further up the trail? That couldn’t be passed off as happenstance. Her injury wasn’t deep; had she not deliberately reopened it, the bleeding would have stopped long ago.
Yet Jiang Yunshu was both cautious and daring.
She quietly observed the four men and soon noticed a pattern: they watched her most intently when she asked to rest, their eyes boring into her without blinking.
During the climb, however, their vigilance waned.
After a while, she confirmed this was consistent.
This was the kidnappers’ critical mistake—they assumed any attempt at escape would come during rest stops.
So Jiang Yunshu did the opposite.
During breaks, she remained utterly still, sitting meekly on roadside rocks with her head bowed, playing the part of a frail woman too drained to move.
After several such performances, the men grew more at ease, convinced she was weak and timid.
Once their surveillance slackened, Jiang Yunshu knew her chance had come.
She continued her docile act during rests but seized moments mid-climb—when the pace was swiftest—to stealthily leave blood marks, quick and unnoticed.
Many paths were narrow, allowing only single-file movement. Two kidnappers led ahead; two followed behind.
All she needed was to evade the eyes of two.
Her heart pounded as she worked, each mark a gamble with death.
Swift hands, a composed face, and a stroke of luck—she left four traces undetected.
Knowing greed could undo her, she hesitated over a fifth—then spotted the mountain hut.
The house was decrepit, likely abandoned by its former occupants.
Inside, the men bound Jiang Yunshu’s wrists to a post and began eating their rations.
"Should we feed her?" one asked, glancing her way.
The leader scoffed. "No. Starve her for two meals, and she won’t have the strength to run. Saves us the trouble of watching her."
The third kidnapper smirked at Jiang Yunshu. "Hear that, beauty? It’s not me denying you food—our boss here has no mercy..."
His gaze lingered, crawling over her skin like insects.
Jiang Yunshu met his stare, alarm screaming in her veins.
She’d already deduced: these men needed her alive. Her ransom—two hundred taels of silver each—was a fortune to them.
Death wouldn’t be their intent.
But other violations? Far from guaranteed.
During the climb, their focus had been on control. Now, settled indoors, the third man’s leer filled her with dread.
She clenched her jaw, suppressing a tremble. Fear now would only provoke them.
So she endured, silent and unreadable.
Finally, the leader noticed his comrade’s gaze and kicked him sharply. "Don’t even think about it!"
"That life of hers is worth eight hundred taels. Split four ways, it’s two hundred each—enough to live like kings!"
"With that kind of silver, you could bed a hundred women! Why risk it?"
"Mess with her, and she might bash her own skull in. Then who’ll pay us?"
The leader glared. "You’d owe us six hundred taels. Got that kind of money?"
A cold laugh. "Your worthless hide isn’t worth six hundred."
As he spoke, the second and fourth men turned wolfish eyes on their wayward brother.
Facing three opponents at once, Lao San knew he was outmatched. His earlier lustful thoughts were completely frightened away.
"Under... understood..."
Lao San was well aware that if anything happened to Jiang Yunshu, the promised eight hundred taels of silver would vanish, and the others—Lao Da, Lao Er, and Lao Si—would be the first to come for his head.
Of course, Lao San himself couldn’t bear to lose his share of two hundred taels either. Two hundred taels! That was enough to keep him in wine and meat for a lifetime. As Lao Da had said, once he had that money, he could have as many women as he wanted.
Still, backing down so easily bruised his pride, so he couldn’t resist a defiant retort: "She’s no blushing virgin anymore—what’s the big deal if I have a go at her? Would she really rather die than oblige?"
"She’s willing to serve a eunuch but not a real man like me?"
The other three bandits burst into laughter.
Lao Da pointed at Lao San and sneered, "Why don’t you take a piss and look at your reflection?"
"That eunuch you’re talking about looks like a celestial being. What about you?"
Lao San’s face flushed, but he stubbornly retorted, "What’s the use of being good-looking? He’s still just a eunuch..."
"Can’t even protect his own woman. When the army lays siege, we’ll tie her up at the front lines and force the Nine Thousand-Year-Old Lord to open the city gates."
"Let’s see if the Nine Thousand-Year-Old Lord chooses to defend the Capital City or save his precious beauty."
"You really think he’d abandon the Capital City for a woman?"
"They say the Nine Thousand-Year-Old Lord is utterly ruthless. Who knows? Maybe he won’t even care if she lives or dies. He might just order his men to fire as usual."
Lao San turned to Jiang Yunshu with a gloating grin.
"By then, no matter how stunning she is, she’ll be riddled with arrows like a sieve."
Jiang Yunshu shuddered at his words. Finally, she understood why she had been kidnapped.
They planned to drag her to the battlefield and use her as leverage to force Xie Lin to open the gates?
She never imagined she’d end up with such a cliché heroine’s fate—being tied up at the front lines...
How was this any different from the trope of a princess dangling from the city walls?
—
The bandits’ words confirmed Jiang Yunshu’s suspicion: they were working for the Prince of Yanbei.
The Prince had abducted her, intending to use her as a bargaining chip to tip the scales in the impending battle.
Jiang Yunshu: "......"
She never thought she’d be important enough for this kind of treatment. Only legendary beauties—the kind written into history books—got this kind of role, didn’t they?
This was far from good news for her.
With the Prince of Yanbei’s attack on the Capital City imminent, Xie Lin would be swamped with preparations. How many men could he spare to search for her?
Jiang Yunshu mentally reviewed the trail of clues she’d left behind, only to realize how sparse and unreliable they were.
The personal belongings she’d dropped from horseback were valuable—easy for anyone to pick up and pocket.
The bloodstains she’d left on the mountain path wouldn’t vanish so quickly, but first, someone had to find this mountain.
