The scorching wind, carrying the acrid smell of smoke, melted the snowflakes that had yet to fall in the night sky.
A barefoot child ran crying from a house engulfed in flames, only to be cut down by mountain bandits after a few steps in the snow. The splattered blood stained the hooves of Sui Yuanqing’s horse.
He toyed with a gleaming dagger in his hand, looking down at County Magistrate Liu: “Wasn’t it your plan to kidnap me and placate the people’s anger? For every person I lost in Qingping County that day, I’ll take back a hundred or a thousandfold tonight.”
He tapped the magistrate’s face with his dagger, sneering: “You claim not to know the identity of the man in the blue demon mask, nor the maid from your household who captured me?”
The blade suddenly plunged downward, opening a gash on the magistrate’s body. Liu immediately howled like a slaughtered pig.
Sui Yuanqing spoke deliberately: “Do you know now?”
To claim credit for quelling the uprising in Qingping County, Magistrate Liu had falsely announced that he and his subordinates had planned the capture of Sui Yuanqing’s group. Only now did he realize his grave error.
His fat face trembling, he cried with snot and tears: “This lowly one truly doesn’t know where that woman lives. She’s not a maid from my household. I only know her name is Fan Changyu, a butcher’s daughter from Lin’an Town. I beg Your High—”
A scarred man rode up from among the bandits. Sui Yuanqing’s expression changed, and he slit the magistrate’s throat before he could utter “Highness,” throwing the body off the horse.
The scarred man, hearing that Sui Yuanqing was searching for a woman, said discontentedly: “Fifth Brother, didn’t you say you were looking for the person who injured you that day? Why are you inquiring about a maid from his household?”
Sui Yuanqing smiled slightly: “My enemy is indeed a maid from the magistrate’s household.”
Upon hearing this, the scarred man’s expression relaxed, but his tone remained threatening: “Given Thirteenth Sister’s temperament, she won’t tolerate any of your outside dalliances.”
Sui Yuanqing’s smile didn’t reach his eyes: “Elder Brother jests. That woman nearly sent me to a watery grave. This grudge must be settled, no matter what.”
The scarred man looked at the dead magistrate on the ground. “Our brothers have already ransacked the magistrate’s residence and found no skilled maid. You rode out over ten miles to search but found nothing. Could she fly or vanish into thin air?”
He turned to Sui Yuanqing: “We’ve plundered Qingping County clean. The troops from Ji Prefecture will surely come to suppress us soon. We must return to Qingfeng Stronghold quickly.”
His implication was clear – he didn’t want Sui Yuanqing to continue searching for the woman.
Sui Yuanqing tugged at his reins, steadying his restless steed. With a faint smile, he said: “I’ll follow Elder Brother’s lead.”
Seeing that Sui Yuanqing had indeed given up the search for the woman who had wounded him, the scarred man was somewhat satisfied. He shouted: “After we finish plundering this town, we return to Qingfeng Stronghold!”
Sui Yuanqing, with a long spear hanging from his saddle, spurred his horse to follow at a leisurely pace. When a ragged townsperson darted out from a dark alley, he casually struck out a spray of blood without even blinking.
Witnessing this, the scarred man seemed to finally let down his guard completely and rode off to inspect elsewhere.
Sui Yuanqing, however, gripped his spear and lowered his head slightly on horseback, asking the person he had struck down and left half-dead on the ground, “Where does Fan Changyu live?”
As this name left his lips, his smile took on an intriguing edge, tinged with a hint of aggression and destructiveness.
Finding that woman would likely lead him to the man in the blue demon mask as well.
The person on the ground, with blood gushing from their chest, extended a trembling hand, driven by survival instinct, and pointed in a direction: “West… west of the city…”
Sui Yuanqing spurred his horse, heading west through the fire and flying snow.
The not-yet-fully-healed wound on his side twinged with faint pain from the horse’s jolting, but it did nothing to diminish the pleasure in his heart.
Lin’an Town was far less prosperous than Qingping County. The mountain bandits, having just plundered Qingping County, found this bony morsel of Lin’an Town less appealing. They mainly targeted wealthy households, finding it troublesome to raid poorer homes.
Most of the time, they couldn’t find much silver and had to threaten the hiding residents with knives to make them reveal their well-hidden savings from various nooks and crannies.
As Sui Yuanqing rode into the alley where Fan Changyu’s home was located, he saw many people—old and young—lying scattered in the alley. He was holding someone he had captured along the way.
Thinking his prey might have already been taken by others, he narrowed his eyes, his tone still lazy but turning cold: “Which house belongs to Fan Changyu?”
The bloodied person in his grasp tremblingly pointed to the second house from the end of the alley.
Sui Yuanqing released the person, who thought he had escaped death and began to crawl away. Just as he stood up, a knife pierced his chest, and he fell straight down, adding another corpse to the ground.
