No matter how much Suyin struggled to get out of the elderly man"s grip, it was no use. He wrapped his arms around her and shoved her behind until the back of her knees. .h.i.t her bed. The two fell on the bed with the perverted man on top of her. "I saw you one day out shopping, you know? I couldn"t take my eyes off of you from that day on. I entered your house and planned to ask for your hand in marriage since my wife pa.s.sed away years ago and overheard your father discussing with your mother about their financial problems." The man crept up a smile to his face, stroking her face with the back of his hands, "It was the perfect opportunity to offer up to pay all of their debt in return to have yourself to me." His expression changed, furrowing his brows with a glare, "Then you said you didn"t want to marry me. Do you not understand how much of an offense that means to a man?!" He attempted to kiss her neck, pulling the top of her hanfu loose but Suyin fought back. She wasn"t trying to cause a big scene. If her parents knew and witnessed this scene, for sure she wouldn"t get out of this situation (meaning getting married to this old geezer)!"I"m.....not.....going to marry you!" Suyin"s eyes were tearing up because of how delicate she appeared at that exact moment. Although she believed that, there was no way that she was going to be stuck here forever. Areum was expecting for her to meet up at the forest! She couldn"t let Areum and herself down! She kneed the man"s fragile part between the legs as hard as she could. The man screamed in pain and held onto his precious area. Suyin took this perfect opportunity and stood up as swift as she could, dashing out of the room.
"S-Suyin!!" The man cried out, still in pain. She climbed onto the redbud tree, shaking off the petal leaves as she attempted to hurry. The perverted man got up and hastened toward her way. There was no time to waste as she hopped on top of the roof and dropped down to the ground, sc.r.a.ping her knee along the way.
"Hurry! Suyin is running away!" She overheard the old man call for people, but it wasn"t going to stop Suyin from running away. Suyin browsed the area, looking for the horse and located it from afar, hiding from the bushes as she used every ounce of her energy to untie the ropes off. Her heart was pounding so fast, she felt it could burst at any moment. Her hands trembled as she untied it, jumping on the horse"s saddle and sloppily ushered it to begin moving. The black horse bolted through the dirt road. The entrance of homes was still, and as much as Suyin used her strength to keep herself composed, tears rolled down her face, falling down on the horse"s hair. The horse followed the moon"s pathway that lit the dark road, escorting her to the forest.
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By a log laid a bag of items and clothes with a small little b.u.t.terfly lamp sitting at the edge of the log. Areum was pacing back and forth, taking deep breaths with a concerned appearance on her face. Suyin was supposed to be there already since it was getting dark. She imagined all the scenarios that could have possibly happened to Suyin. Did she get caught from her parents? Did something happen to her along the way? Did Suyin possibly fell asleep waiting for everyone? Areum couldn"t hold still and could only be tolerant with her disorganized thoughts.
The horse"s scuffle echoed through the forest. Areum knew that it had to be Suyin that was on the horse! She tiptoed, trying to see through the darkness of the forest. "Suyin!" She whimpered. The figure of Suyin came closer to the area and attempted to halt the horse, falling down in the midst of doing so and caused the horse to run off.
"My lady! The horse!" Areum moved to help Suyin get off the ground. Suyin rubbed off the remaining tears and fixed her clothes.
"It"s fine. Let the horse go. It has done its job already, let it free." The horse hustled deeper into the forest, scuffled sounds were faint. Suyin held onto Areum who bustled to hold the other bags. "What happened to you, my lady? What took you so long, I got so anxious!"
Suyin couldn"t tell Areum the truth on what had occurred because that would stress her out. She didn"t want Areum to cause any problems since they were already out. Maybe if time pa.s.ses, later on, she"ll probably mention it to Areum then.
"Sorry. Some of the servants were still wide awake so I had to wait for a while." She dusted the dirt off on her arm and knees.
"As long as you are not injured, then that"s good." Areum aimed southeast, escorting Suyin. "I saw an abandoned house not too far from here. It"s about a three-kilometer walk from here. I brought rice and made little trail marks out of it so we wouldn"t get lost getting there."
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The fire was the only light that emitted the gloomy, damp room of the deserted house. Cobwebs were at corners of the home and there were few to little furniture in the house. Whoever lived in the home apparently left a couple of things there and ran off, but at the same time, it didn"t look like someone recently lingered around there. Dust occupied the area except for the corner where Areum and Suyin rested. Two small beds of hay stacked on top of each other could be seen, which Areum took care of before Suyin came.
Areum lifted the steamed bun to her mouth and sat next to Suyin, who wrapped her hands around her knees, clutching it tightly. Areum had another steamed bun on her left hand, offering it to Suyin.
"I"m not hungry," Suyin commented, gently pushing Areum"s hand away. Areum puckered her lips, sitting down next to Suyin. She nibbled on the steamed bun. "I cleaned up an area for us to sleep in. Although this little home is shabby, it"s decent enough for us to stay in for a while."
Suyin didn"t converse with Areum. Silent filled through the room as the two wordlessly sat there. Suyin could relive the horror of the old man hara.s.sing her. It was the first time that something like that had happened! She was disturbed about what he had done, but she wasn"t going to let anything like that happen to her ever again. She let out a resounding sigh, blinking a couple of times before she shifted to Areum.
"Let"s go to bed. We need to sleep and get out of here while we can before father finds us." She broke the silence in the air, the crackles of the twigs were crumbling down as it turned white. Areum acknowledged that it was already late and they needed to rest.
