Hua Xiaomai’s hand trembled, peeling off a large piece of bark. She suddenly turned around and saw that the person barging in was Han Hu.
The others from the Escort Agency crowded around him, forming a tight circle and bombarding him with relentless questions. Hua Xiaomai rooted herself to the spot, staring fixedly at the crowd, not daring to blink.
"What’s the situation?" Ke Zhenwu barked sharply, perhaps due to too much tension and anxiety, his voice even started to crack.
Han Hu had raced back all the way, panting and coughing on the ground. The anxious elder wanted to jump out of his skin, continuously calling for soone to bring tea, while urging, "Co on, will you just speak up!"
"Found them..." Han Hu repeated, "Warehouse Guard found them, that gang of robbers were all captured, Yuhuai and Shi Qingquan are both heading towards our Escort Agency, they should be arriving any mont now."
He accepted a bowl of tea from soone, gulped it down in one go, wiped his mouth, and seed instantly energized, waving his arms around, "I just took a glance from afar, made sure it was them, and then hurried back to report. They both must’ve been injured, you didn’t see it... all that blood..."
"Quiet!" Ke Zhenwu hastily interrupted and turned his head to glance at Hua Xiaomai.
Following his gaze, the others also looked over. Hua Xiaomai unconsciously stepped back and looked at Han Hu, "Did they... co down the mountain on their own, or were they carried down?"
"Yuhuai walked down himself; Shi Qingquan seems to have more severe injuries, so he..."
That was enough for her.
Hua Xiaomai had only taken in the first half of the sentence, and she couldn’t care less about Shi Qingquan’s condition. She imdiately let out a huge sigh of relief.
Once she relaxed, her legs began to wobble, so she quickly looked around, dragged a chair over, and sat down.
Ke Zhenwu’s heart also settled quite a bit, and he pulled Han Hu aside, chattering non-stop, "Those robbers, were they discovered by Yuhuai and Shi Qingquan? What exactly happened? They are not individuals to act recklessly typically, how could they..."
Han Hu had to patiently explain once more, and as for what he said, Hua Xiaomai didn’t catch a word.
The front courtyard suddenly exploded into noise, with everyone chattering and so people unable to wait any longer, rushing towards the gate and standing on their toes to look into the distance. Roughly the ti it took to finish a cup of tea later, a loud shout ca from outside, "They’re back!"
Hua Xiaomai quickly stood up again. Amidst a tumult of footsteps approaching, she looked up to see a group of people who looked like governnt officials entering, with ng Yuhuai cramd in the middle. He stood taller than the rest and was not obscured, allowing her to get a clear view.
His entire body was indeed covered in blood, with half of his sleeve dyed red beyond recognition, and there were many bloodstains along the edge of his clothes and neckline. He seed to be mostly fine, spirited but unavoidably showing a trace of fatigue.
With several more torches adding to the light, ng Yuhuai’s arm was grabbed by Ke Zhenwu. His gaze swept around aimlessly and suddenly found a small figure under the tree on the edge of the crowd.
Her face flickered in the light of the fire, making her expression hard to read, but her posture seed stiff as though unsure whether to step forward. ng Yuhuai’s heart softened, and realizing the state he was in, he was so startled that he blurted out instinctively, "It’s not my blood!"
From a distance, he saw the small figure nod and smile, but when he fought his way through the crowd to her, he saw that she was clearly on the verge of tears.
"Crying here will be embarrassing, isn’t everything fine?" he said softly.
"I’ve been holding it in, and I was hiding from everyone just now." Hua Xiaomai felt like punching him, secretly pinching the cuff of his sleeve and whispering, "Let’s go ho then, while we still have ti before curfew. Mother’s at ho alone; who knows how worried she’s been."
ng Yuhuai understood that his sudden disappearance into the mountains would have reached Fire Knife Village, and he had intended to go straight ho after coming down the mountain. Upon hearing her, he nodded rapidly, "Okay, I’ll go wash up and change clothes, and then we can go ho so as not to startle mother."
He turned to Ke Zhenwu, "Uncle Ke, although Shi Qingquan is gravely injured, his life is not in danger. I’d like to take my wife ho first, and I’ll co back tomorrow to discuss the details..."
"Got it, got it, off with you!" Ke Zhenwu felt like punching soone too, glaring at him with annoyance and mumbling, "You little brat, you nearly gave a heart attack! You always have instructions for such life-threatening encounters, but why the heck... Just go, and kneel for a night in front of your old mother!"
ng Yuhuai smiled at him, asked Hua Xiaomai to wait in the front courtyard, and then ran to the back courtyard to his room. He didn’t bother to heat water, splashed himself clean with two buckets of cold water, changed into clean clothes, and led Hua Xiaomai out of the Escort Agency’s gate.
Great Saint, Jing Taihe, and Zhou Yunyun followed the couple back to Fire Knife Village. The long-suspended heart finally settled back into its place, only to be instantly replaced with curiosity. All along the way ho, they couldn’t stop asking questions, over and over, eager to get to the bottom of what happened on the mountain.
Hua Xiaomai’s head was still in a bit of a haze. Sitting on the ox cart, she said nothing, just lowered her head and pondered in a daze.
ng Yuhuai knew she must be in turmoil, so in front of the three others, he refrained from speaking much to her, which worried him. Finally, upon arriving in Fire Knife Village and reaching the southern part, he imdiately pulled Hua Xiaomai off the cart and headed straight to the ng family’s gate.
The lamp in the main room lit up almost instantly. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welco to co to Qidian (qidian) to vote for recomndation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian to read.)
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