Translator: Madesmoiselle V.
‘Brush, brush!’ the sounds came while guards’ long and sharp swords brushed against Murong Xue’s clothes, and were deeply plunged into the mud of the pond, lifting up dirty sludge, and muddying the water nearby.
Haunted with the smell of mud, Murong Xue was dazed and dizzy, and couldn’t tell the direction. She frowned tightly, and swam forward secretly while holding her breath.
“Murong Xue …… Where is Murong Xue?” asked Qin Haoyan while striding into the garden, his pretty face turning gloomy and dreadful.
A guard hurriedly stepped forward, and answered respectfully, “Your Highness, Murong Xue was already disappeared when we got here.”
“Is that true?” Qin Haoyan snorted disbelievingly. He glanced over the corridor, the tone road, the garden, and the rockery viciously and presumptuously, and then fixed on the pond with an ill-disposed smile. “Murong Xue couldn’t have fled this strongly-fortified courtyard. She might have hidden underwater.” At the thought of this, Qin Haoyan commanded, “Somebody, blast the pond!” “Let’s find out where she’s hiding!”
“Yes!” the guards took the order and walked to the pond with gunpowder packets in their hands. A cold voice suddenly rang just before they were about to light the fuse, “Stop! Murong Xue will be killed if you blast the pond.”
Qin Haoyan glanced at Ye Yichen, and said causally, “So what? What my sister needs are her eyes, not her life. As long as her eyes are intact, nothing else matters.”
“You don’t care, but I do ……” Ye Yichen interrupted him coldly with hatred radiating from his pupils.
Qin Haoyan narrowed his vicious and presumptuous eyes all of a sudden, and asked, “Prince Jing, you didn’t fall for Murong Xue, did you?”
“What if I did?” Ye Yichen gave him a piercing stare.
“If it’s real, what are you gonna do to with my sister? ” Qin Haoyan looked at him, and asked in a harsh voice.
Ye Yichen narrowed his eyes and answered in a lower voice, “I will cure Yuyan’s eyes first, then,she will return to Mo Bei along with you, and marry someone who will treat her well.”
“But she wants to stay with you.” Qin Haoyan interrupted Ye harshly, with anger flashing in his eyes.
“Yet, I have no feeling to her. In this case, it’s unfair for her to stay with me ……” Ye Yichen answered in a lower voice, with his stare becoming sharp, calm and emotionless.
Hearing Ye’s words, Qin Haoyan finally believed that Ye Yichen really had no feelings for Qin Yuyan. Yet, he suddenly narrowed his vicious and presumptuous eyes as he asked, “Is it because of Murong Xue that you lost the interest in my sister? In that case, her presence is indeed a disaster for my sister!”
Qin Haoyan laughed coldly, and stretched to grasp the gunpowder in the hand of a guard. Next, he ignited the gunpowder, and violently threw it into the pond at a tremendous speed.
Then, a sound of “bang!” came, the clear pond water was blasted up for two or three meters high. Shocked by the violent explosion, the guards hurriedly stepped backward in fright.
A light cyan figure slowly emerged in the surface along with countless dead fish as the strong charring smell rapidly spread in the air.
“Xue’er!” Ye Yichen cried out in alarm, great panic shown in his eyes. He tapped the ground with his toe, and pounced on her as fast as a flying arrow.
Realizing what Ye was going to do, Qin Haoyan and hurriedly ran after him. “I must not let Ye Yichen get Murong Xue’s corpse. Otherwise, my sister might become permanently blind if he is unwilling to take out Murong Xue’s eyes due to his temporary anger at us.”
Ye Yichen and Qin Haoyan pounced on that figure one after another, and both stretched to catch that figure. While, the moment when their fingers touched Murong Xue’s dress, a sound of ‘bang’ came, her dress was blasted, sending Ye Yichen, Qin Haoyan and the guards nearby into the air.
Standing in front of the rockery and dressed in white underskirt, Murong Xue coldly gazed at the people who were shook out with the barest hint of a smile on her face.
Murong Xue knew they were going to ruthlessly kill her with an explosion. So she took off her outer dress, put explosives on it so as to disguise it as herself, thus giving them a taste of being blasted too.
Qin Haoyan fell down to the bluestone road, and uncontrollably spat out a mouthful of blood, burning pain spreading all over from his chest. He wrathfully raised his head, and inadvertently found Murong Xue standing beside the rockery. He narrowed his vicious and presumptuous eyes all of a sudden, and shouted, “Murong Xue is there, go get her!”
“Yes!” the guards took his order. Then, they struggled up, and stumbled towards Murong Xue with long swords in their hands.
“Such a bunch of injured guards want to catch me? How ignborant!”
With a scornful smile, Murong Xue quickly ran under a high wall, and easily jumped out of the it as if a beautiful butterfly.
“Go get her now! We must catch Murong Xue!” Qin Haoyan made a harsh order with blazing fury burning in his pupils. “No one has ever dared to hurt me. And that made Murong Xue the first one. How bold she is!”
“Yes, sir!” the guards immediately answered, and ran after her in a hurry.
“Eh-hem!” Ye Yichen coughed as he fell to the ground. He slowly stood up with the support of the big tree beside him, and gave the guards who were chasing after Murong Xue a meaningful stare.
After getting out of the courtyard, Murong Xue ran past streets and alleys. Yet, her nice eyebrows wrinkled tightly at the sight of the guards who were running after her.
“How annoying and abominable they are!”
Murong Xue remained calm and rushed forward. Suddenly, an arm stretched out before her eyes before she was muzzled and pulled into a nearby alley.
Murong Xue was horror-struck, and was going to struggle, when a faint smell of ink-bamboo spread to her nose, and a melodious and clear voice rang near her ear, “It’s me!”
Murong Xue was stunned, and pushed Ouyang Shaochen’ hand away. She raised her head and looked at him with a puzzled look, asking, “Shaochen, why are you here?”
Having ran fast all the way, Murong Xue, together with her half-wet and half-dry white underskirt which was stained with mud, as well as her messy hair, looked like a drowned mouse.
Ouyang Shaochen frowned, and looked at her with disgust, saying, “It’s me who should be asking questions. What have you done? Why were you chased all over the street by the guards looking like a drowned mouse?”
Hearing that, Murong Xue turned sullen and explained angrily, “It’s not my fault since it’s them who tricked me first, so I taught them a lesson.
“Ah, where were you when teaching them that lesson? Since there’s a strange smell spreading from your body.” Ouyang Shaochen interrupted her with disgust on his face.
“I smell strange?” asked Murong Xue dubitatively. Then, she grabbed her sleeve and sniffed, a light smell of sludge spreading to her nose. Murong Xue blinked her eyes and thought: “That’s the smell of the pond sludge. Maybe it caught me when I was swimming in the pond.”