Saving Someone in Passing (1)
T/N: Chapter sponsored by Azurixa! Thank you for supporting! This is technically chapter 1 of the second arc, but the chapter numberings will just continue on like normal. Also all the chapters from now on will be really long so I'm going to have to break them up.
Sixth lunar month. On the spacious official road outside Fuyang city, the white birch tree stood erect on the two sides of the road like soldiers.
The scorching hot sun made the tree leaves appear somewhat withered and listless, also making very little pedestrians appear on the road. Aside from the cicadas on the white birch tree diligently singing the hot summer song, only four horse carriages, as well as the ten some men dressed as guards riding along on horses at the front and rear.
The curtain of the second carriage counting from the front was pushed open. A delicately pretty little face appeared. Surprisingly, this was the grown up Du Xiao Li. Although she was only thirteen fourteen years old, she was already a beauty. Beautiful lush brows, red lips, white teeth, and skin as soft as congealed fat. A wisp of long hair flitted across from behind her ear, hanging at her chest.
"Chang Feng." She shouted towards the guard on horseback in front.
A twenty-four year old man heard her calling and turned the horse back towards the carriage, looking to the girl and asking, "Miss, what orders do you have?"
"How much longer before we reach Fuyang?" Du Xiao Li asked.
"Replying to miss, there's still about another two-hours before we can reach Fuyang." Chang Feng respectfully replied.
"Younger sister, what's wrong?" In the horse carriage in front, Du Xiu Heng heard Du Xiao Li's voice and pulled open the back window curtain. He looked to Du Xiao Li's horse carriage and asked.
"Big brother, it's nothing, I was just asking." Du Xiao Li replied.
With that said, she put down the curtains, muttering to herself, "Still another two-hours, it would have been better to just ride horse!"
In side the horse carriage, there were also two other girl, Ying Ge and Xia Yuan*. Both were seventeen to eighteen years old, delicately beautiful and full of life, wearing clothes slightly secondary to Du Xiao Li's, but were still quite a bit better looking than ordinary servant girls.
(*T/N: Their names are based off of birds, oriole and kite respectively.)
Hearing Du Xiao Li's complaint, Ying Ge said with a smile, "Miss, if you can get pass young master, you wanting to ride a horse isn't impossible."
Du Xiao Li pouted and said, "Sigh, Ying Ge, you saying this just to upset me? In order for me to conceal my martial arts, he's dead set on not letting me ride a horse. From Zhou county to here, ten days, an entire ten days! I feel like I'm about to become moldly!"
"Miss, just endure for a little longer. Isn't young master saying it for your sake? Eat some grapes to calm your anger, we'll reach Fuyang very soon." Xia Yuan opened a delicate small chest to the side. Inside was actually a box of grapes, and moreover, there was also the rarely seen ice cubes inside.
As soon as she saw the grapes, Du Xiao Li immediately became spirited again. Her low spirits from her inability to ride a horse were immediately swept away. She reached out and picked up a piece, asking as she peeled the skin, "When did the grapes come, how come I didn't know?"
"It was sent over early this morning. At that time, miss was still asleep, so we didn't tell miss." Xia Yuan also picked up a piece and peeled it before handing it to Du Xiao Li.
Du Xiao Li waved her hand and said, "I want to eat the ones I peeled myself, the ones you all peel, eat it yourself." Seeing them not moving, Du Xiao Li picked up two and shoved each one into their mouths, saying: "You've been following me for this long and know my temperament. Although you two were given to me by big brother Luo Qi, I've never viewed you two as servant girls. It's not like you didn't know, why still be this polite with me?!"
"Thank you miss." Ying Ge's personality was a bit more lively and ate the grape in one bite, then spitting out the skin.
Xia Yuan's personality obviously was more steady. After she ate the grape, she said, "Young master Luo Qi gave us to miss, thus we are miss's people. Miss although doesn't treat us as servants, we still can't lose our propriety. Especially now that miss has to go the capital. There, we further need to be more careful."
Ying Ge stuck her tongue and said, "I know, alright!"
Du Xiao Li couldn't do anything about them and said, "It's been more than a year. Ying Ge has already been corrected by me. But Xia Yuan, how can you still be the same as in the beginning? This makes me feel very defeated!"
"Hehe...." Xia Yuan and Ying Ge heard Du Xiao Li's words and both laughed.
"That's right, how's the situation over at the capital?" Du Xiao Li asked.
Ever since a year ago, when Luo Qi had sent over these two servant girls for her, she had been slowly transferring work into their hands.
She still remembered what they said when they'd first arrived, "Young master Luo Qi said, in the past he was our master, but from today onwards, miss is our master. We'll only listen to miss alone."
"Everything has already been arranged appropriately. Although this was much sooner than what we'd anticipated, for the most part, the affect isn't big." Xia Yuan replied.
"All eldest senior brother, that old man's, fault! Who let him have a slip of tongue after drinking? Wait until I get to the capital, I'll definitely have to find him to properly settle the score!" Du Xiao Li grumbled.
In her plans, they weren't planning on going to the capital city until when Du Xiu Heng needed to go to participate in the imperial exam, and they weren't intending on acknowledging that degenerate father, Du Yun Han, either. But who knew, Niu Jing's identity was actually an imperial physician of the Imperial Physician's court, and moreover his relationship with that degenerate father was even not bad. Although he promised Su Su Xin on her death bed that he won't have their whereabouts told to Du Yun Han, but that glutton, one time while drinking with Du Yun Han, got drunk and had her and Du Xiu Heng's matters inadvertently blurted out.
According to that old man's words, Niu Jing at the time said this: "That daughter of yours, really makes one both love and hate. Don't know after this many years, with her being that small, how she's doing over there?"
Du Yun Han, who was also an old fox, upon hearing Niu Jing's words, originally thought he was referring to Du Ke Xin, but carefully pondering his words, it didn't feel right. Take advantage of the fact that Niu Jing was still drunk, he managed to get out of him the matter of encountering Su Su Xin in Du village.
As soon as he heard this, he was shocked. Turns out his original wife didn't die that year, but instead took his son and their unborn daughter and escaped. Recalling that he'd clearly saw a pregnant woman's and a boy's corpse that time, he immediately knew, that incident that year definitely had other secrets. But he still held his patiences and continued asking, learning that Su Su Xin had already died, and when Niu Jing had left Du village, Du Xiao Li was only seven and Du Xiu Heng was also only ten.
Hearing that his son and daughter having to be self-reliant at such a young age, Du Yun Han felt extremely heartbroken. Not having enough time to thoroughly investigate the truth of that year, he immediately entered the palace and requested a leave of absence from the emperor, before getting on his horse carriage and heading south to go seek his daughter.
Thinking of what will happen when Du Xiao Li comes to the capital, Niu Jing hated that he couldn't immediately escape to the Medicine King Valley! However, knowing this was impossible, he voluntarily went to find the emperor and left for the border town to be the temporary military doctor for Han Ming Yi who was currently fighting a war there.
(T/N: Oi, don't run away from the mess you caused old man!)
As for Du Yun Han, he spurred his horse carriage directly to Du village without rest. And after finding a person working in the fields and asking, he found Du Xiao Li's home at the waist of the mountain.
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