“Elder, I’ll go ahead now. Until we meet again.”

After calling out, Qing Xia spurred her horse and left. Some things could only be hinted at – if they were intelligent, they would naturally understand.

At noon, she finally reached the first blocking river on the Xihei Wilderness – the Jialing River.

By calculation, the Jialing River should be a tributary of the Yangtze River, only it deviated somewhat from several major southern rivers in modern times. This wasn’t surprising – every modern person could understand the concept of the butterfly effect, especially given such massive historical deviations here. Political changes had, to an enormous extent, affected the mountains and geography here. Particularly the opening of several canals that shouldn’t have appeared in history had changed the hydrology and waterways of the entire continent.

On the broad water surface, it was calm without waves. This wasn’t the rainy season, so the river water was relatively shallow, but the deepest parts were still more than ten meters deep. Qing Xia stood on the riverbank, straining to look ahead, hoping to wait for a ferry boat that Huanchao City residents had mentioned.

This wait lasted two hours. When the boat finally arrived, the sound of horse hooves rang out behind her again. Qing Xia had to turn around and greet them with a bitter smile: “Elder, people who don’t know would certainly think I’m persistently following you, but I must say, we really are too fated.”

Uncle Zhong smiled kindly: “Is Miss Tang crossing the river?”

“Yes,” Qing Xia shook her head and said, “I’ve been waiting for over two hours. The sky is about to darken, and as soon as you arrived, they came too. It’s truly better to come at the right time than to come early.”

“Hehe,” Uncle Zhong laughed, “It’s not that we came at the right time. This old man has traveled this route dozens of times and knows the ferry doesn’t come until evening. I forgot to tell the young lady.”

At this time, five boatmen had reached the shore and were all calling out for business. Qing Xia led her horse alone onto the small boat, bade farewell to Uncle Zhong and the others, and headed toward the opposite shore. Uncle Zhong’s party had many people and horses, so the remaining four boats would need to make two round trips to ferry them all across. The small boat traveled extremely fast with the favorable wind, and in a short while had reached the middle of the great river. Looking back, she saw that carriage had finally had its curtains opened, revealing someone inside wearing a light blue long robe, standing on the riverbank under the setting red sun, looking exactly like a figure stepped out of a painting.

At this moment, a trace of alertness suddenly rose from the bottom of her heart. Qing Xia immediately turned her head and saw in a dense patch of reeds and water grass, about ten or so small boats racing toward the opposite shore, moving stealthily yet emanating a thick, cold killing intent.

Uncle Zhong’s party had more luggage and belongings, and after moving things for a long time still hadn’t boarded the boats. By now the sky had grown somewhat dark, and being far away, those small boats were hidden in the reeds, circling around from the side bit by bit toward the opposite shore – they were indeed not easy to detect.

If Uncle Zhong’s party waited until they reached the river’s center before the enemy suddenly launched an attack, no matter how formidable their bodyguards were, they would suffer greatly.

Qing Xia frowned tightly, coldly observing how deep those small boats sat in the water. She knew each boat carried at least fifty or sixty people. She couldn’t help but become suspicious of Uncle Zhong’s party’s identity. If this group was working with last night’s horse bandits, then Uncle Zhong’s enemies were truly formidable.

The boatman also noticed those suspicious small boats and was so frightened his hands trembled slightly, saying in a shaking voice: “It’s over, we’ve encountered water bandits, we’ve encountered water bandits.”

Qing Xia didn’t know if they were real water bandits, but she knew that if she let them commit their crimes, not one person on the opposite shore would escape alive. Making a quick decision, she took out a rope and grappling hook from her horse’s pack, removed her outer cloak, and said to the boatman: “Boatman, bandits are coming. I’ll go hold them off. You steer the boat yourself and wait for me on the opposite shore. Don’t panic, or I won’t be able to save you either.”

The boatman seemed quite frightened and quickly nodded, not at all considering how she alone planned to “hold them off.”

Qing Xia strapped on the rope, walked to the boat’s edge, and with a splash slipped silently into the water. Although this was in the south, the river water in this season was still ice-cold and bone-piercing. As soon as she entered the water, Qing Xia shivered. Goosebumps erupted all over her body, her teeth chattered, and her complexion turned iron-blue. She held her breath and swam vigorously toward those small boats.

Several black boat bottoms gradually appeared before her eyes. Qing Xia held a dagger in her mouth, tightly tied the grappling hook and rope together, then carefully approached and stabbed the dagger fiercely into the boat bottom.

The boat was almost reaching shore. After waiting a long time without seeing that handsome young gentleman emerge from the water, the boatman’s face was deathly pale and he wanted to flee quickly.

Just then, with a splash, Qing Xia suddenly emerged from the water, soaking wet all over, saying repeatedly: “Dock! Dock quickly!”

The boatman was overjoyed and quickly brought the boat to shore. Without counting, Qing Xia pulled out a large handful of copper coins and handed them to the boatman, saying in a low voice: “Go quickly! Go quickly! Don’t get involved in trouble here!”

