Chapter: 109 out of 513 – On the precipice between life and death (2)
Eh? There really was a person standing there. Ji Man quickly walked to the prow of the boat to get a closer look. It was the middle of the night, who else was feeling insomniac like her?
Zhao Zhe was sitting cross-legged at the back end of the other boat. He was facing Nie Sangyu and there was a six-string lute on his lap.
At this distance, Ji Man couldn’t clearly see his expression, but he didn’t seem as if he was sleeping walking. What was he doing?
When Zhao Zhe had seen her coming up onto the deck, he had been slightly surprised, but his expression quickly smoothed out. His fingers plucked the strings on the lute to play the famous song, The Faraway Cowherd.
“The Cowherd is far away, the Weaver Girl shines brightly in the Milky Way.
She raises her slender, pale hand，and the shuttle of her loom goes “clack clack”,
All day long without ever stopping, tears fall from her face like the rain.
The Milky Way is a clear, moving stream, and a small distance separates them.
Only the width of a stream, but they cannot speak words of love.”
Ji Man raised her eyebrows. Was he playing this song because he was feeling horny in the middle of the night? She wasn’t interested in playing along.
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There were still lanterns lit on the other boat, but no one had come outside to hear this song. Ji Man turned her head back to look. All of the lanterns on this boat had been extinguished. It was totally silent without the traces of any other people.
She had originally just subconsciously turned around to look, but now Ji Man’s heart palpitated in fear.
Something was wrong. It was one thing for everyone else to extinguish his or her lamps, but Ning Errong had always been scared of the dark. She always had a lit lamp near her until the sun came up. Why was her room also dark?
A feeling of fear rose up behind her. She didn’t know if she was just overthinking things, but she felt a sense of danger being directed towards her from the surrounding space.
The sound of the lute continued and allowed Ji Man to feel that not everyone had suddenly disappeared from this world. Otherwise, she would have felt that she was the only person left.
“Your Highness.” She tried yelling to catch his attention, but the loud sounds from the lapping water against the boats easily buried her scream.
When she turned around, she saw two black figures approaching her. Ji Man was finally overcome with fear.
Assassins? Ji Man frowned. That can’t be. Nie Sangyu hadn’t offended anyone to the point that someone would pay a large sum of money to assassins to get rid of her, right? Who hated her so much, to the point of wanting to kill her?
“Friends, let’s have a calm discussion.” Ji Man retreated step by step towards the prow of the boat. “It’s the middle of the night. It wouldn’t be good for the two of you to act against a weak woman, right?”
The two shadowy figures completely ignored her and only continued walking closer to her, step by step. Ji Man felt frantic. She didn’t know martial arts and couldn’t defeat these two people. If she jumped into the water, everything pointed to disaster. What should she do?”
Turning her head and looking at the boat across from her, Ji Man shouted with her last bit of hope, “Help!”
The sound drifted across the surface of the river. Zhao Zhe lowered his eyes and quietly asked the person behind him, “Why did you let her run outside?”
Taxue half kneeled down and said with a lowered head, “This subordinate was incompetent. Sleeping incense had been lit in Madam Ning’s room, but for some reason…”
“Never mind, just take action now,” the crown prince dimly said.
Taxue slightly paused. During the past two days of following the crown prince, he thought that the crown prince had a rather favorable impression towards Madam Ning. Was he really going to have her killed?
“What are you waiting for?” Seeing that there was no movement behind him, Zhao Zhe sneered, turned around, took out a small smoke bomb from a brocade bag at his waist, lit it, and threw it into the sky.
It was only a small smoke bomb, but it was the signal to take someone’s life. When the two people in front of Nie Sangyu saw this signal, they had already stretched their hands out towards her.
There was no way for her to escape. She had screamed so loudly, but the crown prince hadn’t heard her and no one on the boat had awakened. Ji Man gritted her teeth, pushed their hands away, and jumped into the river.
If she jumped into the river, there was a possibility of surviving. If she fell into their hands, then she would definitely die.
Ji Man felt the icy cold river submerging the top of her head. Even though she knew how to swim, her limbs were becoming numb from the cold. It was the middle of winter right now and she had jumped into the river without preparation.
“Help…” Ji Man desperately grabbed onto the rope hanging off the side of the boat and did her best to keep her head above the water.
The waves of icy cold water were like a sword that stabbed her body from top to bottom. There were times when she felt as if she was going die at any moment. But, her mind stubbornly had a last moment of clarity.
The two people on the boat didn’t follow her into the water. After all, not everyone had the courage to jump down into the water in this type of weather, even if their master was watching them from the other boat.
Zhao Zhe looked at the thing that was hanging onto the side of the boat. It was Nie Sangyu. In another hour, even if he didn’t do anything, she would either die from hypothermia or drown in the bottomless river if she lost her grip on the rope.
He knew that she had to die today. After all, this is what he had planned. Since Nie Sangyu wasn’t willing to work with him, then he had to sever this connection. Tomorrow, there would only be a case of a missing person. Nie Clan naturally wouldn’t let off Ning Clan easily. When those two clans were opposing each other, it would be the best time for him to fish for profits.
Taxue saw that the crown prince had stopped playing the lute and somewhat worriedly called out, “Master.”
Zhao Zhe was silent for a while, then he asked, “Is she still clutching that rope?”
Taxue glanced in that direction and nodded.