The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 3

Zhao Li struggled up the wall of the well. The cold pressed against her back, numbing her hands and feet.

She did not dare look back to see those two arms reaching out of the well wall behind her.

Fortunately, apart from their bone-deep chill, they seemed to weigh nothing.

Inch by inch, she climbed toward the opening.

At last, she caught the rim. She kicked off the wall and hauled herself over the curb.

[Quest complete! You carried her out of the well. Experience gained: 100.]

As the completion notice appeared, the woman’s sigh slowly receded.

The ice-like thing on Zhao Li’s back abruptly vanished.

She rested her forehead against the cold stone curb. Now that the tension had broken, she could not stop trembling.

Only then did she notice the damaged talisman on the well.

A cold snort came from behind her, and torchlight closed in.

“You certainly know how to hide.”

Zhao Kaiyang stood several paces away, still holding his saber in his right hand.

He narrowed his eyes at Zhao Li, who lay limp on the ground, and sneered.

Zhao Li stiffened and raised her head.

Then, deciding that her posture was far too undignified, she forced her rubbery arms to support her and sat with her back against the well.

“What happened to that sharp tongue of yours?” Zhao Kaiyang dragged his saber a step closer.

“Why are you barking like a dog? It’s none of your damn business!”

Zhao Li’s voice still trembled, but she refused to lose a shouting match.

She blinked rapidly while frantically calling for the system in her mind.

It responded at once.

[Female side-character objectives complete: persecuted the heroine, slapped biological mother, insulted elder brother. Temporary quest complete: The Well.]

[Objectives exceeded. Class proficiency greatly increased. Class advanced to: vicious female villain.]

[Rewards: Constitution +10, Charm +10.]

[Skills awarded: Light as a Swallow (greatly increases agility); Green-Tea Talk (slightly reduces the chance that lies and provocations will be exposed).]

As the rewards took effect, Zhao Li felt a warm current flow through her limbs. A little strength returned to her exhausted body.

But…

How did any of that help her current situation?

Trash system. How about giving her a fully loaded AK-47?

Zhao Li flexed her fingers and looked at Zhao Kaiyang as he approached with his saber.

The cur’s eyes gleamed with savagery. He clearly intended to kill her.

The guards formed a ring around them, drawing their blades.

“You’re at death’s door, yet you’re still running your mouth,” Zhao Kaiyang said, tightening his grip on his saber. His face was full of menace.

Perhaps before, the thought had merely crossed his mind. Now, he had made his decision. Zhao Li would not leave this place alive.

This madwoman had grown up outside the family. They shared no affection, and she could offer the household no advantage at all.

Instead, her return had left Yaoguang’s position awkward, damaged her reputation, and ruined more than a decade of the Zhao family’s careful planning.

When Zhao Kaiyang thought of all the strange looks he had endured because of this useless blood sister, his hatred surged.

“You struck your own mother. Such unfilial rebellion merits death!”

He stopped before Zhao Li and raised his saber high, preparing to cleave her skull.

Zhao Li, every muscle already tensed, sprang from the ground and threw her whole body at his face.

Zhao Kaiyang had not expected her to fight back. Caught entirely off guard, he took her full weight.

In his moment of shock, a knee slammed viciously between his legs.

“Aaaagh!”

Zhao Kaiyang’s eyes turned scarlet. Clutching his groin with both hands, he slowly sank to his knees until his forehead pressed against the ground, a scream tearing from his throat.

The guards around him reacted quickly. A long saber slashed toward Zhao Li.

She could not dodge in time. The blade opened a wound on her left arm deep enough to expose bone.

While the guards scrambled to check Zhao Kaiyang, she clamped a hand over the injury and ran for her life.

A high courtyard wall appeared ahead. With her present, undersized body, she could just barely make it over.

She vaulted the wall, but her legs buckled when she landed. She had already been punished with two days without food; by now, nearly three days had passed without so much as rice or water.

She collapsed into the filthy water of a dark alley. Her vision immediately dimmed, bright sparks dancing before her eyes.

But she dared not waste a second. Blood gushed from her left arm, yet she ignored it, staggered out of the foul water, and ran toward the street.

Just as she reached the mouth of the alley, a distinctively shaped saber shot out from the side.

It moved with astonishing speed, slapping her in the ribs with the flat of the blade. Zhao Li toppled sideways.

“Well now. This is interesting!”

The middle-aged man was tall and powerfully built. Zhao Li was so small beside him that when he seized her, she hung from his grip like a chick.

