Second Marriage

Chapter 6.1

Translator: tarararawr

Chapter 6 Part 1

With a thump, Xiao Youning fell onto the soft cushion. Ye Shen came in and sat down calmly under her panicked eyes.

The carriage didn’t stop from the moment it appeared and left. It rushed through the crowd that surrounded them and chased them on the road. Yuan Guo had jumped into the shaft of the carriage to chase after her Young Miss. Half of her body was hanging out on the edge of the carriage.

The carriage was speeding up from the horses running, and the pursuer’s voices gradually decreased behind them. It was soon replaced by the sound of hoofs and wheels turning.

Xiao Youning came to her senses at this moment. She held the carriage walls to stand up, but fell back to the floor with a jolt when a wheel rolled over a small pothole and the carriage jumped up.

Ye Shen was sitting close by, and it seemed like he had no intention of reaching out to help her. He remained motionless. He was so indifferent that Xiao Youning had doubts about if this was really the person who had just rescued her from the fire.

Xiao Youning lowered her eyes in this silent atmosphere and pressed one hand onto her ankle.

It was unbearably painful. She had bumped into the carriage door frame when she was thrown in. She couldn’t stand just now because of her ankle injury.

“Young Miss! Are you all right?!”

Yuan Guo’s voice came from outside. Xiao Youning was a little frustrated, but answered quickly.

Her eyes were full of surprise. “I’m fine.”

It was so chaotic then that there was no time for her to respond and Yuan Guo had followed her. This event was more shocking than dangerous!

“If you move again, then I’ll throw you down!”

Xiao Youning had stopped speaking and the warning came from Jian Yin. Yuan Guo wanted to climb into the carriage and almost fell off during a bump. It was Jian Yin who pulled her back with one hand, so naturally he wasn’t in a good mood.

Yuan Guo herself was also scared. She almost lost her life again. She didn’t respond when she was yelled at.

Xiao Youning didn’t hear a response and then shouted out, “Yuan Guo, sit down! I am fine! You do not need to worry!”

After a while, she heard Yuan Guo respond in a weak voice. Her voice was even harder to hear with the night wind blowing.

After that the carriage fell into silence again. Ye Shen sat there quietly, and the air around him was like a mountain putting pressure on Xiao Youning.

Her hand was still pressing on her ankle. She pursed her lips and suddenly looked up at him.

“Thank you, Daoist Priest, for coming to the rescue. What the Daoist Priest said then is true. I can’t protect myself and I said all those things to you. I’m really selfish. I’d like to ask the Daoist Priest to take me away from here.”

Once Xiao Youning started speaking, she became relaxed.

These words were what she wanted to say, but the situation had suddenly changed, she swallowed them all back.

She smiled at Ye Shen and sincerely said, “Thank you, Daoist Priest.”

Ye Shen’s eyes finally fell on her. The little girl’s facial features were not clear in the dark, but when the moonlight shined through the cracks of the curtain onto a part of her face, her skin was dazzling white. At the same time, the dim light was reflected by the drops of water hanging from her eyelashes.

Ye Shen frowned slightly.

She is crying?

An unpleasant memory came to his mind, and his face sank.

Xiao Youning sensed that he was looking at her, did not know what he was thinking. She wondered whether he had forgiven her for scheming again.

While she was thinking, he stuck a folding fan out.

The fan pendant was braided with red thread and attached was a white jade.

She looked at the slightly swaying fan pendant in confusion.

This is… She reached out to hold the fan handle and was pulled up from the floor. She was finally able to sit up against the carriage.

“Thank you Daoist Priest.” Xiao Youning sat across from him and thanked him gratefully again.

This Daoist Priest was not really as unapproachable as he seemed.

Ye Shen glanced at the fan handle she had held and casually threw it to the side. He raised his eyes and turned around to her face and said, “You don’t have to thank me. You can consider this returning the favor for warning me earlier.”

His words were indifferent. Xiao Youning smiled for the first time tonight. “Daoist Priest is magnanimous and does not bother with my small thoughts.”

Ye Shen meant that when she spoke in front of him from before, she did not deliberately cover up her voice.

The voice of a girl could be distinguished as soon as she opened her mouth. When she went to find him, she really did not prepare to hide it.

Xiao Youning thought that the Daoist Priest was actually very kind-hearted and was willing to believe that there was some sincerity in him when she was persuading him to leave.

When she learned that the guard had not returned from feeding the horse, she knew that she had been abandoned in the village. Everything was pointing to a disaster.

The two people who were staying the night next door were her only glimmer of hope. Even if they were strangers, she was being forced to jump from one fire pit to the next. She was in a difficult situation, and she had no way out.

Looking at it now, she made the right bet.

Xiao Youning secretly looked at him again. Ye Shen had returned to his usual silence after she spoke.

She realized that he had closed his eyes and seemed to be resting. She could only withdraw her eyes and bend over to rub her painful right foot quietly. Her fingers gently rolled around the surface, and she almost cried out in pain. She quickly withdrew her hand and was too afraid to touch it again. She slowly moved to the corner of the carriage and curled up against the wall. She tried to think about what happened today and ignore the injury.

She was on her guard because of being surrounded by refugees. Otherwise, she feared that on the next road, there would be more desperate cries for help.

But why did the guards accompanying her want to harm her? Was it an order from her Second Uncle? Or did the Li Family learn about her plans and bribed the guards from the Xiao Family’s Second Branch?

Xiao Youning thought about it over and over, and the first one she suspected was Second Master Xiao.

If Second Master Xiao didn’t appear and casually mention Datong, then she might not have thought of personally going there to find her father and brother.

At this time, she felt that she was really naive.

Even if there was someone to protect her, it was still a long way to Datong. No one could guarantee that there will not be any accidents, let alone be schemed against.

Besides, she had inverted the roots and the branches1.

With such a big issue regarding her father and brother, she wanted to meet people and get the most accurate news. But no matter how slow the news from the capital was, it could not be slower than her long journey to Datong.

The capital was the fastest place to receive news.

At that time, she felt so pressed that she walked into a mistake.

She never thought that she would have been set up by her Second Uncle after she already made it clear that the dowry was a thank you gift to him.

Xiao Youning knew that she was fooled and that she was stupid, but she was not annoyed.

Her dowry was so easy to take. If it was really the Second Branch that set her up, then at this time the Second Branch should go beg the gods to worship Buddha to keep her safe. Otherwise, they won’t get a penny.

She was not completely stupid.