Chapter 10

The sunset slanted across the horizon as the young girl spoke with earnest intensity.

Chen Xiu'e, a tenant farmer from a prominent family, had spent her life working the fields. While she had heard tales of noble young masters raised on horse riding and archery, possessing robust and agile frames, she remained only half-convinced by Li Mianyu’s claims. The other half of her doubt stemmed from the fact that Yan Shi appeared lean and slender, hardly as sturdy as her own husband.

However, she understood that in the young girl’s heart, her brother was naturally the most formidable of all. She nodded with a smile, "Then we shall be able to sleep soundly tonight."

Li Mianyu felt satisfied, nodding with immense pride, "Naturally."

Yan Shi crouched silently to the side, lighting a fire and propping up two fish to roast. He then sat down beside Li Mianyu and handed her a waterskin.

Li Mianyu straightened her back, extending a slender, jade-like hand to take it. Feeling content, a faint smile lingered at the corners of her lips.

Watching the young lady’s chin tilt upward in a display of pride, Chen Xiu'e could not help but cover her mouth to hide a laugh. As her husband returned, she moved to sit by her own fire.

Seeing the woman move further away, Li Mianyu leaned toward Yan Shi, whispering, "Next time, show her your sword and that stick of yours! Let her see how impressive you are!"

Yan Shi: "..."

Li Mianyu felt like someone showing off a precious treasure, yearning for Chen Xiu'e to truly witness Yan Shi’s martial prowess. After speaking, she stared intently at him.

"The stick..."

"If you won't let her touch it, can't you at least let her see it?" Li Mianyu interrupted before he could finish, her brows knitting together.

The youth lowered his eyes and flipped the fish. After a long moment, he nodded with a straight face and looked at her, saying, "That is a secret weapon; it cannot be revealed."

Li Mianyu felt deeply disappointed and muttered under her breath that Yan Shi was stingy. Yet, her moods shifted quickly; she figured that if any danger arose, Yan Shi would surely leave that woman astounded.

She asked again, "Is Longxi not safe? If it is safe there, we should go to the mountain village where Chen Niangzi lives. I just made an agreement with her."

Longxi was a vital stronghold—a strategic hub. To the west lay Hexi, to the east the Guanzhong hinterlands, and to the south the plains of Shu and Han. With the Long Mountains shielding the Guanzhong plains, it was a place every military strategist fought to control. It certainly had its own landscapes, but its customs were entirely different from the capital; they slept on heated earthen beds and ate wheat-based foods.

It was not far from where they were now.

Yan Shi looked at Li Mianyu. She gazed at him with expectant, bright eyes. He nodded.

Throughout their journey, Yan Shi had been the one to discern the direction and decide their path. Recently, Li Mianyu had made a decision of her own, and she felt a spark of joy. She handed the remaining plum in her hand to Yan Shi, "You eat it."

The princess was pleased and naturally wanted to reward her capable subordinate. Even though Yan Shi was the one who had picked it in the first place.

Yan Shi took it.

Once the fish was roasted, Yan Shi produced two whittled bamboo chopsticks to debone the fish for Li Mianyu, placing the meat on a clean stone slab he had scavenged. He then tore up some of their dry rations and set them beside the fish before eating the rest himself.

Watching this from the corner of her eye, Chen Xiu'e felt the young lady was truly pampered. Even in such dire straits, she was still so fastidious!

She then looked at the youth quietly eating his rations nearby—fair-skinned, handsome, with brows as sharp as a painting, and a stature as straight as bamboo. He was so attentive and looked to be about seventeen or eighteen... she wondered if the two siblings were already betrothed.

After finishing her meal, Li Mianyu went to the stream to wash her hands and face. She turned back and asked, "Chen Niangzi, would you like to come along?"

Chen Xiu'e was a farm woman with no such pretensions, but finding the girl as lovely as snow and jade—her charm impossible to hide even in coarse men's clothing—she stood up and followed.

Yan Shi watched from behind, cleaning up the fish bones and discarding them further away. Upon returning, he saw Chen Xiu'e’s husband, Zhu Dacheng, picking wildflowers, and he paused to observe.

Zhu Dacheng was tall and sturdy, built like a small mountain with a square, well-defined face. In his thirties, the short stubble on his chin gave him a fierce appearance.

Yet, those massive, fan-like hands were now carefully plucking small roadside flowers.

Seeing Yan Shi watching, Zhu Dacheng offered a simple, honest smile. "My wife hasn't been in good spirits lately. I saw these flowers blooming beautifully, so I thought I’d pick some to weave a wreath for her to cheer her up."

