At this time, the carriage started moving again, and the two men outside stopped talking as they were busy traveling.

Ren Yaohua thought that no matter what the purpose of the woman who wanted to kidnap her was, she couldn’t let her succeed. But how could she, a weak woman without the strength to tie up a chicken, escape from these bloodthirsty desperadoes? Ren Yaohua glanced at the male corpse lying not far to her right. The man had been killed by someone attacking from behind with a dagger that pierced his heart. Dark blood had flowed onto the carriage floor mat, and the carriage was filled with a nauseating bloody smell. Ren Yaohua closed her eyes and turned her head away. This scene made her desire to escape grow even more wildly.

The carriage traveled for another half hour. When it reached a highland with relatively lush trees, the carriage stopped once again. The man driving said, “Let’s find a place in the forest ahead to bury the dead body. That way the carriage can run faster.”

The man on horseback agreed and also dismounted.

Because the wind was quite strong here, Ren Yaohua looked outside through the carriage curtain, blown open by the wind, and discovered that the carriage was stopped at a fairly high altitude. To the right was a forest with lush trees, and further ahead on the left was a large slope with what appeared to be a vast expanse of farmland below.

Ren Yaohua’s eyes couldn’t help but brighten. She had thought of a way to escape, though it seemed quite difficult.

She planned to move to the carriage door later, and when the carriage reached that slope ahead, she would jump from the carriage and roll down the slope. Since there were farmlands below and it was still early in the day, there would be people working in the fields. Although doing this would certainly result in injury and might even cost her life, it was better than falling into the hands of those with ill intentions.

As for those two men outside, they certainly couldn’t follow her rolling down the slope. With such a steep gradient, it wouldn’t be easy for them to find a path down to look for her. If she were lucky enough to still be alive after going down, she might be able to escape from their hands.

The more Ren Yaohua thought about it, the more feasible this method seemed, and she couldn’t help but become somewhat excited.

However, Ren Yaohua knew that at this moment, she couldn’t show any signs. So she closed her eyes again and waited for the men outside to come in and remove the corpse from the carriage.

But unexpectedly, the two men outside became alert due to several people who suddenly emerged from the forest. The two exchanged glances. To avoid attracting attention while quickly delivering Ren Yaohua to the employer, there were only two of them, and the backup personnel were still in Zhuozhou. If these people were coming for them, they couldn’t fight head-on without knowing the newcomers’ strength. However, those people walked straight toward their carriage rapidly, even spreading out in a surrounding formation.

The two men silently cursed their bad luck and exchanged meaningful looks. The man driving heavily whipped the horse’s rump and drove the carriage forward.

The other man also quickly mounted his horse, spurring his mount to follow the carriage while bending down to retrieve a bow and arrows from under his saddle. He was only focused on being vigilant about those people running out from the forest behind him and didn’t notice that somehow a row of iron caltrops had been buried in the grass on the ground ahead.

The driver’s warning shout of “Watch out—” came too late. The man’s horse stepped right on the iron caltrops, its front legs collapsed to the ground, throwing the rider heavily off.

Seeing this, the driver knew things were going badly, but he couldn’t stop the carriage to rescue his companion. Otherwise, not only would he fail to save the man, but he would also be caught by the ambushers. He could only silently apologize in his heart, then heavily whipped the horse again, driving the carriage at breakneck speed while constantly watching for more iron caltrops on the ground.

Although Ren Yaohua in the carriage was somewhat confused about what was happening, she still heard the sound of the man falling from his horse. She couldn’t help but feel secretly delighted—could it be that someone had come to rescue her?

But the next moment, a suddenly appearing, cheerful-sounding laugh from ahead was like a bucket of cold water poured over Ren Yaohua’s heart.

At the same time, the driver grunted for some unknown reason, and then the carriage tilted violently before overturning to the ground.

After being hit on the head twice, Ren Yaohua was thrown heavily out of the carriage and rolled to the ground. She got a mouthful of dust and was choked into coughing fits. Her left calf was also aching with pain, almost causing her to faint.

Ren Yaohua instinctively looked down at her left leg. The bloodstains on her skirt made her feel dizzy. It turned out that when Ren Yaohua was thrown from the carriage, her left leg had been pierced by a protruding wooden rafter from the overturned carriage. Ren Yaohua wanted to reach out and touch her left leg to assess the injury, but her hands and feet were still bound.

The driver who had been driving earlier was also lying not far ahead. He was getting up, trying to escape, but was pressed down to the ground by someone.

Ren Yaohua felt a figure walk up to her, blocking the sunlight, with the person’s face hidden in shadow.

Ren Yaohua instinctively moved backward but groaned from pain.

The person crouched down in front of Ren Yaohua, and she finally saw clearly his face, ugly as a demon.

“Tsk, how careless. You’ve lost so much blood—will you become a cripple?” Zeng Kui’s words sounded regretful, but his tone seemed very happy.

