The next day, Shen Lingzhen set to work with great enthusiasm, clearly assigning everyone the roles she had arranged the previous night.
Regarding Huo Liuxing’s matter, everyone was unprecedentedly united, temporarily setting aside their prejudices to cooperate with her.
First thing in the morning, the whole family gathered around the table for breakfast. Everyone showed concern for Shen Lingzhen’s well-being, with Huo Liuxing’s excessively attentive care—saying things like “how can you hold chopsticks when your forehead is injured”—being particularly conspicuous.
After the meal, Huo Shuyi, who had been thoroughly neglected during breakfast, encountered Shen Lingzhen on the way back to her quarters. She spoke sarcastically, saying that young ladies raised in wealthy families were indeed delicate.
Jianjia indignantly retorted, which further provoked Huo Shuyi’s anger. The two sides argued back and forth in an endless dispute until Shen Lingzhen finally took the initiative to yield, returning to her bedroom in distress.
In the afternoon, the deeply aggrieved Shen Lingzhen ordered the servants to pack her luggage, deciding to move out of the Huo Mansion and live at the Shen residence.
Yu Wanjiang came to mediate upon hearing the news. Unable to dissuade her, he could only discuss with Huo Liuxing, saying that with the current chaotic situation in the city, letting her stay alone at the Shen residence was improper both emotionally and rationally. It would be better if he accompanied her to stay there for a while to help her relax.
In the evening, Huo Liuxing and Shen Lingzhen left the Huo Mansion with good reason. After nightfall, they used the chaos of the refugee flows as cover and quietly slipped out of the city through the back gate of the Shen residence via dark alleyways.
Since they were still within Qingzhou territory, Huo Liuxing couldn’t openly ride a horse, so he sat in the carriage with Shen Lingzhen, simply eliminating the wheelchair from the equation.
Though this was a business trip, Shen Lingzhen was in excellent spirits. She had already prepared herself that she probably wouldn’t be able to bring her maid along this time, but unexpectedly, Huo Liuxing, considering that she couldn’t do without someone to attend to her, had proactively allowed Jianjia to accompany them.
From this small detail, Shen Lingzhen discerned deeper meaning.
Huo Liuxing would inevitably need to move about during this journey, which meant his ability to walk would be directly exposed to those traveling with them. His trust in her personal maid represented a further acceptance of her.
To make good time, the carriage raced along swiftly after leaving the city, passing through rugged mountain roads with constant bumping up and down.
Encountering a large pothole, the carriage suddenly lurched upward. Shen Lingzhen’s whole body felt weightless as she was thrown high into the air. Just as she thought she would suffer another glorious injury, her scalp lightly brushed against a broad, sturdy palm.
She froze, looking up at the ceiling, only then discovering that Huo Liuxing had raised his arm, placing his hand between her and the carriage roof.
She quickly reached to grasp his hand. “Did the impact hurt you, husband?”
Huo Liuxing brushed her away, maintaining this position as he said lightly, “Do you think I’m like you?”
“But keeping your arm raised like this must be tiring. I can just brace myself.”
“You can’t.”
Huo Liuxing was firmly convinced of her inability. Sure enough, when they encountered another pothole, Shen Lingzhen, who was tightly gripping the carriage handrail, was still thrown upward, relying entirely on him watching over her from the side.
She looked dejectedly at the person beside her who remained as steady as Mount Tai, completely unmoved. “Why can you sit so steadily while I can’t manage it no matter what?”
“If you could do everything, I’d have nothing to do.”
Shen Lingzhen glanced at him, then at the hand protecting the top of her head, and couldn’t help but smile. “You’re truly good to me, husband.”
Not bad.
Though Huo Liuxing’s facial expression showed no particular change, he glanced at her upturned lips. That hand seemed encouraged somehow and spontaneously held itself even more properly.
——
Traveling at full speed, from deep nightfall to gradually brightening dawn, then to sunset in the west, moonrise after sunset, and another daybreak—after one day and two nights like this, the carriage was finally about to leave Qingzhou.
During these eighteen hours, Jingmo and Jianjia took turns driving the carriage outside, changing horses three times. Huo Liuxing remained alert in all directions, completely sleepless the entire time. Shen Lingzhen leaned against the carriage wall, sleeping fitfully. When hungry, she stuffed some dried provisions in her mouth; when thirsty, she drank a few sips of tea from the water bottle to moisten her throat. By this point, she had been worn down to a very drowsy state.
When the carriage suddenly stopped, she gave a start and asked Huo Liuxing groggily, “Have we arrived, husband?”
“We’re still at the border between Qingzhou and Dingbian Army territory. We’re just stopping to rest.”
She immediately forced herself to be alert. “Husband, I came to help you, not to cause you trouble. You needn’t delay the journey for me. Let’s press on and enter the city in one go.”