Yan Shi glanced at Li Mianyu in the distance. He said nothing, but walked toward the patch of wildflowers.

Zhu Dacheng’s smile widened, "Right, your sister will surely like them too!"

Sister...?

Yan Shi remained silent.

Without soap, Li Mianyu washed her hands with extreme care. When washing her face, she bowed her head and scooped the water gently. As Chen Xiu'e turned her head after washing her own hands, she saw glistening water droplets shimmering on the young lady’s face. She was so ethereal and charming that the woman couldn't help but sigh, "It is fortunate that you have your brother with you on this journey; otherwise, with such beauty, a girl alone would surely have encountered those bandits."

Li Mianyu nodded. It was her Imperial Grandfather’s kindness that had assigned such a capable shadow guard to her.

Chen Xiu'e wanted to ask if the siblings were betrothed, but thinking of their status as refugees, she felt it would be meddlesome and refrained.

Li Mianyu, however, spoke up: "My brother has agreed to go to Longxi with you, Chen Niangzi."

Chen Xiu'e was delighted and enthusiastically began telling Li Mianyu all about Chen Village, gesturing animatedly. "I was only thirteen when I left home; twenty years have passed since then. I don't know what the situation is like now. Chen Village is hidden in a mountain hollow, so the chaos outside shouldn't have reached it. I have two older brothers. When I left, the eldest had just been married for half a year, and the second was a year older than me. He chased after me for three miles when I left. They must have families of their own now."

Li Mianyu asked curiously, "Why did you leave home? Was it because of your marriage?"

The woman shook her head, reflecting for a moment, and smiled. "My mother fell ill, and the family’s money was all spent. I heard a slave trader was coming to the neighboring village, so I sold myself to pay for my mother's treatment. Later, I was lucky; my former master bought servants for his manor, and since I had done farm work since childhood, they chose me. Later, I married my husband, and we’ve been together for nearly twenty years."

"Which family was your former master?" Li Mianyu asked casually.

Chen Xiu'e replied, "The Cui family of the capital."

Li Mianyu gasped, clutching her chest, her voice trembling slightly: "The Cui family? Which Cui family?"

Chen Xiu'e spoke with a sense of pride, "My master is the Prime Minister. But my husband and I always worked on the manor, so we never saw him... Little Yu, do you and your brother perhaps know my master?"

Li Mianyu opened her mouth, wanting to say that the Prime Minister’s eldest son, Cui Yunqi—the capital's most celebrated young master—was her fiancé. But she hesitated, realizing that her engagement to Cui Yunqi had been announced to the world. If she spoke, wouldn't people realize she was the Princess of Ning?

She slowly shook her head. "I was just curious. I’ve heard the Cui family’s eldest son is as graceful as the moon and as elegant as an immortal; I would love to see him!"

Chen Xiu'e laughed, thinking nothing of it; such youthful sentiment was common. "Our young master is indeed a dragon among men, though I have never seen him myself!"

Li Mianyu felt as if her heart were being clawed by a cat. Barely containing her emotions, she lowered her head and asked urgently in a low voice, "You said earlier that the Cui family met with disaster?"

Chen Xiu'e nodded, then shook her head. "I don't know the details, only that there was trouble. That day, troops entered the manor. My husband, being strong and quick-witted, took me and fled through the back gate."

Li Mianyu’s heart sank. Her eyes stung, and she lowered her head to hide it. "I see."

She mumbled something about the heat and bent down to scoop more stream water to wash her face. When she looked up, her face was dripping wet. "I’ll go see if my brother has finished packing."

Though her face was wet, the redness in the corners of her eyes couldn't hide her turmoil.

Chen Xiu'e was used to reading faces and sensed something was amiss—after all, noble families were often interconnected. But she pretended to see nothing and nodded, "I'll wash for a while longer; the water is pleasantly cool!"

Li Mianyu stood up and walked back.

She was looking down and not watching her path, so she bumped straight into Yan Shi, who was standing by a tree. Her nose throbbed with pain, and when she looked up, tears surged like a fountain, streaming down her face in a look of utter heartbreak. "Why do you have to grow so hard?"

Yan Shi: "..."

Li Mianyu looked at him with tear-filled eyes and suddenly blurted out, "The Cui family is in trouble. Will Cui Yunqi be killed by those Northern Di barbarians?"

Yan Shi was momentarily stunned. He frowned and asked, "The Cui family is in trouble?"

