Lu Huating lay very still, making no sound after he settled down.

Qun Qing noticed his pallor was wrong. She slipped one hand into her sleeve to check his pulse while the other hand lightly touched his forehead—it burned like boiling water, frightening her so much she immediately soaked a plain handkerchief and laid it over his brow. The hidden weapon had been poisoned; that he’d managed to remain conscious until now was no small feat.

He had already explained clearly how they should escape, and his suggestion that they split up surely meant he couldn’t continue on his own.

But if this man lost consciousness and she left him behind, she wouldn’t be able to control whether he lived or died.

Qun Qing hesitated for a moment.

Meanwhile, Lu Huating felt as though he were trapped in a sea of fire and scorching waves, and his way of dealing with this predicament was to remain absolutely motionless. Yet there was a hand exploring down along his body.

He almost detested being touched by others, but knowing who it was now, for some reason he suppressed his instinctive resistance and endured this cool touch.

They had schemed against each other, fought, guarded against one another, and traveled together.

He understood Qun Qing well—even if she abandoned him, it wouldn’t matter much.

Qun Qing’s touch was careful and gentle. She extracted an ingot of gold from the pouch at his waist, then softly covered him with the quilt. That touch withdrew, leaving him alone to be roasted in the sea of flames.

In the marketplace of Guanxi Town, peddlers and laborers crowded together in noisy chaos as Qun Qing quietly blended into the throng and found the town’s only medical hall.

Along the way, she hadn’t spotted any death warriors. But death warriors excelled at tracking and assassination—if she delayed any longer, that might change.

Qun Qing carried her palace identification with her; heading west would be most convenient for her. However, she first exchanged the gold ingot and purchased a Universal Antidote pill.

This sole medical hall was small, and the inner chamber was chaotic. While Qun Qing collected medicine at the front, several corpses lay stretched out on the floor behind her. A medicine boy was trying to wrap the bodies lying in the hall with straw mats to carry them to the back courtyard.

A young gentleman standing in front of Qun Qing in line kept turning to look at her, then glancing at the corpses, his expression full of pity, as though he very much wanted to lament the situation to her.

Qun Qing almost thought he was a death warrior in disguise and remained highly vigilant, but then noticed his delicate features and refined clothing—he must be from one of the town’s few wealthy households.

Without revealing her thoughts, she glanced at those corpses: “Are these people patients?”

“What patients?” the physician dispensing medicine said with displeasure. “Just vagrant bandits. Young and able-bodied with hands and feet, yet they chose to terrorize the countryside. They fought each other and collapsed under my shop’s signboard, then crawled in begging for medicine, and they can’t even pay for it.”

Though the national chaos had been quelled, bandits bred in the countryside hadn’t been completely eradicated. Such situations weren’t rare. Qun Qing looked again at those corpses: “Are you going to bury them?”

“Bury them?” The physician sneered. “You must be from a prosperous place—we don’t have such customs here. Only those with relatives get buried. This kind that harms the countryside deserves to be laid out in the street for everyone to step on.”

That young gentleman glanced at Qun Qing and said disapprovingly: “Why frighten the young lady? They’re already dead—leaving corpses exposed in the wilderness is so crude. I think we should still bury them.”

The physician spat, but Qun Qing turned her head, her gaze landing on that gentleman’s face, and she smiled faintly at him: “How kind-hearted you are, young sir.”

Moments later, the boy came running out: “That lady and that gentleman were chatting and laughing together, loaded the corpses onto an ox cart, and said they’d bury them for us!”

Immediately after, that gentleman also came running out looking disheveled and panicked: “Did you see that lady? I told her to wait for me while I straightened my clothes, and in that brief moment she drove off with the cart and left me behind!”

Hearing this, the bystanders burst into roaring laughter, leaving the gentleman to beat his chest and stamp his feet: “With six beautiful wives at home, he still has the nerve to seek another’s favor—serves him right this time!”

—

When the sky had barely begun to darken, Lu Huating actually woke up on his own.

He struggled to sit up and poured himself a cup of cold water, gulping it down. His entire body still felt like it was being scorched by heat waves, and the hand holding the cup trembled constantly.

In his field of vision, the candle flame stood in a thin line. He didn’t know how long had passed, but the silence in the room indicated Qun Qing had been gone for some time.

What Qun Qing excelled at most was survival. Better for one person to escape first than for both to be unable to get away.

