When the woman’s desperate scream rang out from the top of the watchtower, Li Yuangui was lost in thought.
It wasn’t that he was frightened senseless or mentally confused, but rather… well, as a hostage who temporarily didn’t want to resist, what else could he do besides space out?
His unwillingness to resist wasn’t from fear of immediate death. His mind was clear—he understood that the fierce Hu warrior “Qibi Luo” holding a knife to his back had one main purpose: to buy time, allowing the young master Sang Sai to escape down the Cuiyun Peak cliff along their entry route.
After realizing this, Li Yuangui hesitated for a moment, then decided to let that little brat escape first.
It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to prevent it. Qibi Luo was holding him hostage at the watchtower’s main entrance—the north gate—to draw the palace guards’ attention and buy time for Sang Sai’s retreat. Sang Sai must have exited through the south gate and would be climbing down the cliff using two thick ropes tied to the tower’s foundation pillars. Li Yuangui could have simply shouted for the guards to send men around to the back of the tower and cut the ropes, likely turning the Tuyuhun prince into pulp.
However, then he might never find his seventeenth sister, born of the same mother.
He wondered how Yang Xinzhi and the others were doing with the search and rescue… Thinking of his tall guard made Li Yuangui somewhat anxious. Yang’s “Meat Tower” was skilled in fighting and even better than Li Yuangui at socializing and entertainment, but searching, tracking, investigating, and secretly rescuing people required subtlety and patience, not to mention discretion. With Yang Xinzhi’s booming voice shouting everywhere, he’d probably scare off that merchant Hu named An before getting anywhere near him.
If only he had more suitable people for searching for his seventeenth sister. But he had no other trustworthy people.
Led by Yang Xinzhi, along with two clever young servants from his Prince of Wu mansion, plus a Hu courtesan dressed as a man named Fendu to translate for the foreigners—that was all the manpower the Prince of Wu could spare. Oh yes, and thanks to Yin A’tuo’s reminder, there were also two hunting hounds raised in his mansion.
During their second meeting with the Tuyuhun prince days ago, Sang Sai had deliberately brought a young merchant. None of them had seen this Hu merchant before, but his features seemed strangely familiar. When he removed his pointed Hu hat to bow in greeting, Li Yuangui and the others burst out laughing—what a shiny, completely bald head.
Without introduction, they all guessed this was the son of Kang Sumi’s steward An San the Bald, who introduced himself as “An Yanna” and, like his father, spoke fluent Northwestern-accented Chinese. However, he wasn’t just there to translate for Sang Sai. The Tuyuhun prince maliciously specified that the Seventeenth Princess would be under this young Master An’s “care,” and that An Yanna had suffered severe whipping at the Kang mansion a few days ago, barely able to walk and incapable of anything else, so Li Yuangui needn’t worry.
To prove Sang Sai’s words, An Yanna reluctantly removed his robe to show his back, indeed wrapped in hemp bandages still seeping fresh blood.
Li Yuangui suddenly recalled something and asked them, “That night when I visited Commissioner Kang’s mansion and heard someone crying out in the middle of the night, Kang Sabo said it was a servant being whipped—was that young Master An?”
Both Sang Sai and An Yanna nodded in confirmation. Li Yuangui pressed further: “Why was young Master An punished?”
An Yanna’s face darkened and he hesitated to answer, but Sang Sai spoke freely, rattling off an explanation. Fendu translated: after Sang Sai arrived at the Kang mansion in Chang’an, he became good friends with An Yanna—”You mean your gold bars became good friends with him,” Li Yuangui thought—and An Yanna, behind the backs of Kang Sumi and his father An San, had secretly led Sang Sai’s group into the forbidden garden and burned down Ganye Temple. When they returned, Kang Sumi found out and was furious. To appease his master’s anger and prove his innocence, An San personally gave his son a severe whipping, leading An Yanna to harbor resentment toward both his father and the Sabo.
“But why did you want to burn down Ganye Temple?” One question was answered, but more emerged.
Sang Sai wouldn’t give an honest answer to this, swaying his head and spouting nonsense about “divine will that cannot be revealed.” Li Yuangui’s main concern wasn’t there anyway, so he let it slide, focusing instead on repeatedly persuading Sang Sai to return his seventeenth sister first as proof of their sincere cooperation.
But the Tuyuhun prince wasn’t stupid; no matter what was said, he wouldn’t budge. Besides emphasizing An Yanna’s severe injuries, he added that another person guarding the Princess was a eunuch, so “nothing would happen,” and they would return the young Princess immediately after the plan was accomplished.
This Sang Sai, having heard who knows what propaganda, believed that “Han people value women’s chastity above all,” and thought that ensuring this point would put Li Yuangui at ease. Of course, that was impossible. Both sides argued fiercely, almost coming to blows.
In the end, it was Chai Yinglu who smoothed things over. The Daoist priestess went to An Yanna’s side, took out a small knife to cut open the hemp bandages on the young merchant’s back, carefully examined his whip wounds, confirmed Sang Sai wasn’t lying, and advised her young uncle to be patient for now. Seeing her meaningful glances, Li Yuangui knew something was up, but having no other options, he had to agree.
After settling other plan details like forging fish tokens and buying good horses, they parted ways. Chai Yinglu produced a blood-stained hemp bandage from her sleeve as if by magic, handing it to Li Yuangui, saying she’d cut it from An Yanna’s back. “What’s this for?” Yang Xinzhi asked stupidly, and Chai Yinglu replied impatiently, “Don’t you have hunting hounds?”
So they sat down to discuss where to start the search with the dogs. The Seventeenth Princess had been taken at Palace People’s Slope by these Hu people, who were unfamiliar with the area and concerned about the palace guards—where would they hide a young lady?
Seventeenth Sister, where are you now?
Just as Li Yuangui was lost in exhausted thoughts, a woman’s sharp scream suddenly rang out from the watchtower above, continuing endlessly as it fell toward the cliff below.
Thinking of Chai Yinglu and Wei Shubin up on the observation platform, Li Yuangui’s scalp tingled and his whole body tensed. Qibi Luo behind him also seemed startled, his knife hand trembling, pressing forward slightly.
Li Yuangui felt a chill at his back as the knife tip tore through his vest and pierced his skin. But Qibi Luo didn’t want to kill his hostage so quickly, and upon realizing he’d wounded his captive’s back, immediately made a motion to stop his thrust.
That was enough.
In a flash, Li Yuangui fell forward and rolled. His hands were bound behind his back, leaving him unable to defend himself, but his legs were free. Anticipating that Qibi Luo would step forward to deliver a powerful downward strike at his body, Li Yuangui listened to the wind while holding his breath braced his shoulder against the ground, and swept one leg up in a horizontal arc. With a clang, his foot connected squarely with Qibi Luo’s blade.
If the sword-wielder had been Sang Sai, this kick might have knocked the weapon from his hands. But Qibi Luo was far more steady and powerful, turning his wrist to deflect most of the force while maintaining a firm grip on his sword, quickly stepping forward to continue his attack on Li Yuangui without delay. This strike Li Yuangui had no way to block.
Fortunately, that counter-kick had succeeded not only in blocking the most dangerous threat but also allowed Li Yuangui to use the momentum to roll outward. Since the Cuiyun Peak watchtower was built on a steep slope, Li Yuangui was rolling from high ground to low, and with the added force from his kick, his speed increased as he tumbled awkwardly toward the palace guards.
If the commanding officer still hadn’t figured out what to do by now, Li Yuangui cursed silently, I’ll kill your entire family.