Scheming Emperor X Hunting Eunuch - Chapter 6.2

The strange, eerie shadows in the water, like nightmares wrapped around his body, emitted piercing cries.

Those were sounds from very long ago.

When he was a beggar child, fighting with an old beggar among a crowd for slop water. The old beggar’s harsh, unpleasant voice was like a rat hiding in the gutter. Drenched in slop water, he carefully picked out the vegetable leaves and meat scraps stuck to his clothes, treating them as treasures. He wrung out his clothes and used a broken bowl to catch the drippings underneath.

That mass of black shadow dispersed and elongated. He also grew a bit taller and began helping underground gambling dens with lookout duties. His nimble body quickly squeezed through crowds, and he saw common people gathered around a high platform.

A group of people knelt there, the smallest still in swaddling clothes. From the surrounding people’s conversations, he learned these were a victorious general and his family. Court loyalists had seen through their plot and detected their rebellious intentions in advance, so they were being executed today.

The common people excitedly discussed the matter. None of them clearly explained why they had to die, but this was more interesting than the storytellers’ and drama troupes’ stories.

When the neck thick as a bowl spurted fresh blood, the cheers from the crowd reached their peak.

The general’s head rolled down from the high platform and stopped at his feet. Tears still lingered in the corner of the eye, along with deep longing, gazing sightlessly toward the distant imperial palace.

With so many people to kill, after watching for a while, it became no different from slaughtering pigs at the village entrance. The common people began to find the blood fishy and nauseating, fearing it would soil their feet, and gradually dispersed.

The black shadow grew longer, splitting into two intertwined human figures. One emitted lewd laughter, rising and falling on the other person’s body, while he hid behind the nearby curtain, listening to the helpless, plaintive crying from beneath.

Soon after, a young man entered bent over. The lewd man said he had sealed the evil spirit within the woman’s body. The young man hastily offered all the family assets he had painstakingly saved over half a lifetime.

The young man was the woman’s husband.

Beside them, two girls were huddling trembling behind him. That lewd man then turned his gaze toward the two children.

He did nothing.

He could do nothing.

Slowly, that mass of black shadow became a child again.

He reached out toward Pei Yanci, his dark, cracked fingers opening, about to grab him.

Finally, the binding rope was cut through.

He used his hands and feet together, desperately swimming toward the water’s surface.

Wuli’s body was not far from him, already unconscious, losing all struggle as he slowly sank down, forming a huge dark spot in the seawater under the night.

Pei Yanci nimbly moved his legs, swimming past him without a sideways glance.

Finally, his head broke through the water surface. He took a huge gulp of fresh air, finally feeling the solid sensation of escaping death.

He looked around. At this moment, the sky was as black as the river water, everything the same dark color.

After a moment’s hesitation, he dove headfirst back into the water.

When he surfaced again, there was one more person.

Wuli’s fat body now played an excellent role. Unconscious, he didn’t move or struggle, like a piece of driftwood that could float on the water’s surface, giving Pei Yanci a good support point to occasionally rest against and catch his breath.

Because of the embankment where they had fallen, this section of river wasn’t deep and the current was slow. Pei Yanci used Wuli’s body for support and slowly swam to shore, dragging him up onto land.

After escaping the river and reaching the shore, he finally felt exhausted all over. His legs felt like they weighed a thousand jin. He collapsed onto the muddy sand, coughing and gasping continuously.

Fortunately, this lifetime’s body was good. If it had been his previous life, even if he had wanted to do this, he would have been willing but unable, and would have died long ago.

After catching his breath, he wiped the water droplets from his face and got up to check on Wuli’s condition.

Still breathing.

He pressed on his chest a few times. As a mouthful of water was expelled, Wuli struggled and spat out a large amount of water, and his eyelids opened.

“I saw my great-grandmother.”

“Do I look like your great-grandmother?”

Wuli’s eyes slowly focused, and after a long while he slowly shook his head.

Suddenly, he burst into tears with a “wah” and hugged him tightly.

“Yanci, Yanci… I thought I was going to die, wuu wuu wuu wuu…”

Pei Yanci was nearly killed by his bear hug.

“Let go.”

He couldn’t break free.

If only he’d had this strength when swimming earlier – he wouldn’t have exhausted himself.

“I’m not dead, and you’re perfectly alive. Stop wailing like you’re mourning.”

“Wuu wuu wuu wuu, I really thought I was going to die. How could those people be like that, killing without giving anyone any preparation time.”

“…Who would give advance notice when they’re about to kill someone?”

You weren’t thinking of great-grandmother – you were thinking too optimistically.

