Soon after they left, Zhe Huo felt that something was wrong. She hadn’t noticed the last time, but now she could acutely sense that someone was tailing them from the shadows.
She didn’t want to let Luo Qinghan know until she was absolutely sure, for fear of scaring the child, or forcing him to become as anxious as she was. As she rode her blade through the air, all she did was silently keep her whip close at hand. If trouble reared its ugly head, she’d strike in an instant.
In the end, they landed at their destination and found a place to stay, all without anything odd taking place. Zhe Huo even began to suspect that Tao Feiyan’s earlier warnings had merely made her paranoid, and it was all in her head.
This time, they would be hiking up a mountain to hunt demons. They got themselves a room in advance, in the town at the foot of the mountain, and planned to set out in the morning. Zhe Huo had their route plotted out and everything, but there was no way she could have known that before this night was out, all her carefully laid plans would go awry.
Because Qinghan couldn’t sleep alone, they shared a room as usual. That night, Zhe Huo studied her plans and made ready for the hunt on the morrow. Qinghan meanwhile seemed to be all tired out after dinner, and flopped onto the bed, falling asleep right away.
Seeing nothing wrong with this, Zhe Huo let him be. It was only when she’d rolled up the scroll with a yawn, and turned to look at Qinghan’s prone form on the bed, his back to her… only then did she notice that he was trembling all over.
She was frozen for a moment, and then she rushed over to him. She called his name gently, but he made no response. Frowning, she rolled him over, and to her shock found that the boy had his eyes squeezed shut in agony. His lips were drawn and his face was pale as a ghost, robbed of all vitality.
This was the work of poison.
Her heart wrenched awfully, and she immediately scooped the boy up in her arms. “Don’t you worry, Qinghan. I’ll get you to a doctor right away!”
Like her own heart, Zhe Huo was struggling to keep her voice from falling all to pieces. She kicked the door open without a second thought, then froze, eyes wide. Rather than leaving the room, she instead began to back away slowly.
There was a group of people waiting outside, all clothed in black, radiating menace.
This came as a nasty surprise for her. She’d been right all along: Someone had been stalking them, and Qinghan’s current peril was most likely their doing!
She reached the table, the boy in one arm, the other hand holding her whip. She glared at them as they entered the room. “What do you want?”
The one in the lead advanced with measured steps. As he drew closer to Zhe Huo, she lashed the ground before him. “Take one more step, and you can’t blame me for what happens next!”
The man in black examined the whip-blade on the floor, and indeed came to a halt. He lifted his gaze to the child she was holding, and his eyes narrowed. “Young lady,” he whispered, “Hand him over, and we’ll leave you be.”
Zhe Huo’s heart leapt into her throat. It was just as she and Tao Feiyan had guessed: They were after Luo Qinghan!
She didn’t know why they were hunting the boy, but she knew that there was no way she would let them have him! “Hmph! Is that so?” she called out haughtily. “And if I refuse?”
The man chuckled darkly. “Know your place, woman. You don’t have the ability to protect Luo Qinghan. Why don’t you just walk away?”