Huo Liuxing shook his head with an amused expression. “It’s not that I’m deliberately accommodating you. It’s that we’re approaching Baibao City ahead, where the stationed troops are complex and the situation unclear. I need to have Jingmo scout the route first. Either way, we must stay here, so resting along the way isn’t a crime.”
Only then did Shen Lingzhen feel at ease about getting off the carriage with him. However, the moment her feet touched the ground, she felt dizzy and her legs and feet tingled with a needle-like numbness. She went limp and began falling backward.
Huo Liuxing, who was waiting outside, caught her in time and lifted her vertically out of the carriage as if holding a child.
Shen Lingzhen weakly clutched his belt to recover her strength. Huo Liuxing patted her back, supporting her shoulders, and turned to instruct Jianjia, “Go find some wild fruit nearby. Pick the ripe ones. If you can’t tell which kinds are edible, just bring them all back and I’ll sort through them.”
Jianjia stared in astonishment at Huo Liuxing’s standing legs for a full five counts, then glanced at Shen Lingzhen’s completely unsurprised face. She quickly nodded and hurried off. As she ran away, she still seemed not to have fully processed this, nearly stumbling and falling flat.
Shen Lingzhen’s face pressed against Huo Liuxing’s chest for quite a while before her legs and feet regained sensation and she could stand up straight.
She looked up at the sky and surveyed the surroundings, discovering that it should be approaching the hour of chen. This was a densely wooded mountain forest with a narrow stream ahead flowing with trickling water. The area was reasonably cool and shaded.
Huo Liuxing spread out his cloak and laid it on the flat ground by the stream, helping her sit down. Then he turned back to get the water bottle and walked to the stream to fill it with water.
After sitting in the carriage for two nights and one day, Shen Lingzhen found sitting even more exhausting. Seeing him walk away, she followed him step by step, asking as she went, “Husband, won’t drinking this mountain stream water cause stomach problems?”
He pulled out the bottle stopper and glanced back at her. “I certainly won’t have problems drinking it. As for you, forget it. Be good and drink the tea we brought from home.”
She nodded and squatted down to watch him work. Seeing the stream water gurgling into the bottle, she was finding it interesting when suddenly her vision blurred. A dark, elongated shadow appeared in her field of vision. Before she could see it clearly, Huo Liuxing covered her eyes with his hand.
Immediately after, she heard a sharp “swish” sound by her ear.
Shen Lingzhen blinked blankly, her eyelashes brushing densely against Huo Liuxing’s palm. Vaguely sensing what had happened, she asked in a trembling voice, “Husband, this is…”
With one hand covering her eyes and the other washing the bloodstains off a thumb-width blade in the stream water, Huo Liuxing then picked up a tree branch and with one hand flicked a snake that had been cut in two into the bushes on the other side of the stream.
Only after putting away the blade did he lower his hand. “It’s nothing.”
But Shen Lingzhen still guessed what had happened from the smell of blood in the air. Goosebumps rising all over her body, she scurried away and obediently sat back down on the cloak, drawing in her hands and feet as she stared with wide eyes, vigilantly watching for “enemy activity” on all sides.
Huo Liuxing wanted to laugh but held it in. He walked over and sat down beside her. “With me here, what are you afraid of?”
Shen Lingzhen shook her head with a pale face, indicating she wasn’t afraid, but her eyes still stared unblinkingly at the nearby ground. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Huo Liuxing tilting his head back to drink water and quickly stopped him. “Husband, there was something in that stream… how can you still drink this water?”
Huo Liuxing was unconcerned. “What of it?”
Shen Lingzhen snatched away his water bottle. “No, no, this water can’t be drunk anymore. There’s still some tea in the carriage. I’ll go get it.”
Huo Liuxing grabbed her back and retrieved the water bottle. “What are you fussing about? In the past during military campaigns, when terribly thirsty, if we finally found a river, even if it was full of corpses and soaked with human blood, we still had to drink. This is nothing.”
Somehow, Shen Lingzhen felt her nose tingle upon hearing this. She slowly sat back down and looked at him. “Did you have a very hard life in the past, husband?”
Huo Liuxing blinked faintly and didn’t deny it. “Born in chaotic times, it’s unavoidable.”
“When I was living in luxury and comfort in Bianjing, you were protecting the nation in mountains of corpses and seas of blood…” Shen Lingzhen lowered her eyes. “I wish I could have known you earlier.”
“What if you had known me earlier? Would you have shared your luxury and comfort with me?”
Shen Lingzhen nodded earnestly.
Huo Liuxing laughed. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have appreciated your kindness.”
“Why not?”
Because ten years ago, the still-young Huo Liuxing couldn’t avoid being sharp and unbridled. He absolutely couldn’t have swallowed his pride to accept charity from his enemy’s daughter.
