Chapter 60: Yuanyang's Crisis

Chapter 60: Yangyang’s Crisis

The rain still fell. Cui Yuanyang, clutching her head, followed Zhao Changhe as he wove through the mountains, watching him expertly find a hollow in a cave and crawl inside, then rummage out some relatively dry twigs and leaves and light a fire starter.

Soon, a warm little nest took shape.

The move wasn’t solely because the corpses everywhere were eerie to behold; more importantly, he wanted to avoid running into others “taking shelter from the rain” again. Now that a strange murderous intent had turned toward Cui Yuanyang, Zhao Changhe had to be even more cautious. Finding a cave in the desolate wilderness—surely no one could track them here!

Cui Yuanyang sat by the fire with her knees hugged, waving her hands back and forth, drying her slightly damp rabbit-fur coat on both sides, wanting to take it off but not daring.

Underneath, she wore only a small bellyband, embroidered with mandarin ducks playing in water.

Zhao Changhe paid her no mind. He stripped off his own coat and dried his clothes bare-chested.

Cui Yuanyang dared not look at his muscular frame; she turned her head and muttered, “Ruffian.”

Zhao Changhe couldn’t be bothered. You peeked at me practicing my blade this morning—it’s not like you haven’t seen it before. Now you’re pretending to be shy… I’m not some beast about to pin you to the ground.

Unable to scold Zhao Changhe, Cui Yuanyang blamed the heavens instead: “What lousy weather. So annoying.”

“Spring rains are normal. Without them, there’d be no autumn harvest for your family.” Zhao Changhe, drying his clothes, sighed. “I’m saying, shouldn’t your brain be racking itself over who wants to kill you? Have you ever offended anyone?”

Cui Yuanyang shook her head absently. She’d been the moon surrounded by stars at home since childhood—the kind everyone adored, flowers bloomed at her sight. How could she have offended anyone? If anything, she’d occasionally scolded servants, but surely no one would hold such a grudge over a trifle and hire an assassin?

That was just too… impossible to guess.

Zhao Changhe was equally baffled. Who could this girl have offended? Conflicts of interest? She had no ties to anyone’s interests.

It was normal for the Cui family to have enemies, but what was the point of targeting a little girl like her? Kidnapping her and putting her through all sorts of ordeals might make sense, but hiring an assassin to kill her—what was that for? Pure vengeance?

Of course, pure vengeance wasn’t unheard of; the world had all sorts of people… But if so, there was really no way to guess.

No!

A sudden jolt struck Zhao Changhe’s mind: “How many people know you ran off halfway to find me?”

Cui Yuanyang was taken aback: “My family should all know… Outsiders? Not sure…”

“Right.” Zhao Changhe snapped his fingers. “Even if your family urgently sent people to find you, how long has it been since you ran off? By now, they’ve just started searching everywhere, but the assassin already showed up! That timeline makes it unlikely an outsider hired the hit.”

Cui Yuanyang shuddered, murmuring in disbelief: “Family? Someone in my family wants to kill me?”

“Not just your family—someone who knew you sneaked out to find me, so they could locate you fastest.” Zhao Changhe’s face was expressionless. “What do you think? Could it be Cui Yuanyong? He fits the bill best.”

Cui Yuanyang shouted, “Impossible!”

Zhao Changhe shook his head. He also thought it unlikely. If Cui Yuanyong wanted to kill his sister, he could have done it a hundred ways by now, given how naive she was. Why wait? Even if he deliberately waited to shake off suspicion after leaving, he couldn’t escape blame—everyone knew his sister went traveling with him, and if she died outside, how could he dodge responsibility? He’d definitely be held accountable.

Right now, the most frantic person should be Cui Yuanyong.

“Not Cui Yuanyong, but someone who wants him to bear the heavy blame for not watching his sister and causing her death.” Zhao Changhe smirked. “Looks like there’s a power struggle in your family? Is Cui Yuanyong the only one from your generation on the Hidden Dragon List? What about the others?”

Cui Yuanyang bit her lower lip and stayed silent.

Being on the Hidden Dragon List didn’t mean others weren’t as good as Cui Yuanyong; after all, the Chaos Chronicle spoke based on battle records. Others might have unremarkable records but sufficient strength.

Besides, when a noble family chose a patriarch, strength wasn’t the only factor—the status of the legitimate eldest son mattered more. As long as his strength and character weren’t so terrible as to provoke universal opposition, no one could shake the legitimate eldest son’s position.

