"Woof!"
The hound gave one final, sharp bark outside the crumbling walls of the school before collapsing to the ground, shivering. It refused to move another inch.
Chu Yuning reined in his horse, his face cold as frost. The soldiers behind him fanned out instantly, forming a tight perimeter. However, the purple-gold silhouette at his side moved faster than anyone.
Shadow Blade kicked off his saddle, soaring like a bolt of dark purple lightning over the broken walls. His python robes, symbols of royal authority, billowed in the moonlight—not with majesty, but with a suffocating, murderous intent.
[Inside the Derelict School Cell]
"Give it back?"
Looking at Huo Xi's eyes, filled with despair and longing, the lead spy felt a surge of twisted pleasure. He slowly picked up the mud-stained redwood tag, stuffed it back into the sky-blue pouch, and dangled it in front of her. His tone was nauseatingly flippant. "You want this?"
Huo Xi nodded frantically as if grabbing a life-saving straw. Her voice was broken. "Please... give it back. It's useless to you... give it back..."
"Fine, here you go." A cruel smile curled on the man's lips. With a violent flick of his wrist, he hurled the pouch into a corner. "Go get it!"
A nearby spy laughed in coordination, his blade flashing as he sliced the ropes binding her limbs. Her hands and feet had long gone numb from the constriction; she could only crawl on all fours across the dirt. Just as her fingertips were about to touch that patch of blue—
Swish!
Another spy intercepted it, flicking the pouch away with his boot. Huo Xi lost her balance and slammed into the dirt, her nails drawing blood as they scraped against the rough ground.
"My, you're slow," the man mocked, tossing the pouch to the other side. "Old Three, catch!"
"Haha, over here!"
The sky-blue pouch traced cruel arcs through the air. Huo Xi, like a broken ragdoll, stumbled, fell, and crawled again amidst the circle of three large men. Her face was covered in dust and tears. Every time she reached out and missed, she was met with the spies' piercing laughter.
To her, it wasn't just an object; it was the only light in her life.
"Give it back... I beg you..." her voice was hoarse as she lunged once more toward the pouch on the ground.
Just as the leader was about to kick the pouch away again, he suddenly felt the air around him vanish. A chill so cold it could crack bone pierced through the broken walls of the school.
BOOM—!
The dull thud of a heavy impact hitting flesh echoed.
The spy who had been about to kick the pouch didn't even have time to scream. He was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, his head slamming into a stone pillar. The crisp sound of his neck snapping was sickeningly clear in the silent room.
The remaining two spies turned, their faces pale with shock.
As the dust settled, the purple-gold python robes, illuminated by moonlight and flickering fire, revealed a most terrifying visage. Shadow Blade stood there, his disguise mask rigid with extreme fury. Only his eyes were visible—red as if soaked in blood.
"Master... Shadow..."
Huo Xi collapsed on the ground, her hand finally clutching the cold, sky-blue pouch. She looked up at the "Prince" who had descended from the heavens.
Shadow Blade didn't look at the two terrified spies. His gaze was fixed on Huo Xi's swollen hands, her broken nails, and the jagged smudge of dirt on her face.
He felt his heart shatter more completely than the mud on the ground.
"Had enough fun?" Shadow Blade spoke, his voice low like the hiss of a viper.
"P-Prince Zhan..." the leader stammered, drawing his blade. "You... you would come here for a mere servant girl—"
He never finished the sentence.
Shadow Blade vanished. In the next heartbeat, he was in front of the man, his fingers like iron talons clamped around the spy's throat, lifting him bodily into the air.
"Too much talk."
Shadow Blade's voice growled from beneath the mask. With a sharp twist and a stomach-churning crack, the leader's eyes bulged, and the life left him.
The last spy fell to the floor in terror, scrambling backward. Shadow Blade didn't kill him immediately. He walked forward step by step, the stone tiles beneath his feet seeming to vibrate with every stride.
He looked down at the shivering man. "Which hand threw it?" Shadow Blade asked.
"Your Highness, mercy—"
"I asked you: Which hand threw her things?"
Amidst the spy's terrified screams, Chu Yuning finally burst in with his men. Seeing the carnage, he uncharacteristically did not stop the violence. He watched as Shadow Blade picked up Huo Xi with a mix of desperation and a madness that suggested he wanted to destroy the world.
Shadow Blade wrapped Huo Xi tightly in his wide robes, as if trying to hide her within his very soul.
"Master Shadow..." Huo Xi clutched his lapel, sobbing. "Thank you... I got the pouch."
Shadow Blade held her tight. His royal robes looked lethal in the moonlight, but his grip was stiff from the sheer intensity of his emotions. Hearing her trembling "thank you"—her obsession with that pouch even now—the fury and pity in his heart churned until he finally roared:
"Huo Xi! Is this pouch really so important? Important enough to throw your life away? To let these animals humiliate you?"
Remembering her crawling in the dirt, being toyed with like a mouse by a cat just for a scrap of fabric, Shadow Blade felt his sanity burning out. His urge to crush the world turned into anger directed at her.
Huo Xi shrank into his arms like a startled fawn, yet her hand remained stubborn, lightly brushing the dust off the pouch. "Yes," she nodded, small but firm.
Shadow Blade let out a cold, mocking laugh—a mixture of self-deprecation and bitterness. "Do you realize that given your status, if you enter that room, you can at most be the Third Young Master's concubine? You can never be his primary wife."
He believed her devotion to the item meant she had already pledged her life to Chu Yuning. "The position of primary wife will be reserved for someone of noble status by the Chu family. If you insist on this path, the grievances you suffer in the future will only be greater than today's."
Huo Xi snapped her head up, her eyes still tearful but filled with shock and absurdity. "Master Shadow... what are you talking about? When did I ever say I wanted to be the Third Young Master's concubine?"
Shadow Blade froze. He lowered his gaze to the pouch she guarded so fiercely against her chest, his voice raspy with defeat. "Is the item in this pouch not a gift from the Third Young Master? If not, why do you treasure it so? Why would you risk your life to snatch it back... if not because you love him?"
Silence fell, save for the wind.
Huo Xi looked at the face before her—a face that, despite the disguise, still radiated the aura of a "cold, rigid block of wood." The fear of her kidnapping vanished, replaced by an absurd urge to both laugh and scream.
Outside, Chu Yuning stood with his arms crossed. He had been ordering his men to clear the scene, but hearing the dialogue from inside, he raised a hand to signal for silence and retreat.
He leaned against the mottled brick wall alone, a slight smirk playing on his lips. His cold features softened with the interest of a spectator watching a play.
"The Third Young Master's concubine?" Chu Yuning repeated the words under his breath, shaking his head.
This Shadow Blade... when he was in the secret service calculating enemy movements, he didn't miss a single hair's breadth of detail. Yet here he was, pinning the "love rival" hat on Chu Yuning's head with such absolute conviction.
"Tsk, Shadow Blade, oh Shadow Blade..." Chu Yuning thought with a look of pure disdain. "You're supposed to be a Shadow Guard, but you're a total blind man when it comes to this."
Chu Yuning had no intention of going in to clear the air. He was going to stay right here and enjoy this farce born of a "wooden block." After all, if Shadow Blade didn't hear it from the girl's own lips, he might never learn what "true affection" really meant.