Sui Yuanqing glanced at the fresh blood on the knife he had picked up, disgustedly pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his hands, and then stepped into Fan’s house.
The Fan residence had been ransacked. The courtyard was a mess, and the main house door stood wide open, not looking like anyone was hiding inside.
Yet Sui Yuanqing showed no intention of leaving. He held up a torch and entered the house.
Inside, all drawers and cabinets were open, jars and bottles shattered on the floor, and bedding strewn about—the work of someone searching for hidden silver.
He was about to leave when he noticed another door behind the kitchen. After a moment’s hesitation, he walked over with his torch.
Opening the door revealed the Fan family’s backyard: a pigsty, a well covered with a heavy stone slab, and a stone bench used for slaughtering pigs.
Sui Yuanqing scanned the area and was turning to leave when his gaze fell on the stone slab covering the old well. He suddenly stopped.
By the torchlight, he could see a finger-thick layer of snow on the stone slab covering the old well, but there was also a thick layer of snow on the ground beneath the well’s edge, shielded by the slab.
The stone slab had been placed there recently.
Why cover the well with a slab?
Naturally, to hide something at the bottom of the well.
The stone slab looked to weigh over a hundred jin. Anyone else might have assumed this was just an abandoned well and walked away.
Sui Yuanqing, however, began to laugh softly, his eyes curving into pleasant crescents, seeming to be in a good mood.
He walked towards the slab-covered well, torch in hand, step by step. The clear “crunch” of snow under his feet, mixed with the distant wailing, seemed to tread on someone’s heartstrings.
As he reached out to lift the stone slab, a murderous intent swept towards him from behind.
Sui Yuanqing quickly dodged to the side. A boning knife grazed past his ear and embedded itself in the courtyard wall not far away.
Before Sui Yuanqing could look towards where the boning knife had come from, the person hiding on the roof had already leaped down with the agility of a leopard. Their hand, wielding a bleeding knife, once again aimed straight for his vital points.
Sui Yuanqing dodged on instinct, but his opponent held two knives. One slashed past while the other chopped down, giving him no chance to breathe.
This time, Fan Changyu truly intended to kill. The old well concealed Changning, Madam Zhao, and several neighboring families. If she failed, they would surely die.
Her knife strikes were swift and fierce. In her left hand was a cleaver, in her right a bleeding knife that could both slash and stab. Her moves could hardly be called techniques; she simply sought speed, forcing her opponent to defend without any chance to counterattack.
Sui Yuanqing tried several times to draw his sword, but Fan Changyu’s relentless knife attacks forced him to abandon the attempt. He could only retreat repeatedly to avoid her advancing blade.
He resorted to using his torch as a weapon, wielding it so that it whistled through the air, its flames trailing like an orange-yellow ribbon. But Fan Changyu’s attacks did not lessen, leaving him no opportunity to counterattack.
Sui Yuanqing dared not directly parry her butcher’s knives with his torch. He could only use it to strike the backs of her blades or dodge and block.
This made his defense particularly strenuous, especially since his opponent seemed tireless. Not only were her knife strikes swift and fierce, but even after fighting for so long, her strength hadn’t diminished at all. The base of his thumb had split open from the impact, and his hand holding the torch was going numb.
Sui Yuanqing cursed inwardly at this woman’s monstrous stamina.
In the flickering light, Fan Changyu’s eyes were cold and sharp, like a tiger or leopard tearing at an intruder, filled with a ruthless determination to fight to the death. It was completely different from the naive and honest demeanor she had shown when they first met.
When she became fierce, there was an inexplicably captivating quality to the corners of her eyes and the arch of her brows.
Sui Yuanqing stared at this beautiful yet severe face, momentarily dazed. In that instant, the torch in his hand was sliced in two, and the bleeding knife plunged deep into his shoulder blade. If his opponent had exerted more force to twist the blade, half his arm might have been severed.
The intense pain snapped Sui Yuanqing back to his senses. Just before Fan Changyu could sever his tendons, he shouted: “If you harm me, neither you nor the people in the well will leave here alive.”
Fan Changyu’s knife paused.
Sui Yuanqing immediately found his bargaining chip and said: “If you let me go, I’ll spare you and those in the well.”
Fan Changyu coldly retorted: “Why should I trust you?”
Just then, a mountain bandit outside, having discovered Sui Yuanqing’s horse left in the alley, called out: “Fifth Boss, are you in there?”
Blood from Sui Yuanqing’s wound had soaked half his clothes. He raised an eyebrow nonchalantly: “Whether you believe me or not is up to you.”
All decisions had to be made in an instant. Before the people outside could enter, Fan Changyu withdrew the bleeding knife from Sui Yuanqing’s shoulder blade and switched to a small boning knife, pressing it against the space between his left ribs.
A thrust there would pierce his heart.