She did not struggle. She recognized the black fish-patterned yesa robe he wore—the uniform of the Great Jing’s Jingning Guard.

In this world, the Jingning Guard combined the duties of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern and Western Depots as Zhao Li knew them.

They were dyed-in-the-wool attack dogs of the imperial court, so infamous that invoking their name could stop a child from crying.

Half-blind from blood loss, Zhao Li was carried to a carriage beside a wonton vendor’s shoulder pole.

The vendor’s hands shook as he cooked.

Several men crouched or stood around the carriage, noisily slurping hot wontons.

One bearded man drinking wonton broth glanced at the Jingning Guard carrying Zhao Li and asked curiously, “Master Lu, didn’t you go to take a piss? What did you pick up?”

The middle-aged man holding Zhao Li chuckled. “She climbed over the ward wall. Her clothes look expensive enough. Probably some family’s runaway concubine.”

“She’s young, and look at her—drenched in blood. What kind of animal did this to her?”

The man they called Master Lu swept his gaze over the wound on Zhao Li’s arm and clicked his tongue.

He took a bottle of wound medicine from the leather belt at his waist, apparently intending to give it to her.

Zhao Li had lost a great deal of blood, but her mind remained clear.

She quickly realized that these men of the Jingning Guard were not as terrifying as the rumors claimed.

Then she remembered that her bargain-bin father, Zhao Huai, styled himself a member of the righteous Purist Faction. Every day at home, he pointed at heaven and earth and swore that he would never coexist with the Jingning Guard’s treacherous hounds. At other times, he bragged about whatever new trouble he had caused them.

Now that she had fallen into the hands of the Jingning Guard—and since returning to the Zhao family meant death anyway—the hostility between them might be her chance to escape.

Zhao Li pressed the pressure point on her upper arm, sat down, and spoke.

“I am not a runaway concubine. My name is Zhao Li. My father is Zhao Huai, Vice Minister of Revenue.”

Her voice was weak.

At the roadside, the curtain of the quiet carriage suddenly opened a crack.

“Vice Minister Zhao… You’re the Zhao family’s young lady who was switched sixteen years ago?”

Master Lu, who had intended to treat her wound, immediately recalled the strange tale of the switched daughters that had recently swept through the capital.

“That’s right.” Zhao Li nodded calmly, keeping pressure on her arm.

“What are you doing out here looking like this in the middle of the night? Where were you going?”

Zhao Li bowed her head and fell silent. Only after seeming to struggle with herself for some time did she answer, “No one in my family likes me. I wanted to leave, but they would not let me.”

She swept aside her tangled hair, revealing the bloody gash on her cheek. “My mother did this.”

Then she gestured toward the saber wound. “My brother’s guard did that.”

The members of the Jingning Guard stared at her arm and immediately began commenting in astonishment.

“Who would have thought? Lord Zhao spends every day making a spectacle of himself at court and comparing his own purity to an orchid’s, yet he cannot even keep his household in order. He lets his wife and eldest son abuse his daughter.”

Master Lu, the man who had carried Zhao Li over, opened his mouth and immediately mocked Zhao Huai. Clearly, Lord Zhao had earned himself a place on the Jingning Guard’s list of most hated men.

As for the abuse, it no longer mattered whether the accusation was true. The words had come from Zhao Huai’s biological daughter. He would never be able to argue his way out of them.

Tomorrow, a memorial impeaching Zhao Huai was certain to appear!

The thought delighted the guards. Their manner toward Zhao Li warmed at once.

Master Lu crouched to bind her wound, while the others crowded around with offers.

“Don’t worry, Miss Zhao. We’ll take you to a physician in a moment and make sure justice is done.”

“Are you hungry? Want some wontons?”

Zhao Li lowered her eyes and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

In the distance, Zhao Kaiyang approached with a limp, supported by his guards.

After he was stopped, he cupped his hands from afar and said something.

The Jingning Guard who had barred his way came to the carriage and reported, “Commander-in-Chief, the Zhao family’s eldest young master requests an audience.”

A low, mellow laugh sounded from within.

A tall, long-limbed man lifted the curtain and stepped out. He wore a close-fitting martial outfit, and his face was strikingly handsome.

His thin lips were pressed together, and there was a dark, dangerous cast to his expression.

“Tell the Zhao family’s young master that Miss Zhao belongs to the Jingning Guard now. As for him—he can get lost!”