With blurry eyes, Li Mianyu nodded and whispered what Chen Xiu'e had told her. She reached out and grabbed Yan Shi’s sleeve. "They must have been slaughtered as an example because they refused to surrender and fought to the death!" Her voice choked with sobs.

Yan Shi glanced at the woman by the stream and said calmly, "Chen Xiu'e is merely a farm woman. If troops were searching for people at the manor, it is obvious they could not find them in the capital."

Li Mianyu, her nose stuffed from crying, stopped sobbing at the shadow guard’s words. She thought about it, and the tension on her face eased. "Really?"

"Really."

Hearing Yan Shi’s steady, calm tone, Li Mianyu felt a sense of relief. She sniffed, nodded, and looked at him, "Then Cui Yunqi won't die, will he?"

Yan Shi nodded.

Li Mianyu felt as though she had come back to life. She lowered her head and wiped her tears on his sleeve. As she tugged at his sleeve, she noticed the wreath of flowers in his hand and was instantly captivated. "Oh! Where did you get that?"

Without waiting for his answer, she snatched it up and placed it on her head. She hadn't worn jewelry in a long time. The small flowers—pink, white, blue, and red—were gathered in a cluster, vibrant and beautiful.

"Does it look good?" Li Mianyu asked, her eyes still brimming with tears but shining brightly as she looked at Yan Shi, her expression radiant.

The young shadow guard looked at her and said softly, "It looks good."

Li Mianyu pursed her lips, breaking into a teary smile, her expression coy and charming with small dimples appearing at the corners of her mouth. She touched the wreath on her head and ran to the stream, looking at her reflection.

As darkness fell, the last rays of the sunset painted a sweet hue on the girl’s face.

Yan Shi leaned against the tree, his dark eyes watching her quietly. A moment later, he lowered his head and patted the horse beside him.

He then went to a tree a bit further away from the others, inserted a few branches into the ground to form a triangle, and draped a piece of oilcloth from his pack over them. He inspected the grass, cleared away the pebbles, and spread another piece of oilcloth on the ground.

Since leaving the ruined temple, the two had often spent nights in the wild. The first time Li Mianyu slept on the grass, the sharp pebbles caused her pain, and insect bites left her covered in welts. She had cried halfway through the night, soaking Yan Shi’s chest. The next day, Yan Shi had managed to get two pieces of oilcloth at a relay station.

After finishing the tent, Yan Shi paused, found a branch, and while Li Mianyu wasn't looking, whittled it into a stick to tuck into his waistband.

"Yan Shi!" Li Mianyu returned, her voice filled with laughter.

Yan Shi turned around. She was wearing the wreath, her face flushed. "I really love this." She beckoned to him, "Bend down."

The youth looked at her steadily.

Li Mianyu commanded, "Bend down."

Yan Shi bent down.

Li Mianyu brought her other hand from behind her back and tucked a small red flower behind Yan Shi’s ear. Her eyes were as clear as water, her jade-like face proud and haughty. "A reward for you."

With that, she covered her mouth, giggled, and ducked into the makeshift tent.

A few refugees nearby had been peeking, but when the youth cast a calm, indifferent glance their way—despite his youth and slender frame, his eyes were as sharp as if tempered by steel—they felt a chill run down their spines and quickly looked away.

Yan Shi straightened up and reached out to touch the flower by his ear.

Li Mianyu dared not sleep outside alone, even in the "tent." She played with the wreath for a while inside, carefully set it aside, and poked her head out. "Yan Shi?"

The shadow guard answered, and he bent down to crawl inside.

Not far away, Chen Xiu'e, who was also holding a flower wreath, lay down in Zhu Dacheng’s arms. Seeing Li Mianyu and Yan Shi enter the small tent together, she whispered, "It’s not quite right for siblings to sleep in the same tent."

Zhu Dacheng chuckled foolishly, "How do you know they are siblings? Perhaps they are cousins who are betrothed!"

The woman hadn't considered that, but now, it hit her like a sudden revelation!

Li Mianyu was oblivious to Chen Niangzi’s thoughts. Once Yan Shi entered, she huddled close to him, her mood the best it had been in days. "I just thought of something while I was by the stream."

Her tone was sweet.

Yan Shi waited quietly for her to continue, his dark, lustrous eyes fixed on her.

Li Mianyu looked up at him: "The Longxi Jiedushi (Military Governor), Lu Sanzhong, is Prime Minister Cui's cousin-in-law. Cui Yunqi told me this once. Do you think that if the Cui family fled the capital, they might have gone to Longxi?"