Fan Changyu spoke in a low voice: “I told you last time that I’d show you how we bleed pigs during the New Year. If you don’t behave, this knife will send you to meet the King of Hell before me.”
Using the knife to keep him in check, she pulled him up. As she kicked away the huge stone slab covering the well mouth, the mountain bandits searching for people in the Fan residence heard the noise and headed towards the backyard.
Several torches illuminated this small space. The group saw Sui Yuanqing pressing a woman against the wall, with a discarded wooden door lying on the ground, seemingly the source of the earlier noise.
Little did they know that beneath that door lay the bleeding knife that had just gouged a large hole in Sui Yuanqing’s shoulder blade.
Sui Yuanqing’s wound hadn’t healed, and he wore a thick cloak over his shoulders. At this moment, the woman’s form was completely hidden within the cloak.
Seeing this, the group of mountain bandits exchanged knowing smiles.
One of them said: “We’ve interrupted Fifth Boss’s good time.”
Sui Yuanqing only laughed and cursed: “Since you know, why don’t you get out of here?”
As he casually draped his arm around Fan Changyu’s waist, she pushed her boning knife forward slightly. The skin on his chest was lightly cut, the cold edge of the blade pressing against his flesh. Sui Yuanqing finally restrained himself, his hand resting lightly on Fan Changyu’s clothes, appearing at a glance to be an embrace.
However, he lowered his voice and teased: “If you want to use me as a hostage, how else can I get you out and help you conceal the people in the well?”
Fan Changyu remained silent, but the knife’s edge didn’t advance further.
She leaned against his chest, seemingly shy, with most of her face hidden by the cloak. In reality, she was coldly holding the knife to his vital point.
Sui Yuanqing lowered his gaze to look at her ear, the only part visible in the firelight. A tingling itch arose at the root of his teeth, and he longed to bite that earlobe, preferably hard enough to draw blood and leave a mark.
Just thinking about it filled him with an inexplicable pleasure.
He had fallen into this woman’s hands twice now, each time more severely injured than the last.
Surprisingly, he didn’t feel annoyed. Having grown accustomed to women who were submissive to him, this experience felt strangely novel.
It was like taming a wild horse; he enjoyed the feeling of slowly bringing her under his control.
However, the memory of her calling out to the man in the blue demon mask as they fell from the building flashed through his mind, intensifying the itch at the root of his teeth. He lowered his head slightly, bringing his lips close to her ear to ask: “Why hasn’t that masked man come to help you this time?”
Fan Changyu’s boning knife unhesitatingly pressed forward a fraction.
Feeling the coolness against his chest, Sui Yuanqing’s lips curved into a thin smile as he straightened up.
To onlookers, this scene appeared as if he had whispered something flirtatious to the woman in his arms. The group of bandits cast lecherous glances towards the woman hidden under Sui Yuanqing’s cloak.
However, Fan Changyu’s entire form was concealed by the cloak. They could only tell that she seemed taller than the average woman, but nothing else was discernible.
Sui Yuanqing said: “Let’s go. Elder Brother must be getting impatient.”
Using the cloak as cover, Fan Changyu kept the boning knife pressed against him as they walked out, her mind working on a plan.
After this commotion, hardly any bandits paid attention to the well in the courtyard.
The old well was originally used as a cellar and had a rope ladder inside. Once the bandits left, the people in the well could climb up using the ladder.
She only needed to hold this man hostage until she estimated Madam Zhao and the others had escaped with Changning. Then she would have him take her to a secluded place, where she could easily overpower him and escape on her own.
However… after the Ji Prefecture officials had quelled the rebellion and discovered this man was a rebel from Chong Prefecture, how had he become involved with this group of mountain bandits?
The official notice posted by the government didn’t specify Sui Yuanqing’s identity. Fan Changyu only knew he was a rebel, not that he was the Crown Prince of Long Xin.
As Fan Changyu pondered this, a sudden shout came from outside the alley: “The Big Boss is here!”
Fan Changyu discreetly glanced at the man the bandits called Big Boss, only to see his face twisted in anger as he lashed out with a whip directly at her.
Fan Changyu knew she couldn’t block that whip. In the instant the scarred man struck, she yanked her boning knife to the side.
She didn’t stab deeper, but she did widen the wound.
Faced with this silent threat, Sui Yuanqing’s smile deepened. As the whip was about to strike her, he caught it barehanded.
The force of the whip rebounded onto his hand, instantly raising a welt on the back of his hand. Yet he seemed oblivious to the pain, raising his eyes to look at the scarred man on horseback: “What is Elder Brother doing?”
The scar-faced man barked, “You plan to bring this woman back to Qingfeng Stronghold?”
Sui Yuanqing replied calmly, “It’s not easy to find someone who suits my tastes.”
Without hesitation, the scar-faced man threw a blade at Sui Yuanqing’s feet. “If you still want to marry Lady Thirteen, then kill this woman.”