Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The fingers around my throat never tightened.

But I knew that if he got the chance, he would kill me without the slightest hesitation, then choose the path that benefited him most.

“What do you want, miss?”

The man stood there in silence.

This was the second time he had asked me that question.

I jerked my chin toward the courtyard full of dead bodies.

“I thought the answer was obvious.”

His hand dropped from my neck.

“I come from a respectable family. I was traveling to the capital with my parents to seek shelter with relatives, but on the way, my father fell gravely ill, and my mother came down with a wasting cough. Some ruffians abducted me and sold me into this courtyard. Tell me, what do you think I want to do most?”

Gu Changfeng looked at me thoughtfully, then nodded, agreeing without hesitation.

“Fine.”

I let out a derisive laugh.

“If it’s fine, then help me move the bodies. You hide inside. I’ll deal with the constables. At daybreak, you take me out of here.”

The candle that had long since gone out was lit again. Everyone was piled into the smallest room on the east side, with Gu Changfeng hidden in the very back. If someone only glanced in from the doorway, they would not notice anything amiss.

The thin wooden door was pounded so hard it shook.

I threw on the madam’s padded coat and put on the appearance of someone who had just been woken. Clutching a few copper coins, I hurried over to open the door.

“Officers, what happened?”

I plastered on a smile and, with practiced ease, tried to stuff the coins into the lead constable’s hand.

“It’s the middle of the night. Don’t tell me some important thief got away, for so many of you to come out searching.”

My fingers tightened lightly around the constable’s sleeve. I turned slightly, revealing the tightly shut door to the room on the east side.

In the next instant, a dagger pierced through a heart.

The half-open wooden door was slammed shut, temporarily blocking the agitated soldiers outside.

Gu Changfeng’s hand closed around my throat again.

“I said fine.”

He glared at me fiercely, as if enraged by my audacity and my broken promise. Even his voice carried a vicious edge.

“You hold off the soldiers for me. When day breaks, I’ll take you out. That was what I said was fine.”

I laughed again, coughing and choking as I pried his fingers away one by one.

“Do you trust me?”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have snuck out behind my back after hiding in the room.”

“Let me guess what you were trying to do by hiding in that spot.”

“It’s the closest place to the courtyard wall. Once I stalled the soldiers, with your skills, you could easily climb over the wall while no one was paying attention.”

“By then, the constables would definitely split off men to interrogate me about the murders in this courtyard. You could just find some place they’d already searched to hide, and once dawn came, you could swagger out with everyone else, couldn’t you?”

“With four or five lives on my head, even if I told people I’d seen you, they would only think I was trying to drag someone else down to save my own skin. Once I was thrown in prison, I would never get out.”

“So what exactly did you promise me?”

I spat a mouthful of blood at him.

“Don’t deny it. From the very beginning, you intended to push me out as a shield against your pursuers. Otherwise, you never would have dragged me out of that haystack in the first place.”

My blood-soaked hands closed around his wrist, and I shoved hard in the direction he was already moving.

The dagger sank into his heart.

There was no turning back now.