“I should never have handed you over to them…”

As the carriage raced forward, Wen Yu still gripped the brass lamp holder fixed to the carriage wall with one hand.

The road surface was clearly uneven, and the Wei soldier driving the carriage kept whipping the horses relentlessly. Several times Wen Yu was nearly thrown from her seat by the violent jolting.

The window destroyed earlier by the arrow remained wide open, and the bone-chilling wind poured in. Her five fingers gripping the lamp holder were frozen numb with pain, as if needles were piercing through the gaps between her bones.

With her other hand protecting the wooden box while drawing her cloak tight against the cold, she furrowed her brow and looked through the window opening to see several Wei cavalry soldiers riding alongside the carriage on both sides. They kept turning back to fire arrows behind them, while arrows also flew forward from the rear.

She couldn’t see exactly who was pursuing from behind or what the casualties were, but the cavalry on both flanks kept decreasing in number. From time to time, another cavalryman or warhorse would be struck by arrows and disappear from view through the carriage window.

Suddenly, the sound of some sharp implement scraping and hooking came from the rear wall and roof of the carriage, the noise making her teeth ache as it reached her eardrums.

Fortunately, the oilcloth covering the roof seemed to have a layer of iron sheet beneath it as well, so the thrown sharp implements ultimately failed to find purchase.

But with a sharp “clang,” an eagle claw hook firmly latched onto the window opening that had lost its shutters.

Wen Yu had seen how Pei Song’s eagle hounds used these eagle claw hooks. In that moment her heartbeat nearly reached its limit, yet she still calmly released the hand that had been holding the wooden box and gathering her cloak, switching instead to grip her hairpin tightly.

The sound of another eagle claw hook latching on came from the forward carriage wall, and she could even see the steel cable stretched taut across the other side of the carriage window.

Clearly one eagle hound was going after the Wei soldier driving up front, while another eagle hound intended to enter the carriage directly to deal with her.

When the side wall where the eagle claw hook gripped the window began to shake violently from the weight of something being pulled, Wen Yu gripped the brass lamp holder to borrow strength as she stood. The moment a hand from outside grasped the window ledge, her hand holding the hairpin thrust heavily outward.

But the opposing eagle hound was after all born a death warrior, having long lived a life of licking blood from knife edges. With an almost instinctive ability to avoid danger, his body instantly leaned back.

The hairpin that should have pierced the other’s temple only heavily scraped across the bridge of his nose beneath his eye, drawing a bloody mark.

The eagle hound’s eyes filled with hatred, and his blade was about to fall upon Wen Yu when an arrow suddenly pierced through his back and into his heart.

His hand could no longer grip the window, and his entire body tumbled down.

Wen Yu, gripping the hairpin, braced herself against the window opening and gasped for breath. She heard Tongque’s voice calling from behind: “Noble Mistress!”

She didn’t dare call her “Princess,” fearing that if any accident occurred, Wen Yu’s identity would be exposed.

Their kidnapping today involved Pei Song’s people, so regardless of success or failure, they could go with the flow and claim it was Pei Song’s forces attempting to recapture “Jiang Yu’s concubine” to take to the southern border and threaten the Southern Chen forces, while also assassinating Wei Pinjin to strike at their Northern Wei.

Hair from both sides of Wen Yu’s temples had come loose and was blown forward in disarray by the sharp wind. She saw Tongque behind her, whipping her horse several times and urging it to gallop urgently toward her.

Three bloody marks from some sharp implement stretched across Tongque’s shoulder—clearly she had been injured earlier by an eagle hound’s eagle claw hook.

Wen Yu was nearly overcome with joy and relief. Supporting herself at the window, she called out urgently: “Tongque!”

Then hastily asked: “Where’s Zhaobai?”

Tongque knew what Wen Yu wanted to ask. She shouted back: “Sister Zhaobai is fine, she’s holding off Pei’s eagle hounds in the rear!”

Wen Yu had just breathed a sigh of relief when something went wrong at the front carriage shaft. She only felt the carriage shake violently. She barely avoided being thrown to the carriage floor by desperately gripping the window ledge. An explosion sounded in the air, and looking up she saw a familiar signal flare burst into flames.

Wen Yu’s expression changed drastically, and at that moment the wooden carriage door behind her was violently kicked open.

She turned back in shock to see the eagle hound who had initially climbed along the eagle claw hook’s steel cable to reach the front carriage shaft. Gripping a blood-dripping blade, he stared at her with the delighted yet strange gaze of someone who had caught their prey.

That look made Wen Yu’s scalp tingle. Behind him lay the corpse of the Wei soldier who had been driving. At his feet lay the bamboo tube of a used signal flare.

Clearly, he had just fired that signal flare.

Wen Yu gripped the window ledge tightly with one hand. Though her face veil hadn’t fallen, under the fierce blowing of the bone-chilling wind, one could still see her face had turned terribly pale, like the large flakes of new snow falling outside the window. Only her eyes remained calm.

