Li Yuren left at once, without giving Long Feng any orders. He already darted out to the direction where Lu Xinyi was left. His group followed after him leaving Long Feng’s group with the Su family.

By the time, Li Yuren was out of their sight, Long Feng commanded his group to take the Su family back to their barracks near the academy’s campsite. He wasn’t sure what his commander was thinking. It was never easy to predict what was in Li Yuren’s mind, but with the way he moved impulsively with regards to Lu Xinyi, Long Feng suspected that his boss was attracted to the devil’s bride.

However, touching her means death. Would he be brave enough to taunt the devil?

Li Yuren himself wasn’t sure what he was thinking. He’d predicted that Lu Xinyi would arrive in the Weeping Willow Village, but he didn’t expect her to leave too soon. The moment they’d blocked all possible routes at the mountain, the bandits and the illegal traders would be forced to move at the foot of the mountain.

Long Feng’s group should have arrived in the village before the bandits to save Lu Xinyi and meet him on the main route. Why would this woman always go out of his expectations? Li Yuren gripped the reins of his horse tightly and forced it to run faster.

He started to doubt himself. Lu Xinyi clearly wasn’t least interested in him. If she did, she should’ve shown herself during their arranged meetings. She repeatedly stood him up, never giving any reason for her absence.

When he first heard that this woman chose to marry the devil instead of him, Li Yuren felt insulted. Did Lu Xinyi found him repulsive that she would rather marry Shen Yi who she only known for a week than him who was her fiance since childhood?

When did his feelings for Lu Xinyi start to emerge anyway? Was it when they first met the first time? When she was still twelve-year-old mischievous brat while he was fourteen?

The marriage alliance between the Sun and the Li families had been decided even before their births. The first grandson of the Li family and the granddaughter of the Sun. By age, Sun Feiyan should be his fiancee, but because she was the illegitimate granddaughter, the title had been passed to Lu Xinyi who was—by birth—the legal heiress of the Sun family.

Li Yuren hadn’t really taken their engagement seriously, and he knew that Lu Xinyi felt the same. Both weren’t interested to pursue the marriage because neither found themselves on the same page where they could start.

When Lu Xinyi entered a relationship with Gong Yijun, Li Yuren was willing to dissolve their engagement if Lu Xinyi wished for her freedom. It would also lift another burden from his shoulder if they broke their engagement, but now…

Now that she was married to Shen Yi, why was there a seed of regret that engraved itself in his heart?

Was there medicine for regret? Or was he really too late to establish and know his estranged fiancée?

The regret would come to him in quiet moments such as when he was going to sleep or stopped to take a lunch break during his missions. It would seep to the foreground of his mind and demand to be re-examined again. However, he was tired of thinking about it; no amount of analysis was going to turn back the clock. He had to get on with the here and now, make better choices next time around.

Perhaps, it was a good thing that Lu Xinyi had found her love with President Shen because being the wife of a soldier would only burden her in the future.

“General Li, there are hoof prints around this area. Also, these footprints are new.” One of his men pointed a trail left on the forest floor.

He followed the hoof prints left on the muddy ground. By the looks of it, Lu Xinyi ran away; but her trails were followed. Whether it was the illegal traders or the bandits, Li Yuren wasn’t sure. His heart jumped to his throat when his group arrived in a cliff and found the woman they were looking for trapped by several bandits.

—

“She’s definitely not from that village.” A man riding a horse gave Lu Xinyi a head-to-toe look. With her white printed shirt and khaki trousers, Lu Xinyi didn’t look anything but a hiker from a city.

“She’s quite a beauty.” His companion stretched an arm to touch Lu Xinyi’s face, but she slapped his hand away.

“Don’t touch me!” She stepped back and hissed.

Lu Xinyi would be lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she was scared. This wasn’t certainly how she planned to die! No! She had to go home and be back to Shen Yi’s arms! The Su family should be far from here now. They should be able to reach the main route by this time. With Su Mei’s illness, they would need to seek a health professional soon. Lu Xinyi could only hope that she and the Su family survived this incident. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀ​ꪶ​

However, she was trapped.

