Chapter 102
I gripped the bridle, straightened up, turned around and said, “Please help my maid on the horse . ”
He lifted Xie Yi to the horseback without another word .
We marched forward and after over a hundred more li, we finally arrived at a small town . According to our usual routine, we wouldn’t stop for the night even if we passed through cities and towns . But this time, the captain approached me on the horse, and reverently said to me in a low voice, “Your Majesty, let’s take a rest here for a night . All of us are exhausted . And it is inconvenient for us to change horses as we have already left the country, so the horses need rest as well . ”
I glanced over the crowds and realized by “all of us”, he just meant Xie Yi and me . I hesitated but still nodded .
At night, we rested in the only hostel the town had . In the midnight, a man in black sneaked into my room, knocked out Xie Yi, who was trying to stop him, wrapped me up with the quilt, and jumped out of the window .
The guards who were supposed to keep watching during the night were immediately alerted, and blew the whistle . Every guard woke up . The man in black didn’t fight with them, and slashed to force a guard who tried to stop him backwards, carried me on the horse he prepared, and left .
Some of the guards found horses in the backyard, and some ran, and they all came after us .
I poked my head out, struggling and yelling towards those came after us, “Help, help . ”
The man in black impatiently raised his black veil, “It’s me, Yang Yan . ”
I rolled my eyes, “Of course I know it’s you, or I wouldn’t have screamed!”
Then I continued to pretend to be a woman being abducted by a villain .
Yang Yan held me tighter in his arms, and whispered, “Then be careful . Don’t scratch my face . ”
I went stiff for a while, then kept punching his chest, shoulder, and everywhere beside his face .
Those with two legs could never outrun those with four . After a while, they all disappeared in the night . I took every chance to rest . Since no one was in sight, I stopped struggling, and only yelled absent-mindedly .
Finally, Yang Yan couldn’t put up with me . He raised his hand as a knife and discussed with me, “Come on, let’s make it look like real . You scream and I knock you out, so you won’t have to scream all the time . ”
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I thought for a while and screamed, but then suddenly stopped before Yang Yan could punch me .
He shot me a glance, “Good . ”
Under the moonlight, I poked behind him, “They won’t catch us, will they?”
Yang Yan chuckled and said complacently, “No . I’ve drugged their horses ahead of time . ”
I was finally reassured, and wrapped the quilt tightly around myself . I found myself a comfortable posture in front of him and told him, “I’ll take a nap now . Wake me up when we are somewhere safe . ”
Then regardless of all things, I was deeply asleep .
When I woke up, we were by the creek . It was already day . We were surrounded by all kinds of trees, as if we were somewhere deep in the forest .
Yang Yan was roasting field rations on the fire, and approached me as he saw me waking up . He lamented, “You are so hard on yourself and asked me to take you away only after you left Jingyang . If I did it just after you crossed the Wan River, like I told you, you would be spared of some days of suffering . ”
I ignored his mumbling, tried to help myself up, and washed my face by the river .
Yang Yan followed, crouched down, kept chattering beside me, “There’s something I don’t understand . If the ninth elder brother told you Qi Sheng was indeed assassinated and poisoned, why would you listen to the old lady and come to the Northern Desert? Isn’t it nice to stay in Sheng City and wait to be an Empress Dowager? When you leave like this, you’ve left some space for the old lady . If she does something shady, there won’t be time for you to react . ”
I didn’t approve what he said . Zhang Fang was still in Sheng City, so there wasn’t much the Grand Empress Dowager could do . But it was different with Qi Sheng . He was the most critical part .
I casually wiped my face with my sleeves, took out a porcelain vial from my inner pocket and asked him, “Do you know what this is?”
Yang Yan took it over, unplugged it and smell, “Antidote?”
I nodded, “If I don’t come by myself, what do we do if someone actually delivers the antidote to Qi Sheng . ”
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Then I took the vial over from Yang Yan, and turned it upside down .
“Ah!?” Yang Yan hurriedly covered the opening of the vial and looked at me, surprised . He asked seriously, “Have you thought it through?”
Have I thought it through?
I thought again, and then firmly poured the half vial of the antidote pills of the size of beans into river . One by one, the black pills were all flowing away with water, and soon they were nowhere to be seen .
Qi Sheng and I were already at a time whether he died or I would . So there was no meaning to get emotional, or talk about feelings or love! It didn’t count for anything at all!