They had to find a way out of the large forest and head to the heart of Qin, the city that was known to be "prosperous, yet militant," opposite of their loving city of Long. The city of Qin wasn"t just at the other side of the forest, but their territory started right after they got out of the forest that divided the two clans. It was said that the Long clan had been trying to take over that town of Qin"s for years, but they had a powerful military force in their hands that obstructed them to do so.
The town that Suyin and Areum were planning on going to was called Yuewei, a city rumored for their famous food and music. It was overheard by people of Long that it was a rich town, but only people with a special jade can enter into the city from the side of the forest in case of spies from the Long clan. They were strictly enforced and guarded throughout the day. Suyin and Areum intended on finding an alternative route to get into the city, but at the moment, they wanted to get away from their homeland and start a new life somewhere else where no one would recognize and notice Suyin, the daughter of the Han family. She was their face and family line, but she detested her parents how controlling and unsupportive they were to her.
After Areum finished eating her steam bun, the two went to their little bed and fell asleep, uncertain of what the future will unfold for the two of them.
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Morning came earlier than expected for Suyin. In her dreams, she could see a man wrapping his arms around her tightly. The man"s shoulder was drenched in blood and she could smell the strong aroma p.r.i.c.kling her nose. She couldn"t turn around to see his face because his grip was tight. It was at that moment that Suyin sat up, covered with a cold sweat. Was it that old man haunting her in her dreams now? She glimpsed around, scanning around her as she gasped in relief. It was all just a dream. Suyin wiped her sweat with her sleeves. Areum was dozing off near her and she didn"t want to wake her up. The cold air emitted from the holes of the paper window that was ripped due to age, causing Suyin to rub her arms for warmth. She got up and went out to go search for more wood for the two so at least they wouldn"t get sick from the cold.
The fog lurked through the forest, making Areum uncomfortable. That wasn"t going to hinder her from finding wood and proceeded to wander down the path that Areum made (with the rice stuck onto the bark of the woods now). Suyin planned on going to a higher area so that she would know where they were at. As long as she had an idea on their location, it was a good starting point instead of getting lost in the forest and blindly discovering their way out of this place. Suyin slowly trailed uphill, using a thick stick to help her climb upwards. She reached the top of the hill, marking a cliff not too far. The area was unusual from the ground level. There were only a couple of trees and then ahead of that was an open area laid at the top of the cliff.
"NEIGHHH!" The horse shrieked at the top.
Suyin immediately flashed a smile in her face. "Great! The horse is up here!" She whispered to herself. She raced over near the cliff, reaching the end of the trees before she froze in place and dashed behind a bush to hide. She peeked her head above the bush to see what was going on. Ahead of her, a group of men in black covering their faces surrounded a calm man in the middle. "I-It"s him!" Suyin squinted to make sure that it was the man that she encountered when she first came to this time era. It was the handsome man who saved her from those bandits, but what was he doing there?
"You"re surrounded! What are you going to do now?!" One of the men covered in black exclaimed, pointing his sword to the handsome man. "Yi Tienzheng, come with me right now!" Another one came closer to the man, who wasn"t bothered with the swords encircled around him.
"You think that the man"s little minions will affect me?" He cooly said, unaffected by their threats. The men swung their swords at the man, who evaded all of the hits, swiftly and delicately flowing.
He tugged his sleeves down, revealing daggers from his wrist as he launched a couple of them in the air, hitting all of the men, groaning in pain. They immediately toppled down on the ground, restless. Suyin restlessly watched all of this happen, spying one more man who shot an arrow behind the trees near Suyin towards the man"s way. The person in black didn"t realize that Suyin was near him.
She couldn"t help herself and jumped up from where she was hiding in.
"Watch out!!" Suyin shouted as loud as she could. The arrow flew through the air and at the same time, the man thrust his dagger at the man in the black near Suyin.
The arrow penetrated through his right shoulder, causing him to kneel. Suyin sped to the man, freaking out at the arrow that was sticking out from his shoulder. "You"re troubled!" Suyin tried to observe how deep the arrow stabbed through his shoulders but he kept twisting his shoulders away from her.
"What are you doing here?" He coldly said, his eyes piercing with a glacial expression directed to Suyin. Suyin didn"t bother to look at his face and converged to his injuries.
"We need to get this treated before it gets infected."
His words didn"t go through Suyin"s ears, attempting to examine how deep the arrow has pierced in his shoulder. The blood stained through his robe, causing Suyin to worry that the injury could be life-threatening. The male sat still, his figure bigger than her as her pet.i.te hands lightly touched his shoulders.
Immediately, the male slapped her hand away, attempting to distance himself from her but the pain on his shoulders weakened him with no energy to do so.
"Stop! If you keep moving, you will lose more blood." The man paid no attention to her, forcing himself up to stand. The man took a couple of steps ahead of her and toppled down to the ground. Suyin walked to the man who was now unconscious. Thankfully, he was resting on his side since the arrow was sticking out on his right chest. As long as he was knocked out, she could do something to save him at least. The bitter att.i.tude didn"t help much, but since he was unconscious, she could help save him at the very least for saving her the first time they met.
"So much for listening to someone like me," she complained, shifting his body so he would face up to her. The wind rustled the bushes and trees surrounding the two. Suyin didn"t feel safe where they were at because of all of the lifeless bodies near them. The stench of blood and death prowled through the place, so Suyin determined that curing him there is not the best place to be at, in the current moment. With her black horse crying and lingering near them, she decided to drag the man to the horse, marching back downhill while she tightly gripped onto the horse"s halter, the man lying on the horse"s back.
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