With that, she threw the cloak over her shoulders, climbed onto horseback, shouldered her small bundle, suddenly raised her whip and shouted “Giddyup!” The horse immediately spread its hooves and galloped rapidly northward.

The boatman stared dumbfounded as Qing Xia held a large coil of rope in her hand – one end in her hand, the other end disappearing into the water. As the horse ran, the rope was immediately pulled taut. Suddenly there was a series of loud crashes, and the small boats hidden in the reeds immediately capsized with people tumbling everywhere. With several splashes, they sank into the river water, and over a hundred burly men jumped from the boats and swam desperately toward shore.

It turned out Qing Xia’s technique was extremely clever – she had only cut small holes in the boat planks that wouldn’t be discovered even if they leaked temporarily, then hooked the grappling hooks there and tied them to the rope. When the horse ran, the rope tightened, and the grappling hooks exerted force, naturally turning the small holes into large ones and removing large sections of boat planks. With more than ten boats capsizing simultaneously, they couldn’t even find anyone to rescue them.

Seeing that group of people swimming desperately toward him, the boatman was scared half to death. Where would he have time to rescue anyone? He quickly jumped onto his small boat and paddled downstream with the wind.

Looking at the distant opposite shore, Uncle Zhong’s party still didn’t know what had happened on this side and hadn’t finished moving their belongings.

Qing Xia galloped for about two hours before stopping. The night wind was already quite cold, and she was soaking wet with an iron-blue complexion. Finding a sheltered spot, Qing Xia nimbly gathered firewood and lit a fire, took out things she had prepared earlier, set up a simple small tent, stripped off her wet clothes, wrapped her body in the cloak, and began drying her clothes by the fire.

The warm fire heated her face, and the day’s fatigue crept over her. Just as she was getting a bit drowsy, a low voice suddenly drifted over with the wind: “Master Yan, there’s no movement at all. Could both Master Feng and Master Li have failed?”

Upon hearing this, Qing Xia suddenly stiffened all over, thinking to herself: “No way, could I really be this unlucky?”

She had to quickly put on her half-wet clothes again, stamped out the fire with several kicks, and carefully crept toward the source of the voices.

This was a very small earthen mound. Qing Xia climbed up quietly and saw two people standing on the other side of the mound. One wore black short clothes and looked very capable. The other wore a light yellow scholar’s robe, appeared to be in his twenties and looked extremely young, with rather handsome features. The two stood on the mound, less than a hundred paces from her previous location. Fortunately tonight’s wind was extremely strong, sweeping across the plains, and they stood upwind from her. Otherwise, just from the smoke of her fire, they would have discovered her whereabouts long ago.

“It shouldn’t be. Each of their teams had nearly three hundred men. Even if they failed, some should have escaped to report back. How could there be no news at all?” Master Yan frowned slightly. Under the moonlight, his scholar’s robe fluttered in the wind, his black hair flying high in the strong wind, giving him a somewhat desolate appearance.

“The Eighteen Iron Guards are not to be underestimated. Even with numerical advantage, success isn’t guaranteed, especially with that person still there. I’m afraid…”

“Impossible. The Eighteen Iron Guards have been mythologized in the army. Human strength has limits – how could they be enemies of a hundred men? As for that person, with his sickly body, he’s not to be feared either. Something we don’t know about must have happened.” Master Yan said thoughtfully.

Of course, their unexpected variable was encountering me.

Qing Xia snorted coldly in her heart. If that Master Feng was lucky, he might still be going in circles in the marshland right now. As for Master Li, he wasn’t so fortunate. Falling into the water from the river’s center, even if he had the luck to swim to shore alive, he’d be half-frozen to death. Without horses, with wet clothes, and unable to expose their identities before completing their mission, they could only find places to make fires. How could they outrun her four horse legs? They were probably already far behind Uncle Zhong’s party by now.

“This way – you and I will split up. You return north to report to our master and request instructions for the next move. I’ll go ahead to see what exactly happened. We’ll meet at Cangmu Stockade in three days.”

“Very well, Master Yan. Please be careful.”

After the two discussed their routes, they went their separate ways.

Qing Xia bit her lip secretly, crept back to her horse’s side, climbed on, and spurred her horse to follow behind the black-clothed man.

“Who goes there!” After traveling for less than half the time it takes to drink tea, the man ahead suddenly whipped around and shot a vicious arrow.

“Ah!” Qing Xia screamed miserably and immediately fell from her horse. The horse neighed and galloped a few steps before running back, circling around Qing Xia with long whinnies.

The black-clothed man saw the newcomer was small in stature, had screamed once and fallen from the horse without moving. He quickly jumped down from his horse and carefully approached.

The arrow was deeply embedded in Qing Xia’s lower abdomen. Her face was pale as she lay on the ground motionless as if dead. The black-clothed man frowned as he observed, slowly crouched down, and reached out to grasp Qing Xia’s chin, seemingly wanting to turn her face toward him.