When the person opposite thrust his blade toward her, she also fiercely raised her other hand holding the hairpin concealed in her wide sleeve, fully intending to drag him down with her even in death.

But another loud bang suddenly came from the window, followed immediately by the sharp sound of clashing blades.

It was Tongque, who had grabbed the steel cable left by the previous eagle hound and leaped over.

After using her sword to deflect the blade the eagle hound had thrust at Wen Yu, she supported herself on the window and jumped inside. Completely disregarding the wound where the eagle claw hook had torn a piece of flesh from her shoulder, her sword blade pressed against the eagle hound as she hacked and slashed fiercely, successfully forcing him outside the carriage door to prevent the weapons from accidentally injuring Wen Yu.

The horses pulling the carriage no longer had anyone controlling them, but because the two people were fighting back and forth on the carriage shaft, their blade and sword edges occasionally striking the crossbeam, the frightened horses pulling the carriage continued to run wildly on all fours for dear life.

Wen Yu had to grip the window ledge tightly to steady herself and couldn’t go forward to help. Through the window, she saw more than ten eagle hound cavalry following the signal flare and pursuing from behind. She immediately felt this was bad.

Tongque was also disturbed by the sound of those rapidly approaching hoofbeats. For a moment she wasn’t careful and the opponent seized an opening. Her whole body fell to the edge of the front compartment’s wooden floor, with half her head hanging outside the carriage. Looking back she could see the dozen or so eagle hounds pursuing ever closer.

Her teeth were nearly grinding blood. Using only her arms’ strength, she blocked the blade the opponent was pressing down fiercely upon her with her sword body. The veins in her neck were already bulging. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of the eagle claw hook this eagle hound had thrown earlier to the front compartment wall, and saw Wen Yu climbing along the wall trying to come out, holding a hairpin in one hand as if wanting to help her.

Tongque exploded with the last bit of strength in her entire body. Her head suddenly tilted, allowing the eagle hound to press his blade edge into her shoulder that was already soaked with blood and flesh. She grabbed the nearby eagle claw hook’s steel cable and wrapped it around the eagle hound’s neck. Her feet then stamped down fiercely and she actually rolled straight off the carriage with the eagle hound, shouting: “Noble Mistress, you drive the carriage away!”

With two people’s weight suddenly gone from the carriage, the speed increased at once. Wen Yu had already released the window ledge and was climbing along the wall walking quickly toward the door. Now as the carriage suddenly accelerated, she couldn’t stand steady at all. She only had time to cry out “Tongque” in a tearing voice before her entire body fell backward, her back and both elbows hitting the carriage wall painfully.

The eagle hound whom Tongque had pulled off the carriage with the cable wrapped around his neck was ruthless enough. Disregarding his own life entirely, he immediately raised his sleeve and released the few remaining sleeve arrows.

Wen Yu could ride horses but had never driven a carriage. At such a critical moment, she couldn’t worry about all that. Remembering the last words Tongque had shouted, enduring the pain in all her joints from the impacts, she supported herself on the carriage wall and climbed up, about to go to the front compartment to drive the horses, wanting to buy a little more time for Zhaobai and the others to catch up.

But one sleeve arrow happened to strike the horse’s leg.

The already frightened horse’s hind leg folded beneath it. Both shocked and jumping, it finally caused the entire carriage to overturn on its side.

In that instant Wen Yu only felt the entire carriage spinning violently. She instinctively protected her head, but her shoulders, back, hands, feet and joints were still repeatedly battered.

When the entire carriage crashed heavily to the ground, she was thrown down along with it due to inertia. Her calf was cut by the hairpin and bled. Her abdomen struck heavily against the corner of a fallen wooden box. The pain instantly drained all color from her face and all strength from her body. For a long moment she couldn’t move.

—

When Xiao Li followed the signal flare and took the shortcut through the barren woods in pursuit, he saw from the barren slope that Tongque had already grabbed the eagle claw hook’s steel cable and leaped onto that carriage.

Behind them, hoofbeats sounded like thunder—it was the other eagle hounds who had also rushed over after seeing the signal flare.

He bit his teeth and glanced at the distant carriage, ultimately choosing not to continue the pursuit. Instead, he reined in his horse, drew his bow and nocked arrows, aiming at the eagle hounds galloping around this mountain bend. Each time he released three arrows simultaneously, like stringing shadow puppets together, shooting down one after another of the eagle hounds pursuing most closely from their horses.

As he shot down the last eagle hound pursuing most closely, Song Qin emerged from the woods with men on horseback and told him: “Liang Battalion’s people have already caught up.”

Xiao Li glanced sideways toward the back of the mountain bend and saw Zhaobai galloping at the forefront. She too was continuously firing arrows from horseback with her people, killing those eagle hounds pursuing ahead.

Extremely unwilling, he put away his bow and arrows, wanting to take another look at that departing carriage. With this look, he saw that the rapidly moving carriage for some reason had its horses suddenly rear up in fright, causing the entire carriage to overturn and crash to the ground.

