He had done so much for her, yet never asked anything of her in return. The phrase he said most often was “As long as you’re safe.”

Now… could she really repay kindness with enmity?

Jiang Caiping was right – Li Shimin truly was a good person. But why, why did he have to be Li Yuan’s son, the son of a rebel who sought to usurp the Great Sui Dynasty?!

If she spared Li Shimin today, she might never have another chance to kill him, and it would put herself in danger and lose the opportunity to assassinate Li Yuan.

What… should she do?

Yunyi bit her silver teeth tightly, her hand gripping the dagger tighter and tighter, but she still couldn’t bring herself to strike. After a long while, she dejectedly threw away the dagger. Even knowing that sparing Li Shimin might harm herself, she still couldn’t harden her heart.

Yunyi laughed mockingly and looked at Li Shimin lying on the ground, saying, “Today I’m sparing you. In the future, would you spare me? I suppose not, after all…” Her expression darkened as she said, “I killed Li Xuanba.”

The unconscious Li Shimin naturally couldn’t answer her. Yunyi took a light breath, picked up the dagger from the ground, and endured the pain as she swayed to her feet. Since Li Shimin had fallen off the cliff, those people would surely come looking. She had to leave before they arrived.

The night in the third month was warm one moment and cold the next. The wind felt quite chilly against her body. After taking just a few steps, Yunyi suddenly stopped, staring ahead in panic at more than ten greenish glowing lights.

No, they weren’t lights – they were wolves’ eyes. About seven or eight wolves were eyeing them menacingly, continuously emitting low growls from their mouths.

This was bad. The smell of blood from Li Shimin’s body must have attracted the wolf pack. Damn it, Li Shimin was unconscious, she was injured, and she only had a dagger – how could she possibly fight off a wolf pack!

Before Yunyi could think of a solution, the two leading wolves roared and pounced forward, their gaze fixed on Li Shimin lying on the ground. If Yunyi took this opportunity to leave, she would have a very good chance of escaping unharmed, but… she couldn’t do it. In fact, if she could have, she would have already killed Li Shimin earlier.

Just as the two wolves were about to pounce on Li Shimin, Yunyi leaped forward with her toes pushing off the ground, flying to his front. A cold flash from her hand slashed across the necks of both wolves. Warm fresh blood splattered across Yunyi’s face as the two wolves convulsed and fell to the ground, never to rise again.

She had no time to wipe the blood away before she had to dance her dagger to block several more wolves that pounced afterward. However, this time she didn’t have the same good fortune. These wolves were extremely cunning and didn’t engage Yunyi directly. Instead, they circled around her in a fighting pattern, biting when she wasn’t paying attention. In a short while, Yunyi had several bite wounds on her body. Fortunately, none were deep, and during this time, she had only killed one wolf, leaving four wolves staring at them with jade-green eyes.

Yunyi was breathing heavily. She felt her strength reaching its limit. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before she and Li Shimin were torn apart alive by the wolf pack. Unfortunately, she had used up all her sleeve arrows earlier, or they might have been useful. Damn it, what should she do now?

After blocking another attack from the wolf pack, Yunyi remembered something and quickly took out a fire starter from her bosom. After blowing it slightly brighter, she threw it in front of the wolf pack.

It was now the third month, when vegetation was abundant. The grass on the ground, more than half a foot long, quickly caught fire when it met the flames and rapidly spread in all directions. Although wolves were cunning, fearing fire was their nature. Seeing the fire spread toward them, they couldn’t spare time to attack Yunyi and hurriedly retreated, giving her this opportunity.

However, Yunyi wasn’t having it easy either. The fire was also burning toward her side. If she were alone, she could still climb up the cliff face to avoid the fire, but with Li Shimin there, this path was clearly impossible. She could only drag Li Shimin to the cliff edge and, before the fire completely burned over, use her dagger to dig a trench in the ground to block the fire’s spread.

Although the wolf pack was forced back and temporarily couldn’t approach, they hadn’t given up on their prey. They kept circling not far away, likely ready to pounce and tear Yunyi and Li Shimin apart as soon as the fire died out.

For Yunyi now, fire was the only thing that could keep them safe. She was afraid of the fire burning over but didn’t dare let it die out. She continuously threw broken branches within reach into the fire to maintain the burning, but the area where she could move was limited. Those branches and fallen leaves would eventually burn up – she had to think of other solutions quickly.

At this moment, Li Shimin, lying on the ground, made a faint groaning sound, his eyelids trembling slightly – he was about to wake up. Yunyi was startled and quickly tore a piece of cloth from her clothing to cover her face. She had just finished doing this when Li Shimin opened his eyes. Seeing Yunyi beside him by the firelight, his first reaction was to grip her hand tightly and say with difficulty, “Don’t think of escaping!”

Yunyi pointed ahead and said in a hoarse voice, “Look clearly first!”

Li Shimin was stunned. Following the direction she pointed, he saw the wolf pack growling lowly outside the fire circle and the several wolf corpses not far away. He understood the meaning of those words and struggled to sit up, saying, “There are four wolves total here. The one on the left with the particularly robust build should be the leader.”

Yunyi stared at Li Shimin’s hand that hadn’t released its grip and said coldly, “They haven’t started calling for companions yet. We must kill them before that happens, or none of us will survive.”

Although Li Shimin very much wanted to capture Yunyi, he also knew that the most urgent matter was to kill the wolf pack. Thinking this, he slowly released his hand. After enduring the pain to reset his dislocated right hand, he leaned against the cliff wall covered in cold sweat and said breathlessly, “How many wolves can you handle at once?”

Yunyi thought for a moment and said, “Two, that’s already my limit.” After saying this, she looked at Li Shimin. “What about you? Can you fight?”

“Do I have a choice?” Li Shimin had no weapons on him. After looking around, he picked up a branch as thick as an arm. When the fire was about to burn out, he threw one end of the branch into the fire. After it caught fire like a torch, he supported himself against the stone wall to stand up. After catching his breath, he said, “I’ll draw away the other two wolves for you. Kill them as quickly as possible, especially that alpha wolf!”

“Good!” While they were talking, those wolves had already begun slowly approaching. Yunyi gritted her teeth and, before they could pounce, took the initiative to attack, engaging the alpha wolf and another slightly smaller wolf in combat. Li Shimin simultaneously wielded the burning branch in his hand, entangling the other two wolves to prevent them from ganging up on Yunyi.

After suffering another wound, Yunyi finally killed those two wolves. The other two, seeing their leader killed, showed fierce light in their green-glowing wolf eyes. One even opened its mouth full of sharp teeth and raised its head to call for companions. But before it could make a sound, Li Shimin seized an opening and forcefully shoved the torch into its mouth. The wolf, suddenly burned by the fierce fire in its mouth and teeth, was in unbearable pain and struggled continuously, trying to spit out the torch. But Li Shimin had finally caught this opportunity – how could he allow it to escape? No matter which way the wolf’s head swayed, he gripped the torch tightly, not letting it shake free.