As she felt Li Shubai’s pulse – weak but continuing – and was lost in thought, she sensed something amiss in their surroundings.

She pressed her ear to the ground, listening intently, and heard hoofbeats approaching.

The tired, irregular rhythm of the hooves, slightly chaotic, showed they had been searching all night. And now, they had finally arrived.

Fortunately, the sound indicated they had been scattered by the forest – only two or three horses were approaching.

But even if there were only three people, how could she and Li Shubai deal with them? In his current condition, how could he endure another desperate flight through the mountains?

She jumped up and gave Di’e a harsh whip. The horse, which had been resting against a tree, let out a long neigh and charged at her angrily, snorting furiously.

Huang Zixia lowered her voice and pointed forward, saying, “Run! Quick, run!”

Di’e, stung by the pain, shot forward like an arrow, crossing the mountain stream and charging into the dark forest ahead.

She dragged Li Shubai with all her strength, hiding him in the bushes by the stream. She crouched beside him, holding her breath, eyes wide open watching the outside.

Two riders charged down from the mountain behind them, passing their hiding place in the bushes, pursuing in the direction Di’e had fled. One rider led the chase while the other nocked a signal arrow and shot it forward. A point of fire drew a bright line through the night sky, like a curved blade cutting through the darkness, vanishing in an instant.

She waited quietly behind the bushes for a long while, until the hoofbeats could no longer be heard and everything around them returned to silence. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief, though still not daring to emerge from behind the bushes. She could only sit beside Li Shubai, readjusting the herbs that had shifted in the chaos, and seeing that blood was no longer seeping from his back wound, felt slightly relieved. She turned to look at the small stream outside.

This glance nearly made her jump in fright.

A dark figure stood silently in front of their hiding place in the bushes.

He held a horse’s reins – clearly one of the pursuers, but for some reason, he hadn’t followed the others in the chase, instead staying behind.

Now he stood in the moonlight, motionless, watching her.

The moon had already tilted westward, backlighting him, his face covered with black cloth, only a pair of bright eyes fixed steadily on her.

Huang Zixia felt her heart stop beating for a moment, able only to maintain her position sitting beside the unconscious Li Shubai.

His gaze finally moved from her to Li Shubai, then he spoke in a low voice: “Duke Li Shubai.”

His voice was deep and hoarse, with a Xuzhou accent – the same person who had ordered everyone to pursue them earlier, likely the leader of the assassins.

Fear surged across Huang Zixia’s face. She seemed about to stand but her legs gave way, and she collapsed beside Li Shubai.

He drew his sword and walked toward them step by step. Backlit, his shadow blocked out the moon, his dark figure looming over them, making it almost impossible for Huang Zixia to breathe.

His gaze passed over her, fixed on Li Shubai, his sword raised high, about to plunge down toward his heart.

“I know who you are!” she suddenly called out, interrupting his motion.

He paused, his cold gaze flicking toward her, but he remained silent.

“You changed your voice, deliberately speaking with a Xuzhou accent, wanting us to mistakenly think you’re Pang Xun’s old subordinates, killing Duke Li to avenge your former master, right?”

He remained silent, merely moving his sword tip to aim at her throat.

Her chest heaved rapidly, her breathing constricted by the sword at her neck, her throat almost choked, voice becoming dark and low: “But, I know you’re from the capital, and very likely from the Capital’s Ten Divisions, because…”

Her voice gradually lowered, stammering, as if too frightened to speak loudly. He bent down, lowering his head closer to her, trying to hear her words.

“Because when you draw your sword, your thumb habitually rubs to the side…” As she said this, he suddenly realized and instinctively looked at his sword-wielding right hand.

In that moment of distraction, his vision blurred as a dagger stabbed toward his lower abdomen.

He reacted extremely quickly, immediately flipping away, but the distance had been too close. Though he avoided a fatal wound, his left ribs were slashed, blood gushing out wildly.

Clutching his left side, he stumbled back two steps in disbelief, while Huang Zixia had already leaped out from behind the bushes, grabbing a handful of sand to throw at his eyes.

He hadn’t expected such tactics from her, but with one hand holding his sword and the other covering his wound, he could only close his eyes, swinging his sword defensively to keep her at bay.

Huang Zixia said, “The Capital’s Ten Divisions’ sword scabbards all have a catch to prevent them from slipping loose in crowded places, while also serving as a reminder against drawing weapons carelessly. So their members all unconsciously use their thumbs to release that catch when drawing their swords – how would you, supposedly one of Pang Xun’s old subordinates from Xuzhou, have such a habitual movement?”

He remained silent, clutching his left side, feeling bone-deep pain, unable to stand steady, forced to lean against a tree behind him. Using his last strength to seal his acupoints to stop the bleeding, he could only stare at her motionlessly. Though still gripping his sword, his body shook violently, completely drained of strength.

