Qiu Xinran saw from afar a burly, bearded man chasing down the mountain slope. His physique was far more robust than that fake eunuch with the shrill voice from before. Even ordinary military generals rarely had such an imposing build.

Qiu Xinran had originally been supporting Xia Xiuyan as he dragged his injured leg for a few steps. Seeing the person behind them closing in, the youth beside her finally irritably shoved her away. “Get lost!”

The girl was startled. Seeing him truly stop and no longer look at her as he turned to stand in place waiting for the other party to catch up, Qiu Xinran hesitated slightly, then gritted her teeth, turned back, and continued running into the forest.

“You’ve got some backbone, boy.” The man quickly caught up. Watching the other figure run far away, he turned his head and spat on the ground in frustration. Either way, that girl wasn’t the person he was supposed to catch tonight. As long as this boy was still in his hands, this mission wouldn’t be a failure.

Though he thought this in his heart, recalling his companion’s cold corpse in the cave, he still couldn’t restrain his blazing anger. He sneered and roughly grabbed the youth’s collar, slamming him against a tree. “Too bad you’re overestimating yourself!” He didn’t hold back with this blow. Xia Xiuyan felt as if his internal organs had all shifted positions. The pain nearly made him cough up blood. Behind him, the tree trunk as thick as one person’s embrace shook, scattering leaves all over the ground.

“Little brat, I’ll teach you to run!” The man swung a punch. Xia Xiuyan was half-lifted in the air. He turned his head and barely dodged it, only feeling the tree trunk behind him groan as if about to break. He reached up to grab the hand clutching his collar and with effort broke free, falling awkwardly to the ground.

Seeing him still daring to struggle, the man kicked him over again, then leaped forward with a raised fist ready to strike.

His heart was full of rage. With one punch, he could probably beat Xia Xiuyan half to death. But unexpectedly, that fist raised in the air didn’t fall for a long while.

The youth lying on the ground forced his eyes open and saw that the person who had run far away had somehow returned. She held a wooden club as thick as an arm and, taking advantage of their struggle, swung it down on the burly man’s head.

With this heavy blow, there was a loud “bang.” The arm-thick stick broke clean in two, while the person kneeling on the ground cried out in pain but still managed to stay conscious. He reached to touch the back of his head and in the moonlight found his hand covered in blood.

This aroused his ferocity. Seeing his bloodshot eyes, Qiu Xinran was also scared stiff in place. The half-stick still in her hand fell to the ground. She looked around but found no weapon for self-defense and could only tremble as she instinctively pulled out the silver hairpin from her hair.

But this hairpin was too small—held in hand, it was probably not as long as a dagger. How could the man take this hairpin seriously? He staggered to his feet. With just a reach of his hand, he had already grasped her neck and with a violent swing, threw her against a tree.

There was a heavy thud as she hit the ground. Xia Xiuyan suspected this blow had shattered all her bones. He was still being pinned down by the man, but from the corner of his eye he suddenly glimpsed a flash of silver beside his hand—

After the big man had thrown Qiu Xinran to the ground and saw she wasn’t moving, he turned back, preparing to deal with the boy on the ground first. Just as he turned his head, he saw a flash of silver before his eyes. With a thud, the sharp weapon pierced through flesh with a muffled sound. Before he could react to what had happened, he had already stopped breathing, only futilely opening his eyes wide before instantly losing his breath.

Xia Xiuyan forcefully pulled out the silver hairpin embedded in the man’s throat. Instantly, fresh blood from the other’s windpipe splattered across his face. He pushed away the corpse pressing on him with effort. The other party was like a mountain, crashing down heavily to the side.

Cicadas cried out in the mountains, each call longer than the last, finally gradually drowning out his gasping.

Xia Xiuyan supported himself with both hands to crawl up and dragged his injured leg to walk to the girl lying by the tree. She was sprawled on the ground, her long hair spread out, motionless as if she had already lost her life.

The youth stood beside her for a while, somehow not daring for a long time to turn her over and check her breathing. That swing had been too brutal. He couldn’t help but recall that sound, while the little Daoist boy’s arms were white and slender—it seemed they could break with the slightest force.