How the hell did she end up trapped on a cliff with these bandits? Lu Xinyi cursed her luck. She blindly ran in the opposite direction where the Su family went, hoping to distract these men from chasing the family.

She forced herself to calm down. She gritted her teeth and took a defensive stance. With a dagger hidden behind her, she would attack anyone who dared to lay a hand on her.

The man who dared to touch her face earlier sneered and tried to grasp her with both hands. Lu Xinyi was startled with the sudden attack, but she was able to pull out her dagger from behind and slash the man’s arm with it. Her knees weakened when she saw blood pooling on the ground.

She didn’t kill him, right? She wasn’t a murderer!

“Ahhhhhhh!!!! Damn you, witch! I’ll kill you! You’ll pay for this!” The man clenched his fist and aimed towards Lu Xinyi’s face, his crimson blood covering his knuckle.

For some reason, seeing Lu Xinyi cower in fear disturbed Li Yuren. Before the man could assault her once more, Li Yuren shot the man’s head, earning a loud scream from Lu Xinyi.

“Retreat! Retreat!” The leader of the bandits yelled to his men. His group split into two as Li Yuren’s group took the offensive side and started shooting them. He couldn’t believe that Li Yuren’s group would force them to leave the mountain and hunt them down.

Lu Xinyi covered her head with both arms and staggered backward. Was this the end for her? She hadn’t realized that she stepped close to the edge of the cliff. Before she could react, the ground she was standing on began to shake. She heard the sound of stones falling behind her, and she started to lose ground on her feet.

When the bandit stepped inside her private space, the ground broke; and the two fell from the cliff. The man hit his head at the edge of the cliff and lost his consciousness. With his heavy body rolled down the steep cliff, Lu Xinyi’s sharp scream pierced the air.

Li Yuren, who was busy fighting with the bandits, heard her scream. He turned to look at the cliff and the woman he was about to rescue was nowhere to be found. The moment he heard her scream, his mind went blank.

“Lu Xinyi!”

Before he could get back to his senses, Li Yuren went down his horse and charged forward, shooting the bandits blocking his way. He ran to the edge of the cliff and—without a word—jumped to follow Lu Xinyi.

“General Li!” His subordinates subdued the bandits terrorizing the mountain and the villages near it. They all came running over, shouting for their commander. They looked down slightly, but they knew that their boss wasn’t a weakling.

With the raging river waiting below them, General Li and Lu Xinyi would be forced to be dragged with the strong current under the water.

Only when Lu Xinyi felt that she was falling did she know that she was doomed. She might be able to get away from the bandits, but the river beneath her was unforgiving. The moment her body hit the water, she sunk below. The water started to invade her mouth and airways.

Lu Xinyi couldn’t swim, and she was really afraid of drowning. When she was younger, Sun Qiyan had once pushed her to a lake inside the Sun Estate. The trauma that it caused left Lu Xinyi afraid of falling into the deep waters.

When her head came out from the water, she coughed violently and used her arms to stay floating. However, the moment the next wave hit her, she was once again dragged beneath the water. No matter how she struggled to keep her head above the water, the current was too strong for her.

The strong current kept pounding her. Her small body hit the small boulders below the water, and she started to feel weak from the constant pain her body received. She continued to struggle upwards although her limbs were also starting to lose their strength.

Despair and helplessness filled her heart. She could not die like this! She refused to believe that this was her end! There were still many things she wanted to do and to achieve. Many plans she had to fulfill with Shen Yi.

Shen Yi… she regretted not talking to him before she left. Had she known this would happen, she would have cherished her time with him.

Was the heaven really against her? Taking away her parents at her young age, separating her from her brother, and now, she had to die and leave Shen Yi? Did she do a heinous crime in her past life that now she had to suffer?

Without any remaining strength, Lu Xinyi stopped struggling and let the stream take her body. She was kept submerged under the water. Once her head hit another boulder, her eyes slowly closed with her consciousness, leaving with the last person in her mind was her husband she’d left back at Jiang City.

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