Ren Yaohua was sweating from pain, but her eyes stared coldly at Zeng Kui.

Only then did Zeng Kui seem to remember as he patted his forehead, “Oh, I forgot your mouth was gagged, so you can’t speak.” He smiled as he reached over to pull out the cloth used to gag Ren Yaohua’s mouth, then looked at her face with interest, saying, “Although you’re in quite a mess, you’re still beautiful! No wonder Wu Yiyu said she wanted to give me a big gift—it is a big gift!”

“Wu Yiyu? So it was her?” Ren Yaohua said through gritted teeth.

Ren Yaohua hadn’t expected that she had no grievances or enmity with Wu Yiyu—they had barely even met a few times—yet Wu Yiyu had sent people to kidnap her.

Zeng Kui nodded happily and reached out to pinch Ren Yaohua’s chin, “So you know Wu Yiyu too? She said she wanted to make you as ugly as me and then give you to me, so we’d make a perfect pair.”

Ren Yaohua frowned with some revulsion and dodged Zeng Kui’s hand, saying with disgust, “Don’t touch me!”

Zeng Kui was startled, then his eyes turned cold, but the smile on his face became even brighter, “Don’t touch you? But if I don’t touch you, what about your leg? It’s pierced so deeply—if we’re not careful, you’ll become crippled.”

As he spoke, his hand unexpectedly pressed heavily on Ren Yaohua’s wound.

Ren Yaohua couldn’t help but scream from pain, while Zeng Kui laughed heartily as if he had seen something that made him very happy.

After Zeng Kui’s men quickly finished cleaning up the battlefield, they all came over. Someone even drove a large carriage out from the forest and reminded Zeng Kui, “Young Master, we should hurry on the road. We’ll only be safe once we return to Ningxia.”

“Yes, Young Master, this time you used recovering from injuries as an excuse to secretly come here without telling the Master. We need to return before the Master discovers, or our subordinates will all suffer the consequences.”

Zeng Kui turned to look at them, and those people all fell silent.

Zeng Kui wiped the blood stains on his hand onto Ren Yaohua’s face and stood up with a grin, “Then let’s go back first. We can play slowly after we return.”

“Young Master, shouldn’t we bandage this young lady’s leg wound first? With such a serious injury, if it’s not treated promptly, it might be inconvenient for her to walk in the future…” someone reminded Zeng Kui.

Zeng Kui turned to look at Ren Yaohua, but happily waved his hand, “I just suddenly remembered that if she becomes crippled, she’ll be even more suited to me, this ugly monster! So there’s no need to bandage it. Once she becomes crippled, I’ll marry her.”

Hearing this, the subordinates looked at each other and all felt embarrassed.

They had thought that Zeng Kui concealed this from his father and traveled thousands of miles day and night to rescue this woman from Wu Yiyu’s hands because he had feelings for her. They hadn’t expected that he would be happy to see such a beautiful young lady whom he had worked so hard to rescue become crippled.

Young Master Zeng’s thoughts were indeed beyond what these ordinary people could understand.

“Young Master, what should we do with these two?” The subordinates pointed to the two men lying on the ground.

Zeng Kui said, “Take them back and make them into human swine to send to Wu Yiyu. Since she wanted to give me a big gift, I should give her one in return, right?”

Human swine?

The subordinates looked at the two unconscious men and swallowed hard. However, none dared to disobey. Someone produced two burlap sacks from somewhere, stuffed the two men inside, and threw them onto horseback.

Zeng Kui turned around, wanting to carry Ren Yaohua to the carriage. Ren Yaohua struggled to move backward and glared fiercely at Zeng Kui, “Go away!”

Zeng Kui looked at Ren Yaohua with a smile, “Don’t want to come with me? Then what will you do?”

Ren Yaohua turned to look at the slope not far away, but unfortunately, she was now injured and her hands and feet were bound—she really couldn’t move there.

Zeng Kui also followed Ren Yaohua’s gaze and suddenly clapped his hands laughing, “Oh, you want to go down there? There are quite a few sharp stones and broken tree roots on that slope. If you roll down, I’m afraid that face of yours won’t be preserved. As for your feet? Oh, you’re going to be crippled anyway, so it doesn’t matter if your legs are broken or not.”

Without waiting for Ren Yaohua to answer, Zeng Kui crouched down and stared at Ren Yaohua’s eyes with his dead fish eyes, smiling, “Alright, since you like playing this way, how about we make a bet? You crawl over there yourself within a quarter hour and roll down from above. If neither of your legs is broken or only your right leg is broken, you win. If both legs are broken or only your left leg is broken, then you lose. If you win, I’ll let you go. If you lose, you’ll obediently come with me to Ningxia. How about it? Do you want to bet?”

Hearing Zeng Kui’s words, Ren Yaohua found it ridiculous. She had once seriously considered what it would be like to follow the Ren family’s arrangement and marry Zeng Kui.