Yang Yan went silent for a long while, then he sighed, “Zhang Pengpeng, you are indeed merciless . ”
Somehow, I felt down as well, looking at the river blankly . I replied, “Thanks for the compliment . ”
Yang Yan was choked speechless by my words, looking at me with his eyes widened .
I didn’t feel it was a right time to be sentimental, so I held my hands against my waist, returned to the fire with my injured legs, and started to eat the ration .
Yang Yan let out a sigh and asked me, “What do we do next?”
I shook my head, “We’ll hide for a few more days and see what the north tour army do . If they secretly return to the country, we can be sure that Qi Sheng is really dying . Then we’ll contact the Zhang Family and they’ll help me into the army . I’ll return to Sheng City with Qi Sheng’s coffin . By then, there is nothing the Grand Empress Dowager can do . If nothing happens in the army, or they continue heading north…”
“Then what?” Yang Yan asked .
I smiled, “That means Qi Sheng lives, and we have to elope . ”
Yang Yan was truly shocked . After a while, he jumped up from the ground and yelled, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Still having half a piece of cake in my mouth, I tilted my head and squinted at him, “What’s wrong with it?”
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Yang Yan suddenly turned bashful, rubbing his head and telling me shyly, “If I knew it, I would’ve brought more money . We need money to elope, otherwise, how can we get away?”
Hearing his words, the cake stuck in my throat, and I was almost choked to death .
Yang Yan hastily came over to pat on my back, and kept asking, “Do you need water? Do you need any water? We don’t have tea now, what about some water from the river?”
I coughed so hard that tears streamed down . I pushed away his hand and looked up at him . I asked him bitterly, “Why are you still bearing grudges? You are indeed a girl dressed up like a man, aren’t you?”
Yang Yan squatted to face me, then he couldn’t contain his laughter .
His bright laughter travelled far, and the birds in the forest were startled and flew away . I was startled as well, hastily covered his mouth, and scolded in a low voice, “Are you courting death? If someone catches you, it will be the end of you!”
Yang Yan kept his laughter under the throat and it took him long time to stop . He pushed me away indifferently, and smiled, “Don’t worry . I’ve left these pursuers far behind . No one can ever catch us . ”
He was confident and I was dubious . Yang Yan was never a man to rely on .
The next morning, it suddenly snowed . Yang Yan was ecstatic, and he yelled, “The snow came just at the right time . It will cover our tracks and it will be a miracle if Qi Sheng’s men find us!”
I was finally relieved, and asked Yang Yan whether he could find any hunter in the mountain that could offer us some hot soup .
Yang Yan pounded on his chest and promised me he could . But we wandered in the mountains for days and no one turned up .
I got no way but to give up the luxurious dream of some hot soup and asked Yang Yan to take me out of the mountain . Since we had already got rid of the pursuers, we should head to Jingyang, and tried to get some news on the north tour army .
Yang Yan nodded and looked serious . He took me wander in the mountain for another couple of days . Not only didn’t we make it out the mountain, but we were lost .
I was furious and asked him, “You told me that you grew up in the mountain and wouldn’t get lost even with your eyes closed, didn’t you?
Yang Yan looked a bit embarrassed, “I was talking about mountains outside Taixing City!”
Heck, Taixing was thousands of miles away from here! How would the mountain there be the same as those here?
I was so mad that my lung aches . After I kicked him several times, I sat down on the ground, panting .
Yang Yan dusted off the snow on his clothes, and comforted me, “On the brighter side, since we don’t know where we are, there’s no way the pursuers can find us . ”
Considering our current situation, I had to delude myself, otherwise I’d get anxious . But reality soon proved that Yang Yan was not only unreliable, his words usually meant the opposite .
The next evening after he said that, the pursuers found us .
I was counting the number of cakes in the pocket under the tree . Yang Yan, who was on top of the tree for inspection, jumped down from branches, squatted beside me, looking nervous . He said to me in a low voice, “I have three things to tell you . ”
He put it in a such serious way, so I turned my gaze from the cakes to him .
“First, pursuers are already here . ”
I was shocked and the cake dropped on the ground .
“Second, it seems that Qi Sheng is leading the army .
The pocket in my hand dropped on the snow ground with a thud .
Yang Yan looked down, and said hesitantly, “Third, I’m planning to escape by myself . ”
I jumped up from the ground and went at him, choking his neck with my hands . I yelled, “Yang Yan! Go to hell!”