He shifted his steps and suddenly froze, looking down to discover someone had grabbed the hem of his clothes.

“If you abandon me now, you really wouldn’t be human.” The person lying on the ground was gasping in pain, her voice so hoarse it was unrecognizable, but at least there was still movement.

In the night, Xia Xiuyan silently curved the corners of his mouth and looked away, lightly kicking away the hand clutching his hem. “Get up yourself, or stay here alone.”

Qiu Xinran believed that with his character, he could indeed do such a thing. She silently cursed him in her heart, then lay on the ground for a long while before struggling with great difficulty to get up. When she stood, she felt as if all the bones in her body had been taken apart and reassembled.

Xia Xiuyan half-knelt beside the corpse that had just fallen, searching through something. This person’s death was even more frightening than the first one’s. Qiu Xinran stood far away under the tree and didn’t go closer. Only after the youth had finished looking did she ask, “What do we do next?”

“Go back near the cave.”

Qiu Xinran suspected she hadn’t heard clearly. “What did you say?”

“Go back.” The youth answered concisely. He picked up a thick wooden stick from the side to use as a crutch and ordered, “Go pick up his bow and arrows.”

They actually hadn’t escaped far from the cave. Tonight, relying on themselves to feel their way out of the mountains was impossible. The most important thing now was still to find a place to rest and recuperate. Xia Xiuyan’s leg wound also needed bandaging. Qiu Xinran’s peach blossom eyes stared at him as she swallowed her anger and picked up the bow and arrows the dead man had left beside him, holding them in her arms. There was the sound of water nearby. Following the sound, after walking for a short while, they indeed quickly found a mountain stream.

Xia Xiuyan washed the bloodstains from his face clean, then tore strips of cloth from his clothes to bandage his arrow-pierced left leg. Fortunately, the arrow hadn’t gone deep and hadn’t injured bone or tendon. After bandaging, the bleeding quickly stopped. But it should still hurt. Qiu Xinran saw that when he tied the bandage, a layer of cold sweat appeared on his forehead, yet even so, he didn’t make a sound.

“Tonight you really did look like a general’s son.” The girl sat cross-legged across from him, supporting her chin with one hand as she suddenly spoke. Hearing this, Xia Xiuyan glanced at her. But she didn’t continue. Instead, she lifted her eyes to look at him and asked, “Why did you tell me to run alone just now?”

Xia Xiuyan’s movement of wrapping the bandage paused as he asked nonchalantly in return, “Then why did you come back just now?”

Qiu Xinran choked, then said slowly, “I’m still young now, so my heart is too soft. When I grow up a bit more, I probably won’t come back.”

The person across from her sneered upon hearing this. He reached out to hand something over. Only when Qiu Xinran looked down did she realize it was the silver hairpin she had originally used to bind her hair. The blood on it had already been washed clean with stream water and it gleamed silver in the moonlight. She recalled that just now this thing had pierced through the kidnapper’s throat in one thrust. Her face immediately showed an expression that was hard to put into words. “Just throw it away. I don’t want it anymore.”

She casually picked up a small twig from the ground, broke off a section, and used it to re-bind the hair draped behind her head, changing back into that little Daoist boy’s appearance. When finished, she even tilted her head to show off silently to him, looking quite clever and adorable. Xia Xiuyan’s heart stirred. He lowered his eyes, and the thought arose in his mind that “if she had died tonight, it would indeed be somewhat of a pity.”

Looking at the moonlight now, it was unclear what hour it was. They also didn’t know what the situation in the palace was. Qiu Xinran idly took a small wooden stick and drew something on the ground while asking, “Should we go back to the cave?”

“We’re not going back.”

“Then just now you…” Qiu Xinran was startled. She had thought Xia Xiuyan insisted on walking back because the cave would be safe at night.

“You want to go back?”

Qiu Xinran hastily shook her head. There was still a corpse in that cave—naturally she didn’t want to go back. Xia Xiuyan seemed to see through her thoughts at a glance and chuckled lightly. “Have you never seen a dead person before?” He obviously wasn’t talking about those who had died ordinary deaths. Qiu Xinran was somewhat defiant. “Have you?”