Cui Yuanyong and Cui Yuanyang were both born to the main wife of the eldest branch. Cui Yuanyong wasn’t the eldest son—he had an older brother… but that brother was born to a concubine. So, even though Cui Yuanyang called Cui Yuanyong her second brother, he was actually the legitimate eldest son.

With the best status, ranked third on the Hidden Dragon List, and the greatest fame, he was practically the destined next patriarch of the Cui family. Others had little competition against him.

But what if something happened to him?

Would the crime of causing his sister’s death be enough? Hard to say, but it was a good bargaining chip.

At the very least, Cui Yuanyang’s eldest branch had more than one brother—not to mention the eldest son by a concubine, there was also the legitimate second son. Whether other branches were eyeing the position, no one knew.

The Cui family’s current generation had many male heirs.

Following this reasoning, the most likely suspect seemed to be the legitimate second son, Cui Yuancheng—also Cui Yuanyang’s full-blooded brother. This possibility numbed Cui Yuanyang; she couldn’t speak for a long time.

Zhao Changhe said, “Why aren’t you talking? I don’t know much about your family. You need to tell me the situation so I can analyze it.”

Cui Yuanyang stammered for a while, then haltingly gave a rough account.

Zhao Changhe’s expression twitched. All this talk of eldest branch, second branch, legitimate eldest, concubine eldest, legitimate second—his head swelled three or four sizes. It took him a while to sort it out. Big families sure had a lot of damn nonsense.

He rubbed his temples, a headache setting in: “Don’t look like the sky’s falling. It might not be your brother; it could be someone else. The bigger problem we face now is—I might not be able to beat the assassin.”

Cui Yuanyang had thought of that too.

If a Cui family member put out a bounty, her reward might be even more outrageous than Zhao Changhe’s thousand taels of gold. The killers after that kind of money wouldn’t be mere third or fourth level Xuan Pass; who knew how strong they could be?

Actually, Zhao Changhe’s own bounty could attract terrifying enemies, which was why he needed to hide his tracks.

So far, no strong opponents had shown up—just bad luck. What were the odds that a killer interested in the bounty and strong enough happened to be nearby? And even if nearby, how would they find them?

Han Wubing had come from who knows where far away. The assassin just now had probably gone to the mountain temple to avoid the rain and stumbled on the dead rabbit. The real encounter factor was everyone sheltering from the rain at the same temple, not that they had radar. So stronger people definitely existed; they just hadn’t crossed paths yet. Zhao Changhe, only at the third level of Xuan Pass, could handle a few?

If it were just Zhao Changhe alone, it would be simple. No one knew which direction he’d take. As long as he didn’t play the hero and announce himself at a martial arts school, who would know where he was in a month? Soon, nothing would happen.

But Cui Yuanyang had to go home eventually. Qinghe’s location was fixed. Others didn’t need to find them—they just needed to station people on all routes to Qinghe and wait. How could he get her there?

“Now it depends on the Cui family’s reaction—whether they’ll send elite troops to guard all roads…” Zhao Changhe trailed off, then quickly contradicted himself: “That doesn’t seem realistic either. How would they know you’re being hunted? They probably think you ran off with some wild man and wouldn’t dare make a fuss.”

Cui Yuanyang’s head drooped; her rabbit ears nearly touched the ground.

Running away from home was fun for a moment, but who knew it would bring such trouble? The girl now truly felt Zhao Changhe had been right to scold her—she was a fool.

“I have an idea,” Zhao Changhe said, stroking his chin. “But your reputation might be ruined.”

Cui Yuanyang asked curiously, “What idea?”

“We just don’t go to Qinghe. Go the opposite way—see the misty rain of Jiangnan, the northern deserts. I don’t even know where I’m going myself. They don’t have clairvoyance—how could they find us? By the time your family learns your whereabouts, maybe half a year or a year will have passed. They’ll probably have already thought up names for their grandchild, and the whole world will know…”

Cui Yuanyang opened her mouth, not knowing how to respond.

Zhao Changhe leaned against the cave wall, closing his eyes to rest: “There’s another straightforward plan: we rush back to Qinghe day and night. The bounty’s just started; not many know about it. The chance of a net being cast to trap you is practically nonexistent. So if we’re going back, we need to hurry—before the profit-seekers even stir, you and I will already be in Qinghe.”