That had been his plan all along. Yet faced with this reality, he clutched the handkerchief that had fallen from his head, and an indescribable feeling spread through his heart.

Lu Huating set down his teacup and went downstairs. This was the marketplace—the shouts of merchants and peddlers were incessant. He knew that lingering in public view at this moment was extremely risky, yet having fled this far, a sense of indifference arose in his heart. He wandered the street, letting the wind blow through the hair at his temples.

Seeing his brocade clothing, merchants crowded around him. A flower vendor said: “Will you buy flowers, young sir?”

Lu Huating picked up a velvet flower and looked at it expressionlessly. This ornament meant for a lady was so delicate it required fingers to support it to maintain its shape, the soft fibers trembling in the wind.

Amid the chattering voices, colorful masks fluttered in the wind with rustling sounds. More than half the masks on the rack were fierce demon faces, concealing murderous intent.

The mask seller, carrying a wooden rack loaded with masks, silently approached him through the crowd, suddenly drew a long blade from the rack, and slashed at him from behind.

The instant the blade’s edge disturbed the velvet flower, Lu Huating grasped an arrow and thrust it backward through the man’s abdomen. His mood seemed to have reached its worst—he used such force that the man toppled backward along with his heavy wooden rack, blood spraying out and causing all the surrounding merchants to cry out in alarm, quickly clearing an open space.

The death warriors in the crowd immediately shed their disguises and swarmed toward him like sharks scenting blood.

Surrounded, Lu Huating seemed oblivious. He looked down at the man on the ground and smiled coldly: “Did I tell you to disturb me?”

In an instant, several people were fighting in a tangled mass.

On the nearly cleared street, the sound of bells rang out.

An ox cart came racing toward them, taking over the street. Seeing the scene with the lampposts knocked askew, Qun Qing’s heart clenched. She had the driver stop the cart, then lifted the side curtain and called out: “Lu Huating!”

Lu Huating paused for a moment.

In the chaos, two people working together managed to pull him onto the cart.

The ox cart had been hacked several times by blades but fortunately hadn’t fallen apart. It flew out of the street like the wind.

The cart driver was a former subordinate from Prince Yan’s mansion. Having encountered Qun Qing on the road, he was well-practiced at evading assassination attempts and asked, “Lord Lu, where do we go from here?”

Lu Huating’s old shoulder wound hadn’t healed. With difficulty, he pulled out a prepared map and tossed it to the driver, then leaned against the cart wall and caught his breath.

Qun Qing said: “How did you run into them?”

Seeing Lu Huating remain silent for a long while, she guessed those people must have tracked him to the inn and there had been a fierce battle. Qun Qing handed him the antidote pill: “Take it.”

Lu Huating looked at the pill: “This is what you borrowed my money for?”

Qun Qing’s expression didn’t change: “I wasn’t carrying any money.”

Lu Huating: “Why didn’t you just leave?”

Qun Qing didn’t speak.

She had indeed taken some risks, but at least they were traveling together again. Now that he sat beside her perfectly fine, she actually felt fortunate.

“Do you know you have a fever?” After a long silence, Qun Qing spoke this sentence, then realized her words seemed to overstep boundaries and immediately stopped, feeling somewhat regretful.

Having observed Princess Bao’an’s fate since childhood, she had become afraid of those who indulged in love and absolutely refused to be earnestly forward. Moreover, from the first time she’d encountered Lu Huating at that banquet, she’d never seen him show warmth toward any lady.

Perhaps he was the same—completely uninterested in matters between men and women. If someone were earnestly forward, that person would surely annoy him.

The awkward thing was, this ox cart had originally been that gentleman’s vehicle. The interior was cramped, and at their feet was stuffed a wooden chest. Qun Qing didn’t want to touch Lu Huating, but the two of them were pressed almost against each other.

Lu Huating was like a taut bowstring. From the moment he’d boarded the cart, he’d tried his best not to move. His fever hadn’t subsided—heat passed through his clothing, transforming into a strange sensation that traveled from his side into her body.

Qun Qing suddenly thought of something that needed doing and began to unfasten her dress.

Lu Huating froze for a moment. When he saw her open the wooden chest at their feet—inside were one male and one female corpse—he understood and also removed his outer garment: “I was just about to look for these. The lady found them first.”