If the ordeal of the Northern Expedition hadn’t taught him a lesson and smoothed his rough edges, he wouldn’t have known that when caught between a rock and a hard place, if you don’t learn to endure, death is your only path.
Thinking these things, Huo Liuxing changed his explanation when he spoke. “Because I was very unruly back then. Seeing a powerless little girl like you, I would have frightened you with grasshoppers.”
Shen Lingzhen was momentarily stunned before laughing, but after laughing, she said, “Husband, actually you’re quite mischievous now too, aren’t you?”
Huo Liuxing looked at her with slight surprise.
“That refined and gentle, warm and cultured person isn’t the real you, husband. You’ve hidden all your sharp edges for some reason, but doing so must be very tiring.” Shen Lingzhen tilted her head to look at him. “So, if you want to rest, you can completely let go of all that in front of me and just be yourself. I’m not afraid of your fierce appearance.”
Huo Liuxing froze.
Lying low for ten years, wearing a thousand faces, even he had forgotten what the real Huo Liuxing should be like. Yet on this morning, in this desolate, overgrown nameless mountain forest, he heard a young girl say he didn’t need to be an actor in front of her.
Like a stone thrown straight into a deep pool, stirring up the originally calm, waveless surface into turbulent surges, Huo Liuxing’s eyes instantly flashed with rising and falling tides.
After a long silence, he stared at her and said, “Shen Lingzhen, you said this.”
Caught off guard by him using her full name, Shen Lingzhen was slightly startled, then nodded matter-of-factly. “Yes, I said it.”
——
About an hour later, Jingmo returned from scouting the route and reported to Huo Liuxing, “Baibao City currently has no enemy activity. You can take the young madam there with confidence.”
“The lodgings are all arranged?”
Jingmo nodded. “The usual place.”
“You and Jianjia escort her there. I’ll take a horse and go another route to handle official business.”
Shen Lingzhen was startled. “Won’t riding a horse expose you…”
He shook his head. “I’ll disguise myself as a soldier.”
Shen Lingzhen nodded and watched him mount his horse and ride away in a cloud of dust before returning to the carriage and heading to Baibao City.
Baibao City, being close to Qingzhou, wasn’t as sparsely populated as the more northern areas of Dingbian Army territory. After entering the city, inns lined the streets one after another.
The one Huo Liuxing had arranged seemed unremarkable from the outside, and business didn’t appear to be thriving, but inside it was well-ordered and very neatly maintained.
Remembering Jingmo’s phrase “the usual place,” Shen Lingzhen guessed that this inn was probably Huo family territory to begin with.
By the time they arrived, it was nearly dusk. She dragged her nearly falling-apart body into the guest room and collapsed headfirst onto the bed without even checking whether the bedding was clean.
Jianjia was about to pour her a bowl of water to drink, but when she turned around, she saw that Shen Lingzhen had already fallen fast asleep. To avoid waking her, she didn’t change her clothes either, only covered her with a thin quilt before closing the door and withdrawing.
Shen Lingzhen slept deeply. When she opened her eyes again, she had been startled awake by the sound of someone breaking in through the window.
Still confused, she was about to cry out in alarm when the intruder removed his face-covering helmet and made a shushing gesture, saying in a low voice, “It’s me.”
Only then did Shen Lingzhen see by the candlelight in the room that it was Huo Liuxing clad in armor, while outside the window the night was already deep—it appeared to be the latter half of the night.
She patted her chest to steady her nerves and threw off the quilt to get out of bed. “How did things go, husband? Was everything smooth?” Seeing large patches of bright red bloodstains on his armor, she was startled. “Are you injured, husband?”
“Just a small wound on the shoulder. This is all other people’s blood.” Huo Liuxing moved his muscles and bones and removed the heavy armor. “Have Jianjia bring me a basin of clean water.”
Shen Lingzhen immediately went to relay the message to Jianjia, who was keeping watch in the corridor. When she returned, she saw that Huo Liuxing had already removed his upper garments.
Caring nothing for modesty, she rushed forward wanting to examine his injury. Only after seeing that it was indeed just a shallow cut on his shoulder did she breathe a sigh of relief.
Huo Liuxing looked at her. “Not faint at the sight of blood? Turn around.”
Only in her anxiety had Shen Lingzhen been so bold. Hearing these words and detecting the heavy smell of blood permeating the room, she immediately felt a bit dizzy and quickly turned her back.
But unexpectedly, in the instant she turned around, she inadvertently glimpsed Huo Liuxing’s bare, clean waist and abdomen.
It was completely smooth and flat, without any rough, hideous scars.
Shen Lingzhen froze and made a sound of surprise. “Eh? Husband, you were injured so deeply in Bianjing last time—how is there no scar there at all?”