Xia Xiuyan lowered his eyes, not knowing what he was thinking. After a while, he said in a low voice, “In winter, the Diyue people sometimes ride horses to raid villages at night. They steal the village’s entire year’s harvest, then abduct the young women and burn the village with fire. The village men are tied up and dragged behind horses. Halfway through, the corpses are abandoned and they ride away. The next day, the border garrison soldiers help search for the bodies and transport them back. If no one claims them, they’re gathered together and burned in one fire.”

Qiu Xinran probably found it very difficult to imagine that scene. She said with difficulty, “I heard that since General Xia went there, Yuzhou has been much more peaceful.”

Xia Xiuyan murmured, “The Northwest is too vast. One Yuzhou city cannot protect the entire Northwest.” In the palace, he had never spoken such words to anyone, but he could with Qiu Xinran, because after he finished speaking, the other party just looked at him blankly and asked, “Why are you suddenly talking about this?”

Xia Xiuyan glanced at her. “One of those two just now was a Diyue person.”

Qiu Xinran was startled. “How do you know?”

“The way they tied the rope knots is commonly used by Diyue people. The Diyue people excel at mounted archery and close combat. The one who just died also used Diyue wrestling techniques.”

“Were they also the ones who poisoned your medicine?” Qiu Xinran hurriedly asked again, “By the way, what did you do to Shu’er?”

“Who is Shu’er?”

“The little eunuch from the flower room who comes to your palace every day to water the flowers.”

Xia Xiuyan was startled. “You taught him to say those words?”

“What words?” Qiu Xinran was also startled by his question. “I only had him return the potted plant to see if you actually knew someone had poisoned your medicine.”

Xia Xiuyan’s expression was very poor. He had naturally understood the meaning in that little eunuch’s words and afterward had specifically sent people to investigate his identity. The result was that his subordinates reported this person had nothing special about him. Over several days, they hadn’t seen him having any secret contacts with anyone. That was why tonight Xia Xiuyan had detained him, preparing to use him to draw out whoever was behind him.

Seeing the stormy expression on his face, Qiu Xinran’s heart jumped. “You didn’t really do something to him, did you?”

“I killed him. What can you do about it?”

Qiu Xinran couldn’t tell if his words were true or false. For a moment she couldn’t respond and could only stare at him blankly. Xia Xiuyan continued, “Do you think the death of a little eunuch in the palace is such a remarkable thing? Do you know how many people have died silently in this palace?” He said coldly, “You do have some cleverness, that’s true. But in this place, those who die fastest are often precisely those who think they have some cleverness.”

Qiu Xinran was chastened by his words. After all, from childhood to adulthood, no one had truly lectured her like this. She instinctively wanted to argue back, but found that what he said was indeed the truth. When she ran to Jinhe Palace to find him tonight, her heart and mind had been full of regret. If Shu’er had lost his life because of her cleverness, she would be greatly at fault.

“So what exactly did you do to him?” She said irritably, and because of her guilty conscience, her tone carried a bit of a wheedling quality. Xia Xiuyan turned his head away and ignored her. Seeing his appearance, Qiu Xinran knew that Shu’er’s life should be safe. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief and shifted position to sit down beside him, also leaning against the tree trunk.

As soon as she sat beside him, Xia Xiuyan immediately frowned with some distaste and shifted his position to the side. Qiu Xinran said with amusement, “What are you doing? Aren’t you cold? I’m not even touching you.”

Just as she finished speaking, a night wind blew past. Summer days were scorching hot, but nights were still somewhat cool, especially in the mountains where the wind carried a bit of desolation. Perhaps Xia Xiuyan also felt that since she, a young lady, didn’t care, if he himself kept dodging like this, it would seem like he had lost ground.

He glanced over. From the corner of his eye, he saw her seem to yawn long and loudly. She looked extremely tired, like some kind of gentle, harmless animal. He paused, then finally shifted his body back toward her a bit. For the second time tonight, this thought arose: her being alive tonight wasn’t a bad thing for him. If there were only him alone, the night would truly be too cold.