If no one even located this place, her hidden markers would be useless.
And to avoid detection, she’d made them so subtle that only a meticulous search would uncover them.
Late at night, when the bandits were snoring in deep sleep, Jiang Yunshu let out a quiet sigh in the darkness.
Trapped like this, the odds of Xie Lin finding her were slim.
Escaping on her own seemed just as impossible. These kidnappers were professionals, leaving her no chance to loosen her bonds. Worse, they showed no intention of leaving this shack, keeping watch over her day and night.
The next time she and Xie Lin met might truly be on the battlefield, amidst clashing armies...
What would he choose?
Jiang Yunshu thought that no matter his decision, she wouldn’t blame him.
If her life could save countless civilians in the Capital City, she was willing.
But if Xie Lin disregarded the lives of thousands, choosing only to save her, then she’d bear the infamy alongside him.
Their names would be reviled together in history books for eternity.
A faint smile curled on Jiang Yunshu’s lips in the dark. For some reason, the thought struck her as oddly amusing.
If this world’s timeline played out, whose name would posterity curse more—hers or Xie Lin’s?
Suddenly, she realized she couldn’t picture Xie Lin coldly ordering his troops to fight, sacrificing her for the greater good.
The only image that came to mind was him forsaking thousands of lives just to keep her alive.
Then again, Xie Lin had always been ruthless, treating human lives as expendable.
Jiang Yunshu mused that Xie Lin was, after all, playing the villain’s role.
And she, staying by the great antagonist’s side—was she just a minor lackey in his story?
Her thoughts spiraled into chaos until, as dawn’s light crept in, she finally drifted into a fitful sleep.
Bound to a pillar, she could only doze sitting up, a cloak draped over her shoulders. But in this drafty, broken-down shack, she still shivered from the cold.
However, Jiang Yunshu hadn’t been asleep for long before one of the bandits kicked her awake.
“The lord has arrived at the mountain and wishes to see you.”
Jiang Yunshu snapped awake immediately—the Prince of Yanbei wanted to see her?
Huh? Wasn’t the Prince of Yanbei old enough to be a grandfather in ancient times? Why were his subordinates still calling him “lord”? Such a try-hard at acting young…
While silently mocking him in her mind, the door of the hut creaked open.
A man stepped in, silhouetted against the light. For some reason, Jiang Yunshu found his figure vaguely familiar…
Had she met the Prince of Yanbei before?
Wait, why was the Prince of Yanbei so young?
As the man approached, Jiang Yunshu stared at his face, which was seventy percent familiar, and gasped in shock. “Duan Jinxing?”
The person standing before her wasn’t the Prince of Yanbei at all—it was her nominal brother-in-law, Duan Jinxing.
—
Jiang Yunshu studied Duan Jinxing’s face carefully.
She had mild prosopagnosia. Though Duan Jinxing was undeniably handsome, his features lacked distinctiveness. The last time she’d seen him, she’d almost failed to recognize him.
This time, having encountered him once more in between, her impression of his appearance had deepened slightly. But right now, she was freezing, starving, freshly kicked awake from sleep, and had lost a considerable amount of blood from yesterday’s wounds… Jiang Yunshu suspected she was running a low fever.
Under the weight of all these compounding miseries, her vision swam as she scrutinized Duan Jinxing’s face for what felt like an eternity before finally confirming his identity.
To Duan Jinxing, however, it looked as though Jiang Yunshu was utterly mesmerized by him—her savior, descending from the heavens to rescue her from peril.
Duan Jinxing had been aware of his striking looks since childhood. Thanks to his face, he’d enjoyed countless privileges, and thus, he knew exactly how to wield his charm to his advantage.
Noticing Jiang Yunshu’s “dazed” stare, he subtly adjusted his angle, presenting his most flattering profile to her while allowing just the right mix of surprise and concern to surface in his eyes.
“Second Sister? What happened to you?”
“How… how did you end up in such a state?”
Flustered, Duan Jinxing untied the ropes binding Jiang Yunshu’s wrists. Seeing her lips pale from cold and her face tinged blue, he immediately removed his cloak and draped it over her shoulders.
Jiang Yunshu flexed her wrists, stiff from being bound all night. Thankfully, they hadn’t gone numb. She was indeed freezing, so she pulled the cloak tightly around herself and murmured, “Eldest Brother-in-Law…”
Before she could finish, tears spilled down her cheeks.
Since the bandits had brought up their familial connection, Jiang Yunshu figured she might as well play along.
“Eldest Brother-in-Law, what on earth is going on?” she asked.
Duan Jinxing heaved a long sigh, his expression troubled. “Second Sister, to be honest, I now serve under the Prince of Yanbei.”
“The Prince of Yanbei ordered your capture to threaten the Nine Thousand-Year-Old Lord.”
“When I heard about this, I rushed here to save you. Don’t worry, Second Sister—I’ll protect you.”
Jiang Yunshu nodded tearfully.
Inside, she sneered relentlessly. Go ahead, act all you want. I’ll watch your performance.
The Prince of Yanbei wanted to kidnap her, and Duan Jinxing had rushed to her rescue upon hearing the news?
She didn’t believe a single word of it. The moment she saw Duan Jinxing, she had already pieced everything together.
The first group that had abducted her were the Prince of Yanbei’s men. The second group, who’d swooped in to take advantage, were Duan Jinxing’s.
His subordinates were just as shabby and destitute as he was…
The only thing Jiang Yunshu couldn’t figure out was—why had Duan Jinxing bothered to intercept the Prince of Yanbei’s scheme?
Was he planning to personally deliver her to the Prince of Yanbei to curry favor and earn credit?
