Chapter 106
Chapter 106
The woman said, “There is a thief in my room.”
A crowd of people flooded through the door at once.
Ming Caihua pulled himself back onto the beam, caught Qiao Ying’s hand, and flew out the window with her.
Even then, he looked back and complained, “You’re terribly ungracious, beauty! No matter how lovely a flower is, it will soon wither. I picked it at its most beautiful and gave it to you. If anything, I made its brief life more meaningful!”
The maids drew their swords and chased after him. “Brazen scoundrel! How dare you disrespect the Saintess!”
The white-robed woman remained seated. She stared thoughtfully at the flower in her hand while the wind turned several more pages of the book on the table.
Ming Caihua’s performance drew every guard in the City Lord’s Manor toward them in an instant.
Qiao Ying was dragged into a frantic run across the rooftops and soon could not keep up. Facing the bitter wind, she shouted, “Can’t you be a little more discreet?”
Ming Caihua shouted back, “This young master can’t be discreet when he sees a beauty!”
Their pursuers drew their bows, and feathered arrows hurtled toward them. Ming Caihua shielded Qiao Ying behind him and pulled the long whip from his waist. With a deft turn of his wrist, the whip wrapped precisely around several arrows and hurled them down. Twisting his body, he swept aside all the rest and kept the person behind him completely unharmed.
Before the first wave of attacks subsided, a second began.
Someone climbed onto the roof with a sword. Ming Caihua spun, grabbed Qiao Ying by the shoulder, and whirled her out of the path of the icy blade.
“The petty thief has an accomplice! Don’t let either of them escape!”
Qiao Ying’s head spun, and she nearly wept. “I’m not his accomplice!”
Ming Caihua dodged an arrow and looked back. “Hey, Qiao Ying, we’ve been through danger together. Isn’t it a little heartless to distance yourself from me so quickly?”
Ming Caihua pushed her head down again, helping her avoid a sharp arrow that whistled overhead. At the end of her patience, Qiao Ying cried, “And who caused all this danger in the first place?”
Ming Caihua reflected for a moment. It did seem to be mostly his fault.
The commotion had grown far too great. Even someone who wished to feign ignorance and stay out of the matter could no longer do so.
Shangguan Lingxiao and Qiao Mianmian appeared at the edge of the crowd. Tall and straight, Shangguan Lingxiao possessed a peerlessly handsome face. Even standing quietly, he naturally became the focus of every eye.
Qiao Mianmian, meanwhile, was sweetly charming and adorable. Her health had always been poor, but for some reason, a flush now colored her cheeks and made her look even softer and more endearing.
Qiao Mianmian said, “So that is the petty thief who broke into the City Lord’s Manor. He does have some skill. But the young woman he’s protecting doesn’t appear to know martial arts.”
Ming Caihua kept the young woman behind him, so from where Qiao Mianmian and Shangguan Lingxiao stood, they could not see her face.
Shangguan Lingxiao and Qiao Mianmian were honored guests of the City Lord’s Manor. Now that trouble had broken out in the manor, they naturally could not stand idly by.
Shangguan Lingxiao said to a nearby guard, “Lend me your bow.”
Recognizing Shangguan Lingxiao, the man hurriedly handed it over.
Shangguan Lingxiao nocked three arrows at once. His powerful fingers drew the bowstring into a full moon, while his body stood straight as a pine. He aimed at the figures on the roof. Power burst from his wrist, and the arrows tore through the air together with piercing whistles.
Ming Caihua heard the wind and instantly sensed that these arrows were different from the rest.
He hurriedly swept out his whip. It coiled like a silver rainbow, knocking aside the first two arrows with two crisp cracks. The third, however, carried too much force. The whip’s tip merely grazed the shaft and failed to stop it. It shot straight toward the person behind him.
The moment Ming Caihua turned, the face of the young woman he had been shielding was revealed.
Qiao Mianmian cried in surprise, “It’s Qiao Ying!”
Shangguan Lingxiao’s gaze snapped into focus, his shock equally unguarded. He tried to launch himself forward to stop the arrow, but it was already too late.
