Princess Agent: Season 1

Chapter 10

Chu Qiao blacked out as she lost consciousness. Her heart could not take it any longer. Clutching at the girl’s robes, she said slowly with a hoarse tone, “How long were they gone for? How long were they gone for?”

“It was almost an hour ago. Yue Er, it’s already too late to save her.”

Chu Qiao turned at looked at Xiao Ba, who was standing at the door. Her eyes were red from crying as she raised her head, looking at Chu Qiao as well. When their eyes met, tears started to roll down their cheeks, but none of them made a sound.

“Yue Er, I have to go back. You two have to be careful. From what I heard from the people in the laundry room, Butler Zhu is deliberately targeting you. Did you do anything to offend him?”

There was pin-drop silence in the hut. The courtyard was a huge white space. Both children stood there silently for a long while.

When the clock struck 3 a.m., the drum sounded. The last two children of the Jing family silently snuck through the Qingshi forest, reaching Ting Lake which was behind the Zhuge house. The cold wind rustled the bamboo trees and there was resounding silence from the lake. Its tranquil surface looked no different from any other day.

Chu Qiao kneeled on top of a hill as she said to Xiao Ba who was right beside her, “Xiao Ba, get on your knees. Give our brothers and sisters a kowtow.”

Xiao Ba was barely seven years old but she had experienced a traumatic change tonight. Her tiny face had lost the childish innocence that was supposed to be visible upon it. She knelt silently at Chu Qiao’s side, bowed deeply in the direction of the lake, and knocked her head heavily thrice on the ground.

“Xiao Ba, do you hate this place?”

The child nodded without uttering a word.

Sounding calm, Chu Qiao said lightly, “Do you want to leave?”

The child said in a deep tone, “Yes.”

Chu Qiao looked ahead, her voice calm and composed. She squinted her eyes and frowned, gently saying, “I promise you, I will bring you away as soon as possible. But before we leave, we still have some unfinished business. After all that is over, we will leave this place.”

The child nodded quietly as she kowtowed once again, muttering each word clearly, “Sister Zhi Xiang, you have always prayed for God’s blessings, but I don’t think you knew that they were blind. Take our brothers and sisters with you and move on. Wait and see, as Sister Yue Er and I will avenge you all.”

The cold wind billowed through the pitch-black night. Atop the hill in Qing Shi Forest, two tiny bodies laid towards each other, tightly holding hands.

It was December. At the northwestern border; the Quan Rong people had invaded, burning everything in their way as their large army advanced.

Within twenty days, the war intensified, tens of thousands of common people living outside the gates being dragged into the conflict. The northwestern gates were at a special geographical location. They were between the western fief that was controlled by the Ba Tu Ha clan and the Northern Yan territory that was controlled by the Yan King. The northwestern Old Ba Tu had fought against the Northern Yan’s Lion King for years. Today, as the Mu He clan, who backed Old Ba Tu, stabilized its power within the empire, the Ba Tu Ha family started to gain the upper hand. In the last year, they had finally seized military control of the northwestern gates with blood, cleansing all the officers that were stationed there. Within the empire, other clans were also sending their children to the northwest, hoping to penetrate the empire’s largest military system. When this happened, the old generals who possessed a wealth of experience and had guarded the border had been overthrown. Those that rose to power were the empire’s elites that had never seen blood spilt.