In that instant Xiao Li’s mind truly went completely blank. Song Qin said something to him, but his ears were filled with a buzzing sound and he couldn’t hear clearly at all.

He only heard himself say “Hold them off,” then spurred his horse to leap down from the slope.

The jet-black steed ran wildly on all fours through the wind and snow. His ears were filled entirely with the howling wind, and his face was cut painfully by wind blades, yet he still felt it was too slow, too slow.

Clearly that overturned carriage was right before his eyes, yet he still hadn’t reached it.

When still about ten feet from the carriage, Xiao Li didn’t even have time to pull the reins. He practically rolled and fell directly from the horse’s back.

Completely disregarding his disheveled state, he ran to the carriage and savagely removed the door along with its frame—it had been jammed after being deformed in the crash. Pressing down on the carriage curtain that flew wildly in the wind now that there was no barrier, his eyes red as he stared fixedly at the person who had fallen inside.

Fine snow and thin daylight poured into the carriage together. The wooden carving in the box had already fallen out when the carriage overturned, now scattered beside Wen Yu. Her knuckles were covered with scrapes and bruises. With difficulty she raised her eyes to look at the person half-crouched at the carriage door. Even though the other only showed a pair of eyes, Wen Yu still recognized him.

For a moment she almost thought it was her own hallucination.

Remembering the parting gift he had given her, her eyes involuntarily reddened. She wanted to say “I wasn’t even able to say a proper goodbye to you,” but after only getting out the word “I,” the pain in her abdomen cut her off.

Xiao Li saw her covering her abdomen with one hand, her face deathly pale, with bloodstains spreading across her skirt hem. The hand supporting the carriage frame couldn’t help but bulge with veins. Clearly furious like a lion about to go mad, his eyes also bloodshot and fierce as if wanting to devour someone.

Yet the emotions in his eyes seemed even more agonized than hers.

He didn’t know if he was speaking to himself or to Wen Yu: “I should never have handed you over to them.”

When clearing away the debris blocking the doorway, the fury born from the extreme fear in his chest made it impossible for him to control his strength. Almost everything he gripped shattered and deformed in his hands. Only when reaching in to lift Wen Yu out did he no longer dare use even half his brute force, only carefully supporting her shoulders and back as he moved her out.

Wen Yu finally realized this wasn’t her hallucination. Remembering the scene before the carriage overturned when Tongque fell from the carriage together with that eagle hound, her heart ached terribly. She hurriedly asked weakly: “Tongque…”

Xiao Li only felt as if someone had punched him heavily in the chest—dull, uncomfortable, and suffocating. He knew that if he didn’t tell her the result she would never be at ease, and could only first comfort her. But because he was nearly mad with urgency and his anger had almost reached its critical point, his tone sounded truly cold and hard: “She’s injured, but not dead.”

Wen Yu’s strained expression finally relaxed. Remembering those words she hadn’t been able to say to him in person as farewell, she said to him: “I’m sorry…”

Xiao Li wrapped her tightly and completely in that thick white fur cloak. His eyes held extreme ferocity as he told her “Don’t speak,” then lifted her and strode outward with large steps: “I’m taking you to see a physician. Both you and the child in your belly will be fine.”

Wen Yu had been injured in multiple places when the carriage overturned. That impact to her abdomen had been truly too vicious, leaving her even now in too much pain to speak.

When brought onto the horse’s back, the jostling to her abdomen made her painfully furrow her brow again, yet she still struggled to explain to Xiao Li: “There’s no child, there never was…”

But Xiao Li had already been pulled and torn by those extreme emotions to the point where he couldn’t hear anything. Doctor Tao had personally taken her pulse. Wei Pinjin and the others, in order to confirm her identity, had also found a physician to examine her—both had diagnosed pregnancy. How could there be no child?

Moreover, she was clutching her waist and abdomen so painfully, and there was blood on her skirt…

Her words at this moment sounded to him more like words of grief after knowing that child might have been lost in the fall.

In the distance Song Qin was using greenwood secret signals to tell the brothers to withdraw. Zhaobai had also already galloped toward them on horseback, her face full of fury.

Xiao Li’s eyes churned with ferocity. He felt he had never regretted anything so much.

Bullshit letting go, bullshit parting amicably and going separate ways!

All bullshit!

His extremely suppressed breathing was as heavy as some beast’s panting. He completely enclosed Wen Yu within his broad chest and arms—it was a posture of complete possession that would no longer allow anyone to take her away. Spurring his horse, he plunged headlong into the vast wind and snow, barely maintaining his calm as he said: “I’ll take you to see a physician first.”

—

**Author’s Note:**

[Mini Theater]

Yu Bao: There’s no child.

Xiao Huan (eyes red): We’ll talk after seeing the physician!

Yu Bao (weakly): …I told you there’s no child, hey hey, don’t cry…