Huang Zixia tore off another strip of her outer garment and walked toward him.

He stared at her, still silent, not making a sound, only his eyes revealing complex emotions – not fear or hatred, but a kind of helplessness and astonishment.

Huang Zixia had no time to ponder his expression. Approaching him, she first stepped on his sword, then viciously kicked his wrist. No matter how strong he was, this made him cry out involuntarily, his sword immediately loosening from his grip.

She grabbed his hands and bound them with her torn clothing, then pulled off his face covering, revealing an unremarkable, forgettable face. She stuffed the cloth directly into his mouth.

After dealing with him, she picked up his sword and crouched in front of him, examining his wound. Her dagger strike had indeed been fierce, nearly slashing from his right shoulder to his left abdomen. If he had reacted even slightly slower, she would have disemboweled him.

Huang Zixia turned over the dagger and looked at it, finally seeing the character ‘Yu Chang’ engraved on it, and muttered to herself: “No wonder.”

She tore off the hem of his clothes and roughly bandaged his exterior, not caring whether he lived or died. Only when she stood up and saw his eyes still fixed unwaveringly on her did she say, “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you now. At the very least, if your companions search here, you can serve as a hostage.”

After such a tumultuous night, fish-belly white was appearing on the horizon – dawn was approaching. Huang Zixia went to the stream and splashed water on her face, the cold water clearing her mind. She shook her hands dry and led his horse over, searching through the small bags on its back.

Besides bow and arrows, there were several strings of coins, some salt blocks, several bottles of wound medicine, and one bottle of unknown powder. She opened the powder bottle and sniffed, detecting the scent of Rehmannia and rhubarb, then immediately grabbed it and walked to the assassin’s front.

He had lost too much blood, his gaze at her slightly unfocused.

She lightly placed the dagger against his throat, then removed the cloth from his mouth and asked, “What is this?”

He glanced at it and said through gritted teeth, “I have headaches, I take it with water when they occur.”

Huang Zixia laughed coldly: “Since when do rehmannia and rhubarb treat headaches? This is an antidote!”

He closed his eyes, neither looking at her nor speaking.

“I don’t know how you people used Princess Qile, but she was after all imperial family. Since you used poison needles, you must have prepared an antidote in advance – if anything went wrong, having a way to save her would make for a better explanation. Too bad the princess can’t use it anymore, and this bottle of antidote you’re carrying is it, isn’t it?”

He finally spoke, his voice still hoarse with the Xuzhou accent: “Take with water, one and a half scoops at a time.”

Huang Zixia’s dagger pressed tighter against his throat: “If you’re lying, and anything happens to Duke Li, I won’t kill you – I’m a eunuch, and what I enjoy most is making others like myself. If you’re deceiving me…”

Her dagger moved downward, pressing against his lower abdomen.

His breathing became rapid, his expression slightly dazed, clearly having lost much blood. But his gaze remained fixed on her, and though his voice was slow, it was still clear: “Such a beautiful woman… why pretend… to be a eunuch?”

Huang Zixia froze, not expecting him to see through her true identity. She hadn’t anticipated that they already knew her real identity, and in her sudden anger, grabbed the face cloth and stuffed it back in his mouth.

She found the spot where she had sucked the poison from Li Shubai yesterday, used the dagger to collect some of the poisoned blood, then returned to the assassin’s side and directly stabbed his calf with the poison-smeared dagger.

The assassin, already slightly confused from blood loss, suddenly convulsed in pain, his eyes widening as he looked at her, making a muffled sound in his throat.

Without explanation, she tore open the cloth around the wound, watching it quickly turn grayish-black, then pulled the cloth from his mouth, poured some powder on his tongue, and said, “I’ll test the medicine on you first. If you die, don’t blame me.”

He glared at her fiercely, but as soon as he swallowed the medicine, his mouth was stuffed tight again, leaving him no chance to speak, only to continue glaring at her.

She crouched beside him and after a while, seeing the black qi gradually receding from his leg wound, finally felt relieved. She quickly grabbed the antidote and ran to Li Shubai’s side, pulling out the stopper. In this wilderness with no spoon available, she could only estimate as she poured some into his mouth, then picked a large leaf, rolled it into a tube, filled it with water, and slowly poured it into his mouth, helping him drink it down.

Fortunately, although unconscious, Li Shubai still swallowed instinctively. Huang Zixia then opened his clothes, removed the herbs applied last night, and reapplied the wound medicine, carefully bandaging him.

By the time everything was done, it was fully light. Mist hung in the forest, and brilliant sunlight filtered down through the gaps in the branches overhead, its radiance flickering hazily.