Dressing corpses was clearly something he was quite practiced at. Qun Qing watched as Lu Huating fitted outer garments onto both corpses in the bouncing cart cabin. He stared for a moment at the bare hairpin on the female corpse’s head, then reached toward her: “Give me your hair ornaments too.”

Qun Qing removed all the hairpins from her head and placed them in his hand.

The ox cart had been racing along but now came to an abrupt stop. Qun Qing grabbed the cart wall to steady herself.

“Lord Lu, the map is wrong—there’s no road ahead!” the driver said in alarm.

Qun Qing immediately looked outside. Tree leaves rustled on all sides, the mountain ranges across the way were hidden in mist, and the setting sun spread across the path ahead, illuminating a cliff edge.

Lu Huating said: “The map is correct. This is the place. You go first and find somewhere to hide.”

From outside came the driver’s acknowledgment. The ox driver handed the whip to Lu Huating, his boots crunching on dead leaves as he ran into the distance.

Judging by Lu Huating’s reaction, they shouldn’t have reached a desperate situation yet, but with a cliff ahead and pursuers behind, Qun Qing’s heart couldn’t remain calm. Lu Huating leaned forward to lower the cart curtain, very much with an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude.

The ox cart just stopped there bizarrely in the middle of the road. Only the two of them remained inside.

The death warriors hadn’t caught up yet, and the surroundings were terrifyingly quiet. The cart corner bell was blown by the wind, making ethereal ringing sounds. In this instant, Qun Qing had an illusion—as if only the two of them remained in all the world around them.

“Lady Qing.” Amid the silence, Lu Huating suddenly spoke. “Can you feel it?”

With this question, Qun Qing’s heart suddenly jumped, thinking she must have misunderstood: “What?”

Lu Huating reached out and lifted a strand of hair from her shoulder.

She had already been discourteous by removing her hairpins and letting her hair fall loose. This gesture from Lu Huating was even more frivolously discourteous than anything he’d done before. Qun Qing looked up in surprise at her jet-black hair wound around his long fingers.

Hair shouldn’t be connected to any body part. Yet Qun Qing felt thread-like tingles following his subtle movements, pouring into the crown of her head and spreading throughout her entire body.

Lu Huating wound her hair around his fingers as if carefully sensing something, then raised his dark eyes to look into hers, his voice very soft, as if seriously inquiring: “Then why do I feel it?”

Qun Qing found it hard to describe her feelings in this moment.

Her body felt frozen in place. Yet rustling footsteps came from far to near—her ears, her judgment painted the scene outside the cart: death warriors carrying blades were about to surround the ox cart.

After a long while, she finally found words: “Abandon the cart.”

Lu Huating said: “I don’t want to get out.”

At this critical juncture, he actually said “don’t want to get out.”

The subtle sound of bowstrings being drawn reached her ears. Qun Qing could no longer suppress her tension: “They won’t dare come close. They’ll shoot arrows first.”

“Let’s make a wager, you and I.”

“Wager on what?”

“Wager that we won’t die.”

Before the words had faded, Lu Huating suddenly left his seat and pushed Qun Qing back against the backboard, touching her lips from below in an upward motion.

The scent of citrus overwhelmed her completely. Qun Qing hadn’t expected him to use his body as a shield. The next moment, she heard arrows tearing through the air with shrieking whistles as countless arrows with the sound of wind embedded themselves into the backboard beside her.

Born of danger, that instant of contact was like a dragonfly skimming water, easily crossing over hatred to reach forbidden territory. The sensation of the kiss was almost sharp.

Arrows came from all directions. The ox bellowed in fright and bolted forward frantically. The cart cabin, now bristling like a porcupine with arrows, moved slowly forward and suddenly disappeared over the cliff edge.

Several death warriors ran to the cliff edge and looked down. Below the cliff was a deep pool. The cart cabin crashed slantwise into the pool, nearly breaking into pieces and raising huge white waves.

After a moment, everything returned to silence. Only shattered floating planks drifted on the water surface, flowing downstream.

Seeing this, one of the death warriors said: “Quick, search downstream!”

Several people went downstream to search. Less than a li away was a rocky ledge that had caught the broken cart.

The cart was empty. The death warriors fished about in the water until they pulled out two corpses with bloodied faces and only then stopped. The corpses wore hairpins and ornaments that gleamed with cold light under the moon.