Qiao Ying watched the arrowhead draw closer and closer. In that split second, the thought that crossed her mind was actually this:
She had not slept with Shen Qingyu nearly enough yet. She did not want to die!
Qiao Ying instinctively closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. A gust of wind suddenly descended before her, but the pain she expected never came. She slowly cracked one eye open and peered through her fingers to see a pale hand extended in front of her.
The hand was slender and clearly jointed, both delicate and lean. It caught the speeding arrowhead with effortless ease, as if plucking a weightless feather from the air.
Qiao Ying slowly raised her face along the line of that hand. The young man who entered her view tipped his head and smiled. His delicate, beautiful features appeared even more vivid beneath the night sky.
He held out his other hand to her.
Aggrieved tears instantly misted Qiao Ying’s eyes. Only after he pulled her into his embrace with one arm did warmth gradually return to her body.
At the sight of the newcomer, the tension left Ming Caihua’s nerves. He collapsed onto the blue roof tiles and wiped the cold sweat from his brow, privately thinking that he had nearly believed he would die alongside Qiao Ying.
His flying arrow had been stopped with effortless ease. Shangguan Lingxiao’s brows drew tight, and his assessing gaze settled on the figure who had appeared without warning.
It was a white-haired young man in blue, his eyes concealed beneath a white silk blindfold. A faint smile curved his lips as he stroked the crown of the girl’s head, tender and affectionate, his air almost unnaturally calm.
But when he turned his face slightly and openly met the wary gazes below, that gentle smile remained while icy cruelty entered it. With a casual motion, he hurled the arrow back. Its point reversed and shot toward Shangguan Lingxiao with an even fiercer shriek.
Shangguan Lingxiao reacted as if facing a formidable enemy. He drew his sword in an instant, its cold gleam flashing as the blade struck the speeding arrow with perfect precision. The ear-splitting clash of metal against metal left his wrist faintly numb.
The sword in his hand was, after all, a rare and precious weapon. Its blade split the arrow apart. Unexpectedly, however, the two halves continued hurtling toward the person beside him.
Shangguan Lingxiao realized what was happening and hurriedly raised his sword again. He barely deflected one half, but it still grazed the neck of the young woman beside him and left a line of blood.
Qiao Mianmian cried out only after the fact. She covered the wound and trembled from head to toe.
Just now… she had almost been killed!
“Mianmian!” Shangguan Lingxiao hurriedly checked her condition, his expression tense.
Qiao Mianmian suddenly began coughing violently, her small face turning pale.
Shangguan Lingxiao hastily produced a medicine vial and fed her one pill. After a while, Qiao Mianmian’s rapid breathing gradually eased.
Frost slowly spread over the arrows, swords, and sabers. It crept along each weapon and threatened to reach the hands holding them. Everyone hurriedly dropped their weapons and stared in fear at the blue-robed figure.
The young man descended from the roof with one arm around his wife. Holding her hand, he walked unhurriedly through the circle of people surrounding them.
Every time he stepped forward, those encircling him unconsciously retreated. In a matter of moments, the situation reversed. It no longer looked as though the crowd surrounded him. Instead, it seemed that he alone had surrounded everyone present.
Ming Caihua followed behind Shen Qingyu, feeling thoroughly vindicated.
Of everyone there, only Shangguan Lingxiao could hold his ground against the silent killing intent.
He shielded Qiao Mianmian behind him and stared directly at the Youth in Blue. His voice was cold. “Mianmian bears you no grievance. Why did you try to kill her?”
The young man chuckled. “When that arrow was about to hurt my wife, my heart suddenly began beating so fast that I couldn’t control it. It made me want to cut open my chest later, take out my heart, and examine exactly what had gone wrong.”
Everyone wore complicated expressions. They could only think he sounded like a madman.
The white-haired Youth in Blue offered another friendly smile. “Such a novel sensation would be terribly dull to experience alone. Naturally, I had to let you experience it properly too.”
Shangguan Lingxiao’s gaze darkened, and his grip tightened on his sword.