Wuli kept crying and wailing, as if wanting to cry out all of tonight’s fear and insecurity. A teenage servant who had never experienced any storms, facing this kind of life-and-death situation for the first time – anyone would break down.

He quietly waited for Wuli to vent all his emotions, then helped him wipe away his tears, wrung out the water from his clothes, and helped him stand up.

Seeing that Yanci, who was a year younger than him, was methodically helping him with these things, Wuli suddenly remembered the night Fei Yuan died. When he thought there was a corpse coming back to life and was so scared he wet himself, it was also Yanci who had thrown him an outer garment to cover up. Otherwise, those guys would have mocked him for at least half a year.

Those people appeared to be brothers with him on the surface, but actually all had their own ulterior motives. After Fei Yuan died, they all gossiped about him behind his back, suspecting he had deliberately killed Fei Yuan.

“Do you know where this is… Alright, let’s first go to a nearby village or town. When daylight comes, we’ll ask someone for directions… What’s with that look?”

Wuli shook his head embarrassedly and lowered his head.

“How much silver do you have on you?” Pei Yanci searched all over his body and only found a dozen copper coins.

Wuli also searched and, because he had gone out yesterday, he had brought quite a bit with him – a full three taels of silver.

“That should be enough to hire a carriage back to the city,” Pei Yanci said. “Before that, let’s change out of these wet clothes.”

“It’s fine, they’ll dry soon.”

“Servant clothes are too conspicuous among the common people. We need to guard against the Crown Prince’s people blocking us at the city gates,” Pei Yanci said.

“If that’s the case, why go back at all? As long as we enter Anjing, we’ll be on their territory. We’d be walking into a trap, asking for trouble.”

“Our indenture contracts are still in the Crown Prince’s hands. Without travel passes, where do you think you can go?”

Wuli’s face stiffened.

“Once a slave, always a slave, generations of slaves. When the master wants you dead, you can never turn your life around.”

Wuli’s mood, which had improved after escaping death, became dejected again.

They traveled in silence. Pei Yanci didn’t expect him to be much help – as long as he didn’t hold them back, it was already gratifying enough.

After about an hour, they reached a small town. Dawn was just breaking, and many villagers from nearby areas were carrying baskets and sacks on their shoulders, hurrying to the early morning market.

After asking the locals, they learned this place was neither far nor close to Anjing. They would still need to rent a carriage. The two first went to a clothing shop to change into two sets of ordinary clothes, bought dry provisions for the road, water pouches, and a bunch of medicine, then boarded a rented carriage.

“We should reach Anjing around evening,” Pei Yanci said leisurely.

“When we enter Anjing, we still won’t have travel passes.”

“No matter. When the time comes, we’ll borrow someone else’s name,” Pei Yanci said. “When you went out yesterday, you should have brought the Crown Prince’s Mansion’s official token.”

“Yes, I haven’t had time to return it.” Wuli handed him the token without asking what it was for. “Besides His Highness the Crown Prince, which other high-ranking officials do you know in Anjing?”

Due to Gu Jiuqing’s limited contact with court officials, even the servants in the mansion knew very little about important court figures.

Pei Yanci didn’t answer.

Wuli sat across from him glumly and said, “People in the mansion are afraid I’ll scheme against them and bring them deadly trouble in the future. You’re also disgusted with me.”

“You’re overthinking.”

“Actually, you don’t have it easy in the mansion either. You clearly work the hardest, but you’re constantly excluded and those people spread gossip about you. Actually, you’re not a bad person – you’re loyal too. Now I can see clearly what kind of people they really are.”

“Don’t pay attention to what they think.”

Wuli’s eyes brightened. “How about you become my big brother?”

Pei Yanci’s mouth twitched. “Aren’t you saying it backwards?”

“Let’s settle it like this – Big Brother!” Wuli had already cheerfully changed his form of address.

“I really can’t bear such responsibility.”

“Big Brother saved my life today – you’re like a second parent to me. How can you not bear it? From now on, I’ll rely on Big Brother to protect me.” Wuli knelt down in the carriage with a “thud” and kowtowed three times to Pei Yanci.

Pei Yanci wanted to speak but stopped, ultimately not saying what he had intended.

As the sky gradually darkened and the carriage drew closer, the light from the torches reflecting off the city guards’ swords and blades nearly dazzled Wuli’s eyes. His heart couldn’t help but rise to his throat.

“Are we really going to be okay going back like this?”

He had finally escaped from death’s door once.

Pei Yanci lifted the door curtain. He didn’t produce the travel pass the city guards wanted to see, but rather the Crown Prince’s Mansion’s official token, saying, “I am the Crown Prince’s personal attendant. I have important intelligence to personally deliver to Tang Xizhui Daren.”

Wuli was stunned.