Song of Silent Promise

11. Pursue

"A stubborn one indeed, that man," the beautiful woman languidly looked at her perfectly manicured nails, one by one, as though she was merely talking to herself, "But I don't believe he won't give up on you. If I keep destroying his hopes again... and again... one day, he will stop chasing after you, right?"

A spark of golden appeared on the woman's index finger, tiny at first, but it soon enveloped her whole right palm. The brightness from the spark illuminated her bewitching face even more. Although the prison was already cold, the coldness now seemed to seep into one's bones. Xu Yejing could only stand behind the bars, and for some reason, she felt calm despite the flesh-gnawing frostiness.

Various faces fleeted across her mind: Xu Bijie and Jin Ruanxi; Gu Yuan; Xu Birou and Xu Biyao; Qin Zhe and Qin Qiu. People who mattered little, who mattered more...

Fu Chun and Fu Yan... ; people who mattered most. When Fu Yan's face appeared in her mind, the image became distorted.

The rigidness behind his usually slackened expression, the upturned palm, the scorching warmth of that palm, the cerulean sparks of the whip.

Then the cell suddenly became dark. Xu Yejing blinked.

"Have... I died?" She squeezed her arm, feeling a tiny bit of warmth from the pinched skin. She certainly had not died.

Even without being able to see beyond an arm's length in front of her, she knew the beautiful woman was gone.

"Didn't she ... want to kill me?"

The stranger had not explicitly said it, but the killing intent was as if Xu Yejing had butchered the woman's entire nine generations. Subtle sounds of ruffling of clothes sounded from all around her, she knew the Xu clan people were no longer sleeping like corpses; they were just sleeping. A few of them sobbed in their sleep, of fear and hunger. The temperature in her cell was still cold, but the frigid iciness had gone as well.

"Was... it a hallucination?"

"Yejing!" A voice darted from the depth of the darkness, soon followed by a flicker of a torch. Qin Zhe and Qin Qiu came into view, their faces frantic. Behind them, Second Prince Min Qiheng walked with a couple of prison wardens.

Min Qiheng scanned the cells and gestured for the wardens to open one of the cells occupied by the Xu clan males. They fished out the barely-conscious Xu Biyao from inside it.

"How come everyone's asleep? Yes, it's past the middle of the night but-," Qin Qiu paused when she saw Xu Yejing's questioning look, before finally smiling bitterly, "I can only help Biyao-ge for the time being. After all, he's engaged to me and the edict excludes males who have been married into other families."

Now the two Qin siblings were close to Xu Yejing's cell, the latter could see a bruise on Qin Qiu's left cheek. Even her upper lips seemed to be swollen.

It was the years of friendship, that Qin Zhe and Qin Qiu could somehow guess Xu Yejing's trail of thought and her frown. "Xu Biyao will most likely have to change his surname to Qin," Qin Zhe said, "But a life kept is a life saved. To save Xu Biyao, Qin Qiu had to tell Father she and Xu Biyao have already... already... ."

Xu Yejing nodded in understanding. She reached out her hand and gently touched Qin Qiu's swollen cheek. She could only bite her lip, frustrated at her own helplessness. She was even unable to properly express the gratitude she was feeling towards her two friends.

'A life kept is a live saved.' Xu Yejing could not ask for more.

Qin Qiu pouted, "I asked my brother to do the same about you! He's just too stubborn! The way I see it, it's much better to enter the Qin family as a legitimate wife than to be a random servant in the palace!"