Chapter 1: The Young Lady In Distress
“Young Lady, run fast, run fast!”
The maidservant’s shout seemed to still echo in her ears, but Yang Luo knew the maidservant was already dead.
Although the maidservant was a few years older than her and a bit taller, she was no match for the bandits’ knife and sword.
But the maidservant still turned back without hesitation and ran toward them.
“Young Lady, I’ll hold them off, you run fast—”
Yang Luo’s face was full of tears.
She ran and ran.
In the pitch-black night, lightning flashed and thunder roared, with torrential rain pouring down.
Rainwater hit her body like gravel.
In the dense forest, dry branches were like knife and sword.
Yang Luo kept falling down from time to time.
She felt this was like a nightmare.
During the day, she was still acting spoiled by her mother’s side, saying her clothes were small. Her mother had servant women and maidservants bring various fabrics for her to choose from, and even personally measured her.
“Our Luo Luo is growing so fast. Next year when you turn fifteen and have your hair pinned up, I’ll light a hundred lanterns for you and set off fireworks for celebration.”
Then in the middle of the night, while deep in sleep, she was pulled up by her mother and pushed out the door.
“Luo Luo, go report to officials fast, go report to officials.”
“Luo Luo, you must live, live on.”
She was taken by the servants sitting on horseback and running, and when she looked back, she saw the mansion gate in towering flames, with countless burning arrows flying chaotically.
Although she had run out of the house, the mountain bandits had also surrounded the surroundings.
As they galloped outward, more than a dozen people around them raised bows and arrows in pursuit, shouting noisily, with arrows flying.
The servants around her fell one by one, until the servant protecting her was also dead, the horse she was riding was shot and fell, and she was pushed by the only remaining maidservant to run into the mountain forest.
She had wanted to hide, but that group of mountain bandits still chased after them.
To buy time, the maidservant rushed out to block the mountain bandits.
She ran blindly and crashed headfirst into a tense bush. Her soaked clothes clung to her body, fragile and tearing apart.
Yang Luo let out a miserable scream and fell to her knees, tumbling to the side.
The ground shook, and in the heavy rain, the noisy voices grew closer and closer.
“Chase—”
“She’s right here, she can’t escape!”
The mountain bandits caught up.
She couldn’t run anymore and didn’t want to run anymore. Rainwater and tears surged like springs on her face.
Her mother was dead.
Could she still live? She didn’t want to live either.
But her mother’s shout rang in her ears.
“Luo Luo, live on, you must live.”
No, she couldn’t just die like this. She had to live, had to get revenge for her mother.
Yang Luo struggled to crawl up, gritted her teeth, and burrowed into the bush, crawling and crawling, through the bush, and ran forward again.
But just after running a few steps, whoosh, an arrow landed behind her, piercing through her dress hem.
Yang Luo let out a sharp scream and fell flat.
Strange yells came from behind: “Found her—”
Yang Luo hurriedly crawled forward. Even though her dress tore, firelight had already lit up behind her.
“That little brat is here—”
“Yo, she’s pretty fair-skinned—”
Her body was covered in bruises, scrapes, and cuts seeping blood, oozing from the torn dress, making her skin appear even snowier white.
Yang Luo was already over fourteen years old. Although she rarely left the mansion gate, she had heard the maidservants gossiping about whose family on the village road had been robbed by bandits, whose woman had been violated.
She couldn’t let that happen. Even if she died, she couldn’t be humiliated by this group of mountain bandits.
Yang Luo randomly grabbed a dry branch from the ground and turned to face the pursuing mountain bandits.
Under the torchlight, she could see four or five people closing in.
Those four or five also saw the little girl gripping a dry branch.
The little girl was probably trying to look fierce, but to the ferocious mountain bandits, it was simply ridiculous.
They burst into wild laughter: “This little miss is quite fierce.”
One mountain bandit grinned wickedly and stopped the others who wanted to shoot arrows.
“Let me, let me, let me have a go at this young lady.” He said, then let out a lewd laugh, “Even if this young lady stabs me once, I’d be perfectly willing.”
The other mountain bandits chuckled lewdly and indeed put down their weapons, watching that mountain bandit step forward alone.
“Come on, young lady.” The mountain bandit pointed to his own heart. “Stab right here.”
Tears blurred Yang Luo’s eyes. She knew the branch in her hand couldn’t kill this mountain bandit, but she could lunge over, grab his knife, and kill herself—that would be fine too.
She let out a sharp scream, gripping the branch to pounce, but a whooshing sound came faster than her.
Thud, it grazed past her ear.
The next moment, a muffled grunt sounded.
The world seemed to fall silent.
The mountain bandit puffing out his chest looked down in disbelief at his front—a branch had pierced his heart, not just pierced but gone straight through his body. The mountain bandits standing behind could see blood dripping from the branch.
A branch could actually pierce the chest— that was this mountain bandit’s last thought. The next moment, he spat out a mouthful of blood, collapsed to the ground twitching, and died.
The other mountain bandits finally reacted.
“What!”
“Accomplices!”
“Kill her quick!”
With shouts, the mountain bandits pulled their bows to shoot at Yang Luo, but they were still a step too late. More branches flew from behind Yang Luo, and several mountain bandits flipped over and fell.
What was happening?
Yang Luo gripped the branch in a daze when someone grabbed her from behind.
“Go—”
She was yanked hard and stumbled to the side running. More mountain bandits, who had been a few steps behind, chased up.
“Chase—”
“Shoot arrows—”
Firelight flickered, arrows flew chaotically. The branch in Yang Luo’s hand had dropped. The pulling force was immense, making her almost fly up, and then she really flew.
She was flying downward.
She was carried in a leap, her body suspended in midair.
Yang Luo let out a sharp scream, instinctively hugging the person pulling her, and plunged off the cliff in the heavy rain.
Noisy voices still came from above, with sounds of knife and sword and weapons even louder.
“…Who is that!”
“Accomplices!”
“Leave no one alive!”
“Kill them!”
The shouts of killing did not fade with their fall but grew even more clamorous.
And Yang Luo did not smash straight down like rainwater to the cliff bottom. In the instant of falling, she was suddenly pressed against the cliff wall.
Her feet were still dangling, her hands instinctively clutching one person tightly.
Screams came from above, and someone else fell down, along with the torch in that person’s hand.
By the firelight streaking down, Yang Luo saw the person she was holding—a dusty gray face and a pair of pitch-black, indifferent eyes.
The nightmare of this night had exhausted her mind and strength. Looking at these eyes, Yang Luo could no longer hold on, her head drooped, and she fainted.
……
…….
Torrential rain poured, dense rainwater fell and scoured. The rocks on the cliff wall seemed unable to withstand it and were shaking precariously.
Mo Zheng held the fainted girl in one arm and gripped the iron sword stabbed into the cliff wall with the other, blending seamlessly with the cliff wall, unmoving despite the downpour.
The sounds of fighting above gradually grew smaller. Firelight flickered and shone above, and the next moment, several torches were thrown down, crashing to the cliff bottom, igniting flames that illuminated the jagged rocks and the twisted, broken corpses that had just fallen.
The almost inaudible footsteps above disappeared into the distance. At the cliff bottom, the torches went out under the rain, and the world fell quiet again.
Mo Zheng pulled out the iron sword, and the person fell once more, vanishing into the heavy rain amid the clash of metal and stone.
Long time no see, good morning my friends!!
